means at our disposal, to the last extreme that we feel it prudent to venture, always by remonstrance,-occasionally, if need be, by menace, and, in worthy crises, even by armed force,-to secure to every people a fair and undisturbed field for their struggle against native despotism or hated and forced amalgamaMuch has already been done in this direction. Ultimate success in it we regard as certain, if only Great Britain will heartily and persistently adopt the principle as her banner, and never lose sight of it or be false to it for a moment; if only we have no more foreign secretaries capable of astounding the world by preaching and enforcing the doctrine for a couple of years as if it were his gospel, and then, on the first occasion when adherence to it became inconvenient, turning round and denouncing it in the broadest terms in such a despatch as that of October 27th, 1860.

We do not mean to say that difficulties may not arise as to the application of this principle. One of the most perplexing of these presents itself at the very moment we are writing. The Emperor of Austria is at issue with two sections of his subjects, -with nearly two millions in Venetia, and with probably ten millions or more in Hungary, Transylvania, and Croatia. The Venetians are only kept from open rebellion by an overwhelming armed force. The Hungarians have adopted a plan of systematic and universal passive resistance, waiting for an opportunity of taking more active measures to enforce their claims or to assert their independence. The Emperor is strong enough to coerce both sections singly into quiet if not into submission, and perhaps strong enough to overpower even a joint insurrection. If an outbreak should occur,-and sooner or later it is certain to occur, are the insurgents (the justice of whose cause few, at least in England, will question) to be denied any assistance from without? Is France to be allowed to aid and encourage Hungary? Is the new kingdom of Italy to be suffered to join its forces to those of its Venetian brethren who are clamouring for its succour, and are bent upon being amalgamated with it? Or does our principle of non-intervention call upon us to forbid both interpositions?

The case is a very complicated one, and the righteous answer is by no means obvious nor unassailable. If we could look at the question merely in its present phase, and without reference to the recent past, we should be obliged to decide against any assistance from without being rendered to either section of insurgents. No doubt the imperial attempt to extinguish the Hungarian Constitution is a gross and perfidious wrong; but it is not for a foreign nation to constitute itself either judge or partisan. The Hungarians are many millions, and must make

good their own claims. If they cannot do so, they are the weaker party, and, as we have shown before, foreign aid to enable the weaker party to prevail involves the continuance of foreign protection, and therefore implies an artificial and forced arrangement, a state of unstable equilibrium. The Venetians at first sight have a stronger claim upon our sympathies. They are a conquered race: they have been more cruelly maltreated; they are weaker; they are fewer; they belong by affection and by race to another nation, from the embrace of which they are forcibly withheld, and which is longing with all the passionate love of kindred to annex them. Yet, looking only to the bare facts of the present, it appears to us impossible to allow, without flagrantly deserting the doctrines we have laid down, to defend the right of the Italian monarch to render armed assistance to the Venetians, though without it it is certain they will never be able to achieve their liberation. The conclusion is most unwelcome, but to all appearance unavoidable to honest

reasoners.

But when we refer to the antecedents of the two cases,-and to antecedents by no means remote,-they assume a very different aspect. Why do the Hungarians now need extraneous aid to maintain their ancient privileges and their long-discarded constitution? Because they were crushed by foreign intervention in 1849. In that year they had made good their ground; they had baffled and defeated the Austrian monarch, and the game was in their own hands. But Russia was called in to overpower them; and Russia did for Austria what Austria could not do for herself. There is therefore a wrong to be redressed; a violation of the principle of non-intervention to be neutralised, countervailed, and undone. If Russia had not so iniquitously interposed-and been so pusillanimously and imprudently suffered to interpose-in 1849, neither French nor Italian interposition would be needed in 1861. The Hungarians would have been their own masters, either independent of Austria or united to her on equitable terms and with impregnable securities, and the problem which perplexes us would not even exist. Austria, having profited by the violation of law twelve years ago, cannot justly claim the protection of that law to secure those ill-won profits now.

The antecedents to be pleaded in favour of Venice are unfortunately less recent and less clear; still they have great weight. She has never been Austrian by consent or by amalgamation. She was stolen rather than conquered by the arms of republican France, and was shamefully handed over to Austria by Napoleon in 1796; she was subsequently absorbed into the French Empire, and finally given back to Austria at the Congress of 1815, in

defiance of decency and justice, by the assembled sovereigns who so ruthlessly trampled upon both. It was Europe who wrongfully and cruelly consigned her to a yoke she abhorred, and against which she earnestly protested, and has never ceased to protest: it is for Europe to undo that wrong. As far as morality and equity are concerned, the case seems clear and cogent enough. But the difficulty lies in the comparative antiquity of the injustice done; for it is obvious that if we allow any antecedent foreign intervention to justify intervention on the other side now, there is an end of our principle altogether as a practical guide. In international, as in municipal law, there must be a statute of limitations,-some date beyond which titles, however scandalous or full of flaws, are not to be disturbed. It may, no doubt, be argued on behalf of Venice, that it was only the interference of Russia to save and aid Austria in 1849 that enabled that power to defeat Piedmont, and so to recover Lombardy and Venice; and that this interference has, therefore, yet to be atoned for and countervailed in Italy as well as in Hungary. And the argument is, if not perfectly irrefragable, at least so weighty that an English diplomatist, inclined to defend Victor Emanuel for what-defensible or indefensible-is certain to be done, would do well to rest his justification on this ground. It is lamentable to reflect that if England, in conjunction with France, whose coöperation might then have been attained, had only had a clear enough view of what policy and justice alike dictated to forbid the interference of Russia in the Hungarian revolution, all these perplexing problems might have been avoided, and two sanguinary wars, with their terrible fields of Sebastopol and Solferino, might have been spared to Europe, as well as ten years redeemed out of the struggling and suffering lifetime of the world.

The ill-assorted and convulsed empire of Austria is not the only obstacle to the attainment of that state of stable equilibrium which Europe craves, and which is the price and condition of her tranquillity. Turkey is a problem equally menacing and less easy of solution. From that instability of which Austria is the centre and the cause, there are two practicable issues, attainable to-morrow if it should so please Francis Joseph and his advisers. She may, by the surrender of Venetia on equitable terms, relieve herself of a dependency which has long been to her a source of material weakness, of moral obloquy, and of military danger; she may liberate 200,000 of her best troops for defensive action in other quarters; she may convert a cause of expense into a cause of revenue; she may secure at once the cordial friendship of the English nation as well as of the English government, and ultimately, when the soreness consequent upon long irritation shall have died out, the frank alliance of Italy itself. At the

same time, by honestly and sincerely abandoning the struggle with Hungary, accepting the ancient constitution of that country and leaving its amendment in the hands of the people themselves, she may once more reconcile them to her sceptre, and unite them to the amalgamated portion of her empire. They will be sturdy, free-spoken, and somewhat troublesome subjects; but, on the other hand, they will again become, as they have been heretofore, incomparably the most reliable portion of her military strength, to say nothing of material resources. Thus relieved and thus fortified, Austria, for all avowable and valuable purposes, would be more powerful than ever.-Or there is another solution, less easy and demanding more time for its accomplishment. Austria, unable either to reconcile Hungary or to conquer it, might allow the Magyars, as well as the Venetians, to separate and form more natural connexions further east, and might concentrate her efforts upon becoming the nucleus and the head of a really powerful and united German empire, a combination that, if once fairly and soundly carried into effect, would create a central European state irresistible for conservative ends. A united Austria or a united Germany would, either of them, supply that element in the balance of power which our statesmen desiderate so much.

But the future of Turkey is far more perplexing; and any arrangement of it, consistent at once with safety, permanence, and the clear principles of political morality, does not, we confess, present itself to our minds. The Ottoman race is scanty in proportion to the number of its subjects, and, in Europe especially, is still dwindling away. In spite of some excellent qualities, it is inherently, and by virtue of its religion also, an unprogressive race. It reigns not over one conquered people, but over several, some of which are superior to itself in energy, in skill, in capacity for improvement-in fact, in all the qualifications for advanced civilisation. It is surrounded by covetous enemies, and it has at least one powerful, intractable, and semiindependent vassal; its hold over many of its provinces is feeble, and its government in all parts is corrupt and weak in the extreme. It has already lost one considerable portion of its dominions, and has often been in imminent peril of losing more. For a long period the Ottoman Empire has owed its continued existence (as a European Power, at all events), not to its own means of resisting either external or internal foes, but to the mutual jealousy of England, Russia, France, and Austria, who keep the decrepit state alive because they cannot agree what to do upon its death. It is obvious, therefore, that Turkey presents one of those instances spoken of above, of artificial and unnatural political arrangements, which can only be upheld by

force, and therefore ought not, prima facie, to be upheld at all. Left to herself, dissolution in some form, by internal confusion or by foreign conquest, must be her speedy fate. What, then, should be done? If we stand aside altogether and let matters take their course, Russia would seize the best portion of the European territory, and France the best portion of the Asiatic, and England would only be withheld by moral considerations from claiming her share of the spoil. If we adhere to the strict principle of non-intervention ourselves and enforce it upon others, the almost certain issue would be an independent and a weak Egypt, Syria convulsed and perhaps deluged in blood, and the Roumelian and Albanian provinces rendered a scene of confusion and anarchy which would seriously endanger the tranquillity of the adjacent countries. This state of things assuredly would not, and perhaps ought not, to be long endured by the more settled Powers of Europe; yet to interfere authoritatively and effectually would almost be to take the government of Turkey into their own hands; and if they are to govern it they might as well possess it. On the whole, the only conclusion which is clear to our minds is, that our former errors in this matter have entailed upon us a plentiful harvest of coming difficulties, much peril, and perhaps even some inevitable wrong.

The tendency of the age is, then, as we have shown, towards the production of a state of stable equilibrium; and as this tendency is just and wholesome, we hold it to be ultimately irresistible. Those who comprehend it and aid it will, on its rising wave, ride into influence and empire. Those who ignore it and fight against it will be baffled, and may be crushed. Now, to seize the living conception of the age-to speak its thought, to understand its need, to help it to express itself, and act itself out, as it were-is the true work of a practical statesman. To do this, whether in literature or in politics, is to become popular and powerful. We are disposed to believe that Louis Napoleon has grasped this conception: we are quite sure that our ministers have not. The Emperor of the French has the establishment of his dynasty more at heart than any other object. He sees that, though he himself may be able to maintain his position, his son could not retain the sceptre for a year, unless Europe were settled and at rest. That settlement and rest he seeks in that condition of stable equilibrium in which alone it can be found. He wishes to leave behind him no open questions to distract and endanger his successor. He labours, therefore-fitfully, irregularly, and tortuously, no doubt—to restore the violated affinities, and liberate the compressed democracies of Europe; to break the galling fetters that cannot always be