The Sun.
London, England, 1870-12-17 00:00:00

ENGLAND'S FOREIGN POLICY.

We havebeen taught to expect, remarks the Daily News,
that the coming Session of Parliament would be Mr.
Bruce's. We hope it may prove so, for there are vast
arrears in Home legislation to fill up. Nevertheless,
though Mr. Gladstone proposes, Count Bismarck
disposes. The recess has been Lord Gran-
ville's ; and probably the Session will be in a
great part his too. It is matter for congratu-
lation that the great legislative measures of the
present Ministry, and its predecessor, have been accom-
plished during that short breathing-space of peace which
Europe has enjoyed between the two great wars of 1866
and 1870, the former of which secured Prussia's predomi-
nance in Germany, the latter Germany's ascendancy on
the Continent of Europe. It is to be hoped that, in one
way or another, the war will have been brought to a close
before Parliament meets. But the hope scarcely amounts
to an expectation ; the possibility is not a proba-
bility, and still less a certainty. Even should peace be
made with France, it would be Quixotic to expect
that the era of general peace had at last dawned. The
war of 1866 was to be the last of great European
' wars, and it has been followed by the war of 1870.
It is allowable to hope, but it would be foolish to
feel confident, that with its close the reign of
peace will begin. England ought to be prepared
for a decade, or it may be a quarter of a century of dis-
turbance periodically threatening war, and now and then
breaking forth into it. What should be her attitude in
the face of the convulsions which are likely to disquiet her
neighbours. She is bound, it is the first and plainest of
her duties, to secure herself from attack. She must be
ready at any moment to assume a strong defensive atti
tude. Her navy ought to be sufficient to guard her shores
so far as human efforts can secure them, from the
prospect of invasion ; while her land forces should be in
numbers, equipment, and organisation amply prepared to
meet and overcome any foes whom a chance more unfor-
tunate to them than to ourselves should place upon our
soil. More than this is too much ; and by tempting the
nation from an attitude of defence, would bring the
danger which all sensible and patriotic men desire
to remove. It is customary, in certain Continental
!` circles," to talk about the decline of England's
influence abroad. If her influence abroad had declined,
less would be said about it. We venture to say
it was never greater or more wisely exercised than it now
is. To plunge into the conflicts of Continental Europe,
as we formerly did, and to become a party to the quarrel,
is to lose all chance of being the arbiter of the fray. To
lead the intellectual and moral opinion of Europe, to
moderate mutual animosities, to be the court of
appeal in disputes, and a centre of stability in
fluctuation and tempests, is a position not less but more
influential than that which England occupied in the days
of her continental wars and German subsidies. Her quiet-
ness and indifference to noisy reproach arc not signs of
weakness but of strength, which on imperative demand
would be put forth all the more strenuously and effica-
ciously for not being wasted on slight occasions and an-
tagonists.