ALISON'S HISTORY OF EUROPE. * THE sixth and seventh volumes of
this long-drawn-out under- taking extend in Europe from 1834 to 1848, and deal with Indian history from the end of Wellesley's administration in 1805 till the destruction of the British army in the defiles of Affghanis- tan. The time is too near to obtain information as to the secret causes of many actions, or to trace the full results of lines of policy or important events. Still the period contains much that is instructive or interesting, could the author have brought a sound political philosophy to the discussion of his topics, or were his nar- rative and descriptive style less monotonous, verbose, and flabby. In England, we begin with Peel's efforts of 1835 in the new Parliament ; trace, though very imperfectly in Sir Archibald's pages, the struggles of the Melbourne Ministry against internal decay and external opposition ; and see very clearly the great diffi- culties they left to their successor in 1841. The course of Peel's Ministerial career till 1846 is tolerably well told so far as the facts go, but it wants vividness and distinct impression. Everything is narrated in the same way, and the uniformity of treatment brings all events to about the same dead level. Those who remember the period will miss its interest and life. And Lord John Russell's Administration fares little better. The growth of dissatisfaction in France, from the accession of Guizot to power till the dynasty of Louis Philippe went away in a couple of hackney cabs, has more of mass and distinctness, though it is disfigured -by faults of negligence in arrangement and composition. It may be remarked • History of Europe from the Fall of Napoleon in 1815 to the Accession of Louis Napoleon in 1852. By Sir Archibald Alison, Bart., D.C.L. ; Author of the " History of Europe from the Commencement of the French Revolution in 1789 to the Battle of Waterloo," &c. Volumes VI. and VII. Published by Blackwood and Sons.
that the strong party struggles between the " Liberals" and " Conservatives " from 1835 to 1841, which were contested with such heat and violence, seem small matters at this distance of time, and, whether from the things themselves or Sir Archibald's mode of recounting them, inferior in interest to the work done during Peel's Ministry. Time develops the defects of the physical form, and except in the rarest cases has the same effect on the mental qualities. Some faults increase ; others are seen more conspicuously from not
being kept down as it were by accompanying merits ; whim- sies once controlled by the judgment are allowed to stand
out in greater relief. Sir Archibald Alison's currency crotchet with the wonder-working powers of the sinking-fund was always a blot in his writings, less for the mere opinions than the ludi- crous manner in which they were put forward. Now they surpass all measure and patience : everything evil is traced to theCur- rency Act of 1819. Not only are all mercantile difficulties and economical evils ascribed to Peel's Bill—it was this that caused us to reduce our forces so that we had to submit to foreign inso- lence or demands. But as Sir Archibald maintains that the bill permanently reduced prices by 50 per cent, (to which the tariff of 1842 added 15 per cent more,) there seems something of a non- sequitur in his conclusion. Half (the money) under the bill would go as far as the whole before. However, our erroneous system of currency led to the " Ashburton capitulation," and lost us part of our boundary rights ; but with such notions on political economy as we entertained it could not be helped.
"All this notwithstanding, there seems no doubt that Sir Robert Peel and Lord Ashburton did right, situated as they were, in concluding the treaty. Granting all that Lord Palmerston said on the subject to be perfectly well founded, so far as the external character and influence of Great Britain were concerned, the question yet remained, whether, adverting to the inter- nal situation of the country, it was then possible to have asserted the na- tional honour in any more vigorous way. England had come, by pursuing the policy of looking only to the cheapest market for the purchase of the materials of its chief manufactures, to be dependent on the United States for five-sixths of the cottons which gave bread to the inhabitants of her chief manufacturing towns. She had established a system of currency which had rendered general credit and commercial industry of every kind entirely dependent on the retention of gold ; and, in consequence of its large export to buy grain during the five preceding bad years, the whole com- mercial and manufacturing classes had come to be involved in the deepest distress."
France did not escape the effects of erroneous ideas on cur- rency and value. In fact, they were one of the causes that pro- duced the downfall of the Orleans dynasty, by leading, among other evils, to the spread of Socialism. "The next cause which contributed to the immense spread of Socialist principles at this period was, the real and most serious grievance imme- diately affecting the wages of labour, arising from the inadequacy of the currency. This evil, which has been the subject of such ample comment- ary in the preceding chapters in its application to Great Britain, was still more sorely felt in France, from the want of any bank-notes in that country below 200 francs, (81.,) and the consequent entire dependence of the popula- tion, so far as the wages of labour were concerned, on a metallic currency, seriously diminished by the injury done by the South American Revolution to the mines of the precious metals in those regions. [It might not be in- creased in proportion to the nation's requirements, but how the silver iu France could be diminished by the cause assigned is not so clear.] The consequence of this was, that while more money was every day required to meet the necessities of the nation, no more could be obtained ; and conse- quently what was in circulation rose in value, and everything_else, and with it the wages of labour, proportionally fell. The working classes felt this, and felt it sorely ; but they did not know to what it was owing, and ascribed it all, at the suggestion of their demagogues, to the middle classes who had usurped the government, and, by the odious principle of compe- tition, were daily wrenching more from the wages of labour and adding to the profits of stock, to their own great benefit and the general ruin."
It could not, however, have been the lack of paper money that brought about the terrible crisis in America in 1837, which the historian has to chronicle ; for there supplies were ample enough in that way. But then, it is not all paper money that will suffice— it must be Sir Archibald's. We must have a latent currency to be kept by Government for our times of trouble and issued when i the gold is going away. The lack of a sound and adequate cur- rency explains everything in thirty years that requires ex- planation, and justifies even the course if not the conduct of Sir Robert Peel especially in 1846. Considering his position and circumstances, Sir Archibald thinks Sir Robert should not have been the man to repeal the Corn-laws, but politically it mattered not. If he had not done it somebody else must. It was our fate. Free-trade, the repeal of the Corn-laws and the Navigation- laws, and all other evils, sprang from that Pandora's box the Act of 1819, without even leaving Hope behind. Currency, and generally matters connected with political econo- my or. political philosophy, go to substance and conclusion. Both the volumes, but especially the last, are disfigured by great ble- mishes. They appear to be not merely the effect of haste or ne- gligence, but as if the work had never been revised. The effect is a general looseness of composition ; a vagueness of expression, which may leave the meaning intelligible though the words do not convey, the meaning intended ; and a jumble sometimes invol- ing contradiction in statements, sometimes confusion in the nar- rative or chronology. Here is an example. The subject men- tioned in the first paragraph is the rebellion in Ireland, m conti-. nuance of the Chartist movement in Great Britain conseqUent upon the French Revolution of 1848. "The sentence of death was wisely and humanely afterwards commuted into transportation for life ; and after a residence abroad of eight years, they were all,. excepting those who had broken their parole, restored to their country by the general amnesty proclaimed on the glorious termination of the Russian war. Thus was this formidable convulsion, which, spreading from France, overturned the monarchies of Austria and Prussia, and shook
to its foundations every governinent in Europe, suppressed in. Great Britain without shedding one drop of blood on the scaffold.
"Such was the terrible monetary crisis of 1847 in Great Britain—the most disastrous and widespread of which there is any record- in the annals of mankind."
It may be said that the author means to trace the Conti- nental convulsion to Peel's Bill of 1819 and its supplement of 1844 ; yet more than two hundred pages are occupied in assign- ing these causes to various circumstances, currency being only one. But if that is the meaning, the fact is more fatal to the character of the historian than any errors in composition. Though with greater subjects to handle these two volumes un- doubtedly exhibit a falling-off compared with the previous vo- lumes, it is not to be supposed but that passages of some value may be picked out of fourteen hundred pages. Even when Sir Archibald Alison's philosophy is fundamentally wrong, he throws out remarks that are worth attending to—the result of meditation and practical experience by a powerful mind not un- versed in affairs. Such is this observation in reference to the Navy and the Corn-laws, although it shows the author's wonted exaggeration.
However much opinions may vary on many of the conclusions now de- duced from the facts of contemporary history, there is one point upon which all must be agreed, and which is of vital importance to the future independ- ence, it may be even existence, of the British empire. This is the absolute necessity under which we are now laid of maintaining, at all hazards, our superiority at sea, if we would avoid blockades of our harbours, and total ruin the moment hostilities of a serious kind break out with any two great naval powers. Having brought matters to this point, that though 260,000 emigrants annually leave our shores, still one-third of the food of our people is derived from foreign states, and more than a third of our inhabitants are, directly or indirectly, dependent on the sale of their manufactures in foreign markets for their daily wages, it is evident that, the moment our harbours are blockaded, we must surrender at discretion—just as a fortress must when its supply of provisions is exhausted. In vain shall we rest on the magnitude of our commercial navy, and.the resources which, in a protracted war, we would thence derive for maritime conquest. Unless a powerful war-navy is kept up, and we are able to maintain the undisputed command of the sea from the outset, we might be starved out in three months. If Russia and France, or France and America, had gone to war with us in 1854, how long could we have carried on the contest, when the grain imported in 1856 alone was 10,000,000 quarters ? Nor, let us trust too securely to our commercial navy ; for, under the action of free trade in shipping, partially introduced in 1823 and fully in 1849, while the British tonnage employed in carrying on our trade has doubled in the last fifteen years, the foreign has considerably more than tripled ; and for the first time in British annals, the alarming announcement has appeared in our prints, that the tonnage of the shipping built in the harbours of one only of our commercial rivals consider- ably exceeds our own."
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