The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-18 00:00:00

civil war or commotion had planted a large per-
manent army on our shores, and insisted on taking
the power from the hands of the people of redress-
ing their grievances, or rescuing themselves from
disorder ? Could the nation have grown up with
the stamina, power, force, experience, and wisdom
which we have enjoyed ? Why, what we went
through during that century was a process of fer-
mentation, which, in the moral as well as in the
physical world, is necessary to throw off impurities
—which gives strength to nations or individuals to
battle with difficulties. Where would have been
our maxims of self-government if that century of
commotion of which I speak had been blotted from
our annals ; if in any of those contests to which I
have alluded we had had a French army or a Span-
ish army, or the two united, placed in the city of
London to control our operations and dictate to
both parties ? They might have preserved the
peace, but where would have been our liberties ?
Now, I contend,—and Heaven knows I shall not
be charged with being one who looks with any-
thing like sympathy or toleration to violence or
bloodshed as a process of obtaining any human good
in this world, yet I stand here to maintain the right
of every people on the continent, however weak, of
having the opportunity of going through the same
process which we went through, and if it can be
had by no other means, of attaining to the maxims
of self-government which we have established by
that dreary and melancholy, but in such a case pro-
bably inevitable, process of civil commotion and
strife. Well, gentlemen, I have said that I am in
favour of non-intervention in the affairs of Italy. But
it may be said, where would Italy have been at this
present moment if there had not been the interven-
tion of the Emperor Napoleon ? Well, lam not going
to be so unreasonable as, I fear, some have been, in
first having quarrelled with the Emperor Napoleon
for going to Italy and then having quarrelled with
him for coming away from Italy. (Hear.) He has
removed the Austrians from Lombardy, but he has
left them in Venetia, and I quite agree with Mr.
Gladstone that he has done quite as much for Aus-
tria in removing her from that perilous position as
for Italy in getting rid of her baneful master. I
will say more, that I don't think Austria could do
wiser than to make an arrangement with Venice
and those provinces that are called Venetia for the
abandonment of her sovereignty altogether for a
consideration, such as the assumption by those pro-
vinces of a considerable amount of the national
debt. They are rich enough to pay such a fine for
the blessings of freedom and independence. Aus-
tria could not do a wiser thing than to remove her-
self into a territory where she may be tolerated, and
perhaps loved; but in Italy she never can be loved.
(Hear, hear.) I have said if Austria were wise—
but Governments never are wise, and the least wise
of all Governments is the Government of Austria;
it seems to me that that Government has lived in as
complete a stated of blessed ignorance as to what
public opinion was, thinking of it as we were in the
middle ages. She might, without all this blood-
shed; without all her present disasters, have left
Lombardy ; she might have received a large pay-
ment for the independence of that province. Nay,
she might have avoided this collision if she had only
been content to abstain from interfering with the
States of Italy other than these that belonged to
her by the Treaty of Vienna, but she would listen
to no terms. She made that attack which com-
menced the war, and with such a stupid Government
as that—and it is the stupidest of all—it is useless
to expect any wisdom, and I don't think it is worth
while to consider any longer what she might have
done. I said I did not blame Louis Napoleon for going
to Italy. I did not presume to judge of his motives ;
it was no business of mine. Neither did I blame
him for coming away, for he did not go there to do
my business, or to do my bidding. Really I think
we Englishmen have a very high opinion of our
own importance and our power to judge people for
what they do and what they don't do, without any
reference to their rights or pretensions. But, apart
from this question of Italy, we have a peculiar in-
terest in these questions of foreign policy. Our
budget, I may say, is framed with reference to our
foreign, and not our domestic policy. (Cheers.) It
is not what we want to spend at home that op-
presses and troubles the people with taxes ; it is
what we want to spend with reference to our pro-
ceedings abroad, and it is on that account that I
talk to you here of foreign policy, because I see no
chance for the progress of fiscal reforms unless we
can turn our relations with foreign countries into a
different position. (Cheers.) Now, I don't come
here to advocate, and I never have advocated, a
principle of defencelessness or total disarmament,
or that we should trust any man on the face of the
earth, and not he prepared to defend ourselves like
rational beings against all probable contingencies ;
but what Ido stand up for is this, that which I
heard Sir Robert Peel declare in connexion with
the very question of our finance, that for England
to pretend to take precautions, so that every mile
of her coast and every mile of the coasts of her co-
lonies shall be safe from aggression, is a hopeless
and an erroneous policy. He used, in fact, these
words, "We must be prepared to take some risks,
and the wisest statesman is one that will face some
risks rather than undertake these ruinous precau-
tions." Now, that is my principle and my policy
with regard to our foreign policy. (Cheers.) What
would you say if I were to tell you, and I do it as
the result of a little calculation, that if you take
the amount of money which we annually spend in
this country as a means of defence and precaution
against all warlike aggressions from France—if
you take that sum of money, as I will, as the very
lowest possible amount, six millions sterling—and
I believe it is nearer 12 millions—(hear, hear)—if
you assume that we spend six millions sterling per
annum as a means of protecting ourselves against
the possible aggressions of France, beyond the ordi-
nary amount of force we should maintain with
reference to the preparations for war in the rest of
the world ; and if I were to tell you that that sum
of money represents far more than the whole of our
trade with France, as la consequence, as a political
economical maxim, it would be for the benefit of
England if France did not exist. And, on the other
hand, assuming that the preparations of France
were made in the same way and on the same scale
with those of England to defend herself against us,
then it would be an economical truth that it would
be better for France if England were at the bottom
of the sea. I ask you one question as a corollary to
that. Is a man who calls himself a politician, and
does not even aspire to the rank of a statesman,
deserving of the name of a Utopist, is he to be con-
sidered only as living in dreamland and to be held
incapable of giving counsel to practical men like
the English, if he asks whether there is no possible
remedy for such a state of things as that. Is it not
hideously unnatural that 36,000,000 people in
France, and 26,000,000 people in England, separa-
ted by only 20 miles ofsea, in 1859 are so incapable,
through their Governments. of placing themselves
on any footing of real security towards each other,
or are so unable to believe the professions, or pro-
testations, or engagements of each other, that they
are keeping themselves prepared in this deadly
attitude for mutual attack or defence ? I say is it
too Utopian to ask whether diplomacy or states-
manship could not possibly devise some scheme to
spare the world and the age in which we live from
such a frightful scandal as this ? (Cheers.) I am
not going to trouble you at any great length upon
my old question, because you will say that I am
harping upon my old string, but I am bound to say
that we have very much to answer for ourselves in
this unnatural and this most unprofitable state of
things. I know that I shall be called to account by
those organs of public opinion who claim the right
to think for us, and to speak for us, and to pre-
dict for us, and to guide us, and who expect that
we shall allow them to do all that for us, and, if we
attempt to say a word for ourselves, immediately
chide us as very intolerant and very troublesome
people. I venture to state that a large part of the
newspaper press of this country, and a good many
of the politicians—those weak vessels that follow

so easily the lead of a popular cry—have much to
answer for in the state of things in which we are
placed at present with regard to France ; for/4,
hesitate not to say, as an observer of it, that the
increase in the armaments of France and the pre-
parations in their dockyards, and their other naval
and military preparations, so far as they relate to
England, have been quite as much provoked by this
country as our preparations have been provoked by
theirs. Now, probably in this matter we should
be more inclined to take the opinion of another
country, and I confess to you that, amid all the
good feeling and all the respect which I found in
the United States were entertained towards this
country—(cheers)—the high respect I mean, which
is found in offspring towards their parent where
the offspring are proud of their parent, or in a
parent that is proud of its offspring (and I believe
in this case that both have very good cause for that
pride)--I say that amidst all the kindness and re-
spect which were shown, and which I observed in

the newspapers were shown towards the English
people, to whom the Americans are alwa3 s ready
to admit that they owe everything, they possess
which is worth having in their great maxim of
liberty and freedom, yet, amid all this, there was
one thing Isaw in their papers which always struck
me with shame and humiliation, and that was the

ridicule which they always cast upon
this con-
stantiy-repeated cry in England about a French
invasion, and which made us again and again the
laughingstock of the newspaper press of America.
I will just read to you one, and only one, extract
which I cut from the New York, Times, a paper
not unfriendly to England, and with a great know-
ledge of European affairs :
"There was a time in English history when the invio-
late island laughed all foreign threats to scorn, and met
r,ven the terrible peril of the Great Armada of Spain with
a front of haughty defiance ; but that time seems to have