The Press. — London, England, 1855-03-17 00:00:00

MARCH 17, 1855. If we can place confidence in the authen ticity of the papers published in the " Port folio," Austria and France were both anxious to engage England in a negotiation for the restoration of the kingdom of Poland. We know that Louis Philippe, at the meeting of the French Chambers, declared "the nation " ality of Poland shall not perish." But, with out trusting to any source of information in the slightest degree doubtful, we have Lord Palmerston's own declarations of the view he took of this last desperate struggle of Poland for independent existence. It was Poland, he contended, which firstresorted to hostilities However the question of the right or the wrong of Russia in her violation of the Polish Constitution may be decided, the first act of war proceeded from the Poles, and not from Russia. They who think 'he Poles were r ight, will, of course, consider that they only made a justifiable resistance. It is not necessary for me to give au opinion upon that point at present.—(H. of C., August 7, 1832.) Yet while the struggle was in progress he evaded all demands for information, and " begged the house to excuse him from en " tenng into any explanation of the conduct pursued by the Government in these transac " tons. The Government of this country " was not blind to the rights conferred upon " us by the treaty of Vienna." Unfortunately the Polish aristocracy never understood their true interests. They kept their serfs in a state of wretched bondage, and among this part of the population of Poland the Russians found rather allies than enemies. The policy of the Emperor Nicholas was more enlightened and humane, and, whatever blots may rest upon his name, to him must be accorded the praise of paving the way for the complete em ancipation of the Russian peasantry. When the contest was over, and " order reigned in " Warsaw," Lord Palmerston defended the in action of England by stating— that it would not have been judicious for the British Government to have taken a step which must have led to a general war, in the hope and expectation of rescuing Poland from destruction. He had previously declared that the treaty of Vienna gave England an undoubted right to interfere in the affairs of Poland, and on the 9th of July, 1833, he said The contracting parties [to the treaty of Vienna] had a right to require that the Constitution of Poland should not be touched. This is an opinion which 1 had not concealed from the Russian Government The Russian Government, however, took a different view of the question. Further, he informed the house that — no vote of that house would have the slightest effect in reversing the decision of Russia. When the subject was again discussed, on the 26th of March, 1834, he said : The mere fact of this country being a party to the treaty of Vienna was not synonymous with our guaranteeing that there would be no infraction of that treaty by Russia. A statement which reminds us of the answer of the Milanese to the Emperor Barbarossa : " If you have had our oath, recollect that we never swore to keep it." Poland having fallen, the free town of Cracow shortly shared the same fate. In 1836 a mo tion was made in the House of Commons for an address to the Crown for the protection of the commercial interests of Great Britain in Turkey and the Euxine, and also to send a diplomatic agent to Cracow. Lord Palmerston informed the house that this motion was quite unnecessary as the Government had " already " determined to send a consular agent to Cra " cow." He added : Her Majesty's Government has no desire or disposo n ition ot to submit to agreuion from any po wer. .. I d stand here to expound o r ex p lain the intentions of Russia. . . . It is enough for us to look at facts, and deal with ev ents that have actually taken place.—(H. of C., 10th Feb. 1836, and 20th April.) 'The promised agent was never sent. Her Majesty's Governm ent did submit to aggres sions they had declared their intention o f re sisting. On the 22nd of March, 1837, Lord Dudley Stuart oalled upon Lord Palmerston for an explanation why a consular agent had . not b een . sent to Cracow, according to the promise given by the Government a l ast year. Lord Palmers. ton, with that good-humoured bluster " which he occasionally displays in the House of Commons, coolly replied: — He had altered his intention, and had not sent a consul or it was o no at present his intention to agent to Crasow, and do so. THE PRESS. These passages disclose Lord Palmerston's tactics. While events are pending, all expla nation is resisted, but hopes are kept alive by promises intended not to be redeemed ; such as : Between Austria and the British Government the ques tion of the evacuation of Cracow remained vulva yutotion of inae.—(-1. of C., July 13, 180.) And as : He had too high an opinion of the sense of justice and of right that emit animate the Governments of Austria, of Prussia, and of Russia, to believe that they can feel any disposition or intention to deal with Cracow otherwise than Cracow is entitled by treaty engagements to be dealt with. . . . On the part of the British Government, everything should be done to insure a due respect being paid to the provisions of the treaty of Vienna.—(H. of C., 27th August, 1848.) The Parliament which was dismissed with these fine sentiments and specious promises had the mortification to hear, from the lips of her Majesty, when it assembled in January 1847, that the independence of Cracow was at an end ! We must do the Liberal party the justice to state, that, though they have never seriously resented Lord Palmerston's desertion of the " oppressed nationalities" they professed to have so much at heart, they have sometimes expressed their sentiments to him with great frankness. Mr. Hume once said : If the Emperor of Russia had an agent of his own in the British Cabinet, he could not do his work better than it is done by the noble lord. And Mr. Gaily Knight, in 1840, neatly epi tomised Lord Palmerston's policy : There is something curiously inconsistent in the pro ceedings of the noble lord when Russia is concerned. . . . . On the subject of Poland the noble lord has disappointed us again and again. Remember when he was pressed to exert himself in favour of Poland, then he ad- mitted the justice of the cause—the justice of our com plaints; but he said, " only restrain yourselves at present, there is an ambassador fast setting out, of known liberal sentiments. You may be sure we will do all that is right. You will only embarrass his negotiations if you incense the power with whom he has to deal. So take my advice, be quiet at present, and be assured that a great deal will be effected." We trusted to those assurances—the liberal ambassador went—whe..her he ever approached the subject or not was never known. All we gut were the fine words of the noble lord. but no results. These angry expressions have, however, little impaired Lord Palmerston's popularity with his party. He understands the science of " bottle-holding" in dealing with the House of Commons still better than in his communi cations with foreign powers. The passages we have quoted from the noble viscount's speeches are not given for the first time. They were spoken in Parliament —they are printed in Hansard—they are open to the world. It is from an examination of his con duct and opinions alone that we can form a just opinion of his character, and estimate his fitness for conducting the Government of England at the present time. It is not our part to depreciate his talents or qualities. We have done little more than select materials for estimating them fairly. He would not have won his present position or attained that consideration which is con ceded to him on the Continent without some of the higher qualities of statesmanship. He has been active, though not regular, in his administration of the Foreign-office, and from the time when he once commenced a ne gotiation he seems ever to have carried it on with scrupulous good faith. His meddling has often been denounced as mischievous, and his counsels rejected as impertinent ; he may have left some poor devils of insurrectionists, who not unnaturally looked to him for aid, in the lurch ; but no Court of Europe can accuse him of deceit in the progress of negotiation. In general estimation lie has been successful in his career, and the public have a vague feeling of confidence in his " star." We respect the divinity of Fortune, but can hardly esteem the noble viscount one of her special favourites. As we have intimated , ein he has usually shown his prudence by g strong upon the stronger side. He aided in the separation of Belgium from Holland ; ho secured the triumph of the cause he espoused both in Spain and Portugal ; and he directed the sword of England with signal effect against Mehemet Ali, and on that occasion satisfactorily settled the Eastern question which for many months previously had kept Europe in alarm. But against these successes we have to set the fatal 263 mistake of the invasion of Affghanistan ending in the most deplorable disaster which ever befel our arms in India. His notions of the right of one State to give " friendly counsel " to another have exposed him to sonic rude rebuffs. His ambassador was indignantly sent from Spain, and even his contemptible quarrel with Greece was ,made more con temptible by the miscarriage of his design. One of his greatest blunders was his refusal to mediate between Austria and insurgent Lombardy. This was one of those golden opportunities which rarely occur in a states man s life, and properly employed might have established a prosperous kingdom iu North Italy. He is now, in the decline of his powers, engaged in a far mightier enterprise than has ever tasked them yet. The small expedients and diplomatic tricks by which ho has been accustomed to evade difficulties will not serve him now, and it is with a feeling almost of pity that we see him engaged in a contest with difficulties which he lacks even physical strength to fairly contend with. Mr. Wilke's pamphlet, from which we have borrowed seine extracts, is written with great spirit. We do not share his political opinions, but it is impossible to resist the force of his facts. The contrast between Lord Palmers ton's speeches in the house and his addresses to his constituents is amusingly illustrated by his description of Cracow, to one as " a miser " able little Government," and to the other as " a lamp of freedom in the midst of despotism.' One of the closing passages of this tract is a good example of the author's sarcastic eloquence : The English statesman who is all intellect, nerve, and heart, in the popular conception, is the dupe of every knavish diplomatist that has an end to serve in duping him —is always too late when helpless right is to be defended against lawless might—always in a perilous hurry when some trumpery squabble is to be settled. The Protestant standard-bearer assists to carry back to the chair of tem poral dominion the runaway Pope. The vigilant and in vincible guardian of English honour submits with equani mity to rebuffs from big Austria and little Naples—and advises the Turk not to assert the sacredness of his terri tory against stronger neighbours. The experience of twenty years of nearly uninterrupted power, and forty of unreserved opportunity for observation, has not furnished a solitary niaiiin of statesmanship or a single example of administrative vigour. The " juvenile Whig " is still the epithet that expresses the jaunty freshness of the poli tician of seventy. No one can argue from the put of Pal merston what will be his Mitre, or devise a ease in which his course of action would be clear. This only could be predicated of his home politics—that difference of opinion will be no bar to participation of office ; and this only of his foreign policy—that while a great power has nothing to fear from his enmity, a little one has everything to dread from his favour. On Loans Raised by Mr. Pitt During the First French War. By. Wm. Newmarch. London: Effingham Wilson. IN this pamphlet Mr. Newmarch has collected the particulars of all loans raised by Mr. Pitt during the years 1703 1801. It is conclusively shown by the figures given that by borrowing in the Three per Cent. Stock, Mr. Pitt raised money at a cheaper rate than lie could have done by any other means, and thus far the statement assumes the shape of a de fence of Mr. Pitt's financial policy, though it is con tended that his sinking-fund was from first to last a great mistake. On the advantage of the Three per Cents. it is observed that: — Any new kind of stock attempted to be introduced with SUCCVBB must be marketable at all times, and to any extent. It must be of a nature which everybody understands —it must be free from new conditions—and it millet be also free from future contingencies in the estimation of which hardly two persons will agree. Now, it is the fact that for the last hundred years the Three per Cent. Consols have been the kind of Lund which, beyond all others, has fulfilled these conditions of eligibility in the must pre-eminent degree. On the financial capability of the great Minister it is observed : In a more eminent degree, perhaps, than Many Minister of finance for the last hundred years, there was ned in Mr. l'itt a clear appreciation of g e neral principles combi tem pered by a still clearer appreciation of the modifications and corrections of which they stand in need when converted into rules of practice. A perusal of this pamphlet is quite sufficient to show that Mr. Pitt's financial capacity can be depreciated only by an essentially narrow and self-sufficient mind. Great research, practical knowledge, lucid views, and ratiocinative ability of the very highest order are evinced by Mr. Newmarch in this valuable financial treatise. tlf 1 I i