The Press.
London, England, 1855-10-13 00:00:00

CONSERVATIVE POLICY.

THE Standard is a good authority on the
meaning of the term Conservative, as we be-
lieve that journal was the first to give a poli-
tical signification to the word, and to employ
it for the designation of a party in the State.
We subscribe to the general tenor of the
Standard's remarks on the essential character
of a Conservative policy. It should look
abroad as well as at home. Its aims should
be rightful ; but we hesitate when we are
asked to give to it a retributive action.
If nations were, in their corporate capacity,
exempt from the possibility of error—if the
voice of the people were the voice of GOD, not
as regards power alone, but as regards right
also—we might subscribe to the Standards
reasoning. But we have no such assurance.
In the quarrels of nations the line between
right and wrong can seldom be so sharply
drawn as to entitle either belligerent to claim
for itself the special favour of Providence, and
to insist on sitting in judgment on its ad-
versary as supreme arbiter of its fate. How-
ever we may claim this privilege from Heaven,
nothing but absolute irresistible conquest—the
sway of the sword—will ever give the title to
exercise it. And it is this pretension which
has commonly made wars so obstinate and
bloody, and has so terribly embittered national
contests.
The Standard thinks it would be consistent
with Conservative principle to reduce Russia
to the state in which it was a century ago. 'lO
be candid, how would the application of this,
not Conservative, but Retrogressive principle
suit England or France? Such backward
glance is futile. The progress of every nation
in history is deeply stained with errors and
crimes ; but for that reason shall we attempt
to cancel the progress? Europe may feel
secure in presence of this fact, that Russia has

OCTOBER 13, 1855.

never absorbed a State, or even a tribe, more
civilised than itself.

On the question of practical policy, the
Standard writes :

As to the

of Russia, deprecated by our

weekly contemporary, if the Russia spoken of be the
Russia of the middle of the last century, the Russia that
existed at the accession of Catherine, nobody, we think,
dreams of dismembering it ; but to give opportunity to the
people of Finland, Poland, Bessarabia, and Georgia to
liberate themselves from the galling fetters of the Czar,
would be, in our opinion, no great clime, or even impru-
dence. We are not so romantic as to hold that we are
bound to take any active part in the restitution. The
analogy of law in ordinary life would say that we are

10 spoil the spoiler as we may,
And from the robber rend the prey.
And when the robber threatens ourselves, we plainly are
under no obligation to spare him because he is a robber,
and has constantly pursued a generally successful career of
rapine for a century.
We do not understand how the Allies can
give opportunity to the people of Finland,
Poland, Bessarabia, and Georgia to liberate
themselves except by affording active assist-
ance to them, and by warring with Russia on
the soil of those countries. At present we
have enough to do in the South, where Russia
is weakest : shall we at once engage in a con-
test with her power in the North, where it is
strongest; or shall we wait till Russia is driven
back from the South ; or, in the spirit of revo-
lutionary propagandism, shall we issue a
manifesto to the people of Finland and Poland,
calling on them to rise against their Govern-
ment, and to depend on our assistance as
soon as we can devise a plan for sending it?
The ideas of journalists are often large and
free. Their eye is accustomed to sweep over
maps, and their mind to survey questions from
a purely historic point of view. It is a generous
tendency to look only at what is desirable in
policy, and to reconstruct States according to
theories of abstract reason and equity. If
Russia is a robber, and if the States of Fin-
land, Poland, Bessarabia, and the rest have
been unjustly annexed, why not liberate them ?
What can be easier than to dispense justice in
this way with a few strokes of the pen ? The
enthusiastic journalist is relieved of his glow-
ing conceptions, and thoughtless readers are
well pleased.
In ordinary times there can be no great ob-
jection to this style of writing. If the senti-
ment of newspaper readers is pleased, it is
enough. It would be unreasonable to require
them to reason on all that is presented to
them. But at the present moment a grave
responsibility rests on the journalist. He
should weigh his words with more caution than
usual. Visionary plans of? retrinution may be
attended with fatally-injurious consequences.
Are we sure that Poland and Finland would
welcome our interference were we prepared to
offer it? In the former country we suspect
that a servile war—such a war as might be
caused in the southern States of America by
inducing the slaves to rise against the
planters—would alone be practicable. Huma-
nity shrinks from the thought of such a con-
flict. But if the population of both countries
be ready to rise, the question remains—how
are we to assist them? Are we sure that our
ally, the Emperor of the FRENCH, would ap-
prove the project? And while so little proba-
bility exists of the enterprise ever being
undertaken, is it wise in a Conservative
journal to hold it forth as one of the objects
for which the war is to be continued ?

On the general principle of a pacific settle-
ment, we hold that our security must depend,
not on the prostration of our foe, but on our
own strength. The equilibrium of Europe, to
be assured, must rest, not on petty conditions
of limitation in this sea or that, not in adding
to the barriers which already exist to divide
States, but in affording to the great commu-
nities of the world the freest scope for the de-
velopment of their forces. To avow that we have
no security for the future but that which arises
from the powerlessness of the nation with
which we are at any time contending, is to
submit ourselves to a kind of political atheism
which must lead to the most shocking conse-
quences. It must render all quarrels mortal,
and make peace impossible until one or other
of the belligerents is destroyed. We cannot,
from the necessity of things, have any positive
security that the nation with which we are at
war will never provoke us to war again unless