The Sun.
London, England, 1859-09-12 00:00:00

so long world-famous and so eminently distin-
guished as Sir HAMILTON SEYMOUR, or Sir HENRY
BULWER, or Lord STRATFORD DE REDCLIFFE. Lis-
tening to them upon the subject of their own pecu-
liar metica—it is like lifting the curtain, hitherto
hanging in ponderous folds at the porch of some
long-concealed arcana. It is like lifting, at last,
the ringed-stone of that secret and subterranean
garden of ALADDIN. It is like hitting, at length,
upon the magic word, the " Open Sesame," which
cleaves an entrance into the hidden cavern of
Diplomacy—the true cavern of Trophonins.
The opportunity for precisely these kind of wel-
come and most unlooked-for revelations was actu-
ally afforded only the other day down at Whitby,
in Yorkshire. It was upon the occasion of the
annual soiree at the local Mechanics' Institute,
where, as recently as last Wednesday, Sir HAMIL-
TON SEYMOUR, in his capacity as chairman, in-
dulged his hearers by laying bare the guiding
principles of his profession. Reading, as we have
done, very carefully indeed, and with the liveliest
interest well imaginable, the record of these
frank and manly observations upon Diplomacy
by our great Diplomatist —we cannot
however, help acknowledging, atthe close of them
all, that Sir HAMILTON appears to us to make too
light altogether of the rare skill attained in this
profound science by himself and one or two of his
own immediate contemporaries. When, for ex-
ample, he observed on Wednesday that " Diplomacy
was a very embarrassing thing to those not conver-
sant with it, but most remarkably simple and easy
when they knew how to do it ;" adding that, in
point of fact, " there was no mystery, no difficulty
at all about it !" We cannot help comparing him
in our minds to a HOUDIN, or a Wizard of the
North, dazzling our eyes, cheating our senses, be-
wildering our judgment, and taking our imagina-
tion captive by some astounding marvel of legerde-
main—and yet saying to us with a shrug of the
shoulders, in the very midst of our astonishment—
" It's. the easiest thing in the world ! you could all
do precisely the same thing, if you only knew how ."'
In fact, Sir HAMILTON immediately does go on to
remark what is precisely the same thing to all in-
tents and purposes, when he adds that any man
of good abilities and close application would suc-
ceed [viz., as a diplomatist], while [somewhat of a
platitude, this !] a person who hoped to lead a life
of pleasure would neither manage his own affairs
nor those of his country well." It is as much—
this—as though a TITIAN or a TURNER were to
say—" You can any of you make just as good a
Painter as myself ; all you have to do is to watch
the face of Nature and master the rules of Art, to
get together pigments, brushes, and canvas, a mahl
stick and an easel—and lo ! the thing is done,
voila tout ! You are a TITIAN ! you are a TURNER !"
Or to revert to the very words of Sir HAMILTON—
" Diplomacy is most remarkably simple and easy
when they [that is, anybody and everbody] know
how to do it." Precisely—that is the very point,
" When they know how to do it"—when ! But
Sir HAMILTON good-naturedly lays down the rules.
He says—" The following were the great points
which a diplomatic agent was to observe or avoid :
1. The moment he arrived at his post he could not
bestow too much care and labour to gain the confi-
dence of the people among whom he was placed :
that was the keystone to the whole. 2, He must
bear in mind the country which he represents,
and be careful not only to represent the commer-
cial and political interests, but also the cha-
racter, the manners,"and the morals of his native
land." Admirably explicit, not a doubt of it, but
about as encouraging to a would-be diplomatist
who has to begin from the beginning as though a
master-artist in the presence of a chef d'ceuvre
were to say "Practice !"—(meaning genius)—or as
though an engineer, addressing himself to an un-
scientific audience, were to explain the complicated
machinery of a stationary or a locomotive engin e
by the one word " Steam." " These," said Sir
HAMILTON SEYMOUR on Wednesday evening last,
after specifying the two guiding principles of diplo-
macy just particularised—" these are some of the
elements of the diplomatist," We are as wise
after this and as advanced as ever. Referring later
on to the reputation diplomacy has for secresy, Sir
HAMILTON observed—" It had been said that there
was a ghost in every house ; the ghost in the diplo-
matic house was secrecy, but he had never seen it.
A distinguished member of the House of Commons
had recently asked him confidentially to impart the
principle of mystery in his science, and he had
some difficulty in assuring him there was really
none. The affairs of nations were conducted like
those of individuals. When a man wants to sell
his estate or his pig, he does not conduct in detail
the sales at the market-cross, but meets his friend
in the inner parlour and settles the conditions over
a glass of brandy-and-water if he has any dust in
his throat. The secrets of diplomacy are just this,
and to deprive our diplomatist in such transactions
of so much secrecy would be to compromise our
national interests, to refuse the amount of protec-
tion which every man but a fool takes care to secure
for his own ; and this was his answer to all the ob-
jections we heard about secret diplomacy. In a
word, he wished that any public negotiation should
be conducted with the same advantage which a man
enjoys in conducting any private transaction.
Than which certainly nothing could be more de-
lightfully naive ! For it is like saying " There is
really and truly no secrecy whatever in diplomacy.
. . . And surely, having said thus much, it would
be the height of folly not to have a certain amount
of rational concealment !" There, undoubtedly, was
the ringed stone laid bare ! BUT no one could lift
it, but one endowed like Sir HAMILTON SEYMOUR !
There was the " open sesame" pronounced—there
was the cavern opened to view—BUT 10 ! the mystic
aperture confronting us was as inscrutably dark and
impenetrable as the gulf of Erebus. Our thanks
are due to Sir HAMILTON for this—
" Diplomacy explaining to the nation 1"
But—we can't for the life of us help adding the
second line of the familiar couplet—
"We wish he would explain his explanation."

The writer of a pamphlet now before us—an
Anglo-Indian—who has spent ten years in the
" covenanted service," fully sustains one of Mr.
BRIGHT'S principal representations in his celebrated
India speech. Mr. BRIGHT maintained that India
was a country too vast in its dimensions, too diver-
sified in its populations, and with too many inhabi-
tants,
for one Governor-General to administer its
concerns satisfactorily. He also maintained that
the mere nominal change to Government direct by
the QUEEN, while the old directorate was retained
under the name of a Council, would prove to be the
retention of old and mischievous policies, and leave
the great evils of the Government and administra-
tion unredressed. A glance at the pamphlet of
M. N. S., on the Future of _lndia, affords but too
BRIGHT boldly advocated the division u
obvious corroboration of Mr. B views.iGsioTn'sof
Ii `I r.
into
at least three or four Governments—the Punjaub,
the North, East, and Scinde, if we remember rightly,
He would thus bring the
to form the fourth.
country under the rule of each Government within
the powers of each, and create a wholesome rivathelry
between four Governors, each responsible for
prosperity and good order of his own colony.
It is, indeed, the bane of Indian administration