The Online Library of Liberty

A project of Liberty Fund, Inc.

• Preface
• Introduction
• Part I: England, Ireland, and America 1835
• I.—: England
• II.—: England
• III.—: America
• Part II: The Corn Laws and Free Trade
• I.—: The Petition of the Merchants (1820)
• II.—: Joseph Hume’s Speech On the Corn Laws, May 17, 1833
• III.—: The Manchester Petition Against the Corn Laws (1838)
• IV.—: Repeal of the Corn Laws
• V.—: Repeal of the Corn Laws
• VI.—: The Corn Laws and Compromise
• VII.—: The Impending Scarcity
• VIII.—: ;the Repeal of the Corn Laws
• IX.—: The League and Sir Robert Peel
• X.: —after Repeal—the League Dissolves
• XI.—: Free Trade and Reduction of Armaments
• XII.—: The Taxes On Knowledge
• Part III: Wars and Armaments
• I.—: Armaments, Retrenchment, and Financial Reform
• II.—: An International Reduction of Navies
• III.—: On the Crimean War and the Patriotism of Its Opponents
• IV.—: The French Treaty and Armaments.
• V.—: The Civil War In America
• VI.—: The Civil War In America
• Part IV: Colonial and Fiscal Policy
• I.—: The Relation of Foreign and Colonial Policy to Fiscal Reform
• II.—: Colonial Expenditure and Government In 1848
• III.—: The Prussian Zollverein In 1840 By Richard Cobden
• IV.—: On the Proposed British Zollverein, Or Commercial Union With the Colonies
• Part V: Social Reform
• I.—: Cobden On Education
• II.—: The End and Aim of Politics
• III.—: The Malt Tax, Temperance, and Retrenchment
• IV.—: Wages and Cheap Food
• V.—: To Farm Labourers On Agricultural Policy

PART III

WARS AND ARMAMENTS

WARS AND ARMAMENTS

THIS part of the work has involved considerable difficulties. Cobden and Bright never concealed their opinion that war is very seldom either just or necessary. They regarded freedom of trade and freedom of government as powerful allies of peace. They were among the earliest and most effective champions of arbitration. They strenuously opposed the growth of military and naval expenditure, not only because overgrown establishments are incentives to needless wars, but also because they actually weaken the resources of the nation, just as over-insurance may easily cripple and ruin an individual trader. It is worthy of note that the views expressed with so much courage and moderation by Cobden and Bright upon the two great wars of their time have since been endorsed by public opinion, and by the judgment even of those statesmen who opposed them. With the Cobdenic policy of armaments, Mr. Gladstone, a true disciple of Sir Robert Peel, was always in active sympathy; but there were moments which demanded still larger outlook and a still sounder moral judgment when that great Liberal minister went sadly astray. Cobden understood better than Bright the sympathy which Gladstone and others felt for the States of the South; and indeed, for a moment at the outset, Cobden was himself a little doubtful about the merits of the struggle. The action of the Manchester School, and the strong moral support which it won for the North among the working-classes of Lancashire and Yorkshire, probably saved this country from a great war, which could hardly have ended otherwise than with the incorporation of Canada in the United States. Their foresight in 1853–4 was equally conspicuous, and a far larger measure of courage was required. Upon this point no better or more eloquent witness can be called than Mr. Gladstone. ‘I have not,’ said he, in paying a last tribute to Bright, ‘through my whole political life, fully embraced what I take to be the character of Mr. Bright, and the value of that character to the country. I mention this because it was at a peculiar epoch—the epoch of the Crimean War—that I came more fully to understand than I had done before, the position which was held by him and by his eminent, and I must go a step further and say, his illustrious friend, Mr. Cobden, in the country. These men had lived upon the confidence, the approval, and the applause of the people. The work of their lives had been to propel the tide of public sentiment. Suddenly there came a great occasion on which they differed from the vast majority of their fellow-countrymen. I myself was one of those who did not agree with them in the particular view which they took of the Crimean conflict. But I felt profoundly what must have been the moral elevation of the men who, having been nurtured through their lives in the atmosphere of popular approval and enthusiasm, could at a moment’S notice consent to part with the whole of that favour which they had hitherto enjoyed, and which their opponents thought to be the very breath of their nostrils. They accepted, undoubtedly, the unpopularity of opposing that war, which, although many may have since changed their opinion with regard to it, commanded, if not the unanimous, yet the enormously prevailing approval and concurrence of the country. At that time it was—although we had known much of Mr. Bright before—that we learnt something more. We had known the great mental gifts which distinguished him; we had known his courage and his consistency; we had known his splendid eloquence, which then was or afterwards came to be acknowledged as the loftiest that has sounded within these walls during his generation. But we had not till then known how high the moral tone of those popular leaders had been pitched, what bright examples they set to the whole of their contemporaries and to coming generations, and with what readiness they could part with popular sympathy and support for the sake of the right and of their conscientious convictions.’

In evidence given quite recently before a parliamentary committee on expenditure, Lord Welby has thrown a new light upon Cobden’S financial genius. It was known that he had a firm grasp of economic principles, a wide knowledge (based upon reason, experience, and travel), of economic facts, that his figures were never at fault, that he had unequalled gift for lucid exposition and apt illustration; but it was not known, I think, that Mr. Gladstone, when about to create the post of Comptroller and Auditor-General, offered the position to Cobden, as the man who, though he had not had a single month of official life, was best fitted to undertake the supreme official control and supervision of all the spending departments of Government.

I.—

ARMAMENTS, RETRENCHMENT, AND FINANCIAL REFORM

The following is from a speech delivered by Cobden in the Free Trade Hall, Manchester, on January 10^th, 1849, in support of the following resolution: ‘That this meeting resolves to co-operate with the Liverpool Financial Reform Association, and other bodies, in their efforts to reduce the public expenditure to at least the standard of 1835, and to secure a more equitable and economical system of taxation.’ Those who are willing to study it carefully will learn many political secrets. A summary of the speech was conveyed to the Times the same night ‘by electric telegraph,’ and a verbatim report appeared on January 12^th. It was described by the Times in an unusually friendly article as ‘one of his best speeches,’ which ‘everybody will read with pleasure and with the conviction that he is learning a good deal of truth in a very lucid form.’

We have often, gentlemen, met in this hall to advocate a cause which has brought upon us the charge of being the farmers’ enemies; and now we come forward in another character—we appear here as the farmers’ friends. We have been accused of having subjected the agriculturists of this country to a competition with foreigners. They have complained to us that they are more heavily taxed than the foreign farmers. Now, gentlemen, we come forward to offer them the right hand of fellowship and union, to effect a reduction of ten millions in the cost of our Government. I have moved, and in your name I hope it will go forth to the country, that we co-operate with the financial reformers of Liverpool in their agitation for financial reform, on the condition that we advocate a return to the expenditure of 1835. In 1835, the affairs of this Government were carried on for ten millions less of money than they are this year, and I have ventured to propose, in a letter1 which may have probably met the eyes of some of those present, that we should go back to that expenditure. I have waited three weeks before I should have the opportunity of saying a word in public in defence of my views, to see what would be said against that recommendation. I must confess that my opponents have not given me much to answer. I have heard it said, and it is probably the most valid argument that can be urged, that the population has increased since 1835. True, it has; our numbers are 12½ percent.Back to 1835. more than they were then, and our opponents say that we must allow a larger sum for the government of a great number than a smaller; and I admit the argument so far as civil government goes, and in my plan I allow forty per cent. more for the civil government than was expended in 1835. But I deny that thirteen years of duration of peace is an additional argument why we should have an increase of our forces.

It appears that in 1835 we spent £11,600,000 for our army, navy, and ordnance, and I propose that we now shall not expend more than £10,000,000. What I take from the expenditure for warlike purposes in 1835, I add to the civil expenditure in 1848. We spent for purposes of civil government in 1835, £4,300,000; I allow £5,900,000 for the civil expenditure of the Government now; and taking into account the saving which I contemplate in the cost of collecting the revenue, and in the management of the Crown lands, which I have seen estimated by a financial reformer at something like half a million—taking these into account, I am allowing more than actually we are now expending for the ordinary expenses of the civil government of this country, and thus we get rid altogether of the objection, that increase of population requires an increase of expenditure to govern the people. Then, there has been another argument used also, and it is this: that, during the last year, and the year before, there was a deficiency of revenue. We have spent more than we have received, and we borrow money; and, therefore, even if my financial plan should be carried out, there still will not be the ten millions to dispose of in the remission of taxes. Well, my answer to that is this—and these cunning financiers who meet me with this argument ought to know it—that if the revenue has fallen off during the last year and the year before, it has been because the balance-sheets of our merchants and manufacturers have been equally adverse. The revenue has been deficient because the profits have been annihilated in the trade of every man in the country; but now that you have food at moderate prices, trade revives, and instantly you see the revenue increasing, and next year, perhaps this year—the next year, certainly—will see you with a surplus revenue as certainly as you had a deficiency last year. But I say, gentlemen—and I want to keep the financial reformers to this point, because we must have one simple article of faith, or we cannot march together—I say, give me the expenditure back again of 1835, and I will guarantee you the remission of ten millions of taxation. If you want—if the country wants to reduce their duty on tea one-half; if you wish to abolish altogether the duty upon timber, upon butter, upon cheese, upon soap, upon paper, upon malt, upon house-windows; if you wish to put an end to a system that curtails those necessaries and comforts—then raise your voices throughout the country, simultaneously, for the expenditure of 1835.

Now, where is the difficulty? Where is the difficulty of returning to the expenditure of 1835? Why, the whole question lies in the amount of your warlike armaments. The whole question is, Will the Government be content to waste ten millions of money in unproductive services like your fighting establishments—I mean your fighting establishments in a time of peace? Will our Government be content with ten millions? and if not, why not? I want the arguments—why not? I was asked the other day by an M.P., ‘When are you going into the details to show how you propose to carry on the Government upon your plan?’ My answer was this: ‘I should be a very bad tactician, and but a poor logician, if, when I have made a proposal that the Government should support its warlike establishments with ten millions of money, I did not call upon them to give me an answer, and to show me why they cannot maintain them with ten millions.’ I put them on the defensive. I ask them whether they have made the most of the money they receive. How do you think theyIdle admirals and colonels. dispose of the money? Why, you maintain one hundred and fifty admirals, besides fifty retired admirals. Well, but how many do you think you employ? Why, during the heat of the great French war—the greatest war on record—when you had nearly one thousand pennants flying, you never employed more than thirty-six admirals at one time—and at this time you have but fourteen admirals in active service. With all their ingenuity of putting admirals to work when they are not wanted, they can only find employment for fourteen. Well, then, I find in the army you have a colonel for every regiment who does the work; and you have another colonel of every regiment, who is the tailor to the regiment—who never goes near it—who never sees it—whom the men would not know if he did go near it; but he supplies clothes to them, and gets the profits of a tailor. These are illustrations how money is wasted. But I won’t confine myself to the abuses and waste that occur. I tell you plainly from the outset, that, in order to effect such a reduction of expenditure for your armaments as you require for a relief to the country, a material relief—that will be felt in the homes and at the firesides of the population of this country—you must reduce the number of men. You must be content with a smaller manifestation of brute force in the eyes of the world. You must trust something to Providence—something to your own just intentions—and your good conduct to other nations; and you must rely less upon that costly, that wasteful expenditure, arising from so enormous a display of brute force.

Now, gentlemen,’ I will bring this matter home to my opponents with a very few figures. How is it we have had this great increase in the cost of our-armaments? Has it been only an increase of waste, an increase in the number of admirals, and an increase in the number of colonels? No; it is because you have augmented the number of your men. I hold in my hand a statement made by Lord John Russell in the House of Commons last session. I will quote his own figures. He gives me the increase of the army, navy, and ordnance, since 1835; and in 1835 the number ofIncrease of soldiers and sailors. men in all these services was 135,743; in last year they were 196,063. The increase in the number of men in the army, navy, and ordnance, since 1835, has been 60,320. Now, what has been the increase of the expenditure? In 1835, the total cost of all these services was £11,600,000. In the present year it is upwards of £18,000,000. The increase of the men has been as nearly as possible fifty per cent., and the increase in the money has been about fifty per cent. also. It is perfectly understood when Parliament votes the men, it must vote corresponding establishments in every direction; and, therefore, while I admit there are abuses, and great waste and mismanagement, I say, if you want a material reduction in the cost of your armaments, you must at once boldly proceed on the plan of reducing the number of armed men.

Why should you not reduce them? Why have they been increased? There has always been a ready excuse for adding to the force when an augmentation of the army, navy, or ordnance has been proposed; but what I complain of is, that when the alleged occasion of the increase has passed away, we never have a diminution. In 1835, as I have told you, our armaments were at the lowest point. In 1836, aInfluence of parties. cry was got up that the Russians were coming to invade us. I remember penning a pamphlet, to expose the absurdity of the cry, that the Russians were preparing to invade the coast of Norfolk some foggy morning; but that cry was an excuse for an increase in our navy. Then, again, in 1839, after the unfortunate scenes at Monmouth, in which Frost, Williams, and Jones were concerned—I suppose I must call it rebellion—there was immediately a proposal made by Lord John Russell for an increase of 5000 men to the army. That increase was made specifically to meet the case of the Chartist riots; but when tranquillity returned, we never heard a word about reducing those 5000 men. If you follow step by step the increase in our armaments, you will find the same course pursued. At one time, we must needs go and settle affairs in Syria, and we sent a large fleet to bombard Acre, and fight Ibrahim Pasha, or some other Pasha. Then we had a quarrel with the French at Tahiti. Then in 1845, there was a dispute about the Oregon boundary. As President Polk talked a great deal about fighting, and some men in the House of Representatives uttered more nonsense than usual, our Government proposed a large increase in the navy, and we had the ‘squadron of evolution’ fitted out—this squadron of evolution is still going on with its evolutions. This was as a demonstration against America; but the Oregon question was settled—the Tahiti question is settled—the Chartists, I hope, are now well employed and comfortable; where, then, is the pretence for keeping up all these increased armaments?

But I have not forgotten the last excuse. You remember, this time last year, standing on this platform, I raised my voice in conjunction with yours—and we stood almost alone—against that wicked attempt to impose on us by increasing our national defences to protect us against an invasion fromThe French bogey. France. By way of parenthesis, for your encouragement and the encouragement of the country, let me just remind you of the progress of opinion since then. We then had to contend against the increase of our overgrown establishments—we had an up-hill battle, but we succeeded. Now, here is a proposal before the country to reduce the cost of our armaments nearly one-half, and that proposal is receiving more favour with the public within twelve months than our resistance to an increase of the armaments did last year. And why is it? Because, in spite of all the efforts to mystify the public mind on the subject, events on the Continent have trumpet-tongued declared, that the attempt to frighten us with the threat of an unprovoked attack from France, was a vile slander upon that nation. We were told this time last year, ‘It is true the French are quiet now, because Louis Philippe, the Napoleon of Peace, is on the throne; but wait till he dies, and you will see how the French people, that are now kept in by this wise monarch, will break loose on their neighbours.’ Louis Philippe is politically dead; the French people were thrown entirely on their own resources—the bridle on their necks, the bit in their mouths, the masses were all-powerful, and the Government, on its knees, was ready to follow them to the utmost bent of their passions. Has there been amidst that 35,000,000 of people, your next neighbours, one whisper that could justify the accusations made against them last year by those wicked alarmists and panic-mongers whom I will never forgive, or, if I do, I will never forget to remind them of their wickedness? Has there been one act of the French people to warrant the imputation that they wished to come and attack you? But I won’t confine myself to that. There were countries nearer home which everybody supposed the French more likely to attack than to attempt to conquer England. Has there been the slightest wish displayed on the part of the French people to make the Rhine the boundary of their empire? Have they invaded Belgium? Have they entered Holland? Have they conquered Italy? Have they shown the slighest disposition for conquest in any way? On the contrary, wherever a public man has sought to conciliate the French people, has he not addressed them in terms of peace, and promised them, above all things, that he will follow a pacific policy? Take their President—a Napoleon Buonaparte—I say nothing of his fitness to be President of the Republic, that is the affair of the French people, not ours; but observe, when such an individual canvasses the French people for their suffrages, how he accosts them. Does he promise them a war against England, or at least an invasion of Belgium? What said Louis Napoleon in his address to the French people?—

‘With war, there can be no mitigation of our sufferings. Peace shall, therefore, be the most cherished object of my desires. At the time of her first revolution France was warlike, because others compelled her to be so. She was attacked, and she rolled back the tide of conquest upon her invaders. But now that nobody attacks her, she can devote all her resources to peaceful amelioration, without abandoning a firm and honourable policy.’

Now, does that look as if you had been wisely spending your money in fortifying yourselves, and keeping up your enormous standing armaments, because certain parties, who are interested in clothing regiments, or being admirals, with nothing to do, choose to tell you that the French people are a mighty hobgoblin, ready to come over and devour you some morning. I have dwelt longer on this subject, because what I stated with reference to the great mass of the French people last year was perverted: I said that property in France was more divided than in any other country in the world. I said there were 8,000,000 or 10,000,000 of real proprietors in France. The whole soil of that vast empire—and it is the richest on the surface of Europe—is cut up in small properties, held in fee-simple by those who cultivate it. And when those who write in certain aristocratic journals talk of dangers arising to a country from the minute subdivision of its property, I am very much disposed to whisper in their ears whether the lessons of history have not taught us that the danger is wholly different. Let them point out the nation that has been ruined because its property was in too many hands. Does not ruin rather proceed from property being accumulated by a small number of persons, and the consequent indulgence of luxury and corruption by the few, and the degradation and misery of the mass? The argument I drew last year, and which I repeat here now, confirmed by experience since, is this, that the people in France, being nearly all proprietors, and having to pay for any war they may wish to carry on, will not vote for a war, as they would have to vote for more taxation. I believe that Louis Napoleon, Cavaignac, and Guizot, whose book was published only yesterday, and every man in France, including M. Thiers, will agree with me, that if there be one passion more predominant than another among the mass of the French people, it is the desire for peace. But I do not confine myself to France. I will take Germany; I will take Italy; and I ask, where, amidst their convulsions—where monarchs have abdicated, where popes and potentates have run away in the disguises of lacqueys, or gone down on their knees before the mob in their ascendant—where, in all Europe, has there been among the mass of the people one sign or symptom of a desire for aggressive war on their neighbours?

Beware of another mystification. One of the most favourite of the enemy’S devices is this—they raise a confusion in your minds by pointing to the internal disorders in foreign countries, and persuade you it is a state of war. I told you the people abroad were for peace, and so they are; but when the revolutions broke out, these fallacy-mongers exclaimed, ‘Here’S Cobden, just come back from the Continent, tells us the people are all for peace—now they are all for war.’ They have been in a state of revolution to obtain precisely the sameThe revolutions of 1848. ends for which this country went through a revolution two centuries ago. And though in France the gain, even in the way of practical liberty, has not been so great as in other countries—for they had a great amount of practical freedom before their last revolution—yet, when you compare the state of Germany and Italy with what it was when I was there not two years ago, I say that, with their convulsions, slight and evanescent compared with our war against prerogative under our first Charles, Germany and Italy have gained an amount of freedom which required ten years’ civil war in England to achieve. I left them in those countries with every newspaper and every book under the strict control of the censor. I left them with closed courts of justice administering law, not by oral testimony in presence of the accused, but by written documentary evidence. I left them without a representative form of government, without trial by jury; and now, though they may blunder and stumble in the path of freedom, they are at least in the highway for obtaining the same constitutional privileges—as soon as they can use them they may have them—as we have ourselves. In spite of all the attempts of the press and public men to cry out ‘Reaction,’ and applaud the despots and their soldiers, who are willing to fight for tyranny, I, in the presence of this great assembly and in their name, do express sympathy for the people who are struggling for their liberties. Do not think I am talking to you of politics foreign to your interests here. It is by studied misrepresentation of what is going on upon the Continent that our enormous standing armaments are maintained and defended in this country. I say that the progress of constitutional rights on the Continent must be favourable to the preservation of peace, because I think I have proved to you that the mass of the people on the Continent, like the mass of the people in this country, are favourable to peace, and averse to war.

But you have another safeguard. I defy you to show me how any Government or people on the Continent can strengthen themselves, even if they choose to carry on a war of conquest. Let France invade Germany, it only makes Germany unite like one man—the whole Teutonic race are united as one man to repel the French. What is their predominant sentiment? The union of Germany, not for aggressive force, but for defensive succour. What is the cry in Italy? Italian nationality. What is the contest between Lombardy and Austria? The house of Austria may call Lombardy part of its territory, but there is another race, the Latin race, which says, ‘We will not be governed by a Teutonic race; and, though the Austrians may keep downNew limits to conquest. the Italians by Radetzki and his 100,000 troops, Lombardy will be a source of weakness, not of strength, to them. I defy you to show me any partition where an accession of territory has not been rather a source of weakness than of strength. Take the very worst that can happen. Suppose any power on the Continent is going to attack its neighbour, is there any reason why we should be armed to the teeth in order to take part in the struggle? In ancient times, when the people were counted as nothing, and when sovereigns told out their subjects as a shepherd would his flock; when a royal marriage united the crowns of two kingdoms, and the people of both became the willing subjects, or even serfs, of the one sovereign, there might have been danger in an acquisition of territory. But now that the people count everywhere for something, and we see on the Continent of Europe great lines of demarcation of race—the Italian Peninsula, for instance, one; Spain, another; Germany, another—and when you find the great mosaic mass of Austrian dominion broken up, as it were, into Sclaves and Magyars, I see new limits assigned to conquest. I repeat, there is no longer any reason to fear that one empire will take possession, by force of arms, of its neighbour’S territory; but, if it should, the accession of territory would be a source of weakness, not of strength. Take it at the worst, then; let the nations of the Continent attack each other; who is coming to attack you, if you only let their politics alone?

This brings me to another position which has an important bearing on the reduction of our armaments, and that is, we must let other people manage their own affairs. The Spaniards, who have very wise maxims, say, ‘A fool knows more of what is going on in his own house than a wise man does in that of his neighbour.’ Now, if we will apply that to nations, mind our own business, and give foreigners the creditPolicy of non-interference. of being able to manage their own concerns better than we can do for them, or they with our interference, it will save us a great deal of money, and they will have their affairs settled better and sooner than if we intermeddled with them. But what are we doing? There cannot be a petty squabble in any country in Europe or the globe, but we must have a great fleet of line-of-battle ships sent from England to take part in it. We have just interfered between Naples and Sicily—what is the consequence? We are detested by both parties. In all Italy it is the same. They speak of Englishmen with contempt and execration; not because they undervalue our qualities as men—no, they pay as high a tribute to the qualities of Englishmen as we could desire—but, as a nation, as a Government, interfering with their politics, from one end of the Peninsula to the other, the Italians cordially hate and detest us. So with regard to Spain—we have spent hundreds of millions on Spain, and what is the present state of feeling there? I travelled from one end of Spain to the other, and I never heard the name of the Duke of Wellington mentioned, although he fought their battles, as we persuade ourselves—I never saw his portrait or bust through all my travels, but I saw Napoleon’S and his marshals’ everywhere. At this very moment, Napoleon and France are more popular in Spain than England and Englishmen. It is the same in Greece—the same in Portugal. The English people are hated, because we interfere with their politics. Is not that a very undignified attitude for a great nation like this to occupy? If we kept aloof from their squabbles, and contented ourselves with setting foreigners a good example—if we put our own houses in order—if we set our mud cabins in Ireland in order—we should show a great deal more common sense than in attempting to manage the affairs of other nations when we are not responsible for their government. But an argument has been used why we should interfere; and I like to hear it, for it shows that our opponents are at their last extremity. They say, ‘If we don’t interfere France will interfere;’ and so it is—we have sent a fleet to Naples, because the French had a fleet there. I remember, at the last stage of the anti-corn law agitation, our opponents were driven to this position—‘Free trade is a very good thing, but you cannot have it until other countries adopt it too;’ and I used to say, ‘If free trade be a good thing for us, we will have it: let others take it, if it be a good for them; if not, let them do without it.’ So I say now, if our constant interference with the affairs of the Continent be a costly, useless, pernicious policy for us, and if France—if Austria, choose to adopt that policy and ruin themselves by it, let them do so, but don’t let us follow their example. This is common sense, although it does not pervade high quarters in this country.

We have another argument to meet. We are told we must keep up enormous armaments, because we have got so many colonies. People tell me I want to abandon our colonies; but I say, do you intend to hold your colonies by the sword,The colonial argument. by armies, and ships of war? That is not a permanent hold upon them. I want to retain them by their affections. If you tell me that our soldiers are kept for their police, I answer, the English people cannot afford to pay for their police. The inhabitants of those colonies are a great deal better off than the mass of the people of England—they are in the possession of a vast deal more of the comforts of life than the bulk of those paying taxes here; they have very few of those taxes that plague us here so much—excise, stamps, and taxes, those fiscal impediments which beset you every day in your callings, are hardly known in our colonies. Our colonies are very able to protect themselves. Every man among them has his fowling-piece, and, if any savages come to attack them, they can defend themselves. They have another guarantee—if civilized men treat savages like men, there is never any occasion to quarrel with them. With regard to our navy, they tell us it is necessary because of our trade with the colonies. I should have thought it was just that trade which wanted no navy at all. It is a sort of coasting trade; our ships are at home when they get to our colonies. We don’t want any navy to protect our trade with America, which is a colony emancipated; and we may thank our stars it has broke loose; it never would have been such a customer if the aristocracy of England had held that field of patronage for their younger sons. You don’t want a ship of war to protect your trade with the United States; and last year you exported to them £10,900,000 of your produce, more by upwards of a million than you exported to all your colonies together, India excepted. Sir William Molesworth, in that admirable speech of his on the colonies, showed that, by a better administration, not by taking away altogether your force from the colonies, but by an improved system of government, you might save £2,000,000 per annum.1

You have to make up your mind to one thing—you cannot afford all this waste. It is not a matter of choice with you. I tell you, you are spending too much money as a nation. It is not merely your general taxation—your local taxation likewise oppresses you. Mark me, the greater the cost of your armaments falling on general taxation, the moreResults of wasteful expenditure. you will have to spend in poor rates and other taxes. The more you waste of the capital of the country, the more people will be wanting employment; and when they want employment, it is the law of England that the poorest, who are the first to begin to suffer under a course of national extravagance or decay, have the right to come to those above them and demand subsistence, under the name of poor rate; so that, in proportion as the extravagance of Government increases, poor rates and the expenses of a repressive police increase also. You must, therefore, lessen the national expenditure, or the catastrophe cannot long be deferred. I have detained you already too long, but there is one thing I wish to impress upon you before I sit down. It is of paramount moment to the English people that we should not allow ourselves to entertain an undue or exaggerated notion of our own importance as a nation, or to take a too unfavourable view of other countries. It is through your national pride that cunning people manage to extract taxes from you. They persuade you that nothing can be done abroad unless you do it; and that you are so superior to all other countries, that your next neighbour, France, for instance, is nothing but a band of brigands, and unless you are constantly on the watch, they will be ready to pounce upon you and carry off your property. Until, as a nation, we give credit to other people for being able to work out their own liberties—unless we believe there is something of honour and honesty in other countries to shield us from unjust aggression on their part, we must always be armed to secure ourselves from the imaginary attacks of our neighbours. Other nations are far too intelligent to require that we should always be armed to the teeth, in order to let them know how strong we are. I don’t believe that the French will come to attack the English merely because we happen to have a few less ships of war or a few less regiments than we now possess. Their Government will look far beyond your manifestation of force. They will inquire what is the wealth, the power, the public spirit of our people? are we a contented nation, attached to our institutions, governed well, united as one man against an enemy? and if they see the indications of this latent national power, depend on it they won’t wantonly rush into war with us, even if we do not always go armed to the teeth, and do not always show ourselves ready for fighting.

Take the case of the United States. America has three times, within the last few years, had a misunderstanding with two of the greatest Powers of the world—twice with England, once with France. We had the Maine boundary and the Oregon territory to settle with the United States, and AmericaThe case of America. had her quarrel with France, arising out of a claim for compensation of £1,000,000, which the French Government refused to pay. What was the issue of those controversies? When the claim was refused by France, General Jackson, then the head of the American Government, published his declaration, that if the money was not paid forthwith, he would seize French ships and pay himself. At that time—I have it from Americans themselves—the French had three times the force of ships-of-war that America had; Admiral Mackau was in the Gulf of Florida with a fleet large enough to ravage the whole coast of America and bombard her towns; but did France rush into war with America? She paid the money. Why? Because she knew well, if she provoked an unjust war with the United States, their men-of-war were nothing compared with the force that would swarm out of every American port when brought into collision with another country. France knew that America had the larger mercantile marine; and, though at first the battle might be to the stronger in an armed fleet, in the end it would be that country which had the greatest amount of public spirit, and the greatest number of mercantile ships and sailors. What was the case with England? In 1842 there was a talk of war with America, on account of the Maine boundary question. Bear in mind that America never spent more than £1,200,000 on her navy, in any year of peace previous to 1842. We are spending this year £7,000,000 or £8,000,000; but will anybody tell me that America fared worse in that dispute because her resources in ships-of-war were far inferior to ours? No; but we increased our navy, and we had a squadron of evolution, as it was called. America never mounted a gun at New York to prevent the bombardment of the city; but did she fare the worse? We sent a peer of the realm (Lord Ashburton) to Washington; it was on American soil that the quarrel was adjusted, and rumour does say that America made a very good bargain. It is the spirit of a people, the prosperity of a people, the growing strength, the union, the determination of a people, that command respect.

Now, what I want you as a nation to do, is to believe that other countries will just take the same measure of us that we took of America. They won’t come and attack us merely because we reduce our armaments to £10,000,000. On the contrary, other countries, I believe, will follow our example. I believe, if we are not very quick, France will set us the example. I see General Cavaignac, and all their best men, advocating a reduction of the army. A formal proposal has been made to reduce their army one-half, as the only means of saving the country from financial confusion. Let us encourage these good men in their good work. And, though our Government do not set the example, let us, from this Free Trade Hall, tell General Cavaignac and his followers that we will undertake to reduce the cost of our fighting establishments, man for man, as they do theirs.

When they tell us that we are in danger of a collision at any moment with foreign powers—when they tell us that a couple of drunken captains of frigates at the Antipodes may suddenly embroil this country in war with France, and that this is a reason why we ought always to be armed and prepared for hostile conflict—I ask you, as reasonable ChristianArbitration. men, why should we not adopt the proposal which has been made at so many public meetings, and which I shall submit to the House next session—to insert a clause in a treaty with foreign nations, binding each other that in case of collision between two drunken captains, or a dispute arising from the conduct of some indiscreet consul at Tahiti—in case of a misunderstanding on any point whatever, each should be bound to submit the subject-matter of dispute to arbitration—that, instead of drawing the sword being the point of honour to which nations shall resort, it shall be to fulfil honourably the treaty by which the dispute shall be referred to arbitration, and abide honourably by the decision when pronounced?

To conclude, I tell you, if anything is to be done in this matter of financial reform, it must be done by the people out of doors. There never was a time when independent men in the House of Commons—I mean the very few independent, both by circumstances and by feeling, of both the two great parties who have hitherto divided sway in this country, were so weak as they are at this moment. And why? Because the party in power is nominally the same party as ourselves; because their followers mingle more or less with ourselves, and we are neutralized at every turn, or, at all events, we find a wet blanket on our shoulders, whenever we go into the House of Commons. Now, if you want to carry financial reform, it must be carried precisely in the same way that Free Trade was carried. You must speak out of doors in a voice that will be heard and felt in the House of Commons. The representative system, as we have got it, is a very clumsy machine. The House of Commons nominally has to look after the pursestrings of the people, and see that taxes are lightly and equably laid on; but you are obliged to leave your business, and form financial associations, to compel the House of Commons to do that which it is designed to do, but does not. There is no help for it. We must do it ourselves. I honour that excellent and tried veteran friend of ours—Mr. Hume. I admire his efforts; I venerate the constancy, the downright pluck, the granite-like hardihood and consistency of the man, who, through good and bad repute, for thirty-seven years, has advocated the people’S interest in the most material and useful form. We will back him. We will strengthen his hands, and enable him to do that in future which he has not been able to do in times past.

II.—

AN INTERNATIONAL REDUCTION OF NAVIES

On June 17^th, 1851, Cobden brought forward a motion in the House of Commons asking Lord Palmerston, then Foreign Secretary, to arrange with France a mutual reduction of armaments. Some parts of the speech are omitted as having only a temporary interest.

I WISH the real scope and purport of my motion to be understood at the outset, so that it may not be misrepresented in the debate. I do not propose, then, to discuss or entertain the amount of the armies maintained upon the Continent. When I speak of warlike preparations I allude to naval preparations and fortifications. Our army is maintained without reference to the armies of the Continent, and the armies of the Continent are never framed or maintained with reference to the army of England. In speaking of armies, which I regard as the standing curse of the present generation, the matter is usually complicated by questions of a purely domestic character. I am told that the armies of the Continent are not kept up by the Governments of those countries for the sake of meeting foreign enemies, but for the purpose of repressing their own subjects. This being the case, I am asked how I can persuade foreign Governments to reduce their armies, seeing that they were not kept up from the apprehension of a foreign foe, but in order to maintain internal order, as it is called. Now, I believe, if I can succeed in my motion with France, the examples of the two countries may be at once followed by other countries in the reduction of their navies, and that, if a reduction in the naval forces and fortifications of England and France takes place, other countries may afterwards follow with a reduction in their armies.

I presume it will be admitted that the maintenance of a naval force, beyond what is necessary in time of peace for the protection of commerce, is an evil; but I shall be told it is a necessary evil. If I ask why, it will be said, ‘Because other countries are armed as well as ourselves.’ Well, admitting that, and assuming that France and England maintain a certain amount of naval force, not for the purpose of protecting commerce or acting as the police of the seas, but in order toThe rivalry of France and England. hold themselves in a menacing attitude towards each other, that must be an unmitigated evil. It it not only pure waste, but it would be better and more economical if both voted that money and threw it into the sea, for both would then save the labour which is employed upon ships of war, and which might be more productively occupied. These two countries will be equally well prepared for warfare with each other if they reduce their force to one as if they both maintain their force at twenty, as their relative proportions will remain the same, and no advantage can be gained, in the event of hostilities, by keeping up this unnecessary force.

Why do I assume that England arms against France, and France against England? I am prepared to show that it is the avowed policy of both countries to arm themselves, so as to be prepared to meet the armaments provided by the other country. In the debate in the French Chamber of Deputies in 1846, when a motion was made for a vote of 100,000,000f. for a great augmentation of the navy, M. Thiers, who carried the resolution for this augmentation, said—

‘There is nothing offensive to England in citing her example when our navy is under consideration, any more than there would be in speaking of Prussia, Austria, or Russia, if we were deliberating upon the strength of our army. We pay England the compliment of thinking only of her when determining our naval force; we never heed the ships which sally forth from Trieste or Venice,—we care only for those that leave Portsmouth or Plymouth.’

I am told that the noble Lord below me was in the Chamber of Deputies when this speech was made. The noble Viscount (Palmerston), in the debate on the financial statement in 1848, said—

‘So far from its affording any cause of offence to France that we should measure our navy by such a standard, I am sure any one who follows the debates in the French Chambers, when their naval estimates come under discussion, must know that they follow the same course,—adopting the natural and only measure in such cases, namely, the naval force which other nations may have at the same time.’

In the same debate on the financial statement in 1848, the noble Lord (John Russell), after showing that the expenditure for the navy in France had increased since 1833 from £2,280,000 to £3,902,000, proceeded to observe—

‘I am not alluding at all—it never has been the custom to allude, and I think we are quite right in that respect—to what may be the military force of foreign Powers. I do not, therefore, allude at all to the amount of the standing army that is kept up in France, or in Austria, or in Prussia, or in other foreign countries; but so great an increase in naval estimates, I think, does require the attention, and, at all events, should be within the knowledge of the House.’

I have two objections to that policy; first, it is an irritating policy, having a constant tendency to increase the evil, and to which I see no remedy unless it is in some way met; and secondly, it is a proceeding on exaggerated reports and ideasExggeration and see-saw. spread upon the subject of the armaments of the two countries. When these things are exposed, they always bear the trace of great exaggeration. I will mention an instance. Our naval estimates were greatly increased in 1845. The French were alarmed. A Committee of the Chamber of Peers was appointed to inquire into the state of the French navy. They made a report. In that report they said—

‘We have now to announce the execution of a great scheme which the English Government is pursuing with its usual foresight and which cannot fail to have a vast influence upon the naval policy of other countries.’

Now, in that Report, it is broadly stated that eight steam guard ships were being prepared by the British Government against France; and there was some ground for it, inasmuch as eight guard-ships were being altered with screw-propellers; but when I sat on the Committee on the Navy in 1848, I found, on examining the authorities of the Admiralty, that only four of these steam guard-ships were ever completed, and that, instead of being of the character stated in the Report, they were only capable of going to sea for four days instead of fifteen, inasmuch as they were not prepared for carrying a large supply of coal. I will give another illustration of how the two countries play at see-saw in this respect. After the proceedings of England in 1845, and those of France in 1846, Mr. Ward, who was then Secretary of the Admiralty, came down to the House and proposed again an increase of our navy, citing the example of France. The proceedings of France, he said, ought to be a lesson to us, and imposed a great responsibility upon those who were in power in this country. But the British Government could not stop there. They ran the estimate up to 42,000, or, I believe, to 44,000 men. That produced its fruits in France. I hold in my hand an extract from a Report of the National Assembly on the Navy in 1849. It says—

‘Let us see whether foreign Powers really show us the example of a reduction of naval armaments. This very spring, England has voted 40,000 men for the sea service. This vote will amount to £6,000,000 sterling, without including the cost of artillery, etc., which is defrayed out of the Ordnance estimates. We content ourselves with twenty-four vessels of the line afloat, and sixteen in an advanced state upon the stocks, for our peace establishment; the English have seventy afloat, besides those in course of building. With our peace establishment, such as it was fixed in 1846, we should be one-third inferior in strength to the English navy.’

One of the best things this House has done for a long time was to suspend the other night the works for the fortification of Alderney. These works are a menace and an affront to France, and are meant as a rival to Cherbourg. Now, Cherbourg, as every one knows who has sailed along the coast, is a most useful, and valuable, and indispensable port of refuge for merchant ships—in fact, a breakwater at Cherbourg might have been made by subscription from all the maritime States of Europe, so important is it to all who sail along that coast.Alderney and Key-ham. But Alderney could mean nothing but a great fortified place, within a few miles of France, intended to menace that country. Now, these fortifications arise out of a panic in England. If any one could get at the professional springs applied to panic, it would be a most amusing history. In 1845 the country was led to suppose that we were to be invaded by some maritime Power. A number of engineers had a roving commission to go along the coast and point out places where money could be spent in raising fortifications, and when they had exhausted the coast of England they went over to Jersey and Alderney. I have heard the evidence of some of those gallant gentlemen. One of them said that when he went down to Plymouth he found the people there expecting their throats to be cut next day; and, said he, ‘strange as it may appear, I shared their alarm.’ It was understood that this panic had projected our harbours of refuge, as they were called, upon which it was suggested that between £4,000,000 and £5,000,000 should be expended. It was under the same panic that the works at Keyham, upon which £1,200,000 have been wasted, and the works at Alderney, which have cost four times as much as the value of the fee-simple of the whole island, were projected. And thus it is that France has now an eager rivalry with us. M. Chevalier, in a pamphlet which he has published on the subject, endeavouring to stem this torrent of rivalry, says that while England has projected her fortifications on the coast of England, France at the same time has projected works to the extent of between £10,000,000 and £11,000,000 sterling, without including the fortifications of Paris, and he gives a comparative estimate of the increased expenditure both of France and England from 1838 to 1847, and shows that in that period England and France have constantly augmented their naval expenditure to the extent of between £13,000,000 and £14,000,000 sterling, and that, both going on in that neck-and-neck race of rivalry, the two countries have, in fact, spent nearly the same amount.

Now, is there a remedy for that rivalry? Is it possible to bring human reason to bear upon that mass of folly? I am sure that gentlemen who think it necessary to have a precedent for what they do, will admit the force of the precedent I am about to quote. I am not going back to 1787, to theThe lakes convention. demolition of Dunkirk, or to an armed neutrality, or to an arrangement made for a temporary and specific object. But there is a case in modern times bearing upon this question. There was a convention between this country and the United States to limit the amount of force in the lakes that separate Canada from America. The convention was this—

‘Arrangements between the United States and Great Britain, between Richard Rush, Esq., acting as Secretary of the Department of State, and Charles Bagot, his Britannic Majesty’S Envoy Extraordinary, etc., April, 1817.—The naval force to be maintained upon the American lakes by His Majesty and the Government of the United States shall henceforth be confined to the following vessels on each side, that is:—On Lake Ontario, to one vessel not exceeding 100 tons burden, and armed with one 18-pound cannon; on the upper lakes to two vessels, not exceeding like burden each, and armed with like force; on the waters of Lake Champlain, to one vessel, not exceeding like burden and armed with like force. All other armed vessels on these lakes shall be forthwith dismantled, and no other vessels of war shall be built there or armed. If either party should hereafter be desirous of annulling this stipulation, and should give notice to that effect to the other party, it shall cease to be binding after the expiration of six months from the date of such notice. The naval force so to be limited shall be restricted to such services as will in no respect interfere with the proper duties of the armed vessels of the other party.’

It was entered into in 1817, at the close of the war with the United States, during the progress of which, in 1814, the Duke of Wellington wrote from Paris to Sir G. Murray as follows:—

‘I have told the ministers repeatedly that a naval superiority on the lakes is a sine quâ non of success in war on the frontier of Canada, even if our object should be solely defensive; and I hope that when you are there they will take care to secure it for you.’

So that, in case of any rupture between England and America, the occupation of the lakes was considered by that great authority to be necessary for success in hostilities; and yet notwithstanding that, immediately after the war, the two countries had the good sense to limit the amount of force upon the lakes. And what has been the result of that friendly convention? Not only has it had the effect of reducing the force, but of abolishing it altogether. When I sat on the Committee I did not find that any vessel was left on the lakes as an armed force. I would ask, then, whether it is not possible to devise some plan, if not by actual convention, as in the case of America, yet by some communication with a power like France, and say, ‘We are mutually building so many vessels each in the year; our relative force is as three to two, and if we increase it tenfold, still the relations will be the same. Will it not be possible, by a friendly understanding, to agree that we shall not go on in this rivalry, but that we shall put a mutual check upon this mutual injury?’ Lord Auckland stated before the Committee in 1848 that the amount of force left in the Pacific was always governed by the force left by other powers.

Now, I may be told that I am dealing merely with France; but there are only two countries of any importance as naval powers, namely France and Russia—for America has set an example, and is out of the question. When California wasThe naval Powers. discovered, America might have placed two or three line-of-battle ships off that coast, but she withdrew the only one she had there, and turned her artisans and shipwrights to construct some of the most magnificent steam-vessels that were ever seen; and yet her commerce was extending, as our own is. The honourable member for Stafford (Mr. Urquhart) may, perhaps, refer me to Russia; but I contend that no country that has not a mercantile marine can be a great naval country. You may build up a navy as Mehemet Ali has done, and put his fellahs on board, but if you have not a mercantile marine you never can become a great naval power. Russia has, no doubt, a great number of ships at Cronstadt—I have seen them all—but if Russia had power she kept it at home; and there may be very good reasons why she did so, for I have heard remarks from American skippers lying at Cronstadt to the effect that her vessels were not much to be admired. She has about 30,000 sailors, but they are men taken from the interior, unaccustomed to sea duty, and are, of course, a complete laughing-stock to British seamen. I do not consider that any country like America or England, carrying on an enormous commerce, and with 100,000 mercantile sailors, can ever be endangered by a country having no mercantile marine. With reference to our distant stations, at all events America offers no obstacle, but rather invites us to this course by her example. France is the only country that presents herself with any force upon foreign stations; and I ask, is it impracticable to carry out the same rule in regard to France that had been agreed to with the United States, or are we to go on ad infinitum, wasting our resources, and imposing unnecessary taxes in order to keep up this waste?

If there is not a disposition on the part of the people of the Continent to go to war, where is the use or the necessity of the enormous naval force which France keeps up? Surely there must be as great a disposition on the part of that country as of this to reduce the burdens of taxation by diminishing expenditure. I have conversed with French statesmen upon this subject, and when I have put it to them, as I have done to English statesmen, they have admitted that the plan which I propose would be most desirable for them. They say that they keep up their navy because England keeps up hers, but that it would be the greatest possible relief to them to be able to reduce it. I believe that if our Government made a friendly proposal to France, it would be met in an amicable spirit. France does not pretend that she is as strong as England by sea, and she does not aim at being thought so, for it is invariably admitted in the discussions in the French Chamber that she has no pretensions to rival England in the amount of her naval force. I say, then, that if a friendly proposal of this sort were only made to France, I fully believe it would be accepted. This leads me to what I consider the strongest reason why this system should be abolished, and it is this—that while the spirit of rivalry is maintained by two countries so equal in point of resources, taking the army and navy together, it is impossible that one could ever gain a permanent advantage over the other. If one were exceedingly weak and the other strong, and the strong could have some extraordinary motive to oppress the weaker, I might despair to convince by argument; but the case of England and France is very different. Whenever England increases her armaments and fortifications France does the same, and vice versâ. We are pursuing a course, therefore, which holds out to neither country a prospect of any permanent gain. We are not actuated by motives of ambition or aggression, but are simply acting for selfdefence, and no rational mind in either country supposes anything else, than that a war between the two countries must be injurious to both. Every country will have an interest in putting an end to this mutual rivalry and hostility by the course which I recommend. I shall be anxious to hear what the noble lord says upon this. I do not ask the noble lord to do it in any specific form. My resolution merely says that a communication should be entered into in a spirit of amity with France. I do not stipulate for a diplomatic note in this form or that. I shall be perfectly satisfied if I see the attempt made, for the objection that I have to our system of policy is that there never has been an attempt made to stay the progress of this rivalry—there never has been anything done that could by possibility tend to bring the two countries to an understanding. All I stipulate for is, that diplomacy shall put itself a little more into harmony with the spirit of the times, and shall do that work which the public thinks ought to be the occupation of diplomacy. I shall be told that it is an affair for public opinion, or for the operation of individual enterprise. Why, public opinion and individual enterprise are doing much to bring England and France together. Compare the present state of things with that which existed twenty-five years ago. I remember that at that time there were but two posts a week between London and Paris, Tuesdays and Fridays. Down to 1848, thirty-four hours were allowed for transmitting a post to Paris; we now make the journey in eleven hours. Where there used to be thousands passing and repassing, there are now tens of thousands. Formerly, no man could be heard in our smaller towns and villages speaking a foreign language, let it be what language it might, but the rude and vulgar passer-by would call him a Frenchman, and very likely insult him. We have seen a great change in all this. In this, the first year of the second half of the nineteenth century, we have seen a most important change. We are witnessing now what a few years ago no one could have predicted as possible. We see men meeting together from all countries of the world, more like the gatherings of nations in former times, when they came up for a great religious festival,—we find men speaking different languages, and bred in different habits, associating in one common temple erected for their reception and gratification. I ask, then, that the Government of the country should put itself in harmony with the spirit of the age, and should endeavour to do something to follow in the wake of what private enterprise and public opinion are achieving. I have the fullest conviction that one step taken in that direction will be attended with important consequences, and will redound to the honour and credit of any foreign minister who, casting aside the old and musty maxims of diplomacy, shall step out and take in hand the task which I have humbly submitted to the noble lord (Palmerston). I beg to move ‘An address to her Majesty, praying that she will direct the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to enter into communication with the Government of France, and endeavour to prevent in future that rivalry of warlike preparations in time of peace which has hitherto been the policy of the two Governments, and to promote, if possible, a mutual reduction of armaments.

III.—

ON THE CRIMEAN WAR AND THE PATRIOTISM OF ITS OPPONENTS

JOHN BRIGHT’S LETTER TO ABSALOM WATKIN

Turkey began the war with Russia in November, 1853. From that time Lord Aberdeen’S administration rapidly drifted into war, though the actual declaration of hostilities did not take place until March 27^th of the following year. The following letter was written in reply to Mr. Absalom Watkin, of Manchester, who had invited Bright to a meeting about to be held for the Patriotic Fund, and stating that the war with Russia was justified by the authority of Vattel—a writer on international law. In the original edition Bright’S letter was headed with the following quotation from Burke:—

‘If I had not lived long enough to be little surprised at anything, I should have been in some degree astonished at the continued rage of several gentlemen, who, not satisfied with carrying fire and sword into America, are animated nearly with the same fury against those neighbours of theirs, whose only crime it is, that they have charitably and humanely wished them to entertain more reasonable sentiments, and not always to sacrifice their interest to their passion. All this rage against unresisting dissent convinces me, that at bottom they are far from satisfied they are in the right. For what is it they would have? War? They certainly have at this moment the blessing of something that is very like one; and if the war they enjoy at present be not sufficiently hot and extensive, they may shortly have it as warm and as spreading as their hearts can desire. Is it the force of the kingdom they call for? They have it already; and if they choose to fight the battles in their own person, nobody prevents their setting sail to the scene of war in the next transports....They are continually boasting of unanimity, or calling for it. But before this unanimity can be a matter either of wish or congratulation, we ought to be pretty sure that we are engaged in a rational pursuit. Frenzy does not become a slighter distemper on account of the number of those who may be infected with it. Delusion and weakness produce not one mischief the less, because, they are universal.’—(Burke on the American War, in his letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol.)

My Dear Sir,

—I think, on further consideration, you will perceive that the meeting on Thursday next would be a most improper occasion for a discussion as to the justice of the war. Just or unjust, the war is a fact, and the men whose lives are miserably thrown away in it have clearly a claim upon the country, and especially upon those who, by the expression of opinions favourable to the war, have made themselves responsible for it. I cannot, therefore, for a moment, appear to discourage the liberality of those who believe the war to be just, and whose utmost generosity, in my opinion, will make but a wretched return for the ruin they have brought upon hundreds of families.

With regard to the war itself, I am not surprised at the difference between your opinion and mine, if you decide a question of this nature by an appeal to Vattel. The ‘law of nations’ is not my law, and at best it is a code full of confusion and contradictions, having its foundation on custom, and not on a higher morality; and on custom which has always been determined by the will of the strongest. It may be a question of some interest whether the first crusade was in accordance with the law and principles of Vattel; but whether the first crusade was just, and whether the policy of the crusades was a wise policy, is a totally different question. I have no doubt that the American War was a just war according to the principles laid down by the writers on the ‘law of nations,’ and yet no man in his senses in this country will now say that the policy of George III. towards the American colonies was a wise policy, or that war a righteous war. The French War, too, was doubtless just according to the same authorities; for there were fears, and anticipated dangers to be combated, and law and order to be sustained in Europe; and yet few intelligent men now believe the French War to have been either necessary or just. You must excuse me if I refuse altogether to pin my faith upon Vattel. There have been writers on international law, who have attempted to show that private assassination and the poisoning of wells were justifiable in war: and perhaps it would be difficult to demonstrate wherein these horrors differ from some of the practices which are now in vogue. I will not ask you to mould your opinion on these points by such writers, nor shall I submit my judgment to that of Vattel.

The question of this present war is in two parts—first, was it necessary for us to interfere by arms in a dispute between the Russians and the Turks; and secondly, having determined to interfere, under certain circumstances, why was not the whole question terminated when Russia accepted the Vienna note? The seat of war is 3000 miles away from us. We had not been attacked—not even insulted in any way. Two independent Governments had a dispute, and we thrust ourselves into the quarrel. That there was some ground for the dispute is admitted by the four powers in the proposition of the Vienna note.1 But for the English Minister at Constantinople and the Cabinet at home the dispute would have settled itself, and the last note of Prince Menschikoff would have been accepted, and no human being can point out any material difference between that note and the Vienna note, afterwards agreed upon and recommended by the Governments of England, France, Austria, and Prussia. But our Government would not allow the dispute to be settled. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe held private interviews with the Sultan—did his utmost to alarm him—insisted on his rejection of all terms of accommodation with Russia, and promised him the armed assistance of England if war should arise.1

The Turks rejected the Russian note, and the Russians crossed the Pruth, occupying the Principalities as a ‘material guarantee.’ I do not defend this act of Russia: it has always appeared to me impolitic and immoral; but I think it likely it could be well defended out of Vattel, and it is at least as justifiable as the conduct of Lord John Russell and Lord Palmerston in 1850, when they sent ten or twelve ships of war to the Piræus, menacing the town with a bombardment if the dishonest pecuniary claim made by Don Pacifico were not at once satisfied.1

But the passage of the Pruth was declared by England and France and Turkey not to be a casus belli. Negotiations were commenced at Vienna, and the celebrated Vienna note was drawn up. This note had its origin in Paris,2 was agreed to by the Conference at Vienna, ratified and approved by the Cabinets of Paris and London,3 and pronounced by all these authorities to be such as would satisfy the honour of Russia, and at the same time be compatible with the ‘independence and integrity’ of Turkey and the honour of the Sultan. Russia accepted this note at once,1 —accepted it, I believe, by telegraph, even before the precise words of it had been received in St. Petersburg.2 Everybody thought the question now settled; a Cabinet Minister assured me we should never hear another word about it; ‘the whole thing is at an end,’ he said, and so it appeared for a moment. But the Turk refused the note which had been drawn up by his own arbitrators, and which Russia had accepted.1 And what did the Ministers say then, and what did their organ, the Times, say? They said it was merely a difference about words; it was a pity the Turk made any difficulty, but it would soon be settled.2 But it was not settled, and why not? It is said that the Russian Government put an improper construction on the Vienna note. But it is unfortunate for those who say this, that the Turk placed precisely the same construction upon it; and further, it is upon record that the French Government advised the Russian Government to accept it, on the ground that ‘its general sense differed in nothing from the sense of the proposition of Prince Menschikoff.’1 It is, however, easy to see why the Russian Government should, when the Turks refused the award of their own arbitrators, restate its original claim, that it might not be damaged by whatever concession it had made in accepting the award; and this is evidently the explanation of the document issued by Count Nesselrode, and about which so much has been said. But, after this, the Emperor of Russia spoke to Lord Westmoreland on the subject at Olmutz, and expressed his readiness to accept the Vienna note, with any clause which the Conference might add to it, explaining and restricting its meaning;1 and he urged that this should be done at once, as he was anxious that his troops should recross the Pruth before winter.1 It was in this very week that the Turks summoned a grand council, and, contrary to the advice of England and France, determined on a declaration of war.1

Now, observe the course taken by our Government. They agreed to the Vienna note; not fewer than five members of this Cabinet have filled the office of Foreign Secretary, and therefore may be supposed capable of comprehending its meaning: it was a note drawn up by the friends of Turkey, and by arbitrators self-constituted on behalf of Turkey; they urged its acceptance on the Russian Government, and the Russian Government accepted it; there was then a dispute about its precise meaning, and Russia agreed, and even proposed that the arbitrators at Vienna should amend it, by explaining it, and limiting its meaning, so that no question of its intention should henceforth exist. But, the Turks having rejected it, our Government turned round, and declared the Vienna note, their own note, entirely inadmissible, and defended the conduct of the Turks in having rejected it. The Turks declared war, against the advice of the English and French Governments1 —so, at least, it appears from the blue-books; but the moment war was declared by Turkey, our Government openly applauded it. England, then, was committed to the war. She had promised armed assistance to Turkey—a country without government,1 and whose administration was at the mercy of contending factions; and incapable of fixing a policy for herself, she allowed herself to be dragged on by the current of events at Constantinople. She ‘drifted,’ as Lord Clarendon said, exactly describing his own position, into the war, apparently without rudder and without compass.

The whole policy of our Government in this matter is marked with an imbecility perhaps without example. I will not say they intended a war from the first, though there are not wanting many evidences that war was the object of at least a section of the Cabinet. A distinguished member of the House of Commons said to a friend of mine, immediately after the accession of the present Government to office, ‘You have a war ministry, and you will have a war.’ But I leave this question to point out the disgraceful feebleness of the Cabinet, if I am to absolve them from the guilt of having sought occasion for war. They promised the Turk armed assistance on conditions, or without conditions. They, in concert with France, Austria, and Prussia, took the original dispute out of the hands of Russia and Turkey, and formed themselves into a court of arbitration in the interests of Turkey; they made an award, which they declared to be safe and honourable for both parties; this award was accepted by Russia and rejected by Turkey; and they then turned round upon their own award, declared it to be ‘totally inadmissible,’ and made war upon the very country whose Government, at their suggestion and urgent recommendation, had frankly accepted it. At this moment England is engaged in a murderous warfare with Russia, although the Russian Government accepted her own terms of peace, and has been willing to accept them in the sense of England’S own interpretation of them ever since they were offered; and at the same time England is allied with Turkey, whose Government rejected the award of England, and who entered into the war in opposition to the advice of England. Surely, when the Vienna note was accepted by Russia, the Turks should have been prevented from going to war, or should have been allowed to go to war at their own risk.

I have said nothing here of the fact that all these troubles have sprung out of the demands made by France upon the Turkish Government, and urged in language more insulting than any which has been shown to have been used by Prince Menschikoff.1 I have said nothing of the diplomatic war which has been raging for many years past in Constantinople, and in which England has been behind no other power in attempting to subject the Porte to foreign influences.2 I have said nothing of the abundant evidences there is that we are not only at war with Russia, but with all the Christian population of the Turkish empire, and that we are building up our Eastern Policy on a false foundation—namely, on the perpetual maintenance of the most immoral and filthy of all despotisms over one of the fairest portions of the earth which it has desolated, and over a population it has degraded but has not been able to destroy. I have said nothing of the wretched delusion that we are fighting for civilization in supporting the Turk against the Russian and against the subject Christian population of Turkey. I have said nothing about our pretended sacrifices for freedom in this war, in which one great and now dominant ally is a monarch who, last in Europe, struck down a free constitution, and dispersed by military violence a national Representative Assembly.

My doctrine would have been non-intervention in this case. The danger of the Russian power was a phantom;1 the necessity of permanently upholding the Mahometan rule in Europe is an absurdity. Our love for civilization, when we subject the Greeks and Christians to the Turks, is a sham; and our sacrifices for freedom, when working out the behests of the Emperor of the French and coaxing Austria to help us, is a pitiful imposture. The evils of non-intervention were remote and vague, and could neither be weighed nor described in any accurate terms. The good we can judge something of already, by estimating the cost of a contrary policy. And what is that cost? War in the north and south of Europe, threatening to involve every country of Europe. Many, perhaps fifty, millions sterling, in the course of expenditure by this country alone, to be raised from the taxes of a people whose extrication from ignorance and poverty can only be hoped for from the continuance of peace. The disturbance of trade throughout the world, the derangement of monetary affairs, and difficulties and ruin to thousands of families. Another year of high prices of food, notwithstanding a full harvest in England, chiefly because war interferes with imports, and we have declared our principal foreign food growers to be our enemies.1 The loss of human life to an enormous extent. Many thousands of our own countrymen have already perished of pestilence and in the field; and hundreds, perhaps thousands, of English families will be plunged into sorrow, as a part of the penalty to be paid for the folly of the nation and its rulers.

When the time comes for the ‘inquisition for blood,’ who shall answer for these things? You have read the tidings from the Crimea; you have, perhaps, shuddered at the slaughter; you remember the terrific picture—I speak not of the battle, and the charge, and the tumultuous excitement of the conflict, but of the field after the battle—Russians in their frenzy or their terror, shooting Englishmen who would have offered them water to quench their agony of thirst; Englishmen, in crowds, rifling the pockets of the men they had slain or wounded, taking their few shillings or roubles, and discovering among the plunder of the stiffening corpses images of the ‘Virgin and the Child.’ You have read this, and your imagination has followed the fearful details. This is war—every crime which human nature can commit or imagine, every horror it can perpetrate or suffer; and this it is which our Christian Government recklessly plunges into, and which so many of our countrymen at this moment think it patriotic to applaud! You must excuse me if I cannot go with you. I will have no part in this terrible crime. My hands shall be unstained with the blood which is being shed. The necessity of maintaining themselves in office may influence an administration; delusions may mislead a people; Vattel may afford you a law and a defence; but no respect for men who form a Government, no regard I have for ‘going with the stream,’ and no fear of being deemed wanting in patriotism, shall influence me in favour of a policy which, in my conscience, I believe to be as criminal before God as it is destructive of the true interest of my country.

I have only to ask you to forgive me for writing so long a letter. You have forced it from me, and I would not have written it did I not so much appreciate your sincerity and your good intentions towards me.

Believe me to be, very sincerely yours,

John Bright.

• Absalom Watkin, Esq., Manchester.

IV.—

THE FRENCH TREATY AND ARMAMENTS.

The speech here reproduced with abbreviations is exceedingly important and interesting at the present time; first because it contains Cobden’s own account of the famous treaty of commerce with France which he negotiated in 1860, and second because of the passage (so often misrepresented) in which Cobden declares his willingness to vote in a certain emergency 100 millions for the Navy. The speech was delivered to his constituents at Rochdale on June 26^th, 1861.

I appear here to-night under rather peculiar circumstances; for I have no account to give of my stewardship in Parliament, having been occupied for nearly eighteen months abroad, partly in prosecuting a public duty, and partly in quest of health. I have been engaged in arranging a commercial treaty with France. I have been, as you are aware, honoured with the confidence of our Sovereign, and, aided by colleagues whose services in the matter I would not for a moment appropriate to myself, I have been endeavouring to make such arrangements as shall lead two great countries, peculiarly designed by Providence to confer mutual benefits upon each other, but who, owing to the folly and perhaps wickedness of man, have been for centuries rather seeking to injure and destroy each other, to enter upon new relations. I have been seeking to form arrangements by which these two countries shall be united together in mutual bonds of dependence, and, I hope, of future peace.

It has been truly said by your mayor, that France has been hitherto as a nation attached to those principles of commercial restriction which we in England have but lately released ourselves from, but which have cost us thirty years of pretty continuous labour, and the services of three or four most eminent statesmen, in order to bring us to our present state of comparative freedom of commerce. The French, on the contrary, have taken hardly a single step in this direction; and it was left for the present Emperor—and he alone had the power—to accomplish that object, and to his Minister of Commerce, who for the last eighteen months has scarcely given himself twenty-four hours of leisure—it was left for them to accomplish in France, in the course of a couple of years, what has taken us in England at least thirty years to effect. I mention this, because I wish—and I have a reason for it, which I will state in a moment—I wish it to be borne in mind what has been the magnitude of the task which the French Government has had to accomplish on this occasion. They had to confront powerful influences which were at the moment entirely unbroken, and they had to attack the whole body of monopoly in France; whereas, if you recollect, in this country our statesmen began by sapping and mining, and by throwing over the smaller interests, in order that they might form a coalition of them against the greater monopolies. Everything has had to be done in France during the last eighteen months. Much remains to be done, I hope much will be accomplished in a short time. I wish you to understand distinctly the magnitude of the task which the French Government has had to accomplish, because thereupon hangs a tale and an argument upon which I shall have a word to say in a moment. There is a peculiarity in the condition of French industry which gives the fair prospect of a reasonable anticipation of a mutual and beneficial intercourse Economic comparison of France and Endland. between these two countries. It is a very singular fact that in France, which by its social organizations and by its political maxims, is perhaps one of the most democratic nations in the world, the manufacturing population is mainly employed in the manufacture of articles of great luxury and taste, adapted almost exclusively for the consumption of the aristocratic and the rich, whereas England, on the contrary, the most aristocratic people in the world, is almost wholly employed in the manufacture of those articles which conduce to the comfort and the benefit of the great masses of the community. You have here, therefore, two peoples, who, by their distinct geniuses, are admirably suited for a mutual exchange of the products of their industry, and I argue very much, as your mayor has intimated, in favour of the great advantages which the masses of the French people will derive from the Treaty which has been lately arranged with that country.

The French people—I am speaking of the working people—are, in comparison with the English people, a badly clothed population. Any one who has travelled in the winter-time from Calais to Dover cannot fail to have observed the contrast between those blue round frocks which the Frenchmen wear, and the more comfortable, because warmer, woollen and worsted garments which the English workmen at that season of the year possess. It reminds me—the condition of the French population in their clothing now—somewhat of the condition in which this population of England was placed, with regard to food, five-and-twenty years ago, before the corn laws were touched. At that time, our population was a badly fed people—living, too many of them, upon roots; there were some six or eight million quarters less of corn consumed than ought to have been consumed in this country, and than has been annually consumed since the people were permitted to obtain it.

Just as free trade has enabled this people to be better fed, so will it enable the French population to buy better clothing, and by precisely the same process by which we have arrived at this result in England; partly because there will be a considerable importation into France of your plain and coarse manufactures, and partly because of the stimulus that will be given to the manufactures of the French themselves— just as your increased supply of corn in this country has come, partly from the importation of the produce of foreign countries, and partly from the important advantages The benefit of imports. which competition has afforded to your own agriculturists. And we, on our side, will obtain, and have obtained, great benefits from this change. The change on our side is our merit; the change on the other side is the merit of the French Government. What, I confess, as an Englishman, I have been led in this important duty most to consider, is how this matter has benefited you, not by what it will allow you to export, but by what it will allow you to import. This is the way by which I seek to benefit a population, by allowing more of the good things to come in from abroad.

Upon the imports are based the late measures of our Government; and I give the credit for the putting this great final coping-stone upon the edifice of Free Trade—I mean so far as the abolition of all protective duties goes—I give the merit to the present Government, and their great Chancellor of the Exchequer (Mr. Gladstone). They have abolished the last remaining protective duties in our tariff. Now, mark what the advantage of this will be to us as a mercantile people—an advantage which has not been sufficiently appreciated, I venture to observe. By removing every duty upon all articles of foreign manufacture, we have made England a free port for manufactured goods, just as we had made it a free port for corn and for raw materials. The consequence is, that The coping-stone of Free Trade. all articles of foreign manufacture may be brought to England without let or hindrance. We find a large consumption for them here; and foreigners and colonists coming from Australia, and Canada, and America, may find in our warehouses, not merely all our produce which they want, but Swiss, and German, and French produce, which they may buy here without visiting the Continent to purchase there. This, I consider, is to us, as a mercantile people, an immense advantage, which will be, by-and-by, fully appreciated, the importance of which, I think, has not yet been altogether anticipated; but, besides this, we are going to import commodities from France which have been hitherto prohibited, and which will not only be to their advantage, but to ours.

Take, for instance, the article of wine. We all know that for a century or more, owing to an absurd treaty which was Abolition of preferential duties on wine. made with Portugal, this country put a prohibitive duty upon French wines, and the consequence has been that the taste of this country has been perverted, and that which is the best article of its kind in the world has been almost a stranger in this land.

Well, besides the preferential duty which has included French wines, we have laid on such an enormous amount of duty that nothing but wines of the very strongest character, the effect of which could be suddenly felt in the head, were ever thought worth purchasing. When a man had to pay 6d. or 9d. for a glass of wine containing a few thimblefuls, he wanted something which would affect his head for his money; he would not buy the fine, natural, and comparatively weak wines of France, though every other country in the world but England has regarded French wines as the best wines in the world. The English taste has been adulterated, and our people, or those who could afford it, have preferred the narcotic and inflammatory mixture which is called port, or even sherry. A friend of mine lately had the curiosity to look into our national ballads, with the view of finding out and making a collection of drinking songs. He told me he found that all the songs were in honour of French wines—champagne, burgundy, bordeaux—and they were all old songs, written at the time when our ancestors used and preferred French wine; and that since they were not allowed to obtain those wines, songs in favour of wine have ceased. He drew this conclusion:—That when the people drank French wines they became merry and sang; but when they took to port and sherry it made them stupid, and they went to sleep.

I don’t know that I should like to go so far as a lamented friend of mine, a former mayor of Bordeaux, who happened to be travelling in England, and paid us a visit in Manchester to a dinner; and when his health had been drunk, he said—‘Gentlemen, when I travel I have but one test of civilization everywhere. I ask, Do the people consume claret?’ That is, the wine of Bordeaux. I don’t go quite so far as that, but I do say, in whatever point of view you regard it, whether it is as a beneficial exchange with France, enabling you to exchange the products of your industry with the greatest and richest people on the Continent, whether it be in the interests of temperance, or whether it be in the interests of health, it is desirable that the taste of England should have at least the opportunity of going back to that natural channel which our forefathers followed when they had, as we now have, access to French wines at a moderate duty, or at the same duty as on other wines. I am not so sanguine as to expect that a great trade is to grow up between France and England, suddenly, to-morrow, or next year. It will require time; but the door has been opened honestly, with all sincerity; and I have no doubt, after we have had a sufficient time to correct those errors into which our forefathers fell, that this work, like every other in which we have been engaged where restrictions have been removed, will be found favourable to the best interests of this country and of France.

Now, I confess that the work on which I have been engaged would have but small interest for me, if it had not conduced to something different and higher than the mere increase of the beverage of the people of this country. The object which I have sought, and which those who know me will know right well, has been not merely to promote the physical well-being of these two peoples—though Moral and political purposes of the treaty that in itself is an object worthy of all care—but my aim and hope have been to promote such a change as shall lead to a better moral and political tone between the nations.

And this brings me to the point to which I said I would refer. Your worthy mayor has alluded to the immense preparations now making by the Governments of these two countries for warlike operations. Those preparations, so far as the navies of the two countries are concerned, are undoubtedly—nay, avowedly—with the view to mutual attack or defence from those two countries alone. Well, now, we are not ignorant of the fact that the French Government and the French Emperor have been made responsible for this increase in our naval armaments. It is upon that point I want to say a word or two to you as my constituents, and I address myself to this subject with you, because it is one that is peculiarly germane to my first meeting with this constituency after a meeting which you held some eighteen months ago, in which you refused to establish a rifle corps in this town. At the time when that meeting was held I was in Paris, and read the proceedings with considerable interest. It was the only meeting I saw, during a peculiar fervour and violence of agitation in this country, at which such a resolution was arrived at; and, without passing judgment upon the question of volunteers in general—upon which I reserve myself, for I don’t know whether I shall have time to say anything on the subject—all I wish to say is this, that, as far as my experience goes, and it has not been small, as you may suppose, in France, as far as the decision of this town was come to on the ground that there was no danger from France which warranted such a preparation, I come here to tell you, in my judgment, you acted with perfect propriety.

Now, I have spoken of the difficulties and the obstacles which the French Government had to encounter in the work in which they had been engaged for the last eighteen months—the total subversion of their commercial system. I ask you, as I ask every reasonable man, is there no presumptive evidence calculated to make you pause before you believe as probable or true what certain admirals—one of them, I am sorry to say, now no more—say as to the French Government and the French meditating to attack or invade this country, when you find that Government engaged in this most difficult task, the subversion of their commercial system, by throwing open the markets of that country to the manufactures of England, and opening the markets of England to the productions of France? I say, is there not something in this fact to make you pause before you believe on the mere ipse dixit of some not over-wise admiral, who has never given one fact to prove what he says, that it is the design of the French emperor to come and invade your shores without cause of quarrel or without grievance assigned? But I don’t ask you to rely upon probabilities of things in this matter. I speak to you of facts—facts which have come within my own knowledge—facts which I, perhaps, better than any man in the world, have had the opportunity of knowing and investigating.

It is alleged that the French have been for some time making formidable preparations in their naval armaments. Well, the first question I ask with regard to that is—What has been the proportion of money spent in France upon their naval armaments, and what has been the proportion Comparision of naval expenditure in France and in England. spent in England for a similar purpose? There has been always between England and France, by a sort of tacit agreement, I may call it, a certain proportion or relation in the amounts expended on their respective armaments. If you take the navies of the two countries for the last century, you will find that, when in a normal state of peace, the French have had a navy little more than half the size of that of England. If you take the expenditure you will find that the French naval administration has, during all that period, by a sort of tacit arrangement—as I have said—spent rather more than the half of what England has spent upon her navy. Well, then, I will take the ten years that preceded 1858 inclusive. I find that the expenditure of the French has been rather more than the half of what England has spent. I have taken the expenditure up to 1858 only for this reason—that if you take the French estimates you will not arrive at the actual expenditure. I admit that would not be a fair criterion of the amount of money spent in this manner; because they bring forward the estimates for the year, and afterwards there are supplementary votes, which increase the amount. But if you wait for two years, until the definitive balances and records of the French finances have passed through their audit offices, and have been published in what is called Les Règlements Définitifs du Budget, then you have as reliable an account as any in the world. I have heard of no political party—and you know that in France party feeling is as bitter, or even more bitter, than in this country—I have never heard any foreigner even, but who would admit, without scruple or observation, that when these definitive budgets are published, you have a creditable and reliable account of their expenditure. I have waited, and I see that down to the last accounts, published up to the year 1858, the French, for ten years previously—during the whole of the reign of this Emperor, and before his accession—have expended little more than half of what has been expended in England.

Well, but in England we have ships of war 20 per cent. cheaper than in France; we have steam-engines 30 per cent. cheaper; we have coals 40 per cent. and we have stores 20 or 30 per cent. cheaper. How is it, then, I ask, if France has expended little more than half what we have in these ten years—how is it, that in the year 1859 you suddenly hear, as though it were an explosion, that France is coming to invade us, and has made undue preparations in her naval armaments; and that we must not be content with nearly doubling our expenditure, and with a large expenditure on our standing forces, but must call upon the people of this country to arm and enrol themselves as volunteers? There must be a reason for this state of things. I speak always with too much respect for the great masses of my countrymen, even when I am confronting what I believe to be their delusions, to think of passing over this subject without offering the best explanation I can to satisfy and assure the public mind upon this question. I believe I can answer the question by stating that there may be facts connected with our navy which will give Deplorable mismanagement of the British navy. some colour to these outcries of alarm. The facts are these: The affairs of our Admiralty are most deplorably mismanaged. That will not be denied by any one now that is acquainted with what is going on at head-quarters. We had a commission sitting last year, under the Queen’s sign manual, to inquire into the management of our dockyards. Men of business placed upon that Commission made a tour of the dockyards and arsenals. They examined them. And what do you think was their report? The substance of it is in a dozen lines, and I will read them to you:—

‘The Royal Commission appointed last year reports that the control and management of the dockyards are inefficient from the following causes:—First, from the inefficiency of the constitution of the Board of Admiralty; secondly, from the defective organization of the subordinate departments; thirdly from the want of a well-defined responsibility; fourthly, from the absence of any means, both now, and in times past, of effectually checking expenditure from a want of accurate accounts.

Now mark; just endeavour as men of business to carry with the full meaning of this verdict by supposing it to apply to a private house of business. First, the constitution of the Board of Admiralty is defective, that is, of the body, the head of the governing body—that means, the masters—don’t know their business; and are not properly appointed. Then we have the defective organization of the subordinate departments—that means, the foremen don’t know their business. Then the want of clear and well-defined accounts—that means, that the masters, or those who call themselves masters, if you go and ask them why such a thing is not done, they will tell you that they are not responsible. And then, the fourth defect is that they don’t keep reliable accounts, and therefore they don’t know how the concern is carried on.

That is the judgment passed upon our Admiralty by a Commission under the Queen’s sign manual issued last year; but at the present moment there is a Committee sitting in the House of Commons, inquiring again into the affairs of the Admiralty, examining the same witnesses and others, and trying to find out the evils of this mal-administration. Well, I have said that the French Government during the ten years ending with 1858, spent a little more than one-half what we spent upon their navy. Then comes the question, what has become of all this money? How have these people managed to waste the enormous sums they have taken and wrung from the pockets of the tax-oppressed people? I will give you one little item from my honourable friend, who is now the Secretary of the Admiralty, Lord Clarence Paget. Speaking in the spring of 1859—I could give you the exact date—he attacked those who were then in office; and he came into office a few months afterwards in the same capacity. Now, he stated in Parliament, that he had gone carefully over the accounts for the eleven years previous to 1859, and he found five millions sterling voted for the construction of ships of war which could not be accounted for. Now don’t let me be misunderstood. Neither Lord Clarence Paget nor myself mean to imply that this money is stolen. The persons we criticise are honourable men as far as personal honour goes. I mean that they are certainly not the men to put the money into their own pockets. I will account for it in other ways, and I am here to account for it to you. The money has been wasted by making things which were useless. When the heads are irresponsible, when the foremen are ignorant, and when there are no accounts that can be relied upon, you may be satisfied how the business must be carried on. I will give you an instance of it, and it will explain this matter. It will explain the whole mystery of what we have in hand. About the year 1850 it was seen and admitted by the naval authorities in both countries that, in consequence of the application of steam for the propelling of ships, the old sailing vessels of the line could no longer be relied upon in case of war. Both France and England at that time came to the conclusion that in future line-of-battle ships must have screw propellers put in them. What was the course pursued by France? France has one Minister of Marine—not a Board, like ours, consisting of gentlemen upon whom it would puzzle even a detective police officer to fix any responsibility. The Emperor and the Minister of Marine are in concert; and they say, as wooden sailing line-of-battle ships will be useless in future, we must cease building them; and they have ceased building them. In England, we went on building line-of-battle ships for sails, and have been building them ever since. The French took their old vessels—their existing vessels—and put screw steam-engines into them, and adapted them for the purposes of war. In England, we went on building and converting, and managing to build new vessels as fast as we converted the old ones; and the consequence is that France, only having to buy steam-engines to put into her wooden vessels (whilst we were building vessels and buying steam-engines), has got her work done in less time, and at less expense, than we have. When it came in view almost immediately afterwards that, in consequence of this proceeding, the French appeared to have at one moment—according to the statement of one of our Admiralty—nearly as many line-of-battle ships with screws as we had, we heard a cry that the French wanted to steal a march upon us, because she had nearly as many steam line-of-battle vessels as we. We never took stock of our line-of-battle steam and sailing vessels combined. If we had, we should have found that we had at that time as many more line-of-battle ships as we had in 1850. That is one of the ways in which this vast sum of money has been uselessly spent.

I will now come to five years later. During the war in the Crimea, it was found that these iron-cased vessels for gun-boats served the purpose admirably of protecting ships of war from those shells and combustible missiles which were the latest inventions for the purposes of war. Immediately that was discovered, the Emperor orders two frigates to be built and covered with iron. We knew what was going on, and the English Admiralty reported upon it. They were in no great hurry in constructing the Gloire. The keel of that vessel was laid down in the summer of 1858, and she was not completed with her armour on till the autumn of 1860. What does our Admiralty do in the mean time? We had one Admiralty after another; and as they succeed each other, you see them go down to Shoeburyness or Portsmouth for the purpose of trying experiments—first inviting Mr. Whitworth to see if he could manufacture a gun sufficiently powerful to send a rifled solid bullet through these iron plates; and at another time calling on Sir William Armstrong to do the same. In this way they continue to amuse themselves. In the mean time, the Minister of Marine and the Emperor said, ‘What we want is something to protect us against the hollow shells which fall very much like hail on our wooden ships.’ It is against these detonating shells that we wish to protect ourselves, and the French Government went on to complete these two vessels of war with iron armour. But there was no reason why these iron vessels should have been launched before ours. We voted the money; we have more iron, and more workmen capable of constructing such vessels, if the Admiralty had chosen to employ them. But there is no responsibility, no one who knows his business, and nothing was done. Then, because the French had their iron ship completed sooner than ours, a cry was raised that the Emperor was coming to invade us.

Now, I have examined this question, and, having taken the pains to inform myself upon it, I have no hesitation in saying that the idea of the French Government ever contemplating rivalling us in our naval force, still less of invading us—I say it from my conscience—I believe is as great a hoax and delusion upon this generation as anything we read of in history since the time of Titus Oates, and indeed, as bad as anything Titus Oates ever said. I have given you the judgment of this Royal Commission upon the Admiralty. Now I will read a few words uttered by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons, last year, upon the nature—upon the character—of our administration generally of public works—

‘He had no hesitation in saying that these and other circumstances of a like kind were entirely owing to the lamentable and deplorable state of our whole arrangements with regard to the management of our public works. Vacillation, uncertainty, costliness, extravagance, and all the conflicting vices that could be enumerated were united in our present system. There was a total want of authority to direct and guide when anything was to be done; they had to go from department to department, from the House of Commons to a Committee, from a Committee to a Commission, and from a Commission to a Committee again; so that years passed away, the public were disappointed, and the money of the country was wasted. He believed that such were the evils of the system, that nothing short of a revolutionary reform would ever be sufficient to rectify it.’

Mr. Gladstone was then speaking with reference to the administration of the Public Works in connection with the building of the British Museum. But the greatest of your national manufactures is the navy. Your dockyards are the great Government manufactories; it is there, with their ships and machinery, that the largest amount of your money is spent, and the greatest waste takes place. And, bad as is the Board of Public Works, I believe it is the unanimous opinion of public men of all parties, except the half-dozen who have been in the Admiralty, or the half-dozen now in it, that of all the public departments, that which is the worst managed, the most irresponsible, and where the greatest waste prevails, is the Admiralty.

Now, I do not think it out of place or out of time to talk to you upon this subject—upon this fallacy, with reference to the designs and doings of the French Government The French emperor and the English people. and of the French Emperor in particular; for upon that fallacy is based a claim upon the pockets which must be counted by millions sterling per annum. But I speak to you also in the character of your representative, who was placed in a responsible and delicate position with reference to this very question. I was in Paris at the time that all these meetings were convoked to form these rifle corps. I was there with the known object of endeavouring to promote a treaty of commerce between the two countries. I was first in the midst of the negotiations for the basis of the treaty, when there was the greatest excitement, and the greatest anxiety, and the greatest agitation in this country, for the purpose of getting up public demonstrations in favour of the rifle corps, avowedly to protect this country against France. The language held in this country—I can hardly trust myself to characterize it. I remember an account of a meeting in Somersetshire—I don’t know that it could have taken place in a more appropriate county—there was a farmer speaking upon this subject, and somebody cried out to him—he was speaking of invasion by the French Emperor—’suppose they come, what will you charge them for your corn?’ And his answer was, ‘They shall pay for it with their blood!’ This was the language, and it is only a sample. It was going on through the country at a time when, I repeat it, not one act had ever been done by the French Government to warrant the supposition of any hostile feeling being meditated towards us, and at the very time when the French Government was about to enter upon a complete revolution in their commercial policy; which, if the French Emperor had such a design as to make an attack upon the country, would have convicted him of the most absolute folly—I was going to say madness—because at the same time that he was disturbing the commercial interests, and setting the ironmasters, the cotton-spinners, and all the great capitalists against him, he was said to be meditating just such an attack upon this country as would have required the support of those very interests to gain his ends. Nay, more, looking at him as an intelligent being—and that is his great characteristic, for he is a remarkably intelligent man—looking at him as an intelligent man, what must we say of his conduct in proposing at the same time to adopt a policy which would knit the two countries in the bonds of commercial dependence in such a way that it would have been difficult to have caused a rupture between them—for war tears asunder most of those sensitive fibres which constitute the body politic when it rends these mutual ties of commercial intercourse—what shall we say of a man who, though arming a few ships, was suspected of contemplating a piratical attack on this country? But supposing that might have been possible; I tell you candidly, that before I took a step in reference to this treaty, I satisfied myself upon these facts, which I am now narrating; and I tell you more, and I would tell to the French Government as I now tell to you, that if I found one fact to justify what was stated here at that time in public meetings—if I found that the French Government had done anything to disturb that relation which has existed pretty nearly for a century in the proportions of the French and English navies—I should have suspected some sinister design on the part of the French Government, and should have considered myself a traitor to my country if I had allowed the Government of that country, on proof of any sinister intentions, to have made use of me to mislead or hood-wink England by leading me to suppose that my instrumentality was being used for the promotion of commercial intercourse, when I had grounds to believe they were entering upon a policy of war.

I have said that down to the year 1858 inclusive we have the finance accounts, showing what has been the expenditure of France compared with our own upon our navy. As we have not the audited accounts for 1859 and 1860—and I am not going to trust to estimates—I will not speak of the expenditure for these two years. But I can give you another proof that during last year, at the very time we were raising this cry of invasion, and charging the French Government with making undue and unprecedented preparations for an invasion of our shores—that we had last year, and during the whole of last year, a larger naval force, in proportion to that of France, than I have ever known in any normal natural time of peace within the last century. I will not speak of money, but of men. When you take the number of men voted and employed in the navy, you have the clue to all the other expenses of the navy; that is never attempted to be denied by any one who understands anything of these matters. During 1860, the French Government had voted 30,400 men and boys for their navy; and in the same year we had 84,000 men and boys voted for our navy. I will take what I know upon authority, and which will not be disputed by anybody. I will assume that the French navy possessed 34,000 men and boys last year—3600 more than they actually had. Then taking these 34,000 against our 84,000, it is as near as possible two to our five; so that instead of half, or a little more than half, which has been the normal state of things, last year, at the time of all this hubbub, at the time when you were invited to shoulder your muskets to protect your shores, your proportion of armaments by sea was greater than it has been in almost any time of peace that I can find in my researches. I know they tell us that the French have got a number of men in their mercantile marine who are all inscribed on the maritime inscription of France, and that such inscription gives the Government the power to press those men into their service; and you must consider that. Now, I say, take all the able-bodied seamen the French have in their mercantile marine, and add them to the men in the imperial navy, and it will not bring them up to the number we have in The maintenance of naval superiority. our royal navy. I am not one to advocate the reducing of our navy in any degree below that proportion to the French navy which the exigencies of our service require; and, mind what I say, here is just what the French Government would admit as freely as you would. England has four times, at least, the amount of mercantile tonnage to protect at sea that France has, and that surely gives us a legitimate pretension to have a larger navy than France. Besides, this country is an island; we cannot communicate with any part of the world except by sea. France, on the other hand, has a frontier upon land, by which she can communicate with the whole world. We have, I think, unfortunately for ourselves, about a hundred times the amount of territory beyond the seas to protect, as colonies and dependencies, that France has. France has also twice or three times as large an army as England has. All these things give us a right to have a navy somewhat in the proportion to the French navy which we find to have existed if we look back over the past century. Nobody has disputed it. I would be the last person who would ever advocate any undue change in this proportion. On the contrary—I have said it in the House of Commons, and I repeat it to you—if the French Government showed a sinister design to increase their navy to an equality with ours; then, after every explanation to prevent such an absurd waste, I should vote 100 millions sterling rather than allow that navy to be increased to a level with ours—because I should say that any attempt of that sort without any legitimate grounds, would argue some sinister designs upon this country.

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V.—

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA

The following extracts are taken from a speech delivered by Bright in the House of Commons, June 30^th, 1863, in opposition to Roebuck’s motion for recognition of the Southern Confederacy. The speech began with a crushing attack upon Roebuck—‘Tear ‘em,’ as he rejoiced to be called. That part has been omitted as the inconsistencies of Roebuck’s violent jingoism are no longer of importance. Roebuck was at this time member for Sheffield.

I now come to the proposition which the honourable and learned gentleman has submitted to the House, and which he has already submitted to a meeting of his constituents at Sheffield. At that meeting, on the 27^th of May, the honourable and learned gentleman used these words: ‘What I have to consider is, what are the interests of England: what is for her interests I believe to be for the interests of the world.’ Now, leaving out of consideration the latter part of that statement, if the honourable and learned gentleman will keep to the first part of it, then what we have now to consider in this question Base Jealousy of the United States. is, what is for the interest of England. But the honourable and learned gentleman has put it tonight in almost as offensive a way as he did before at Sheffield, and has said that the United States would not bully the world if they were divided and subdivided; for he went so far as to contemplate division into more than two independent sections. I say that the whole of his case rests upon a miserable jealousy of the United States, or on what I may term a base fear. It is a fear which appears to me just as groundless as any of those panics by which the honourable and learned gentleman has attempted to frighten the country.

There never was a State in the world which was less capable of aggression with regard to Europe than the United States of America. I speak of its government, of its confederation, of the peculiarities of its organization; for the House will agree with me, that nothing is more peculiar than the fact of the great power which the separate States, both of the North and South, exercise upon the policy and course of the country. I will undertake to say, that, unless in a question of overwhelming magnitude, which would be able to unite any people, it would be utterly hopeless to expect that all the States of the American Union would join together to support the central Government in any plan of aggression on England or any other country of Europe.

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I want to show the honourable and learned gentleman that England is not interested in the course he proposes we should take; and when I speak of interests, I mean the commercial interests, the political interests, and the moral interests of the country. And first, with regard to the supply of cotton, in which the noble lord the member for Stamford takes such a prodigious interest. I must explain to the noble lord that I know a little about cotton. I happen to have Slavery and the supply of cotton. been engaged in that business—not all my life, for the noble lord has seen me here for twenty years—but my interests have been in it; and at this moment the firm of which I am a member have no less than six mills, which have been at a stand for nearly a year, owing to the impossibility of working under the present conditions of the supply of cotton. I live among a people who live by this trade; and there is no man in England who has a more direct interest in it than I have. Before the war, the supply of cotton was little and costly, and every year it was becoming more costly, for the supply did not keep pace with the demand.

The point that I am about to argue is this: I believe that the war which is now raging in America is more likely to abolish slavery than not, and more likely to abolish it than any other thing that can be proposed in the world. I regret very much that the pride and passion of men are such as to justify me in making this statement. The supply of cotton under slavery must always be insecure. The House felt so in past years; for at my recommendation they appointed a committee, and but for the folly of a foolish Minister they would have appointed a special commission to India at my request. Is there any gentleman in this House who will not agree with me in this—that it would be far better for our great Lancashire industry that our supply of cotton should be grown by free labour than by slave labour?

Before the war, the whole number of negroes engaged in the production of cotton was about one million—that is, about a fourth of the whole of the negroes in the Slave States. The annual increase in the number of negroes growing cotton was about twenty-five thousand—only two and a-half per cent. It was impossible for the Southern States to keep up their growth of sugar, rice, tobacco, and their ordinary slave productions, and at the same time to increase the growth of cotton more than at a rate corresponding with the annual increase of negroes. Therefore you will find that the quantity of cotton grown, taking ten years together, increased only at the rate of about one hundred thousand bales a-year. But that was nothing like the quantity which we required. That supply could not be increased, because the South did not cultivate more than probably one and a-half per cent. of the land which was capable of cultivation for cotton.

The great bulk of the land in the Southern States is uncultivated. Ten thousand square miles are appropriated to the cultivation of cotton; but there are six hundred thousand square miles, or sixty times as much land, which is capable of being cultivated for cotton. It was, however, impossible that the land should be so cultivated, because, although you had climate and sun, you had no labour. The institution of slavery forbade free labour men in the North to come to the South; and every emigrant that landed in New York from Europe knew that the Slave States were no States for him, and therefore he went North or West. The laws of the United States, the sentiments of Europe and of the world, being against any opening of the slave trade, the planters of the South were shut up, and the annual increase in the supply of cotton could increase only in the same proportion as the annual increase in the number of their negroes.

There is only one other point with regard to that matter which is worth mentioning. The honourable and learned gentleman the member for Sheffield will understand it, although on some points he seems to be peculiarly dark. If a planter in the Southern States wanted to grow one thousand bales of cotton a-year, he would require about two hundred negroes. Taking them at five hundred dollars, or one hundred pounds each, which is not more than half the price of a first-class hand, the cost of the two hundred would be twenty thousand pounds. To grow one thousand bales of cotton a year you require not only to possess an estate, machinery, tools, and other things necessary to carry on the cotton-growing business, but you must find a capital of twenty thousand pounds to buy the actual labourers by whom the plantation is to be worked; and therefore, as every gentleman will see at once, this great trade, to a large extent, was shut up in the hands of men who were required to be richer than would be necessary if slavery did not exist.

Thus the plantation business to a large extent became a monopoly, and, therefore, even on that account the production of cotton was constantly limited and controlled. I was speaking to a gentleman the other day from Mississippi. I believe no man in America or in England is more acquainted with the facts of this case. He has been for many years a Senator from the State of Mississippi. He told me that every one of these facts was true, and said, ‘I have no doubt whatever that in ten years after freedom in the South, or after freedom in conjunction with the North, the production of cotton will be doubled, and cotton will be forwarded to the consumers of the world at a much less price than we have had it for many years past.’

I shall turn for a moment to the political interest, to which the honourable and learned gentlemen paid much more attention than to the commercial. The more I consider the course of this war, the more I come to the conclusion that it is improbable in future that the United States will be broken into separate republics. I do not come to the conclusion that the North will conquer the South. But I think the conclusion to which I am more disposed to come now than at any time since the breaking out of the war is this—that if a separation should occur for a time, still the interest, the sympathies, the sentiments, the necessities of the whole continent, and its ambition also, which, as honourable gentlemen have mentioned, seems to some people to be a necessity, render it highly probable that the continent would still be united under one central Government.

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Now, there is one more point to which the honourable and learned gentleman will forgive me if I allude—he does not appear to me to think it of great importance—and that is, the morality of this question. The right honourable gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the honourable gentleman who spoke from the bench behind—and I think the noble lord, if I am not mistaken—referred to the carnage which is occasioned by this lamentable strife. Well, carnage, I presume, is the accompaniment of all war. Two years ago the press of London ridiculed very much the battles of the United States, in which nobody was killed and few were hurt. There was a time when I stood up in this House, and pointed out the Carnage in the Crimea an in America. dreadful horrors of war. There was a war waged by this country in the Crimea; and the Chancellor of the Exchequer, with an uneasy conscience, is constantly striving to defend that struggle. That war—for it lasted about the same time that the American war has lasted—destroyed at least as many lives as are estimated to have been destroyed in the United States.

My honourable friend the member for Montrose, who, I think, is not in the House, made a speech in Scotland some time last year, in which he gave the numbers which were lost by Russia in that war. An honourable friend near me observes, that some people do not reckon the Russians for anything. I say, if you will add the Russians to the English, and the two to the French, and the three to the Sardinians, and the four to the Turks, that more lives were lost in the invasion of the Crimea, in the two years that it lasted, than have been lost hitherto in the American war. That is no defence of the carnage of the American war; but let honourable gentlemen bear in mind that, when I protested against the carnage in the Crimea—for an object which few could comprehend and nobody can fairly explain—I was told that I was actuated by a morbid sentimentality. Well, if I am converted, if I view the mortality in war with less horror than I did then, it must be attributed to the arguments of honourable gentlemen opposite and on the Treasury bench; but the fact is, I view this carnage just as I viewed that, with only this difference, that while our soldiers perished three thousand miles from home in a worthless and indefensible cause, these men were on their own soil, and every man of them knew for what he enlisted and for what purpose he was to fight.

Now, I will ask the right honourable gentleman the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and those who are of opinion with him on this question of slaughter in the American war—a slaughter which I hope there is no honourable member here, and no person out of this House, that does not in his calm moments look upon with grief and horror—to consider what was the state of things before the war. It was this: that every year in the Slave States of America there were one hundred and fifty thousand children born into the world—born with the badge and the doom of slavery—born to the liability by law, and by custom, and by the devilish cupidity of man—to the lash and to the chain and to the branding-iron, and to be taken from their families and carried they know not where.

I want to know whether you feel as I feel upon this question. When I can get down to my home from this House, I find half a dozen little children playing upon my hearth. How many members are there who can say with me, that the most innocent, the most pure, the most holy joy which in their past years they have felt, or in their future years they have hoped for, has not arisen from contact and association with our precious children? Well, then, if that be so—if, when the hand of Death takes one of those flowers from our dwelling, our heart is overwhelmed with sorrow and our household is covered with gloom; what would it be if our children were brought up to this infernal system—one hundred and fifty thousand of them every year brought into the world in these Slave States, amongst these ‘gentlemen,’ amongst this ‘chivalry,’ amongst these men that we can make our friends?

Do you forget the thousand-fold griefs and the countless agonies which belonged to the silent conflict of slavery before the war began? It is all very well for the honourable and learned gentleman to tell me, to tell this House—he will not tell the country with any satisfaction to it—that slavery, after all, is not so bad a thing. The brother of my honourable friend, the member for South Durham, told me that in North Carolina he himself saw a woman whose every child, ten in number, had been sold when they grew up to the age at which they would fetch a price to their master.

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I want to know, to ask you, the House of Commons, whether you have turned back to your own proceedings in 1834, and traced the praises which have been lavished upon you for thirty years by the great and good men of other countries—and whether, after what you did at that time, you believe that you will meet the views of the thoughtful, moral, and religious people of England, when you propose to remit to slavery three millions of negroes in the Southern States, who in our views, and regarding the Proclamation of the only President of the United States as a legal document, are certainly and to all intents and purposes free? [‘Oh!’] The honourable and learned gentleman may say ‘Oh!’ and shake his head lightly, and be scornful at this. He has managed to get rid of all those feelings under which all men, black and white, like to be free. He has talked of the cant and hypocrisy of these men. Was Wilberforce, was Clarkson, was Buxton—I might run over the whole list—were these men hypocrites, and had they nothing about them but cant?

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In conclusion, sir, I have only this to say—that I wish to take a generous view of this question—a view, I say, generous with regard to the people with whom we are in amity, whose minister we receive here, and who receive our minister in Washington. We see that the government of the United States has for two years past been contending for its life, and we know that it is contending necessarily for human freedom. That government affords the remarkable example—offered for the first time in the history of the world—of a great government coming forward as the organized defender of law, freedom, and equality.

I have not said a word with regard to what may happen to England if we go into war with the United States. It will be a war upon the ocean—every ship that belongs to the two nations will, as far as possible, be swept from the seas. But when the troubles in America are over, be they ended by the restoration of the Union, or by separation, that great and free people, the most instructed in the world (there is not an American to be found in the New England States who cannot read and write, and there are not three men in one hundred in the whole Northern States who cannot read and write—and those who cannot read and write are those who have recently come from Europe) I say the most instructed people in the world, and the most wealthy will have a wound in their hearts by your act which a century may not heal; and the posterity of some of those who now hear my voice may look back with amazement, and I will say with lamentation, at the course which was taken by the honourable and learned gentleman, and by such honourable members as may choose to follow his leading. [‘No! No!’] I suppose the honourable gentlemen who cry ‘No!’ will admit that we sometimes suffer from the errors of our ancestors. There are few persons who will not admit that, if their fathers had been wiser, their children would have been happier.

We know the cause of this revolt, its purposes, and its aims. Those who made it have not left us in darkness respecting their intentions, but what they are to accomplish is still hidden from our sight; and I will abstain now, as I have always abstained with regard to it, from predicting what is to come. I know what I hope for—and what I shall rejoice in—but I know nothing of future facts that will enable me to express a confident opinion. Whether it will give freedom to the race which white men have trampled in the dust, and whether the issue will purify a nation steeped in crimes committed against that race, is known only to the Supreme. In His hands are alike the breath of man and the life of States. I am willing to commit to Him the issue of this dreaded contest; but I implore of Him, and I beseech this House, that my country may lift nor hand nor voice in aid of the most stupendous act of guilt that history has recorded in the annals of mankind.

VI.—

THE CIVIL WAR IN AMERICA

This short passage from a speech delivered by Cobden to his constituents at Rochdale on October 29^th, 1862, beginning with a reference to the cotton famine, exhibits and rather exaggerates the distinction between his attitude and that of Bright to the Civil War. For further information the reader must consult Mr. Morley’s Life of Cobden and the large collection of Cobden’s speeches which was published after his death by Bright and Thorold Rogers.

Great praise has been given to the working class of this district for the fine, the magnanimous, the heroic fortitude which they have displayed on this occasion. Well, I sometimes think that there is something rather invidious in the way in which this compliment is paid to you by some parties. It seems as if they had always been assuming that you are a set of savages, without reason or a sense of justice, and that, whatever befel you, your first impulse was to go and destroy something or somebody in revenge. They must have a very curious idea of the people of this district. It reminds me of an anecdote that I remember:—When the late Dr. Dalton, the eminent philosopher, was presented to King William IV., his Majesty received him with this remark: ‘Well, doctor—well, doctor—are you all quiet at Manchester now?’—the idea in his Majesty’s head being that in Manchester and the neighbourhood the normal state was one of insurrection or violence. Well, but at least the conduct of this district, of its working population, will stand out all the more honourably before the country when it is known under what circumstances you have borne yourselves so manfully as you have. Where is there another class of the community—I join my right honourable friend Mr. Gladstone heartily in saying that—I am a south countryman, and therefore I shall not share in any praise I give you in this district—but I don’t believe there is any other part of the country where the same number of men would have borne so courageously and manfully the same amount of privation. But still, don’t let us make it mere empty compliment—because the people of this country do not care a button for compliments. There is something wanted, and I have no doubt that something more will be had. This is a gigantic evil which has fallen upon this district from no fault of its own, which could not have been foreseen or provided against; and, therefore, the consequences of this great calamity must be borne by the whole country. If they can be borne by voluntary aid from all parts of the kingdom, well; if not, they must be helped by Imperial aid in another form.

But I think, if it is known and fairly understood in all parts of the kingdom what the state of things is, and that a great effort is required, greater than any that has yet been made, I believe that the philanthropy and the generosity of this country will not be found wanting. I would suggest that a systematic plan should be adopted of calling county meetings everywhere by the lord-lieutenants. I have known county meetings called before on much slighter grounds of necessity than this. It is said that there is to be a subscription raised in all the churches. I have no doubt that a large sum will be raised in that way. But it requires that the country should know the necessities of the case, and that the public feeling should not be chilled or distorted by base appeals to their prejudices and their passions. Oh, there is a class of writers in this country—God knows who they are—who support the vendors of such base commodities; there is a class of writers in this country who seem to worship success, and to find no pleasure so great as to jump upon anybody, or any class, that they think is down for the moment, and to trample it still lower in the mire. For myself, I have no doubt whatever that all classes in this country will do their duty. I have heard since I have been in Lancashire of heroic acts of benevolence performed not only by men, but by women, who have shown a bright example in their districts in the devotion they have evinced to relieve the distress of those immediately around them. I have no doubt that the amount of generosity and charity that is going on in private far transcends that which is known to the public, and that the best friends of the poor are very often the poor themselves. I have not the least doubt, I say, that this district will do its duty, and that when this cloud passes away—as I hope it may before a distant day—I have no doubt that there will be a record of bright and generous acts—I won’t say such as is creditable exclusively to this community—but such as will reflect honour upon our common humanity.

Now, gentlemen, coupled with this question is another upon which I must say a few words. We are placed in this tremendous embarrassment in consequence of the civil war that is going on in America. Don’t expect me to be going to venture upon ground which other politicians have trodden, with, I think, doubtful success or advantage to themselves—don’t think that I am going to predict what is going to happen in America, or that I am going to set myself up as a judge of the Americans. What I wish to do is to say a few words to throw light upon our relations, as a nation, with the American people. I have no doubt whatever that, if I had been an American, I should have been true to my peace principles, and that I should have been amongst, perhaps, a very small number who have voted against, or raised a protest, in some shape or other, against this civil war in America. There is nothing, in the course of this war, that reconciles me to the brutality and the havoc of such a mode of settling human disputes. But the question we have to ask ourselves is this: What is the position which, as a nation, we ought to take with reference to the Americans in this dispute? That is the question which concerns us. It is no use our arguing as to what is the origin of the war, or any use whatever to advise these disputants. From the moment the first shot is fired, or the first blow is struck, in a dispute, then farewell to all reason and argument; you might as well attempt to reason with mad dogs as with men when they have begun to spill each other’s blood in mortal combat. I was so convinced of the fact during the Crimean war, which, you know, I opposed, I was so convinced of the utter uselessness of raising one’s voice in opposition to war when it has once begun, that I made up my mind that as long as I was in political life, should a war again break out between England and a great power, I would never open my mouth upon the subject from the time the first gun was fired until the peace was made, because, when a war is once commenced, it will only be by the exhaustion of one party that a termination will be arrived at. If you look back at our history, what did eloquence, in the persons of Chatham or Burke, do to prevent a war with our first American colonies? What did eloquence, in the persons of Fox and his friends, do to prevent the French revolution, or bring it to a close? And there was a man who spoke at the commencement of the Crimean war, in terms of eloquence, in power, and pathos, and argument, equal, I believe, to anything that fell from the lips of Chatham and Burke—I mean your distinguished townsman, my friend Mr. Bright—and what was his success? Why, they burnt him in effigy for his pains.

Well, if we are here powerless as politicians to check a war at home, how useless and unavailing must it be for me to presume to affect in the slightest degree the results of the contest in America! I may say I regret this dreadful and sanguinary war; we all regret it; but to attempt to scold them for fighting, to attempt to argue the case with either, and to reach them with any arguments, while they are standing in mortal combat, a million of them standing in arms and fighting to the death; to think that, by any arguments here, we are to influence or be heard by the combatants engaged on the other side of the Atlantic, is utterly vain. I have travelled twice through almost every free State in America. I know most of the principals engaged in this dreadful contest on both sides. I have kept myself pretty well informed of all that is going on in that country; and yet, though I think I ought to be as well informed on this subject as most of my countrymen—Cabinet Ministers included—yet, if you were to ask me how this contest is to end, I confess I should find myself totally at a loss to offer an opinion worth the slightest attention on the part of my hearers. But this I will say: If I were put to the torture, and compelled to offer a guess, I should not make the guess which Mr. Gladstone and Earl Russell have made on this subject. I don’t believe that, if the war in America is to be brought to a termination, it will be brought to an end by the separation of the South and North. There are great motives at work amongst the large majority of the people in America, which seem to me to drive them to Small States and great empires. this dreadful contest rather than see their country broken into two. Now, I don’t speak of it as having a great interest in it myself. I speak as to a fact. It may seem Utopian, but I don’t feel sympathy for a great nation, or for those who desire the greatness of a people by the vast extension of empire. What I like to see is the growth, development, and elevation of the individual man. But we have had great empires at all times—Syria, Persia, and the rest. What trace have they left of the individual man? Nebuchadnezzar, and the countless millions under his sway—there is no more trace of them than of herds of buffaloes, or flocks of sheep. But look at your little States; look at Greece, with its small territories, some not larger than an English county! Italy, over some of whose States a man on horseback could ride in a day—they have left traces of individual man, where civilization has flourished, and humanity been elevated. It may appear Utopian, but we can never expect the individual elevated until a practical and better code of moral law prevails among nations, and until the small States obtain justice at the hands of the great.

But leaving these matters: What are the facts of the present day—what appears to be the paramount instinct amongst the races of men? Certainly not a desire to separate, but a desire to agglomerate, to bring together in greater concentration the different races speaking the same language, and professing the same religion. What do you see going on in Italy—what stirs now the heart of Germany—what moves Hungary? Is it not wishing to get together? I find in the nations of Europe no instinct pervading the mass of mankind which may lead them to a separation from each other; but I find a powerful movement all through Europe for the agglomeration of races. But is it not very odd that statesmen here who have a profound sympathy for the movement in Italy in favour of unity, cannot at least appreciate unity in looking upon the probabilities and the chances of a civil contest—cannot also duly appreciate the force of that motive in the present contest in America? Three-fourths of the white population are contending against disunion; they are following the instinct which is impelling the Italians, the Germans, and other populations of Europe; and I have no doubt that one great and dominant motive in the minds of three-fourths of the white people in America is this:—They are afraid, if they become disunited, they will be treated as Italy has been treated when she was disunited—that a foreigner will come and set his intrusive foot upon it, and play off one against another to their degradation, and probable subjection. Without pretending to offer an opinion myself, these are powerful motives, and, if they are operating as they appear to operate, it may lead to a much more protracted contest than has been predicted by some of our statesmen.

But the business we really have here as Englishmen is not to speculate upon what the Americans will do, for they will act totally independent of us. Give them your sympathy as a whole; say, ‘Here is a most lamentable calamity that has befallen a great nation in its pride.’ Give them your sympathy. Lament over a great misfortune, but don’t attempt to scold and worry them, or dictate to them, or even to predict for them what will happen. But what is our duty towards them in this matter? Well, now, we have talked of strict neutrality. But I wish our statesmen, and particularly our cabinet ministers, would enforce upon their own tongues a little of that principle of non-intervention which they profess to apply to their diplomacy. We are told very frequently at public meetings that we must recognize the South. Well, but that recognition of the South is always coupled with another object—it is, to obtain the cotton that you want, because, if it was not for the distress brought upon us by the civil war in America, I don’t think humanity would induce us to interfere there any more than it does in wars going on in other parts of the world.

But, now, let us try to dispel this floating fallacy which is industriously spread over the land—probably by interested parties. Your recognition of the South would not give you cotton. The recognition of the South, in the minds of parties who use that term, is coupled with something more. There is an idea of going and interfering by force to put an end to that contest, in order that the cotton may be set free. If I were President Lincoln, and found myself rather in difficulty on account of the pressure of taxation, and on account of the discord of parties in the Federal ranks, and if I wanted to see the whole population united as one man, and ready to make me a despot; if I could choose that post, and not only unite every man but every woman in my support—then I could wish nothing better than that England or France, or both together, should come and attempt to interfere by force in this quarrel. You read now of the elections going on in America. And I look to those elections with the greatest interest, as the only indications to guide me in forming a judgment of the future. You see it stated that in these elections there is some disunion of party. But let the foreigners attempt to interfere in that quarrel, and all old lines of demarcation are effaced for ever. You will have one united population joining together to repel that intrusion. It was so in France, in their great revolutionary war. What begat the union there? What caused the Reign of Terror? What was it that ruined every man who breathed a syllable of dissent from the despotic and bloody Government enthroned in Paris—what was it but the cry of alarm that ‘the foreigner is invading us,’ and the feeling that these were the betrayers of the country, because they were the friends of the foreigner? But your interference would not obtain cotton. Your interference would have, in the present state of armaments, very little effect upon the combatants there. If people were generally better acquainted with the geography of that country and the state of its population, they would see how much we are apt to exaggerate even our power to interfere to produce any result in that contest. The policy to be pursued by the North will be decided by the elections in the great Western States: I mean the great grain-growing region of the Mississippi valley. If the States of Ohio, Michigan, Indiana, Illinois, Iowa, Wisconsin, and Minnesota—if those States determine to carry on this war—if they say, ‘We will never make peace and give up the mouth of the Mississippi, which drains our 10,000 miles of navigable waters into the gulf of Mexico; we will never make peace while that river is in the hands of a foreign Power’—why, all the Powers of Europe cannot reach that ‘far West’ to coerce it. It is 1000 miles inland across the Rocky Mountains, or 1000 miles up the Mississippi, with all its windings, before you get to that vast region—that region which is rich beyond all the rest of the world besides, peopled by ten or twelve millions of souls, doubling in numbers every few years. It is that region which will be the depository in future of the wealth and numbers of that great Continent; and whatever the decision of that region is, New York, and New England, and Pennsylvania will agree with that decision.

Therefore, watch what the determination of that people is; and if they determine to carry on the war, whatever the hideous proportions of that war may be, and however it may affect your interests, be assured that it is idle to talk—idle as the talk of children—as if it were possible for England to pretend, if it would, to carry on hostilities in the West. And, for my part, I think the language which is used sometimes in certain quarters with regard to the power of this country to go and impose its will upon the population in America, is something almost savouring of the ludicrous. When America had but 2,500,000 people, we found it impossible to enforce our will upon that population; but the progress and tendency of modern armaments are such, that where you have to deal with a rich and civilized people, having the same mechanical appliances as you have, and where that people number fifteen or twenty millions, it is next to impossible for any force to be transported across the Atlantic able to coerce that people. I should wish, therefore, that idea of force—and oh! Englishmen have a terrible tendency to think they can resort to force—should be abandoned on this occasion. The case is utterly unmanageable by force, and interference could only do harm. What good would it do to the population of this country? You would not get your cotton; but if you could, what price would you pay for it? I know something of the way in which money is voted in the House of Commons for warlike armaments, even in time of peace, and I have seen what was done during a year and a half of war. I will venture to say, that it would be cheaper to keep all the population engaged in the cotton manufacture—ay, to keep them upon turtle, champagne, and venison—than to send to America to obtain cotton by force of arms. That would involve you in a war, and six months of that war would cost more money than would be required to maintain this population comfortably for ten years.

No, gentlemen; what we should endeavour to do, as the result of this war, is to put an end to that system of warfare which brings this calamity home to our doors, by making such alterations in the maritime law of nations which affects the rights of belligerents and neutrals, as will render it impossible, in the future, for innocent non-combatants and neutrals here to be made to suffer, as they now do, almost as much as those who are carrying on the war there. Well, if you can, out of this great disaster, make such a reform as will prevent the recurrence of such another, it is, perhaps, all that you can do in the matter. I won’t enter into that subject now, because I have entered at some length into it elsewhere, and I shall have to deal with it again in the House of Commons. All I wish to say is this—that it is in the power of England to adopt such a system of maritime law, with the ready assent of all the other Powers, as will prevent the possibility of such a state of things being brought upon us in future. And I will say this, that I doubt the wisdom—I certainly doubt the prudence—of a great body of industrious people allowing themselves to continually live in dependence upon foreign Powers for the supply of food and raw material, knowing that a system of warfare exists by which, at any moment, without notice, without any help on their part or means of prevention, they are liable to have the raw material or the food withdrawn from them—cut off from them suddenly—without any power to resist or hinder it.

Now, that is the only good that I can see that we can do for ourselves in this matter. Yes; there is one other good thing that we might do. We have seen a great country, in the very height of its power, feeling itself almost exempt from the ordinary calamities of older nations—we have seen that country suddenly prostrated, and become a cause of sorrow rather than of envy or admiration to its friends elsewhere; and what should be the monition to us? Ask yourselves whether there is any great injustice unredressed in this country? Ask if there is any flaw in our institutions in England requiring an adjustment or correction, one that, if not dealt with in time, may lead to a great disaster like that in America? It is not by stroking our beards, and turning up our eyes like the Pharisee, and thanking Heaven we are not as other men are, that we learn; but it is by studying such a calamity as this; by asking ourselves, is there anything in our dealings with Ireland, is there anything in India, is there anything appertaining to the rights and franchises of the great mass of our own population, that requires dealing with? If so, let what has taken place in America be a warning to us, and let us deal with an evil while there is time, and not allow it to find us out in the hour of distress and adversity.

[1]See later, p. 386.

[1]See later, p. 399, sqq.

[1]All who have been, in any way, concerned in these negotiations on behalf of England, acknowledge this. Thus, Colonel Rose, who was Chargé d‘Affairs at Constantinople, in Lord Stratford de Redcliffe’S absence, in a despatch to Lord John Russell, dated March 7th, 1853, detailing a conversation he had just held with M. D‘Ozeroff, the Russian Ambassador, represents himself to have said, ‘that certainly the Ottoman Minister had been to blame in the matter of the Holy Places, but that he had been coerced.’—Blue Book, part i. p. 87.

Again, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, writing to the Earl of Clarendon from ‘Constantinople, April 9th, 1853,’ says:—‘Your Lordship will perceive that the Russian Ambassador does not object, by his demands, to such privileges as are known to have been obtained latterly by France, in favour of the Latins, and that his principal aim is to fix and secure the present state of possession and usage by that kind of formal and explicit agreement, which may preclude all further pretensions on the side of France, and make the Porte directly responsible to Russia for any future innovation respecting the Holy Places. This is fair and reasonable enough in the view of an impartial observer.’—Blue Book, part i. p. 127.

Again, in a despatch, dated May 22nd, 1853, he says:—‘It is but justice to admit that Russia had something to complain of in the affair of the Holy Places; nor can it be denied, that much remains to be done for the welfare and security of the Christian population in Turkey.’—Blue Book, part i. p. 235.

Lord John Russell, in a despatch to Sir G. H. Seymour, dated ‘Foreign Office, February 9th, 1854,’ says:—‘The more the Turkish Government adopts the rules of impartial law and equal administration, the less will the Emperor of Russia find it necessary to apply that exceptional protection which his Imperial Majesty has found so burthen-some and inconvenient, THOUGH NO DOUBT PRESCRIBED BY DUTY, AND SANCTIONED BY TREATY.’ His Lordship at the same time volunteered the following character of the Emperor of Russia and his policy:—‘Upon the whole, her Majesty’S Government are persuaded that NO COURSE OF POLICY CAN BE ADOPTED MORE WISE, MORE DISINTERESTED, MORE BENEFICIAL TO EUROPE, THAN THAT WHICH HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY HAS SO LONG FOLLOWED, and which will render his name more illustrious than that of the most famous Sovereigns who have sought immortality by unprovoked conquest and ephemeral glory.’—Eastern Papers, part v. p. 8.

The Earl of Clarendon, in a letter to Sir G. H. Seymour, dated ‘Foreign Office, April 5th, 1853,’ says:—‘Viscount Stratford de Redcliffe was instructed to bear in mind that her Majesty’S Government, without professing to give an opinion on the subject, were not insensible to the superior claims of Russia, both as respected the treaty obligations of Turkey, and the loss of moral influence that the Emperor would sustain throughout his dominions, if, in the position occupied by his Imperial Majesty, with reference to the Greek Church, he was to yield any privileges it had hitherto enjoyed to the Latin Church, of which the Emperor of the French claimed to be the protector.’—Eastern Papers, part v. p. 22.

To this may be added the testimony of one who, though not diplomatically engaged in the negotiations, is a competent and impartial witness, as he was on the spot during the very crisis of these transactions, viz. the Earl of Carlisle. Stating his belief that justice was on the side of the Turks, he adds:—‘In giving this opinion, I do not so much allude to the actual propositions of Prince Menschikoff, for which in the outset some plausible and; even some substantial grounds might be alleged; on the contrary, I do not think it well for any Christian State to leave its co-religionists to the uncovenanted forbearance of Mussulman rulers.’—Diary in Turkish and Greek Waters, p. 181.

[1]While the proposal of Prince Menschikoff, which had been several times modified to meet the views of the Porte, was still before it, Lord Stratford writing to the Earl of Clarendon, on May 19th, 1853, says:—‘On comparing notes with M. de la Cour, I found him under an impression that the Turkish Ministers were disposed to shrink from encountering the consequences of Prince Menschikoff’S retirement in displeasure’ (Blue Book, part i. p. 177)—that is, in other words, disposed to accept the note proposed by the Russian Plenipotentiary. But in a despatch written the very next day, May 20th, he describes the means he had employed to prevent their yielding to that disposition:—‘In one of my preceding numbers I mentioned that I had seen the Sultan in private. The interview took place yesterday morning. Rifaat Pasha accompanied me to the Sultan’S apartment, and then withdrew. Reminding the Sultan of the disposition he had shown to receive my counsels, I said that I had hitherto confided them to his ministers, not wishing to trespass personally on his Majesty’S indulgence without necessity. I added that in the present critical juncture of affairs the case might be different, and his Majesty might like to know what I thought from my own lips. I then endeavoured to give him a just idea of the degree of danger to which his Empire was exposed.... I concluded by apprising his Majesty of what I had reserved for his private ear, in order that his ministers might take their decision without any bias from without, namely, that in the event of imminent danger I was instructed to request the Commander of her Majesty’S forces in the Mediterranean to hold his squadron in readiness.’—Blue Book, part i. p. 213.

[1]The following is an extract from a despatch sent by Count Nesselrode to Baron Brunnow, in February, 1850, giving the Russian Government’S estimation of that act of ‘material guarantee,’ on the part of England:—‘It remains to be seen whether Great Britain, abusing the advantages which are afforded her by her immense maritime superiority, intends henceforth to pursue an isolated policy, without caring for those engagements which bind her to the other cabinets; whether she intends to disengage herself from every obligation, as well as from all community of action, and to authorize all great powers, on every fitting opportunity, to recognize towards the weak no other rule but their own will, no other right but their own physical strength. Your Excellency will please to read this despatch to Lord Palmerston, and to give him a copy of it.’ But Russia did not go to war with England on account of this aggression on the rights and territories of an independent power.

[2]The Earl of Westmoreland writes to Lord Clarendon, under date of Vienna, July 25th, 1853:—‘Count Buol stated that the note which had been proposed by M. Drouyn de Lhuys appeared to him to be the best foundation upon which we could proceed in the formation of the new one.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 19.

[3]The Earl of Clarendon writes to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe from the ‘Foreign Office, August 2nd, 1853. Her Majesty’S Government have, in preference to all other plans, adhered to this project of note as the means best calculated to effect a speedy and satisfactory solution of the differences. They consider that it fully guards the principle for which throughout we have been contending, and that it may therefore with perfect safety be signed by the Porte; and they further hope that your Excellency, before the receipt of this despatch, will have found no difficulty in procuring the assent of the Turkish Government to a project which the Allies of the Sultan unanimously concur in recommending for his adoption.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 27.

Lord Cowley, writing to Lord Clarendon from Paris, August 4th, 1853, says:—‘M. Drouyn de Lhuys has profited by the passage of Mr. Tucker, returning by the Caradoc, to write to M. de la Cour, explaining why the French Government preferred the note which had been agreed to at Vienna, to that sent by Reschid Pasha from Constantinople, and instructing him to use all his influence with the Porte to obtain its assent to the project recommended by the Four Powers. I have had an opportunity of conversing with the Turkish Ambassador, and I was glad to find that his Excellency has written in the same sense to his Government.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 37.

[1]Sir G. H. Seymour, in a despatch to the Earl of Clarendon, dated ‘St. Petersburg, August 5th, 1853,’ says:—‘It is my agreeable duty to acquaint your Lordship, that upon waiting upon the Chancellor this morning, he stated that he had the satisfaction of informing me, that the Emperor had signified his acceptance (acceptation pure et simple) of the project de note which had been received from Vienna, and a copy of which was dispatched on the 24th ultimo, from Vienna to Constantinople. Intelligence of the Emperor’S decision will be sent off to-morrow to Baron Brunnow, and has already been conveyed by telegraph to Vienna.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 43.

Count Nesselrode conveys the acceptance, in the following language, in a despatch, dated ‘St. Petersburg, August 6th, 1853,’ and addressed to Baron Meyendorff:—‘You are aware, M. le Baron, of our august master’S very sincere desire to put an end, so far as depends on him, to the anxieties felt in Europe, perhaps with a certain degree of exaggeration, in regard to our present difference with Turkey. His Majesty accordingly directs you, M. le Baron, to declare to the Ministry of the Emperor Francis Joseph, and also to your colleagues of France, England, and Prussia, that for our part we accept in its present shape the last draft of note framed at Vienna.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 46.

[2]Sir J. H. Seymour, in a letter to Lord Clarendon, dated ‘St. Petersburg, August 12th, 1853,’ reporting a conversation he had just held with Count Nesselrode, says:—‘The Chancellor resumed: “Now,” he said, “about the delays which we are said to be desirous of interposing. The note which is intended to settle affairs reaches us on a Tuesday; on the following day our acceptance of it, without the slightest alteration, is sent off by telegraph as far as Warsaw, and from thence by a field-jager to Vienna, where it arrives on Saturday; we subscribe, without hesitation, to the slight changes made in the note at London and Paris, and the acknowledgment of our acquiescence reaches us again on the following Tuesday—a rapidity of communication of which there has been hitherto no example.”’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 50.

Again, Count Nesselrode, in a note to Baron Meyendorff, dated ‘St. Petersburg, September 7th, 1853,’ says:—‘On the mere receipt of the first draft of note agreed upon at Vienna, and even before we knew if it would be approved at London and Paris, we announced by telegraph our adhesion to it. The draft, as finally agreed upon, was sent to us at a later period, and although it had been modified in a sense which we could not mistake, nevertheless we did not on that account retract our adhesion or raise the slightest difficulty.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 101.

[1]Lord Stratford de Redcliffe writes to the Earl of Clarendon from Therapia, August 13th, 1853:—‘At an early hour this morning I waited on Reshid Pasha, and communicated to him the substance of your instructions relative to the project de note, already received from Vienna. I called his attention to the strong and earnest manner in which that paper was recommended to the acceptance of the Porte, not only by her Majesty’S Government, but also by the Cabinets of Austria, France, and Prussia. I reminded him of the intelligence which had arrived from St. Petersburg the day before by telegraph, purporting that the Emperor of Russia had signified his readiness to accept the same note.’—Blue Book, part iv. p. 69.

The next communication from Lord Stratford to the Earl of Clarendon, dated ‘Therapia, August 14th, 1853,’ is this:—‘The project de note transmitted from Vienna, was laid before the Council to-day by Reshid Pasha. All the Ministers were present to the number of seventeen, including the Sheik nl Islam. The majority of the Council declared it to be their firm intention to reject the new proposal, even if amendments were introduced.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 71.

And though they were afterwards induced somewhat to modify this very peremptory proceeding, yet the adoption of such a course shows the temper which prevailed in Turkey.

[2] Lord Cowley writes to Lord Clarendon from ‘Paris, September 2nd, 1853. M. Drouyn de Lhuys stated to me yesterday, that upon the receipt of the intelligence from Constantinople, that the Porte had refused to accept the Vienna note, he had addressed a short despatch to M. de la Cour,...to express the disappointment with which the Emperor had learned the little attention paid by the Sultan’S Ministers to the advice of his Majesty’S Allies, and to prescribe to M. de la Cour, to use all his efforts to induce the Porte to rescind its present decision.’—Blue Book, part iv. p. 87.

On the 10th September, 1853, Lord Clarendon writes a long despatch to Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, examining the modifications proposed in the Vienna note by the Porte, and then adds:—‘In conclusion, I have to observe, that these last conditions were not made in the note sent to Vienna, and which, without them, the Porte was prepared to sign as a final settlement of the question. There is, consequently, some reason to apprehend that they have since been brought forward, under the conviction that they could not be complied with; and should this unfortunately be the case, it will verify the prediction of your Excellency made as long ago as the 16th of July, that there would soon be more to apprehend from the rashness, than from the timidity of Turkish Ministers; and it will soon confirm the opinion lately communicated to Her Majesty’S Government, and which they gather also, from the tone of your Excellency’S despatches, namely—that the feeling of the Turkish Government is a desire for war, founded on the conviction that France and England must still perforce side with Turkey, and that the war will, therefore, be a successful one for the Sultan, and obtain for him guarantees for the future, which will materially strengthen his tottering power.’—Blue Book, part iv. p. 95.

The Times of September 17th, 1853, says:—‘The obligations of the crisis are manifestly reciprocal. If Europe has its duties towards Turkey, Turkey has its duties towards Europe. If Europe owes protection to the Ottoman empire, that empire owes consideration to the peace of Europe. Either the Turks are competent to maintain their own rights or they are not. If they are, the whole of this discussion is eminently gratuitous, and Admiral Dundas may as well bring the fleet home from Besika Bay. If they are not, they must rely on the succour of others, and it is as clear as reason can make it that this succour must be accepted, not on their own terms, but on the terms of those who lend it. The Porte cannot pretend to combine the advantages of independence and protection. If it goes to war on its own decision and its own responsibility, it may commence hostilities at discretion; but, if it goes to war with British ships and French soldiers, it can have no right to wrest the initiative from the hands of England and France. The four Powers have publicly acknowledged their desire and their obligation to protect the independence of Turkey, but it is perfectly preposterous to demand that when the object can be attained by pacific negotiations they should select, in preference, the process of a war, which would infallibly be terrible for humanity, and might possibly be ruinous to themselves. Such a policy would be destructive even to the very empire under protection. What would be the results of a general war no living being could venture to conjecture; but, if there is any one point certain, it is this—THAT AT ITS CLOSE THERE WOULD BE NO TURKEY IN EUROPE.’

[1]The Vienna note was avowedly founded upon, and was indeed substantially the same as the French note, previously submitted to Russia, and which had been approved by the British Government; for the Earl of Clarendon writing to the Earl of Westmoreland, July 25th, 1853, in reference to the proposal of Count Buol to frame the Vienna note, says:—‘We approve of the mode of proceeding, but can give no positive sanction until we know in what manner it differs from the French note to which we have already agreed.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. I.

Now M. Drouyn de Lhuys, who was the original framer of the note, ought surely to be assumed to know in what sense it was intended to be understood. Well, this Minister, in writing to St. Petersburg to urge the acceptance of his note, says:—‘That which the Cabinet of St. Petersburg ought to desire is an act of the Porte, which testifies that it has taken into serious consideration the mission of Prince Menschikoff, and that it renders homage to the sympathies which an identity of religion inspires in the Emperor Nicholas for all Christians of the Eastern rite.’ And further on:—‘They (the French Government) submit it to the Cabinet of St. Petersburg, with the hope that it will find that its GENERAL SENSE DIFFERS IN NOTHING FROM THE SENSE OF THE PROPOSITION PRESENTED BY PRINCE MENSCHIKOFF, and that it gives it satisfaction on all the essential points of its demands. The slight variation in the form of it will not be observed by the masses of the people, either in Russia or in Turkey. To their eyes the step taken by the Porte will preserve all the signification which the Cabinet of St. Petersburg wishes to give to it; and his Majesty the Emperor Nicholas will appear to them always as the powerful and respected protector of their religious faith.’—Cited in Count Nesselrode’S Memorandum of March 2nd, 1854, as published in the Journal des Debats.

It is impossible that anything can be more explicit than this. How can the English and French Governments pretend that Russia interpreted the note in a sense different from what they intended, when it is expressly stated that it was presented ‘in the hope that its general sense differed in nothing from the proposition of Prince Menschikoff,’ and that it was designed to preserve in the eyes of the people, ‘all the signification which the Cabinet of St. Petersburg wishes to give to it’?

[1]Lord Westmoreland, writing from Olmutz, September 28th, 1853, to Lord Clarendon, says:—‘That his Majesty (the Emperor of Russia) had authorized Count Nesselrode to confer with Count Buol as to the adoption of any proposal by which a still further guarantee might be offered to the Porte, that he would maintain inviolate the assurances he had given; that he sought no new right, no further extension of power; and that he looked to nothing but the maintenance of treaties and the status quo in religious matters. His Majesty had directed Count Nesselrode to report for his approval, any recommendation which, in furtherance of his object, he might, in conjunction with Count Buol, consider it advisable to adopt.’

And further on in the same despatch, Lord Westmoreland says:—‘His Majesty the Emperor Nicholas, previous to his departure from Olmutz, which took place this evening, was pleased, on taking leave of me, to refer to the decision he had taken with reference to this measure, and to assure me that he had thus endeavoured, by allowing his former declarations to be strengthened by repetition, to give an additional proof of his desire to meet every legitimate wish which was expressed to him by those Powers.’

The following note ‘explaining and restricting’ the meaning of the Vienna note was accordingly adopted:—

‘In recommending unanimously to the Porte to adopt the draft of note drawn up at Vienna, the Courts of Austria, France, England, and Prussia are convinced that that document by no means prejudices the sovereign rights and dignity of his Majesty the Sultan.

That conviction is founded on the positive assurances which the Cabinet of St. Petersburg has given in regard to the intentions by which his Majesty the Emperor of Russia is animated in requiring a general guarantee of the religious immunities granted by the Sultans to the Greek Church within their empire.

It results from these assurances that in requiring, in virtue of the principles laid down in the treaty of Kainardji, that the Greek religion and clergy should continue to enjoy their spiritual privileges under the protection of their sovereign the Sultan, the Emperor demands nothing contrary to the independence and the rights of the Sultan, nothing which implies an intention to interfere in the internal affairs of the Ottoman empire.

What the Emperor of Russia desires, is the strict maintenance of the religious status quo of his religion, that is to say, an entire equality of rights and immunities between the Greek Church and the other Christian communities, subjects of the Porte; consequently, the enjoyment by the Greek Church of the advantages already granted to those communities. He has no intention of resuscitating the privileges of the Greek Church which have fallen into disuse by the effect of time or administrative changes, but he requires that the Sultan should allow it to share in all the advantages which he shall hereafter grant to other Christian rites.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 129.

Lord Westmoreland, in transmitting this proposal to the English Government, adds:—‘It is not believed that it ought to be considered in any way a condition onerous to the Porte, or unfitting for it to grant.’ Now, let it be distinctly remarked, that not only Austria and Prussia, but France approved this proposal, and it was rejected at the instance of our Government alone. Lord Cowley, writing from Paris, October 4th, 1854, says to the Earl of Clarendon:—‘I saw M. Drouyn de Lhuys later in the day.... He then said that the Emperor was inclined to view the proposed declaration favourably; that His Majesty thought that it guarded the points on which the French and English Governments had the most insisted.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 131.

Again, Lord Clarendon writes on October 7th, 1853, to Lord Cowley to this effect:—‘On the 4th instant, Count Walewski informed me that the assurances as to the intentions of Russia contained in Count Buol’S project of note, appeared satisfactory to the French Government, who were prepared with the concurrence of her Majesty’S Government, to agree to the signature of that note by the Four Representatives in Constantinople, and that it should be offered to the Porte in exchange for the note originally sent from Vienna.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 140.

But our Government peremptorily rejected the proposal. ‘Lord Clarendon writes to Lord A. Loftus, requesting him to state to Baron Manteuffel, that it is quite impossible for her Majesty’S Government now, under any circumstances or conditions whatever, to recommend the adoption of the Vienna note to the Porte.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 132.

[1]This allusion to the withdrawal of the troops before winter seems to have had reference to the Vienna, and not the Olmutz note, for we find the Earl of Westmoreland, writing from Vienna, September 14th, 1853, says:—‘Count Buol stated that Baron Meyendorff had received a second despatch from Count Nesselrode, expressing the great disappointment felt by the Emperor of Russia at the modification of the original note by the Porte, and his regret at the consequent delay in the execution of the order which had already been prepared for commencing the evacuation of the Principalities, and which would have taken place immediately upon the Emperor’S receiving the assurance that that note had been adopted by the Porte and would be presented to him. Count Nesselrode declares in this despatch that this measure will be still carried out, if the Emperor should receive a satisfactory assurance from the Sultan in time for the evacuation to take place during the month of October; later in the year it would not be possible to move the troops.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 106.

[1]Lord Stratford de Redcliffe writes under date of Constantinople, September 26th, 1853:—‘The Turkish Council has given its decision in favour of war.... The efforts of the Four Representatives to obtain a pacific solution were fruitless, as well as those which I made this morning, subsequently to the arrival in the course of the night of your despatches forwarded by the Triton.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 130.

Again, M. Drouyn de Lhuys, in a despatch to Count Walewski, dated Paris, October 4th, 1853, writes:—‘Whilst the Russian army is approaching the Danube, the Porte, notwithstanding the unanimous efforts of the Representatives of France, of Austria, of Great Britain, and of Prussia, and without being yet acquainted with the new interpretation which Count Nesselrode has given to the note put forth by the Conference, has persisted for the second time, in its resolution, and declared, that this note, in its original terms, was for ever inadmissible. The Divan has unanimously devolved on the Sultan the duty of declaring war,’—Blue Book, part ii, p. 136.

[1]They insisted upon war, not only against the advice, but against the almost agonizing entreaties, of the Western Powers, and especially of the English Government. Nothing is more manifest from the latter parts of these Blue Books, than that the Turks felt that they were absolute masters of the situation—that they could safely spurn all efforts at conciliation, because England and France had placed themselves in such a position that, according to the language of Lord Clarendon, ‘they must perforce side with Turkey.’ Thus Lord Stratford, on the 20th of September, represents himself as ‘imploring’ Reshid Pacha, at least to suspend (Blue Book, part ii. p. 149) the declaration of war for a short time; and on the 1st October, this same Reshid Pacha, after declaring that the Turkish Government had, in spite of the ‘imploring’ entreaty of our Ambassador, ‘determined upon going to war,’ instructs the Turkish Ambassador in London in these cool words:—‘The Imperial Government, under existing circumstances, reckons upon the moral and material support of England and France; and it is to that object that the language which you have to hold at London should be directed.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 151. It is clear, also, that Lord Clarendon and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe felt, that they had placed England helplessly in the power of the Turks, and it would be almost ludicrous, but for the painful consequences involved, to see the eager and impotent efforts made by them both, when it was too late, to lay the spirit they had raised at Constantinople.

Lord Clarendon, writing October 24th, 1853, says:—‘It is my duty to inform your Excellency, that her Majesty’S Government observe with regret that due attention has not been paid by the Turkish Government to the advice tendered by your Excellency, with a sincere regard for the Sultan’S own interests, and when, with no other motive than that of preserving peace without detriment to the honour and independence of the Sultan, you desired that the declaration of war and the commencement of hostilities, should be delayed, until all attempts at negotiation should have proved unsuccessful. And what is the explanation? Why, that the French and English had gone too far, and could not retreat, for Lord Cowley in trying to persuade M. Drouyn de Lhuys, that the Olmutz note, which the French Emperor was willing to accept, ought to be rejected, says very signficantly, “I asked M. Drouyn de Lhuys whether the Emperor had considered...the position in which the two Governments would find themselves, if, with their fleets before Constantinople, they pressed the acceptance of the Vienna note (i.e. with the Olmutz addition) upon the Porte, and the Porte persisted in her refusal, and war was the consequence?”’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 131. So again, Lord Stratford, writing on November 17th, 1853, after telling Lord Clarendon, that ‘a new proposition’ presented by himself and the French Ambassador to the Porte, had no chance of acceptance, ‘even in a modified shape,’ adds:—‘I have hitherto exerted my almost solitary efforts in favour of peace under every conceivable disadvantage, including even that which results in Turkish estimation, from the presence of the allied squadrons in these waters.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 271. Writing later on the same day, he says:—‘Your Lordship may be assured that I omitted nothing which my instructions, my recollections, or my reflection could suggest, in order to make an impression on his (Reshid Pacha’S) mind. I lament to say that all my efforts were unavailing.... I did, however, the only thing which remained for me to do at the moment. I took my leave with evident marks of disappointment and dissatisfaction, expressing in strong terms my apprehension, that the Pacha would one day have reason to look back with painful regret on the issue of our interview.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 281.

Lord Stratford next tries the Sultan himself, in presenting to him ‘Vice-Admiral Dundas and the officers under his command.’ The result he describes in the following language:—‘After the officers had retired, I saw the Sultan in private, and availed myself of the opportunity...to press the arguments I had already employed in favour of peace. Whatever impression I may have made on his Majesty’S mind—and his manner encouraged some hope in that respect, especially on the score of humanity, and of the approach of winter—his language was in complete accordance with that of his minister.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 288. And when at length the importunities and reproaches of the Western Powers extorted from the Porte a reluctant promise to suspend the commencement of hostilities, for a few days, that promise was broken. Lord Clarendon writing to Lord Stratford, November 8th, 1853, says:—‘Her Majesty’S Government entirely approve the proceedings adopted by your Excellency, as reported in your despatch of the 21st ultimo, for preventing the commencement of hostilities, and they much regret that the promise you obtained to that effect should not have been acted upon. Her Majesty’S Government are anxious to receive the explanation upon this subject, which your Excellency has doubtless demanded from the Porte.’—Blue Book, part ii. p. 219.

[1]Lord Clarendon, in his letter of instructions to Lord Stratford, when returning to Constantinople, says:—‘The accumulated grievances of foreign nations, which the Porte is unable or unwilling to redress, the mal-administration of its own affairs, and the increasing weakness of the executive power in Turkey, have caused the allies of the Porte latterly to assume a tone alike novel and alarming, and which, if persevered in, may lead to a general revolt among the Christian subjects of the Porte, and prove fatal to the independence and integrity of the empire....

‘Your Excellency’S long residence at the Porte, and intimate knowledge of the affairs of Turkey, will enable you to point out those reforms and improvements which the Sultan, under his present difficulties, may have the means of carrying into effect, and in what manner the Porte may best establish a system of administration calculated to afford reasonable security for the development of its commercial measures and the maintenance of its independence, recognized by the great Christian Powers on presumption of its proving a reality, and a stable bond of peace in their respective relations with the Porte, and generally through the Levant. Nor will you disguise from the Sultan and his Ministers that perseverance in their present course must end in alienating the sympathies of the British nation, and making it impossible for Her Majesty’S Government to shelter them from the impending danger, or to overlook the exigencies of Christendom exposed to the natural consequences of their unwise policy and reckless mal-administration.’—Blue Book, part i. pp. 81, 82.

Lord Stratford writing to M. E. Pisani, from Therapia, June 22nd, 1853, says:—‘You will communicate to Reshid Pacha the several extracts of consular reports from Scutari, Monastir, and Prevesa, annexed to this instruction. You will observe that they relate in part to those acts of disorder, injustice, and corruption, sometimes of a very atrocious kind, which I have frequently brought by your means to the knowledge of the Ottoman Porte. It is with extreme disappointment and pain, that I observe the continuance of evils which affect so deeply the welfare of the empire, and which assume a deeper character of importance in the present critical state of the Porte’S relations with Russia.’—Blue Book, part i. p. 383.

Again, on July 4th, he writes:—‘I have frequently had occasion of late, and indeed for some years back, to bring to the knowledge of the Porte, such atrocious instances of cruelty, rapine, and murder, as I have found, with extreme concern, in the Consular reports, exhibiting generally the disturbed and misgoverned condition of Roumelia, and calling loudly for redress from the Imperial Government. The character of these disorderly and brutal outrages may be said with truth, to be in general, that of Mussulman fanaticism, excited by cupidity and hatred against the Sultan’S Christian subjects.... The more pressing and obvious wants are these; the correction, by means of explanation and control, of that fanatical and licentious spirit which now influences the Mussulman population; some special means for the protection of the loyal and peaceably disposed, whether Mussulman or Rayah, an efficient responsibility on the part of the local governors and magistrates towards the Supreme Government; a more regular and judicious exercise of authority in the collection of supplies, and the direction of persons acting in concert with the army; relief for the labouring and rural classes, etc.’—Blue Book, part i. pp. 383, 384. That is, in other words, ‘the pressing and obvious wants,’ included almost everything necessary to constitute an organized government.

[1]Colonel Rose, writing to the Earl of Malmesbury, November 20th, 1852, says:—‘M. de Lavelette (the French Ambassador at Constantinople) has induced the Porte to address to him a note, which nullifies the status quo established by the Firman to the Greeks, and states that nothing can be done by the Porte affecting the treaty of 1740, without the consent of France. The French Government have expressed their approbation of this note.’ He is represented as ‘announcing the extreme measures he would take should the Porte leave any engagements to him unfulfilled.’ ‘He has,’ it is added, ‘more than once, talked of the appearance in that case, of a French fleet off Jaffa; and once he alluded to a French occupation of Jerusalem, when, he said, we shall have all the sanctuaries!’—Blue Book, part i. p. 49.

Lord John Russell, in a despatch to Lord Cowley, dated Foreign Office, January 28th, 1853, says:—‘But her Majesty’S Government cannot avoid perceiving that the Ambassador of France at Constantinople was the first to distrust the status quo in which the matter rested, and if report is to be believed, the French Ambassador was the first to speak of having recourse to force, and to threaten the intervention of a French fleet, to enforce the demands of his country.’—Blue Book, part i. p. 67.

[2]Many illustrations of this might be given, but we restrict ourselves to one, which seems to be an almost exact counterpart of that for which Russia is now so vehemently condemned. In 1841, our own Government united with the King of Prussia, in making certain demands of the Porte on behalf of the Protestants in Turkey. Lord Palmerston on July 26th, 1841, thus wrote to Lord Ponsonby, then our Ambassador at Constantinople:— ‘I have to acquaint your Excellency, that the Government of her Majesty adopts with great earnestness the plan proposed by the King of Prussia, as detailed in the enclosed paper, for affording to European Protestants encouragement to settle and purchase land in the Turkish dominions, and for securing to Protestants, whether native subjects of the Porte or foreigners who have settled in Turkey, securities, and protection similar to those which Christians of other denominations enjoy’—(the very samething that the Czar asked for the Greeks). The first instalment of this demand was for permission to build a protestant church at Jerusalem. This was refused by the Ottoman Court. Lord Ponsonby writes to Lord Aberdeen thus: ‘I had a final interview with Rifaat Pasha this day, at which I renewed all the arguments in support of the demand for permission to build a church at Jerusalem. The Pasha will send me an official note on the 9th, containing his reply to what I have said on the subject, and containing the refusal of the demand. The Ottoman ministers are not personally averse to what has been asked, but they are overruled by the fears of the Ulemas in the council, having Sheik Al Islam at their head. I spoke strongly to Rifaat and pointed out the risk the Porte incurred of giving offence to her Majesty’S Government, by denying to them that which they had granted to others, and told him that he was in error when he denied our right; and I claimed it, not only on the ground set forth in my official note, but specifically on the right of the most ancient of our customs. I maintained that we have a right, founded on treaty, that all the privileges, of every kind, granted to the French, should be considered as belonging equally to us, and that to refuse them would possibly be considered an insult. His Excellency Rifaat Pasha said it was no insult. I replied, that, unfortunately, it did not depend on the opinion of his Excellency, and that her Majesty’S Government might think it an insult.’ In a letter afterwards addressed by Lord Ponsonby to Rifaat Pasha, he clenches the matter with the following very significant threat:—‘IT REMAINS FOR YOUR EXCELLENCY TO CONSIDER WHAT MAY BE THE CONSEQUENCES OF A VIOLATION BY THE SUBLIME PORTE OF ITS TREATIES WITH GREAT BRITAIN,’—Blue Book, Correspondence respecting the Condition of Protestants in Turkey, 1841–51, pp. 5–8.

The Porte yielded, of course; but if it had not, does any man doubt that England would have made some naval demonstration by way of ‘material guarantee’ for the accomplishment of her wish?

[1]‘There never has been a great State whose power for external aggression has been more overrated than Russia. She may be impregnable within her own boundaries, but she is nearly powerless for any purpose of offence.’—Lord Palmerston in the House of Commons last session.

[1]‘The people—the many-handed, many-mouthed people—will apparently have to pay this same year 37 per cent. more for their bread than they did last year. Perhaps the most striking way of putting it, is to remind the working classes that every man, woman, and child is supposed to consume, one with another, a quarter of wheat a year; so that the head of a family of five persons will find that his year’s bread will cost £7 10s. more than last year. . . . There is no deficiency which the Black Sea could not easily supply. But there is the difficulty. Wheat that would fetch 70s. or 80s. here, is only worth 20s. in ports affected by our blockade. The operations of war are of first necessity; and, hard as it may seem to deprive the poor corn grower of his price, unreasonable as it may seem to deprive the British workman of cheap bread, still, if the blockade is necessary for the reduction of the foe, there is no help for it.’—Times.