THE REIGN OF FORCE.
AREACTION is passing over Europe much worse than the bad one denominated "Conservative." For years past, ever since the generation which had shared in the Revolutionary war began to die out, a singular kind of effeminacy had been creeping over the public mind. War was declared inhuman, force pronounced a barbarous instru- ment, and enlightened opinion elevated into the supreme arbiter of mankind. The world was to be governed by reason tempered by sentiments, and a return to the old device, the rule of the strong, was pronounced as impossible as it was evil. Even those who disbelieved in the extinction of war imagined that it would be waged only in the last resort, and hoped for restrictions which would have deprived it of half its horrors. A great Sovereign, child at once of the Revolu- tion and of the military spirit, declared that the "age of conquest" had passed, and dreamers began to forget that law, if based on reason, must still be maintained by force. In England particularly, strength was so dissociated from right that our armaments were suffered to decay, orators recom- mended the abolition of all pain-giving punishments, and "moral influence" was considered equivalent to interference. It is nonsense to abuse Earl Russell for his faith in verbal remonstrances; he does but act on ideas which ten years ago promised to become universal. The brief but pleasant delusion is rapidly passing away, giving way to a reaction more dangerous than any which has occurred in this generation. A surge of brutality is passing over the human mind, and from every quarter of the world we receive evidence of the reviving belief in force. Every- where the ideas of only ten years since are scouted as feeble and illusory. In America no one even speaks of arbitration, or compromise, or appeals to enlightened reason, but while one side talks trash about extermination, the other massacres soldiers who have surrendered and begged for mercy. In Asia we put down a mutiny by measures only leas stern than the outrages which provoked them, and have this year destroyed a city to avenge an assassination. In Europe, where above all other regions civilization was supposed to have become gentle, we have witnessed for years nothing but the triumphs of force. Force brutally and nakedly exerted restored the power of the Kings in 1849. Europe remon- strated in vain even with the feeble Bombe, but the tyrants of Italy fled the instant the French descended into the Pen- insula. In Poland a frightful exertion of despotic power first drove the people into insurrection, and then beat down the rebellion which it had provoked. That stupendous political crime, the conscription of all educated youth, followed up by others scarcely less savage, has to all human appearance been successful ; Europe remonstrated, enlightened opinion shrieked its loudest, but Russia relied on force, and force completely succeeded. The wealthy were ruined, the educated transported, the middle classes coerced, the peasantry bribed, and Poland has almost been changed into an integral province of Russia. Never was the defeat of " enlightenment " more conspicuous than in the despatches which warned Russia of the horrible penalties which were not, however, to be inflicted by any human hand. The example infected the whole world, and this very week the tidings of the progress of brutality are such as to make one question that of civilization. In one journal lyre read the evidence that a lieutenant, Lieutenant linkers, caught com- manding negroes in Fort Pillow, was crucified as a warning to all who believed the right of black men to be free. In another we see the official decrees by which great Conservative Powers not satisfied with recommencing that "age of conquest" which had, according to the French Emperor, passed away, commenced also the system of plundering the conquered which Europe be- lieved to have ended with the punishment of Napoleon. It is difficult to imagine anorder more suggestive of possible miseries in store for the human race than that in which Marshal von Wrangel, having taken all stock, all crops, and all goods owned by the people of Jutland, now imposes a vast tax upon land which can only be raised by inflicting death for recusancy. There is nothing upon which to distrain. If the rights of war have no limits, and a whole nation can thus be pauperized by plunder scientifically directed, the regime of law, which involves the protection of the rights of the weak against the ims of the strong, has ended, and the world is thrown back Conference-trick is not even yet fully unmasked. And if upon the "good old rule, the simple plan" which it has been it should extort terms of peace from Denmark, the Govern- striving for a century to suspend. The devastation of the ment will no doubt expiate, and deserve to expiate, the guilt Palatinate by Louis XII. was not more complete than that of a weak and dishonourable policy, in which the leaders of of Jutland will be. The invasion of Denmark is a real war So be it; for when the lawless rise the law always arms itself, and as goodness is essential to organization the right must ultimately prevail. But it is time that the English people recognized the facts of the hour, saw that reason has lost her sway, and resolved that if the appeal is to be to force alone, force shall not be lacking on the side of the right. The dream of a world at last enlightened was a pleasant one, but it is dangerous to indulge it further. These Powers, who- govern the half of civilized mankind, are openly and avowedly contemning all but force, force in its most brutal forms, force carried to the logical point to which its worship leads—the- depopulation of nations, and it is time that the world should perceive that the law also has force at its back. It would be a terrible sight to see soldiers acting in London ; but if the- dangerous classes are convinced that law is a mere illusion, that they have only to dare in order to see its machinery crumble to pieces, that they can defy the police, sneer at judges, and hang the sheriffs, it is time for the good to act, and teach them that if all else have- ended the gibbet is still prepared for the evil-doer. The old effeminacy was evil, for it encouraged all who- were below opinion to set at defiance a power which seemed so unreal and visionary, it is time that the new brutality should learn that it also is not the whole essence of political truth. There is force—force of the vulgar kind, cannon, and bayonets, and rifles, and scientific machinery, behind the law, and it is time that the screen were removed. If the West would not have to fight for its own existence it must, sooner or later, show that it can support the precepts. ofthe civilization which gives it strength by something stronger than despatches, and with Austria threatening Funen, and the Russians in Bessarabia, the people of Jutland ground to the dust and the Circassians sentenced as a nation. to transportation, Poland dead and Sweden warned that if she assists a friend she also will be dismembered, the time would seem to have arrived. From the day the West announces that civilization has armed there will at least be- decency in the counsels of its foes.
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