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gether , and , we are inclined to believe , had any other member of the Government , in the House of Commons , desired to be more explicit , it would not have been in his power . We do not think that the real state of matters is known to the general body of the Cabinet—to the Puke of Argyll , or Lord Grahville , for instance . Lord Clarendon ' s last despatch does not appear to have bad an effect , in America , favourable to the pretensions of the British Cabinet . On the contrary , the unequivocal ' " ¥ " * " ¦ ^ ^ * m
contradiction of Mr . Ceampton ' s statement by Mr . Cass , Mr . Clayton , and Mr . Marcy , leaves little doubt which side of the question Jhas been supported , in good faith , by fair avowals , and which by unworthy and unaccountable prevarications . It is very easy , and may seem very successful , to argue that the whole difficulty has been created , for election purposes , by the President and his Ministers . If the sense of the American nation be so distinctly against the policy of the Cabinet at Washington as is affirmed by Lord Clarendon ' s advocates , what can Mr .
Pierce expect to gain at a Presidential election ? It is easy , also , to let the real question slip through a concatenation of impertinent epithets applied to "Pierce " and " Marcy ; " but the point is , whether the British Government has not endeavoured , from the beginning , to defend a false position ; whether Mr . Crampton ought not to have been recalled for his rash and unjustifiable conduct ; whether we have not incited the American recognition of General "Walker by our own relations with the agents of Costa Rica ?
We doubt whether the English public has considered the real meaning of a war with the United States . It means the cessation of British trade , to the amount of nearly 30 , 000 , 0002 . ; it means a third of our factories stopped;—what else it means we need not say ; we all know what is the condition of England when trade ceases , when the working classes are unemployed , and when the Ministers are incorrigible , as well as incapable .
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THE GREAT SECRET SOCIETY . THI 3 great conspiracy has two centres , distinct and independent , sometimes opposed , but often working in harmony . The one lias its seat at Paris , where projects and systems are devised ; the other at Vienna , the point of union for the affiliated associations of Italy and Germany . Geographically , the action of these societies may be traced apart , but their principles are the same , and they have recognized interests in common . It is pretended , when any public reference is made to the secret operations of this political league , that they tend O 7 ily to counteract the influence of other occult combinations : but
their real object is to assign the entire management of continental Europe to two or three governments , to neutralize , altogether , the policy of the secondary states , to constitute and preserve a vast uniformity of despotism . The rapid manifestations of this policy , since the closo of the Russian war , attract
Mttle notice in England . But they assume an alarming aspect when considered in connexion with the known designs of the French « nd Austrian Governments . Already , in spite of the patriotic ejaculations of Vilatn Quatorze , Louis Napoleon has forced on the Belgian Govcrnmont a scheme for abridging tho liberties of tho proas . An ominous reaction is visible in Sardinia , whom an active persecution in going on , not only * gamat the Liberal journals , but against tho freedom of religious ' thought . Tho member of a Catholic congregation has just Ixjen
condemned to six months' imprisonment for doubting the Immaculate Conception . The proposal of a Concordat in Tuscany , and of a Concordat in Naples , with the scheme , avowed by the Austrian official press , of a Concordat in Piedmont , spreads a gloom over Italy ; the Italians , so far from being animated with hope by the protocols of Paris , perceive that Walewski and Bttol were there the true representatives of European diplomacy . m - _ _
The Austrian plan is , of course , to revive the Holy Alliance in such a deceptive form that England may be drawn into its stipulations . The Treaty of April is the first step towards that result . It is invariably interpreted by the "Vienna press , not as establishing a particular point , but as the declaration of a European policy . It professes to guarantee the territories of the Ottoman Empire ,
upon a principle according to which the territories and authority of all governments ought to be guaranteed . Austria claims the quid pro quo . She unites with the other powers to serve their object ; they are morally , and by implication , bound to unite in serving hers . Thus Austria has gained , not a security , but an argument . But she has obtained another advantage . Her censored press is the medium of official falsifications . The
people of Lombardy and Venice , of Hungary and Transylvania , are taught to believe that Great Britain and France have guaranteed the German and non-German dominions of Austria . So that our Government is made the bugbear of nations aspiring to a separate political existence . Who , in the Axistrian Empire , can contradict the Austrian lie ? The three Powers , it is affirmed , are agreed nowhere and never to swerve from the Conservative policy enunciated , in the name of the Triad , by the April Treaty—and that
policy is in absolute antagonism to the policy of Sardinia . So clear is the Austrian view , indeed , that her recent negotiations with Prussia have had the aim of drawing Prussia into an ' alliance guaranteeing the German and non - German territories of Austria . In that direction the Emperor ' s diplomatists are not likely to succeed . Prussia , in the first place , has a traditional interest in refusing the guarantee , since , if the Austrian Empire , German and non-German , were placed under the protection of the public law of Germany , the non-German
territories might claim to be admitted to the Confederation—a policy which Prussia has always resisted . Moreover , the insecurity of Austria in her Italian , Hungarian , and Transylvanian dependencies is favourable to the German influence of Prussia . To this it may be added that , as we foresaw when the Cabinet of Berlin was least popular in this country , Lord Palmerston ' s Government , in spite of it 3 new Viennese relations , is reviving its intimacy with tho diplomatists of Prussia , and seeking to restore an influence which would always bo exerted against the consolidation of the Austrian authority iu
Italy . _ What , then , is tho position of Lord 1 axmiskbton ' s cabinet with respect to Italy ? By "the treaty of April the European authority of Austria is undoubtedly strengthened . At tho same time , the avowed policy of tho British Government is favourable to Italian progress . It seems to us that Lord Palmerafraid ot
stoit , afraid of tho revolution , Austria , jealous of Franco , desires to play the one agniust the other , and imagines that the col-1 union of tho three Powers would bo leas dangerous than the collusion of two . Tho policy of England , therefore , is at best negative ; and it may be easily understood , that while England acts aa the drag , and France and Austria pursue definite c-ouraes of their
own , the superiority lies -witti them . "We follow the trail , and watch , and perhaps interrupt , but Europe gains nothing from our intervention . We do nothing but repeat the hypocrisies of Trappau and Laybaobt . Meanwhile , the secret association of the French and Austrian Governments threatens to take the form of a conspiracy against all that remains of political liberty , of national independence , of religious toleration in Europe . This plot , among the most stupendous ever conceived , has the apparent
sanction of the British Cabinet , and it is the more menacing because it pretends to be based on the principles of peace , conciliation , and humanity . Suppose the military powers agreed to establish arbitration as the method of settling the disputes of Governments , what is the effect ? Nothing as - regards the military Governments themselves , since they , the parties to the contract , may dissolve it at any moment . But , as regards the lesser states , it amounts to a confiscation of their political rights . Under these circumstances , what becomes of the national existence of Sardinia , of her Italian nucleus , of her army ? Her independent action is prohibited . And
this is the result of the war that was to set free and civilize . France and Austria undertake to manage the Old World ; England accepts an ambiguous share in the business ; Russia and Prussia are invited to join . A suspicious facility of concession has been exhibited by the Belgian and Sardinian Governments . The Trench Imperial Terror , we may infer , has extorted from Belgium the flattery of surrender . But why has the scourge been restored to the Jesuits of Turin ? Why is the code of Cabaffa resorted to by the religious reformers of Piedmont to enforce respect to the amazing farce enacted last year at the Vatican ?
What we witness now , as the sequence of the Russian war , is th # consolidation of despotism in Europe . Two vast parties divide the Old World—the populations and the Governments—which are more completely at enmity on every social and political ground than formerly . We , in England , believing all the time that we are the champions of the oppressed , blink at the future , and subside into repose , because gold and pearl fire , red and green lustres , and a milky way of light in the London basin saluted the Peace of Paris under our watery May moon .
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THE SERVICES OJF THE ARMY . Fresh from the blazes and spendour of last week , it would ill become the British peoplo to forget their army . Services have been rendered and they should not fade into the misty obscurity of votes of thanltB , or be lost in the effulgence of variegated fire . TheTreaty of Paris was preceded by tho deeds and endurance of tho soldiers of tho British army ; that tho treaty was not more hurtful to Russia and beneficial to Europe , that it did not consecrate in oorao way tho principle oi
constitutional and national freedom , is not the fault of our soldiers . They fought and died on the bleak plateaux of the Crimea , and in the trenches before Sobastopol ; they were prepared to carry their colours to Nicholaieft or to Warsaw ; they were aa ready to do tbeir duty in tho spring of 185 G aa in the autumn of 1854 .. Tho disabled should hold a high place in tho hearts of our memories , and the living should stand in tho van of our affection and solicitude . _ .
, . It i » , indeed , time to recal the deeds that have been accomplished in two short yeara by tho British army . They havo done much , but they havo suiFered more . It was not Lheir fault that at the outset of tho war they were only a ' ¦ ' band of brave men . " It w »<«
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), June 7, 1856, page 539, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2144/page/11/
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