ENGLAND'S MISSION.

'GENTLEMEN, we bring you peace; and peace with honour.' Such are the reputed words, with which Lord Beaconsfield and Lord Salisbury, the two British Plenipotentiaries at Berlin, rewarded the admiring crowds who, on their return to London in July, formed part of the well-organised machinery of an obsequious reception, unexampled, I suppose, in the history of our civilians; and meant, perhaps, to recall the pomp of the triumphs which Rome awarded to her most successful generals.

To whatever criticism it may be open, it was certainly a bold challenge to Fortune thus to blazon deeds which at best were no more than inchoate. Peace and honour are most musical, most attractive words. But as to the first of this blest pair of Sirens,' two questions at once occur: what was it that they brought, and in what sense were they the bringers? Those of us who think that for six months they had been hindering peace by wanton obstructions, and frightening away the gentle messenger of heaven by the tramp of armed men, can only regard them as the bringers of peace in the sense in which the approach of a street-rioter, put into duresse, brings to us the fact that the riot is at an end. As to the thing brought, I shall try to be more cautious than the Plenipotentiaries in describing it, for thousands of gallant men have already bit the dust in the attempt to give effect to one of the pacific arrangements: the only one, indeed, which is associated with the initiative of England, for it was a British plenipotentiary who proposed that Austria should become mistress of Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Crete, in the Rhodopè, at Batoum, masses of men remain in arms, as they were before the Peace of Berlin. In Albania, they have rushed to arms since it was concluded. On the Greco-Turkish frontier, it remains as yet a dead letter, and Turkey at present refuses to entertain any negotiation. But let us cherish the hope that these war-clouds will, one and all, melt away. In any case, though they may damage many a rickety reputation, they cannot do away with the liberating work, which, im

1 Hor. Od. IV. iii. 6.

perfect as it may be, and beset with drawbacks, has gladdened the mind and heart of Christendom, and enlarged the area of human civilisation.2

But as to the honour' which figures in the Ministerial announcement, no one will question that the Government here may point to something which is unequivocally their own. And what is it? It is not that they prevented war: for they refused to pursue either the policy of constraint upon Turkey, or the policy of inhibition to Russia, by which, and by the last no less than the first of them, as we are now informed upon authority, war might have been prevented. It is not that they have liberated the subjects of Turkey; for they frustrated by their own action the pacific measures taken for their liberation, and as to war for enforcing such measures, they frowned upon it, cavilled at it, and finally hampered it with threats and adverse military preparations. Not that they have saved the integrity and independence of the Sultan: they have not only taken part in a great dismemberment, not only have themselves proposed that Bosnia and Herzegovina should pass into the hands of Austria, but also, that they might not appear before the nation empty-handed, they have similarly clipped off from the truncated Empire the island of Cyprus for themselves. Not that they have maintained the authority of public law; for they have broken European law in the most flagrant manner by settling, in a single-handed convention with the Porte, provisions most gravely affecting its integrity and independence in Asia, which by the treaties of 1856 and 1871, and by the practice under those treaties, were solemnly declared to be the common concern of Europe. These negatives are undeniable. What is then this honour,' the envelope of their peace,' which they have flaunted in the face of the nation? Is it a figment, or is it something substantial?

Justice requires the admission that it is very substantial indeed; but whether honour is the right name for it must depend upon what is held to constitute honour. The honour to which the recent British policy is entitled is this: that, from the beginning of the Congress to the end, the representatives of England, instead of taking the side

2

The public cannot but await with anxiety the Report of the Commission appointed by the Congress in consequence of the complaints which, as we have found within the last few days, fill forty-three pages of 'Papers,' No. 45 of 1878. They allege, against Russians as well as Bulgarians, a multitude of cases of cruel and revolting outrage. It would be idle to suppose that the Russian authorities can, under circumstances so terrible, stop every excess. But they are surely bound to make every so-called Christian, be he Russian or Bulgarian, who commits murder or other inhuman crime, pay, and that very promptly, the forfeit with his life. If they fail or falter in this duty, they will cover their Emperor and nation with disgrace: and, unless they can confute some very definite statements of British agents in these papers (pp. 52-5), it would appear that they have already and lamentably failed in it; besides prosecuting against the Mussulmans measures which seem nearly to approach to wholesale confiscation of their lands. On these matters there can in England, as I trust, be no difference of opinion.

3 Speech of the Earl of Beaconsfield in the City on the 27th of July, 1878.

6

of freedom, emancipation, and national progress, took, in every single point where a practical issue was raised, the side of servitude, of reaction, and of barbarism. With a zeal worthy of a better cause, they laboured to reduce the limits within which the populations of European Turkey are to be masters of their own destinies; to keep as much as they could of direct Turkish rule; and to enfeeble as much as they could the limitations upon that rule. Nor was this only to restrain or counterwork the influence of Russia. For, upon the record, they have done more than any other power to assist Russia in despoiling Roumania of her Bessarabian territory; they have worked energetically against Greece, which represented the only living anti-Russian force in the Levant; and this opposition to her case, considering the promises made to her on the 8th of June of a careful consideration of her territorial pretensions, merits no milder phrase than that of a betrayal. Mr. Waddington, the French Plenipotentiary, in his speech of the 20th, is ominously silent about the English alliance and the Anglo-Turkish Convention, but says, in so many words, that France, by her persistent intervention, obtained for the Greeks' what they got from the Congress. The honour, which the Government have earned for us at Berlin, is that of having used the name and influence, and even, by their preparations, the military power of England, to set up the principles of Metternich, and to put down the principles of Canning. We, who have helped Belgium, Spain, and Portugal to be free, we who led the way in the establishment of free Greece, and gave no mean support to the liberation and union of Italy, have at Berlin wrought actively to limit everywhere the area of self-government, and to save from the wreck as much as possible of a domination which has contributed more than any other that ever existed to the misery, the debasement, and the extermination of mankind. After the publication of the protocols and the debates on them in Parliament, this grave impeachment has passed out of the state of mere allegation into that of established fact. The honour which is claimed is, then, a spurious birth, which tarnishes the fame of the England that has been and is, and only can be coveted in an England that has unlearned her best traditions, and that is willing to be known to the world not as the friend of freedom, but as its consistent foe.

But it is plain from the nature of the case that, however true this may be, it cannot be the whole truth. The abandonment of the traditions of British freedom, and the loss of every diplomatic position which had been successively occupied, are not in themselves titles to support, do not of themselves open the mouth of adulation. We have yet to search out, then, an explanation for the strange phenomena, that have been passing before our eyes. How is it that a government, distinguished beyond every other administration for

Papers, No. 39, 1878, p. 3.

the long list of its disastrous failures in Eastern policy, should be in a condition to assume the airs of triumph without exciting a worldwide laughter, should hold together overwhelming parliamentary majorities, and, in the more significant province of new elections as they occur, should not yet have exhibited conclusive signs of political discomfiture?

It is among the better characteristics of this nation, and of the parties into which it is divided, that failure, as such, does not entail a marked loss of confidence and support. The same spirit prevails among us, which led the Romans to receive with more than equanimity the general who caused and suffered the ruinous defeat of Cannæ, because he had not despaired of the Republic. It has not been indeed by leaning on the higher side of British character, that our Ministers have, on the whole, maintained their position during these last three anxious years. Not peace, not humanity, not reverence for the traditions established by the thought and care of the mighty dead, not anxiety to secure the equal rights of nations, not the golden rule to do to others as we would fain have them do to us, not far-seeing provision for the future, have been the sources from which the present Ministers have drawn their strength. They are the men, and the political heirs of the men, who passed the Six Acts and the Corn Laws; who impoverished the population, who fettered enterprise by legislative restraint, who withheld those franchises that have given voice and vent to the public wishes, whose policy in a word kept the Throne insecure and the Empire weak; and would, unless happily arrested in 1832, and again in 1846, have plunged the country into revolution. But half a century has passed away, since last they had an opportunity of exhibiting their modes of government through a period of time sufficient to admit of their being adequately tested by results. No memory is so short as political memory. The party, which can count upon forgetfulness, need not trouble itself with repentance or conversion. The Government have enjoyed all the advantages of a tabula rasa, and have profited by their new start. They abandoned from the first all idea of living, as Sir Robert Peel desired that his Government should live, by great measures of legislation addressed to the national benefit, and they substituted a careful regard to interest and class, from Bishops down to beerhouses. But the tame inglorious existence thus defined, however safe might be its rules for the mere purposes of party, was not such as could bear the concentrated force of criticism, or as could satisfy opinion, or minister to fame. It was only the working dress of the Government, which needed also the bravery of Sunday clothes. These were to be sought in the field of foreign policy; and a vigorous foreign policy was the aim which it proclaimed from birth, with every prospect of impunity and of success. For a vigorous, that is to say, a narrow, restless, blustering, and self-asserting foreign policy, no Ministry has ever been punished in this country.

Foreign policy, as a long experience has now shown, does not figure among the causes which bring about the downfall of administrations, unless, indeed, when they are suspected of being too yielding and pacific; as was the case with Sir Robert Walpole in 1741-2, and, yet more notably, with Lord Palmerston and his Conspiracy Bill in 1858. The present Government is, indeed, the only one which has played this game so extravagantly or so ill, as to force a most reluctant Opposition to join issue upon it; and for the first time in our history two-fifths of the House of Commons have, through two successive years, been recorded as dissentients. Yet three-fifths are, it must be owned, stronger than two; and, while safe from actual danger, on its positive side the vigorous foreign policy exhibits all the advantages of a good and available political speculation. First, by forcing upon the public mind a stronger excitement, it produces a comparative indifference to the humdrum detail of legislation, and effectually covers all domestic shortcomings. Hardly any one, for example, ever remembers that the present Minister promised, at the general election, the repeal of the Income Tax, which he has doubled, and which he may possibly yet nurse into still more considerable proportions. Secondly, instead of asserting what are, or may be called, the views of a party, a vigorous foreign policy asserts what are presumptively claims and interests of the nation, and thus sheds a halo round its acts. Thirdly, in thus appealing to the self-love and pride of the community, it is pretty certain to carry its influence and drawing power for a time beyond the circle of its sworn followers, and to enlist the support of all those good citizens who, from the shilling gallery and elsewhere, enthusiastically applaud the lines— Methought upon one pair of English legs Did march three Frenchmer.5

But last, and best of all, as they are contending, forsooth, on behalf of the greatness of England, it follows that they are enabled at once to place all opponents in the category of contenders for its littleness. All those who will not be put off by their devices, who track out and expose a long series of shifts, and who resolutely denounce the sacrifice of the future to the present, are at once condemned by the large classes I have mentioned, as men who prefer their party to their country, as friends of the foreigner, and as conspirators against the greatness of the Empire. From the sources now indicated, a Government may provide itself, not indeed with a confutation, but with a counterplea against any charge. You failed to maintain peace in the East.' 'But we made the Queen Empress of India.' 'You failed to uphold the integrity of the Turkish Empire.' 'But did we not buy shares in the Suez Canal?' 'You failed to procure the punishment of even one of the miscreants who did the work of lust, torture, and rapine in Bulgaria.' 'But we poured in remonstrances as the sand

Henry V., act iii. sc. 6.