FOREIGN POLICY.

Timm are some aspects of our foreign policy in Europe which illustrate forcibly the transitional condition of English policy generally. Just as in home affairs we are partly under the dominion of a special governing clique, but expanding day by day to a larger type of government, so, in foreign, we are partly tied and. bound by old-standing diplomatic necessities and obligations, but gradually adopting a policy more national, more consonant with our institutions. In this class of questions the pane senti- mut which, in the last resort, governs all results, acts under cir- cumstances of difficulty and danger, because it generally acts in ignorance of facts. A few days ago the leading journal de- nounced the crazy school which objects to secret diplomacy. Per- haps the vagaries of those who are identified with movements re- lating to the point justify, in some measure, the taunt. But it would be difficult for any reasonable person to deny these two asser- tions, that a public which, though uninformed, is the real arbiter in cases of difficulty, does not enjoy very exalted opportunity of judging rightly and comprehensively ; and that after the prece- dent of the Persian war, it is clear that the relation of the public and Parliament to the executive powers of the Crown as to war,

and diplomacy, require examination and revision. If hostilities can be begun and finished without any communication to Parliament, which, as Lord Derby's Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs has pointedly told the House was the case with the Persian war, our constitutional securities against diplomatic malversation are evidently not so strong as they might 15e. But such strange doctrine is being put forth now-a-days by even eminent Liberals upon the subject of Ministerial responsibility, that we are somewhat at a loss how to reconcile these novelties with old Parliamentary and, constitutional theories. We were lately told by one of the most distinguished Members of the House, that the grand necessity for the Indian Secretary of State was, that he should be absolutely free to initiate and carry out all measures : and that only so could he be brought well to 'book by the House after the event. By parity of reasoning, we suppose, the Crown or the Cabinet is to be perfectly free to declare and finish all wars in order to be the more thoroughly accountable and responsible. But to any person who reflects for a moment seriously upon the conditions under which men and Parliaments work, it will appear the most hopeless absurdity to identify, as is thus suggested, Ministerial responsibility with the reversal of accomplished facts.

Nothing is more certain than that the English people will not submit for ever to a secret stewardship of their international estate : a stewardship in which the books are not constantly open for the inspection of trustworthy auditors. Every day the contact of the country with foreign nations becomes closer and closer, and every day the radical antagonism between the princi- ples which govern our domestic polity, and those upon which the

Erpart of Europe is administered, becomes a plainer danger. every day it becomes more evident that the course of events will oblige English statesmen, for the simple purpose of national !eV-preservation, to identify their foreign policy more closely with our domestic principles, on pain of forfeiting our position in the world.

In the mean time, the exigencies and past history of certain questions render it inevitable that English policy should wear an a earance of equivocation that makes it gall and wormwood e to the absolutist and democratic fanatics of Europe. The most distinguishing sign of this equivocation is our relation to Austria. The necessity of self-preservation makes that power the firm opponent of Russian schemes against Turkey, and the fixed policy of England in the same direction thus throws together two empires whose future co-existence' as European states, may be almost said to be an impossibility. The position thus occupied by

England is curious. In order to sever Europe fkorii Russia she has to lean- for the moment upon Austria. But the eventual duties of England in Europe may not improbably oblige her to be the

most determined enemy of that very power. Nobody can imagine how the Italian difficulties can eventually be settled without a

war, in which Austria will play towards Italy, as indeed she al- ready does, far more than the part which Russia plays towards Turkey. In those interests of general freedom for which alone, in spite of the phrases of our Foreign Secretaries and diplo-

matists, we ever really draw the sword in Europe, we may be forced, at no distant time, to rend to pieces the empire, with

which those very interests oblige us, for the moment, to cooperate. While Russia and France are, to all appearance, engaged in carry- ine. out in Turkey the old Russian policy of dissolving her ex-

istence under the plea of a Protectorate, England is steady to the

faith of treaties—steady to the perception of the truth, that not Greek or Christian populations, but Russian absolutism will profit by the dissolution of that empire ; steady, therefore, to the sub-

stantial future interests of European liberty. It is easy to pre_ sent such cases as those of the Principalities and Montenegro

under the light of a factitious sentiment. But when the French and Russian despotisms are supposed to be the patrons of large and liberal principles of self-government, and England of anti- quated despotism, it is reasonable to suppose that some little

mistake is being made. We are fully aware that there have been cases during the last fifty years when the interests of freedom

have been deliberately and wantonly sacrificed by English Govern- ments. But, in upholding the fabric of the Turkish empire against the insidious attacks of a Franco-Russian protectorate, we firmly believe that England is carrying out the principle of the war with Russia, which the proclamation of March 1854 declared to be undertaken against a power whose growth, in its present

shape, is dangerous to the liberties of mankind. And we shall remain convinced of this truth until the dissolution of Turkey can be effected without a period of convulsion and anarchy, in which Russian troops would inevitably be called in to "save." a society which, as is not uncommon with such saviours, they would as inevitably keep in their own pockets.

In the mean time, though the eccentricities of French policy have forced England of late into a close communion with Austria, the world receives satisfactory assurances that that communion cannot, from the nature of the ease, be developed to the permanent prejudice of our captainship in the cause of European liberties and right. Naples has been obliged to understand that our obli- gations towards Sardinia, in such questions as those raised by the Cagliari arc peremptory, and do not admit of qualification. The sur- render of the Cagliari and her Sardinian crew to England, though not as soothing to the self-love of the Sardinian Government, as it would have been to receive the vessel directly from Naples, is perhaps more satisfactory to its policy. It is appropriate and de- sirable that England should thus stand forth to the world as the special agent and champion of the brave little constitutional king- dom, which will certainly never be abandoned in a rightful struggle with any antagonist. Nothing is more important, how- ever, than that Sardinia should correct the serious mistake in

which her diplomacy appears likely to fall, of siding with any

designs of any power which stands in an apparent antagonism, for the time being, to Austria. There may be cases, and we be- lieve that of the Turkish empire is one, in which the particular contention and purpose imposed on Austria by her necessities, are far more favourable to the eventual cause of European freedom than the Franco-Russian blunders or designs, which Sardinia has been seduced, according to current statements, into supporting by her vote at the Paris congress. To enter into such a view re- quires some fortitude and patience, some power of looking be- neath the surface of events to the underlying principles. But it must be at least intelligible to Sardinia, that to throw in her lot generally with the diplomacy of England, is to acquire a title to the support of a nation far more enduringly reliable for her pur- pose than the shifty caprices of a despotic power, which gives its support only to gratify animosities or make political capital. We feel strongly that there is much in the utterances and prac- tices of our diplomacy to vex and deeply wound those who, like ourselves, ardently sympathize with the cause of "civil and re- ligious liberty all over the world." Therefore, we deem it all the more important to console them by the emphatic assertion of our fixed faith that this country cannot, by any ingenuity of courts or diplomatists, escape eventually from the necessity of championing, in all cases of specific difficulty and quarrel, that great and sacred cause. It is the very law of our national being to do so. We can no more deny it in the long run than the graminivorons animal can become carnivorous. We do not fail to

perceive that until these questions have ripened to a point at which public opinion will bring itself to bear more steadily, and in a more organized form upon the acts of a Minister, he may be able to do much that is hateful to the sentiments of the country, and which will be undone, when it comes to the light. It is ne therefore, to watch the course of diplomatic events with the greatest vigilance, and to supplement by the teaching of journals and active public inquiry the notorious deficiency or lagULt

carelessness of the official class. But we would have Enghsnmon do this with the simplicity and quietness which belong to the faith to which we have given expression : not with the mixture of excitement and paradox of which Mr. D. Ilrquluirt is the pain- ful type, and against which_ his mania should be the standing warning.