TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE SECOND YEAR OF WAR.
Russra. has refaced the proffered terms of peaoe so absolutely that accommodation seems to be rendered impossible. The Western Powers have committed themselves to an advance from which they can scarcely retreat before they have regained the position that they have staked. The means for coercing a gigantic enemy ap- pear to diminish rather than to increase as the war enlarges from a kcal contest to one of unmeasured dimensions; and thus we seem to stand upon the commencement of a many-years war, while our Chancellor of the Exchequer moulds with uncertain hand the first in a series of war budgets. We have had some triumphs even in the Crimea. Our soldiers have won victories for us through sheer bone ; our science has introduced the railway into active warfare, and the telegraph as a special courier ; while our gunnery is dis- covering for us whether Russia has gone as far as we have in the ordinary branches of military art. But the victories have as yet been barren, and mechanical invention has not supplied the place of military genius. Scarcely have we entered upon the broad bloody highway of "la grande guerre," before the fidelity of our most important ally is placed in doubt. The representations which Austria is understood to have been making may be worthy of consideration on their own account, at least from the Austrian point of view; and we cannot expect Austria to change her position on the map, or to start in the inquiry from our preconceived ideas. Russia has been ex- cluded from the Principalities, and may still be excluded so long as Austria shall decline to let her in. But we should have a feeble faith in Austria as guardian of a portal of defence, if she fail us as an ally in the field. It is true that the Western Powers have been able to drive Russia out of the Black Sea, and Austria is not said to deny the representation of France that the Western Powers may keep the ground they have won on the waters of that Rus- sian lake : but Sebastopol bellies us. Danubian Turkey is de- fended for the time by Austria, Constantinople by the Western fleets; a state of protection for the independence of the Ottoman empire, and therefore for the public law of Europe, resting upon the policy, for the time being, at Vienna, and the presence of an Anglo-French fleet in the Euxine. Austria has prevented the Czar from surrounding her own territory, and the Western Powers have established their capacity for driving back the enemy. Aus- tria may think such a position enough : England and France cannot think so, if they are to remain the powers that they have considered themselves to be.
Although the staple of our soldiery has proved as stout in the Crimea as in the Spanish Peninsula or in Flanders, we must con- fess that in a military sense the campaign of last year was a failure. Our positive =mess was only established by sea. It is clear that our strength is such as to deter Russia even from meet- ing us on that field. She holds it cheaper to imprison or destroy her own fleet rather than to fight us. Such results would make us rely more upon our navy, and induce us to abstain from further attempts with a military administration which is for the time in- capable of sustaining the action of this country up to the standard of Wellington's time. With our navy we might do all that
land requires. There is not a power on the sea whom we con not overcome ; none which is likely to attack us that we could not drive into hiding-places even as the Russian has hidden. We could punish some of our false allies more severely by keeping off the shore and scourging them at sea. Prussia we could lock up and make her the jest of Germany. If Austria were to play us false, the fleet of Lloyd's Company, and all the armed ships that she could bring against us, would be only butts for the exercise of our gunnery. If England were driven back upon herself, we should stand upon no niceties : fighting Continental Powers with maritime weapons, we must use our maritime weapons wherever we had the opportunity ; and to do that, we must in- troduce a fiercer spirit than our navy has recently been permitted to exercise. We are' however, scarcely free to choose the ground urn which we will fight. We have united with France in plan- mug the campaign ; if we have assented to her advances, we -have undertaken a share in the responsibility by our acquiescence; we have no doubt drawn her further than she would have gone alone, because we professed to accompany her; and while she is faithful to us we must be true to her. We are therefore committed to a land-fight as well as to a sea-fight, and must make up our mind for the work that is before us.
Again, then, it is not a season for niceties by land any more than by sea. The time has passed when we could permit paltering with false neutrals or obstructive allies. If we cannot recognize as friends any who will not join us against the enemy, so on the other hand we cannot fail to recognize as friends any who will join us against our adversaries. Let Austria passively subserve the purposes of Russia while the present war continues, and the very fact of her doing so will open the Temple of Discord upon the Continent. When Powers like England and France are ar- rayed against Governments such as those of Russia and Austria, there are countries that will offer themselves as allies whose assist- ance could not be refused. If Austria decline to defend the boundary of the alliance upon the Danube and the Rhine, it may be necessary to defend the boundary upon the Veronese, possibly even to seek other boundaries on the Danube ; and England might find the Rhine states, Northern Italy, and Hungary, amongst willing allies, whose aid could not be refused. Even if we were to accept the Austrian plan based upon the actual results of last year's campaign, it would only amount to an armed neutrality, which Austria would maintain upon the Danube, and the Western Powers upon the Black Sea. Whether, therefore, we were to stand upon the present position or to proceed aggressively with the war, we must prepare for strenuous and continuous exertion.
It is a time when, above all, we want strong government ; men who wield strong powers in a strong way ; who can call upon the people for sacrifices in that voice of determined will Which inspires effort with cheerful confidence ; who can ex- tract money from honest men, and hold it hard against waste. By some curious idiosyncracy of our management, we are un- able to shake off the encumbrances of the last war, while we are commencing the fresh war. We have -veteran gene- rals and colonels keeping out men not too old for action. We have a navy which supports some five captains to every ship, though it cannot muster its complement of men, partly because the pay, lavished upon the supernumerary captains, is not attractive enough for the hands before the mast. Our neighbours in France, at whose economy we sometimes laugh, sustain their position as a military power upon an actual expenditure of 20,000,000/g while England rises to 50,000,0001.; and this expensive system, clogged with su- pernumeraries and checks against expenditure which cost more than the peculation they check, is unable to sustain our ancient position either by sea or land. At a time when our expenditure already exceeds that at the commencement of the last great war, we see that we are only at the beginning of an outlay which is al- ready expanding. But that is far from being the worst. The critical position of affairs in camp and council abroad is con- fessed; the disorganized mismanagement of our War adminis- tration is disclosed ; the ordinary government of the state proves to be too weak to grapple with the difficulty of the day. and to master it ; the House of Commons is indifferent; and "the men" to supply the wisdom and vigour wanted do not ap- pear. It is not to be concealed that there is a spirit of discontent which threatens its troublons remedies. The present Govern- ment is spoken of as visibly declining ; the next nasal al- ternative a Derby Ministry, is anticipated with mistreat of its disposition to make terms with the enemy : but what is there beyond? The " aristocracy " which mans our Cabinets would seem to be then exhausted. It is openly said to be on its last trial. Men of vigorous energy and practical habits, of not lengthened years, and not of title, are mentioned by name as likely to be brought together by national calamity. In short, to be free from shackles that fetter us alike in peace and war—to secure a strong, honest, national Government—it seems to be felt, rather than thought, that we must have something very like a revolu- tion!
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