PEACE 'UPON MONGREL PRINCIPLES.
Ashton, Somerset, 6th February 1856.
SDI—Your remarks upon "The Promised Peace" have awakened an echo in many hearts hitherto silent under the pressure of a nameless dis- content. " We are to have a peace such as the world has never yet wit- nessed,"*—a hollow peace, a peace of courtesy, a peace of quirks and quibbles, a peace of self-interest, a cotton-spinner's peace. " It must be an honourable peace," says Lord Clarendon ; "but," adds his Lordship with self-imposed and delusive candour, " by that I mean a peace honourable to both parties : a peace degrading to Russia would not be a safepeace." There is a hollow ring here. A safe peace "—what is that ? •We are to consult Russia's honour, lest she break out again : that can be the only meaning. Did all our previous polite, consideration for Russia prevent her occupying Wallachia with an army in defiance of treaties ? Oh, -but then-the thought we never would really go to war: she knows better now. Besides, she never dreamed we would make common cause with France. • Welly then, our safeguard now is in our proved alacrity to fight when' required, and our luck in having France with us. If so, wherefore so oonsiderate of Russia's " honour " ? Or is the French alliance breaking up, our luck forsaking us, and nothing left but our alacrity ? If that is the case, is it fear that prompts us to civility ? Certainly not ; it is something else. Let us understand the matter.
We are not fighting Russia on a point of honour, but on a point of honesty—a simple question of metrai and tuum. If it were Bill Sykes, with crape over his face and a dark lantern marauding by night, or Johnnie Armstrong making a hardy foray by day, we should laang the one and quarter the other, .,(or impose the humiliating alternative of making him espouse our eldest =marriageable daughter) ; but if the marauder is a Bomeaoff, we mustiety, him compliments and let him off cheap, lest a worse thing be al us, 'A e do- this in the sacred name of "honour." This " honour " is a strange and subtile thing. It stalks before us in spectral majesty; and as we gaze, and spell-bound follow whither it beckons, the doubt appals ye, whether, coming in such a guise, it can be a real invitation to good, or some infernal illusion abusing us to damn us. In such sad ex- tremity,, to what test shall we have recourse ? To that something which is lodged in the heart and conscience of all men. To this make we our appeal at this moment ; and let Englishmen say whether they feel satisfied with those assurances of the Foreign Minister. In their hearts they will doubt : they do, they must. But they are getting gradually to distrust their natural impulses, and suffer themselves to be "talked over." In a great crisis like the present, let us not be cajoled by fine words. Honour is one of these, but let us see if we know what it is. You yew- self, Sir, have said within the last two years,t that truth was nearly ex- tinct amongst us ; and the astounding assertion passed without comment. If we have lost the habit of truth, we may well doubt if we still retain a right understanding of Honour. I believe, in fact.) that she has changed her character with the times. No longer sufficient m 'herself, she has made a compact with Expediency. The two consort together in public, dress well, talk big, and keep a bank-account. Separate, . they are nothing ; united, all men pay them court. This unholy alliance is one of the cankers of the long peace, The War was beginning to dissolve it : it is now to be re. cemented.
We were in ridiculous ecstasies the• other day about our French alliance. It was not only a present help in time of trouble, but, dearer far, a pleasant
prospect of profit when the good times should come again and all would be at leisure to attend to the one thing needful. Where is the phantom flitting to ? The bond was interest, and it will break. The genius of the two peoples are dissimilar ; and, in spite of the bathos of the journals, they cherish a healthy feeling of mutual contempt. This is not the worst feature of the times ; but one of the worst is the reception that has been given to Tennyson's Maud. With two or three bright exceptions, (the Spec- tator one of them,) the guides of public opinion (both War and Peace
i
men) have united in deriding in this poem the views and opinions of the greatest genius of the day,—a man who is the equal of our states- men in intellect, their aupenor in depth of thought, in insight, in favour of evoking all the latent impulses and longings of humanity. No throwing up of caps about the French alliance in Maud ! The exultation there is of a different temper. And so we have this result. " The land that had loot for a little its lust of gold" is fi?st turning to its vomit gain. It had just begun to recognize the necessity of being purged, when it desires
to be spared any further application of the remedy. Only now let us have peace, a safe peace ; we will take care not to be so caught again." This is not the way cures are effected in the body politic. Through toil and suffering is the appointed way to a stable and a righteous prosperi.V. The Lord turned the captivity of Job, and restored him twofold what he had before ; but not until he, "the perfect and upright man," had abhorred himself and repented in dust and ashes. Another delusion is, that we want peace in order to attend to several re- forms : as if we had not had opportunity any time these forty years to attend to them—these forty years, which have witnessed the growth of our Poor-law, our Factory, our Railway, and several other model systems, but must choose the present time, when we are listed and embattled against the arch-enemy of all progress, all reform, religious, social, and political, to make up our
knpetty reckoning of faults and failings at home. Enough of them, God ows. Too much and too long has England winked at the oppression and ignorance and darkness of her lower orders—too long. abetted the cozening practices and wadi struggles of all classes in their battle of life. We have not thought of these things when we ought; let us not falsely parade them now, when we are called to sterner duties in another quarter. Ci- vility to a foe in order to secure safety to ourselves, is a hybrid principle of action, for which we want a name ; it is the first Offspring of the union be- tween Honour and Expediency. Your obedient servant, H. The words that our correspondent here quotes in Italics, were not our own, but part of.a statement by our able Ministerial contemporary the Examiner.—En. + Article on Indian affairs--Debts of Indian Civil Servants : I have not the date.
Previous page
