The Express.
London, England, 1867-11-19 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 19, 1867.

TO THE EDITOR OP THE DAILY HEWN.

Sic,—Parliament is about to assemble. In a
few days the ministers of the crown will make
known their opinion of the French occupation of
Rome, and the policy they intend to pursue. The
comparative reticence necessary for ministers on
such an occasion will be willingly conceded. But
an English minister, however guarded and con-
ciliatory towards every government his language
may be, will scarcely be permitted, in a crisis like
the present, to leave the world in ignorance of his
meaning, or doubtful of the light in which he
regards the renewed occupation by a French army
of Roman territory. At the present moment,
therefore, more than ever, it concerns the English
people, who really determine the national
policy, and who really suffer for national errors,
to keep clearly in view the true character of
the act we have recently witnessed, and to have no
doubt of the policy it requires at our hands. The
present is the moment to confirm the government
in the right path—to check it if it is in the wrong
path. The present opportunity missed we may
dnd our power to make the right prevail has gone
by for ever. In estimating the character of the
French intervention we must put out of sight alto-
gether the Italian government and its subjects. The
acts of the Rattazzi cabinet, of Garibaldi, and of the
Italian volunteers are equally irrelevant. What-
ever rights as against the Italian government the
Emperor Napoleon may have derived from the
September convention, it could give him none as
against the Romans. The guilt of the French
government lies in a violation of the principle of
non-intervention, not by threatening Italy, but by
occupying Civita Vecchia and Rome. If Victor
Emmanuel has violated the treaty he made with
Napoleon, it is for him and his subjects, not for the
Romans, to pay the penalty. While the Roman
States are again invaded let not dust be thrown in
our eves by talk of the intrigues of Rattazzi, of
the liwlessness of the volunteers, of the rashness
of Garibaldi.

Nor, on the other hand, let us forget that the
violation of the principle of non-intervention is not
less gross, the obstacle to the formation of a strong
government and of habits of settled order and
steady progress is not leas, but more formidable,
when a foreign power intervenes for the protection
of a sovereign against his subjects, than when it
intervenes for the purpose of giving subjects aid
against .their sovereign. Both kinds of interven-
tion (except under most rare circumstances the
latter) are alike lawless acts of violence, and un-
justifiable breaches of European order. The Pope,
moreover, is estopped from pleading that the pre-
sent intervention is for his protection against a
foreign enemy. He is estopped by the fact that a
foreign army restored him to his throne ; that at
a time when he had none to fear but his own sub-
jects, it was to a foreign army he looked for pro-
tection ; that at this moment his own army is not
national, but almost entirely composed of hired
soldiers and fanatic volunteers from other countries.
He is estopped, lastly, by the constantlyrecurring fact
that the withdrawal of his forces from any town in
his dominions is invariably followed by pebiscites
repudiating his sovereignty.
Turn it in what light we will, the act of the
French government is nothing lees than a high-
handed violation of public law—nothing like it
would be tolerated from a weak power. Not for •
moment should we tolerate a similar act directed
against ourselves from the strongest power. The
condemnation of the American Fenian, is universal
among us. In what enterprise are the catholic
I bishops now engaged, in what service are the
French troops employed, but in that of a con-
spiracy against freedom and order in the Roman
States, analogous to the conspiracy of the American

Fenians against order and freedom in Ireland. It
makes no difference that in the one case the object
is to upset, in the other to uphold, a foreign
government—that in the one case the motive is
sympathy with misdirected patriotism, in the other
religious passion ; that in the one case the chief
conspirators are French,-English, and Belgian pre-
lates, in the other American citizens. Of this more
shameless conspiracy the catholic bishops are in
fact the head-centres. It has its organs in the
ultramontane press, and, for the time at
least, in the official press of France.
Like the Fenian leaders, the bishops issue
manifestoes, though in the form of pastorals ; col-
lect funds; enrol volunteers, and by masses and
processions celebrate the departure of the adven-
turers from French ports. Only the political in-
fluence of the prelates, greater than that of the
Fenian!, has engaged the services of a powerful
sovereign in the task of keeping a people deprived
of its freedom. But Fenianiam is not less Feni-
anism, filibustering is not less filibustering, vio-
lence is not less violence, because its authors sit on
imperial and episcopal thrones. This matter con-
cerns us. It is not our sentiments only that are
wounded. Secure and permanent peace, steady
progress, are English "interests." Great arma-
ments, high-handed acts of violence, constant
rumours of war, half • continent subject to the
will of one man, and he able to work his will in a
month or a week—these things are insurmountable
obstacles to progress, flagrantly opposed to " Eng-
lish interests." But they are the natural results
of a political system in which no power can
be counted on to aid another to main-
tain peace and uphold right. For this
anarchy we are chiefly responsible. It has
grown up under England's practical abdica-
tion of responsibility for what is done in Europe.
Yet, though our power to act alone in Europe way
be small, our power to act in alliance with other
states is great. The material constituents of our
power are vast ; but the fact that we covet nothing
on the continent of Europe doubles our power,
because its exercise could not be imputed to jea-
lousy or rivalry. It is not easy to conceive a wrong
done or contemplated in Europe which, if this
nation had the will, and statesmen competent to
execute it, we could not redress or prevent. For
it is hardly possible to conceive a wrong meditated
in Europe, or an injustice hampering progress and
crushing national life, for checking or redressing
which we could not rind a competent ally. The
knowledge that we were ready to resist violations
of public law would, of itself, go far to change the
moral atmosphere of Europe. Our present policy
is a betrayal of the intelligence and the conscience
of Europe ; through our inaction they are left with
an almost powerless voice in literature and society,
while the better hopes of this generation are lost
in that open rivalry between one military power
and another in which are spent the resources of
states.

Let us beware of any longer accustoming our own
and other governments to the spectacle of mere
force setting itself above law in Europe. The
twentieth year of French intervention in Rome
approaches. For a far longer period than twenty
years Italy called in vain for aid from the great
powers of Europe, who at the Congress of Vienna
had fixed upon themselves responsibility by deli-
vering her to Austria, unconsulted, unconsenting.
Entrenched in our insular selfishness, we denied,
we scarcely even discussed, our responsibility. A
military power, the rival of Austria, hampered,
therefore, by the suspicion of mere lust of self-
aggrandisement, was left to do the work alone,
which was ours far more than hers ; for we were
conquerors, she the vanquished at Vienna. Left
to herself, unrestrained by an ally, the military
power, according to its nature and its traditions,
made the just war the occasion of a new crime.
We have left Poland and Denmark unaided ; and
the time for aiding either has now gone by. This
is the policy of England : we take a cynic's estimate
of our responsibility, a miser's estimate of our
power, and yet there are ipeople who expect great
armaments will be discontinued—great armaments,
of which every year records the success, which
serve the cause in turn of every ambitious power,
and which alone give protection to any state.
There is not one of the European questions to
which reference has been made upon which, while
imposing appropriate concessions upon the assailed
(for the assailed is often in the wrong), we could not
have formed an alliance powerful enough to check
the assailant, and so prevent more brigandage, or
the continuance of undoubted wrong. It is per-
fectly certain that at this moment an alliance could
be formed powerful enough to compel France to
submit to public law. It is perfectly certain that
the troops of France would soon leave Rome for
ever, if Napoleon were convinced they could only
stay in Rome at the risk of a war with England.
But the whole of our policy within living memory
has been such as to assure him that, so far as Eng-
land is concerned, he or any other sovereign may
do exactly what ho pleases—saving, perhaps, the
annexation of Belgium. Let us abandon once for
all this miserable policy of acquiescence in what-
ever wrong is committed by a " great power." It
is a policy of hazard and disaster. There is not a
state in Europe that has not, or may not come to
have, selfish objects, which, if there is no law in
Europe, it will only await its hour of strength to
accomplish. England is not immaculate. Our
own government will, sooner or later, be tempted
to redress the balance by some new and easy
act of wrong. Even now our possession of
Gibraltar is imposed on us by the condition of
Europe ; by the necessity of having strong
military positions, if we are to hold our '
own in the midst of the armed camp into which
Europe has been converted. Only by a system of
alliances, combining all other powers, or a sufficient
number of them, against the power which for the
time being is the wrong-doer, can each in its turn
be restrained; the supremacy of right and order
be gradually established ; and an era of security
and rrogreas commence. Blows we scarcely think
of, wounds more lasting in their results even than
the Napoleonic wars, may yet be dealt by ambitious
and unscrupulous sovereigns to the cause of pro-
gress in Europe, if the belief is allowed to continue
that England declines responsibility and refuses to
incur any cost or ruu any risk in European affairs.
Let the will of England to vindicate order and law
be undoubted, and even the lesser dangers that all
believe to be imminent may disappear. We may
not have to see the spectacle of the fall of Switzer-
land ; of the forcible annexation to Germany or
France of Belgium and Holland • a long period of
mutual suspicion and distrust, feeding costly arma-
ments and fed by them, leading at last to the long-
averted European war—a war then of military
ambition, of empire against empire ; not a war to
vindicate law or uphold rights unscrupulously
assailed.

There is some reason to hope that the Emperor is
not unwilling to bring his intervention to an end.
But if this is his desire, there is a powerful party
in France which does not desire it. Against this
putty a clear declaration of opinion from the
British Cabinet would strengthen the hands while
it gratified the secret wishes of the Emperor.
The first thing to be done at this moment is to
obtain a clear exposition of the opinion of Lord
Derby's Cabinet. Do they regard the occupation
of Rome as not unwise only, but also as a lawless
act, incompatible with order and progress, and such
as cannot long be tolerated by nations who them-
selves observe the principle of non-intervention I
In any event, let us cease to under-estimate the
power and deny the responsibility of England.
Let us not forget the vulnerability of France.
Many sentiments make the Emperor Napoleon
prize the English alliance—pride, fear, a knowledge
of our power,mat
erial
prosperity. keen sense of the value of
prosperity. But if Napoleon prizes our alliance,
let him feel that the inexorable condition of its
continuance is the abstinence of his government
from lawless acts.—l am, &c.,
Nov. 17. POLITICUS.

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