The new number of the Westminster Review contains a powerful
paper on the foreign policy of England. The writer starts from the position that nations with only " one idea" expire when that idea is accom- plished. Of the ideas which have possessed England, Protestantism has in the main done its work ; antagonism to France has done enough and more than enough ; and the present ideas, commerce and self-improve- ment, are not enough for full national vitality. Besides self-cultivation, there is duty to neighbours, without which a nation, as well as a citizen, loses its virtue. England has neglected this duty in the present genera- tion : hence the decline of her power abroad, the counteraction to her in- terests, commercial as well as political, and the growth of great anta- gonists, one of whom is now oppressing our ally Turkey. Strenuous. endeavour is demanded to rescue England from this false position : where- fore the author adjudges, after " the old Roman formula" cited by Grotius, "that these things may be sought by a pure and pious war." The argu- ment is not new ; but it is enforced often with eloquence, and through- out with a great abundance of historical illustration.
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