TOPICS OF THE DAP./ . .'2, _
KOSSUTH AND THE CORPORATIONS.
IT is proverbially a thankless office to be the memento Viaglitiki SA lovial party, the Egyptian skeleton of a banquet ; and in political ife it is far easier as well as more popular to play Marshal For- wards to an enthusiastic national movement, than to hang back urging reasons for caution and hinting grounds of dissatisfaction. And this is especially true when the movement springs from an impulse of which every generous heart must partake, and is di- rected towards a man and a cause on which no honest and en- lightened mind can look without pity, sympathy, and admiration. Kossuth is eminently a man, and the Hungarian -war of inde- pendence is eminently a cause, with which English Liberals of every section would be predisposed, by natural inclination and their own country's historical remembrances, warmly to sympa- thize. And yet there are aspects in his reception here which can- not be steadily contemplated without disclosing definite grounds of alarm, and necessitating a definite remonstrance. In particular, the part taken in the welcome of the Hungarian chief by the municipal bodies of England seems to us to ea% if not for a protest, at least for a serious consideration of the objections that may be urged against their proceedings. These bodies have functions purely domestic— nay, even purely local ; it would be matter for regret were they habitually to take part in even domestic questions that did not peculiarly affect their own localities : and this, not only because they are constituted for other purposee, which are fully sufficient to employ their time and tax their powers were both stretched to the utmost, but because when they depart from their fixed legal duties they are acting without authority, consequently with- out any but the most vague and general responsibility, and are in fact nothing but a mere packed meeting of private men. The late Mr. O'Connell aimed at turning the Irish corporations into " normal schools of political agitation," and to a great extent suc- ceeded in his object ; but they were not for that any the better local legislators or administrators. And a course of conduct which reflects any leading principle of that mischievous political career is not thereby strongly recommended to the English public. Interference with questions of foreign policy would plainly be a wider and therefore a more objectionable deviation from the pro- per business of a municipal body, than the expression of opinion on matters affecting the interests of any portion of our own empire at home or in the Colonies. Mind your own business, and mind it well, is plainly the motto that should turn municipal emblazonriea into pictorial instruction for the people. But the English corporations have not only independent tune,- tions of their own—they are subordinate members of the national constitution, which has provided channels for the due expression of public opinion, primarily in the representative assembly, and, that failing, in its tolerance of meetings of the people on Ape:nisi subjects. Now, apart from the general objection to one organ in the constitution attempting to do work for which another organ is provided, here is this further, applicable to the ease in point. As. a nation, we are not only at peace with Austria, but all our recog- nized relations with her are of a friendly character, and the in tegrity of her empire is guaranteed by treaties to which we wore parties. But the very essence of these municipal addresses to Kos- suth is hostility to Austria, sympathy with her enemies, and regret at the failure of an attempt to dismember her empire. Our public and recognized foreign relations may ill express our popular feeling ; but it is surely an unseemly and indecoroue spec- tacle thus to see the municipal and imperial organs of a great civilized community exhibiting themselves to the world at open contradiction, making alike its friendship hollow and its enmity contemptible. Suppose the practice extended, and that the House of Lords, for example—surely a body possessing as much intelligence and knowledge of foreign affairs as the corporations— should vote an address of congratulation to the Emperor Francis- Joseph " on the subjugation of his rebellious province of Hun- gary ' ; what a howl of execration would these very municipal bodies send up ! Yet this step would be no violation of interna- tional courtesies, no infringement of the European code—.of that code which, inefficient as it ie, is yet the safeguard against an im- mediate appeal to the sword on every trifling dynastic or popular quarrel. Our municipal councils are, moreover, administrators of the law, and emphatically the representatives of that middle olaes. to whom order is sacred, as it is essential to their very Rxistenoe.. They should not rush forward as the eager apologists of insurrec- tion, unless with clearer evidence of its absolute necessity than in this case can be possibly supplied at present—nor even then, un- less their relations with the -contending parties compel them to ex- press opinion on one side or the other. And should such necessity unhappily arise, it will be to sterner music than the slather of knives and forks, and under leaders of a somewhat different stamp from that of which Mayors and Aldermen are 'usually moulded, that heroic speech of the brief and deoisive order, or may be, heroic silence, would announce the terrible and by no means festive fact. Till such moment, it is to be regretted that men of peace, Whose nature and -whose office alike rank them on the side of order and obedience, should under a temporary. excitement ,ex- tend their official sanction to a man who, however lofty his motives, however exemplary his character, however interesting his •cause, appears in this country as the public enemy of a power with whom we are at pease and on terms of friendship, and should drown in acclamations of -applause just those passages of his dervid and fiery orations in which he denounces with the strongest, and, we allow, for him most natural, epithets of vituperation, our "ancient ally" the Emperor of Austria. What would these gentlemen think and say if the Prefect of the Seine, or the Mayor of Paris, had chosen in April 1848 to send addresses of sympathy and condolence to the chiefs of our Chartist conspiracy ? and where would be the differ- ence.? If English Constitutionalists have the right to express their sympathy in this way with the struggles of the dependencies of foreign states for independence, foreign Republicans, Red or other- wise, have just the same right to interfere in the same way and to the same extent in our domestic factions. Such mutual interference must generate a war spirit, which would be in constant danger of exploding into actual war ; and even if cotton and heroism should permanently establish such a stable equilibrium as to prevent that, it cannot be desirable for the various nations of Europe that their domestic quarrels should be exasperated, as they must inevitably be, by adding to their own bitterness the fiercer malignity of national jealousies. Of course no rational man will answer this argument by the assertion that the cause of Hungary was a just cause, but that Irish repeal or Chartist agitation are mere ebullitions of groundless and wicked discontent. Probably the history of our connexion with Ireland has been as disgraceful a page as is to be found in the record of national crimes ; and our lower classes are neither so happy nor so civilized as that we can afford to throw stones at any European power, much less at Austria. Besides, were it ever so true that England was just in her dealings and Austria unjust, what would it be to the purpose, so long as England and Austria alone were judges ? The Austrian Government no more does acts which it considers politically unjust, in any large sense of that phrase, than the English Government. In fact, there is but one ultimate arbiter to which nations will consent to appeal ; and those who studiously disclaim this resort ought consistently to avoid those remonstrances and interferences which have no mean- ing but in an ultimate appeal to arms. Once let nations take to lecturing and bullying one another, and there will be no end to it. Each government will be for managing the affairs of every other ; and if the practice is, as in the case we are speaking of, to be extended to the subordinate fractional governments by which the administration of a country is carried on, every vestry meet- ing may come to be an arena for the discussion of European policy, and while Smith and Tomkins are hurling the thunderbolts of elo- quence at crowned heads and starred prime ministers, the church- fabric will fall to pieces, the organ-bellows wear out, and the clerk and parson be left to vote what rates they please. " Ne sutor ultra orepidam " is as essential to the making of shoes well, as it is for the prevention of doing higher things badly. These objections would apply to the course taken by the muni- cipal bodies which have addressed Kossuth, supposing them to be fully. acquainted with the facts of the case on which they are pre- awning to pronounce public judgment. But they acquire double force when it is remembered that the majority of those who vote these addresses must be most inadequately informed of the facts on which alone a conclusive judgment can be founded. How many Mayors or Common Councilmen could point out Hungary on a map of Europe which had no names of places ? How small a num- ber even of those could tell what the constitution of Hungary was before 1848, what reforms Kossuth and his party aimed at, what changes the reactionist party have since introduced ! How many could state wherein the Hungarian peasant was less a free man than the English agricultural labourer ? Yet these are but a mi- nute portion of the elements that enter into a rational judgment of the whole case between Austria and her dependency. Is there in fact evidence before these Town-Councils of such a convincing na- ture that they would convict a man of the smallest misdemeanour upon it ? Evidence is no doubt to be got at, but have these Town-Councils taken the trouble to master the case ? No one who knows the English bourgeoisie in the provinces or in London will venture to say that they have gone, in this matter, upon any ground stronger than that of a vague sympathy with the name of constitutional rights and a vague abhorrence of despotic cruelty and injustice. And is this vague sympathy with right, this vague abhorrence of wrong, a justification for rushing into expressions of sympathy with and abhorrence of persons, without a preliminary and patient and im- partial inquiry on whose side is the right and on whose the wrong ? This rather seems to be the proceeding of a mob, blindly follow- ing the voice of a leader, the tocsin of a party-cry, not the thought- ful and deliberate action of constituted bodies, all of whose de- cisions should have something of the weight of laws, because they are presumed to be reached with something of that calm delibe- ration and full knowledge on which legal judgments rest, and from which they derive their solemn sanction. No doubt, there is a great temptation for popularly-elected bodies to seize upon what are called the broad features of a case ; no doubt, it is difficult to hold the judgment suspended in presence of a great question' but the political education of which Englishmen boast consists mainly in the formation of this habit of judicious scepticism. Where men are compelled to act, if they have not knowledge they must act on instinct, and instinct is often sublime : but to rush into action need- lessly, and in the absence of that strict information on which right action can alone be habitually based, is, at least, not the charac- teristic to be expected from or praised in the constitutional organs of a great nation. Surely in such a case silence and inaction are more manful than all the froth-floods of Radical eloquence, and all the harlequinade gesticulations of platform cosmopolitan phi- lanthropy, which would sheath every sword in Britain and shout
vantage by those whose ends as well as means are wrong ; and believe the steps to be very few from such proceedings as have been commenting on, to such a disorganization as issues Mexican annexation and Cuban invasions. " Stop" to the giant powers of barbarian despotism ; practical life the hypothetical folly of the poet- execute, and it shall go hard but I will better my instructi The slightest deviation from legality in constituted anthoritie a fatal precedent, sure to be turned against them to their dis Last year, our draymen lynched Hayna.u, and no one w municipal bodies whose political existence dates back cen ought not to need teaching that a higher morality is expected them, and,that steps of this sort on the side they consider right side are sure to be followed by similar steps on what sorry that they escaped detection and consequent punishmen will consider the wrong side. "The villany you teach me I
" You may as well go stand upon the beach, And bid the main flood 'bate his usual height."
e to ut es
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