A FOREIGN POLICY PRECEDENT.
(To THE EDITOR OF TEl °SPECTATOR:1 Sin,—It may be instructive, at the present juncture, when one of the regular cuckoo-cries of the soi-disant "patriotic party" is, "You ought to trust the Government implicitly in matters of foreign policy," to recall the way in which the Conservatives obeyed this maxim in 1864. Rightly or wrongly, after the Con- ference held in London, Lord Palmerston's Ministry decided not to intervene in the quarrel between Denmark and Germany. On July 4 in that year, Lord Malmesbury in the House of Lords and Mr. Disraeli in the Commons moved an Address to the Crown, the purport of which, inter alio, was, "To assure her Majesty that we have heard with deep concern that the sittings of the Conference have been brought to a close, without accomplishing the important purposes for which it was convened ;" and, "To express to her Majesty our great regret, that while the course pursued by her Majesty's Government has failed to maintain their avowed policy of upholding the independence and integrity of Denmark, it has lowered the just influence of this country in the counsels of Europe, and thereby diminished the securities for peace." The result is matter of history. After a four nights' debate, in which each party used many of the phrases now caught up by its opponents, the House affirmed its confidence in the Govern- ment, by a majority of 18. But what I want to ask now is, are the present Conservatives so infected with their leader's con- stitutional disability to state historical facts accurately, as really to believe that an immunity from criticism in regard to their foreign policy is one of the "high and ancient privileges" of her Majesty's Ministers? I say nothing about the curious coincidence that the substitution of " Turkey " for "Denmark" would make the words I have quoted express literally what many of us are
thinking at this moment.—I am, Sir, &c., A. J. B.
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