TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE REFUGEES AND THE GOVERNMENT.
Turi asylum open in this country, both by law and practice, to po- litical exiles of every tone of opinion, is too honourable to Eng- land, too consonant to the best sympathies of a refined age, and too valuable as a means of mitigating the exasperation of civil conflicts abroad, not to be guarded with that jealousy which would resent equally its violation and its abuse. The views and wishes of English statesmen in regard to it differ, we presume to think with scarcely an exception, only as they are led by temper or party connexion to fear most one or the other of these excesses. It is not to be supposed that any Englishman eminent enough to be called to the councils of his Sovereign has any wish with respect to it, but so to preserve the right and the practice as to combine perfect security for the exiles with a due regard to the interests of his own country, to the honour of the Crown and the sympathies of the people, and with a just attention to the claims of other na- tions and the maintenance of those friendly terms of intercourse with foreign governments upon which the peace of Europe in these days mainly depends. Lord Lyndhurst's clear exposition of the law a few weeks since, concurred in by the other Law Lords, and followed by the candid statement of the Prime Minister, was, we think, eminently calculated to set at rest all doubts upon this matter, and at once to allay the resentment of Austria and the Absolutist governments, and to assure the refugees and their friends of the perfect safety with which they might continue to reside in England, on the simple condition of obeying her laws, and confining their operations against the govern- ments of their own countries to argument and persuasion. Those whose passions are too exasperated, whose ambitions are too high, to submit to this condition, are not men whom our laws ought to protect, however our sympathies may be engaged in favour of the cause they have undertaken. If we choose to aid and abet the armed enemies of a foreign government, it would be more manly and more honourable to do it by declaring open war against the governments, than by allowing our constitution to be turned into a platform whence they can be assailed. We are bound to choose between peace and war, between strict neutrality and open interference ; and if we shrink from the responsibility and fear the consequences of the latter, it would be the meanest policy, and in the end the most dangerous, to fail to perform the conditions implied in the former. Indeed, we should not long be left free to pursue such a course, and Absolutist governments would certainly have one justification the more for regarding Constitutional coun- tries as their natural enemies, and for uniting to exterminate them as nests of piracy and rebellion. The issue of such a contest might indeed be doubtful, but no wise man, no humane man, no man who regards with hope and sympathy the peaceful progress of his race, would be desirous of provoking it, or look with any other feelings than those of horror and dismay on tendencies that threatened to render such a contest inevitable.
There are three parties interested in the mode in which the right of asylum is regulated,—the British nation, the foreign govern- ments, and the refugees themselves. Each of these parties has a right, a duty, and an interest at stake. It is both the right and the interest of the foreign government to protect itself against a renewal of hostile attempts on the part of its political refugees ; its business with them ends there, and it is both its duty and in- terest to forego any mere vengeance for the past. It is the duty and interest of the British Government to see that its protection be not turned into a means of offence against a government with which it is at peace and professes to be on friendly terms. We will not pretend to define the duty of the refugees; because to men inflamed by passion, ambition, and defeat, resentments, desires, and hopes, often put on the solemn and inviting aspect of duties. But it is plainly their policy so to conduct themselves as not to destroy the very asylum in which they are sheltered, and force the civilized world to the reluctant conviction that a privilege maintained in the interests of humanity must be sacrificed in particular cases to those very interests. We believe, and have no reluctance to assert, that a great nation has duties towards humanity which would in certain imaginable and not imaginary oases fully justify her in declaring war in behalf of an oppressed population. We are not sure that the foul treatment of Hun- gary and Italy is not a case that comes within this category. But we think that a nation must be the judge for herself whe- ther-she will take up arms for liberty, and risk her blood, her treasure, and even her national existence, for a people which has no claims but upon her sympathy, her hatred of oppres- sion and wrong. Sure we are, that if she declines a noble contest from prudential considerations, and prefers the friend- ship of the oppressor to the gratitude of the oppressed, she is bound to stick to her bargain, and not to clasp the hand of the tyrant while she winks approval on his assassin or supplies arms to the rebel. Frankness, openness, and plain speaking, are as essential to a nation that would be noble, as they are to a single man; and we have no words to express our contempt for those po- liticians who are loudest in denouncing the folly and wickedness of war, and in sneering at the natural desire of their own country- men to be placed in a position of ample security against hostile attempts, while they are the abettors and defenders of men whose whole life is one earnest unceasing passion for renewing an armed contest in which they have been thoroughly beaten, and which they could only have a chance of succeeding in, should it be renewed,
by dragging this country along with them towards an issue the nature of which no one can foresee, though h child may tell that the struggle would be more terrible than any that Europe has yet beheld, and that the first to cry out about its expense and ruinous consequences would be the very persons who are now bullying the Home Secretary for the performance of the duties of his office. For the plain question at issue is, not whether M. Kossuth has broken the law of England, but whether the Home Secretary is bound to take means to discover this. It cannot be denied that there is prima. facie evidence against him. His whole career since he was liberated from Turkey by Lord Palmerston's mediation is prim facie evidence of an intention to renew the contest in Hun- gary or Italy on the first favourable opportunity. Even in the letter to Lord Dudley Stuart,* in which he denies his complicity with the Hales, he avows this determination as energetically as ever. A man who avows that the one object of his life is to do what if it were done in this realm would be a violation of the law, and a peculiar crime under M. Kossuth's circumstances, is a fit object for watchfulness on the part of the Police; a process, be it remarked, totally. distinct from the espionage of a despotic government, and one of the ordinary means of preventing breaches of law, which Government is not justified in omitting. It may be said that such avowals are not crimes against the laws of England; that Kossuth denies having stores of arms in England; and that English Police are not to be employed in watch- ing "suspects" for the Austrian Government. This is, we believe, the precise form the defence of Kossuth and the charge against the Home Secretary takes, when stripped of abuse and declamatory verbiage. Avowals of intended hostility to Austria are certainly not in themselves crimes against England ; but when the man who makes them is resident in England and under the protection of English laws, they become symptoms of a disposition to break the laws which forbid a private Englishman from making war- like preparations against a foreign country, and which apply to the foreigner resident here. As to Kossuth's denial, that must pass as a prisoner's "Not guilty "—the question the Go- vernment i vernment has to investigate is the truth of that denial ; and it would be simple folly to suppose that so eminently subtile a person as Kossuth would not find excuse to his conscience and to his fol- lowers for putting a false plea on record in such a case. We answer to the third branch of the charge against Lord Palmerston, that the English Police are to be employed in preventing breaches of the law, whether those breaches affect simply metropolitan regula- tions or whether they happen to reach in their issues as far as Vienna. English laws are not to be broken in London because to maintain them would gratify the Austrian Government ; and if the service of the London Police be needed to dog the steps of men meditating or suspected of meditating a crime, it is mere childish quarrelling with a name to denounce this as Austrian espi- onage. No doubt, to be under surveillance, to know that every action and every word is watched and reported to the authorities, is unpleasant and galling. We all know what animals dislike and protest against the tyranny of the small-tooth comb—our
friend Punch only last week illustrated this characteristic in a Bill Sykes, who exclaims, on seeing his own portrait daguerreo- typed in the Hue and Cry, "Well, now, that's what I call horrid mean !" A gentleman of sensibility naturally enough shrinks from contact with the Police in any shape but that of prosecutor. But to be consistent, persons of sensibility should refrain from an- nouncing designs which naturally attract the attention of the Police and those who employ them; and we are quite sure that M. Kossuth has only his own intemperate language, his ostentation of military leadership, to thank for any annoyance he may have received. Lord Palmerston has avowed that the evidence is in- sufficient to reach Kossuth ; but what has M.Kossuth to com- plain of ? Certainly not any proceedings on the part of the Government, unless he and his friends consider it tyrannical in a government to investigate in open court a case affecting Kossuth without arresting his person. Mr. Hale may think it hard that his employment should be interrupted because of his supposed connexion with Kossuth, and that an old act of Parlia- ment should be taken up against him ; but, beyond the watching, Kossuth himself has absolutely no case against the Government. He may complain that the Times newspaper assumed the case against him, and made an elaborate statement which rested on a slight foundation ; but he has his remedy against the Times for de- famation, if he has been defamed by that journal. To presume the responsibility of the Government for a leading article in the Times is quite a new doctrine in England, however it may suit the regime of France; and it would lead to strange results.
The result of Lord Palmerston's proceedings must be upon the whole for good. They will prove to foreign governments that English statesmen are not fomenters of clandestine preparations for insurrection, and to refugees that their conduct is watched while their persons are protected. They will prove too, we ven- ture to predict; how exaggerated are the alarms on the Continent of the power of refugees in England to make formidable prepara- tions ; while as M. Kossuth has come out of the investigation un- scathed, it will be to him a great triumph very cheaply purchased.
• Dated 15th April, and read by Lord Dudley Stuart in the House of Commons.
Kossuth's letter contains these avowals " I desire explicitly to be under- stood, that I do not disavow my hostility to the oppressors of my country, but rather avow openly my determination to free my country from them." . . . . "As it is not contrary to honour and morality to have stores of war materials, to be used when re- quired in the service of my country, I declare that such I have; but I have them in such countries where it is lawful for me to have them, even with those intentions which I openly avow,"
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