TOPICS OF THE DAY.
Now trebly thundering swells the gale."
TILE tone of the Ministerial journals is calculated to produce serious alarm on the part of those who are averse to unnecessary wars. It indicates on the part of its patrons—fear lest their inter- ference in the troubles of the Turkish empire may end in placing them in a ridiculous dilemma ; inclination to take a deeper plunge into the quagmire of Holy Alliance principles ; and an excited and irritable state of mind, the consequence of impatience at what they feel to be a growing conviction in the public that their foreign policy is anti-liberal, and the anticipation that their diplomacy will yet be baffled The language, for example, used in the Morning. Chronicle on Thursday this week, is strongly indicative of a disturbed and angry temper. An article in the new number of the Westminster Review is spoken of as " written in a spirit so bad, so unmanly, so un-English, that we feel an apology due to our readers for making it the subject of notice." Again—" And yet we fear that this article but too faithfully represents not alone the opinions, but, to a great extent, the feelings, of that little section of politicians whose efforts have been of late so perseveringly directed to thwart the policy of her Majesty's Government. We have our own reasons, not over-flattering to these gentlemen, for not :visiting. to underrate their importance." The temper in which these words have been penned must be evident to all : the lady's-waiting-maid. spite which breaks out in the sen- tence we have marked with italics, bespeaks anger half-convinced of its own impotence, The epithet " un-English" is borrowed from the vocabulary of the old Tories, aghast at France revolu- tionized for the first time. It is an appeal to popular prejudice to put down argument, indicating the writer's distrust of the cause he advocates. The sources of this ill-nature can be no mystery to any one who has watched the increasing testiness of the _Ministerial organ since its admission sonic eight days back that there was a hitch in the arrangements at Constantinople. A feverish uneasiness, lest its boasted diplomacy in the Levant might end in making the present Ministry a general laughingstock, chafed and irritated by the perseverance of the advocates of non-interference, is driving the mouthpiece of Lord PALMERSTON from its affected equa- nimity. The contre-temps at Constantinople is indeed sufficient to annoy men who stand on firmer ground than the setters-up and pullers- down of dynasties, who have been squandering money and shedding blood in Syria, in a cause with which we have no concern, under the pretence of settling a disturbed country which cannot be tran- quillized by such means. The Sunday organ of the Treasury un- dertakes to demonstrate that the correspondent of the MornkEr Chronicle must have been mistaken. There is no improbability in the supposition that the correspondent of a newspaper might be mistaken ; but the manner in which the intelligence was spoken of in the semi-official editorial articles of the Chronicle, showed that the Foreign Office had reason to fear that it might be correct. Had the necessary precautions been taken to prevent even involuntary counteraction on the part of agents cooperating towards one end at points so distant as Constantanople, Alexan- dria, and London, the report of the 3.krring Chronicle's corre- spondent regarding the determination of the Divan to persist in the deposition of MEmunner Am would at once have been laughed town. That it was not from the first treated in this manner in the columns of the Morning Chronicle; shows that there was reason at head-quarters to fintr, that from want of a proper previous un- derstanding, some of the parties to the game had been playing at cross-purposes. The Foreign Office scents to have been in alarm 'lest Lord PONSONHY might not have received in time instructions to cooperate with Commodore NAPIER ; and that therefore the Ambassador's private feelings might hurry him into a wrong measure, or• that our faithful and disinterested ally, Russia, might avail herself of the omission to pl•.tce impediments in our path. Be the close of these transactions what it may, the circumstance that uncertainty about the determination of the Ottoman Sultan in regard to the fate of one of the chief officers of his government, could so flutter the British Government—could give it such well-grounded cause ot' uneasiness—is far from honourable to the present Administration. It is enough to de- monstrate the folly of Lord PALMERSTON'S meddling policy, that such a cause could so affect the character, position, and pros- pects of the British Cabinet. We might imitate, on this occasion, what Helen Macgregor said to her husband when his capture was announced—" Wise only when the bonnet is on his brow and the :claymore by his side, he never exchanges the tartan fen• the broad- -cloth, and mixes himsellin the miserable intrigues of the Lowlanders, but he becomes their dupe, their tool, their slave." If John Bull would mind his own business, and leave other people to manage or mismanage theirs, he would not noel to funk pale and anxious at any step they might take, however foolish.
This circa:mit:Ince, vexing and degrading though it be, is as no- thing in comparison with the more serious apprehensions which the menacing tone of' the Ministerial journals as regards France is cal- culated to awaken.
"We feel bound to state," says the Observer of last Sunday, ' that the other Great Powers of Europe feel naturally serious ap- prehension for the increased armaments of France." ," It is France,"
says the Morning Chronicle of Wednesday, " who fortifies her capital ; which is tantamount to a declaration that she will succeed or perish in her plans of aggrandizement." "Certainly," says the stile paper, " if Paris was fortified, and invading armies from the rest of Europe bad defeated French armies, they would be forced, instead of terminating the quarrel without bloodshed or oppression, as in 1814, to adopt plans of permanent occupation." And again— "\%e think that the fortification of Paris will have the effect of rendering a decision more final and effectual. It will render war, and the results of war, more radical and serious than they have hitherto been. The stake to be played for will be existence or non-existence as a nation."
This is plain-speaking. If Paris be fortified, that will be a cases ; " the stake to be played for will be existence or non-existence as a nation"; and " the rest of Europe" will be forced, " instead of terminating the quarrel without bloodshed or oppression, as in 1814, to adopt plans of permanent occupation." Now the plan of fortifying Paris, it' acceded to by the French na- tion, will doubtless be an act of intense stupidity on its p.u•t. The forts of Paris are destined not to repel foreign enemies, but to sub- ject domestic discontent. They were originally proposed by Louts PHILIPPE, and rejected by the French people, on that ground. The cunning, patient, selfish ruler of France, is turning the present ex- citement of the nation to his own account. That, however, is France's concern, not ours. If the French neoplo, think that they can render their country more the feasible by fortifying Paris, they have a right to do " The Eastern question is at an end," says the Observer. "No king and no country has designs on the terri- tory and independence of France," says the Morning Chronicle. And the inference drawn from their assertions is, that under such circumstances, the fortification of Paris must be the preparation for an aggressive war on the part of France. Why, it' the fortification of Paris be thought necessary as a preparation fin' defence, when could France begin it except in the time of peace ? When war had actually commenced—when the foe vas on the frontier—there would be no time for the completion of a work of years. The plain unequivocal meaning of the Alinisterial print is this—that should war arise, it may be necessary to invade France ; should France be invaded, it will he more difficult to conquer it after Paris is forti- fied; we must therefore go to war with France to prevent her putting herself in a better position of defence against any future contingent possible war. This is the most outrageous extension we have met with of time doctrine maintained by certain advocates of' the balance of power, that when one nation thinks another growing so strong that there is reason to fear in time event of a quarrel it might prove an over-match, that is a justifiable ground for attacking it and preventing its increase of power. The whole argument of the Chronicle rests upon the assumption that France is ever on the watch to perpetrate acts of aggression upon the other nations of Europe. This is a prepossession which the Clow:tick and the Minister who inspires its oracles have bor- rowed, or which the latter has brought along with him on his de- sertion, from the Anti-Jacobin camp. It is the doctrine that all European states are in danger front the revolutionary propaganda of France. It is an avowal of the doctrines by which the Holy Alliance justified the armed invervention of foreigners to replace the Bourbons on the French throne, and to uphold them there in defiance of France. Lord PALMERSTON, by a timely- concession to that spirit of internal innovation which placed the Whigs in olike, has gained the power of leading back this country into the Holy Alliance from which GEotGE CANNING emancipated it. lantutge of the Refn•m Mlinistr•; of 1 and of its organs, is the language of the Tory :Ministry of 1810-20. It is—Revolutionary France must be kept weak in order to assure time stability of the _ll',amu•chtics of Europe : it is—time Incrc attempt on the part of France to make herself' so strong its to be able in the event of an invasion to resist the threes of the Allied Sovereigns is a sufficient reason for• invading her. And France is warned, that if' she again render her invasion by the armies of Legitimacy necessary, she must look—not for a tht•ee years armed occupation ocher soil—not for the forcible imposition of a loathed dynasty—but to be blotted from the list of nations.
The expression of such views by the British Government and its organs would aitorr.l just ground for serious apprehension, did not the waspish temper of those who utter them affhrd evidence that they are a \vare of the growth of a public opinion calculated to hold them in check. At the commencement of the controversy arising out of the intervention of this country, the Government organs affected a contemptuous disregard of the impugners of Lord PALMERSTON'S policy. The arguments of the portion of the Liberal press which challenged it were passed over in silence ; the proceed- ings of the mec_tings at I.ut3ls and Matteliester were suppressed or garbled. An angry et tit 13rne sort of expostulation was addressed to the Eswcciurv•. And at last the increase of the opposition to their views, the want of a cordial rcsponse to them from any tp,o,rotNi.eornfloofwt.h e eCt,ialem Conservatives, Illimaest:;me.c,etidn their rr gall
view. as nu-Eng/tisk, means neither nor less than-‘-here is another tiresome fellow added to the list of mu' opponents. And the petulant " we have our own reasons, not over-flattering to these gentlemen, for not wishing to underrate their impmtance," is an admission that the advocates of non-intervention find ap- proving listeners.
That they are finding approving listeners, communications we are daily receiving testify. As a ,Tocimen, take the words of a
merchant of extensive connexions, who writes from the heart of the manufacturing districts-
" The feeling in favour of non-intervention in foreign affairs, is strong here among the shopkeepiog class; which is much more Radical than till lately I Lad any idea of. A great proportion of the enfranchised class arc for free- trade, and hope nothing from conquests. The popularity of the Whig Minis- 'by is on the wane ; and when the Chancellor of the Exchequer produces his budget, it may be expected to give a coup de grace to those who made and marred the Reform Act, in the opinion of the people." We would not overrate the testimony of our correspondents, or the corroborative testiness of the Ministerialists ; but, upon the most guarded estimate, they afford such cheering prospects of the pro- gress of a just estimate of the Foreign policy of Ministers, as to warrant hopeful perseverance in opposition to it. They warrant an effort to urge the views of those who deprecate the July treaty upon the attention of Parliament. They are weaker there, of of course, than out of doors, but scarcely weaker than the first movers of measures carried in our own day were in the recollection of many yet alive If but two Members of the House of Commons can be found to move and second an amendment on the approval of Lord PALMERSTON'S policy, which will of course be expressed in the address, that motion ought to be made. Surely there are as many Abdiels yet to be found among the so-called Parliamentary Radi- cals? If the motion do no more, it will afford an opportunity of testing the sincerity of those members of the Whig party who dis- - -sent from the Foreign policy of the Cabinet, and have been grumbling so lousily egamst it—the extent, nature, and value of their objections.
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