THE FOURTH ALTERNATIVE.
"WHAT is to be hoped, what to be done?" So asks an able writer on foreign politics in the Daily News; who, like most of his fellows in the London journals, is just now somewhat put off a level consideration by the excitement incidental to the Mont- pensier marriage. What is to be done, ask those who protest against the match ; as if it were necessary, or even possible, to do something on all occasions. It does not appear to us that at any stage of the business England could have done much. There has been no infraction of treaty ; and as long as the Spanish Sove- reign was willing to concur with the French Sovereign in the arrangement, England's position seems to have been one of mere helplessness. The marriage may be "the most untoward event that could have happened to Constitutional Europe," but England bad no legal instrument by which to prevent it. But the Daily News sticks to its question; repeating the words used by Lord Bolingbroke on a similar occasion— "What remained to be done? In the whole nature of things there remained but three. To abandon all care of the Spanish succession was one. To corn- md with France on this succession was another. And to prepare, like her, g the interval of peace, to make an advantageous war whenever the Sore- nip of Spain should die, was a third."
There is now, says our contemporary, no greater choice of alternatives ; and he proceeds to discuss them seriatim. The first—to abandon all care of the Spanish succession [in other words, to do nothing]—is too great a concession of power over the commerce of the Peninsula, and even of the Mediterranean ; it is an abandonment of markets impossible for England. The second alternative—compromise—is no longer possible : Lord Aberdeen lost the opportunity ; and, moreover, there are no longer the Indies and Low Countries—" a wide empire to carve." There remains then the third alternatiVe—to prepare for war : and here,
Iwould suppose, the Daily News must repose its restless soul ; baying arrived at it by the exhaustive process of testing all other alternatives. Oh, no : "this, perhaps," says he, "is the most impossible of all." " Heaven avert such calamities ! " The English, too, "are a people the most averse to war—to propose, or even to think of it." That is the very thing upon which Louis Philippe counted.
Such is the frightful position to which we are reduced : some- thing must be done, and there is nothing to do. So impossible a conflict of duties is enough to turn the brain ; and in very despe- ration we hasten to suggest a fourth alternative.
. It is clear we cannot prevent Louis Philippe's family aggran- dizement; he manages it so cunningly, so doucely. It is true that Spain has no vast dependencies to "carve," nor France either. But there is the wide world. What is the difficulty which we en- counter in our march of territorial aggrandizement, but the jealousy of France ? What could we not effect with her aid and concurrence? There is, then, the fourth alternative of heartily going along with Louie Philippe ; anticipating his wishes, fur-
thering all his projects, throwing in more even than his hopes; and only requiring him to give us what will cost him, poor maul absolutely nothing. Let us require of him nothing but this—mutually free trade between all French and English possessions, mutually free re- sidence for English and French subjects in the territories of either power, French countenance for British possession of all that France does not want : surely all of them modest and easy re- quirements. Those stipulations secured, let us be liberal, and help the aged Monarch, like the old king of a fairy tale, to endow all his sous. It can be done with a stroke of the pen.
Give him, for Joinville and his Brazilian bride, Mexico' Cen- tral America, and all down to Brazil ; so securing a solid South, ern boundary to the United States—that huge moving bog in political geography ; and endowing Brazil, for the first time, with a quiet frontier. Give him, for the Duo de Montpensier, even Spain, Madeira, and the Balearic Isles ; allowing to Don. Francisco and his wife comfortable subsistence. Give him, for Aumale, Algeria, with Morocco and Egypt. Give him' for Nemours, after he shall have performed his dutiesof Regent, the reversion of Italy on the death of Pius the Ninth. His daughter is already settled in Belgium. Perhaps, if he has an eye on the future for the Comte d'Eu, some German kingdom might be available; or otherwise Turkey would require nothing but that the little boy should follow the example of Colonel Selves ; we getting the trade of the Black Sea unmolested, Russia a respect- able neighbour, the Slavonian provinces of Central Europe a friend, Circassia a protector. Madagascar or Polynesia—per- haps Madame Adelaide might have a fancy for either, or both? Would any other relation of his that Japan or Loo Choo?
When France and England should have divided the world, hereafter, they might settle ulterior eventualities between ; having by that time learned better how to do so. We should have nct fear for the result. At all events, the lull would outlast our time: we should be taking a loan of peace from posterity.
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