BOOKS.
THIRTY YEARS 07 FOREIGN POLICY.
THE writer of this book had not in his previous work left us with any strong impression of his vigour of Mind, large views, or even literary skill. In the political and literary biogrs phy of Benjamin Disraeli, he expanded the matter of a good party pamphlet into a ponderous octavo volume, and weakened by simple force of tedious- ness what might have been a decisive exposure of an arch-impostor. The subordination of detail to general effect is the most important lesson that a literary artist, no less than a painter or sculptor, has to learn. In the present work a similar fault is manifested in a different manner. The detail is at once too great and too little,— too great for an inquiry into the principles of our foreign policy for the last thirty years, too little for a diplomatic history of the period : the work consequently is neither history nor political philosophy ; it neither furnishes facts sufficient to enable a reader to reason out conclusions, nor states reasoned conclusions of its own; and so it assumes that least interesting or useful form which historical investigation can assume, a rechauffe of newspaper summaries and House of Commons speeches. To those already ac- quainted with the details:of our recent foreign policy it may serve as a reminder and_ resume; to others it can be of little use or in- terest, because it requires a knowledge they do not possess to ani- mate and clothe its skeletons of events with flesh and blood; and it does not even furnish what all such resumes are bound to supply, copious and accurate references to authorities. Moreover, the writer, by maintaining the anonymous, divests his opinions of any interest that might belong to them as his, or as representative of any particular class or party ; while no peculiar charms of style or originality of thought, or even extent of knowledge, lend them an interest apart from the matter to which they refer or the person to whom they belong.
He has, besides, chosen a point of view for which his mode and scale of treatment are quite inadequate. There are two modes in
which a history of the foreign policy of this country during any well-defined period may be satisfactorily treated. The one is to disregard altogether the personal views and characters of the agents of that policy ; to consider only the resulting acts as the acts of the nation, and to weigh their effects upon the progress of the world and of the country from which they emanate. That would be scientific history ; and, if written by an impartial person of sufficiently enlarged views and possessed of the requisite know- ledge, it would have profound interest, and contain most important practical lessons. The other plan would be to exhibit the conflict of personal and party interests, the influence of individual cha- racter and opinions, upon the course of diploinatic intercourse ; a plan which, if not so preenant with instruction as the other, would compensate by its piquant traits, its dramatic life, its revelation of motives, in a vast accession of amusing biographical matter. The present writer has adopted neither plan. He professes to view foreign policy from the English Foreign Office. But, not to say that he thereby deprives himself of all the advantage of a non- official position—and fully allowing the interest that attaches to a vindication of the Foreign department of the Cabinet—how is it possible that he or any one else but the Foreign Secretary for the time being, and in a less degree his colleagues, ea attain the point of view of the Foreign Office ? He can indeeciretail and condense the official vindications of their own policy tkIlvered from time to time in Parliament by the Foreign Ministers; he can study blue- books, and gather together the political gossip of the coteries. But the English public does not need to be informed that these are, if our best, at any rate very fallible indications of the real motives which actuate Foreign Secretaries ; and that long years must in most cases elapse before the intricacies and mysteries of even the most important diplomatic arrangements are partially cleared up and revealed. We are beginning now, just when the treaty of Vienna is passing away and a new arrangement of Europe seems immi- nent, fully to understand the motives and conduct of the principal parties to that precious negotiation. So it will be with the great events which mark the crises of our foreign policy since 1815. When all the actors are off the stage—when death has dropped the curtain, and players, prompters, and excited spectators, are all playing quite other parts on the further shore of Styx—we or our children shall know the story of the foreign policy of England during the forty-years peace. The writer of this book has therefore anticipated the time for the proper performance of his task. He has no means for attaining the point of view from which he pro- fesses to judge ; and the result answers to the condition. We have, as we said, nothing in this book but a rechauffe of newspaper sum- maries and Hansard. Indeed, a mere reprint of the famous de- bate in Tune 1850 on Lord Palmerston's foreign policy would furnish more exhaustive treatment of the subject than the writer's resume and, to our taste, be far more interesting reading. Certainly, inly an author has a right to select his own subject and manner of treatment; and when he clearly announces that his object is to narrate the foreign policy of the last thirty years from the Downing Street point of view, we have no right to charge it upon him as a fault or a failure that he has not done something quite different. But we contend that the Downing Street point of view, so far as it is at present attainable by a writer not in the confidence of the Foreign Minister, is better exhibited in Hansard than in • Thirty Years of Foreign Policy. A History of the Secretaryships of the Earl of Aberdeen and Viscount Palmerston. By the Author of " The Right Honourable IL Disraeli, M.P., a Literary and Political Biography." Published by Longman ander,.
this book ; and that such a choice, when the scientific point of view was open, stamps the character of the writer's mind unmistakeably as commonplace, " unidea'd," mid of the Parliamentary reporter order. And this is our charge against the book, not so much that the writer fails in his purpose, as that his purpose is one which no man of great oapaeity or of large views could by any possi- bility have limited himself to, except for some special political end.
Perhaps the writer has a political end. Re takes for his text that remarkable declaration of Lord Aberdeen on the formation of the Coalition Government, " The truth is, my Lords, that though there may have been difference in the execution according to the different hands intrusted with the direction of affairs, the principles of the foreign policy of the country have for the last thirty years been the same." What Lord Aberdeen meant by this conciliatory remark is to be judged by the circumstances under whioh it was delivered ; and it plainly had no more extension than those cir- cumstances. He meant, that no such irreconcilable differences in their views of the relations of England to foreign countries ex- isted between himself and Lord Palmerston as to render their union in one Government impossible except by a compromise dis- graceful to one or both of them. If the writer of this volume thought a declaration made under such circumstances worthy of detailed proof—if, in his regard for the character of the Coalition Government, he could not let the speech pass for what it was meant, as a token that bygones were bygones, and that an im- portant political crisis demanded sacrifices of individual opinions and temperament—he was at least bound to go to the bottom of the matter, and to show what really have been the principles as opposed to the practice, the policy as opposed to the execution of the policy, illustrated during the tenure of the Foreign Office by Lord Aber- deen and Lord Palmerston respectively. But he has done no- thing of the sort. So far, indeed, is he from interpreting and developing Lord Aberdeen's distinction, that he obliterates it; and, by his showing, not only the policy and principles but the practice and temper of the two Secretaries have been the same, identical, continuous, and unchanged, from 1828, when Lord A,berdeen became the Duke of Wellington's Foreign Minister, to 1851, when Lord John Russell bundled Lord Palmerston out in a suicidal fit of panic and offended self-importance, to judge from the public speeches which professed to explain that remarkable Whig manceuvre. Now this is a case in which both Lord Aberdeen and Lord Palmerston would, we think, exclaim," Save me from my friends!" because, in fact, the maintenance of the theory, while ostensibly and sincerely urged in defence of their present union, fixes upon much of their previous conduct a brand of faction and insincerity, which, though good ground there may be for the charge against all our public men, would be in this case particularly marked and conspicuous. So that even as a party pamphlet, intended to vindicate a fait accompli, the book fails; and it is a striking proof of the author's incompetence to grasp a principle, or to find his way to an inductive generalization, that, with Lord Aberdeen's sentence before him, he has nowhere attempted to state what the principles of that thirty-years foreign policy which he narrates have been. Possibly such a statement would not be easy ; possibly neither Lord Aberdeen nor Lord Palmerston could mould their leading principles into any statement that went beyond vague generalities and at the same time kept strictly to truth. At least, no such statement was attempted by the latter in the debate upon his policy, if we leave out the fatuous cant of the "civis Romanies," so admirably exposed by Mr. Gladstone on that occasion. Butif there are not well-defined principles of English foreign policy,—if we have had only expedients for each case as it arose, one law for strong nations and another for weak—one law when retrenchment and peace were the order of the day, another when the honour of England and the interests of humanity were the fashion,—it would be equally the business of a writer dealing with a chaotic mass of events to discuss the causal principle of the chaos. But no feeling for such philosophic treatment is manifested by this writer ; a dreamy, hazy generality, that obscures alike fact and principle, reduces men and events to the same shadowy, ghost-like unreality, marks the character of his mind, and deprives his book of interest and vitality. He has missed even the obvious and essential point of the personal character, intellect, and tempera- ment, of the two men whose policy he describes in detail. Much of the difference between the conduct of the Foreign Office when Lord Palmerston held it and when Lord Aberdeen held it is at- tributable solely to these personal peculiarities. Palmerston, for the last twenty-four years, has appeared before the world in the character of a clever, alert, good-humoured man, to whom the exercise of his faculties in written discussion has become a neces- sary excitement. He pines when debarred from the arena in which he can display his adroitness, his courage, his readiness of resource, his glibness of sarcasm and arrogance of admonition, his suavity of demeanour, and cool self-possession. But his malice is akin to that of the prize-fighter—he plants his most telling blows with a smile of good-humoured satisfaction, that thinks much more of the cleverness and skill he is displaying, of the healthy exercise he is giving his intellectual and moral muscles, than of the pain he inflicts upon his adversary. Imperturbably easy in his own' mind, and debating matters in which his own country has but a sympathetic and indirect interest, he wonders at the petulance and touchiness of the foreign statesmen who wince under his well-aimed sarcasms and plain-spoken reproofs ; for- getting that deserved reproof is not that which is most easily borne, that advice perfectly good in itself may defeat its own ob- ject- when offered where it is not asked for, that all interference
with independent nations is impertinence, and that what to him is simple matter for intellectual activity or moral sympathy is often • . . . to the other party fri the discussion a matter of very existence. We do not pretend to paint historical portraits, but these traits are obvious from the merest public knowledge of Lord Palmeraton's career. It would not be too much to say that Lord Aberdeen is the exact opposite of all this. He is a taciturn man of business, who.looks to the importance of the thing to be done, not to the . pleasure or vanity of doing ft ; who is positively averse to ora-
torical display, and has no taste for controversy ; a man of no bril- liance, of no enthusiasm natural or factitious, but distinguished for seriousness, sobriety, caution, sincerity, a sense of duty, and of the important practical interests which every word of an English Fo- reign Minister can deeply affect. Add to this, extensive acquaint- ance 'with the leading European statesmen of the early portion of this century, and we have a combination of qualities as well marked as those of his eminent rival, but of a quite different order. And their personal characteristics have strongly impressed themselves upon the policy of each. Had the author of the book we are re- viewing only taken in this personal element, so absolutely essen- tial to his own selected point of view, he might have usefully amplified Lord Aberdeen s text. Had he furthermore shown the' connexion of foreign policy with the plan of our domestic policy, he would perhaps have tolerably exhausted all that the present Prime Minister 'had in his mind when he spoke of difference of execution. But, having omitted the more important part of his task, the statement of the essential and permanent principles of English foreign policy since Lord Castlereagh found himself com- pelled to break loose from the Holy Alliance, he has of course not felt the importance of noting any differences; and Lord Aberdeen's sentiment becomes, through his interpretation, a barren truism, or rather, when compared with facts, an absolute falsehood.
As a stock of old matter compendiously and chronologically ar- ranged, this book might furnish ample scope for reflection to a quarterly reviewer; and to the contemporary annalist it supplies reminiscences of particular interest as bearing upon events now in progress. Here is One that ought to bring a blush to the cheek of some of our noisy declaimers against Lord Aberdeen's "Russian tendencies." The writer has been speaking of the "untoward event" of Navarino.
"But the English Opposition thought very differently. They were in- dignant that the Duke of Wellington should have considered the affair of Navarino as untoward ; they were indignant that Turkey should have been called an ancient ally ; Sultan Mahmoud was classed in their declamations with the tyrants of the Continent, and they bitterly reproached the Ministers for declaring that it was necessary to maintain'the Turkish empire. At the meeting of Parliament in 1828, Lord Holland, who always spoke with much dogmatism on foreign affairs, could scarcely find words to express his horror at any expression of sympathy for the Ottoman empire, and enthusiastically defended the battle of Navarino. The Liberal Members of the House of Commons went quite as far as the Whig Peers in their detestation of Turkey, and in their want of sympathy for her wrongs. Mr. Brougham declared that the battle of Navarino was a glorious, a brilliant, a decisive, an im- mortal achievement; and even Lord John Russell thought it as honest a victory as had ever been gained from the beginning of the world. "The success of Russia in the campaign of 1829 did not in the slightest degree alarm the illustrious politicians of the Opposition, nor induce them to soften their hatred to Turkey. The more it became necessary to put a stop to the progress of Russia, the more the Whigs condemned Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Wellington for endeavouring to save the Ottoman empire. The Ministers were far from pleased at the consequences of the policy which they inherited. The Duke said that it was Canning who had settled the basis of our interference with Greece; but when he or his colleagues ven- tured at any time to doubt of its wisdom, Lord Holland accused them of not sympathizing with Liberal opinions, and of wishing to see the triumph of despotism.
" At the beginning of the session of 1830, when the feebleness of Turkey and the ambition of Russia had been so plainly demonstrated, even Lord Holland, had he deserved the title of a statesman, might have been expected to see whose game he was playing. The people had taken the alarm as soon as the news arrived that the line of the Balkan had been forced, and that a Russian army was marching on Adrianople. Rumours of strange import had also been spread abroad. It was whispered that a secret compact hied been, concluded between the King of France and the Emperor of Russia, by which the Bourbons were to extend their dominions to the Rhine, and Nicholas to occupy Constantinople. "It was at such a momentous crisis that our legislators assembled for the Parliamentary season. Even then the eyes of Lord Holland and the Whigs were not opened. This nobleman attacked Lord Aberdeen, not for destroying but for saving Turkey ; not for persuading the Sultan to agree to the treaty of Adrianople, but for not permitting the Czar to take all the Turkish em- pire. 'As a citizen of the world,' saidfLord Holland, 'I am sorry that the Russians have not taken Constantinople.' The Duke of Wellington ex- pressed himself strongly on the importance and the duty of upholding Turkey ; and Lord Aberdeen reminded Lord Holland that Mr. Fox had also been of the same opinion. The Whigs were angry with the Foreign Secre- tary for asserting that their favourite leader ever thought of opposing the designs of Russia or of supporting Turkey. Lord Holland in the House of Lords, and Lord John Russell in the House of Commons, both pointedly denied that Mr. Fox ever held such a notion.
"When such were the ideas of the principal statesmen of the Opposition, it is too much now for writers to turn round and blame Lord Aberdeen for having been the friend of the Czar. The Russians had almost reached the suburbs of Constantinople ; the Turks had neither a fleet nor an army to oppose to the hosts of Nicholas; their strongest fortresses were occupied by Russian garrisons • the Ottoman empire was on the verge of ruin ; instead of wondering that Turkey lost so much by the treaty of Adrianople, we may be thankful that she did not lose her all. The past must not be judged by the present. We are now unanimous on the justice of the war against Russia, and in favour of Turkey. But had Lord Aberdeen and the Duke of Wel- lington declared war in 1829 in defence of Turkey' they would have been strongly opposed by a more formidable section of Liberal politicians than ever resisted Pittwhen he commenced hostilities against the French Re- publican& Yet, with. publio opinion but partially in their favour, the Ministers courageously contemplated hostilities. It is indisputable that the Administration of the Duke of Wellington never would have permitted the Russian battalions to enter Constantinople; that they had come to an agree-
ment with Austria to oppose the advance of the Czar ; and that they had ordered the English Admiral, if all means of pacification failed, to seize the Russian fleet in the Mediterranean. This they did in the face of the Oppo- sition. This they did when religious fanaticism, popular prejudices, and Liberal enthusiasm, were all against the cause of the Sultan. It is therefore not without reason that Lord Aberdeen lately put in his claim to have written and done as much in opposition to Russia as any English statesman."
We entirely coincide with the writer in the following opinion as to the real effect which the efforts of the Peace party have had in producing the war with Russia in which we are now engaged. "The future historian will some day have to record what an important part the Peace Society has played on the breaking out of the great war for the security of Europe. The Emperor of Russia trusted to the orations of the fanatical votaries of peace in 1853, as he formerly trusted to the speeches of the Opposition when he dictated the treaty of Adrianople. Experience, the surest of guides in political affairs, bad taught him that in 1829 the Duke ef Wellington and Lord Aberdeen, with their eyes open to the consequences of the unfortunate treaty, had been obliged to acquiesce in it ; and that even Sir Robert Gordon, the brother of the English Foreign Secretary, had ad- vised the Sultan to accept those hard conditions of peace rather than con- tinue a ruinous war. How could the Northern Autocrat expect that the re- sult would have been different in the present day ? Were not some of the members of the Peace &MeV as influential politicians as the noble lords and honourable gentlemen who scouted the idea of defending Turkey twenty. six years ego? Had they not spoken the sense of their countrymen in the great national struggle against monopoly so that even the great and power- ful Government of Sir Robert Peel had been unable to offer a successful re- sistance to the popular agitators ? Were not the blessings of peace as ob- vious to the multitude as those of cheap bread ? Could it be anticipated that Mr. Cobden, so omnipotent in his advocacy of one cause, would be so powerless in another ? Were not the principal Governments of the Conti- nent as friendly to Russia in 1853 as in 1829? In 1829, there was the able Minister of Austria prepared to offer a determined opposition to the attack on Turkey, and the Austrian empire was then powerful and independent : but in 18o3, with Austria almost a dependency of Russia, and her politicians bitterly hostile to England, the greatest obstacle to the subjugation of the Sultan was removed. And what was there to fear from the rest of Europe ? what chance was there of any successful combination against Russia ? Prus- sia was at this time, as in 1829, the ally and friend of the Czar. A Napo- leon had just ascended the throne of France ; the just apprehensions of Eng- land had been excited ; the English newspapers were almost unanimously reprobating in the most unmeasured terms the new ruler of France, and even Cabinet Ministers on the hustings had given free utterance to the same sen- timents. What probability was there that an alliance between France and England, which for twenty years had prevented the hollow truce between Russia and Turkey from being ostensibly disturbed, could again be cemented under a Napoleon ? The English Ministers would doubtless protest against another invasion of Turkey ; but did not Lord Aberdeen himself vigorously protest against the treaty of Adrianople without war having followed ? "This parallel between the state of Europe in 1829, and that at the mo- ment when Prince Menschikoff went on his celebrated mission to Constan- tinople, which heralded the present war, may show that there was nothing so wild and imprudent in the recent attempt on the Ottoman empire as has been represented. Appearances were decidedly in favour of Russia. The moment was well chosen. None who fairly consider the circumstances of the two epochs of 1829 and 1853 will venture to affirm that there was much probability of a great European war in defence of Turkey, after so many years of peace and so much passive submission to Russian aggression. This was not the act of a mad Emperor ; there was much method in such madness. "The Peace Society must be blamed for the present war, as the Whigs and not Lord Aberdeen must be blamed for the treaty of Adrianople. Had the Opposition of that day been as conscious as the Ministers of the danger attending Russian aggression—had the people been then as unanimous for war as they were for preserving peace—had the Liberals been as enthusi- astic for the Turks as they were for the Greeks—the Government might have cordially joined with Austria and have defied the Russian power. But to menace war while resolved at all hezards to maintain peace, to provoke danger and then to sneak out of it, would have been utterly unworthy of any English Ministry, and especially of an Administration in which the Duke of Wellington was Prime Miuinter. The degree of ignorance which has prevailed on the negotiations of 1829, and on all the circumstances re- lating to the Eastern question, is really astonishing. Eminent politicians in the House of Commons, who have been regarded as authorities on foreign policy, have spoken of Lord Aberdeen as the maker of the very treaty against which he protested. The Minister who has been accused of being in league with the Emperor of Russia was, in fact, far beyond his age when in 1829 he saw the imperative necessity of resisting all encroachment upon Turkey."
If we might offer a word of advice to the writer of this volume, it would be to limit himself to pamphlets of moderate length en the topics of the day. He may succeed where sensible views, moderate knowledge, and a fluent facility of language, directed to the elucidation of particular points, or the support of particular measures, are alone required. For the higher sphere of the his- torian or political philosopher, he has not, as yet at least, displayed a single qualification.
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