INTERVENTION IN SPAIN.
IS there any possibility, bare possibility, that after Parliament has been prorogued, and resistance is impossible for six months, Her Majesty's Government intend to intervene or sanction an intervention in the internal affairs of Spain We should have said that, with Lord Derby at the Foreign Office, such a proceeding was impossible, but this Government has done so many unexpected things, that it becomes very diffi- cult to predict, or even imagine its action, more especially when, to use a phrase first circulated by Lord Derby, action can be made to look very vigorous, and yet as its worst result, to involve only a "war with limited liability." When a Tory Ministry begins a Session by exempting a State Church from lay control, and ends a Session by deliberately placing Bishops above the law, alraost anything may happen, and a good many indications help to suggest that something is going to happen in Spain. Mr. Disraeli's speech at the Mansion House attracted no attention, but its single important sentence, the one on foreign politics, may have been seriously intended,—and if so, there is a large probability that it referred to Spain. Mr. Disraeli said:—" In saying this I do not wish you for a moment to suppose that we shall content ourselves on every occasion by merely offering empty words to those who seek to be allies and court our friendship. We do not for a moment lay down the principle that we are not responsible to the countries of Europe on many of the questions which may arise, and which may affect the fortunes of the world ; but we believe that, in the present condition of affairs, the influence of England may be exercised, and exercised with great effect, not only to preserve peace, but to assist, by our sympathy and by our counsels, States and countries now distracted and distressed in re- suming a position worthier of their former fame and for- tunes, and may reconcile interests which, now discordant and distressful, seem to be exhausting the energies of some of the fairest countries in the world." That phrase is very enigmatical, if we persist in supposing that it was intended to be an enigma ; but if it was not, if Mr. Disraeli knew that nothing would conceal his intention like an open state- ment of it, then it becomes clear enough, and it means that, if the Spanish Government should ask assistance, assistance will be rendered, and that not in words alone. We do not expect anybody to believe it, and do not believe it ourselves, but that is one clear interpretation of the speech, and is not contradicted by Lord Derby's guarded reply on the 23rd to Earl Russell's guarded demand for information as to the treatment of the Carlists by France. The old Whig leader hears a good deal of what is going on, and he evidently believed that France was assisting the Carlists, and Lord Derby as evidently believed it too, and was very much inclined to hint that that kind of thing could not go on for ever. The irritatior. in Madrid against France is also very high ; strong remonstrances have been addressed to Paris, and the journals have been instructed to say that if France will aid the insurrection, and so keep open a perpetual sore in Spain, Spain will forget her Latin sympathies, and seek in other countries the friendly alliance she has a right to expect from her nearest neighbour. Finally, it is evident that the German Government is by no means dis- inclined either to take a very decisive attitude in regard to Spanish affairs, or, at all events, to be believed by the world to be ready to take one. Don Carlos, to begin with, has committed Iiiragelf to the support of the extreme Ultramontane party, that party which is sometimes more Romanist than Rome—where the ruling prelates are believed to favour the Alphorumists rather than the Carlists—and Prince Bismarck is waging in every country a deadly war with the influence of that party, which, as he believes, will never rest until the ascendancy of Germany is broken down. The execution of Captain Schmidt—an act which, if an Englishman had' been the victim, would have roused the whole country to protest—has greatly and justly irritated Germans, and has enabled the Government to do as thing it greatly longs to do,—to show to its subjects the value, the direct and world-wide value, of the new Imperial power to them. And above all, no German Emperor who retains Alsace and Lorraine can be indifferent to what passes in Spain, or afford to neglect any chance of ringing-in France with a chain of hostile armies. A Government of Spain which was for any reason as closely allied to that of Germany as the Government of Italy was in 1866 would be worth a new emps d'armie to Von Moltke, even if it never moved a ship or sent a soldier north of the Pyrenees. It would always have to be watched, and watching an army placed as that of Spain might be means the absorption of 70,000 French troops in the ex- treme South of her territory,—that is, 500 miles at least from the central scene of action. The French troops could not be attacked, but popular levies might, and any distraction in the South would seriously hamper the Central Government of the day. It is quite possible, therefore, that Prince Bismarck may wish to give the Government of Spain some serious aid, and that he may be saying at this moment in Paris, London, Vienna, St. Petersburg, and Lisbon that he can no longer tolerate the condition of Spain, that intervention has become a necessity, and that unless coalesced Europe will use its power and restore Spain to peace, Germany must undertake the work at her own risk, and consequently for her own advantage. We do not say, for we do not know, that any such intimation has been made to Lord Derby ; but it seems. quite clear that it has been made to Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, and made with the kind of seriousness which always belongs to such intimations from Prince Bismarck,— more especially when followed up by orders to the ships to rendezvous in waters where they might very easily seem to infringe upon French rights. The extreme agitation, too, of the Carlist party in France shows that they dread the inter- vention for which they have, by the execution of Schmidt, given so opportune an excuse. We can quite imagine that Lord Derby, foreseeing that any individual intervention in Spain might lead to a general war, may- be willing to accede to an intervention of a more general kind.. We doubt, however, if such willingness would be altogether wise. We have never accepted, have indeed always opposed with some roughness, the notion that England is never to intervene in Continental affairs ; we do not deny that in cer- tain extreme cases collective Europe might be required to put down a ruinous anarchy in a State large enough to affect all her members ; and we are by no means sure that Spain may not in a year or two more fall into a condition which would_ make of her weakness a permanent peril to the peace of the world. But an intervention in the internal affairs of a great Power must be justified both by right and by policy, and in this particular case neither the policy nor the right is suffi- ciently clear. Why shouLl we, of all Powers, assist to pull • German chestnuts out of the Spanish fire, or lend our resources, to help Serrano do work which, if Spain is, as he says and we believe, on his side, he ought to be able to do for him- self, and would be able, but that he and his chief officers, instead of fighting for order, are each of them fighting for a party, and unwilling even to defeat the common foe unless victory can be made to redound to the benefit of a particular cause ? Is it to avoid the intervention of Germany that we are to act Why should we ? Why should not Prince Bismarck, if he pleases and Germany pleases, repeat the mistake of the First Napoleon, and waste in an impracticable enterprise the ascendancy acquired by genius and success in a more practicable one ? Germany cannot con- quer Spain, any more than Napoleon could, and will not try ; or if she did try, and did succeed for a time, she would only do Spain good, by bringing home to her sharply and once for- all that her reckless inattention to her own affairs, her want of decisive determination to put the factions down and choose some Government or other as final, has laid her open to the worst misfortune of States, subjugation by the foreigner. Spain wants the need of patriotism in its highest sense driven home into her mind, and if Germany chooses to waste men and money in driving it home, it is no business of ours to imitate her in that waste of resources. It might be, we freely admit, our business, or even our duty, if the result were certain ; if, for instance, it were clear that we could, by an unusual effort, terminate a civil war which begins to be an outrage on civilisa- tion,—if we could give Spain the Government which suited her, and if we could be certain that she would tolerate that Govern- meat one week after external force was withdrawn. But we cannot be sure of any one of these things, cannot prove even to our own minds that intervention, physical or moral, would not intensify the existing evils, just as the French intervention in Mexico intensified them there. The infinite probability is that any government favoured_ by the foreigner would be rejected by Spain, and that consequently the result of intervention would be to strengthen the permanent chance of the very competitor, be it Carlos, or Alphonso, or Serrano, or the Commune, whose pretensions we had de- cided to be, on the whole, the most injurious to Spain. As to the religious question it is not for us to assert that difference of religion is a ground for war, or to precipitate the struggle which, we agree with Mr. Disraeli, may very probably come, or to declare that of two sets of Catholics, we think it our duty to help in the killing of the more logical half. If we intervene on any such ground, we shall find, in the end, in all human probability, that we have defeated Don Carlos, who is Ultramontane, in order to seat Don Alphonse, who is as Ultra.montane as he ; or to give Spain to the Communists, whose religious ideas are just as unpopular with our people as Ultramontanism itself. We are not sure, and cannot be sure, indeed, that we could even secure order, for of all possible results of intervention, we should hold this one to be the most probable,—that every other party being either defeated, or discredited by foreign alliance, or paralysed by want of phy- sical strength, Spain would fall back upon the common enemy of all, the Commune, towards which her over- developed localism, as we saw at Carthagena, always gives her an inclination. The result is too uncertain the feeling of the people too doubtful, the moral principle at ;take too obscure, to justify a line of action which did not succeed in 1838, which is not demanded by any imperative circumstances and which would furnish a fatal precedent to any Power who desired to erush . an insurrection like that of Hungary, or a struggle like that of Cavour for the freedom of Italy, or an internal conffict of opinion like that which produced the Sonderbund. War. It is not because intervention is wrong, or because England has nothing to do with the Continent, or because it is our business to get rich, but because the result of interference is not clear, that Great Britain is better out of Spain.
Of course, if all that is asked of this country is a recognition of the existing -Government, there is no objection to be made, and very little to be said of any kind. Nobody knows clearly why we do not recognise the Republic, or whatever it is, in Madrid. Serrano may have no legal authority, but Napoleon, when Lord Palmerston recognised him, had no legal authority either, and the acquiescence of a people in any Government has, in all ages and countries, been taken to be the political equivalent of consent.
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