THE IGNORANCE OF THE FOREIGN OFFICE.
NOTHING has struck us throughout the recent negotiations so much as the ignorance exhibited by her Majesty's Government. It rises at times to the height intended by Catholic theologians, when they affirm that there is a degree of the defect which lessens if it does not destroy moral responsi- bility. The country keeps an army of agents all over Europe, whose first business is to keep the Government informed ; in all the greater capitals it plants Ambassadors, in palaces of vast expense • it sends Envoys to capitals where there is nothing to do but listen, and it pays Consuls at every considerable mercantile centre, and still the Foreign Office never knows anything. A few days before the war of 1870, the greatest war of our time, Mr. Hammond did not believe there was a cloud in the European sky, and Lord Tenterden seems to be about as well instructed as Mr. Hammond. . Accept any theory we please of the action of Russia, and still the ignorance of the British Foreign Office appears stupendous. Let us imagine, with the Pall Mall Gazette, or at least with the Pall Mall Gazette when it gives the rein to its antipathy to St. Petersburg, that Russia has throughout been playing a treacherous game, has intended war from the first, and has only waited for fine weather to execute her projects, and see how ignorant Lord Derby was of that deter- mination ! He evidently did not know that war was arranged, or he would not have cavilled about phrases in a Protocol like a second-rate attorney, would not have demanded a disarma- ment he knew he could not obtain, would not have laboured for weeks to construct a " bridge " which he knew would not be used in the interest of peace, " the sole object of her Majesty's Government." He evidently thought peace quite possible, if only he could give Russia an excuse for peace ; and therefore on the theory of the Russophobists, he knew nothing of the secret history of the whole matter, but was an innocent English squire taken in by a treacherous diplomatist,—taken in, too, with vast military preparations before his eyes. Or take the contrary theory of the few who hold Russia to be absolutely disinterested, and see how little Lord Derby can have known I He never once gave Russia credit for even a capacity for such virtue, never ceased to intimate his distrust of her motives, never allowed her even to hope that England would, as she was disinterested, allow her to act in freedom. He incessantly refused to help her objects, though he admitted their excel- lence in se, and left her no resource, if she were disinterested, but the very war which it is, he says, his sole object to avert. Or finally, let us take what we believe to be the true theory,—that the Russian Court was neither purely disinterested nor very chivalric, but very much inclined at first to brag and after- wards to retreat, but was overborne and driven in the right direction by a nobler impulse among the people, and how much of the truth did the Foreign Secretary know f Simply none at all. If he did not believe that Russia wished to desert the Christians, if only she could obtain a decent pretext for so doing, his diplomacy becomes absolutely meaningless, and he has merely been amusing Europe and his countrymen with negotiations which, if he did not so believe, he must have seen would be to his adversary's advantage,—would give her just the time for preparation which she needed. He obviously never knew that the " bridge " he was preparing would not attract the people, though it might content the Government, never understood that in Russia there are forces which her rulers never resist, never in fact comprehended the main factors of the great movement which he tried, with such patient but such powerless assiduity, to control. With an immense and costly machinery for acquiring knowledge, he never knew pre- cisely the situation with which he had to deal.
The secret of the ignorance of the English Foreign Office is not an easy one to unravel, but we believe it has two main causes, one of which is incurable. Continental Sovereigns, Ministers, and Ambassadors are very distrustful of English Ministers in the matter of secrecy. They exaggerate the influ- ence of Parliament, think the Government powerless to enter into any combinations without explaining them to the people, and fear their confidences will ultimately appear in official documents. They recollect how the confidential offers of Czar Nicholas to Sir Hamilton Seymour were published to the world, and find it safer to keep Englishmen in the dark than to tell them their ideas, even when they want their assistance or their neutrality. This difficulty in the way of gaining information is, of course, incurable. England is virtually, though not nomi- nally, a Republic. In a Republic, a Government which intends to act must have the people with it, and to secure the people it must tell them facts which in Continental countries are either reserved to the small groups who control affairs, or are revealed only through carefully-arranged indiscretions. We have the strength of a Democracy, and we must pay the penalties of our organisation, among which are the difficulty of main- taining secrecy, and the impossibility of working out long and complicated plans of policy. There would be no help for that, even if our Ambassadors and Envoys were men specially distinguished for ability in the pursuit of information, which they usually are not. And secondly, English diplomatists pay far too much attention to those minor, though important facts, which make up what is called " secret history." They see that indi- viduals govern, and forget that individuals only govern when obeying certain conditions, about which they no more talk than they talk about the pressure of the atmosphere. If in Berlin the English diplomatists know Prince Bismarck's inclination, they think they know his policy, forgetting, as he does not, that his inclination is only executive when Germany and the Hohen- zollerns are with him, or at least prepared to accept his judgment as decisive. If in Vienna they know Count Andrassy's opinion, they think they understand Austria, forgetting that there is another influence which is Slav and not Magyar, and is in serious crises to the Eastward much the stronger of the two. And if in St. Petersburg they know the Emperor's mind, they think they know Russia, forgetting that there is a national policy, which in great crises is always the one which dietutee action. The Romanoffs have opinions, like other men, but their first opinion, which they do not talk about, is that it is their business to remain the ruling family of Russia. Through- out the recent crisis this mistake has evidently helped to blind the British Foreign Office. Lord Derby has known that Czar Alexander was most reluctant to make war. He has known that the men whom the Emperor most trusts share that reluctance, and knowing these things, has thought that hehnew all ; whereas the governing factor was not the mind of the Czar, but the mind of the Russian people, which was deter- mined not to betray either the Christians or Prince Nicholas, —or the mind of the Army, which was determined not to ,be humiliated before Europe. The Foreign Office, therefore, with most laborious effort, made everything smooth for the Emperor, and when he was compelled by the nation to choose the difficult road instead of the smooth one, its usual organs raised the cry of treachery. There was no treachery, any more than there is treachery if a lawyer takes final and new instructions from his client ; but if there were, what is the use of a Foreign Secretary who, with months during which to accumulate information, could be so taken in I The charges against the Russians only defend the characters of the English diplomatic agents at the expense of their intellects. At this very
moment theygo on asserting, and no doubt believing, that Russia rules Berrie and Montenegro, though it is perfectly well known that the Skuptschina made peace because it chose, without de- ference to Russian advice, and that Prince Nicholas must fight on if ten Czars were counselling him to give up the fruit of his victories. He could not reign if he did not. This notion that Prince Nicholas is a mere tool of the Czar, a notion en- tertained in the face of the most precise information to the contrary, has, we believe, materially influenced British diplo- macy, making it alternately confident and suspicious precisely at the wrong time. It is one of the dozen pieces of " informa- tion " which have beguiled it with an impression of superior knowledge, and prevented it from watching the great currents of opinion and circumstances which have driven the Russian Government, in great measure in its own despite, into its present groove.
This latter evil, the habit of attaching importance to state- ments which, however important, are merely details, is of course curable, but curable only by means which we fear the Foreign Office will not adopt. One is, to choose its agents with a more rigorous attention to capacity for the work of reporting in its larger sense, and the other is to set those agents intel- lectually more free. It may be difficult—is difficult, when you want a particular quality as well as general ability—to choose the right man, but experience shows that a demand on a Service is always answered, that special capacity is developed among a number of men whenever the pressure for it is steady and continuous. You can breed audacity, so to speak, in a Navy, and you can breed caution ; and the power of reflective obser- vation, which is what the Diplomatic Service always appears to lack, could be produced in the same way. If men without it were not promoted and men with it found themselves rising, and the Service discerned that accurate reporting of the higher kind was an essential requisite, we should get it in plenty, just as the Venetian Signory got it in a dozen Embassies and over long periods of years. Their position compelled them to select men who could see which way the cat would jump, and they selected them without difficulty and without fail. Our circumstances are, in many respects, the same, and we could, if the Foreign Office did but choose, find men who Itould accu- mulate information, true political information, not mere facts, as well as the old Venetians. Only to get the best of them we must set their intellects free, that is, must tolerate capable men, even if they have strong opinions. The tendency of the British Foreign Office, as probably of every office whose despatches may be made public, is to like men who agree with it, to promote men of like sympathies, and to disfavour agents who are either original or annoyingly frank. That is undoubtedly the grand reason why we have been so badly served in Turkey, and we suspect is the reason also of some failures in other places. The diplomatist, however competent, does not like to state views which will make his chiefs think him a credulous person, or to press considerations which are opposed to the views he knows to be dominant in the office. The Foreign Secretary may forgive him, or even trust him the more, but offices are governed in the long-run by permanent officials, who can hate and favour within the Service as if they were in a ship. Nothing makes business so easy as to have all your instruments of your own mind, and when the chief is a Bismarck the gain is temporarily almost equal to the loss ; but when he is not, as he usually is not anywhere, and never is in England, perpetual reflections of his own opinion, and iterations of the little facts which support it, are bad materials for a wide judgment.
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