FRANCE AND BELGIUM.
IT is quite delightful, all this peace! particularly to Christians. and speculators for the rise ; but as politicians, we should like to know a little better what it all means. Things were looking very black indeed last week, so black that the Foreign Office would not have liked close questioning from the Lords ; and now everybody seems inclined to drink everybody's health, forget and forgive, and shake hands all round. All cause for alarm is over, of course, for are not Rentes rising? but we should like to know just a little about the reason why. It may be all our stupidity, but nothing is altered that we can see. The conditions of the calculation are all precisely where they were. There is Napoleon pondering how to make his majority certain in the Elections and his dynasty secure ; there is the French Army all ready for action ; there is North Germany consolidating herself as fast as she can ; there is Belgium so temptingly near France in her geography, language, and manners, and there are the immediate causes of dispute rather extended than changed. According to the Journal Offieiel, the Moniteur Beige, and the semi-official journals of Paris, the position is precisely as we described it last week, the Emperor striving to effect a "commercial fusion" between France and Belgium, the Belgian Government inclined to concede something to the Emperor's amour propre, and the influence of Britain thrown apparently on the side of peace at any price. At least, the Times of Wednesday announced, at the very head of all the advertisements on its inner sheet, that it was henceforth obtainable at all kiosks in Paris,—an advantage hitherto monopolized by the Telegraph, and to be secured only by official permission,—and in a leading article argued that Belgium ought to like commercial fusion very much indeed, to seize its chance of obtaining forty millions of customers all at once, to regard itself as the grand Railway station between France and Germany, and in fact to cease to be a country as fast as it could. And the• French semi-official papers all say that there is to be an International Commission in Paris, that all questions of commerce and intercommunication between the two countries are to be finally arranged there, and that Belgium has reassumed its position of moderation and is quite a well behaved little State, La Lant erne, and the limited suffrage, and Sadowa, and M. Frere-Orban, and all the rest of the evil powers, principalities, and events to the contrary notwithstanding. They' were all of last week, when one was bilious, not of to-day, when one can digest.
What on earth does it all mean ? Peace ? Well it may, for, of course, if Belgium is prepared to make a concession of her commercial independence, and Napoleon thinks that enough to satisfy his subjects, and Prussia does not care, and Lord Clarendon esteems that a triumph of diplomacy, nobody can have a word to say ; but is there any probability that all these things have occurred ? We do not believe a word of it, if only because M. Frere-Orban, who passed the Railway Act as one of urgency, has not resigned, and because the Belgian Parliament has as yet not opened its lips upon the matter. We doubt very strongly if anything has changed except the attitude of the Belgian Government, and that very slightly indeed. Napoleon may have changed ; we do not pretend for a moment to follow the vacillations of that extraordinary mind ; but there is no proof of that, and everything else remains very nearly as it was. The Belgian Goveinment, it is clear, was asked to submit all its commercial relations and Railway arrangements to international negotiation, and at first either hesitated or civilly refused. Pressed, however, by various influences, some of which may be English, but one of which is certainly Belgian ; anxious, above all things, that his country should stand well in the opinion of the peaceable section of mankind ; aware that war, whatever its ultimate result, would involve temporary ruin to Belgian prosper-AT, and aware also that listening is not with diplomatists equivalent to yielding, M. Frere-Orban has consented to open negotiations, which may at least compel Napoleon to show his hand. That would not have been the policy of Ring Leopold, though he, it is said, once obeyed what was nearly a command to send a Minister to Paris ; but then Sing Leopold could rely on the determined support of Great Britain, and we are not yet sure that his successor can, and it is well for a State like Belgium never to seem unreasonable. But then the readiness to listen does not seem to lookers-ou calculated to bring us much nearer to any real guarantee for peace. The Emperor of the French has not forced Belgium into a conference for any gratification to he obtained either for France or himself from that conference itself. That would be a triumph, if Prussia were the opponent,
but Belgium is too little. He wants the conference to be the
basis of a triumph, not the triumph itself ; and that triumph is, we suspect, from many incidents, the reduction of Belgium to the position as regards France which Saxony holds as re gards Prussia. A notion that the country could be drawn into a position in which it would be virtually a province of
France without avowedly becoming one, without overt breach, that is, of the guarantee of 1831, which Napoleon at heart rejects as not binding, and cancelled in 1851 by decree, has been floating through the diplomacy of the Tuileries ever since Sadowa, and has not a little excited Belgian susceptibilities. With the land customs between France and Belgium abolished,—the stipulation the Times hints at,—all Belgian taxation would be at the mercy of the Corps Legislatif ; for unless the systems of the two countries are kept identical, Belgium, after that concession, could at any moment be de prived of its trade. No Belgian ironmaster could stand a fall in the French duties while still paying his own, nor could
sugar be imported at a duty of five centimes in Ostend and of three in Calais, more especially while the French Government controlled all lines of communication, and could by merely reducing fares virtually make its own ports the ports of Belgium. Yorkshire might as well have a separate sea tariff, while goods passed freely over the Great Northern. On all matters of trade and finan ce Napoleon would be master of the situation, with this intolerable additional power, that he would not require to seem to be fair,--making his laws, which would really operate for both peoples, apparently only for the interests of one. Annexation would be a better situation, as far as regards that department of life, and that department in Belgium is an allimportant one. We cannot believe that M. Frere-Orban, or any other Belgian Minister, would ever make such a concession ; yet if this is not what Napoleon intends to ask, why all this rumpus, when France is already in the position of the "most highly favoured nation "I We say nothing of the Railway matter, because that has already been fully discussed ; but it is clear to any one that if the right of purchase is to be conceded M. Frere-Orban ought to retire, and that if France gets the Great Luxemburg she will get all the rest. They are kept up by the through traffic, and France in possession of a straight alternative line to Germany could lower fares till the Belgian State lines would not pay, could, in fact, suppress all charge for the transit through Belgium, and yet recoup herself by monopolizing the whole traffic. Imagine the chance of such projects in a Belgian Parliament !
Again, even if these changes were conceded, Napoleon would not have gained his end. He would not have obtained the great victory over Prussia which the chafed pride of his people craves, for Prussia is not interfering, or at least not openly enough for the French people to perceive it. He would have " asserted " France, and gained an immense advantage for France ; but the assertion would have been successful against a State which Frenchmen despise, and the advantage would be too recondite for the peasantry to perceive. Napoleon, if he intends to move at all, intends to move for more than that, and aemething more visible than that. If, indeed, Prussia could be induced to resist, or Belgium to appeal to Prussia, then, indeed, victory would be a triumph, and France might be called to arms with a certainty of cordial response from every Frenchman within her borders. We cannot imagine a contingency which would so rouse the patriotic pride of Frenchmen as a dedarahon by Prussia that a treaty between France and an independent State must be prohibited, except a proclamation by the Emperor that Belgium had called in the new and overweening power to defend her from the just demands of France. If Napoleon seeks the contest, that, one could imagine, is precisely the position he would like, enabling him to declare war in defence of the independence of France, and it is by no means improbable that this position may be attained. The Court of Berlin is military before all things, and will intensely dislike to see France close upon her frontier at Verviers While she herself is still, from want of the Railways, five days' march away ; while, if Belgium is much further pressed, slie must appeal to somebody, be it Prussia or Great Britain. Napoleon may not mean to fight,—there is always that un1'11, cvni quantity in European politics ; but if he does, he has at
last, as it seems to us, got the key of the lock in his power. tle turn, and he may be able to call France to arms for a " defen war' STATESMANSHIP WITH LIMITED LIABILITY.
LORD STANLEY is said during the Danish war to have remarked that some one should propose war alliances "with limited liability" for each ally. He has recently himself, if not suggested, at least begun to work out, a somewhat closely related conception,—that of statesmanship with limited liability. It is true, he has also said that political isolation is political insignificance ; and, therefore, he has voted with his party even when he has given it no moral support. But now for three years back he has almost completely withheld, both from Parliament and the public, his own view of the greatest questions of the day,—foreign policy alone excepted. Now, Lord Stanley made by common consent, and by our own admission with one or two more or less material drawbacks, a very admirable Foreign Secretary to the late Government. Yet we are disposed to think that the characteristic course which he seems to have laid down for himself in joining the Conservative Government of 1866-1848 as Foreign Secretary, —namely, to mind his own business and leave general policy very much alone, was one which may prove very dangerous to his own political reputation, and a very bad precedent for other statesmen. Certainly, his self-insulation from all the greater questions of the State, except foreign policy, dates from the period when he accepted the seals of the Foreign Office ; but it has been rather aggravated than relaxed since the retirement of Lord Derby, and since the retirement of the Conservative Ministry. During the last three years we have had but one speech from him in the House of Commons on any question of the first class except foreign politics, and that speech was not an expression of his real mind on the political issue which he strove to delay, but a mere speech in favour of delay,—we mean, of course, the amendment which he moved last year to the consideration of Mr. Gladstone's resolutions, the only drift of which was that the discussion of the policy to be adopted with respect to the Irish Church was premature, and should be remitted for the consideration of the Reformed Parliament. With this one exception, Lord Stanley's recent political influence has been absolutely and, as we think, most mischievously limited to foreign affairs. He would seem to have taken up a theory,—natural enough to his lucid and businesslike but rather unimaginative mind, but not the less untenable and disastrous,—that statesmen neglect the road to success which ordinary men of business pursue,—that of mastering one subject and sticking to it ; that they meddle in too many things, and so become inefficient in all ; that as, in any case, there must be more or less concession by one minister to his colleagues, it is well to make that concession a matter of routine on all subjects which do not specially affect his own department, but that if he votes with them without influencing their decision or trying to influence it, he may be exempted from the duty of speaking for them, especially if such superficial consideration as he may have been able to give, inclines him to take personally a different view from that ultimately adopted as the basis of action. This is something like what we take to be the sort of defence which Lord Stanley would put forth for his policy of abstaining from uttering a single word of positive counsel as to the Conservative Reform Bill of 1867, or the Irish Policy of 1868 and 1869. He has stood as much aloof from his party, in all respects except voting, as if he had stood in a perfectly independent position like Lord Grey or Lord Elcho. Yet in truth Lord Stanley has now been long regarded as one of the pillars of the Conservative party, as its possible, if not probable, leader, as in any case the second in command, and by a very considerable section of it, both in the country and in both Houses, is more trusted than Mr. Disraeli himself. If he continues to pursue his recent policy of abstaining from all interference in the general policy of his party, lie will soon be displaced in the esteem of Conservatives by a statesman so much his inferior in every way as Mr. Gathorne Hardy. It is impossible for any party to place confidence in a leader who keeps silence even from good words on all the points on which they are most anxious for advice. It is impossible for the public at large to keep up their knowledge of a statesman who refrains from expounding his views on all the subjects which are most familiar to them and by which they are accustomed to gauge the prudence and wisdom of their national politicians. You might almost as well expect the English public to be enthusiastic about a distinguished foreigner who addresses us only in French, like the foreign Ambassadors at a City dinner, as to confide in a nobleman, however able, who ignores Electoral reform and Irish policy, and advises us solely about our relations with Greece and Turkey, our fictitious guarantee of Luxemburg, or our claims upon the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Nor is the apology which we have imagined that Lord Stanley might possibly make for his reticence, to our mind even a plausible, not to say a good one. What it logically implies is a separate administration of each particular office by a chief who would depend not on the cordial support of his colleagues, but on his own personal talents and the indidividual reputation he might be able to earn by those talents in the House and the country. That of course assumes a totally different system of government from any now familiar to us, and not one of government by party at all. If each official chief is to rest on his own reputation, and not on the power of the Cabinet as a whole, each one would be certain to lose the support of a great section of what we now call his own party,—which would indeed cease to exist since it is only called into existence at all by the complete cohesion of the Cabinet,—and would seek to supply its place by earning support from sections of what we now call the opposite party. Liberal ' and Conservative ' would have no application to definite bodies of men, would indeed only be names for a policy, and not names that would call up any conception, however rough, of the quality and number of votes behind it, if once the Parliamentary chiefs of different departments of the Government ceased to co-operate heartily as colleagues, and sought to establish themselves separately on the basis of their own departmental achievements. This Lord Stanley probably understands as well as any man in England, but he might perhaps reply that so long as he accepts practically his share of Cabinet responsibility and votes consistently with his party, he is not bound to speak for it on questions over the conduct of which he has exercised little influence, and that influence perhaps one which has been overruled by the majority of his colleagues. This, however, seems to us a grave mistake. A statesman in Lord Stanley's position, one whose judgment is known to be so lucid and weighty on all the questions of practical politics, cannot be silent without having all sorts of views and motives attributed to him, which either do him gross injustice, or, at best, utterly fail to do him justice. If he substantially agrees with his colleagues, he has failed to give them that substantial, and, indeed, invaluable support which he, in his turn, must ask at their hands. If he materially disagrees with them, and yet takes a decidedly intermediate view between their policy and that of their opponents, he is failing in his duty to his party—especially now that the stringency of joint responsibility is relaxed by their retirement from office,—in not contributing his quota towards 'educating' them into wider views. If on questions of the first magnitude he agrees withhis opponents, and not withhis colleagues, he is failing in his duty to the nation not to declare that agreement, and throw in his influence with the advisers of the opposite policy. It is simply impossible that Lord Stanley can have no clear view at all on the great internal questions of the day. If it were so, he would not be the statesman whom the country admires and Parliament so profoundly respects. Yet if, as is doubtless the case, he has clear views of his own, and reserves them, he abdicates one of the greatest of his responsibilities as a public man,—that of contributing to form the creed of the party to which he belongs, or, still better, to mould the opinion of the public at large. Suppose, for instance, what it is very difficult, after his speech of last year, not to suppose,—that on the question of the Irish Church he either agrees with Sir Bounden Palmer, or thinks it wise and practicable to divide the Church endowments among all the religious bodies of Ireland, or individually inclines towards the policy of the present Ministers, against whom he voted on Wednesday morning. Had he held the first view and expressed it, —which in Opposition he certainly had full freedom to do,—he would have exercised a great influence on the views and votes of his own party, and probably have had sufficient weight to place an explicit alternative policy before the House of Commons. Of course that would have been no advantage to the Liberals,—on the contrary, a great disadvantage,—but it might have been a great advantage to the Conservative party, have enlarged its views, withdrawn it from the exclusive authority of an unwise leader ; and in any case have taught both Conservatives and Englishmen what to expect from Lord Stanley, how far his Conservatism is controlled by his sagacity and moderation, how far it seems to be stimulated by that sagacity and moderation. Or suppose he had really believed in levelling up,' and thought it a practicable policy, though he might have shaken j public confidence in himself as a friend to the impossible,' did he not owe it to his party and the country to advise (even without result) a course which it can scarcely return again to if it is once rejected now ? Or finally suppose (which is very unlikely) that he is, in spite of his party vote, substantially with Mr. Gladstone on this question. Is it fair to the country to disguise from it that it may find m him an alternative Liberal leader, or that, even if this be too large an inference, the most sensible, impartial, and business-like of Conservatives sees no real invasion of the rights of property in what is now proposed by the Liberal Cabinet ? It seems to us that this policy of reserve is an. worthy of Lord Stanley ; that if he could heartily support his Conservative colleagues, he owes them that support ; that if he could not, he owes the comity), the candid declaration of a judgment to which the country attaches so much weight ; that he is losing influence and deserving to lose influence, by standing aloof from general politics, and turning himself into a mere departmental chief ; nay, that even as a departmental chief, he is not hoarding, but squandering, his legitimate power, by appearing to have no opinion, or none that is worth giving, on subjects far more familiar to the nation at large than those of the special department with which he has lately dealt. Statesmanship with limited liability has in it something congenial to him, but something very alien to English wants and expectations. There is a narrow robustness about Lord Stanley that inclines him to wash his hands somewhat cavalierly of other people's business ; but the nation will never believe that a first-rate, or even second-rate, statesman can give himself wholly up to a mere department ; and it will either set him down as far beneath his true political rank for doing so, or, more justly perhaps, will resent his cool indifference to that set of public opinion on matters of the highest moment, the direction of which a little intellectual effort on his part might serve to materially alter and guide.
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