The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-08-06 00:00:00

THE SENTIMENTS OF MINORITIES IN
TIMES OF WAR.
,From the Pall Mall Gaz,Ve )

Those among mankind who take ass Interest iu political
events at any great <Tilde may be divi.:e.i into two Chimlies—
such as embrace without hesitation the prevailing seatirnent
of the time, and such as diverge into varieties of sentiment
of their own, whether arising from sagacity or prejodice,
fancies or crotchets. Thin is especially the case in countries
like ours, where freedom, not only of action but of thought,
is carried turther than to coniumnities governed under other
political systems, whether more or less democratic. Not
only are the minority (at least for a considerable time) not
silenced by the majority, but they are if anything rather
niece dem ustrative than their opponents, more ek;er to be
heard, and more anxious to put forward their reasons, as if
deprecating au unanimity which they cannot but apprehend.
Similar manifestations of diversity of opinion in England
have almost always attended the course of great Euroyean
ware of what may be termed modern times, although hog.
land until lately was always a party to them. It was very
hard work for the grandsons of the cavaliers to tame down
their old royalism Into hearty sympathy with the arises of
the usurping William in his struggle against France. Even
when that struggle was continued by no good a Church and
State woman as Anne, there was many a partisan of the Pre.
tender whose feelings were sorely distracted between patriot-
ism and foreign allegiance. When Chatham, with Prose's
on his side, made war on Europe, there was for mice no mi-
nority in the British public at all. For the first and only
time England stood arrayed in that quarrel in hearty uu
mity. But the American war was commenced, at all
events, against the vehement protests of a mimmity
strong in numbers anti stronger hi reasoning, of which many
members no doubt really desired the success of the insur-
gents, sinking their real for English ser-amertion in still
stronger seal for the cause which they esteemed the right.
And although as the war continued the feelings of the com-
munity in general warmed to the coutlic', the voice of
opposition waa never wholly extinguished. Finally, in the
great struggle against the France of the Revolution and of
the First Empire, although the national spirit was roused
more and more as it raged on through two-thirds of • gene-
ration, yet even to the end there remained a sturdy though
diminishing section of our people, whege sympathies were
, with France, who held that the war was an unrighteous one,
waged in truth against liberty with a Napoleon for its
champion. And to the survivors of that section the short-
sighted obstinacy of their antagonists gave by-and-by a final
• triumph, and the Reform Act served as a revenge for
Waterloo.

Up to this time we are witnesses only, and not actors, in
the continent d war now commence I ; but the attitude of
the &Binh public, at all events as represented by the press,
affords as fair an illustration of this national peculiai try as
any which can be drawn from history. Unless we are mis-
taken, the pervading sentiment of our majority, all but a
national sentiment, is on the Prussian side. One strong
reason for this is the general reprobation of the ap_rettor in
a quarrel; of him who strikes the first blow, especially when
he can show no other reason for doing so thin is involved
in long argumentative recrimination. But a far more over-
mattering cause is to be found in the national instinct which
watches over our own greatness and tecurity. With France
on the Rhine and in B, Islam, and with no hope of reversing
the issue, it it only too deeply felt that the dsy of England as
a European Power would be over; while a German coalition
dictating terms of peace at Paris could scarcely by possibility
have any demands to make incompatible with our honour
and our advantage.

This, we repeat, Is the popular English view at the present
moment, right or wrong. Yet there are many well-wlshere
to France among us, and many whose reasons for being no,
U well as their openness in avowing then; are honourable.
But they are almost all what may be termed bye-reasons—
collateral issues, as lawyers would say, defended by arguments
quite irrelevant to what strikes the world as the main quee-
tion. There are many who cannot get over their hostility to
Niigata as the originator of the present complications by her
overbearing injustice to Denmark and her well.titued assault
on Austria. There are many who are influenced by a
strong tense of the loyal friendliness of France towards
ourselves for many years past, on whom the memories
of our common Crimean struggle act more forcibly than
the fears or jealousies of the present day. And there
are more than might be at first supposed, belonging at trait
to the high. elf not the more powerful classes, in whose eyes
the present quarrel assumes something of a religious com-
plexion. Strange, but true nevertheless. It is only the
other day that the Monde assured the puhlle that the war
was to be regarded as a crusade—that it was impesativ,ly
necessary, in order to check the progress of German Pro-
testantism and infidelity. Grotesque and almost blaaphernous
as such an appeal to the Gad of battles in such a cause may
ha, there is reason to think that it strikes an answering chord
Iv a good many heart.. Such sentiments, more or less pro-
nounced, are not confined to our Romanist fellow-citizens.
They are share] by the section of our upper classes whose
feelings lead them into the nearest approximation to
Rome, and whose favourite object of aversion at the
preteut moment is Protestantism. In the long run,
and if the prevalent sentiment of the majority has time
to acquire full strength, all these little eddies and back-
water. will disappear before the general swell of the current
But, for the time, they act as disturbing causes in a small
way; and it is, on the whole, advantageous that they should
do so. It is better that whatever fixed public conviction is
ultimately to prevail should be seen to have formed itself
deliberately, after full allowance made for hostile tenden-
cies, and lukewarm assents, and even eccentricities of
opinion, than that it should bear the appearance of being the
result of the hasty enthusiasm of part of the nation, Imposed
on the rest through morel coercion.