TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE "NEW ERA" IN FOREIGN POLICY AND ITS FRUITS.
WE should always be sorry to close our eyes to facts, however disagreeable ; and we have no intention of concealing from ourselves the plain fact that political circum- stance and the mood of the hour are now playing very decidedly into Mr. Cobden's hands. His favourite formula of "no foreign politics for England " is being practically adopted by most politicians—by many who would be scarcely loth even to profess it as a creed ; and if we should have during the next ten years no wiser statesmen than we have had during the last ten, Mr. Cobden may yet live to see the time when people will be as little ashamed of his maxim that our ambassadors should be "the commercial travellers" of England, as they now are of its less vulgar equivalent—" no foreign politics." Those who discredit and disgrace a nobler creed are responsible for the reaction which inclines men to follow Mr. Cobden into a theory of international behaviour—we cannot call it duty—so mean and selfish that it could not be disgraced. The fact, however, cannot be denied that Mr. Cobden's principles have gained a great step in English estimation in consequence of the sudden cloud which has descended on the representatives of a " spirited foreign policy." The great register of English opinion has already openly declared for them. It has proclaimed in article after article that a "new era" has begun, in which England is to hold her tongue, acquiesce in everything, however flagrant and .shameful, that happens abroad, unless it touches her own interests, and as a proof of her sincerity, is not only to look on smiling while Denmark is ground to powder, but openly to proclaim her intention to withdraw all resistance to the slave-trade, and to tolerate it calmly for the future. Public opinion, says the Times, has declared decisively " that we are neither to fight nor threaten except when our interests are immediately con- cerned . . . . In this respect we view the debate of last week as the commencement of a new era. Public opinion has pronounced itself decisively, and we summon all statesmen who would hold a permanent place in the councils of their country to mark and to obey it." And again within two days the same great interpreter of the majority of Englishmen took the opportunity of the conversation in the House of Commons concerning Brazil, to clinch the general maxim that we must " reform the policy of the Foreign Office in accord- ance with the feelings of the times in which we live," by a forcible practical illustration. The African squadron for putting down the slave-trade, it said, is the greatest possible transgression of the newly-received theory. Counting up, it remarks, the expense of the squadron to English taxpayers, with the fevers and other sufferings of its crews, and the much greater sensitiveness of the white race to " sufferings which are the daily lot of a poor savage, to whom they appear as the ordinary destiny of humanity," remembering, too, " that we are not answerable for the Negro, while the Government is deeply responsible for the fate of every subject of the Queen entrusted to its charge,"—counting and considering these things, it openly calls upon the nation to take care "that the question of the prevention of slavery may not escape notice as a prominent part of the present system of intermeddling in the affairs of foreign nations." When Mr. Cobden reads this noble exposition of the future English foreign policy, we are sure that he will begin to take in the Times again. Even he could not have put the matter more broadly, and we .doubt whether he would have put it so courageously. That touch of infinite contempt for " the sufferings which are the daily lot of a poor savage, to whom they appear as the ordinary destiny of humanity,"—that significant valuation of a few English deaths from yellow fever and a few annual pence out of the taxpayers' pockets as evils so great as to transcend absolutely and enormously that of the degradation of a whole race and the barbarism of a vast continent, are developments so in- structive of the true moral logic of Mr. Cobden's policy, that we feel-sure that astute tactician wouldnever have brought them forward. But the Timis, as usual not caring for the votes of fastidious men, but wishing to reap the full advantage of ap- pealing straight to the coarse and selfish English common sense, has perceived that this is the true moral inference involved. If we are to present an apathetic front to the sufferings and wrongs of foreign races and nations, we must accustom ourselves at once to feel that the suffering of one Englishman will always out- weigh in our moral scales the sufferings of any number of foreigners. We must learn at once to be wrapped up in our- selves ; we must, as Dr. Newman says, say " what is required by our position ;" we must learn to disbelieve if we can that "the very negro whom we tread upon, in corporal anguish feels a pang as great as when a Saxon dies ;" we must, in short, feel and think selfishly, and be selfish to our heart's core, if we are to ensure a safe and consistent policy of selfish isolation and "no foreign politics." As the man who makes up his mind to push his own interest in the world is obliged in self-defence and consistency to believe from the bottom of his heart that his own interests have an infinitely higher and deeper claim on him than any other person's in the whole world, so if we are to inaugurate " the new era " in earnest, we must prepare for it by depreciating the sufferings of others, thinking lightly of their wrongs, and finding out reasons why we should not permit them to ruffie our enjoyments.
Moreover, it is quite consistent with, nay, almost de-, manded by, the same principle, that we should be aggressive in the East while isolating ourselves in the West; and here we think the Times is more consistent than Mr.
Cobden. The same policy which stands aloof where alli- ances would involve something of disinterestedness and self- sacrifice, will properly encroach and threaten where only weak and yielding Japanese or Chinese are concerned. When we repudiate once for all the maxim parcere subjectis debellare superbos, it is likely enough that we shall adopt in its place the counsel to be tender to the haughty, and to press with all our armaments upon the oppressed. The two principles hang- perfectly together. And before long we have no doubt that Mr. Cobden will be convinced by his new allies how right. and natural it is that the English selfishness which takes the form of cold indifference in three continents should take that- of haughty arrogance in the fourth. The " commercial travellers" will be right in bullying where they can get a.
larger custom by bullying than by servility. After we have broken off our international ties with Europe and America, and spurned contemptuously the suffering barbarians of Africa, it will be but natural to recoup ourselves by a showy and dictatorial policy in Asia for the humiliations of isolation. In proportion as We shrink in the West, we shall desire to puff ourselves up in the East. As we lose deference here among our equals, we shall swell with ostentation there among our inferiors.
Nor is this the worst. It is quite impossible that a foreign policy built upon selfishness can help reacting on domestic policy. " Am I my brother's keeper ?" was not originallythe language of a wise foreign policy, but of an unhappy as well as guilty domestic policy ; and those who adopt it in the former capacity can hardly fail to see it resume something of its original significance. Who that has eagerly advocated a selfish and self-occupied policy for England can upbraid a class for standing aloof in precisely the same manner from the life of the nation, and while consulting for its own benefit in the narrower sense, ignoring or even superciliously discrediting the notion of duty towards other classes ? Cannot we see this leaven already beginning to work on the class which we should suppose as yet the least likely to be affected by it, in such letters as those from Mr. R. Coningsby which have been paraded in the Times The principle of those letters is, for the working class, exactly the principle which Mr. Cobden wishes to see applied to the international policy of England, and whioh Cain wished to see applied to the fraternal policy of fami- lies. Mr. Coningsby put forward an ostentatious desire to stand aloof from the political privileges of the nation as advan- tages scarcely deserving to be weighed in the scale against the acquisition of private wealth, knowledge, and . hide- peedence by the working class—precisely the view of English foreign policy which Mr. Cobden wishes to force on the nation. And if this disposition should spread in the working class, we believe it will be the most certain preparation for a vulgar and tyrannical use of the political ad- vantages of numbers, whenever the great working class doei at last seize the reins of power ;—just as Mr. Cobden's selfish " stand aloof" policy for England in Europe tends more than any other to foster the unscrupulousness with which the com- mercial classes are disposed to press the power of England in China and Japan where the trade feeling is (perhaps prn. dently, in its own narrow sense of the word " prudent") as aggressive as it is meek and abject at home in the presence of great Powers like Germany or France. We are well aware that Mr. Cobden andhisparty disavow strenuously theselatter views for themselves, and it is to their moral credit that they do so, but it is not to the credit of their logic. The only root of their doctrine of natural isolation is self-interest, and this Mr. Cob- den never denies. Nor will the vulgarer disciples of the commer- cial school fail to see that if self-interest warrants us in decliu- lug all obligations to the cause of justice in Europe, and in looking on quietly at a crime we have the power to prevent, it will equally warrant us in declining all obligations to the came of justice in China or Japan, and extorting at the point of.the bayonet bargains which we have the power to enforce. Your selfish principle is a double-edged sword which cuts both ways. If it warrants you in making a duty of leaving suffering friends in the lurch for fear of consequences, it will equally warrant you in making a duty of squeezing the best possible terms out of weak foes when there is no fear of consequences. The working class will not be slow to learn the lesson. They are catching the idea already of strengthen- ing themselves in cold indifference to the other elements of the nation to which they belong. And when the hour strikes they may apply the selfish principle which now teaches such gentlemen as Mr. R. Coningsby frigid neutrality, in the other direction, and make it teach theta selfish democratic despot- ism. There is no principle which corrupts the life of the nation more deeply than that of cynical isolation. The "new era" in our foreign policy, if it is to come at all, really means this,—that England, being a rich, great, and strong nation, ought to act precisely as she would if she were a poor, small, and weak nation,—namely, decline all great national enterprises, keep clear of all engagements for fear of giving offence, and sacrifice once for all what has hitherto been thought the great privilege of international weight, influence, and justice. If the new policy means anything it must mean that, though individual wealth and power are great gifts and greater trusts, national wealth and power are to be carefully wrapped in a napkin and buried in the earth, for the very reason that, if used, they would entail great obligations. It must mean that national pride is a mistake or a sin, since a great nation ought to model its policy precisely as flit were a small one. It must mean that the imaginative pleasure which even the humblest citizen of a great nation takes in feeling that he has a share in its career and belongs to its history, is justifiable only if its career is ignoble and its history a blank. In short, it must mean,—nay, it ostentatiously does mean,—that the collective life of a nation is a delusion, and that it should pride itself only on the industry of the swarms which constitute it, and the honey which they manage to hive. This is the meaning of the " new era of our foreign policy," and it might be more clearly described as the era of privileges wasted and trusts betrayed—of the paralysis of the national conscience, and the idolatry of material gain. ,
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