TOPICS OF THE DAY.
EASTER 1855.
EASTER comes to us, this year, not only as the anniversary of the event which forms the common centre of the religious beliefs and feelings of all Christendom, but as the birth-time of the event in recent history in which our feelings and interests are most closely implicated, and which, however differing from the other in its out- side aspect and accidents, is, unless our estimate of things is wholly wrong, in nowise alien or abhorrent in its ,inner meaning and purpose from the anniversary which meals the birth-throes of Christianity amid the agonies and passions of a popular martyrdom. Unless we profoundly believed that the best interests of Europe are heavily staked upon the issue of the war between Russia and the Western Powers-that right and justice are on our side in the quarrel, and that the Almighty Ruler of the Universe nerves the arm and inspires the heart of those who battle for that righteous- ness which is His essence-we should have little cause for making the war a subject of Easter discourse, little consolation except in turning altogether from it and its fortunes, to those larger interests of humanity which are not quite so much in the power of stupid officials to mismanage and to mar.
If the lives of nations are no more than those of individuals to be measured by the lapse of minutes, weeks, and years, but by the events, actions, and emotions crowded into them, what an immense time has passed for us since last Easter ! How lyrical has the year been in its intensity of feeling ; how epical in its grandeur and variety of action ; how dramatic in its changes of fortune for individuals, in its traits of character brought out from the level of ordinary life! The English nation has passed through all gradations of emotion, from the loud trumpet-tones of defiance, the grand aspirations of a self-reliant patriotism, the exultation of triumph and conscious courage; to doubt, anxiety, disgust, and a general sense of helpless imbecility and effeteness. In the minds of individuals these feelings have blended affectingly with the more pathetic hopes and fears excited by the ties of blood and per- sonal regard. It has been for us all, as a nation and as indivi- duals, a time in which we have " felt our lives." And the events with which the feelings have been associated have been the great facts of history and poetry. Fleets of unprecedented power have sailed from our ports ; new agencies in warfare have been tried for the first time on a great scale ; armies of immense force have been transported from one side of Europe to the other with unexampled rapidity ; great victories have been won ; a vast enterprise, heightened to the imagination by the uncertainty of our knowledge of the foe's strength, has been carried into execution ; individual heroism has been displayed, recalling the utmost achievements of men of past ages ; and finally, death has crowned theyear with the most majestic of victims, as if no feature should be wanting to stamp the drama with great and unexpected interest. Over all the exciting details of the time the banners of France and England have waved in a cordial amity which sheds the brightest rays of hope upon its bloodiest and most terrible scenes; and at this moment, while the conflict is at its closest grip, and we are waiting with strained expectancy, unwearied by delay and disappointment, to catch the first authentic tidings of decisive action from the Crimea, the Emperor Louis Napoleon is preparing to come among us with his wife, to cement by ties of personal courtesy and respect those bonds of common interest by which the governments and nations of France and England are united in purpose and action. Three months ago, when Christmas invited us to a compre- hensive retrospect of the year 1854, we referred to many of these topics, and found no reason for regretting ourselves the course we had taken throughout the year in regard to the quarrel between Russia and the West, nor for believing that the English nation regretted its decision. Nothing that has happened since, no- thing that we have learned since, induces us to modify either opinion. We also thought at that time, that we had in no sense failed in the objects for which the war was undertaken ; that no errors had been committed in the conduct of the war beyond such as are inevitable in extended and complicated operations, or were involved in the peculiar conditions under which we were acting. Any such opinions would have to be expressed now with considerable modifications; and as our views of the future were, three months ago, coloured by our judgment of the past, we must modify to the same extent our estimate of the issues to be now expected. Since Christmas, a Government has fallen before one of the most decisive explosions of public anger recorded in modern times. Individuals may have been un- justly visited with the results of a bad system, but the utter bad- ness of the system has been established beyond controversy ; while no conspicuous ability has shown itself capable of either construct- ing an effective system, or of working the bad system effectively by dint of genius and energy. On the other hand, whatever be the cause, the enemy has exhibited an energy, a resource, a skill in defence, for which we were not prepared to give the Russians credit, and which neither our Generals nor our Government seem at all prepared to encounter and overcome. The temper of the Eng- lish nation, acted on by their clear perception of these facts, has changed from exultation and triumph to something much more like a dogged sense of the necessity of persistence ; not at all to despair, but to a consciousness that their utmost powers are called into play, if this country is not to sink lower in power and pres- tige than any Englishman would willingly see her. Perhaps the
darkest period of public feeling was during the interregnum that succeeded the fall of Lord Aberdeen's Government, when the political notabilities seemed smitten with paralysis, and selfish ambition, clique prejudices, and all the faults of government by party, came out in singular rankness, and landed us at last in a position in which we have a temporary Government, formed of the
debris of that party which three years ago became entirely unen-
durable, even before its disruption, from want of capacity, of pur- pose, and of hold on either the practical wants or the ideas of both the masses of the people and the thinkers. Since that interregnum, the news from our army has been less and less discouraging; the resources of the country are beginning to tell somewhat in propor- tion to our expectation on the comfort and efficiency of our sol- diers; and whatever serious feeling of despondency remains arises from the growing doubt of the heads that direct that vast array of physical force and scientific skill. At home the indignation of the public has been glutted with political victims ; and, inferior as the new Government is in talent and high reputation, all men feel that Lord Palmerston must be supported, simply because he is filling a place which it has been found extremely difficult to find any one to ±111. He has only to display invention, firmness, and a determination to rely on his services to the country in her
need, rather than on great families, to commute his temporary power into a lasting tenure. We regret to say he has to do this ; for it is what ought to be no matter of doubt after two months' occupancy of the proud position, for which so much action of a dubious character has been expended, so many high considerations thrown aside, so many friends and rivals made tools or victims.
The position of the country just now is, however, far more really favourable to the vigorous prosecution of the war than it was last year. Nothing can be more detrimental to any permanent success against a great military power than ignorance of our own weak- ness and of his strength. The Reform-Club braggadocio was but a type of a state of feeling common throughout the country, from which neither ministers of state nor ploughmen were free, and which was not more a sin against good taste than it was a real source of danger. It was dangerous both in exposing us to defeat from the enemy and to disappointment at home, not unlikely to lead to a general reaction against the war, and sure to be laid hold of for their own purposes by the Peace-at-any-price party. The former peril we have encountered in the modified form of non-sue- cess to the height of our hopes; the latter, to the credit both of the constancy and the understanding of our people, has been safely passed. Sobered and awakened from dreams of easy and rapid tri- umph, the English nation has distinguished between official lapses and national weakness ; and, solely anxious to discover and amend the errors which have obstructed the success of its armies, has given no indication of faintheartedness in the prosecution of the war, or of reluctance to meet the emergency. This state of public feeling forms the most hopeful element in our prospects; and, if it do not evaporate in talking and pamphlet-writing, it will lead to results that will amply compensate for the humiliation and distress of the last four months.
It is in its influence upon public feeling that the beneficial effects of the Committee of Inquiry may be expected. Those ef- fects may be so useful as to fully counterbalance all the danger to which the Inquiry exposed our Executive vigour and our French alliance, but which dangers have been hitherto warded off, mainly through the alteration in the personnel of the Committee as ori- ginally proposed, through the enforced publicity of its pro- ceedings, and the emphatic warning given and heightened by the refusal of an important section of the Cabinet to sanction the Inquiry. But if the Inquiry is to do good, it can only be as the preliminary to action. The evils which its evi- dence lays daily before the public, exemplified in particular in- stances, have all been known to official men long ago. Ministers who have themselves filled offices in connexion with the War de- partments, Ministers and Members of Parliament who have sat upon Military Commissions, the public in general who have read frequent debates on these matters, have not allowed these evils to remain from ignorance, but from apathy. It is not the public who have stood in the way of their being reformed long ago ; it is the Ministers, who will not give up patronage, who will not offend political supporters ; it is Members of Parliament, who insist on sharing the spoils of office and patronage. So far as the public is to blame, it is for not perceiving that the efficiency of the public service is of the highest importance and the truest economy. Will the stronger light thrown by recent failures and recent dis- closures raise up a spirit in the nation strong enough to insist that the public services shall be professions in which work is done, and not titular occupations in which office-hours are kept and office- rules observed ? If the inquiry does this for us, we shall wil- lingly withdraw all refined and hypothetical objections to its constitution and functions. At present we have seen no symp- toms that encourage us to expect from the present Government any thorough reform of the system. When we do see them, we shall be among the first to welcome them.
The reform of all branches of our military and of many of our civil services, is equally a necessity whether the war with Russia come to a speedy termination or not. The exposure of our weak- ness has been complete; all Europe knows it : unless the remedy be as complete and as public, our prestige—and that means our power to enforce our rights without going to war—is irreparably damaged. Still, no sane man would advocate a continuance of the war merely to stimulate the country to increased attention to its military establishments. That would be indeed a putting of the
cart before the horse. It may, however, tend to console us, in case the Vienna Conference fail to procure peace for Europe, that continued war will have the effect of teaching us practically what is required to make our establishments perfect, and to enforce publioattention to carrying out the lesson. Our own opinion is that diplomaoywill hard- ly succeed at present in finding the solution that arms have hitherto failed to disclose. It is not on newspaper paragraphs of the most doubtful authority that we found our anticipations of the failure of the pending negotiations, but on the sure ground of a knowledge of the interests andpassions of the contending nations. The Conference will not break off on the "third point" because Lord John Russell and M. Drouyn de Lhuys are not skilled negotiators, but because in the nature of things the demands we have to make of Russia can- not be reconciled with her assumed position in Europe, and we have not yet lowered that position down to our demands. Russia will not consent to make concessions which we have not shown ourselves strong enough to wring from her. The war will go on ; and we trust that our statesmen are not such fools as to have entered upon this Conference without binding Austria not to recede from the alliance on any such ground as that Russia has conceded all she asks, and only refuses to concede demands which she cannot join in demanding. Such a blunder would be impos- sible in an unpaid attaché.
We may therefore expect, that when Louis Napoleon enters the gates of Windsor Castle as the guest of our Sovereign, it will be as the member of a fourfold alliance actively engaged in war with Russia. Sardinia has set an example to the minor states of Europe, which shows that free institutions and a spirited foreign policy are naturally connected. Wherever real freedom, real civilization is strong enough to express itself, there we may fairly look for allies in such a cause against such a foe. What Prussia will eventually do, we do not profess to foresee. Her destiny will of course depend upon her action ; and it is for her statesmen and thinkers to settle the question with the besotted faction that hems round the throne, and prevents the popular will from acting on the Sovereign, who is not a bad man but only a weak king. For England,. Name, and Austria, they will commence the final stage of the drama with purposes cleared at last from all hesitation and all doubt This service the Conference will have performed.. What indefinite re-. sults may accrue from their alliance for the cause of liberty and freedom of thought throughout Europe, for the reconstitution of effective barriers against Russian aggression, for the redistribution of the territories of Europe—it would be premature to guess. But all calculation must be set at nought, all reason confounded, if such Powers cannot; in a righteous and unselfish cause, carry their purposes into execution. The Easter that sees• this alliance of interest and sympathy ripen into an alliance of action,. will be memorable among the sacred anniversaries of a far distant future rejoicing in its results.
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