PEDANTIC NEUTRALITY.
—some mortifying repulses She can do this because the question then at issue is a question of the rights of the parties But when you come to speak of mediation after the sword has been drawn, you get a totally different set of considerations. It is no longer a question of the rights of the parties, but a question of relative power. The sword is an evil mediator, but it does its work decisively and autho- ritatively, and if, after the parties have called the sword in aid of their own affairs, we were to begin to mediate, then we should be wearing our neutrality exceedingly thin and almost casting it aside. So long as it is a question of right, we may claim to be heard; but when two nations have been conflicting with each other for some time, they know much better than anybody else can know what their own strength is, and what the strength of their antagonist is ; and they know also what they require for security, and what they think it their interest to claim. And if that be the case, and a third nation tries to interfere between them, whatever advice it gives, it must be taking part either with one nation or the other, and this would not become the part of a neutral. For instance, if we were to go to Prussia and were to advise her to be content with less terms than she demands, we actually should be taking the part of France against Prussia, and should be no more a neutral, and should be throwing in our moral weight in the scale of France against Prussia. If, on the other hand, we were to go to France and advise her to take terms that she did not consider consistent with her dignity, we should be playing the game of Prussia, and taking part against France." Now, all this strikes us as an attempt to overact the plain duties of neutrality almost as absurd as the celebrated
attempt of the enthusiastic actor to qualify himself for a good Othello by blacking not only his hands and face,, but his whole body into the bargain. The neutral is not merely to be careful not to extend aid with his hands, he is to try and suppress all signs of every wish which either party would think favourable to the other. Because he won't intervene, he may not even express his convictions. As Sir Henry Bulwer excellently says in his letter to Wednesday's. Times, "Is it for England, whose power on the Continent has. alwaysbeen a moral power, to declare there is no such. thing as moral power ?" It is, of course, perfectly right and wise for a neutral not to irritate needlessly the• feelings of the belligerents by expressions of superfluous sympathy or antipathy in relation to the issue. That is the• clear way to get involved in the dispute, and neutrality implying a conviction that it is best to stand aloof from it, there- is plain inconsistency, which it hardly needed a Cabinet minister to point out, in running risks of supererogation in the matter. But the whole stress of the question as to the duty of the- neutral begins at the point where this common-sense axiom ceases to direct us,—wbat is a needless or superfluous expres- sion of neutral bias Now, it is surely clear enough that so- soon as the question of territorial redistribution as one of the terms of peace is raised, a question is raised in which all neutral powers, quite apart from their views as to the causes and conduct of the war, must necessarily feel a deep interest. Is it the absolute duty of a neutral to suppress all sign of that interest, because the confession of it would necessarily be a- moral weight in one scale or the other? Are the great. Powers to feel or affect the genuine fear of the smallest Powers,. and withhold the temperate expression of a weighty conviction. in the panic lest offence should be taken ? It seems to us. either a very pedantic or a very cowardly interpretation of the duties of neutrals to assert it. It may be wise for Switzerland or Belgium, out of mere cautious self-interest, to be reticent, even though they feel that the interests of Europe are very deeply concerned, but we cannot conceive that this is either wise or dignified in a great power which is strong enough to- be indifferent to the slight risk of giving offence, whenever- there is a real call for plain speaking ; and there is and must be such a call directly the territorial redistribution of the soil of Europe comes in question. It seems to us simply ludicrous to say that the loss of the Rhine to France on the one hand, or the loss of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany on the other,. can be a matter of little or no interest to the neutral Powers. It may well be, indeed, that such changes, great as they are, are not great enough to induce England to abandon her neutrality, and cause that terrible extension of the area of war which would result from fresh allies coming into the field. But between the exigencies which alone could call for- active intervention, and those purely inevitable results of victory and defeat which follow, as a matter of course, the fortunes of war, there are obviously many intermediate- terms of peace to which no neutral Power can be, whatever it may affect to be, really indifferent, because they must influence powerfully the prospects of the stability or insta- bility of the European settlement.
The question is whether the duty of neutrality really involves the punctilious silence of every neutral on points. ofthis moment, unless it be at once prepared to cast off its neutrality, and ally itself with either of the belli- gerents in case its view gains no respect from the other-
belligerent. We can hardly believe that the Chancellor- of the Exchequer, or, indeed, any sensible man, really holds sucha doctrine. Count Bismarck certainly does not hold it. He is proclaiming far and wide that he wishes for "the sympathy" of England and America, and is anxious to do- nothing, unless the interests of Germany absolutely compel him, which will forfeit that sympathy. He said most frankly at Nikolsburg in 1866, that the victor in such a contest as- that between Austria and Prussia must look beyond the little spot of land just under his nose, remember that he has. neighbours, and not act without relation to the wishes of those- neighbours. All this implies, what, indeed, no true statesman ever thinks of forgetting, that neutrals cannot but entertain, very strong opinions as to the policy or impolicy of certaia modes of settling the differences which led to war, and that the chief parties to a struggle are very unwise. and narrow-minded if they do not take those strong- opinions into account. That is the natural and healthy statesman's view. What can be more widely separated from that view than Mr. Lowe's theorem that when once the
is drawn, the neutral is bound to be tongue-tied till the terms of peace are all settled, unless that neutral is ready to in- tervene,—to throw its sword into the balance ? It seems to us that perfect candour on the part of neutrals, directly the terms of a new territorial settlement begin to be discussed, is due to both the belligerents, however firm may be the resolve to avoid intervention. Pedantic reticence on a subject on which the deepest possible interest cannot but be felt, always gives the impression of deep distrust, not to say cowardice, and either one or the other is sure to be felt even more unfriendly than a temperate and open expression of opinion. Had France come off the best and wished to make peace on the terms of the cession of the Rhine, we do not believe for a moment that it would have been possible for England to suppress its dislike and indignation, and if the Government had not given ex- pression to that feeling in a protest at least as powerful as it put forth in 1859-60 against the cession to France of Savoy,— a protest which, as we ought to remember, broke the entente cordiale, and had the most important, and, we believe, wholesome effect on the future relations of France and England,—the Government would have most likely fallen. Of' course, the feeling with which we view the mulct- ing of the aggressor of territory, is much milder than that with which we should have viewed the robbery of the Rhine ; and if the Government chooses to keep this pedantic silence on the matter, we do not think there will be any bitter English outcry. But not the less are the interests of Europe very deeply involved in this deliberate creation of a new and great popular grievance,—a French Venetia, with North Germany instead of Austria for oppressor,—and we can hardly conceive any punctilio more absurd than the refusal of the British Government to express its honest disappointment and disapprobation of such a course, on the ground that it will be a breach of neutrality to do so. Nothing can prevent the free expression of opinion in the neutral States on the subject. The very papers which praise Mr. Lowe's punctilious view of the duties of neutrality, openly express their disapproval of the course contemplated by Germany. Our contemporary the Economist, for instance, in a singularly able article last week, concluding with a singularly weak paragraph which in effect anticipated Mr. Lowe's view of mediation, explained, first, the folly of Germany in asking for Lorraine and Alsace, and then the advantage of officially concealing from Germany that this is the deliberate English view. Its ground appeared to be that writing didactic essays to teach Germany its duty, when you do not intend to do any more than teach, is no good. That would apply quite as much to its own criticism, and we cannot conceive why it was written. It is a very great good that Germany should know clearly, and know in the most authoritative possible way, how far she is losing the sympathy of England by the course she proposes. Germany's own great statesman admits that the conciliation of neutral wishes is always one great element in the problem tc be solved by a victor at the close of a war. What a short-sighted and timorous policy it must be to make belief we have no such wishes when we have! and when, indeed, the policy of Ger- many in this matter must in a great measure determine the cordiality or coolness of England in time to come, as did the policy of Prance on the annexation of Savoy ! There is not the slightest occasion to drone out useless sermons to Count Bismarck. All that seems to us needed by the occasion, is a perfectly temperate and fair expression by the Government of the view all but universal in England in relation to the injus- tice and inexpediency of the annexation of unwilling French populations to Germany. There is neither the right to threaten, nor any opening for menace. We all feel that France has brought this on herself, and that if Germany is foolish enough to retaliate what France would inevitably have done, she must bear it. But we all know that we shall look with feelings of a very different nature on Germany if she enters on the course of conquest and oppression, how- ever bitterly provoked, from what we should entertain, if she refrains from it. It cannot but be good that this view should be frankly expressed by those most competent to express it, and at the moment when, if ever, it is likely to influence the terms of peace. The artificial theory of neutrality which forbids us the right to say in the best form through the national Government, what we are all saying less adequately in the Press, seems to us due to a weak and mischievous timorous- ness. Had France conquered and the Rhine been in question, there would,—quite rightly,—have been no possibility for a popular British Government to hold its peace. That we justly feel far less keenly now than we should have felt then, is no reason at all why the Government should not express gently but firmly the universal view while there is still a possibility that it may to some extent influence the action of statesmen, who, though they well know that they have nothing to fear from us now in the way of hostility, know quite as well how much the cordial respect of the neutral Powers is worth in the long run to a State which has so many diplomatic rocks ahead as the rising power of Germany.
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