The Sun.
London, England, 1861-02-07 00:00:00

IMPERIAL PARLIAMENT.

HOUSE OF COMMONS.—(YESTERDAY.)
FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
Mr. S. FITZGERALD said—l am deeply sensible of
the inconvenience of making observations on what passed
last night in the absence of the noble lord who presides
over foreign affairs, but I learn from the Secretary to the
Treasury that the noble lord is on his way to the house,
and as this is the only opportunity, and as probably the
noble lord will arrive before I am very far advanced in the
observations which I have to make, I trust the house will
grant me its indulgence. lam also sensible of the incon-
venience of reviving a discussion to-day which might have
more fitly been taken last night ; but the fact is that the
hon. member for Birmingham by his speech, devoted to a
subject of paramount domestic interest, so entirely
changed the tenour of the discussion that I abstained from
reverting to the subject of foreign policy. The tone of the
hon. member for Birmingham was so earnest and so fairly
indignant at the course of the Government that I felt it a
very difficult matter for me to recall the attention of the
house to less exciting topics. I may say in passing that I
can well understand the curt and indignant feeling with
which the hon. member forßirmingham spoke, because the
noble lord the member for the city net only buried reform,
but had not the delicaey to apply his handkerchief to his
face to conceal the smile which was upon it as he stood in
the position of chief mourner. (Hear.) I wish to recall
the attention of the noble lord to the answer which he gave
my right hon. friend the member for Bucks with reference
to two despatches addressed to the British Minister at
Turin on the 31st of August and 27th of October. With
reference to the Speech which her Majesty has been coun-
selled to address to the house, I was inclined, until I heard
the speech of the noble lord, to complain of a grave omis-
sion. I believe that if there is any one subject upon which
the heart of the people is set it is the maintenance of gene-
ral peace—(hear, hear) —not merely from economic and
prudential motives, not only from a sense of the burdens
which a state of war imposes upon all who are included in
it or have to prepare against it, but I believe from higher
motives, springing from a conviction that war, not rendered
necessary by the honour and interests of the country, is a
high moral crime. (Hear, hear.) What I thought the
Speech ought to have contained was an assurance on the
part of the Government that they were alive to the dangers
which menaced the peace of Europe, that no efforts would
be spared and that no stone would be left unturned to
secure the maintenance of general peace. The Speech says
that her Majesty trusts that the moderation of the Powers
of Europe will contribute to the maintenance of the public
peace ; but whether her Majesty's advisers mean that they
trust the Powers of Europe will be moderate, or that if they
are moderate general peace will to secured, seems on the
face of the Speech doubtful. In reply to the right hon.
gentleman the member for Bucks the noble lord made a
very satisfactory statement—namely, that at the present
moment, in concert with our allies, they are using every
exertion in their power, and directing the whole energy
and the whole weight and interests of this country to the
maintenance of the general peace of Europe. I believe
that if the Government sincerely work for that object peace
may possibly be maintained, but at the same time 1 am
sure that it is impossible those efforts can be successful if
the noble lord and his colleagues publish to the world such
documents as those of the 31st of August and the 27th of
October. The noble lord, in reply to my right hon friend,
was certainly more adroit than candid, and his reply in
reference to the second of those papers—if I may use the
word, not in an offensive sense—was almost evasive. The
great claim which the present Government has on the con-
fidence of the house in the guidance of foreign politics is
that they hold fast by the principle of non-intervention.
Certainly, members on the Opposition side will not com-
plain of the adoption of such a policy, because I always re-
member with satisfaction that the Government to which I
had the honour to belong in a subordinate capacity was the
first Government which proclaimed and adhered to the prin-
ciple that we ought not to pursue—as for years we have pur-
sued—a meddling policy in every petty as in every great affair
in which nations with whom we have communication become
involved. Gentlemen on the Opposition side are not likely,
therefore, to complain of the present Government adopting
and firmly adhering to the policy of non-intervention.
(Hear, hear.) The contrary is the fact. The complaint
against the present Government is that, proclaiming them •
selves adherents to the doctrine of non-intervention, in the
first place they do rot practise it, and in the next that they
publish documents wholly inconsistent with it. The noble
lord, who is now the champion of non-intervention, wrote a
letter upon the 31st August in not very courteous terms. I
think the letter was unnecessarily offensive, and that it
mixed up subjects in a manner far more likely to irritate
than to conciliate, to estrange than to influence, the per-
sons to whom it was addressed. At the same time I think
the noble lord was perfectly justified in writing that de-
spatch, because it is clear there was a great ferment and
crisis in Italy at the time, and therefore, although the lan-
guage was unnecessarily strong, the object was good—viz.,
to throw the whole weight of the Government into the
scale for the maintenance of peace. The letter sent to the
King of Sardinia was to the effect that if Sardinia stirred
in a certain direction she would have England against her,
and that the noble lord had reason to think that the great
Powers of Europe would also interfere. The words menaced
intervention on the part of this country, and all the remark
I will make on that despatch is that it was not one on
which the Government could rest its claim of acting on the
principle of non. intervention. (Hear.) But with regard to
the second despatch the noble lord did not deal frankly
with my right hop. friend. The noble lord detailed the cir-
cumstances under which the first despatch was written. Ho
referred to its terms, and hejustified its principles. He ad-
hered to all it contained, and he so far dealt candidly with
my right hon. friend. But when the noble lord came to deal
with the second despatch his answer was not satisfactory.
He adverted to its terms, to the circumstances under which
it was written, and to the course taken by the King of
Sardinia, but he did not justify that course on the ground
stated in the despatch, but on another ground totally
different and absolutely inconsistent with it. I regret ex-
tremely that the noble lord is not yet in his place, but as the
despatch in question is one for which the Cabinet must have
been collectively responsible, I have, at least, the satisfac-
tion of addressing the noble viscount at the head of the
Government and two other members of the Cabinet. My
right hon. friend the member for Bucks seems to have been
not the only person who has been bewildered as to the policy
of the Government, for the Government of one of our allies
was thrown into a state of oven greater confusion and per-
plexity on the subject. Nor is this to be wondered at; for
I defy the ingenuity of man to reconcile two such contra-
dictory documents as the two despatches of the noble lord,
or to discover how they could have been written by the same
hand. The noble lord, as we know, attended her Majesty
upon her visit to Germany. He there had an interview
with Baron Schleinitz, the Foreign Minister of Prussia,
immediately after which the Prussian Government, desir-
ous of reassuring their own people, published the following
statement in their official Gazette :
"The cordial relations which have ever existed between
England and Prussia will continue to exist if the two coun-
tries do not mutually misunderstand their true interests.
These relations have become more deeply rooted, and have
acquired increased firmness and extension by the conference
at Coblentz, and by the ready exchange of views which
then took place between the leading statesmen of the two
countries. In view of the present great complications in
the European political system, the more satisfactory it is to
be enabled to state that there was a coincidence between the
views and opinions of England and Prussia on the great
and important questions of the day."
I can readily conceive the surprise and bewilderment of the
Prussian Minister when, after having come to the above
conclusion, he read, only five days after, in the journals the
letter of the noble lord, the special object of which was to
find fault with the important step which the Government
of Prussia had taken in regard to the affairs of Italy, and to
express, on the part of her Majesty's Government, not ac-
cord of opinion with that of our ally, but utter and entire
disapproval of everything that had been done. A document
of more dangerous tendencies than that despatch of the
noble lord had never issued from the pen of any statesman
in any country of Europe. The doctrine of non-interven-
tion is popular in this country, not merely because it tends
to keep us out of war, but from our conviction that the adop-
tion of that'principle is a great gain to international law
and international morality. Lllere Lord John Russell
entered the house.] I pass by the reference of the noble
lord, whom I am glad now to see in his pace, to Vattel,
because in the present day the opinion of a British Minister
is of a great deal more weight than the dictum of a writer
who has been dead more than a century. The position of
the noble lord, as I understand it, is that a foreign State
has the right to interfere in support of a people against
their ruler, when the people have good cause of complaint.
But, as he holds that the people are not only the best, but
the sole judges of the justice of their complaints, and as
no insurrection ever takes place without the insurgents
believing they are very illused, I do not think I over-
state the doctrine of the noble lord when I say that it
amounts to this—that, in every insurrection that occurs, it
is the part of a country wishing to pursue a liberal and
generous course to lend the rebels the support of their arms.
Is that doctrine consistent with the doctrine of non-inter-
vention ?It is exactly the reverse. There is no State in
Europe, there is no conceivable circumstances in which, ac-
cording to the noble lord, it would not be the duty of a libe-
ral and generous Government to interfere by force of arms.
(Hear.) What must be the result of such a principle ?
The noble lord is surely of too logical a mind not to per-
ceive that it cuts two ways, and that it may be adopted
equally in favour of a people struggling for liberty and a
disr.osscssed sovereign struggling to regain his throne.
(Hear.) It is a principle which justifies an absolute sove-
reign in helping a brother despot in distress no less than a
liberal sovereign in helping the people of another State to
acquire freedom. The noble lord, who has the means of
informing himself as to the state of affairs all over Europe,
cannot fail to be aware that at the present time nothing is
easier for a Sovereign with aggressive designs upon his
neighbours than to stir up an insurrection in their domi-
nions. (Hear, hear.) I believe the noble lord is well aware
that at this very moment there are present in many coun-
tries of Europe the emissaries of foreign Powers who are
certainly not engaged in maintaining peace or promoting
harmony, He must know that machinations are in progress