many, and France in hostile union against us, Austria being at that time visibly a mere satrapy of Russia, not daring to encounter her displeasure. We are already in threefold armour avowedly because of the military successes of France, a power professing friendship to us. With what a weight of military and naval armament should we have been worn down, if, in the interests of despotism, Russia and France had combined against us in 1852 ! Constantinople would then have fallen into the hands of Russia, for the Turkish fleet could not resist unaided. Our fleet on the Mediterranean would have been permanently doubled. Greece might have thrown herself into the arms of Russia, and England must have looked across the Atlantic for allies, if she desired to maintain the luxuries of free press and safe asylum. If we have been saved from these dangers, it is not by the wisdom of our statesmen, but by the folly of the Russian policy. In fact, since 1849, events have shown that there is a profound and momentous contrast of sentiment in regard to foreign policy, between the nation at large and the two parliamentary coteries which wield the national force; and it may seem that the instinct of party prompts the statesmen on both sides studiously to avoid eliciting the sympathies of the nation, lest its enthusiasm overpower them both. On this account they shroud their doings in secret diplomacy, and generally evade publication until the crisis is past; and if of late things have improved in this respect, it is due chiefly to the very different practice followed first in Paris, next in Turin.

It is perhaps correct to say, that the English nation took no practical interest at all in foreign affairs from 1815 to 1849. Even in 1848, the June insurrection in Paris so damped the general interest felt in

England for foreign liberty,-so confounded and darkened the prospect, that it needed the gallant resistance of Sicily and Northern Italy, the revolution of Rome, and the successes of Hungary, before the English nation would rouse itself to inquire into the facts and the justice of the causes. Then at length, in 1849, the numerous and spontaneous meetings in all parts of the country in sympathy with the freedom of Hungary, showed without mistake what was the instinct of England and what its ground of judgment. It saw a right and a wrong: a constitutional legal nation assailed by its own dynasty; taken unawares while its trained armies were abroad; attacked on all sides, yet speedily victorious; and after its righteous and glorious victory, about to be again attacked by the whole force of Russia, because it had vindicated its laws against murder, incendiarism, and treacherous invasion. At this the righteous instinct of England was horrified. It did not suspect that the Cabinet in which so pure a Whig as Lord John Russell was Premier, and so great a talker for freedom as Lord Palmerston was Foreign Secretary, could possibly sympathize with the lawless Austrian dynasty. It therefore addressed earnest and trustful petitions to the ministers who were supposed to be friends of freedom. Lord Palmerston's 'Hungarian speech' in Parliament (so it was called) drew out the thankful joy of the Liberal members, who in grateful recognition presented to Lady Palmerston a portrait of her noble husband.

Very few then knew the halfhearted game which the Russell Ministry was playing in Italy, to the ruin of freedom; talking for liberty, winning the confidence and raising the hopes of the people everywhere, yet advising the princes* against war with Austria,

which the people knew to be the only possible means of establishing freedom. Recent events demonstrate how entirely right was the judgment of Italy, how absurd and pernicious was the English policy. By assuming the place of arbitrator in Sicily, our Government damped the popular enthusiasm, which thought its cause safe in English hands; then, having gained time for the King of Naples, allowed him to bombard Messina under the eyes of our fleet, which the Sicilians had never imagined was sent there for the mere pleasure of looking on at the hideous game. The English nation as little guessed that Lord Palmerston had given a distinct sanction* to the Prince President of France to restore the Pope 'under an improved government.' Nor did it then know that the same lord had repelled Kossuth's envoy, had referred him to the Austrian ambassador, had uttered the (diplomatically false) statement that England knew nothing of Hungary but as a province of the Austrian Empire, and had refused to Hungary that mediation which Queen Anne's Tory Government had forced upon Austria in 1709-11, so establishing the peace of Satmar, which Austria flagrantly broke in 1848. Naturally therefore that could not be guessed which appeared at length when the Blue Book of Hungary was published; that Lord Palmerston, however condemning the folly of Austria, who by quarrel with Hungary crushed her own right arm,' still wished that that right arm should be crushed rather than that Europe should lose the precious advantage of a strong Austria.' But in the midst of these events a painful revelation was made of the tone of Lord John Russell's sentiment toward the Garibaldians who had defended Rome against the attack of Louis Napoleon. A small ship laden with exiles of both sexes escaped

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from Rome to Malta, and were forbidden by the governor to land-a prohibition which might have involved starvation, fever, or shipwreck, when it was hard to know what coasts were then safe for exiles. In reply to Mr. Hume's inquiry in Parliament, Lord John Russell defended the conduct of the Maltese governor, on the ground that these people, who had made a revolution at Rome, would no doubt be equally willing, if they could, to make a revolution in Malta.' Who can measure the depth of prejudice implied in such a reply?

The magnitude of the chasm which here divides the nation from the professional statesmen was not fully gauged until Kossuth's arrival in England, the phenomena of which remain to us as a formidable instruction. The whole of the wealthy middle classes unconnected with political office, as well as the lower classes, rallied to Kossuth with a unanimity and spontaneity quite unparalleled, displaying towards him an enthusiasm such as domestic royalty can but rarely command. The greatest and wealthiest cities of the land vied to do him honour; the city of London banquetted him in the Guildhall; Birmingham and Manchester gave him splendid receptions; a host of commercial towns sued for the honour of welcoming him; Edinburgh and Glasgow have always been enthusiastic for him, though time then forbade his going thither. Except the organs of the Stock Exchange (whose cue, we suppose, was to uphold at all events the rotten Austrian finance), the whole liberal press of the country was with him. But in the midst of all this truly national enthusiasm, we should gladly hear that so many as three peers or one privy counsellor breathed publicly a word of sympathy with Hungarian liberties unjustly overthrown. The greatest of all the

Whigs-the late Lord Macaulay in a public address the next year, deliberately avowed that the terrible reaction of imperial violences was only the price paid for the saving of civilization. He seems to have confounded Buda-Pesth with Paris.

We can now see clearly wherein the logic of the nation differs from the logic of those who are, or seek to be, its leaders. The nation believes that nations, like individuals, have rights, and that rights are inviolable that to do the right is the way to the truly expedient; but the statesmen believe that all national rights are to be judged of by expediency, and that by seeking to do that which is expedient we shall do that which is right. The moral contrast of these two states of mind is immeasurable, and, even when neither is carried to its legitimate extent, is vast. Let us dwell a little on the topic.

The politicians tell us that we must wait for the millennium for nations to act on the right and the wrong; that this is all very well for private life, but will not do for public conduct; that it is mere fanaticism to talk against military operations or against a coup-d'état as against murder and robbery; that a deed becomes right by being very expedient-that is, by conducing to the interests of a great majority hence, that we can only judge what is right by inquiring what is expedient. Thus, to overthrow a tyranny in Naples and change the dynasty may be right, because a strong Italy is important to Europe; but to overthrow an equally wicked tyranny in Hungary may be wrong, just because Europe wants also a strong Austria.

Those who maintain such paradoxes are often fluent debaters, and as such are difficult to answer; especially as they carry us into the very depths of moral theory by the immensity of their scepticism. Let us here satisfy ourselves by inquiring which of the two was practically wiser, judged of by the result? the instinct of the British nation, which cursed the wickedness of Austria and wished to up

hold the rights of Hungary; or, the subtle cleverness of the British statesman, who, lamenting the violence of Austria, still desired that violence to prosper, for the sake of European expediency! The nation did not trouble its head to ask, 'What is to become of Europe if justice is done against Austria ? for it was too simple to imagine that the stability of Europe could depend on injustice to a great country. It was satisfied with the rule, Be just, and fear not.' The statesman, anxious for a 'strong Austria' as a bulwark against Russia, deliberately allowed Russia to throw down the bulwark, and convert Austria into her humble dependency. Neither side among us then foresaw the Russian war against Turkey; though it might have been foreseen; for Kossuth in America twice publicly and vehemently foretold it, in March and May, 1852. But no one can now doubt that that war was a natural result of the Emperor Nicholas's conviction that Austria was thenceforth his humble servant, or as he frankly said to Sir Hamilton Seymour, 'What pleases me, pleases Austria.' The Russian war, in dread of which our statesmen sacrificed Hungary, was brought upon them by precisely this very measure. The nation did not look to futurity; yet by confining its view to the simple question of just and unjust, right and wrong, attained the wisdom which the far-seeing statesman missed.

Here is a practical answer to the very gratuitous assertion, that nations will not act on the arguments of right and wrong until the millennium. Far more plausibly might it be said, that they will not act on arguments of philosophic expediency until the millennium. Nothing can be clearer than that the masses of mankind are deeply acted on by two sorts of motive; first, by personal material advantage (such as no one will dare to call expediency in that high and noble sense which embraces the interests of all others as well as our own); secondly, by a concep

tion or perception of right and wrong. The impulses of a multitude may, on the one hand, be quite as base and much coarser than those of the most unscrupulous tool of tyranny; on the other hand, their impulses are often generous, and, in proportion to their knowledge, aim at justice. But what is quite impossible for a nation is, to estimate justice by means of arguments of world-wide expediency. To say that they must judge in this way, is to deny to them any judgment at all on the question of war or peace.

If it is hard to know the right and the wrong, it is generally far harder to know what is expedient, except when we settle it through first knowing what is right. And however scornfully politicians may treat as stupid fanatics those who press the argument of right, they themselves urge it whenever they are anxious to impress the multitude. We have not forgotten the speech of Lord John Russell in 1854, against the Emperor Nicholas (called his brutal' speech by the St. Petersburg Gazette), which ended by appealing to God to defend THE RIGHT. That, as between Russia and Turkey, the Russians were wrong,' was a compact and intelligible argument; but whether it is 'expedient' for all parties concerned that the Turkish rule be sustained, cannot be fairly debated without plunging into the utmost vagueness of hypothesis. It may be apparently solved by interpreting as expedient whatever is immediately convenient to ourselves; but so base a measure of expediency no one dares to avow and recommend.

If it be admitted that through inferiority of intellect the millions cannot deal with the very diffuse argument of expediency as the foundation of right, and necessarily look on right as the foundation of expediency, an immense result follows, which no statesman ought to overlook. This weakness of nations (so let it just now be called) is apt to defeat all the calculations of the politician who shapes his course on the opposite

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principle. Thus an English peer in 1852 remarked, 'he should have expected that the Hungarians would be proud of being subject to so great a Power as Austria.' That is to say, he was blind to the intense resentment felt by a nation when its rights are trampled on. Not feeling with it, he does not anticipate its action. He fancies that Austria is about to become very powerful, and to his surprise discovers that her breach of fundamental morality has reduced her to the brink of ruin.

In the Russian war the same perverse sympathy with Austria drove our Ministry into a course, by their own confession, most headlong. They were narrowly saved in the battle of Inkermann, and well that has been for Europe; but again we say, no thanks are due to their wisdom. To men who look at the right and the wrong, nothing could be plainer than the course which ought to have been pursued from the beginning of the Russian invasion. In 1848 the Sultan had granted to Wallachia numerous reforms, and was prepared to grant the same to Moldavia. Hereupon the Russian army entered Moldavia, and forced the Sultan to cancel these reforms, and drive into exile the patriots who had demanded them. Consequently, the moment the Turks declared war in 1853, on the renewed invasion of Moldavia, nothing was more obvious than to recal the exiles, proclaim anew the reformed constitutions, and occupy Wallachia before the Russians could advance into it. This the Turks were eager to do, but were forbidden by the Western ambassadors, because the English Ministry did not wish to offend Austria, whom they hoped to win to their side. Austria, having violently crushed freedom in Hungary and Transylvania, dreaded its establishment on her border; therefore was eager to occupy first Servia, then the two Principalities. In consequence the Turks were left, with the most uncertain result, to fight their battle unaided-after we had nominally joined them-after our armies had reached Varna. Since