Or late years, in this country, public attention has been

riveted almost exclusively upon internal arrangements: the movements its authority in the provinces occupied by the Pacha of Egypt, he among the nations will ere long attract a considerable portion of it is subordinate to the Sultan. If the government at Constantinople to external affairs. This is not altogether a matter of regret. The cannot do this, it is for the interest and it is the right of all other gossip about battles fought and won—which mere newspaper- readers conceive to embrace the whole of foreign politics—is often On the other hand, if a government will have a province recog- skilfully used by an oligarchy to divert the attention of its subjects mzed as appertaining to it, that government must in common from abuses at home. When this game is successfully played, confesses that the province has ceased to be a part of its dominions nations, it is true, have no foreign politics : we can never be in this condition. A state imperfectly discharges its functions by insuring —has become a separate state. Every right brings along with it

the free and pleasurable action of its citizens at home, or even countervailing duties, and the inability to perform these duties in repelling aggression from its frontiers : a state worthy of the annuls the right. On these grounds, we maintain that in the event name will cause it to be felt that the strong arm of its protection of the Sultan and his ministers being unable to control the Pacha is stretched out over its citizens wherever the pursuit of their of Egypt, the Pacha of Egypt must, ex necessitate, be dealt with on honest industry may carry them. With such numbers and wealth, the footing of an independent sovereign.

organization, skill, and enterprise, as constitute the British empire, The reply to this is, that we are bound by treaty to maintain a British subject ought to feel, that whether he seek for raw ma- the integrity of the Ottoman empire. We are bound to this so terial in the gulfs and bays of the Arctic regions, or a market long as the Ottoman empire feels inclined to preserve its own in. for the produce of his manufacturing skill among tribes where law tegrity, and no longer. We are bound not to do any thing our. is in its feeble infancy, or settle himself for permanent toil as a selves calculated to break up that integrity. We are bound not to colonist on shores at the Antipodes, his country's eyes are upon allow any foreign state by external aggression to break up that him, and her power at hand to avenge the wrongs he may suffer, integrity. But we have no right to interfere, when, in consequence or punish those he may inflict. Our Colonies put a girdle round of the acts of the different populations constituting that empire, . its integrity is spontaneously dissolved from within. It is the in- the globe—we are all frontier. The members of our corporation are scattered through every clime. However busy at home, our herent ript of every independent state to regulate its own internal state must keep an incessant watch over external transactions ; a akin without foreign interference. It may elect and depose truth in which even more than the rest the Colonial portion of the dynasties; it may organize itself as a democracy, an oligarchy, or

empire has a deep and unintermitting interest. a monarchy ; it may resolve itself into several states, and reunite Questions of foreign policy of most urgent moment, illustrative itself into one : in all these transactions no fbreign state or nation of the truth of this position, must crowd upon the recollection of has any right to interfere, except when called upon by all parties every one. China, the Eastern Archipelago, Cabul, Egypt, the to act as arbiter. The European states have already sanctioned the North American frontier, Buenos Ayres, everywhere do we find the separation of the present kingdom of Greece from the Turkish security of our foreign traders perilled. We do not propose to empire : they have no right to prevent a further division of the Turkish empire, in consequence of which MEHEMET Au might reign neglect any of these questions, but circumstances have turned our

attention, in the first place, to Eqpt, as we there find our most at Cairo, and the Sultan at Constantinople ; provided that the divi- sion be accomplished by the operation of internal forces. They direct channel of communication with the most important of our dependencies threatened with interruption. Great efforts have who oppose this view, when they speak of maintaining the unity of been required to make our ponderous and slothful governing ma- the Ottoman empire, mean in reality, maintaining the subjection chine set about the improvement of the channels of communica- of that empire to the dynasty at present occupying the throne of tion between this country and British India. They are still im- Constantinople. They propose by interference from without to perfect, but, by means of our steam-packets in the Mediterranean perpetuate a dynasty, thus interfering with that power of self-orga- and those of the Company in the Red Sea, they arc in the way of nization, the cardinal and fundamental right of all independent amelioration. But the unsettled state of afihirs in Egypt threatens states—deprived of which they have only the name of indepen- to interrupt this line of intercourse ; and that at a time when the dent states. They uphold not national independence, but the questionable policy of the Indian Government in making, by the divine right of monarchs.

occupation of Cabul, British India and Russia conterminous cone- The question of fact, whether the position of MEHEMET AII is tries—when the immense amount of British property destroyed in . such as to justify our dealing with him as an independent sent- China, and the delicate questions thence arising—and when the veign—such as to force us so to deal with him—is of easy solution. aggressions of the Dutch upon our commerce in the Eastern The Government at Constantinople may issue what edicts it Archipelago—concur to render prompt and frequent intelligence pleases regarding the provinces occupied by :MEHEMET ALI and from the Oriental hemisphere of the utmost moment to our corn- his son, but it cannot enforce them. From Mount Taurus to

mercial wellbeing. Mecca and El Obeid, and from the Persian Gulf to the confines of

The Egyptian question is sufficiently complicated by a mul- Tripoli, MI:1mm Aer holds the land in defiance of the Ottoman tiplieity of clashing opinions and interests; yet not so much power. He holds it by his own power, by the acquiescence of so but that it might be unravelled and rendered susceptible of the inhabitants, and by the weakness of the Government at Constan- settlement by steady adherence to the great principles of inter- tinople. This has been the state of Atilt% for years, and nothing, national law. Egypt is the territory of a foreign state interposed indicates the possibility of its termination. The organization of between two sections of British territory. The most direct and his territories, defective though it be, is as just and more efficient eligible line of communication between these two sections lies than that which prevails in the provinces still dependent upon across this portion of foreign territory. The other lines—on both Constantinople. lie has framed a financial system, a system of in- sides—are so much more circuitous and dangerous as to render it tang police, an army—all uniting to form and keep together a of the utmost importance to us to secure a permanent right of road- state—an organized body of human beings occupying a territory— way (what in the civil law would be termed a servitude) across in other words, a nation, which the Ottoman Government neither the Egyptian territory. In the absence of treaties to the contrary, can subdue nor reincorporate into itself; without that foreign iuter- every independent nation has a right to exclude whom it pleases ference which would be a deathblow to national independence and from its soil. But where by treaty, or by long sufferance, (a quasi a violation of international law. Within the territories ruled by treaty,) the right of transit has been established, to put a stop to it MEHEMET ALI the Ottoman Government cannot help us; we must is an act of hostility. Before, however' proceeding to take transact business with the Prince who can. Upon this necessity of measures for punishing or terminating this hostility, the circum- dealing with MEHEMET ALI as an independent sovereign, is based stances in which it originates must be carefully scrutinized. If the our right of doing so.

Men.

MET Ara sovereign of the country, or merely the subordinate agent

furnishes the key to the solution of all the rest.

The question whether we ought to deal with INIEUEMET ALI as

EGYPT AND MEHEMET ALI: PRINCIPLES OF an independent sovereign,* like the question whether we ought to FOREIGN POLICY. deal with Texas as an independent state, is essentially an inquiry regarding facts. If the government at Constantinople can enforce nations to deal with the Paella of Egypt as an independent sovereign.

fair.

c

way has been stopped on account of circumstances over which the This point settled, the solutions of the other questions enume- authorities in the territory in question have no control, it cannot rated flow from it as so many corollaries. If Mr:Hustler ALI has i be regarded as a voluntary, or, consequently, as a hostile act. If established his independence, and we hesitate to acknowledge t, our previous conduct have given offence, this hostile act ought to he is entitled by a decree of non-intercourse, arresting our road

prompt us to make amends. through his territories, to give us an inducement to reacquire it. In contemplating, therefore, the possibility of a stoppage of the On his part this is a hostile act, (or a semi-hostile act, like the line of communication between British India and the central anomalous French blockades of the Mexican and Argentine coasts;) British authorities, we must inquire by whom this stoppage is but it is one of which we have no right to complain, seeing that

threatened? under what circumstances is this stoppage threatened ? *In other words, whether we ought to recognize his independence of the If our passage across the Egyptian peninsula be interrupted, it Sultan. We do not argue this question to the advantage of MEnEZIET ALi will be by the agency of MEHEMET Ara. Several questions occur : It may sometimes be necessary to recognize a party's independence against Does he stop it of his own will, or by the pressure of circumstances ? his will. A great feudatory, whose actions cannot be controlled by his over- does he stop it with or without a sufficient justification arising out lord, may allege his nominal dependence, in order to shift responsibility from his own shoulders. When the ostensible superior cannot keep his vassal a of our previous conduct to him? is he the person at whose hands order, other nations are entitled to regard the vassal as independent. we, by withholding his rights, have been the aggressors. Nay, his plea in justification is yet weightier than what we have here advanced. The provinces composing the Ottoman empire have been recognized by the: European Governments as an independent state. A civil war has been going on within this recognized state, which in all human probability must terminate in a division of the territory between the contending parties — the dynasts of Constantinople and Cairo. This is strictly a question of internal policy, in which the external governments hare no right to interfere. Yet, in defiance of this fundamental principle of international law, the combined fleets of the most powerful nations of Europe are now assembled off the coasts of Asia for the purpose of settling the internal arrangements of the Ottoman nation by foreign interference. Well does MEHEMET ALL and well do the tribes of Islam know, that no love of the Mahomedan population or its old rulers, but jealousy of each other, have prompted these powers to such a step. Well is it known that this jealousy renders their honest and efficient co- operation impossible. Relying upon the want of cordial feeling among the interfering powers, and relying upon that hatred of Christian domination which will rally the men of Islam sound the standard of the chief whom the imbecile Government of Constantinople seeks to crush by Clwistian armaments, MenEsiET

Am has hinted to Britain, that if hostility towards him be persisted in, ••

he can paralyze for a time an important branch of that trade which is the life-breath of her myriad subjects. He is justified in so doing by the inimical attitude we have assumed. Our means of averting the injury are palpable. Deal with Msnintrr Am as with an inde- pendent sovereign. Take our weight out of the scale where it threatens to weigh down his youthful empire. Remove all cause, all pretext for hostility on his part. Contribute by our mediation to hasten the tcrmination of that state df anarchy which must paralyze the governments both of Cairo and Constantinople, so long as their relative positions remain indefinite. Thus shall we, by promoting the establishment of a settled government, and that peace and indust7 which are its consequences, in the Syro-Egyptian terri- tories, insure a gainful traffic with them, and a permanent, peace- ful, and direct road through them to our Asiatic dependencies. Thus shall we put it in the power of the Constantinopolitan Govern- ment to make its provinces a compact and governable state—a vital organized nation, undisturbed and unweakened by vain attempts to reconquer territories which have thrown off their allegiance to it —a real power on the Russian frontier, the only barrier that can arrest the progress of that government. Thus shall we at once put an end to the jealousy daily growing up between France and England, from uncertainty regarding each other's views upon Egypt. Thus shall we give effect to another edict of the great European republic, lending corroboration to the principles—that a nation is an organized society occupying a definitely limited territory ; that the legislative and executive authority of this corporation within its own territory is supreme ; that governments are, in international transactions, merely the representatives or delegates of their respective people, and can be recognized as governments by foreign states only so long as they de fret° are able to maintain themselves at home. In the Egyptian question, these principles are now trembling in the balance ; and upon their sanction or denial depends whether international law is or is not to be gradu- ally rendered more clear and precise, and its sphere of action ex- tended from Europe over the world. According to the manner in which the Egyptian question is settled, will the world have the pros- pect of a long and satisfactory peace, or of an immediate succession of fruitless wars.

These. principles, it is true, convict Great Britain of bad policy in the Cahill atfhir; but to secure what we are indebted to by good law, we insist relinquish what is not our right. More of this on an early occasion.