PRUSSIAN OUTRAGE ON INTERNATIONAL LAW.
METAPHYSICAL freedom has been attained. by Prussia in perfec- tion, and it appears that the spiritual liberty must compound for that advantage by a short allowance of material liberty. In Prussia men must not only be perfectly subservient to the Go- vernment, but they are not allowed the privilege which they en- joy elsewhere of being indiscreet. Mr. Morris Moore has un- luckily constituted himself an illustration of Prussian despotism, a gauge of Prussian absurdity ; he has condescended to the dis- agreeable office of being foolometer. Mr. Moore went to Berlin for the purpose of pursuing certain inquiries with respect to pie_ tures and art-administration. He affirms that his visit had nothing whatever to do with political affairs, and Mr. Moore's general character for honest however blunt truthfulness is a. pledge for his veracity on this occasion. , He was re- ceived by the professional and dilettante classes with distinc- tion, and by the police also with its own peculiar attention, Late one night, his room was entered by a police-officer ; he was conveyed to the House of Detention ; his papers were seized and treated somewhat roughly ; then he was set at liberty. We may be quite sure that if the police had found the slightest pretext for fastening upon Mr. Moore any political charge, out the proof would have come ; and the silence of the police on this head is sufficient evidence that there was nothing to be said against him. Smarting under his injury, Mr. Moore made an appeal for pro- tection to Lord Bloomfield ; couching that appeal, however, in terms which implied the expectation that he should have no re- dress, and thus accusing the British Ambassador beforehand of breach of duty. Having thus alienated himself from the British Minister, Mr. Moore appeals to the press ; mingling with the real injury which he has received, indignation for the supineness of Lord Bloomfield, and assumptions that his persecution is dictated by Dr. Waagen, champion of the courtly Eastlake interest in the National Gallery. The Prussian Government retaliates by giving Mr. Moore notice that he must quit Prussia. There is no doubt that the Prussian Government has committed a grave offence against the comity of nations. The indiscretions which have marred the statement of Mr. Moore's case constitute no excuse for the treatment which he has received, and which ap- pears to have commenced without any provocation on his part. No Government can set up to itself the right of excluding foreigners from its confines. To do so is an act contrary to the fellowship of mankind, and therefore suited only to a period of war. If there were not intercourse between the individuals of the several na- tions, there must be a stop to commerce, to the increase of wealth, of knowledge, and of civilization. The Japanese rule is counter to natural law and to the welfare of mankind ; it does not deserve to be respected, even if it be maintained by the whole community. But probably there is no country in Europe in which the com- munity itself does not welcome the arrival of visitors ; and in the very ease before us, it has been sufficiently proved that Mr. Moore, who has been expelled by the Government, was welcomed by the Prussians. The Government, therefore, is unsupported by its own people in its violation of natural law, and is without the ex- cuse of national prejudice for its illegal act.
The indignity upon Mr. Moore was an indignity upon England. He went with a Secretary of State's passport ; he was under the protection of his awn Government. On the grounds which we have already stated, the Prussian Government was bound to re- ceive him, unless it could establish against him any charge which deprived him of a man's natural right of admission into a foreign country. So long as he is untainted by criminal condemnation in his own country, and so long as he obeys the laws of the coun- try which he visits, to violate that right is to commit an aggres- sion upon the Government which guarantees his protection. The attack on Mr. Moore was a direct offence to the Government which had supplied that traveller with a passport. It has been intimated, almost officially, that Lord Clarendon will take up the ease in a suitable spirit : since that announcement, the expulsion of Mr. Moore has aggravated the offence to this country ; and passively to tolerate the offence would be a breach of trust.
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