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February 33, 1856.] TH^;LEAD|^ 179
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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS, No notice can...
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SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 23, 1856.
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There is notMng so revolutionary, becaus...
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Transcript
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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February 33, 1856.] Th^;Lead|^ 179
February 33 , 1856 . ] TH ^; LEAD |^ 179
Notices To Correspondents, No Notice Can...
NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS , No notice can be taken of anonymous ' communications . Whatever is intended lor insertion must be authenticated liy t . lic name and address of the writer ; not necessarily fur publication but as a guarantee of his good faith . It is impossible to acknowledge the mass of letters we receive . Th-ir insertion is often delayed , owtng to a press of matter ; aud when omitted , it ia frequently from , reasons quite independent of the merits of the communication . "We cannot undertake to return rejected communications . Our Title 1 ' age and Index for Vol . VI , 1855 , will be given next week During tha Sessi n of parliament ifc is often impossible to find room ( or correspondence , even the briefest .
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Saturday, February 23, 1856.
SATURDAY , FEBRUARY 23 , 1856 .
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There Is Notmng So Revolutionary, Becaus...
There is notMng so revolutionary , because tiere ia lxothing so unnatural and cpXLVTOlsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the world is by the very iawof its creation in . eternal progress . —rDa . Arnold . THE PAST AND FUTURE : OF THE FRENCH ALLIANCE . The dangers and embarrassments of Great Britain only commence Avitli the Conferences or Congress of Paris . Tlie crisis of maladministration is insignificant , compared with the crisis of policy . So long as trie war lasted , in spite of the outcry against tKe sacrifice of our army , the misconduct of operations , the incapacity of commanders , and all the disastrous consequences inevitable from a system offavouritism , privilege , and intrigue , the public feeling , a compound of blindness and sympathy , of ignorance and pugnacity , was excited by passing events , and judged only of immediate results . The short-comings of tlie governing class were fitfully remembered and forgotten arnid the tumult of the , siege , and the successive hazards before Sebastopol . The nation pondered over the maps with all the wonder of a child just initiated into geography , read tlie correspondence from the Crimea with a bewilderment of indignation , relied on the might of England , was absorbed by the news , and never dreamed that while the Departments improved their administrative methods , the policy of England might iuvolve more ruin than all the blunders of all the subordinate offices during a century . The public Avould listen to no political tloiibts . When the soldiers were fed and clothed ,- —whom Mr . Russell was satisfied , — when the English in the Crimea returned the hay they had borrowed from the French , all went rnerry ; and the capture of the southern , side of Scbastopoi eaiue to brighten complacency into joy . A large and various class were more directly concerned in the fortune mid fate of sons , and brothers in the Hold . The political epicureans , with eyes half closed , looked on in supercilious apathy . The enthusiasts and malcontents , inure restless aud dissatisfied than their fellow citizens , and scarcely less ignorant , held their breath , -like gamblers , in tlie wild hope that a revolutionary apocalypse would burst upon Confusion . It was nothing to them that Courts and Cabinets , dreading revolutionary principles far mure than Russian armies , sedulousl y rest mi nod , ihu war within j ) olitioal ami diplomatic lUni . Lt . Tlii ' y urgvd with frantic fatuity tlui prosecution of the struggle : they gave , thuir strength to thisir enciink * , and jeered at tho timidity of less delirious politicians . "Who but tho duspemdo > i . ' . s of 1 , 1 iu Revolution cuuld hope that when the old monarchic );* of Europu wore divided by dilFerenous «> f policy , they would call in the arbitration of an expectant democracy ? This was enthusiasm ; but selfishness was also
in play . Whig intriguers , Disraelite lampooners , reviving the high-bred amenities of the Satirist , and husky Chartist spouters , produced a discord of execration against the Earl of Aberdeen , because that cold but honest and sagacious statesman sacrificed power and reputation to his conscience , and laboured to save
England from being dragged at the chariot wheels of the French Emperor . It was not , and is not , a reproach to him that he hesitated to identify the policy of his Cabinet with , that of a man , who , after treading under foot law and right , and the institutions he had sworn to protect , after nameless and numberless infamies , came forward as the hero of a crusade in favour of
the public law of Europe , and the civilisation of the West . Lord Aberdeen knew that Great Britain Avas not prepared for war , that to take the field immediately would be to expose her resources to an ignominious contrast with those of France , to throw a band of brave men , and not an organised army , upon the enemy ' s shore . Our readers will bear us witness that at
the risk of whatever popularity or convenience might attach to fellowship with the common delusion , the Leader ' , from tlie first , abstained from joining in the liowl which drove Lord Aberdeen from office . We say now , as we have said before , that the day may come when the reasonable public opinion of this country will repent of its rash aspersions and more rash confidences , and will appreciate the motives of a statesman who feared to tmst the honour of
England to the keeping of the December Usurpation . Above all , the nation may regret having rushed into tlie arms of a gidd y and cynical statesman , who sealed his complicity with that astounding crime before the bjood was dry on the Botdevards . Lord Palmerston himself may wish th & t act undone , when he feels that he is a subordinate in his own Cabinet , and that his description of the French and British nations , as " having one Government with two Executives" was not exagge ration but Irony .
This war was , from the first , an act of French Imperial policy , and that policy alone has it subserved . We do not say that Russian ambition was not a danger and a menace to Europe ; we say that no honest or far-seeing English statesman would have hastened to embark this country in a war by the side of a government to which till the heart and intelligence of France are in natural and ineradicable
opposition . The time had come and passedin 18-LO—the time must inevitably have come again , for a struggle between the principles that England represents , siud the principles represented by Russia—it may be between the power and policy of Englaud , and tho power and policy of Russia . But that opportunity was not supplied when Louis Napoleon sec his foot on the nock of the French nation . "When
legality had been trampled out in lmince in blood and terror , it -was not a time to propose an armed , alliance in the name- of tho public law of Christendom . Tho Russian Emperor , under a false interpretation of treaties , had , in tho face of the world , violated a frontier , Tlie French Emperor , in the darkness of the night , had ¦ violated oaths , laws , political and personal rights , human life , in the acooinplishnuml ; of u ilugitious ambition . N ever was a moment more inopportune , more hmuspieious for that alliance , which all intelligent men in both countries had dosirod sinci : 1702 to which
. , llut Republic of 1848 hud aueriiioed its existence , and which we pray may endure- as long as the nations . But when Frunce hud sullcrcd that unH [ K'iiUublo injury , "was it tlu « best way to yvouro her friendship , by exulting in the success ol thy man who had reduced her , as far us a civilised nation can be reduced , to degradation V
Out of this unnatural complicity hassspruno- an alliance of convenience , not an alliance of ° the nations , of reason , or of mutual esteem ; and lik-e other unions of like alloy , it may result in indifference , recrimination , and contempt . . Our populace , high-bred and low-bred , is in the habit of saying , with an air of overpowexing confidence : — " We could not have refused the French alliance . " Is not the phrase an . admission of the worst doubts and ambiguities ? An ominous fallacy lurks in the word alliance ! A French Alliance does not mean
a compact with an Emperor and a populace , but a concord of policy established between nations , of reasoning men . We say that thei'e is no reasoning Frenchman , who is-at the same time honest , who does not abhor the regime of the Coup d'Etat , and suffer remorse for any act that may have facilitated its success . But there was no need to lose the alliance of France , even of Imperial \ F * anee . England might have recognised , officially , her existing government ; it is a sound principle
to acknowledge every de facto Government that arises in that classic land of transformations . But , from a formal recognition , a friendly , and even cordial understanding , a perfect disposition to act with good will and good faith , to an ostentatious and sentimental , connexion of Courts and Cabinets—r-an hereditary monarchy , supposed at least to be enshrined in the hearts of a loyal people , embracing with ecstaey a Phenomenon of successful perjury and violence— -from that to this was more- than
t . he one step that costs so * much . After t 3 ie Second of December , England , true to herself , her principles , her liberties , held Europe in the palm of her hand . All the reigning dynasties were distrustful . of . the ' French . Empire ; scarcely pne was yet free from the menace of the Revolution . G-xeat Britain might then have commanded the policy of Imperial France . But our Government has , from first to last , played into tlie hands of the French Emperor ; in peace as in war , we have been content to act a secondary and subservient part . After setting up the idol , we fell down to adore it . We created
opportunities , invented successes for him , and then , in servile amazement , crouched before bis fortunes and his genius . The successive operations of the wax have been so conducted , as to give all the e ' clat , all the prestige , all "the aspect of power to France , and now , peace is to be concluded at a signal from our ally , in his capital , on his conditions , precisely at the moment when his harvest of glory is gathered in , and ours lies waiting for the s ^ ra . It is known , that , for some time , confidential letters have passed between the Imperial Cabinet at Paris and the Court of St .
Petersburg . The most courteous , nay , the most obliging dispositions have been professed : to repeat a memorable form of words , "Now that France is « atisned , Europe is content . " These letters , the tenor of which is known , not at Vienna and Berlin only , but at Hanover , and throughout the circle of petty German princes , are probably less ambiguous than the recent communications between the French and British Cabinets .
Disinterested men in Paris regard with something like dismuy tlie turn winch the reaction in favour ol' peace is taking in that capital . He-conciliation with Russia , is assuming vaguely the slmpi ! of u Russian alliance . Is the establish invuI , of am identical policy between two grunt absolutisms to be one result of the Coniurcnoy y To tin .- ) probability , unhappily , other and more complex inlluonces tond , wliieli force us to acknowledge how widely and variously our aristocratic and exclusive system nlli-cLs our national character in tho sight of continental Europe . That u poculiur wympalhy oxista between Russian and
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Feb. 23, 1856, page 11, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_23021856/page/11/
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