17 JANUARY 1852, Page 12

UNIVERSAL WAR.

PEACE at all price is the maxim of a party still numerous in England, and it is an official boast that we do keep the peace. But while we talk of it, we are in fact continually at war in the byways of the world. At this moment we have a standing war with the Caffres of the Cape of Good hope; our forces are constantly skirmishing with the Xhy- berries and other borderers of North-western India ; we are demanding satisfaction for some paltry dispute with the King of Burmah, whose replies are by no means submissive or pacific ; and we are at such deadly war with the potentate of Lagos, on the Bight of Benin, that we have blockaded his coast, and not only his but the coast of his neighbours, with whom we have no mis- understanding. A contemporary explains this last quarrel, which is it very pretty one. In our zeal to extinguish the slave-trade, we have entered into intrigues with a dethroned and exiled potentate of Lagos who promises to abolish the trade ; and to reconcile the conflicting factions, we sent an armed boat expedition up the river. The people of Lagos, not discriminating the character of different invaders—not discerning the benevolent purpose in the muzzles of our guns—naturally took us for enemies, and kicked us out. We proud English, make it a boast that we retreated in "good order" ; as if to get away somehow from a gratuitous inroad were as exploit rivalling Xenophon's or as if in history Lagos could match Corunna ! But still we feel the indignity, and accordingly blockade the coast ; and if our blockade takes in divers innocent neighbours, our 'great revenge has stomach for them all. By this process we abolish the trade, not in slaves, but in palm-oil and other harmless wares ; and if we succeed in rendering the blockade "effective," it will be against our own merchants. In all these oases, indeed, we are not committed to a kind of war that puts us of England in any danger; we are only warring upon small states, barbarians, or savages, a good way off. We can reap no glory by it. It will be said that our soldiers and sailors have the opportunity of practice : but the value of the exercise may be questioned. There is such a thing as praotice which deteriorates : no sportsman would set a pointer to practise on eats or weasels. And after all the benefit of the experience, it seems that our forces are in a state of comparative inefficiency. So that these wars upon the little, disgraceful to our dignity, have no practical benefit. They are not always necessary: if it may be essential to our ad- ministration in South Africa, or to rounding off our territory in India, it is essential to nothing in the Bight of Benin. We have no business there at all ; and the very pretext which takes us there is frustrated by a war that prevents legitimate traffic. On the other hand, if we gain nothing, we cannot say that we lose nothing : our resources, naval and military, are divert- ed fm essential duties to trivialities. While we are growing unist6ns about the defence of this our own land, we are sending off reinforcements of the very arm we most wangtthe Rifles, to wage war upon the tribes of Africa, whom our colonists could control. We waste on distant pigmies what we may need against neigh- bouring giants.