she was perfectly in the right. If it was difficult to reconcile our intervention with humanity, it was not less difficult to reconcile our inaction with our treaty obligations. We, together with the other powers, were signatories of the settlement of Vienna. If we do not approve of Germans reigning on Italian soil, why did we endorse it then? if we did approve of it, and did bind ourselves to it then, why do we not uphold it now? European settlements were mere shams, if the powers that made them always declined to maintain them. If we intended Austrian domination in Italy to be contingent on what we called good government, we ought to have stated the condition (together with an accurate definition of good government) in the bond. In private affairs a power of tacitly reserving a condition that an alienation should be null if the alienee should turn out a bad landlord, would make sad havoc of the rights of property: and a similar proceeding in international affairs would make public law impotent, and treaties mere waste paper. Juridically this logic was unassailable. The fact that Austria made this appeal, and made it in vain, might moderate the anxiety of her Majesty's Government to enter in a new congress on new agreements, so soon after their serene and complacent deglutition of the old The experience of the past year has sufficiently proved that congressional arrangements are perfectly illusory, and that when the strain comes they guarantee nothing, and only furnish a mine for mutual recrimination.

ones.

It is of no use stopping to pick up spilt water. The evil is done the second blow has succeeded the second severance is consummated. Austria as well as Russia has fallen off in disgust from the side of as she thinks-disloyal England. The fourfold cord that for forty years has pinioned the arms of French ambition is now reduced to but two strands. England and Germany stand alone to repel the attack, which if the Emperor lives one or other of them will surely have to face. But even so the rope is amply strong enough. It would have been simpler, cheaper, easier, if Europe could have presented so united a front that even the attempt to disturb its landmarks would be absurd. But the last alliance also must be weakened, before the attempt can be made with any probability of success. England and Prussia are both stronger than they were when last their strength was measured against that of France. Not only has their growth in wealth and population surpassed that of their antagonist, but they are free from internal enemies by whom in the former struggle nearly half their available power was consumed. The turbulent discontent of Ireland, and the untempered feudalism of Prussia, were allies whom the first

Napoleon knew well how to use: they hampered England and brought Prussia to the verge of ruin. Each of the two countries is now the abode of a compact and contented people.

But though there is no ground for fear, there is every ground for precaution. We must beware that the astute diplomacy which has deprived us of two allies does not succeed in depriving us of a third. A year ago the great danger seemed to be that when the storm burst it would find England absolutely unprepared. The panic of the last twelve months, grotesque as it has been in some of its aspects, has at least resulted in an activity of preparation which probably no calm calculation of probabilities would have produced. It requires something more forcible than logic to overbear the stubborn self-illusions of the Manchester doctrinaires. Our principal danger now lies from another maxim of this same school. The doctrine of non-intervention within limits is a very sound doctrine. There is no doubt that meddlesomeness has been till very recently the besetting sin of English policy, and has left behind it a very heavy bequest of debts as its result. Even now there is an exuberant activity in our Foreign Office which is never satiated until it has had its say with respect to every proceeding of every government to whom our agents are accredited. The Foreign Secretary regards himself as a species of Greek chorus, entitled on all occasions to put in his advice, no matter whether it is agreeable or the reverse. This is only the undignified but innocent remnant of the old policy of meddling by force of arms whenever any of our neighbours did anything that was not exactly to our mind. But a reaction has set in, and we are now in danger of swaying over quite as far on the other side. The policy of coldly abstaining from any share or interest in continental quarrels has no doubt a tendency to keep down the Estimates; but in our anxiety for that great object we wholly forget of how much protection such a policy will strip us. During the Russian war, the English newspapers were very indignant with Austria and Prussia for not taking an active part in the contest. But their wrath was very unreasonable, for those Powers were only practising the policy of non-intervention which we had been so eloquently preaching. That if we do not help our allies, our allies will not help us, though a very obvious truth, seems hardly to have dawned on the minds of some of the reasoners of this party. But of course most of those who preach non-intervention are quite prepared for isolation as its result. They are confident that England can hold her own against the world. There is no good, they think, in burdening ourselves with allies for the purposes of a resistance which fifty years ago we were quite able to main

tain alone. This reasoning has not been used for the first time, and when last used it led to very unpleasant consequences. The history of Prussia during the first decade of the present century is fruitful in warning to nations who, in the pride of their present strength and past achievements, think that they can well afford to stand alone. The parallel between Prussia then and England now is a curious one, for it presents more points of similitude than historical parallels are wont to do. Without showing any strong solicitude for her own defence, Prussia was content to rely upon the renown of Frederick, as we do on that of Wellington. She looked upon herself as a nation aloof from the rest of her German kinsfolk, and owned no national duty except that of furthering the immediate and palpable interests of Prussia. In this spirit she concluded the treaty of Basle with Napoleon, and abandoned first Austria and afterwards the Rhine States to their fate. She did not cumber herself much about allies, for she remembered (such national memories are fatal snares) that fifty years back Frederick had made head almost alone against the united Continent. There was a French party in the Prussian Cabinet composed of her most trusted statesmen. In spite of all appearances to the contrary, this party clung with desperate tenacity to the belief that in his repeated professions of attachment to Prussia, the Emperor Napoleon was sincere. It was true, he had made similar professions to other Powers, whom he had not scrupled afterwards to partition. In fact it was clear to all eyes not wilfully blind that he was pursuing the policy of the last of the Horatii, and dividing his antagonists that he might slaughter them one by But the French party that ruled in the Prussian Cabinet refused to part with the fond belief that the Emperor Napoleon was a true friend to Prussia, and that she would be an exception from the universal rule. At last, after she had temporised and temporised till all her natural allies had either been crushed by force or had fallen off from her in disgust, her turn to be invaded came. As soon as there was no one left to interpose and moderate the ardour of his friendship, her trusty and loyal ally' threw off the mask. In the hour of trial the renown of the great Frederick, and the self-confidence of the Prussian people, proved very impalpable barriers to an invading army. The Prussian soldiery behaved well and fought with gallantry, but there was not found one commanding spirit equal to the crisis. Almost every officer of rank turned out incompetent; a splendid army was annihilated by sheer blundering; and half-a-dozen impregnable fortresses fell one after another like a pack of cards, without a blow being struck in their defence. The Prussian

one.

monarchy was within an ace of absolute extinction. But for that early Russian frost in November 1812, which was hailed with so much joy by so many suffering nations, the glories and the fall of Prussia would have been written in the same mournful catalogue with Venice and Genoa and Poland.

Mutato nomine de te fabula narratur. The first half of the story fits too closely to leave us entirely without apprehension as to the applicability of the second. Had Prussia and Austria been in the field together Jena need have been no final or fatal blow. She staked everything on her own unaided strength, and she lost. Her great humiliation was plainly due, no doubt, to the utter incompetence of her commanders. England a short time before had been fighting the same single-handed fight for existence, and was saved by the ability of her commanders. The whole difference between the fate of England and Prussia was merely the difference between the talents of Nelson and Brunswick. Had the case been inverted-had there been a Nelson at Jena and a Brunswick at Trafalgar-Prussia would have escaped five years of bitter bondage, and we should now have been able to enlighten Mr. Bright from actual experience as to whether it is cheaper to let the French army into England or to keep them out. But this possession of an able commander is an accident on which no nation, however well equipped, is able to count with confidence. We have lacked it in some emergencies-such as the American war-when we sorely needed it. It is the one deficiency which no perfection of preparation, no strength of fortresses or multiplication of ships, will avail to counteract. It is the one weak point in the armour of a nation that fights without allies, which no care and no sacrifices can make thoroughly secure.

We earnestly trust that whatever beneficent will-o'-the-wisp our Government may amuse itself with pursuing among the mazes and the pitfalls of Italian politics, they will allow no chase after the ideal to make them forget the essential importance of friendly relations with Germany. The Germans must always be our natural allies; for they are the only great people besides ourselves who harbour no schemes of European conquest, and whose welfare is bound up with peace; and the present crisis is one that should draw the alliance closer. The course of events has linked our interests together, and our common necessities trace out for us a common path. The frontiers of both are threatened by the same storm, and on the bearing of the two it will perhaps depend whether it is to burst at once in all its fury, or for the present pass away. The part that events are assigning to these two nations to fill is one that

they have filled together more than once before. Europe has more than once owed its independence to the same combination against the same foe. It is melancholy, but it seems to be decreed, that history should always move on round this one dreary, unvarying circle, and that the hard-working, peace-loving Teutonic race should be doomed every fifty years to waste its wealth and halt in its onward progress in order to battle with and curb the restless rapacity of France. Apparently the era is coming round again, and the unwelcome task is about to be reimposed. Neither England nor Prussia are nations of a temper to equip costly armaments out of mere vanity, or to paralyze their own commerce by a causeless war. But the history of Prussia during the last war has proved that compliance, pushed even to servility, will not avail to avoid the struggle; and our own experience warns us that every farthing we stint in our preparations now will have to be repaid a hundred-fold later on. Let us hope that both Powers, when the conflict comes, may not only be ready for its utmost exigencies, but that no foolish policy of isolation may have robbed them of the strength which can only be derived from perfect union.