TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE EMPEROR'S VISION. EUROPE will, it is clear, reject the Imperial call to Council. The magnificent vision expounded last week to the Legislative bodies of France, and this week laid before the thirteen independent royalties of Europe, the Germanic Diet, and the President of the single remaining Republic, had from the first but a single chance. It was too broad and too new, too undefined and too completely outside traditions, for the old and experienced statesmen, trained to affairs but doubtful of principles, who on all ordinary occasions direct the ultimate policy of the Courts. They would as soon have been summoned to discuss a proposition in theology, or the abstract idea of justice, or the fallacies which may be con- cealed in the dogmas of Adam Smith. The "reconstruction of the edifice," the "pacification of Europe," the "legitimate rights of the people," a " new era of order and tranquillity"— nothing but their ingrained respect for bayonets prevented their declaring such phrases "incendiary," " revolutionary," or " Mazzinian." To throw Europe on to the table, and bid the Powers reconstruct it on a basis which should satisfy aspirations, pacify bickerings, and extinguish ambitions—it seemed to them as wild as a project to abolish pauperism would seem to the Poor-law Board. They almost sympathized with the speculator who gravely asked, in 1852, why God should have created a man who sent funds down a half per cent. in less than half an hour. The single chance of accept- ance lay in a burst of approval from the thinkers, who might recognize their representative on a throne,—in a glad cry of acceptance from the peoples who, for the first time in history, were shown the promised land with no Red Sea in their path. There was a possibility of such an out- burst, for great ideas move great masses as oratory moves a crowd—the Parisian outbreak of 1848 stirred all Europe within a week—and this idea, honest or other- wise, was, at all events, great. It was, in seeming at least, a last and a grand appeal to human reason—a call to Europe, fretting under occupations, armaments, alliances, and misalliances, which make every nationality save the English simmer with discontent, to construct before the explosion arrives permanent safety-valves. Neither applause nor ac- ceptance have come, and the time for a European plebiscite overriding the kings and their councillors may be said to be already passed. The popular distrust of Napoleon's honesty has conquered the popular admiration for his intellect, and the chains still visible upon France have daunted those who hoped that her keeper might still liberate them. In Paris and at Vienna, in Berlin and on the Amsterdam Bourse, the response of the popular mind has been shown in a sudden fall of the funds ; the English press simply criticizes, and the German journals see in the speech a threat for the Fatherland. The pro- posal meant for all Europe has been referred to the statesmen alone, and of their response there is not, and, indeed, never has been, any serious doubt. The Congress, in the form proposed in the Imperial letter, and for the ends suggested in the Im- perial speech, will never be assembled. Something may still be got together, as we have intimated elsewhere, but not a Parliament of the world, with the politi- cal future for subject of debate. The answer is left to statesmen, and they are adopting already a humdrum but natural and not undignified course. Nobody has yet refused, and perhaps nobody will in so many words refuse a request which seems so philanthropic and comes from a man so great. But each country is studying, not to realize a grand dream, but so to shape its reply that its rulers may run no risk of being dragged into the unknown sea of the Emperor's secret designs. Italy has, it is true, accepted cordially, but for just the same reasons, because to Italy weighted by an army which must fight, or disband, or eat up her substance, any enormous change affords new ground of hope. If the Congress meet in earnest it must free Rome and Venice; if it meet for mere talk, talk will not take away Palermo, or Naples, or Milan ; if it disperse for war, war is precisely the event Italy most desires. The remaining Powers wait for England, and England's course, like her history, is strictly according to precedent. The Government has not rejected the proposal at all, in- deed, could not reject it. England wishes for peace, and if a Congress will really prevent a war, a Congress will be exceedingly welcome. But then that peaceful result must be clear, and to make it clear the Emperor must define what it is that Congress is to discuss. Are all European grievances to be removed, and if so, what is his list of them all? or if not all, then, which are to be left out of the great measure of pacification in order to breed a war. Is Germany to be deprived of her hopes, or Italy left in armed disquiet, or Poland to continue to suffer, or Den- mark still to be menaced, or Hungary to be silenced, or the East to remain for ever as the apple among the gods, or are all these causes of discord to be removed at once ? Then, when the subjects are settled and the debate has begun, how is the verdict to be given, and when given, to be enforced? Is a majority to be supreme, or a majority plus the country affected, and if supreme, is it to have also the right of execut- ing its decrees? Suppose all Europe votes that Gibraltar- ought to be given to Spain, is that vote to be binding on England, or to be enforced by arms ? If it is not-binding, what is the use of the Congress, and if it is binding and Englishmen kick, as even Mr. Goklwin Smith is certain to kick under dictation, what becomes of the general pacifica- tion ? If the claims of all the world are to be heard at once, the possession of Gibraltar is just as much in question as the possession of Poland. English states- men, in short, consider that the scheme, if left as it stands, so far from preventing war, will involve a most serious risk of making it universal. They therefore require defini- tions, and will ultimately lay down limits, and in both they will be imitated by most or all the Powers. Every such limit is a break in the scheme, for every limit leaves, and is intended to leave, some dangerous question untouched. Russia is not likely to come without some guarantee that her right to Lith- uania is to be left unquestioned ; or Prussia, if Posen is to be placed as a stake on the European board ; or Austria, unless assured that Venetia will not be " assigned; " or the Diet, if anybody is allowed even to ask for the Rhine; or England, without an assurance that England will not order the Otto- mans back to the desert. And yet, with all these questions tabooed, what chance is there of "pacification," or of that general disarmament which the Emperor counsels so well, and which is so terribly needed ? The Congress under such cir- cumstances would be a mere meeting of envoys invested with plenipotentiary powers to leave all ticklish questions alone, to say that Italy exists and Rome belongs to Italy ; that Nice and Savoy are French ; and that Germany had, on the whole, better postpone her design of building a fleet at Kiel. Such an assemblage for such a purpose would be as fatal to the Imperial dream as a series of blank refusals ; yet this assemblage, a gathering of ambassadors to repeat a geographical lesson, is all that can now be hoped. The nations must drift on in their grooves faster and faster to war, the " elements of dissolution" must be suffered still to accrete, the bricks of the structure must be taken out piecemeal, till in the spring the edifice comes down with a crash, and after years of war, when the earnings of this generation have been wasted, and those of the next have been pledged, and millions of men have fallen, and their survivors are all embittered, and the cottages through all Europe have become a little more desolate, and cheerless, and poverty stricken, and all men's hearts have been hardened, and all mens' thoughts obscured, the nations in utter exhaustion will consent to do roughly that which Napoleon has already proposed should be scientifically done. The "practical" men have won ; but it is not they who will exult in the fruit of their own success.
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