FOREIGN POLICY.
Is proportion as the danger of a war of guns seems to pass away, the war of tariffs is renewed with fresh vigour. Last week brought intelligence of two new tariffs, of which the Brazilian threatens and the Belgian actually strikes a blow at English commerce. It is to be hoped that demonstrations of this kind may withdraw public men from the comparatively trifling matters upon which so much zeal has been wasted, and transfer their attention to the substantial interests of the empire. More care and effort have of late years been spent upon making the Morea the shadow of an indepen- dent kingdom, arguing the comparative merits of CARLos and CHRISTINA, maintaining our ascendancy in the Divan of Constanti- nople, fixing the relations of the Pacha of Egypt to the Sultan, en- deavouring to keep expanded the torn and disjointed umbrella of Morocco, and adjusting the diplomacy of Otaheite and the Sand- wich Islands, than have been vouchsafed to the nearer and more im- portant duty of ascertaining and keeping right our own position among the real powers of the world. We have been like chess- players intent upon taking pawns, and neglecting the movements of the queens, castles, bishops, and knights. If our relations to the Great Powers are on a satisfactory foot- ing—if we stand on safe ground with France, Austria, Prussia, Holland, Russia, Denmark, and Sweden, in Europe—the United States, Mexico, and Brazil, in America—any question that may arise out of our dealings with the anarchical states, such as Spain or Turkey, or the petty states, such as Lucca or Guatemala, or the communities of the East and South which hover mid-way between states and mere tribes, will admit of an easy solution. The Great Powers, if hostile, have it in their power—some of them single- handed, some of them by forming combinations with others—to do us serious injury. The business we transact with all of them in peace is important from its amount. So long as, through friend- ship or fear, we can keep them to deal with us on the square, our peace is in little danger of interruption. The rest can only act as tools or auxiliaries of some of these states, or of Europe : in any general war, they are no better than the Bashkirs or other plun- dering hordes called into play by Russia to gall and distract the attention of an enemy ; in the time of general peace, their hostile demonstrations are fitter to be regarded in the light of piracies or highway-robberies than of war. Britain can crush them, almost without an effort.
It is with the Central States of Europe that our relations are at present on the most unsatisfactory footing. The new Belgian tariff is a formal declaration of adhesion to the commercial policy of France and the Zollverein. That policy may be adopted in conse- quence of a secret understanding and concert among the three powers, or it may be the unpreconcerted result of the predomi- nance of certain views among them at the same time. Whatever be the cause, the consequence is the same to England. A Conti- nental system—the systematic exclusion of the commerce of Eng- land from the Continent—which NAPOLEON in vain attempted to enforce, is now successfully carried into operation by the simul- taneous efforts of France, the Zollverein, and Belgium. The attitude of Central Europe towards England at this moment is repulsive. It does not necessarily follow that this policy is pursued out of hostility to England : there is no inconsistency in the shows of friendship lavished upon our Queen by the Kings of France, Belgium, and Prussia, and their adoption of a commercial policy so detrimental to England. In professing a wish to cultivate amicable relations with England, they ex- press their sentiments ; in enacting regulations injurious to Eng- lish commerce, they are attending to business. They are like two wealthy merchants, brothers in heart over their wine or on a holyday-excursion, but in their shops each bent upon making the best bargain be can out of the other. Still, though not necea-
Barfly originating in a hostile spirit, the exclusive policy of France, Belgium, and the Zollverein, may lead to hostilities. More wars have been occasioned in modern Europe by popular excitement arising from such policy than by the ambition of kings. The systematic exclusion of the commerce of England from Central Europe is therefore a ground of serious anxiety, not only as it re- gards our commerce, but as it regards the prospects of the perma- nence of general peace.
It is not by negotiations with the powers that are attempting to isolate England, nor by concessions to them, that this is to be counteracted. It must be by confirming and extending the traffic and friendly relations of England with the other real powers of Europe and America, and by cultivating our own colonial resources. If England be strong independently of Central Europe, Central Europe will be obliged, by fear if by no better motive, to cultivate the good-will of England. To this end, it is for the interest of Great Britain to confirm and extend her friendly relations with Holland and the Baltic Powers at the one extremity of Europe, and with Austria at the other. With Holland and the Northern Ger- man States who have not joined the Zollverein, with Denmark, Sweden, Norway, and the German provinces of Russia, we have the advantage of old-established commercial relations, similarity of religion and general civilization. We all belong to the Protestant or legitimate Progressive party in Europe. Russia herself has fewer natural points of repulsion to the Protestant than to the Roman Catholic section of the Western Church. Some symptoms of late have indicated an inclination to court again that close com- mercial alliance with England from which for half a century the Cabinet of St. Petersburg has been retrograding. The position of Austria, between the rival claims of France for ascendancy in Southern Europe and those of Prussia for ascendancy in Germany, renders England a most desirable ally for that power. All these states are injured as much as England by the exclusive policy of France, Belgium, and the Zollverein ; all of them have a deep in- terest in replacing the traffic which this exclusive policy is with- drawing from them, by mutually extending greater facilities to commercial intercourse among themselves.
In the case of Holland alone is any obstacle to be apprehended from the clashing of her colonial policy with the colonial policy of England. In this respect our relative position to Holland re- sembles our relative position to the United States and Brazil. To cement our relations with these states, a modification of our old colonial policy will be required. But to this our own interests, independently of any wish to conciliate those countries, must soon have driven us. The power which a nation derives from its colonies proceeds from their wealth and voluntary submission. Every attempt to secure for the mother-country a monopoly of the trade of the colonies abridges their means of obtaining wealth, and affords them a plausible claim for counter-monopolies in the market of the mother-country. Every attempt to check the commercial enter- prise of those young communities and direct it into an artificial channel, is a source of irritation and annoyance to them. The tastes and habits which they carry out with them into the remote regions they are reclaiming from the waste, are a guarantee to us that the lion's share of their trade will always continue ours: the United States are in their commercial uses scarcely less a colony of England than when dependent upon her; Mauritius still con- tinues to draw the far greater portion of her European articles of consumption from France. By conceding a direct trade to and from our Colonies to every nation with whom they can carry on a lucrative commerce, a compensation will be given to the Colonies for exposing them to the competition of new rivals. The case of Brazil is the most difficult ; but even that may look more difficult than it really is. The Brazilian tariff threatens a blow to our trade, but has not yet struck it : Brazil must pause ere she strike, for France and the Zollverein repel her as much as England. So long as our relations with the states which have not irrevo- cably committed themselves to the Anti-English commercial policy of France, Belgium, and the Zollverein, are on a satisfactory foot- ing, we are secure against any unfriendly feelings entertained towards us by the powers of Central Europe. The Zollverein and Belgium cannot attack us ; and France, with the difficulty she must experience in raising war-taxes, will, notwithstanding the blustering of her War-faction, pause at the prospect of actual hostilities. Let France, the Zollverein, and Belgium, in a spirit of ignorant imitation, persist in drawing tighter those bonds of restriction which the more experienced commercial states, Eng- land and Holland, are now anxious to relax : a more liberal policy on our part will, without their concurrence, so increase our pros- perity and power, that in time they will come to follow the example of our dear-bought wisdom, as they are now following the example of our folly.
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