STATES AND NATIONS.
Sni—/ii one of your leading articles of last Saturday, you tell us that "Prance and England have invaded Russia in defence of national independ- ence " ; in another, you speak by implication of the present war as one "in defence of that order which maintains the independence of states." May I humbly ask, how are these two positions to be reconciled ? Are " national independence" and "the independence of states" necessarily identical ? Are they at all identical in the present case ? When those leading articles were written, you could not, according to chronological possibility, have read the powerful and convincing letter in Saturday's Times signed "A Traveller in Italy" ; to which the Times itself attempts a reply, less abusive, but quite as futile, as its remarks some time back on the "magnificent oration" of Mr. Gladstone. Could you have done so, would not its perusal have made you hesitate whether the two things were identical, and whether the nobler of the two has anything to do with our present unprovoked aggression upon the independence of Russia ? • Whose "national independence" do we seek to defend ? That of Eng- land? that of France ? that of Sardinia ? No man can honestly say that Russia had ever threatened any one of the three, or had done any one of the three the slightest injury. Is it the general abstract cause of "national in- dependence " ? Then we should do as some extreme zealots recommend, and rouse Fins, Poles, Crim Tatars, &c. &c. against their Muscovite mas- ters. Then, above all things, so far from seeking, we should refuse if of- fered, the alliance of the bitterest of all enemies of national independence, that of the tyrant of Hungary, Lombardy, and Gallicia. Is it, then, the in- dependence of " Turkey " ? There comes the usual fallacy : the people of "Turkey" are ignored; the only "Turkey" we choose to recognize is the oppressive minority by which its inhabitants are held in bondage. Putting matters at the worst, what we sought to oppose was not any violation of "national independence," but simply the transfer of certain enslaved na- tions from one foreign despotism to another, and that from one which they abhor to one which, wisely or foolishly, they greatly prefer. The inde- pendence of "Turkey" in a geographical sense has no warmer advocate than myself; but that independence can only be obtained by putting an end to the domination of the Turks; and I fear that that domination can only be put an end to by the expulsion of the intruders. " States " and " nations " are widely different things. Austria is a " state " ; but there is no such thing as an Austrian nation. Russia is a state ; but though there is a Russian nation the state and the nation are not conter- minous. There is one German and one Italian nation ; but there are count- less German and Italian states, besides the Italian subjects of a foreign state. There is a Greek state and a Greek nation ; but the greater portion of the Greek nation is divided among the different states of Turkey, Russia, and the anomalous power which bears sway at Corcyra. I am not speaking with any ethnological pedantry, because many circumstances besides mere identity of race go to constitute a nation. England and France are not less truly na- tions because the Welsh, Irish, Breton, and Basque languages still linger on. But no man will tell me that a Magyar or a Thessalian feels towards the Austrian and Turkish " governments" as a Welshman or a Breton does to those of England and France. The differences in France and England are no longer national but merely provincial; they do not interfere with a full re- cognition of the sovereign by every subject as the head of his own people, and not of an intruding and hostile race. With which of these feelings are Francis Joseph and Abdul Medjid regarded in Hungary and Lombardy, in Bulgaria and in Crete ?
In short, as the "Traveller in Italy " forcibly shows, the independence of states and the independence of nations are, in the larger portion of Europe, simply opposed to each other. If Austria conquers Poland from Russia, or Russia conquers Hungary from Austria, the independence of nations is not affected ; it was violated before, it is violated still. If Sardinia conquers' Lombardy, if the Greek kingdom conquers Thessaly, if Montenegro annexes Herzegovina, the independence of states may suffer, but the independence of nations is palpably a gainer. In short, to defend the independence of states, as at present understood, is commonly to trample upon the independence of nations ; it is often actually to abet the oppressor against the oppressed ; it is at best only to hand them over from one oppressor to another.
But I hold that our present war with Russia is alike against the independ- ence of states and against the independence of nations. It is not for the independence of nations in any case ; I hold that it is directly against it. Remember, that since the Vienna Conference the war has completely changed its character. Up to that periokit was a war in defence of " Turkey " ; now it is a war of aggression against Russia. Up to that period it was a war for definite objects—" a war for the Four Points" ; now I will defy any man to tell me what it is for, except to aggrandize Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. I believe the war to have been contrary to justice and prudence from the be- ginning ; but in its first stage there was much plausibly to be said for it ; it was a war in accordance with the precedent of some centuries ; according to the technical principles of an arbitrary jurisprudence, it was a just war. So long as I laboured under the delusion that we were bound by some pre- vioua treaty to support the Sultan, I myself regarded it as justifiable : I held that no such engagement ought to have been contracted, but that, when once contracted, it ought to be fulfilled. But now everything is changed. Russia offers to surrender every offensive pretension, everything in any way prejudicial to the supposed " nghts " of the Sultan; only she will not gua- rantee the integrity and independence of the Ottoman empire, she will not surrender the national independence of Russia. Till she does, bloodshed and rapine are to have their full awing.
To guarantee the integrity of any state is a responsibility which I hold no prudent nation will ordinarily incur : it implies a promise to make war upon every one who, justly or unjustly, attacks that integrity. I would not lightly guarantee the independence even of Switzerland or Norway. But to guaran- tee the integrity of Turkey, as commonly understood, seems to me to be an act of deliberate wickedness. Objecting, as I do, to all guarantees, I should regard a guaranty of Turkey against Russia or Austria as no worse than a guaranty of Russia against Austria, Austria against Russia, or any similar complication that can be imagined. But a general guaranty of Turkey must be a guaranty against Greece and Montenegro as much as against Russia. I suspect it must be a guaranty of the Turkish " government " against the majority of its European subjects. If I could be sure that the proclamation of a Christian republic or a Christian empire at Constantinople would be as promptly recognized throughout Europe as analogous events at Paris—that is, if the people of " Turkey " are to be allowed the same right of choosing their own government as the people of France—it might be another thing ; but the events of last year look the other way. It is the natural right and duty, which no amount of diplomacy among unconcerned parties can ever sign away, of the Slavonian and Hellenic subjects of Turkey to cast off the yoke of the barbarian whenever they have a reasonable prospect of success. It is the natural right and duty of their independent brethren in Montene- gro, and the Greek kingdom, to aid them in the holy and glorious under- taking. But a guaranty of " Turkey " would oblige France and England to undo the glories of Navarino, to trample on the Cross and to exalt the Crescent, to immolate national liberty on the altar of foreign despotism. Wickedness like this, it seems, the champions of freedom and civilization do not shrink from ; the barbarous and despotic Muscovite—all honour be to him—refuses so infamous an obligation. But more than this—Russia is attacked because she refuses to surrender the common rights of an independent power to erect what fortresses she pleases on her own shores, to defend them by what naval force she thinks good. It is, then, against "the independence of states" that we are warring, as well as against the "independence of nations." Every nation has a right to take what means it pleases for its own defence : if we chose to make the whole coast of Great Britain and Ireland one series of SVebaborgs and Sebes- topols, it is our own affair; no other nation is injured. Above all, while Louis Napoleon is at large in Europe—while his long arm stretches from coast to coast, from capital to capital—it behoves all the world to be on the look-out. We do on foreign shores what Russia may not do on her own. If Sebastopol be a standing menace to Turkey, what is Corfu ? what is Gibral- tar ?—a standing menace to Spain ? a standing menace to the whole Medi- terranean? Either Russia may be trusted, or she may not : if she may, the terms offered at Vienna were amply sufficient ; if she may not, all terms, all treaties, are alike valueless—we must proclaim war to the knife, and not draw back till either the English or the Russian people are exterminated.
What, then, are we fighting for? I understand, though I do not approve, a war for the Four Points. I should understand, though I should not ap- prove, a war for Poland and Lombardy : I should understand it better still were it also a war for Bulgaria and Epirus. But I do not understand Lord Palmerston's war. It ie not in self-defence; it is not in defence of Turkey ; it is not for the independence of states; it is not for the independence of nations. Is it for mere military honour ?—that is, merely to gratify a lust of bloodshed ? Is it to win triumphs for England, to procure humiliation for Russia ? It is an awful thing to shed the blood of man for considerations like these. It is an awful thing to fix the public attention solely on scenes of slaughter ; to waste in rapine and destruction treasures which might suffice for every sanitary and educational necessity, to throw aside every thought of social and political reform, to fill household after household with bereavement and misery ; to ally ourselves with the scourges of mankind, to go hand in hand with despots whose thrones are reared on perjury and massacre ; in the name of civilization, to devastate lands which were once, and were beginning to be again, among its chosen centres ; in the name of liberty, to rivet the chains of Greece and Italy ; in the name of the balance of power, to rear up a mightier empire than Europe now contains, to instal the late President of
France, the late special constable of Westminster, in a position which no man has held since the days of Constantine Copronymus—lord alike of the Old and the New Rome, master of the Thracian and the Cimmerian Boa- porus—Brennus, Lysander, and Mehemet, combined in one imperial person.
One more ground of war still remains. Mr. Lindsay, whom you approve as "orthodox," informs the electors of Tynemouth, "that the stronghold of Russia in her Southern dominions must fall, be the coneeguenee4 what they snay." It is, then, an abstract dislike to Sebastopol, even should its destruc- tion anyhow turn out to involve the destruction of Turkey or of Europe : heaven and earth may fall, provided only Sebastopol falls also ;
"Let wealth and learning, art and commerce die,"
only the Southern strongholds of Russia must be buried in the same grave.
I am no fatalist, like our Mahometan friends; I do not think that the best course in the hour of peril is to fold one's bands, and say "Allah ackbar." I rather bold to the adage, "Aide-toi, et Dieu Caldera." But aid is not wanted where there is no attack. I do not believe in an inexorable necessity, but I do believe that there is a God who judgeth the earth ; and I believe, as the Chancellor of the Exchequer did before he became such, that there are cer- tain functions which He reserves to himself, and which His creatures had better not invade. When we are ourselves attacked, when our coast is in- vaded, or we are subjected to some monstrous outrage tantamount to inva- sion, let us arm in self-defence. In some monstrous eases of oppression—say, when an independent people is threatened with extermination—let us arm for the independence of nations. But let us leave the balance of power, the independence of states, the integrity of the Ottoman empire, to take care of themselves. More blood has been shed and more crime committed, and that ut- terly in vain, for this chimera of the balance of power than for any other cause among civilized man. It really seems as if Providence took the wise in their own craftiness, and delighted to show the eventual folly of that long-sighted policy which inflicts immediate evils to avoid distant and contingent ones, which may indeed happen, but may also not hap- pen. A Romanoff at Constantinople might de a_great deal of mischief; he might prove as innocuous as a Bourbon at Madrid. In either case he does not threaten us; he does not necessarily wrong any inde- pendent nation. Probably the Russian and Byzantine empires might se- parate, and the lord of Constantinople become the national sovereign at least of his Slavonic and Bulgarian subjects. To fight for our own liberty is the first of duties ; to fight for those of others may occasionally be our duty also; it can never be our duty to support one system of oppression against another. England has been called on to repel foreign invaders, when the men of Rent fell before the Frank at Senlac, when the men* of Pembroke- shire triumphed over the same foe at Fisbguard. In 1827, England, France, and Russia, were called upon by the common voice of humanity to stop the infernal cruelties of Ibrahim Pasha, to save a nation from extermination, and a land from being left without an inhabitant. Since then, no such clear case of duty has again occurred; but certainly cases have occurred approach- ing to it far more closely than complications about the Silver Star and the Rey. of Bethlehem. We won in the haven of Pylos a purer fame than we shall ever win in the haven of old Cherson ; we should undertake a worthier task in expelling the French from Rome and the Austrian from Cracow than in surrendering Byzantium to the one and Wallachia to the other; we might have shared among the bayonets of Idstedt a more honourable tri- umph than we are rejoicing over among the cannon of Sweaborg, than we are counting upon among those of Hehingfors and Cronstadt. We are fight- ing for what we cannot obtain. It is clearly the will of Providence that Russia shall be a great nation : the experience of history shows that it is probably the same will that Russia shall not absorb all Europe, any more than Turkey, Spain, or France, whom men once equally dreaded—one of which possibly they have equal reason to dread still.
Our party—the Peace party—is still but small, but it is larger than people think for in the country at large, and it is gradually winning to itself the intellectual element of the Legislature. We unite the two most independent sections in Parliament : some one called us in mockery, the Oxford and Man- chester Junction,—I accept the designation as alike true and honourable. But we draw support also from among the ablest of the old Whigs—from among the most respectable of the old Tories. Gladstone, Gibson, Grey, and Granby —excuse rhythm and alliteration—probably never agreed before : they are now brought together by the irresistible force of righteousness and truth.
[Our correspondent's distinction between " states " and " nations " is sufficiently obvious; but our context showed that the subject which we had under review was the independence of states considered politi- cally and territorially. The liberty of races formed no part of the subject. The main burden of E. A. F.'s letter is taken into account in a separate paper, jointly with other arguments current just now in certain circles. We will only suggest here, that if our correspondent had revised his own state- ments carefully, he would have_spared himself the disadvantage of making some untenable assertions. It is not to be denied that, in general, Chris- tian communities stand higher in the scale of civilization than the Mussul- man ; yet it requires a strong Hellenic bias to raise the Cross of the Rus- sian Popes above the Crescent of the Caliphs, the Spanish Saracens, and even the present Government of Turkey, which at all events identifies its own guarantees with the guarantees of European civilization. But it is scarcely necessary to combat an argument which leads the writer to speak of "the glories" of "the untoward event" of Navarino. E. A. F. is willing to go to war "when an independent people is threatened with ex- termination" ; he is therefore no thoroughgoing member of the Peace party. The party, whether of Peace at all price or Peace under certain circum- stances, may be "larger than the people think for in the country at large," but we doubt whether, on our correspondent's own showing, it could stand the consequences of coming forth boldly. "The Oxford and Manchester Junction' is not a bill likely to pass in any session 'of Parliament ; it would break down on the clauses in committee. If our correspondent has faith in his own "party," they should move a vote of no-confidence in the present Cabinet, so that the Crown would be obliged to "send for" Mr. Gladstone, with a view to his forming a Cabinet composed of "Gladstone, Gibson, Grey, and Granby." The public would await with curiosity the programme of that Administration, and the division-listen its first vote.—En.]
• Genre—The old women.
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