The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-30
THE WEAKNESS OF ENGLAND.
An Exposure by FrOude-Precnrious Condition
OF fAfIalrs-PrlviieRe VS.. Right.

in late numbers of FrdSer'S Margarine. It is
from the pen of Mr.. James Anthony Froude,
the historian who is now the editor of
FraserS, and whose powers of research have
been exerted to very useful purpose in the
task he has undertaken. He aims to show
why England is decrepit through what causes
she has lost much of the moral and physical
force which once made her formidable; whom
she has to thank for her present condition;
and what is likely to be the final result. Mr..
Froude handles his subject with vigorous
pen, and reveals some facts which are of pc
culIar interest at O moment when the scale is
equally balanced between peace and war.
The concluding part of this able paper ap-
peared in the September number of the
magazine, and was written while England re-
NAMED safely outside the lines of conflict on
the continent-before the Russian cloud had
become visible. But the temporary escape
of England from ENHANCEMENT in the quarrel
between France and Prussia did not convince
Mr.. Froude that the English nation would re-
main secure in its insular solitude. He
therefore gave expression to a solemn warn
ing, which, in view of subsequent events
has a striking significance. 'At this mo-
ment," he says, eff we we're taken by
surprise as Prussia has been,
and hostile power could by any
means obtain twenty-fours' command of the
Channel London would inevitably be taken.
while the suggested possibility of a hostile
naval force obtaining possession of the Chan
mel is virtually an admission that the British
navy is not so well handled as it should be.
These conclusions coincide with actual reve-
lations of a damaging character which have
recently come to light through the London
press-such as the weakening of the re-
sources of the great arsenals, the inhuman
treatment of the soldiers of the regular army,
and the blunders of the naval management,
all of which are serious and dispiriting
grievances.
Putting aside these questions however, Mr..
Froude proceeds to discussion of another
point, namely, whether or not the heart of
England is sound enough to stimulate the
nation to a successful resistance of foreign
aggression; to repel attack, for example, as it
resisted Spain in the day of the Armada, or
the First Napoleon in the time of threatened
invasion. Mr.. Froudes answer is a mean-
choly "No! !" He writes: Thirty thousand
favorites of fortune alone possess that origi-
nal hold on English soil which entities Eng
land in return to depend upon them in the
day of trial; and thus it is that to persons who
think seriously there appears something pre-
carious in England's greatness, as if with all
her wealth and all her power a single disaster
might end it,.
Pursuing this train of thought, he further
Observes
No nation ever suffered more tremendous
humiliation than France in the second occu-
patton of Paris, yet France rallied rapidly,
and is now stronger than ever. Her popula-
ton remained rooted in the soil to which
they are passionately attached, and their per-
manent depression is impossible. If she be
defeated in the present struggle, it will be
ultimately the same. Forty millions of peo-
pie can neither be destroyed nor removed
and where the people are, and where the land
AIosa hnI
matter of but a few years at most
They may lose men and money, and pos
sibly doubtful outlying province, but that
is all the injury which an external power can
inhict on them. With England it is difficult
to feel the same confidence. If the spell of
our insular security be once broken; if it be
once proved that the Channel is no longer an
impossible barrier, and that we are now on a
level with the Continent, the circumstances
would be altered which have given us hitherto
our exceptional advantages and those of US
who can choose home elsewhere, who have
been deprived of everything which should
specially. attach us to English soil-that is to
say, ninety-nine families out of every hun
dred-will have lost all inducement to re-
main in SO Improbable neighborhood.
This is plain language-and, unfortunately
for England in the existing condition of at
fairs, it is likewise true. What follows is
still sharper, for it hits.
THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES.
The noble lords-I speak of some, not yet,
happily, of all-are grown wise in their
generation, and acknowledge the excellence
of what they once despised. The growth of
mapuf actures has doubled, quintupled, null
tiplied in some instances hundredfold the
value of their land. Their rents maintain
them in splendor undreamt of in earlier gen.
erations, which has now become necessity of
existence. They have their alf-dozen parks
and palaces; their houses in London, their
moors in Scotland, their yachts at Cowes
Their sons have their hunters at Melton, their
racing stables, their battues. In the dead
season of sport they fall back to recruit their
manliness with pigeon shooting at Hurting
ham. These things have become second
nature to them, in which they live and move
and have their being. Their grandfathers
cared for the English commonwealth. 1t is
hard to say what some of these high persons
cared for except idle luxury.
Another class of Englishmen, to whom Mr..
Froude attaches part of the responsibility for
the poverty of the workingmen and for the
emigration of skilled artifcers and intelligent
laborers. consists of the great employers OF
labor. We quote:-
TEE GREAT MANUFACTURERS.
To the manufacturers abundance of labor
means cheap labor, and cheap labor is the
secret of their wealth, the condition of their
prosperity, the means by which they undersell
other nations and command a monopoly of
the worlds markets. Political economy the
employers gospel, breaches a relation be-
tween themselves and their Workmen which
means to them the largest opportunity of
profit with the smallest recognition of obli-
cation to those upOn whose labor thew grow