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fXce the act , and pWPPH !^^^ M 1 SS Liberal Mii ^ Sl ^^ feg ^ against " Popish itousaife ^^ JpPWjPWg ; the progress of whole ^ i fe ^ pto ^ i- WM ^^ I , Catholics , they have br ^ ttej ^ cedr if ^ l they have committed the P ( # ^ . iM ^ : sectarian persecution . The p * fcle or England ^ see what other achievements tfceir Ministers have in store for the national honour .
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EXPLANATION OF PALMERSTONISM . In the eventful year which Europe is approaching it is most desirable that the English Peopte should understand the position of its own Government towards foreign Peoples , which most assuredly is not always- the « a « r tbat People would desire . We will confess also a wish , that certain of the readers of this journal should understand our position in one particular branch of politics . Few persons can be unaware that we are not by any means the only denouncer of Lord Palmerston , as » F . -reign Minister who systematically perverts the influence of this country . Mr . Urquhart , the Member for Stafford , has long been engaged in the exposure of the Foreign Secretary , and he made out a very strong case ; but he has had an ill success , which we ascribe to two very serious faults in his mode of treating the difficulties inherent in the subject . We have made our readers , in brief , familiar with the peculiar traits of Lord Palmerston ' s career—his liberal professions , his ^ eal for freedom and English influence , contrasted with the results of his activity—the failure of freedom and the decline of British influence ; the strangeness of this uniform inversion of result being magnified by his retaining , nevertheless , all the aspect of success . Thus has it fallen outriafter his activities in the case of the North Eastern boundary , of Sicily , Greece , Rome , Turkey , Spain , LaniS bardy , Schleswig-Holstein , Naples , Hungary , &c . Yet all the while he is one of the cleverest of his
craft , and is evidently a man succeeding 3 That Lord Palmerston ' s conduct was calculated to defeat the professed object of his activity in each case where we have followed Mr . Urquhart ' s exposition , appeared to us to be made out as clearly in the many ways which we have watched for ourselves . But in affairs where secresy is maintained , the case must unavoidably rest upon circumstantial evidence ; and it always appeared to us that Mr . Urquhart
neglected to recapitulate such evidence with sufficient breadth to make it appreciable to the public mind . His other mistake was yet graver : to believe that an English gentleman , so little betraying the signs of an uneasy conscience , could be a traitor to his country and the agent of a foreign enemy , was a supposition not only extravagant , but wanting verisimilitude . To prevent all mistake of our view , let us say we do not believe any such thing , and never did .
But a key is given to the whole mystery when we note what is likely to be Lord Palmerston ' s position in the diplomatic craft . Likely to be , we say , because you must bear in mind that it is a secret craft , and that whatever may be known of it in general , particulars are only known retrospectively . In the reign of Victoria , we have ireitooirs revealing the intrigues of a Walp ~ ole , the activities of a Harris ; in the reign of King Albert , our children will probably devour the secret memoirs of a Nesselrode and a Palmerston . The Diplomatic profession is in some respects different from any other . It dea ' s almost entirely with Governments rather than Peoples : hence it is official rather thnn national . It deals with irit
arnritional , more than national affairs ; hence it is withdrawn in a great degree from national feeling . Its members are the servants , not only of Cabinets , but of Courts ; hence not entirely the servants of either ; although , collectively , diplomatic men may bo said to incline to the interests of the royal classes . But by the influences of esprit de corps , of self-interest ; , and of habitual training , diplomatic men are moat of all hound to maintain one very important interent in Kurope—that is , Diplomacy itself . It is natural that they should be impressed with the value of the nervices which Diplomacy can perform for tho great of the globe , with its power , with the importance of its modes and routines , with the
power and merits of its able professors . The kor . rvMy of the corps helps to enhance all its peculiar traitH . Diplomacy thus forms a sort of masonry or Ruild , vvitd interests apart from tho interests of nations , courts , and kings ; and mostly , like all « x-« nu « ivti interests , hostile to the interests of Peoples , t is ascribing no dishonesty to any professor if wo
better * that &&foti& as each may lie io Bis " rQfA SWR ** ! " ? " ^^ I * - rtStoiwt ne « pi (^ y ^ C ^ nwntaining intact the one ^ i ^ s ^ lit be ^ ibid ^ ft we world without exclusion of O ftifrj ayfoiijiMn ' jjcJIl , - 'Diplomatist the paramount ffijfl ^ jj J ' ffi jfafrfri ^ fTi ' unimpaired the super-royal , ^ per ^^ wpdil power , Diplomacy . In this duty the humblest may and do help ; and aanuing sjtories might be told of the naive zeal which all ' show , from the newest recruit to the oldest veteran , in that first of duties . It is laughable to watch the eagerness in raking up court gossip or
political tittle-tattle ; and then , when something has been collected , boarding it up in secresy , lest it should spoil by exposure ; and at last working it up in a despatch , and sending it home as " exclusive intelligence . " It rivals the penny-a-lining for the daily journals . By the help of honourable penny-a-liners resident at foreign courts , your skilful Minister is often able to daunt some troublesome Member , who states facts to extort information , but is ** inaccurate "—he mistakes a name , a date , or a place ; and in its omniscience , Diplomacy strikes him with shame before the edified representatives of the
People . But there is a further source of power . Within the circle of this guild there is an Inner Circle , accessible only to the highest , and to a certain extent self-elected . Any Court or Cabinet , it is true , may appoint a gentleman to the highest diplomatic offices ; but admission to the Inner Circle depends upon the guild itself , or rather upon the Inner Circle itself . It does not at all follow that , because
a man is appointed by his Sovereign to be Foreign Minister , or Ambassador , or Envoy , that he is , therefore , admitted to that Inner Circle . Probably an Aberdeen or a Normanby would be too simple or indiscreet for such initiation . Specific knowledge of this Inner Circle is necessarily very imperfect indeed ; its members are not ostensibly
distinguished from others—they do not put P . G . M . to their names ; the rules of their body are not known , perhaps are not recorded . One indirect means which such a body has to obtain the appointment of its own members to ambassadorships and bureaux is the comparative success which any one belonging to the body can command through the rest .
In order to render their power more efficient , and to extend their influence at home , there is reason to suppose that the members of the Inner Circle are allowed very great licence in their outward demeanour . As Jesuits were permitted to acquire familiarity with the worldly , so a master in Diplomacy may mix with Liberals , and behave as if he were of them ; and yet , so far from losing the confidence of his fellows in the Inner Circle , he only acquires more trust and esteem . There is reason to believe that his fellows in that Circle will
even help him by feigned contests and " protests "; so that the public shall suppose one man to be going to dangerous lengths in resisting a Nesselrode here or a Schwarzenberg there , and yet the drama shall be only part of the whole plan for effecting that which has been already arranged by the Inner Circle , and which ultimately comes to
pass . Nations may have their ambitions ; Courts may issue their mandates ; Cabinets may have their policy , give instructions to their Envoys ; diplomatists will negotiate , will remonstrate , will write angry despatches ; Peoples will rebel ; Ministers in " Liberal" countries will sympathize with Liberal movements , will lend countenance or aid ; fleets will move and armies march ; the race will not always be to the swift , nor the battle to the strong ; but in the end , the catastrophe will be such as falls in with the views and interests of the Inner Circle
of Diplomacy ; each member of that Circle may be ostensibly thwarted as a conqueror , shamed as an Absolutist , battled as a Constitutionalist—but each will have HUcceeded in his corporate capacity as a member of the occult fellowship . It is not Russia that has been paramount , it i « not Austria , atill less England : it is the Inner Circle . The geologist traces the lines of the strata which crop out here and there , and in the intervals dip far beneath the
ground . The astronomer calculates the orbits of the heavenly bodies from the portions that come within the scope of Iuh glass . Many facts to which we have alluded are before the world . The public has seen one of the ablest diplomatists that ever lived repeatedly defeated in Ins ostensible egterpri . seH ; it huH seen him uniformly wearing the air of habitual success ; it has ween British sympathies consulted and gratified by the apparent countenance given to Italy ,
unaccountably withdrawn ; it has seen " British influence" unaccountably destroyed in the very operations that professed to uphold it ; it has seen , after " Austria /* " Russia , " " Prussia , " and " England , were all but at war , the Diplomatists of those countries seeking each other ' s cooperation in unbroken . faith and amity ; public opinion has been much mystified by all these visions and harlequinades , and has often rushed to the conclusion that there was " treachery" somewherethat the Great Bear of the North had bought up the services of Ministers in other countries , and
so forth . But all is explained , without" treachery *' or wonderment , if you concede that our hypothesis of Diplomacy , its extra-national position , its technical methods , and its Inner Cirole , is an approximate description of the paramount power in Europe . One remark . Absolutism reposes great and natural trust in the Diplomatic guild , and benefits greatly by the secresy preserved to that privileged corps . Liberalism and the veritable nations can derive but little benefit from a corps thus constituted , and none whatever from the secresy . The acquiescence in secresy is the great privilege which repays to Diplomacy the licence accorded to its members in playing a Liberal part among a Liberal
nation . The game is not over yet . Kings and Kaisers have been meeting at Dresden , at Warsaw , at Ischl ; next month the Emperor of Austria will be at Verona receiving Italian Princes ; Croat and Hungarian soldiers hold possession of Lombardy ; Italian conscripts " coll' acquila in fronte , " maintain Austrian supremacy in Bohemia ; Russia has an army to lend for the control of Hungary ; Prussia has rejoined the " Holy Alliance "; the Pope has his priests in France upholding the
powers that be , and France is propping up the Pope in Rome—the crippled idol of the Seven Hills ; English soldiers are kept safe at home , and it is only Lord Palmerston ' s protests that overrun trie plains of Lombardy and Hungary with harmless victories . Different climes , different races , different courts , different interests—all sacrificed to the few families called " Royal . " Unity of result in such diversity of circumstance implies unity of cause ; and there is throughout all this seeming confusion , one agent—secret in its ways , few in its numbers , manageable to Princes , most of all
manageable to itself ; that one agent is Diplomacy ; with its initiated representative quite at home in each country , from autocratic Russia to liberal England . Are we to wonder , then , if we should find in the arrangements to be made at Verona only the sequel to those already made throughout Europe , for the rehabilitation of effete families , bankrupt Governments , and detested despotisms—for the maintenance of the power which is viceroy over the royalty of Europe—the guild which lives on the delusion of senates , the extinction of patriots , and the oppression of Peoples ?
That craft is now busy in reestablishing throughout Europe the very principles which Charles the First attempted to sustain in England , and which our forefathers destroyed when they cut off his head ; " the most Liberal Minister " of our Cabinet is P . G . M . in that masonry ; and the Liberals of England , the desjjadants of Hampden and Elliot , are maintaining t ^ V Minister at his post 1
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CENTRAL CO-OPERATIVE AGENCY . Tmc immense advance of Association within the last few years consists , we should say , in the perception of its being a question for the present aa well as the future . We are all aware that a right understanding of the principle received a great impulse in the French revolution of 1848 , whqn it obtained the recognition of the State ; but we are not less conscious that it hau made a still more extensive and remarkable progress within the last year . It ia now a matter of daily discussion ; many newspapers , both in London and the country , are receiving it into gradual favour , converts are daily coining in , the number of Associations is multiplying . The reason of this progress we take to be that the public has had its attention fastened more upon the principle than upon particular plans ; by that means it is perceived that the principle is capable of immediate application , without waiting for a general change of society ; that it can be applied , indeed is applied , in a variety of ways ; and the more we understand it , the more we discover how the principle itself alights mean * for its immediate and easy application . St . Simon required tho authority and mudiinery of the State ; Fourier required u great accumulation of capital , and an elaborato machinery for the deveiopenaent of
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 30, 1851, page 821, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1898/page/9/
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