ment of which our every external proceeding shall be persistently and intelligently directed. It seems to us that it is not difficult to discover this inspiring, guiding, and sustaining aimnay more, that it is difficult to miss it. We think, moreover, it is one which, when once clearly grasped and steadily kept in view, will meet all our requirements, and will satisfy and embody the wishes of all the various parties in the state. It will be most conducive to our safety and our strength, which all desire; to our ultimate inaction, which the selfish "isolation" school desire; to the development of constitutional freedom throughout Europe, which the "sympathising" school desire. It is just in itself and in its means, and its end and issue will be peace. Our aim in our international action, then (to speak somewhat abstractedly), should be to bring about such a state of affairs in Europe as shall render action unnecessary; or (to express it somewhat more definitely, though perhaps a little pedantically) to produce a state of stable equilibrium.

No thoughtful man, unblinded by diplomatic subtilties and traditions, can look abroad upon Europe without seeing, first, that it is in a condition of most unstable equilibrium; and secondly, that it is vigorously endeavouring to right itself. There is perhaps scarcely a single country except our own which is not, so to speak, in a provisional or transition state, both in reference to its internal concerns and to its foreign relations. This is peculiarly true of those greater countries which, if they do not constitute the whole political world, at least determine its condition: France, Italy, Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Turkey. In 1815 the statesmen of Europe endeavoured to settle Europe for good; but in the process they disregarded natural rights and natural affinities, the principles of justice and the instincts of humanity, and therefore they failed; and the history of Europe ever since has been one ceaseless protest and insurgence against that settlement, and endeavour to upset it,a protest and endeavour, sometimes active, sometimes latent, sometimes explosive, sometimes subterranean, sometimes local, sometimes general, but always existing and observable. The obstacles to the stable equilibrium which we crave-the elements of the unstable equilibrium which we deplore and suffer from-may be classed under two heads:

1. Internal Tyranny.

2. Artificial Unions.

To promote the overthrow of these prolific causes of suffering and war, and to promote that overthrow with strict adherence to our two fundamental rules of non-isolation and non-intervention, must be the guiding aim and object of the foreign

policy of England. Let us develop this idea a little more in detail.

No one can fail to perceive that the motive-cause of nearly every political movement which has taken place in Europe for the last forty-five years has been the desire of peoples to assert their freedom of action and of will, to claim their natural rights, and to group themselves according to their natural affinities. This inspiration has pierced through every uprising and disturbance, whether isolated or extensive. It manifested itself unmistakably in 1821, 1831, 1848, and 1860. In Portugal and Spain, in Prussia, in Piedmont, in France, and in nearly all Germany, in 1848, the insurrections and revolutions were for freer institutions and wider civil and political privileges, and the success, though varying, was signal in nearly every instance. France and Central and Southern Germany alone lost what they had won-France because she did not understand or value it, Germany because she could not maintain it. But every country gave evidence to the force and vitality of the desire. Not less obvious, and scarcely less universal, has been the tendency to dissolve all those unnatural unions which had been devised and enforced in 1815,-whether unnatural ab ovo, or having become so by lapse of time and change of circumstances, and to replace them by more congruous and spontaneous combinations. Greece gave us the first example, and effected her disruption from an alien tie in 1829. Holland and Belgium secured their divorce in 1832. The whole history of Venice and Lombardy has been a struggle to burst the iron chain which bound them to the Austrian yoke. The efforts of the several German states to bind themselves into that closer federation which seems commanded by natural affinity, showed in 1849 how strong was the prevailing tendency of the age; and the "Schleswig-Holstein question" is a still more signal, because a much less rational, exemplification of the same tendency, almost amounting to a passion. The resolute determination of Hungary not to suffer her nationality to be absorbed into that of Austria, is another example of this repulsion for forced and unnatural unions; while the zeal with which she clings to her laws and her Diet equally show the other predominant spirit of the age, the love of constitutional freedom. The Sclavonic and Danubian provinces are also largely stirred and influenced by the sentiment of natural affinity, so much quoted of late under the name of "nationality," though we know much less than elsewhere of its real working. And finally, America has given us a most remarkable illustration, on a great scale, though in a somewhat anomalous form, of the disposition to exchange the artificial for the natural in the formation of political combinations.

The great guiding truth, then, which we seek seems to be written in sunbeams both on the annals of the last generation and on the living history that is now unrolling before our eyes; viz. that the “stable equilibrium," which is indispensable to the peace and progress of the world, can only be found by permitting and encouraging the development of these two prevailing and irrepressible tendencies of the age,-the tendency of peoples to demand free institutions, and to group themselves according to their natural affinities; in other words, the principle of selfgovernment, and the principle of nationality. These tendencies once developed to their full issues,-the artificial and illegitimate obstacles now placed in their way by extraneous and therefore unwarrantable interferences once forbidden and removed,—the world has a clear path, and England a smooth future, before them. The healthy and natural development of these tendencies will give us peace; for all the wars and convulsions which have disturbed Europe since the downfal of Napoleon are indisputably traceable, directly or indirectly, to the struggle between these irrepressible instincts and the shackles with which terror or ambition has pertinaciously endeavoured to chain them down. When nations are united to their natural kindred and their chosen friends, and when citizens every where have obtained those political and civil privileges which can nowhere be permanently withheld from any who truly desire them and are fit for them, then, we do not say, for we do not hope, that wars will altogether cease,-but assuredly the most prolific and the most incurable source of sanguinary conflicts will be removed; for the just claims and the indestructible aspirations of all peoples will have been satisfied, and no quarrels but such as admit of arbitration can thenceforth arise. You may mediate between two claimants to one territory, or two nations which have been irritated by mutual affronts; you cannot mediate between a nation determined to be free and a despot bent upon retaining it in thraldom.

The healthy and fair development of these two tendencies, moreover, will bring us safety. With the multiplication of constitutional states, and the gradual elimination of despotic governments, our friends must increase and our enemies diminish; for autocrats must always dislike us and mistrust us; and free nations, even if there be some rivalry between us, must always have an overriding sympathy with a land like ours, which is the very bulwark and embodiment of freedom. Till despotism is at an end every where, free states will be our natural allies in all contests in which liberty is in any degree at stake; and even when all states are self-governing, we, who are never aggressive in our policy, and desire only justice to all (as far as we

discern it) and the integrity of our own possessions, shall always have the grand and generally adequate security against wrong and encroachment which publicity and fair discussion invariably offer to the right cause and the honest disputant. We are not, indeed, very devout believers in the inherent wisdom and virtue of democracies; we are by no means sure that they are not as easily blinded by their prejudices and infuriated by their passions as any autocrat or any oligarchy; but wherever there is open discussion, a free press, and a free assembly, the voice of sense and justice will at least make itself heard, and sooner or later will prevail; and if publicity do not secure us from irrational and undeserved enmity, it will at least give us warning of its approaching blow.

The gradual progress and the final victory of self-government and nationality will, in the last place, bring us to that blessed condition of possible international inaction which is the longedfor paradise of Mr. Bright. When the citizens of every nation have gained the freedom which they want, and are joined to the brethren whom they love, what, except internal prosperity, will they have to strive for? There will be nothing left for them to ask, or for us to do. There will be no work for our Foreign Minister to do beyond a sort of consular vigilance over the rights and safety of our fellow-countrymen abroad. There will be little for any state to dread, except piratical assaults of the strong upon the weak, for which there would be small temptation, because small prospect of success. For, nations blessed with self-government, and harmonious and homogeneous because constituted according to natural affinities of sentiment and race, would seldom be weak enough to allure the most unscrupulous and daring spoiler, and in the hour of danger would find ample auxiliaries to prevent or punish the aggression. Of all things, the most suggestive and provocative of wars in modern times is, the knowledge that large classes of the adversary's subjects are discontented because oppressed or unenfranchised, or belonging to conquered and therefore irreconcilably hostile tribes. If the people of Austria were free and contented, and if she kept by force no alien and irritated populations within her grasp, what empire, however warlike or mighty, would deem her a safe object for aggression? Once more, we repeat it, the sole dangers and disturbances of European tranquillity arise from the unnatural and artificial condition in which it is, and in which so many are vainly endeavouring to maintain it. A forced state of things is of necessity a precarious, a turbulent, an unpermanent state,— a state, essentially and incurably, of unstable equilibrium.

Now, the thesis which we desire to propound, and which needs little illustration and scarcely any argument to maintain it,

is, that this state of stable equilibrium in Europe, from which so many cherished blessings would ensue, is to be sought, and can assuredly be attained, by the steady, sagacious, and thorough practical application to our foreign policy of the two combined principles we have specified, as those at which the good sense and good feeling of the nation had already arrived. If we will only systematically and courageously carry out in its entirety the principle of non-intervention, the desired work will go on as fast as it ought, and in the direction it is best that it should follow. If nations are left to themselves, they will group themselves according to their natural affinities; and they will win free institutions and self-government, if they really desire these blessings, and as soon as, and in proportion as, they are fit for them. Our interposition to help them would only have the effect, either of enabling them to go too fast, or of diverting them somewhat from their natural bent, or of confusing the clearness of their native instincts. We should probably make mistakes as to their national affinities which, left to themselves, they would not make, and should thus hamper or, mar their natural and proper action; and we should assuredly endeavour to mould their institutions after our own model, and thus give them a garment which was not made for them and would not fit them. Probably, too, we should enable them to gain what, not being up to, they could not preserve; and failure, reaction, and disappointment would ensue.

But the principle of non-intervention, in its completeness,and if not completed it is fallacious, mischievous, and not a principle at all,-requires and means that nations shall be left to themselves; it does not mean that England shall not interfere, but that no nation shall interfere; it does not mean only that we shall not interfere to aid liberty and nationality, it means that no one else shall interfere to thwart them. It is a twoedged sword, beneficent and just only when both edges are used. The course of our foreign policy, therefore, is clear (that is, the aim which it should pertinaciously pursue; the means, and the modifications, and the flexibilities called for in each several emergency and complication must be left to the sagacity of each individual minister who holds the seals of office at the time): to proclaim for ourselves, and to urge and enforce upon other powers, the duty of leaving every state and nation to itself, to fight its own internal battles, to settle its own domestic controversies, to arrange its own constitutional concerns. We have to get this doctrine acknowledged as a maxim of European law; never to interfere ourselves, except to prevent or to countervail interference by others; to "pair off" with some opponents, to warn off others; as far as we can, and by the most earnest