THE EFFECT OF THE ENGLISH CRISIS ABROAD.
MOST of us recognise the extent of the impact which the fall of a Ministry makes .upon home affairs. It is not only the political organisations which are affected ; there is not an interest in the country which does not suffer or benefit, or at any rate fancy that it will benefit or suffer,—which, so far as disturbance is concerned, is much the same thing. In the present case, for example, the great agricultural interest feels a new hope pour through all its shrunken veins, the vast liquor-trade is relieved of a paralysing apprehension which has affected the value of every license, and the capitalists of the carrying trade—the largest single source of our wealth— reckon, with confidence more or less well-founded, on escaping vexatious interference. The factory workers, on the other hand, are doubtful; the Highland crofters and L•ish tenants perhaps unreasonably gloomy ; and the mass of Welshmen feel a hope disappointed at the moment of fruition. These are mere illustrations, and of course there are classes in which the effect is much deeper, every profes- sion, for instance, feeling that the favour of the State, which excites the secret hopes or fears of thousands, though it neither improves nor diminishes the real sources of prosperity, has passed to "the other side." All this is acknowledged, but we fail sometimes to recognise how heavy, in the new shrinkage of the planet and the closer relation of all its parts, is the impact of the rise or fall of a. British Ministry upon the imagination of every people and State throughout the world. The rather screamy exultation of the Austrian Press at the fall of the Rose- bery Ministry is but an instance of an emotion felt in every country of the globe. The Austrians are delighted because they have dreaded disturbance in the Balkans, and think that with Lord Salisbury in power all revolu- tionaries in the East will postpone their plans to a more convenient season ; but every country has its own set of motives. In Berlin there is almost as much pleasure as Vienna, because Lord Salisbury once exulted publicly in the Triple Alliance, or rather in the Dual Alliance which preceded it; while in St. Petersburg and Paris there is, for the same reason, gloom, deepened in the former city by an impression that the new Government of the United Kingdom will be hostile in the Far East, and in the latter by a fear that Lord Salisbury, besides defending Egypt as strongly as his predecessor, may insist on clearer pledges as to the meaning of recent French expeditions into the interior of the Dark Continent. There is pleasure in Rome, because the new Cabinet is assumed rather hastily to be anti-French ; and pleasure in Tokio, where it is thought that London should have protected Japan a little more energetically. As a matter of fact, British policy swerves but little under any Government, but a difference in tone is keenly felt by every rival or suppliant; and it is known that the new Government, if not more ambitious than its predecessor, will be considerably less hampered from within. There is no Mr. Labouchere in the Unionist party, and no wing which is intent on avoiding acquisitions. There are many territories of Africa, in each of which an English chief, struggling against heavy odds to secure order, will feel his powers and his energy suddenly doubled by the accession of a Tory Ministry ; while throughout the world there is not an Armenian—and the Armenians, like the Jews, are everywhere—who has not read. the news with a shiver of fear. At Simla the men who are ruling an Empire from among the clouds, can talk of nothing else, for may not Mr. Fowler's policy as to Chitral be now reversed ? while in every Colony, North, West, and South, some party which was depressed feels that it has a new prospect, and all politicians are conscious of a new and a different ultimate referee. To all South Africa, for example, a Continent teeming with growing states, the exchange of Lord Ripon for Mr. Chamberlain matters almost as much as in Royalist countries the accession of a new King. The world is now but a small place, its inter- lockings are innumerable, and the blow struck by Mr. Brodrick has made the nations quiver with almost as keen an excitement as the people of Great Britain.
There is something to be proud of in this thought, for it makes of Great Britain the world's pivot; but we can fancy that Lord Salisbury is not altogether proud, for there is another and a depressing side to it all. The pressure of " the too vast orb of her fate " begins to weigh almost too heavily upon the weary Titan. If we affect foreign nations, foreign nations have us in their grip. It is not altogether for good that the wail or the pman of foreign peoples should trouble or elate us so much, or that we should be unable to manage our own affairs with- out thinking of the effect that we may produce by moving on the atmosphere of the whole globe. It would not be well for ma❑kind to realise that no man can lift his finger or utter a word without impact on the universal ether, and there is in too much thought of distant effects a root of irresolution. We begin to think as the echoes come back from the lofty places, until we cannot dare. To ourselves, for instance, and to thousands of other Unionists, it is a source of keen pain that the event which is as we think so fortunate a one for these islands, should to Armenians and Macedonians seem like a sentence to despair, that the Sultan should be as glad as we are, because, as he will erroneously fancy, he can oppress at will. There are others besides Armenians and Macedonians whose emotion will be nearly as deep, for example, all the tribes of Pathanistan ; and as we think of them all, of the miseries which may accompany the blessings resulting from a changed Administration, we find it difficult to harden our thoughts till they recognise that in every great movement there is some evil, and that as we know nothing of the general purpose, we must, if need be, submit to that ap- parently oppressive law, and hope for a general result of good. Nothing goes precisely as we expect it to go. It may be that Lord Salisbury, perceiving that Russia is not sincere, and that France is waiting to spring, may give up the Armenian cause in all but words, and so unconsciously leave the Turks to their secret policy, which is to slay and expel until there is no more an Armenian question in Turkey than a Moorish question in Spain. But it may also be that, aware of the danger of arousing the feeling which crushed Lord Beaconsfield, he may act at Constanti- nople with an energy wanting to Lord Rosebery ; or it may be that the Sultan, fancying himself secure, may suddenly place himself outside the limits of European toleration ; or it may be that the Armenians, reduced to despair, may win a sympathy now in many quarters re- fused them, by an open insurrection to which Russia could not be deaf. No one knows the policy of the new Government in the matter, indeed it can have no policy yet, but it is hard on England. to feel that she is scarcely free, that the "orb of her fate" can scarcely be borne along because at every for- ward step it crushes, or seems to crush, so many human hopes. We must bear it on, for duty lies that way ; but the burden of consciousness of the weight increases every year till it becomes well nigh insupportable. The case of Armenia is a special one ; but we do not know that it is well to think too much in our internal movements of any external result from them. If we do, we may cease to move altogether, arriving at the position already reached. in France, where a Government is buttressed on one side by the favour of Russia, and on the other by the disfavour of Great Britain. The Ribot Cabinet might fall on its costly Colonial policy, if it were not that the Czar is so friendly to M. Hanotaux, and that that Minister is supposed to be regarded in England with a certain spiteful alarm. We must take the Government which is best for the Empire ; and as for outsiders, gu'de it in the path we deem right, as vigorously as we can. Cosmopolitanism would be a loftier motive power than patriotism, if we could by possibility know the cosmos as we know the patria, but that can never be ; and to act as if it were, ends, in the long-run, in a dissipation of energy and a dilution of philanthropic feeling. We do not shrink from cutting a canal because the cutting is sure to consume some lives, nor can we consider every conse- quence which may arise from changes that are clearly good in themselves. We must make them, and then see how we can avert the evil, which, do what we will, is certain to accompany the good.
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