such ideaa by force if they could, as they did
in the Middle Ages • but one feature in the new embarrassment is that they distrust the appeal to force, which can be carried out only through men in uniform, who out of uniform may sympathise with the Socialists. In France, in Germany, in Italy, and really, though not nominally, in Great Britain, Governments find their action blocked by the prevalence of ideas which even a hundred years ago would have been met by conflicts in the street. They are compelled to win by argument and persuasion, and often find the pressure too severe for their intellectual resources. The masses, again, are seeking wealth by other means than personal toil. They crave for more commerce, more " concessions," and more contracts, and in an entirely new way they ask their Governments to employ the force of the State to ensure to them pecuniary profits. They resent the "placing" of a profitable loan in any capital but their own. They insist that any nations whom they protect shall deal with them exclusively, and revile the Foreign Minister who has allowed a great contract to pass him by. The international contest at Pekin for privileges, such as the right to build railways, open mines, and start irrigation works, has become as sharp and as bitter as any shopkeeping rivalries in Regent Street. It is but a few days since a loan was refused to the Turkish Treasury because there was a doubt whether its proceeds would. be spent with Krupp ; and the British Govern- ment is privately scolded every day because, being at heart slightly aristocratic, it is not energetic enough in collecting its subjects' bills. At this very moment claims for the payment of accounts due to private individuals are producing a new and dangerous." question of Venezuela." 'The great Foreign Ministries have, in fact, to interest themselves in the businesses of the world as if they were trading on their own account. It is necessary for Count von Billow, in particular, to know all that Rothschild knows, and all that a great contractor knows, and all that the principal buyer knows in half-a-dozen distributina• " businesses • and the kind of man that can know all that, and can besides control an aggressive diplomacy, is a little hard to find. Too much brain, in fact, is asked of the statesman as well as too much knowledge, and the result is very often an attitude of feeble per- plexity. Some readers may say that the extinction of religious difficulties marked by the cessation of religious wars is full compensation for these new troubles; but they will be entirely wrong. States do not fight to-day to make the Mass prevail, but internal contests about religion still demand the wisest management. France is discussing this week the separation of r'Church and State, around which rage passions as fierce as those which led to St. Bartholomew ; in Germany Count von. Billow has to make a " transaction " a session with the Catholic Centre ; in Rtissia religious disturbances occur nearly every week, though, the victims being Jews and Armenians, the horror excited is not so keenly felt ; the ultimate root of the Hungarian difficulty is believed to be fear that when Francis Joseph passes an 1J1tramontane may mount the throne ; and even in Great Britain the two great parties have to reckon with Dr. Clifford, and to consider patiently and carefully what they will do in the contest between the reverence due to the House of Lords as a tribunal and the independence of the Free Churches.
The enlarged consciousness of the peoples adds to the difficulty of even the gravest political disputes. The new movement in Hungary may dissolve one of the greatest and most conservative of Empires, which has ceased for thirty-five years to threaten anybody, and might, if the peOple were not so opinionated, develop into a grand and free Federal State. The Magyars' pride cannot be satisfied without the external marks of independence. They are already free, they-are already protected by a Constitution which has survived the attacks of a thousand years, and they are already the leading Power in the great bundle of States whose binding cord is the first guarantee for peace in Europe. Their Emperor is ready to give way to every request they make except one ; but that one, which seems to experts impossible, appears to the irritable con- sciousness of the race the one without which all else is nugatory. The Magyars stake everything, even their own exemption from the rule of the Slav majority, on the right, to issue military words of command in their Own- language,—a concession which, as there are eleven languages in Austria, would render an Austrian victory in the next great war almost impossible. flow could even a Marlborough win the game if his orders to his right wing and the reports from that wing were mutually unintelligible ? It is actually possible, though we trust improbable, that the Parliament of Hungary, one of the most efficient in Europe, will be reduced to paralysis by this quarrel about a decoration. Neither the high diplo- matic skill nor the long experience of the much-tried Emperor seems to provide him with a means of escape from this half-imaginary dilemma. In the old days he would have flooded Hungary with troops, which, though ruinous expedient, was at least a simple one ; but to-day the call is upon the intellect of his statesmen, already overweighted by the ordinary complexities of government. In Scandinavia, again, there is said to be danger of actual civil war arising from the new vividness of the national consciousness of Norwegians. The union of the two States, Sweden and Norway, previously no doubt antipathetic, has now lasted for ninety years ; and under it both have enjoyed peace, both have grown more prosperous, and both have had the kind of government they approve, though Sweden is socially aristocratic, while Norway is socially a democratic Republic with a King at its head. Now, however, in spite of her urgent danger from Russia, which naturally desires to possess Hammerfest, Norway wishes to terminate the union, or rather to reduce it tc what is called " the golden link of the crown." Her people, it may be admitted, have a. grievance, more or less substantial. They have most of the trade of the united kingdoms, but Sweden appoints the Consuls, and the special interests of Norway are, in consequence, rather neglected in foreign ports. It is quite likely that this complaint is true, for Sweden, as we have said, is aristocratic, and aristocrats never give their full weight to the complaints of mere traders. The dispute, therefore, has grown fierce, being aggravated, no doubt, by an impression that the Regent is very " Swedish " in feeling. But the Swedish Government has offered to concede the point, without in the least soothing away Norwegian irritation. Norway is to have her own Consuls, and they are to be Norwegians ; but they must, of course, obey the Foreign Office of the united. kingdoms. That, say the Norwegians, is no concession at all ; we have a right as an ancient nation to our own Foreign Office and foreign policy. At this point the Regent stands firm, reasonably enough, for if he gives way the peninsula will consist, as regards external politics, not of one nation, but of two, to the great injury of both. To give way is impossible; to employ force is ruinous ; and the statesmen of Sweden and Norway are at their wits' end because the Norwegians, after ninety years of successful government through a wise compromise, are now determined to stake their future upon the success of their prayer for a decoration. They are a fine people in their way, but like the Celtic population of Ireland, they would be discontented with Paradise if they might not have a section of it walled off for themselves. Ideas are valuable things, but there may be too many of them for average statesmen to deal with with anything like success. It seems possible that as freedom and education develop themselves there may in each first-class State be millions of opinions, with a consequent impossibility of effective action.
CONFIDENCE IN PUBLIC MEN.
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