The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-12-06

The American plan" can only hit the need
of the hour in the other direction, when the
question of how the house is kept is co-ordi-
mated with the question of who keeps it.
From the business point of view that favorite
popular character, 1.-The man who knows how
to keep hotel, may not seldom be found.
From the social point of view he is more rare.
For from that point of view the only man
who really ''knows how to keep hotel is
the man who knows how to make other men
really willing to live in hotel.
THE PROPOSED CONGRESS.
From the n. y. Tribune.
There seems no sufficient reason to doubt
that general congress of the European
powers will soon meet in London, all the
principal Governments having signifed their
readiness to take part in it; and there is q
confident expectation in some quarters that
the conference will attempt not only solu-
tion of the Eastern question, but q general
resettlement of all the great problems of
European politics. The course of events,
however, during the present generation has
made the settlement of the existing interna-
tional difficulties of the Old World by means
of a conclave of plenipotentiaries we'll nigh
hopeless task and there are obvious reasons
why the congress may think it wiser to con-
fine its deliberations to the opening of the
Black Sea and certain matters Immediately
embarrass itself by starting a multiplicity of
issues which it cannot permanently close. The
mischievous theory of the balance of power
was the main spring of the former confer
ences. 1t was virtually assumed that every
State was the absolute property of the sove-
reign, and every sovereign had a natural ten
dency to increase his possessions at the ex-
pense of his neighbors. The doctrine of the
balance of power was system of checks and
I,1a
in order. No people must be allowed to de-
velop itself too rapidly, and national growth,
by any process whatsoever, was a menace to
the peace of the world which must be checked
even at the cost, If necessary, of war. But
graduallya different view of the rights and con-
stitution of sovereign States has come into
vogue. The most absolute of governments
have recognized the people as the ultimate di-
rectors of national policy, and virtually ac-
knowledged them to be the channel of political
power. State is no longer, as itused to be,
the estate of the sovereign, but an association
of the people for the promotion of their
common interests. When Victor Emanuel
achieved the unity of Italy, he did it merely
as the agent of the popular will of the
Italians The great powers which, a genera
tion ago, assumed authority. to cut and carve
the whole of Europe with reference purely
| to dynastic interests and balances, and in
|
whom they transferred from ruler to ruler,
! just as Russian proprietors used to transfer
| the serfs with the land, never ventured to pro-
test when half dozen small States were
| wiped out and half dozen consecrated rulers
sent into exile because their subj jects preferred
| to unite under the house of Savoy. When
| Napoleon III made war upon Germany, he
! did it, so he tells as, in obedience to the
| wishes of his people. When Bismarck demands
nf ha
does it in the name of the German nation,
of whose will he pretends to be merely the
mouthpiece; and if it could be established
that the inhabitants of Alsace and Lorraine
wanted to be transferred from France to
Germany, nobody in these days could logi-
cally object to his demand. Great Britain
surrendered the Ionian Islands to Greece be-
cause the islanders wished to unite with those
who were really their countrymen, and we
are not without hope that as the world grows
more reasonable she will see the justice of
letting Ireland choose her own rulers. Even
the autocrat of all the Russias assigns as
reason for abrogating part of the treaty of
Paris that ''the national sentiment protests
against its further observance; and this APP
peal to the people, coming from such a source,
is one of the most significant passages in
Prince Gortschakotf s remarkable despatch.
1t follows from this general acknowledge
ment of the validity of popular aspirations
that wars to maintain the balance of power
must be abandoned in practice. A nation
which contains the elements of growth must
no longer be checked with the iron bands of
treaty -stipulations or trimmed and dwarfed
with the sharp tools of war. The old idea
that great and vigorous States should be con-
fined within certain arbitrary limitations OF
strength for fear lest they should overshadow
their neighbors, is like the ancient fashion of
landscape gardening, whose highest triumph
was turning a stately yew into fantastic
shrub, or crowding tree into hower-pot
All these absurd attempts to distort and fettel
nature ought to be abandoned together. Ger.
many, Russia, and Italy are, as far as we can
discern, the great growing powers of Europe,
and any efforts to dwarf them by EuropeaE
Congresses will be vain and preposterous
What is there then for the conference al
London TO do, except to remove the restric
tions which were placed upon the Czar aftel
the Crimean war, and which he has declared
that he will no longer observe, congress Of
no congress? If Prussia, by peaceful mea
sures, can attract to the reyiying German
empire the separated German subjects o
Austria, no congress can logically interfere
! to prevent her. If Italy has combined in ont