TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PARLIAMENTARY FUNCTIONS IN FOREIGN POLICY. Ix may at first sight seem that the decision of the House of Commons on the Chinese quarrel refutes the observations we made a fortnight back in reference to the ignominious position occupied by the representatives of the nation in questions of peace and war. It may seem that here at last we have a real Ministerial responsibility enforced, and that the policy of the Government has been baffled by the adverse vote of the Commons. But no one ever denied that the House of Commons could at any time pass a vote of censure upon Ministers, or that the Opposition was as likely to avail itself of a question of foreign policy as of any other for accomplishing its standing purpose of ousting Ministers and taking their places. What was demed was, that any retrospective action of Parliament could undo the mischief that might have been done ; that any change of Ministers could materially affect the issue of the condemned policy. The division of Tuesday proves only what we all knew before, that the supporters of Lord Palmerston's Government were not so numerous as the regular Opposition combined with the several sections of outside Liberals. No one can doubt, that had Lord Palmerston taken a more decided position in respect to domestic politics—had he put himself at the head of any one honest and vigorous movement forward—had he announced himself as prepared to deal with either representative, legal, educational, or military reform, in a thorough, earnest, practical spirit—the vote of Tuesday would have been different, it was utter indifference on the part of a large section of the Liberal party to the continuance of a so-called Liberal Administration that was the significance of Tuesday's vote. And that vote will have no influence on the course of events in China ; will neither undo what has been done, nor stay the employment of force till force has bent the stubbornness of the Chinese to our Western will. The House of Commons was in fact all the more free to vote simply on the question of whether Lord Palmerston should go on or not, because it knew that its vote could have no practical consequences in China. And this is one transparent result of all retrospective action by the House of Commons that, a certain state of things being accomplished and practically irreversible, partisanship and self-interest have their full swing in such debates ; whereas, if the Members knew that their votes would affect the course of the events which they were nominally discussing, there is always too much patriotism and good sense in the House to allow of the great interests of the country to be made a mere stalking-horse for party. But in the recent debates, while to Mr. Cobden and his party we may attribute a complete indifference to the party results of the motion we cannot help seeing the paramount influence of party everywhere else. The fact is singularly proved by the curious unanimity which the two sides respectively displayed in their opinions on the nice legal point at issue,—a point on which it is inconceivable that men of various intellect and temper should form precisely the opinions that favoured their political objects, unless we supposed the opinions actually inspired by those political objects. And the result is, that we have not the honest opinion of the British Parliament upon the justice or expediency of our proceedings in China, but simply their decision that they they do not object to a change of Ministry at home.
The Chinese ease is indeed complicated by the consideration that Ministers themselves had to deal with accomplished facts, and not to devise and carry out a policy of their own. They were themselves in the position usually occupied by Parliament, called upon to approve or disavow proceedings, the issues of which were already so far decided that it was impossible to restore the relations between the two countries to their former footing. We object to see the Administration put into such a position by the fussy meddlesomeness of its diplomatic agents, quite as much as we object to see the Parliament forced into the same position by the arbitrariness of the Administration. In both cases our objection is the same ; and it may be stated as an objection to see agents commit their employers irretrievably, where there is no necessity for such unlimited trust being given to agents. It is easy to say that as regards Parliament this necessity does exist; that Parliament debating in a large body, and publishing its discussions, is utterly unfit to decide questions of peace and war ; that whatever forms of taking Parliamentary advice were gone through, the real responsibility of such measures must always rest, as it does now, on the Cabinet Ministers and the diplomatists whom they instruct ; and that the result of pretending to let Parliament have a voice in such questions would be practically to take away what little power yet remains to it of enforcing Ministerial responsibility. But on what depends the power of deciding wisely whether in any particular case this country ought or ought not to resort to the sword? Surely on nothing more mysterious than a knowledge of the points in dispute—of their bearing upon
national interests—of their worth in comparison with the sacrifices
of war. The Cabinet Minister understands these points better than a Member of Parliament not in the Cabinet, only because the papers that contain the requisite information are accessible to him and not to the other. All the motives which ought to weigh with a Ministry before they engage the country in hostilities are mo tives which they might state to Parliament, and which the average Member of the Legislature is competent to appreciate if he is fit for his seat. And as for this limitation, there are as great
fools in office as on the lower benches ; office constitutes no patent of abilities, still less of real wisdom, in this country. We & not dream of intruding negotiation, in the strict sense of the term, to Parliament ; and the objections on the score of the numbers and publio debating only seem to us to apply to such a proposal. Nor would Ministerial responsibility, such as it is, evaporate ; for the only difference "would be, that a Minister of the Crown, coming down to Parliament with a statement of a dispute requiring, in the opinion of the Cabinet, an appeal to arms, would then be responsible for that opinion, and for the success of his proposal, ,just as he now is when he introduces an important measure of legislation on which the Ministry stakes its existence. A party opposing a Ministry in such an emergency must be prepared to take office and carry out its own policy, and would form its decision with the full knowledge of this responsibility; a consideration which would go far to disarm factious opposition, in a country whose people are notoriously jealous of their national honour, and by no means mawkishly disposed to put up with injuries or insults in a Quaker love of peace. Seldom, we suspect, would a Cabinet go out on a question of war, however strict the watch kept by the Opposition ; for seldom would any but just and politic wars be resolved on by a Cabinet that knew the first condition was to convince Parliament that the proposed war was righteous and necessary. Should we then have to put up with continual petty affronts and wrongs at the hands of powers great and small ?—Those who think so must have a strange notion of the temper of the nation • for they must imagine that Parliament would be less ready to avenge such injuries than the Parliamentary gentlemen who happen to form the Cabinet for the time being. Should we, on the other hand, be always fighting P—Probably, as far as mere temper goes, the danger would rather lie in this direction than the other. But, besides that the Cabinet would still have the responsibility of proposing military measures in settlement of a quarrel, the fact that the House of Commons is the guardian of the public purse could hardly fail to check any superabundant pugnaoity in that body. But of one thing we may be sure, that the nation would be engaged in no offensive wars of which it disapproved ; and, though we are not fanatically attached to peace at any price, we do recognize such advantages in a state of peace, that we consider no motives short of imperative necessity should induce a great commercial nation like Great Britain to make war. Even when the necessity occurs, it is not without misgivings that those who know what war means both to victors and vanquished, both to the soldiers who fight and the peaceful citizens who pay, can let loose such a scourge.
I There is one argument which is likely to have weight against our views ; and that is, the consideration that the real motives to ' a war are often quite other than those put forward at the time in its justification—that the published motives are not its cause but only its occasion. Thus, in the present dispute with China, we I are told that the real object of the attack upon Canton is to intimidate the Chinese authorities from a continuance in their stupidly exclusive policy. Thus it used to be whispered that Lord Palmerston attacked Athens, not for love of Pacifico, nor in vindication of the " Civis Romulus sum," but as a demonstration against Russia. Thus we notoriously make war upon Persia, not because we should mind the Shah becoming lord of Herat, but because the Shah is merely the catspaw of a greater potentate, of whose contiguity to our Indian possessions we live in continual panic. To all which class of motives we may reply, that they are very0 good motives to prudent watchfulness, but very bad reasons for attempting to prevent distant and uncertain and entirely hypothetical danger by immediate and certain and entirely real evils. Our precautions against rival powers have seldom proved effectual when taken in this roundabout way. Nor, so far as these motives have any foundation in fact, need they be concealed from Parliament; and Parliament, when in formed of them, is perfectly competent to weigh them. The fact is, that this excuse belongs to the old mystery of statecraft, and. does not befit the policy of a people like ours. We have too much real and pressing business on our hands to bother ourselves with all kinds of roundabout combinations and intrigues, that events are just as likely as not to baffle, that have rarely answered their in tended ends, and that involve in their progress a hideous amount of chicanery and disreputable agency. We are strong enough to defend ourselves against wrong when it is actually perpetrated, and need not, like a nervous man, to walk over our grounds in perpetual fear and danger of being caught in our own traps or shot by our own spring-guns. Lord Clarendon has had somewhat bitter experi ence in his public life of the results of attempting to obviate dangers, real or supposed, by underhand and unavowed means. He nearly lost himself by his dealings with the low Irish press, and nearly got the country into a war with America by trying to dodge the American law against foreign recruiting. And in all such cases the risk is greater than the advantage. We should not tremble much for the result if secret diplomacy were at once abolished, and if all the transactions of our Foreign Office were annu ally laid before Parliament. And till something of this sort be done—till the foreign policy of the country be as completely and as immediately under the control and supervision of Parlia ment as any other branch of the Executive Government—we may delude ourselves with the proud epithet of a self-governed nation, but the most important branch of government, measured by its cost and its influence on the general destinies of humanity, will remain as absolutely in the hands of a few persons—be they
called Foreign Secretaries, Prime Ministers, Prince-Consorts, or any other name that may chance to belong to the most eneroetic and resolute individual of the set for the time being—as it our Government were professedly despotic, and the people had no concern with it but to submit and pay the taxes.
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