THE CZAR AND ENGLAND.
WE shall probably never know very distinctly whether the Czar gained anything, or thought he gained anything beyond the pleasure of seeing his daughter, by his English visit. Generally all sensible men do gain something by travel, though it is never very easy to define what it is. Words concerning things foreign take a fuller meaning to them ; the imagination becomes more active on kindred subjects ; threads of association are connected which were never con- nected before ; conjectures are considered impossible which before were possible, and others possible which would before have been held impossible ; and though no doubt some of these new impressions of travellers are erroneous, yet they do usually represent something of real knowledge. It is always said that it was the Emperor Nicholas's visit to England in 1844 which misled him into the belief that whatever happened, Eng- land would not go to war for Turkey. We take it that that false impression was more or less the result of true and shrewd observation, but none the less the inference was hasty, and for Russia most pernicious. The caution caused by complete ignorance is often much safer as a principle of action than the impressions resulting from imperfect knowledge. We do not suppose that the vague conceptions of English life which the present Czar has carried away with him would be at all good foundations on which to build a policy ; but it is not uninterest- ing to guess at what they probably are, and especially how far, if they coincide with the impressions formed by his father of our indifference to the leading aims of the Russian foreign policy, they would have a reasonable foundation, and be more or less likely to be verified now, than they were in the ease of the Emperor Nicholas.
Whatever else the Czar may have noticed in England, it is tolerably certain that nothing can have struck him so much as the contrast between England and Russia in relation to the unity, or as we may say, the personality of the nation. He himself, as we pointed out last week, in many a sense of the highest importance, and in one sense all-important in re- lation to Foreign Affairs, is Russia. He carries about with him, as no other man on earth can do, the consciousness not only of representing a great State and a formidable power, but in some real sense, at least, of constituting it. He, of course, would have no power without his people, but neither would his people have any unity without him. In England, far more than in any other European country on the contrary, he must have discerned the fact that political power is really distri- buted, and distributed amongst a people who have a busy life of their own, full of purpose, and what is more, full of success- ful purpose, into which thoughts as to the ideal demeanour of their nation can enter very slightly indeed, and only as one, and not the most absorbing, among many of the passing thoughts which cross their active brains. In Germany there has been so long and so complete a divorce between the popular thought and the policy of the Government, that even now, when Germany has become the most powerful of European nations, the Sovereign and his advisers may be said to think for the nation, and to be followed 'by the nation, in all matters which concern the dignity .of Germany. In France, the keen national vanity makes foreign affairs the one chief subject of thought of all political imaginations, and even if the French Executive had not far more authority in determining a policy than any English 'Government has, we might fairly expect that the mind of 'Prance would be likely to judge on questions of first-rate im- portance in foreign policy, with a kind of decision and spring which would impress the nation. But in England the Czar must have observed that while the House of Com- mons possesses the real authority on all questions of first-rate importance, the House of Commons is as like the people themselves, as little likely to foreknow its own wishes, as much preoccupied with matters it deems much more urgent than any dreams about England's position on the Continent, as full of distracting cares which make it almost a matter of chance how any particular policy will strike particular minds, as the crowds whom he watched thronging the Crystal Palace, or stream- ing out of East London to witness his arrival at Woolwich.
He must have seen that the members of the House of Corn- _ mons are very ordinary specimens of the English middle- class, who think very little about what we may call the per- sonality of Great Britain, who are exceedingly likely to differ from each other even when they do think about it, who are apt to look at matters rather in detail than on any principle, and who yet have learned one lesson, partly good and partly bad, of political policy,—to attach very little authority to what their statesmen say, unless they them- selves can be brought to agree with the reasons given for say- ing it. Political power in England is really where the wealth is, and the wealth is divided among millions of persons, each of whom is hardly more likely to have a strong view about England's position in Europe than about England's position in Art or Science. If the Czar saw anything, he must have seen this extraordinary distribution of English power among self-dependent atoms which follow the attraction of no predominant body, while at the same time he felt that the centre of the political gravity of Russia travelled about with himself, and that its orbit, therefore, was as surely within his own observation as it would be impossible that the orbit of British policy should be calculable by any observer, however acute. LThe latter is determined by a number of distinct elements, some of which, probably, have not the least self-knowledge as to the law of their own future opinions. Self-government is a great thing when the sub- jects of it know what they want, and why they want it. It is not so great a thing when they know neither ; and this is, we take it, true of the popular sources of power in Great Britain in relation to foreign policy. We should not be surprised, therefore, if the Czar were to return with the feeling that he has seen specimens of a rich, a powerful, and an incalculable people, who don't think much about the most imposing of all the kinds of duties which self-government implies, and of whose impulses and purposes in relation to that class of duties it is only possible for a cautious man to say this,—that they will never be known beforehand, never till the sudden occasion comes for their disclosure.
If the Czar gathered as much as this from his observation of the people, of their true political power, and small political interest in the chief subjects of foreign policy, we think he was right, and had formed a more cautious judgment than his father. But he would probably be wrong if he pushed the same judgment into that part of our foreign policy which affects our Indian Empire. Oddly enough,—and it is a result, no doubt, of the long rule of the East India Company,— the English people are disposed to defer to the authority of statesmen in relation to that part of our foreign policy, in a far greater degree than they would in relation to any European question, say, the protection of the Turkish power. Nor is this merely because the expense of resisting aggressions in the East would fall, partly at least, on the Indian revenue. Even if it fell largely on the British revenue, there would probably be in Great:Britain quite as strong a dis- position to be guided by authority in relation to the foreign policy of the East, as there would be in Germany itself in rela- tion to all departments of foreign policy. We still feel our ignorance about the East and its affairs. In relation to Europe, we are almost as ignorant, but without feeling it. The result is curious. English foreign policy in relation to Europe is likely to be exceedingly reticent and cautious before urgent occasions arise, but also, as likely as not, to take capricious springs and leaps of its own, in accordance with popular feel- ing, when these occasions do arise. But in relation to the East it is not so. There, if we have wise statesmen who do not make big and visible mistakes, we are still disposed to sub • mit ourselves to their tutelage, and to abide by their decision.
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