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

An Exposure by Froude-Precarions Condition
Of fAfiGIrs-PrlviieEe VS.. Right.
An earnest and searching review of the
causes of the decay of England has appeared
in late numbers of FraSer'S Magazine. 1t is
from the pen of Mr.. James Anthony Froude,
the historian, who is now the editor of
Fgdser'S, 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 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-
mained 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 were 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
In other words, the British army is inefficient;
while the suggested possibility of 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.. Froude's answer is q melan-
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-
CdTlOuS III CuSlduuS . BI6dIueSS, us III Will Ill
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 oocu-
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-
10 uho ho
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
is their own, their recovery is a
matter of but a few years at most.
They may lose men and money, and pos
sibly doubtful outlying province, but that
infict 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 a neighborhood.
This is plain language-and, unfortunately
for England in the existing condition of at
fairs, it is likewise true. What follows il
still sharper, for it hits.
THE PRIVILEGED CLASSES.
The noble lords-I speak of some, not yet,
happily, of all-are grown wise in thei
generation, and acknowledge the excellenc,
of what they once despised. The growth o
manufactures has doubled, quintupled, mul
tiplied in some instances q hundredfold tn,
value of their land. Their rents maintain
them in splendor undreamt of in earlier gen
erations, which has now become necessity o.
existence. They have their half-dozen parks
and palaces; their houses in London, thei
moors in Scotland, their yachts at Cowes
Their sons have their hunters at Melton, theil
racing stables, their battues. In the deaC
season of sport they fall back to recruit thei
manliness with pigeon shooting at Hurting
ham These things have become secon(
nature to them, in which they live and NOV,
and have their being. Their grandfather
cared for the English commonwealth. 1t il
hard to say what some of these high person
cared for except idle luxury.
Another class of Englishmen, to whom Mr.
Froude attaches part of the responsibility 70
the poverty of the workingmen and for tn
emigration of skilled artifcers and intelligen
laborers, consists of the great employers O
labor. We quote:-
TIE GREAT MANUFACTURERS.
To the manufacturers abundance of labo
means cheap labor, and cheap labor is tn
secret of their wealth, the condition of thei
prosperity, the means by which they undersel
other nations and command a monopoly o
the worlds markets. Political economy, tn
oh I,