TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE PEOPLE AND THE PEACE COMBINATION.
THE great aggregate mind of a people is stronger than the indivi- dual mtelleots which appear at certain periods to command and direct it; as much greater as the whole is greater than the parts, and as much weightier. Otherwise men in power would oftener lead their states into strange caprices, like those which the world witnesses as it is. A people thinks multitudinously, slowly, confusedly; its delays and wanderings vex the superficial and impatient observer ; it can realize only broad and simple conclusions, while the nice and complicated ideas which assist the jargon of debate waste away in antagonism to each other. Yet the freedom of debate which pro- duces all this jargon is needed to help that action of the national mind without which it cannot think at all. But when once a free community has set itself to the work of thinking, it does not draw back, nor think in vain. Long did America ponder the follies of the Georges before she simply ended the regal madness. Long did France meditate on the endurances under the feudal oppression before she bethought herself to cut its head off ; and ever since she decapi- tated feudal monarchy, has she, with small aid and much dis- traction from the doctors, been reflecting how to settle herself bet- ter than under Grands Monarques,—a. problem as yet not finally solved, but still laboured. Italy ruminated for generations before she began, in Piedmont, a better beginning by the aggregate mind than the finest patriot intellect could have invented. We of Eng- land read and talked about free trade in the last century and ever since,—until Peel and England did it ; Peel not being a first-rate philosopher, but a first-rate representative of the aggregate con- viction and resolve. We were long warned by prophet and his- torian against Russia : we have thought, and now we act. Thinkers and theorists, as usual, cry out that we are acting upon imperfect theory, and wish us to retract. Peoples do not retract— at least not in these ages. High statesmen tell us that in the next six months of recess they may undo the last six months of Parlia- mentary action, and reconvert the people to Peace and Russia. As soon convert them to Urquhartism. The nation will leave Urquhartism and Gladstonism to prey upon each other, and will proceed to work out its present clear, simple, and solid conviction, to the best of its ability. But the distracters may not be quite harmless: they are active, able beyond the average, and if they cannot divert the nation from its settled purpose they may yet divert or alarm statesmen responsible for interpreting that pur- pose; and by obstructing or perverting the necessary state action with tile cruel sentimentalism of humanitarians, with false trading economy, or super-subtile Oxford refinements of logic, they may delay the fulfilment of the natienal resolve and increase the cost of execution. It will therefore not be profitless, at this commence- ment of a recess, when sophistry is to busy itself in the system- atic effort to mislead the mind of public men, if we meet the fallacy of the main sophistries by restating the facts. The adherents of "a party "—[we borrow their own phrase, as the brief expression of a scattered number too various to be c]assi- fied as a real party]—appear to accept Mr. Gladstone as their head and best spokesman. They boast that they are increasing in num- bers by making individual converts ; and while the recess and the quiescence of the time prevent them from being brought to the test of divisions in Parliament or of public meetings, their boast may obtain credence. They have in last Saturday's nmes a pow- erful aid from the pen of "A Traveller in Italy,' who brings as- pirations and sympathies with certain patriots to bear on the ob- struction of the present war, which certainly did not take its cue from the Unitarian party in Italy. And a correspondent of our own, following up Mr. Gladstone's speech of the 3d instant, intro- duces philhellenic sympathies to disturb the war against Russia.
As this party has nearly as many sections as it has spokesmen, so it advances heterogeneous and various arguments. They are, chiefly, an assertion that the war, undertaken without prin- ciple, is adverse to the wishes of the nations and of freedom in Europe ; that it is gratuitous and unnecessary, because Russia has "conceded all that we could fairly demand"; that it is counter to the manifest "will of Providence," and to the doctrines
of Christianity, which preach peace. Mr. Gladstona gives the most powerful expression to the argument, that the war, after
having obtained the essential objects with which it began, is a wanton aggression upon Russia to obtain that which cannot be ob- tained. We have already obtained "the great and essential ob- jects," says Mr. Gladstone, "the abolition of Russian rights over
the Principalities and the destruction of Russian claims upon free Christiana." " Russia " says our correspondent, "offers to surrender
every offensive pretension ; only she will not guarantee the inte- grity and independence of the Ottoman empire, she will not sur- render the national independence of Russia." Such are the state- ments of fact upon which those who are for peace on Russian terms base their arguments. According to the laws of reasoning, we may consider the argument as disposed of if we dispose of the facts.
We waive any nice discussion of Mr. Gladstone's statement, that the abolition of Russian rights over the Principalities has been ob- tained : the question of Russian rights was settled provisionally in the adoption of the first of "the four points," but settled imr- fectly, and with evident opening for Russian cavil in future. We proceed to the more important and substantial questions involved In the present survey. But in order to understand the relative bearing of the several questions, it must be remembered that the negotiations respecting the matters in dispute. were based upon
"the four points"; that the four points embodied the suggestions upon which the Western Powers had agreed, with the concurrence of Austria, for bringing the war to a termination ; that of these four "points" each was in fact a composite proposition, comprising subsidiary or branching points ; that at the second series of Vienna Conferences the four points were discussed seriatim ; and that the negotiation was broken off in the middle of the discussion on the third point.
Notwithstanding Mr. Gladstone's assertion, the " destruction of Russian claims upon free Christians" has certainly not been se- cured. The question of those claims was embodied in the fourth point ; but the Conference at Vienna had never arrived at the discussion of that fourth point. Our experience of Russian pro- fessions proves that we cannot trust expressions of willingness to concede, until we see the instruments by which the compact is to be recorded and effected ; and Mr. Gladstone's statement therefore is simply baseless. Instead of having obtained the destruction of Russian claims upon free Christians, we have not even discussed the point. It is equally incorrect to repre- sent the Western Powers as breaking off the negotiation because Russia had refused to guarantee the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire. That question was incidentally comprised in the first half of the third point. While consenting to admit the Sultan to the European system, Russia objected to imply the guarantee of the integrity and independence; and as the Western Powers appeared generally to consider that the first half of the third point had been settled, the objection of Russia had been vir- tually allowed before the negotiations were broken off. It is positively incorrect, therefore, to accuse the Western Powers of breaking upon that consideration. It is equally inaccurate to say that Russia would only not surrender the national in- dependence of Russia. Her national independence was never in question. The Western Powers found Russia actively using "a standing menace" in the Black Sea; she had positively attacked Europe through Turkey ; and to desist from attack after all the promises of the Czar not to do the very things that he really in- tended and actually attempted, was not enough security for the future. They said, If you do not mean war, you will put a limit to your armed state on the borders of the Black Sea. It might be that the demand was not one to be conceded, but it did not involve any question of independence. Nothing is more common than to stipulate for the dismantling of fortresses : under treaty, Russia agreed not to fortify her own bank of the Danube ; yet it is not said that her independence was then compromised. It is, we believe, quite vain to hope that the public can be mis- led by arguments of this character. Show the public that funda- mental statements of fact are inaccurate or are fabricated, and the public meets all the superstructure of arguments, however in- genious and imposing, with disregard. Even where there is greater show of fact, the public would be incapable of follow- ing the refinements of sophistry in the teeth of a muoh simpler argument worked out for us by Russia herself. All Mr. Urqu- hart's elaborate collation of blue-books failed to awaken in the people any fear of Russia; but no sooner have Nicholas and Alexander confessed the purpose which the Russian Imperial Family has retained from father to son, than the public recognizes a pro- longed enterprise which must be stopped. When Alexander the Second proclaimed his adherence to the policy ascribed to the founder of the present Russian empire in his will—when Nicholas disclosed to Sir Hamilton Seymour the project which he enter- tained of partitioning the property of "the sick man "—then the public understood the spirit in which Menschikoff was claiming administrative rights for the Czar in Constantinople as head over the Orthodox Greek Christians. The note of 1844 was known to Sir Robert Peel and to Lord Aberdeen, but they were content to be deceived by Nicholas's professions on the " foi de gentleman." The public does not take professions for so much worth as states- men sometimes do. It is the very complaint against Lord Aber- deen that be was not decisive enough with the Russian Czar; but now that the purpose of Russia is understood—now that the Eng- lish people clearly learn that the Czar was gradually encroaching upon Europe through Turkey at present, and perhaps hereafter through Holstein, or Deiamark, or Hungary—the English people resolves that that march shall be stopped. It is utterly erroneous, therefore, to say that the present war was undertaken without principles, or that it has become a war without principles since it ceases to be a war for "the four points." It never was a war for the four points. It was a war before the four points were laid down ; they only set forth a plan for con- cluding the war. Popularly, it is a war to stop Russia in her encroachments upon Europe, towards this country, and against interests which this country thinks higher than Russian interests. Even the traders of England see the policy of arresting a power which extinguishes commerce except of the rudest kind. Offi- cially, it has been a war to maintain the balance of power, esta- blished in Europe chiefly under the influence of the arbitrary courts, and principally undermined by the most arbitrary of those courts. "A Traveller in Italy" tells us that the balance of power is a wrong principle; that it maintains governments at the expense of peoples ; that it is a deification of brute force, compelling sove- reigns to seek aggrandizement in self-defence, "each striving to weigh heaviest in the balance, lest some should outweigh him" ; and that so the helium* of power brings about a crowned conspi- racy against peoples. "International morality is, then, our only guide to peace ; and this is comprised in one simple and sublime ride=a recognition of the equal 'right of every people on earth to freedom from foreign domination." But how is any state or go- vernment to recognize a "people," or to know that its domi- nation is " foreign "? It is impossible for a foreign country to know another country except through its recognized organ, its government. Every people that is independent, and not a pro- vince, will prevent any government not its own from usurp- ing the sovereignty. Perhaps if we had adopted A Traveller's principles earlier, some European governments might have been more genuine in their nationality : but we must take states, not less than circumstances, as we find them ; and the first step to- wards restoring the principle on which A Traveller relies is, to be- gin by saying that we will not suffer one power for its own aggran- dizement to war upon another state. To enforce that rule, is not to sustain governments against peoples. Still less does it infringe the international morality of A Traveller, when we say that we will particularly enforce our rule in those cases, as in Turkey, where we see that practical justice is on the side of the power attacked and against the assailant; yet again, when we also see that our own clearly understood and just interests are on the same side of the attacked. It happens that the arbitrary powers of Europe are de facto ranging themselves on the side of Russia : the Western Powers find themselves on the opposite side, and we may perhaps be unable to refuse alliances which will force us into making common cause with "the nations." Far, however, would it be from expediting the interests of the peoples if we were prematurely to tear open that great ques- tion. The plain aggregate mind of England perfectly sees the tendency of the present alliance ; and no ingenious argument to show that theoretically the alliance is counter to the interests of the nations will prevent the English people from going forward in a course which opens a real prospect for the peoples to acquire a position which Piedmont has already acquired and strengthened by the same alliance.
As to the apocalyptic view of Russian rights and expectations,_ it is so far from conciliating the English people that it is positively offensive. When Mr. Gladstone defies Parliament "so to turn the course of time and of events as by the efforts of the Western Powers to control the paramount destinies of Russia," the public asks what he means; and it can only guess some kind of Oxford predestinarianism, to define which would constitute its own reduc- tio ad absurdum. Our correspondent puts a similar proposition more intelligibly, by telling us "it is clearly the will of Provi- dence" that Russia should be a great nation. This is a revela- tion; but on what authority, what evidence ? It is a ready device, which savours of impiety, to drag "the will of Providence" into the conflicts of man ; and the English people are only offended, not awed, by the presumptuous begging of the question. By the course of events we may learn that humanity is permitted to challenge Russia, to bar her path, to shut up her fleets and defeat her armies. But we disdain the pretence of a superhuman sanction which is above our ken. We only know that by our best lights Russia is a mischief, a blight, and a standing menace to Europe. It hap- pens, indeed, that the necessity of warring against her disturbs the calculations of our mere traders, and our mere intellectual or lite- rary statesmen, who sigh for quiet. Perhaps Europe had been too nearly divided between a rude force in the East that ignores the peaceful blessings tended by Intellect and Commerce, and a too re- fined intellectual and trading quiet in the West, oblivious of the stern necessities of self-defence. If that "fool's paradise" had endured longer, something far greater than an Alexandrian library might have been lost—for how many ages ? But the West has been awakened from its dream, and not all the cronings of in- spired patriots or learned Thebans will send it to sleep again for many a day.
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