TOPICS OF THE DAY.
GERMANY AND BELGIUM.
THERE is very little probability, indeed we may say there is no probability whatever, that Germany has any design against the independence or the separateness of Belgium. For the present, Prince Bismarck is Germany, and the suggestion that he wishes to add to the Empire two or three millions of hostile, intelligent, French-speaking Ultramontanes is too wild to deserve a moment's credence. He probably would not accept Belgium if she voted herself into the Empire, and cer- tainly would not accept her at the price of a victorious contest with the united Powers of France and Great Britain, which are both pledged, the one by her geographical position and the other by treaty, to defend the little State. But the fresh cor- respondence between Germany and Belgium is nevertheless important, because it betrays a disposition on the part of Prince Bismarck to extend enormously and, as we think, dan- gerously the field of international obligation. The Note sub- mitted by Count Perponcher on the 16th inst. to the Belgian Minister for Foreign Affairs seems, to judge from the abstract of its contents, to be courteous in tone, but its meaning, as interpreted by the light of the previous controversy and the ex- planations of the semi-official Press is none the less unmistakable. Prince Bismarck therein suggests that owing to increased facilities of communication, the " solidarite " of Europe has been developed until " the time for exclusively adhering to individual sovereignty in dealing with international obligations" has passed away, and each State is bound so to modify its laws as to be able to for- bid its own subjects to do anything injuring the domestic peace of its neighbours. Every State is so bound, and not merely Belgium alone ; and Germany herself, though no com- plaints have been addressed to her, because German subjects do not interfere in the foreign affairs of their neighbours, is about to remodel her laws in this sense, and so show Europe what it ought to do.
We shall understand exactly what Prince Bismarck means when we see the draft of this law, but it is evident, from pre- vious correspondence, from the complaints addressed to France on the language of her Bishops, from the semi-official com- plaints of the conduct of the Press, and from the instructions addressed to Herr von Kende' in Rome, that he is hoping, by means of a Congress or a general agreement of Europe, first, to limit the Pope's freedom of action, the Pope, either as Sovereign or as subject, being placed under European law ; and secondly, to limit still further the in- ternal freedom of all the States within the European system. The direct object of his attack is now, as always, the Roman Catholic Church ; but the indirect object, consciously or un- consciously, is individual freedom. We will try to make this clear. Prince Bismarck hints through his diplomatists and states through his Editors that the charges delivered by Catholic Bishops to their flocks nowadays constitute an attack on the "domestic peace" of Germany, that they ought to be re- strained, and that Governments are bound, in the interests of international harmony, to restrain them. That demand, being directed primarily against a Church which the vast majority of Englishmen dislike and distrust, will in this country be con- sidered at first sight either reasonable or natural ; but let us shift the scene to England, and just see what it involves. Already our laws give Germany security against any attack, as attack is understood among nations. Any filibustering expedition can be stopped. Any fanatics who may be planning assassination can, if they proceed beyond mental intention, be arrested and tried. Any person, be he cardinal, archbishop, or editor, who libels Prince Bismarck, or incites to his assassination, can be prosecuted, tried, and convicted as easily as if the sufferer were Lord Derby or Lord Granville. The German Chancellor will reply that this is no doubt the theory of the law, as shown in the Peltier case, the Bernard case, and repeated cases of Russian prosecution for forging rouble-notes, but that in practice it is insufficient, as juries, when appealed to on political grounds, almost always acquit. It follows that, to remedy this defect, Britain must either arm her Government with powers for the protection of its neighbours which it does not possess for the protection of itself, or must abolish trial by jury in inter- national cases or must at least establish Public Prosecutors ad hoe. In other words, the Government, under pressure from Berlin, must make a great inroad on personal freedom in order to 4o,—what? To destroy the freedom of speech on questions involving moral life. That is really the demand, and nothing less. The German Government is just now fighting Romer but no alteration in our laws, or the Belgian laws, or the laws of any State outside Germany could be directed against a single Church. They must be levelled at all alike, and no Church which preaches the duty in extreme cases of postponing loyalty to the higher law could be suffered to escape. The Catholic priest who says the State which suppresses the Mass is impious and ought to cease to exist, the Quaker who glorifies martyrdom in passive resistance to conscription, the English Broad-Churchman who argues that resistance to tyranny may become a duty, and that the definition of " tyranny " must be left to the consciences of the good and wise, must all be silenced or punished without trial. The Spectator would be liable to prosecution by Brazil for stating that slaves may morally rise in insurrection against slavery. The proposition is monstrous, and yet it is nothing but an obvious deduction from the principle which Prince Bismarck is asking all Europe to support. The discussion of ultimate questions of moral duty would, in fact, become a penal offence, to be jealously prosecuted and punished without the formalities of ordinary law.
Nor could the innovation stop here. Prince Bismarck just now is so occupied with the Black Spectre that he has no time to attend to any other, but in all ordinary seasons the Governments of the Continent find the Red Spectre very much more alarming. Karl Marx is as formidable as a Pope, the leaders of Socialism as pestilent as Cardinals, the Secretaries. of Trades Unions as unmeasured in their language as any Bishops. The principle which induces Governments to suspend the guarantees of freedom as regards moral teachers must apply a fortiori to the teachers of social change, and every social heretic, be he a Revolutionist like Cluseret, or an agrarian philanthropist like Arch, or a philo- sophic doctrinaire like Sir George Campbell when he talks about land, must be treated like a potential criminal, and placed outside the ordinary law. Indeed, he must be placed under surveillance, for with fanatics it is necessary to prevent as well as punish, to anticipate the thought the utterance of which is to paralyse armies and not merely imprison the wielder of the lightning when the bolt has been delivered. The Bull operates, if the Pope, to take the extreme illus- tration be executed the next minute. The Press, of course, must be laid in irons. Silenced bishops, moralists, anarchists,. and enemies of their neighbours would instantly take to the pen ; and as the pen is as powerful as the tongue or more so, they also must be placed under a surveillance ;11 the more rigid, because penmen, having more time and perhaps more artfulness than preachers, could subtly insinuate their doctrines in words of apparently most innocent drift. One need not be
or Matthew Arnold to advocate German Particularismus under cover of an essay on the State life of the American Union. The principle once admitted that the State must punish or prevent all expression calculated to injure the domestic peace of a formidable neighbour, there can be no limit to its applications.
But would not the German Chancellor ask, if he spoke out his whole heart, why should there be a limit? The theory which possesses the statesmen of the Continent, and indeed statesmen everywhere, is that discussion should go on but go on under the limits and within the forms observed in official correspond- ence. The moralist is to state his ideas, but not apply them to the actual facts of life. The preacher is to teach his doctrines, but not to dwell upon those which impede or may impede the action of the State. The journalist is to express his views, but to see that in expressing them he harms no one, excites no susceptibilities, reveals no secrets, makes no great person contemptible, and above all, in no degree weakens the prestige of executive authority. If they had their way, the Press would not be destroyed, but would remain a power of the greatest value for the enlightenment and the assistance of Ministers of State, but of no value whatever for the in
of the people in resistance to those Ministers' advice. It would be like an Archive Commission, or the Bureau of Arts in France, a thoughtful, well-informed, painstaking, and timid department of the Administration. That ideal has never been reached in any country, the men who could perform such func- tions usually declining them, and turning to more independent spheres of action ; but it has been nearly reached once or twice under exceptional circumstances such, for example, as i exted in Russia during the last Polish rebellion, and we can well understand that statesmen fretted to death by criticism, misapprehension, and calumny, may long to make that sober and moderated freedom universal. What we do not understand, is how they should think their ideal capable of realisation, how they should imagine that teachers obviously afraid to utter their own conclusions, BisILOpsunableto censure dignitaries, journalists prohibited from criticising acts of vital importance, could retain their influence, or keep down for a week the moralists, priests, or writers who would dare to display the courage of their opinions, and if punished, would attempt their secret dissemination, and suc- ceeding, would gather violence from the very sense that they were defying the law. At present, opinion persecuted in one country can at least fly to another, and still find expression ; but if the German object were secured, and earth turned into one vast jail for all likely to utter sentiments deemed noxious in Berlin, opinion would dive under, and we can tell Prince Bismarck what the result would be. All the independent thinkers of Europe, all the distressed who long for deliverance, all the fanatic preachers, all the demagogues who can endure, would in no long time be leagued together in one vast though unacknowledged conspiracy against the ascendancy of Germany. The Emperor would be in the position of Louis XIV. in 1687, the master of every one in Europe except its thinkers, its zealots, and its literati. The secret Press, the most dangerous instru- ment thought has ever wielded, woula be once more at work, would call on science for its aid, and would penetrate, unseen and unsuspected, into every household. Herzen's wildest dia- tribes were laid upon the table of the Czar, and Herzen lived before journalists had learned from the siege of Paris that photo- graphy places journalism beyond the reach of cannon. Every let- ter would be a journal, every microscopic photograph a "leader," every traveller a distributor of treasonable ware. And all reason for moderation having passed away, all punishment for libel, all correction for lying, the attack would be ten times as deadly, and from the Berlin point of view, as formidable to domestic peace. The " charge " now so lengthy and so tiresome would, if photographed and sent in a hollow pencil, be condensed to a religious command. The "leader" now so scarifying would be boiled into a poisonous epigram. The invective now so rash would be changed into a direct counsel to revolt. The most Chauvinist of Frenchmen cannot and will not denounce Bismarck as the secret-pamphlet writers of Holland denounced Louis- XIV., and those writers, should they ever reappear, would be armed with means of which the poor exiles of Leyden and Rotterdam never so much as dreamed. We can conceive nothing so dangerous to the success of Prince Bis- marck's German policy as his success in the course upon which he appears to have embarked. It is fortunate for him, as well as for the world, that success is nearly impossible, and that the jealous instinct of national independence will, in this instance, lend its aid to the cause of free thought. All the power of the Diet could not put down the liberty of teaching in the minor German Duchies, and we may be forgiven the doubt whether all the power of Germany will put it down in Europe.