Part 1

Eclectic Magazine

OF

FOREIGN LITERATURE, SCIENCE, AND ART.

———————————— New Series. } { Old Series complete Vol. XLI., No. 5. } May, 1885. { in 63 vols. ————————————

THE POLITICAL SITUATION OF EUROPE.

BY F. NOBILI-VITELLESCHI, SENATOR OF ITALY.

I.

It is a matter worthy of consideration why the progress which is in our time so unexpectedly rapid in all which concerns the physical world, should be so slow, or rather so limited, in the sphere of morals. We might almost say that, like a line ascending in a spiral form, progress can in each historical period only be made within the given orbit in which the period itself revolves.

With respect to the two principal questions which interest mankind in its complex—that is, in its political and social—existence, the orbit in which the historical period preceding our own revolved, as far as politics are concerned, circled round what we may term the State, although this does not precisely correspond to our present conception of the word; and socially it revolved round an absolute system of proprietorship, together with the rights and duties which were to a varying extent attached to it, and which included a relative and practically obsolete exercise of charitable customs.

That which was called a State was not always a combination which had, in accordance with the modern conception, the public welfare as its sole and supreme object, but it generally depended on certain rights which had their origin in facts of extreme antiquity. These combinations were of two kinds. The most usual, which was indeed almost universal in Europe, was the monarchy, in which a given family governed and represented the interests of a more or less extensive number of peoples, which in virtue of ancient rights, of conquests, of treaties, or in any other way belonged to her. In a few rare instances these monarchies were elective, and the rulers, who were elected by a college, a caste, or in some other manner, found themselves in the same conditions as hereditary sovereigns. The least common, but not the least important and successful, form of government was that of the communities which governed themselves. But even this form relied for its existence on the same elements as the monarchies—that is, on rights, conquests, and treaties, or similar reasons—on which alone the political state of Europe was based up to the year 1815.

By this we mean that up to 1815 no right was recognised in political life except that which derived its origin from some fact or facts which were supposed to constitute rights, such as successions, conquests, concessions, or gifts. Spain, in virtue of one or other of these titles, ruled the Low Countries and the kingdom of Naples, nor did it occur to any one to discuss the fitness of this strange aggregation of different peoples, united in a single State. It would be tedious to cite all the instances of curious combinations to which the ancient European rights gave rise. Although they had a tendency to dissolve under the influence of recent times, yet the system was maintained up to 1815, the date of the last great treaty which was made on this basis, and of which the effect remained up to 1845.

Throughout this protracted period, of which the beginning is confounded with that of European civilisation, a certain progress did, however, take place in the conditions of European society, which advanced from the capitulations of Charles the Great to the English Great Charter, from arbitrary decrees to the statutes of the republic of Florence, and finally, to the legislative acts of Joseph the Second in Austria, of Leopold in Tuscany, Charles the Third in the kingdom of Naples, and of all the contemporary governments which uttered their last word on such progress as was possible to politicians of that period, and which consisted in adapting as far as possible the inflexible exigencies of ancient rights to the necessities of modern facts, and in inducing those who governed by divine right to consider the interests of the people. But this was only up to a certain point, and the relative conditions of the governors and the governed did not cease to be the basis of European policy.

Speaking of these things at this day is like speaking of another world. A State which is not governed in the interests of those of whom it consists would be a tyranny. It is held to be an iniquity to hold a people subject to a rule which is independent of ethnographical, geographical, or economical considerations, and such a people would be considered justified in throwing off the yoke, if possible. A war undertaken to maintain a purely dynastic title would be regarded as an intolerable burden, to which no nation is bound to submit.

The arguments which are used to stigmatise and condemn the old system as unjust and out of date are naturally derived from its evils, dangers, and inconveniences. The people were subject to laws, taxation, and wars, for causes which did not concern them, and which for that very reason multiplied without control. The Thirty Years’ War and the War of Succession cut down whole peoples, not for their own benefit, but in order to decide to whom they should belong. A permanent state of war appeared to be the inevitable result of the conflagration of all these rights, which were contested at the expense of the happiness of peoples. Meanwhile science had changed the basis of rights, and the famous principles of 1789, which had their birth in the intoxication of the nascent revolution and were nourished by the blood of its maturer age, found their way into codes and constitutions. The old system, condemned both in theory and practice, was anathematised by the rising generation, which claimed to have discovered the secret of true policy, and the grand panacea for all the evils of humanity.

Nor was it otherwise with social questions. The conception that every man might do what he pleased with his own, and might transmit it to others both before and after his death, was more or less present in the constitution of all civil societies. But this system deprived of the enjoyments of life all those who were unable to acquire property for themselves, and to whom no one could or would transmit it. In one word, in this system there were no official dispositions for the poor, who nevertheless constitute the eternal problem of human society. In fact, money enough for the permanent and complete relief of the poor could not be found, nor the mode of useful legislation on this subject. But an appeal beneath the beneficent influence of Christianity was made to the most refined sentiments of humanity, and created duties which, however imperfectly fulfilled, were imperious, and relied on a divine sanction. In this way charity provided for the variable and indefinite needs which exist in all human societies, from the richest and most fortunate to the poorest and most unhappy, and did so with the buoyant and indefinite force inspired by sentiment, which contrasts strongly with similar laws and provisions enacted by the State.

The modern phase of thought does not venture openly to attack socially property, as politically it has attacked divine right, because it has not known what to substitute in its place. It was less difficult to sustain universal suffrage, which met with fewer obstacles in its translation into fact than communism or socialism. There has therefore been no direct attack on property, but for a long while circuitous means have been taken to undermine its rights. By the destruction of the feudal system, the bonds which connected property with the exercise of political power were burst asunder, and another blow was struck at its stability by the abolition of the rights of eldest sons, and of all the other privileges belonging to it, according to ancient usage. Later, legitimate successions and those of intestate persons have been regulated, and thus the disintegration has been gradually prepared. Finally, the laws of taxation for purposes of the State or of public welfare have further confiscated a large portion of private property. Hence it may be said that on great part of the Continent property of every kind—rural, urban, movable, or immovable—has become a merchandise, great part of which is administered by trustees for the benefit of the State, while the rest is subject to a number of laws, contracts, and combinations which cause it to pass from one person to another with the utmost rapidity, so that its enjoyment may be extended to as large a number as possible, since the mode of distributing it to all has not yet been discovered.

Charity has been overthrown by the same blow. It has shared the unpopularity of her preachers, and it also, without being directly attacked, has been subjected, under different pretexts, to the destruction and conversion of a very large number of institutions founded under its banner, and discredit has been thrown on its practices and provisions, while the struggle for existence has been brutally substituted for charity. So much the worse for the man who cannot help himself out of a difficulty. The motto of our time is a species of _sauve qui peut_, which begins in the transactions of the money market and leads some to the temple of fortune and others to the river or to the lunatic asylum.

We do not, however, assert that the inexhaustible source of human kindness with which God has mercifully endowed our nature does not still find means of doing good, and great good. Institutions, which are for the most part beneficent, abound on every side, and supply the place of the ancient foundations which have disappeared. But the conception and its mode of execution are different and do not correspond with the old usage. Everything is done according to rule in modern philanthropy. There are free municipal schools in which instruction is given to those who do or do not desire it. There are hospitals in which a definite number of patients afflicted by certain diseases are collected, and if the number is exceeded or the symptoms are not the same, they are left to die until a hospital is founded which is intended for such cases. If a man is in want of bread he receives a garment, because the institution which might help him only provides clothes; and if a whole family is dying of hunger they will receive a mattress if directed to an institution which only supplies beds. The liberal charity which is personal and intelligent, and which corresponds to the infinite variety and combinations of human necessities, lingers, thank God! in the hearts of the beneficent, but its form is discredited and its means are abridged. The great mass of the funds which were devoted to charity is now diverted into the official and semi-official channels of modern philanthropy. In my opinion, the relief which is now given does good without remedying the evil, since a dinner for to-day is always welcome, but it will not prevent a man from dying of hunger next week, or of cold if he has not wherewithal to cover himself; while a loaf or a cloak given at a propitious moment may save the life of a man or of a whole family. So it may be said that the place of charity has been taken by the struggle for existence, only modified by administrative philanthropy.

This second revolution was produced by the growing discredit which resulted from the evils and inconveniences which had their source in the ancient conception of property, and from those which were attributed to the free and sentimental charity. Property, when in the hands of a few privileged classes, made few happy while the many were unhappy. Charity created miseries by encouraging idleness. Such were the principal arguments which overthrew the old system.

Thus political power of an exclusive and egotistic character, which was founded on divine right, was destroyed in order to constitute governments on a popular basis; labor was substituted for charity. It appeared to the philosophers who carried out this great revolution that nothing more was needed to inaugurate a new golden age in which the rivers would flow with milk, and ripe fruits would fall on every man’s table. It is needless to add that peace and general satisfaction were to be the results of this profound and laborious revolution.

II.

The old order of things was, however, hardly demolished before two distinct and menacing questions were raised upon its ruins—Nationality and Socialism. Let us begin with the first.

Since the country (_patria_), in the limited sense of the word, had disappeared—that is, the political unity which was represented by the dynasty or flag or even simply a steeple, the early symbol of the old societies—the sentiment of association took its concrete form in a fresh combination, more in harmony with the democratic tendencies of our times. It assumed the widest possible basis—to constitute a society which should unite all common interests, and should be governed in conformity with these. It is, indeed, not surprising that men who speak the same language, inhabit the same zone, who are alike in their customs and dispositions, who are, in short, what is now called a nation, should present all these characteristics, and should therefore become the new political unit both of the present and the future, thus replacing the earlier units formed by heredity or conquests without respect to the interests of all the component elements.

Nothing in nature is produced at one stroke; and some races had already advanced towards nationality, and especially France, which had laboriously constituted herself into a nation, before the word was used in its political meaning. But the country to which it was allotted to assert loudly and explicitly this new form of political life was Italy in 1859. The formula of nationality as the basis of right was first proposed by her and obtained acceptance by international jurisprudence, and this basis had scarcely been established before it led to the overthrow of six thrones which boasted of different origins, among which was the most ancient and most venerable of all—the temporal power of the Popes. The experiment was favorably received, and Germany lost no time in adopting it, since the old system had produced in that country the same conditions of divisions and of relative weakness which had occurred in Italy. The campaigns of 1866 and of 1870 served to contribute to the new theory the force which was necessary to convince European diplomacy.

Even those who most reluctantly accept modern ideas do not now speak of anything but nationality. It might be supposed that there had never been any other basis for politics, since this has in a very short time been so completely and universally accepted.

The production of these nationalities has, however, been accompanied by all the defects of the system which preceded them. They have brought with them all the rancours of ancient Europe. The rancours of Francis I. and of Charles V. have been transmuted into the deadly enmity which exists between French and Germans. The testament of Frederic II. has led to the programme of the German people, and the ambitious projects of Catherine II. have issued in the aspirations of the Slave race. So though the new era which began with nationality indicates a real progress in the internal constitution of the different States, and in the fundamental reasons for their several governments; still with respect to their international relations to universal justice and to general peace, in a word, with respect to the progress of the human race in morals, we find ourselves—to make use of the metaphor we employed at first—in a fresh spiral, equally limited in space, in which there is a relative progress, but it has only a slight influence on the general progress of humanity. And, to turn from abstract principles to the concrete limits of politics, the present state of things is not promising nor hopeful for the peace of Europe.

The first and most curious phenomenon which accompanied the affirmation of different nationalities as a guarantee of peace in Europe, has been compulsory service—a euphemism which implies that the whole male population of Europe is trained and educated for war; thus men are fashioned into as deadly instruments as were ever found in barbarous ages and during the warfare of the old system. Military education, both technical and gymnastic, is brought to such perfection that whole generations are trained like hounds for mortal conflict, and each man may on an average kill ten others in the course of a minute. Even in traversing Europe by the railway we may observe near the fortresses, and indeed in the great centres of population, arenas, gymnasia, drilling grounds, and young men clothed in the prescribed warlike uniform. This strange spectacle is unnoticed because it is concealed and confounded with the attractions of modern civilisation; but it must strike all who seek to penetrate its external phenomena: and certainly those who established the present civilisation did not anticipate such a result.

We must, however, leave the speculative side of the question to philosophers, since what concerns us in the interests of this same civilisation is to examine the practical results of the situation in Europe in its political aspect, with which we are at this moment occupied. Briefly, we wish to ascertain what is now the political situation of Europe, in consequence and in presence of the new basis on which European rights are established.

And primarily, since the application of these new rights, all nationalities, if they do not feel the present necessity, yet they have potentially a tendency to assimilate the elements which properly belong to them. And each forms a judgment of the situation in accordance with his standard and purpose.

Thus, for example, Russia, under the pretext of consisting for the most part of Slav peoples, begins to nourish in her bosom the ambition of uniting all the Slav races under the well-known name of Pan-Slavism. No matter that the Slavs of Poland and Bohemia differ widely from those of Russia proper in their language, religion, and habits, perhaps more widely than from those of another nationality. Panslavists extend to the race the privileges of the nation, and as it would be difficult to define logically where the one begins and the other ends, so among them, and especially among those who believe, perhaps rightly, that they speak in the name of Russia, the Slav nation consists of a third of Europe, reaching from the North Pole to the Adriatic. In order to unite it under Russian rule, it would be necessary to overthrow, or at any rate seriously to mutilate, the dominions of Turkey and of Austrian Hungary.

The demolition of the Turkish empire and the diminution of Austrian Hungary would be carried still further by the nationality of Greece, which requires for its proper development to absorb another portion of Turkey, and to deprive Austria of such access to the sea as the Slavs might leave to her.

The Italian nationality would also propose some modifications of the geography of Europe, less searching than the above, but not without their importance.

France and Spain are the countries which have least to ask in the way of expansion; the former because her territory was acquired before the enunciation of the principle was formulated, the latter because of her limited proportions, unless, following the interpretations of Russia, she should entertain the ambition, which up to this time is scarcely perceptible if it exists at all, of acquiring the whole Iberian peninsula.

If we continue our circuit of the continent we come to the two small nationalities of Flanders and Scandinavia. These two, although their populations are the least numerous, seem less sensible of the necessity of political reunion. It is certain that no one in Belgium and Holland has seriously formulated the idea of a fusion, nor yet among the Scandinavians. These States enjoy a certain ease of circumstances and unusual prosperity, without being tormented by the demon of aggrandisement; they allow the claims of nationality to remain dormant in order that they may enjoy in prosperity and contentment what they have acquired by political shrewdness and indefatigable labor; but it may be said that in these conditions they stand alone in Europe.

The circuit we have made from the extreme north to the centre of Europe includes the most complete, successful, and indisputable instance of a compact and homogeneous nationality in that of Germany. Twenty-five years ago this was hardly regarded as an ethnographical or historical designation, and it was certainly not political, since the tendencies and interests of the different States of Germany were quite dissimilar, even when, as in many of the most important questions, they were not altogether opposed to each other. Now that the nationality has arisen, has grown and reached maturity, and in two memorable campaigns has swept all obstacles from its path, it would be as useless to try to arrest its development and divert it from its path as to try and make the Rhine flow back to its source.

The German nation must absorb a few more States in order to constitute itself into a political unity, but since the most important would shake to its foundations the Austro-Hungarian empire, this last annexation will be deferred as long as possible. The fraction of Germans which remains to be absorbed into the empire would only augment the number of its constituents by some millions, and its territory by some provinces; meanwhile in its present condition it fulfils the mission of a colony detached from the parent nation, impressed with the same characteristics, and adhering to the same interests, and thus constituting a weighty instrument for carrying out the national views throughout the Austro-Hungarian empire, which, amidst the conflict of the different nationalities of which it consists, is clearly and irresistibly impelled towards that which is the nearest, the most energetic, and the most powerful. This state of things is too favorable to Germany to allow her to hasten to exchange her independent colonies in Austria into faithful subjects of the German Emperor. There remain other tendencies to assimilation on the side of Russia and of Switzerland. The first are so problematical that they may be regarded as a pretext rather than a claim. The second have not, up to this time, acquired any appearance of probability, since Switzerland has had the privilege of constituting an artificial and political nationality out of such as are truly geographical and ethnographical, and has gallantly resisted any encroachment, so that on this side also any assimilation must be regarded as immature. We must not, however, forget the homogeneity of race, if Germany should be for any cause impelled to approach or to cross the Alps. In such a case the effects of this homogeneity must make themselves felt.

These tendencies are not, however, all equally active, nor have they all the same intensity. Up to this time some of them are still latent, and give no sign of their existence, nor are they the only factors of the political state of Europe. Besides their tendencies to become complete, nationalities have certain other tendencies, objects, and ends, which may be said to be peculiar to each of them, since they correspond with their special needs, relate to certain conditions, and are in conformity with the mission which each State has, or thinks it has, in the political concert of nations.