Part 18

Gentlemen, it is said, and said truly, that truth beats fiction; that what happens in fact from time to time is of a character so daring, so strange, that if the novelist were to imagine it and put it upon his pages, the whole world would reject it from its improbability. And that is the case of the Anglo-Turkish Convention. For who would have believed it possible that we should assert before the world the principle that Europe only could deal with the affairs of the Turkish empire, and should ask Parliament for six millions to support us in asserting that principle, should send ministers to Berlin who declared that unless that principle was acted upon they would go to war with the material that Parliament had placed in their hands, and should at the same time be concluding a separate agreement with Turkey, under which those matters of European jurisdiction were coolly transferred to English jurisdiction; and the whole matter was sealed with the worthless bribe of the possession and administration of the island of Cyprus![76] I said, gentlemen, the worthless bribe of the island of Cyprus, and that is the truth. It is worthless for our purposes—not worthless in itself; an island of resources, an island of natural capabilities, provided they are allowed to develop themselves in the course of circumstances, without violent and unprincipled methods of action. But Cyprus was not thought to be worthless by those who accepted it as a bribe. On the contrary, you were told that it was to secure the road to India; you were told that it was to be the site of an arsenal very cheaply made, and more valuable than Malta; you were told that it was to revive trade. And a multitude of companies were formed, and sent agents and capital to Cyprus, and some of them, I fear, grievously burned their fingers there. I am not going to dwell upon that now. What I have in view is not the particular merits of Cyprus, but the illustration that I have given you in the case of the agreement of Lord Salisbury with Count Schouvaloff, and in the case of the Anglo-Turkish Convention, of the manner in which we have asserted for ourselves a principle that we had denied to others—namely, the principle of overriding the European authority of the Treaty of Paris, and taking the matters which that treaty gave to Europe into our own separate jurisdiction.

Now, gentlemen, I am sorry to find that that which I call the pharisaical assertion of our own superiority has found its way alike into the practice, and seemingly into the theories of the government. I am not going to assert any thing which is not known, but the Prime-Minister has said that there is one day in the year—namely, the 9th of November, Lord Mayor’s Day—on which the language of sense and truth is to be heard amidst the surrounding din of idle rumors generated and fledged in the brains of irresponsible scribes. I do not agree, gentlemen, in that panegyric upon the 9th of November. I am much more apt to compare the ninth of November—certainly a well-known day in the year—but as to some of the speeches that have lately been made upon it, I am very much disposed to compare it with another day in the year, well known to British tradition, and that other day in the year is the first of April. But, gentlemen, on that day the Prime-Minister, speaking out,—I do not question for a moment his own sincere opinion,—made what I think one of the most unhappy and ominous allusions ever made by a minister of this country. He quoted certain words, easily rendered as “Empire and Liberty”—words (he said) of a Roman statesman, words descriptive of the state of Rome—and he quoted them as words which were capable of legitimate application to the position and circumstances of England.[77] I join issue with the Prime-Minister upon that subject, and I affirm that nothing can be more fundamentally unsound, more practically ruinous, than the establishment of Roman analogies for the guidance of British policy. What, gentlemen, was Rome? Rome was indeed an imperial state, you may tell me,—I know not, I cannot read the counsels of Providence,—a state having a mission to subdue the world, but a state whose very basis it was to deny the equal rights, to proscribe the independent existence of other nations. That, gentlemen, was the Roman idea. It has been partially and not ill described in three lines of a translation from Virgil by our great poet Dryden, which runs as follows:

“O Rome! ’tis thine alone with awful sway To rule mankind, and make the world obey, Disposing peace and war thine own majestic way.”

We are told to fall back upon this example. No doubt the word “Empire” was qualified with the word “Liberty.” But what did the two words “Liberty” and “Empire” mean in a Roman mouth? They meant simply this: “Liberty for ourselves, Empire over the rest of mankind.”

I do not think, gentlemen, that this ministry, or any other ministry, is going to place us in the position of Rome. What I object to is the revival of the idea. I care not how feebly, I care not even how, from a philosophic or historical point of view, how ridiculous the attempt at this revival may be. I say it indicates an intention—I say it indicates a frame of mind, and the frame of mind, unfortunately, I find, has been consistent with the policy of which I have given you some illustrations—the policy of denying to others the rights that we claim ourselves. No doubt, gentlemen, Rome may have had its work to do, and Rome did its work. But modern times have brought a different state of things. Modern times have established a sisterhood of nations, equal, independent, each of them built up under that legitimate defence which public law affords to every nation, living within its own borders, and seeking to perform its own affairs; but if one thing more than another has been detestable to Europe, it has been the appearance upon the stage from time to time of men who, even in the times of the Christian civilization, have been thought to aim at universal dominion. It was this aggressive disposition on the part of Louis XIV., King of France, that led your forefathers, gentlemen, freely to spend their blood and treasure in a cause not immediately their own, and to struggle against the method of policy which, having Paris for its centre, seemed to aim at an universal monarchy.[78]

It was the very same thing, a century and a half later, which was the charge launched, and justly launched, against Napoleon, that under his dominion France was not content even with her extended limits, but Germany, and Italy, and Spain, apparently without any limit to this pestilent and pernicious process, were to be brought under the dominion or influence of France, and national equality was to be trampled under foot, and national rights denied. For that reason, England in the struggle almost exhausted herself, greatly impoverished her people, brought upon herself, and Scotland too, the consequences of a debt that nearly crushed their energies, and poured forth their best blood without limit, in order to resist and put down these intolerable pretensions.

Gentlemen, it is but in a pale and weak and almost despicable miniature that such ideas are now set up, but you will observe that the poison lies—that the poison and the mischief lie—in the principle and not the scale.

It is the opposite principle which, I say, has been compromised by the action of the ministry, and which I call upon you, and upon any who choose to hear my views, to vindicate when the day of our election comes; I mean the sound and the sacred principle that Christendom is formed of a band of nations who are united to one another in the bonds of right; that they are without distinction of great and small; there is an absolute equality between them,—the same sacredness defends the narrow limits of Belgium as attaches to the extended frontiers of Russia, or Germany, or France. I hold that he who by act or word brings that principle into peril or disparagement, however honest his intentions may be, places himself in the position of one inflicting—I won’t say intending to inflict—I ascribe nothing of the sort—but inflicting injury upon his own country, and endangering the peace and all the most fundamental interests of Christian society.

ILLUSTRATIVE NOTES.

NOTE 1, p. 48.

Æolus sits upon his lofty tower And holds the sceptre, calming all their rage; Else would they bear sea, earth, and heaven profound In rapid flight, and sweep them through the air.

—_Virgil’s Æneid_, book i., lines 56–59.

NOTE 2, p. 73.—Only so much of London was represented as was included in the territory of the Corporation—scarcely more than one square mile in the heart of the metropolis. The other portions of the city, Westminster, Southwark, Paddington, Chelsea, etc., were subsequently enfranchised as individual boroughs.

NOTE 3, p. 73.—The condition of representation in Scotland before the passage of the Reform Bill was worse than that in England. The county franchise consisted of what were known as “superiorities,” which were bought and sold like stocks in open market. The County of Argyll, for example, with a population of 100,000 had only 115 electors, of whom 84 resided outside the county, and were known as “out voters.” The city and borough franchise was vested in the town-councillors, who constituted a close corporation, with the right of electing their own successors. Edinburgh and Glasgow, the two first cities in Scotland, elected their representatives in this way, each having a constituency of thirty-three persons. See May, “Con. Hist.,” Am. ed., i., 284.

NOTE 4, p. 81.—The revolution of 1830 resulted in a complete change in political affairs both in Belgium and in France. The restoration of the Bourbons and the doctrines of the Holy Alliance led to the general policy of repression. This policy culminated in July, 1830, with the publication of five ordinances issued by Charles X. of France. These ordinances, which were an audacious violation of the constitution, suspended the liberty of the press, dissolved the newly elected Chamber of Deputies, changed the system of election and reduced the number of representatives, convoked the two Chambers, and appointed a new Council of State from the extreme Royalist party. The city was thrown into immediate revolt, and within four days the royal palace was in the hands of the mob. On the 2d of August the king was obliged to abdicate in favor of Louis Philippe. The revolution outside of France made itself felt chiefly in Belgium, where, as the result of a violent struggle, the friends of liberal government succeeded in adopting a constitution modelled after that of England.

NOTE 5, p. 86.—Sir Robert Peel, in his argument in opposition to the bill, had urged that Pitt, Fox, Canning, Brougham, and Macaulay himself had been brought into Parliament from nomination boroughs.

NOTE 6, p. 87.—There were two memorable instances during the short political experience of Socrates, to either of which Macaulay may have referred. In B.C. 406 he was a member of the Senate and one of the Prytanes, when he refused to put an unconstitutional question to vote on the trial of the six generals, though all of the other Prytanes were against him. Amid great political uproar he persisted in holding out, and thus prevented the required unanimity. The other instance was his refusal to obey an unconstitutional order of the Thirty Tyrants to arrest Leon the Salaminian. See Plato, “Apol. Socr.,” c. 20; and Grote, “Hist. of Greece,” viii., 200.

NOTE 7, p. 88.—Reference is made to the repeal of the Oath of Supremacy Act, by which, in 1829, Irish Roman Catholics otherwise qualified were admitted to the rights of franchise. In order to prevent too large an influx of new voters into political power, the forty-shilling condition of rating was raised to a ten-pound condition. Mr. O’Connell was twice elected for Clare before he could be admitted to Parliament.

NOTE 8, p. 91.—Sir Robert Peel, in the early part of his career, had attached himself to the Tories, and had been elected to the House by the University of Oxford, with the expectation that he would be the successful champion of Toryism. When the Irish question, under the lead of O’Connell, first assumed formidable proportions, Peel was ardently opposed to the project of emancipation. In the course of the debate, however, his opposition weakened, and he finally, on coming into the ministry, became the champion of the cause which he formerly opposed. Macaulay possibly hoped to draw him into a similar course on the Reform Bill,—at all events to weaken the force of his opposition to it. He was not successful; but, as we shall hereafter see, Sir Robert pursued a nearly identical course in regard to the Corn Laws.

NOTE 9, p. 109.—On the 12th of March, in the preceding year, Cobden had moved for a select committee to inquire into the effects of protective duties on agricultural tenants and laborers. His speech on the occasion is one of great importance, and may be read with profit in connection with the speech here given. As Cobden himself was a manufacturer, and as the repeal sought was believed to be especially in the interests of his class, the remark was made that this new argument came “from a suspicious source.”

NOTE 10, p. 112.—Mr. Villiars was one of the earliest to advocate the abolition of the Corn Laws, and in 1839 was a recognized leader. In 1841 he was given charge of the interests of the movement in the House of Commons, where he annually “brought forward his motion.”

NOTE 11, p. 118.—Quotations in support of the positions taken were here introduced from speeches of Mr. Pusey, Mr. Hobbes, and Lord Stanley.

NOTE 12, p. 121.—It should not be forgotten by the reader that the lands of England are very generally owned in large estates, and that these are rented in portions to the farmers, who usually pay a fixed rent to the landlords in money. Sometimes the agreement is for a long term of years, taking the form of a lease, but more frequently, as Cobden shows, it is simply an agreement for a short term only, sometimes even for a single year.

NOTE 13, p. 126.—Mr. Huskisson, in the distressing period after the close of the Napoleonic wars, grew into almost universal favor by the wisdom of his financial methods. In 1823 he became President of the Board of Trade, and from that time till he was killed at the opening of the railway between Liverpool and Manchester in 1830, was the most eminent financial authority in the kingdom. He was the successor of Pitt in the advocacy of greater freedom of trade, and the advocate of methods which it was now Cobden’s work to develop.

NOTE 14, p. 135.—In the debate of March 12, 1844, it had been hinted that Mr. Cobden, a manufacturer, was in a position to be benefited by such agricultural distress as his measures were calculated to bring on. It was urged that by admitting grain free, farmers would be ruined, laborers driven out of employment, wages would be depressed, and manufacturers would secure labor at a reduced price.

NOTE 15, p. 136.—This assertion was also made at the debate a year before.

NOTE 15a, p. 143.—The passage referred to, in what can hardly have been other than mere playfulness, is the following:

Urit enim lini campum seges, urit avenæ; Urunt Lethæo perfusa papavera somno.

For a crop of flax burns the land, also of oats; also poppies impregnated with Lethæan sleep.—Georgics, Lib. i., 77.

NOTE 16, p. 150.—At the time Cobden was speaking it was the custom, whenever there was a “division,” for those in opposition to the motion to go out into the “lobby,” and for those favoring the motion to remain in the House. The official count was then made by two sets of tellers. At the present time, both the “Ayes” and “Noes” go into lobbies, the “ayes” to the left of the speaker, the “noes” to the right.

NOTE 17, p. 150.—The repealing bill, it will be remembered, finally passed the House of Lords June 26, 1846. It was not the report, however, but what Sir Robert Peel called “the cogency of events,” that hastened the final action.

NOTE 18, p. 161.—During the whole of Walpole’s career he held the views here attributed to him. But his love of office was greater than his love of peace. When, therefore, the nation clamored for war with Spain, he declared war, though, as Lord Mahon says: “No man had a clearer view of the impending mischief and misery.” The same historian writes that when the bells from every steeple in the city proclaimed the satisfaction of the people over the declaration of war, Walpole remarked: “They may ring the bells now; before long they will be wringing their hands.” Walpole knew that the country was utterly without preparation for war; and yet rather than lose his place, he was willing to be the instrument of immeasurable mischief and misery. When the disasters of the war came on, the Opposition forced the responsibility of it on the Prime-Minister, and drove him from power in 1742.

NOTE 19, p. 163.—The speech of Sir Robert Peel here referred to was a part of a memorable debate in June, 1850, on what is known as the “Don Pacifico Affair.” Don Pacifico was a Jew born at Gibraltar (and therefore an English subject), who settled in Athens. In a riot his house was assailed and its furniture destroyed. His claim was presented to the English officials, who at once demanded £500 damages for Don Pacifico. After some delays the English brought a man-of-war from Constantinople, blockaded the harbor of Athens, and declined to allow any vessel to depart till the claim was settled. The French and Russian governments were thrown into considerable excitement, and the French ambassador left the English court. A resolution of censure was introduced into the House of Lords, and was carried by a majority of thirty-seven. In the House of Commons, however, matters took a different turn. Mr. Roebuck introduced a resolution of general approval of the foreign policy of the government, intended, of course, to give the government a better chance to escape the downfall that seemed impending. Lord Palmerston, then Minister for Foreign Affairs, defended the government in a speech of extraordinary power, extending, as Mr. Gladstone said, “from the dusk of one day till the dawn of the next.” The opponents claimed that Don Pacifico should have sought redress in the Greek courts, while Palmerston claimed that the condition of the Greek courts was such as to make a judicial appeal simply a mockery. The debate extended over four nights, closing with the speech of Peel in opposition to the government. The resolution of approval was carried by a majority of forty-six. The Don Pacifico case was finally submitted to French commissioners, by whom the amount of damages was fixed. The speech of Peel was memorable for its pacific and judicial tone, as well as for the fact that it was delivered only a few hours before the accident from which he died on the 2d of July. See Peel’s “Speeches,” vol. iv.; Hansard’s “Debates” for 1850, and “Ann. Reg.,” xcii., 57–88; Phillimore, “Int. Law,” iii., 76.

NOTE 20, p. 167.—The important assertion here made can hardly be successfully disputed, though there are many who would be reluctant to admit its truth. The modern Tories, with Disraeli at their head, have held that the reform of 1832 tended still further to weaken the masses of the people. This position, fully elaborated and defended in Disraeli’s “Defence of the Constitution,” his “Life of Lord George Bentinck,” and his speech introducing the Reform Bill of 1867, is touched upon briefly also in the same orator’s speech on “Conservative Principles” given below. The question is elaborately considered in the first two chapters of Lecky’s “History of England.”

NOTE 21, p. 168.—This must be regarded as mere conjecture, though stated as a fact. Even the formidable alliances against Louis XIV. in the War of the Spanish Succession were not able to prevent the French king from keeping his heir upon the Spanish throne. If the Bourbons, in spite of the allied armies with Marlborough at their head, were able to hold their position, they would hardly have done less if England had not interfered. To say that a union of the crowns “would have been impossible in the nature of things,” is to presume that the line of succession must have been just what it was. But this, of course, could not have been foreseen. If a disturbance of the balance of power ever justifies war, it did so in the case of the War of the Spanish Succession.

NOTE 22, p. 168.—This statement is not quite correct. The English Plenipotentiaries at Vienna were Lord Castelreagh and Lord Wellington. Castelreagh died in 1822 and Wellington in 1852; whereas the alliance between the governments of England and France to prevent the aggressions of Russia did not occur till August, 1853. On the 12th of August Lord Aberdeen declared that the four great powers, England, France, Austria, and Prussia, were acting cordially together; but on the 20th of the same month Lord Clarendon announced that an offensive alliance had been formed between England and France. It was this alliance which made all further efforts in behalf of peace hopeless. It was the opinion not only of Cobden and Bright, but also of Disraeli and of the Tories generally, that the act which made the war inevitable was the abandonment of Austria and Prussia and the formation of this alliance with France. Such is also the opinion of Mr. Kinglake. See Hansard’s “Debates,” cxxix., 1424, 1768, and 1826; also Kinglake’s “Crimean War,” _passim_.

NOTE 23, p. 169.—The so-called doctrine of the “balance of power,” whatever may be said against it, has been generally held by Europe ever since it was so energetically advocated by Henry IV., of France, at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The doctrine may be said to exercise the functions of a general European police to prevent any inequitable disturbance of territorial limits. It is difficult to see what but that doctrine could have prevented France under Napoleon from getting and holding two thirds of Europe; what would have prevented Russia long since from destroying Turkey; indeed what would prevent the strongest power from ultimately absorbing the whole. It did not prevent the destruction of Poland, partly because there was a general conviction that Poland was hardly worth saving, and partly because the partitioning powers were so strong as to make interference at least a very costly operation. These facts are enough to show that there is a very important other side to Mr. Bright’s attractive doctrine of non-interference. The question is not simply whether Europe has been made better, but also whether she has not been prevented from being made worse.

NOTE 24, p. 171.—The orator might also have said that the English people have very largely given up all _desire_ that the national debt should be paid off. It affords a convenient investment, which restrains an undue inclination to speculation and affords a steady and certain income to vast numbers of the people. Its payment would create a disturbance which no English minister would venture to advocate.

NOTE 25, p. 172.—This statement is undoubtedly true; and yet it can hardly be denied that the course taken by England in the Napoleonic wars added very greatly to the importance of England as a power. A little later, Mr. Bright objects to the policy pursued, because “it is impossible that we can gain one single atom of advantage for this country.” His opponents would claim that England has gained immense advantages from the very influence she has acquired, and as shown by the very examples given by the orator. They would probably also say that no other class gained so much as the manufacturers, the very class to which Mr. Bright belonged.