, 1874-08-29

Government of the day. 1t is quite possible,
therefore. that Prince Bismarck may wish to
give the Government of Spain some serious
aid, and that he may be saying at this moment
in Paris, London, Vienna, st. Petersburg, and
Lisbon that he can no longer tolerate the con-
dition of Spain, that Intervention has become a
necessity, and that unless coalesced Europe
will use its power and restore Spain to peace,
Germany must undertake the work at her own
risk, and consequently for her own advantage.
We do not say, for we do rot know, that any
such intimation has been made to Lord Derby
but it seems quite clear that it has been made
to Paris, Vienna, and St. Petersburg, and
made with the kind of seriousness which al
ways belongs to such intimations from Prince
Bismarck,-more especially when followed up
by orders to the ships to rendezvous In waters
where they might very easily seem to infringe
upon French rights. The extreme agitation,
too, of the Carlist party in France shows that
thew dread the Intervention for which they have,
nv the execution of Schmidt, given so oppOr-
tune an excuse.
We can quite imagine that Lord Derby,
foreseeing that any individual intervention IN
Spain might lead to a general war, may be
willing to accede to an intervention of q more
general kind. We doubt, however, such will
~ingness would be altogether wise. We have
never accepted, have indeed always opposed with
0 m roughness, the notion that England is ney-
err to intervene in Continental affairs; we
do not deny that 10 certain extreme cases
collective Europe might be required to
put down a ruinous anarchy IN a State
large enough to affect all her members;
and we are by no means sure that SPAN may
not in a year or two more tall into o condition
which would make of her weakness a per-
81 - IL. -nooo of tho world RuF
an Intervention in the internal affairs of a great
Power must be justified both by right and by
policy, and in this particular case neither the
policy nor the right is sufficiently clear. Why
should we, of all Powers, assist to pull German
chestnuts out Of the Spanish fire, or lend our
resources to help Serrano do work which, if
Spain is, as he says and we believe, on his side,
he ought to be able to do for himself, and would
be able, butthat he and his chief officers, instead
Of fighting for order, are each of them lighting
for q party, and unwilling even to defeat the
common foe unless victory can be made to re-
dound to the benefit Of a particular cause Is
it to avoid the Intervention of Germany that
we are to act 2 Why should we2 Why should
not Prince Bismarck, if we please and Germany
p~leases, repeat the mistake Of the First Napo-
leon, and waste in an impractlcable enterprise
the aseendancy acquired by genius and success
IN @ more practlcaDl0 one OehmanJ N"uuoI
conquer Spain, any moro than Napoleon could,
and will not try or if she did try, aud did sue
coed for a time, she would only do Spain good,
by bringing acme to her sharply and once for
all that her reckless inattention to her own
affairs, her want of decisive determination to
put the factions down and choose some Govern
ment or other as final, has laid her open to the
worst misfortune Of States, subjugation by the
foreigner. Spain wants the need Of patriotism
in it's highest sense driven home into her mind,
and if Germany chooses to waste men and
money in driving it home, 1t Is no business Of
ours to initiate her in that waste of resources.
It might be, we freely admit, our business,
or even our duty, if the result were certain it,
for instance, it were clear that we could, by an
unusual effort, terminate a civil war which
begins to be an outrage on civilisation,-if we
could give Spain the Government which suited
her, and if we could be certain that
she would tolerate that Government
one week after external force was with
drawn. But we cannot be sure of any one Of
these things, cannot prove even to our minds
that Intervention, ply steal or moral, would not
intensity the existing evils, just as the French
intervention in Mexico intensified them there.
The infinite probability is that any govern
ment favoared by the foreigner would be re-
jected by Spain, and that consequently the re-
suit of Intervention would be to strengthen the
-- 4 H. 1890 nanooofIEou L0