LORD BEACONSFIELD, THE CANDIDATE OF THE CONTWENT.
THE devices adopted at this Election have not much novelty, though the amount of misrepresentation is, perhaps, unusual ; but one is frequently employed which we can- not remember ever to have seen tried before. Lord Beaconsfield is represented everywhere as the Candidate of the Continent.. The correspondents of the Tory papers are never tired of sending over little stories and snip- pety extracts from foreign papers, in which the great per- sonages of different States, and the most influential journals, are represented as longing for the success of Lord Beaconsfield at the elections. Prince Bismarck is quite anxious about it. The Austrian Court thinks Lord Beaconsfield a very great man. The French all trust that England will not, by electing Mr. Gladstone, efface herself again. As for the papers, they are quite gushing with enthusiasm, and belabour the Liberals with a decision which suggests that they have all received a cue, and are anxious to better their instructions. The parade of these paragraphs is evidently intentional, and designed to influence the elections ; and the device is certainly a novel one, and founded on a view of English opinion which must have been very recently formed. Clearly the new idea is that Englishmen have entirely ceased to be insular, that they are very much influenced by the opinions of their neighbours, that they have ceased altogether to be proud, as in Palmerstonian days, of the dislike felt on the Continent to their representa- tive man, and have become incapable of suspecting that a Minister whom foreign Powers love must be intent on designs for the benefit of foreign Powers. There must be a great im- provement in the popular tone of Great Britain, if that change has occurred It is not fifteen years since Lord Palmerston died, and during half his life-time he was reverenced as pas. excellence The Briton, the man who was not the Minister of any foreign Power, but of England only, the man who was at once dreaded and detested in all the Courts of all the Continental States. His present successor, it appears, is loved in them all except St. Petersburg ; and so benevolent and cosmopolitan have Englishmen grown, that this is to be a final reason for according to Lord Beaconsfield a new term of power. Ho is the candidate of the Continent, therefore let all Englishmen throw up their caps. The Hohenzollern favours him, the Hapsburg prays for him, M. Grevy regards him as a boon to a miserable world, therefore let him for five years more be Premier of Great Britain.
That is an odd change in the temper of a nation ; as odd as the modern adaptability of Hebrews, and we a little doubt whether it has occurred,—whether Englishmen at heart like to see Lord Beaconsfield so bespattered by foreign praise, whether Tory papers are not, in fact, making a very maladroit blunder, only passed over because one detested Court is represented as abstaining from the universal cry. But as we should not greatly regret the change if it had occurred, holding English insularity and want of sympathy with the Continent to be merely signs of ignorance, we pass over that, to inquire whether all this laudation can be entirely disinterested. It seems, at first sight, a little suspicious that Prince Bismarck should be so fond of a Minister who, in a public manifesto, claims ascen- dancy in the councils of Europe, that the Hapsburgs should care so greatly about an English election, that Germany and France should both hope for the success of the same person.
Continental statesmen have no particular love for the glory or prestige of this country, no anxiety to increase its sway, no especial wish that its ascendancy should supersede their own. As a rule, they are not only jealous of England and slightly contemptuous of her, but inclined to exaggerate beyond all bounds her selfishness and devotion to her own interests. They are very well informed, too, and are well aware that the Conservative party desires, above all things, prestige upon the Continent, and avowedly postpones to " English interests " every other consideration. If, there- fore, it is alleged that they are all alike desirous of Lord Beaconsfield's success, it is, at all events, probable either that there is some error in the statement, or that they have definite motives ler their partisanship.
We believe that bet', explanations are correct. The French Government, so far from desiring Lord Beaconsfield's success, has ever since the occupation of Cyprus regarded his projects with suspicion, has resisted his influence at Constantinople, where M. Fournier and Sir Henry Layard are always at log- gerheads, has tried to supersede him in Egypt with great success, and would welcome his fall with a sensation of relief, which would be reflected in the Press, but for the evil influence of the Egyptian Bondholders, the " Frenchmen with their fortunes embarked in Egypt," of whom M. Waddington spoke, and who have not yet had quite time to unload. The French think they see in Lord Beaconsfield, as a statesman who postpones all interests to antagonism to Russia, a possible friend to that Austro-German alliance which isolates them in Europe, unless they accept that alliance with Russia which at heart they distrust, and, until Russia has been liberalised, think hopelessly unworkable. In Germany and Austria, on the other hand, the feeling is momentarily sincere, and for very obvious reasons. Both States are pursuing a policy—the aggrandisement of Austria eastward—which England could resist or support with serious effect, and to which they think the statesmen who proposed the assignment of Bosnia and Herzegovina to Austria would probably be friendly. Both dread French and Italian resistance, and both hope that re- sistance might be neutralised by the threats or the armaments of the great maritime Power which could quiet Italy with a -word, and might, in her hatred of Russia, even insist that France should remain still. It is as the ally of Austro-Germany against France and Italy—for they can deal with Russia for themselves—that Lord Beaconsfield is popular in Austria and Germany, a fact which electors will do well to take seriously to heart. Lancashire and Yorkshire, in particular, have reason to think an entente cordiale with France an unmixed blessing.
This direct self-interest is the main cause of the popularity of Lord Beaconsfield in Central Europe, but there are yet two more. The Jews have in both countries a position, alike in politics and literature, entirely disproportioned to their num- bers. They furnish popular leaders everywhere, they govern finance, and they control much more than half the Press known in this country. To all Continental Jews, the career of Lord Beaconsfield is a subject of intense and perfectly justifiable interest. They think it is a romance, which is true ; and one that greatly honours and exalts their race, which is doubtful ; and they wish to see it go on to the end, and, perhaps, conclude in some great blaze of scenic and spectacular triumph, such as would, in their judgment, make its fitting termination. When Lord Beaconsfield was at Berlin, they rained honours and attentions on him, and they would hear of their tribesman's defeat with an emotion of annoyance and regret, which we are far from thinking ignoble, but which would be a Hebrew emotion, and not, as they represent, that of all Frenchmen, Austrians, and Germans, except so far as they were influenced by another and very strong feeling. This is, dislike to see England exempted from the miseries of Continental wars and complications. There is a profound feeling in all classes upon the Continent, among the proletariat as well as among the statesmen, that the position of England is unfair ; that she is one of the European family, that they always have to attend to her, and that she is yet exempt from the burdens and liabilities of the rest. She is never in risk of invasion ; she is never in danger of a war of existence ; she has no con- scription ; and yet, she is great and wealthy and conspicuous. Such a position seems to Continentals at once too enviable and too selfish, and any event which threatened to bring it to a eose, and entail upon England the sacrifices imposed upon her cousins, would be regarded with delight. England, they think, with a conscription, would understand some of the difficul- ties of her neighbours. And they think Lord Beaconsfield's restless policy and determination to fight Russia by land, at points where Russia can produce ten men for one, will ulti- mately make a conscription and an immense army indis- pensable. They are probably wrong, though England has resorted in past times to conscription for the Navy, and if in danger herself might throw many ideas to the winds ; but they think they are right, and, cce'teris paribus, would rather see Eng- land ruled by a Government addicted to militarism, than a Government which would only develope the prosperity and freedom of which they are permanently envious. "You Eng- lish," said an Italian of eminence, " are too dam comfortable I You are no use!" And as Lord Beaconsfield's regime menaces that state of affairs very decidedly, the Continent, so far as it is not governed by specific hopes or fears, is desirous of Lord Beaconsfield's success.
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