The Press. — London, England, 1858-11-06 00:00:00

h i mse lf. After having, in his Life of Fox, described BURKE'S policy of a crusade against the Revolutionary Government of France, Lord jos goes on to say :"Happily BURKE'S ..advice was disregarded. Mr. PITT took a totally "different view of the nature and objects of the war. "lie was ready to admit that we had nothing "to do with the internal government of France, "provided its rulers were disposed and able to "maintain friendly relations with foreign Govern " ments. He sought to confine France within "her ancient limits, to oblige her to respect established treaties, and to renounce her con "quests. He sought by expeditions to the West ladies an indemnity for the expense of the " w ar. In short, he treated ROBESPIERRE and "CAR-NOT as he would have treated any other "French rulers, whose ambition was to be "resisted, and whose interference in the affairs "of other nations was to be checked and "prevented." Does not one blush for one's specie; when contemplating such a commentary by the Noble Lord, in his character of an historian, on the calumnies and misrepresentations in which he had indulged with regard to the conduct of his Tory opponents, in his meaner character of a party politician P The war, as we all know, was brought to a triumphant conclusion by the Tory Cabinet of Lord LIVERPOOL. The victories of WELLINGTON threw round the last stages of the conflict—a conflict of unexampled magnitude—a halo of un exampled glory ' • and surely that nature is not to be envied, which, in the glories of the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, equalled only by those of Salamanca, Vittoria, and Waterloo, could find nothing better to chronicle in such heartstirring events, but the enlargement of our debt, and the increase of our taxation. Such views are sordid; ill-befitting a public man who has held, and is still aspiring to hold, the highest post in the councils of his Sovereign. More especially are they ill-befitting one who is too apt to arrogate exclusively to himself, and to his party, the attributes of enlightenment and generosity; but strange, if these virtues can be justly claimed, that thy should lead, in its pos sessors, to making it a matter of complaint against the Tories, that they would not, whilst in power, sacrifice to fiscal gain British honour and British independence. With a candour, highly to be praised, the reviewer remarks that " the first and second over "throw of NAPOLEON threw a lustre over the " Cabinet of Lord LIVERPOOL and over Lord " CAsTLEREAort, as Foreign Secretary ; while "the same events cast a certain discredit upon "the Whigs, who had from the beginning con demned the policy of the war in Spain." There are two other points in the article to which we will briefly advert. The reviewer quotes a passage from Lord SIDNIOUTII'S life, by which it appears that Mr. Fox had determined to respect the King's conscientious scruples on the Roman Catholic question. For, that when he was asked it he had no difficulty respecting that question, his answer was, " None at all ; I am de termined not to annoy my Sovereign by "briniing it forward." It appears, then, that Mr. ox took precisely the same course which Mr. CANNLNG adopted on this question—for which the latter was assailed in PETER PLlntrx's letters—and has since his death been condemned by Whig writers. Whether it was a right or whether it was a wrong one, no Whig can cen sure Mr. CANNING without their great Whig idol, Mr. Fox, coming in for his share of the censure. The other point to which we would refer occurs in .. a note in pa g e 311, w h ere L or d MALNIESBURY'S di ary is quoted, as follows :—" In Novembe.i " (1806) Lord GRENVILLE made several attempts "to disunite Prrr's friends. He offered splen didly to CANNING and to any three or four "friends he would name. Lord WELLESLEY was "the intermediary, and negotiated ably ; but " CANNLNG remained steady, and from principle." 0n this ext rac t t h e rev i ewer remar k s :—" Th er e "Is no trace of this offer in the GRENVILLE c.or " respondence or i n L or d HOLLAND'S memoirs. It can scarcely have gone the length which LOrd MALMESBURY describes." The inference of the reviewer is erroneous. We hare seen docu ments, which are now in existence, which prove beyond the possibility of doubt that this offer was not only made, but, when refused, was again p .b re . s i sed, and when re f use d aga i n , pre s sed for a time. THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 6, 1858. OLD FALLACIES NEWLY FURBISHED. IT is singular that in a country in which, as is admitted, platform speaking and newspaper writing have more scope and freedom than in any other community in the world, liberty —or, may we not say licence—utterly fails to produce any new thing. Surely the meetings, the recep tions, and the dinners of Birmingham have given ample room, opportunity, and encouragement for discoveries, and, as the advertisers of new mantles and bonnets phrase it, for the novelties of the season. Yet nothing has been presented to us by the Apostles of Ultra-Radicalism but the old fallacies which were current, we are afraid to say how many years ago, with a face of just so much freshness as can be bestowed by a lacquer ing brush in the hands of a bold, skilful, and un scrupulous artist. The people of England, through the medium of Birmingham, were last week told that war was the invention and pursuit of the Aristocracy, who contrived to make of war and its results a gigantic system of out-door relief for their Order. Of this character, they were assured, were all those wars, from the time of WiLmAm of ORANGE to that of Queen VICTORIA, which by some pro cess that we fail to comprehend enabled the terri torial families of England to live as drones in the hive of industry, and to grow fat upon the honey created by the strength and substance of the People. _ _ Such, the people have been told, have been the results of the foreign policy of Great Britain—a policy induced by that lust of territorial aggrandizement which is the exclusive and pecu liar result of aristocratic and monarchical institu tions. Colonies and Dependencies. the People have been further assured, are a delusion and a snare ; and England would be greater, richer, and more powerful—have more commerce, more ships, and more influence—if somebody else, France, Austria, Russia, or America, were pos sessed of India, Canada, the West Indies, and our possessions in the Mediterranean. To this last crazy proposition we need hardly, we presume, seriously address ourselves. No body, however ignorant, can believe that the English Race would have held the position in the world which they now enjoy had their do minion been restricted to the two compara tively insignificant islands which constitute Great Britain and Ireland. Let us pass, then, to the other allegations which have been advanced. Mr. BRIGHT'S theory is, that the lust of territory, which pro duces law-suits between individuals and war be tween nations, is the prodt.ct, not of the inherent qualities of human nature, but of particular In stitutions. The passion is the child, says Mr. BRIGHT, of monarchical and aristocratic systems. Republican organization would neutralize the germ and stifle it in embryo. Surely Mr. BRIGHT must have got his historical instruction—know ledge he has not arrived at—from compendiums and PINNoCK'S Catechisms. Ile condemns WILLIAM 111. and FREDERICK the GREAT, and he lauds the Republic of America. We can understand that Mr. BRIGHT may not have gathered in his surface-reading enough of know ledge to enable him to comprehend that the wars which he holds up to reprobation assured to England and to Europe that liberty of con science and that freedom from Papal despotism which enables Mr. BRIGHT to profess his peculiar opinions and wear his distinc tive coat in peace, and to promulgate on the benches of the House of Commons as well as upon the platforms of Birmingham those ideas and theories which so few comparatively share with him ; but we can scarcely realize ourselves that Mr. Biumir can imagine that the People of Birmingham and the People of England have observed the History of the last fifty years with so trifling attention, and know it with so little accuracy, as not to be aware that in no instances in the world has lust of territory been exhibited with such force 1077 and indulged with such unscrupulonettees as in the case of the Republics of France and of America. Mr. BRIGHT does not hold, as the phrase goes, by Pagan History, so he tells us, other wise we would venture to remind him that, with one or two exceptions at the utmost, the great Conquerors who inundated the world with their legions like a torrent were all equally the chil dren of Political Systems, in which the impulses of the People had a direct, momentary, and sen sible influence upon policy. The singular thing, however, in Mr. BRIGHT is, less his ignorance of history, than his re markable aptitude for contradicting himself. He tells his audience in one breath that wars are the work of an aristocracy in search of plunder, and in the next he assures them that the chief apos tles of peace have been Sir ROBERT WALPOLF, CHARLES JAMES Fox, Earl GREY, and Earl ABER DEEN. Why, what, let us ask, is the origin of those men whom he holds up r,s having withstood the lust of territory and buried the hatchet of war? Did the cotton trade produce and aggrandize them, or did Manchester or Birmingham give them place in the Legislature and in the Execu tive of England ? And are they men whom Mr. BRIGHT can fairly refer to as instancing the virtue of his theory that the least educated and the least experienced make the best and safest managers of national difficulties. But is it necessary to follow Mr. BRIGHT through all his fallacious assertions and com parisons ? Is it necessary to point out that, while in one part of his speech he represents the people as being sweated to starvation point to maintain monarchical institutions, in another he avows that "agriculture never was in a more pro " sperous condition ; that commerce was never " so widely extended ; and that the labourers are " better off at this moment than they have been " at any period since the great French War." We may surely now leave the fallacies and mis representations of Mr. BnronT to the process of annihilation which they . will, slowly possibly, but certainly, undergo, in passing through the grinding of the strong common sense of Eng land's people ; and we will content ourselves with quoting, in conclusion, the opinion of a man of far greater acquirements, and far greater profundity of view. The Count DE MONTALEMBERT, in his " Avenir Politique de I'Angleterre," after speaking of the abandonment with which the great and the noble of England have lavished their blood in defence of her free dom, says—" But the Aristocracy of England does not content itself with the glorious privi " lege of being first in the ranks of those who " give their life under the flag of their country. " It understands well that there are other battles " to be fought and won among those old and new " interests called into action by the changes of " industrial phenomena and by the onward march "of civilization. The Aristocracy of England " shows itself imbued with an intelligent solici " tude with regard to all new questions, sincerely " devoted to the moral and material interests of " the working classes, deeply sensible of the " wants of the poor, and actively occupied in " providing for them. And when one sees " the most considerable members of the Peerage, " men like Lord GREY, Lord CARLISLE, " Lord SHAFTESBURY, Lord STANLEY, Lord GODERICH, and others too numerous to men " sion, devoting not only their purses but their " personal efforts to the establishment and main " tenance of schools and institutes, and giving " their time and their knowledge to the instruc " tion of their poorer fellow-subjects; and when " we find them constantly the most prominent " in Parliament, in discussions upon the social " progress of the people ; and we see these people, " even in the manufacturing districts and in the " strongholds of Radicalism, exhibiting the " strongest sense of the sympathy shown them, "we cannot avoid feeling the highest confi " dente in the future of a Nation which redeems " its vices by so many brilliant virtues and strug " files against its infirmities with such an intelli " gent courage." For our own part, we will content ourselves with saying, in conclusion, we have no desire to divest ourselves of a Constitution► which through a trial of centuries has withstood suc cessfully the attacks of every Despotism that has assailed it, whatever its character, whether Religious, Monarchical, or Democratic