ASHRIDGE LIBRARY INTERNATIONAL POLICY. LONDON : BOBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS, PANCRAS ROAD, N.W. INTERNATIONAL POLICY. ON THE FOEE1GN RELATIONS OF ENGLAND. " The fundamental doctrine of modern social life is the subordination of Politics to Morals." AUGUSTE COMTE. LONDON: CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193 PICCADILLY. MDCCCLXVI. [ The right of translation is reserved,'] DA PREFACE. A FEW words only are needed by way of preface to this book. It resembles in form several recent pub- lications : it is a collection of Essays by different writers, each, of whom signs his name. It differs from most, if not all, such recent publications in the definiteness of its object and in its immediately poli- tical and practical character. Certain principles are adopted equally by all the contributors, and they are adopted from the political and social system known as Positivism. But beyond the adoption of these principles, to be shortly stated, no one of the writers is to be considered as com- mitted to that system, unless he himself in his Essay advances farther. There are three positions on which the writers, are agreed. First. That the international relations of mankind are a fit subject for a systematic policy. Secondly. That such systematic policy is to be r Vi PREFACE. based on the acceptance of duties, not on the assertion of rights ; that it ought to have a moral, not a poli- tical or purely national foundation. All questions, therefore, concerning the interest, power, or prestige of any particular nation are secondary and subordi- nate. All appeals to motives drawn from such con- siderations are consistently discarded; all arguments which ultimately involve the doctrine of the rights of such nation are put aside as irrelevant and futile. Thirdly. The arguments advanced are in all cases drawn from considerations of a purely human cha- racter, as alone susceptible of legitimate and profitable discussion. Within the limit of these three propositions all the writers equally, I repeat, accept a connection with the doctrines of M. Comte ; but not beyond this limit. It is important to observe that their responsibility as joint contributors is confined to this degree of accept- ance. Cooperation for a common object ought to be possible, without impairing in other respects the free action of those who cooperate ; and may be possible, if due care be taken by them on their side, and their efforts be met with fair candour on the part of the reader. On minor points there will probably be a certain amount of disagreement. The highly complex nature of the problems to be solved, when we pass PREFACE. Vll from the abstract to the concrete, from the theoretical to the practical handling of international affairs, ren- ders this almost inevitable. Yet, on the whole, it is hoped that a large amount of agreement will equally be traceable a sufficiently large amount to be an evidence of the value of the system which makes it attainable. The field of subjects treated is wide and varied ; it embraces a number of complicated human relations. It will be much if, writing independently of each other, we arrive in the main at convergent conclusions, and differ only when the difference in- volves nothing but the value of such and such means. Public . opinion on matters of international policy is in a state of chaos. If we attain fundamental agree- ment on these matters, such a result should draw attention to the method by the aid of which it is attained, no less than to the conclusions which it is our primary object to advocate, and that apart from any consideration of the method. May 1st, 1866. NOTE. With a European war imminent, it may be added that the first three Essays, which treat of Continental affairs, were completed in the course of 1864 and 1865. It seemed needless, in a volume dealing with general principles, to introduce any re- ference to more recent events which affect the forms of expression used rather than the policy or opinions maintained. CONTENTS. I. THE WEST. By RICHARD CONGREVE, M.A., late Fellow and Tutor of Wadham College, Oxford .... 1 II. ENGLAND AND FRANCE. By FREDERIC HARRISON, M.A., Fellow and late Tutor of Wadham College, Oxford . . . . ... . . .51 III. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. By E. S. BEESLY, M.A., of Wadham College, Oxford, Professor of History at University College, London . .'-'... . . ; 153 IV. ENGLAND AND INDIA. By E. H. PEMBER, M.A., late Student of Christ Church, Oxford 223 V. ENGLAND AND CHINA. By J. H. BRIDGES, M.B., late Fellow of Oriel College, Oxford . . . .327 VI. ENGLAND AND JAPAN. By CHARLES A. COOKSON, B.A., of Oriel College f Oxford 449 VII. ENGLAND AND THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNI- TIES. By HENRY Dix HUTTON, of Lincoln's Inn, Barrister-at-Law 515 No. I. THE WEST. BY RICHAED CONGEEVE. THE WEST. THE decline of the power of Catholicism, and the consequent disunion of mediaeval Europe, were first evidenced by disorder in the international relations of its several constituent states. It is in the same international relations that the restoration of order must begin, as the first step to the reorganisation of modern Europe on a sound basis; to the reconsti- tution of a new union analogous to, not identical with, that offered by Catholicism. This is shortly the ground on which the present work rests for its justification in dealing with the largest questions of human policy. The right settlement of these ques- tions is the indispensable condition of all the more special ones which press for solution. The instinctive sense that this condition is indis- pensable is nowhere seen more clearly than in the language of those who would wholly renounce any attempt at its fulfilment. It is loudly urged by the partisans of the doctrine of non-intervention, at pre- sent in the ascendant, that we should, in our own interest, abstain from any handling of such matters, B 2 THE WEST. We should thus be free to turn our attention to what more immediately concerns ourselves. This is a set- tlement of its kind unsound in principle and not possible in practice ; still a settlement, and betraying the consciousness that the internal order which its advocates aim at depends primarily on the order without. Rejecting their conclusion, we may accept as valuable their agreement. We are told that we are incompetent ; that human intelligence must abandon as hopelessly beyond its capacity the direction of the affairs of the world. In the conviction that such a view is at once erroneous and noxious erroneous in its estimate of man's ca- pacity; noxious in that it discourages his legitimate exertion of his intellect, and sanctions indirectly all his anarchical tendencies the present work is under- taken. The whole history of man is one continuous argument against the error which underlies this theory of renunciation. It deserves mention only so far as, by contrast, it helps to give greater prominence to the opposite view, that the direction and government of the world are emphatically man's business a busi- ness for which he has been progressively becoming more and more qualified. He may not take refuge in any vicarious system, in the substitution for his own careful and intelligent action of some other guidance, be it some external power, or, as is more common, his own selfish instincts. The difficulty of the task which thus falls on man ; the inadequacy of his faculties in their primitive weakness; the necessity of a long training to raise them to the desired level all this is allowed. But however difficult the task, however inadequate the faculties, it has been attempted, and they have been THE WEST. 3 found in a degree sufficient during the preliminary period of man's education. They have been exercised on their proper work, and formed by such exercise for its more and more perfect performance. The highest inheritance of the human race is this accu- mulated power, to which successive generations add their quota, and which each in its turn uses with greater skill. It were treason to the past to halt in this course, to renounce this inheritance. Nothing is more obvious on the face of History than the gradual growth of its scale; the gradual enlargement of the mutual action and reaction of the different divisions of the human race. In the earliest periods to which we can carry our retrospect, prior to the opening of the historical era, we find several civilisations coexistent, but isolated. We may trace the order and continuance of the Egyptian theocracy through many centuries, before it had any consecu- tive connection with surrounding nations. The same may be said of the Indian theocracy and of the Chinese empire. In Western Asia and it is with Western Asia that we enter on the connected series of historical events one monarchy succeeded another during a long period, without involving in its rise or fall any extra - Asiatic population. The traders of Phoenicia were the sole link between otherwise wholly unconnected nations. With the close of this period of isolation, History in its narrower, more technical sense opens. It is concentrated at first within narrow limits, on the shores of the ^Egean, and on the mutual relations of Greece and Western Asia. It rapidly widens, and embraces the whole basin of the Mediterranean. To- wards this common centre was drawn for many cen- 4 THE WEST. turies all the activity of the race. The circumference from which it was drawn was constantly enlarging ; the bounds of the habitable world were constantly receding. The process was completed when the al- most simultaneous discovery of America and the sea-passage to India threw open the Atlantic, the Southern, and Indian Oceans, followed shortly by the crossing of the Pacific and the verification of the bounds of man's world. This simple, outward, geographical expression may suffice to indicate the increase of contact be- tween the several parts of the earth and the nations which inhabit, them. This increase has been natu- rally followed by a growing sense of their mutual interdependence. Widely various as have been found to be their manners and customs, their civil polities and religious creeds, still, in one relation or another, they have been felt to be united by some common bond, traversing all outward differences. The exist- ence of a common interest, and the cooperation of all in the furtherance of that interest, is an idea which, long tacitly assumed, has been drawn out into greater consciousness. The necessary consequence of the de- velopment of such an idea is the conception of the unity of the race. No theory as to its origin, no different estimate of the capabilities of its different parts, need or can disturb this practical relative con- ception. Under whatever divisions man exists, races, national aggregates, tribes, empires, states, families, all are but integral parts, practically, of one whole ; branches of one great family; each with its proper function ; each able to minister to the welfare of the others and of the whole. They are organs of one common organism, Humanity. THE WEST. 5 The idea of this great organism the idea of Hu- manity as a real collective personality has been long becoming more and more familiar to the thought and action of man. It is not to my present purpose to trace any further the process of its growth and acceptance, nor even that of its systematisation. It is enough that, in some degree, it is a not unfamiliar, not unaccepted notion. Nor again is it unfamiliar or unaccepted that the different coexistent portions of the race the actual generation, in other words bear a certain definite relation to those which shall follow them ; that they work for the future, handing down to that future the inheritance they have re- ceived. This part of the conception of Humanity and it is an integral part of it is in a greater or less degree an object of general consciousness, however much at times the obligation it involves may be set aside at the dictate of immediate interest. The point in which there is the greatest deficiency is the rela- tion of the actual present generation to the past. The estimate of its obligations in this respect is low, and consequently the due subordination to the past is often wanting. But this is, no less than the two others, an integral part of the conception. It is even of the three the most essential, the most characteristic part. As such it never has been, never can be wholly ignored ; but it may, with .most injurious conse- quences, be weakened and obscured. The sense of continuity in both directions is as indispensable ta the right ordering of human affairs, as it is to our right intellectual grasp of the questions relating to man's position and destiny. Side by side with this conception of the Unity of the Race, so developed and completed, there has at 6 THE WEST. all times existed another that of a hierarchical coor- dination of its several parts. Long implicitly enter- tained, with the growth of the race it became a part of its explicit belief. That some are superior, others inferior ; that there is a ruling part and a subject part ; this doctrine is so easy of comprehension that it naturally preceded, by a wide interval, any direct traces of the former. The shape it wore originally was the simplest possible. Each tribe or nation in- terpreted it for itself, and claimed superiority over all others. It bears, as the other conceptions of man bear, the stamp of selfishness. But gradually, and in the natural course of things, it has tended to clear itself of that evil, to transform itself. Originally put forward for the mere good of the superior, stronger, or ruling part, it has passed by imperceptible degrees into the service of the inferior, weaker, and subject. Neither the one character nor the other has, speaking generally, been exclusive. The nobler image and the baser have coexisted; now the one, now the other assuming greater distinctness and prominence. In the earliest history this superiority was asserted by war, to secure the personal services of the van- quished. Its next stage was a change in the ob- ject, when political aggrandisement and the incorpo- ration of the Aveaker nations became the aim. Such was the ambition of the Empires of Western Asia ; such the dream of Greek statesmen, modified by the desire to impart the products of their civilisation; such was the result of the conquests of Alexander. The most perfect expression of the earlier theory, and the transition at the same time to the later, is to be found in the Roman Empire. It combined, with the ideas of incorporation and organisation of THE WEST. 7 the incorporated, the higher conception of an influ- ence to be exercised by the more perfect organisms formed on those ideas on the remainder of the race, the portions which it felt itself unable directly to absorb. In tnis respect, as in so many others, the policy of Imperial was inherited and carried out to its fuller perfection by Papal Rome. With the necessary modifications, the Popes laboured at the incorporation in one great whole of all the nations of the earth. The form such incorporation took under Catho- licism was essentially different from that which it had taken under the older Empire. A spiritual and moral union was substituted for a mere political one. This new method was adopted exclusively within the limits to which the influence of Rome had extended directly or indirectly. Beyond such limits the supe- riority of Christendom, has been too often asserted by an appeal to force. In the better days of the Chris- tian Church the object principally aimed at and as far as possible exclusively aimed at was the ame- lioration of the inferior. It was the conversion, civilisation, humanising, that was the primary end; all others were but accessory. It was reserved for the decay and degradation of the great Christian commonwealth, taken as a whole, for its period of conscious disruption and disorganisation, to look on the more backward portion of our race as in theory the mere instruments of the power and wealth, of the more advanced. It is from that period that dates the conception of a whole race doomed to per- petual inferiority, destined to be the property of an- other race. It was reserved for this period to undo, so far as it could, the work in which the mediaBval 8 THE WEST. Church had shared, the constitution of the freedom of the industrial classes ; to treat labour, which that Church had shown its respect for without the power of organising it, as a degradation ; and to organise, in the mere spirit of commercial cupidity, a trade in the African race. The idea of raising and civilising became wholly secondary, or rather was set aside ; and the sole object really set before men was the ease, dignity, and wealth of the stronger. These last remarks are enough to show that, taken alone, the more complete connection and inter- dependence of the different nations are not neces- sarily for the good of all, any more than is the supe- riority asserted by one part over the other. Both may ultimately have a good tendency ; both may be necessary conditions of subsequent good ; but both, misdirected, or even simply undirected, may result for an indefinite period in the greatest evil. The closer the contact, the fuller may be the oppression of the weaker by the stronger ; a worse evil than their mutual ignorance of one another. In fact, it were not difficult to show that the increase of inter- course has been premature ; that it would have been better, for many reasons, had it been delayed. The collision between great but undisciplined power and weakness is necessarily fraught with ill consequences. The appliances of a high material civilisation used without any moral check, and under the stimulus of contempt and aversion, bring nothing but evil to those who enjoy them, and to those on whom they are used. Compare the attitude of the barbarian invaders of the Roman Empire, in the fifth, sixth, and seventh centuries, with that assumed by the civilised conquerors of Mexico or Peru, or by the THE WEST. 9 more highly-developed nations which are now in con- tact with the great powers of the extreme East. Yet of the two great facts with which I have been dealing, the spread of contact and the supremacy of some one portion of the whole thus expressed in their utmost generality, the second, if left to its natural course, is the least liable to injurious consequences. For the more it is carried out, the more nearly its realisation is attained, the more do those conse- quences dimmish. The violence and injustice which accompany the process of its establishment tend to cease when it is established. The great power gained becomes, by a natural reaction, moral and beneficial in its use. Ex hypothesi, it excludes competitors, and so guarantees peace ; and the peaceful society of man, if secure from disturbance, would advance by its own laws. In the actual succession of history the supre- macy thus supposed has never been attained. Each of the powers which hi turn has aspired to it has failed ; yet the failure does not invalidate the lesson taught by the unbroken series of attempts. That series indicates that the problem is a real practical one ; the failure only shows that the methods of solving it hitherto employed have been faulty in principle or inadequate in their means of execu- tion. It is, I conceive, demonstrable that the idea in- volved in all the attempts at union of the race, by conquest or otherwise, which the history of the past enumerates, is a true one, has a reality, and is realisable. There are two essential requisites for its beneficial realisation. The first is, that the power which attempts it should be duly subordinated to the larger whole of which, by its very nature, it is 10 THE WEST. a part ; that it should acknowledge its dependence upon, and feel that it is but a representative of, that larger whole. The second requisite is, that it should be in its constitution a power analogous to the larger body on which it is to act. That body is complex, formed of many parts, and of parts differing greatly from one another. The agent must also be com- plex : constituted, that is, by more than one nation ; constituted, in fact, by several nations differing also from one another. In this way no merely national interest could get the complete supremacy. In this way there would be ample provision for a larger range of sympathies with those outside, and a just mutual control with reference to those within. In the simple series of social existences with which we are ultimately brought into contact, the family, the country, humanity, we need for practical pur- poses the intercalation of a new term, a collective existence wider than the country or state, less ex- tensive than humanity. The largest organism, hu- manity, is unselfish, but powerless immediately. It is the end, not the means. The smaller one, that of the state, has power to work out its purposes, but is too isolated and selfish. We want, then, an inter- mediate organism free from the state's peculiar evil, free also from the necessary impuissance of human- ity. We need an organism which can be invested with a leadership the hegemony of the race not for its own service and advancement, but for the service and advancement of the race. This is no new idea, as is evident from what has been above said. It has been repeatedly tried with varying success. The pro- visional creations of the past have in their failure left us the indications of success, the materials for THE WEST. 11 the definitive construction of a power competent to this high function. An attentive study of all the previous efforts of man in this direction will be the safest guide in our constructive effort. Enough has been already said on this point to justify the conclusion that the leader- ship of the human race is vested in the West. What is the precise value or form to be given to such leadership is another question; but in some form or other the conclusion is generally accepted. All not only within the pale of Western civilisation, but those without not only, that is, those who participate in the function, but those on whom and for whom it is instituted and to be exercised, all equally recognise its existence. The African races assert no initiative. They wait for, and are not averse to accept, a wise guidance. Egypt was their one great and inestimable contribu- tion to the progress of man. With the disappearance of the Egyptian theocracy, any active influence on their part has ceased. The vast Polytheistic Empires of the East, in their strong organisation, strong under any delusive appearances of weakness, have also re- nounced, if they ever put forward, any claim to the direction of others. They seek but to avoid undue interference, a hasty and rude disturbance of their existing order. Their attitude is passive and recep- tive an attitude of expectation, if necessarily and justifiably of distrustful expectation. The same may be said of the aggregate of the Mohammedan powers. Since the tide of Arab invasion was turned at Tours, and the fear of Turkish conquest was removed by Lepanto, the Mussulman has gradually settled into his present position, that of a tacit acknowledgment 12 THE WEST. of the practical supremacy of the West, with the further step, in the case of Turkey, of a large adop- tion of its ideas. By the common consent, whether willing or reluctant, the leadership has devolved on Europe. It is accepted as a fact throughout the world, wherever there is any consciousness of the human movement, that from the activity of the West, disturbing and irritating as it is, can alone come any such modifications in the general management of hu- man affairs as are to be wished or expected ; that it is to the same source that the various nations must look for such modifications of their modes of thought, and consequently of their institutions, as can be re- ceived from without, and independently of their own national development. By the method of elimination, then, we have reached this point, that the guidance of the des- tinies of man, of the whole human race, is vested in Europe. The actual consciousness of the world ac- cepts this term Europe as a whole. We shall shortly see that it needs still further clearing and definition. This will follow if we attempt to get a clear concep- tion of what the term the West means, how far it is S}Tionymous with, how far different from, Europe. In other words, let us seek an adequate answer to the question What constitutes the West ? The actual, the official state-system of Europe is a heterogeneous aggregate. For any purposes of com- mon action it consists of five great Powers. Since o the peace of Vienna, France, England, Austria, Prus- sia, and Russia have virtually constituted Europe ; and still substantially the system remains the same. The diplomatic world essentially recognises these five, and these only, though its view is rapidly under- THE WEST. 13 going a modification in consequence of the recent events in Italy. The minor powers have their own position in the European system, but the system is in the greater. There is the real power. It is foreign to my present object to enter on any detailed examination of this system, to point out its discord- ances, its weaknesses, its tendencies to decay, its im- minent dissolution. I imagine that all feel that a large modification of it, if not its disruption, is at hand ; that most thinking politicians would hail the largest possible modification consistent with the ob- jects so provisional an institution has more or less secured, European peace and order. I would rather dwell on the different conception of the European order which should be substituted for it. The first step in this process is, however, still negative. The elimination of Russia from the system is the first great rectification. She is an Eastern, not a Western power, or more Eastern than Western. This naturally suggests the question, wherein lies the difference, what grounds are there in reason or his- tory for asserting such a distinction? It is an im- portant question, and must be answered. It has been assumed, and up to a certain point all would grant the assumption, that there are solid distinctions between the various branches of the hu- man race. It is assumed further, that, for the guid- ance of the whole, we need to construct some arti- ficial and lesser unity, one which shall admit some branches whilst it does not admit others. These two assumptions made, the ground on which, in one case, the claim to form a part of such lesser unity is allowed, in another disallowed, is the participation directly or indirectly, completely or incompletely, in the progres- 14 THE WEST. sive civilisation which, since the repulse of the theo- cracy of Western Asia by Greece, has characterised Europe. That progressive civilisation includes three essential movements the intellectual cultivation of Greece, the social incorporation of Western Europe by Rome, and the Catholic-Feudal organisation of mediaeval Europe. The three have formed one con- tinuous progress. They have been followed by a fourth of a different character, which has however been confined, equally with the other three, to the same populations. For the sake of clearness I enu- merate the portions of the race which the establish- ment of such a ground of union excludes. Oceania and Africa, of course, are excluded. So, too, are the Polytheistic civilisations of Eastern Asia. Inheritors to a degree of the intellect of Greece, and at one time depositories of its science, and almost its sole cultivators, the Mohammedan nations have still been totally alien to the other movements, and must stand apart from the directing body. So far would be practically allowed by all. It is, however, a more legitimate inference from the same grounds that Russia cannot be admitted. True, her court and government are in a sense western. True, her religion is in the main doctrinally the same as that of the West ; still she is even less than the leading Mussulman populations qualified for partici- pation. Her religion has had no value socially, her go- vernment cannot supply the deficiencies of the nation it in a high degree wisely directs. Russia has not, as a nation, shared in Greco-Roman culture. She was never incorporated by Rome. She was not brought within the discipline of Catholicism, nor organised by Feudalism. She has been as a nation alien to the THE WEST. 15 movement of later European thought. Evidently she stands at a distinct point from all those nations which have undergone these profound changes. She is on a lower level of training and tradition than they are. She should follow, adopt, assimilate, not attempt to lead or control. If admitted, she is a heterogeneous element, vitiating the whole unity and lowering its policy ; she is a source of retrogradation, not a means of progress. Indeed, a sufficient justification for the exclusion of Russia is found in a right estimate of the social change which has lately attracted the atten- tion, and, in a considerable measure, the admiration of Western Europe. It has been a vast and difficult transition through which Russia has passed success- fully. But, in itself, it marks how backward she was. It is many centuries since Western Europe passed through the same stage the transformation of the serf into the free man. Nothing could make it rea- sonable that a nation hardly yet clear of serfage should direct those which have long been free. With reference to the general direction of Euro- pean policy the exclusion of Russia is a cardinal point ; and Russia herself has greatly facilitated its acceptance and practical adoption, were the statesmen of the West alive to the opportunity she has given them, and sufficiently above their internal dissensions to seize it. The result of the Crimean war should have been to exclude her. Political exigencies gave her an opening for reentering the councils of Europe, of which she availed herself with great skill. A se- cond occasion was offered, and is still available, in regard to Poland. Her persistence in her policy against the remonstrances of Western Europe, her haughty defiance to the expressed opinions of the 16 THE WEST. other governments and to the general public opinion of the West, should have been met, and might still be met, not by war that were an unjustifiable folly when no definite end can be assigned but by shutting her out from all direct participation in Western affairs. Such a remedy involves no hostility to Russia within her own proper sphere. It is indicated, I venture to think, by the whole previous course of European history and policy. It is imperatively demanded not as a punishment for Russia, but as the effica- cious guarantee of the right subsequent conduct of Europe. Let me put an hypothesis which may make my meaning quite clear. Near the close of the year 1863 the Emperor of the French proposed to the Govern- ments of Europe that they should meet in congress to avert the dangers which threatened its public order. The proposal was declined; and I have no wish to question the judgment shown in the refusal. The objections to that refusal applied to its form rather than its substance. As proposed, it seems clear that the congress could lead to no useful result. Let us suppose the proposal renewed, as it conceivably may yet be ; or let us suppose a counter-proposal made ; a proposal, that is, for an European congress under different conditions for a congress viz. of the Powers which, on the grounds above given, are natural con- stituents of a strictly European or Western assembly. Such an assembly would exclude Russia, to say no- thing of other parts of Europe geographically so called. The invitations to attend it would be ad- dressed to the five true Western Powers whose com- munity of traditions and associations would enable them to form a relatively homogeneous body, com- THE WEST. 17 petent to discuss their difficult mutual relations and their no less difficult joint action, and from such discussion might spring very salutary consequences. But the peaceful exclusion of Russia could form no legitimate subject for complaint any more than that of Turkey. The congress so composed would be com- posed on a definite principle, justified at once by the historical antecedents as well as by the actual poli- tical needs of Europe. I conceive that of the two Powers excluded from this hypothetical assembly, Turkey is the one which might with the greater show of reason claim admis- sion. In other words, Turkey is more "Western than Russia. As the leading Mohammedan state, the in- heritor of the traditions of the earlier Mohammedan powers, the successor in its aggressive tendencies of the Arabian Khaleefate, Turkey is far more intimately bound up with the history of Europe than is Russia, whose admission to that history is barely a century old. The struggle with the Ottoman Empire colours deeply the history of Western Europe for the first three centuries of its modern period. It has largely modified the mutual relations of its different states. In that struggle the dangerous aggrandisement of the Austro- Spanish house an aggrandisement which is the key to so long a chapter of European politics finds its explanation and its justification. When, from the field of Pavia, Francis I. sent his ring to the Sultan, when Elizabeth of England invoked his aid, both but acted on the conviction that the Power they addressed was intimately connected with the general interests of Europe ; a conviction which has remained unshaken during the succeeding centuries. Such, in rudimentary expression, might be the historical c 18 THE WEST. argument for acquiescence in the claims of Turkey. Nor is there wanting a political counterpart, the strength of which lies in the very circumstance which will be, and has been, most vehemently urged as the ground for the extrusion of Turkey from the Euro- pean body politic. It is her religion which would make me wish for her admission, were it legitimate on other grounds. Every recognition of Turkey, down to the latest at the time of the Crimean war, has been valuable as a protest against the spirit of religious exclusiveness, as an acknowledgment that there may be common human and political action in spite of the barriers raised by a difference of faith. Every such recognition has, in fact, distinctly set aside the claim of Christian nations, as such, to domineer over others in the name of an inherent superiority conferred on them by their religion. The force of such protest, the value of such recognition, would be increased, if, at the same time that Turkey entered the Euro- pean councils, Russia, nominally of the same religion as Western Europe, were excluded from them. And besides this indirect advantage, by admitting Turkey the statesmen of the West would gain the further one of placing themselves in direct contact with the head of Mohammedanism, and so generally, through such intermedium, with the East. It is probable that in the immediate future the need of a closer mutual action will be increasingly felt. The complication of inter- national relations is every day growing ; and there is growing at the same time the necessity for greater power of dealing with it. No proper opportunity of increasing such power should be neglected. Still, neither historical nor political considerations would justify us in regarding Turkey as an integral THE WEST. 19 part of the West. Whatever the advantages of such a view, they must be foregone rather than weaken by any immature concession the cohesion of the Western body, already far too weak. If I have dwelt on the superior claims of Turkey, it has been at once to draw out into fuller light the essential nullity of those of Russia, and to offer a contribution in aid of those who on other grounds, more or less empirically, yet in my judgment rightly, uphold the integrity and independ- ent action of the Turkish Empire. No Western poli- tician should hasten its downfall, or its withdrawal even from Europe. Its freedom of initiative should be scrupulously respected. Be this as it may, the removal of Russia and Turkey from the state-system of Europe rectifies at once a not uncommon error, due partly to an excess of national self-consciousness in the people, or rather the writers of the people, which encourages it, partly to a misconception of medieval history and an exag- geration of the importance of the German emperors, the heads of the so-called Holy Roman Empire.- In so valuable a book as Heeren's work on the Political State-system of Europe, it is assumed that Germany is the central state ; and the idea is popular naturally in Germany, and fostered by certain tendencies in the minds of Englishmen. Germany is the central state if you look merely to the geographical form of Eu- rope and the position of Germany in reference to it. So it is even politically, or might be, if you allow - Russia and the Eastern elements to be a part of political Europe in its true sense. But it ceases to be so either geographically or politically if you shut out the Eastern contingent. Then the true Western Europe is seen at once, by the most cursory inspec- 20 THE WEST. tion of the map, to find its geographical centre in France. It finds its political centre there, as is con- fessed by all practical statesmen. France should be the central figure historically, were the intelligence of Europe rightly trained in historical knowledge. For it is not difficult to trace the cause of the histo- rical misconception relative to the German Emperor, nor is it difficult to see its correction. When, in the tenth century, the pressure of danger lay on the eastern frontier of Europe, on the Empire then vested in the hands of Otho, as the representative of the greater emperors, fell the burden of defending that frontier, and with the burden naturally was given the preeminence. But the danger once over, the eccentric importance ceased with it, and the principal place, if we distinguish real importance from nominal dignity, reverted to France. No one would claim in the Crusades the first place for Germany, and such concession rightly estimated is decisive. I proceed now to a closer analysis of Western Europe disembarrassed from the complication of Russia. It still contains, in its more strict histo- rical, as it did in its looser practical conception, five great Powers, which must be separately and accu- rately examined France, Italy, Spain, England, and Germany; for Austria and Prussia must merge in Germany in any proper conception of the West. It was said of Italy that she was but a geographical expression. It might be much more truly said of Germany, as she at present exists. She is a threefold power, and sadly encumbered with non-Germanic ele- ments. On the difficult mutual relations of the three ; on the delicate position in respect to one another of the two most concentrated and most powerful states, THE WEST. 21 on the manifold complications which the composition of these two presents, I need not here touch. It is desirable that the Germanic element in Western Eu- rope should be, as strictly as is practically possible, detached from all alien adjuncts, that it should re- nounce all oppressive action on its neighbours east or south. It is as German, whether united more closely or in some such union as at present, that they should enter into the Western system. The cry for an united Germany has so far a truth in it as it tends to simplify the position. It is unwise as it is out of date. It is a mere political solution of difficulties, and the pro- blem, which is the real task of Europe, is social and moral. Its anachronism is patent on the face of it. It is a cry not merely for internal union, but for in- ternal union for the purposes of a retrograde external policy. It is a demand for aggrandisement, relative power, commercial and political importance, and that irrespective of the just claims of others. Poland, Hungary, or Italy, are not considered but as con- ducing to German greatness. There is no objection on the score of danger to Europe in an united Ger- many. If it tended to secure a better government, to remove oppressive distinctions and restrictions; if it tended to the real internal welfare of the German people, it should be cordially welcomed. It is from the point of view of that people's genuine interests that it may be questioned whether it is not a waste of time ; a movement which the actual state of opi- nion in Europe makes natural and intelligible, but which is not the less to be regretted. Whatever may be the decision on this point, it is with Germany as a whole that we are concerned when we are considering it in the composition of the West, 22 THE WEST. as the fifth great Power. For the moment I omit France and England as by common consent essential members of the West, both in the present and the p as t and proceed to the consideration of the two re- maining states, whose position needs some notice and rectification. Italy is, in the main, reconstituted as a kingdom. The course of events since 1859 has tended uniformly in one direction : her internal union into one state, and her restoration to her rank as a great European power. She is not yet fully placed in that position in the diplomatic world ; but daily she is assuming more prominence in the calculations of statesmen, and the most recent change has given an increased impetus to the movement. But this new diplomatic attitude, if I may be allowed the expres- sion, is by no means necessary to Italy to enable her to count as an indispensable constituent of the West. United or disunited, she can never be any thing but such constituent. Her claim rests on far too sound an historical ground. She has too profoundly guided and modified the whole of Western civilisation. The second ultimately in real importance of the great powers, Italy need wait for no material concentration ; she is certain of recognition as her just inheritance from which no jealousy could exclude her, even if any jealousy existed. Still, though the place of Italy is thus secure, it is not the less important that, in the present, for the welfare of the rest of Europe, it should be openly recognised, that in all common Western actions her cooperation should be sought. The importance of this lies in the definiteness so given to the constitution of the West. The case of Spain is similar in all essential par- ticulars. She too must be reinstated in her full THE WEST. 23 membership. Her closest cooperation must be in- vited. Her complete recognition as one of the five great Powers is urgently demanded of Western states- men. Some years ago I urged on the English go- vernment and nation, in the interest alike of Spain, of England, and of Europe, the restitution to Spain of Gibraltar. I urge it not less now. It is not less now, than it was then, the duty of England to restore it. But I would urge more now. I would urge, that is, the adoption of a consistent policy of conciliation and support towards Spain, of which the cession of Gibraltar should be the first act and symbol. It were for the good of Europe that the statesmen of Eng- land should take the initiative in replacing Spain in her legitimate place ; legitimate, that is, viewed by the light of historical continuity, and not simply under the narrower teaching of mere actual circum- stances. No rivalry has been more fatal to Spain than that of England, though none has been more susceptible of palliation, or even justification. No nationality is more alienated from us than the Spa- nish ; and justly alienated, by our selfish, haughty, and oppressive abuse of our power. Nothing could exert so beneficial an influence on the reconstitution of European union, nothing could so effectually tend to heal the antagonism now prevailing between the branches of the Western Family, as a sincere effort and its sincerity might be tested by its success on the part of England, Teutonic, Northern, and Pro- testant England, to restore to its due honour and importance the Latin, Southern, and Catholic Spain. As a result of these changes, we have, as the five great Powers of the West, France, Italy, Spain, Eng- land, and Germany. But this simple enumeration is 24 THE WEST. insufficient for my present purpose. Only one of the five is quite simple ; Italy, as a geographical expression, and the Italian population are coextensive, for Italy has neither dependencies nor colonies. She is free from all the evil associations which adhere to those names in the case of the others. Still, for the sake of sym- metry, and not also without a real political value in the change, I would at present speak rather of the Italian people than of Italy. The pressure which is forcing on the Italians a political concentration simi- lar to that of their powerful neighbours, which is giving them a large army, a large fleet, a large debt, all the attributes, in short, of a first-rate European power, is, it may be hoped, but temporary. Her full independence once attained, Italy may resume her long tradition of a moral, not political union, her highly articulate national existence, rather than remain a strongly centralised government. It is deeply to be regretted that the need of complete independence is interrupting her history, and forcing her to renounce for a time the valuable legacy of the past ; which in the past, it is true, has been the cause of so much suffering, but which in the present and future might serve her much, I allude to the coexistence of a number of real states, large enough for all the ob- jects of a state, not large enough to stifle all civic feeling. The loss of this organisation is the great evil to Italy, and through her to Europe, of the re- tention of Venice by Austria. It has a tendency to result for Italy in a great political aberration. As Italy for the Italian, so France stands for the French population wherever found, in or out of France proper, in colonies belonging to France or in colonies planted by her, but now owning another po- THE WEST. 25 litical allegiance, such as Lower Canada. Any such offshoots of a nation are, relatively to the rest of the world, still integral parts of it, sympathising with it, and acting as conductors of its influence to the rest. They form, equally with the parent state, a part of the West, as we conceive it. So that it is seen to be composed, not of five definite political unities or states, but of five freer and larger social unities or populations, of which the closer and more concen- trated unities are but the parts and centres. Nor is the social unity confined to the parent state and its colonies ; there may be other essential constituents of it which are independent states, and have been always such historically ; e. g. the French portion of Belgium is a part of France, in the largest sense of the term. Similarly, the Spanish populations both in the Old and New World not merely the Spanish Peninsula, Spain and Portugal that is, but the vast Spanish and Portuguese offshoots in Central and South America or elsewhere are the equivalent of Spain, as part of Western Europe. So again with England, which en- ters the European concert as the short expression for the Anglo - Saxon populations of the United States, not less than for its own immediate colonies, Cana- dian or Australasian. Lastly, the same holds good of Germany. The German population comprises not merely Germany proper, but its natural appendages Holland, German Switzerland, the Scandinavian kingdoms, and any colonial adjuncts, whether sepa- rate colonies or large masses of German settlers. If, to make my meaning clear, I have thus in de- tail pointed out that the AVest means the collective unity formed by the five populations above men- 26 THE WEST. tioned, for the sake of convenience of expression I shall use, when speaking of them, the more concen- trated terms, the names of the representative nucleus of each population. One remark I would,, however, premise : what has been said of Italy applies with equal force to the others in the future. Their great political concentration, such as it exists in France, Spain, or England, has had doubtless, and may have still, a relative value. But in the future it will be otherwise ; and the disgregation of Italy is but the type of the political order which is equally desirable for all. Ultimately, it ought as little to be the aim of the statesman to keep together the large national aggregates actually in existence, as it is to reunite those which have been separated during the last three centuries, Holland with Spain, for instance ; the United States with England ; or the Spanish set- tlements with the mother country. Such reunion is never dreamt of. All English politicians are aware that the separation of the American colonies in the last century will at no very distant period be fol- lowed by that of the Canadian and Australasian ; and they acquiesce in this fact. The mere distance offers an insuperable obstacle to permanent union. It will remain for the future to see whether distance alone is the necessary condition of separation ; whether size may not equally be a sound reason ; whether the principle adopted as the regulator of the mag- nitude of states should not be the real adequate securing of the highest, objects of state union. The older division of Great Britain was but an anticipa- tion. In one form or another it will reappear. So that in wishing for Italian decentralisation, for the separate existence of her traditional smaller states, I THE WEST. 27 am but applying to her immediately what I consider to be the desirable political organisation ultimately for her compeers. In the mean time, however, whilst the larger national aggregates remain, their action, as centres of the corresponding populations, will be the most powerful, will be for a time the only action that can be sensibly felt. In other words, it is Western Eu- rope, in the narrower, more ordinary sense, which for some time must be the active agent, the minister of the great purposes of the whole Western commu- nity. It is desirable to avoid vagueness, no less in action than in thought. The other states are too distant, and in many points in too different a situa- tion, to act much at present. So much may be said without prejudice to their legitimate and naturally increasing influence. The great American Union, reconstituted in its full integrity, must have great weight in all Western collective action. But the exercise of its power will be the more salutary, if it is exerted in presence of a reconstituted Western centre, not brought to bear on isolated, and in the main antagonistic, governments. I spoke above of the inheritance of Greek intel- lectual culture, Roman organisation, the Mediaeval Catholic Feudalism, and the at once destructive and reconstructive revolution of modern Europe during the five last centuries. It was this inheritance which was made the foundation on which to raise the poli- tical and social superstructure of the West. It was the having shared, in some greater or less degree, in this inheritance which constituted the legitimate title to form a part of the collective unity. It is obvious that the five states included have not shared in an 28 THE WEST. equal degree. The transmission of the Western tra- ditions has been more direct and unbroken with some than with others ; more direct and unbroken in France, Italy, and Spain, than in England and Ger- many. Again, it has been less impaired in France and Italy than in Spain, in England than in Germany. Still these differences are differences of degree only. If Germany had the misfortune to lose the benefits of subjugation by Rome, and consequently the fertilising influences of Roman civilisation, the loss has been in a large measure, though far from wholly, repaired by the conquests of Charlemagne and her subsequent admixture with Western political action. Her in- heritance has been indirect,, but it is sufficient. If by the Saxon conquest England lost the advantages her incorporation into the Roman Empire had pro- mised her, by the action of the Papacy under Gregory the Great, and by the Norman invasion, she regained to a great extent her position. The indirectness of the transmission does not invalidate her claim to be an integral part of Western Europe. But there are two European states which require a separate mention, as standing on a distinct ground. Both have a definite history and definite relations with Western civilisation; both are incompletely, it is true, yet necessarily adjuncts of the West. The two I mean are Greece and Poland. It were impos- sible to exclude Greece from our consideration; for to Greece we owe the first great step in our con- tinuous movement the intellectual culture of the race. The poetry, the philosophy, the science of Western Europe are inexplicable without Greece. Sharing nominally in the Roman incorporation, she was really alien and averse to it, and was essentially THE WEST. 29 not benefited by it. She wholly missed the benefits of Catholicism ; nor could she accept those of Moham- medanism. She remains, therefore, incomplete, un- developed; yet, by virtue of her past, she interests Western Europe, and is a fit object for the earliest application of her beneficent protection. The hete- rogeneous protectorate, which is the expression of this relation, and under which she has suffered as much as she has profited, is destined to give way to a more wisely instituted direction, one more purely Western, and as such free from the conflicting inte- rests which have sacrificed Greece to other political antagonism. It is purely by her conversion to Catholicism that Poland stands out from her more immediate kindred. It is by her services as the bulwark of Europe against the barbarians that she has an especial claim on the goodwill of the West. She is inseparable from its past history. Yet that goodwill cannot be shown by war. There is no justification for such a course; there is equally none for abandoning her. A bene- ficial influence in her destiny can only, however, be exercised from without when the powers which could exercise it have themselves been modified. In the mean time Poland, which in the main suffers from her anarchical political constitution and from her belated social order, must look to her own action, and guide herself by the experience of more advanced nations. When the time is come for a collective Western ac- tion, it would seem natural that, as in the past, so again, such action should take effect through Ger- many. Once thoroughly Western in its sympathies, disengaged at once from subservience to Eussia, and from all cravings for aggrandisement eastward, Ger- 30 THE WEST. many will neither seek to retain the parts of Poland which are now incorporated into her aggregate, nor connive at the absorption of the rest by Russia. Through Germany as its organ the West will assume towards Poland, under better auspices and on more sure grounds, the attitude which the Popes have honourablv assumed in the worst times. With more J powerful efficacy, the intervention, so directed in favour of Poland, will replace the isolated and there- fore inefficacious sympathy of France. So much for the full explanation of the term "the West." In 'its widest as well as in its most concen- trated meaning, it is fairly before the reader. An attentive consideration will show that so vast a col- lective existence can only be held together by a moral union. A common inheritance, a community of tra- ditions and of the feelings and sympathies consequent thereon, a common faith, a common object such, and not any outward political or material bonds, must constitute the tie. Such community must evi- dently be first realised by the more central portions ; the stress of instruction and guidance rests on them. Once realised in some approximative degree by them, it will rapidly spread to the more distant portions. The union above indicated has its prototype in history. Mediaeval Europe felt itself to be one in this sense under the Catholic-Feudal organisation. There was then a moral and spiritual union of Western Christendom, entirely different from that which had bound together substantially the same extent in the Roman period. The more we study medieval records, the more we see the completeness and the strength which then characterised the inter- communion of Europe. The isolation of the several THE WEST. 31 nations and their mutual antipathies date in their full force from the break-up of the Middle Ages in the fourteenth century. They have been intensified and systematised by the so-called Reformation of the sixteenth. For our purpose it is sufficient that a different state a state of communion and sympa- thy was once the order of Europe. For its attain- ment once makes it probable that it may be attained again, if it can be shown, as it can be and has been, that the causes of its first failure can be avoided, and that the grounds on which its partial success rested still exist. It is for our own generation, and the generations which shall follow it, to form again the intercommunion of Western Europe in the interest of the whole human race, and in obedience to the teach- ings of the past. It may be revived on a surer basis and with greater closeness. The basis to be surer must be rational and real, not fictitious ; the greater closeness may be gained by substituting the definite conception of the West for the indefinite and an- archical term of Christendom. The weakness in- herent in this term is apparent from the fact that it never really included all the nations which in be- lief were Christian ; as is sufficiently seen by the fourth crusade, when the armies of Europe were diverted from their legitimate enemies to attack and plunder the metropolis and empire of their Eastern coreligionists. . The historical probability of the union granted, the means of attaining it are simple in statement, if difficult of execution. There is the direct action of statesmen and governments based on their having mastered the conception. They might exert a most powerful influence by removing existing obstacles 32 THE WEST. and familiarising the nations they direct with the idea of a new European polity. Anticipating, accompanying, and supporting their action, a rightly directed public opinion might spread its results rapidly throughout the peoples immediately affected by it. Both together, the action of the states- man and the opinion of the peoples would work har- moniously to the further object to the discovery of the ultimate means of insuring a sound foundation for the work initiated by the convergence of their respective influences. Such ultimate means are the institution and development of the education, and the calling into existence the body which should organise the education, of the West. Enough, if I here indicate this fundamental requisite for the new order, which can only rest as its prototype the Catholic order did, on a community of faith. It was indispensable to indicate it, were it only to preclude any supposition that the bond which is at present so much vaunted, that of commercial interest, was in any degree relied on. It were unwise to refuse to the tie created by commerce a certain negative influence in favour of peace. But men are never really united by interests, nor are nations. Morally, interests are more calcu- lated to separate. It is important that we should riot be led astray by the teaching now so prevalent, and substitute a delusive connection for a solid one. The inefficacy of this commercial tie may be well appre- ciated by seeing to what it leads in regard to other nations not professedly included by it. The common interest of those whom it connects finds its expression in the most oppressive action towards those without. It is but a collective selfishness, and naturally works to selfish ends. THE WEST. 33 I touch but slightly on such a point, as it will find its full consideration elsewhere in this series of essays. But if commerce is rejected as the founda- tion of Western orcler, as being inherently and neces- sarily, when left to itself, negative, however positive in outward semblance, it follows a fortiori that no mere negation can be accepted in its default. Yet it is on a mere negation that the State-system of Europe actually rests. The Balance of Power, which avowedly for the last two centuries has been the active guiding principle of Western policy, is and can be nothing else. It is a provisional artifice the expression of mutual jealousy, the diplomatic remedy for a transitional state of disorder. It implies a state of compromise, not of cooperation ; and as cooperation is the aim of human society in all its forms, its temporary substitute must ultimately disappear. Be so much said without im- peachment of the statesman-like prudence which in- vented, has subsequently applied, and still clings to, the balance of power, as, in the absence of any other formula, the best relatively. For I cannot think that the new principle, what- ever its justification, whatever its attractions, which has been largely adopted by what is called the Liberal school in Europe, and is now coquetted with, now trampled on, by the ambition of its governments, offers a less unsound, if more specious, basis of or- ganisation. I allude to the principle of nationalities. I do not wish to extenuate, much less to deny, the evils for which this principle is the proffered remedy. Still the new formula, if examined with attention, is but a variation of the old. It is the old thing under a new name, with the added evil that it enlists, thus rebaptised, the sympathies of whole D 34 THE WEST. populations, instead of remaining simply an affair for the colder reason of diplomatists and statesmen. Each separate nationality aims at concentration, independ- ence, and strength, but with the object of asserting itself against all the rest. The violent compression which keeps together discordant aggregates I regret as much as any one. But I can see no real cure of such evils in the immediate assertion of feelings such as have animated Germany in the recent contest with Denmark. For the purely transitional state through which Europe is passing, the older principle is suffi- cient to maintain a certain order; and it were a waste of time to endeavour to substitute in its place any other which at bottom should be equally provi- sional. For, apart from all abuses of it by its advo- cates, the new one is, considered in itself, an arrange- ment for separation, not a bond of union. True, it may be urged that such separation will lead to union, but it can only do so indirectly, and there are direct means available; and as there are these means, it seems unadvisable to fall back on any indirect and negative method. Both principles that of the balance of power, as well as that of nationalities have a relative value. Either might have been a groundwork for European order. One has been adopted as such ; and as neither is capable of being a definitive settlement, it is un- advisable at the present period to replace it by the other. It is on purely relative grounds that the lat- ter is set aside as a substitute. In fact, so purely relative are the grounds that there are cases in which its immediate adoption may be advocated. Applied to a highly civilised community, such as Italy, the national principle is indefeasible. It would, if en- THE WEST. 35 forced at once, conduce highly to peace and order in Europe. If enforced in the European dominions of Turkey, it would be a serious political error ; it would but tend to disorder. Both principles are inadequate, and equally so, if looked on as final solutions. They are both of them remedies far too material and political to meet diffi- culties which are social and moral, and which as such demand a social and moral treatment. They have not in them any tendency to harmonise opinions and convictions ; they have not even any tendency to fur- ther concordant action, much less to promote sym- pathies. And the absence of such tendencies is their conclusive condemnation in the eyes of all who allow that only on harmonious opinion and conviction can enduring sympathy be based, and that without such sympathy no lasting convergence of action is con- ceivable. The political conception "the West," explained in detail, the principles on which European order ac- tually rests, or is wished to rest, set aside, the nature of the union to be aimed at having been stated, it remains for me to consider what is the aim set before this collective personality. Shortly, I may state it to be the peaceful action on the rest of the race, with the purpose of raising, or enabling its various con- stituents to rise, in due order to the level it has itself attained. Such a body would stand forth as the mo- del at once and director of the rest. Duly organised within, conscious of its functions and obligations, it would appreciate the wants and situation of those without it; and, without any pressure or unwar- ranted interference with their legitimate independ- ence of action, it would be ready to help them, in 36 THE WEST. their onward course. Orderly within itself, and keep- ing order by a joint effort on the common ground of the race, the sea, it would institute systematic con- nections with the other nations or populations. The basis of such intercourse would not, as now, be mainly, much less purely, industrial and for its own benefit. There would be no slighting of the advantages and uses of commerce; but commerce would hold its proper, entirely secondary and subordinate, position, available as a stimulus and guarantee for continuity of relations. The religious missions of the present are elements of disturbance, and offer no compensation for such disturbance ; they are engaged, in the main, in the hopeless attempt to spread an exclusive and un- sympathetic faith, which as such has no chance of being accepted. Their only recommendation is their motive and their general idea; but neither the one nor the other prevents their being, in their leading results, a mere evil. Superseding them, the missions of the future will hold a different language, aim at widely different objects, and have a very different efficacy. In full sympathy with the past and present intellectual, social, and religious condition of those whom they address, equally whether monotheistic, polytheistic, or fetishist, they will take them each at the point at which they find them, accept their actual state, and lead them on by an orderly development. Such peaceful and sympathetic action, made intelli- gible by a previous cessation of the violent and frau- dulent intercourse which now repels all tendencies to friendliness, will be met by the unreserved admission of the superiority of the West. The nations to whom it speaks will allow its moral and intellectual pre- eminence as completely as they even now admit its THE WEST. 37 material, mechanical, and active predominance. They will have no repugnance to disinterested advice, free from all tendency to disturb or design of conquest. Treated with courtesy and respect, not, as now, with ill-concealed contempt, they will reciprocate an inter- course from which both derive good, as surely as they now reject, so far as they dare, the interchange of de- pendence on one side and haughtiness on the other. The experience of the past has repeatedly shown that this is no idle dream; that there is on the part of the less advanced races a strong disposition to appropriate the progress of the more favoured, and to be grateful to the agents of its communica- tion. And this is true, not merely of simple bar- barous tribes, whose propensity is almost to worship the white man as a god; but it is true also of those nations which have attained a high degree of orga- nised political and social existence. It is demon- strable that their exclusiveness, such as it is, has been the result of long-proved incapacity on the part of the Western nations to associate with them, on terms of mutual courtesy and fair reciprocity of advantage. Their exclusiveness has been justified in the past, and is still justifiable ; and were the statesmen of Europe not the mere tools of its com- mercial rapacity, it would be respected, and, with slight modifications, accepted and enforced. But with a change in the attitude, and consequently in the action of Western nations, such exclusiveness would fall from the mere absence of any adequate mo- tive for its continuance. The natural mutual attrac- tions of the different portions of the race would come into full play, and with the sense of security in their intercourse would come the conviction of its utility. 38 THE WEST. 1 need not dwell on the advantages to be derived from an intercourse so conducted, so far as concerns the less advanced nations. I have but to sketch in principle and in outline its nature and tendency. That done, I may turn to its reaction on the more advanced, on the Western populations. That this reaction would be most beneficial, there can be no doubt. In mediaeval times Western Christendom was united under the direction of the Papacy in the Crusades. The Popes felt that in cooperation in a great external object lay a remedy for internal evils. I pass over all discussion of the object of those ex- peditions, all discussion of their justification ; I pass over the direct results of bloodshed and misery. With all their weakness and imperfection, they in a measure answered their end they united Europe, and they were fraught with collateral benefits of great importance. Curiously enough, they tended on the whole rather to the union than the disunion of the hostile parties. Contact led to a more correct appre- ciation by the antagonists of one another. A just estimate of the general effects of the Crusades allows them to have been beneficial. If, in more modern times, we substitute peaceful agencies for war, the spirit of conciliation for that of antagonism, the wish to raise, not the design to con- quer or even exterminate, it would be difficult to overestimate the gain that would accrue to Western Europe from such cooperation. In it might be found an adequate sphere for all its energies, a large and wholesome gratification of all its nobler impulses, a powerful stimulus to its own advance, and more com- plete internal organisation and harmony. To form part of a body cooperating peacefully for such great THE WEST. 39 ends, as the recognised instrument of Humanity, were surely a sufficient distinction, a sufficient satisfaction of the less relative instincts of national pride and am- bition. Exorbitant as they now are, they might rest in what is hereby offered them. Their full gratifica- tion in their present shape is evidently impossible. They exclude one another. This has long been felt to be true. The dream of universal empire has long since past away, and the partial gratification afforded by being the first among many peers can only be attained by one, while the struggle for either com- plete or partial satisfaction, from its selfish character, has no tendency to raise, but rather to degrade. But in this coordinate union for the common good of the whole, the instincts above mentioned may receive an adequate development, and may be turned into useful instruments. We of the West, the advanced guard of Humanity, are citizens of no mean city ; not low- ered by narrow and local aspirations ; not isolated by national selfishness ; not degraded by anti-social ambi- tion. The barriers of religious, national, commer- cial separation fall before the new unity. We cease to be solely or primarily members of such or such a Western nation, England or France. We become primarily Western, with an immunity from all the evils which have clung around the exclusive promi- nence given to the more restricted associations ; free from the poverty which now attaches to all our political conceptions, relieved from the antagonisms which ren- der fertile of dangers our actual political and inter- national order. The ties and obligations of the new relation exert a healthy influence on all our thought and action, not extinguishing, nor even lessening our love of our separate countries or states, but correcting 40 THE WEST. its excess, and by placing it in its due subordination, at once purifying and strengthening it. The policy here advocated on international ques- tions meets and in a considerable degree sympathises with each of the two conflicting tendencies of English opinion on such matters. The school at present in the ascendant preaches absolute non-intervention in Europe. It asserts the duty of concentrating all our attention and our action on ourselves and our own interests. This abstinence from all interference is the final result of a long and sad experience, the fruit of our mature wisdom. Those who proclaim this negation of a policy are naturally jubilant over our recent conduct towards Denmark as the sign of its triumph. Yet it would almost seem as if it were only in Europe, and on a calculation of the profits and losses of our interven- tion there, that this complete inaction is desirable. Where interference is profitable and easy, and brings with it commercial advantages, it would seem, that it may be condoned. Be this as it may, the avowed object is peace and abstention. The only flaw in the doctrine is the being too absolute ; otherwise we sympathise with the object. We too aim at peace, consider war as a blunder and anachronism, though aware that it may even yet be necessary. We would act as much as possible by peaceful means, but we would act, and that in the interest of others. We do not accept the doctrine, that the pursuit by each nation of its own interests will practically lead to the harmonious adjustment of all human difficulties. The opposite school feels indignant at such re- nunciation on the part of England. It recoils from the consequences of its abstention, but it recoils solely THE WEST. 41 from the consideration of its effects on England. Its language is imperial. The empire we have won must be preserved, as to recede were to degrade ourselves, were to dim our high consciousness of power and greatness, and cramp all our nobler energies. In short, England needs empire for the sake of England. This imperial policy is more directly immoral than the other, for it sacrifices with the quietest deter- mination all the claims of others. Other nations are but to be the pedestal on which we may raise the proud statue of imperial England. Yet this immoral and essentially degrading policy has a certain truth in it, and one which demands sympathy. The different policy I advocate offers its disciples a sphere of action, the consciousness of a noble place, and a great purpose in the world's affairs. They are right, surely, in thinking that it cannot be a sound conclusion which involves so entire a rupture with the past, with all our historic tradition. They are right in thinking that great sacrifices should be incurred on fitting occasions, and that there are such occasions. .A highly social existence is the proper existence for man, whether in states or individuals; and such an existence involves perpetual duties to others and perpetual sacrifices on behalf of others. The opposite theory is inhuman, and contradicts all the obligations flowing from our position as a fact, our actual membership in Humanity. The primary requisite is to realise the conception of this organisation of the Western World and the new policy and the new obligations which are its natural results. Once become familiar in clear and definite outline, it will rapidly exercise its proper in- fluence. The ground is prepared for it. The failure 42 THE WEST. of the older system, the need for some new one something which may guide us to a reconstruction are largely felt. Many obstacles in the way of its acceptance have been removed; the intenser feeling of national self-assertion at the expense of others has been, there is reason to think, losing its hold. There is abundance of it left ; but it becomes more and more repugnant to a larger number. In this country, in which at present more than in any other lies, not the power of guidance, but the power of obstruction, corresponding to the immense influence she might exercise in forwarding what is useful, observers recognise a change of opinion on all questions of inter- national policy, so far as Europe is concerned a change in the direction of moderation. The conception of the West once realised, the first task is its reorganisation within its own limits, the reconstruction of the proper relations of its dif- ferent national constituents. The second and simul- taneous task is the reconstruction of the social order in each of these constituents. During the period of this double process, the main feature of the policy towards all without must be a wise abstention, the steady discouragement, even the prohibition of all attempts at premature interference on the part of its own members or of others. As much as possible all irregular action, all disturbing influences, should be removed. Respect for the organisations that exist is the first cardinal principle, the simplest obligation, on those who cannot offer a substitute. Such should be the action of Western statesmen and diplomatists in dealing with the Mohammedan and Polytheistic East. Their only active interference should be to repress with vigour the freebooting tendencies of European THE WEST. 43 commerce. The simplest way would be to withdraw all protection from the unfair trader. Let him be given up to the justice of those on whom at present he preys. But it would be better still to exercise a vigorous surveillance on the commercial world, and, above all, never to lend support to their encroach- ments. A comparatively short course of such a moderate and just policy would restore a right feeling between the East and West. And when the latter had in some approximate degree attained its own reconstitution, it would find no obstacles to its imparting its influence to the former. Its indirect influence is already great, in spite of all the grounds of repulsion. Remove these grounds, and this indirect influence will be found to have made the way smooth for the direct. So, for the common good of the present and the future of Humanity might be brought into active operation, the two great principles whose due and harmonious coordination would, I consider, meet our difficulties, the Unity of the race and the Leader- ship vested in the West. RICHARD CONGREVE. Note on the United States of America. IN the preceding Essay, with a view to the proper pro- portions of the subject, I have given but a few lines to the United States the powerful confederation which in popular language monopolises the name of America. Many reasons seem to conspire to claim more for it. Its large popula- tion ; the rapidity, hitherto happily unparalleled, with which that population increases ; the extent of its actual territory ; the possibility, nay, even the probability, of an extension of that territory, northwards and southwards, by peaceful annexation or by war ; the energy of its citizens ; their now proved capacity for great sacrifices and a long war ; their endurance at once and their success ; the political doctrines which America represents ; the social wellbeing which ma- terially she has attained; all alike, and especially the two latter considerations, would seem to justify a greater pro- minence for her in the estimate alike of the practical states- man and of the political theorist. Add further, the accidental complication, that, by the want of right feeling and due fore- sight, the two leading Governments of the West have placed themselves on a footing, if not of hostility, yet of serious misunderstanding with the American Republic, rendering it more disposed naturally to assert its influence, and forcing on them an anxious consideration of the results of that in- fluence. Whatever the nature of this influence may prove to be, whatever the dangers we in England may incur in conse- quence of the blunders of our statesmen and the evil feelings of the governing classes which they represent, there is every reason to rejoice in the reconstitution of the American Union. Its dissolution on the grounds alleged, and with the objects actually avowed, would have been, so far as we can see, a great calamity. Both the issues of the struggle recently NOTE ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 45 ended were important. The primary, as it were the official and national issue, the maintenance of the Union in its full integrity, was important for the welfare of the American people. The anarchical doctrine of state rights, as asserted, would, under the existing circumstances of America, have had most dangerous consequences. The framework of her social order is already but too ill-compacted. The second and more general issue, the existence or non-existence of slavery as an institution, was important in regard to the highest In- terests of Humanity. Its greater importance was seen in the way in which it gradually overrode and obscured the other. The industry of man, the basis of all society for the future, must be freed as soon as possible, and has been freed in America, from the stain of degradation, from all association of disgrace. Yet neither our legitimate admiration for the conduct of the American people, nor our high estimate both of its immediate power and of its future growth, may lead to any essential modification of the abstract political theory given above. Neither the language of her statesmen and her peo- ple, nor the acceptance of that language by some of our own statesmen, and largely also by the convictions of the English working-classes, neither the one nor the other should induce us to admit her claim to be the latest outcome of the mature political wisdom of the race, the type to which all others must eventually conform. For America claims no less, it would seem ; she claims no less than to be the leader of the West towards new horizons of indefinite political and social progress. On one point only can that claim be ad- mitted a point in some degree of form as regards some European governments, though a point of essential superi- ority as regards others. America stands before the world as the representative of republican government. I will not stay to dwell on the different forms of such government, nor on the distinctness of the two ideas, Democracy and Republicanism. I will acquiesce without qualification in the merit of the American position. As the greatest modern Republic, she is, and must be in the van; for republican 46 NOTE ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. government, with all its noble associations and inherent advantages is, as we believe, the last word in human poli- tical institutions. Without any need for impatience, Europe is moving towards it. But this point of vantage conceded to America, in her further claims we cannot acquiesce. "We cannot recognise any general leadership vested in her. The offspring, as an independent state, of a period of negation and dissolution ; the offspring also of a nation which is not by its antece- dents, or by its present condition, qualified to take the lead in human affairs; founded as she is on doctrines which neither she nor others can work into political utility ; pene- trated by revolutionary principles, which, as such, have only a transitional utility and can never be the basis of per- manent order ; requiring, as she does, as much, if not more, than any Western nation more than most certainly a com- plete revision of her theories of government and social order ; America cannot be in any sense a guide or a model for the Western statesman or thinker. She may and will react powerfully, and in the main usefully, on Europe. In some respects she will react prejudicially, especially, I fear, on our own country; but to such reaction her influence must be limited in thought, as it will be in fact. Her great material wellbeing the general diffusion, that is, of a state of material comfort and prosperity to which many European nations, most notably our own, are strangers the more it is appre- ciated, the more useful it may be, in raising the status of the labourer every where. It is a fair source of pride to America, that nowhere does the poor man find such a com- pensation for his labour, so comfortable a home. It is this which in a degree justifies the language of admiration for American institutions which is so common in England. We see the masses of our own hard-worked, ill-paid, and suffer- ing poor, whose sufferings and inadequate remuneration are largely the result of social mismanagement, of our defective social arrangements, and we compare them with the same classes in America, and we naturally feel admiration for the different conditions of society and political institutions under NOTE ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. ' 47 which so different a condition of the workman is attainable. But such admiration may carry us too far. By other means than those adopted by America must we work towards the end we aim at and that end, it must be said, is not iden- tical with the end hitherto attained by America. A sound constitution of the industry of man is more possible even now on European bases than on American. It is no part of my present plan to analyse at any length the phenomena of the American social order. All I wish to do is to indicate the grounds on which I think that they who would reorganise the Western World may not take that order as their model. America must weigh heavily in the scales of international policy; but she weighs by her mass, not by her ideas. This is but to say, in other words, that she will receive far more than she can give ; be guided rather than lead ; be influenced rather than influence. I have already stated that her industrial organisation is in no respect in advance of that of Europe. In none of the great divisions of human in- dustry would it seem that she can teach any thing ; and in one she is more completely disorganised than any other coun- try, not excepting our own. I allude to the relations of the employers and the employed, the capitalist and the workman. Partly from the influence of the empty revolutionary dogmas of the rights of man, and the equality of all men ; partly as the result of the unfortunate contact with slavery, which has left its impress on the North as on the South ; all the neces- sary subordination of man to man is a thing profoundly re- pugnant to the American mind. In one of the valuable series of letters contributed by a " Yankee" to the Spectator, there was a passage that showed this very clearly. The writer I have not by me the passage, but am clear as to its general sense spoke, and spoke with pride, of no native American being willing to hold the position of domestic servant. It was a degrading position in his eyes, as in those of his countrymen. The negro or the immigrant Irish alone were adapted for it. But if it is degrading for the servant, it would seem a duty on the part of the master to renounce for himself the benefits which he reaps from such degradation. To that conclusion 48 NOTE ON THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. the writer had not come. Yet it seems the logical one. The complete disturbance of human life which would result from the universal acceptance of this view which is not confined to America, however is a sufficient reason for its rejection prac- tically. Its theory is equally weak. The free and honourable service of man, the direct personal service I mean, on right conditions, is as noble a task for man to undertake, and as susceptible of defence by argument, as any other human insti- tution. The social order in which so fundamental a tradition of Humanity is ignored or rejected, is by virtue of that omis- sion shown to be deeply revolutionary, and, as such, incom- petent to lead in reconstruction. But if in the sphere of material interests we are to refuse the guidance of America, born and nurtured, as she has been, apart from the influences of feudalism, and open therefore to all the inspirations of nascent industrialism, it will be but too probable that, in other spheres of human thought and order, we can still less accept it, and so it is in fact. Politically, America, if we may trust those who speak and write for her, is bent, not merely with relation to immediate wants, but as a permanent conception, on forming one vast whole. The dis- gregation which I have advocated for the populations of the West would nowhere be received with more unquestionable repugnance than by the statesmen and people of the North American Union. Quite as much too as any Western popu- lation America has her attention concentrated on merely poli- tical, diverted from the more urgent social, objects; and her social state is so far more defective than any other that, in the reaction from the evils of privilege, the proper relations of the different classes are inverted, and the natural leaders of so- ciety are forced, in great measure, to divest themselves of their function, and stand aside as spectators of the political action of others. Lastly, in the domain of the intellect, in relation to all he more general and higher conceptions of man, whether scientific, philosophical, or religious, America can claim, and, speaking broadly, does claim, no initiative. I imagine that in this all cultivated Americans would agree with me. It is XOTE OX THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 49 from Western Europe that any impulse to progress in these departments must in the main originate. Nothing can be a clearer proof of this than the evidently greater influence in America than in Europe of the religious ideas of the past. Judging by all the utterances during the late struggle, eman- cipation from those ideas is incomparably more advanced in Europe. I have confined myself to the simplest and shortest indica- tions of the general opinion advocated. To work them out would be out of place, as it would be to enter into any detailed considerations of the immediate or more distant future of the American Union. As necessarily a portion of the West, it will follow the same course as the rest ; it \vill acknowledge ultimately the same traditions, be modified by the same ideas, become organised on the same conceptions, and lend its powerful support to the propagation of that organisation. We who urge on England a more moderate and more just estimation of herself, who urge her renunciation of any claim to be the first nation of the world, her acceptance of the se- condary position accorded her by the whole of past history, who urge on her, lastly, to throw away the language of self- assertion, and concentrate her attention on her international duties, we cannot be expected to hold a different language in relation to her great colony. We cannot recognise as valid in America claims which we reject on behalf of her parent. Nor can we recognise as sound, when relied on by American statesmen and writers, doctrines as to rights, international or political, which we wholly repudiate when they are put for- ward by Europeans. On both sides of the Atlantic the situ- ation is essentially the same ; it is modified for the worse in America by the necessary conditions of her youth and expan- siveness. On both sides the need is the same, a wise interna- tional cooperation, resting on due subordination, in the interest yf the whole race ultimately, and with the immediate object of a thorough internal reconstruction. Such need is not less urgent if writers most favourable to her may be trusted is even more urgent in America than in any other nation of the Western World. K. C. E No. II. ENGLAND AND FRANCE. BY FREDERIC HARRISON. ENGLAND AND FRANCE. SINCE the close of the Revolutionary war, the pivot upon which the politics of Europe have hinged will be found in the relations of England with France. For fifty years this fact has been gaining in import- ance and distinctness. It has now, both here and abroad, modified the thoughts of writers, politicians, and the public. The events of each succeeding decade show with new force, that in union between the two great heads of the West lies the true protection to Europe against attack from without, against war from within; its best guarantee for freedom, peace, and progress. Notorious disunion between the two Powers has uniformly been the signal to Europe for intrigue, oppression, embroilment, and war. Order and progress generally have gained or lost just as this union has been intimate or weak. It may be said that, if this last half-century has been to Europe a period of almost unexampled prosperity and repose, it is because the first condition of both union be- tween the heads of Western civilisation has never been so nearly realised before. 54 ENGLAND AND FEANCE. This union, however, has been at best but imper- fect and precarious. It has not rested on political doctrine or general conviction. Yet, rudely shaken as it has been, it has sufficed to protect us from ac- tual war, and, indeed, from any serious or protracted rupture. We may trust that each year of well-used peace makes war between England and France more and more improbable. It is yet, however, far from impossible. That it should be so, much remains to be accomplished in both countries. In both there must arise very different conceptions of the duties, the rights, and the true interests of nations; a new sense of responsibility in public men and teachers ; a conviction here and in Europe that such a war would be the greatest of all European calamities ; a belief that it would retard our progress for the life, at least, of a generation. A feeling between the two great neighbours, suf- ficiently friendly to preserve them from collision, has thus gradually grown stronger. It has not yet be- come strong enough to remove the constant recur- rence of quarrels, fanned from time to time by the craft or the folly of politicians and journalists in both countries. Nor has this feeling succeeded in staying that ceaseless undercurrent of jealousy, misunder- standing, and antagonism that crosses the main tide of goodwill which sets from shore to shore. Indefi- nite, unstable, and without root, the harmony be- tween England and France has been an instinct, and not a principle. If it has preserved us from great evils, it has not been able to achieve any grand suc- cess. It has sufficed for the calm; it will not bear the trial of the storm. It is the purpose of this Essay to inquire into the ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 55 mode by which this union might be grounded on a permanent and solid base ; to ask what must be the conditions, what would be the results of a standing and definite alliance. The great European import- ance of any such union of England and France is this, that in an especial manner these two Powers repre- sent, if they do not guide, the grand movements of our actual state system. Whatever the intellectual and moral gifts of other races in Europe, for the time these two nations are the great political forces of the West. They are essentially coordinate, though not antagonistic. England represents tradition, stability, personal liberty, law, industrialism, and national in- dependence. France represents the Revolution and its principles; the amalgamation of classes; the re- organisation of the social and the political system; the resettlement of the general state system ; the rights of nationalities; government at once popular in its origin and in its aims; rule in the interests of the many and not of the few. Each Power singly is constantly tempted to force its phase of progress extravagantly and exclusively the influence of England from time to time being degraded to the level of commercial rapacity, industrial greed, and stolid conservatism ; the influence of France to that of military ambition, revolutionary disorder, or ty- ranny veiled under the name of public welfare. Now these two Powers, the natural complement of each other, can never combine their influence in- any lasting or grand object, except for the general advantage of Europe.* Combined, they strengthen * This must be understood of the action of these Powers in Europe alone. Beyond its limits, and free from the restraints of their position towards our Continent, they occasionally combine in a joint oppression. 56 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. the good tendencies of each other, and equally neu- tralise the evil. Opposed, they neutralise the good and exaggerate the evil. The jealousies which each arouses, when acting with vigour by itself, are calmed when that action is jointly pursued by both. The policy of France, when heartily in unison with Eng- land, can awaken no reasonable terrors amongst her neighbours. Backed by the champion, in Europe, of peace, order, personal and national liberty, France can promote her principles without her designs seem- ing charged with disorder and ambition. Actively supported by France, England appeals to the nations of Europe with a moral force which has no modern equivalent. With her Catholic democratic and mili- tary neighbour at her right hand, she stands up amongst the nations as the symbol of something more than selfish conservatism; she shakes off that dull dogmatism which has so often nullified her ac- tion and swung her round against her will to the party of blind resistance. England and France the Teutonic Protestant parliamentary and industrial power side by side with the Latin Catholic revolu- tionary and dictatorial power represent together principles so various, and comprise the dominant forces so nearly, that in any policy in which they cordially agree no element of life is likely to be sa- crificed, whilst all are certain to be harmonised. No sooner, however, are the two representative Powers estranged than the principles which they em- body fall back, not so much into independent action as into inevitable collision. In the former case they were kept in something like joint action, however im- perfectly consolidated; in the latter they neutralise each other without any useful result. Divided, each ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 57 seeks to maintain or promote its special lines of influence. Each, in the diplomatic language of the clay, seeks for new allies, and forms alliances which of necessity are at once precarious and unnatural. Xeither England nor France can find in Europe any equal and natural alliance except with each other. This broken, any other alliance is a fresh source of insecurity both to them and to Europe. As the separation of the two natural allies grows plainer, each more obstinately pursues its special tendencies and its national ambitions in schemes which forebode danger to Europe, and infallibly arouse the suspicions of the other. France agitates her neighbours with crude visions of a resettlement of the state system, partly revolutionary, partly autocratic; now she pa- rades her Catholicism, now her military prestige, now her democratic zeal ; now she is the chief of the Latin race, now the military arbiter of the West, now the apostle of the Revolution. England on her side at these moments assumes a part even more odious and hardly less pernicious. She prides herself on reducing every thing to dead-lock ; she professes a policy of inaction, negative, repressive, and criti- cal ; she constitutes herself the grand obstructive ; her diplomacy is one long non possumus ; she insists on every claim of mere legality, and suppresses every claim of moral right ; she bolsters up every abuse and every retrograde and rotten system ; she sinks into the blindest and most dogged con- servatism, and Avithdraws in a sort of sulky despair from the councils of Europe, to fling herself into the task of founding new empires in distant oceans, and plundering and trampling on races of a darker skin. Other interests in Europe she is content to 58 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. abandon, satisfying herself with barren protests, with checkmating every movement for good or for bad, with forming cabals against France to prevent her from abusing the season of confusion and dead-lock which the indifference of England herself has pro- duced. These are the seasons which the elements of re- action in Europe welcome as their special time of harvest. Under the shelter which England then affords to pure conservatism, the princes and the princelets of Germany grow bolder in their career of besotted misgovernment. Under the shelter of the Catholicity which France at such moments finds it convenient to parade, the Pope consolidates his feeble tyranny. Russia, whose place is beyond the pale of European politics proper, forms monstrous bonds of alliance, first with one, then with another power ; and safe behind the mask of an external civilisation, she steals another footstep nearer to the Danube or the Dardanelles. The same is true wher- ever a weaker oppressor is watching for his time of spoliation. Never does he strike the blow until assured that England and France are on too bad terms to repress him. Nor is such a season less favourable to intrigue than it is to violence. It is the signal for a grand campaign of continental cabals. In diplomatic wiles Russia, through her thousand mouths, whispers the breach still wider. Alliances and schemes, extravagantly hollow and ominously unnatural, such as are possible only in epochs of dead-lock, are born and perish in a day. Corruption extends over all ali,ke, and England and France win and lose in turn at the gambling hazard of chi- cane. Statesmen and parties alike play deeply in ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 59 the diplomatic game, until all policy is drowned and distorted in a situation at once unnatural and im- moral. In the recent history of Europe nearly every disaster which the cause of freedom and progress has suffered has been caused during a season of estrange- ment, and largely by reason of estrangement, between the two great Powers. Attacks upon Turkey by Eussia demanded as their first condition that Eng- land and France should be supposed unable to com- bine. The Crimean war would not have been com- menced unless Nicholas, in his shoz'tsighted disdain for Napoleon, had thought i impossible for English statesmen to ally themselves with him. The succes- sive partitions of Poland have been effected only under a similar conviction. The petty spoliation of Denmark was effected only when Napoleon had been ostentatiously rebuffed in his overtures towards a Polish intervention. Austria triumphed over Hun- gary and Italy in 1848 in great measure because she knew that the English and the French governments were quite incapable of cooperation. Had England, even by her moral weight, accepted the demands of France to aid in freeing Italy from Austria, she might with some effect have prevented the tyrannical resto- ration of the Pope by French bayonets. Nor would Austria have ventured to cross the Ticino in 1859 if the close alliance of the Crimean war had continued between the heads of the West. The diplomatic- history of nearly every one of the catastrophes of freedom in recent times is a story of persistent and wily efforts of the oppressor to divide the policy of two great Powers, or to profit by their divisions, and of efforts no less persistent by the oppressed to bring 60 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. these powers into concert, or at least into the sem- blance of outward agreement. By arguments negative and positive, by analogy as well as by example, it can be shown that har- mony between the two great Powers is essential to the wellbeing of Europe. But has this harmony as yet any permanent basis? Have the various causes which have contributed to a long peace such solid foundation in principle as to render peace a cer- tainty? Has not mutual respect and a general con- viction of joint interest been at the highest the sole ground of union ? Has any thing like active cooper- ation been secured excepting from causes at once superficial and shifting ? The cordiality between the two Governments, which from time to time the lackey journals of both countries announce with fulsome protestations, is generally the result of little more than a party manoeuvre, the commonplace of a feeble ministry, or the device of an intriguing politician. How often within thirty years has the clique which is called the Whig party blustered and fawned before the government of France ! How often has the recent minister of England found it useful to flatter or to affront the Emperor Napoleon ! How often has an entente cordiale, heralded by so much cheap eloquence, been broken in the very year which saw its rise to be revived next year to serve a parliamentary divi- sion ! Cabinet intrigues, demonstrations from cla- queurs in the press, compliments and feasts in pa- laces, exert no useful influence on the politics of two great races, and do nothing to cement a union between them. A true union must be made by the nations, not by ministries ; it must be based on prin- ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 61 ciples, not protestations; it must start from a com- mon programme of action, in which the entire nation can feel pride, and which the entire nation in both countries understands. Sometimes, instead of being the device of a politi- cian, a temporary alliance between the two countries has arisen from express or tacit agreement to per- mit to each some cherished object of ambition. Such occasions must always be of small importance, and are hardly possible at all in Europe. But in any case such a union is necessarily precarious. Real union implies, not a compromise on special matters, but a thorough understanding on the general course of European politics. If any of the greater ques- tions are left out, they will constantly recur to trouble the superficial agreement. But a real unity of purpose on all the questions at issue will be a union too comprehensive to be affected by personal intrigues, too moderate and mature to give any thing but confidence to their neighbours. If it is prudent to inquire on what grounds the harmony of England with France is ordinarily placed, it is disheartening to learn how slight in reality these are. Commercial interest is usually the sole, and certainly is the main, bond of union to which states- men and writers commonly appeal. Seldom do we hear from one school or the other any principle of po- licy which rises above the sensible but obvious advice that two neighbouring nations, each with so large a trade, will probably increase it by remaining on good terms. Nothing more is required, we are assured, for harmony and prosperity in nations whom nature has designed for mutual customers but unlimited free trade and general extension of their markets. 62 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. Vaguely and mechanically from the lips of aristo- cratic statesmen, dogmatically and passionately from those of the popular school, this is proclaimed as the sum and substance of European politics. There can be no clearer proof of the feebleness of the current political doctrines. Commonplaces of this kind can stand no serious test, much less can they produce any solid progress in opinion. Thus to exaggerate the importance of their commercial interests and duties is to do dishonour to both countries at once. It would not have been heard of except at a time when mere economic ideas have supplanted all true political principles. Nor is this teaching less futile than immoral. France in particular, for reasons some honourable, some dishonourable, to her national character can act, and frequently does act, in open disregard of her material interests. Both England and France are continually moved by currents of feeling, in which all thoughts of the market are swept away like straws. In both countries civili- sation has a far wider significance than this ; and the policy of neither country is invariably in the hands of the shopkeepers. Each nation is ready to make efforts and sacrifices for very different ends. Hence the recent Commercial Treaty has been, in a moral and national sense, ridiculously overvalued. It is a useful measure, and in spite of the free-trade purists, a sensible measure, which does honour to the conscientious economist who achieved it and the adroit financier who made it popular. On both sides of the Channel, besides making several towns or classes richer (which is its principal result), it has done something towards promoting more friendly language, and perhaps more sincere goodwill. But ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 63 since the policy both of England and France is ulti- mately directed by the nation, and not by the class which principally benefits by an improvement in trade, an alliance which is based on commercial in- terest may at any moment be shattered by those deeper currents which fill the nation with a strong purpose ; in fact, an alliance between two great na- tions so situated, which was based entirely on trade, would scarcely last many months. Assuredly it would not enable the two Powers to do much for the peace and prosperity of Europe. Such are the grounds on which union with France is usually based. It is obvious that none of these can render it lasting. That which has now for so many years, and through trials so severe, really maintained the good harmony between them has been the conviction, common to all but a few in both countries, that the great ends necessary for the wel- fare of France are, in the main, those necessary for the welfare of England. Here the dregs of the old aristocratic, there of the old military, fanatics nurse the malignant hatred of the great war; but in this generation, with responsible beings in both countries the old religious duty of rivalry and antipathy is as completely extinct as the morbid passion of national hate which dishonoured the fine nature of Nelson. Frenchmen are not reared, like boy Hannibals, to dream of a tremendous vengeance; and patrician bigots no longer clamour in our senate for the ex- tinction of a rival Carthage. But it is obvious that, as a fixed ground of national policy, the vague sense of common interests between the two countries needs to be placed on a basis far more systematic and defi- nite. The policy of two nations such as England and 64 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. France, acknowledged as the heads of civilisation in Europe, must of necessity embrace great European objects, must take some attitude towards the prin- cipal movements of the Continent, and satisfy the conscience and the honour of two generous races. Ends such as these can hardly be effected by com- mercial treaties, by free trade, or by large increases in consumption. The most confirmed intention of buying only in the cheapest and selling only in the dearest market is liable to be deranged by very sin- gular perturbations. Nothing, in fact, can rise to the dignity of a national policy but a broad, wise, and comprehensive estimate of the true situation of mo- dern Europe. Neither country would be assuming its natural position unless it is prepared to face reso- lutely the conditions in which it stands, and to as- sume responsibilities called forth by each occasion. Nor will such a policy be of any permanent use, un- less it is thoroughly in harmony with the history and traditions of both people ; unless it is felt to be the true destiny pointed out by centuries of national life ; unless it can take hold at once of the higher minds of the nation and the instincts and sympathies of the mass of the people. Any harmony between England and France that professes to be based on any thing short of a prin- ciple such as this can be nothing but a mockery or a phrase. Each nation must have, and will have, its national policy more or less systematic, more or less comprehensive. And it follows with complete cer- tainty that, unless the policy of each tends in the main towards the same end, they will sooner or later result in a conflict. It is the tendency of such a con- flict, even where it stops short of overt hostility, to ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 65 produce a minimum of good and a maximum of evil in the influence of each. Not vague protestations of friendship, not common interests in trade, commercial treaties, or industrial partnership, can secure us from the constant risk of rupture. If harmony between England and France is good at all for the countries themselves and for their neighbours, the conditions of that harmony are not to be mistaken. Each coun- try must have a settled and deliberate scheme of policy ; the policy of both, in the main, must coincide. It must be worked up into systematic concert with good faith, forbearance, and patience; and it must tend not towards the individual interests of either so much as the permanent welfare of the great state system which they control. The task we have undertaken is to learn whether and in what way such a union of policy is practically possible. Can any joint action of the two Powers be shown to accord with the history and traditions, with the actual position and necessities of each ? For this view it will be well to devote some space to both in- quiries, and to take a survey, first, of the historical relations of the two nations throughout the course of recent and indeed of modern history ; secondly, of the actual state system of Europe, and the position and functions which they occupy within it. As to the necessity for the latter towards any real political aim, no doubt will be felt; but for the most part it will be considered as the sole preparation re- quisite for judgment. But the need of a careful historical estimate, though far less obvious, is much more important. It precedes, explains, and strength- ens every conclusion drawn from the actual condi- tion of affairs. It is the chief cause of the avowed F 66 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. feebleness of so many of the political doctrines and leaders of the day, that their objects have never been suggested or corrected by true historical ante- cedents. If politics are ever to have any systematic or consistent form, it is by history alone that they can obtain it. Nor does this in any sense imply that separate political acts can be determined by any his- torical apparatus. Politics, like all the practical affairs of life, must be ultimately ruled by the practical gifts, by a happy combination of instinct and experience. The day is always a dark one for society when pro- fessors or writers snatch the reins of power. But historical judgment is yet very necessary to the po- litical leader, much more for the political student, in a sense very different from that in which statesmen, learned in the annals of cabinets, love to cite a pre- cedent or borrow a manoeuvre, or journalists, rich in the anecdotes of past generations, use them to point an illustration or a sarcasm. Statesmen, though it is their business to act with the rapid insight which alone belongs to native genius, are unworthy of the name they assume, unless the broad spirit of their conduct strikes the true note which history yields, unless they feel that they are directing the present down the great track traced out for it by the past. The pedantry is in him who refuses, not in him who desires, to conform political action to broad courses of historical reality. The use of history to the poli- tician is not to teach him precedents or to supply him with suggestions, but to keep him firm to the broad tendencies to stray from which is his ruin. It will guide him not to results, but to objects ; and when it fails to suggest the true course, will effectually warn him from the wrong. And if to the politician history ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 67 is as a compass for his sailing, to the political inquirer is it the very logic of his science. II. Practically speaking, no distinct relations are ob- servable between England and France as nations until the close of the true period of the Middle Ages. The age of the dissolution of the catholic and feudal system, that had long given some sort of unity to Europe, first shows distinct nationalities and inter- national action. The great French wars of our Ed- wards and Henrys are at once the symptoms of this decline, and the measure of its effect. It is signifi- cant that this great period of temporal and moral anarchy produced the most wanton and most obsti- nate of these international struggles. I have no hesi- tation in calling this the darkest page in the history of both countries. But the terrific sufferings which the French people endured during that long agony, at most but blighted their progress for a time. On our national history they rest as a permanent blot. When reason and justice have taken the place of a barbarous pride in the national traditions, the me- mory of our French glories even the very names of Crecy, Poitiers, and Agincourt will come home to us as the tale of a wanton and savage folly. They are names which reflect no national honour upon England (however high be the estimate we set on mere personal valour) ; or reflect such honour only as the raids of the plunderers of Italy reflect on the history of Germany and France. They were wars as devoid of legitimate cause as of permanent result. They satisfied no political end; achieved no actual 68 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. object; could have led, if successful, to no good; and were opposed to the rude sense of right even of those unsettled times. Whatever good arose out of them eventually, was due to the ruin they brought upon their authors and promoters. As civil wars only are they explicable; and such historical palliation as they possess is to be found in the fact that they were but part of the civil convulsion which the failure of the catholic and feudal system produced. It is time that Englishmen ceased to glory in their share in these barbarous national tournaments, and to take a puer- ile pride in relating how, in the great orgy of dege- nerate chivalry, their countrymen bore off the largest share of the worthless and bloody prizes. The wars with France are as little worthy of honour as the wars of the Roses, and they teach us only the same mournful lesson. It is only at the close of the long wars which marked the ruin of feudalism that true political re- lations exist between England and France as parts of a European body of states. From that time to the present, a period of 400 years, it will be found that whenever the policy of the two countries has been vigorous and wise, whenever they have both been ful- filling their natural functions in that body of states, the relations between them have been friendly and never directly hostile. On the other hand, whenever those relations have been hostile, it has been when one or other was pursuing a policy ruinous in itself, and which it has ultimately been forced to abandon. The wars of England and France mark, in fact, their grand crimes and blunders as nations. Their normal condition the condition of their grandest national successes is peace; or rather, what is more than ENGLAND AND TRANCE. 69 peace, cooperation. It is a significant fact, and one which we too seldom remember, that, mere military glory apart (which can be won in the worst as in the best of causes), all that is noblest as political achieve- ment throughout the vicissitudes of European com- plications for four centuries, the policy .of all the true statesmen who have left us a heritage of wisdom, has been characterised by the maintenance of union with France. Our greatest statesmen and their greatest statesmen those whose policy we now can profitably recall all uniformly combined in this. It has been repudiated only by those whose policy has been can- celled by events. The prejudices which have sprung from our ancient and from our recent triumphs in war are so strong on us that propositions like these are regarded as a paradox. They form, however, rules without any true exception. There have been times when the policy of England, or when that of France, was in desperate defiance of all their duties and their traditions. At such moments the weight of the other has been thrown into the opposite scale, and furious contests have ensued. But their normal relations have been those of peace. And no broad survey of history can obscure the truth that, from its consolidation in the fifteenth century down to the latter half of the reign of Louis XI V., the general tendency of the French monarchy has been towards harmony with the English. The patience and address with which the saga- - cious Louis XI. averted the vainglorious invasion of Edward IV., the transparent want of purpose that invasion betrayed, the anxiety of Louis for peace, the ease with which the English king and his council allowed themselves to be cajoled, mark the close of 70 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. the long national feud, the substitution of nations for fiefs, and statecraft for military adventure. The French policy of Henry VIII. is little but a repetition of the conduct of Edward. There is the same pre- tentious invasion, the conventional war-cry, the same willingness to treat, the same mutual respect and desire for peace. With the Louises, Ferdinands, and Henrys of the fifteenth century these conflicts were due rather to inveterate habit than to active ani- mosities; and they had too similar and too arduous duties at home to make any of them very desirous of serious wars. With the sixteenth century the age of Henry VIII., Francis, and Charles V. the actual state system of Europe comes clearly into view. We have now the existing national limits, definite inter- national relations, and permanent objects of state. It may be difficult in the confusion which precedes the first great settlement to trace exactly any intelligible policy; but amidst all the kaleidoscopic complications of the time there stands out clearly the growing im- portance of England in the European system, the preponderance which at any moment it can give to France, the immense force of both of them united, and the real affinity of their true interests and national objects. Capricious as was the policy of Francis and that of Henry, personal and trivial as were the motives which often controlled it, it was in the main the policy of natural allies and not of natural enemies. Cui adhcereo prceest was the famous motto of Henry, a motto as true now as it was then. It did not mean the destruction of France. And when at last, at his worst strait, Henry threw his lot in with the captive Francis and enabled him to recover his kingdom, he instituted a great maxim of policy, that England ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 71 has an interest in having her neighbour at once pro- gressive and strong, for she has with England the joint protectorate of Europe against absolute dominion and retrograde oppression. With the growth of the power of Charles Y. (whose life is justly taken as marking the rise of our modern state system) there comes into view clearly the prin- ciple which for the three succeeding centuries has more or less distinctly formed the clue to European history. In spite of serious exceptions and perturba- tions, a clear tendency appears that the conservative forces, both spiritual and temporal, should gather round the House of Austria, and centre in South Germany and Spain; that the progressive forces are jointly or alternately led by England and France ; whilst Italy and the whole left bank of the Rhine form at once the battle-ground and the prize. During the sixteenth century, for the most part, the temporal struggle is lost and drowned in the spiritual. Political antagonisms and affinities are merged in the religious. The death-grapple of the two faiths was nerved by a special fanaticism, which overrides all the combina- tions of policy, interest, and reason. Yet in the midst of these convulsions the same general tendency is at work. France in the struggle is torn into two factions ; her position is nullified; and her strength paralysed, whilst she is preparing for the middle ground which in the religious aspect of the great contest she has ever since maintained. England, if not so equally " divided, sways backwards and forwards with still more violent revulsions. In the mean time the House of Austria is still the centre of the religious as of the political reaction. From time to time some Philip or Catherine steals in, like the genius of evil, to lure 72 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. England or France into opposite camps. From time to time the very existence of states seems lost in the violence of civic disintegration. The deadly struggle in which the life of our great sovereign Elizabeth was passed might well have blinded a mind less capacious and calm to the true affinities of states. But in the worst of her straits, in spite of the danger to her per- son and her people, in spite of the fanatical hatred with which both were assailed by the court party of France, neither Elizabeth nor her ministers ever lost sight of the truth that England and France in the European system are not natural enemies but natural allies. Yet this great truth, which civil convulsion and religious frenzy for a time had obscured, broke forth only into clear light when France had shaken off the fever of reaction, and the wise and noble policy of Henry IY. had begun to restore her to health and vigour. The spirit of that great king was well met with that of the great queen ; and history can give us no finer instance of political sagacity than we see in the hearty and confiding alliance of these two consum- mate rulers. "She was another self," said Henry; u the irreconcilable enemy of my irreconcilable ene- mies." Indeed, if we were to search for the type of the natural attitude of the governments to each other, we could have no better form of it than in the history of this period. Mutual confidence and respect, a ge- nerous spirit of cooperation, a consciousness of a com- mon duty, but a spirit always tempered by watch- fulness and caution, was the spirit in which they assumed their protectorship of Europe. This is not the place to analyse or weigh the famous Political Design of Henry, the scheme for the pacification and ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 73 settlement of Europe. Nothing would be more mis- taken than to regard it as the chimera of one vision- ary brain. The scheme was thoroughly reduced to practical working. It had gradually won its way into the cautious mind of the veteran Sully. It re- ceived the actual adhesion of a large proportion of the European powers, and nothing but the dagger of Ravaillac prevented its immediate execution. But the scheme, as we read it in Sully, was as thoroughly that of Elizabeth as it was that of Henry. She had been the earliest and the staunchest maintainer of the central purpose of the design. It was impossible without the active cooperation of England ; and on the death of Elizabeth, Henry regarded it as almost annihilated. This is not the place to decide upon its wisdom or its practicability. It may be that, as a reconstructive system, it was impossible or prema- ture ; but the idea on which it rested is an idea as definite as it is true. That idea is the reality of the system of states in Europe, the necessity for their harmony and cooperation, the leading part which her history and position give to France in the common councils of Europe, the need of an intimate alliance with England, and the conviction, that with both combined, the cause of good government, progress, and peace resides. The conception of the greatest of the French kings long ruled the policy of French statesmen. This grand, if premature, idea was main- tained by a series of ministers, wise, or respectable at least, down to the time when the tumid ambition of Louis XI Y. ruined his country and blotted out his dynasty. Neither that deplorable catastrophe nor the delirium of the revolutionary wars have suc- ceeded in destroying it; and it remains now, what it 74 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. was two centuries and a half ago, the deep conviction of thoughtful minds on both sides of the Channel, and the true key of European politics. For a moment the fanatical party which struck down the great Henry in the full maturity of his wisdom succeeded in perverting from its path the public action of his beloved country. Their tenure of power was long enough to complete that ill-starred marriage with the House of Austria that adulterous mingling, it has been said, of the blood of Henry and of Philip. But the genius of France, as though aroused by this outrage, lived again in the spirit of the great successor of Henry ; he who, with yet greater difficulties, carried on the same work with yet greater power the most consummate of modern statesmen the profound and majestic Richelieu. For twenty-six years the policy of France was directed on one unbending but sagacious system, which almost created France as a nation, if it did not create its national character, and which certainly for a century and a half stamped its impress on the history of Eu- rope. The first act of Richelieu as minister was to an- nounce the return to the policy of the late king, and to attempt to reopen the English alliance by the marri- age with Charles. At the close of his unbroken career the ground was already prepared for the settlement which resulted in the peace of Westphalia ; the settle- ment which for two centuries has been, and still in some sense is, the basis of the state system of modern Europe ; the settlement which half realised the de- sign of Henry, which his design might possibly have accomplished without the thirty years of carnage. The policy of Richelieu is far too strongly marked and too well understood to need any commentary ENGLAND AND TRANCE. 75 here. It is a policy so systematic in principle and so rich in its actual fruits that it may be taken as the typical and historical policy of France. As such we can judge it. The policy of France was again in the hands of a great man, and again it was a policy in sub- stance the same. The policy of England is no longer in the hands of a great ruler, but becomes utterly incoherent and contemptible under the intriguing bigotry of the race of Stuart. But the policy of France is not altered ; France again assumes the lead- ership of the progressive movement in Europe, and again, as a first condition, solicits the active coopera- tion of England. The help meet for him, which in a later generation he might have found in the political genius of Cromwell, Richelieu was forced to eke out by the mere military genius of Gustavus. The in- fluence of England under the Stuarts was nothing ex- cept when it was evil. But in spite of the sore trials to his principles, in spite of the vacillations, bigotry, and falseness of the wretched Stuart courts, in spite even of the demagogic support of La Rochelle, Riche- lieu was never betrayed into a hostile attitude to England, never even overlooked the inherent strength of her position. The English prisoners at Rhe were sent home honourably; no reasonable opportunity of peace was neglected; and the whole system of the most systematic of modern statesmen supposes cor- diality and union with England. That system was only not carried out with the full cooperation of England because for the time, in her own internal convulsions, England was withdrawn from action abroad. But it was carried out, if not with England herself, with the natural allies of England, by the same means, to the same end, and with the same 76 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. spirit with which, both before and afterwards, the name of England was identified. In the hands of Richelieu the policy of France was modified and de- veloped from, that of Henry, but it was essentially the same. To concentrate and complete the great- ness of the country without yielding to the lust of covetous aggression; to conciliate and balance the rival fanaticisms in religion without giving victory to either ; to rest the frontiers of states on geographical and national bases ; to establish liberty of conscience without political anarchy ; to humble the reactionary dynasties without unlimited revolution; to determine the final ascendency of the progressive over the re- trograde system; and to make France the heart of this action by giving her a moral rather than a ma- terial empire such, in brief, was the work of the great dictator. The policy of Richelieu was one so solidly based that it suffered scarcely any interruption by his death ; and again, for eighteen years, his system was con- tinued by his servant and pupil Mazarin. The irre- gular conditions and the inferior capacity of this min- istry rob that system, if not of its success, at least of its dignity and distinctness. The characteristic intrigue, the shifting combinations, and the personal meanness which disfigure the statecraft of Mazarin, are but too often repeated by the anecdote-mongers of history as the substance, and not as the adjunct of his policy. Viewed by a broader light, it was but the legitimate continuation of the policy of Richelieu, as that was the legitimate continuation of the policy of Henry. The weapons of the bygone chiefs tremble in the feebler hands of their successors. But they are yet sufficient for their work. How right and ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 77 systematic the task was, the closing triumph of the life of Mazarin the treaty of the Pyrenees draws in most striking lines. When we see the ruler of France and he an Italian, a churchman, and a car- dinal the virtual author of the most concentrated of autocracies, allying himself with the English Re- public, with the acknowledged head of Protestantism, and jointly with him labouring towards a common object, securing the degradation of the great Spanish despotism and the definite ascendency of France, we recognise the grand current of affairs shaping itself to its determined course across all the minor obstacles of individual wills and disturbing accidents. Internal difficulties and the complication of interests for a time separated the chief imitator from the great rival of Richelieu ; but as soon as they thoroughly under- stood each other, so soon as the relations of states grew definite, the policy of Mazarin and of Cromwell was convergent and not antagonistic. Both were in the deepest sense traditional, both were intensely na- tional, and both essentially systematic. And it is of high historical significance that in orbits so different we find their common progression so similar. But Mazarin, with all his claims as a politician, can as little compare with Cromwell in true sagacity as he can in greatness of purpose. The greatest of the Protestant chiefs was also among the foremost of modern statesmen. Those who look with immode- rate pride on our distant dominions, and with im- moderate fear on their ultimate abandonment, are the men who mistrust the true greatness and strength of Britain and its inhabitants. Such may learn a useful lesson by turning to the position which Eng- land held in Europe under Cromwell England, 78 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. without Indian, American, or Australian empires; without Gibraltar, without Malta, without Hong Kong, and without one of those thousand posts where the British flag now studs the Pacific and the Asiatic Oceans. A few years of a great man's rule raised her from utter insignificance and abasement, to be in material strength among the first, in moral purpose the first of the nations of Europe, the leader of free civilisa- tion and the destinies of the West, the ho'pe and help of the oppressed, the curb of the tyrant. Trammelled as he was by his narrow creed, and fired by the na- tional lust for maritime aggrandisement, the policy of the great Protector abroad tended at times to fa- naticism, at times to injustice; but into one error, however imminent, he never fell. He never mistook the truth that the Catholicism of France was, in its way, no less progressive than the Protestantism of England ; that the true ends of both countries could not be served by opposition; that their cordial union was essential to the security and welfare of Europe. As Richelieu had continued the policy of Henry in France, Cromwell recalled to life the policy of Eliza- beth in England ; and the lives of the two wisest of the modern rulers of England, and the two wisest who, in modern times, have ruled France, thus fall in their main notes into perfect harmony and natural sequence. We come now to the disastrous epoch when all union was destroyed by the fatal influences which had long been gathering within and around the doomed monarchy of France. The latter portion of the reign of Louis XIV., as the pacific influence of the great Colbert declines, ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 79 brings us to this disastrous change. It is no less than the contradiction of the policy which the great men of France had upheld for a century, and the annihila- tion of her well-earned place and influence. The later years of the Grand Monarque form just that period of her history in which France is the farthest from the true political leadership of Europe, at the lowest point of her national greatness. Spurred on by his own mean arrogance and by intriguing bigots, the king, whose duty it was, and whose pride it had once been, to follow the steps of Henry IY. and Sully, of Richelieu, Mazarin, and Colbert, passed over with his whole force to the enemy ; called round himself the retrograde powers which it had been the glory of his throne to have curbed, and used the influence which, to protect Europe from oppression, had been con- ceded to France, in the very work of making France the oppressor of Europe. South Germany practically passed over to the side of freedom, and France inherited and extended the sinister traditions of Spain. Dazzled by the power which his predecessors had won in the cause of pro- gress, he turned its forces to the cause of repression. For Europe nothing was left but signal retribution on the apostate dynasty; and the heroic resolution of the great Dutch chief, in whom lived again the an- tagonist of Philip, and the daring genius of Marl- borough, gave us the few amongst our triumphs over France to which Englishmen can look back with un- mixed pride. The true headship of Europe, moral and intel- lectual, which the character and genius of Elizabeth and of Cromwell for a season had twice before given her, passed over for a season distinctly to England. 80 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. During the whole of the century preceding the Re- volution, the movement of Europe is speculative, religious, industrial, and social, rather than political. Political action is feeble and confused, and but one great character occupies the field. Yet whilst it is plain that England bore a large, at times the largest, share in the scientific and industrial movement, hi the political sphere she no less manifestly possessed the casting vote, the reserve force, the ultimate ap- peal of Europe. During the period of ignoble intrigue which inter- venes between the peace of Utrecht and the French revolution, it would be useless to look for any high, or indeed any settled, political purpose. In the col- lapse of all political aims and convictions, the relations of states are reduced to a mere struggle for material advantages, on the side of England to a blind and pro- fligate struggle for maritime ascendency and colonial empire. This much, however, is clear. The criminal extravagance of Louis XIV. once bitterly avenged, France tends feebly to recover her natural ground; and the English and the French statesmen, or rather the feeble diplomatists of the day, again tend towards a real alliance, watchful and broken as it was. Wai- pole indeed a statesman whose sagacious zeal for the general welfare of England outweighs the corrupt means with which he bent a corrupt aristocracy into reason succeeded during the long years in which he governed England in maintaining unbroken a cordial alliance with France. When the jealousy of a worth- less cabal forced him to surrender, first his principles and shortly afterwards his power, it was Spain, not France, which was the object of the national antipathy, or rather of the national cupidity. ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 81 The triple alliance, the quadruple alliance, both equally point to the fact that, though the old European parties are almost extinguished, the tradition of Eng- land and France as allies against the reactionary powers was not wholly forgotten. It is even some compensation to France for the humiliation of en- during such rulers as the Regent Dubois and Fleury, that they had the good sense to cling fast to this prin- ciple ; so that their ignoble scheming was far less injurious to their country than that of the ambitious bigots who succeeded them. Unhappily the direction of France passed into the hands of men who, to cor- ruption hardly less than theirs and far inferior vigour, added the retrograde ambition of Louis XIV. France again, under the guidance of incorrigible fanatics or the creatures of royal debauchery, is seen to pass to the side of the oft-stricken House of Austria and the Bourbons of Spain. Aghast at the sight of the new Prussia, which by a happy return to her traditionary policy she had assisted to found, the blind successors of Richelieu joined in the ill-starred coalition to crush the only modern king who was worthy to be his peer. England, in the main, corrects the balance which the wretched incapacity of French policy is continu- ally unsettling. In the main her action in Europe, always more pacific than those of the other states, though for causes which do her small honour, tends in Europe to the side of order, freedom, and national independence. Beyond the limits of the Western system, it is true, her policy is one long and dark story of colonial aggression and commercial rapacity. But within it she maintains the part which, with the superior advantage of her position, France had in the previous century more systematically supported. She G 82 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. resists the reactionary ambition of Spain ; she steadily opposes all further extension of the House of Austria ; she cultivates the alliance, where it is possible, of France ; she is favourable to, but watchful of, the rise of Prussia ; she interferes to prevent the premature and selfish dismemberment of Austria herself; she turns again to prevent the tyrannical attempt at the dismemberment of Prussia. In every treaty and almost every alliance her might is felt; in the main it is exerted in the interests of European progress, her deeper energies and thoughts being concentrated upon the task of founding her colonial empire. It is a policy which, had it been followed con- sistently by free statesmen and not by successions of parliamentary partisans, might have been accounted almost wise ; and had it been less deeply vitiated by the lust of mercantile aggrandisement, might almost have been remembered as honourable. Illumined now by the sterling sense of Walpole, now by the grand but overweening character of Chatham, now by the heroism of Rodney and Wolfe, with all its vices and its virtues, it was the policy of an aristo- cracy which, whilst offering to the middle classes as the price of rule the plunder of the seas and of the East, was not wholly incapable of directing the action of a free and progressive people. Unstable and per- sonal as that policy was, and at times frightfully un- scrupulous, it was frequently betrayed into hostility with France ; but no reasonable student of history can judge it when taken in the main as any thing but the feeble reproduction of the policy of our greater statesmen, the policy of upholding the course of liberty and national independence in Europe against the retrograde powers and against attempts at violent ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 83 aggression. Assuredly no candid mind can judge it (again when looked at broadly as a whole) as a policy of settled antagonism to France, as based on any deep difference of principle or any inveterate antipathy of race. Such was the state of things at the moment of the great crisis,' the long-gathering revolution of Europe. The whole fabric of the degenerate mon- archy of France, with the spiritual and temporal forces which had gathered round it, were overturned ; and the wrongs which the Louises and their courtiers had done to France, to peace, to freedom, and to rea- son were fiercely avenged. The violence of the crisis Was extreme; but it was clear then, and it grows ever clearer to us now, that amidst it France was working out the legitimate issue of her whole past and entering on the system of the future. Again, and now in a far more emphatic manner, the genius of French civilisation carried her to the head of the European movement; and this time it was a headship at once political, social, and intellectual. She had to call into life and to sustain the principle of rule in accordance with national necessities, which has re- modelled, and is still remodelling, the state system of Europe ; she had the yet more difficult and the longer task of reconstructing society on the basis of organised labour; she had the leading part in the most arduous task of all, that which both precedes and must sys- temise the rest, the task of reducing into practice the new philosophy of society, which the progress of European thought had evolved ; she had under- taken to lead the way towards the regeneration of the political doctrines, of the national unity, of the social system, the law, the administration, the industry, 84 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. and the religion of Europe. The effort was made most imperfectly and most storinily, with the aid of the leading minds and characters of Europe consci- ously cooperating for a century, in spite of organised opposition without and chaotic confusion within ; and Europe still owes to her a debt of gratitude for the sacrifices and agonies she endured in the spasms of this momentous birth. The true nature of this great movement, and the part which England might have played in it, was seen by the greater spirits, and by the national in- stinct in this country and elsewhere, and felt even by the abler section of our governing aristocracy. Un- fortunately for England and for the world, the voice of Fox and Macintosh was drowned by the selfish ter- rors of the dominant majority, and the whole force of England was thrown into the reactionary scale. The tragic pathos of Burke and the lofty resolution of Pitt, in doing battle for the ancient order, almost blind us yet to the fatal badness of their cause. Many a doomed system has given a sort of melan- choly grandeur to its last defenders. But neither the character or the genius of Cicero, of Sixtus, of Parma, or of Strafford can make us forget that their success would have arrested the progress of mankind. After the mean and hesitating policy of preceding statesmen, there is something of at least grand fana- ticism in the furious attack of England on revolu- tionary France, and unquestionably much that is heroic in the latter period, when the war had become one of liberty and of defence. The English aristo- cracy committed the blunder and the crime which had ruined the monarchy of France, with even less ground of excuse and (to Europe) far more disas- EXGLAXD AND FRANCE. . 85 trous result. At the close of the seventeenth cen- tury the ambition of Louis XIV. had attempted to use the position which the history of his country had given him in the work of destroying that position and undoing that history. At the close of the eighteenth the panic of the governing class of England turned the force which, in the name of industry, progress, peace, and freedom, they were permitted to direct, to the task of crushing out a new phase of all of these at once. Doubtless it was a revolution, and a por- tentous one one destined to modify their whole position and power which they were called upon to welcome. But they were themselves the product of a successful revolution, and were forced by every principle they asserted to carry it to its natural con- clusion. Deliberately, at the most critical moment of modern history, they chose the wrong cause ; and again, of the two nations the leaders of civilisation, one passed over with its whole force to the side of the enemy. That the official course of English policy was on the wrong side, has been demonstrated by events. Temporarily, outwardly, its resistance was successful. It succeeded in reestablishing the an- cient monarchy ; it succeeded in crushing and almost in proscribing the new spirit. In the blind settle- ment known as the Treaties of Vienna they thought to establish the old order permanently. Every act of that settlement has been undone and is undoing before our eyes. The successors of the English re- actionaries are now leagued with the successors of the revolutionary chief to carry out the principles which that revolution inaugurated. It is in vain now to point to the fatal and frightful extravagances which accompanied the actual crisis. The revolu- 86 . ENGLAND AND FRANCE. tion was carried out under conditions so adverse and special that no judgment can be passed as to how far these extravagances were inherent in it or were induced by circumstances. The French nation were forced to carry out the greatest and most arduous of all social changes under foreign aggression more formidable than any modern people has endured. France, in a word, was martyred by and for her sister nations. To the careful student of the Revolution, the spasms of the Reign of Terror keep cadence, beat for beat, with the tramp of the foreign invaders. The culminating agony of the struggle within coin- cides almost to a few days with the height of the danger from without. As Europe advances in arms, the murders in the prisons begin; as the coalition thunders forth its threats, the delirium is at its height; as the defeated invaders retreat, the guillo- tine descends. It is in vain also now to pretend that the Coalition itself was a work of defence. It is a pretext too shal- low to be now repeated that France in the hour of her extreme prostration, utterly disorganised, with- out an army or a navy, government or supplies; without credit, money, or resources, was becoming a danger to Europe, was meditating general aggres- sion or dominion. The trope of her great leader, Danton, is as true as it is wild. France only took up the gage of battle that was hurled at her, and flung down before Europe the head of a king. But the attack on France was no more one of legitimate de- fence than the attack of the northern autocrats on Poland was defensive. In both cases it was a con- spiracy at once to crush out a freedom which they ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 87 dreaded, and to divide the spoil which they coveted. Never had people been so cruelly and wantonly bested. Having in pursuit of a dominant idea disarmed her- self and reduced herself almost to helplessness, with scarcely a trained soldier under her standards or a general of division who could be trusted, France found herself the object of attack from a coalition of almost every state in Europe, with four or five armies of as many powers upon her soil, her officials corrupted, her provinces stirred into revolt, her ports blockaded, her commerce destroyed, her fortresses razed, her soil honeycombed with foreign conspiracies, her name, her national character, government, institutions, and prin- ciples held up to violent invective from evety corner of Europe, half a million of men in arms with the avowed object of annihilating her as a nation, and fomenting with rancorous energy every form of civic confusion, discord, and treachery. And this was done in the name of a cause which the right hand of that Coalition has utterly discarded. Of late years, in the eyes of certain schools, England has been even more identified with the leading principles of this great change than France herself. Mistaken as this is, it serves to show how completely England has aban- doned the Coalition. With or -without the aid of England, as a fact the spirit of the Revolution, in a moral sense, has triumphed. The principle that the permanent good of the entire people is paramount; that nations have no solid basis except as they repre- sent the wants and desires of an aggregate race ; that all rule is tyrannical which is alien to the popular will; that national greatness is based on industrial and not on military activity; that public life must come to embrace all members of the nation, educated, 00 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. trained, and organised for this end; that by steady but incessant steps the whole of our modern institu- tions, European, national, and social, must be remo- delled upon the new basis, such are the principles which are now the very maxims of all who believe at once in progress and in order, whether in France or England, in any part of civilised Europe ; and these are at bottom the principles of the Revolution. Until these principles are frankly accepted by those who rule this country, and until they still further acknowledge that with France lies their initiation and their earliest and fullest development, the action of England in Europe must remain vacillating, inex- plicable, and neutral. This spirit has already deeply penetrated the brain and the conscience of this coun- try; but its cordial adoption by any political party will at once make that party the natural directors of its policy. The traditional Whig statesmen have just courage enough to repudiate the language of the Co- alition, but not enough to welcome the vital strength of the Revolution. All who refuse this are disquali- fied at once for any useful foreign policy. But the moment that those who rule here have determined to adopt it, the relations of England and France at once become consistent, intelligible, and cordial. Their historical attitude is resumed ; they again pursue their common work with the same spirit, but in differ- ent modes the common work with which the greater rulers of each country are closely identified ; the work which for three centuries they have carried on without serious interruption, except on the two occa- sions when the arrogance of Louis and the fanaticism of Pitt drove their respective people headlong on the path of evil. ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 89 Since the peace the history of the relations of England with France is the history of the renuncia- tion of all the principles with which the Coalition entered into war. In a moral sense, and to the po- litical student, France has redressed her material de- feat by the triumph of her social ideas. Waterloo has been thrice avenged by the victors combining with the vanquished to enforce the principles of which that battle-field was once thought to be the grave. Every one of the great acts of the drama of Euro- pean history has been a fresh gain to the cause of the Revolution, to that of nationality, republicanism, social and international fraternity; public opinion, justice, and moral right. Since the days of Canning, whether directed by Whig or Tory politicians, it has been a question only whether the policy of England should welcome these principles with greater or less frankness. So soon as the military ambition of imperialism was crushed and the bitterness which its suppression produced was extinct, the policy of England and France reverted to its ancient convergence of pur- pose, and both resumed something of their natural functions. The negotiations respecting Poland in 1831, abortive as they were, and feeble as they exhibit the statesmen of England to have been, bring before us France again in her former position as the promo- ter of the cause of freedom and nationality in Europe, but as hoping to succeed in it only through the co- operation of England. On each occasion on which the undying Polish struggle has been felt in 1846, in 1848, in 1855, and 1864 the same thing has been seen, and on each occasion with increasing distinct- ness. Putting aside the miserable squabbles arising 90 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. out of extra -European embroilments and dynastic intrigues, on the greater questions of European poli- tics, the policy of England and France has tended to agreement in the interests of order and progress. That it has resulted in so little was due largely to the peculiar timidity and feebleness of the poli- ticians who directed the foreign policy of the two countries. During the convulsion of 1848 the same causes were perpetually at work, but were frustrated of any practical result by the same personal indecision and incoherence of aim. The accession of a really strong hand to the policy of France, coinciding with something like a strong and popular administration in England, has for the first time enabled these prin- ciples to bear fruits of any worth. The Crimean war begun by France mainly for dynastic and military, by England for commercial and Asiatic, ends slowly became, under the forming principle of public opi- nion, and by sheer force of the natural truth of the re- lation, a really European movement, of which France and England were at once the heads and the arms. Unsatisfactory as much of this history is, it was at bottom the combination of the West for European objects under its natural leaders. To the perplexity of some of the politicians engaged, the closing phase of this war, in the Conference of Paris, rose to a moral dignity and providence which for the first time realised in outline the future congresses and settle- ments of the West. The regeneration of Italy, the natural sequence of the Conference of Paris and which forms with it the bright side of the second empire is but a continuation of the same policy. In spite of jealousies and caprices, the restoration of Italy has been the work of England and of France ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 91 together; a work to which Napoleon has given the initiative, but the issue of which is in the hands of the entire English and the entire French nation. In the recent Polish and Danish wars, in nearly every European question which arises, the same principles are apparent. Now, as so often before, the nations seem to force this part spontaneously on the two heads of the Western system. That it hitherto has had results so small is due to the extreme difficulty of the situation and to the personal unfitness of the politicians. To Napoleon III. it must be conceded that he recognises this principle more steadily than any statesman in England or in France. His rule, for the first time in recent history, has brought it to efficient results, and each year of it has strengthened and illustrated the principle. His strong and fixed desire for a European congress is but one form of it ; a desire which must be one day realised. In the mean time each year teems with proofs that the set of all public opinion in Europe and of general events is to- wards an active combination between England and France to realise without convulsion the necessary chanires in its condition. III. After tracing the course of English traditions and statesmen in the past, we may turn to the actual position of England in the state system of Europe. If the study of the past guides us to understand the true ends of a right national policy, that of the pre- sent alone can supply us with materials for attaining those ends. Here occurs a difficulty which is often fatal to 92 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. inquiries of the kind. A petty and antiquated notion of patriotism is still so rooted in the popular mind as to make serious reasoning on the subject difficult. It is still not felt to be discreditable to bluster about national merits and qualities, in which men but half believe and which they quite refuse to discuss. Men who are incapable of the coarser forms of bravado in which journalists indulge, calmly assume as an un- questionable premiss the inherent superiority of their country. This same spirit in individuals is justly stigmatised as an odious failing : in national morality it passes for half a virtue. Devotion to national interests is just as capable of taking a brutalising form as devotion to our personal interests, if not ruled by wider motives. And patriotism, which as contrasted with personal selfishness is a good, as contrasted with love of the human race is an evil. Unless subordinated to a nobler duty, it is a mere collective selfishness, capable of every meanness and cruelty that private selfishness begets. In days when in international affairs religion does little but fan antipathies, and morality is so often invoked to justify them, we hardly hear of patriotism, except when some class or set of men have on hand some special scheme of rapacity and violence. Of all the noble qualities which this feeling under favourable conditions and in due guidance might inspire, we hardly ever hear. Of true pride in the national honour, of personal sacrifice for the public welfare, of zeal for collective duties, of faith in the grander traditions of our history, we hear little under the guise of patriotism. Sound political truths can make no way until this stupid form of conceit is judged in nations as it is judged in men. Right public action, true public spirit, and national ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 93 self-respect, are utterly impossible in a people who have not sufficient manliness to understand their own real rank, their weaknesses, their strength, and their duties. To mystify all political problems by an un- reasoning and arrogant egoism is humiliating and enfeebling to a nation, inexcusable in their rulers, and criminal in their teachers. The only patriotism worthy of intelligent citizens is the resolution to act up to their national duties and to carry out the true ends of the national genius. Men who feel themselves ready to make personal sacrifices for their country's true honour and high name must disregard the spite- ful charge of want of patriotism from literary or political demagogues. Solid and reasonable principles of public policy and national duty can be framed only in a spirit of judicial and scientific inquiry, and in the consciousness of an affection for fatherland which means something else than cupidity disguised by bluster. Let us proceed, therefore, to weigh the place of England amongst the states of Europe arid her relations with them, without caring to conciliate the grosser forms of national arrogance and conceit. The first great fact which strikes us in the actual state of Europe is the fact that the Western states, when viewed in their relation to the rest of the world, form a loose but real species of confederacy. Since the close of the great revolutionary convulsion it has been growing more and more obvious that there is amongst the members of the European state system an increasing sense of natural connection and of common duties towards the general cause of civilisation. The association of states, in the main identical with the limits of the Western Roman empire, in the main coinciding with the ground covered by feudalism and 94 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. by Catholicism, the same which took part in. the great religious struggles of the sixteenth century and in the great commercial and territorial wars of the eighteenth century, has been gradually assuming a shape more real, more conscious, and more perma- nent. Its mission as leading the van of civilisation is no less apparent. In the legislation and treaties with respect to the slave-trade, in the various European councils and congresses, in the growing tendency to appeal to European councils for settlements, in the constant resort to international conferences on sub- ordinate points, and in the multiplicity of purely civil, industrial, commercial, and sanitary treaties, we can trace the progress of the West towards a practical confederation. In the waters of Japan, partially so in China, we see this sentiment carried into joint action in spite of national and traditional rivalries. Towards the Turkish and the Moorish races we can still see the same spirit at work, disturbed by yet keener and more complicated jealousies. To America we see Europe occasionally assume the attitude of a corporate whole. America indeed is in justice as truly a part of this confederation in all that affects its dealings with the yellow, red, and dark races, as England herself; but her geographical separation and her peculiar history practically remove her from purely continental questions and mere European in- terests. Lastly, although a long course of reactionary blunders in the statesmen of Western Europe had for a time confounded the Muscovite power in this asso- ciation of states the events of the last decade the results of the Crimean war her internal social con- vulsions the Polish struggle and the profound horror and estrangement of the civilised world which ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 95 it caused, have proved that the vanguard of the human family and the destinies of the race are found as yet in the Western section of Europe alone. In this association of nations it requires little reasoning to show that England and France hold a preponderating place. By their material force, by their industrial greatness, by their national cohesion and energy, no less than by their traditions and their prestige, they are marked out as the twin chiefs of the European system. Great promise in the future is found in other nations and races. As great and even greater elements of moral or intellectual emi- nence belong to other people ; but no reasonable mind can doubt that, for all the practical ends of actual politics, England and France have a distinct preeminence in Europe. In that union of innate strength, material resources, moral prestige, historical renown, and popular enlightenment which political leadership in these days implies, no other state at present can distantly compare with these two. On every ground Russia can make no fair claim to such a place. As a power semi-oriental and semi- civilised she is clearly outside the pale of our modern political life. A nation still struggling in the throes of serfdom, and to the very existence of which a military autocracy seems essential, can interfere in the movement of our political activity to nothing but a sinister end. The heterogeneous soldiery of Prussia and Austria can mislead no one as to their real weakness as political forces. Besides these, no other Power in Europe can pretend to the material and moral weight which a leading Power must combine. On the other hand, the influence exercised both by England and by France in their respective spheres is 96 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. very real and definite. The European state system itself is shaken by several conflicting principles, which complicate the relations of its members and often neutralise the action of the whole. Catholicism and Protestantism, with much diminished vigour, still control and agitate it on periodical occasions. The great religious struggle is being gradually lost in the new struggle of established Christianity against philosophy and science. But the antagonism of the Catholic and the Protestant interests, which in the minor questions of European politics in the deve- lopment of Belgium, Scandinavia, Switzerland, and Spain is constantly but irregularly at work, rises occasionally, as in the Polish contest, into a feature of extreme importance. It assumes even deeper significance in the whole Italian question and that of Papal independence, a question which underlies and will outlast any temporary solution of the military occupation of Rome. An antagonism somewhat similar in its extent, somewhat deeper in its effects, though far less de- fined, is that division of race into the great classes of the Latin and the Teutonic. But easily as the feeling of race disappears or is neutralised under strong pressure, its subtle and persistent influence, so closely connected with every element of civilisation, produces a real antagonism, or rather coordination, amongst the Powers of Europe. No practical states- man can afford to underestimate its force, for it expresses real and profound varieties of national cha- racter. And it would be an idle dream to suppose that a Latin and a Teutonic people will for ages exhibit the same affinity as that which exists between two peoples of the same origin. Connected with the ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 97 religious and ethnological, and nearly identical in area, is another dualism that between the peoples who have modified and retained the feudal organi- sation of society and those who have transformed it into a new social system; where the hierarchy of birth and property is in full ascendency, as in Ger- many, or under legal and constitutional restrictions, as in England ; and where it has given place totally, as in France, partially, as in Spain and Italy, to social equality and military autocracy. Akin to this is the contrast between the prin- ciples of hereditary and of republican government, between nations with whom the aristocratic and monarchic system is in full vitality, as in Germany and England, and those Avith whom, as in France, the popular will reigns supreme, more or less identi- fied with an individual dictator. There is, again, the struggle between industrialism and militarism; be- tween a localised and a centralised form of adminis- tration; between parliamentary and bureaucratic in- stitutions. All of these are principles which combine to form something like a dual system in the Western group of nations, which divide them, more or less equally, and with many cross - divisions, into two camps. They are principles, moreover, which sub- divide each nation within itself, and separate them into rival and counterbalancing parties. At the head of these two great groups of nations in Europe, of these two principles which divide each nation, stand respectively England and France. One or other of them is the fair representative and type of every one of these elements of European society, though neither expresses them in a quite exclusive form. Round England centre the sympathies of all in H 98 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. Europe that is Teutonic, Protestant, conservative, par- liamentary, and commercial. France, in like manner, is the centre of the Latin, the Catholic, the democratic, the centralised, and the revolutionary element. The action of England and of France is so closely identified with these respective principles that neither power alone can give any continuous support to a movement identified with the principles of the other party. Over the smaller seaboard peoples of Europe the influence of England is in the ascendant. Over Den- mark, Holland, Scandinavia, over Portugal and Tur- key, the prestige of England reigns as in a congenial soil. This is the result of an obvious identity of in- terest or pursuit, and the fact that these smaller Powers are in an especial manner brought face to face with her material strength and maritime do- minion. Scandinavia, Holland, and North Germany see in her the principal and most systematically Pro- testant Power. Prussia. Holland, and Italy neces- sarily look towards her for the type of those parlia- mentary and constitutional systems which they seem bent on developing for themselves. It is part of the traditions of the Austrian crown that it owes its very existence to England; and hateful to our ears as is the aristocratic dogma of our " ancient alliance" with Austria, to her, in spite of her irritation, it is a grim necessity to cling to and to uphold. For to England turn the eyes of all who dread violent change, as well as of all who apprehend aggression. All feel that England is the only one of the great Powers of Europe who can gain nothing and who will not profit by dy- nastic and territorial revolution on the Continent. England (which in the East is the great disturber of nations) in Europe is naturally identified with com- ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 99 merce, Industry, and peace. Her government again, as the only government of Europe which has never suf- fered an external overthrow, and for two centuries has suffered no approach to an internal convulsion, is the great symbol of stability in the West. Her crown by far the oldest and most illustrious of all the crowns of Europe, as being a great European monarchy at a time when Hapsburgs and Brandenburgs, Romanoffs and Dukes of Savoy, were robber chiefs ; when Italy was a network of republics, Germany a collection of baronies, and Spain was occupied by Moors is now, since the extinction of the shadow of the Empire and the fall of the House of Capet, the great centre of all the historical traditions. In a word, England is felt to represent and to support upon the Continent the sentiment of order, national stability, recognised law, and historical permanence, of personal freedom, of free speech, of equal justice, of administrative independ- ence, the expansion of industry, free trade, and com- mercial intercourse, the maintenance of ancient rights and resistance to wanton change, the independence of the smallest member of the European family of na- tions. It is a leading and a noble part that she plays amongst them; though the least reflection will show that it is but one side of the European movement, but one element of our modern civilisation of which she is the recognised organ, and that one not the most characteristic. We turn now to France, which in the other great side of the European movement possesses a still more unquestioned predominance. She is the recognised head of the Latin race, between the members of which, for several reasons, historical as well as po- litical, there is a much stronger bond than exists 100 ENGLAND AND FKANCE. between nations of Teutonic origin. She is the real head of Catholicism, partly as being by far the most powerful of the Catholic Powers, partly because she holds the Papacy in her hand. Quite apart from the actual muster-roll of her armies, which may vary with political circumstances and parties, she is un- questionably the first military power of the Conti- nent, and that by the surest of all titles the native genius of her people for war. None contest her claim to be the second naval power in Europe, not so much from the number and equipment of her ships of war, her Gloires and her Cherbourg's, but again from the high aptitude of her sons for scientific warfare whe- ther on land or sea, the extent of her coasts, the ex- cellence of her ports, her commercial activity, and her ancient maritime traditions. In industrial de- velopment, in manufacturing energy, the French people are second only to ourselves, and if organi- sation and art are regarded in industry, almost our equals. All these are, it is true, but minor requi- sites of national greatness, but they are indispensable, and without them no nation can pretend, in our pre- sent state of opinion, to occupy a prominent rank. The great distinctive feature of France as a nation is, however, the very simple one of her geographical position. Her border closely abuts on at least seven of the European states. In the system of Western Europe she distinctly occupies the centre, and is the only Power in close local connection with England. Local connection, of course, is of great importance in governing international relations. No one who re- flects on the innumerable channels through which movements, social, political, and literary, radiate from Paris throughout Europe, can fail to recognise the ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 101 importance of occupying this geographical centre. Let us conceive the relative weight of an insurrec- tion or a change of government in Paris and in any other capital in Europe. There is but one city of Europe towards which gravitate the cultivated and thoughtful of every nation, in the movements, ideas, arts, and habits of which all take a greater or a less interest. Let us compare the relative degree of publicity and value which popularly attaches to any political scheme, any social, historical, or politi- cal theory propounded in Paris, and one propounded in any existing city. The Parisian press, publi- cists, and jurists alone can be called common to Europe. The undisputed acceptance of the French language as the common political and international medium is, if we give its true place to language, almost by itself decisive. Let Frenchmen assert a statement, however contrary to fact; promulgate a social system, however chimerical; or be suspected of a design, however extravagant, all for a time will hold their ground in the mind of Europe with vita- lity out of proportion to their merit. It does not advance the question to insist that all this is but to the discredit of the other peqples of Europe; that they should travel to other cities, use some other language, read some other writers, study other arts, ideas, and movements than those of France. All we are now concerned with is the fact. As a matter of fact, taking one people with another and one subject with another, the bulk of the people of Europe do turn in the questions of social life in an especial manner to France. However various the causes, trivial or irra- tional as they may be, if politically and morally Europe can be said to be one whole, and if one whole, 102 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. to have a common centre, the instinct of the greater number points for that centre to Paris. This is precisely one of those questions most likely to be embarrassed by strong prejudice, and on which, from national feeling and from its own great complex- ity, it is most difficult to preserve a judicial fairness of mind. But no political writer would be worthy of the name who had not thoroughly weighed it with conscientious and patient discrimination. Let us try to correct any personal predilection and antipathy by the calm test of historical fact, and see if there be any thing in the ancient position of France to ex- plain or support her modern pretensions. A very simple question seems crucial. Can it be said that if the history of Europe since the fall of the Roman Empire be surveyed as a whole, this history would be so completely eviscerated by the loss of all mention of any other European country as it would be by the loss of that of France ? Once blot France out of the historical map, and it would become unintelli- gible. A slight effort of the imagination may assist us to understand the case ; and if we can conceive as effaced the very memory of Charlemagne, of the House of Capet and of Bpurbon, of the first Crusade, of Louis IX., of Louis XL, of Henry IV., of Riche- lieu, Colbert, and Louis XI V., of the Convention, the Republic of '92, and of the two Napoleons, we can estimate the relative value of the residuum of Euro- pean history. The country which for 1000 years has filled this space in the minds of men must have gained a real, if unrecognised, prerogative in the comitia of nations. Nor must another great peculiarity of France be overlooked. She is essentially European. Her in- ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 103 terests and policy must necessarily be guided on European bases. Not so exclusively European that she is without points of contact with the other conti- nents, she is still free from the embarrassment and distraction which colonial and maritime interests in- troduce into general questions. The extra-European interests of England are so enormous that they sel- dom leave her free to pursue a purely European policy. Russia, in one half of her vast dominions, is the mistress of mere Asiatics. Neither Prussia nor Austria have any interests beyond their own continent; but they are both so exclusively conti- nental and inland, that it diminishes rather than in- creases their influence here. France, on the other hand, has enough to connect her with transmarine races, but not enough to disturb her action at home. Whilst England and Russia have wide maritime and Oriental interests, those of France are strictly con- tinental, European, and concentrated. Yet another consideration, and one of an import- ance which it is almost impossible to exaggerate. In. estimating the moral weight and even the material strength which any nation can bring to the great questions of European politics, nothing is more impor- tant than the greater or less degree in which they are chargeable with national oppression, and the character for moderation and unselfishness which they possess. Let us read the protocols of the Treaty of Paris, and contrast the moral weight of Count Buol with that of Count Cavour ; and even remember the moral power of England at the Congress of Vienna, which her unselfish, though mistaken, policy procured her. Of the actual five European Powers, England and France alone are decently free from this fatal weak- 104 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. ness. The crimes of the Russian domination in Po- land, Lapland, and Turkey; of Austrian domination in Galicia, in Hungary, in Venetia; of Prussian do- mination in Posen and Denmark, identify these three Powers with oppression, and colour all their action and their character in Europe. On England herself the memory of her Indian aggressions, subjugations, and revolts, her Asiatic empire, her Chinese, her Japanese, her perennial colonial wars, her monstrous maritime rapacity and arrogance, hang as a dead weight, dragging down her fame. There is but one modern nation which never closes the temple of Janus, and that nation is England. Nor can an old man recall the period at which British soldiers were not engaged in some corner of the world. We esteem ourselves happy if we chance not to be engaged in several. As I write, English soldiers are in the field in four distinct wars of race in as many great divi- sions of the globe. To us a source of pride as well as a supposed means of gain, these ceaseless foreign expeditions damage our honour in Europe as much as they disturb and weaken our policy. We have, too, our special weakness. Blinded by long habit, and conscious of at least good intentions in these latter years, the English nation forgets its position in Ire- land, as that of a dominant race still hated by a sub- jugated nation, still alien in religion, manners, and traditions, and loaded by the memory of seven cen- turies of selfish misgovernment. We jest almost at the thought of being ourselves national oppressors at home, and for the moment our confidence is just. But Europe has not learned the difference between our government in Ireland now and our government as it has been for seven centuries ; and the oppressors ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 105 of the Magyar, the Venetian, and the Pole can still point biting retorts at the perplexed rulers of the Irish Kelt. France in Europe is almost free from any similar weakness. Her occupation of Rome is a special and complex case, which, with all its evils, is yet in its nature temporary, and not in its form op- pressive. Her aggressions and domination in Algeria form a fatal wound in her side, less damaging to her than our own Oriental and maritime oppression, because neither so incessant or so colossal, and not so injurious to mankind, not flung broadcast over the earth. This great wrong and cause of wrong, this grand national blunder, this wretched military and dynastic caprice, once redressed and undone, the case of France as an aggressor, but for Nice, stands almost clear. As it is (and this is for opinion almost every thing) France is the only one of the five great Powers which, neither by alien domination or imperfect incorporation, op- presses, insults, or misgoverns any one of the races of Europe; which has neither a Warsaw, a Hungary, a Venetia, or a Posen, neither a Gibraltar or an Ireland. It is but a corollary of this which appears in her wonderful national cohesion and unity. France may be said to be the only perfectly homologous nation in Europe. Russia with her cancer in Poland, Austria with her wen in Hungary, stand at one end of the scale ; France stands at the other. The Spanish and the Italian populations are both cohesive in a high degree ; but the unity of neither is equal to that of France. The Piedmontese and the Neapolitan have not learned to feel as the children of one fatherland ; the Moor, the Goth, and the Kelt in Spain are not yet wholly amalgamated. Prussia with her patch- work of duchies; Austria with her hostile races; 106 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. little Switzerland with her trilingual feuds; even England with her Irish difficulties, can none of them pretend to the complete fusion, the organic unity, the intense concentration which binds together as one man the forty millions of the French race. But there is another consideration of a very dif- ferent kind, which, were all the preceding conditions different from what they are, would suffice to mark off France as possessing a special function in Europe. In France is found the origin, the centre, and the im- pulse of that Revolution which is as truly European as it is French. This is not the place to analyse or discuss this great historical movement ; it is sufficient for our purpose that it is an axiom acknowledged by all competent inquirers that this Revolution is at once the issue of the past and the cradle of the future civilisation of Europe ; that France is but the scene of its acute crisis, the centre from which it is destined to radiate through the European system. The tho- rough comprehension of this, the key of all modern history, is the first and indispensable qualification for a statesman ; and the vacillations and helplessness of the politicians of the old school are mainly due to the fact that they attempt to deal with the problems of Europe whilst ignoring the first conditions of their solution. To officials bred up in the purblind doc- trines of Pitt and Castlereagh the French Revolution may appear as a mere national rebellion, once big with portents and horrors, but long since crushed or ex- hausted. It is time that politicians saw it, as histo- rical students see it, to be a real regeneration of modern society, of which as yet nothing but the ini- tial convulsions are past, and in which as yet but one people has fully participated. ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 107 That Revolution in its political aspect implies the abolition of every form of hereditary government, whether resting on force, tradition, class, or caste, and the substitution for it of a government of per- sonal fitness, actively recognised by the governed, and maintained by them in the sole interest of the common social progress. This involves the gradual extinction of all modes of political rule derived from birth, of the hereditary principle in all its phases, whe- ther monarchic, feudal, or industrial, and the resettle- ment of the state system on national and geographical bases. It implies in its social aspect the extinction of the arbitrary classification according to the aristo- cratic hierarchy, and the substitution of the natural classification of personal merit. In its moral aspect it implies the subjection of individual propensities to a recognised code of social duty. In the intellectual aspect it implies a common system of belief, resting on free and accepted demonstration, and the main- tenance of that faith by an organised system of edu- cation. This conception, as a whole, of a regenerated social existence has penetrated in a general way France alone among the nations, and even her but incompletely. Yet no unpledged observer doubts the degree to which it has modified the others, and the certainty of its ultimate establishment in all. Those who watch events from the ground of history rather than party can see in the spasm which shook Europe in 1830; in the revolutions which convulsed it in 1848; in the revulsion of public opinion since the close of the great war which separates us as by a gulf from the ideas of Alexander, Pitt, and Metternich ; in the resurrection of Italy as a nation ; in the revival of Spain; in the disintegration of the German prin- 108 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. cipalities; in the mode in which the movements and ideas of Europe react on our own home politics and thoughts, and still more on those of others; in the subterranean surging of the revolutionary forces from Glasgow to Naples, from Warsaw to Madrid, the sure signs of this stupendous movement, its might, and its centre-point. And a politician is distinctly disqualified for his task who ignores the importance of this principle in all political questions whatever, or ignores the truth that France is at once its embodiment and its apostle. It results from all the preceding considerations from her geographical position, from her military, naval, and industrial renown, from her language, history, literature, and general prestige, from the spontaneous adoption of her ideas, tone, and aims, but chiefly from her being the centre of the great movement that France possesses a priority or initi- ative in the progressive civilisation of Europe, very difficult to define with exactness, but which cannot be gainsay ed. In a subject like this, nothing can be less in place than puerile comparisons between na- tions ; but only the shallowest vanity can prevent us from determining the relative duties of each nation. England and France, like the rest, have each their parts; and neither would be competent to fulfil the office of the other. No thoughtful reader will see in this statement any crude classification of nations, or the affectation of adjudging absolute inferiority or superiority to any. All that is here implied by the initiative of France is the truth visible in present facts, and naturally to be expected from the survey of the past, that most of the ideas which move mo- dern society are first or most strongly enunciated in France ; and, on the other hand, that what the French ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 109 people proclaim is received, on the whole, with the largest share of attention by the rest of Europe. A statement so simple and so like a truism can scarcely awaken the most sensitive self-love; and English- men may explain it as they please, but they can hardly venture to deny it. It amounts to little more than to say that principles adopted in France are ex- pressed in a form and language and with an energy which are most favourable to their dissemination ; and, on the other hand, that no people in Europe have so immediate a machinery for carrying their ideas amongst others. The people who within the last 100 years succeeded in pouring their victorious armies over five countries of Europe simultaneously, and raised an empire (in a measure an empire of ideas) coextensive with the western half of the Con- tinent, have earned for any policy that they espouse a very special interest. And the country which re- presents the greatest number of the interests of mo- dern European nations, and whose movements are most rapidly felt by the greatest number of those nations; which possesses the most numerous relations with them, and stands most nearly in an intermediate position in the antagonisms which agitate them, is na- turally that country the action of which most power- fully determines that of the rest. That country is obviously France ; and if we attribute a distinct initia- tive in Europe to her, it is but to resume the familiar notion that in the public questions of Europe the atti- tude of France is awaited as of critical importance. IV. When we sum up the various conclusions which 110 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. the two modes of investigation, the historical and the political, have given us, we learn that, so far from France and England having been natural antago- nists, so far from enmity or even rivalry having been their normal condition, they have been, in the higher sense of political sympathies, inseparable col- leagues and natural allies. The greater rulers of both countries have systematically encouraged friendship between them. From the Middle Ages down to the Coalition the two countries have never been engaged in any obstinate and ineradicable an- tagonism of policy, except when all Northern Eu- rope was banded to crush the headlong ambition of Louis XIV. It may be said, if we except this period, that England has never exercised any influence in Europe at once commanding and beneficent, unless she has been acting in concert with France. The very notion of the natural antipathy and contrast between ourselves and our neighbours is a remnant only of the retrograde passions which inspired the Coalition of Pitt. To speak of France as a natural antagonist is the part of men whose views of state- craft are drawn from the later ravings of Burke, to whom history has no lessons earlier than Marlborough. Calmer reasoning and broader knowledge bring us to the very opposite belief. And if the last decade has done much to extinguish these irrational preju- dices, it is due not to the Napoleons or Palmerstons, nor even to commercial treaties and Oriental alliances, but to the fact that the canning of the revolutionary movement in France has coincided with its progress in England ; that as the area of its influence has been widened, the violence of its action has been reduced ; and France and England have been drawn together ENGLAND AND FRANCE. Ill in their natural task of coordinating the progress of Europe. Their special fitness for this duty our review of the state of Europe has suggested. We have seen that they together represent nearly all the leading interests and ideas within it; that one or other is recognised as its natural chief by nearly every state and every aggregate of states; that the strength of each depends on its being truly coordinate ; that their united force and prestige is distinctly paramount over all. Of the two the position of France is at once the more central, the more influential, and the more apt to originate. But nearly the whole strength of her position is neutralised unless England is cooperating with her; and amidst all the differences of their parts, the convergence of their real interests and tendencies is profoundly manifest. The problem before us is to establish the basis, and to define the ends which systematic cooperation requires. This will be the place to consider the proposal which has acquired importance rather from the cha- racter of its authors than its own intrinsic value. It has been growing up as a maxim with a certain vigorous and honest body of politicians, that the true policy of a country like England is to with- draw almost entirely from diplomatic or national action in any state of Europe ; that her sole duty is to be friendly with all, to have alliances and even relations with none. That such a paradox should have obtained any support, that it should have se- duced the most conscientious and sagacious of our public men, is a singular proof of the disorganisation of all political doctrines. Nothing but the aimless 112 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. imbecility into which our recent diplomacy has de- generated can explain such a blunder in men of the hio;h moral and intellectual vigour of Mr. Cobden C D and Mr. Bright. Seeing, as they do, that in the hands of aristocratic statesmen of the old school political action on the Continent ends in little but spiritless meddling, without vigour, system, or prin- ciple, they might well be forgiven for believing that no end can be put to such a course but by a period of rest and abstinence. But for any end less tem- porary a real and systematic foreign policy is ab- solutely essential ; and the only effectual mode of closing the era of weak and restless intervention is to substitute for it a system of definite action. Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright have been deceiving them- selves, or are deceived. They have been in this but the mouthpiece of a party to which they are them- selves immeasurably superior. Their own objects and motives have done honour to their genius ; but the real scheme of the apostles of peace and non-in- tervention at any cost is to make national well-being consist in the unrestricted development of individual industry. Free trade, peace, commerce, industry, are with them the ends, not the means, of public prosperity. The happiness of nations does not con- sist any more than that of men in the free accumu- lation of capital. Growing rich is to a people just what it is to a man. Civilisation means a great deal more than labour, and more than material wealth and industrial cultivation. It means the uniform education of the human powers, whether in commu- nities or in man ; and of these the social and generous instincts are the highest. It implies an intricate social union ; control, government, and association ; ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 113 it cannot exist without mutual support, trust, and cooperation ; the protection of the weak by the strong ; the subordination of the unwise to the wise ; the combination of all in common duties ; the sacrifice of many personal desires ; the willingness to bear the common burdens. These trite maxims of common morality, which, whatever we may practise, all of us recognise in pri- vate life, yet require to be repeated when we deal with public and national concerns. As applied to the members of a nation, no one gainsays or miscon- ceives these familiar truths. The blindest votary of the new doctrines does not propose as a panacea for our public difficulties that every man should confine himself to the affairs of his own countv, his own ^ ' city, or his own parish. Pushed to its extreme, the total disregard of all social interests is admitted to be the meanest form of selfishness. But if citizens have national duties, they have, for just the same reasons, international duties as well. There is nothing mys- terious about the aggregate we call a nation. The aggregate which forms the state system of Europe is just as real, and if it is somewhat less definite, it is in some points of view decidedly more important. The progress of civilisation for us depends ultimately and in the long-run even more upon the state of Europe than on the state of any particular nation. The moral, intellectual, and industrial growth of Eng- land, speaking in the highest sense, is determined by that of the West as a whole. If by moral growth we mean a wiser and more generous public opinion ; by intellectual growth, the more systematic culti- vation of the whole mental powers ; by industrial growth, not the mere accretion of capital, but a hap- i 114 ENGLAND AND FEANCE. pier organisation of labour (and no lower estimate is worthy of thinker, politician, or citizen), then we may be sure that the progress of our people in these things is never very far removed from the progress of the people around us. From the other nations of Europe we draw the raw stuff of our civilisation, material, scientific, and educational. Thought is ab- solutely common to us all. The highest scientific and philosophical truths which ultimately form our intellectual standards, and without which even manu- factures would stand still, come to us in far larger proportion from across the seas than from this island. We carry abroad freer conceptions of commerce, and we benefit by the lessons we have taught. We come back with teaching on the condition of the labourer, and we profit profoundly by our study. The poli- tical affinities are no less powerful. Good govern- ment amongst our neighbours is a dangerous exam- ple for bad government at home. The triumph of progress and freedom there gives new life to our political activity. Nor is this less true of the other nations in their turn than it is of ourselves. This intercommunion of tone, aims, and ideas permeates all alike. If Englishmen have the closest relations with their neighbours in Europe, scientific, educa- tional, moral, industrial, and social, they cannot avoid having political relations also. Civilisation is a very complex whole. A healthy political condi- tion is one of its indispensable conditions, as of all living men our two popular leaders have most ear- nestly maintained. A diseased political state will arrest and distort for a time every other kind of development. Industry is but a side of the work of civilisation, and it is just that side of it which ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 115 convulsion or syncope of the political organism can most effectually damage. The regeneration of Euro- pean society, the working out of the people to a better state, a time of peaceful union, industrial or- ganisation, and universal education for this is the true meaning of the great Revolution is a move- ment eminently European, and not national or local. But one of its first conditions, one of its most im- portant results, is that of political regeneration and national resettlement. And this is no less European than the still wider movement of which it is but a part. Each nation is interested alike in the good government of all. Without it peace, commerce, and progress are impossible. Each nation also can do much to promote it. But the mode in which it alone can do so systematically and effectually is by generous and resolute cooperation in the common councils of all. Few nations can with advantage interfere in the separate affairs of a neighbour ; but all together, and that by means no less peaceful than efficient, can give the most powerful impulse to good government in any, and can certainly guarantee it from interference from without. An instance of no small value is now before our eyes. The story of the struggle in America brings before us a people to whom there has been irresistibly brought home the influence which sound political conditions exert upon neighbours. The States of New England might on the new theory have devoted themselves wholly to till their corn-fields and develop their manufactures, to improve their education, to elevate their people, without a thought of the political condition of their distant and unconnected fellow states. Their in- stinct told them truly and no one honoured them 116 ENGLAND AND FKANCE. more for it than Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright that the political and social condition of New Orleans and Carolina concerned them more than any earthly con- sideration. That cancer in the political aggregate of states retarded and poisoned their own public life, and made it essential to be eradicated at whatever cost and before any other thought. May so deep a cancer never here need so terrific a remedy ! But for many purposes the union which really holds throughout the great political organism of Western Europe is far deeper and closer than that which held the half-independent States of America. A re- volution in Paris, a national uprising in Italy, Hun- gary, or Poland, concerns us more than the local agitations of Alabama would concern the farmers of New England. The political condition of Europe indeed concerns us in a degree only second to the political condition of England. We can affect it im- mensely if we will; and whether we will or not, it deeply affects us. Civilisation is a tree which has many roots as well as many branches ; and man is a political creature even earlier and more innately than he is an industrial creature. The political side of progress is one of its first and its greatest. Poli- tical indifferentism is as dangerous as it is immoral. Nor can quietism be raised into a creed by a nation of worth, any more than it can by a man of sense. These are but some only of the great grounds which history and philosophy alike supply to prove the absolute necessity no less than the paramount duty of fulfilling our national functions. On grounds less firmly based it would be unwise to rest so criti- cal a principle. Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright are men far too clearsighted and patriotic to be answered by ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 117 taunts and sophisms. The credit their teaching in this matter enjoys is due [only to this that they are shown nothing solid in modern diplomacy, and they are met too often by insolent appeals to the national covetousness or pride. When a practical path is shown them by which England can exercise her just influence in Europe an influence at once peace- ful and effective they will be the first to welcome tf it. Let them hesitate, however, before, in despair of arriving at this, they invoke a course which the nation's instinct repudiates, and which would be worse even than the disease. To leave for a mo- ment the ground of morality and duty and no poli- ticians more consistently regard it than these two ' / o it would not be difficult to show that on purely eco- nomic grounds the consequences of national isolation would prove most disastrous. They complain and most justly of the enormous growth of our mi- litary and naval expenditure. Fortifications and engineering experiments ars favourite resources to gain popularity for a minister or a party; but to make any grand reduction in oar armaments whilst France and the rest of Europe are still armed to the teeth, is a plan to which no tongue whatever can per- suade our people to submit. But the armaments of France are directed not so much against us as against the Continental Powers. The army of France is kept on foot chiefly by the armies of Germany. These exist because Italy, Poland, and Hungary at any moment may renew the effort for national existence. The House of Austria is still involuntarily, as in the days of Henry, the source of the uneasiness of Eu- rope. It has no further function in Europe, and re- tards and disturbs its progress. The army of Austria, 118 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. again, is the cause, but not the excuse, of the army of Prussia. Prussia, again, is in terror for the utter rottenness of her precarious empire, and watches with mingled dread and hope the political throes of the German Powers. Each petty sovereign keeps up his toy-army from old feudal pride and conscious inse- curity. But another and even more powerful cause remains. Outside this German frontier, beyond the pale of Western civilisation, the enormous hordes -of the Russian despot stand for ever under arms. Ger- many, which for political reasons shrinks back from the West, for military reasons must turn with defiance to the East. Thus the great Continental armies exist, and will exist until the political ulcers are excised, and until union gives Europe strength to disregard the Oriental legions of Russia. Agreement between France and England could do much, and much at once, to mitigate this evil of "mili- tarism" (as the noblest soldier of our age has called it), which drains and poisons our industrial energy. But nothing can well suppress it except the one re- medy of political resettlement. Whilst Russia, revo- lution, and nationalities alternately threaten Germany, she will have her million and a half of bayonets on foot. Whilst she has these, France will have her half million, and England her quarter million. The evil is not with us two so much as with the retro- grade Powers of the East. It springs not so much of aristocratic misgovernment or monarchic pride as of a chronic political unrest. To end this alone is to pass from a military to an industrial epoch. To mitigate its convulsions, to moderate its violence, is to do much to neutralise its evils, immediate and re- mote. When Europe is settled politically and nation- ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 119 ally, her armies will be disbanded, but not till then ; and only as we cooperate in obtaining for her and for ourselves this political and national resettlement a state which shall at once be order and progress can we approach the time when the British nation will consent, even if it previously were able, to cut off the scandalous profusion of our military expen- diture. Now whilst entire apathy to the political move- ment of Europe is felt by all but a few fanatics to be a course as degrading as it is extravagant, there is still cherished by a certain school the idea of found- ing a system of entire neutrality. With these men, whatever relations with foreign countries England is to maintain, they are never to exceed a passive goodwill and a studied impartiality. The commerce of all nations should be welcomed in her ports, as the ports of all nations should be opened to her commerce. An interchange of capital, the inter- course of the citizens, the exchange of products, and international exhibitions, should give what is want- ing of noble to this bond of material interest. Each bale of goods, cries the able financier, comes bearing a message of friendship. Such a view as this, if meant for a political principle, savours either of the cant of the rhetorician or the pettiness of the trades- man. That commercial can override political ques- tions permanently is an idea to which no one with the instinct of a statesman should yield. The buy- ing and selling of articles amongst the people of a nation does not necessarily involve the fusion of all classes and the extinction of all political struggles. No one can regard the history of Europe and its present condition in the light of such a sketch as 120 ENGLAND AND FKANCE. has preceded, without recognising in it as a whole the unity and method of a state system, and the great scale of the forces with which that system is charged. Compared to them, the crude motive of mercantile profit (which has been the stimulus often of the most selfish and ruinous extravagances) is indeed uncertain and futile. In international, pre- cisely as in national movements those who take part must stand on definite political principles, and take some definite attitude towards the great ideas or so- cial changes which are at stake. Human society, on the largest as on the smallest scale, is far too com- plex and noble to be reduced to the measure of any market whatever; and it is as absurd to look for the solution of all political questions in Europe, even by the advent of a Millennium of Free Trade, as it would be to hope to quell a revolution at home by a reduction of discount. Real neutrality in all European movements being practically impossible for this country, it may be use- ful to examine some of the chief political relations which have been advocated or pursued. In that absence of any intelligible principle which has so long marked our vacillating policy almost every possible alliance has been tried or recommended by ministries and parties. It was even once the idea of a school of half-hearted reactionists to associate ourselves in an intimate manner with Russia. An alliance with Turkey or China would be hardly more absurd. As Russia differs from England in every so- cial, political, and historical condition (to say nothing of her being outside the state system of Europe), to associate our policy with hers is simply to appeal to the old method of material force, and to retire os- ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 121 tentatiously from the field of opinion, progress, and moral weight. The party which regards Russia as any thing but as a Power whose ambition must be watched whilst its barbarism must be educated, is at once unfit to bear rule or give counsel in a free and advancing nation. An alliance with Prussia, or even North Ger- many, which has been occasionally suggested, must appear, at any rate in the light of recent events, as an alliance with that one of the great Powers which is politically the most uncertain and materially the most feeble an alliance which leaves simply out of the question the whole of the Catholic revolutionary and democratic forces of the Continent. It would offer none of the stability and strength of the Rus- sian alliance, whilst it shares in part many of its evils. The same reasoning applies just as forcibly, and, in spite of the traditions of an effete school, is far more applicable to the Austrian alliance that with the South rather than the North of Ger- many. Indeed, so hopelessly is the empire in its present form doomed to extinction, so thoroughly identified is it with all that remains of reactionary in Europe, that to identify our policy with hers, even in subordinate matters, is to look to secure the stability and progress of Europe by identifying our- selves with the interests of its most rotten element. The voice of all that is reasonable and liberal in Eng- land has been for a generation so loudly pronounced against this remnant of our worst system of blunder- ing, that it is as little worth discussing an alliance with South Germany as with North Germany. A united Germany, as a political unit, is as yet a pro- fessor's dream. 122 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. An alliance or permanent relations with any of the other European Powers need hardly detain us for consideration. Any one or more of these smaller nations, however proper to receive our friendship and help, cannot seriously be proposed as a basis of com- bination. A continental policy for England obviously implies relations with one of the first-rate Powers. There is, however, another alternative. There re- mains to be considered another political connection, which at first sight offers far more than any of those which have been considered, and is vigorously advo- cated by a powerful and able party. The creed of the only political school of growing importance is an intimate alliance with America an alliance at once political, social, and material or in its full form a combination of the entire Anglo-Saxon race. By this would be implied a close identification of interest, and a combined action of all the races of the globe which speak the English tongue. The conception has a solid truth at its base, and is a fruitful and intelli- gible principle. There can be no doubt that such a union would be a very desirable, a very feasible, and a very pregnant consummation. It would lead to great and valuable political ends. It would certainly represent an enormous force, material as well as mo- ral, and a vast expansion of industrial life. For all this, however, it is not, and can never be, a cardinal political idea. An Anglo- Saxon alliance, however intimate and however powerful, never can reach to the level of the true European questions. It is not a harmony or balance of elements and in- terests, it is simply the augmentation of one. With all the points of difference, the Anglo-Saxon race is, for all European purposes, virtually one. It repre- ENGLAND AND FEANCE. 123 sents one set of ideas, of political forces and affinities. The whole of the elements represented by France still remain outside of it. Anglo- Saxonism is, after all, an idea, like that of Panslavism, Teutonism, or the Latin race ; an idea which has a real basis, but is exagge- rated into absurdity. It is only a variety of national egoism. Anglo- Saxondom will, and even now does, represent a preponderating material force; but as a key of human progress it is a vaunt or an imposture. There would remain outside of it, and without de- fined relation to it, the whole of those problems of the European state system with which the Continent is big. The reorganisation of Germany, the repres- sion of Russia, the revival of Italy and Spain, the re- settlement of Europe, the grand political and social crises of France, the bulk, in fact, of the intellectual, social, and practical movements of Europe, would be things at which the Saxon union would look on, but which it would not be vitally concerned in or able essentially to modify. Looking at the region of ideas and the moral forces of nations, it would bring Eng- land little nearer to the real life of the West. No one but a man driven crazy by national vanity could sup- pose that the true solution of all European difficulties would be at once obtained, if England were suddenly doubled in population, wealth, and energy. And speaking in the light of European progress as a whole, the coalition of America and England would do little more than this. America is, after all, another self, freed happily from many of the burdens of its parent, but devoid also of much of its laborious edu- cation in civilisation. America, like England, has her place a great and a noble part amongst the heads of human progress ; but that part is as the colleague 124 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. and counterpart of England. The function of each is not the complement of the other. And it is only an ao-e infatuated with material success which can claim o for the material development of America an influence on the destinies of Europe akin to that which eight centuries of effort and of growth, their European position, relations, and traditions have given to the Anglo-Saxon people of this island. In point of fact, the union of America with Eng- land, such as it is conceived by the economic school of politicians, would be by itself rather a curse than a blessing to the rest of the human family. Valuable as that union would be when subordinated to greater political relations and fixed international duties, a mere league of the two branches of the English race, to push their settlements, their trade, and their in- fluence to indefinite limits, would indeed be a formid- able bar to human progress. It would mean England practically withdrawn from all her legitimate duties in Europe; for her enormous power would be the principal menace to the combined nations, whilst it gave her but small means of controlling them. It would mean political progress drowned in the torrent of industrial expansion. It would mean a maritime supremacy ten times more tyrannical and galling than of old; more empires founded in the East; more races of dark men sacrificed to the pitiless genius of Free Trade, and at the bloodstained altar of colonial extension. It would mean the subversion of ancient kingdoms, the demoralisation of primitive societies, the extermination of unoffending races. If the great national shame and danger, which it behoves every patriotic Englishman to avert, be, as I solemnly be- lieve it to be, the growth of mercantile injustice in ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 125 our empire, this shame and danger would be largely increased, were England to gain at once an enormous increase of power and a stimulus to her material lusts. America thus would add to her impunity whilst en- couraging her vices. Valuable as Anglo- Saxonism is as part of a wider system of political combinations, to substitute it by itself for such a system would be the surest road to national decline, By this method of logical exhaustion we come back, therefore, to the only possible and rational basis of English policy, a close understanding with France. It is easy to see how natural and solid such a policy is paramount in its advantages not in one respect, but in all respects. In the first place, whilst it is most true that the Western Powers form a system of themselves, it has been shown to be no less obvious that there is in this system a certain dualism, and that of this dualism France and England are the foremost representatives. As far the most powerful of the European nations, as far the most advanced, as far the most stable, these two nations form, for the mo- ment, an order by themselves. However desirable it may be that the state system, which is even now morally one, should become politically one or legally consolidated, it would be Utopian to expect common European action, or even standing European coun- cils or congresses, for many a generation. In the mean time a settled understanding and a healthy co- operation between England and France is possible, and may well represent and do duty for the other. Nor is this simply a vision of the future. When the two Western Powers allied themselves to defend Con- stantinople and Eastern Europe from the Tartar, hi spite of the indecision and incompleteness of their 126 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. action, in spite of the selfish aims and the petty in- trigues from which neither was free, in spite of the opposition of bewildered Germany it was felt that the Crimean war was an undertaking in the name and interest of Europe, which could only be closed by a European conference, and which opened a new Euro- pean epoch. Secondly, the extreme diversity of England and France enables them together fairly to represent and to harmonise the principal elements of European society. In the next place, their interests are so far different, and yet so far from antagonistic, that any common course which they take cannot be far from the interests of the rest of Europe. France can never abet England to establish a tyranny outside of Europe; nor could England abet France in esta- blishing one within it. Now what is here meant is not an alliance with France, or a friendliness towards France, much less flattery of the actual rulers of France, rather a well-considered agreement with the French nation upon the main features of their joint policy. It would be quite possible for the directors of the two nations, if at all worthy of the name, to lay down broad paths of action on all the chief European questions, which should duly satisfy the interests of both, strengthen the moral and the material position of both, and yet awaken none of the jealousies of their neighbours. It need scarcely be said that such an agreement, prepared as a whole and honestly proclaimed, could not possibly comprise schemes pre- judicial to the other Powers, or referring exclusively to the selfish interests of either. Neither could have the smallest interest to assist the other in aggression, spoliation, or tyranny. Nor could they agree for ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 127 mutual aid to such ends; for each would feel even more indignation in such a scheme in the other than it would feel satisfaction in being permitted such a scheme itself. The various projects of national aggrandisement justly and unjustly attributed to France would one and all be distinctly repudiated and provided against. England on her part must surrender and disclaim the actual or the imputed wrongs against the rights of her neighbours with which she is charged, be it Gibraltar, be it Malta, be it the empire of the seas or imperial arrogance. It would be easy for both nations to give up these objects of vulgar ambition or irrational pride in ex- change for greater and more lasting objects of na- tional glory. That in this stage of civilisation they still disturb the ideas and the acts of two great nations is due chiefly to the utter state of disorgani- sation to which the European state system is reduced, and to the rebuffs which the better hopes and efforts of each so continually meet from the other. The failure of these is due, however, mainly to this, that England and France are constantly engaged in carry- ing out a policy without the aid of, occasionally in spite of the opposition of, the other. The great fact of a permanent alliance between England and France, when once distinctly pro- claimed, would alone suffice to achieve or prepare most of its happiest results. So soon as it was really understood throughout Europe that England and , France had definitely concluded a comprehensive agreement on all the greater questions of policy, formally renouncing or abandoning all pretensions odious or menacing to other states, publicly engaging to use their vast resources and their legitimate influ- 128 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. ence in concert for the general settlement of the state system in the cause equally of order and progress, many of the principal perplexities of the Continent would be in a fair way towards solution at once. The preposterous projects with which desperate re- actionists and revolutionists in turn trouble the har- mony of the West would be little heard of when all were aware of a settled determination on the part of the two great heads of Europe that she should be delivered over neither to oppression nor to anarchy, but that the gradual resettlement of states into a new and completer system of liberty should be carried on without recoil and without confusion. Russia, who has so long traded on the jealousies and in- trigues of the West, would at last abandon her long dream of aggression upon Europe. Austria would reconcile herself to treat for Yenetia, and prepare herself for her transformed existence. Prussia, that mock Russia of North Germany, would see that no fresh divisions would enable her to pursue unchecked her tortuous and arrogant career. Italy would at once feel absolutely guaranteed against the pressure of her friends or the aggressions of her enemies, and would turn to national restoration, relieved from the intrigues which are due to the one, and the military incubus which is caused by the other. Spain would recover her pride, develop her enormous resources, without the necessity of courting the rulers of France, of flouting those of England, and of tyrannising over petty outlying nations. The smaller nations one a|d all might look for a real insurance against oppression, and might learn to trust to opinion instead of to in- trigue. The partisans of the old system, their cause visibly lost, would learn resignation. The partisans ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 129 of the new, their cause taken out of their hands, would learn patience. Peace, trade, and civilisation would gain, not by commercial treaties, but by a healthier political atmosphere. Who shall gainsay that such results do not incomparably transcend the vulgar and shifting objects of ambition which each Power in its isolation now alternately pursues? Y. It will be asked, and it may possibly be reason- able, that such a scheme as is here suggested should be reduced to a practical form and be illustrated by actual examples. Such a demand is not unfair; but it is somewhat difficult to meet. To satisfy it would be to give a comprehensive sketch of European po- litics, a subject obviously beyond the scope of this essay. To state, on the other hand, a set of political doctrines without much explanation is to leave them liable to wide misconception and needless criticism. This, however, must be met ; and we proceed to give the heads of such broad objects of policy as carry out the theory we advocate. In the first place, there is one indispensable condition to any healthy union between the two nations. That Europe may cease to regard with alarm the consolidation of so vast a power as that of the combined weight of the two nations thoroughly in earnest and thoroughly at one, both must give the clearest guarantees that this power would never be exerted to the detriment of the other Powers; both must for ever retire from those posi- tions in which either wounds or menaces its neigh- bours. It must at once be seen that this involves on the part of England the immediate and uncondi- K 130 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. tional surrender of Gibraltar, which so soon as Italy is free will be far the worst and most intolerable outrage on national rights in Western Europe. This great act of justice is in truth the very condition of any right action of England in Europe, and cannot be accomplished too soon, too thoroughly, or too freely. As a consequence, and as various circum- stances may need, will follow the withdrawal from the exclusive occupation of Malta and disbanding of our large Mediterranean fleet at such time and under such conditions as the true interests of Europe shall determine. On the part of France it involves the clearest renunciation of the Rhine as a frontier (an attempt upon which should be clearly recognised by her neighbours as a casus belli), the distinctest pledge to recognise the independence of the Belgian people, and withdrawal from any attempts to dictate to or to encroach upon Italy. As an earnest that both these professions are sincere, there is due from France a real reduction of her armies, and (should its in- habitants not desire permanent incorporation) the cession of the territory of Nice, the wanton absorp- tion of which is so great a stigma on the people and sovereign of France. These great sacrifices to public duty once made, with their material resources un- impaired and their moral force redoubled, the two Powers would be in a position to carry out a common policy without exciting the jealousies of Europe. The first conditions of that policy must be finally to secure the West of Europe from all disturbing in- fluences from the East. Morally and even materially the tranquillity of Turkey, of Austria, of Prussia, and of Scandinavia, is continually troubled by the action of their gigantic Eastern neighbour. It cannot be ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 131 too fully recognised that Russia is a Power virtually extra-European and semi- Oriental, having a wholly different orbit, and belonging to a distinctly lower grade of civilisation than that of the States of Wes- tern Europe. Her influence over them is injurious; her further encroachment on them would be oppres- sive. Only fanatics or pedants can see any good to accrue to Europe or to the subject races by the substitution of the Tartar for the Turk in Constanti- nople. The southern extension of Russia, once begun, would not end until it had absorbed the Danubian, Albanian, and Greek races, and, enveloping Hungary in one vast fold, had stretched from the base of the Baltic to the head of the Adriatic. It would be to subject to her races with whom she has no real sym- pathy, and many of whom are far her superiors in cultivation ; and, in the case of the Greeks and the Turks at least, would result in a new Poland of the South. Poland herself, it must not be forgotten, is morally, politically, and socially a true part of the European, and not a part of the Russian system. Her case, cruelly complicated by questions of races and classes, is beyond doubt the most difficult with which Europe has yet to deal, and must be considered presently by itself. Suffice it here to say, that for the advanced nations of the West to forget or decry their suffering sister would be as shameful as it would be weak. Every effort must be persistently made to mitigate, if not at once to terminate the terrible doom she endures. At the same time, to attempt to relieve her instantly by force of arms would be to open a vast conflict of nations, and to inaugurate the bouleverse- ment of European order. Far be it from us to ven- ture on so desperate and dubious a remedy. The 132 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. case is not so clear ; the necessity is not so pressing ; the gain is not so vast ; the agents are not so blame- less as to justify a sacrifice so great. It remains to be seen if the whole moral weight of Europe may not yet suffice to secure for Poland, as it has for Hungary, some issue by which her civilisation may have free life and liberty, without a deadly struggle of nation- alities or an era of frantic commotion. Wisely and boldly used, the moral force of England and France combined is amply sufficient to secure at once a fu- ture for Poland, and to guarantee Europe from fur- ther aggression; for, in face of the pregnant results of the Crimean war, Russia knows, as all Europe knows, that their material force is able, if need be, alone to protect Europe from aggression and to hum- ble the aggressor in the dust. As part of this policy, or as its complement, comes the entangled and shifting problem of the south-east- ern section of Europe. Complicated as it is by a net- work of difficulties of religion, race, and class, it is peculiarly one for the practical genius of the born statesman. The working out of these vexed ques- tions belongs exclusively to the man of action, and not to the man of theory. Thus much, perhaps, of general policy a mere onlooker can sketch out. In the absence of all proof of the fitness of any of the races within the Turkish Empire to supply its place, it may well be assumed that reasonable policy would lead the Western Powers to do nothing to weaken the throne of the Sultan. That, in spite of his vices and defects, the Turk still holds together without actual anarchy the discordant religions and races of his empire, we know. We know not what might be the issue were his task to fall to any of these ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 133 half-civilised and restless races whom he rules, or were they left to work out their own internecine feuds. The various schemes for the resettlement of Eastern Europe all savour of the pedant, the par- tisan, or the bigot. What will be acknowledged is that the great preponderance of practical politicians and of observers on the spot are favourable to the maintenance for a time, and under some conditions, of the Turkish rule. To abstain from promoting an era of confusion is one thing ; it is quite another thing to become a par- ticipator in the misrule of the Moslem, and, as some recent statesmen have done, hold him in leading- strings to educate him in tyranny. It yet remains to be seen if a simpler course will not prove better. As fulfilling for the time a useful function in pre- serving some order over the balanced races of the empire, the Turk may fairly claim and receive pro- tection from other Powers. To abet him in riveting the chains or increasing the miseries of his own sub- jects, would be as monstrous on the Danube as it would be on the Po. To interfere actively, on the other hand, in the internal administration of the Sul- tan, or to constitute ourselves the reformers of his monarchy and protectors of any class of his subjects, is to assume the responsibility of the whole system of misrule, whilst increasing its confusion. Hitherto the action of the Western Powers has been employed to hamper the sovereign of Turkey with impossible and contradictory conditions, to degrade him in the eyes of his Moslem and Christian subjects. They have almost invariably been at cross purposes with each other. The self-styled protectors of Turkey have usually had some miserable game of their own in the 134 ENGLAND AND EEANCE. background. Where they have striven honestly to aid her, they have been striving yet more actively to preserve her from the aid of others. The history of the Western Powers in Turkey is the history not of friends combining to defend a friend, but of rivals struggling over a prize. From the ambassador (the Byzantine Mayor of the Palace) down to the ob- scurest consul of the Levant, the Western Powers have fought a long and varying battle for influence, like quacks plotting against each other round the sick man's bed of death. Each effort of the Porte to raise itself is the result and the beginning of a new diplo- matic campaign. The true solution of the Turkish question is the simple one to leave the empire to itself; to leave the various races to work out their own future ; to extend a friendly hand to the Turk, as the lawful ruler de facto, as possibly the only one yet capable of rule ; not pretending to administer or to reform the empire, but to guarantee it from wan- ton destruction at the hands of any other European Power. Order once rendered permanent and defence tho- roughly guaranteed to Europe along her Eastern por- tion, the internal questions will simplify themselves with new ease when free from the perturbing influ- ence of these lower civilisations. The grand function of the two leading Powers would naturally be to preserve Europe from general convulsion without re- pressing the evolution of the new system into which she is being transformed ; a task doubtless of singu- lar delicacy and difficulty, and one in which tentative and moderate measures alone at present can avail. The time may come when Europe, organised into a vigorous state system and animated by common ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 135 moral principles, may feel herself strong and enlight- ened enough to deal with these international ques- tions on a grand scale and with a vigorous confidence ; but it would be Utopian to expect that the union of the two leaders (at best but the forerunner and symbol of this system) can on a very large scale solve these problems directly or authoritatively. In spite of the temptation to interference produced by alternate injustice and confusion, the more far-sighted course is patience ; and candid and thoughtful minds at length are brought to admit that the complica- tions of Europe are too great ; that the future course is in its details too obscure; that the traditions and the motives of both nations are far too mixed for them to constitute themselves in any active sense the arbiters and reformers of Europe. The vague appeals to the magnanimity of England and the mission of France, in which unpractical enthusiasts on both sides of the Channel indulge, deserve much of the contempt they receive from practical politicians. In truth, they would generally, if admitted, lead to far more harm than good; for they call on two Powers to do that which neither their material force nor their moral standard justifies them in attempting, This language applies and is meant to apply to the case of Italy, the only remaining instance of na- tional oppression within the pale of Western Europe at once gross and clear. Monstrous as is the occu- pation of Venetia by Austria, it is far from plain thafr it would be wise in England and France to wrest it from her by sheer force. Whilst the moral, political, and material injuries which such a war would cause are obvious (for to attack Austria thus would be to attack Germany, probably sustained by Russia), the 136 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. prospect of some other solution of the difficulty than that of war is continually improving. That only is right for nations to undertake which they can pru- dently expect to accomplish with no disproportionate waste or risk. In spite of the delight which every friend of progress and freedom must feel in the regene- ration of Italy the great moral as well as the chief political event of this nineteenth century it is impos- sible not to doubt that the danger of European con- vulsion, the sinister passions, and the doubtful glory which have resulted from French intervention have made it a precedent not readily to be imitated. If for both the Powers to interfere together be question- able, for one alone to do so is disastrous. England from her position could not without unusual efforts rescue or even defend Italy from Germany (and it is Germany, not Austria, which is her real oppressor) ; and France, yet fresh from the peace of Villafranca, the occupation of Rome, and the seizure of Nice, could not intervene with good grace. But if the two Powers would not be wise to wrest Venice from Austria at the price of a possible convulsion in Europe, there remains yet a great duty for them towards Italy. They have the clearest right to prevent any fresh encroachment by the Teuton, and to guarantee yet to Italy all that she has hitherto acquired. It would be much towards the settlement of the great Italian question if the two great Powers, whilst renouncing all designs of forcible aggression on Austria, could make Italy absolutely secure against all invasion from without. Nor would their moral influence be small. None can reasonably doubt that, if the in- fluence of England and France were once honestly ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 137 combined to help Italy, and to undo some portion of the wrong which for three centuries Europe has piled on her, the greatest results would follow. If so much has been accomplished whilst they were neu- tralising each other's action by jealous rivalries, until it seemed, like another Turkey, to be the battle-field of diplomacy, what might not be hoped for from that influence thoroughly exerted in unison? Those who would think lightly of what moral weight can effect in a case like that of Italy should consider how much she has received from the purely moral aid of England. But in estimating this, the finest recent example of the appeal to opinion, it will be wise to remember the extent to which it has been modified and stimu- lated by fear or jealousy of France. It is of incal- culable importance to Europe, and it is the plainest interest both of England and France, that Italy should be constituted independent and free without being forced to become a great military power. The restoration of Italy to her own place amongst the first nations of Europe, without the sinister glory of bloody victories, would be a result which would at once disarm the jealousy of her neighbours and be her own true welfare. If the case of Italy be not strong enough to jus- tify a crusade on her behalf a case in which every thing combines to make oppression intolerable there is certainly no case of oppression in Western Europe which can justify intervention by arms. . Every one who watches the condition of Europe must feel how beset it is with danger, how unstable is that equilibrium for which such sacrifices have been made. Nor is it simply that there are a mul- titude of smouldering disputes which at any moment 138 ENGLAND AND FBANCE. may break into a flame. These disputes, however insignificant in themselves, are in some way con- nected with each other. And the real danger is, that any one of these questions may lead to a gene- ral convulsion. Poland, the fatal state-prisoner of three monarchies, can neither stir nor groan without sending a shudder through Europe. Each petty quarrel in Germany seems the prelude of a grand Teutonic struggle. A speech from the French throne, a movement of the Parisian workmen, vibrates for good or for evil through the West. Now on the Eider, now on the Meuse, now on the Mincio, now on the Danube, men watch for the outburst of that subterranean storm which all feel moving be- neath them. Neither diplomacy nor bayonets can suppress it. It is there because for the first time Europe is shaken by international and social ques- tions working at once. It is because all the old bases of order, medieval or modern, religious, legal, and diplomatic, are undermined ; and the balance of power, treaties, hereditary rights, and military authority have all gone the way of popes, barons, and emperors. Europe, in a word, may at any mo- ment be thrown into general convulsion, because each part of it is passing through vast changes, and no recognised basis of union exists. Europe is in- deed in mid-revolution a revolution at once reli- gious, intellectual, political, and social. No one but a revolutionist of unusual recklessness will venture to assert that this revolution can best be accom- plished by an era of general disorder. A few fana- tics may still think that the new system will issue from the furnace with renewed vitality and in per- fect health, and be willing to plunge us into a melee ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 139 of war or a triumph of anarchy, in the confidence that civilisation, freedom, peace, and justice will prove the inevitable issue. This is neither history, policy, nor reason. If there is one duty of Euro- pean statesmen plainer than another, it is to avoid this era, of which no man can tell the issue, whilst recognising, welcoming, and aiding the movement which is the deepest cause of this crisis. The Revo- lution in France was cruelly blighted by foreign war. That of Europe would be so in no less degree by an era of general confusion. It must be a very de- termined partisan of revolutions that will venture to assert that the new state of things is sufficiently matured, the public mind sufficiently prepared, and any set of principles sufficiently accepted, to give them a prospect of assuming the direction of affairs with complete regularity and on a totally new basis. There would be a system, however, almost worse than that of encouraging anarchy, and that would be a system of repressing movement. The first con- dition of all right action in Europe is to recognise it as in a state of transition, and to welcome the change that is inevitable. The state-map of Europe must be thoroughly recast. Questions of race, of nationality, of class questions in which two of these or all three are intermixed, meet us at every turn. Broadly speaking, there is the Scandinavian pro- blem, the German problem, the Magyar problem, the Slavonian problem, the Italian problem ; not to-, speak of the Polish problem proper, or the Irish problem. It is the fashion to smile at these theories as phrases, and to ask what they mean in reality. They mean simply this that the existing divisions and relations of states is now become profoundly at 140 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. variance with the interests and wishes of their in- habitants, and that they are daily growing more and more divergent. It means that the men of Schleswig-Holstein are not and cannot remain satis- fied with their existing condition, in spite of the bombast of Germans and the rapacity of Prussia ; that the absurd and noxious princelets of Germany must be abolished, and Germany reconstituted in accordance with her national wants and wishes ; that the relations of the Magyar, the German, and the Slavonians in the Austrian Empire must be har- monised, and all rendered friendly by each becom- ing independent ; a process in the course of which the Austrian Empire as we know it (which has long been not a monarchy but a military bureau) will utterly disappear. It means that Italy must become a nation, not only perfectly free from the Alps to Cape Passaro, but beyond the suggestion of dicta- tion or insult. Spain, it is well known, will face any sacrifice and perhaps any crime to bring about a complication by which she might redress the stand- ing outrage of Gibraltar. Nor are the relations of Portugal with Spain wholly without risk of national collision. If the case of Ireland is ceasing to be a national problem, it is because it has now almost passed into a social problem ; but it is not the less formidable thus. Chronic disaffection and occa- sional rebellion still seems to English politicians and writers a mere subject for ridicule. But in estimating the position of England in Europe, it is impossible to overlook the fact that her moral influ- ence is seriously weakened by the standing sore of her Irish difficulty. Nor is France, which withholds from Italy her capital and the birthplace of her ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 141 greatest living hero, at all more free from ominous questions. In a word, there is no country on the Continent of Europe in which the violation of the rights, power, and interests of the people by neigh- bours may not at any moment lead to a violent ex- plosion, or any one in which such explosion might not lead to universal European embroilment. The first duty of the leaders of Western civilisa- tion is to recognise this state of things ; their second is to do their best to develop the movement which causes it without violent rupture. It is obvious that this is especially a case in which the instinct of the practical statesman must be his own guide. It would be pedantry in any theorist to attempt to work it out in its details. Generally speaking, the policy needed is one which, actively resisting all further encroach- ments on national rights and all violent attempts to suppress the growth of the new order, should support the status quo where it did not appear intolerably cor- rupt and openly retrograde. It would thus be right to protect the smaller states from the aggression of the stronger; and Denmark, Scandinavia, Belgium, Hol- land, and Switzerland would be guaranteed, like Italy, against wanton invasion. It would not, however, be right to interfere in the internal movements of any state, to make a local struggle general, or to foster any of the greater series of changes. It has thus no right to promote actively the resettlement of Ger- many, the dissolution of the Austrian or the Turkish Empire, or the recomposition of Prussia. Till a sound and final scheme for each of these great tasks has fairly taken hold of the races concerned, it would be right to recognise and respect the existing condition as at least conducive to order. 142 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. Lano-uao-e like this must sound cold or cruel to C o the ardent advocates of national rights. They believe with blind faith that, the banner of the people once raised, Europe would fall into a just and easy reset- tlement. It should suffice, however, to reflect that no one of the schemes of nationalities (not even that of the noble protomartyr of the national cause, Joseph Mazzini) does any thing to -secure the conservative element, international justice, and organic harmony. The theory of nationalities, unless it forms part of and is thoroughly subordinated to a comprehensive system of political resettlement in all its phases, based upon a complete social philosophy, is a cause of dis- turbance and even of antagonism. The wrongs which France does to Italy are the wrongs done by the French people wrongs from which the democratic and national party are not clear. They are still more implicated in the national projects on the Rhine. It was German patriots who clamoured for and over the spoliation of Denmark. It is Prussian professors who are the bitterest detractors of Italy. The liberal party in England are as keen as the rest in defence of Gibraltar. The Magyar has been a cold friend to Italy, and a hard neighbour to the Croat. Hungarian, Pole, and Slavonian are in turn accusers and accused. It is a dream that nations will be incapable of op- pressing when they themselves have ceased to be oppressed. The case of Poland is as strong an example as could be found of all of these conditions at once. As a problem of special intricacy, it requires a separate study. It is at once the most flagrant case of na- tional oppression and the most striking example of the difficulties of applying a remedy. Nothing can ENGLAND AND FKANCE. 143 be more shocking than the humiliation of Poland; nothing can make the case stronger for intervention by the West to rescue their brethren from Muscovite semi-barbarism. On the other hand, the question is embittered by intricate hatreds of race and class ; and nothing can be plainer than that intervention would lead to a vast European conflagration. What, then, is the issue from a dilemma apparently so hopeless an equal duty, it would seem, to intervene and to ab- stain from intervening? Not assuredly the cynical selfishness of the money-market; not the querulous apathy of the effete politicians; not the bombast, the jealousy, and the practical treachery which has marked our recent political action as a nation, threatening Russia and lecturing Poland, agitating Europe whilst quarrelling with France, fanning a re- volution and then reviling it ; and throughout these vaunts, protests, and insults, accomplishing nothing but the wishes of the money-dealers. What then must be done ? Nothing is more plain than that the Polish question is one which especially concerns Europe as a whole, and can be effectually solved only by Europe as a whole. The intervention of one Power alone, or even of two Powers, it has been seen repeatedly, instantly inflames the antago- nism, and sets Europe in a general turmoil. The business of the leaders of Europe is to organise the common desire and the public opinion of the various states, and to bring it to bear with an overwhelming moral demonstration against Russia, which might very well go the length of excommunicating her from the politics of the West. Even then it would be sanguine to expect any immediate relief to Poland. Russia, it need not be said, would hardly yield up 144 ENGLAND AND FKANCE. her prey to any moral force in the world. But the time has been (emphatically at the Congress of Vienna, ao-ain in 1832, and still more distinctly during the Crimean war, or rather at its close) when Europe united was in a position to have wrung from Eussia at least a partial liberation of Poland, without dis- proportionate efforts. Such a time will come again ; and each opportunity lost makes the end harder to attain. More particularly it would be rendered easy if the form of that intervention aims rather at gua- ranteeino 1 to Poland a free national existence, short of O ' violent disruption from the Muscovite crown. The treaties of Vienna do actually secure to Poland a large measure of national life and independence. Had they been ever acted upon, had the states not been ab- sorbed in their own reactionary schemes, the Polish question could not have become what it has. In the mean time the European states have a perfect right and a clear duty to insist on at least the fulfilment of this pledge. It is hard to believe that statesmanship worthy of the name, resolutely and persistently bend- ing to this end the united will of Europe, could not in the long-run succeed. And if it did succeed, the name of Poland would cease to be the terror and the stigma of Europe. This brings us directly to the question which ob- viously underlies any theory of foreign policy the question, namely, of war. Is war, and if so, when, a legitimate means of national policy? Now, in the philosophy on which this volume is based, war is the direct antithesis of modern civilisation, the negation of industrialism, the type of all that is hostile to hu- man progress. To all the religious horror of war felt by the devout; to all the repugnance it inspires in ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 145 the popular politician ; to all the logical condemna- tion which is heaped on it by the theoretic economist, the positive system of belief, over and above all these, stamps it with the ban of history as the em- bodiment of all that civilised man has yet to cast off. Assuredly it would be hard to charge indifference to its evils on a system in which war stands often as a sort of symbol of evil. Yet that system, true to its relative character, has never adopted the honourable fanaticism of the Peace apostles. Impatient of Utopias, it has gone no further than to hope that war may be reduced to a minimum. It is willing to allow that war may never be absolutely eradicated from mankind; that there may come times when there are things even worse than war. To save a valuable element of the race from annihilation; to preserve a living organ of our civilisation from destruction ; to remove a cancer from political society, may yet become a just cause of war. But this responsibility the greatest perhaps which a nation or a public counsellor can assume must be defined by most stringent condi- tions. It must be a war in which all the sacrifices, and none of the gains, fall to the authors ; it must be a war strictly defensive to defend not a wrong, but a right ; to rescue some weak victim from a manifest oppressor. It must be a war undertaken, if possible, with the cooperation of others ; or if not with their actual aid, at least with the hearty moral support of the preponderant Power of the West. It must be a war of which the necessity is inevitable, the issue certain, and the good results immensely preponderating. It must be a war, lastly, waged with every precaution to diminish race-hatreds, with every L 146 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. alleviation which war can allow to the innocent, with every relief which can be devised to neutrals ; and es- pecially a war made by absolutely pure hands, with- out a suspicion to rest on the motives of its authors. War such as this is not war in its old sense, but an act of police ; it is, but on a larger scale, the arrest of a combination of criminals, or the suppression of a band of organised rioters. In a system which has no superstitious regard for mere life, and no slavish re- spect for mere wealth, but which considers only the social welfare in its highest aspect, war may yet be- come a terrible necessity ; but it will be war deprived of half its evils. And little doubt will exist that, were all these conditions imperatively fulfilled, Avar would be practically extinct. It would be a grave case, indeed, which would force a nation to undertake a duty so unprofitable, so burdensome, so responsible. By a very large party in England perhaps to nearly all the best of our politicians the proposal which these pages contain for a permanent union with France will be indignantly rejected as implying a friendship or alliance with its present ruler. Sharing much of the repugnance which they feel for the violent origin and the tyrannical ambition of the second Em- pire, I do not share that rooted hostility to Louis Napoleon which marks the pure revolutionary school. To me he is though abler than most of them neither much better nor much worse than the other governors who for a time have directed France in the spasms of her long revolutionary labour. He is, as many of them have been, but the expression of the craving of the great mass of Frenchmen for an era of order which shall not be a return to the past. Ac- tively accepted by a vast majority as a guarantee of ENGLAND AXD FRANCE. 147 material prosperity ; simply acquisced in by the work- men as neutral in the great social struggle between labour and capital; grudgingly admitted by the pride and heart of liberal France as partly satisfying from time to time her mission and her wants, Louis Na- poleon remains, in spite of the massacres, in spite of military tyranny, in spite of his dangerous ambition, in spite of his dynastic follies and extravagances, the nearest approach to the revolutionary statesman which France has had since Danton. Declamation may make any thing of politics ; but a true judgment of public men is always a balance of opposite qualities, and never so much so as in judging the most mixed of all modern characters in the most complicated of all modern situations. Whilst there are none of the parties of movement which do not from time to time expect and receive from him some act in their be- half, the only parties to whom he is invincibly odious are royalists, bigots, and litterateurs. He has saved France at least from Bourbonism, from Ultramon- tanism, from a reign of eloquent pedants and cor- rupt journalists. The praters and dreamers who call themselves the intellect of France are indeed ex- tinguished, but by contempt rather than by force. They can still indulge their literary vanity and their love of wordy theories in the safe repose of their academies; but they no longer can indulge them at the expense of a great nation. Holding it as an unmixed gain that the theorists and critics of France are relegated from the Parliament back to their desks; judging his whole course, his whole policy, his whole influence at once; estimating his foes and his friends, his position, opportunities, and tempta- tions fairly ; the various elements of the French na- 148 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. tion and its antagonistic ideas, the previous govern- ments of France, and, above all, the anarchical di- lemma out of which the Empire arose, I feel con- strained to count the present Napoleon as belonging on the whole to the great cause of movement in France and in the West as being at least the actual choice of France ; as one who, whilst bent on closing at any cost the era of political chaos, is yet a real but unworthy leader of the great cause of revolu- tionary progress. But in truth it is to my mind not a question of the character of Napoleon or any particular ruler of France. The union of England and France must be a combination of the policy of the two nations, and not of the schemes of their respective rulers. It is a permanent alliance between two peoples, which need suffer no interruption by temporary changes of governments. Napoleon is, as I believe, in the long - run as completely responsible to the public opinion of France as any English government what- ever. He can, and in rare cases (of which Mexico is a flagrant case) he does act on his own responsi- bility for a time ; but no grand scheme of policy can be attempted, and no scheme can be long persevered in, against the determined opposition of France. For the most part Napoleon watches the course of this opinion with even more anxious care than an English minister; for he resists it at the cost, not of parlia- mentary defeat, but of a dynastic catastrophe. The policy of Napoleon therefore is strong or formidable only when it is the policy also of the French nation; and when it is this it is a national and not a personal policy. Nothing in fact would be easier than to cooperate ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 149 with the solid interests of France as a nation, and not with the accidental aims of her statesmen. The very first condition of the policy advocated here would at once secure such an end. The union of France and England must rest on no secret treaty or cabinet agreement. It must be a full programme of general policy, proclaimed to all the world, and looking for its chief support to the conviction that it is avowed and unchangeable. The mere publication of a deli- berate scheme of action will reduce the selfish pro- jects of either nation to manifest contradiction and absurdity. By the terms of such a scheme the vari- ous ends of dangerous ambition must be disavowed. To revive them would be at once a breach of a pub- lic compact, the negation of an avowed duty, and a surrender of national good faith. It is, indeed, ex- travagant to suppose that such a union would imply any readiness on the part of either Power to abet the sinister designs of the other ; when the very essence of that union was a formal repudiation of every one of them, and a solemn undertaking to regard any similar attempt as a case for joint resist- ance by the commonwealth of nations. Napoleonism would be extinct, and Napoleon would remain but the chief of the French Republic. Nor could he or any responsible ruler of France reject such an offer from England publicly and seriously proposed for acceptance to the French nation. The recogni- tion of the real ends of the great movement of which the centre is France, an active desire to forward that movement in every safe and reasonable way, must always command the adhesion of the true force of French opinion. "Europe is at rest when France is satisfied," it has been said with much insolence 150 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. and some truth. The truest guarantee of peace and order in Europe would be that France could feel that in every legitimate desire to promote the new era she had the moral and material support of England. But this, and nothing less than this, is the price of any policy of alliance with France, and indeed of any reasonable policy at all. Such is a brief sketch of the scheme of policy which the system of life and society on which this book is based suggests for practical application at the hands of actual statesmen. It will be thought by some a scheme extravagant in its revolutionary tendencies ; by others weak from its want of novelty or vigour. One word to each of these. It is the first element of right judgment to recognise not in the political sphere alone, but in the intellectual, the social, and the material, the enormous extent of the movement which pervades them all. An age which admits it yet fully only in the material side (as if this era were simply the age of steam, or the age of machinery), and fails to see the transfor- mation of ideas, of social, national, and moral systems around us, will be terrified at the full adoption of political revolution. But politics, like philosophy, will remain a Babel of discordant cries, a prey to rival adventurers, until this is recognised and avowed. How much less perturbing, how much less reckless, how much more conservative in its only healthy sense is a policy which welcomes and promotes an inevitable revolution, but insists that it shall be car- ried out under conditions of order ! A word again to those to whom the scheme is neither new nor energetic. That it is not new is a merit. Politics are not ingenious games. The social ENGLAND AND FRANCE. 151 condition of Europe is not to be righted by clever manoeuvres or surprising discoveries. Nothing, it may be said broadly, in politics is true or right that has not already possession of the public mind. It would be the aim of the system we advocate to in- troduce as little rupture with the past as possible, to utilise all the traditions and habits of nations that can possibly be turned to good account. If the policy here sketched consists of nothing but schemes, each one of which is more or less, has been at one time or other, or promises to be sooner or later, the tendency of English politicians, that is precisely what has been desired. To do systematically what has long been done empirically ; to work out consciously the pro- blems which have spontaneously arisen ; to coordinate a variety of isolated tendencies into an organic plan ; to elevate the great traditions of the past into the realisation of the highest duty of the present and ultimate culmination in the best, such is precisely the course of history and human society, and it is as true in politics as it is in morals or in thought. The objection that the policy is wanting in energy need trouble us little. The only fear need be that it is a policy so difficult to inaugurate as justly to be called Utopian. It needs, indeed, a moral standard to which our public opinion has not attained. But moral standards and public opinion grow, grow with increasing rapidity. It is the business of a theorist, more especially when treating of broad questions and not of details, to hold up the highest and most com- plete standard of action which he can see to be prac- ticable, without reference to its instant or exact application; and that more particularly when he feels a conviction based on history, based on all that lives 152 ENGLAND AND FRANCE. around us, on the incoherence of all other systems, that it is, after all, the only one possible. The writer has no wish to exaggerate the in- fluence or the feasibility of this or any other scheme. The basis of all the practical and political questions is an intellectual and moral one. To all practical questions there is but a temporary and partial solu- tion from practical means by themselves. A policy of perfect wisdom carried out by statesmen of perfect capacity would not suffice to end the difficulties of the West. The system of this work, it has already been stated in earlier pages, implies the organisation of the West upon a system of common moral and intellectual principles, and on one uniform tone of public and private life, the whole animated and knit together by a common education and a common body of moral teachers and guides. How far we are from the realisation of this, it is not part of this work to consider. It is far from being the belief of this present writer that we are near to it. The pre- ceding pages therefore, it will be seen, speak only of the temporary, the partial, and the practical courses to be pursued, and not to any final system or any complete resettlement. They are offered as mere suggestions for meeting immediate and great neces- sities. As makeshifts, as palliatives, as fragments only are they offered ; but as being, till a wider basis is prepared, the only palliatives possible. FREDERIC HARRISON. No. III. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. E. S. BEESLY. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. LAST year Europe was on the point of meeting in Congress. The rumour has recently been revived and contradicted; but we shall hear it again before long. The air is full of congresses ; all the interna- tional vested interests especially the most powerful look forward to them with a shudder. This is a sufficient proof that the Congress of the future is not to be of the old Vienna, Laybach, and Verona type, from which the strong might reckon pretty securely upon coming out stronger. It is the weak and the oppressed who turn an eye of hope and raise the head languidly when the murmur passes round. It is felt that the obligation to submit private incli- nations to a standard of public utility an obligation long recognised among individuals in civilised parts of the world is about to be extended to nations. And just as we may conceive that the men of mighty thews and high spirits chafed and fumed when they were made equal before the law with a weak and humble neighbour, so we need not be surprised that 156 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. powerful self-sufficient nations should swell with of- fended dignity when it is proposed that they should submit their pretensions to an organised public opinion. The tendency I have noted is undoubtedly a phase of the revolution under which old Europe is melting away; and it is not unnatural that the opposition to it should be personified by the hereditary sovereigns ; but it would be a mistake to suppose that the sove- reigns create the opposition, or that they are actu- ated in any considerable degree by personal motives. Every sovereign were he even a Charles II. or a Louis XVI. on international questions feels much the same as his subjects, studies their interests, and is a tolerably faithful reflex of their sentiments. In the eyes of Englishmen it is the Czar who tortures Poland. He is but one of seventy million Kussians. The occupation of Rome is charged on the machia- velian policy of Napoleon III. M. Jules Favre, by his own confession, could do no other, were he pre- sident of a French republic. International crimes, let us never forget, are perpetrated not only upon nations, but by nations. The popular sentiment on such matters is probably even more ignorant, bigoted, and unjust than that of the ruling class ; and the revolutionist, who sums up his creed in the subversion of consti- tuted governments and the pulling down of privi- leged classes, has a very imperfect conception of what the revolution means. Deep-rooted, however, as is the repugnance of every nation at present to submit to any supervision in the name of collective Europe, it is useless to deny that the idea of such a supervision is gaining ground, and will end in being unreservedly recog- ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 157 nised by all; for the popular mind, little troubled by logical consequences, is never roused to indignation by some international crime, that it does not in the broadest way appeal to the European body as a whole, and invoke its interference; each nation thus familiarising itself with the general principle, and building up the jurisdiction before which in its turn it will have to plead. This idea, simple and natural as it seems to most people, is really of very modern growth. It is the latest phase of the revolution. It was unknown in the last century ; it was unknown at the Congress of Vienna. No doubt men cried shame on the spoilers of Poland. Our alliances with Maria Theresa against Frederick, and with Frederick against Maria Theresa, were decorated with generous phrases, which to the popular mind were not absolutely empty. But even though we had gone to war from pure chivalry, and not from ambition and rapacity, the temporary unre- gulated sympathy of one nation for another has about as much affinity with a recognised administration of public law by all for each as the maxims of knight- errantry with the regulations of the metropolitan police. The aim in the one case, as in the other, was to prevent and redress wrong. But the ideas of Sir Richard Mayne are not those of Sir Galahad ; nor do we conceive of international relations and duties as our grandfathers did. For example, the Anglo- French alliance against Russia for an alleged viola- CD O 4, tion of European law ; the remonstrances with Austria and Prussia for not acceding to that alliance ; the proposed interference of the West on behalf of Po- land and Denmark, would have been as inconceivable to Kaunitz and Talleyrand as a steam-ram or turret- 158 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. ship to Rodney. Whether interference in the cases mentioned was justifiable or desirable is another question. All I wish to point out is, that a new principle has grown up in Europe the systematic and continuous jurisdiction of the West over its con- stituent members. When Europe sits in judgment, it is vain for England to hope that she will escape arraignment. I am dealing with foreign questions exclusively, and I am therefore spared the necessity of adverting to the relations between England and Ireland; relations which I admit may one day call for the interference of Europe. Our attitude towards non-European races is dealt with in other portions of this volume. I pro- pose to inquire what defence we can make to the charge loudly urged against us by the common voice of our neighbours, that we have erected upon a basis of violence and injustice a maritime supremacy in- compatible with the orderly and peaceable develop- ment of European civilisation. I am of course aware that to most Englishmen it will seem downright wickedness even to propose such a question for discussion. That England is naturally mistress of the seas is supposed to be one of those ultimate facts from which all international theories must take their start. Whigs and Tories may accuse one another of inadequately carrying out this great principle; but party malignity never went so far as to fasten on an opponent the odious and improbable imputation of denying it. Even Mr. Cobden, I be- lieve, declared that England ought to maintain a naval force superior to any that could be brought against it; and I am not aware that Mr. Bright has disavowed him. Maritime supremacy, we are given ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 159 to understand, is inseparably annexed to England by nature. It has been claimed, asserted, and upon the whole maintained by the nation from its earliest times. It is the necessary result of our insular position. It is bound up with our national life. To insist on its abandonment is to ask us to break with our whole previous history to reject our manifest destiny. To fly in the face of nature and the immemorial tradition of a nation is undoubtedly a serious thing. But such language is entirely out of place as applied to our maritime supremacy, which, even in its most rudi- mentary form, cannot be traced back further than the battle of La Hogue (1692), and was not established beyond dispute till the battle of Trafalgar. So far is it from being bound up with the national life, that the very idea of it did not dawn on the nation till after the Revolution of 1688. Not an allusion to it can be found in Shakspeare, who certainly was not disposed to abate a jot of the national pretensions, or (so far as I am aware) in Milton, who was quite as little imbued with cosmopolitan ideas. Yet the one was the contemporary of Raleigh and Drake, the other of Blake and Montague. Our naval history is the his- tory of our commerce and of our Protestant middle classes. To protect ourselves from invasion by a fleet rather than an army was no doubt a natural instinct on the part of islanders. Our Catholic and agricultural ancestors were as much alive to it as their Protestant and commercial descendants. It was from Catholic times chiefly that Selden accumulated the load of precedents by which he attempted to prove that the " four seas" are as much a part of English territory as Kent or Sussex. But it had 160 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. never occurred to Selden, when he wrote his Mare Clausum, that England's policy was to develop her maritime in preference to her military resources; much less that she was to assert that supremacy on the seas which the Hapsburgs and Bourbons were striving for on the Continent. Catholicism had been decisively abandoned, and the feudal organisation of society was but faintly traceable ; but the national policy was still based on the ideas of Catholic and feudal times. True, the consolidation of the chief continental Powers had compelled our sovereigns to abandon dreams of territorial aggrandisement, except in the direction of Scotland. But no vision of a new and wider field of conquest had dawned on their imagination. Elizabeth long acquiesced in the naval / superiority of Spain as perfectly natural, and fretted at the lawless buccaneering of Hawkins and Grenville even while she could not resist the temptation of sharing in their plunder. The Great Rebellion threw the country for a short time into the hands of the middle classes ; and Cromwell, as their representative, distinctly inau- gurated the new policy of England. He has gene- rally been accused of blindness in turning his arms against the pacific merchants of Holland and the feeble empire of Spain, rather than against the rising power of Louis XIV. Blind indeed he would have been if he could not discern what was evident to the shallowest politicians. The circumstances of William III. left him no choice but to grapple with France. Cromwell was under no such necessity. It was no part of his plans to check the power of Louis XIV. Evidently he had conceived and deliberately entered upon the scheme of building up a maritime and colo- ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 161 nial empire with a view to commerce, leaving France to work her will on the . Continent ; a scheme never again clearly conceived or deliberately resumed till the policy of England was permanently shaped by the master-mind of the elder Pitt.* To discuss the morality of such a policy in the seventeenth century is unnecessary. The limits of patriotism, the subordination of the country to the race, were not understood then as they are or may be now. Moreover, the morality of a religious man like Cromwell was tainted by his theology, and the Catholic nation par excellence had to expect some- thing less than justice from the champion of Pro- testantism. Would that all statesmen were as faithful to their consciences as Cromwell ! But the career of the Protector was all too short for the development of his mighty scheme. If its scope and character have been mistaken even by pos- terity, with the history of the last century as a com- mentary, we cannot wonder if contemporaries failed to note the dim outline of which but a short glimpse was afforded them. The Stuarts returned, and for twenty-eight years England had no policy at all. The first Dutch war of Charles II. was indeed a coarse and superficial imitation of the measures of Cromwell by men who had no insight into their meaning. But during the rest of that shameful reign the naval and military resources of England were simply at the disposal of Louis. Pepys has Cromwell, during his short reign, doubled the national fleet. The famous Navigation Act was passed in 1651. Whether we hold with Adam Smith that it favoured the growth of our mercantile marine, or with M'Culloch that it had a contrary effect, there can be no doubt about the intention of the middle-class Parliament which enacted it. M 162 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. photographed for us the naval administration of that day ; and it is clear that maritime ascendency was the last thing which any government contemplated; nor does it appear that the people demanded any thing- more than the security of the Thames and the Med- way. Under the reaction which had brought back the Stuarts for a time, England had for a time also reverted to the old precedents. But the Whig or oligarchic revolution came, and a compromise was tacitly effected between the rival interests between the territorial aristocracy and the commercial middle classes. To the former was re- signed the exclusive direction of the machine of government, but on the implied condition of direct- ing it in the interest of the latter. The distinction, the social precedence, the enormous official incomes, the opportunities for jobbery, for rewarding adherents, for pensioning cadets, these were the share of the aristocracy. Let us add in justice that there have always been men to whom the noble satisfaction of governing has been the sole attraction. The middle classes, on the other hand, abandoning the attempt to abolish privilege, and the claim to political equality which the nobler spirits among them had asserted in the middle of the century, contented themselves with the understanding that their commercial interests should henceforth be the primary object of our for- eign policy. They had ascertained their own ability to enforce the observance of this condition, and they have enforced it ever since. Of course it is not meant that this compromise took any definite shape in the minds of the statesmen of the Revolution. It was at first acted on unconsciously. The growing defi- niteness of its conception may be measured by the ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 163 decline of Jacobitism ; by the abandonment, that is, of old-world theories as to the objects and methods of civil government. The final extinction of Jacobit- ism and the complete and conscious development of the new system were therefore coincident, and are marked by the first administration of the great Pitt. The statesmen of the oligarchic revolution not only were incapable of the large views of Cromwell, but had not, like him, the opportunity of choosing their course. They were forced by circumstances into antagonism with France. France had acquired a preponderance in Europe such as no single state had ever before enjoyed. For any single state to pretend to deal with her as an equal was absurd. It seemed not unlikely that her preeminence might in time be converted into actual sovereignty. To avert such a fate from the continent of Europe was the object to which William of Orange had devoted his life. This was the conflict of which the battle of La Hogue was one of the incidents. In the eyes of William the defeat of the French in the Channel was an operation subsidiary to his military combinations. Assuredly neither he nor any one else foresaw the vast results that were to follow from it. The idea flashed upon the English people, inspired with its first great victory over France since Agincourt, that the globe, after all, is terraqueous. France had ac- quired a preponderance on the continent of Europe might perhaps conquer an imperial position. Such a preponderance, such an empire, might England esta- blish on the sea. The idea which Cromwell had brooded over in solitude thirty years before was grasped by a people. The whole tone of popular 164 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. feeling and language became changed. The navy became a profession. The extraordinary exertions which England was compelled to make on the Con- tinent, and the military genius of the two men who swayed her destinies from 1688 to 1711, prevented the full energies of the nation from being directed in the path of maritime aggrandisement. But the lead obtained at La Hogue was kept and increased ; above all, our future career was irrevocably decided by the capture of Gibraltar (1704). Although that enterprise was the result of a sudden resolution on the part of the admiral in command, yet it must be remembered that the expedition had been despatched for the occu- pation of Minorca a design identical in character, and which was afterwards recurred to. Rooke knew very well what he was about ; for though ostensibly employed in asserting the title of the Archduke Charles to the Spanish crown, he persisted in hoisting the English colours on the fortress, in spite of the re- monstrances of the Prince of Darmstadt. By such a perfidious act was this standing outrage on the Spa- nish nation appropriately inaugurated. The capture of Gibraltar was practically our in- troduction to the Mediterranean. That sea now became a regular cruising-ground for our men-of- war. During the last years of the great struggle no French fleet showed at sea; but our commerce suffered terribly from single men-of-war and priva- teers. Yet even so the commercial class and the Dissenters were to a man for the continuance of the war. The country gentlemen, on the other hand, desired no other England than the England of the past, such as their forefathers had known her, when a merry tussle in Picardy or a dash at Cadiz and ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 165 Vigo were the most important incidents of a war. It was with alarm and disgust that they saw their country every year drawn more deeply into the vor- tex of foreign complications. Already had English regiments marched from the Scheldt to the Moselle, and from the Moselle to the Danube. Nay, but for the firm opposition of the States, they would have been led across the Alps. Portugal had been held by our troops. We had won and lost battles in the heart of Spain ; and all this to the impoverishment, so they affirmed, of the landed gentry and the ag- grandisement of the mercantile class. Palace in- trigues and the influence of the clergy over a super- stitious people placed the government for a brief interval (1710-1714) in the hands of the Tories their only taste of office for more than half a century. The two principal measures of the Harley-St. John administration are the Qualification Bill and the Peace of Utrecht. The object of the former was to keep merchants out of parliament; of the latter, to cut short our foreign enterprises at any cost. But though in their desperate haste for peace they flung away the conquests of Marlborough and concerted with our enemies the ruin of our allies, the Tory statesmen did not dare to thwart the nation in the new career on which it had set its heart. The posts in the Me- diterranean were retained ; the monopoly of the slave- trade was secured. The right of sending one trading ship every year to Spanish America might seem an * unimportant concession; but it was the thin end of the wedge, which our merchants well knew how to drive home. The Tories had their day, but it was a short one. It had certainly not been their intention to stimulate 166 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. the appetite for conquest ; but, by putting a stop to the barren struggle which Marlborough would have delighted to continue, they had in truth but concen- trated the national energies on maritime enterprise. When the "Whigs returned to office on the accession of George I., that policy was resumed by the Towns- hend - Stanhope administration with more clearness than ever. An opportunity was soon found for an- nihilating the Spanish navy without any declaration of war (Passaro, 1718), an act which was warmly approved by Parliament. The Regent Orleans, tied close by his private interests to the house of Hanover, placed the resources of France at our disposal; and the strange spectacle was seen of a combined British and French fleet burning the arsenals, docks, and half-built ships of Yigo. The long administration of Walpole commenced in 1720. Disliking war, as full of pitfalls for ministers, he lost no time in patching up a peace with Spain, by promise of restoring Gibraltar and Minorca, and refunding the value of the fleet destroyed at Passaro ; promises which cost Walpole nothing, and which it is needless to say were never performed. When Spain, six years later, pressed for their fulfilment, the answer of England was to send out a fleet to seize the American treasure-ships, without any de- claration of Avar. Hosier failed in this shameful attempt. War was at the same time declared against the Emperor for having dared to establish the " Ostend Company" for Eastern trade. France, under the incapable Fleury, with incredible folly looked tamely on while England was asserting these monstrous pretensions and building up a maritime tyranny. The English minister was notoriously ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 167 averse to war; but the commercial class was insa- tiable, and knew how to stir the passions of the country. Ample supplies had been furnished by Parliament, and deep dissatisfaction was manifested when Walpole again patched up peace, although Gibraltar was retained, and the Ostend Company given up. The treaty of Seville, however, could not be any thing but a truce while all the causes of disagree- ment remained. During the succeeding ten years (1729-1739) our relations with Spain became more embittered from day to day. Those who have ob- served the proceedings of our merchants in Chinese and Japanese waters need not be told what were the means adopted for " opening up" the Spanish colonies in the last century. The permission for a limited trade extorted from Spain was made the cloak for a vast system of smuggling. Violence and fraud, bullying and corruption, were practised alter- nately. When the Spanish coast-guard endeavoured to repress these lawless proceedings, a howl of fury arose from the merchants. An unscrupulous Oppo- sition, hungry for place, were barking round the prudent but equally unscrupulous minister who clung to it. Pulteney and Carteret, Chesterfield and Pitt, thundered night after night about the honour of England and the insolence of Spain; till at length Walpole, with his eyes open to the folly as well as injustice of war, allowed himself to be kicked into it. The nation was in a delirium of joy. The spirit of the buccaneer had entered into a whole people. Already, in their greedy imagination, our sailors were rifling the supposed treasures of the Indies, and pouring a flood of gold and silver over this free and 168 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. Protestant land. " They are ringing their bells now," said Sir Kobert ; "they will be wringing their hands before long." As he had foreseen, we had soon a French war also on our hands and a rebellion in Scotland. If, indeed, our efforts had been directed to the single object of extending our maritime empire, we should have had little to fear; but here, as always, Hanover was the fatal drag. It may be safely affirmed that, but for the Hanoverian connection, by the end of the century no continental Power would have had a navy, a commerce, or a colony. Fortunate was it for mankind that so ter- rible a despotism was averted. Fortunate was it for England that insular selfishness had not full play; that she had not the opportunity of excommunicating herself from the Western state system. The connection between Protestantism and com- mercial immorality has always been marked, and is not altogether accidental. Mr. Carlyle, therefore, is justified in regarding the " war for Jenkins's ear" as an episode in the grand struggle between Catholicism and Protestantism ; though, to people who retain old-fashioned notions about right and wrong, such a defence may seem less satisfactory than it does to the biographer of Frederic. It must be remembered that, while we were evincing such a generous anxiety to confer upon the Spanish colonies the blessings of free trade, we were compelling our own colonies to trade exclusively with the mother country, and con- quering the dependencies of our neighbours in order to bring them within our own protective system, for the benefit of English trade. The war terminated, as Walpole had foreseen, un- favourably for England. Much loot had been secured ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 169 by individuals ; but the only conquest of importance was Cape Breton, and that had to be disgorged at the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle (1748). So low did our reputation for honourable dealing at this time stand, that we had actually to give hostages for per- forming our stipulations ; the only instance in modern times. But the English people felt that it held the winning cards. If the game was being lost, it was by the gross incapacity of the players. In 1757 the national voice summoned a great man to the helm. The idea of a maritime and colonial empire had been working in the popular mind since the Kevolution, but it had not been clearly formulated or decisively carried out. Our manifest advantages would not fail to suggest from time to time to the Stanhopes and Yernons, that this port should be seized or that fleet destroyed. But no statesman since Cromwell had distinctly imagined a supremacy, or formed a vast and consistent scheme for realising it. Pitt was the most towering statesman that England has pro- duced. In capacity he may probably be reckoned with the two or three great rulers who stand out from universal history as founders or creators of a new order of things. But it was not his fate, as theirs, to be placed in the crisis of a revolution when all existing systems and authorities are crumbling away, and reconstruction guocumque modo is a neces- sity. He worked in the gyves of a constitution. He had to play a game of which others had invented the rules. In England a half-witted, obstinate George III., or a Duke of Bedford swollen with selfishness and pride, are greater powers than a Pitt. Great things may be done in four years, but not the greatest. What of life and health Pitt had before him in 1757 would 170 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. have been all too little for building up an empire. It was much that in four short years, with wretched health, without a party, in the face of powerful family interests, with a continental war to be kept up as a pure objet de luxe for the sovereign, he did map out the ground-plan, lay the foundations, and rear up the main walls of the imperial edifice with such distinct- ness and solidity, that succeeding architects had no choice but to follow his design. The conditions of action had entirely changed since Cromwell had brooded over a similar scheme. To conciliate France with a view to the ruin of the Spanish Empire was now out of the question. The danger impending over Europe from British ambi- tion had for some time been patent to every one ; and France was determined not to surrender her com- merce, her colonies, and her right to be a naval power without a struggle. It seemed advisable to Pitt to endeavour to secure the alliance of Spain. The bribe he offered was Gibraltar, in return for which Spain was to aid in the recovery of Minorca. The possession of Minorca, though from a military point of view far more important than Gibraltar, would of course have been less gratifying to British pride, because it would not so palpably trample on the dignity of Spain. Perhaps this consideration was not without its influence on Pitt, whose ideas of na- tional honour, if not reconcilable to a lofty morality, were at least not those of a mob -orator or a jour- nalist. Our historians, in their tenderness for a name of which England is so proud, touch as lightly as possible on this sad indiscretion. The fleets of France were soon swept from the seas. But this was not enough for Pitt. He car- ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 171 ried the war into the very harbours of Normandy and Brittany. He desired not only to destroy the existing navy of France, but to make it impossible for her to create another. In the mean time her settlements in Africa, in America, in East and West Indies were torn from her one after another. Wolfe robbed her of Canada ; Clive and Coote of India. In those four years Pitt may be said to have deter- mined the destiny of France no less decisively than that of his own country. We often hear the remark that the French have no aptitude for colonisation. If those who make it would look a little further than Algeria and Cochin China, they would find that pre- vious to Pitt's administration the colonies of France were numerous and flourishing. Less brutal and in- tolerant than the Protestant Anglo-Saxon, the French settler fraternised and intermarried with the natives, instead of exterminating them ; and the advantage to humanity of the monopoly of colonisation enjoyed in recent times by the Anglo-Saxon race is at least questionable.* It was Pitt who excluded France from transmarine development, and forced her to con- centrate her energies and attention on her European position. In Pitt the commercial class had at last found its statesman. In those days of protective duties a co- lony meant a market for home produce and manufac- tures. Then, as now, our merchants expected our fleets and armies to be employed in forcing British goods on reluctant customers. The French and "Mr. Roebuck's antipathy to black people and brown people is only the conscious and articulate expression of a tendency which pre- vails wherever the English language comes into juxtaposition with barbarous dialects." Saturday Review, on New Zealand, Sept. 2, 1865. 172 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. Spanish colonies were conquered in the name of pro- tection. The empires of China and Japan are as- sailed in the name of free trade. The British mer- chant no longer cries for war in Europe; but he knows how to insist on it in Asia. The citizens of London recorded on the monument to Pitt, in the Guildhall, that under his administration they had found " commerce united with and made to flourish by war." Let us hope that our opium-smuggling millionaires may not be less grateful to Lord Pal- merston. The interests of Spain were so manifestly those of France that even the offer of Gibraltar had not tempted her to abet the policy of Pitt. As the war went on she became more and more alarmed at the despotic power England was acquiring, and the out- rageous arrogance that already marked its exercise. Hundreds of neutral ships had been made prizes for carrying French colonial produce. English cruisers had captured French vessels in neutral harbours. English settlers had audaciously established them- selves on Spanish territory in Central America. English merchants pushed their illicit traffic with redoubled vigour and impudence. It seemed time for the smaller maritime Powers to make a stand, if they would preserve a shred of their natural right to the common highway of nations. In 1761 Pitt re- quired an explanation of the activity apparent in the Spanish dockyards. Shipbuilding on the part of any Continental Power was already, it seems, a high crime. Later in the same year a secret treaty was concluded between Spain and France. Pitt knew of the existence of this treaty, and insisted that war should be immediately declared against Spain. Eng- ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 173 land was now fairly embarked on her career of con- quest. All the great minister's plans were laid; the treasure-galleons were to be seized; the Isthmus of Panama was to be occupied; Havanna and the Phi- lippines conquered. Spain would have been struck down before she had time to look about her. But Pitt was no longer omnipotent in the cabinet. A monarch obstinate as he was incapable, and false as he was pious, had recently succeeded to the throne ; and for the first time under a Hanoverian prince the Tories had found their way to court. A great war, directed by a great man, was as disagreeable to the court of George III. in 1760 as it had been to the court of Anne in 1712. Unlike Marlboro ugh, Pitt was not the man to cling to oifi.ce when he could no longer carry out his ideas. He retired, followed by the regrets of the nation; and the king and his fa- vourite soon got rid of the war. The peace of Paris (1763) was not so conspicuously a surrender of Bri- tish influence and British conquests as the peace of Utrecht. Still there can be no doubt that far harder terms might have been imposed on the Continental Powers. If St. John in the one case, and Bute in the other, declined to press our advantages, it was not by large views of international morality that they were actuated, but by personal interest. From the peace of Paris to the American rebellion (1763-1775) England maintained a pacific attitude. But if no aggressive steps were taken; if there was. no attempt to press boldly on in the path marked out by Pitt, it is clear that the principle of his policy namely, that our empire should be built on commerce was now thoroughly understood and accepted by all classes of politicians. One example may suifice. 174 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. The first partition of Poland was arranged in 1772. Even in those days it profoundly shocked Europe. Our ministers objected to it. But on what grounds? Their despatches, according to Lord Mahon, "say nothing of the danger of disturbing the balance of power; they do not dwell on the ill example from such a violation of the public law ; they are silent as to motives of compassion for the injured Poles; they descant only on the possible interruption and disturb- ance of British trade." The American rebellion was a rude blow to our colonial and maritime ascendency. The worst king of a bad line was on the throne. A Tory ministry made his pleasure their rule of action. In justice it must be said that a large part of the nation were as blind and bigoted as their sovereign. Never was there a more unnecessary disruption than that of America from England. It is usual to say that it would have come sooner or later ; and perhaps this is true ; but let us not misconceive the reason. There was no divergence of interests; there was no desire for in- dependence on the part of the colonists. The dis- tance had caused little inconvenience, and would have caused less. If the separation was inevitable, it was because the divergences in the life and thought of the two countries would have become more evident as communication became easier. The one was re- publican by inheritance; the other oligarchic by habit. Education was diffused in the one; ignor- ance was the rule in the other. In America the mass of the people were not trained to pay a de- grading homage to rank and wealth, as in England. The condition, therefore, of a permanent union was either that America should inoculate herself with EXGLAXD AND THE SEA. 175 rottenness, or that England should be politically, and still more socially, revolutionised. To speculate further on such an hypothesis would be waste of time. The language of Pitt throughout the American war was perfectly consistent with his former policy. His attempts to define the rights of the mother country were illogical enough; but there was a pe- riod in the quarrel when they would have been eagerly accepted by the colonists as a basis for ac- commodation. One concession, and one only, Pitt would not listen to. He could not endure to think of the disruption of the mighty empire he had built up. Nothing is more tragic than the spectacle of his agony as he passed out of the world with the con- viction that, after all, he had lived in vain. The life of the statesman seemed to ebb with that of his coun- try, and to fly with a groan indignant to the shades when her dissolution appeared to be accomplished. Perhaps there were Frenchmen who had felt a pang as great eighteen years before. In his last bitter hour did the ex-minister's thoughts go back to that " dis- memberment of a great and most noble monarchy" ? Was this what had come of " commerce united with and made to flourish by war" ? Chatham died despairing. If his life had been prolonged but a little, he would have seen England steady herself after the shock. The commencement of the revolutionary war found her with one hundred and fifty ships of the line, and the Three-per-cents at ninety-nine. This prosperity was due to the vigor- ous and enlightened administration of Chatham's son. The younger Pitt lived to be a curse to his country and to Europe ; but there is no period in the history 176 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. of England on which my mind dwells with such un- mixed pleasure as on the first six years of his ad- ministration (1783-9). With all the courage and enthusiasm of youth, guided by a prudence which old age does not often attain, he plunged into the foul jungle of abuses that had thriven so vigorously in the congenial soil of parliamentary government, and cleared them away with glorious energy. A born financier, he had eagerly embraced the new doctrines of political economy. No financial and eco- nomic reforms before or since can be compared in importance with his achievements in those six years. This is not the place to allude to any of them except the commercial treaty with France. French writers who worship Fox, and can see plainly that the son of Chatham inherited an undying hatred to France and Frenchmen, should read the speeches of the rival statesmen on that noble measure.* It was Fox who maintained that " as France was the natural and un- alterable enemy of England, no sincerity could be expected from her ; no interest could eradicate what was rooted in her constitution ; and the proposed intercourse must prove injurious to the national cha- racter of England." It was the " ennemi du genre humain " who replied that " the quarrels between France and Britain had too long continued not only to harass those two great nations themselves, but to embroil the peace of Europe ; nay, they had dis- turbed the tranquillity of the most remote parts of the world. They had by their past conduct acted as if they were intended for the destruction of each It is astonishing that an historian usually so well-informed and candid as M. Louis Blanc should adopt this vulgar error respecting Pitt in its most extravagant form. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 177 other; but he hoped the time was now come when they would justify the order of the universe, and show that they were better calculated for the more amiable purpose of friendly intercourse and mutual benevolence. Considering the treaty in a political point of view, he should not hesitate to contend against the too - frequently advanced doctrine that France was and must be the unalterable enemy of Britain. To suppose that any nation was unalter- ably the enemy of another was weak and childish. It had neither its foundation pi the experience of nations nor in the history of man. It was a libel on the constitution of political societies, and supposed diabolical malice in the original frame of man." Terrible but righteous retribution on the man who deserted his principles and sinned against light and knowledge! Pitt, the minister of peace and civilisa- tion, of reform and progress, is forgotten. The world remembers, and will remember, nothing but the bloody laws, the oppressive government, the waste- ful administration, the public misery amid which the apostate statesman descended to his grave. Even during his life he tasted the bitterness of his doom ; but doubtless he clung to the hope that future ages would never forget that glorious six years which, in spite of all that followed, he knew to be an epoch in our history. Could he have foreseen that sixty years after his death excitable county members in some Boeotian congress would describe themselves as " Tories of the school of Pitt," I am inclined to think he would have preferred oblivion : " Has toties optata exegit gloria pcenas." Even the price for which he sold his honour is denied N 178 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. him ; and the man to whom, after his father, we owe it that " the sun never sets on the dominions of England," is sniffed at by Lord Macaulay as "the most incapable of war ministers." So far was Pitt from welcoming war Avith France, that he was probably the last man of his party to make up his mind to it. It was not till he saw the fanaticism of the Tories and the Burke section of the Whigs rising to a point which left him no alter- native between heading the counter-revolution and being driven from power, that he swallowed his con- victions and regretfully abandoned the paths in which his genius loved to walk. Even so late as the sum- mer of 1792 he tried to negotiate a coalition with Fox; which he could have desired for no other ob- ject than to put a check on his own rabid followers and the malignant old dotard on the throne.* But when once he had determined on his policy, he never faltered in carrying it out. He rushed into war to keep office, or rather let us say for there was no- thing sordid about Pitt to keep power. To retrace his steps would have been to admit his mistake and succumb to Fox. Something too must be allowed for the fascination which a war of conquest cannot fail to have for those who have once tasted it. And Pitt had determined that it should be a war of con- quest such a war as Chatham had conducted a war to promote the wealth, commerce, and maritime ascendency of England. That this last object had * The negotiation failed because Fox, like a true Whig, insisted that the head of a great Whig family should be premier. This was no other than the stolid Duke of Portland, who was so far from sharing Fox's views about France, that he deserted to the Tories a few months later. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 179 never been lost sight of, even during his pacific ad- ministration, is perfectly clear. I will not now dwell on the attitude he assumed towards Russia and Spain. It is more important to notice his intrigues in the United Provinces. As a naval Power the Dutch were always the natural allies of France. The insane policy of Louis XIV. had for a time thrown them into the arms of England ; but when that disturbing cause was re- moved, the old relations were renewed. The Stadt- holders naturally desired to develop the army as an instrument of tyranny. The Republican party, on the contrary, guided by an instinct no less sure, were for starving the army and fostering the navy. Thus the Stadtholder was playing the game of Eng- land, and was backed by English diplomacy zeal- ously, effectually, and unscrupulously.* In 1787 less than two years before the French Revolution Prussia, at the instigation of the English Govern- ment, marched an army into Holland, and suppressed the Republican Constitution ; after which England and Prussia concluded a treaty with the Stadtholder, by which they guaranteed his authority ( 1788 ). Four years afterwards, a vague offer of assistance on the part of the French Convention to peoples struggling for liberty was held by England to be a casus belli /f '* See the Malmesbury Correspondence, vol. ii. passim. f Mr. Massey who, by the way, used to sit for the Radical borough of Salford approves the conduct of the English Government both in 1787-8 and in 1792-3. " Tant d'impudence," as Danton said to the re- actionists of his time, " commence a nous peser." Time was when it was the custom to whisper mysteriously of a rising young man, that he was " a Whig and something more." Most of that class may now be styled "Whigs and something less." 180 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. The mouth of the Scheldt lies in Dutch territory, and the treaties of Westphalia and Utrecht had closed it to the great manufacturing and commercial towns of Belgium lying higher up the stream. Catholic Antwerp and Ghent had been ruined, that the Pro- testants of Amsterdam and Rotterdam might thrive. What the interest of England was, or was supposed to be, may be inferred from the saying of Napoleon, that he would hold Antwerp as a pistol at the heart of England. England, therefore, looked on the closing of the Scheldt as a point she had a right to insist upon. That a noble river, provided by nature as a highway for commerce, should flow idle to the sea; that great cities should dwindle and decay; that a dense and industrious population should sink into poverty, ^all this was only right and proper if the interests of England, or rather of the English middle class, demanded it. When, therefore, Dumouriez, amidst the tumultuous rejoicings of the Belgians, an- nounced that the navigation of the Scheldt was open, the traditional policy of England prescribed inter- ference. In the summer of 1792 the conquest of Belgium by Dumouriez seemed in the highest degree impro- bable. In the autumn it was an accomplished fact. This astonishing change in the aspect of affairs un- doubtedly supplied Pitt with a suitable pretext for abandoning his pacific policy. How far it really influenced his judgment it is impossible to say. If the coalition between Fox and Pitt had been effected in the summer, I am by no means prepared to affirm that war would have been avoided even for a time. The French Government would have been addressed in the conciliatory and sympathetic language of Fox, ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 181 instead of being outraged by the studied insolence of Grenville. But Fox had always emphatically an- proved our Dutch policy; and if he had been in office, instead of in opposition, I believe he would have drawn the sword in defence of it Avith less reluctance than the thrifty and peace-loving Pitt. However this may be, no candid person who reads the diplomatic correspondence and parliamentary de- bates with due attention to dates can doubt that the proximate and decisive cause of our long war with France was her denial of our monstrous claim to close a great navigable river to commerce. The treaty of 1788 no doubt bound us to protect Hol- land; but it was notorious that the Dutch, on whom the brunt of the war was sure to fall, preferred to acquiesce in the opening of the Scheldt. All the energy of our ambassador had failed to extract from them any requisition for assistance; and Fox could most justly denounce the hypocrisy and cruelty of forcing it upon them. Fox was precluded by his own previous language from pointing out that the treaty thus paraded had been imposed upon the unfortunate Dutch four years before by England, Prussia, and the Stadtholder, at the point of the bayonet. Pitt could not resist the combined pres- sure of the mercantile interest and the fanatics, and the war began.* A letter [Dec. 2, 1792] from Maret, the French envoy, to his Government (which one would have thought Mr. Massey might have found room to notice in his bulky book) is worth quoting, for the light it throws on Pitt's views. " Mr. Pitt," he says, " dreads war much more than the aristocracy of opposition. [Fox's patron, for in- stance, the Duke of Portland.] That party in the Ministry at the head of which is my Lord Hawkesbury, and which professes the most absolute royalism, desires war ; they have the majority in the Council ; Mr. Pitt is thus personally interested in our having pacific inten- 182 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. There is, perhaps, no portion of our history which has been so disguised by English writers as the part we played in Europe during that tremendous struggle. The common belief is that we stood up, sometimes with allies, sometimes single-handed, for the liberties of Europe ; and that for twenty-two years the nations of the Continent blessed and prayed for Old England as their only champion against French oppression. That we exhibited extraordinary pluck and perti- nacity no one Avill deny; and those are qualities of which a nation does right to be proud. But the fact is, that our object during the first fourteen years of the war was, not to drive France from the prey, but to get a share of it for ourselves. The division was made on the old principle laid down by the great Pitt, and carried out by his son, the Continent to France, for what she can make of it; the sea and transmarine settlements to England. France, for example, overruns Holland; England forthwith helps herself to the Dutch colonies : France seizes Malta ; England turns out the French, and keeps Malta for herself. Be it observed that, while France eventually tions." Negotiations between Britain and Spain had certainly gone on, but " Mr. Pitt has had very little share in them." He then gives an account of an interview he had had with Pitt that morning. Pitt tells him that the mercantile interest is much alarmed on the subject of Holland, and that Government is determined to support the Dutch. For himself, he assures Maret of his anxious desire to avoid a breach, and begs him earnestly to have a secret agent sent from Paris, with whom negotiations might be continued, or to obtain powers himself. " Do not," he said, "reject the sole means of bringing us together, and of making us understand each other. Do not lose an instant in sending to Paris : I assure you that every moment is precious, that nothing is more urgent." It appears from this conversation that war would have been declared, whether Louis had been executed or not. Maret always retained his belief in the sincerity of Pitt. See Annual Register for 1792, p. 193. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 183 disgorged her share, we kept, and at the present moment hold, the best part of ours. Undoubtedly, with the king, the aristocracy, and the clergy, the main object was to crush liberal principles ; but the commercial class was animated by a motive much less respectable, a shameless thirst for gain; while all classes alike exulted in the aggrandisement which every year of the war brought to the nation. In 1797 conferences were held at Lille with a view to peace. England had no longer the pretence, as in the year before, to insist on the relinquishment by France of her conquests from Austria, for Austria had voluntarily, nay gladly, consented to cede them to France, in exchange for Yenetia. That arrange- ment was, no doubt, a grossly immoral one. But it was no affair of ours, nor did we pretend that it was. We had not lost an acre of ground; on the contrary, we had conquered colonies, French, Dutch, and Spanish, all over the world. We had not the smallest excuse, as every one now admits, for the terrible war we had forced upon France. Naturally, therefore, France demanded that we should relin- quish our conquests, if we wished for peace. What was the answer of the British Government? We professed ourselves ready to restore all the colonies of France, and some belonging to other countries. But we insisted on withholding Trinidad from Spain, and Trincomalee from Holland Holland, for whose liberation we professed to be fighting. The cham- - pions of European freedom, are thus found advancing precisely the same immoral claims as France and Austria. It is not, however, to be believed for a moment that we deliberately accepted a continuation of that deadly struggle rather than give up Trinidad 184 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. or Trincomalee, valuable as those possessions un- doubtedly were. It was the disgorging of our other rich conquests which we could not bring ourselves to endure. Pitt, who had now tasted blood, felt sure of stirring up a fresh conflict on the Continent, and he was bent on holding tight what he had won. There were more colonies to be picked up. The maritime powers were not yet thoroughly crushed. The trade of the world was falling into our hands ; our imports and exports had increased enormously during the war; and so o woXtpog igv'sra was the cry throughout England. Our aims were thoroughly understood by the rest of Europe. At the outbreak of the revolution, Spain and Holland, or rather the governments of those countries, had been prevailed on, in the teeth of their true and traditional policy, to join us in destroying the navy of France. Spain saw her folly too late, and endeavoured to retrace her steps. "We annihi- lated her fleet at the battle of St. Vincent. The Dutch populace received the Republican army with enthusiasm, which gave us the opportunity of putting the finishing stroke to our ancient rivals at the battle of Camperdown. u The Dutch sailors," says Alison, " fought with the most admirable skill and courage, and proved themselves worthy descendants of Van Tromp and De Ruyter ; but the prowess of the British was irresistible." Thus in the space of four years the champions of European freedom managed to clear out of their way the three most powerful continental navies, and to conquer a more commanding position than they had ever enjoyed, even under the elder Pitt. The war went on, and England continued her con- quests. " The condition of the empire," says Alison, ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 185 "at the period (1801) was unprecedentedly wealthy and prosperous ; the exports had tripled and the im- ports had more than tripled since the commencement of the war." When the First Consul, therefore, in 1800, proposed to treat, the English ministry rejected his advances twice over in the most insulting lan- guage, refusing even to name any terms on which they would be prepared to negotiate. It ought to be clearly understood that at this juncture (January 1800) it was not France so much as England that excited the jealousy and apprehension of Europe. Austria, triumphant in the last campaign, so far from dreading spoliation, was meditating an invasion of France. Prussia was disposed to the French alliance, as a counterpoise to Austria and Russia. Spain and Holland, as maritime powers, thought of nothing but the colonies torn from them by England. Russia, while fighting to put down the revolution, considered that resistance to the maritime tyranny of England was a point of at least equal importance. Why, in fact, should Europe then, or at any other time, have feared France? Nothing but the selfish rivalries of the German courts could have enabled even Napoleon to establish himself beyond the Rhine; whereas it had been proved, and was to be proved again, that England could maintain her maritime supremacy against the united efforts of Europe. What wonder, therefore, if England was at that time looked on as the common enemy of Europe ? It is an undeniable fact that in 1800 the only Power which did not eagerly desire the humiliation of England was Aus- tria, which had no maritime interests.* I ought, perhaps, to notice, as another exception, Portugal, our ancient and sincere ally. When, during the negotiations of 1801, 186 ENGLAND AKD THE SEA. Such was the state of things which led to the formation of the maritime confederacy at the close of 1800. It was no secret even in the early part of -that year that the Northern Powers Russia, Sweden, and Denmark were meditating a reassertion of the principles proclaimed by the Empress Catherine in 1780, but which the "armed neutrality" at that time had failed to establish. These were, that free ships make free goods ; that contraband articles must be denned by treaty; that blockades must be effec- tive; that convoyed ships cannot be searched. In December 1800 the confederacy was actually formed, and the Emperor Paul, who had already made peace with France, called on the First Consul to concert measures for liberating the seas. But before the Northern Powers could get their fleets out of harbour Parker and Nelson were upon them. By the terri- ble battle of Copenhagen (April 1800) Denmark was forced to seek an armistice, during which Nelson went up the Baltic to look for the Swedish and Rus- sian fleets. But the murder of Paul, and the discon- tent of the Russian landholders at the stoppage of their exports, were more effectual than the victory of Copenhagen in breaking up the confederacy. Before the autumn it had ceased to exist. It only remains to be said that the progress of civilisation has since forced England to concede all the points in dispute. The peace of Luneville (1801) had left England standing alone. Although the merchants, shipowners, and loanmongers the Lairds, Lindsays, and Spences of that day were eager to fight on, the rest of the Bonaparte threatened to seize Portugal, as a mode of coercing England, our reply was, that in that case we should appropriate the Portuguese colonies ! ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 187 nation was sick of the war. Trade was flourishing, O" and large fortunes were being made ; but the labour- ing population was simply starving. The governing classes were less rabid against France since Bonaparte had crushed democracy. The Catholic question had forced Pitt to resign office ; and the Addington ministry, disquieted by the misery of the country and the prospect of isolation, determined to treat. In the negotiations which preceded the Peace of Amiens (1801-2) we at first proposed the uti possidetis as a basis; we wished, that is, to keep all our plunder. This, however, Bonaparte would not hear of, declaring that he would never abandon his efforts to crush England unless she disgorged all or most of her enormous gains ; and we eventually modified our pretensions. All things considered, we had no cause to complain of the terms of the treaty. Trinidad conquered from Spain, and Ceylon from Holland, remained in our hands. Those colonies, our conquests in India, and our maritime superiority, were a very handsome profit on the war. But hardly had peace been proclaimed, when the most influ- ential classes of the nation began to regret that so much had been yielded. The protective system pur- sued by Bonaparte disappointed our merchants of the profits they had expected from the resumption of trade. The splendid position of France tormented us with jealousy. Our troops had not yet evacuated Malta, as stipulated by the treaty; and in the face of the popular feeling, the feeble Addington ministry did not dare to withdraw them. Now Malta was, in the opinion of Bonaparte, one of the most valuable positions in Europe: he had thought it worth bar- tering against Egypt. To retain it, therefore, was to 188 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. reopen the war. The pretexts put forward for this violation of our engagements were the annexation of Piedmont, the acceptance by Bonaparte of the presi- dency of the Cisalpine republic, and his intervention in Switzerland, acts which certainly had been ac- complished since the peace of Amiens. But we had refused to be parties to the treaty of Luneville, which settled the Continent ; we had refused to admit continental questions into the treaty of Amiens. Bonaparte had scrupulously performed all his engage- ments at Amiens. If any Powers had a right to complain of his last proceedings, it was the signa- taries of the treaty of Luneville ; but they were indemnifying themselves at the expense of the eccle- siastical states in Germany. Moreover, the intentions of Bonaparte with regard to Italy were notorious when we made peace. He had not affected to conceal them. As for the intervention in Switzer- land, it was but momentary, and did not effect any territorial change. Alison himself allows that it "was marked by unusual moderation." Our pre- tence, therefore, that these acts absolved us from ful- filling our engagements in the treaty of Amiens was too transparent to deceive any one. In fact, the mean shuffling and higgling of our ministers showed our true motive. At first they professed themselves ready to surrender Malta, if Russia would take charge of it. When Russia with considerable reluctance undertook this office, they offered to surrender all the island except the fortifications ; and finally made the cool proposal that England should retain it for ten years. The unvarying answer of Bonaparte was, " The treaty, and nothing but the treaty ;" and it was on this question, and no other, that war was re- ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 189 sumecl. However English historians may disguise it, this was the simple fact. It is clear that Bonaparte ardently desired peace. He had thrown himself with all the energy of his nature into schemes of colonisation, public works, commerce, and improvements of every kind. The renewal of the war baulked him in all these projects, and he turned on England with a fury thenceforth implacable.* He had indeed already shown himself overbearing and unscrupulous in his dealings with Europe ; but not more so than the statesmen of England, Austria, and Prussia. When France, after being menaced with political extinction by the allied sovereigns, had hurled them back across her fron- tiers and forced them to sue for peace, of course she ought to have halted there; she ought not to have annexed a village that was not fairly French. But to expect such self-restraint from any nation even now would be rash; in the last century it was out of the question. The renewal of the war was the turning-point of Bonaparte's career. Intoxicated with his successes, he believed himself invincible; and losing that fear of consequences which counts 8 At St. Helena, Napoleon said that his intention was to maintain peace for a few years, until his finances and navy were in a satis- factory condition, and then to recommence the war. It is curious to find Pitt cherishing similar designs. In December. 1802 he said to Lord Malmesbury, that "if we could protract (postpone?) the evil of war for a few years, war would be an evil much less felt." And again : " That if it were possible to go on without risking our power or safety four or five years in peace, our revenue then would be in such an improved state that we might without fear look in the face of such a war as we had just ended." Diary of Lord Malmesbury, iv. 147, 157. Malta, it must be remembered, was in Pitt's eyes indis- pensable ; so that it seems he contemplated a renewal of the war in four or five years, even if Napoleon had acquiesced in our retention of Malta. 190 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. for more in the morality of most of us than we should be willing to allow, he became the most for- midable foe to civilisation the world has seen in modern times, and left behind him a memory de- stined to an execration already general and soon to be universal. But let us remember with shame that such perfidy, tyranny, and unblushing immorality would never have had a chance of success, had it not been that anti-Bonapartism was represented by the selfish and odious policy of England. On the renewal of hostilities we resumed our for- mer tactics. The French, Dutch, and Spanish colonies were gradually recaptured. As for Spain, we did not wait to see what course she would pursue, but seized her treasure-fleet off Cadiz (Oct. 1804), without any declaration of war ; a proceeding which even Alison admits was " not warranted either by the usages of war or by the law of nations." Napoleon himself never did any thing more outrageous.* Pitt, now again at the helm, was unwearied in his efforts to organise a new coalition. Every thing depended on the Emperor of Russia ; and Alexander thought it only fair that, before Napoleon was sum- moned to retire from his conquests, the other Power that disturbed Europe should engage to leave Malta and consent to a revision of maritime law. Pitt, however, would not allow Malta to be even men- tioned; and it seemed doubtful whether a coalition could be formed, when the murder of the Duke d'Enghien, and the arrogant annexation of Genoa, precipitated matters, and Europe was once more in a It is worth noticing, as a sign of the low morality still prevalent amongst us, that Lord Stanhope, though a man of moderate views, can see nothing improper in this act. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 191 flame. Napoleon gave up his design of invading England, and the battle of Trafalgar, which imme- diately followed, completely destroyed the French and Spanish navies, and made England absolute mis- tress of the seas for the rest of the war. But the maritime tyranny of England had now become a matter of secondary importance, in face of the overwhelming force and monstrous projects of Napoleon. Russia alone remained in a condition to resist him. The first check his arms received was in the terrible winter campaign of 1806-7. Ben- ningsen was not to be disposed of in a day, like most of Napoleon's previous antagonists. With in- ferior numbers the Russian general fought more than one obstinate battle with something like success. Now was the time for England to show if she was really at war for the liberties of Europe. Trafalgar had placed her in absolute security. All her forces were at her disposal. If a respectable army had been sent to assist the Swedes in Pomerania, the campaign must have terminated otherwise than it did.* Aus- tria would certainly have declared war and cut off Napoleon's communications, and Europe would have been spared eight years of fighting. But what was England doing? To her eternal shame it must be said that she was occupied in attempts on Egypt, Constantinople, and the South American dominions of Spain. Only 10,000 men were sent to the Baltic. At last the Russians, outnumbered and half-starved, were decisively defeated at Friedland (June 1807). and the result was the treaty of Tilsit (June 1807). Furious at our treacherous desertion, Alexander re- "We sent 40,000 troops against Copenhagen in the autumn, \vhen the Danish fleet was to be seized. 192 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. verted to his early idea of subverting our maritime despotism, and threw himself into the arms of Na- poleon. England incurred much odium by the seizure of the Danish fleet (Sept. 1807). It is often spoken of as indefensible even by Englishmen. For once, however, she was acting strictly within her right. Our ministers were aware of a secret article in the treaty of Tilsit by virtue of which Denmark was to be required to declare war against England.* The readiness of Denmark to place her fleet at the dis- posal of France is beyond dispute ; and though such a feeling on her part tells a tale not creditable to England, yet, at the point to which things had come, we had a clear right to protect ourselves. After Trafalgar, Napoleon made no attempt to shake our maritime supremacy. During the last eight years of the war (1808-15), we addressed ourselves in better faith to the task of liberating Europe. The expulsion of the tyrant from Spain was the greatest service our arms have ever rendered to civilisation. It is gratifying to remember that it was effected not merely on a prudent calculation of expediency, but in obedience -to a warm and gene- rous enthusiasm for an oppressed nation. When the great struggle of twenty-four years was brought to a close, France was stripped of all her ac- quisitions. All the other great Powers came out of the war bigger than they had gone into it. Russia had gained Finland and the largest part of the grand duchy of Warsaw, besides conquests in Asia. Austria had the Venetian territories and Salzburg to set against o o The prevarications of M. Thiers on this point are truly con- temptible. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 193 Flanders. The 8,000,000 subjects of the King of Prussia were raised to 10,000,000 at the expense of Poland and Saxony. But none had gained so much as England. We relinquished, it is true, many of our naval conquests; but we did not give back To- bago, St. Lucia, or the Mauritius, to France. We did not give back the Cape of Good Hope, Deme- rara, Essequibo, Berbice, or Ceylon, to the Dutch. We did not give back Trinidad to Spain. We kept Malta, the Ionian Islands, and Heligoland, the most valuable positions for a maritime power in Europe. Thus we entrenched ourselves, as it were, on both the routes to India, where, be it observed, our career of conquest had never for a moment been interrupted by the turmoil nearer home.* As far as it depends on the occupation of ports, our maritime empire remains as it was left by the war, except in the case of the Ionian Islands. If we have not encroached any further on our neighbours, neither have they disturbed us in our possessions. During the long peace the relative superiority of our navy naturally diminished in proportion as other nations built ships and reorganised their marines; and it is a moot pointr whether the introduction of Englishmen generally believe that we magnanimously declined all share of the plunder; which, indeed, is the impression conveyed by most of our histories. Alison owns to nothing but Malta, Tobago, St. Lucia, and the Isle of France, and considers the treaty " glorious to England even more from what she abandoned than what she retained of her conquests." Keightley is entirely silent on our acquisitions. Miss Martineau not only ignores them, but boasts that "our negotiations did not close the war in a huckstering spirit ; they did not squabble for this colony or that entrepot ; we left to others the scramble for aggran- disement," &c. The Pictorial History takes the bull by the horns, and says that we did surrender Demerara, Essequibo, and Berbice to the Dutch. 194 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. steam has placed them on a more equal footing with us. But the best proof that our ascendency is prac- tically unimpaired is the bitter feeling with which it is still notoriously regarded by the continental na- tions. Let us examine, therefore, in what it consists, and how far it is reconcilable with justice. That England must necessarily be the first of naval powers no one will deny. Her insular position, the habits of a large portion of her population, her vast commerce, her colonies, are elements of maritime greatness which no other country possesses, and the influence they give us is perfectly legitimate. France can no more complain of them than we can complain of the territorial compactness or the large and homo- geneous population which make her the first of mili- tary powers. But France may create, and more than once has created, for herself an illegitimate influence by conquering territory that does not naturally be- long to her, and, even when not at war, by keeping on foot an army so large as to be a menace to the rest of Europe; and a maritime power may acquire an illegitimate influence by occupying posts that na- turally belong to other nations, and by maintaining a war navy in time of peace. Now this is just what England is accused of doing. It is in the Mediterra- nean that our presence is most conspicuously a griev- ance. Partly with a view to make our influence felt in Southern Europe, partly because since the great war European questions have interested us mainly as they bear on our Indian empire, we think it necessary to be strong in the Mediterranean. We hold there the two most celebrated strongholds in the world. A fine British fleet cruises there even in time of peace. Our efforts are steadily directed to keep Turkey, Asia ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 195 Minor, and Egypt in the hands of a weak power amen- able to our influence. In pursuance of this policy we crushed Mehemet Ali in 1840, at the risk of a war with France, and destroyed the fleets and fortresses of Russia in 1854-6. We have persistently thwarted an enterprise so beneficial to the world as the Suez Canal, lest it should increase French influence. In fact a quarrel between France and England is always smouldering in the Levant, and may at any moment blaze out. Now to the states whose shores are washed by the Mediterranean the claim of a northern nation to hold fortresses, maintain a naval establishment, and parade its influence in their waters, appears unrea- sonable and tyrannical. Suppose Napoleon I. had left France a great naval power, in possession of Portland, of the Isle of Man, and the Aland Isles; suppose one French fleet permanently cruised off the mouth of the Mersey, and another in the Baltic; does any one imagine that England and the Northern Powers would ever be brought to look on such a state of things as natural or tolerable ? If it dated from Louis XIV., would a century and a half have reconciled us to it ? Would a dozen treaties and peaces have made it sacred in our eyes? Should we excuse it on the ground of an extensive commerce, numerous colonies, or the police of the seas? Eng- lishmen, I think, would then understand very well the meaning of the phrase "maritime tyranny," which they now profess themselves unable to comprehend. Not only does England possess this overwhelming power, but she has used it, and avows her intention to use it again, for objects repugnant to the humanity and civilisation of the nineteenth century. She has, 196 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. indeed, consented lately to those reforms of maritime law which were demanded in 1780 and 1807; and the concession is honourable to her, inasmuch as it was made under no pressure but that of enlightened ideas, and in spite of the clamour of the Conservative party. But she still claims the right to capture and plunder merchant vessels, although every other civi- lised nation has called on her to efface this barbarity from war. It is beyond dispute that no other Power could pretend for a moment to resist an improvement of public law warmly desired by the rest of the civi- lised world. Such is the nature of our maritime ascendency. I have briefly sketched its rise, growth, and maturity. Ko impartial judge will deny that it has been marked in all its stages by flagrant violation of the simplest principles of morality, by contemptuous disregard of the rights of the weak, and by an assumption of supe- riority intolerably wounding to the legitimate dignity of our neighbours. If I am asked what is the use of raking up the misdeeds of our fathers and grand- fathers, when we have to deal with accomplished facts ; I answer, in the first place, that the most important fact we have to deal with is the public opinion of Eu- rope, which very properly views and interprets the present by the light of the past; and, secondly, that there are cases in which an offence is as fresh to-day as when it was newly committed that there are wrongs of which the guilt accumulates till they are redressed. The average Englishman understands an illustra- tion better than an abstract argument. To put our maritime tyranny in its clearest light, to realise the feelings it excites in the rest of Europe, let us com- ENGLAND AXD THE SEA. 197 pare it with the position of France and the character she bears. France began to assume the foremost place amongst the Continental Powers only a few years before Eng- land entered on her career of maritime conquest. Ro- croy was the starting-point to one nation, as La Hogue to the other. But it was not till the invasion of the Spanish Netherlands in 1667 that the power of France began seriously to threaten the equilibrium of the European state system. From that time to the present the ambition of the French people, their encroachments on neighbouring nations, their disre- gard of international right, their domineering spirit, their steadily growing power, have kept Europe in a state of chronic disquietude and alarm. If millions of men are withdrawn from industry, and consigned to the mischievous idleness of a military life, we are told it is to curb France. If busy towns are encumbered with frowning ramparts, it is to save them from French rapacity. If Austria is bolstered up in her felonious existence, it is that she may counterbalance France. Italy is mutilated, Poland enslaved, because England and Germany are jealous of France. Although cheerfully conceding to France that primacy in Europe which, resting as it does on na- tural and immutable conditions, no railing can take from her, I do not deny that she has given too much cause for this jealousy and distrust. The policy of Louis XIV. through a long reign was marked by violence, injustice, and perfidy. Napoleon L, with his still more impudent disregard of international morality and tendencies more consciously retrograde, roused for a time a storm of hatred against his coun- try. Still, if we place the encroachments of France 198 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. side by side with those of England during the period I have indicated, it can hardly be denied that the lat- ter have been beyond comparison more extensive, more important, and more menacing to the common interest of nations. There are, indeed, truculent ped- ants, combining the dulness of the bookworm with the impertinence of the journalist, who affect to be- wail the cruel destiny which incorporated Lyons and Aries with the French monarchy. But the majority even of the rabid Gallophobists will not carry their indictment further back than the reign of Louis XIV. Since then the armies of France have over- run Europe. But what has she retained? What has. she permanently annexed? Louis XIV., with all his triumphs, added to his kingdom territory which at the present time contains about three millions and a half of inhabitants. Louis XV. added Lorraine, which had long been practically part of France, and Corsica. The lawless and insolent attempt of Ger- many to crush the Revolution resulted hi the still more lawless and insolent attempt of Napoleon to push the frontiers of France to the Elbe. But the treaty of Vienna restored the old boundaries, and convinced the French nation that conquest in Europe is a thing of the past. Since then we have seen the occupation of Algeria, which, whatever we may think of its morality, is confessedly no menace to Europe, and the' peaceable annexation of Savoy and Nice that of Savoy, so natural, so expedient, so acceptable to the population concerned, that Europe had no pre- tence for objecting ; that of Nice, objectionable in every way, but of trifling importance as an accession of strength. The encroachments of France, therefore, during ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 199 the last two hundred years have, after all, been far from formidable. If by virtue of her territorial com- pactness, her unity (without a parallel in Europe), her high civilisation, her capacity for organisation, and, above all, her emancipation from aristocracy and superstition (advantages of which we cannot com- plain, since they are for the most part equally within the reach of all), she has increased enormously in material power, it must not be forgotten that she has been robbed of nearly all her colonies, and has twice seen her navy annihilated rerum pars altera adempta est while the military establishments of her eastern and northern neighbours have at least kept pace with her own. If we examine the history of the other great Powers during the same period, we shall find that the encroachments of Austria, Russia, and Prussia have been on a far larger scale. Those of England could not, from physical causes, take the shape of an extension of frontier ; but though on this account the conquests of England and France may seem to some extent disparate, they are undistinguishable in principle, and the comparison will be made, whether we like it or not. Many Englishmen will need to be reminded, and many more to be informed, that, with the exception of the small islands of Barbadoes and Jamaica, and a few others still smaller in the West Indies,* the whole of our enormous empire has been created since La Hogue. Almost all our colonies, ex- cept those in Australasia, are conquests from European These are the Bahamas, Bermudas, St. Kitts, Montserrat, Bar- buda, Nevis, Anguilla, and Tortola ; to which may be added St. Helena. On the coasts of Africa and India we had nothing but factories, some- times fortified, scattered among similar establishments of the French, Dutch, and Portuguese. 200 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. Powers ; and it is evidently our maritime ascendency which has enabled us to monopolise Australia. If we cannot be said to have robbed the French of India, it is because their title was as bad as our own. But it was no worse; and our empire was erected on the ruins of theirs. Our conquests in Europe are small in extent ; but their importance is out of all propor- tion to their size, and the bloody wars they have cost us prove their weight in the balance of power. By the aid of this historical comparison let us now try to place ourselves at the continental point of view, and contemplate the attitude of England towards the rest of Europe. Yes, towards the rest of Europe; for while France is confronted by more than one military Power capable of meeting her single-handed, and apart from revolutionary complications could not for a moment pretend to face a European coalition, England is not satis- fied unless her rulers can assure her that she is a match "on her own element" for all the navies of the world put together. Is it to be expected that continental nations France, for example will re- gard this extravagant claim with patience ? Will France listen to solemn lectures from English states- men and journalists on the criminality of keeping up an army of 400,000 men, which in case of war could operate on two or three points on her own frontier, while England demands to be in a position to rule the largest part of the earth's surface without a rival; to seal every port; to hold every colony at her mercy; to close the highway of nations and ruin commerce at her pleasure ; in short, to bind over the world in heavy securities to submissive behaviour? Putting aside dignity, could a regard for her own ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 201 legitimate interests, or even a consideration of her duty to the rest of Europe, permit France to ac- quiesce in this outrageous claim ? Again and again has she sought to unite the nations in resistance to our maritime tyranny; and we may be assured that the attempt will not be relinquished. But England, it is said, needs a fleet, because she does not keep up a large standing army. Her fleet is not for aggression, but for defence : all she desires is to be absolutely safe from danger of foreign in- vasion ; the command of the Channel is indispensable to her; her vast commerce, her numerous colonies, must be protected. That there is a distinction between aggressive and defensive war is of course undeniable ; but where to draw the line is not so obvious. The navies of Britain have been used for the one purpose as often and as effectively as for the other, and would be so used again.* There is hardly a port in Europe This is well illustrated by an episode in the war of the Austrian succession (1742), which Lord Mahon thus celebrates: "Another squadron of the British fleet, intrusted to Commodore Martin, sud- denly appeared in the Bay of Naples, and threatened an immediate bombardment unless the King would engage in writing to withdraw his troops from the Spanish army (there were 20,000 men), and to observe in future a strict neutrality. The Neapolitan court, wholly unprepared for the defence of the city, endeavoured to elude the demand by prolonging the negotiation; but the gallant Englishman, with a spirit not unworthy the Roman who drew a circle round the Asiatic despot, and bade him not step from it until he had made his decision, laid his watch upon the table in his cabin, and told the negotiators that their answer must be given within the space of an hour, or that the bombardment should begin. This proceeding, how- ever railed at by the diplomatists as contrary to all form and etiquette, produced a result such as they had seldom attained by protocols. Within the hour Don Carlos acquiesced in the required terms. Thus was the neutrality of a considerable kingdom in the contest secured by the sight of five British ships of the line during four-and-twenty 202 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. which we have not occupied, or plundered, or bom- barded. What answer is it to a Frenchman to tell him we do not keep an army? "Keep an army," he will say, "by all means, as large an army as you please ; we are not afraid of your conquering us." But let us look a little further, and reflect what is the meaning of this claim to absolute security from invasion which we are in the habit of putting forward with such naivete. We do not renounce the right or disclaim the intention of going to war whenever it shall seem good to us; all we claim is that we shall go to war with impunity, that we shall be insured in advance against the consequences. Who are we that we should be exempt from the pen- alties affixed by Nature to folly and crime, whether of individuals or of nations? Even though we may persuade ourselves that British policy is invariably pure and uniformly in harmony with the best in- terests of Europe, is it in human nature that French- men should make such an admission? When Lord Overstone, the typical English millionaire, was giving evidence before a parliamentary committee, and was asked what would be the effect of a French occu- pation of London, he replied, and the reply has become famous, " I cannot contemplate or trace to its consequences such a supposition. My only answer is, It must not be." Has not a Frenchman as good a right to say the same of Paris? And if he thinks a million of soldiers are necessary to give him his absolute guarantee, with what face could Lord Over- stone object to the French army being doubled? hours ; for their number was but such, and no longer time elapsed between their first appearance and their final departure from the bay." History of England, iii. 130. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 203 The truth is, that, whether for France or England, such a pretension is opposed to the interest of man- kind. It is impossible to say of any individual, nor can any individual say with certainty of himself, how far his conduct is determined by the fear of conse- quences. We have no analysis subtle enough for such an inquiry. But in the field of international morality, where the limits of right and wrong are unfortunately still so loosely defined, and where the infamy of iniquitous conduct is distributed among so many individuals that its weight to each is infinitesi- mal, the dread of consequences is at present the chief security for fair dealing. No true patriot, therefore, would desire his country to be invulnerable. He would dread for her this gift, fatal as the ring of Gyges. The true glory of a country, as of an indi- vidual, lies not in wealth and strength, but in equity, in moderation, 'in nobleness of temper; and whatever may have been the case in the past, it is now happily very clear that a nation which walks blamelessly be- fore Europe may also walk securely; a fact worth noting by those who are tempted to doubt the moral progress of society.* As the charge of want of patriotism will be noisily urged against all who endeavour to establish purer principles of international morality, it may be well to examine the meaning of that much-abused word and the history of the idea it represents. Pa- triotism, as the dictionary will tell us, means love of country. It is too hastily assumed that love of country is an absolute and unmixed virtue. It is To anticipate cavil, I may state that I have always rejoiced in the liberation of Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark, as I would in that of Venetia from Austria. 204 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. a virtue as opposed to love of self, but not as op- posed to love of the race. For it is clear that the love we feel for our country is itself not without a mixture of selfishness, which cannot be eliminated. No one would hesitate to say that love of country is to be ranked higher in the scale of virtue than love of our nearest relations ; the reason evidently being that the selfish alloy enters more largely into the latter than into the former. Love of country, then, is laudable because and in so far as it involves a sacrifice of our selfish instincts. From a variety of causes there is not, and cannot be, the same conflict between selfishness and patriotism in the citizens of most modern Euro- pean states as in the republics of antiquity. The relation of the individual citizen to the state is much less close and personal. The Athenian felt that the greatness and even the existence of his country de- pended appreciably on the conduct of himself, his friends, and acquaintances. Giving his vote for war meant exposing himself to the chance, and the not remote chance, of having to leave his business, don his fighting gear, and march to the border, or per- haps of being told off for service of many months at Memphis or Potidaea. If he had only to mount guard on the long walls two nights out of three, he was a lucky man. If he fell into the hands of the enemy, it was not to be exchanged or "paroled," but more frequently to be despatched on the spot. If his city was taken, he would probably be turned over to the executioner, and his wife and children to the slave-dealer. Now when the English Government, with the ap- probation of the country, declared war against Russia ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 205 In 1854, we knew very well that it would make no difference to any of us personally. City men went in to their business as usual. Country gentlemen killed time and partridges neither more nor less sedulously. Rural skittle-grounds and metropolitan gin-palaces did a fair average business. I never heard that Pall-Mall looked empty or that Lombard Street was less thronged, or even that things were flatter in Petticoat Lane. The 22,000 red-coats who perished by the sword of the enemy or the arrange- ments of the War- Office, were not missed out of a population of 27,000,000. Certainly the Russians did not manage to put in mourning a single family that I was acquainted with. There was the war ninepence, it is true, and we did not like to pay it. But will any one who reads these pages say that it curtailed one of his comforts or even of his luxuries ? As for apprehensions of having the horrors of war brought home to us, of seeing hostile ships off our coast or hostile troops on our soil, it is needless to say that they never occurred to any one. To talk of patriotism under such circumstances is simple nonsense. It may be safely said that during the last half-century no Englishmen have had an opportunity of showing their patriotism, except per- haps the builders of the Alabama, and they did not avail themselves of it.* Patriotism is now only a specious name for national insolence. To an English- man his country is not something for which he is to sacrifice his personal interests, but something which I do not forget the many instances of devotion shown by our soldiers, whether in the Crimea or in India. But in a modern army, except when fighting against an invader or in a civil war, patriotic feeling is entirely superseded by professional ardour, loyalty to the regimental colours, or motives yet narrower. 206 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. promotes them. His associations with it are entirely of an agreeable kind. They turn exclusively on material advantage. He does not, indeed, own to himself that the ennobling elements of patriotism, such as sacrifice, fidelity, loyalty, duty, are practi- cally obsolete. On the contrary, he gives himself credit for all those qualities as a matter of course. Patriotism has always ranked as one of the noblest virtues. When he rejoices over the capture of Pekin or the establishment of compulsory trade with Japan, he is a patriot. The inference is obvious and comfort- able. In reality his feelings towards his country are neither more nor less elevated than those of a share- holder in a prosperous joint- stock company towards the concern in which he has been lucky enough to invest his money. It is not for a moment suggested that the genuine virtues which the love of country once evoked would not be manifested quite as generally as they ever were, should occasion arise for their exercise. Our time is as rich as any in glowing examples of fortitude, self- sacrifice, and devotion to duty. If those virtues have not marked our patriotism, it is because our country has not needed them. Still less is it intende/I to im- ply that love of country is not a healthy and admir- able sentiment, even where it does not make any de- mands on our devotion. Just as we should be unable even to conceive the good of our neighbour, if we were absolutely free from selfish propensities our- selves, so the welfare of communities must be the guide to and the measure of the welfare of the race. Moreover, the large majority of mankind are so con- stituted, or at all events so educated, that love for the race must be to them a somewhat vague sentiment, ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 207 wanting in precision and directness, and all but use- less as a guide to practical life. Love of country is for them the best and only possible substitute for uni- versal benevolence. It may well be doubted, indeed, whether countries such as France and England, repre- senting thirty or forty millions of inhabitants, are not aggregates too extensive to be of much use from this point of view. Certainly no one who is at once ac- quainted with ancient history and a candid observer of modern society will deny that the intensity of pa- triotic feeling varies inversely as the size of the com- munity. If patriotism was too narrow and absorbing at Athens, in England is it not too vague and diluted a sentiment? I do not propose to argue with those, if any such there be, who deny altogether the existence of any principles of international right, and maintain that a nation is not bound to act by any other rule than that of its interests, real or supposed. Few, if any, will be found to state their opinions in so logical and revolting a manner. Probably even Mr. Roebuck has some fig-leaf of morality that satisfies his ideas of decency. But many will be far from contented with the point of view that has been adopted through this discussion. " We have heard," they will say, " a great deal about the interests of Europe and man- kind ; but have we no duty to ourselves ? Are we, alone of nations, to attend to these Quixotic notions, and make ourselves an easy prey to our neighbours? Are we to surrender Malta and Gibraltar, sell off our fleet, give up Jamaica to the Spaniards, South Africa to the Dutch, and Canada to the French, in the inno- cent expectation that other Powers will follow our example, and envy us nothing but the glory of our 208 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. initiative? Fortunately we are a practical people, and choose for our rulers practical statesmen, not sentimental theorists." If there is one principle we set more store by than another, it is that of the separation between the theoretical and practical functions, or, as we call them when speaking of the Middle Ages, the spiritual and temporal powers.* This principle is the indis- pensable condition of an orderly and progressive state of society. Let England, therefore, by all means, continue to be governed by practical men. But it is essential to good government that these men should understand and recognise the true ideal, that they should keep the right raoTo? before their eyes. To ascertain that is the business of the theorist. It is for the practical statesman to apply the principles which theory has established ; to decide the how, the when, and the how far. It does not follow because England has been pur- suing an indefensible policy, that she should therefore set herself to undo in a dav the work of two centu- */ ries. The National Gallery is an ugly building. But we do not blow it up as soon as we make the disco- very, without waiting even till the pictures can be The office of the spiritual power is to reason, to advise, to praise, to blame ; never to govern. This function was fulfilled, and on the whole worthily, by the Church in its best days. In the absence of any organisation adapted to exercise it, it is now vested chiefly in the igno- rant and unprincipled litterateurs who, without even the guarantee of their names, guide public opinion through the press. That the influence of the public journals is not one of unmixed evil is mainly owing to the fact that they are compelled occasionally to give publicity to the speeches and letters of wise and good men. A speech of Mr. Bright or a letter of Mr. Mill, appearing in the Times, disinfects, as it were, a vast mass of leading articles. The direct influence of books on public opinion is comparatively small, because they appeal to a small class of readers. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 209 got out of it. We must discriminate and classify. Some of our iniquities have become, as it were, obso- lete. Guilt is no longer accruing. There was a time, for instance, when it was our duty to surrender the Cape to Holland. That time has passed. The Cape is now to all intents an English colony. The descend- ants of the Dutch settlers have no desire for change. The same may be said of Canada, and perhaps of all the colonies we have conquered. The case of India is quite different. Justice requires that we should recognise the duty of withdrawing from India, and shape our policy towards that end. But it is ob- vious that to withdraw within the next twelve months would be a crime hardly less atrocious than our ori- ginal conquest. And so, when we have recognised the criminality of maintaining an enormous navy and occupying our Mediterranean fortresses, it still re- mains to be considered how and when we are to re- duce the one and surrender the others. Unquestion- ably also we have a duty to ourselves. Suicide can no more be the duty of a nation than of an individual. Only let it be remembered that the life and independ- ence of a nation is one thing ; its glory and power another. If it could be shown that the surrender of Gibraltar would be followed, say, by the partition of England between France and Spain, we should clearly be justified in protecting our independence, even by so strong a measure as holding Gibraltar. But if no more is asserted than that the occupation of that for- tress is necessary to our maritime power or our com- merce, we are nonsuited at once; for Spain has more right to one of her own towns than we have to a powerful navy, or an extensive commerce. Putting aside hypothesis, let us take the actual p ENGLAND AND THE SEA. case of Malta. We acquired that island iniquitously. Our occupation of it affords legitimate ground of complaint to all the Mediterranean Powers, especially to Italy. But I am not aware that the Maltese are averse to our rule. Italy will not trouble herself about Malta while she has far more serious grievances to complain of. In fact, it suits her at present to have a British fleet within call. We perform some service in keeping down piracy. Lastly, since we cannot make all our sacrifices at once, we must post- pone those which are less urgently required. The time will come when the public opinion of Europe will insist on our leaving Malta. But, perhaps, it will be found more equitable and expedient to make it an international police-station for the Mediterranean than to annex it to Italy. Of course, no violence must be done to the inclinations of the Maltese.* There remains Gibraltar. Here there is no room for doubt as to our duty. Gibraltar should be sur- rendered at once to Spain. We acquired it at the expense of our honour; we have retained it in vio- lation of our word. But enough of the past. We may make restitution ; reparation is out of our power. Is it possible that Englishmen with a spark of can- dour and generosity can disguise from themselves the monstrous outrage we are committing every day that our occupation continues? Let us have recourse s Where there is a native population, its wishes must always out- weigh every other consideration. It is much to be regretted that the Channel Islands did not go with Normandy. But the inhabitants, as is well known, abhor the idea of union with France ; so there is no more to be said. The Jews, smugglers, and vagabonds whom our flag attracts to Gibraltar, sentina gentium, cannot be called a native population. Au- guste Comte prescribes to France the abandonment, not only of Alge- ria, but of Corsica. Unquestionably he would have protested against the annexation of Nice. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 211 once more to illustration. Suppose the French held Portland. Suppose that they had surrounded it with impregnable fortifications ; that it was crowded with French regiments; that a French squadron lay at anchor in the bay ; that we were forbidden to raise counter-fortifications at Weymouth on pain of a cannonade from the fortress;* that the island was a nest of smugglersf and a sanctuary for our poli- tical offenders, J should we not feel this to be a grievous outrage and humiliation ? should we not consider it a casus belli? should we not rush to arms as often as an opportunity seemed to offer for wiping out our shame? And we should be right. Patriot- ism supposes, not only a people, but a definite geo- graphical circumscription. The word is plainly in- applicable to the esprit de corps of a nomad tribe. That " country" which we all of us love is a complex idea. It is not equivalent to all living Englishmen, nor even to all Englishmen past, present, and to come. It is an abstraction made from them plus the island we dwell in. Now to countries whose boundaries are not sharply and unalterably marked by nature, a curtailment of frontier does not neces- sarily bring an inconsolable grief. The amputation is painful; the wound may bleed long, but it may heal at last. Germany has forgotten Alsace ; Italy will be comforted for Nice ; but when a coast is the "We availed ourselves of the Peninsular war to destroy the Spanish forts. When the Spaniards were about to rebuild them after the war, the British governor gave notice that he would open fire if the works were begun. f British manufactures are poured in enormous quantities into Gibraltar, to be smuggled into the interior. See Appendix. J " Gibraltar," says Mr. Ford, " has been made the hotbed of revo- lutionists of all kinds." 212 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. frontier the case is altogether different. To seize a point on your neighbour's coast is not to amputate a finger or an arm, it is to plunge the knife into his flesh and keep it there. Every time he stirs, his anguish is renewed. Observe, too, that the smaller the space of territory occupied, the greater and more permanent the irritation. If France conquered Scot- land, and succeeded gradually in reconciling the Scotch to the change, the time would come when England would acquiesce, and the entente cordiale might again subsist between the two countries. But France might hold Portland for centuries, and we should never cease to writhe. And Spain has never forgotten Gibraltar. To lose it was her misfortune ; to forget it would be her disgrace. Even in the lowest depth of her misery, when she seemed to be expiring as a nation, that last sign of sensation remained ; the anguish of that wound was not deadened ; and the bitterest of her regrets was that she could not strike a blow for Gibraltar* " Semianimesque micant digiti, ferrumque retractant." Mr. Ford, who wrote when Spain was at the lowest ebb, and who, it may be observed, never loses an opportunity for dwelling with brutal exultation on her humiliation by England, says : " The foreigner's possession of that angulus rankles deeply, as well it may. In the tenacious memory of Spain, which never forgets or forgives, it is hardly yet a fait accompli" (p. 152). "The descendants of the expelled fortress linger near the gates of then- former paradise, now, alas ! in the temporary occupation of heretics, since they indulge in a long- deferred hope of return. Even yet our possession of the Rock is not quite a fait accompli, and the King of the Spains still calls himself the King of Gibraltar ; of which the alcaldes of San Roque in their official documents designate themselves the authorities, and all persons born on the Rock are entitled to the rights of native Spanish subjects" (p. 268). " It is a bridle in the mouth of Spain and Barbary. It speaks a language of power which alone is understood and obeyed by ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 213 That crisis of her fate is past. Her strength returns. Her eye brightens again; and whither does it turn? An English statesman, who has had peculiar oppor- tunity for judging, says, I am told, that no Spaniard lies down at night without thinking of Gibraltar. Now, will any one who honestly believes that there is such a thing as right, and that justice, gene- rosity, and mercy are the virtues of States, as of individuals, will any such person venture to assert that in inflicting this cruel and prolonged torture on Spain we are not committing an atrocious crime? I am not talking to Mr. Roebuck or Mr. Carlyle, but to the thousands of Englishmen who have freely cen- sured Austria for acting wrongly by Italy, and Rus- sia for acting wrongly by Poland ; who can perfectly comprehend how the French occupation of Rome is a cruel outrage on the whole Italian nation, quite apart from the wrong done to the citizens of Rome itself. You who read this page, how often have you given vent to your noble indignation against Napo- leon for keeping his army at Rome ! And you tell me that England is justified in holding Gibraltar? Do you not feel the blood creeping into your fore- head ? Does it not occur to you that if English hy- pocrisy is proverbial on the Continent, it is because there are so many Englishmen like you? Do you those cognate nations. The Spaniards never knew the value of this natural fortress until its loss, which wounds their national pride, and led Bonaparte, when he found he could not take it, to say that, while it opened nothing and shut nothing, our possession of Gibraltar secured for France Spain's hatred of England" (p. 273). It is im- possible to open Mr. Ford's Handbook any where without lighting on some stupid Cockney insult to Spain or France. For braggadocio and falsification of history it surpasses even M. Thiers. The English is that of a washerwoman, as may be seen in the above extracts. 214 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. not begin with some misgivings to analyse the mo- tives which prevent you from stealing half-a-crown? A little sincerity and honesty in individual citi- zens that is what we come back to, after all. Gladly do I recognise signs that a purer public opinion on the questions here discussed is silently growing up. There are many who feel ashamed of our conduct to Spain. Spain is rapidly rising again to the rank of a great Power. Though our blustering journalists find their account in stroking the national pride and swaggering about "the key of the Mediterranean," our statesmen, cooler and better informed, know that next time Spain, backed by France, claims Gibraltar, she must have it. Time was when the English people would have fought Europe five, ten, or twenty years, rather than give up the cherished symbol of our maritime power. Never was England so strong as she is this day. But she fights no more for Old- World ideas. Those days are gone by, and our states- men know it. It remains to be seen whether they will have the wisdom and firmness to anticipate an appeal to force, which would only end in the humi- liation of England. Some clamour there would be, no doubt, but less than is generally thought. Most people would take it quietly, and, after the first feel- ing of annoyance was past, would not be insensible to the glory of the act. A ministry with a good working majority in the House would risk nothing by the step. The cession of the Ionian Islands is a case in point. "We had spent large sums on the for- tification of Corfu. We had flogged and hung dis- O o o affected lonians, while our newspapers were weeping over the woes of Venice. Once or twice a-year the Times used to trample on the lonians. Only a few ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 215 months before the intended cession was announced, I remember reading one of these insolent and odious invectives. Our modern Cleon scoffingly declined to argue the question on its merits. " We may as well declare at once that England has no thought of abandoning her transmarine possessions." The step was probably already decided in the councils of the Ministry when these words were written. To the surprise of every one, the country acquiesced in it Avith hardly a murmur. The moral effect Avas great in Europe, and would have been much greater if we had not done the thing in the most ungracious manner possible ; blowing up the fortifications of Corfu, and making the cession conditional upon the adoption by Greece of an absurd form of govern- ment.* Although not a millionaire or a journalist, I love the country in Avhich I Avas born, and Avith Avhich my existence is bound up. 2-rafraj' 'i\a%ov. I knoAV the value of my birthright. It is because I Avish that Europe should admire and reverence England that I Avould haA r e her cover herself Avith glory of the purest kind by the voluntary surrender of Gibraltar. If we Avait till it is formally claimed under penalty of Avar, the grace of the action is gone; and Avhether we struck a blow for it or not, AVC might trust a Whig Ministry, with one eye fixed on the Times and the other on the Opposition, for stumbling to the ineA T it- able Avith a due regard to ignominy. But if the sacrifice Avere made spontaneously, heartily, grace- fully, which of us would not feel the pure happiness " The Moniteur of September 6, 1865, with somewhat tardy justice, recognises the cession of the Ionian Islands as a pendant to the French liberation of Lombardy in 1859. 216 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. that follows on a noble deed? Which of us would not hold his head higher? Alas, I fear we shall have to delve into a new stratum of society for our states- men before such an act will be done in such a spirit. The time is not far distant when England will cease to be in material strength the foremost mem- ber of the Anglo-Saxon race. Most of us will live to see the United States with a population double that of our own islands, overflowing with wealth, exempt from most of the economic difficulties that embarrass an old country, and enjoying equally with ourselves all the advantages of modern civilisation. I say no- thing of their emancipation from hereditary institu- tions, because that will not be unanimously admitted as an element of superiority. But that their material force will be vastly greater than our own, no one in his sober senses will deny. Already our most for- midable rivals on the sea, in a few years they must inevitably overshadow us. And yet Englishmen, professing to respect their country, are content to rest her claim to be considered great on this material superiority, which nature herself is rapidly transfer- ring to another nation ! Even if it be granted, as some fire-eaters, embittered by recent events, will suggest, that England will ally herself with other European Powers to check America, it is clear that an indispensable preliminary to such an alliance would be the abandonment of our pretensions to a maritime supremacy. Spain will never take our hand cordially while we keep Gibraltar ; nor is any future government of France likely to tread in the steps of Dubois and Fleury. Great England cannot fail to be if she accepts her true position. She contains within herself the ele- ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 217 ments of a loftier grandeur than the widest-reaching empire could confer on her enormous wealth, inex- haustible resources, an admirable geographical posi- tion, a population of thirty millions, brave, enter- prising, and, when educated, intelligent; a tradition of order and legality. But these natural advantages are but half cultivated. Wealth is distributed with glaring and growing inequality. Land is yearly pass- ing into the hands of a smaller number of proprietors. An organised war is declaring itself between capital and labour. The upper and middle classes refuse a system of national education. Our infanticide, the result of misery and immorality, is a scandal in Europe.* In place of a generally-accepted religion, we have superstition in one sex and hypocrisy in the other. While Ireland is disaffected, we cannot be said even to have established our unity. If we wish to develop our national greatness in a legitimate way, let. us set to work and correct these frightful evils. It is true that greatness of this kind involves sacrifices and reforms displeasing to the wealthy classes, while a greatness based on conquest demands nothing but the blood and money of the masses, and actually embellishes the position of the rich.f This consideration points to the agency by which the progress of England to a higher stage of civilisation and a more solid grandeur than she has yet known is to be accomplished. * Dr. Lankester, one of the coroners for Middlesex, has shown that one woman in thirty in London is a murderess. The proportion may be larger, but cannot be less. f The burden of taxation, arrange it how you will, must fall mainly on the industrial class. In England we make special arrange- ments for transferring it from the rich to the poor, by raising consi- derably more than half our revenue from six of the commonest articles of consumption. 218 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. The aristocracy and the bourgeoisie, acting from different motives and in different ways, are alike responsible for our foreign policy. The industrial class, although its ignorance has sometimes made it the tool of parties, cannot fairly be charged with any portion of the national guilt and folly. The wealth, greatness, and glory of England have meant very little for the working-man.* Rather, they have ad- journed his emancipation. It is his interest and it cannot be much longer concealed from him that public attention should be concentrated on the state of England. The recasting of our constitution, the re- distribution of taxation, the substitution of a system of education for a State Church, the limitation of proprie- tary rights in land, poor-law reform, sanitary reform, legal reform ; in a word, the subordination of private interests to public utility; these are questions that cannot be dealt with even by public opinion, while our energies and attention are wasted on the manage- ment of two hundred millions of people who do not belong to us. The direct, though not continuous, intervention of working-men in the government of the country will be signalised by a refusal to let it be encumbered any longer with this millstone of an empire. To the working-man it is of little conse- quence whether the Union Jack flies at Gibraltar, Quebec, and Calcutta, but of infinitely great import- ance that he have a fair share of the profits of pro- duction ; that the necessaries and comforts of life be within his reach ; that poison be not infused into the Malthus (Principles of Political Economy, p. 279) calculated that 1720-1755 was the period during which the British labourer had en- joyed the greatest comfort. Our glorious imperial policy was first inaugurated in its systematic shape in 1756, when the great Pitt came into power. The coincidence, we may be sure, is not accidental. ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 219 air he breathes and the water he drinks ; that rational education be provided for his children ; and that his legitimate dignity be not wounded by institutions designed to consecrate and perpetuate social ine- quality. The present generation must make up its mind to see these questions raised, and the next, probably, to see them settled. Some two generations have passed since Burke complained that the age of chivalry Avas gone; and soon some bourgeois orator will be lamenting that the age of broadcloth has so quickly followed it. Periods of transition are na- turally transient. I have studiously forborne in this discussion from considering the interests of England apart from, those of humanity, from taking any other than a moral ground. The arguments by which Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright, in their speeches and writings on inter- national relations and maritime law, have advocated somewhat similar conclusions, are based mainly on other considerations. It has been their object to show that the pretensions of England and the bar- barous maxims she still upholds are pregnant with fatal consequences to her national and commercial greatness. No clear-headed and unprejudiced person will dispute the soundness of their arguments ; and it has perhaps seemed to those eminent and admir- able statesmen that such a method of dealing with the subject was best adapted to convince the English nation. For my part, I believe that public opinion, after all, can only be acted upon to any purpose by appealing to moral principles. The abrogation of this or that law, the discontinuance of this or that usage, would be of little value unless the spirit of our policy and the tone of public feeling were tho- 220 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. roughly regenerated; a result which can be attained only by moral means. It is here that the lamentable absence of any recognised canon of morality with a competent organ of interpretation is most sorely felt. In the much-misunderstood Middle Ages society was not left without such direction. There was a criterion of truth implicitly accepted by all the Western nations. The weakness of its objective basis did not detract from its value so long as its deficiency in that respect was unnoticed. The moral precepts grounded upon it were, for the time, admirable, and there was a spiritual authority side by side with the temporal, to interpret, to counsel, and to reprove. But the unreal foundation of that noble fabric has crumbled away under the attacks of science; and morals are left without shape or system, with no de- finite sanction, no criterion to which all are content to appeal. In place of a Universal Church, devoting its energies to the sublime task of controlling the selfish instincts and promoting practical morality, we have now a melee of rival quacks deafening us with a discordant jargon, which to educated men means no- thing. "What wonder if we stop our ears, some with business, some with intellectual pursuits, some with pleasure ? So-called churches, which have absolutely nothing to tell us on any of the important questions of the day, which are no longer ahead or even abreast of the secular world in their moral teaching and dis- cipline, have lost their raison d'etre. Secure in the affections of the uneducated majority, they may long afford to ignore the timid and tortuous sap of the savant who has nothing to substitute for what he is undermining. But there is a rivalry they cannot ENGLAND AND THE SEA. 221 disregard. Whatever a clergy may think, no reli- gious organisation can long hold its ground in popu- lar esteem when confronted by a loftier morality than its own. Either it must prove its expansive force by adapting itself heartily to the higher standard, or it will fall as Polytheism fell before Christianity, as Eastern Christianity before Islam, condemned by the heart even more energetically than by the intellect. EDWAKD SPENCER BEESLY. Appendix. In 1853 a deputation of merchants and inhabitants of Gibraltar addressed a letter to the Duke of Newcastle, then Colonial Secretary, which throws a curious light on the cha- racter of the Gibraltar trade. It appears that the Governor, Sir R. Gardiner, had been exerting himself to suppress smug- gling, and in answer to a remonstrance of the mercantile community had expressed himself as follows : " If you can only uphold a pretence of trade at Gibraltar by making it a mart for contraband goods to be smuggled into Spain, the fortress had better be divested of trade altogether. It had better become an honest fishing port than a smuggling mart a perpetual thorn in the side of Spain, and a cause of international recriminative feud between the two nations, preventing all sound intercourse or relations either of politi- cal or commercial alliance. The frequency of your attempted interference in the military government of the fortress, mak- ing it, if you could, quite secondary to the unshackled pursuits of smuggling, shows to what a fearful depth the smuggling trade of Gibraltar has sapped the military caste of this for- tress, no less than engendered the vice and crime so justly associated with smuggling in the eyes of all nations. The 222 ENGLAND AND THE SEA. decline of the Gibraltar trade is but a consequence of its own innate moral turpitude." Upon this language and the measures of the Governor the deputation comment with a naweti which is truly amus- ing. His orders, they say, " have been issued in the pursuit of an impracticable policy, which he describes as ' licit trade free as air,' which, however, in reality is fettered by the Spanish laws with wholly prohibitory duties as regards British goods." They complain of his refusal to grant a Mediter- ranean pass to a vessel unless the owner "previously gave security in the bond of two respectable persons that the vessel should not be employed in the contraband trade ; that is to say, in the trade which may be prohibited by the fiscal laws of Spain." One wonders how these gentlemen would define contraband trade. " We detect," they go on to say, " in all these proceedings of the Governor proofs of his deliberate and avowed design to injure the trade of the port, constituting himself the protector of the revenues of the Crown of Spain, and forgetting that he ought to be the guardian of English commerce. * * * * We will not affect to conceal the notorious fact that Manchester-manufactured goods are ex- tensively smuggled into Spain. * * * * It is quite an abuse of terms and at variance with the fact to describe the trade of Gibraltar in the way the Governor denounces it, as 'a contraband trade.' The business of a merchant in Gibral- tar is completed when he has effected the sale of his goods in open market. These goods are mostly of British manufac- ture, consigned to him by English merchants, men of un- blemished integrity. * * * * A British merchant ought not to be dictated to as to the place where he shall reside. The Queen's dominions are happily free to all her subjects ; a merchant resorts to that spot best adapted for his interests or his connections ; and the merchants of Gibraltar, reposing under the shadow of English law, may well disregard the unmeaning observations, &c. &c." I have let Sir Eobert Gardiner and his victims speak for themselves. No comment of mine is needed. No. IV. ENGLAND AND INDIA. BY E. H. PEMBER. ENGLAND AND INDIA. I. ALONG with the growth of a sense of duty among the western nations of Europe is slackened or quick- ened the progress of the world. We claim to be no more than what we are, at the head of the human race; and it is vital to the universal interest that we should acknowledge the full meaning of our preeminence. To feel a noble exultation, not in the privileges, but in the responsibilities of power; to replace a reckless and anarchical acquisitiveness by the more orderly and just hopes of an unsel- fish communion; to rise from the level of Cortez and Pizarro, to do far more even for the wealth of Europe than they did, while we educate and retain the races and systems which it was the cynical boast of the disciples of that bad old school that they im- proved by extirpation; to lay aside direct self-inter- est; to forego rights for duties; to appeal for com- panionship to less advanced societies, more nobly and more effectively than by brute force and obstinate high-handedness; to invite, not to terrify; to repair Q 226 ENGLAND AND INDIA. the misdeeds of the past, and to beat back its tradi- tions of evil-doing from the future ; to universalise European ideas, and to unify civilisation, if that be to be done, by giving to our physical and scientific supe- riority the sanction of moral order and restraint; such are some of the resolves which the mind of West- ern Europe should learn to form as it contemplates its own position, and what it has done and what it may yet do over the outer area of the world. The self-confidence of race is majestic, but the egoism of race is contemptible, and the step that leads from one to the other is perilously short. The first assumes primacy and dispenses blessing ; the se- cond arrogates empire, begetting vice and inflicting evil. We must not fail to distinguish these two ideas. It has been empire hitherto that Europe has sought, and it has been in the struggle for empire that her states have vied with each other beyond her bounds. Primacy is as unconsciously conceded as it is indi- rectly attained, and elevates alike those who claim and those who acknowledge it; but empire is the mere gain of lust, and debases both sides with a dis- astrous reciprocity. It is a significant and satisfactorj 7 " distinction be- tween this age and its predecessors that we 110 longer preach conquest. It is something to have gone so far. But, being there, why should we pause ? Are we to confess that we find the mask of a virtuous change more 'profitable than the old barefaced iniquity, and that we fear the awakening of our own conscience just enough to seek to lull it by phrases of amendment, and philosophic pretexts for what pays us well phrases and pretexts that apologise even for conquest, though only when under a new name and garb ? Are ENGLAND AND INDIA. 227 we to go still, as we ever have gone, to the East, with, no antecedent theory of its civilisation, and predeter- mined to receive none ? Are we still to have no mission but merchandise, with its tributaries, geogra- phical science, religious propagandism, and political intrigue ? Is Asia, in our eyes, still to be a gold-field, and we the discoverers and diggers in it? Are the defacement and ruin of its surface still to be of no consequence to us so long as we are enriched? With by far the largest section of our populations, it is to be feared that this is so. The pretence, indeed, of a higher aim has lately been found valuable to our mer- cantile classes, in proportion as it has become neces- sary to excite our rulers and peoples at home to state eiforts, which the grandeur of modern commercial ambition has made vital to its own accomplishment. But beyond the adoption of this new weapon, among such men there has been no change. It is still pride and greed, greed and pride, only in alliance with the most stupendous power, and overlain with the most magnificent pretence. All who would rightly understand the state of this Asiatic question must regard our position in India, China, and Japan respectively, as forming points in an orderly series. Except its enlarged scale, and the greater admixture of imperial action in it, our intru- sion into Japan at this moment is what it was in India in the days of Jehangir; and similarly, our position at the treaty ports of China is very like what it was in India towards the close of the epoch of the Facto- ries. If we were to adapt, as we have hitherto done, to the conditions of the Chinese Empire the policy we pursued in India, we should end by conquering the country, unless we annihilated our European exist- 228 ENGLAND AND INDIA. ence before we completed the achievement. So, if we go on as we have begun in Japan, that empire, though the task would probably be still tougher than in China, would follow the fate of the two earlier victims. The India of yesterday is the China of to-day, and the China of to-day the Japan of to-morrow. The pro- gression is the inevitable sequence of our conduct up to this point. We conquered India by forcing a trade, and we cannot force a trade elsewhere without con- quest too. But side by side with this mercantile perseverance there is, as I said before, the promise of a change. To feel that we must cast about to vindicate what we do, is to confess to ourselves a doubt of the legality of it. Every elaborate argument made in defence of our present action in Asia is in the nature of an apology, and is suggestive of self-mistrust ; and self-mistrust may be followed by hesitation, and hesitation by re- morse and amendment. And the growth of such a state of the national mind is apparent in the manner in which our statesmen have, during the last few years, begun to talk and act with regard to India. It is with India alone that I have to deal in this essay; nor should I have travelled even thus far beyond our connection with that country, unless it had been my purpose to show at the outset that I considered our position there an incident only in our larger relations with Asia. What we have done in India has become far more palpable and glaring to the perceptions of the mass of us since its consummation. It is nearly always true of crimes and errors, that the obscuration under which they were committed dissolves suddenly after its uses are over. The crash of the great mutiny, by which ENGLAND AND INDIA. 229 the transfer of the possessions of the East India Com- pany to the Crown was brought about, finally and somewhat abruptly effected our enlightenment. The English people felt its own usurpation thoroughly for the first time when it heard its Queen proclaimed Empress of India. The land was indeed won then, the throne mounted, and the title assumed. Since then it is pleasant to own that "our duties to the Hindoos " are words that have been in the mouths of many of our statesmen, and reparation to the Hindoos an idea that has been secretly in the hearts of a few. Few, indeed, would agree probably upon a schedule of those duties, and fewer, it may be, upon a theory of that reparation. But attempts to define and to de- clare the one and the other seem to make the proper task of any one who thinks or writes upon "our Indian Empire." But before we can lay down for ourselves a method for the performance of our duties, we must know how the task has arisen ; before we can plan reparation, we must know what we have to repair. Any efforts in either direction would be senseless without something like an honest review of the gra- dations by which the present situation has been reached. The historical sketch, therefore, which I proceed to make is not a purposeless and vexatious recapitulation of thrice-told stories ; still less is it in- tended to raise the ghost of the old question, What right had we in India at the first? Practical as such a discussion is when applied to China and Japan, it would be the pedantry of ethics to revive it for India. After all, morality is relative; and it would be an anachronism to judge Clive and his masters by principles of which the lapse of a century since 230 ENGLAND AND INDIA. his death has not achieved the full acknowledgment. But if a practical philosophy is disposed at this date to pardon the establishment of the East India Com- pany as a territorial power in India, the ground of this pardon must be carefully kept clear. It is not because the consolidation and security of their trade required it. That is the old apology, which we can- not admit ; if for none other reason, because to admit it would be to eternalise its application. We must never forget to combat the assumption of the two ancient alternatives commerce or subjugation. We must make up our minds henceforth to expect re- cusance, energetic and prolonged, whenever we make overtures for intimacy to races utterly alien to our own. Of course this recusance is as unintelligible to us as to those who exhibit it is our recklessness of contact. The historical accidents of Western Europe have destroyed the reserve of its races. Just so the political continuity of the great Asiatic systems has maintained the reserve, or, as we hostilely name it, the exclusiveness of the Asiatics. Besides, the blessings which arise to the Indian, Chinese, or Ja- panese from European intercourse are not quite so palpable to their recipients as the European imagines they ought to be. What have we given to Asia, after all? In giving us tea, coffee, rice, and' spices, she has to a. vast extent revolutionised the diet of Europe ; have we done any thing in the same direc- tion or to the same extent for her? We do not certainly owe the art of pottery to her; but its development and application among us during the last two centuries have been hastened much by the exported specimens of her porcelain. She has be- stowed upon us the inestimable blessings of silk and ENGLAND AND INDIA. 231 cotton; and has suggested to us a dozen minor luxuries, which may be typified by the umbrella and the fan. All these commodities, except the two last, we now class among the necessaries of exist- ence ; at least, they are the luxuries of our masses down to their very poorest members. What have we found to bestow in return? It would perplex a London merchant to say. The fact is, that the com- munities of India, China, and Japan are constructed upon lines so vast, within geographical limits so ex- tended, and under climatic conditions so varied and so happy, that they are each and all of them self- sufficient. Intercommunion to them is not the ne- cessity that it is to hungry and comparatively ill- provided Europe. Of course communion is good for all the members of the human family; but its uses are not most palpable to the most comfortable, or rather its most palpable uses are for the benefit of the least comfortable. Moreover, its most universal advantages are also its most hidden, and underlie the comparison of religions, ethics, and social systems. But these are subsequent, and in their nature are of the very slowest growth, and receive the most tardy acknowledgment. We have no excuse, there- fore, for that irritated impatience which rushes to arms against the barriers of a fundamental and re- spectable reserve. The true excuse for the earlier conquests of the English in India is, that we were committed to them in days which, compared to our own, may be called days of political and moral ignorance. When they were undertaken, they were thought not only to be necessary, but honourable. Now such things are known to be neither. Unfortunately, too, they were 232 ENGLAND AND INDIA. continued in another and more objectionable form, in days when such things were known to be neither. Clive, and his more immediate followers in the train of empire, fought openly a war of aggrandisement on their own part, against one of extermination on that of their antagonists. There was no mincing of mat- ters, no hypocrisy, no cant, no casuistry. The Eng- lishman declared his motives, and the Hindoo under- stood them. The issue was fairly fought out, and from time to time more and more territory passed into the hands of the invading race, either after open battle or avowed diplomacy. Reading by the light of a later morality, no one will pretend to say that the wars or negotiations of a Clive or a Hastings were blameless ; but they were not blamable after the same fashion as the acts of a Dalhousie. In the early days the directors of the East India Company in London never deprecated an increase of territory, except on the score of its inconvenience. But there came a time when wars and negotiations for aggran- disement in India were denounced at home, not only as impolitic, but as unjust. They were absolutely forbidden, and the ambition of energetic and astute governors-general thereby brought to a standstill. From that time commences the epoch of conquest by chicanery. Thenceforth it was necessary to cheat the native prince out of his dominions on the one hand, and to cheat the Honourable Company into accepting them on the other. But the development of the em- pire, from its inauguration by Clive to its consum- mation by the Marquis of Hastings (who proclaimed the English Lords Paramount of India), was carried on with a certain openness and honesty of aggression and progress which no one who compares that epoch ENGLAND AND INDIA. 233 generally with the times that have succeeded it can fail to recognise. It is, indeed, true that Lord Cormvallis, who went out as the first Governor-General under Mr. Pitt's India Act of 1786, by his system of mutually protec- tive alliances with native states, unwittingly created the materials for a great deal of that injustice which was the method of too many of his later successors. To take one instance : there can be no doubt that that condition in the treaty of 1792 with the Nawaub of the Carnatic, by which the British were to take tem- porary possession of the territory of that monarch, in the event of a war affecting the two states, was the very archetype of those " temporary arrangements " which have been employed so largely to filch away the possessions of native sovereigns.* But Lord Corn- wallis only unwittingly contributed to the meaner change. And Lord Wellesley, whom (if we regard Sir J. Shore's exceptional administration as a break in the true chain of our policy in India) we may call his successor, still fortunately preserved, with one exception, the more frank and less reprehensible method. That one exception was the treaty by which the civil and military government of the Carnatic be- came vested in the East India Company. But even that result of the political helplessness engendered by the treaty of 1792 must not entirely be laid to the account of Lord Wellesley. Lord Cornwallis, who provided for its inevitability, must share its odium. We have been asked by more than one writer At this very moment we hold Mysore under a temporary arrange- ment, made by Lord William Bentinck in 1831. Lord Dalhousie an- nexed Oude under cover of the treaty of 1801, which only stipulated for a power to enter and administer in case and during a crisis of anarchy and confusion. 234 ENGLAND AND INDIA. upon the affairs of India to consider that Lord Wel- lesley revolutionised our policy in the Peninsula. I confess that I cannot see how he did more than pur- sue, with the largeness of a great ambition, and with the fertility of great occasions, the course of his pre- decessors. No doubt the people of England were astonished and alarmed at the point of vastness to which the partition of the dominions of Tippoo, the commutation treaty of 1800 with the Nizam, and the submission of Scindia and the Rajah of Berar, had extended their territory in India. In their terror, they attributed the gigantic growth in its entirety to Lord Wellesley, and fancied that they detected a novel policy underlying all his acts, and tending to so monstrous an agglomeration. Under this impression it was that they recalled him, and sent out Lord Corn- wallis again, as a corrective to him. And so far there is no doubt that the last-named peer an octogenarian with shattered health and broken nerves did share and act in concert with the public timidity during his second administration. But the Cornwallis of 1805 differed as widely from the Cornwallis of 1792 as he did from Lord Wellesley himself.* The reaction, however, did not last long. The attitude of absolute isolation, which he and his well-meaning successor endeavoured to assume in India, soon manifested it- self as impossible to the clear mind of Lord Minto, and, what was more, to that far less discerning aggre- gate, the Secret Committee in London. In a de- spatch dated September 10th, 1811, the latter body e On the incapacity of Lord Cornwallis during his second adminis- tration, conf. Sir J. Malcolm's Pol. Hist, of India, vol. i. passim, and Correspondence of Lord Metcalfe, Letter to Mr. Sherer, August 31, 1805. ENGLAND AND INDIA. 235 observe, " the permanent security of the British re- sidents in India does not depend upon any supposed balance of power among the native states : it is like the naval supremacy of this country (England) ; our power ought never to be extended for the purpose of aggression and injustice; but it ought to be para- mount over all, if all should be combined against it, or it will probably soon cease to exist." But Lord Minto needed no sermonising from Leadenhall Street to teach him that the position of the English in India, acquired, as it had been, by high-handed might, stood on exactly the same basis as did the other mushroom states that were raised from time to time around it, by the ambition of one or other of those remarkable men whom the soil of India produced in such abund- ance, for her trouble, on the dissolution of the empire of Delhi. He considered the Company to be as fully committed to diplomacy or the sword as Scindia or any other of his or their military rivals. u It has not, perhaps, been sufficiently considered," wrote Lord Minto in one of his minutes, " that every native state in India ia a military despotism; that war and conquest are avowed as the first and legitimate pur- suits of every sovereign or chief, and the whole source of glory and renown : it is not, therefore, a mere con- jecture, deduced from the natural bias of the human mind and test of general experience, but a certain conviction, founded on avowed principles of action and systematic views, that among military states and chiefs of India the pursuits of ambition can alone be bounded by the inability to prosecute them." We can understand, therefore, how it was that the Company at this time had not foresworn conquest. We can at this particular point of their career even find an additional ENGLAND AND INDIA. excuse for wars of aggrandisement. For a Power lying among such neighbours, and formed exactly as they had been formed, could only exist, as they existed, by an unceasing struggle to be supreme. But there was an essential and very honourable difference between the administration of Lord Minto and those of his predecessors. He had, indeed, de- stroyed beyond reprieve the policy of absolute isola- tion; but to his honour be it said, that the policy of interference which he revived, in his hands was never the instrument of injurious aggression. He assumed the British empire in India as an accomplished fact, and regarded it as the common arbiter of the com- monwealth of Indian states. He was for ever talking and writing of " our political ascendency on the con- tinent of India." But his conception of the uses of that ascendency was undoubtedly that it should be exercised on the side of justice and the general peace. England was to keep the police of the Peninsula ; and under him she did more or less keep it, and she did no more. I may be mistaken, but I cannot call to mind one single addition which he made to the Com- pany's territories. He conquered, indeed, the island of Java ; but that was in reality in another capacity, and for the Crown. But he paved the way for Lord Hastings, whose career was an admixture of his own and Lord Wellesley's, or rather at once the develop- ment and consummation of both. The great office which Lord Minto had proclaimed and undertaken on behalf of his country became grander and more de- finable as Lord Hastings illustrated it and magnified it by conquest after conquest, in the manner of their great common predecessor, whom he loved to quote and imitate. Nepaul humbled, Scindia overthrown, ENGLAND AND INDIA. 237 the Pindarees extinguished, and the Mahrattas van- quished and outwitted both, all these worked fitly up to the grand climax and close of the reign of Lord Hastings, the proclamation of the British as the lords paramount of India. We may pass over the short administration of Mr. Adam, as we did that of Sir John Barlow. So far as the political history of India is concerned, it was short, eventless, and inoffensive. There was little even in the career of Lord Amherst of which we need take notice. The Burmese war, for which he was not re- sponsible, and the heroic but gratuitous storming of Bhurtpore, the result of a ridiculous interference in a petty dynastic revolution, occupied him until 1826. We may limit our notice of him to the fact that he made good a technical flaw in the assumption of British headship by Lord Hastings. The ancient vassalage of the Company to Delhi, acknowledged in its older and less audacious days, had never been formally abrogated. The king of Delhi still existed, and was still acknowledged in all his titular supre- macy throughout Hindoostan. The incongruousness of this duality was noticed by Lord Amherst ; and as the obstacle showed itself in his way, he finally deter- mined on and carried out its abolition. The kingdom of Delhi was extinguished in form, and, amid the pro- foundest sensation of the native princes, the independ- ence and sovereignty of the British were jointly pro- claimed. Until the day, therefore, of the return of Lord Amherst to England, the political conduct of the British in India formed but the fringe to Lord Hastings' gown. With Lord William Bentinck, however, commenced that new and lower system which, with but few inter- 238 ENGLAND AND INDIA. ruptions, was to be continued to and consummated in the days of Lord Dalhousie. The people of England had now reached that particular point in temper and morality when they were resolved to reject conquest, but were ready to accept casuistry as the means of aggrandisement. It must always be mentioned as the one blot upon the personal character of Lord William Bentinck, that his treatment of the Mysore Rajah in- augurated the vicious system which, in the many varieties of its exercise, has so discredited us among the princes and peoples of India. So long as we were avowed conquerors, they understood us ; perhaps they even sympathised with us. Accustomed to a quasi- feudalism, and looking upon the Mohammedan conquest as a comparatively modern event, they were probably not shocked beyond conciliation at the apparition of our supremacy. It matters little to a Rajah, inde- pendent in all save the name, in whose favour he acknowledges an unsubstantial vassalage. But Lord William Bentinck opened a novel and far more ter- rible vista of politics to the eyes of all those who, either in their own persons or by their ancestors, had subscribed written treaties with the British, or who had accepted conditional dominion at their hands. The careers of Lord Auckland and Lord Ellen- borough formed a brief recurrence to the older method of appropriation. But the former, superseded and appalled, left India only to hear that his scheme of the conquest of Afghanistan was repudiated by al- most the first public proclamation of his successor. And the latter in his turn lived to be recalled simply because he was a conqueror. He was succeeded by Lord Hardinge, who conquered the Sikhs in a war which was simply one of defence on the part of the ENGLAND AND INDIA. 239 British. Not even in its termination, so glorious to the arms of the victors, did the Governor- General suffer it to degenerate into an excuse for territorial aggrandisement; as the following extract from his speech to the assembled chieftains at Lahore abund- antly shows : " For forty years," he tells them, " it was the policy of Kun- geet Singh's time to cultivate friendly relations between the two Governments ; and during the whole of that period the Sikh nation was independent and happy. Let the policy of that able man be the model for your future imitation. The British Govern- ment in no respect provoked the late war. It had no objects of aggrandisement to obtain by hostilities. The proof of sincerity is to be found in its moderation in the hour of victory. A just quarrel followed by a successful war has not changed the policy of the British Government. The British Government does not desire to interfere in your affairs. I am ready and anxious to withdraw every British soldier from Lahore. ****** I state this openly, that all the world may know the truth, and the motives by which I am actuated in this matter." These three last-named noblemen exhaust the line of Governors- General down to Lord Dalhousie, who was succeeded by Lord Canning and the mutiny. It was Lord Dalhousie who most thoroughly recog- nised and submitted to what had been the temper of the Company and the people of England since 1833, the date of the new charter. He is the typical hero of the later regime : and what was that regime, and what was the method of its exponents? It was spoliation under the garb of legality ; war behind the skirts of treaties; cruelty in name of philanthropy. It was a diplomacy that deliberately watched and fostered the advent of the foreknown conditions under which it could speciously claim to step in and anni- hilate, affecting, when the time came, to run the 240 ENGLAND AND INDIA. risk of a legal opinion upon its rights. Just so, the devil, having debased his victim beyond redemption, has been known to submit to play a game at chess for his soul. I shall now cull two or three instances to illus- trate what, as he was its great exhibitor, I shall call the Dalhousian method. It is true that Lord William Bentinck on account of the Mysore appropriation, and Lord Canning for his treatment of Dhar, have a reputation deeply tinged with this stain. Nor must we forget that every Governor- General since Lord William Bentinck has had a share in perpetuating the one great injustice of his administration. But no one has approached Lord Dalhousie in his own speci- ality; in all the subtilties and audacities of "annexa- tion" he was supreme. I will begin my list of illus- trations with the case of the Rajah of Mysore. In 1831 Lord William Bentinck intimated to the Eajah of Mysore that the British Government had determined to take into its own hands the manage- ment of his kingdom. The cause of this determina- tion was stated to be the misrule of the Rajah; the sanction of it, a clause in the treaty of 1799 between him and the East India Company. This treaty of 1799 was that otherwise well known as the subsi- diary treaty with Mysore, and was a part of the general arrangement by which the partition of the dominions of Hyder Ali was carried out after the death of Tippoo Sahib. After the overthrow of Tippoo, his possessions fell by the right of conquest to the victors, the Nizam of the Deccan and the English. As every one who knows any thing of the history of India remembers, a portion of the spoils was handed over to the Nizam, and the residue was retained by the ENGLAND AND INDIA. 241 English. The latter, after having set apart certain districts of their own share for themselves, restored the remainder to the heir of the old line of Hindoo princes, which Hyder Ali had dispossessed. This heir was then a child of four. I mention his age because it is an important element of consideration when we come to estimate the treatment which he subse- quently received at the hands of the English. He was not, however, raised unconditionally to the mus- iiud. His signature to the subsidiary treaty was made and, considering all things, not unnaturally made the price of his elevation. This instrument may broadly be said to have been an agreement for an offensive and defensive alliance between the Rajah and the Company, with certain guarantees, moral as well as material, for the performance by the weaker and less responsible party of his part of the engage- ment. The moral guarantees were what the British pledged themselves somewhat indirectly to do; the material were what the Rajah consented that they should take. The main engagement into which the Rajah entered was to provide an annual sum of money in times of peace, in consideration of the maintenance by the Company of a military force for the protection of his dominions ; and in times of war to furnish an additional sum to meet the extraordi- nary military expenses which that protection would then entail upon the Company. The due perform- ance of this engagement was secured by Article 4 of the treaty, which was as follows : " And whereas it is indispensably necessary that effectual and lasting security should be provided against any failure in the funds destined to defray either the expenses of the permanent military force in time of peace or the extraordinary expenses K 242 ENGLAND AND INDIA. described in the third article of the present treaty, it is hereby stipulated and agreed between the contracting parties, that when- ever the Governor-General in Council of Bengal shall have reason to apprehend such failure in the funds so destined, the said Gover- nor-General in Council shall be at liberty, and shall have full power and right, either to introduce, such regulations and ordinances as he shall deem expedient for the internal management and collection of the revenues, or for the letter ordering of any other branch and de- partment of the government of Mysore, or to assume and bring rmder the direct management of the servants of the said Company, Behauder, such part or parts of the territorial possessions of his Highness Maha Eajah Mysore Kistna Oodiaver Behauder, as shall appear to him, the said Governor-General in Council, neces- sary to render the said funds efficient and available either in time of peace or war." Article 5 explains the method that shall always be adhered to in carrying out the provisions of Article 4 ; and these two Articles, along with Article 14, which I shall quote a little further on, are the only portions of the treaty with which I shall have to deal. The child thus suddenly taken from exile and obscurity was placed at once upon his throne, with Purnia, the able but unscrupulous financier of Tippoo, for his principal adviser. It does not appear that the minister had any very exalted views of the re- lation in which he was placed to his young master, or that those who sanctioned his elevation ever thought that he had. He contented himself with filling the treasury, after the old fashion, with money wrung out of an exhausted and patient people. On the other hand, the East India Company conceived, as we are forced to presume, that, having magnani- mously created the boy king, they were entitled to wash their hands of him and his people, owning no responsibility whatever for the career or fortunes of either. The young Rajah was therefore left altoge- ENGLAND AND INDIA. 243 ther to his palace and his pleasures, and, as nineteen out of every twenty of young princes in Europe or Asia either have done, or would have done under similar circumstances, he abandoned himself to the seductions of his position. There is no reason to doubt that, from the time of his accession until that of his virtual deposition by Lord William Bentinck, he led a career of debauchery continuous and ex- ceeding. He was very likely just as good a mon- arch no better, no worse as Sardanapalus is com- monly said to have been on the eve of the Chaldrean insurrection. Neither is there any reason to doubt that at the time we did interfere to remove him, some interference on our part had become a matter as much to be desired in favour of his people, as an intervention in favour of the Neapolitans might have been against their king, Francis the Second. Tech- nically the English had no right to interfere in either case : and in the latter we abstained because the scene of action was in Europe, where we are cautious and law- fearing ; in the former we did not abstain because the scene of action was in Asia, and in Asia we are bold and high-handed. Not, however, that any one would have been disposed to blame Lord William Bentinck and his advisers for acting somewhat as they did in the contingency then presented to them in Mysore, if only they had had no hand in contriving it. I believe also that it is a moot question whether or not it is public law, that if the internal affairs of a state are in such a condition as to make it a source of peril, or even of grave annoyance, to its neigh- bours, they may intervene to bring about a better state of things ; but for that end only ; and this, gained, their right ceases. 244 ENGLAND AND INDIA. Had Lord William Bentinck, therefore, seeing a state of things in Mysore for which the British Government were in no sense or degree responsible, and which was perilous or seriously annoying to British India, interfered, urging the public law of nations and the general good, even to the extent of assuming temporarily the government of the country, History would have apologised for his action, and have passed on at once from his method to its results. But these conditions were unfortunately wanting. The internal evils of Mysore were undoubtedly and lamentably patent : but, in the first place, the British Government was, as I shall show, more or less re- sponsible for their existence; in the second place, Lord W. Bentinck never urged that they were either perilous or annoying beyond the frontiers of the Rajah's dominions ; and, in the third place, he did not base his interference on public law, but on the provi- sions of the fourth article of the subsidiary treaty, which I have quoted at length above. Now, to take these points one by one. First, I say that the British Government were responsible for the accumulated misrule of the Rajah. The mon- archy was of their own creation. After much discus- sion at Calcutta and Madras, they carved the king- dom out of their share of the spoils of Tippoo, they selected the monarch, and placed him on the throne. They knew he was not five years of age when they did so. They knew what the dangers are that have beset young men so placed in the possession of bound- less wealth and supreme position, from the accession of Rehoboam to the regency of George the Fourth. Did they imagine that these dangers were modified by the climate, or by the manners and customs of ENGLAND AND INDIA. 245 Asia? Was there any thing in the domestic history of the princes of India that led them to think that Hindoo lads upon the musnud gave less cause for watchfulness and anxiety, or wanted counsel and education less, than young Europeans on or hard by a throne? That could hardly be, because Article 14 of the subsidiary treaty is in these terms : " His Highness Maha Rajah Mysore Kistna Rajah Oodiaver Behauder hereby promises to pay, at all times, the utmost atten- tion to such advice as the Company's government shall occasionally judge it necessary to offer to him, with a view to the economy of his finances, the better collection of his revenues, the administration of justice, the extension of commerce, the, encouragement of trade, agri- culture, and industry, or any other objects connected with the advance- ment of His Highnesses interests, the happiness of his people, and the mutual welfare of both states" Now if these words are not expressive, not so much of an acceptance as of a claim of tutorship and constant and kindly supervision, it would be as well to ask what others could have been. It is as though the framers of the treaty had said to the Rajah, "You will not probably see the necessity, for your own sake, for your people's sake, for your neighbours' sake, of being looked after. We do : we foresee your neces- sities; we acknowledge our duties and responsibili- ties; and we pledge you therefore beforehand." But was this article so wise, so just, so broad in its scope, teeming with so much sense of sponsorship, so fa- therly and beneficent in its intentions towards the child whom its framers had called from his obscure nursery to a throne ever acted upon? So far from the Company's government "occasionally judging it necessary to offer advice" to the young Rajah, did it ever offer him any real advice at all? I know that he was threatened once or twice towards the close of his 246 ENGLAND AND INDIA. rule; but even remembering this, I should like to know how many precursors there were to the severe letter in which Lord William Bentinck announced to him that the cup of his misdoings was full, and that his kingdom was forthwith to be taken from him? From the very first the Company neglected their young protege. Sir John Malcolm was, indeed, ap- pointed Resident at Mysore at the outset; but he resigned the post within five years after the crea- tion of the kingdom. And as a late advocate of the Rajah, one who is too excited and hasty to be gene- rally trusted, but who tells the truth in this instance, has written : " After the departure of Sir John Malcolm, the first Resident at Mysore, in 1804, Purnia was left to pursue his own plans, in possession of undivided authority, undisturbed and unin- structed by the government of Madras or its representative the Resident. The young Rajah was left to the enlightened tuition of his mother, his grandmother, and the other ladies of the harem." They forgot that generally by raising him to power of their own accord, and specially by the fourteenth article of a treaty framed by themselves, they had made him at once their creature, their pupil, and their ward. It is the most flagrant of cruelties to place a helpless being in a position which without your aid you know he cannot fill ; to tell him so, as they did indirectly by the fourteenth clause; and then to leave him unaided and unwarned till the day when, after a lifetime of neglect, you come back to upbraid him with a degradation which you foresaw, but would not avert. Nor does this unwillingness to avert seem to have been entirely the denegation of duty. There is a ENGLAND AND INDIA. 247 smack of something more positive than neglect. It is at least as well ascertained as the Report of the Special Committee appointed in 1830 to inquire into the state of Mysore may warrant us in considering it, that a belief was every where prevalent through the Rajah's dominions that a certain revolt among the Ryots (which was one pretext for our intervention) was looked upon as a good chance by the English Government, and had their goodwill and countenance. Moreover, the prescience of a keener mind than that of any of the Madras officials who made up this com- mittee leads us to something like the same conclusion. The Duke of Wellington, then General "Wellesley, had occasion to write a letter upon the affairs of Mysore in 1804. In this letter are the following words : " In respect of Mysore, I recommend that a gentleman from the Bengal Civil Service shall be Malcolm's successor there. The government of that country should be placed under the imme- diate protection and superintendence of the Governor-General in Council. The Governor of Fort St. George ought to have no more to do with the Eajah than they have with the Soubar of the Deccan or the Peishwa. The consequence of the present system" [Mysore was then in connection with Madras] "will be that the Eajah's government will be destroyed by cormption, or, if it be not corrupt, by calumny. I know of no person, either civil or military, at Port St. George, who would set his face against the first evil, or who has strength of character or talents to defend the Government against the second. In my opinion, the only remedy is to take the Eajah under the wing of the Governor- General." This advice was acted upon for a very brief period; but the attention of the Calcutta Government was soon relaxed, and the reign of Madras recommenced. Under it an epoch of what certainly looks like inten- tional and watchful neglect supervened. The self- 248 ENGLAND AND INDIA. ruin of the Rajah was regarded step by step with a complacency that grew as his downward pace was accelerated; because it was known that the day which saw his actual deposition would dawn upon a golden era of patronage and emolument for the Go- vernor and civil servants of Madras. This artistic abstinence was not even interrupted for one moment, when Purnia, the minister of the Company's own original selection, succumbed to the intrigues of the wretched minions who had been per- mitted to surround and debase the childhood of the young Rajah; nor when the latter himself, in the year 1811 having then attained the mature age of sixteen years dismissed his minister, proclaimed him- self out of leading-strings, and assumed, or affected to assume, absolute power. Scarcely one word of remonstrance or advice was tendered him from that day; certainly none on that occasion. Little more than a chuckle came from Madras ; and that no doubt was smothered, lest it should check the course of events. At least, from first to last, no practical inter- ference, such as Article 14 of the subsidiary treaty expressly pointed to, was ever attempted. In 1827 things had gone so far as to satisfy the Government of Madras that the end it coveted was at hand. It was not, however, considered desirable, perhaps (for to such diplomatists there is a residuum of conscience, after all), it was not considered reputable that the last step should be taken too abruptly. Also it was plain that the Rajah was now beyond repentance and self-reclamation, and that a solemn warning would do no harm, that is, would cause no risk of checking him. So Sir Thomas Munro visited Mysore, had an inter- view with His Highness, and fulminated the brutum ENGLAND AND INDIA. 249 fulmen so long withheld, and then so artistically and safely administered. " I concluded," he writes of the interview in question, in a minute composed at the time, " by saying that the disorder of the Eajah's affairs had reached such a height as would justify the Government in acting on the fourth article of the treaty; but that, as a direct interference in the administration or assumption for a time of a part of the Mysore territory, could not be undertaken without lessening the dignity of His Highness, and shaking his authority in such a manner that it would be impracticable ever to reestablish it, I was unwilling to adopt such a course until the last extremity, and wished to give him an opportunity of restoring order himself. But if reform were not immediately begun, direct interference would be unavoidable." Any thing more unstatesnianlike or more uncan- did than these words are cannot well be. In the first place, it might have occurred to a man in Sir Thomas Munro's position and the fact that it probably did occur to him is the worst as well as the most natural presumption that "direct interference" and "as- sumption of territory" were not the only alternatives open to the tutelary friends of the Mysore Rajah. The treaty quoted above might have supplied it probably did to Sir Thomas Munro the idea that a third method of intervention was " indirect interfer- ence." If not only in 1827, but in 1799 though better in 1827 than never this last expedient had been tried, Mysore might have been now the model native state in India; a precedent to the British on the one hand, and an example to the Indian princes on the other. It would have taught the latter how kingdoms might be ruled, and how the monarchies of the Peninsula might be improved by the exhibition of remedies a little less active than extirpation. Why, instead of administering half-a-dozen vague 250 ENGLAND AND INDIA. and inactive rebukes in the course of thirty-one years, and then proceeding, with a complacency only too patent, to rake in the proceeds of vagueness and in- action, did we not, as was contemplated and sug- gested by the 14th Article of the treaty, give the Rajah substantial, formal, tangible, specific advice? Why not have recommended this measure and that measure, we who knew as well what ought as what ought not to be done, " with a view to the economy of his finances, the better collection of his revenues, the administration of justice, the extension of com- merce, the encouragement of trade, agriculture, and industry, and any other objects connected with the ad- vancement of His Highness's interests, the happiness of his people, and the mutual welfare of both states"? Was all this, so elaborately stated and provided, im- possible ? Did the framers of the clause think it so ? or were they so dishonest as to have framed it with the fixed intention of making it a dead letter ? Could they not, and would they not, have carried it out? And were not their successors less honest or less able probably both, certainly the former than they? From time to time it would have been perfectly easy, especially if the custom had been made coeval with the Rajah's institution, to have offered such advice in a form that could have been reduced at once to ordi- nances issued and changes effected in the Rajah's own name, and ostensibly on his own responsibility. And if at first there had been any thing like a troublesome recusance, there was the 4th Article to fall back upon, which, in case of necessity, authorised the Governor- General in Council to "introduce such regulations and ordinances as he shall deem expedient for the internal management and collection of the revenues, ENGLAND AND INDIA. 251 or for the better ordering of any other branch and department of Mysore." It is true that the powers of this 4th article are given only in case of any dan- ger of nonfulfilment by the Rajah of his engagement to provide the military and pecuniary contingents mentioned in Articles 2 and 3. But inasmuch as, without the presence of any such danger, the vir- tual appropriation of the kingdom was carried out under the same Article 4, it might well have been considered sufficiently elastic to bear the lighter strain. And this leads me to insist more clearly than hitherto upon the technical illegality of the seizure of Mysore. All our powers under the treaty spring, and spring only, from danger to the subsidy. It was confessed on all hands at the time of the appropriation that the subsidy was in no danger whatever. Lord William Bentinck saw the false position as soon as ever it had been assumed; and in 1834 he expressed himself very plainly and strongly on the subject in a secret despatch to the Court of Directors at London. His perceptions were no doubt very much quickened by the report of the Select Committee alluded to above, which had been appointed to inquire into the state of Mysore. This report seems to have been put forth a day or two too late for its only obvious prac- tical value ; but from it Lord William Bentinck found that he had been deceived and misled by the patron- age-lovers and office-hunters of Madras. The pam- phleteer whom I have already cited says that it is well known (and if it be not true, some one had better deny it) that Lord William Bentinck, after his return to England, repeatedly declared that the .supercession of the Rajah of Mysore was the only 252 ENGLAND AND INDIA. incident of his Indian administration that he looked back upon with sorrow. I might discuss here at length the question how far the denunciations of the Rajah by the Madras officials were exaggerated or false ; how far the revolt of the north-western provinces of his kingdom was caused, not by the personal misgovernment of the Rajah, but by the antecedent exactions of Purnia, whose regency we had ourselves created when we established the monarchy : but such a discussion would by no means promote my object. I accept the hypothesis that the conduct of the Rajah had become grievously bad; and I use it to show how ill the East India Company and its chief servants at Calcutta and Madras, who should have considered themselves the tutors of the child, interpreted the responsibility which his elevation by themselves had cast on them ; to show how little they valued the honour of the British name in India in comparison with the vista of patronage which his debasement and extinction opened out to them; and how dis- astrous was the choice they made between a policy of neglect, chicanery, and confiscation, and one of duty, generosity, and good faith. I have no need to follow the fortunes of the prince of Mysore from the day of his supercession until now : suffice it to say that, he is yet alive ; and that even in his old age he has not ceased to protest against his virtual dethronement. For a long time he was deluded by fair words into a belief that his punishment was but temporary, and that, in the words of Lord Auckland,* " the administration of his territories should remain on its present footing until Letter of the 28th of March 1836. ENGLAND AND INDIA. 253 the arrangements for their good government should have been so firmly established as to be secure from future disturbance." But as time wore on, fair words began to lose their varnish; and the suppliant for such he had now grown to be was told more and more plainly that the hour of his restoration would never sound. The fact was, that day by day it became more difficult, as also it became more un- pleasant, to restore him. The agency, which Lord William Bentinck had promised in 1830 should be "exclusively native," had long become exclusively European, and the Mysore commission was now a fruitful field of patronage and emolument. There is no doubt that the pacification of the country and its prosperity has been brought about by the new regime; but not in a manner to render the restora- tion of the old government possible. On the con- trary, the substitution of English for native officers all through the kingdom for so many years had extinguished for a time the materials for a native organisation. This was not the intention of the treaty, but it was the intention of those who exe- cuted it; and they have carried it out successfully. For what statesman could come to Parliament and ask for the restoration of the Rajah, when he would be met by the assertion, indisputably true, that if he were restored to-morrow, and the European admi- nistrative staff withdrawn, there would not be to be found a single native of any thing approaching to the education and capacity requisite to fill a single post of eminence? The difficulty is patent, and for the present fatal; but who and what have produced it? It was reserved for Lord Dalhousie to be the first who should speak out plainly on behalf of the 254 ENGLAND AND INDIA. absolute "annexation" of Mysore; for be it remem- bered that it is not yet "annexed." The Rajah is only virtually dethroned ; he is still titular sovereign, though the civil and military administration of his dominions has been taken away. The minute in which he spoke so plainly is eminently characteristic of Lord Dalhousie. " The treaty," says he, " under which Lord Wellesley raised the Kajah, while yet a child, to the nrasirad, and the treaty which was subsequently concluded with himself, were both silent as to heirs and successors. No mention is made of them ; the treaty is exclusively a personal one. " The inexpediency of continuing this territory by an act of gratuitous liberality to any other native prince, when the present Kajah shall have died, has been already conclusively shown by the conduct of His Highness himself, U'hose rule, though Tie com- menced it under every advantage, was so scandalously and hope- lessly lad, that power has long since been taken from him by the British Government. "I trust, therefore, that when the decease of the present Kajah shall come to pass, without son or grandson, or legitimate male heir of any description, the territory of Mysore, which will then have lapsed to the British Government, will be resumed, and that the good work which has been so well begun will be completed." The plea of a " personal" treaty was a favourite one with that Governor-General. He used it against the Nawaub of the Carnatic as well as against the Rajah of Mysore. It is rather more ludicrous, how- ever, in this case than in that ; for what on earth, it may be asked, to go no further, would have been the use of creating a kingdom with all the elaborate machinery of a monarchy, and of inaugurating it with all the pomp and circumstance of a great inter- national arrangement, at the close of an important war, if it were intended to lapse at the end of one ENGLAND AND INDIA. 255 life? What object could there have been in inter- polating the single reign of the Eajah between the destruction of Tippoo and the assumption of his terri- tory by the Company, when that territory was already its own by the right of conquest, and had been for- mally allotted to it under the Partition treaty? And again, to refer to the sentence which I have italicised, I wonder what were some of the advantages in Lord Dalhousie's mind when he penned those words? Un- happy boy ! With only a greater degree of cynicism might Louis XYIL, if he had ever come to the throne of France, have been said to commence his reign under every advantage, after going through what is asserted by some historians to have been his training by Simon in the Temple. It is needless to go further; the Rajah's suit is still before the English people. Some little strength it gained in the eyes of Lord Canning by the loyal conduct of the suppliant in the great mutiny. But though touched in the first instance to the point of dictating a very friendly and sympathetic despatch, he soon fell back into the normal official hardness; either because the callousness of security had super- vened upon the sensibility caused by a crisis of excite- ment and danger, or else because he had a hint from home. It is said that the present Secretary of State for India, Sir C. Wood, has resolved in council on the absolute annexation of Mysore ; and that the measure only waits the sanction of the Cabinet. This would be manifestly illegal, whatever the assumption of the administration may have been. The subsidiary treaty contains no clause whatever providing, under any circumstances, for the extinction of the monarchy which it created. If nothing better be done, the 256 ENGLAND AND INDIA. Rajah's heir, if he adopt one, ought to be allowed to succeed peacefully to the titular sovereignty. No one can wish otherwise who has the slightest care for his country's honour, or who, feeling that a great injustice and dereliction of duty has been perpetrated, would be unwilling to see to the door finally closed against the chance of its reparation. There is also another, and it may be a lower, because a more political, reason for keeping the Mysore case open; but that I will speak of further on. Having thus dwelt so long on the Mysore case, because it is the one instance which contrasts more clearly than any other what has and what ought to have been our method of dealing with the semi- dependent princes of India, and also because it is a case unconcluded, and therefore eminently sug- gestive and susceptible of experiment, with a view to a newer and better policy, let me pass on to say a word or two upon the celebrated annexation of Oude. Here I am not obliged even to trace the outlines of the narrative. Most people to whom it is worth while to appeal know enough of the annex- ation of Oude to discuss it ; and even those who do not know more, know this, that, unlike most other pieces of profitable political profligacy, it has met with an almost universal reprobation at home. The chief point, which the later revelations have enhanced, is the perversity and persistence of Lord Dalhousie on the subject. It used to be thought that he was merely the arch-offender, because he was in a position to give or to withhold the word of command. It used to be thought that the annexation was the evil mark which the greed of the Bengal Civil Service had long proposed to itself, and that Lord Dalhousie ENGLAND AND INDIA. 257 rather succumbed to solicitation than originated the seizure. It used to be thought that Lord Dalhousie only found too willing instruments of rapacity among Anglo-Indians of mark; consequently they, and espe- cially Colonel Sleeman, on whose report of the state of Oude the annexation was supposed to have pro- ceeded, were subjected to far more opprobrium than their employer. But the disclosures which Colonel Sleeman or his personal friends, goaded by indig- nation and a sense of wrong, have made have quite reversed the relative positions of him and his master. So far from having recommended the course which Lord Dalhousie subsequently pursued, or from being the ready fabricator of its quasi-justification, Colonel Sleeman foresaw it and reprobated it in advance. In 1848 Lord Dalhousie had formally declared the principle that was to actuate him during his tenure of office. " I cannot conceive it possible," he wrote, " for any one to dispute the policy of taking advantage of any just opportunity for consolidating the territories that already belong to us, by taking possession of states which may lapse in the midst of them ; for thus getting rid of those petty intervening principalities which may be made a means of annoyance, but which can never, I venture to think, be a source of strength, for adding to the resources of the public treasury, and for extending the uniform application of our government to those whose best interests we sincerely believe will be promoted thereby." It is possible, and even probnble, that Lieutenant- Colonel Sleeman knew of this declaration, or at least that he was conscious of some very good reason to fear that Lord Dalhousie intended not merely the regeneration of Oude, but its appropriation. At all events, to the letter in which the Governor- General offered him the post of Resident at Lucknow, and s 258 ENGLAND AND INDIA. which was most cautiously worded, so as to conceal any object beyond that of "the reconstruction of the internal administration of a great, rich, and oppressed country," Colonel Sleeman returned an answer as cautious, but which, indirectly and by reference to the bad faith which had been kept with the Punjaub, was a strong intimation that he would be no party to any false treatment of Oude. And in a letter written on the close of his tour of inspection through the country, after detailing all that might be done for it under a British administration, and after speaking too of the reciprocal advantages which his own go- vernment itself would derive from the restoration of Oude, he says, " But were we to take advantage of the occasion to annex Oude or any part of it, our good name in India would inevitably suffer, and that good name is more valuable to us than a dozen of Oudes." And what can be stronger than the follow- ing extract from a yet later letter, but one written while he was still resident at Lucknow? " The system of annexation, pursued by a party in this coun- try and favoured by Lord Dalhousie and his Council, has, in my opinion and in that of a large number of the ablest men in India, a downward tendency a tendency to crush all the higher and middle classes connected with the land. These classes it should be our object to create and foster, that we might in the end in- spire them with a feeling of interest in the stability of our rule. We shall find, a few years hence, the tables turned against us. In fact, the aggressive and absorbing policy which has done so much mischief of late in India, is beginning to create feel- ings of alarm in the native mind ; and it is when the popular mind becomes agitated by such alarms, that fanatics will always be found ready to step into Paradise over the bodies of the most prominent of those from whom injury is apprehended. I shall have nothing new to do at Lucknow. Lord Dalhousie and I have different views, I fear. If he wishes any thing done which I do ENGLAND AND INDIA. 259 not think right and honest, I resign, and leave it to be done by others. I desire a strict adherence to solemn engagements, whe- ther made with white faces or black. We have no right to annex or confiscate Oude ; but we have a right, under the treaty of 1837, to take the management of it, but not to appropriate the revenue to ourselves. We can do this with honour to our government and benefit to the people. To confiscate would be dishonest and dis- honourable. To annex would be to give the people a government almost as bad as their own, if we put our screw upon them. My position here has been and is disagreeable and unsatisfactory : we have a fool of a king, a knave of a minister, and both are under the influence of the cleverest, most intriguing, and most unscru- pulous villains in India." There was no doubt whatever of our right to interfere, and assume the administration of the king- dom of Oude. This the treaty of 1837 gave to us in terms full and precise : "If gross and systematic oppression, anarchy, and misrule, shall hereafter at any time prevail within the Oude dominions, such as seriously to endanger the public tranquillity, the British Government reserves to itself the right of appointing its own officers to the management of whatsoever portions of the Oude territory either to a small or a great extent in which such mis- rule as that above alluded to may have occurred, for so long a period as it may deem necessary ; the surplus receipts in such case, after defraying all charges, to be paid into the king's trea- sury, and a true and faithful account rendered to his majesty of the receipts and expenditure of the territory so assumed." Colonel Sleeman's report was conclusive beyond cavil. If ever the terms, " gross and systematic op- pression, anarchy, and misrule," were applicable to the state of an earthly kingdom, they were applicable to Oude. But Lord Dalhousie was not contented with the provision which the treaty of 1837 had made for the contingency which had thus been sub- stantiated. In vain did every respectable adviser 260 ENGLAND AND INDIA. whom he had about him in the province of Bengal argue with him from the side of policy, and entreat him on the side of justice, to do no more than the treaty warranted. He was not the man to be stayed when hunting in view of his quarry. And it hap- pened to be a fact that the Court of Directors in London had written a certain despatch to Lord Auckland, after his ratification of this treaty of 1837, disapproving of its provisions, and ordering him to cancel it. This despatch Lord Auckland, knowing well his constitutional right to make treaties, had refused to notice, and the treaty of 1837 therefore remained until Lord Dalhousie's day the text of international relations between Oude and the East India Company. Lord Hardinge had expressly threatened the Court of Oude that he would act on it if reforms were not executed, and in fact it had been argued from and acted upon from the day of its ratification until that of its only abrogation by Lord Dalhousie. All this his lordship discovered; but seizing with the concen- tration of rapacity upon the one point, that the Court of Directors had disapproved of it, he threw aside the facts that their disapproval was of no legal value, that Lord Auckland had never withdrawn his ratification, and that the treaty had always been acted upon, and coolly sent a message to the King of Oude, express- ing his regret that the abrogation of the treaty of 1837 had never been communicated either to his predecessors or to himself! Nor was this all. He announced his intention of falling back on a certain treaty of 1801, and making that the sanction and groundwork of what he was about to do. Unfortu- nately the treaty of 1801 gave even less excuse than that of 1837 for the annexation of the country. By ENGLAND AND INDIA. 261 that instrument Saadut All, the reigning sovereign, ceded a considerable portion, in fact about one-half, of his dominions to the East India Company; and the East India Company, in return, guaranteed him and his successors in possession of the remainder. There was, indeed, a clause by which he was bound to govern in conformity with the counsels of his allies ; but to the rupture of this engagement no penalty whatever was attached.* The want of this was an oversight, no doubt, at the time, which probably the penal stipulation in the treaty of 1837 was intended to make good. But Lord Dalhousie felt that if he abandoned, or rather ignored, the limitations of 1837, an illimitable area was opened to him by the silence of 1801. "All that the old treaty did not authorise, but did not forbid, I may do," he seems to have argued. " The old treaty having provided no pen- alty, it is for me to fill up the void." It was a magnificent extemporisation to imagine at the fag- end of a loosely worded agreement, the forfeiture of a kingdom! It reminds one of the late Mr. Mont- * The following is the text of Article 6 of the treaty of 1801 : " The territories ceded to the Honourable Company by the first article of this treaty shall be subject to the exclusive management and control of the said Company and their officers ; and the Hon- ourable East India Company hereby guarantee to his Excellency the Vizier, and to his heirs and successors, the possession of the terri- tories which will remain to his excellency after the territorial cession, together with the exercise of his and their authority within the said dominions. His excellency engages that he will establish in his re- served dominions such a system of administration (to be carried into eif ect by his own officers) as shall be conducive to the prosperity of his subjects, and be calculated to secure the lives and property of the inhabitants ; and his excellency will always advise with, and act in conformity to, the council of the officers of the said Honourable Com- pany." Treaties and Engagements with Native Princes in India, Bengal, No. Ixi. p. 216. 262 ENGLAND AND INDIA. gomery's conception of the Creator's original produc- tion of the elements : " He called them when they were not, and they were." " Your ancestors promised for you, in 1801, that you should govern well. You have not done so. I de- pose you; enough." That was all that was said to the ruler of Oude. Another case which I shall select is that of the titular Nawaub of the Carnatic. Prince Azeem Jah is the lineal representative of a line which was at a very early time conspicuous among the royal houses of India for its friendliness to the British power. Anwar-ood-deen-khan, the founder of the dynasty, died in battle for us against the French in 1749. To his successor, Walla Jah, we have it on the testimony of Sir T. Rumbold that we once owed our existence in the East. It was, indeed, at one time, on most insufficient grounds, suspected of this prince and of his son, that they had intrigued against us with Hyder Ali and Tippoo Sahib, who happened, by the way, to have been the hereditary foes of the family of Arcot. But it is not the less on record of Walla Jah, that to Louis Quinze of France, who sent an embassy with valuable presents to Arcot, seeking to detach him from our alliance, he replied, that, "in obedience to the commands of his father, he would never trust any other nation than the English." Walla Jah, at the conclusion of peace with the French, found, to his amazement, that, owing to the peculiar method of book-keeping, which in those times characterised the joint transactions of the East India Company with native princes, a war which he had undertaken far more for the benefit of his English o ENGLAND AND INDIA. 263 allies than for his own, had left him prodigiously in their debt. HoAvever, as he allowed the claim, he must at least have the credit of having contributed to the establishment of our Indian supremacy an army and the sum of one or two millions of money. Not content with his submissive generosity, the Com- pany, during his lifetime, and that of his son and successor, Omdut-al-Omrah, made several barefaced and ungrateful attempts to get. not only the revenues, but also the civil and military administration of the Carnatic into their own hands. Until the death of the latter, however, their importunities were baffled by the pertinacious dignity of both monarchs. But when Omdut-al-Omrah died, Lord Clive, instructed from Calcutta, at once proposed to Ali Houssain, the young heir of Omdut, the alternatives of making over the civil and military administration to the Madras government, or of seeing some more com- pliant relative mount in his stead to the musnud of his ancestors. Ali Houssain preferred his honour to his throne. It was plain that he could offer no resist- ance to the overwhelming strength of the English; and his first cousin Azeem-al-Dowlah, having ac- cepted the base conditions of sovereignty, was in- stalled as Nawaub. With him was made the well- known treaty of 1801, which settled the succession to the Carnatic throne in Azeem, gave to the Com- pany the entire sway over the country, and left to the monarch himself nothing but a titular sove- reignty, with one-fifth of the national revenues, as a provision for himself and his family. It is the stipulations of that treaty which the present claimant seeks to have executed in his own person. Azeem- al-Dowlah died in due time, and his son Azeem Jah 264 ENGLAND AND INDIA. succeeded him. The life of the latter was unevent- ful, as was that of his son Mahomed Ghouse Khan, who reigned after him until the year 1856. Ma- homed Ghouse Khan had come to the throne as a minor, and dying childless, should have been suc- ceeded by his uncle, Azeem Jah, the present claimant. Upon the death of his nephew, Azeem, as a matter of etiquette, wrote to the government of Madras, announcing his succession, and demanding its sanc- tion to his assumption of the throne. Much to his amazement, however, he received a reply to the effect that " the dynastic question must be referred to the Court of Directors for their consideration and award." The award of the Directors was simply a truly gener- ous allowance of a lac of rupees, and a sagacious abstinence from any reference whatever to the ques- tion of his succession. A further application upon the part of the expectant Nawaub to the Governor- General in Council was met with a refusal to discuss the merits of his case, or "to revoke the decision that had been passed." As no decision whatever had been passed, the use of the last phrase was a mere trick to treat that as settled, the settlement of which had been directly evaded. The Governor- General further observed that, as His Highness had memorialised the Court of Directors, he must await their reply. That reply he did await until the day of their extinguishment put a formal end to his chances of receiving it. Since then, however, he has fared but little better. He has, indeed, been insulted rather than tempted with repeated offers of a pecuni- ary allowance, and with exhortations to remain con- tent with regarding himself as the first gentleman of the Carnatic. But, as Ali Houssain, sixty years before . ENGLAND AND INDIA. 265 him, refused to sacrifice the actual sovereignty to which he was born, so Azeem Jah, in a lower epoch of his family's history, persists, in spite of decaying age and extreme poverty, in his refusal to surren- der the titular honours that are still the appanages of his house. The assumption by the Queen of the government of India, and her express promise by proclamation, that all treaties of the East India Com- pany with native princes should be observed, gave a cruel spur to the hopes of Azeem. Mr. Layard mentioned his case in the House of Commons in 1861, and insisted upon the fatuous injustice that had been done to him. Colonel Sykes supported Mr. Layard; and even Sir Charles Wood, acquiescing, agreed to go fully into his case. Conceding, of course, that Sir Charles has fulfilled his promise, one can only regret that the final estimate of so eminent a statesman should have been such as his subsequent refusal to take any action in the matter proves it to have been. We may regret the obstinacy of Government in this matter, especially because the boon asked is so trifling, and because the bestowal of it might here- after prove to have been so very convenient. The refusal is inexplicable upon any grounds of state ex- pediency, and it is not founded on any pretence of personal disability. It is not as if Azeem Jah were asking the substantial restitution of a realm. He asks only for a crown which, ten years since, his last ancestor wore, and for which it is as natural for him to sigh, as it is frivolous and irrational in us to withhold it. * It is precisely upon the insignificance of the effort which it would cost us, that the strength of the Xawaub's case may, from one point of view, 266 ENGLAND AND INDIA. be said to rest. It is not a hazardous plunge into the deeps, but a trip through the shallows of justice that is proposed to us. To seat Prince Azeem upon his powerless throne, would establish no perilous pre- cedent, involve no undefinable pledge, give us no difficult line to draw. His claim is neither too vast for arrangement, nor too antique for revival. With reference to the Queen's government, his recogni- tion would leave the Carnatic exactly where it was. So far as that point is concerned, it would but give to a palace an inhabitant with a titular right to reside in it. But it would also, by recognising the head of its royal house, give intense gratification to a race whose goodwill did much to stem the torrent of revolution in the late mutiny, and which may yet again, for ought we know, stand between us and extermination. It would raise a monarch whom we have thrust into the most cruel penury to the only affluence which he can accept with honour; and trivial as the act might seem at the time of doing it, it would hold out a dim hope to the great Hindoo houses, that our deeds in the past were not alto- gether irreversible, but that there was a future re- maining in which they might be redeemed. There is a vast territory now entirely subject to British rule in India, the acquisition of which it is as necessary to describe as to censure. It is known by the name of the Central Provinces. These provinces are of great extent : they stretch from Bundelcund on the north to the Madras presidency on the south, and from the frontier of Bengal on the east to Malwa and the Deccan on the west. Their extreme length from north to south may be com- puted at 500 miles, and their extreme breadth from ENGLAND AND INDIA. 267 east to west at 550 miles; their area is estimated at about 150,000 miles. It is worthy of notice that they are geographically and politically separated from the rest of British India, inasmuch as they are al- most entirely surrounded by native states, which are either absolutely independent, or, if under British administration, are still the nominal dominions of their titular sovereigns. On the north of the Central Provinces, for instance, lie the independent states of Buiidelcund, Jehree, and Punnah; on the west, the Bhopaul state, the dominions of Scindia, Berar, and the country of the Nizam; on the south and south- east lies the Deccan again; and on the east, Jeypore, an integral state, though administered from Fort St. George : the Rewa state is also contiguous upon the same frontier. " In general terms," says the Annual Report on their administration for the years 1861- 1862, from which I have adapted this description, "the Central Provinces may be described as an extensive British territory situate in the very heart and centre of the Indian Peninsula, dissociated geographically and politically from the other British provinces ; and though occasionally touching upon neighbouring Bri- tish districts, yet for the most part surrounded on all sides by foreign territory." This isolation and these frontiers will be important elements when we come to consider the ultimate destination and distri- bution of these Central Provinces. Their political history is very ancient and varied. They seem, if we may judge so from their traditions and from architectural remains, to have been the area over which several Hindoo dynasties and kingdoms, suc- cessive and contemporary, have flourished and de- cayed ; but in later and more historic times they 268 ENGLAND AND INDIA. were cut up into four kingdoms, of which the reign- ing families were of or akin to the Rajpoot race, and were called Gond- Rajpoots. As the Mohammedan rule absorbed the different parts of Central India, it attacked these Gond kingdoms in turn. The north- ernmost of the four, which had its capital at Mundla, near to the modern Jubbulpore, and extended over the greater part of the Nerbudda valley, managed for some time to retain a portion of its independence, though it lost many of its richer provinces. The southern kingdom also retained its existence, al- though it became a tributary of Delhi. The two midland kingdoms, which had become united into one, were also rendered tributary; and their sove- reigns, either by force or through policy, embraced the Mohammedan religion. Eventually the Moham- medan princes of Malwa managed to get possession of the fairest portion of the Nerbudda valley ; and the Mahratta province of Nagpore, which had grown to represent the midland kingdoms, was made a vice- royalty of the Deccan. As the Mohammedan empire broke up, and a general scramble for dominion took place among its great feudatories, and particularly as the tide of the fortunes of the Mahratta race rose and fell, the revolutions in these Central Provinces were like the changes in a kaleidoscope. Ultimately the House of Scindia became the possessors of a considerable portion of what had formerly been the northernmost of the four Gond kingdoms; and the rest of what now forms the British Central Provinces went to make up the kingdom which was so rapidly acquired and established by the great and fortunate Mahratta house of Bhonslah. It has been therefore from the Bhonslahs, whose capital was Nagpore, that ENGLAND AND INDIA. . 269 we have acquired the greater part of these provinces, the chief cessions having been made at the termi- nation of the second Mahratta war. At the same time we received from Scindia those provinces of the northern kingdom which had previously passed into his possession; and the district thus acquired, united, went by the name of the Sangor and Nerbudda ter- ritory. The remnant of the Bhonslah dominions in 1818 consisted of the province of Nagpore itself. There had been a British resident at Nagpore since 1803; and, from the accession of a minor in 1818, the administration of the state became British until the year 1830, when the young Rajah came of age and assumed the reins of government. This, the last of the Bhonslahs, died in 1853 without heirs begotten or adopted, and the kingdom lapsed to the British Government as lord paramount of India. The last sentence is composed of the few and simple words in which the Report which I have all along been following concludes the narrative of our acquisition of these provinces. But a word or two of amplification is necessary to its material perfection. The manner in which the kingdom of the last of the Bhonslahs "lapsed" to the British Government was not very creditable; and, unfortunately, the trans- action was once again Lord Dalhousie's. It is true that the Maharajah Rughojee Bhonslah did die with- out heirs either begotten or adopted ; but he had all his life manifested in the most unequivocal manner his intention to adopt. He had even selected the object of his bounty in Yeshwunt Rao Aher Rao, the son of his niece and his nearest male relative. Of course, the act of adoption is one that a Hindoo naturally postpones until he has been forced to the 270 ENGLAND AND INDIA. conviction that he will beget no male heirs of his own. Rughojee Bhonslah died at the age of forty- seven years, before that conviction had grown on him. It happened to him, as it frequently does happen to Hindoos who die early, or comparatively early, in life, that this most important act of a childless man was left undone by him. But a Hindoo thus dying does not die hi despair : he expires, on the contrary, hi the full confidence that his senior widow will supply the deficiency, and will exercise the power which both law and custom gives her in such an emergency. In short, a man's widow may adopt for him, if he have not adopted; and this the senior widow of the Maharajah of Nagpore was prepared to do for him. But at this juncture, within a few weeks of the death of the Rajah, in stepped Lord Dalhousie. He calmly declared that " the case of Nagpore was unprecedented;" although it was absolutely the re- verse, and he knew it so to be. ""We have before us," he wrote, "no question of an incomplete, or incJwate, or irregular adoption. The question of the right of Hindoo princes to adopt is not raised at all by recent events at Nagpore, for the Rajah has died, and has deliberately abstained from adopting an heir. TJie widow has adopted no successor. The state of Nagpore, conferred by the British Government in 1818 upon the Rajah and his heirs, has reverted to the British Govern- ment on the death of the Rajah without heirs Justice and custom and precedent leave tJie Government wholly unfettered to decide as it thinJcs best. Policy alone must decide the question" Now, unless it be proper charity to suppose that Lord Dalhousie and all his advisers were utterly ignorant of the important questions of fact and of Hindoo law raised on this occasion, one may say that all of the phrases which I have italicised are wilful falsifications of either fact or law. Let us take them ENGLAND AND IXDIA. 271 one by one. And first those that bear upon the law. On this point it would be almost sufficient to say that every Hindoo jurist knows, and almost every body conversant with Hindoo society knows too, that the senior widow may adopt on behalf of her dead hus- band. Regarded from a Hindoo standpoint, this is a maxim that is not only wise but indispensable to Hindoo society. It is a matter of religious belief that, unless a man's funeral rites are performed by a son, he will never get out of that transitional state between earth and paradise which is somewhat ana- logous to purgatory in Roman Catholicism, and more closely resembles the hither bank of the Styx in the old Greek and Lathi religions. To say, therefore, that a Hindoo would deliberately abstain from adopt- ing an heir is sheer folly, unless you are to suppose that he is an infidel or a fool, with a taste for being indefinitely kept out in the cold. But there was no pretence for crediting Rughojee Bhonslah either with infidelity or with a fatuous rashness that would dis- regard the choice between Put and Paradise. He was simply dilatory, as men in mid-life too often are, in arranging his private affairs. His dilatoriness was probably aggravated by his knowledge that what he left undone his widow would complete. Nor can the Government in Lord Dalhousie's time be taken to have been ignorant of the law. For so far back as c/ 1826 Mr. Jenkins, the resident at Nagpore, had care- fully expounded it in an elaborate despatch, and had particularly insisted on the power given to a widow to adopt. And again for Lord Dalhousie is singu- larly unfortunate all through this Xagpore minute the question was precisely one of " an inchoate or in- complete adoption" For the lad whom the widow 272 ENGLAND AND INDIA. wished to adopt had been all along selected by the Rajah himself for the purpose. His mother, in anti- cipation, had been brought to the palace to give birth to him. A royal salute was fired in honour of the accouchement. His education was provided for and superintended by the Rajah. He had his household, and a complete set of courtiers was appointed to attend him. On all great occasions he occupied a seat of state on the right hand of his uncle. Im- mediately after the unexpected death of the Rajah, the senior widow obtained the consent of Yeshwunt Rao's father to the adoption. The young man per- formed his uncle's funeral rites. The only part of the adoption which was deferred was the investiture with a new name. This, along with the public pro- cession incidental to the ceremony, was postponed, out of courtesy to the Governor-General, until his formal sanction should be obtained. His answer to the demand for that sanction is fossilised in the astounding minute from which I have quoted. In the name of all that is ingenious, how is it possible to say, under the circumstances, that the case of Nagpore was " unprecedented," that the Rajah had "deliberately abstained" from adopting an heir, that "custom, justice, or precedent left the British Go- vernment unfettered;" or, looking at the steps she had already taken, and to the fact that only a few weeks had then elapsed since the death of the Rajah, that his widow had not adopted, that is, had declined to adopt ! But Nagpore was annexed, and by its an- nexation a most convenient nucleus for a free native state in the future has been for the time destroyed. Let us hope that this act of Lord Dalhousie may yet be annulled; that Yeshwunt Rao may yet be made ENGLAND AND INDIA. 273 Maharajah of Nagpore, under the same conditions as was his uncle, and that we may start fair and afresh once more. As might be supposed, the population of these central provinces, after such a history as theirs has been, is very varied and confused. So much so, that all antagonism of races and creeds seems happily impossible, at least in any sense that would impede their political distribution. It is also to be observed that, with the exception of the Bhonslah family and Scindia, there are no claimants existing for any part of the country. Were it to be erected into a mon- archy to-morrow, there would be no one aspirant to the crown with any thing like an antecedent right to priority of selection. The British, having acquired the country, administer it under what is known as the non-regulation system; the same, in fact, as that which has hitherto prevailed in the Punjaub and in Oude. It is somewhat strange that the most conve- nient division of the provinces for the purposes of administration has been found to be into four dis- tricts or commissionerships, which answer roughly to the four Gond kingdoms, into which they were so long ago distributed. A review of what has been called the meaner method of dealing with Indian princes would be in- complete, if the examples were confined to cases of territorial confiscation. There have been illustrious accomplishments of a still lower ingenuity. Exiled or deposed monarchs and their families have been robbed of money, jewels, and securities for money by legal quibbles which the Treasury of India has laid hold of in moments of extreme rapaciousness or unusual impecuniosity. One out of these cases only T 274 ENGLAND AXD INDIA. need be selected. It is one which is peculiarly dis- graceful to the India House. To describe it will be o to hold up all like it to the disgust of a nation like the English a nation whose faults have generally been upen an imperial scale, and whose very sins may cry out against being placed side by side with petti- fogging iniquity. The Eajah of Coorg in 1834, partly by his own petulance, but not altogether without a show of right on his side, became involved in a war with the East India Company. The consequences of this complication were decisive and fatal to him. He himself, in a petition to Her Majesty, has concisely described this incident in his life. " The armies of the Company," he says, " entered his territory. To the general commanding those armies your petitioner surrendered, without wasting life in a useless contest. He was at once deposed from his sovereignty, his ter- ritories were seized, his revenues confiscated, and he himself brought prisoner of war to Benares." That was all pretty well for having dared to show temper; especially when we consider that he was the nephew and heir of a man of whom it could be said, even with a moderate amount of exaggeration, that. " in the contest in which the English finally triumphed over their most formidable enemy the Sultan Tippoo Sahib, the part taken by your petitioner's uncle determined the issue of the conflict, and secured by the overthrow of the Sultan the ascendency of British power in the Mysore." But this was not all. At the time of his deposition, and for some years previous to it, the Rajah held two promissory notes of the Indian Go- vernment, for sums deposited in the public funds, amounting to 857,840 rupees, or 85,784/. For these the Rajah, when living as a private person at Benares, ENGLAND AND INDIA. 275 demanded payment in the ordinary way. The Go- vernment refused then, and they have refused ever since, to pay him either principal or interest, on the ground that by levying war against the Company he had forfeited both. Now, in the first place,' he had not levied war against the Company; the Company levied war against him. They objected to his de- meanour and to his style of government; and, irri- tated at last by the tone in which he demanded the extradition of certain members of his family who had fled from his displeasure into British territory, they proclaimed his deposition, and proceeded to occupy his dominions. Of course, he defended himself as long as he could, as any man of common spirit would have done ; but that was all ; and under all the cir- cumstances it can hardly be said that he levied war against the Company. At all events, if self-defence is levying war, it will never do for an Indian poten- tate to hold money in the Anglo-Indian funds. For if ever the amount he so held were to amount to more than an attack upon him would cost, he would run the risk of a declaration of war against him ; and if he raised a regiment in his own defence, of an imme- diate declaration of forfeiture. This is, indeed, a new way to pay old debts ! It is just worth while here to say that no formal forfeiture of the principal, and no sequestration of the interest of these promissory notes was ever made. The interest has all along been suffered to accumulate, and amounts at this time, with the principal, to about 220,000/., the annual value of the whole being about 12,000/. It is more important, if we regard the moral aspect of the case, to notice that the money was not money lent by the Rajah himself, but by his uncle. The Rajah sued the 276 ENGLAND AND INDIA. Government in Chancery for the amount; but the Master of the Rolls held that the seizure was not an act that could be called in question in a municipal court. Nor was it. It was an act of sovereign power over the property of a hostile alien ; and whether or not it was justifiable is a question of international, not municipal law. The question is, whether the private property of a hostile alien situated in the enemy's country ought or ought not to be confis- cated by the sovereign of that country. All the writers on international law, from Grotius and Byn- kershoeck downwards, combine to say that, although it was the custom so to do in ancient times, yet a more enlightened philosophy has brought about a more gentle and humane usage ; and that the conduct of European nations has been against the old habit. The later history of international law only goes to strengthen this doctrine ; and it is now settled usage that such property is not confiscated. We must bear in mind too that there are at least four kinds of pro- perty which a hostile alien may happen to hold at the breaking out of war. First, there is real property, which he holds with the consent of the sovereign ; secondly, there is personal property, which he may possess in a hundred different ways; thirdly, there are debts which may be due to him from private in- dividuals; fourthly, there are debts which may be due to him from the nation, and such are moneys in the public funds. The first two of these classes of property it is simply inhuman to confiscate ; but to touch one or the other of the two last is to add to inhumanity the crimes of dishonesty and in- justice. We have therefore an ascending series of wrong. It is barbarous to take real or personal pro- ENGLAND AND INDIA. 277 perty which is not in the nature of a debt. But it is barbarous and dishonest both to confiscate what either individuals or the public may have contracted to pay to an alien who had trusted either before he had the misfortune to quarrel with his debtors. And again, if there be a distinction in wickedness to be drawn between the confiscation of a private and that of a public debt, then the confiscation of the latter must be held to be the worst ; for by it the honour of the nation is directly compromised ; while by the former the good name of a private citizen only is at stake. The credit of the mass is a greater matter to jeo- pardise than that of any individual composing the mass, simply because the whole is greater than a part. The very latest writer on international law has thus epitomised its condition upon this question. He says : " With regard to the shares held by a government or its sub- jects in the public funds of another, all modern authorities agree, we believe, that they ought to be safe and inviolate. To confiscate either principal or interest would be a breach of good faith, and would injure the credit of a nation and of its public securities." Up to this doctrine we do act in Europe. One in- stance is as good as a thousand. The late Emperor Nicholas of Russia, at the outbreak of the Crimean war, was a large holder of English securities. We did not confiscate them. But we do confiscate the rupees of the Rajah of Coorg. "Why ? Because, as has been said before, we are cautious and law-fearing in Europe, where our neighbours are strong ; we are bold and high-handed in Asia, where our neighbours are weak. Into minor acts of spoliation I need not go. There are other names, such as Tanjore, Sattara, and Jhansi, 278 ENGLAND AND INDIA. each of which has its own special connotation of mean and shameless ingenuity; and but too many of them are the lurid stars that glow in Dalhousie's coronet of questionable fame. Not one of the transactions which they recall, except the settlement of the Pun- jaub, has a redeeming element, I refrain from nar- rating them all, only because there is a tedium even in the variety of dishonour. I have written enough to induce the honest reader to seek for fuller infor- mation, and to challenge the apologists of the past to come forward and defend it. Nor have I taken my views at second-hand. The state papers on India are eminently accessible, and the state culprits of India, secure in the apathy or confident of the selfishness of the generations for whom their casuistry was exerted, have been from first to last an unusually candid race. Their own mouths and pens are the chief accusers of most of them, and there, is no question of false wit- ness, of uncomprehended statesmanship, or of per- verted renown. II. Enough has now been said to remind us how we have amassed our dominions in India; and it is time to pass on and to consider the consequences of their acquisition. It must not be supposed that the evils of the conquest are represented by a mere change of sovereignty. While, on the one hand, it will not do to approach this subject in the spirit of a doctrinaire, on the other one must not be supposed so to approach it. If the East India Company had been a native state, or if the territories of the East India Company had been governed by a native agency, with one or two European officers at its head, the expansion of ENGLAND AND INDIA. 279 those territories would have mattered little, and the declaration of the Company's paramountcy still less. It is a comparatively unimportant matter which is paramount in a community of states where a head is necessary, provided that the office, in the possession of any special occupant, is not altered inconveniently or disastrously in its conditions. I do not care much how long the King or Queen of Great Britain may retain the title of Emperor or Empress of India. But, unfortunately, it is not the assumption of title, nor even the absorption of territory, that has rendered the growth of the English power in India ruinous to Indian society. We have insisted upon administering all we have conquered, all we have absorbed. And our administration has not been confined to the higher state offices, the appropriation of which was probably essential to the maintenance of our position as con- querors. But we have percolated, as it were, through almost all the channels and cells of the social and governmental system, to all except the very smallest and lowest, filling all that we have not destroyed. I will not now complain that we recklessly swept away or ignored certain ancient forms of social and political life, without giving them a chance of success under the orderly times which we had restored. Although it ought to be remembered that we came upon the vast stage of India at an epoch of disorder and revo- lution ; at a time when no spectator could pass a fair judgment upon Indian institutions. It was the coincidence of this epoch with our appearance that rendered our empire possible, and we should have been in the highest degree careful not to confound the upset of the dynasty that preceded us with a necessity for superseding the political and social fabric 280 ENGLAND AND INDIA. over which it had extended. But with the hastiness with which we proclaimed the greater revolution, when to have been content with but a little more than a mere change of suzerainty would have been wiser as well as juster, I do not now wish to deal. Granted that the changes we introduced were benefi- cial, why did we monopolise their execution, and that not temporarily, but with full intention of perpetuity? Why, by our assumption of every state duty worth performance, of every public office and post of emolu- ment worth holding, did we close up every avenue to ambition, and destroy every incentive to worth, every motive for patriotism, to the Indian populations? By a persistence in this fundamental error we were ex- tirpating, as surely as if we had put poison about for them as some of the early settlers in Australia did for the natives there the upper and middle classes of India. For it is beyond question that the upper and middle classes, properly so called, must die out of a country in which there is nothing for them to do. A class dies out when its distinctive occupation is no more. It merges from very objectlessness into an uniformity with what is around it. Nature will not go on in a pertinacious supply of the useless. Tie up a limb and its muscles disappear. It is a mere truism to say that as exercise is the cause of development, so inaction is that of decay. In this case it has been the decay of intellect and morality, of the double-sided worth that distinguishes man from man and class from class. We have arranged a system under which intellect and morality have been needless to the Hin- doo, save so far as some form or extent of one, or both, may have been necessary to enable him to amass or maintain a fortune, to get a livelihood, or ENGLAND AND INDIA. 281 keep him within the bounds of the law. We have relegated the kino; to his harem, the noble to his O *' ' hunting-grounds, and have confined every class below them to the getting and spending of money. All who might have been good and active among the citizens of India have been without scope, hope, object, or a career. From end to end of the Peninsula the popu- lation will, unless our system either be changed by our own acts of reform, or come to an end in a con- vulsion, become one vast lower class, whose members will be to be distinguished simply by the adjectives "rich" and "poor." It would not be out of place if I were to fortify what I have said here by quoting the opinion of Sir John Malcolm on this very subject. In his famous Circular of Instructions to Officers acting under his orders in Central India, he says : " The want of union among the natives appears one of the strongest foundations of our power ; it has certainly contributed beyond all others to its establishment. But when we trace this cause, we find it to have originated in the condition in which we found India, and the line we adopted towards its inhabitants; that it will continue to operate when the condition of that country is changed, and under any alteration in our course of proceedings, is more than can be assumed. The similarity of the situation of the great proportion of the people of this continent now subject to our rule will assuredly make them more accessible to common motives of action, which is the foundation of all union ; and the absence of that necessity for conciliation, which changes have effected, will make us more likely to forget its importance. Our power has hitherto owed much to a contrast with misrule and oppression ; but this strength we are daily losing : we have also been indebted to an indefinite impression of our resources, ori- ginating in ignorance of their real extent ; knowledge will bring this feeling to a reduced standard. "We are supported by the good opinion of the lower and middling classes, to whom our Government is indulgent ; but it has received the rudest shocks 282 ENGLAND AND INDIA. from an impression that our system of rule is at variance with the permanent continuance of rank, authority, or distinction in any native of India. This belief, which is not without foundation, is general to every class ; and its action leaves but an anxious and feverish existence to all who enjoy station and high name : .... this is a danger to our power which must increase in the ratio of its extent, unless we can counteract its operation by a commensurate improvement of our administration." Of course it will be noticed that Sir John Mal- colm insists on the evil of this condition of things as a source of danger to our power. I prefer to regard it as an element ruinous to Indian society. I know that it will be objected to what I have been saying, first, that we do throw open office to the Hindoos ; and secondly, that we do educate them, or try to educate them, and that they themselves assist our efforts, some by coming to Europe for study, and many by frequenting the schools which we supply in India. I know that, by a section in an Act of Parliament of the year 1833, it was enacted that neither race nor creed should thenceforth dis- qualify any natural-born subject of the British Crown for any office whatever, civil or military, within the length and breadth of the Peninsula. I know too, that, in the Proclamation made by Her Majesty on her assumption of the empire, the same principle was enunciated ; and that it was subsequently reduced into form in the Act for the better government of India. I do not desire to suppose that I am advo- cating any new principle. On the contrary, I claim its preexistence as my sanction; and I point to its antiquity and its barrenness in the past, and ask that it should be made more fruitful in the future. As matters stand now, and as the present system is worked, who knows or thinks of the principle ? What ENGLAND AND INDIA. 283 are the offices which at this moment are practically, not theoretically, open to Hindoos? Are they not different in kind from, and lower in kind than, those of which the English Civil Service in India generally is composed? Is it practically possible for a young native gentleman, however intelligent, however highly born or highly educated he may be, to enter upon the same line of promotion, and to start at the same point, as a young Englishman proceeding to India? What would be thought of it, if a young Hindoo or Mohammedan were to make his appearance as a can- didate at one of the competitive examinations ? And yet, why should he not? and why should not the contingency of his success be hailed, and the chances of it encouraged ? If we wish to inoculate India at large with our principles of law and government, of social and political morality, why should we not hail individual and personal evidences of the fulfilment of our wish ? One Hindoo proved, by the test of an ex- amination in competition with our youth at home, to have been Europeanised in acquirements we might then take some change in his instincts too for granted would be a significant unit gained towards the aggre- gate of a regenerated India. Seriously, why should not a proclamation in specific terms be once more made throughout the Peninsula, that Indians, without re- gard to nationalities or religions, are eligible for Civil Service appointments ? Why not also immediately set to work to give young Indian candidates proper opportunities of fitting themselves for such posts ? It would plainly be a mere farce to force them all to come over to Europe to study and to compete; why not, then, institute boards of examiners in India, and reserve every year for the native candidates a grow- 284 ENGLAND AND INDIA. ing proportion of appointments out of every batch of vacancies? There are several native colleges under governmental management in India; and it would be perfectly easy to distribute among them all, or among certain of them that should be selected for the pur- pose as convenient centres, the vacancies reserved for India. Suitable subjects for examination might be fixed and announced, and special opportunities for education in them might be provided in fit and proper places. At the same time, any native who chose, and who could afford to make such an election, might compete in London in the ordinary way. So too, if Englishmen chose to compete at the native colleges, they might be allowed to do so; and by this means an important opportunity would be given to the sons of civil and military officers resident in India, whose fathers could not afford to send them home. Year by year, as the number of qualified na- tive candidates increased, and as the success of the experiment manifested itself, the number of vacancies reserved for the native colleges might be increased ; and as time went on, the question would arise, whe- ther or not the days of the examinations in London for English candidates ought not to be considered numbered. No doubt this proposition is to be considered as one for the eventual extinction of the English Civil Service in India. It is meant to be so. The aim and object that shapes all I have to say is, India for the Indians. I desire nothing less, and should be con- tent with nothing less. That it may be compassed I feel certain. That it ought to be one of the grand duties which England should set herself, in order to bring about an equilibrium in her history and her ENGLAND AND INDIA. 285 fame, I know. It may be done without abruptness ; without loss of peace; without sacrifice of strength or dignity; without political or commercial disad- vantage to ourselves; and lastly (and this is the most important consideration), without risk to those inceptive improvements in the moral, social, and poli- tical condition of India, of which the last few years have undoubtedly seen the inauguration. There is something to fill the heart of a patriotic and conscientious Englishman with a happy relief, when he contemplates the future action which is pos- sible for his country in India. When he looks back over the pages that tell the story of the last one hun- dred years, and reads all that may be laid to the charge of the very noblest among his countrymen; when he reads of wars and treaties so full of the old flavour of glory that he has to struggle hard lest he should be drawn away by the flush of a mistaken pride ; and when he sinks back, after the perusal of the record, sick at heart with his own reluctance to condemn, his own inability to admire, it is, I say, matter of the happiest emotion when he comes to reflect on what the end may yet be. It is possible so to shape the later phases of the English occupation of India as to make them more than atone for the past, to make the end a noble apology for the begin- ning. There need be no decline of the English power through effeteness and decay ; no fall of it by a sud- den uprising; neither the one nor the other to leave a tale to posterity of a stupendous but mean ambition lying for a while athwart the true stream of Asiatic history. On the contrary, it will be that the higher and nobler the exercise of the English power grows, the nearer will dawn the day of its withdrawal not 286 ENGLAND AND INDIA. from decay or by expulsion, but by the mere force of its own best elements, by the manifestation of its own intentions, the happy effects of its own magnitude and benevolence, by the sanction of its own results, the convictions of its OAvn possessors. It is possible for the English so to handle their own destiny ; so in- sensibly to work out on an imperial scale what is just and honourable and wise in policy, as to let the slow change escape the very observation of the world, until the day when they shall say, " We are able now to leave India, because our work is done." A noble final cause is thus claimed for our future government of India. But it involves a destiny for its different services which too many of their mem- bers, and too many of those who take an interest in them, would be unwilling to accept. To take the Civil Service, for instance, of which we have just been speaking. There is no doubt that ever since its formation it has been exposing a field of growing extent for the lucrative employment of energetic and ambitious young English gentlemen. As its many seductions to the nobler spirits among us are mani- fest, so too its many recommendations to the meaner are no less to be understood. It is a sphere of life in which the love of power and the love of opulence can both be gratified. It is free from the sordidness of the mercantile, and from the drudgery and the chances of long dullness of the military life. It is indepen- dent, cheerful, honourable, even brilliant, and it pays well. Its extent, and in consequence the great num- bers of the aspirants whom it is capacious enough to satisfy, make its permanence seem a matter of na- tional importance. It looks, and indeed it is, a valu- able outlet for the youth of the country. One can ENGLAND AND INDIA. 287 easily see, therefore, how an institution which should be the means thereto, is turned into the bar against the regeneration of India. In the minds of a vast number of really well-meaning and honest men, it loses its character and intention as a means to an end, and becomes the end itself. They no longer say, " We shall send out our sons, as we have long sent them, to found and confirm a good system of govern- ment, until the Natives have learnt it thoroughly and can carry it on for themselves ;" but they say, " We cannot associate the Natives with us in the govern- ment on equal terms ; still less can we do so with, a view of giving it up to them altogether, when they can be trusted with it ; for what in that case would become of our sons?" If it were not for their honesty and unconsciousness, one would say that they were like the masters of the damsel of Thyatira protesting against the cure of her insanity, because the hope of their gains would go. But their fears, such as they are, are practically groundless. The effect of trans- ferring thus the Civil Service to Natives would be so gradual that it would never be felt in England. There would be no throwing out of employ, no frustration of lifelong views or professional intentions. It would simply be that year by year the number of vacancies would become, by slight degrees, fewer and fewer, and that the number of candidates for them and of youths educated for the candidateship would follow the decrease. On the one hand, it would be the old story of supply and demand; and on the other, it is undoubted that when one avenue of life closes against a generation another invariably and immedi- ately opens out. Once decree this revolution in the Civil Service, 288 ENGLAND AND INDIA. and the real pacification of India will be more than half achieved. That superficial quiet, that apparent content, that thin crust of deceitful verdure over the smouldering volcano, of which we hear so much, would be made deep, real, and trustworthy. The concealed hate, the inner fires, would die down at once. No surer guarantee for the future could pos- sibly be given to the upper and middle classes of every race and nationality in the Peninsula. By this equal association in the government we should gain them, as by mildness and beneficence of rule we have now gained their inferiors. It would only remain for us to conciliate the rulers and the higher grades of the nobility. And what is here said of the Civil Service, technically so called, is of course to be ex- tended to all those other branches of the public ser- vice which are not included among those the entrance to which is through the portals of a competitive examination. Whatever magisterial, judicial, or exe- cutive function is open to the merit of an Englishman should be really open, on the same terms, to a Native. Or rather, I would go beyond that. Where a Native actually eligible for any such post can be found, he ought to be first. The choice of an European should only be made in default of such a Native being forth- coming. The test of this preference, as indeed of all occasions similar to it, being the one maxim, which should always be adduced, " India for the Indians." It is impossible to question the certainty that the introduction of English justice, as it is now repre- sented, into Indian courts has been an inestimable blessing to the country. It is one of those facts to which the apologists of our occupation naturally leap. Nor need any body, whatever his opinions on the ENGLAND AND INDIA. past or hopes for the future may be, shrink from pay- ing to it the fullest measure of respect. Its funda- mental drawbacks have been, the monopoly of its administration by Europeans, so long and so per- versely maintained; and also its institution, as ex- plained below, without reference to or connection with the ancient social system of India. There is no need to recall the earlier days of the collectorates, when mercantile gentlemen, with no particular sala- ries, who had to make their fortunes as best they might, combined so happily in their own persons the functions of the extortioner and his judge. Those times passed away for ever as soon as the high- minded Cornwallis took the matter into his reforming hands.* Since then there has been nothing to record in the history of Anglo-Indian judicature, except attempts that have been always creditable, even when mistaken; and an almost constant progress has been maintained in the direction of that complete- ness and settlement which every body acknowledges to be still far from being attained. Many persons are eminently dissatisfied both with the judicial sys- tem now at work in India and with the manner in which it is administered. I confess that, so far as I dare to form an opinion on such a subject, at so great a distance and from books, without personal experi- ence, I am not inclined to share either form of that dissatisfaction. As to the system itself, I do not detect any such organic difference between the old native judicial constitution and that which we have substituted for it as justifies condemnation. Indeed, placed side by side, the two have a wonderful simi- It -will be seen subsequently that I have not forgotten one tem- porary interruption to this change. U 290 ENGLAND AND INDIA. larity. The old system was certainly more symme- trical, and that in proportion as it harmonised the more completely with the general structure of Hin- doo society, springing upward from and based upon the "village." It was a graduated series of six courts. Of these, the three lowest may be called village or municipal courts, and the three highest courts of state. They all seem to have tried civil and crimi- nal causes indiscriminately, and each one acted as a court of appeal from those below it. It is well known that the basis of Indian society was the village. The whole of the state was cut up into villages, each of which was a complete though a petty republic. These village communities were subdivided by trades and families. It is easy to understand how the village and its subdivisions provided the materials for no less than three courts. The lowest and smallest of all the subdivisions, the family or tribe, had its assem- bly called Cula, for settling in a rude and familiar fashion disputes between those connected by blood. From the decisions of this body there was an appeal to one formed upon a larger basis, the assembly of trades or artisans.* This last was a convention of persons belonging possibly and probably to different tribes, but subsisting by the same trade; in fact, it was a court of guild. Its name was Svene. Above these there was the court of the village, composed of the townsmen at large, and of all trades and families alike, and called Pugu. This was the supreme tri- bunal of the little republic, and, in common with its two inferiors, it bore the name of Punchayet. Strange I doubt whether all the decisions of the Cula were so appealable. Suits purely relating to family affairs would more naturally, if appealed at all, be taken to the general court of the village. ENGLAND AND INDIA. 291 calls all the three, assemblies of arbitration. Next beyond and above them came the lowest of the three courts of state. This was the tribunal of the local judge. Each of the local judges had his own proper district, and a stationary court. He heard appeals from the Punchayet, but was also a court of original jurisdiction. It was perfectly competent for any suitor to commence an action in the district court, in preference to either of the three lower ones ; but it is important to know and to remember that it was rather the habit of the villagers to settle every thing, that could so be settled, before the petty tribunals. Above the local judge was the tribunal of the chief judge, who was also a crown officer, and had three or more assessors. His was also a stationary court, and was held at a stated place, usually the capital. Last of all, the supreme and ultimate tribunal was the court of the sovereign in person, who heard causes assisted by learned Brahmins. His court was ambu- latory, and was held wherever for the time being he sojourned or abode. Such was the system which we found, in decay perhaps, but still in existence, when we came upon India. It is probable that even in the best of the Hindoo or Mogul times the three village courts were far the most frequented and the most useful. It is not easy to conceive that so vast a country as India, filled with a simple agricultural people, whose means of locomotion must have been as uninviting as their dislike of it was strong, could ever have experienced any thing like a working centralisation in civil or criminal justice. And, in this view, the higher of the two state judges would have had little to dp with causes that did not arise within something like 292 ENGLAND AND INDIA. the neighbourhood of the capital at which he sat. The local or district courts being more numerous, and dealing with a smaller area, were doubtless better resorted to ; on the other hand, it must have been a monarch of unusual energy, and leisure from war, who could make judicial pilgrimages over Hindoostan, from the Indus to the Bay of Bengal, not to speak of any dominions he might have south of the Yindyan Range. It is not possible to imagine any such sove- reign riding about, redressing people's wrongs with any thing like the regularity sufficient to make his court an element in the every-day considerations of a people so numerous as the Hindoos, and spread over so vast an area. On the contrary, it is probable that beyond the district courts, at the farthest, litigation seldom proceeded, and even that the three courts of the village practically formed the limits of judgment and arbitration to the inhabitants of the village. To Englishmen, coming as the first conquerors of India came, from a highly centralised society, and from a country where rough-and-ready tribunals were unknown, and where a quarrel about a field or a blow in the face could only be adjudicated by the direct representative of the monarch, it was no doubt a scandal, and seemed like anarchy, that the superior courts should be disused, and that justice should find her daily seat among a knot of half-naked vil- lagers on the floor of a hut, or under the shade of a large tree. I say this, not with reference to the first representatives of English . judicature in India of whom it is needless either to think or to speak but in reference to those ideas which probably actuated Lord Cornwallis and his advisers in the changes which they introduced. Lord Cornwallis thought ENGLAND AND INDIA. 293 to make superior courts which should be more useful and more accessible than that of the old native Pra- drivacd and of the sovereign. A wise notion, no doubt, but not all that should have been done. He accordingly retained the district or local courts, and established provincial courts above them, differing from the Pradrivaca, in that they were numerous, and were also courts of circuit. He also established the supreme civil and criminal courts at Calcutta. Lord William Bentinck found that the provincial courts had become utterly effete and worse than use- less; that they were filled systematically with the mediocrities of the civil service, for whom they were sought as comfortable sinecures, in which they were not expected to do any good, and could not well do any harm. The fact was, that the revenue collec- tors, the main tradition of whose office was universal sway in the district over which it extended, had always been avowedly encroaching on the domain of the provincial bench ; an institution which had shorn them of half their impunity and power. Lord Wil- liam Bentinck, urged probably to the step by the collectors themselves, or by higher members of the civil service, who would of course advocate the ag- grandisement of so large a section of their own body, and at the same time accepting the imbecility of the provincial judges in confirmation of such solicitations, abolished the latter, and made the collectors judges of circuit. This was plainly an error, and a mere recurrence to the old union of the judicial and executive functions, which had been so fruitful of evil before the days of Comwallis. Lord William Bentinck, however, soon revoked his false step, and made the local or district judges judges of circuit; 294 ENGLAND AND INDIA. thus combining into one the two benches of Lord Cornwallis. He then made the collectors magistrates within their own collectorates, giving to them the less important part of the duties of the district judges, and relieving the latter of the small causes, which would have embarrassed them in the exercise of their more extended functions. 'He also created a court of appeal for the north-west provinces, thus relieving the inhabitants of that part of India from making a journey to Calcutta. But better, per- haps, even than this last was his institution of prin- cipal Sudder Ameens ; native judges with district courts of original jurisdiction in civil cases, subject to appeal to the European courts. A lower kind of native judge than these had previously existed, and it was from them that he took his notion of the higher native tribunal. So well did his experiment answer, that in 1843 similar courts were created to try criminal cases. With the exception of his one mistake of confusing the executive with the judicial function, Lord William Bentinck's changes were real reforms; and his system, with certain ad- ditions rendered necessary by the increase of busi- ness, and changes effected with a view to uniformity, forms our present establishment.* Few experiments have been so successful in India as the creation of the principal Sudder Ameens, both civil and criminal; and their success points, as it were with two hands, the path we ought to pursue. Employ the Natives, first because it is just, secondly because it is advantageous. There is no more reason why the highest offices of the judicature should not The great redistribution of the higher judgeships was made by the 24 & 25 Victoria, cap. 104. ENGLAND AND INDIA. 295 in time be filled by them than there is against their gradually acquiring all the executive posts. The bar is now professedly open to them, and native bar- risters practise at Calcutta. And it is from native barristers that the district judgeships first, and as time goes on, the higher judgeships of appeal, should be filled up.* Not, of course, until there are natives fit to take such posts, but as soon as ever there are. There should be no limit to the prospects of this revolution. As soon as possible, the chief justice- ships of Bengal and the other provinces should be filled by native gentlemen; and, as I said of the executive civil service, I say of the bench. Hail the contingency of its monopoly by natives; hasten the advent of that contingency. As I advocated colleges and boards of examiners for native candidates for the covenanted civil service, so I advocate analogous institutions for the education of native students for the various bars of India. Why not, for instance, at Calcutta, Madras, Agra, and Bombay, found insti- tutions so far resembling our Inns of Court as might be applicable to the circumstances of India? Pro- vide professors, institute prizes, confer the degree of advocacy ; do all that may be necessary to attract natives of good position to the practice of the bar. Let them know, as the young law-student of Lon- don, Dublin, and Edinburgh knows, that the highest law-offices are the prizes of his profession, and the goal towards which his ambition may extend itself. In the law, as in the civil service, let the Hindoo run a race with the Briton, and take care that he is put into a position to start fair. * It is satisfactory to know that one Native has already been ap- pointed to a judgeship of the high court of Fort William in Bengal. 296 ENGLAND AND INDIA. Two very right and proper steps in the direction of associating natives of good position with the higher functions of government have within the last few years been taken. One of these is the gift of magis- terial powers to the Talookdars of Oude and the Jagheerdars of the Punjaub. The gentlemen thus selected are raised, so far as judicial power can raise them, to a position as honourable among their neigh- bours as that of an English landowner bearing Her Majesty's commission as justice of the peace. The annual reports of all those officers of the European Civil Service whose duties have brought them within view of the operation of this experiment, vie with each other in congratulating the country on its suc- cess. It is difficult to say which is greater or which is more important, the popularity of the measure or the benefits conferred by it. The second and no less beneficial and popular act has been the election of native members to serve, for the purpose of mak- ing laws and regulations, in the State Councils in the different principalities. In the Council of India, out of eleven members, four are natives; in the Council of Madras, out of seven members, two are natives; and in the Council of Bombay, out of eight members, three are natives. It is to be regretted that there are no native members of the Council of the Governor- General of India. To place two or three of high rank and intelligence upon that Council would be to pave the way for their employment as lieutenant- governors of the principalities, which would be a most desirable result. We have done much in the direction of giving due employment and paying pro- per respect to natives of high social position during the last few years ; and all we have done has brought ENGLAND AND INDIA. 297 about results which not only encourage, but enforce us to do more. Every proof thus given of the capa- city of the higher classes of Hindoos for government is an excuse taken away from us for a refusal to concede it to them. The day will soon dawn when nothing but such a selfish repugnance to part from power as by that time, it is to be hoped, we shall have completely shaken from us, will prevent us from filling the very highest state offices with Hindoos, At present we have neither freed ourselves entirely from this selfishness, nor have we entirely overcome that evil pride of race which was so hateful to the generous and philosophic mind of Sir John Malcolm in his day. We shall probably end by ridding ourselves of both the selfishness and the pride, and come to look back upon both feelings as he did, as disfigurements of the past, to be recollected only with shame.* But there is one point in our judicial system upon which most Indian reformers are agreed. We have not hitherto bestowed a sufficient recognition upon the village system of India ; we have not properly encouraged the Punchayet. Not to have done so is a manifest, but in us not perhaps an unnatural, error. The village system is something so foreign to all our notions of polity, that it is not strange that we have neglected or misunderstood it. One can conceive how an European, especially an Englishman, looking on it at first sight, would regard it as a sort of " I can recollect, and I do it with shame, the period when I thought myself very much superior to those with whom my duty made me associate ; but as my knowledge of them and of myself improved, the distance between us gradually lessened. I have seen and heard much of our boasted advantages over them, but cannot think," &c. Instructions ly Major- General Sir John Malcolm to Officers acting under his orders in Central India in 1821. 298 ENGLAND AND INDIA. rough-and-ready substitute for a proper central state organisation; as a sort of private assumption of self- government by the little village community, brought about by the apathy or decrepitude of the central power. And one can further understand how, with- out such a misconception, a conquering race, con- scious and proud of its capacity to rule, might say, " We can do without this." But not the less is the village system normal to India. Its veriest advan- tage is, that it enables the population to live and do well without centralisation. And this may be called an advantage to the Hindoos: not because centrali- sation, unless it be excessive, is an evil; but because, over such an immense area as India, centralisation is worse than inconvenient, it is impossible. Already we have come to acknowledge the necessity, first of three, and subsequently of five or six, different capitals. And even with these, and with all the growing advantages of railways completed, what im- mense distances will separate the greater part of the country districts from their respective capitals! It must be borne in mind that the populations of India will always be in the main agricultural, and that to such it is always more inconvenient to have to travel than to any other. Moreover, long journeys in hot countries, even to natives, are unusually wearisome ; and the Hindoos from long habit are prejudiced against them, and perhaps always will be more or less. Every means, therefore, should be taken to provide for the wants of the community without centralisation. For this end there is nothing so essential as to maintain the village system, and to make it the base of as much as possible in the admi- nistration. And .in the village system few things are ENGLAND AND INDIA. 299 more important than the Punchayet. Look to its con- struction; revive its courts; merge them into one, if that be well ; elevate the character of its assemblies, if you can; make permanent village judges, not like the village Moonsiffs existing at present, independent of the " village" as an institution, but as a part of its municipal structure. Of this revival of the " village," so far as Punchayet is concerned, there is another way of stating the advantage. The Hindoos are an uncommonly litigious people ; worse, if possible, in this respect than the Welsh ! Notwithstanding all disas- ters and inconveniences in the shape of expense, delay, and loss of time that should be spent on tillage or in trade, and even in spite of their constitutional ob- jection to travel, they will fight, however distant the arena may be. It is evident how the evils of this trait would be mitigated by the development of Pun- chayet. Many a dispute that now takes months of time, bags of rupees, and many miles of travel, to set- tle, not to speak of neglected crops, would be disposed of in a day within the village where it arose.* But if it be true that the " village" has not met with sufficient recognition at the hands of the British Government in arranging the settlement of the judi- cature, it has fared still worse in the treatment of the land tenures for purposes of revenue. In Bengal and Madras, where the collection of the revenues was settled in the earlier days of our occupation, two arbitrary and unwholesome systems chiefly prevail. The province of Bengal, with most of its appanages, I am aware that the district judges have power, with consent of the litigants, to refer suits to arbitration ; but this occasional Punchayet rather confirms the notions expressed above about the restoration of the " village" than rebuts the force of them. 300 ENGLAND AND INDIA. is the subject of the zemindary system invented under the direction of Lord Cornwallis. Of this " permanent settlement," as it is called, little good is said, now that it is tested by a larger experience and by a higher motive. An ignorance, that was more natural than the haughty carelessness which accompanied it, of the customs, needs, and conditions of the Indian people, stereotyped this zemindary sys- tem upon the land. Two considerations, and two only, reigned supreme at Fort William at the time of its institution. These were, first, what is the most productive source of revenue that can be devised? and second, what is the easiest method of its collec- tion ? To the first of these questions the history of India supplied a ready answer in the land-tax. Nor has the future falsified the past. At this moment the land-tax of India produces four or five times as large a sum as the infamous monopoly of opium ; and were that blot upon the balance-sheet of India to be erased, there would remain no item that would bring to the exchequer a sum reaching to one-eighth of the great impost. But the reply to the problem of collection was neither so ready nor so simple. It was consi- dered, and it probably then was, impossible to intrust the revenue, at any stage of its manipulation, to na- tive hands. It would also have been impracticable to provide a staff" of collectors of the requisite num- bers and knowledge of the people, to gather in the tax at first hand from a population of peasant pro- prietors. To diminish the number of the landed pro- prietors was at once to simplify the method of collec- tion and to reduce the labours attendant upon it within manageable limits. Accordingly, by an arbi- trary revolution, the province of Bengal was parcelled ENGLAND AND INDIA. 301 out into large estates, to enter upon the absolute ownership of which a class of men was found ready- made to hand. These were the Zemindars, the col- lectors of the land revenue under the Moguls ; a class of men in whom their office had become hereditary, but who had no proprietary interest whatever in the land, and no authority whatever over the true peasant or village proprietor, save such as arose out of the exercise of their functions.* This class, for the con- venience of the Government, but to the dismay of the true landowner, was elevated into a new territorial aristocracy, whose creation was subversive of what was best in the structure of Hindoo society, the village and peasant ownership. It was hard thus to turn the simple owner of the soil into a tenant of the very man who was thus made the usurper of his property. Can it be wondered that the old tax-gatherer should, as the event has too often proved, make an extortion- ate landlord ; or the ancient landowner at once a surly tenant and a sluggish cultivator? A very well-in- formed and intelligent author writes on this subject: "It has subverted the rights of the real proprietor, and given them to speculators and contractors; it has a tendency to create numerous agents (all of whom must have their profits) between the landholder and the Government; it is open to great abuse, from the power vested in the Zemindars, who too frequently expel the real proprietors by raising their taxes; it precludes the possibility of doing justice, owing to the rights of the cultivator being ill defined; it overthrows the whole municipal system of the country by depriving the people of their natural There were, however, very many cases where Zemindars had purchased the proprietary rights in the lands and villages over which their zemindary functions extended. These exceptions, joined to the fact that the village system had been now obliterated, contributed doubtless to the misconception under which the " permanent settle- ment" was determined. 302 ENGLAND AND INDIA. and hereditary village chiefs; and lastly, it is, as now established, an entirely novel invasion of the ancient usages and institutions* of the people."* But little better in its results, though its method and motive both promised better, was the Ryot-war system of Sir Thomas Munro in Madras. Under it, and under all its modifications, which are many, the cultivator is made the proprietor; and he and the Government are brought face to face in the collection of the tax. He is at liberty either to sublet, or to transfer, or to surrender his holding. His tenantcy is perpetual, subject to a right of entry and forfeiture on the part of the Government, in case of his default in payment of the land-tax. Of this last the assess- ment is nominally fixed, and in money, and cannot be raised for improvements made by the ryot himself. It is said that the system works badly; and two or three reasons suggest themselves for its failure. The first of these is that which is involved in the very consideration which went so far to induce the estab- lishment of its exact contrary, the zemindary system. It renders necessary enormous civil establishments, and demands from the members composing the gene- ral staff of those establishments such an amount of local knowledge, such talents, such zeal, such tact, and one may add 'without offence, such integrity, as cannot be universally expected. Another reason of failure is, that by refusing to recognise any distinc- tion of class between proprietors and cultivators, it did as much injustice at the time of its institution, in one way, as the infliction of Zemindars did in another. Again, from the fixity of the assessment,' it would be ruin to a small holder in a bad year, if inexorably Briggs on the Land-lax in India, part iii. chap. i. p. 370. ENGLAND AND INDIA. 303 levied; and so perforce it is made the subject of con- tinual remissions. So constant are these remissions, that I believe I am justified in saying that they vir- tually amount to an annual assessment. It is easy to see how such a state of things fails of success. A cultivator, sure of remission in years of actual misfor- tune, and pretty sure too that his own cunning, work- ing upon the facility or ignorance of the collector, will make the result of laziness look like that of ill- luck, has little or no incentive to energy. He becomes as bad a cultivator in his apathy as the Zemindar's ryot in his hopelessness, the only difference between them being that the one has reason to be better-tem- pered than the other. Lastly, this system is, as fully as its contrary, a subversion of the "village," so dear and so well suited to the people. In place of these two erroneous settlements, had the "village" been retained wherever it was found in perfect preservation, and reorganised or restored wherever it had become impaired or had been oblite- rated, all would have been well.* The "village" provided the very machinery that was wanted for the collection of the tax, in the manner most convenient to the Government and least burdensome to the peo- ple. The assessment would have been by villages, and the headman, as representative of the community, would have been responsible for the tax arising from the whole of the little territory. The ancient and mutual relations of proprietors and cultivators would have remained unchanged; we should not have had Much to Lord Dalhousie's credit, this was done to a very great extent in the Punjaub. In many parts of the north-western pro- vinces, consisting of hill country and waste lands, the village system would have been out of place, and simple grants of land to private individuals have very properly been made instead. 304 ENGLAND AND INDIA. now to contrast the cruelty of creating a new and tyrannous class of middlemen, with the folly of an attempt by governmental machinery to fix annually the assessment of every field on a continent; and lastly, we should not have contributed our efforts to the ill work of abolishing the ancient usages and institutions of what, with their retention, would un- doubtedly become one of the happiest of peoples. It is not mere sentiment that would seek to fix upon the people of India, or to restore to them, an institution so suited to the conditions of a simple, widely-spread, and agricultural population. The " village," as a social basis, may well, for want of a better term, be called patriarchal; and its rehabili- tation would be to restore to the Indians all that they probably value, and all that being really valua- ble has been lost to them in the various troubles and changes through which their populations have passed. It has been acknowledged, with much feeling and truth, by one of the most celebrated writers on India, that the village communities might well be taken as a model wherever mankind should be placed in con- ditions similar to those of the country people in India. Without claiming so much for them, but resting con- tent with the assurance that no other distribution would so well suit the people among w^hom it spon- taneously arose, one may well advocate its mainte- nance, and where possible, its restoration. It has been the waves of conquest alone that have sub- merged it ; and now that the ruinous tide has receded, it is the prerogative of a peace-bearing age and of a peace-giving government to clear and to restore.* For a very careful and thoughtful inquiry into the effects that conquest and war have had on the village system, the reader is referred ENGLAND AND INDIA. 305 It is difficult to conceive a work that might better occupy the attention of really beneficent rulers, or an employment that would be more to the taste of well - instructed and philanthropic public servants. The task would not be easy, doubtless, in districts where the ruin has been complete ; but it would always be grateful, and its pleasantness would never be interrupted or embittered by any fears for the consequences of its completion. These would as- suredly be innocuous ; and for the difficulties, they are only incidental to the magnitude of the task, and are not essential to its design. That England should be the restorer of the village system would be an unusual honour to her; for (except by her ryot-war and zemindary theory) she has had no hand in its destruction. It might be said of her, so long as she did nothing but repair her own misdoings, that she was doing no more than humanity had a right to demand; but here she would be plainly stepping beyond that limit to do something that history would have an obligation to admire. An incidental reference to one method of raising a revenue in India suggests a more direct mention of another. Few points in our administration have been made the subject of more righteous attack than the government purchases and sales of opium ; and scarcely ever has an indefensible position been at once left more disingenuously unvindicated and more doggedly maintained. No minister has ever ventured, to "Wilks' History of Southern India. The author thinks, with much probability, that the preservation of the system is in an inverse ratio to the extent and completeness of the Mogul conquests. 306 ENGLAND AND INDIA. so far as I know, to apologise from a moral stand- point for the encouragement which is officially given to this pernicious article of commerce. That its mo- nopoly is lucrative, and that its proceeds fill an abyss in the exchequer of India, is all that has ever been said in its favour. There is something cynical in the indifference which is persistently exhibited by all persons interested in the preservation of the traffic to animadversions on its enormity. It is as though they considered it unnecessary, when brought to the bar of public opinion in England, to do more than tell their contemporaries that four millions of money would be the cost of a recognition of a manifest public duty, to make sure of the maintenance of its correla- tive abuse. They laugh at the idea of society heark- ening to a moralist after a financier. And yet it is ab- solutely impossible for an honest man to spend even a few hours in any public library, where he can gain access to the few facts that will enable him to judge of this matter, without confessing that the traffic of the English government in opium is different in kind as well as in degree from the general crowd of im- moralities that are tolerated for their expediency. It has, indeed, but one parallel, the slave-trade be- tween Africa and America. The one is no more a trade in human life than the other. The nature and consequences of both are equally tremendous, and to those who conduct them are equally well known. Indeed, if we could trust ourselves for one moment to allow weight to its collateral results in mitigation of its condemnation, we might pronounce the Bra- zilian slave-trade to be the less national crime of the two. For the products of slave labour are commodi- ties which are comforts and blessings to the civilised ENGLAND AND INDIA. 307 populations of the world ; and slave labour is em- ployed in countries of which our present experience does not permit us to say with certainty that they would be otherwise provided with an adequate agri- culture. But the opium trade has no results save in the demoralisation and ruin of millions of civilised men. There is no room either for casuistry or scep- ticism ; there is no doubt of the evil done, and none of the gross immorality that profits by its perpetua- tion. Until the date of the treaty of Tien-tsin, the Chinese authorities nobly persisted, in spite of threats, cajollery, and temptation, to admit the cursed drug into their ports. A late emperor of China, in reply to repeated requests from the British that he would legalise its import, used words the nobility of which should have shamed his European tempters. "I can- not prevent," he said, " the introduction of the flow- ing poison; gain-seeking and corrupt men will, for profit and sensuality, defeat my wishes ; but nothing will induce me to derive a revenue from the vice and misery of my people."* In the end, as is well known, the cannon of England subdued the prudery of the Chinese government, and a sanction to the import of this bane of the vastest population on the face of the globe, was sealed in the agreement of Shanghai, appended to the treaty of Tien-tsin. But not the less for this, its forcible legitimation, is the yearly influx of opium from India to China a dis- grace to the Government of the Queen. Not the less is it disheartening to read, in grave reports from the poppy-growing districts of Northern India, See Memorial to the Right Honourable the Earl of Clarendon, &c., Parliamentary Papers, 1857, xliii. 79 ; and also Reply of Chinese Commissioners to Sir H. Pottinger, in the same volume, p. 11. 308 ENGLAND AND INDIA. regrets and apologies from commissioners and collec- tors that a decline in its cultivation is noticeable, and that cereals are taking its place over the land, with suggestions that a further encouragement is necessary to induce the ryots to plant! We may well ask if all means of replenishing the Indian treasury are exhausted, and whether the loss of 4,000,000/., which a resolution to surrender this traffic would cause, cannot be successfully regathered over the whole area of Indian taxation? Are we to suppose that every other branch of the revenue is sta- tionary for ever; that no more waste land will come within the operation of the land-tax ; that the duties on salt, or spirits, tobacco, or piece goods, will never increase ; or that the moneyed classes of India will never be made permanently amenable to an income- tax? Is it absolutely impossible, too, to reduce an annual expenditure of 35,000,000/. for a while, so as to partially meet the reduction in income ? Better a railway postponed, a geological survey intermitted, or other public works such, for instance, as the ex- penditure of 20,000/. upon the erection of a Christian church in a Hindoo country, to gratify the imperial race with the mere architectural splendour of reli- gion temporarily countermanded, than that any delay should be in the repudiation of a national shame. Not even the few casuists who defend the opium trade ever venture to propound its perpetuity. They never say more than that it must follow the laws of political economy, the laws, in fact, of that science which always treats men as acting, and makes them to act too, from the lowest motive. But what in their mouths does such a declaration mean more than that the extinction of the trade must be left to ENGLAND AND INDIA. 309 the moral strength of the Chinese populations? In other words, that we are to profit by their weakness and degradation so long as these may last; and that, so far as the supply of the baleful materials for both can effect it, we shall take care that the day of re- generation shall be indefinitely postponed. Any attempt to review the relations between Great Britain and India would be incomplete with- out some mention of their religions. There are re- ligious as well as secular politics, especially when the religion of the conquerors has been brought face to face with that of the conquered. It is to be hoped that the dream of an aggressive and direct propagandism, sanctioned and assisted by the state, is over even among the enthusiasts of Exeter Hall. It is also to be hoped that one of the many theories of the causes and origin of the great mutiny will deter residents in India from offensive and ill-judged missionary efforts. Hindooism is no trumpery and barbaric superstition, spread over a small area, and swaying a contemptible race. On the contrary, it is a product of the human mind, ancient, and deeply rooted and widely spread, and such as cannot be eradicated or swept off in a day or a generation; at least not by any means either worthy of the spirit or within the resources of this age. The sudden and forcible conversion of races was an art that prob- ably culminated in the hands of the followers of the Prophet. And yet, though there was a Mussulman empire of India for more than four hundred years, at its dissolution the true believers only numbered about one-tenth of the total population of the Penin- sula. What the Mohammedan conquerors of India found it either impossible or improper to effect by 310 ENGLAND AND INDIA. the political method may well be thought either the one or the other by us, who are bound to be both more moral and more cautious than they. The Government can only hope to avoid the most fatal consequences, as well to its own power as to the Hindoo race itself, by a total abstinence from any thing like support or countenance to religious pro- pagandism. That any thing can be more politically suicidal than the opposite course, we may assure our- selves by the example of the Portuguese. Of them it is well said by Sir John Malcolm, that " they hastened their downfall in India by that bigoted spirit with which they endeavoured to introduce their religion." Their Government made it its busi- ness to surround its settlements and towns with the native Christians, who were the products of its pro- selytising efforts. They thus, as it were, threw up between themselves and the Hindoos and Mohamme- dans at large a stockade of heretics, effecting by a masterly fatuousness an isolation which could only be their ruin. More than this, they forgot what too many of us have been apt to forget, that one ancient and highly civilised and therefore haughty race is as much attached to its religious faith as another. Contempt, which has its source in religion, is the worst of all insolence and the most dangerous. " What sanction," asks the Hindoo, " has this man for his faith other than I have for mine, that he should laugh at me?" But the personal indignation thus aroused is not nearly so perilous as the universal panic which propagandism is sure, sooner .or later, to evoke. We do not know thoroughly yet how far the ludicrous idea of the "greased cartridge" had its true side ; how far it did or did not symbolise a ENGLAND AND INDIA. 311 dread among the Sepoys that their religion was the subject of attack. If the source of the mutiny be to be traced to the alarm of the native princes, what more likely than that they should have used the re- ligious fanaticism of the Sepoys as a secondary cause? And if they did, how dreadful was the fire they kindled, and how cautious we should be of putting a new spark to its materials ! Sir John Malcolm is distinctly of opinion that the mutiny and massacre at Vellore were occasioned in a great measure by the success of certain discontented and designing natives in persuading the soldiers that Government entertained a design of proscribing their religion. " The grounds," he says, " on which these agitators founded their persuasion were slight and fallacious." No doubt; but they answered the pur- pose. Sir George Barlow and his Council were of the same opinion; and they took care to embody their conviction in a despatch to the Secret Committee. " We are satisfied," ran this document, " that a per- suasion a most erroneous one, indeed, but a firm and sincere persuasion in the breasts of a great proportion of the Sepoys who were thus betrayed into the execution of the massacre at Vellore, and of those who subsequently manifested a spirit of insub- ordination, that a design existed on the part of the British Government to operate a general conversion of the inhabitants of India to Christianity, was one of the efficient causes of that horrible disaster." Sir John Malcolm, after quoting this despatch, goes on to observe that this opinion of the supreme Govern- ment was in concurrence with all those whose public duty obliged them to investigate the causes of that catastrophe. Twice, therefore, in the brief history of 312 ENGLAND AND INDIA. British India has it appeared that the religious fears of the native soldiery have been directed to bring about an epoch of horror. Let all those who would have the chief cause to dread a third take care to place beyond the chances of employ so terrible an engine. Let there be no act that the malevolent may misrepresent or the ignorant misconstrue. Pre- vious to the last outbreak there had been much that was injudicious in the Christian zeal of many public servants ; and among those which could be specified in this matter are names which no English critic will now mention to illustrate any thing but honour. It is possible, though no doubt it would be difficult, so utterly to win the confidence, even of the most igno- rant, that the repetition of intrigue based upon terror would be impossible. It is not, therefore, only the Government, but its servants, civil and military, and every man and woman connected with it or them even in the remotest degree, who ought to abstain from every act capable of being mistaken for missionary effort. Any chaplain holding a definite appointment, under Government or otherwise, should only convert a native under pain of immediate dismissal. No missionary work ought to be permitted to be in con- nection, direct or indirect, with the official establish- ment of the Church of England in India. And even as to private missions, the only connection which the Government ought to have with them is to moderate them. Lord Minto, in allusion to a memorial re- ceived from certain missionaries, observed, "We have great satisfaction in acknowledging the temperate and respectful spirit of that memorial, and in expressing our active conviction of the correctness of the state- ment which it contains relative to the motives and ENGLAND AND INDIA. 313 objects and zeal of the missionaries for the propaga- tion of the sacred doctrines of Christianity ; and our duty as the guardians of the public welfare, and even a conscientious solicitude for the diffusion of the bless- ings of Christianity, merely require us to restrain the effects of that commendable zeal within those limits the transgression of which would, in our decided judgment, expose to hazard the public safety and tranquillity, without promoting its intended object, and would be incompatible with a just adherence to the obligations of political interest and public faith." If all this was true and important in Lord Minto's day, its truth is ten times more important now. So long as our power was subordinate in India, and even whilst our ascendency was modified by the existence of important native Powers, the efforts of missionaries would provoke, and did provoke, a con- siderable amount of jealous attention and remark. But now that we are supreme, without a rival, almost without contemporaries, the nervousness that waits on every act of ours, not merely as a government, but as a dominating race, becomes morbid as well as universal. It is those who are conscious of no refuge that are ever on the look-out for danger ; and an anxiety that has become chronic needs very little at any time to transform it into an acute and danger- ous alarm. Ii> may be asked why I, who appear to value so little our imperial hold upon India that I am willing to see it dwindle away to a mere quasi-feudal suze- rainty with a vanishing point still beyond, should survey this question from a purely political- stand- point. The answer to such an objection is twofold. First, because before philosophic minds it is un- 314 ENGLAND AND INDIA. necessary to argue a proposition that by such would be conceded in advance ; and before others it would be useless to lay it in a philosophic light. Secondly, because it is in its political aspect, after all, that the matter is most important. Otherwise it might be of advantage to show that the operation of the mis- sionaries in India has been disastrous in proportion to its activity. They have been for the most part rash and ignorant men ; and the consequences of their rashness and ignorance have been unfortunately to be measured exactly by the amount of the enthusiasm which set them into action. They have had but the scantiest knowledge, if any at all, of the structure of Hindoo society. At all events, it has been just those parts of the system of which some knowledge was most important that the gloom of their ignorance has most deeply shrouded. They have simply gone about scattering, without method or caution, a few crude doctrines of a strange religion, and one avow- edly destructive, among the members of a society held, and only held together by the very religion they were seeking to subvert. Their dream was probably the immediate conversion of the continent ; and yet the consequences of conversion to a single ryot might have given them a faint notion of the collapse and anarchy that would have supervened upon the realisa- tion of their broader vision. Have they been all along prepared to reconstruct what they have been* thus fatuously eager to destroy? No one can pretend to prophesy what the religious future of India will be ; it is sufficient to recognise the fact that any such ac- tion upon it as we have been discussing could only end, if sufficiently extended, in a wide- spread social catastrophe. But such action, in the unproved tern- ENGLAND AND INDIA. 315 per and knowledge of the West, is happily impossible ; and in the absence of such it is perhaps, as I said before, most important to present the question in its political aspect. The maintenance of the English power in India is essential until the regeneration of Indian society is complete. The machinery and ad- ministration of the English Government is the scaf- folding within which the edifice must rise, and which must only be withdrawn pole by pole as the various parts are concluded. It is matter, therefore, of the deepest concern that our power should be stable so long as it lasts ; and in its stability no one element will operate so largely as the confidence of the native population in matters affecting their religion. A simi- lar confidence of the native princes, in respect of their dominions and privileges, is no doubt another and almost equally important element; but they cannot attack us except with the assistance of the masses; and with these they will find no occasion against us except in the matter of their Gods. We have now reached that point when we may consider the inauguration of what will be the greatest and last change of all in the course of English policy in India. It is the reversal of those foolish annexa- tions about which so much has already been said. There are many persons who will think it more diffi- cult to do this than to revolutionise the civil service, the judicature, or even the army, because the me- thod of the revolution is not quite so palpable. To many persons it will seem simple to throw open to an ascertained width the portals of a special competition, who will still ask how it would be possible to com- mence the restoration of an abrogated monarchy. They would say that there is nothing retrograde in 316 ENGLAND AND INDIA. admitting natives into the very highest ranks of the civil service, the judicature, or the army; that the State has never pledged itself to their exclusion; that to proclaim their eligibility is no new principle ; and that to make it practical involves no perilous or un- dignified action, no confession of error or weakness, and lastly, what to such minds is always most impor- tant, no inconsistent reversal of state policy. But, they would urge, how is it possible to restore the Rajah of Mysore to the very smallest exercise of his sovereign power, when we have so peremptorily and so often denied the possibility of any such measure ? Or how could we bring again from his exile the heir of Oude or of the Punjaub, when we have with so much of imperial solemnity proclaimed the extinction of his dynasty ? How to begin such changes as these ? "With what face and in what fashion? It may not look easy at first sight; but difficulties are wont to lessen while they are approached, and to disappear when they are attacked. In the first place, the annex- ation policy is, as I have said elsewhere, essentially modern, and is one into which the nation has been led like a blindfolded horse, after having repudiated visible conquest. To reverse it would be, therefore, only to recognise the error of a path into which our wandering had been not early but late, not original but subsequent, not deliberate but unconscious, nor even only unconscious but unwilling. How many of our statesmen of all types, from Tory to Radical, have protested against all these annexations, first and last? Of how many of such measures would it be untrue to say that they were first foisted by a clique in India upon a facile or uninformed ministry at home, and by that ministry, sometimes from love of office and some- ENGLAND AND INDIA. 317 times from mere chivalry, defended and forced upon Parliament, and through Parliament forced upon the country ? Which of them has not really been rather the result of a submission than of an exertion of the national will? They were never the policy of our earlier and greater administrators; they were the in- vention of a later and less worthy type. The great men of old, sometimes from a far-seeing policy, some- times too from a love of justice which not even the contamination of empire could pollute, were for ever warning themselves and *each other of the day when this country would abandon herself to an unrestrained acquisitiveness. Sir John Malcolm, from whom it is always a pleasure to quote, says : " It is the avowed, and I am satisfied the true policy of the British state, while it maintains the general peace of the country, to keep not only in the enjoyment of their high rank, but in the active exercise of their sovereign functions, the different princes and chiefs who are virtually or declaredly dependent on its pro- tection. The principal object (setting aside the obligations of faith) is to keep at a distance that crisis to which, in spite of our efforts, we are gradually approaching, of having the whole of India subject to our direct rule." Among all those great men who have illustrated the English name in India, no more complete politician has arisen than Sir John Malcolm ; and it may well be added, few juster men. In the extract just cited he distinctly affirms the policy, and only sets apart the obligations of faith, in a way which shows how little he has forgotten, and how much he values them. And the Duke of Wellington speaking, it is true, rather as a strategist than as a moralist or a states- man, but thereby from an independent and corrobo- rative point of view urges the maintenance of our 318 ENGLAND AND INDIA. treaties with Oude in the north, and with Mysore in the south. He calls the subsidiary treaty with the latter an arrangement, and its Hindoo monarchy a government, " calculated to afford the most substan- tial assistance to Great Britain in all her difficulties." And so of the treaty with Oude he says, "It is an arrangement of the affairs of that country calculated to increase the strength of the British Government on its North -Western frontier, which was one of its weak points." And why so calculated? Because to a soldier's eye it was well to interpose a strong and friendly state between ourselves and the turbulent regions of the North- West. Would the Duke of Wel- lington have advocated the extinction of that friendly state the moment that the most palpable uses of its alliance were over? But if there be a name which is remembered with more high respect than others, both for wisdom and for integrity, it is that of Lord Metcalfe. Let us put before ourselves two or three expressions of his opinion on this subject. In one place he says : " With respect to alliances with petty states, I shall observe that, in my opinion, they might be made highly advantageous. Those states in Hindostan under our protection would form an excellent frontier Such a frontier .... would be a very great strength to us. I do not see the same inconvenience which you do of interference in their broils; I am more inclined to believe that the effect of our established interference would be to put an end to all their broils, and to diffuse universal tran- quillity; and if this system is not destroyed, I look forward in sanguine hopes to this blessed end (universal tranquillity), the inestimable gift of Great Britain to India, and the proudest monument of our glory."* Surely the abolition of the native states, our rela- Letter to Mr. Sherer, September 1805. ENGLAND AND INDIA. 319 tions with which he hopes will be perpetual, would not have been the method for arriving at universal tranquillity, with which Metcalfe would have sympa- thised. His ideal was plainly not that peace which has been called the synonym for solitude. And in another place he speaks of the petty states "who look up to us for protection, and are therefore well- disposed to us;" and adds, "from those we have nothing to apprehend : those it is our interest to uphold and protect ;" and further on he says : "Though it is not indispensably necessary for our vital interests that we should support them, yet it is a just and proper object of a wise and liberal policy."* How agreeably words and opinions like these con- trast themselves with such a declaration as that of Lord Dalhousie, quoted in the earlier pages of this Essay, and commencing with the words, " I cannot conceive it possible for any one to dispute the policy of taking advantage of any just opportunity for con- solidating the territories that already belong to us, by taking possession of states which may lapse in the midst of them ; thus getting rid of those petty inter- vening principalities !" I do not wish to be accused of misinterpreting Lord Metcalfe. He certainly did, at the same time that he wrote what I have quoted, advocate the ex- tension of British territory. He thought it at that time too small for the safe exercise of our imperial power, which was dear to Metcalfe. It must be re- membered too that those were the days when Scindia was in all his dangerous prominence, when the Mah- rattas were still unhumbled, and the Pindarees in Vide " Scheme for a General Settlement of Central India.' 1 320 ENGLAND AND INDIA. existence. These turbulent and predatory powers it was undoubtedly his desire that England, for the good of India, should, as he said openly, "either annihilate, or reduce to a state of weakness, subjec- tion, or dependence." For this purpose a certain growth and consolidation of the Company as a terri- torial power he considered indispensable. But he had fixed in his own mind a point beyond which that growth ought not to stretch. His advice was to go on " growing in size and increasing in strength as we proceed, until we can with safety determine to confine ourselves within fixed limits and abjure all further conquests." We were to go on only till " safety" was achieved, and even to that point only "consistently with justice and policy, moderation to our enemies, and due attention to our allies." Would Metcalfe for safety's sake have deposed the Rajah of Mysore; from a consistence with justice and policy have refused to recognise the Nawaub of the Carnatic; from due attention to our allies have annexed Oude; or byway of moderation to an enemy have confiscated first the dominions and subsequently the rupees of the Rajah of Coorg? But Lord Metcalfe not only states the principle of non-annexation, he supplies us with an example of the method. His residence at Hyderabad was a type of what our conduct ought to be in Native Kingdoms. We found the governments of all those with which we were brought into contact weak, and their affairs in disorder. The inevitable consequences of our first connection with them were to make mat- ters worse. Our plain duty was therefore, and it is still unfulfilled, to repair. This Metcalfe conceived to be his duty, and he did it. Any body who will ENGLAND AND INDIA. 321 be at the trouble to read his Memoranda for Com- missioners to the Rajah Chundoo Lall will find that they go to the root of the evils of the country. They are a perfect synopsis of wrongs to be done away and remedies to be applied ; in other words, a detailed statement of the necessity and a detailed scheme for reform. They are too lengthy, of course, for quotation here; but there is a certain letter of his, written after a tour of inspection through the Nizam's country, which shows what, after mature deliberation, his scheme was. " I therefore propose," he writes, " with the assent of the Nizam's government, to employ the assistants of the Residency and some of the best qualified of the Nizam's officers in different divisions of the Nizam's territory, for the purpose of checking oppression and violation of faith on the part of the officers of the Government, securing adherence to settlements, taking cognisance of crimes, and looking after the police, especially on the frontiers, on which point I receive continual complaints from the neigh- bouring governments. These officers ('. e. assistants of the Resi- dency) should take no part in the collection of the revenues nor in the general administration of the country. Neither should the forms of the Nizam's government be invaded. The officers should not have any peculiar official designation founded on their duties, lest it should be considered as a partial introduction of our rule ; and if at any time, from good schooling or rare good- ness, there should be reasonable ground of hope that a district could be managed safely without such a check, I should think it a duty to withdraw the office from that district. * * * * It appears to me to be the only way of preserving the Nizam's government in all its parts entire, with the addition of the cheek of European integrity, which can be at any time removed without damaging any other part of the edifice, if at any time it can be dispensed with."* It would be impossible to collate a clearer or, considering its authorship, a more valuable corrobo- Letter to Mr. Swinton, June 1821. Y 322 ENGLAND AND INDIA. ration of the theory which I have propounded. Hy- derabad still survives, and it ought to be made a precedent and a model. Travancore too is a native state in a position analogous to that of the Nizam's kingdom. They both afford admirable specimens of the transitional state through which native princi- palities and native princes might be made to pass. Why can we not commence the revolution at once, by placing the titular Nawaub of the Carnatic and the Rajah of Mysore in the same position, mutatis mutandis, as the Nizam or the Rajah of Travancore ? Why not also raise up a new Vizier of Oude, with something like the same amount of actual sove- reignty? These would make three important ex- amples of Lord Metcalfe's principles. It would be hard indeed to anticipate failure in the face of all that the yearly reports from Hyderabad and Travan- core tell us of success and satisfaction. We should then have five states in which the political and social transitions and reconstructions which I have advo- cated throughout might be brought into full work. They would be types of the new revolution, and would at once sanction and facilitate its universality. It would not be necessary pedantically to restore every petty state of which the last one hundred years have seen the abolition. No inhabitant of a conti- nent, no citizen of a state system, in which the duke- doms of Germany have yet to be expunged, would ever advocate that. It is the peoples, not the princes of India who are the clients of revolution. The necessity is simply so to parcel out the soil of India that stable and natural governments may exist over the whole of it, and that there may be no room for " occupancy," when the day of our retirement shall ENGLAND AND INDIA. 323 dawn. Nor is there any reason for hurry. Once / proclaim and inaugurate the new era, and leisure to I perfect it will be abundantly conceded from all sides. Circumstances will, doubtless, be developed during tthe course of our improved administration which .will point to what is to be the political distribution, wherever it is at present unarranged, of the peoples of India. It is possible that as time rolls on, we may raise the Punjaub into a nation, and find a head fo'r it; and that we may parcel out Central India, if we do not reconstruct it under the Nagpore state, among the various native kingdoms that surround it. We are not without a precedent in the art of king- making, or the Hindoo Rajah of Mysore would not now be a suppliant for our justice. And as for the redistribution and bestowal of territory that has thus lost its form as a state, and whose inhabitants may have forgotten their existence as a nation, we may not find it impossible to apply that principle of an- nexation which we have so often used for conveni- ence and self-aggrandisement, as an instrument of justice and the general good, and to put a coping- stone here and there upon the edifice of the liberties of the Continent. I have thus endeavoured to present in an intelli- gible connection some of the principal effects of the English occupation upon the continent of India. The natural limits of an Essay have so girt about the nar- rative that much has been omitted, and still more re- legated to the inconvenient obscurity of collateral or indirect allusion. But I hope that enough has been adduced to show how the extension of their terri- tories by the East India Company was made, uncon- sciously to some extent, but in the main by design, and 324 ENGLAND AND INDIA. wherever it was pressed, subversive of the Hindoo so- ciety. Enough to make it clear, that whatever in the shape of executive or administrative function they did not absorb they swept out of their way; and what- ever of the actual fabric of the system they did not transform by appropriation they demolished, paralysed, or ignored. Enough to illustrate the process by which thrones were cast down, landmarks of nations altered or removed, reigning families exiled and dishonoured, and no office of government intrusted to the native races involving a higher destiny than to keep a regis- ter or to sweep a bureau. Enough to show how the judicature was monopolised; the sources and founda- tions of justice changed; and that vast uniform social basis, on which the judicial executive and fiscal structures had all rested, was treated as a trumpery piece of rustic patchwork, which might be perchance a modern makeshift, perchance an obsolete relic, but which in either case it was a waste of time to study, and a ridicule to recognise or preserve. I have hinted rather than expressed how an unconsidered conflict of religions was at one time risked ; and how, by the abrogation and entanglement of land-tenures, first in one direction and then in another, ancient sentiments, rights, privileges, and distinctions, were outraged and confused. I have then attempted, without ven- turing upon details which were at once beyond my opportunities of information and the scope of this Essay, to indicate some of the paths which would re- conduct us in the government of India towards the several points of departure from which the courses of our error have run. Nor only so: I have ven- tured to express a conviction, over which I have lingered with a pleasant hope, that we may do more ENGLAND AND INDIA. 325 than retrace our own steps, more than reconstruct what we ourselves have destroyed. It is to be hoped that as we are the latest, so we are the last of the conquerors of India. Let us be then the earliest and the only ones to discover the true meaning of her history and our own. As a generation we are only so far responsible for the evils of the past as we add our contributions to them for the contemplation, the difficulty, the peril, or the temptation of pos- terity. Evil, like good, grows in prolongation; in the moral as in the material world there is no halt- ing, no finality. If we now reject the duty of restoration presented to us, we shall bequeath one of three misfortunes to our children either a cata- strophe, whose proportions we shall have made more gigantic; the incumbrance of a task which we shall have made more overwhelming ; a heritage of guilt which we shall have enlarged. For one of three ends must come. Either India, grown in wealth, yearn- ing with memories, and fretting with desires, will rise and rend her enslavers; or the generation that shall come after us, seeing and grappling with the duty and the task which we shall have refused to ac- knowledge or to undertake, will find both aggravated alike in kind and in proportions ; or else if, contrary to the best hopes and to the soundest expectations, we bequeath at once a want of conscience and a material force sufficient for one age after us to pro- long our dominion, we shall have contributed not advancement, but retrogression, to the course of humanity, progeniem vitiosiorem vitio parentum as an impediment to the history of the world. E. H. PEMBEB. No. V. ENGLAND AND CHINA. BY ENGLAND AND CHINA. I. HISTOEICAL VIEW OF THE RELATIONS OP ENGLAND WITH CHINA. IN the month of June 1839, the Chinese Commis- sioner Lin, having collected from the various smug- gling ships in the Canton waters 20,291 chests of opium, threw it into large pits dug for the purpose, poured lime and oil upon it, and let the fluid com- pound be carried away by the next high tide. Over- seers were stationed to prevent the workmen or vil- lagers from purloining the opium, and one man was summarily executed for attempting to carry away a small quantity; and no doubt remained in the mind of the persons who visited the place, and examined every part of the operation, that the entire quantity was completely destroyed: "A solitary instance in the history of the world of a pagan monarch prefer- ring to destroy what would injure his subjects, rather than to fill his own pockets with its sale."* The Opium Traffic : a letter to Captain Elliott by Mr. King, a merchant at Canton, who himself witnessed the destruction of the opium. 330 ENGLAND AND CHINA. This event was the turning-point of English rela- tions with China. It was followed by a disgraceful war, concluded in 1842 by the treaty of Nankin, which remained for fifteen years the basis of our in- tercourse. To it may be traced more or less directly the frightful anarchy which China now suffers. To judge rightly of the present or future policy of Eng- land with regard to China, it is essential to bear in mind the circumstances attending and preceding the " Opium War" of 1839-1842. Up to 1834 the commercial contact of England and indeed of other European Powers with China had been very limited. The imperial policy of strict limi- tation to a single port, Macao, had been consistently and successfully followed. The embassy of Lord Macartney in 1798, of Lord Amherst in 1816, though courteously received, had been as courteously dis- missed, after a few months' residence, with their commercial objects unattained. What was the motive of this policy? Was it founded in the narrow ignorance of all rational prin- ciples of polity; in the blind prejudices against all external civilisation; in the selfish dread of injuring vested interests, to which it is generally attributed, and to which protective tariffs in Western countries have been partly due? Without claiming for the Chinese immunity from the political fallacies of more advanced nations, it is easy to point out three very obvious grounds which must have weighed with all prudent Chinese statesmen in mamtaining their ex- clusive policy. In the first place, all the intercourse that they had had for two centuries with European merchants was of so unpromising a kind as to impress them most ENGLAND AND CHINA. 331 unfavourably with the moral and social consequence of unlimited communication.* The second reason was the obvious danger to the social system of the country, if Western missionaries were to be allowed to disseminate their views without restraint. Of this danger they had had full experience. The emperors of the Tartar dynasty had indeed welcomed the emi- nent men of science who were sent to them by the Propaganda; but it was their science, not their reli- gion, which they welcomed. Between the heads of the Jesuit mission and the imperial court it was a well-understood bargain of profit and loss. So much protection to their co-religionists was to be given on the one side, so much trigonometrical and astro- nomical information on the other. But, with all the precautions that were taken, the revolutionising effects of Western religion were at last felt to be too dangerous for any compensation. The wise and broad views of the Jesuits, who had permitted the worship of Heaven, the worship of Confucius, and the wor- ship of the dead, as pardonable, nay, as salutary, appendages to Christian doctrine, were counteracted by the narrow intolerance of the Dominicans who succeeded them, men who, like our own Protestant missionaries, would admit of no such compromise; and it was then felt by the governing classes of the empire that the fundamental! institutions of their polity were being sapped, and that no terms could any longer be kept with a religion which, unlike the other creeds of the empire, could tolerate no rival. See the extracts from the Memorial of Sir R. Alcock, quoted in the note at the end of this Essay. f- " The principal subject of reproach from a pagan of China to a Christian is, ; that they neglect their forefathers.' " Stanntou's Embassy of Lord Macartney, vol. ii. p. 350. 332 ENGLAND AND CHINA. But there was a third reason for the policy of ex- clusion, of more immediate and imminent urgency ; the formidable extension of British power in India. In our gross ignorance of the policy of Eastern courts, we often attribute to them a degree of blindness as to passing events which would border upon idiocy; but it is certain that every step of Western aggression in any kingdom of the East, from Burmah to Japan, is well marked and keenly felt by all the rest. One instance will suffice. When Lord Macartney was in Pekin in 1798, all for a time went smoothly. Nothing could be more hospitable than his reception; and it seemed likely that, to some extent, his mission would be successful in removing restrictions upon trade. Suddenly the current turned against him. The party at court who had from the first opposed him became paramount, his warmest supporters were silenced or withdrew their support, and all his hopes vanished. It was not till long after that he discovered the rea- son of this change : it was that a report had reached Pekin that British troops were about to invade Ne- paul, the conquest of which would have made the two empires conterminous.* Finally, if to these reasons we add the fact that, from its immense range of climate and varied fertility of soil, the Chinese empire is so far sufficient to itself for all the necessaries and for very many of the luxu- ries of life, that to this day, after twenty years of almost open trade, the main staple of our imports still continues to be what it was from the first, a poi- sonous drug ; and if we remember that at no period of her history has the " wealth of nations " been regarded by Chinese thinkers or statesmen as the 6 Staunton's Embassy, vol. ii. p. 50. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 333 supreme object of political effort, we shall see that there were good grounds for hesitation before ex- changing a policy under which the wellbeing of the nation had been found possible for one which, to all appearance, could only issue, as it has in fact issued, in anarchy and disaster. In 1833 the exclusive commercial privileges of the East India Company ceased, and the Canton trade, through which the whole of our commerce with China was conducted, was thrown open. The Government appointed Lord Napier as superinten- dent of the trade, and his instructions were under- stood to extend to regulating negotiations with the provincial authorities. But the provincial authorities had had no dealings with the former superintendent of the trade. It had been regulated on their side by a body of privileged traders, who were commonly called the Hong merchants. Lord Napier's claims to hold intercourse with the town authorities were totally contrary to the express laws of the empire. The Chinese Government were perfectly aware of the intended expedition ; and when Lord Napier reached the outer waters of Canton in July 1834, the Hong merchants were instructed to explain to him the state of the case. To their request that he would grant them an interview he returned at once a per- emptory refusal. The Hong merchants endeavoured to make the same representations to the British mer- chants. Lord Napier persuaded them to decline the interview. In consequence of this refusal on the part of the English to receive official messages from the persons appointed by the Government for the purpose, the Hong merchants were requested to stop the trade; and on the 16th of August this was ac- 334 ENGLAND AND CHINA. tually done. Lord Napier then took the extraor- dinary step of placarding the walls of Canton with a proclamation of such singular insolence towards the Chinese authorities* as alone would have justified his immediate and forcible expulsion. The spirit in which Lord Napier undertook his mission will be best understood by the letters written by him in August to the home Government : " Four edicts have been let off against me for landing without a red chop or permit. I have been ordered off, and entreated to depart ; yet with all this they have not yet taken me and sent me down the river. Suppose a Chinaman, or any other man, were to land under similar circumstances at Whitehall, your Lordship would not allow him to loiter as they have permitted me. Look- ing at the utter imbecility of this Government, I cannot for one moment suppose that in treating with such a nation Her Majesty's Government will be ruled by the ordinary forms prescribed among civilised people." Could a buccaneer or pirate have talked otherwise? " Her Majesty's Government" (he goes on to say) "should con- sult immediately on the best plan for commanding a commercial treaty." "Demand the same personal privileges for all traders that every trader enjoys in England. This, no doubt, would be a very staggering proposition in the face of a red chop ; but say to the Emperor, Adopt this, or abide the consequences, and it is done. Now, abiding consequences immediately presupposes all the horrors of a bloody war against a defenceless people." " Such an undertaking would le worthy the greatness and the power of Eng- land."} See Parliamentary Papers on China, 1840, p. 33. f Papers relating to China, 1840, pp. 12, 13. It so happened that the minister who received this despatch was not Lord Palmerston, but the Duke of Wellington, who replied by a severe and characteristic rebuke : " It is not by force and violence that His Majesty intends to establish commercial intercourse between his subjects and China, but by the other conciliatory measures so strongly inculcated in all the in- structions you have received." ENGLAND AND CHINA. 335 On the 7th of September Lord Kapler resolved to resort to force. He ordered his ships of war, the Andromache and Imogene, to force their way, in direct defiance of Chinese law and of the instruc- tions he had received from home, through the Bocca Tigris, the entrance to the Canton River. The ships naturally drew upon themselves the fire of the forts, which in return they nearly demolished, and made their way successfully to the anchorage of Whampoa, under the walls of Canton. The Chinese authorities held their ground, however; and their proclamation on the llth repeats their refusal to hold intercourse with Lord Napier, or to transact any business, commercial or political, until he had withdrawn his ships. A large body of the merchants now finding that violence failed in its effects, and that the in- terests of trade were seriously suffering, began to urge him to more conciliatory measures. In con- sequence of this, and also of failing health, Lord Napier at last announced his determination to yield and quit Canton. He died a month after at Macao. The trade reopened on the 27th of October, under the superintendence of Mr. Davis, and continued on the old footing. But a petition was signed by eighty-five merchants to the Government, requesting that a ship of the line with some frigates might be sent to demand satisfaction for the insults offered to the noble super- intendent, and for the losses occasioned by our com- merce, and to endeavour to procure a renewal of the liberty to trade at Amoy, Tchu-san, and Ningpoo. This force might stop the trade of the Empire, inter- cept its revenue, and extort all the privileges de- manded. Any impartial reader of these events must feel 336 ENGLAND AND CHINA. that Lord Napier cannot be exonerated, notwith- standing the sympathy aroused by his premature death, from the severest censure. He was the first who gave the sanction of Government to the spirit of brutal greed and violence, the expression of which had hitherto been confined to our merchant princes. He, as far as in him lay, vitiated the moral sense of the nation as to our duties with China, and paved the way for the iniquitous war which ultimately fol- lowed. The Chinese showed, whatever they may have felt, but little ill-will for these violent and offensive proceedings. The Governor of Canton, through the Hong merchants, requested the English to have a commercial superintendent of trade appointed without delay. He refers, moderately enough, and without inaccuracy, to the outrageous policy of Lord Napier : " The said nation's king, in sending Lord Napier hither, as- suredly did not command him to create trouble, or to indulge rashness, hastiness, and waywardness. If now there were a per- son from another country to go to England, and thus occasion commotion, the said nation's king certainly would not bear with him. Let a commercial man be appointed by the said nation to become a Superintendent, and come to Canton to direct and control. This is a matter of buying and selling : it is not what military officers can attend to the management of. In this inner land the Hong merchants are always held responsible, and so too the said nation must positively select and appoint a trading man. On no account should a government officer be again appointed to occasion, as Lord Napier did, the creation of trouble and disturbance."* While these were the modest and reasonable de- mands of the Chinese Government, the leading mer- chants of Canton, including names like Jardine, Ma- Papers relating to China, 1840, p. 55. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 337 theson, Turner, and others of the highest commercial standing, were petitioning the King in Council for a repetition, on a far larger and more aggressive scale, of Lord Xapier's mission. They request " A plenipotentiary of suitable rank and diplomatic experience to be appointed ; that he be directed to proceed as near the capital of the country as may be found expedient with an armed naval force ; that he require, in the name of your Majesty, ample re- paration for the insults offered by the Governor of Kwantung and Kwangse in his edicts published on the occasion of Lord Napier's arrival at Canton ; that he demand reparation for the insults offered to your Majesty's flag by firing on your Majesty's ships of war from the forts at the Bogue; and that remuneration shall be made to your Majesty's subjects for the losses they have sustained by the detention of their ships during the stoppage of the trade. These suggestions may be carried out without the slightest danger to existing commercial intercourse, inasmuch as there would be no difficulty, should proceedings of a compulsory nature be required, in putting a stop to the greater part of the external and internal commerce of the Chinese Empire, in inter- cepting its revenues in their progress to the capital, and in taking possession of all the armed vessels in the country."* It is desirable to remark that on this, as on almost every other occasion, it is the mercantile class which has taken the initiative in recommending measures of violence. Our Chinese and Japanese wars are not due solely, or even primarily, to our aristocracy. What our governments have done is blindly to fol- low a lead given elsewhere ; to submit with culpable weakness to the unscrupulous greed of our great mercantile firms ; submission, to which the difficulty of preserving order at home and of finding employ- ment for our crowded manufacturing population has no doubt (as Lord Palmerston frankly confessed) largely contributed. * Papers relating to China, 1840, p. 69. Z 338 ENGLAND AND CHINA. There were now two difficulties standing in the way of peaceable relations with China. The first was created by the refusal of the British Government to remain satisfied with the purely commercial and unofficial relations which had subsisted up to the date of the expiration of the East India Company's charter; relations conducted on the one side by the Hong merchants, and on the other by a commercial superintendent. It is clear that under this system trade had steadily and peacefully increased. There is little reason to doubt that it might have attained in this simple and honourable manner at least its present dimensions, without bloodshed, disaster, and disgrace, and without subjecting a population of three hundred millions to the horrors of anarchy and civil war. But there was no point upon which Lord Palmerston in his despatches insisted more strongly than that communications between the two countries should not be left to a mercantile superin- tendent, but should pass through political agents; a method no doubt desirable in itself, but desirable solely on the condition that both countries fully con- curred in it. For one country to insist upon it as a right against the will of the other, is obviously to set at defiance every law of nations, and to recur to the barbarous ordeal of brute force. In this policy, as we have seen, the home government was strongly stimu- lated by the mercantile community in China, who considered that, although aggressive measures might involve temporary derangements of trade, they would ultimately lead to the one load-star of their hopes, the "opening out of China;" the acquisition, that is to say, whether by fair means or by foul they cared not, of three hundred millions of customers. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 339 Such policy, however, was not carried out by Sir George Robinson, who, after the death of Lord Napier, was appointed superintendent. Considering rightly that the sole object which we could legiti- mately set before us was peaceful development of trade, just so far, and no farther, as the Chinese themselves were willing to cooperate with us; and feeling certain that to press, as Lord Napier had done, for direct political intercourse would lead only to contention, resistance, and hostility, he refrained altogether from the attempt. His duty as superin- tendent of commerce was, he conceived, as nearly as possible identical with that of the supercargoes of the East India Company before 1834. To him the most difficult and the most important object was not con- tention with Chinese officials, but the preservation of order amongst British subjects; restraint of that unscrupulous lawlessness of our own merchants and seamen, which, by the confession of all our agents in the East, is the chief obstacle to peaceful com- merce.* But there was this difference in his position and that of the East India Company's supercargo: the latter had it always in his power to recommend the withdrawal of the license without which no ship could trade with China. But by the alterations of the Charter in 1834 the whole trade was thrown open ; and the powers of the superintendent to ad- judicate in disputes of merchants, among themselves or with the natives, were left utterly vague and un- defined. We find Lord Palmerston two years after- wards, in November 1836, recognising, in despatches to Captain Elliott, the inconvenience of this unde- * On this point see the Memorial of Sir B. Alcock, already re- ferred to. 340 ENGLAND AND CHINA. fined state of the jurisdiction of the superintendents in China, and their want of power to enforce deci- sions on matters submitted to them by the commer- cial body: hoping that "at no distant period some effectual remedy may be provided for this incon- venience;" and recommending him "at present to confine his interference as much as possible to friendly suggestion and advice to the parties concerned."* Thus for some years things were left entirely to the most disorderly haphazard. It was probably not with- out reason that they were so left. Out of the nettle, chaos, it was hoped that the flower, profit, might be extracted. Sir G. Robinson, however, animated by no such thoughts, urgently recommended the deci- sion of this vital question. The duties, according to him, of the head of the British establishment should be, " to receive the registers and papers of ships arriving; and to issue precise and distinct orders for the guidance of captains and seamen, who should appeal to him in all serious cases of disturbance and complaint on board ship, and invariably on every occasion when natives of China are concerned, in place of taking the law into their own hands, and seeking to redress their real or imaginary grievances ; to listen patiently to any Chinese who may be ag- grieved, and by the power with which he is invested to afford them redress and if possible indemnification ; to attend to the better ordering and discipline of the ships, by watchful observation over both commanders and seamen ; and by every means in his power to im- prove and ameliorate the present disorganised state of the mercantile marine."f * Papers relating to China, 1840, p. 128. t Ibid. 1840, p. 116. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 341 In pursuance of this quiescent policy, Robinson entirely abandoned all attempts to force himself upon Canton, and established his head-quarters at Macao; residing frequently, for the convenience of merch- ants, in a government vessel, near the anchorage of Lintin, an island in the mouth of the Canton river, about sixty miles from the city of Canton. This policy was perfectly acceptable to the Chinese autho- rities; and it had also the advantage that Lintin being the great smuggling station, the presence of the superintendent, as Sir G. Robinson pointed out, was peculiarly desirable as a check on British irre- gularities. But neither this nor the gradual increase of British trade, which went on steadily for two years, compensated, in the eyes either of the home government or of the merchants, for abstinence from more aggressive measures. In the summer of 1836 Lord Palmerston recalled Sir G. Robinson, and re- placed him by Captain Elliott, who had hitherto been his subordinate; giving the latter earnest injunctions to lose no opportunity that might offer of establish- ing himself at Canton. Such, then, was the first of the two obstacles to peaceful relations with China. The second was of still greater importance. It was the illegitimate trade in opium. At the beginning of the century the consumption of opium in China had already be- come so considerable as to attract the attention of the Chinese Government, and it was thought desira- ble to prohibit its importation. But since the death in 1796 of the Emperor Kien-lung the energy of the Chinese executive had been much enfeebled ; and it was found very difficult to prevent entirely the im- portation of this poisonous drug by smugglers. To 342 ENGLAND AND CHINA. this illegal trade the East India Company have from the first been accessory. In Bengal no person is allowed to grow opium except on account of the Government. In Bombay the Government purchase all that is produced within the Presidency, and de- rive a large revenue from that which is grown in Central India, and brought down to the coast.* The amount smuggled into China in 1800 was 4,570 chests; in 1824 the number had increased to 12,023; and in 1834 to 23,902 chests ; the profits derived from this last amount by the East India Company being l,lll,038/.f The smuggling trade was carried on more or less at every part of the Chinese sea- board, but principally on the south coast and in the Canton river. The island of Lintin, at the mouth of the river, was notoriously a principal station for the receipt of opium from British ships. The trade was by no means left to firms of inferior standing. We have it on the best authority, that is, from the evi- dence of Messrs. Jardine, Matheson, and other firms of equal wealth and reputation, that they themselves, "in common with nine-tenths of the foreign mer- chants in China, were largely engaged in this unlaw- ful traffic." Up to 1836 their excuse had always been, that it was connived at by the local officials, and even by the Chinese Government itself. And it is certain that many of the Cantonese mandarins were accessible to bribes, and that some of them even participated actively in the trade ; which is not much more than might be said of people of wealth and standing in our own coast towns during the pre- valence of high protective or prohibitive duties. It * Statistical Papers on India, presented to Parliament April 1853. . f Papers relating to the Opium Trade, 1842-1856, p. 50. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 343 is certain too that the Imperial Government, though it had never withdrawn its formal prohibition of the trade, had of late years shown a culpable want of energy in suppressing it. But after 1836 this excuse became utterly null and void. The rapid increase in the sale of opium forced its mischievous consequences, whether to health, to social order, or to revenue, upon the attention of the Government ; and reports on the subject from the Cantonese merchants, from the governor of Canton, and from several of the emperor's ministers, were laid before the Privy Council. We are in possession of several of these documents ; and they show that the question was discussed in a truly statesmanlike manner. It was thought by some that the legalisation of the trade would be the wisest alternative. The efflux of silver from the country, due to the fact that opium smug- glers were not in a position to barter their produce for bulky goods like tea and silk, but necessarily re- ceived their price in the more commodious shape of coin, might, it was thought, be obviated by this measure. The same laws which forbade the ex- change of English manufactures for any thing but native China produce would then be extended to opium. Further, the contempt for law, which all in- fraction of it on a large scale must produce, would be remedied. But on the other side it was argued, that to make the infraction of law an excuse for its abolition was a most dangerous precedent, a symp- tom of weakness which no government could afford to acknowledge. Moreover, the legalisation of the opium trade, even if it diminished the export of sil- ver, would leave untouched a far more serious evil ; the ruinous effect of the poison upon national health. 344 ENGLAND AND CHINA. " Is it not known," said the Councillor Choo-Tsun, " that when the Government enacts a law, there is necessarily an infrac- tion of that law ? and though the law should sometimes be re- laxed, and become ineffectual, yet surely it should not on that account be abolished ; any more than we would altogether cease to eat because of diseased stoppage of the throat. When have not prostitution, gambling, treason, robbery, and such like in- fractions of the laws afforded occasions for extortionate under- lings to benefit themselves, and by falsehood and bribery to amass wealth ? Yet none surely would contend that the law, because in such instances rendered ineffectual, should therefore be abrogated. The laws that forbid the people to do wrong may be likened to the dikes that prevent the overflowing of water. If any one, then, urging that the dikes are very old and therefore useless, should have them thrown down, what words could express the consequences of the impetuous rush and all-destroying over- flow?" "The widespreading and baneful influence of opium, when regarded simply as injurious to property, is of inferior im- portance ; but when regarded as hurtful to the people, it demands most serious consideration ; for in the people lies the very founda- tion of the empire. A deficiency of property may be supplied, and an impoverished people improved ; whereas it is beyond the power of any artificial means to save a people enervated by luxury." " And if the camp be once contaminated, the baneful influence will work its way, and the habit will be contracted beyond the power of reform. When the periodical times of desire for it come round, how can the victims, their legs totter- ing, their hands trembling, their eyes flowing with childish tears, be able in any way to attend to their proper exercises ? How can such men form strong and powerful legions ?"* These views, to the eternal honour of the Chinese Government, prevailed. Not the legalisation of opium, but rigorous prohibition of it, was resolved upon. The measures to be taken were indicated clearly enough by the sub-censor, Heu-Kew. " From old times it has been a maxim in reference to our foreign relations to deal closely with what is within, but to deal Memorial to the Emperor from Choo-Tsun. Parliam. Papers, pp. 168-172. See note on opium at the end of this Essay. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 345 in general with what is without ; first to govern oneself, and then only to govern others. We must therefore, in the first place, turn to the traitorous natives who sell the drug, the Hong merchants who arrange the transactions, the brokers who purchase whole- sale, the boat people who convey the drug, and the naval officers who receive bribes; and having with the utmost strictness dis- covered and apprehended these offenders, we must inflict on them the severest punishments of the law." Then the foreigners were to be dealt with : Messrs. Jardine, Dent, and several others specified, who were known to be owners of the opium " re- ceiving-ships" stationed at Lintin, were to leave Canton, and retire to Macao, and ultimately to their own country. The superintendent, Captain Elliott, was also to be urged to use all his power to send away the two receiving-ships.* The date at which this policy was announced, October 1836, is important to remark. It will be seen that two years and a half elapsed before the Chinese Government took the final step of confisca- tion, which plunged them into war. Their policy meanwhile never swerved ; unremitting attempts were made, and with increasing success, to control and punish their own subjects. All peaceable means were used to induce the English authorities to co- operate with them in preventing smuggling, but in vain. It is certain that every candid and careful reader of the Parliamentary Papers will come to the conclusion that patient and indulgent long-suffering, a conciliatory spirit, and a willingness to sink minor differences for the main point at issue, a point in which it might have been supposed impossible for any two civilised governments to differ, characterised the Chinese policy during this long interval. "What Papers on China, p. 176. 346 ENGLAND AND CHINA. meantime was the English policy, and what were the motives which actuated it? Were energetic and straightforward attempts made to cooperate with China in liberating the commerce of the two coun- tries from a disgraceful scandal and from an immi- nent danger ; or was reckless commercial avarice suffered to take its course unbridled ; or was the purchase of Sycee silver thought too precious to be risked; or was the monopolised and illegal sale of noxious poison too valuable a prop to the tottering finance of India to be surrendered lightly ; or, lastly, were the sure results of inaction boldly faced by an unscrupulous minister, confident that a long course of private aggression, unsanctioned yet unopposed by Government, would lead sooner or later to indignant reprisals, carried on in technical ignorance of Euro- pean usage, and thus furnishing the pretext for still further interference, ending in further extension per- haps of British rule, or still better in the extortion of fresh markets, to appease the angry temper of Lan- cashire factories? From each or all of these motives, it is certain that the remonstrances of the Chinese Government were met by the English authorities in a spirit of dishonourable evasion. In February 1837 Elliott writes to Lord Palmerston : " The fact that such an article as opium should have grown to be by far the most important part of our import trade is of itself a source of painful reflection. But," he adds, " the import- ance of this branch of the trade is by no means to be estimated solely by the very large amount to which it figures in the list of imports. A consideration of far more moment is, that the move- ment of money at Canton has come to depend, by force of circum- stances, almost entirely on the deliveries of opium outside. I need not insist on the intense inconvenience of a disappearance ENGLAND AND CHINA. 347 of cash from a market where eager competitors are purchasing the main body of their returns from a close association of native dealers."* Towards the end of the year the stringent mea- sures taken by the Chinese had produced " a com- plete and very hazardous change in the whole manner of conducting the trade." Opium had hitherto been conveyed in native boats from the English receiving- ships to the shore ; but now " the native boats have been burnt, and the native smugglers scattered. The opium trade is carried on, and a great part of it in- wards to Whampoa, in European passage-boats belong- ing to British owners." Elliott suggests that a spe- cial commissioner shall be sent out from England to deal with the opium question; this commissioner to explain to the Chinese Government that " Her Majesty being without the power to prevent or to regulate this trade, anxiously desired its legalisation." It was not till June 1838, four years subsequent to the transfer of English commerce from the East India Company to the British Government, that the first utterance upon a subject so vital to the pacific relations of the two countries issued from the Home Office. " Her Majesty's Government," writes Lord Palmerston, " cannot interfere for the purpose of enabling British subjects to violate the laws of the country to which they trade. Any loss, therefore, which such persons may suffer in consequence of the more effectual execution of the Chinese laws on this subject, must be borne by the parties who have brought that loss on themselves by their own acts."f With regard to Elliott's suggestion of a special com- missioner, " Her Majesty's Government do not see Parliamentary Papers, p. 190. f Ibid. pp. 243-246. 348 ENGLAND AND CHINA. their way in such a measure with sufficient clearness to justify them in adopting it at the present mo- ment."* All was to be left to the chapter of acci- dents; and shortly after this despatch reached China the accident, it is difficult not to say the desired accident, arrived. The vigorous measures of the Chinese Govern- ment against opium were thoroughly efficient so far as the native dealers in the drug were concerned. In January 1839 Elliott writes, that the stagnation of the opium trade may be said to have " been nearly complete for the last four months. The consequent locking-up of the circulating medium is already pro- ducing great and general embarrassment." But the fountain-head of evil was still untouched. At the island of Lintin, near the mouth of the Canton river, and within the limits of what was recognised by all parties as the port of Canton, there still lay at anchor ten English warehousing - vessels, containing more than 20,000 chests of opium, illegally imported from India by our merchant princes of Canton. Over and over again during two years had the Chinese autho- rities requested and entreated Elliott, as the professed superintendent of British trade, to send these ships away. Shuffling evasion had been the only answer. He was the superintendent only of the regular trade ; he could take no cognisance of any other. Leniency and persuasion proving utterly useless, the Govern- ment resolved to resort, as they had the most un- doubted right to do, to forcible measures. Imagine a company of Chinese merchants stationing them- selves with cargoes of tea at Gravesend, and selling it to native smugglers ; or when that was found diffi- Parliamentary Papers, 1840, p. 260. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 349 cult, carrying it themselves in their own boats on shore. Suppose, too, what is certainly not likely, that in consideration of their being foreigners from a distant part of the world, the Custom-house autho- rities were unwilling at once to proceed to extreme measures, but merely requested the Chinese Consul to order his countrymen out of British waters, and that the Consul distinctly refused to do any thing of the sort, alleging either that he had not been treated with sufficient respect, or that he had nothing to do with any thing but legitimate trade, or otherwise shuffling the question, how much longer sufferance would in a like case have been shown? And if the leading Chinese merchants in London were noto- riously known to be engaged in this illegitimate trade, would they too have been held irresponsible? And if the whole cargoes of these smuggling ships had been confiscated, would that have been regarded as an unwarrantable infringement of the law of nations ? And finally, if we suppose that the cargo confiscated consisted not of tea, a useful commodity, subject to a fixed duty for purposes of revenue, but of some article utterly prohibited on grounds of public mo- rality, as, for instance, of licentious engravings, would that have added to the sympathy which the unsuc- cessful smugglers might hope to receive from their own country or from the civilised world ? In March 1839, Lin, High Imperial Commissioner of the Pekin court, arrived at Canton, with special orders to put the law into execution. He at once issued an order, addressed to " foreigners of all na- tions," to the effect that the foreign merchants were at once to deliver up to Government every particle of the opium on board their storeships : 350 ENGLAND AND CHINA. " Let it be ascertained by the Hong merchants who are the parties so delivering it up, and what number of chests, as also what total quantity in catties and taels is delivered up under each name. Let these particulars be presented to Government, in order that the opium may all be received in plain conformity thereto, that it may be burnt and destroyed, and that the evil may be entirely extirpated." A bond was to be signed by the foreign mer- chants, that for the future they would altogether abstain from all attempts to introduce opium into the country : " I have heard," he continued, " that you foreigners are used to attach great importance to the word 'good faith.' If, then, you will really do as I have commanded, deliver up every particle of the opium that is already here, and will stay its future intro- duction, .... the past may be left unnoticed You will continue to enjoy the advantages of commercial intercourse, will be enabled to acquire profits by an honest trade; and will you not indeed stand in a most honourable position ? If, however, you obstinately adhere to your folly, and refuse to awake; if you think to make up a tale covering over your illicit dealings, and pretend that the opium is brought by foreign seamen, and that the mer- chants have nothing to do with it; or that you will carry it back to your countries and throw it into the sea; or take occasion to go to other provinces in search of a door of consumption; or deliver up only one-tenth or two-tenths of the whole quantity; in any of these cases it will be evident that you retain a spirit of contumacy, that you uphold vice, and will not reform I have brought with me from the capital full powers and privi- leges enabling me to perform what seems to me right; and so long as the opium traffic remains unexterminated, so long will I delay my return. I swear that I will progress with this matter from its beginning to its ending, and that no stopping half-way shall for a moment be indulged."* This order was issued on the 17th of March: three days were given for its fulfilment. It was * Parliamentary Papers, p. 353. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 351 treated with silent contempt by those to whom it was addressed ; and the only effect it produced on Captain Elliott was that he communicated at once with a Bri- tish vessel-of-war that was stationed at Macao, with the view of taking " prompt measures to meet the un- just and menacing dispositions of the Chinese authori- ties." The three days having elapsed, Commissioner Lin placed a cordon of armed boats round the foreign factories of Canton, informing their inhabitants that they would not be allowed to leave them until the opium stored up in the ships at Lintin had been delivered up. No personal violence whatever was offered. Coolies, under strict surveillance, were al- lowed to pass through the barrier of boats, and bring them food and necessaries. On the 27th of March Elliott took upon himself the responsibility of order- ing the merchants to give up the opium to him for delivery to the Chinese Government, "holding himself responsible, in the most full and unreserved manner, for and on the behalf of Her Majesty's Government, to all and each of Her Majesty's subjects surrender- ing the said British-owned opium into his hands, to be delivered over to the Chinese Government." These orders were obeyed. The opium, in all 20,283 chests, valued at from two to three millions sterling, was surrendered and destroyed in the course of the next two months; and with the completion of the delivery the blockade of the factories was discon- tinued. Such was the cause which the war of 1840 was undertaken to avenge. As a stain upon European civilisation that war is perhaps unparalleled. Of un- just wars history is full to overflowing, but not of wars undertaken by civilised nations in defence of 3o2 ENGLAND AND CHINA. rapacious and lawless buccaneers. Its results, both in China and in England, will long be felt. In China it gave a shock to the established government of the country, which is generally allowed to count for much in the terrible anarchy under which she is now labour- ing. In England, whose Oriental policy had been demoralised already by a long course of Indian ag- gression, it was the starting-point of similar policy towards the other nations of the East. Territorial conquest is not, and it may be has never been, the principal aim. The forcible satisfaction, not of the destructive military instinct, but of the acquisitive trading instinct, not less self-seeking and brutish than the other, has been the motive power. In the absence of any higher controlling principle, that motive has pushed forward to its gratification in reckless disregard of moral obligation; and the lust of trading with Eastern nations whether they will or not has been elevated into a right. Into the details of the war it would be needless to enter; its origin and results alone concern us. It was closed in August 1842 by the treaty of Nankin. The principal terms of this treaty were: (1) that five ports were to be opened for British trade : Can- ton, Amoy, Foo-ch'ow, Ningpo, and Shanghai, the Chinese being bound to admit English goods at a duty absurdly moderate when compared with that imposed in England on Chinese commodities; (2) that the Chinese Government should pay six million dollars as the value of the destroyed opium, three million dollars on account of debts due to British subjects by Hong merchants, and twelve million dollars for the expenses of the war; (3) that the island of Hong-Kong was to be ceded to Great ENGLAND AND CHINA. 353 Britain. Of all the provisions of the treaty this last has assuredly not proved the least disastrous. All these provisions, with one exception, were carried out. Four out of the five ports were opened to trade. But at Canton the hostile feeling had be- come so fierce, not with the governing classes only, but with the mass of the inhabitants, that the English Government deferred, with great reluctance, to the representations of the Chinese authorities, and influ- enced also, it may be presumed, by the indignation which so flagrant a war was beginning to arouse at home, put off the enforcement of their treaty-right till a more convenient season. So matters went on with apparent tranquillity, or at least with no disturbance that aroused European attention, for fourteen years. All that time, however, the evils inherent in the very nature of our policy were accumulating their explosive forces swiftly and surely. Sooner or later, and none knew it better than the statesmen of Pekin and London, the mine would spring more fatally, or more efficiently, than before. Recall for a moment the position. On the one side a simple and ancient civilisation, with thoughts and hopes narrower certainly than ours, yet still with a moral standard, with a theory of life and duty which we should do well not to despise;* a social system elaborate and coherent, but, as it so chanced, on the brink not of decay, but of one of the periodic crises to which once in two or three cen- turies it has been ever liable ; a people in all indus- trial pursuits strenuous and physically strong, but loving peace, and utterly unversed in war; ignorant For the degree to which this standard is practically observed, see note at the end of the Essay. * AA 354 ENGLAND AND CHIXA. of Western civilisation, not standing in need of it, and having many reasons, moral and political, for dread- ing further knowledge of it: such, on one side, was the situation. On the other, unrestricted commerce in the hands of men of superior skill and cunning ; men "whose souls," to use the bitter words of the Cantonese Governor, "were cauterised by gain-seek- ing desires;" these men with an armed force at their back to protect their claims, and leave their crimes unpunished; crimes connived at by a government totally devoid of any higher principle than to push trade at all hazards, to find employment for their own crowded populations,* and thus to escape for a brief moment, by any shift, honest or scandalous, from the imminent pressure of terrible social pro- blems. These were the two elements which the treaty of Nankin brought into close and hateful contact. There was yet a third element ; an evil from which the peace- ful industrious population of China had always suf- fered, but which under the fostering influence of European intervention has grown with fungus-like rapidity. That element was piracy. The refuse of Oriental populations had always haunted the Chinese waters. The refuse of European populations now e Those who wish to change the policy at present pursued, to narrow our foreign markets, and to stifle the development of our foreign trade, are doing their best to take the bread from our working classes, and to deprive them of the means of sustenance. ... It is the duty of the Government to endeavour by every means in its power to extend the commerce of the country, not for the advantage of par- ticular individuals, but for the purpose of aiding the development of the industry of the country, and thus rendering the industrious classes, who produce the different commodities, happy and prosperous at home." Palmerston's reply to Bright and Cobden, China Debate, May 31, 1864. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 355 joined them. It is probably no exaggeration to say that, in no place and at no period in the history of the world has smuggling, piracy, and every inter- mediate shade of nautical crime, obtained such Di- mensions, and flourished with such impunity, as in the Chinese waters, for the last twenty years. Let us see what English policy has done to modify or to favour this result. The island of Hong-Kong, at the time of its ac- quisition by Great Britain in 1842, contained two or three hundred inhabitants; it now contains 70,000 or 80,000, the great bulk being Chinese. Its growth is thus comparable to that of Singapore, and is due doubtless in part to the same cause namely, its being a free port. Commercially speaking, the colony has more than answered the expectations of its founders. Sir John Bowring, the hero of free trade, and the professed enemy of offensive war, wa& appointed its governor. Morally the results have been less promising. The Chinese, who flocked to the new colony, were naturally men of a class to whom the removal of every restriction imposed by their own social and political system, operated as a strong attraction. Speaking broadly, and with due allowance for exceptions, the population of Hong- Kong contained and contains the basest and most lawless of the Chinese race. Free from the surveil- lance of their own police, and subject to a lax govern- ment, whose total law and gospel was the advance- ment of British commerce, they found at Hong-Kong singular facilities for prosecuting every species of un- lawful trade. Registers were given to any Chinese shipowner who happened to be resident within the colony, authorising him to carry the British flag, and 356 ENGLAND AND CHINA. to avail himself of all the impunity which it offered. The evils of such a system forced themselves upon the most unwilling eyes. "A vessel," said Sir J. Bowring in 1855, "no sooner obtains a register than she escapes colonial jurisdiction, carries on her trade within the waters of China, engages probably in every sort of fraudulent dealings, and may never again appear to render any account of her proceed- ings, or to be made responsible for her illegal acts." 4 Yet the very man who said this was himself in- strumental, in the very same year in which he said it, in passing a special " ordinance for the regis- tration of colonial vessels at Hong -Kong." The sole conditions under which this permission to carry the British flag was given were that the applicant should rent land in Hong-Kong, that securities should be given by the owner to comply with "the laws binding on British subjects with regard to trade with China," and that her master should be either a British subject or a person conversant with the English lan- guage. The register was to be renewed from year to year. The colony of Hong-Kong at the time this ordinance was passed, had a Chinese population of 60,000 ; but it " hardly contained ten Chinese who could legally be called British subjects, for it had not been deemed advisable to naturalise the Chinese here."f I* mav be thought that the supervision of the Hong-Kong authorities was sufficient to secure Correspondence respecting Registration of Colonial Vessels at Hong-Kong, p. 1. Nothing, to a reader of the Blue-books, is more astounding than the strong language used by men like Bowring, Meadows, Alcock, Bruce, and other officials, as to the destructive and disastrous consequences of their own policy. One wonders that such men can be found to do such work. t Ibid. p. 6. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 357 the respectability of the holder of registers. The following facts will quickly undeceive any one who may entertain such a view. They will be thought incredible until it be seen how unimpeachable is my authority for stating them. I quote from a despatch of Sir Hercules Robinson, who succeeded Sir J. Bow- ring as governor, to the Duke of Newcastle, presented to Parliament in 1862, giving the result of an official inquiry into the abuses of the colony, and especially into the alleged crimes of a Mr. Caldwell. " Machow-Wong, a native of the city of Namtao in Sunon, became leagued with the pirates of the coast, was denounced to the mandarins, and fled here shortly after the formation of the colony. Upon his arrival here he became ostensibly a fishmonger; but his principal occupation was said to be the disposal of the plunder of his confederates on the sea and land, for he was not long in organising a band of thieves, Triad-street coolies, &c., besides his old friends on the water, whom he also supplied with provisions. Soon after his arrival he became known to Mr. Caldwell, and for years was Mr. Caldwell's principal and most relied-upon informant. His influence and intimacy with Mr. Caldwell invested him with immense power : he was a terror to the bulk of the community, and tyrannised over the lower orders of Chinese, without their daring to complain. Public repute pronounced him to be an extortioner, a recipient of bribes from gambling-houses, a confederate of pirates, and a receiver of stolen goods. His name was never mentioned without being coupled with some epithet having reference to his bad character ; but he was held in such dread that Chinese of standing and property, who exhibited a knowledge of his evil character, would not appear against him, as they said they were in terror of their lives on account of him. That Machow-Wong had been for many years before his conviction intimately connected with pirates and piracy, was notorious throughout the colony. He, and others in confederacy with him, it is asserted, and I believe with truth, kept a Iwng, at which the goods obtained by piracy were received and disposed of, and where pirates were supplied with arms and ammunition. He was the known protector of pirates and other 358 ENGLAND AND CHINA. ruffians resorting to the island, and when they were charged with offences against the law, he provided them with professional as- sistance, intimidated or quieted complainants or witnesses, and by the exercise of the great influence which he possessed, fre- quently contrived to obstruct or prevent the course of justice. There is no doubt that Machow-Wong had the power, through Mr. Caldwell, of directing the movements of the ships of war against pirates, or alleged pirates, whenever he pleased ; and it is asserted that he made use of this power to levy a species of black mail on the piratical fleets on the coast. So long as they con- tinued their payments they were permitted to go on ; but in case of default or disagreement, he denounced them to the authorities, and they were hunted down and captured by British gun-boats, until they were either exterminated or came in and made their peace with him. I see no reason to doubt that Machow-Wong thus made himself the arbiter of the fate of all pirates, by giving information to such of them as were under his protection of the movements of her Majesty's ships, and by launching against others the British naval power. He had unquestionably the power to do so if he pleased." "At last justice overtook this notorious offender; he was arraigned at the August criminal sessions of 1857, upon two charges of confederating with pirates, and was sentenced to fifteen years transportation." " Such was the character of this man, with whom Mr. Caldwell admits he had a long and intimate connection."* Mr. Caldwell is an Anglo- Chinese half-caste, who, after the war of 1842, settled in Hong-Kong, and for twenty years enjoyed the confidence of Sir John Bow- ring, Sir Michael Seymour, and the other high officials of the colony, to an extraordinary degree. He held the positions of " Protector-General of Chinese," and Re- gistrar-General, and was a Justice of the Peace. The Blue-books are full of the most complimentary expres- sions lavished on him by the authorities, for his valu- able services.f His exposure was due mainly to the Despatch from the Governor of Hong-Kong, printed July 1862. f See Sir J. Bowring's despatches to Home Government, in the Blue-books of 1860, relating to Hong-Kong, pp. 1, 179, 274, 280. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 359 untiring energy of Mr. Chisholm Anstey, the Attor- ney-General, who met with the greatest obstacles from the Governor and the acting Colonial Secretary, in pressing his charges. Mr. Caldwell's case was at last inquired into by a colonial commission, and he was found not guilty. Mr. Anstey was recalled in 1858, at the request of Sir John Bowring, for bring- ing vexatious charges, " in a spirit of malignant per- secution, against a valuable public servant." * Mr. Anstey, when in London, so far succeeded in con- vincing the Home Government of the goodness of his case, that a fresh inquiry was ordered by the Duke of Newcastle, which resulted in substantiating, as the despatch from which I have quoted shows, the most serious accusations that Mr. Anstey had made. Sir Hercules Robinson goes on to state in this despatch, that Caldwell not merely assisted Machow- Wong in his difficulties, but that he was joint-owner with him of a well-known piratical lorcha, registered at Hong-Kong, and therefore carrying, like so many others, the British flag; and that he had in his em- ploy a certain Beaver, one of the most notorious pirates of the Chinese waters. The power that he wielded over the British navy appears to have been limitless. " Mr. Caldwell was intrusted with the power of obtaining on his own authority alone the services of men-of-war to proceed in search of alleged pirates ; for nothing further was required of him than to say that he had received information of an act of piracy, and that with no greater formality than this he should apply personally to the senior naval officer for the assistance of one or more ships Sir J. Bowring's Despatches to Home Government, p. 274. 360 ENGLAND AND CHINA. of war, embark himself in one of them, describe the place to which they should proceed, and point out the vessel or place to be attacked." A specimen of this method of procedure is the following: One of the partners of the piratical re- ceiving-store of Mr. Caldwell's friend, Machow-Wong, was a certain Seeko belonging to the village of Kup- chee, on the Chinese coast, more than a hundred miles north of Hong-Kong. One of his junks was captured by pirates. He complained to Mr. Caldwell, who at once, on his own authority, -despatched Cap- tain Whyniatt of the Nimrod, with two other gun- boats, in pursuit. They could not catch the pirates ; but a statement was made that part of the cargo had been landed at another village, Hutung. The in- habitants of Hutung admitted this, but asserted that it had been removed by the pirates. There was no proof whatever that the inhabitants of Hutung were in any way implicated in the transaction; they were not even accused of having committed any act of piracy on the high seas. Let Captain Whyniatt now tell the remainder of the story : " On the following morning (April 5th, 1859) I returned to Hutung, and landed with the armed boats, and through Mr. Cald- well demanded that they should deliver up the cargoes. They admitted that a portion of the cargo, to the amount of two thou- sand dollars, had been landed there, but was not there at that time, excepting two hundred bags of sugar, which had been ran- somed by the owner.'"" I therefore, with the concurrence of Mr. Caldwell, told them that they must pay an indemnity of one thousand dollars, giving two hours for consideration ; at the end of which time, if my demand was not acceded to, I should set fire to the town. Having waited two hours and upwards without their Thus Hutung had probably suffered from the pirates as much as Kup-chee. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 361 showing any signs of coming to terms, I fired a few rockets at intervals over the town, when they ultimately consented to pay the money by a given time; upon which I returned to the ship, informing them, that unless the agreement were fulfilled, I should adopt more severe measures in the morning. At ten o'clock P.M. a boat came on board with a note for the amount, duly attested by the elders of Kup-chee, who were perfectly satisfied, and ex- pressed their thanks for the service we had rendered them. " In conclusion, I must beg to bring to your notice the zealous manner in which the duties were performed by the officers com- manding the gun-boats. I have &c. "R. J. WHYNIATT, Acting Commander"* "If," continues Sir Hercules Robinson, "the mere landing of a cargo captured at sea would justify firing a town, I fear a similar pretext might be found daily for the bombardment of the capital of Hong- Kong." What was done to Mr. Caldwell? The same punishment was inflicted upon him that was inflicted upon Mr. Anstey for having annoyed the colony by exposing him. He was dismissed from the public service. In one respect his punishment was lighter than Mr. Anstey's. Mr. Anstey's disgrace, after such ample proof that it was unmerited, has not been cancelled. He has never been restored to office. Mr. Caldwell has been more fortunate. He practises at this moment, or at least was practising a few months ago, as official arbitrator in the Small Causes Court at Hong-Kong. f So little did the result of Despatch from Governor of Hong-Kong, 1862, pp. 1-18. "Well indeed might one of the most distinguished commanders in our navy say, as he said not long ago to a friend of mine, when speaking of these and similar occurrences, " "We had to obey orders ; but we felt all the time that we were doing pirates' work." Yet they could retain their commissions ! f This was written in 1863. 362 ENGLAND AND CHINA. this trial affect his reputation in the best society at Hong-Kong, that within a few days of its conclusion in Sept. 1861, he was invited to a Freemasons' ban- quet, at which the Colonial Secretary himself pre- sided. When, in 1842, Sir H. Pottinger and Sir J. Davis recommended the seizure of Hong-Kong as the site for a British colony, it was said by them, and perhaps thought sincerely, that " its free and noble institutions would stand one day as a model whereby to work the regeneration of the Chinese empire itself." The world, imperfect as it may be, is yet not so organised that its regeneration is to be achieved by self-complacent injustice. Founded in violence, greed, and fraud, our stronghold on the Chinese coast had become a nest of flagrant piracy, carried on for years with the sufferance, if not the connivance of English gentlemen, in which English ships of war have been, however unconsciously, ac- cessories, and in which the person who took the part above described still enjoys the confidence of some of the highest officials in the colony. We are now in a position to judge of the last China war, the events of which being more fresh in the memory, may be discussed very briefly. The facility with which Chinese coasting vessels could obtain permission to carry the British flag, by procuring a Hong-Kong register, has been already explained. The object of the system, as stated by the colonial treasurer, was to bring trade to Hong-Kong, and make it an entrepot for British manufactures. "It has already," he says in 1855, "added to, and still tends to increase the coasting trade in goods the manufacture of Great Britain, or the produce of ENGLAND AND CHINA. 363 India, such as cotton, opium,* &c., and on the other hand brings to this colony more of the produce of China for export to Europe and India, or transship- ment to other parts of the coast of the empire. "f Smugglers and pirates gladly availed themselves of Hong-Kong registers. The events of 1842 had taught them the immunity which they would be likely to enjoy under the British flag. Lorchas, owned by Chinese, like Machow-Wong, and manned by the off-scourings of the Chinese coast, or by es- caped European or American convicts, infested, and, by the confession of our ambassador at Pekin, still infest, every harbour and river of the empire. The lorcha Arrow belonged to this class of vessels. Her owner was a certain Eong-Aming of Hong-Kong; her crew, with the exception of the master, were all Chinese; she had been notoriously engaged on several occasions in piratical undertak- ings ; and the notice of the Chinese government ap- pears for some time to have been directed to her. On the 8th of October 1856,j she was boarded by order of Commissioner Yeh, in the Canton river: her crew, to the number of twelve, were taken out of her, with the exception of the English master, who was not on board; and her flag was said (though this was invariably denied by the Chinese) to have been hauled down. On the remonstrance of Mr. Parkes, our consul at Canton, nine of the twelve * Opium was still prohibited both by Chinese law and by the treaty of Nankin. Its importation was not legalised till 1859. j- Correspondence respecting Registration of Vessels at Hong-Kong, 1857, p. 7. J Proof of the following statements will be found in Parliamentary Papers relating to proceedings of Her Majesty's naval forces at Can- ton, pp. 1-30. 364 ENGLAND AND CHINA. prisoners were at once restored; the remainder were detained on the ground of their having been by their own confession engaged in piracy in the previous month. But Mr. Parkes, by order of Sir John Bow- ring, insisted on the immediate restoration of the three pirates, and also on a formal apology from Commissioner Yeh. This was refused, on the ground that the lorcha in question was Chinese built, that both her owner and her crew were Chinese subjects,* and that the non-piratical portion of her crew had been at once restored. Ultimately the whole crew were restored ; but as the apology was still refused, Sir John Bowring, in his extreme sensitiveness for British honour, autho- rised the admiral on the station, Sir Michael Seymour, to proceed to extremities without delay. Hostilities began within a week of the alleged outrage. No for- mal declaration of war against the Chinese Empire was made ; but an imperial junk (or what was thought to be so, but in reality a private trading vessel) was seized, by way of reprisals. The apology being still withheld, operations were at once undertaken against the city of Canton, and by the end of the year the forts commanding the city were occupied. Such was the miserable quarrel in which the se- cond China war originated. Our cause was so con- temptible and, when carefully examined, so iniquitous, * It will be borne in mind that the Chinese residents at Hong-Kong were not naturalised as British subjects. Therefore when they came into Chinese waters, it was clear that then at least they fell under Chi- nese jurisdiction. There is yet another feature in the case. '' It ap- pears" (I quote Sir J. Bowring) " that the Arrow had no right to hoist the British flag ; the license to do so expired on the 27th of September, from which period she has not been entitled to protection 1 '' (Proceedings at Canton, p. 10). This consideration, however, was not allowed to weigh. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 365 that it is impossible not to search elsewhere for the real motives. And the search will neither be long; o nor difficult. We find these motives in the instruc- tions which were given to Lord Elgin on his mission to China in 1857. " Although," writes Lord Claren- don, "since the conclusion of the treaty of Nankin the trade of foreign nations with China has been greatly extended, yet even in its present state it falls far short of what might reasonably be expected under an improved system of communication with the Chi- nese people." Lord Elgin was therefore instructed to press his demand (which it was well known would not be granted) of reparation for an imaginary out- rage, as a stepping-stone for obtaining, by force of arms, "increased facilities for commerce, access to cities on the great rivers, as well as to Chapoo and other forts on the coast, and also for permission for Chinese vessels to resort to Hong-Kong for purposes of trade, from all parts of the empire without dis- tinction."* In truth the hopes which fifteen years before had been entertained by our Government and our mer- cantile classes as to the results of the opium war had been miserably disappointed. Sir H. Pottinger, on his return from China in 1842, received a sort of ovation from the great towns of Lancashire ; and in one of his speeches at Manchester he told them that "he had opened up a new world to their trade, so vast that all the mills in Lancashire could not make stocking - stuff sufficient for one of its provinces." Let us see how far these magnificent visions were realised. The value of the exports of British manufactures to * Correspondence relative to Lord Elgin's Mission, 1858, pp. 3, 4. 366 ENGLAND AND CHINA. China in the years 1835 and 1836 was 1,074,0002. and 1,326,0002. respectively; in 1843 it was 1,456,0002. In 1844 and 1845 Sir H. Pottinger's extravagant promises had produced their full effect on our cotton- spinners; and we find the exports reaching the sum of 2,305,0002. and 2,394,0002. But with this amount the markets were so glutted that our goods were in 1846 sold in China for twenty per cent below their cost price. In 1850 our exports had fallen to 1,574,0002. In 1854 they stood at 1,000,7162.; that is to say, they were considerably less than in 1835.* Mr. Mitchell, in his very interesting memorandum on the China trade, addressed to Sir C. Bonham in 1852, discusses in detail, and with great clearness, the causes to which this result is due. It is not due to protective duties ; for by the confession of all our merchants in China, the Chinese tariff, even before the opium war, was far less restrictive than our own is now. The duties levied upon British imports were insignificant compared with those levied upon Chinese produce at Liverpool or London. The real cause according to Mr. Mitchell, and most other competent observers here agree with him, is the untiring energy of the Chinese ; the moderate amount of food at which that energy is maintained in full vigour; and the ad- mirable economy of time and labour which, in spite of the absence of machinery, is maintained in their manufactures. " During ten years," continues Mr. Mitchell, " of uninter- rupted residence in this country, in three separate provinces, and after a most careful observation of the very fact I am now about Memorandum of Mr. Mitchell, contained in Correspondence re- lative to Lord Elgin's Mission, pp. 243-251. I refer also to Mr. Cob- den's speech in the House of Commons, May 31, 1864. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 367 to enlarge upon, I can safely aver that, with the exception of our own domestics, I have never yet seen a Chinaman wearing a gar- ment of our long-cloth who had to get his daily bread by his daily labour. No working Chinaman can aiford to put on a new coat which shall not last him at least three years, and stand the wear and tear of the roughest drudgery during that period. Now a garment of that description must contain at least three times the weight of raw cotton which we put into the heaviest goods we export to China. No doubt we could supply this country with goods as heavy; but whether we could do so as cheaply as they can produce them for themselves, will presently appear. "The best mode of illustrating the question will be by a single example taken from the province with which I am best acquainted, that of Fuh-kien; and I would beg to direct the particular attention of the Board of Trade to the beautiful and simple economy of it ; an economy which renders the system literally impregnable against all the assaults of competition. It is of course understood that the different provinces of China yield different products according to their respective soils and climate, and that the trade of the country with itself consists chiefly in the interchange of those productions. The Northern Provinces yield cotton, amongst other products, in great abundance. The Southern, rice, sugar, fruits, drugs, dyes, and teas. Now the Fuh-kien farmer, among his other crops, raises a certain propor- tion of sugar. This he disposes of in the spring to a trader at the nearest sea-port, who ships it to Tien-tsin, or some other northern port, during the southerly monsoon, undertaking to pay the farmer for it, part in money and part in northern cotton, when his junk returns, say in four to six months. In the autumn the farmer receives his returns, one portion of which consists of cotton, which he works up as follows: When the harvest is gathered, all hands in the farm-house, young and old together, turn to carding, spinning, and weaving this cotton ; and out of this homespun stuff, a heavy and durable material, adapted to the rough handling it has to go through for two or three years, they clothe themselves, and the surplus they carry to the nearest town, where the shopkeeper buys it for the use of the population of the towns and the boat-people on the rivers. Of this homespun stuff nine out of every ten human beings in this country are clothed ; the manufacture varying in quality from the coarsest dungarn to the finest nanking, all produced in the farm-houses, and costing 368 ENGLAND AND CHINA. the producer literally nothing beyond the value of the raw mate- rial, or rather of the sugar which he exchanged for it, the produce of his own husbandry. The Fuh-kien farmer is thus not merely a farmer, but an agriculturist and manufacturer in one. He produces this cloth literally for nothing beyond the cost of the raw material; he produces it, as has been shown, under his own roof-tree, by the hands of his women and farm-servants ; it costs neither extra labour nor extra time. He keeps his domestics spinning and weaving while his crops are growing, and after they are harvested, during rainy weather, when out-door labour cannot be pursued In 1844 I sent musters of this native cloth of every quality home to England; and my correspondents assured me they could not produce it in Manchester at the rates quoted, much less lay it down here. The unceasing industry of this people is their substitute for stearn-power; and, coupled with their swarming numbers, is more than a match for it." " We bring the Chinese," Mr. Mitchell goes on to say, " nothing that is really popular amongst them, except our opium. Opium is the ' open sesame ' to their stony hearts, and woe betide our trade the day we meddle with it, to its injury. As fast as the Company will produce opium, the Chinese will consume it." In the face of evidence of such undeniable weight, and there are many other witnesses of equal com- petence to the same effect, the British Government resolved to make one more attempt to force the China market, and thereby "render the industrious classes, who produce British commodities, happy and prosperous at home."* Of the three hundred mil- lions of peaceable men upon whom war was to be made for the purpose of making thirty millions happy, little was said or thought. War, or at least a threatening policy, of which war was the infallible consequence, was resolved upon ; each trifling insult, each petty grievance which the humblest Chinese official might have inflicted, wi1$ or without cause, upon the humblest merchant's clerk, was carefully Lord Palmerston's speech, May 31, 1864. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 369 treasured up ;* the convenient time having arrived, the first of such grievances that came to hand was chosen; and in 1857 we went to war with the Chinese empire to avenge the sufferings of a piratical schooner. The incidents of the war are well enough known. The troops sent out with Lord Elgin in 1857 were diverted from their purpose during that year in con- sequence of the Indian mutiny. But in December operations were resumed. By the first of January 1858, Canton was taken. The fleet in the spring of that year sailed northwards and captured the forts of the Peiho. In July the treaty of Tien-tsin was signed. In the autumn of that year the details of the revised tariff were arranged ; and Lord Elgin early in 1859 returned to England, having arranged that the ratification of the treaty should take place at Pekin in June. Mr. Bruce was instructed to go to Tien-tsin in a British man-of-war, and thence to proceed to Pekin for this purpose. The Chinese commissioners with whom he was to transact the business met him at Shanghae at the end of May, and requested him to discuss with them there several points of importance connected with the treaty. Mr. Bruce, convinced that they were merely bent on gaining time, refused them an interview, and pushed on to Takoo, at the mouth of the Peiho river, without them, accompanied by the French ambassa- dor, M. de Bourboulon. The consequence was, that he found there no one to receive him, except some local militia, who informed him that the river was * A special Blue-book was issued in 1857, entitled "Insults in China." It contains all the small annoyances which Englishmen in China endured (omitting those which they inflicted) from 1842 to 1856. BB 370 ENGLAND AND CHINA. blocked up to prevent the entrance of the rebels. Mr. Bruce had received previous intimation while at Shanghae that the river had been strongly fortified, and had taken with him. a battalion of marines and a company of engineers. It was resolved to force the passage of the river. Just as operations for this pur- pose were being commenced by Admiral Hope, a despatch reached Mr. Bruce from the governor of the province, informing him that preparations had been made to receive him at another mouth of the river, ten miles to the north, Peh-tang, from which arrangements would be made for his journey to the capital. Utterly disregarding this message, from the conviction that it was merely a dishonest evasion, Mr. Bruce ordered our forces up the river. They met with a severe repulse from the Takoo forts, armed, it was said, with rifled cannon, and manned by Tartar troops, who had at last learned their trade. Aggressors though we undoubtedly were, since it had been no stipulation of the treaty of 1858 that we should claim the Peiho route to the capital, we chose to consider this repulse as a fresh declaration of war ; and in 1860 Lord Elgin was again sent out to China, accompanied by Baron Gros as the representative of France. In August the Takoo forts were captured. In October, in retaliation of the violation of a flag of truce and imprisonment of British subjects by the Tartar general, the Summer Palace of the emperor, the chef-dceuvre of Chinese architecture, was burnt and plundered by the Anglo-French troops; and on the 21st of October the treaty of Tieri-tsin was rati- fied, with additional pecuniary indemnities. The chief clauses of the treaty of Tien-tsin were : Confirmation of the Nankin treaty of 1842. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 371 Right of residence for an ambassador at Pekin. Opening of five additional ports on the sea-coast. Opening of the Yang-tse river as soon as the suppression of the rebellion admitted. Three places on this river were to be opened : one of them the important city of Han-kow. Exterritoriality : " British subjects who may commit any crime in China shall be tried and punished by the consul, or other public functionary authorised thereto, according to the laws of Great Britain." " A British subject having reason to complain of a Chinese must pro- ceed to the consulate and state his grievance. The consul will inquire into the merits of his case, and will do his utmost to arrange it amicably. In like manner, if a Chinese have reason to complain of a British subject, the consul shall no less listen to his complaint, and endeavour to settle it in a friendly manner" (Articles xvi. xvii.). The transit duties imposed on produce as it passed from one province into another were all to be com- muted for one fixed payment, calculated at the rate of two and a half per cent ad valorem. (As the go- vernment of each province in China is dependent on these duties, this provision was certain to introduce terrible confusion.) The introduction of opium at a fixed duty was legalised. The Chinese earnestly pressed that the rate might be fixed at twenty per cent ; but on the great principle of defending this bulwark of Indian finance Lord Elgin was firm ; and it was decided that in no case should the duty on opium exceed ten per cent. Finally, an indemnity of 4,000,000 taels was to be paid by the province of Canton for having given Great Britain the trouble and expense of the war. From the Imperial Government nothing was extorted. 372 ENGLAND AND CHINA. " Every thing we saw," said Lord Elgin, " indicated the penury of the treasury. We came to the con- clusion, that on practical grounds, and apart from certain considerations of morality and justice, which might, perhaps, be urged on behalf of the Chinese Go- vernment, it would be unwise to drive it to despair, and perhaps to extreme measures of resistance." Such, then, has been the policy of England to- wards China during the last thirty years. We have made no extensive territorial aggression as yet : ex- cept the island of Hong-Kong, and the land hired at the treaty - ports, we hold, whether temporarily or permanently, no land in China. But there are not wanting publicists who, with many a hypocritical affectation of regret, prepare the public mind for what they profess to regard as the involuntary des- tiny of England : and the breaches of our alleged neutrality in the recent rebellion ; the pretension to defend an area of thirty miles radius from Shanghae ; and the ominous hints we now and then receive about the " Council of Kent-holders" in that city, who ap- pear disposed to regard themselves as constituting a sort of municipal government, are aggressive indica- tions which it is highly important should not pass unnoticed. But the injuries we have inflicted on China are other than territorial. If it is ruinous to the self-respect, and therefore to the public order and wellbeing, of a nation, to have foreign settlements forcibly implanted in its midst, it is even more fatal and pernicious that its own internal legislation, whe- ther criminal or financial, should be at the mercy of a foreign Power. If it is deeply wounding to the self-respect of Spain that we should occupy Gibraltar, how far more humiliating, how incomparably more ENGLAND AND CHINA. 373 fatal to its interests, how far more disgraceful to our honour, were we to assume the pretension of regu- lating its tariff for the sole benefit of English mer- chants and English labourers ! How small the differ- ence between submitting to the rule of a foreign conqueror and submitting to the monstrous claim of exterritoriality, by which a British subject who had robbed or murdered a Spaniard in a Spanish port should assert his right to be tried not by Spanish but by British law, and by a British judge! Yet forcible regulation of the commercial ' tariffs, and forcible assertion of the British criminal law in cases of injuries committed by British residents or sailors on Chinese subjects, have been two cardinal prin- ciples of our Chinese policy. There is one feature of the last Chinese war of which nothing has been said. It was distinguished from the opium war by the fact that in it we united our arms with those of France. Their pretext for interfering was the death of a Catholic missionary, M. Chapdelaine, who, in direct contradiction to the express law of the country, had been disseminating his doctrines in the province of Quang-si, and was executed according to law in February 1856. The admiration we may feel for his courage must not blind us to the fact that he was acting in plain de- fiance of constituted authority, and that the conse- quences were those of which he had a clear know- ledge beforehand. Our own missionaries have been less adventurous ; yet the result of their teaching has not been less injurious. Hung-tse-tsuen, the leader of the great rebellion, which collapsed with his death last summer at the capture of Nankin, based his re- ligious and political system on a series of Protestant 374 ENGLAND AND CHINA. tracts written by a convert of Dr. Milne.* The sys- tem was a travesty of Christianity, thoroughly pene- trated with the animosities and the combative spirit of Jewish history. Of course neither the writer of the tracts nor his teacher are responsible for the extra- vagant and destructive excesses of Hung-tse-tsuen ; but the whole history is a strong and terrible illus- tration of the extreme danger of importing and dis- seminating broadcast doctrines wholly new and in one sense profoundly revolutionary, without the slightest guarantee that they would be rightly interpreted. II. CHINESE CIVILISATION AND HISTORY. To regenerate the Oriental policy of Western nations is one of the most essential applications of that system of political and social life and thought to which Auguste Comte has given the name of Positivism. The political spirit of the syst'em is best indicated in that which is its highest aim, the subordination, namely, of politics to morality. It is an aim which applies to every department of prac- tical life, domestic, national, European, or cosmo- politan. But in each case, before a wise course of action can be systematically pursued, scientific know- ledge, that is to say, a theory sufficiently real, definite, and coherent to admit of something like foresight, is necessary. Savoir, pour prevoir, a/in de pourvoir. Wise empirical instinct, in the absence of definite principle, has no doubt occasionally led statesmen of the highest order to choose the right course, even See Brine's Taeping Rebellion, p. 66. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 375 when it ran counter to the public opinion of their time. But from the empirical instincts of average statesmen, guided mainly by the pressure of domi- nant interests and parties, nothing of the kind is to be hoped. It is on the current of contemporary opi- nion, ignorant or enlightened, ignoble or honourable as it may be, that the national policy will depend. To modify and renovate the opinion of Europe, to implant in it strong, sound, and coherent convictions upon all public questions, is therefore the sole hope of those who would regenerate our policy. The policy which for the last thirty years England and other Western Powers have been pursuing in China is a very obvious exemplification of this truth. We have acted in profound ignorance, and with the con- tempt that springs from ignorance., of the civilisation with which we have had to deal. Our policy has therefore, as might have been foreseen, been blind, brutal, and unjust. Two motives, acting with very unequal degrees of strength, have animated it, to the exclusion of all others ; the desire for gain, and the hope of religious proselytism. Comparing English ac- tion in China with Spanish action three centuries ago in Mexico and Peru, it is by no means clear that the advantage is on our side. Nothing so shameless as the opium war is to be found in Spanish history. The chief difference between the two cases is that the second of the two motives I have mentioned, the spirit of religious proselytism, has, from the obvious weakening of theological belief at home, acted in our case very much less powerfully than in theirs. Spa- nish merchants and soldiers were for the most part sincere in their wish to save the souls of those whom they spoliated. In our case the religious motive has 376 ENGLAND AND CHINA. been confined to a small though not unimportant sec- tion ; and its worst effect has been that it has stopped the mouths of men who would have protested against the trade in opium as they protested fifty years ago against the trade in slaves, but for the secret hope that it might be " opening a door" for the propaga- tion of their own religious belief.* On the principle, then, that if a wiser and nobler course of policy is to be inaugurated in China, it is essential to have truer views of what Chinese civili- sation really is, and of the position which it occupies relatively to the civilisation of the West, the follow- ing pages are offered as a contribution towards this object, f It has been so often repeated as to have become almost a truism, that Chinese civilisation is at a stand- still, and that it has remained stagnant for some twenty or thirty centuries. Yet in this truism there has al- ways lain a paradox. To the philosophic student of history the hypothesis of so complex a social system rising up in so remote a period, without apparent link of connection either to the world around it or before it, has always been difficult, if not incredible. But a ** Some Protestant missionaries have stood out as noble exceptions, as e. y. Mr. Medhurst ; but the greater number have been silenced by considerations such as those stated above. Mr. Cobbold, one of our missionaries, reveals incautiously the arcana, imperil in this matter. " The Archbishop of Canterbury," he says, " gave wise counsel to the newly - appointed diocesan of Hong-Kong not to preach a crusade against the opium traffic." See his Life in China, p. 111. f The mass of material available for this purpose is very great. There are fourteen quarto volumes of Jesuit memoirs, full of accurate and detailed information ; of these I have consulted Duhalde and Amiot. These and the work on China by Pauthier ; his translation of Confucius and Mencius ; the Melanges Asiatiques of Remusat ; above all the Civilisation Chinoise of Pierre Lafitte, in which the subject is treated from the Positivist point of view, have been my chief authorities. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 377 brief glance at the history of China, as based on docu- ments now known to be authentic, shows the ordinary view, whether plausible or paradoxical, to be alto- gether groundless. The records of Chinese authority accepted by scholars like Rernusat, Pauthier, and Stanislas Julien, extend, with more or less detail and precision, over a period of about 4000 years. With the exception of two long periods of anarchy, these records form an almost continuous narrative of poli- tical, social, and material progress. At the era when Rome was founded, and the first Greek republics were struggling into life, it seems clear that Chinese civilisation had not advanced south of the Hoang-ho, and was limited to the area of the existing provinces of Chan-si and Chin-si. Between that time and the present it has extended north, south, east, and west, until at the time of Lord Macartney's embassy it co- vered more than a million of square miles ; and if we include the whole region over which Kien-Loung then claimed feudal authority, the empire of China at the close of the last century extended from the mouth of the great river of Mantchouria to the nor- thern slopes of the Himalayan Mountains. Prior to the brief and meagre records of those primitive cen- turies, we find traditions of an energetic people emerging from barbarism by the usual slow and painful struggles. We find grateful memories of heroes and discoverers who freed their fellow-men from the dangers of the flood or forest, and taught them the first simple arts of sedentary life. We hear of the first tamer of animals, the first inventor of the plough, the first musician, the lawgiver who founded the institution of marriage and the rites of worship, the wise men who fixed the length of the year, and 378 ENGLAND AND CHINA. who taught rules for the measurement of the soil. Gradually down the course of the Hoang-ho, and in the country between it and the Yang-tse, this nascent civilisation extended. Political unity there was none. There was a common race, a common language, and something like community of worship; but politically, what we find in the time of Confucius, and even two or three centuries later, is a collection of small prin- cipalities, recognising more or less willingly the no- minal and honorary supremacy of a dominant family. In the third century B.C., what may be called, for want of a more appropriate term, the feudal system of China, gave place to the vigorous government of Thsin-chi, who may be considered as the real founder of the Chinese empire. Not only did he centralise the government of the eight or nine small kingdoms which had previously recognised his authority, but a vast additional area, the whole of what is now Southern China was conquered, and brought for the first time within the pale of civilisation. To the north the great wall still remains as a monument of his power, a proof rather than an instrument of the suc- cess with which he contended against the inundating forces of Tartar barbarism. From the time of this great governor to that of the great rulers of the present dynasty, the object has been to develop and extend the resources of this im- mense region; and with the exception of a disas- trous period of anarchy between the third and the sixth century A.D., this object has been pursued with continuous success. The reigning dynasty has fre- quently been changed. Thrice have Tartar families seized the throne of Pekin, and one of them still holds it; but the effect of these dynastic changes upon the ENGLAND AND CHINA. 379 social condition of the empire has been comparatively insignificant. The conquerors, whether Mongol or Mantchou, have always adopted and maintained a civilisation, the superiority of which they fully recog- nised ; and the result of their usurpations has been, not that Tartar barbarism has inundated China, but that Chinese civilisation has penetrated into Tartary. From the beginning of the twelfth century one of those periods of dynastic revolutions which, as will be seen afterwards, form almost an organic part of the Chinese system, had set in ; and for one hun- dred and fifty years the Soung dynasty divided their power with the Kin, a race of Mantchou or North- Tartary origin, who made themselves masters of China as far south as Nankin. But meantime a far more formidable power was rising among the Tartars of the West. The mighty Mongol was sweeping through Central Asia, and louring over Europe in a hurricane of conquest. The grandsons of Genghis Khan divided his vast dominions; and to the lot of Hou-pi-li fell those which formed the western bound- ary of China. He was not the man to rest contented with the government of barren steppes and nomad tribes. Before him lay the choicest and richest re- gions of his known world. The empire, as I have said, was divided, and his task was easy. He offered his dangerous assistance to the southern dynasty of Soung against the northern usurpers. Things fol- lowed in the usual course ; and by the middle of the thirteenth century Marco Polo, the Venetian, found the Youan or Mongol dynasty firmly established in China, from their newly - built city of Pekin to Canton. But Hou-pi-li was a conqueror of the school of 380 ENGLAND AND CHINA. Theodoric rather than of Attila, and was perfectly well aware that he and his chiefs had every thing to learn from those they claimed to govern. The notion of overthrowing the ancient and majestic structure of Chinese civilisation was wholly foreign to his mind ; and his whole effort, the military work once over, seems to have been spent in qualifying himself for the high office of protecting and ennobling it. He at once called to his court three of the most eminent natives of the literary class, and intrusted them with the highest offices of government, especially with those relating to industry and education. With the help of one of these, Yao-chow, he became himself a most laborious student of the traditions and religion of the empire, and of the teaching of its great mo- ralists. At the same time he gave willing welcome to astronomers and men of science from India and Arabia. He himself professed the creed of his family and nation ; that is to say, the Thibetian or Lamaistic form of Buddhism; but how little this faith inter- fered with his acceptance of the ancient and dominant religion of China, of what may be called, though it is far older than Confucius, Confucianism, is shown by his adoption of its fundamental institution, the wor- ship of ancestors. A magnificent temple was built by his order at Pekin, where with the strictest forms observed by the humblest of his subjects, he bowed down in worship to the father of the mighty Genghis, the founder of his race. He reestablished, at the request of the literate class, the ancient col- leges and the system of appointment to offices by examinations; that singular yet effective check upon despotism, by which it is placed in the power of the humblest citizen in a provincial town to rise to the ENGLAND AND CHINA. 381 highest position in the state. He reorganised the tribunal of historians, to which the conscious con- tinuity of Chinese civilisation is in a great measure due. The temples of Confucius were restored to their full honour; and the names of recent teachers were added to the calendar of saints and sages, who, as disciples of Confucius, are held up to the venera- tion of posterity. But the Mongol dynasty held the throne of China only for a hundred years. Subsequent emperors dege- nerated from the first founder : the unwise encourage- ment given to Buddhist lamas excited the opposition of the educated and official class ; and the extreme feebleness of the emperor Chun-ti coinciding, so it seemed, with an unusual succession of earthquakes and famines (and the latter of these, at least, were doubtless dependent more or less upon misgovern- ment), made it clear to men that Heaven was pre- paring the advent of a new dynasty. Pirates ap- peared along the coasts; insurrections broke out in the north and south ; for a long time anarchy, at the least as extensive as that which we have seen during the last fifteen years, reigned through the empire. At length, from a Buddhist convent in one of the o / southern provinces, there issued the man appointed by Heaven to restore peace. Tchou, best known in Europe by the name of Houng-wou, the founder of the Ming dynasty, was the son of a peasant, and rose to fame and power by his own native energy and wisdom. He joined one of the rebel bands, became their chief, passed the Yang-tse river, took possession of the important province of Kiang-nan, and estab- lished his court in the ancient capital of Pekin. It was not, however, till after several years, when his 382 ENGLAND AND CHINA. superiority over the Mongol dynasty and over the other rebel leaders became palpable to every one, that he believed himself entitled to assume the name of emperor. His generals and the chief civil autho- rities represented to him that the voice of the nation, the course of events, the will of Heaven, had mani- festly declared upon his side. Those who have shaken off the weak superstition, once so prevalent, as to Cromwell's hypocrisy, will not be inclined to cavil at his answer : " Since Heaven and men will have it so, I yield," he replied; and he then solemnly declared, before Heaven and Earth, that not by am- bition nor from any personal motive did he assume this office, but in obedience to the will of Heaven, whose order had been manifested by the voice of the people, and transmitted to him by the officers and statesmen of the empire. Accordingly, in the first month of the year 1368 he offered, as son of Heaven, the ancient imperial sacrifice in the temple of Heaven at Pekin. He reigned thirty years. The records of his administration, edited by the Tribunal of Annal- ists more than two centuries afterwards, under the critical eye of the Mantchou dynasty which succeeded him, show us a wise, benevolent, and energetic go- vernor, penetrated with the intensest spirit of Chinese nationality, and animated by strong sympathies with the mass of the labouring population, from whom he sprung. On one occasion, after performing the usual sacrifice of the winter solstice, he is reported to have taken his son into the fields, and pointing to the groups of hard-working labourers whom they saw there : " These men," he said, " are now putting their seed into the earth, trusting that it will bear fruit in season. It is for us, my son, that these poor men ENGLAND AND CHINA. 383 are working : they wear themselves out with toil, and have themselves hardly food enough to repair the strength of their bodies : we reap the fruits of their labours. Our fathers were of these men. I have seen them dropping their sweat upon the fields, and I know what they have to bear. Had I had bodily strength enough, I should be now labouring like them, and you would be a peasant's son. Heaven has willed otherwise ; but never forget our former station; and let the memory of it hinder you from looking down on those whose lives are destined to be spent in hard toil." As a general he was fully successful. He re- stored the prestige of the Chinese arms ; and after having driven the Mongols from China, he restored the feudal authority of China over the Mongol prin- cipalities outside the empire. His internal adminis- tration was distinguished by rigorous economy, by remission of all needless taxation, and by zealous support of the national religion. Every rite, every sacrifice that had been abolished or neglected by the later Mongols he carefully restored. The Buddhist lamas, who had multiplied their indolent convents to mischievous excess, were tolerated as before, but no longer patronised and encouraged ; while the Con- fucians, or literate class, were endowed and fostered. Like many of the former emperors, he established institutions which Western pride has often thought peculiar to Christendom: hospitals for the sick and orphans ; almshouses for old men without families to support them. Public libraries were also set up in the capital cities of each province. The waste lands belonging to the state were brought into cultivation, the peasantry of the neighbourhood being allowed to 384 ENGLAND AND CHINA. hold them rent-free for a certain number of years. A general survey and census of the empire was made, and the laws were more or less completely codified. His will, published in every province of the em- pire four years before his death, narrates the results of his life with becoming dignity : "It is now long since I received the order of Heaven to govern men: I have reigned for thirty-one years. I have done all in my power not to fail in my duty. I have brought peace into the empire, and restored its ancient glory. I have not been idle nor negligent, for I have always been employed either in war or in business of state. I have always sought the welfare of the people, and I think that it is satisfied of my good intentions. My birth was humble ; I had no virtues nor deserts ; I received the government without seeking it, and indeed without desiring it. I put the wise emperors of past times before me as models for my government: I know that I have not succeeded in imitating them in every point, but I can truly say that I have used every effort to do so. I am now seventy-one years old; my strength grows less, and I shall soon pay the debt of men : this does not trouble me. " In order to leave the empire after my death in peace and quietness, I choose my grandson Choung-wou for my successor. I have seen in him prudence and mildness; I think that he will rule well. He is the son of my eldest son, and therefore it is well that my choice should fall upon him. Let all princes and officers, whether military or civil, have for him the same respect as for me; and let all my subjects know my will. I wish my body to be placed in the tomb that I have prepared for it, and let nothing be changed in the places round it. Let the ceremonies be such as were observed at the death of Wen-ti, of the Han dynasty. Lest the princes, my sons, should raise any disturbance, I com- mand each of them to stay in his own dominions, and let none come to the capital." The tradition of good government lasted for about a century after his death. Gradually, however, after that time the stock degenerated. The influences of unworthy favourites and of Buddhist lamas increased ENGLAND AND CHINA. 385 at court. The usual results of misgovernment, fa- mines and invasions, followed ; and the additional signs of comets and earthquakes were hardly needed to show that Heaven was withdrawing its favour from the dynasty of Ming. Rebellions again broke out in every province: the Mantchou Tartars hung threateningly on the northern boundary; and during the reigns of three emperors, for a period of thirty years, the empire was again agonising, as is the case at the present time, and as had frequently been the case before, in a crisis of anarchy ; anarchy, however, which is always purely political, not social, in its nature. The Mandarins used the boldest and most strenuous efforts to convince their sovereign of the displeasure of Heaven, as manifested in the miseries and dangers of the empire. But things went from bad to worse : Li-tseu-ching, one of eight insurgent leaders, besieged and took Pekin; the emperor re- fused to survive the disgrace, and closed the Ming dynasty with his life. His ablest general, Ou-san- kouei, took the desperate resolution of calling in Tsoung-te, the chief of the Mantchou Tartars, against the rebels. He had long been waiting for the sum- mons ; and by the middle of the seventeenth century the new dynasty of the Tai-tsing, which still reigns, was firmly seated in the Chinese capital. Tsoung-te died at the moment of triumph. The ultimate con- quest of the empire was due to his brother, Amavang, who met with desperate resistance, both in the north- ern and southern provinces, from partisans of the old dynasty. The struggle occupied more than ten years ; but with the capture of Canton, A.D. 1650, the con- quest was complete. As the date of the Mantchou conquest coincided cc 386 ENGLAND AND CHINA. with that of the entrance of the Jesuits into China, we are supplied with very minute and authentic details from impartial observers as to the social re- sults of this dynastic change. And we find, as the previous history of China would have led us a priori to expect, that the Mantchous showed the same re- gard for Chinese civilisation as the Mongols.* The forced introduction of the Tartar method of dressing the hair was the only sign of conquest; the object of it being apparently to promote the assimilation of the two nations. In other respects the adoption of Chinese habits by the Tartars was complete. The fa- ther of Tsoung-te, who had as far back as 1618 formed the scheme of conquest, had sent him when a boy into China, and had had him thoroughly instructed in its language, laws, and literature ; and succeeding emperors governed in the same spirit. They made no organic change in the ancient institutions. Chi- nese continued to be the official language ; Confucian mandarins divided with Tartars the chief offices in the six central boards or tribunals of state at Pekin ; and the civil government of the provinces and towns of the interior was left entirely in their hands. The impartiality of the examination system, the peculiar institution of China, and the safeguard of its liberties, was rigorously upheld. During the three reigns of Kang-hi, Young-tching, and Kian-loung, that is to say from 1662 to 1796 A.D., the empire enjoyed a degree of prosperity and of healthy vigour to which few countries of the Eastern or Western world at The care which up to the present day is taken of the tombs of the Ming dynasty by its conquerors and successors has been pointed out recently by Dr. Rennie ; who remarks also that not less respect has been shown to the tombs of the Jesuit missionaries. Rennie's Pekin and the Pekinese. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 387 any period of their history can show a parallel. In- ternally, the increase of population and of wealth during this period was immense. The outlying re- gions of Thibet, little Bokhara, Mongolia, Mantchou- ria, and the Corea, were reduced to feudal dependence on Pekin; and thus what had always been the most apparent and obvious danger of Chinese civilisation, barbarian invasion (for the still more dangerous inva- sion of Western commercialism was but imperfectly foreseen as yet), was effectually removed. Great en- couragement was given to Chinese literature ; and the Jesuit missionaries, the most heroic and the most enlightened of all Christian propagandists, were mak- ing strenuous and partially successful efforts to in- troduce Western science. An extract from the will of Kang-hi, whose reign coincided nearly with that of Louis XIV., will show at least the standard at which he aimed : we have the authority of such shrewd and critical observers as the Fathers Gaubil and Amiot for asserting that he did not fall far below it : " I the emperor, who honour Heaven, and who am charged with its decrees, say: from all time it has been the duty of those who govern the universe to revere Heaven and to follow the ways of our ancestors. The true way to do this is to treat kindly those who come from far, and to promote according to their worth those who are near; to give the people peace and plenty; to aim at the good of the world as at our own; to make our heart one with the heart of the world; to preserve the State from dangers before they come, and to meet all disturbances with wisdom. The ruler who works with this design from morning till night, and even during his sleep thinks of it, is not far from having done his duty. " I the emperor, who am seventy years old, and have reigned sixty years, owe this to the invisible help of Heaven and of Earth, of my Ancestors, and of the Power which rules the tillage of the empire; I owe it not to my weak reason. Three hundred and one 388 ENGLAND AND CHINA. emperors have reigned during the last 4350 years; few have reigned so long as I. I cannot indeed say that I have changed all evil customs and reformed men's manners; I have not brought plenty into every family, nor satisfied each man's needs; and therefore I cannot compare myself to the wise rulers of the three first dynasties. Yet I can say that during so long a reign I have had no other end than to bring peace into the empire, to make my people happy, each in his condition. For this I have toiled, and it has worn out the strength of my mind and body. " Our dynasty gained the empire not by spoliation, though we might have done it; but by the wish of the great men and of the whole nation. They performed the funeral rites of the last em- peror of the Ming in due custom. It is Heaven who fixes the destiny of dynasties: if it has decreed them a long life, nothing can obstruct their course During my life I have put no one to death without due cause. I have not spent the trea- sures of the empire uselessly. I have collected only the tribute necessary for the support of the army and to provide against famine. "When I travelled through the empire, I have not allowed the houses where I stayed to be hung with silk; and what I have spent yearly in these journeys amounts not to the hundredth part of what has been spent each year in making and repairing the dikes of rivers Young-tching, the fourth of my sons, is a man of rare worth. He inherits my character, and will, I doubt not, be able to bear the burden of the empire. I choose him for my successor. Let this edict be published in every pro- vince, so that all may know it." Hardly less illustrious was the grandson of Kang- lii, Kien-loung, who reigned from 1735 to 1796. "His reign," says Abel Remusat, "brought addi- tional splendour to the Mantchou dynasty. His political views were perhaps less broad than those of Kang-hi ; but his character was firm, his intellect penetrating ; he was gifted with extraordinary energy, and he was singularly upright in his dealings. He loved his people as a Chinese sovereign should love them; that is, he governed them with justice, and maintained peace and plenty among his subjects. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 389 Six times in the course of his reign he visited the southern provinces, each time with some useful object, whether to construct dikes against marine inundations, or to punish misgovernment and em- bezzlement among his officers. He repaired the channels of the Hoang-ho and the Yang-tse. Five times, either on his mother's birthday or his own, he remitted the taxes payable in silver ; five times those payable in kind; besides other partial remissions in various provinces to meet occasional distress from bad harvests or from inundations." In war, so far as war was needed, he was successful. The work of consolidating Chinese authority among the Tartar tribes outside the frontiers was carried on prosper- ously. Two generations afterwards, Hue and Gabet give indisputable proof of the profound respect with which Tartar chiefs regard the Chinese empire, even when they are resisting the excesses of its authority. Kien-loung gave every encouragement to literature, and was himself a successful author both in the Mantchou and Chinese languages. The history of the Mantchou government during the present century is more obscure, because, owing to the expulsion or suppression of the Jesuits, we have been deprived to a great extent of their invalu- able testimony. It is the practice of the Chinese not to publish the history of their emperors until the time of the succeeding dynasty, although the manu- scripts of the contemporary annalists are most scru- pulously preserved. It is, however, certain that Kia- king and his successors of the present century have been men of inferior worth ; that misgovernment and corruption have prevailed extensively, as has been so frequently the case before ; and that for several years 390 ENGLAND AND CHINA. previous to Lord Napier's aggressive mission formid- able rebellions had broken out in various provinces. Of this temporary crisis of anarchy the most has been made. It is the fashion with aggressive states- men, whether English or Eussian, when their eye is directed to an object of future spoliation, to portray it as suffering from some deep-seated political disease, for which, as they would persuade their philanthropic countrymen, annexation is the only cure. But Chinese history proves in the plainest and most unmistakable way that the " sick man" left to himself has always possessed an ample supply of recuperative energy. The rapid and cursory review that has been here taken is sufficient to convince us how destitute of foundation is the common belief so readily accepted by statesmen, merchants, and editors, that the Chinese empire is in a state of effete and hopeless decay. On the one hand it is certain that during the whole of the last century the vitality and vigour of this poli- tical system was equal, if not superior, to that of any period of its history during the last four thousand years : and on the other hand it is no less certain that the feebleness of government and the consequent anarchy which have recently prevailed, are not ex- ceptional in Chinese history. Crises similar in kind and worse in degree and in duration have occurred before, at intervals of two or three centuries. From these crises the inherent vitality of the social or- ganism has always been sufficient to bring complete recovery. Sometimes the renovating force has come from an insurgent army ; sometimes from an outly- ing Tartar tribe, whether independent or bound by vassal ties, yet always of kindred blood. In either case the substantial result has been the same. The ENGLAND AND CHINA. 391 insurgent leader or Tartar chief has always looked upon himself and his dynasty, not as the conquerors of a subject province, imposing on it new laws, ex- acting arbitrary tribute, and trampling on its self- respect with the reckless avarice of a commercial cor- poration or the ignoble pride of a dominant race; but as delegates of the supreme Heaven, called to the highest and hardest task that can fall to the lot of man, to direct the destinies of the great empire in a spirit of reverence for her ancient religion and laws, and to secure the peace and welfare of her people. The great men of the present dynasty have fully main- tained this standard. There is no reason whatever to suppose that future dynasties would fall below it. As in political power and vigour, so with regard to arts, industry, and intellectual enlightenment, the stationary theory of Chinese civilisation is altogether refuted by the facts. Continual additions have been made to the inheritance of the past. The invention of paper took place in the second century A.D., that is to say, between 600 and 700 years after the death of Confucius ; that of printing in the ninth century. The tenth century, in which the intellectual activities of Western Europe were somewhat dormant, was dis- tinguished in China by extraordinary literary deve- lopment ; but some of the best histories, fictions, and dramas, as well as encyclopedias, dictionaries, and other works of erudition, have been written during the two last dynasties.* Proo-ress in the general diffusion of knowledge O O Chinese literature is particularly rich in encyclopaedias, both of a special or professional, and of a general kind. Among the latter, that of Ma-tpuan-lin is the most famous. This author nourished in the thirteenth century. His work consists of 24 sections divided into 348 books. The titles of the former are worth giving, as iUustrating 392 ENGLAND AND CHINA. and enlightenment is not less certain. The estab- lishment, in the ninth century A.D., of the system by which offices of state were thrown open to free competition by literary examination, a system the merits and demerits of which need not be discussed here, has given a greater stimulus to study than has ever been applied in any European country. And in no European country, previous to the beginning of the present century, was there so large a proportion of the population able to read and write. " All parents," says Captain Brine, " even those belonging to the concrete and practical direction of the Chinese mind. The list is taken from the Melanges Asiatiques of A. Kemusat, vol. ii. 1. Division of lands, and their produce under different dynasties ; 7 books. 2. Currency, metallic or paper ; 2 books. 3. Population, and its variations ; 2 books. 4. Administration ; 2 books. 5. Customs, excise, octrois, &c. ; 6 books. 6. Commerce and exchange ; 2 books. 7. Land-tax ; 1 book. 8. State expenditure ; 5 books. 9. Promotion and rank of magistrates ; 12 books. 10. Studies for the State literary examinations ; 7 books. 11. Functions of magistrates ; 21 books. 12. Sacrifices ; 23 books. 13. Temples of ancestors ; 15 books. 14. Court ceremonial ; 22 books. 15. Music ; 15 books. 16. War ; 13 books. 17. Punishments ; 12 books. 18. Classical books ; 76 books. This section is of itself a sort of encyclopaedia of Chinese literature. 19. Chronology and genealogy of reigning dynasties ; 10 books. 20. Principalities dependent on the empire ; 10 books. 21. Astronomy ; 17 books. 22. Earthquakes, inundations, and other natural calamities ; 20 books. 23. Geography of China ; 9 books. 24. Geography of foreign countries ; 25 books. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 393 the poorest of the labouring class, deem the placing of their sons at school a matter of the first importance; and for this purpose I have known agricultural labourers and boatmen save as much as possible out of their small earnings from the day of their mar- riage, and look forward with hope to the time when the boy can be sent away to pick up the slight amount of learning so requisite for his future success in life."* The material progress of China in wealth and in population, from the earliest times of which we have exact record, is also obvious. The recent censuses exhibit an immense increase in numbers as compared with that taken at the beginning of the century, or with those of previous dynasties; and the means of sustaining the population seem to have increased in something more than an equal ratio. Thus, whether we look at the political power of China, at her national wealth, or at her intellectual acquisitions, we cannot but see that the common view, that China is in a state of decline from an arrested state of growth reached twenty or thirty centuries ago, is in every respect erroneous. We see, on the contrary, a slow but nearly continuous growth of this immense organism; interrupted indeed occasionally by dynastic revolutions, but invariably recovering the lost ground, repairing the broken chain of tradition, and adding fresh links. By what means, it may now be inquired, has this great social fabric been held together? Where and of what kind are its principles of cohesion, its vital forces? I have taken the dynamical point of view Brine's Taeping Eebellion (1862), p. 13. He gives it as the result of his personal inquiries, that about one-fifth of the population, at least " in the thriving districts bordering upon the mouths of the great rivers," including women and children, would be found to read mode- rately. "With the boat population the proportion is still higher" (p. 19). 394 ENGLAND AND CHINA. first, as having the closest relation with the erroneous belief in Chinese stagnation, which it is practically important to remove: but it would have been more logical to have begun with the statical aspect of the subject ; to have examined the organisation, before we studied the function ; to have investigated Chinese order, before demonstrating Chinese progress. A few words, then, on the spiritual and temporal order of China. The centre of a nation's life, as of a man's life, is its religion. What is the religion of China? What O CD is its standard of spiritual health ; its ideal of conduct, of duty? For there is a mode of religion in China, which, differing utterly in outward ritual and even in the object of adoration from our own, yet satisfies to a very large degree the essential meaning and true spirit of the word. Amid all the forms of worship which have prevailed among men, whether Fetishist or Polytheist, whether Catholic, Mohammedan, or Protestant, one instinctive purpose may be traced, followed out in each to various degrees of perfection. That purpose is to control, to regulate, to reduce to unity the discordant passions of man's heart, by impressing him with the consciousness that he is not his own; that he is not isolated in the universe; that he is indissolubly linked with and subordinated to an external poAver; a power superior to and un- shaken by the conflicting desires of his own imperfect nature. The phases of the world's faith appear to the superficial observer so multitudinous and intricate, that to seek for the law of their formation, the com- mon basis on which they meet, might seem as im- possible as to account for the lawless phantoms of the ENGLAND AND CHINA. 395 madman's brain, or to follow the endless ramifications of thought in dreams. But attentively considered, while differing not only in form and in ritual, but in dogma, they all agree in this. Every creed, whether it be Indian, Greek, or Christian, so far as it is really and heartily believed, exercises a strong government over the affections of the soul; checks more or less imperfectly the self-seeking propensities, and calls forth the aspiring emotions of love and reverence. Therefore religion, under whatever name or form, has always been a source, a two-fold source, of union amongst men. For in the first place, those of the same faith have been ever strongly bound together by a common dogma, a common object of adoration. Secondly, and in a still deeper sense, the unity, the harmony, the concentration, which it is the function of religion to effect in the soul, implies that the lower or selfish passions are subordinated by it to the higher or unselfish. It is a check on avarice, anger, ambition, and the other self-regarding instincts; which, since they cannot be indulged in by each man except at the expense of his fellows, and since no one of them can be called into predominant action except by for- cible suppression of the rest, are a source of disturb- ance and disunion. It develops and stimulates the unselfish emotions of love, reverence, and pity ; which, though naturally and organically weaker than the selfish, admit of being called into action by all men simultaneously, and are indeed infinitely strength- ened by the consciousness of common sympathy. Obviously, the degree of perfection to which this type has been realised has varied very largely, as in different men, so in different ages and countries, and has seldom or never reached its ideal complete- 396 ENGLAND AND CHINA. ness. To secure the supreme object of awakening the latent emotion of reverence, dull and feeble as it naturally must have been with primitive men, sa- vage or nomad, men crushed by the hard necessities of material life, a direct sanction was frequently given by the empirical instincts of their spiritual guides to some one of the lower and stronger passions, whether vanity or anger or even desire, as in the polytheism of India, or fear of future torment, as in Mohammedan and in most Christian churches, in order that by the alliance of its added energy some effective discipline might be imposed upon the rest. So far as these lower motives have been used, the ideal type of religion, the true government and culture of the soul, has been im- perfectly attained. And the imperfection is only ren- dered tolerable by comparing it with the alternative seen in morbid and corrupt periods of the world's his- tory; that chaos and anarchy of the moral nature justly braijded by former ages under the name of irreligion. The method by which Religion pursues her object of securing union among men; the scheme of faith on which the minds and hearts of fellow- worshippers are fixed, has, it is true, often proved, and still proves, a source of disunion amongst men. But here it is not religion, as in his indignant scorn Lucretius would have us believe, that is to blame. It is that, owing to the unequal stages of maturity to which the human intellect in different nations has grown, the true con- ception of a dogma in which all men can unite has hitherto been wanting. The nations of the world differ, as each nation at different stages of its own growth has differed, in their mode of regarding the relation of their own life to the Universe around them. And this difference we may explain by the ENGLAND AND CHINA. 397 sociological law* discovered by Comte ; according to which all human conceptions, whether relating to the external world or to man's own nature, pass, or tend to pass, with various degrees of rapidity through three stages of development. Explaining phenomena at first by supernatural agencies, and afterwards by metaphysical abstractions, men end in the final or positive stage by limiting themselves to the study of their laws of succession and similitude. Applying this law to the explanation of Chinese civilisation, we find, as we might expect, that the Chinese mind has not yet passed, collectively speak- ing, beyond the first of these stages ; that it still re- mains, that is, in the supernatural, or, as it has been also called, the theological stage. In this stage the phenomena of nature are conceived to be produced by the agency of affections, of passions, of wills, ana- logous to our own. But in this phase of belief there are two successive degrees, widely different yet passing into each other by very slow gradations. In the first, the affection or will is conceived as residing in the object regarded; in the second, as residing outside it. The first of these degrees is Fetishism; the second Theism, whether polytheism or mono- theism. To the Fetishist the tree, or rock, or river is animated, like his own body, with vital and moral forces ; is itself living. To the Theist it is but dead inanimate matter, moulded by the will of a god. Of this law Mr. Mill observes: "It could not easily be conceived from the mere enunciation of such a proposition what a flood of light it lets in upon the whole course of history ; when its consequences are traced, by connecting with each of the three states of human intellect which it distinguishes, and with each successive modification of those three states, the correlative condition of other social phenomena.'' Mill's Logic, vol. ii. p. 514. 398 ENGLAND AND CHINA. The national religion of the Chinese is Fetishism in its most complete and highly-developed form. It is the religion which we find in the primitive history of all other nations, but which from various causes, as yet not known to us, has been systematised and rendered comparatively permanent in China to an extent unparalleled elsewhere. It endows the ob- jects of the surrounding world, the Sky, the Earth, the Sea, the Winds, with the emotions and volitions of the human soul. It is a conception wholly dif- ferent from that of the Greek or Hindoo polytheist. The polytheist conceives of a visible or invisible being, endowed to an extraordinary degree with human powers, regulating the movements of some particular class of natural objects. He abstracts the properties of those objects, and personifies his ab- straction. The Sea for him is not a living creature; but he believes in the God of the Sea, endowed with its rage, its calm, and its strength. The Sun is the dwelling-place of a bright resplendent Phoebus, not the very deity himself. The Winds are but inanimate masses of moving atmosphere, but they obey the mandates of a personal and superhuman JEolus. But the Fetishist has no conception of the power apart from the objects which exhibit it. It is the concrete individual tree or river which he worships; not the abstract properties of the grove or of the stream personified in a Dryad or a River-god. It is on this, the primitive religion of mankind, that Chinese civilisation is based. The subsequent phases of belief through which other nations have passed have not arisen in China, and exist there,, if at all, yet only as foreign importations, modifying the ancient system more or less, but in no way sub- ENGLAND AND CHINA. 399 verting or superseding it.* Theocratic polytheism, as we hear of it in Egypt, Assyria, and Peru, as we still contemplate it in India, forms no portion of her history. The fundamental institution of theo- cracy is wanting. Society has never been divided into castes. There are no hereditary trades ; no here- ditary priesthood; not even, strictly speaking, that most long-lived of all the institutions of caste, a hereditary monarchy. Still fewer traces do we find of the ulterior phases which in Western Europe have marked the progress of humanity. If polytheism is unknown, monotheism, which is, in fact, its final and most concentrated form, is unknown also. Amidst the religious revolutions which elsewhere have pre- ceded and directed the revolutions of social life, China has been content to abide by and to develop the simple faith of her earliest infancy, the worship of the Sky and of the Earth, the worship of the Dead. On the basis of this simple elementary faith a rich growth of noble precepts, of glorious memories, of heroic lives, of sacred traditions, was found pos- sible. Men bowed down before the Sky, nightly and daily revolving its myriad lights around them, as to Buddhism, Mohammedanism, and Catholicism have each found entrance into China. Of these, the first alone has exercised any im- portant influence. It was introduced during the first century of the Christian era. Its temples and monasteries are widely spread ; and by superficial observers it has been often taken for the dominant religion. Its importance, however, is far more apparent than real. Those who adopt it do not on that account relinquish the essential institutions of Confucianism ; and by the educated class it is held in small respect. The Emperor Kang-hi, though a professed Buddhist, openly ridiculed Buddhist ceremonies ; while of the worship of Heaven and of ancestors he never spoke but in terms of the deepest reverence. Ricci, the foun- der of the Jesuit mission, began by adopting the costume of a Buddhist bonze ; but he soon found out his mistake, and exchanged his dress for that of a Confucian literate. 400 ENGLAND AND CHINA. the highest object of their awe, as to a will more powerful than their own or than the wills that ani- mated the other beings of the world, to whose high mandates obedience or disobedience brought happi- ness or woe. Next in power was the Earth, the mother of all living, nourishing her children in their need, and at last receiving them again into her bosom. For the Earth too, like the Sky, was to them a being of like passions with themselves ; a being to be propitiated in yearly season with prayer and sacrifice, and who in her moments of wrath could give by famine and earthquakes plain signals to men and to their rulers that they should repent. The truest test of the power of a religion is its power to give calm or comfort in the time of death. And death to these worshippers brought no terrors. For all matter being conceived by them as endowed with living force, with will, and with desire, they could not understand the rigid line which in more modern thought has separated the living from the dead. That the lips were mute, the limbs still, that the pulse had ceased to beat, that there was no longer any painful murmur of the breath, were doubtless very strange and awful changes. But they were no proof that the pallid form which they loved had ceased to love. They showed only the will of Heaven that he should be restored to his long home in the lap of earth; there to rest as a new power, an object of reverent worship. They carried him to some lonely hill-summit; trees and flowers were planted there ; and it became a sacred and in- violable spot, where the mourner felt the presence of an unseen love, and held sweet yet close communion with those who had passed from sight. There the son ENGLAND AND CHINA. 401 came for years to mourn his father, the wife her husband; thither when they died their children fol- lowed them; until, when generation after generation had followed one another thus, each mourner be- came unawares a partaker in the hallowing influence of the Past, and passionate grief was purified and calmed at entrance into the solemn assemblage of o the Dead. And the whole social fabric of China is in accord- ance with this faith. In Africa, in Polynesia, and, so far as our imperfect records enable us to trace, in the early history of all civilised nations, Fetishism is found correlated with the simplest possible of social organisations, that which consists simply of the aggregation of a feAv families, under the direc- tion of their oldest members. In such a society the fetishes or objects of worship may vary not only for each tribe, but for each family, and in some cases for each individual.* As there were no gods, there were no priesthoods; no families set apart from the rest, with a divine right to rule men, either spiritually or temporally. For not even with the imperial family has the hereditary principle been interpreted with nearly the same strictness as in most other countries. In every respect the Chinese constitution of society may be regarded as a gigantic amplification of the constitution of the family. The family is, no doubt, the constituent element of which all societies are com- posed; just as, in the body, all tissues, nervous or muscular, are generated from the primitive cellular The household gods of JEneas or of Eachel illustrate this simple phase, and show too its survival amidst more complicated religious modes. Astrolatry, in which the fetishes were necessarily the same for all, would seem to be the transition-stage between Fetishism and Poly- theism. DD 402 ENGLAND AND CHINA. tissue; but whereas in other societies we find dif- ferentiation into classes and institutions which have no direct analogue in the family, in China we find far less of this, far more of adherence to the primitive social tissue, to the patriarchal type. On this type the village and the empire are alike moulded. The position of the emperor is not the absolute jurisdic- tion of a divine autocrat who "can do no wrong;" it is that of the father in a family. Not as the divine high priest, but as the " father and mother of his people" (to use the Chinese expression), does he offer the yearly and monthly sacrifices to Heaven and to Earth. And what the emperor is to the empire, that the elders are in the village.* Absolutism has no place in the Chinese constitution. In their re- ligion they have no conception of an absolute power; for the Sky is to them but one among many fetishes, f the most powerful, it is true, yet modified by the rest. And similarly, the emperor, the son of the Sky. reigning by its will, has no absolute right ex- cept by virtue of obeying its mandates. And this limitation of his power is far from being theoretical merely. In the book of Mencius, one of the four sacred books which are taught in every village- school, and which are in fact the Bible or the Coran of the Chinese, we read the following dialogue : Captain Brine, speaking of these " head men of the village," says : " The provincial administration of China presents few points of such remarkable nature as the peculiar position and authority held by these men ; and it affords one of the many striking proofs of the tendency of the Chinese character to reverence old age, and be guided by its opinions." Tueping Rebellion, p. 28. f " Heaven and Earth are mighty, it is true ; yet we find that they are not without defects." Quatre Livres sacres de la Chine, Pauthier's translation, Charpencier's edit. p. 73. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 403 "The king of Thsi asked Mencius: Is it true that Shing- thang dethroned Kie, and banished him; and that Wou-wang put Cheou-sin* to death ? " Mencius respectfully answered : So history relates. " Has, then, said the king, a minister or subject the right to dethrone or to kill a prince ? " He, replied Mencius, who commits an outrage upon humanity is called a bandit; he who commits an outrage upon justice is called a tyrant. Now bandits and tyrants are men whom we look upon as reprobate and outcast. I have heard it said that Wou- wang put to death a reprobate outcast called Cheou-sin ; I never heard it said that he killed his prince."f Probably in no monarchical country has the principle of hereditary succession been so loosely re- garded. Every Chinaman has read in his sacred books that the earliest emperors, to whom all sub- sequent dynasties look as their highest exemplars and types, chose not their sons but their ablest minis- ters for their successors. Another dialogue from the book of Mencius illustrates the Chinese theory of empire very clearly. " Is it true, asked Wen-shang, that the Emperor Yao gave the empire to Shun ? " Not so, replied Mencius ; the son of Heaven cannot bestow the empire on any man. " I know it ; but since Shun obtained the empire, from whom did he obtain it ? " From Heaven. " Did Heaven in bestowing the empire declare its will in clear and audible words ? "Assuredly not. Heaven speaks not. It makes known its will by human actions and by great events ; and that is all. " By human actions and by great events? What mean you? " The son of Heaven can only put forth some one for the Kie and Cheou-sin were the last, respectively, of the 1st and 2d dynasties. f Quatre Livres sacres de la Chine, p. 251. 404 ENGLAND AND CHINA. acceptance of Heaven; he cannot ordain that Heaven shall confer on him the empire. The vassals of the empire may propose a man to the son of Heaven; they cannot ordain that the son of Heaven shall give him the dignity of vassal prince. The first officer of a town may propose a man to the prince vassal ; he cannot ordain that the prince vassal shall make him a first officer. Yao proposed Shun to Heaven; Heaven accepted him. He showed him to the people covered with glory; the people accepted him. Therefore did I say, Heaven speaks not ; it declares its will by human actions and by great events, nothing more. "What mean you by your words, 'he proposed him to the Heaven, and the Heaven accepted him ; he showed him to the people covered with glory, and the people accepted him' ? " He ordered him to perform the rites of sacrifice, and his sacrifices were well pleasing to the powers; thus Heaven accepted him. He made him the chief minister of state, and the affairs of state were well ordered; all the families of the empire were at peace and satisfied; thus the people accepted him. Heaven gave him the empire, and the people also gave it. Therefore I said, ' the son of Heaven cannot of his own accord give the empire to any man.' Shun helped Yao to administer for twenty-eight years. When Yao died and the three years' mourning were ended, Shun left the son of Yao, and withdrew to the south of the South River, to leave him the empire. But the great vassals of the empire, who came in spring and autumn to swear faith and homage, did not go to the son of Yao, but to Shun. Those who had suits to be decided went not to the son of Yao, but to Shun. The poets who sung of great achievements, sung not the deeds of the son of Yao, but of Shun. Therefore said I that it was the work of the power of Heaven. Then Shun came into the central kingdom and ascended the throne. Had he staid in the palace of Yao, and kept his son under constraint, that would have been to usurp the empire, not to receive it from Heaven. It has been said of old, 'The Heaven sees, but sees through the eyes of my people; the Heaven hears, but hears through the ears of my people.' And this it is I meant to say. " Wen-shang said again : It is said that after the time of Yao the empire was no longer given to the most wise, but passed to the son. Was that so? "It was not so, said Mencius. If Heaven gives the em- pire to the wise minister, then it is given to him; if to the ENGLAND AND CHINA. 405 son, then it is given to him. Shun put forward Yu for Heaven's acceptance. After seventeen years Shun died. Yu mourned him for three years ; then he left the son of Shun, and with- drew to the country of Yang-shing. But the people of the em- pire followed him, as after the death of Yao they had followed not the son of Yao but Shun. Yu put forward Y for Heaven's acceptance. After seven years Yu died. After the three years of mourning, Y left the son of Yu, and withdrew to the north of Mount Ki-chan. But the people and the great vassals and the poets did not come to Y, but to KM the son of Yu, saying: He is the son of our prince. The cause was that the son of Yao and of Shun had fallen away from the virtues of their fathers. But KM the son of Yu being a wise man accepted and continued with due respect his father's ways of governing. Moreover, whereas Shun and Yu were first ministers for many years, Y was minister for only a few years. All these things are the work of the Heaven; they depend not upon man. For that which works and brings about in ways which we cannot see is the Heaven ; that which comes without man's causing, it is the Heaven's decree."* The briefest notice of Chinese society would be too brief, would indeed be altogether abortive, with- out some reference to the man to whose heroic and saintly life so large a share of its highest attributes are due. Great men are of their time and of their country. They transcend both, they modify and mould both ; but in both they are deeply rooted, and with both they intensely sympathise ; even when, like Dante and Milton, fallen on evil days, their sympathy can find no vent but in words of indignation and fierce invective. Confucius, or Khoung-Fou-tseu, the consolidator, rather than the founder, of Chinese religion and so- ciety, was born in the year 551 B.C., and died about the time of the battle of Salamis. His father was governor of Tseou, a small town in the province of Quatre Livres sacres de la Chine, pp. 367-370. 406 ENGLAND AND CHINA. Shan-toung. But his father died early; and Con- fucius owed his early training to a wise and devoted mother. It was her chief care that he should enter early upon the duties of a citizen ; and at her desire he accepted at the early age of seventeen a subordi- nate office in the inspection of the corn-market. In this and other more important offices he distinguished himself by extraordinary care and vigilance in the detection of fraud, and in the acquisition of adminis- trative details, especially of every thing relating to agriculture. When he was twenty-four years old, his mother died. It had been in ancient times a custom that the son at the father's or the mother's death should retire from public life for three years. Confucius, in whose mind no doubt the germs of his peculiar method of social renovation had been long growing, revived this custom. In those three years of solitude his scheme of life matured itself by meditation and by study of the ancient writings, traditions, and institutions of China. His whole con- ception was to recall his countrymen to these ancient traditions ; to coordinate them into a coherent sys- tem, to infuse new life into them, and thus to lay down a definite and firm basis of conviction and of conduct. His time of retirement ended, he spent the next twenty years of his life in travelling through the various principalities of which China at that time consisted.* During this period we find him propa- gating his convictions in every way that circum- stances admitted ; often invited to the various courts, where his varied knowledge and his grasp of adnii- The limits of his action seem to have been Pe-tchi-li and the river Yang-tse to the north and south ; the provinces of Shan-toung and Sheu-si to the east and west. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 407 nistrative detail made his services most valuable; as often banished from these courts when his severe and righteous counsels were rejected; preaching then to his more intimate disciples, or winning casual by- standers by familiar and Socratic dialogues; always and in every place holding fast to the great purpose of his life, the consolidation and renewal of all that was noble in the old traditions, the enforcement of this new and yet ancient standard of duty on his fellow-men, and as the surest path to that end, the maintenance of his own life to the level "of that standard. At the age of fifty-one, his career as a teacher was interrupted by an earnest invitation from the Prince of Lou, whose affairs had been disorgan- ised by unscrupulous officials, to accept the office of prime minister. He unwillingly consented; but on the absolute condition that his predecessor in the office should be put to death. Of the guilt of this man there was no doubt : the only hesitation arose from his power ; but weak philanthropy, where public welfare and morality were at stake, was no part of Confucius' character. After full investigation the sentence was at once carried into effect ; and his energetic and upright administration in a few years restored order and prosperity. At the death of the Prince of Lou, whose successor was of a different temper, Confucius resumed his missionary life. The number of his disciples had by this time increased, and his doctrine had become widely disseminated. The last years of his life were passed in his native province, and were devoted to a more methodic elaboration of his system. They were embittered by losses ; that of his wife, his son, and his favourite disciple, Yen-houei. They were saddened also by 408 ENGLAND AND CHINA. the sense, which all the greatest minds must feel, of failure and of shortcoming. Giving way for a mo- ment to these feelings a few days before his death, " The pillars of the house are giving way," he said, " and there will soon be no shelter; the grass is withering up, and there is no place where to sit down and rest ; the pure doctrine had altogether disappeared, it was utterly forgotten ; I strove to restore it to its ancient power. I have not been able to do so. Will there be any one when I am gone to take this heavy task upon him?" But, in general, his last weeks were spent in calm provision and counsel for those who were to follow him: " In the unhappy state that we are in," he said, " and with the repugnance that every where prevails for moral reformation and for the revival of ancient doctrine, you can hardly hope to bring the mass of men to the standard of duty. You see what small success has followed my own efforts, efforts unceasingly maintained during my long life. What you may hope to do is to help to preserve the trust confided to me, and which I now hand to you. You in turn will transmit it to others, so that it may reach future generations." He died in the 73d year of his age. He was buried by his disciples in strict accordance with ancient rites. Increasing multitudes flocked every year to his tomb. Every century the influence of his name grew stronger ; and under the Han dynasty, about one hundred years before the Christian era, the worship of Confucius became formally incorpo- rated into the religion of the empire. Under later dynasties, these reverential feelings have continually strengthened. The introduction of Buddhism has had no power to weaken them. The descendants of Confucius still live, and enjoy, by a solitary ex- ception, hereditary honours. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 409 The life of Confucius differs altogether from that of other religious renovators. The founders of the Buddhist, Parsee, Christian, and Mohammedan sys- tems proclaimed new doctrines, which clashed utterly with the accepted faith of those around them. Their work, therefore, was twofold ; they came not merely to fulfil, but to destroy. They brought peace among men, but they brought also division. Their doc- trines brought joy and strength to the noblest minds, but set before them a life of defensive and aggressive struggle. Between Buddhism and Brahminism, be- tween Christianity and Paganism, between Moham- medanism and Byzantine Christianity, there could be no peace. And the strife was not merely between their own small society and the government of their state ; it crossed the threshold of home ; it set the fa- ther against the son, the daughter against the mother. Xeedful as these changes were, grand and ennobling as were their results, they were yet attended with the mischief, from which no revolutions can be exempt, of destroying many of the ties which give dignity and stability to human life; of undermining for a time at least the institution of the family, the very basis of all social existence. The destiny of Confucius was altogether different. It was not his function to be the revealer of a new faith. The doctrine that he preached contained no watchword of battle, no germ of future strife. Of all his sayings there was none more frequently, more emphatically repeated than this, that what he taught was not new but old. He claimed the discovery of no fresh truth ; he strove only to recall men to ancient truths long rejected and forgotten. After scrupulous and exemplary fulfilment of every filial 410 ENGLAND AND CHINA. and civic duty, he devoted many years of thought to the study of the ancient records and traditions of his country. On these, and not on any divine reve- lation, the New Life which he preached was based. Doubtless these ancient precepts underwent a mar- vellous and spiritual change, unconsciously to him- self, in passing through the alembic of his grand and simple mind : doubtless higher elevations and nobler ranges of duty rose up on the foundations of the old. But as the prophets of other times spoke with the voice of God, so Confucius spoke with the voice of the Past ; and in laying down the scheme of duty which has guided the hearts of millions for two thou- sand years, that sanction sufficed him. Confucius wrote no books, properly speaking. He compiled and edited in a systematic form, with comments, the ancient traditions, whether historical, poetical, or ceremonial. These compilations, namely, the Y-king or book of transformations, the Chou- king or book of annals, the Chi-king or book of verses, and the Li-ki or book of rites, underwent still further alterations under the Han dynasty (200 B.C. to 263 A.D.), and since that time have remained unaltered. There are four books that go by his name. The first, Ta-Hio, or Great Study, consists of a commen- tary by Theng-tseu, an intimate friend and disciple of Confucius, on a few paragraphs which appear to have been written by the master. The second, Shung- Yung, or the Just Mean, was written by his grand- son, from recollection. The Lun-Yu, or Philosophic Conversations, was also compiled by his immediate disciples. The fourth, Hiao-King, or Filial Obedi- ence, was written like the first by Theng-tseu. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 411 From these works we get a clear conception of his moral system. We find a scheme of life and of duty eminently coherent and practical. Of meta- physical speculation, of knowledge for the sake of knowledge, of abstruse inquiry pursued for the keen intellectual pleasure of the chase, Confucius had no conception; and had it been suggested, he would have utterly repudiated it, as an unwarrantable waste of effort. Equally averse was he to enter into super- natural inquiries, or to any pretence of possessing miraculous power. " To seek the principles of things which are beyond human understanding; to perform extraordinary actions beyond human power; to work miracles in order to hare admirers and disciples in future ages; for this I have no desire."* In the Ta-Hio, the great problem of life is clearly conceived. " The object of the Great Study is to develop and bring to light the luminous principle of reason which we have received from Heaven, to renew men, and to set before ourselves perfection, or the sovereign good as the great purpose of life. " We must first know the object- for which we ought to strive, and then form our resolution; the resolution formed, the spirit becomes calm, and we enjoy that peace which cannot be troubled; enjoying that peace, we are enabled to meditate on the causes and consequences of things around us and of human actions, and thereby to reach the state of perfection we desire." If this should seem unpractical, read what fol- lows : " The princes of old, who desired to foster in their kingdom the precious principle of reason received from Heaven, endea- voured first to govern their kingdoms well; desiring to govern their kingdoms well, they endeavoured first to order their families 9 Quatre Livres sacres de la Chine, p. 72. 412 ENGLAND AND CHINA. aright; desiring to order their families rightly, they endeavoured first to reform themselves, to render their own souls upright, to keep their purposes pure and sincere; in order to do this they strove to perfect their knowledge of morality, and penetrate the causes and consequences of human action. "These being penetrated, and moral truth thus understood, the soul becomes upright, and the individual character reformed; then the family is well ordered, then the state well governed, and then peace and harmony is restored to the world. "From the most exalted to the most obscure and humble, the duty is the same for all, self-reformation, self-improvement; as the basis of all progress and moral growth."* The Shung-Yung, or the Maintenance of the Just Mean, is the most systematic of these works. By the Mean seems to be understood the state of perfect harmony in the World and in Man, which results from the right balance of the affections and desires under the control of the high principle of duty; in other words, of "the Will or Law im- planted by Heaven in all beings of the Universe." For not man merely, but all nature was regarded as penetrated with this higher principle : " How vast and deep," said the philosopher, " are the subtle powers of Heaven and of Earth ! We look for them, but find them not; we listen for them, but hear them not; they are one with the substance of things, and cannot be separated. Through them it is that men purify and sanctify their hearts, and offer up oblations to their forefathers. There are oceans of subtle intelli- gences above us, and to the right hand and the left, surrounding us on every side."f According to his conception, there is in man and in all things a principle akin to and corresponding Quatre Livres sacres de la Chine, pp. 41, 42. The above are the words of Confucius, not of his commentator. The comments consist chiefly of historical examples. t Ibid. p. 77. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 413 with the Will or Law of Heaven. The object of a moral system or rule of life is to make this principle supreme. But it must be recognised and distin- guished from other principles of action. The dis- tinguishing characteristic of the sage is therefore to understand the human heart, and analyse its passions. But for this the highest summit of spiritual perfec- tion is indispensable. " Only those men who have reached sovereign perfection can thoroughly know the law of their own being, and the duties which follow from that law; knowing this, they understand the nature of other men, and can teach them how to obey the law of Heaven; understanding this, they can understand also the nature of other living beings, and can enable them also to fulfil the law of their being; thus, by their high faculties, they can aid in the transformation and sustenance of all beings; and constitute, as it were, a third power between the Heaven and the Earth."* Yet while transcendent goodness and power are thus placed in their true position, the lower steps of the moral scale are not neglected. Next to the saint who reaches this high state from innate purity and nobleness of nature, without pain and struggle, is the sage who strives towards it by earnest self-culture, self-restraint, self-purification, never losing sight of his object, never wholly attaining it. Others there are, and in far greater numbers, " who either have never so striven, or if they strive, yet often fail; let them not be discouraged: who have never meditated, or who if they meditate, yet have never gained a clear knowledge of good; let them not be discouraged: who have never discerned good from evil, or at least who have never been able to discern it clearly; who have never practised what is right, or who, if they practise it, yet never expend their whole force thereon; let not such be discouraged or stay their efforts: what others do at one * Quatre Livres sacres de la Chine, p. 90. 414 ENGLAND AND CHINA. effort, they shall do with ten; what others do with a hundred trials, they shall accomplish with a thousand." Confucius is not content, however, with generali- ties. He lays down with considerable minuteness the five great classes of mutual obligations into which he conceives the duties of men may be divided: those of Prince and ministers. Father and children. Husband and wife. Elder brother and younger brother. Friend and friend. To accomplish these duties three great moral facul- ties have been given us: "Reason, or the light of intelligence, to distinguish good from evil; humanity, or universal benevolence; and moral courage."* Nine rules are given for good government : 1. Self-culture. 2. Reverence for wise men. 3. Love for parents and relatives. 4. Respect for chief functionaries. 5. Good relations with subordinate officials. 6. Fatherly love for people. 7. Encouragement of science and drt. 8. Welcome to strangers. 9. Treatment of vassals in friendly spirit. Then the consequences to the ruler of each of these rules are given : 1. Duty will be paid to him. 2. He will be instructed in principles of right and wrong. Quatre Livres sacres de la Chine, p. 83. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 415 3. Different members of his family will agree. 4. State affairs will be in good order. 5. Subordinates will be zealous in their duty. 6. The people will imitate their superiors. 7. His own wealth will be spent rationally. 8. Eniinent men will come from foreign re- gions. 9. His rule will be respected by all vassals. Then the means of performing each of these duties are detailed. But all these rules, he continues, spring from one great principle, the Law of Heaven, of Perfection. With a clear conception of the law of duty, and with resolute determination to follow it, we shall not fail. Such, in faint outline, was the teaching of this great man. The reader of the works from which I quote will find growing round the framework of his systematic structure numberless beautiful maxims of practical morality that are often fancied to be peculiar to Western Europe. " The doctrine of our master," said his disciple Theng-tseu, "is simply this : to have an upright heart, and to love your neighbour as yourself."* And again: " Tseu-koung asked : Is there a word in the lan- guage which is of itself enough as a guide for o o o o our life ? The wise man answered : There is the word chou, of which the meaning is this : What we would should not be done to us, let us not do to others."f By Confucius as well as by the most eminent of his successors Mencius, the strongest belief is asserted in Quatre Livres sacres de la Chine, p. 86. t Ibid. pp. 122, 192. 416 ENGLAND AND CHINA. the existence of innate goodness and benevolence in human nature, as opposed to the doctrine of total corruption. " All men," says Mencius, " have in themselves the feelings of mercy and pity, of shame and hatred of vice, of respect and reverence. It is for each one by culture to let these feelings grow or to let them wither. They are part of the organisation of man as much as the limbs or the senses, and may be trained as well. The mountain Meou-chan naturally brings forth beautiful trees. Even when the trunks are cut down, young shoots will con- stantly rise up. If cattle are allowed to feed there, the mountain looks bare : shall we say, then, that bareness is natural to that mountain ? So the lower passions are let loose to eat down the nobler growth of reverence and love in the heart of man : shall we therefore say that there are no such feelings in his heart at all? Under the quiet peaceful airs of morning and of evening the shoots tend to grow again; the primitive nature of man is for a while restored. But if the evil forces of the daytime are so strong as to overbear these blessc-d influences, they lose at last their restorative power; the higher part of man disappears ; his nature seems like that of the brutes; and men say that this higher part never existed at all. " There is a feeling in all men which makes them love some- thing better than life; hate something worse than death. Some men strengthen that feeling; some let it die out; but all have it. " Humanity is the heart of man ; justice is the path of man. To leave the path and not follow it, to lose the heart and not find it, this is the real cause for grief. If so much as but the fourth finger of our hand is maimed, we go from province to province to find one that will cure it. And yet if our heart is perverted from its true human likeness, we take no thought to get back the sense of justice and uprightness that we have lost."* " To know Heaven, is to develop the principle of our higher na- ture. To preserve and foster this higher nature, is to conform to Heaven's decree. To take no thought whether our life be long or short; to strive equally in either case to improve our nature; this is the order which we receive from Heaven ; this is our Destiny. Whoso dies after having practised in every point the law of moral Quatre Livres sacres de la Chine, pp. 404-407. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 417 duty within us, fulfils the just decree of Heaven. He who dies a criminal fulfils it not." Handed down as a trust by Confucius to his successors, these doctrines have formed, and still form, the ground- work of the elaborate and compre- hensive scheme of education, by which the govern- ing class in China has been trained for its duties. And when it is considered that this governing class forms no aristocratic hereditary caste, but that each member of it has been selected after stringent exami- nationf from the students of the colleges and schools which are brought within the reach of every thrifty peasant in the empire, it is a moderate conclusion, that in no other part of the world, unless we except Western Europe in tunes when Catholicism had not lost its power, have such continuous and systematic efforts been made for the dissemination of moral truth. In the brief review that has been given of Chi- nese history, the common notion, that China is in a % state of social and political stagnation, has been, I think, sufficiently disproved. I have shown a contin- uous and progressive change, moral, intellectual, and material, from the earliest emperors to Confucius, from Confucius to the time of Thsin-chi, when the imperial power was thoroughly constituted, and an aggregate of small kingdoms firmly knit together into an organic whole : still further advancement in the ninth and tenth centuries A.D., the Augustan age. of Chinese literature, when printing was in- vented, and the system of appointment to office by Quatre Livres sacres de la Chine, p. 430. -f For a most interesting account of these examinations, see Mr. Meadows' book on Rebellions in China. EE 418 ENGLAND AND CHINA. examinations open to the whole people was fully developed ; finally, culmination of greatness in the last century, the age of Kang-hi and Kien-loung, when China, prosperous at home, extended the reach of her strong and civilising influence over the semi- barbarous regions of Tartary and Thibet. But though a movement, and a progressive movement, may easily be traced by observers who are not wilfully disdainful of every mode of civilisa- tion but their own, the broad fact still remains, that such progress will bear no comparison with the marvellously rapid, fertile, and many-sided develop- ment which has been visible in Western Europe for more than two thousand years. China could boast of an advanced civilisation, of great heroes, and of lofty moralists, before Homer sang, before Troy was built, before the Greek gods had gathered on Olympus. China had an extensive printed lite- rature, and an elaborate educational system, at a time when Christian emperors could hardly read or write. To what cause, then, is it due, that in the extreme West of the Eurasian continent, scientific discovery and material improvement have for some centuries been proceeding with such accelerated ve- locity, that to superficial observers the comparatively slow movement of Chinese civilisation should have appeared retrogression or stagnation ? The explanation lies in this. Western Europe has for nearly three thousand years been the scene of a series of distinct and peculiar social revolutions in which the other populations of our planet have taken no share. The result of each of these move- ments has been to develop some one element of human nature to high intensity irrespectively of ENGLAND AND CHINA. 419 the rest. Taking a broad view of Western history down to the close of the Middle Ages in the thir- teenth century, we find it falling naturally into three great periods, the Greek, the Roman, and the Feudal or Catholic. Speaking with the breadth necessary in the philosophy of history, it is beyond dispute that the Greek period developed the intellect, the Roman period the energies, the Catholic period the affections, to an intensity far surpassing their primeval growth in theocratic or fetishist societies. In Greece, for the first time in the world's history, we see the independent action of the intellectual powers ; in other words, truth sought, not for its moral or material value, but for its own sake. Phi- losophers there had been in India or China ; but their philosophy, whether its problems were soluble or otherwise, dealt exclusively with the phenomena of human nature. Physical and mathematical ques- tions were pursued just so far as their bearing on practical life was apparent, and no farther. The sci- entific man, the type realised in its highest degree by Archimedes, was a phenomenon up to that time utterly without parallel. The destiny of Rome was to incorporate the sur- rounding nations into a political whole, and to dis- perse through the vast mass the results obtained by Greece. The Roman empire was the necessary an- tecedent to the commonwealth of nations, of which Western Europe now consists. The functions of Rome were, as Virgil has described them, conquest, government, legislation. Before these transcendent objects all others yielded. The religion of the Ro- mans it has been well said was Rome. The high culture which the Roman intellect received from 420 ENGLAND AND CHINA. Greece was never allowed to be expended in the search for abstract truth. Their intellect, heightened as its powers were, was wholly devoted to the service of the faculties of action. The science of Rome was legislation; her art was government. But while the intellectual powers and the ener- gies of man were strengthened to an extraordinary degree by Greco-Roman civilisation, there was no corresponding development of that side of our nature to which in the normal and natural condition of man the intellectual and active elements are subordinate; that is to say, of the affective or emotional nature. The harmony of our nature was broken. The due proportion of its functions was disturbed. The in- evitable result was social instability, anarchy, and cor- ruption. It was not that among the Greeks and Ro- mans there were not many instances of the highest devotion, of the strongest sense of moral duty ; but that these instances were on the whole exceptional, that the influences of the time were not such as to favour and increase them. Then a great and glorious effort was made to fill the void by St. Paul and the other founders of the Catholic Church. For many centuries the culture of the highest emotions of the soul, of love and. re- verence, was accepted by all the nobler natures as the highest object of life. It would seem that the great problem of the harmonious evolution of man's nature was now to be solved. The increased de- velopment of intellect and energy was now counter- balanced by a noble culture of the affections; and a moral power arose in society, the power of the Catholic Church, capable of controlling for a time the coarse passions and energetic egotism of the feudal ENGLAND AND CHINA. 421 power. But the success of the attempt was short- lived ; and mediaeval society broke down, as Greek and Roman society had broken down, by reason of its one-sidedness. The dogmas on which it rested were incompatible with free scientific thought; and therefore so long as it retained its power, thought was crushed by it. The element of Feeling, which, in the due harmony of our nature, ought indeed to preponderate over the rest, but yet in such a way as to further their free development, was rendered not merely preponderant, but tyrannical. The intellect was crushed by it, till it became rebellious ; and the practical activities, except during the brief period of the Crusades, found no place in it. Therefore the Catholic synthesis became a ruin; and the last five centuries have, to a great extent, been occupied with the process of its decline. The ascendency of the kings over the popes, the English and German reformations, the philosophical move- ment of the eighteenth century, and finally the mighty crisis of the French revolution, were the chief consecutive stages of the work. It is a period which presents two phases. It has been a time of intense intellectual and material progress. The in- tellect, freed from its servitude to the heart, left the study of theological questions, resumed the scientific study of the outer world where the Greek astrono- mers had left it, from the inorganic outer world as- cended slowly to the world of man, and thus accu- mulated the materials and laid down the foundation for social reconstruction. But it has also been a time of anarchy, and, in the strictest sense of the term, of irreligion. The principles which bind men together, and by which the individual nature of man 422 ENGLAND AND CHINA. has been controlled, have been more and more re- laxed. The social doctrine of the individuality and sovereignty of the individual; the moral doctrine that each passion or emotion of our nature, whether sympathetic or self-regarding, being all alike "facul- ties given by God," should be alike recognised and fostered ; such . doctrines, whether in explicit or im- plicit ways, have been brought more and more strongly forward. It was inevitable that this con- dition should last until the basis for a more durable and comprehensive synthesis should be complete. Systems which, like the various forms of Protest- antism, used the weapon of free judgment merely to make an arbitrary selection of Catholic dogmas, retaining some, and replacing some by others equally questionable, were obviously not destined for any but a temporary purpose. The only permanent mode in which harmony can be restored is one which shall restore the intellect to the service of the heart, and which yet shall leave that service free. As the ultimate result of its long period of uncon- trolled action, as the highest truth to which its power can ascend, the intellect must recognise its subordi- nation to the moral nature as the normal state of man. The respective position of Chinese and Western civilisation is now more intelligible. We have on the one side a more harmonious balance of powers less highly developed ; on the other we have stronger forces emancipated from their primitive discipline, and wasting one another in their antagonism, because they have not yet found that higher and more har- monious discipline which awaits them in the future. China offers us the unaltered type of primitive health ; ENGLAND AND CHINA. 423 the West exhibits the disease and suffering which marks the evolution to a higher type not yet real- ised. China has nothing in her annals comparable to the speculative power of Aristotle, the political grasp of Caesar, the fervid intensity of St. Paul or of St. Bernard, the audacious imagination of Shake- speare or of Dante. But in the person of her great sage she offers perhaps the most perfect type of morality, that is to say, of perfect manhood, that has ever yet commanded the general veneration of man- kind. History tells of none in whom such vigorous energies and such high powers of thought have been throughout a long life so completely under the do- minion of social sympathies, so continuously devoted to the service of others. Still, it will be said, the difficulty is not answered ; it is but restated, or at best only put a step further back. The question still recurs, why is it that, while the West has been the scene of such complicated evo- lutions, the East, and especially the extreme East, has developed so far more slowly? Without attempting fully to account for what may perhaps be found ultimately connected with conditions of race, and other conditions of which we are at present equally ignorant, it is yet possible to put the problem in a more intelligible shape, to make it in short a case of a larger and more general law. And this is all that in positive philosophy is implied in the word ' explanation. 5 The modern progress of Europe would have been impossible without the intellectual inheritance bequeathed by Greece. The speculations of Aris- totle moulded the theological teaching of the -me- dieval church. Modern geometry began with Des- 424 ENGLAND AND CHINA. cartes almost exactly at the point where the geometry of Apollonius left off. Since then intellectual progress has been continuous, and the connection between scientific research and industrial advancement has been too obvious to need demonstration. But the Chinese also possess, and have for many centuries possessed, an intellectual educated class. They have extensive libraries filled with the results of accumu- lated laborious research. Literature and study are honoured in China as they are honoured in few other nations, since they are made the highroad to political advancement. Is there then any difference between the speculations of the Chinese and those of Western philosophers sufficient to account for the discrepancy of result ? There is this fundamental difference. Those of the first are concrete; those of the second, abstract. Every object is an assemblage of various qualities or phenomena, such as form, weight, colour, hardness, chemical composition, &c. In the study of natural ob- jects, therefore, there are two wholly distinct methods. The philosopher may either examine the object as it stands, that is to say, the concrete mass of phenomena which it offers; or he may choose to isolate, to ab- stract some one of the phenomena, as e.g. weight or colour, which are common to it and to other objects, and study its laws, ignoring for the time all the rest. The first mode of speculation, the concrete, is that which arises spontaneously in the most primi- tive stages of human progress. The obvious ma- terial necessities of man in the simplest state of society lead him to make and collect practical ob- servations on the objects around him and on his own organisation. But for all the higher purposes ENGLAND AND CHINA. 425 of science the other method is necessary. Each class of phenomena must be abstracted from the various beings in which it is found, and must form the object of special investigation, with the view of finding out the law of their coexistence and suc- cession. Thus we have the science of extension, of weight, of light, of heat, of electricity, of chemical composition, of life, &c. Our intellectual powers are not adequate to arrive at the true object of science, which is the prevision of events, except by studying the laws of each class of phenomena sepa- rately, beginning with the most simple and general, and passing to those which are more complex, spe- cial, and dependent. Mere records of the past changes of the weather will not lead us to foretell future states of weather. Records of astronomical facts will not lead, except in the most imperfect and un- certain way, to prediction of eclipses. Records of the past history of man will not enable us to pro- phesy his future. The weather of each day is the result of a vast mass of phenomena, astronomical, thermal, electrical, &c. The modern savant studies the laws of each of these classes of phenomena sepa- rately ; and then the endeavour is made (however imperfectly as yet) to study their combined action, their resultant. So with astronomy. So inadequate are our powers of studying concrete masses of phe- nomena, that we cannot even solve the problem of the mutual gravitation of the sun, moon, and earth, much less of all the bodies which compose the solar system. But by studying the abstract laws of gravi- tation, by examining the purely hypothetical case of two bodies attracting one another in space, we are enabled to discover the laws which act in so simple 426 ENGLAND AND CHINA. an instance : and by means of these to restore the problem subsequently to something like its original complexity. So with sociology. Each community offers a vast mass of concrete details, in which it is impossible to discover any scientific law of develop- ment. The first object of the sociologist is to ab- stract the details of race, climate, &c., and dis- cover the laws of social development common to all. To see how those laws are arrested or developed in any special case is a subsequent question. Thus the grand characteristic of Western speculation has been the creation of abstract science. In China, on the contrary, speculation is alto- gether of the concrete kind. We find vast collec- tions of observations of eclipses, earthquakes, and other astronomical and terrestrial facts, of natural history and of political history. But it is all obser- vation of the kind which in England is called prac- tical. It amounts simply to an accumulation of facts. Of the abstract sciences of geometry, mechanics, optics, chemistry, the Chinese have no conception. They are intellectually far less prepared for it than the Hindoos. And the ground-work of this peculiar mental state has been already described. It has been shown that Chinese religion is an elaborate development of Fetishism, that is, of the worship of concrete objects. The Chinese have never really passed into the polytheistic stage, which is the first great effort of the human mind towards the forma- tion of abstract conceptions. Eor Polytheism is the conception of a separate power directing each class of phenomena. The student of Greek, Ro- man, or Hindoo mythology finds a special deity for almost every abstract term. But the very language ENGLAND AND CHINA. 427 of China is deficient to an extraordinary degree in abstract terms ; and such abstractions as are abso- lutely necessary for the business of life are expressed for the most part by bold metaphors. Coupled with this deficiency of abstract science, is the absence of the highest kind of poetry. As their science is con- crete, so their art is imitative. Of idealisation, which implies the exaltation of certain qualities in the object, the diminution of others, which thus calls out into play faculties identical with those that are re- quired for the highest efforts of scientific abstraction, their art shows few traces. Their highest intellectual efforts have been be- stowed on ethics; the highest of all branches of study, the meeting point of theory and practice. The science of morals aims at the regulation of human action, the indication of duty. It implies a know- ledge of the "mights of man;" of human organisa- tion, mental and physical; also a scientific estimate of the society in- which the individual whose actions are examined lives. Ethics, therefore, imply pre- vious knowledge of sociology and of biology ; which last, again, involves the study of the physical sciences. It may be said, therefore, that Chinese ethics only share the defect of empiricism and incoherence with the ethical systems of Western Europe.* But, it will be asked, since millennial periods of struggle and anarchy of our various faculties have proved necessary in the case of Europe, is there any alternative for China but that of passing * With reference to the part played by abstraction in European development, and to the correlation of the Chinese concrete philosophy with their fetishist religion, the above remarks have been suggested almost entirely by the Civilisation Chinoise of P. Laffitte (Paris, Dunod 1851). 428 ENGLAND AND CHINA. through similar subversive stages? If the Oriental nations are to attain our level, must not the revo- lution of their moral and mental nature take place also, as with the West, through successive phases of one-sided, disproportionate, and therefore revo- lutionary growth? Must not her intellect too be awakened by supernatural visions or metaphysical subtleties; her energies roused by a long period of warlike struggle; her moral sense deepened, as with mediaeval Europe, by the rigorous discipline of spiri- tual terrors ? Can the gulf which separates her civilisation from ours be overstepped at a leap? Not so. Had Greek civilisation been crushed in its germ at Marathon and Salamis, and the con- sequent development of Western Europe rendered abortive, the destiny of leading the civilisation of the world would have fallen upon one of the Oriental nations, possibly upon China. And it is difficult to conceive that a stage of civilisation analogous to our own could have been reached in the first instance, without analogous periods of suffering and discord. But supposing the goal once reached, the difficult Alpine road once executed, later travellers pass easily where it cost centuries of toil and loss and painful error to the first uncertain pioneers. The world is so framed that the reward of those who have worked well is received by others. Those who come in at the eleventh hour profit by the labours of those who have borne the heat of the day. Once let the definite solution of our social problems be arrived at in Western Europe, once let the germs of a higher and more harmonious organisation of human life be visible there, and its acceptance by the East will not be long delayed. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 429 But till that time be come, the Oriental nations may well shrink from such contact with the West as has hitherto been obtruded upon them; contact with men who destroy the ties which bind their life toge- ther, leaving nothing to replace them ; who annihilate their institutions, and call it commercial enlighten- ment ; who throw contempt on their religion, and call it a preparation for Christianity ; who bring desola- tion everywhere, and call it peace. CONCLUSION. What then is to be done ? Are matters to be left to take their course, certain as that course is to end in anarchy and misery to a third of the human race ? And if not, what, I shall be fairly asked, is the policy you recommend? Is it reasonable to expect that we can stand still; is it conceivable that we should re- trace our steps, that we should diminish our hard- won prestige, degrade ourselves before our Oriental subjects, and thus perhaps imperil the very fabric of imperial dominion? There are those to whom the preservation and even the extension of a vast empire, or rather of an incoherent collection of scattered dependencies, is something earnestly to be coveted for its own sake ; an object so grand and imposing, so closely con- nected with the honour of England, as to overbear every other consideration, and to weigh heavily in the balance against international justice and morality. To such, and though their number decreases daily, they are still many, this essay is not addressed. There is a far larger class with whom the exten- 430 ENGLAND AND CHINA. sion of empire is a consideration of no moment, or with whom at least it is wholly subordinate to what with them is all-important, the extension of British commerce. Whether it be a good or whether it be an evil, it is an obvious fact that the increasing English population depends every year less and less upon its own internal resources, more and more upon an increasing foreign trade. Every effort is conse- quently being made to find fresh markets, and to establish new treaties of commerce, in the "West by fair means, in the East by foul. Our manufacturers and merchants, and our great governing families, are alike penetrated with the importance of this object. By the former it is desired as a means of wealth ; by the latter as a means of preserving internal tran- quillity, as a condition, therefore, of their own tenure of power. Eor extension of empire such men have no desire, except so far as the interests of trade de- mand it; they would retain Gibraltar, not with the view of insulting Spain, but because it is a con- venient smuggling depot, or because it guards, or is believed to guard, our Mediterranean or Indian trade. And it is solely in the interests of the tea-trade and the silk-trade that they batter down Japanese cities, and are even now stretching out their hands for the occupation of Shang-hae. The policy of such men, animated by the two cruelest of all human passions, fear in the one case, and lust of gain in the other, it would seem difficult, although not hopeless, to resist. Faith in the higher attributes of human nature and of human society must indeed be strong ; belief in the existence of men, or classes of men, untainted as yet by base motives, and regarding all that has past with indignation deep ENGLAND AND CHINA. 431 and fervent, yet silent from, the consciousness of iso- lation ; belief above all in the mighty powers of good latent, yet ever present, in the inheritance of the Past ; such belief must be firm indeed to sustain so peril- ous a " wrestle with the darkness of this world, with spiritual wickedness in high places." Such faith, such tranquil, firm conviction, Positivism supplies. For nothing less than a total change, moral and intellectual, in our whole manner of regarding other populations, whether Western or Oriental, will meet the necessities of the case. The theory of the in- trinsic superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race and of Anglo-Saxon civilisation to all other civilisations and races, must be uprooted and abandoned. We must learn to recognise that we form but a part of the commonwealth of Western nations. The feeling of Occiclentality, analogous and superior to the feeling which obtained in the Middle Ages, when Western Europe acknowledged one and the same Catholic faith, must again resume its sway over feelings of nationality and patriotism, not destroying these, but controlling and purifying them. And while this must be our attitude towards the West, no less radi- cal a change must be wrought in our feeling and our action with regard to the East. For feelings of dislike, contempt, and cruelty, must be substituted, not merely benevolence and pity, but also a large measure of admiration and respect. The Oriental represents types of civilisation in which we ourselves were moulded centuries or tens of centuries ago. He is, as it were, the visible incarnation of the Past of Europe, from which its Present has sprung in un- broken filiation. Yet this, though a sufficient stimu- lus to our sympathy, is not all. The more elaborate 432 ENGLAND AND CHINA. and complex development of the West has, as I have pointed out, not been attained without loss. In striving for a higher type of life, the harmony of the ancient type has been disturbed. Our vigorous analysis has disclosed new powers, but the very conception of balancing these powers in a synthesis equally harmonious, and more aspiring than the old, has but very recently arisen. To those who would realise this conception, who appreciate the great and imminent problem of reconciling law with liberty, independence with cooperation, order with progress, the study of the ancient order as still visible in the East, is invaluable. The Oriental regards the West with fear, but he regards it also with disdain. The physical power resulting from our intellectual agility is to him as the magic of the sorcerer, a source of miserable trepidation and anxiety. Let it not be supposed that with his fear, admiration and respect are mingled. The political restlessness of Western society, its absence of restraint, its readiness to sacri- fice every moral or religious consideration to commer- cial motives, have long ago been appreciated in the East with silent or contemptuous wonder. Mutual respect can alone fill the vast gulf between the East and West. It is for the West to take the first step. No less a change than this will suffice to rege- nerate our Oriental policy. There are indeed men in our legislature, men with hearts and minds too large for the shackles of a somewhat narrow political creed, who attack our present Oriental policy, on lower and, as it might seem to some, more practical grounds. In the important parliamentary debate of 1st June 1864, Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright prove very conclusively that the result of the violence that ENGLAND AND CHINA. 433 has been used in opening up China to British trade has in no respect justified those efforts even from the financial point of view. Mr. Cobden by the simplest statistics shows that, while the exports of British commodities to the rest of the world have in a very few years more than doubled, our exports to China, the population of which is one-third of the human race, form only 2J per cent of the total amount, " not having kept pace with the natural increase of our trade in other directions."* Mr. Bright re- marks truly enough, that our " trade with China for many years back, for thirty years, has not left one farthing of profit" (he was speaking of the export trade from England to China), " if you pay out of it the cost of the war, the intermeddling, and the mili- tary and naval force which is now apparently per- manently established there; there are fifty ships of war for the protection of an export trade of less than 4,000,OOOZ. a year." Unquestionable as these statements are, it is im- possible not to feel the weakness of the ground for attack thus taken ; and Mr. Cobden himself seemed to feel its weakness. " It might hare happened," he says, " that with a great sacrifice of national character we might have achieved great success in our commercial undertakings with China. I confess for my own part that I should not be disposed to consider a satisfactory balance in the national ledger as sufficient to condone a course of con- duct which I thought inimical to the national character. I am sony to say, however, that the most unsatisfactory feature in our relations with China is the commercial question" The figures so disingenuously brought forward by Mr. Layard and Lord Palmerston in reply, included the imports of opium, which previous to 1857 bad not been legalised, and had therefore not been included in the imports. The value of the opium imported is more than twice that of British manufactures. FF 434 ENGLAND AND CHINA. Until men like Mr. Cobclen and Mr. Bright reverse the order of precedence which they give to these two unsatisfactory features of our Chinese policy, their eloquence, more specious though it may appear, and serviceable as it unquestionably has been, will lose half its real weight. And notwithstanding the sneers levelled at the Manchester school, these two men, of all our politicians, are perhaps the best prepared to do so.* Let us then apply the principles that have been laid down in this essay to the formation of a practical policy. The policy of Chinese statesmen during the last three centuries has been, as we have seen, total prohibition or restriction within the narrowest limits of intercourse with the West. The censure with which this policy has been regarded, is, as we have seen, wholly unjustified. The buccaneering spirit which every Western nation has shown in its dealings with Oriental nations fully justified it. But wise as the policy of non-intercourse may have been, it is im- possible now to restore it in its integrity. The mag- nitude of the commercial interests at stake is such that it would not be practicable, even if desirable, to annihilate the trade with China ; and perhaps if prac- ticable, yet not desirable. What is urgently needed is to place Western intercourse with China under restric- tions which, while not incompatible with a steady and moderate increase of trade, shall enable us to exercise a strong and peremptory control over the lawlessness of Western subjects, and which shall prove to the Chinese that our relations with them will be for the It is hardly necessary to remark that this "was written before Mr. Cobden's death. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 435 future raised to the standard of international morality which has long been recognised in the West. 1. The first principle, then, of the policy I propose is recurrence to the Nankin treaty of 1842 ; cession, that is to say, of the additional rights extorted by the iniquitous war of 1857-1860; restriction of our commercial relations to the five ports of Canton, Amoy, Ningpo, Foo-chow, and Shanghai. It might be questionable whether the first of these ports should be retained, unless it is found that the bitter feeling aroused by the wars of 1842 and 1858 has in great part subsided. In any case, however, the right of demanding passports to travel in the interior should be given up; and those who venture upon inland excursions should be considered to place themselves wholly beyond the pale of British protection. Above all, the settlement at Han-chow, and the whole navi- gation of the Yang-tse-kiang, should be abandoned ; no clause in our treaties with China having by the confession of almost every one of our political agents produced greater disorder and confusion than this.* On this point I quote the unimpeachable authority of Mr. Ad- kins, the Vice- Consul at Chin-kiang. Writing on April 27, 1863, he says : " I very much fear that the foreigners trading on this river in sailing-boats are almost without exception men without principle or cha- racter ; outlaws, in fact, icho have no regard for treaties or regulations,, and who look on the Chinese as made for them to prey upon. Their drunken and debauched habits have made an impression even on the Chinese." And when our vessels of war have attempted to take upon themselves the function of police, they have only made matters worse, as in the case already detailed of Mr. Caldwell at Hong-Kong. To take one instance out of many : in the autumn of 1862, some British gun- boats took upon themselves to destroy three Chinese vessels at Lang- shan (a creek on the river), on the ground that " respectable villagers" had informed them that they were pirates. They turned out after- wards to be vessels of war belonging to the Chinese government ; and the respectable villagers were very likely men of the class of Mr. Cald- well and Ma-chow-wong. See Parliamentary Papers relating to China (1804), pp. 57, 149. 436 ENGLAND AND CHINA. 2. Even at the treaty ports, the right of exter- ritoriality, the right, that is, of trying British offen- ders against Chinese subjects by British instead of by Chinese law, should be abandoned as wholly in- compatible with the very foundations on which all international law rests. Besides its own inherent injustice, it involves of course the establishment by each Western nation of its own tribunal ; a state of things which renders the repression of Western crime practically impossible. The difficulties which the abandonment of this right might raise, would be met in a spirit of conciliation on both sides ; a spirit which Chinese statesmen would not be slow to ex- hibit if initiated on our side by such measures as I have alluded to. Mixed tribunals of Chinese and Western officials might be formed ; the rules of cri- minal procedure and the scale of punishments being settled by our ambassador at Pekin, or by special plenipotentiaries.* 3. The next feature of our policy should be total suppression, so far as depends upon ourselves, of the opium traffic. Illegal till 1858, legalised then by the strong pressure which Lord Elgin brought to bear, and by the painful experience which the Chinese had received that we would not allow of any effica- cious steps to be taken for its suppression; it is al- most the only portion of our trade which shows a steady increase. It is upheld on the ground of its utility to Indian finance, and as a check upon the flow of silver that would otherwise take place from c The excessive objection entertained to the residence of an am- bassador at Pekin would in all probability cease ; and it would not be long before embassies would be sent to Europe. But to force ambas- sadors upon courts unwilling to receive them is as foolish as it is immoral. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 437 Europe in payment for Chinese commodities. Against the principles here advocated, that is to say, on principles of the plainest, simplest morality, neither of these grounds has the smallest validity. The opium trade must be given up, as the slave trade was given up, not on principles of profit and loss, but on principles of right and wrong. It is pos- sible, and indeed very probable, that its abandonment will enable Chinese tradesmen and mechanics to be- come larger purchasers of British manufactures ; but whether this be so or not, the call of duty, fidelity to which is often assumed to be with Englishmen exceptionally strong, is in either case the same. By all practicable means, both by suppression of its growth in India (which, since opium is a govern- ment monopoly, would be at least as easy as the prohibition of tobacco in England), and by affording the Chinese government every facility for prevent- ing its importation at the treaty ports, we should co- operate in the extinction of a gigantic evil, which is in very great part of our own creation. 4. By far the greatest practical difficulty in pre- serving peaceable relations with China is the lawless character of Western traders. No words of mine on this subject, no reproaches of the Chinese authorities themselves, can be stronger than the language em- ployed by almost every one of our own political agents during the last thirty years. Elliott, Mitchell, Alcock, Adkins, Bruce, all tell the same tale, and all aUow that the evil is increasing. It is urgently necessary, then, that some decisive effort shall be made by all the Western Powers, conjointly with the Chinese govern- ment, to repress piracy in the Chinese seas. For one Power like England to take such measures upon her- 438 ENGLAND AND CHINA. self only leads, as has been shown in the case of Hong-kong, and in the numerous cases that have recently occurred on the Yang-tse river, to an ex- tension of the original evil. 5. To all these measures, destined for the double purpose of repressing actual evils, and of convincing the Chinese government of the friendly spirit and of the regard for international law with which our rela- tions with her are henceforth to be conducted, one further measure should be added. The money ex- torted after the wars of 1842 and 1858 should be re- paid. Our Oriental policy is degrading our standard of military morality with fearful rapidity. In the en- gagement in the straits of Simoiiosaki, a few months ago, we demanded money for having abstained from the atrocious outrage of burning down 'a defenceless and unoffending town. It is time that such proced- ure should be held up in its true light, as the merest buccaneering. The opium war, and the war in de- fence of the pirate Arrow, being by common confes- sion indefensible, the payment exacted for the expense incurred and for the destroyed opium must simply be regarded as unlawful plunder. The changed state of opinion from which alone, as I have said, the adoption of such a policy is to be expected will not, I imagine, be propagated very readily among the governing classes of this country, whether feudal or commercial. Nor is it to them that I appeal ; except it be to remark on the extreme recklessness and folly of the course which is being actually pursued. Without definite plan or purpose we are drifting into political complications in China, from which it will be difficult to extricate ourselves without disaster or disgrace. Those who look for- ENGLAND AND CHINA. 439 ward to the conquest of China should at least take the trouble to measure the marked superiority in physical and moral energy which separates the Chi- nese from most other Oriental races. " It might be inferred," says Captain Brine, himself engaged in ac- tive military service in Chinese waters, "that China is destined to fall under the rule of one of the Western Powers, and become governed in the same manner as British India. Any one acquainted with the Chinese people will at once acknowledge the extreme impro- bability of this result." But for higher and in the end stronger motives than those of political timidity or mercantile avarice, I would appeal to the working classes of this country whether they are prepared to see the national honour stained, the blood of our soldiers and sailors shed, the heavy burden of taxation yet more heavily weighted in such a cause as this? Whether it compensates for the English flag borne by pirates, for English men- of-war burning down defenceless cities, defending a trade in poison, and scattering anarchy and degrada- tion through a vast empire, that the customs' duties 'should increase, or that another province should be added to our dominion? The strong sympathies which the working classes of this country have shown for the nobler cause in the American struggle, and that while it was the urgent* interest of so large a portion of them that the side patronised by the mer- cantile and the aristocratic classes should triumph, gives ground for hoping that in Oriental policy their sympathies when enlightened will not be less vigor- ous or noble. There is a section of society in all classes iron whom better things might be expected. Those with 440 ENGLAND AND CHINA. whom sincere and heartfelt adherence to the estab- lished faith of this country is paramount over all other considerations, and who pass commonly under the designation of the religious world, form a body, diminishing indeed daily in numbers, diminishing still more visibly in intellectual power and influence, yet still wielding a practical authority which has not entirely passed away into the phantom of prestige. The principles of such men do not spring from ava- rice, political ambition, or national vanity. That England should dictate to all the weaker nations, or that her cotton-spinners should find or force all the markets of the world, is not to them an object of such transcendent importance as to drown all con- siderations of humanity and justice. They are swayed by feelings larger and deeper than patriot- ism. They wish the highest good, the spiritual wel- fare of other nations as well as of their own. How is it then, that against a series of iniquities so fla- grant, against so brutal an abuse of physical force, the Christian Church, I speak not of the official Church merely, but of all denominations in England, has hardly raised one audible protest? The answer is to be found in the narrow and un- real basis on which the system of the Church rests. Concentrating the thoughts of her disciples on a future life, she has complicated and weakened the action of those of them who are sincere upon a world which they are taught to be wholly wicked, and in which they are warned to consider themselves as not citizens but pilgrims. No one will attempt to modify what he is convinced ought altogether to be rejected. He who sincerely believes that human nature is utterly corrupt, and that "works done be- ENGLAND AND CHINA. 441 fore justification partake of the nature of sin," can- not possibly feel any real sympathy with states of society into which his own doctrine, the sole means of avoiding eternal ruin, has not penetrated. Conse- quently, however little the consistent Catholic or Protestant may be disposed to approve English po- licy towards Eastern nations, he has the strongest mo- tive for conniving at it, as the possible means of intro- ducing Christianity among them. Not that he would himself do evil that good might come ; but, in his eyes, the evil is finite and temporary, the good infinite and eternal. It is hard for him to feel any permanent indignation, it is wholly impossible for him to exer- cise any effectual efforts against military aggression which, however unjustifiable, seems yet to him the destined path of Providence, by which the souls of Hindoos and Chinese are to be saved from ruin. Thus it is that Christian doctrine consistently inter- preted has not only tolerated but has gone far to sanction some of the most flagrant political crimes in modern history. The expulsion of the Moors from Spain, the mediaeval persecution of the Jews, the de- struction of the Mexican and Peruvian empire, are instances of this, and are only less disgraceful than our Chinese wars, because in the strange combination of political and religious motives, if the avarice was equally shameless, yet the enthusiasm for the spread of the faith was incomparably more real. I have been speaking of those who interpreted the doctrines with strict logical consistency; for I would be the last to ignore the noble inconsistencies of a long series of Christian heroes and martyrs, like St. Bernard, Las Casas, and Wilberforce, who have played their part in the world, not as pilgrims reject- 442 ENGLAND AND CHINA. ing it, but as citizens accepting and reforming it. The mediaeval Church in its best times rose above its doctrine, and became the practical and social re- novator of Western Europe. To numberless Chris- tian philanthropists of later times similar praise is to be given. Still the fact remains that consistent in- terpretation of the doctrine is frequently an obstacle to international justice ; and the very slave-trade was palliated by many ministers of religion as a means of bringing heathen within the pale of Christianity. We cannot act rightly towards nations whose phase of civilisation differs from our own, unless we are prepared to understand that phase, and to yield it the due measure of sympathy and respect. To effect this result is one of the highest purposes of the Positivist theory of the history of man. By explain- ing the links which precede and lead up to our own stage of civilisation, it prepares us for recognising in each of the extra-European societies around us the ana- logue of some one of our own ancestral phases. We are thus no longer an isolated exception, a "peculiar people," endowed with exceptional gifts which dis- pense us from dealing in strict justice with less ad- vanced nations. We are brought into union, into kinship with them. We sympathise with their diffi- culties ; we reverence the great men who have striven to surmount them; and we look forward to the time when they shall recognise our fellowship as we al- ready recognise theirs, and Avhen they shall con- sciously unite with ourselves in the communion of all countries and all ages, knit together by a common faith, by the Keligion of Humanity. JOHN HENRY BRIDGES. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 443 Note on the Effects of Opium, p. 344. IT might seem a waste of argument to furnish proof of statements so obvious as these. But Leibnitz has said that if it happened to be the interest or the supposed interest of men to believe that two and two made five, it would be extremely difficult to convince them of their error. It is the interest, or the supposed interest, of the Indian Government to derive a revenue of from five to eight millions from the sale of opium to China. Every sophistry is therefore used to persuade the public of what every medical man in Europe knows to be false, that opium, in quantities of a few grains daily, is not injurious to health; and on the basis of that falsehood to found the inference, that if its excess be hurt- ful, that is no more than may be said of the abuse of alcoholic liquor; that its prohibition by Government would stand there- fore on the same footing as the prohibition of wine, beer, and spirits, demanded by the supporters of the Maine liquor law, but condemned by most reasonable men on the ground that the abuse of a thing is no argument against its use. I say then, first, that every medical man in Europe knows that whereas the use of beer or wine in small quantities is in most cases not injurious, the con- stant use even of small doses of opium, except in certain cases of disease, is injurious exceedingly. Secondly, whereas beer or wine can easily be taken in moderation, like tea or coffee, from year to year, without increasing the quantity, opium cannot. It requires constant increase to produce its pleasurable effects. This is a practical distinction of the greatest moment. In large manufac- turing towns especially, where mothers of families work in fac- tories, the physician sees its baneful effects on children to whom it is given by the hired nurse. The dose must be constantly in- creased. Two drops of laudanum, that is, one-tenth of a grain of opium, are enough to kill an infant of a month old. But under the sedulous ministrations of the nurse, a dose of sixty drops, equal to three full doses for an adult, is at last tolerated and de- manded. In Bradford the rate of mortality for all classes is high, 25 to 28 per 1000, as compared with the average in the community of 22. But the mortality of children under five years is out of proportion even to that high standard, 230 per 1000, as compared with the general English rate of 150. This I know from personal experience to be largely due to opium. But it would be entirely erroneous to measure the mischievous effects of opium merely or 444 ENGLAND AND CHINA. mainly by its effect in shortening life. Nor is it on the intellec- tual faculties that its worst evils primarily and directly fall. It is the manhood, the energy, the will, the concentration of purpose that in the first place are attacked and undermined. The life-long suicide of Coleridge and De Quincey is painful evidence of this. I need not say that in the consensus of our nature morale and physique are inextricably bound together; and that this moral degradation is accompanied or followed by physical suffering. " Among the symptoms that present themselves," says Dr. Med- hurst, quoting from a medical report, " are griping pains in the bowels, pain in the limbs, loss of appetite, so that the smoker can only eat dainty food, disturbed sleep, and general emacia- tion. The outward appearances are, sallowness of the com- plexion, bloodless cheeks and lips, sunken eye with a dark circle round the eyelids, and altogether a haggard countenance. There is a peculiar appearance in the face of a smoker not noticed in any other condition; the skin assumes a pale waxy appearance, and as if all the fat were removed from beneath the skin. The hollows of the countenance, the eyelids, root of the ala nasi, fis- sure and corners of lips, depression at the angle of the jaw, temples, &c., take on a peculiar dark appearance, not like that resulting from various chronic diseases, but as if some dark matter were deposited beneath the skin. There is also a fulness and protru- sion of the lips, arising perhaps from the continued use of the large mouth-piece peculiar to the opium pipe. In fine, a confirmed opium smoker presents a most melancholy appearance, haggard, dejected, with a lack-lustre eye, and a slovenly, weakly, and feeble gait."* And if these evils are supposed exceptional, read the following description of our own native Coolie force in China, written by one of its English officers. " They all behaved well under fire, and some of them did acts that would have given the Victoria Cross to any Englishman, had he done the same. Their powers of endurance are wonderful ; I have known them work hard in a hot sun for ten or twelve hours, and not grumble when they saw that a certain amount of work had to be done. They drink very little ; they are great hands at lan- guages ; . . . . their great lane is opium ; and I do not think it is possible for any of them who liave taken it to give it up; consequently by the time they are forty years of age they are old men."} Papers relating to the Opium-Trade in China, 1842-1856, p. 56. f Brine's Taeping Kebellion, p. 152. ENGLAND AND CHINA. 445 Extracts from Memorandum by Mr. Alcock (now SirX. Alcock), contained in Parliamentary Papers relative to Lord Elgin's Mission 0/1857, pp. 55-61. "To every privilege gained" (in our intercourse with China) "the first difficulty having been surmounted, another and often a greater has appeared, lying full in the way between the privilege and our enjoyment of its legitimate fruit. Almost invariablylt has taken the shape of some evil or abuse attaching to the exer- cise of our acquired rights. And as the inseparable condition of such a state of things, one alternative, and one only, has been offered, written very plainly, as may now be seen, however it may have been overlooked or disregarded at the time, and it was this, either such abuses and evils must be grappled with and mastered, or the best fruit be relinquished, with insecure tenure of the rest. To decline the contest was to accept the penalties of defeat; and as it has ever been, so it is now. " The access to the inner waters and great inland marts of Chinese produce, with the promise of new and important advan- tages, brings a menace of new dangers of corresponding magni- tude in the extension of a chronic evil, which has been disastrous to our position and interests in China. The worthless character of a numerous gathering of foreigners of all nations, under no effec- tive control, is a national reproach as well as a public calamity. They dispute the field of commerce with honester men, and convert privileges of access and trade into means of fraud and violence. In this career of license, unchecked by any fear of their own government, and protected in a great degree by treaties from the action of the native authorities, the Chinese are the first and greatest, but by no means the only sufferers. There is no govern- ment or nation of the great European family that does not suffer in character, and in so far as they have any interests at stake , in China, in these also both immediately and prospectively. " One of the principal objects of our treaty was relief from cohongs and monopolies, with vexatious and arbitrary taxes on trade. A system of maritime customs under the check of con- sular authorities was the remedy. But this gain brought with it an attendant evil. Foreign merchants launched into a whole- sale system of smuggling and fraudulent devices for the evasion of duties. Chinese laws and treaty-stipulations were alike disre- 446 ENGLAND AND CHINA. garded ; sometimes by forcible infraction of port regulations, oftener by bribery and collusion. Some of the promised advan- tages of enlarged facilities of trade were lost to us by such courses, and beyond all doubt a new class of obstacles has been created " Exemption from territorial jurisdiction was a great step in advance ; but it too brought with it an evil progeny. Contempt for all Chinese authority, and disregard of inherent rights, ha- bitual infraction of treaty stipulations, license and violence wher- ever the offscum of the European nations found access and peace- able people to plunder; such were the first-fruits of this important concession, and time only served to increase their growth. . . . . . If gross abuse, of foreign flags, and the immunities tliey gave by treaty, had not been habitual and matters of notoriety, es- pecially in the class of lorcha vessels, smugglers and pirates all, the particular ground of quarrel in which the Canton difficulty began, would never have arisen. "In reference to open violence, and the license enjoyed by desperadoes and lawless persons on the coast of China, either foreigners in the proper sense of the term, or sailing in piratical vessels under foreign flags, it is desirable to show how nearly identical the prevailing evils are with those recorded in the past, and what these led to after a few years. " It is just three centuries ago since Simon Andrade and Fernando Mendez Pinto, both Portuguese, sailed up the Chinese coast, ostensibly for traffic in the north, where a flourishing trade and foreign settlements had already been established at Amoy, Ningpo, and Japan even, on the Island of Formosa and else- where. After plundering the tombs of seventeen kings of an ancient dynasty, in which treasure had been buried, and making many piratical expeditions from Ningpo as a base of operations, they drew down upon them the vengeance of the surrounding population, which rose upon them en masse, destroying not only their fleet of 37 vessels, but 800 resident Portuguese, and 12,000 Christians, it is averred. Thus terminated all relations of trade and amity with foreigners at the northern ports until 1843 ; these events having taken place about 1545. From that date all inter- course was restricted to the most southern point of the empire and a single port. " It is scarcely three months ago since accounts were received of a combined attack made by the Ningpo people, who had called ENGLAND AND CHINA. 447 in the aid of vessels manned by Cantonese, on a large fleet of piratical lorchas, under the Portuguese flag and manned by Por- tuguese chiefly, who had long been the terror and the pest of the contiguous coast, and even of the city of Ningpo itself, by their exactions and violence. All who could not escape were massacred ; many were pursued on shore and their vessels seized. One cannot help being struck with the close analogy between these two events, so widely separated in time, so similar in cause and results, and each taking place at the same port. " The governments of Europe have yet to learn the magnitude of the danger their interests are continually incurring, not from the incidents of a civil war, or the inherent perversity of the Chinese race, but from the absence of all due control in China over the natives of every country in Europe and America, and the indifference with which all the evils resulting from unre- strained license continue to be regarded even by the treaty Powers. " It is only by general concurrence, active or passive, on the part of Western Powers, that any effective steps can be taken to apply a remedy. If the treaty Powers for instance, all who have interests of commerce, civilisation, or religion at heart, will put their hands to the work, a strong check will easily be established, and some concerted action with the Chinese government would only be necessary, assuming the acquiescence of other Western Powers, to give complete effect to measures well calculated to prevent continuous or gross abuses on the part of any foreigners.'* Chinese Moral Standard. (Note on p. 353.) Dr. Eennie, speaking of the confidence reposed by Chinamen in English merchants says: "This commercial confidence and payment of money in advance, is fully reciprocated by the prin- cipal foreign merchants in China, who are in the habit of intrust- ing large sums of money to Chinamen to go up into the tea and silk districts and make purchases for them, having no other secu- rity than their confidence in the men's integrity; and to the credit of this class of the Chinese, I never heard of a case in which li 448 ENGLAND AND CHINA. was abused ; but on the contrary have heard English merchants say, that they have frequently placed pecuniary trusts in the hands of Chinamen, that they would not have done under similar circumstances in the hands of their own countrymen." PeJcin and the Pekingese, Vol. i. p. 300. Examination of the myths propagated so sedulously as to female infanticide in China leads to the belief that the crime is probably not quite so common as in England. That will certainly be the impression derived from study of the Jesuit memoirs, written by men who had such ample opportunities of minute observation. Dr. Eennie quotes facts which "argue strongly against the current belief that girls are ill-treated in China." " Of the correctness of this belief," he adds, " I have never myself been able to find a shadow of proof, but the con- trary." Vol. ii. p. 3. With regard to the kindliness of the Chinese disposition, an anecdote of Dr. Eennie's is worth quoting: "We have had, in a small way, an illustration of that remarkable absence of selfish- ness, and that desire to benefit relatives, which are among the prominent characteristics of the Chinese nature. Mr. Mofiit's servant, a native of Tien-tsin, about fourteen years of age, refused at first to go with him so far from home as Nu-che-wang, but ultimately consented to do so on the condition of having his wages doubled for the two months that he was to be away, and paid in advance, also that a sheep-skin coat should be given him. On Mr. Moffit paying him the amount in advance, namely, twelve dollars, he divided it between his two married brothers, and would not keep a single dollar for himself, saying that his bro- thers required them and he did not." These are no isolated instances. The Jesuit missionaries of the last century, men who were not blinded by mercantile nor even by religious animosities, narrate abundant examples of the same kind. No. VI. ENGLAND AND JAPAN. BY CHARLES A. COOKSON. GG ENGLAND AND JAPAN. I. IN a survey of the position of himself and the other foreign ministers at Jeddo in 1861, Sir R. Alcock, after nearly two years' residence there, uses the fol- lowing language :* "Life was insecure; trade was being daily restricted, and no remonstrance, protest, or argument, within the scope of diplo- matic means, had hitherto much availed to turn the authorities from a policy, the manifest tendency of which was to nullify the treaties, restrict all intercourse, and ultimately revert to the former state of isolation by the expulsion of foreigners. To make trade unprofitable by restrictions, extortions, and prohi- bitions, imposed on their own people with whom their power is absolute, render life not only so insecure, but intolerable in the conditions of residence, that no foreigner would long submit or find such an existence endurable, seemed really to have been the chief object kept in view during nearly two years. This was the summary of their policy; and if these milder measures failed, the bravo's sword for assassination was always in reserve, and held in terrorem over the heads of intruders on their soil, to be resorted to, as occasion might serve, without ruth or scruple. Trade ham- Capital of the Tycoon, vol. ii. p. 103. 452 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. pered and manacled, national rights violated, with outrage to the flags, and without a hope of redress or amelioration, all with im- punity. This resume depicts the situation." This is, of course, an ex parte statement of charges against the Japanese Government, in which some allowance must be made for personal uneasiness and disappointment ; but on the whole it will hardly be thought that, from the writer's point of view, the pic- ture here presented of the difficulties which have met Western diplomatists in Japan is much exag- gerated. There can also be little ground for be- lieving that the position of affairs has since mate- rially altered or improved; indeed the whole series of subsequent events appears to be an illustration of the truth of Sir R. Alcock's description, and affords a striking contrast to the hopes which had previously been entertained of the success of the efforts to open the Japanese empire to commerce and free intercourse with the rest of the world. These hopes did not certainly appear, when they were first so generally expressed, to be without some reasonable foundation, nor was it to be wondered at that they then were eagerly embraced by the great body of the public. The general acquaintance even of well-informed Englishmen with the history and character of the Japanese empire was probably confined to a few facts, when the news of the suc- cessful attempt made by the government of the United States to open diplomatic relations in 1854 directed general attention to the subject. The map of the world showed that an island empire as large as Great Britain, in a position as to conditions of climate inferior to none on the whole globe, and with a configuration of coast admirably adapted for ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 453 maritime commerce, lies in the high road between America, China, and India. It was also known that the policy of the Japanese Government, which for two hundred years had excluded all foreigners (ex- cept a few Dutch merchants) from intercourse with the country, had not always prevailed ; but that the Portuguese, earliest here as elsewhere in their intercourse with Oriental nations, had been allowed for nearly a century full opportunities for com- merce and propagandism, and that their efforts in the latter direction had apparently been attended for a time with such extraordinary success among all orders of the people as to have provoked op- position from the government, and brought about a persecution the most bloody and the most effectual to be found in the records of missions. That the Japanese people were also possessed of a consi- derable amount of ingenuity and artistic skill was proved by such importations of their manufactures, especially of their lacquer - ware and porcelain, as reached Europe through the Dutch factory at Naga- saki. But probably it is no exaggeration to say that beyond this the popular knowledge of Japan hardly extended. Whatever else was thought of the country and its inhabitants was probably de- rived from its supposed similarity to China, with which its civilisation, government, and religion were generally confounded. Much more than this was no doubt to be learned by those who cared to give time and attention to the subject; but this information, it was generally supposed, in the lan- guage of the writer who has done more to popu- larise the subject of Japan than any other English- man, was attainable only through "huge tomes and 454 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. ponderous volumes, wrapt in quaint language and mouldy learning."* None, therefore, but the student of geography or ethnology felt called upon to disinter the facts ; although in reality almost all that was then known of Japan was contained in two volumes of the English translation of Engelbert Ksempfer's History of Japan, a work which, for its lucid arrangement, scientific accuracy of observation, sound judgment, and careful industry, is scarcely excelled by any con- tribution to ethnology. But the real cause of the general ignorance of Englishmen as to Japan and its people, no doubt, was to be found in the apparent absence of practical value in the investigation. The literary interest attached to the subject of the Chinese and their civilisation, owing to its supposed bearing on the metaphysical religious controversies of the eighteenth century, and the a priori theories of Voltaire and Montes- quieu as to the origin of society, had almost entirely died out in this country. This interest had never extended to Japan ; and those whom the more active stimulus of commercial enterprise led to turn their eyes in that direction were repelled by the prospect before them. They saw that their first ventures must be attended with far more than the usual risks of early traders. They found that the law which excluded all foreign vessels from the ports of Japan was carried out with such consis- tent severity that more than one crew of adven- turers had suffered rigorous captivity. The various attempts, too, made since the expulsion of the Por- tuguese by the Governments of England, the United States, and Russia, to enter into international re- c Osborne, Japanese Fragments, p. 5. ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 455 lations, had hitherto proved complete failures. The Dutch, the only nation whose merchants had any practical acquaintance with Japan, were themselves, no doubt, from the lengthened experience of their own position of isolation at Decima, thoroughly con- vinced of the hopelessness of any attempt to re- lax the rigid system of Japanese policy. And they maybe excused if they showed little disposition either to underrate the difficulties of a task which they had so utterly failed in accomplishing, or to assist towards the introduction of rivals in the petty monopoly of trade, which they preserved for themselves only on the most humiliating terms of submission. Against such obstacles it was evident that all private attempts must be abortive. It was only by the action of the Government of one or more of the Western Powers that there could be any hopes of breaking down the barriers of exclusion. And it was not till very recently that any serious effort had been made by any of them. Three only of the great Powers had had any direct interest in the question of Japan. Russia, from her geographical position and the large views which she has always taken of Oriental policy, was the most intimately connected with the destinies of the fertile country of forty million of industrious inhabitants; to whom, by her recent acquisitions of territory, she is become almost the nearest neighbour, The American Eepublic could never be indifferent to her share in trade and intercourse with a country which lies immediately on the ocean high-road from California to China and India. Nor could the world- wide commercial interests of England allow her to lag behind in the race for trade; and her con- nection with China gave a special stimulus to the 456 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. enterprise of her merchants in that quarter of the globe. Yet the efforts which each of these nations o had made to obtain either access to the harbours of Japan or liberty of commerce with the people had hitherto met with no success : but they had been very faint, and generally very ill-directed ; and if their aim had been better, in no instance had either the discre- tion or the skill of those intrusted with so delicate a task deserved a better fate. When, therefore, the triumphant official narrative of the American expe- dition under Commander Perry, in the spring of 1854, announced to the world that the first advance had been made towards bringing Japan into relation with the rest of the world, the previous failures and difficulties were easily glossed over or forgotten, and those sanguine hopes were excited to which the pic- ture drawn by Sir R. Alcock affords so discouraging a contrast. It is true that the first treaty concluded with the Tycoon conceded to the Americans nothing but access to two remote and unimportant harbours, for the purpose only of victualling and refitting their vessels, with the privilege of residence for a consul at one of them. But the recognition of any interna- tional rights in foreigners by the Japanese Govern- ment was so great an innovation in their national policy that it was not unreasonably believed that other and more important advantages might soon be achieved. The Crimean war immediately following had the effect of directing still closer attention to the relations of the West with Eastern Asia, as an im- portant branch of that great "Eastern Question" which Russia had long been silently endeavouring to solve in her own way. It was felt how important it was for the Western allies not only to possess in ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 457 Japan stations for their fleets in those stormy seas, but also to prevent the Japanese archipelago falling into the grasp of the Empire which was already ex- tending its gigantic arms over the continent on either side of those islands. Meanwhile the Americans were improving the advantage given them by the residence of their consul at Samoda, in urging on the Japanese Government the benefits of an extension of the privileges already granted to them. The resist- ance to these demands for the opening of ports and a treaty of commerce might have been indefinitely prolonged, had not the tidings of the forcible dicta- tion of the treaty ofTien-tsin, in the summer of 1858, been so dextrously employed by the American Con- sul Mr. Harris as to obtain from the Tycoon further concessions. When Lord Elgin arrived immediately afterwards he found very little difficulty in securing for Great Britain the terms which had been already obtained by America ; and these terms were afterwards extended without resistance to France, Eussia, and Holland. Thus the anticipations of the more sanguine appeared already half realised ; and it was confi- dently believed that a field was now opened for the commerce and propagandism of the Western world, the riches of whose virgin soil would speedily begin to be gathered in by a numerous band of mer- chants and missionaries. Nor did these ideas want further confirmation from various sources. Keference was now made to the old accounts of the Japanese empire and people. Popular writers epitomised and extracted the facts contained in the works of Ka3mpfer, Siebold, Titsingh, and others, who, with true Teu- tonic patience and impartiality, had recorded the re- 458 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. suits of much study and inquiry into the phenomena of the social, political, and religious life outside the walls of their dull Dutch factory at Decima. And in the picture, always carefully drawn, but not always very lifelike, which their volumes present, much was found to wonder at and to praise. A densely-popu- lous and highly-cultivated country, with productions amply sufficient for every want of the population ; a government whose paternal despotism acknowledged the eifectual restraint of unwritten traditions of jus- tice; and, finally, a people to whom destitution and disorder had for centuries been unknown, among whom education was universal, and whose increasing industry had not impaired their martial character. Well might Ka3mpfer, in a summary of the arguments on both sides of the question, whether the Japanese were well advised in their policy of isolation, incline to the conclusion that such a nation had more to lose than to gain by intercourse with the rest of the globe. And the letters and writings of the first Jesuit mis- sionaries were found, by those who had the patience to peruse them, to abound with testimony equally fa- vourable to the general character of those whose eager reception of Christianity had rendered its triumph apparently so rapid and so easy, and who, when per- secution broke out, had almost without an exception preferred to surrender their lives rather than their faith. Nor did the accounts of the most recent tra- vellers exhibit any signs of a national deterioration. The narratives of those who accompanied the British and other foreign embassies teemed with enthusiastic praise of "this charming people," who to primitive simplicity added the most polished politeness and refinement, and whose industry and intelligence sur- ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 459 passed that of the Chinese, while it was united with a chivalrous courage and a manly spirit of independ- ence such as is found in no other Oriental race. With such pictures before their eyes, what wonder if men looked forward with eager curiosity to the results which they expected would speedily follow the se- cond introduction of European civilisation into this singular country, under the more favourable auspices of modern commercial treaties and all the arts and sciences of the nineteenth century ? A comparison of these sanguine anticipations with the uniform tone of discouragement, almost amount- ing to despair, which pervades not only the work of Sir R. Alcock, but nearly every despatch sent home by the ministers in Japan, compels the conclusion either that the difficulties of their task had been greatly underrated, or that the negotiations which have produced such unfortunate results must have been altogether mismanaged. The result of our examination may not enable us wholly to exonerate the agents who have been em- ployed ; but the real causes of failure must be sought not in their personal errors and deficiencies, but in the policy which they have been instructed to carry out. Their task has been nothing less than to compel, by a mixture of intimidation and persuasion, the rulers of Japan to lend their active cooperation towards the promotion of an intercourse with the Western world, from which the history and traditions of the coun- try led them at the outset to expect nothing but national loss and misfortune, out of which they have hitherto experienced no fruits but those which they had anticipated, and in which they discern the menace of a speedy revolution, likely not only to 460 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. be fatal to themselves and their authority, but to prove the certain precursor of universal social disor- ganisation. How far these fears of the Japanese rulers are well founded is certainly a practical question which our statesmen are bound to consider before they incur the responsibility of producing such a catastrophe. An as- sumption of even a protectorate of the government of Japan on the part of Great Britain, though conjointly with other Western Powers, is probably a solution of the difficulty for which the boldest advocates of a " spirited foreign policy" are not yet prepared. Yet there are not wanting indications that unless the policy of our ministers is closely watched we may be almost inextricably mixed up with the domestic dissen- sions of the country. And who, with the experiences of India and China fresh on his mind, can say what may be the next step which is pronounced inevit- able? It cannot therefore be superfluous to urge on public opinion any considerations which may tend to prevent our " drifting" into a position of which the danger is so serious. But apart from this, it will, I hope, appear from the following pages that the policy hitherto pursued by Great Britain, while productive only of disaster to Japan, has brought no corresponding advantages to ourselves, and that a persistence in the same course is likely to involve us in even more serious difficulties; in short, that the means employed by our diplomatists have been di- rectly calculated to frustrate even the short-sighted purposes which they have had in view. As I believe that the principal cause of the ill- advised measures hitherto taken by the English Go- vernment towards Japan has lain in an incapacity ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 461 for estimating the true character of the civilisation with which they had to deal, in fact from a neglect of that relative method of political investigation which is the distinguishing feature of modern Posi- tive science, it will be necessary to say something on the general character and civilisation of the coun- try. These preliminary observations are intended, however, only to enable an ordinary Englishman in some degree to put himself in the right position for understanding the true character of the relations of the Japanese with the Western, as well as the place which they occupy in the Eastern world. In this connection a few observations on the dis- puted question as to the ethnological affinities of the population of Japan may possess something more than an ethnological interest. This is a point on which several different theories have been pro- pounded. But they need not detain us now. Ex- cepting the fanciful notion of Koempfer as to the Babylonian origin of the Japanese, all these theories agree in referring them to some one of the races on the neighbouring islands or mainland, which would all be classed physiologically under that great branch of the human family of which the Mongol tribe has been chosen by ethnologists as the best-known and most strongly-marked type. The very features of difference observed by Siebold between " the smaller, darker, crisper-haired, thicker-lipped maritime popu- lation of the island of Kiusiu," as distinguished from "the larger-framed, clearer-skinned agriculturists of o ' o the interior," point to this conclusion, which is strongly borne out by his detailed comparison of the Chinese and Japanese features. For these differences are only the same modifications of the general Mongol 462 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. type, which are discernible throughout the various tribes which have now become so closely amalga- mated with the Chinese proper, under the influence of the institutions which they have adopted from that kindred race of conquerors from the north-eastern highlands of Thibet. There would therefore be no- & thing in the physiological characteristics of the Japan- ese, always the least deceptive evidence of nationality, opposed to the earliest theory adopted by Europeans, which supposed them to be a colony from the main- land of China. The other, though far less trust- worthy species of physical evidence, that furnished by their language, certainly seems to point in an en- tirely different direction. Though the Japanese have adopted their written character from the Chinese ideographic alphabet, their language is undoubtedly quite distinct from that which has long been almost universal throughout China. It in fact belongs to quite a different family of speech from the Chinese, to which it bears hardly any resemblance either in structure, roots, syntax, or general sound. It is neither wholly monosyllabic, nor altogether without inflexions properly so called. Comparative philolo- gists are generally agreed in classing it under the great Turanian family, of which the main distinc- tion is its agglutinative stage of development, mid- way between the purely monosyllabic, aptote, Chinese and the rich growth of inflexions in the Aryan family.* An examination of the Japanese Grammar of MM. Curtius and Hoffman (in the French translation of M. Leon Pages) and of the Introduction a Vetude cle la langue Japonaise of M. Rosny, as well as a very interesting paper by the same learned writer in the Journal Asiatique, appears to me (in my ignorance of that family of lan- guages) to render it probable that the Japanese is one of those varieties ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 463 The difficulty thus raised is not, however, insur- mountable. It may be met by the theory adopted by the eminent Orientalist Klaproth, according to which Japan was early overrun by a Chinese conqueror, the founder of the present dynasty of Mikados, who adopted the language of the aboriginal race, while he imparted to them much cf the form of civilisation and government which had already been developed in his own country. In accordance with this hypothesis we might suppose that the main stock of the popula-' tion of Japan was a Turanian-speaking race (perhaps one of the Tungusean tribes from the north-east of China), whose language, long lost in their original seats under the strangely absorbent influence of the dominant race of that empire, still survives in the mellifluous vocalised tones which fall with so plea- sant a contrast on the European ear long fatigued with the harsh nasal twang of Chinese. For there can be little doubt that over a considerable area of that enormous field where now we are hardly able to discern any thing but the homogeneity brought about by so many centuries of national unity, there was once a great variety of tribes broadly distinguished in their speech and features from the Chinese race proper. This theory of Klaproth would certainly appear to be in harmony with such Japanese historical records of speech (referred to by M. Max Muller in his Lectures on Language) which had commenced to substitute inflexion for agglutination when arrested in their development. This might explain the greater power of combination which has led some to compare Japanese in this respect even with Greek or German. For the process, however really different, by which the two or more roots are welded into one word in an agglu- tinative language may easily be mistaken for the true inflexion-power of " word-building" possessed by the more highly developed forms of speech. 464 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. as we are acquainted with. According to these au- thorities the present dynasty of Mikados is derived in an uninterrupted line of descent from Zinmu, who from his original kingdom in the south-west portion of the Japanese archipelago, apparently in the island of Kiu-siu, extended his empire over the southern half of the great island of Nippon. Now, though the narrative of his conquests is not unmixed with pro- digies, it appears not improbable that Zinmu was a real historical personage, and that the era assigned to him, the first half of the seventh century before our era, is approximately correct. For the Japanese annals, Avhich commence with Zinmu, though little more than a bare list of the succession of Mikados, with here and there a mention of an earthquake, a religious ceremony, or an extension of territory, are rendered more credible by this absence of the mar- vellous detail so easily supplied by the imagination of the myth-maker. And this sobriety is the more remarkable, because with Zinmu the national annals make an abrupt descent from a totally different world of decidedly fabulous character. And it corroborates Klaproth's hypothesis as to the origin of Zinmu, that, in the chronicles which Kaempfer follows, between Zinmu and this earlier world has been interpolated a long list of Chinese emperors, extending through seventeen monarchs of the Chau dynasty, and all the preceding dynasties of Hia and Shang up to the my- thical Fohi, whose era is placed 2852 years before our own. It is true that in the historical tables translated from the Japanese by Siebold this foreign chrono- logy is altogether omitted, Zinmu being placed as the son and immediate successor of the last of a race of five demigods, the enormous periods of whose reigns ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 465 lead up to a primeval dynasty of seven heavenly spirits. But these lists themselves bear a suspicious resemblance to the dynasties of the three august ones and the five sovereigns with which the Chinese com- mence their annals. And this resemblance is equally observable in the Japanese cosmogony, which, like that of China, is distinguished by the preponderance of the physical and realistic over the poetic and an- thropomorphic elements which are so strongly marked in the theological myths of India and Greece. Alto- gether the evidence furnished by comparative ethno- logy, as well as by national tradition, rather supports the theory of an early Chinese conquest or immigration in Japan, under a leader who founded the dynasty of Mikados, which has ever since held its court in the temple-palace, Avhere they receive the honours due to their divine origin from "Zinmu, the god- warrior, the heaven-renowned prince." But whatever may be thought of the ethnological affinities of the Japanese, it is with the general nature of their present civilisation that we are practically concerned ; and in this we can more or less distinctly trace almost every phenomenon to its origin in the presence, more or less strongly marked, of the same elements which have determined the character of that of China. The general likeness between the superficial appearances of society in the two coun- tries is so close that the earliest European observers, who were well acquainted with China, pronounced the two civilisations identical. More careful study has detected many and great points of difference; but it is well to bear in mind this general resem- blance, in order that the real importance of the differences with which critics are chiefly concerned HH 466 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. may not be exaggerated. The whole of Japanese art, literature, and philosophy, is confessedly bor- rowed from China, and the numerous petty pecu- liarities which distinguish the manners and social usages of the Chinese from those of the rest of the globe are generally shared with them by the Ja- panese. It has been observed by those well qualified to judge that an almost indispensable preparation for the mastery of the colloquial language of Japan is a preliminary study of Chinese; and the same thing will, I believe, be found quite as true of Japanese history and civilisation. It is, however, when we come to form wider gene- ralisations as to the abstract ideas which lie at the root of the social organisations of the two empires and their concrete developments in the phenomena of his- tory, that the parallel becomes most interesting and instructive. To arrive at this point it is necessary to go back to the earliest period of which we have any authentic account; for it is in the most remote past that the primitive elements which have been most in- fluential in the formation of the present are often most easily discernible. Fortunately for our purpose there is not much doubt that we possess in the sacred books of China, and especially in the canonical works ascribed to Confucius, a trustworthy picture of a very early stage in the history of the empire. The portraits of the early emperors in the Shoo-king may be only ideal myths; but we can at any rate collect from them the theory of government then recognised in China; while in the sage's account of the times nearer our own in the same book, and even in the meagre chronology of the Spring and Autumn Annals, may plainly be discerned a less flattering picture of ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 467 the state of things actually existing around him. Professedly founding the system of government and morals, which his authority has preserved almost un- impaired to the present day, upon the wisdom of his ancestors, Confucius supports it by representino- it as only a restoration of the golden ages of antiquity. Thus it may be that the shadowy and heroic forms of the past are but the embodiment of the philoso- pher's aspirations for the future, though the evils which he would remedy are only too faithfully por- trayed from his own actual experience. What then is the theory of society which the mythical ideal illustrates? and what the actual condition which the contemporary history describes? Here, as else- where in the ancient world, two ideas underlie the whole fabric of society the theological and the patriarchal. The theology (here less properly so called) is that latest and most permanent modifi- cation of fetishism in which the material powers of the universe, of which heaven is the centre and the type, are worshipped as the immediate and arbitrary source of all good and evil, and therefore of all human authority or power, which, as directly derived from Heaven, claims the unhesitating reverence due to its divine origin. With the theological is closely associated the patriarchal. The paternal relation is at once the most obvious type and the most natural origin of all human power. Whatever, therefore, the process by which the absolute authority of the father of the family (the smallest recognised unit of social life) is transferred first to the head of the village or clan as an aggregate of families, and thence to the head of the nation, the father of a larger family in every case the very possession of power gives the possessor 468 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. something of that divine authority of which the es- sence lies in the arbitrariness of operation which it shares with the powers of nature. The title of the supreme emperor being then both de jure and de facto (for here the two are identical), his will is " the will of Heaven," by which his reign is confirmed. That this will of Heaven should be identified by some with a theological, by others with a fatalistic, by some even with a popular basis of authority, is not to be wondered at. It is, in fact, a combination of all these claims, and it may be interpreted as pronoun- cing in favour of or against any individual emperor or dynasty by the signs either of national prosperity and adversity, or by the bestowal or withdrawal of those personal gifts of virtue, success, and ability, which are specially looked for in the " Son of Hea- ven." In this early, simple, and homogeneous con- dition of society no rival authority to the " Son of Heaven" exists in a polytheistic priesthood with its attendant system of caste and a distinct military class. Rites of worship and divination in propitia- tion of the gods of the land and of the grave, and other material powers of the universe, are performed without sacerdotal intervention by the father of the family, or by the emperor himself as the representa- tive of the nation. But the most important religious ceremonies are those honours which are paid at the tombs of the former heads of the family; for the sake of which posthumous worship of himself the father chiefly values the possession of male offspring. It almost seems as if, both with the deceased ances- tor and the emperor, the remoteness and mystery in which their personality is shrouded, in the one case by death, and in the other by comparative isolation ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 469 within the precincts of a sacred court, were sufficient in itself to confer on them, in the popular imagina- tion, the possession of that indefinite and arbitrary power which is the chief source of the awe and wor- ship with which the material universe is regarded by the fetishist. Under such a rule every command of the ruler has the sanction of religion, and there is no place for the later distinction between the laws by which the state is governed and the customs sanc- tioned by the heaven-derived authority of ancestors as the rule of ordinary life; for here (even more than elsewhere in the East) institutions are every thing, and the individual is nothing ; and homogeneity, such as is difficult for us to conceive, characterises the whole social system. This is a rough sketch of the only theory of society known to the sacred books of China, and is that on which the whole governmental machinery there described turns as on a pivot. Ex- perience has shown that this is compatible not only with an elaborate and highly efficient administrative system, but with an advance in industrial and even intellectual condition, in which the entire absence of the more active principles of liberty and progress is, however inadequately, compensated by freedom from the evils of sacerdotal and military domination, through which our Western society has passed to its higher stage of development. Yet when we turn from this theoretical unity and symmetry to the actual condition of things which we know existed in China in the age of Confucius, we find much which is at variance with the ideal. Though nearly the whole of the eighteen provinces, which are now known as China Proper, already (and probably for many generations) had acknowledged 470 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. the supreme authority of the Chau dynasty, which then reigned in Shansi, yet the different clans or states of which their nominal empire was composed were very far from being incorporated together. In- deed the whole life of Confucius was spent in abor- tive attempts to compose the perpetual strife then waging between the neighbouring states. This dis- organised condition of the empire is indeed attri- buted to the unwise concessions made to the tribu- tary sovereigns by the first monarchs of the Chau dynasty; but it may be doubted whether the unity thus ascribed to the times of the dynasties of Hia and Shang is not merely mythical; though, on the other hand, it seems at least probable, from the nominal sub- mission paid by these tributary states to the emperor of Shansi, that they had really at some prior time been practically reduced under his sway, and were afterwards broken up into their original elements. This is a process of which the history of China for many centuries after Confucius affords constant ex- amples; a period of apparent unity and centralisa- tion being succeeded by one of separation and disin- tegration (sometimes into a great number of smaller kingdoms), which lasts until some great emperor again unites the whole under one sway. However this may have been, there can be no doubt about the general condition of the empire of China at the time of Confucius, and a century later at the epoch of Zinniu. The nominal supremacy of the dy- nasty of emperors in Shansi appears to have been ac- knowledged by the several distinct clans or kingdoms which overspread the area of what is now known as China Proper; but each of these states had a chief of its own, and was governed by its own laws or ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 471 institutions. This is the condition which has suo-- gested to Europeans the analogy of Western feu- dalism, which, if not pressed beyond the limits of accuracy, may be conveniently employed. This so- called feudal era is sometimes said to have been closed in China with the commencement of the dynasty of Tsin, under the celebrated Chi Hwang- Ti', who in the second half of the third century of our era laid the foundation of the permanent unity of the empire, and removed the two great obstacles to its security, by a reduction of the petty kingdoms into thirty-six provincial governments, administered by his own subordinates, and by the erection of the great line of fortifications against the invasions of the nomad hordes on the north-eastern frontier. But the consolidation thus effected by Chi Hwang- Ti' was only temporary, and indeed the attempt may almost be regarded as premature. Many times after his reign the misgovernment or misfortune of the em- perors (interpreted as signs that their title de jure had, by the "will of Heaven," passed away from them with their power de facto) produced revolts which terminated in periods of disintegration, often of long duration. Yet the centralised government O < - J which he organised lasted long enough under his dynasty and that of Han (B.C. 249 to A.D. 221) to justify us in reckoning the subsequent disruptions as breaks in the chain of progress, and considering the normal government of the empire to be repre- sented by those long periods of unity under the great princes of Sin, Tang, and Sung. For it is this tendency towards the centralisation which has been effected under the Mongol, Ming, and Mantchou dy- nasties, which constitutes the main law of political 472 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. development in Chinese history. It has often been checked and retarded by dynastic changes, provin- cial revolts, and foreign invasions; but the process of unification has still proceeded. There is little doubt that the disorganised state of the interior which has been discovered in our own time is in a great measure traceable to the fatal influence of o Western aggressions, which are so distinctly seen at work in the rebellions of the last few years. As to the means by which this centralisation has been effected in China, there is a general agreement among all competent judges. The political philo- sophy of Confucius has for many centuries been the text-book of Chinese statesmanship, and in its prin- ciples every officer of government has been trained and educated, until it forms not only the code of positive law, but the far more influential and wide- spread material of public opinion, which in the East so generally supersedes the action of the legislator. By its means the traditions of a remote past have been interwoven with the experience of the present. And their perpetuation has been guaranteed by the most powerful agency which can well be conceived. The system of public examinations has made the only ave- nue to power, influence, and authority to lie through a study of this philosophy. Its text has been com- mented on and illustrated through every successive generation by the greatest intellects of the nation, until round it has gathered a body of literature not inferior in volume and relative importance to that devoted to the sacred books of any other race or country. In this sense the philosophy of Confucius has been to China what theology was to the Middle Ages of Europe, the science of sciences. Whatever ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 473 may be the inherent deficiencies of the system, to it must undoubtedly be referred whatever ex- cellence is to be found in Chinese civilisation and character. The time is past when it could be judged by the false standard of an absolute theory which can see no good and no evil but that which is deduced from its own preconceived notions. The relative method of modern historical investigation o judges more fairly the phenomena of a civilisation so widely differing from our own in its origin and development. If we turn from this view of Chinese political so- ciety to the history and present condition of Japan, we find sufficient resemblance to render the study of the one with which we are so much better acquainted an invaluable aid to the right understanding of the other, and sufficient difference to give an independent value to the investigation of the less-understood phenomena. In Chinese history we see the earliest stage of national organisation, that of the independent clan or state, itself an aggregate of village or family communities, transformed into a centralised government, in which all local authority is directly derived from and merged in the supreme rule of the emperor. In Japan, on the other hand, the political system is far more com- plex, because the origiDal elements are more numer- ous and less reduced to homogeneity. In some im- portant respects the present condition of the island empire appears to resemble that which we must sup- pose to have existed in the so-called feudal era of Chinese history. The territorial sway of the great chiefs (or Daimios), all owing allegiance to the Mi- kado and his lieutenant the Tycoon, has in Japan always more or less successfully resisted the central- 474 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. isms: efforts of the more energetic of their suzerains. o o Indeed, their authority has no doubt been much consolidated and' increased in the course of time by the force of hereditary and agrarian influence. The scanty materials afforded by the few extracts hitherto made from the national records of Japan make any attempt at a detailed analysis of its history at pre- sent hopeless. But the researches of Ksempfer, Tit- sino-h, and Siebold afford sufficient evidence that in o ' the earlier ages of the country the two features which now so broadly distinguish its social organisation from that of ancient China were far less conspicuous. These peculiarities of modern Japan are, first, the almost complete separation which exists between the executive power lodged in the hands of the Tycoon, and the theoretical supremacy still residing in the person of the Mikado ; and secondly, the comparative independence of the territorial chiefs, who, while they yield a nominal allegiance to the Mikado, and less readily to the Tycoon as his representative, not only reserve to themselves the general right of exercising an almost irresponsible government within their own dominions and over their own people and clan, but are often sufficiently powerful, either alone or in combination, to exert an overwhelming influence on the action of the supreme government in matters which concern the policy of the whole empire. There is, as I have said, every reason to believe that both these features of Japanese society are in their present form of comparatively recent origin. The early Mikados, far from being the inert and life- less puppets who now so meanly support the burden of a dignity which forbids them all active participa- tion in the affairs of men, themselves led armies in ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 475 person, and formed the virtual as well as the nominal centre of the state-system. And while this continued, the Daimios, as chiefs of the different clans, though no doubt in a state of almost chronic discord and re- volt, yet were not only theoretically subject to the authority of the Mikados, but, under the sway of the more powerful of them, were frequently reduced, it might be only for a time, to a real 'subjection ; and this temporary subjection might, under equally favour- able circumstances, have been gradually transformed, as in China, into a real unity round the central au- thority. But the course of events has produced a very dif- ferent result. The great difficulty which Europeans find in understanding the true relations to each other of the different elements among which the governing power of Japan is distributed arises, no doubt, mainly from their ignorance of the past history of the coun- try. For here, as in so many other nations, the original institutions have been practically modified by circumstances, without thereby losing altogether either their external form or their theoretical sym- metry. It is probably almost as difficult for an Eng- lishman to comprehend the working of the existing Japanese Government as it would be for a Japanese to comprehend the English Constitution; and for precisely the same reason. Both would be compara- tively ignorant of the long series of causes by which the present complicated results have been produced, and therefore quite unable to discriminate how much each element in the state is practically controlled by the others; how far the theoretical supremacy attri- buted to the monarch is a mere fiction of the past or a living reality; in what respects the action of the 476 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. executive is controlled by the deliberative element. Much light may, however, be thrown on these points by even the little which is known of the political his- tory of Japan. This divides itself naturally into three periods. In the first, which extends from Zinmu (B.C. 600) to the first century of our era, the social organisation of Japan probably closely resembled that of China in what is known as the feudal era. The Mikado's authority like that of the Chinese em- peror, and resting mainly on the same theoretical basis was during this period gradually extending itself over the whole of the empire ; and the original clan system of the different states was apparently by degrees giving place to a more centralised form of government. The primitive and indigenous fetishism which then prevailed may still be traced, though in a mixed and modified form, in the Sintooism, or way of the Kami, which is said still to be the prevailing form of religion with the higher classes. It is, how- ever, clear that the earlier stage of fetishism, in which worship is paid to each separate external object of nature as an independent power, has never in Japan been but imperfectly superseded by that more abstract and generalised form of the worship of the great ele- mentary powers, and of Heaven as their representative and centre, which has been reached by the Chinese. Yet there has been in Japan considerable modifica- tion by fusion with the foreign element of theology, whose introduction marks the next epoch of Japanese history. This second period extends from the second to the twelfth centuries of the Christian era. Its cha- racter appears to have been determined chiefly by the progress of the Buddhist faith, introduced at its ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 477 commencement. This form of theology amono- other characteristics in which it resembles the Ca- tholic system of Christianity possesses to an emi- nent degree the quality of adaptability. It is, and always has been, very different in different countries and at different times. In Cashmere, in Thibet, in Siam, in Burmah, and in Ceylon, in China and in Japan, Buddhism has developed itself in the most distinct forms; whereas in Hindostan and China it had found another form of religion and society too firmly rooted to be altogether supplanted; it has settled down by its side, and modified its own cha- racteristics so as at once to assimilate and be assimi- lated to the dominant creed. Thus, on its first in- troduction into Japan, though it found the original fetishism too weak to resist its intellectual superiority, yet this was sufficiently firmly rooted in the popular mind to exercise a great reactionary influence on Buddhism itself. Thus, at the present day, it has often been observed that the difference between the Sintoo and the Buddhist forms of worship and creed is to superficial observers almost indistinguishable. Still its independent power grew so rapidly and surely that before the end of the second period there can be little doubt that Buddhism was able to count as many, if not more, votaries than the Sintoo faith, and that over this it had exercised so preponderating an influence that it offered no impediment to the supremacy of the Buddhist priesthood. In the political development of this second period may also be traced decided marks of the influence of Buddhist ideas. For the divine origin attributed by the Sintoo fetishism to the Mikado's authority the Buddhist found a corresponding and still more sacred 478 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. expression in his characteristic dogma of the incarna- tion of the deity in the person of the sovereign. But on the other hand the very sanctity thus attached to the person of the Mikado gradually tended to produce that separation between his spiritual and temporal authority which is the distinctive feature of Ja- panese government. The practical and realistic cha- racter of the Japanese intellect rendered it impos- sible for the people to sink, as in Burmah and Siam, under the absolute domination of the priesthood. Nor was the great vitality still inherent in the or- ganisations of the different states or clans at all favourable to such a universal sway of the priestly element. Had the power of the Mikado remained, as in China, in his own hands, perhaps these feudal chiefs might have gradually been subjected to his central authority. But the enervating influence of Buddhist asceticism appears before very long to have been discernible in the feebleness of the Mikados and their government. A period of disorder lasting for some generations, in the course of which the admi- nistration of affairs was constantly discharged by the captains-general of the kingdom, as lieutenants and representatives of the Mikado, marks the close of this second era in Japanese history. In the course of it the practical authority of the Mikado, always with difficulty maintained over the more powerful Daimios, had been gradually growing weaker, and the bonds which united the different parts of the nation much loosened. The results were similar to those which ensued during the feudal periods of Chinese history. While the clan-chieftains acquired a great accession of power and independence, the dynasty of the Mikados as their spiritual dignity ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 479 gradually encroached on their political functions became a prey to family dissensions. Had this state of things continued, the result must have been that the empire would have been broken up into a number of independent states under the headship of the several territorial powers, who would perhaps have scarcely owned a nominal allegiance to the Mi- kado as a spiritual superior. But this consequence was averted by the rise of another power in the state, which, confessedly deriving its origin and authority from the Mikado, gradually assumed the functions which he had abdicated. This was the personage known to Europeans by his as- sumed title of Tycoon, or emperor. He was origin- ally only the officer to whom the administration of the army was intrusted, but, from the possession of this material basis of power, before long he ex- tended his authority over the whole field of the executive, which had been surrendered by his now spiritualised and enfeebled sovereign. This was the expedient by which the national character of the Japanese has been preserved, on the one hand, from the degrading influence of a purely theological des- potism, like that of Thibet; and on the other, from the chronic disorganisation and intestine warfare which prevailed throughout the so-called feudal era both here and in China. It is the introduction of this new element that marks that latest stage of Japanese political organisation, of the development of which we are witnesses at the present day. This third period commences with Yoritomo (in the twelfth century of our era), the first Tycoon whose func- tions were hereditary in one family or its different branches. His dynasty, exercising an authority at 480 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. first subordinate to the Mikado, by degrees attained an independent position, and absorbed most of the active functions of supreme government, which the power of the Daimios still allowed to the descend- ants of Zinmu. But the Tycoons, the successors of Yoritomo, having originally acquired their position by superior force, and being supported by no tra- ditional or religious authority, were always subject to the danger of attack from the more powerful Daimios, or from a confederation among them. Such a danger in a period of more than ordinary poli- tical convulsion proved fatal to Yoritomo's dynasty in 1558. The authority thus lost was, however, grasped by firmer hands. The celebrated Taiko-Sama, originally a follower and general of the last Tycoon of that race, defeated the attempts of the Daimios to overthrow his master by force ; but after breaking the power of these great vassals he assumed to himself the reins of go- vernment which he had snatched from their grasp, and by the force of his genius established his own authority on a far firmer basis than that on which the dynasty of Yoritomo had ever rested. He succeeded not only in rendering himself practically independent of the Mikado, but even for a time in the far more arduous task of reducing into submission all the great Daimios. Claiming for itself a rank subordinate to the Mikado, the dignity of Tycoon hereditary in three great families, the descendants of Taiko-Sama from being that of a mere lieutenant of the Mikado, thus grew into that of an emperor independent of all superior authority, with a distinct court and capital of his own at Jeddo ; while the Mikado, whose sacred dairi or court was held at Miako, became little more ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 481 than an abstraction, a mere impersonation of the spiri- tual supremacy, of which he enjoyed nothing except the empty pageant of divine worship, by which his every action was fettered and encumbered. Round this court of Miako, at which the Tycoon still paid his stated visits of homage, the now humbled Daimios continued to gather, and enjoyed the empty title of the Great Council and Ministers of the Empire of Japan, at the time when the whole executive functions of its general government were really discharged by the Tycoon and his subordinate ministers at Jeddo. Still, within their own territories the autho- rity of the Daimios over their own retainers and the whole subject-class of agriculturists was prac- tically unrestrained. For the great political problem which Taiko-Sama and his successors had to solve was the same which had proved so insurmountable to the Mikados in the days of their fullest power. It was, how to reconcile the internal peace and unity of the empire with the virtual independence of the terri- torial chiefs. This they have not been able to accom- plish more than very partially. The military genius and great personal qualities of Taiko-Sama enabled him to put the power of the Daimios for a time at defiance, and to maintain the supremacy of his cen- tral government. But in the hands of his successors the influence of the Tycoon has suffered considerable diminution. The Great Council at Miako, composed of all the most powerful Daimios, and deriving its legitimacy from the sacred name of the Mikado, who is its nominal head, has under the later Tycoons re- covered something more than its theoretical supre- macy. Among its members the Tycoon has always been able to count a considerable party of supporters, ii 482 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. and in ordinary times and under the more able Ty- coons the amount of its interference with the general administration of the empire by the court at Jeddo appears to be but small. As long as their interests and territorial independence are not menaced, or there is no great question which intimately affects the whole empire, the Tycoon appears to be left to ad- minister the government by means of his own minis- ters, and through the agency of an elaborate civil and military organisation, the machinery of which is under the direction of himself and his ministers at Jeddo. But if, as sometimes happens, the measures of the Tycoon are generally unacceptable to the whole body of the Daimios, he is often compelled to alter or abandon his policy, and sometimes even to sacrifice his ministers at their dictation. From what has been said it will be seen that the distribution of political power among the governing powers of Japan is hardly more exactly determined than it is in many other countries nearer ourselves, and that the separate influence of each element over the whole body is by no means an invariable quan- tity. The original theocratic supremacy attributed to the Mikado as heaven-born descendant of Zimnu has been theoretically intensified but practically neu- tralised by the mysterious seclusion in which he has been involved by the Buddhist dogmas. His name is still reverenced as the only universal symbol of authority, and its sacred title constantly employed by different parties in the state in order to support their own claims to supremacy. Yet it appears pro- bable that, though it was only as lieutenant and vicegerent of the Mikado that the Tycoon originally claimed sway over the whole empire, nevertheless, ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 483 if the successors of Taiko-Sama had inherited his energy and talents, the absolute power theoretically vested in the one might have been practically exer- cised by the other. But they have been so powerless to break the independent power of the great territorial chiefs, who were from the first the great obstacles to the centralisation of the government, that the Daimios have succeeded not only in preserving their autocracy within their own territories, but in keeping up by means of the authority of the Mikado a really practical control over the action of the Jeddo government. This very general sketch of the relations between the different elements among which the governing power is distributed in Japan will, I hope, be suffi- ciently accurate to explain most of the difficulties which have arisen from the apparent contradictions discovered in the facts as reported by earlier and more recent observers. That this subject has a di- rectly practical bearing on the relations of Japan with the Western Powers, is well known to all who have given any attention to the question. For it followed from the somewhat uncertain basis of the authority of the Tycoon, with whom alone our diplo- matic engagements have been made, that his authority to conclude a negotiation so important in its bearing on the general policy of the whole empire was from the first very open to question, and his acts liable to be repudiated by the council of the Mikado and the hostility of the great Daimios. And this is what has actually occurred. The American minister (whom we and the other Western Powers have followed) concluded his treaty with the Tycoon, because Euro- peans had been led by the past experience of their relations with Japan to regard that functionary as 484 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. the temporal sovereign of the empire. For the Portuguese and their contemporaries, who had to deal with Taiko-Sama and his immediate successors, rightly regarded them as possessors of the supreme political authority ; and it was from them, too, that the Dutch colony at Decima obtained and inherited their scanty and hard-earned privileges. But the Tycoons of the present day no longer occupy the same position. They have become more amalga- mated with the rest of the great chiefs of the coun- try. . The individual succession to their office appears to be determined by the selection of the council of Daimios out of the representatives of three families descended from the same stock ; and they are very liable, therefore, to degenerate into mere nominees of the dominant party in that council which repre- sents the legitimate supremacy of the Mikado. This important fact was before long discovered by the foreign ministers at Jeddo, who thus found their negotiations with the Tycoon and his ministers, even on points as to which these latter were sincerely anxious to maintain friendly intercourse, eventually liable to be frustrated by the interference of a supe- rior national authority. This difficulty, which it has been up to this time impossible for the foreign minis- ters to remove by obtaining the ratification of the treaty by the Mikado, is one which sprung directly out of our ignorance of the true nature of the consti- tution and history of the country. But it is not only on this somewhat intricate con- stitutional question that our diplomatists have had to learn much from their failures. They have in fact made throughout the great mistake of underrating the force of the obstacles which opposed their success ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 485 and overrating their own means of overcoming them. The origin of this behaviour is to be found in their not approaching the questions at issue from a relative point of view, but applying to them the false standard of Western political knowledge and experience. In attempting to force foreign intercourse on Japan, they have constantly been opposed by a vis inertice, on which it has baffled all their efforts to make any impression. For there is in Japan, as in other Oriental countries, an authority which is far more powerful than that of any visible potentate, even that of the heaven-born Mikado himself. This power is that of traditional usage. " Law and established custom," it has been said, "unvarying, known to all and pressing on all alike, are the despots of Japan. Scarcely an action of life is exempt from their rigid, inflexible, and irksome control ; but he who complies with their dictates has no arbitrary power, no capri- cious tyranny, to apprehend." And this is no doubt generally true, especially on those more important matters on which innovation would be a shock to long-settled prepossessions. Against such an obstacle it is that we have had to contend in the Japanese system of isolation of them- selves from other nations, by the rigid exclusion of all foreigners from intercourse with the country. This po- licy had been steadily pursued for more than 200 years, and had therefore become an integral part of the na- tional character, when it was broken in upon by the treaties concluded in our own time with the Western Powers. It will presently be seen how this great change was effected by our diplomatists. Here it will only be necessary to say a few words on the causes which led to the adoption of this prohibitive system. 486 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. The general history of Western intercourse with Japan in the sixteenth century has often been told : of the friendly reception given to the first Portuguese mariners and missionaries; of the devoted and ap- parently successful labours of the Jesuits, and the number and rank of their native proselytes ; of the opposition by the Buddhist and other national priest- hoods, and the jealousy ere long aroused by this highly-organised band of foreigners in the govern- ment, whose authority rested so much on the reli- gious basis which they were striving to undermine ; of the bitter quarrels between the original Portu- guese Jesuits and their Spanish Dominican suc- cessors; of the impolitic interference, whereby the Pope was invoked by the Spaniards to repudiate the judicious compromise with the national faith entered into by the wisdom of the Jesuits ; of the fanaticism which openly persecuted the national priesthood, overthrew the national temples, and insulted the national faith in its most sacred associations with the worship at the tombs of ancestors ; of the open partisanship assumed by the Christians in the politi- cal intrigues and internal dissensions of the empire ; of the consequences of all these things, in the sen- tence of perpetual exclusion against all missionaries and death against all their native adherents, pro- claimed but never carried out by Taiko-Sama; of the final catastrophe of the extermination of Chris- tianity from the empire, by the universal massacre of all its followers, the devoted missionaries toge- ther with their heroic converts; and lastly, of the total disappearance of that faith, its professors and its influence, leaving behind no marks whatever of its presence for nearly a century on the coun- ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 487 try, where its complete triumph had been so closely approached any more than if the thing had never been. Of all this the outlines at least are familiar to all. They need be recalled to memory here, only to contrast it with the fact that during the intervening period between that time and our own the condition of Japan had, by the unanimous testi- mony of all observers, been one of internal peace and prosperity, which no party in the state has ever had the faintest inclination to disturb by the re- introduction of the elements which had produced only discord and revolution. On this policy of isola- tion, indeed, they have no doubt often, and with good reason, congratulated themselves. Through the bar- riers which they had set up there had doubtless crept rumours of the inroads which the West was continu- ally making in the East. They may have trembled as they heard how the influence of the merchants of the factories of Madras and Calcutta had swollen into that of the lords of Hindostan. The nearer fate of China, at any rate, could not be unknown to them. There they saw the professed pursuit of commerce con- verted into a pretext first for military occupation, and then for an aggressive policy, which was already disor- ganising the whole social fabric of that vast empire. The strength of the conservatism thus originated and fostered has gradually been discovered by our diplomatists. The bolder of them hope that it will eventually be overcome; but the means on which they rely appear to be very little calculated in the end to effect their object. It is by playing off the various political parties of the country, the Mikado, the Daimios, and the Tycoon, one against the other, that they hope to produce such a turn in political 488 .ENGLAND AND JAPAN. affairs as will facilitate the farther introduction of the foreign element into the country. The Western Powers will then be able to enforce, by the superi- ority of their warlike resources, their demands on the national party, whose resistance will be enfeebled by the dissension which, it is hoped, may be thus kin- dled into open conflagration. But the results which will almost certainly follow this policy are likely to be very much more serious than are anticipated, and are not unforeseen by the Japanese rulers themselves. Japanese society, if not as homogeneous as that of China, still depends, as we have seen, for the preser- vation of its whole fabric upon the maintenance of the national traditions, which form so important a part of its political and religious system. It is by these traditions that not only the relations between the ruling powers in the state are regulated, but the absolute subservience of the rest of the nation, of the whole body of the agricultural and mercantile classes, is alone secured. Whatever may have been the different and conflicting accounts as to the dis- tribution of power among the rulers, there is but one opinion as to the present political status of the other portion of the population of Japan. If the 300 or 400 great Daimios, with all their military retainers, together with the numerous soldier functionaries of the government, be thrown into one class, it is pro- bable that even numerically their proportion to the rest of the nation would exceed that of any other Eastern country. But in political importance the influence of inferior classes is at present, and in ordinary times, quite imperceptible. They are held down by combined powers which might well seem omnipotent and irresistible. Traditional reverence, ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 489 military force, legislation, if unwritten, yet of a minuteness and penal severity unparalleled in any other country, and the close network of a system of espionage which is almost omnipresent : these are the forces which keep in subjection a population whose intelligence, industry, and self-respect has been the theme of eulogy so general and so well merited. But these checks depend most of all for their force on the fact that resistance to its rulers has, for cen- turies at any rate, been unknown in the country. Let its social bonds be once loosened by the revolu- tionary disorganisation which will ensue from poli- tical dissensions, and then the spectacle of their hereditary superiors brought into familiar and equal intercourse with foreigners whom they have been taught to hate, and merchants whom they have learnt to regard as, like themselves, belonging to an utterly inferior class of society, cannot fail before long to produce its effects. The whole governing force of the country must soon become so weak, that there will be little reason for surprise if we see it delivered over, and more disastrously than China itself, to the de- vastating terror of armed bands of men suddenly forced from the controlling sway of traditional au- thority, and vainly seeking for something to replace the social organisation which has been prematurely dissolved. For it is folly of the most extreme nature to expect that for the system thus overthrown any substitute will be found by the Japanese themselves. The whole history of the relations between the East and West shows that the more highly-developed civi- lisation brought into direct contact with the lower acts in itself as a general solvent, and that for the disorder thus produced there is no remedy but in the 490 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. assumption in some way or other of the government by the higher race. Yet this responsibility is hardly one which England is ready to assume. Meantime the leaven which has been introduced in Japan must continue to work, and ere long the chaotic disturb- ance which must follow will materially affect the profits which the commercial genius and enterprise of our merchants have contrived to monopolise. Thus the very policy which has in a great measure been forced on our unwilling statesmen by the pressure of the mercantile class will, by a well-earned retribution, react most injuriously on the interests of those who are responsible for its initiation. II. The preceding pages have been mainly occupied with an investigation into the abstract character of Japanese political society. Th6se which follow will treat more in detail of the principal events which have marked the intercourse of Great Britain with the country, and will indicate a general policy by which it appears likely that the misfortunes and failures which have hitherto attended our negotiations may be for the future avoided. No doubt there is much in what has hitherto been said which is either incom- plete or inaccurate, and the generalisations may be premature or even mistaken. But the difficulties of the subject have hitherto arisen in a great degree from the insufficiency of materials for forming satis- factory conclusions, and the consequent impossibility of reconciling contradictory facts and opinions. In what follows there will be no such risk of error. For the succeeding commentary on the relations of Eng- land with Japan the authority is quite indisputable. ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 491 It will in almost all cases be drawn from the diploma- tic papers published in the Parliamentary Blue-book on Japan. This selection is made, by the authority of the government which directed the policy, from the reports of their agents who conducted its detailed operation. It is not likely therefore to furnish evi- dence unduly adverse to the character of the trans- actions or of those responsible for them. The contents of these Blue-books relate to two principal topics ; the negotiations of the representatives of the two governments respecting the commercial treaty, and the difficulties which have arisen from the acts of individuals among the Japanese on the one side, and the British residents on the other. Unfortunately the space and attention which the latter topic occupies throughout the correspondence is out of all proportion to its intrinsic importance. And this fact has pro- bably had the effect of misleading public opinion in this country whenever special attention has been di- rected to Japanese affairs. Our politicians have re- garded the series of collisions between the subjects of the two countries too much apart from the general re- lations between their governments, and have attempted to apply to them the rules of international intercourse which have been established by Western custom. It will therefore be desirable to show, from the admis- sions of our ministers in Japan, what was the origin and nature of the commercial treaty on which alone British residents can base any claim to the protection of the Japanese government, either for their trade, their property, or their persons. If the accusation of one-sidedness be, not without some show of justice, made against the selection of extracts which follow, my defence must be, that it is only by stating the 492 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. facts from the Japanese point of view that we can arrive at any fair conclusions as to their part in the matter. It will be my endeavour, before I conclude, fairly to examine the arguments which can be alleged in defence of the conduct of Great Britain and her representatives. The pleas in justification of our course must rest on those principles of morality and justice which have been long established among Western nations. There can, I think, be no unfair- ness in judging each nation by the standard of right and expediency which it professedly recognises, or in allowing each to consult what it considers to be its true interests in the points at issue. It was on the 26th August 1858 that Lord Elgin, as Plenipotentiary of the Queen of England, and five commissioners on behalf of the Tycoon of Japan, signed a treaty of peace, friendship, and commerce between the two countries, by which the Tycoon agreed to the following concessions in favour of the other contracting party. By art. 2, that a British diplomatic agent be allowed to reside at Jeddo, and consuls at all the ports opened by the treaty, and that the diplomatic agent travel freely in any part of the empire. By art. 3, that the three ports of Hakodadi, Kanagawa, and Nagasaki be opened to British sub- jects from 1st July 1859, and two others, Neegata (or some other port on the Western coast of Nippon) and Hiogo, on 1st January 1863; that British subjects be allowed to own land and buildings, and perma- nently reside in all the above places when opened, and also to reside and have houses for purposes of trade within certain limits in the two inland cities of Jeddo and Osaca. By art. 4, that all questions be- tween British subjects in Japan be subject to the ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 493 British authorities. By art. 5, that British subjects committing crimes against Japanese laws be punished by British authorities according to British laws. By art. 8, that the Japanese government place no re- strictions whatever on the employment by British subjects of Japanese in any lawful capacity. By art. 9, that British subjects in Japan be allowed the free exercise of their religion, and to erect places of wor- ship. By art. 10, that all foreign coin be current in Japan, and pass for its corresponding weight in Japan- ese coin of the same description ; and that the Japan- ese government will, for one year after opening of each port, furnish in exchange for British or foreign coin an equal weight of Japanese coin, without dis- count for recoinage. By art. 12, that assistance and friendly treatment, and means of conveyance to the nearest consulate, be immediately rendered by the Japanese authorities to all British vessels wrecked or compelled to take refuge any where on the coast of Japan. By art. 14, that British subjects be allowed to import and export every description of merchandise on payment of treaty- dues ; and further, that all classes of Japanese be allowed freely and without the inter- vention of their own officers to buy and sell all articles offered to British subjects, with the exception of mu- nitions of war. By art. 16, that all goods imported into Japan by British subjects after payment of treaty- dues be allowed to be transported by the Japanese into any part of the empire without any further duty whatever. By art. 23, that Great Britain be allowed the benefit of any privileges which may have been or might be granted by the Tycoon to any other nation. These were the advantages which Great Britain, as one party to the treaty, secured for itself. Of any 494 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. corresponding benefit to be derived by Japan there is not one word throughout. This one-sidedness in the case of a convention between two Western Powers would no doubt be impossible. But it will be said that in this case it was quite unnecessary that the corresponding concessions on the part of Great Britain should be provided for by the terms of the treaty ; as there is nothing here required of the Ja- panese government that was not fully reciprocated on our part to any Japanese who might contract relations with us either in his own or in our coun- try; and that the special clauses, such as the eighth, tenth, fourteenth, and sixteenth, which directly con- trol the action of the Japanese authorities in their re- lations with their own subjects, are nothing but the guarantees indispensable to secure any practical effect to the rest. The inestimable advantages of trade and intercourse with the whole civilised "West are perfectly open to the Japanese, and are supposed to give them far more than an equivalent to any slight profit which the Western Powers can derive from the very partial opening thus allowed to their commercial enterprise. Regarding the position, as it was regarded by the British ministers, from our point of view, this may not at first sight appear untrue. But in order to understand the true relations between the contract- ing parties it is necessary to know in what estima- tion the government of Japan itself regarded these great blessings. It will hardly be disputed that the value which one party to a contract sets on the con- sideration which he is to receive is a material element in the question of its adequacy. And it would appear equally clear that violence no less than fraud vitiates the engagement which has been made under its in- ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 495 fluence. Now, on this point it might be sufficient to point to the clauses which bind the Japanese government not to render the treaty nugatory, as showing that our diplomatists were not unaware that they had to deal with those who were acting under some sort of force majeure. But the real state of the case can hardly be more plainly expressed than in the words of Sir R. (then Mr.) Alcock, in a de- spatch dated 23d Nov. 1859 : " That the Japanese government look upon all foreign treaties, trade, and relations, as so many unmitigated evils, I have al- ready informed your lordship there is every reason to believe."* And this opinion of the British minister was founded most conclusively upon the fact that every possible opposition had been persistently made by the Japanese authorities not only to the slightest extension of foreign intercourse, but even to the many measures indispensable to the execution of the letter of the treaty itself. Indeed the whole correspond- ence between our foreign ministers and their agents in Japan teems with a constant outburst of com- plaints of the practical proof which every hour has afforded of the value which the Japanese rulers set upon the benefits of free intercourse with the West- ern world. Extracts in proof of this might be mul- tiplied until nearly the whole of the Japanese Blue- books had been transcribed. This being so, it might well create astonishment how we contrived to persuade the Tycoon to agree to an engagement in which, in his judgment at any rate, the whole gain was so exclusively on one side. On this point also nothing can be more candid and ex- plicit than the testimony of the British minister. * Blue-book on Japan (1860), p. 27. 496 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. " The gathering together of large forces by Great Britain for the prosecution of their demands on China, in alliance with France; the generally-rumoured intention of the two governments, and also of Eussia, to send plenipotentiaries shortly to Japan to open more effectually the ports of that country to European commerce and enterprise; all, no doubt, tended materially to give weight to the more pacific arguments of the American agent, urging that the true policy of Japan was no longer to defer doing, under the most favourable and honourable conditions, without compromising its dignity or independence, that which must come under wholly different circumstances before the year was out. And thus the foundation for a commercial treaty was laid, ly pointing out to the Japanese Government tJiat the time u-as plainly approaching ivhen refusal on their part would ~be impos- sible, for they would have the Western world in collective strength breaking down the barriers."* And equally plain is his language respecting the cir- cumstances by which the Japanese authorities were led to acquiesce in the demands for similar terms, which Lord Elgin, on the part of Great Britain, im- mediately after the forcible imposition of the treaty of Tien-tsin on China, urged with all the weight of armed success. " Their present relations with foreign states have been imposed upon the Japanese rulers by circumstances which a party no longer in office had the good judgment probably to perceive were becoming irresistible and menacing ; while the great body of the Daimios or feudal princes, whose nominees are now in power as ministers, continue blind and hostile. The signing of the treaty concluded by Mr. Harris was the signal for great political com- motion, and the disgrace of all concerned in the negotiation, even down to the subordinates. The lives of the chief ministers were for some time in danger, so violent was the feeling among the majority of those who are the real depositaries of power at the present moment in Japan, the great hereditary prince of the empire, whose nominee the Tycoon himself is in effect. The Cap. of Tycoon, i. p. 110. ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 497 prompt dismissal of the ministers who were in office when the treaty with America was executed, and the nomination of those who have since continued in power, was a retrograde act, intended by the Daimios to put a stop to any farther concession. Circum- stances were, however, too strong for them, and these same ministers, representing all the hostile and antagonistic tendencies of their party, found themselves under the cruel necessity of signing in rapid suc- cession treaties with most of the great Powers in Europe, each more liberal ffian its predecessor."* The fact, then, is indisputable that the treaty with the Tycoon of Japan, on which alone Great Britain can rely as giving her any claim whatever to main- tain her present position in that country, was ori- ginally imposed upon an unwilling contractor under the immediate and compulsory influences of superior force and intimidation. And it is equally certain that nothing but the constant menace of war and invasion, supported by the warning examples of China and India, has ever since prevented the Japanese authorities from openly repudiating the whole transaction into which they were so unwill- ingly drawn, expelling all foreigners once more from their shores, and retiring to that state of isola- tion under which they believe their country to have enjoyed so much peace and prosperity. Their past history tells them of the evils which their friendly reception of foreigners brought on the land; and have the present generation of Japanese had any reason to congratulate themselves on their own change of policy? This question may again be an- swered by the same witness. Speaking of the continued hostility to foreigners, which was every day showing itself at Jeddo and u Letter from Mr. Alcock to Lord Malmesbury, July 1859 ; Blue- book oii Japan, I860, p. 370. KK 498 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. Yokohama, at one time by a vexatious opposition to the carrying out of the treaty, and at another by acts of violence and insults towards the persons and pro- perty of foreign residents, and of the climax reached by these demonstrations in a night-attack on the British Legation, which he strongly suspected the Japanese Government of having connived at, Sir R. Alcock says,* on 9th July 1861 : " One explanation" (of these acts), " and the most usual sup- plied by the Government and its agents, is this : the traditional policy of the country for nearly three centuries had been one of absolute exclusion and isolation ; it had taken root in the hearts of the people ; and under this policy they and their ancestors had been happy, prosperous, and undisturbed. Moved by various con- siderations" (the nature of which has above been described by the writer), " suggested first by the Dutch, and afterwards urged upon them by the Americans, the governing powers in an evil hour had been induced to make a sudden and violent change, ad- mitting foreigners and their trade, with diplomatic relations and free intercourse ; thus reversing all the traditions of the country. .'Since then nothing but trouble and danger had resulted. The demands of foreign trade were far beyond the resources of the country ; hence increased dearness of every article of native con- sumption, public discontent, and suffering among the masses impoverished by what the party who entered into the treaty vainly hoped would lead to their enrichment, until at last there is but one cry: to banish the foreigner as he was expelled before, and io let them be at peace, with plenty in their houses." This was written two years after the signature of Lord Elgin's treaty ; and nothing can be more significant than the complaint, almost pathetic in its utter hopelessness, uttered by the foreign ministers of the Tycoon themselves in reference to the attempts which the rest of the Western world was making to follow in the wake of America and Great Britain. " On Blue-book on Japan, 1862. ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 499 my referring" (says Sir Rutherford*) "to Belgium, the Governor who spoke counted the existing treaty Powers on his fingers, and added : ' With these five we find dearness and scarcity already resulting from foreign trade, with daily increasing difficulties ; what then is to become of us if new countries are to be added to the list ?' " Since the time when these words were spoken, the Japanese have had further opportunities of experi- encing the salutary influence of foreign intercourse in the bombardment of Kagosima and the creation of internal dissensions, which appear by recent accounts to have at length kindled into open civil war. There have been moments indeed when the force of the national feeling has been so strong, that the Govern- ment has seemed about to enter on a bolder policy, and, in the spirit of Taiko-Sama and his successors, openly revoke the privileges accorded to foreigners. One example of this will suffice. In June 1863 the British and other foreign agents received from the Tycoon's Minister of Foreign Affairs the following notice : " I hereby communicate the following in writing. Because the feelings of the inhabitants (of Japan) are inimical to foreign intercourse, I have received orders from His Majesty the Tycoon, now residing at Kioto" (or, as expressed according to ano- ther translation, " orders of the Tycoon received from Kioto, i. e. from the Mikado") "to remove foreigners and close the ports, leaving the negotiations of it in my hands."f This determination, it should be ob- served, was arrived at by the Japanese Government immediately after they had, under the guns of the British admiral Kuper, paid the full indemnity of Blue-book on Japan, 1860. t Ibid - 1864 > PP- 74 > 75 - 500 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 110,000?. demanded for the injuries to British subjects. Its significance is therefore greater, as it shows that the Japanese entertained hopes that, after the costly sacrifice which they had just made, they might induce the foreigners to retire with their spoil without danger of further hostility. How far they were mistaken, and what has since prevented them from carrying out their determination of closing these ports, is plain enough from the reply to the above despatch given by the Bri- tish Minister, Col. Neale, which concludes as follows : " The undersigned in the mean Avhile has to inform your Excel- lency, with a view that you may bring the same to the knowledge of His Majesty the Tycoon, who will doubtless make the same known to the Mikado, that the indiscreet communication now made through your Excellency is unparalleled in the history of all nations, civi- lised or uncivilised; that it is in fact a declaration of war by Japan itself against the whole of the treaty Powers ; and the consequence of which, if not at once arrested, it will have speedily to expiate by the severest and most merited chastisement." Enough has been said to show generally the cir- cumstances under which our treaty relations with Japan have been originated and sustained. It would be extraordinary indeed if the situation had not been fruitful in other difficulties of every kind. Such difficulties there certainly have been in abundance, and from the first : difficulties about the site stipulated for as a foreign settlement at Kanagawa, difficulties as to coinage, difficulties as to the ratification of the treaty by the Tycoon (besides the graver difficulty as to the Mikado's sanction), difficulties as to the residence of our minister at Jeddo, and difficulties as to the terms on which he was to be received at the court of the Tycoon. These have all sprung out of the very terms of the treaty itself; and the strongest proof of their vexatious and overwhelm- ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 501 ing character, as well as of the complete extinction of the sanguine anticipations formed at the time of its first signature, is to be found in the fact that in June 1862, Her Majesty's Government consented, in compliance with the representations both of their own minister in Japan and of the Japanese envoys despatched to Europe, to defer for a period of five years, to commence from the 1st of January 1863, the fulfilment of those portions of the 3d article of the treaty between Great Britain and Japan, of the 26th of August 1858, which provide for the opening to British subjects of the port of Neegata, or some other convenient port on the West Coast of Nippon on 1st of January 1860, and of the port of Hiogo on 1st of January 1863, and for the residence of British subjects in the city of Jeddo from 1st of January 1862, in the city of Osaca from 1st of January 1863.* The language in which Lord Russell summarises the result of his interview with the Japanese envoys deserves notice, even after all that has already been quoted to the same effect. " The general tenor of that communication was such as Mr. Alcock's despatches might have led me to expect. . . . They dwelt . . on the opposition of the influential classes on the one hand, and of the poor on the other; the latter being influenced more particularly by the augmented price of the necessaries of life resulting from the export trade carried on by foreigners."! But there is another class of difficulties occupy- ing a very important share of the Japanese diplomatic correspondence, which owes its origin rather to the conduct of individuals of either nation than to the action of their governments. It would be foreign Blue-book on Japan, 1863, p. 8. t !*>* 1863 > P- 5 - 502 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. to the abstract and general character of this Essay to enter into the details of these unfortunate transactions. It must be admitted that in dealing with them our Government has been from the first beset with per- plexities of the most embarrassing nature. Our foreign ministers may be pardoned for thinking that they could not have abandoned altogether their duty of protecting the persons and property of British agents and subjects in Japan, without rendering im- possible the maintenance of any foreign settlement whatever, and ignominiously surrendering to private lawlessness and violence what had been strenuously refused to the representatives of the national autho- rity. But their mode of enforcing this claim to pro- tection has unfortunately been one which is almost peculiar to this country in its relations with weaker states. The offences committed by individual sub- jects of other countries against the persons or pro- perty of British residents are left to the judgment of the national tribunals ; and we should be astonished to hear of demands of indemnity in money from any European Government because it had not suc- ceeded in apprehending or punishing the offenders. But in the case of Japan the matter is very differently regarded. The acts of individual Japanese which have been subjects of complaints are no doubt trace- able to a deep-seated hatred of foreigners among all classes of the nation, for which the Government is in no way responsible, and which is continually inten- sified and brought out into action by that contemptu- ous disregard for all national customs and prejudices but their own for which English colonists are always and every where so notorious and conspicuous. Yet in no case have these acts been either defended or ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 503 palliated by the Japanese rulers. They have in many instances succeeded in bringing the criminals to jus- tice; and in others the plea which the Tycoon's ministers have adduced of his inability to control or punish the powerful independent Daimios and their ad- herents has been admitted as true by all our diplomatic agents. Of this plea no one who has read what has preceded will, it is hoped, doubt the substantial cor- rectness. It would therefore have been a course more consistent with those international usages of Europe by which we have always pretended to decide the ques- tion, as well as more likely to promote the ends which Great Britain professed to have in view in her inter- course with Japan, if these representations of the Ja- panese Government had been in the first instance ac- cepted, and- if we had trusted to the effects of time and experience to enlighten the various sections of the na- tion as to the real motives and results of our policy, and thus gradually to produce among them a better state of feeling. But how different have been the measures o actually taken ! As indemnity for the murder of one Englishman and the woundinsf of two others by the i armed retainers of one of the Daimios whose power and independence was best known, we exacted by the open menace of a hostile fleet an indemnity of 1 10,000/. from the government of the Tycoon, who had professed their desire and their inability to overtake the offender in his own territory; while at the same time the actual incompetence of that Government to compel the prince of Satsuma to account for the conduct of his depend- ents was practically acknowledged by a separate claim made upon him for 25,000/. and the immediate execu- tion of all implicated in the murder, and among them of his own father. That in enforcing this demand 504 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. our fleet should have bombarded and totally destroyed the populous city of Kagosima, and inflicted a loss of 1,500 lives and 1,000,000/. worth of property, ex- cited at the time surprise and indignation. And all this appears to have been fully justified in the judg- ment of those who directed the operation by the re- markable success of this great naval achievement, and the signal vindication which was afforded to the outraged honour and prestige of Great Britain ! On this point there need be no controversy. The senti- mental gratification which such a spectacle can give need not be grudged to those who can enjoy it. But to descend to the lower ground of expediency, it may be inquired, whether any thing could have been de- vised less likely to overcome those national prejudices against foreigners, which our diplomatic agents have always admitted to be at the root of all these difficul- ties, or more directly calculated to alienate any fa- vourable sentiments which may be entertained by any party in Japan, and to exasperate by every considera- tion of national pride and honour the hostile senti- ments already entertained by the majority of the in- habitants. It would probably be unfair in an operation of this kind to criticise too minutely each successive step which those engaged were led by circumstances to take. The real responsibility for the conduct of military and naval commanders, provided it is not contrary to the ordinary rules of warfare, rests on those by whose instructions they are guided; instruc- tions which appear to me in this instance not to have been more than fully executed. I forbear therefore to pass any judgment on those proceedings of Admiral Kuper, which were at the time the subject of so much animadversion both in Parliament and in the country. ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 505 But the defence offered for the policy of the minister who directed the expedition requires a closer ex- amination, inasmuch as it contains the gist of the whole question at issue as to our relations with Japan. The alleged motive and best justification for the demand made on the Japanese Government of repa- ration for the murder of Mr. Richardson, was, no doubt, the belief, on the part of the English Foreign Office, that the Tycoon and his ministers, by feeling themselves the consequences of such outrages by their subjects, would be led to take more effectual steps to prevent their recurrence by prompter appre- hension and punishment of the offenders. We may set aside for the present the unfairness, so clear as to appear almost self-evident when pointed out, of holding a government responsible for the act of its subject, and at the same time directing warlike operations against that subject as an independent Power. But the point to be attended to is the mutual relation of the two countries which is implied in the existence of such a necessity for forcing a government to put into execution its own municipal laws in favour of foreigners. If the Japanese rulers had really done their best to restrain and punish their subjects, then our conduct was in the highest degree unjust and inexcusable. But if they were sheltering and protecting the criminals, this is in itself a convincing proof that they shared the senti- ments which actuated them in the perpetration of their crime. It is incredible that if, with the power to punish the murderers of Mr. Richardson, they ab- stained from doing so, they could have had any other motive than the desire to break off all intercourse 506 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. with Great Britain. The real object then of the de- mand enforced by Admiral Kuper was to give Japan a practical proof of the consequences which would follow, if she attempted to shake herself loose from her treaty obligations and return to that happy posi- tion of isolation which she so fondly regretted. It was, in fact, logically consistent with the whole sys- tem of intimidation by which foreign intercourse had been originally imposed upon the country. Who can doubt that our ministers would have been contented with the first apologies of the Japanese Government, and its alleged efforts to punish the offenders, if they had not believed that the whole transaction was part of a scheme, at least connived at by that govern- ment, by which it was hoped to make Japan a resi- dence too perilous even for the adventurous enter- prise of British merchants? And what does this hope, if it be really true that it was entertained, show, but that, to use the words of Lord Russell him- self, "if war is made to enforce a commercial treaty, we run the risk of engaging in protracted hostilities, and of earning a reputation for quarrelling with every nation in the East" ?* At every step of our investigation we are thrown back upon the general question which lies at the root of all our difficulties in Japan : Have we a right to hold the Japanese, by the constant employment of menace and intimidation, to the terms of the engage- ment which was extorted from them in 1859, and from which they have ever since evinced a constant desire to be freed? It is certainly very much open to question, whether, even when judged by our stan- dard of international usage, they could ever be con- Blue-book on Japan, 1860, p. 98. ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 507 sidered bound by a contract for which, in their esti- mation at least, they have never received any con- sideration, and which was in its origin vitiated by compulsion and intimidation. But, however this may be, there can be no doubt that subsequent events would well justify them in repudiating it altogether. They have already experienced from it two of the greatest calamities which can overtake a nation scarcity of the necessaries of life, and foreign inva- sion ; and there is a heavier calamity still, the near approach of which they are able to foresee. Civil war, to which the country has been a stranger during the whole period since the last expulsion of foreigners, has again broken out, and the revolutionary influence of the Western world threatens their whole national system with the imminent peril of disorganisation. The interests, then, which the two nations have at stake are not such as to redress the inequality of the original compact. The whole national life of Japan is imperilled; while if the worst happens to Great Britain, she will but lose those pecuniary profits of her merchants, which, it might be supposed, are too dearly purchased by the nation at the expense of a constant series of petty quarrels, out of which neither honour nor advantage can possibly be acquired. The early European discoverers of this distant em- pire could indeed plead nobler excuses for their ill- fated conduct. In the first enthusiasm kindled by the great maritime discoveries of their age, the Jesuit missionaries conceived the glorious and not unrea- sonable hope of adding Japan as another precious link to the island chain of churches with which the Roman See had already almost girdled the globe. But our colder age and country has learnt by dis- 508 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. heartening experience to abandon such great and be- neficent projects. When we have totally failed under circumstances so much more favourable in India, we can hardly expect to succeed in Japan, where the name of Christian proselytism has long been associ- ated with so many memories of national animosity and misfortune. For propagandism by violence, however excusable in a Catholic of the 16th century, no Eng- lishman of the 19th can plead the apology of ignorance or fanaticism. If we were to judge from the history of the last thousand years, it would appear to show that the permanent area of Christianity is conterminous with that of Western civilisation, and that its doctrines could find acceptance only among those who, by incor- poration into the Greek and Latin races, have adopted their system of life and morals. In Japan its recep- tion would be attended with the peculiar difficulty of having to contend with prejudices and fears indis- solubly connected with the national faith and go- vernment. But, however this may be, the excuse of propa- gandism for our national policy is one that has never been seriously urged by those who are responsible for it. If we have not stooped to the ignominy of the Dutch merchants, who purchased their paltry privileges by the open desecration of the symbols of their faith, and an active cooperation in the massacre of its adherents, we have prudently kept any scheme of evangelisation quite in the background. It is in the interests of Commerce, and not of Christianity, that we have avowedly acted in Japan. Our policy has been dictated by no higher motive than a de- sire to find a market for the wares of Manchester and Birmingham. And in this our success has ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 509 hitherto hardly been proportioned to our efforts. Whether the simplicity of the mode of life of the Japanese, and the extraordinary fewness of their wants, will ever be so far altered as to allow of the creation of a factitious demand for foreign commo- dities, depends on the course which events ultimately take in the country. But at any rate there is at present no sign of any such revolution in the national tastes and manners. The long experience of the complete failure of the Dutch colony in their patient efforts to find any native market for European mer- chandise might originally have been a warning against too sanguine anticipations; and the statistics of foreign trade since the treaty show that, as Ka?mpfer long ago observed, Japan is too capable of supplying all its own wants to make an import trade either large or profitable. It is apparently only in one export that the returns show any con- siderable or increasing trade. The Japanese silks alone have established their place among the staple commodities of the European market. It is true that what profits are to be got out of Japanese trade are mainly monopolised by our own merchants. But this is no more than occurs almost everywhere where British capital, energy, and commercial talent are brought into competition with those of other nations. "Whatever progress may eventually be made towards stimulating the commercial tastes and activity of the Japanese, can only be by slow degrees. It is not by involving the country in war and revolution, and so shutting up the springs of commerce at their sources, that we shall succeed either in removing the preju- dice which has already been created by the scarcity and clearness which foreign trade has brought upon 510 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. the less wealthy classes, or in persuading the rulers to relax the restrictions which their fears have im- posed on our intercourse. But it is said, though our present policy is neither just to the Japanese nor favourable to either of the two great motives which might furnish it with excuse and impulse, yet still there is another consideration which binds us to its maintenance. This argument, as drawn from our national pride, has always been very power- ful both in its direct influence on those of our states- men who inherit the traditions of an effete foreign policy, and indirectly when employed as an appeal to popular prejudices and passions. To moderate the tone of our diplomatic intercourse with Japan would, it is urged, involve an immediate loss of our prestige throughout the East, and leave a field of operation to other Powers, especially to Eussia and America, of which they would at once avail themselves. But the fact is, that both these nations have already made much more real progress in Japan than ourselves, by the adoption of a policy very different from our own, and that it is they rather who are likely to benefit by our persistence in our present course. The Ameri- cans have from the very first availed themselves of the ambitious designs which the Japanese impute to Great Britain, in order to lead them to regard the United States as their best friend and ally. It was by adroitly urging the imminent danger from our expedi- tion against China that they induced the government of the Tycoon to consent to the compromise of the first commercial treaty ; and ever since, in every diffi- culty and dispute in which our diplomatists have been involved, the Americans have not only held aloof, but have been most anxious to let the Japanese see ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 511 that they shared in none of our attempts to enforce commercial rights by force and intimidation. They no doubt feel assured that if our aggressive policy prove ultimately successful in opening the coun- try, their merchants will not be long in obtaining their share of the profits; whereas if we fail, they will escape all the odium and risk to which we ex- pose ourselves. As to Russia, we know that the neighbourhood of her vast military empire has al- ready impressed the Japanese with such a conviction of her power, that she is the only foreign nation for whom they entertain any real respect. And this re- spect, as in China, Russia prefers to secure by the slower and surer process of such indirect influence, rather than by any open attacks on the independence of the native government. The declaration made on one occasion, " that Russia does not sell the lives of her citizens," points to a more dignified and far-seeing line of action than that which Great Britain has pur- sued at the dictation of her commercial classes. The interests of Russia in this part of the world are so much closer than ours, that she may well pause before she compromises them for the sake of either commercial treaties or money indemnities. The examples, then, of Russia and America may well serve as models for the imitation of our statesmen, if they still seriously cling to the doctrine of the neces- sity of keeping up British ascendency in the far East. But surely this object is itself at once worthless and unattainable. The idea that the extension of trade depends on military or naval supremacy be- longs to the political creed of a past age, when it was thought possible for a nation permanently to mono- polise the commerce of its dependencies. And Japan 512 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. under Russian rule would probably be in a position far more favourable to our real interests than it could be, if our present policy proved ever so successful. If that country is fated to be brought within the circle of Western civilisation, this will in all probability be effected by its absorption into the Russian empire : a process which would supply just that transitional stage through which the changes which are necessary for our ends might most gradually and safely be ef- fected. Our mercantile class would thus eventually derive from their intercourse with the country all those advantages which their present short-sighted and premature efforts are jeopardising. What, then, is the practical conclusion to which our argument has brought us? Is it proposed that Great Britain should at once formally abandon her treaty relations with Japan, withdraw her diplomatic agents, and break off the trade which her merchants have succeeded in establishing ? By no means. What is really necessary is, first, that we should abstain from all attempts not only to wrest further commer- cial concessions from the native Government, but even to maintain those already made, by any menace of hostility or demonstration of armed force; and secondly, that the instructions of our Foreign Office should impress most distinctly on the minds of its representatives in Japan that their chief duty is to prevent and arrange any differences which may arise between the native Government, populations, and British subjects resident in the country. The whole foundation on which we rest our present claim to any international privileges in Japan is radically unsound ; and the original vice of the treaty of 1859 can never be cured by a persistence in the course which has ENGLAND AND JAPAN. 513 hitherto perpetuated that defect through every sub- sequent transaction. It must no longer be on what we then extorted from the Japanese Government, but on what they are now willing to grant as an equiva- lent for the advantages we on our part have to offer them, that we must rely for the maintenance or ad- vance of our commercial intercourse ; and our coun- trymen in the East must learn the necessity before all things of conciliating the goodwill of the native Government and population by the manifestation of the virtues of self-control, moderation, and respect for the laws and institutions of the land in which they ex- pect security and protection. These qualities, if it be in vain to look for them among the reckless adventurers who at present swarm in Yokohama and Shanghae, are not, it is to be hoped, quite extinct among the general body of our commercial classes. It is by this course alone that there is any reasonable expectation that the Japanese may in course of time forget then* animosity to foreigners, when they no longer see in them either invaders intent on schemes of con- quest, or revolutionists who, like their own "lo- nins," freed from all moral and social ties, threaten with dissolution the whole fabric of national order and prosperity. It was not by warlike demonstra- tions or open defiance of the native Governments that our merchants laid the first foundation of their Indian empire ; for the violent measures which even- tually proved successful must inevitably have failed, if the first footing had not been secured by very dif- ferent means. Should this change of policy even prove to have come too late, and the Japanese Go- vernment, released from the bondage of intimidation, take the improbable, but not impossible, step of ex- LL 514 ENGLAND AND JAPAN. eluding us altogether from their ports, the lesson of the fate of the premature attempts of the sixteenth century may reconcile us to this temporary dis- appointment of our hopes ; for had the progress of the Portuguese been less rapid, it would certainly have been more lasting, and Europe would not have felt the effects during three centuries of reactionary exclusion. And in Japan England has neither re- sponsibilities or interests sufficient to justify a policy which might be inevitable in India or excusable in China. In both these countries we have advanced too far to be able to retire altogether without dis- honour. But in Japan the path of duty and advan- tage lie as yet in one direction. The obstacles op- posed by the peculiar institutions and past history of the country are such as can only be overcome by time and patience. And the importance of the in- terests immediately involved in a check to our com- merce is quite inadequate to excuse any departure from the only policy which promises any permanent success. In any event, justice and expediency alike demand that the honour of Great Britain be no longer imperilled by association with measures which attach to her all the odium of a policy of aggression and conquest, and are palliated by no connection with any comprehensive or beneficent schemes of empire or civilisation. CHARLES ALFRED COOKSON. No. VII. ENGLAND AND THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. BY HENRY DIX BUTTON. " The ascendency of England more especially affects the non-European and backward populations. As regards these above all, it is essen- tial to transform British preponderance, the special benefits of which are not incompatible with an oppressive influence too gene- rally felt even in the most favourable cases. It manifests itself in an excessive regard for mere material interests. These, however, ought not to preponderate among nations any more than for indi- Tiduals, since their legitimate satisfaction in no way requires a cor- rupting ascendency, which tends to perpetuate "War in the name of Industry." Auguste Comte, Systeme de Politique Positive, torn. iv. pp. 490, 494. " Venimmo al punto dove si digrada : Quivi trovammo Pluto il gran nemico." La Divina Commedia, Inf. c. vi. '" It is not enough to have a good understanding : the essential matter is to possess a good Method." Descartes. ENGLAND THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES* 1. Introductory remarks. 2. Savage and Civilised communities ; their characteristics and relations. 3. Primitive Society and Western Europe. 4. England and her relations with savage and semi- civilised communities. 5. The Colonies as intermediate links be- tween England and savage and semi-civilised communities. 6. The Cape of Good Hope and New Zealand, with maps. 7. Con- cluding remarks. I. INTRODUCTORY REMARKS. No view of the foreign policy of England could be complete which did not include her relations with savage and semi-civilised communities. The grow- ing humanity and advancing science of our age call for and facilitate such a review, which is rendered imperative by the dangers of a one-sided philan- * The following works may be generally consulted on the subjects of the present essay : Keport of Select Committee (House of Commons) upon the Abori- gines in British Settlements, Parliamentary Papers, 1836, vol. vii. ; ib. 1837, vol. vii. Aborigines, Australian Colonies, Parl. Papers, voL xxxiv. No. 627. Cost of Colonies to Imperial Exchequer, 1853-7, both inclusive Parl. Papers, 1859, vol. xvii. No. 240. Colonisation of India Parl. Papers, vol. iv. Report of Select Committee on Colonial Military Expenditure, Parl. Papers, 1861, vol. xiii. No. 423. Annual Register, 1862, vol. civ., Colonial Census, 1860-1. Statistical Tables relating to the Colonial and other Possessions of the United 518 ENGLAND AND thropy, and still more by a superficial philosophy of despair. At present the public mind oscillates between the suggestions of sympathy, and the con- tradictions seemingly given to these by experience. Yet the former are nearer the truth than the latter, and they would become far more so, if the advocates of a noble cause could bring themselves to take a rational and practical view of its real and great diffi- culties. These difficulties spring in part from the subject itself, but still more from our mode of dealing with it. The beneficial action of civilised on uncivilised man requires a careful and impartial appreciation of the points of difference as well as those of similitude. A fair and relative estimate both of the good qualities of untutored man, and of his serious deficiencies, diffi- cult as such an estimate is rendered by the want of trustworthy information, becomes unattainable through the absence of a just method and systematic concep- tions. So long as the extraordinary phenomena of the material world were alone or even chiefly re- garded, science had no existence, the practical arts languished. In the hands of Franklin the lightning might indeed reveal the presence of law, but the science of electricity and the electric telegraph Kingdom, Parl. Papers, 1864. Army and Navy Estimates, Parl. Papers, 1865, 1866. Vattel's Law of Nations. Kent's Commentaries, 7th edition, vol. iii. pp. 458-86, International rights as to discovery, lands of savage tribes, &c. Earl Grey, the Colonial Policy of the Ad- ministration of Lord John Russell. Martin, Statesman's Year-book for 1865 and 1866. A. Mills, Colonial Constitutions ; and see an article in the North British Review, 1860, vol. xxxiii. Our Colonies, North British Review, 1862, vol. xxxvi. Bannister's British Colonisation and Coloured Races. Duval, Les Colonies Franaises. Duval, Histoire de I'Emigration. G-oldwin Smith, The Empire. Auguste Comte, Systems de Politique Positive. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 519 sprang from facts known only to the observant few. So likewise in the social world. It would be vain to expect that a transient excitement of the British public, incident upon Kafir or Maori wars, or Jamaica insurrections, could lead to any permanent good re- sults. The present danger gone by, affairs resume their old course; and so they will continue to do, with the like results, until human sentiments which do honour to those who feel and make them felt, go hand in hand with scientific conceptions and a rational policy. The most essential condition of such a policy is, I believe, a change, both intellectual and moral, in our habitual point of view. I shall therefore com- mence by offering some general ideas, stating them as fully as the limits of an essay permit, and illus- trating them by referring to actual cases. This more abstract treatment will embrace, first, the leading characteristics of Savage and Civilised communities and their mutual action; secondly, the historic re- lations between Primitive Society and Western Eu- rope; thirdly, the special relations which connect England with Savage and Semi-civilised communi- ties ; fourthly, the Colonies as intermediate links. The views thus submitted have, it is thought, an independent value and philosophic interest. They are, however, mainly put forward in the belief of their practical utility, as pointing to a more just and ra- tional policy in our dealings with savage and semi-ci- vilised communities. The truest principles can never supersede real statesmanship. Nevertheless, general conceptions about history, society, and man, are most important as facilitating the adoption and persistent execution of measures just in themselves, and framed 520 ENGLAND AND with special reference to actual circumstances. In no case more clearly than the present is there greater scope for a policy at once large in conception and flexible in its applications. I shall endeavour to prove this with reference to the English colonies generally, and in a more special sense as regards the Cape of Good Hope and New Zealand. II. SAVAGE AND CIVILISED COMMUNITIES ; THEIR CHA- RACTERISTICS AND MUTUAL RELATIONS. The popular idea of a savage is chiefly associated with an external barbarism and superstitious notions of a low order. The cessation or diminished influ- ence of these is commonly made the test of progress towards civilisation. But such a test, though no doubt to some extent just, is quite inadequate, and leads to serious practical errors, raising expectations doomed to disappointment, and preventing measures of real urgency. The points of difference which separate savage from civilised existence lie much deeper, and concern fundamental aspects of the in- tellectual and moral nature and social institutions. This juster appreciation also brings into clearer view the attributes of our common humanity. The ex- aggerated importance often assigned to the question of races is thus reduced to its just proportions, and subordinated to conceptions at once more general, and affecting matters which fall to a far greater ex- tent within the modifying power of a thoughtful and wisely-directed human intervention; as for example, the conditions of domestic well-being, laws affecting property, industry, and the administration of justice, with popular education. The deeper points of con- THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 521 trast, when impartially investigated, are seen to be clue, not chiefly to physical conformation, but to social influences, slowly accumulating, and transmitted from generation to generation. They connect themselves, for good or for evil, with a long train of antecedents, and constitute stages in the general growth of so- ciety. And, in truth, reversing the process, the lower strata of the civilised existence, amidst which we live, present too much that calls to mind the fundamental characteristics of savage communities. The advanced nations of Western Europe, without exception, contain at this moment masses whose domestic condition is little, if at all, raised above Nomadism, and presents even less than the ordinary comfort and decency of savage life ; while their spiri- tual wants are much less cared for than those of Africa and Patagonia. Politically regarded, do not our immense standing armies, with such practical commentaries as a " Treaty of Vienna" and a " Gas- tein Convention," savour of a civilised barbarism, differing by little else than a false glitter from real savagery ? The contrasts between civilised and savage life commence with the fundamental elements of society the Family and Property. Primitive domesticity is characterised by poly- gamy, and the slavery (real or virtual) of wife and child. Generally speaking, the serious difficulties thus raised are aggravated by unjust and injudi- cious treatment. Institutions become natural to civilised man, and sanctioned by inflexible dogmas, lead the missionary to attempt changes which are morally and socially premature. Apparent success often diso-uises real failure; for savages are deeply 522 ENGLAND AND influenced by custom and tradition, while the feeble- ness of their social organisation and their respect for the intellectual superiority of the white teacher dis- poses them to yield a passive obedience. In more strongly organised communities, however, the resist- ance is greater, and then a conflict arises between usage and innovation. This frequently creates a new and serious danger, the missionary invoking the support of the political power. Such an inter- vention may be legitimate, if simply used to pre- vent violence and the manifest abuse of domestic authority. Yet even here the magistrate can do little without the moral support of the native popu- lation, and such support can only gradually be ob- tained, while it is compromised by inflexible prescrip- tions which make the disregard of social duties the test of religious sincerity. A striking example of this twofold difficulty, moral and political, has arisen among the Zulu-Kafir tribes in Natal. The remark- able discussion in that colony on the toleration of polygamy, as regards natives married before conver- sion, evinces some disposition among missionaries to adopt more humane and wiser views. On the other hand, the experience thus obtained proves that a just sense of the difficulties attending the interven- tion of the magistrate, far from hindering, insures real progress. The following extracts illustrate this position. Dr. Colenso observes on the first point :* " It is not the purity, the charity, the piety, which the Gospel enjoins it is not this only which makes the untaught native * Letter upon the proper Treatment of Cases of Polygamy, 2d edit. 1862, p. 75. See also the observations of the Secretary for Native Affairs in the colony of Natal, ib. p. 88. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 523 shrink, with dislike and distrust, from the nearer approach of a missionary. But here the mind of the savage the best instincts of his nature his sense of duty to his wives and children his regard for the peace and welfare of his family will take part with his ignorance and selfishness and evil passions in repelling the advances of the Christian teacher. The natives, as a body, dread any closer contact with a religion which, if it takes effect at all among them, is to tear up at once, as they suppose, their family hearths, rend asunder the dearest ties which bind them to one another, and fill their tribes with disorder and confusion." The second or political difficulty is well illustrated in a report which contains a very interesting and com- plete view of the state of the natives in the colony of Natal, and the mode of dealing with them adopted by the Government. The Secretary for Native Af- fairs observes as follows :* " Polygamy is an ancient institution among the native tribes. They say they were created with it, and it is still practised among them. It is a system with which, of necessity, all their laws, customs, habits, and ideas are bound up. It is one which time only can abrogate, because men and women would equally oppose any violent attempt to destroy it, and morality would suffer more from the effects of such violence than leaving it to the gradual extirpation which natural causes and judicious but indirect mea- sures will most probably soon bring about. The Lieutenant-Go- vernor, in his capacity of supreme chief, has already made serious modifications in regard to it. One is, that every marriage shall be final as regards the parents of the girl ; and the other, that a widow may marry whom she pleases, without reference to her guardians. These are two very important alterations in their old customs, and because they were reasonable the natives have quietly acquiesced in them. Further innovations will undoubtedly be made as opportunity offers, with the view of effectually but judiciously checking polygamy. One of these has for some time been contemplated; that is, to make the legality of every native marriage depend upon a full and clear declaration at the time by * Parl. Papers, 1864, No. 9127, Eeport on Colonial Possessions, part 2, Natal ; Report by the Secretary for Native Affairs, p. 46. 524 ENGLAND AND the woman of her personal consent. Practically the effect has been the same wherever an appeal for protection has been made to authority; but as yet it has not been thought prudent to base the legality of the marriage upon such specific declaration. The importance of this step will be better understood, when it is known that before the British Government took possession of Natal a father had the power of coercing his child, even to the extremity of putting her to death, if she disobeyed him in the matter of marriage. Since then, however, no coercion has been allowed, and whenever brought to the notice of the authorities has been punished. The effect of even this check has caused the natives frequently to complain that the women have been made their masters." The institution of property among savage tribes presents little of that individual character and right of alienation which enter so largely into civilised ownership. In place of these we find a collective occupancy and right of temporary user, at most of inheritance without any power of disposition. There are probably few contrasts more difficult to grasp and trace out to their practical results.* Yet com- parative jurisprudence^ the history of Roman law, and the study of existing tribes, show that the col- lective or tribal constitution forms the law of pro- perty among primitive communities. Nor are analo- gies wanting among ourselves. Common of pasture J Thus, when William King said (as alleged), " the "Waitara block is theirs" it was assumed that he admitted that Teira and his tribe had a power of selling the land, Avhich was an inference not in accordance with the customary law of the Maoris. -j- This subject is well treated in Mr. Maine's Ancient Law. % As a practical illustration of the analogies above remarked be- tween the position of uncivilised communities and the humbler classes of European nations in relation to their richer and more powerful neighbours, compare the observations of M. Casalis (Les Bassoutos, Cape of Good Hope, north of the English colony, p. 169) on the ag- gressions of colonists upon native lands, with those of Professor Faw- cett (The Economic Position of the British Labourer, pp. 62- G) on the THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 525 exceptionally recalls the general rule of primitive society ; and those who have no toleration for " Ma- ori notions about land" might usefully consider whether the tenancies at will and strict settle- ments sanctioned by British law, do not present social disadvantages as serious as, and not very dis- similar from, those incident to the tribal institution of property. This tribal right not merely regards land, but cattle, flocks, and other movable property. The Kafir tribes of the Cape furnish examples of both ;* but the case of New Zealand still more strikingly shows the practical mischiefs which result from a su- perficial appreciation of this fundamental difference. When our systematic colonisation began in New Zealand just twenty-five years ago the Maoris, then numbering about 70,000, were divided into numerous clans and tribes. These, inhabiting the country for centuries, had portioned out among themselves the vast tracts of the great north and southf islands, which embraced a territory as large as Great Britain and Ireland. Thus there was no want of unoccupied land, although every part of this magnificent waste, no less than the small por- gradual invasion of ancient rights of commonage admitting, as he justly points out, of no equivalent pecuniary compensation in the nineteenth century by British landowners. * See, as to land, Casalis,_Les Bassoutos, p. 167 ; as to cattle, Grout, Zulu-Land, and Colenso on Polygamy, p. 91. The latter writer points out the singular and grave mistakes into which Europeans are led with respect to native marriages by confounding the tribal with an individual right of property. f This is of ten called the " Middle Island ;" but the southermost of the three islands which constitute New Zealand being compara- tively insignificant in extent, is better described as " Stewart Island" a mode of denoting it which is coming into general use. 526 ENGLAND AND tions cultivated by the Maoris, had native claimants in the several tribes and their subdivisions. Even had not the treaty of Waitangi (1840) expressly re- cognised this tribal ownership of New Zealand, a sense of justice and the necessity of conciliating the power- ful and numerous savages located all round the coast, and, generally speaking, at the very places most suitable for colonisation,* would have enforced the peaceable recognition of native claims by purchase. And, in fact, for many years little difficulty was found in procuring for nominal sums (from a penny to one-and-sixpence per acre) very large tracts or blocks. In time, however, the difficulty increased, partly owing to the rapid growth of a colonisation from the first singularly scattered and dispersive, partly from the superior and growing intelligence of the aborigines, and the variety of latent claims, f some real, others fictitious, which the demand for land called into activity among the tribes. The difficulty flowing from tribal ownership, as affecting the purchase of land and making out the title, is the most obvious, but far too exclusively considered. It is direct and palpable, and at once makes itself felt in relation to colonial interests. But gradually and surely there springs up a diffi- culty of another and more serious kind, which, dis- regarded at the outset, finally produces grave com- plications often when least expected. So strongly is the native idea of property identified with a mere right of user as regards the individual, that the abso- lute alienation of tribal land, even of blocks sold to * See the Map. f Their origin and nature are treated of in Shortland's Traditions and Superstitions of the New Zealanders, chap. xiv. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 527 the colonial Government, is only comprehended slowly and with difficulty. But the land which remains un- sold continues subject to the tribal ownership. The natives consequently make little or no progress to- wards the fundamental conception of modern industry and civilisation, namely that of individual property. Neither singly, therefore, nor collectively, do they advance in material and social well-being, while they see the constant progress of a colonial prosperity which seems to threaten their very existence. In every European settlement a time must come when there will no longer be any choice between constant collisions ending in war, or a process of incorpora- tion ; slow, no doubt, but real and progressive. The latter alternative can only be secured by systematic efforts to introduce the fundamental ideas and insti- tutions of civilised society ; and these involve a large and continuous expenditure with a view to make the natives directly participate in colonial prosperity and the benefits of good government. To this end no- thing is more important than the gradual transfor- mation of tribal into individual ownership, more especially as regards the Chiefs of the tribes. The difficulty of effecting such a change is no doubt great, but a beginning can always be made ; and the policy, if judiciously instituted and steadily main- tained, would in the end succeed. Without this and kindred measures, the world may be delighted with highly-coloured pictures of savage races, and their alleged civilisation through commerce and religion, and discover at last that a certain degree of material and mental progress, and even the adoption of Chris- tianity so called, may perfectly well coexist with latent but unreclaimed barbarism. 528 ENGLAND AND The want of any just and farseeing government in New Zealand is strikingly proved by the syste- matic neglect of this point down, almost to our own time; as the following fact, among many others, will show :* " In selling territories to the Crown (i. e. the Colonial Gover- nor before the colonists obtained representative institutions and self-government), many chiefs made it a condition of sale, that Crown grants for certain reserved portions of the territory should be issued to them, which would have given them a legal tenure and a right to let such lands to settlers, thus providing them- selves with an income (and, it may be added, qualifying them at a later period, when the constitution was granted in 1853, to vote for and sit in the assembly of New Zealand). Legal diffi- culties were, however, raised by the colonial law-officers as to such grants, and year after year passed without the promises of Govern- ment being fulfilled. Soon after Sir George Grey's return (1861), his attention was drawn to the subject, and the Government sur- veyor was directed to prepare a return of all cases in which Crown grants had been promised but never issued. So little care had been taken by Government to remember its engagements to the natives, that two months of unremitted rummaging amongst maps and original deeds of cession in the government offices was necessary before the tale of our bad faith could be furnished. It then appearedf that in no less than 178 cases, some occurring as long ago as the year 1848, Crown grants had been promised, and the promises had never been fulfilled, and that in 30 of these cases Crown grants had actually been stipulated for as part of the consideration in the very deeds of cession. Is there any wonder that the natives called the Pakeha a humbugging people ?" The view thus presented as to the importance of systematic efforts to transform tribal into individual right (due precautions being taken to protect the native from oppression or fraud), though specially suggested by New Zealand, is of very general appli- cation. It is too often left out of view, even in plans * Gorst, The Maori King, p. 189. t New Zealand Parliamentary Papers, 18G2, K/o. 10. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 529 which in other respects possess great merit. I allude particularly to the idea of native villages planted on Reserves, kept distinct from colonial property, yet so placed as to admit of commercial intercourse, and the employment of natives in private and public works. Such establishments, if under proper guid- ance and control, would afford a valuable means for the social amelioration of savage or semi-civilised tribes. But both in New Zealand and, I believe, also at the Cape of Good Hope (British Kafraria and Natal), the native reserves have been allowed to remain under the tribal right of occupancy, without any attempt having been systematically made to- wards the introduction of that primary condition of the gradual incorporation of the aborigines with civi- lised society the individualisation of property. Since the foundations of society family and pro- perty thus manifest such marked differences between savage and civilised existence, like contrasts may be expected to exist in other respects. Accordingly we do find among savage or semi-civilised communities a marked deviation from each of the three chief fea- tures of the modern European civilisation settled Industry, the Church or spiritual government, and the State or temporal government. In place of regular employment, with its usual accompaniment of a fixed home, savage life is cha- racterised by Nomadism. This condition is not in- deed universal, and it admits of many gradations, from the wandering hunter, fisher, or herdsman, to the primitive agriculturist. Still, the nomadic ency and character may, in a measure, be traced in all savage tribes, and even in communities that have become partially civilised; though it assumes dU 530 ENGLAND AND ferent shapes according as they live by flocks or herds, or cultivate the land. The inherent nomadism of pastoral tribes appears to be closely connected with their well-known thievish propensities ; a characteristic which has given rise to the somewhat hasty generalisation, that all barba- rians are robbers. This habitual disregard of the rights of movable property was long a source of complaint and difficulty in the relations between the colonists and the Kafir tribes who inhabited the bor- ders of the Cape settlements. But those who com- plained hardly considered the temptations held out to untutored barbarians by scattered farms of im- mense extent, on which the cattle were allowed to stray almost unguarded. The system of armed re- prisals (known under the name of commandos}, long tolerated, and even sanctioned, by the colonial go- vernment, was little calculated to remedy the evil. Experience has shown that an effectual remedy can only be found in an efficient Armed Police, together with better arrangements for the location of farms, and a judicious supervision and control over the neighbouring tribes. But even where the aborigines, as in the case of New Zealand, mainly live by tilling the ground, their agriculture itself has a semi-nomadic charac- ter, not unfrequently occasioning changes in their habitations.* The same plot is cultivated for a few It is worthy of remark that early colonisation manifests tenden- cies which are essentially similar to those above alluded to in reference to the cultivation of the land. It is not only in slave-cultivated terri- tories that we find the colonist exhausting portions of ground, and then abandoning them for new soil. It has been specially remarked in the case of New Zealand, that the deficiency of capital and the dearness of labour combined have led the British settler to demand an extent THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 531 years, and when exhausted abandoned for another " cultivation." The tribes also resort for food to rivers and forests ; hence, among other reasons, their claims over extensive tracts far exceeding the limits of their actual occupation. Yet, on the other hand, the natural improvidence of savages, together with their keen appreciation of the commercial benefits of colonisation, disposed the Maoris, especially at first, to part with tribal land for a mere nominal conside- ration. The colonists, without imputing to them op- pression or rapacity, were naturally anxious to obtain land. The Government, while steadily acquiring, through the wholesale land-purchase department, the cession of extensive tracts, had not the courage or the wisdom to insist on applying a considerable por- tion of the advanced retail price paid by the settlers directly towards the improvement, but especially the guidance and control of the natives. Hence the ori- ginal and chief source of those disastrous conflicts which may be fitly named the Civil Wars of New Zealand. These semi-nomadic tendencies have, in other ways, produced embarrassments with reference to land which could only have been prevented or re- medied by a policy at once firm and humane, un- happily wanting. Owing to the absence of a settled residence savage tribes rarely organise a system of conquest. The total instability of the Maori con- quests, for example, resulting from the inter-tribal of ground much beyond what would be necessary in the mother country. Hence one undoubted cause of the pressure exerted on the native population, since they and the settlers equally want a cons derable extent of the lest land, the inferior soils or less favou localities being practically valueless to both alike. As to the vali of institutions of credit to meet this difficulty, see the Letter o: Icon III. on Algeria (1866), pp. 42-52. 532 ENGLAND AND wars, seriously affected their titles to land. Had the victorious tribe ever acquired a complete title, or, having done so, abandoned or lost it? These and the like were difficult questions which met our colonisation. One such question arose at its very outset, bearing fruits, aggravated by neglect and mis- management, which stand in a close relation with an event of our own day, noticed hereafter the Tara- naki war of 1860-1. So far are savage communities from possessing a Church, that is, a spiritual but outward organisa- tion for worship, instruction, and moral discipline, that it has often been asserted they have no religion. Wider conceptions and more accurate observation have, however, greatly altered this view. Fetishism, indeed, as the primitive religion of savage tribes is designated, rarely presents an order of priests or any system of public worship. Its character is dis- persive and individualistic, and its influence hardly transcends the family, which in truth furnishes its social sphere and limits. Any analysis of this remarkable phase of religious belief would be here out of place,* but it is not so to point out that missionary teaching, and especially that of Protestant missionaries, gener- ally speaking, runs directly counter to the funcla- * Those who desire to pursue this interesting but difficult in- quiry may be referred to the first chapter of the " Philosophy of His- tory," by Auguste Comte (see the Politique Positive, torn, iii.), and the Considerations sur la Chine, by M. Pierre Laffitte. For some striking remarks on the permanent results of primitive or savage communities on human civilisation in reference to the domestication of the inferior animals, see Marsh's Man and Nature, pp. 39 and 121 ; also the paper by Mr. Galton (Report of British Association, 1864, p. 93), " First Steps towards the Domestication of Animals." The views of these writers tend to prove the great, though unacknowledged, debt which civilised owes to savage man. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 533 mental feature of the untutored mind of the Fetishist, namely, his radical inaptitude for generalisation and abstract ideas. A still more fatal mistake arises from an irrational contempt for the social institutions which flow from and rest upon the religious concep- tions of the savage, and especially his worship for the ancestors of his family and tribe.* Of these institutions, the most universal and im- portant is that of the Tomb. The efficacy of this as a source of patriotism has been especially remarked among the Kafir tribes. f Their intense attachment to the land of their forefathers was, in earlier times, little regarded by the governors, whose arbitrary and repeated removals of various tribes contributed to the many Cape wars which will be noticed hereafter. Another institution, less universal, but widely dif- fused through Polynesia, and once prevalent in ]S"ew Zealand, is the Tapu or Taboo, which should be re- garded as a rude system of law and government. Of fetishistic orgin, its use was partly religious, as, for example, to set apart burial-grounds and other sacred things, partly civil, to protect property or enforce observances of various kinds. Administered by the chiefs it does not admit of doubt that the Taboo was A very interesting and candid account of primitive religion and its social institutions will be found in Les Bassoutos (a branch of the Zulu-Kafirs living north of Natal), by M. E. Casalis, ancien missionnaire, 2d ed. 1860. To a reflecting mind it would naturally occur, that the veneration of the savage for his tribal ancestors affords a valuable germ, which, by judicious treatment, might be expanded into something wider and higher, and made an instrument for introducing the uncivi- lised man into the noble inheritance, intellectual and social, of Western Europe. See the " Calendrier Positiviste," or historico- biographic Synopsis, in the 4th vol. of the Pofitique Positive, by Auguste Comte, and the remarks thereon by Mr. John Stuart Mill, Auguste Comte and Positivism, p. 116. f See Casalis, Les Bassoutos, p. 165. 534 ENGLAND AND often abused, especially in its decline; but the most intelligent observers* have borne testimony to its social efficacy, and have pointed out that, both as fairly used and when abused,f it presents many ana- logies to our own customs and laws. These two institutions the Tomb and the Taboo with kin- dred ones, have long supplied to savage communities a system of government, partly moral, partly poli- tical. Though rude and imperfect, they deserve a more careful study and greater respect than they have hitherto received from European nations, who, whether from carelessness or ignorance, have invari- ably undermined what they showed neither disposition iior capacity to replace. The moral characteristics of savages of course vary greatly with their condition, pursuits, and cir- cumstances. With much that repels there is gener- ally much also that recals the nobler features of our common nature. Nevertheless, though we should do justice to these last, there is as little truth as wisdom in glossing over the evil and dangerous ten- c See Thomson's Story of New Zealand, vol. i. chap. v. ; Short- land's Superstitions of the New Zealanders ; Revue des Deux Mondes, 1864, vol. i., two articles on the Polynesians, by M. Quatrefages ; British Quarterly Review, 1865 (April), p. 404, "Facts from Savage Life." A remarkable example of a spontaneous revolt (prior to mis- sionary influence) against the Taboo, when used as a means of oppres- sion by the chiefs, was furnished by the Sandwich Islands (see Hop- kins's Sandwich Islands}. The Taboo was greatly used in New Zealand as a mode of sanctioning rights of property; and to this day the " native reserves" are described in the deeds of sale as " portions of land remaining sacred (taboo) to the sellers." Parliamentary Papers, presented February 1866, p. 236. f Compare the strict observance of the Jewish Sabbath an in- stitution which, like so many others of the Mosaic regime, strongly savours of primitive fetishism ; and the Game-laws as administered by certain " chiefs," better known as English landlords and magistrates. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 535 dencies of untutored and barbarous tribes.* Few things have done more harm than a disposition to overlook or underrate the immense force of habits congenial to undisciplined natures, and handed down from generation to generation, among which must be placed foremost, indolence, recklessness of human life, and a savage independence. The worst examples of this mistake and its evil consequences are to be found in the history of the dealings of civilised na- tions with the best savage races. The Kafir, who was set down as an " irreclaimable savage," had pro- bably a better chance of ultimate moral and social regeneration than the Maori, whose keen apprecia- tion of the material benefits of " Christianity and com- merce" made him the victim of a proselytism which demolished much while replacing little in a satisfac- tory manner, and of a policy which avoided the cost with the responsibility of governing. Of all the contrasts between savage and civilised communities, perhaps the most universal, enduring, and practically important is that presented by their internal political relations. Among savages or semi-civilised peoples, public life or a government hardly exists. In place of a State, or society or- ganised as a nation and acknowledging one supreme authority and ruling power, we find merely Tribes. These tribes are, more or less, related by origin, bound together by ties of race, language, and cus- tom, and sometimes even acknowledge a certain hier- archy or social scale of dignity and influence among * An instructive essay on this subject will be found in the Abori- gines Keport, Parl. Papers, 1837, vol. vii. p. 129. Though especnJly directed to the peculiarly barbarous natives of Western Australia .talogue of bad qualities (cunning, revenge, suspicion, acquisi -, ,ve of ease, superstition, and vanity) is of very general application. cat love 536 ENGLAND AND themselves and their respective chiefs. Still, as tribes, their organisation and existence remain essentially distinct, although, as the Kafir wars and still more strikingly the "Maori king" movement have shown, the preponderance of a neighbouring colony, and a sense of the dangers with which its growth threatens the aborigines, may arouse a deeper sense of nation- ality, and create the desire for some social bond under a chief recognised as supreme. Such rare efforts, however, only serve, by their general failure or partial success, to make more manifest the disin- tegrating forces of tribal life ; although, on the other hand, they should, both in justice and policy, read a valuable lesson to the ruling European power, of opportunities thrown away and duties neglected. But notwithstanding this absence of a State or nation, tribal communities present two features which furnish at least the germs of political existence, and, if rightly understood and managed, would afford the means of further growth. These are, the prevalence of Customary Law, and the authority of the Chiefs. Customs which are the foundation of native rights of property cannot without manifest injustice be dis- regarded. Whatever may have formerly been the case, a sense of international duty and humanity have in more recent times, generally speaking, ope- rated to protect the aborigines against a forcible seizure of their land. The tribal rights of the Maoris in New Zealand have on the whole been honourably respected; the difficulties which have there arisen being less the result of any direct aggression than of long neglect and imperfect government. In fact, as above observed, measures wisely taken and steadily pursued for the conversion of tribal into individual THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 537 property, would have been as useful to the natives as to the colony. For this purpose, however, they must have been combined with other measures of control and guidance, affecting what may be called the criminal jurisprudence of the natives. Nothing more clearly requires a vigorous, yet wise and for- bearing, treatment than the customs which regulate the domestic and social relations of the aborigines, and their gradual amelioration under the influence of European law and administration of justice. The following observations* on this head are important and of very general application, though their author (Sir George Grey) unhappily did not carry them out sufficiently in New Zealand : "I would submit, therefore, that it is necessary from the moment the aborigines of this country are declared British sub- jects, they should, as far as possible, be taught that the British laws are to supersede their own, so that any native ruler suffer- ing under their own customs may have the power of an appeal to those of Great Britain; or, to put this in its true light, that all authorised persons should in all instances be required to pro- tect a native from the violence of his fellows, even though they be in the execution of their own laws However unjust such a proceeding might at first sight appear, I believe that the course pointed out by true humanity would be to make them from the very commencement amenable to the British laws, loth as regards themselves and Europeans; for I hold it to be imagin- ing a contradiction to suppose that individuals subject to savage and barbarous laws can rise into a state of civilisation, which those laws have a manifest tendency to destroy and overturn. .... I imagine that this course would be more merciful than that at present adopted, viz. to punish them for the viola- tion of a law they are ignorant of, u'hen this violation affects a European, and yet to allow them to commit this crime as often as they like, when it only regards themselves; for this latter course Parl. Papers, 1844, vol. xxxiv. Aborigines in Australian colonies, pp. 100-4. See also the remark, ib. pp. 104-6, p. 380 and p. 392. 538 ENGLAND AND teaches them, not that certain actions, as murder, are generally criminal, but only that they are criminal when exercised towards the white population." The influence of the Chiefs, though often exces- sive and arbitrary, seldom rests on any strong and permanent foundation; a necessary consequence of the feebleness of public life among savage tribes. Hence a disposition in their civilised rulers to hold the heads of tribes of small account, and to ignore their claims to social distinction and influence. The wisest observers and best statesmen* have recom- mended a very different policy, one which should make the chiefs the allies and subordinate instru- ments of the European authorities. The necessity for such a system of transitional government be- comes still more evident if we consider the close con- nection that subsists between the power of the chiefs and the customary law of the tribes. The latter acts partly to support, partly to control, the former. But the natural tendency of European government, and even of mere colonial contacts, f is to break down the native customs, and with these the influence of the chiefs ; to some extent no doubt their power for evil, but also their entire authority, without substituting any better control. Thus the overthrow of super- stitious or tyrannical customs, unless accompanied by well-conceived plans of reorganisation, may, with the best intentions, produce anarchy among the natives, J See the evidence of Lieut.-Col. Colebrooke on the tribal self- government of natives. Aborigines Report, Parl. Papers, 1837, vol. xxxvii. p. 43. f See a striking passage confirmative of this view in the recent letter of Napoleon III. (pp. 12-14) on Algeria, relative to the Arab tribes. J " Maori Mohammedanism," Fortnightly Review, 1st Nov. 1865. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 539 and create difficulties, which commonly bear their fruits when least expected. In New Zealand, for example, the lawlessness, now almost universal in native districts, may be primarily traced to the destruction of the Tapu, the main foun- dation of the authority of the chiefs, through the missionary teaching and colonial contacts,* while no adequate system of civilised justice was set up in its place. The following remarkable and affecting appeal (among many similar proofs) shows at how early a period this social anarchy of the Maoris began under British rule. It is contained in a letter written in 1848 to the Governor of New Zealand, by a native chief (Tamati Ngapora), who was and has always continued friendly to Europeans : " Friend the Governor, This is my speech to you. Hearken to my word, friend. Do not slight my thoughts, because this is the thought of many of the chiefs of New Zealand. This is the thing that causes confusion at all their villages, namely, what I am about to state to you. Formerly, father the governor, when we adhered to our native customs, we had light on this subject, but now this land is mixed with up with the customs of Europeans, new thoughts or habits have been imbibed, and dark- ness has ensued in consequence. I wish to make known my thoughts to you in this matter, that you may hear them, and give some light on my sentiments. The slaves of my village will not obey me ; when I ask them to work, they will not regard me ; the result of this conduct is theft and adultery. I cannot deter- mine in these matters. In your estimation, perhaps, these are trifles, but to me they are great things, because they affect the welfare of the chiefs. Formerly brave people were considered in the light of chiefs, but now they are considered as nothing. You Europeans have effected this change. It is for you, the prop of this people, to lay down certain laws to meet these cases." The extract next given is taken from a very in- * Gorst's Maori King, and Parl. Papers, 1849, voL xxxv. p. 18. 540 ENGLAND AND teresting report* on the Zulu-Kafir population of Natal. The state of things described in the concluding para- graph is, however, highly deserving of attention, inas- much as the influences there noticed as now affecting the power of the chiefs, largely operated at former epochs to cause discontent in British Kafraria, and very nearly produced a dangerous outbreak in 1857 :f " The Chiefs of tribes originally possessed absolute power over the lives and property of their subjects, and enjoyed all the im- munities and privileges of such a position. The only limit to the exercise of this power was the necessity for conciliating public opinion, more or less in proportion to the resources for coercion they might possess in a standing army. When this engine did not exist, the most efficient instrument was, accusations of witch- craft. These, skilfully managed, were always sufficiently potent to overthrow the most powerful subject and ruin the most wealthy family. As a political engine, it was stronger and safer than an army, because it secured the concurrence of the people, and in most cases was made to appear to be a reluctant concession to them by the chief, when in point of fact he was the originator of the persecution himself. Formerly, desertion from one chief to another was looked upon as a description of treason, because it weakened and thereby endangered the abandoned tribe. In the colony of Natal, however, these things are changed. All the supreme powers are transferred to the safe-keeping of the head of the government. Political accusations of witchcraft have long ceased to be made, because there can now be no object in making them. The chiefs have no longer the right of assembling their tribes in arms, except by direction of the supreme chief (the Lieu- tenant-Governor of the colony). The removal of persons from one tribe to another, or one locality to another, is now a matter under the direct supervision of the magistrate, acting upon instructions from the seat of government, and the chiefs look upon them- selves as the lieutenants of the supreme chief, for the execution of his orders, and for the management of their respective tribes Parl. Papers, 1864. Reports on Colonial Possessions (Natal). Replies by the Secretary for Native Affairs to questions of the Lieut. - Governor, p. 48. f See the Quarterly Review, 1860, vol. cviii. " South Africa." THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 541 in accordance therewith. I have already said, that the people concur in this arrangement. It is so much gained to them, because the many changes forced upon them by their contact with civilisation require a higher guidance than their Chiefs can give; but it would be a mistake to suppose that the sentiment of regard and veneration for the persons and families of their Chiefs has been destroyed. They are a practical clever people, and see the necessity for alterations, such as have taken place, but they are loyal also and still venerate the ancient reigning families. It is they who have really lost as much as their people have gained by the new state of things. They have been stripped of their revenue as ivell as of their rank and power; and although they continue to discharge important duties for Government, and are indispensable to the good government of their tribes, they have hitherto (Oct. 1863) received no compensation for their losses or services" The foregoing brief review of some leading cha- racteristics of savage and semi-civilised communities may serve for the purpose of this essay, bearing of course in mind their great diversity in point of de- gree. Thus we rise from, the scattered and inferior o inhabitants of Australia to the intelligent and com- merce-loving, though feebly organised, Maoris, and the compact hierarchy of the Kafir tribes. Let us next turn to the nations of Western Eu- rope, considering the relations they form with, and the influences they exert upon such backward popula- tions. Two important and difficult problems present themselves at the outset; the preservation of the na- tive races, and the political and territorial relations of the tribes with the European state. Slavery with all its evils was, at an early period of the world's history, an amelioration in savage war- fare, the conqueror granting to the captive his life in exchange for his services. It is therefore strange that in the nineteenth century a theory should be maintained, which, if it could be reduced to practice, 542 ENGLAND AND would restore the primitive barbarism, substituting for slavery extermination. Cupidity and reckless- ness are sanctioned, and the best teachings of reli- gion and philosophy set aside, by a view which, while it tacitly admits the moral impossibility of enslaving native populations, asserts that the progress of the human race involves the extinction of its least favoured portions.* On the other hand, within the present generation a much better feeling has sprung up in Europe, and the country which made such efforts and sacrifices to extinguish slavery can never fall back on extermination. It is clear that the preservation of aboriginal races from the bad effects incident to their own defective habits and institutions, and unregulated contacts with Europeans, raises a question surrounded with no ordinary difficulties. Theoretically considered, the causes which thus tend to produce extinction are but partially understood. Practically, the extreme imperfection of our social arrangements obstructs the steady application even of admitted remedies. f It appears to me that the solution of the problem depends less on the future accumulation of special observations, however useful these may be, than on the full comprehension and the steady application of a few social principles, sufficiently elementary, yet too This, with reference to races or communities, is exactly the view on which barbarous tribes justify as even some nations of classic antiquity did the extinction of individual life, as in the case of female infants, children physically defective, and the aged. It is hardly necessary to say that the smallest advance in humanity and real civilisation sufficed to reject such a view as being equally shallow and barbarous. f See the remarks on the decline of native population, Edinburgh Review, April 1850, "Polynesia and New Zealand;" and Quarterly Review, 1859, vol. cvi. " The Islands of the Pacific." THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 543 little regarded. The preservation of savage commu- nities, I believe, mainly depends on their gradual ele- vation in the social scale, and their direct participation in the moral and intellectual results of Western civi- lisation. One of the most, perhaps the most, serious obstacle to the attainment of this end arises from our prevailing disposition to an exaggerated individualism, overlooking the paramount importance of the family as the fundamental unit of society. The weak poli- tical ties of savage communities give a peculiar sio-- nificance to their domestic life; yet both colonial governments and missionaries, generally speaking, overlook this fact, and concentrate their attention on the individual. Public works, hospitals, and native villages are excellent in their way; yet progress in these respects may coexist with entire barbarism of domestic life, both in its material and moral aspects. Thus, for example, in New Zealand, it was re- ported* in 1852 that the natives of the Northern Island were indeed " acquiring property, but their houses and mode of living had remained nearly the same for the last ten years." So likewise an able and humane physician, f in a valuable report (made and first published in 1856), attributes the rapid decay of the Maori race (from about 100,000, their number at the end of the 18th century, to 56,000) mainly to their deficiencies in three matters, themselves the material foundation of all domestic economy food, clothing, and lodging. So also of the moral condi- tions. At the Cape, it is found that respectable English girls prefer to marry Mohammedan Malays rather than Christian Hottentots ; a fact which may be Parliamentary Papers, 1852, vol. xxxv. No. 1475, p. 110. f Dr. Thomson. See his Story of New Zealand, vol. ii. p. 288. 544 ENGLAND AND accounted for when we learn that "the missionarized Hottentots are not, it is said, thought well of, being even tipsier than the rest."* In New Zealand we are startled to learn that, after half-a-century of missionary labours, the crime of infanticide, though diminished, is thought to be still prevalent ;f and that " chastity before marriage is an unknown virtue among the Maori women."! It is only just to add that no efforts, however well directed, can eradicate these moral evils unless systematically supported by the Colonial Government to an extent seldom thought of and never carried out. In these respects, and in truth generally, the problem presented by savage and semi-civilised communities is essentially the same as that which regards the lowest and most neglected classes of European society; namely, their gradual participation in the best results physical, intellec- tual, and moral of Western civilisation. The main sources of its solution are likewise identical, consist- ing in the gradual realisation of a true domestic life in its three grand essentials of a home, employment, and education. The political and territorial relations between sa- vages and the civilised nations of Western Europe have engaged attention from the beginning of the sixteenth century. By far the most important class Vacation Tourists, 1862-3 ; Lady Duff Gordon, Letters from the Cape, p. 205. The picture also which this writer gives of the dissen- sions of Protestant denominations with respect to the natives is not edifying. Unfortunately it has its counterpart in the history of all missionary enterprises which I have read, where rival churches or sects come into competition with each other, whether in Europe, Asia, Africa, America, or Oceania. f Thomson, Story of New Zealand,vol. ii. pp. 286-7. '. J Eraser's Magazine, October 1865, "Pai Marire," p. 432. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 545 of cases were those which involved both political and territorial relations as the result, not of mere com- mercial contacts, but of colonisation. Theoretically as well as practically, two considerations lay at the bot- tom of all discussions, and mainly decided the course pursued: first, the superiority, real or assumed, of European nations in religion, science, and the arts of war and peace ; secondly, the low industrial and so- cial condition of the aborigines, and especially their want of any well-organised public existence or state. Some writers, Yattel* for example, proceed on an assumed natural and universal obligation to till the ground ; whence is deduced the right of civilised men to take possession, and, if necessary, even forcible possession, of the "waste and unoccupied territory of savage tribes;" the purchase of native land by the Puritan settlers and William Penn being simply praised as a proof of their moderation. This view, however, has not been universally adopted by jurists ; and the law of England, in par- ticular, followed by the United States, sanctions a very different doctrine. The principle it lays down is as follows :f the colonising state, by virtue of prior discovery and the ascendency of civilised over savage man, on the one hand, claims a paramount dominion over the land, with a right of preemption, on the other, admits the natives' right of occupancy, or their lawful possession of territory inhabited or claimed by them, though not in their actual occupation or use. It also maintains the claim of the aborigines to pro- tection. The protection thus extended may. how- Law of Nations, by Chitty, 1834, pp. 35, 100. t See Kent's Commentaries on American Laic, 7th edition, vol. in. pp. 460-86. See also the important judgment in the Queen r. Symonds, New Zealand Parliamentary Papers, 1860, vol. xlvii. No. 492, p. 417. NN 546 ENGLAND AND ever, take two shapes, according as the natives are regarded as semi-dependent allies or are treated as subjects, a condition which may be either imposed by the European state or conceded by the natives. The point which has chiefly interested both jurists and statesmen is the 'right of preemption' just mentioned. This involves two things. It secures to the colonising state, as against other European nations, the mono- poly of the land-purchase. It also enables that state, as against its own subjects, to acquire large tracts of land at a nominal price, with the faculty of granting or selling in parcels. The right so claimed must have been at all times evidently of paramount importance. Its importance, however, has been greatly enhanced in reference to the " systematic colonisation"* of modern times ; by which the accumulation of exorbi- tant quantities of land in a few hands is prevented, and the price paid by the settler is laid out upon surveys, roads, and other improvements indispensable for the prosperity of the colony, and advantageous to the purchasing colonist. In addition to the rights con- ceded to the savage occupants by the foregoing doc- trine of International Law, special Treaties have fre- quently been entered into, purporting to secure the natives more clearly in their rights of occupancy, or to recognise their independent sovereignty, or gua- ranteeing to them the protection of the colonising state, sometimes as semi-dependent allies, at other times even as subjects. Unfortunately the practical results have not cor- responded with the apparent justice of the general principle, or the advantages promised by the special treaty. Their failure to secure the well - being or Merivale's Colonisation and the Colonies, and Mill's Political Economy. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 547 even existence of the aborigines is known; and the reasons for this demand our earnest attention. One, and indeed the principal, reason seems to be the in- sufficiency of any admission of mere rights, unaccom- panied by a clear and practical recognition of duties, as due from the powerful and progressive European state to the backward and feeble tribes. The more thoughtful and better-disposed class of writers on this difficult subject manifestly tend in this direction,* while the public are increasingly disposed to advo- cate a just and generous- morality which enforces the duty of the strong to protect and aid the weak. In fact, the ordinary rules of fair and equal dealing be- tween European nations, as embodied, more or less, in what is styled International Law, though essential, are quite insufficient to regulate our dealings with savage and semi-civilised tribes. Having regard also to their ignorance of our conventional political ideas and language, and imperfect social organisation, there is strong reason for believing that formal Treaties are o o rather a danger than a protection or advantage to such communities.! The treaty which laid the foun- dation of our systematic colonisation in New Zealand (that of "Waitangi, hereafter noticed) seems to be very * See Merivale's Colonisation and the Colonies, pp. 487-564. "The most important object of a regenerated polity will be the substitution, of duties for rights ; thus subordinating personal to social considera- tions. The adoption of this principle is the one way of realising the grand idea of the Middle Ages, the subordination of Politics to Morals. Its solution consists in regarding our political and social action as the service of humanity." A General View of Positivism (translated from the French of Auguste Comte by J. H. Bridges, M.B.), pp. 383-4. f Great Britain has taken this view in several more recent cases of colonisation (e.g. Natal and Vancouver's Island), avoiding all treaties except as to border tribes ; and even here not relying on such gua- rantees, but looking mainly to wise precautions and an efficient system of political agency and police. 548 ENGLAND AND much iu point, since the Maoris did not understand it in the way we did ; and the British interpretation, as embodied in imperial and colonial practice, treated our alleged rights as a reality, but made a negation of our self-imposed and solemnly -promised duties. Two leading considerations, therefore, I believe, require to be borne in mind as regards the dealings of European nations with savage tribes. First, there is the absolute necessity for special precautions, in order to avert or mitigate disputes, to enforce justice (in reference both to the natives and the settlers), and to impart gradually the benefits of civilisation to the subordinate community. Secondly, inasmuch as the tribes look much more to acts than laws, no govern- ment can succeed which does not secure their confi- dence and respect by combining personal influence with a steady adherence to a system at once humane, far-seeing, and courageous. European influence over savage tribes springs from three sources, Religion, Industry, and Polity. Notwith- standing some incidental benefits, the relations thus established have done much harm, without, it would seem, as yet, producing any adequate compensation. The missionary efforts of Western Europe* dur- ing the last three centuries would merit a longer examination than is here possible. Some reference to them seems to be necessary, since, as has been truly observed, " the character of a barbarous people cannot be changed by force of arms, nor by any political settlement of their affairs."f For good, A succinct sketch of Protestant Missions \vill be found in the North British Review, No. 80 (1864). f Sir P. Maitland, Governor of Cape of Good Hope, Parl. Papers, 1847-8, vol. xliii. p. 23. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 549 therefore, or for evil, the influence of missionaries is constantly and justly referred to by statesmen as an important element in the policy of civilised to- wards savage communities. These contacts have, no doubt, manifested much that is noble and dis- interested in the European, and supplied valuable information as to the savage ; but with serious draw- backs as regards actual results. The semi-civilisa- tion of natives and abolition of sanguinary customs, which often form the first victory of missionary efforts, pave the way for that irregular and merely commercial intercourse with Europeans which has invariably introduced so much of evil among savage tribes. Impartial thinkers* tend to the conclusion that missions have not counteracted the mischiefs thus resulting, or effected any good comparable to the exertions made. As this comparative failure deeply affects the social condition of the aborigines, it may be desirable to point out briefly some of its leading causes. The teaching of the missionary to savages has an importance much above that of the same influence at home. Among European nations misconceptions affecting social existence and the moral nature are i counteracted in many ways, especially by the growtl of sounder views and the exigencies of practical life; but with the savage it is quite otherwise, since there the foundation has to be laid. In modern life we practically learn and that often in spite of ad- verse dogmas to regard industry as a blessing, to respect woman, and to believe in social and disinter- See Merivale's Colonisation and the Colonies, p. 560 ; Quarterly Revieic, December 1863, p. 81, the "Missions of Polynesia ;" and 1 article " Missions" in the Encyclopedia Britannica, 8th ed. 550 ENGLAND AND ested affections. But among savages, where love of ease predominates, and the condition of the female sex is always low, their state can hardly be improved by being taught to regard labour as a divinely-in- flicted punishment, and woman as the source of evil. Again, even , the imperfect sociability of barbarous tribes revolts against lessons of the absolute wicked- ness of human nature.* But the mistaken social attitude of missionaries is a still deeper source of mischief and failure. Ab- sorbed in doctrinal teaching, and spurred on by the desire to show numerous converts, f they too often neglect the practical basis of life, not only as to material well-being, but as to the personal virtues most essential to domestic well-being and happiness. No doubt allowance must be largely made for diffi- culties of situation and deficiencies of resources ; but even these are much aggravated by the mistaken and narrow views of society and public life prevalent among missionaries. They adopt a semi-theocratic type, seeking to govern through a system of tutelage and an exaggerated isolation. The Jesuit missions of Paraguay J furnish a remarkable example; not, however, wholly unlike the history of the Protestant missions in the Sandwich Islands. But this bad system produces its worst effects in Colonies, where such a regime is, generally speaking, quite out of place. There the missionary too often ' regards the savage almost as a saint, and the colonist as a con- See Mrs. Ward's Five Years in Kafir Land, vol. i. p. 115. f See Mrs. Smyth's Ten Months in the Fiji Islands, p. 173. J See Merivale's Colonisation and the Colonies, p. 285, as to these and the causes of their decline. See Manley Hopkins, The Sandwich Islands ; and the review of West's Friendly Islands in the Athenceum of 10th February 1866. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 551 vict; thus inevitably sowing the seeds of discord and depriving himself and his protige of the sympathy and assistance so needful for his work. The results of this mistaken system are nearly the same every where, and nowhere have they been more clearly or painfully revealed than in New Zealand. It begins by ^ undermining native ideas and habits, without giving any adequate substitute; its second phase develops an exaggerated antagonism between native and European interests, alienating the colonists; and finally, as the aborigines emerge from the savage state, they throw off their allegiance to the mission- aries.* In the foregoing observations it is not intended to depreciate such real advantages as Christian teach- ing and missionary devotedness can produce amon- savage tribes; only to place these spiritual guides in their true light as simple allies of the political power, whose efforts, if wisely directed and suffi- ciently controlled, may prove useful. f A like re- mark applies with still greater force to the influ- ences of commerce. It is certainly surprising that As to conversions see Thomson, History of Neio Zealand, vol. i. pp. 305 et seqq. ; Hursthouse, New Zealand, pp. 115-7; " Pai Marire," Prater's Magazine, October 1865; "Maori Mohammedanism," Fort- nightly Review, Nov. 1, 1865 ; and the recent Report of the Church Missionary Society. As to relations with colonists see the resolution of the Church Missionary Society, Report, Select Committee House of Lords on New Zealand, Parl. Papers, 1837-8, vol. xxi. p. 243. As to diminished influence of missionaries see Gorst, Maori King, p. 5. f I wish to guard myself from being supposed to assert any abso- lute and unvarying proposition concerning the two kinds of govern- ment, spiritual and temporal, which always have affected and always must affect the constitution and movement of society. The view here submitted concerns the present conditions and relations of the above two powers, which are, I believe, eminently transitional. The whole subject of missionary teaching and influence can be adequately dealt 552 ENGLAND AND statesmen* should place such reliance, as is often expressed, on the commercial intercourse of savage with civilised men; having regard to the influence exercised by such dealings on much stronger com- munities, and the proved difficulties of preventing the sale of spirits and fire-arms. These exaggerated impressions are not simply illusory. They are also mischievous, since they blind to the necessity for measures reaching far deeper, and of much slower growth. Of such commercial dealings the land itself is often the most important subject between natives and colonists; and being to the former, not only their chief wealth, but the essential condition of their existence, the one-sided view just mentioned here produces its worst effects. To appreciate the mag- nitude of the danger, it is necessary to bear in mind, first, the "right of preemption" claimed, as before mentioned, from, savage tribes by the colonising state; and next, its bearing on the principle and practice of "systematic colonisation." The European nation first asserts the right (frequently confirmed by treaty) to become the exclusive purchaser of native land, and that at a price necessarily very trifling, and which, moreover, does not vary with competition or increase with time. The Colonial Government thus gradually acquires large tracts, with, only by cofasidering it in reference to the movement which, during the last five centuries, has tended, with increasing force, at once to dissolve the ancient social bases, spiritual and temporal, and to reconstitute these in the interests of a normal and regenerated so- ciety, commencing in Western Europe, and thence destined to extend gradually throughout the world. See a remarkable example of this, Parl. Papers, 1852, vol. xxxiii. No. 1428, p. 259, Kafir tribes. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 553 and resells them, according to the more modern practice, to the settlers, who pay an advanced price, in consideration of surveys, roads, and other per- manent improvements, as well as the general advan- tages of government. This plan has been successfully carried out in our Australasian colonies, and among these in New Zea- land, from the foundation of that colony in 1840. There the land was purchased from the natives by the Crown under its preemptive right, expressly sanc- tioned by the treaty of Waitangi, at merely nominal prices, varying from a few pence to Is. Qd. per acre, and resold to the colonists for 10s. per acre for agri- cultural purposes, and sometimes for as much as 101. per acre in town lots. The revenue brought into the Colonial Treasury by selling and leasing Crown lands has always been very large. 606, 830/.* were realised from this source in 1862, forming at that time more than one-half of the entire annual revenue. Had, then, the natives any claim to have at least a portion of this large territorial income directly applied towards their material and social amelioration? The respon- sible ministers of the Colonial House of Representa- tives said they had none. " No principle of justice" it was affirmed by the Colonial Treasurer,! " requires that the natives shall share in the increased value given to the land by the industry and capital of * Martin, The Statesman's Year-look, 1866, p. 676 ; and see Hurst- house, New Zealand, p. 177. t Parl. Papers, 1861, vol. xli. p. 451 ; ib. 1860, vol. xlvii. No. 492, pp. 20-34. It is right to state that these gentlemen admitted the duty of protecting and improving the natives, as well as the neces- sity for doing so; but the tendency of their Memorandum was to cut down the financial claim as far as could be done, and thus practically to defeat their avowed policy. The doctrine here quotec and objected to was, I think, wholly inconsistent with the plan 554 ENGLAND AND Europeans; though," lie adds, "it would be politic to give them a share by way of bonus." This view appears to me quite unsustainable, and in every way dangerous. It is true, indeed, that the settler pays with a view to benefiting by an expenditure impossible unless a land-fund were thus created. These bene- fits, however, accrue not simply to the individual colonist, but to him through the Colony, of which the natives may, and, in the case of New Zealand by treaty, do form a part. Again, the natives, by peace- ably yielding to the Government the claim for pre- emption, debar themselves from that advance in price which all other landowners gain often, be it observed, without any exertion of their own by the extension and progressive wealth of their neighbours. No stronger proof of this can be given than the fact that the New-Zealand loan of 500,000/. was expressly asked for in 1857, on the ground that unless the na- tive land could soon be bought up, the growing sense which the natives were acquiring of the value of their proposed by the same ministers for settling the land - question in New Zealand. This plan, in many respects undoubtedly an admir- able one, contemplated the gradual individualisation of tribal pro- perty, with a view to enabling the natives and colonists to treat directly for the sale of the land. But if the natives were thus to be enabled to get the best market-price for their land, it is not easy to see why, under the preemptive system, the Government were justi- fied in appropriating the entire of the advanced price to the exclusive benefit of European purchasers. I believe that besides the direct in- jurious effect of this doctrine in limiting the resources applicable to native purposes, it had a further indirect but very mischievous conse- quence. It tended greatly to encourage the notion maintained by the responsible Ministers that the control of the Maoris should be handed over absolutely to the Colonial Assembly and a shifting ministry, in- stead of being confided to a mixed body representing both European and native interests, and offering sufficient guarantees as to stability and otherwise. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 555 unsold territory would oblige the Colonial Govern- ment to pay a much higher price.* Apart, therefore, from all special treaty - obliga- tions, and looking only to the broad facts of such cases, the mere commercial theory, which would compensate the natives by a nominal price and the indirect benefits of colonial contacts a market for produce or labour and the acquisition of European manufactures is quite inadequate. Nothing can ever really compensate savage tribes for their an- cient territorial possessions but the direct benefits resulting from a liberal expenditure for their pro- tection, guidance, and improvement. Expediency alone would suggest this view; but its consistent and persevering application can only be guaranteed by sounder conceptions and a higher standard of European and National duty. Another and most important subject of commer- cial intercourse between colonists and natives is the labour of the latter ; and there is no point which even excluding the peculiar and disturbing influences of slavery followed by emancipation creates greater difficulties,! or more completely exposes the equal hollowness of unthinking philanthropy and mere Parliamentary Papers, 1857, sec. 2, vol. ix. ; Select Committee of the House of Commons on New-Zealand Loan. It should be stated that the wisest friends of the Maoris advocated the policy of facilita- ting the extinction of tribal rights, and approved of this loan on that ground. But they only did so on the supposition that, in exchange for their superfluous land, the natives were to be gradually made direct participants in the benefits of civilisation and good government. f Compare the remarks in Wilmot's Cape of Good Hope, p. 71 ; Dr Mann's Natal, p. 19; Algar's Natal, p. 42; and Parl. Papers (Natal), 1859, sess. 2, vol. xxi. No. 2567, p. 195, as to the Kafir tab The Maoris have the same defects, though in a much less degree ; se Thomson's New Zealand, vol. ii. p. 299 ; and Gorst's Maori King. 556 ENGLAND AND mercantilism. On the other hand, among the most encouraging proofs of improved humanity and wiser statesmanship may be mentioned the comparatively recent efforts made to facilitate and encourage the employment of native labour, on just terms, both in public and private works ; efforts of which the success is not doubtful, though too frequently compromised or impaired by the impatience of Colonists and our deficient political arrangements. The political relations of Western Europe with savage and semi-civilised communities have, up to a very recent period, been characterised by oppression, and even, when least reprehensible, by feebleness and neglect. These have bequeathed to us the worst results, aggravating in many cases the inherent diffi- culties of such relations. But, more than this, our improved sentiments and greater insight have, as yet, only modified the evil without transforming the system. The following brief remarks are directed towards the present transitional government of back- ward communities by civilised and progressive na- tions. Animated by a better spirit, and improving, though still most defective, Government at least aims at reversing the older policy, by substituting for oppression protection; for vacillating weakness wise guidance ; and for long and shameful neglect a gra- dual incorporation.* Direct aggression, the forcible or fraudulent See and compare the remarks of Mr. Merivale, Colonisation and the Colonies, Lectures 18 and 19. The threefold classification here proposed seems to me preferable to the twofold division into protection and civilisation. The latter term is, I think, somewhat vague, and does not sufficiently point to that element of guidance and control which, every where an essential of government, is more than com- monly necessary in reference to savage or semi-civilised communities. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 557 seizure of person, goods, or land, is no longer sanc- tioned and seldom knowingly permitted by the ruling power.* Neither do I believe that, as a body, the colonists,! more especially that better class who, during the last quarter of a century, have furnished a large proportion of the emigrants from Europe, in- tentionally pursue an unjust policy or advocate harsh measures towards the natives. Nay more, many lay settlers desire, some of them, and those not the least influential, earnestly endeavour to protect, to improve, and, with humane wisdom, to guide and control the native. On the other hand, our relations with abori- gines, whether purely commercial or territorial, not merely present many temptations, but give rise to peculiar difficulties, which are only partially compen- sated and very imperfectly remedied by European or Colonial influences. Colonisation, more especially, in- directly causes to native populations mischiefs, slowly engendered indeed, and long unnoticed, but inevit- able and fatal, unless their sources be steadily re- moved by direct and prolonged efforts on the part of the colonising European state and the governing powers of the colony. * Where such cases occur, they usually result from the indiscreet zeal of subordinate officials ; and this, it may be feared, is not uncom- mon. See the remarks of the Emperor Napoleon HI. in his recent Lettre sur la Politique de la France en Algerie, p. 17. f It should be remembered that the motto, ccehim non animum mutant, is not applicable in an absolute sense to colonists, however superior by nature and education. The position of the struggling settler is not favourable to the expansion of generous sentiments of social sym- pathy and high notions of pubiic duty. Moreover, there must always be a considerable mixture of ranks; and it is well known that the more educated and higher-toned immigrants do not possess the sam( relative importance or influence in a colony as they would do in the mother country. 558 ENGLAND AND Thus the intercourse with Europeans is invariably followed by temptations to buy ardent spirits and fire-arms, and often introduces diseases before un- known. Such contacts also, in various other ways, spontaneously tend to break up the native ideas and social system,* which, imperfect though it be, has at least maintained some degree of order, and permitted the increase of the aborigines. Looking at these evils and their sources, the most obvious mode of protect- ing natives has seemed that of isolating them. Ex- perience, however, has shown this expedient to be illusory and dangerous; at all events, when taken by itself and regarded as a complete and final measure. f The natives left to themselves remain stationary, and, in any case, do not grow with sufficient rapidity to enable them to meet the difficulties of an intercourse which the extension of the colony, and increasing numbers of the colonists, must sooner or later force upon them. A complete fusion, it has been justly re- marked, J between populations, not only differing in race but belonging to widely different social stages must always be difficult, and is sometimes impossible. But if the right method be taken, it is not imprac- See the remarks, Lettre sur la Politique de la France en Algerie, by the Emperor Napoleon III. pp. 12-15. f See the judicious remarks on this topic of Mr. Merivale, Coloni- sation and the Colonies, p. 510. As part of this system of isolation, an official staff of Protectors so called was created for the special benefit of the natives. The plan, however, failed to secure the end proposed, in great part because it either ignored or very inadequately provided for the relations of the natives with $ie colonists. It has therefore been entirely abandoned in British settlements, and replaced with far superior efficacy, when the substitute has been properly carried out, by Kesident Magistrates and Armed Police. J Revue des Deux Mondes, 1863, vol. i., " La Colonisation moderne," p. 912. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 559 ticable sufficiently to incorporate the lower with the higher community. By incorporation I mean that process which gradually extends to all, according to the measure of their capacity, the benefits of edu- cation, moral, intellectual, and practical; of social progress ; and of good government. Here, in fact, lies a principal cause of our failures to benefit and preserve the native populations the absence of measures, early taken and steadily pur- sued, with a view to their gradual incorporation in the community of European settlers. Even our most praiseworthy efforts are superficially conceived and very incomplete. For example, take the institution of Native Villages or Reserves, arranged so as to be distinct from colonial territory, and yet sufficiently near to facilitate the employment of aboriginal labour and such kinds of desirable intercourse. The foun- dation is good; but the superstructure is left un- finished, is seldom even begun. Native communi- ties are invariably deficient in the most necessary elements of civilised society, individualisation of property, the administration of justice, and an effi- cient police. Yet the creation of these is either neglected, or, at best, attempted feebly, and with very inadequate means. In British Kafraria and Natal, indeed, some effort has been made to supply these great deficiencies, though I fear not on a scale adequate to the necessity, or with sufficient appre- hension of the difficulty and danger of the under- taking (see before, p. 541). But in New Zealand no efficient attempt has been made from the founda- tion of the colony to the present day, even as regards natives located on reserves which, though consi- dered as British territory, are left subject to tribal 560 ENGLAND AND rights, and much less as regards the great mass of the aborigines living on native territory.* The superficial view and neglect here referred to are closely connected with the want of a systema- tic guidance and so to speak providence on the part of the ruling European Power, including under that term a control, kindly, forbearing, and judicious, yet decided and unwavering. Such control, essen- tial in every society, is a fundamental condition of the just and successful government of savage tribes. It becomes, if possible, still more needful, as these, through missionary and colonial contacts, are spon- taneously brought into a semi-civilised stage ; a stage in their social movement the most difficult and dan- gerous of all, since it oscillates between an imper- fect but long- established order, and disguised yet real anarchy. The remarks already made with special reference to the Cape of Good Hope and New Zealand illustrate this fact, and also show why it is that the indirect benefits of commercial dealings and colonial contacts, or even praiseworthy, though too generally ill-directed, missionary efforts, never can supply the want of Government, in its threefold function of protection, guidance, and incorporation. The first and third offices have been in some mea- sure understood and aimed at; but our ideas and practice are much more defective as regards the necessity for guidance, and the conditions, financial and other, for guiding native populations. These last shortcomings are, I believe, the principal reason why so little has been as yet done to protect and incor- See the passage already quoted, p. 528, as to the non-perform- ance even of our contracts of sale to give crown-grants to natives ; and see the Map of New Zealand below. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 561 porate native populations. Some further illustra- tions, taken from the history of -the same two colo- nies, will not, therefore, it is thought, be superfluous. They relate to two points of the greatest moment: first, the want of any systematic principles of govern- ment; and secondly, to a characteristic feature of this state of non-government, and one of peculiar importance namely, the want of a proper agency, intermediate between the colonial governor and the chiefs. Writing just before the outbreak of the great Kafir war of 1835, the Governor (Sir Benjamin D'Urban) thus stated his conviction:* " It was sufficiently obvious that a complete and effectual re- formation of a system of proceeding with the native tribes (if that might be called a system which seemed to liave, leen guided by no fixed principle, certainly by no just one) had become absolutely necessary." The like testimony was, at the same period, borne by an intelligent and impartial Wesleyan missionary, the Rev. William Shaw.f "Not only has our Government pursued no efficient measures for the improvement of the Kafir tribes, but the plan adopted for the regulation of the affairs of the frontier has been extremely injudicious. Instead of a regular system, weU defined and pro- perly adapted to the circumstances of the country, and steadily acted upon, there has been nothing like a system at all. Someti the mode of treatment has been harsh and severe, at other times mild and conciliatory. Occasionally the Kafirs were almost frio-htened into the belief that we intended their destruction, and at other times they were suffered to carry on their c dations with such impunity as to tempt them into t o Parl. Papers, 1835, vol. =d* P- 103, Native Inhabitant Cape of Good Hope. f Ib. pp. 137-142. OO 562 ENGLAND AND that we were afraid of them. Threatenings were occasionally denounced, which were never fulfilled. The effects of this con- tradictory mode of proceeding upon an untutored but warlike race, strong from their number, may be easily imagined." On the second point the same writer continues : " In consequence of certain difficulties and scruples respecting international law (the absurdity of applying the strict rules of which in the intercourse between a civil and a barbarous people, I shall not now stop to prove), no direct and official communica- tion betwixt the chiefs and the colonial authorities has yet been established." This state of things continued unaltered until the outbreak of the Kafir war of 1845, after which a decided change was made, and something like syste- matic government, and proper relations with the chiefs, were introduced into British Kafraria. But with the warning thus given before our eyes the identical mistake was made in New Zealand, as will appear from the recent testimony, in the year 1860, of a government interpreter, who is described as possessing the most extensive information about native doings.* " The natives generally consider themselves an independent nation, and not amenable, to British law. They discuss this sub- ject with great seriousness, and many of the tribes are warmly advocating the election of a Maori king, who will, it is supposed, be able to settle all their grievances and quiet the troubles of the land. It may be asked, what is being done to lessen the discon- tent which prevails every wliere among the native people? The influence of the missionary bodies, in regard to the Maori popula- tion, has ceased; at present it is a mere shadow. The influence of government is daily becoming less, owing, in a great measure, to our want of system. It is altogether a mistaken notion to sup- pose that we are attaching the natives to us, and securing their * New Zealand Parl. Papers, 1860, quoted from Gorst's Maori King, p. 57. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 563 allegiance to the crown by the bestowment of presents and grant- ing loans. In most instances this is positively injurious, foster- ing idleness and covetousness, and causing the chiefs to lay aside that self-respect which raised them so far above the generality of barbarians." Again, speaking of the anarchy of native districts, and the growth and causes of the Maori king-move- ment, Mr. Gorst observes :* " So absolutely was Waikato neglected, that Mr. Ashwell stated, before a committee of the House of Representatives, that, during nineteen years before the 'king-movement,' he could not remember more than three or four visits to the Waikato by officials. Sovereignty, or government, in the sense of a power strong enough to put down robbery and murder, and increase the common happiness by enforcing obedience to laws for the com- mon good, was a thing unknown to the natives of New Zealand when they signed the treaty of Waitangi, and is unknown to loyal and disloyal alike at the present day." . The sentiments and habits produced by this state of non-government, not to say misrule, should be largely taken into account in our estimate of the moral condition of savages. In all attempts to rule barbarous communities, but more especially those populations which have been thus artificially brought into a condition of social anarchy, I believe that a really strong government is essential; always, how- ever, remembering that the conditions of strength are a w i se use of power, for the benefit of the natives, a just regard to public opinion among them, and an especial consideration for their chiefs. Thus understood, I think the following remarksf are just, and of very general application : Maori Xing, p. 40. f By Sir Henry Pottinger, Governor of the Cape in 1 the Kafir war of 1845-6). Parl. Papers, 1847-8, vol. xliii. p. 43. 564 ENGLAND AND " It appears to me evident that the only method or chance of reclaiming and improving the moral and civil condition of these tribes is by placing them, for the present at least, under a strong and vigorous government, directed by a resolute will, by demon- strating to them beyond all doubt that they are at the mercy and disposal of that government, and by afterwards treating them with that humanity, kindness, and conciliation, which their con- duct and obedience may merit, and which is most worthy of a great civilised nation like England." III. PKIMITIVE SOCIETY AND WESTERN EUROPE. We see, then, that savage and semi- civilised com- munities present, with great variations in degree, marked features of resemblance among themselves, and no less of contrast with civilised society. Among these contrasts is very commonly placed an alleged in- capacity for progress.* Their advances are no doubt slow, and rarely pass certain limits. It cannot, how- ever, be thence justly concluded that they are incap- able of being raised by patience and judicious efforts ; and, notwithstanding the great disadvantages of past mismanagement, experience affords some proof of the contrary. This view is, I think, sustained by the re- sults of modern inquiry, f combining the observations of travellers with surviving traditions and relics of the past. Under favourable and exceptional condi- tions, physical and social, the " savages of Europe"! developed themselves by slow degrees, and became This view is fortified by dogmas, claiming the sanction of reli- gion, and sometimes even supported by misstating facts : see Tylor's Early History of Mankind, pp. 160-2, for a striking example of such misstatement. f See Tylor, Early History of Mankind ; Lubbock, Prehistoric Times ; Wilson, Prehistoric Man; M'Lennan, Primitive Marriage. J Gibbon, Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chap. i. note 83. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 565 the founders of classic society and culture. The direct progenitors of Greek* and Romanf antiquity partook deeply of the characteristics of savage commu- nities, and the civilisation of their descendants retained plain traces of the primitive and fetishistic state of society. Rome, having by long effort raised herself to be the head of the ancient world, incorporated a great variety of tribes, to the full as savage as some which we have had to deal with. Military training, judicial^ and administrative institutions, with a syste- matic initiation into her language and the arts of peace, were the instruments of this transformation. The Middle Ages offer still nobler proofs of the just ascendency of civilised over savage man, through religious devotedness, guided by practical wisdom, and fortified by intellectual and social superiority, their inheritance from imperial Rome. Modern history has little that is satisfactory to show as regards the influence of Europe on savage and semi-civilised communities, although the me- mory of Penn and his labours survive as a beacon amidst the general darkness. The four great mari- time and colonising powers of Western Europe c Mesnard, Du Polytheisme Hellenique. f Fustel de Coulanges, La Cite antique. + It hardly admits of doubt that the extraordinary flexibility as well as breadth of the Koman jurisprudence arose from the -wise use which the authorities, in early times, uniting both civil and military jurisdiction, made of the contacts between the ruling nation and the conquered populations of Italy. Two sources of this ascendency are well described in the follow- ing passage relative to the conversion of the German tribes in the eighth century to Christianity: "It was essential that those efforts and these missions should be associated with a strong political power, like that of the Franks, and a universal directing authority, like that of Rome." Zeller, Entretiens sur FHistoire, Moyen Age, p. 93. 566 ENGLAND AND Spain, England, Holland, and France* have all, more or less, incurred this blame; proving that, great as has been the progress of science and in- dustry, the still nobler arts of government and mo- rality lag behind.f An examination of the historical relations of Western Europe with barbarous peoples cannot here be entered upon; but two remarks of a practical character connected with these relations may be offered. Independently of colonisation, the growth of com- merce and maritime enterprise has frequently led to difficulties between the European Powers themselves, arising out of these contacts with barbarous peoples. In recent times several such collisions have occurred between England and France. J These conflicts The European inhabitants in French colonies are subjected to an exceptional regime, which, however necessary, excites the disappro- bation of those who claim the absolute equality of all Frenchmen before the law (see Debates on the Address in the Corps Legislatif, 1866). The recent letter of the Emperor on the policy of France in Algeria, as regards both colonists and the Arab tribes, is a remarkable document ; worth studying, if only as showing the tendency of like situations to produce like results, despite of great differences as to race, religion, and institutions. f There can be no doubt that the greater homogeneity and closer resemblance, as regards social conditions and the arts of war and peace, between ancient Rome and mediaeval Europe, and their respective sub- jects among the barbarous tribes, had a large influence in facilitating the gradual incorporation of the latter. The present imperfect con- stitution of science and industry opposes a great obstacle to the incor- poration of the people with the modern framework of European so- ciety ; much more then to the participation of barbarous communities in the civilisation of the nations of Western Europe. What causes the difficulty, however, is not our progress, but our incomplete and halting advance, through a long period of transition and anarchy, to a sound and normal condition of society. Of this the chief characteristics must hereafter be a wide sympathy and relative appreciation, supply- ing the place of physical and social affinities by comprehensive and persevering, and at the same time flexible, statesmanship. J For example, in the Society Islands (Otaheite) (see Guizot, France THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 567 the results of pride of power, set in motion by mer- cantile cupidity, and not unfrequently fostered by religious fanaticism or exclusiveness are the more to be regretted, because the combined efforts and naval forces of the two leading European Powers should rather be directed towards the protection of feeble communities exposed to every attack from without, and too frequently the victims of rapacity and lawlessness. There are few subjects in relation to which the combined action of England and France o is more needed than the establishment of an effective Naval Police, extending to all seas frequented by European commerce. Again, the comparison of Spanish and English colonisation presents a contrast which deserves a serious consideration. Notwithstanding her earlier barbarities towards the native West Indians, Spain* is almost the only European country whose govern- ment systematically instituted a social machinery for the protection and guidance of the aborigines, and who, chiefly through the labours of her clergy, has to a considerable extent incorporated the natives with the colonists. The real and honourable success of these effortsf is attested by the effective amalgama- tion, through intermarriage and otherwise, of a very considerable proportion of the natives of South Ame- under Louis Philippe, chap. ii. ; and Quarterly Review, 1859, vol. cvi. " The Islands of the Pacific") and in the Sandwich Islands (see Manley Hopkins, Sandwich Islands). c See the remarks of Mr. Merivale, Colonisation and the Colonies, p. 6. f See Murray's Encyclopedia of Geography, part iii. book iv.; Malte-Brun's Geographic; Knight's Cyclopedia of Geography, 1855 ; Fullarton's Gazetteer of the World, 1859 ; and M'Culloch's Geographical Dictionary. 568 ENGLAND AND rica with the European civilisation, and the preserva- tion of a large number in their original condition. Thus in Mexico, out of a population computed to number about 5,000,000, the mixed castes (Mulattos and Mestizos) were estimated by Humboldt at 2,400,000; while the Indians, descendants of the original possessors of Mexico, survived to the sup- posed amount of 2,500,000, and were more than twice as numerous as the white race. In Brazil, Peru, Chili, and other states of South America (al- though no accurate census of the population exists), there is every reason to believe that a very large pro- portion of the Europeanised classes are the offspring of mixed marriages; while a certain, and in some cases even a considerable, part of the native inhabi- tants has been more or less civilised; though, 110 doubt, there is much room, here as elsewhere, for further improvement and a better treatment of the aborigines. On the other hand, it is with some a fixed creed, that by a law of nature, as is alleged, aborigines must give way before English colonisation ; and this supposed necessity is set down not to our deficiency in wisdom or forbearance, but to the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon race. On this head the following remarks* deserve consideration, since, though made with special reference to India, they are quite as applicable to the subject of this essay. " It is greatly to be desired, on very many accounts, that there should be the freest and largest possible access of Englishmen. At the same time, for the protection of the people from the Anglo- Evidence of B. D. Mangles, Esq., Parliamentary Papers, 1859, sec. 1, vol. iv. "Colonisation and Settlement of India," p. 5; see also the excellent remarks in Hursthouse's New Zealand, p. 112. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 569 Saxon, whom I do not believe to be an altogether harmless, or, as some of the witnesses described him to the committee, even a highly-beneficent animal, under such circumstances, I think it is essential that there should be sufficient safeguards for the pro- tection of native rights and interests. I believe that those rights and interests are in much more danger from European settlers than from the Government; at the same time, I wish it to be un- derstood that I am now, and have always been, an advocate in the strongest sense for the largest possible admission of English- men. But I wish the Government and the courts of justice to be strengthened, so as to be able to deal with them, and to pre- vent them from doing wrong and doing mischief, where they micrht do such great good." IV. ENGLAND AND HER EELATIONS WITH SAVAGE AND SEMI-CIVILISED COMMUNITIES. The dispositions referred to in the passage just quoted are due far less to peculiarities of race than to the course of social development in England. The main features of English history have deeply in- fluenced English character. The most pervading and general of these historic characteristics, and one closely connected with the present subject, is that spirit of national isolation, and even exclusiveness, which renders it so difficult for English governors and colonists to assimilate with and adapt themselves, their ways, and their laws to differing societies. If this tendency makes itself felt in our intercourse with Western nations, how much more must it influence our relations with extra-occidental communities, and, most of all, with those incapable of offering any solid resistance to encroachment.* * See an article entitled Government under exceptional circum- stances," Pali-Mall Gazette, 13th February 1866 "We have bunglec Ireland ; we have bungled India ; we have bunged Jam i ; we ha mismanaged Celts, Kafirs, Hindoos, Maoris, and Negroes ; and all fror 570 ENGLAND AND Among her historic features as developed in mo- dern England, three of the principal also require a brief notice, since they have materially influenced our relations with savage and semi-civilised communities. I refer to her Protestantism, Parliamentary govern- ment, and Maritime power.* The situation of Great Britain brings her, beyond any other power, into direct communication with the uncivilised nations of the earth ;f and this is owing to the voyages of discovery which, during the last three centuries, but more especially in the eighteenth century, gave England her vast colonial dominions. As regards barbarous tribes, the relations thus esta- blished have been of two kinds, external or internal ; that is, either simply commercial and diplomatic, or colonial and governmental. Such external relations are in many cases simply maritime, as, for example, in the Pacific, where our commerce is so extended and increasing. Experience has abundantly shown the urgent want of tribunals armed with sufficient powers to prevent and punish wrongs, there too fre- quently committed with impunity by British subjects the same cause because we have refused to see that they were not Englishmen, or have fancied that we could make them Englishmen." See also " The Anglo-Saxon let loose," Spectator, 24th March 1866. For a striking example of the evil effects accruing to native populations from the working of English laws and the total want of any adaptation of them to a different state of society, see the judicious remarks of Mr. Gorst, in his Maori King, on our disgraceful laws respecting se- duction and adultery, and their working among the aborigines of New Zealand. A great part of the difficulties as to the land question in New Zealand, both socially and politically, has also sprung from the unpliant character of English law, and the neglect to adapt it by legis- lative enactment to native ideas and institutions. The complete development of these may be respectively referred to the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries. f Aborigines Report, Parliamentary Papers, 1837, vol. vii. p. 3. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 571 on those feeble insular communities.* External re- lations of a territorial character frequently arise in English settlements with reference to bordering tribes. These relations have hitherto too generally been of a warlike and unsatisfactory character; although, in more recent times, efforts to place things on a better footing have been prosecuted with some success. f The second class of relations, the internal or go- vernmental, springs from colonisation ; and these have been largely influenced by our religious and politi- cal characteristics Protestantism and Parliamentary government. Respect and gratitude are deeply due to the va- rious Protestant Churches who originated and carried through or aided the great movement for the aboli- tion of slavery. To their influence also is owing, in great measure, the increasing interest felt in the ab- origines inhabiting our colonies. J The gradual aban- donment of transportation a measure justly asso- ciated with the name of a late eminent and humane prelate (Dr. Whately) also deserves special men- See some judicious remarks in the Quarterly Review, June 1854, pp. 177-9. f As to the Kafir tribes bordering on British Kafraria and Natal, see Quarterly Review, 1860, vol. cviii., "The Cape and South Africa;" and Hansard's Debates, 1865. As to the West Coast of Africa and the tribes which encompass our settlements, see Earl Grey's Colonial Policy ; but compare the Report on the Western Coast of Africa, Par- liamentary Papers, 1865, No. 412. j The Aborigines Report and Evidence (Parliamentary Papers, 1836, vol. vii.; and 1837, vol. vii.) contain much that is interesting. The report is, indeed, too deeply tinged with the onesidedness and defects of the " missionary policy" already described (see Bannister's British Colonies and the Coloured Races); yet some of the recommend- ations have great practical value ; for example, the inexpediency of treaties; the necessity for a steady administration in dealings with natives ; and visits by ships of war with a judicial commission. 572 ENGLAND AND tion, as having removed a fatal blot, which deformed our earlier colonisation and lamentably aifected the destinies of the aborigines of the English convict set- tlements.* There is, however, another side to the picture, a reference to which is required in the inter- ests both of truth and practical wisdom. I pass over the too abstract character of Protestant propagand- ism;f its preponderant dwelling upon the Old Tes- tament;! and the antipathies not unfrequently mani- fested towards other Churches, and even among the various Protestant denominations. These often have importance with reference to natives; yet they are secondary as compared with the influence of what has not unaptly been called the " Missionary Policy." Its leading characteristic consists, as already pointed out, in an attitude of well-intended, but weak and often misleading, patronage towards the natives ; of mistrust, exclusiveness, and at times hostility to- wards the colonists. It is true that in former times the neglect of the imperial government, and the in- ferior character of our colonisation, and also in some cases especially as regards the slave colonies the total falsity of the relations between classes, seemed to render any other course impossible. Yet there is some reason for believing that better results would, Parliamentary Papers, 1844, vol. xxxiv. Australian Aborigines, New South Wales, pp. 1-335. j- Parliamentary Papers, 1844, vol. xxxiv., Australian Aborigines. J " Pai Marire," Fraser's Magazine, October 1865. Thomson's New Zealand, vol. i. p. 322. A Maori chief wrote to Queen Victoria as follows : " When the missionaries first came, they (the natives) were told the Church of England was the only true Church ; but there are now three true Churches" (Anglican, Wesleyan, and Roman Catholic). Parliamentary Papers, 1850, quoted in Thom- son, vol. i. p. 322. See also Vacation Tourists, 1863-4 ; and Lady D. Gor- don's Letters from the Cape. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 573 even under the most disadvantageous circumstances, have followed, had the missionaries entertained juster and completer views of the real wants of the natives, and urged these persistently, but in a more conciliating spirit, upon the colonists, the local and imperial government, and the British public.* The difficulties incident to the contact of colonists with natives are in themselves sufficiently great; and, having regard to the improved character of our sett- lers, and the increased power of public opinion every where, I cannot but see grave dangers in according a predominant influence to the " missionary policy," whether propounded by ' aborigines' protection so- cieties' or missionaries. The Parliamentary system, so characteristic of England, has materially influenced her relations with savage and semi-civilised communities. These relations have been, indirectly but very powerfully, affected by each of the three successive phases of the Colonial policy pursued by Great Britain. During the earliest and longest phase, which is especially illustrated by the North American colonies, the colonists seem to have been left extremely free as regards the internal administration of affairs, f and under this head was classed their dealings with the aborigines. The treatment these received is certainly not calculated to inspire much confidence in the views and conduct of colonists when left entirely to themselves. Yet I have been struck, in perusing the papers and works relating both to the Cape and New Zealand, to find that the Wesleyan mis sionaries have combined an independent attitude with a spirit of f ness which, far from injuring their influence, has tended to give a 3 ust weight to their counsels as regards the treatment of the natives. ^ f See Merivale's Colonisation and the Colonies, and Lord Exodus of the Western Nations. 574 ENGLAND AND in applying this experience, a large allowance must be made for the improved morality and increased force of public opinion in our own times; changes which, directly and indirectly, have already influenced and, it may be expected, will more and more in- fluence the character of British emigrants and colo- nial society.* Besides, competent authoritiesf have come to the conclusion that the sufferings endured by the aborigines under the earliest regime were little, if at all, diminished, or their lot improved under the second phase of British parliamentary rule. The leading characteristic of this second phase was that concentration of power and increased con- trol by the Imperial government, which, commencing with the American revolution and greatly augmented during the war with France, was continued down to a very recent period. The administration of native affairs in "Crown colonies" by the Go- vernor, assisted only by a legislative council nomi- nated by himself, has presented, during the first half of the nineteenth century, especially in its second generation, and since the awakening of public sympathy with oppressed or neglected co- loured races, much valuable experience and many honourable efforts. Yet it does not possess that complete character of excellence which could entitle us to hold up this phase of imperial policy as a model It must, however, be remembered that this amelioration in the character of the emigrants only takes place slowly, and varies ex- tremely with the colony and even with the particular locality in the same colony. Moreover, at the best, there always is a considerable infusion of inferior emigrants, who do not, as in old countries, recog- nise the social ascendency of their more educated and better disposed fellow-colonists. f See the evidence of Mr. Gladstone, Colonial Military Expendi- ture, Parl. Papers, 1861, vol. xiii. ev. 3861. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 575 of wisdom and humanity, even if altered circum- stances permitted its unmodified continuance. Fairly to judge this Imperial regime, however, and its dealings with the aborigines, it is essential to bear in mind two matters. The great difficulties it en- countered, in some cases inherited from the earlier policy of laissez-faire, in others created by the home government, presented serious obstacles to its success. Again, even where such difficulties were absent, we have to take largely into account the extreme imperfection of our knowledge of native society, and our ignorance of the best mode of go- verning the aborigines, aggravated, not unfrequently, by insufficient funds, and the constant pressure of immigration. As an example of the first class of difficulties thus artificially created, may be cited the Cape of Good Hope, where the unrestricted and unregulated colonisation, tolerated, if not sanctioned, by the Dutch Government down to the final cession of the .colony to England in 1806, laid the foundation of the chief obstacles encountered by the British governors. Under the same class fall the colonies of New South Wales and Tasmania, in which the trans- portation system almost completely neutralised the efforts made to save and improve the aborigines; efforts which, it should be stated, were approved and aided by the colonists.* The second class of difficul- ties is but too well illustrated by the case of New Zealand. There also, no doubt, the antecedents and circumstances of our colonisation largely and injuri- ously influenced the result. Yet the errors and short- comings of the Imperial policy, previous to the intro- * See Parl. Papers, 1844, vol. xxxiv. Aborigines Australian Colo- nies, New South Wales, South Australia, and Western Australia. 576 ENGLAND AND duction of representative institutions into the colony, are mainly attributable to an insufficient appreciation of the great obstacles to be overcome in raising a sa- vage community, however naturally superior the race may be, to civilisation, and the want of a comprehen- sive plan, early begun, and persistently followed, for the protection, guidance, and incorporation of the Maoris. Thus, for example, as has been already pointed out, the important bearings of " systematic colonisation" were never understood in reference to them or made an integral part of our native policy. A few indications must suffice for the third and momentous phase of Colonial policy, upon which we have recently entered. In reference to this phase it has been justly said :* " To turn to our own colonies, was there ever such a task given to any nation as is given to us ? I will not despair of the greatest problem ever given to any race being solved by us the problem of how a colony, when it has arrived at maturity, may yet remain in alliance with the mother country." The last five-and-twenty years have developed in our principal colonies a growing reaction against the preponderance of the Imperial government, which has finally resulted in a state of semi-emancipation, indicated by the granting of representative institu- tions. This new phase has created and actually pre- sents manifold difficulties in reference to a just and humane treatment of the aborigines. "With, regard to them, the later direction of the imperial policy at least tended to acquire a character of greater dis- interestedness, comprehensiveness, and steadiness, qualities essential for the government of natives by Speech of Mr. TV. E. Forster, M.P., at Bradford, 10th January 1865. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 577 Europeans. The continuance of such a policy was deeply compromised by the new system of colonial self-government, especially in its earlier period of transition. That this was in fact the case hardly admits of doubt, and two obvious reasons can be assigned for the result. The colonial Assembly, exer- cising control over the finances of the colony, could practically defeat any scheme of the Imperial go- vernment or its representative for the management of the natives, for which funds had not been pro- vided by the British Parliament, or reserved under express stipulation out of colonial funds. Again, the assembly, even while abandoning the administration of native affairs, might, in the absence of any express stipulation, claim legislative authority over the natives, perhaps more numerous than the settlers, who were neither socially fitted, nor politically qualified, to take any effective share in the so-called represen- tative government. Thus was too often created a o disastrous system of double government, there being- no where any effective power, or consequently any real responsibility. For the full comprehension of this aspect of our subject, it is further necessary to consider, that this third and actual phase of colonial policy has been, and must continue to be, essentially a compromise, and therefore presents the difficulties and dangers inherent in every transitional policy. Viewed in this light a distinction is observable, the practical import- ance of which has not, I think, been adequately appre- ciated, between colonies which only received a repre- sentative constitution, and those which also demanded and obtained a complete parliamentary system, first conferred on the colony the control of the fin- PP 578 ENGLAND AND ances and legislative power ; the second superadded mi- nisters responsible to an assembly owing no allegiance to the governor, but in every way controlling him. The constitution of the Cape of Good Hope (granted in 1850) furnishes an example of the former class, and the history of this colony with reference to British Kafraria proves that such an arrangement, when bonafide accepted by the colonists and accom- panied by judicious stipulations, is not only consistent with, but conducive to, a wise and successful native policy. The history of New Zealand, on the other hand, since the granting of the constitution in 1853, but particularly since the establishment of a respon- sible ministry in 1856, reveals the complications and dangers which must attend a double government one side representing the crown, and having com- mand of the army, the other representing the co- lony, and holding the purse, where better arrange- ments are not made by the political forethought of imperial statesmen, or their place supplied by a wise moderation, hardly to be expected from a young and aspiring assembly of half-emancipated colonists.* * Much valuable information on this topic will be found in the report on Colonial Military Expenditure, Parl. Papers, 1861, vol. xiii. See the resolutions of the Select Committee, Report, p. 6, and particu- larly resolution 11, as to the mode in which the mother country should conduct her colonial policy ; and especially the expediency of not nego- tiating, but simply announcing to the colony of course, after due inquiry, and even consultation, where this is feasible the terms on which alone imperial assistance, naval, military, or otherwise, will be granted. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 579 Y. THE COLONIES AS INTERMEDIATE LINKS BETWEEN ENGLAND AND SAVAGE OR SEMI-CIVILISED COMMU- NITIES. The Coloured and White popul colonies, taken from the Colonial 1863, No. 147. AFRICA. West Coast of Africa .... Southern Africa, Cape of Good Hope and British Kafraria . Natal ation of the pi census, 1860-1 Coloured. 199,517 129,167 145,633 307,200 incipal British . Parl. Papers, White. 392 102,156 11,950 2,850 Mauritius Total in or near Africa 781,517 117,348 AMERICA. North America (not including Hudson's Bay Company) . . West Indies (islands and main- land) 34,807 967,294 3,259,754 54,650 Total in America 1,002,101 3,314,404 AUSTRALASIA AUSTRALIA. 14,589 26,704 15,000 765 No return 8 351,046" 522,240 41,000 126,065- 15,691 90,209 Western Australia Total in Australia (exclusive of Western Australia) . . . 57,066 1,146,251 NEW ZEALAND. 56,049 99,021 Grand total 1,896,733 4,677,024 580 ENGLAND AND The foregoing table shows the comparative num- ber of the coloured and white populations of the principal British colonies, excluding territories which are simply military stations or mercantile factories. The native populations of all these colonies have a certain similitude to each other, which is best de- scribed by their profound contrast with the character common to the Asiatic nations referred to in the pre- vious essays. The populations of India, China, and Japan possess an ancient civilisation and organised social life, generally speaking imbued with a theo- cratic element or something equivalent thereto, and presenting a strong resistance to European encroach- ments. On the other hand, the communities inhabit- ing our colonial possessions have little social union, and no such political coherence as could enable them, to withstand the disintegrating influence of colonial contacts. A second contrast between the subject of this and the preceding essays is presented by the comparative numbers of the European population in the Asiatic regions and our colonial possessions. In the subject provinces of India, and still more in the mercantile factories of China and Japan, the English inhabitants are relatively few, and rarely acquire the ideas and habits of permanent settlers. ]S T o doubt some of our so-called colonies also partake of this character, as for example the British settlements of Western Africa and the Mauritius. The same may be stated even as to the West Indies, although these last approximate much more nearly to the type of genuine colonies, those in which the European popula- tion not only preponderates politically but settles per- manently, steadily if not rapidly increasing in number/"" See the interesting work by M. Duval, entitled Ilistoire de I Emi- gration Europeenne, 1862. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 581 The British colonies, thus regarded and charac- terised, present two very distinct types, which, though no doubt having certain points in common, require to be carefully distinguished. The first class includes those colonial settlements in which the na- tives have long been, to a certain extent, incorpo- rated; such incorporation, however, mainly consist- ing in an enforced submission to the European laws and administration, with little or no participation in the social advantages of European civilisation. The second class of colonies embraces native populations which, although they may in some degree indirectly participate in the benefits of European civilisation, and may even recognise our formal sovereignty, have maintained, more or less, socially and politically, an independent and national existence. The attitude of the native population in the former class of colo- nies is, generally speaking, peaceful, submissive, and even servile ; that of the native inhabitants of the latter class, if not openly hostile to the colonists, at least threatens disturbance and war. The one class is typified in the Hottentot population of the Cape, and the negroes of the West Indies; the other is re- presented by the Kafirs (British Kafraria and Natal), and the Maoris. Each of these types of our colonial relations with aborio-ines would merit a separate and careful ex- amination ; but the unavoidable limits of this essay, with other reasons,* induce me to select that which In accordance with the importance which should be attached to a just method for the solution of the difficult problems involved in the relations between civilised and uncivilised man, I would ask attention to a principle, too little regarded, viz. that of proceeding from tl simple to the complex. This principle would, I believe, alone justify the prior treatment of the second class of cases above referred to. . 582 ENGLAND AND is presented by the history of our colonisation at the Cape of Good Hope and in New Zealand. VI. THE CAPE OF GOOD HOPE* AND NEW ZEALAND. The adoption of a sound practical policy towards the aborigines depends, I believe, to a much greater extent than is commonly supposed, on the union of views, at once comprehensive and accurate, respect- .ing the characteristics of savage life, and the situa- doubt these have their own peculiar complexities ; but, on the whole, the questions they present appear to be of a simpler character than those arising out of the first. The first class (ex. gr. Hottentots and "West Indian Negroes) present one common point of extreme diffi- culty the long-continued Slavery of the native population followed by a sudden emancipation, for meeting the dangers of which no adequate provision was made, or indeed thought of. In addition to this feature, the West Indian black population were forcibly trans- ported from their original native soil, and placed under the rule of an inconsiderable number of a wholly different nationality and civilisa- tion ; here also no systematic provision having been made for meeting the grave changes, social and political, involved in the conversion of the relation of master and slave into that of employer and free labourer. It is hardly necessary to add that the inquiry now pending in Jamaica may be expected to throw additional light on the general question of the condition and prospects of the Negroes under white rule, as well as on the lamentable circumstances which have given it such great promi- nence at the present time. It may be useful to mention the following works as containing, it is believed, important and trustworthy inf orma- tion'on this subject : SewelTs Free Labour in the West Indies; Bigelow's Jamaica; two papers published by the Statistical and Social In- quiry Society of Ireland, by W. Neilson Hancock and the late Richard Hussey Walsh respectively, on the " Abolition of Slavery in the West Indies" (1852), and the "State" of Landed Property iu Jamaica" (1856). * As before stated, the Hottentot population inhabiting the west- ern districts of the Cape are not here considered. They have long been incorporated, to a certain extent, with the colony, though pre- vious to 1833 (the date of the Slave Emancipation Act) their condi- tion was one of actual or virtual servitude ; even those who were not slaves being incapable of holding land, subjected to severe restrictions as to contracts for labour, and unprovided with any means of educa- THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 583 tion of native communities, with just conceptions of the historic development- of the nations that com- pose Western Europe. The illustrations already given, and intended to enforce this principle, have been chiefly furnished by two English colonies, se- lected as being strikingly confirmative of it. It is not possible here to present a detailed account of the Cape of Good Hope or New Zealand, and their lengthened and complicated history; but the following brief sketch of each may, it is hoped, at least assist independent inquiry, and illustrate some general views of practical importance. These two colonies are grouped together, because they present remark- able points both of resemblance and of contrast. Philosophically considered, they prove the subor- dination of race to social development. Long re- garded as "irreclaimable savages," the Kafirs are now, it may be hoped, undergoing a gradual amelio- ration, the result of an improved government, which, if made sufficiently comprehensive, and persevered in, bids fair to succeed. On the other hand, the undoubted mental superiority of the Maoris has not tion (see a Report on the Hottentot Population, Parl. Papers, 1838, vol. xxi., and Bunbury's Cape). The effects of their enslaved and neglected condition survive their legal emancipation, and appear, as far as I can learn, to continue without much change for the better. It may be added that the insufficient compensation awarded to the Dutch slaveholders at the Cape by the British Government (see Na- pier's South Africa) nearly drove them into rebellion. This, with other causes of discontent, caused an extensive emigration, the result of which was an attempt (defeated, however,) to colonise Natal, 1842-5, and the foundation of two independent states on the northern bound- ary of the Cape colony viz. the Trans- Vaal Republic, and the Orange River Free State. The Dutch inhabitants of the latter have been for some months past, and still are, at war with the Bassoutos, native inhabitants of the territory between them and Natal, and also branches of the Kafir tribes. 584 ENGLAND AND averted the melancholy consequences of a policy which, with excellent aims', overlooked or miscon- ceived the essential conditions of a very difficult problem. Historically regarded, the circumstances of these two settlements differed widely. The Cape was an ancient colony acquired by conquest, and inheriting difficulties which sprang from previous neglect and mismanagement; while Xew Zealand, a British settlement comparatively modern, was os- tensibly colonised in accordance with principles of justice and humanity, though here also the European contacts antecedent to systematic colonisation created great difficulties. Their later development also has diverged; since the conversion of a crown colony into one endowed with representative institutions has in the first case wrought no harm; in the second the same change, somewhat differently carried out, in- creased existing and created new evils. When these considerations are duly combined, and supplemented Avith a study of the respective localities, it is be- lieved that a comparison of the two colonies may afford lessons of practical moment, affecting the future policy of England towards savage and semi- civilised communities. THE KAFIRS.* "When conquest (1806), confirmed by the Treaty of Vienna, converted the original settlement of the The Map has been constructed for the illustration of this essay. The following books may be consulted with advantage, in addition to the Parliamentary Papers : Napier's South Africa ; Mrs. Ward's Kafir Wars; Bunbury's Cape; Cole, The Cape and the Kafirs; The Quarterly Review, 1860, vol. cviii. " The Cape and South Africa ;" Casalis, Les Bassoutos; the Rev. L. Grout's Zulu-Land (Natal). THE CAPE of GOOD HOPE. BRITISH KAFFRARIA, AND NATAL. tv illustrate f/ie te.\-t, Essay m t/u: /'r reign rehtlicn,-. of England,. TRANS-VAAL REPUBLIC (Dutch) 1848. Fopxilattou. CAPE OF GOOD HOPE. BRITISH KAFFRARIA. NATAL. White 113.689 ... 8. 1*2 : tl.SSO I \ 'It-red, -297, 306 .!.. tK>,Ot2 '. HS.633 4 Formerly called, the/ Zuuref&d,. rfy cullfd the Ceded Territory. #Gcverrilorty t in 1865. annexed t,- t/n (itpc. N A T I V L KAFFRARIA \\/ KA F F R A R I A akosa Kafirs) THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 585 Dutch East India Company (1652) into a British colony, the Cape of Good Hope extended nearly to its present boundaries. These included native in- habitants of two races, the Hottentots, reduced in number, and in a state of legal or virtual slavery, occupying the western section, and the Kafirs. Of these a few dwelt, intermingled with Dutch settlers, within the eastern boundary (Great Fish River), while the great majority, embracing a number of distinct yet cognate tribes, inhabited the vast regions lying east of the colony and reaching north as far as the present Trans- Yaal Republic, The Kafir tribes were pastoral, and chiefly lived on milk, the produce of numerous herds, owned in great part by the chiefs, who thus maintained their authority, while feeding the dependent population. The country was little fitted for agriculture; and thus the Dutch boers (farmers) were equally pastoral as the natives, and hardly less nomadic in their pursuits. Wide un- fenced farms, with superior cattle of European breed badly guarded, stimulated theft and promoted law- lessness, which the system of ' commandos' and indis- criminate reprisals was little calculated to restrain. Thus inevitably arose the various "little wars" which, for half a century of British rule, wasted millions, ruined settlers, and cost many valuable lives. Besides minor conflicts, there were rible struggles for mastery the war of 1819, that of 1834-5, and the prolonged conflict of 1846-52. The first arose partly out of the earlier expulsion of the Amakosa Kafirs, in 1811, from the Zuurefeld (between the Sunday and Fish rivers), partly from a remarkable transaction a treaty made with an in- 586 ENGLAND AND ferior chief, mistakenly assumed to have authority over the neighbouring tribes, as a consequence of violating which, punishment by confiscation of ter- ritory was inflicted on this chief for not enforcing what he had no power to enforce, and on the other chiefs for not performing what they never promised to perform. The Zuurefeld was then constituted the province of Albany, and (1820) peopled with British colonists. At the same time it was stipulated that the eastward district, between the Fish and Keis- kamma Rivers, should remain unoccupied; but this agreement was never enforced, and the tribes, at times allowed to occupy the so-called " ceded terri- tory," their ancient haunts, consecrated by ancestral memories and tombs, at times capriciously expelled, even to make room for hated enemies (the Hottentot Kat River settlement), again broke into the colony. This second war of 1834-5 might have been followed by better arrangements, afterwards adopted (1846- 52), but set aside by the "missionary policy" then supreme in the Colonial Office. Thus matters went back to their former state, and a truce of ten years was followed by the third and most formidable strug- gle, extending from 1846 to 1852. Since that time there have been occasional threat- enings (particularly of a rising in 1857), but they have rather indicated the diminished force of the dangerous tendencies of savage life, and the growing ascendency of European civilisation and British go- vernment. This result, though doubtless aided by circumstances, is mainly due to wiser arrangements, and a juster, more humane, and firmer administra- tion. It is sufficient to say that the reorganisation here indicated, prepared by Governors Pottinger, THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 587 Smith, and Cathcart (1846-54), and developed by Sir George Grey (1854-61), was based on territorial arrangements under which the " ceded territory" was erected into the British province of Victoria, and "British Kafraria," situate between the Keis- karmna and Kei rivers, was constituted a military dependency of the Cape colony, and placed under the undivided rule of the governor. Part was set aside as a " Crown-reserve" (see Map), a mountainous district containing the strongholds of the tribes, who were removed thence into the lower country, as being less adapted for aggression, and more favourable to agricultural pursuits, which have been since duly encouraged. The British authorities wisely resist- ing the suggestions of a portion of the colonists, and having regard to the real cause of the native out- breaks, based their territorial arrangements neither on confiscation, whether as a punishment or an illu- sory device for paying the cost of war, nor on colo- nisation, but on considerations of government. These embraced military and civil control; the first being organised through the Reserve and various Forts (see Map), the second through administrative measures, political superintendents, magistrates, and an armed policy combined with industrial and educational agencies, including public works roads, irrigation, &c. and schools. The whole scheme was conso- lidated by wise financial arrangements; the entire cost of governing the dependency being estimated at 100,000. per annum, of which the Imperial exche- quer gave 40,000/., the Colony (for an armed police 1 of 750 men) 40,000/., while a hut-tax with other native taxes supplied the balance. It is only just to add that the colonial Representative Assembly (first 588 ENGLAND AND created in 1850) concurred in these financial ar- rangements. With the increasing revenue of the native territory, still scantily inhabited by settlers, and the continuance of security, the Imperial grant has been gradually diminished, and finally with- drawn ;* while British Kafraria was last yearf united with the Cape colony. Though the excep- tional government will thus be, in form, discon- tinued, in substance it must long be necessary. It is to be hoped that no sudden change in the admi- nistration may be introduced, but that governor and colony will harmoniously cooperate in just and po- litic measures for the effective incorporation of fel- low subjects still very backward, and who must of necessity long continue to be practically unrepre- sented in the Colonial Assembly. J THE MAOEIS. The characteristics of Maori society, and the his- torical development of English civilisation, have com- The imperial military expenditure is still, however, very large, over 280,00(K for 1865-6, including the Imperial ' Cape Mounted Rifles.' f 28 Viet. c. 5, and see Hansard's Debates, 1865. J It is worthy of attention that the Cape of Good Hope is now presenting the two constitutional difficulties so strongly illustrated by New Zealand, viz. the wish of the colonists for " responsible govern- ment," and their anxiety for local, as distinguished from central, go- vernment. As to the first point, great care will be requisite ; as to the second, both colonies have suffered from not attending to the principle which subordinates political arrangements to social grouping and his- torical development. (See below, p. 593 ; and the observations in Wilmot, Cape of Good Hope, pp. 24-5.) The Map is based on several embodied in recent Parl. Papers. The following works, among others, have been consulted : Thomson, Story of New Zealand, 1859 ; Hursthouse, New Zealand, 2d ed. 1861 ; Hockstetter, Neu-Seeland, 1863 ; Westminster Rev. vol. xxv. 1864, " Xew \ Xn \^ vV .** 3" 'L The Territory proposed Iv be ccnfi-scrii.eji ui, ETHNOGRAPHIC MAP of the PACIFIC OCE, Showing the rvuteby -which ih( Malays miff/ from Sumatra fvNcw ll (The of 'lustrafe the last/ Essay oreign/ rdalwris of England. References . Lauds Tffiite territory ) , , r/ .' > breen ay Motives j C&dfsl Lands lalion. j Red TARANAKI . 1,500 'fs of disaffected^ \ Yellow 'iit* of the . . . . 'ItmiL Gmpany tf! Sani/a X 1 iman^\ tot.. fGt7. \ Hohai Me I. NGAP J,* ^ Giptial fro,,, 1840 WHATU ^ (Won, NGAT A ft sai ^& TARftN NC 1 j.-V&n- K "' r " #!?: 'i7rUt ' N ORTH 'SLA ^^S#^ KA,A,MAW The fish f(iBM*|- Sh. J&RgOtUKl ffk. RwaJatnt CJ. R/igtaju. . DJ. Dj. . .On, Tut ' fPariffasuii /'.'<_ DISTRIBUTION o! (qppn Total ^ Province of ENGLISH MILES. H)O Auckland Taraitaki Hcuwka Say Wellington, Tota, <&'DiLs (cclcj-ed Green,} i. to illustrate, the last, Essay relations of England. References. Native Lajuls . WTiite territory \ \ Green out of Cedfsl Lcuuls Tribal Dist/-Cct fopuLcMorv -Localities of Tribes . of the . . JVetv Zealand- Company Q r au' . > NGATIAMjjt^L / uo. T .^..Bf7*yW J (\PHlCMAPoftliePACIFIC OCEAN, tvutt, by wfuch, the- Malays tnj Sumatra, totfew Zealand,. KesidenttMaffistratesin Nordi ktunrf AucJsJatut ^ : |2'3 ft'ufigara'.- B] meutkj&.\ Pmwturr J W>. . .. ENGLISH MILES. IpO to illustrate the PROV I NCE. OF faitara. Mock (Wdliam. King) POPULATION OF NEW ZEALAND (appi -atim ate) C&isus of 1861. \ 1857-8 } Maori, Census *of NEW lEAuAND FLAX (PHORMIUM TENAX, VILLAGE. WITH SWING* PAH IN THE DISTANCE TRIBUTION of TERRITORY ill the NORTH ISLAND (approximate Jin- the, year 7867. Total Jtrea. 23, 688, 480 Acres European, Territory * Maori Territory I.S&O , 360 &>, COO 607. 83 1 4-, 406 419 , O OS , 630 . 2,339 , 360 t, 208 , 168 4.V66 . 641 TurunaJcis Hawker ay cd Q-nn! incJudcs tfte Native Reserve? (colored Red,} th. London. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 589 bined to produce peculiar complications in New Zealand. I propose briefly to indicate their origin and results. First Period: preceding the British settlement {about 1400 A.r. 1840). The Maoris, of Polynesian origin (see Map), were estimated by Captain Cook (1769) at about 100,000; while their numbers do not now exceed 56,000. They have always lived partly by the spontaneous produce of the sea, rivers, and land, partly by a rude nomadic agriculture. The difficulties, direct and in- direct, arising out of the tribal tenure, have been already pointed out. The Maoris showed a great aptitude for acquiring European ideas; though, for want of better culture, the acquisition has been su- perficial only. They were also great travellers, and eager for information, knowing all that passed in their own islands, and much elsewhere. Their numerous and scattered tribes, each consisting of from 10 to 50 families, were located in villages and pas (see Map), some inland on lakes and rivers, but the majority along the coast. They had early apportioned among them- selves and claimed the entire islands; but the great mass of the natives were inhabitants of the North Island, and especially of its northernmost portion.* The antecedents of this British settlement were Zealand ;" Gorst, Maori King, 1864 ; Fraser's Magazine, Oct. 1865, " Pai Marire ;" Fortnightly Review, Nov. 1, 1865, " Maori Mohammedanism ;'' Busby, New Zealand, 1865 ; Fox, The War in New Zealand, 1866. The few and weak tribes of the South Island (numbering only about 1,500) sold their claims to 40,000,000 acres for a few thousand pounds. The negotiations for purchase extended over many years, and part of the consideration was the establishment of hospitals, and other special benefits. These promises, however, were never fulfilled 590 ENGLAND AND unique in the history of colonisation. During 70 years (1769-1840) English contacts multiplied; first commercial (whalers and sealers), then religious (the earliest mission was founded in 1814), finally an irregular planting of settlers, chiefly of an inferior class. These various contacts had their principal seat about the Bay of Islands (see Map), and the con- sequent anarchy led to the establishment there of a British resident (1832). The epoch was character- ised by two conflicting tendencies, the "missionary policy" opposed to all colonisation,* and the recent policy of " systematic colonisation." The first was predominant in the Colonial Office, the second (fa- voured in the House of Commons) inspired the colonising expedition of the New Zealand Company (1839-40), which at once obliged the Government to assert the Crown's supremacy.f Second Period : Imperial rule (1840-53). The imperial instructions were marked by a right spirit, and plainly contemplated the foundation of a colony for the equal benefit of Europeans and Natives. The treaty of Waitangi (1840, see before, p. 526), signed by the majority of the chiefs, provided for both territory and sovereignty; surrendering the 'right of preemption' and political authority to the Queen, who, in return, guaranteed to the Maoris their lands and possessions, together with " her Majesty's royal protection, and all the privileges of British- subjects." by the Government (Westminster Review, vol. xxv. p. 431). No wonder, therefore, that these southern natives were described, in 1858, as being " very poor." Parl. Papers, 1860, vol. xlvii. No. 492, p. 33. * See before, p. 550, and Parl. Papers, 1837-8, vol. xxi. p. 243. f Parl. Papers, 1844, vol. xiii.. Report Select Com. New Zealand. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 591 A Government, buying cheap and selling dear,, but conferring no direct benefit on the natives, naturally aroused discontent. Yet the real cause of disaster was not the ' preemptive right' alone ;* but its exercise coupled with our neglect of the duties of sovereignty. The observance of these would have effectually warded off land-leagues and Maori-king movements, f Auckland, in the remote north, was chosen by the imperial governor for the capital and seat of govern- ment; while the extensive settlements (1839-40) of the New Zealand Company were situated some 400 miles off in the southernly regions (see Map). An imperial commissioner was sent to investigate all land- claims ; and the delay, with other incidents attendant on the inquiry, irritated the settlers, and in various ways aroused distrust among the natives. Hence sprang disorders, to meet which the Company impro- vised a sort of government; a proceeding speedily resented by the governor, who thus inaugurated a policy, afterwards pursued with unhappy success to- wards the natives, and which consisted in three essen- tial points to undertake to govern, not to govern, and lastly to punish for not obeying. The difficulty of governing such numerous and scattered tribes was indeed very great ; but no sys- tematic effort was made to provide for law and order, even as regarded the native population intermingled with or adjoining the British settlements. J After the first troubled years (1840-5), an era of outward quiet and colonial prosperity ensued, under the ail- ministration of Sir George Grey (1845-53). But Westminster Review, 18G4, vol. xxv. p. 430. f- Gorst, Maori King, p. 39. $ For a striking instance of this neglect and its results, see Gorst, Maori King, p. 389. 592 ENGLAND AND his. kindly intercourse was never completed by any efficient system. We find, indeed, Maoris employed on public works, hospitals provided, and schools en- couraged. Yet even these were imperfect; tribal property and filthy dwellings continued ; while poli- tical agencies, a resident magistracy,* and police hardly existed in native districts. The governor's 'sugar and flour' policy, based on presents to the chiefs, was despised and resented by the mass, and distrusted by the more enlightened few of the colo- nists. TJiird Period : Imperial- Colonial ntle (1853-66). Their general habits, want of individual property, and ignorance of the English language, f ill prepared the natives for the coming change in the form of go- vernment. The constitution, carried out in 1853, in- troduced a new element the colonial Assembly, soon after (1856) completed by a "responsible ministry." I would here point attention to a broad distinction, seldom sufficiently appreciated, between our general and our special native policy; the first concerning remedial and preventive measures, the second the justice and expediency of a military intervention. The special policy directly embraces the second half of the period under consideration, that of the two successive wars (1860-1 and 1863-6, see Map). The general policy relates to its first half (1853-60), dur- ing which the seeds of previous neglect ripened, and the symptoms of future revolt became manifest. Its The Resident Magistrates Act, 1849, was very defective, and but few appointments were made, then or since, in native districts (see Map). f The missionaries, consistently enough, never taught it. Quarterly Review, June 1854, p. 20. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 593 leading feature is a humiliating and disastrous struo-- ** O c*t gle between the Imperial and Colonial governments for the management of the natives, caused partly by injudicious or inadequate arrangements under the imperial constitution, partly by the uncompromising ambition and ill-judged economy of the Colonial As- sembly and Ministry. The Constitution had to provide for two objects, and to adjust two elements. The chief object was to govern ; yet, as regarded the Maoris, the Imperial Act (15 & 16 Viet. c. 72) merely reserved a power to set aside native districts, without making or stipu- lating for an adequate financial provision. The an- nual subsidy (which never exceeded 42,000^.) was withdrawn, and 7,500/. alone was reserved for native purposes, of which 5,000/. was devoted to schools. The second object, land-buying, was retained as an imperial function, and charged on the above fund; while the Governor received no powers for indivi- dualising tribal land, even to the extent of complet- ing previous contracts (see before, p. 528). Of the two elements, the Assembly represented general, the Provincial Councils local interests; both necessary, yet each in its way a source of danger. Two pro- vinces had been added (Otago, 1840; Canterbury, 1850) to the four original ones (1840); and centrali- sation for common action, though difficult, was very desirable, indeed indispensable. The relative propor- tions between the Native and European populations, their respective distribution and history,* pointed, however, to two or three distinct groups Auckland ; Taranaki and Wellington ; and the three southernmost provinces as requiring special arrangements. But See Map ; and Thomson's New Zealand, Appendix, table ix. QQ 594 ENGLAND AND this fact was overlooked, and in consequence those best acquainted with the Maoris, and most exposed to danger and loss from war, were liable to see their opinions overruled by a parliamentary majority in the General Assembly.* On the other hand, provincial councils, with elective superintendents, were anxious to acquire land, and, though lavish as to what directly concerned European, f parsimonious as regarded na- tive interests. The Constitution encouraged these tendencies by blending the two chief sources of re- venue, the land-sales and customs ; a disposition ag- gravated by the Assembly, who forthwith handed over the entire management and proceeds of the Crown -lands (expressly intrusted to them by the Imperial Act), together with three- eighths of the customs, to the provincial councils. The Assembly pursued a course which plainly showed their ignorance or disregard of the extreme danger of leaving the native policy in static quo. When, in 1856, a "responsible Ministry" was finally created, the Governor reserved the management of the natives as an imperial question. The Colonial Minis- try reluctantly assented to this; but they and the Assembly, on the plea that the understanding did not bind them to give the Governor extraordinary powers, persistently refused to make such arrangements,! c This actually occurred in reference to the first or Taranaki war. "t See Hursthouse's New Zealand, pp. 166-76. ^ A connected series of bills was introduced (1856-8) by the Colo- nial Ministry, to organise a government in native districts and gra- dually to individualise tribal land. The scheme as a whole was admir- able ; but it placed the administration under the shifting " responsible Ministry." The Governor and Home Government refused their con- sent to the principal bill (The Native Territorial Rights Bill), unless some stable and independent body were formed, fairly representing all interests. The Ministry, however, could perceive in this nothing but THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 595 legislative or financial,* as might have rendered a joint government, always difficult, at least possible. It is, however, just to say that the Colonial Ministry made an effort (1857-8) to create an efficient ma- gistracy for native districts, which seems to have failed chiefly through the influence of the Imperial Land-purchase, then united with the Native depart- ment, f This struggle for power lasted until 1863, when the British Government refused, shortly before the second war began, to continue the joint management of the Maoris, which thenceforth devolved upon the colony; the imperial authorities simply reserving the control of military arrangements, with the power of refusing to sanction or cooperate in what it might not approve. Facts, I think, contradict the assertion of the British minister, that "the system of imperial trusteeship was, before 1856, real and effective;"! and the convenient hypothesis which attributes all the disasters to " representative government." But a grave responsibility must rest with the Assembly and Ministry who would make no adequate provision for governing the natives, and who, though not legally "a narrow jealousy of Colonial interference" (Parliamentary Papers, 1860, vol. xlvii. No. 492, p. 30), and accordingly the scheme fell to the ground. The Colonial Assembly and Ministry were willing to grant 16,OOOZ. per annum for native purposes (including the 7500 1. reserved on the Civil list), provided the entire management were conceded to them ; but on no other* terms. Somewhat later, after the first war (1860-1), the Assembly voted 26,OOOZ. a-year for the like purposes. In 1 the year 1861, 100,OOOZ. was spent on European official salaries in the North Island alone ; 1111. on native magistrates in both islands. Par- liamentary Papers, 1862, vol. xxxvii. Nos. 3040 and 3049, p. 32. f Gorst's Maori King, pp. 109-28. J Parliamentary Papers, 1863, vol. xxxviii. No. 177, p. 141. Ibid. 1861, vol. xiii. ev. 2636. 596 ENGLAND AND responsible, actively supported and urged a warlike policy.* This special policy raises two distinct questions : first, was the military intervention, having regard to the antecedents, justifiable or wise? secondly, did the particular circumstances warrant it ? Attention is in general too exclusively fixed on the second question, which involves, as to one war (Taranaki, 1860-1), the intricacies of a tribal history and title ; as to the other (Waikato, 1863-6) certain native atrocities, deplorable though not unprovoked. The original cause of war the forcible seizure of the "Waitara block" (see Map), now proved to have been illegalf was, and indeed still is, defended as the legitimate and neces- sary assertion of the Queen's sovereignty against law- less combination. We may justly hesitate to accept this solution, when it appears that a provincial coun- cil (New Plymouth) petitioned to have the tribal tenure disregarded, J and that the unusual price of 20s. per acre was paid for this land, Avhich, though small (about 700 acres), comprised the only good harbour near the settlement. Yet even were it other- wise, and making every allowance for the peculiar po- sition of a settlement hampered by want of space to expand, it must be regretted that the earliest asser- It has been said that there would have been no wars in New Zea- land, had the Colonists been made responsible for the consequences. The double government was no doubt a great evil ; but I doubt this position, having regard to the high tone taken by the Colonial Ministry as to the moral obligations of the mother country, and the disposition shown then and since to lay all the blame of neglect and mistake on the Imperial authorities. f Westminster Review, 18G4, vol. xxv. pp. 4G4-5 ; and Parliamentary Papers, 1864, March. J Westminster Review, 1864, vol. xxv. p. 457. Parliamentary Papers, I860, vol. xlvii. No. 552, p. 50. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 597 tion. of " British law in a British settlement"* should have been in the interest of British land-buying. But the first of the above questions is that really at issue. The answer must, I believe, be in the ne- gative, whether we examine the local antecedents of each war, or the antecedents common to both the Taranaki ' land - league' and the Waikato ' king- movement.' The general success of land -buying (see Map) should be contrasted with the just and growing discontent of the Maoris towards a govern- ment which conferred on them no " privileges of British subjects," unless it were that of being treated, when occasion served, as British ' rebels.' The just and wise policy would have been to wait ; introducing law and order among the more friendly tribes, and leaving this gradually to work a change for the better among the ill-disposed. On this ground alone, therefore, I regard the measures (New Zealand Settlements Act and Native Rebellion Suppression Act, 1863) passed by the As- sembly shortly after the breaking out of the second or AVaikato war, and which provided an indiscrimi- nate and arbitrary scheme of confiscation (see Map) and punishment, as being defensible neither in justice nor policy. Severe precautions and even stringent measures had, indeed, become necessary ;f but an equitable and forbearing spirit was equally so. The entire scheme, as proposed and in part carried into effect, seems highly objectionable and illusory. The Hursthouse's New Zealand, p. 500. j- On this ground, I think that the suggestion of the Home Govern- ment to substitute cession for confiscation was unwise ; but the Colo- nists, in complaining that this step and the inaction of the British troops prolonged the war, forget their source in the ' Confiscation scheme.' 598 ENGLAND AND plan devised for British Kafraria (see before, p. 587) was reversed. Confiscation was adopted not as a military precaution; but to punish the natives, to in- demnify the settlers, and to promote colonisation by planting 20,000 settlers in a territory " the most fer- tile and attractive in the island."* The sales of con- fiscated land have proved financially a failure ;f and the partial importation of settlers has driven the dis- contented section of the natives into the mountains. 1 Yet the Colonists have given indications of a more humane and wiser policy, in ways before al- luded to, and confirmed by more recent acts. Hav- ing at last obtained complete self-government, and evincing a determination to dispense with military aid, as far as possible, it may be hoped that they will evince real statesmanship, redeem their repeated pledges, and treat the Maoris as fellow-men and " Bri- tish subjects." The Imperial Government have, I think, a twofold duty. Avoiding all needless irri- tation, and making a liberal provision for pecuniary obligations justly incurred by past mismanagement, the Home Office should refuse their cooperation with questionable projects ;|| and, while conceding Parliamentary Papers, 1862, vol. xxxvii. No. 2798, p. 42. f Ibid. 1866, February, p. 191. J Their dangerous attitude appears plainly from Mr. Fox's recent book, and especially the passage (p. 246) in which he dares the Home Government to remove the 5,000 troops still left. The wide-spread ' Pai-Marire' fanaticism, begun in 1863 and closely connected with political disaffection, is a further and serious difficulty. Particularly the Act of 1862, for facilitating the individualisa- tion of tribal titles through a Tribunal, and recent declarations of the Ministry and Assembly. || The New-Zealand Settlements Act, 1863 (amended in 1864, and limited in its duration to December 1865), has never been allowed by the Crown, and it would seem that its allowance will depend on that of the subsequent Act, 1865, continuing it. Parl. Papers, 1865 and 1866. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 599 the ample freedom necessary for responsibility, se- cure such fundamental arrangements* as may best consist with obligations deliberately incurred, and conduce to the advantage of all the subjects Euro- pean and Maori of the British Crown in New Zea- land. VII. CONCLUDING REMARKS. The future of Savage and Semi-civilised commu- nities the difficulties arising from past neglect and mismanagement, and our imperfect conceptions, being duly weighed is not hopeless. On the contrary, the worst results to them of European contacts, whether purely commercial or colonial, are essentially due to social causes, which, once distinctly apprehended, fall within human control. Science, vindicating yet guid- ing philanthropy, with increasing force establishes as a fundamental doctrine the " Unity of the race and the leadership of the West."f A few remarks will be offered, pointing out its special and practical in- terest as affecting the doctrines of uncivilised popu- lations. Modern scientific thought, while taking due ac- count of climate, geographical features, and race, increasingly subordinates them to those fundamental These arrangements are of three sorts 1. Military : it would seem necessary to have stations, as in British Kafraria. 2. Constitu- tional : the recent removal of the capital to "Wellington, while useful for general, seems likely to enhance the difficulties of local, govern- ment, unless some provision be made for grouping and provincial su- perintendence (see before, p. 593, and Times, 25th April 1866). 3. Financial : the present state of the general and provincial financial arrangements is most imperfect and embarrassing (see before, p. 594, and Parl. Papers, 18GG, February, p. 186. See the note in Army Esti- mates, Parl. Papers, 1866, p. 106, as to the terms of Imperial aid. -j- See the first Essay in this volume. 600 ENGLAND AND laws of social grouping and historical development which, though greatly modified by circumstances, are essentially general.* When viewed in this way the condition of existing savage tribes throws light on the remote origin of our own advanced civilisa- tion. The philosophy of history thus inspires a con- viction that the feeble steps of primitive humanity may be hereafter no longer oppressed, but sustained and strengthened by the hand of civilised man. But the same philosophy points to "Western Europe as the appropriate organ of this support and progressive im- pulse, as consisting of those nations on whom a long inheritance of civilisation has devolved the duty and noble task of wielding its great powers for the ad- vantage of weak and backward populations. This duty, however, presents extraordinary diffi- culties, indicated in the present Essay, and which I will briefly recapitulate, believing that clearer know- ledge must facilitate ultimate victory. I would premise that the general conception just stated as linking the extremes of barbarous and civi- lised society, requires, in reference to the present subject, a twofold modification, equally necessary for scientific precision and practical usefulness. " Fo- reign relations," at first sight, would seem to exclude all but border tribes or independent islands. Yet the term is only too applicable to communities which, whether it be from the surviving effects of slavery (the Hottentots and "West Indian Negroes), or from the results of neglect and error (the Kafirs and Ma- oris), are not really incorporated with, and therefore, in effect, remain outside of Western civilisation. See Quatref ages, " L'Unite de la Kace humaine," Revue des Deux Mondcs, 1860 and 1861, and M'Lennan's Primitive Marriage, Preface. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 601 Again, while merely commercial relations remain under the direct control of the European nations, their respective Colonial offshoots tend, more and more, to become semi-independent and intermediate powers, themselves almost creating a new interna- tional system, and profoundly modifying the relations of the parent country with the native populations. The greatest difficulty of all is, I believe, that of sufficiently entering into the mind of the savage and understanding barbarous society as a whole. The most thoughtful of recent writers* largely attribute our small progress towards acquiring a beneficial in- fluence over savages to the prevailing ignorance of their ideas and ways, and our inability to compre- hend modes of thought diverging so widely from those which social affinities, a characteristic history, and long habit have rendered a second nature to the inhabitants of Western Europe. The want of such insight is, I believe, mainly owing to the narrowness and inflexibility of our conceptions concerning So- ciety and Man. Hence the establishment of just and beneficent relations between civilised and barbarous man presupposes a wide intellectual reconstruction. The progress making towards this, though consider- able, leaves much to be desired. Apart from mental difficulties, its realisation is impeded by the grave imperfections of political existence, and the still more serious deficiencies of moral sentiment neces- sarily incident to a period of prolonged transition and even of intellectual and social anarchy. It must, therefore, be long before "Western Europe, regenerated in heart, head, and life, can assume her final leadership in relation to uncivilised communities. See Merivale, Colonisation and the Colonies. 602 ENGLAND AND The truth just stated possesses great practical im- portance as a corrective of immature conceptions and exaggerated expectations. Yet its full recognition need not stay the effort to realise a more enlight- ened Policy. So long as religious and philanthropic missions are undirected by larger conceptions of so- ciety and man, so long as industry remains at the level of individual gain-seeking, untempered by so- cial views and generous aspirations ; so long also must our statesmanship be content to wait and aim at results, comparatively speaking, small. Yet a wise transitional policy one that should adapt itself to actual possibilities, holding fast by a few broad principles and preparing the way for a normal future is not the less a real policy. Its adoption by the great republic of the Western nations is, even now, not chimerical;* and no member of this body is, in her individual sphere, more plainly called to plan and pursue such a policy than England. The re- lations with her Colonies once subject-provinces, henceforward more and more dependent allies still leave her considerable powers, and impose a direct though joint responsibility towards their native populations. Avoiding all needless irritation, yet maintaining her own just dignity, f she may refuse cooperation with questionable schemes ;| employ her great authority to enforce compliance with wise and necessary arrangements ; and in every admissible way, directly and indirectly, vindicate the inalienable See before, pp. 566-7. f See the llth resolution of the Select Committee on Colonial Military Expenditure, Parl. Papers, 1861, vol. xiii. J See before, pp. 597-8. See before, pp. 588 and 599, Westminster Review, 1864, vol. xxv. p. 472, and the evidence annexed to the report just quoted. THE UNCIVILISED COMMUNITIES. 603 duty of protecting these, the weakest of her " Bri- tish subjects." But the progressive abridgment of her imperial sway, or even its future extinction, can- not diminish, and may augment, the obligations and just influence of England, as an arbitress of public opinion, imposing, through agencies nobler and more powerful than those wielded by ancient Home, the "ways of peace," and the blessings of peaceful civi- lisation upon the now Savage and Semi-civilised .com- munities of the earth. HENRY DIX BUTTON. THE END. LONDON : EOBSON AND SON, GREAT NORTHERN PRINTING WORKS, PANCKAS ROAD, N.W. THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS DUE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. Series 9482