The Express.
London, England, 1865-01-14 00:00:00

glee Orpretsis.

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LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 14.

Biroas asking whether Megaton of Parliament
are talking wisely to their constituents about the
Danish question, we are tempted to inquire how
it fumes to pass that they are discussing that sub-
ject at all. We are standing on the threshold of
a new Session, and the returning season should
bring its own interests, its own hopes, its own
cares. Why go back to a business that is dis-
charged, and revive a memory that no amount of
reflection will make pleasant ? Mr. FORSTER at
Bradford, and Mr. BUCILANAN at Glasgow, have
done so because they are anxious to fix the lesson
of last year's experience, which is in danger of
being effaced. But a lesson of life which does not
fix itself, however correctly it may be drawn, is
not likely to be of much uss. The truth is, that
our Liberal Members of Parliament try to galva-
nize dead topics because the policy of fait4..ant
chiefs has left them without object. of

living interest to battle for, and condemns
their party to impotence and stagnation.
At this moment, as far as political life
and progress are concerned, we might as
well be living under the administration of Lord
DERBY as of Lord PALMERSTON. And at a time

of the year when the good intentions of Ministers
are usually the theme of lively speculation, their
peculiar organs can find no better occupation than
that of assigning reasons against any important
reduction of our profligate military expenditure.
Henosit is that Prisons Ministers Bills, and Bills

for regulating the Liquor Traffic assume unnatural
importance at meetings of elector', and members
make speeches on Sleswig-Holstein.
14 however, the memory of the Deno•German
quarrel is to be revived, no one has a better right
to revert to it than Mr.W. E. Foam". He, as,
some may remember, professed clear and positive
convictions as to our national interest and duty
with regard to that question at a time when,
although the occasion called for decisive action,
many legislators still had their facts to ascertain
and their principles to seek. Mr. Pow= thinks
with Lord STANLEY that our resolution not to in-
terfere between the Germans and Danes last
summer marks • new era of our foreign policy ;
but like that statesman be has his
fears for the permanence of the change.
He thinks that already we are slipping again
into the old rut; filling our heads and our
mouths, if not our hand', with the affairs of other
people, without giving the least thought to the
expectations we create or the obligations we incur,
and running great risk of looking ineffably foolish
whenever the minister of an emperor or the agent
of an insurrectionary people shall some day propose
the unlooked for question—What do you mean to
do P Such a relapse would surprise no one accus-
tomed to political observation. Of the many who
applauded last July the vote by which the
House of Commons declared for peace, few saw in
its resolution anything more than an occasional
expedient for extricating the State from a tem-
porary difficulty. Mr. Foam's himself avows
that he " has no confidence in a resolution of the
" country that is based merely upon a feeling of
" humiliation, that must be transient, and on
" a balance of material interests ;" but in these
words we suspect he has, consciously or uncon-
sciously, embodied his own estimate of the critical
vote of the House of Commons.
Those public writers who, while the country
was giving thanks for the success of Mr. KING-
LAxz's amendment, were foremost in celebrating
the revolution which it ushered in, are now adjust-
ing their philosophy to the more settled habits of
national thought. Six months ago the Danish
lesson was full of the profoundest instruction, and
to be had in lasting remembrance. The time is
now come for a different strain, and the notion of
gathering from experience permanent knowledge
for future guidance is abandoned to pedants
and doctrinaires. These writers understand their
age in its prejudices and prepossessions, if not in its
interests. Had Mr. FORSTER blamed the Govern-
ment of the day, or the opposition, or our diplo-
matists, or some imaginary secret influence behind
the throne, he would have been sure of having
somebody to applaud him. But he has chosen to
put his finger on a weakness which is that of the
government, because it is also that of the country.
We shall borrow the wis loin of his critics, and
leave to him all the honour of a man who, while
sustaining his position by public opinion, has the
courage to tell the people their faults.
The state of the case is something like this—We
are not only a highly favoured people, but we hold
the secret of wise sad sucosesful government. All
other nations are wandering in error for want of
our light. He who doubts this is no Englishman,
and is ipso facto excluded from the discussion. In

THE

••••••1

.Tt
virtue of this pre-eminence we owlet us Cduty to
mankind to declare our opinion, Or rather to pro-
nounce solemn judgment, upon all the contests
that arise in the old or new world, and we give
judgment Selmedlngly. The position is a very
Sue one. Its weak point is that it is unreoogniaed
except by ourselves. Educated foreigners envy us
the glorious historioal development of our liberty,
and the happy composition of our national charm-
ter ; but they call us fortunate rather than wise,
and are not generally anxious for our advice in
their own elan. They even go so far as to hint
a certain constitutional incapacity on our part for
entering into and mastering questions which arise
out of a state of things different from our insular
experience, and speak of a certain inelasticity of
mind which, instead of regarding as a defect, we
are rather inclined to be proud of. They do not
so much as give us credit for • desire to consider
all aides of a question, and to be impar-
tial. But if powerful statesmen do not
pay much heed to our opinions, we are not
left without influence. The weak and oppressed
everywhere listen to our indignant denunciations
with tremulous hope. A nation overborne by a
neighbour, • people in insurrection for their liber-
ties, will tali* up every word we say in their
favour. They know that again and again those who
have successively looked to us for help—Sicilians,
Hungarians, Poles, Danes—have in turn been
disappointed, but they severally hope that
they shall prove the favoured exception.
They do not understand that we are all
the while taking merely an intellectual or senti-
mental interest in their affairs ; that the voices
they hear are only the soolanaffoas of an appre-
ciative audience at an exciting drama. Now, such
being our habit, one which we are not likely to
change, it is in vain to pretend to found a new
foreign policy on a temporary diaappointment.
What has happened before may happen again.
Our revolutionary sympathisers will continue to
vituperate all governments which attempt to re-
est the forcible disintegration of their States ; our
sentimentalists will denounce all coercion
peoples ; and when our statesmen, by deferring to'
popular agitation, remonstrances and threats, have
brought us to the very verge of war, our commer-
cial classes will come forward at the critical mo-
ment, and peremptorily forbid the further develop-
ment of their policy. The hollow clamour of the
platform will then be hushed, the loudest talkers
will discover that they meant nothing, and we shall
all be unanimous in praise of the priceless blessing
of peace. This is the familiar, well-trodden way of
acommunity which boeatsof being "practical ; " and
we are asked to believe that transit in this circle is
more congenial to the national character than the
observance of &policy of foresight, circumspection,
and principle. We take leave to disbelieve it.