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CHAPTER II.

FOREIGN AFFAIRS.

AT the time when the Queen opened Parliament, the terrible war between France and Germany was drawing to a close. The beleaguered city of Paris was still closely invested by the German forces; but an armistice had been concluded for the purpose of enabling the French people to elect a National Assembly. A Government of Defence had subsisted from the time of the Revolution in the previous September, and with this authority the English Minister had maintained an efficient and harmonious correspondence.

The debates in the House of Commons upon the Address in reply to the Royal Speech were greatly occupied by criticism upon the conduct of Her Majesty's ministers towards the belligerents. Mr. Disraeli contended that the policy of our Government should have been a policy not only of neutrality, but of armed neutrality. Adverting to the original occasion of the quarrel, the candidature of a Prussian prince for the throne of Spain, and the withdrawal of that candidature in July, he said :

Her Majesty had done the Emperor of the French a great service; and if at that moment (in July) the business had stopped where it was, the Emperor of the French would have had a considerable diplomatic triumph. It would have added to the credit of his dynasty and position, and would have been owing to the mediatorial influence of the Crown of England. When the ambassador of the Queen therefore went to the Emperor of the French and announced that he had succeeded in his difficult and important office, and the Emperor, notwith

standing his appeal to the Queen to use her influence, and notwithstanding that Her Majesty had used her influence successfully the Emperor said: I will nevertheless proceed on my own course;' Lord Lyons should have declared: This is an outrage on the Crown of England, and I am instructed to tell you that if you thus discard the result of the Queen's intervention, and if this is the mode in which you express your gratitude for the successful exertions of the solicited influence of our Sovereign, you must take the consequences. I do not say that we are going to throw ourselves into the fray, but the neutrality we shall observe will be an armed neutrality.' If that had been the case, I do not believe there would have been

war.

Mr. Gladstone replied:

The right hon. gentleman says we did not use energy enough. I want to know what it was we were to do. Well, we were to go to the French, and we were to say: 'If you exercise your own free discretion towards Prussia as to what is or what is not sufficient reparation, that will be an outrage upon the Crown of England.' When the right hon. gentleman had used that strong phrase, he immediately felt that from such a phrase there would arise a presumption that we were to go to war, if necessary, in support of that strong language; but he disclaimed the intention of going to war in support of it. We were to have told France that she was inflicting an outrage upon the Crown of England, but we were to abstain from saying that that outrage would be resented on our part. And that is what the right hon. gentleman calls a recommendation to use greater energy than that which we used. We were to have said to France-I am quoting the words of the right hon. gentleman-You must take the consequences;' and France might have safely taken the consequences according to the right hon. gentleman's position, for the consequences were not to be war, but they were to be our high displeasure -consequences which I think it very possible a people much less powerful and high-spirited than the French would have been perfectly content to take in resenting an unwarranted and excessive intrusion from a foreign Power into a province which was not its own. It is not the question whether France was right, or whether she was wrong. In mild and friendly terms we did state that in our judgment she was wrong in not accepting the withdrawal of the candidature of the Prince of Hohenzollern; and having done that, we felt that we had

discharged our whole duty, and in discharging our whole duty had exhausted our whole right.'

A subsequent part of the speech deserves quotation for its historical value. It is a concise, authentic account of the various diplomatic efforts of the Queen's Government to effect a reconciliation between the two belligerents:

We began, as the House knows, by endeavouring to procure the withdrawal of the candidature of the Prince of Hohenzollern; and in that endeavour, acting in concurrence with others, we were successful. We then ventured to disapprove the demand made by France upon the King of Prussia (now Emperor of Germany) for a prospective engagement, and there it was our misfortune to fail. We then appealed to the Treaty of 1856, and endeavoured, in a practical form, to set up the wise doctrine that the disputes of States ought to be referred to some competent tribunal for settlement. But we did not obtain a hearing. After the war broke out many questions still arose --scarcely a week or a fortnight indeed passed without them— upon which we had to consider nice matters for interventionI mean intervention by request or expostulation. I need hardly say that all we have done has been done with a perfect and absolute impartiality. The first appeal addressed to us in the course of the war was made by Germany with a view to induce us to favour to the utmost of our power arrangements, not perhaps strictly justifiable upon the bare ground of neutral obligation, for the transit of wounded soldiers through the territory of Luxemburg. Of course we could do nothing to extend unduly the rights of neutrals, or disparage their obligations. This was an appeal to humanity We have endeavoured to bring the parties together. I shall not dwell on the efforts which we made to bring about the conferences which resulted in the meeting between Count Bismark and Jules Favre, or that which was held with M. Thiers. We did perhaps stretch a point, but in language so respectful that no objection could be taken, in expressing an earnest desire thus only making ourselves the mouthpiece of universal humanity that the extreme measure of bombardment should not be had recourse to against a magnificent and beautiful city. And perhaps, when we take into account the great severity

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by which the war has been characterised, we have less to lament with respect to this point than with regard to many other subjects, notwithstanding that a great deal of alarm and exasperation was created. We ventured, I may add, to favour, so far as we might in friendly communication with the Government of Defence in France, those plans for calling together an Assembly fully authorised to represent the nation, which are only now about to reach their consummation. We ventured to point out that little good was likely to arise from the multiplication of abstract declarations with reference to the terms of peace, as they would probably operate rather in the way of obstacle than the contrary. My noble friend, Earl Granville, endeavoured with the utmost persistence to cause that France should be represented in the Conference which is now sitting in London; and it is a matter of great regret to us that this endeavour has failed. And lastly, perhaps I may say, in regard to political measures, we ventured to suggest to the Government of Germany that it would be conducive to the general welfare, if they found themselves in a condition to make known to the world what were the terms of peace which they deemed to be required, having regard to the honour and safety of their country.

The discussion was renewed in various forms on several subsequent occasions. On the 19th of February Mr. Auberon Herbert moved a resolution expressing an opinion that 'it is the duty of Her Majesty's Government to act in concert with other neutral Powers and withhold all acquiescence in terms which might impair the independence of France or threaten the future tranquillity of Europe.'1 All the independent members who took part in the debate, with the exception of Sir Robert Peel, affirmed the policy of the Government in abstaining from forcing its friendly offices upon the belligerents, who had repeatedly shown a disinclination to accept them. For example, Mr. Julian Goldsmid, in a very able speech, insisted

That the duty of Her Majesty's Government was, instead of expressing an opinion, to refrain from expressing an opinion

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which they did not think likely to be acted upon. He maintained that the action of the Government was in accordance with the wish of the great majority of the people, who desired that this country should abstain from interference in the war, which, on the one side and the other, was a war of conquest. The origin of it, as it appeared to him, rested in iniquity. The object of the war on the part of France was at the beginning conquest; and on the part of Germany afterwards the subjugation of France and the appropriation of entire provinces.1

The motion of Mr. Herbert was withdrawn, in deference to the general wish of the House, and the statement of Mr. Gladstone, after observing that, as a condition of the most friendly and apologetic intervention, the least you can require is that it should be agreeable to and desired by one of the two belligerents,' added that, according to the latest information of the Government, neither belligerent desired that we should take out of their hands what they appear to think, and as it seems to me rightly, their own franchise-namely, that of comparing their views.'

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The truth is that, from the beginning to the end of the war, both France and Germany told us plainly, or at least with all the plainness which is possible in diplomacy, that they would have none of our counsel. Once, and only once, we intervened between the parties, and persuaded the King of Prussia to disavow the candidature of the Hohenzollern prince for the Crown of Spain. When that pretext for a rupture with Prussia was at an end, the Emperor Napoleon still resolved, despite our remonstrances, to go on with the struggle which ultimately cost him his throne. Mr. Gladstone has showed that the most cautious and friendly advances by the British Go vernment were repulsed, the most modest attempts at mediation instantly resisted, by both parties. We were told in unmistakeable terms to stand aside and suffer

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