5 MARCH 1853, Page 10

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

TH.E ArunrAL DISARMAMENT MISSION.

As Lord Aberdeen has seen fit to entertain the proposition laid be- fore him by the deputation from the Peace Conference lately as- sembled at Manchester, and more particularly as he has departed from the usual Ministerial reserve in using language calculated to raise hopes on the part of those very sanguine persons, it may have become worth while to consider what would be the erect of their proposition if it were carried out. The proposition formally conveyed to Lord Aberdeen by Mr. Milner Gibson, Mr. Cobden, and other exclusive friends of Peace, is that he should "invite the various Governments of Europe to en- ter simultaneously upon a reduction of those oppressive military establishments ". and Lord Aberdeen declares, that "if their ob- ject were not attained it would not be for the want of any incli- nation on his part to promote it." We do not indeed understand Lord Aberdeen to have conveyed the slightest hint that while he applauded the object, the disarmament, he accepted the means the mission ; but to avow so marked a sympathy with the objeet, to listen to the citation of his own words painfully resembling the new project, and not at the same time to meet the impracticable proposal indiscretion. an unequivocal dissent, was, we make free to think, an official Now, let us suppose him promoting it, and proceeding at once to our nearest neighbour, who pos- sesses an army of more than three hundred thousand men, with a transport fleet in the highest state of efficiency for immediate embarkation and transhipment. Let us suppose Lord Aberdeen going to the Emperor Napoleon III, and asking him to reduce that oppressive military establishment. To take a very favourable ease, we might suppose that his Imperial Majesty would reply by de- claring that nothing was more near his heart, and that he would at once proceed with the proposed reduction ; our British forces of course to be reduced pan passu. Evidently, we could not ask him to reduce without doing as much ourselves ; and supposing that he took off a hundred thousand men from his army, we of course must do no less. But then arise important questions. The first is, how the Emperor Napoleon could assure us that the reduction had really been made. Are we to take him at his word, or are we to appoint English Commissioners to visit the dockyards, barracks, and camps of France, for the purpose of ascertaining the reduction? We can scarcely expect that the latter process would be permitted by the French Government ; so that we must reduce our own esta- blishments on the faith of Emperor Napoleon's word. Mr. Cobden "thought it would allay all the irritation, if it were publicly known that the two Governments were in friendly communication on the subject." He states that he "is in constant communication with parties in France in whom he has the most implicit confi- dence, and he is satisfied that there is no foundation for the fear of aggression from that country ; but if the Government were to enter into diplomatic relations with France, they would be in a position to contradict such alarming rumours authoritatively." So says Mr. Cobden ; who must possess very pe- culiar notions on the subject of guarantees, and certainly few would be so easily satisfied as he professes to be. In the first place, we ought to know who are the " parties " with whom he is in constant correspondence, and whether they speak on authority or not. Even however, if we had the highest authority, that of the Emperor himself, it would little avail us. Ought we to rely upon the continuance of peace because Louis Napoleon is to assure us that he has no intention of committing war—after we have seen him subvert by a midnight conspiracy a constitution which he had sworn to maintain, and which, but a few hours before, he declared himself pledged to maintain ? Upon the selfsame assu- rance, Mr. Cobden ought to have relied for the maintenance of the Republic in France ; and if he can have seen that Republic sub- verted and still rely upon the same assurance from the same lips, he must possess a degree of credulity unknown to the most simple of his countrymen. The assurances of Napoleon are to be con- sidered ominous, not auspicious.

If Louis Napoleon were perfectly sincere, his answer most likely would be, not that he would reduce his establishments, but that, if he were as much inclined to do so as Lord Aberdeen himself, he would be unable. lie might say—" I have no intention of at- tacking England : but I have Algiers to maintain ; I have French interests to support in the Eastern Mediterranean ; I have if not '

to conquer the frontier of the Rhine to defend the integrity of France at her present boundary ; I have my throne to uphold, and the people have not yet acquired so much knowledge of the bene- fits which my reign is to bring that I can calculate upon my throne without an army." This would be a reasonable reply under the circumstances. For a country in the actual position of France, three hundred thousand men may not be too much. But while a sovereign maintains three hundred thousand men in arms, and owes little responsibility to anybody in his own country, his neighbours ought to be prepared for any possible turn of royal ca- price or necessity. If he might honestly declare that he did not intend to attack us now, some new turn in affairs might justify him in his own mind six months hence.

Nor could we expect Louis Napoleon to reduce his army in the face of powers which have so recently hesitated to recognize him. If we would enable him to effect the reduction, we must pass from him to the powers that lie more remote from our own frontier, and as we do so, probably we shall find the difficulty of procuring a consent greater. If we were to ask Austria to reduce her armies, she might, with her position and her views, very reasonably an- swer, that it is only by her armies, drawn from her several pro- vinces, and then used against those provinces reciprocally, that she can hold her empire together. Mr. Cobden deprecates the large warlike preparations "in time of peace " ; but in the Aus-

trian domains there is no peace. There is a revolution kept down by armed force ; and if power is to be measured by the resistance which maintains it in a state of equilibrium, then we can appre- ciate the civil war tacitly and silently going on in Austria by the terrors and tyrannies that alone preserve the status quo.

Austria cannot reduce her armies, excepting under these alter- native conditions—the abandonment of her provinces ; or the

abandonment of her principles on the subject of governmenti in

favour of those that Mr. Cobden might offer, ready-made, of Eng- lish manufacture. But even if, by some miracle of conquest over revolution or over herself, she were quit of internal enemies, how could Austria reduce her armaments in the face of her ally Russia, who already views with a keen appetite the Sclavonian provinces ? Before Austria can reduce, Russia must reduce: wherefore, let Mr. Cobden, Mr. Milner Gibson, and other members of the deputation, convey themselves to St. Petersburg, and lay their proposition before the Emperor Nicholas. He will tell them, very politely perhaps; that his army is his empire. Lord Aber- deen, indeed, might safely promise to carry out the mission for whose object he avows so much sympathy, when Mr. Cobden shall have succeeded in converting the Emperor Nicholas to the tenets of the Peace Association.

On the first blush there is a show of reason in this proposition for a reciprocal disarmament; but there is nothing rational in con-

-veying to any "parties" propositions which we know them to be incapable, by their circumstances or their education, of entertain- ing; and he who travels about the world hawking a proposition,

with high and sacred names, for which he cannot find a market, is guilty either of a Quixotic foolishness or of a still more degrading hypocrisy. Perhaps it would have been as well if so experienced a diplomatist as Lord Aberdeen had given to Mr. Cobden more directly the benefit of his better knowledge, and so, instead of ap- pearing disposed "to promote the object," had at once declared that there is not the slightest prospect of doing anything with it in Europe at the present time.

The abstract reasoning of a proposition does not suffice to make it reasonable between all "parties." If a burglar were breaking into his window, Mr. Cobden might bring him the most incontest- able proofs as to the injudiciousness of his course, even on the principles of self-interest. He might prove to demonstration that

no amount of plunder could in the long run be profitable ; that

honest industry is not only the more profitable, but is the more healthy and happy course. He might prove that the burglar in- evitably comes to a bad end ; that thieves do not get on in life ; and that even the "fence," the capitalist of that tribe, is liable to the fate of 'key Solomons. He might make good these proposi- tions, without any kind of comment at all, by his own favourite plan, the exhibition of blue-book statistics. Yet we doubt very much whether the most cogent argument would induce the visitor to relinquish either his "jemmy" or his "barkers."

We incline to believe, that however much the householders of the country at large might be in favour of mutual disarmament as

between citizens and thieves, they would not at all rely upon such friendly negotiations for any practical purpose. Nay, we suspect that the worldly wisdom of a gentleman who proposed to meet foreign invaders of the household in that fashion would not be estimated at a very high rate. A man who should go down to Cambridge armed with a Colt's revolver, as the instrument for winning the honours of Senior Wrangler, would fairly lay himself open to Mr. Cobden's censures ; but if Mr. Cobden thinks that the weapons of the Anti-Corn-law would prove triumphant among the Don Cossacks or the Croat, he is under a serious mistake ; which he might discover before he had gone half-way to the Banat,—or rather, which somebody else might discover ; for Mr. Cobden's power of reception seems to exist only for one species of know- ledge. We are only surprised to see Lord Aberdeen half inclined to accept the post , of missionary under Mr. Cobden's Anti-War League.