Thus we see that all the leading features and peculiarities of Lord John

Russell’s new Reform Bill—the disfranchisement of the boroughs, the

swamping of the counties, the ten-pound occupancy clause, the

qualification by deposit in the savings’ bank, the voting of graduates,

the retention of their seats by members accepting office, and the

representation of minorities—are contained in the articles published in

the _Edinburgh Review_, in 1852 and 1853. This is, to say the least of

it, a very singular coincidence. Of course we do not mean to maintain

that Lord John Russell was debarred from availing himself of any useful

hints which might be offered him, or from adopting the notions of any

political sage, or harum-scarum cobbler of constitutions; we entirely

admit his right to gather wisdom, or its counterfeit, from any source

whatever. What we wish to impress upon the public is this, that, down to

1852, not one of these notions had occurred to our grand constitutional

reformer, who for twenty years had been sedulously watching the

operation of his original measure! Nay, more than that: two years ago,

his ideas on the subject of Parliamentary Reform were diametrically

opposite to those which he has now promulgated; and that not only in

detail, but in absolute essence and form! Had he come before us this

year with a scheme based upon the principle of 1852, which was a

lowering of the franchise, without any farther disturbance of the

constitution of the electoral bodies, it would have been but a poor

criticism to have taunted him with a minor change in the details. He

might have used his discretion in elevating or lowering the point where

the franchise was to begin, without subjecting himself to any sneer on

account of change of principle. But, wonderful as are the changes which

we have seen of late years in the views of public men, this is the most

astounding of them all. Never before, perhaps, did a statesman pass such

a decided censure on his own judgment, or make such an admission of

former recklessness and error. If he is right now, he must have been

utterly wrong before. The constitution of 1852, as he would have made

it, must have been a bad one. One-tenth of the members of the House of

Commons would still have been returned by constituencies which he now

regards as unfit to be constituencies any more. If the maintenance of

the small boroughs is a blot on the constitution, how was it that Lord

John Russell did not discover that blot until 1853, after the articles

we have referred to were published? Did he take his ideas from those

articles? If so, was there ever a more humiliating confession of entire

poverty of mind? If he did not take his ideas from those articles, what

was it that produced so entire a change of opinion?—what eminent

political oculist has removed the film which impeded his vision but two

short years ago? This is, in reality, a very grave matter. We are

accustomed in this country to associate measures with men, and sometimes

to accept the former on account of our belief and confidence in the

sagacity of those who propose them. But what faith can we repose in a

man who thus plays fast and loose upon a question with which he has been

occupied all his life? This is not a case of expediency arising out of

unforeseen circumstances. That the question is of the deepest import no

one in his senses can deny. We know how the constitution, as framed at

present, works; but we do not know how it may work if very materially

altered. And yet we find the same mechanist proposing, within two years,

two separate kinds of alteration! The first was simple enough, and had

at least this much in its favour, that it did not require any violent

displacement of the machinery. The second is so complex that the whole

machinery must be re-arranged. It was our sincere hope that the country

had seen the last of sudden conversions of parties—at no time edifying

events, and sometimes attended by disastrous consequences—but we must,

it seems, prepare ourselves for another conversion on the part of the

Whigs, if this bill is to be carried through. They must, supposing them

inclined to support Lord John Russell, either unsay what they said, or

were prepared to have said, in 1852, or be ready to maintain that they

were then greatly in advance of their leader. The dilemma, we admit, is

an unpleasant and an odious one; but there is no escape from it, if the

Whigs are determined, at all hazards, to follow their erratic leader.

That there is room for certain changes in the national representation we

are by no means disposed to deny. It is impossible to devise any system

so perfect as to preclude the idea of amendment; indeed, we suppose that

there never was a constitution, or phase of a constitution, in the

world, which gave entire and perfect satisfaction to all who lived under

its operation. We may be told that the present system is theoretically

wrong, that its principle is to exalt property and to exclude

intelligence, and that in some parts it is incongruous, inconsistent,

and contradictory. Possibly there may be some truth in such allegations;

but then we must never lose sight of this, that the real test of a

constitution is its practical working. It is undeniable that under the

present system the middle classes have gained, not only power, but

preponderance in the state; and accordingly we find that they are not

favourable to a change which would certainly operate to their

disadvantage. The ulterior aims of the men of Manchester may prompt them

to desire a still further infusion of the democratic element, but

neither the members nor the doctrines of that school have found favour

with the British public. If public opinion generally, and the great

interests of the nation, are well and effectively represented in the

House of Commons, it does seem to us a very perilous experiment to

disturb that state of matters. We should like very much to hear from

Lord John Russell a distinct exposition of the results which he

anticipates, should this scheme of his be carried. Is there any real

point of interest to the nation which he is at present debarred from

bringing forward by the exclusive constitution of the House of Commons?

What are the existing grievances which call for so radical an

alteration?

“What is there now amiss

That Cæsar and his senate must redress?”

We apprehend that the noble lord would be greatly puzzled to frame an

intelligible answer to such queries. Well then, we are, perforce,

compelled to fall back upon theory, and to assume that he vindicates his

proposal, not because future measures will be of a better kind, or

better discussed than heretofore, but because it is desirable, for

symmetry’s sake, that the representation should be readjusted.

Be it so. We are content to take that view, albeit a low one, and to

examine his scheme without any partial leaning to the present

constitution of the House of Commons. And first, let us see what regard

he has paid to the principle of equal representation.

It will not, we presume, be denied by any one that the three kingdoms of

England, Scotland, and Ireland, ought to be put upon an equitable

footing as regards one another in this matter of representation. If

imperial measures were all that the House of Commons had to discuss,

this relative equality might be of less importance; but with separate

laws and separate institutions guaranteed to and existing in the three

kingdoms, it is proper that each should be fairly represented in the

grand council of the nation. At present that is not the case. If we take

the test of population, Scotland ought to have 18 more members than are

now allotted to her; if we take the test of taxation and revenue, she

ought to have 25 more. Combining the two, there is a deficit of more

than 20 members to Scotland in her share of the national representation.

Now, that is a matter which ought, in the very first instance, to have

occupied the attention of the noble lord, and would have so occupied it,

had he laid down for himself any fixed principles of action. It is

nonsense to talk of inequalities between one borough and another, or

between town and country qualification, before the first grand

inequality is remedied. Apply the double test of population and revenue,

and you will find that Ireland is upon an equality in point of

representation with England, but that Scotland is not; and no reason has

been, or can be, assigned for this anomaly. The quota for Scotland was

fixed by the Act of Union at 45 members. It was increased by the Reform

Act of 1832 to 53, but the number is still insufficient. Lord John

Russell proposes, out of the 66 disfranchised seats, to give _three_ to

Scotland, but he has assigned no reason for doing so. The people of

Scotland are not in the position of men supplicating for a boon. They

are demanding that, when such a change as this is made, their political

rights shall be respected and allowed; and they will not be satisfied

with less than a measure of perfect justice. We think it right to put

forward this point prominently, because it lies at the foundation of the

whole question of the readjustment of the representation.

The question of the disfranchisement of the boroughs is one which should

be approached with very great caution. In 1852, as we have already seen,

Lord John Russell did not propose to touch them—now he has made up his

mind to lop away 66 members from this branch of the representation. This

is, in our opinion, by far too reckless a proceeding. We can see no good

ground or principle for the entire disfranchisement of any of the

boroughs, a step which we think ought never to be taken, except in case

of absolute and proved corruption. When constituencies are too small,

the proper and natural plan is, to annex and unite, not to abolish; and

we believe that this could be effected with very little difficulty. The

new Schedule A contains a list of 19 boroughs, returning at present 29

members, which are to be wholly disfranchised, on the ground either that

the number of the electors is under 300, or that of the inhabitants

under 5000. Therefore the privilege is to be taken from them, and the

voters are to be thrown into the counties. We agree with Lord John

Russell, that some constituencies are too small, but we do not agree

with him in his scheme of disfranchisement, and we utterly object to his

proposal of quartering the electors on the counties. They are borough

voters, and so they ought to remain; and it is a very poor pretext,

indeed, to make this disfranchisement the excuse for altering the county

qualification. Let a union of the boroughs, by all means, take place;

let the number of their members, if necessary, be considerably reduced;

but let us have no disfranchisement, or assimilation between the town

and county qualification, which would quite upset the whole system

throughout the kingdom.

We do not profess to be conversant with local details, so that we cannot

speak with perfect confidence; but it appears to us that some such

arrangement as the following, which would unite the smaller boroughs,

and at the same time diminish the number of members, might be adopted

with advantage:—

┌──────────────┬──────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┐

│ County. │ Borough. │ Present │Combined │ Present │ Future │

│ │ │Electors.│Electors.│Members. │Members. │

├──────────────┼──────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤

│Devonshire, │Ashburton, │ 211│ 520│ 1│ 1│

│ „ │Dartmouth, │ 309│ „ │ 1│ „ │

│ „ │Honiton, │ 335│ 649│ 2│ 1│

│ „ │Totness, │ 314│ „ │ 2│ „ │

│Dorsetshire, │Lyme Regis, │ 297│ 665│ 1│ 1│

│Somersetshire,│Wells, │ 368│ „ │ 2│ „ │

│Sussex, │Arundel, │ 208│ 493│ 1│ 1│

│ „ │Midhurst, │ 285│ „ │ 1│ „ │

│Wiltshire, │Calne, │ 151│ 641│ 1│ 1│

│ „ │Marlborough, │ 254│ „ │ 2│ „ │

│ „ │Wilton, │ 236│ „ │ 1│ 1│

│Yorkshire, │Richmond, │ 342│ 642│ 2│ „ │

│ „ │Northallerton,│ 303│ „ │ 1│ „ │

│Essex, │Harwich, │ 299│ 506│ 2│ 1│

│Norfolk, │Thetford, │ 217│ „ │ 2│ „ │

│ │ │ │ │ ——│ —│

│ │ │ │ │ 22│ 7│

└──────────────┴──────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┘

Thus, without any disfranchisement, or violent displacement, fifteen

boroughs, at present returning twenty-two members, might be formed into

seven respectable constituencies, returning one member each to

Parliament. There are, however, four others—Knaresborough, Evesham,

Reigate, and Andover—which cannot be so easily thrown together. We would

proceed with these on the same principle, by adding them to boroughs at

present returning two members, but which Lord John Russell proposes to

restrict to one member each. The following is our view:—

┌──────────────┬──────────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┬─────────┐

│ County. │ Borough. │ Present │Combined │ Present │ Future │

│ │ │Electors.│Electors.│Members. │Members. │

├──────────────┼──────────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┼─────────┤

│Yorkshire, │Knaresborough,│ 226│ 583│ 2│ 1│

│ „ │Ripon, │ 357│ „ │ 2│ „ │

│Worcester, │Evesham, │ 396│ 755│ 2│ 2│

│ „ │Tewkesbury, │ 359│ „ │ 2│ „ │

│Surrey, │Reigate, │ 297│ 1124│ 1│ 2│

│ „ │Guildford, │ 595│ „ │ 2│ „ │

│Hampshire, │Andover, │ 232│ „ │ 2│ „ │

│ │ │ │ │ ——│ —│

│ │ │ │ │ 13│ 5│

└──────────────┴──────────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┴─────────┘

Here there are twenty-three seats set at liberty, without

disfranchisement in any one instance. In justice to ourselves, we must

state that we have implicitly followed the schedule attached to Lord

John Russell’s bill, and not indulged in speculations of our own. Had

the latter been the case, we might have been tempted to ask why

Westbury, with an electorate of 289, is to be spared, while Wells, with

368, is to be blotted from the list of boroughs?

Besides these, Lord John Russell proposes that thirty other seats shall

be made vacant, by restricting boroughs now returning two members to

one. (His number is thirty-three, but we have already noticed Ripon,

Tewkesbury, and Guildford.) If it could be shown that there is a really

clamant case for representation elsewhere, the reduction might be

allowed, but only to the extent required. It seems to us perfect madness

to proceed with wholesale disfranchisement, until the necessity of

transferring seats to other places is satisfactorily established. We can

very well understand why some of the smaller boroughs which have now two

members should be restricted to one, in order to satisfy the just

requirements of some rising township which has hitherto been

unrepresented. We have no doubt that Lord John Russell is quite right in

his proposals to give members to Birkenhead, Burnley, and Staleybridge,

and to erect Chelsea and Kensington into a Parliamentary borough to

return two members. We think that two additional members each might be

granted to the West Riding of Yorkshire and to the county of

Lancaster—that Salford should return two members instead of one—and that

the London University should be represented. We think that these are

rational demands, and such as might be accorded; and the necessary

number for these purposes, and for putting Scotland on a fair footing of

equality with England and Ireland, would amount to the vacation of about

thirty or thirty-two existing seats. We have already shown how, without

entirely disfranchising any borough, twenty-three seats may be obtained;

and if nine others are required, it would be no hardship to take from

each of the following boroughs one out of the two members which they

presently return:—

County. Borough. Constituency.

Hampshire, Lymington, 328

Cumberland, Cockermouth, 330

Buckinghamshire, Marlow (Great), 335

Wiltshire, Chippenham, 345

Buckinghamshire, Buckingham, 349

Devonshire, Tavistock, 352

Cornwall, Bodmin, 360

Wiltshire, Devizes, 363

Buckinghamshire, Wycombe (Chipping), 365

This would take out of Schedule B no less than twenty-one seats which

are now included in it; and it would be obviously unwise to exhaust, all

at once, the only source from which new rising constituencies can be

endowed. Lord John Russell seems to think—and we agree with him—that the

present number of the House of Commons (654) is quite large enough; and

although there is no principle to fix numbers, it may be as well to

maintain them as they are. It is but natural to expect that, in future

years, some places will decrease, and others increase, and that partial

changes will be required. For that very reason we deprecate too hasty a

reduction of the boroughs, and an apportionment of their seats to places

and constituencies which do not require them. Suppose that in ten years

after this, new seats of commerce and manufacture, like Birkenhead,

Burnley, and Staleybridge, start into existence—that places like Salford

increase immensely—and that new Chelseas require to be conjoined with

new Kensingtons—where are we to find members for them, without unduly

swelling the bulk of the House of Commons, if all the smaller borough

seats are to be disposed of at the present time? The Legislature may say

just now, with perfect propriety, to the men of Lymington—“Your borough

is the smallest in the country which returns two members to Parliament.

Birkenhead is a place of such importance that it requires a member; and

therefore, as it is not expedient to increase the aggregate number of

the national representatives, we shall take a member from you, and give

one to Birkenhead.” That is quite intelligible; but why disfranchise

boroughs when you do not know what to do with the vacancies? It is true

that Lord John Russell tells us what he means to do with them; but we

entirely demur to every proposal of his beyond those which we have

already noticed. He proposes, we observe, to give three members instead

of two to the following cities and boroughs whose constituencies we have

noted:—

Towns. Constituencies.

Birmingham, 8,780

Bristol, 10,958

Bradford, 2,723

Leeds, 6,400

Liverpool, 15,382

Manchester, 17,826

Sheffield, 5,612

Wolverhampton, 3,499

It must strike every one that there can be no principle in this. The

constituencies both of Manchester and Liverpool are more than five times

larger than that of Bradford, and yet all of them are to have three

members; whereas the Tower Hamlets with 25,366, Marylebone with 20,377,

and Lambeth with 18,522 electors, are but to have two each as

heretofore. Even the sage of the _Edinburgh Review_ has borne testimony

to the impropriety and injustice of adding to the number of

representatives returned for large towns. In his article of October

1852, he says:—

“It would appear that the large towns have their full share of the

representation; since, if we add the small boroughs to the counties,

on the supposition of their returning a somewhat similar class of

members, and containing a somewhat similar constituency, the

comparison would stand thus:—

Population. Members.

Counties and small boroughs, 10,250,000 259

Large towns and cities, 6,660,000 206

—whereas the proper arithmetical proportion for the cities would be

169, instead of 206.”

The fact is, that Lord John Russell has assigned an additional number to

each of these towns, not because they require one, but in order to make

the extraordinary experiment, to which we have already alluded, of the

representation of minorities in Parliament. For that reason, also, he

proposes to give thirty-six additional members to so many counties and

their divisions, making each up to the number of three, so that

minorities may be represented on rather an extensive scale. We shall

have occasion presently to say a word or two on that subject. The notion

seems to us not only impracticable, but positively silly; and such as no

man of ordinary sense could entertain for a moment. Even were it more

feasible than it appears, that would not justify an unnecessary

disfranchisement of the boroughs. We can see no reason for parting with

them so abruptly—many for retaining them; because, undoubtedly, they

keep the balance even between town and country, and so perform a very

valuable function in the Legislature. We do not dispute the propriety of

their remodelment or curtailment. Our views, in that respect, are, we

submit, sufficiently liberal; for we think it just that from them, as

small constituencies, any palpable defect or positive need in the

national representation should be supplied. But we will not consent to

their sacrifice merely for theoretical experiment; or in order to give

colour to the proposal for assimilating the town and county franchise—in

other words, for swamping the latter representation. We are greatly

surprised that Lord John Russell should, in his mature years, have thus

been led astray. In the popular ferment of 1831–2—the particulars of

which are better known to his lordship than to us—almost any proposal

might have gone down; but now reason instead of passion must be appealed

to and satisfied, before any one can be allowed to make a material

inroad on the Constitution. Lord John is singularly unfortunate. Mr

Bright is quite as much opposed to the notion of the representation of

minorities as we are; and we venture to say that the collective voice of

the counties, to which he proposes to give an additional member, will be

raised against him. We need not press the point that the borough

electors will be especially unwilling to lose their existing privileges.

And if it should so happen—as we know, and as every man who knows the

political feeling of the country, must be the case—that both the

disfranchised parties, and those whose franchise is thereby nominally

increased, hold the scheme in detestation and contempt, how is it

possible that he can hope to carry it even through the House of Commons?

He has no enthusiasm to back him. He is not attempting to give voice to

the opinion of any large section of the public—he is simply repeating,

parrot-like and without examination, in opposition to all he has

heretofore said, the opinions enunciated by another. He is theorising,

contrary to his own experience; and sacrificing, for a mere crotchet,

his own arrangements, which, for twenty years, and until 1852, he deemed

to be mathematically correct.

We now come to the question of qualification. This is a very serious

one, and cannot be properly treated without reference to our existing

fiscal arrangements. Indirect taxation has been reduced to the lowest

possible limit; and, in order to make up the deficiency in the revenue

occasioned by numerous relaxations, we are forced to submit to an

income-tax which amounted last year to more than five and a half

millions, levied from those persons only who are in receipt of more than

£100 yearly. From Mr Gladstone’s financial statement, it appears that

the Government does not intend to increase the amount of the national

debt by contracting fresh loans, but that the inevitable expenses of the

war, however large, are to be defrayed by additional yearly taxation.

Further, we are told that it is not proposed to raise any portion of

this by again resorting to indirect taxation, but that the whole of it

is to be charged upon those persons who are already rated to the

income-tax. We subscribe in theory to the opinion, that it is not

advisable for the interests of posterity to increase the amount of the

national debt; which might, however, have been cleared off during the

years of peace but for the insane system pursued by successive

Ministries, of abandoning indirect taxation for the sake of immediate

popularity. In practice, it may be found impossible to avoid the

contraction of fresh loans. It is not likely, for some time at least,

that any Ministry will be bold enough to resort to the customs and

excise duties for the supply of the yearly deficiency, so that there

really seems no other available course than that of taxing property and

income still farther. The effect of this is, that a certain limited

class is made to pay for the others, and that the great bulk of the

population are exempted. How long this can be endured we shall not

venture to predict. We have demonstrated over and over again, in the

pages of the Magazine, the extreme impolicy and ultimate danger of

continuing a war tax in time of peace, and the result shows the

soundness of our warning. The day will arrive when this burden will

become so great as to be intolerable; and then, perhaps, it may be

discovered that, in abandoning easy and evident sources of revenue, our

commercial legislators have committed a most grievous error. At present,

however, we can only look to the fiscal arrangements which have been

proposed. It is obvious, at least to us, that it would be highly

inexpedient, and even dangerous, to lodge political power in the hands

of those who are not called upon to contribute directly to the

necessities of the State. If you are to select a certain class as

peculiar rate-payers, and to compel them, year after year, to make up

the deficiency of the national income, whatever that may be, you are

bound also to give them peculiar privileges. We care not how low you

make the assessment. Indeed, we are of opinion that it should be brought

down to the lowest possible limit, which, probably, would be fixed, as

regards income, at £60 per annum. But whatever that limit may be, this

principle ought to be established, that no man, not rated to the

property and income tax, shall hereafter be capable of voting, or of

being enrolled. This is the only good security we can have against

confiscation. It is said that the idea of a war is peculiarly popular in

the country. No wonder that it should be so. The artisan is informed

that no additional tax will be laid in consequence upon any article of

his consumpt; that the price of his beer, spirits, tea, coffee, sugar,

and tobacco, will not be raised; and that others will defray the cost of

equipping those fine fleets, and maintaining those splendid troops,

which he cheers as they leave our shores. Very different are the

feelings of the unfortunate individual who, by dint of industry, has

worked his way to an income of £150 a-year, and has a wife and family to

support. Last year he had to pay £4, 7s. 6d., directly to the Exchequer,

and was consoling himself with the vision that, after April 1855, his

contribution would be lowered to £3, 15s. Down upon him, like a vulture,

swoops the tax-gatherer, with a demand for £7, 11s. 3d., to be increased

if the war goes on. You cannot expect that man to be quite as

enthusiastic as the artisan, whose voice, like that of Sempronius, is

still for war, so long as he escapes untaxed. It is easy to be patriotic

when there is nothing whatever to pay. What we advocate, therefore, is,

an extension of the property and income tax to the lowest available

limit, and an exclusion from the franchise of all those who do not

contribute to it. It is a proposition not only fair and reasonable, but

imperatively necessary under the circumstances in which we are placed;

and no one can complain of injustice in being excluded from a privilege

for which he does not pay, either from want of means, or because he

fraudulently evades the tax.

Of course, this is tantamount to a rejection of Lord John Russell’s

proposal, that persons having £50 for a certain period of time deposited

in a savings’ bank, shall be entitled to the franchise. This is a

proposal which really will not bear examination. In the first place, it

would lead to a prodigious deal of fictitious registration and wholesale

manufacture of votes; in the second place, it is a most invidious and

senseless preference given to one species of property beyond another.

Why a savings’ bank? Are chartered, joint-stock, or private banks not as

good? And why give a vote for £50 in the shape of a deposit only? Money

is only equivalent to money’s worth. The man who expends £50 in the

furnishing of his house, or in purchasing a share in some small

business, or in fifty other ways of investment, is as good or better

than his neighbour, who lets his money lie in the savings’ bank. It is

utterly absurd to select one only kind of deposit for the franchise,

practically excluding hundreds of thousands, who have more money

invested in a different way. Then, again, what means are to be devised

for ascertaining the right of parties so registered to continue on the

roll? The tenure is obviously of the most precarious kind. An election

takes place to-day, and a depositor votes in virtue of his £50;

to-morrow he withdraws it from the bank. How is that to be ascertained?

We presume it is not contemplated that the savings’-bank books shall be

open to the inspection of the public; and if not, where are the means of

ascertaining the continued qualification of parties? In like manner, we

object to the qualification of £10 of yearly dividend from the Funds, or

from bank stock. It is reasonable enough, perhaps, on account of their

educational attainments, that graduates of universities should be

admitted to vote either in town or county, _provided that they are

assessed to the property and income tax, but not otherwise_; and the

receipt of £100 a-year of salary, as it implies direct rating, may be

taken as a sufficient qualification for borough or town voting.

But we are not at all prepared to agree to the proposed assimilation of

the town and county franchise. It is a direct and dangerous innovation

on the principle of the British constitution, which is, that the county

representation shall be kept apart from that of the towns and boroughs.

The Act of 1832 admitted the proprietor of a £10 house, not situated

within the boundaries of a borough, to a county vote; and the result of

that, in some localities, has been, that the voters in villages and

small towns which were not boroughs, have been numerous enough to swamp

and overpower the proper county constituency. That was bad enough; but

it is now proposed that _occupiers_ shall have the franchise; and, as we

remarked last month, it is not by any means necessary that the house

which the voter occupies should be of the yearly value of £10. We must

again quote the words of Lord John Russell: “We propose, with respect to

the county right of voting, that—with the exception of a dwelling-house,

_which may be of any value, provided the voter lives in it_—in all other

cases the building must be of the value of £5 a-year. Supposing there is

a house and land, the house may be rated at £1 or £2 a-year, provided

the voter resides in it; but if the qualification is made out by any

other building—a cattle-shed, or any other building of that kind—then we

propose this check, that such building shall be of the value of £5

a-year. This, then, is the franchise we propose to give in counties for

the future.” Thus the English counties are to be inundated, 1st, By £10

occupiers, not resident within borough boundaries; and, 2dly, By the

voters of sixty-six disfranchised boroughs, who are to be thrown loose

upon them! We are confident that, in any case, such a proposal as this

will be rejected. The counties do not want additional members at the

expense of the boroughs; and we think it is, on principle, most

important that the two kinds of representation should be preserved

distinct. Indeed, but for the crotchet of giving representation to

minorities, by assigning to as many constituencies as possible three

members each, we should probably have heard nothing of this transfer of

borough representation. That the county franchise may be advantageously

lowered as regards tenants, we are ready to admit. Let them be enrolled

from £20 upwards, provided they pay property and income tax, which,

according to our view, ought to be made an indispensable condition to

the franchise.

But we shall be asked, what is to become of £10 occupants residing

beyond borough boundaries, who are really rated to the income-tax? Are

they to remain unrepresented? Our reply is, that they ought to be

represented, and can be represented, without sending them to the

county-roll. The true, sound, and equitable method is to enlarge the

parliamentary boundaries of boroughs, so that persons of this class may

be enrolled in the nearest borough to their residence. Such enlargement

may be made irrespective of other persons who are entitled to the county

franchise, and who would still claim to be placed upon that roll. In

this way, no one really entitled to vote would be excluded: both

counties and boroughs would be preserved; and the latter would receive a

very considerable augmentation of numbers from a class of men who at

present do not enjoy the franchise.

There is but one point more to which we shall specially refer, and that

is the proposed representation of minorities. We have shown, in a former

article, that this is perfectly unworkable, and moreover greatly to be

deprecated, as entirely changing the relations of the electors and their

representatives. It can only, according to Lord John Russell’s

admission, be attempted in constituencies which are to be allowed three

representatives; and the simple fact of its being the exception, and not

the rule, seems to us sufficient to condemn it. We have already put the

case of the death or resignation of one of these minority members, and

we cannot see how his place can be supplied, unless it is enacted that

the candidate lowest on the poll is to be returned. It is neither

sensible nor equitable to challenge the authority of majorities. If you

leave a question, whether it relate to men or measures, to be decided by

a certain number of people, you must perforce adopt and acquiesce in the

verdict of the majority. But it is within our power to render the

majorities less oppressive, by multiplying as much as possible the

number of the tribunals of appeal.

This brings us to the consideration of a topic which we broached in the

last number of the Magazine, and which, we venture to say, is well

worthy of the attention of our statesmen. It cannot be denied that in

many places, especially large towns, there is an immense degree of

apathy on the part of those who are entitled to the franchise. Men who

are in the possession or occupation of property far more than sufficient

to entitle them to vote, do not even take the pains to place themselves

on the roll; and many of those who are on the roll will not give

themselves the trouble to vote. It is remarkable also that these are

generally men of wealth, station, and intelligence—belonging, in short,

to the class most likely to use the franchise with discretion and

independence. The reason of this apparent apathy is, that they know

quite well that they will be outvoted. In urban constituencies of four

thousand or upwards, returning two members each, every one knows

beforehand how the election will go, and consequently no effort is made

by a desponding minority. We grant that such ought not to be the case;

because an elector, though he may not be able to find a candidate of his

own way of thinking, can always exercise a wholesome control, by voting

for the man who, in his judgment, is the best in the field—but there can

be no doubt that the case is as we represent it. For example, at last

election, there voted, in round numbers, at London, only 7,500 out of

20,000 electors—at Finsbury, 9,000 out of 20,000—at Lambeth, 8,000 out

of 18,000—at Manchester, 9,000 out of 13,000—at Westminster, 800 out of

14,800—at Sheffield, 3,500 out of 5,300—at York, 2,500 out of 4,100—at

Edinburgh, 3,500 out of 6,900—at Glasgow, 5,000 out of 16,500. These

represent the actual numbers on the register, but not the number of

those entitled to be enrolled, but who have not lodged claims. In short,

the activity in voting and enrolling seems to decline in proportion to

the size of the constituency.

There is but one way of remedying this, and that is by recurring to the

simple principle _that no man shall be entitled, in one place, to vote

for more than a single member_. We do not mean by this that large

populations should be restricted to a single member—that would be

unfair, and even preposterous. We mean that each county, division of a

county, city, town, or borough, which has more than one member allotted

to it, should be subdivided into parishes, districts, or wards, each to

return a member, according to the votes of the majority of the qualified

electors within it. Thus London would be divided into four electoral

districts; Liverpool, Manchester, Edinburgh, and others into two; and

the counties would, in the same way, be partitioned into so many

districts as there were members to be returned. This system is at

present in partial operation in the counties of England, which are split

into divisions, and there undoubtedly the system has worked well and

satisfactorily. No man in his senses would propose that each county

elector of Yorkshire should have six votes; and we really cannot see why

one man, because he happens to live in a large town, should have double

the personal political influence of another who resides in a small

borough. It does not necessarily follow, by any means, that the members

to be returned under the operation of the system which we propose should

be antagonistic to one another. It would, we are convinced, materially

tend to improve the representation, by infusing fresh energy into the

constituencies; it is already recognised, and partially in effect; and

it is not liable to any of the objections which it requires no ingenuity

to rear against Lord John Russell’s absurd scheme for giving members to

minorities.

We might say a great deal more on the subject of the present bill, but

we think that further comment is needless. We have shown, by absolute

demonstration, that it is not the result of Lord John Russell’s own

Parliamentary experience—that, for twenty years of his public life,

dating from 1832, he had failed to see the proper method of amending the

representation of the people—and that he was at last enlightened by a

series of articles, which display as little consistency as wisdom. We

have shown also that he has not probed the great question of the

relative proportional representation of the three united kingdoms—that

he proposes to demolish borough representation, without any necessity

for doing so—and that he wishes entirely to change, or rather to

abrogate, the ancient distinction between town and county franchise. We

have shown that he has not taken at all into consideration the recent

fiscal changes, and that he proposes to place those who are heavily and

directly taxed on the same footing with those who are allowed to escape

that burden. We have shown that other parts of his scheme are either

merely fantastical, or dictated by party motives; and having said so

much, we are content to abide by the decision of the country.

If this bill is again brought forward on the 27th of April, or a later

day in the session, we do not believe that it will ever pass into the

statute-book. If it is withdrawn, on the score of inconvenience or

otherwise, we are perfectly certain that it will not again appear in its

present shape; for, many as are the legislative proposals which we have

had occasion to consider, this is, beyond comparison, the worst

digested, most incoherent and most rambling measure of them all.

THE BLUE BOOKS AND THE EASTERN QUESTION.

Notwithstanding the imposing aspect of these azure tomes, technically

termed _Blue Books_, we confess we do not look upon them without a

feeling of suspicion or incredulity. No doubt the usages of Parliament

and the will of the Crown require the production of documents relating

to every important transaction connected with our foreign policy, and

they are intended to furnish ample and accurate details of our

international acts, and to unfold to the public the intricacies of

complicated and tedious negotiations. Such is the object of those

expensive publications; but, for the attainment of that object, they

should be not merely authentic, but complete. And when we say that we do

not regard the _Blue Books_ with all the respect that full confidence

inspires, it is because we know that the papers they contain are well

sifted and culled: those parts which would prove the weakness, the

ignorance, and the imprudence of a Minister, are so carefully kept out

of sight, and so curtailed, and those in his favour so prominently

brought forward, that we have, after all, a very partial, and

consequently a very imperfect, view of the manner in which a negotiation

has been conducted. Truth, they say, lies at the bottom of a well: the

Foreign Office may be that well, but the eye of the public is not always

enabled to pierce its depth. Moreover, we have heard it related that

some Ministers indulge a vicious habit of communicating instructions to

their diplomatic agents in notes or letters marked _private_, or

evidently meant to be so from their familiar style and tone; and that

some letters contain hints or instructions sometimes contrary to the

official despatches. This is unjust to the public, and unfair to the

diplomatic agent himself, who, in case his conduct should become subject

of inquiry or censure in Parliament, is thus debarred from defending

himself, because the real instructions on which he acted bear the stamp

of privacy, which delicacy forbids him to violate; and it is quite

certain that the _Blue Books_ contain no trace of those confidential

missives. There is one personage in particular whose name has been more

connected than any other with our foreign policy, who is said to carry

this habit to such a point as to force complaints from his own

subordinates.

We are not exempt from human weakness: we confess that we have more than

once cast a curious and a longing glance on those plethoric Jacks which

daily issue from Downing Street, and the safe conveyance of which to

their distant destination costs the country annually a handsome sum of

money. We have often desired to dive to the very bottom of these round

white leathern envelopes, which are so tenderly handled and so

scrupulously guarded. What profound thoughts, what foresight, what

eloquence, and what wisdom, must be contained, we have often thought,

within that mysterious covering of calf, of more than aldermanic

rotundity, tightly closed at the neck with whipcord, and the genius of

England protecting the orifice in the form and fashion of a huge red

seal. It is true that idle or blabbing clerks, and supercilious or

rollicking messengers—the external “gentlemen” of the Foreign Office—are

said to indulge occasionally in a laugh, whilst lounging in their

waiting-room, at the reverential awe with which the vulgar are wont to

look upon the “despatch bags.” Strange stories, too, are said to be

current of the miscellanies which sometimes fill them, the curious _olla

podrida_, the several parts of which are so well adapted to the tastes

of the youthful _employés_ of our foreign embassies. Packages of

pomatum, bottles of hair-dye, pots of varnish, patent-leather boots, and

dress-coats, are occasionally conveyed to the capital where we are

blessed with a representative who unites in his own person the

conflicting tastes of dandyism and parsimony. Gossipping tongues speak

of even more important cargoes—not, of course, in the bag, but outside

it—that were sometimes conveyed, at her Majesty’s expense, to her

“Honourable” or “Right Honourable” representative, under the care of

some bustling “gentleman,” whose official character is indicated by the

Windsor uniform, and a minute badge with the royal arms, and the effigy

(a harmless irony) of a greyhound—the latter symbolical of the speed at

which he is presumed to travel.

Taking the present _Blue Books_ at the value set upon them by the

Government, we believe that every impartial man who has glanced over

their contents, and who has read the debates in Parliament, will be

convinced of the blindness, the weakness—we will not say the

criminality—of the Cabinet, in all that relates to the Eastern question.

It is in vain that we attempt to defend their conduct on the ground of

_ignorance_, for there are abundant proofs in the documents before us,

however imperfect they may be, that they were not ignorant, and were not

unwarned of what was going on. The evidence is too clear even for

audacity to deny, or hypocrisy to diminish. They themselves have been

forced to admit that they were outwitted and duped as no men were ever

duped before; and however a generous and forgiving people may pardon the

fault for the frankness of the confession, such imbecility in the past

is but poor encouragement for the future. The noble lord who holds the

post of Prime Minister is indeed unfortunate in his general estimate of

men and things. When the Revolution of February was on the point of

bursting forth, he is said to have declared his conviction that King

Louis Philippe and his dynasty were firmer than ever on the throne of

France. After a long, and, we presume, conscientious study of the

President of the new French republic, the same acute intellect

pronounced Louis Napoleon to be little better than an idiot, and in

contemptuous terms described him as incapable in thought and action.

When the votes of millions approved and confirmed the daring illegality

of the act of December 1851, he believed that his rule could not last

three months: and in the latest exercise of his discrimination and

knowledge of the world, our great statesman laughed to scorn the fear

that the Emperor Nicholas ever contemplated any attack against the

integrity of the Ottoman Empire, and this at the moment when every post

was bringing home news of the hostile attitude of Russia; when the

newspapers teemed with accounts of the movements of armies in the south

of Russia; when that force was placed on a war footing, and provisioned

as if on the eve of a campaign; when a fleet was at Sebastopol ready to

weigh anchor; when wood was cut down for the construction of pontoons

and bridges for the Pruth and Danube; and when Constantinople itself was

menaced with a _coup de main_;[8] when the magazines of Odessa were

gorged with military stores for the complete equipment of 150,000 men;

when troops had already marched to the Turkish frontier; when Prince

Menschikoff was outraging the Sultan in his own capital, and dictating

who should, or who should not, be his minister. And with the reports of

our own diplomatic and consular agents confirming all those facts, the

noble Lord at the head of her Majesty’s Government was smiling

complacently at the compliments lavished on him by that great master of

irony, Count Nesselrode, who chuckled with his imperial master at the

simplicity of the statesman refusing to believe the evidence of his

senses. We have seldom witnessed so much prevarication, so much

barefaced misstatement, as have been exhibited on this question. It was

denied in the most positive manner in the House of Lords that Russia had

ever required from the Sultan the dismissal of his minister Fuad

Effendi; or that the resignation of that minister was voluntary. The

repeated warnings in the public press, the official communications of

his own agents in Turkey and Russia, went for nothing. The intentions of

the Emperor of Russia were in his eyes moderate and pacific, even so

late as the end of April. The arrogant language of the Russian Envoy at

Constantinople, the menaced occupation of the Principalities, were,

because Count Nesselrode pronounced them to be so, not merely

exaggerated, but “destitute of any foundation whatever.” The “_beau

rôle_” which the wily chancellor of the Russian Empire congratulated

Lord Aberdeen for having preferred, was in point of fact the meanest

subservience; and we are satisfied that it was to the conviction that

this “_beau rôle_”[9] was to be played out to the end, that we owe all

that has since taken place. The same truckling spirit characterised even

those acts of the Government which had the appearance of energy. When

our ships entered the Dardanelles, and anchored before Constantinople,

the country was made to believe that their presence in the Bosphorus had

no reference to the acts of Russia, but to the protection of British

subjects and property, and to the defence of the Sultan from the

violence of his own subjects at a moment when it was known that not the

slightest danger menaced either the one or the other. Abdul Medjid must

have felt indignant at the imputation thus cast by his friends on the

loyalty of his subjects, and even Lord Aberdeen’s own ambassador

declined to accept such an explanation of movement of the fleet without

a pretext. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, while expressing his thanks for

the interest taken by the British Government in the preservation of

British life and property at Constantinople, said, at the same time,

that he applied his gratitude also to that part of the instructions

which authorised him to consider the presence of her Majesty’s squadron,

if he thought proper to require it, as intended to embrace the

protection of the Sultan in case of need: from whom the Sultan most

needed protection, no man knew better than the English ambassador. The

defence set up for the delays, the hesitations, and the inaction of the

Aberdeen Cabinet, was, it seems, the doubt entertained of the

co-operation of France. Now, nothing is more clearly shown, even in the

_Blue Books_, that the contrary was the fact. It is proved by the

despatches of the French Ambassador in London, and of the English

Ambassador in Paris. They show, beyond the possibility of doubt, not

only that such was not the case, but that every proposition of active

measures, from the very beginning when the squadrons appeared in the Bay

of Salamis to their entering the Black Sea, originated exclusively with

the French Government. The despatch of Lord Cowley of the 28th January

confirmed the intelligence published in the London papers, that it was

the French Government who had invited the English to join the French

fleet in the expedition to the Greek waters, and the fact is

corroborated in the despatch of the French Minister of Foreign Affairs

to his ambassador in London, dated the 5th June. Again, on the 13th July

the French Ambassador proposed to Lord Clarendon that, in the event of

Russia not accepting the Vienna note, or showing a disposition to

persist in a violent policy, the French and English fleets should

forthwith enter the Dardanelles. That proposition was repeated in the

beginning of September by the French Government; and once more, on the

23d of the same month, Count Walewski urged the presence of the fleets

in the Black Sea as _indispensable_. On this important point there was

not the slightest divergence of opinion between the head of the French

Government and his Minister of Foreign Affairs; their views were the

same, their opinions identical; and the _Blue Books_ prove no fact to be

more indisputable, more certain, than that their conduct throughout the

whole of the affair was frank and straightforward. It is not alone in

the French despatches that we find this proof. We see it in the

correspondence of Lord Aberdeen and Lord Cowley. The latter noble lord,

who had the best opportunity of ascertaining the truth, and who is not a

person to be easily deceived, repeatedly informs his Government that he

invariably received from the Emperor, or from his minister, the same

assurances of a desire to act in concert and in cordial alliance with

England, and that he never could discover, though he was evidently on

the watch, the slightest difference between them. It is all very well to

say that the time which has been spent in, as it now appears, useless

negotiation, has not been lost, and that the Government has been enabled

to prepare the means of resisting the encroachments of Russia, and of

wresting from her the territory she has seized. It is a poor defence to

allege that fortune has, after all, favoured us, and that we are not in

so bad a condition as we might have been. A blunder is not the less a

blunder because its results are not so mischievous as they might be. But

if we are prepared at this moment, as there can be little doubt, the

credit is not due to Ministers, who have exhibited throughout a

credulity and a simplicity we believe to be unexampled. We have no

reason to believe that if, in the very commencement, a firm and imposing

attitude had been assumed by our Government, the Emperor of Russia would

not have recoiled before he had yet placed himself in a position, to

retire from which, without striking a blow, is shame and dishonour. Had

it been announced that the squadrons would enter the Black Sea the

moment the Russians crossed the Pruth, we believe that that passage

would not have taken place, and in that menace we are confident that

France would have joined us.

On perusing the despatches published by the French Government in its

official organ, we have been particularly struck by the clearness of

views and the intrepidity, mingled with good sense, which pervade them.

From the moment that the question assumed a more general character; when

it ceased to refer exclusively to French interests, we remark the

masterly view which the Emperor’s minister of foreign affairs took of

the whole question as it then stood; of the accuracy with which he

judged of the future conduct of the Czar, and the marked line of conduct

which he proposed to follow. Yet the difficulties in the way of the

French Government were great. With the cunning which distinguishes the

policy of Russia, this power had the tact to present the Eastern

question, from the outset, in a light most disadvantageous to France;

and the excessive zeal and indiscretion of M. de Lavalette indisposed

the other powers, and afforded a pretext to our own Government to stand

aloof. In this country the policy and person of the French Emperor had

been unpopular. With the prejudice, mistrust, and ill-feeling which his

name inspired, it is not to be wondered at that all his acts were viewed

with suspicion; and the question of the holy places was at once, and as

this result has shown, unfairly interpreted as the forerunner of new and

more important pretensions,—as the continuation, in fact, of the plans

of his uncle, whose hostility to England he was supposed to have

inherited with his crown. It was at the moment of the invasion

panic—which was so far useful that it roused us to strengthen our

defences, and organise a naval and military force which we then little

thought would be employed against Russia—that the French minister at

Constantinople succeeded in obtaining immunities in favour of the Latin

church, of which France assumed to be the protector. We will not now

examine whether these privileges were of the exorbitant and unjust

character ascribed to them. It is sufficient that they were so

considered by Russia, and that the advantages extorted from the Porte

for the monks of the holy cities were understood as placing the Greek

communion in a condition of relative inferiority, and as realising a

triumph over Russia in those places where she had long reigned supreme,

and where she would brook no rival, much less a superior. From such a

quarrel between rival churches, with the dogmas of which we had nothing

in common, England properly kept apart, and France was left to find her

own way, unaided, out of the unpleasant position in which her agents had

placed her. No moment could be more propitious to Russia, ever watchful

as she has always been of dissension between the Western powers, and

ever ready to take advantage of it. The French Government soon saw and

met the danger. Its ambassador was recalled and disavowed. Explanations

were promptly and frankly given, and readily received; and M. de

Nesselrode himself, however disappointed or checked, was forced to admit

that these explanations were perfectly satisfactory, and that the

redress obtained in favour of the Latins was not of a nature to trench

upon the immunities of the Greeks. That admission completely closed the

question of the Holy Places, in which France was exclusively interested.

But scarcely had it terminated when the mission of Prince Menschikoff

assumed all at once a strange and startling aspect. It was soon seen

that the holy places were but the mask which covered pretensions of far

greater moment. The French Government, struck by the haughty and

menacing tone of the Russian envoy, quickly understood the true cause of

the vast military preparations of Russia, and became aware that they

were the prelude to a state of things which would endanger the

independence of the Sultan and the security of his states. It considered

that France was bound by the Treaties of 1841, to which she was a party,

as well as by her position in Europe, not to regard with indifference

the proceedings of Russia; and, as a precautionary measure, it ordered

the Mediterranean fleet to proceed on the 20th March to the Greek

waters, and to remain there until further events rendered a nearer

approach to the Sultan’s capital necessary. When that order was issued,

France alone declared its belief in the grave and threatening character

of the pretensions of the Czar. Austria affected to give credit to the

repeated assurances of Russian moderation, and continued to keep aloof;

and Lord Aberdeen, whose attention had been drawn by the public press,

and, no doubt, by his own agents, to the coming storm, could perceive no

cloud, no angry speck in the political horizon. The French Government,

as is proved by the despatches in the _Moniteur_, persisted in its

conviction that the most serious dangers were at hand; and that Russia

believed that the long-expected moment had arrived for realising her

traditional policy in the East—the annihilation of the Ottoman Empire,

or its absorption, by the process of previous degradation. France

considered that, under such circumstances, complete obstruction was

impossible, and that, so far as England was concerned, the necessity of

maintaining her maritime superiority ought to be a sufficient motive for

her participation in a more active policy. The instructions to M. de

Lacour, dated the 22d March, presupposed the adherence of the British

Government to that policy; the co-operation of the English squadron was

anticipated for months previously; and, in his despatch of the 3d June,

M. Drouyn de Lhuys presumed that the policy of the French Cabinet would

soon become that of the Powers who were equally if not more interested

than France in the maintenance of the Treaties of 1841. This energetic

conduct, and the conviction which began to creep over the slow mind of

Lord Aberdeen, produced some effect. On the 3d June the English squadron

received orders similar to those of the French, and at length it sailed

for Besica Bay. In the course of the same month, Austria and Prussia,

roused to a sense of the impending danger, mustered courage enough to

show symptoms of resistance to the pretensions of Russia, and in the

month of July these two Powers united with England and France in the

Vienna note, with the avowed object of maintaining peace. We are bound

to admit that throughout this operation the French Government acted in a

manner that redounds to its honour, and that subsequent events have

fully justified its original apprehensions and precautions. The Vienna

note was very properly regarded by the Divan as leaving a door open to

the encroachments of Russia. The instinct of impending danger rendered

the Porte more acute than usual, and its fears, which had been termed

puerile, were completely justified by the commentary of M. de

Nesselrode, who accepted the note for the same reasons that made the

Sultan reject it. The plenipotentiaries were confounded (or at least

affected to be so) on learning that the elaborate state paper, which had

been so carefully worded, and which had stood the scrutinising glance

and the keen criticism of the collective statesmanship of the Four

Cabinets, was, in point of fact, nothing less than the Menschikoff

_ultimatum_, which had been indignantly rejected by the same conference

that adopted the Vienna note. Matters now became more complicated and

alarming. The war which began to rage on the banks of the Danube, with

every prospect of a long duration, produced its fatal effects on the

commerce of western Europe; and as the hope of preserving peace became

weaker each day, the union of the four great Powers was found to be more

necessary. The consequence of this resolution was a new conference,

which opened on the 5th December 1853. The note of the 13th January was

the result. It was, no doubt, intended as the bond by which the Powers

pledged themselves to act together for the peace of Europe; for,

notwithstanding the suspicious conduct of Austria, it was clear that

she, even more than any other, was interested in resisting any attempt

to violate international law. The French Government acted throughout

this affair with much prudence, foresight, and loyalty. We have it on

record that Louis Napoleon and his Government saw from the commencement

the aim of Russia, and fully appreciated the grave and alarming

character of the events which were preparing in the East. The Emperor of

the French had, as we have said, been exposed to a great deal of obloquy

in this country. He had encountered the sullenness or hostility of our

Government; he had to contend with the intrigues of political parties in

France, the most selfish and unprincipled of all, the _Fusionists_; and

he exhibited throughout the sagacity which foresaw, and the judgment

which estimated, the full importance of the situation—as well as the

courage to face it. He who had been suspected of a design to trample all

obligations under foot, to disregard faith and honour, stood forth

boldly, first, and alone, to defend the inviolability of treaties; and

he summoned the nations of Europe to co-operate with him. Insulted by

suspicions of his good faith, and baffled in his attempts to conciliate

his enemies, he yet did not abandon the task he had undertaken. He at

length succeeded in bringing over England. Austria and Prussia, ever

timorous, hesitating, and slow, inclined to the manly policy of which

France had set the example, and the question of the Holy Places, which

had been confined to Russia and France, soon lost its original

character, and assumed another, which now interests and agitates the

whole of the European continent. We live in strange times! One of the

strangest events to which the Eastern question has given rise is, that

Napoleon III.—the “idiot,” as a noble lord in the present Cabinet was

wont to call him—the penniless adventurer, the man regardless of all

ties, of all faith, should be the person to remind the Conservative

Governments of Europe of the treaties they themselves had framed, and to

summon them to execute them faithfully. Louis Napoleon is no longer an

outcast; nor is France isolated. His alliance, on the contrary, is

courted; and among his former foes are some who find no terms too

extravagant to celebrate his disinterestedness and his loyalty. The

French despatches do honour to the sovereign who inspired, and the

minister who drew them up; and they are in every respect worthy of the

great nation whose title to our friendship is, that she has been the

most formidable and honourable of our enemies.

Foresight, moderation, and firmness are, as we have observed, the

characteristics of French policy in the Eastern question. In these

despatches we see the French minister anticipate the moment when

negotiation would become fruitless, and when all honourable mode of

arrangement would be rejected by Russia. In its earlier stages we find

the French ambassador in London, earnestly and repeatedly urged to come

to an understanding with the English Cabinet on the conduct which, in

such an emergency, it would be necessary to adopt. It is to the repeated

instances of M. Drouyn de Lhuys we owe it, that identical instructions

were given to M. de Lacour and Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, which

directed that the fleets should enter the Dardanelles if the Russians

did not evacuate the Principalities which they had invaded. Yet the

fatal hesitation of Lord Aberdeen may be traced even in the resolves of

the French minister. In the decided measure adopted by M. Drouyn de

Lhuys, there appeared an unwillingness to break off rudely with Russia.

In his despatch of the 1st September, that minister informs Count

Walewski, that the presence of the fleets at the entrance of the

Dardanelles—_outside the castles_—if demanded by the Porte—was rather a

measure of precaution against the weather, than an encouragement to the

Porte in its refusal to the reasonable demands of Russia. It may be that

such a declaration was with a view to allay any alarm which might be

felt by the German states at the onward movement of the fleet. We find

additional evidence of the unwillingness to occasion fresh embarrassment

in the cause assigned for the first appearance of a detachment of the

squadron before Constantinople. That pretext was the apprehension of

insurrection against the Sultan by the _Ulemas_, and the massacre of the

Christian population. We have no doubt that there was considerable

dissatisfaction manifested by the Turks at the delays of their

_soi-disant_ allies; and that there existed much irritation at the

conduct of the western Courts, who had advised the Porte to resist the

demands of Russia; excited it to use all the means at its disposal to

maintain that resistance; and who, when Turkey was left exposed to the

wrath of her formidable enemy, still lingered at the mouth of the

Dardanelles. But we look in vain for satisfactory proofs of the plots of

insurrection and massacre attributed to the Mussulman population, and

assigned as the cause of the presence of the fleets at Constantinople.

We regard the whole thing as one of those paltry subterfuges, of which

we find so many instances throughout this proceeding. Nothing was,

however, gained by it; and neither the Emperor of Russia nor the public

was deceived. The Christian population of Stamboul showed no sign of

apprehension, and we have reason to believe that they disclaimed, so far

as they were concerned, any such motive. The Turks were offended at

being accused of a crime which they had not contemplated, and outraged

by being falsely accused by Christians of treason to their own

sovereign. With the arrival of the fleets before Constantinople vanished

the danger of the Christians, of which, however, they were perfectly

unconscious; as also of the Sultan, who, though informed that the

vengeance of his subjects had placed his crown and life in danger, yet,

in all the consciousness of security, had not ceased for a single day to

appear in public, in the streets and public places where the population

is in greatest number;—that population which our Ministers pretended to

believe was watching the first favourable occasion to depose or

assassinate him. He never failed to pray at the stated hours in the

_mosque_, where the plotting _Ulemas_ and the fanatical _Softas_

explained or studied the Koran. Not only no insult was offered to him in

word, act, or perhaps thought; but his Highness was on all occasions

received with the same respect, reverence, and affection which

Abdul-Medjid, ever since his accession to the throne, has proved himself

deserving of.

The fleets having gone up for a special service, which they were not

called upon to perform, the next question was, what was to be done with

them, and where they should go next? An extract from the despatch of M.

Drouyn de Lhuys to Count Walewski, of 4th September, shows the anxiety

of the French Government to get as quickly as possible out of the

awkward position in which their assent to that contemptible policy

placed them. The French minister took up the matter with courage, and

like a man of business:—“The question now is to determine as to the

employment of our naval forces. The Emperor is of opinion that our fleet

is destined to play an important part in the defence of the Ottoman

empire. It might serve to cover Constantinople, and to operate, if

necessary, on the western coast of the Black Sea, as far up as Varna,”

&c. This plan was not, however, executed. Some difficulty arose on the

part of Austria and Prussia, and these powers did not think,

notwithstanding the intended massacre of the Christians and the

deposition of the Sultan, that the appearance of the combined forces in

the Bosphorus, much less their entry into the Black Sea, was

sufficiently called for. Whether right or wrong, their influence

arrested the further proceedings, which, if we are to credit M. Drouyn

de Lhuys, had been already contemplated by the Emperor of the French.

The fleets of France and England remained, therefore, in a state of

inactivity near the Golden Horn, and negotiations again commenced. New

collective notes were drawn up, and the idea of another quadruple

intervention, with, of course, a view to a pacific solution, was again

revived. The prospect grew brighter. The inexorable Czar appeared to

take pity on our Cabinet; to smile graciously on the minister of the

“_beau rôle_,” the gentle and confiding friend of Nesselrode. The

Emperor of Russia, whose preparations were not as yet complete, showed a

disposition to treat; and, false throughout, gave assurances that he

would not assume the offensive on any point. “Our latest intelligence,”

says M. Drouyn de Lhuys, so recently as the 15th December—“our latest

intelligence from St Petersburg is to the effect that Russia is resolved

to treat, and, above all, to adopt no offensive measures, and our

confidence in this may suffice to explain the inactivity of the fleets.”

But the pacific declarations of Russia, which we fear M. Castelbajac too

readily believed, were but the cloak under which the attack on the

Turkish squadron of Sinope, and the massacre which followed, were

concealed. With such a deed perpetrated at so short a distance from the

spot where the flags of England and France were floating together, the

fleets could not linger any more in the Bosphorus. They entered the

Black Sea, and what was termed _a policy of action_ commenced. Prussia

and Austria were startled from their propriety, but they still followed

on in the pursuit of that peace which, when nearest, always eluded their

grasp,—and

“Like the circle bounding earth and skies,

Allures from far, yet, as they follow, flies.”

The attitude of France and England became more decided, and at length,

after much hesitation, the Russian ambassadors were recalled from Paris

and London.

In the course of the long operation which preceded the rupture of

diplomatic relations, the judgment of M. Drouyn de Lhuys appeared

nowhere to greater advantage than in the accuracy with which he divined

and unmasked the real designs of the Czar in the matter of the Holy

Shrines, while our noble Premier looked on credulous and confiding. The

anger of the Czar, so much out of proportion to the offence, had, to be

sure, something suspicious in it, and to the uninitiated or unsuspecting

was utterly inexplicable. M. Drouyn de Lhuys knew well the cause of that

immense wrath. It was not on account of the miserable squabbles of Latin

and Greek monks that vast bodies of troops traversed the plains of

southern Russia, that stores sufficient for an immense army and for a

long campaign were accumulated in the magazines of Odessa, and that vast

preparations were made at Sebastopol.

The absorbing interest which attached to events in western Europe since

the revolution of 1848—the revolution which had convulsed nearly every

Continental state—had occupied the public mind to the exclusion of

everything else; and Russia availed herself of the storm which raged

everywhere, except in her own territory, to realise her aggressive

projects. Her political and religious influence had long been paramount

at Constantinople. The arrival of M. de Lavalette first threatened to

disturb that monopoly. Indeed, any allusion, however slight, to the

capitulation of 1741, instantly alarmed Russia; and Prince Menschikoff,

finding that the secret of the Czar was discovered, hastened to present

his ultimatum, with all the aggravating and insulting circumstances

already known. The French Government explained at length to the Cabinet

of St Petersburg the motives and the extent of the French demands with

reference to the Holy Places; but the Head of the Orthodox Church

refused to listen—he would bear no rival in the East. “There is

established,” said M. Drouyn de Lhuys in his despatch of the 21st March

to General Castelbajac, “an important political usage in Europe. It

consists in this, that the Powers interest themselves in common in

certain general interests, and overcome, by means of their diplomacy,

difficulties which at another period could only be terminated by force

of arms. Be so good, then, General, as to demand of M. de Nesselrode if

the Cabinet of St Petersburg, repudiating the principle which has

prevailed for thirty years in the relations of the great Powers with

each other, means to constitute itself the sole arbiter of the destinies

of Turkey, and if for that common policy, to which the world is indebted

for its repose, Russia means to substitute a policy of isolation and

domination which would necessarily constrain the other Cabinets in the

approaching crisis to consult only their own interests, and to act only

with a view to their private views.” Russia did not choose to comprehend

the full significance of that intimation; and though she herself had

often been among the first to solicit a European combination when there

appeared a chance of her deriving advantage from it, she yet haughtily

rejected the proposal when it crossed, or did not promote, her ambition.

Her great object was to treat with Turkey _without the intervention of a

third party_; and it was the arrogant manner in which she met the

advances of the Western Powers, or rather forbade them to meddle in what

she regarded as a domestic quarrel between a vassal and his master, that

attracted general attention to the question, and gave it a European

character. We find no point more strongly insisted on by M. Drouyn de

Lhuys, in his despatches to General Castelbajac, than not permitting

Russia to assume this exclusive right of dictating her will on the

Oriental question. It is superfluous to say that France had no intention

of excluding her from a fair share; but beyond that she would not go.

Fearing the probability of a cordial union between England and France—an

event which, so long as Lord Aberdeen directed the affairs of state, he

would not believe possible—the whole force of the Emperor’s policy was

directed to prevent it, or break it off if it had been already formed.

Heretofore the Czar had fully approved the conduct of his noble friend,

and we find more than once, in the papers laid before Parliament, the

warm expression of imperial gratitude. Happy minister! It falls to the

lot of few to be enabled to boast of such certificates of conduct as

those from Louis Philippe in 1846, and from Nicholas in 1853. It is true

that the excellent qualities so much admired rendered it easy for a

hypocrite to overreach, and an overbearing despot to insult, England.

The English and French alliance must be broken off at any cost. The

insults to the French Emperor, and the French people, were still ringing

in the ears of the public. The impertinencies of two members of the

Aberdeen Cabinet—the wriggling of miserable sycophancy which met with

the contempt it merited—when alluding to the ruler of France, were fresh

in the memory of all. The invasion fever had not been entirely allayed;

the old suspicions of the insincerity of the French Government, and the

jealousies and hatreds which had been dormant, might again be roused.

France must be isolated, and the partisans of the Orleans family, the

“Fusionists,” or by whatever nickname they are known, already exulted in

the shame which they invoked at the hand of a foreign despot on their

own country. The Chancellor of the Russian Empire brought all his

ability to the task. He accused France of ambition, and reproached her

with being the cause of the quarrel by her conduct in the question of

the Holy Places. The point was a sore one, as, however disingenuously it

was revived by Russia, it was nevertheless a fact that the quarrel

followed hard on the demands of M. de Lavalette. M. de Nesselrode, with

true Muscovite candour, omitted to add that he himself had expressed his

satisfaction and approbation of the fair and honourable manner in which

the French Government had brought that question to an issue. That

account had been finally closed. A considerable portion of the

despatches of M. Drouyn de Lhuys is taken up with a refutation of those

charges, and it is admitted on all hands that his refutation of them is

satisfactory and complete. With the history of Russian aggression for

the last century before us, the charge of ambition against another power

was strange in the mouth of a Russian minister. But the capitulation of

1741, which confirmed the previous immunities of the Latin communion in

the East, were not, after all, of a nature to offend or alarm any one.

The sort of protectorate which they established, was not menacing to any

power in Europe, inasmuch as they applied to establishments which were

under the protection of all alike; whilst the Greek protectorate was of

the most exclusive character, and, as has been shown in a previous

article, was not religious, but political, and aimed at placing the

whole Ottoman Empire at the feet of Russia.

Another point which M. Drouyn de Lhuys has handled successfully, is that

which relates to the difference in the measures adopted in common by

France and England, when affairs reached a most alarming point, and

those which Russia, in the impatience of her ambition, adopted, at the

very outset. In the despatch of the 11th June, General Castelbajac is

enjoined to apprise the Russian Government of the position in which it

was about to place itself with respect to the rest of Europe; to warn it

that it was grievously mistaken if it counted upon allies in the

realisation of its designs, and particularly upon the German states.

Indeed, it was not probable that these states would see with

indifference the Lower Danube in the possession of a powerful

government, which might at will obstruct its navigation, and at any

moment block up a commercial outlet of so much importance. The French

Minister clearly showed that the conduct of Russia was in opposition to

the general interests of Europe; and that the realisation of the

doctrines of the Russian Chancellor meant, in point of fact, the

subjugation of the weaker states to the will of one great power. The

replies of M. de Nesselrode are, of course, replete with the same

pacific declarations which had produced so soporific an effect on our

own Government, and with solemn denials of ambitious views, which

present a curious contrast with the warlike preparations which were

never for a moment suspended except by difficulties independent of the

will of Russia. It was soon seen that, _coûte qui coûte_, Russia was

determined not to give way. Smooth and hypocritical, like a thief at the

bar, who profits by the scantiness of the evidence at first brought

against him, earnestly to protest his innocence, she became bold,

insolent, and defying, like the same culprit when accumulated proofs

leave no doubt of his guilt. There are some despatches that have not

been inserted in the _Moniteur_, but we have little doubt that the

omitted ones are not less moderate, less firm, and not less

characterised by good sense and dignity, than those we have noticed; and

if any such doubt existed, the ultimatum, which was at once followed by

a complete rupture of diplomatic relations, would suffice to remove it.

Towards the close of December all was over. The massacre of Sinope had

taken place, and no further hope remained of obtaining any satisfactory

result from a power which, in its diplomacy as its hostility, appeared

to have all at once lost every sentiment of truth, justice, and

humanity. The autograph letter of the Emperor Napoleon is little more

than a summary of the despatch of the 25th December, of the notes

addressed to M. de Kisseleff before his departure from Paris, and of the

last letter of M. Drouyn de Lhuys to the French ambassador at St

Petersburg.

We believe the Emperor of Russia to have been led into his present

difficult position—a position from which escape, unless through a

disastrous war, seems almost impossible—by the erroneous information he

received with respect to the state of public feeling in France and

England, from “antiquated imbecilities” of both countries. In ordinary

times it would be no easy task to so impose on any person of

intelligence, even much inferior to that of the Emperor Nicholas; and

his facility of belief in the present instance can only be explained by

the social and political complications supposed to exist in a country

which has gone through so many violent changes. Under the regime of

Louis Philippe, the female diplomatists of the Rue St Florentin were

enabled to ascertain with accuracy, and communicate with fidelity, the

secret policy of the Tuileries. In the Russian _salons_ of Paris, the

centre of the more important _espionage_, were nightly assembled

ministers, ex-ministers, functionaries past and present, and, in fine,

all who, in official parlance, were supposed to represent France. The

secrets, the gossip, the scandal of every political coterie in the

capital, were discharged, there, as in one common reservoir; and were

thence transmitted for the information, or amusement, of the Imperial

Court of Russia. The ministers of the citizen-king were too eager to

propitiate the favour of the northern Court, to withhold their

confidence from any of the Czar’s agents, official or non-official. The

revolution of February rudely interfered with that machinery, directed

by a well-known _intrigante_. Attendance at a half-dozen saloons no

longer sufficed to obtain a knowledge of the state of the country.

Whilst a dozen dowagers of the old schools, and as many retired,

discontented, or broken-down statesmen, and a few amateur republicans,

were indulging in reveries of a restoration, or the re-establishment of

a convention, with its appendages of committees of public safety, the

dream was broken by the acclamations of millions, who bestowed absolute

power on the only man capable of saving them. The Cabinet of St.

Petersburg could not be expected to know more about the country than

those who had for so many years administered its affairs. The agents of

Russia beheld the struggle that had been going on so long among

political coteries, the selfish disputes of discarded placemen, and

their ephemeral and hollow reconciliations; and they supposed that,

because adventurers quarrelled, or political coteries made war on each

other, the nation was similarly divided. The diplomatic communications

of that period must be curious; and we confess we should like to be

permitted a perusal of the confidential correspondence of the well-known

_diplomate_ in petticoats, who for so many years was the pet agent of

the Czar, and for whom existence was valueless unless passed in the

atmosphere of political intrigue, to which it had been so long

accustomed. When speaking of confidential correspondence, we do not, of

course, allude to those indecent libels penned daily in the French

capital; and, we regret to say, with the knowledge, or under the

superintendence, of persons who, though known for profligacy in private

life, were the confidential companions and bosom friends of personages

whose praises we have heard, even to satiety, for austerity of morals,

and who are held up as samples of every public and private virtue. Those

chroniclers of scandal spared neither sex, nor age, nor rank. The

meanest agency was set to work to furnish amusement for the _Cabinet_ of

the Czar during his hours of recreation; and to record stories and

anecdotes in the style and manner of _Taillement des Réaux_, the _Œil de

Bœuf_, or the _Chevalier de Faublas_. With such unerring guides, it is

no wonder that the Czar believed that the propitious moment was come. It

was represented to him that the Court of Paris was more corrupt, more

profligate, than that of Louis XV.; that all France was impoverished,

degraded, and discontented, anxious to throw off the yoke of the

Buonaparte, eager to receive a sovereign flung to it by any foreign

despot; or, at all events, utterly incapable of resisting any

encroachment, much less avenging any insult from abroad. The ruler of

France, he was told, was overwhelmed by the difficulties that naturally

encompass every government in its commencement. His declaration of the

_pacific_ policy of the empire was but the unwilling avowal of his

weakness, and of his fears. The agitation of political parties, he

believed, ruined the country, though, since 1789, political intrigues,

secret societies, and conspiracies never were more powerless than at the

moment we speak of. The agents who thus instructed the Emperor of Russia

crowned those reports by depicting Louis Napoleon as apathetic, because

they saw him calm; as hesitating and timid, because they saw him patient

and moderate.

We have no doubt that the Emperor of Russia was led into similar error

with respect to this country. He was assured that it had become selfish

and apathetic from its unexampled prosperity; and that so opulent and so

sensual a nation would never expose itself, after so long a peace, to

the chances and the dangers of a long war, for the sake of maintaining

the integrity and independence of an empire whose people preferred the

Koran to the Bible. Their commercial prudence, the love of ease

engendered by opulence, the long period of time that passed since the

wars with the first Napoleon, the many important interests which have

grown up since then, religious antipathy—everything, in fact—indisposed

the English nation to interfere with his designs in Turkey. But the

presence in the Government of a statesman, recently so ridiculed and

insulted by those who were now his colleagues, believed to be a warm

admirer of the Emperor of Russia, and known for his cold hatred of the

Emperor of the French, was considered the most fortunate circumstance of

all; it was, at any rate, a guarantee against any favourable

understanding with France or her ruler. Letters, said to be from that

statesman, addressed to one of the former ministers of Louis Philippe,

were read in one of the principal Russian saloons in Paris, the most

notorious of all for intrigues, and the resort of the leaders of every

anti-national party. These letters, asserted to be genuine, are

described as having alluded in terms of the greatest contempt to the

person, the character, and the intellect of Louis Napoleon; and as

containing declarations that, under no circumstances whatever, could

England act with France so long as its present regime lasted. The scum

of the Orleanist agency were sent round to circulate the news, and

despatches addressed to St Petersburg repeated the same. The tone of a

portion of the daily press in England with reference to France seemed to

confirm those assurances, and to render the formation of a coalition

against the French Emperor, in which it was hoped England would join, by

no means a difficult nor an improbable task. The falsest of all these

calculations was unquestionably that which represented England as

labouring under an oppression of wealth, a plethora of opulence, of

which indifference, timidity, and inaction were the consequences. Yet

such is the description given of us to Russia by Orleanists, whose

incapacity and cowardice produced the overthrow of the dynasty of July.

The acquisition of wealth and power supposes the possession of great

energy of character; for those qualities we have been distinguished

above all other people. That we have not become wearied or satiated, the

events of each day that passes over our heads prove; and whatever be the

period at which we are destined to reach the declining point, and which

such scribblers as Ledru Rollin and the like maintain we have attained,

we ourselves believe that the fatal moment is still far distant. We have

shown energy without example, since the time of the Romans, in making

ourselves what we are; and we are ready to let the world see that we

know how to maintain the power which was supposed to have enervated us,

with more than Roman courage. With admitted social and political

evils—far less, however, than any other nation on earth—we have not

become corrupt or effeminate. It is not true that the extraordinary

development of our public and private fortune has buried us in that

shameful indolence which made the Romans so easy a prey to the

barbarians. Prosperity has not made us forget or disregard our rights.

The wonderful development of our railway communications and our steam

navigation, the extension of our commerce, the pacification of India,

the colonisation of Africa, ought to have shown the Emperor of Russia

that we have not yet fallen from our high estate in the political or

moral world. The mighty fleets and the gallant bands of warriors that

are even now conveying to him our answer to his insolent defiance, will

show him the magnitude of his error. Our courage and our activity, our

resolution in council, and our sternness in execution, are in proportion

to the grandeur of the interests we have to defend. Our decline, much

less our fall, has not yet commenced; and if any foreign or domestic

friend has persuaded Russia that we resemble the Romans in the latter

days of their empire, and that we are in a condition to fall a prey to

the barbarians, he is an idiot or a calumniator.

Nothing is now so clear as that the Emperor of Russia has been most

grossly deceived with respect to Turkey; but it is just to admit that

the error has been also shared by many who should know better. Prince

Menschikoff, during his short sojourn at Constantinople, had only time

to insult the Sultan and his government, but also time to rouse a spirit

of resentment and resistance. The backwardness of Turkey in civilisation

was taken as a proof of her weakness and her deficiency in moral

courage. But, with all her shortcomings, the old Mussulman spirit still

subsisted amid the ruins of her former glory. It has been said that

there are qualities which are effaced or destroyed by refinement, but

there are others which live without it, though the occasion may have

seldom occurred to call them forth. Turkish patriotism was regarded as a

byword, Turkish loyalty as a mockery; Turkish courage was more than

doubtful; and nothing remained of the daring valour which, in other

times, made Christendom quail before the Crescent, except that vigour of

faith which once distinguished the children of the Prophet: and even

that, we were led to believe, had degenerated into a brutal and ignoble

fanaticism, capable of vulgar crime, but unequal to a single act of

heroism. The arrogant envoy of Russia rendered an essential service, not

to his imperial master, but to his intended victim. His insults roused

the dormant spirit of the Mussulman. The Ottoman army was

undisciplined—unprovided with the commonest necessaries; the navy was

but the melancholy remnant of Navarino; the Sultan’s authority was

weakened by internal abuses and disorders; his territory dismembered by

the separation of Greece, and by the all but successful rebellion of

Egypt. Those to whom he looked for aid or protection against his

colossal foe were long cold, if not hostile to him; yet Turkey rose with

a courage and a dignity which have extorted applause, and won respect,

even from those who were most indisposed to her cause, politically and

religiously. She summoned her children about her; appealed, _not_ to the

relentless fanaticism of their creed, but to their manlier and nobler

instincts; and after making every sacrifice, every concession consistent

with self-respect, to appease or disarm her unscrupulous and faithless

enemy, who was bent on her destruction, drew the sword in the cause of

her independence. Whilst still uncertain whether she was to maintain the

struggle alone and unsympathised with, against fearful odds, she

advanced to the contest with a bravery worthy of better times, and with

a success which has astonished her friends as well as foes. The feelings

which Prince Menschikoff believed he could most safely outrage were

those which quickened the nation into life and vigour. The Emperor of

Russia was astonished at a result so different from what he was led to

expect. The advices which had reached him from his friends in London,

Paris, Berlin, Vienna, and Constantinople, were such as might have been

true some twenty years ago, but were false in 1853. France and England

were said to be divided, and likely to remain so as long as a Buonaparte

ruled the destinies of the former, and as long as Lord Aberdeen directed

the administration of the latter. France had become exhausted by

revolution, discontented with her new chief, demoralised, and rotten at

the very heart;—no remedy to restore her, till the Count de Chambord, or

the Count de Paris, was restored to the throne; and with England,

satiated and unwieldy with unwholesome prosperity, no desire remained,

no passion survived, but that of enjoying in undisturbed tranquillity

what she had hardly acquired. Count Orloff has learned something at

Vienna; but it does not appear that the lesson has much profited him or

his imperious master.

In these multiplied and intricate transactions, in which Russia was

alternately the deceived and the deceiver, there is one point in

particular to which we would direct the attention of our readers. We

allude to the claim made by the Porte to the intervention of the great

powers in its quarrel with Russia. It is a claim based on equity and on

international law, which it is impossible to dispute. Previous to 1841,

Turkey was hardly looked upon as forming part of the general combination

of European states in the settlement of any great international

question. Rightly or wrongly, the Turks were considered less as forming

an integral part of the European family of nations, than as an

agglomeration of various tribes of warriors, bound together only by a

common superstition and a common fanaticism; not rooted in the soil they

occupied, but merely encamped on the outskirts of Christendom. The

Treaties of 1841, which facilitated to France the resumption of her

place in Europe, after her separation the previous year, also admitted

Turkey to that general political association. That privilege or right

Turkey has not forgotten in her hour of need, as we believe she would

have done in her hour of prosperity; and in her appeal to the world

against the pretensions of Russia, she summoned Austria, France,

Prussia, and Great Britain, in the name of those solemn obligations, to

come to her aid. She maintained that her participation in what is

termed, in diplomatic parlance, the _Concerte Européen_, was recognised;

and she showed, we think successfully, that henceforth all questions

affecting the independence and integrity of her territory should be

brought before the great tribunal of European states, and not left to

the judgment of a single and an interested power. The principle of the

right claimed by Turkey was admitted by the Cabinets of Vienna, Berlin,

Paris, and London; and that recognition is manifest in the documents

that have been made public. In the note addressed to the Austrian

Cabinet on the 31st December 1853, we find this declaration:—“The

multiplicity of the relations and the alliances of the Sublime Porte and

of the European States, giving to it, in every respect, the right and

the faculty of participating in the community which binds these States

to each other, and to the security which they derive from them, the

necessity will be felt of confirming and completing in that sense the

Treaty of 1841, and for that it reposes on the friendly efforts of the

allied Courts.” And the allied Courts, in turn, declared, “that the

Russian Government, which invaded the territory of the Sultan, had

placed itself in opposition with the resolutions declared by the great

powers of Europe in 1840 and 1841. That, moreover, the spirit of the

important transaction in which Russia took part in 1841 with the other

powers, and with Turkey herself, is opposed to the pretension that the

affairs of the East should be treated otherwise than in common, and in

the conferences in which all these interests should be examined and

discussed. And it must be well understood that every such question must

be treated by _five_; and that it does not belong to _one_ or to _two_

cabinets to settle, separately or apart, interests which may affect the

whole of Europe.” The allies of Turkey also added, “that the Treaty of

1841, in the meaning of which all are this day agreed, is to serve as

the basis of operations. All the powers who have signed that treaty are

qualified to appeal to it. We present ourselves as the defenders of that

treaty, violated in its spirit, and as the supporters of the equilibrium

of Europe, menaced by the power which seemed, more than any other, to

have the pretension of constituting herself the guardian of it. The

cause for which we are armed is that of all.” That claim of Turkey to

form part of the European community is precisely the one to which Russia

is inexorably opposed. Its admission would destroy the monopoly of

interference and protection which the Czar wishes to maintain over

Turkey, and we need not therefore be surprised at the stern refusals

which the good offices of any other power have invariably encountered at

St Petersburg. Russia insisted throughout that the question only

regarded Russia and Turkey; it denied the right of any one to interfere,

except in advising Turkey to submit to her dictates; and to the last she

rejected all intervention or mediation. It is true that intervention

menaced the fundamental principle on which the traditional policy of

Russia is based; and the day that the Treaty of 1841 forms part of the

international law of Europe, the designs of Russia on Turkey are at once

arrested. Russia will then have lost all exclusive rights; and all

questions of public interest affecting the Porte must be treated by all

the states who have affixed their signatures to that important

instrument.

We are decidedly of opinion that the view taken by Turkey of the rights

created for her by this new state of things, is the correct one; and we

submit that the interpretation which gives the greatest effect to the

joint engagement of the four powers, is that which is most conformable

to the spirit and meaning of its framers. “The important act of this

Convention,” said M. Guizot in the Chamber of Peers, “is to have

included the Porte itself, the inviolability of the sovereign rights of

the Sultan, the repose of the Ottoman Empire, in the public law of

Europe. Therein is comprised the general recognition—the recognition

made in common, and officially declared—of the inviolability of the

sovereign rights of the Porte, and of the consolidation of the Turkish

Empire. It cannot be supposed that France would have refused to

facilitate by her adhesion the execution of that act.” “The

Turco-Egyptian question,” said the same minister in the Chamber of

deputies, “was settled—the question of Constantinople remained. What is

the object the policy of Europe has in view for a long time past with

reference to Constantinople? It is to withdraw Constantinople from

exclusive protection; to admit Turkey into our European law; and to

prevent her from becoming the Portugal of Russia. Well, then, a step has

been made towards that end. It is true that the Porte has not been

secured from ambition of all kinds—from all the chances of the future;

but, at all events, we have an official instrument, signed by all the

great powers of Europe, which admits Turkey into the European law, which

declares that it is the intention of all the great powers to respect the

inviolability of the Sultan’s rights, and to consolidate the repose of

the Ottoman Empire.”

There is no doubt that Russia is deeply interested in the possession of

Constantinople. It is equally certain that, whenever she becomes

mistress of both shores of the Bosphorus, she will, in an incredibly

short time, add to her present pre-eminent military character that of a

first-rate commercial and maritime power. The populations that would

then acknowledge the supremacy of the _Knout_ would be over eighty

millions; and the seventy millions of Christians professing the Greek

faith would bow their necks to the political and religious autocrat.

Russia would then indeed hold at her girdle the keys of the Caspian Sea,

the lake of Azof, the Black Sea, and the Mediterranean. The possession

of Syria and Egypt would before long follow, as a matter of course, that

of Turkey in Europe; and soon the fairest regions in the world, the most

fertile shores of that inland sea, would fall under her rule. A single

glance at the map will enable us to comprehend the magnificence, the

vast extent, of such an acquisition; and the mind may dwell with wonder

on the immensity of the new Russian Empire in Europe and Asia, and

anticipate the supremacy she would gain by the conquest of

Constantinople, which opens to her a path to the very heart of civilised

Europe. That Russia should make gigantic efforts, and risk, as she is

now risking, her rank as a first-rate Power, if not her existence, to

attain such an object, is not astonishing. The fair capital that stands

on the Bosphorus is the guarantee of the empire of the world. It is more

than the ambition of Alexander, of Charlemagne, or of Napoleon, ever

dreamed the realisation of; and if treachery or violence ever gives it

to Russia, the irresistible and universal domination of Rome over the

rest of the world, after the fall of Carthage, alone furnishes an

example of what Russia would then become.

Russia has, by the tolerance or apathy of Europe, been singularly

favoured since the seventeenth century; and she whose name was not even

mentioned in the Treaty of Westphalia, which defined the limits of the

great European states, has risen to gigantic proportions since then. She

has invariably availed herself, as she is now ready to do, of the

dissensions of the Western kingdoms; she has absorbed provinces and

nations of various tongues, religions, and races; and has opened her

way, through the territories of her neighbours, to the shores of two

seas. Her hand it was that put an end to the existence of Poland. It was

she that paralysed Sweden and Denmark; and it is by her that Persia and

Turkey have been pushed on to their ruin. The history of her crimes in

Poland is the same as that of her plunder in Turkey, Georgia, and

Persia; and the partition of the ancient northern kingdom is now to be

repeated with the Ottoman Empire. The means she employs are ever the

same;—menaces and caresses by turns;—attempts at exclusive

intervention;—a slow but steady system of dismemberment;—pretensions and

claims, as impudently advanced as they are unfounded; then apparently

withdrawn, postponed, placed in abeyance, seemingly forgotten, but never

finally abandoned; revived with hypocritical humility, or with

arrogance, according to circumstances; pretexts of quarrel of the most

imaginary and untenable kind; intimidation mingled with seduction.

Nothing is too bold, too base for her selfishness. Her princes and

nobles are spies; her princesses—worse. No profligacy is too gross, no

crime is too enormous, that advances by one inch the influence of “Holy

Russia.” War is undertaken for no other object than to arrive at

conventions ruinous to the conquered. Such is the hereditary policy of

Russia; such it has been since she first assumed a standing in Europe;

and we say it to our shame, that her unexampled success is in great part

owing to the selfishness of some, the exaggerated fears of others, and

the indifference and apathy of all the states of Europe. If England and

France had but pronounced a _veto_ in 1774, Poland might, with a

reformed constitution, and an improved administration, still be an

independent kingdom, and stand the barrier between the barbarism of the

north and the civilisation of the west. If the Western Powers had

directed their attention a little more frequently, and more earnestly to

Turkey, the events against which we are now preparing might not have

taken place. Even now, it is not too late; and we firmly believe that it

is in the power, as we have little doubt it is the desire, of Europe, to

arrest for many years the aggressive policy of Russia.

We have heard one argument advanced against our interference to save

Turkey from Russia, and which seems to have made a certain impression in

some quarters. We think the argument to be more specious than real; and

the only reason we notice it here is, because it has been dwelt upon by

persons whose opinions are in other respects entitled to consideration.

We are told that it is a shame and a scandal for a civilised and

religious nation to go to war in support of a barbarous and unbelieving

Government. If such an argument mean anything, it must mean that England

is to have no ally but such as can boast of equal civilisation, and

profess the same faith as ourselves. We deny that we go to war, and in

support of Turkey, in order to insure the supremacy of the Koran over

the Bible, of the Crescent over the Cross, of barbarism over

civilisation. We take the part of Turkey, not on religious grounds, but

on political; to prevent the extension of Russia in those parts of

Europe and Asia where her power would seriously endanger the vital

interests of Western Europe; to maintain what is termed the balance of

Europe; or, in other words, to prevent any one Power from growing to

such a colossal size as that all the others would be at her mercy. We do

not go to war to continue Mussulman barbarism, or to perpetuate the

despotism under which the Christian populations have groaned. The

conditions on which France and England afford succour to the Sultan are,

that the reform long since commenced by Sultan Mahmoud, and continued by

Abdul Medjid, shall be still further developed; and that the Christian

subjects of the Porte, whose condition has materially improved, shall be

placed on an equality with the Mussulmans. As well might it be said that

our wars in Spain had for their object the protection of the Roman

Catholic religion, the consolidation of the influence of the Pope, the

re-establishment of the Inquisition, or the perpetuation of the stupid

despotism of Ferdinand. We entered on the Peninsular war, not for such

objects, but for reasons similar to those which now lead us to the

East;—to rescue the Spanish territory from the grasp of a usurper, from

the power of a conqueror whose ambition of universal rule was not less

than that of Nicholas; to prevent the whole of Europe from falling under

the dominion of a single potentate. In this country we denounce the

doctrines of the Church of Rome as contrary to Scripture, and we, a

Protestant Government, employed its armies in defence of a nation whose

principle has been, and still is, intolerance of all other creeds but

its own, and against a Government which, whatever may have been its

faults, had not, at all events, religious intolerance among them. In no

country is the Roman Catholic religion made to assume a more odious form

than in Spain. We are told that the Turks speak of Christians as “dogs;”

but, in Christian Spain, English Protestants are actually treated as

dogs, or worse. We have seen, and this within a very few years, those

who fought, and bled, and died in the cause of Spanish independence,

flung, like offal, into a hole, or left to rot on the sea coast below

high-water mark. We have, within the last few months, witnessed the

tedious negotiations carried on between our Minister at Madrid and the

Government in whose cause our blood and treasures have been spent with

profusion, to obtain a secluded spot of earth wherein the bones of those

of our countrymen, who still labour to introduce civilisation into that

country, may be sheltered from pollution; and we have no cause to

rejoice at its humiliating conclusion. When we are told of Turkish

bigotry and intolerance, we would point to Madrid, to Naples, and to

Tuscany. Turkish honour and Turkish fidelity to engagements will not

suffer by a comparison with the Government of her most Catholic Majesty,

as we presume those Englishmen who have had anything to do with it will

be ready to admit. We are not of opinion that the barbarism of the Turks

is greater than that which may be found in many parts of the Spanish

peninsula; and those who have travelled into the interior of both

countries may bear witness to the fact that her Catholic Majesty’s

subjects, with the exception of the large towns, cannot be surpassed by

any others in ignorance, sloth, and bigotry. Corrupt as the Turkish

Government may have been, and badly administered as the country

unquestionably is, we doubt whether the general run of Spanish statesmen

have exhibited much more probity, integrity, and talent in government,

with all the advantages of our example; and, in the matter of private

morals, we think we could point out Spanish sovereigns who, with all

their piety and attachment to Catholicism, have not much to boast over

Sultan Abdul Medjid. We are not of opinion that, as respects mere

civilisation, the Russian serfs are superior to the Turks. We have no

evidence that Russia has made any improvement within the recollection of

the present generation; while it is undeniable that, within the same

space of time, Turkey had made, and is still making, material progress

in its administration. Since the time of Mahmoud, Turkey—though, of

course, still far behind France and England—has effected immense

ameliorations in all matters connected with internal navigation, with

her military and naval establishments, and her political and judicial

administration; and, from the great improvement that has taken place in

the condition of her Christian populations, we are confident that,

before long, she will realise the wish of Mahmoud, and those populations

will be placed on a footing of political equality with the Mussulmans.

We doubt whether all these things can be stated of Russia.

The Grand-duke Michael is said to have predicted the dismemberment of

the Russian Empire soon after the death of the present autocrat.

Whatever be the claims of that prince to the character of a prophet, it

is evident that Russia is now approaching a more important crisis.

Russia will give way, or she will not. If the former, her prestige is

gone, and the pettiest Continental kingdom may regard her with

indifference. If the latter, a more terrible fate may await her, for she

can scarcely resist all that is powerful in Europe combined against her.

Russia has been to Europe, for the last forty years, what a ball

remaining in an old wound is to the limb of a veteran. Every change of

temperature, the heat of summer, the cold of winter, produces uneasiness

and pain. The ball must now be extracted; the wound must now be entirely

closed up, that we may be all at rest.

Since the preceding pages were written, a “Confidential correspondence”

has been brought to light, which no longer leaves any mystery in this

once incomprehensible question. Our readers will find these important

documents, and the indefensible conduct of the Ministry in the matter,

fully discussed in the concluding article of this Number.

LIFE IN THE SAHARA.

Tired of poetical criticism, in which we last month so freely indulged,

and turning with satisfaction from the political disquisitions now going

through the press for the benefit of our sorely-perplexed countrymen, we

feel disposed, cutting both poetry and politics, fairly to fly our

shores, and recreate ourselves and readers in some less troubled quarter

of the earth. Among the host of new books on our table, redolent of

Cossack and Turk, Cross and Crescent, and here and there interspersed

with cabalistic-looking titles, which, we are requested to believe,

signify the “Doom of Turkey,” or the “Drying up of the Euphrates”—lo,

there peeps forth one of a more pacific hue. There, lustrous on its

boards, rises the feathery palm-tree of the Desert,—the Arab tent,—the

camel; and what an emblem of peace is that cross-legged Oriental,

smoking his long pipe, imperturbable as a statue! _Sedit æternumque

sedebit._ We open the book, and, amidst the intricacies of a very long

title, catch the piquant words—“Wanderings in the African Sahara.”[10]

How we feel the breezes of the Desert come around us!—the freedom,—the

expanse,—the wild novelty of the scene;—the heaving motion of the camel

beneath us,—the flashing spears and pennons of the escort, as they whirl

in mimic warfare around. Away into the Desert! with a sea of rigid white

sand beneath, and a twin sea of glowing light above! On, over the waste,

till the glare of day is done, and the cool breeze comes forth, and all

the stars of night,—and we kiss our hand to the moon “walking in

brightness,” and say, with Southey,

“How beautiful is night!

A dewy freshness fills the silent air;

No mist obscures, nor cloud, nor speck, nor stain,

Breaks the serene of heaven;

In full-orbed glory yonder Moon divine

Rolls through the dark-blue depths.

Beneath her steady ray

The desert-circle spreads,

Like the round ocean, girdled by the sky!

How beautiful is night!”

What mystery hangs over this last-born of continents! whose plains are

sea-beds, at whose vast upheaval the waters of ocean must have rushed

furiously in all directions to regain their level. A land of mystery,

from the days of Herodotus until now. How we long to join those yearly

caravans, which, after leaving behind them the whole northern region of

the coast, travel for sixty days southwards through the burning

Sahara,—reaching springs but once a-week,—crossing alternately now

mountain-ridges, now seas of sand; until, passing from oasis to oasis,

they at length penetrate into the region of Soudaan,—the heart of

Africa, the death-place of Clapperton, and Richardson, and Overweg,—and

behold the great central lake of Tchad, the most inaccessible point on

the globe, yet to within a few miles of whose shores the dying energies

of Clapperton brought a boat,—whose waters have been navigated by his

European comrade, and on whose bosom, perchance, that bark still floats,

with the flag of England flying from its mast!

Such were the quick musings of the moment of imaginative pleasure which

elapsed, as we cut open preface and contents, and plunged into the book

itself. In a trice, the argument of the book is plain to us. After a

residence of several years on the shores of North Africa—during which

time he seems to have mastered the various dialects of the Arab tribes,

and of course studied their manners—Mr Davis, the reverend author,

catches sight of an excellent opportunity for visiting the interior.

“Sidy Mohammed Bey,” he says, “the heir-apparent of the throne of

Tunis,—a prince possessed of excellent qualities, among which extreme

kindness and affability are not the least prominent,—was on the point of

making a journey into the interior, in order to regulate some public

affairs; and, upon application, he very kindly took me under his

immediate protection.”

On the sixth day after starting, they came to a good deal of broken

country,—traversed several dry beds of rivers,—and crossed a number of

rugged heights, rent into strange shapes. Marching through an opening in

one of these minor ridges, they passed at once from a beautiful plain

into the wild and ragged outskirts of the great chain of Gebel Waslaat,

celebrated for the warlike character of its ancient inhabitants. “At a

little distance,” says Mr Davis, “these famous and romantic heights have

a most lovely appearance, resembling the vineyards of Spain and of the

south of France;” but on a nearer approach, he found—as on many other

occasions during the expedition—that it was only distance that lent to

them their enchanting look. The Arabs of the coast look upon this region

as perhaps the blackest spot in all creation; and you may as well call

one of them a devil as a _Waslaati_. They relate that this part was at

one time inhabited by a very wicked people, and that the Pharaoh under

whom the Israelites were in bondage, and who received such signal

chastisement, was a native of these mountains. The Mohammedan doctors go

still further, and assert that it was upon this Gebel Waslaat that Eblis

(Satan) was hurled down, after his expulsion from the regions of light

and happiness; and that it was in these mountains that he took up his

first earthly abode.

Leaving these ill-omened mountains to the west, they journeyed

south-eastwards, for two days, through a plain, which, says Mr Davis,

“for this part of the world, must be pronounced a luxuriant one.” It is

pretty well cultivated, and is watered by a river which has its source

in the Waslaat mountains. They then encamped for a couple of days in the

vicinity of Cairwan, the “city of saints.” “At a short distance,” he

says, “this, like every other Mohammedan city of any note, has a fine

appearance, but as one approaches, its beauty vanishes. Crooked and

filthy streets, ruined and dilapidated houses, wretched shops and

miserable hovels, are too glaring not to attract one’s attention.” The

city is surrounded by a wall in pretty good condition, and has a

garrison of regular as well as of irregular troops. Outside are large

cisterns, supplementing the reservoirs with which the houses within are

furnished for collecting rain-water; and, still more remarkable, though

much less useful, the tomb wherein repose the holy remains of Saint

_Shaab_, “the Prophet’s barber.”

After a two days’ halt, they left behind them the plain of Cairwan, and

began to approach the borders of the Sahara. On the day after starting,

the Prince’s party was met by the “noble and highly-favoured” tribe of

Arabs, the Dreeds (who are allowed to sit in presence of a prince,

whilst every other Arab is obliged to stand), headed by their _kaid_ or

governor, Smeeda Ben Azooz. “Smeeda himself was mounted on a magnificent

grey steed, whose saddle appeared to be of a solid mass of gold, so

richly was it embroidered; and the other trappings were also sumptuously

adorned with gold and silver. He rode in advance, and the hundred Dreeds

who followed him were on horses not much inferior to that of their proud

and haughty chief. When within about a hundred yards of the Prince,

Smeeda dismounted, and approached on foot to kiss his hand. On resuming

his seat in the saddle, he took up his position to his master’s left,

whilst his attendants fell back in the rear of our party.”

The Prince was enthusiastically fond of hunting. Every day, when he had

the opportunity, he was engaged in it. The chase of gazelles was his

favourite sport, and it was one in which success was neither easily nor

frequently achieved. “It is a grand sight,” says Mr Davis, “to behold

these slender-limbed and feeble-looking tiny creatures defying the most

spirited horse in speed. When pursued, they actually often stopped to

nibble the grass,—as if to challenge the rider and ridicule his efforts,

and treat him, his horse and hounds alike, with contempt.” They were

frequently seen in companies of about twenty together. On the day after

Smeeda and his Dreeds joined the expedition, a great many gazelles were

chased by the Prince’s cavalry and the Arabs, but not a single one was

killed. This, it is alleged, was owing, firstly, to the rough and broken

character of the soil; secondly, to the burning heat which prevailed;

and thirdly, the shirocco wind, which sometimes, as it blew in their

faces, seemed as if it carried along with it flames of fire, and caused

the riders to check the speed of their horses. But to compensate the

party for their bootless efforts, Smeeda sent his servants for his

well-trained hawks.

“In half an hour about twenty of these birds of prey, of an unusually

large size, were brought, accompanied by several Dreeds, expert in

hawking. Smeeda,—who is rather a short, but very corpulent man, with a

handsome face, ornamented by a fine black, neatly-trimmed beard, and

most penetrating dark eyes,—was this day mounted on a beautiful white

horse, decked out with the same saddle and trappings his grey horse

exhibited the day before. The dress of the rider was elegant and rich

in the extreme. As soon as he had protected his hands from the talons

by gauntlets, partly covered with plates of gold, a hawk was handed to

him by one of his attendants. He undid the hood which confined the

head of the bird, and prevented his quick eye from beholding the

objects around. In an instant the hawk was seen soaring up to the sky.

Another and another followed, and in this manner about twelve or

fifteen were despatched. A few seconds elapsed, when one after the

other pounced upon his prey. Hares and rabbits, partridges and other

birds, were thus secured in abundance. The servants were busily

engaged running in all directions to secure both the hawks and the

prey,—the former, in order to adjust their hoods for a short time

previous to being despatched again; and the latter, ‘to cut the

throat’ before life is extinct, so as to render them lawful food for

the _true believer_.”

In connection with this love of the chase, we must mention an incident

which occurred as the expedition was approaching Cairwan, and which

shows how little prevalent is any rule but the “law of the strongest” in

those quarters, and how naturally men take to deceit as a refuge against

lawless force. Mr Davis and some others of the party came to

half-a-dozen Arab tents, where, to their great surprise, a general

stillness and gloom prevailed. The men and children sat on the ground

with an air of profoundest melancholy; whilst the women, usually so

active, were resting from their labours, and exhibiting grief by floods

of tears.

“‘What has happened, Ali, that you are all so much cast down?’ asked

one of our party, addressing an old man.

‘Such is the will of God,’ was the only reply.

‘But what has happened, Ali?’

‘_Maktoob_,—it is so preordained!’ answered the old man, shaking his

head, and clasping his hands.

‘Has any one died?’

To this he only replied with a sigh, and pointed us to the interior of

his tent. But instead of participating in his grief, my friend

abruptly asked him,—Where is the _sloghi_ (greyhound) of last year?’

‘How can you put such a question to me, when you witness my grief and

distress?’

‘Who, then, is dead?’ pursued my inquisitive companion.

‘My wife!’ replied the old Arab, again pointing us to the interior of

the tent, where apparently she lay, covered with a kind of blanket.

‘But what have you done with _the lovely_ (greyhound)?’

Old Ali now indignantly expressed his surprise that such a question

should be put to him at a time when his mind was so differently

occupied. He thought it manifested hard-heartedness, if not cruelty.

‘But are you sure your wife is _quite_ dead?’

‘Do not mock me, O Moslems!’