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 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027900343 
 
LECTURES ON THE HISTORY 
 OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
aonJjon : C. J. CLAY AND SONS, 
 
 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS WAREHOUSE, 
 
 AVE MARIA LANE. 
 
 (ElaBBOta: 50, WELLINGTON STREET. 
 
 JLeiujia: F. A. BROCKHAUS. 
 
 itcto gorft: THE MACMILLAN COMPANY. 
 
 ffionitBE ant) SCalcutts: MACMILLAN AND CO., Ltd. 
 
 [All Rights reserved.^ 
 
LECTURES ON THE 
 
 HISTORY 
 
 )F THE NINETEENTH CENTURY 
 
 Delivered at the Cambridge University 
 
 Extension Summer Meeting 
 
 August 1902 
 
 Edited by 
 F. A. Kirkpatrick, M.A. 
 
 Trinity College, Cambridge 
 
 Cambridge 
 
 at the University Press 
 
 1902 
 
 T 
 
3 ' 
 363 
 
 Catnhrilffle : 
 
 PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, 
 AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 
PREFACE. 
 
 ^ I "'HE lectures contained in this volume were delivered at 
 -*- the Summer Meeting of University Extension Students 
 and others held at Cambridge in August, 1902. 
 
 The central design of this series of historical lectures 
 was the treatment of recent developments in the principal 
 countries of Europe by natives of those countries, in order 
 that the most intimate and essential points of view might 
 be presented. Some aspects of recent international history 
 were also handled by lecturers who had given special study 
 to those topics. 
 
 In order to give these essays a wider and more permanent 
 value, the Syndics of the University Press decided to publish 
 them, with the kind permission of the writers. 
 
 All concerned in the work of the Summer Meeting and 
 in the production of this volume feel themselves deeply in- 
 debted to the generosity of those who delivered the lectures 
 and consented to their publication. 
 
 F. A. K. 
 
 Cambridge. 
 
 i^ovember 1, 1902. 
 
CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 I. Some Aims and Aspirations of European Politics in 
 the Nineteenth Century, by A. W. Ward, Litt.D., Master 
 
 of Peterhouse .......... i 
 
 II. Introduction to the International History of Europe 
 in the Nineteenth Century, by J. Westlake, K.C., LL.D., 
 Whewell Professor of International Law in the University of 
 Cambridge 27 
 
 III. England's Commercial Struggle with Napoleon, by 
 
 J. Holland Rose, M.A., Christ's College, Cambridge . 59 
 
 IV. Britain's Naval Policy, by J. K. Laughton, M.A., 
 Honorary Fellow of Gonville and Caius College; Professor 
 
 of History, King's College, London 79 
 
 V. The Transformation of Germany by Prussia, by Erich 
 M ARCKS, Ph. D., Professor of Modern History in the University 
 
 of Heidelberg 96 
 
 VI. Bismarck, by Professor Erich Marcks . . . -113 
 
 VII. Austria and Hungary in the Nineteenth Century, by 
 Emil Reich, Doctor Juris 131 
 
 VIII. France as the Land of the Revolution, by Paul 
 Mantoux, Agrege d'histoire in the University of Paris . . 149 
 
 IX. Two Statesmen of the Third Republic, by Professor 
 Paul Mantoux -■ '73 
 
 X. The Struggle for Italian Unity, by Bolton King, M.A., 
 Balliol College, Oxford . . 193 
 
 XI. Mazzini, by Bolton King, M.A 217 
 
\?iii Contents 
 
 PAGE 
 
 XII. The Reforming Work of the Tzar Alexander II, by 
 Paul Vinogradoff, D.C.L., late Professor of History in the 
 University of Moscow . . . . . . - • ^3? 
 
 xril. The Meaning of Present Russian Development, by 
 
 Paul Vinogradoff, D.C.L. 257 
 
 XIV. The Problem of the Near East, by G. P. GoocH, M.A., 
 Trinity College, Cambridge . . . . . . -277 
 
 XV. Pan-Islamism, by E. G. Browne, M.A., M.B., Fellow of 
 Pembroke College, Professor of Arabic in the University of 
 Cambridge 306 
 
 XVI. England and the United States, by the Rev. T. J. 
 Lawrence, LL.D., late Fellow of Downing College . . 331 
 
 XVII. The Problem of the Far East, by Ian C. Hannah, 
 M.A., Trinity College, Cambridge 368 
 
SOME AIMS AND ASPIRATIONS OF EURO- 
 PEAN POLITICS IN THE NINETEENTH 
 CENTURY. 
 
 By a. W. Ward, Litt.D. 
 
 We are apt to talk glibly of the ideas, beliefs and aspira- 
 tions of a ' century ' — just as if that term, or what that term 
 conveys to us, not only had hands and feet, but were defined 
 by limits corresponding more or less closely to the literal 
 significance of the word, and as if it thus conveniently covered 
 one of those broader groups or divisions in which for the 
 ordinary purposes of study historical phenomena have to be 
 arranged. 
 
 As a matter of fact, however, not many of those chrono- 
 logical divisions which we call centuries are apt to present 
 themselves to the mind of the general student in the light of 
 separate entities (if I may so say), each with characteristics 
 proper to itself. Most of them are too far off to detach 
 themselves to our eyes from the nebulous clusters into which 
 they seem absorbed ; others are too near at hand to admit of 
 our surveying their conditions of life and the motive forces 
 which determined them as detached from the surroundings 
 in which we ourselves have our being. Yet it is not always 
 comparative nearness or remoteness which makes one of these 
 conventional divisions of time fitter or less fit for such special 
 treatment. Some centuries seem the mere brooding-times of 
 history, and while watching them we can only speculate as to 
 
 'the main chance of things 
 As yet not come to life, which in their seeds 
 And weak beginnings lie intreasured.' 
 
 H. L. I 
 
2 Europe 
 
 Others again appear to us as it were broken up, like th 
 ground near the seats of the oracles of the Gods, by the vei 
 magnitude and force of some of the historical movemeni 
 which have occurred in them, and which have so to spea 
 changed the face of the century itself. You will I think a 
 a rule find that there is some inner reason for a literary usag 
 that effectually establishes itself; and I cannot recall an 
 century which more adequately lends itself to treatment a 
 a whole than the eighteenth of our era, which is constantl 
 on our lips as a term carrying with it a definite and distinc 
 political, intellectual arid moral significance. With regard a 
 all events to the political history of Europe and that of othe 
 parts of the world whose affairs were brought into direc 
 contact with those of our own continent — notably the Nev 
 World and the East Indies — in few other centuries do thi 
 main issues seem so clear, or does the logic of their connexioi 
 with one another appear so palpable ; and again in few others 
 as they pass onwards to their close, is the coming of a new agi 
 so unmistakably announced by the downfall of old ideas o 
 government and traditions of social life. 
 
 Whether, when a few generations hence — and generationi 
 pass rapidly in this little academical world of ours to whicl 
 we bid all our visitors the heartiest of welcomes — whether 
 when the time has come to sum up the characteristic move 
 ments, and the ideas informing them, of the nineteenth century 
 they will be found possessed of a coherence of bearing anc 
 a definiteness of aim such as I have ascribed to those of iti 
 predecessor, I will not now enquire. Of this, however, I air 
 quite sure that we still stand too near to the nineteenth centurj 
 to judge of it as a whole ; that the present stage of dealing 
 with its history should still be primarily one of investigation 
 and to a large extent not more than tentatively one of criticism 
 For this reason I look with satisfaction on the programme, ful 
 of variety as well as of other elements of interest, which has 
 been prepared for the Historical Section of this Summei 
 
Introduction 3 
 
 Meeting, and which I understand to aim at an examination of 
 classified material, rather than to aspire to a premature attempt 
 at a synthesis of results. And this I say without any fear 
 of being misunderstood. The study of quite modern history 
 is in my humble opinion — ^and if I am guilty of heresy, I am 
 in no great fear of having to go to the stake alone — quite as 
 profitable as is that of any other kind of history, so long as 
 it is carried on with a consciousness of its special drawbacks as 
 well as of its special advantages. Among the latter the chief 
 of course is the quicker insight of the student into the various 
 bearings of the problems presented to him — a readiness in- 
 separable from the greater intensity of the interest excited. 
 On the other hand, the student of recent history is at a relative 
 disadvantage, not so much because much of the evidence he 
 requires is still kept from him, for alas ! time and the worm 
 are obscurantists as well as princes and officials ; but also 
 because the danger of misunderstanding the evidence actually 
 at hand and the temptation towards perverting it is greatest 
 for those who are inclined to look upon themselves as witnesses. 
 The historian, we know, has prophetical functions; but his 
 prophesying must come to naught if he is in any way 
 personally associated with the inspirations which he reveals. 
 This experience was not spared to a very high-minded as 
 well as clear-thinking and well-equipped writer who about the 
 middle of the last century undertook to write its history, from 
 the Treaties of Vienna onwards. The name of Gervinus 
 deserves to be held in honour in England; but my reason for 
 saying this is not the fact that like so many Continental liberals 
 of the second quarter of the nineteenth century he cherished 
 an admiration for our institutions to which not all remained 
 like himself faithful in their later years. At all events his 
 regard for this country and his interest in her public life was 
 not chargeable with the facile enthusiasm of those who, as the 
 Czar, Nicholas I, said — some time before his thoughts of 
 England had changed into gall — because they had paid a single 
 
4 Europe 
 
 visit to London, heard something about Magna Charta, and 
 shaved with an English razor, could thenceforth never turn 
 away their thoughts from our incomparable constitution. ■ Gar- 
 vinus was, as I need not remind many of my hearers, deeply 
 imbued with the spirit of Germanic Hterature which in his eyes 
 found its supreme embodiment in Shakspere, and not less 
 profoundly with that of Germanic Art, of which as he held 
 a true type was with the same certainty recognisable in Handel, 
 whom we may without presumption claim as an Englishman 
 by adoption. These things we are not likely to overlook — 
 least of all in this University, where we take pride in following 
 the great teacher of history whom we have recently lost in 
 believing that historical progress is not most conclusively 
 traceable in the domain of politics. To the principle, ignored 
 by some of Gervinus' successors, that political history cannot, 
 and ought not to, be isolated from the history of general 
 national and human progress, he steadily adhered in his great 
 work, which may thus claim to be a contribution to the 
 philosophy of history as well as a successful digest of a large 
 section of its political material, besides furnishing an abundance 
 of characterisation, and thus illustrating that imaginative side 
 of historical composition which vindicates one among the uses 
 of the study of Shakspere and his precursors. But of the 
 work itself I must not essay to speak within the narrow 
 framework of my present address, nor can I more than allude 
 to the causes of its having been broken off at what might seem 
 the height of its progress. The eighth and last volume of the 
 History of the Nineteenth Century deals with the July Revolutior 
 of 1830 and its immediate consequences, including the severance 
 of Belgium from Holland — the removal, in Louis-Philippe'; 
 phrase, of that stumbUng-block of Europe which her repre 
 sentatives at Vienna had in their fear of France thought tc 
 set up once and for ever. Yet it was not the Revolution oi 
 1830 or its sequel of 1848—9 which troubled Gervinus; bui 
 his knowledge that at home in Germany — at the beginning 
 
Introduction 5 
 
 of that era of which most of us have been contemporaries — 
 events were taking a turn contradictory to the ideals of self- 
 development and self-reorganisation to which as a historian 
 and as a politician he had so consistently adhered. But 
 though no writer of history is called upon to exclude himself 
 from taking part in the making of it, he ought at his peril to 
 keep the two functions distinct from one another. 
 
 And in truth I was on the present occasion thinking less 
 of Gervinus' History itself than of the Introduction to it — an 
 essay once so well known that I have felt a kind of familiar 
 tremor in turning over its well-marked pages — which meant so 
 much more to us than they ever can mean to you of a later 
 generation. Yet, for all that, this brief but pregnant disserta- 
 tion might, perhaps, taking it as a whole, prove not less inter- 
 esting and useful to an enquirer into the historical sequences 
 of the century as a whole, than it could have been to Gervinus' 
 first readers, placed like himself in the midst of its eddying 
 currents and coniiicting interests. The great truth which this 
 essay teaches, and which to my mind it succeeds in enforcing 
 without any pedantic insistence upon the momentousness of 
 any particular step in the argument, is that, from the point of 
 view of political growth or development, the nineteenth century 
 is, like all the periods which have succeeded one another since 
 the Middle Ages drew towards their close, itself but a stage — 
 an act, if you will, in the drama — of one great and still unfinished 
 struggle. This struggle may be summarised as concerned with 
 the transference of power from the few to the many, with the 
 contention in other words between the democratic and the 
 oligarchic principle — absolute government or monarchy proper 
 intervening again and again in the conflict, siding now with 
 the one and now with the other combatant, at one time 
 seeming to accelerate the movement towards a final solution 
 or settlement, at another, with the aid of many instincts and 
 interests contriving to block the path, but without ever ulti- 
 mately proving itself more than a passing phase in the history 
 
6 Europe 
 
 of the unending strife. Though this great struggle between 
 principles of government, by which almost every kind of social 
 principle is Hkewise largely affected, might have seemed to be 
 approaching its termination towards the end of the eighteenth 
 century, it renewed itself with fresh impetus in the nineteenth, 
 after the transitory phase of the Napoleonic era — transitory 
 even to contemporary eyes that remained undazzled by the 
 sun of AusterUtz. What may be the prospects of solution, 
 what may be the issue which so many voices are proclaiming 
 to us as plainly written on the wall, it may or may not be 
 for the historian of the twentieth century to determine. In 
 the meantime, the most instructive portion of Gervinus' essay 
 is beyond all question that longer portion of which I fear many 
 an impatient hand will in this age (in no sense the age of 
 introductions) incline rapidly to turn the pages— where in a 
 masterly survey of the general progress of modern history since 
 the close of the Middle Ages the author shows how each 
 succeeding century has a share in the movement, without 
 deflecting its main current, or preventing it from a nearer 
 approach to the unseen goal. 
 
 But Gervinus was well aware, and indeed he explicitly, 
 reminds his readers, that though such a movement is dis- 
 cernible by those capable of surveying the entire course of 
 modern political history — much as an analogous current was 
 observed by Aristotle in the political life of the ancient 
 Mediterranean world — yet it is not thus that it would be 
 either possible or expedient for the historical enquirer to look 
 upon the briefer periods, with which he has in the first 
 instance to deal, and of which it behoves him to make clear 
 to himself the significance. In such periods as these it is 
 necessary for him in the first instance to distinguish clearly 
 what may be described as the successive oscillations of ebb 
 and tide ; and there are still narrower limits, yet limits beyond 
 which the consciousness of those whose lives fall within them 
 often fails to range, in which a single potent force, one group 
 
Introduction 7 
 
 of ideas and conceptions, perhaps the influence of one great 
 individuaUty, seems irresistibly to direct and control the life and 
 progress of a nation or a group of nations. More than ever are 
 we impressed by the fact of such periodical predominances in an 
 age like our own, in which political ideas, intellectual tendencies 
 and artistic conceptions assert their mastery over the whole 
 civilised world with the mysterious rapidity of a panic terror 
 or a new fashion in millinery. The historian of modern times is 
 privileged to command a wealth of material of every kind ; and 
 his first task is to find the true signature of whatever period, 
 however short it be, which is immediately under his ken. The 
 true history of the English Commonwealth and of the Great War 
 which brought it forth, could as their late venerated historian 
 Samuel Rawson Gardiner well knew, never be written truth- 
 fully until it had been written carefully, and until it had been 
 followed through each of its successive stages, year by year. 
 How much more must this be the case with the history of the 
 quickly-moved and quickly-moving times near to our own, to 
 whose immediate impulses the oldest and most self-contained 
 of us must perforce in a large measure respond. 
 
 The task which the student of nineteenth century history 
 has before him is therefore a laborious one; but it is not 
 labours such as these which weary the mind alive to interests 
 of which none is alien to it. May I, within the half hour 
 during which I may still venture to trespass on your patience, 
 attempt to recall a passage or two in the history of nineteenth 
 century Europe, exhibiting the contemporary political world, 
 or prominent sections of it, as intent upon a settlement, more 
 or less final and complete, of its problems, and hopeful of a 
 consummation which alas ! it needs no prophet looking back- 
 wards to announce to us as unachieved? My observations 
 will almost entirely refer to the earlier half of the century 
 and for the most part to a single stage of that period, partiy 
 because of the exigencies of time, and partly because I know 
 that it is the later half which is to be chiefly discussed in 
 
8 Europe 
 
 a full and well-arranged series of special lectures that are to 
 follow. 
 
 If, then, as we are surely justified in doing, we regard the 
 Napoleonic age as the necessary complement of the Revolu- 
 tionary, and accept the position in which Napoleon himself was 
 willing to acquiesce, that with his first overthrow the period of 
 the fundamental unsettlement of Europe was at an end, we can 
 have no difficulty in understanding the hopes and expectations 
 "with which her populations watched the assembling of the 
 Congress of Vienna in 1814. The process of disenchantment 
 was no doubt to be rapid ; and under the dictatorial influence 
 of an epigram or two posterity has been inclined to minimise 
 not only the actual results of the Congress but also the labours 
 by which those results were produced — as if at any time the 
 real work of a large assembly were done by more than a small 
 and select body ; and the necessary few were not wanting at 
 Vienna. I doubt whether more than one or two of the names 
 of the statesmen who were the real working-bees of the Congress 
 would carry any particular significance to modern ears; but 
 such is often the fate of those who are content to take a con- 
 tinuous part in the constructive work of statesmanship and to 
 forego the applause which as a rule must inevitably attach 
 itself to the arena. At the outset of the Congress, the hopes 
 set on the issue of its deliberations were unprecedented alike 
 in their height and in their variety. While the pacifications 
 concluded within the last twenty years had, as. it were, but 
 dotted the surface of the sea of war, none of those earlier 
 compacts which had long been accounted landmarks in the 
 political history of Europe — not even the Treaties of West- 
 phalia or the Peace of Utrecht— had attempted more than to 
 regulate the relations between a definite number of important 
 States; at Vienna every country in Europe, with the sole 
 exception of Turkey, knew that its interests would be drawn 
 under discussion. It is true that the bases of the territorial 
 
Introduction 9 
 
 resettlement had already been laid down at Paris, though 
 Talleyrand, whose influence thus made itself felt even before 
 the assembling of the Congress, had managed to have them 
 kept secret in order to spare the susceptibilities of defeated 
 France; and on the other hand it was not known how far 
 from complete was the agreement which had been reached, 
 and how questions were still left open, destined in the very 
 midst of negotiations for peace to bring the chief Powers to 
 the verge of a new war. Thus it came to pass that not 
 only romantic journalists — and in the early decades of the 
 nineteenth century there were romantic journalists who oc- 
 cupied posts of honour in their profession and in contem- 
 porary literature — but practical politicians reckoned on the 
 establishment by the Congress of a system of States, capable 
 of maintaining a positive balance of power, and not merely 
 of satisfying that quasi-negative interpretation of the term 
 which means a combination against the preponderance of 
 any single Power, — be its name Habsburg, or France, or 
 Russia. Such hopes as these were undeceived by the operations 
 of the Congress itself, or rather by those of the Committee 
 of Powers acting on its behalf, who speedily enough made it 
 evident that their scheme of territorial reconstruction began 
 and ended in patchwork; and that even as to the negative 
 principle of not leaving France too strong they were prepared 
 for compromise. It is too much to say, as has been repeatedly 
 said, that the principle of territorial readjustment followed in 
 the Vienna Treaties was statistical or more properly speaking 
 numertcal only — i.e. that the apportionment of dominions and 
 the assignment of frontiers was made out by a comparison of 
 the number of subjects or 'souls' allotted to each government. 
 Still it was numerical almost or quite as much as it was 
 historical or linguistic or religious or, to use the word of magic 
 sound in whose significance that of all the rest is wont to enter 
 — national. Thus the Congress accorded its sanction to a long 
 series of arrangements which seem to us to fly in the face of 
 
lo Europe 
 
 that principle of nationality destined so soon to become one of 
 the active forces of European politics, but which were in reality 
 by their very arbitrariness and rigour to help to hasten the 
 assertion of that principle. If we turn to the South, we find 
 Austria securing to herself an uncontested conpensation in 
 that Lombardo- Venetian Kingdom which a government far 
 worse than hers might under other conditions have far more 
 easily conciliated to its rule. If we pass to the North, we see 
 Norway, cut off from Denmark, who spoke her tongue, and 
 coupled against her will with Sweden, while Denmark is thus 
 driven to seek to make up for her loss by forcing her German 
 Provinces into political union with herself; or we see Finland 
 apathetically left in the grasp of Russia, which in our own 
 day is in defiance of historical tradition, and in defiance 
 of sworn rights, at last closing upon the victim of tendencies 
 against which neither protest nor scruple seems of avail. Or 
 again, if we glance at the Northern border provinces between 
 France and Germany — the Belgian and the Dutch — which 
 after separating from one another in the hour of common stress 
 had come to agree to differ in their material interests, in their 
 religibus traditions and in other respects, we find them, to no 
 real purpose so far as the peace of Europe was concerned, 
 forced into an arbitrary union. Everywhere the settlement 
 was a settlement de par le Congrh — and often one palpably 
 opposed to history and against kind. 
 
 But the Congress had been expected to accomplish other 
 things besides the establishment of that comprehensive political 
 system of States which, as Gentz had the sublime assurance to 
 declare, only missed being perfected by it because Napoleon 
 chose to break loose from Elba. I need not dwell in particular 
 on the expectation of a systematic encouragement by the 
 Congress of constitutional forms of government, due not so 
 much to the wishes of the leading statesmen of the Congress 
 itself, as to the situation of which European public opinion 
 regarded them as the trustees. Metternich, to do him justice, 
 
Introduction 1 1 
 
 consistently kept Austria out of the competition, and Castlereagh 
 in the House of Lords, using one of those simpler figures of 
 irony which suited him, expressed himself as by no means 
 convinced that, had he gone about like a missionary to preach 
 the excellency and the fitness of our constitution, all countries 
 would have been found ripe for profiting by his endeavours. 
 The action in this direction of Great Britain, whose own 
 parliamentary constitution was we remember still unreformed — 
 had as yet been little more than incidental, and had by no 
 means assumed that sympathetic provocativeness of bearing 
 with which our policy was credited in later days, when 
 Palmerston sought to better the instructions of Canning. 
 On the other hand, the granting or promising of constitutions 
 had already become an expedient of the collapsing tyranny of 
 Great Britain's archfoe, Napoleon ; nor can there be any doubt 
 but that to his Warsaw constitution was due the suggestion 
 of the grand scheme of a constitutional Poland so warmly 
 cherished for a time by the fluctuating idealism of the Czar 
 Alexander. As for the Congress itself, though it showed small 
 solicitude, more especially where the inherited or traditional 
 rights of oligarchical bodies whether in Switzerland or else- 
 where were concerned, for preserving the growth of chartered 
 rights, it showed no unwillingness to favour the establishment 
 of new constitutions, more especially on the motion of the 
 governments themselves. In its very first article, the Final Act 
 of the Congress guaranteed their national institutions and 
 representation to those Poles who had respectively become 
 the subjects of the three so-called Partitioning Powers, and 
 it proceeded to make special provision for the .security of 
 a constitution of such vanishing importance as that of Cracow. 
 It guaranteed the new German federal constitution, which in 
 its turn explicitly promised the grant of constitutions to all the 
 States composing the federation (though of course the Austrian 
 government never fulfilled its part of the compact), and 
 elsewhere, in Norway, in Spain, and in France itself, the 
 
1 2 Europe 
 
 grant or expectation of constitutional forms of government 
 was declared or understood to have the sanction of the concert 
 of the European Powers. 
 
 The imperfect success of these constitutional hopes and 
 expectations in some instances, in others the resistance offered 
 to them openly or secretly by the governments directly con- 
 cerned with their fulfilment, and the conflicts, the conspiracies, 
 the insurrections which in consequence filled the earlier half of 
 the century, till they culminated in the general revolutionary 
 outbreak of 1848—9 cannot be dwelt upon here. I do not see 
 why the Congress should be made chargeable with all these 
 failures ; for its actual commission — the commission with 
 which it had been charged at Paris, and which was the only 
 definite commission that it had at any time received — did 
 not include the regeneration of the public life of the States 
 of Europe on constitutional lines. But public opinion had 
 expected this from so unusual a gathering of representative 
 statesmen, and it had expected a great deal more than this. 
 
 Hopes — more or less vague — had been cherished that at 
 Vienna, after a real equilibrium had been established among 
 the States of Europe, and after their internal tranquillity had 
 been assured by the. grant or the prospect of representative 
 institutions, the foundations would be laid of a legally estab- 
 lished international community, — perhaps by the establishment 
 of a great Court of arbitration, and perhaps by the adoption 
 of common binding principles of future disarmament, however 
 remote and however gradual might be its actual consummation. 
 We need not wonder that such aspirations should have attended 
 the termination of an age of war and the assembling of the 
 statesmen of Europe, whose primary task it was to elaborate the 
 terms of the pacification which had at last put an end to it; 
 indeed, it would have been strange had an invariable sequence 
 not repeated itself on so exceptional an occasion. The Peace 
 of Utrecht had been followed by the announcement of Ber- 
 nardin de Ste Pierre's Utopian peace-project 
 
Introduction 1 3 
 
 ' Une fable aussi belle: 
 La paix universelle : ' 
 
 Jeremy Bentham's project of an international Court for the 
 decision of international diiferences was probably suggested by 
 Catharine II's in another way almost equally abortive Armed 
 Neutrahty of 1780; and Kant's more famous plan of a Uni- 
 versal Peace, not the less interesting to us because it was 
 confuted by Hegel from the point of view of the modern con- 
 ception of the State, unmistakably had an origin less noble 
 than itself in the ill-fated attempt to safeguard the neutrality 
 of Northern Germany in the shameless Peace of Basel. 
 
 The problem of a proportionate disarmament of the chiei 
 European Powers, it must not be forgotten, could hardly be 
 solved by them even in principle when Four of them held 
 themselves obliged for an indefinite period of time to occupy 
 the territory of a Fifth. But though the reductions of the 
 military strength of the several European Powers both in 1814 
 and in 18 15 — except in the case of Great Britain, who may be 
 said to have reduced her army fighting power by little short 
 of one half, — were far less considerable than had been hoped, 
 neither the Powers nor the peoples of Europe in the period 
 which followed upon the close of the Napoleonic Age acquiesced 
 in the policy of an armed peace — or in other words were 
 prepared to maintain themselves in a constant state of prepara- 
 tion for war. It is not to be denied that any system of separate 
 alliances between particular Powers — be they dual or triple or 
 other — is far more likely to lead to the maintenance of such 
 a policy than was the system of an alliance of all the Great 
 Powers, which the statesmanship of the Congressional period 
 sought to put into operation. 
 
 You are aware how both in the matter of disarmament, and 
 more especially in that of the establishment of some common 
 tribunal for the settlement of international differences, the 
 disappointment of the hopes founded upon direct action on 
 the part of the Congress of Vienna by no means damped the 
 
14 Europe 
 
 ardour of those who, whether in the Old World or in the New, 
 had at heart a cause of so perennial an interest for Europe and 
 for humanity. The task of protesting against War, and against 
 the avowal by statesmanship and by society of their impotence 
 to find any way of systematically averting it, was now— and 
 this again was characteristic of the new century — taken up 
 by combinations and Societies. Often no doubt aided by the 
 potent influence of personality — for the spirit of William Penn 
 had survived into the ninth and tenth generations — these 
 associations as a rule sought strength in numbers, and gradually 
 overcame that impression of futile dogmatism which had been 
 created by isolated efforts. No more interesting statement 
 was ever put on record than that drawn up by the late Johann 
 von Bloch in the last volume of his monumental work on The 
 War of the Future — the text-book as I may call it of the Hague 
 Congress — with the purpose of showing how the endeavours of 
 which I speak gradually took possession of public opinion, and 
 through public opinion impressed their significance upon the 
 governments. In course of time Napoleon III took notice of 
 these efforts — though unhappily his ears, like those of the rider 
 in the legend, were open to inspirations and insinuations both 
 on the left hand and on the right. At Paris in 1856 the late 
 Lord Clarendon honoured himself and his country by pro- 
 posing a declaration which was adopted by the Powers, that it 
 was their desire in the event of serious international differences 
 to seek to avert war by arbitration before actually resorting to 
 arms. In this last clause, of course, lay the novelty of the 
 Paris Declaration, for there was nothing new in the resort 
 to arbitration in the case of boundary questions and other 
 difficulties which were not of a nature to threaten a warlike 
 issue. Whether or not such an issue was actually within 
 measurable distance, when in 187 1 the British government 
 over which Mr Gladstone presided resolved on signing the 
 Treaty of Washington, which referred to arbitration the so- 
 called Alabama and cognate claims, moral courage of an 
 
Introduction 1 5 
 
 unusual kind was no doubt required to make possible both that 
 signature and the acceptance of the American view, which 
 treated these claims as national and not merely as private. 
 Resort has since been had with increasing frequency to 
 arbitration for the solution of international difficulties; and 
 though the application of it has at times been baulked, its 
 progressive use seems assured. 
 
 The Congress of Vienna, it may be worth remembering, 
 took an important step in the direction of securing the bless- 
 ings of peace to certain European territories peculiarly exposed 
 to the dangers of war, and for the same reasons specially liable 
 themselves to give rise to conflicts between other nations. The 
 neutrality of Switzerland, which had been violated both in the 
 Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and was again violated 
 immediately after the first overthrow of Napoleon, was now 
 placed under the most formal guarantees ; and you know how 
 this precedent was followed in the instance of Belgium in 1831, 
 in that of Servia in 1856, and in that of Luxemburg in 1867. 
 You are probably also aware that it was not long afterwards 
 — in the course of the great Franco-German War — that the 
 question arose in connexion with the last-named guarantee, 
 whether the principle was generally. accepted that any one of 
 the guaranteeing Powers was entitled to judge for itself as to any 
 supposed offence against the terms of the neutrality conceded, 
 and consequently to decide for itself as to withdrawal from the 
 guarantee, or whether such questions were for the decision of 
 all the signatories. The latter principle, if it had been definitively 
 accepted, would have added another security, so far as it went, 
 for the peace of Europe. The general system, I may add, of 
 interposing weak States between strong — buffer- States as they 
 are sometimes, though not I think very felicitously called — was 
 itself a not very happy adaptation of a Napoleonic device, 
 adopted by him with a very different purpose ; nor was it to 
 prove successful in the case of Sardinia, or in that of Saxony, 
 or so far as I can remember in any other case. 
 
1 6 Europe 
 
 It would take me too far to advert to those aspirations 
 towards an international treatment of international interests 
 which addressed themselves not so much to the aversion of 
 War, as to its incidence and management. The days of the 
 Congress of Vienna and the period ensuing were unfavourable 
 to a discussion of the rights of neutrals by sea; and Great 
 Britain who at the time of the opening of the Congress was 
 actually still at war with the United States on behalf of her 
 navigation laws, was not likely for some time to consent to 
 entertain proposals in favour of their modifications. Other 
 questions were in the interests of humanity at large to be taken 
 up by a much later generation,, and to these I advert only in 
 order that they may not seem to have been left unremembered. 
 The Geneva Convention of 1863 was only the first of a bene- 
 ficent series of agreements; for when the war of 1866 had 
 demonstrated its incompleteness, it was supplemented by 
 another Convention in 1868 which was held in time to be in 
 force in the great war of 1870. The reaction produced by that 
 War against the propaganda of peace and the various schemes 
 for giving more definite shape to it which had again and again 
 appeared on the horizon since the days of the Congress of 
 Vienna itself is not to be denied ; but the experience is one 
 which in one way or another we have gone through before and 
 since. In this case there was much coolness shown especially 
 in Germany in response to the sympathy displayed in Russia, 
 and in the highest quarters there, with objects for the promotion 
 of which the Conference at the Hague was ultimately sum- 
 moned in the last year of the century. From the regions of 
 diplomacy and administration, this antipathy found its way 
 into the academic chair and into the history-books, where 
 it was characteristically transformed into a direct enthusiasm for 
 war and its value as a moral agency. This strange gospel, too, 
 was not then preached either for the first or the last time. 
 For the rest, whatever may be the results of the Hague Con- 
 ference, its main object, the promotion of a better understanding 
 
Introduction 1 7 
 
 between the nations, will assuredly be hastened by the series of 
 subsidiary conferences on subjects of private international law, 
 which thanks to the high-minded energy of the Dutch govern- 
 ment, have been carried on in the same capital during the last 
 quarter of the century, and in which most of the States of 
 Europe have taken part — our own, for perhaps hardly sufficient 
 reasons, not being included in their number. 
 
 I may perhaps be thought to have strayed outside the limits 
 which I had proposed to myself for my remarks ; but it seemed 
 permissible to indicate how some at least of those aspirations 
 which long appeared to have in vain found expression at the 
 time of the assembling of the Congress of Vienna were far from 
 extinguished by their failure to advance visibly towards fulfil- 
 ment on this unprecedented, and indeed unparalleled inter- 
 national occasion. It would, of course, be an error to conclude 
 that no advance was made at the Congress and in the period 
 of European history which followed, towards better securities 
 than had previously existed for the endurance of the European 
 system of States and superior facilities for its development or 
 improvement. The Four Great Powers which (no doubt each at 
 the time and under the conditions best suiting its own interests) 
 had entered into the decisive struggle against Napoleonic 
 France, and had carried it to a successful issue, deliberately 
 took it upon themselves by their action at Vienna to establish 
 and maintain in the name and in the interest of Europe at 
 large the political system elaborated at the Congress. The 
 Four Powers were indeed, by the dexterous audacity of 
 Talleyrand on his arrival at Vienna, obliged to include the 
 representatives of the whole of the Eight Powers who had 
 signed the Peace of Paris in the Preliminary Committee of the 
 Congress — and in its work there was really nothing that was 
 not preliminary except the Final Act. Even this Final Act 
 was technically only the Act of the Eight Powers and the rest 
 of the States of Europe were simply invited to adhere to it. 
 But everyone knew that Spain and Portugal and Sweden were 
 
 H. L. 2 
 
1 8 Europe 
 
 only included so that France might not come in alone — though 
 both Spain and Sweden still cherished a remembrance of 
 the days when they had been numbered among the Great 
 Powers — a remembrance which the eighteenth century had not 
 quite taken away from the Swedish throne, and which perhaps 
 not even the nineteenth has ended by extinguishing in the 
 hearts of the Spanish people. And even this Committee of 
 the Eight was not very often summoned, especially in the 
 earlier months of the Congress, when its chief task was the 
 appointment of the Special or Sub-Committees to whom the 
 various branches of the business of the Congress were as- 
 signed ; and the plenipotentiaries of the Five Great Powers 
 occasionally took it upon themselves to meet without the 
 three supernumeraries. Thus, then, during the all-important 
 months of deliberations preceding Napoleon's return from 
 Elba, the Four Allied Powers, by the side of whom Talleyrand 
 had contrived to establish France as a working fifth wheel of 
 the machine, controlled the destinies of Europe. How com- 
 pletely the remaining States were prepared to follow their 
 lead, was shown by their adhesion to the action taken by the 
 Four Powers on Napoleon's return — the exceptions to the 
 unanimity being Spain and Sweden, whose hesitation only 
 emphasised their actual insignificance. It was again shown 
 by the adhesion of all the European States to the Final Act — 
 with the exception again of Spain, this time associated (though 
 his protest was more formal than real) with the Pope. 
 
 Whatever may be thought of the way in which this European 
 Committee exercised the authority assumed by it — and I am 
 convinced that the extent, variety and importance of its labours 
 have been alike undervalued— it cannot be gainsaid that a new 
 method had been set on foot, a new departure had been made, 
 in the interests of the balance of power, or in other words of the 
 peace of Europe, or in other words of the increased prosperity 
 and happiness of its populations. The origin of this innovation 
 has been much mistaken, though nothing can be more certain ; 
 
Introduction 1 9 
 
 and its purposes — I do not say its results — have been conse- 
 quently misjudged. The Treaty of Chaumont, signed on 
 March i, 18 14, by Lord Castlereagh and the other pleni- 
 potentiaries of the Four Powers who were then, arms in hand, 
 intent upon accompHshing Napoleon's overthrow, not only 
 declared the peace of Europe to be dependent on the main- 
 tenance by their augmented armies of the order of things which 
 they had resolved on establishing in France, but it provided 
 that in order to arrange future measures for the preservation of 
 peace and to promote a good understanding between the Four 
 Powers, periodical meetings should take place between the 
 Sovereigns in person, or their plenipotentiaries. This was the 
 system to which the method of procedure at Vienna just de- 
 scribed gave practical effect, and which was stereotyped on the 
 same day as that on which the Second Peace of Paris was 
 signed (November 20, 1815) by a further agreement between 
 the Four Powers. This agreement, while it maintained the 
 exclusion from the French throne of Napoleon and the 
 Napoleonic dynasty, renewed the mutual undertaking of the 
 Allied Sovereigns not only to unite if necessary in common 
 measures of war, but also to meet at stated intervals either in 
 person or through their representatives, for the purpose of 
 dealing with matters of interest to them all, and of discussing 
 measures conducive to the tranquillity and prosperity of their 
 peoples, and to the preservation of the peace of Europe. This 
 Paris compact, based on the Treaty of Chaumont, was the 
 actual beginning of the Congressional epoch of nineteenth 
 century European history — a period as well-marked and some 
 will say as barren of results in political as the Conciliar period 
 of the 14th and isth centuries is in ecclesiastical history. But, 
 as I ventured to say before, we must guard against judging 
 within cycles ; and we must guard, I may add, against turning 
 the pages of the book of history with too rapid a hand. The 
 Congressional epoch had been practically begun at Vienna, 
 when as has been noted France, whose frontiers the concert of 
 
20 Europe 
 
 the Allies was to regulate and over whose destinies it was to 
 retain control, was as a matter of fact admitted to that concert, 
 though not unreservedly or unintermittently. The new epochi 
 was formally opened at Aix-la-Chapelle in 1818, when France 
 was solemnly introduced into the Alliance originally formed 
 against her power ; but even then on the very day when this 
 admission was proclaimed the plenipotentiaries of the Four 
 Powers signed a secret protocol, binding them if necessary to 
 consider measures for anticipating the disastrous effects of any 
 new revolutionary agitation which might menace France. 
 
 The nations and nationalities which, before the century 
 had passed out of its decades of hope and promise, had lost 
 all faith in the Congressional panacea for their troubles, took 
 a singular revenge upon the system which Metternich christened 
 the Moral Pentarchy of Europe. They taught themselves to 
 mistake and misrepresent its origin, and to confound the 
 cautious stipulations set down by Metternich, Castlereagh, 
 Nesselrode and Hardenberg for the Quadruple Alliance of 
 the future with what the first-named of these statesmen called 
 the verbiage of the Holy Alliance. The principles of the Holy 
 Alliance, which are supposed to have regulated the policy of 
 the Great Powers during a momentous period of European 
 history (and not only poets and journalists, but historians and 
 diplomatists — even such a diplomatist as Bismarck — have en- 
 couraged this misapprehension), were the personal aspirations 
 of a single potentate, the Czar Alexander, expressed in a 
 document to which his fellow-sovereigns, the Emperor Francis 
 and King Frederick William of Prussia, had only reluctantly 
 signified their assent, without so much as communicating it 
 to their cabinets, though Metternich had read it, corrected it 
 here and there, and disUked it as a whole. In a general way, 
 this programme or prospectus (for its character was such rather, 
 than that of a definite plan or scheme) was due to the self- 
 consciousness of Alexander I, which had been inevitably in- 
 creased by the prominence, again inevitable, of the part played 
 
Introduction 1 1 
 
 by him at Vienna. Russia's share in the final struggle against 
 Napoleon had in some respects been unique in its conditions, 
 and the Czar's personal power was autocratic in a sense in 
 which this could be predicated of no other sovereign at Vienna. 
 But above all he had an insatiable ambition to intervene 
 where he could as a beneficent Providence to which no nation 
 or nationality — Polish, Swiss, German, Hellenic — need appeal 
 in vain and, while Russia pursued all the time the policy of her 
 traditions and the policy of her interests, to colour the outline 
 with hues of his own. The particular design of the Holy 
 Alliance, however, was inspired in him by Madame de Kru- 
 dener, a fascinating woman, who without the intervening stage 
 of penance common in the lives of saints, had passed from the 
 character of a fashionable beauty into that of a prophetess. 
 When Alexander met her, thereby fulfilling her first prophecy, 
 he had already been prepared for her revelations by the philo- 
 sopher Franz von Baader's theories as to the necessity of 
 intensifying the Christian element in the government of States, 
 in contravention of the principles of government identified 
 with the French Revolution. I cannot here enter into the 
 more precise bearing of these theories, the reverse of ignoble 
 or unpatriotic in themselves, though tinged by a theosophy 
 which may account for their having been held to point to the 
 necessity of a union between the spiritual and the temporal 
 headship of Christian communities. They certainly fell upon 
 ground responsive in more senses than one, and accorded 
 with national religious conceptions inherited by the Czar, as 
 well as with the promptings of personal vanity and jealousy 
 and the dictates of a political interest, which to instance but 
 a single phase of it, in the East was Christian or nothing. 
 Nothing could be simpler than the fundamental document 
 of the Alliance signed by the Czar's own hand. Using 
 scriptural phraseology, its signatories . undertook in con- 
 junction with one another to uphold religion, peace and 
 justice; acknowledging themselves the mere delegates of the 
 
2 2 Europe 
 
 one sovereign of Christendom — the Holy Trinity, devoting 
 themselves to making their peoples happy by enabling them to 
 obey the Divine Will, and welcoming into the Alliance all 
 Powers who accepted its principles. 
 
 Besides the Emperor Francis and King Frederick William, 
 King Louis XVIII afterwards added his signature to this 
 document — a curious agent in the proposed religious regene- 
 ration of France; and the Prince Regent of Great Britain, 
 though debarred by the constitution of his country from enter- 
 ing into personal engagements with foreign sovereigns, felt 
 himself able to write a letter expressive of his thorough agree- 
 ment with the principles of the Holy Alliance. But notwith- 
 standing these edifying signatures and communications, it is 
 the Treaty of Chaumont and the Declaration accompanying 
 the Second Treaty of Paris, and not the Holy Alliance, which 
 represents the outcome of the endeavour permanently to 
 control the re-settlement of Europe after the close of the 
 Napoleonic Wars, by means of a Committee of Great Powers. 
 For Englishmen at least, the distinction, which I may seem to 
 you to have unnecessarily laboured, is historically not insig- 
 nificant ; we may disclaim any national responsibility for the 
 Holy Alliance, in spite of the Prince Regent's approval of it ; 
 but into the Congressional policy the British government 
 consciously entered, and no European Power had a more 
 direct and a more conspicuous share in setting it on foot. 
 We, therefore, as a nation have a share in its honour and 
 dishonour, in its endeavour to follow aims and satisfy 
 aspirations which have approved themselves to the judgment 
 of history, or which the friends of humanity and the believers 
 in the ultimate progress of our race still continue to cherish,— 
 and in its failures, its self-delusions and its perversity. 
 
 Among the benefits which the Congressional system at 
 the very outset directly helped to confer upon mankind, I 
 will only mention one, whose chief credit belongs to our 
 own country, though it was undoubtedly expedited by the 
 
Introduction 23 
 
 machinery of the Congress, which extracted a theoretical 
 assent to our demands even from the most reluctant of the 
 Powers to whom they were addressed. The declaration ex- 
 pressing the desire of the Eight Powers to put a stop to the 
 scourge which had so long desolated Africa, degraded Europe 
 and afflicted the human race, was accompanied by an ex- 
 pression of their intention to carry out the universal abolition 
 of the African Slave-trade with the utmost promptitude possible. 
 The choice of time and season was indeed left to each Power 
 concerned; but the effectiveness of so formal an appeal 
 to public opinion was shown before the Congress of Vienna 
 separated, when Napoleon on his return from Elba decreed the 
 immediate abolition of the Slave-trade throughout the dominions 
 of France, and when Louis XVIII from Ghent, in order not to 
 be outdone by the usurper, empowered Talleyrand to make 
 the same announcement in the royal name. ' The question 
 was even so by no means settled ; but Great Britain had suc- 
 ceeded in identifying the acknowledged organ of European 
 political action with the progress of its settlement. 
 
 I had intended to carry these comments a little further, 
 and to enquire what in the period of the successive Con- 
 gresses — ;Aix-la-Chapelle, Troppau, Laibach, Verona — were the 
 aims and aspirations which it was sought to meet, to influence 
 or to evade under the newly organised tutela. of the Great 
 Powers, which had succeeded to the autocracy of the Napo- 
 leonic will. In studying these transactions, we may do well to 
 notice how, as a rule, it is a divergence of interests rather than 
 a preconception of principle which accounts for the inadequacy 
 of the system — an inadequacy which in the end becomes hope- 
 less. Even at Aix-la-Chapelle the attention of the Powers 
 was by no means absorbed by the most pressing tasks of safe- 
 guarding the Restoration in France, and of correcting the 
 imperfections of the Germanic Confederation ; but though the 
 accord of the Great Powers still seemed unbroken, and Metter- 
 nich was for the time satisfied with the Czar, the question 
 
24 Europe 
 
 of the relations between Spain and her Colonies, which had 
 been ignored at Vienna, already gave rise to differences of 
 view between Russia and Great Britain, and a grouping of the 
 Powers — the incipient negation of the Congressional concert — 
 had begun. Before the next Congress the inevitable had 
 happened. The Revolution had broken out in Spain, in Por- 
 tugal and in Sicily; and at Laibach in 1821 the determination 
 of the Eastern Powers to intervene directly — in other words 
 their logical assertion of the right of the Powers (or their 
 majority) to assume the character of an international police — 
 led to a schism between the three Eastern and the two Western, 
 and the great protective and representative Alliance was already 
 on the eve of disruption. A year later, at Verona — where the 
 Eastern Powers dealt with Italian affairs throughout the 
 Peninsula entirely on the principles on which they had agreed, 
 and where Canning's instructions (not perhaps altogether 
 relished by Wellington) completely severed Great Britain from 
 the other Powers in the matter of the Spanish- American 
 Colonies — the Greek Insurrection, and with it the Eastern 
 Question, knocked at the door. It knocked as yet in vain ; 
 but a harmonious treatment of these new issues on the part of 
 Russia and Austria was impossible, and a new epoch in the 
 history of Europe opens with the self-assertion of the Hellenic 
 nationality. 
 
 The character of that epoch is first conspicuously marked 
 by the French July Revolution of 1830 and the Belgian In- 
 surrection, ending in the separation of Belgium from Holland, 
 which ensued in close connexion with it. The Powers had to 
 submit to the undoing of the union which had been one of the 
 most elaborately devised of the pieces of constructive work done 
 at Vienna, and as to the right of the French nation to deter- 
 mine its own government there was now no longer any attempt 
 at European control. In Spain and Portugal the 'legitimate* 
 claimants— for Talleyrand's catchword still held out, though it 
 had lost much of its magic — were now mere pretenders, sup- 
 
Introduction 2 5 
 
 ported not by the sanction of Congresses, but by voluntary 
 contributions. In Poland, which notwithstanding the specious 
 promises of the Czar had remained a Russian province and a 
 conquered territory, a nation rose within half-a-dozen days ; and 
 neither the insurrection nor its suppression left any doubt as to 
 the issue to which they were alike single-mindedly directed. 
 
 In the lectures to which you are about to listen and in the 
 studies which these lectures will, I trust, stimulate you to 
 pursue with increasing assiduity and thoroughness, you may 
 not by preference occupy yourselves with the period of the 
 political history of modern Europe on which I have touched 
 this morning, with the Congressional machinery which, origin- 
 ally at first with no purpose either visionary or sinister, it sought 
 to set in motion, and with the aims and aspirations which those 
 who worked this machinery sought to advance, modify or 
 defeat. You may not even find much leisure to spare for 
 a close enquiry into the period of political history which began 
 with the collapse of the Congressional system, and which after 
 witnessing the early triumphs of 1830, came to an end with the 
 collapse of the Revolution of 1848 — 9. 
 
 This epoch, however, was likewise full of aspirations proper 
 to itself, and the field of its history is likewise strewn with 
 memories of insufficient methods and of bafHed hopes. The 
 eminent author whom I cited earlier in this address, closes his 
 Introduction to the History of the Nineteenth Century, composed 
 by him when that century had run half its course and when to 
 less comprehensive minds it might have seemed doomed to 
 begin its endeavours over again, with the expression of a hope 
 that Germany, for whom it might eventually be reserved to 
 exercise an influence in Europe such as had formerly been 
 exercised by France, would follow the example of England in 
 renouncing all ambition to play the part of a conquering State. 
 Her true ideal of action, as it seemed to him, was on the 
 contrary the dissolution into federations of those vast State- 
 unities by which the progress of liberty and of culture were 
 
26 Europe 
 
 alike endangered. Even without anticipating the comments 
 which will be offered to you on the history of the application 
 of the federal principle of government to European politics 
 in the nineteenth century; — even without, on the other hand, 
 betraying" any nervous alarm as to the spectres of Panslavism 
 and Pangermanism which daily walk in sheets;— even without 
 venturing on any speculations as to the ultimate results of the 
 tendencies towards imperial expansion which have derived so 
 extraordinary an impulse in our own land and elsewhere from 
 patriotic sentiment, from literary demonstration, and from that 
 most powerful of teachers, actual achievement — which of us 
 can be blind to the irony of the answer which the last years 
 of the nineteenth century seem to have returned to the aspira- 
 tions of the historian of its earlier decades ? It is less easy to 
 speculate on the measure of fulfilment which will be granted to 
 the aspirations that have taken their place. But I think that 
 such speculations are scarcely incumbent upon ourselves, and 
 that in the meantime we may be content to rest our faith, as 
 historical students, on laws which the experiences of a century 
 can neither make nor unmake. Our primary task is after all to 
 observe, to compare, to record. 
 
 To some measure of participation in that task we, being all 
 of us fellow-workers in the same field, most cordially invite you; 
 and though your leisure we know is limited (but then whose is 
 not?) we would gladly help you to turn it to good account. 
 A little advice and a little guidance cannot go a very long way, 
 but how far they will go, depends most upon the learner. For 
 my part, I could do nothing this morning beyond asking you to 
 accompany me for a brief hour while I recalled a passage or 
 two of my own studies. Others will address you whom you 
 will follow with more pleasure and with more profit ; but we all 
 alike have at heart the twofold purpose of this Summer Meeting, 
 that you should spend some pleasant weeks at Cambridge, and 
 that you should leave this ancient home of learning for its own 
 sake more resolved than ever to be and remain students in the 
 true sense of the word. 
 
INTRODUCTION TO THE INTERNATIONAL 
 HISTORY OF EUROPE DURING THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 By Prof. J. Westlake, LL.D. 
 
 In studying the international history of Europe during the 
 nineteenth century the first step should be to compare the 
 map of Europe at the beginning and at the end of the period. 
 The end is marked for us by this year 1902 in which we are : 
 for the beginning we ought to take the year 1792, that in which 
 the great war commenced, which lasted almost continuously to 
 the battle of Waterloo in 1815. Comparing the map of 1902 
 with that of 1792 we are struck by two great facts, unifica- 
 tion and transfer. Unification is seen in Italy and Germany. 
 In 1792 Italy was divided between a dozen independent 
 sovereignties, and Germany comprised several hundred princes 
 and cities having distinct international existence, grouped 
 indeed under the Holy Roman Empire, but by a tie so loose 
 as to be scarcely perceptible. There are now the one kingdom 
 of Italy and the one German empire, in the latter of which 
 are grouped twenty-five states, of which it is the distinct inter- 
 national existence that has in its turn become scarcely per- 
 ceptible. Austria, which lay within the Holy Roman Empire, 
 is outside the German one; but that single circumstance cannot 
 obscure the great fact of unification. 
 
 ' When we come to the difference between the map of 1902 
 and that of 1792 as resulting from transfers, including the 
 separation of parts which have become independent, it is 
 almost over the whole of Europe that our view must range. 
 Let us make the tour of Europe in a circle. Poland has 
 
28 Europe 
 
 ceased to exist : its dismembered sovereignty has been trans- 
 ferred to Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Not attempting to 
 express with nicety the various modes in which territories may 
 be associated while remaining autonomous, we may say broadly 
 that Finland has been transferred from Sweden to Russia, 
 Norway from Denmark to Sweden, and Sleswick-Holstein from 
 Denmark to Prussia, that is to Germany. The Austrian 
 Netherlands, after a passing union with Holland, have become 
 the kingdom of Belgium. Alsace-Lorraine has been transferred 
 from France to Germany; Savoy and Nice from Sardinia to 
 France. Lombardy has been transferred from Austria to Italy. 
 Venice has disappeared, and after a varied intermediate history 
 her Italian territory has been merged, with the willing assent 
 of its population, in the kingdom of Italy, while her pos- 
 sessions on the other side of the Adriatic have ended by 
 becoming parts of. Austria and Greece. Greece herself, Servia, 
 and Roumania are three kingdoms which have been carved 
 out of Turkey, with which decaying empire Bulgaria, Crete, 
 and Samos retain but a slight connection, while Bosnia and 
 . Herzegovina have been transferred from it, nominally to the 
 administration but really to the rule of Austria. To sum this 
 up, one-fifth of the population of Europe may now be called 
 on to fight against flags under which the grandfathers of men 
 not yet old might have been called on to fight, and this with- 
 out reckoning anything for the separation of Austria from 
 Germany, or for transfers from one German or Italian flag to 
 another. I wish to impress on you the magnitude of this fact. 
 Do not misinterpret it, as if one-fifth of Europe was living 
 under a rule felt to be alien. Many of the changes have been 
 made with the goodwill of the peoples concerned. But the 
 fact is a great one nevertheless. We are apt to forget it when 
 both in current politics, and in following history through the 
 ages, we use the same names of states without thinking of the 
 variations in their composition and boundaries. An English-?^ 
 man is especially apt to forget it, slumbering in the security of ' 
 
International History 29 
 
 his unchanging islands. Yet no practical politician, nor any- 
 one who speculates on the ties which may bind a state together, 
 can afford to forget it. 
 
 Now how are you, as students of history, to deal with the 
 period which has wrought such changes in the map ? There is 
 not one historical method suited to the study of all ages. From 
 the ages more properly called prehistorical no records have 
 come down, and their events are therefore irrecoverably lost. 
 All that can be done for them is to construct some broadly 
 outlined picture of society, with here and there an approach to 
 an event, such as the succession of a shortheaded race to a 
 longheaded race in a particular country, within possible limits 
 of time ranging perhaps over a thousand years. Then there is 
 history properly so called, that of events, but for which the 
 records are scanty. There you must be diligent in augmenting 
 the available records as far as possible, by searching in libraries, 
 record offices, and even in Egyptian ruins; and you must 
 exercise the historic imagination. That is a faculty to be 
 spoken of with the highest respect. As men of science show 
 you in phenomena what few could have found out in them, 
 but all can see when found out, so the historic imagination can 
 supplement records and link them together, producing results 
 of which a large part receive general assent. But of the 
 nineteenth century the records all exist and are mostly known. 
 Any that are not yet accessible are not likely to affect our 
 judgment on important matters, though they may throw new 
 light on the characters of individuals and on particular 
 incidents. Discovery and the historic imagination are not 
 therefore so much called for as diligent study and just and 
 sympathetic appreciation of what we possess. And I re- 
 commend you to address that study and appreciation to the 
 following points. 
 
 . First, learn the wars and treaties, which have been, let us 
 not say the causes, but the instruments by which the map has 
 been revolutionised. By them you will know not merely the 
 
30 Europe 
 
 final change in the map but the process of change : you will 
 know what was the external situation in which the personages 
 of the historical epic were placed at any moment during the 
 period, a knowledge without which the course of the epic 
 cannot be intelligently followed. From the instruments of 
 change you must rise to the immediate causes, the popular 
 feeling, the ambition or statecraft, which prompted the moves 
 in the game of battle and diplomacy. These immediate causes 
 you must learn both as they really existed and as they were 
 expressed in state papers. When statesmen express or justify 
 their policy they are seldom wholly cynical. Theij- policy 
 usually represents to their own minds some general view — it 
 might be too laudatory always to call it a principle — of which 
 perhaps we may disapprove, but which can be held with no 
 more insincerity than goes with the actions of common men. 
 The general views of statesmen are sometimes sound, sometimes 
 the most plausible expression which can be given to popular 
 feelings or to dynastic or personal ambitions, sometimes mere 
 catchwords expressing only routine and meaningless habits of 
 thought. In any case they are among the most important 
 factors in international affairs, so great is the influence of 
 statesmen on those affairs, secretly conducted as they commonly 
 are in their most important stages. 
 
 Behind these immediate causes there are remoter ones. 
 The course of human action is like that of the tides, setting 
 steadily in certain directions for a time, and rising or falling on 
 the coasts which they pass in their flood or ebb ; mass move- 
 ments, distinct from the waves which the wind raises on the 
 surface. These streams of tendency give to some periods of 
 history characters more visible in retrospect than at the time, 
 as the set of the tide is not to be seen in the waves, but by the 
 marks which are submerged or uncovered. Of course such 
 streams of tendency are only the summation of the thoughts 
 and acts of men, but of millions of men, often less apparent 
 on the surface than those of the few who guide national action 
 
International History 31 
 
 or give a voice to public opinion. Take for example what we 
 can now see to have been one of the greatest issues in the 
 international politics of the eighteenth century, the question 
 whether England or France should prove to be the more 
 expansive power, the power which, for itself and the states 
 which might arise from its colonies, should take the lead in 
 America and Asia. There are large tracts of the diplomatic 
 history of the eighteenth century in which that question does 
 not make much show, either in the public opinion bearing on 
 them or in the utterances to be found in state papers, but the 
 rivalry was there all the time, and operated in the backs of 
 men's minds to shape what they said and did. 
 
 When we have learnt the international events of a period 
 and their immediate and remoter causes, we shall know its 
 international history ; and when the period is so recent a one 
 as the century just ended, the prolongation of the lines which 
 we have been following may guide our eyes a little way into the 
 future. On that borderland of the past and the future the duty 
 is especially urgent which lies on all students of history, not to 
 be content with the interest of the spectacle, but to judge the 
 real value, the rights and wrongs, of the story. Perhaps, when 
 you close the history of a period which has been marked by 
 such great transfers of population, you may be led to reflect on 
 the nature of the state tie, the conditions which make it 
 possible or fitting that men should live together as a state. 
 But in that or in any other line of reflection you will enjoy a 
 rare opportunity. The international history of the nineteenth 
 century will be presented to you by leading authorities of 
 different countries, between whom you may be sure that no 
 important aspect of it or consideration about it will be omitted. 
 Again a spectacle for you of the highest interest, but again a 
 call for you to judge. 
 
 The Europe on which the storm of the French Revolution 
 burst read the Contrat Social of Rousseau and speculated on 
 the foundations of government, but in practice demanded no 
 
32 Europe 
 
 other test of the legitimacy of a government than its settled 
 existence. The absolute monarchies of France and Austria 
 ruling by divine right, the limited monarchy of England ruling 
 by a parliamentary title, the aristocratic republics of Venice and 
 Bern ruling with severity whole subject populations, and the 
 simple democracies of the Forest Cantons, were all accepted 
 as equally legitimate. Subject populations and classes without 
 a voice in government seemed a part of the order of nature ; 
 not less so did political liberty where it existed. What we call 
 the question of nationalities had not arisen ; it had occurred to 
 no one that the proper basis of political unity was essential 
 unity in race, language, or ideas. Provinces of the most 
 diverse character in those respects found a sufficient tie in 
 loyalty to a common sovereign or dynasty : they felt no want 
 of a common language in which to discuss together affairs 
 which they were not allowed to discuss at all ; their gentlemen 
 were welcomed as courtiers and officials at the common capital, 
 and their peasants marched side by side as food for powder. 
 India, with its picturesque varieties of creeds, laws and habits, 
 based on custom, may help us to realise the old Europe. Yet 
 the Europe of the eighteenth century was not really old. No 
 long time, as periods in the history of the world are counted, 
 had elapsed since the decline of feudalism and the upheavals 
 caused by the Renaissance and the Reformation had substi- 
 tuted a new world for that of the Middle Ages. But a great 
 lassitude had succeeded to those upheavals, and to the wars 
 which were needed in order to check the domination of Spain 
 and France ; and that lassitude naturally led to reposing with 
 acquiescent respect on any arrangement that existed. It must 
 not however be supposed that the age was a quiet one. 
 Lassitude in respect of public aims left the door open for the 
 ambitions and resentments of sovereigns and their favourites, 
 which never caused more superfluous wars than in the 
 eighteenth century. Never have the state papers of an age 
 explained its wars and treaties on grounds with which a modern 
 
International History 33 
 
 student feels that he has less concern. At the back of them, 
 however, three of those remoter causes of events to which 
 I have called your attention were operating : the pressure of 
 . England for expansion over the world, necessarily resisted by 
 her great rival, France; the pressure of Prussia towards the 
 constitution of North Germany into a great Protestant power ; 
 and the pressure of Russia towards the west. But those 
 pressures were comparatively little heard of in diplomacy : 
 often they worked by allying themselves with the far pettier 
 immediate ends which agitated the courts of the sovereigns. 
 
 Into the Europe which I have pictured to you, the closing 
 years of the eighteenth century introduced the idea of liberty as 
 an explosive agent. That idea comprises two forms of liberty. 
 One is the internal form, popular government ; the govern- 
 ment of a state, not by an autocrat or by a privileged class, but 
 by the mass of the nation. The other is external liberty, the 
 freedom of the state itself from control by its neighbours, 
 whether over its internal institutions or over its relations with 
 foreign states. These two forms of liberty are not necessarily 
 found together. States enjoying at home no shred of popular 
 government may be so great that, far from being controlled by 
 any foreign power, they rank among the controlling powers of 
 the world. Such, for example, is Russia. On the other hand, 
 territories or cities which a foreign control excludes from all 
 independent action beyond their borders may have popular 
 government at home. Such were the subject cities in the 
 Athenian empire of the days of Pericles, democracies subject 
 to Athens, and reljdng on Athenian support for the maintenance 
 of their democratic governments. But in spite of their occa- 
 sional separation there is a close connection between the two 
 forms of liberty. The free exercise of its activities which every 
 energetic and independent character demands leads to both, 
 and whenever a people endowed with such a character is 
 possessed of one of the forms of liberty, it will not fail, sooner 
 or later, to demand the other. 
 
 H. L. 3 
 
34 Europe 
 
 Now in 1792, the inevitable starting-point of the inter- 
 national relations of the nineteenth century, the idea of liberty 
 was bursting forth at three different points in Europe, with 
 a vividness which contrasted forcibly with the neutral tints of 
 the eighteenth century. England had set an example of 
 internal Hberty, far from perfect, but a sufficiently large part of 
 her people shared in the government to give the nation at large 
 the feehng of being self-governed. Still, in England, the 
 leading political - motive during the eighteenth century was 
 not government by a larger or smaller section of the people 
 but good government, doing justice to all and fostering the 
 development of the national resources ; and settled exist- 
 ence, or what we call precedent, was the criterion to which 
 the legitimacy of the forms of her government was generally 
 subjected. Her American colonies, repudiating taxation not 
 based on representation, followed her example in practice, 
 but raised it in thought to an idea, which their circum- 
 stances led them to present in its fulness by uniting national 
 independence with internal liberty. The idea recrossed the 
 Atlantic. In the France of the Revolution internal liberty, the 
 government of the state by the mass of the nation, was preached 
 not merely as a remedy for the misgovernment from which the 
 country had grievously suffered, but as the only legitimate 
 system. Whatever may be due to the thinkers of any time or 
 language, whatever may have happened in ancient Athens or 
 medieval Florence, or even within the eighteenth century at 
 Geneva, France was the first great European country to act 
 consciously on the principle that the legitimacy of government 
 rests on the participation of the governed. And that principle; 
 became a faith. It was the faith embodied in the revolutionary 
 declaration of the rights of man, and from its birth it was propa- 
 gandist, as every faith must be. 
 
 Neither England, nor at the commencement of the Revolu- 
 tion France, had anything to fear on the head of the freedon| 
 of the state from foreign control ; but in that form the idea o| 
 
International History 35, 
 
 liberty, at the same time, burst forth strongly in Poland. In 
 that country the want of an adequate middle class and the 
 backward condition of the lower classes made popular govern- 
 ment out of the question ; but the constitution, in which the 
 king had no real power and the diet could be prevented from 
 passing any resolution by a single nobleman's interposing his 
 veto, was nothing better than anarchy made legal ; and every 
 attempt to reform it led to invasion and forcible repression by 
 Russia, who, with Prussia and Austria as her allies, reckoned 
 on the continuance of the anarchy for bringing about the 
 extinction of the state and the partition of its territory between 
 them. The imminence of the danger aroused a high-spirited 
 people to a struggle for reform and national independence, 
 undertaken too late to avert their doom. 
 
 In a third European country a flame, which had broken out 
 a little earlier than the French Revolution but in 1792 was still 
 smouldering, presented the name of liberty from a third point of 
 view. That country was what is now the kingdom of Belgium, 
 then a part of the vast dominions of the House of Hapsburg, 
 and known as the Austrian Netherlands or the Belgian pro- 
 vinces. The House of Hapsburg had produced an autocrat of 
 liberal ideas, the emperor Joseph II, who tried to introduce 
 reforms and diminish the excessive power of the Church in 
 those Netherlands, where his plans were distasteful to a rich 
 but ultra-Catholic population. Their opposition was entrenched 
 behind the ancient rights of provinces and cities, on which the 
 emperor in his reforming zeal had trampled, but it could not 
 fail to be tinged with the ideas on the rights of the people that 
 were current across the French border. And to that mixture 
 of old and new principles, enlisted against such reforms as 
 on the same principles were demanded elsewhere, was added 
 a growing and already powerful national consciousness. Sepa- 
 rate in language, in character and in habits from their Austrian 
 masters, as they had been from the Spanish masters who 
 preceded the Austrian, they had long been drawn together, and 
 
 3—2 
 
36 Europe 
 
 were feeling their way towards the national unity which they 
 now enjoy. 
 
 To the revolutions which were thus blazing out under the 
 impulse of the same or closely allied sentiments the old 
 Europe, at least on the Continent, made the answer known as 
 the first coalition. That coalition was formed between nearly 
 all the rulers of monarchical states on the Continent, in the 
 name of what they called the common interest of sovereigns, 
 for maintaining what they called the sacred rights of the French 
 king and monarchy. The king's freedom of action was to be 
 secured to him, first in agreeing to a constitution and after- 
 wards in working the constitution to which he had agreed, and 
 the emigrated nobiUty were allowed in fact, in spite of plausible 
 excuses, to keep up threatening assemblages on the French 
 frontier. France declared war ; the king became the captive of 
 the insurgents ; a republic was established which successfully 
 repelled invasion and carried the war into the enemies' 
 countries, thereby bringing England on the scene. The navi- 
 gation of the Scheldt to Antwerp had been prohibited by treaty 
 in the interest of the commerce of Holland, England's ally. 
 The French, on making themselves masters of the Austrian 
 Netherlands, declared the Scheldt open, and England objected. 
 England had not officially recognised the republic, indeed she 
 could not have been expected to do so till the new system had 
 given more proof of internal stability, but diplomatic relations 
 between the two countries had not been broken off until the 
 horror caused by the execution of the king caused George III_^ 
 to withdraw his ambassador from Paris, and thereupon, and 'm' 
 consequence of the difference about the Scheldt, France de- 
 clared war. From that moment England, which had taken no 
 part in the original design of interference in the internal affairs 
 of France, became the most active member of the first coalition. 
 But the success of France on land, though at times chequered, 
 was on the whole so great that the original design of inter- 
 ference in her internal affairs soon ceased to be seriously 
 
International History 37 
 
 entertained even by the continental allies. England indeed 
 aided the royalist insurgents on several points of the French 
 coast, and her ignorance of the state of opinion in France led 
 her to form exaggerated hopes of the political effect to be 
 so produced, but in any case such aid would probably have 
 been given as a measure of military diversion. 
 
 It is not too much to say that after 1794 at the latest the 
 war had lost all real connection, on the one side with the alarm 
 caused to the sovereigns by the outburst of liberty in France, 
 and on the other with the French propagandism of liberty. 
 The interested niotives and routine political maxims which had 
 so long governed men's minds, and which seemed for a time to 
 vanish out of sight in a conflict of ideas, again took possession 
 of them. On land it was on the side of France a war for her 
 old ambitions of the Rhine frontier and aggrandisement in 
 Italy : annexations to the republic took the place of the aid 
 which had been promised to oppressed populations. The 
 resistance to those ambitions was soon left to Austria, which 
 had the most to lose by them. Prussia had not for an instant 
 laid aside her old ambition of completing the destruction and 
 partition of Poland. The part she took in the French war was 
 consequently feeble, and she early made her peace. Russia, 
 clinging to her schemes of conquest both in Turkey and in 
 Poland, had not taken the field in the west, though a member 
 of the coalition. Between France and England the struggle 
 had become another act in their drama of rivalry for the 
 position of the leading world power. England pursued it by 
 her fleets, and by her old system of subsidizing those conti- 
 nental sovereigns who carried on the war. Spain turned into 
 an ally of France, renewing with the republic the family com- 
 pact of the Bourbons. The one important feature that seemed 
 still to differentiate European politics from those of the century 
 drawing to a close was that Holland, overrun by the French 
 armies which had placed the democratic party in power, was 
 now an ally of France against England. 
 
38 Europe 
 
 But the great upheaval in the name of liberty was not 
 destined to fall back into the old welter of interested ambitions, 
 even though among them deeper causes were slowly making 
 themselves felt. Four years after the commencement of the 
 war the brilliant successes of General Bonaparte in Italy again 
 gave it a new character. In that peninsula the ground had 
 been prepared in a manner different from any that we have yet 
 had to notice. The breath of liberty was stirring, but Italy was 
 not a state within which a people might demand self-govern- 
 ment, or which might demand for itself to be emancipated 
 from foreign interference. It was not a state but a geographical 
 expression, covering the large dominions of the pope, governed 
 absolutely; Bourbon and Hapsburg kingdoms and duchies, 
 and at Milan the Hapsburg emperor, all absolute ; the House 
 of Savoy, from beyond the Alps, ruling absolutely, but with 
 some Italian feeling, in a corner of the country ; and the 
 republics of Genoa and Venice, in the latter of which, a 
 republic only because not a monarchy, the strictly limited and 
 jealous aristocracy of a single city governed despotically other 
 considerable cities and rich districts. But this geographical 
 expression enjoyed a common language, with the oldest of 
 modern literatures, which had helped to call into being and to 
 give refinement to the more recent literatures north of the 
 Alps. It could look back to a past in which, if many of the 
 chief glories belonged to different cities, they had all been 
 made common by the common literature. Between the different 
 provinces the differences in character and habits were not 
 greater than are often found within a country which no one 
 seeks to dismember. A common sentiment had arisen, and 
 the better minds of Italy felt as Italians rather than as the 
 subjects of this or that potentate. In such circumstances, 
 wherever they occur, the largest of all fields is closed to the 
 greatest of all human activities, unless political unity be also 
 attained. That aim may be realised either by federation or, if 
 the particular governments resist too obstinately the curtail- 
 
International History 39 
 
 ment of their powers which federation would require, then by 
 the establishment of a single consolidated state. And so the 
 spirit of liberty in the largest sense of that word, as denoting 
 the free exercise of all wholesome human activities, became for 
 the Italians that of nationality ; it demanded the creation of a 
 state in which the two forms of liberty which we began by con- 
 sidering, external independence and popular government at 
 home, might be fittingly enjoyed together. 
 
 Bonaparte, as the general of the French republic, broke 
 into Italy so prepared. The national sentiment which he 
 found already born there, and which has since grown con- 
 tinuously, was too valuable an ally to be wholly ignored by 
 him, but the jealous policy of France would not allow it any 
 great scope. Some satisfaction was given to it by the creation 
 of the Cisalpine republic, which however was immediately 
 placed in a position of abject dependence on France, but 
 Austria was permitted to annex Venice and most of her 
 territory, and with these events the war of the first Coalition 
 ended on the Continent by the close of 1797. In five years 
 the Austrian Netherlands, Germany west of the Rhine, Savoy, 
 Nice and the Ionian Islands had passed into the possession of 
 France, besides the authority which she had acquired in Italy ; 
 Poland and Venice had been annihilated as states, and the 
 chiefs of the coalition hoped that by their spoils the balance 
 of power had been preserved ; but the idea of nationality had 
 been introduced as a new factor into European politics. 
 England refused to comply with the demand that she should 
 surrender all the acquisitions which she had made during the 
 hostilities, and continued at war. 
 
 Even on the Continent the peace was short. Of the twenty- 
 three years between the commencement of our period and 
 Waterloo, eighteen still remained to be chiefly spent in war. 
 You will have to follow with care the kaleidoscopic changes 
 which the map of Europe underwent in the course of them, 
 and you will have to note two great personal ambitions as their 
 
40 Europe 
 
 dominant features. One, that of Napoleon, is almost un- 
 rivalled in history by the splendid military talents and genius 
 for civil organisation on which it was based, by the height of 
 success to which it attained, and by the tragic vengeance of its 
 fall. France prided herself in the glories of Napoleon as she 
 had prided herself in those of Lewis the Fourteenth : the 
 emancipated nation followed its chief along ~the old ruts worn 
 by the wars of dynastic ambition. And you will have to note 
 the immense scale on which the genius of one man, seconded 
 by the energy of one nation, was able to operate on the world, 
 in a time which, though literature and art flourished in it, was 
 remarkable in most countries, till near its close, for a weakness 
 of individual character. The other great personal ambition 
 to which I have referred, that of the Czar Alexander, coincided 
 in its effects with the secular pressure of Russia on the west 
 and south ; and thus the period, so far as represented by its 
 principal actors, shows us little that is new except in scale and 
 brilliancy. But of the remoter causes of events which operated 
 at the back of the principal actors, others besides those which 
 we have yet had occasion to notice were making themselves 
 felt. 
 
 The first great practical example of unification was given 
 on the European scene when the immediate nobility of the 
 Holy Roman Empire, as the old German empire was officially 
 called, hundreds of princelets who had possessed for ages a 
 certain international existence, were reduced to the condition 
 of subjects of larger German states, though allowed certain 
 honours expressed by calling them mediatized princes. The ; 
 process of their mediatization was begun in 1803, not with any 
 general views, but solely through the greed of the larger 
 potentates, with Bavaria and Prussia at their head, and was 
 completed in 1806 as a part of the measures by which the 
 short-lived Confederation of the Rhine was established under 
 the protection of Napoleon. But it fell in with the needs of 
 the age, the multitude of petty sovereignties being a hindrance 
 
International History 41 
 
 to increasing intercourse, and the mediatized princelets were 
 not restored to any international position when the confused 
 ledger of the revolutionary quarter of a century was liquidated 
 at the Congress of Vienna. 
 
 But most important of all the pages in that ledger was 
 the one which was opened by the awakening of the German 
 people to political self-consciousness and activity. The division 
 of the old empire into a multitude of states and fiefs had not 
 been a great hindrance to intellectual and artistic progress, 
 except so far as, by denpng the opportunity of great deeds to 
 that large part of the German people who lived in the smaller 
 states and fiefs, it denied them one of the strongest intellectual 
 and artistic stimuli. There had been liberty enough for 
 following such impulses as the nature of the case admitted. 
 But the empire had been quite ineffectual as a protection 
 against foreign oppression, and it ceased to exist in 1806, 
 Francis the Second, the last of its emperors, abdicating that 
 character in consequence of the establishment of the Confedera- 
 tion of the Rhine, and assuming instead the title of emperor 
 of Austria. The Napoleonic rule which followed in Germany 
 was deeply felt both as an injury and as a humiliation. States 
 nominally independent were violated by systematic spying and 
 arrests made by French officers on their soil. Under banners 
 which bore the vain names of Austria, Prussia, and the states 
 forming the Confederation of the Rhine — many, under the 
 banners of France herself, which continually extended her 
 annexations — the youth of Germany were obliged to fight in 
 the cause of Napoleon against the causes which were really 
 their own. And this had befallen a people once dominant, 
 and who felt it in them, in their natural strength of limb and 
 character, to renew, if but once free and united, the dominance 
 of which they had scarcely dreamed since Barbarossa. The 
 result was the great outburst of German political feeling in the 
 final struggle against Napoleon, known in Germany as the war 
 of liberation. 
 
4 2 Europe 
 
 The German sentiment which was thus launched into the 
 world of European politics must be distinguished from the idea 
 of nationality which was contributed by Italy. We have seen 
 that that idea pointed to the political unification of populations 
 having a language and literature, a character and memories, in 
 common ; but, being an idea, it set corresponding limits to 
 the unification which it demanded, it forbade the attempt to 
 incorporate by force populations not sharing those character- 
 istics. The German sentiment on the other hand, being merely 
 the self-consciousness of a great and strong people, was 
 primarily connected with the feeling of race, which admits the 
 existence of ruling and subject races, and never for a moment 
 did it dream of relaxing the German hold on Poles or Italians. 
 Though not claiming to incorporate these in a German empire 
 or federation, it coincided with and supported the dynastic 
 interests of the Austrian and Prussian sovereigns in demanding 
 what was accomplished at the Congress of Vienna, the retention 
 or absorption in Austria and Prussia of as much of Poland 
 and Italy as could be secured, with the consequent effort to 
 Germanise their inhabitants as far as possible. But how did 
 it fare in the settlement at Vienna of the territories formerly 
 part of the . old empire, which during the Napoleonic con- 
 vulsions had finally disappeared in 1806? Here the German 
 sentiment, which naturally tended towards a closer unity, was 
 unable to extort any considerable sacrifice of power from the 
 sovereigns who, by the fall of the old empire on the one hand 
 and of the French empire on the other hand, were left without 
 even a nominal superior. It was indeed a sentiment too new 
 to cope with the loyalty, founded on long possession and 
 in many cases on memorable deeds, which defended those 
 sovereigns and their houses. It was not over them but over 
 the foreigner that the German triumphs had been won, and 
 the result was the establishment, for thirty-eight German states, 
 not including those dominions of Austria and Prussia which 
 had not been included in the Holy Roman Empire, of the 
 
International History 43 
 
 loosest of loose confederations, incapable of providing an effec- 
 tive unity even for purposes of defence. 
 
 Such were some of the causes which contributed to the 
 resettlement of Germany in 18 14 and 1815, but we have still 
 to examine the general spirit of the resettlement, not only of 
 Germany but of Europe. After twenty-three years of violence 
 an earnest desire was felt for some basis on which the work 
 of reconstruction might rest securely. Back to 1792, to the 
 arrangements and modes of thought which then existed, and 
 let the interval be treated as a bad dream that has passed away, 
 was an obvious thought. But in political modes of thought 
 return is not possible — only an onward movement, good or bad, 
 is possible — and as to the arrangements which existed in 1792, 
 what about Italy, Poland and Finland? Some notion of 
 legitimacy is demanded by the human mind, which will not 
 acquiesce in a state of possession avowedly resting on force, 
 but in 1 8 1 5 it could not be the old legitimacy of use and wont, 
 if the restitution was not to be general, but the conquerors 
 were to keep what they had gained. A new conception of 
 legitimacy emerged, to which expression was given by Metternich 
 and Talleyrand, and which was widely accepted for a time in the 
 more conservative classes of European society. The contest 
 with Napoleon had been carried on by sovereigns, and no 
 republic might claim the benefit of the new idea. A restora- 
 tion in the name of legitimacy was not vouchsafed to Venice 
 or Genoa ; to Hamburg and the other free cities of Germany 
 it was not conceded without opposition, and only because the 
 rights on which they re-entered were founded in the old 
 German constitution. Restricted to sovereigns, the new legiti- 
 macy belonged to them internally as well as externally. As 
 no transfer of a sovereign's territory could rest on a title by 
 conquest, so no constitution could be set up without his 
 consent : his cession or his grant was necessary to the validity 
 of either. Thus linked to personal rule, the new legitimacy 
 had an undefined tincture of divine right, which put on its 
 
44 Europe 
 
 deepest colour in the principles of Austrian and Prussian 
 autocrats and their chancellors. French statesmen, though 
 under the restoration agreeing in the main, could not be equally 
 averse to a considerable amount of pressure for extorting con- 
 stitutional liberties. Only Alexander, solitary and dreaming, 
 could oscillate in his preference between liberalism and auto- 
 cracy, while led in fact by more consistent if smaller natures. 
 
 In the Europe which thus emerged from the Congress 
 of Vienna and from Waterloo the wishes of the populations 
 had been left out of account. The new legitimacy had been 
 applied to restore those sovereigns whose territories had during 
 the revolutionary and Napoleonic periods been wrested from 
 them without cession, and the mass which still remained in the 
 hands of the triumphant allies was used in various interests, 
 especially to reward Prussia for the great share which she had 
 had in the war of liberation. All Italy was placed under the 
 rule or influence of Austria, which, by Dalmatia, was also 
 firmly established on the eastern coast of the Adriatic. 
 Belgium was united to Holland in order to form a strong 
 power of the second class as a barrier against France. It had 
 been intended to transfer Norway from Denmark to Sweden, 
 as a compensation to the latter for the loss of Finland to 
 Russia, and in order to secure her from an attack by land 
 while fighting for the allies, but the brave attitude of the 
 Norwegian people had resulted in their free and by no means 
 close union with Sweden under one king. 
 
 Russia had won Finland from Sweden, but the Finlanders 
 had rallied to Alexander in return for his confirmation of 
 their ancient representative constitution as that of a separate 
 grand-duchy. Russia had also acquired a large part of Poland, 
 under the title of a separate kingdom, to which Alexander 
 had promised a representative constitution, and had acquired 
 Bessarabia from Turkey. Insurrection in Servia and unrest 
 in her other Christian provinces threatened Turkey with dis- 
 memberment. 
 
International History 45 
 
 In sum the continental Europe of the eighteenth century- 
 had disappeared, largely in its arrangements, entirely in its 
 spirit. The new arrangements, whether territorial or internal, 
 had to rest on repression instead of on acquiescence. Stare 
 super antiquas vias, to stand on the old ways unassailed by 
 importunate questionings, neither was nor could be any more 
 the happy lot of governments. The old ways were broken up 
 or deserted. The governments in Central, Southern and 
 Eastern Europe were mostly absolute, and in France the very 
 high qualification both for electors and elected reduced parlia- 
 ment to little more than a form. The masses beneath all 
 these governments were stirred by the ferments of which we 
 have seen the successive introduction, and the governments, 
 united in their resistance, formed what is known as the Holy 
 Alliance, though that name strictly belonged only to a vague 
 and sentimental paper signed by the sovereigns, of no direct 
 importance. The spirit of liberty demanded both popular 
 control at home and international independence, the latter 
 constantly violated by the interference of the more powerful 
 sovereigns of the Holy Alliance, in support of absolutism in 
 the weaker states. The idea of nationality worked towards 
 rearranging territorial boundaries, and the German patriotic 
 sentiment, while assisting the work of the sovereigns in 
 repressing the idea of nationality among other populations, 
 aided the ferment by persistently claiming freedom for 
 Germans in Germany. 
 
 From continental Europe we must now turn to England. 
 Her perseverance in the twenty-three years' war was due to the 
 conviction that no peace with Napoleon could be safe for her, 
 a conviction which had its counterpart and justification in that 
 of Napoleon. So fully was he persuaded that no extent of 
 domination on the continent of Europe could be secure for 
 him so long as England was not brought low, that one main 
 object of the mad enterprise which led to his fall was to force 
 Russia to maintain the continental system directed against 
 
46 Europe 
 
 hen She however issued from the struggle with a great ex- 
 tension of her Indian and colonial dominions, a prodigious in- 
 crease of her manufactures and trade, and a reputation enhanced 
 by her indomitable persistence, maintained though at more 
 than one period of the struggle she had stood alone, and by 
 the willingness of her people to endure sacrifices for national 
 objects. But she suffered severely from the increase of her 
 national debt, bad commercial legislation and a bad poor law, 
 the crowding into new manufacturing centres of a population 
 not adapted for them either by temperance or by providence, 
 and the dislocation by the peace of a vicious agricultural 
 system of mortgages and high rents which during the war had 
 become general. There was much distress, which, combined 
 with the growth of political theory, gave a force, little known 
 in the England of the eighteenth century, to the demand for 
 increased popular control over the government. "" 
 
 But while passing through a period of unrest at home, 
 England could not dissociate herself from continental politics. 
 She had in them two great interests, one that of peace, the 
 other that of the balance of power in the Mediterranean, her 
 position in which was essential to the security of her dominion 
 in India. Bonaparte had emphasized that truth by his expe- 
 dition to Egypt, undertaken with an ulterior view to India, 
 and by other and subsequent parts of his policy. To these 
 interests, as the aspirations for reform at home grew in 
 strength, was added a sympathy with the cause of Uberal insti- 
 tutions throughout the world, nor did commercial motives 
 fail to be combined. France, as the instrument of the Holy 
 Alliance, suppressed by her intervention in Spain the constitu- 
 tion of which the Spanish liberals had been able to compel the 
 king's acceptance, and while the liberal cause and the Medi- 
 terranean question were thus directly involved, a further danger 
 arose. The Spanish colonies in North and South America 
 had declared their independence and practically established it, 
 and there was danger lest a similar intervention should be 
 
International History 47 
 
 resorted to in order to restore the royal authority over these 
 new republics, from the commerce and future political impor- 
 tance of which great expectations were entertained. The 
 English statesmen, with Castlereagh at their head, who had 
 been as it were the comrades of the sovereigns in the war of 
 liberation, had abstained from condemning the interventions 
 of the Holy Alliance in Italy, although they had held aloof 
 from them. But now Canning openly carried England into an 
 opposite camp, acknowledged the Spanish-American republics, 
 and, by inviting the United States to join in a declaration in 
 their favour, gave occasion to the famous declaration of 
 President Monroe by which the American continent was for 
 ever excluded from the field of operation of European political 
 systems. 
 
 Concurrently with these events the Greek insurrection 
 against the Sultan was splitting up the Holy Alliance itself 
 To Mettemich that insurrection was a political event, to be 
 no more countenanced than any insurrection in Western 
 Europe. To Alexander and to Russians in general it appealed 
 on its religious side, as an uprising of oppressed Christians 
 against their infidel masters. In England and France it 
 excited much sympathy, backed by personal and pecuniary 
 aid, largely on the ground of the glories of ancient Greece; 
 and in the end Greek independence was established, by the 
 aid of England, Russia, and France, even before the govern- 
 ment of the restored Bourbons was overthrown in France 
 by the revolution of 1830. That revolution placed Louis 
 Philippe, the representative of the younger or Orleans branch 
 of the Bourbons, on a constitutional throne, with enlarged 
 popular liberties, though still with a very restricted suffrage for 
 the election of the Chamber of Deputies. And it completed 
 the rearrangement of the powers into an Eastern and Western 
 group. The former comprised Austria and Prussia, with 
 Russia, which, the Greek question being in the main settled, 
 had nothing further to separate her from the absolutist circle. 
 
48 Europe 
 
 She celebrated her restoration to it by putting down relentlessly 
 the Polish insurrection of 1830, since which the only distinc- 
 tions between Alexander's kingdom of Poland and the rest of 
 the Russian empire have been such as are maintained to the 
 disadvantage of the former. The Western group comprised 
 England and France, with the powers of the second order 
 which constitutional government might place on their side. 
 
 First among the chief instances of the co-operation of 
 England and France in this new grouping came the support 
 given by them to the Belgian revolution of 1830, by which the 
 Belgians liberated themselves from their union with the Dutch, 
 from whom they differed in religion, character, and historical 
 associations, to a large extent also in language, only one half 
 of Belgium speaking Flemish, a language almost the same as 
 Dutch, while the other half speaks French. Belgium was 
 established, with the ultimate but reluctant assent of the 
 absolute powers, as an independent and constitutional kingdom, 
 bound to perpetual neutrality under an international guarantee. 
 Next came the Quadruple Alliance between England, France, 
 Spain and Portugal, for the maintenance on the thrones of the 
 two latter countries of those branches of their dynasties that 
 were willing to give effect to liberal constitutions ; an object 
 which may be said to have been on the whole successfully 
 attained, notwithstanding the vicissitudes through which Spain 
 has since passed. The cordial understanding between England 
 and France which thus arose was improved by common action 
 of less importance in various parts of the world, but it was 
 unhappily impaired by incidents which took place in the latter 
 part of Louis Philippe's reign, and when he was swept away 
 by the revolution of 1848 a new chapter of European history 
 was opened. 
 
 You will learn in detail the convulsions which that revolu- 
 tion caused in most European countries, and the unrest and 
 violence which followed it, making in the whole, from 1848 to 
 187 1, a period of twenty-three years, equal in duration to that 
 
International History 49 
 
 from 1792 to 1815, and comparable if not quite equal to it in 
 the frequency of war and in the total amount of international 
 change produced. In 1848 the territorial arrangements of 
 Europe were the same as in 1815, except in Belgium and 
 Greece. In 187 1 they had become what they are now, except 
 in the Balkan Peninsula. All I can do to-day is to put the 
 principal changes before you in what I conceive to have been 
 their connection with the great moving forces of the time. 
 
 In Italy the true idea of nationality seems to have been 
 fairly carried out, resting as it does on the national sentiment 
 actually entertained by a population, and not on circumstances 
 of race and language on which theorists may choose to think 
 that its being entertained ought to depend. The kingdom of 
 Sardinia with its gallant and patriotic dynasty, most truly repre- 
 sentative of Italian feeling, has become that of entire Italy, 
 though it has lost to France Savoy, of which the language is 
 French, and Nice, of which the popular language is a dialect 
 intermediate to French and Italian. That in both these 
 districts a popular vote approved the transfer is not a circum- 
 stance of much account, considering how the vote is taken in 
 such cases, but there is no reason to think that the general 
 feeling was adverse to the transfer. Neither district had any 
 share in Italian literature or in the historic glories of the Italian 
 cities. They no doubt felt a personal attachment to the 
 dynasty of which Savoy was the cradle, but that dynasty now 
 flourishes in a remote capital and amid quite other associations. 
 
 On the other hand, of the Italian-speaking districts which 
 have not been incorporated in the kingdom, the Swiss canton 
 of Ticino is Swiss in feeling, the southern part of Tyrol is loyal 
 to Tyrol and Austria, and the narrow Istrian and Dalmatian 
 coast region could scarcely be separated politically from the 
 Slavonic inland country even if, which is not certain, such 
 separation were desired by it. 
 
 But the international processes by which the unity of Italy 
 was brought about present no agreeable retrospect. The 
 
 H. L. 4 
 
50 Europe 
 
 assistance for which France was paid by the cession of Savoy 
 and Nice was marred by the persistent attempts of Napoleon 
 the Third to maintain the sovereignty of the pope at Rome and 
 to limit Italian unity to a federation, attempts due to jealoiisy 
 of a power which could have no reason to be hostile to France, 
 but of which the unity would put an end to the influence 
 France might exercise over the rulers of minor states. Austria 
 naturally fought in defence of the Italian territory which she 
 possessed : it would be asking too much from human nature to 
 expect that any power should do otherwise. But Prussia and 
 the German governments generally, hostile to a cause which 
 had in any degree the support of France, and alleging that the 
 Austrian fortresses in Venetia were necessary to the defence of 
 Germany, compelled by their attitude the premature close of 
 the liberating campaign of 1859. Only in 1866, when engaged '. 
 in turning Austria out of Germany, Prussia accepted the Italian 
 alliance, which was rewarded with Venice. England, alone of 
 the great powers, was frankly sympathetic, and prevented any 
 interference with Garibaldi's crossing to the mainland after his 
 victorious campaign in Sicily. But the spirit of the Italian 
 people was the most powerful factor. Freedom, as well from 
 absolute government at home as from foreign interference, and 
 the realisation of a deeply felt nationality, were all combined in 
 the object contended for ; and although republicans and con- 
 stitutional monarchists differed at first about the means, every 
 motive was soon blended in one wave of enthusiasm. On that 
 wave Cavour and his successors piloted their cause with con- 
 summate skill amid the cross currents of European politics. - 
 North of the Alps the unity of Germany was opposed by 
 France under Napoleon the Third with the same jealousy which 
 she displayed in Italy, but with results calamitous to her and to 
 him. We may hope that in future, under her better republican 
 guidance, she will be content, as she now seems to be, with 
 such influence in Europe as the development of her own great 
 resources and genius will assure her. But this was not the 
 
International History 51 
 
 only difficulty. In Germany herself the liberals and the 
 sovereigns, the latter supported by the conservative classes, 
 were almost to the last at variance about the constitutional 
 character with which the unity desired should be clothed. In 
 the failure of the first attempt to set up a united empire, that 
 made by the Frankfort parliament in 1849, ^i^d in the defiance 
 of parliamentary authority by Bismarck while creating the 
 military power of Prussia which he used against Austria and 
 France, you will learn through what internal dissensions the 
 attainment of external unity was pursued. Nor can it be said 
 that in the end the German patriotic sentiment, such as it 
 embarked on the enterprise, has been fully satisfied. It has 
 probably not been deeply wounded by the Prussian conquest 
 of the kingdom of Hanover and some others of the states 
 which belonged to the confederation of 181 5. And it has 
 been a great victory for it that most of the remaining members 
 of that confederation, with the addition of those Prussian 
 dominions which did not before belong to Germany, have been 
 united in an empire centralised enough, both theoretically in 
 its form of government and practically in the feelings of the 
 mass of its population, to start at once into life as one of the 
 greatest powers of the world. But the exclusion of Austria, so 
 long the leading state of the old Germany, cannot be counted 
 otherwise than as a great sacrifice by which the victory has 
 been bought. 
 
 Coming now to examine the composition of the new 
 German empire more closely we must trace, on its western 
 side, how the transfer of Alsace from France stood connected 
 with certain theories. One is that of natural boundaries, which 
 used to be invoked by France when she claimed the frontier of 
 the Rhine, was forgotten by her when the first Napoleon did 
 not content himself with the Rhine frontier, and was revived 
 when Napoleon the Third intrigued for it again. It is now 
 quoted, only in favour not of rivers but of mountains, the chain 
 of the Vosges, in the southern part of its extent, being the new 
 
 4—2 
 
5 2 Europe 
 
 Franco-German boundary. In the mean time, as I have already 
 had occasion to mention, we used to hear that not even the 
 Alps, but the quadrilateral of fortresses in the plains of Venetia, 
 were the true defence of Germany. The truth is that no good 
 result will be reached by treating men as appendages to rivers, 
 to mountains or to fortresses. The international history of 
 Europe during the nineteenth century teaches no plainer lesson 
 than that, if once we allow ourselves to consider anything but 
 the people as the primary factor in the determination of 
 boundaries, there is no natural boundary except the furthest 
 limit of what we can get. 
 
 The other theory which was more or less concerned with 
 the transfer of Alsace, speaking German as that province does, 
 treats indeed the people as the primary element, but looks, not 
 at the actual preferences of the people, but at those which from 
 their language and supposed race it is thought that they ought 
 to entertain. The idea of nationality, as we have thus far come 
 in contact with it to-day, is that of the entire spiritual idio- 
 syncrasy of a people, to which language can never be wholly 
 indifferent, though in particular cases other characteristics may 
 mould the total idiosyncrasy more powerfully. The theory we 
 have now to deal with, growing as it has been during the 
 nineteenth century by hasty generalisation and by the effect of 
 a literary treatment of politics, would reduce nationality to 
 a question of language, and of race presumed on the very 
 insecure foundation of language. Its application to Alsace 
 would not need much remark here, were it not that the 
 tenacious hold which Germany keeps on her share of the Poles 
 brings her into opposite relations with it in the east. 
 
 The Poles are Slavs, and I hope that you will hear more 
 about Panslavism from the able and well-known lecturers of 
 Slavonic nationality to whom you will Usten this summer. I 
 have made no such study of the poUtics of Eastern Europe as 
 to be entitled to speak of it with any authority. But it falls 
 within my province to-day to point it out to you as already 
 
International History 53 
 
 a feature not to be ignored in the international history of the 
 closing part of the nineteenth century. That Germany should 
 have so easily acquiesced in the necessity of founding her new 
 imperial organisation on the exclusion of Austria is hardly to 
 be explained except by the knowledge that the large Slavonic 
 population contained in Austria would not be easy to assimi- 
 late. And the turmoil in which Austria is kept to-day by the 
 contests of German and Slav, bearing as it does on the rela- 
 tions of that very important part of Europe to its neighbours, 
 has placed the growing self-consciousness of the Slavonic 
 peoples in the foreground of international politics. So far as I 
 can hazard an opinion, Panslavism appears to me to differ from 
 Pangermanism in that its aspirations do not always and neces- 
 sarily point to any one state as representing it, not even to 
 Russia. Pangermanism can have no meaning apart from the 
 German empire and its future. But the populations speaking 
 Slavonic languages, for I will not say anything about a Slavonic 
 race, are numerous and varied outside Russia — in Germany, 
 in Austria, in Hungary, and in the Balkan Peninsula. They 
 are not wanting in independence of character, and having been 
 accustomed to representative institutions in the different states 
 to which they belong, they are little likely to throw themselves 
 blindly into the hands of any state, however powerful, in which 
 popular control is unknown. But the consciousness of their 
 common Slavonic character to which they have awakened has 
 not yet, so far as I know, given rise to any definite common 
 aspirations, and whether it will ultimately strengthen or modify 
 the secular pressure of Russia on the west is one of the most 
 important riddles which the twentieth century will have to 
 solve. 
 
 Perhaps the greatest difference between the international 
 aspect of the two twenty-three years' periods of convulsion 
 is that, whereas England was the backbone of the contest 
 with France between 1792 and 1815, she took no part in arms, 
 and little in diplomacy, in the affairs of Christian Europe 
 
54 Europe 
 
 between 1848 and 187 1. Her alliance with France in the war 
 against Russia, known as the Crimean War, 1854 to 1856, was, 
 at least so far as England was concerned, a thing apart from 
 the dissensions of Christian Europe. That war was necessary 
 in order to save Turkey from falling into a state of vassalage 
 to Russia, a point which deeply concerned the balance of 
 power in the Mediterranean, that constant interest of England. 
 At its successful close Turkey was formally "admitted to 
 participate in the advantages of the public law and system of 
 Europe," which was equivalent to saying that in future any 
 aggression on her should be regarded as a matter of common 
 interest to the Christian powers, whereas before that date her 
 wars with Russia and Austria had had only an occasional and 
 casual connection with general European politics. When in 
 1878 the Russian forces, this time the instruments of a wide- 
 spread indignation caused by great massacres and outrages, 
 extorted from the Sultan the treaty of San Stefano at the gates 
 of Constantinople, Turkey received the benefit of her admission 
 to the system of Europe by the narrower limit which the great 
 powers, assembled in congress at Berlin, placed on the conces- 
 sions which she was obliged to make. But neither in 1856 nor 
 in 1878 was she made to pay by any real reforms for the 
 support thus given her. On each occasion the liberties of 
 some provinces were guaranteed by the powers, but for the rest 
 of the empire the powers in 1856 merely took note of a 
 promise of reform, in 1878 they stipulated reforms which they 
 have not since insisted on being carried into effect. At the 
 former period more might have been done with comparative | 
 ease, for the Christian subjects of Turkey were then so back- 
 ward in condition that they might have accepted at the hands 
 of the Sultan reforms which would now be distasteful to them 
 as strengthening his rule. At present it seems as though the 
 further emancipation of the Balkan Christians must await the 
 day when the mutual jealousies and hatreds of Serbs, Bul- 
 garians, Albanians, and Greeks shall no longer prevent their 
 
International History 55 
 
 forming a union which it would be difficult for Turkey to 
 resist, and morally impossible for Europe to discountenance. 
 In the mean time the future of the Balkan Peninsula and of 
 Constantinople itself has become of less importance to England, 
 owing to her occupation of Egypt. Before the Crimean War 
 the Emperor Nicholas of Russia had proposed to England 
 a partition of the dominions of the sick man, as he called 
 the Sultan, in which she should have Egypt ; but not to men- 
 tion that an acceptance by England would have embroiled her 
 with France, and whether or not the Sultan's misgovernment 
 had then reached such a point as to justify the step against 
 him, it would certainly have been unjust to his Christian 
 subjects, whose claim to be his autonomous heirs it would have 
 set aside. In 1882 the anarchy of Egypt consequent on the 
 revolt of Arabi Pasha had made European intervention inevi- 
 table, France and Italy refused the invitations which England 
 addressed to them successively to take part in one, and England 
 was left to restore alone the order, and to multiply alone the 
 prosperity, of the country. 
 
 That England figured so little in the history of the con- 
 vulsions of Christian Europe between 1848 and 187 1 was due 
 in part to their scene lying chiefly outside the range of her 
 Mediterranean interests. But there are other causes which 
 marked that period, and which tend still to keep the interests 
 and active sympathies of England out of continental politics. 
 Wars do not tend in our day to the creation of any colossal 
 power, unbalanced by others, and likely to be a danger to her, 
 as was that of the first Napoleon. Nor again is she concerned, 
 otherwise than as a speculative onlooker, in questions of unifi- 
 cation, of natural frontiers, of nationality, of German domination 
 over Slavs and Magyars on the one hand, or of Magyar inde- 
 pendence and Panslavism on the other hand. She was at one 
 time accustomed to see her natural friends in constitutional 
 governments, but that consideration has lost much of its force 
 for two reasons. All the great powers except Russia, which 
 
56 Europe 
 
 was not touched by the great uprising of 1 848 — not excepting 
 even Austria, during her temporary triumph over Hungary — have 
 ever since that uprising admitted the necessity of conceding 
 some amount of power to the people, and so constitutional 
 government has become a question of degree and form. And 
 were that otherwise, it is doubtful how far popular government 
 can in our times be regarded as favouring peace. The most 
 active moving forces of disturbance seem to be no longer those 
 of dynastic or personal ambition, but the popular desires for 
 unity, for the realisation of nationality, for the maintenance of 
 racial domination or the emancipation from it, all likely to 
 thrill most powerfully through an assembly. The dominions of 
 England, and the spheres of influence, like Egypt, which are 
 connected with them, are amply sufficient to occupy her atten- 
 tion, and she administers them on a system in which such 
 desires have no place. 
 
 The tie by which we seek to keep the British empire united 
 is that of loyalty to the throne, under good government, without 
 favour to any race, language, or religion. I need not tell you 
 what we believe to be the chief conditions of good government, 
 although I must mention them for the completeness of my 
 subject, if only by way of contrast to what I have referred to as 
 existing elsewhere. Recognising that India requires a different 
 system, and that in the smaller British possessions some greater 
 power may have to be reserved to the mother country, we 
 believe in self-government for possessions inhabited by a white 
 population, too remote from the mother country for incorporate 
 union with it, and not torn by internal discord. If populations 
 differing in language and character are found in the same 
 possession, but geographically separate, we allow them, as in 
 Canada, to be politically separate under a federal tie. If such 
 populations are not geographically separate, as we may find in 
 our new colonies of the Transvaal and Orange River, still we 
 see no reason why they should not accept the principle of 
 equality of race, language, and religion, and pursue their 
 
International History 57 
 
 common interests as citizens under a single system of self- 
 government. If they are prevented from doing so either by 
 old memories tenaciously cherished, or by a desire in one or 
 both sections of the people for predominance, the regrettable 
 but unavoidable remedy for discord is government from above ; 
 only such government must in its turn be impartial in questions 
 of race, language, and religion. We believe that within the 
 British empire these principles, if faithfully and patiently carried 
 out, will end by overcoming any alien feeling arising from the 
 fact that a given possession was originally acquired by con- 
 quest ; except indeed in the case last put, where permanent 
 discord is unaccompanied by geographical separation, in which 
 case the discord would not be cured by abandoning the con- 
 quest. 
 
 I have said that we believe the result will be such within 
 the British empire, because the conditions for overcoming an 
 original alien feeling are more favourable in possessions divided 
 by oceans from the states from which, they may have been 
 acquired, than in a continent like Europe, where a province 
 annexed against its will may be in close contact with the popu- 
 lations with which it would unite if it could. The one thing 
 which may be predicted in such a case with some confidence is 
 that the attempt to extirpate alien feelings by force will fail. It 
 is less easy to be confident that the impartial treatment of all 
 differences would succeed. Here we have to face that specula- 
 tion on the ties which may bind a state together to which 
 I intimated to you in the beginning of this lecture that a view 
 of the nineteenth century as a whole, great century of transfers 
 as it has been, would lead. I cannot enter into that specula- 
 tion : the twentieth century may throw light on it. And to the 
 twentieth century must also be left to show what will be the 
 effect on international relations of that industrial and com- 
 mercial rivalry, with the passion for colonial expansion and 
 spheres of influence, of which the close of the nineteenth 
 century has seen the dawn. The antagonistic pressures of 
 
58 Europe 
 
 England and France for expansion over -the world were among 
 the great causes operating in the eighteenth century, though 
 comparatively in the background. After a long intermission a 
 similar pressure, on the part not of two only but of nearly all 
 the great states, has started into activity, and loudly claims 
 a foremost place. It also is a popular pressure, which parlia- 
 mentary institutions and a free press tend rather to promote 
 than to moderate. Assuredly the twentieth century will not be 
 wanting in interest. 
 
ENGLAND'S COMMERCIAL STRUGGLE 
 WITH NAPOLEON. 
 
 Bv J. Holland Rose, M.A. 
 
 We are all more or less acquainted with the chief external 
 events of the great war with Napoleon. They bulk so large in 
 the hazy middle distance of history that even boys who are 
 trained in our public schools, and for whom the year 1815 is 
 the end of all historical study, know nearly as much of the 
 military and naval events of the greatest war of all time as they 
 do of the Peloponnesian War. The man in the street, also, 
 aided by some outstanding landmarks of London topography, 
 remembers that Nelson beat the French and Spaniards at 
 Trafalgar. Then a mist settles down over his historical con- 
 sciousness, until it is dispelled by the ring of those magical 
 words, "Up Guards and at them"; and he then remembers 
 with a thrill of pride that when those words were uttered the 
 French turned their backs on Wellington at Waterloo, and the 
 power of Napoleon was no more. 
 
 But what was all that fighting about ? I fear that if that 
 question were put to the average public school-boy (unless he 
 were of the mental stature of that prodigy whom Macaulay 
 used to invoke for our general discomfiture) it would prove very 
 embarrassing. The very well-trained boy would perhaps say 
 that it was caused by a dispute about Malta ; or else, seeking 
 safety in generalities, he would hazard the guess that it was 
 due to Napoleon's ambition. But when we came to press our 
 
6o England and Napoleon 
 
 examinee hard, and ask him why Malta was so important to 
 both parties, and what were the objects on which Napoleon's 
 ambition centred, we should receive extemporized versions of 
 history that would only show the ingenuity and ignorance of 
 their contriver. If we further enquired why the Spaniards 
 opposed us at Trafalgar and four years later fought by our side 
 at Talavera ; or why Russia and Prussia veered round from 
 enmity to friendship in the course of the years 1812-13, 
 the replies would be at best only bewildered half-truths. 
 
 There is, indeed, much that is puzzling in the sudden 
 changes of policy of those years ; and the perplexity of the 
 examinee who has been trained merely on superficial text-books 
 is in part excusable ; for few of these books attempt at giving 
 any clue to the diplomatic maze of that period ; and they leave 
 the reader plodding among masses of seemingly disconnected 
 facts. This is probably the reason why so many persons 
 approach the study of the Napoleonic era as a duty which 
 patriotism demands, but from which flesh and blood shrinks as 
 from a penance scarcely to be borne, unless the historian leads 
 his reader full often aside into oases of mendacious anecdotes 
 and conjugal scandals. 
 
 And yet surely there is no period in all the world's history 
 fraught with a more profound interest — an interest so dramatic 
 at times that it no more needs these petty distractions than the 
 Agamemnon and Hamlet stand in need of forced jokes and 
 puns. The Napoleonic period, I make bold to say, is the 
 greatest drama of secular history. It is a world-drama in the 
 widest sense ; for the fortunes of all the continents were then 
 deeply at stake, and nation was hurled against nation in a way 
 which had never happened before and can scarcely happen 
 again. Moreover, the man about whom this vast cyclone 
 revolved was essentially a dramatic figure. He was endowed 
 with gifts so commanding that he must have left his mark deep 
 on any period, however stagnant, and on any people however 
 unreceptive. Place him side by side with the heroes of other 
 
England and Napoleon 6i 
 
 ages; and in fespect of intellectual grasp and force of will 
 (I am not speaking of moral qualities, for of these he had scant 
 store,) he outstrips them all. His schemes of Empire were 
 vaster than those of Alexander, and were pursued with an 
 equally inflexible will. We can scarcely think of Caesar, even 
 had he lived out his life, reorganizing the Roman State and 
 Roman society with the startUng success that Napoleon achieved 
 for France in the four momentous years of the Consulate. 
 Frederick the Great, brilliant though he was as a leader and 
 organiser, never showed quite the same breadth of view and 
 overmastering power in the camp and in the Cabinet as the 
 man who tamed a revolution and all but conquered Europe. 
 Furthermore, we must remember that the other great rulers 
 whom I have named were heirs to mighty names and fortunes; 
 while Napoleon entered on life as an orphan, educated at the 
 expense of the French Monarchy : he owed nothing to family 
 or position : he climbed the dizzy heights of fame by sheer 
 force of will and transcendent genius. 
 
 It is the combination of mental powers that made Napoleon 
 so formidable and so attractive. The scion of a race that 
 viewed public life from the standpoint of the vendetta, he early 
 matured all the fighting and scheming faculties ; and, thanks 
 to his poverty and his early Republican zeal, he reinforced 
 these Corsican aptitudes by an eager study of civil and military 
 history of diverse times and peoples. Fired with zeal by the 
 French Revolution, he set himself to understand that strange 
 people whom at first he so much hated. And he succeeded. 
 He won the hearts of the soldiery by his wondrous exploits in 
 Italy. The other generals, even burly veterans like Masse'na 
 and Augereau, owned at once that there was a something in 
 those hawk-like eyes that bespoke the master; and they 
 grumblingly yielded the first place to the slim, sallow-faced 
 youth whom they had at first derided. The victory of genius 
 over talent was even more marked in the case of the civilian 
 rulers of France. Their little schemes to keep him away from 
 
62 England and Napoleon 
 
 France and to ruin him were futile. The glamour of the 
 Egyptian Campaign held France spell-bound; and the soi- 
 disant Conqueror of the East on his return from Egypt had 
 the easiest of tasks to oust the Directory and make himself 
 master of France. 
 
 For most men this success would have brought satisfaction 
 or repose. For him it meant a new and vast opportunity of 
 curbing the Revolution and building its more lasting results 
 into a political system of which he was the keystone. Again 
 he conquered : and the fundamental institutions of Modem 
 France were the result of this absorption of the Revolution by 
 the Napoleonic regime. And this almost miraculous absorption 
 of a great movement by a single personality was the outcome, 
 not of force (for how could 40,000,000 men be coerced by one 
 man) but rather of a persuasive, persistent, and occasionally 
 unscrupulous statecraft. He outwitted the Liberal Opposition 
 as he outwitted the Roman Cardinals : he hoisted Royalist and 
 Jacobinical plotters with their own petards : he found work for 
 every man and saw to it that every man worked : in brief, he 
 infused into France his own prodigious energy so that the 
 strifes of the Revolution were forgotten in the new passion for 
 organization and for mighty undertakings. The ablest Mini- 
 sters thought it a privilege to slave for him twelve hours a day 
 and then to bear his reproaches for slackness ; and the whole 
 nation rose to a sense of new and bounding life, just as a high- 
 mettled steed responds to the touch of a master-hand. It was 
 this power of calling out the fullest energies of a nation that 
 enabled him to triumph over Jacobins and Royalists, just as it 
 was his subtle Italian grace that fascinated men even while they 
 feared his sterner qualities. Such a character, at once seduc- 
 tive and coercive, by turns pleasing and terrifying, imaginative 
 and practical, a veritable god of war and yet unequalled in the 
 arts and activities of peace, is certain to leave his mark deep 
 on a sensitive Celtic people, above all when it has struggled 
 through a Revolution and stands in need of rest. 
 
England and Napoleon 63 
 
 Alas ! these great gifts were used for selfish ends. He 
 deliberately sought to arouse the old military instincts, as also 
 the kindred desire for strong personal government ; and France 
 speedily became under his hands the most perfect military 
 machine that the world has ever seen. 
 
 What brought this terrible engine of war into deadly conflict 
 with Great Britain? Had its founder and director an in- 
 eradicable hatred of us as a people ? I find few signs of this. 
 On the whole Napoleon respected us for our activity, enterprise, 
 and tenacity of purpose. No ! He was possessed by no silly 
 dislike of us as a people. He only came to hate us because 
 we were always in the way of his most cherished design ; and 
 this was to found a great colonial Empire, above all, an Empire 
 in India. Alexander the Great appealed to him more than 
 any other hero of antiquity. Ah ! What a genius — he ex- 
 claimed to Gourgaud at St Helena, — to have founded a mighty 
 Empire before he was 33 years of age, and to have gained 
 the love of his subjects ! How wise of him to visit the temple 
 of Ammon, and to cast aside merely Greek ideas. — " If I had 
 remained in the East, I would probably have founded an 
 Empire like Alexander : I would have gone on a pilgrimage to 
 Mecca'." And then, again, he said that if he had taken the 
 turban, as he meant to do after capturing Acre, he would have 
 been at the head of 200,000 good troops. He concludes with 
 these significant words, "The East only awaits a man I" 
 
 And that was the dream of his youth, as it was the keenest 
 regret of his last years. Look at his early letters. In Oct. 1797 
 when he is about to sign peace with Austria, his thoughts 
 centre on the Ionian Islands, Malta, and Egypt. By blotting 
 out the Venetian Republic he secures the Ionian Isles for 
 France: he sends a- political agent to Malta to intrigue with 
 the French Knights of St John ; and he advises the Directory 
 
 ' Gourgaud, Journal de Ste. Hilhte, II. p. 435. 
 • 2 7^. I. 165. 
 
64 England and Napoleon 
 
 to concentrate all its activity on the French navy " and destroy 
 England. That done, Europe is at our feet." In the month 
 of February following he inspects the flotilla at Boulogne, and 
 declares that an invasion of England is for the present im- 
 possible. As alternatives to this he recommends the Directory 
 either to turn their attention to the North-German coast-line 
 and shut out English goods from Hanover and Hamburg, or 
 else to prepare to attack her in India^ It is important to note 
 that he always kept these alternatives before him ; and chose 
 one or other of them as the conditions of the time prescribed. 
 The latter plan was that to which he strongly inclined; and 
 the Egyptian Expedition was to furnish the means of ruining 
 our commerce and our possessions in India. For, as he never 
 tired of asserting, " the power that is master of Egypt, is master 
 of India ^." Thus, even as early as the year 1798, he resolved 
 on a career of Asiatic conquest. But, if he was to reach the 
 banks of the Indus, he must first cripple England or distract 
 her by a blow at Ireland. Then, at last, when he reached 
 Lahore and Delhi, he could satisfy the dictates of an oriental 
 ambition, and also dry up the wealth of those "active and 
 intriguing islanders." Ambition and statecraft therefore brought 
 him into conflict with us ; and hostility to our commerce be- 
 came one of the axioms of his policy. 
 
 In this respect, then, Bonaparte's Eastern Expedition was 
 the first of his persistent attempts to found an Eastern Empire 
 on the ruins of our own; for he believed, in common with 
 most of the French merchants and economists, that our expul- 
 sion from the markets of the East would speedily lead to our 
 commercial ruin and to national bankruptcy. 
 
 I have no space in which to add complete proofs of the 
 tenacity with which he cherished these designs. There can, 
 however, be no doubt that he determined to secure half of 
 
 ' Letter of Feb. 23, 1 798. 
 ^ Gourgaud, op. cit. 11. 315. 
 
England and Napoleon 65 
 
 Australia for France; for a French official map of 1807 
 designates all the central parts as Terre Napolkon. And in 
 that same year he made a treaty with the Shah of Persia, and 
 sent out a Commissioner to arrange plans for a Franco-Persian 
 invasion of India. Even as late as March, 181 1, he gives 
 orders for the equipment of squadrons that were to seize the 
 Cape of Good Hope and Egypt, as half-way houses between 
 France and India; and he clearly hoped that when England 
 was choked to death by the grip of his Continental System he 
 would at last be free for the completion of his long-cherished 
 oriental designs. 
 
 All great conquerors are remarkable for- doggedness of 
 purpose ; but I think no man has ever been so dogged as he 
 who, amidst all the turmoil of European strifes, ever kept his 
 mind's eye on the grander arena of the East. And this quality 
 was fed by the conviction that his great enemy, England, lacked 
 the elements of real strength and must therefore soon give way. 
 There was some reason for his underrating our vitality. He 
 shared the opinion of the Jacobins that tillage of the soil was 
 the only sure foundation of a nation's strength. Foreign com- 
 merce, said they, might add to national wealth, but it enervated 
 and degraded the people. Furthermore, it could easily be 
 destroyed by war; and they pointed to the many examples 
 where the ruin of commerce in time of war brought with it the 
 decadence of the State. Tyre and Carthage, Venice and Genoa, 
 served them with effective texts on the instability of maritime 
 and commercial States ; whence they readily inferred that 
 Britain, the modern Carthage, must succumb under a vigorous 
 and well-sustained onset on her mercantile marine. There 
 was much to be said in favour of this view. Foreign commerce 
 is, of course, a less secure basis for national life than agriculture. 
 Three or four times in our modern history we have been on 
 the verge of ruin owing to this cause; and our continental 
 friends have sagely wagged their heads in token that our last 
 hour had come, until that miraculous organism, the British 
 
 H. L. 5 
 
66 England and Napoleon 
 
 Empire, set all probabilities at defiance, and rose triumphant 
 over dangers. 
 
 Early in the nineteenth century there seemed special 
 reasons for deeming the decadence of England to have set in. 
 Despite our successes at sea, our Ministers allowed themselves 
 to be cajoled into a most disadvantageous peace, the Peace 
 of Amiens, whereby we gave up all our conquests, except 
 Trinidad and Ceylon, which Napoleon compelled his allies, 
 the Spaniards and Dutch, to surrender to us ; France was 
 left in possession of her immense conquests in Europe, and 
 received back the colonies which we had wrested from her. 
 No word was said as to the resumption of our commercial 
 relations with France ; and we soon found our goods excluded 
 not only from France and her colonies, but also from lands over 
 which she held control. Furthermore, we were soon informed 
 by Napoleon that the extension of his influence in the lands 
 bordering on France was no business of ours ; and we were 
 expected to acquiesce in his annexations of Piedmont and Elba 
 as also in his plans for securing Louisiana and parts of Australia 
 and India. 
 
 His reason for expecting this tame acquiescence on our 
 part was that he had found our negotiators singularly weak 
 at Amiens ; and he believed, after the retirement of Pitt early 
 in 1801, that weakness might confidently be expected from the 
 Addington Ministry which took his place. Added to this, no 
 small part of the English Opposition was in the habit of carp- 
 ing at every act of the Cabinet, and extolling the wisdom and 
 power of Napoleon. As a result of these deplorable events 
 England's prestige steadily waned while that of Napoleon as 
 surely waxed with every diplomatic success. ' 
 
 But when he ventured to assert that the reconquest of 
 Egypt would be an easy matter, and let it be seen that the 
 mastery of the Mediterranean would be but the prelude to an 
 attack on our Eastern possessions, even the Addington Ministry 
 held firm. It refused to evacuate Malta, for that island was 
 
England and Napoleon 67 
 
 now a post of vital importance to us ; and war broke forth on 
 this Maltese question, closely linked as it was with the wider 
 imperial questions that I have outlined. 
 
 In a word, the decline of British prestige hurried Napoleon 
 into world-wide schemes, for the realisation of which he was 
 not in that year (1803) fully prepared. Had he waited, as he 
 really wanted to do, for another year, when the new French 
 navy would be ready, the blow might have fallen with crushing 
 effect. As it was, his excess of confidence and the final firm- 
 ness of Addington were our salvation. Apparently he intended 
 to attack us in India in the autumn of 1804'. And it seems 
 probable that, if we had given him time to bring the growing 
 maritime resources of France fully to bear upon us, the results 
 might have been fatal to our commerce, our Colonial Empire, 
 and therefore to our existence as a great nation. 
 
 For at the very time when Napoleon was excluding British 
 goods from lands that came under his control Great Britain 
 was rapidly increasing her manufacturing output, and there- 
 fore needed markets for that output more than ever before. 
 The years which in French history are marked by the great 
 Revolution and the ascendency of Napoleon are memorable 
 in our more prosaic annals as the period when the inventions 
 of Hargreaves, Arkwright, Crompton, Cartwright, and Watt, 
 began to revolutionise industry. The end of the eighteenth 
 century saw spinning machinery driven by steam ; in the first 
 years of the nineteenth century the power-loom became a prac- 
 tical success ; and the manufacturing power of Lanarkshire, 
 Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midlands increased by leaps 
 and bounds. Robert Owen at a somewhat later date computed 
 the number of cotton-workers at 800,000, each of whom by 
 means of machinery could produce forty times as much as in 
 the old days of hand-labour"- The output, then, in that single 
 
 ' See his secret instructions to General Decaen concerning India 
 printed in the Revue historique of 1879 and of 1881. 
 
 ' Life of Robert Owen, written by himself (Appendix S). 
 
68 England and Napoleon 
 
 industry equalled that of 32,000,000 of hand-workers. And 
 when we remember that on the Continent of Europe these 
 labour-saving inventions were unknown, and that manufacturers 
 there soon had the greatest difficulty in procuring raw material, 
 the reasons for the commercial supremacy of England are 
 obvious. The Continent needed English goods, quite as much 
 as we needed their markets. But it was vitally important for 
 us to have those markets kept open ; otherwise we should 
 speedily have been choked by the excess of our new vitality: 
 we should have manufactured goods only to see them accumu- 
 late in our warehouses. It was essential that we should have 
 fair play commercially from Napoleon ; and instead of giving 
 us fair play he threatened us even during the year of peace with 
 the prospect of commercial exclusion from nearly one-half of 
 Europe and from many of the new lands. This was the reason 
 why the war which began in 1803 was fought with such deadly 
 earnestness. On Napoleon's side it was a struggle for world- 
 wide empire : on our side it was a struggle to save our colonies 
 and commerce from the ruin which Napoleon's triumph would 
 infallibly have inflicted on us. 
 
 There was very little chance of a peaceful compromise. 
 An effort was made by Fox in 1806 to come to an understand- 
 ing with the French Emperor. But it was soon evident that 
 he meant to have Sicily under his control; and on this question 
 Fox was inflexible, and quite rightly so. To have allowed 
 Napoleon to gain Sicily would have been a fatal mistake. It 
 would have handed over to him the command of the Mediter- 
 ranean and endangered our communications with India. The 
 negotiations virtually broke down on this question before Fox 
 passed away. The statement that the death of the great Whig 
 Minister put an end to all hopes of peace with Napoleon is 
 one of those pleasing fictions which die hard. French histo- 
 rians and Whig historians have written eloquently on this 
 theme, until they almost came to believe it themselves. 
 
 There is not a particle of truth in it. Read Fox's own con- 
 
England and Napoleon 69 
 
 fession of his despair of peace as he lay on his death-bed ; and 
 those sad words of the generous peace-loving Minister must 
 convince you of the inevitableness of the great struggle. No ! 
 The war could only end with the overthrow or exhaustion 
 of one of the combatants. The cast-iron nature of Napoleon 
 forbade him abating one iota of his plans ; and those plans 
 were inconsistent with the greatness of England and with the 
 manufacturing activity which she was then developing. 
 
 We have seen that the methods of attack by which he 
 meant to bring us to our knees were threefold. Either (i) a 
 direct invasion, or (2) the exclusion of our goods from a large 
 portion of Europe, or (3) an expedition to ruin our colonies 
 and commerce in the East. That was his conclusion in 1798; 
 and, with the inflexibility that is one of his chief mental charac- 
 teristics, he clung to this governing conception throughout the 
 struggle — at any rate up to the year 181 1. In 1803, when his 
 navy was as yet unprepared for distant enterprises an Eastern 
 expedition was almost impossible. He only used the threat of 
 it to distract Nelson and weaken our forces in the Channel. 
 For a time he cherished the hope of invading England. That 
 hope was dashed by Nelson and Cornwallis ; and after Trafal- 
 gar only the third alternative was available, that of excluding 
 our goods from the Continent and thus assuring our financial 
 exhaustion. This scheme soon became feasible. In 1805 he 
 vanquished Austria. In 1806 he trampled Prussia underfoot 
 after Jena ; and, when safely installed at Berlin, he issued the 
 famous Berlin Decree. It excluded our ships and goods from 
 all lands under his control and forbade entry to any ship what- 
 soever that had touched at a British port. 
 
 This famous decree was the first evident sign of his resolve 
 to banish our commerce from the Continent. But his corre- 
 spondence, as also his merciless pressure on Prussia early 
 in 1806, proves that for months past he had been preparing 
 for this measure. It formed the basis of his Continental 
 System — a name appUed to the many decrees by which he 
 
70 England and Napoleon 
 
 sought to cut off all relations between England and the 
 Continent. 
 
 The events of the following months enabled him to impose his 
 will on other Powers. Russia and Prussia accepted the System 
 by the terms of the Treaties of Tilsit. Denmark, Portugal, the 
 Papal States, Austria, and Sweden were in turn swept into his 
 net; and by the year 1809 British commerce was officially banned 
 in every European country but Turkey, Sicily, and Portugal. 
 
 It is difficult for us now to realise how terrible an engine of 
 war the Continental System was. We now depend so largely 
 on our trade with Canada, South Africa, Australia, China, and 
 Japan, and other distant lands, that we are apt to think com- 
 placently of the exclusion of commerce from nearly the whole 
 of Europe. The commercial hostility, to which we are now 
 exposed by the chief of the Continental States, has reduced 
 the volume of our trade with those countries as compared with 
 that which we have developed with trans-oceanic lands. Since 
 the days of Bismarck we have learnt to look farther afield for 
 markets, seeing that those of the Continent are almost closed 
 against many of our goods by stringently protective tariffs. In 
 fact, it is worth noting that this has been one of the forces 
 compelling us to expand the Empire. Just as Napoleon's 
 Continental System drove us to the colonial conquests which 
 mark the years after Trafalgar ; so too the fiscal barriers which 
 have been piled up against us in Europe have had the inevit- 
 able result of driving our exports more and more to other lands 
 which would trade with us on something like fair terms. Com- 
 merce follows the lines of least resistance. Bar it out from the 
 old countries and it will seek new lands : above all it will find 
 out British colonies and will pour fresh life-blood into them. 
 Whence it would appear that, after all, we owe a debt of grati- 
 tude to Napoleon and to the contrivers of modern protectionist 
 tariffs. To him, and to them, we may perhaps rightly award 
 the title Rekhsmehrer, though in a sense which he and they 
 would scarcely have appreciated. 
 
England and Napoleon 71 
 
 But, to return to our theme, we must remember that in the 
 year i8o6, when our commercial struggle with Napoleon defi- 
 nitely began, our exclusion from the Continent might well seem 
 a fatal blow at our prosperity. Canada was then in its infancy; 
 the two or three half-starved penal settlements of New Holland 
 gave no promise of the mighty Commonwealth of Australia; 
 Cape Town was passing into our possession, but it was looked 
 upon much as we look upon Aden now, an important naval sta- 
 tion with an almost barren and useless Hinterland. The only 
 colonial possessions to which we attached any great value were- 
 the East and West Indies. To these we clung desperately as 
 to the very pillars of the Empire. But elsewhere there seemed, 
 at first sight, little chance of making up for the loss of the, 
 European markets. Our trade with the United States was 
 important, but our relations with our kinsfolk were at best 
 precarious ; and when we insisted on the right of searching 
 neutral ships and subjected them to restraints that were deemed 
 desirable as a counterblast to Napoleon's orders our trade with 
 North America ceased almost entirely. 
 
 I have no space in which to examine, or even to state, the 
 various devices set forth in our Orders in Council to compel 
 neutrals to observe our maritime code. They have caused 
 almost as many headaches to students of law and of naval 
 affairs as they caused heartburnings and strifes in those days. 
 But I think we may fairly say this of our Orders in Council, that 
 they were provoked by Napoleon's action. As his Continental 
 System was rendered stricter and stricter by the decrees signed 
 at Milan, Fontainebleau and the Trianon in the years 1807-10, 
 so the British Government increased the rigour of our maritime 
 code. The more he tried to prevent neutrals trading with 
 England by threats of confiscation of ships and wares, so much 
 the more were we determined that neutrals should not trade 
 with his States except by way of our ports. Both Napoleon 
 and England violated the principles of international law : but I 
 think it can be proved that he took the initiative in every step, 
 
72 England and Napoleon 
 
 whereupon the British Government followed with the measure 
 of retaliation which it deemed most effective. I know that on 
 the ground of moraHty it is a very poor excuse to urge, " My 
 enemy did it first ; and I followed his example.'' One could 
 pursue that line of argument with the same childish futility 
 that marked the recriminations of our first parents in the 
 Garden of Eden. But, in all seriousness, I maintain that in a 
 struggle such as that which Napoleon waged against us in 
 1806-12, the question of morality hardly comes in at all. 
 Because he could not attack us directly, he devised this 
 plan of commercial strangulation ; and we, as we felt his 
 grip extending and tightening, adopted such expedients as 
 would relax his hold and would give us a chance of gripping 
 him in turn. In a struggle for sheer life neither combatant 
 thinks about the morality of the expedients adopted, but 
 only of their effectiveness. And we may further remark, 
 that Napoleon in his private conversations never blamed us 
 much for our retaliation ; he seemed to consider it quite 
 natural. 
 
 Leaving on one side, then, the question as to the morality 
 or immorality of the acts of the two combatants, we may 
 inquire which of their engines of war was the more effec- 
 tive. Did the Land-Power throttle the Sea-Power, or vice 
 versa ? Outwardly it seemed as though the Land-Power must 
 succeed. By the middle of the year 1807 Napoleon counted 
 on having the whole of the Continent on his side. After signing 
 the Peace of Tilsit he was sure of Russia, Prussia and Austria. 
 Smaller States, like Denmark, Sweden and Portugal, could be 
 coerced : and these States, added to his Dutch, German, Italian 
 and Spanish allies, would place Europe absolutely at his feet. 
 At once he framed his plans for coercing Denmark and Portu- 
 gal ; and great was his chagrin when we anticipated him by 
 seizing the Danish fleet. This action of ours very naturally 
 exposed us to the severest censure : but, viewing it in the light 
 of facts that have now been ascertained, it is difficult to see 
 
England and Napoleon 73 
 
 what else the British Ministry could have done'. Canning 
 "strove by all the means in his power to persuade the Danes to 
 accept our alliance and to give the fleet in deposit ; and in face 
 of their resolve to accept Napoleon's alliance there was practi- 
 cally no other alternative than that which our Foreign Minister 
 adopted. None the less we must deplore this event as one of 
 the most lamentable in our annals. 
 
 It is, I think, generally forgotten that when the French 
 Imperial Press was upbraiding us with our rapacity at Copen- 
 hagen, Napoleon was preparing to do the very same thing at 
 Lisbon. Because the Portuguese Regent refused to confiscate 
 British merchandise, Napoleon sent Junot with a corps d'armie 
 in hot haste to the banks of the Tagus, and instructed him to 
 give out that he came as a friend, so that he might the more 
 readily seize the Royal Family and the fleet. Again, however, 
 we thwarted him : that family sailed away on the fleet to Brazil; 
 and he contented himself with seizing the little kingdom. 
 
 The French military occupation of Portugal, however, proved 
 to be a snare. It tempted the French Emperor on to his 
 design of dethroning the Spanish Bourbons ; and the insidious 
 manner in which he carried this out drove that proud and 
 brave people into the ranks of his enemies. In the spring of 
 1808 the Spaniards rose against the French ; and so there 
 came about that firm alliance between Spain and England that 
 safeguarded the national independence of both peoples. Here 
 again Napoleon's action was due, in part at least, to commercial 
 motives. Not only did he owe the Spanish Bourbons a grudge 
 for their flash of hostility during the campaign of Jena, but it 
 is clear that he believed he was completing his Continental 
 System by gaining direct control of Spain and her fleet, and 
 her vast Colonial Empire. Shortly before the Spanish insurrec- 
 tion he wrote jubilantly of the naval resources that would be 
 
 ' See my articles in the English Historical Review for Jan. 1896, and 
 Oct. 1901. 
 
74 England and Napoleon 
 
 his, with Cadiz and Carthagena as naval bases for expeditions. 
 The command of the Mediterranean would now be assured, 
 and half of the New World would pass under his sway. What 
 chance then could there be for battered and discredited 
 England ? 
 
 Never did he commit a worse blunder. Far from adding 
 to his naval and mercantile resources by the seizure of Spain, he 
 brought on a struggle that was to busy a quarter of a million, or 
 more, of his best troops for five years to come, that was to empty 
 his coffers, and — worst of all in his sight — was to give most 
 timely relief to England. Not only English soldiers but English 
 goods began to pour into Spain, whence they had hitherto been 
 excluded. More important still for the well-nigh bankrupt 
 merchants of Lancashire, the Spanish colonies (that is, all the 
 lands from Mexico to Valparaiso and Buenos Ayres) began to take 
 our merchandise, and that too for the first time in their history. 
 Thus, not only was a foothold gained for Sir Arthur Wellesley 
 in Spain, but ruin was staved off from the manufacturing 
 districts of England by the very enterprise whereby Napoleon 
 thought he had assured that ruin. 
 
 I think we may assert that, but for the welcome outlet to 
 our energies, both commercial and military, afforded by our 
 alliance with Spain, we must have succumbed from sheer 
 exhaustion. I judge this to be the case because, after the first 
 flush of commercial activity, due to this cause, was past, we 
 experienced in the years 1810— ii the severest depression 
 through which we have ever struggled. The Spanish markets 
 being for a time glutted with our goods, we had no adequate 
 outlet for our great productive power. True, our merchants 
 showed great ingenuity in smuggling goods into the Continent ; 
 and from our posts of vantage — the Ionian Isles, Malta, parts 
 of Spain, the Channel Islands, and Heligoland — we managed 
 to get merchandise into many parts of the Continent. But this 
 did not make up for the loss of direct and regular access to 
 the great ports, all of which, from Riga right round to Trieste 
 
England and Napoleon 75 
 
 were closed to our goods. The distress in our manufacturing 
 districts was terrible ; and it is difficult to see how we could 
 have struggled through that black year 181 1 but for the relief 
 fitfully afforded by commerce with Spain, Portugal, and their 
 colonies. Our own colonial trade was growing : but it was 
 not enough then to support our large manufacturing popula- 
 tion. 
 
 We must also be thankful for another strange blunder com- 
 mitted by Napoleon. Throughout the greater part of the years 
 1 8 10— II bread was at famine prices ; and it would have been 
 easy to starve us into surrender. Our own harvests were 
 lamentably bad. North America then sent us only a few ship- 
 loads a year ; and we depended on the Baltic lands to make 
 good any shortage in our home-supply. Napoleon's word was 
 law in the Baltic lands. Then why was it that he did not stop 
 all export of corn by sea, and thus intensify our miseries ? So 
 far from doing that, he allowed 2,000,000 quarters of wheat to 
 come to us in the year 1810. The only explanation of this 
 strange blindness of his, in presence of the most favourable 
 opportunity of his life, seems to be this. He clung to the 
 crude old mercantilist theory that imports weakened a State, 
 while exports strengthened it. There are one or two letters of 
 his which harp on that strange delusion — especially the letter of 
 Aug. 6, 1 8 10, to Eugene Beauharnais, whence it would seem 
 that he believed he was weakening us by letting us buy corn at 
 the extravagant rates then ruling. Whatever the cause of this 
 very strange fact, there is no doubt that we were allowed to buy 
 corn from our enemies at the time when we most needed it. 
 There still seem to be some official persons at Westminster 
 whose minds are so firmly cast after the Micawber and Mark 
 Tapley type, as to believe that our enemies are always going to 
 be equally obliging. I venture to say that if these gentlemen 
 would spend part of their recess in looking into our economic 
 condition in the years 1810-11, they would find that they, and 
 the whole nation as well, are living in a Fool's Paradise on this 
 
76 England and Napoleon 
 
 question. So extraordinary a piece of good fortune as that of 
 having an enemy who knew nothing of Political Economy is 
 not likely to happen again \ 
 
 Napoleon staked his Empire on the success of this vast 
 commercial experiment of cutting off our exports. It mattered 
 comparatively little, he thought, what we imported ; for imports 
 had to be paid for, and therefore drained a country of gold. 
 In order to perfect his system and compass our ruin he made 
 those hazardous experiments of the years 1810-1 2. He annexed 
 the North Sea coastlands : he tightened the cords of the Conti- 
 nental System on all his subject lands, and ordered the seizure 
 and burning of all goods of British origin. A wail of despair and 
 indignation went up from German manufacturers : even those 
 of France ventured to point out the hardships to which they 
 were exposed, with raw cotton 10 francs the lb. and indigo 
 2 1 francs the lb. He rebuked them for their faintheartedness, 
 and bade them do as best they might; for England was 
 exhausted and would soon give up the game. 
 
 But now trouble loomed in the East. The Czar would no 
 longer see the ruin of his trading classes, and began timidly to 
 resume trade with England. We, on our side, withdrew the 
 obnoxious Orders in Council, and saw our export trade im- 
 prove ; while Napoleon, in order to rivet his System on Russia, 
 prepared for that Moscow Campaign which, as Talleyrand 
 finely said, was the beginning of the end. And then, in the 
 days of disaster, the great Emperor realised how mad he had 
 been to drive the patient German people to despair by 
 rapacious decrees and hordes of inquisitive douaniers. The 
 day of reckoning came, and the Volkerschlacht at Leipzig was 
 the judgment of Central Europe on the Continental System. 
 
 Whether that System might not have succeeded in the 
 hands of a more tactful ruler than Napoleon I will not venture 
 
 ^ See my article in the Monthly Review for March 1902, on this 
 question. 
 
England and Napoleon yy 
 
 to say. But I do say that it came very near to success in the 
 years 1810-11. No one can look into our records without 
 noting very many signs of exhaustion and despair. Had 
 Wellington given Mass^na a chance at Torres Vedras ; had our 
 own people been less dogged than they always are in time 
 of adversity; above all, had Napoleon not committed that 
 "Spanish blunder" of 1808, I think it very doubtful whether 
 he might not have drained away our life-blood. But the 
 Spanish blunder was fundamental. It lost him the unanimous 
 vote of the Continent, which up to then he seemed faitly sure 
 of winning against England. With a unanimous feeling in his 
 favour he could have done with us what he listed. 
 
 What would then have been the upshot? Britain would 
 probably have been stripped of her colonies, — certainly of 
 Canada, the Cape, and India — and allowed to exist almost on 
 sufferance as Carthage did after the Second Punic War. 
 Napoleonic France would then have been the great World- 
 Power, giving laws to Europe and developing the resources of 
 a vast Colonial Empire with the untiring energy that marked 
 her terrible ruler. The arts and sciences would have prospered 
 prodigiously, and the world would have advanced with giant 
 strides at the behest of the autocrat. Material progress would 
 have been more orderly and more rapid than has been the case 
 under the lead of the easy-going Anglo-Saxon. In place of 
 individual initiative, we should see State control ; and the best 
 parts of the earth would be ordered after the fashion of a huge 
 labour colony. We may also be sure that all that material 
 advancement would have been ordered with a view to the glory 
 of France and the Napoleonic dynasty. Napoleon had no 
 conception of the maxim — " Live and let live." His com- 
 mercial ideas were narrowly national. His first idea on the 
 gaining of any new colony was to push on French commerce to 
 the exclusion of that of every other nation. He had no con- 
 ception of Free Trade : he was for Prohibition if possible, or 
 failing that, for stringent Protection. A proof of this is seen in 
 
78 England and Napoleon 
 
 his remark to Gourgaud at St Helena, when he heard of our 
 giving back Java and Sumatra to the Dutch, and L'lle de 
 Bourbon to France in 1815 : "The English are stupid: if I 
 " were in their place I would have stipulated in the last treaties 
 " that I alone should be able to navigate and trade in the seas 
 "of India and of China. It is ridiculous for them to leave 
 " Batavia \i.e. Java] to the Dutch, and the Isle of Bourbon to 
 " the French. . . . The Americans ought no longer to navigate 
 "in the China Sea. What can they do against England?'" 
 
 This is fairly typical of his utterances on these questions. 
 " The spoils to the victors : woe to the vanquished " — these 
 were his maxims in commerce as in politics. As one of his 
 Ministers phrased it, Napoleon thought he could make com- 
 merce "manoeuvre like a battalion".^ There you have the 
 inner cause of the failure of his great commercial experiment. 
 He looked on commerce as an engine of war for assuring the 
 predominance of one nation, not as a means for promoting the 
 wealth of nations. 
 
 While, therefore, we as Britons rejoice that this great 
 struggle ended as it did, we may do so on more than merely 
 national grounds. The triumph of Napoleon must have led 
 to the founding of a world-wide Empire, in which power and 
 prosperity would have been dearly bought at the expense of 
 individual liberty and private enterprise. The triumph of 
 Great Britain has built up a Commonwealth whose citizens are 
 in every sense free men, whose industries develop the grit and 
 fibre of the individual, ahd whose commerce is open to all the 
 world. 
 
 1 Journal de Ste. Hilbie, II. p. 315. MoUien, Mimoires, vol. III. 
 pp. 287—296, 314—318. 
 
 ^ Chaptal, Mes Souvenirs sur Napolion, p. 275. 
 
BRITAIN'S NAVAL POLICY. 
 By Professor J. K. Laughton, M.A. 
 
 It is not many years ago that a political agitator, addressing 
 a meeting in the north of England, urged on his audience the 
 iniquity and injustice of their being taxed for the maintenance 
 of a navy whose only possible use was to defend the interests of 
 the south. At the present time, in view of the recent growth of 
 imperial sentiment, the most brazen-throated demagogue might 
 think twice before he ventured to talk such blatant nonsense ; 
 but it is worth asking whether the objection to it would be one 
 of knowledge or of mere sentiment. Sentiment is a noble 
 thing in its way, but unless it is based on knowledge and com- 
 mon sense, it will not endure ; and I am not at all certain that 
 even now our demagogue might not find an audience who 
 could not explain the faith that is in them ; the faith — quoting 
 the words of an old Act of Parliament — that " it is on the navy, 
 through the good Providence of God, that our wealth, safety 
 and strength do chiefly depend"; or, in a still older phrase, 
 dating back to the time of the Plantagenets, that " the navy is 
 the wall and fence of the kingdom." These old declarations 
 are my text for this evening. They are as true or perhaps 
 truer now than ever they were, and really prescribe in outline 
 the whole of our naval policy. Details may vary with varying 
 conditions; the broad principle remains constant and un- 
 changed. 
 
8o Britain s Naval Policy 
 
 The geographical fact that this country is an island is one 
 that does not appear to have been intelligently grasped by our 
 popular historians, the writers of text-books. They model the 
 accounts of our great wars on those of continental nations, with 
 whom the army is everything, the navy is non-existent ; and 
 thus — as I know by every-day experience — it is very common 
 for a young student to have been through a course of English 
 history without having been led to any appreciation of the part 
 which — for good or bad — our navy has taken in the life of the 
 kingdom, the growth and establishment of the Empire. The 
 reign of Edward III, for instance, is generally illustrated with 
 long descriptions and highly-imaginative plans of Crecy and 
 Poitiers ; our subsequent reverses are cut very short indeed ; 
 and not a word is said to show that, to a very great extent, 
 Crdcy and Calais and Poitiers were corollaries of Sluys and 
 Les Espagnols-sur-Mer, and that the reverses resulted from the 
 signal defeat we sustained off Rochelle. It is not my business 
 now to dwell on this neglect of our historians, but rather to put 
 you in the way of supplying the omission by thinking the 
 matter out for yourselves ; asking yourselves — to revert to the 
 instance I have just used — what would probably have happened 
 if the English fleet, instead of the French, had been destroyed 
 at Sluys, or similar questions for any of our great wars. I think 
 the answers to which you will be forced will give some of you 
 new ideas on many of the salient points of our history. 
 
 But what I now wish to impress on you is that, in time of 
 war, the position of this country is essentially different from 
 that of any other. It has to trust for its defence almost wholly 
 to its navy ; the work of the army, important as it is, is attack. 
 What the navy has to do is to occupy the seas in such force 
 as may prevent the enemy's ships from passing, whether for 
 purposes of commerce or of aggression. You will easily under- 
 stand that — as a rule — ships do not go roaming promiscuously 
 about the ocean, but proceed to their destination by the shortest 
 possible way; that is, for sailing ships, by routes forced on them 
 
Britain's Naval Policy 8i 
 
 by the prevailing winds, and for steamers, either direct or as 
 the conditions of the voyage may dictate. Within certain 
 broad limits, these routes are marked on the map as clearly as 
 the Great North Road itself. It is conceivable that ships or 
 even fleets may stray from these tracks, and — with a view to 
 evade an enemy — may take a circuitous route ; but such in- 
 stances will always be exceptional, and ships carrying cargo, 
 whether merchandise or soldiers, will prefer the fixed route. 
 
 It is the duty, then, of our ships of war to occupy these 
 routes so that the enemy's ships may not pass, and — which is 
 still more important — that his ships of war may not block the 
 routes so as to hinder the passing of our ships. The first- 
 named object is the stoppage of the enemy's trade, and the 
 preventing any attempt to invade our country or any of its 
 dependencies. In presence of any serious risk, commerce 
 stops itself ; beyond a certain limit, owners will not chance it ; 
 and there is no cargo more precious, more costly, and as to 
 which the owners are more sensitive, than a cargo of troops. 
 Hence it is an axiom in naval war that territorial aggression — 
 that is, invasion — cannot pass over a sea that is not perfectly 
 commanded ; and that the only way to gain that command of 
 the sea is by utterly smashing the enemy's fleet, or by driving 
 it off and shutting it up. So long as it is free and — even 
 though worsted in fight — able to give annoyance, it has been 
 spoken of as "a fleet in being," and no invasion can take 
 place. 
 
 From the mere abstract point of view, it might be thought 
 that this prevention of invasion is the most important duty of 
 our navy : in the concrete, however, considering the particular 
 circumstances of these islands, their absolute dependence on 
 sea-borne commerce for daily food and for the raw materials of 
 many of our manufactures, as also the extreme improbability of 
 any enemy undertaking the prolonged, the difficult and needless 
 task of invasion, if his navy is able to stop our commerce, it is 
 difficult not to think that the protection of our commerce is the 
 
 H. L. 6 
 
82 Britain s Naval Policy 
 
 first and most important duty which our navy will have to 
 perform. 
 
 For us, at least, the conditions are now quite different from 
 those of former wars. Even in the great Napoleonic war our 
 population was much smaller, our production of food-stuffs was 
 much greater, agriculture was by far our most important in- 
 dustry ; we were practically a self-supporting country. The 
 repeal of the corn laws, the adoption of free trade has alto- 
 gether changed this independent state. We are no longer 
 self-supporting. Our population, crowding into the towns and 
 engaged in other more lucrative industries, is dependent for its 
 food on corn and flesh — even for eggs, butter and cheese — 
 brought from our colonies or from foreign countries. It is 
 outside my present purpose to enlarge on the possible conse- 
 quences -of war with those countries from which we draw large 
 supplies of corn--vRussia, say, or the United States. In any 
 case, Canada should be able to make good the deficiency. I 
 doubt, however, if she could do it without several months or 
 perhaps a year's warning, which she would not have ; it would 
 Le a matter of instant urgency ; though I understand she has 
 professed her willingness to undertake the whole contract, and 
 to grow enough wheat for the wants of the United Kingdom, 
 isubject to the arrangement of a preferential tariff — an insult to 
 the fetish of free trade which our politicians are not disposed to 
 consider in -time of peace. With this, however, I am not now 
 concerned. 
 
 But, independent of the source of supply, it would be a 
 question, depending on the relative strength of our navy, 
 whether the corn or any other food-stuffs would be allowed to 
 come at all. And not only food-stuffs. The stopping of the 
 raw materials of manufacture would stop the factories, would 
 stop the wages of the industrial population, and would equally 
 deprive them of their daily bread. I daresay there are many 
 here who have heard their fathers or grandfathers tell of the 
 terrible Lancashire cotton famine ,'of forty years ago, when the 
 
Britain s Naval Policy 83 
 
 American Civil War put a sharp and sudden stop to the importa- 
 tion of cotton. What that famine of 1862 was to the Lancashire 
 district and the cotton industry, the cutting of our lines of 
 commercial communication would extend to the whole kingdom 
 and, more or less severely, to every branch of manufacture. 
 
 This danger of wholesale starvation — direct or indirect — ■ 
 and the necessity of guarding against it is, in fact, the price we 
 pay for the many advantages of free trade. I fancy there are 
 some people who have imagined and do imagine that free trade 
 is all advantage ; that it has no countervailing disadvantages. 
 Well, it has, if having to pay something over thirty millions 
 a year for the up-keep of the navy instead of four or five, 
 is a disadvantage. No doubt there are other reasons for this 
 tremendous increase ; it is not wholly due to free trade, but it 
 is very largely so ; and beyond all question it is to free trade 
 that we owe the absolute dependence of our population on sea- 
 borne food, and of our industrial population on sea-borne 
 staples of manufacture. 
 
 It is this that makes me say that the first and most im- 
 portant duty of our navy is absolutely to command and keep 
 open our communications, and to close those of the enemy. 
 Great fights at sea are merely incidents of these main duties; 
 most important and interesting incidents, but still incidents; 
 they are the means to an end, not the end itself. No doubt to 
 many of you, who have read something of our naval history 
 merely as a record of brave fighting and briUiant adventure, 
 this may seem a very prosaic view of these glories of the past, 
 and you may try to believe that the great battles were fought 
 mainly to show how much finer fellow an Englishman is than 
 a Frenchman, or a Spaniard, or a Dutchman. The belief is 
 wholesome enough in its way and I am not going to object to 
 it, only it has nothing to do with the matter in hand. The 
 battles are fought to prevent the enemy occupying or using the 
 water-ways ; and, apart from these incidents, the daily work of 
 the navy is to enforce this, not by actual fighting, but by the 
 
 6—2 
 
84 Britain's Naval Policy 
 
 mere silent threat of its presence — ^just as the mere presence of 
 a policeman will very commonly prevent a street row ; and to 
 say, after a war is over, that— owing to the weakness of the 
 enemy — the navy had no part in it, is very much like saying 
 that the police had no part in preventing a row because they 
 had not to break any heads. 
 
 And yet this, or something like it, has been said over and 
 over again. I will not now dwell on the fact — which, however, 
 may give you something to think of by-and-by — that during 
 the late war in South Africa the mere existence and prepared 
 state of our navy kept the communications clear, and prevented 
 any interference on the part of some of our not too friendly 
 neighbours, who might have been quite willing to find their 
 opportunity in any appearance of our weakness. I will ask you 
 rather to refer to the history of a war that took place about the 
 middle of last century and has been generally spoken of as the 
 "Crimean War.'' It was, of course, a war with Russia, in 
 which — by the action of our navy — the fighting was almost 
 entirely confined to the Crimea ; so much so that our popular 
 histories seem to give the idea that that, or something like it, 
 was the natural and necessary course of such a war. If they 
 make any mention of our fleet in the Baltic it is only to say 
 that it accomplished nothing. In reality, it accomplished a 
 very great deal. At that time the Russians had in the Gulf of 
 Finland some thirty ships of the Une of battle, besides smaller 
 vessels, which had all the will in the world to come into the 
 North Sea or the open ocean and work all possible havoc, but 
 were unable or unwilling to face the allied fleet — mostly English 
 — which during the open seasons of 1854 and 1855 kept the 
 Russian ships closely bottled up in Cronstadt. The rendering 
 this large Russian fleet absolutely innocuous during the whole 
 time of the war, and the finding employment for a very con- 
 siderable land army scattered along the coasts, was the 
 important work of that Baltic fleet which your histories will 
 tell you did little or nothing. 
 
Britain s Naval Policy 85 
 
 I bring this forward as a marked illustration of what I mean 
 in saying that by far the larger and more important work of the 
 navy is of a kind which the popular historian does not under- 
 stand and cannot recognise. Now that I have shown you how 
 to look for it you will find it an exercise both interesting and 
 profitable to examine — for instance — the share of the navy in 
 the Peninsular War, or in the celebrated conquest of Canada ; 
 and how entirely the loss of our North American Colonies — 
 in the military, not in the political sense — was due to the 
 inefficiency of the navy and its temporary forgetfulness of the 
 maxim handed down from the hps of Blake, "It is not for 
 us to meddle with State affairs, but to keep foreigners from 
 fooling us." 
 
 You will now, I hope, be able fully to realise that it is not 
 in a mere sentimental sense, or as asserting the theoretical 
 unity of the Empire, but in the direct, practical, bread-and-beef, 
 £, s. d. sense, that I say that the condition and well-being of 
 the navy is of interest and importance to every living soul 
 within our boundaries ; not only within the shores of this 
 island, or of our near sister on the other side of St George's 
 Channel, but of our vast trans-oceanic dependencies — the 
 Dominion of Canada, the Commonwealth of Australia, the 
 Empire of India, and all islands, and territories, wherever 
 situated. If any of you happen to have lived for any length of 
 time in one of our remote islands — Hong Kong, say, or Suva, 
 or even Vancouver — this will seem common-place ; for it has 
 already been borne in on you that the navy is the chain which 
 binds and holds together the whole Empire ; that without that 
 chain the Empire would fall to pieces on the first whisper of 
 war ; and that with that chain insufficiently strong and liable to 
 be broken the Empire would again be disintegrated, even as it 
 was in the American Revolution, 120 years ago. 
 
 And now that we understand what it is that our navy has to 
 do — the keeping open the sea routes for our own ships and 
 
86 Britain s Naval Policy 
 
 blocking them for those of the enemy — we have to consider 
 how it has to do it. If the enemy attempts to hold one of 
 these routes by main force, that is by a fleet of great ships, 
 such as are now commonly called battle-ships, the immediate 
 duty of our navy, or rather of such part of it as is appointed to 
 the task, is to find that fleet, to defeat it, to destroy it, or to 
 drive it back to its own or some friendly harbour, and there to 
 keep it ; to ensure, as far as possible, that it does not come out 
 again. In this you will recognise an operation that has been 
 very conspicuous in most modern wars — the blockade of an 
 enemy's port, as Brest, Toulon, Cadiz, Cronstadt. But the 
 term blockade is liable to misconception. Nelson always in- 
 sisted that he never blockaded Toulon ; that, on the contrary, 
 he gave the French every opportunity of coming out. And 
 this must be taken as the meaning of a naval blockade — the 
 watching a port so that the enemy cannot come out without 
 fighting. If they do not feel equal to fighting they remain 
 inside, under cover of their fortifications. 
 
 There they have been safe, or comparatively so. Against 
 the fortifications with which the great continental nations guard 
 the approaches to their military ports, ships can do nothing. 
 This has been recognised by all our great admirals for the last 
 200 years. Hawke, Boscawen, Howe, St Vincent, Cornwallis, 
 Nelson, closely watched Brest, or Toulon, or Cadiz, for months 
 and years, longing for the enemy to come out, but never con- 
 ceiving a possibility of going in to bring them out. And yet, 
 when Napier went up the Baltic in 1854, people took it into 
 their heads that he was going immediately to force his way in 
 past the batteries of Cronstadt — the most formidable in exist- 
 ence — and railed bitterly against him when they found that he 
 had no intention of trying to do so. How silly it would have 
 been was shown the same season in the Black Sea, where the 
 ships off" Sebastopol, attempting a diversion in support of the 
 army, were very roughly handled, without being able to ac- 
 complish anything. 
 
Britain s Naval Policy 87 
 
 It is now much debated whether blockades in any way 
 resembling those of the past will be possible in the future. 
 No doubt the conditions will be very different. It is not only 
 that steam complicates the problem; that on a dark night a 
 fast, full-powered steamer may slip out of the watched port, 
 followed by another and another, in a way that was not possible 
 for a sailing ship, which was not under such perfect control and 
 whose spread of canvas would be more likely to betray her ; it 
 is — much more — that by the use, or the dread of the use of 
 modern inventions — sea mines, torpedoes, submarines — the 
 watching fleet will be compelled to keep at such a distance 
 that, on a dark night, the whole inside fleet, together or in 
 detachments, may get away, and the morning dawn on an 
 empty harbour. It is impossible for anyone to say in advance 
 how this problem will be solved; but it may be held for certain 
 that in the next naval war the solution will be sought for in 
 the most practical ways. It would be rash to assert that it will 
 be found without many abortive attempts and failures ; on 
 which, and on the decay of British seamanship, or on the 
 want of intelligence of British naval officers, the halfpenny 
 newspapers will have much to say. 
 
 In any case, however, there is no reason to suppose that 
 the blockade of an enemy's coast will be more stringent in the 
 future than ever it was in the past. The war with Russia was 
 exceptional, both from the paucity of the enemy's ships and — 
 still more — from the situation of the harbours and the formation 
 of the coast lines. But the French coast, lying exposed to a 
 stormy sea, has always proved difficult ; and though the escape 
 of a large fleet could generally be prevented, evasions were 
 sometimes found possible, and small squadrons often got to 
 sea without much difficulty ; frigates and smaller vessels without 
 any. And when these got well away they might do, and indeed 
 very often did do an enormous amount of mischief before they 
 could be caught. I think we may count it as certain that, should 
 we be again at war with France, history would repeat itself in 
 
B8 Britain's Naval Policy 
 
 many of its phases; and the particular phase which may be 
 jxpected to repeat itself is the escape of many commerce 
 iestroyers and their consequent attack on our commerce. It 
 s then a problem of the most serious importance how, in a 
 'uture war — I am speaking only of a war with a great naval 
 aower — how, in a war, say, with France, our commerce is to 
 De protected. 
 
 There are many who assert that all the conditions are so 
 iififerent from anything hitherto known that past experience 
 s no guide, and that the problem has to be attacked as a 
 perfectly new thing. There are others, among whom I would 
 range myself, who incline to the opinion that — where man is 
 :he agent — there is nothing new under the sun, and that if you 
 ivant to consider how a thing is to be done in the future the 
 Brst and best guide to consult is the history of the past. Now 
 3n this point the history of the past is remarkably clear and 
 definite. In our old wars — it is perhaps unnecessary here to 
 JO farther back than the French Revolution — merchant ships 
 divided themselves roughly into two classes — " runners " and 
 'the trade.'' Ships forming "the trade" assembled at the 
 ippointed place — the Downs, for instance, or St Helen's, at 
 lome — and there waited till one or more ships of war, of such 
 size and number as were judged necessary, took charge of 
 ;hem, sailed in company with them, defended them against 
 ittack, and if overpowered, made — or were expected to make — 
 iuch resistance as to give the trade time to escape. Such a 
 leet of merchant ships apd the protecting men-of-war was 
 :alled a convoy. 
 
 Now, in time of war, by far the largest part of our trade 
 sailed in convoy — to Lisbon and the Mediterranean, North 
 \merica, the West Indies, East Indies, or China; the details 
 )f the arrangements for convoys were fully recorded and are 
 perfectly well known. As a general rule they answered very 
 satisfactorily ; and though at least two, perhaps three gigantic 
 disasters are on record, they were of an earlier date than the 
 
Britain s Naval Policy 89 
 
 French Revolution. On a smaller scale mishaps were not 
 unfrequent. In a fleet of three or four hundred merchant 
 ships of different sizes and different rates of sailing, commanded 
 by men unused to discipUne and each wishing to show that he 
 was captain of his own ship, it was difficult, or rather impossible 
 to keep them all together, in their appointed stations. The 
 more weatherly ships would get to windward ; the faster, eager 
 to anticipate the market, would get ahead as far as they could ; 
 the slower or more leewardly would drop astern or to leeward ; 
 and the enemy's cruisers or privateers, closely attending on 
 them, like sharks attending on a slaver, picked up a good 
 many. It was, of course, the object of the commander of the 
 convoy to prevent this as much as possible ; but it was most 
 commonly a thankless office, which entailed on the unfortunate 
 man a great deal of abuse from the merchant skippers whose 
 vagaries he restrained, bitter complaints from the merchants 
 whose ships and cargoes were snapped up and carried off; 
 and after all, when the voyage was happily brought to an end, 
 he seldom obtained promotion or acknowledgment. Naturally 
 the service was not popular, but it was necessary; it had to 
 be done, and was done well ; so well, that the war risks of 
 ships sailing in convoy were held by the underwriters as not 
 greater than the ordinary risks from perils of the sea, that is to 
 say, they about doubled the insurance in time of peace. But 
 then the conditions as to the convoy were strict, and ships 
 which could be shown to have been captured in consequence 
 of their neglect of regulations forfeited the insurance. 
 
 There were, however, many inconveniences. It was the 
 object of a merchant to get his cargo out, and his ship, with 
 the return cargo, home again ; it was the skipper's object to 
 push on and show what a splendid ship he had and that he was 
 just the man for her. The loss of time in waiting for the trade 
 to assemble, and afterwards by the slow sailing of the convoy, was 
 extremely irritating to the owner and master of a fast ship ; so 
 that it is not to be wondered at that many were willing to take 
 
go Britain s Naval Policy 
 
 their chance as "runners," and trust to "a clean pair of heels" 
 and their own armament to escape from or beat off the enemy's 
 cruisers. The insurance offices did not look on this plan of 
 independent sailing with any favour, and either refused point- 
 blank to have anything to do with ships so sailing, or placed 
 the premium so high as to be virtually prohibitive ; and thus, 
 as a rule, " runners " took the risks themselves. Sometimes it 
 answered fairly well : sometimes it proved a ghastly failure. 
 When two or three clever Frenchmen, with good fast ships, 
 worked in company, runners had a poor chance. The historic 
 instance of this is the partnership of Surcouf in the Revenant, a 
 privateer, and Epron in the Fiemontaise, a national frigate, who, 
 working together in the Bay of Bengal in 1807, scourged the 
 Calcutta commerce to an enormous extent. Running proved 
 quite ineffectual, and of the ships they captured then none was 
 able to attempt any defence. But even a heavier armament 
 was found unavailing. The Kent, an East-Indiaman, with about 
 150 fighting men on board, was captured without much difficulty 
 by the Confiance, a small French privateer; and the Warren 
 Hastings, another East-Indiaman, with the nominal armament 
 of a heavy frigate, was taken by the Piemontaise, which was not 
 specially efficient as a fighting ship. 
 
 Here then we have the teachings of history : 
 
 Convoy: — Much loss of time; small risks. 
 
 Running: — Possible gain of time; risks great; insurance 
 prohibitive. 
 
 Self-defence : — Quite inefficient. 
 How do these apply to the present time? It is very 
 commonly urged that merchants and ship-owners, now or 
 in the future, will not consent to the delays of a system of 
 convoy. There is no doubt that hurry is a principal feature 
 of modern trade, but the wisdom of ages is embodied in two 
 ■^oxiiSi—festina letite; and it is impossible to say what, under 
 stress, ship-owners may or may not consent to. They will 
 certainly wish to reduce their losses to a minimum ; and if they 
 
Britain's Naval Policy 91 
 
 find that the insurance ofBces insist on convoy, that a ship 
 captured without convoy is all loss, that a runner is very likely 
 to be captured, then, I think, they will accept convoy as the 
 least of the threatening evils; and indeed, when all competition 
 is in the same boat, the loss is relatively reduced. 
 
 But, it is urged, our large mail steamers, the so-called 
 " ocean greyhounds," are faster and of greater endurance than 
 any cruisers, and would be safe from their pursuit. From the 
 pursuit of one, perhaps, though not necessarily ; less probably 
 from the pursuit of two or three, coming on them from different 
 points of the compass ; in running from one, the chase might 
 be running into the clutches of another. As to self-defence, 
 it would be very right and proper for any such steamer to have 
 some armament, so as not to be at the mercy of any insignifi- 
 cant vessel, which, by craft or otherwise, could manage to get 
 alongside her; but I do not believe in the possibility of a 
 merchant ship defending herself with success against an 
 efficient ship of war. 
 
 Against all this, however, it is urged that it must be 
 rendered impossible, or at any rate highly improbable, for 
 a runner to have to escape from two or three enemy's cruisers; 
 they must be swept out of the way ; and this is to be done by 
 a system of patrols, in almost the same manner that a piece of 
 road may be patrolled by policemen. I would not for a 
 moment say that this is impossible; on the contrary, I think 
 that in some circumstances, and within strict limitations, such 
 a system may be extremely valuable ; but that, in general, the 
 cost would be prohibitive. Bear in mind that it is a measure 
 of relative not of absolute defence, and especially for the pro- 
 tection of commerce. Now, logically, the protection of com- 
 merce is as much a question of money as the commerce itself 
 The nation cannot be called on to pay more for the protection 
 of commerce than the commerce is worth; and of two methods, 
 equally efficient, the one which costs least is the best. 
 
 The idea of effectively patrolling the great ocean routes, in 
 
92 Britain s Naval Policy 
 
 their entire length, may be dismissed as impossible; but the 
 patrolling of short routes, over which the traffic is relatively 
 large, such, for instance, as the route down the coast of 
 Portugal, from Cape Finisterre to Cape St Vincent, would be 
 economically possible; the Red Sea, again, could be secured 
 at a very small cost ; as also the track from Aden to Bombay ; 
 and the more distant eastern routes — to Calcutta, China, and 
 Australia or New Zealand, would be largely secured on this 
 side of the Cape of Good Hope. Every French ship— if we 
 were at war with France — that got past the Cape of Good 
 Hope ought to be, would have to be specially looked after, 
 shadowed and provided for. From this point of view the 
 recent French acquisitions in Tonquin and Cochin China may 
 be considered as valuable allies; they will hive, so to speak, 
 the French ships, and our work will be made so much the 
 easier ; though, indeed, without these territories it is difficult 
 to see how French ships could venture east of the Cape. In 
 the old war they could only do so when the French held 
 Mauritius and the Dutch islands ; when these fell into our 
 hands the French depredations in the eastern seas came to 
 an end. 
 
 The English Channel and the Mediterranean fall into a 
 somewhat different category. Every possible care should be 
 taken to prevent the appearance of an enemy's ship in the 
 Channel, or, to repeat the language and the thoughts of our 
 forefathers, the invasion of English territory; for in time of 
 war — and indeed in time of peace too — they were accustomed 
 to maintain that the boundary of English territory was the 
 high-water mark on the coast of France. We know how, in 
 the old wars, French privateers swarmed in the narrow seas — 
 from Dungeness to the Naze. These were often of the most 
 paltry descriptions ; sometimes in the guise of fishing-boats, 
 pilot-boats, which were allowed to get alongside without sus- 
 picion that a thing so insignificant could be dangerous. Of 
 course we all know that by the Declaration of Paris "privateer- 
 
Britain's Naval Policy 93 
 
 ing is and remains abolished"; but the Declaration of Paris 
 does not say that the French Government is not at liberty to 
 take up every coasting or river steamer in the north of France, 
 put a one-, or two- or three-pounder on board her, with a 
 dozen or twenty men, and call her a man-of-war; that is, if 
 they feel bound by the Declaration of Paris, which is far from 
 certain if they find it inconvenient. We certainly do feel 
 ourselves bound by the Declaration of Paris; but, as well 
 as the French, we are at full liberty to turn all the small 
 steamers on the Thames into men-of-war sufficient to over- 
 power those I have just been speaking of, giving them of 
 course a backbone of efficient ships — gunboats and third or 
 second class cruisers — so as to give them an undoubted 
 superiority. I see no difficulty in the way of making the 
 Channel and the narrow seas absolutely safe. 
 
 The Mediterranean is different. It has frequently been 
 urged that the commanding the seas and the protecting our 
 commerce, as I have sketched it, is quite beyond the power of 
 our navy, a,nd that on the outbreak of war the first considera- 
 tion must be the limiting of our efforts by withdrawing from 
 the Mediterranean. It is said that, with the French at Toulon 
 and Biserta, the position of a British fleet at Malta would be 
 extremely perilous, and that our proper course would be to get 
 out of that perilous position, leave Malta to defend itself, and 
 relinquish the commerce of the Mediterranean and the route 
 by the Suez Canal. This is really a question of strategy rather 
 than of policy, and with strategy I have now no business ; 
 though I will so far deviate from my strict course as to say 
 that, in my opinion, the suggested strategy is based on false 
 conceptions and is altogether absurd. Speaking of it as policy, 
 I will go farther and say it is iniquitous ; that the commerce of 
 the Mediterranean and the route by the Canal are necessary to 
 us; and that if we are to be beaten out of them our best 
 traditions teach us to take our beating fighting, not lying down. 
 But in fact, there is no strategical reason why we should be 
 
94 Britain s Naval Policy 
 
 beaten out of them ; and vsrith our line of cruisers or occasional 
 battle-ships resting on Gibraltar and Malta and our Mediter- 
 ranean fleet, the weak strategical position seems to me that 
 of the French, not of the English, and the protection of our 
 commerce does not present any abnormal difficulties. 
 
 Patrolling in the open ocean is a very different thing, and for 
 the great ocean routes a perfect system thereof is — as I have 
 already said — impossible ; but I think they may be so far 
 guarded as to render it economically possible for the "ocean 
 greyhounds " to take the risk of independent voyages ; for 
 others, for slower vessels, I see no effective substitute for the 
 old-fashioned system of convoy, though it may be modified by 
 dividing the trade into detachments, according to the speed of 
 the steamers — classifying them in fact. In this way the loss 
 of time would be greatly reduced ; the temptation for the fast 
 steamers to leave the slower would be done away with, and the 
 protective power of the escort greatly increased. 
 
 Sailing vessels still form an appreciable part of our merchant 
 shipping, but it has been very commonly asserted that, on the 
 first breath of war, these would all be laid up. I do not know 
 that this would be necessary : from the purely naval point of 
 view I do not think it would be. I think it would be entirely 
 a question of money. Though the initial cost of sailing vessels 
 is less than that of steamers, they are in reality more costly, 
 from the greater number of men they require, and still more 
 from the very much longer time they take on the voyage. 
 When the delays of convoy largely increase this " longer time,'' 
 it is very possible that the increased cost will render it economi- 
 cally better to lay the sailing vessels up till the return of peace. 
 The question is not one of naval protection, for that could be 
 better Jiow than ever; it is simply a question of the economics 
 of trade. 
 
 But the whole problem of protection is based on the 
 assumption that we have the superior strength at sea. With 
 that we are safe. Without it the work which I have outlined 
 
Britain s Naval Policy 95 
 
 cannot be done ; our coasts cannot be secured from insult ; 
 our territories from invasion ; our commerce from ruin. There 
 is an old familiar story of a cat which had but one way to 
 safety, and by taking that way was safe, whilst the fox, that 
 knew of fifty ways, was caught by the hounds and broken up. 
 It is for us to see that our one way to safety is secure; that our 
 navy-is superior in strength to any possible enemy. That is the 
 whole essence of our naval policy : Keep well the sea ! 
 
THE TRANSFORMATION OF GERMANY 
 BY PRUSSIA. 
 
 By Professor Erich Marcks, Ph.D. 
 
 You are reviewing here the progress and events of the 
 nineteenth century, and you want to hear something about 
 Germany from the lips of a German. I am to tell you what 
 has been, as far as I can judge, most important and character- 
 istic for my country. I will do so, and, as the time is short, I 
 will direct my attention to this subject alone. And here let 
 me say at once : the political history of Germany, indeed the 
 whole development of Germany, is summed up in the title of 
 this lecture, "The Transformation of Germany by Prussia." 
 I shall have to answer the following questions : — What was the 
 old Germany like at the beginning of the century, and what 
 was Prussia ? Then what did Prussia do in and for Germany? 
 How strong did Prussia's influence on the nation finally 
 become? How does it act at the present day, and what are 
 its limits ? For one thing is obvious : Germany has changed 
 tremendously. It has risen from disruption to unity, from 
 weakness to strength ; the whole national character seems to 
 have altered. The nation of poets and thinkers has become 
 a nation of power and business. And, as far as it is possible 
 to squeeze this process into a single sentence, you can say, 
 "Prussia has effected this." Germany has become Prussian. 
 
 The great difficulty of German history for a foreigner is 
 that it has so many local centres. It has them even to-day, 
 
Transformation by Prussia 97 
 
 but to-day it has in Berlin one more important than all the 
 others. In earlier times there were always some common 
 features and interests, but the disruptive tendencies used to 
 predominate. And a hundred years ago it seemed almost as 
 though there was nothing but disruption in the country. 
 
 It was the old process of German history that the Empire 
 grew weak and the national state broke up; on its ruins had 
 arisen in the course of many centuries the separate states, of 
 ever-increasing strength; a crowd of states differing from each 
 other as widely as possible in form, covered the German soil. 
 They were most motley in the South and West of the Empire ; 
 small states, spiritual and temporal, bishoprics and abbeys, 
 duchies, principalities, counties, cities, were there mixed up 
 together; and even when Napoleon the First had stamped 
 out most of the smallest, and had secularised the ecclesiastical 
 ones, there still remained a considerable number of small, but 
 especially of medium and larger-sized states. Among them 
 were Hanover, Saxony, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Baden, Hessen; 
 states of great self-confidence, especially Bavaria; states of 
 active internal government, of ancient intellectual life; many 
 of them had distinctive features, and a rich past; but none of 
 them possessed great strength of their own as states. It was 
 for the most part a little world, full of life and colour, im- 
 portant as regards culture, but with no strong and steady 
 impulse, and, taken together, of no assured positiorK(l"import- 
 ance in Europe. One of the two great states which emerged 
 from this swarm, Austria, was more outside Germany than' in, 
 and for the most part not German at all. The one and only 
 state that led a vital existence as such, striving greatly after 
 power at home and abroad, and concentrating in itself all the 
 strength of the people, was the kingdom of Prussia. 
 
 Beside this world of midgets Prussia had long posed as 
 something special. While German culture developed elsewhere 
 under cramped and often unenlightened conditions, in Prussia 
 the glorious house of Hohenzollern trained a poor population 
 
98 Germany 
 
 up to the strength that befits a state. Out of isolated, power- 
 less provinces, it formed a great, united state; it breathed 
 into this state energy, ambition, compactness, and discipline; 
 frugally, amid privations, it created by rigid perseverance the 
 strongest army in Germany, and side by side with it the best 
 and most reliable bureaucracy. The independence of the 
 separate provinces and the political power of the nobility were 
 broken ; the monarchy, bureaucracy, and army, as unifying 
 forces, were set above everything. Frederick William the First 
 and Frederick the Second built up an enlightened despotism 
 which was the best government on the Continent in the eight- 
 eenth century ; the nobility obligingly fell in with the scheme ; 
 there arose the conception of a Prussian state, a Prussian patriot- 
 ism of a special and powerful kind, which became a historic 
 power on the battlefields of the Seven Years' War. Everything 
 culminated in the king and his will, in international activity, in 
 the politics of a great power ; Prussia was directed from above. 
 In the separate provinces the nobles certainly remained strong; 
 submissive though they were in affairs of state, they retained 
 a large share of self-government; in the east they were the 
 prevailing class, the magistrates and governors in their districts. 
 The absolutism did not tend to downright centralisation, such 
 as was sought by France : royal absolutism was combined with 
 aristocratic self-government. And after the defeat of 1806 
 a new element entered this world of monarchy and aristocracy: 
 the new civil ideas of the time. Ideals of French and English 
 origin, ideals of the freedom of the individual, found their 
 opportunity, in the epoch of the reformers, in the epoch of 
 Stein, Hardenberg, and Scharnhorst, to set free all the forces of 
 the land which Napoleon had reduced in size. The universal 
 obligation to military service was created, the emancipation 
 of the peasants was completed, the barriers between classes 
 were broken down, privileges were done away with, the indi- 
 vidual was fully respected and allowed self-control ; Stein 
 aimed at complete self-government, and was actually able to 
 
Transformation by Prussia 99 
 
 grant it to the cities. The Crown and the aristocracy were 
 limited; the state was to be brought nearer to the whole 
 people. There was still no Constitution, but the popular 
 elements penetrated deep into the structure of the old state. 
 The most important innovation of all was the universal obli- 
 gation to military service. The old army of foreign merce- 
 naries and forced levies was replaced by the national army, 
 that respected the dignity of the individual, and made all the 
 forces of the state available. It was easier to introduce the 
 system here because Prussia was still chiefly agrarian : the 
 other countries of Europe which followed suit later, found it 
 more difficult. Thus an organism was created which blended 
 itself at all points intimately with Prussian life in all its aspects; 
 army and people became one unity, the national spirit re- 
 sponded cheerfully to the military drill and was itself trained 
 by it; the new army was more humane, freer, more contented 
 by far than the old, and at the same time an extraordinary 
 source of power for a state that was still small. This military 
 law of 1814 together with the city self-government, remained 
 the best and most vital heritage from the period of Reform: 
 at once thoroughly modern and thoroughly Prussian, the most 
 characteristic and important law of the Prussian and German 
 world, and one of the most important of the nineteenth century 
 altogether. After the defeat of France, after 1815, the old 
 polity certainly predominated in Prussia; the reforms remained 
 standing, but did not develop further. The Crown and aristo- 
 cracy came once more to the front, and the period of new 
 creations was followed by a quieter period of gradual working. 
 The East and the West, the old and the new provinces of the 
 wide-reaching dominion grew gradually united, but the brilliant 
 life of 1807 gave way to a less lively period. Prussia fell back 
 again into its North-German separate existence. 
 
 Even at that time, both before and after Napoleon's over- 
 throw, clear-thinking individuals in Germany saw that only this 
 Prussian state, strong in arms and full of character, harsh and 
 
lOO Germany 
 
 bluff though it might be, only this German great power would 
 be able to form a future united Germany. But it is not by 
 chance that a half-century elapsed before this came about. 
 The rest of Germany was at that time by no means prepared 
 to submit to Prussian leadership, or indeed to any leadership 
 whatever. For many generations the Germans had lived apart 
 in small groups ; the tribes, the provinces, but especially the 
 individual states with their own firmly-rooted dynasties, in- 
 sisted on their independence. And now the modern Liberal- 
 ism permeated the small states of South Germany, and filled 
 their Parliaments. Prussia was still without a Constitution ; 
 from 1815 to 1840 South and North drifted only further and 
 further apart. Prussia was again, in spite of many innovations, 
 remarkable for its army, administration, and political power; 
 the rest of Germany lacked power, and possessed all the more 
 strongly the spirit especially characteristic of the old Germany: 
 the spirit of an idealism not conversant with politics and un- 
 able to grasp realities. 
 
 There were various great currents which prepared and 
 then brought on the union of Germany : at the end they all 
 worked together, but only late and with diflSculty were they 
 brought together into the same channel. There was a political, 
 an intellectual, an economic current. The political union was 
 based on the strength of Prussia, as we shall see later on. 
 The intellectual union was of another origin. When Germany 
 was still politically quite divided she had created her great 
 literature ; when Napoleon's fist subjugated the German states, 
 Goethe and Schiller were ours, we possessed the wealth of 
 a creative half-century, we possessed a great poetry, a great 
 philosophy ; these intellectual possessions showe'd the Germans 
 that they were a nation, a rich and distinguished nation, not- 
 withstanding their want of power in the world. And this feel- 
 ing of the unity and greatness of our culture contributed 
 enormously towards fostering the desire for a further unity of 
 political life. Then came the doctrines of the French Revolu- 
 
Transformation by Prussia loi 
 
 tion and Liberalism, the doctrine of freedom, of the right of 
 every nation to be its own master, to make its own arrange- 
 ments, and order its life according to its needs. In Germany 
 also an idealism of national aspiration grew up ; Germany also 
 pressed forward, filled with a belief in national sovereignty; 
 she yearned for unity, not only because it meant power, but 
 because also all the internal forces of the nation, each indi- 
 vidual citizen even, would thereby gain moral emancipation, 
 and be made nobler, freer, better. There was a strongly ab- 
 stract and dogmatic character about this idealising of unity : 
 it was dominated by theory. And this was just the peculiarity 
 of all German thought from 1800 to 1850 : it was theoretical, 
 idealistic, metaphysical. The Germans did not live in really 
 powerful states ; they had no constitutions, or only narrow, 
 insignificant ones ; they had no acquaintance whatever with 
 political actualities ; their highest performance and their deep- 
 est pride was their poetry and philosophy, splendid, pure, and 
 rich ; but their thought was directed towards the universal and 
 the ideal; it sought the upper air, and did not keep to firm 
 ground ; even now, when it became political, it was as a rule 
 more like French than English thought : it was literary, ab- 
 stract, doctrinaire, universal. 
 
 The increasing strength of this national ideahsm contributed 
 enormously towards making German unity possible, and neces- 
 sary. But idealism could not create unity. Realities stood in 
 its way — the old states, and organised power; idealism could 
 condemn them, but not set them aside, and it condemned 
 them far too hurriedly. 
 
 Besides this there was a new movement, also making for 
 unity, but quite different in essence — the economic and social 
 movement. Unity was not only the aspiration of the German 
 intellect, but the economic life of Germany demanded it and 
 laid the first foundations. While the theorists were looking 
 for national sovereignty and a national constitution, Prussia 
 fouiwied the German Customs Union (Zollverein). For the 
 
I02 Germany 
 
 division of Germany into forty different customs districts 
 meant economic death. Surrounded on all sides by great 
 nations with customs boundaries, each a self-contained eco- 
 nomic organism, Germany was obliged to create a common 
 customs tariff and make itself an economic organism too, if 
 it wished to remain or to become economic at all. The 
 politics of Prussia as a state, combined with the general want 
 felt by all Germans, created a corporate organism, the Customs 
 Union, which finally covered almost the same limits as the 
 present Empire. Austria remained outside, because she was 
 still economically backward, but Germany, from about 1830 
 onwards, when she was still politically divided, constituted a 
 unity as far as customs-duties were concerned, a unity under 
 Prussia, a unity for trade and commerce, for agrarian and in- 
 dustrial production, a unity within and without. Then came 
 the railways, from 1840 onwards, and welded the bonds of 
 union closer and closer. And on this soil there grew up, as 
 the chief supporter of the economic coherence, a powerful 
 working citizen class. It needed a wide area for production 
 and consumption, it filled Germany with its activity, and be- 
 came universally German. 
 
 But while a new Germany, ciyic and economic, was thus 
 growing up, a new order of thought sprang up at the same time. 
 The one-sided idealistic thought peculiar to Germany was 
 gradually supplemented and at last supplanted by a new kind 
 of thought which I may call realistic. This transition to 
 realism is of course not merely German. In England and 
 France from 1820 and 1830 onwards literature turned more 
 and more decidedly towards realism ; the lofty poetry of Lord 
 Byron's generation was followed by the splendid series of 
 novelists of the Victorian Age ; French Romanticism gave way 
 to the period of Balzac; and if the drama and the novel in 
 Germany took to realism, they were only obeying the general 
 tendency of the times. But this change of direction meant far 
 more for Germany than for the neighbouring countries, because \ 
 
Transformation by Prussia 103 
 
 the whole life of Germany, as we have seen, had hitherto had 
 such a strong bias towards idealism. The metaphysical philo- 
 sophy now went to pieces ; the natural sciences sprang up, and 
 the practical arts became a leading force. In Germany they were 
 still more fertile of innovation than elsewhere. In Germany 
 the rise of the economic movement was the transition. to a new 
 period ; the economic agitation attracted attention ; the develop- 
 ment of German industry created quite new objects and direc- 
 tions of interest, almost recreated the general view of things ; 
 men's minds began to break loose from the universal and the 
 ideal, and to grasp everywhere more firmly the objective. And 
 by this means the spirit of Germany gradually, of its own accord, 
 drew nearer to the Prussian polity — and thus we are brought 
 back to our subject. 
 
 For the Prussian state had always been filled with a sense 
 of reality. That which was unattainable at Stuttgart, Frankfort, 
 Weimar, or Dresden, had here been predominant : the sense 
 of great political actuality, that is the sense of power. France 
 and England had long had this spirit ; in Germany it was 
 possessed by Prussia alone ; and the Germans had complained 
 of the cut-and-dry severity of the Prussian state. If the ap- 
 preciation of material forces now increased in Germany, then 
 was also Germany inwardly approximating towards the Prussian 
 state as the corner-stone of concrete political energy. Prussia 
 supported the Customs Union; Prussia's old, intense way of 
 thinking, and her character as a great power, became some- 
 thing more intelligible and akin to the new Germany that was 
 becoming " realistic " too. And only the power of Prussia was 
 able to satisfy the desire and ihe need of unity felt by the 
 German people. This Prussia did. 
 
 It is not my business to relate how it was done. I had to 
 sketch the contrasts in German life : here the old Germany, 
 divided, unpolitical, Uterary, there the old Prussia, sturdy, un- 
 amiable, political, "realistic"; and you see, the two have begun 
 
104 Germany 
 
 to draw closer together. I will just remind you, in a word or 
 two, of the stages on the way. 
 
 In 1848 the German political idealists sought union. They 
 did so, as was their wont, with much thought, ardour, and 
 splendid inspiration, but abstractly. They wanted unconditional 
 unity, democratic and integral, on the basis of the sovereignty 
 of the people, the nation. They ignored the old states ; and 
 their attempt, with all its high and noble motives, tragically 
 failed at the outset. 
 
 The old states and dynasties were too strong, the new 
 thing was too impracticable ; the old separate states- rose up 
 afresh soon after 1848. The Revolutionists had wanted to 
 place Prussia at the head, but only as the servant of the nation ; 
 Prussia also was to cease to be a state by itself, a power on its 
 own account. She was to create the nation's ideal — complete 
 unity — and then merge itself in the nation. But Prussia would 
 not and could not do this. She was far too great a power 
 herself; she could very well rule Germany, but not serve. 
 The Revolutionists had wanted to attack Austria because there 
 was only room for one great power in the German polity, if it 
 was to be united, and because Austria was not German. In 
 1850 Austria had defended herself with vigour and success; 
 she had won . back her hegemony ; for ten years she was the 
 prevailing power ; all thoughts of German unity were crushed, 
 and even Prussia was prostrate. 
 
 And yet Prussia remained the state of the future in 
 Germany. She was already the basis of the economic unity 
 and greatness of the nation ; the Prussian citizen class became 
 gradually the first in Germany. But above all, the Prussian 
 state, as a state, was the only one that was mighty enough to 
 carry through the unification in the face of Europe and to 
 compel the Germans themselves thereto. It was indeed the 
 only great power of the German world proper. And from 
 i860 onwards it rose higher and higher. King William the 
 
Transformation by Prussia 105 
 
 First made good once more the stability of the old Prussia. 
 He reorganised and enlarged the army, making it stronger 
 and readier to fight; he reduced the militia (Lanciwehr) and 
 strengthened the regiments of the line ; he insisted on disci- 
 pline and technical training above everything. In internal 
 affairs he kept a firm grasp on the power of the Crown, in 
 spite of the liberal constitution ; he placed Prussia, as a 
 stout military power, in the hands of the sovereign. And 
 then came the one strong man who knew how to use this 
 power, who with indomitable will set the Prussian state its old 
 task again, the task which Frederick the Great had left behind 
 him, the task of expanding its power. Prince Bismarck induced 
 Prussia to undertake to improve her position in Germany. 
 While in the German Federation, her hands had been tied by 
 Austria, by the kingdoms of Bavaria, Saxony, and so on ; the 
 others had held her down. Out of this position she was raised 
 by Bismarck. He determined to decide the old rivalry with 
 Austria by force of arms ; brimful of the great political egoism 
 of Prussia, an out-and-out " realist," he set Prussia on to fight 
 for power. He wanted to bring Prussia to the top — that was 
 his solution of the German question — not under commission 
 from the German nation, but as the servant of the Prussian 
 executive. And he did so. As an independent great power 
 Prussia defeated Austria, and destroyed the infirm old German 
 Confederation. Round the nucleus of the power of Prussia 
 a new beginning was made to organise the German polity. 
 Such was the origin of the North German Confederation of 1866 ; 
 Prussia was the predominant partner ; the other North German 
 states joined it with fixed rights, but still only as additional 
 members. For Prussia and for the new Confederation the leading 
 power remained the Prussian Crown. Side by side with it the 
 dynasties of Saxony, Mecklenburg, the Thuringian Princes, and 
 so on, remained as they had been ; it was the old Germany 
 with its different states, but they had become subject to the 
 Confederate state ; the old was not taken away, but preserved. 
 
io6 Germany 
 
 and yet subordinated to the new. On exactly the same 
 principles Bismarck constructed the new German Empire in 
 1870-71. The Southern states, Bavaria, Wiirtemberg, Baden, 
 Hessen, entered the existing Confederation ; they retained their 
 own governments, they surrendered to the community only the 
 necessary minimum of their rights. Within the Empire the 
 states remained as they were ; Prussia above all remained as 
 she was. She swayed the North German Confederation and 
 the German Empire, she did not dissolve herself; she had 
 become stronger than before, and had completely asserted her 
 special character. Prussia had put an iron girdle round the 
 whole of German life ; the old Prussia of Frederick the Second 
 had become the lord or at least the leader of the new Germany; 
 only thus, through stable power, had unity been attainable, 
 through stern strength and force of arms, through political 
 energy ; not without the preparatory work of German idealism ; 
 not through idealism, however, but through the determination 
 and compulsion of the old Prussian power. 
 
 And what is this new Germany like, that was created 
 between 1862 and 1871, the Germany of the last 30 years? 
 
 I must not here analyse the complex Imperial Constitution, 
 which is not easily described. It includes three elements : 
 Prussia, the monarchical leader through whom unity was 
 realised ; the aristocracy of the separate states of Germany, the 
 basis of the political fabric ; and the great mass of the German 
 people as the united, democratic community : that is. Emperor, 
 Federal Council {Bundesraf), and Imperial Parliament (Reichs- 
 tag). Prussia with her King is strictly only the strongest 
 of the separate states ; the Emperor does not properly stand 
 above the other Princes ; in the Federal Council he has only 
 a minority of votes ; and yet, much as formal appearances are 
 against it, as a matter of fact Germany is ruled principally by 
 the Emperor. Such things are often judged more clearly 
 abroad than at home ; it would sound absurd to an English- 
 man if anybody tried to describe the German Empire to him 
 
Transformation by Prussia 107 
 
 as something different from a monarchy. Well, politically it 
 is a monarchy, and the Emperor is its monarch. So it was 
 brought into being by William the First and Prince Bismarck, 
 and so it has remained, almost more clearly even than before, 
 under William the Second. 
 
 And more than this. In very important respects the old 
 Germany has been psychically transformed, after the Prussian 
 model, by Prussian, Bismarckian " realism." The tendency to 
 actuality has become completely victorious since 187 1. The 
 ideal has receded into the background ; power has come to the 
 front. The old political idealism of the Germans had aimed at 
 a liberal constitution, if possible with a sovereign Parliament. 
 Since i860 and 1870 and 1880 this ideal has more and more 
 completely broken down. Germany, surrounded by rivals, and 
 still internally divided into numerous parties and groups, is 
 ruled by the Government, by the monarchy, and not by a 
 Parliamentary majority. The weighty mass of monarchy has 
 conquered ; and I believe that without this support it would be 
 impossible for Germany to exist. And the interest in forms of 
 constitution and constitutional ideals has become less ; actuality, 
 strength has become more important to Germans than the 
 form. In place of the constitutional struggle, the conflict 
 between Liberal, Conservative, and Monarchistic opinion, came 
 a new struggle over the material import of political life. Social 
 development has pushed social problems to the fore; Liberalism, 
 which, for the most part, left social and economic processes to 
 take their course, was crowded out by the reviving old Prussian 
 tradition. Frederick the Second had taught, and it was 
 repeated by Bismarck, that the state must seek also to in- 
 fluence and control social development, economic development, 
 and cut off the excrescences : the state is in every respect 
 responsible for the whole life of the population. The state 
 and the bureaucracy have again become stronger in modern 
 Germany than before 1870; the customs policy, the transition 
 to protective duties, has given the Empire new^ means and 
 
io8 Germany 
 
 powers ; tariff questions, economic questions, social questions 
 have formed the staple of political strife in Germany since 
 1880. And economic life itself, both economic sense and 
 economic success, has grown greatly. Under the protection of 
 a united and victorious national state German industry and 
 commerce have at length risen, not without fluctuations, 
 certainly, but in spite of them, to a position of world-wide 
 importance ; the progress is patent to all eyes. This extra- 
 ordinary leap upward is not due to Prussia alone ; the whole of 
 Germany has contributed to it ; but we may well say that the 
 peculiar character of the Prussian system has played a great 
 part in the upward movement. German economic enterprise 
 of the last thirty years has been praised by many foreigners — 
 your countrymen not excepted — for its educational methods, 
 good technical training, and intelligent and united direction of 
 forces : German labour has learnt a lesson from the Prussian 
 army. 
 
 In fact, universal military service has won Germany over to 
 itself and the Prussian genius. Even in England you perceive 
 well enough that one of the decisive points lies here, though 
 the two great Teutonic nations stand so wide apart on this 
 question, and find it so difficult to understand each other. 
 Germany, it has been often said, has been militarised by Prussia. 
 Outwardly the country has adopted armaments, and barracks, 
 and warlike exercises ; inwardly it has imbued itself with the 
 military spirit, which previously had been cultivated only in 
 Prussia. The military spirit has educated the Germans; through 
 its school — a school of intelligence, will, organisation — the 
 majority of our manhood pass ; economic efficiency has been 
 increased thereby; we have been disciplined politically; we 
 have been made keener and sturdier. Think of Swabia in the 
 first thirty years of the nineteenth century, and see how this 
 world of philosophers and poets, standing aloof in obstinate 
 independence, has changed. Thought has been turned towards 
 realities, organisation, the systematic co-operation of forces, the 
 
Transformation by Prussia 109 
 
 material objects of life. Above all, thinkers have come round 
 to esteem political power. The character of the Germans, 
 both as a people and as individuals, has become, through their 
 common membership of one powerful unity, stronger and loftier; 
 their views of'the world have become broader and wider. The 
 sense of nationality, which has long been second nature to the 
 earlier developed peoples of Western Europe, was late in 
 developing here, but it has developed. The feeling for the 
 honour of the country, the appreciation of its power, and of 
 power in general as one of the greatest factors in the Ufe of the 
 nations, all these, and the race for power, have become stronger 
 and more conscious. We have learnt to look forth into the 
 world and to pursue our interests not only in Europe but also 
 beyond the seas ; Prince Bismarck taught us this, and William 
 the Second has continued expanding his work. In this respect 
 the old Prussian impulse has spread over Germafty, and has 
 itself become more universal. The new Germany is impelled 
 to make itself of account among the nations of the earth by its 
 commerce and power ; the old style may have been pleasanter, 
 but this new development was, as every critic must admit, 
 natural and inevitable for a nation capable of life. I recognise 
 fully that this transition has not been accomplished without 
 losses. We have become poorer in pure and high idealism, 
 in calm and collected repose, introspection, and the old poetry 
 of German life ; but then the new period, this age of masses 
 and expanding will, has a poetry and inspiration of its own, 
 personified in the Emperor William. Manhood always must 
 give up something of the sweetness of childhood. 
 
 But really, is the Old so completely buried by the New in 
 Germany to-day ? I said that Germany has become Prussian, 
 united, " realistic," monarchical. But it would be a gross mis- 
 conception, a misconception into which foreigners, I believe, 
 often fall, to suppose that Germany lives under the dominion 
 of a centralised autocracy. On the contrary, the features just 
 described are everywhere strongly counterbalanced : everywhere 
 
I lo Germany 
 
 in Germany there is variety and independence. It would be 
 wrong to form a too narrow estimate of the efficiency of German 
 Parliamentary institutions. Our great parties all, supported by 
 universal suffrage, exercise, directly or indirectly, considerable 
 influence on public life and on Government, in this world 
 which grows more and more democratic. I have pointed out, 
 that a sovereign Parliament of the English type would not do 
 for Germany; but everywhere the influence of the Chambers is 
 great on the legislation, administration, and policy both of the 
 Empire and of the separate states — greater than it appears at 
 first sight. These political bodies are important. So too is 
 the independence of the separate states and of the separate 
 provinces and districts. The confederate states, even if the 
 most important functions of state have passed over to the 
 Empire, have retained plenty of individual life; they have never 
 ceased to watch over the interests of culture ; the Empire has 
 entrusted them with new and ample tasks, for instance through 
 its social legislation ; their administration has become greater, 
 not smaller, since 187 1. And they have themselves remained 
 special centres of culture, of a strong individual character, which 
 is consciously, even jealously, guarded. How different Bavaria 
 and Wiirtemberg have remained from Prussia ; how different, 
 too, Baden. How different, again, Hamburg and Bremen. 
 Everywhere the local life has remained strong, without injury 
 hitherto to the unity of the Empire. All the tribes and states 
 work together in the new Germany. Deeper down, moreover, 
 in the provinces of Prussia and of the other larger states, in the 
 counties, in the districts and parishes of town and country, every- 
 where a local administration exists by the side of the powerful 
 bureaucracy ; and everywhere since the sixties, and not least in 
 Prussia itself, this self-government has undergone further marked 
 development. Our towns, watched over by the state, form lively 
 and individualised unities in themselves. Everywhere besides 
 the tendency towards unity there is maintained the tendency 
 towards diversity, towards independence. It cannot be said that 
 
Transformation by Prussia 1 1 1 
 
 centralisation is progressing at a dangerous rate. The old Ger- 
 many, stripped of its old extravagances and onesidedness, lives 
 still — the multiform Germany. And the intellectual Germany 
 of the old days also continues to live, or is coming to life again. 
 It is true that "realism" — and often a barren materialism — has 
 waxed strong amongst us ; the great political and economic 
 epoch which we so urgently needed, has not remained free 
 from unhealthy excrescences. But on the other hand German 
 Science has remained alive all the time, and continues to 
 flourish in a host of different centres ; and at the present day it 
 is rising once more in conscious flight towards the ideal. And 
 so in like manner for the last ten or twenty years Art, both literary 
 and pictorial, has been everywhere springing up and blossoming 
 anew. There is a fresh and vigorous feeling for Art, while 
 Art itself shows a new activity in seeking, under stimulus from 
 abroad, but with its own national impulse, new paths of progress, 
 and this in all kinds of places, in North, and West, and South, 
 and in all kinds of ways. Round a number of able masters, 
 round a few great artists everywhere flocks a fill of cheerful life. 
 Indeed, anyone visiting the smaller German states, especi- 
 ally Bavaria and Swabia, could easily get an exaggerated 
 impression of diversity, an impression that the South is 
 passionately opposed to the leadership of Prussia. This oppo- 
 sition exists, but yet the influence of Prussia in Germany since 
 187 1 has progressed, quietly and continuously. Undoubtedly 
 the old Germany has reacted against the onesidedness of this 
 Prussian tendency; our polity and culture incline more than 
 formerly towards unification, but they have not become 
 centralised. What is German and old, continues to thrive, 
 along with the new and the Prussian. I am well aware and 
 will here expressly observe that Prussia itself is by no means 
 merely a land of discipline and of the sword. Prussia has also 
 long been a land of culture, the seat of many of our most 
 celebrated Universities, the cradle of an ancient native Art, 
 as it was and is the home of German self-government ; and the 
 
112 Germany 
 
 rest of Germany has also exercised m many respects a broaden- 
 ing and vivifying counter-influence on Prussia. Yet let me 
 name here for once as specifically Prussian the power of uni- 
 fying, of discipline, and of realism. And then can we truly 
 say: The Prussian and German elements still stand side by 
 side to-day, neither the one nor the other unduly preponde- 
 rating. Beside the needful new elements, vigour and unity, 
 there comes everywhere into play the old Teutonic impulse 
 towards independence, which brings our culture essentially so 
 near the English. And a German — since you want to hear the 
 frank and characteristic opinion of a German about the modern 
 history of his people — a German must thankfully proclaim this 
 blending of old and new, unity and plurality, a blessing. He 
 must, even if he remains conscious how much is still only 
 begun and in progress, and what seriously urgent problems 
 await his people; what dangers threaten them within and with- 
 out, even then he must praise the progress of this century, 
 which, I say it again, made a weak, divided people strong and 
 important. He rejoices that the old has remained undestroyed 
 and is still influential; but the great thing about our modern 
 development is still that on which I have laid principal stress 
 in this short sketch : Germany became strong in herself and in 
 the world in the nineteenth century through Prussia, through 
 Prussian politics and Prussian military service, through Prus- 
 sian sense for actualities and Prussian cult of power ; and 
 therefore the truest and highest embodiment of what is creative 
 and decisive, really new and vital in this epoch of German 
 history is the man who was a Prussian and became a German, 
 who transfused Prussia into Germany — Prince Otto von 
 Bismarck. 
 
PRINCE BISMARCK. 
 
 Bv Professor Erich Marcks, Ph.D. 
 
 It was perhaps rather a rough road that I led you yesterday, 
 through the history of the development of Germany in the 
 nineteenth century ; I spoke of the unification of Germany, of 
 the part that Prussia played in it, of the influence which she 
 exercises at present, but I could not do more than sketch the 
 barest general outline. To-day I am permitted to give life to 
 the picture by portraying the great man whose career was the 
 best reflection of this development of his country. You will 
 meet the same subjects as before, but in a personal form — a 
 great man, in touch with all the forces, both Prussian, German, 
 and universal, of his century, one who moved the world, but 
 was above all a world in himself. 
 
 Otto von Bismarck sprang from an old Brandenburg family 
 of rank. His ancestors had lived for four centuries in the 
 Alt'mark (Old Mark), not far from Stendal : they had resisted 
 and afterwards served the HohenzoUerns, and had done good 
 work as warriors and civil officials, but especially as cultivators 
 of the soil. As a race they faithfully reflected all the varia- 
 tions of succeeding epochs, roughness, industry, warlike glory, 
 and enlightened civilisation, but they were always a knightly 
 race, attached to their ancestral lands, long since devoted to the 
 ruling dynasty, but with all the proud self-reliance of a noble 
 house — in their own sphere a historic power in miniature. 
 Bismarck's mother, being a commoner, infused new blood into 
 
 H. L. 8 
 
p 
 
 114 Germany 
 
 this knightly strain. Her father was a statesman, her fore- 
 fathers were scholars, she herself a cool, clever, ambitious 
 woman. Her son grew up on the parental estates, chiefly in 
 Pomerania, but was early sent to school at Berlin. Thus he 
 learnt to know both town and country, and in the town be- 
 came familiar with the criticism, philosophy, and the political 
 tendencies, German and Liberal, of the day. He studied law 
 at Gottingen and Berhn, and began the regular judicial and 
 administrative career. In these years he acquired the essentials 
 of legal knowledge, and a great deal of historical knowledge; at 
 Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle) he saw the great world and conformed 
 to its social amenities more like a young nobleman than a 
 young official. But then in 1838 he left the public service. We 
 know why: he did not want to adjust himself as a part of the 
 bureaucratic machine. He cherished /the secret ambition of 
 a highly-gifted, yet at the same time of an independent man — 
 the nobleman's ambition. He wished to live free and inde- 
 pendent on his own land, his own master, the lord of his 
 estate, owning no constraint and no command. In a state 
 with a free Constitution public life would attract him, "but," 
 he says, "I will play the music which I think good, or none 
 at all." It was not so much theoretical Liberalism which 
 actuated him as the impulse of the aristocracy for self-manage- 
 ment. And then for the space of ten years he worked hard 
 as an agriculturist in Pomerania, saving the estates from debt, 
 and becoming thoroughly acquainted with country, and climate, 
 cultivation of grain, and cattle-breeding. But he was not a 
 narrow-minded country squire. He travelled in western Europe, 
 England, and France, and looked round him with very open 
 eyes indeed. He read and meditated in the quiet of his estate. 
 But he was no more satisfied than young Oliver Cromwell was 
 when he was still a country gentleman. Bismarck's giant 
 powers also demanded harder work, in him too everything was 
 in a seething ferment, he too fought his way painfully through 
 a religious crisis. The son of a Christian, though rationalistic 
 
Bismarck 
 
 115 
 
 family, but born in a critical age, he had lost positive belief in 
 God, and now he strove for knowledge, read philosophy, ancient 
 and modern, and remained still unanswered. His soul needed 
 a personal God as a staff to support his powerful and weighty 
 personality; for a long time he was unable to find Him again, 
 but at last he did. He was helped in this by the ardent 
 exhortations of a friend of his youth, who, having entered the 
 ranks of the Pietists in Pomerania, professed a strict, warm, 
 somewhat sectarian faith. He was further helped by his love 
 for Johanna von Puttkamer, a lady who belonged to the same 
 circles, simple, warm-hearted, lively, of true and natural 
 womanliness, who gave him her hand in marriage in 1847, 
 and who remained for almost 50 years the modest, indis- 
 pensable companion of his career. His own home, and deepest 
 positive behef, first raised him out of distraction into peace, 
 from the poetry of Byron to the study of the New Testament ; 
 he did not become a Pietist, a religious dreamer, a man of 
 quiet ; his religion remained masculine, independent, the 
 strengthening faith of a man of action, who needed support 
 for the enormous responsibility of his resolutions. 
 
 Soon after this deliverance of soul the task of his life took 
 possession of him. The preludes of the Revolution of 1848, 
 and then the Revolution itself, came on. Bismarck, who held 
 the post of Captain of the Dykes on the Elbe, came forward to 
 keep out the floods of democracy from his country. He became 
 the ally of King Frederick William the Fourth and his Christian 
 Conservative friends. He, the convert, professed also in politics 
 the orthodox doctrine of the Christian-aristocratic-monarchical 
 state. As a country gentleman in the Prussian Parliament 
 from 1847 to 1851 he fought with biting weapons, with defiant, 
 spirited speeches against the unbelief and restlessness of the 
 new age and the new citizen class, against Liberalism, and the 
 national, German ideals. But if he preached the doctrine of 
 these Conservatives, his feelings were different from theirs. 
 His blood was up when his state, the Prussian state, was 
 
1 1 6 Germany 
 
 threatened in its independence and individuality ; in the depths 
 of his gifts he possessed the one sense which his contemporaries 
 in Germany lacked, a sense for political power. It was his 
 desire to procure free scope and suzerainty for his Prussia, for 
 that Prussia which we have seen fettered in the German Con- 
 federation, dominated and hindered by her rival Austria and 
 by the hostile intermediate states, such as Bavaria and Saxony. 
 He gazed beyond the internal party strife into the wide world, 
 towards Germany, towards Europe. 
 
 Hence he was the born diplomatist, the born statesman of 
 a great state ; hence also his real political career begins first in 
 185 1, when he was sent by his King and party to Frankfort to 
 represent Prussia at the Diet of the German Confederation, at 
 the focus of German politics. It is one of the most remarkable 
 spectacles ever presented by a great career, how Bismarck 
 developed into himself at Frankfort (1851 to 1859). He put 
 off the party-man ; the local Parliament at home became in- 
 different to him; the champion of the reaction disappears; 
 even the Conservative disappears ; the theory of his friends is 
 forgotten. Yet in the future, too, he is guided by a creed, 
 a general idea ; but this idea, which he serves, is Prussia, the 
 community, the state, the strength and power of his state. No 
 one, not even the King, feels the community in himself as 
 Bismarck does ; from henceforward Bismarck is Prussia. His 
 personal ambition and feeling for power are strong, but fully 
 merged in consideration for his state. It is his state he wants 
 to free, to deliver from the Austrian hegemony, and to set up 
 great and strong ; that becomes the object of his whole passion. 
 He becomes acquainted with the German political world, 
 courts, and parties — the European also. When the Crimean 
 War comes, he preaches to the Government a free, inde- 
 pendent, purely Prussian policy. No sympathy either for 
 Uberal England or for conservative Russia. No inclinations or 
 disinclinations. And also no detestation of the crowned revolu- 
 tionary, the democratic Casar, Napoleon the Third— only clear 
 
Bismarck 117 
 
 weighing of Prussian political interests, only matter-of-factness, 
 calmness, clearness, firm and manly determination. He turns 
 over everything in his mind, all possible means of a future 
 emancipation ; Prussia will have to force Austria back and draw 
 Germany to herself ; she will also be able to call up a Liberal 
 policy, but above all she will rely on power, arms, and combat. 
 And all this for the greatness of his state, in the spirit of 
 Frederick the Second. At Frankfort he foresees the war of 
 1866. And he lays down that Prussia will have to seek her 
 path in Europe between Austria and France, and must play her 
 game between and with both countries. And for all this he 
 equips himself during these years of preparation, full of deep 
 thoughts of his own, already in daily strife with Austria, proCid 
 and keen, but not yet laden with the responsibility of the 
 leading Minister, still joyful and free, a young husband and 
 father, happy, unconstrained, but very much in earnest ; a man 
 of strength, indefatigable in bodily vigour, fond of shooting, 
 swimming and riding, full of indomitable courage, the thorough 
 grand seigneur, self-possessed and distinguished, tall and stately, 
 a survival from the old days of the heroes, radiant and con- 
 quering by strength and valour, fearless and pious, a man of 
 triumphs, the rising victor and hero of future battlesi 
 
 Then Frederick William the Fourth fell ill ; the Prince 
 Regent William tried to rule according to Liberal principles ; 
 and Bismarck, being mistrusted, was banished to St Petersburg 
 in 1859. There too he learnt something, and did some pre- 
 paratory work ; then he went for a few short months to Paris in 
 1862. But then his destiny summoned him. The attempt of 
 William the First had failed. The Crown of Prussia, the 
 Crown of the HohenzoUerns, which had created Prussia, had 
 come into conflict with the representation of the country on 
 the question of army reform. The object of contention was 
 power : Who should direct Prussia, the King or the Parlia- 
 ment? And the German question, too, had taken a new 
 course. The nationalist parties, fettered since 1850, now again 
 
ii8 Germany 
 
 demanded unity ; Austria and the intermediate states tried to 
 use the movement for their own purposes. Prussia — I spoke 
 about it yesterday — had to face the question whether she would 
 Create unity for herself, with a Prussian hegemony, in the 
 Prussian interest. If so, war was inevitable. King William 
 hesitated to take the risk. In internal affairs he held firmly to 
 the power of the Crown ; but the Liberal opposition rose up 
 powerfully ; the royal Ministers shrank before it ; it seemed 
 that the old King would never find a Minister again. For 
 years his attention had been called to Bismarck, especially by 
 the War Minister, General von Roon. It was an open secret 
 that Bismarck was a fighting man, the representative of kingly 
 power and Prussian ambition. King William did not want to 
 summon him : the paths of this venturesome man projected 
 too far into the dark for him. Only when all fell away from 
 him, in September, 1862, did he take Bismarck's hand — and 
 Bismarck promised him to defend the Crown in the struggle 
 against Parliament. Bismarck did so from conviction : he 
 knew that Prussia had need of the Crown. He did so as 
 a servant of his master, reckless and ready for strife ; he has 
 gone through the domestic struggle, and hurled back the 
 deputies : in doing so he seemed to be the old fighter, the old 
 squire of 1847. He took on himself the breach of the laws — 
 the due course of the life of the state had already been 
 violently disturbed before Bismarck appeared. But he did all 
 this principally in order to gain room for his foreign policy. 
 He wanted to set to work from outside, to disentangle the 
 disordered skein of internal contraries, to disarm opposition at 
 home by conquest abroad. He had to fight the "conflict" 
 out to the end, and did so gladly, because by this internal 
 struggle the King became indispensably bound to the Minister. 
 But his own personal work had been planned out long before 
 at Frankfort. What were his wishes, now that he became 
 Minister? Not the establishment of German unity, not the 
 satisfaction of the national desires. He was not the servant 
 
Bismarck l 19 
 
 of national sovereignty. He took his stand on the separate 
 state, the Prussian state. He had to pursue a Prussian, not a 
 German policy. He wanted to set free and then increase the 
 power of Prussia — now as before. Did he want war with 
 Austria ? Well, he wanted what was possible. He had not got 
 an abstract programme ; he wanted as much profit, as much 
 health for his state as possible : and he knew, as a statesman, 
 that he must obey circumstances. If circumstances allowed 
 Prussia's position to be improved, though only to an equality 
 with Austria, he was — for the present, at least — content; he 
 was ready to share with Austria the leadership of Germany — if 
 he must. If he could gain more, that is the whole of Germany, 
 so much the better. He certainly on all accounts preferred 
 war with Austria as the sound, clear solution of the old German 
 question — a thorough purging once for all. He was resolved 
 to seize the present best for his country, without sentimentality, 
 without dogmatism, without obstinacy. The best of all for 
 Prussia's greatness was the unity of the whole of Germany 
 under Prussia alone, and he considered whether he could 
 attain it. 
 
 And, as you know, he did attain this best of all. He did 
 so by a diplomacy beyond compare. He found Prussia and 
 Germany excited, feverish, full of yearnings, full of parties, full 
 of ideals. He knew only one ideal : the welfare of his state. 
 His instrument was not national sentiment : he reserved that 
 for the hour of fulfilment. Diplomacy was his instrument: 
 a sober attempt of what was possible, on the basis of European 
 relations. For the elevation of Germany could only be played 
 for among the great powers. He won over Russia and 
 courted France ; at the same time he balanced Austria against 
 France. At last he directed his attacks continuously and ex- 
 clusively against the rival at Vienna ; but he also made use of 
 him as often as he could and must. He showed the Austrians 
 the danger of their anti-Prussian policy ; he repulsed unhesi- 
 tatingly Francis Joseph's political aggression in Germany in 
 
1 20 Germany 
 
 1863 ; but on the other side he stretched out a hand to Austria 
 against the enmity of Napoleon. It was the most brilliant of 
 his masterpieces, that he succeeded in linking Austria with 
 Prussia on the Schleswig-Holstein question. I must not trace 
 in detail how he did so, how he made use of things European 
 and German, how he even made use of Austrian jealousy, how 
 he steered the Imperial state towards Schleswig, how he held 
 the two great powers of Germany together against Europe, and 
 yet always maintained a position of independent leadership 
 towards Austria, always ready to ring the changes also on the 
 Paris chimes, always remaining also in a good understanding 
 with the Czar. In 1864 he won back the two German duchies 
 from Danish rule, in opposition to the public opinion of 
 Germany, which feared that he would betray the duchies to 
 Denmark ; in opposition to Austria, which did not desire the 
 reconquest at all ; in opposition to Europe, which did not and 
 could not desire the rise of a strong Germany. He did so in 
 spite of attacks and jeers — uncertain even of his own King — 
 and he triumphed over all. He had made the two liberated 
 provinces the joint booty of Austria and Prussia : this booty 
 became the object of strife., He must have known beforehand 
 that it would be so. He would have maintained a friendly 
 attitude towards Austria if he had been compelled — but how 
 could that be? Their opposition must one day come to a 
 clash. King William, serious, slow and honest, was not the 
 man for a risky game, and did not want war. The new 
 quarrel with Austria over Schleswig-Holstein enabled Bismarck 
 in a certain degree to compel his sovereign to fight. And 
 the iron die was cast ; as the heir of Frederick the Great 
 Bismarck led the Prussian state in 1866 before the gates 
 of Vienna. 
 
 It was a success achieved by tremendous personal exertion : 
 it was achieved at the cost of his nerves. And in the midst of 
 i^ictory, soon after Sadowa, Napoleon seized his arms, and 
 Bismarck had to be content to take only North Germany for 
 
Bismarck 1 2 1 
 
 the present, leaving South Germany outside. He did so; he 
 won over his King to this limitation. And now he set up 
 the North-German Confederation, based on an alliance of 
 the states, led by Prussia. Prussia and her Throne were the 
 framework, the Prussian military system was the cement ; the 
 new state was monarchical and Prussian, not democratic and 
 national. It was founded, not by the sovereignty of the nation, 
 but by the power of the old dynasties. But now the nation 
 must come forward to complete it; the Imperial Parliament, 
 based on universal suffrage, was established beside the Federal 
 Council of the Governments. Thus was formed the skeleton 
 of the new national polity; though the South was not yet 
 included, yet already with a view to the inclusion of the South ; 
 and Bismarck was now Chancellor of the North-German Con- 
 federation, and not merely a Prussian Minister. His task 
 henceforward was to fill the new and larger circle ; he served 
 Prussia indeed, but also the whole of North-Germany, which 
 he now represented, and he now advanced further towards the 
 establishment of the complete Empire itself. 
 
 His victories had made him the indispensable assistant of 
 his venerable Sovereign. He succeeded in gradually drawing 
 the conservative Monarch, not without difficulties, into a freer 
 course. He now needed the national party in order to win 
 over and animate the new Germany through and through ; 
 and this party was middle-class and Liberal. He made his 
 treaty with Liberalism ; he led the old Prussia into new ways, 
 but always so that Crown and Minister remained masters of 
 the situation. But he himself became the nation's man. His 
 personality became the symbol of the power and progressive 
 unity of the whole ; his victory decided the constitutional 
 struggle in favour of the monarchy; but also his whole self 
 and his political methods became decisive for the nation. He 
 educated the Germans up to the practical view of politics ; he 
 was the central figure round which the process I described 
 yesterday turned. The nation then discovered that it possessed 
 
122 Germany 
 
 a great man, and began to submit to his guidance — guidance 
 and influence. 
 
 He fulfilled the nation's expectations of him. The semi- 
 Germany allowed him by France and Austria in 1866 could 
 not endure for ever. Economic considerations, considerations 
 of national spirit and power, made it necessary to attract the 
 South. Austria and France put themselves in the way. France 
 would not tolerate the entry of a strong neighbour in place of 
 the chaos which for four centuries had been so convenient to 
 the French. If France forbade the lawful and necessary uni- 
 fication of the Germans, she thereby acted as a great power 
 unwilling to submit to a restriction of power, — but she thereby 
 forced Germany into war. The fact that he brought on the 
 settlement that could hardly be avoided, and his manner of 
 doing so, constitute one of Bismarck's highest achievements. 
 It is beyond doubt that he, in 1870, pressed the Spanish candi- 
 dature with all his might, and that he did so against France. 
 That in doing so he wanted to provoke war, and nothing but 
 war, is obviously not true; but he was ready, if France wanted 
 war, to fight on the occasion of this candidature. I cannot, 
 unfortunately, narrate" to-day how the government of the Due 
 de Gramont after all kinds of episodes and dangers put the 
 game into Bismarck's hands. In the highest sense of states- 
 manship he did his duty as a patriot by compelling France 
 through the Ems despatch to put her threats into effect ; he 
 forced France to a declaration of war; as in 1866, he took up 
 the indispensable decision heroically, for the welfare of his 
 state and his nation. And the greatest days of modern Germany 
 dawned. Bismarck succeeded in fighting out the war to the 
 end without intefference from Europe. He brought about the 
 declaration of the Empire at Versailles. The bounds of the 
 North-German Confederation were merely enlarged; the new 
 Empire also became not indeed a single state but a Confederate 
 state, made up of voluntary associates, not centralised, but 
 provided with strict rights for the separate states ; on the 
 
Bismarck 1 23 
 
 power of the states he based also the great new state ; but 
 unity was riveted firmly enough; and above all stood in 187 1 
 as in 1866, the power of Prussia, the Prussian monarchy with 
 its army and authority. 
 
 I described yesterday how peculiar life was poured into 
 the mould of the Empire, so that plurality and unity became 
 amalgamated. To-day I glance only at the man in whose 
 personality the Empire was embodied. Now indeed he was 
 the hero of the nation; he entered the ranks of its greatest, 
 and took his place beside Martin Luther, beside and above 
 Frederick the Second and Goethe. His influence became 
 immense. But there still remained violent conflicts. He had 
 to bear ceaseless personal opposition at Court; only the loyalty 
 of his Emperor upheld him through all these frictions. All 
 the great parties in the country opposed him; the Conserva- 
 tives, because he had fallen away from them; the Clericals, 
 because they hated the Protestant Empire; the Liberals, 
 though his allies, were always struggling with him for political 
 power; thfe Radicals clung to the democratic ideals of 1848 
 which he had overthrown ; the new Labour party looked on 
 him as an autocrat, the stern representative of the old political 
 forces. The enthusiasm for unity came in his favour again 
 and again; but he had to make his own path daily amid 
 exhausting struggles. And he himself was irritated, in bad 
 health, a man of wrath and strength, a born ruler, but not a 
 flexible Parliamentary leader; he was by nature above all parties, 
 and therefore a stranger to them. It was his difficult task 
 to rule ox}er, not with them. He remained, as he had always 
 been, the representative of the monarchy, but he was at the 
 same time the representative of the whole. He identified him- 
 self with the whole nation, and with its new polity, the Empire ; 
 his personality and the interests of the state which he had 
 founded were fused together. He looked outwards; he saw 
 his state surrounded by possible enemies ; he feared an alli- 
 ance of all the neighbours against the inconvenient upstart. 
 
124 Germany 
 
 With wonderful virtuosity he succeeded in averting this alli- 
 ance; he obtained support in Russia, then in Austria, and 
 gradually accustomed Europe to the new power. At the same 
 time he tried to give it greater cohesion. The various organs 
 of the new Empire grew; beside the Imperial Chancellor there 
 appeared gradually new assistant and subordinate authorities. 
 The tasks of the Empire increased. It gradually drew the 
 various departments of life into its sphere of work and legis- 
 lation. And the champion here, too, was always Prince 
 Bismarck. Until 1878 he acted with the Liberals, in spite of 
 all their border warfare. With them he turned against the 
 Catholic party, which denied the fundamentals of his Empire. 
 He carried on the " Kultur-Kampf " with all his passion for 
 fighting. But before he could end it — and it was difficult to 
 tackle the Church with his political resources — new tasks 
 sprang up for him. The social conditions altered; a Fourth 
 Estate grew up below the middle-class and knocked threaten- 
 ingly at the gates of society. To Bismarck the old Conserva- 
 tive, the Liberals and the middle class were not exa'ctly agree- 
 able confederates. And now economic necessities pressed upon 
 him ; the circumstances of the world's trade altered : industry 
 and agriculture implored his protection. And in increasing 
 the customs tariff he at the same time obtained larger 
 revenues for his Empire. The customs were made to render 
 the Empire financially independent, whereas up to the present 
 it had chiefly been supported by proportional contributions from 
 the separate states. The customs were also made to strengthen 
 the Government greatly, to strengthen the bureaucracy, to 
 strengthen the state which should now act upon all the rela- 
 tions of life. This was then a new prop for the Empire ; and 
 if he shut off the Empire against outsiders by a high wall of 
 protective duties, the inner unity of the area was increased. 
 Finally the new policy was highly beneficial to the agricultur- 
 ists — that is the Conservatives. 
 
 Thus from 1877 onwards the Chancellor was suddenly con- 
 
Bismarck 1 2 5 
 
 fronted by a quite new combination. Separation from the 
 Liberals, alliance with the Conservatives, protective duties, a 
 strengthening of the Empire and monarchy, a change of all 
 parties, a new system of economic and political activity. This 
 extremely many-sided new programme was thought out by him 
 in 1877 in long months of loneliness and shaped into unity by 
 his mind. He changed all the relations of public life in Germany. 
 And then he even drew the new social movement into this 
 extensive programme. As an old fighter for the monarchy he 
 wanted to oppose with all his might the social revolution 
 heralded by the two attempts on the life of the Emperor 
 William in 1878. But he wanted to satisfy the crying needs 
 and well-grounded complaints of the proletariate, as far as it 
 was possible for the state to do so. He wanted to oppose 
 force to force, but he wanted to reconcile the millions of the 
 working-classes to the national state, to make them feel at 
 home in the Commonwealth, whose creator and representative 
 he himself was. It was he who thought out the gigantic scheme 
 of workmen's insurance against illness, accident, disablement, 
 and old age. 
 
 Thus it was for prosperity and power that he wanted to 
 strive. In doing so he had renewed the traditions of the old 
 Prussian state. I spoke yesterday of Frederick the Second's 
 system of the strong state's care for all classes and all vital 
 interests of society. Power and prosperitj', authority and social 
 welfare, imperial, social, and party politics — everything was 
 comprised in this change. Whatever the individual judgment 
 may be, it was certainly a grand design, embracing all depart- 
 ments of life, the plan of a genius ; then first Prince Bismarck 
 entered the real domestic politics of his state, actually inno- 
 vating and renovating on his own account. He began a 
 second life-work. To an Englishman this work, with its strong 
 accentuation of the power of the state and the monarchy, will 
 of course seem to a certain degree Continental. I willingly 
 admit that the political traditions of Continental absolutism 
 underlie it, and I am well aware that it is not without draw- 
 
126 Germany 
 
 backs; especially in the repression of socialism lie many ex- 
 pressly Continental features. And yet I praise these Bismarckian 
 innovations highly : they opened the way for a new and deeper 
 conception of the state among us; they carried over desires 
 and ideas of social reform from the region of theory into the 
 living present ; they attacked tremendous problems for the first 
 time with adequate force ; they broke the ice for far-reaching 
 future reforms. 
 
 To carry them through required the whole giant strength of 
 their promoter. He concluded peace with Rome, not without 
 serious losses, but also not without gains for the state ; he 
 completed his tariff reform with the aid of Conservatives, 
 moderate Liberals, and Clericals ; and he established the, 
 insurance system for workmen with a strong appeal to moral 
 and religious feelings. At the same time he clung to the 
 repressive Socialist law down to 1890. In the Imperial Parlia- 
 ment (Reichstag) he wrestled against hostile majorities; his 
 new ideas penetrated through to the people but slowly. But 
 the younger generation enthusiastically joined the great pioneer. 
 He realised the essential, he strengthened the army, the 
 finances, and the administration of his Empire, made the 
 monarchy once more a leading power inwardly and outwardly, 
 and at least once (from 1887 to 1890) possessed also a con- 
 tinuous majority in Parliament. At the end nothing could 
 obstruct him. 
 
 While at home he made his way only with difficulty, amid 
 constant strife and opposition, by exerting his whole forces as 
 orator and agitator, his foreign policy, on the other hand, 
 quickly won him the unquestioning admiration of the nation. 
 After 1871 he changed front very often indeed, but his leading 
 idea remained always the same : to prevent coalitions against 
 Germany, or to counterbalance them by other coalitions. He 
 went with Russia and Austria against France (187 1), with 
 Austria against Russia (1879) when Russia began to fall away, 
 and drew Italy, and, in a certain sense, perhaps also England 
 after him. He sought, even as Austria's ally, to recover the 
 
Bistnarck 127 
 
 understanding with St Petersburg. In 1887 he had cause to 
 fear war with France and perhaps with Russia, and was pre- 
 pared to carry it through. From 187 1 he strove for peace, but 
 he sharpened his weapons ; he did not want fresh conquests, 
 but he wanted, by power and alliances, to protect what he had 
 gained. He did so with the skill of a perfect master, with the 
 authority of one holding a matchless position as a diplomatist. 
 He gave his young state a full position in Europe. 
 
 And he gave it a position in the world. When the 
 economic power of Germany arose, after unity had been 
 secured, and strove to assure itself outlets into the wide worlds 
 it turned to him for his patronage. He followed the colonial 
 movement of his people heedfully, and protected it with his 
 power. With all the prudence of mature experience, without 
 enthusiasm, but without feebleness, he laid the first foundations 
 of a colonial and world-wide policy ; here also he showed the 
 way for the future. 
 
 Never was Germany so guided and enriched by a single 
 hand. This hand held home and foreign affairs in its grasp, 
 educated the nation up to unity, strength, and matter-of- 
 factness, and summoned up the enthusiasm for its work, so 
 sober and yet so vast. The eighties elevated the great Chan- 
 cellor and his aged Emperor to a great eminence, and Prince 
 Bismarck, the Prussian, was then, both in reality and in the 
 people's heart, the embodiment of the new Germany. He 
 became in the deepest sense a spiritual force for his people. 
 
 His very personality presented a unique appearance. He 
 was a powerful man if ever there was : a sovereign nature of 
 intense passion, always giving his whole soul to the matter in 
 hand, fiery and abrupt, a giant in anger, hate, and conflict; 
 not a precisian, and not too convenient for others — a ruler of 
 the great Germanic type, lion-like in temperament as in the 
 glance of his powerful eyes ; dangerous to enemies and allies, 
 demoniacally defiant in his strength, crushing, pitiless. And 
 yet bending — autocratic and reckless as he was in his choice 
 of practical means — yet bending in the service of general 
 
128 Germany 
 
 forces : full of a deep faith till the end, supported by his re- 
 ligion, though his was not a religion of mildness and "love 
 your enemies"; a servant of the Emperor and King and 
 monarchy, but a proud servant, who stood upright and spoke 
 home-truths like one ruler to another ; a servant of the state 
 and of the political sense, full of devotion to the community, 
 the nation, its unity, and its power; although in him the 
 servant of the state and the man of individual greatness were 
 blended. Thus he was closely connected with the great ideal 
 forces, and yet regarded everything as reality, nothing ab- 
 stractly; everywhere he saw details, individuals, things within 
 reach. How different he was from the greatest leader of the 
 Liberal idea of his time, Mr Gladstone, whom he neither un- 
 derstood nor respected. But even beneath Bismarck's defiant 
 colossality lay the general forces and ideas of his country and 
 his age. 
 
 And what was he to the Germans, not only through the 
 endless amount of gratitude due to and shown him ; not only 
 through the streams of new life which continually proceeded 
 from him : but also through his very existence ! We saw him 
 in the fight, tremblirig with wrath, in his nerve-consuming work, 
 and saw him as the host of his guests, the lord of his castle, 
 the head of his family ; we saw him in his woods and fields, 
 closely intimate to the soil ; loving, spirited, kind, and simple ; 
 we saw in his eyes the lightning-flash of deinoniacal wrath, and 
 the warmth of a deep, clear heart. Thus the love of his people 
 has regarded and conceived him, an ardent, deep-seated love, 
 which penetrated the souls of hundreds of thousands. What we 
 — for here too you wish to hear a full and personal testimony 
 from the lips of a German — what we Germans celebrate as best 
 in the German character when we idealise our nation, that ap- 
 peared to us living in this great man, and when he raised his 
 voice we heard the echo of long centuries of our history. He 
 seemed to us without parallel in richness and strength of soul, an 
 equal of Luther and Goethe; his mord^ influence was enor- 
 mous. The Englishman may regard iTall with cooler criticism 
 
Bismarck 129 
 
 — or does he, too, see in Bismarck a piece of Teutonic great- 
 ness? — in any case what I have just said is the opinion of 
 large sections in Germany. He educated us — I showed that 
 yesterday; he may have acted crushingly on many; he urged 
 men perhaps all too exclusively to power, work, and practical 
 issues j well, these shortcomings have since then corrected 
 themselves in the natural course of time ; but what he is to us, 
 what he gave and gives us, that remains indispensable to us ; 
 he made us strong and manly. 
 
 After 1887 possibly the first breath of old age fell on this 
 gigantic force. When his old master died, and the young 
 Emperor sought for himself paths and distinction o f his own — 
 ways the length of which Prince Bismarck did not wish to go 
 with him — then there came into his government a disrupted 
 dual element ; and it is well known how William the Second 
 in March, 1890, abruptly dismissed the man of seventy-five. 
 At present it is still difficult to determine the distribution of 
 right and wrong in this action. But it was a tragic spectacle — 
 few more so. The great German withdrew in bitter resentment 
 to his estate ; that he raised a voice of warning, blame, and 
 opposition, will seem more natural to the Englishman, to whom 
 otherwise perhaps so much in Bismarck is alien, than to the 
 monarchical German. Bismarck was and remained the noble- 
 man, who walks haughtily even beside his Prince ; the passion 
 and anxiety he felt for his work were with him stronger than 
 his sense of propriety. From 1890 on he was an inconvenient 
 personage to the German Government ; he, whose nature con- 
 strained him to work, could now only criticise; but he ob- 
 tained a hearing in many important matters, and saw his paths 
 therein being sought out anew. And above all he still re- 
 mained, whatever the parties thought of his warnings and 
 appeals, the herald of the Empire, the genius of unity, even 
 after his dismissal. Thousands and thousands madejpilgrimage 
 to him to the Sachsen^^dd,^ and his voice had for them an ever- 
 sacred ring; they brought him gratitude, admiration, mourn- 
 
 H. L. 9 
 
1 30 Germany 
 
 ing, thfey brought him fidelity and undying love. They carried 
 back into their daily life a reflection of imperishable greatness, 
 and they felt as though blessed when they had seen the greatest 
 man of their day. 
 
 Bismarck died in July, 1898. To the Germans he re- 
 mained the symbol of their best possessions. The perishable, 
 the unavoidable misproportions in single epochs and indi- 
 viduals pass away under the solvent action of new aims and 
 ideas ; but the greatest among the dead live on still after that, 
 not only as names, not only in the memory, but as forces in 
 the will and conscience of a people. This great man gave 
 his nation a polity of his creation, steeped in his being ; he 
 was with unparalleled grandness the representative of all that 
 was or is to become common to his nation. His figure is so 
 prominent, four-square, lofty, and sharp-cut, it will never be 
 overlooked and forgotten by posterity. To the world in general 
 he will always remain at least one of the greatest figures which 
 the nineteenth century exhibits — personally the strongest of 
 them all, I believe, though not perhaps the most beloved by 
 the rest of nations. You will not find fault with us Germans 
 if we beUeve, and joyfully confess the belief, that he will be to 
 our people immortal in the special sense of which I spoke. 
 The idea of his native country continues to live in him, and 
 whenever his nation, in days of happiness or of need, recalls 
 her good and great men, then will the name of Bismarck stand 
 out, far above all other names. Such men, however, in whom 
 a single people finds its best enshrined in great and character- 
 istic form, certainly belong, above praise and blame, above love 
 and hate, also to the eternal collective property of mankind. 
 
 Note. I wish to express my best thanks to Mr Lionel 
 Strachan, M.A., Lector of the English language at Heidelberg 
 University, for his excellent translation of my two lectures ; 
 also to Professor Johannes Hoops of Heidelberg and Mr Eber- 
 hard Focke of Sydenham for much supplementary advice. 
 
AUSTRIA AND HUNGARY IN THE 
 NINETEENTH CENTURY. 
 
 By Dji Emil Rkich. 
 
 The past weighs heavily on most countries. Some nations 
 glory in their uninterrupted connection with long bygone ages ; 
 others complain of it. But there are few peoples with whom 
 events long buried have still such an influence, an actuality as 
 intense as past events have on the history of Austria. In a 
 sense it may be said, that with regard to Austria the dead do 
 not bury the dead, they bury rather the living. The diplomatic 
 and military events of 1526 and 1741 are still the dominating 
 ifactors of all Austrian policy ; and since the local distribution 
 of the Slav and Magyar races in Austria-Hungary happened in 
 300 B.C. and 900 A.D. respectively, the nationalist factor of 
 Austria goes back to times almost beyond well-authenticated 
 history. 
 
 To this, the element of Time, there is in Austrian history 
 an equally strong element of Space. The geographical situa- 
 tion of the various peoples destined to form the empire of 
 Austria-Hungary is one making for disunion rather than union. 
 There is, it is true, a common stream, the Danube. However, 
 the Cechs and Moravians belong, hydrographically, to the Elbe 
 or Oder River systems, and not to the Danube. Moreover 
 Austria had up to 1797 no sea-board to speak of. It was 
 entirely an inland empire; its provinces were not given that 
 powerful stimulus for unity -which the sea has at all times exer- 
 
132 Austria and Hungary 
 
 cised on the inhabitants of peninsulas or islands. The sea 
 unites; mountains disaggregate. 
 
 In order to seize clearly the potent influence of the element 
 of Time — that of Space scarcely needing here further explana- 
 tion — let us briefly recapitulate the story of the building-up of 
 Austria. 
 
 From the thirteenth century upward there were four 
 different monarchs and rulers bidding and struggling for the 
 supremacy in the valley of the Danube : the Kings of Hungary; 
 the Kings of Bohemia ; the Dukes of Bavaria ; and the Arch- 
 dukes of Austria proper. In 1526 the decision of this secular 
 struggle was made in favour of the Austrian Archdukes. True, 
 they had been very frequently beaten and worsted in battles 
 and on the diplomatic field by their rivals. Yet, in the end, 
 they secured the great prize; and in 1526 the crowns both of 
 Bohemia and Hungary, i.e. vast territories comprising Bohemia 
 proper, Moravia, Silesia, Lusatia, Hungary proper, Transylvania, 
 Croatia, Slavonia, Dalmatia, etc. were, partly de facto, partly 
 only de lege transferred to the rulers of Austria. The causes of 
 this astounding accession of power do not concern us here ; 
 suffice it to say, that the Archdukes, although deficient in 
 military and financial resources, were superior to their rivals in 
 point of sound and persistent foreign policy, then (end of the 
 fifteenth and throughout the sixteenth century) the directing 
 power of political affairs in Central and Western Europe. 
 
 In 1526, then, as well as in i860, Austria consisted of 
 a very large number of heterogeneous peoples and races, each 
 having aspirations of its own, each trying to occupy a prominent 
 place amongst the rest, each clinging firmly to its language, 
 traditions, religion, political institutions and privileges. Yet, 
 during the sixteenth century, the Archdukes had troubles rather 
 with the Turk than with their own subjects ; and in the seven- 
 teenth century, troubles with the Bohemians were removed by 
 a victorious campaign of two years' duration, from 16 18 to 
 1620 ; while the troubles with Hungary were largely a secondary 
 
The Dualism 133 
 
 feature of the wars with the Turk, and were finally ended in 
 171 1 by the peace of Szathmar. All during the eighteenth 
 century, the Austrian Empire, although adding to its inner 
 discordance by incorporating new and alien peoples, did not 
 suffer from its present internal disturbances at all. This seems 
 very strange. For it must not be overlooked that far from 
 being amazed at the present unrest of the Austrian races, one 
 ought rather to wonder about the long period of internal calm 
 that Austria enjoyed, with insignificant interruptions, from 171 1 
 to 1848. The reason of this calm is the broad fact that Austria 
 was all through the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, up 
 to the downfall of Napoleon, engaged in the most tremen- 
 dous and international wars, ranging from Gibraltar to the 
 northern end of Denmark, and from Belgium to Servia, against 
 the Turks, the Swedes, Louis XIV, Louis XV, Frederick the 
 Great, the French Revolution, and Napoleon. Those wars 
 brought such an outside pressure to bear upon all the peoples 
 of Austria as to act with them as their strongest bond of unity. 
 Austria's centre of gravity was outside her own territory. The 
 disruptive elements at home could not easily pursue their own 
 individual aims, while their very existence was daily threatened 
 by powers from the outside. We find, for instance, that only 
 one generation after the last of the Rak6czy rebellions in 
 Hungary the Magyars did everything in their power to save 
 Austria from the Prussians, Bavarians, and French, in 1741 ; 
 likewise in the period of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic 
 wars. 
 
 However, the benefit derived by Austria from her great 
 international contests could not possibly survive the period of 
 history when alone such contests were possible. It is well 
 known that since 1 8 1 5 there have been no international wars at 
 all. All wars, since that time, have been local and limited. 
 No sooner had this new phase of European politics become 
 manifest than Austria began to shift her centre of gravity. 
 The great home-problems, which had long been settled by the 
 
134 Austria and Hungary 
 
 other powers, either in the sixteenth century, as in Spain ; in 
 the seventeenth (1688 — 1689), as in England; or in the 
 eighteenth, as in France and Prussia, now demanded their 
 solution in Austria too. For this, however, Austria found 
 herself without any preparation at all. The attempt at unifying 
 the Empire by a violent process of Germanization, under 
 Joseph II (1780 — 1790), had completely failed. Nor could 
 that process be repeated under Francis or Ferdinand in the 
 nineteenth century. For, since 1741, the balance between the 
 German and non-German peoples of the Empire had been 
 considerably altered in favour of the non-German races. By 
 the battle of Mollwitz (1741, April), Frederick the Great 
 possessed himself of Austrian Silesia, a rich province, inhabited 
 mostly by Germans. Silesia, together with Eastern Moravia, 
 Lower and Upper Austria, Styria and Carinthia, formed, before 
 1 741, a series of provinces inhabited almost exclusively by 
 German-speaking Austrian subjects, who thus formed a German 
 wedge between the Magyars on the eastern, the Cechs on the 
 western, and the Slovenes on the southern side of the Empire. 
 By being shorn, after 1741, of Silesia, the German element in 
 Austria lost considerably of its former leverage ; and when in 
 1772, 1775, 1797, and 1814 still more and non-German peoples 
 were incorporated with Austria (Poles, Ruthenians, and Italians, 
 by the acquisition of Galicia, Bukovina, Dalmatia, Lombardy 
 respectively), the German element came very near being out- 
 weighed, as it certainly was outnumbered, by the other nation- 
 alities. Any attempt at wholesale Germanization of Austria 
 was therefore, since 1814, entirely out of the question. 
 
 The various constituent nations of Austria now undertook 
 to solve the problem in their own fashion. Hungary, already 
 in 1825, led by men of the most exalted patriotism, such as 
 Count Szdchenyi and Baron Wesselenyi, had taken up the 
 questions of home-reform as well as that of Hungary's relation 
 to Austria, in the most serious manner. The frequent Diets at 
 Pozsony witnessed the animated discussions of these subjects 
 
The Dualism 135 
 
 by Louis Kossuth, Francis Deak, Count Apponyi, and many 
 others, who had clearly seized the fact that the old-standing 
 vital problems of the Magyar polity had then reached the 
 period when solutions favourable to the ideals of the Hun- 
 garians might very well be realized. Accordingly, Deak, the 
 Timoleon of Hungary, a small country-squire whose admirable 
 grasp of Hungarian law, both private and constitutional, was 
 equalled by his perfect temper and self-possession, Deak at 
 once set to reforming first the criminal legislation, then the 
 county-administration, working, however, mainly at the realiza- 
 tion of that Dualism which he both formulated first and, in 
 1867, established as the fundamental law of both halves of the 
 Austro-Hungarian empire. 
 
 But while the Magyars fully entered upon the spirit of the 
 time which, as already remarked, had since 181 5 necessitated 
 a shifting of the historic forces of Austria, the Austrian 
 monarchs and their ministers, chiefly Prince Mettemich, had 
 no sympathy for nor understanding of the new phase of 
 Austrian history. As in the period of the great international 
 wars, Mettemich and his colleagues still thought of being able 
 to dominate the ever-rising surge of Nationalism by drastic or 
 draconic police-measures. In that, of course, he signally failed. 
 Rebellions may be stemmed and suppressed by dragonnades 
 and police-ordinances ; revolutions can only be amended. In 
 1848 the Magyars rose against Austria. That famous revolu-, 
 tion quickly led to the expulsion of all Austrian soldiers and 
 officials from Hungary by the victorious Magyar generals, 
 Klapka, Perczel, Gorgey, and others. Kossuth, in public 
 assembly at Debreczen, declared the Hapsburgs to have, by 
 the unanimous will of the Hungarian nation, lost their claim to 
 the crown of St Stephen for ever. Austria now appealed to 
 Czar Nicholas, who readily sent a considerable Russian army, 
 under Paskievich, into Hungary, in order there to restore 
 Austrian supremacy. Paskievich succeeded in forcing Gorgey 
 to surrender with his entire army at Vilagos, August 13, 1849. 
 
136 Austria and Hungary 
 
 The smaller risings in Austria proper had likewise been put 
 down, so that the first attempt of the Austrian riationalities to 
 solve the home-problem by means of revolutions had failed. 
 It will be remarked that up to 1850 neither "the efforts of the 
 Crown nor those of the peoples had led to any satisfactory 
 organization of the distracted forces and heterogeneous ele- 
 ments of the Danubian empire. Nor can we now doubt that 
 in the failure of all such efforts, from 1780 to 1850, the same 
 law may be observed that has at all times dominated the 
 history of Austro-Hungary : the law, that as in Prussia all 
 political development starts from the monarch and his cabinet, 
 so in Austria home-policy is directed mainly by the inter- 
 national position of the empire. The reforms that neither the 
 monarch nor the people alone were able to bring about were 
 initiated by several great events, deeply affecting the foreign 
 policy of Austria. 
 
 Before the advent of these events, however, the Austrian 
 Government placed for ten years (1850 — 1860) every province 
 of the empire, including Hungary, under a reactionary rkgime 
 of the most stringent kind, suppressing the very slightest 
 symptom of liberal ideas or cravings for autonomy with an 
 iron hand. The singing of the Rak6czy-march in public ; the 
 wearing of a " Kossiith-hat " ; the whistling of the Marseillaise ; 
 the most innocent or indifferent remarks on politics were 
 sufficient to cause the offender to be locked up at Munkacs 
 or Kufstein, two of the state prisons of Austria-Hungary. 
 Hungary, whose revolutionary leaders had all fled to Turkey 
 or to England, was flooded with a host of German officials. 
 Everything was Germanized, and Minister Bach and his 
 " Bach-Hussars " fondly hoped to stamp out a nationality that 
 had withstood, for then nearly a thousand years, the terrible 
 onslaughts of Turk, Slav, and German without impairing its 
 spirit or courage. 
 
 During that miserable period, the "sage of the nation," 
 Deak, lived in close retirement, first on his estate in the county 
 
The Dualism 137 
 
 of Zaia, then at Pest, in the hotel " Queen of England." He 
 had not taken an active part in the military events of 1848—49, 
 and preferred to bide his time until the fit moment for political 
 action would come, as come it must. The nation looked up 
 to him for advice in this their most vital difficulty, and nobody 
 doubted that in Dedk there was the requisite force of insight, 
 moderation, and bold perseverance by which alone the all- 
 important question could be brought to a satisfactory issue. 
 
 As already remarked, foreign events helped Hungary in the 
 critical moment. As Magna Charta was largely won on the 
 battlefield of Bouvines, in north-eastern France, so the famous 
 Diploma of October, i860, or the first sign of the downfall of 
 the reactionary system in Austria, was obtained on the battle- 
 fields of Magenta and Solferino, in 1859. The Italian cam- 
 paign, in which Austria was defeated by Napoleon III, ended 
 with the peace of Villafranca, constituting the loss of Lombardy 
 to Austria and inflicting on her a deep humiliation. As is 
 always the case in m.oments of great national disaster, the ruler 
 of Austria became conscious that the Bach system was not the 
 panacea of all evil that its supporters had proclaimed it to be. 
 A new system was to be tried ; and in October, 1 860, the so- 
 called " October Diploma " was issued, in which representative 
 government was introduced on a federal basis. In other words, 
 all the " provinces " of the " Austrian Empire " were to send 
 their representatives to a Diet in Vienna, the Diet to decide on 
 many of the important issues of current and constitutional 
 policy. Together with that new move, new personalities were 
 introduced, of whom the most remarkable was Schmerling, the 
 new premier. Born and bred in the atmosphere of bureau- 
 cratism, Schmerling was, like so many an Austrian statesman, 
 both very clever and very inefficient. His undoubted gifts 
 enabled him to keep himself in power for a few years ; his utter 
 misreading of the real powers and tendencies of the Hungarian, 
 Cech and the other leading nationalities frustrated all his efforts. 
 He was a centralist in a polity that would, as above explained, 
 
138 Austria and Hungary 
 
 make for no form other than federal. He was ardently in 
 favour of complete administrative and political union with 
 Hungary against the manifest impossibility of persuading the 
 Hungarians to unite with the polities of Cisleithania. Accord- 
 ingly he failed. His famous word " Wir konnen war/en " 
 (" We can afford to wait ") only shows that he had no grasp of 
 the urgency and precipitation of events in the early sixties. 
 The answer of the nations, more especially of Hungary, was, 
 implied if not explicit, " We have been waiting long enough." 
 
 The Hungarians, far from accepting the federal Reichs- 
 rath as established by the October Diploma, and somewhat 
 modified by the "Patent" of February, 1861, abstained from 
 sending representative members of theirs to Vienna. They 
 were soon followed by the Cechs and Poles. Nobody cared 
 for such a federal Diet. The political agitation of Hungary 
 from 1 86 1 to 1865 culminated in two events : one the striking, 
 passive resistance of the people, the other the political pamph- 
 lets, articles and discourses of Deak. As the passive resistance 
 was the unmistakable evidence that the Hungarian nation had 
 fully and definitively made up their mind, so Deak's writings 
 and speeches clearly formulated the constitutional demands 
 and thoughts of the Hungarian people. In a lengthy con- 
 troversy with Professor Lustkandl, of Vienna, who maintained 
 that Hungary had always formed part of the Austrian Empire, 
 being united with Cisleithania in "real" and not only in 
 personal union, Deak, in a manner as clear as it was 
 elaborate, proved that Hungary had never been in the legal 
 status of a "province" of Austria, and that by the sacred 
 principle of the continuity of law, Hungary still (1865) claimed 
 her ancient independence for all matters concerning her home 
 affairs, including a Parliament of her own, her ancient county- 
 system with elective annual officials, her own law, her old 
 provinces (Transylvania, Croatia, Slavonia, and Dalmatia), and, 
 first of all, her inalienable right to acknowledge the ruler of 
 Austria as King of Hungary only on condition of his being 
 
The Dualism 139 
 
 previously crowned as King at Pest, after having formally 
 sworn to observe the ancient constitution of Hungary. Such 
 were the leading points of Deak's writings, discourses, and 
 especially of his famous article in the newspaper Pesti Naplb 
 of April, 1865 ("Easter Sunday article"). It will be seen that 
 Deak would not admit at all that the Hungarians had by their 
 revolution and by being ultimately defeated in 1848-49, lost 
 their privileges and constitution as established by the treaties 
 and laws previous to the Revolution. This, the chief argu- 
 ment of the Austrian statesman, and one for which, from the 
 strictly legal standpoint, there is indeed something to say, lost 
 all its power, if not by Deak's otherwise irrefutable argumen- 
 tation, by the " passive resistance " of the nation. In that 
 remarkable phenomenon, probably the most important of all 
 the events of the period from 1861 to 1865, although less 
 noticed than the brilliant speeches and political moves of 
 Count Julius Andrassy, M! L6nyay, Coloman Tisza, and, of 
 course, Deak ; in that " passive resistance " must be found the 
 final cause of the success crowning the efforts of the Magyar 
 statesmen. Without any preconcerted measure whatever, the 
 Hungarian nation, on learning that the Austrian Government 
 had, in the summer of 1861, rejected Xhitfelirat or memorial of 
 the Hungarian Diet, in which the principles of Deak had been 
 expressed in language as moderate as it was forcible, at once 
 organized itself into an "opposition" of a striking kind. 
 Suddenly nobody disposed of the smallest funds for paying his 
 taxes ; suddenly the number of law-suits, or any other proceed- 
 ings requiring intervention of officials, dwindled down with 
 astounding rapidity ; the officials found themselves hampered 
 on all sides by the sullen antagonism of noblemen, bourgeois, 
 and peasants alike, and no official order, even of the slightest 
 kind, was sure to be carried out. The situation became un- 
 bearable. In many a state-office not a penny was to be found 
 for the most urgent needs pf the families of the officials. The 
 whole public life of the country had come to a standstill, to 
 
140 Austria and Hungary 
 
 an ill-boding stagnation. A change became imperative. In 
 September, 1865, the Schmerling ministry fell, after Francis 
 Joseph had by a visit to Hungary acquired the conviction 
 that nothing short of the Dualism proposed by Deak would 
 satisfy the Hungarians, and restore order in the empire. In 
 this case, too, an external event came to the help of the 
 Hungarians ; for this is one of the most patent, if sadly 
 neglected lessons of the history of Hungary, too, that as their 
 greatest national disaster, the terrible defeat at Mohacs, in 
 1526, at the hands of the Turks, was owing mainly to Hungary's 
 being deserted by the rest of Central Europe, even so Hungary's 
 greatest triumph was largely owing to the -decisive victory of 
 Prussia at Koniggratz, July 3, 1866, over Austria. The utterly 
 altered international position of Austria necessitated, after 1866, 
 a complete overhauling of her internal situation, and the most 
 essential portion of that change of rtgime was the introduction 
 of Dualism as long insisted upon by Deak. After 1866, 
 Austria was finally and probably for ever severed from the 
 States of Germany and the " German Empire,'' and also forced 
 to quit the Italian peninsula for good. This could not but 
 profoundly alter Austria's international position. She ceased 
 to be a neighbour of France, a power in Italy, a rival of Prussia. 
 Reduced in territory ; very considerably shorn pf her influence 
 as a Great Power in Europe, she was inevitably driven to the 
 task of gaining by more intense growth at home what she had 
 lost in her territorial and moral expansion abroad. Deak's 
 "moment" had come. He knew how to utilise it. At one 
 with the other leaders of Hungary, he carried out his system of 
 " Dualism," aided by Count Beust, the new foreign minister, 
 in 1867. 
 
 The Dualism of Austria and Hungary is still little under- 
 stood in France, England, or America. It is indeed a form 
 of polity so alien to the traditional systems of these western 
 countries, that a clear understanding of it cannot be easily 
 reached by a Frenchman imbued with the secular unity of 
 
The Dualism 141 
 
 France, by an Englishman accustomed to systems of com- 
 promise baffling all definite formulae, or by an American 
 inured to a confederacy in which there is no possible room 
 for Dualism. Yet Sweden and Norway offer the same example 
 as Austria-Hungary ; and inevitable events will sooner or later 
 prompt Russia and Germany to imitate the Austro-Hungarian 
 system with regard to Poles and Finns. One of the chief 
 misleading factors consists probably in the false idea that 
 Austria is by far the larger, and the more influential of the 
 two sections. As a matter of fact, however, the kingdom of 
 Hungary is larger than Austria, as it is larger than Italy, and 
 larger than the United Kingdom. More remarkable still is the 
 fact, that there is an Austria-Hungary ; there is a Hungary ; 
 but there is, legally, no Austria. In terms of constitutional 
 law, Cisleithania is called '■^ Die im Reichsrath vertretenen 
 Laender" "The countries represented in the Reichsrath." 
 The term " Austria " is a mere fapn de parler ; whereas the 
 countries united under the crown of St Stephen bear the 
 legal common name of Hungary, Magyarorszdg. This alone 
 indicates and proves that in the case of Hungary we are 
 dealing with an old historic individuality, nay personality, 
 while "Austria'' has never been able to clothe her different 
 peoples with the unity of a homogeneous historic individuality. 
 This vast difference at once explains both the untiring oppo- 
 sition offered by the people of Hungary to all the attempts of 
 the rulers of Austria to incorporate them as a " province " with 
 the rest of the Hapsburg dominions, and their final success in 
 establishing the Dualism. The Hapsburgs, until 1806, were 
 also Emperors of the Holy Roman Empire ; yet Hungary 
 never formed part of the Empire. As against the Roman 
 Empire, so against Austria, the Hungarians invariably mani- 
 fested that unconquerable desire of every true individuality 
 to be left to itself. For many a purpose of culture, commerce 
 or industry it might have been better had the Hungarians 
 agreed to be made an integral portion of Germany in the 
 
142 Austria and Hungary 
 
 time of the Empire. Yet with regard to the highest of all 
 historic purposes, with regard to the building up of a great 
 and fully differentiated historic individuality, the persistent 
 abhorrence of all union with German ideas and institutions, 
 could not but strengthen the political force and increase the 
 dignity of the historic rdle of Hungary. Or has not History 
 long taught us that its powers always followed the intense 
 impulses of small but highly individualized polities ? The 
 role of Athens, Rome, or Florence is infinitely more important 
 than that of vast India or China. Nations that have long felt 
 in them a vocation for a distinct political personality can under 
 no circumstances abandon their evident destiny. Sint ut sunt 
 out non sint — these words apply not only to the artificial 
 personality organized by Loyola, but with infinitely greater 
 force to old historic personalities, such as Hungary. A hundred 
 times beaten down, a hundred times the Magyars rose up to 
 recommence the struggle for what made existence alone ac- 
 ceptable, for their independent individuality. 
 
 In that absolute resolution not to part with their indi- 
 viduality lay also, as already remarked, their greatest leverage 
 and power. The other nations of Cisleithania were, on the 
 whole, devoid of that intense and resolute determination to 
 keep their historic existence uninterfered with. Contests be- 
 tween two adversaries, of whom one is lukewarm and not 
 sufficiently equipped with clear notions about his own ends, 
 while the other is filled with the intensest energy focused 
 distinctly on a definite end, cannot but end in favour of the 
 latter. That is what happened in the case of Hungary. The 
 leading Magyar statesmen, fully conversant with German and 
 with the people, customs, and tendencies of Austria, had, in 
 that, in addition to their greater resolution, union, and address, 
 an enormous advantage over the Austrian statesmen, who did 
 not know Hungarian, nor Hungary's people, constitution, or 
 customs. The result could only be one. Hungary finally 
 compelled Austria to recognize the absolute independence of 
 
The Dualism 143 
 
 the countries united under the crown of St Stephen. No 
 Austrian official can put a foot on Hungarian soil. Austrian 
 citizenship does not imply Hungarian citizenship, and the 
 latter must be obtained, if needed, by an Austrian citizen in 
 the same way in which it is obtained eventually by an English- 
 man or Frenchman. The sole official language of Hungary is 
 Magyar, which is, it is scarcely necessary to add, neither a 
 Slav nor a German idiom, but a Turanian language, akin to 
 Finnish on the one hand, and Turkish on the other. The law 
 of Hungary is quite different from that of Austria ; so is, and 
 in a still greater degree, her provincial organization in counties 
 and jdrdsok, or subdivision of counties. The Parliament of 
 Hungary, consisting of two Houses, the House of Magnates 
 and the House of Representatives, is historically and technically 
 quite different from the Reichsrath in Austria. 
 
 For such purposes as are, from the international position of 
 Austria and Hungary, common to both halves of the Empire, 
 there is a common "Parliament," the so-called Delegations, 
 selected from the Austrian Reichsrath and the Hungarian 
 Parliament respectively. Such purposes are (i) Foreign policy; 
 (2) the common army, as distinct from Hungary's own army 
 formed by the honvkdseg; (3) the common finances, that is, 
 the common debt, the customs, and expenditure for the pre- 
 ceding common causes; and (4) Bosnia and Herzegovina, 
 which both are an imperial territory of the Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire. Before approaching the financial questions, or the 
 Ausghich, it is very important to remark, that the influence 
 exercised by either the Austrian or the Hungarian peoples on 
 the foreign policy of their country, is both feeble and quite 
 inadequately organized. As a matter of fact, questions of 
 foreign policy cannot very well be mooted and discussed in 
 either the Cisleithanian or the Transleithanian Parliament. 
 Such discussions are left to the Delegations, where from sheer 
 lack of time they can receive only purely academic treatment 
 in the rare, short, and moreover separate meetings of the 
 
144 Austria and Hungary 
 
 Austrian and Magyar Delegations. Now in this, if in nothing 
 else, is to be found one of the causes of the unrest and 
 anarchy of Austria. An Empire which, as seen above, is 
 largely the product of international factors; or to put that 
 more correctly (no nation being really self-made), an Empire 
 whose political health and power depend so largely on its 
 foreign policy, cannot afford to leave that policy untouched by 
 the select and hence presumably best fitted political intellect of 
 the country. To deprive Parliaments of all real influence on 
 foreign policy is to open the door to petty local influences, 
 to a policy of municipal or provincial backstair intrigues. 
 Foreign policy has, amongst other wholesome influences on 
 Parliaments, especially the well-known effect of reducing party- 
 formations to two or three broad and clearly crystallized parties, 
 and thus to obviate the cropping up of those countless little 
 party-centres and factions that have, in Austria particularly, 
 quite disorganized and as it were atomized political life. At 
 present there are over twenty-five parties in the Reichsrath of 
 Austria. Hungary, it is true, does not suffer from similar 
 morbid excrescences in her party-organizations. There too, 
 however, the absence of any appreciable influence of Parlia- 
 ment on the foreign policy of the Empire, has had an 
 undesirable effect on party life; and it is uncertain what it 
 may still lead to in the near future. At any rate, foreign 
 policy has in the Austrian Empire been carried on in a spirit 
 decidedly injurious to the welfare of the Empire and to its 
 international position. The Hungarians, it must be admitted, 
 are not free from their share of guilt in that mistaken course 
 adopted by Austria in her foreign policy since 1866. Count 
 Andrassy, whose prime motives were undoubtedly those of a 
 Hungarian patriot, opposed all sympathy with France, that is, 
 the very course that Austria ought to have followed during 
 the Franco-German war. In his opinion, an Austria that 
 ceased to play a great rdk in the great European conflicts of 
 the time, was more likely to surrender to Hungary all that he, 
 
The Dualism • 145 
 
 Deak and the Hungarians in general demanded. In that he 
 may have been right. However that may be, it remains true 
 that Austria, by abstaining from any interference in the Franco- 
 German war, practically abdicated from her former position as 
 a Great Power. The worst, and after all unlikely defeat at the 
 hands of the Germans, had Austria interfered in 1870, could 
 not have left her in a position more reduced in international 
 prestige than that in which her inactivity had landed her after 
 the peace of Frankfort on the Maine in 187 1. The fear of 
 Russia, then (1870) the ally of Germany, is one of those 
 legendary nightmares that the innumerable victories of a small 
 nation like the Turks over Russia ought to have dispelled long 
 ago. When finally in 1879, a close alliance was made with 
 Germany, and in 1883 widened into a Triple Alliance of 
 Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy, Austria definitively 
 abdicated from her former international position, although 
 apparently she was placed on a basis offering more security 
 than she enjoyed before. The utterly misleading view of the 
 alleged beneficial effects of the Triplice on Austria-Hungary is 
 shared by all those who have carefully omitted to study the 
 history of the Danubian Empire and its just claims to a first- 
 class position in Europe. The Triple Alliance, by averting for 
 a given number of years in advance, any danger of attack 
 from Germany and Italy, the only two neighbours possibly 
 threatening Austria with war (Russia being quite absorbed 
 in her Asiatic policy), most effectively contributed to cripple 
 all independent or energetic foreign policy in Austria, where, as 
 we have seen, foreign policy is anyhow suffering from a want of 
 ■adequate organization. In reality, Austria-Hungary has for the 
 last twenty years had no foreign policy at all. In that she com- 
 mitted an error that the most stupid of the Hapsburgs in the 
 seventeenth or eighteenth century avoided doing. Better a 
 thousand mistakes than to abstain from making any mistake 
 at all. Death alone is the end of all mistakes; life means 
 errors. The anarchy in modern Austria is due neither to the 
 
 H. L. 10 
 
146 Austria and Hungary 
 
 unreasonableness or conceit of this or that nation or party 
 alone ; it is neither indicative of sheer wickedness, nor caused 
 by mere ignorance. It is largely due to a hopelessly wrong 
 foreign policy. The ballast of a spirited foreign policy being 
 indispensable for Austria, no wonder her vessel is tossed and 
 buffeted about in a somewhat helpless manner. Her foreign 
 policy is, or ought to be, quite clear. It is dictated by her 
 history, and by her geographical position. Its chief axis runs 
 through the near east. It is Austria, not Germany, that ought 
 to have built and acquired the Baghdad railway. As long as 
 Austrian foreign policy remains on its present lines of inertia 
 and barren alliances, the old historic life of the Empire must 
 largely remain toned down, if not more and more weakened. 
 
 In turning now to the third common feature of both halves 
 of the Dual Empire, to the Ausgleich proper (the second 
 feature, the common army, needing no special comment), it 
 is necessary to note that that famous term refers to financial 
 questions only. Ausgleich, in German, may seem to include 
 political or constitutional matters too. The Ausgleich between 
 Austria and Hungary, however, refers only to the quota to be 
 paid by the two halves towards their common expenditure. 
 The financial arrangement called Ausgleich is indeed of the 
 utmost importance for both monarchies, and forms an integral 
 portion of the Dualism as established by Deak. It is generally 
 agreed to for a period of ten years. Roughly speaking, the 
 Hungarians contribute 32 to 34 per cent., the Austrians 66 to 
 68 per cent, to the common expenses. The Hungarians, 
 although much wealthier now than they were in 1867, do not 
 want to accept a greater share of the common expenses ; and 
 this together with a natural jealousy of Austria's distracted 
 parties against united Hungary, has rendered the renewal of 
 the Ausgleich increasingly difficult. 
 
 As to the future of the Austro-Hungarian Empire it is safe 
 to state, that the pessimistic predictions of the near downfall 
 and partition of the Empire are unworthy of any serious dis- 
 
The Dualism 147 
 
 cussion. Austria, like France, has a hundred times been 
 predicted to be nearing her final dissolution ; every time falsely. 
 Austria is as necessary to the balance of Europe, as is France ; 
 and the vitality of both has been probed and not found wanting 
 in hundreds of campaigns and in numberless trials of strength 
 from 1527 to 1866. With all the vaunted strength of the 
 Prussian system Austria has never known a period of collapse 
 as ignominious as that which degraded the realm of Frederick 
 the Great only twenty years after his death, in consequence 
 of one double-battle lost. The fighting material, the natural 
 wealth, the strategic position of the Austro-Hungarian mon- 
 archy are such as to warrant her a dominant place in European 
 politics for a very loilg time to 'come, provided her statesmen 
 learn the lessons of her history and act up to it. The present 
 turbulence of the Austrian Parliament ; the numerous scan- 
 dalous scenes of which we read in the papers ; the disruptive 
 tendencies of the extreme Cech or German parties in Austria, 
 all that must not blind us to the fact, that far from being 
 symptoms of decay, they are rather welcome indications of a 
 rising interest in public life, an interest which previous to 1875 
 was practically absent among large classes of Austria. Like all 
 people, the Austrians too have to learn the business of repre- 
 sentative government by long and painful experience. The 
 Enghsh behaved just as badly in their time of apprenticeship, 
 say at the Parliament of Oxford in 1681, and even very much 
 later. It might rather be suggested that the present turbulence 
 of Austrian parties is probably too academic, and that the 
 flinging of inkstands is too tame a procedure to inculcate 
 pohtical lessons with. Austria will scarcely reach political 
 manhood without internal disturbances very much more acute 
 than all that we have heard of so far. But far from misreading 
 such disturbances into signs of the approaching end ; far from 
 thinking that the life of the present Emperor and King is the 
 only mainstay of the Empire, it will be both more prudent and 
 more in keeping with the facts not to prognosticate rashly a 
 
148' Austria and Hungary 
 
 dismemberment of a realm that has, these three hundred years, 
 directed many a principal current of European history, and has 
 in that secular struggle acquired powers, latent and explicit, 
 too great to be rendered useless or inefficient by the brawlings 
 of a few agitators. As the Alps, the Carpathians, and the 
 Danube now form, after prehistoric geological revolutions, the 
 natural Triple Basis of the Dual Empire, so the Germans, 
 the Magyars, and the Slavs are destined to form her true 
 political Triple Alliance, each of them, if by a few catastrophes, 
 finding in the end their proper sphere for the common weal of 
 Austria-Hungary. 
 
FRANCE AS THE LAND OF THE 
 REVOLUTION. 
 
 By Professor Paul Mantoux. 
 
 A CENTURY of Revolution : so Mr Bodley, in his able book 
 on modem France, describes the French history of the last 
 hundred years. But what does that word Revolution mean ? 
 Does it mean mere disorder, barricades, kings flying from their 
 palace through the back door, while provisional governments 
 are hailed by equally provisional supporters in the hall of some 
 Hotel de Ville? If it means nothing more, why is France 
 more interesting than any South American Republic, the 
 modem history of which would show a more continuous series 
 of Revolutions ? Mr Bodley does not really answer this ques- 
 tion. He seems to have come to the conclusion that the French 
 people, as he has seen them in most provinces, are a quiet, 
 home-keeping, hard-working sort of people, who have no taste 
 whatever for Revolution, and who would like a strong Govern- 
 ment to .preserve them for ever from revolutionary agitation. — 
 But Revolution means something else and something better 
 than disturbance and civil war. The French Revolution has 
 not been, as Mr Bodley hints, a great tragedy, followed in the 
 course of a century by accessory little plays, the chief benefit 
 of which would have been to supply mankind, in a dull and 
 
1 50 France 
 
 unpoetical age, with fresh elements of picturesque. If we give 
 that word Revolution the substantial meaning it did and does 
 convey to a French mind, if we show that Revolutions have 
 not been futile dramatic incidents in modern French history, 
 but are part of one great Revolution which is still going on at 
 this very hour, and the final consequences of which have not 
 been reached yet, then, I think, we shall understand much 
 better many events of the past and of the present time. France 
 is not only a land of Revolutions, but the land of the Revolution, 
 the same spirit, which led the nation a hundred years ago, being 
 still and always at work. 
 
 A very easy and misleading explanation of the many 
 changes which have occurred in France within a century is 
 supplied by the fickleness of the French nation. In opposition 
 to this ready-made explanation I shall quote some eloquent 
 English verses, which may be conveniently used as an illus- 
 tration of my own un-English prose. I take them from the 
 sixth book of Aurora Leigh : 
 
 The English have a scornful insular way 
 
 Of calling the Krench light. The levity 
 
 Is in the judgment only, which yet stands, 
 
 For say a foolish thing but oft enough 
 
 (And here 's the secret of a hundred creeds, 
 
 Men get opinions as boys learn to spell 
 
 By reiteration chiefly), the same thing 
 
 Shall pass at last for absolutely wise 
 
 And not with fools exclusively. And so 
 
 We say the French are light, as if we said 
 
 The cat mews or the milch-cow gives us milk: 
 
 Say rather, cats are milked and milch-cows mew: 
 
 For what is lightness but inconsequence. 
 
 Vague fluctuation 'twixt effect and cause, 
 
 Compelled by neither? Is a bullet light 
 
 That dashes from the gun-mouth, while the eye 
 
 Winks, and the heart beats one, to flatten itself 
 
Land of the Revolution 151 
 
 To a wafer on the white speck on a. wall 
 A hundred paces off? Even so direct, 
 So sternly undivertible of aim, 
 Is this French people. 
 
 All, idealists 
 Even too absolute and earnest, with them all 
 The idea of a knife cuts real flesh ; 
 And still, devouring the safe interval 
 Which Nature placed between the thought and act, 
 With those too fiery and impatient souls, 
 They threaten conflagration to the world. 
 And rush with most unscrupulous logic on 
 Impossible practice. 
 
 The tendency which Elizabeth Browning thus noticed among 
 the French is a double one. First, the French logic is un- 
 scrupulous : it carries principles to their extreme conclusions. 
 French people are fearless before the logical consequences of 
 free thought, whatever they are. They will never be stopped 
 by any reverential feeling, if logic urges them on. Not only 
 religion has been more boldly criticised in France than in any 
 other country; but what survives every particular denomination, 
 what philosophers like Kant would set apart, above the reach 
 of reasoning, moral obligation, has been questioned by French 
 thinker s -jgit h even more audacity than by Hume or Stuart 
 Mill, j^^^^ simply mention the telling title of Guyau's book, 
 Sketch^f^fimoral philosophy excluding the ideas of obligation 
 and reward. If on the contrary a Frenchman undertakes to 
 uphold tradition against critical reason, he will go straight 
 to TertuUian's motto : Credo quia absurdum. Joseph de 
 Maistre, in his Evenings spent in St Petersburg, is led, by an 
 unsparing logical process, to the same sort of conclusions which 
 illiterate sectarians credit by blind faith and enthusiasm. He 
 will, for instance, maintain that there is no medicine, and will 
 sneer at the doctor who answers something about tried remedies. 
 "What is quinine?" he writes. "The bark of a tree. Who- 
 ever heard of bark doing anything, curing anybody, but by 
 leave, in each particular case, of the Almighty God ? " 
 
152 France 
 
 Now — and this is the very essence of the French Revolution 
 — the French do not only carry principles to their last conclu- 
 sions, however subversive or absurd, but they want to force 
 such conclusions into immediate effect. The French monarchy, 
 and the whole structure of French society before 1789, were 
 the produce of centuries ; they had- been modelled by force 
 and settled by tradition. I'he French Revolution, as pre- 
 pared by the writers of the 18th century, was a challenge to 
 tradition and force, and an attempt to rebuild society from 
 top to bottom according to the rules of abstract reason and 
 theoretical justice. There was no claiming of historical rights, 
 embodied in ancient charters : the Revolution was to establish 
 the prevalence of natural rights, nature being understood, not 
 as to what does now exist, but as what ought to exist. 
 Throughout the dark story of the Revolution, among the 
 tragical incidents of its necessary struggle against privilege, 
 which unhappily gave occasion to unnecessary crimes, above 
 that dreadful uproar of hope and despair, enthusiasm and 
 rage, we hear ringing for ever the famous words once de- 
 livered by Mirabeau's mighty voice : Le droit est le souverain 
 du monde '. 
 
 Let us go now to some of the Parisian suburbs, where 
 white-bearded workmen still remember the terrible fighting of 
 February and June, 1848, where every man of fifty remembers 
 the dark days of 187 1. Let us go to the villages of Nivernais 
 or Provence, which rose in 185 1 against Louis Napoleon's 
 usurpation, and where hundreds of persons were in con- 
 sequence sentenced and transported. You will hear the people 
 there still using the words of the great Revolution, speaking 
 of the rights of the people, of political and social justice, and 
 of the long-expected reign of reason, with the same deep and 
 earnest feeling as in the old days, and you will think of live 
 
 ' A translation is not easy, owing to the wide meaning of the French 
 word droit : " Right is the sovereign of the world " would be literal, but by 
 no means equivalent. 
 
Land of the Revolution 153 
 
 embers beneath mouldering ashes : you will almost forget that 
 so many years have passed since 1789. 
 
 But how is it — here comes the unavoidable question — that 
 the Revolution, after a whole century, seems to have achieved 
 so little? Mr Bodley makes a pitiless dissection of the Re- 
 publican motto : Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. He is right when 
 he says it is not enough when you engrave them on the walls. 
 Liberty ? but a French citizen is far less secure against official 
 molestation than the meanest British subject. Equality ? but 
 in no country you would observe such a rush for titles and 
 decorations. Fraternity ? but nowhere else you could witness 
 such a merciless strife between parties, such violent attacks 
 in the press against persons, such an unrelenting and unsparing 
 criticism of men, institutions, and of the nation itself So that, 
 in Hobbes's words, the French may be said to be a wolf to the 
 French : Gallus Gallo lupus. 
 
 The objection is not so difficult to answer as it would at 
 first seem. The Revolution, except perhaps during the short 
 idyllic period of its beginnings, never was a unanimous move- 
 ment. Its immediate result could not possibly be to reconcile 
 men together, but on the contrary to create a sharp division of 
 interests and opinions, which has lasted down to the present 
 day. The development of the Revolution is a struggle between 
 hostile forces and doctrines : how could you expect it to result 
 into fraternity as long as it is not concluded? How could 
 you expect liberty to exist without any restraint, when it has 
 to be fought for every day? how could equality be perfect, 
 when privilege is still standing and resisting ? The struggle is 
 a hard one : the enemies of the Revolution, being French 
 people, have shown themselves as extreme in their theory and 
 practice of reaction as the Revolutionists had been in radical 
 reform. They were led by the body of men who can best 
 represent tradition against rational criticism, the spirit of 
 reverence and obedience against the spirit of rebellion, the 
 preservation of the established orders of things against change 
 
154 France 
 
 and novelty ; an ancient and powerful body too, the Catholic 
 Church itself. This again is typically French : the party of 
 reaction, finding in the Church and its dogmas the very root 
 of authority and social conservation, were led by their " un- 
 scrupulous" logic to forget the Church's exclusively ethical 
 and religious character, and often to throw it as it were to the 
 front of the political battle. That battle was begun more than 
 a hundred years ago, and the end is not in view. 
 
 It is a great mistake to pass sentence on the Revolution as 
 if its progress was concluded and its final results attained. 
 Liberty, Equality, Fraternity, this does not pretend to be a 
 description of the present state of things in the French Re- 
 public, or even a command to be enforced at once. It is the 
 ever-receding summit of a long and steep ascent, every inch of 
 which has to be won by an effort and a struggle. As for the 
 division of French opinion, we must admit it has very often 
 made the nation unhappy. But here lies the true greatness 
 and glory of modern France. During a century idealist France 
 has been showing to the world, at the cost of many sufferings, 
 how the abstract conflict between tradition and reason, social 
 justice and social privilege, can be translated into facts ; she ' 
 has turned dialectics into history : so that what you would 
 sometimes call inconsistency is the result of logical opposition, 
 and the succession of events which have filled the igth century 
 with their apparent haphazard and disorder, their sudden and 
 startling changes, can be explained by the continuous action of 
 a few main principles and causes. 
 
 II. 
 
 I am afraid the above considerations illustrate rather too 
 well how French people indulge in abstraction. Let us come 
 now, if not to the facts in their detail, at least to the general 
 development of a few leading facts in the course of the 19th 
 century. 
 
Land of the Revolution 155 
 
 1814 — the beginning of the Restoration — is a most im- 
 portant date in French history. France had been invaded, 
 Napoleon overwhelmed by the coalition's forces, and the fallen 
 dynasty of Bourbon brought back with an escort of foreign 
 soldiers. — How is it, that something of the Revolution could sur- 
 vive such a catastrophe ? Louis XVIII, the brother of unhappy 
 Louis XVI, was compelled by the Russian Emperor to declare 
 that his return would not be the return of despotism. But he 
 spoke of "linking again the chain of tradition, which had 
 been broken during a period of nefarious crimes," and to him 
 the year 1814 was the nineteenth of his reign. Being an old 
 man and an invalid he was rather averse to passion and 
 violence ; he was, moreover, endowed with a keen political 
 sense, which soon enabled him to perceive the nature of the 
 changes which had taken place since 1 789, and to understand 
 that there could be no question of reviving the whole Ancien 
 R'egime. But he was surrounded by a party of rabid Royalists, 
 who thirsted for revenge. They were noblemen who had 
 fought during twenty years against the Revolution and against 
 their own country with a hope of recovering their forfeited 
 estates and feudal privileges ; country squires from Brittany or 
 Languedoc as fanatical as peasants, and ready to die for 
 Church and King; clergymen who held the same views on 
 the French Revolution as Bossuet once on Charles the First's 
 fall, considering it as an ordeal and a punishment inflicted by 
 an angry God on impious and reprobate France. After the 
 rising of 1815, when the country, fascinated again by Napoleon's 
 genius, had been subdued at last with him at Waterloo, those men, 
 who were said to be "more royalist than the King," showed 
 how violent their hate against modern institutions was. The 
 movement known as the " White Terror " broke out in various 
 parts of the country, and could not be excused, as the Red 
 Terror of 1793, on account of misled patriotism. While the 
 invading armies were greeted by royalist mobs with abject 
 demonstrations, while the Government ordered trials and 
 
1 56 France 
 
 executions, a sort of religious war broke out in the South, 
 and hideous murders were committed in the name of Religion 
 and Loyalism. 
 
 But the cause of the Revolution had material forces on its 
 side. The forfeited land, which the Revolutionary Governments 
 had sold, had become the property of a class of people, who 
 were thus personally interested in the duration of the new state 
 of things. Louis XVIII understood that he could not afford 
 to turn them against his authority ; he felt obliged to remove 
 their apprehension and to declare that the social conditions 
 would not be changed again. He not only could not think 
 of going back to the Ancien Rkgime, but, as he wanted to 
 ingratiate himself with the middle class, he had from the 
 beginning to assume the character of a restorer of liberty, 
 which Buonaparte, the Corsican ogre, had suppressed. As 
 a matter of fact, the Restoration was a period of free insti- 
 tutions and free speech : not a democratic government by any 
 means, but not an illiberal one. Thus, when the White Terror 
 was over, eloquent voices were allowed to ask for more liberty 
 and more equality, and to remind the nation of its recent 
 history. The Royalist party organised itself strongly and 
 resisted the movement ; relying upon the principles put forth 
 by the traditionalist writers, de Maistre, de Bonald, they formed 
 a great half-civil, half-religious association known as the Con- 
 gregation, which controlled the elections, forced appointments 
 upon the Cabinets, and pretended to direct the King himself; 
 their propaganda was very active, they sent preaching missions 
 to the provinces and hoped to bring back the whole of France 
 under the sway of militant Cathohcism. But the Liberals had 
 on their side, against such a powerful action, not only the 
 interest of the majority, but a passionate and almost unanimous 
 national feeling. 
 
 A special stress must be laid upon the latter point. The 
 national feeling, which plays such an important part in the 
 modern history of every European country, had the greatest 
 
Land of the Revolution 157 
 
 influence over the development of the French Revolution. 
 In 1792 the Revolution and the Nation in danger seemed to 
 be one thing ; the tricolour flag was at the same time the 
 emblem of French liberty, and the Standard which led the 
 French armies to an unheard-of succession of victories. With 
 Napoleon — and even some time before him — national defence 
 had ceased, and a period of conquest had begun; it was no 
 more France, but the neighbouring nations, who had to fight 
 for independence. But when the French territory was being 
 invaded, the glory of twenty years crushed and insulted, the 
 very existence of the nation in question, the feeling of 1792 
 reappeared as strong as ever. You can imagine the indignation 
 of the people, when they saw in the tanks of the invading 
 forces some of their countrymen, triumphing over the ruin of 
 their own country. The Government of the Restoration was 
 thus hated and branded as being forced upon conquered France 
 by the foreign conqueror, "brought back in the waggons of the 
 foreign armies." The loss of the tricolour, which had thus 
 been replaced by the old white flag of Henri IV, was considered 
 as a symbol of national humiliation. 
 
 All these ideas of wounded patriotism centred round the 
 memory of the wonderful man whose despotism and disastrous 
 ambition were forgotten or forgiven by the nation his genius 
 had mastered. In the popular recollection he remained as he 
 had shown himself in 18 14, when revolutionists like Carnot 
 helped him in defending the frontier, and in 1815, when he 
 embodied against the monarchy the nation and the revolution 
 together. After his final defeat, when he lived, as in another 
 world, on the distant rock of St Helena, his legend began to 
 grow, mixing the idea of liberty with the idea of glory, the 
 taking of the Bastille with Austerlitz and Wagram. The 
 Liberals of the Restoration were all of them more or less 
 Bonapartists, the national feeling was on their side, the tri- 
 colour was their flag, and this goes far to explain the Revo- 
 lution of 1830. 
 
158 France 
 
 III. 
 
 The Charter of 18 14 had been looked upon by the 
 Restoration men as the real conclusion of the French Revo- 
 lution. Just in the same way the ministers and prominent 
 supporters of Louis Philippe believed in earnest that 1830 
 was a final date. Among them we must mention Guizot, who, 
 being a historian as well as a statesman, erected his political 
 theory on a historical basis. Long before 1830 he had been 
 studying the English Revolution of the 1 7th century : his 
 Collection of Memoirs relating to the English Revolution was 
 begun in 1823: his remarkable History of the English Revo- 
 lution was published in 1827. The purpose of his work was 
 never merely scientific : he was led very soon to institute a 
 comparison between French and English history, which be- 
 came more striking after the second fall of the French monarchy. 
 On both sides a double revolution, the Bourbons committing 
 the same faults and doomed to the same fate as the Stuarts : 
 such comparisons had been used, on the eve of the July 
 Revolution, for preparing the public mind to the idea of a 
 French j688. After 1830 it was admitted by Guizot that the 
 era of Revolutions — as in England after 1688 — was closed. 
 France had but to enjoy her permanent rkgime : the consti- 
 tutional monarchy, controlled by the middle classes, was to be 
 her government for centuries to come — 1848 gave him the lie 
 in a rather brutal way. 
 
 Let us consider with more attention the Revolution of 1830. 
 The classical view is that it was caused by the outrage com- 
 mitted by Charles X against the Constitution ; the people rose 
 in defence of law and liberty, and the logical end of the 
 struggle was to restore the Charter under a sovereign holding 
 his royal office from the nation. But a careful study of the 
 events shows more clearly their close connection with the 
 tendencies of public opinion since 18 14. It is true, that the 
 occasion of the rising was Charles X's ordonnances, which dis- 
 
Land of the Revolution 159 
 
 solved the Chamber just after its re-election, and put down 
 the liberty of the press; it is equally true, that the insurrection 
 was led at first with the cry of Vive la Charte. But the Charter 
 concerned chiefly the middle and wealthy classes. The people 
 as a whole desired liberty, but did not care much for a consti- 
 tution which had given them no political rights. Their enmity 
 against Charles X and his government had less definite and 
 more powerful causes. The King had challenged public 
 opinion by the appointment of the Polignac ministry : his 
 choice roused at the same time the revolutionary feeling, the 
 hate of the Ancien Regime and of clerical influence, and the 
 national feeling. Bourmont, the new Minister of War, was 
 a general who had gone over to the enemy two days before 
 Waterloo ; Marmont, who was to keep down the popular 
 movement, had been charged with treason by Napoleon. The 
 rising was begun in defence of the Charter ; but what made it 
 general, what stirred the crowds, was the reappearance of the 
 proscribed tricolour. The insurgents of 1 830 were led by the 
 flag which recalled to their mind the Revolution and the 
 Empire : their national feeling reinforced their revolutionary 
 feeling. Old soldiers were fighting on the barricades : round 
 aged Lafayette, who represented the spirit of 1789, young 
 Polytechnicians, whose uniform had become popular on 
 account of the part their school had taken in the defence of 
 Paris against the Prussian and Russian armies, were the staff 
 of the Revolution. The three days of July, 1830, were but the 
 bursting out of the disappointment and hate which had been 
 kept under during fifteen years. 
 
 As for the result, it cannot be considered as the logical 
 consequence of the popular tendency : it was simply a com- 
 promise between parties. The middle class had already more 
 to lose than to get by a Revolution, and was afraid of its own 
 work. Charles X's return was impossible : but how to avoid 
 demagogy, the red demagogy of '93, or the more imminent 
 danger of a warlike government and European war? It was 
 
i6o France 
 
 proved by recent researches that men like Talleyrand, con- 
 servative statesmen and status quo diplomatists, had much to 
 do with the solution of the July problem. The result was the 
 accession of Louis Philippe, Duke of Orleans ; Lafayette 
 accepted him, because he also wished to preserve peace, while 
 most republicans dreamed of war : the misunderstanding was 
 beginning already between the ideals of 1789 and 1804, 
 between the passion for liberty and the passion for glory. The 
 people who had fought and conquered in July won nothing 
 but the flag they loved : the whole substantial benefit was for 
 the rich middle-class, for the trading and peace-seeking bour- 
 
 As soon as the people understood their Revolution had 
 been juggled away a new movement sprang up at once. The 
 popular feeling took three principal directions. First, the 
 republican feeling was revived. Lafayette soon criticised and 
 afterwards opposed the Government he had helped to establish, 
 when he hoped to make it "the best of Republics.'' The 
 younger men were ardent and enthusiastic, and believed in 
 violent action. The first ten years of Louis Philippe's reign 
 were disturbed by several republican risings : in 1832, 1834, 
 1839, secret societies were formed under men hke chivalrous 
 Barbes, the knight-errant of democracy, and mysterious Blanqui, 
 the eternal conspirer whom all governments in succession 
 dreaded, and who spent forty years of his life in state prisons. 
 The Republicans were represented in Parliament, and while 
 the most energetic Liberals of 1825 never dreamt of anything 
 more than the British constitution of their own time, Ledru 
 Rollin and Raspail remembered the Convention of 1792^ 
 and boldly advocated manhood suffrage. — The republican and 
 democratic ideas did not apply exclusively to political ques- 
 tions : they were extended to a wider field of action. Fifty 
 years had elapsed since 1789, and the principles of the Decla- 
 ration des Droits de r Homme had to be applied to a new state 
 of society. The growing of the factory system had effected 
 
Land of the Revolution i6l 
 
 a deep transformation of the nation's economic conditions ; the 
 towns were rapidly increasing in population, and a numerous 
 class of factory operatives, different from the craftsmen of the 
 foregoing times, was springing up, at the same time as a small 
 and powerful body of industrial capitalists. The modern social 
 question arose in consequence. The workpeople being over- 
 worked and underpaid, discontent was spreading and new 
 Revolutions were brewing: in 1832 and 1834 terrible riots 
 broke out among the Lyons silkweavers, who fought, not 
 for Republic or Empire, but for their daily bread. The 
 revolutionary doctrine assumed a new form in order to deal 
 with these new problems : French Socialism, which had been . 
 anticipated by Gracchus Babeuf as early as 1796, practically I 
 dates from the time of the July Monarchy. There was an 
 extraordinary growth of systems : St Simon's and Fourier's 
 disciples, Louis Blanc, with his plans for the Organisation 
 of Labour, found enthusiastic supporters among the young 
 generation. A young man who would have termed himself) 
 a Liberal if he had lived in 1825, was a Socialist in 1845. 
 What was Socialism, as it was then understood, but the revo- 
 lutionary principle of justice by equality, being extended from 
 the political to the social question ? 
 
 Another great movement was due to the permanence of the 
 national feeling, the influence of which had been so strong in 
 1830. Louis Philippe was bound to a peace policy : that 
 policy can be said to have been his special task, and it was 
 undoubtedly beneficial to France and Europe. But peace 
 often was not easy to preserve against the passion of the 
 crowds. After the July Revolution, when Belgium, Italy, 
 Poland rose against their foreign masters, there was a great 
 stir among the population ; would France do nothing ? would 
 not she resume the work of armed propaganda begun by the 
 Convention? On other occasions it was international diffi- 
 culties which endangered peace and embittered public opinion. 
 In 1840 a sudden development of the Eastern question left 
 
 H. L. II 
 
1 62 France 
 
 France isolated against diffident or hostile Powers ; there was 
 a feeling of humiliation and anger in the country, and the 
 situation was most dangerous for the Government, which 
 avoided the conflict but at the expense of its popularity. 
 Louis Philippe was also sharply taken to task for his alleged 
 weakness towards England. — All this favoured the spreading of 
 the Napoleonic legend, which helped as much as Socialism to 
 subvert the "popular throne" of 1830. 
 
 If from the side of Revolution we turn to the side of con- 
 servatism and reaction we shall find that important changes 
 had taken place. The party of the Ancien Regime had hardly 
 survived their crushing defeat. But the majority of the middle- 
 class had ceased to belong to the Liberal opposition, and were 
 more and more opposing reform. The capitalistic bourgeoisie 
 was growing wealthy : it was the golden age of commercial 
 and industrial undertakings to which the great railway boom, 
 about 1840, gave a tremendous push, Louis Phihppe's 
 monarchy was the best rkgime for the middle-class, as the 
 monarchy of the white flag had been for noblemen and land- 
 owners. The progress of democracy, which takes the govern- 
 ment from the hands of the middle-class people, and still more 
 the progress of Socialism, which threatens their property, 
 were dreaded by the sons of the Tiers Atat, who had in their 
 turn become a privileged class. 
 
 The bourgeoisie used several means of defence against Revo- 
 lution. They understood they could turn on their side the 
 force of the national — or rather nationalist — feeling. Louis 
 Philippe led the way, and his only mistake was to beUeve his 
 own monarchy would benefit by it. Napoleon's statue was 
 reinstated on the Colonne Vend6me : the King was present, 
 and lifting his hat shouted "Vive I'Empereur." Versailles 
 Palace became a military Museum, and was dedicated "To 
 all the glories of France." The Emperor's remains were 
 brought back from St Helena, and a triumphal funeral took 
 place, the coffin being led to the Invalides, where it now 
 
Land of the Revolution 163 
 
 rests under the gilt dome. The danger of such ceremonies 
 was perceived by a few clear-sighted men : Lamartine, in a 
 beautiful speech which was a sort of prophecy, protested against 
 the apotheosis of unscrupulous genius, and said : "At least 
 write on the tombstone : To Napoleon, and nobody else." 
 So the Napoleonic movement was becoming distinct from 
 the liberal and democratic movement, and was soon to be 
 used against it. — A still more momentous change took place in 
 the attitude of a great part of the French middle-class towards 
 the Church. During the Restoration the middle-class as a 
 whole was rather hostile to clericalism. Immediately after 
 1830 there was still a violent anti-clerical feeling. But when 
 the "subversive" doctrines of Socialism made their appearance, 
 the bourgeoisie became afraid. The Catholic party, being led I 
 with marvellous skill, understood at once there was an oppor- 
 tunity of taking hold of the coming generation. They claimed 
 the right of teaching, the "liberty of teaching" as they called 
 it : great nien like Montalembert and Lacordaire were among 
 them, and conducted their tactics. They were followed : their 
 schools, brotherhoods, congregations became flourishing, and 
 were mighty weapons against the spirit of Revolution. So 
 everything was prepared for a struggle which was to make 
 more evident than ever the radical opposition between hostile 
 principles : on one side tradition, represented by the Catholic 
 Church, and force, represented by Napoleon's worship ; on the 
 other side Revolution, that is, rational criticism and govern- 
 ment by rational laws. 
 
 IV. 
 
 The conflict broke into a crisis in 1848, and the crisis was" 
 such a grave one that nearly all Europe felt the shock. Its 
 first cause was the question of suffrage. The parliamentary^ 
 system, such as it had been established in 18 14 and revised in 
 1830, rested upon a very narrow basis : the Chambers did not 
 
164 France 
 
 really represent the nation, but a very small minority of wealthy 
 Ratepayers. The republicans urged a reform, and advocated 
 manhood suffrage. Guizot refused, and went as far as to 
 maintain that manhood suffrage was absurd and impossible, 
 and would never exist. Then began the agitation : the re- 
 publican leaders, Ledru Rollin, Lamartine, held political 
 banquets and delivered eloquent speeches. The interdiction 
 of one of those banquets in Paris led to further agitation and 
 kriots ; the national guards sympathised with the rioters ; every- 
 j thing seemed to be at an end with Guizot's resignation. The 
 \ quite accidental occurrence of a regiment firing at the mob 
 kindled the dying flame into a blaze again. Then all the 
 , passions we have described simultaneously burst out, and the 
 ' Revolution resumed its irresistible progress. 
 
 1848 resembles 1789 as the son does the father. The same 
 enthusiasm, with which the whole nation for a short time 
 seemed to be transported ; the AssembUe Constituante, the first 
 assembly elected by manhood suffrage, was almost unanimously 
 Republican, and trees of Liberty were planted on each village's 
 market-place, and solemnly consecrated by the Catholic clergy. 
 The same unbounded confidence in the efficiency of justice 
 and reason : societies and clubs were swarming, and entertained 
 I unbounded hopes of improving the world and mankind ; a 
 characteristic book of the time is Cabet's Utopian novel entitled 
 Icarie.' There was no lack of great men, though they failed 
 to appeal to the popular imagination as much as the men of 
 the first Revolution did. There is hardly a nobler character in 
 history than that of the poet Lamartine, facing the mob alone 
 with the bare power of lofty eloquence, pacifying the country 
 
 Iand removing Europe's fears. As for the results of the Revo- 
 lution of 1 848, they were most positive and important : the 
 principle, one man one vote, which had been declared to be 
 absurd a very short time before, was then established : a per- 
 manent acquisition, which even the despotic government of 
 Napoleon III did not try to suppress. Slavery in the French 
 
Land of the Revolution 165 
 
 colonies was abolished : so was the capital punishment for 
 political offences. Much of our present liberty is due to the 
 men of 1848. 
 
 But the question was : when and where will the Revolution 
 stop? The whole of society was in an unsettled state, and 
 fear began to prevail : some were afraid of war, most were 
 afraid of Socialism. Business was disturbed, and a dangerous 
 commercial crisis ensued. The working classes suffered very 
 much, and called for help. The political problem being solved,^ 
 the Revolution now came to a social problem. The preachingj 
 of Socialism had given occasion to vague and deluding hopes : 
 the Republican Government finding itself unable to do much, 
 it was a terrible disappointment to the working population. 
 The National Workshops, where some sort of work was given 
 to the unemployed, were but a shift, but they were still too 
 much tainted with socialism in the eyes of the reactionaries, 
 who urged their immediate suppression. The result was the 
 rising of June, 1848, four days' fighting in Paris, with all the 
 implacable fury of a civil war. Nothing so grave had occurred 
 in half a century ; it seemed to be a question of life or death 
 to the Republic and the country. The middle-classes were de- 
 fending their property against the desperate attack of the hungry 
 crowds : the peasantry, afraid of losing their land, were anxious 
 to take part in the struggle also, and helped in crushing the 
 rebellion. Victory at last remained with the tricolour against^ 
 the red flag, and peace — if not concord — was restored. 
 
 After, June, 1848, the parties which under Louis Philippe 
 had been resisting the revolutionary tendency were supreme in 
 their turn. Had not they been right when they denounced 
 the dangers of change? France, being frightened, threw 
 herself on their side, on the side of reaction. General 
 Cavaignac, who had put down the rising, was not thought ^ 
 to be conservative enough. The country rallied round the 
 name which was the very symbol of strength and order : 
 liberty might suffer, but there would be some compensation 
 
1 66 France 
 
 [allowed to the nation's pride and to the popular craving for 
 I glory. — Louis Napoleon in 1847 was nothing : if he was known 
 at all, it was rather as a ridiculous person, whose attempts 
 against the Government had twice excited more laughter than 
 indignation. But the spell- of his magical name worked 
 miracles : every enemy and many a candid friend of the Revo- 
 lution hailed him as a heaven-sent leader, and, the loth of 
 December, 1848, he was elected President of the Republic by 
 five million votes. 
 
 The tide was now on the side of reaction. Louis Napoleon 
 at first seemed to be a mere tool in the hands of the Clerical 
 party. He sent an army to Rome, against the Roman Republic 
 which was claiming sisterhood with the French Republic, to 
 restore the Pope's temporal power. The Assemblee Legislative, 
 which succeeded the ConsUtuante, had a Monarchist and 
 Clerical majority. Among many typical votes we may mention 
 the passing of the Falloux Act. Viscount de Falloux was 
 an ardent Catholic, who had written a Life of St Pius V, 
 some lines of which, extolling the Holy Inquisition, have 
 remained famous. His and his followers' watchword was 
 liberty of teaching. As a matter of fact he obtained for the 
 Church a real privilege over education, which according to his 
 party's views was the best means of checking both intellectual 
 and social Revolution. So the middle-class understood it: 
 its spokesman, Thiers, though he was himself a professed 
 Voltairian, supported the Bill on account of its probable 
 taction against subversive doctrines. The years 1849 and 1850 
 /are as characteristic as 1848, in the opposite direction: the 
 I Government's policy was one of fear and hatred against demo- 
 ' cracy and social progress. 
 
 But the Clerical reaction was never popular. Louis 
 Napoleon was popular, on account of his glorious name. The 
 national feeling, hurt or disappointed so many times, was alive 
 and awake, and entertained untold hopes and dreams about 
 the new Napoleon. He knew it, and did not care for any 
 
Land of the Revolution 167 
 
 abstract cause, but only for his own : he had been willing to 
 serve the Assembly, but he expected the Assembly to be 
 grateful and obedient. The conflict was bound to come. The 
 Constitution of 1848 contained a most dangerous clause: the 
 President, being elected by the direct suffrage of the whole 
 nation, had as much or more power than the Assembly which 
 was supposed to control his ministers' acts. When Louis 
 Napoleon found himself strong enough he broke the oath he 
 had solemnly taken of "remaining loyal to the Democratic 
 Republic, and defending the Constitution." By the criminal 
 Coup d'Etaf of 185 1 he instituted his own personal govern- 
 ment. Only a minority of advanced republicans resisted, and 
 terrible reprisals silenced their protest. The danger which had 
 been foreseen by Lamartine in 1840 had destroyed liberty. 
 The two feelings, which being still mixed together in 1830, had 
 been roused alike by the reappearance of the tricolour flag, 
 had now parted, and the opposition was stronger than ever 
 between the two irreconcilable principles, the struggle of which 
 had filled the first half of the century. 
 
 V. 
 
 The history of the Second Empire is not, it must be 
 admitted, a history of principles. A more unprincipled gang 
 of adventurers never took office than the people who sur- 
 rounded Napoleon III. But the same causes, which had 
 brought France to that dangerous turning of her career, were 
 still at work. — A noticeable fact is that the Imperial Govern- 
 ment was really popular with a large part of the nation : it 
 would be childish to deny it, and to try, as it has been done 
 sometimes, to represent France as having been tyrannised over 
 by a hated usurper. The system appealed to every conser- 
 vative instinct : the men of property, the tradespeople, the 
 landowning peasantry, were naturally on the side of the police, 
 and felt comforted under a government which was the very 
 
1 68 France 
 
 reign of policemen and gendarmes. With compulsory order 
 and silence an era of material prosperity began : Napoleon and 
 his ministers understood very well that it was their own 
 interest to help in the economic progress of the times. The 
 Emperor personally took part in the negotiations which resulted 
 in the treaty of commerce of i860 with England, and he 
 patronised the doctrine of free trade. The natural development 
 of industry and commerce after the great crisis of 1848, and 
 the general increase of wealth, contributed very much to the 
 Emperor's popularity. 
 
 At the same time as the material interests of a great part 
 of the nation were satisfied, satisfactions of the immaterial 
 order were offered to all, such as had been long expected and 
 waited for by French Jingoism. Was not Napoleon III the 
 nephew and successor of Napoleon I ? The longing for glory, 
 the memory of victories and conquests, and the galling remem- 
 brance of the invasions of 1814 and 181 5 had undermined the 
 Restoration, and had been checked with great difficulty by 
 Louis Philippe's cautious methods : but at last the time had 
 come. War after war, in Crimea, in Italy, in Mexico, succeeded 
 to the long period of peace which had followed Waterloo; 
 cheap triumphs appealed to the nation's vanity. While by his 
 aggressive and improvident policy the Emperor prepared irre- 
 trievable disaster, his subjects and himself were deluded by 
 outward appearances oi prestige and glory. 
 
 For such dangerous delusions the country had given up the 
 cause of liberty. The system of internal government was the 
 contrary of a liberal one : universal suffrage was domesticated, 
 the press muzzled, every idea of social reform forbidden and 
 prosecuted.— But the Revolution could not be stopped for ever. 
 Like steam in a boiler, it was sure to find some outlet, or 
 burst out. The exiles at first could alone raise their voices 
 against despotism : but they were heard in France, and when 
 Victor Hugo, on Guernsey's rock, wrote his immortal Ch&ti- 
 ments, the book's dedication was : " Book, may the wind take 
 
Land of the Revolution 169 
 
 thee — To France, where I was born...." After some years, 
 the opposition became strong enough to be represented in 
 the Legislative body. The Italian war, which estranged the 
 extreme Clericals, obliged the Emperor to offer some sort of 
 compromise to the moderate Liberals, and the republicans and 
 democrats were enabled to make further progress. Socialism, 
 which had nearly disappeared after 1848, was reviving under 
 the influence of Karl Marx, and the new generation were 
 dreaming again their fathers' dreams. Napoleon III at last, 
 after making an ineffectual experiment of what was called the 
 "Liberal Empire," committed his dynasty's future to the hazard 
 of a foreign war. 
 
 We have not to deal with the war of 1870, but only 
 to consider how it influenced the development of internal 
 history. It was a terrible lesson, which taught the nation 
 the real meaning of Caesarism — which had been forgotten so 
 soon after 1815. The fatherland being invaded, the memory 
 of the Revolution was recalled at once. The name of the 
 Republic was recurred to as a magic weapon : had not the 
 first Republic raised fourteen armies in the midst of national 
 distress, and defeated a coalition which included the whole of 
 Europe? The national passion this time was on the side of 
 liberty and Revolution again, and Gambetta's eloquence, which 
 before the Emperor's fall had boldly denounced the crime com- 
 mitted in 185 1, was now encouraging resistance against the 
 German conqueror. A tumultuous wave of national and social 
 hopes arose : not only victory was expected, but the establish- 
 ment of an ideal Republic, which was to fulfil the promises of 
 many Revolutions. Never was public opinion more sanguine 
 than in that dark hour. 
 
 A terrible disappointment fell upon the country after the 
 final collapse, and this explains the Commune of 1871, that 
 frightful rising, which mixed enraged patriots with violent 
 Socialists, those who thought the nation was betrayed with 
 those who believed a short effort would put down iniquity and 
 
1 70 France 
 
 establish the millennium of justice. Civil war succeeded foreign 
 war, and the world for some months thought it was all over 
 with France. — But after the storm we distinguish the same 
 elements, still opposing each other in the same way as before. 
 This time the lessons seem to have borne fruit, and the 
 progress of democracy will be regular and almost uninterrupted. 
 Every attempt against the spirit of the Revolution, however 
 formidable, will end in failure ; Boulangism after Marshal 
 Mac Mahon's Moral Order, Nationalism after Boulangism, will 
 be defeated, and the result will be the more and more secure 
 establishment of democratic institutions. 
 
 VI. 
 
 For the conflict between contradictory principles we have 
 just tried to relate in its main lines is slowly advancing towards 
 a settlement. French democracy does exist, and the growth 
 of a genuine democratic feeling is an undeniable fact. Take 
 the desire for equality : this may be called a democratic feeling, 
 the democratic feeling par excellence. The French military 
 system has been altered four times, under the pressure of that 
 desire. Conscription had been in existence ever since the 
 beginning of the first Empire : but the replacing of recruits 
 by paid substitutes was allowed, the result being that not one 
 young man of the wealthier class had to go to the army. 
 After 1870 every man was bound to serve as a soldier: but if 
 you could pay £fio and undergo a very easy examination, 
 you were sent to the barracks for one year only, while the 
 others remained there five years.* In 1889 a new Act instituted 
 the three years' compulsory service : only a few students, or the 
 widows' eldest sons, still enjoyed the privilege of serving one 
 year. Many abuses having crept into that system, which has 
 become inconsistent with the public need for equality, a new 
 Act is now in progress, which will take every man to the army 
 for two years, all alike, making no difference between work- 
 
Land of the Revolution 171 
 
 man and gentleman, rich and poor. Thus the poorest classes 
 will not be allowed to bear the heavier part of the common 
 burden. I think this is a fair instance of democratic progress. 
 The spreading of education is democracy : the present Re- 
 public has made elementary teaching compulsory, and millions 
 of children have been educated in consequence. One man 
 one vote is undoubtedly a democratic motto : France is the 
 first country where manhood suffrage has been in existence, 
 and what her most reactionary governments have done has 
 been to turn it to account according to their wishes, but they 
 never could destroy it. French democracy is fighting, but 
 advancing while it fights. 
 
 The last question is, whether the Revolution has still its broad 
 cosmopolitan character of a hundred years ago, whether we 
 could trace throughout the century the revolutionary influence 
 of France outside her borders ? This ought to be studied, 
 and would be a most interesting subject. The conflict between 
 past and present is nearly the same at bottom in every civilised 
 country : but nowhere is the logical opposition of principles 
 as clear and decided as in France, and this is enough to 
 maintain the influence of the French Revolution. France is 
 like a theatre, in which the interests and passions which the 
 looker-on feels confusedly struggling in his own bosom are 
 arranged into a striking and pathetic drama. The Marseillaise 
 is a revolutionary song for all countries. The three days of 
 July, 1848, set the half of Europe on fire ; in 1848 not a State 
 on the Continent remained untouched by Revolution, and 
 reaction in France was the beginning of reaction all round. 
 This influence may have diminished to-day, but I notice how 
 anxiously the public abroad observes whatever happens in 
 France, how for instance a French judicial case lately became 
 the very symbol of judicial iniquity in every country. And 
 why did that case rouse interest in all parts of the world? 
 because it illustrated another critical stage in the great struggle, 
 which has sometimes wronged the nation, but for the nation's 
 
172 France 
 
 true glory, which is not to be sought in war, but in sacrifices 
 made for civilisation, human progress, and justice. And so, in 
 the poet's words, 
 
 And so, I am strong to love this noble France, 
 
 This poet of the nations, who dreams on 
 
 For ever, after some ideal good, 
 
 Some equal poise of sex, some unvowed love 
 
 Inviolate, some spontaneous brotherhood, 
 
 Some wealth that leaves none poor and finds none tired. 
 
 Some freedom of the many that respects 
 
 The wisdom of the few. Heroic dreams ! 
 
 As long as such dreams are dreamt in France, as her 
 inhabitants are never content with dreaming only, she will 
 remain, as she has been for more than a hundred years, the 
 land of the Revolution. 
 
TWO STATESMEN OF THE THIRD 
 REPUBLIC. 
 
 By Professor Paul Mantoux. 
 
 No government was ever born under such tragical circum- 
 stances as the Third Republic. On the 3rd of September, 1870, 
 the first news from Sedan began to reach anxious and excited 
 Paris : something about a great battle, Marshal Mac Mahon 
 wounded or killed, the whole army in danger of being sur- 
 rounded by the enemy. Soon after, the whole truth, the naked, 
 terrible truth became known : the Emperor had surrendered 
 with ninety thousand men, and the road to Paris was laid open 
 to the invader. Under such circumstances, on the 4th of 
 September, public indignation swept away the ruined Empire, 
 and the Republic was established. Its beginnings were hardly 
 less trying than the occasion of its birth : after a desperate 
 resistance, France had to submit to the conqueror's will, while 
 a dreadful rising was adding to the evils of war the horrors of 
 the most infuriated civil strife. There are still two generations 
 of Parisian people who remember the dark days of April and 
 May 187 1, when the red flag of the Commune was waving over 
 Paris, the tricolour over Versailles ; and over St Denis, at three 
 miles distance from the capital, the new flag of the German 
 Empire : for the victorious German troops were still there, 
 looking at the great city, to which some of her inhabitants had 
 set fire, and which, with its hideous crown of smoke and flames, 
 was like a circle of Dante's Inferno. 
 
1 74 France 
 
 I think it would be a mistaken feeling for a Frenchman 
 to feel uneasy about the recollection of those times. On the 
 contrary, a Frenchman ought to be proud when he considers 
 that his country has survived such an ordeal ; that France not 
 only was not destroyed, but soon reappeared as strong and 
 prosperous as ever, resuming her position among nations, and 
 her work of civilisation and progress. .This is certainly due 
 to the vital forces of the nation, but also to a few men 
 who deserved the title of restorers of the country as well as 
 that of founders of the Republic. Thiers and Gambetta were 
 most prominent among them. Thiers was like a cunning old 
 physician, who cured the wounds of France and managed to 
 keep aside the monarchical quack-doctors. Gambetta, after 
 organising national defence in 1870, led the democratic move- 
 ment between 1875 ^^^^^ 1883. The history of both their 
 careers will not only make us acquainted with two of the most 
 interesting characters in recent times ; it goes far to explain 
 how the Republic, being born among such dangers, was able in 
 spite of all to live and thrive. 
 
 I. 
 
 No portrait is more popularly known than that of old 
 Thiers, as he was in the latter days of his life : a short, very 
 short old man, in an eternal black frock-coat, with a shrewd, 
 clean-shaven face, a funny little tuft of white hair over it, and 
 sparkling eyes behind a pair of round spectacles. That was at 
 the time when he used to say about himself: "I am an old, 
 old umbrella which has become used to rain, from having seen 
 so many showers." Many, indeed, for his experience of 
 political meteorology had begun more than fifty years before, 
 even before the stormy days of July 1830. 
 
 He was born in 1797, at Marseilles, and he always kept 
 the quick gestures and speech of the Southerner, and also the 
 accent, which gave an amusing tone to his fluty voice. He 
 
Thiers and Gambetta 175 
 
 became known as early as 1823 or 1824 by his contributions 
 to liberal papers, and soon undertook an important historical 
 work : a History of the Revolution, which was, with Mignet's 
 shorter book, the first attempt to deal with the subject. He 
 had been encouraged in his beginnings by somebody who was 
 a clear-sighted judge of talent, the old diplomatist Talleyrand. 
 In January, 1830, a new Opposition paper was published 
 against the Polignac Ministry : its title was Le National. It 
 was secretly patronised by Talleyrand, and in carefully chosen 
 words advocated a revolution similar to the English revolution 
 of 1688 : nobody could be mistaken about the new William 
 the Third, who was the Duke of Orleans. Thiers, who ran that 
 paper, was then a young man of a rather enthusiastic temper : 
 he took a very active part in the events of July 1830. 
 
 The Monarchy of July was a most favourable time to the 
 development of his political fortunes. It was the reign of the 
 middle-class, and he was most distinctly a middle-class man, 
 with middle-class views and even prejudices. He soon became 
 a parliamentary leader, and took office several times, being 
 twice Prime Minister. His rivalry with Guizot has remained 
 famous. The difference between them was perhaps a difference 
 of temper more than of principles : Guizot was cold, haughty, 
 somewhat pedantic, and could not become easily popular ; 
 Thiers, on the contrary, was good-natured, talkative, and of 
 easy access, more open to the currents and counter-currents of 
 opinion than his rival, more liberal at least in appearance — for 
 he was convinced as much as Guizot that the government of 
 the middle-class was the best possible. Above all, he sympa- 
 thised with the popular feeling concerning national glory : 
 during his leisures he compiled his huge History of the Con- 
 sulate and Empire, paying thus his tribute to Napoleon's 
 memory. 
 
 Whether in office or in opposition, he equally distinguished 
 himself by his deep knowledge of public business, the admirable 
 clearness of his mind, which seemed to unravel without the 
 
1 76 France 
 
 least effort the most intricate questions, and by his peculiar 
 eloquence, which was that of an unrivalled debater: never 
 appealing strongly to the feelings of his audience, but per- 
 suading them by skilful arguments, as distinct and easy in his 
 reasoning as the sound of his shrill Southern voice, and making 
 figures themselves attractive. He was loved by the bourgeoisie 
 of 1840; he was a favourite with the jolly national guards, 
 whose pot-bellies and peaceful whiskers have been so often 
 portrayed in the amusing cartoons of Daumier and Gavarni. 
 
 In 1848 the evolution of his opinions was most significant. 
 As a man of the middle class he hated and was afraid of 
 Socialism : he not only opposed its progress as a politician, but 
 also as an economist. About that time he wrote his little book 
 on Property, which was an attempt to justify Capitalism by 
 reducing political economy into Franklin's advice: "Take care 
 of your pence, and your pounds will take care of themselves.'' 
 It is curious enough that, while he explained the right of 
 property by admitting that wealth is identical with work, he was 
 preparing the way to the theory of Karl Marx on the origin of 
 Capital. He was of course indignant against the rising of 
 June, 1848, and very bitter against the labouring classes; he 
 went as far as to call them, in a public debate, " a vile mob,'' 
 which was not entitled to retain the franchise. He sided with 
 the anti-liberal reaction in 1849 ^.nd 1850, and supported the 
 Falloux Act in favour of Clerical education. But his hatred of 
 socialism and advanced democracy did not obscure his per- 
 ception of the dangers of despotism : he denounced Louis 
 Napoleon's ambition, and soon led the opposition against his 
 suspected schemes : " If this House," he said on one occasion, 
 " does not maintain its right, the Empire is as good as made.'' 
 
 After years of forced silence, when parliamentary discussion 
 became possible again, he was the most unrelenting and the 
 most competent critic of Napoleon Ill's faults. There was 
 hardly an important debate in which he did not express the 
 protest of liberal and enlightened opinion against the Imperial 
 
Thiers and Gambetta 177 
 
 rkgime. He criticised everything : the financial policy, which 
 consisted in spending money without end for objectionable 
 wars, and in burdening the nation with loans, without any care 
 for the future; the foreign policy, when Denmark was sacrificed 
 to the German Powers, or when Napoleon III undertook the 
 nonsensical establishment of a Mexican Empire. When, in 
 spite of Thiers's advice, France contented herself with looking 
 on the struggle between Austria and Prussia, and by her 
 inactivity made possible and sanctioned as it were the Prussian 
 victory at Sadowa, Thiers bitterly exclaimed : " There is not 
 a blunder which has not been committed." There was still 
 another most dangerous blunder in store, which was committed 
 when war was declared against Prussia in July, 1870. 
 
 Had the French ambassador been insulted by William I's 
 refusing to discuss any more with him on the question of the 
 Spanish succession, which seemed to be settled by Leopold 
 von HohenzoUern's retirement? Did Bismarck alone create 
 the sensation by his altered edition of the telegram from Ems 
 relating the interview? Anyhow the French ministers, who 
 knew the truth, contrived, as much as Bismarck did, to keep 
 the genuine report in the dark : they wanted to incense the 
 national feeling and have war. Thiers then delivered the most 
 eloquent speech of his life, among the furious ejaculations of 
 rabid Bonapartists, for whom a man who dared oppose the 
 War policy was no better than a traitor : " If you can't under- 
 stand," he said, turning to them, " if you can't understand that 
 I am now performing a duty, and the most painful one in my 
 life, I pity you indeed. I am ready to suffer anything for 
 preserving my countrymen's blood, which you are so heed- 
 lessly going to spill. You may insult me, I don't care." On 
 that day he deserved the nation's gratitude, and the power 
 which was committed to him immediately after that unhappy 
 war. 
 
 He had still another painful duty to perform. The Govern- 
 ment of National Defence sent him, though he was an old man 
 
 H. L. 12 
 
178 France 
 
 of over seventy-three, on a general embassy to the courts of 
 Europe. He visited London, Vienna, Florence, Petersburg, 
 asking for help, trying to rouse sympathy or interest : he was 
 received everywhere as a distinguished guest, but how could he 
 have induced any Government to associate its country's fortunes 
 with those of overwhelmed France ? That mission put him as 
 it were above political parties. When the general election for 
 the National Assembly took place, in February, 1871, he was 
 elected by twenty-four constituencies. As soon as the Assembly 
 met, he was by common assent appointed Head of the Execu- 
 tive. Then began the most remarkable period in the course of 
 his long political life. 
 
 He had to face the greatest difficulties a statesman ever 
 met. Peace was not concluded yet ; everything in the country 
 was destroyed or disturbed ; the advanced wing of democracy 
 was ready to rebel against the Assembly ; and the Assembly, 
 elected by special permission of Bismarck under German super- 
 vision, was full of monarchists who dreamed of a Restoration. 
 The most urgent question was the question of peace. Thiers 
 was perhaps the only man who could negotiate on equal terms 
 "with Bismarck : his keen practical sense was a match to 
 Bismarck's cynicism. Jules Favre, an "old beard of 1848," 
 had been a butt to the cruel sarcastic vein of the Chancellor, 
 who used to hit hard. With Thiers it was quite different : 
 Bismarck had to deal with a sharp business man, who ques- 
 tioned and discussed everything, and to whose prodigious 
 knowledge of circumstances and men even a consummate 
 statesman was obliged to bow. The victory won by Germany 
 being a crushing one, the conditions of peace could not be 
 much bettered by Thiers ; and yet he succeeded in keeping 
 Belfort, which had never been taken by the enemy, and had 
 been surrendered only by an article of the peace preliminaries. 
 So a small district of Alsace has remained part of the French 
 territory. And it must be observed that Belfort plays a most 
 important part in the present system of defence of the Eastern 
 
Thiers and Gambetta 179 
 
 frontier, being a key to one of the doors through which France 
 might be invaded. The Assembly ratified the treaty without 
 much opposition : most of its members had been sent there for 
 the express purpose of making peace. The Extreme Left only, 
 including Gambetta and Victor Hugo, advocated resistance to 
 the bitter end, and reproached Thiers with not having exhausted 
 the nation's last resources before consenting to the loss of 
 Alsace and Lorraine. 
 
 After the treaty had been signed and ratified, another diffi- 
 culty began. There was a terrible clause : France was to pay 
 a war indemnity amounting to 200 million sterling, five 
 thousand million francs ! The German troops were to be 
 withdrawn gradually, in proportion to the sum paid after each 
 fixed period. How to find the money ? The Treasury was 
 empty, and the whole country north of the Loire had suffered 
 from invasion. But Thiers did not despair : as early as the 
 spring of 1872, he found himself able to undertake a loan. The 
 public was asked to subscribe the ^200,000,000 : more than 
 a thousand millions were offered, such was the confidence 
 which Thiers's name and policy had inspired. Then he began 
 freeing the territory from foreign occupation: in October, 1873, 
 there was not a German soldier within the new frontier. 
 
 Thiers had been elected Head of the Executive in February, 
 1 87 1. In the course of the following month, on the 18th of 
 March, the Commune broke out in Paris. It is difficult for 
 a Frenchman, after thirty years only, to express an impartial 
 opinion on the Commune. Those who fought against the 
 rising still consider it as a heinous crime, an absurd and 
 inhuman outburst of misery and ignorance, turned to account 
 by a few villains. Those who fought on the side of the Com- 
 mune, and most of the present Socialists, will tell you the 
 Commune was a righteous Revolution for the attainment of 
 social justice, which the selfish middle-class mercilessly sup- 
 pressed ; and if they are reproached with the hostages' murder 
 and the Tuileries' arson, they will answer by dreadful stories on 
 
1 80 France 
 
 the wholesale slaughter which undeniably took place during 
 the "gory week" of May: for them Thiers was no better 
 than a butcher in the service of the bloodthirsty bourgeoisie. I 
 think we ought to consider what the people on both sides had 
 suffered during the war : there lies the real explanation of both 
 parties' violence and crimes. The Commune, far from being 
 chiefly a social rising, was to a large extent a Chauvinistic 
 movement, led by enraged patriots, who thought defeat had 
 been caused by treason : on the other hand, the atrocities 
 which were committed by the regular troops when the rebellion 
 was crushed are explained, if not justified, by the indignation 
 of having to subdue their own countrymen while the foreign 
 conqueror was looking on. 
 
 What Thiers did was in his position the only thing to do. 
 He did not try to resist the insurrection in Paris. He knew 
 enough about Revolutions. Already in 1848 he had, we are 
 told, advised the King to withdraw his forces from the capital, 
 and to undertake a siege. That is what he did himself in 1871 : 
 not only the army, but every official or agent of the Govern- 
 ment, down to the gaolers of the Paris prisons, were called 
 back to Versailles, thus leaving the city to disorder and 
 anarchy. Then the second siege of Paris began : at the end of 
 May it was all over with the Commune. Whether the cruelty 
 of the repression — thousands of persons being shot in Paris, 
 thousands sentenced and transported — is to be ascribed to 
 Thiers, it would be unfair to decide before the time for more 
 impartial history has come. Anyhow peace and order were 
 restored at last, and the new Government securely established. 
 
 Another danger still threatened that Government : there 
 was a general belief that it could not escape being soon con- 
 verted into a Monarchy. Thiers had been a Monarchist, and 
 the Prime Minister of a King. But after so many Revolutions 
 he had come to the conclusion that Monarchy had become im- 
 possible in France. It may be that his personal ambition was 
 interested in such a conclusion ; and yet we must observe that 
 
Thiers and Gambetta i8i; 
 
 he professed still more Republican feelings after he had left 
 office than when he held it. His Republic was not to be 
 democratic in the extreme : he still styled himself a Conserva- 
 tive — a word which in his mind was not the opposite of Liberal 
 — and he used to say : " The Republic will be Conservative, or 
 it shall not exist." 
 
 Conservative as he was, the National Assembly of 187 1 
 distrusted his advanced views. It was, like the Assembly 
 of 1849, full of country gentlemen, either Legitimists — sup- 
 porters of Henri V, grandson of Charles X — or Orleanists — 
 supporters of the Count of Paris, grandson of Louis Philippe. 
 They hated democracy, and were above all devoted to the 
 Clerical cause. A typical fact was their vote consecrating 
 France to the recent and idolatrous worship of the Sacred Heart, 
 for which a large church was to be erected on the top of 
 Montmartre Hill. If they had put Thiers at their head, it was 
 because they could hardly compete with his immense and well- 
 deserved popularity, and also because they were afraid of 
 another man, Gambetta. The whole skill of the old statesman 
 was required for remaining in office and maintaining the 
 Republic in spite of the majority. By his services he had 
 won an unequalled prestige. He knew the weakness of the 
 monarchical parties, their prejudices and their mutual differ- 
 ences : he knew how to counterbalance them by each other. 
 In the autumn of 187 1 he changed his title for the more signifi- 
 cant one of President of the French Republic. But he would 
 not give up his right of taking part in parliamentary debates ; 
 he mastered the Assembly by the lucidity of his views, the 
 weight of his experience and the cleverness of his political 
 tactics. His enemies could not prevail before they had passed 
 a standing order, under which the President could not address 
 the House except on certain occasions : such was the direct 
 influence of his person and his oratory ! 
 
 The whole of the year 1872 was spent in reorganising the 
 country. The army was reconstructed : military service was 
 made compulsory for every man between twenty-one and forty 
 
1 82 France 
 
 years of age, with a time of actual service amounting to five 
 years, the rest being spent in reserves more or less similar to 
 the German landwehr and landsturm. Another important law, 
 on local government, allowed more independent rights to local 
 authorities than under the former regimes. Again and again 
 the Monarchists tried to win Thiers to their side, but he kept 
 his own ground, and went on organising the Republic. The 
 bye-elections of 1873 were Republican, and even Radical. 
 Thiers's own candidate in Paris, M. de Remusat, did not 
 succeed against an obscure Radical politician. This served as 
 a pretext for Thiers's fall. All the men who had unwillingly 
 followed and obeyed him during two years rose against him, 
 charging him with being unable to stop the advance of 
 demagogy. A man who belonged to a great Orleanist family, 
 the Duke of Broglie, led the attack, and remonstrated about 
 the expediency of checking the audacity of Radicalism and 
 restoring " moral order " in the country. Thiers's administra- 
 tion was upset ; and Marshal Mac Mahon, who was known to 
 have monarchical sympathies, became President. From the 
 date of the 24th of May, 1873, the Republic seemed to be 
 doomed to destruction. 
 
 The four last years of Thiers's life showed the boundless 
 gratitude, confidence, and respect, with which he was sur- 
 rounded by the nation. As long as his age allowed him to do 
 so, he sat in the Chamber, among the Republican party. He 
 could no more assume the heavy duties of leadership, but his 
 advice was asked for and followed like an oracle. He voted 
 against the "moral order " Government of the Duke of Broglie, 
 and opposed Clerical reaction. After a Republican constitution 
 had been voted in 1875 — by a majority of one vote — Marshal 
 Mac Mahon and the Monarchists made a desperate attempt 
 to govern against the new Assembly : Thiers was one of the 
 363 deputies who passed the famous resolution, refusing to 
 acknowledge the Ministry appointed on the i6th of May, 
 1877. He was now reconciled with the more advanced 
 Republicans. On one occasion, as a Reactionary Minister, 
 
Thiers and Gambetta 183 
 
 M. de Fourtou, had said in a speech : " Our Government has 
 freed the national territory from foreign occupation," Gambetta 
 sprang to his feet and exclaimed, pointing to Thiers : " The 
 liberator of the territory, here you see him ! " And a storm of 
 applause followed, while every man in the House turned to the 
 little old man, who was sitting unmoved in his seat of the Left 
 Centre. 
 
 He died in the same year, in the midst of public excite- 
 ment and agitation. The Republican Chamber had been 
 dissolved by President Mac Mahon, the general election was 
 near, and the whole country was anxious about the result. 
 Thiers's funeral was a huge Republican demonstration ; a 
 hundred thousand persons followed the hearse, and the 
 mourning was universal. Persons who have seen other State 
 funerals in Paris will tell you they never noticed such a 
 striking silence, such signs of genuine and deep sorrow. 
 Thiers in his old age had become the living standard of two 
 causes equally dear to an immense majority of his country- 
 men : the cause of fatherland and the cause of liberty. What 
 he did for France in the most critical circumstances of her 
 modern history will never be forgotten. And it is a most 
 interesting fact, that the evolution of his political ideas was 
 achieved under such circumstances, when he was an old man 
 with fifty years' experience of politics : he always remained 
 a man of the middle class, ready to suppress by force any 
 attempt to alter the constitution of society, but he inclined 
 more and more to Liberal and Republican principles. The 
 Republic as he understood it was still a narrow one, but its 
 being in existence made possible the wider and more democratic 
 Republic of the future. 
 
 II. 
 
 Thiers's and Gambetta's names have become closely asso- 
 ciated on account of the prominent part they took in politics 
 at the same time, since the beginning of the Franco-German 
 war ; the memory of one is nearly as remote as the memory of 
 
1 84 France 
 
 the other, Gambetta having survived Thiers but by a few years. 
 It is hard to realise there was more than a generation's distance 
 between them. Thiers was born in the eighteenth century, 
 and his political career was one of the longest recorded in any 
 country : for he was known as a journalist since 1823, and he 
 died in 1877. Gambetta's career, which had begun as early, 
 was on the contrary a very short one : when he died he was 
 very far from being an old man, being hardly more than forty- 
 four. As his death occurred in 1883, it is easy to calculate 
 that if he had lived he would be now sixty- three, he would be 
 Mr Chamberlain's junior. So he was more than forty years 
 younger than Thiers : we must not be surprised if he was 
 possessed with all the vigour and enthusiasm of youth, and if 
 his democratic ideals were more modern than those of the aged 
 statesman. 
 
 Both of them were Southerners, with the Southern talent of 
 easy and fluent speech : but Nature, which had given to Thiers 
 a short figure and a thin silvery voice, had endowed Gambetta 
 with powerful shoulders, dark hair, and a beard which he used 
 to shake like a lion's mane, a voice that rolled like thunder, 
 and could express the strongest emotion, scorn, or anger. He 
 was, much more than Thiers, the type of the orator; oratory 
 was his very life ; his enemies malignantly hinted that when he 
 was not speaking he was not thinking either. Thiers's manners 
 and style of life were those of a well-to-do old bourgeois. 
 Gambetta led rather an artist's life, and was a slave to his wild 
 passions as was another great orator whom he resembled in 
 many ways, Mirabeau. 
 
 In 1867, the despotic system of the Second Empire, which 
 had been somewhat relaxed already, was replaced by a sort 
 of rnitigated Liberalism, preparing the way for the so-called 
 "Liberal" Empire. An Imperial decree gave back to deputies 
 the right of asking questions; public meetings were allowed 
 to be held under certain conditions, and the press recovered 
 a part of its former Uberty. The Republicans at. once made 
 use of that liberty for uttering their long-silenced protest 
 
Thiers and Gambetta 185 
 
 against the criminal Coup d'Etat of 1851. It was proposed 
 to erect a monument to the memory of the victims, and more 
 especially of the deputy Baudin, who had been shot while 
 defending the Constitution against the man who had sworn 
 to respect and preserve it. The editor of the paper which had 
 started the subscription was prosecuted, and took Gambetta for 
 his counsel. 
 
 Gambetta was then a young, briefless barrister, his eloquence 
 being known but to a few friends : but the day after the trial it 
 was known to the whole country. His speech at the bar was 
 an indignant charge against rampant usurpation : " On the 
 2nd of December a pretender rallied round him men without 
 any ability, without any character... men who would have made 
 themselves, at any time, the accomplices of the most hateful 
 outrages upon the laws of the country.... You have been for 
 seventeen years possessed of absolute power ; well, you never 
 dared to say : 'We will commemorate, we will reckon among 
 national commemorations the 2nd of December.' And yet all 
 the former regimes have prided themselves on the day of their 
 birth : only two dates were omitted till now, the 1 8th of 
 Brumaire and the 2nd of December : because you are well 
 aware that if you dared to commemorate such days, the moral 
 conscience of the world would rise against them and you ! " 
 
 The nation was thrilled by Gambetta's eloquence, and he 
 soon became a leader of the rising Republican party. In i86g 
 he was returned to Parliament : his experience of practical politics 
 had been a very short one, when the war of 1870 broke out. 
 
 On the 4th of September, 1870, after the Emperor's for- 
 feiture had been proclaimed, a Provisional Government was 
 hurriedly constituted : among its members was the young 
 orator Gambetta. The name of the Republic, and the memory 
 of the republican victories over invaders, had sent throughout 
 the country a wave of enthusiastic- feeling. Gambetta was the 
 man of that feeling : he knew the better what enthusiasm can 
 work in a French soul because he was himself intensely 
 French in that respect. But he was not only the Government's 
 
1 86 France 
 
 speaker; he did not only stir the Parisian population by his 
 proclamations and speeches. He left the beleaguered city, the 
 inhabitants of which he had incited to endure every suffering 
 before surrendering to the enemy, and, crossing the besiegers' 
 lines in a balloon, he assumed the overwhelming, impossible 
 task of organising resistance in the provinces. 
 
 Impossible, indeed, it seemed to be. Of the Imperial 
 military system nothing was left. Out of two great armies one 
 had been destroyed at Sedan, the other one was blockaded in 
 Metz, where Marshal Bazaine soon surrendered after weeks of 
 suspicious inaction. The few remaining regiments were shut 
 up in Paris. When Gambetta began his work at Tours he had 
 hardly a penny or a soldier to rely upon. He had not even 
 lists of officers : we are told he heard for the first time of 
 General d'Aurelles de Paladines in a conversation with a man 
 he happened to meet in a railway carriage. What he contrived 
 to do is simply stupendous. Helped by technical men like 
 the engineer de Freycinet he raised thousands of men, got 
 clothes, arms, and ammunition for them, and food in the 
 middle of the winter. Three armies were organised, one down 
 the Loire under d'Aurelles and Chanzy, one in Northern France 
 under Faidherbe, one in the East under Bourbaki. These 
 armies won several victories : they were doomed to final disaster, 
 the men being raw recruits, who suffered much from the excep- 
 tionally cold weather, and had to fight against well-trained and 
 well-supplied troops, reinforced by inexhaustible reserves ; but 
 their resistance lasted nearly five months, from the beginning 
 of September to the end of January, five months after Sedan, 
 when the Prussian generals had thought the war would be at 
 an end in a fortnight's time. If France at last fell, she did not 
 disgrace herself by her fall : her honour had been saved owing 
 to Gambetta's patriotism, enthusiasm, and indomitable will. 
 
 Gambetta was so sanguine about the work he had under- 
 taken, he had such hopes of final success that he was indignant 
 when he first heard of peace. He would have refused Bismarck's 
 offer of a truce for a general election ; his opinion was the 
 
Thiers and Gambetta 187 
 
 struggle ought to be led with more energy and doggedness than 
 ever. But his views were disapproved of by Thiers, and by 
 his colleagues of the Provisional Government, Jules Simon, 
 Garnier Pagfes, etc. Before the polling-day he resigned, laying 
 down the extraordinary power which for a few months had 
 made him a sort of dictator. The Assembly, which met at 
 Bordeaux in February, 187 1, and in which he sat as a Radical 
 deputy, could not possibly agree with him. The majority 
 had been elected " in an evil hour " (an expression which 
 Republicans afterwards ironically quoted) when the country 
 was tired of war and afraid of Revolution : its tendency was 
 a decidedly reactionary one. Garibaldi, who had been fight- 
 ing with the French army, was not allowed to take his 
 deputy's seat, because he was an alien ; Victor Hugo was 
 hooted because he spoke against peace, and an unknown 
 Breton bard told him he was not speaking French. An in- 
 tense distrust of Republican Paris prevailed among the country 
 squires and landowners who represented rural constituencies : 
 the title of capital was transferred to Versailles, a measure 
 which certainly was one of the causes of the Commune's rising. 
 Gambetta to such people was no better than a Revolutionist and 
 a firebrand. After protesting against the clauses of the treaty 
 with Germany, he sent in his resignation, and left the Assembly. 
 Bye-elections took place in July, 187 1 : Republicans were 
 elected nearly everywhere. Peace being made and Revolution 
 suppressed, the nation was no more in a state of panic, and 
 was coming back to democracy. Gambetta, when he re- 
 entered Parliament, was no more standing by himself, almost 
 alone against a hostile majority : the rising movement of 
 democracy was with him. But his position' in the Assembly 
 was still a difficult one, for he could support Thiers's general 
 policy, but on many points he did not agree with the 
 President's views. While his influence in Parliament was 
 a wea]f one, he found another and a wider field for his un- 
 impaired activity. He began travelling through the country, ^ 
 addressing meetings ; he denounced reaction and advocated 
 
1 88 France 
 
 reform. He jocularly called himself "the commercial traveller 
 of the Republic." His unrelenting propaganda for Democracy 
 was followed by the Radical bye-elections of 1873, which 
 became the pretext of Thiers's fall. 
 
 The offensive move of the Monarchists brought about a 
 close alliance between the moderate and the advanced Re- 
 publicans. The young Republic was in danger. It was no 
 mystery that Marshal Mac Mahon had Royalist connections, 
 and the new Premier, the Duke of Broglie, was a professed 
 Royalist. In the autumn of 1873 everything was ready for 
 a Restoration, and the Count of Chambord would have become 
 Henri V — it was reported the coronation carriage had been 
 ordered — if he had not unexpectedly wrecked his own cause. 
 With a remarkable devotion to his principles, and an astonish- 
 ing lack of political sense, he declared he would never change 
 the white flag of his ancestors for the tricolour, which in his 
 eyes was but an emblem of Revolution. This was enough to 
 make his accession impossible. France could not be brought 
 as far back as 1829. But, if a Restoration could not be 
 effected, the Monarchists were still in office, and, feeling public 
 opinion was turning against them, they tried by stringent 
 measures to stop the progress of Republican and Demo- 
 cratic ideas. The law on local government was altered ; the 
 Minister of the Interior was to appoint the mayors, as under 
 Napoleon III : there was a clean sweep of Republican muni- 
 cipalities of course. While Republican demonstrations were 
 hardly tolerated, the Reactionists, and even the Bonapartists, 
 so justly unpopular after Sedan, were let loose : they used 
 intimidation : Gambetta once was assaulted as he was coming 
 back from Versailles. The parties of reaction knew he was 
 their most dangerous opponent ; and his eloquence was never 
 more unwelcome to them than when it expressed the grow- 
 ing dissatisfaction of the nation. 
 
 He was still the leader of a parliamentary minority.. But 
 after the Constitution of 1875 — ^^ present French Consti- 
 tution — had been voted owing to the disagreement between 
 
Thiers and Gambetta i8^ 
 
 Imperialists, Royalists, and Conservatives, the Republic was 
 no more a provisional state of things, but the lawfully 
 established regime under which the country was to live. The 
 National Assembly broke up at last, and the popular vote 
 returned to the new Chamber a strong Republican majority. 
 Gambetta's position was a very peculiar one. As long as 
 Marshal Mac Mahon's Presidency lasted there could be no 
 question of his taking office : for the President was reluctant 
 enough to appoint even Moderates like Jules Simon and 
 Dufaure. But Gambetta's influence was so great that his 
 enemies hinted he was playing the dictator again. He took 
 every opportunity of showing he was not only an orator : as 
 Chairman of the Budget Committee he gave proof of un- 
 common financial ability. And, as some extreme Radicals 
 reproached him with being corrupted by success and desert- 
 ing his former ideals, he answered by the famous Belleville 
 speech, which expressed his views on practical statesmanship : 
 " We have been accused of indulging in compromise : but 
 men cannot be governed except by compromise. Some people 
 will jeer at what they are pleased to call the policy of results. 
 But the results are before you : it is for you to judge. A policy 
 which would not take opportunity into account I call a policy 
 of disaster. Opportunism ? what does the name matter, if the 
 country approves of the thing ? " 
 
 The speech was much commented upon at home and 
 abroad : it clearly meant that the French Republic was ready 
 to begin its work of practical reform in a wise and conciliating 
 spirit. But before this could be undertaken the Republic had 
 to repel another assault against its very existence. Gambetta 
 had denounced already the dangerous action of the Catholic 
 party, when several bishops and preachers had tried to rouse 
 public opinion against Italy in favour of the "captive" Pope. 
 After showing how they wanted to control the foreign and 
 home policy for their own clerical ends, Gambetta concluded 
 by the famous words : " Le Cl^ricalisme, voila I'ennemi ! " 
 Clericalism soon had its revenge. On the i6th of May, 1877, 
 
1 90 France 
 
 Marshal MacMahon under a trifling pretext dismissed his 
 Republican ministers, who had never lost the Chamber's con- 
 fidence, and appointed a Clerical and Reactionary Cabinet, with 
 the Duke of Broglie as Prime Minister. 
 
 The majority resented the challenge, and a public protest 
 was at once issued by 363 deputies, Gambetta being one of 
 them, of course. During the agitated period which imme- 
 diately followed, his eloquence, his unrivalled power as popular 
 tribune and propagandist, were more valuable than ever to his 
 party. It was in the Chamber at first that he led the attack 
 against "the parsons in office/' who occupied the Ministerial 
 bench. The Chamber was then dissolved, and the Government 
 used every legal and illegal means for securing a majority. 
 Prefects were discharged wholesale, and changed for Bona- 
 partist or Royalist agents, and every kind of pressure was tried. 
 Thousands of prosecutions for political offences took place in 
 a few months. But the more an unpopular Government forced 
 itself upon the country, the more the country cheered the 
 deputies of the Republican majority, who each in his con- 
 stituency were urging the voters to resistance. As for 
 Gambetta, his constituency on that occasion was France itself. 
 In every part of the country he had, not only supporters, but 
 men who had been working under him during the critical days 
 of 1875, and who were ready to work for him at any time. He 
 took his " commercial traveller's " bag again, and was received 
 everywhere with enthusiastic applause. Among his many 
 speeches the most celebrated one is the Lille speech, which 
 contained the threatening advice to Mac Mahon : " After the 
 nation's supreme voice shall have decided, the only choice will 
 be between submission and resignation." For this speech 
 Gambetta was prosecuted. But the general election was near, 
 and resulted in utter defeat for the Government. The Presi- 
 dent did not submit at once : he replaced the Duke of Broglie 
 by an obscure general, and contemplated a new Dissolution, or 
 a Coup d'etat. But the country's hostile feeling compelled him 
 at last to submission. So the great and momentous struggle, 
 
Thiers and Gambetta 191 
 
 known as the i6th of May period, ended in victory for the 
 Republicans and their brilliant leader, Gambetta. 
 
 In the following years, when his friends were in oflSce and 
 he himself had been elected to the Presidency of the Chamber, 
 everybody looked at him as the coming man. He did not 
 assume at first the burden of government, but Jules Ferry and 
 Freycinet were known to take his advice. His influence was 
 felt in every important measure or reform, especially when the 
 Chamber dealt with the Educational question, and, by the Act 
 of 1881, established elementary education for all children, at 
 the expense of the State. The older Republicans followed him 
 as the chief who had led them to many hard battles. Young 
 politicians swarmed round him and took lessons of him : men 
 like M. Waldeck Rousseau thus acquired their first knowledge 
 of politics. Gambetta was not sparing of his advice : he could 
 not have remained inactive or silent; being President of the 
 Chamber, when he became too much interested in a debate, he 
 often committed the chair to a Vice-President, and, reappearing 
 in his private member's capacity, he delivered a speech in his 
 usual impassioned style, and then resumed his impartial func- 
 tions again. He was the object of many attacks, from the 
 Right side, and from the Extreme Left, for some Radicals did 
 not approve of his ideas on political compromise, but he did 
 not care. Some of the charges made against him were rather 
 ludicrous : the Monarchists, for instance, accused him of play- 
 ing the democrat, while he was living in a gorgeous country 
 seat, spending his nights in prodigal revelry, and using — 
 shame ! — a golden bathing-tub ! Everybody now can visit his 
 villa at Ville d'Avray, near Paris, and see that palace of the 
 Arabian Nights, which is a rather small and quite unpretending 
 country-house. 
 
 After the election of 1880, he had become at last Prime 
 Minister : but his plans were too ambitious for immediate 
 success. His Bill for Constitutional Reform miscarried, and 
 his " Great Administration " did not last more than two months. 
 He had resigned without much regret : he thought his time 
 
192 France 
 
 had not come yet : he was hardly more than forty years old. 
 The future was his, and the hopes of democracy centred round 
 him. He was more powerful, more hopeful than ever, when 
 he suddenly died, on the last day of the year 1882. The public 
 mourning was nearly as great and general as for Thiers's death. 
 Even some of those who had been his most decided opponents 
 during his lifetime remembered the terrible days when his elo- 
 quence had restored fortitude to the prostrated and despairing 
 nation, when his political genius was not used against any party, 
 but against the enemies of the country. The tricolour flag 
 which was spread over his coffin was the flag of the nation he 
 had represented in a time of danger, and the flag of the Revolu- 
 tion, the spirit of which he had been defending and propagating 
 down to the last day of his life. 
 
 It has been a fashion lately to inveigh against his memory, 
 as if he had started a sham democratic tradition, skilfully 
 turned to account by selfish politicians. Such accusations are 
 unjust. Gambetta was certainly not an Extreme Radical, and 
 still less a Socialist : but he first taught many Radicals and 
 Socialists what democracy means. While Thiers had remained 
 a Conservative bourgeois, in the eyes of whom the Republic 
 was no more than another experiment of the system which had 
 ended in failure under King Louis Philippe, Gambetta under- 
 stood the Republic as " the government of the people by the 
 people, for the people." To Thiers it was the conclusion of 
 a long, weary life ; to Gambetta the beginning of bright hopes. 
 But Gambetta's work would not have been possible without 
 Thiers's action, and neither of them would have succeeded if 
 they had not been made immensely popular by their services to 
 France at the most critical moment of her history. 
 
THE STRUGGLE FOR ITALIAN UNITY. 
 
 By Bolton King, M.A. 
 
 The unity of Italy was perhaps the highest political achieve- 
 ment of the last century ; it was certainly the most difficult. 
 The side, that we generally know most of, — the struggle with 
 Austria, the conquest of Sicily, the pathos of Charles Albert's 
 life, all the picturesque and brilliant movement that centres 
 round Garibaldi, — was but one aspect of the story, and perhaps 
 not the most arduous. The Italian movement has had five 
 great questions to resolve; — how the Austrians should be 
 driven out from their possessions in North Italy; how a country, 
 parted among eight states, could be united ; whether monarchy 
 or republic should be its form of government ; how the social 
 question should be faced ; and — last and thorniest problem of 
 them all — what should be its relations with the Papacy. If we 
 contrast its case with Germany's, where there was no foreigner 
 to be expelled, no great religious power within its borders, we 
 shall realize how much finer was Italy's achievement. To- 
 day I propose to trace how far, and by what means, she has 
 attained her end in the nationalist and social and religious 
 problems; of the question of monarchy and republic I shall 
 speak to-morrow, when treating of Mazzini. 
 
 Modem Italy begins under Napoleon's empire. In a sense 
 he created the Italian ideal. Himself Italian by birth, in 
 a large measure Italian in his sympathies, he knew enough of 
 the tendencies of the time to see that the Unity of Italy was 
 
 H. L. 13 
 
194 Italy 
 
 bound to come ; and both in form and substance he took the 
 country a long step forward towards unity and freedom. What 
 was more, he shook the country out of its easy-going acqui- 
 escence with the existing fact. The exiled princes might return, 
 but their prestige had gone; the Pope himself had been an 
 exile, and the Temporal Power had lost its continuity ; liberal 
 ideas came in with the Revolution, and never quite deserted 
 Napoleon's system ; and in his wars Italians learnt that centuries 
 of peace had not destroyed their ancient courage. 
 
 Thus the ideas he taught lived on, when his empire collapsed 
 in 1814, and on the surface his work was all undone. Italy 
 was again divided up, and became ''a geographical expression." 
 Piedmont and Austria divided the North ; the Pope, the Grand- 
 duke of Tuscany and three petty dukes shared the Centre ; the 
 Bourbon King of Naples had the South and Sicily. The 
 country was forced under a rule more illiberal than the old 
 order which the Revolution had upset. The princes came 
 back from exile, hardened and bigoted and hating progress; 
 a brutal police and a corrupt bureaucracy terrorized and de- 
 graded the country; the Church got back much of the power, 
 which it had lost under the freer influences of the eighteenth 
 century. I propose to avoid as far as possible the details of 
 the misrule ; their interest is largely a pathological one. But 
 it is necessary to remember that not only were the Italians 
 denied all poUtical liberty, that they had no parliamentary or 
 public life, and little liberty of speech or writing, but that the 
 barest personal rights — a man's home and honour and career — 
 were at the mercy of a police that was always arbitrary, and 
 often corrupt. Trade was crippled by out-of-date restrictions ; 
 popular education hardly existed in six out of the eight states ; 
 literary life, all sincere expression of thought, was stifled by 
 the censorship. It was the middle classes who suffered most. 
 Under the French rule they had come brilliantly to the front ; 
 now they were thrust back under almost feudal disabilities; 
 and professional men and tradesmen found themselves cribbed 
 
Struggle for Unity 195 
 
 by the political divisions of the land, that confined their energies 
 to a handful of towns. 
 
 It was impossible, of course, that men, who had once tasted 
 enlightened rule, would acquiesce. It was not that there was 
 as yet any serious demand for unity, and there was little thought 
 for the religious and social aspects of the national question. 
 But among the great mass of the middle classes and a consider- 
 able section of the nobles, and here and there among the better 
 educated artisans, there was one resolve, — that the Austrians 
 must go from Lombardy and Venetia, and that, whatever might 
 be the fate of the native princes, there must be an end to the 
 misrule, and some kind of constitutional government to guard 
 against its return. Austria must go, not because she ruled 
 worse than the Italian princes, for on the whole her government 
 was the best in Italy, but because it was her military strength 
 that propped the existing order, because she threatened every 
 movement for reform, because — more than all this — she was 
 an alien power, which the new spirit of nationality could not 
 tolerate. 
 
 The history of the thirty years from 181 5 to 1845 is one of 
 continuous but ill-fated national effort. Three parties in suc- 
 cession directed the nationalist movement, the Carbonari, Young 
 Italy, the Moderates, whom, roughly speaking, we may dis- 
 tinguish as the liberal, the revolutionary, and the conservative 
 nationaUsts. Of the second I shall speak chiefly to-morrow; 
 of the first and third to-day. 
 
 The Carbonari were a secret society, that sprang out of the 
 Freemasons of Southern Italy, and became a vast political 
 organization. They had a strange, indefinite creed, a kind 
 of vague democratic Christianity, with a fantastic ritual, that 
 fascinated the imaginative populace of Southern Italy. Here 
 they had a host of affiliates, especially among the lower middle 
 classes; in the North their following was smaller, and hardly 
 reached outside the educated classes. Their strength was in 
 the armies of Piedmont and Naples. They made in fact the 
 
 13—2 
 
1 96 Italy 
 
 last chapter of the Napoleonic period ; they kept the traditions 
 of a time when the army had stood on the whole for political 
 and social liberty ; they had the sentimentahsm, the showiness, 
 the political incapacity of a party that plotted revolution in 
 barrack-rooms and took Byron for its literary idol. They had 
 little programme beyond the demand for a constitution, of what 
 kind they heeded little. For the unity of Italy, for any religious 
 or social development they took small care. They wished to 
 drive the Austrians out, but they did nothing to secure that 
 co-operation of all the national forces by which alone they 
 could defeat her. Hence the revolutions, which they made 
 in Naples and Piedmont in 1820 and 1821, were foredoomed 
 to failure. For the moment they carried all before them ; but 
 they soon quarrelled among themselves ; they were betrayed 
 by the kings whom they fondly hoped to win to their cause, 
 they made speeches and disputed while Austria was collect- 
 ing troops ; and when the fighting came they marched to 
 defeat. 
 
 The Carbonari, after another revolution ten years later, 
 which failed as completely as the first, made way for Mazzini 
 and Young Italy. Of that very noble movement I shall speak 
 in detail to-morrow. From 183 1 to 1843 it carried on the 
 nationalist agitation ; and, small as were its immediate results, 
 it did two great things. For the fkst time it created a feeling 
 for unity, as distinct from any scheme of federation. And it 
 fired the young generation with Mazzini's own passionate 
 patriotism, and created a spirit which no dangers could daunt, 
 no difficulties discourage. The spirit survived, but the national- 
 ist movement escaped Mazzini's direction. The Moderates, or 
 Conservative Nationalists, sprang, into prominence in the early 
 forties, and eclipsed Young Italy. They came from three 
 sources. Some of them were social reformers, men who were 
 nationalists in a lukewarm way, but put politics in the back- 
 ground, and regarded the nationalist ideal as unattainable till 
 the country had passed through a training of social improve- 
 
Struggle for Unity 197 
 
 ment and more diffused education and moral reform. There 
 were others, who gave themselves the name of New Guelfs, 
 who looked for a reforming Pope to give some sort of unity to 
 Italy and champion political and social progress. At that time 
 the Papacy under Gregory XVI had sunk low ; and it needed 
 considerable faith to hope that it would declare for nationality 
 and reform. But there was a large body of men, devoutly 
 Catholic and genuinely nationalist, who hoped that the Papacy, 
 as a great Italian institution, would plead the cause of Italy ; 
 that, as its consequence, Catholicism would find its reconcilia- 
 tion with modern life, that the nationalist movement would be 
 saved from any free-thinking or anti-clerical colour, and a re- 
 formed Church and a liberated nation find strength in one 
 another. Nay more, they caught at the idea of Italy's moral 
 and intellectual primacy among the nations, which fascinated 
 so many minds, and which, in a very different sense, Mazzini 
 preached. Lastly, there was the school of the Piedmontese 
 statesmen, cautious, calculating men, with a horror of Utopias, 
 whether clerical or revolutionary, men who liked to feel their 
 way carefully before them. They had no faith in a reforming 
 Pope, and set their hopes on Charles Albert, the King of 
 Piedmont. Charles Albert's policy was a strange compound of 
 irreconcilable ambitions. He had been a Liberal in his youth; 
 but his court life had given him a narrow palace code of duty, 
 and he was timidly anxious to stand well in the eyes of the 
 Church and monarchical Europe. More and more, as he 
 advanced in life, he fell under clerical influences, till he came 
 to look on Liberalism as the enemy of throne and altar, to be 
 fought and crushed without pity. And yet he loved popularity, 
 and wished to be a reforming king, to purge his government of 
 the medieval spirit that informed it, even in some degree to 
 promote social equality and break down the^ rigid caste system 
 that discredited his country. And he was always more or less 
 a nationalist. He had his personal reasons for hating Austria ; 
 he inherited the historic policy of his House to creep on inch 
 
igS Italy 
 
 by inch till North Italy should own allegiance to the crown of 
 Piedmont; he longed in his halting, indecisive way to lead 
 Italy in a great nationalist war, which would leave the foreigner 
 no foothold on Italian soil. 
 
 These three groups, the social reformers, the New Guelfs, 
 the Piedmontese royalists, coalesced more or less to make 
 the Moderate party. It inevitably attracted to it all the 
 non-revolutionary nationalists, — the nationalist elements in the 
 Church, then very strong, the nationalist nobles, the civil 
 service, the vast crowd of men, who warmly or coldly shared 
 the aspirations for independence and good government, but 
 shrank from any effort that meant great sacrifice, and who 
 dreaded democracy or any thorough-going social legislation. 
 Events gave them their chance. In the summer of 1846 
 Gregory XVI died, and was succeeded by the Pope, whom we 
 know best as Pio Nono. He was a man of excellent inten- 
 tions, mildly liberal, mildly nationalist, dimly seeing that it was 
 to the interest of the Papacy to ally itself with progress. But 
 he was timid and irresolute, easily deflected by the influences 
 nearest him, fearful of any democratic taint or aught that 
 threatened the traditional position of the Papacy or its temporal 
 dominion ; naturally anxious, too, that his Italian patriotism 
 should not lead him into courses that would offend the 
 Catholics of other countries. None the less the mass of 
 nationalists and reformers hailed him with a wild acclaim. A 
 great wave of patriotism swept through the country, breaking 
 down old local barriers, healing social feuds, firing classes 
 hitherto untouched by the nationalist spirit. When Austria 
 showed its chagrin and threatened to occupy a part of Papal 
 territory, Charles Albert sent word that his sword was at the 
 service of the Pope. At the same time, too, for the nationalist 
 and reform' movements were always inextricably linked with one 
 another, an irresistible cry went up, first for administrative 
 reform, then for constitutional government. Slowly and re- 
 luctantly the governments gave way in Piedmont, Tuscany, and 
 
Struggle for Unity 1 99 
 
 the Papal States, and granted freedom of the press and a 
 national militia. 
 
 Thus matters drifted through 1846 and 1847. Then the 
 year of revolution broke, and in a few weeks the face of Europe 
 was changed. Early in January the Sicilians revolted from the 
 intolerable tyranny of the King of Naples, and gave the signal 
 to the reformers all through the country. At Naples King 
 Ferdinand found that he must choose between constitutional 
 government and civil war, and granted free institutions. Con- 
 stitutions followed quickly in Piedmont and Tuscany and the 
 Papal States ; and three-quarters of the country were under 
 parliamentary government. At the same time there showed 
 the faint beginnings of the anti-Papal and social movements. 
 Everywhere the Jesuits, who had shown their Austrian sympa- 
 thies, were driven from the country ; and not even the Pope's 
 protection could save them at Rome. And the dim aspirations 
 of the masses appeared in bread riots and a quasi-socialist 
 revolt at Leghorn. 
 
 But all home questions went into the background again 
 behind the imminence of the national war, to which all the 
 hopes and efforts of the land were tending. An unexpected 
 event precipitated it. At the end of February the Second 
 Republic had been proclaimed in France, and its echo went 
 through Europe. Less than three weeks later the students of 
 Vienna rose in triumphant revolt, and the fabric of Austrian 
 despotism seemed shattered at its centre. As the news spread 
 through Lombardy and Venetia, it was everywhere the signal 
 for war. At Milan, at Venice, in a score of other towns, there 
 were scenes of splendid citizen heroism, and the Austrian garri- 
 sons retreated or capitulated to the almost unarmed populace. 
 Within a week the Austrians had, outside five fortresses, no 
 foot of ground left them in Italy. Their routed army took 
 refuge in the fortresses of the Quadrilateral, and from all Italy 
 the national forces were hastening to complete the victory. 
 Piedmont and Tuscany declared war ; the King of Naples and 
 
200 Italy 
 
 the Pope himself had perforce to let their armies march to the 
 front. Some 20,000 volunteers hurried up, impatient for the 
 final struggle. The great flood of patriotism swept along the 
 mass of the people, — princes and nobles. Church and laity, 
 middle classes and artisans, even a section of the peasantry. 
 The Pope's patronage, unwilling as it was and exaggerated 
 in the popular belief, made the war seem a crusade, where 
 patriotism and religion went hand in hand, and dreams of class 
 reconciliation and social peace promised a millennium when the 
 enemy was crushed. 
 
 I have no time to trace how the splendid dream faded 
 before the realities of war, how their own bad generalship and 
 the grim Austrian tenacity lost the Italians their advantages, 
 how all the courage and endurance of the four-months' struggle 
 were in vain, how the brave renewal of the war in the following 
 spring ended in the swift disaster of Novara, how the Roman 
 Republic covered itself with glory, how Venice, heroically re- 
 sisting for a year, made itself ever memorable for the courage 
 of its people and the statesmanship of their great leader, Daniel 
 Manin. For the moment it all failed, and I can only sum- 
 marize the spirit and the consequences of the revolution. It 
 was very noble in its spirit, pitifully ineffective in execution. 
 The touch of religion that informed its patriotism, the fearlessness 
 and devotedness, the trust in righteousness, the care for the 
 bigger, ends of life, that inspired its leaders and more or less 
 filtered through the crowd, make it one of the purest and fairest 
 movements that we -read of. But it lacked the practical 
 capacity that wins victories, whether on the battlefield or in 
 parhament. Individualism ran riot ; outside the Piedmontese 
 army and the Romans and Venetians there was no discipline. 
 Royalists and Republicans alike forgot that independence was 
 more important at the moment than the triumph of their 
 theories. Local jealousies prevented any cordial co-operation 
 of the different states. Parliamentary work was spoilt by 
 oratory ; save at Venice and Rome there was no statesmanship 
 
Struggle for Unity 201 
 
 worthy the name. There was too much emotionalism, too 
 little perseverance ; " too many songs about freeing Italy," too 
 little practical grip and power. Well did Manin say, " the days 
 of artistic Italy are over, let us see another Italy." It wanted 
 an Italy that had its prose as well as its poetry, that knew the 
 value of self-repression and organization, an Italy that kept its 
 ideal high, and yet could face and cope with facts. 
 
 Still, Italy had permanently gained. She came out of the 
 struggle unchanged in her territorial arrangements, but trans- 
 formed in her political aspect. It is true the princes kept 
 their thrones, and, except in Piedmont, repudiated their consti- 
 tutions and destroyed almost every vestige of free government. 
 Austria seemed more strong than ever ; and on the surface it 
 was a return to the old order that prevailed before the revolu- 
 tion. But there were three new facts, which in reality altered 
 the whole position for better or for worse. Piedmont had 
 leapt into a prominence it had never had before. When 
 Charles Albert, again at the last true patriot and Liberal, abdi- 
 cated heart-broken after Novara, he was succeeded by his son, 
 Victor Emmanuel, and while the other princes made haste to 
 break their constitutional oaths, he remained staunchly loyal to 
 the free government, which his father had given, and to which 
 himself had sworn. While the rest of Italy was groaning under 
 a cruel, stupid reaction, there was free life and parliamentary 
 government in Piedmont. The fact meant more than domestic 
 progress; it meant that Piedmont, beaten in the field, was 
 moral victor, that it had become the centre of Italian aspira- 
 tions, that sooner or later it intended to lead the national forces 
 again to battle. The peace was "a ten years' truce." And the 
 little state, hitherto only half Italian in its language and 
 customs, now was Italy itself in the eyes of the world. The 
 exiles from the other states crowded to Turin and Genoa, and 
 half the best intellect of Italy was gathered there. " Piedmont," 
 said Cavour, "must gather round itself every living force in 
 Italy, and lead our nation to the high destinies to which it is 
 
202 Italy 
 
 called." For the next ten years the history of Piedmont is the 
 history of Italy. 
 
 The second great change was in the attitude of the Papacy. 
 When the war broke out, Pius soon repented of his brief 
 liberalism. By the end of 1848 the reactionary party had won 
 him over. Frightened by the threats of the people and the 
 murder of his prime-minister, Rossi, he had fled from Rome, 
 and only returned when the French had cowed the Romans 
 into sullen silence. Henceforth he is the bitter enemy of every 
 Italian aspiration. And his passage to reaction coincided with 
 a great change inside the Catholic Church. After the Pope's 
 defection the Church lost ground rapidly in Italy, and the 
 nationalist movement, hitherto so friendly to it, became more 
 or less anti-clerical. But at the same time the Catholics 
 strengthened their position outside Italy. The Jesuits, after 
 their long eclipse, were now all-powerful within the Church, 
 and their supremely skilful organization created a disciplined 
 political party in almost every Catholic country. Of necessity 
 therefore the Roman Court began to lose its specially Italian 
 character, and the sense of its new political strength encouraged 
 the Papacy to put out dormant claims. Through its popular 
 and parliamentary forces it put pressure on Catholic govern- 
 ments to legislate in the interests of the Church and support 
 the Papacy against the nationalists of Italy. It was now gene- 
 rally recognized that the contest there must end in a struggle 
 for the Pope's temporal dominions. While the other Italian 
 governments surrendered to the Church rights they had won 
 from it in the eighteenth century, and Austria forgot her old 
 suspicions of the Papacy, Piedmont marked the contrast between 
 itself and them by anti-clerical legislation, abolishing the legal 
 privileges of the clergy, and dissolving a large number of 
 monasteries. Henceforth there could be no reconciliation be- 
 tween Piedmont and the Papacy. 
 
 The third new fact — closely connected with the last — was 
 the intervention of the French in Italian politics. The tra- 
 
Struggle for Unity 203 
 
 ditional Italian policy of France had three ends in view,— to 
 check Austrian influence, to prevent the creation of a strong 
 Italian state, which might be France's rival in the Mediterranean, 
 and to secure the transference of Savoy from Piedmont to itself. 
 To these the new Catholic movement added the championing 
 of the Pope against Italian attacks. Louis Napoleon in his 
 bid for the French crown found the support of the Catholics 
 indispensable, and when in 1 849 the French parliament voted 
 supplies for an expedition, which was intended to be a demon- 
 stration against Austria, he allowed it to be diverted from its 
 purpose in order to crush the republican government, which 
 had ruled Rome after the Pope's flight. For the next twenty 
 years French policy in Italy is dominated by the see-saw between 
 Catholic pressure and Napoleon's own more generous aims. 
 He had no love for the Pope, and was always anxious to with- 
 draw the French garrison, which had been left at Rome to 
 protect the Pope from his own subjects. He had his big 
 schemes to remodel Europe on a basis of nationality ; and 
 though to some extent he shared the French prejudice against 
 Italian Unity, he wanted to see all North Italy annexed to Pied- 
 mont and some kind of federation connecting the different 
 Italian states. France was to have her pay by annexing Savoy, 
 and placing princes of his family on at least one Italian throne. 
 Such was the position in the early fifties. All now depended 
 on the capacity of Piedmont to use her chance. Fortunately 
 she found a man who had the finest stuff of statesmanship. 
 Cavour in normal times was a cautious, patient, parliamentary 
 leader and diplomatist, with a rare power of work and command 
 of details, on the surface somewhat of a cynic, contemptuous of 
 theories, a masterful man, but with almost perfect control of 
 his temper, and always ready to surrender a small end for 
 a big one ; absolutely unsparing of himself, but sometimes un- 
 scrupulous in his means, and forgetting that the honour of her 
 public policy is more precious to a country than any triumph. 
 But this cool, careful man was no commonplace politician. 
 
204 Italy 
 
 As Manzoni, the novelist, said of him, he had the imprudence 
 as well as the prudence of the true statesman. He had his 
 passionate beliefs, his daring ideals ; and though he could wait 
 year after year for the moment to realize them, he could be, 
 when the time came, a revolutionary, who threw diplomacy 
 and conventionalities to the winds, and was ready to stake all 
 for a great end. 
 
 He was a fervent nationalist, believing in Italian Unity with 
 Rome for the capital. But, if he could not have that, he was 
 content to annex as much of North and Central Italy as was 
 possible to Victor Emmanuel's realm, and at all events make 
 Piedmont the model state and champion of all Italy. At home 
 his policy was to consolidate the new free constitution. He 
 was a pure liberal. In words that his successors would have 
 done well to keep before them, he said, " Italy must make her- 
 self by means of liberty, or we must give up trying to make her." 
 He would have little or no coercion ; emancipation from clerical 
 influences, free trade, the repeal of all restrictions on industry, 
 the development of railways, pretty well sum up his domestic 
 policy. With few and trifling exceptions he was true to it 
 throughout, and it launched Piedmont on a new career of 
 progress. Abroad, his immediate object was to secure the 
 French alliance, in the certainty that, if this were done, Louis 
 Napoleon would some day send his armies across the Alps to 
 drive the Austrians out of Italy. Probably he had made up 
 his mind to fight Austria in any case ; but he knew that without 
 a foreign ally (and France was the only possible ally) the chance 
 of victory was small. It was for this that he sent an Italian 
 force to the Crimea, that he abased himself to trickery and 
 unworthy condescension to satisfy the Emperor's exigencies. 
 
 Cavour, supremely skilful as he was, could not create opinion. 
 He was an opportunist, and took opinion as it was and made 
 the best of it. The man, who more than anyone else influenced 
 Italian opinion in the fifties was Manin, the ex-Triumvir of 
 Venice; and it was the National Society, which he founded, 
 
Struggle for Unity 205 
 
 which did most to educate opinion in those years. Its pro- 
 gramme was summed up in discipline and Italian Unity. There 
 must be no repetition of the divisions, which had paralysed the 
 country in 1848 and 1849 — 10 i&xA. of republicans and royalists, 
 no friction between the different Italian states. Therefore the 
 nationalists must rally to the one possible flag, must take Victor 
 Emmanuel for their figurehead and the Piedmontese statesmen 
 for their leaders. Manin had been a republican ; but he was 
 willing to waive his preferences for the sake of harmony, arid 
 with few exceptions and for the same reason the republicans 
 followed him into the royalist camp. But Manin asked that if 
 the republicans did this, the royalists should declare frankly for 
 unity. The movement of 1848 had been a federalist one, and 
 the cause of unity had gone into the background ; but now that 
 Piedmont and its King stood out as the sole champions of Italy, 
 a great impetus had come again to the faith in Unity, and the 
 dangers of federalism appeared in their true light. 
 
 Cavour gladly encouraged the new movement. For diplo- 
 matic reasons he did not dare to pronounce openly for unity, 
 and perhaps he doubted the strength of the feeling for it ; but 
 if others could convert the federalists, he \Y3s prepared to take 
 advantage of the fact. In 1*858 he felt that it was safe to take 
 decisive steps. The great mass of nationalists were ready 
 to follow his lead, even in states like Tuscany, where the 
 autonomist feeling had been strongest. He knew that he could 
 count on the King. Garibaldi had joined the National Society 
 and given the royalists the benefit of his prestige. Louis 
 Napoleon, too, for various reasons was eager to go to war for 
 the liberation of Italy. In the summer of 1858 he met Cavour 
 secretly, and promised him to declare war with Austria at an 
 early date. But he would do nothing to countenance Unity. 
 Piedmont was to have the Austrian provinces and part of the 
 Papal territory, but the Centre and the South and the Pope's 
 remaining provinces were to be still three separate states, and 
 be forced into an Italian Federation under the Pope's presi- 
 
2o6 Italy 
 
 dency. France was to be paid for her help by the cession of 
 Savoy and perhaps of Nice. Cavour agreed to the terms, 
 which perhaps were, under the circumstances, surprisingly 
 good ; probably he knew that unity could not stop at any half- 
 way house, and trusted to the force of events to do the rest. 
 His business now was to keep the Emperor to his word, and 
 complete his own preparations in Italy. He encouraged the 
 formation of a volunteer force, that poured into Piedmont from 
 the other states. By supremely adroit but quite unscrupulous 
 diplomacy he dragged the hesitating Emperor after him, and 
 parried every effort of the English government to prevent war. 
 In the summer of 1859 the allied French and Piedmontese 
 armies defeated the Austrians at Magenta and Solferino, and 
 drove them out of Lombardy. Suddenly, in the midst of his 
 triumph. Napoleon, fearing defeat in Venetia and a Prussian 
 advance across the Rhine, lost courage, and concluded an 
 armistice. Save for the surrender of Lombardy to Piedmont, 
 the Preliminaries of Villafranca contemplated in all essentials 
 a return to the old order that obtained before the war. Italy 
 was maddened by the desertion and resolute not to be baulked 
 of its will. Tuscany, the Po duchies, and the Northern part 
 of the Pope's dominions had revolted and expelled their 
 princes, soon after war was declared, and they were determined 
 not to lose their new-won independence at the Emperor's 
 bidding. . They knew that Victor Emmanuel and Cavour were 
 with them, and Tuscany had in Bettino Ricasoli an iron leader, 
 whom no threats or difficulties could daunt. The revolted 
 states refused to take the princes back, and prepared to defend 
 themselves by arms. Cavour had resigned after the armistice, 
 and feeble men had taken his place, but even they had to give 
 their backing to the Central states. Napoleon, chagrined 
 though he was at the opposition to his schemes, could not, for 
 his own prestige's sake, allow Austria to restore the princes, 
 and, despite the French Catholics, he loved the Pope too little 
 to do much for him. His veto on any Austrian advance made 
 
Struggle for Unity 207 
 
 a ring-fence round the revolted states, and they made good use 
 of their position. They formed a military league ; they declared 
 boldly for annexation to Piedmont ; they planned an invasion 
 of Umbria, which the Pope's Swiss troops had recovered from 
 the nationalists. Next January Cavour came back to office, 
 determined to have a Kingdom of Italy, which should include 
 most or all of the Centre. He offered to surrender Savoy and 
 Nice as the price of Napoleon's endorsement, but he was 
 determined at no cost to lose Tuscany and Romagna. , The 
 Emperor, borne down by his insistency and the passive resist- 
 ance of the Italians, gave his consent to annexation, if a 
 plebiscite of the inhabitants declared for it. The plebiscites 
 were taken and showed a victorious majority for annexation. 
 When the first Italian parliament met on April 2, i860, it 
 represented eleven millions of souls, or nearly half the popula- 
 tion of the peninsula. 
 
 The nationalist wave hardly paused before it rolled on 
 again. The events of the past year had changed the most 
 moderate men to fervent advocates of Unity. All recognized 
 that Central Italy was but a stepping-stone. Venetia and half 
 the Pope's territory, Naples and Sicily, still stood outside, and 
 there could be no rest nor peace till they were won. Venice, 
 it was generally recognized, must wait. No one wanted to call 
 the French armies in again, and, except in the event of a 
 Hungarian rising, Austria was too formidable for the young 
 country to challenge yet alone. It was madness, too, to attack 
 Rome while the French garrison remained, and its winning 
 therefore must depend on an understanding with France. But 
 the Papal provinces of Umbria and the Marches and all the 
 South were ripe for revolution. Even if diplomatic difficulties 
 prevented the Italian government from freeing them, the volun- 
 teers could do the work, and the government could follow 
 after. The old Mazzinian party, though most of them had 
 accepted the monarchy, took up the task ; and Garibaldi very 
 reluctantly consented to lead 1,000 volunteers to Sicily. In 
 
2o8 Italy 
 
 a lecture, which has to deal more with political ideas and facts 
 than deeds of war, there is small place for Garibaldi. Of heroic 
 build and great achievement, his intellectual power was small, 
 and he added nothing to the political thought of his country. 
 But for the work now in hand he was supremely fitted. The 
 magic of his personal influence, his courage, his superb talent 
 for guerilla fighting, made him the one man in Italy who could 
 conquer Sicily from the King of Naples' troops. It was a 
 tremendous risk, for i,ooo men were attacking over 20,000, and 
 but for the rottenness of the Neapolitan government and army, 
 and the universal hatred of the Sicilians for the Bourbon rule, 
 not all the heroism of his volunteers could have snatched 
 victory from the heavy odds against them. As it was, a few 
 weeks in May laid most of Sicily at his feet ; three months 
 later he was advancing rapidly on Naples, and the demoralized 
 Bourbon army was surrendering by thousands without an 
 attempt at resistance. Early in September he entered Naples, 
 an easy conqueror. 
 
 Cavour had, with some misgivings, secretly encouraged and 
 assisted him. While Garibaldi overran Sicily, he had been 
 parrying any foreign interference, and taking his precautions 
 that the South should be added to the kingdom. The situa- 
 tion was a very delicate one. In a sense Garibaldi had been 
 too successful, for his fame was threatening to eclipse the 
 King's ; and though he was himself loyal to the King, he hated 
 Cavour, and a man so easily influenced by those around him 
 might become the centre of a movement to upset the one man 
 capable of uniting Italy and even endanger the throne. Some- 
 times civil war seemed perilously near. It was necessary to 
 repair the King's prestige by some striking triumph of the 
 regular army; equally necessary to save Garibaldi from a 
 disaster which might easily lose the South again. King Francis 
 of Naples had still a formidable force with hini. In the Papal 
 States Catholic volunteers had gathered from half Europe, to 
 protect the Pope from a nationalist invasion. If the two forces 
 
Struggle for Unity 209 
 
 joined hands, they were only too likely to crush Garibaldi. 
 Cavour determined to save the King's reputation and relieve 
 Garibaldi by invading tjje Pope's territory, and, leaving Rome 
 carefully alone, advancing through it to Naples. Again, the 
 risk was a terrible one, for if Austria attacked while the King 
 and his best troops were absent in the South, she could easily 
 recover Lombardy. Once more Napoleon saved Italy by 
 threatening Austria with war if she intervened. Cavour de- 
 clared war on the Pope, and the Italian forces overran Umbria 
 and the Marches, and, thence advancing Southwards, com- 
 pleted the discomfiture of King Francis' army. For the 
 moment regular army and Garibaldi's men fronted each other 
 sullenly, and the strain was dangerous. Thanks to Gari- 
 baldi's patriotism and the common-sense of the country, the 
 friction wore down, and Naples and Sicily, which only wanted 
 a quick settlement and unity, annexed themselves to the 
 kingdom by majorities even more triumphant than those of 
 Central Italy. In April, 1859, Victor Emmanuel reigned over 
 less than five million subjects; in November, i860, he was 
 King of twenty-one millions. 
 
 Italian Unity was practically won, won by sheer audacity 
 and through a sequence of tremendous perils. Sooner or later 
 now another war would drive the Austrians from Venetia; 
 sooner or later the ripening of the fates would give Italy her 
 natural capital at Rome. Italy had come into being ; and 
 what a few years before had been laughed at as a Utopian 
 dream, was a solid European fact. But the young country had 
 still to face tasks as important and perhaps more arduous. 
 The social fabric had to be built from the foundations. Italy 
 had to create her legal system, her civil service, her army, her 
 finances, her local government; make commercial expansion 
 possible by building railways and harbours, reclaim her great 
 stretches of waste land, build schools for an almost illiterate 
 country, lift the backward South to the level of the North. In 
 the four years between 1861 and 1865 a series of great laws 
 
 H. L. 14 
 
2IO Italy 
 
 attempted a settlement of some of these matters, and on the 
 whole the advance was very great. But the supreme problem 
 of these years was how to win Rome ^d solve all the Church 
 questions that were bound up with that. Italian Unity meant 
 the destruction of the Temporal Power. Already the Pope 
 had lost three-quarters of his territory, and Italy was a torso 
 without Rome. But her determination to have the city brought 
 her into sharp conflict with Catholic sentiment throughout the 
 world. Catholic tradition held that territorial possession was 
 essential to the Pope's dignity and independence, and Catholics 
 naturally rallied to defend their Church's head from present 
 and future dangers. The practical evidence of Catholic 
 hostility lay in the presence of the French garrison at Rome. 
 Louis Napoleon was keenly anxious to escape from the false 
 position he had made for himself there, but he was afraid to 
 strain overmuch the loyalty of his Catholic subjects, so he 
 dared not let the Italians go to Rome, unless they offered con- 
 cessions that would satisfy moderate Catholic opinion. Cavour, 
 on his part, eager as he was to win Rome, was determined not 
 to force it in despite of France and Catholic opinion ; he was, 
 too, in his way a sincere Church reformer, and eager to reconcile 
 Catholicism with modern life. He enlisted the very influential 
 body of Catholic reformers in Italy in support of his scheme of 
 the Free Church in the Free State. His plan was essentially 
 a bargain between the Pope and Italy. The Pope was to 
 surrender the Temporal Power. In return, the State would 
 abandon all the control over the Church, which Concordats 
 and ecclesiastical laws had given it. The Church, provided it 
 conformed to the elementary conditions of a constitutional 
 state, would have perfect freedom in its own internal govern- 
 ment. The Pope would remain at Rome, with a nominal title 
 of sovereignty, an ample endowment, and a guarantee that 
 there would be no interference with his spiritual functions. 
 The traditional policy of CathoUc states had been to keep the 
 Church in leading-strings. Cavour's scheme was an absolute 
 
Struggle for Unity 211 
 
 reversal of it; but he was confident that State and Church 
 alike stood to gain, that the Church would find fresh youth in 
 an atmosphere of liberty, that new Italy would set a great 
 example to the world. It was perhaps, however, considering 
 the feeling on both sides, an impossible scheme at the time. 
 Even Cavour failed, and a few weeks later died with his work 
 half done. 
 
 The great statesman's death was an irreparable blow to 
 Italy. He was only 51 years old (almost the same age as 
 Mr Gladstone and the present Pope) ; and had he remained at 
 the helm another twenty years, he might have saved his country 
 much of its subsequent trouble. His more or less incom- 
 petent successors were powerless to solve the Roman question. 
 Their position, indeed, was a very difficult one. The Pope 
 refused to compromise ; Napoleon, ageing and exhausted, sur- 
 rendered more and more to the French clericals ; Italian 
 opinion, irritated by the delay and the Pope's hostility, was 
 clamorous to defy both him and France. A foolhardy attempt 
 of Garibaldi to march to Rome brought him into conflict with 
 the Italian troops at Aspromonte. Two years later the govern- 
 ment came to a feeble and dishonest compromise with France, 
 in the September Convention. The French pledged them- 
 selves to withdraw from Rome within two years ; the Italian 
 government undertook to protect Papal territory from any 
 attack by Garibaldi and his followers, and to move the capital 
 to Florence, as evidence to the Catholic world that they had 
 abandoned their claim to Rome. The treaty, as we know now, 
 was intentionally insincere ; it was secretly understood between 
 the two governments that the Italians should take possession of 
 Rome on the first decent pretext. Two years later, Ricasoli, 
 during his second premiership, feeling acutely the danger to 
 religion that came from the long strain, made another attempt 
 to reconcile the Pope on Cavour's lines. But the Vatican 
 would not yield on any essential, and feeling in the country 
 was too hot to hear of compromise. Garibaldi made another 
 
 14 — 2 
 
2 1 2 Italy 
 
 attempt to march to Rome, the government more or less con- 
 niving ; and the French, who had withdrawn their garrison two 
 years before, sent troops again to defend the Pope. Garibaldi 
 was defeated at Mentana, and the country writhed in its impo- 
 tence to avenge itself on the Pope and his French protectors. 
 There was no more thought among men in any party of 
 abandoning the claims to Rome ; and less than three years 
 after Mentana the Franco-German war gave them their oppor- 
 tunity. France paid for her great blunder by losing the Italian, 
 and with it the Austrian alliance, and Italy seized the oppor- 
 tunity of the European turmoil to take possession of Rome. 
 
 Venice had been won four years before by the help of the 
 Prussian alliance, and save for the disputed frontier territories 
 of the Southern Tyrol and Istria, Italy was complete. Nearly 
 thirty-two years have passed since the capture of Rome, and we 
 unluckily have lost for Italy made the interest we felt for her 
 in the making. The heroic and picturesque have gone; there 
 has been disappointment and pessimism in her later history. 
 But these thirty years have had their solid prose, as instructive 
 as all the poetry of her risorgimento, and Italy stands to-day 
 higher morally, intellectually, socially than she did in the days 
 of Victor Emmanuel and Garibaldi. Underneath the blunder- 
 ing statesmanship and false ideals, the pinchbeck tyranny and 
 parliamentary corruption there has been a very real and steady 
 growth. Italians have cleared their ideas, have learnt the value 
 of details, have braced themselves to the earnest, serious, silent 
 work of a modern industrial community. In the few minutes 
 left me I will indicate the main lines of their recent develop- 
 ment in their foreign policy, in their relations with the Vatican, 
 and in their social questions. 
 
 Though France paid for Mentana at Sedan, though there 
 was no French garrison now at Rome, the friction with her was 
 even more intense in the early days of the Third Republic 
 than under the Empire. The Republic was largely dominated 
 by clerical influences, and, down at all events to 1890, it was 
 
Struggle for Unity 213 
 
 the fixed idea of the French Catholics to restore the Temporal 
 Power by French arms. At the same time the rise of Italy 
 into a Great Power made her inevitably the rival of France in 
 the Mediterranean, and both Powers were aiming at Tunis and 
 Tripoli. With the hostility of the French Catholics on one 
 side and the supreme unwisdom of the Italian statesmen on 
 the other, with Bismarck watchful all the time to set the two 
 countries by the ears, Italy and France have on more than one 
 occasion been within measurable distance of war. To guard 
 herself against the danger of a single-handed fight with France, 
 Italy, in 1882, concluded the Triple Alliance with her old enemy, 
 Austria, and her new ally, Germany. Five years later the 
 strong protectionist current, both in France and Italy, together 
 with Crispi's policy of pin-pricks, brought about a com- 
 mercial rupture. Since 1890, however, there has been a 
 steady reaction in favour of France. The disastrous results of 
 the commercial war to both countries led to a new commercial 
 treaty four years ago. French dreams of restoring the Tem- 
 poral Power have passed away; Tunis has gone to France 
 beyond recall, and Italy has probably secured the reversion of 
 Tripoli; old influences, that naturally draw the two Latin 
 countries together, have reasserted themselves ; and they have 
 now nearly or quite forgotten their feud. Concurrently, the 
 alliance with Austria and Germany has lost what little popu- 
 larity it had. Causes of friction with Austria, old and new, 
 have come to the front ; there are commercial differences with 
 her and Germany; there is no longer any danger from France 
 to justify the treaty; and above all the country knows that the 
 Alliance has practically meant large armaments, and that large 
 armaments are sucking its strength. I need hardly mention 
 that the Triple Alliance has been renewed this year largely to 
 save the commercial treaties with Germany and Austria, and 
 that we know enough of its contents to be sure that they mean 
 practically very little. 
 
 The controversy with the Vatican has, like the foreign 
 
214 Italy 
 
 policy, run through its dangerous crises, and is now com- 
 paratively innocuous. It has done little credit to either side. 
 No doubt the position of both parties has been a difficult one. 
 The strong anti-clerical feeling in the country, the provocation of 
 the foreign Catholics, the fixed hostility of the late and present 
 Pope have not made it easy for the government to be con- 
 ciliatory. On the other side it was almost an impossibility 
 that the Vatican should break with its traditions, should 
 abandon at once its claim to the Temporal Power, which for 
 centuries had been regarded as indispensable to the Pope's 
 freedom, or meekly accept laws aimed against the Church. 
 After the capture of Rome the government made a well-meant 
 effort to conciliate by the Law of Guarantees. The law 
 carried out much of Cavour's scheme; it freed the Church in 
 many respects, and guaranteed the Pope his spiritual independ- 
 ence, but, unlike Cavour's project, it aimed at no corresponding 
 concession from the Pope. On the whole it has been loyally 
 observed; but it did little or nothing to reconcile the Vatican. 
 The Papal Court clung to its hope that foreign arms or foreign 
 diplomacy, whether from France or Germany, would restore 
 the Temporal Power. It has done its best to weaken the 
 young kingdom by an attempt, which has met with no great 
 success, to dissuade the Catholics from taking part in politics, 
 and thus keep out of public life men whose sincerity and 
 definite policy would have made them a very valuable element 
 in parliament. Latterly, however, the Vatican seems to have 
 recognized that the Temporal Power has gone for ever, that at 
 the best the Pope cannot hope to be sovereign over more than 
 a small part of Rome; and, though it will not explicitly 
 abandon the position of no surrender, in practice it is groping 
 after some modus vivendi with Italy. In minor matters there 
 is a good deal of mutual understanding between it and the 
 government ; the veto on the Catholic vote is almost a dead 
 letter, and is not hkely to survive the present Pope. Religious 
 animosity is softening on both sides; and the majority of 
 
Struggle for Unity 2 1 5 
 
 Catholics are eager for a political alliance with the Conserva- 
 tive Nationalists against the new and threatening democratic 
 forces. 
 
 In fact every other question in Italy tends to be over- 
 shadowed by the social question. I shall not attempt to analyze 
 the meaningless struggles between the Right and Left parties, 
 which occupied parliamentary life for a quarter of a century. 
 I would rather deal with the more coloured and fruitful period, 
 which has followed the great disaster in Abyssinia, and Crispi's 
 fall in 1896. A short period of reaction, which almost recalled 
 the days of Austrian and Bourbon tyranny, has been followed 
 by one of steady, peaceful growth. In place of the confused 
 politics which ruled before, two great parliamentary parties 
 are evolving themselves, one composed of Conservatives and 
 Catholics with the army and capitalist influences, the other of 
 the genuinely Liberal elements of the Left, the Radicals, and the 
 Socialists. The master-fact of the period has been the rapid 
 growth of the Socialists, and their evolution — already three 
 parts accomplished — from a revolutionary to a parliamentary 
 party. The Republicans, after gaining ground under the re- 
 action, have rapidly lost it again, and are hardly more formid- 
 able than they were in Cavour's days. Meanwhile great social 
 changes have been going on. Large industries are springing 
 up ; the towns of the north are becoming great manufacturing 
 centres, and Genoa and Milan threaten to eclipse Marseilles 
 and Lyons. The application of electricity to industry has 
 opened up to Italy, the richest in water-power of all European 
 countries, great industrial possibilities. Agriculture, at all 
 events in the north, is being transformed with amazing ra- 
 pidity by new methods of cultivation and the expansion of 
 co-operation ; and the peasant seems on the road to a prosperity 
 that he has never known before. Thus, burdensome as tax- 
 ation still is, serious as is still the poverty of Italy, wealth 
 grows and spreads itself among all classes. The industrial 
 development and the spread of socialism have been followed by 
 
2 1 6 Italy 
 
 a great labour movement. Before the advent of big industries, 
 the artisans could hardly be an articulate class ; and before the 
 present reign the dead weight of the government was, though 
 quite illegally, cast against any form of labour organization. 
 The present government is the first of United Italy which has 
 stood neutral in labour conflicts ; and in consequence a strike 
 movement — which for magnitude has had no parallel in any 
 country — has swept through town and village in the last two 
 years. Thus though the republican movement has largely 
 died away, though Church and State are feeling their road to an 
 understanding, Italy is passing through a social crisis, beside 
 which perhaps the great times of her nationalist struggle will 
 some day seem unimportant. Whatever may be its issue, it 
 at all events proves that Italy is no decaying nation, but full, 
 very full, of vitality and growth and far-reaching possibilities. 
 She is richly gifted with common-sense, with perseverance and 
 modesty, with keen scientific activity, and the desire to learn. 
 Grievously loaded as she still is by poverty and illiteracy, she is 
 perhaps advancing as fast as any European nation. Across 
 the Atlantic she is building up in South America a Greater 
 Italy, bound one day to play a big part in the world's history. 
 It was not in vain then that her heroes and martyrs strove and 
 died, that Mazzini, and Cavour, and Garibaldi, and many a 
 known and many a forgotten patriot gave home and fortune 
 and life for an ideal. Let us try to forget their rivalries, 
 their blunders, their lapses; let us rather be thankful for that 
 splendid record of faith and devotion, that lights up the hard 
 nineteenth century, thankful that it has not been for nought, that 
 its monument is with us in a nation re-born to life, destined 
 perhaps to be a great factor in the progress of humanity. 
 
MAZZINI. 
 
 By Bolton King, M.A. 
 
 The struggle for Italian Unity was fortunate in the men 
 who inspired and led it. Perhaps no movement in the last 
 century can boast three men as great in their respective ways 
 as Cavour, Garibaldi, Mazzini; — Cavour, the consummate 
 statesman. Garibaldi, the guerilla chieftain, Mazzini, the 
 thinker and prophet. Mazzini is the greatest of the three, 
 greater in character, greater intellectually, greater — most of 
 all — because he lifted the politics of Italy to the height of 
 a religious faith, and stamped them with his own moral 
 grandeur. 
 
 Mazzini was born at Genoa in 1805, of a middle-class 
 family. He grew up a thoughtful, studious man, now, as 
 through all his life, of stainless nature, with a passionate love 
 of moral good and public righteousness, fearless, impetuous, 
 affectionate, possessing, even as a lad, a marvellous influence 
 on those around him, a born leader from sheer force and 
 purity of character. He had a good education, and his pre- 
 cocious brilliancy made him at twenty-five the first literary 
 critic of Italy, one indeed of the greatest critics of the last 
 century. His whole bent was towards literature, and it was 
 with a painful wrench that he convinced himself that, in a 
 country debased and enslaved as his own, literature was no 
 patriot's call, and that the man, who loved his country, who 
 wished to raise the men and women round him, must try to 
 
2i8 Italy 
 
 cleanse the social atmosphere, and for this must throw himself 
 into politics. But politics under a despotism like that of Pied- 
 mont were necessarily secret, and Mazzini joined the one 
 secret society of the time, the Carbonari. For this he was 
 imprisoned and exiled just when the Carbonari were making 
 their final attempt at revolution in 1831. He had quickly 
 lost any hope in them, and before their movement had 
 collapsed he had thought out the principles of a new society, 
 which was to take their place. 
 
 To these principles he clung, with few changes, all his life. 
 His intellect ripened young, and it was one of the defects of 
 his qualities that he learnt little afterwards. We find in his 
 writings, when he was a young man of twenty-six or twenty- 
 seven the germ and generally the developed form of every 
 doctrine that he preached. He intended Young Italy to lift 
 Italian liberty and unity right out of the level of a mere 
 political question, to make them part of a philosophy that 
 embraced all sides of life, to give them the sanction of a 
 great moral principle, to link them to the progress of mankind. 
 He thought that any living political system was impossible, 
 unless it reached down to a religious and ethical foundation. 
 He wished to find for his Young Italy an energizing force, 
 which would inspire its followers to endure and die, if need 
 be, for their cause. Conspiracy under a despotism meant 
 risking death or exile or imprisonment ; a popular rising 
 against Austria meant the loss of thousands of lives, the 
 wrecking of thousands of homes, the wasting of the land. 
 He knew that men would not face it for a selfish interest, 
 that it was only when love of country and humanity merged 
 itself in religion, when a sense of duty to God and man 
 possessed their souls, that men would rise above themselves 
 and their own small selfish aims to heroism and sacrifice. 
 He sought for his followers the faith that gave victory to the 
 Puritans, a faith that they were fighting on God's side and 
 carrying out God's plan, that every man was called on to make 
 
Mazzini 219 
 
 the cause of righteousness his own, and work for it unrestingly, 
 without thought of self or happiness, indifferent to his indi- 
 vidual fate, so he helped in God's war with evil. 
 
 He made their country's cause the cause of right living 
 both for themselves and for mankind. All through his aspi- 
 rations for Italy his one supreme concern was that Italian men 
 and women should grow in moral worth. But progress, moral 
 and intellectual, was stopped by a misgovernment, which 
 crushed the poor and discouraged education, and promoted 
 corruption and servility and dishonesty. Only in a great, free, 
 united Italy would Italians find room and light for moral 
 growth, or learn the duties of citizenship and social service. 
 And the cause of Italy was the cause of all the world. His 
 intense and fiery patriotism never forgot the larger claims of 
 humanity. The day would come, when Italy "radiant, purified 
 by suffering, would move as an angel of light among the nations 
 that thought her dead." Rome was the city destined by Provi- 
 dence to forward the cause of human unity. She had done so, 
 when the Roman Empire united the civilized world by force of 
 arms and majesty of law; she had done so again, when Catholic 
 Rome united Christendom by spiritual authority. She would 
 do so yet again and for ever, when " Rome of the People " 
 taught the modern world a gospel of social duty and peace 
 among the nations. Much of the belief was a fantastic one, 
 a curious survival of the theories of the Holy Roman Empire ; 
 he had learnt it from the classics, still more (as he learnt so 
 many of his theories) from Dante. The spell of Rome's mighty 
 past, the belief that Rome gave Italy a moral pre-eminence 
 among the nations, was one that he shared with many another of 
 his countrymen, and which inspired that inextinguishable resolve 
 that Rome should be the capital of Italy. What possible germ 
 of truth there lies in the belief we shall see later on. 
 
 This grounding of the national cause on a religious basis at 
 once differentiated Mazzini's teaching from that of the earlier 
 nationalists. Its other radical difference lies in its care for 
 
2 20 Italy 
 
 social progress. Amid the crying callousness to the lot of her 
 poor, that has discredited Italy down almost to yesterday, 
 Mazzini's voice rings out that no political change is worth 
 making unless it takes the masses one step forward, that there 
 is no true nation unless the state makes their condition its first 
 care, unless there is a true national education and persistent 
 legislative war with poverty. "I see the people pass before my 
 eyes,'' he wrote, "in the livery of wretchedness and political 
 subjection, ragged and hungry, painfully gathering the crumbs 
 that wealth tosses insultingly to it, or lost and wandering in 
 riot and the intoxication of a brutish, angry, savage joy ; and 
 I remember that those brutalized faces bear the finger-print of 
 God, the mark of the same mission as our own. I lift myself 
 to the vision of the future, and behold the people rising in its 
 splendour, brothers in one faith, one bond of equality and love, 
 one ideal of citizen virtue that ever grows in beauty and might ; 
 the people of the future, unspoilt by luxury, ungoaded by 
 wretchedness, awed by the consciousness of its rights and 
 duties. And in the presence of that vision my heart beats 
 with anguish for the present and glorying for the future.'' 
 Mazzini opposed socialism angrily and sometimes ignorantly; 
 he always pleaded for class reconciliation. But he was the 
 first to insist that Italy must be made by and for the people ; 
 and more and more he looked to the artisan classes to be the 
 strength of the nationalist movement. He believed that united 
 Italy would be the first country to solve the labour question by 
 gradually substituting for capitalist industry a system of volun- 
 tary co-operative societies, helped by easy loans from the state. 
 You will see why Mazzini chose " God and the People" for 
 the motto of Young Italy. His political programme, which was 
 to enable Italy to reach his moral ideal, had three articles,— 
 independence from Austria, Unity, the Republic. The first he 
 held of course in common with all the nationalists ; and his 
 special contribution was to bring the question of Unity to the 
 front. Before him only a few thinkers here and there had 
 
Mazzini 221 
 
 dared to speak of a united Italy. To the majority the diffi- 
 culties seemed insuperable. History and character divided 
 North and South. The great cities cherished their ancient 
 independence, and grudged to sink it in a common country. 
 All the official forces in each state, from prince to government 
 clerk, opposed a loss of their autonomy, which meant loss of 
 office. The diplomatic obstacles were very great. Above all, 
 the Papacy was fixedly hostile to a policy that doomed its 
 Temporal Power. It was a sense of the difficulties in the 
 way that now and for some time after prevented the mass of 
 nationalists from aiming at anything beyond a federation of 
 Italian states. It is Mazzini's chief claim to poUtical foresight 
 that he saw that what was a Utopia to his contemporaries was 
 a realizable ideal, that he inspired his countrymen with his own 
 passionate faith, and -gave the power, which changed the seem- 
 ingly impossible to fact. "And yet," said Carlyle long after- 
 wards, "this idealist has conquered, he has transformed his 
 Utopia into a patent and potent reality." I doubt whether 
 there is any other instance in modern times, where the same 
 man has both originated a great political idea and been the 
 chief instrument in realizing it. It gives Mazzini the claim to 
 rank among the makers of Modern Europe. 
 
 Mazzini's sagacity failed him when he added republicanism 
 to his programme. It was perhaps inevitable at the time. In 
 the days of the Holy Alliance, when despotic monarchies ruled 
 over two-thirds of Europe, and constitutional monarchy in 
 France was a byword for corruption, it was natural that men 
 should draw a sharp distinction between monarchies and 
 republics, and believe that honest, progressive popular govern- 
 ment could flourish only under the latter. Mazzini's error lay 
 in clinging to the belief after it had ceased to be true. Since 
 1848 monarchy and republic make no longer an exact classifi- 
 cation, and it is a commonplace that some monarchies ap- 
 proximate more to some republics than to other monarchies, 
 that the vital difference lies in the varying characters of 
 
222 Italy 
 
 parliaments and the degree of their control over the executive. 
 Mazzini came to understand this partially. In later life he 
 had a strong admiration for English government, and on the 
 other hand he refused his blessing to the Third RepubUc in 
 France. But party spirit prevented him from ever really 
 recognizing the truth in his own country, and we shall see, 
 in tracing his after life, how his obstinate persistence in his 
 republican faith damaged the bigger cause of unity. But his 
 republican ideal was a very noble one. To him the republic 
 meant perfect trust between government and people, the 
 selection of the most virtuous and capable for ofBce, a true 
 national unity, free from any disturbing influence of dynasty 
 or caste, that left no room for party friction, and allowed the 
 country to devote its undivided forces to progress ; in which 
 " the whole community, strong, tranquil, happy, peaceful, bound 
 in a solemn concord, stands on earth, as in a temple built to 
 virtue and liberty, to progressive civilization and the laws that 
 govern the moral world." 
 
 It was with these principles that Mazzini started his society 
 of Young Italy. It was a secret society, not because Mazzini 
 had any love, at all events then, for conspiracy in itself, but 
 because under a despotic government public agitation was 
 impossible. After his banishment from Italy the young exile 
 (he was only twenty-six years old) settled at Marseilles, and 
 gathering round him a few more exiles, started his society. It 
 was a resolution of extraordinary hardihood for a few unknown 
 young men, without any advantage of wealth, or birth, or in- 
 fluence, to calmly set to work to revolutionize Italy, and defy 
 the powers that be of half Europe. Something of the Titan 
 spirit of the French Revolution was still living then, and, as 
 one of his schoolfellows wrote (the author in English of those 
 charming novels. Doctor Antonio and Lorenzo Benoni), Mazzini's 
 " confidence in men was great and in himself unlimited." From 
 his press at Marseilles he poured into Italy a stream of revo- 
 lutionary literature, ably written, passionate in its patriotism 
 
Mazzini 223 
 
 and moral earnestness ; and though it was for the most part 
 too cultured to reach the illiterate working-classes, it fired the 
 educated youth with something of the writer's spirit. In two 
 years branches of Young Italy had sprung up thick through 
 a large part of North and Central Italy, superseding the Car- 
 bonari, and drawing into their organization the great mass of 
 active nationalists. Mazzini at once prepared for action, and 
 made two unsuccessful attempts at revolution. Three years 
 later he came to England, and lived in London, with few 
 intervals, for the remainder of his life. I am tempted to say 
 something of his English life, — his friendship with the Carlyles, 
 his closer friendship with the Stansfelds, the opening of his 
 letters in the English Post-Office, his letters to English working- 
 men on the Crimean War, his keen interest in English politics 
 and literature, his many English writings. But my subject for- 
 bids me, and I must pass on to the early forties, when, after 
 a hard struggle with poverty and despair, he resumed his 
 revolutionary work. As an organization, Young Italy had 
 practically broken up, but the spirit it had created lived on, 
 and for the next ten years it was slowly and quietly helping to 
 leaven Italian thought. For the present at all events, however, 
 it did more to raise the general level of Italian politics than to 
 direct them towards Mazzini's own special theories. It inspired 
 the nationalist movement with his own moral fervour and in- 
 domitable spirit, and deepened the resolve for independence. 
 But it made few republicans, and though it created among the 
 younger men a strong desire for unity, they held it rather as an 
 ideal to be realized at a future day than as an immediate political 
 object. Besides, the men whom he influenced most deeply did 
 not come to the front till after 1849. For the time being the 
 Moderates carried all before them, and Mazzini himself saw 
 that it was necessary to compromise with them. When the 
 nationalist movement gathered in volume after Pio Nono's 
 accession, and war seemed imminent, he did not a little to get 
 republicans and royalists to work together, and promised to be 
 
2 24 Italy 
 
 silent on domestic questions till the war was over. But though 
 he was true to the letter of his promise, and at times had even 
 short fits of trust in the Pope and Charles Albert, he could 
 never work loyally with the Moderates or repress his republican 
 preaching. He would not see that, as circumstances were, the 
 republic and Unity were conflicting ideals, that if, as he himself 
 acknowledged, independence was the first object, Unity the 
 second, and the republic only third, it was his duty to be silent 
 on the minor issues, and work with others, who were at one 
 with him on the bigger points. Perhaps it was impossible for 
 an exile to see facts in their true light, and Mazzini was too in- 
 flexible, too dogmatic, too wedded to every detail of his creed 
 to be a useful or successful worker in practical politics. During 
 the war of 1848 he did more hurt than help to the national 
 cause. 
 
 Next year he had an opportunity to display all his essential 
 greatness, and prove, when he could get rid of his partisanship, 
 how much stuff of a statesman underlay the idealist. Two 
 months after the Pope's flight from Rome, a parliament, elected 
 on universal suffrage and drawn chiefly from the richer middle- 
 classes, voted almost unanimously for a republic. It invited 
 Mazzini to come to Rome, and after the catastrophe of Novara 
 elected him a Triumvir. Mazzini's dream was realized in part. 
 Rome was free and republican, the Papacy had left it.; here, 
 where his dearest aspirations had centred, he could create 
 a government after his ideal, and prepare the ground for that 
 mission to mankind, for which he had destined Rome. Perhaps, 
 indeed, he realized from the first that the republic could not 
 last, that the European reaction was too strong to let it live. 
 But, even if it were doorn^d, it could set a noble example, 
 which the future would not forget. With a power of adaptation, 
 which Mazzini seldom showed, the idealist gave place to the 
 statesman. His bigger social and religious hopes were put aside 
 for a more quiet time. The immediate business was to defend 
 the country from attack, to preserve order, and carry out such. 
 
Mazzini 225 
 
 legislative changes as were practicable and necessary; above 
 all, to inspire government and people with a new spirit of duty 
 and patriotism. In a country, where coercion had been the 
 every-day instrument of government, where political passion 
 ran so high that in some towns assassination was habitually 
 practised by both sides, he, in a time of utmost national peril, 
 insisted on absolute liberty and tolerance. "Stiffness in prin- 
 ciples, tolerance towards individuals" was his motto. Men, 
 who were known to be plotting against the government, were 
 hardly interfered with ; the clergy-were carefully protected from 
 the people's threats. Two instances will illustrate Mazzini's 
 love of tolerance and order, and his hold upon the people. 
 When the French attack was threatening, the crowd, as 
 a protest against clerical intrigues, took some confessional 
 boxes from the churches to make barricades. It was impossible 
 to discover the offenders, but Mazzini, who, it must be remem- 
 bered, was no Catholic, appealed to the people to restore the 
 confessionals, reminding them that at all events their mothers 
 had heard words of comfort from them. Next day every con- 
 fessional was brought back to its place. Afterwards, during the 
 siege, some poor families, whose homes had been wrecked by 
 shells, were lodged in the palaces of some fugitive nobles, on 
 a promise that nothing should be stolen or injured. And 
 though in the excitement of the siege it could have been done 
 with easy impunity, not an article of the rich furniture was 
 hurt or taken. Mazzini did not try to win the people by any 
 appeal to their interests ; such few attempts as were made to 
 improve their condition were mostly initiated before he became 
 Triumvir. He was true to his principle of appeaUng to their 
 sense of duty; his ascendancy, which raised to heroism a 
 people demoralized by bad government and charity, was a moral 
 one, which asked them as men and Romans to be worthy of 
 their fathers and their cause. His own noble life appealed to 
 their best instincts. When, as head of the government, he 
 had to live in the palace of the Quirinal (now the King of 
 
 H. L. 15 
 
2 26 Italy 
 
 Italy's abode), he hunted for a room " small enough to feel at 
 home in." He dined in a cheap restaurant, afterwards in his 
 own rooms on bread and raisins ; he gave away all the small 
 stipend that he received as Triumvir. Fearless of assassina- 
 tion, he sat unguarded in his room, accessible to all who wished 
 to see him, to working men as much as to his own officials, 
 with the same smile and friendly grasp for every one. 
 
 All this, however, went for nothing in Europe. The press 
 shamelessly misrepresented what was passing at Rome. " They 
 he, indeed they lie,'' said Clough, who was present all the time, 
 of certain English and French papers. The Pope stiffly re- 
 fused to compromise, though the Republic offered, if he returned, 
 to guarantee perfect liberty for the exercise of his spiritual 
 authority. It became a race among the Catholic Powers who 
 should restore him to his Temporal, Power. I mentioned yester- 
 day how Louis Napoleon's government plotted the destruction 
 of the Roman Republic by what is perhaps the meanest of 
 modern political crimes. Oudinot, who commanded the French 
 expedition, tried to get admission into Rome on false pretences; 
 but the secret of his real intentions leaked out, and the Romans 
 were unanimous in their determination to resist. The French 
 troops attacked an equal number of raw Roman levies outside 
 the city walls, and were routed. Their position was a critical 
 one, and they put on the mask again ; Mazzini, earnestly 
 anxious to avoid more fighting with France, and hoping that 
 the genuine republicans at Paris would overthrow the ministry, 
 allowed himself to be hoodwinked by negotiations till the 
 French reinforcements arrived. When they came, Oudinot 
 attacked again, and the Romans were now hopelessly out- 
 numbered ; but badly armed and badly-generalled though they 
 were, they made a desperate defence and bore a three weeks' 
 siege, till their poor defences were battered down. From all 
 Italy men had gathered, drawn by the spell of Rome, to fight 
 once more for the honour of Italy. Garibaldi and many 
 another, who helped to unite Italy ten years later, fought with 
 
Mazzini 227 
 
 a splendid recklessness. Inside the city the people bore the 
 bombardment, the scarcity, the hopelessness of victory with 
 hardly a murmur, gripped by the love and reverence they felt 
 for their great leader. 
 
 I have dwelt at length on the history of the Roman 
 Republic, partly to illustrate Mazzini's policy and influence, 
 partly because it shows at its best the spirit that made Italian 
 Unity possible. The next period of Mazzini's life shows him 
 and it on a weaker side, in the partisanship, the incapacity to 
 see things in their true proportions. For the ten years between 
 1849 and 1859 Mazzini's energies were largely consumed in an 
 unequal dugl with Cavour. I spoke of Cavour yesterday, and 
 you will recognize how sharp was the contrast between him 
 and Mazzini in character and policy ; — the one a patient, 
 careful statesman, who hated theories, and seldom took a step 
 till he had carefully prepared the ground ; — the other a man of 
 higher moral force and culture but much less practical capacity, 
 an intolerant, impatient revolutionary, inspired by a very high 
 ideal, but incapable of distinguishing the essential and the non- 
 essential in it, and missing the road to attainment because he 
 could not compromise or work with others. The antagonism 
 between them was intensified by Mazzini's exile. If he had 
 been living at Piedmont, taking a daily part in its public life, 
 he would have learnt tolerance for men whose object had so 
 much in common with his own. The shortsighted intolerance 
 of the Piedmontese government, which kept in exile the greatest 
 of living Italians, is most to blame for his incapacity to do 
 justice to itself. Mazzini's attacks on Cavour turned mainly on 
 three points. First there was the question of the republic. 
 Again and again he promised to give up his republican agita- 
 tion if the royalists declared for Unity. But, as in 1848, 
 he kept his promise in the letter, not in the spirit. Cavour 
 could not at this time pronounce explicitly for Unity ; but had 
 Mazzini cared to look below the surface of his professed ambi- 
 tions, he might have known, as others knew, that Cavour was 
 
 IS— 2 
 
2 28 Italy 
 
 quietly encouraging the movement for Unity, and would gladly 
 stand openly for it as soon as circumstances made it safe. 
 Secondly, his criticism fastened on the time and method of the 
 next war. Cavour's delay seemed to him mere cowardice. He 
 clung to his old policy of little local risings, believing that if the 
 tinder was once alight, all Italy would soon be in flames, and 
 the united strength of the country, regular armies and volunteers 
 alike, would pour down on Lombardy. On this point, how- 
 ever, each was willing to take something from the other's 
 programme ; and both here and on the question of Unity the 
 two men, with goodwill on both sides, might have come to an 
 understanding. On the third point — that of the French 
 alliance — compromise was impossible. Mazzini attacked it 
 on two grounds; it was dishonouring to a young country, he 
 thought, to win its independence otherwise than by its own 
 unaided strength ; it was guilty to ask help of the man who 
 had crushed the Roman Republic and made the coup d'kiat. 
 Mazzini never more than faintly recognized that Louis Napoleon 
 had much of his own faith in nationality. He felt an honour- 
 able man's disgust at the steps by which the Emperor had 
 climbed to power, and he hated the man who had bombarded 
 Rome as he hated no one else. All through his life, too, he 
 had an unconquerable dislike of France and Frenchmen. 
 Cavour recognized, as Mazzini never did, the hard fact that 
 Italy must either accept the French alliance, or wait indefinitely 
 for the expulsion of Austria. His own less fine nature was 
 prepared to accept the humiliating conditions of the alliance, 
 the trickery and dishonour to which it so easily led. One is 
 bound to condemn Cavour, not for the French alliance, but for 
 the methods by which he fixed it. But when one remembers 
 that his diplomacy was for no common end, that it sought the 
 emancipation of millions of his countrymen, that it aimed at 
 the good of Europe as well as of his own country, one will not 
 readily cast stones at him. 
 
 We may pass rapidly over Mazzini's remaining life. His 
 
Mazzini 229 
 
 influence steadily declined after 1849. Something he always 
 did to brace his countrymen to active patriotism, but his later 
 policy is a story of high-minded effort wasted by obstinacy and 
 incapacity to see the facts. His part in the struggle of 1859 
 and i860 was not a big one. The spirit of his teaching was 
 indeed still at work ; he helped to push on the movement 
 which sent Garibaldi to Sicily ; but it is doubtful whether his 
 action made any appreciable difference to the events of those 
 years. During the early sixties he incessantly preached war 
 for the liberation of Venetia, wisely recognizing that it was folly 
 to attack Rome while the French garrison was there. He tried 
 to win Garibaldi to his policy, and to a small extent succeeded ; 
 but Garibaldi's umbrageous mind harboured unworthy sus- 
 picions and, partly from sheer rivalry with Mazzini, he clung 
 to his impossible scheme of attacking Rome. Mazzini had 
 a curious intrigue with the King, who was equally desirous to 
 conquer Venetia and leave Rome alone at present. Both 
 men cherished the idea of destroying the Austrian power, by 
 encouraging the Hungarians and Slavs to rise, while Italy 
 attacked from the West. The negotiations came to nothing, in 
 spite of the real liking which the two had for one another ; it 
 proves their common carelessness for constitutional propriety, 
 that they should have attempted the personal treaty over the 
 heads of the King's ministers. In 1866 Venetia was won, 
 thanks to the Prussian victories. Italy for her part had, in 
 spite of her superior forces, been defeated both by land and 
 sea, and she had had to abandon her claim to the Southern 
 Tyrol. The country was maddened by the humiliation of 
 defeat ; there had been abundant incapacity and some corrup- 
 tion ; the King's popularity was gone, and there was an acute, 
 however unreasonable, disappointment that Unity had not 
 brought at once all the economic and social gain that had been 
 looked for. All this feeling turned against the Crown. Mazzini 
 abandoned his semi-acceptance of the monarchy, and most 
 of the remainder of his life was spent in vain attempts at 
 
230 Italy 
 
 republican insurrection. Sometimes he thought now that the 
 Republic was more important than Unity, and would rather that 
 Rome should remain to the Pope than that it should be the 
 capital of a monarchy. It was a pitiful ending to the great 
 patriot's life, that he closed it with deliberate appeals to civil 
 war, and intrigued with Bismarck against his own country's 
 government. When the Italians entered Rome, his only feeling 
 was one of grief that Rome was " polluted " by the monarchy. 
 Eighteen months later, working, preaching to the end, he died. 
 
 Let us turn from his life's sad close to that splendid body 
 of teaching which made Italy. For it was Mazzini who made 
 Italy. Whether without him Italy would be united to-day, it 
 is of course impossible to tell. But he it was, who created the 
 faith that Unity was possible, who, while others doubted or fell 
 away, kept that faith ever living, whose influence to lift men up 
 to strong and selfless love of country carried Italians through 
 defeat and disappointment and tremendous risks to the national 
 end. He did this because he was a great moral teacher. His 
 philosophy, imposing and embracing and suggestive as it is, 
 covering most provinces of human thought — theology, ethics, 
 politics, art, literature — is too loosely constructed, sometimes 
 too little in touch with modern thought, to rank among great 
 contributions to intellectual progress. But as a prophet he 
 stands unrivalled in the nineteenth century, and his code of 
 ethics is perhaps the noblest which has applied itself to the 
 problems of modern life. I want here, at the risk of some 
 repetition, to touch on two of his theories, the theory of duty, 
 which gave the Italian movement much of its moral greatness, 
 the theory of nationality, which gave it its political justifi- 
 cation. 
 
 In Mazzini's early years the doctrine of individual rights, 
 which had been the mainspring of the French Revolution, was 
 the accepted principle of European and American Liberals, 
 save for a handful of thinkers, such as Carlyle and Emerson. 
 Bentham and the Utilitarians, though they rejected the false 
 
Maszini 231 
 
 historical basis of the theory, preserved its spirit — its insistence 
 on happiness as the end of life, its appeal to the self-seeking 
 side of man. Mazzini loved to quote Carlyle's dictum that 
 man's end is not the greatest possible happiness but the 
 greatest possible nobleness, and George Sand's complementary 
 tenet that "there is only one virtue — the eternal sacrifice of 
 self." Any belief in the right to happiness, he said, however 
 much men might be taught to aim at the happiness of the 
 many, must lead inevitably to selfishness, to each man's 
 fighting for himself, to conflict and anarchy, to struggle of class 
 against class, of nation against nation, and the inevitable 
 worsting of the weak. It admitted no ideal, and therefore 
 had no guide for human conduct. It made self-sacrifice an 
 absurdity, it could create no martyrs, and no political any 
 more than a religious creed could triumph without the spirit 
 that made martyrs. Men needed a principle that would take 
 them right away from the selfish side of their nature, that would 
 ever keep in sight a great ideal. Life, he said, is a mission ; 
 the individual man is called by God to work, and suffer, and 
 die, if need be, for his fellows. The law of life is duty, duty 
 that thinks not of difficulty or danger, of results or personal 
 reward, but makes a man work earnestly, unceasingly, in his 
 appointed sphere, work all the more when evil is strong and 
 the path is dark, looking only to God's final question, " How 
 many souls hast thou saved on earth?" Mazzini's own life, 
 with its utter forgetfulness of self, its unremitting toil, its self- 
 imposed poverty, its acceptance of the exile's homeless lot, was 
 splendidly true to his creed. You will understand how the 
 same creed helped' to fortify and hallow the Italian struggle. 
 Mazzini, as I have said, was pre-eminently a moralist. 
 Everything to him was a question of character, and men's 
 motives were more important than any political or social 
 system. But no man felt more strongly how much morality 
 depends on education and surroundings, how intimately there- 
 fore it is connected with political and social life. This it was 
 
232 Italy 
 
 that sent him reluctantly from literature to politics, and kept 
 him constant to the weariness and danger of his public life, 
 despite his lifelong yearning to return to his books. It made 
 him necessarily apply his moral principles to political and 
 social questions. He deduced from his theory of duty a 
 doctrine on which he built an elaborate political system. If 
 the value of a man's life depends on its devotion to the good 
 of others, its share in the common life, the true man will be 
 inevitably drawn to work not only for but with others. And 
 because the individual is weak, and the force of evil strong, 
 and the ideal so immense, a man will not dare to face his 
 duty, unless he knows that not only God but other men are 
 working with him. Hence the true principle of social and 
 political life is Association, and Mazzini thought that it was 
 the recognition of this that marked the chief advance in the 
 political theories of the century over earlier ones. He hated 
 the whole individualist theory of the French Revolution and 
 the economists. The waste and discord of the time, its class 
 and national antagonisms, were supremely distasteful to him, 
 and he sought to lessen the friction and promote unity of 
 belief and conduct. And so he judged political systems by 
 the extent to which they carried out the principle of Associa-- 
 tion. It was because he believed that republican government 
 would best give it play, that he pleaded so earnestly for the 
 republic. 
 
 It is the application of the principle to nationality that 
 I am chiefly concerned with here. In Mazzini's view nations 
 were groups of mankind, associated for their own good and for 
 humanity's. Humanity took precedence, but the work of the 
 world's civilization and moral growth needed a division of 
 labour, and this division was best made among communities 
 cemented by strong natural ties. Men would do for country 
 what they would not do for mankind ; their work was more 
 effective when it was done for and with the men to whom 
 they were related by the intimate and affectionate bonds of a 
 
Mazzini 233 
 
 common country. I am bound to say that Mazzini is not 
 always quite consistent in defining the marks of nationality, 
 but on the whole he is true to its only real foundation, — the 
 free will of the inhabitants of a certain territory to unite them- 
 selves into a nation. Long before Bismarck perverted the 
 national idea, Mazzini insisted that race and language were 
 at the best only its minor characteristics. He believed indeed 
 that great geographical boundaries, as the Alps, were set by 
 Providence to indicate the natural limits of the nations. Com- 
 munity of language and literature, of customs and traditions 
 helped to make a nation ; and no one felt more strongly than 
 he did what Dante had done to make Italy. But these were 
 not the essentials. The true mark of a nationality was the free 
 consent of its members. Italy was called to be a nation because 
 Italians wished it. He was fiercely indignant at Cavour's cession 
 of Savoy, not because he thought that Savoy naturally belonged 
 to Italy, but because the Savoyards had no voice in settling 
 their own fate. Italy herself has been true to his principles. 
 The plebiscites which annexed Central and South Italy to the 
 Italian Kingdom (and here let me say that, in spite of oft- 
 refuted denials, the plebiscites were free and genuine expres- 
 sions of the national will) have been the highest manifestations 
 of the national spirit in Modern Europe. It is the glory of 
 United Italy that she recogni?ed that the popular consent, 
 freely and publicly expressed, must be her moral and legal 
 justification. 
 
 Mazzini had another test of nationality, which I fear is less 
 accepted. There is no true nationality, he thought, save where 
 a people has a clear and bounden service to render to the world. 
 He, patriot of patriots, based his love of country on the faith 
 that the claims of humanity come first, that a country is false to 
 itself, if it does not ever keep in view the good of all mankind. 
 "Nationality," he said, "is sacred to me, because I see in it the 
 instrument of labour for the good and progress of all men." It 
 is not merely that a country is guilty (he would have called it 
 
234 Italy 
 
 irreligious) if it wrongs another people, or finds its strength in 
 others' weakness; beyond all that, a country has its definite, 
 positive duty to render to the world. And this in two ways. 
 A true nation can never be neutral in the strife. of right and 
 wrong, wherever it is fought. He framed a tremendous 
 indictment against English foreign policy for its indifference 
 to the cause of struggling nationalities ; and he looked to his 
 own Italy to be friend and protectress of oppressed peoples. 
 He wrote to an American friend after the close of the Civil 
 War : " You have become a leading nation. You may act as 
 such. In the great battle which is fought throughout the world 
 between right and wrong, justice and arbitrary rule, equality 
 and privilege, duty and egotism, republic and monarchy, truth 
 and lies, God and idols, your part is marked ; you must accept 
 it." And, besides this, he believed that every country had its 
 divinely appointed function to perform in humanity's service. 
 England's was to spread commerce and colonize, Russia's was 
 to civilize Asia, Poland's to fight the cause of the Slav peoples. 
 Germany's sign was thought, France's was action. 
 
 And what was Italy's ? I have spoken of his supreme faith 
 in Italy and Rome, his confidence that Rome had yet another 
 part to play, greater than any she had played in the past. I 
 shall do no more than refer to his belief that a new religion 
 would issue from her. But he had a more modest and 
 practicable ideal for his country and her capital. He was 
 confident that when Europe was settled on a nationalist basis, 
 when national aspirations were satisfied and the chief cause of 
 war had thereby disappeared (for he did not foresee what 
 antagonisms would arise from colonial expansion), the nations 
 would federate in a United States of Europe, with a common 
 Diet to regulate international relations, and in some undefined 
 way stimulate social progress. The natural seat of the Diet 
 would be at Rome, and Rome would be the centre of the 
 cause of peace. Is this an impossible ideal? A modern 
 publicist, M. Novicow, has recently put out the same idea, 
 
Mazzini 235 
 
 almost in Mazzini's words. Italy, which has practically no 
 territorial ambitions, no colonial empire, whose geographical 
 position makes it the mediator between the two great European 
 alliances, is the natural champion of peace and disarmament ; 
 and if current rumours may be believed, the present King of 
 Italy, a man of big views and high principles, is not unmindful 
 of the fact. Italy has behind her a moral prestige such as no 
 other nation possesses. The spell of Rome reaches through 
 the world. Europe can never forget that it owes more to Italy 
 than to any other country, and it is still true in a sense that 
 every man has two countries, his own and Italy. Should the 
 European nations ever establish a true international tribunal, 
 Rome, rather than The Hague, would be its natural seat ; and 
 should that day come, may the world remember that Mazzini 
 was not only the great moral teacher of the century and the 
 maker of modern Italy, but was also the prophet of the new 
 international law. 
 
 In concluding these two lectures, I should like to say one 
 word as to Modern Italy's contribution to the world's progress. 
 I have to some extent indicated it already. If, as most of us 
 believe, there can be no final settlement of Europe till states 
 are conterminous with nationalities, — nationalities that is in the 
 true and democratic sense, — the making of Italy is an achieve- 
 ment whose importance it is difficult to exaggerate. Among 
 the nationalist aspirations of the last hundred years Italy is 
 the one country that has truly attained. She has founded her 
 national existence on the will of the people ; she — unlike 
 Germany — has done it without wronging another nation ; and 
 all through her national movement she has remembered that a 
 country has duties to the world as well as to itself. Mazzini 
 looked to Italy and Rome to introduce a new moral order for 
 humanity; Gioberti looked for an Italian Pope to champion 
 Christian reform and peace among the nations j Cavour hoped 
 "to sign a new religious peace from the Capitol"; Ricasoli 
 
236 Italy 
 
 believed that the destinies of Italy were pregnant with in- 
 calculable results for all humanity. The impossible and 
 fantastic in their teaching passed ; but the spirit of it stayed, 
 and new Italy stamped herself with the truest mark of a great 
 people, national altruism. Even under the feeble statesman- 
 ship of the last thirty years she has stood on the whole in the 
 European polity for justice and freedom more than any other 
 leading nation. I have indicated how in the future she may 
 do still more. Italy and the Italian race have a great part to 
 play. And it is permitted to believe that that part will be not 
 only a great but a beneficent one, that when, as she will do, 
 Italy makes her power felt, it will be a power not of armies and 
 fleets, but one that comes of industrial expansion and scientific 
 discovery and social pioneering, and above all of a high sense 
 of national mission for the good of all men. 
 
THE REFORMING WORK OF THE TZAR 
 ALEXANDER II. 
 
 By Professor Paul Vinogradoff, D.C.L. 
 
 No age in the history of Russia has a greater claim to glory 
 than the time of Alexander II. The reign of Peter the Great ' 
 may have been of more moment for the development of the 
 Empire, the reigns of Catherine II and Alexander I may have 
 brought more brilliant successes : the epoch of Alexander II 
 will ever stand forward as an unparalleled effort towards the 
 inward regeneration of society. To speak with a contemporary : 
 it was a grand time, and death has no terror for one who has 
 seen it. 
 
 The monarch with whose name these pages of our history 
 are inscribed was in many respects a worthy leader of history. 
 Not that his personality was marked by inventive genius or far- 
 sighted statesmanship, by unbending will or a special ability to 
 profit by circumstances. His was more a representative than 
 a commanding character, but he was thoroughly imbued with 
 the sense of his great historical task, and aimed rather at good 
 will towards men than at power and glory. Education had 
 given him a characteristic bent : he grew up under the stern 
 discipline of his father's miUtary rule and, whatever drawbacks 
 may have attended this rule, it certainly went far to develop 
 the sense of duty. The culture of his mind had been entrusted, 
 on the other hand, to the care of a romantic poet, Joukovsky, 
 
238 Russia 
 
 and from this quarter came a softer influence, a humanitarian 
 feeling which entered a kind of protest against the harsh spirit 
 of Nicholas' court. 
 
 "I am almost afraid," the poet wrote to the young prince's 
 mother, "that all these military playthings may spoil in him 
 what ought to be his chief calling. Must he grow up to be 
 only a soldier, to act in the narrow horizon of a general ? When 
 shall we come to look with respect on the real needs of 
 the people, on the laws, on civilization and morals? The 
 passion for military things is likely to harden his soul, to teach 
 him to see in his people a regiment, in his country — barracks." 
 
 The great merit of the grown-up man and of the Emperor 
 comes from the fact that he was in touch with the aspirations 
 of the most enlightened men of his time during the decisive 
 crisis of the sixties, and that he stood to a course which in 
 his immediate surroundings was distrusted and opposed by 
 most people. The secret of this spirit of resolution is to 
 be found even more in the heart than in the mind, more in 
 a sensitive nature than in a clear perception of contingencies. 
 This may explain how it came, that when the chief effort had 
 been made, and the most dangerous cape had been rounded, 
 the helmsman relaxed, as it were, in his steering, and could 
 not find his true course in the midst of conflicting currents of 
 \ society. The seventies were as marked by contradictions and 
 uncertain drifting as the sixties had been full of manly purpose 
 and hopeful activity. The Tzar himself fell a victim to this 
 troubled time, and from the point of view of historical fatality, 
 his terrible death is not difficult to explain — he had called forth 
 a movement which he was unable either to follow or to stay. 
 Of course, such considerations are not meant to do away with 
 the moral verdict of history : the murder of the benefactor of 
 his country has indeed proved the truth of Talleyrand's saying : 
 it was more than a crime, it was a mistake. It defeated its 
 ! object, and during more than twenty years the whole country 
 has had to suffer from its consequences. 
 
Alexander II 239 
 
 My aim in the present lecture is not, however, to present 
 a sketch of the personal incidents of the reign of Alexander II, 
 interesting and characteristic though they are. I want rather 
 to set before you an estimate of impersonal achievement, of 
 what was accomplished by the people as a whole, by Herr 
 Omnes, as Luther used sarcastically to say. But, before starting 
 on our inquiry, I should like to point out that, in his own de- 
 partment of command Tzar Alexander was in reality a leader, 
 and never came to follow passively any one of his advisers, 
 though he listened to many and went part of the way sometimes 
 with one and sometimes with the other. His relations with 
 the liberal statesmen of his time were very curious. He found 
 in the talented, ambitious and restless Grand Duke Constantine 
 the only powerful helper among his relatives, and gave him 
 a prominent share in the great work of emancipation, but as 
 a Viceroy in Poland in the time of the rebellion, the Grand 
 Duke lost his way and marred his career. Nicholas Milutine, 
 the greatest of the Tzar's satellites by his profound and thorough 
 grasp of the situation, his open and inventive mind, his energy 
 and power of work, presented the real connecting link between 
 the reforming government and reforming public opinion, but he 
 was always distrusted by the Emperor, as a " radical,'' accepted 
 more than chosen by him on critical occasions, and kept in 
 more or less secondary positions. Count Loris Melikoff, who 
 came in at the close of the reign, exerted perhaps the greates|; 
 personal influence of all on the Tzar in the weakened and 
 nervous state to which the latter had come; but then Lor^s 
 Melikoff himself represented the same undecided combina- 
 tion of heterogeneous elements which was characteristic of 
 Alexander II., he was a kind of repetition of his master, with 
 more craftiness and less nobility of disposition. The reactionaries 
 even more than the liberals played the part of tools and occa- 
 sional helpers. Such was the terrible Mouravieff, the dictator 
 of Vilna : he was let loose on occasions of special danger, but 
 remained outside the circle of real political leaders. Demetrius 
 
240 Russia 
 
 Tolstoy, the reactionary Minister of Public Instruction of the 
 seventies, showed his real mettle in the reign of Alexander III, 
 while in Alexander II's time he acted chiefly as the mouth- 
 
 . piece of a more influential person, of the journalist who had 
 
 / the greatest share in drawing up the programme of reaction and 
 converting public opinion to it — of Katkoff". In his last years 
 the Tzar lent his ear a good deal to his advice, and the wavering 
 manner in which he stood between the bilious tribune of re- 
 action and the conciliating Loris MelikofF shows more than 
 anything else to what extent singleness of purpose and clearness 
 of political thought were missing in this sad close of the reign. 
 Of one more figure of this time I will say a couple of words, of 
 Valouyeff, Minister of the Interior in the sixties, not because 
 he was in any way a remarkable man, but because he represents 
 one of the greatest failings of the Russian bureaucracy of these 
 times — and of other times too. He was not a remarkable man, 
 but he seemed one, and talked like one ; he had no ideas, but 
 as many projects and counter-projects as were wanted to meet 
 the emergencies of legislation, and all through the troublous 
 times he steered most successfully his own personal career. In 
 
 1' this way Alexander II had no Bismarck by his side, and even 
 if he might have found a Stein in Milutine, he did not wish 
 him to be one, but tried to gather helpers from opposite quarters. 
 These observations are not entirely foreign to the main object 
 of this lecture ; they ought to show that the great work of the 
 sixties was accomplished by a multitude of agencies which were 
 led in a definite direction by the spirit of the time, more than 
 by the plans and efforts of any single person. 
 
 In what respect was the country prepared for the great work 
 
 \ of social revival ? Its condition at the close of Nicholas' reign 
 
 seemed desperate. The huge mass was sorely deficient in the 
 
 production and circulation both of material goods and of ideas. 
 
 'The majority of the people were riveted to the soil by serfdom 
 and ignorance; the means of communication were in such a 
 state that it took occasionally a year to send convoys and 
 
Alexander II 241 
 
 relays from the North to Sebastopol, and social intercourse was 
 so sluggish that when the price of corn stood at 1.50 roubles 
 in the province of Kursk, it fetched 15 roubles in the province 
 of Pskov. The ruling class was mainly represented by the 
 landowners described in Gogol's Dead Souls, vegetating in sloth 
 on the back of their "christened property," as the peasants 
 were called, and by the tchinovniks, of whom Gogol's Revisor 
 gives a graphic description, carrying the same easy-going, 
 thoughtless, corrupt practices into the routine of their official 
 caUings. But in this state of society there were redeeming 
 features which come like rays of light into the darkness. The 
 same class of landowners which showed to so little advantage in 
 its daily life of ignorance and private interest, disclosed ele^ 
 ments of sound strength when it came into contact with ideals 
 of intellectual and moral greatness. From this class came not 
 only the military men which have served Russia faithfully on 
 many fields of battle ; but, what is more, it expanded gradually 
 in the direction of literature and civilization. The brilliant 
 generation of the forties had witnessed the rise of a kind of 
 intellectual freemasonry which laid the foundations of public 
 opinion and conscious thought right in the snow of the Nicholas 
 regime. Hertzen, one of the most remarkable representatives 
 of this time, a man who had to leave Russia on account of his 
 advanced opinions, tells us that he nowhere came across such 
 a centre of humanitarian and philosophical thought as the one 
 which had formed itself in Moscow in connection with its Uni- 
 versity. The influence of this small but high-spirited minority 
 made itself felt more and more by the help of literature and of 
 the press. The force which came to be represented by such 
 men as Pushkin, Gogol and Lermontoff, Bielinsky and Hertzen, 
 Granovsky, Chomiakoff, Samarine, Tourgeneff, Gontcharoff, 
 Stchedrine and many others could not be disregarded. It ( 
 may be even said that never was the voice of a highly educated j 
 minority heard more clearly and followed with more enthusiasm 
 by society than in these days, when the Government did not 
 
 H. L. 16 
 
242 Russia 
 
 admit of any direct interference in its affairs and the country 
 had so few channels to form and express its opinions. 
 
 The collapse of Nicholas' regime gave to this wonderful 
 intellectual movement a practical direction. There could be 
 no mistake about the moral of the Crimean war : just because 
 the rule of Nicholas had been thorough and attended with 
 outward success, its bankruptcy was more striking. The 
 capacity of the country for a better development stood the 
 most difficult of the tests which can be applied to nations by 
 history : evil and defeat called forth a moral revival and a 
 salutary reform. 
 
 The era of reforms was brought about by the joint action of a 
 Government which had suffered signal defeat but had to appeal 
 to a long past of successful national leadership, a country poor 
 in material resources and reviled by social abuses, but patriotic 
 in all great emergencies of historical life, and an enlightened 
 minority instinct with ideals of justice and independent thought. 
 The result was amazing. No people has experienced a more 
 thorough regeneration of its institutions than Russia in the 
 sixties : the abolition of serfdom, the creation of self-govern- 
 Tnent, the reform of judicial organization, the introduction of 
 general conscription and shorter service in the army, the im- 
 provement of the finances of the Empire, the construction 
 of railways, the modification of the Press law, educational re- 
 forms — all these momentous changes came about in the course 
 of a few years. It remains for us to see what was really 
 achieved by the most important of them. 
 
 The social reform had to proceed from the abolition of 
 serfdom. Serfdom was by no means an ancient and time- 
 honoured institution in Russia : in South Russia it was less 
 than a hundred years old, having been chiefly transplanted there 
 by the enlightened despotism of Catherine. In Great Russia, 
 the mainstay of- the Empire, it was some two hundred years 
 older in its origins. But even there it sprang up gradually and 
 in a way which rendered its existence precarious. It was the 
 
Alexander II 243 
 
 result of the consolidation of duties towards the state. The . 
 peasants were enlisted to serve their lords as tillers of the soil, !. 
 because the lords were enlisted to serve the Tzar as warriors. ■ 
 These historical facts had more than an antiquarian signifi- 
 cance : they kept up among the subjected people the con- 
 sciousness of their dignity and the hope that what had been 
 done under the hard pressure of political necessity might be 
 undone in better days. When Peter III freed the landed 
 gentry from the obligation of serving the state (1762), the 
 peasants were convinced that this act would be followed by 
 a corresponding emancipation of the agricultural class. They 
 were right in their guess, although they had to wait almost 
 exactly a hundred years for the completion by history of what 
 was necessary in logic. 
 
 And these last hundred years of bondage were in many 
 respects the worst of all. The political idea underlying serfdom 
 had evaporated, but its consequence — the surrender by the 
 state of its most important rights into the hands of the landed 
 proprietors — remained. The squires according to Emperor 
 Paul's expression were considered as the best and cheapest 
 "masters of the police." At the same time these very squires^ 
 had private rights over the land and the persons of their / 
 "subjects." The result was a most odious tyranny — the 
 arbitrary rule of innumerable petty tyrants, backed up by the 
 arbitrary rule of a powerful Empire. Though some faint re- 
 strictions on the power of injuring the wretched peasants 
 existed in law, in practice men, women and children were ill- 
 used, sometimes even to death, and retaliation was exceptional 
 even in such extreme cases, as the peasants were denied all 
 direct access to the authorities, even in the wa,y of complaint, 
 not to speak of an action against the lords. I will not dwell 
 on the many memories of caprice, lust and cruelty which have 
 come down to us from these good old times. Just to give you 
 an impression as to this state of things, I may mention one 
 case in which the paternal care of a landowner in regard to his 
 
 16 — 2 
 
244 Russia 
 
 " christened property " is exemplified. In a well-ordered estate 
 the proprietor had solved the problem of ensuring family happi- 
 ness : once a year the youth of both sexes which had reached 
 a given age were called up to the office : at the bidding of the 
 stewards couples were formed and instantly marched off to 
 church, where the holy rites of marriage were performed for 
 them by the village priest. 
 
 There were mainly two restraints on the wanton use of 
 power — the existence of the village community and the self- 
 interest of the owners. As for the first, it drew the agricultural 
 people tightly together : this afforded some check on oppres- 
 sion, and it kept up among the people a sense of fellowship 
 and fair arrangement that was entirely missing in the case 
 of domestic servants, the most wretched class among the serfs. 
 The motive of self-interest kept the masters from injuring their 
 men in the same way as it kept them from injuring their 
 beasts. By the help of such agencies general arrangements 
 were worked out almost by instinct to meet economic require- 
 ments : where the soil was too poor or there were openings for 
 industrial or commercial development, labour services were 
 commuted for rents. In the use of servile labour for agri- 
 cultural purposes customary systems as to the allotment of 
 land and the amount of services arose : cases varied a good 
 deal, but there may be noticed a general tendency towards 
 dividing the week by half, the peasant doing three days 
 " brother's " work for his lord. 
 
 Though human nature provides for some working arrange- 
 ment even in such desperate situations, the difficulties of 
 serfdom were increasing on all sides and every day. The 
 allotment of land grew more and more insufficient with each 
 new generation. In order to find the necessary supplementary 
 means of existence the peasants had to look out for outside 
 work, but this channel was very much blocked by the necessity 
 of obtaining leave from the lord and the tendency of all 
 customary arrangements towards immobility. There were too 
 
Alexander II 245 
 
 many mouths in the North and too few hands in the South, but 
 the mouths could not be moved freely to the region where the 
 hands were needed. As a matter of fact the whole distribution 
 of society proved to be wrong: it had originated at a time 
 when the requirements of defence drew, the population arti- 
 ficially towards Moscow. In the altered condition of things, at 
 a time of rising husbandry on the black soil of the South, the 
 workmen remained chained to the sand and clay of the North. 
 On the other hand, the state began to perceive that it lost more 
 than it gained by its policy of surrender to the born "masters 
 of the police.'' It wanted national industry and commerce, and 
 came to understand that they could not be got without a supply 
 of free labour ; it wanted Russia to follow Western countries in 
 the ways of material progress, and came to see that the arbitrary 
 power of the lord was not conducive towards that end. Even 
 more directly, it wanted to strengthen its financial resources, 
 and found that it could not put on the screw with proper 
 effect, because the squires had the lion's share in the proceeds 
 of national labour and squandered a good deal of the national 
 capital by their thriftless management. 
 
 Under these circumstances the moral forces arrayed against 
 serfdom obtained a firm footing in more than one quarter. The 
 protests of the peasants themselves took the shape of occasional 
 deeds of murder and revolt, which were ruthlessly repressed, 
 but left after them an uneasy feeling that a storm was brewing 
 somewhere. Tzar Nicholas himself could not help admitting! 
 that the abolition of serfdom was necessary. " I do not under- ' 
 stand," he said once, speaking as "the first nobleman of Russia," 
 " how man came to be a thing, and I can explain the fact only 
 by deception on one side and ignorance on the other. We 
 must make an end to this. It is better that we should give up 
 of our own account that which might otherwise be wrested 
 from us." One secret committee after the other was appointed 
 to inquire into the condition of the peasantry and devise 
 measures to improve their lot, and six times the good inten- 
 
246 Russia 
 
 tions of the Government were eluded by the resistance of the 
 nobility and of officials of high standing. The will and energy 
 of the Emperor were kept in check in this case by his fear of 
 shaking the foundations of the state and his hatred of demo- 
 cratic ideas. Only when the charm of Nicholas' regime had 
 been broken by the Crimean war, the forces making for emanci- 
 pation got the upper hand. 
 
 Curiously enough the immediate impulse towards agrarian 
 reform was given by the policy of the Government in the 
 Western provinces, where the landed gentry is Polish while the 
 peasant class is Russian or Lithuanian. Already in Nicholas' 
 reign so-called inventories were introduced in the South-West, 
 that is binding agreements between lords and tenants as to 
 allotments and services, and on the 20th of November, 1857, 
 an Imperial rescript to the Governor-General of the North- West 
 was published, which proclaimed the necessity of agrarian 
 reform, and provided the local machinery for carrying this 
 resolve into practice. The effect of this manifestation was 
 tremendous, because it moved the question from the region of 
 secret committees into the demesne of national publicity. 
 Emancipation in the whole of Russia had clearly become a 
 necessity, but a good deal depended on the manner in which it 
 was carried out. 
 
 The original intentions of the Government were not very 
 promising. The Ministry of the Interior had taken its cue 
 from the emancipation of the serfs by the German nobility 
 of the Baltic provinces of the Empire : it had been effected 
 under Alexander I, and had resulted in freeing the person of 
 the peasant and leaving him at the mercy of the proprietor as 
 a farmer or an agricultural labourer. The common people in 
 Russia were in dread of such lawless freedom, which they 
 termed the freedom of the wolf. The leaders of progressive 
 opinion, and foremost among them the Petersburg Professor 
 Kavelin, took accordingly a firm stand against this idea; and, 
 fortunately for the Russian peasantry, the most influential of 
 
Alexander II 247 
 
 the men to whom the actual shaping of the reform law was 
 intrusted, recognized the national tradition of peasant right to 
 the land under the protection of a village community. 
 
 The necessary investigations as to facts and the drawing 
 up of schemes for Russian progress were confided to two sets 
 of boards : provincial commissions, consisting of representatives 
 of the landed gentry and of some members of the administra- 
 tion, and a central commission, the so-called Redaction-com- 
 mission in St Petersburg, in which N. Milutine was the leading 
 spirit, and which through his influence was composed not only 
 of the usual elements of high bureaucracy, but also of some 
 representatives of the landed interest from different parts of 
 Russia. These last, though drawn from the class whose interest 
 it was to oppose or to restrict emancipation, were in reality the 
 spokesmen of enlightened public opinion, Youri Samarine and 
 Prince Tcherkarssky being the most prominent among them, 
 men of high culture and of a proud spirit of disinterested 
 patriotism. What followed is a striking illustration of the might 
 of well-conceived ideas on a soil adapted to their development, 
 even against the most rancorous weeds of self-interest and 
 prejudice. The action of the provincial bodies led to the 
 elaboration of contradictory schemes : the great majority of 
 the landed gentry was still too much fettered by selfish con- 
 siderations to entertain plans of a generous and comprehensive 
 reform. But at the same time everywhere there came forward a 
 determined minority which renounced petty considerations of 
 profit and tried to rise to the greatness of the occasion. In the 
 Central Commission a similar minority was making way against 
 the ill-will and the indifference of the rest. It succeeded in 
 drawing over to its side the first chairman, Rostovtzeff, a general 
 with a doubtful past, but with a feeling for the importance and 
 responsibility of his task, and, after the death of Rostovtzeff, 
 who succumbed to work and worry, it checkmated his successor. 
 Count Panin, a most unsympathetic representative of the spirit 
 of subservient bureaucracy engrafted on aristocratic pretensions. 
 
248 Russia 
 
 In this way the reform was elaborated and carried out by an 
 enlightened and energetic minority which had won the support 
 of the Government and used the feelings and situation of the 
 absent mass of the peasantry as a kind of dead-weight deter- 
 minating the centre of gravity of the problem. 
 
 Let us turn to the chief provisions which were elaborated 
 in this way, and carried through a High Commission presided 
 over by the Grand Duke Constantine, and through the Council 
 of State in which the Emperor himself used his personal in- 
 fluence to further the scheme. They are embodied in the 
 memorable statute of February 19, 1861. Personal freedom 
 was granted without distinction to all serfs, the agricultural 
 peasants as well as the c'jDmestic servants. The first obtained 
 sX once a protected tenure of their holdings, but had to pay 
 and perform work for them as long as these holdings were not 
 redeemed by agreement with the owners. Most agreements 
 were effected in the course of twenty years, and only a com- 
 paratively insignificant remnant of tenures were subjected in 
 1 88 1 to enforced redemption. The money for redemption was 
 lent to the peasants by the state, and they had to repay it 
 gradually in the course of 49 years. 
 
 The conditions of the settlement were by no means easy : 
 the peasants got everywhere rather less than what they had 
 possessed before emancipation, the minimum and maximum 
 being fixed by statute. We may judge of the burden laid on 
 the peasantry from the fact that at the close of the seventies 
 a peasant's dessiatine (about 2\ acres) had to pay 95 copeks in 
 land taxes, whereas a dessiatine belonging to a squire was taxed 
 merely at 17 copeks. The holdings resulting from this opera- 
 tion were as a rule too small. The statistics of the distribution 
 of land show allotments which stand in marked contrast with 
 the endowment of that part of the peasantry which depended 
 directly on the Crown. About 50 per cent, of the former 
 serf families {dvor) live on tenures of 5 to 10 dessiatines, say 
 from 12 to 25 acres. In the fertile South the figures are gene- 
 
Alexander II 249 
 
 rally lower, and at the last stages of legislation on the subject 
 a great landowner, Prince Gagarine, succeeded in introducing 
 the provision, that the proprietors could by renouncing all 
 payments from their peasants cut them off with one-fourth of 
 the maximum holding. Thanks to this clever move a large 
 number of farmers in the South live on so-called beggar 
 holdings of a couple of dessiatines, and are economically 
 at the mercy of the neighbouring squires. This goes a long 
 way to explain the agrarian disturbances in the Kharkoff 
 and Pultava provinces which occurred in the course of last 
 spring. 
 
 The emancipation left in force and confirmed the customary 
 organization of the peasantry as it existed in 1861. The 
 greater part of Great Russia remained in the hands of village 
 communities, which have a right of re-dividing the land between 
 their component families according to requirements and working 
 strength, and altogether exert a very wide power for regulating 
 village life. As against the state the community is responsible 
 as a whole for the payment of taxes by its members. In the 
 South and West the land is held in severalty by the households. 
 For administrative and police purposes the lowest unit is formed 
 by the village community with its assemblies and elective reeve, 
 while the next instance is formed by a kind of union hundred, 
 the volost, to which several villages are ascribed. The volost 
 has jurisdiction over the peasants of its territory, and delivers 
 judgment in their suits according to customary law, but people 
 not belonging to the peasant class have nothing to do with it. 
 Altogether, nearly 23 milhons were emancipated on the ground 
 of the statute of February 19, 1861, and in 1863 and 1866 
 the peasants directly depending on the Crown received similar 
 allotments and organization. 
 
 Another complement of the great reform was the agrarian 
 measure carried out in 1864 by Milutine and his friends in 
 Poland, where the personal emancipation brought by the French 
 in the beginning of the century had left the peasant class in 
 
250 Russia 
 
 a most precarious condition : this was supplemented after the 
 Polish rebellion of 1863 by a more thorough poUcy of land 
 allotment than the one which was effected in Russia proper. 
 It may be noticed in passing that the township, gtnina (from the 
 German Gemeindc), is not exclusively a peasant institution 
 here, but embraces all the inhabitants of its territory. 
 
 All these tremendous changes were on the whole carried 
 out with great fairness at the hands of the umpires of the 
 peace selected from the landed gentry, and received with 
 dignity and orderly behaviour by the peasants, and this side of 
 their history certainly deserves careful attention, as showing to 
 what extent (notwithstanding the bustle and agitation of the 
 first moment) the measures adopted seemed satisfactory, and 
 met the requirements at least of the immediate future. 
 
 The emancipation was more than a reform, it was a peaceful 
 revolution : it changed the economic structure of society by 
 supplying it suddenly with free labour, and it made necessary 
 other reforms — political, administrative and judicial — by alter- 
 ing the social basis on which all arrangements of the former 
 age had been resting. To begin with, the administration could 
 not be left in its former state. It presented a curious mixture 
 of bureaucracy and aristocratic privilege. The absolute power 
 of the Tzar had done away with all restraints in higher and 
 central administration, but had not the means of carr)ring out 
 its orders all through the Empire. In the same spirit, in which 
 it had surrendered the welfare of the majority of the people to 
 the guidance and self-interest of landlords, it made over to the 
 landed gentry of every province the selection of administrative 
 and police officers, as well as of judges, although the actual 
 appointment was effected by the Government and they had 
 to look to the Government for orders and control. The members 
 of the class who filled the provincial posts, of the noblesse, as 
 one might call it, according to the ancient French term, and in 
 distinction to the English nobility, made use of their adminis- 
 trative arid judicial offices in the same spirit of private interest, 
 
Alexander II 251 
 
 in which every single squire arranged his estate and his 
 "christened property." Bribery, dishonest employment of 
 public money, abuse of power were direct consequences of the 
 system : there were numbers of the people who never came to 
 understand that they were doing anything amiss because they 
 were rather sharp in their administrative practice. To make 
 the picture complete, the presence of absolutism was affirmed 
 everywhere by the governor, a high official directly appointed 
 by the Crown, a kind of Pasha, who was termed officially the 
 Manager of the province and supposed to look to everything, 
 in fact to act as the political providence of the district. It is 
 not difficult to guess the result of this side of administrative 
 organization : a meddlesome tutelage crippling free enterprize, 
 a series of pompous, self-confident, self-indulgent and ignorant 
 proconsuls of whom the best were those who did not take 
 their power too seriously, a conspiracy of official adulation and 
 deceit as to the real state of the country and the influence 
 of pettifogging clerks substituting paper correspondence for 
 real business. 
 
 The impulse given by the emancipation shook this rotten 
 fabric in its very foundations. The framing of a new plan was 
 entrusted to a commission presided over by a very doubtful 
 person, Valouyeff. The prevalent public opinion of the time 
 gave it an impulse towards self-government, but it had to 
 encounter a powerful opposition from Petersburg bureaucrats, 
 who were afraid of calling forth an independent action entirely 
 foreign to their habits and rule. One has to keep all these 
 circumstances in mind in order to understand the half-hearted 
 manner in which the necessary legislation was devised and 
 carried out. Anyhow the rights of self-government were pro- 
 claimed in the provinces and their subdivisions, the districts, 
 whereas in local affairs only the towns received it. Villages 
 are self-governing only as communes of peasants, the members 
 of other classes being left without common bond. The scope 
 of the Zemsivo or /a«</-organization, as provincial self-govern- 
 
252 'Russia 
 
 ment is called, in contrast, with the state bureaucracy, was 
 deemed to be the management of those interests which concern 
 the economic requirements of local society and not the political 
 requirements of the state. It was impossible in practice to 
 give effect to this slippery distinction, which was prompted by 
 the characteristic jealousy of the Government towards its own 
 offspring. In point of fact the Zemstvo was called upon to take 
 into its hands the care of medical and veterinar}' arrangements 
 within the limits of the province, of primary education, of the 
 relief of the poor, of economic assistance, especially in cases of 
 distress, of ways of communication, of insurance against fire 
 and other calamities, of the collection of statistics and the 
 organization of natural services required by the Government 
 from the population of the province. To meet all these needs 
 it had the right of imposing rates on the landed property of the 
 inhabitants and of making certain bye-laws. 
 
 The machinery by which these duties were to be carried 
 out comprised assemblies meeting for short periods in the 
 districts and in the province, and boards to which executive 
 business was entrusted. The franchise was managed according 
 to certain property distinctions, not excluding the peasantry. 
 The functions of the deputies were left without remuneration, 
 while the members of the executive boards were to receive 
 salaries. The chairmen of the boards were not to preside in 
 the assemblies, the chair being taken in those by the officers 
 of the noblesse, the so-called Marshals. 
 
 The powers of the new bodies were substantially curtailed 
 in many ways. On the one hand, the power of coercive 
 execution of their decisions was denied to them. If anybody 
 did not want to conform to them, if anybody was remiss in 
 paying his rates, and the like, the Zemstvo had to apply for 
 execution to the general police, which had now become quite 
 bureaucratic in its composition. The power of the governor 
 and of different boards presided over or appointed by him had 
 by no means ceased in those very departments to which the 
 
Alexander II 253 
 
 Zemstvo had been introduced, and he had to supervise its action 
 and to confirm its decisions. Everywhere, in fact, the " land " 
 and the " government " were posted with concurrent powers, 
 and a jealous mistrust of each other. It was clear from the 
 first that the reform of provincial administration, though it did 
 away with many evils and afforded some prospects of good, 
 rather opened the lists for a struggle between different sections 
 of society than provided them with a basis on which they could 
 work peacefully together. 
 
 It remains for us to point out the change which was 
 effected in yet another department, namely in the organization 
 of justice. Notwithstanding the great efforts which had been 
 made in the reigns of Alexander I and Nicholas I to improve 
 and to codify the law, the modes of administering it were 
 defective in the extreme. We have already seen to what extent 
 the lower courts were permeated by the oligarchical principles 
 of the epoch of serfdom : the landed noblesse had to elect the 
 members of these tribunals, and they conducted the business 
 of the courts with the same disregard for human dignity and 
 the purity of justice with which they managed the affairs of 
 their estates : their arbitrary, corrupt practices had become 
 a household word in Russia and abroad. At the same time 
 the police, wielded by other squires, presented an inextricable 
 confusion of administrative and judicial functions. It held 
 amongst other things in its hands the very origin of criminal 
 jurisdiction,; the prelirninar^jnvestigation as to crimes. It was 
 an object of '^sdain Tbr high people, of corruption for the 
 jiddle class^nd of terror for lower orders. 
 
 Apart from their defective composition and corrupt practices 
 e courts of justice did not inspire confidence on account of 
 eir procedure. It was based on the inquisitorial system, 
 Carried on with closed doors, by the help of innumerable 
 written documents, on the principle of formal proof, without 
 any regard for common sense and equity. No wonder that the 
 era of reforms had to reconstruct this edifice also. In the 
 
254 
 
 Russia 
 
 beginning of the sixties the comprehensive work of remodelling 
 the judicature was carried out in an admirable manner by 
 a commission of lawyers and statesmen, of which Zarudniy 
 and Stoyanovsky were the most talented and meritorious, and 
 on the 2oth of November, 1864, the new statute as to the 
 organization of justice became law. It presented'a remarkable 
 adaptation to Russian life of principles of law and of judicial 
 institutions, worked out and tried by the history of England, 
 France and Germany. There can be no talk in this case of 
 a mere copying of foreign standards : no single system was 
 followed in an exclusive manner, but the best conceptions of 
 the West were made to serve the requirements of Russian life. 
 
 I cannot dwell long on the purely legal side of this great 
 reform, and must content myself with pointing out its chief 
 aspects. It proclaimed the publicity of procedure, and made 
 an end thereby to the crooked ways and hidden abuses of the 
 old tribunals. Instead of the inquisitorial procedure in which 
 the parties in court are reduced to mere nonentities, the way 
 was cleared for a conflict of argument between the parties, and 
 their efforts to maintain their contentions were relied upon to 
 produce a more searching inquiry for truth than the one-sided 
 examination of the court. The prehminary inquest as to 
 criminal acts was confided to magistrates who had more in 
 common with the 'Frtnchjuges d'i?istruction than with English 
 coroners. The duty of sustaining the accusation in court was 
 entrusted to public prosecutors, while for the defence of the 
 accused and the representation of civil interests the order of 
 barristers was organized. For the settlement of minor suits 
 and the punishment of minor misdemeanours and crimes 
 justices of the peace were created, and, as a guarantee of their 
 independence, they were to be chosen by the Zemstvo and the 
 towns. The same regard for the independence of the Bench was 
 shown in the original statute by the provision that the judges of 
 the higher courts were not to be removed unless by the decision 
 of a court of law. In criminal cases the trial by jury was intro- 
 
Alexander II 255 
 
 duced with the view of providing the courts of law with an 
 element of common sense and independent judgment, not 
 adulterated by professional narrowness. At the summit of the 
 whole edifice the Senate was placed, as a court for formal 
 revision, a Cour de Cassation, as the French say, keeping guard 
 over the uniform and unflinching application of the law all 
 through the Empire. It was altogether a grand reform, even 
 more grand in the spirit to which it bore witness than in the 
 details of its provisions. It proclaimed the rule of law, equality 
 before the law, and the independence of judges, three principles 
 which were all but new in Russian life, and which, if carried 
 thoroughly into effect, would have involved a real progress 
 of the country from a half-barbarous state to the benefits of 
 political civilization. 
 
 But such transformations are not possible in so short a time 
 and by so plain a course. The dark past was strong even 
 in its defeat. It had dangerous weapons in its hands — the fear 
 of political reform and the craze of revolution. By the help of 
 these weapons the development of principles avowed and pro- 
 claimed by the Government itself was arrested. We have seen 
 already how emancipation was minimized and local self-govern- 
 ment crippled. By the side of reformed justice the most 
 glaring contradictions to it were left standing. The citizen 
 remained rightless as against the political police : a man could 
 be subjectedTo~~search, imprisonment, administrative expulsion 
 with no law to protect him or to punish the harmful use of 
 discretionary power. Corporal punishment was abolished for 
 the higher classes, but remained in force in regard to common 
 people. A Press law was issued in 1865, but its provisions 
 were made ineffectual one by one, and censorship reinstated in 
 all its glory. Liberty of conscience was guaranteed to foreigners, 
 with some restrictions, but denied to Russians. In political 
 and legislative matters the nation remained a passive mass 
 which had merely to follow orders, although free institutions 
 were revived by Alexander II in Finland. 
 
256 Russia 
 
 All these fatal contradictions account for the disappoint- 
 ment and bitterness which followed the exultation of the age of 
 reform and culminated in the desperate war of the terrorists 
 against the Government. Still, as it would be unfair to pro- 
 nounce a condemnation on the Government that had done so 
 much, because it did not do all, it would be equally unfair to 
 judge of the nation by the outbreak of unruly spirit which 
 carried the most hotheaded of its youth into terrorism. The 
 real trial both for the Government and for the nation turned on 
 their capacity to appropriate and develop in quieter times the 
 memorable reforms of Alexander II. 
 
THE MEANING OF THE PRESENT DEVELOP- 
 MENT IN RUSSIA. 
 
 By Professor Paul Vinogradoff, D.C.L. 
 
 People differ a good deal as to the meaning of the present 
 stage of development in Russia itself, and to foreigners it 
 appears as a complete puzzle. They have not the means of 
 following closely the manifestations of the every-day life of 
 the people, because the usual sources to which it is customary 
 to apply — parliamentary debates and the utterances of an 
 unfettered press — are wanting. In this way the current news 
 about Russia is not of a high order, and what generally reaches 
 the eye of Western observers are official announcements (which 
 are commonly disbelieved) and " dreadfuls " of various kinds. 
 The best way to form a judgment is to turn to the great lines 
 traced by history: and what has been said in my former lecture 
 about the era of reforms may, I hope, have left at least this 
 impression that the Russia of our time is most directly con- 
 nected with the Russia of the sixties. The changes at that time 
 were so great that more than one generation had to work at 
 assimilating their results and meeting their consequences. 
 
 To begin with, the social transformation of the country has 
 been, no doubt, very striking. The population has been nearly 
 doubled in the course of some 40 years, — rising from 74 
 millions in 1858 to about 140 millions at the present moment. 
 Whereas at the beginning of Alexander II's reign there existed 
 only some 1,000 versts of railway in the huge empire, in 1899 
 
 H. L. 17 
 
258 Russia 
 
 there were 48,000 versts in action and nearly 8,000 building, 
 and by this enterprise the drawback of enormous distances is 
 being gradually overcome. Agricultural resources have been 
 developed, chiefly by the spread of cultivation and partly, 
 especially in the West, by the adoption of better methods, and 
 the country counts as one of the great producers of grain for 
 the world market. Industry has sprung up under high-pitched 
 protection and by the influx of foreign capital, so that in the 
 course of ten years (1887 — 1897) the production of textiles has 
 been doubled, rising from 463 million r. to 946 millions, while 
 the commercial balance of 1898 shows 732 r. for exported 
 goods and 617 for imported, as against a medium export of 
 227 and a medium import of 205 at the close of the fifties. 
 
 The Government is taking more than its share from this 
 great increase of national resources. In 1857 its income was 
 260 million r. and its expenditure about 350 millions. In 1890 
 expenditure and income were balanced at just 1,000 million 
 roubles, and in 1900 the expenditure already reached 1,889 mil- 
 lions, being nearly 90 per cent, in excess of the budget of 1890. 
 
 Has the increase in national wealth stood in real corre- 
 spondence to this exceptional rise of expenditure and taxation ? 
 There are many facts to show that it has not been the case. 
 It has to be noticed, to begin with, that the greater part of the 
 income is swallowed by the interest of the Debt and the needs 
 of the military establishment in army and navy, and this is 
 certainly a great drag on productive outlay. The construction 
 of railways comes next, and its growth is not dictated merely 
 by commercial, but also, as in the case of the Transsiberian, by 
 strategic considerations. No wonder that such wants as that 
 of National education, for instance, are reduced to ridiculous 
 insignificance. The budget of the Ministry of Public In- 
 struction has never risen to more than 2\ per cent, of the 
 expenditure, and there has been a decrease in a number 
 of years. 
 
 On the other hand there can be no doubt that the constant 
 
Recent Development 259 
 
 increase of a taxation which falls mainly on the poor is draining 
 the resources of the most important class of the Empire, the 
 peasantry, to such an extent that its members are pushed to 
 the brink of destitution and in case of any mishap acttially 
 lapse into beggary. The frequent miscarriages of crops and 
 the famines consequent on them are more than the casual 
 results of bad weather. They show that the people have no re- 
 serve to fall back upon. The reports of the so-called campaigns 
 of relief testify to appalling conditions. In most cases the 
 number of cattle and horses owned by the peasantry is de- 
 creasing. In, some districts of the province of Samara, which 
 counts among the granaries of Russia, there have been years 
 when one-third and even one-half of the population have been 
 turned.into mendicants. When the tax-gatherer turns away in 
 despair from such wretched people he fastens the more on 
 those who have still something left. It may be said without 
 exaggeration that for the majority of the Russian peasantry the 
 primary object in life is to earn enough to pay the taxes : 
 everything else is an accident. The wonder is not at the lack 
 of enterprise and thrift, but at the endurance which enables 
 men to toil along at all in the face of such conditions. 
 
 This state of affairs is assuming so grave an aspect, that 
 even in the realm of bureaucracy some apprehensions are 
 entertained, and projects for improvement are hatched. Even 
 now a " Consultation " is discussing these questions under the 
 high chairmanship of the Minister of Finance. It is evident 
 to everybody concerned, that the difficulty is not merely a 
 technical one : it is not merely a question of rotation of crops 
 or of manure. Behind the necessary technical improvements 
 are looming problems of political economy and of law, and 
 so much has been avowed by this very Minister who has to 
 superintend the fleecing of the sheep and is called up now to 
 look to their health. In one of his reports to the Emperor he 
 insists on the necessity of a solid basis of law and of right for 
 the life of the peasantry. 
 
 17 — 2 
 
26o Russia 
 
 And truly enough such a basis of right and law does not 
 exist for the great majority of the Russian people. The 
 emancipation from serfdom left it a class with peculiar and 
 inferior institutions. The existence of the village community 
 in itself does not imply the necessity of keeping the peasants 
 outside the general law. The working of the community could 
 be easily adjusted to general rules as to juridical persons. But a 
 peculiar demesne of custom was formed for them nevertheless : 
 everything was to be decided on the ground of indefinite and 
 varying custom within the village or in the court of the volost, 
 by judges elected from among the peasantry itself. This would 
 have been excellent if by the side of these experts in rural 
 custom representatives of trained legal knowledge appeared, 
 to mediate, as it were, between the legal conceptions of the 
 lower and higher orders. But nothing of the sort exists : the 
 volost judges, sometimes quite illiterate, are left to grapple 
 with problems of hereditary succession, family and marriage 
 law, criminal jurisdiction for minor offences, and there is 
 nothing to help them but the advice of pettifogging clerks and 
 the supervision of administrative officers. It must be added 
 that in the few cases when the lawgivers did concern them- 
 selves with this demesne of peasant custom the result has 
 not been a happy one — mostly a strengthening of antiquated in^ 
 stitutions which seemed to savour of the principle of authority. 
 In such a way, for example, divisions between members of the 
 family and the freedom of moving from place to place have 
 been hampered in a very mischievous manner. 
 
 The main idea underlying all these facts amounts un- 
 doubtedly to the conception that peasants are not like other 
 people, that they have to be treated as beings of a lower 
 order. The theory which flourished in the Southern States in 
 regard to the negro has a kind of counterpart in the notions 
 of the Russian Government and gentry about the Russian 
 peasant, although this same peasant is being sentimentally 
 extolled when no practical consequence has to be drawn from 
 
Recent Development 261 
 
 such declamations. In view of his animal nature, flogging is 
 deemed an appropriate punishment for him and carefully 
 preserved in the practice of administrative officials and of 
 volost-courts, although other classes are exempted from it, at 
 least by law. 
 
 From an economic point of view we notice in the life of 
 the single peasant a falling off for the worse, although the 
 aggregate production of agriculture has increased. To under- 
 stand how matters came to such a pass we have to look back 
 at the settlement which followed emancipation. The peasantry 
 received less than it had held before the emancipation 
 and sometimes it was put off with entirely incommensurate 
 plots ; the land they got was, as a rule, of inferior quality ; 
 they were often left without suitable pasture and they had 
 to pay a heavy indemnity for what they did get. Some 
 improvements were introduced later on. The indemnity was 
 somewhat reduced and facilities granted for paying it off, a 
 bank was instituted in 1883 to help the peasantry with credit 
 for the purchase of land, emigration was regulated to some 
 extent, but all these measures were not thorough enough, and 
 the country is still facing a state of things which is more than 
 an agricultural crisis, which threatens to become a question of 
 existence for its most important class. 
 
 Unhappily the policy of the Government has not only been 
 insufficient in this case, it has been distinctly harmful in two 
 respects : deliberate efforts have been made to reinstate the 
 landed gentry into the privileged position it held before the 
 emancipating acts, and the agricultural population of the 
 Empire, instead of advancing towards the same level as other 
 classes, has been placed under a degrading and arbitrary 
 tutelage. These two features of the present time deserve 
 careful examination. 
 
 When the statute of 1861 was passed and put into practice, 
 it became apparent that in the New Russia of free labour and 
 free contract, the gentry was fast losing the position it had 
 
262 Russia 
 
 possessed in the age of settled establishment and immoveable 
 custom. Not that the members of the class were deprived of 
 means to make good their interests : on the contrary, the 
 immediate effect of the breaking of the old system was to 
 throw such enormous sums of money into their hands as they 
 had never had before, and they retained more than a fair share 
 of the land to which this capital could be applied. But it was 
 evident that most did not know and did not care to enter into 
 the new conditions of life : the money was squandered, the 
 estates mortgaged, and the families of the squires dispersed 
 into all sorts of professions instead of concentrating their efforts 
 on the cultivation of their estates. No wonder that from the 
 ruins of the class different currents arose^ — its members broke 
 up into three main groups : some definitely joined the middle 
 class which was beginning to form itself in towns, some while 
 remaining in the country sought to lead in a different sense 
 from old, to use their means and their superior political 
 training to obtain influence apart from any privilege, but most 
 of those who remained on the land raised a cry for assistance 
 and restitution. Past services were recalled, past deficiencies 
 slurred over, the state was to make amends for all the un- 
 comfortable consequences of emancipation. One of these 
 gentlemen proposed, for instance, that every parish should 
 be administered by a meeting of the resident noblesse, while 
 the chairman of this board should be remunerated by an 
 exemption from paying the debts he had incurred towards 
 the Government. Another preached the advisability of cutting 
 out new estates of the substantial worth of ;^25ooo each for 
 the sake of making comfortable provision for 4000 families of 
 the noblesse. The wish that the squires should be granted 
 powers of police over the labourers on their estates and over 
 the adjoining peasantry is constantly recurring with the obvious 
 object to revert to a state of things similar to former serfdom. 
 
 The Government let itself be carried away to great lengths 
 by this unblushing agitation. In 1886 it started the bank of 
 
Recent Development 263 
 
 the noblesse with the aim of providing the squires with credit 
 on the most advantageous conditions : the result has been 
 unlocked for, inasmuch as the money obtained so cheaply was 
 mostly squandered and the thirst for more seems nevertheless 
 unquenchable. In 1886 also it was enacted that a breach 
 of contract by hired labourers was to be considered a criminal 
 offence, and the police were to coerce the labourers to perform 
 their work. In 1897 a special consultation was formed to 
 consider the wants of the noblesse and it has formulated some 
 wishes as to the conditions of admission to the privileged 
 order and as to the education of its children. But the greatest 
 boon conferred on the privileged gentry to the prejudice of 
 society and public order has been the institution in 1889 
 of the so-called Zemskinatchalnik (land-captains or land- 
 administrators). 
 
 In the heat of the reaction which characterized Alexander 
 Ill's reign it was found expedient to strengthen the govern- 
 ment in the open country by submitting the villagers to the 
 jurisdiction of civil officers endowed with judicial as well as 
 with administrative functions. The principle of the division 
 between these two powers, a fundamental principle from the 
 point of view of the reforms of 1864, was given up, the justices 
 of the peace elected by provincial councils thrown over, and 
 a very stringent and arbitrary rule put in their place — the rule 
 of the land-captain, appointed by the governor from the gentry 
 at the advice of the marshal of the noblesse. The new officer 
 was on the one hand made the centre of all the administrative 
 affairs of his district — sanitary measures, relief of the poor, 
 relief in cases of agricultural distress, supervision as to all 
 material and moral interests of the population. On the other, 
 he was to be judge in the first instance in minor civil and 
 criminal cases. Thirdly he was to act more especially as a 
 guardian and controller in all cases which concerned the 
 peasantry. As one of these land-captains pointedly expressed 
 it : they were to act as nurses to the peasantry. The punish- 
 
264 Russia 
 
 ing power of these nurses is very extensive. They have the 
 right of sentencing village elders and judges to prison and are 
 even provided with discretionary power to set a peasant into 
 prison for three days without any form of trial and without 
 any possibility of appeal, simply for supposed disobedience. 
 Coming after the orderly process of law administered by the 
 justices of the peace, a process which the villagers had already 
 learned to respect, the power of the land-captains is considered 
 as a negation of justice. "We have no more judges,'' a peasant 
 was heard to say, " we have commanding officers." 
 
 What guarantees are there, that this exceptional position 
 will not be misused? Some guarantee might have been 
 provided by a careful selection for the posts of these local 
 dictators. As a matter of fact only a small minority of them 
 has received an administrative or judicial training or any higher 
 education at all : most are chosen from the neighbouring 
 squires who have served in the army or not served any- 
 where and have not been taught anything carefully. Another 
 guarantee seems provided by the right of the inhabitants to 
 appeal from the decisions of the land-captain to sessions, 
 composed of the same magistrates under the chairmanship of 
 the marshal of the district and with the adjunct of a few 
 trained lawyers. It has to be said that even this minority of 
 jurists is exerting some beneficial influence on the lawless 
 practices of the land-captains, but then the decisions of this 
 district board are themselves subject to be overruled by the 
 board of the province in which the legal element is all but 
 absent, and there the procedure stops. The department of this 
 peculiar arbitrary justice is not in direct communication with 
 the Senate which towers over all other courts of law. 
 
 All these features show conclusively that the object of 
 the law of July 12, 1889, is neither the improvement of 
 justice nor the furthering of the commonweal, but the estab- 
 lishment of a dictatorship in every locality as an agency of 
 central bureaucracy on the one hand, of the local gentry on 
 
Recent Development 265 
 
 the other. In what spirit justice and police are wielded by 
 the land-captains may be gathered from a few facts. During 
 the terrible famine of 1892 the land-captains of some districts 
 of the province of Nijniy opposed systematically the policy 
 of relief and restricted the delivery of bread although the 
 population was literally starving, because they wanted to keep 
 the people at low wages. The Toula land-captain who ex- 
 pressed himself so graphically about acting as a nurse to the 
 peasants made it his special object to enforce by punishments 
 the performance of agricultural work. In another case the 
 peace of peasant households was safeguarded by putting into 
 prison objectionable wives. The celebrated article 61 which 
 provides for discretionary punishment is well in view in the 
 preservation of order. A land-captain had forbidden one of 
 his peasant-fold to pass by his house : one night the villager 
 was nevertheless caught trespassing in the street before the 
 land-captain's house and instantly locked up. One of these 
 magistrates has summed up his observations as to the way 
 justice and police is being administered all over Russia in 
 the ominous words : " there is no indignity which in the 
 beginning of the twentieth century may not be inflicted on 
 a Russian peasant." 
 
 We have already noticed that the introduction of land- 
 captains entailed the fall of the justices of the peace. These 
 last remain only in some of the large towns. This reversal 
 of the statutes of 1864 is the greatest and the most wanton 
 breach with the legal spirit and institutions of the era of 
 reforms. The justices of the peace as well as the members 
 of the higher courts had indeed deserved a better treatment. 
 The change achieved by the new personnel of the courts and 
 the new methods of administering justice has been simply 
 wonderful and will always remain an example of the might of 
 public spirit and ideal aspirations in human affairs. Where 
 intrigue, casuistry, and bribery had reigned supreme, a system 
 of justice arose which presented all the necessary guarantees 
 
266 Russia 
 
 of competence and purity, and this in spite of the miserable 
 remuneration of members of the Bench. The justices of the 
 peace were at work in minute cases and for the settlement of 
 minor interests, but their work in the aggregate represented 
 the everyday litigation of society, was conducted in a cheap 
 and expeditious manner, with the greatest fairness and common 
 sense and had earned for the judges the respect of all — but the 
 Government. The Government of reaction estimated everything 
 by its standard of arbitrary rule, and in regard to this the 
 justices of the peace were found wanting. 
 
 Trial by jury was even more a thorn in the eye of the 
 leaders of reaction : juries are formed without distinction 
 of classes, their verdict is independent of the command of 
 crown-lawyers, originally it had to pronounce even in cases 
 when officers appeared in the dock, when press-offences were 
 tried. The outcry against this institution which has also 
 speedily taken root in Russian soil has not achieved its de- 
 struction, though it has called forth a series of measures for 
 curtailing it. 
 
 But in this case as in others the intentions of the reactionary 
 party are even more worth notice than its particular achieve- 
 ments. The real enemy is always the same — law, a law in- 
 dependent of caprice and protection, proudly holding up its 
 head in the face of the powers that be, appealing to the sense 
 of dignity in man and proclaiming the equality of citizens. 
 Such a law is not in favour of late, and reaction has been 
 striving all along to substitute something quite different instead 
 — a spurious administration of sentences, bowing low before 
 might, bending to influence and protection, frowning on those 
 who are not in favour with the authorities, relentless to the 
 weak. A Government which has created the land-captains, 
 and deprived millions of its Jewish subjects of the most common 
 rights of citizens, even of the right of educating their children, 
 such a Government is not a fitting patron of law and justice. 
 What it enforces is obedience to order, not to law, and its con- 
 
Recent Development 267 
 
 tempt of law is exemplified in every way. Even the feeble 
 guarantees of the principle that law is a general enactment 
 obligatory for everybody as long as it has not been repealed, are 
 set at nought by the constant practice of personal orders of the 
 Sovereign, of ministerial circulars and of so-called temporary 
 rules. What has been most carefully elaborated of late years 
 is the discretionary power of governors and general governors 
 under the state of siege. Measures taken in 1881 during the 
 panic created by the murder of the Tzar have been spreading 
 and developing ever since. Nobody is secure against search, 
 arrest, imprisonment and relegation to remote parts of the 
 Empire. From political supervision the solicitude of the au- 
 thorities has spread to interference with all kinds of private 
 affairs. To-day somebody is sent out by command of a governor 
 because he is suspected of immoral conduct, to-morrow some- 
 body else because he is practising hypnotism, and then again 
 young people guilty of a disturbance in the streets are sentenced 
 to months of imprisonment without the formality of a trial by 
 order of a master of the police. Such is the legal protection 
 we are enjoying in Russia. Nowhere are the benefits of such 
 a rule more conspicuous than in dealing with the youth of 
 the schools. It has been truly said, that all students are placed 
 under special police supervision. And when the police finds 
 that it is not enough to spy on them, it puts them out of the 
 way of doing harm. I will not speak of such proscriptions as 
 attend university riots, like that of 1899 for instance, when 
 in Moscow every fifth man disappeared from the scene. There 
 are more ludicrous and hardly less characteristic cases, as, for 
 instance, when students in quiet times are forced to leave the 
 university town and to interrupt their studies because the 
 Emperor is expected to honour a particular city by his visit, 
 or when the university authorities remain entirely in the dark 
 as to the whereabouts of their pupils and dare not ask for 
 explanations, because the political police does not admit of 
 any inquiries. 
 
268 Russia 
 
 It remains for us to consider the historical development 
 of the institutions of self-government created by the reform 
 of January i, 1864. In the words of one, who has been him- 
 self a pioneer of self-government in Russia, the best represen- 
 tatives of society, who had for a long time been dreaming of 
 a free expansion of its forces, threw themselves with all faith, 
 hope and devotion into the work of provincial self-government, 
 in which they saw the dawn of a new era of light. Undoubtedly, 
 both in the eyes of the Government and in those of the public, 
 the opening up of this new sphere of social action was not con- 
 sidered as a self-sufficient end — the Zemstvo was started as a kind 
 of school for greater liberty. Tzar Alexander himself pointed 
 out several times that he did not intend to stop at this grant, 
 and asked his people to wait in confidence for further develop- 
 ment in the same direction. But, although political aspirations 
 of a comprehensive kind were present in the minds of the 
 workers, it would be wrong to suppose that they were careless 
 of the work immediately in hand. On the contrary, notwith- 
 standing all natural shortcomings by reason of inexperience and 
 intrigue, the Russian Zemstvo and the new municipal corpora- 
 tions have achieved on the whole most creditable work. They 
 have grappled problems which the aristocratic bureaucracy of 
 former times had hardly entertained, and for the solution of 
 which it had proved entirely powerless. One main idea goes 
 through the whole range of their activity — the striving towards 
 material and intellectual progress of the lower classes, and 
 surely no more noble idea could have inspired these thousands 
 of humble workers. 
 
 The most striking results were achieved in the domain of 
 education. Primary schools were all but non-existent in the 
 sixties when the state gave over to the Zemstvo a share in their 
 organization and management; and at the present day, less 
 than 40 years after this period of darkness, in some parts of 
 the country the stage is already being reached of making 
 primary education accessible to all, and everywhere the self- 
 
Recent Development 269 
 
 governing bodies are advancing steadily and energetically to- 
 wards their aim. All the work of building the schools, providing 
 them with teachers and teaching material, supporting the most 
 needy among the pupils and ministering to some extent to their 
 intellectual requirements after school, is carried out by the 
 Zemstvo and the towns, and it is in the most democratic 
 of the provinces, in the far east districts of Viatka and 
 Perm, where there is no landed gentry to speak of, that these 
 intellectual needs are best recognized and most devotedly 
 cared for. 
 
 Another department for which the Zemstvo ha's done great 
 things is the medical and sanitary arrangements for the people. 
 It is hard to conceive the difficulties which have to be overcome 
 in this respect. Enormous distances, bad roads, the rough 
 climate, the scarcity of population and the greater scarcity of 
 available medical men — all these are tremendous obstacles to 
 anything like a rational system of medical attendance. Never- 
 theless the pioneers of this cause did not lose heart ; 30 per cent, 
 of the budget of the Zemstvo has been devoted to it, and the net 
 of hospitals, ambulances, medical centres is spreading gradually 
 over the country. 
 
 The material condition of the people has not been absent 
 from the mind of the Zemstvo workers. Their democratic ten- 
 dencies made them inclined to look at the root of economic 
 distress : extensive inquiries have been rightly deemed necessary 
 to guide the steps in the direction of improvement, and the 
 Zemstvos have carried out most extensive and instructive sta- 
 tistical work which might do honour to any country. On the 
 strength of their intimate knowledge of the wants and resources 
 of the people, the Zemstvo and the educated classes which are 
 seeking a support and an opening in self-government have been 
 able to do great things in the many cases when agricultural 
 distress and famine set in. The funds assigned by the Govern- 
 ment and subscribed by benefactors find their way towards the 
 suffering in the innumerable dark corners of the vast country 
 
2 70 Russia 
 
 chiefly by the help of the Zemstvo and its assistants, who throw 
 into this work all the unassuming, untiring self-devotion charac- 
 teristic of the Russians in time of need. In more favoured 
 moments the economic activity of the Zemstvo is mostly taking 
 the shape of furthering agricultural progress by starting model 
 farms, providing instructors, forming stores for the sale of im- 
 proved implements and machines. The Zemstvo again is trying 
 to check the destructive effect of fires, and though it cannot 
 do much for altering the modes of building in this " country of 
 wood," a great deal is being done for the spread of a system of 
 insurance. "Less has been achieved for the relief of the poor 
 and the improvement of means of communication, and one 
 of the reasons for deficiency in these respects may be, that in 
 these questions the competence of the councils of the Zemstvo 
 and of the ordinary police are in a state of hopeless entangle- 
 ment. 
 
 I may be excused in the course of a short lecture from 
 giving more details on these important subjects. Time is 
 pressing, and I have still the other side of the medal to set 
 before you — the sad history of constant restrictions in regard 
 to the Zemstvo on the part of central government. The 
 hope for an extension of the Zemstvo, for a rise from pro- 
 vincial self-government to political freedom was doomed to 
 fail. Already in 1867 the working of the St Petersburg Zemstvo 
 was suspended because it had dared to petition for calling 
 together representatives from all provinces to consult on 
 economic matters of general interest. The only chance which 
 ever occurred in this direction was afforded by the policy of 
 Count Loris Melikoff, who, in the brunt of the fight against 
 terroristic conspiracies, listened to addresses from various 
 provinces and devised a plan of central legislative com- 
 missions on a representative basis, a plan approved by the 
 Emperor, but crushed by the untoward success of the con- 
 spiracy on the I St of March. After that event the well-known 
 reaction set in, and when the Zemstvos raised their voices for 
 
Recent Development 271 
 
 liberal reforms they were harshly rebuked for their " senseless 
 dreams'." Not to speak of parliamentary institutions, even the 
 wish for a local unit of self-government, a self-governing parish 
 or volost, was met with constant rebuffs ; attempts at arranging 
 meetings between the representatives of different provinces for 
 the discussion of common affairs were considered unlawful and 
 forbidden. The Committee of Ministers can boast of a long 
 list of petitions from the Zemstvo, which have been negatived 
 simply on the ground that they applied for measures of general 
 interest; although it was recognized that in many cases the 
 grievances and the information presented by the petitioners 
 were quite to the point. 
 
 Not satisfied with this the Government has been carrying 
 on a kind of systematic persecution against the self-governing 
 bodies, both through its provincial agents and its legislative 
 machinery. Provincial bureaucracy is everywhere at loggerheads 
 with the Zemstvo, and this is the more serious, as this last has no 
 other means of carrying out its decisions than the help of this 
 very bureaucracy, and is bound to seek the confirmation of the 
 governor for all its decrees. The ill-will of provincial admini- 
 stration is the more keen and constant, as the acts of the 
 St Petersburg powers testify clearly to their antipathy towards 
 the Zemstvo. Already in 1866 a most extensive right of coercion 
 was given to the presidents of the provincial councils. In the 
 same year the power to tax industrial and commercial under- 
 takings was taken from the Zemstvo — it had to restrict itself 
 to imposing rates on land. In 1874 the educational manage- 
 ment of the primary schools was made directly dependent on 
 Government directors and inspectors on the one hand, the 
 marshals of the noblesse on the other, while the self-governing 
 bodies had to restrict themselves to material arrangements. In 
 1889 all nominations of agents were subjected to the confirma- 
 tion of the governors. In the eighties a general reform was 
 
 ' The historical words of Tzar Nicholas II to the Marshals of the 
 noblesse (January 17, 1895). 
 
272 Russia 
 
 attempted, first in a liberal direction, but the labours of 
 Kakhanoff's Commission, which took up that line, came to an 
 untimely end, and a reform began in exactly the opposite 
 sense under Count Dem. Tolstoy. He aimed at nothing less 
 than at making the Zemstvo entirely a tool in the hands of 
 bureaucracy, because in his view self-governing institutions were 
 at variance with the spirit of autocratical government, and pro- 
 duce a cleavage in the system of administration. He did not 
 succeed in carrying out his entire programme, but in 1890 
 a new statute replaced the one of 1864, and it weakened the 
 self-governing bodies considerably by altering the franchise and 
 giving to them a distinctly aristocratic stamp. " In practice this 
 measure led especially to nonplussing the peasant delegates 
 who are treated in the most high-handed manner by the land- 
 captains. 
 
 And still, though vitiated in many respects, the spirit of the 
 provincial self-government has not been extinguished ; a con- 
 tinuity of development has been kept up, and such bodies, 
 for example, as the Zemstvo of the Moscow province are 
 showing an amazing capacity of doing useful work in the most 
 difficult circumstances. Of late the existence of self-govern- 
 ment has been in the balance again, and especially under the 
 late Minister of the Interior and the present Minister of 
 Finance measures have been enacted which strike at the very 
 root of provincial government. The 12 th of June, 1900, has 
 been an especially evil day for Russian provincial liberties : 
 the power of the councils to impose rates has been suddenly 
 cut short in an entirely arbitrary manner : no province is to 
 increase rates by more than three per cent, of the imposition of 
 the previous year. It has been pointed out that this method 
 of holding expenditure and self-imposition chained to the 
 budget of previous years is entirely lacking in a rational 
 basis. It just falls as a block on schemes of development, and 
 the greatest sufferers are those who for one reason or the other 
 had held back with their imposition and requirements. 
 
Recent Development 273 
 
 Qn the same day the organization of relief was placed 
 entirely in the hands of provincial governors, guardians ap- 
 pointed by them, marshals of the noblesse and land-captains. 
 In this way provincial bureaucracy, which has shown many 
 times how remiss it is in acknowledging the most pressing 
 needs in this respect and how clumsy in administering to them, 
 has been entrusted with the conduct of all this diflficult and 
 responsible business, while the Zemstvo, which presents the most 
 suitable machinery for mobilizing the forces of society for relief, 
 is kept altogether out of the concern. This measure is so 
 clearly misconceived and mischievous that there are signs that 
 the Government will not be able to uphold it. 
 
 What I have said may be sufficient to show, I think, that in 
 the course of forty years we have been living in Russia in a kind 
 of civil war — war between an uncertain or reactionary Govern- 
 ment and all sorts of claimants of bankrupt interests on the 
 one hand and the rising forces of national consciousness and 
 self-government on the other. What is to be the result of this 
 strife which has marred the life of generations and strikes the 
 whole Empire with weakness ? Let us first listen to the views 
 in this respect of the spokesmen of the powers that be. Here 
 is one of them, the well-known procurator of the Holy Synod, 
 PobedonostzefF. He has taken care to embody his political 
 ideas not only in the form of enactments and measures, but 
 also of literary productions. In the collection of Moscow 
 essays written or edited by him, we may find his appreciations 
 of the chief problems of State and Church. The guiding 
 principle of these appreciations is an unbounded scorn for all 
 Western institutions. Constitutional government is declared to 
 be the great fraud of our time. Majorities are formed by wire- 
 pullers who understand how to mislead and to bribe the electors. 
 The ignorant mass is called upon to perform the most difficult 
 and delicate duty of politics : the duty of selecting the men 
 that have to take charge of government. The mass is not 
 only incompetent to do so, but the better people simply shrink 
 H. L. 18 
 
2/4 Russia 
 
 from seeking favour with it. Parliament is not better than 
 a machine for bringing out ill-conceived incoherent laws. The 
 press, which has the greatest share in forming so-called public 
 opinion, has grown to be an irresponsible power, wielded by 
 people singled out by shameless arrogance. These evils may 
 be somewhat tempered in Anglo-Saxon communities by indi- 
 vidual independence and personal energy, though even there 
 the United States present striking illustrations of the gross 
 abuses of democracy. As for the rest of the Western world, it 
 is preparing for socialism and social strife. What is one to 
 think of the rule of law, which is extolled by the advocates of 
 Western and especially English institutions? "Those who are 
 called upon to act, to command, are constrained at every 
 moment to look about them for fear of infringing this or the 
 other rule, this or that formality. As laws increase in number, 
 the energy of power necessary for good administration gets 
 weakened, and the law, which ought to help the official, 
 hampers him at every step." What is the outcome of all these 
 negative remarks ? A plea for " plain, living, personal institu- 
 tions," for absolute power, the sanctity of superstition, the 
 wholesomeness of darkness and resignation for the mass of the 
 people, the craving towards an aristocracy which at the same 
 time is recognized as hardly possible in our time. From these 
 barren pseudo-Platonic exaggerations let us turn to another 
 representative of modern bureaucracy, the energetic Minister of 
 Finance, Witte. He has also given expression to his political 
 philosophy in a memoir drawn up against the Minister of the 
 Interior for the use of the Emperor and of some, high officials. 
 It was intended to be kept secret from the rest of mortals, but 
 somehow a copy of it got into the hands of poUtical refugees 
 and was published by them. It is undoubtedly a document of 
 the greatest importance, of which historians will certainly avail 
 themselves to depict the turn of mind of Russian statesmen in 
 the beginning of the twentieth century. 
 
 The drift of argument amounts to this, that self-government, 
 
Recent Development 275 
 
 even local or provincial, is in its essence a political arrange- 
 ment and as such opposed to absolute monarchy. If self- 
 government is to live and to act rationally it has to develop 
 into a constitution. If it cannot be allowed to do so, it has to 
 be replaced by a centralized bureaucracy. After granting that 
 such a bureaucracy leads to arbitrary power and dead formalism, 
 and quoting the contemptuous remarks of Stein as to official 
 writing machines, Mons. Witte nevertheless assumes that Russian 
 bureaucracy is to produce a new political type, unknown to 
 history, will in fact turn out to be an aristocracy of work and 
 enlightenment. He applauds the foreign observers who re- 
 cognize similarities between the condition of Russia and that of 
 British India or China, and takes his stand on the principle 
 that the Russian people is lacking in individuality and pre- 
 destined by its history to be ruled by tchinovniks under the 
 directing force of autocracy. This government will somehow 
 abstain from arbitrary measures, arrests, exceptional tribunals 
 and other kinds of oppression, it will guarantee freedom of 
 labour, thought and conscience. As for society, it must be 
 left to follow private interests and in them seek an outlet for its 
 energies. We shall be rather astonished to find that the Zemstvo 
 is also left a place in this ideal bureaucracy : it ought not and 
 cannot be destroyed. The Minister of Finance is convinced 
 that the system sketched in his essay will not only preserve 
 Russia from falling a prey to the great fraud of our time — con- 
 stitutional government, but will heal it from its present woes. 
 His closing words are significant : "Nothing is more apt to ruin 
 the prestige pf authority than a frequent and extensive employ- 
 ment of repression. Measures of repression are dangerous, and 
 when they get to be continuous, they either lead to an explosion 
 or else turn the people into a casual throng, into human dust." 
 These are strong words, and the whole essay is full of 
 telling epigrams and keen criticism. But it would be difficult 
 to find in it the sincerity and thoroughness which it preaches 
 to everybody concerned. Its argument seems based on un- 
 
2 76 Russia 
 
 warrantable assumptions; is not, for example, the optimistic 
 prospect of the future of bureaucracy in Russia such an 
 assumption ? In fact, one may almost express the hope that 
 next time the Minister of Finance wants to turn out his 
 colleague of the Interior, he may show as brilliantly that 
 autocracy and bureaucracy are irreconcilable with individual 
 liberty as he has shown in 1899 that they cannot live in peace 
 with local self-government. There seems also a certain con- 
 fusion of thought in another assumption, namely in the belief 
 that Russia is doomed to remain perpetually in that state of 
 dependence upon paternal government which has been passed 
 as a stage of development long ago in England, more recently 
 in France and Germany. It is altogether curious that Mini- 
 sters of a powerful Empire should be instinct with such a 
 contempt for the people they rule, that they are unable to 
 devise a better lot for them than the position of the Chinese 
 plebs under the rule of mandarins, or that of the natives in 
 conquered British India. The one thing which strikes one 
 most in these speculations of our present rulers is the absence 
 of positive ideals, the barren scepticism and the hopelessness of 
 their views and plans. They are doomed, even more by their 
 own confessions than by the accusations of their adversaries. 
 
 And therein lies the hope for a better future for Russia. 
 The country is evidently on the eve of a new stage of develop- 
 ment, and no efforts will avail against the historical forces 
 which drive it towards a new course. The common rights of 
 civilized man which have come to be a self-understood element 
 of European Hfe, cannot be longer denied to the Russians, and 
 it is only to be hoped that the Government in power will not 
 protract much longer its blind resistance to progress. The 
 sooner it gets to be recognized that the dignity and welfare of 
 Russia crave freedom as well as authority, and that the only 
 basis to unite both is law, the easier it will be to solve the 
 problems set before a nation which has a great stake in the 
 destinies of the world. 
 
THE PROBLEM OF THE NEAR EAST. 
 
 By G. p. Gooch, M.A. 
 
 In the first part of this lecture I propose to discuss the 
 power of the Sultan, and to explain ajid contrast the theory 
 and practice of Turkish government. In the second part, 
 I shall attack the most pressing problems of the Near East, 
 the Armenian question, the Macedonian question, and the 
 Albanian question. In the third, I shall briefly consider the 
 relation of the Great Powers to the Ottoman Empire. 
 
 I. 
 
 In order to form a correct idea of the position, of the 
 Sultan, we should clearly understand that his power is two-fold, 
 — partly political and partly spiritual. 
 
 Taking the political aspect first, we must divide the Empire 
 into two parts, the territory over which the Sultan really rules, 
 and the territory over which he possesses a merely nominal 
 over-lordship. In Europe the Sultan possesses in direct rule 
 the whole of the centre of the Balkan peninsula, that is to say, 
 the country bounded on the west by the Adriatic, on the south 
 by Greece, on the north by Servia and Bulgaria, and on the 
 east tapering away to the tongue of land where the city of 
 Constantine looks forth over Asia. In Asia Abdul-Hamid's 
 direct possessions consist of Asia Minor up to the Russian 
 frontier in the north-east corner, the whole of the great plain 
 of the Euphrates and Tigris as far as the Persian boundary, 
 
278 The Near East 
 
 and almost the whole of the great Arabian peninsula. In 
 Africa he directly rules over the strip of coast between Egypt 
 and Tunis, or, to be more precise, over Barka and Tripoli. 
 The Ust of his immediate possessions would have to be com- 
 pleted by a long list of islands of the Archipelago. 
 
 A century ago the Sultan was undisputed lord in his own 
 house. To-day he is locked out of many of the rooms. In 
 Europe he retains the barren over-lordship of Bulgaria and 
 governs Novi-Bazar under the eyes of its Austrian garrison. 
 In Asia, the little province of the Lebanon has been snatched 
 from his hands, and the Wahabi communities of Arabia defy 
 his authority. In Africa, his rule is shackled by the presence 
 of England in Egypt, of which he retains nothing beyond the 
 over-lordship. The list also includes the large islands of Crete 
 and Cyprus and the little island of Samos. 
 
 We must now attempt to measure his spiritual influence. 
 You will perhaps think it strange to speak of spiritual power 
 in connection with the Sultan; but the justification of the 
 phrase lies in the fact that he is the spiritual head of the 
 Mohammedans throughout the world. From the moment that 
 Mohammedanism became an organized movement, that is from 
 the early part of the seventh century, there has been a Khaliph 
 or Head of the Faithful. Theoretically he should be descended 
 from the tribe to which the Prophet himself belonged. But 
 circumstances have been too strong for theory, and, as a matter 
 of fact, the greater number of Mohammedans are content to 
 recognize as their Khaliph the strongest temporal ruler, who 
 of course at the present time is the Sultan. But we must bear 
 in mind the limitations of the Khaliphate. The number of 
 Mohammedans in different parts of the world who do not 
 recognize it is very considerable. In the infancy of the new 
 religion there was a terrible crisis. For some years after the 
 death of the Prophet, Ali, the husband of Mohammed's beloved 
 daughter Fatima, a man of winning personality but weak will, 
 remained in the background. His friends were determined 
 
The Near East 279 
 
 that he should rise to the Khaliphate, and, on the death of 
 Othman, he was chosen his successor. After a rule of only 
 six years Ali was murdered, and rival Khaliphs appeared in 
 Syria and Arabia. His sons Hassan and Hosein were hunted 
 down, and their fate is commemorated in the moving tragedy 
 of the Persian passion-play. The party which had looked to 
 Ali was called Shiah, while those who rejected his claims took 
 the name of Sunnis. The gulf has gone on widening ever 
 since, and differences of race and history now reinforce the 
 fundamental difference of religious origin. The Shiahs number 
 about 15,000,000, the great majority of whom are Persians. 
 But the Shiahs are by no means the only critics of the Turkish 
 Sultan's spiritual claims. The Sultan of Mecca is regarded as 
 the true Khaliph by many of the inhabitants of the shore of 
 the Red Sea, and the Wahabi communities recognize neither 
 the Ottoman Sultan nor any other potentate. In Africa 
 he meets with no recognition among the inhabitants of the 
 Soudan, the followers of the Senussi and other warlike tribes 
 between Tripoli and Lake Chad, nor among the inhabitants 
 of Morocco, who find in their own Sultan the true Khaliph, 
 believing him to be descended from the Prophet himself. 
 
 It is easy enough to define the Khaliphate in language, 
 but it is very difficult to form an idea as to the possible range 
 of its operation. It has been one of the chief items of the 
 policy of Abdul-Hamid to develop what may be called the 
 Pan-Islamic aspect of his power, — witness his embassy to the 
 Mussulmans of China; and the issue of the Greek war gave 
 an enormous impetus to the conception. There seems little 
 doubt that the Sultan is recognized by Mohammedans all over 
 the world, with the exceptions above mentioned, as having 
 the power to proclaim a Jehad, or Holy War, against the 
 infidel. He has not done so; but if he were fighting with 
 his back against the wall, he probably would do it. What the 
 effect would be we cannot know ; but it is well to remember 
 what a powerful weapon he holds in reserve. 
 
28o The Near East 
 
 We must, then, think of the Sultan not merely as the direct 
 lord of about 25,000,000 human beings, living in three con- 
 tinents, but also as the spiritual representative of something 
 like 150,000,000 Mohammedans throughout the world. 
 
 I turn to a brief examination of the theory and practice of 
 Ottoman government. On the topmost rung of the ladder 
 stand two great officers, the Grand Vizier and the Sheik-el- 
 Islam, the former the Sultan's right-hand man for temporal 
 matters, the latter the head of what we may call — though the 
 expression is not strictly accurate— the Mohammedan Church. 
 On the second step stand the Ministers, — the Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs, the Minister of Public Works, of War, Finance, 
 and so on, just like any other country in Europe. Next we come 
 to the bureaucracy proper, the Council of State, which consists 
 of the Ministers and of a number of high officials with ad- 
 ministrative experience chosen by the Sultan. The Council, is 
 divided into a number of departments, by whom the adminis- 
 trative work of government is carried on. The provincial 
 government is entrusted to Valis or Governors of the Vilayets, 
 the unit of Turkish administration. 
 
 The work of the departments calls for no special mention, 
 with the exception of that of finance. The first attempt to 
 grapple with a most difficult problem was made 40 years ago 
 in the foundation of the Dette Publique and the Ottoman 
 Bank. But the evil went too deep to be eradicated by these 
 measures, and the debt and confusion were increased by the 
 Balkan and the Russian wars. By 1881 matters had reached 
 such a critical state that an international commission was 
 created to look after the interests of the bondholders. The 
 debt of ;£2oo,ooo,ooo was cut down by half, and the greater 
 part of it consolidated; while, the Sultan handed over a portion 
 of the excise duties to the commission wherewith to pay 
 4 per cent, on the reduced loan. Straitened though he is 
 by the payment of interest on the enormous loans contracted 
 by himself and his predecessors, the Sultan finds money for 
 
The Near East 281 
 
 a well-equipped army of 750,000 men. His navy, on the 
 other hand, exists only on paper. 
 
 At the head of the spiritual department, as we have already 
 seen, is the Sheik-el-Islam, whom we may call a sort of 
 ecclesiastical Lord Chancellory since Mohammedan law has 
 never been secularized. Under the Sheik stand the Ulema, 
 a body of men learned in Mohammedan law, endowed with' 
 the power of issuing pronouncements on matters affecting the 
 moral and social life of the Faithful. 
 
 To complete the sketch of the theory of Turkish govern- 
 ment, I must say a word as to the legal position of the 
 Christians. The Ottoman has grouped his Christian subjects 
 into Churches or Millets, each under a head who is recognized 
 by the Sultan as the representative and spokesman of the com- 
 munity. There are, for instance. Millets of Greeks, Roman 
 Catholics, Protestants, Armenians, Jews, Maronites, and so on. 
 The position of the entire body is defined by the ordinances 
 of 1839, the fruit of the reforming zeal of Mahmud, and of 
 1856, issued by command of the Sultan's allies in the Crimean 
 War. These ordinances guarantee the civil, political, and 
 religious equality of every subject of the Sultan, of whatever 
 creed or race. 
 
 Such is Turkish government in theory. What about its 
 practice ? It can be summed up in a single word — autocracy. 
 The Sultan is the most autocratic ruler in the world. The 
 Tsar is in theory more autocratic than his neighbour, — for 
 Russia knows no Capitulations and is free from even the shadow 
 of European control ; but in practice, as all the world knows, 
 he is hedged round by one of the strongest bureaucracies in 
 Europe. The common type of oriental despot, again, is a very 
 different man from the Sultan. For while he does not, as 
 a rule, work very hard, the Sultan probably works harder than 
 any other potentate in the world. Moreover, his power has 
 been indefinitely increased by the introduction of the telegraph, 
 which brings the most distant provinces as near as the capital. 
 
282 The Near East 
 
 He is head of the government not one whit less in practice 
 than in theory ; he can say " L'etat c'est moi " with a measure 
 of truth to which the Grand Monarque with his Colbert and 
 his Louvois could lay no claim. Let us see how successfully 
 he gets rid of every possible clog on his power. The Grand 
 Vizier, to begin with, is usually a man of straw, who can be dis- 
 missed at any moment ; and, as a matter of fact, he is frequently 
 changed. In the next place, the Sultan has two Ministers for 
 the same work. A Minister of War iigures in the official list ; 
 but there is also a chief of the military commission which sits 
 in the Palace, and these two functionaries are neatly played 
 off against one another. In a similar way the Minister of 
 Police and the Minister of Justice are delicately balanced. 
 In this contest of wills and division of responsibilities, there 
 is only one point of unity, the Sultan himself. In the spiritual 
 department it is the same. The Sheik-el-Islam theoretically 
 possesses the power to issue a Fetwa deposing the Sultan ; and 
 Abdul-Hamid's own brother was so deposed. You may think 
 this is a sword of Damocles hanging over his head; but the 
 Sultan takes good care that the string shall not break, and 
 keeps the Sheik a close prisoner. Abdul-Hamid, I repeat, 
 is the most autocratic person in the world. His policy is 
 Divide et Impera. He divides and he rules. 
 
 The theory and practice of Turkish laws differ no less than 
 the theory and practice of Turkish government. Finance is 
 everywhere the tell-tale of administration. Take the question 
 of the payment of salaries. When a man is appointed Governor 
 of a certain Vilayet, he is told he will receive, say, ;£i,ooo 
 a year. He may be certain he will never receive the whole of 
 the sum, and if he gets half he will be lucky. It is not long 
 before he receives a telegram : — " Imperial treasury in great 
 straits, ;^i,ooo must be sent without delay." The rule is that 
 instead of the Governor being paid, he has to provide for his 
 pay-master. The province is squeezed and the Governor him- 
 self may be trusted not to starve. The taxes, again, are in 
 
The Near East 283 
 
 theory exceedingly moderate, lower indeed than in the west of 
 Europe, the total revenue of the Empire amounting to only 
 about ;^2o,ooo,ooo. But they are farmed out ; and the farmer 
 has not only to make his percentage, but to pay back the sum 
 which he spent to procure the office. Take again the question 
 of public works. Nothing delights the provincial Governor 
 so much as the order to make a road. In parenthesis let me 
 say that there are few roads in the Turkish Empire, except 
 those which were in existence before the Turks arrived. He 
 promptly levies a sum from the Vilayet — and the road is not 
 made. Possibly they have built a bridge halfway across a river 
 when a new order comes to make another road. And this has 
 been going on for the five centuries during which the Turk 
 has been in Europe. The Turkish peasant is as honest as 
 the Christian ; but the Turkish official is corrupt beyond belief. 
 There are exceptions, of course ; but they are few. 
 
 Next there is the question of public order. The police are 
 naturally supposed to maintain security of life and property in 
 Turkey as elsewhere. As a matter of fact, it is not too much 
 to say that they are often little more than licensed brigands. 
 I might give you a dozen quotations from Consular reports 
 and the works of travellers ; but two will suffice. The judgment 
 uttered by that gallant soldier, General Williams, the defender 
 of Kars, after long experience, was that no words could portray 
 the infamy of the Turkish police. That was strong enough ; 
 but it is not stronger than that of Professor Ramsay, who 
 knows Asia Minor as well as any living Englishman, and who 
 declares the police to be the greatest scourge of the country. 
 
 As security of property and person is endangered by the 
 ■police, so is security of mind destroyed by spies. The Sultan 
 has organized an elaborate system of espionage, and employs 
 spies to spy on his spies. The agent-provocateur is one of 
 the pillars of Turkish rule. One authority estimates that he 
 receives over 100 reports every day ; and those who know him 
 believe that he leaves few of them unread. That no length 
 
284 The Near East 
 
 of service, no unbroken record of loyalty, serves as a defence 
 against the poisoned darts of suspicion has been shown once 
 again only a few months ago in the disgrace and banishment 
 of Fuad Pasha, the details of which are fresh in our minds. 
 
 What I have said as to the evils of Turkish government 
 applies to the Mussulman no less than to the Christian peasant. 
 He suffers as much as the Christian from the absence of 
 a proper financial system and public order, and perhaps even 
 more from spies. There are, however, four ways in which the 
 Christian is exposed to suffering from which the Mussulman 
 is free. The first is religious bigotry, which, though less 
 common than a sort of contemptuous toleration, may yet at 
 any moment burst into a flame. The second is inequality 
 before the law, or, rather, before the judge, the word of 
 a Christian weighing nothing beside the word of a Mussulman. 
 The third is physical outrage, not only by the police and the 
 soldiery but by ofificials and private citizens. Less grievous 
 but often bitterly felt is the obscurantism which hangs over 
 Turkey like a dark cloud, and stunts and starves the intellectual 
 life. I am not forgetting Robert College; but that noble in- 
 stitution would disappear to-morrow if the Sultan had his way. 
 
 The Ottoman regime has been compared to that of an 
 army of occupation, and I do not know a more concise or 
 accurate description. The saying "The grass never grows 
 where the Turk has planted his foot " is as true to-day as ever 
 it was. If the most remarkable feature of Ottoman rule is 
 its badness, the next is its unchanging character, and the third 
 its vitality. In words which remind us of Macchiavelli's famous 
 sentence about the papacy, Fuad Pasha, the reformer, gave 
 forcible expression to the thoughts of every observer. " Turkey 
 is a most wonderful country, for it survives though every oflScial 
 strives its utmost to ruin it." If the Empire is to perish from 
 internal decay, its death will take a long time. The following 
 passage from the most instructive book ever written about 
 Turkey should be borne constantly in mind : — 
 
The Near East 285 
 
 "When one reads European reports on the condition of 
 "the Turkish provinces, or reflects on the wonderful things 
 "one has seen with one's own eyes, one is inclined to think 
 "the system cannot go on. It is annually proved that the 
 "machinery of government is collapsing, that there is no 
 " money and no food, that no one can pay any taxes, and that 
 "everybody must starve. Yet it all goes on. They that had 
 " been skinned are skinned again ; and they that were starving 
 "are starving still — but not dead. This year, as last year, 
 "when the inevitable pay-day comes round, it is found that 
 " the Porte has performed some mysterious operation and has 
 " plenty of money again. It may safely be affirmed that if any 
 "European Power were to undertake to finance Turkey, the 
 "whole place would be bankrupt in a week, and need years 
 " of recuperation. Political economy seems to be one of those 
 "things which must be accepted or rejected as a whole'." 
 
 I said that the Ottoman r'egime is no worse and no better 
 than it ever was. The countless efforts that have been made 
 by the Powers to reform Turkey have taught us that reform 
 begins when the government of the Turk disappears. Equally 
 futile have been the attempts to reform Turkey from inside. 
 The first was undertaken by Sultan Mahmud, the Peter the 
 Great of Turkey, the friend of Stratford Canning and the 
 patron of Reschid. It was an heroic effort, as unexpected 
 as the liberalism of Pio Nono ; but it left no more traces on 
 Turkish rule than a ripple on the surface of a river. The 
 Edict of T856 cannot fairly claim a place in a sketch of the 
 reform movement, issued as it was, as every Turk and every 
 Christian knew, at the command of the Powers. The second 
 genuine movement for reform owed its origin to the group of 
 able and earnest statesmen of whom the most prominent was 
 Midhat Pasha. When a successor to Abdul-Aziz had to be 
 chosen, Midhat secured the election of Murad, after obtaining 
 
 ' Turkey in Europe, by Odysseus. 
 
286 The Near East 
 
 from him a promise to issue a Constitution. The Consti- 
 tution was issued, and a Parliament met. Representatives 
 from Bagdad greeted spokesmen of the Balkans, and members 
 from Asia Minor rubbed shoulders with delegates from distant 
 Arabia. It was the hey-day of the Young Turks. Nationalists 
 no less than reformers, their aim was the application of European 
 ideas by Turkish brains and Turkish hands. What they might 
 have accomplished is a matter of speculation, for the Sultan 
 went mad and was deposed, and his brother, the present 
 Sultan, immediately dissolved the Parliament, which has never 
 re-assembled. The Young Turk party of to-day possesses no 
 leader and no real policy ; and it is by no means certain that 
 the Christian subjects of the Porte would obtain from it, were 
 it in power, the treatment to which they have a right. 
 
 The greatest obstacle to reform is the character of Abdul- 
 Hamid. The author of the incomparable sonnets on the 
 Purple East describes him as " immortally, beyond all mortals, 
 damned " ; and Earl Percy tells us that he is a most pains- 
 taking and conscientious ruler. Men will continue to differ 
 about his character; but the main features of his policy are 
 not a matter of dispute. He has centralized the government, 
 and he has enormously increased the claims and the power of 
 the Khaliphate. On the other hand, despite his extraordinary 
 skill in playing off the Powers against one another, he has lost 
 more provinces and more subjects than any of his predecessors. 
 His reign is a record of striking successes and striking failures, 
 both military and diplomatic. For a fuller comprehension of 
 the Sultan's character and policy we must turn to those parts 
 of his Empire where the inherent antagonism between Turkish 
 and Christian ideals gives rise to problems that clamorously 
 demand solution. 
 
The Near East 287 
 
 II. 
 
 The Armenian problem is in one respect more complicated 
 than either the Albanian or the Macedonian question, for there 
 is no such place as Armenia on the Turkish map. It is not 
 bigotry on the part of Turkish cartographers, and it is not 
 ignorance. The province that we loosely describe as Armenia 
 is a district in which only one in three of the population is 
 an Armenian, and contains only half the Armenians. To 
 put it in another way, the Armenians are a race but not a 
 nation. Seventeen hundred years ago Gregory Thaumaturgus, 
 a disciple of Origen, brought them the Christian faith, and they 
 have built their lives and their history round the Gregorian 
 Church. They have never formed a state, and they have 
 never become a nation. 
 
 During the nineteenth century, when excitement reigned in 
 almost every part of the Turkish Empire, the history of the 
 Armenians remained singularly uneventful. It was not until the 
 emancipation of Bulgaria, Servia, Roumania, and Montenegro, 
 that thoughts and hopes of reform and even of nationality began 
 to stir. For the next ten years nevertheless they remained 
 high in the favour of the Sultan. As the best military posts 
 fell to Albanians, so the best civil appointments were occupied 
 by Armenians. But about 1890 the influence of the English 
 and American missionaries in Armenia and of such bodies as 
 the Anglo-Armenian Association, began to revive and reinforce 
 the thoughts implanted by the events of the later seventies. 
 Secret societies — they had to be secret — sprung up in the 
 cities of the Levant. The Sultan, who had till then regarded 
 the loyalty of the Armenians as unimpeachable, began to 
 entertain suspicions. It would help us to enter into his feelings 
 if we were to believe that Russian missionaries were secretly 
 inciting the natives of India to another Mutiny. By one of 
 those revulsions of feeling commoner in the East than in the 
 West, the Sultan passed from unqualified confidence to the 
 
288 The Near East 
 
 most credulous suspicion. He knew perfectly well that the 
 Armenians of the country were an unwarlike and unambitious 
 people, and that the active spirits and the secret societies were 
 confined almost entirely to the towns ; but he had persuaded 
 himself of the existence of a wide-spread conspiracy, and he 
 began to take steps to combat it. The Kurdish horsemen 
 were armed, and in 1894 the first blood was shed. The in- 
 habitants of the district of Sasun refused to pay their taxes 
 on the ground that the Kurds had left them nothing where- 
 with to pay. The answer was a massacre. Nearly a thousand 
 fell at Sasun, and during the remainder of 1894 and throughout 
 1895 perhaps 100,000 more. It was no unpremeditated out- 
 burst of popular fury. The massacre was carried out with 
 almost military precision, often by Turkish troops and Turkish 
 officials, and in many cases was begun and concluded to the 
 sound of the trumpet. Moreover, Catholic and Protestant 
 Armenians were unharmed. Apart from the direct evidence 
 of the Sultan's complicity, no one who realizes the nature of 
 the Turkish system will believe that a step of such magnitude 
 was taken without his approval. In 1896 the Armenians in 
 Constantinople, crazed by the terrible events of the last two 
 years and by a daily and hourly fear of massacre, made a frantic 
 attempt on the Ottoman Bank. The blow was clumsily con- 
 ceived and clumsily executed. Every step was known to the 
 authorities, and when the attack was made the clubs that had 
 been specially manufactured for the occasion had been dis- 
 tributed. The massacre of some 6,000 Armenians was effected 
 in a couple of days under the eyes of the ambassadors of the 
 signatories of the Treaty of Berhn. The two years' tragedy 
 was at an end, leaving memories and problems behind it. 
 
 The problem of Armenia is of unusual complexity, owing 
 to the fact already pointed out that the Armenians are nowhere 
 in a majority, and because English policy in 1878 makes it 
 difficult to win Russia to any plan that we may propose. 
 Though Russian troops at Kars were almost within ear-shot 
 
The Near East 289 
 
 of the massacres, not a man was moved. Till the diplomacy 
 of the period is known, we cannot finally pronounce on the 
 conduct of the Powers throughout these terrible years. We 
 only know that for various reasons, — the recollections of 
 Russia, the ambitions of Germany, the isolation of England, 
 the indifference of France, the timidity of Austria, the weak- 
 ness of Italy, — the piteous appeals of the defenceless victims 
 fell on deaf ears. The massacres have ended for the time; 
 but the problem is still with us. The late Duke of Argyll, 
 a life-long champion of the Armenians, was strongly in favour 
 of inviting and even imploring Russia to occupy the province. 
 Russia alone was in the position to terminate Turkish misrule ; 
 and the duty of rescuing the remnant of an afflicted Christian 
 race was so imperative that the only instrument by which it 
 could be effected must be employed. One obvious objection 
 to the Duke's plan is that Germany would hardly consent to 
 such increase of Russian power in Asia Minor, and, at least as 
 long as the entente with Turkey lasts, would refuse to allow the 
 spoliation of her protegL Besides, it is by no means certain 
 that Russian rule would be welcomed by the Armenians, who 
 fear that their Church might suffer as much from the Muscovite 
 as from the Turk. Another massacre may bring with it Russian 
 occupation; but it is not the most probable nor perhaps the most 
 desirable solution of the problem. The proposal urged at the 
 recent Pan-Armenian Congress at Brussels and by most friends 
 of Armenia is the occupation of the country by international 
 troops and the appointment of a Christian Governor. Such a 
 plan needs time for its accomplishment ; but there is no reason 
 to delay the appointment of a largely increased number of 
 Christian Consuls, who must be well backed up by their 
 respective Foreign Offices. The work of rescue and defence 
 will also receive assistance from the gradual opening up of 
 Asia Minor by railways and trade. 
 
 Since the termination of the Armenian massacres, no part 
 of the Turkish Empire has commanded so much attention as 
 H. L. 10 
 
290 The Near East 
 
 Macedonia. A century ago the inhabitants of the Balkans 
 would have been classified as Mussulmans and Christians. 
 Such a classification affords us little help to-day. The relation 
 of Christian subjects to Mussulman rulers is only one of the 
 factors of the problem before us. The history of the Balkans 
 in the nineteenth century may be summed up in a single 
 phrase. It is the story of the disentanglement of the Slavs 
 from the Greeks and of the disentanglement of the Slavs from 
 one another. It would take too long to relate even in outline 
 the fortunes of the various races. We can only remind our- 
 selves that Greece was freed in the early part of the century by 
 the aid of England, France, and Russia; that Roumania, Servia, 
 Montenegro, and Bulgaria threw off the yoke with the aid of 
 Russia a generation ago ; and that almost the whole of the 
 centre would have followed suit if Russia's treaty with the Porte 
 had been allowed to stand. But the settlement of San Stefano 
 was revised at Berlin, and Macedonia was thrust back under 
 the Ottoman yoke. 
 
 Before we discuss the various proposals for the solution of 
 the Macedonian problem we must form some general notion 
 of its features. Macedonia is a mosaic of races and we must 
 perforce spell out the pattern. Let us begin with the Bulgarians. 
 The Balkan peninsula is the land of the Slavs ; but the most 
 forceful race in it is not Slavonic at all, nor even Aryan. The 
 Bulgars, who entered Europe in the seventh century, are ethni- 
 cally related to the Magyars, the Finns, and the Turks them- 
 selves ; but the intercourse of centuries has broken down many 
 a barrier. The Bulgarian language has utterly disappeared; 
 and though travellers profess to distinguish certain Bulgarian 
 characteristics, the fusion with the Slav in blood and habit is 
 almost complete. After playing no inconsiderable part in 
 medieval history, they were lost in the general mass of Balkan 
 Christians till a generation ago. In rSyo, the Bulgarians 
 throughout the peninsula were removed from the jurisdiction 
 of the Greek Patriarch, and placed under an Exarch of their 
 
The Near East 291 
 
 own. Pan-Slavism was in the ascendant at St Petersburg, and 
 the development of Russian power in the Ealkans was kept 
 constantly in mind. The Sultan was willing enough to throw 
 another apple of discord among his subjects, and was delighted 
 when, two years later, the new Church was excommunicated 
 by the Patriarch. Thus, aided by Russian sympathy and Greek 
 rivalry, the idea of a Bulgarian nation ^rew up round the 
 institution of the Exarchate. The massacres of a few years 
 later formed one of the causes of the war of 1877, which 
 in its turn led to the estabUshment of a Bulgarian State. 
 Seven years later the new State was augmented by the union 
 with Eastern Roumelia. There are many Bulgarians outside 
 Bulgaria, especially in the districts adjoining Eastern Roumelia 
 and in Monastir and other large towns, and it is among these 
 that the Macedonian Committee and the clergy of the Ex- 
 archate are working for the extension of Bulgarian influence. 
 Though Sarafof and his successor in the presidentship of the 
 Committee have been arrested, it is unsafe to say that Prince 
 Ferdinand looks with real displeasure on a propaganda that 
 may bring him an increase of influence or even of territory. 
 After the Bulgarians, the Servians — the only pure Slavonic 
 race of Macedonia. Though Servia is a smaller and poorer 
 state than Bulgaria, her traditions are as imposing, her ambitions 
 as great, and her interest no less direct. The Servians are the 
 only nation of Europe except the Swiss who have no access to 
 the sea. When the door of the Adriatic was locked by the 
 Austrian occupation of Bosnia and the Herzegovina, many eyes 
 were turned to the south-east. But the idea of an outlet at 
 Salonika or some other point on the Aegean is recognized to 
 be a dream. On the other hand, there is a Servian no less 
 than a Bulgarian irredentism; for the Vilayet of Kossovo, often 
 called Old Servia, abutting on the southern frontier, is pre- 
 dominantly Servian. In this district the propaganda is carried 
 on through the usual medium of Church and schools, and since 
 the quarrel with Bulgaria has received the countenance and 
 
 19 — 2 
 
292 The Near East 
 
 support of Russia, evidenced only this year by the consecration 
 of Firmilian as Servian Bishop of Uskub. 
 
 The third race is the Greeks. Till the middle of the last 
 century the belief that Greece was the residuary legatee of the 
 Balkans was widely held. There were many reasons why this 
 should be the case. Greece was the only part of the peninsula 
 which had won its freedom. The Balkan Christians were one 
 and all subject to the Greek Patriarch at Constantinople. 
 Numbers of Bulgarians and Servians and Vlachs spoke Greek. 
 Greek schools alone kept alight the lamp of, learning in the 
 peninsula. The greater part of the trade in every town was in 
 Greek hands. In a word, the importance of the Greek lies not 
 only in their numbers in the south of Macedonia and in the 
 coast towns but in prescription and the uncontested superiority 
 of their culture. 
 
 The' fourth of our ethnic factors is the Vlach, a race 
 Slavonic neither in blood nor language, but a branch of the 
 Roumanian stock speaking a Latin language. While the 
 Bulgarian, the Servian, and the Greek are chiefly to be found 
 in the towns, the Vlachs live in villages scattered about the 
 country, and usually perched high up on the top or in the 
 hollows of the hills. They are most numerous in the spurs 
 of the Pindus range; but from their scattered abodes, their 
 unambitious character, and the distance by which they are 
 separated from Roumania, no extensive propaganda is possible. 
 The Ufe-work of Apostolo Margariti has not been wholly wasted, 
 for he has at least induced many Roumanians to interest them- 
 selves in their distant relatives; but politically it has been 
 without effect. The Vlachs stand apart from the other Christians 
 of the Balkans, and believe that they have more to fear from 
 the predominance of Bulgaria or Servia or Greece than from 
 the continued rule of the Turk. 
 
 The fifth factor is the Turk himself. We must carefully 
 avoid the common error which confounds the Turk and the 
 Mussulman. All Turks are Mussulmans; but there are tens 
 
The 'Near East 293 
 
 of thousands of Mussulmans in Macedonia who are not Turks. 
 The Turks proper are most numerous in the district east of a 
 line drawn from Sofia to Salonika. In the west and centre 
 they consist for the most part of soldiers and officials. We have 
 no exact figuresfor Macedonia; but it is certain that the ruling 
 race is by no means the largest. 
 
 The sixth factor is the non-Turkish Mussulman, the de- 
 scendant of the converts of the time of the Turkish irruption. 
 Though no Christian race deserted its religion in such a whole- 
 sale manner as the Albanian, such Mohammedans are to be 
 found in every part of the country and among all the peoples 
 I have mentioned, some of them distinguished by a special 
 name like the Pomaks of Bulgaria. It is needless to say that 
 these converts are often very lax in their adherence to Islam. 
 
 To make our catalogue complete we must not omit the 
 Jews, who are found in greatest number at Salonika. The 
 expulsion of the Jews from Spain led to a large influx into the 
 Turkish Empire, and many of them write their language in 
 Turkish characters. With such an example of Christian govern- 
 ment before their eyes as Roumania the Jews must be counted 
 on the side of the Turk, who has usually treated them as well 
 as he is capable of treating anybody. 
 
 In the utter absence of reliable statistics and in the con- 
 fusion that inevitably arises when language is no sure test of 
 race, it is impossible to form an exact conception of the ethnic 
 factors of the Macedonian problem ; and the above sketch must 
 suffice as an introduction to the question that will now occupy 
 us, namely, the proposals for unravelling this tangled skein. 
 
 The first proposal is to leave things as they are, and to let 
 the races fight out their quarrels by themselves, so long as the 
 status quo is not disturbed. This is the plan consecrated by the 
 Russo-Austrian entente of 1897 and blessed by resourceless 
 politicians in every land. No one who knows Turkish rule can 
 wish or believe that this policy will continue to hold the field. 
 The second plan, fortified by the great authority of M. Bdrard, 
 
294 The Near- East 
 
 equally contemplates the permanence of Turkish rule, but 
 hopes for and is willing to make efforts to secure its im- 
 provement. This proposal is of course merely a pis aller, 
 resting on the assumptions that European jealousies render 
 a protectorate impossible and that racial divisions stand in the 
 way of autonomy. 
 
 A third proposal contemplates the cession of Macedonia to 
 one or other of the existing Balkan states. The most powerful 
 and indeed the only real candidate is Bulgaria; but Bulgaria 
 nearly doubled her bulk by the lucky windfall of Eastern 
 Roumelia, and there is a general feeling that she has had 
 enough. Besides, though Stambuloff and his policy are long 
 since dead, and Prince Ferdinand welcomes Ignatieff to the 
 Shipka celebrations, the favour of Russia has never been 
 completely regained. If the task is beyond the power of 
 Bulgaria, still less is Servia in a position to undertake it. She 
 has an unpopular king, a weak dynasty, and an army which 
 lost every fragment of prestige in her wanton war against 
 Bulgaria in 1885. Besides, the majority of Servians dream 
 of a Greater Servia, to which Macedonia would contribute 
 nothing but Old Servia. Equally impossible is it that Greece 
 should assume control. She is on excellent terms with 
 Roumania, but she is not beloved in the Balkans. When 
 Tricoupi sounded Bulgaria in 1891 with a view to common 
 action against the Turk, Stambuloff immediately informed the 
 Sultan. The rise of the Slavonic states, the intrusion of 
 Russia into Balkan politics, the crushing defeat of 1897, when 
 she learned that the Bulgarians and the Servians would not 
 lift a finger to help her throw off Turkish rule, have totally 
 changed the position that she once held. You will sometimes 
 hear of pushing back the frontier of Thessaly, and the Ethnike 
 Hetaeria has not surrendered the Great Idea. But the dream 
 of a revived Greek Empire, which from time to time floated 
 before the vision of such men as the Prince Consort, Stratford 
 Canning, and Tricoupi, no longer counts any adherents of 
 
The Near East 295 
 
 weight. It has been truly said that Hellenism penetrates no 
 further than the sea-breeze. The work of Greece in the 
 regeneration of Macedonia is educational, not political. In 
 a word, much as the races of Macedonia hate the Turk, they 
 hate one another still more. No one will kill Charles to make 
 James king. 
 
 The proposal that Macedonia should pass under the control 
 of a single Balkan state is of course never made outside the 
 limits of the nations concerned ; but a compromise by which 
 these vaulting ambitions might be harmonized if not satisfied 
 is often put forward in other quarters. Why, it is asked, should 
 not each state receive a portion of the territory, since the whole 
 inheritance is not for any man ? If the plan could be carried 
 out, it would deserve our warmest approval. The difiSculty lies 
 in the extraordinary intermixture of races. As we have already 
 seen, the Bulgarians cluster thickest in the north-east, the 
 Servians in the north-west, the Greeks in the south and along 
 the shores of the Aegean. A division on these lines would be 
 at least conceivable, if it did not leave the whole of central 
 lyiacedonia without a master. Who, for instance, is to have 
 Monastir, the centre and key of Macedonia ? Attractive as the 
 proposal at first sight appears, its difiSculties become the more 
 formidable the more carefully it is studied. 
 
 Another solution is that Austria should step into the place 
 of Turkey. She is already a great Balkan Power. She has 
 possessed Dalmatia for two centuries, she has done excellent 
 work in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, and she is in military 
 occupation of Novi-Bazar. She is already the sentinel of the 
 Balkans ; why could she not be their ruler ? She is so strong, 
 and so near, and so experienced, that some people say, "Let her 
 take the Macedonian question and settle it." Unfortunately it 
 is very doubtful if she would consent. If she consented, it is 
 most improbable that Russia would give her permission. And 
 in the third place it is doubtful whether the Macedonians them- 
 selves would accept her or any other Power without a struggle. 
 
296 The Near East 
 
 The last and in my judgment the best solution is to make 
 Macedonia an autonomous province. "Why not Macedonia 
 for the Macedonians?" asked Gladstone. Why not Macedonia 
 for the Macedonians, policed by European troops, including 
 regiments from the Balkan States, paying the Sultan tribute, 
 like Egypt and Crete and Bulgaria, and with a Prince chosen 
 by the Christian Powers? A wave of Slavonic feeling may 
 force the hand of the Tsar as it forced the hand of his grand- 
 father. The Turkish tide has been receding' from Christian 
 Europe for two centuries, and is receding still. The mainten- 
 ance of a status quo which involves the rule of the Turk over 
 the Christian is by its very nature provisional ; and the anarchy 
 of this summer proclaims that never was the rescue of Mace- 
 donia so urgent a duty as it is to-day. 
 
 I have left to the last Albania, because the Albanian question 
 can be discussed and could be settled independently of Mace- 
 donia. If you take a map you will see that Albania is the strip 
 of coast which runs south from Montenegro to the Greek 
 frontier, and is bounded on the east by Macedonia. Though 
 visible from the Italian coast no part of Europe is so utterly 
 unknown. The people, who appear to be the descendants of 
 the ancient Illyrians, are almost entirely untouched by civiliza- 
 tion. You will find flattering mention of them in Byron ; but 
 in reality many of them are little better than savages. Though 
 the story of the English consul who always drove about with 
 his wife for a protection is perhaps ben trovato, it is certain 
 enough that life is less secure in Albania than in any part of 
 Europe. The Albanians are the Kurds of European Turkey. 
 There is no homogeneity, religious or political. Nearly half the 
 population are Mussulman, that is, they are descended from 
 those who embraced Islam to escape from the disabilities of 
 Christians. There are also a considerable number of Catholics, 
 a few Protestants, and a few members of the Greek Church. 
 The Ghegs of the north differ in some ways from the Tosks of 
 the south; but they all live under a rule of clans, like the 
 
The Near East 297 
 
 Highlanders of old, the Sultan's authority being hardly more 
 than nominal. The Albanians are born soldiers, and improve 
 their natural gift by sanguinary struggles among themselves. 
 
 The future of Albania has exercised almost as many minds 
 as the future of Macedonia. The propinquity to Italy, the 
 fact that so many Albanians — among them the ancestors of 
 Crispi — have made their home in the peninsula, the marriage of 
 Victor Emmanuel to a Montenegrin princess, and other causes, 
 have turned the eyes of many Italians in that direction. Yet 
 those who recommend the occupation are no friends of Italy; 
 to conquer and to hold that mountainous and barren country, 
 in which, as it has been said, a large army starves and a 
 small one is defeated, would almost certainly prove beyond her 
 strength, and might involve a recurrence of the disasters of 
 Abyssinia. For a similar reason we must reject the idea enter- 
 tained in certain circles at Athens by which Albania should be 
 joined to Greece in the same relation as Norway stands to 
 Sweden. The Vilayet of Jannina is largely Greek; but the 
 Vilayet of Scutari would never consent to such a plan, and 
 could easily defeat any attempt to enforce its realization. A 
 third suggestion, that of Albanian autonomy under one or other 
 of the Pretenders who trace their descent from Scanderbeg, 
 is impracticable owing to the fundamental divergence between 
 north and south, the clan system, and the powerlessness of 
 such a regime to keep order on the eastern frontier. My own 
 view is that when the time comes for dealing with the Mace- 
 donian question an effort should be made to induce Austria to 
 take over Albania. With the memory of the stubborn conflict 
 in Bosnia and the Herzegovina, it is doubtful if she would 
 undertake the task. If she were to consent she would confer 
 a great boon on Albania, and by putting a stop to the raids on 
 the eastern frontier would greatly facilitate the establishment 
 of Macedonian autonomy. 
 
 I do not propose to deal with the question of the future of 
 Constantinople, for it cannot in any sense be called an urgent 
 
298 The Near East 
 
 problem. In the first place, the Christians who live there have 
 little to complain of; and in the second, the emancipation of 
 Macedonia, defined as the Treaty of San Stefano defined it, 
 would leave Eastern Thrace in Turkish hands. The best hope 
 for the Macedonians lies in their power to persuade Europe 
 that their emancipation necessitates no such change in the 
 balance of power as the expulsion of the Turk from his capital 
 would involve. 
 
 III. 
 
 Adequately to describe the relation of Europe to the 
 Ottoman Empire would be to recount a large part of modern 
 history. All that we can do is to recall such events as are 
 indispensable to an understanding of the situation as it exists 
 to-day. 
 
 In speaking of the Great Powers we may briefly dismiss 
 Italy. Cavour sent troops to the Crimea not because the 
 House of Savoy was interested in the questions at issue, but in 
 order to bring Italy into notice and to secure a standing at the 
 Congress that would assemble at the close of the war. Italy's 
 interest in the Eastern question is confined to Albania, — an 
 interest for which it is improbable that she would be willing to 
 make any real sacrifice, and which indeed, as her wisest states- 
 men know, is hardly worth them. 
 
 Scarcely greater is the interest of France, though her 
 relations with Turkey since the time of Francis I. have been 
 frequent. The last forty years have witnessed a notable decline 
 of her prestige in the Near East. The influence at Constanti- 
 nople which Louis Napoleon gained by the Crimean ^yar 
 he lost by his decided action in the Lebanon only five years 
 later, and never regained. The interest of France in the East 
 is based on her claim to protect the Latin Christians. But 
 the Protectorate grows more shadowy and ineffectual every 
 year, partly owing to the absorption of French statesmen 
 
The Near East 299 
 
 in other problems, partly to the strained relations between 
 the Pope and the Republic, and partly to the growth of 
 German influence. When M. Delcassd gave orders "to seize 
 Mitylene some months ago, it was whispered that his object 
 was not merely to obtain the payment of debts but to revive 
 the waning influence of France in the Levant. If this was his 
 intention it has not been realized. No Power can gain or 
 retain influence either with the Sultan or with his subjects 
 without a definite policy, and France has none. The Armenian 
 crisis showed the world that she is no longer to be reckoned 
 among the forces that shape the destinies of south-eastern 
 Europe. During that anxious time the words were the words 
 of M. Hanotaux, but the voice was the voice of Prince 
 Lobanoff. Whatever else the Franco-Russian alliance involves, 
 it means that France gives Russia a free hand in the Near East, 
 withdraws any ambitions that she entertained, and lends her 
 support to those of her ally. 
 
 The policy of Austria, as revealed in the entente of 1897 
 with Russia and in her periodical admonitions to the Balkan 
 States, is to put off as long as possible the day when the future 
 of European Turkey has to be decided. What her policy will 
 be when that time arrives must depend in great measure on her 
 internal condition at the moment and on the personality of her 
 ruler. It is sometimes said that Austria will never rest until she 
 reaches the Aegean ; but it seems to me much more probable 
 that she considers that her Empire is already heterogeneous 
 enough, and that she would be contented with the transference 
 of Bosnia, the Herzegovina, and Novi-Bazar to her in full 
 sovereignty, perhaps with Albania thrown in. It was the wish 
 of Sir William White that she might become the ofificial pro- 
 tector of an autonomous Macedonia; but it is doubtful whether 
 she would feel disposed to accept any position in which re- 
 sponsibility was unaccompanied by power. In a word, it does 
 not seem probable that Austria would wish to stake her 
 fortunes on a struggle for the whole or part of Turkey in 
 
300 The Near East 
 
 Europe. The possibility of a break-up of the Austro-Hungarian 
 Empire is a question too large and too remote to be discussed 
 in this lecture. 
 
 It is little more than a century ago that English statesmen 
 began to seriously occupy themselves with the Eastern question, 
 and during the whole period two schools of opinion have 
 existed in relation to it. In 179 1 the power and ambitions of 
 Catherine the Second so alarmed Pitt that he proposed an 
 aUiance with the Porte. The plan was warmly attacked by 
 Burke and Fox with the argument that applies to-day. Turkey, 
 said they, was the enemy of civilization, and no European 
 Power ought to ally with her. Such an impression was made 
 by their opposition that no more was heard of the proposal. 
 Thirty years later Canning determined to aid Greece to throw 
 off the Turkish yoke, but died too soon to witness the success 
 of his plans. After his death the policy of Pitt was revived by 
 Wellington and Palmerston, and dominated English states- 
 manship until the death of Beaconsfield. Their idea, put in the 
 simplest language, was that the Eastern question concerned 
 Europe as a whole and ought not to be settled by Russia alone. 
 Since Russia refused to take this view of the question she must 
 be watched and, if necessary, resisted. Such was the opinion 
 held by almost every English statesman and diplomatist. But 
 we must again distinguish two schools of thought. The first, 
 represented by Palmerston, and, at least during the greater part 
 of his life, by Stratford Canning, sincerely believed that the 
 Turk was not very different from other people, and that with 
 time and peace the Sultan would be able and willing to set his 
 house in order. This conception was officially proclaimed 
 when Turkey was admitted into the comity of nations by 
 the Treaty of Paris. The second, represented by such men as 
 Aberdeen and Gladstone, thought no better of the Turk than 
 Bright or Cobden or Freeman, but felt that Russian aggression 
 ought to be resisted. There was much to be said for this line 
 of thought ; but the Crimean war ought not to have been 
 
The Near East 301 
 
 undertaken unless the Allies were able and willing to take 
 effective measures for the protection of the Christian subjects 
 of the Porte. But this is precisely what they refused to 
 do. The late Duke of Argyll, a member of the Government 
 that waged the war, used to say that the war was justifiable, 
 and that it was the peace that was at fault. The Powers 
 on that occasion expressly disclaimed the right of interfering 
 in the domestic concerns of the Turkish Empire; and though 
 the Sultan had to Usten to plenty of plain speaking, the 
 rescue of the Lebanon was the only occasion on which we 
 intervened to protect the Eastern Christians. The Turk knew 
 well enough that Europe was paralyzed by the feud between 
 Russia and England. When Russia invited England in 1876 
 to co-operate in the solution of the Balkan crisis, she refused, 
 and suggested a conference at Constantinople. The confer- 
 ence met; but when the Ambassadors handed in their plan the 
 Sultan merely laughed in their face. We did not intervene in 
 the Balkan war; but we were within an ace of doing so, and we 
 challenged the legitimacy of the Treaty of San Stefano. The 
 Treaty of Berlin effected valuable work; but two terrible 
 mistakes were committed. Christian provinces that had been 
 emancipated at San Stefano were handed back to the Sultan ; 
 and the machinery of European supervision, which had utterly 
 broken down, was once again set up. The Sultan knew that 
 he would be no more hampered by the new treaty than by the 
 old; and the secret Convention of Cyprus emphasized the 
 intention of England to continue to champion the Turk against 
 the Muscovite. But the long lane had now reached a turning. 
 The defeat and death of Beaconsfield gave the premiership to 
 the man who had declared for the expulsion of the Turkish 
 government, bag and baggage. The advent of Lord Salisbury 
 did not involve a return to the policy of Palmerston and of 
 Beaconsfield, which indeed he characterized at a subsequent 
 period as that of "putting our money on the wrong horse." 
 But the Armenian crisis revealed the impotence of England 
 
302 The Near East 
 
 either to arrest the Sultan in his career of crime or to fulfil the 
 moral obligation incurred by her policy and solemnly recorded 
 in two international treaties. Owing to our preoccupations in 
 other parts of the world, to our loss of faith in our traditional 
 policy, and to the emergence of new influences in the diploma- 
 tic arena, we have lost our commanding position in Con- 
 stantinople. The outcry of English merchants in Turkey is 
 only another evidence of the loss of our influence and the 
 relaxation of our grip. 
 
 In the enumeration of the Great Powers, I have kept to the 
 last the two which, in my judgment, are destined to play the 
 principal part in determining the future of the Near East. From 
 the time that Peter the Great made Russia a Great Power, 
 the Muscovites have turned longing eyes towards the south; 
 and since the accession of Catherine II the exploitation of 
 Turkey has been one of the cardinal tenets of every Russian 
 statesman. The most formidable foe of the Ottoman Empire 
 during the 19th century was the Tsar Nicholas, whose lifelong 
 aim was to secure part of the inheritance of the Turk. Com- 
 mencing his reign by aiding Greece to throw ofi' the yoke of 
 her oppressor, he changed his tactics and proceeded to pose as 
 the Sultan's only friend. The revolt of Mehemet Ali forced 
 Mahmud to look round for a helping hand, and as no other 
 was held out to him he was forced to accept the aid of Russia 
 on her own terms. The Treaty of 1833 registers the high- 
 water-mark of Russian influence. Nicholas had made Turkey 
 a Russian province; but he had overreached himself. The 
 danger of Turkey and the indifference of the other Powers 
 passed away, and a strong feeling grew up against Muscovite 
 domination, which was changed to intense indignation when it 
 became known that the Tsar had discussed the partition of 
 Turkey with the English ambassador. Nothing was wanting to 
 precipitate a conflict but a casus belli, which presented itself 
 when Russia claimed a Protectorate over the Christian subjects 
 of the Porte. The Crimean war which followed was not 
 
The Near East 303 
 
 allowed by Russia to turn her thoughts from the goal, and 
 when the Balkan crisis occurred 20 years later she returned to 
 the struggle. The Powers which had supported Turkey on 
 the previous occasion now left her to fight her battles alone. 
 She was defeated, and signed the Treaty of San Stefano when 
 the Russian troops were in sight of Constantinople. Russian 
 diplomacy once again overreached itself; and the Great Powers 
 stepped in to modify the settlement. But their interference 
 was only momentary, and the idea of responsibility for the 
 Eastern Christians that had reigned since the Crimean war 
 faded away, in large measure owing to the influence of Bis- 
 marck. During the years that followed the Balkan war 
 Russian influence at Constantinople was supreme and practi- 
 cally uncontested. 
 
 The international aspect of the Eastern question has been 
 completely transformed during the last few years by the 
 intrusion of Germany into a domain from which she had 
 hitherto held aloof. Though publicists such as Roscher and 
 Rodbertus had prophesied and recommended the developments 
 of later days, the corner-stone of Bismarck's foreign policy was 
 to stand on good terms with Russia, and not to thwart her in 
 the attainment of her highest ambitions. With this end he 
 kept Prussia from joining the Allies in the Crimean war. To 
 this end he dedicated his whole strength during his ambassa- 
 dorship at St Petersburg. With this object he secretly urged 
 Alexander to denounce the. Black Sea clauses of the Treaty of 
 Paris during the Franco-German war. Throughout the dis- 
 cussions at Berlin in 1878 he kept the same object steadily in 
 view, though it pleased Prince Gortchakoff to represent him 
 as counter-working his policy. Even when he made the Dual 
 Alliance he guarded himself by a secret understanding with 
 the Tsar. His views never changed. The Eastern question, 
 he said, was not worth the bones of a Pomeranian grenadier. 
 
 With the accession of the present Emperor and the fall of 
 Bismarck all this was changed. The ground had already been 
 
304 The Near East 
 
 prepared for a new policy. The pioneer of German influence 
 was General Von der Goltz, who in the early eighties began 
 the task of reforming the Turkish army and obtaining orders 
 for material for German firms. In 1888 a German company 
 was formed to construct railways in Anatolia. The Armenian 
 crisis afforded the new ruler an excellent opportunity of con- 
 solidating his influence at Constantinople. All expressions of 
 sympathy with the Armenians were sternly repressed, and 
 while the massacres were still in progress the Kaiser sent the 
 Sultan a photograph of himself and his family with a flattering 
 message. The Cretan crisis and the Greek war were utilized 
 in the same way, and in the following year the Emperor paid 
 his memorable visit to Constantinople on his way to the Holy 
 Land. In 1899 the greatest triumph which any European 
 Power has gained in connection with the Eastern question 
 in the recollection of living man was achieved by Germany. 
 Through the instrumentality of Dr Siemens, the indefatigable 
 Director of the German Bank and Chairman of the Anatolian 
 Railways, permission was obtained for a company formed under 
 German auspices to continue the railway from the Konia to 
 the Persian Gulf. How much further Germany will go and 
 whether she is willing to risk a conflict with Russia is a question 
 that depends for its answer on the general position of European 
 politics. 
 
 When I say that Germany or Russia is supreme at Con- 
 stantinople, you must not think that the Sultan is at heart 
 more friendly to those Powers than to the others. Like other 
 men, he desires to be left alone, and his dislike to those 
 who interfere with him is as strong as ever. He regards the 
 Christian Powers with the same contempt and suspicion that 
 he has always felt. He resents their officiousness, and is ever 
 scheming to rid himself of their control. He would like to 
 abolish every trace of bondage, and he actually attempted to 
 deprive the Greeks of their rights under the Capitulations after 
 the war. 
 
The Near East 305 
 
 My object in this lecture has been to explain the nature 
 and difficulties of the most pressing problems of the Near East, 
 and to describe the chief forces which are at work. It is no 
 part of my duty to anticipate history. Who will reduce Albania 
 to order; whether Macedonia will be partitioned or receive 
 autonomy; whether the German or the Russian will be supreme 
 in Asia Minor; what power will succeed the Ottoman on the 
 Golden Horn, are questions on which it is interesting to specu- 
 late but which it is impossible to answer. All that we know 
 is that the Turk will never change, and that the ultimate 
 solution of the Eastern Question, foreshadowed by history and 
 demanded by justice, is the termination of his rule over the 
 Christian. 
 
 H. L. 
 
PAN-ISLAMISM. 
 
 By Professor E. G. Browne, M.A., M.B. 
 
 It is a prevalent and on the whole a good custom that, in 
 speaking on any obscure or unfamiliar subject, one should 
 begin with a definition of its meaning. Now unfortunately I 
 was not permitted to choose the subject of this lecture, which, 
 as you see from your programmes, is described as "Pan- 
 Islamism." I certainly should not have chosen this subject 
 for myself, because in the first place (and this you will admit 
 is a serious objection), I am not quite sure what it means; 
 and, in the second place, I am still less certain whether any 
 such thing really exists. If it exists at all, it is presumably to 
 be sought in the Muhammadan East ; and if it exists there, 
 some equivalent expression ought to be forthcoming in Arabic, 
 Turkish, or Persian. To the best of my knowledge no such 
 expression can be found: the term could only be translated by 
 some periphrasis, such as Ittihddu H-Muslimin ("Alliance" 
 or "Union of the Muslims"), and this fact appears to me to 
 indicate that the idea connoted by the term is a Western, not 
 an Eastern, conception, since every people, so far as I know, 
 possess words to express ideas with which they are familiar, or 
 at any rate ideas native to the race. 
 
 This being so, it was by no means easy to frame a defi- 
 nition of "Pan-Islamism" which should conform to the Arabian 
 standard indicated by the aphorism, Khayru 'l-kaldmi md 
 qalla wa dalla — "the best expression is that which is briefest 
 
Pan-Islamism 307 
 
 and most significant." In despair I finally consulted one of 
 my Muhammadan friends, who without hesitation supplied me 
 with a definition in some dozen words, which, in default of 
 a better, I give you for what it is worth. "Pan-Islamism," he 
 said, "is a mare's-nest discovered by the Times' correspondent 
 at Vienna." 
 
 Still, the word connotes a certain idea, which, whether true 
 or false, it is our present business to examine. "Pan-Hellen- 
 ism" is the most ancient of this class of words; but on refer- 
 ring to the source whence, according to my Muhammadan 
 friend, the term "Pan-Islamism" originated, I found a whole 
 series of parallels, such as "Pan-Americanism" and "Pan- 
 Germanism," "Pan-Celtic," and "Pan-Slavonic" movements, 
 and so forth. "Pan-Anglicanism" is, of course, used in a 
 different sense: our English aspirations after racial union and 
 expansion we now denote by the word "Imperialism," which, 
 almost unknown in this sense twenty years ago, now occurs in 
 a dozen places in almost any English newspaper you buy at a 
 bookstall. 
 
 Now first of all you will notice a very essential difference 
 (and, I would add, a very significant difference) between the 
 term "Pan-Islamic" and its congeners, "Pan-Hellenic," "Pan- 
 Germanic," "Pan-Slavonic," "Paii-American"and "Pan-Celtic," 
 for all these denote the aspirations of a race, whilst Pan-Islamic 
 refers to the aspirations of a religion. Now there are at least 
 three great religions at present existing in the world which lay 
 claim to universality : Christianity, Buddhism, and Isldm, the 
 religion of Muhammad. Why is it that for the last alone we find 
 a word intended to connote an alleged determination or aspira- 
 tion on the part of its professors to unite more closely together 
 for defensive or offensive purposes, and to sink all minor 
 differences in order to secure the triumph of their faith, or at 
 least to protect it from the attacks of hostile creeds ? Or, to 
 omit Buddhism (which, in most countries where it is professed, 
 has undergone admixture with other doctrines, and ceased, for 
 
3o8 Pan-Islamism 
 
 this and other reasons, from active proselytizing), why are the 
 aspirations of Europe mainly racial, while the aspirations of 
 Western Asia — or, to speak more accurately, of the Muham- 
 madan peoples — are mainly religious ? 
 
 The answer is that (whatever the explanation may be) 
 religious feeling is, as a rule, much stronger, and racial feeling 
 much weaker in the East than in the West. I do not mean to 
 imply that racial pride does not exist in Asia, for it does in 
 some cases exist strongly; but it is rather the pride of family, 
 tribe or clan than of the nation as a whole. Before the advent 
 of Muhammad the Arab tribes devoted much of their rhetori- 
 cal ability to aspersing the characters, pedigrees and conduct 
 of the neighbouring clans: they were good haters, and such 
 derive no satisfaction from wasting their hatred upon a distant 
 alien race. The Persian of the present day is never tired of 
 glorifying his native town and decrying all others; dilating, if 
 he be of Shiraz, for example, on the avarice of the Isfahani 
 and the rascality of the Tabrizi, and dismissing Qum and 
 Kashan with the epigram : — 
 
 "A dog of Kashdn is better than the nobles of Qum, 
 Notwithstanding that a dog is better than a man of Kdshdn.'' 
 
 Amongst the Ottoman Turks alone, of all Muslim nations, 
 so far as my observation goes, does patriotic feeling, as we 
 understand it, exist ; and even in this case I am inclined to 
 think that the idea was imported in the first instance from 
 France, within the last forty or fifty years, at the time of that 
 Renaissance which is associated chiefly with the names of 
 Kemal Bey, Shindsi Efendi and Ziya Pasha, and which in 
 a brief space of time transformed Turkey from an entirely 
 mediaeval and Oriental into a comparatively modern and 
 semi-European empire. 
 
 Again, I do not wish to imply that religious fervour is 
 
Pan-Islamism 309 
 
 lacking in Europe, or that the East is more rehgious than the 
 West, so far as the practicalf or ethical side of religion is con- 
 cerned. But the Eastern conception of religion differs from 
 the Western in several important respects : notably in this, 
 that Dogma and Metaphysic arouse far more general interest 
 and excite far more eager controversy in Asia than in Europe. 
 One of the burning questions of Islam in the ninth century of 
 our era was whether or no the Qur'an — the Word of God — had, 
 or had not, existed from all eternity; and we find the Caliph of 
 that period, who strongly held the latter view, refusing, on the 
 occasion of an exchange of prisoners with his Byzantine enemies, 
 to receive back such of his captive subjects as preferred the 
 opposite opinion ; deeming the recruiting of his army a small 
 matter compared with the prevalence of distasteful dogmas 
 within his realms. 
 
 Now if this preponderance of rehgious over racial feeling 
 has been in some way a source of weakness to the Muhamma- 
 dan nations, it has undoubtedly, on the other hand, largely 
 conduced to the spread of Islam, which, as you are well aware, 
 continues even at the present day to make steady progress 
 both in Asia and Africa. It is often asked why, considering 
 the vast amount of labour and wealth expended in Christian 
 missionary enterprise, and the complete or almost complete 
 absence of any such organized propaganda on behalf of Isldm, 
 Muhammadanism continues to make more progress in Asia 
 and Africa than Christianity. There are, no doubt, several 
 reasons; but the chief one, in my opinion, is that the convert 
 to Islam, no matter to what race he may. belong, is on the 
 whole admitted freely and ungrudgingly to the social privileges, 
 as well as the obligations, of the community with which he has 
 cast in his lot. Whatever he may have lost by severing him- 
 self from his former co-rehgionists, he at least gains something 
 in compensation. Can we say frankly that the same holds 
 good of the convert to Christianity? How many Christian 
 missionaries even (not to speak of oflficials, civiUans, colonists 
 
3IO Pan-Islamism 
 
 and soldiers professedly Christian) are prepared to accept a 
 "native convert" (to use the expression sanctioned by custom) 
 on terms, of even approximate equality? I would even venture 
 to say that, at any rate in the more civilized Muhammadan 
 countries, such as Turkey and Persia, the lot of the Muham- 
 madan negro slave is on the whole preferable to that of his 
 free Christian brother in the West. 
 
 Another reason which has no doubt conduced to the spread 
 of the Muhammadan religion is the extreme simplicity of the 
 formula which embodies the essentials of its creed — "Ashhadu 
 al-ld Ildha ilia 'lldk, wa ashhadu anna Muhammad''" 'abduhu 
 wa rasMuhu" ("I bear witness that there is no god but God, 
 and I bear witness that Muhammad is His servant and His 
 apostle"). No one has the right to go behind this formula, or 
 to enquire how the confessor understands the word "God," or 
 what he understands by the prophetic mission of Muhammad; 
 points on which, in fact, the most diverse views have been and 
 are entertained by the different sects of Islam. Yet in another 
 way the very elasticity of this formula militates against any 
 close community of feeling or strong sympathy between these 
 sects, whose attitude towards one another is well expressed in 
 the traditional saying ascribed to Muhammad^: 
 
 lyi/O A«^UM SiSji ^^j^S^mJ J t^M^ L5^ Lt^'^' ^jSImLi 
 
 "My Church shall become divided into seventy-three sects, 
 whereof one only shall be saved, while the rest shall be lost." 
 
 In considering the possibility of a Pan-Islamic movement, 
 that is to say of an offensive and defensive alliance of all the 
 Muhammadan nations, it is necessary in the first place to take 
 due account of the diversities of beliefs and aspirations implied 
 in the above tradition. Whether it be genuine or not (and 
 
 ' Shahristanl, ed. Cureton, p. 3. 
 
Pan-Islamism 3 1 1 
 
 there is little doubt that it is spurious) makes no difference 
 to its importance as indicating the consciousness of the Mu- 
 hammadans of the extent to which their religion is rent by 
 schism, and schism, moreover, which hinges on vital questions 
 of doctrine. And in the second place we must briefly glance 
 at the history of Islam since its first foundation, and consider 
 to what extent its votaries ever have been politically united to 
 such a degree as to enable them to present a united front 
 against the unbelievers. In this brief historical retrospect, 
 which is essential for the understanding of the present state of 
 Islam, I shall touch on the following points : — 
 
 1. The Achievement of the Prophet Muhammad, and in 
 particular the change which he effected in the condition of his 
 people, the Arabs. 
 
 2. The brief period of the Orthodox Caliphs (a.d. 632 — 
 661) who immediately succeeded him, which period in the 
 eyes of orthodox Muslims constitutes, as it were, the Ideal 
 Theocracy of the Apostolic Age. 
 
 3. The Umayyad Caliphate (a.d. 661 — 750), and the causes 
 of its fall, which involved the loss by the Arabs of the dominant 
 position which they had hitherto held in Islam. 
 
 4. The 'Abbasid Caliphate (a.d. 750 — 1258), its character, 
 as estimated by Muslim historians, its disruption, decay and 
 final destruction by the Mongols. 
 
 5. The claim of the Sultans of Turkey to the position of 
 Caliph, and the extent to which this claim has been, is, or is 
 likely to be recognized by the Muslim world. This brings us 
 directly to the question of Pan-Islamism, which presents itself 
 as two separate problems, viz. : — 
 
 I. Is it likely or possible that the Sultan of Turkey should 
 be recognized as Caliph, or spiritual and temporal head of 
 Islam, by the bulk of the Muhammadan peoples ? 
 
312 Pan-Islamism 
 
 2. Is it likely or possible that any other claimant should 
 succeed in obtaining such recognition ? 
 We begin, then, with — 
 
 I. The Achievement of the Prophet Muhammad. 
 
 To form a just estimate of Muhammad's work it is essential 
 to have some idea of the condition in which he found the Arabs, 
 and the condition in which he left them. It is not fair to 
 judge an Arab reformer (if objection be held to the title 
 "Prophet," as applied to him) of the seventh century of our 
 era by the standards which prevail in Europe or America in 
 the twentieth. The question here is not so much whether his 
 teaching would raise or lower the ethical, social and religious 
 tone of London, Paris, Berlin or New York, as whether as a 
 matter of fact it did raise these things in Arabia. And here, 
 I think, the answer must unhesitatingly be given in the affirma- 
 tive: the condition of the Arabs generally was enormously 
 improved, alike in its social, political, and ethical aspects, by 
 the victory of Islam over the heathenism which had hitherto 
 prevailed in the Arabian Peninsula. And, remarkable as was 
 the rapid diffusion of Islam under the Prophet's immediate 
 successors, so that by the end of the seventh century it extended 
 "from the Atlantic to the Indus, and from the Caspian to the 
 cataracts of the Nile','' Muhammad's triumph over his own 
 stubborn and stiff-necked people was, as it seems to me, a yet 
 greater victory. It is true that the pagan Arabs were by no 
 means deeply attached to their gods, w^hich they would revile 
 and even pelt with stones when things went contrary to their 
 wishes; but at least these old gods were more intimate and 
 familiar than the remote and awful Allah Ta'ala, or Supreme 
 God, for whom Muhammad claimed their exclusive homage. 
 Still more distasteful to them were the obligations — prayer, 
 fasting, and, above all, alms-giving — which the religion of 
 
 ' Stanley Lane Poole's Mohammadan Dynasties, p. 6. 
 
Pan-Islamism 313 
 
 Islam sought to impose upon them. All their strong clan- 
 feeling and exaggerated sense of family obligations (which in- 
 cluded in particular the duty of avenging to the utmost any 
 insult or injury inflicted on any kinsman or member of their 
 tribe) revolted, moreover, from the idea of a fraternity based 
 solely on a common religious belief, and a justice which would 
 deal out equal measure to every Muslim, irrespective of family, 
 tribe or race. Yet such equality of all believers was clearly the 
 Prophet's ideal, even if at times some resurgence of the old 
 feeling of kinship obscured or marred it. Thus in the Qur'an 
 we read (xlix, 10): "the believers are only brethren, therefore 
 make peace between your two brothers"; and again (xlix, 13): 
 "the noblest of you in God's sight is he who most feareth 
 God"; while the following tradition is even more explicitly 
 directed against racial pride and the arrogance of noble birth : 
 " man ! God hath taken away from you the arrogance of 
 heathen days and the ancient pride in ancestry; an Arab hath 
 no other precedence over a non-Arab than by virtue of the fear 
 of God; ye are all the progeny of Adam, and Adam himself is 
 of the earth." 
 
 We may therefore take it that Islam was from the first opposed 
 to racial pride and exclusiveness, and though, as I have said, 
 there was before Muhammad's time but little sentiment of 
 national unity amongst the Arabs, the sentiment of racial pride 
 was strongly developed. The following verses, for example, taken 
 from the Mu'allaqa of ' Amr b. Kulthum of the tribe of Taghlib 
 — one of the most celebrated pre-Muhammadan poems — • 
 breathes sentiments which would not be out of place in the 
 mouth of a modern " Jingo " ' : — 
 
 J ^^0.0 
 
 •i^\ til oy^JW' ^' 3 'Ljjj^s lit o>-<^fWi i3w 
 
 ' SeeLudwig Abel's edition of the Mu^allaqdt (Berlin, 1891), pp. 25 — 
 16, 11. 94—103. 
 
3 1 4 Pan-Islamism 
 
 
 'Lut « 1)Jl£» LJ^c vjAi J ''3*«» «W ^ij3 O! ^i^ S 
 
 5^^ -. ^ ^ ^^ 
 
 Ml f^ 
 
 'U.ft-/ «'ilLoJ J.*"*!! (J**-^ 3 '"-^ ti^ LS**" t-^j"^' ""^ 
 
 " The clans of Ma'add learned, when tents were [first] erected 
 
 in their pebble-strewn ravines. 
 That we are the food-givers when we prevail, and that we are 
 
 the destroyers when we are tried in battle; 
 And that we defend what we will, and that we alight where 
 
 we please ; 
 And that we reject when we are angry, and thai we accept 
 
 when we are contented ; 
 And that we protect when we are obeyed, and that we go forth 
 
 to war when we are rebelled against ; 
 And if we reach the well, we drink the clear water, while 
 
 others drink the turbid and tnuddy remnant. 
 Ours is the world and whosoever dwells therein, and when we 
 
 attack, we attack as men who prevail. 
 We are called oppressors, yet we have not oppressed, but have 
 
 [rather] destroyed the tyrants. 
 We have filled the earth until it is become too narrow for us, 
 
 and the sea also we have filled with ships.^' 
 
 The pride of race displayed in these lines, which are merely 
 one sample out of many, is very evident ; but it is in the tribe, 
 not the nation, that the poet exults. The Prophet Muhammad 
 
Pan-Islamism 315 
 
 not only succeeded in subordinating this clannish feeling to the 
 sense of national unity, but by his behaviour towards non-Arab 
 converts to his doctrine, such as the Persian Salman and the 
 negro Bilal, strove by practice as well as by precept to secure 
 to all believers a footing of approximate equality. As for what 
 Islam effected in ameliorating the social and moral condition 
 of the Arabs, I know of no better statement of the benefits it 
 conferred than that given to the Christian ruler of Abyssinia 
 by the spokesman of the Muslims who, in the dark days of 
 persecution which preceded the Flight of the Prophet from 
 Mecca to Medina (an event which marks the beginning of 
 Islam's triumph, and which is therefore appropriately adopted 
 by the Muhammadans as the beginning of their era), sought 
 refuge at his court from the enmity of their heathen countrymen. 
 
 " O King ! " said the spokesman of these fugitives^ " we 
 were a barbarous folk, worshipping idols, eating carrion, com- 
 mitting shameful deeds, violating the ties of consanguinity, 
 and evilly entreating our neighbours, the strong amongst us 
 consuming the weak; and thus we continued until God sent 
 unto us an Apostle from our midst, whose pedigree and integrity 
 and purity of life we knew, to summon us to God, that we 
 should declare His Unity and worship Him, and put away the 
 stones and idols which we and our fathers used to worship in 
 His stead ; and he bade us be truthful in speech, and faithful 
 in the fulfilment of our trusts, and mindful of the ties of con- 
 sanguinity and the duties of neighbours, and to refrain from 
 forbidden things and from blood ; and he forbade us from im- 
 moral acts and deceitful words, and from consuming the property 
 of orphans, and from slandering the virtuous; and he com- 
 manded us to worship God, and to associate naught else with 
 Him, and to pray, and give alms, and fast." 
 
 These men realized, then, very clearly what Islam had done 
 for them, and how much it had raised them from their former 
 condition ; while as regards polygamy and slavery — two of the 
 ' Ibn Hisham's Life of the Prophet, ed. Wustenfeld, p. 219. 
 
3 1 6 Pan-Islamism 
 
 things most often charged against Islam — they were neither 
 introduced by Muhammad nor confined to the Muslim lands : 
 rather they were tolerated, under vastly ameliorated conditions, 
 because no reformer nor prophet can carry the people to whom 
 he is sent, either in knowledge or practice, further than the 
 majority of the well-disposed are prepared to go. It is question- 
 able, in short, whether any single reformer ever so materially 
 raised so great a number of his people so much in so short 
 a time as Muhammad raised the Arabs (material far from 
 promising for his enterprise, as we have already seen), to whom 
 primarily his teaching was addressed. Indeed it is doubtful 
 whether, in his moments of greatest optimism, he ever dreamed 
 that his religion would so rapidly spread so far beyond the 
 confines of the Arabian Peninsula. Living to see that Penin- 
 sula practically — at least in name — obedient to the Law which 
 he had brought, he was able to say ere his departure, " To-day 
 have I perfected unto you your religion." 
 We now pass to — 
 
 2. The Period of ike Orthodox Caliphs. 
 
 This period in the history of the Caliphate is very short, 
 but very important. It is short; for in all it lasted less than 
 thirty years (a.d. 632 — 661), and ere much more than half of 
 that time had elapsed those seeds of discord were sown which 
 culminated in the battle of Siffin (a.d. 657), when, for the first 
 time, the sword of Muslim was turned against Muslim. It is 
 important, because it saw alike the great conquests and the 
 first schisms of Islam, and because the conversion of vast 
 numbers of non-Arabs and the acquisition of immense riches 
 derived from the conquered lands — chiefly Persia and Syria^ 
 introduced new conditions, tendencies and temptations which 
 did not fail soon to make apparent their results. 
 
 For a time, however, the unity of Islam — " Pan-Islamism " 
 in the true sense — and the ideals of the Prophet continued to 
 
Pan-Islamism 317 
 
 prevail, though he himself had passed away. Princes and 
 nobles, foreign or Arabian, converts or captives, were amazed 
 whdn they sought out the "Commander of the Faithful" at 
 Medina, to behold one who in nowise differed externally from 
 his fellow-citizens; who, as the Muhammadan historians tell 
 us, slept on a mat on the ground, wore the roughest raiment 
 and ate the coarsest food, so that one of them, speaking of the 
 luxury he voluntarily abjured, said that, if he wished it, "the 
 finest honey and the softest barley-bread " would be within his 
 means. 
 
 "Know further," says the historian al-Fakhri', "that their 
 austerity in respect of food and raiment was not due to poverty, 
 or inability to procure the most sumptuous apparel or the 
 sweetest meats, but they used to act thus in order to put them- 
 selves on an equality with the poorest of their subjects, and to 
 wean the flesh from its lusts, and to discipline it till it should 
 accustom itself to its highest potentialities ; else was each one 
 of them endowed with ample wealth, and palm-groves, and 
 gardens, and other like possessions. But most of their ex- 
 penditure was in charitable uses and offerings As for their 
 
 victories and their battles, verily their cavalry reached Africa 
 and the uttermost parts of Khurasan, and crossed the Oxus." 
 
 This, then, is the ideal to which the pious and orthodox 
 Muslim has in all subsequent times looked back with admiration 
 and affection, and for the return of which he ardently hopes 
 when he dreams of a Mahdi who shall come in the fulness of 
 time to restore the true faith, vanquish the unbelievers, and " fill 
 the earth with justice after it has been filled with iniquity." 
 
 Now let us pass to — 
 
 3. The Umayyad Caliphate (a.d. 661 — 750), 
 
 which offers the most complete contrast to the period which 
 we have just been considering. The great conquests, indeed, 
 continue, but the old simplicity and piety are gone, and the 
 
 ' Ed. Ahlwardt, pp. 89 — 90. 
 
3 1 8 Pan-Islamism 
 
 still older aristocratic arrogance and racial pride are back once 
 more in full force. These Umayyads, Muslims in name, but, 
 with one exception, pagans in feeling, had no idea of allovfing 
 the foreign believer whom they despised, or the rival clansman 
 whom they hated with the old traditional fervour, to enjoy like 
 privileges with themselves. Feeling themselves to be an im- 
 perial race, they fell back on — 
 
 "the simple, wise old plan, 
 That those shall take who get the chance, 
 And those shall keep who can." 
 
 And the result of this was that they fell to quarrelling with one 
 another, thus affording opportunity to the subject-races (to 
 whom, contrary to the principles of Isldm, they refused the 
 rights and privileges which all true believers were entitled to 
 claim) to rise against them and overthrow them. With this 
 overthrow the power of the Arabs as a dominant nation really 
 came to an end, and their place was actually, if not nominally, 
 taken first by the Persians and then by the Turks. The Arabs 
 became a great people, and for a little time played a great part 
 in the world's history because they were actuated by a great 
 Idea; they lost the great Idea, and desired dominion for its 
 own sake; and then the very Idea whence they had derived 
 their power became its destroyer. They set Race above Re- 
 ligion, the accidental kinship of Blood above the essential 
 affinity of a common Aim and Idea ; and in a short while it was 
 as one of their last great generals and prefects said — 
 
 3 ^ Vt lO ,*■ „9fO 
 
 " Goodbye to Isldm and the Arabs." 
 
 And it is significant that in those successive rebellions 
 which first shook and finally shattered the Umayyad power, 
 the religious classes, even when Arabs, — the old Companions 
 and Followers of the Prophet, the Qur'dn readers, zealots and 
 
Pan-Islamism 3 1 9 
 
 pietists — were commonly to be found in large numbers on the 
 side of the subject races, whose rights as Muslims they as 
 Muslims felt bound to assert. 
 
 4. T}ie 'Abbdsid Caliphate (a.d. 750^1258). 
 
 The 'Abbasid Caliphs were raised to power by the revolt of 
 the Persian Muslims against the Arab secular power of the 
 Umayyads. There were other causes at work, which have been 
 carefully studied by Van Vloten in his admirable essay, Sur la 
 Domination arabe, le Chiitisme et les Croyances messianiques 
 sous le Khalifat des Omayades (Amsterdam, 1894), but this was 
 the chief one ; and the 'Abbasids seldom forgot, in their choice 
 of ministers, advisers and generals, that it was to non-Arabs 
 that they owed their victory. For a time (and especially in 
 what Tennyson calls "the Golden Prime of good Haroun 
 Alraschid ") the dominant influence was Persian ; later it was 
 Turkish. For the rest, the 'Abbisid dynasty was, as the Mu- 
 hammadan historian al-Fakhri says ', " a treacherous, wily, and 
 faithless dynasty, wherein intrigue and guile played a greater 
 part than strength and energy, particularly in its latter days. 
 ...Yet withal it was a dynasty abounding in good qualities, 
 richly endowed with generous attributes, wherein the wares of 
 Science found a ready sale, the merchandize of Culture was in 
 great demand, the observances of Religion were respected, 
 charitable bequests flowed freely, the world was prosperous, the 
 holy shrines were well cared for, and the frontiers were bravely 
 kept ; nor did this state of things cease until its last days were 
 at hand, violence became general, government was disturbed, 
 and dominion passed from them." This was the time when 
 civilization, science and culture were in the hands of the 
 Muslims, whilst mediaeval Europe was wrapped in darkness 
 and barbarism, glad to borrow a little light on Philosophy, 
 Medicine, or Mathematics from Avicenna the Persian or 
 Averroes the Moor. So far as " filling the earth with justice " 
 
 ^ Ed. Ahlwardt, pp. 176—177. 
 
3 2 o Pan-Islamism 
 
 was concerned, however, the 'Abbasid Caliphs did ndt 
 materially excel their Umayyad predecessors, so that we find 
 a disillusioned poet exclaiming': 
 
 " O would thai the tyranny of the sons of Merwdn (i.e. the 
 
 Umayyads) could return to us, 
 And would that the ^justice' of the sons of ^Abbds were in 
 
 mil-fire /" 
 
 b 
 
 
 Even during the days of their greatest power and splendour 
 the 'Abbdsids never had even the nominal allegiance of the 
 whole Muhammadan world. Spain was lost to them from the 
 first ; North Africa soon followed ; and both that and Egypt 
 passed a little later into the hands of the /heterodox anti- 
 Caliphs of the "Sect of the Seven." Gradually the more 
 distant provinces, even when still acknowledging the suzerainty 
 of Baghdad and remaining nominally loyal, became practically 
 independent, until at last, in the middle of the thirteenth 
 century, the flood of Mongol devastation swept down on 
 Western Asia, destroying even the semblance of unity in the 
 Muhammadan Empire, and extinguishing finally the historical 
 CaUphate. This Mongol invasion was one of the most frightful 
 calamities which ever befel so considerable a portion of the 
 human race ; Islam never recovered, either politically or socially, 
 from its effects ; and as for its methods, they were thus summed 
 up by one of the few survivors who escaped from the sack of 
 Bukhara : — " They came, destroyed, burned, slew, spoiled and 
 departed''." 
 
 ^ Van Vloten, La Domination arabe^ p. 69. 
 
 ^ The TcCrlkh-i-Jak&n-Kushd of Juwayni, one of the most important 
 sources for the history of the Mongol invasion, but unfortunately un- 
 published, and rare even in manuscript. 
 
Pan-Islamism 321 
 
 The historical Caliphate, then, came to an end when al- 
 Musta'sim, the last 'Abbdsid Caliph, was starved to death by 
 order of Hulagd the Mongol, in a.d. 1258. 
 
 We come now to 
 
 5. The claim of the Ottoman Sultans to the dignity of 
 Caliph. 
 
 This claim dates from the Conquest of Egypt by Sultan 
 Selim I, in a.d. 15 17. When he had overthrown the Mame- 
 lukes and occupied Cairo, he, by threats or promises, induced 
 the titular Caliph — the descendant of one of the 'Abbasid 
 princes who had fled thither after the sack of Baghdad by the 
 Mongols — to transfer to himself the title and visible insignia of 
 the CaUphate — the sacred standard, sword and mantle of the 
 Prophet, which are now preserved at Constantinople. 
 
 Now I have done with the historical retrospect which, brief 
 and inadequate though it be, must, I fear, have proved some- 
 what wearisome to you. And the two main points I wish you 
 to grasp before discussing the possibility of a Pan-Islamic 
 movement at the present day are : — 
 
 (i) That the political unity of the Muslims only survived 
 the Prophet's death some twelve years, and that never since 
 that tiirie have all his followers agreed as to who was his lawful 
 representative. 
 
 (2) That though it cannot be asserted that all, or even the 
 majority, of the " 73 sects " spoken of by Muhammadan writers 
 were of any great importance, while many which were once 
 important have long ceased to be so, even when they have not 
 altogether disappeared, there nevertheless do remain certain 
 differences so fundamental and so antagonistic that I cannot 
 imagine any permanent, or even protracted, reconciliation being 
 effected between them. The great division in Islam is, of 
 course, that between the Sunnis (or "orthodox") and the Shi'a 
 H. L. 21 
 
32 2 Pan-Islamism 
 
 (or " heterodox ") Muhammadans. If you read about the origin 
 of this schism, which goes back to the period immediately 
 succeeding the Prophet's death, you may be tempted to think 
 that it is a mere quarrel about the claims of individuals ; and 
 that since the individuals concerned have been dead for nearly 
 thirteen centuries the quarrel might now be buried in oblivion. 
 But this is not so ; for, firstly, the Persian Muslim, who chiefly 
 represents the Shi'a party, is, as a rule, more interested in all 
 which was said or done — or which is alleged to have been said 
 and done — by 'AH, whose cause Persia from the first espoused, 
 than in the accession of a new king or the disgrace of an old 
 minister at the present day ; and is more concerned with the 
 politics of Medina in the seventh century than with the politics 
 of England or France or Germany — or even Russia — in the 
 twentieth. And secondly it is not a mere question of persons 
 and names, but of radically antagonistic theories personified as 
 men. To the Persian, 'All stands as a hero, half deified and 
 wholly Persianized, who is at once the champion and the incar- 
 nation of the Theory of Divine Right : the whole religious 
 history of Persia might be described as the search for Avatars 
 — for Divine Incarnations — a search which is prosecuted just 
 as eagerly to-day as it was in the days of the early Caliphs. 
 To the Persian the democratic ideal is hateful tp the last 
 degree ; and the Arab theory that a Caliph, or supreme head 
 of both Church and State, can be chosen by popular suffrage 
 (a theory most strongly enunciated by the Kharijites, another 
 of the oldest sects of Islam, but more or less accepted by 
 all Sunni Muhammadans) is the Abomination of Desolation. 
 Granted, then, that all the Sunni Muhammadans could be 
 induced to recognize either the Sultan of Turkey or anyone 
 else as their supreme over-lord, spiritual and temporal, it is 
 to me inconceivable that Persia, which is practically entirely 
 Shi'ite, should ever consent to join them. And if it be urged 
 that, though Persia has played a great part in the world's 
 history, she is actually, in spite of her considerable size (roughly 
 
Pan-Islamism 323 
 
 equal to France and Spain together), so thinly populated by so 
 unwarlike a people that she may be regarded as a negligible 
 quantity, I would remind you that she is at least autonomous, 
 and able to afford a pied-ci-terre to this nation or that, as she 
 pleases ; while geographically she forms a solid wedge driven 
 through the centre of Muhammadan Asia, entirely separating 
 the Sunnfs of Turkey from the Sunnis of Central Asia, Afghani- 
 stan and Baliichistan, and loving them little, if at all, more 
 than her non-Muslim neighbours. The antipathy between 
 Turk and Persian is profound, and, in my opinion, inde- 
 structible, and is both national and religious. A dervish at 
 Khiiy, in North- West Persia, boasted to me that he and some 
 of his fellow-dervishes had accompanied the Russian army during 
 the Russo-Turkish War, and aided the Russian arras by their 
 prayers. I need not say that I do not ascribe the victory of 
 the Russians entirely to this cause ; and I daresay that the 
 whole story was a figment of the dervish's fertile imagination, 
 and that he was never near the seat of war at all ; but that is 
 neither here nor there : I merely refer to the incident as indi- 
 cating how little sympathy exists between the Persians and 
 Turks on the ground of religion. There can be no doubt that 
 the geographical and religious position of Persia is a source of 
 very great weakness to Islam in Asia, and would, fatally em- 
 barrass any scheme which an Ottpman Sultan might form for 
 uniting Muhammadan Asia under his sway. Nor does it appear 
 that the Arabs are much more attached to the Turks than are 
 the Persians. 
 
 But it was not so much of Asia as of Africa that the Times' 
 correspondent was thinking in the letter of March 22, 1900, 
 wherein he announced his discovery, or rather the discovery of 
 the Austrian Catholic organ, the Vaterland, whence he derived 
 his idea. The latter journal seems to have given a sensational 
 account of African Muhammadans (instigated, as is implied, by 
 the Turkish Government) recruiting corps for the Boer army, 
 in order to shatter the British power, and of Turkish flags 
 
324 Pan-Islamism 
 
 hoisted by Muhammadan states bordering on Lake Chad ; — 
 stories just about as credible as that the Sultan had seriously 
 intended (as was also reported in the press) to send an army- 
 corps to assist " his old allies the English " in the late war. 
 But neither of the alliances above-mentioned, even had they 
 been conceivable, would have had the remotest connection with 
 Pan-Islamism. 
 
 But Muhammadanism is undoubtedly, for reasons which I 
 have already indicated, making great progress in Africa; and 
 Africa, as we have abundantly seen, is a land of vast potentiali- 
 ties. There was the great movement originated by the Mahdi 
 of the Soudan, which might have ended very differently if it 
 had happened before the days of steam and gunpowder ; and 
 there is still the mysterious Shaykh Seniisi to be reckoned with. 
 But whatever movements of this kind may take place — and I 
 am far from denying their possibility — I do not think that they 
 will be engineered by Turkey, to whose leading-strings neither 
 the Wahhabis of Arabia, nor the dervishes of the Soudan, 
 showed the slightest inclination to entrust themselves. From 
 such upheavals Turkey, as it seems to me, has more to fear 
 than to hope ; for they can only be produced by religious 
 teachers of a type which does not readily submit itself to esta- 
 blished governments. Theocracy, not Empire, is the ideal of 
 such enthusiasts as are alone capable of evoking a miUtant 
 Muhammadan revival, and the movement in every case will 
 inevitably remain, so long as it endures, under the direction of 
 those who generated it, who are not likely to present it, with 
 all its potentialities, to any Sultan or Shah, as though it were 
 a tame tiger effectively muzzled. 
 
 Now IsMm is an immense subject, whether it be studied 
 from the historical, the geographical, the political, or the 
 literary and scientific point of view ; and it is most difScult— 
 nay, almost impossible, for anyone, especially any European — 
 to obtain a true and comprehensive view of it in all these 
 aspects. My friend Dr Reich, to whose lectures most of you 
 
Pan-Islamism 325 
 
 no doubt had the pleasure of listening, says that no one can 
 write or speak intelligently on history or politics unless he has 
 lived in at least three or four different countries long enough to 
 be practically familiar with the institutions, ideas and mode of 
 life of their inhabitants. If this be true of Europe, it is true 
 in still greater degree of Asia, where the difficulty of obtaining 
 full admittance into the society and ideas of the people is very 
 much greater. Difference not so much of language — for that 
 can be more easily overcome — as of tradition, custom, social 
 conditions, above all, religion, make it very difficult for a 
 European to enter into full sympathy with the spirit of the 
 East. And without sympathy there can be no comprehension ; 
 for to understand how a given person or people is likely to 
 behave under given circumstances, we must feel with them, 
 understand their motives, their hopes, their fears, and their 
 prejudices. Some of you, perhaps, regard the Asiatic as an 
 essentially inferior being to the European, and think that he 
 ought to feel honoured by your interest and attention. But 
 that is not the Asiatic point of view. Under the most favour- 
 able circumstances it takes some time to arrive at that point 
 of view, and when you have arrived at it you will probably 
 experience a surprise not perhaps wholly agreeable. The 
 European is to him not merely an unsympathetic but an un- 
 cleanly person — one who eats disgusting things, pork, crabs, 
 and the like — and whose habits, gestures, attitudes, gait and 
 garments are distasteful and undignified. All this is quite 
 distinct from the reUgious point of view, from which he is in 
 addition an unbeliever. Courtesy, fear, or that control of 
 expression which is regarded as the mark of good breeding, 
 generally prevents the Asiatic (and I am here speaking of the 
 genuine non-Europeanized Asiatic) from revealing his senti- 
 ments ; but they are none the less both strong and real. At 
 best, the European is to him an ingenious artificer, wholly 
 absorbed in material aims ; very useful as a dentist, a clock- 
 maker, or other supplier of material needs, but full of a 
 
326 Pan-Islamism 
 
 tiresome and useless activity, and a stranger to higher spiritual 
 interests. 
 
 The Western nations, in whatever else they may differ, 
 nearly all agree in believing in what is called " Progress," and 
 this belief lies at the root of that unceasing activity which is to 
 the East at once so irksome and so incomprehensible. Move- 
 ment may be forwards, backwards, or backwards and forwards 
 in no definite direction ; and mere alteration of position is not 
 necessarily advance. Such change is, it is on all hands ad- 
 mitted, the characteristic of this material world, " the world of 
 genesis and disintegration," as the Muhammadans call it; but 
 it is associated in their minds rather with the idea of corruption 
 than of evolution. The deep-rooted Pessimism of Asisi, and 
 her exaltation of the Subjective over the Objective aspects of 
 life, are two of her most constant and characteristic habits of 
 mind. These ancient countries, which have lived so long, seen 
 so much, and suffered so much, have lost that cheerful optimism 
 which is the precious possession of the young ; they have seen 
 so many empires succeed one another, so many governments — 
 some better, some worse, mostly worse — pass away, that they 
 have come to regard empire as a transient dreatn and govern- 
 ment as a necessary evil. 
 
 When the head of the rebel Mus'ab b. az-Zubayr was placed 
 before the Umayyad Caliph 'Abdu'l-Malik, one who was present 
 said, " O Commander of the Faithful, I have seen a wonderful 
 thing in this place." "And what is that?" asked the Caliph. 
 "I have seen," replied the man, "the head of al-Husayn, the 
 son of 'All, laid before 'Ubaydu'llah b. Ziyad, and then the 
 head of 'Ubaydu'llah b. Ziydd laid before al-Mukhtar, and then 
 the head of al-Mukhtar laid before Mus'ab b. az-Zubayr, and 
 now I see the head of Mus'ab b. az-Zubayr laid before thee'." 
 Similarly Persia has seen the Assyrians displaced by the Medes, 
 the Medes overthrown by the Achsemenians, the Achaemenians 
 
 'See al-Ya'qiibCs history (ed. Houtsma, Leyden, 1883), vol. ii, p. 317. 
 
Pan-Islaip,is7n T)^'^ 
 
 by the Greeks, the Greeks by the Romans, the Romans by the 
 Parthians, the Parthians by the Sasanians, and the Sdsanians 
 by the Arabs, not to mention the vicissitudes of later times. 
 Is it wonderful that the sense, not of progress, but of mere 
 " change and decay " should be deeply borne in upon them, 
 and should find expression in such verses as : — 
 
 J J ^0 A 
 
 " Naught in the world shall endure ; naught shall abide 'neath 
 
 the sun ; 
 Earth is a mansion as frail as the web which the spider hath 
 
 spun.'' 
 
 In our rare moments of humility and introspection, we 
 Europeans sometimes reproach ourselves with our habit of 
 scribbling on ancient monuments — a bad habit which we 
 suppose to be peculiar to ourselves. Well, we may console 
 ourselves with the knowledge that the Persians at any rate have 
 the same habit, though the reflections they record are generally 
 very different in tone from those which would occur to a Euro- 
 pean. We all know the sort of things which are to be found 
 recorded in a visitor's book in any European hotel or place of 
 interest, and on an ancient monument, which lends itself less 
 readily to this sort of literary enterprise, I suppose the typical 
 inscription of a European, if it exceeded the mere name, 
 would run something like this : "Arrived here at 3.30 p.m. on 
 such-and-such a date ; sun very hot, but a refreshing breeze. 
 Food and accommodation on the way bad. [Signed] X. Y. Z." 
 Contrast this with the following specimens written by Persian 
 travellers on the ruins of Persepolis. The first runs : 
 
 " Where are the proud monarchs of yore 7 They multiplied 
 treasures which endured not, even as they endured not." 
 
328 Pan-Is lamism 
 
 The second is : — 
 
 " Where are the kings who exercised dominion 
 Until the cup-bearer of Death gave them to drink of his cup ? 
 How many cities which have been built between the horizons 
 Lay ruined in th^ evening, while their dwellers were in the 
 Abode of Death V 
 
 Can you wonder if the spirit which expresses itself in these 
 and a thousand similar ways refuses to interest itself in Western 
 projects for the making of railways, the "opening up," as it is 
 called, of countries which only desire to remain closed, and the 
 creation of needs which are in many cases at least as much of 
 a curse as a blessing ? Persia has, I believe, the unique distinc- 
 tion of having introduced both the railway and the printing- 
 press, and of having, after fair trial, cast them out again, finding 
 the manuscript or lithograph as good as the printed book, and 
 the horse, ass and camel as suitable for her purposes as the 
 locomotive. Of course if you want to save time, the railway, 
 the telegraph, the book of reference and the index save it ; but 
 if you do not — if to-morrow and the day after are but the waves 
 on an ocean which, willing or not, you must needs cross, how- 
 ever little you like the passage — then they are useless. Yet it 
 is so hard for the West to understand this ; as hard, perhaps, as 
 it is for the East to understand why the West does not save, 
 but rather creates, labour, even unnecessary labour. Perhaps 
 by the time that Europe and America understand why Asia 
 does not want railways, Asia will understand why Europe and 
 America care about such things as cricket, football and golf. 
 
 On the whole, if one reflects a little, one cannot help being 
 sorry for Asia. She wants chiefly to be let alone, and that is 
 just what we will not do. Our press is always inventing what 
 are called " Questions " of the Near East, the Far East, and the 
 like, some of which, I see, are being treated of in these lectures. 
 These questions generally in essence amount to this : " So-and- 
 so has something which I want : how can I get it, and how can 
 
Pan-Islamism 329 
 
 I prevent other people from getting more than I do?" The 
 point of view of So-and-so — the intended victim — must neces- 
 sarily be somewhat different, and if he is weak, his only hope 
 lies in creating such discord between those who propose to 
 plunder him (or "open him up" — for it comes to the same 
 ' thing) that they shall fall on one another instead of on him. 
 This, in essence, is the policy, the natural, logical and only 
 possible policy, of nations circumstanced like Turkey or China, 
 both of which have pursued that policy with equal skill and 
 tenacity of purpose. We talk in the West of the "Yellow 
 Danger," the " Black Danger," and the like ; but what are 
 these compared with the " White Peril " which threatens Asia ? 
 To resist this Peril, a Peril ever more imminent and insistent, 
 Asia will naturally use all the resources at her disposal, invoking 
 such assistance as she can, from whatever quarter, and casting 
 amongst her foes such apples of discord as may lie ready to her 
 hand. The religious sentiment may, and doubtless will (since 
 it is in Asia, as we have seen, one of the strongest sentiments) 
 be called into play, as will the conservative or reactionary 
 spirit, the prejudice against alien habits and ways of life, and all 
 other forces which may avail to check the plunderers ; but this 
 is not Pan-Islamism, and I should regard an alliance between 
 Turkey and China as at least as possible as an alliance between 
 Turkey and Persia, though Persia is Muhammadan and China 
 is not. Whatever Asia may do will be prompted by fear rather 
 than religious fanaticism. 
 
 As regards Africa, the case, as I have said, is different ; but 
 concerning Africa I have not the necessary " Anschauungen" 
 (again to borrow from my friend Dr Reich) to speak with any 
 assurance. But a great militant Muhammadan movement, 
 originating in Africa, would not, in my opinion, involve Asia to 
 any great degree. 
 
 The question which I am supposed to answer in this lecture 
 is, " Is Pan-Islamism a possibility ?" I have tried to answer it, 
 according to my knowledge and judgment ; and the gist of 
 
330 Pdn-Islamism 
 
 the answer is this: It is less possible than Pari- Americanism, 
 Pan-Germanism, and all the other " Pans " which I enumerated 
 at the beginning of my lecture ; and only a shade more possible 
 than what I may perhaps be allowed to call Pan-Christianism ; 
 a thing of which, for all our " Progress," we are not yet within 
 measurable distance'. 
 
 ^ Only since I delivered this lecture have I been able to obtain and read 
 the interesting paper entitled La Mecque et le Panislamisme contributed to 
 the Revue de VHistoire des Religions (Paris, Leroux, 1901 : tirage-a-part 
 of 20 pages) by Snouck-Hurgronge, who is probably the greatest living 
 authority in Europe on the Islam of to-day. While admitting that "there 
 is no solidly organized Pan-Islamic propaganda," he adds : " there is 
 certainly a very pronounced Pan-islamic tendency in all classes of Muham- 
 madan society, of which tendency Constantinople is the political centre "; 
 while "the religious centre of the movement is at Mecca." In face of such 
 an authority I cannot feel the same certainty as to the correctness of the 
 vieVfs expressed in this Lecture, which, nevertheless, I continue to hold. 
 
ENGLAND AND THE UNITED STATES. 
 By T. J. Lawrence, LL.D. 
 
 LECTURE I. 
 
 We have recently rejoiced over the good feeling which 
 manifested itself between British and Boers in South Africa as 
 soon as hostilities between them ceased. We trust that the 
 mutual respect which produced this feeling will continue, and 
 enable the two races to work together side by side at the task 
 of building up a realm which will be their common country. 
 
 No such feeling graced the end of the struggle between 
 Great Britain and her revolted North American Colonies. In 
 this case the parties to the war were not required to live under 
 one government, and that the government of the victors. All 
 they had to do was to go their separate ways without annoying 
 or injuring one another. In this they failed conspicuously. 
 It was not so much the war as the events which followed the 
 war that permanently embittered feeling on both sides, and 
 gave for generations afterwards to the relations between the 
 two countries that character of distrust and acerbity which they 
 have but lately lost, let us hope for ever. The rough common- 
 sense of nations teaches them to overlook and forget unjustifi- 
 able deeds done in the heat of conflict, except perhaps in the 
 cases, happily rare in modern warfare, where foul deceit or 
 deliberate cruelty has been added to other elements of evil. 
 But injury done by one state to another in cold blood, calcu- 
 lated breaches of good faith, insolence, attempts to stir up 
 
332 England and the United States 
 
 internal or external strife, constant suspicion in official quarters, 
 and violent popular abuse — these things leave behind a heritage 
 of hatred which the wisest of statesmen and the best of peace- 
 makers find it difficult to dispel. Unfortunately none of them 
 were absent from the relations between Great Britain and the 
 United States during the thirty years which followed the recog- 
 nition of American Independence by the Treaty of 1783. 
 Instead of wondering how it was that the two kindred peoples 
 came to wage with one another the war of 181 2, we should be 
 filled with thankfulness because that was the only occasion on 
 which they have come to blows since they existed together in 
 the world as separate and independent states. 
 
 This seems a hard saying; but a short account of the 
 events which followed the peace will justify it. The Americans, 
 full of exultation over their victory, and preoccupied with their 
 domestic concerns, were supremely indifferent to the fact that, 
 under the loose confederation into which they had entered, 
 Congress lacked the power to perform many of the obligations 
 it contracted with foreign powers. England felt herself humili- 
 ated by the success of the colonists. It was a terrible blow to 
 her pride to find her armies foiled and her garrisons captured 
 by raw militiamen fresh from the ploughtail, and ragged Conti- 
 nental soldiers, who did indeed know how to shoot, but whose 
 drill would have driven into frenzy the barrack-square martinets 
 of Europe. Moreover some of the wisest thinkers of the time 
 shared the conviction of King George III that " if any one 
 branch of the Empire is allowed to throw off its dependency, 
 the others will inevitably follow the example." Nothing short 
 of national ruin was anticipated by many ; and added bitterness 
 was caused by the reflection that the American triumph was 
 largely due to France, the ancient enemy who had been utterly 
 beaten and driven from the North of the American Continent in 
 the war which ended only twenty years before. To a nation in 
 this temper, sick and sore at heart and full of gloomy appre- 
 hension for the future, any opportunity of retaliating upon those 
 
England and the United States 333 
 
 whom it regarded as the prime cause of its misery would be 
 welcome ; and it would certainly be in no mood to find excuses 
 for failure on their part to fulfil obligations they had under- 
 taken. That there were such failures is now generally ad- 
 mitted. Professor Hart, of Harvard, in his Formation of the 
 Union, says : "The Treaty of 1783 had provided that Congress 
 would recommend to the States just treatment of the loyalists ; 
 the recommendation was made. Most of the States declined 
 to comply : men who had been eminent before the Revolution 
 returned to find themselves distrusted, and sometimes were 
 mobbed ; their estates, which in most cases had been con- 
 fiscated, were withheld, and they could obtain no considera- 
 tion." Undoubtedly the letter of the Treaty was kept when 
 Congress made the earnest recommendations stipulated for in 
 the fifth article. But such fulfilment was merely technical. 
 The British Government imagined that it had obtained some 
 measure of protection for the Royalists. It found itself put off" 
 instead with a useless formula. A more direct breach of faith 
 occurred in another matter. The fourth article provided that 
 creditors on either side should " meet with no lawful impedi- 
 ment to the recovery " of their debts. What followed shall be 
 told in the words of the distinguished American historian I 
 have quoted before : " The action of the States in placing 
 obstacles in the way of collecting debts due to British 
 merchants before the Revolution was a vexatious infraction of 
 the Treaty. Five States had passed laws for the partial or 
 complete confiscation of such debts, and even after the Treaty 
 Pennsylvania and Massachusetts passed similar Acts.'' These 
 violations of international agreement were open and defiant ; 
 but the same may be said of acts done by the other side. 
 When the British forces evacuated New York in November, 
 1783, they took away with them into freedom 3,000 slaves; 
 whereas the seventh article of the Treaty declared that the 
 soldiers of the King should be withdrawn "without causing 
 any destruction, or carrying away any negroes or other property 
 
3 34 England and the United States 
 
 of the American inhabitants." If too much was removed from 
 New York, too little was taken away from certain other places. 
 The Treaty provided in the most emphatic terms for the 
 evacuation of every " port, place and harbour " within the 
 territory of the United States ; but for more than ten years 
 British troops remained in occupation of Detroit, Mackinaw, 
 Niagara, and other posts along the Great Lakes. In April, 
 1794, the Canadian authorities took a still stronger step. 
 Lieutenant-Governor Simcoe built a fort at the foot of the 
 rapids of the Miami river, in the southern portion of what is 
 now the State of Ohio, and was then territory in dispute 
 between the Western borderers and the Indian tribes, but far 
 within the boundary assigned to the United States by the 
 Treaty of 1783. This fort was garrisoned by three companies 
 of regular troops, and played for some time an important part 
 in that policy of aiding the Indians with arms, and secretly 
 inciting them to hostility, which was carried on for years with 
 varying degrees of unfriendliness along the North-western 
 border. The existence of such a policy has often been denied ; 
 but no candid person can read the fourth volume of that book 
 of entrancing interest, President Roosevelt's Winning of the 
 West, without coming to the conclusion that over-zealous under- 
 lings constantly practised it, and in 1793 and 1794 it was 
 carried out by high officials with much energy and little con- 
 cealment. The statesmen of Great Britain, absorbed in a life 
 and death struggle with Revolutionary France, never dreamed 
 that the rough backwoodsmen, who were slowly driving the 
 Indian tribes from their hunting-grounds, were laying in the 
 wilderness the foundations of political communities which 
 within a generation would become great and powerful States 
 in the American Union. Nor is their ignorance a proof of 
 folly. It was shared by most of the American statesmen of 
 the time. The circumstances of the young Republic almost 
 forced them to keep their eyes fixed on Europe. But the 
 determining factors in the destiny of the American people were 
 
England and the United States 335 
 
 being worked out along the shores of the Great Lakes, in the 
 valley of the Ohio, and down the long reaches of the far- 
 stretching Mississippi. Even Jefferson, whose purchase of the 
 Louisiana territory from France in 1803 opened the way to the 
 Pacific and made the United States a great world-power, had 
 no such objects in view. What he wanted was free access for 
 his people to the Gulf of Mexico. He would have been con- 
 tent with New Orleans and a little strip of territory extending 
 to the sea. Napoleon thrust upon him in addition the vast 
 tracts to the West of the Mississippi. 
 
 But our object is, not to point out how the American 
 Republic became great almost in spite of itself, but to shew 
 why it commenced its career as a member of the family of 
 nations on very bad terms with the State from which the great 
 majority of its people had sprung. We have seen how the 
 Treaty which recognised its Independence and fixed its 
 boundaries was violated by both sides. Each exclaimed against 
 the other; and each had fluent excuses for its own conduct. 
 To the curious in such matters I recommend a study of the 
 diplomatic correspondence of 1791 — 1793, between Jefferson, 
 then the American Secretary of State, and Hammond, the 
 newly-appointed British Minister to the United States. But 
 when matters were discussed with a view to business, and not 
 merely for effect, the fact that the Treaty had not been properly 
 observed was taken for granted. Pitt told Gouverneur Morris 
 that he wanted a new Treaty. Morris replied that " he did not 
 see what better could be done than to perform the old one." 
 Nothing is further from my purpose in this lecture than an 
 attempt to apportion praise or blame. It is possible to make 
 out some sort of a case for this, that, or the other breach of the 
 stipulations. The surrender by the British of the interests of 
 the negro slaves who had assisted them was disgraceful ; and 
 General Carleton's contention that the words of the Treaty 
 could apply only to captured negroes, and not to those who 
 had joined his forces of their own free will, if it was a quibble 
 
336 England and the United States 
 
 at all, was a quibble that furthered the cause of freedom, 
 since it enabled him to carry away from New York in 1783 
 many black men who must otherwise have been left behind to 
 slavery. A Congress which could not pay its soldiers or its 
 judges spoke but the bare truth when it declared its inability to 
 do more than recommend good treatment of the loyalists to 
 States which habitually flouted its demands. Great Britain's 
 retention of her hold on the Lake forts had the lex ialionis in 
 its favour. Still, when the process of justification has been 
 carried as far as possible, the fact remains that important stipu- 
 lations were habitually disregarded on both sides. Hence 
 flowed constant irritation. Each nation firmly believed the 
 other to be a deliberate wrong-doer, and hated it accordingly. 
 
 Soon fresh causes of dissension arose. In colonial times 
 the Americans enjoyed the right to trade with other British 
 colonies, and a profitable commerce sprung up between New 
 England and the West Indies. Soon after the peace this was 
 prohibited by the British Government, to the great loss and 
 chagrin of the merchants of Massachusetts and New York. 
 The war which broke out in 1793 between England and 
 France was fraught with disastrous consequences to that pro- 
 spect of improved relations between the United States and the 
 mother-country, which rejoiced the hearts of men of good will 
 for a little time when Jay's Treaty of 1794 warded off imminent 
 hostilities. It provided for the withdrawal of the British garrisons 
 from the frontier posts, and settled most of the other questions 
 which had arisen out of the Treaty of 1783. But unfortu- 
 nately it dealt either inadequately or not at all with the new 
 difficulties to which I have just referred. Great Britain claimed 
 the right to prevent American vessels from engaging in trade 
 between the home ports of its enemies and their colonies, when 
 such trade was thrown open as a war measure after having been 
 rigprously prohibited in time of peace. This was called The 
 Rule of War of 1756, and an arguable, if not a conclusive, 
 case can be made for it in International Law. But the further 
 
England and. the United States 337 
 
 claim of England to take out of American merchant vessels on 
 the high seas sailors of British nationality, and impress them 
 for her fighting navy was utterly untenable. Even in cases 
 where there was no doubt about the national character of the 
 seamen thus treated, it amounted to a forcible application of 
 British law within the jurisdiction of the United States. When 
 the nationality was doubtful or disputed, as was constantly the 
 case, the injury was greater. And in the considerable number 
 of instances where in wantonness or ignorance undoubted 
 American citizens were taken, a most unwarrantable outrage 
 was committed. It is true there was sometimes great provoca- 
 tion. Asylum was occasionally given to deserters by American 
 captains; and the American flag was used not so much to 
 protect the rights of Americans as to cover wrongs done to the 
 British. American sympathy went out to France rather than 
 to England in the Revolutionary wars. This was not to be 
 wondered at, seeing that French blood and French treasure had 
 been freely poured out in the cause of American independence 
 a few years before. But it helped to keep alive feelings of 
 anger among the English people, and stiffened them in their 
 resolve to grant no concessions to a nation which disliked 
 them and wished them ill. The tone of British diplomacy 
 grew arrogant. The claims of Great Britain on the ocean 
 increased. Napoleon, defeated at sea, started his "Conti- 
 nental System '' with the design of ruining England by closing 
 the Continent of Europe against British goods. Great Britain 
 retaliated by her Orders in Council. The Berlin and Milan 
 Decrees followed. The belligerents struck at one another 
 through the sides of neutrals. America was the great neutral, 
 and her trade suffered accordingly. When the warfare of 
 retaliation was at its height France endeavoured to capture 
 any vessel which traded with Great Britain or her colonies, 
 or submitted to British search; while Great Britain forbade 
 neutral vessels, with certain exceptions, to trade with any 
 French port or any port under French influence. Nor were 
 
 H. L. 22 
 
338 England and the United States 
 
 these threats idle. In 1807 nearly 200 American vessels were 
 captured by British cruisers. The Fl-ench rules were even 
 more oppressive than the English ; and the conduct of Napoleon 
 in his negotiations with the United States was marked by a 
 duplicity which was absent from British diplomacy. But Great 
 Britain's power at sea rendered her better able than France to 
 carry out her threats ; and she was in consequence denounced 
 with more vigour and hated with more bitterness than her foe. 
 Indeed the fate of the mother-country in her dealings with her 
 greatest daughter has been to act as a sort of lightning-con- 
 ductor, and draw off td herself the indignation which might 
 with equal or greater justice have struck elsewhere. It was so 
 at the end of the eighteenth century, when Spain was far more 
 deeply involved than England in intrigues to prevent the 
 Western expansion of the new Republic. It was so in the 
 commercial difficulties of the early years of the nineteenth 
 century, when France, the greater sinner, was popular, and 
 England, the lesser, regarded as an unscrupulous tyrant. And 
 it was so in the middle of the century, when England's recogni- 
 tion of the belligerency of the Southern Confederacy was 
 resented as an unwarrantable and unfriendly act, while little or 
 nothing was said of similar recognition by other powers. The 
 unhappy beginning of the international relations between the 
 two countries will account for this, but does not make it any 
 the less unfortunate and deplorable. 
 
 The treatment we have just recounted stung the United 
 States to the quick. Even Jefferson, the most pacific of Presi- 
 dents, was forced into retaliation when in 1807 the Leopard, a 
 British cruiser, carried out by force a search of the Chesapeake, 
 an American frigate, and took out of her several deserters from 
 the royal navy. This was done in defiance of the law of 
 nations, which confines the exercise of the belligerent right of 
 search to merchant vessels of neutrals ; and the exclusion of 
 British men-of-war from American ports which followed cannot 
 be regarded as too severe a retort. Other measures were taken. 
 
England and the United States 339 
 
 mostly of a feeble and tentative character. The most famous 
 of them, the embargo which forbade merchant vessels, whether 
 American or foreign, to leave the ports of the United States, 
 worked more harm to American than British commerce. It 
 was intensely unpopular among the commercial classes in 
 whose interests it was resorted to. They were furious when 
 they saw their export trade reduced by four-fifths in one year ; 
 and when the price of wheat fell more than half the agri- 
 culturists supported them in their demand for repeal. A 
 substitute was found in a measure excluding British and French 
 vessels from American ports ; and the hated embargo went the 
 way of unpopular laws in a democratic country. Negotiations 
 with Great Britain followed ; and it was thought at one time 
 that an agreement had been reached on the basis of the with- 
 drawal of the Orders in Council. But the British Minister had 
 exceeded his instructions. He was ordered home and another 
 sent. Then followed such a series of incidents as are happily 
 rare in the intercourse of civiUsed States. The etiquette of the 
 Presidential dinner-table gave rise to undignified squabbles, in 
 which the names of ladies were freely used. These, together 
 with accusations on the one side of trickery and insult, and on 
 the other of gross insolence and discourtesy, led up to a refusal 
 to do business with the new envoy and a demand for his 
 immediate recall. The failure of Mr Erskine's negotiations and 
 the practical dismissal of Mr Jackson were the forerunners of 
 the war of 181 2. In 181 1 reparation was at last made for the 
 attack on the Chesapeake, but the tardiness of the concession 
 deprived it of all grace. Like the withdrawal of the Orders in 
 Council two days before the outbreak of hostilities, it was too 
 late. The American Government was slow in resolving upon 
 war, but when once it had made up its mind, it was not to be 
 turned from its purpose by a belated surrender of some of the 
 points at issue. Few acts of greater unwisdom have been per- 
 petrated in the course of history. Great Britain brought upon 
 her back a new foe in the crisis of her life-and-death struggle 
 
34^5 England and the United States 
 
 with Napoleon. The United States, in the supposed interests 
 of its sea-borne commerce, but in the face of the fierce opposi- 
 tion of its commercial classes, made a powerful diversion in 
 favour of France at a time when the success of the Imperial 
 armies in their invasion of Russia meant the closure of the 
 whole continent of Europe to American trade. Had the 
 Americans prevailed, their last state would indeed have been 
 worse than their first. Had England conquered, the North 
 American continent would have been covered by weak con- 
 federations, hostile to each other and a prey to the intrigues 
 which were filling the Old World with misery and blood- 
 shed. 
 
 The war itself was by no means the procession of triumphs 
 it is represented in some American histories. Neither, on the 
 other hand, was it the easy success for Great Britain that her 
 Government and people anticipated. They learned in it the 
 time-honoured lesson, which comes home to them with the 
 force of a new revelation about once in each half-century, that, 
 since wars are fought with firearms, those who can shoot best 
 and possess the best weapons to shoot with, are exceedingly 
 likely to prevail, even though they are wofuUy deficient in the 
 matter of uniform and their supplies of pipe-clay are lament- 
 ably small. 
 
 The Peace of 1814 is best described as a disappointment 
 for both sides. The Americans gained by it literally nothing, 
 unless the reference of several frontier disputes to arbitration 
 be accounted a national gain. Not a word was said about 
 impressment. The question of the Fisheries was not touched. 
 No commercial facilities were granted. The practice of 
 blockade was not regulated. There was no promise of in- 
 demnity for illegal captures. The British were in much the 
 same position. They had demanded a rectification of the 
 North-West frontier in their own interests, and the carving out 
 of a territory for their Indian allies from the dominions of 
 the United States. They obtained neither. The basis of the 
 
England and the United States 341 
 
 Treaty was the status quo ante bellutn. It might have been 
 reduced to one Article : 
 
 " Whereas Great Britain and the United States of America 
 are tired of fighting, it is agreed that they shall leave off and be 
 at peace from the date of the ratification of this Treaty." 
 
 But though the Treaty did little directly, the war did much 
 indirectly. It convinced the statesmen of Europe that the 
 United States was a factor to be reckoned with in international 
 complications. Great Britain felt a new respect for the brave 
 and skilful seamen who had captured her frigates on the 
 Atlantic, beaten her flotilla on Lake Erie, and preyed upon her 
 commerce even in Dublin Bay. There was no denying the 
 warlike prowess of the rough militiamen of Kentucky and the 
 backwoodsmen from Tennessee, whose deadly fire drove back 
 the Peninsular veterans of Pakenham from the cotton-bale 
 entrenchments of New Orleans. On the other hand the 
 Americans learned by sad experience that the conquest of 
 Canada was a task beyond their power, and found that the 
 strength of England at sea, when once it was fairly brought 
 into action, was far more than a match for their infant navy. 
 The successes and failures of the struggle were fairly equal on 
 both sides ; and each thought far better of the other than it did 
 at the commencement of the war. The capture of Washington 
 by the British in August, 18 14, was a brilliant feat of arms, 
 marred by the burning of the Government buildings and the 
 White House, an utterly unwarrantable act, even though the 
 Americans had set the example by destroying a few Canadian 
 villages. The memory of it has done something since to keep 
 up the old feelings of irritation ; but the wound it caused has 
 been almost healed under the influence of sober thoughts and 
 friendly feeling. The best remark concerning it I have ever 
 read is to be found in a note at the foot of a page in 
 Montgomery's American History, " The truth is that both sides 
 perpetrated many acts which time should make both forget and 
 forgive." 
 
342 England and the United States 
 
 We have seen how the Treaty of 1814 settled nothing. Yet 
 it was the beginning of a long era of settlement. Its fate in 
 this respect was happily just the opposite of the Treaty of 1783, 
 which, purporting to settle all things, was the beginning of 
 a long era of unsettlement. Unforeseen events created trouble 
 then. Unforeseen events put an end to trouble thirty-two 
 years later. Napoleon fell, and with his disappearance his 
 Continental System disappeared also. Peace put an end to 
 oppressive Decrees and Orders in Council. American trade 
 sprang forward by leaps and bounds. In two years the revenue 
 of the central government increased more than fourfold. With 
 the cessation of maritime warfare the wrongs connected with 
 impressment vanished. Great Britain never formally sur- 
 rendered her claim to take her seamen out of American 
 vessels ; but she had no further occasion to enforce it ; and 
 by-and-by the disuse of the barbarous practice of impressment 
 as a means of recruiting for the royal navy caused the cessation 
 of all its unhappy consequences. 
 
 But in the new epoch of appeasement man did not play a 
 merely passive part. Jay's Treaty of 1794 had provided for the 
 appointment of Boards of Commissioners to settle by a process 
 akin to arbitration certain territorial and commercial questions. 
 This excellent example was followed in 18 14, when no less than 
 four boundary disputes were referred to Commissions. The 
 first was concerned with several islands in the Bay of Passama- 
 quoddy and one in the Bay of Fundy, which were claimed by 
 both the United States and Nova Scotia. In 181 7 three of 
 them were adjudged to the Republic and the rest to Great 
 Britain. The second referred to the boundary from the source 
 of the river Saint Croix to the St Lawrence. The Commis- 
 sioners disagreed, and in 182 1 made separate reports. The 
 matter was then referred according to the terms of the Treaty 
 to a friendly sovereign. The King of the Netherlands was 
 chosen in 1827, and in 1831 he made an award which went in 
 some respects outside the terms of the reference. On this 
 
England and the United States 343 
 
 ground it was rejected by the Senate of the United States, and 
 fresh negotiations with Great Britain were initiated. After 
 several failures the matter was at last settled by the Ashburton 
 Treaty of 1842. The line then agreed upon was fiercely de- 
 nounced on both sides ; but was at any rate better than the 
 war which would in all probability have resulted had the ques- 
 tion of the North-Eastern boundary been left open much 
 longer. The third and fourth matters were connected with the 
 details of the water-boundaries along the line of the St Lawrence 
 and the Great Lakes, and these the Commissioners were able to 
 settle in a satisfactory manner in 1822. 
 
 Nothing is more remarkable in the history of the relations 
 between Great Britain and the United States than the frequent 
 resort to arbitral or quasi-arbitral processes to settle differences 
 great and small, unless it be the light-hearted way in which 
 differences have been created by sheer ignorance or utter care- 
 lessness. It will hardly be believed, but it is nevertheless quite 
 true, that the plenipotentiaries who negotiated the Treaty of 
 1783, in determining the boundaries of the United States used 
 a map of 1755 called Mitchell's Map, but, as Professor J. 
 Bassett Moore tells us in his monumental work on the Inter- 
 national Arbitrations of the United States, "Though the same 
 map was used by both sides in the negotiations, on no copy of 
 it were the lines intended by the negotiators jointly and formally 
 entered, and no map was officially attached to the Treaty." 
 Hence arose endless trouble, especially in 1842 and 1843, 
 during and after the negotiation of the Ashburton Treaty, 
 when discoveries of conflicting maps, marked with irrecon- 
 cilable boundaries on the frontier then in dispute between 
 Nova Scotia and Maine, caused great dissatisfaction with the 
 line agreed to in the Treaty, and led to charges of sharp 
 practice, which produced much irritation. 
 
 The first and the last of the now settled boundary questions 
 will provide us with further illustrations. In 1783 the frontier 
 of the United States was to commence at the " north-west angle 
 of Nova Scotia," which was defined as " that angle which is 
 
344 England and the United States 
 
 formed by a line drawn due north from the source of the Saint 
 Croix River to the Highlands." Hardly was the Treaty ratified 
 than it appeared there was no Saint Croix River. The name 
 had been given to some stream, it was difficult to say which, by 
 the early French explorers. Map-makers had used it indis- 
 criminately. As the country was settled and surveyed it turned ,' 
 out that no map was accurate, the famous map of Mitchell 
 being no exception. Great Britain claimed the Schoodiac as 
 the true Saint Croix, the United States the Magaguadavic. 
 Jay's Treaty referred the question to three Commissioners, who 
 were to settle what river was "truly intended" by the Treaty of 
 1783. In two years they pursued their investigations, and 
 came at length to the conclusion that the Schoodiac was " the 
 river truly intended under the name of the river Saint Croix in 
 the said Treaty." The decision itself was a happy settlement 
 of a difficult question, but the phraseology in which the Com- 
 missioners were obliged to clothe it was absurd ; for the 
 evidence before them clearly shewed that the intentions of the 
 negotiators of 1783, two of whom they examined, went no 
 further than the non-existent Saint Croix on the inaccurate 
 map of Mitchell. Our final example of the light-hearted in- 
 accuracy of which I spoke, and its unfortunate effects on the 
 subsequent relations between the two countries, shall be taken 
 from the agreement as to the Oregon question in the Treaty of 
 1846. By its first article the frontier line was to be drawn 
 along the " forty-ninth parallel of north latitude to the middle 
 of the channel which separates the continent from Vancouver's 
 Island, and thence southerly through the middle of the said 
 channel, and of Fuca's Straits, to the Pacific Ocean." It turned 
 out that, instead of there being but one channel separating the 
 continent from Vancouver's Island, there were several. The 
 United States, of course, immediately claimed that the line 
 should pass through that which was nearest to Vancouver's 
 Island, while, equally of course. Great Britain contended that 
 the passage closest to American territory was the true one. 
 Thus the national ownership of a number of the small islands 
 
England and the United States 345 
 
 which dotted the intervening space was placed in dispute; and, 
 as citizens of both countries were settUng upon them, awkward 
 complications sometimes arose. In 1859 a pig came very near 
 to bulking as big in history as the geese which saved the 
 Roman Capitol from the barbarians. He lived a blameless 
 life on San Juan Island, as a cherished possession of the 
 Hudson's Bay Company. One day he was found dead. An 
 American squatter on the island was accused of having shot 
 him ; and the real or supposed culprit was threatened with arrest 
 and trial under British law. To prevent this the island was 
 occupied by American troops, and the Commander-in-chief of 
 the forces of the United States was hurried to the spot. When 
 there he arranged with the British authorities for a joint 
 military occupation of the island by the armed forces of the 
 two powers ; and the danger of a collision was for the time 
 averted. Playing with fire is proverbially dangerous. Playing 
 with pigs seems equally so in some parts of the world. The 
 dispute about the channel lingered on for years, till the famous 
 Alabama Treaty of 187 1 referred it to the arbitration of the 
 Emperor of Germany, who decided in favour of the claim of 
 the United States to the •Ha.ro Channel. Partitioning the 
 unknown with a light heart and a bad map is a process which 
 causes in the long run much more trouble than it saves at the 
 time. If the two Governments could manage to acquire the 
 habit of consulting experts before they make their agreements, 
 their negotiations might perhaps take a little longer time to 
 complete ; but when completed they would not be found 
 useless, and require to be gone through over again several 
 times to the accompaniment of violent popular agitations. 
 
 We have already seen that the marvellous westward expan- 
 sion of the United States was the greatest factor in the 
 development of the internal political life of the nation. It was 
 also a fertile source of international complications. At the end 
 of the war of independence, France and Spain desired to 
 bound the new Republic by the Alleghanies. But in this 
 
346 England and the United States 
 
 matter Great Britain, the enemy, proved more friendly than the 
 two allies, and the frontier line was drawn at the Mississippi by 
 the Treaty of 1783. But it did not reach to the sea; and as 
 the advancing wave of settlement rolled over Kentucky and 
 covered Ohio and Tennessee, it was felt that New Orleans 
 could not long remain in the hands of a foreign power which 
 refused to give a right of free navigation of the great river down 
 to the Gulf of Mexico. When the Creole city and the whole 
 vast territory of Louisiana passed in 1800 from weak Spain to 
 all-conquering France, the rough and ready Westerners came 
 rapidly to the conviction that the strong government of 
 Napoleon would interpose a formidable barrier, not only to 
 their trade, but to their further advance into the wilderness. 
 Spain they might tolerate, because they knew they could dis- 
 regard its threats and treat its sleepy officials with contempt. 
 But France, entrenched on the banks of the lower Mississippi, 
 and holding the rich lands beyond in its iron grip, would 
 throttle the young and vigorous communities which were 
 already sending their advance-guard of hardy pioneers across 
 the great stream. Even Jefferson saw the seriousness of the 
 situation, in spite of his French pftoclivities, though he was far 
 from grasping its full significance. In 1802 he wrote that from 
 the moment France took possession of New Orleans " we must 
 marry ourselves to the British fleet and nation." To avoid this 
 to him most undesirable consummation, and to satisfy his 
 Western supporters, he opened the negotiations which ended, 
 as we have already seen, in the purchase of all French 
 Louisiana for fifteen million dollars in 1803. Hardly knowing 
 what he did, and caring only for free access to the southern 
 sea, he doubled the area of the United States, opened the way 
 to the Pacific for her Lewises and her Fremonts, and rendered 
 it possible for an English poet to sing of her as 
 
 "Girt with two oceans, crowned with Arctic snow, 
 Sandalled with shining seas of Mexico." 
 
 It has been given to but few men to change the history of the 
 
England and the United States 347 
 
 world without suspecting that anything wonderful had been 
 achieved ; and conspicuous among those few stands the great 
 American democrat. 
 
 One consequence of the cession was a vigorous crop of 
 boundary questions. Spain then possessed the Floridas ; and 
 no man knew where Louisiana ended and West Florida began. 
 Texas, too, was hers ; and its limits were vague and disputable. 
 In the far West the untrodden wilderness was somewhere and 
 in some way divisible between the heirs of France and the 
 owners of Mexico. And in the extreme North the Hudson Bay 
 Company kept jealous watch at all its posts, lest enterprising 
 Yankee traders should spoil its markets and claim for the 
 United States the territory on which they settled. The dis- 
 putes with Spain were terminated by a series of agreements 
 which culminated in the Treaty of 1 819. It was a triumph of 
 American diplomacy ; for not only did the young Republic 
 acquire Florida by purchase and secure a favourable boundary- 
 line from the Gulf of Mexico to the 42nd parallel of north 
 latitude, and from thence to the Pacific, but John Quincy 
 Adams, the American negotiator, induced the Spanish Govern- 
 ment to cede to the United States all its claims to the territory 
 north of the line agreed upon, and thus obtained for his 
 country fresh grounds on which to base its arguments in the 
 controversy which had already broken out with Great Britain. 
 The vast district in dispute was called Oregon, and the con- 
 troversy is known in history as the Oregon Boundary Question. 
 A full account of it would occupy more than all the time at 
 our disposal, and lead us through complicated differences with 
 regard to such matters of fact as the nature of Drake's dis- 
 coveries, and the existence of certain Spanish navigators who 
 are alleged to have seen and done marvellous things along the 
 coast of what is now British Columbia. We must therefore 
 be content with a brief outline. 
 
 The Mississippi having ceased to be a boundary river in 
 1803, it became necessary to define the frontier between the 
 new possessions of the United States in the North- West and the 
 
348 England and the United States 
 
 British dominions which formed the territory of the Hudson's 
 Bay Company. This was done in 18 18, but only in part. 
 From the most north-westerly point of the Lake of the Woods 
 to the Rocky Mountains the boundary was to run along the 
 forty-ninth parallel of north latitude. But with regard to the 
 country west of the Rockies, the Plenipotentiaries were unable 
 to come to an agreement, and under the name of Oregon it 
 remained in dispute for a long time. All they could do was to 
 throw the district open for a period of ten years to the jomt 
 occupancy of the citizens of both States. Other attempts at 
 a settlement were made at frequent intervals ; but all failed; 
 In 1827 the outcome of long negotiations at London was 
 simply the extension of the joint occupation for an indefinite 
 period, each party having the right to terminate it on giving 
 a year's notice to the other. The claim of the United States 
 varied for a time, but after the Treaty of 1824 with Russia it 
 settled down to the line of 54° 40' north latitude. On several 
 occasions, however, it was intimated that a frontier drawn 
 along the 49th parallel would be accepted as a compromise; 
 The chief anxiety of Great Britain was to obtain the Columbia 
 river ; but she offered to consent to the line of the 49th parallel 
 up to the point where it strikes that stream, if the boundary were 
 continued along the middle channel to the Pacific Ocean. The 
 records of travel were ransacked by both sides for proofs of 
 first discovery and first settlement, and learned arguments were 
 exchanged on moot points of the international law of occupa- 
 tion and the title gained thereby. Meanwhile the white-tilted 
 emigrant-waggons were crowding in long procession along the 
 Oregon trail. Fierce fights with the Indian tribes were com- 
 mon incidents of the march ; and when at last the land of 
 promise was reached the agents of the Hudson's Bay Company 
 often took care to place all possible difficulties in the way of 
 the new-comers. The Company was violently denounced in 
 Congress. The constant cry throughout the land was, " Why 
 are foreigners permitted to domineer over American citizens ? " 
 And at last the programme of the successful party in a Presi- 
 
England and the United States 349 
 
 dential election was crystallised into the famous formula " Fifty- 
 four-forty or fight." But the responsibilities of office sobered 
 the fire-eaters; and in 1846 President Polk agreed to a treaty 
 which ran the boundary along the 49th parallel, not to the sea, 
 but " to the middle of the channel which separates the conti- 
 nent from Vancouver's Island," and from thence around the 
 southern shore of the island to the Pacific. Thus Great Britain 
 jgave up the mouth and lower waters of the Columbia river, 
 though she gained for her subjects by the Treaty the right to 
 navigate it freely. On the other hand she obtained the whole 
 of Vancouver's Island, while the United States gave up the 
 line of 54° 40' for which a large portion of the nation had 
 professed itself ready to go to war not long before. The settle- 
 ment was so eminently reasonable that we may well wonder why 
 it was not arrived at sooner. The only point connected with 
 it which caused subsequent trouble arose from the vagueness 
 of the description of the channel through which the boundary 
 line was to be carried to the open ocean. We have already 
 seen how this was settled by the Emperor of Germany in 1872. 
 By this last transaction the final touch was put to the task 
 of delimiting the northern frontier of the United States. A 
 long series of controversies with Great Britain was ended, and 
 a fresh sanction given to the principle of arbitration. More 
 than once in the course of the ninety years which had elapsed 
 since the great American Republic commenced its independent 
 existence had the two countries come near to blows over ques- 
 tions of disputed territory. Earth-hunger had been a fertile 
 source of quarrels ; but the influences that made for peace had 
 been more potent. The purchase of Alaska by the United 
 States has added yet another boundary controversy to the long 
 list of those which have already arisen. The peaceable settle- 
 ment of these difficulties of the past gives confidence to the 
 hope that the near future will see the north-western frontier of 
 British Columbia determined without the horror and crime 
 of a war between two free and kindred peoples. 
 
LECTURE II. 
 
 Leaving behind the boundary disputes dealt with in the 
 previous lecture, we will now turn our attention to another set 
 of differences. When the political separation came in 1783 the 
 most valuable of the fishing grounds which had been the 
 common heritage of all the American subjects of the British 
 crown were situated in the waters of those provinces which 
 still remained faithful to their old allegiance. The Americans 
 naturally desired access to them as before. The British as 
 naturally wished to keep them for themselves. The matter 
 principally concerned the New England States; and John 
 Adams, as their special representative among the Plenipo- 
 tentiaries, fought hard for the "right of fishing.'' He gained 
 by the third article of the Treaty " the liberty to take fish of 
 every kind on such part of the coast of Newfoundland as 
 
 British fishermen shall use and also on the coasts, bays 
 
 and creeks of all other of his Britannic Majesty's dominions in 
 America." During the war of i8iz the hardy seamen of 
 Maine and Massachusetts made no peaceful visits to British 
 territorial waters, and in the Treaty which ended it the fisheries 
 were not mentioned. A controversy soon arose upon the 
 subject. The United States claimed that the rights they 
 possessed before the Revolution continued in existence after 
 they had become independent. Treaties might define them 
 and provide for their exercise, but did not create them. War 
 might put an end to them for the time ; but they revived with 
 
England and the United States 351 
 
 the conclusion of peace. England, on the other hand, held 
 fast to the contention that privileges reserved to British subjects 
 could not be claimed by Americans as of right after they had 
 cut themselves adrift from Great Britain and ceased to owe 
 allegiance to its king. But what the mother-country would 
 not concede as a right, she was willing to grant as a favour, but 
 with certain limitations and subject to various conditions. The 
 Treaty of 1818 embodied these views. It granted a "liberty," 
 not a right, and it carefully restricted the exercise of that 
 "liberty" to definite portions of the coast of Newfoundland 
 and Labrador. Moreover in giving permission to American 
 fishermen to land and cure fish on any unsettled part of these 
 coasts, it provided that when the parts in question became 
 settled they should not continue to be used without previous 
 agreement with the settlers. It is easy to see that this pro- 
 vision would be fruitful of trouble as the country peopled up. 
 Moreover the constant use of the phrase " bays, harbours and 
 creeks," or some variant of it, gave rise before long to the ques- 
 tion, What is a bay ? To this day that question has never been 
 satisfactorily answered. When liberty of fishing is granted in a 
 bay it tends to become very large, at the expense of the terri- 
 torial waters. When fishermen are excluded from a bay, those 
 who are shut out are apt to claim that what the excluders deem 
 a bay is really a portion of the open sea. Thus it was that 
 difficulties innumerable arose ; and they were soon complicated 
 by other matters, such as the purchase of bait and the binding 
 force of local laws. Twice they were dealt with by stipula- 
 tions based upon reciprocal concession of privileges. But the 
 Reciprocity Treaty of 1854 came to an end in 1866; and the 
 fishery clauses in the Treaty of 187 1 were "denounced" by the 
 United States Government in 1883, and ceased to exist in 
 1885. Since then we have muddled on as best we could. 
 The failure of subsequent agreements has revived the Treaty of 
 1818, which is largely obsolete and inapplicable. In 1887 
 Mr Chamberlain, the present Colonial Secretary, went to 
 
352 England and the United States 
 
 America as an agent of the British Government, and succeeded 
 in negotiating a Treaty which would have settled all disputes. 
 But it failed to satisfy the Senate of the United States, and was 
 refused ratification. Since then the fisheries have been carried 
 on under a less formal agreement, called a modus vivendi, which 
 rests on executive sanction only, and could at any moment be 
 terminated by either side. There is a good deal of loose 
 gunpowder strewn about Canadian shores ; and it is much to 
 be hoped that some just international agreement will soon 
 render it innocuous. 
 
 The best security for peace is a strong desire on both sides 
 to be peaceful ; and this cannot exist without friendly feeling 
 and mutual respect. At the beginning of the nineteenth 
 century there was little of either between Great Britain and the 
 United States. We have seen how relations grew less strained 
 as the century advanced, and after the war of 1812 had cleared 
 the air. The Clayton-Bulwer Treaty of 1850 is a proof of 
 better feeling. The two countries had so far drawn together 
 that they felt themselves able to co-operate for an important 
 international purpose. The construction of a railway across 
 the Isthmus of Panama had been begun, and plans were afoot 
 for the building of a ship-canal from ocean to ocean. At 
 that time the route through the territory of the Republic of 
 Nicaragua was most in favour, and it seemed likely that a 
 serious attempt would soon be made to cut a canal along it. 
 Great Britain and the United States therefore entered into an 
 agreement by treaty to co-operate in furthering the construction 
 of the canal, to guarantee its neutrality when made, and to 
 invite other powers to join them in bringing about this neutral- 
 isation. Neither party was to exercise any exclusive control 
 over the qanal, or erect or maintain any fortifications com- 
 manding it. Each was bound not to make use of any 
 protectorate or alliance for the purpose of erecting or main- 
 taining such fortifications, "or of occupying, fortifying or 
 colonising Nicaragua, Costa Rica, the Mosquito Coast, or any 
 
England and the United States 353 
 
 part of Central America, or of assuming or exercising dominion 
 over the same." The eighth article of the Treaty applies the 
 principles set forth in the preceding seven to any other canal 
 that might be cut, whether by the Panama route or elsewhere. 
 Subsequent events gave this article a preponderating import- 
 ance. The Nicaraguan plan dropped, was revived, and has 
 now dropped again. There is little doubt that the canal, when 
 made, will follow the line of the abandoned works of M. de 
 Lesseps, and be cut through the narrowest part of the 
 Isthmus. 
 
 Soon after the agreement of 1850 was made, a dispute 
 arose as to the proper interpretation of the clause which 
 forbade the exercise of dominion over any part of Central 
 America. Great Britain possessed a group of islands off the 
 coast of Honduras called the Bay Islands. She also exer- 
 cised a Protectorate over the Indians of the Mosquito Coast. 
 The United States contended that she was bound to give up 
 these possessions, while the British Government maintained 
 that the Treaty applied only to future acquisitions. At last, 
 however, she ceded the Bay Islands to the Republic of 
 Honduras. This was in 1859, and early in i860 she sur- 
 rendered her Protectorate over the Mosquito Indians. Presi- 
 dent Buchanan, in his annual Message to Congress, spoke 
 of these arrangements as constituting " a final settlement 
 entirely satisfactory to this Government." There can, I think, 
 be no doubt that the Treaty was deemed, at the time it was 
 made and for many years afterwards, a wise and statesmanlike 
 document. The reason for the great change of feeling with 
 regard to it which afterwards came over the American people 
 will be stated later in this lecture. 
 
 We now come to a period in the relations between Great 
 Britain and the United States which no person sincerely 
 desirous of amity between them can look back upon without 
 regret. In 1861 the great Civil War broke out, and for four 
 years the men of the North and the men of the South were 
 H. L. 23 
 
354 England and the United States 
 
 engaged in mutual destruction. When the struggle was at its 
 height a million soldiers wore the blue uniform of the North, 
 and the Southern "Boys in Grey" reached to more than half 
 that number. They fought out their fight with a courage and 
 tenacity worthy of the greatness of the issues at stake, and the 
 virility of that strenuous race which in little more than two 
 generations had subdued a continent, and carried its homes 
 and its institutions from the Ohio to the Golden Gate, from 
 Portland in Maine to Portland in Oregon. It was my lot some 
 years ago to talk with many of the heroes and heroines of that 
 awful time. I saw the victorious banners of the Massachusetts 
 volunteers hanging, honoured and revered, in the State House 
 at Boston. I saw the Southern veterans bear their tattered 
 battle-flags through the streets of Richmond when they laid the 
 remains of their President to rest in the capital they had so 
 well defended. The long green mounds raised in Oakwood 
 Cemetery over the remains of the " Unknown " dead of 
 Antietam, and Chancellorsville, and Gettysburg, impressed me 
 more than anything else with the truth of the sad, proud 
 Southern poem, which tells how 
 
 "All over our loved Virginia 
 
 From the mountains to the sea, 
 In nameless graves by men forgot 
 
 Sleep the soldiers who followed Lee — 
 Our Southern dead who made for Lee 
 
 His imperishable name, 
 And wrote it in their own hearts' blood 
 
 High on the arch of fame." 
 
 And, as I heard in the North, from the lips of actors in the 
 scenes they described, stories of life and liberty risked to help 
 the escape of fugitive slaves into free Canada, of months of 
 long-drawn agony in Libby prison or exultant marching with 
 Sherman through Georgia to the sea, I began to realise some- 
 thing of that burning enthusiasm that sent to the front such 
 unemotional beings as the woodmen of Maine and the trappers 
 
England and the United States 355 
 
 of Wisconsin, chanting Julia Ward Howe's magnificent Battle 
 Hymn of the Republic : 
 
 " In the beauty of the lilies Christ was bom across the sea, 
 With a glory in His bosom that transfigures you and me ; 
 As He died to make men holy, let us die to make men free, 
 And work till Jesus calls. 
 
 Glory, glory, halleluia! 
 Glory, glory, halleluia ! 
 
 We'll' work till Jesus calls." 
 
 For the best men and women of the North it was indeed 
 a holy war. Loyalty to the flag, and all the flag symbolised, 
 was with them almost a religion. And the flag had been 
 flouted and fired upon ; the Union had been broken ; the Con- 
 stitution, as they understood it, violated. Next to love of the 
 Qnion came with them hatred of slavery, and the whole South 
 was in arms to preserve it, making it part and parcel of the 
 
 constitution of the Confederacy in the words, "No law 
 
 denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall 
 be passed." To preserve the Union, to free the slaves, men 
 offered up their lives and women their broken hearts. I would 
 not for one moment be taken to imply that enthusiasm and 
 self-sacrifice were peculiar to the North. I have talked with 
 sweet, low-voiced Southern women, who bore uncomplainingly 
 cold and privation, while they made their own dresses into 
 clothing for their sick and famished soldiery. And I know full 
 well how Pemberton's men held Vicksburg till only rats were 
 left for meat, and how the shoeless veterans who surrendered 
 at Appomattox had marched and fought for days on nothing 
 but parched com. It is all over now ; and those who faced 
 each other so bravely on a hundred battlefields are loyal fellow- 
 citizens of the greatest Republic the world has ever seen. But 
 it was very different then ; and the men who stood for national 
 unity and human freedom were filled with bitter anger against 
 England when they found that her sympathies were mainly 
 given to the South. The press of Great Britain had much to 
 
 23—2 
 
356 England and the United States 
 
 answer for. It gave itself airs of vast superiority. It magnified 
 all that was little, and sordid, and mean in the great tragedy, 
 and steadily closed its eyes to the nobler elements which 
 abounded. To earnest Northern abolitionists it seemed as if 
 we, here in the old home of freedom, could find nothing better 
 to do in the agony of a kindred nation than look on and jeer. 
 How strong that feeUng was, how long it endured, one little bit 
 of my own experience will illustrate. At Cincinnati a dear old 
 lady entertained me most hospitably, not because I had any 
 claim upon her, but simply because I was a wandering Britisher 
 whom chance had thrown among the circle of her friends. 
 With true American kindness she not only welcomed me to 
 her table and made me free of her house, but planned excur- 
 sions for me and drove me in her carriage across the Ohio into 
 beautiful Kentucky. She loved the old country; but for all 
 that she could not forgive it what she deemed its partisanship 
 for the South in the Civil War, and still carefully kept a scrap- 
 book full of extracts from the Times and other English papers, 
 sneering at the North and predicting the triumph of the Con- 
 federacy. I tried to explain that this attitude of mind had 
 been by no means universal in England, that, though the 
 governing class were largely Southern in their sympathies, the 
 predominant opinion among the artisans had been in favour of 
 the North ; but my friend would not be comforted. There was 
 the book and the testimony, and I could not gainsay it. 
 
 Multiply my hospitable lady by many millions, and throw 
 into her tenacious feminine regrets a strong dash of masculine 
 indignation, and you get the feeling towards Great Britain 
 which dominated the mind of the North during the Civil 
 War and for many years afterwards. Our Government strove 
 honestly to be neutral; but it was constantly accused of studied 
 partiality towards the South. We recognised the belligerency of 
 the Confederates, as did most other powers. It was impossible 
 to do otherwise, for that indeed a most notable war was being 
 waged by both land and sea was a fact as evident as the sun at 
 
England and the United States 357 
 
 noon. But though we took official cognisance of what was 
 patent to all the world, we steadfastly resisted the blandish- 
 ments of Louis Napoleon, Emperor of the French, who desired 
 us to join with him in a recognition of the Confederacy as an 
 independent State. Such a recognition would have been a 
 terrible, blow to the cause of the North; and that it did not 
 take place is due to the British Government. Yet we were 
 held up to execration, and France was but mildly rebuked. 
 But I do not for one moment attempt to maintain the un- 
 tenable proposition that the Government of Washington had 
 no good cause of complaint against Great Britain. Southern 
 cruisers were built in our ports, escaped from them by eluding 
 the vigilance of authorities who were sometimes not unwilling 
 to be hoodwinked, received at some appointed rendezvous their 
 armament and fighting crew, and then proceeded to depredate 
 upon American commerce under the authority of commissions 
 signed by Jefferson Davis, the President of the Southern Con- 
 federacy. No wonder the North complained bitterly, and 
 accused the English ministry of a lack of " due diligence " in 
 their efforts to prevent " the fitting out, arming, or equipping " 
 of the Alabama and her sister cruisers. It is impossible to 
 enter now into the details of the controversy that followed. 
 Part of it was very technical, and involved difficult and doubtful 
 points of International Law. The two powers took different 
 views of the nature and extent of the duties of a neutral state. 
 Great Britain held that she was not bound to prevent the 
 departure from her waters of a vessel built in them for a 
 belligerent, unless it attempted to leave them a finished instru- 
 ment of warfare, ready at once to commence hostilities against 
 its foe. She also held that when such a vessel had escaped, 
 and received its commission as a ship of war, it was entitled to 
 all the immunities granted by the law of nations to public 
 vessels, and could not be arrested on any subsequent visit to 
 the ports of the State where it had been originally equipped. 
 The United States maintained that, if the intent to make war 
 
358 England and the United States 
 
 was clearly shewn, the neutral was bound to prevent the escape 
 of the vessel, whether its equipment was complete or rudi- 
 mentary, and that the receipt of the commission, which was 
 really the completion of the offence, could not operate to 
 protect the ship from the punishment of its guilt. Over and 
 above these two great questions of International Law there were 
 others also, some legal, some practical, and some mixed ques- 
 tions of law and fact, such, for instance, as these : — What is the 
 measure of due diligence? Did the British authorities at 
 Liverpool exert themselves as they ought to prevent the escape 
 of the Alabama ? Should the Shenandoah have been prevented 
 from leaving Melbourne on her cruise to the whale-fisheries off 
 Cape Horn? There were two sides to all these questions, 
 except perhaps the last but one ; but at the time no Northerner 
 would believe it. To him the British Government wilfully 
 sinned against light in order to bolster up the cause of the 
 slave-holding Confederacy. To the British public, on the 
 other hand, he and his Department of State appeared as 
 strident voices perpetually raised in unreasonable complaint. 
 An examination of the literature of the controversy would be 
 the work of a life-time. To attempt it in a lecture would pro- 
 voke either groans or laughter. But I may perhaps be allowed 
 to quote from my own book on International Law the few 
 sentences in which I attempted to give a summary view of the 
 general dispute. "On one side we find a tendency to rely 
 upon technical subtleties and substitute legal quibbles for 
 substantial justice, and on the other a disposition to magnify 
 grounds of offence and seek causes of quarrel in acts hitherto 
 deemed perfectly innocent. It cannot be doubted that in the 
 matter of arming and equipping belligerent ships in neutral 
 waters, the older authorities, including several who belonged to 
 the United States, supported the British view. It is equally 
 true that many modern writers hold the stricter doctrine put 
 
 forward in the controversy by the American advocates 
 
 The explanation of the puzzle is that no certainty existed, or 
 
England and the United States 359 
 
 could exist at the time in question. Both doctrine and practice 
 were in a transition state. The older rule no longer satisfied 
 the awakened conscience of civiUsed nations ; but no clear and 
 definite usage had grown up to provide a substitute for it." 
 
 For years the relations between the two powers were in 
 a most critical condition. In 1861 Queen Victoria and the 
 late Prince Consort earned the blessing of the peace-makers by 
 toning down a warhke despatch on the Trent affair, and thus 
 rendering it possible for the United States to recede from an 
 untenable position without loss of self-respect. In 1863 oc- 
 curred the case of the ironclad rams, built by Laird and Co., 
 of Birkenhead, ostensibly for a French firm, but really for the 
 Confederate Government. Mr Adams, the American Minister, 
 supplied proofs of this to the British Foreign Office, and sent 
 in remonstrance after remonstrance. In the last of these, 
 written to Earl Russell, then our Secretary of State for Foreign 
 Affairs, when one of the rams was on the point of departure, 
 he says in all seriousness and after having received special 
 instructions from his Government, " It would be superfluous 
 for me to point out to your lordship that this is war." Fortu- 
 nately the law officers of the Crown found the evidence 
 sufficient. The rams were seized, and then bought by the 
 British Government for the royal navy. In 1869 Mr Charles 
 Sumner made a great speech before the American Senate, in 
 which he maintained that Great Britain was responsible for 
 doubling the duration of the war, and for all the national losses 
 caused to the United States by the diminution of sea-borne 
 commerce, the destruction of the carrying trade, and the de- 
 creased tonnage of the merchant navy. Having thus added 
 some scores of millions to the bill England was expected to 
 pay, he proceeded on a subsequent occasion, when asked by 
 Mr Fish, the Secretary of State, for his opinion on certain 
 unofficial proposals for a settlement, to suggest that Great 
 Britain should abandon Canada as a preliminary, after which 
 other matters might, he thought, be disposed of amicably and 
 
360 England and the United States 
 
 thoroughly ! We have to remember that Mr Sumner was no 
 irresponsible politician, eager for notoriety, and careless of 
 consequences as long as he obtained it. He was a great 
 Abolitionist leader, a senator, and the chairman of the Senate 
 Committee on Foreign Relations. He represented a force 
 which had to be reckoned with ; and it is mainly due to him 
 that, as we shall soon see, the Geneva Arbitration was nearly 
 wrecked on the rock of the consequential or indirect damages. 
 Fortunately he did not succeed in blocking the way to renewed 
 harmony. At that time wise men controlled the destiny of the 
 nations on either side of the Atlantic. After the failure of 
 several attempts to negotiate a settlement, five British Com- 
 missioners were sent to Washington, where they met a similar 
 body appointed to act for the United States. The High Joint 
 Commissioners, as they were called, held thirty-seven sittings, 
 in the course of which they succeeded in drawing up a Treaty 
 for the settlement of all outstanding disputes between the two 
 countries. The demands upon Great Britain on account of 
 the depredations of the Southern cruisers had become known 
 generically as the Alabama claims. These were the principal 
 subjects of discussion, and it was proposed to refer them to 
 arbitration. The difficulty as to the divergent views of neutral 
 obligations held by the two Governments was got over by the 
 sixth article of the Treaty, which laid down three rules for the 
 guidance of the arbitrators. Great Britain placed on record 
 her opinion that these rules were not in force as part of Inter- 
 national Law at the time when the claims arose, but consented 
 to be judged by them in order to bring the controversy to an 
 amicable conclusion. Both parties agreed to observe them in 
 future, and to bring them to the notice of other powers with 
 a view to their general adoption. This last undertaking has 
 never been carried out, on account of disputes as to the mean- 
 ing of some parts of the rules, and the difficulty of reaching an 
 agreement upon them. 
 
 The arbitrators appointed under the Treaty met at Geneva 
 
England and the United States 361 
 
 in 1872. The British and American Governments presented 
 cases and counter cases, and both were represented by counsel. 
 The proceedings were nearly wrecked at the beginning, when 
 it was discovered that claims for the prolongation of the war 
 and other national losses were included in the American case. 
 Great Britain at once objected ; and her Government asserted 
 that such claims were excluded by the words of the Treaty. It 
 seems clear that the British Commissioners imagined that they 
 were so excluded, while the American Commissioners, in equal 
 good faith, imagined they were not. A fresh controversy was 
 thus engrafted upon the original dispute, and, as neither side 
 would give way, it looked as if the arbitration would lapse. 
 Fortunately the arbitrators found a solution of the difficulty. 
 They met and came to the conclusion that the indirect claims 
 did not constitute " good foundation for an award of compensa- 
 tion or computation of damages between nations." The great 
 obstacle being thus removed, the arbitration proceeded, and on 
 September 14, 1872, the arbitrators gave their award. It de- 
 cided in favour of the United States on most of the points at 
 issue, and gave damages against Great Britain to the amount of 
 three million pounds. The money was promptly paid ; but a 
 large section of the British public was profoundly dissatisfied 
 with the award, and Sir Alexander Cockburn, the British 
 arbitrator, drew up an elaborate dissentient judgment. Yet 
 the real triumph belonged, not to the United States, still less 
 to Great Britain, but to the principles of justice and brother- 
 hood. It was far more important to' settle by arbitration an 
 irritating controversy, which had more than once driven the 
 two nations to the verge of war, than to secure an absolutely 
 flawless judgment. There are some propositions in the award 
 to which most international jurists would refuse their assent ; 
 but the fact that it was made and submitted to testifies to real 
 progress along the difficult pathway that leads to the far-off 
 ideal of universal peace. From the Geneva Arbitration dates 
 not only the improved relations between the two great English- 
 
362 England and the United States 
 
 speaking peoples, but also the modern eagerness to refer inter- 
 national controversies, whenever possible, to the decision of an 
 impartial tribunal. 
 
 Time presses and we must hurry on. It will be necessary 
 to leave out some questions entirely, and to deal but briefly 
 with the more important ones that remain. We have already 
 seen how the Treaty of 187 1 provided for the settlement of 
 fishery disputes and the determination of the San Juan 
 Boundary. These presented no great difficulty at the time, 
 though the former have been a source of much trouble since. 
 But the probability that the long-delayed canal through the 
 Isthmus of Panama would at length be constructed brought the 
 Clayton-Bulwer Treaty into prominence as a source of con- 
 troversy. * It has shared the fate of so many of the diplomatic 
 instruments negotiated between the two countries. Drawn up 
 to end a difficulty, it has itself produced many more disputes 
 than it settled. In 1881, when it seemed likely that M. de 
 Lesseps would succeed in piercing the Isthmus, Mr Blaine, the 
 Secretary of State in the Cabinet of President Garfield, issued 
 a despatch in which he stated that the United States could not 
 allow European Powers to guarantee the neutrality of the 
 Panama Canal. On receipt of this document. Earl Granville, 
 then Foreign Minister of Great Britain, reminded Mr Blaine of 
 the Treaty of 1850, which pledged the United States to that 
 policy of common action he now desired to repudiate. Then 
 followed a long diplomatic controversy, in which the representa- 
 tives of America endeavoured to shew that the conduct of 
 Great Britain had either destroyed the Treaty or rendered it 
 voidable at the pleasure of the United States. In this they 
 were singularly unsuccessful ; but the argument that the condi- 
 tions under which the Treaty was made had entirely changed 
 since 1850 was much more cogent. The marvellous develop- 
 ment of the Pacific States, the vast dimensions of American 
 commerce, the preponderating nature of American interests in 
 the districts concerned, undoubtedly gave the United States 
 
England and the United States 363 
 
 a moral claim to demand a revision of the settlement entered 
 into by Mr Clayton and Sir Henry Bulwer. And this was 
 the solution finally reached after twenty years of intermittent 
 bickering. The Government of Washington quietly dropped 
 the untenable contention that the Treaty of 1850 was already 
 void, and Great Britain agreed to substitute for it another 
 Treaty, which allows the United States to construct and 
 manage the canal, and applies the principle of neutralisation in 
 such a way that the protection of the waterway, when made, is 
 confided to the forces of the great Republic. 
 
 The Behring Sea question was another difficulty, which, 
 while it lasted, placed a somewhat severe strain on the in- 
 creasing friendship of the two countries. By the purchase of 
 1867 the United States acquired all the rights connected with 
 Alaska which were possessed by Russia, its former owner. 
 They construed these to include jurisdiction over British 
 sealing vessels in the vast area of open ocean known as 
 Behring's Sea. Great Britain remonstrated against the seizure 
 and confiscation of the property of her subjects engaged in 
 plying their lawful avocations in waters which she contended 
 were outside territorial jurisdiction. She admitted that the 
 seal-herd required protection against indiscriminate slaughter, 
 but held strongly to the view that such protection must be 
 afforded by international regulations, and not by the municipal 
 laws of the United States. The controversy lasted from 1886 
 to 1893, in which latter year the award of an arbitral tribunal, 
 to which it had been referred by mutual consent, was passed 
 upon it. The judgment was in favour of the British conten- 
 tiort. Behring Sea was declared open to the fishing vessels of 
 all nations, but in the matter of the capture of seals they were 
 placed under an elaborate code of regulations, drawn up by 
 the arbitrators. There has been much controversy since as to 
 the efficacy and sufficiency of these rules ; but the principle 
 of regulation by international agreement is not likely to be 
 challenged in future. 
 
364 England and the United States 
 
 We now come to the most serious of recent troubles 
 between the two countries — a diflSculty most unhappy in its 
 inception, but most happy in its termination and its conse- 
 quences. It arose out of a long-standing territorial dispute 
 between Great Britain and Venezuela. Both sides claimed 
 vast districts in the almost unknown country between the 
 Republic and the territory of British Guiana. Many attempts 
 had been made to agree upon a boundary line, but they had all 
 pnded in failure. England was willing to arbitrate, with but 
 certain reservations to which Venezuela would not consent. In 
 this state of affairs President Cleveland intervened on the plea 
 that the famous Monroe Doctrine brought the matter within 
 the cognisance of the United States. He pressed for an imme- 
 diate settlement by direct negotiation between the two parties, 
 or for unrestricted arbitration. Lord Salisbury desired to 
 except certain districts already occupied by British settlers 
 from the reference to an arbitral tribunal ; and moreover he 
 contested the applicability of the Monroe Doctrine to the ques- 
 tion in dispute. That famous enunciation of American policy 
 appeared first in the Message of President Monroe to Congress 
 on Dec. 2, 1823. Hence it bears the name by which it is 
 known, though it was really drawn up by John Quincy Adams, 
 Monroe's Secretary of State. The Monroe Doctrine is not one 
 doctrine, but two. The first sets forth that the American 
 continents "are henceforth not to be considered as subjects 
 for future colonisation by any European powers.'' This was 
 denied at the time by Great Britain and other States ; but it 
 has since been rendered applicable by events. There is now 
 no part of North or South America which has not been brought 
 under the dominion of some civilised power, whatever might 
 have been the case in 1823. The other branch of the Monroe 
 Doctrine referred to the contemplated attempt of the Holy 
 Alliance to recover for Spain her revolted American Colonies. 
 With this in view the President, speaking as head of the nation, 
 warned the powers of Europe that " we should consider any 
 
England and the United States 365 
 
 attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of 
 this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety." Great 
 Britain received this declaration with almost as much enthusiasm 
 as did the people of the United States. It had indeed been 
 suggested by Canning, and was an important part of his plan to 
 defeat the designs of the Holy Alliance. From the beginning, 
 then, England stood by her trans-Atlantic kinsmen in proclaim- 
 ing the closure of the American Continent against the State- 
 system of Europe. But President Cleveland went far beyond 
 this wholesome principle when he enunciated the proposition 
 that " it would be the duty of the United States to resist by 
 every means in its power, as a wilful aggression upon its rights 
 and interests, the appropriation by Great Britain of any lands 
 which after investigation may be determined of right to belong 
 to Venezuela." These words were part of the Special Message 
 of December 17, 1895, which electrified two hemispheres and 
 seemed likely for a few days to lead to war. It proposed the 
 appointment of a Commission of American jurists and states- 
 men to investigate and report upon the question at issue, and 
 the enforcement of their decision upon Great Britain. Fortu- 
 nately public opinion in this country kept cool, and we 
 contented ourselves with pointing out that no self-respecting 
 nation could accept at the sword's point a boundary prescribed 
 for it by a foreign power. The intervention of the merchant 
 princes and reUgious leaders of America soon cooled down the 
 popular ferment, and warded oif the risk of war. Mr Cleveland's 
 Commission was appointed, but it never presented a report. 
 Lord Salisbury arranged with Mr Olney, then Secretary of 
 State, for an arbitral tribunal to decide the boundary contro- 
 versy. In 1899 the arbitrators made their award, which gave 
 Venezuela less territory than Great Britain had offered her 
 more than once in the course of the controversy, but confirmed 
 her claim to a post at the mouth of the Orinoco, which we had 
 confidently affirmed to belong to us. 
 
 This Venezuelan boundary question shewed with what ease 
 
366 England and the United States 
 
 the two great English-speaking nations could be brought within 
 measurable distance of war. Thinking men stood aghast at 
 the danger they had escaped so narrowly ; and in casting about 
 for means to prevent its recurrence they hit upon the expedient 
 of creating a tribunal to which all disputes between Great 
 Britain and the United States should be referred, if they could 
 not be settled by diplomatic means. Some such plan as this 
 had long been the dream of philanthropists and philanthropic 
 statesmen. The legislatures of the two countries had passed 
 resolutions in its favour, and now the opportunity of carrying 
 them into effect seemed to have arrived. Hopes ran high when 
 that distinguished and devoted worker in the cause of peace, 
 the late Lord Pauncefote, succeeded in negotiating with 
 Mr Olney a General Arbitration Treaty. It was signed in 
 Jan. 1897 ; but the bright prospect it opened out was over- 
 cast when, in the following May, the Senate refused to ratify it. 
 The disappointment was bitter ; but some compensation for it 
 has been found in the Hague Arbitral Convention of 1899. 
 That great international instrument provided for the creation of 
 a "permanent Court of Arbitration, accessible at all times"; 
 and among the signatory Powers are Great Britain and the 
 United States of America. 
 
 And now, ladies and gentlemen, I am tempted in dropping 
 the pen of the historian to don the mantle of the prophet. 
 But it would be madness to commence to prophesy in the 
 fifty-sixth minute of an hour's lecture. I know I am speaking 
 to many Americans ; and it may be that in a far-off age the 
 severed branches of the Anglo-Saxon race will again unite as 
 members of some great federation of mankind. Meanwhile 
 our best hopes for the immediate future lie in generous cultiva- 
 tion of that new sympathy that grew up when the old country 
 saw with pride the liberation of Cuba and the dash of Dewey's 
 sea-dogs into the harbour of Manila. Out in the far Pacific 
 the westward advance of the United States has met the eastern 
 vanguard of England, and, thank God, we have come together 
 
England and the United States 367 
 
 as friends and brothers ! Surely there is not one among us 
 now who can read unmoved those noble words of Whittier's in 
 his appeal "To Englishmen": 
 
 "'Thicker than water,' in one rill 
 
 Through centuries of story 
 Our Saxon blood has flowed, and still 
 We share with you its good and ill, 
 
 The shadow and the glory." 
 
 Standing here in ancient Cambridge, almost beneath the 
 walls of Emmanuel College, from whence John Harvard went 
 forth to found in new Cambridge the College which still bears 
 his name, myself a member of that other College, our youngest 
 and our smallest, which was founded here by the grandson of 
 that Sir George Downing who was among the first graduates of 
 Harvard, I venture to answer Whittier in his own words but 
 very slightly altered : 
 
 " Joint heirs and kinsfolk, leagues of wave 
 Nor length of years can part us ; 
 Our right is yours to shrine and grave, 
 The common freehold of the brave, 
 The gift of saints and martyrs." 
 
 And we, who share this glorious heritage, assuredly hold it 
 in trust for the benefit of humanity. Be it ours so to labour 
 and to pray that England and America may through the coming 
 centuries 
 
 " Sit side by side, full summ'd in all their powers, 
 Dispensing harvest, sowing the To-be, 
 Self-reverent each, and reverencing each. 
 Distinct in individualities. 
 But like each other even as those who love." 
 
POLITICAL PROBLEMS OF THE FAR EAST 
 WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO JAPAN. 
 
 By Ian C. Hannah, M.A. 
 
 I SUPPOSE it is already a platitude to point out that the 
 political and commercial centre of gravity for this planet is 
 passing away from Europe. No doubt the earth is ruled by 
 races who proudly trace their descent from the early inhabitants 
 of these storm-swept northern shores, but European homes — 
 homes in the noblest sense of the word — now exist in every 
 clime, from New Zealand to Quebec, from Florida to New 
 South V/ales. Thousands upon thousands of our race, bred 
 under far distant skies, come here, no longer as to the centre 
 of the world, but merely as pilgrims to the cradle of the people 
 whose civilisation now dominates the earth. The more vigorous 
 of the nations of Europe are thoroughly alive by now to the 
 necessity of establishing their influence in other continents than 
 their own, it i'&.our peculiar good fortune (as Professor Seeley 
 has pointed out in his lectures on the Expansion of England) 
 that we really belong to the New World rather than to the Old, 
 or at least we can take our choice as to which we will devote 
 our attention, much as the Japanese during the past half-century 
 have had the opportunity of choosing whether they will form 
 the most distant bulwark of the unchanging East or the furthest 
 outpost of the restless West. The events of the century that 
 has just passed away have — in my own opinion at any rate — 
 demonstrated more clearly than ever before that the ceaseless 
 
The Far East 369 
 
 struggles of Europe concern us comparatively little ; our nearest 
 neighbours are our own colonies, our fastest friends the 
 United States and Japan. 
 
 In 1520 the illustrious navigator Magellan, having threaded 
 the beautiful channel of the Straits that now bear his name, 
 burst into the vast expanse of ocean which he himself 
 named the Pacific, because no storm happened to be raging 
 at the time. Four centuries ago it seemed, perhaps, the 
 most solitary region of the earth, — it was very far distant 
 from Europe, its limits were altogether unknown, few sails 
 dotted its unexploited waters, such commerce as it possessed 
 was purely coastal, the very dwellers on its shores themselves 
 knew absolutely nothing about any other part of it than their 
 own. The present state of affairs is different indeed, for to-day 
 the Pacific is become one of the most important districts on 
 the globe, — lines of great mail-steamers traverse its once solitary 
 waters in every direction, some of the chief shipping ports of 
 the world are found on its shores, new and powerful European 
 states have been born on the continents that bound it, every 
 one of the six great Powers of the earth has territory washed by 
 its waves. Eastward and southward it touches the youngest of 
 all the nations, to the west it still laves the coasts of the most 
 ancient of existing empires. Here indeed the Far East with 
 its glorious past, — placid, self-complacent China and Corea, is 
 confronted by the Far West, with its glorious future, — bustling 
 California, aspiring British Columbia. The cutting of the 
 Panama Canal, — placing the United States in a very real sense 
 indeed at the very centre of the world, — must also enormously 
 increase the accessibility and the importance of the Pacific. 
 
 But it is merely with a corner of the vastest of the oceans 
 that we are at present concerned, a corner which I will venture 
 to say is a most interesting part of the earth to the student 
 .of contemporary poUtics. For beyond question, except in the 
 case of developments at present altogether unexpected, the 
 future of the gigantic but shiftless empire of China will be 
 H. L. 24 
 
370 The Far East 
 
 the most momentous question to be solved in the international 
 relations of the century that has just begun. The fate of India 
 was settled by a few intrepid individuals about whose actions 
 the rest of the world knew little and cared nothing, but the 
 unification of the earth by electricity and steam, the eager com- 
 petition of commerce, the desire — laudable no doubt on the 
 whole — for distant dependencies on the part of the nations of 
 Europe make it certain that not a civilised community on earth 
 will be indifferent as to the fate of China. 
 
 And new developments are coming almost every year. The 
 maritime expansion of our great sister-nation and her occupation 
 of the Philippines, her new ideals, undreamt of a few brief 
 months ago, — the rapidly increasing importance of our own 
 colonies of Canada and Australasia, — the eager scramble for the 
 once little thought of islands of the Southern Seas, with other 
 matters of the same kind that affect the Pacific are giving 
 questions that have their centre in the Far East a circumference 
 that is ever expanding. 
 
 I need not recall to any of you — even in outline — how the 
 latest phase of the eternal Eastern Question was ushered in, 
 when, owing to the influence of the glorious Renaissance, 
 Prince Henry the Navigator and his helpers laid down the keel 
 of a new European navy, and the Portuguese — even then a 
 second-rate power — prepared the way not only for new and 
 unheard of triumphs for Christianity and the West over Islam 
 and the East, but for the Europeanisation of the whole earth. 
 In preceding centuries the East had encroached much upon the 
 Vyest, the Cross was driven by the Crescent from its last foot- 
 hold—politically—on the mainland of Asia, the Crusades had 
 ended in disgraceful rout, an Oriental power was firmly seated 
 in one of the fairest cities of Europe. The first town ever 
 founded by the Christians, the seat of the Eastern Csisars, 
 had become the very headquarters of the Moslems, the capital 
 of the Ottoman Sultans. But since that time the mysterious 
 and once glorious East has been crushed with a rapidity 
 
China 371 
 
 unknown in the West ; one proud empire after another — from 
 the Mediterranean to the Pacific — has gone to fragments at 
 a touch from the rude hand of Europe. 
 
 But, up to the present, one Empire, the most wonderful in 
 many respects that the earth has ever seen, has still survived. 
 The Chinese, though a laughing-stock among the nations, a 
 byword for corruption and folly, miserable in the extreme as 
 to their social condition, are still ostensibly an independent 
 people; their Empire on the map of Asia looks almost as 
 imposing as it did in its palmiest days. I cannot deal, how- 
 ever cursorily, with the history or the old-time greatness of 
 China ; I wish merely to have you bear with me while I try 
 and consider the Chinese in three of the most notable charac- 
 teristics that for centuries have marked them as a people. We 
 will speak of them (i) as Empire-builders, (2) as Diplomatists, 
 and (3) as traders and artisans. 
 
 And first, as Empire-builders. It may perhaps seem strange 
 at the present day to recollect that only a little more than 
 a century ago the Chinese Dragon dominated the Far East, — 
 from the rugged cliffs of Formosa to the rocky plateau of the 
 Pamirs, from the frozen plains of the Amur to the torrid 
 swamps of Siam. The inhabitants of half a continent looked 
 with awe and reverence to the Imperial City of Peking. And 
 while the Roman legions of Titus were camped round the 
 Holy City, seventy years after the birth of Christ, the Chinese 
 dominions had stretched to the West at any rate more widely 
 still : the victorious banners of the illustrious dynasty of Han 
 were carried to the very shores of the Caspian Sea. 
 
 Here then is an empire that existed when Egypt and 
 Mesopotamia were the dominant powers of the Eastern Medi- 
 terranean, an Empire that was venerable before Rome was 
 i founded, that was a centre of light and learning in the East 
 during the darkest ages of the West, an Empire that exists 
 to-day, and almost at its greatest extent. What is the cause 
 that has given the Chinese their so notable success, how have 
 
 24 — 2 
 
372 The Far East 
 
 a people that loathe war, that possess not a shred of patriotism, 
 maintained their dominion till now, — when the companions of 
 their youth have long passed away and the very name of some 
 of them is forgotten ? And the fact that their Empire has often 
 been partitioned, sometimes for centuries together, surely makes 
 its power of recuperation and its abiding strength more remark- 
 able still. The long endurance of the dominion of everlasting 
 China is absolutely without parallel in the East, and in the 
 West it is but feebly rivalled by the Empire of eternal Rome. 
 I cannot pretend to explain it, but I may point out two things 
 that might help you to appreciate it. 
 
 1. While others have usually founded their power on mili- 
 tary prowess and their own strong arm the Chinese have ever 
 relied on sanctions that are purely moral. Their Emperor's 
 claim to be the Vicar of Heaven, sole mediator between God 
 and man, ever maintained in victory or defeat for forty or fifty 
 centuries, has exercised an enormous influence on the minds of 
 the people of the Far East. A sort of vague mysterious rever- 
 ence for the ancient Empire of China is met with among 
 populations of all Sorts of races from the Indian frontier to 
 Corea. Is it altogether fanciful to suggest an analogy mth the 
 marvellous vitality of the Papacy ? 
 
 2. While proclaiming the Emperor to be God's viceroy 
 for the whole world, to whom all other sovereigns and rulers 
 whatever must needs be tributary, it was not in this capacity 
 that the first founders of the Empire appealed to their own 
 people for obedience to their sovereign. They based this claim 
 upon a surer footing still. They bade the people regard the 
 Emperor as the common father of the nation, they told them 
 that they must revere him as children must honour their 
 parents. In other words they deliberately based the sanction 
 for their government on what is perhaps the one principle in 
 nature that can never be called in question. A marvellous 
 knowledge of human nature, foresight of no ordinary kind ! I 
 do not for one moment believe in the political future of China : 
 
China 373 
 
 the Chinese are not a military race, and, except during the 
 earliest times, their Empire has been at its greatest extent only 
 when some foreigner sat on the throne. China's neighbours 
 at the present day are no longer semi-civilised, superstitious 
 communities, but powerful, well-organised states with a con- 
 tempt for the traditions of Asia. Neither China nor any other 
 distinctively Oriental state can ever again hope to be counted 
 among the " powers " of the world. Yet I do believe that in 
 speaking of this everlasting endurance of the Chinese Empire 
 from the mists of prehistoric antiquity to the twentieth century 
 we are dealing with a subject that we do not and that we cannot 
 fully understand, there may be some element that is capable of 
 acting in a way that no man can foresee. The Chinese may 
 be forced to bow to European domination, but their unchanging 
 race-feeling (for patriotism it is not) can never be permanently 
 crushed. 
 
 Let us secondly consider the Chinese as Diplomatists. 
 They certainly have many of the qualities that are useful in 
 Asiatic diplomacy. A friend of my own, shortly before I left 
 Tien-Tsin, overheard two Chinese, concluding a bargain, 
 engage in a violent discussion. And when they had finished 
 one of them said > to the other, "You certainly are a most 
 9.ccomplished liar." Instead of knocking him down he merely 
 bowed in all apparent humility and said, " You really must not 
 pay me such extravagant compliments as that." Only two 
 years ago the Empress-Dowager, in language that was in no 
 way ambiguous, commanded the massacre of all the foreign 
 residents in China, nor was it her own fault if the order was not 
 carried out. To-day the old lady is autocrat of China still, she 
 is fawned upon and flattered by the representatives of all the 
 great Powers of the world. Here is a triumph of diplomacy 
 that, to say the least, is remarkable. What manner of woman 
 is the person who has achieved it ? 
 
 She is illiterate, she is so superstitious that she cannot take 
 a step without consulting an astrologer, her edicts and her 
 
374 ^^ '^^^'' East 
 
 actions prove more eloquently than anything else what the 
 state of her knowledge must be. As to her morals, the re- 
 former Kang-yii-Wei himself assured me that in the most corrupt 
 court of Asia she was notorious for the profligacy of her life. 
 By strength of will and by marvellous cunning an ignorant and 
 unscrupulous concubine, whom fortune made mother of a 
 puppet Emperor, has with complete impunity to herself duped 
 the diplomacy and defied the might of Europe and of Japan ; 
 to-day she is to all appearance more firmly seated than ever in 
 a power that she wields to the woe of almost everyone con- 
 cerned'. One might search the whole annals of the world in 
 vain for any record of a more notable diplomatic victory than 
 this. 
 
 Even among Asiatic peoples the Chinese have ever been 
 remarkable for the extraordinary shrewdness of their diplomacy. 
 In early days they contrived to induce almost all their mainland 
 neighbours to acknowledge their Emperor's claims even while 
 they were in difficulties at home and in no position to aiSsert 
 them by force of arms. To-day they understand the art of 
 playing oif one western Power against another fully as well as 
 do the Turks. 
 
 Thirdly, we are concerned with the Chinese as merchants 
 and as artisans. While most of the peoples of the East — and 
 notably the Japanese — have always agreed with mediaeval 
 Europe that fighting was the " only fit profession for a gentle- 
 man," the Chinese have ever held merchants in the highest 
 honour, and they have a proverb that good men do not enter 
 the army. I do not believe that any political future can, in the 
 present state of the world's progress, be in store for a people 
 that has no patriotism and that is unwilling to fight, but the 
 Jews have given us a convincing example of what part on the 
 earth a people may play after their political independence has 
 
 ' Strictly of course the Empress is by race a Manchu and not a Chinese, 
 but two centuries and a half of intercourse have rendered the present imperial 
 house entirely Chinese for every practical purpose. 
 
China 375 
 
 passed away. And as traders, bankers, and artisans the Chinese 
 are in no way inferior to the Jews. If ten million Je,ws, lords 
 of not a square inch of land or of a single ship, are to-day so 
 great a power in the world, what may not be accomplished by 
 forty times that number of Chinese ? The untiring industry, 
 the sober habits, the indifference to comfort, and many other 
 characteristics of the Chinese constitute a danger to the toilers 
 of Europe and America that may one day become acute. The 
 legislation on the subject of Asiatic immigration in every white 
 country that is exposed to it is the clearest confession that it 
 is so. The Chinese, even if they do not retain one foot of 
 territory of their own, without a soldier or a sailor marching 
 under the standard of the Dragon, may yet dominate the com- 
 merce of the world as the Jews, despite the cruellest persecu- 
 tion, have dominated before now the whole traffic of Europe 
 and the Mediterranean. Europe may laugh at the idea of new 
 invasions of locust Mongol hordes, but the yellow peril for all 
 that may not be the less dangerous. China, defenceless yet 
 defiant, self-complaisant yet helpless, is, and it is to be feared 
 must long remain, a danger to the peace of Europe, to the 
 civilisation of the world. Never was reform more needed than 
 it is at the present day, seldom indeed were the prospects of it 
 more gloomy. It may well be doubted whether even now 
 there exists a single Chinese who would not prefer in his 
 inmost heart to chase the hated foreign devils from his sacred 
 soil and to return to the venerable methods of his ancient kings. 
 Her huge unexploited mineral wealth, the strategic importance 
 of her territories, the unwarlike character of her people, make 
 China even more a bone of contention among her more 
 vigorous neighbours than Persia, Turkey, or Corea. 
 
 And now let us leave a country that breathes ruin and 
 squalor and decay, that herself is ashamed of her present and 
 for ever points to the past. Separated by a narrow strait, easily 
 in sight of the mainland of Asia, lies a very different land, an 
 empire that has traditions little less venerable than those of 
 
376 The Far East 
 
 China, that is still ruled by a dynasty which has endured two 
 millenniums and six hundred years, and which yet is a new 
 country as truly as the United States itself. 
 
 Half a century ago the Japanese were still in the middle 
 ages, their country was absolutely closed to all intercourse with 
 the outside world, their barons ruled their little principalities 
 exactly like independent sovereigns and were for ever waging 
 war with one another, their Emperor was practically a prisoner 
 in his own palace, the national administration was in the feeble 
 hands of the later Shoguns of the Tokugawa line. The deepest 
 sleep rested on Japan, her quiet valleys and lovely towns were 
 almost as unaffected by the spirit of the age as are the fast- 
 nesses of Tibet to-day. In 1852 a fleet of modern ships of 
 war, flying the flag of the United States and commanded by 
 Commodore Perry, dropped anchor in Yedo Bay, and let in 
 the full light of the nineteenth century on the feudal dust of 
 Japan. The astonished and at first unwilling inhabitants were 
 forced to open their country to the commerce and intercourse 
 of the world. Another Asiatic power was compelled to come 
 out of her shell. There seemed to be nothing specially re- 
 markable about the event, for much the same thing had been 
 brought about before from one end of Asia to the other — by 
 the Portuguese, the Spaniards, the Dutch, the English, the 
 French, and the Danes, and the result had been ever the 
 same. The placid old empires of Asia had gone down, one 
 after another, at the first contact with the fiery adventurers 
 from Europe. For a year or two it was. imagined that Japan 
 would be no exception to the rule; even the Russians (with 
 all their knowledge of the East) realised so little of her spirit 
 that they tried to help themselves to some Japanese islands' 
 that command the strait between Japan and Corea. 
 
 Soon however it became apparent to the most careless that 
 an animal of a very different kind had this time been aroused. 
 The Japanese saw the necessity for learning what the Euro- 
 
 * Tsushima, now an important Japanese naval station. 
 
Japan 377 
 
 peans had to teach them. Feudalism was abolished, the au- 
 thority of the Emperor was restored, the administration of 
 the country was reorganised : steamers and railways, a postal 
 service, telegraphs, representative institutions, newspapers, a 
 new army and a new navy with the other ordinary institutions 
 of a western state transformed Japan into a European country 
 with a thoroughness that would have startled most people had 
 it taken four or five times as long as it did. 
 
 In a brief half-century a despised Oriental state, which at 
 first no one imagined was in any special particular different 
 from any other Oriental state, awoke from the long slumber of 
 centuries, asserted her right to be treated as an equal by the 
 proudest empires of the West, and then quietly took her place, 
 unchallenged, as by no means the least influential of the six 
 great Powers of the world. It is well worth our while to 
 enquire what were the causes that made possible this mar- 
 vellous transformation, absolutely without any kind of analogy 
 in all the annals of the world. And when studying the past 
 of the Japanese we can find that in two particulars at any rate 
 throughout their long history this people have ever been closely 
 in sympathy with some of the noblest of Europe's ideals, and 
 utterly opposed to the whole spirit of Asia. This is a matter 
 that I want specially to emphasise, for I believe that the 
 essentially non-Asiatic traditions of the Japanese constitute 
 a key that more than anything else will help us to understand 
 the politics of the Far East to-day. It is no mere accident or 
 temporary coincidence that so clearly marks off the Japanese 
 from all their geographical neighbours. The characteristics of 
 our allies to which I would particularly direct your attention 
 are, in the first place, their fervent patriotism, and, in the 
 second, that receptive spirit and total absence of self-com- 
 placency which so emphatically distinguish them from all other 
 Asiatics. 
 
 (i) I make no apology to Europeans or Americans 
 when I claim for the Japanese an extraordinary and unique 
 
378 The Far East 
 
 patriotism. Among them love of country as the very 
 highest duty of man to which all else must invariably be 
 subordinated is, I believe, as nowhere else, deeply implanted 
 in every section of the community from the highest noble to 
 the meanest coolie. 
 
 After the troublous times of the civil war of the Restoration 
 when the Shogunate was abolished for ever and the Emperor 
 was restored to the prerogatives of his fathers, it was found 
 that the new arrangements were absolutely farcical while feu- 
 dalism survived ; but the Restoration itself had been brought 
 about by some of the feudal barons, and practically every 
 soldier that Japan contained was under their direct command. 
 The difiSculty was got over by a notable act of patriotic self- 
 denial. Following the lead of the most influential of their 
 number, who saw that it was now for the best interests of the 
 state, the barons (or daimios, to give them their common 
 Japanese name) consented to lay down their local jurisdiction 
 and to surrender their revenues and lands into the hands of 
 their sovereign — to end, in fact, the ancient privileges of their 
 order entirely, though no one could have compelled them, at 
 any rate at the time, to do anything of the kind. The pensions 
 that they received in compensation were altogether insignificant 
 compared with their former possessions, but there were no 
 complaints, for the whole nobility of a country preferred their 
 empire's prosperity to their own. 
 
 I heard once from an Englishman employed to carry out 
 some pubhc works in Japan that his workmen were not very 
 anxious to obey a foreigner, and gave him a good deal of 
 trouble. At length he overcame their mutiny, not by any 
 threats or promises, but simply by representmg to them that 
 when the account of the affair got to Europe it would create 
 a bad impression and bring disrepute upon Japan. What 
 effect would such an argument as that have had on the work- 
 ing classes of any other country in the world ? Many other 
 stories of the same kind might be told to illustrate the patriot- 
 
Japan 379 
 
 ism of the Japanese, and to show how universal it is. I need 
 not insist on the fact that it is a virtue altogether indigenous ; 
 patriotism in any sense that we should understand the word 
 has no existence on the mainland of Asia, — least of all in 
 China or Corea. During our own wars with the Chinese we 
 have never had the faintest diflficulty in getting as many coolies 
 as we liked to pay for to assist in the operations of our army, 
 and they have always worked with every bit as much zeal as if 
 they had been helping to support their own government instead 
 of to attack it. It is notorious that the Chinese officials sold 
 shells manufactured in the Tien-Tsin arsenal to the Japanese 
 after war was declared, and substituted clay models, carefully 
 painted to resemble the real articles, for their own armaments. 
 (2) The second characteristic that so clearly and so emphatic- 
 ally differentiates the Japanese from all other Asiatics is a total 
 absence of the dogged, hide-bound conservatism of Asia. The 
 founders of Japan, like the founders of Rome, had little enough 
 civilisation of their own, but when the gentle missionaries of 
 Buddha and others brought to them the refinement of the main- 
 land they keenly and unhesitatingly made use of it. Nor did 
 they blindly adopt it. They carefully examined it, they assimi- 
 lated it, they made it thoroughly Japanese and rejected what- 
 ever seemed unsuited to their needs. This spirit of receptiveness 
 has ever been with them. When the Portuguese navigators — 
 pioneers of Europe — gave them some knowledge of the civiUsa- 
 tion of the West, they showed themselves most eager to make 
 use of it. An old flint-lock gun presented to a daimio in 
 Kiusiu served as a model in the construction of many more 
 till every part of Japan was provided with European fire-arms. 
 Francis Xavier, the Jesuit, who laboured for some years in 
 their midst, frequently insists in his letters on the prevalence 
 of this spirit of inquiry among them. Never had he visited a race 
 so anxious to acquire information. And travelling through 
 Japan at the present day the truth is ever impressed on one 
 more and more that in adopting and adapting the complicated 
 
380 The Far East 
 
 civilisation and the newest thought of Europe, the present 
 generation are but carrying on the policy of their ancestors, 
 who long ages ago adopted and adapted the civilisation of 
 China, and with it the religion of India. Breach with their past 
 there is none, they are no mere copyists, no idle borrowers, 
 they never can leave the civilisation of the West as they find 
 it. Already they have shown themselves capable of developing 
 it, — ^the rifle carried by their soldiers, an excellent weapon, was 
 designed by one of their own officers, while of the twenty or 
 thirty leading medical men of the world two or three are 
 Japanese. The organisation of their army and navy, as was 
 conclusively demonstrated during the recent troubles in China, 
 is at least equal to anything that their teachers can show. 
 Nothing could be more false than the old (but, I trust, now 
 long exploded) theory, that the Japanese are merely apeing the 
 fashions of Europe, like children playing with some new toy. 
 I am convinced that a student of Japanese history and of 
 Japanese character might have prophesied the westernisation 
 of the country, that has so taken the world by surprise, at the 
 time when Commodore Perry's fleet first sailed into Yedo Bay. 
 It seems that we have here an extreme instance of the 
 influence that geography exercises on national character : there 
 can be no doubt that the race nurtured among the lovely 
 valleys of Japan is of the same stock as the race that has been 
 developed on the dreary, featureless plains of China, but the 
 two peoples differ from one another in their spirit and ideals, 
 as far as it is possible for two civilised nations to differ. This 
 will be less surprising when we recollect that the very sliarp 
 division between the East and the West does not correspond 
 to any ethnological cleavage. And it is not too much to say 
 that the further geographical boundary between the East and 
 the West is in truth not the broad expanse of the Pacific, but 
 the narrow strait that separates Japan from Asia. In the spirit 
 and aspirations of her people Japan is as western as any country 
 in the world, her institutions are more thoroughly European than 
 
Japan 3^ i 
 
 those of half the countries of Europe. I mean that Japanese 
 methods really differ from the methods of the Teutonic and 
 Scandinavian peoples far less than our own differ from those of 
 some peoples of southern and eastern Europe. 
 
 Before passing on to consider the subject of Japan's 
 strategic position I cannot refrain from saying one word on 
 a subject that I am sure must be of special interest, to some at 
 any rate in this audience — Japanese Art. The unification of the 
 world has made our own art so cosmopolitan that national 
 schools have now been well-nigh obliterated among ourselves, 
 but Japan still has a school of her own that will repay the most 
 careful study. And in their own peculiar province, such as 
 depicting the beauties of nature in her gentler and smaller 
 moods — in painting flowers and birds and beasts, — in landscape 
 gardening, and in adapting their timber buildings to their situa- 
 tions among rocks and trees, the artists of Japan are surely 
 unrivalled. Art has most sadly declined since the opening up 
 of the land ; in the elder Japan the barons and Shoguns were 
 its munificent patrons, quality was preferred to quantity, artists . 
 were often content to devote the whole of their lives to a single 
 piece of work. The stern necessities of present-day conditions 
 have given the best intellects of the Empire other things to 
 think about than painting pictures of Fuji-Yama or carving 
 peacocks out of camphor wood, while for the European market 
 real masterpieces are very unprofitable compared with what is 
 cheap and nasty ; thus works of art are sent to this country 
 that no self-respecting Japanese would allow to remain in his 
 scullery. It is very much to be hoped that this sad state of 
 affairs may be but temporary. Americans at any rate are 
 already realising that there is something worth studying in the 
 best art of Japan, and every traveller in the country must have 
 been struck by the way in which a genuine love of art there 
 affects the whole nation to an extent unknown perhaps even in 
 France. The inhabitants of the remotest villages are proud of 
 the scenery of their district, take a personal pleasure in the 
 
382 The Far East 
 
 carvings and ornamental grounds of their temple, and as a 
 rule keep their own delightful little gardens extremely tidy. 
 
 As in the case of so very many other things, the art that 
 Japan once borrowed from her mainland neighbours she has 
 made thoroughly Japanese. It would be rash to say she has 
 surpassed the finest work of her teachers, but a real love of the 
 beautiful has become the common property of the Japanese 
 people in a way that is utterly undreamt of among the stolid, 
 unimaginative Chinese. 
 
 Some appreciation of the strategic position of Japan is of 
 extreme importance to an understanding of the part she is 
 likely to play in the future history of the world. An unbroken 
 chain of islands (the Kuriles, Japan proper, the Loo Choo 
 Archipelago, Formosa, and the Pescadores), extending from 
 Kamchatka to the Tropics, completely dominates the maritime 
 approaches to the northern provinces of China, to Corea, and to 
 Asiatic Russia. The naval station of Tsushima commands the 
 passage between Kiusiu and Corea, and cuts the communica- 
 tions between Port Arthur and Vladivostock. The Pesca- 
 dores, which contain some very good harbours, control the 
 Formosa Channel and the routes to Shanghai from Europe. 
 The harbours and naval stations of Japan herself are among 
 the finest in the world ; her important seaside cities are situated 
 on bays or fjords whose entrances can be fortified and mined ; 
 they are so well defended by nature and design that in time 
 of war almost the whole of the Japanese navy could be available 
 for oifensive operations abroad without serious anxiety for the 
 safety of the home-land. In the long course of her history 
 Japan has been invaded but once, that was by the forces of 
 Kublai Khan, and it ended most disastrously for the aggressors. 
 The rocky and mountainous nature of the country, with the 
 fiercely patriotic and very warlike nature of the inhabitants, 
 seem to give an almost absolute guarantee for the future against 
 any similar disturbance, even supposing the fleet to have been 
 decisively worsted at sea. 
 
Japan 383 
 
 The present population of Japan is more than forty-four 
 millions, its area is smaller than that of the British Isles, and 
 its surface is much more occupied by mountains. Nevertheless 
 from the people subsisting chiefly on rice, it is still almost, if 
 not quite, self-supporting for food-stufifs. This, however, cannot 
 possibly be permanent ; foreign markets are absolutely indis- 
 pensable to Japan as to ourselves, while her overflowing popu- 
 lation and numerous emigrants naturally make her anxious for 
 colonial possessions, and it is inevitable that she should look to 
 her thinly-peopled neighbour, Corea, as a legitimate field for 
 her own expansion. Thus, apart from any sentimental feeling 
 she may cherish for her first teacher and for the only empire 
 that is older than her own, Japan is even more vitally interested 
 than other commercial powers in the maintenance of the 
 integrity of China and the preservation of the open door. 
 While Europe and America have plenty of other markets for 
 their goods, Japan has at present very little trade beyond the 
 limits of Asia, her merchants are dependent very largely indeed 
 on their customers in the Chinese Empire. 
 
 Of the wisdom of our traditional policy of permanent 
 neutrality in Europe, with just a pardonable leaning to our own 
 kinsmen, the German and Scandinavian races, there can, I 
 imagine, be not the shadow of a doubt, but we can hardly 
 expect to be permanently neutral all over the world. The 
 alliance that after long years of consideration we have at last 
 entered into with the Japanese seems to be a peculiarly happy 
 one. It is a compact based on common interests in trade, 
 a common policy to the tottering Empire of China, common 
 methods of government, common aspirations, common ideals. 
 With America amicably neutral— -and she could not possibly be 
 hostile — the Allies may confidently count on being able to 
 command the sea, and therefore, as it seems to me, it consti- 
 tutes the strongest possible guarantee that in present circum- 
 stances could exist of permanent peace in the East. 
 
 I must apologise for having felt quite unable in the brief 
 
384 The Far East 
 
 course of a single lecture to attempt to deal with the politics 
 of the Far East in any systematic manner. I have confined 
 myself to the ocean ; I have not even mentioned Russia, the 
 dominant factor on the land. I have merely attempted to draw 
 your particular attention to a few leading features of a great and 
 an extremely interesting problem. Let me exhort you most 
 earnestly to study the whole question for yourselves. I do not 
 for one moment disparage the advantages of a knowledge of 
 ancient history, but I do affirm that an appreciation of present 
 day conditions in every great division of the world is of even 
 greater importance to enable us to realise our great responsi- 
 bilities as to what is often called the "white man's burden," 
 and to fulfil our duties as citizens of the different nations of the 
 West. 
 
 In conclusion let me humbly ask pardon if anywhere I 
 have obtruded my personal views or aired any prejudices of my 
 own. Patriotism, the moment it leads to anything like national 
 bias, is absolutely out of place in a Lecture Room ; and if I 
 have said one single word from any other point of view than 
 that of an impassive observer of events in the Far East, I desire 
 wholly and unhesitatingly to retract it. 
 
 CAMBRIDGE : PRINTED BY J. AND C. F. CLAY, AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS. 
 

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