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 Front Page arrow Titles (by Subject) arrow 385.: THE CZAR AND THE HUNGARIAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY [2] EXAMINER, 6 OCT., 1849, P. 627 - The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV

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Subject Area: Political Theory
Collection: The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill

385.: THE CZAR AND THE HUNGARIAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY [2] EXAMINER, 6 OCT., 1849, P. 627 - John Stuart Mill, The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, Volume XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV [1847]

Edition used:

The Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, XXV - Newspaper Writings December 1847 - July 1873 Part IV, ed. Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson, Introduction by Ann P. Robson and John M. Robson (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1986).

Part of: Collected Works of John Stuart Mill, in 33 vols.

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385.

THE CZAR AND THE HUNGARIAN REFUGEES IN TURKEY [2]

EXAMINER, 6 OCT., 1849, P. 627

This paragraph follows a letter headed “What Is England to Do?” and signed “A Cambridge Man,” which calls on the public to trust the Foreign Minister, Palmerston, in his very cautious and moderate support for the Hungarian refugees (for the context, see No. 384). Mill’s paragraph is introduced by this editorial comment: “Since this letter was in type, another, with the signature of J.S.M., has been forwarded to us, taking a different view of the duty of the public in reference to this question. The writer professes no faith in the conduct or courage of the Ministers (with one exception), and speaks indignantly of the affair at Malta and its recent extenuation.1 But he adds with much truth:”. The item, which appears in the “Political Examiner,” is described in Mill’s bibliography as “A letter on the same subject and with the same signature [as No. 384] but of which a part only was printed, in the Examiner of 7th [sic] October 1849”

(MacMinn, p. 72).

but let the public also take its share of blame. If the public cannot trust the Ministers, neither can the Ministers trust the public for support in any energetic and generous course of action in foreign affairs. The Ministers think that the people care for nothing but reducing the taxes and preventing any interruption of trade. Or that if they are capable of being moved by any idea larger than this, it is by the idea of a silly, goody kind of peace. If, six months ago, we had possessed a government with spirit enough to announce as the determination of England, that neither at Rome, nor in Hungary, nor in any other place in Europe, should any foreign intervention be suffered unless England was a party to it—a declaration which, if believed, would have effectually prevented any intervention and any war—could they have expected to be supportd by the nation in assuming this attitude? Would not a junction of all the office-seeking parties against them have been suffered by the nation to expel them from power? The official people believe that, though England will bear to be overtaxed on all sorts of idle and dishonest pretexts, no cause is so sacred in her eyes that she would be willing, rather than abandon it, to add a million to the taxes. Let England come forward and declare that this is not true. Let public meetings proclaim that England will go to war with Russia rather than suffer Turkey to be bullied into giving up vanquished fugitives to the executioner; and the fugitives will be saved, and the character of England vindicated, without a chance of war.

[1 ]Mill must have repeated in the missing part of this letter the views with which he concludes No. 384 (q.v.) about Palmerston (the exception), and Grey and Russell.