NONINTERVENTION A HUMBUG.

OF all delusions the supposititious doctrine of nonintervention is the greatest. We say the supposititious doctrine, because practically it cannot be said to have existed. It has been talked of. The great apostle of the doctrine as a primary rule of na- tional policy was Mr. Jefferson when the United States had only defensive but not aggressive powers. Somewhat later, President Monroe declared that the United States would not suffer "the European system" to be introduced into the American conti- nent—" continents" the Americans now say ; that is, the Model Republic puts a veto on the form and modes of government in other states of the same double continent. Still later, Mr. Polk annexes the Mexican province of Texas, and invades the capital of Mexico. In our own country, the Whigs were the great vindicators of non- intervention, so long as intervention was the privilege of Tory Governments : the Whigs attain to power, and their standing Foreign Secretary is Lord Palmerston, who defends the right of " intermeddling," and constitutes either a department of state in almost every country in Europe, or else an opposition agitator, a sort of alien O'Connell.

If we turn to the books, no part of international law appears to be in greater confusion than that relating to the right of inter- vention ; which is saying a great deal. It is a mass of intricacy and contradiction. Vattel asserts that " foreign nations have no right to interfere in the government of an independent state "— " to govern herself according to her own pleasure is a necessary part of her independence." This seems a distinct enough state- ment; but, unfortunately, nothing- of the doctrine can be realized but that kind of abstract and naked assertion. As soon as you come to particulars, you plunge amid qualifications and contra- dictions. That oracular trifler Martens naively asserts, that in cases of revolt and civil war, "any foreign prince has a right to lend assistance to the party whom he believes has justice on his side "; but "to espouse an unjust cause is unlawful": a singular specimen of pure wandering in search of conclusions. .

In seeking an illustration of the doctrine from the policy of na- tions, you are thrown still more completely abroad. It would be impossible to enumerate the multitudinous instances of interven- tion on behalf of some de facto government against its subjects, though that de facto government really represented but a frag- ment of the nation. States have repeatedly interposed, as for the sake of religious sympathy, on behalf of subordinate. sections of

foreign states,—Protestants befriending Protestants in France ; Catholics the members of their faith, as we see France now doing

in Switzerland ; Christian states protecting the Christians in Turkey—even the nominal Christians who pollute the "great

Asian mystery," and incur merited sarcasm from the author of Tancred. In short, a pretext has never been wanting for inter- vention. Of the opposite doctrine it may be said, slightly altering the words of the song,

nonintervenzione Come Pemba fenice,—

Che vi sia, clascun lo dice ; Dove Ma, nessun lo sa."

On. the other hand, if we seek in the practice of nations for any guiding principle of intervention, the search is equally dis-

tracted. In Poland, for example, the avowed objects of English intervention were a feeble motive to protect the nation- ality of the Poles, and a stronger motive to effect a kind of Whiskerandos dead lock between the military advances of the three surrounding Powers—a dead lock which Russia has broken as summarily as the Beefeater does in the play. The Holy Alliance arrogated to itself a general and elastic right of intervention— "This general right of interference was sometimes defined so as to be appli- cable to every case of popular revolution where the change in the form of govern- ment did not proceed from the voluntary concession of the reigning sovereign, or was not confirmed by his sanction, given under such circumstances as to remove all doubt of his having freely consented. At other times, it was extended to every revolutionary movement pronounced by those powers to endanger in its Consequences, immediate or remote, the social order of Europe, or the particular safety of neighbouring states."—Wheaton's Law of Nations, [1845J p. 517.

The Holy Alliance intervened to force a King on France ; Russia and England afterwards intervened to relieve Belgium of its Dutch King. In the first instance, Belgium was united to Holland, at the peace, to adjust "the balance of power"; the union was found impracticable to maintain, and it was dissolved fCir the sake of "social order." That same balance of power is a very ancient idea. Speaking of Philip the Second and his claim to be master of England, Fenelon says, that even if it had been just, other countries were right to prevent it, in order to prevent the aggrandizement of the House of Austria: "a particular right of succession ought to yield to the natural law of security for so many nations.' In 1834, however, we find England and France joining the Quadruple Alliance to maintain the succession of the Spanish and Portuguese thrones in particular branches; also to check rebellion and preserve order within the Peninsula. When Greece was the subject of intervention, the contracting powers were "penetrated with the necessity of putting an end to san- guinary contest" and "anarchy," of removing impediments to commerce, and of superseding measures which were "burden- some "—that is, troublesome and expensive to themselves, in keeping down piracy. In the Egyptian affair of 1840, the pre- text was "the integrity of the Ottoman empire" and the pre- vention of bloodshed.

Just look back at the conflicting motives disclosed in these few instances. In France and the Peninsula, foreign states resisted revolution; in Belgium and Greece, they supported it. In Bel- gium the balance of power is the pretext for compulsory union, social order for separation. In Turkey integrity, in Belgium dismemberment, are objects. In France, legitimacy ; in the Pe- ninsula not legitimacy. But in fact, there is hardly a motive or an object that is not isolated if not opposed to all the rest.

It is impossible to discover a recognized and consistent prin- ciple in the matter. It is all empirical. But, taking a very general view of the history of the world, one great change is apparent. Formerly, the state was the monarch ; and when there was a question of intervention, it meant intervention in the personal affairs of monarchs, the kingdoms being the property of said monarchs. That was the view taken by Edward the Third when he said that the enemies of" Portugal' were his enemies: " Por- tugal " meant the particular person whom Edward—" England" —chose to consider the proprietor of Portugal. Charles the First of England, and after him Louis the Sixteenth of France, lost their heads for not knowing that the ancient tenure of kingly power was out of date; but even the Absolutist Holy Alliance, which endeavoured so vainly to turn back the French Revolution, was obliged to act in the name of national interest. Subsequently, the interests of the people have come to be the main object pro-. fined by the diplomatists of Western Europe. And the living American writer on international law roundly asserts this prin- ciple- - 'If violence and crimes," says Mr. Wheaton "had marked some of the epochs of the French Revolution, the power of punishing, or of casting over them the veil of oblivion, belonged exclusively to the depositaries of the national authority: every citizen, every magistrate, whatever might be his title, has a right to seek for justice from the laws of his country alone. Foreign powers, so long as their subjects had not suffered from these events, could have no just motive either to complain or to take hostile measures to prevent their recurrence. The relation- ship between kings, their personal alliances, are indifferent to nations, whether free or slaves. Nature had made their happiness to consist in peace, and in mutual aid as brethren; and they would see with indignation the fate of twenty millions of men placed in the same scale with tne affections and pride of a few When politicians have so sweepingly condemned intervention, the idea present to their minds evidently was improper interven- tion. We have seen that the doctrine of nonintervention has no bore than a bare verbal existence. In fact, however, it is not 6-frly impossible, but theoretically absurd. Intervention must re- telt between nations, as between individuals not only from the

temptations to mutual aggression, but also from the impulses to mutual aid. The nation which could fulfil the doctrine of non- intervention would not be happy, because it could have neither reeling nor virtuous solicitude for the welfare of others. Inter- 'notion to settle the personal affairs of sovereign individuals was profitless.. So also intervention to force on foreign nations our

own polity, as England and France are too apt to do, is scarcely less absurd ; since institutions and polity are not only 'causes but results of national temperament, circumstances, and advancement. Intervention of course ought always, as the worthy Martens in- culcates, to be just; but as there is no appeal on the question of justice, the right resolves itself after all into a question of might. A nation will always be disposed to presume that section of a na- tion in the case of internal revolt, or in the case of international dispute that one of the litigant states, to be in the right with whose notions it possesses the closest sympathy ; and it will always be apt to enter the struggle with a disposition to props- gate its own prevalent doctrines. Hence, the best-regulated nations will often make mistakes. This is an evil that cannot be helped. Intervention will become more just and less mischievous in proportion as the will of each several nation is better expressed and better understood ; which is tantamount to saying that nations will behave better to each other when all are more thoroughly civilized and educated. Hence again, it is the inter- est and duty of each nation to promote, peaceably and honestly of course, those opinions on public affairs, and especially that free circulation of knowledge, which conduce to the general advance- ment of civilization. There may be zealotry and bigotry in French propagandism, dishonesty at times in the mode ; but the principle of propagandism is right. To a meddlesome disposition English diplomatists have joined a cold bigoted adherence to neu- trality in the dissemination of opinions ; and the consequences are, that we have not done what we might in fitting nations to receive. our aid, or to return it by reinforcing the opinions on which, our intitutions are founded; nay, we have lost even diplomatic influence by what appears a cold-blooded, self-seeking want of sympathy.

Nonintervention is as pure a phantasy as the "ocean stream" that was supposed to encircle the disc of earth. Intervention is often a duty. The aim should be to ascertain what is really the capacity, purpose, and claim of the nation in whose behalf an- other intervenes. And as the general progress of political know- ledge and national intercourse will make intervention less ha- zardous and more effectual, it is desirable for those governments which possess the power, to promote in every peaceable and honest way the free interchange of national sentiments and experiences: Bad intervention, bigoted propagandism, are to be eschewed; but we only keep up a delusion which helps to obscure the truth, if we neglect to put away the fallacy of nonintervention.