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APPEAL OF A PROTESTANT
TO THE POPE
TO RESTORE THE
LAW OF NATIONS.
REPLY TO SIX QUESTIONS
ON THE
BUSINESS FOR THE ANNOUNCED
SIXTH LATERAN COUNCIL.
BY
DAVID URQUHART.
“ When the true notion of Justice becomes obscured, material force
takes the place of Right.”—Pius IX.
LONDON:'
DIPLOMATIC REVIEW OFFICE,
24, EAST TEMPLE CHAMBERS,
1868.
�This exposition arose out of an application to the
writer to put down concisely the substance of several
conversations.
The heads were given as follows:
“ 1st. The former universal observance of Interna
tional Law.
“ 2nd. Its present total disuse.
“ 3rd. The absolute necessity if Society is to be saved,
of a general reacknowledgment of International Law.
“ 4th. The Catholic Church, with the Pope at its head,
the only power capable of enforcing this.
“ 5th. The approaching General Council the occasion
for doing so.
“ 6 th. The means to the end being (in part) the for
mation of a Diplomatic College at Rome.”
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL, &c.
The Priory, January 18, 1868.
If it were possible to be concise it would be superfluous to
write. What I have to say every one formerly knew. They
do not know to-day, because of the fallacious terms and erring
propositions, which form the sum of every man’s intellectual
being.
The removal of these—the unteaching—is the work. It can
only be done by conversation. If made in writing, the attempt
must consist in more than statement or indication. The case
itself would be all contained in these words : “ Do what is right,
“ you who have no interest in doing what is wrong.”
1st
and
2nd.
PASSAGE FROM LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
The two first questions resolve themselves into one. It cannot
be said that the Law of Nations was formerly universally ob
served; nor that at the present time it has fallen into total
disuse. Both questions are directed to obtaining a definition
as to that portion of the public Law which has been disregarded,
and to fixing the limit of time at which such change has
taken place. It is in this manner, therefore, that I shall give
my answer.
The Law of Nations is a Code which regulates the intercourse
of communities, as if they were individuals. The difference be
tween an individual and a Nation consists only in number,
leaving rights, duties, and obligations precisely the same. In
a 2
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the one and the other case, all Law is founded on the Ten Com
mandments, and specially on the four:
Thou SHALT NOT kill.
Thou shalt not steal.
Thou SHALT NOT bear false witness.
Thou shalt not covet.
All which Commandments are broken collectively when a Nation
makes war upon another, without necessity, without just cause,
and without due form. That is to say, when it makes war with
a deliberate purpose of doing wrong, that wrong consisting in an
invasion or attack, which cannot be made without killing inno
cent individuals, without robbing and destroying their property.
Then these acts must of necessity be accompanied by alleging
falsely against the innocent guilty acts, and coveting that which
belongs to them.
The purpose to commit those things must exist somewhere
when they are committed. That purpose need not co-exist nu
merically with the community; it may be confined to a few, or
even to a single individual; it will be found in the brain of the
community, wherever that brain happens to be. Nevertheless,
the guilt is common to all, because it is the result of their acts,
whether perpetrated by their hands, or accomplished through
the taxes they contribute, and the assent which they give.
And as this co-operation and assent, in so far as it is blind, can
result only from the resignation of judgment in regard to
matters affecting religious conscience and political duties, the
guilt becomes twofold. Such a people is at once a felon and a
slave.
No war is made except in so far as one of the parties to it has
been reduced to this condition. When such an event has oc
curred, some one people has been thus guilty: whilst some other
people, resisting the crime, has become the protector of public
and private innocence and liberty throughout the World.
That the Law shall cease to be appealed to by the State that is
attacked, is the lowest condition to which humanity can be re
duced; it is the destruction of all human Society. It is our
present condition.
No nation can proceed honestly against another, save for acts.
It must suffer from these acts. Otherwise it cannot come into
court. It cannot proceed to pass sentence on such acts, and to
carry that sentence into execution by levying wrar, until it has
exhausted every means for obtaining redress or security, and has
thus put beyond the possibility of doubt or even cavil, the
existence on the earth of a Power resolved and prepared to dis
turb the repose of the human race. Such must be the course,
without any enactment, of an honourable or a wise nation. This
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
5
also is what the law prescribes. This is the law and rule which
each people has to enforce the observance of, on its own Govern
ment. In this consists and is shown its domestic liberty. In
this resides the means, and the only means, of preventing wars
and preserving peace; that is to say, of preserving it when not
broken by a real necessity, such as the incursion of barbarous
tribes or the outburst of some military genius at the head of a
great martial people, itself alone superior to all its neighbours.
These are the rare but sole contingencies on which the know
ledge of the law by the various communities, and the enforce
ment of it on their sovereigns and his servants, would not suffice
for the preservation of peace. All the recent wars of Europe
have arisen solely from the cessation of this restraint; in other
words, from the absence of integrity in the men composing these
communities.
It may be useful to quote an instance :
A country (Hanover) can be invaded in full peace without
declaration of war, without ground or pretext of any kind on
which to found such declaration, there having been no act what
ever done by it. It can be, thereupon, conquered (through a
succession of military treacheries) and incorporated with an
other, while the rest of Europe remain unmoved witnesses of
the crime. The victim makes no appeal to the Law !
This can only be because the law is dead. The other nations
have not remained silent; they have applauded. They are led,
having lost the standing ground of integrity, by mercenary
writers of daily comments. This can be done, because the assault
of one body on another, having ceased to be judged of on its
own grounds, is judged of on other grounds which have no
connexion with the case itself. These grounds consist in the
emotions of each man’s mind, and may be resolved into and
classed as speculations on ethnography, on philology, on geography,
on forms of government, on dogmas of religion, out of which he
draws conclusions and says, “ This people shall be united to or
“ dissevered from that people ; this king shall reign in that
“ country! such country shall expel its king, and have a re“ public; that country shall abrogate its republic, and have
“ a monarchy. This being my desire, whoever achieves it is
“ an estimable person, and whatever means he adopts are good
il means.” Thus it is that at any and every moment the occasion
is open for the employment of the last resort of man—blood
shed. For bloodshed no reason whatever need now be offered;
no wrong need have been done, attempted, or so much as
dreamt of.
Here is the test by which to separate the base from the
Upright. Every man who, being himself upright would stop
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evil ancl reclaim his fellow-man, must discipline himself so as
to be able to convince and convict, by showing each man with
whom he converses that, in so far as he pursues a speculation
and indulges in desires in reference to the affairs of other people
with whom he has no business, he lives without law and without
faith in the world; and lends his aid, so far as it can go,
to that universal trouble, out of which will, in due course, be
brought the domination over all of one grinding political and
religious despotism. So true is it that the Law is the foundation
of States and the only security for peace and goodwill among
men, that when it becomes obliterated, as it is to-day, nothing
can be held permanent or secure, not even their own opinions.
This deplorable condition springs from the perversion of lan
guage through the use of false and ambiguous terms; thence
the unbridled passion for destruction. Whatever is not ourselves
is hateful to us, from overweening vanity and presumption in
regard to what we imagine ourselves to be.
It is not only that the truth is hateful to them; it is con
temptible. They despise it quite conscientiously, when by the
rarest of chances, any of them hears it. Thus you say to a man,
“ Bloodshed without cause is murder, no less on the battle-field
“ than in a dark alley.” He answers, “ Oh, you must be a
“ Quaker, and will have peace at any price.” You answer him,
“ I did not speak of peace, which is a consequence; but of
“ crime, which is the cause, and of justice, which is the remedy.”
He replies, “ Oh! all wars are unjust.” He does not see that he
is confounding the commission and the punishment of crime,
and substituting felon for judge, and judge for felon. If, by
management, you at last succeed in showing him his error,
instead of being rejoiced at being emancipated from it, instead
of earnestly and hopefully entering on the new field thus opened
to him, he is only angry because proved to have been wrong,
and has no thought save that of afterwards misrepresenting to
himself that which has passed, and of reviling to others the
person from whom he has heard it. Thus it is that the truth
cannot be known. Unless shame and repentance come with
sight, blindness is not removed. This period of compunction
and of shame has passed for our age, save for very powerful
minds, very young persons, or exceptional cases of remarkable
conscientiousness, which suffice to conquer the universal passion
of self-love.
Those who are the depositaries of this truth have, therefore,
to undergo a life of trial; suffering in the sight of the uncon
sciousness around them, pain in every attempt to remove it, selfreproach in every possible occasion unemployed, persecution as
soon as the nature of their thoughts and character is appre
hended.
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
7
Physical truth (discovery) is gratifying to the investigator,
and is accepted with gratitude by the rest. Moral truth is the
discovery of error in all, and is hateful to those to whom it is
presented.
What the desire of food is for animal nature so is for the in
tellectual being the desire of being right. That is, it is the main
spring on which all depends. Each virtue has its corresponding
vice : this, which is not a virtue, but the source of all virtue,
must, therefore, have in its counterpart the source of all evil.
That counterpart is the fear of being found out to be wrong; in
other words, the desire to appear to be right. This condition is
expressed by the word self-love. To say, then, that this is the
character of an age, is to express the very worst condition to
which a people can be reduced. The sign of it is offence at
being told that they are wrong. It is conscience, the stay of
integrity, perverted so as to become its enemy. This is the
evil of our times, and it must be boldly looked in the face and
known to be the real enemy we have to combat, concealed
behind all the disguises it puts on of political opinion, philoso
phical maxim, and religious pretence.
When an individual murder is committed, the heart of every
man is moved; human indignation is at work to trace, detect,
and punish. The extensive organisations of police, criminal and
legal functionaries, pursue the guilty as a business and a trade.
The conscience of the guilty is itself at work, paralysing his pro
ceedings, betraying his steps, pursuing him during his defence,
and finally overtaking him on the scaffold or the death-bed.
What prevents these safeguards from exerting their power in
the case of multiple murder ? It is only that it is not seen to
be so. It is not so seen from the progressive servility of decay
ing nations before power; whilst neither secular nor religious
instruction has applied itself to inform them in childhood as to
the nature of crime and sin in this respect, and so brought them
up as just, virtuous, or even conscious men.
That association in India known by the name of Thugs pre
sent a striking and instructive analogy. Amongst these persons
the same sense existed as to individual murder that in modern
Christendom exists as to aggregate murder. A Thug, reverting
to the sense of crime in such acts and endeavouring to convict
his fellows of guilt, would have stood in reference to that com
munity in exactly the same position as an inhabitant of
modern Europe in making the same attempt in reference to his
contemporaries. Such a person will in vain appeal to the com
mon religion of the land, any more than to the common instincts
of humanity.
The picture is, however, entirely reversed if such words are
spoken by the highest religious authority, recognised already by
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PASSAGE FROM
millions as the vice-regent of God upon earth. The offence ceases
for them, at least, and all will exclaim, as at the Council of
Clermont “ Died le veut !” It is the will of God that there
be peace on earth and goodwill among men, which can be onlythrough justice. St. Paul preached the kingdom to come, but
he first preached of <( judgment and justice.”
The first step backwards and out of this labyrinth of darkness
consists in regaining a clear and distinct perception of the various
acts which we include to-day under the general term War, and
of those other acts to which the term no ways applies, but which
we equally include under it.
Wars have to be classed under three heads. First, necessary;
second, just; and third, lawful.
An unnecessary war may be one to which the character of
just also applies—that is, when the Declaration has been had
recourse to, without the other preliminary steps which might
have forced the adverse party to do justice, or when the requi
site business-like capacity has not been employed, to bring the
negotiation to a fortunate issue. Thus, when Mr. Disraeli
called the Russian war of 1854, “ This most just and most un
necessary war,” the idea was presented of a war that might have
been just had the means been adopted which should have ren
dered it unnecessary; implying, that though just by occasion
being given for it by guilty acts on the other side, it wTas so no
longer, when on our side the available means had not been taken,
either to prevent the acts of which we complained, or to force the
satisfaction which we demanded.
An unjust war is one in which that is demanded which we
have no right to claim, and the adverse party is under no obli
gation to concede. Such, for instance, as the war against
France in 1806, which was made after the adjustment of all
matters respectively affecting England and France; and when,
thereafter, England made further demands, unjust in them
selves, and put forward by a third Power (Russia). The re
course in such a case is to the constituted authorities of the
State against the Ministers ; but the formalities being observed,
such as the statement of the case (Rerum Repetition, the announce
ment of the Penalty (ultimatum), the Record in Chancery, the
Proclamation to the Subjects, the Denunciation to the Enemy,
and the Commission to “ kill, burn, and destroy,”—the military
oath of the soldier is saved, and weapons can be drawn and used
lawfully.
The third case is that which, being unnecessary and unjust,
has further been made without the due and above-stated forms;
and where, therefore, there is no warrant for the use of weapons.
Any man so using them exposes himself to the last of penalties,
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
9
not only as regards the State assailed, but also as regards the
criminal and martial laws of his own country.
*
As regards the
world, this is piracy; as regards the country, it is the levying of
private war. When any case arises under it in our courts of
law, it will be disallowed, as carrying no legal consequences, as
was shown in the first Chinese war.}
Unlawful Wars have happened in the history of mankind; but
they have been of the rarest occurrence. Consisting chiefly of the
outbreak of hordes who have devastated extensive portions of
the Earth, they may be considered rather as convulsions of nature
than as operations of man. These cases have been indeed con
sidered by jurists, but only to dispose of them in a phrase to the
effect that they do not constitute war, but consist simply in
robbery and piracy.
Every man engaged in such enterprises is liable to be dealt
with, and ought to be dealt with, as a pirate; that is to say, hung
without trial if taken with arms in his hands. Thus it was that,
when Geneva, in 1602, was attacked without Declaration of
War by the Duke of Savoy, the inhabitants of that town
hung upon its walls every Savoyard they had captured. Stress
is laid upon The act by the Jurists, specially by Vattel, as a
precedent of authority. It is particularly noted that no attempt
at reprisals was made by the Duke of Savoy, and that a general
assent on the part of all Nations followed this display of vigour
and of justice, by which has been preserved the independence
of that small State.
.Unlawful Wars, when they did occur otherwise than as the
migrations of hordes were treated exactly as piracy on the high
seas, or the enterprises of Bandits in a forest; or as murders and
robberies in Town or Country.
It is to the latter category that belong the operations of fleets
and armies in this age. It may, therefore, be designated as that
of lawlessness. Those who receive and execute the commission
to murder and to rob are not aware that they are doing aught
* “ At the table of the Commander-in-Chief, not many years since, a young officer
entered into a dispute with Lieutenant-Colonel------ upon the point to which military
obedience ought to be carried. 4 If the Commander-in-Chief,’ said the young officer
like a second Scid, 4 should command me to do a thing which I knew to be civilly
illegal, I should not scruple to obey him, and consider myself as relieved from all
responsibility by the commands of my military superior.’ 4 So would not I,’ returned
the gallant and intelligent officer, who maintained the opposite side of the question.
I should rather prefer the risk of being shot for disobedience by my commanding
officer than hanged for transgressing the laws and violating the liberties of my
comtry. 4 You have answered like yourself,’ said His Royal Highness, whose attention
had been attracted by the vivacity of the debate ; ‘ and the officer would deserve both
to be shot and hanged that should act otherwise. I trust all British officers would
be as unwilling to execute an illegal command as I trust the Commander-in-Chief
would be incapable of issuing one.’ ”—Sir Walter Scott's Memoir of the Duke of York.
I See case of Evans v. Hutton.
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PASSAGE FEOM
amiss, and those who suffer are not aware that they can protect
themselves by inflicting on the criminals their due punishment.
It is by the abstaining of the sufferers, through the loss of the
sense of law in their own breasts, from hanging the pirates who
assail them; and, on the contrary, treating them when captured
as innocent and honourable men, that is, as prisoners of war,
that that judicial blindness has fallen on the eyes of all. As
violence is not summed up in its particular performance, but
assumes to establish a despotic authority over the human race, so
is innocence when assailed invested with supreme attributes, if it
duly performs its duty of protest, resistance, and punishment. It
is in this sense that the maxim of Roman law — Justice is in
the keeping of the injured — receives its counter-application in
the present day.
Each of these crimes does not spring from the active pre
sence of so many millions of individual passions hurrying them
on. It springs solely from two causes: 1. Blind obedience to
the Executive; 2. Absence of penalty from the injured.
Having thus circumscribed the field, a very encouraging con
sideration presents itself. It is that of its simplicity. To ap
prehend it, neither legal, constitutional, diplomatic, nor historical
studies are requisite. The simple instincts of the most illiterate
of men suffice to embrace it and apply it. It only requires to be
stated to be accepted by all. There may arise difficulties in
reference to the means of rectification; but there can be none
as to the consequences to the human race, unless the remedy be
found.
As to the period of this momentous change, it cannot be fixed
to a year and by an event; it being in the course of nature that
change should be progressive. Unnecessary and unjust Wars
had long to be made and often repeated, before the new course
of ferocity became easy or possible. It may be needful severally
to trace these steps: and the more so, as the people of this
country is entirely ignorant of the acts done by itself.
As regards England, the first great disturbance took place
under the influence of polemical hatreds, and in connexion with
a Revolution, a change in the Succession of the Crown, and the
establishment on the throne of a Foreign Prince. This was the
war of the Spanish Succession. It arose out of a treaty in
which, for the first time, the legal and constitutional element
in an International proceeding, though not openly set aside, was
virtually extinguished. The signature of the Lord Chancellor
was appended to the blank parchment, which so transmitted to
William III., then in Holland, was filled in at his arbitrary
pleasure. To have protected this Empire, and with it Em-ope,
from the consequences of this crime, it would have been
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
11
requisite to have put Lord Somers on his trial for his life. This
course not having been adopted, this first step was followed by
others in the same direction. All legal and all constitu
tional checks were successively withdrawn, whether as to the
making of wars, whether as to the negotiating and signing of
compacts with foreign States, out of which war arises. Simul
taneously the Royal functions were withdrawn from the super
vision of the body through which alone “ they could be exer
cised” and remitted to the disposal of an illegal body, to which
the designation of “ King’s Cabinet” was affixed. It is now
most falsely and most fatally held that the signing of treaties
and the making of war belong to the Royal Prerogative; whilst
such Royal Prerogative is held to be duly exercised, not by the
King in Privy Council, but by the accidental body brought
into power by a parliamentary majority, and which is called the
Cabinet.”
The wars, from that of the Spanish Succession, have been,
like it, unnecessary and unjust without exception, whilst, in carry
ing them on, the real power of England, in her naval means,
has been restrained rather than employed, by the successive
holders of office. But down to the close of the great wars of
the French revolution, a remnant of respect and of decency had
so far prevailed, that such forms as were of absolute necessity
to guard the consciences of soldiers and sailors were observed.
The warrant for destruction accompanied hostilities, and the
orders to kill, burn, and destroy were duly issued.
It is, then, since the European wars ceased, that commences
the era of uncloaked brigandage. The first incident (Navarino)
took place in 1827, which, though originating in a lawless treaty,
was not followed up by other operations (at least by England),
and was explained as the result of a mistake.
We have to come down eleven years nearer our own day for
the first positive and complete case of a buccaneering expedi
tion, undertaken and carried through by a constituted Govern
ment. This was the invasion of Affghanistan. The year
1838 may therefore be fixed upon as the period when war
ceased, and when the mere killing of men by the orders of
Governments commenced.
The Affghan war was made on the allegation that a certain
ruler was “ unfriendly” to England. This allegation, in itself
no ground for war, was supported by various sets of documents
presented to Parliament. These documents, being received by
the Envoy employed, they were declared by him to be a “ tissue
of falsehoods.” He consequently sent home for publication true
copies of his despatches. After many years and repeated motions
in Parliament, the original despatches were produced. The truth
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of the statement of Sir A. Burnes was then established; and it
was proved that the allegation against Dost Mahomed, and on
which the war to upset him had been explained and accepted, had
been made out, through an elaborate falsification of the official
despatches of the British Envoy.
The war therefore was unnecessary; it was unjust, for it was
not just to attack or upset a foreign Prince ; and being neither
necessary or just, it could not be, by any “ formality” rendered
legal, nor was there so much as the attempt to do so. The
document which appeared, though entitled a “Declaration,”
declared no war, but was restricted to observations in reference
to “ the service of troops across (beyond) the Indus.”
No ground was taken in Parhament on the law for resistance
to, or punishment of, this crime. After the whole of the ex
pedition had perished, a motion for mere inquiry was defeated,
and a second invasion was planned for the purpose of naked
vengeance.
But before this positive and hot-handed revolt against all laws
of God and man, preparations had been made for screening those
guilty in this respect from punishment. The English Government
negotiated with Spain a treaty (Elliot convention), according
to which they should no longer shoot the foreigners taking part
in the Civil contest then raging, and who were, and could only
be treated as pirates. The matter was managed with art.
There is no mention made of these foreigners. The English
Minister is only moved by the interests of humanity. It was
in the name of that great Moloch that both parties were called
upon not to shoot men after the battle was over.
*
In the Affghan war commencing the new era for mankind,
is found combined every order of guilt together with loss and
injury. It was to be expected that the licence thus obtained
should soon produce corresponding effects, and so it has proved.
Thirty years have now elapsed. During that time no Conqueror
has arisen: there has existed no necessity for war; yet wars, or
the operations to which the name has been affixed, have followed
uninterruptedly from that hour to the present; first in Asia,
then in Europe, after that in America, and now at last in Africa ;
all resulting either from the direct act of England, her indirect
encouragement, or through the operation of the general law
lessness which her practice has introduced or her authority
established.
This proceeding on the part of England awakened no atten
tion on the Continent of Europe. The sense of law was already
so far obliterated that the character of the new crime was not
• In the collection of Treaties published by the English Government this Conven
tion is wanting.
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
13
perceived; the people against whom the blow was levelled wTas
remote ; they were looked upon as cc infidels” and (i uncivilised,”
and in respect to whom no Laws had to be observed. They did
not perceive that the reaction would afterwards fall upon Europe
herself. Indeed, France had herself a few years before com
menced the same lawless course in Africa, and had afterwards
continued it in Mexico and South America.
The invasion of Affghanistan was immediately followed by the
first Chinese War; a war, so far as the Chinese were concerned,
but piracy only on the part of Grreat Britain, as was formally
established.by the English Courts. Then came the destruction
of the British army in Affghanistan, and the second invasion for
the sake of vengeance. This was followed by the second and
third Chinese wars with their revolting incidents of atrocity
and barbarity. Then came the two Persian Wars, the two
attacks on Japan, the Bombardment of Jeddah, and now the
Invasion of Abyssinia. All these wars are of the same cha
racter, that is to say, unnecessary, unjust, profitless, and unac
companied by the forms requisite to make a just and necessary
War a lawful one.
It has to be remarked that whilst there was no gain to be
obtained by these operations, so was there no passion of an
internal kind to be gratified. The British Nation was on every
occasion surprised into them. Falsification of documents to the
extent of forgery, and every kind of misrepresentation were em
ployed to bring them about. These artifices were directed not
only against the public and the Parliament, but also against the
Colleagues of the Minister, and the Sovereign. And the im
punity, success, and pre-eminence of the sole Minister who
managed them, was secured by the idea that the honour of Eng
land was compromised and had to be maintained. Whilst, in
the universal sense of mental weakness and public insecurity,
confidence was given to the one man, in whom the rest recog
nised resolution and capacity.
Amongst the incidents of this order of which Asia has been
the field, we have to enumerate the Sepoy Rebellion of 1857,
it having been produced by the transmission from England to
India, in defiance of the standing orders of the department, of
cartridges prepared in a manner which inflicted pollution on our
Eastern subjects. The design in this case was the same as
in all the others ; and it was practicable and successful like the
others, only through the extinction of all the restraints hitherto
imposed on evil doers.
Thus from the year 1838 down to the year 1868 there has
been a scarcely uninterrupted series of piratical expeditions on
the vastest scale, the effects of which have been to shake the
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power of England in the East, to sap the basis of society and
the means of Government throughout these vast Regions, by
imposing heavy pecuniary obligations, and breaking down Con
stitutional restraints. Whilst, not there only, but throughout the
World, has the sense of law been obliterated from the minds of
men.
We have now to review the occurrences in our own quarter
of the globe.
The settlement of 1815 was one which, not restoring the con
ditions that had been disturbed and the rights that had been
infringed, prepared the way for what was to follow. It was
almost immediately followed by the Treaty called the Holy Alliance, which, pretending to establish a common right of Govern
ments to lend mutual aid to each other against their subjects,
had for effect that which was the object of its original proposer
—to generalise Revolution. All Governments were to lend
their troops against all subjects; all subjects were consequently
to combine against any Government. The distinction of alien
and subject was effaced, everybody could interfere with every
body and everywhere, and the right was established for every
man to fly at every other man’s throat. This heinous and sacriligious Treaty—for it pretended to act in the name of Christ—
introduced the unlawful system of Congresses. These generated
unlawful Wars; thus from it came the invasion of Naples by
Austria, and of Spain by France, and that general confusion
of opinions and affairs which has prevailed unto the present day.
Concurrently with these operations there was the intervention
in the East for the so-called “ Pacification of the Levant,” but
which was directed to the overthrow of the Ottoman Empire. The
Greeks had been insurrectionised by Russia. England, whom
it was found impossible to draw into the Holy Alliance, on the
withdrawal of the Russian Minister, made herself the organ of
Russia at Constantinople. The Turks resisting, a Treaty was
signed between England, France, and Russia, to constrain the
Turks. It stipulated that the means of action should be left
at the disposal of their representatives. This treaty was, there
fore, not a beneficent compact, but an outrage and an infamy.
It was, moreover, the surrender by each of the three Govern
ments of all control over their own actions, and placed their
respective forces at the conjoint disposal of their agents; that is,
of the one of these agents who happened to be more dexterous
than the others. Out of this came the butchery of Navarino,
and the destruction of the naval power of Turkey, followed im
mediately by the Russian invasion of Turkey, and the with
drawal of the representatives of England and France; so that it
was a common war of the three Powers against an Empire which
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
15
two of them had entered into the negotiation with the avowed
purpose of protectingI
Meanwhile the Ruler of Egypt, secretly invited to revolt, first
by England and afterwards by France, twice rebelled, imperil
ling all Europe. After ten years of confusion, the result of
these negotiations and acts, a rupture was effected between Eng
land and France in reference to Egypt. A treaty sent from St.
Petersburg, and signed by England, Austria, and Prussia,
behind the back of France, all but produced a general European
war, and left everything in utter confusion, with an immense
increase of the warlike charges of France, and the fortifications
around Paris.
Not one of these steps could have been taken had there existed
in the Minister of any State “ respect for the laws or fears
“ for his person.”* They could not have taken place had the
Executives not usurped the power of making war without the
assent of the Estates of the Realm. They could not have taken
place had the Privy Council not been displaced from within the
Executive. They could not have taken place had the habit not
arisen of permanent Embassies, by which the internal condition
was invariably subjected to external considerations and influence.
Finally, they could not have taken place had the churches of
Christendom taught that murder in the aggregate was not less,
but the same sin, as murder in the individual. For then war
would no longer have been possible on the mere motion of the
Minister; letters and despatches would have remained without
effect to produce convulsion; and that maleficent power desig
nated “ moral influence ” would have been lifted off the human
race.
The pressure of taxation, the disturbance of every basis of
judgment; the absence of all authoritative exposition of what is
right in maxim, or profitable in practice; the periodical convul
sions arising from a fictitious monetary system; and the expen
diture of large sums of money and endless activity on the part
of one Government to organise secret and revolutionary societies,
had now prepared Europe for the repetition on a larger scale, in
1848, of the convulsion of 1830.
This event, to which our present state more immediately
belongs, was led and managed for Russia by England. It began
in Switzerland by double-dealing with the parties in the Civil
War. This was followed by the celebrated despatch of October,
1847, announcing designs of Austria on Italy, and threatening her
on the part of England. Then came the mission of Lord Minto
to all the Governments of Italy openly to impose on them in* Words used in the House of Commons, February, 1848, as applied to the English
Minister.
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ternal measures, and openly to invite the various populations to
revolt. No point of Europe was neglected. The ground was
everywhere mined by Russian revolutionary agents, whilst
England openly invoked rebellion. Thus, on a given day, in the
beginning of 1848, from Copenhagen and Bucharest, to the
Mediterranean and the Atlantic, every people was convulsed
and every throne upset.
When after a time the re-establishment came, there was,
in all respects, a difference. The Governments were more sub
servient, the people more discontented. The military organisa
tions were augmented, the debt and taxes were increased.
Hitherto the north of Europe had been spared; one people
in Europe was tranquil, had no factions, and was attached alike
to its institutions and to its Prince. It was now to be drawn
into the European vortex, and whilst made the victim of its order
and ‘loyalty, was to be converted into a more terrible lever of
convulsion than any other of the fragments of the confederacy
of European States, which had severally been used as dupes and
instruments. This people were the inhabitants of the Duchies
of the Eyder. The King of Denmark had been induced, on
perfidious councils from Paris, to infringe the rights of the
Duchies on the plea of including them in a general representative
constitution, which would make the “ United Danish Monarchy”
a barrier against Russia. Being thus prepared to be acted on
by the convulsion of 1848, a civil war with Denmark broke out,
which, by the management of England, was kept on for three
years. She interfered each Autumn by mediation, and prolonged
the situation till the warlike operations could be resumed in the
Spring, which were then allowed to take their course. Prussia
lent her aid to the same work by pushing on the Duchies,
getting the command of the conjoint forces, and then betraying
them in the field. After four years of this bloodshed and perfidy,
matters were brought to a head, and an arrangement took place
at Warsaw between the Russian Czar, as head of the House of
Oldenburg, and the King of Denmark, by which the succession
of the crown was altered, so that almost the whole of the inter
vening and numerous heirs were cut off; a successor named
to the Royal line, at the option of the Emperor of Russia, and
his own title as heir-general established, both to the Kingdom
and the Duchies.
Such a compact, unlawful as all the rest, was also offensive in
the last degree to Denmark, and alarming to all Europe. It was
impossible for the Danish Government to present to the Diet of
Copenhagen a law to carry it into effect. The Compact or Pro
tocol had been kept secret. To impose it on Denmark, and to
impose it on Europe, it was taken up by England. A Treaty,
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
17
embodying the Warsaw Protocol, was signed in London, May
Sth, 1852, rehearsing that the arrangement had already been
made, and that the Treaty was only to give to it a “ European
sanction.” On this it was proposed to the. Danish Diet, as a
“ European necessity.” After repeated dissolutions, the constitu
tion was changed, and so the Treaty became law for Denmark.
These points are given, as out of this transaction—certainly
the most monstrous and insane, that the world has ever witnessed
—has come directly the phase of convulsion around us.
Whilst the Danish incident had been running its internal course
of five years, from the letters patent of 1846 to the Warsaw
Protocol of 1851, and its European course of fifteen years,
from that Protocol to the battle of Sadowa in 1866—in the
Italian Peninsula the harvest from the seed sown by the de
spatch of 1847 and the mission of Lord Minto was being
gathered in. Whatever the attractions for Russia of the Penin
sula itself, whatever the necessity of stopping a productiveness
which interfered with several, and endangered one of her own
staple products—whatever the occasion which it presented now,
as in all time, by the extended and exposed structure of the
*
land and the debased character of the people for exciting the
rivalries of neighbouring powers and bringing the fall of Dy
nasties—Italy, for Russia, meant the Pope. He was in Italy the
only real thing. He from Italy could restore law, order, and
peace in Christendom. He was head of the Western Church,
which the Czar works to destroy and pretends to incorporate.
The East was involved in Italy, no less than the West, and
Poland and Russia herself, no less than Europe and the East. To
revolutionize Italy was the means to reach the Pope. By that
process he could reach the sovereignty of the Bishop of Rome,
and so upset his spiritual power; that "is, that spiritual power not
exerted at present, but, as she well knew, capable of exercise in a
judicial fashion, and for which the first condition was that he
should be subject neither to a foreign Prince nor be protected
by foreign bayonets. That these must have been her desires
and her objects it is facile to perceive, and it is in evidence that
towards them, events have marched. But what is not so easy to
perceive, and might have appeared impossible to accomplish, is
what really did take place, and of which we possess the evidence.
It is that in bringing about this convulsion (1848) she concealed
from the Papal Government her part therein—concealed from
its eyes alike her secret connexion with revolution and with the
English Government, and made it believe that she was doing
her best to protect the Pope against both. She made the largest
* “ Divided by the Apennines ; surrounded by the sea.”
B
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offers in money ancl troops, and accepted the grateful acknow
ledgments of the Pope for having, by her influence, obtained
for his protection the presence of French troops at Pome.
*
It was not that the Pope had forgotten Poland, or the substi
tution by the Czar of himself for Patriarch, or his pressure in
the East on his spiritual subjects; but all were then powerless
to comprehend that Russia made use of revolution. They all
believed her to be its opponent. However, the anomaly of the
goodwill thus shown by the Russian Cabinet had to be explained.
The explanation offered and accepted was that St. Petersburg
and Rome were on “ the same line,” that being the “ line of
order.” It is curious that the Revolutionists at the very same
moment were attributing the pecuniary support they received
from her to the same cause, that of being “ on the same line
with her.” They understood that line to be “ disorder.”
The historian of the Revolutions of Europe remarks that,
from the commencement of the eighteenth century, history had
become difficult to write, in consequence of the non-observance
of public law. Now that the very idea of law has disappeared, or,
which is even worse, its name only used to misapply it and to
affix it to some monstrous deed, the affairs of mankind have be
come one mass of incalculable confusion. They now pretend
to substitute for the law they have abrogated, what they
call an “ International Law,” which is to consist of Treaties.
Strange as it may appear, it is not the less true that there has
not been a single treaty signed during this period, that of Vienna
inclusive, that has not been violated, till at last treaties are
looked upon as some miasma pervading the air.f The idea
of any value as resulting from a positive compact having disap
peared, they now propose to substitute them for the Law of
God and of Nations.^
* “So early as the mouth of February, 1848, the Cabinet of St. Petersburg thus
addressed itself to the Court of Rome :—
“ ‘It is beyond doubt that the Holy Father will find in His Majesty the Emperor
a loyal supporter in effecting the restitution to him of temporal and spiritualpower, and
that the Russian Government will apply itself to all the measures that may contribute
to this end, seeing that it nourishes in respect to the Court of Rome no sentiment of
rivalry and no religious animosity.’”—Farina Stato Romano,vol. Hi. p. 215.”—From
“ The East and the West,” by the Hon. H. Stanley.
f “ The Treaty of Gastein was now losing its vitality.”—M. Rouher.
j “ The most manifest and repulsive indication of that aspiration for Omnipotence
which popular sovereignty affects is the contempt of that elementary right which the
public honour and good sense have called the faith of treaties.”—M. A. Re Broglie,
in the Li Revue des Deux Mondes.” Thus the perception of the evil is powerless in
this age to lead to the perception of the cure. The first proposal of substituting
Treaties for Law and calling them Law was made by Russia, in 1806, as one of the
conditions on which she would have accepted the peace then on the point of settlement
between England and France. As a step towards this result, at the Treaty of Vienna
no anterior Treaty was restored, so that the peace became a generality.
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS»
19
In former periods of anarchy and violence a remedy was pos
sible. The idea of it spontaneously arose. It was that of Law. At
that time—-that is to say, in all previous times, crimes only were
committed. The hearts of men were corrupted, but their under
standings were left to them; and speech, the instrument of
reason, was under each man’s hand to use if prompted thereto.
To-day the disturbance does not come from hordes lusting for
territory, or conquerors for battle-fields. Those who commit the
crimes suffer from them. It is the understanding that is per
verted; it is speech that is falsified; and therefore is the restora
tion at once most easy and most difficult—most easy, because all
would be on the side of right, did it find an interpreter; most
difficult, for where is the interpreter to be found in an age which
has fallen into this chaos by reason of false speech in use, and
true speech forgotten ?
When such terms as “ Public Opinion,” “ Civilisation,”
“ Progress,” can be uttered, who can speak of Law, of Justice 2
and how, therefore, can there be peace on earth and goodwill
among men 2
All these terms have been already condemned by the Pope ;
but in condemning them he has not analysed them to show their
vacuity. Let us take an instance. To say that the word
“ progress ” should not be used, is of the greatest service to any
human being who will obey the injunction ; because it will save
him from a large amount of distracting volubility, evil habits of
mind, and erroneous conclusions. But only abstaining from it
because it is forbidden, and not knowing it to be unmeaning, he
will not be freed from its effects when it falls from the lips of
others ; noi' will he be able to show to others why it is objection
able. Being incapable of giving a reason for his objection to its
use he will sink in the estimation of his interlocutor, and in his
own. The benefit of discipline is not secured to him. Instead
of the regenerating effect of discarding a false term, his obedience
only justifies the contempt of the “ man of the age,” who holds
religion to be superstition, and its professors to be weak-minded.
Let us suppose this Catholic to be instructed by his priest,
himself instructed by the Head of the Church, and so enabled
to deal logically, and not religiously or authoritatively, with a
logical perversion. How differently wrnuld he stand! He
■would then proceed to call his opponent to account, even as
Christ did in the time of the Pharisees, or as Socrates did in
the time of the Sophists. He would question him as to his
meaning; he would ask him to explain the relation between a
substantive of motion and a method of reasoning. He would
call for a definition of the geographic field over which motion is
predicated, and for the contents of the entity represented as
b 2
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marching over it. He would persist in drawing forth the forms
of the unknown future towards which the progress is to be made.
He would force him to declare whether his “ progress ” was
towards or away from knowledge of cases, the correct definition
of laws, the due regulation of constitutional checks, the restraints
on the exercise of political power, the control over the public
expenditure, the supervision of transactions between States, and
the inhibition of public acts not beneficial, not just, not lawful.
He would have always in reserve to show, and by questions to
bring out the avowal, that on all these heads, since the word in
question came into use, there had been a progressive deterioration
of the human species. Thus would he confound and confute
his antagonist, and show that to employ amphibologies is not the
perfection but the extinction of the human faculties.
Men can go on, with the pen in their hand, making phrases—
the weakest as well as the strongest. They are at once pulled
up by a question, and will equally be baffled by it—the strongest
as well as the weakest.
It is impossible to separate man and speech. There may be
base men using language correctly, but there can be no people
upright whose speech is debased. No branch of human science
can be followed, or even so much as exist, if the terms be not
defined. No legal act is binding into which terms not legal are
introduced. An article of faith consists entirely in the definition
of the terms.
What is here in evidence before us in the introduction of new
terms into all the languages of Europe, and that all these have a
double meaning: concurrently therewith, there has been a dis
turbance of all settled convictions.
The connexion is therefore established by two distinct pro
cesses. Ambiguous terms must bring, we say, malversation in
affairs and infidelity in belief. They have been introduced, and
have been accompanied by these results.
It follows, therefore, that the rectification must commence by
the exclusion of such terms ; and the Pope ha's put his hand to
this work, condemning as unchristian and uncatholic those
very terms which had already, on philological grounds, been
shown to be unmeaning and deceptive.
For doing this Catholics have a great advantage in the Sacred
Writings, having to study them, in the first instance, in the
natural sense. This is a preparation for confounding fallacy
by throwing men back on themselves, and for calling men to
Repentance without reference to dogma. These are among the
latent intellectual powers of the Catholic Church, which it knows
not itself, and which will be known either to itself or others only
when exerted.
�LAW TO LAWLESSNESS.
21
Concurrently with the obliteratiou of the common instincts of
man as regards the taking of life, there has arisen in Europe a
parallel change in the conduct of affairs, by which one subordinate
branch of government has been rendered supreme in each. The
department of Foreign Affairs dealing extra-nationally, has got
this mastery, and out of it has come an enthralling secresy. This
revolution has been worked out of the “ Intervention in the
“East.” That operation has converted international business
into a labyrinth. The very existence of which is unknown save
to those who had been connected therewith, before the Greek
episode commenced. Each Foreign Department uncontrolled,
unquestioned, can bring about wars, can, consequently, exert
“ moral influence ” on other states; and so can disturb internal
affairs, overthrow internal liberty, augment military establish
ments, increase charges, impose taxes, augment debt, produce,
indirectly, disloyalty and unbelief; and whilst directly foment
ing revolution in particularly selected countries, prepares for it
in all; tending in a direction, which at some point must render
all government impossible: and so preparing for the general
domination throughout Europe of some power or people whose
understanding and speech has not been similarly vitiated.
Before closing this branch it is desirable to revert to the act
of Geneva in 1602. It is not only a great lesson, but also a
prominent landmark. It is such a limit between two order's
of existence, such as that traced by Tacitus in summing up the
history of Rome, where he says, Hie finis cequi Juris. It explains
how small states have been in later times absorbed, and how
they remained up to these times, to be absorbed. When a crime
against which human nature revolts does not receive its due
penalty, of course it spreads, and, spreading, changes its cha
racter. So it has happened. Bandits being normally sent forth
by established governments, come at last to constitute themselves
on their own account, and to combine to assail this country or
that. The penalties having ceased to be applied to the first, are
then no longer applied to the second, so that a trade in piracy is
established, and the inducement of impunity, which would apply
to a band of false coiners, applies to the enterprises carried on
against the Sultan or the Pope. The Sovereigns so attacked,
not exercising the functions of sovereignty in this respect, be
come themselves in reality accomplices in this breaking down of
all things. They have, moreover, no passions to mislead them,
and no real or supposed advantage to gain. It is therefore the
result of weakness only—the greatest of all sins in the holder
of delegated authority. Firmness in some would at any moment
of past time have stopped the course of evil. Firmness would
stop it even to-day.
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SOCIETY TO BE SAVED ONLY BY THE LAW.
It is not, however, correct to designate these adventurers
as . Bandits or Pirates. The latter have a positive object of
gain in view. They may be driven to guilty deeds by ne
cessity. They have the excuse of degrading associations. They
incur positive danger; and, lastly, they are conscious of thenown acts. Far different is the man who imbrues his hands in
the blood of his fellow-creatures without such inducements,
such risks, or such consciousness, and who is moved by the
passions of the understanding—the most ferocious and' most
hopeless that can take possession of the human heart—the more
hopeless and base, the loftier and the holier the pretensions which
he puts forward to himself or others. The passions of the heart
are the passions of the animal or the wild beast which lie down
when satisfied. The passions of the understanding are those of
the human being perverted from the image of God to the pur
poses of the Devil. It is before this outburst that the execu
tioner gives way !
Had the hired assassins of the King of Sardinia met the
fate of those of the Duke of Savoy—had there been in 1862 a
township in Sicily with hearts of the men who lived in 1602,
Italy would have been spared, the “ making” she has had, and
the unmaking she will presently have to undergo.
3rd.
SOCIETY TO BE SAVED ONLY BY THE LAW.
The third question is already answered. It is more than an
swered, for the method to be adopted has also been shown. It
consists in the extrication of the mind from a few fallacies, all
which disappear of themselves, from the moment that a man
sees that to kill, to rob, to covet, to bear false witness, is no less
a crime when committed by many against many, than when
committed by one against one, or a few against a few. Not to
know this is to be under judicial blindness. Whilst that blind
ness endures, the case, as regards the conduct, conscience, busi
ness, and existence of a people is exactly such as, in regard to
material objects, it would be, if natural and artificial light were
suspended, and the human race were left to grope their way in
the dark. Efforts, if made, would avail nothing, resources un
bounded within his reach would satisfy neither hunger nor
thirst, and he would perish miserably in the midst of the stench
of his already putrifying fellow-creatures, despite all that Pro
vidence might have otherwise supplied for his comfort, and
fortune assorted for his pre-eminence.
�SOCIETY TO BE SAVED ONLY BY THE LAW.
23
The expression “International Law” has, however, to be put
aside. The epithet alone reveals this hopeless and abject con
dition. It reveals the intellectual debasement out of which that
condition has sprung; it reveals the loss of respect for the rule
of right, without which neither would the understanding have
been debased, nor circumstances disordered. The Law is
supreme, the Law rules, the Law is from on high. It is above
all. Thus the Law of Nations is a holy law; but the sacred
character vanishes before the preposition “ between.” In English
you could not say it. If you did, you would know that it was
nonsensical and feel that it wTas vile—“the between-NationsLaw.”
The Law of Nations is otherwise termed the “Law of
Nature,” and, again, the “ Law of God ”—of Nature and of
God because of its essence; of Nations, because ruling all and
accepted by all. It is the Ten Commandments as applicable to
communities. By observing these a people preserves its faith,
its honour, its liberty, its power, and, if capable in other respects,
will live for ever. When a people causelessly assails another,
it has lost innocence, honour, liberty, and faith. It contains no
longer one citizen, one Christian, or one gentleman, save amongst
the protestors, if there be any.
Finally, it is peculiarly the Law of Nations because it, and it
alone, deals with and adjudicates on their aggregate acts. It is
the civil and criminal municipal law applied to the whole com
munity. An eminent English judge has thus defined it:—
“ The Law of Nations,” says Lord Mansfield—“ that uni“ versal Law, which will be carried as far in England as any“ where—which is here adopted in its full extent by the Common
“ Law, and is held to be a part of the Law of England ; which
a Acts of Parliament cannot alter : which is to be collected, toge“ ther, together with the rules of decision concerning it, not from
“ Acts of Parliament, but from the practice of different nations
“ and the authority of writers; of which from time to time Acts
“ of Parliament have been made to enforce, or decisions to facili“ tate, the execution, and are, therefore, considered not as intro“ ductive of any new law, but merely as declaratory of the old
“ fundamental constitutions of the kingdom; and finally, without
“which the kingdom must cease to be a part of the civilised
“ world.”
This Law is, moreover, emphatically that of Nations, because
the Nations have themselves to enforce it. It is against their
Governments that they have to enforce it. It is by
taking care that their rulers “ shall do that only which is law
ful,” that peace can be possessed or preserved on earth. The
contrary must happen if that Law of Nations is remitted to the
�24
SOCIETY TO BE SAVED ONLY BY THE LAW.
agents, that is. the Governments, to apply, to interpret, and to
change at. their pleasure. It is thus that a people falls into the
last condition of<£ taking for law that which their rulers do.” To
recover them from it, some must arise different from the rest, to
reprove and to teach them.
There remains behind a still graver consideration for the
future. If the Law of Nations is not observed, it will neces
sarily come to be perverted, and its name, forms, and authority
will remain as a blight on the world. The Law transformed
into a mask and cloak for the designing will thus become the
most fruitful of all sources of war and discord.
A small chink lets in light. It is not willingly that nations
err, sin, slay, and suffer. Therefore is it that those who among
such a generation do see, are filled with zeal, 'are incessant in
toil, and endued with power. Few and insignificant, as in them
selves they may be, their work may bear fruits.
Operations depending on thought are independent of numbers.
This present condition of the human race has been brought
about by a single man.
n
It is not bloodshed alone that we suffer from, and that has to
be put a stop to, but lawless acts of all kinds; whether these
consist in commission or in omission : of wrongs perpetrated or
wrongs endured. Had there been a body of upright men in
England, there would have been no waiver of the means of co
ercing her enemy in 1854, no giving away of her maritime power
in 1856, no fitting out of Piratical vessels in 1863, no refusal of
reparation for their depredations in 1864-7, no endurance of the
transfer by sale of territorial possessions amongst our neighbours,
or any foreign Powers, no submission to Blockades where war
of no kind had been made, no interference in the internal juris
diction of Eastern States by our Consuls, no proposals to shake
the very bases of all society in destroying the indefeasible alle
giance of the subject;—none, in fact, of these novelties, which
come upon us to-day in overwhelming and inextricable shoals,
and which were unknown in the world among all its previous
generations. All these and all that are to follow are the neces
sary effects of dispensing ourselves from the observance of any
rule of conduct. Surely a remedy so simple and so comprehen
sive ought to have attractions, if only from its novelty. We do
run after new things and strange things; one more new or more
strange is not to be found than Justice.
�DUTY OF THE POPE TO RESTORE THE LAW.
25
4th.
DUTY OF THE POPE TO RESTORE THE LAW.
Whether the Catholic Church is capable of this restoration
must depend on the qualities of the men it possesses at this
hour. It is placed under the necessity of making the attempt,
both because of the new characters which crime has recently
put on, and because of the assumption of authority over the con
sciences of its flock.
The words spoken by the Pope, while containing a promise,
also suggest a fear. By them the Church steps out of its poli
tical disability, asserting its appellate jurisdiction. Four years
have elapsed since the pretension was advanced, but it has re
mained unexerted. No preparatory steps have been taken for its
exercise. The question therefore arises as to the sense attached
to the words themselves. In any case the position of affairs is
no longer the same after they have been spoken; for from that
hour the sanction of the Church must be assumed to have been
given in all cases where it has not rebuked and condemned.
It did not, however, require the assertion of this claim in this
authoritative manner to convey a religious sanction to political
crimes. It may be put in this very self-evident and simple
fashion : Granted that the Church of England or of Prussia is
not called upon to determine the lawfulness of a war made by
the respective Governments of these countries, it does not there
upon follow that the Church of Rome can dispense itself from
this duty, seeing that its pretension is to be universal, and that
its flock will be engaged on both sides; so that there is for it
no possibility of not sanctioning crime, as there is an impossi
bility of both sides being innocent.
The case has been stated by a distinguished Prelate (the
Bishop of Mayence) in the following terms :—
u In the last centuries, after abandoning the commandments
“ of God, an inert form has been substituted for them, derived
from the scales in which merchandise is weighed. . . . This
“ separation of the Rights of Nations and the Law of God—
“ this fiction that the end and means of Policy stand in a horizon
“ superior to those of vulgar morals and justice, brings an im“ mense peril for the peace of the world. This is war in perma“ nency, or a simple armistice—the prelude of a war of all
“ against all.
“ It is thus that we have to deplore bitterly that Religion has
“ been rendered the accomplice of this policy. They have been
“ very ill inspired who in these latter times, have suggested to
“ Religion and its ministers, to give a sort of religious consecration
�26
DUTY OF THE POPE TO RESTORE THE LAW.
“ to all these violences. For how many victories have TeDeums
“ been chanted that have no ways been for the glory of God,
“ but which were cursed by God from heaven ! ”
It is thus that the Bishop of Mayence—without having
perceived the distinction between wars that are unjust and those
that are unlawful, and taking the first ground alone, and sup
posing that to be the guilt and danger of our times—still with
grief and indignation, and also with horror, points to the
desecration of religion, in the blessing by it of opposing arms.
Here speaks a disturbed conscience and a grieving heart; but
how unavailing those emotions, even when combined with high
intellectual powers, to find and apply the remedy, when the re
quisite knowledge of circumstances is wanting, is singularly illus
trated in the veiy work from which the above extract is taken.
It is entitled “ Germany after the War of 1866,” and necessarily
deals with the causes which brought about that war. The
author sees none of them. He makes statements as to Denmark
which are not correct. He then speculates thereon. Finally,
he reverts to that terrible and sacrilegious compact, the Holy
Alliance, through which Europe has been convulsed, as a great,
and good, and beneficial operation, attributing to its non-iulfilment the present condition of things I
Although, therefore, the instances of Gregory the Great,
Gregory VII., and Innocent III. must necessarily present
themselves to any hopeful mind, whatever its religious pro
fession, and whether or not it admits of any faith or belief at all,
yet Popes are required nowadays for far graver purposes than
to interdict uncanonical marriages, to excommunicate Royal
assassins, to restrain unlawful taxes, or even to condemn unjust
wars.
At the present time it is no active interference that is called
for in the State; it is simply adjudication on criminal matters
that is required. The povrer so to be exercised will be appre
hended only after it has been exerted; and it can be exerted
only by the possession of those eminent qualities, that perfect
knowledge, and that unbounded self-sacrifice and devotion
which, in the person of Gregory, created that wonderful
system which we designate the Church of Rome; and which,
in the person of the present Pope, if it please Providence
to grant him time and aids in men, may restore that Church,
and with it retrieve and preserve human society—that society
which, in his own words, is “ crumbling to pieces.”
A French philosopher (unbeliever) says :—
“ Do not tell me that Gregory, Leo, Urban, Innocent,
“ and so many others were Saints a thousand years ago. . I want
�DUTY OF THE POPE TO RESTORE THE LAW.
27
“ you to-day to be one yourself, in order that all the moral world
“ may, without dispute, fall down at your feet.”*
A Protestant clergyman and the actual Dean of St. Paul’s, in
writing of the past, shows what is practicable in the present:—
“In the person of Gregory, the Bishop of Rome first
“ became, in act and influence, if not in avowed authority, a
“ temporal Sovereign. Nor were his acts the ambitious encroach“ ments of ecclesiastical usurpation on the civil power. They
“ were forced upon him by the purest motives, if not by actual
“ necessity. The virtual Sovereignty fell to him as abdicated by
“ the neglect or powerlessness of its rightful owners; he must
“ assume it or leave the people and the city to anarchy. His
“ authority rested on the universal feeling of its beneficence.”!
But the Pope is also a crowned head. He is one of the com
munity of Sovereigns; yet he has not taken part in those
proceedings which have reduced Europe to a chaos of mind and
affairs. He has never recognised the Treaty of Vienna which
is the fountain of these evils; he has unceasingly protested
against it. He has also specially and vehemently protested
against some of the crimes (in Poland and Italy) perpetrated
under the conjoint influence of the extra-national management
to which Europe is now subject.
It is, therefore, no less the duty of the Pope, as a king, to
protest against crimes in which he has no part, and of which he
is the victim, than for the Pope, as head of the Roman Catholic
church, to teach every adult as every child belonging to his
flock, that bloodshed without cause is murder; and to refuse
the offices of religion (as he does to the conspirators in England
known as Fenians) to any man directly engaged therein,
by planning or executing them, or indirectly by approving of
them, and contributing money towards them in the shape of
taxes. His kingdom is indeed small, but in the eye of the Law,
as of human reason, all sovereignties are equal. So also in our
circumstances, the smallest State in Europe can equal the
greatest. The affairs of all nations are interwoven. They are
all conducted in secret. The entire European community is
thus at the mercy of the most dexterous ; and being all destitute
of the requisite qualifications by which to detect what is being
done with them, the web is gradually woven round their eyes, as
the snares are prepared for their feet. There is no extrication
for them save integrity and capacity in some one government,
and such a Government however minute its territories, could
render them this service.
* “ Christianity,” by Quinet, p. 59.
f Milman’s “ Latin Christianity,” vol. ii., p, 130.
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TIIE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
But with these qualifications the Court of Rome becomes, at
a bound, the most powerful on earth; and it has already
taken its stand against that Government which manages all the
others, and is leading them on to their mutual destruction.
The acquisition of these intellectual means is, therefore, the
question. For this,. individual powers, the most rare in the
history of mankind, are requisite. An eminent ecclesiastic
has put it in a form which cannot be improved upon. “ For
this,” he said, “ giants are required; and there are no giants
“ to be found either within the Church or without it.”
Has the attempt, therefore, to be abandoned in despair ? By
no means. The first and greatest step is made when some have
recognised its difficulty.
5th.
THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
No Council is required for this work. There is nothing new
to be discovered or enacted, no new tribunal to be instituted. In
the Council there is danger only, and it is thus that it may
be counted gain.
These propositions are of the highest quality by their nature,
and of the vastest bearing in their application, now and in all
future time. If to any design the word great can be applied, it
applies to this one. Therefore can it be worked out only by
individual minds. A public assembly, however constituted, is
unfitted for the task.
The bases, metaphysical and legal, have been already laid
down by the Pope. The superstructure is wanting.
As respects terms, he has condemned them as erring; they
have to be shown to be unmeaning, to give intellectual life to his
flock, and enable them to make wai' on the fallacies in which all
error is enveloped and contained.
Among the vast resources available for this purpose is that
portion of education which in England is termed “ classical,” and
in France “ profane.” The literature so studied is that of States
(Greece and Rome) which, in their corruption and decay, are to
us at once warnings and models—warnings by their fall, models
by their thoughts. Homer is a code of the Law of Nations. In
Demosthenes we possess a remonstrance against our actual
habits, on which the seal of value has been impressed by the fall
of Athens, as a result of its neglect. Socrates has been held
by Fathers of the Church to have been the harbinger of Chris
tianity. His teaching consisted in unravelling the errors con
tained in false terms. During the flourishing, and therefore
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
29
corrupt, period of Rome, we have the two dangers constantly pre
sented, which threaten the communities of Europe to-day—false
terms and injustice—and the two are linked together. It is not
only moralists, but statesmen, favourites, and popular poets who
thus speak. I cite some of them, for these are the words which
meet our need.
Cato told his fellow-countrymen that they had lost true
speech by adopting false speech (“nos vera rerum vocabula
amisimus”). Seneca tells them that they no longer had law,
since they took for law “ whatever their rulers did.” Cicero,
in the sublime description of what a community ought to be,
which he places in the mouth of Africanus, has'these words :
“ The State (res publica) is not only synonymous with justice,
“ but exists only by and in the highest justice.” Virgil makes
the shades of Hades echo with the great voice of Theseus :—
“ Discite justitiam moniti et non temnere Divos.”
The lyric of the Augustan age presents Virtue unteaching men
their false terms, and thus securing a safe condition of life:—•
. Virtus populumque falsis
dedocet uti
Vocibus.”
“.
.
How is it that such things are known to the school-boys, and
are forgotten by the men of Europe ? How is it that there are
none to be found to take advantage of such teachings in the
past, to turn them to profit for the present, and so bring up the
Youth, knowing what is wrong, and loving what is right ? But
what did the fallacious terms of the Greeks or Romans amount
to? For the first, it was but meshes woven out of their own tongue.
For the second, it was but a very slight importation of Greek
terms. With us, it is a vast influx of both Greek and Latin
terms, and these jumbled up together and used in senses that
would be utterly unintelligible to Greeks or Romans; while
always displacing the simple and appropriate words of our own
tongue. The mass of these will astound when it is considered
that every word ending in ty, in ence, in ion, in ite, ism, and ze
belong to this category, when used in the second intention. The
effect on the human being placed in the hopeless condition of
having to learn these, and to believe that they mean something,
may be apprehended, when it is stated that every such term is
unmeaning in itself, illogical in its construction, and perverting
in its use. These terms may be used—have to be used—for
others. The danger lies in being used by them; that is, tbinking in them and through them, and imagining that there is
meaning in them.
It was the duty of the teacher to prevent the use by the child
�30
THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
of vague or unmeaning terms ; so would he have put a stop to
erroneous ideas which came in as the explanation of these
terms. The teacher has not done so. It is now for the Church
to render this service to the adult.
The task may be difficult, but the obligation is imperious. If
difficult, it is not impossible. If it -were so, there could be no
safety and no hope. If men arrive at false totals because they
are working with false figures, you may hope to put them right;
and strive to do so. But if you accept the figures as correct,
then there remains nothing to do. If the evil that is done arose
from a purpose in their hearts, again the task would be hope
less, and words would be without power. It is only because
they are deceived by their terms, and thereby cheated into doing
what they do not desire, that human speech can avail for human
good.
But for this there must be the perfect and absolute conviction
of the nothingness of all that is held to be, in this age, intellectual
power and philosophical culture. Any one can arrive at this
certainty for himself, who will take any sentence of any modern
writer, whoever he may be, and strike out of it the Greek and
Latin terms, and then read it over. He will then see that these
terms were all superfluous; that the sense, if sense there was,
comes out free, or that the fallacy remains naked and exposed.
It has to be made apparent that those speculations in which
modern society is engaged are not only politically futile, and re
ligiously and morally heinous, but also that intellectually, they
are contemptible.
This branch, then, the metaphysical, is the first which has
to be undertaken for the Council.
As regards crimes, the basis was equally laid when the Pope
asserted his “ power over the consciences,” not of individuals
only, but also “ of communities, nations, and their Sovereigns.”
This power he has never exerted, nor can he till he specifies the
Law. That has to be done not only in reference to wars, but
also in reference to Congresses, Treaties, and Protocols. For
besides the modern practice of making wars without form, has
come that of holding Conferences without cause; of making
compacts (Treaties) vicious in matter of form, and lawless in
substance; of substituting Protocols for Treaties; of violating
Treaties when made; and of superimposing on all this a new
invention, which they term “ Declaration,” and by means of
which the internal condition of each State can be reached and
upset. There has, therefore, a rule to be laid down according
to which, in all these respects, Catholics may be able to dis
tinguish what is lawful from what is criminal. Then, and then
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
31
only, can and will the Pope exercise “power”—judicial power
“ over communities, nations, and their sovereigns.”
It can only be attributed to the indistinctness that prevails in
regard to these matters being common to all, that the Pope,
being recently called upon to act magisterially by a most
heinous attempt of foreign bandits on his State, his subjects,
and himself; did not in his own courts vindicate the Law, and
use “ the power of the magistrate” for the repression of evil
doers and the protection of the innocent. Had he done so, he
would by his own act have commenced the restoration of
human society, and would have gained for the promulgator of
this new order (himself) the respect and confidence of mankind.
Crime leaves no option. It must be either pursued or accepted.
To condone crime, is to be criminal. It is so in the private man,
how much more so hi the magistrate ? How strange that these
things have to be said; how much more so to know that, speak
ing them, they are not understood.
This Code of “ Christian Legislation” having been enacted,
then no grander spectacle could be witnessed, and no holier
work conceived, than the assembling of the body of the Church
to accept it, ancl to take counsel together for its application.
The danger consists in the work being left to be done by a
Council composed of men who are ecclesiastics only, and neither
lawyers, metaphysicians, nor diplomatists; at a time when the
Church has ceased to be what it was in the middle ages, the
fountain of Law; in an age when the common talk is fallacy,
and when the affairs of nations are enveloped in a secret and
mysterious web of deception.
The superior minds who have somewhat approached the
subject have felt this danger. One of the most eminent has
used the words “ The Council will kill or cure.” In this__in
the perception of this danger—lies that hope which has been
above expressed, namely, that some will thereby be induced to
make the effort necessary to have the work for the Council done
and well done, beforehand.
It has to be considered that the whole field of public morals
has been left untouched by modern speculation. It remains to
be trodden by the Church. Among all the subjects submitted
to investigation, the stopping of wars has been omitted. In all
our speculations for the improvement of the human race, no
plan has been suggested for arresting the progress of public ex
penditure. In all our associations for protecting the injured and
the weak, not one has appeared for the protection of public
honour, morals, and interests. In all our projects of reform,
there has not been one for the restraining of the Executive, and
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
preventing it from disposing at its arbitrary pleasure of the
money and blood of the subject.
As this Council is not for the settlement of dogma or disci
pline, at least as primary objects, but to devise means for arrest
ing general disorder, it is not for Catholics only, but for
mankind. If the results obtained are for the good of any, they
must be also for the good of all. Those who are thus con
cerned should be admitted. At the Council of Trent, the
Protestant States were invited to attend by their represen
tatives. Such an invitation, it is true, would be accepted, if
accepted by the European Governments, only with the view of
preventing any just solution, and to produce confusion. But
the domain of Law, belongs not to Executives, nor even to socalled Legislative Assemblies, but to legists. An appeal, there
fore, to men whose studies have been so directed would natu
rally fall into, as it would be a necessary part of, such a design.
The Law of Nations, which overrules all Municipal Law, and
which, as regards England, is still part and parcel of the law of
the land, has never been enacted by parliamentary statute, nor
promulgated by royal authority. Its expounders have been, in
modern times, private individuals. The chief of these have
been Protestants (Grotius and Vattel). Their compilations
include the laws and practice of pagan times and people; and
especially of Ancient Rome, where the jus gentium was the
common law, but which had for its external application a
special judicatory. Processes with foreign States were referred
exclusively to that judicatory, and withdrawn from the civil
power. Neither King nor Consul, neither Senate nor People,
could so much as interfere in such matters, or could declare war
or make peace. The “ Government,” in such cases, "was con
sidered as a “party” merely in the dispute, and its acts were
inquired into. It was the Fecial College, a body having no
political character or functions, and which was invested with a
legal and religious character, into whose hands the case was
remitted so soon as a difference arose between the Roman Ex
ecutive and that of any other people.
It is therefore on the example of this gieat people that those
few private individuals whose minds have been turned to this
branch of human science, have chiefly relied in expounding
those principles which have obtained for them pre-eminent
authority in the courts of all modern kingdoms, and which
have, in so far as they have been maintained, secured order
and peace in the world. If private men, endowed with publicmindedness, have become the lawgivers and benefactors of
their species, what might not be effected by the Church of
Rome, if it entered on the task in a similar spirit, having no
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
33
longer laboriously to work out, but simply to employ and
apply the materials ready to its hand?
But Europe is not entirely Christian. A great Mahomedan
Power dwells on its soil, and holds possession of the point not
only of greatest geographical and political importance in Europe,
but in the world. This system, so far from being opposed to
the great design of the Pope, is associated therewith, and is
the only Government not directly and essentially opposed to it.
It is so not only as being, in common with the Pope, exposed to
the direct assault of bandits or to the insidious combinations of the
other Powers, but it is so also as having preserved in its constitu
tion the same laws and practices that prevailed in Pagan Rome.
The effects of this original constitution are still evidenced in this,
that it has alone abstained from forming designs against its neigh
bours, or combining to subvert their independence by interfering
in their affairs. The Sultan and Divan of Turkey can, no more
than could the Consuls and Senate of Rome, decree or levy war.
The Ulema in the one country, as the Fecials in the other, have
first to render their sentence (Fetva). Were a Sultan without
such warrant to declare war, he would find no one to obey him.
*
The common Mussulman soldier would make no distinction be
tween the individual murder of a fellow-citizen and the aggregate
murder of a foreign regiment. Without the Fetva of the Sheik
ul Islam, he would hold himself no more bound to obey his officer
in firing on such regiment, than an English soldier would do, in
firing on a mob without the reading of the Riot Act.
It will be, of course, supposed by Europeans, judging by their
own habits, that Turkey is not herself aggressive or intriguing, like
the other Governments, solely because she is the object of attack on
the part of others; but it is not so. Had it not been from her own
maxims and character, she would have been the most dangerous
Power in Europe, if, possessed, as she is, of the positions the
most important, she had yielded to the combined inducements
of unjust profits to make, and legitimate animosities to gratify.
Take as instance the year 1812, when, after suffering from the
several violences of England and France, an offensive alliance
was proposed to her by Russia, under which their naval and
land forces were to be combined, their joint fleets to issue into
the Mediterranean, and their armies to invade Lombardy. The
dream of Mahmoud H. was paraded before her eyes, and not
Italy only, but the Southern Provinces of France, offered
* In the only case of such usurpation presented by the annals of Turkey, the
Sultan (Mahmoud IV.) was put to death. He had recommenced war with Austria
before the expiration of a truce. Even under the new order commenced in this gene
ration, the most eloquent and popular preacher at Constantinople denounced the
surrender of Belgrade as an act of infidelity, as well as usurpation, no fetva having
been obtained for it.
�34
THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
to her ambition. The good sense of certain men might, in
deed, have sufficed to overrule the suggestions of the tempter;
but even if there had been found in the Divan a Kaunitz, a
Beust, or a Bismarck, still the craft and corruption of such
men must have failed in face of institutions which required
the plans of a Minister, before execution, to be submitted to a
public Divan and approved of by a legal Fetva. The Grand
Vizier at the Treaty of Belgrade said to the Ministers of Austria
and France, “You do not understand our Government. One or
“ two men cannot decide at Constantinople, as they do at Paris
“ and Vienna.”
This rule of the Boman State was that of all human society in
the origin (the Romans only copied those who were before them,
and specially the Etruscans). It is also that which we still hold
to in common practice. The “ Government,” and even the
“ Crown,” comes into the British courts exactly as a private indi
vidual, when it has a civil case to urge. So also it is itself brought
into court by private individuals when they are plaintiffs, and
the judge deals with it simply as a party in a suit, examining
its acts, and pronouncing sentence for it or against it, according
to the merits of the case and the law which determines it. So,in like manner, in regard to external operations of the nature,
now improperly termed, of war, when they affect the subjects,
not of Great Britain only, but of foreign States, and are of a
nature to be brought into court.
In the first Chinese war a case arose between shippers and
insurers in consequence of losses incurred through the operations
then being carried on. It came for trial, on the plea that the
loss was incurred through the effects of war. The judges unani
mously decided that there was no war.
Lord Mansfield, in trying a case in which Danish subjects
had been injured by acts of the British Government, when the
orders of that Government were quoted, said (case of the Diana},
“ The word ‘ Government ’ is not one that can be used in this
“ place, being nonsensical (without meaning). If the orders were
“ lawful, the law gave them their value; if unlawful, they could
“ not be rendered lawful, by the source from which they
“ emanated.”
In like manner, had a charge of murder of a Chinaman been
brought before the Central Criminal Court against any soldier,
private or officer, or sailor employed in China, that court must
have passed sentence of death on such soldier or officer. The law
is still there, only there are no men to enforce it.
It is true that in modern Turkey, these restraints on human
passions, these safeguards of the innocence and life of com
munities, preserved there from ancient times for our instruc
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
35
tion, are fading away before the pressure of European diplo
macy and the contamination of European ideas; but, never
theless, such ideas are not there, as in Europe, strange ; are
not incomprehensible nor offensive. The Government, after
all, is itself still composed of Mussulmans; it may and does ap
preciate the injury resulting from its own unwilling usurpations ;
it does feel the danger resulting from the pressure upon it of the
lawlessness of European Governments. It is therefore unques
tionable that the Sublime Porte would hail with joy the .proposi
tion of the Pope, would aid it to the best of its ability (and that
ability, in such a case, would not be small), and might thereby be
led to a wholesome return to the past, and a respectful considera
tion of the profound and beneficent maxims, lying neglected and
obscured in the foundations of its own institutions.
*
In the time of Christ Christians lived under the dispositions
of Moses. The “Church,” then in its most perfect form,
obeyed rules for the conduct of men in all essential matters of
life, viz. low taxation, cleanliness, charity, and politeness. Islam,
in common with all primitive religions, followed the same rule,
and prescribed how wars can be lawfully made; what taxes can
be lawfully levied; how and when the body is to be washed;
what proportion of a man’s income shall be given in alms; and
how a man is to salute his fellow-creatures. By rules on these
points society can alone be considered as duly constituted, or
capable of durability. The absence of these may make up, in
deed, a condition of “ civilisation,” but, clearly, a community
destitute of such restraints is not one that can be either reli
gious, virtuous, cleanly, charitable, happy, or durable.
These restraints being imposed by Religion, Religion became
sanctified to man by its benefits; and, consequently, that dis
belief which we now see spreading over Europe was unknown.
In the origin Religion was everything to man. It was Govern
ment as well as Faith. Secular Government arose from its
decay. Finally, Government having at last come “ to consist
“ of those practices which it was instituted to put down,”f re
pudiate Religion, as a guide for its acts, while it makes use
of its authority to sanction its crimes. Thus it is that Re
volution and Atheism prevail and spread. They have not yet
however made way among those nations that still hold to Law
as a part of Religion, and who have not drawn the distinction
now established in Christendom between the Law as applied to
the acts of the individual and to those of the community.
To judge of the view which the European Governments will
Not in the Mahomedan only, but in all the Asiatic systems. Law has always
been held a part of religion.”-—Thomson's Akklak-i-Nasiri^ p. 121.
f Lord Lyttleton.
c 2
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THE CECUMENIC COUNCIL.
take of the matter, we must consider what the consequences
will be to them of his success—consequences which they will
perceive at a glance.
The Pope will be successful when nations commence to
question acts in reference to their lawfulness. This will present
a new obstacle to despotic power. It will endanger that “ pre
rogative of peace and war” which has been usurped by Execu
tives from both Sovereigns and Representative bodies, or, as in
France, by the Sovereign from the Representative body.
*
Executives, no longer able to plunge their country in foreign
wars, will have to surrender ambitious schemes of conquest
and annexation.
Executives no longer able to kill men at pleasure on the
battle-field, words of menace will no longer be capable of
disturbing the world, whether spoken on a New Year’s Day
presentation, or written in despatches, or secret instructions, or
“ private” letters. Diplomacy will disappear. Danger and
alarm ceasing, military establishments will be reduced.
For the same reason taxes will be cut down.
Permanent embassies will be looked on with suspicion and
alarm.
On all points the tendency will be the reverse of that at pre
sent pursued ; it will be to escape from despotic executives, extra
national combinations, ruinous military establishments, and an
unbearable accumulation of taxes—all which constitute the
power of office and its attractions.
. But the appreciation of these effects will not be confined to
diplomatic, men, but extend also to the active and managing
spirits among the class of infidels and revolutionists. They, in
like manner, will perceive that it is a blow struck at their im
portance, and at their occupation. The food and fuel of infi
delity and revolution are public crime and national suffering—in
other words, . Wars and Taxes. Governments and clubs, the
ambitious Minister, the aspiring demagogue, the spirit of rest
lessness, on whatever side it breaks out, the powerful interests
of the press, which lives by news—that is, crimes and agitations
—are all smitten by this proposal of the Pope.
Indistinct and problematical as the benefits may appear to the
vast mass of well-disposed and indifferent men who are to reap
the profit, to the moving, acting, and ruling—though in numbers most insignificant—portion of the community, the loss is
very distinct and very positive. They clearly understand that
to attempt to restore the supremacy of the Law is to attempt to
supersede their calling.
* The Revolution of 1848 had withdrawn this power from the President (except,
in case of defence); it was regained by the Coup d’Etat.
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
37
The consequence of this judicial blindness has been, in an
other sense, fatal to the peace and well-being of communities,
and to the judgment and integrity of the individuals comprising
them. This consists in the putting away the idea of punishment
in regard to persons filling ministerial offices. The arm of the
soldier is placed at the mercy of the political adviser. He is
expected to slay when ordered to do so by the Minister, and the
law is not to reach him when, acting on the oath to obey “ lawful
orders,” he obeys unlawful ones. Then it was to be expected
that the acts of the political agent should be looked into with
peculiar severity, so as to bring the full responsibility of the
measures themselves on those who had acquired the facility of
causing their subordinates to overleap the law. But this is not
the case. The reverse has happened. First, these advisers are
suffered to give such orders without prior sanction or even know
ledge of so much as their intention on the part (in England) of
the body constituted to advise the Crown in its exercise of the
prerogative of Peace and War.
In the second place, they are not held responsible for their
acts after the event, however blamable or however disastrous; so
that at once every check has been removed from human frailty,
purpose or passion, whilst every possible encouragement is
heaped upon those persons to yield to such tendencies, in the
vastness of the uncontrolled power placed in their hands, in the
enormous sums of money afforded by modern taxation, and its
concession into military materials and troops.
It is not merely that the idea has vanished of punishing
Ministers for any act, but that the neglecting to clo so has
become a maxim, and a maxim which the present generation
pronounces with much self-satisfaction, as honourably distin
guishing them from, and placing them above all former times
and people. That maxim is, “ The days of Impeachment are
gone by.” To say that there should be a class of men who shall
not be punished when they do amiss—they not acting for or by
themselves, but by the power confided to them—is what could
not enter into the imagination of men, where such had not
become the practice: so is it impossible to cause the contrary
idea to enter into the imagination of men, where such has be
come the practice.
Nor is it that this class is held to be by nature free from
human imperfection. They are by no means considered sinless
and wise: while their acts are taken for law, their word is not
taken for truth. They are periodically expelled from office because
they are condemned or despised; and any one of them who
should put his own hand in the pocket of another, or knock off
his hat, would be taken up by the police. Nevertheless, un
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
questioned and unopposed, one of them can send hundreds of
thousands of his fellow-creatures to death, and cause myriads
of arms to be plunged in the pockets of hundreds of millions
of men, subjects of the Crown he serves, or aliens.
*
There have, during the last thirty years, been found some
individuals throughout Europe who have perceived, if but for a
moment, that unlawful battle was assassination, but no one
whatever has perceived that the present normal bloodshed and
convulsions are results of the maxim—that Ministers shall never
be exposed to punishment. But if the real nature of this practice
were understood, and human indignation were thereby evoked,
and directed itself to suppressing it, then would men naturally
turn upon those who, quietly and unendangered, in their closets,
ordered such crimes ; and the cry would be, “ The days of im“ peachment are not gone by.” All this the men of this class
feel and know, and instinctively connect with the general pro
position of applying the law to the conduct of States. Those
who propose to move in this matter have anxiously to ponder
and clearly to comprehend, what is the depth and intensity of
the opposition they will meet, and the vastness and variety of
the disturbing and corrupting influences that will be brought
to bear against them, in order to stop or frustrate their pro
ceedings.
No such dangers would assail, or pitfalls surround, the
attempt, were it made by any other Church save that of
Rome, as on the other hand, no corresponding benefits would
accrue. Had it been the Church of England which proposed
to restore the law, that restoration would only be, quoad
its own members. The purpose settled in its own mind,
it would only have to deal with its own Government. If so
minded, there could be no struggle and no difficulty; the
English Government could not make lawless wars in face of a
hostile Bench of Bishops, to say nothing of lay Peers, of
Members of the House of Commons, and the whole Anglican
community, resolved that wars should not be unlawfully and un
justly made. Neither France, nor Austria, nor Prussia, nor
Italy, nor any, nor all Foreign Powers, could in the slightest
degree, or for a moment, disturb or influence the decision of
such Church, nor would they, save indirectly, be affected
thereby.
The Anglican Church, like the Fecial College of Pagan
Rome, would have in view one side only: namely, its own
government. In a proposed war with Austria, it would be com* Since these operations commenced, dating them from the introduction of Lord
Palmerston into the Foreign Office and the sacrifice of Poland, the charges of Europe
for military purposes have increased threefold.
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
39
promised only in regard to the English Crown ; it is free, if our
side is just. Not so the Church of Rome. It would have to
bear on its conscience crime equally on both sides. It is not
free, if one side is just. Both must be in the right for it to be
blameless; and this is impossible. There is no possible escape
for it save by adjudication. 1st. It has to judge in reference
to the war; 2ndly. It has to excommunicate the side that is
in the wrong. No Community, great or small, can be called
just that does not exclude from its breast dishonourable men—
that is, excommunicate them. To fear to use the weapon of
excommunication is, above all things, to mistake the age in
which we live; which, more than any that has preceded it,
affords a field, and has in readiness a crown, for capable
daring.
Excommunication is a power which every individual possesses,
by which and which alone he retains, or can retain, his integrity.
We know a gentleman by this, that he will not know a dis
honourable person. This power is the safeguard of public as of
private morals. The real restraint over Ministers is this, that
public crime being also private guilt, honourable men will not
associate with them.
With Rome it is widely different. That Church is co-existent
with no State. Its decision has no reference to its own particular
State—not making itself unjust wars, or any wars; having never
used its power for the extension of its limits, when even that
power was the greatest in Europe; and not having engaged in
any of those diplomatic operations which are to-day directed
against the independence, not of the small States only, but of
the greatest also.
Its action, therefore, is without, and not within ; and with
out, it reaches them all and all equally. This action would in
effect be greatest on the States not publicly united to its faith ;
for the aggressive States which endanger the world are, with
one exception, not Catholic; and that one, Catholic in name,
is in essentials the reverse of Catholic, whether we term it
Gallican in its religion, or heathen in its Government. It is
therefore more logical to say that none of the dangerous Powers
are Catholic. These are four: England, Russia, Prussia, and
France. Of these, the three which are nominally not Catholic,
are those on which the action of the Court of Rome, under
our hypothesis, would be the greatest. The case can be only
stated here, not elaborated. Enough, perhaps, has been said
to show that the body of Catholics in England, or rather a
minute fraction of them, would suffice to stop nefarious and
injurious proceeding in the Government. Take from Russia
the active co-operation of England, and not only hei’ power
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
expires, but the process commences of restoring the power of
England herself. But, in like manner, Rome has spiritual sub
jects in Russia and in Prussia. The method of proceeding is
one for all. Rome has also a few subjects left in France.
All the political influence of these Governments will be
brought to bear on Rome, directly on the Pope and his Go
vernment, indirectly through the Prelates and Ecclesiastics
connected with each State; and here Austria, too, comes in,
and will prove of all the most dangerous. Finally, the
common talk of diplomatic and political circles will be directed
to the crushing out of whatever idea may arise that is just,
wise, and beneficial. The Church of Rome knowing what it
is about, the fallacies of argument and the shafts of ridicule
would fall harmless. But the bare threat of such an intention
will cause measures to be hastened for crushing the Roman
State. During the interval it will be agitated with troubles
and tortured with alarms. In the Council the Pope has
raised up a stone; a great, a desperate, and a saving effort is
required to prevent it from falling back, and to cause it to fall
on and crush the reproved of mankind.
“ When religion is banished from civil society, and Divine
“ Revelation rejected, the true notion even of justice be“ comes obscured and is lost, material force takes the place of
“ justice and right, and certain men dare to proclaim that the
“ will of the people, manifested by what they call public
“ opinion, constitutes the supreme law, independent of all right,
“ human or divine; and that, in politics, acts consummated, and
by the fact that they have become consummated, have the
“ force of right. (Facta consummata, eo ipso, quod consumu mata sunt, vim juris habere.)”
Such is, perhaps, the leading idea of the Allocution of 1864.
This is the flag wrhich is raised. It has to be observed to
those who would object, because not adhering to the Church
of Rome, or because adhering to no church whatever, that
this proposition is not a religious dogma, but an assertion
which every man can examine, and of which he must recog
nise the truth. For no one can deny that what they call
“ Public Opinion” exists only in substituting something else in
the place of right, and that the people of Europe do accept
whatever is done on no other grounds than that it has been done.
It is, therefore, for all who see that this is so, and that it is
wrong, and must bring evil consequences, to apply themselves
to find the means of effecting a change.
It has further to be remarked that for them (the non-Catholics
and unbelievers) this is simply the assertion of a man. It is a
man, like each of us, who calls on his fellow-men to warn them,
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
41
and who, moreover, invokes their aid to stop nefarious proceed
ings, distracting and endangering, not one only, but all the
nations, first of Christendom, and then, by their example and
their acts, of the entire world.
The Pope speaks, in the first instance, to his own flock;
they differ in no respect in conduct and idea from those who
are not Catholics. That they do possess a religion no ways
changes their position from that of those who have none.
They neither protest against public crimes, nor denounce
“Public Opinion,” nor refuse to accept “consummated acts.”
In fact, the separation of religion and politics has had for
effect that there is no difference in practice and perception
between the believer and the infidel; and that condition of
slavish submission, arrived at by the latter through the throwing
off of all religious conviction or restraint, has been arrived at
equally by the former, notwithstanding his observance of the
ceremonial, and his profession of the symbol, of a belief.
What is here proposed is no more than what it is the duty of
each individual to do for himself; for it consists of the means to
be taken, so that in thought, word, and act he may not err.
Whilst each nation lived by and in itself, when the incidents of
conflict occurred at the interval of generations only, no such
duty was imposed on ordinary men. Not so when all these con
ditions are reversed, and when there is an incessant forming and
expressing of opinions. These opinions must be false, unless
they are true; and there is no possibility of their being true
save by taking the necessary steps to discard error, and that is
by ascertaining the law by which on each occasion we have to
be guided, and the history of the events to which it applies.
To commence this study a man must be possessed of the con
viction that it is his duty to be right, and consequently of the
knowledge that the idea prevalent among bis compatriots that
it is impossible to be right, and that it is human to err, is the
mere result of their not having taken the trouble to understand
the matters of which they speak. In this respect the doctrine
of infallibility of the Catholic Church comes greatly in aid.
To it, at least, we can boldly say, “ You recognise the duty of
“ being right, since you profess yourselves to be incapable of
“ error.”
There is, however, an objection which has been raised, viz.
that this is “extraneous work” and must interfere with the
regular work to come before the Council. The answer is, There
is no work before the Council.
The minds of men are, indeed, filled with vague and tumul
tuous notions as to a vast number of things that ought to be
done, and which they fancy the Council will in some way be
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
able to reach. All these vanish on close inspection. It is first
of all expected that some dogmatic sanction will be obtained
for the “ Temporal Power.” When you ask how and in what
terms such an article is to be framed, you will get no answer;
and when you go on to say, “ The Temporal Power is simply a
ci state of possession, which can be disturbed only by an act of
“ violence; security against such is only to be found in the Ten
“ Commandmentsyou will have put the case in a form to
convince any one, not only that an article of faith cannot be
framed so as to meet the case, but also that it is superfluous, and
that the desired end can be reached only by a return to the Law
itself. The various’propositions may be classed under the fol
lowing heads:—
1. Temporal Power;
2. Secular Intervention in nomination of Bishops ;
3. Religious Education;
4. The Eastern Catholics ;
5. Relation of the Church to Governments (“ entre l’Eglise
et la Politique”).
As to the interference of Kings in the nomination of Bishops,
all that can be done by a Council has been done already by the
1st Article of the Council of Trent.
As to Education, it is a matter which regards the internal
legislation of each country. That legislation, as it exists, does
not, at least, prevent the priest from teaching the child what sin
is, and what the particular sin from which wTe suffer; which the
priest does not teach the child at present, because he himself
does not know, and which to teach is to stop.
In regard to the settlement looked to in the East (meaning
Turkey), there is nothing to do. The Porte leaves the Catholic
body perfect freedom on all the points on which Rome has been
at variance with the- Christian Governments of Europe. It does
not persecute, it does not constrain conversion, it does not con
fiscate property, it does not interfere in education, in the election
of Bishops, in the appropriation of testamentary bequests, or in
the public ceremonies. As to the discipline of that Church,
the Pope himself, and proprio mota, has made a change the
most momentous—that of assuming the direct nomination of the
Bishops. He has done so without consulting either the com
munities of the East, or the Consistory, or the Academia Sacra
at Rome. If he has determined the major point by reversing
immemorial practice, he can determine the minor ones, if so
minded, without the aid or intervention of a Council.
On the 5th and last point, “ the relation of the Church to
Politics,” it is difficult to imagine what it can mean.. This is
certain, that when the question is put nothing definite can be
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
43
extracted. The conclusion therefore is, that there exists at pre
sent no work foi’ the Council to undertake in the view of
realising its avowed purpose of “ preventing human society from
crumbling to dust.”
At the time of the announcement, the phrase was current at
Rome : “The Pope looks to the Council; the Cardinals to the
^Temporal Power,” meaning that the Pope had objects in
view which were not those of the Cardinals. Doubtless those
views are to be found in germ in the Allocution and the Syllabus.
But these are not all. There must lie at the bottom apprehen
sion of a new danger impending over the Church.”
Those who have considered the dangers that threaten Europe
from the disturbance of hereditary succession and from the matri
monial alliances of royal and princely houses, especially since the
new dynastic arrangements in Denmark and Greece, have had
one ground of consolation—namely, that the Pope was neither
an. hereditary monarch, nor capable of contracting matrimonial
alliances.
If the election of a Pope depended exclusively on a Conclave
of Cardinals, there might be grounds for such confidence. But
it is far from being so determined. Conflicting influences
operating from without prevail, and it is possible to suppose a
case when these influences, hitherto balancing each other, might
be combined. In such case, that elective source of the Papal
sovereignty, instead of affording any guarantee, would, on the
contrary, present the greatest of perils.
When a Frencli Sovereign conferred temporal possession on
the Bishop of Rome, it was in reason that precautions should
have, been taken to prevent the election from falling on a person
inimical to France, or in alliance or confederacy with those other
Governments with which France was in conflict, and for whose
rivalry and competition, Italy and the Papacy afforded the chief
field. In succession of time and events, other Governments
extorted and secured a similar guarantee. This consisted in the
right to.veto the election of one candidate. Three nations have
up to this time acquired this veto. These are France, Austria,
and Spain.
The first of these countries is in the hands of the man who
sent French troops to the Crimea. The second is in the hands
of a Minister who owes his position to Russia, and who has
declared himself openly against the Pope. Of the third, it
may at least be said that there is in it no capacity to take a line
of its own, and. that a Russian Ambassador has ruled as abso
lutely in Madrid as formerly at Warsaw.
To veto three candidates is to decide the election. Three
candidates amount to the number of eligible persons. By com
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bining the vetoes, the negative faculty of three, as hitherto pos
sessed, is converted into the active faculty of one. To the holder
or suspected holder of this influence, all candidates and all
electors would look.
That the Pope sees this danger is unquestionable. It does
not follow that he connects it with Russia; at all events, he
must connect it with the Ruler of France. Louis Napoleon
has sought consecration at the hands of the Pope. The Pope
has refused it. Threats and offers (money included) have been
unavailing to move him from his purpose. The Pope must,
therefore, foresee that every means will be used to obtain a more
pliant successor.
If a Council convened on the occasion can interpose so as to
bar the foreign vetoes, then some light may be thrown on the
motives to which the Pope has yielded, and some explanation
afforded, for a difference in this respect between himself and
the Consistory. It would also explain how there should be
mystery in the matter. At all events, it is clear that the fate
of the Catholic Church may turn on the election of the next
Pope, and that with that election this Council is immediately
connected. It more immediately explains the vagueness of the
terms of the instruction to the Sub-Commission as to deter
mining the relations of the Church to Politics.
Nor is this all that would be explained. The vehemence with
which Russia has denounced the Council, the monstrosity of the
pretensions she has put forward in respect to it, could hardly be
accounted for by any dread as to the effect it would have in
withdrawing Europe from her control, and the more so as the
language so used has given to the act of the Pope an importance
in the eyes of Catholics which it by no means had before. But
if she sees in it the indication of a design to frustrate the action
of foreign diplomacy in reference to the next election, the
vehemence of her words and their apparent indiscretion will
be alike explained.
But the power of applying these vetoes to candidates likely to
maintain the independence of the Roman See, is only a subsidiary
one. Doubtless the candidate has been long ago fixed upon.
The election will be made to turn in the Consistory, not
on French or Austrian influence, not on Cis or Transalpine
doctrines, not on liberal or anti-liberal tendencies, but on the
maintenance of the “ Temporal Power.” Louis Napoleon
is placed on the Temporal line; the Consistory is on the Tem
poral line. His candidate will be their candidate. That can
didate will be the Russian candidate. It matters not that Russia
has not now, and may not have even then, a representative at
Rome. It may be advantageous not to have one there, so as to
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45
awaken no attention. It may be, that for this very reason the
rupture of intercourse was managed. Besides she has already
declared herself (1848) for “ the restoration of both the Spiritual
“ and the Temporal authority of the Pope.”
If there be a member of the Consistory who desires to know,
or rather who does not shrink from knowing, the truth, let him
render to himself an account of the operations of Louis Napo
leon since his accession, both externally and internally. Let
him inquire into the circumstances and agency which placed
him on the Imperial Throne. Is it France that has benefited
by his enterprises abroad ? Is it any Government which can
profit by what he is doing within ?
The “Temporal power of the Pope” is a word that has been
got up, just as the “ Integrity of the Danish Monarchy” and the
“Pacification of the Levant.” It will be used for a similar
purpose. This is the particular danger that threatens the world
at this moment, and that in conjunction with all the others;
for all are interwoven. There is no escape but in unravelling
the threads of the web of fallacy out of which it has sprung, and
in clearing away the false conclusions and the passions resulting
from the long series of measures by which Italy has been worked
up to her present state—measures which commenced in 1795, in
which the hand of Russia can be traced from the beginning,
and in which France, England, Austria, “ Italy,” and “ Revolu“ tion” have all been made successively, severally, and conjointly
to play their blind, servile, and suicidal parts.
Russia’s operations are secular. Her antagonists, who are but
dupes, revolve in the narrow limits of months and days. She
acts; they speculate. The horizon of their universe is made up
of the emotions of their own minds, for which she has furnished
the pasture out of the anterior acts which she has made them per
form ; and which acts they themselves, nevertheless, have for
gotten, never having known what it is they have done, because
haying no law in themselves, their eyes are without sight.
It is the “ Commandments of the Lord ” which “ enlighten the
the eyes.” Escape from this present terrible and hopeless danger
can only be by restoring the Law of God and man. Thus only
can the Consistory or the World be made to understand that to
speak of “ the Temporal power of the Pope” is to utter words
base and shameful, and is to weave a snare for their own feet.
.Why are the words “ Temporal power” substituted for Sove
reignty in the case of the Pope alone ? No one speaks of the
Temporal power of the Emperor of the French or of the Queen
of Spain. Yet there is no difference in regard to these Poten
tates as to the nature and quality of the supreme functions which
they exercise as rulers. It is true that the Pope superadds to
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
the prerogative of Justices of Peace ancl War another quality
or Prerogative which is spiritual. But so does the Emperor of
Russia and the Sultan of Turkey, and yet no one speaks
of the “Temporal Power” of either. So does the King of
Prussia and the Queen of England, who dispose of the “ Tem
poralities” of their respective churches.
If, then, the “ Sovereignty” of the Pope has received a special
designation which is not applied to other sovereignties, it is that
there lurks beneath an insidious intention. That intention is to
deprive him of that Sovereignty by making men believe it to be
something different from other Sovereignties. Thus a discussion
can be raised respecting it on grounds which exclude all received
notions of right. It will so come about that men who would
not admit for a moment a proposition to take the crown off the
head of the Queen of England or of Spain, and to give it to
Victor Emmanuel because it- is a “ Temporal Power,” would
accept, and urge on that ground, the same proposition as regards
the Pope.
They will then go a step further, and say, “ We propose to
“ give—we who have no business therewith—the lands, cities,
“ and fortresses belonging to the Pope to the descendants of the
“ Dukes of Savoy (for that is the end in view), in order that
“ we may confer a great benefit on the Roman Catholic Church.
“We wish to improve and purify it. We wish to wash it clean
“ from all secular taints we desire to see it entirely spiritual, and
“ in all this we are actuated by the spirit of justice and the love
“ of Religion.”
Thus will this class of simple and perhaps devout persons find
themselves engaged in a common cause with those who seek to
“ abrogate all laws,” to revolutionise every Government, and to
upset every belief—men who not only work for “ disorder,” but
who avow to themselves that they do so.
To these, others join themselves with another motive—that of
Proselytism. They will see in this operation the breaking
down of the Catholic Church, and in the hopes of gaining con
verts to Protestantism, will join in the same clamour for the
“ unity of Italy.” Thus it is that the whole of England has not
only in effect aided and wildly applauded the atrocious proceed
ings of which Italy has been the theatre, but bowed itself down
before the man who has been the instrument employed for that
end, although as a man he combines every disqualification capable
of excluding him from intercourse with respectable persons.
This combination established, those on the other side will
“ accept the language of their enemies.”* Instead of unravelWords of the Bishop of Orleans at Malines
�THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
47
ling the fallacy of their terms, instead of exposing the immo
rality of their proceeding, instead of unmasking the perfidy of
their design, and the fatal consequences it must bring, they will
simply accept the term—which is accepting all—-and their rally
ing point will be to maintain the “ Temporal Power.” Thus it is
that a candidate coming forward as in favour of the “ Temporal
power” may be accepted by a future Consistory on that word
alone, and yet be the very agent selected for the undoing of
that very knot which links together this great and wonderful
system, which, unless it did possess a sovereignty in the sense of
territorial possession, could only be the dependency of some one
the Governments of Europe.
. It is in this sense that the case has been judged up to these
times by the Protestant Governments. They have always held
that the independence of the Pope was a vital point for them on
this ground : that the loss of his independence—which they saw
equally in external influence exerted at elections or in revolu
tionary movements affecting his authority—would be to the
benefit of some Catholic power and against themselves. It was
thus that England exerted herself, and at great expense, to secure
a free Consistory at Venice in 1799—Venice, which has now va
nished from the list of free states, and of which act she reaped so
signally the benefit a few years later, in being, by the aid of the
Pope, enabled to meet the effects of the Berlin and Milan De
crees. It was thus that she provided, at the settlement of 1814-5,
for the full restoration of the State and Possessions of the
Roman See.
Again, when the convulsions of Italy were beginning, and
the Revolutionists, expecting to be favourably looked on "by the
Protestant Governments, applied to the Representative of Prus
sia, they were told (by Mr. Bunsen) that they were “ greatly mis
taken if they thought that the Protestant Powers would favour
“ them because of religious differences with the Catholics.” The
above-stated reason .was then put in precise terms; the Prussian
Secretary of Legation explained why his Government could not
abet proceedings which, whatever the views and intentions of
those immediately engaged, could have no other result save that
of reducing the Pope to a condition of subserviency to some one
of the Catholic Governments, which then would turn his spiritual
supremacy over his flock, to its own advantage, against other
Powers.
The Pope has never sanctioned, or admitted, or employed,
the terms “Temporal power” as applied to his possessions. In
speaking of his sovereignty over the States of the Church, it is
always designated by him as the Civile Imperium, or the Principatus Civilis. (Syllabus, § ix. Errores de civile Romani Pontificis
4
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THE (ECUMENIC COUNCIL.
principati, Prop, lxxvi. et seq.) The word 44 Temporal Power,”
in Papal documents, refers to temporal judgments, and to the
effects attaching to excommunication. (Syllabus, § v. De Ecclesia ejusque Juribus Prop. xxiv. xxv. et al.) In fact it applies
to other Governments.
Those who desire to understand have got within their reach
the case of Denmark. There they may study Russia’s mode of
procedure in such matters. There 44 the Powers” combined to
impose a candidate. The internal laws were upset to let him
in. He was Russia’s nominee, yet she held aloof. She is now
mistress of Denmark, with all the advantages of not appearing to
be so. On that occasion the deceptive amphibology prepared for
men’s lips was “ The Integrity of Denmark.”
Who dreamt that there was anything in contemplation
against the Crown of Denmark, even on that morning (11th
May, 1852) when the Treaty was announced in the Times news
paper, although that profound and extensive conspiracy had
been in existence for eighty-five years ? Who has now compre
hended it, with the results before them1? If it be unquestionable
that those who do not anticipate events cannot counteract them,
so is it equally true that those who do not foresee them before
they happen, cannot understand them when they have taken
place. This is no reason for despair ; it is, on the contrary, an
inducement to strive, and in the first instance to study.
No doubt the Pope in the words he has spoken and in the
measures he proposes, offends the Catholic body This is his mis
*
fortune, not his fault. It is also his duty. He has the greatest of ex
amples to guide him, an example which is also a command. That
example is that of Christ. Our Saviour to the then 44 Church”
preached repentance. In the New Testament the words 44 con
vert” and 44 repentance ” are synonymous, so also 44 salvation.”
44 Saving the people from their sins,” is the expression used to
designate the object of the preaching of St. John, yet the sins
of that 44 Church” of Judea did not go to the extent of daily and
wholesale assassinations. St. Paul says of the 44 Christian”
after the crucifixion and ascension and the coming of the Holy
Ghost, 44 He that does not provide for his own household has
* The following words from the Monde show the schism introduced by the Syl
labus, “ Les divisions viennent de ceux qui refusent de comprendre les paroles de
Pie IX. dans le Syllabus : il y a injustice à mettre sur la même ligne avec eux les
Catholiques qui ne se sont pas départis des principes posés dans les Encycliques. Si
la voix du pasteur est écoutée, le camp des Catholiques se fortifiera, et leur action
peut devenir prépondérante. C’est à l’i/mon de VOuest et à la Gazette de France à en
prendre leur parti. Elles se bercent d’illusions si elles s’imaginent guider les Catho
liques, en restant dans leurs doctrines équivoques.
“ Elles croient servir la liberté; mais jusqu’ici elles n’ont servi que la liberté de
leurs adversaires. Ce métier de dupes ne vous va pas, quoique nous ne nous dissi
mulions pas que les Catholiques ne sont pas encore en mesure de faire prévaloir leur
volonté. L’inanité des doctrines modernes ramènera, après une longue expérience, et
s’il plaît à Dieu, les populations à uneyrnZ/i/yae chrétienne.-’
�DIPLOMATIC COLLEGE.
49
“ denied the faith, and is worse than an infidel.” Yet he
spoke of neglect only, and neglect in reference to things which
had they been done would only have proved useful. With what
feelings would the apostles to-day behold, and in what terms
denounce, that community calling itself Christian 1 A true
successor of those apostles will feel and speak in like manner.
Pius IX. combines qualifications at once so dissimilar and so
eminent, that he appears to have been Providentially raised for
the need of the World, being at once an Ecclesiastic who has
applied his mind to analytical inquiries, and a Sovereign who is
so not in name only, as the other Sovereigns of Europe, but in
power also.
But there is in him not only capacity and qualifications. He has
put his hand to the work ; and that work is rendered by his own
words better than by any Commentary. He has said, “The
“ World is lost in darkness; I have published the Syllabus to be
to it a light, and to lead it back to the road of Truth.” And
again :—“ When the Pope speaks in a solemn act, it is that his
“ words shall be taken in their literal sense ; and that which he
“ has said, he has intended to say.”
Were the Catholic World of the same mind as the Pope, the
work would be done, or rather, it would not require to be clone.
But unfortunately it is not so; his difficulties are with his
own flock, alike incapable of following the thought, and of com
prehending and admiring the courage, displayed on so many
occasions by the greatest Pontiff that has ever sat on the throne
of St. Peter.
6th.
diplomatic college.
The really important point, and on which all hinges, is the
knowledge of what is doing in the world.
The subject is so vast, that to travel over it volumes would be
required. But, fortunately, it is also so simple that it can be
taken in at a glance. It has been thus enunciated by a
Prelate :—“ It must be laid down as the very first point that the
“ Church is ignorant, and that that ignorance must cease.”
There is an immediate and a practical point pressing for
instant solution, and bearing specially on the Church of Rome,
as a Church.
Russia, assuming to be the Eastern Church, aims at the de
struction of the Western Church. It is now at last known
that she has employed revolution as her instrument. It is
D
�50
DIPLOMATIC COLLEGE.
now by her openly acknowledged that to this end of subverting
the spiritual authority of the Pope, she has thrown Italy into
the hands of the King of Sardinia.
* This (as all the other
troubles and convulsions of Europe and the world) has not been
brought about by the power of Russia acting on circumstances,
but by hei capacity acting on opinion. That capacity consists
in her drawing from without able men wherever they were to be
found, and causing her own men to pass through an elaborate
mid laborious, discipline, such as the nations of Europe them
selves do employ to obtain legists, surgeons, or engineers. If,
then, the Papal Government would defend itself against the
Russian, or even know whether defence be possible and easy, or
difficult and impossible, it must employ the process which Russia
employs, that is, educate men.
Twenty-four years ago this plan was under contemplation by
Gregory XVI., but time was not granted him for its execu
tion. Yet then the belief of universal peace prevailed. They
thought “ that there were to be no more wars.” j- Confidence
in general wisdom prevailed. The year 1848 was still at a
distance.
Nothing is done in the world, but because at some previous
moment day, month, or year—two or three Russian diploma
tists have sate down to devise it, and also because there have
been none to sit down to consider how it could be prevented.
Some private individuals, engaged on the other side, have
prevented much that was in progress. They have prevented
great wars. These things may come out hereafter, in posthumous
memoirs; but they may also be known now to any who will
study. They have delayed, at least, the march of events, so
far as to afford time for the Church of Rome, at last to act.
The Council may take years; and what years are before us !
It suffices for one man of authority in the Roman State to be
informed, for prevention and counteraction to commence. This
is easy beyond expression, for whoever knows what is doing, and
at the same time has access to the saloons of Ministers. It is out
of false measures in each State that Russia works her way.
These come either from delusions that are spread, perfidious
counsels that are offered, falsified news that is presented, or
traitors that are employed. A Papal Nuncio duly informed, or
say a Prelate or a Priest, or a simple Layman, in a position to
be listened to, can rectify such false conclusions, or unmask
The Moscow Gazette says:—“To Russia it is necessary that Italy should be
united; but united she cannot be except at Rome, her natural capital. Is not the
fall of the Temporal Powers the triumph of orthodoxy (the Greek Church) in Rome
itself? Yes, it is in a higher capacity than that of mere spectators that we watch
this culminating point of Italian history.”
t Mr. Stewart Mill.
�DIPLOMATIC COLLEGE.
51
such secret agent. Russia has only the vices of men to use
to the undoing of each particular State. We have the virtues
of men for our allies, and we work for the honour and interest
of each Sovereign and each people, and for the common good
of all.
The repugnance of the Governments of Europe to the forma
tion of Diplomatic men for themselves, has to be well considered,
and perfectly understood, to perceive, how the proposed measure
would affect the world.
No public man, in England, France, Germany, or Italy, will
refuse to admit, if pressed in conversation, the following propo
sitions :—
1. That Russia is more dexterous than any other State.
2. That it is dangerous to allow her to proceed unwatched,
seeing that the affairs of all countries are mixed up together, and
— are conducted in secret.
3. That she cannot be watched, unless by persons cognisant
of her purposes and methods.
4. That it would be very desirable to have a body of men,
chosen and trained, as she chooses and trains her Diplomatists.
If, on these admissions, it be proposed to him to introduce a
measure for the carrying out of such a design, he will decline,
and start back in fear or aversion. The cause of this repugnance
is, that each would consider the mere proposal an offence and an
insult to himself individually, for it implies not only that he had
been wrong, but also that he is ignorant, and unfit for the station
he holds, has held, or aspires to hold. Also that “ public opinion”
has been wrong, and is ignorant. Dread, aversion, and disgust
must therefore be excited by the proposition, proceeding from
a Sovereign who exercises a practical and social influence over a
large number of the subjects of every other State, many of
whom sit in the representative assemblies, in the Senates of those
States, and who approach the Sovereign and share his councils.
These Governments would stand towards such a body exactly
in the position of a society of criminals, or at least of persons
not hitherto under the restraint of police or fear of the law, to
wards a newly introduced court of justice.
.The Law of Nations is not the only law violated by a public
crime, but the municipal law also. In the preceding pages this
branch has not been referred to, but it must be noticed to com
plete the subject.
The Law of Nations requires that war shall be declared only
by the sovereign authority. The municipal law defines the
conditions under which such functions shall be exercised. In
this country the Prerogative of Peace and War, as all other
Prerogatives, can be “ exercised only through the Privy Coun
�52
DIPLOMATIC COLLEGE.
cil.” It .is, indeed, through the evading of this law, and by the
surreptitious substitution of another body, to which also the title
of council has been given (Cabinet Council), that the disorder
has crept in, and that causeless and lawless wars have been
made.
It may therefore so happen that a war may be lawful and
just and necessary as regards the enemy, and nevertheless cri
minal as regards the subjects and the servants of the Crown.
The Pope, in his endeavour to bring back public business to
a normal state, must take this matter into consideration, and lav
down the obligation in nations possessing such institutions,
though neglected now, to restore them.
In doing so he will, as regards England, point to a far more
practical means of prevention than any other, whilst it comes as
supplementary to the rest.
Further, in urging on the nations the adoption of legal and
constitutional means of controling the executives, and thereby
putting an end to the violences which have called for his inter
vention, he will, whilst pointing, out the most feasible means of
obtaining the desired end, prevent much of the hesitation, oppo
sition, or abuse which may be provoked by his act. He will
show that it is not power that he covets, but crime that he
.abhors.
Rome has a Diplomacy and a Diplomatic College already.
Objections and fears are therefore out of place. It is true that
it is not connected with treaties and ordinary transactions, but
with concordats, and confined to the religious aspect. The
basis, however, exists, and is capable of extension. The system
dates from the period which preceded permanent embassies, and
when, therefore, the intercourse of nations took place only when
there was something to do, not when a subsisting intercourse
was converted into the means of giving them something to do.
Diplomacy derives its origin from the Byzantines. The word
.signifies “ duplicate,” and the office was equivalent to what we
now term archivist. It was a record of contracts; it was not the
having of agents reciprocally located in the various courts to
interfere day by day in all affairs.
It is by no means the object of this proposal that the Court of
Rome should involve itself in this odious and maleficent system;
but, on the contrary, that, being cognisant of it, it should frus
trate the deceptions it produces, and counteract the false maxims
.which it propagates, and by which it is suffered to exist.
*
* Prince Adam Czatoryski, formerly Russian Minister of Foreign Affairs, says, in his
work, “ La Diplomatie—■“ It passes belief that nations should allow themselves to be
disposed of by a body of men having another conscience and another God, and also
hat they should look thereon, not only without abhorrence and fear, but consider it
tust and proper.” This was written in 1826 !
�CONCLUSION.
53
The “Academia Ecclesiastica ” has a branch entitled “Diplomacia Sacra,” of the nature of the Byzantine College. It is
devoted to the record and study of concordats, and the jurispru
dence thereto belonging. Through it the Nuncios pass, to pre
pare them for their functions. A natural subdivision of this
body would be a college of Secular Diplomacy, the fundamental
and primordial studies of which would necessarily consist of
Jurisprudence and the Law of Nations. This would be the
most simple and natural course, but it is not the only one.
These studies are not special. It is requisite that every man
born into the world—far more every teacher of other men—
should be possessed of them. Duties have reference to circum
stances. Before the epoch of lawless wars, such studies were
not needed, being superfluous ; but they become of the last ne
cessity to every single conscience in an age, when no one knows
what constitutes a lawful war, and when, consequently, unlawful
ones can be made without hindrance or comment.
There is the whole Priesthood to be instructed. There are the
numerous regular Oommunities, with power, devotion, libraries,
and leisure, to be employed. The resources of the Church of
Borne are overwhelming from the moment that it is perceived
that it is by the culture of the intellectual arm that the war is
to be carried on against religious infidelity, social disorganisa
tion, or the plots of those who employ these means and spread
this corruption.
Conclusion.
Danger has come near. It has been seen under its most re
volting and alarming features. The Papal Court must now see
in the destroyer of Poland, the patron of Revolution, and the
mover and the director of all the Governments, of Europe.
But that Cabinet has now itself thrown off the mask and pro
claims its identification with Italian “unity,” not as directed to
subvert (as heretofore put forward) the “temporal,” but also
the “ spiritual ” authority of the Pope. It pretends, at the same
time, to enter the CEcumenic Council; not to enter only, but to
displace from it alike the Pope and the Western Church,
offering its faith and its power for the restoration of religion,
harmony, and political rest in Christendom. Warning cannot
further go, nor provocation.
In respect to courage, that great quality is not wanting.
The Pope has already defied Russia, denounced her, and dis
missed her 1 epresentative. The time must have come for him to
�54
CONCLUSION.
think of devising means to restrain and counteract her. These
have but to be sought to be found. This great power can come
into being only on the condition of perfect knowledge and
of perfect integrity. These may appear beyond the reach, not
of this, but of every age. Still, no more is required than that
which Russia possesses in every one of her Diplomatists, and
all would be achieved with such a man as England recently
possessed in Lord Stowell. Nothing more is wanted than
what could be obtained from a British Court of Justice to-day,
were a case framed so as to be brought before it.
The affairs of States which appear under the present condition
of secret mismanagement and malversation on the part of rulers,
and of confusion as produced by parliamentary discussion and
ephemeral comments in the Press, are in themselves of the
utmost simplicity, and present neither difficulty nor ambiguity
when approached with the knowledge of the law and with
sincerity.
Unless a stop be put to our present course, Christendom, after
passing through long agonies of internecine strife, must pass
under the Muscovite sceptre, and thus reap a just and merited
retribution.
Such are the convictions which inspire with fervour and in
dustry those who do see; and in all times of peril, the fate of
armies, or of nations, or of ages will and must depend on single
men : nor is their station and capacity much to be taken into
account; it suffices that they see where the others do not.
Slaughter on the battle-field, without just cause and due
warrant, is individual murder. This no man can deny when
the case is put to him. The question with which the Church
has now to deal is thus reduced to very narrow limits. It is—
TO DECLARE MURDER TO BE SIN.
On this simple issue depend all the afore-stated sequences.
On the one side, the acceptance of all causes of social degra
dation ; on the other, the reversal of the present course of im
morality, financial dilapidation, political despotism, agitation for
change, rebellion, and apostacy.
If Rome is to restore the law, it is in this fashion that it has
to be done—that is by making individuals upright; in other
words, by making them citizens and gentlemen. Ten just”
men might have saved Sodom and Gomorrah. Ten just men
can save England, by preventing successively each of the acts,
by which she is perishing.
The great compiler of the “Law of Nations” concludes in
these words:—
“ May God (who alone can do it) inscribe these things on the
“ hearts of those who have the affairs of Christendom in their
�CONCLUSION.
55
“ hands, and grant them a mind intelligent of divine and human
“ Right, remembering that it is appointed by Him to govern
“ man, a creature most dear to Himself.”*
Grotius was not a member of the Church of Rome. If
his life was expended on the study of that Public Law then
obscured, and overthrown by religious wars and animosities,
so likewise was his heart given to the composing of religious
strife, and the reconciling of the rival Churches which equally
acknowledge Christ as their head. The Protestant Grotius,
dedicated his work to the Catholic King of France, Louis
XIII. In doing so he appeals to him, in the name of Justice, that
he may “ revive her buried Laws, that he may oppose himself to
“ a declining age, so that it may submit to the judgment of that
£i former age which all Christians acknowledge to have been
“ truly and sincerely Christian : and thus restore peace amongst
“ men. The task,” he says, “ is difficult, but nothing is worthy
“ of such excellent Princes (Louis XIII. and Charles I.)
“ but that which is in itself difficult, and which is even despaired
“ of by all others? ”f
* St. Chrysostom. Serm. de Elemosyna.
f Difficile negotiatium, propter studia partium, glesentibus in dies odiis inflaminata:
sed tantis regebus nihil dignum, nisi quod difficile, nisi quod ab aliis omnibus des
peratum.
�NOTE ON GROTIUS.
*
Note
on
Grotius.
The Bishop of Orleans has recommended the study of
Grotius as an essential part of education. He has added,
as an inducement, that Grotius was about to adhere to
the Church of Rome at the time of his death. This does not
appear from his common biographers. Were it so, the case
would not be altered, as his work was composed whilst he was a
Protestant, and the authority of his writings depend, not on his
religious belief, but on the soundness of his propositions. He
has, moreover, drawn largely, not only from the Sacred Writings,
but also from the early Fathers, whose words are reproduced in
almost every page.
It might have been supposed that the Protestant character of
this writer would have been seized upon by the Bishop of
Orleans, and made use of, to urge his co-religionaries by very
shame to apply themselves to this, the highest and most essential
branch of human knowledge, the foundation of all society, and
the ^handmaid of all religion. It is true that at the time that
B
* ishop
the
of Orleans wrote his treatise on Education the
Syllabus of the Pope had not appeared, and no General Council
had been announced; so that nothing was then in contemplation
by the Church of Rome, as a Church, for the rectification of the
human understanding, or the arrestation of the decay of human
affairs.
THE END.
LONDON:
'UHINTBD BY c. "WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND
�
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Appeal of a Protestant to the Pope to restore the law of nations: reply to six questions on the business for the announced sixth Lateran Council
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Collation: 56 p. ; 21 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Printed by G. Whiting, Strand, London. Contains bibliographical references.
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Urquhart, David
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1868
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Diplomatic Review Office
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Catholic Church
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Text
THE REASONER.
EDITED BY G.
No. 888.]
J.
HOLYOAK E.
LONDON, NOVEMBER i, 1868.
Price id.
“I am by the law of my nature a Reasoner. A person who should suppose I meant by that word,
an arguer, flPOuld not only not understand me, but would understand the contrary of my meaning.
I can tak^to interest whatever in hearing or saying anything merely as a fact—merely as
having happened. I must refer to something within me before I can regard it with any curiosity
or care. I require in everything a reason why the thing is at all, and why it is there or then rather
than elsewhere or at another time.”—S. T. Coleridge.
THE PRIESTHOOD OF SCIENCE: THEIR VISIT TO NORWICH.
NEW thing has occurred in the history of the old City, which has
seen many strange things in its time. The British Association for
the Advancement of Science has paid Norwich a visit, and has been
as cordially welcomed, as hospitably entertained, and as civilly treated,
as in any city into which it has travelled. Indeed Mr. Harvey and
Lady Henrietta Harvey, entertained the Members at Crown Point in a
Royal way. By day the grounds were resplendent with gaiety, by night
radiant with fire, accompanied by a costly profusion which knew no
limits, of all that the daintiest appetite could appreciate : and in addition
Mr. Harvey made no speeches and asked none in return ; so that the
philosophic digestion was never disturbed by untimely efforts at coining
phrases of thanks. This was a refinement of philosophic hospitality un
exampled in my experience. The Mayor’s (Mr. J. J. Coleman) final
dinner, truly, left upon the minds and palates of the guests, pleasant
recollections of the civic hospitality of the ancient city of Churches.
And what a pleasant old city of Churches, Norwich is. Ecclesiastical
genius once dwelt there. The old , temples, were no bare Bethels, but
such as a man of taste could worship God in. Even Dissenting Chapels
caught an air of grace which they lack in other places. Still having
regard to the prodigious number of Churches in the City, it is hard to
resist the impression that Norwich must at one time been as wicked as
Gomorrah; and when the population was scanty there must have been a
Church to every family. Certainly a grim taste dwelt among the
citizens once, when they hung up the Ketts alive—one on the Castle
and the other brother on Wymondham Steeple. There must have
been a revolting vigour in the pious stomach, which could look up
morning after morning and calculate how long the famishing wretch
would last in his irons: and go in to pray with the consciousness of that
ghastly agony writhing over the altar. Then there was that ugly hole
the Lollard’s Pit, where they roasted any man who had an opinion of
his own, as to the faith which he thought most acceptable to God.
Even gentlemen and women were scorched, who declined to enter
A
No. I. EIGHTH SERIES.
�2
REASONER REVIEW.
heaven in the Norwich way, and if any bystander expressed pity for
so forlorn an end, the clergy fried him on the shortest notice, until his
sympathies evaporated. Even now in the reverberations of the old
trees you may detect fragments of shrieks of the writhing wretches.
All this took place at the back of the Bishop’s palace, and his Grace of
that day had the scent of smoking heretic wafted into his breakfast
room, and even now in the old carvings and cornices of the Cathedral
the dreadful odour seems to linger. We have, however, come on better
times now. A series of the best Bishops England has known of late
years have filled the see of Norwich, of which the last, Dr. Hinds, has
displayed a brave conscience. But whether in the battle of pikes or
books, there was always pluck in your Norfolk man, whether Knight
or tradesman, priest or rascal.
It is within the recollection of many Norwich men, who inherit the
Lollard courage of thinking for themselves, that Richard Carlile who
was an occasional speaker to the City, used to pray, especially in the
latter portion of his life, that there might arise in England a Priesthood
of Science. It seemed then like the distant dream of a prophet •, but we
have lived to see it realized. The names of Tyndall, Huxley, Hooker,
Darwin, Spencer, Grove, Lewes, Lyell are names which rule in the
realms of thought, as those of priests did of old, but with a distinction
and beneficence no priests ever exercised. The visit of the philosophers
was attended with some spiritual perturbations, but they left behind
them many blessings.
One of the features of the British Association was the Pre-Historic
Society, the President of which was Sir John Lubbock. No word was
so often- pronounced, no placards were so copiously seen, as those of
the pre-historic people. Their very name smelt strongly of heresy.
Many theological nostrils started at it. To investigate the doings of
man before History began was a personal attack upon Moses, and
many good souls thought that a Baronet might be expected to set a better
example. The British Association commenced its career thirty-eight
years ago with only one Christian sign, which nobody desires to imitate
—that of “fear and trembling.” It begged permission to have an
opinion—it apologized next for having one, and several Presidents did
worse—they tried to harmonise the discoveries of Science with the
dogmas of Religion. Of late years, Presidents have put on more of the
dignity of philosophers, and the independence of thinkers, and have
asserted a right to the territory they have conquered. The British
Association in my time, has never had a President with so wholesome
and impassioned a mind as Dr. Hooker. The tones of his voice were
manly and sincere. He spoke like one who cared for Science, and
asserted its dignity with intrepidity no President ever ventured upon
before. . .Mr. Herbert Spencer’s system of philosophy is as Atheistic as
the positive philosophy of Auguste Comte: yet Dr. Hooker did not
hesitate to name the author and to praise him. The author of the
�THE PRIESTHOOD OF SCIENCE.
3
“ Vestiges of Creation” found it necessary to wear a mask, Dr. Darwin
wrote boldly without one, though proving what the other had only
ventured to suggest. Dr. Hooker distinguished Dr. Darwin by grace
ful homage, Though the President holds at Kew an appointment
under the Crown, he did not hesitate to avow opinions by the side of
which, those of Dr. Colenso, the most honoured and heroic of our
Bishops, seems orthodox.
Dr. Hooker, said “ Science has never in its search hindered the
religious aspirations of good and earnest men; nor have pulpit cautions,
which are but ill disguised deterrents, ever turned inquiring minds from
the revelations of Science.” The President knew the ill office the pulpit
had often done Science, and he drew attention to its “ deterrents.” He
did more, he pointed out where the Priest fails us and Science serves
us. These were his bold words: “ A sea of time spreads its waters
jbetween' that period to which the earliest traditions of our ancestors
[point, and that far earlier period, when man first appeared upon the
globe. For his tract upon that sea man vainly questions his spiritual
teachers. Along its hither shore, if not across it, Science now offers to
pilot himS Dr. Hooker then stated the mission and determination of
the natural philosopher. “ Science, it is true/may never sound the
depths of that sea, may never buoy its shallows, or span its narrowest
■creeks, but she will still build on every tide-washed rock, nor will she
deem her mission fulfilled till she has sounded its profoundest depths
and reached its further shore, or proved the one to be unfathomable
and the other unattainable, upon evidence not yet revealed to mankinds
The President next drew the line between the work of the religionist
and students of nature. “The laws of mind are not yet relegated
to the domain of the teachers of physical science, and that the laws of
matter are not within the religious teacher’s province, these may then
work together in harmony and with good-will. But if they would do
this work in harmony, both parties must beware how they fence with
that most dangerous of all two-edged weapons, Natural Theology—a
■science, falsely so called, when, not content with trustfully accepting
truths hostile to any presumptuous standard it may set up, it seeks to
weigh the infinite in the balance of the finite, and shifts its grounds to
meet the requirements of every new fact that Science establishes, and
every old error that Science exposes. Thus pursued, Natural Theology
is to the Scientific man a delusion, and to the religious man a snare,
leading too often to disordered intellects and to Atheism.” Dr. Paley’s
never received so scalping a criticism as this before.
Professor Tyndall who so astonished the “bold Duke of Buccleugh,”
in his famous lecture to the Working-men of Dundee, last year, carried
forward this year in Norwich'—his demonstrations which no one put
more boldly or brilliantly than himself, of the truths which materialism
may count as her own. When I last spoke in Norwich, it was in discussion with my friend Thomas Cooper, who was disconcerted, when I
�4
REASONER REVIEW.
told him, that as an humble student of Nature, I could discern some of
the processes of causation, but could not explain why they occurred 9
and maintained that Theology itself had not imparted any portion of
the secret to him. Now the greatest authority upon Materialistic Phil
osophy—Professor Tyndall—has told the people of Norwich, in the
presence of the most competent tribunal in Europe; that where the
Materialist is mute the Theologist is also dumb. Professor Tyndall
demonstrated, that the Atomic Action of common Salt, is as formative and
instrumental of design as the architect of the Pyramids of Egypt—that
the growth of thought is the result of processes, as definite as the me
chanical growth of the body, and that the agerft of development in Matter
and Mind “ is a power which has feeling, not knowledge for its base.’l
Hitherto it had been thought the “respectable and proper ” thing
for Scientific men to follow the policy of suppression ; no allusion to the
Atheist was ventured upon. If anything told in favour of the Materialist it
was thought better not to mention his name. Scientific men did not call
him gross or defame him, as a person whose liberal principles pro
ceeded from a loose morality; but they never admitted in high places,
places of public notice, that he had an existence which could be recog
nized or principles that must be taken into account. Professor Tyndall
however, is not one of this order; he did justice to truth, regardless
of “propriety.”—He said in his opening address to his Section:
“ In affirming that the growth of the body is mechanical, and that
thought, as exercised by us, has its correlative in the physics of the
brain, I think the position of the ‘Materialist’ is stated as far as that
position is a tenable one. I think the Materialist will be able finally
to maintain this position against all attacks.”
Two memorable Lectures were delivered in Norwich, one by Pro
fessor Huxley and the other by Mr. Ferguson. A miracle of audacity
was Mr. Ferguson’s Lecture upon Buddhism. Stolid as an Assyriarl
Statue, bronzed with the sun of every clime, Mr. Ferguson told the
story of a great religion which arose ages before Christianity, and
disseminated nobler sentiments, and maintained a career by the side
of which that of Christianity seems poor and petty. This religion which
existed ages before Christianism, taught how pain might be avoided
and life made happy. The great object of the religion was to inculJ
cate kindliness to animals, and above all to establish thoroughly, love
and kindliness among men. One of the edicts of this religion was called
the edict of toleration, and it was one which Christians might with much
propriety follow. It was to the effect that a man must honour his own
faith without blaming that of another, and that there were circumstances
under which the faith of another should be honoured. This Prince
preached the doctrine all over India, and it was by persuasion alone
that it was propagated. There was not a single instance of religious
persecution on the part of this people, although they had to endure
much persecution themselves. Their faith and doctrine was good-wUl
�THE PRIESTHOOD OF SCIENCE.
5
to men, and they never sought to obtain converts to it.” Mr. Ferguson
very quietly said that Christianity might learn a lesson of toleration
from [its memorable and nobler] predecessor. Mr. Ferguson told us
of an old religion, that of the tree and serpent worship, which once
Jcovered the earth, the proofs of which (the best accessible to us) were
locked up forty-five years in a stable, in Whitehall Yard. After
demonstrating the prevalence and antiquity of this extraordinary Faith,
he said in the quietest manner possible, looking the Bishop of Norwich
(who sat near him) in the face. “If this kind of worship had been a
mere local superstition of India, it would be hardly worth his while to
devote so much attention to this point, but I believe that it had pre
vailed in the world from the earliest times. The history of the tree
and the serpent in the book of Genesis, I believe, was a remnant of
that old worship, and the curse of the serpent was a curse of that
impure religion.” Then arises the question ! Why, said Moses nothing
about it? Was Moses ignorant, or why was Moses silent? The
author of Genesis dropped both ages and nations out of his narrative,
and told us nothing of his stupendous omissions. But more wonderful
than the matter, was Mr. Ferguson’s manner. He announced these
revelations, new to the World and wondrous to the Norwich mind,
which takes Moses to be a reliable, historian—in the quietest matter
of fact way, as though each knew that Moses/cOld be nowhere
in his facts, if he read a pre-historic paper aMrojffie British Association.
Dr. Hooker introduced Professor Huxley to thelarge meeting in the
Drill Hall as “a friend of the woAinp'-man whollilP at^trouble to
instruct him.” Without a word of preface, Mr. Huxley said “ if a
shaft were sunk at my feet, deep ijjtp' the eaWhiSthose who conducted
the operation would pass through various strata of earths, but at
length they would arrive at that substance of which every carpenter
carries a piece in his pocket—and which we call ‘ chalk” and for one hour
and a half, he discoursed in language of perfect simplify'and trans
parency, of the diffusion, formation, and marVefi|us age of chalk. The
narrative never halted, and was never obscure. It had no brilliant periods
which illuminated dark passages. It was all light, you saw all along the
line of thought, and over all the vast field through which the Professor
travelled, who ended with a simple, single metaphor of such beauty and
brilliancy that it re-illumed, in a double sense, all the tracks through
which his discourse had extended. He saidjEl have now reached the
end of my task. If I were to take a piece oCTwijand put it into the
dull and obscure flame of burning hydrogen, it would, after a while
be converted into a substance which would shine like the sun, and
which would illuminate on all sided if theseSlalls were not about us,
the darkness of the night without. I have been endeavouring to turn
upon this piece of chalk the heat of by no meaifi a particularly brilliant
course of reasoning, and by degrees, I hope, you helping me, that this
piece of chalk has in an intellectual sense begun to shine, that it has
�6
REASONER REVIEW.
lighted up the remote vista of the past history of the world, that it has
enabled you to get some sort of glimpse into that marvellous and
astonishing history of the planet which we men of Science are trying
patiently and quietly to unravel. And the most important conclusion
of all is that wherever its rays have shone, it has revealed to you,
always working without haste and without rest, Natural Causation?]
A working-man got up and said “they had never heard anything
like that in Norwich before ; they had all been delighted; many had
been instructed; and some, he feared, had been alarmed.” It was
a simple and worthy speech. For never did Science seem so vast and
mere creeds so little, as during Professor Huxley’s masterly discourse.
The Bishop of Norwich said at the Mayor’s Dinner “ he welcomed
men of Science as fellow workmen, as fellow students of different
volumes, occupying different departments of the one Divine Master.”
This is an admission that the field of Science is a Divine department.
“ The great meeting ” he said, “ tended to show that men of faith
should enquire more and men of Science believe more.” It is necessary
advice that “ men of faith should enquire,” men of Science are sure to
believe all that is true. Lamarck when he started the theory of the
origin of species was regarded on all hands as an Atheist and was
treated as one, and Darwin paused twenty years before he ventured
to incur the inheritance of the same odium.
The Rev. J. M. Berkeley, the president of the Biological Section, very
generously defended Dr. Darwin—he said “ nothing could be more
unfair or unwise than to stamp at once this and cognate speculations
with the charge of irreligion. Of this, however, he felt assured, that
the members of that Association would unite with him in bidding that
great and conscientious author, God speed, and join in expressing a
hope that his health might be preserved, to enrich Science with the
results of his great powers of mind and unwearied observation.”
Canon Robinson, who preached at St. John’s, Maddermarket, said,
very liberally, “ that geology teaches us the eternity of God, astronomy
His power, and chemistry His wisdom,while the Bible—His revelation—
speaks to us of His righteousness.” This gives three things to Science—
reserving one to Revelation—a considerable reduction of the magnitude
of theological professions, to which we have been accustomed !
The Dean of Cork made, in his sermon at the Cathedral, concessions
equally remarkable. “We cannot,” he said, “ demonstrate the super
natural. The demonstration of the supernatural is an impossibility: it
is a contradiction in terms. No amount of facts in the world of nature
will ever prove the existence of a world above nature. The very facts
produced to prove the supernatural are supernatural facts; they
are miracles and prophecy. No amount, therefore, of this kind of
evidence would demonstrate the supernatural. Between the man who
believes only what he sees, and the man who believes in order that he
may see, there is a necessary and an endless opposition.”
�THE PRIESTHOOD OF SCIENCE.
7
As for not being able to “ prove the supernatural,” Theologians have
been trying to do it all their lives; and have only just found out
that they- cannot succeed : and the man “ who belives in order that he
may see ” will wear out his faith before he improves his eyesight,
k The Rev. G. Gould preached at St. Mary’s Chapel the most irrelevant
sermon in the Science Week. He, however, admitted that “ Science
may lead us into the secrets of God’s work round about us,” and that
is more than Theology has done. “ But Science,” added Mr. Gould,
“ cannot change the moral nature of man, cannot uplift him of itself
from the degradation into which he may have sunken, through his lusts
and passions, through the caprices in which he has indulged, and the
(mistakes in which he has delighted, that nothing but light from heaven
can irradicate the gloom in which man has immured himself by sin;
nothing but the grace of God, as it is manifested in Christ Jesus, the
light of the world, can at once lay hold of the corrupt human nature,
and by its very teaching purify that nature ; ” Theology, however, has
been so long in trying to do this, and has not done it yet—that
pcience is now entitled to a turn. Even the Earl of Shaftesbury admits
that Spiritural light cannot be expected to grow out of bad material
Conditions, and Science which makes possible good conditions may
“ purify human nature ” faster than Mr. Gould supposes.
The Rev. J. Crompton delivered a lecture worthy of a free Christian
Church and of the occasion that gave rise to it.
In future Free-enquiry in Norwich will have honourable recognition.
The Norfolk News which has not usually been regarded as a Freethinking Journal, wrote upon the subject at the close of the Association
in terms which might be fit for the Reasoner Review or the National
Reformer. It said, “ we therefore strongly urge on our readers the
duty of encouraging the utmost freedom of thought and investigation.
Let no such weakness be exhibited amongst us as some miserable
‘ apologists ’ for Christianity have shown elsewhere, lest something
[may be found out, which ‘ the defenders of the faith ’ would be unable
to answer. They are poor defenders, and that must be a poor faith
which has to supplicate gainsayers, not to gainsay, and sues for mercy
This is boldly and bravely said: it is impossible not to respect Christi
anity when it assumes this frank, fair and courageous tone.
Norwich has an Ecclesiastical atmosphere. If Churches could save
the people the whole county of Norfolk might hope to be translated
to heaven. But in the sacred City itself there are poor, ignorant,
Iniserable and unhealthy people. If every preacher were a teacher,
every creature in Norwich should be well taught. But there are
purlieus no man could wish to see; wretched habitations; courts noisome
with disease; dwellings in which Prince Albert would not have
Buffered his hounds to live. These have grown up with the Churches,
and subsist with them. But a Priesthood of Science would purge the
City in twelve months and make it as intelligent and wholesome as
�REASONER REVIEW.
it is rich in historic renown. Piety has never given the people a park.
Dr. Hooker pleaded for one, but the trust of the people is more in
Mr. Harvey than in the clergy, for the possession of it.
Mr. Ferguson told us that before the time of Asoko, 250 b. c. there
was not in India a single temple worthy of the name, but he taught
the art of gracefulness in such erections. It would be well if the
Free-thinkers of Norwich had some Prince Asoko, who would teach
them that honourable art, for though the temples of Baal do abound,
they have done nothing, as yet, to secure to themselves a place, where
the new cause of Science can be adequately illustrated. The books,
the aims, the news of Science, its moral and liberalising tendencies,
must be entirely unknown to thousands of the inhabitants of Norwich,
and a Society careful of things decent, and afraid of nothing' true,
might open its doors to people who would be grateful for the oppor
tunity of reading and hearing. It is likely that persons of very
opposite opinions would carry into effect a plan by which the humbler
men of all parties would benefit.
The people of Norwich have now the means of judging of the
relative value of men of Creeds, and men of Science. The Clergy save
souls—men of Science save lives, and by improving human conditions
of existence, save from sin which endangers souls: and the people
of Norwich will now see how different is their mode of proceeding.
How timid and supplicatory the one—how manly, how confident the
other—how commanding in its influence is this Priesthood of Science !
Its language how courageous, its tone how independent! The priest
begins with a prayer for help, in addition to his own strength, he
invokes supernatural aid—he points a collect like a Chassepot rifle
at the head of the hearer. The Dissenting minister piles prayer upon
prayer, and puts all heaven in a flutter to aid him in his discourse,
and creates such a din of Hymns in the air, that no aspiration of the
philosopher can be heard as it ascends.
But the man of Science imitates none of these arts of feebleness:
he tells his straightforward story, he adduces his facts and trusts to
reason to give him the victory. He appeals to no terror, he raises
no fear, he scolds no hearer; he does not tell him that he is
stiff-necked, or rebellious, or that he withholds his assent from
depravity of heart.
The Priest of Science is proud and decent
in language, and asks nothing from his hearer, but attention. This was
a new tone in Norwich, and it will be long before the memory
of it dies away.
G. J. H.
The subject of the Next Number will be WORKING-CLASS REPRE
SENTATION. Published November 15, 1868.
’
LONDON BOOK STORE, 282, STRAND.
�
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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The priesthood of science: their visit to Norwich.
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Holyoake, G.J.
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From The Reasoner, no. 888, November 1 1868. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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The Reasoner
Date
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1868
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G5269
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Science
Rationalism
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English
Conway Tracts
Norwich
Religion and science
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Title
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Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Report of the third meeting of the National Conference of Unitarian and other Christian Churches held in New York, N.Y., October 7-8-9, 1868 together with the conference sermon, the constitution and by-laws of the conference and a list of accredited delegates
Creator
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National Conference of Unitarian and other Christian Churches
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Place of publication: Botson, Mass.
Collation: 153 p. ; 23 cm.
Notes: The sermon was delivered by Rev. Henry W. Belllows. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Alfred Mudge & Son
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1868
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G5180
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Unitarianism
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Text
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English
Conference proceedings
Conway Tracts
Unitarianism
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Text
THE RECEPTION AND ENTERTAINMENT
OF
The Chinese Embassy,
BY THE
CITY OF BOSTON.
1868.
BOSTON:
ALFRED MUDGE & SON, CITY PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET.
1868.
�.HQITSISOSH Hilt
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�THE RECEPTION.
The visit of an Embassy from the Chinese Empire to the
United States Government, for the purpose of promoting the
interests of the two countries by facilitating the intercourse be
tween them — an event of the highest significance in itself—
was regarded by the citizens of Boston with peculiar satisfaction,
from the fact that the chief personage in the Embassy from this
ancient empire had long been a resident in their immediate vi
cinity, and had, during several terms, represented a portion of
the city in the National Congress. It was in harmony, therefore,
with the unanimous wishes of the citizens, that the City Council,
on the twenty-ninth of May, 1868,— soon after the arrival of the
Embassy from the Pacific Coast, — passed an order for the ap
pointment of a joint committee to tender the hospitalities of this
city to the distinguished visitors.
The Committee, consisting of Aidermen Samuel C. Cobb and
Benjamin James; Councilmen Charles H. Allen, (the President,)
Henry W. Pickering, George P. Denny and S. T. Snow, pro
ceeded to New York on the thirtieth day of May, and invited
the Honorable Anson Burlingame, Envoy Extraordinary and
Minister Plenipotentiary, and his associates, Chih Ta-jin and
Sun Ta-jin to visit Boston, at an early day, with the members of
their suite, and partake of its hospitalities. In accepting the
invitation, Mr. Burlingame expressed his gratification at this
mark of confidence and esteem from his former fellow-citizens,
who, he said, were the first to extend an official welcome to
his mission.
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�RECEPTION OF THE
4
The delay growing out of the ratification of the supplementary
treaty between China and the United States, which the Embassy
were empowered to negotiate, prevented Mr.. Burlingame and his
(^associates from visiting Boston until the -twenty fipsfr of August.
/&' On the twentieth-the Embassy arrived at Worcester, where they
/
remained, under the care of the Committee of the City Council
of Boston, untj| the following morning. At nine o’clock a special
train was provided by the Superintendent of the Boston and
Albany Railroad, which conveyed the city’s guests and the
Committee to the Western Avenue Crossing, where they arrived
at half past ten o’clock a. m., and where preparations had been
made to receive them.
Mr. Cobb, the Chairman of the Committee, then presented
Mr. Burlingame and his associates to the Honorable Nathaniel
B. Shurtleff, Mayor of Boston. The Mayor welcomed the Em
bassy in the following words:
Mr. Ambassador,—The City Council of Boston has
already, through a committee, formally tendered to you
the civilities that are your due, both as the accredited
representative of the illustrious sovereign of the Chi
nese empire, and also, as one, who, in times past, emi
nently enjoyed the confidence and esteem of the citizens
of this community. My duties on this occasion are,
therefore, so far simplified as to afford me only the
pleasure of expressing, in a few words, the welcome of
this municipality to you, and to your distinguished
associates, upon your entering the capital of the com
monwealth, which in former days you yourself have
personally represented in the high councils of the
nation.
To us it is a cause of much regret that your coming
hither has been deferred until the time of our general
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
5
vacation, when the authorities and many of the citizens
with their families are absent from their homes, and our
halls of counsel and legislation, our schools and institu
tions of science, learning and the arts, are temporarily
closed, and our family hearthstones almost deserted:
For it is the earnest desire of our citizens to give you a
reception fully commensurate with their respect for the
ancient empire of China, and with their own ability to
bestow. Nevertheless, you and the personages com
prising your suite are heartily welcome to the freedom
and hospitalities of this our city; and I trust that your
sojourn with us, though of short duration, may be
agreeable to you, and that the strangers who, for the
first time, visit our peaceful abodes may find somewhat
in our peculiar institutions, of sufficient excellence and
interest to be deemed worthy of notice now, and of
remembrance hereafter on their return to their far dis
tant home.
In the name of my fellow-citizens, I extend to you all
a sincere and most cordial welcome to Boston.
In reply Mr. Burlingame said:
Mr. Mayor., — On behalf of myself and my associates
I thank you for this tender of the hospitalities of the
renowned city of Boston. Hitherto we have avoided
all public demonstrations, not because we desired to
repulse that good will which has followed us from our
first arrival in this country down to the present hour,
but because we felt it to be our duty to postpone our
personal gratifications to the demands of our diplomatic
��RECEPTION OF THE
6
affairs. We have made this single exception for the
reason that Boston was the first to establish relations
with China, — because it was my old home, — because,
sir, it has presented its public schools, and its institu
tions of learning as its highest points of interest. Edu
cation is the foundation of all preferment in China, and
is the basis of those institutions which have outlasted
all others. It was natural, therefore, that my associates
should have desired to make themselves acquainted
with the systems of learning in the West. They will
feel profound grief that it will be impossible for them
to see your public schools in all their perfection. But I
have no doubt that they will see much to admire when
here, and much to remember when far away. Thank
ing you for this welcome, deeply grateful ’to you for
your personal acquaintance, we now present ourselves
to your hospitality with confidence and pleasure.
The company then entered the carriages assigned to them,
and a procession was formed by Colonel John Kurtz, Chief
Marshal, in the following order:—
The Chief Marshal.
Aids — Police Captains R. H. Wilkins and S. G. Adams.
Mounted Police Officers, under the command of Capt. Paul J.
Vinal.
Cavalry Band.
Major Lucius Slade and Staff.
Company B, First Battalion Light Dragoons, Capt. Albert
Freeman.
Company A, First Battalion Light Dragoons, Capt. Barney Hull.
His Honor the Mayor and the Honorable Anson Burlingame, in
a barouche drawn by four horses.
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
7
The Chairman of the Committee, Chih Ta-jin and Mr. Brown
(First Secretary), in a barouche drawn by four horses.
Aiderman Benjamin James, Sun Ta-jin and M. Dechamps (Second
Secretary), in a barouche.
The President of the Common Council, Councilman Pickering,
Fung Laou-Yeh and Tah Laou-Yeh, interpreters, in a barouche.
Councilmen Denny and Snow, Teh Laou-Yeh and Kway LaouYeh, interpreters, in a barouche.
Mandarin Ting, Mandarin Lien, and two scribes, in a barouche.
Carriages containing reporters for the daily, papers
and the servants of the Embassy.
Company C, First Battalion Light Dragoons, Captain Freeman
C. Gilman.
Company D, First Battalion of Light Dragoons, Captain George
Curtis.
•
The route of the procession was as follows: Through Western
Avenue, Heath, Centre, Marcella and Highland streets, Eliot
Square, Dudley, Warren and Washington streets, Chester Square,
Tremont and Worcester streets, Harrison Avenue, Newton and
Washington streets, Union Square, Tremont, Boylston and Ar
lington streets, Commonwealth Avenue, Berkeley, Beacon, Park,
Tremont, Winter, Summer, .Devonshire and Franklin streets,
counter-marching around the flag-staff, through Devonshire, Milk,
India, State, Washington and School streets, to the Parker
House, where the guests were given up.
The customary salutes in honor of a Foreign Minister were
fired from Washington Square, at the Highlands, and from
Boston Common, by a detachment of the Second Light Bat
tery, M. V. M.
In the evening, Mr. Burlingame and his associates gave a re
ception to the members of the City Government in the large
dining-hall on the second floor of the Parker House.
On Friday, at 12 o’clock, a public reception was given by the
��RECEPTION OF THE CHINESE EMBASSY.
8
Embassy in Faneuil Hall, which was handsomely decorated.
The galleries were occupied by ladies; and the body of the hall
was filled by gentlemen, who received Mr. Burlingame and his
associates, on their entrance, with great enthusiasm. The recep
tion continued until one o’clock, when the guests, who were
much fatigued, withdrew from the hall and returned to the
Parker House.
sf
��THE BANQUET.
��THE BANQUET.
t
On Friday, the twenty-first of August, the City Council enter
tained the Embassy with a banquet at the St. James Hotel.
About two hundred and twenty-five gentlemen, including the
members of the City Government, were present.
The company entered the dining hall at seven o’clock.
The Honorable Nathaniel B. Shurtleff, Mayor, presided. On
his right were seated the Honorable Anson Burlingame, Chief of
the Embassy; His Excellency Alexander H. Bullock, Governor
of the Commonwealth; Teh Laou-ych, English Interpreter at
tached to the Embassy; the Honorable Charles Sumner, Chair
man of the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States
Senate; the Honorable Caleb Cushing; Major General Irwin
McDowell, United States Army; Commodore John Rodgers,
United States Navy; Charles G. Nazro, Esquire, President of
the Board of Trade. On the left of the Mayor were seated
Chih Ta-jin, associate minister; Mr. McLeary Brown, Secretary
to the Embassy; Sun Ta-jin, associate minister; M. Emile De
champs, Secretary to the Embassy; Fung Laou-yeh, English
Interpreter; Ralph Waldo Emerson, LL.D.; Reverend George
Putnam, D. D.; Mr. Edwin P. Whipple.
Among the other distinguished guests present were Dr. Oliver
Wendell Holmes; the Honorable Nathaniel P. Banks, the Hon
orable George S. Boutwell, and the Honorable Ginery Twichell,
members of Congress; the Reverend Thomas Hill, D. D., Presi
dent of Harvard College; the Honorable George S. Hillard,
United States District Attorney; the Honorable George 0. Bras*
�---------------
-----
- flHk
A_____ 1
�RECEPTION OF THE CHINESE EMBASSY.
11
tow, President of the Senate; the Honorable Harvey Jewell,
Speaker of the House of Representatives; Brevet Major General
H. W. Benham, and Brevet Major General J. G. Foster, U. S.
Engineer Corps; Major General James H. Carleton, U. S. A.;
Brevet Brigadier General Henry H. Prince, Paymaster U. S. A.;
Major General James A. Cunningham, Adjutant General; the
Honorable Henry J. Gardner, Ex-Governor of the Common
wealth, the Honorable Josiah Quincy; the Honorable Frederic
W. Lincoln, Jr.; Dr. Peter Parker, formerly Commissioner to
China; the Honorable Isaac Livermore; Sr. Frederico Granados,
Spanish Consul; Mr. G. M. Finotti, Italian Consul; Mr. Joseph
Iasigi, Turkish Consul; the Honorable Marshall P. Wilder,
President of the Board of Agriculture; N. G. Clark, D. D.,
Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions; and many of the
leading merchants and professional men of Boston.
When the guests had taken the places assigned to them, the
Mayor said:
Gentlemen of the City Council, — At your bidding I
most heartily welcome to the pleasures of the present
occasion all who are here to participate in the hospital
ities of the city, in honor of the distinguished visitors
from the oldest and most populous empire of the world.
In accordance with our custom, we will now give atten
tion while an invocation for the Divine blessing is pro
nounced by the Reverend Dr. Putnam.
A blessing was then asked by the Rev. Dr. Putnam.
When the company had dined, the Mayor requested their
attention, and made the following remarks:
THE mayor’s REMARKS.
: —We are met this evening to testify
our respect to the illustrious embassy which is now
Gentlemen
��RECEPTION OF THE
12
honoring our city with its presence. One of our per
sonal friends, who has been absent for a time for the
accomplishment of much good for all nations and all
people, has returned to the scenes of bygone days to meet
his old associates, and to take hand by hand the friends
of his early manhood. * lie has returned more weightily
laden with official honors than his own country, and
those with which it has heretofore held close alliance,
could bestow upon him; and with him he has many
personages of a remote land, equally distinguished for
their important official rank, and for the intellectual,
moral, and social positions which they hold among their
countrymen. We all welcome him and them most cor
dially to our municipality, deeming this honorable and
much desired visitation to our country as a harbinger of
the glorious future, when the' greatest, the most popu
lous, and the most ancient of all the nations of the
world shall open most widely and most freely her
hitherto closed portals to all people of all lands and of
all complexions and tongues.
Especially pleased are we, Mr. Ambassador, that
you, the chief personage of this illustrious embassy, are
flesh of our flesh, and blood of our blood — that your lan
guage is our language, your sentiments and feelings the
same as ours — that our home has once been your home
—and that you have equally the personal respect and high
regards of those who are now your fellow-countrymen, as
of us who have also enjoyed that privilege. Your pres
ence, sir, with us this evening, in your present capacity,
and with these surroundings, gives us, I assure you,
great pleasure and satisfaction, and will be remembered
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
13
most agreeably when you shall have successfully com
pleted your important missions, and when friendly
breezes shall have wafted your trusty vessels with their
precious burden, over the wide expanded ocean, and
returned you in safety and in health to your far distant
homes, to the affections of your friends, the plaudits of
your countrymen, and the approbation of your govern
ment. It is not an empty compliment that you have paid
to our country, in that the first negotiation on your very
remarkable errand should have been made with the United
States: Nor are we of Boston in the least degree insensi
ble to the distinction which you have accorded to our
city, in having made to us the first, and perhaps the only,
formal visit of your embassy to any of the large munici
palities of the land. The strong tie that once so firmly
bound you in friendship to our community has not been
broken; and we are joyfully permitted to hail your indi
vidual presence once more among us, as one of the
felicities of the advent of the friendly mission to our
shores. Time may wear on, events of the greatest
portent may transpire; but ancient friendships should
never cease, nor the pleasant memories of the past be
forgotten. We greet you, sir, most warmly as an old
friend, and we re‘cognize these your associates as new
friends. May these relations never have an end! But
may the bonds which you and our beloved country have
now made, prove of adamantine hardness, and of eternal
duration! May the results of your labors be of mutual
benefit to all countries ! In the days that are to come,
when the doings of the present time shall be regarded
as of the ancient of days, may the grand treaties of this
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�RECEPTION THE OF
14
your embassy be remembered as the Maximae Chartae of
international union for the promotion and security of
political and religious liberty, of learning and intelligence,
of law and harmony, and of perpetual mutual respect
and amity.
It may not be out of place for me to mention in this
presence, that representatives of the oldest constituted
government on the globe, dating back through more dy
nasties of potentates than any other nations can of rulers,
have broken through the reserve of power, wealth, dignity
and pride of ancient rank to tender to the whole civilized
world an interchange of all that can be of any benefit
or profit to individuals or collections of people; while
we, so young in national age, and differing so much
from them in all our customs, manners, laws and
government, are the first to open our arms to wel
come the offer, and to ratify treaties of the most
incalculable good for their country and for ours. The
Chinese Empire may date back to the fabulous era
of Puankoo, and its history may be traced through the
mythological times of Fohy, Shin-noong and their suc
cessors, and down in historical annals more centuries
before the Christian era than have transpired since
the advent of the Messiah; and yet no period of the
existence of that great empire, not even the days of the
great Confucius, can compare in importance with the
present era of her history, which will ever be noted as
the greatest for giving and receiving that the world has
ever known, either from recorded pages or even from
the traditions of the past. The embassy has done wise
ly : For although the institutions of the Chinese, as we 1
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�CHINESE EMBASSY.
15
as their habits and customs, may differ from ours, a great
similarity nevertheless exists in the peculiar situation of
our several territories. Their empire and our republic,
although in different hemispheres, and the inhabitants
antipodes, have somewhat similar positions in what have
been known as the old and the new worlds. Both
countries are north of the northern tropic, and centrally
in the same temperate zone. The national capitals of
both are, as near as chance could place them, on the
same parallel of latitude ; and the United States and
China proper cover about the same amount of territory,
enjoy very nearly the same climate, and are bounded
largely by the great navigable seas and oceans. The
states and territories of the one correspond very closely
with the provinces of the other. But what a vast differ
ence in population! Where we have one inhabitant the
Chinese have ten. They count more living souls than
do all the nations of Europe and both Americas. Indeed
were the Emperor of China, in our republican way of
doing things, to submit to the hard duty of shaking hands
with his subjects, it would take more years to accomplish
the civility, on the eight hour system, than were accorded
to the venerable Parr—who, as you all have heard, lived to
the remarkable age of one hundred and fifty-two years
— and this too without keeping up with the births that
would occur during the time. Indeed, were he gifted
with eternal life he never would complete this intermi
nable undertaking.
Perhaps I may be pardoned, gentlemen, in saying,
that before the discovery of America by Columbus, the
earth was seemingly flat, and contained little else than
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�RECEPTION OF THE
16
Europe and Asia and a small part of Africa—at least all
descriptions of it would lead to such a supposition — and
that the only route to the ancient dominions of the Great
Kahn of Cathay (now, China) was by tedious overland
travel, for the passage by sea around the Cape of Good
Hope had not been discovered. The grand object of the
voyage of Columbus, who had just come to the idea of
the sphericity of the earth, was to find a new route to
Cathay ^and Cipango by a westerly course; and it is
a remarkable fact that the Genoese adventurer, before
starting on his grand voyage, actually provided him
self with letters to the great powers of those almost
unknown places from the fortunate Ferdinand and
Isabella, then the sovereigns of • Spain.
Sailing
with a belief that where the ocean terminated land
would have a beginning, the great discoverer of this
western hemisphere, on the twenty-first day of October,
1492, first-of Europeans, set foot on ground, which in
his belief was the desired land of his search: But in
stead he had found another continent; and the passage
so much needed, was subsequently, and but five years
later, discovered in another direction, and the route, by
doubling the Cape of Good Hope, was established, and
the laborious journeys to the east through inhospitable
wildernesses and dreary deserts ceased forever.
But, gentlemen, if I say much more about ancient
China, I shall leave no room for the present of that great
empire : And I need not now tell you of the great mechanrcal effort of more than twenty centuries ago — the
building of the great Chinese Wall, surpassing those of
Babylon; nor of the great canal, the longest in the
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�CHINESE EMBASSY.
17
world, and completed before the birth of Columbus; nor
of block-printing, practised by the Chinese five hundred
years before Faust, or Guttemberg, or Schoefler ever
dreamed of the art; nor of the invention of gunpowder,
known centuries before the days of Roger Bacon; nor
of the power of the loadstone, which helped direct the
Chinese navigator long before the passage to Cathay
was sought by Europeans, or our own country discovered
through its instrumentality. Each of these themes would
exhaust all the time, and more too, that is allotted to
me. But all these have their significance, and all have
had, and will continue to have, their influence for good.
I may, however, without fear of complaint, say to
our stranger friends, that we whom they are now visit
ing are a peculiar people; that we all love liberty,
and desire that others shall enjoy it with us; that
our small band of forefathers, about the time that
the present dynasty commenced in China, peaceably
sought these shores, driven from their' transatlantic
homes by vexations and persecutions, and here planted
themselves and their principles; and that we have
grown up from such beginnings to what they now find
us. From the first we opened our doors freely to all men;
no wayfarer, of any clime or tongue, was ever denied a
welcome here. We had room for ourselves, and we
had spare room for others. With the great Chinese
sage, we have ever practised the Golden Rule of our own
ancestors, but better expressed by him, “ Do not unto
othemwhat you would not have others do unto you;”
and I verily believe that in the wise sayings of some
learned aphorist of the Orientals, we may be able to
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�RECEPTION OF THE
18
find another of our good sayings, “ Be virtuous and you
will be happy,” also much improved by reversal, “ Be
happy and you will be virtuous.”
It may ‘be interesting for our visitors to know,
that from this community first commenced the China
trade of this country ; that from this and a neighbor
ing port sailed, till recently, all the merchant vessels
that traversed the oceans between America and China;
and that much of the wealth of the old families of Bos
ton was obtained in the China and East India trade.
But hereafter all trade with China will be attended with
less difficulty than it was heretofore, — thanks to the
present peaceable mission. * The dawn has already ap
peared. China and the United States will hereafter
exchange productions without let or hindrance, and
the arts of peace and civilization will equally and
reciprocally flourish in both.
Religion — the boon
most dearly esteemed by all men — will be liberally
enjoyed in both nations, and by all people. The day
will soon come when we shall be the east and China
the west; when all travel between these mighty nations
shall be over the justly-named Pacific Ocean, (for dis
tance from our east to our west will soon * be annihila
ted,) and the western passage — the long-lost hope and
desire of the ancient navigators — shall be accom
plished.
Gentlemen, let us rejoice in the event that has
brought us together this evening; and while we give
welcome to those who visit us for the first time, may we
be sufficiently grateful for the benefits which must in
course result from their benevolent and wise mission!
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�CHINESE EMBASSY.
19
After music by Gilmore’s Band, the Mayor announced as the
first regular toast:
“ The President of the United States.”
The Band performed the American national air.
The Mayor then announced as the second regular toast :
“The Emperor of China.”
The Band performed the Chinese national air.
The third regular toast,
“ The Chinese Embassy,”
was received with much enthusiasm. When the Mayor intro
duced Mr. Burlingame to respond, the company rose and gave
nine cheers.
SPEECH OF HON. ANSON BURLINGAME.
Mr. Mayor: In rising to respond to what you have
said, and to this cordial greeting, I feel how utterly
inadequate are any words of mine to meet the require
ments of this occasion. Events are more eloquent than
words. The presence here ofcTny associates, with the
sunshine of the Orient upon their faces, and the
warmth of its fires in their hearts, arouses more emo
tions than the most eloquent tongue can express. The
land of Washington has greeted the land of Confucius.
The great thoughts of the one have been wedded to
the great deeds of the other. Nothing can be more
impressive than the facts themselves. The Imperial
and the Republican seals have been placed side by
side upon a great bond of friendship forever. In the
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�RECEPTION OF THE
20
♦
presence of this majestic past, the members of this
mission would be glad to rest and be silent; but silence
you will not have. And there is no rest for mortals save
in the grave. Breaking, then, the silence which you will
not allow, permit me, in the first place, to seize a
thought expressed by yourself, where you say that the
physical condition of China is like unto the physical
condition of the United States. That is true. China
lies along the Pacific, as the United States lie along
the Atlantic. It has, as you say, the same area; it has
the same isothermal lines ; it has a like system of rivers
and mountains. The great river Yangtse Kiang empties
to a bucket-ful the same volume of water as the Missis
sippi; the distant plains of Mongolia answer to the
great prairies of the northwest.
But they are not only like to each other in their
physical aspects, they have relations to each other in
other respects. They have moral and political relations
of a similar character with ours. China is divided into
provinces as this country is divided into States. The
Chinese hold to the great doctrine that the people are
the source of power. You vote by ballot; in China
they vote by competitive examination. You shout
when your fellow-citizen is elected; they shout when
their scholar has received his degree They are scorn
ful of caste, and so are you. You tolerate every faith,
and so do they. You proceed to make a law by peti
tion; they proceed by memorial. This memorial is
recorded; it is passed to the Great Council; it is
approved by the Government; it is handed over to the
Great Secretariat; and if it shall be found to be accord-
�infki c8$tJ oxli fes wiiHx&st odi
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•;«.■.>t
�CHINESE EMBASSY.
21
tug to the tradition and the laws, that Secretariat is
charged with its publication to the world. So that
China is not a land of caprices, -—it is a land of laws.
So, also, they are like unto us somewhat in their
school system. It is voluntary. They pay great atten
tion to their schools. They hold the office of teacher
to be the highest in the world. The great man in the
Tsungle Yamen to-day, one of the greatest, perhaps the
greatest scholar there, Tung Ta-jin, who presided over
the translation of Wheaton’s International Law, took
from Mr. Wade, the British Secretary of Legation, a
translation which he made of our own Longfellow’s
Psalm of Life, the first secular poem ever trans
lated into the Chinese language, and placed it
upon a fan, which he sent by my hand to our great
poet, that gift leading to a correspondence between
these illustrious men. I say Tung Ta-jin makes it ever
his boast, in the Tsungle Yamen, that he was once a
poor school-teacher.
But, however great may be the physical resemblances,
however many resemblances may be found in other
respects between them and the nations of the West,
it is certain that we have much to learn from them, and
they have much‘to learn from us. We have to learn
from them to respect old age; we have to learn from
them sobriety; we have to learn from them good
manners; we have to learn from them habits of schol
arship ; we have to learn from them how to cultivate
fish; we have to learn from them much in relation to
agriculture, much of the effect of heat and cold, and
light and shade upon plants; how to irrigate, how to
�s '9cf I4pow M
; .Barf s^^^nxifs
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'lgxg vdj ■ Lioirn
xu/LlU w og ck»
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aiote vaxa. aaagffi) oxfT
u43 ■(JiLs -{..hvf io ?;«oiLhv a.bb ob ^oxft ^4w tftoaawt giD
,-.
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�RECEPTION OF THE
22
manure the land. Indeed, it would be a most profitable
employment for some man of observing powers, some
scientific man, to go to China and record the facts he
finds there. The Chinese may not be able to give him
the reasons why they do this thing, or why they do that
thing, but he would find that, through long ages of
experience, they had at last ascertained the right way.
I do not know of so wide an unreaped field for a scientific
man, and I trust that the greatest living naturalist, Prof.
Agassiz, will next year make an expedition to the Chi
nese Empire.
But not* to follow your suggestion too far, I say, we
have much to learn from them. We have many wise
maxims to acquire from them. They have much, also,
to learn from us. They have all the modern sciences,—
they have all those things to learn from us, which are
the result of our necessities. We lived far apart, and
we invented the steamboat, the railroad, the telegraph,
to bring us nearer and nearer together.
But without pursuing this line of thought further,
permit me to give you something more nearly relating
to the present. I leave everything that may be said
about the ancient sages of China who lived before Soc
rates, to the distinguished gentleman on my left, [Mr.
Ralph Waldo Emerson,] who knows much more of
them than I do ; and I come now to consider, for a mo
ment, the treaty which has just been concluded between
the United States and China. And I shall not, I assure
you, trespass upon your time to enter into any elaborate
exposition of that treaty. No, sir, I leave the exposi
tion of that treaty to the distinguished Senator on my
�.yasAffws aaasciH#
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iw/id .:: mjst 1»1 Oftb.’.’JvM
’ILn bi-djidd'- jfet.d
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♦
�CHINESE EMBASSY.
23
right, who was its champion in the Senate, and who
procured for it a unanimous vote. Permit me to say,
briefly, that that treaty had its origin in the desire to
give the control of China to herself, in opposition to
that aggressive spirit which would take it from her and
give it to the caprice of interest and to the rude energy
of force. It had its origin in the belief that institutions
which had withstood all the mutations of time, have
something in them worthy of consideration ; in the be
lief that institutions, cherished unanimously by one-third
of the human race, may possibly be the best institutions
for the people of China, and that at least they are enti
tled to hold on to them until they shall be changed by
fair argument. That treaty had its origin in, and in fact
is the outgrowth of, that co-operative policy which was
agreed to by the representatives of the Western pow
ers recently assembled at Peking; that policy substituted
for the old doctrine of violence one of fair diplomatic
action; so that if a Consul and the Taoutai could not
agree, before war should ensue, the question at issue
should be referred to Peking, and thence to the home
governments. That policy was in brief an agreement,
upon the part of the representatives of the treaty
powers, that they would not interfere in the internal
aifairs of China; that they would give to the treaties
a fair and Christian construction; that they would
abandon the so-called concession doctrine, and that
they never would menace the territorial integrity of
China. On these principles rests the security of China.
They were warmly approved by the Government of
China which naturally desired that they should find
�M'
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oJj m (.anorhG^.oI
lo aovidoxs odJ xd Bfdaji ^oiloq
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�RECEPTION OF THE
24
expression in a more solemn form than they were in at
the present time. The evidence of this co-djierative ♦
policy rested in the archives of distant legations, in the
great despatches of Sir Frederick Bruce, who shed a new
lustre upon diplomacy in the East. I say that China,
feeling the advantage of these principles, desired that
they should be carried forward into more solemn forms.
Accordingly they have, as agreed to by the great treaty
powers of the West, passed into the unbending text of
the treaty recently made at Washington.
Now, in a word, what is that treaty? In the first
place, it declares the neutrality of the Chinese waters
in opposition to the pretensions of the ex-territoriality
doctrine, that inasmuch as the persons and the property
of the people of the foreign powers were under the ju
risdiction of those powers, therefore it was the right of
parties contending with each other to attack each other
in the Chinese waters, thus making those waters the
place of their conflict. This treaty traverses all such
absurd pretensions. It strikes down the so-called con
cession doctrines, under which the citizens of different
countries, located upon spots of land in the treaty ports,
had come to believe that they could take jurisdiction
there, not only of their own citizens, not only of the
persons and property of ,their own people, but of the
Chinese and the people of other countries. When this
question was brought under discussion and referred to
the home governments, not by the Chinese, originally,
but by those foreign nations who felt that their treaty
rights were being abridged by these concession doctrines,
the distant foreign countries could not stand the discus-
�/TagASMH 38SPHE0
-woq.
’pavo Jniii toys I bnA Jitomom i? 10I noio
onioa xl^noxli ?8onrU3ob xtoiagoonco adi Bonobnsds and to
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.oi jOaoniiO odd doqxa oi odsdiobnij - — di xol Lnaiuoo oi
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:
�CHINESE EMBASSY.
*
25
sion for a moment. And I aver that every treaty pow
er has abandoned the concession doctrines, though some
of their officials at the present time in China undertake
to contend for it —- undertake to expel the Chinese, to
attack the Chinese, to protect the Chinese as though
the territory did not belong to the Chinese government.
China has never abandoned her eminent domain —
never abandoned on that territory her jurisdiction doc
trine ; and I trust she never will. This treaty strikes
down all the pretensions about concessions of terri
tory.
Again, this treaty recognizes China as an equal among
the nations, in opposition to the old doctrine that be
cause she was not a Christian nation she could not be
placed in the roll of nations. But I will not discuss
that question. There is the greatest living authority
upon Eastern questions here to-night. He has stated
that position more fully than anybody else, while his
heart has leaned ever to the side of the Chinese. I say
China has been put on terms of equality. Her subjects
have been put upon a footing with those of the most
favored nations, so that now the Chinaman stands with
the Briton or the Frenchman, the Russian, the Prussian,
or the subjects of any of the great powers. And not
only so, but by a Consular clause in that treaty they
are given a diplomatic status by which those privileges
can be defended. That treaty also strikes down all dis
abilities on account of religious faith. It recalls the
great doctrine of the constitution which gives to a man
the right to hold any faith which his conscience may
dictate to him. Under that treaty the Chinese may
�•tut
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�RECEPTION OF THE
26
spread their marble altars to the blue vault of heaven,
and may worship the spirit which dwells beyond. That
treaty opens the gleaming gates of our public institu
tions to the students of China. That treaty strikes down
or reprobates — that is the word — the infamous Coolie
trade. It sustains the great law of 1862, drafted by
Mr. Eliot of Massachusetts, and pledges the nation for
ever to hold that trade criminal. While it does this, it
recognizes the great doctrine that a man may change
his home and his allegiance. While it strikes at the
root of the Coolie trade, it invites free immigration
into the country of those sober and industrious
people by whose quiet labor we have been enabled
to push the Pacific Bailroad over the summit of the
Sierra Nevada. Woolen mills have been enabled to
run on account of this labor with profit. And the great
crops of California, more valuable than all her gold,
have been gathered by them. I am glad the United
States had the courage to apply their great principles of
equality. I am glad that while they apply their doc
trines to the swarming millions of Europe, they are not
afraid to apply them to the tawny race of Tamerlane
and of Genghis Khan.
There is, also, another article which is important to
China. It has been the habit of the foreigners in China
to lecture the Chinese and to say what they should do and
what they should not do ; to dictate, and say when they
should build railroads, .when they should build tele
graphs ; and, in fact, there has been an attempt to take
entire possession of their affairs. This treaty denounces
all such pretensions. It says, particularly, that it is for
�•
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1
�CHINESE EMBASSY.
27
the Chinese themselves to fix the time when they will
initiate reforms,— when they will build and when they
will refuse to build,— that they are the masters of their
own affairs; that it is for them to make commercial
regulations, and to do whatever they will, which is not
in violation of existing treaties and the laws of nations,
within their own territory. I am glad that that is in
the treaty; and while the treaty expresses the opinion
of the United States in favor of giving to China the
control of her own affairs, it assumes that China is to
progress, and it offers to her all the resources of
Western science, and asks other nations to do the
same.
The United States have asked nothing for themselves.
I am proud of it. I am proud that this country has
made a treaty which is, every line of it, in the present
interests of China, though in the resulting interests of
all mankind. I am glad that the country has risen up
to a level with the great occasion. I am glad that she
has not asked any mean advantages, such as weaken
one people and do not exalt another. By leaving China
free in all these respects, she feels secure, or will feel
secure when these principles are adopted. When she
feels that the railroad and the telegraph are not to be
instruments by which she is to be disrupted or destroyed
then she will come out of her seclusion and enter upon
a course of trade, the importance of which, and the
amount of which, no man can compute. The first thing
for her to have is security; and this treaty gives her
security. It places her broadly under international law.
I know this treaty will be attacked. You will wonder
�sht
ic
bio oxD lo Jhiqa JodJ ^d fxnfac&B od Iliw jJ 4i fa
; osoxl$ strndln ilehMI bsaoqqo tfoidw esilkrl nt eiotaJA]
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7
�RECEPTION OF THE
28
at it. It will be attacked by that spirit of the old indigo
planters in India, which opposed British reforms there;
and by such as opposed Emancipation in the West
Indies; it will be resisted by the spirit of the old opium
smuggler in China. But notwithstanding all this, I be
lieve that treaty, or the principles of that treaty, will
make the tour of the world, because it is founded in jus
tice. This mission, feeling confidence in the rectitude of
their intentions, confidence in the merits of the policy
which they propose, do not ask what reception they
shall have in the countries to which they shall go, but
trust themselves fairly and fully to the spirit of West
ern civilization.
And now, having detained you too long, permit me to
thank you all for the kind manner in which you have
listened to what I have had to say. I thank you, Sir,
for your personal allusions. I thank dear old Boston
for her grand demonstrations of good will. I thank the
American Government that it has placed a great ques
tion beyond the reach of individual misfortune. And
now, having said this, the mission will press along the
line of its diplomatic duty to other fields of effort.
The Mayor then announced as the fourth regular toast, —
“The Commonwealth of Massachusetts.”
He called upon His Excellency, Alexander H. Bullock, to
respond.
SPEECH OF GOVERNOR BULLOCK.
Mr. Mayor: The impressive ceremony and the cor
dial reception of the evening have been conducted so
far and so well that no duty remains for me save offi-
�■ ’3 A3 Mil
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j AJ/roGO/? aicnuii M# flu xfl felicpO Ml flliw Mar
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�CHINESE EMBASSY.
29
cially to assure our distinguished guests that I heartily
unite with the Capital in all the honors accorded to
them. Aside from the gratification we feel in extending
this welcome to our own fellow-citizen, now returned
to us as the head of an august mission, I surely may be
permitted to express your sentiments as well as my
own in recalling, with some satisfaction, the part which
our Commonwealth has borne on the large field of
American diplomacy in the recent historical period.
With Mr. Adams at the British Court, Mr. Motley on
the Continent, Mr. Burlingame in the great empire of
the East, our senior Senator, (Mr. Sumner,) at the head
of foreign affairs in the Senate, — the fortress of our
diplomatic security, — and Governor Banks in a like
position in the House of Representatives, — the people
of Massachusetts have had reason to be satisfied with
the share committed to them in the civic responsibilities
of our time. It is not to the present point that I shotdd
say that each of these gentlemen has performed his duty ■
so well that we cannot readily see how it could have
been done better; for the world knows that already.
But it is permissible that I should say, in view of those
broad relations which these citizens of our own have
sustained* on the three continents of civilization, that
the future historian of the Commonwealth must record
that her fame never shone brighter, more conspicuous,
or more beneficent than during this period. I may,
therefore, be permitted, both as magistrate and as citi
zen, to allow my local pride to culminate this evening,
as it blends with your patriotic pleasure, in paying
honors to those who have proved such good masters of
international rights and courtesies.
�<
.: J.iiM 1U
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7£& am*;
*
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�RECEPTION OF THE
•
30
As an American I rejoice in the recent events which
have developed into something almost like an alliance
for the welfare of the world, the imperial powers of the
East and the West. After all that has occurred in the
last seven years, what patriotic citizen of the United
States does not welcome the friendly hand reached out
to us from Russia and China; — co-terminous countries,
covering one-fifth part of the habitable globe, having
institutions in many respects altogether unlike our own,
but in some particulars quite in sympathy with ours,
eager to join their histories and destinies with ours in a
spirit of conciliation and unity which may hereafter
become the protectorate of the peace of all the nations.
From the former of these two, at a time when we failed
to receive from countries nearer to us that encouragement of our nationality which we had a right to ex
pect, there came for us no voice or wish, expressed or
suppressed, that did not give aid and comfort to every
heart which was in allegiance to our government. In
my remembrance of this, all political names of govern
ments have lost their power. There is a chord of
sympathy that sounds the name of Russia pleasantest of
them all in my ears. The purchase of Alaska becomes
doubly agreeable. I thank Mr. Seward and Congress
for making the trade.
And now, after the war, just when we are to spread
sail on a fresh career of prosperity at home and consid
eration abroad, let us be happy to receive, in advance
of all the governments of Europe, His Excellency Mr.
* Burlingame and his Associate Envoys from China. The
specific provisions of their recent treaty with us may or
�AHMa .SSdKIH'O
•'7hX jdj ;:w pjiol^3W4i 'OffL'I-hJa ^'fw
jqa. w®
/• — •*oj eaz&iiq ifovTti ton ob J .Mi# <4 aA.
aroffl \ Mi .iM^rioW
jog gJ gn’ipj &9&I
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�CHINESE EMBASSY.
31
may not comprise any striking innovations on the past.
As to that I do not much profess to know. I have
been trying to get some information from my friend
Teh, who sits by my side, who, I will say, speaks the
English language with a compass and flexibility and
force which our own countrymen can seldom surpass,
and some of them can hardly equal, after this hour in
the evening. I introduced him to my late comrade in
the legislative halls, Mr. Cushing, who was the pioneer
in American diplomacy towards China, and who went
out as Commissioner to China (if that was the title of
his office) in 1842 or ’43, and, to my surprise, I found,
when I sought to make some comparisons between that
time and the present, that my young friend Teh was
born three years after Mr. Cushing returned, and that
Mr. Cushing and I were much older than my Chinese
friend. But, however that may be, the tone, the tem
per, the spirit in which this Embassy comes to us —
that is a great deal — that inaugurates a new era in the
relations of two powerful peoples. It is enough for
me to know that it is in the interest of justice to the
individual man of both nations; that it is in recognition
of the obligations of all the reciprocities of humanity;
that it is in aid and promotion of international com
merce, which is the handmaid of Equity and Christi
anity. So that, henceforth, the pledged honor of Ameri
cans and Chinamen shall be more potent for all the
purposes of travel and trade and religion and civiliza
tion, than a thousand British cannon bellowing against
the gates of the Celestial Empire, — gates which shall
open in all time to come more easily to the force of fra-
�SUIT
HCIT'ISM
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' btoA; <£w todbn ami ana Jsdi :col balafzpfn ad to f’j
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�RECEPTION OF THE
32
temity than to the force of arms. Why should not
China be respected for that she has resisted with plucki
ness, according to her traditions and with her hearts
and arms, every attempt to blow open her portals ; —
for that she sends her Envoys to-day to make public
tender at the doors of our Capitol of her desire to
establish, as the law of nations, the Golden Rule,
whether it comes to her from Confucius, or to us from
authority infinitely higher.
Let us respect the authority of existing and ancient
nations. One is especially before us now that has
lengthened and enduring annals. As the oldest civi
lized community of the United States, we of Massachu
setts trace our record backward over only two centuries
and a half. And that, we are apt to think, furnishes
ample and dignified work of research for several histori
cal, antiquarian and genealogical societies, in examin
ing ancient mounds, exhuming corroded tomahawks,
and bringing to the light of our day the virtues and the
frailties of some eight or nine generations of men. How,
then, can we not respect a people of a record of five
thousand years'? You may call them rude; but you
have sought their commerce, and have scattered among
all your homes the products of their luxury, their art,
and their labor. You may call them barbarians; but
with their own sense of right they can call you the
same. You may doubt their elemental principles of
government; but they have existed having a govern
ment ages before you were known, and more recently
when you were not sure that you could maintain and
transmit a government. You may question the claim
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�CHINESE EMBASSY.
33
of their literature to common respect; but it ante-dates
all that is known by us of the thought and record which
we call sacred. You may ask, if you will, why China
comes here with an American citizen for her Ambassa
dor, to demand a high place of dignity among the
countries; and she answers, with the eloquence of a
long and masterly history, that she comes offering only
terms of international equality as one of the peoples and
governments of the world of to-day; compacted and
ribbed by the vicissitudes of fifty centuries; self-subsist
ing against all efforts to assail or invade her; but willing,
anxious now, to welcome the sails of your commerce
into her ports, the voices of your missionaries into her
interior, and the rights of your citizens within her juris
diction. In that spirit, and in that cause, I welcome
Mr. Burlingame and his associates, and bid them God
speed on their way to the other countries.
The Mayor then announced as the fifth regular toast,—
“The Supplementary Treaty with China;” —
and called upon the Honorable Charles Sumner, Chairman of
the Committee on Foreign Relations of the United States •
Senate, to respond.
HON. CHARLES SUMNER’S SPEECH.
Mr. Mayor: I cannot speak on this interesting oc
casion without first declaring the happiness I enjoy at
meeting my friend of many years in the exalted posi
tion which he now holds. Besides being my personal
friend, he was also an honored associate in representing
the good people of this community, and in advancing a
��RECEPTION OF THE
34
great cause, which he championed with memorable elo
quence and fidelity. Such are no common ties. Permit
me to say that this splendid welcome, now offered by the
municipal authorities of Boston, is only a natural ex
pression of the sentiments which must prevail in this
community. Here his labors and triumphs began.
Here, in your early applause and approving voices, he
first tasted of that honor which is now his in such am
ple measure. He is one of us, who, going forth into a
strange country, has come back with its highest trusts
and dignities. Once the representative of a single Con
gressional district, he now represents the most populous
nation of the globe. Once the representative of little
more than a third part of Boston, he is now the repre
sentative of more than a third part of the human race.
The population of the globe is estimated at twelve hund
red millions ; that of China at more than four hundred
millions, and sometimes even at five hundred millions.
If, in this position, there be much to excite wonder,
there is still more for gratitude in the unparalleled op
portunity which it affords. What we all ask is oppor
tunity. Here is opportunity on a surpassing scale — to
be employed, I am sure, so as to advance the best inter
ests of the Human Family; and, if these are ad
vanced, no nation can suffer. Each is contained in all.
With justice and generosity as the reciprocal rule, and
nothing else can be the aim of this great Embassy, there
can be no limits to the immeasurable consequences.
For myself, I am less solicitous with regard to con
cessions or privileges, than with regard to that spirit
of friendship and good neighborhood, which embraces
�r
Jftto'tMr -*;!.(
: .: -,.-;.r '.4 .■>.: ? tf 7
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1
__ ____ —
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�CHINESE EMBASSY.
35
alike the distant and the near, and, when once estab
lished, renders all else easy.
The necessary result of the present experiment in
diplomacy will be to make the countries which it visits
better known to the Chinese, and also to make the
Chinese better known to them. Each will know the
other better and will better comprehend that condition
of mutual dependence which is the law of humanity.
*In the relations among nations, as in common life, this
is of infinite value. Thus far, I fear that the Chinese
are poorly informed with regard to usi I am sure that
we are poorly informed with regard to them. We know
them through the porcelain on our tables with its law
less perspective, and the tea chest with its unintelligible
hieroglyphics. There are two pictures of them in the
literature of our language, which cannot fail to leave an
impression. The first is in Paradise Lost, where Milton,
always learned eveif in his poetry, represents Satan as
descending in his flight,
------ on the barren plains
Of Sericana, where Chineses drive,
With sails and wind their cany wagons light.
The other is that admirable address on the study of the
law of nature and nations, where Sir James Mackintosh,
in words of singular felicity, alludes to iC the tame but
ancient and immovable civilization of China.” It will
be for us now to enlarge these pictures and to fill the
canvas with life.
I do not know if it has occurred to our honored guest,
that he is not the first stranger who, after sojourning in
��RECEPTION OF THE
36
this distant unknown land, has come back loaded with
its honors, and with messages to the Christian powers.
He is not without a predecessor in his mission. There is
another career as marvellous as his own. I refer to the
Venetian Marco Polo, whose reports, once discredited as
the fables of a traveller, are now recognized among the
sources of history, and especially of geographical knowl
edge. Nobody can read them without feeling their
verity. It was in the latter part of the far away 13th
century, that this enterprising Venetian, in company
with his father and uncle, all of them merchants, jour
neyed from Venice, by the way of Constantinople,
Trebizond on the Black Sea and Central Asia, until they
reached first the land of Prester John, and then that
golden country, known as Cathay, where the great ruler,
Kublai Khan, treated them with gracious consideration,
and employed young Polo as his ambassador. This
was none other than China, and the great ruler, called
the Grand Khan, was none other than the first of its
Mongolian dynasty having his imperial residence in the
immense city of Kambalu, or Peking. After many years
of illustrious service, the Venetian, with his compan
ions, was dismissed with splendor and riches, charged
with letters for European sovereigns, as our Bostonian
is charged with similar letters now. There were let
ters for the Pope, the King of France, the King of
Spain, and other Christian princes. It does not appear
that England was expressly designated. Her name, so
great now, was not at that time on the visiting list of
the distant Emperor. Such are the contrasts in national
life. Marco Polo with his companions, reached Venice
�U7
*
41
_______________________ ____ _
taMMh
I
�CHINESE EMBASSY.
37
on his return in 1295, at the very time when Dante in
Florence was meditating his divine poem, and when
Roger Bacon, in England, was astonishing the age with
his knowledge. These were two of his greatest con
temporaries.
The return of the Venetian to his native city was
attended by incidents which have not occurred among
us. Bronzed by long residence under the sun of the
East, — wearing the dress of a Tartar, — and speaking
his native language with difficulty, it was some time be
fore he could persuade his friends of his identity. Hap
pily there is no question on the identity of our returned
fellow-citizen; and surely it cannot be said that he
speaks his native language with difficulty. There was
a dinner given at Venice as now at Boston, and the
Venetian dinner, after the lapse of nearly five hundred
years, still lives in glowing description. On this occa
sion Marco Polo, with his companions, appeared first in
long robes of crimson satin reaching to the floor, which,
after the guests had washed their hands, were changed
for other robes of crimson damask, and then again,
after the first course of the dinner, for other robes of
crimson velvet, and at the conclusion of the banquet, for
the ordinary dress worn by the rest of the company.
Meanwhile the other costly garments were distributed
in succession among the attendants at the table. In all
your magnificence to-night, Mr. Mayor, I have seen no
such largess. Then was brought forward the coarse
threadbare clothes in which they had travelled, when,
on ripping the lining and patches with a knife, costly
jewels, in sparkling showers, leaped forth before the
��RECEPTION OF THE
38
eyes of the company, who for a time were motionless
with wonder. Then at last, says the Italian chronicler,
every doubt was banished, and all were satisfied that
these were the valiant and honorable gentlemen of the
house of Polo. I do not relate this history in order to
suggest any such operation on the dress of our returned
fellow-citizen. No such evidence is needed to assure us
of his identity.
The success of Marco Polo is amply attested. From
his habit of speaking of millions of people and millions
of money, he was known as millioni, or the millionaire,
being the earliest instance in history of a designation
so common in our prosperous age. But better than
“ millions ” was the knowledge he imparted, and the
impulse that he gave to that science, which teaches the
configuration of the globe, and the place of nations on
' its face. His travels, as dictated by him, were repro
duced in various languages, and, after the invention of
printing, the book was multiplied in more than fifty
editions. Unquestionably it prepared the way for the
two greatest geographical discoveries of modern times,
that of the Cape of Good Hope, by Vasco de Gama,
and the New World, by Christopher Columbus. One
of his admirers, a learned German, does not hesitate to
say that, when, in the long series of ages, we seek the
three men, who, by the influence of their discoveries,
have most contributed to the progress of geography and
the knowledge of the globe, the modest name of the
Venetian finds a place in the same line with Alexander
the Great and Christopher Columbus. It is well known
that the imagination of the Genoese navigator was fired
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
39
by the revelations of the Venetian, and that, in his
mind, all the countries embraced by his transcendent
discovery were none other than the famed Cathay, with
its various dependencies. In his report to the Spanish
Sovereigns, Cuba was nothing else than Zimpangu, or
Japan, as described by the Venetian, and he thought
himself near a grand Khan, meaning, as he says, a king
of kings. Columbus was mistaken. He had not
reached Cathay or the grand Khan; but he had discov
ered a new world, destined in the history of civilization
to be more than Cathay, and, in the lapse of time, to
welcome the Ambassador of the grand Khan.
The Venetian, on his return home, journeyed out of
the East, westward. Our Marco Polo on his return
home, journeyed out of the West, eastward; and yet
they both came from the same region. Their com
mon starting-point was Peking. This change is typical
of that transcendent revolution under whose influence
the Orient will become the Occident. Journeying
westward, the first welcome is from the nations of
Europe. Journeying eastward, the first welcome is
from our Republic. It only remains that this wel
come should be extended until it opens a pathway
for the mightiest commerce of the world, and embraces
within the sphere of American activity that ancient
ancestral empire, where population, industry and edu
cation, on an unprecedented scale, create resources
and necessities on an unprecedented scale also. See
to it, merchants of the United' States, and you, mer
chants of Boston, that this opportunity is not lost.
And this brings me, Mr. Mayor, to the Treaty, which
�f.
�RECEPTION OF THE
40
you invited me to discuss. But I will not now enter
upon this topic. If you did not call me to order for
speaking too long, I fear I should be called to order in
another place for undertaking to speaking of a Treaty
which has not yet been proclaimed by the President.
One remark I will make and take the consequences.
The treaty does not propose much; but it is an excel
lent beginning, and, I trust, through the good offices of
our fellow-citizen, the honored plenipotentiary, will un
lock those great Chinese gates which have been bolted
and barred for long centuries. The Embassy is more
than the treaty, because it will prepare the way for
further intercourse and will help that new order of
things which is among the promises of the Future.
The Mayor then introduced Dr. Oliver Wendell Holmes, who
recited the following poem:
POEM BY OLIVER, WENDELL HOLMES.
Brothers, whom we may not reach
Through the veil of alien speech,
Welcome I welcome I eyes can tell
What the lips in vain would spell;
Words that hearts can understand,
Brothers from the Flowery Land 1
We, the evening’s latest born,
Hail the children of the mornI
__
*
•
We, the new creation’s birth,
Greet the lords of ancient earth
From their storied walls and towers
Wandering to these tents of ours I
Land of wonders, fair Cathay,
Who long hast shunned the staring day,
�i
__________
_______ .
d
._
A.
_
�CHINESE EMBASSY.
Hid in mists of poets’ dreams
By thy blue and yellow streams;
Let us thy shadowed form behold;
Teach us as thou didst of old.
Knowledge dwells with length of days;
Wisdom walks in ancient ways;
Thine the compass that could guide
A nation o’er the stormy tide
Scourged by passions, doubts and fears,
Safe through thrice a thousand years!
Looking from thy turrets gray
Thou hast seen the world’s decay;
Egypt drowning in her sands;
Athens rent by robbers’ hands;
Rome, the wild barbarian’s prey,
Like a storm-cloud swept away:
Looking from thy turrets gray
Still we see thee. Where are they?
And lo! a new-born nation waits,
Sitting at the golden gates
That glitter by the sunset sea —
Waits with outspread arms for theeI
*
'
Open wide, ye gates of gold,
To the Dragon’s banner-fold!
Builders of the mighty wall,
Bid your mountain barriers fall!
So may the girdle of the sun
Bind the East and West in one,
Till Nevada’s breezes fan
The snowy peaks of Ta-Sieue-Shan
Till Erie blends its waters blue
With the waves of Tung-Ting-Hu —
Till deep Missouri lends its flow
To swell the rushing Hoang-Ho I
6
41
��RECEPTION OF THE
42
Dr. Holmes’s poem was heartily applauded. At the con
clusion the Mayor announced, as the sixth regular toast —
“ Diplomacy,”
and called upon the Honorable Caleb Cushing, formerly United
States Commissioner to China, to respond.
Mr. Pickering, a member of the Committee of Arrangements,
said: “I propose nine cheers for the only minister to China
who bears a Chinese name—‘ Coo-Shing.' ”
The cheers were given with much enthusiasm.
HON. CALEB CUSHING’S SPEECH.
I rise to discharge the duty assigned me on this
occasion, with sincere satisfaction, as affording an op
portunity to express my respect for yourself, and the
city over whose administration you preside, as well as
for your eminent guests. I rejoice to see that they re
ceive peculiar attention here. It especially becomes
this State, so many of whose merchant princes have
been, and are, the merchant princes of China also, to
welcome the ambassadors of China. It is fitting that
the representatives of a country where education,
science, literature, the cultivation of the spiritual as
distinguished from the material man, are held in the
highest estimation, should meet with sympathetic ac
claim in the State of Massachusetts. And here, above
all, should welcome, acclaim and applause be awarded
to an embassy, which, while representing the power
and the wisdom of the Ta Tsing Empire in the person
of these, the native subjects of the great Yellow Khan,
has at its head a statesman who attained distinction in
�■
�CHINESE EMBASSY.
43
the first instance as a representative of Massachusetts
in the Congress of the United States.
To him (Mr. Burlingame), therefore, at the outset, be
all honor rendered. I, as the humble pioneer in that
new region of diplomacy which he has explored to
such great results, can well judge of the magnitude of
the events he personifies, and presume to say that
no imagination of oriental romance could conceive
for its hero a career of usefulness and glory more mar
vellous than that which is exhibited by the Minister of
the United States in China becoming its Minister to thePowers of Europe and America.
And yet, on reflecting on this incident, it ceases to as
tonish me. I take pleasure in saying here, in the hear
ing of all the members of the Embassy, and especially
of the two eminent Ta-jins and their countrymen, what
I have never failed to say on other proper occasions, that
the Manchu and Chinese statesmen, with whom it was
my fortune to come in official contact in China, were men
of the highest cultivation and accomplishment, versed
in the direction of the largest public affairs, possessed of
thorough comprehension of political and international
questions, and worthy in all respects to be ranked with
the most accomplished statesmen and diplomatists of
Christendom. Such men were capable of rising to the
height of any exigency which the progress of time and
events might require the Chinese Empire to adopt,
Thus it happened that my embassy to China was
rather a brief pleasure trip than a diplomatic labor:
For the intelligence and the frankness of Commis
sioner Keying soon removed all difficulties out of my
��RECEPTION OF THE
44
path. And we see ample attestation in the commission
entrusted to Mr. Burlingame of the high character of
the men now at the head of affairs in China.
My name, susceptible as it is of adoption in Chinese
writing and speech, — to which a gentleman just now
kindly alluded, — had its inconveniences as well as
conveniences ; for the sound represents that expression
which, in China, is applied to personages who, in the
ordinary transactions of the missionaries, are called
“ venerable sages ” or “ venerable saints.” In a word,
to those persons in the history of China, of whom Con
fucius is the representative man> and when made
aware of this fact, I was compelled to enter into a most
confidential conference with my own conscience as to
.what name I ought to bear. I did feel somewhat “ ven
erable ” then, I confess,—much more so than I do now:
For now I have become disillusioned and disabused of
many things; and there is but little left for me which
seems entitled to respect. Hardly more than two things
have ceased to be subjects of illusion, — woman’s vir
tue and man’s honor. The changes of time have left
little else upon which the presumptions of the press,
of the bar, and of the senate, [turning to Mr. Sumner,
amid the laughter of the company] have not placed
their profaning hands. And so, also, upon the ques
tion of sanctity. I really did not feel justified in pre
suming to attribute to myself any such qualities ; and,
with the aid of skilful friends, I was enabled to discover
that it was easy to change the sign from “ venerable ”
to “ venerator,” and thus I became' a very respectable
personage, as Coo-Shing — the venerator of the sages
and saints. Beyond that I did not aspire.
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
45
My embassy to China was but the humble beginning
of what we now behold, — of this great change in the
relations of China to Europe and America.
We have listened with admiration this evening to the
clear and instructive exposition given by Mr. Burlin
game of the treaty which he and the American Secre
tary of State (Mr. Seward), have just completed, and
the prompt dispatch of which has been equally hon
orable to our Executive and our Senate. Of that initia
tory treaty it is impossible to exaggerate -the probable
consequences. In order in the least degree to appre
ciate the fact, we must recollect the history and remem
ber the cbndition of China.
The distinguished Senator of Massachusetts on my
left (Mr. Sumner), has referred to the fact that Marco
Polo, after his return from China, was called “ Messer
Million!.” I think that title was applied to him in
derision. I think his countrymen distrusted his tales of
the millions of the population of China, — the millions of
its revenue, and the millions of its cultivated scholars ; for
we may remember that long after his day, and even so
late as the time of the Stuarts, Congreve said, in exhib
iting a personation of mendacity, “ Ferdinand Mendez
Pinto was but a type of thee, thou liar of the first mag
nitude.” Why did Pinto become the symbol of mendac
ity 1 We know now that every word he uttered was
true ; that he was one of those many brilliant voyagers
of Spain and Portugal of whom Vasco de Gama and
Christopher Columbus, as mentioned this evening, were
but higher examples; many of whom left interesting
narrations of their voyages, and that Pinto’s truthful
�---- —---------
----- -- ------------------------------------------- IMlKfe. ■
£
•-* •'-■ *■■!*
�RECEPTION OF THE
46
■Felations of the grandeur of China, of its population, of
its wealth, of its advancement in civilization, of its
agriculture, of its manufactures, seemed so portentous,
so incredible, that no man believed what he uttered,
and attributed it all to the invention of a fertile but
unscrupulous imagination. I say, we now know it was
all true; and that neither Polo nor Pinto unfolded to
us a tithe of the wonders of China.
We know that there is in farther Asia an Empire
which has subsisted for thousands of years, with an un
changed identity of civilization; with a people, at a
period anterior to all our records of history, sacred or
profane, highly cultivated, intellectual, literary, scienti
fic ; with arts of agriculture and manufacture, and with
a commerce, such as we now see.
We know that as they are now, such they were when
our forefathers were but. half naked savages in the wilds
of Britain or Germany. Their astronomical records
carry us far beyond all the science of the Chaldees and
the Brahmans. Whether in the arts of immortality, like
printing, or those of mortality, like gunpowder, they
are our masters. They are the only people of ancient
or modern times, with whom moral and intellectual cul
ture outrank all other things, and constitute the sole
avenue to civil station and power, and they are a people
without parallel in the durability and the vastness of
the adaptability of their institutions. What living
language can count with the Chinese its thousands of
ages of life ? What nation but China showed itself in
the times of Homer the same as at this day ? 'Where,
save in China, has the world ever seen a homogeneous
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
47
people, equal in numbers to the whole of Europe,
constituting a single self-sustaining nation ?
While the magnificent empire of the Assyrians has
passed away like a troubled vision, and left no trace but
a few mounds of earth on the banks of the Euphrates
or the Tigris; while, also, the populous and powerful
kingdom of Egypt is now manifest only by its massive
tombs, temples and pyramids half buried in the sands of
the desert; while Greece and Rome have also all but dis
appeared, and are no longer potential except in the
traditions they have transmitted to us, — at an epoch
anterior to the rise of all these nations, the Chinese
Empire was great, powerful, populous, — civilized in
every possible conception of the word civilized. There
is no definition of civilization, as applied to Athens
or to Rome, there is no definition as applied to Mem
phis or to Babylon, which does not apply with equal
verity to China long before either Babylon or Mem
phis existed.
And possessing a marvellous tenacity of existence,
there China stands, sublime in the greatness alike and
the unity of her civilization, unchanged by the tempests
of five thousand years. Foreign war has in vain
assailed her. Domestic insurrection has torn her asun
der, and the wounds have been healed with a recuper
ative vitality which seems to presage an immortality
of empire. I say, there China stands, with her four
hundred millions of human beings, exhibiting the only
spectacle the human race ever did exhibit of such an
immense mass of people, holding to the faith of their
fathers, holding to their peculiar science, literature and
��RECEPTION OF THE
48
art, holding, also, to their government, — maintaining
what no European nation has ever had the statemanship
or art to do, supreme power over a region of earth larger
than Europe, and over a population larger than the
population of Europe.
Contrast that with our own petty states of christen
dom. My friend (Mr. Burlingame), will warrant me in
saying, that there are more provinces of the Chinese
Empire, each one of them equalling in population, in
wealth, in power, in the results of civilization, in agri
cultural commodities, in manufactures, in the mechanic
arts, — each one of them, I say, equalling in every
one of these incidents of civilization the proudest
of the kingdoms of Europe. How is it to-day with
Europe ? There we see England, France, Prussia,
Austria, Russia, each engaged in destroying itself by the
vast armies they maintain, exhausting the resources of
their people, wasting labor, wasting life, wasting all the
means of usefulness which this divine creation of govern
ment rightly used can give to man; wasting them by
their intestine wars or by their perpetual apprehension
of wars ; while in China, a larger mass of human beings
is ruled by the sceptre of one sovereign, presiding over
his millions of subjects in his palace at Peking.
I repeat, there is no parallel for it in the history of
the human race; and therefore it is, that this occasion
seems to me to possess claims upon our sympathy, upon
our respect, upon our confidence, beyond any other cor
responding event in our lives. Who among us here
present will ever forget this scene ? Who can fail to
remember that one of our own fellow-citiaens comes
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
49
back from that vast Empire, the representative of its
power and of its millions of human beings, invested
with the sacred, the sublime, the divine mission, to
place them in harmonious correspondence, diplomatic,
political and commercial, with the nations of Christen
dom ?
No longer is China to be a sealed book to the world.
No longer is her policy to be that of exclusion and non
intercourse. No longer is she to look with jealousy
upon foreign powers. She has weighed and measured
these foreign powers. She has statesmen enough of her
own to know and to judge. Wildly is he deceived who
imagines that these men are ignorant men, and unin
formed of the affairs of the world. I would that our
own statesmen presented the same average of intelli
gence and accomplishment that I know is possessed by
the statesmen of China. I say, they have weighed
the statesmen of Christendom. They now appre
ciate their relation to one another, and their rela
tion to her; and they feel that isolation has not only
ceased to be for her interest, but that isolation does not
become her. Is it for her, the inheritor of five thous
and years of civilization, and with her immense popu
lation and resources, to shrink from contact with
these relatively petty states of Christendom ? By no
means. She knows that she has but to advance, as
she now does advance, to take her appropriate place
in the great Republic of States — a place in which she
is to exercise prodigious influence over the commercial
as well as the intellectual condition of the human race.
Her advance is the more noble in that it is peaceful.
�■
I
▼
■
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�RECEPTION OF THE
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What if the successor of Genghis Khan, from his throne
of Cathay, should again send forth his millions of armed
men like a deluge over Asia and Europe ? I shudder
at the thought.
We cannot over-estimate, we can scarcely compre
hend, all the beneficent effects of that treaty of which
we have heard so interesting an account this evening
from Mr. Burlingame. It is the initiation of measures,
by a treaty between China and that one of the Christian
powers in whose relative neutrality, so to speak, she
may and does impose implicit confidence, that one
of the Christian powers which she feels that she may
and can make the agent, the intermediary, as it were,
between herself and the other powers of the world,—
it is, I say, the initiation of a series of measures which
are to place her on a footing of amicable relationship to
the other great Powers. We have sounded the key
note; we have initiated — unchecked by jealousies,
unaffected by any minor considerations, with the sole
thought how a great and grand thing shall be done
greatly and grandly — that series of negotiations which,
I venture to say, must and will pass the circuit of the
globe as resistless, as triumphant, as the march of the
sun in heaven.
I conclude, therefore, by expressing, in common
with the gentlemen who have preceded me, the
thought which I am sure is welling up in every
bosom here present, and which stands half expressed
upon every lip, — I say, I conclude by expressing my
sense of pride, of gratification, of satisfied patriotism,
in seeing that to the lot of one of our own fellow-citi-
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
51
zens has fallen that most holy and sublime mission of
unsurpassed honor now, and of imperishable glory
among all the nations, as well of Europe as of Amer
ica. And to us it should be the subject of special gratulation that this high duty has devolved not only upon
one of our own fellow-citizens, but upon our own
beloved country, and that in honoring him we do honor
to the United States,
The Mayor announced as the seventh regular toast:
“The union of the farthest East and the farthest West.”
He introduced Mr. Ralph Waldo Emerson to respond.
s
mr. emerson’s
speech.
Mr. Mayor : I suppose we are all of one opinion on
this remarkable occasion of meeting the Embassy sent
from the oldest Empire in the world to the youngest
Republic. All share the surprise and pleasure when
the venerable oriental dynasty,—hitherto a romantic
legend to most of us,—suddenly steps into the fellow
ship of nations. This auspicious event, considered in
connection with the late innovations in Japan, marks a
new era, and is an irresistible result of the science which
has given us the power of steam and the electric tele
graph. It is the more welcome for the surprise. We
had said of China, as the old prophet said of Egypt,
“ Her strength is to sit still.” Her people had such
elemental conservatism, that by some wonderful force of
race and national manners, the wars and revolutions
that occur in her annals have proved but momentary
swells or surges on the Pacific ocean of her history,
��RECEPTION OF THE
52
leaving no trace. But in its immovability this race has
claims. China is old not in time only, but in wisdom,
which is gray hair to a nation, — or rather, truly seen,
is eternal youth. As we know, China had the magnet
centuries before Europe; and block-printing or stereo
type, and lithography, and gunpowder, and vaccination,
and canals ; had anticipated Linnaeus’s nomenclature of
plants ; had codes, journals, clubs, hackney coaches,
and, thirty centuries before New York, had the custom
of New-Year’s calls of comity and reconciliation. I
need not mention its useful arts, — its pottery indispen
sable to the world, the luxury of silks, and its tea, the
cordial of nations. But I must remember that she has
respectable remains of astronomic science, and his
toric records of forgotten time, that have supplied
important gaps in the ancient history of the western
nations. Then she has philosophers who cannot be
spared. Confucius has not yet gathered all his fame.
When Socrates heard that the oracle declared that he
was the wisest of men, he said, it must mean that other
men held that they were wise, but that he knew that he
knew nothing. Confucius had already affirmed this of
himself: and what we call the Golden Rule of Jesus,
Confucius had uttered in the same terms, five hundred
years before. His morals, though addressed to a state
of society utterly unlike ours, we read with profit to-day.
His rare perception appears in his Golden Mean, his
doctrine of Reciprocity, his unerring insight, — putting
always the blame of our misfortunes on ourselves ; as
when to the governor who complained of thieves, he
said, “ If you, sir, were not covetous, though you should
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
53
reward them for it, they would not steal.” His ideal of
greatness predicts Marcus Antoninus. At the same
time, he abstained from paradox, and met the ingrained
prudence of his nation by saying always, “ Bend one
cubit to straighten eight.”
China interests us at this moment in a point of poli
tics. I am sure that gentlemen around me bear in
mind the bill which Hon. Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island,
has twice attempted to carry through Congress, requir
ing that candidates for public offices shall first pass
examination on their literary qualifications for the same.
Well, China has preceded us, as well as England and
France, in this essential correction of a reckless usage ;
and the like high esteem of education appears in China
in social life, to whose distinctions it is made an indis
pensable passport.
It is gratifying to know that the advantages of the
new intercourse between the two countries are daily
manifest on the Pacific coast. The immigrants from
Asia come in crowds. Their power of continuous labor,
their versatility in adapting themselves to new condi
tions, their stoical economy, are unlooked-for virtues.
They send back to their friends, in China, money, new
products of art, new tools, machinery, new foods, etc.,
and are thus establishing a commerce without limit. I
cannot help adding, after what I have heard to-night,
that I have read in the journals a statement from an
English source, that Sir Frederic Bruce attributed to
Mr. Burlingame the merit of the happy reform in the
relations of foreign governments to China. I am quite
sure that I heard from Mr. Burlingame in New York,
�J
�RECEPTION OF THE
54
in his last visit to America, that the whole merit of it
belonged to Sir Frederic Bruce. It appears that the
ambassadors were emulous in their magnanimity. It is
certainly the best guaranty for the interests of China
and of humanity.
The Mayor then introduced the Honorable Nathaniel P.
Banks, as Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations of
the House of Representatives.
SPEECH OF HON. N. P. BANKS.
w
Mr. Mayor: I am sure it is not my fault that I am
led to trespass upon the attention of gentlemen at this
late hour of the evening. I have learned a little wisdom
from a short acquaintance with our Chinese friends. I
have learned that there is medicine for sickness, but not
for fate; and that When a man comes to a banquet in
Boston he ought to be ready for the destiny that awaits
him.
It gives me, sir, great pleasure to participate in this
most wise and just celebration of the passage of the
treaty to which reference has been made, and the advent
of the distinguished Embassy from China. After what
has been said by other gentlemen, I can do little more
than return to you, Mr. Mayor, and your associates, my
thanks for the honor conferred upon me by your invita
tion, and to the gentlemen present for the kind recep
tion they have given to the mention of my name by you.
I am happy to confirm what has been said by so many
gentlemen in regard to the great advantages which the
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
55
connection, consummated by this treaty is likely to bring
to the United States of America. But I go a little
further than any yet have gone; and I claim for the
distinguished head of this Embassy, whom we have
known so long and so well, more of the gratitude that
is due for the successful initiation and completion of
this great movement than has yet been accorded to him.
It is my belief, sir, — and I speak from long and inti
mate personal knowledge of him — that it is not only to
his sagacity and his experience, but especially by the
profound kindness of heart and generosity of nature,
that he has won the confidence of the Chinese nation;
and that out of this kindness of heart and this generosity
of nature he returns to us with the high commission
which he bears, and shows to us in the future the great
advantages which the two nations are to win from the
consummation of the closer connection which has been
initiated.
There are one or two points of resemblance between
the Chinese nation and the people of the United States
which ought not to pass without observation on such an
occasion as this. The distinguished gentleman on my
right <(Mr. Emerson), has alluded, as other gentlemen
have done, to the fact, that one is the oldest nation of
history and the other the newest republic of the world.
But there are other important resemblances. The
Chinese nation is a government without force. The
United States is a government with no power except
the consent of the people who are governed, All other
nations differ in this respect. Every government, in
every age and in every clime, has sustained, and now
��RECEPTION OF THE
56
sustains, its authority by physical force, while the gov
ernments of China and of the United States alone
trust for their authority to the recognition and the con
sent of the people whom they govern.
Much has been said of the civilization which that
great and ancient nation has attained, and much more
might be said, resting upon human authority, to confirm
the statement; but, in my judgment, there is one proof*
greater, stronger and clearer than any that has yet been
offered, and it exists in this fact — that a nation of four
hundred millions, which has maintained itself for five
thousand years, and, as has been already said, is likely
to perpetuate its power to the end of time, and which
governs its people without other force than their con
sent, must have greater qualities than any other nation
that has yet existed. There is a lesson for Americans
and for Europeans, for civilized nations or for barba
rians. In any government that has this moral power to
control these hundreds of millions of citizens for these
thousands of years, there must be a degree of wisdom
on the part of the people, and a capacity on the part of
the rulers, for which human history elsewhere and at
other times has made no note or record ; and I welcome
the association and connection which they offer us as an
opportunity of attaining information in the science of
government, which we have not yet been able to derive
from any other family or any other example among the
nations of the earth.
There is a single other resemblance to which I will
call your attention, and then relieve you from further
trespass upon your time. The Chinese nation asks the
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
57
maintenance of the integrity of its empire. The Chi
nese nation asserts by its Ambassadors, if not by its
philosophy, the great doctrine of non-intervention,
upon the assertion of which the Government of the
United States was founded. They come now, as has
been said, not merely to ask admission upon the rolf of
civilized States, but to assert a doctrine grander than
any that has yet been proclaimed by men or by nations;
a higher than any of American civilization, or than Eu
ropean civilization has ever been able to announce. We
claim great merit to ourselves, Mr. Mayor and gentle
men, because, in the establishment of our theories of
government, we recognized the doctrine of the frater
nity and equality of man.
The liberties of all men is the great lesson that we
have taught the world, and in our day and our time, it
is, perhaps, as much as might have been expected of us.
We are only two hundred years old. That is all that
we have learned, and that is all that we have taught the
nations of the earth. But there is a grander doctrine
than this, never yet announced in authoritative form to
the nations of the earth, and never yet read upon the
pages of human history. The State is the creation of
God. The individual man is necessary to a state of po
litical society. The creation of the State is necessary to
the progress of man and the civilization of the human
race. The State, therefore, is the grander creation of
the two, and though man be the immediate creation of
Divine Providence, the State is not less the creation of
that power, and its eminence and its power are not less
necessary to work out the destiny and purposes of Prov8
�i
II
!
�RECEPTION OF THE
58
idence. The State, sir, hitherto, has been regarded as
the work of man. Governments have claimed the right
to make and to destroy, and the strongest in the course
of human history, has been ready and willing, and
claimed the right, to destroy those who were not less
able to defend themselves.
*
But here come the representatives of this ancient na
tion, that we have been accustomed to class among bar
barian States, with the great doctrine, not merely of the
brotherhood of man, but the higher and nobler result
of civilization, which is the fraternity of nations ; and
if in their mission, whether it springs from necessity or
from wisdom, it shall be their destiny to accomplish the
recognition of this principle of the fraternity of nations,
as the American people have consummated the doctrine
of the fraternity of men, there is little more left for man
to do in the way of perfecting the human race in mat
ters of government, or of extending the beneficient ad
vantages of human civilization. That they will do this,
sir, I can have no doubt whatever. Although in differ
ent parts of the world their theories may be resisted, and
the States of Europe may insist, now and hereafter, as
heretofore, upon the right of intervention, we must re
member that they resisted also our doctrine which has
been consummated, of the equality and fraternity of man;
and so much clearer and stronger is the recognition of
the grander doctrine of the fraternity of nations, that
the reason and justice of the philosophy alone will
carry it onward, as has been said by the distinguished
Senator who has preceded me, as triumphant as the
march of the sun in heaven.
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
59
I read this morning, in one of the city journals, the
letter of a Massachusetts man from the southern part of
Europe, where, in speaking of many important matters
that had fallen under his observation, he alludes to one
which cannot be mentioned without touching the heart
of an American, especially of a Massachasetts man,
particularly .the heart of a citizen of Boston — that the
commercial flag of the United States had been swept
from the seas of the world. Here, sir, where we re
member that, within our own times, within the time of
the youngest among us, the Grays, the Lymans, the
Sturgis’s, and many others of the merchant princes of
Boston, who were the fathers and founders of American
commerce — who gave this city its prestige, its prosper
ity, its power, its wealth ; where we saw that infant com
merce, founded by the fathers of our own neighborhood,
grow to such a power, equalling, if not surpassing, that
of the most successful nations of the earth — we can but
grieve, ay, sir, deeply grieve, that any one travelling
over any portion of the earth should be compelled to
say that the commercial flag of the United States had
been swept from the seas and was to be seen no more.
But, sir, I see in the mission of my friend, Mr. Burlin
game, and his associate ministers, the recovery of that
commercial prestige and power which we have lost. I
need not allude to the sad events which have led to
this change in the commercial power of the United
States. They are too well known, too deeply engraved
upon the hearts of all present, to need any reference
whatever. It was upon the Atlantic, sir, that we had
achieved our power, and where our commerce had sway,
��RECEPTION OF THE
60
and when the maritime nations of the old world, either
out of distrust of our own purposes, or jealous of our
power, seized a fitting opportunity for them, and an
unfortunate one for us, to sweep the American flag from
the seas, it seemed as if it were impossible for us ever
to recover our power. I don’t know that it is to be
expected, or that we shall ever regain our power there.
But the Atlantic Ocean is only a tenth part of the
surface of the globe, land and water. On the other
side of our continent, which we reach in a few days by
our railroads, we stand in view of the Pacific Ocean,
that covers one-third of the surface of the globe, land
and water ; that is controlled on the east by six or seven
or eight hundred millions of people, with a sufficient
number on this side, I think, to keep up our end of the
matter in our little portion, and with the friendly na
tions of Russia, China, Japan, and ultimately, perhaps,
of the Indies, we shall reinstate the commercial flag of
the United States and raise our power, prestige and
prosperity in that line of human enterprise to an ele
vation which the mind of man has never yet been able
to conceive. We may, sir, return the compliment which
has been paid to us by the European nations. And when
our fleets are fixed, and our flag planted upon the Pa
cific Ocean, sharing in the industry and the commerce
of these hundreds of millions of people, we may return
the compliment paid to us by our European friends, and,
as Grant did in Virginia, as Sherman did at Atlanta,
flank the enemy, and take possession of the field. And
this, sir, we do with the aid of this Embassy and that of
the great, intelligent and just people that it represents.
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
61
I remember, sir, reading in that most delicate, beau
tiful, and too short biography of Mr. Sheil, the Irish
barrister, an account of his tutor, of the Jesuit profes
sion, who, by the goodness of his nature, and ^the wis
dom of his intellect, had won the affections of this youth
ful student in the monasteries of Ireland. He says, (and
there is significance in the remark he makes,) that his
tutor was taken away from him without an instant’s pre
paration or notice. This Jesuit was ordered to Siberia,
with instructions to work his way into China by any
means in his power, for the purpose of giving to the
governments he represented the benefit of his discover
ies in that far-distant and little known land. This
shows what effort, what care, what pains have been
taken by the European nations to make themselves ac
quainted with the Chinese people. We, sir, have been
careless of these things; and that Providence which has
taken care of us in so many great trials has opened the
way to us for a greater advantage than the European
nations have ever yet acquired. These men, the Chi
nese — the representatives of four hundred millions of
people—come to us and offer to us their interest, their in
dustry and the profits of their commerce. They ask
nothing from us but the kindness and friendship which
we are ready to show to every nation. And I trust, sir,
that the American people and the American Govern
ment will not be unwilling to do whatever is necessary
to sustain the proffer of friendship which they have
made; that we shall be willing to say to the Chinese,
that, so far as moral influence goes, the integrity of their
nation shall be maintained, as we say to ourselves that
��RECEPTION OF THE
62
the integrity of our nation shall be maintained. Whether
it be against domestic or foreign foes, we will maintain
our power till this continent shall be all American and
our flag known, as heretofore, upon every sea.
Mr. Mayor and fellow citizens, not to trespass upon
your attention any farther, I will close with a sentiment,
which I could wish to have embodied in my speech, a
sentiment that reflects my own feelings, I trust may also
reflect your own judgment.
The Ministers and Associate Officers of the Chinese
Embassy of 1868. The representatives of the political
society of widely different periods of history, and politi
cal powers of opposite parts of the globe ; the agents of
a civilization whose mission it is to prevent the isola
tion and intervention of States, and establish the frater
nity of nations.t May God give them health, strength
and wisdom, and success commensurate with the masrnitude and justice of the great cause they represent.
The eighth regular toast.
“The Commercial Relations between China and the United States”
was responded to by Charles G. Nazro, Esq., President
of the Boston Board of Trade.
SPEECH OF CHARLES G. NAZRO, ESQUIRE.
Mr. Mayor: The topic upon which you have called
me to speak, is one which not only commends itself to
every merchant and every business man, but also finds a
response in the heart of every citizen of our land. We
have arrived, sir, at a new epoch in the affairs of the
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
63
world. Old prejudices are being overcome, and en
lightened minds are beginning to have control, where
heretofore, darkness has prevailed. The discoveries,
through modern science, of the forces of nature, have
rendered achievements practicable at the present day,
which, in times past, have been considered utterly im
possible. The power of steam and of electricity; the
improvement in machinery, and the increased facilities
and speed of transportation and of locomotion, .have
brought the distant countries of the world in close prox
imity ; and nations which before were separated by an
impassible wall of partition, are now brought together
as friends and neighbors. And this is only the first act
in the great drama, and we, who are upon the stage at
the present time, are only a small portion of the actors
who are to take a part in it.
Sir, there is more in this than appears upon the sur
face ; there is a depth of meaning which it is well for
us to ponder and understand. Who, sir, is competent
to foretell the future, who has imagination sufficiently
vivid to depict the effect of these new movements upon
the human race even for the next fifty years ? Already
do we see the great Empire of China, abounding as she
does in wealth, and containing one-third of the popula
tion of the globe, emerging from that state of isolation
in which she has been kept, and reciprocating with us,
and the other nations of the western world, overtures of
kind and friendly relations ; — and to-night we have as
guests her honored representatives; and soon will all
the nations of the earth be bound in the indissoluble
ties of friendship, Christian sympathy and love.
��RECEPTION OF THE
64
What then, sir, are the lessons we are to draw from
these events'? First, and naturally as a commercial
nation, we see enlargement of our commerce ; more ex
tended commercial relations with those distant empires ;
greater profit in trade and large pecuniary gain. And
I think, sir, at the present moment we can hardly esti
mate the great importance of this aspect of the subject.
But while all the world will be benefited, it“appears to
me that our own country will derive peculiar advan
tage. If we are true to ourselves, we shall take our
place in the front r^nk of nations. From our geograph
ical position, our Continent forms, as it were, a direct
highway between the nations of the east and those of
the west. We have youth, energy, natural advantages,
a virgin soil, mineral wealth, inland seas and rivers for
transportation, and every thing that goes to make up a
great country. But we must be true to ourselves. The
flag which we so much venerate and beneath whose folds
we feel so entirely secure from the assaults of foes from
abroad or traitsrs at home, must float without a spot or
blemish. Its azure field must be as pure as the etherial
heavens, of which it is the emblem ; its stars must be
as bright as the celestial luminaries which they repre
sent, and not a foul spot be allowed upon our escutcheon.
If our government in time of peril pledges its word in
good faith for the payment of money, that pledge must
be redeemed when the danger is passed — not in the
letter only, but in the spirit. Better, sir, pay the na
tional debt twice over, than by any mean subterfuge seek
to filch a single dollar from any one who has trusted to
the national honor; nor let us sanction in our govern-
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
65
ment acts, which, if performed by individuals, would
# expose them to the contempt of all honorable men.
If, then, we thus perform our duty to ourselves and
to the world, we may expect great advantages from
these commercial alliances. But, Mr. Mayor, important
as is this view of the subject — and we can hardly over
estimate it — there is a higher and nobler plane from
which to view it. We learn by it, that an unseen hand
is molding and guiding our destiny — and that we are
merely instruments in working out the great problem in
the divine government. We see that the nations of the
earth, drawn and directed by that Providence, are
seeking a closer and more friendly alliance with each
other, and that soon the sword will cease to be the
arbiter through which the national questions will be
« determined, but that mutual forbearance and Christian
courtesy will take its place; we see in it civilization
with all its ennobling and elevating influences spreading
further and wider; and we see that, following in the
track of our commerce, the Christian religion will flow in
copious streams; and that while we send our ships to
those shores laden with the rich products of our land,
they will also be freighted with the glorious gospel of
our blessed Redeemer; and notwithstanding unchristian
and wicked acts may have been done to the people of
those countries (although, so far as my knowledge
extends, our own country has not been guilty in this
particular), we may thus atone for the wrong, and be
instrumental in guiding them into the way of eternal
life.
Then, Mr. Mayor, if these views be correct, and if
9**
��RECEPTION OF THE
66
these results are to follow the present movement, should
we not thank God for it, not only as merchants, but as
philanthropists and Christians, and do all in our power
to promote it? I think, it is a matter of no small
significance that the present representative of the great
Empire of China is not a foreigner, who does not
understand our institutions, but one of own esteemed
fellow citizens ; and that while we receive him most
cordially in his official capacity, we also receive him as
a friend and neighbor, and bid him a warm welcome to
his home; and although the gentlemen associated with
him in the Embassy cannot be expected so fully to
appreciate- us as one of our own citizens, yet their
intelligence will compensate the want of experience;
and we trust, that when they return to their home, they
will bear with them kind remembrances of us, -and we
wish them God speed in their important mission.
Mr. Mayor, permit me, in closing, to offer as a
sentiment:
“ The friendly intercourse of nations. The aid to in
dustry, the promoter of civilization, and the handmaid
of religion.”
The Mayor then introduced Mr. Edwin P. Whipple to
respond to the ninth regular toast,—
“The Press.”
mr. whipple’s speech.
One cannot attempt, Mr. Mayor, to resp d here for
the press, without being reminded that the press and
��I
CHINESE EMBASSY.
67
the Chinese Embassy have been on singularly good
terms from the start. To record the progress, applaud
the object, extend the influence, and cordially eulogize
the members of that Embassy, have been for months no
inconsiderable part of the business of all newspapers ;
and if China anticipated us, by some five hundred
years, in the invention of printing, our Chinese guests
will still admit that, in the minute account we have
given both of what they have, and of what* they
have not, said and done, since they arrived in the coun
try, we have carried the invention to a perfection of
♦which they never dreamed — having not only invented
printing, but invented a great deal of what we print.
But, apart from the rich material they have furnished
the press in the way of news, there is something
strangely alluring and inspiring to the editorial imagi
nation in the comprehensive purpose which has prompt
ed their mission to the civilized nations of the West.
That purpose is doubly peaceful,^for it includes a two
fold commerce of material products and of immaterial
ideas. Probably the vastest conception which ever en
tered into the mind of a conqueror was that which was
profoundly meditated, and, in its initial steps, practical
ly carried out, by Alexander the Great. He was en
gaged in a clearly-defined project of assimilating the pop
ulations of Europe and Asia, when, at the early age of
thirty-three, he was killed — I tremble to state it here —
by a too eager indulgence in an altogether too munifi
cent public dinner ! Alexander’s weapon was force,
but it was at least the force of genius, and it was ex
erted in the service of a magnificent idea. His sue-
��RECEPTION OF THE
68
cessors in modern times have but too often availed
themselves of force divested of all ideas, except the
idea of bullying or outwitting the Asiatics in a trade.
As to China, this conduct roused an insurrection of
Chinese conceit against European conceit. The Chi
nese were guilty of the offence of calling the represent
atives of the proudest and most supercilious of all civil
izations, “ outside barbarians ” —illustrating in this that
too common conservative weakness of human nature,
of holding fixedly to an opinion long after the facts
which justified it have changed or passed away- It
certainly cannot be questioned that at a period which,
when compared with the long date of Chinese annals,
may be called recent, we were outside barbarians as con
trasted with that highly civilized and ingenious people.
At the time when our European ancestors were squalid,
swinish, wolfish savages, digging with their hands into
the earth for roots to allay the pangs of hunger, with
out arts, letters, or written speech., China rejoiced in an
old, refined, complicated civilization — was rich, popu
lous, enlightened, cultivated, humane — was fertile in
savans, poets, moralists, metaphysicians, saints — had in
vented printing, gunpowder, the mariner’s compass, the
sage’s rule of life — had, in one of her. three State re
ligions, that of Confucius, presented a code of morals
which, being as immortal as the human conscience, can
never become obsolete — and had, in another of her
State religions, that of Buddha, solemnly professed her
allegiance to that doctrine of the equality of men,
which Buddha taught twenty-four hundred years before
our Jefferson was born, and had at the same time vig-
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
69
orously grappled with that problem of existence which
our Emerson finds as insolvable now as it was then.
Well, sir, after all this had relatively changed, after
the . Western nations had made their marvellous ad
vances in civilization, they were too apt to exhibit to
China only their barbaric side — that is, their ravenous
cupidity backed by their insolent strength. We judge
for example, of England by the poetry of Shakespeare,
the science of Newton, the ethics of Butler, the religion
of Taylor, the philanthropy of Wilberforce; but wThat
poetry, science, ethics, religion or philanthropy wras she
accustomed to show in her intercourse with China?
Did not John Bull, in his rough methods with the Ce
lestial Empire, sometimes literally act “ like a bull in a
China shop ? ” You remember, sir, that “ intelligent
contraband ” who, .when asked his opinion of an
offending white brother, delicately hinted his distrust
by replying: “ Sar, if I was a chicken, and that man
was about, I should take care to roost high.” Well, all
that we can say of China is, that for a long time she
“ roosted high ” —withdrew suspiciously into her own
civilization to escape the rough contact with the harsh
er side of ours.
But, by a sudden inspiration of almost miraculous
confidence, springing from a faith in the nobler qualities
of our Caucasian civilization, she has changed her pol
icy. She has learned that in the language, and on the
lips, and in the hearts of most members of the English
race, there is such a word as equity, and at the magic
of that word she has eagerly emerged from her isolation.
And, sir, what we see here to-day reminds me that, some
��RECEPTION OF THE
70
thirty years ago, Boston confined one of her citizens in
a lunatic asylum, for the offence of being possessed by a
too intensified Boston “ notion.” He had discovered a
new and expeditious way of getting to China. “ All
agree,” he said, “ that the earth revolves daily on its own
axis. If you desire,” he therefore contended, “to go to
China, all you have to do is to go up in a balloon, wait
till China comes round, then let off the gas, and drop
softly down.” Now I will put it to you, Mr. Mayoi, if
you are not bound to release that philosopher from con
finement, for has not his conception been: realized ? —
has not China, to-day, unmistakably come round to us ?
And now, sir, a word as to the distinguished gen
tleman at the head of the Embassy — a gentleman spec
ially dear to the press. Judging from the eagerness
with which the position is sought, I am lead to believe
that the loftiest compliment which can be paid to a hu
man being is, that he has once represented Boston in
the national House of Representatives. After such a
distinction as that, all other distinctions, however great,
must still show a sensible decline from political grace.
But I trust that you will all admit, that next to the hon
or of representing Boston in the House of Representa
tives comes the honor of representing the vast Empire
of China in “ The Parliament of man, the Federation of
the World.” Having enjoyed both distinctions, Mr.
Burlingame may be better qualified than we are to dis
criminate between the exultant feelings which each
is caculated to excite in the human breast. But we
must remember that the population, all brought up on a
system of universal education, of the empire he repre-
��CHINESE EMBASSY.
71
scnts, is greater than the combined population of all the
nations to which he is accredited. Most Bostonians have,
or think they have, a “ mission but certainly no other
Bostonian ever had such a“ mission ” as he ; for it extends
all round the planet; makes him the most universal Ambassador and Minister Plenipotentiary the world ever
saw; is, in fact, a “ mission” from everybody to every
body, and one by which it is proposed that everybody
shall be benefited. To doubt its success would be to
doubt themoral soundness of Christian civilization. It
implies that Christian doctrines will find no opponents
provided that Christian nations set a decent example of
Christian. Its virtue heralds the peaceful triumph of
reason over prejudice of justice over force, of humanity,
over the hatreds of class and race, of the good of all
over the selfish blindness of each, of the “ fraternity ”
of the great Commonwealth of Nations over the insolent
“ liberty ” of any one of them to despise, oppress, and
rob the rest.
Letters were received from a number of distinguished gentle
men whose engagements prevented their attendance at the ban
quet. Among others, from the Hon. Charles Francis Adams,
late Minister to the Court of St. James; the Hon. J. Lothrop
Motley, late Minister to the Court of Vienna; Prof. Louis
Agassiz, the Hon. Hugh McCulloch, the Hon. Wm. M. Evarts,
Bishop Eastburn, Bishop Williams, the Hon. Richard H. Dana,
Jr., the Hon. Henry Wilson, and the Hon. Wm. Claflin.
��OTHER ENTERTAINMENTS.
On Saturday, the twenty-second of August, the City Council
entertained the Embassy with an excursion in Boston Harbor,
in the United States Revenue Cutter “McCulloch.” At Fort
Warren the guests were received with a salute, and were con
ducted through the Fortress by Major A. A. Gibson, 3d U. S.
Artillery, commanding the post. The company afterwards vis
ited Deer Island, and inspected the City Institutions. After
partaking of a collation at that place they returned to the city.
On Monday following, Mr. Burlingame and his associates
were formally received and entertained by the Municipal au
thorities of Cambridge.
On Tuesday, the Embassy visited Lawrence, with the Boston
Committee of Arrangements, for the purpose of inspecting the
great manufacturing establishments in that city. A special train
was furnished by the President of the Boston & Maine Rail
road Corporation, which started at 10 o’clock, A. M. The
guests were shown through the Washington Woollen Mills and
the Pacific Cotton Mills. After partaking of a collation at the
Pacific Mills they returned to Boston.
On Wednesday, the Embassy were formally received by His
Excellency, the Governor, at the State House. The Indepen
dent Corps of Cadets, under the command of Lieut.-Colonel
John Jeffries, Jr., were drawn up in front of the building, and
saluted the distinguished visitors as they entered.
The Sergeant-at-Arms escorted them to the Council Chamber,
•
��RECEPTION OF THE CHINESE EMBASSY.
73
where the Governor welcomed the Embassy in the following
words: •
Your Excellencies : I welcome you to Massachusetts.
The objects of the mission which brings you hither find
a ready response in this Commonwealth, whose com
mercial relations with the country you represent have
been constant and friendly. Cushing, Parker and Bur
lingame went from our schools to their high and peace
ful work in ChinaI am glad that, coming from one of the ancient em
pires of the East, you are tarrying among us long
enough to observe something of the spirit and mode of
the civilization of the West. The traditions and cus
toms of the old world can take no harm from contact
with the active and aggressive life of the new. Your
nationality and ours ought to become assimilated in
fraternal feeling for the part they may bear in the future
of history.
Your chief, Mr. Burlingame, is no stranger in this
capital where his public life and distinction began. I
offer to him a special and personal greeting among the
friends of former days, of which die memory is stdl
fresh and pleasant to us alL
Mr. E-Lrizgase
as follows:
F^tr Ex'fMexqj: Permit me to thank you for dm
warm wekome, to thank you for the bes utiful language
m whxh it is expressed, to thank you for the high
in winch it m
This good-will we
ukt to be the driivn of the highest
k die
it
*
��li
RECEPTION OE THE CHINESE EMBASSY.
world in behalf of the mission on which we are here.
Massachusetts was the first to send out messengers of
peace, and to establish relations with China. May the
spirit in which she first established those relations con
tinue to the end! and I invoke the aid of all here to unite
in the effort we are making to realize the unification of
all the people. Thanking you, feeling deeply touched
by your personal allusions, I will bring my remarks to
a close, trusting that you may have all prosperity, and
that the Commonwealth over which you preside may be
prosperous also.
Mr. Burlingame then advanced, and taking the Governor’s
hand, said:
✓
I now grasp your hand in friendship, and I trust that
to you and to the people who are here, this grasp of
friendship will be continued to all ages.
*
The Embassy remained in Boston until the 2d of September,
and were entertained in an informal way by the Committee of
Arrangements, and by private individuals. They visited the
City Hall, the Institute of Technology, the Public Library, the
City Hospital and the Waltham Watch Factory. They were
also entertained by the Municipality of Chelsea.
On Wednesday morning, at 8| o’clock, they left Boston for
New York, in a special car attached to the regular train on the
Boston and Albany Railroad.
��
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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The reception and entertainment of the Chinese Embassy by the City of Boston
Creator
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Boston (Mass.) City Council
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Place of publication: Boston
Collation: 74 leaves ; 23 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway.
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Alfred Mudge & Sons
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1868
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G5242
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International relations
China
USA
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China-Foreign Relations-United States
Conway Tracts
United States-Foreign Relations-China
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Text
WASTETHRIFTS AND WORKMEN.
OF THE MODE OF PRODUCING THEM,
AND
THEIR RELATIVE VALUE TO THE COMMUNITY.
BY
HENRY BRANDRETH, M.A.,
FELLOW OF TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE, AND CURATE AT ST. BOTOLPH’S, BISHOPSGATE.
Now, sir, what make you here ?
Nothing: I am not taught to make any thing. ’I
What mar you then, sir?
Marry, sir, I am helping you to mar that which God made,
a poor unworthy brother of yours, with idleness.
As You Like It.
LONDON:
LONGMANS,
GREEN, AND
18G8.
Price One Shilling.
CO.
�The main principle advocated in these pages is, that real productive
ness in any field can only be secured by sparing the growing crops ; and
that the work of children of every age must be arranged, not to secure
the largest immediate return, but to develop the greatest capacity of ivork
in after-life.
�19 Finsbury Circus, E.C.:
April 18G8.
LONDON WASTETHRIFTS.
The condition of a great part of the poorer inhabitants of London is
deplorable in the extreme, and there can be no field calling more
urgently for the labours of the' philanthropist and the Christian. Thousands of adult workmen are; from defective education (considering
school and apprenticeship together as education), incapable of earning
more than the barest journeyman’s wages, and they have little sense of
any duty incumbent upon them of earning for any purpose save that
of spending on the gratification of their immediate desires ; if they look
forward at all, they contentedly regard the ‘ house ’ and the rates as the
natural provision for their age. They have no idea of any obligation
upon them to support sick or decayed members of their families, and they
consider their children not as fellow-creatures whom they are responsible
for having brought into the world, and whom they should make some
effort to make masters of some trade which would make them able to
earn good wages and maintain themselves in honest industry through
life, but as pieces of property who ought to be bringing them in some
thing, out of Whom they have a natural right to increase their incomes
by selling their services during youth, but whom they will have no
interest in when a few years are past; and hence, in too many cases, they
follow their interest, and sell them for an immediate wage, instead of cul
tivating the capacity of doing real work in after life; and this destroys
all hope that the rising generation will be made into anything superior
to the present. If these children were all taken from their parents and
placed in industrial schools, their grievance would not be any infringe
ment of any right of a man to direct the education of his children, but
the loss of the earnings of the little slaves during their youth.
The question must be fairly asked—Can society do nothing to im
prove the condition of the next generation ?
Experience shows that it is possible to excite lively feelings of
affection and gratitude in yormg minds towards those persons and in
stitutions who labour for their benefit during youth; the gratitude of
children to those masters who, in school or in business, try to do well
by them is a real force binding them to good ; and the hearts of chil
dren can be turned to a loyal appreciation of the benefits which law
and order have conferred upon them, instead of to a sullen belief that
high civilisation and progress merely separate the rich and poor
by a yet wider interval. A well directed education in school and
business makes them capable of doing real work throughout life, and at
the same time sets them safely above most of the dangers of early life.
a 2
�4
It is, however, difficult to keep children at school, because the body
is somewhat earlier in its development than the mind and heart, and it
can be put to perform certain tasks during the period allotted by
nature to the growth of the higher faculties. A prolonged education
sacrifices the actual work by which a child might contribute to the
wealth of the world, for the sake of training it to become a real con
tributor through after life, and of securing favourable conditions for
the ripening of the moral and intellectual powers. These early years
are not those during which children are capable of any very serious
work; but the importance of keeping good examples of action from
conscientious motives before children cannot be over-estimated. Their
unconscious imitation of all that is kept before them, recommended by
the voice of all those whom they look up to, makes a second nature of
doing right or wrong. It must, however, be remembered that mostd
masters are so distant from the boys that the real examples which they
follow are their school-fellows; and it is what is called the general tone
of a school which really influences education; and the best masters are
not those who influence single boys to copy a pattern unsuited to their
age, but those who raise the average sense of duty in all around them.
I do not, however, dwell at present on the civilising and humanising
effects of real information, but on the practical money value of teaching
at this period of life. We may cease teaching a child as soon as it can
read and write, and hire it out to do such trifling work as it is already
capable of for the benefit of the adult population; but unless it is
somebody’s duty and somebody’s interest to make such child capable
of doing something more than what it can already do, it grows up to
the passions and appetites of an adult, but with the skill and reason of
a child. We may, on the contrary, pay fees to have it taught in
school, or a premium to have it taught as an apprentice; we may
develop its reason and increase its knowledge—the latter process
involves an immediate outlay—but the sum thus spent is an invest
ment bringing in an enormous return ; the child’s wages are increased,
i.e. the value of the work done by it for society is increased during
each year of real life, by a sum fully equal to that invested in improv
ing it.
A human being is, at the lowest, a very improvable piece of pro
perty, and becomes valuable in proportion as his mind and heart,
which contrive and save, gain the control of his body, which wastes
the stores of society. We may arrest the development of the con
trolling faculties, so that the man becomes a mere wastethrift, never able
to produce as much as he destroys. Thousands of such are annually
turned loose on society, and are in effect maintained on the fruits of
the industry of others, who by proper training have learnt to produce
more than is needed for their own immediate needs, and this it is
which impoverishes a country—the number of mouths without heads
or hands who are in any way maintained by the industry of others.
We are all ready to condemn the improvidence of a family where
the children are allowed to grow up without being made capable of
supporting themselves; but such conduct is not so short-sighted as our
own, because the cost of maintaining unprofitable members does not
�fall directly on the family, but is borne equally by the whole com
munity; but when a nation omits to train its youth to work, the cost
rwBMB and workhouses falls upon the nation itself.
It is a real drag on the progress of a nation to turn out uneducated
and undisciplined hordes who can do nothing which cannot be done
Mtn- half the cost by machinery, whose whole work does not replace
the value of the food and clothing they destroy. But every workman
who can produce a good article by which the comforts and conveniences of those around him can be raised, or their more real interests
advanced, is a real increase of the resources of the nation. For though
in particular trades the labour market may be overstocked, and the
■invention of machines may displace workmen, our power of converting
raw material into manufactured goods for the use of man will never
be too great, unless it is mere quickness at some detail, and not that
general intelligence which, by having learnt its proper lessons in child
hood, is capable of learning when childhood is past, and, when not
needed in one trade, can enter upon a new field of work, because its
training has not been so special as to make it merely an intelligent
wheel in a machine, which may any day be replaced by iron fingers
taught to perform the same thoughtless round of labour.
But the workmen themselves enter into associations to limit the
number of apprentices, because they see that labour will be sold
cheaper in any trade where there is an excess of workmen. But by
thus uniting to prevent their children from being made fit to earn their
own living for fear of their competition, they lower the average pro
ductive power throughout the country, and with it the average condition
of the workman. If the workers in any one trade could secure a
monopoly for their own labour, as in India, where trades are
hereditary, and the last survivor of a family may become the only
maker of an article; or if, while the producers in other trades increase,
the number, e.g. of watchmakers could be kept the same, there will be
more work and higher wages for each worker in that trade. But if the
number of hands in every trade is kept constant, and the increasing
population debarred from learning any trade which will enable them
to produce a fair equivalent for their food and clothing, every skilled
workman will have to support one of these incapables.
Whether this is done by increased iigost of everything, or by heavy
rates and high rents, or by the wastethrift being quartered upon the
■workman, will make no difference; the means conquered by labour
From nature will be shared by the incapables. But if the craftsmen
freely impart their skill, and each makes his wastethrift into a real
producer, then the means won from nature increase with the increase
of consumers. Power to win commodities from nature is not a thing
that there will ever be too much of. If a million of skilled labourers
can exist side by side, supporting each other by the mutual inter
change of their productions, another million side by side with them
could do the same. Restrictions overstock and cause misery in the
unprotected trades ; and at present the unskilled labour, is in excess.
A skilled labourer is one who produces more commodities than he con
sumes, and not only supports himself but has usually a surplus to
�6
accumulate, or to spend in poor-rates or luxuries. A wastethrift is one
who cannot improve the raw material furnished by nature sufficfewl|
to provide himself with necessaries, and is, in some way or other,
maintained by the winnings of others.
Of course, neither ever takes home the actual goods he makes; by
an arrangement of convenience, he daily receives their money value.
In proportion to his skill each increases daily the world’s goods by the
improvement of the material by his work; and the strength of a nation
consists in the number of such over-producers who unite to observe its
laws. Its weakness is the number of wastethrifts it has to maintain ;
and if, by effective educatiou, these over-consumers can be turned
into over-producers, the steady employment of their work is the
national resources.
A thousand more workmen, fairly distributed among the various
trades, do not mean more competition for the little work there already
is, but each creates a demand for additional work to exchange for his
. productions. Skilled workmen produce more than they consume.
They not only lead innocent and happy lives themselves, but create
fresh markets for labour among ourselves, with a real increase of
national force. We adopt very questionable means of opening foreign
markets, while the cost of an expedition would create a new people
among ourselves—certain customers in our markets, willing sharers of
our taxes—instead of the mass of pauperism and crime which we allow
to lie at our doors, till it has rotted sufficiently for us to assume the
permanent charge of maintaining it in workhouses and jails. Skilled
productive workmen are the real elements of a nation’s strength. Money
can only produce by setting men to work. Men combine, and shape
the rough material which nature affords till it becomes serviceable ;
they make tools and machines, extract food and ores from the earth.
The work of man alone enables men to live. The whole produce on
w’hich all live is due to the intelligence and skill of each; and the
whole work of each creature is highest if he is spared when young, and
taught, till he becomes a really effective producer.
Even if every man is trained to do some one thing fairly, machines
will continually be invented doing the same things well, and cheaply.
The commodities produced by a day’s unaided labour will be sold for
less than a man can be supported on, and the man must starve, beg,
steal, or work at another trade. But without that early quickening of
the faculties which early education produces, a man cannot turn to
anything new. Intelligent hands would increase the productiveness of
other fields of labour by the transfer of their power, and the machines
would increase the productiveness of all, without any increase in the
consumption of necessaries ; each would spend the same wages on the
purchase of a larger stock of the cheapened comforts. Hence, in an age
of mechanical inventions, untrained and half-trained workmen must
suffer, and swell the mass of pauperism and discontent. But such evils
can be provided against by training our workmen to that special form
of labour which no machine can execute—viz. thinking. Each has
within him a far more subtle machine than man has ever invented, the.
powers of which, in improving the labour of the human hand, cannot
�7
be over-estimated; and alittle care taken of this machine during early
life will make each a capable worker for ever.
Every man only trained to such work as a machine can do better
must be a tax upon society for life; but careful schooling, apprentice
ships and industrial training, will make him a useful contributor
through life. And the education of the manual-labour classes, which
all recognise as the great need of the day, is not called for by recent
legislation, but by the characteristic feature of the age—by the in
dention of machinery.
It has always been reckoned to the credit of machinery that it
would perform the harder work—the drudgery of human labour—
and, terminating the necessity for man’s toiling as a mere beast of
burden, set him free to ennobling and elevating pursuits. But the
doing of the work of unskilled hands is a doubtful blessing if we,
at the same time, continue to pour upon the market thousands of un
skilled hands, incapable of those higher arts which are henceforth to
be the only work of man. The tools with whi|h men contend with
ipature are becoming too delicate to be handled by ignorant men; and
the genius of inventors has, unfortunately, beep, directed to bringing
out machines which will employ .the hands of children. At certain
points, a slightly more subtle movement is required than machinery
can cheaply effect. A young child’s hand supplies this; but the
mental development of that child is hopelessly arrested by its round of
mechanical drudgery; it becomes a part of the machine, and grows to
the strength and appetites of a man, without its real value being much
increased beyond the sixpence a day which it earned at first. The
instinct of practising the mechanical arts needed for his support are not
developed in man as in lower orders of creation; but the most per
fectible creature is, in its origin, the weakest, being cast for a long
period of helpless infancy and childhood' on the forbearance of the
adult members of the species; but, during the years in which boys
need the protection of their elders, they are singularly apt to learn and
to receive moral impressions. And it is our only good economy to
conform to the plan by which nature intends that the creature shall be
perfected, to set it to learn whilst it is capable of learning, that it may
work effectively when strong enough to work. That any individual
adult should seek to enrich himself by using the half formed minds
and bodies for any trifling purpose which they are already capable
of, is only too natural; but that a nation should follow so short
sighted a policy is, I own, to me surprising. The nation is not so
utterly bankrupt that it cannot afford to educate its children, but
must, for the sake of their paltry earnings, sacrifice their future pro
spects and its own. Every child who now is, or ought to be, at
school is a most improvable piece of property. If neglected, he
will earn small wages, but, in his best days of full work and full
strength, not enough to support the family which he is sure to have,
in the habits of waste and intemperance to which he is accustomed.
But any sum invested in schooling and apprenticeship will make
him capable of earning an equal sum in wages every year of his life—
e.g. 261 of outlay would increase his weekly wages by at least 10s., or
�s
he will produce commodities at this increased rate; whilst, as a pros
perous workman, he will consume less than either as a beggar gaS
thief. Whether by wages paid as an equivalent for labour, or by poorrates, or in jail, society has made itself responsible for maintaining him,
and any family he may choose to rear. He is quite willing, however,
to learn the use of his head and hands, but neither he nor his parents
can afford the necessary outlay. We have lent money to poor land
lords to improve their estates; let us lend a little to poor children to
improve theirs, and we shall attain our end more certainly by making
education an obviously profitable investment than by any other means.
At present, the whole value of the improved estate is handed over to
the youth on entering into life ; and there are no means by which any
person who has been induced to sink any capital on the improvement
of the property can recover one penny. But men will not invest
money in making railways unless the legislature empowers them to
take tolls; men will not breed horses if others are to take them from
them.
It is a remarkable thing how every inducement to parents to invest
money on their children has been removed; since aged paupers are
secured maintenance from the poor-rates, the duty of the children is
terminated, and the parents derive no benefit from any wage-earning
power which might be developed in youth; and by the early age at
which children can be emancipated from parental control, we make it
the interest of the parents that they should earn as soon as possible.
But a master who buys the little slave’s work of his mother, instead of
taking an apprentice, does so merely to avoid all trouble and responsi
bility of teaching the child. It is a man’s interest to make an ap
prentice a good workman, because he looks for repayment for the outlay
and trouble of his first years from the work which he becomes capable
of doing before the end of his time ; but a mere money bargain autho
rising the employer to use up, in immediate rough unskilled work, the
docility and imitative powers of the child, which are the seed and
promise of his future life, this is a bargain in which it is clearly in
tended that the parent and employer should use up the child for their
profit, as fully as if the child were bought on the coast of Africa. It
would be better for a child to be—as was suggested at Manchester-—
ground up into corn (or, as might be suggested in the country, spun
into cotton) than to be thus taken from every opportunity of improve
ment, for children do not get better, but worse, every day, unless special
pains are taken with their training. The greatest obstacles to frugality
on the part of the poor is the uncertainty and distant day of any
return ; they see that saving does not really increase their means in old
age, but that the man who spends his all every day will be relieved
up to any standard of comfort which their savings are ever likely to
command. But if we can make it obviously profitable to invest on
their children’s education, the immediate pleasure of working for a child
and setting it a good example is one which need only be once felt to
secure a continuance of such exertion. Much is said about the selfish
ness of parents, but the fault is not entirely theirs; the employers have
no plea of necessity, they merely employ child labour because it is
�9
cheap; they deliberately employ one boy after another to avoid the
■fahEnreSd responsibility of an apprentice, and turn them out untaught
Bin dlhn ski lied to swell the ranks of those who cannot compete with the
machines, ‘with as little compunction as a man would feel at drowning
an overgrown kitten. They bribe the parent to throw away the chance
of improvement. It is not the working classes who derive any benefit
from dealing with children to get all that is possible out of them,
instead of trying to put all that is possible into them. In fact it is
hard to see that any class profits by making the young children labour
for them. The capitalist buys work cheaper for it, and is enabled to
introduce machines which could not have competed with human labour,
but for their direction being within the power of a cheap boy. But
he does not really profit, because competition forces him to sell at
the lowest remunerative rate. The working classes are forced to sell
their work for less because of the very cheap rate at which child labour
can be bought; and if the owners of fixed property seem to profit by
cheapened goods, they have eventually to bear the increased rates
which are finally needed for those half-developed workers, who are as
completely incapable of supporting themselves as if they had lost the
use of their limbs, instead of that of their heads. The cheap rate of
production is a gain by bringing more commodities within the reach
of all, though it may fairly be doubted whether the increase of
comfort, as the world grows older, does make each generation happier
than the last; and any such gain is most dearly purchased by the
nation at the cost of consuming its most valuable elements of future
strength.
Even if compulsory education, the applying of the rod which modern
theorists would spare on the child, to the parents were practicable, it
would be better to make the parents wish for their children’s education,
to enlist all possible home influences to make them valuable workmen,
and introduce into the families the natural virtues of parent and child;
this will be the better thing both for the parent and the child. No
legislation will produce any great result by attempting to compel half
the community to do something which they believe to be contrary to
their interests. It is necessary to secure the hearty co-operation of the
head of every house, to make his interests identical with those of his
children; at present the child requires protection from the necessity of
immediate productive labour, and the cultivation of such faculties as
it possesses; every pound spent upon it is worth a pound a year through
life; but the parent requires that the earnings should be large during
the period in which only the natural dependence of children enables
them to be taught effectively: five shillings earned at once is more to
the parent than five pounds a year through life. It is idle to affect to
be surprised if the general conduct of large bodies of men is dictated
by their interests.
But it is a most reckless waste of the national strength to allow the
management of these most improvable pieces of property to remain in
the unaided hands of men who cannot advance the sum necessary for
\ their proper cultivation, and whose tenure terminates before any
•rail liable crop is ripe. The education of the country is neglected for
�10
the same reason that its agriculture would be if each acre of land were
in the hands of a peasant who was forced to give up possession to
another early in July. Is it not obvious that nobody will cultivated
valuable late ripening crop unless he has some security that he will
reap it ?
If the tenure of land were such as I have suggested, the remedy
would be to alter the tenure by giving the possessor control over the
property till the crops were ripe, or from some general fund to which
all might contribute to remunerate the outgoing tenant according
to the condition of his acre, or for society at large to undertake the
cultivation. This, however expensive it might seem, would be in the
end a real saving; and if they hesitated about it, they would all ba.
starved, as acre after acre was cultivated only for such common stuff
as coidd be sold in June.
And the practical problem is how to secure that a sufficient portion
of the increased value of an educated child should be paid to the
person who is at the cost and trouble of educating If the educator
could be sure of a return proportioned to the earnings of the child from
twenty to twenty-five, education and the improvement of workmen
would become at once the best investment in which capitalists could
invest their money. Nor could the charitable endowments of the
country, whose abuse is the theme of every tongue, find a better use.
The taxation of one part of the community for the gratuitous relief of
the other is already carried to a most alarming extent by the poorlaws ; but the system of supporting the incapable deprives a workman
of every incentive to frugality ; he sees that by strict economy he may
secure an annuity ; but any such return is very distant, and seems to
him very uncertain; meanwhile he sees that his neighbour, who spends
weekly every penny, has a great deal of pleasure at once, and will in
his old age be quite as certainly provided for by the parish; everything
which he lays by will in fact be taxed to make his improvident neigh
bour as comfortable as himself.
All workmen are taxed to contribute to a fund which is finally
divided among the most thriftless: we should rather endeavour to
make even more marked the contrast of the results of idleness and
industry. If society and labour must be taxed to maintain the un
employed, let the aid at least be directed to secure that the next
generation become fit to maintain themselves. If men know not
how to support themselves, let them forego the right of bringing up
children as incapable and unintelligent as themselves. Society has both
the power and the right to control the liberty. of those who cannot
maintain themselves. If the honest man were asked to invest his
savings at once in his children’s training, by the hope of an honourable
fairly earned annuity, proportioned to the efficiency of their training,
he would have a real interest in seeing that his children frequented good
schools and profited by the teaching; it would be his interest that his
children should become virtuous and intelligent; and not only would
this result be generally secured for the children, but the parents would
be humanised by their efforts to humanise their children.
If education is a most profitable national investment, the magnitude
�1^
^fflEfiKhl^^^S^^^RyiSthe greatest possible recommendation. The
SmSBMWMS^E^nunerative, because it penetrates a fertile district of
parental and Christian benevolence, and gives room for the play of
forces whose energy is real and very great.
Theiparent who brings a child into the world is already responsible
for its maintenance. In a large workhouse-school a child cannot be
kept for less than 107., and in a working man’s house the cost is probably greater; and we may put at 100Z. the cost of rearing a young
animal capable of exerting some physical force, but entirely devoid of
Bfe intelligence which might enable him to apply that force usefully.
They (for he is certain to marry and have a large family) consume
daily more commodities than he produces, and are maintained by the
Fwork of the rest of the community. The creature thus reared is one
which no slave-owner would take as a gift, unless he had power to
work, feed, and clothe it in a way which our workhouse officials would
Rry shame on. But it is in the power of society, by spending a small
sum in aid of the large outlay already incurred by the parent, to
develop a mind, to make the wastethrift into a skilled intelligent workman, whose labour will every year fully replace all that it consumes,
and whose earnings in any single year will amply replace any sum
Advanced.
A very small part of the encouragement given ,to the investment of
money in railways would enable the zeal which® is so widely felt to
bring the means of becoming an intelligent workman within the reach
of every child. We did not then trust the zealpwmen for their fellowCreatures’ good; we did not leave each owner of an acre of land to do
as he liked. We passed laws that the interests of the community were
more important than the rights of individuals, and we sanctioned the
levying of tolls; so now we must make it a safe investment to train
skilled workmen, by allowing the person investing to share the increased
value of the manufactured article. But among the poorer classes,
where the parents actually have not the money to invest, it is the
interest of the community at large to levy rates and taxes to increase
the future productiveness of the country. It would be a real blessing
to a child if the school were to keep an account against it of all sums
expended, and the repayment of such advances made a first charge on
his earning. But it would be far better in every way to throw the
charge on local and national taxation than on any individual.
It is particularly cruel that the nation should in this century grudge
the cost of education. Fifty years ago the day’s work of an unskilled
labourer earned enough to support him; but we have discovered buried
underground enormous stores of that untrained force which is all that
an untrained workman has to sell; and when he comes and asks for
work and wages, the practical answer is that one shilling’s worth of coal
will do everything he is capable of; in fact, the iron giant would pro
bably give less trouble and need less superintendence than the man.
We have found in coal mines that by which the productiveness of
Rilled labour is enormously increased, and unskilled labour made
worthless; but the reduced cost of everything due to machinery puts
it in our power to afford for others the training which it renders neces
�12
sary. The skill of the workman must keep pace with the improvement
in his tools; more time than formerly is required to develop sufficient
intelligence to enable them to do work above the capacity of the
machines; during the years which youthful docility and quickness
point out as fitted for mastering any craft, children should be counted as
learners and repaid for any small service which they render the com
munity by increased opportunities of learning. Those who are
untaught to think, and incapable of turning their hands to any new
work, who from want of training of their intelligence can only do
mechanical work, will certainly be displaced by the more cheaply
working iron hands. It is not any special kind of knowledge which
schools are useful for imparting, but the general cultivation of the moral
and intellectual faculties; these cannot be strengthened in a child whose
whole daily stock of energy is wanted in the mill or farm; neither
growing mind nor growing body will improve if strained by labour to
minister to the comfort of adults.
The displacement of his labour by machinery is no very great matter
to a man whose intelligence enables him to turn his hand to something
else. It is the hopelessly unintelligent whose minds are closed against
all new ideas who have to be maintained by the community.
But education is a great religious duty, and this is to. make it all a
matter of profit and calculation. Not at all; education is a religious
duty, and nobly is it performed. Witness the scanty salaries on which
masters work, finding their real payment in the sense of service done
to their fellows. But subscribing to anything is not a religious duty ;
the work which our Master calls us to cannot be done by paid hands
for us. Education will always remain in the hands of religious men,
the salaries of teachers are too small to retain those who have no zeal
for the work ; but we must not trust to that zeal which is only kindled
by personal contact to fill our subscription lists, or to advance such
capital as will enable masters to maintain themselves in their, labours
of love. Similarly, a passion for science retains many men in posts
the pay of which seems inadequate. But no passion for science will
ever bring any man to face the daily round of routine of a school.
Whilst children are under education, we are careful only to
put high motives to action before them, because their character is in
process of being moulded by the motives thought of by them. But
with adults, whose character is formed, we must not leave, powerful
motives unappealed to. Among men, their actions are more important
than their motives, and we take nature as it is, and seek to direct
their actions; with children, we look forward in hope to what nature is
becoming, and seek to perfect their motives—thinking their actions
comparatively of very little importance.
It is impossible to make the duty and interest of grown men too
obviously identical; however far the point is carried up to which in
terest and duty coincide, the worst parents will come up to that point
however advanced, whilst the zeal of the better class of parents will
still urge them to do more.
In dealing with a numerous class of adults, it would be folly to. say
that the duty of providing for their children is so clear that it is
�13
l"ver motives. We must rather try how
BWWBBHHMDe made to fall in the same direction with duty. There
|Mw hMffmffigB-oom for the preference of virtue at the last.
But the whole question of the religious view of education must be
UaQpIndently considered.
Though I have tried to point out how the national pocket is to be
benefited by liberal investment in education, the real interest which
B^Wuld be felt in it arises solely from the desire that the children
should be religiously and virtuously brought up. However great may
be the necessity of school-teaching for the purpose of raising our future
workmen into an intelligent class, capable each of producing sufficient
Bommodities to maintain himself in honest industry, instead of doing the
work which a machine can do for sixpence a day, and being maintained
on the alms of the real workers, we must not forget that there are
other interests beyond those of mere animal need which should not be
neglected. Of course, these interests are in great measure things of
faith, and many men will be simply unable to appreciate their im
portance. The excellence of a school is not anything that can be
written out during an examination, but will be spread throughout
the whole of after-life. The eye of the astronomer does not see a star
so distinctly by looking directly at it, but when he glances a little on
one side ; and children do not seize those things which are deliberately
set before them so readily as those which are laid in their way
without that straining of the attention which is considered the right
thing in lessons. And it is not the actual words which drop from the
teacher’s lips, not the precepts which he reiterates with authority, but
the daily, hourly example of those to whose example he unconsciously
endeavours himself to conform, and which is continually presented to
young minds as the standard of that society into which they look
forward to being admitted.
It is hardly necessary to say that education does a very small part
of the good in its power unless it secures that the children are brought
under humanising, moral, and religious influences. There is, however, no practical chance of education being really conducted by
irreligious teachers. The wages of a teacher are so small compared
with those of equally skilled workmen in^qually laborious and equally
responsible situations that the work haivery slight attractions to men
who do not feel that it is at once a duty and a pleasure. Within the
last thirty years, the ministers of religion have undertaken such an
amount of work and responsibility, and made such munificent contri
butions to schools, that others who, with far larger means and much
more time at their command, content themselves with talking, really
complain of their having pushed forwards in the matter. But this
high-class labour will not continue to support the schools if they
become places where men’s interests in this world are alone thought
of. The good teacher looks for his wages nopdn what he receives, but
in the far more real pleasure of giving. He asks for little, barely
enough to maintain himself, but he takes pleasure in the power of
giving to all around him something which they are really grateful for,
something which he knows to be even more desirable than they think.
�11
He has no applicants at his door clamorous for a dole, wBMMMing
pretence of gratitude, but he sees an easily read expression of the
heart’s emotions. It is true he will at times meet with unwilling re
cipients of his charity, but at least he knows it, and he also knows that
their kindness is only delayed, and that at the worst it is a small thing f&l
him to be judged by their judgment. Wordsworth tells most charm
ingly how the simple act of natural kindness from the strong to the
weak filled old Simon Lee’s heart with gratitude, and the schoolmaster
more than auy other man can say—
I’ve heard of hearts unkind kind deeds
With coldness still returning;
Alas ! the gratitude of men
Has oftener left me mourning.
But, of course, the nation is perfectly at liberty to say that it will
have industrial schools, where men shall give mere secular instruction.
Fine gentlemen may agitate, and make speeches, and even legislate in
favour of such schools; but five times the present amount of salaries
will not tempt men of the same stamp to undertake posts of such
degrading drudgery as the mechanical duty of preparing heathen
children for examination in the elements of secular knowledge. Unless
a man has sufficient belief in what he does believe to feel that a neces
sity is on him of preaching it, his example is one which will be most
undesirable to put before boys. The whole of this matter is admirably
put in the preface to ‘ Tom Brown —
‘ Several persons, for whose judgment I have the highest respect,
while saying very kind things about this book, have added that the
great fault of it is “ too much preaching;” but they hope I shall amend
in this matter, should I ever write again. Now this I most distinctly
decline to do. Why, my whole object in writing at all was to get the
chance of preaching. When a man comes to my time of life, and has
his bread to make, and very little time to spare, is it likely he will
spend almost the whole of his yearly vacation in writing a story just to
amuse people ? I think not. At any rate, I wouldn’t do so myself.’
1 The sight of sons, nephews, and godsons, playing trap-bat-and-ball, and
reading “ Robinson Crusoe,” makes one ask oneself whether there isn’t
something one would like to say to them before they take their first
plunge into the stream of life, away from their own homes, or while
they are yet shivering after their first plunge. My sole object in
writing was to preach to boys; if ever I write again, it will be to
preach to some other age. I can’t see that a man has any business to
write at all unless he has something which he thoroughly believes and
wants to preach about. If he has this, and the chance of delivering
himself of it, let him by all means put it in the shape in which it is
most likely to get a hearing, but let hi® never be so carried away as to
forget that preaching is his object.’
But although interference with the liberty of religious instruction
will have the disastrous effect of lowering the general moral character
of the teachers, by depriving the trade of every attraction »to every man
whose character and example it is at all desirable to keep before
children, the ministers of religion have it in their power to increase
�15
gr®iyn;newiniiUEroBwhich they now exert, and to secure the direction
of the forces which the newly awakened national demand for action
wi11 set in motion, by voluntarily exercising the self-denial of confining
their attention to the essential outlines of our religion. A very undue
of attention has been drawn to some theological questions by the
very fact of their fruits being hatred, variance, emulations, wrath,
strife, seditions, heresies. Superficial enquirers are so struck with the
Bare shown to define the differences of Christians that they lose the
whole weight of the testimony of the whole of the civilised world to the
really important facts of our religion. The religion which our Saviour
came to reveal was not a doctrine, noi' a ritual, but an example; the
records of His life give no countenance to the idea that any man was
ever turned back by Him on any speculative opinion of controversial
theology, or any question of dress. If He again walked among us, we
should not dare to bring under Hit notice the points disputed among
Protestant churches. Whilst the doctrines, so long ago tried and found
utterly inadequate to give men peace, of the Stoics, hoping to perfect
man by unaided development^ of the Epicureans, who would deny the
interference of a God in human affairs; or of those who sought peace in
the submission of reason and conscience to a sacrificing and absolving
priesthood—while these armies are closing in to the siege, we, like the
wretched Jews, are only intent on fortifying against each other the
portions of the city of God entrusted to our keeping.
But if our streets must be filled with this fratricidal struggle, let us
at least hide our weapons for one hour of early morning, while the
Children pass by on the way to school. What have these children
done that when they look up in their weakness for that guidance
which is absolutely necessary to their making their way in life we
should deserve the last touch of indignant satire with which the poet
dared to caricature the haters of the human race, 4 Hee monstrare vias
eadem nisi sacra colenti ? ’ And when the life-giving water of the
Saviour’s example, if set forth in the majesty of unadorned simplicity,
which his followers at the first were content to put forward, might
captivate the mind of every child, and of men willing to become as
little children, is it our religion ? iJQusesitum ad fontem solos deducere
verpos.’ Why, the result of our school-teaching of the last generation
Hs enough to show that to import into children’s schools the distinctive
tenets of denominations is offending the little ones, is forbidding them
to come to Jesus, is a yoke which cannot be borne. Can we be sur
prised if the State, seeing that the denominations insist on the division
of the living child, seeks elsewhere for the mother thereof?
A new-born babe is entirely unable to attach any meaning to the sights
and sounds which surround it. But by unconscious experience, and the
loving patience of others, it learns by little and little to form ideas about
things. But the formation of the moral sense, and realising the things
of the spiritual life, needs far more anxious patience on the part of all
around through whom it learns of this higher new world. But only
the most arrant pedantry would ever think of giving these lessons by
definite formal teaching; there is nothing in children’s minds which can
digest and assimilate formal teaching; religious influences are not things
�16
to be set before children at a fixed hour of the day. We must take a
lesson from The Great Teacher, and be content to veil our meaning for
a time in parables. And first among these is the daily acting of the
parent’s or teacher’s life; children necessarily think upon, and desire
to imitate, the conduct of those whose power seems so unlimited to
them. The daily example set before the child, and the character of the
motive from which he sees that everybody expects others to act,
determine whether the child thinks only of what it can get in this
world for itself, or knows that it has a friend whose good will is worth
more than all else, on comparison with pleasing whom all earthly
pleasures are as dust in the balance. If the child sees no one doubts
but that the unseen distinction between right and wrong is more im
portant than the distinction between pain and pleasure, which is tem
porary and of this animal life, it learns to think more of the spiritual
than of what is seen and felt. In a man, the desire to serve our heavenly
Father, and please Him always, is the true source of action; but a
child is, by God’s providence, surrounded by a parable which brings
him gradually to feel this ; he gladly, and without being provoked to
any opposition, feels that he is entirely dependent on a father’s love, and
the desire to please and make some return to him is the natural motive
to encourage. If you .talk to a child of what he owes to God, he is
awed into a kind of acquiescence, and feels a painful restraint which he
feels relief in throwing off. But the care and love of his parents is a
thing not far from him, on which thought is easy and pleasant. But
the parable must precede its interpretation, through early life the
motive must be developed of striving to please father ; and if fathers
are not always all they should be, nothing is more effective to humanise
them than to find their children looking up to find them what they
should be ; fathers’ love for their children deepens as they become used
to them, and here as everywhere what a man voluntarily forces him
self to at first finally becomes habitual to him. But in bringing a
child to believe in his father’s love, it is not necessary to make him
repeat correct explanations how all the seniors of the family are one,
whose orders he is equally bound to obey, and yet fellow-workers each
in his own place, or to define the moment at which his father’s love
was first provoked towards him, whether it was the cause of the mother’s
love or was caused by it. The tree of knowledge of theology stands side
by side with the tree of life; but the one bears the words of Jesus—its
twelve differing fruits are each different from the rest, but they all,
and even the leaves, are for the healing of the nations; the other the
traditions and interpretations of men more subtle than the rest. If we
search our writings, thinking that in them we have eternal life, instead
of having for their office to witness to the Desire of all nations, we shall
not come to Him. We do as Peter in his ignorance, who would have
built tabernacles for his law, and prophets side by side with Jesus.
But He will yet be found alone, to abide with those who obey the
heavenly voice which rings in every heart: this man, this perfect
human life, you see in its daily detail. He is my beloved Son. Hear
Him.
Sjpotiiswoode d Co., Printers, Nev:-street Square and Parliament Street.
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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Title
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Wastethrifts and workmen, of the mode of producing them, and their relative value to the community
Creator
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Brandreth, Henry
Description
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Place of Publication: London
Collation: 16 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: Printed by Spottiswoode & Co., London. From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. At head of first page: 19 Finsbury Circus, E.C.: April 1868.
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Longmans, Green, and Co.
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1868
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G5383
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Labour
Social problems
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br />This work (Wastethrifts and workmen, of the mode of producing them, and their relative value to the community), identified by Humanist Library and Archives, is free of known copyright restrictions.
Type
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Text
Language
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English
Education
Labour Supply
Poverty
Social Conditions-Great Britain-19th Century
Work Ethic
Working Class-Great Britain
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Text
THE
COURT SUBURB MAGAZINE.
DECEMBER, 1868.
KENSINGTON
CHURCH.
Some one has said that “ the next best thing to being a beauty, is to be regularly
ugly! ” Could our old church, old enough to be sinking into decay, yet not old
enough to be quite venerable, have had a voice in the subject of its own erection,
it must certainly have decided on being—regularly ugly. As in humanity, how
ever, it app ;ars insensible of its own want of charms, and has surrounded itself
with a garland of green beauty, in the shape of a thoroughly picturesque
churchyard.
There is much to interest eye and heart in this “ God’s acre,” as our Saxon
fathers would have called it; much to awaken thought and emotion, though it
stands in the midst of buying and selling, amid the money changers, not near
the sellers of doves truly, but with noise and tumult, and disorder around.
At first we are shocked at the rough echoes of busy life, which are borne
over the quiet sleepers; we should feel happier if the public house were removed,
and the dealers in fish, vegetables, &c., obliged to pitch their tents a little
farther from the scene where so many lie, who have entered into that silent
kingdom which gives a kind of majesty to the meanest.
Still there is another phase in which we may take this mingling of those
who rest from their labors with the many moving in the throng of life’s market,
exchange, and strife! Perhaps the dead seem thus less put aside and forgotten,
less removed from human interests and sympathies. Are not the slumberers
lying so close to us something like the ancestor reverently embalmed in the fine
linen of Egypt, to whom the best chamber of the mansion was allotted among
certain nations of antiquity ? Are they not a little like those who filled funereal
urns in the dwellings that had been their own, where, enshrined as tutelary
spirits, they became the Penates of the household ?
But to return to the church. According to old records, there appears to
have existed a temple for Christian worship in this spot as far back as when
Doomsday Book was compiled, and probably there had been one far earlier in
the older times. We may conjecture what it was like, and fairly presume that
VOL. I.
H
�100
KENSINGTON CHURCH.
it was more picturesque than our present church of St. Mary Abbot’s; by the
by, the name is a vestige of its old connexion, as it appears to have once Ren
a dependence of the abbots of Abingdon, Berks.
After the Reformation, the rectory, or right of tythes, &c., appears to have
been farmed by various individuals, and, in Elizabeth’s reign, an enterprising
lady, (who, if she had lived now, would certainly have voted for female emanci
pation), held the same on a long lease ! The covenant of tenure was drawn up
in Latin, so we may gather that the lady was learned, as well as clever,
practically, for she was too good a woman of business, this Elizabeth Snow, to
have signed her name to a blind bargain.
When Charles the First closed his unhappy career, the tythes of Kensington
were again in female hands, those of the Countess of Mulgrave, and another
lady, the Dowager Countess of Holland, was patroness of the vicarage. Here
were women who had a conception of harder work than voting! We wonder
whether the one always exacted the last mite of her tythes, or sometimes
relented, when there was a deficit in first fruits : we wonder if the other was a
woman of nice judgment, who would choose a vicar for his piety, worth, and
learning, or for his fluent, silvery speech!
Retracing our steps, we find an interesting character connected with
Kensington, one Sebastian Harris, who suffered persecution for the truth in
1527. The royal despot then reigning, predestined eventually to do a great and
good deed, had not yet made up his mind to strike the axe straight to the heart
of the old superstitions ; it was still dangerous to have the lamp of the Holy
Scriptures in one’s house. Sebastian Harris, in the midst of the gross darkness
and error which surrounded him, possessed a Bible in his mother tongue,
probably he could not have understood it in its old garb, for Gerard Erasmus
had not yet made learning the fashion ; Sebastian, perhaps, had only Latin. We
are not plainly told whether he had received the light, but we may gather that
he had, for he added to the first crime of Bible reading, that of holding a hereti
cal volume, entitled “ Unio Dissidentium.” We fear that this poor Kensington J
curate was more of a student than a bold, brave man, ready to stand and battle
for the truth. Is does not appear that he resisted to the death, as stronger
hearts afterwards did, in fighting against ecclesiastical tyranny and corrupt
practice. He seems to have succumbed to his superiors, and humbly stood, or
knelt, in old St. Paul’s, vowing neither to read, lend, or sell the heretical
books, and ever more to abjure intercourse with any man holding the damn able
doctrines of the arch-apostate, Luther. Furthermore, poor Sebastian, when
thus humbled, must have suffered a further degradation, for he was banished
from London for a certain season, and deprived of his curacy.
Edward the Sixth was patron of Kensington, and, under him, the vicar
‘
enjoyed a revenue of £18. a year, which, even considering the different value of
money in the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries, was not a very rich living.
It is noticeable, that when, shortly after the Reformation, an inventory was
made of the property of the parish church here,; it was pretty long, and contained a
great variety of articles, but if we remember rightly, among them all there were '-'only three or four books. We are glad to find that a commentary, by Erasmus,,)®
was among them, which shows that bolder men than Sebastian Harris had’ 1
sprung up.
g|j
�KENSINGTON CHURCH.
101
A very interesting, though imperfect account is to be found of an archdeacon’s visitation of this parish, as far back as the year 1612. If visitations
were made in a similar spirit, and with the same scrupulous attention, now-aMays, among all our churches, how much childish nonsense, and how many ugly
excrescences might be swept away I How much of yet uglier controversy, and
how many quarrels, between rectors and churchwardens, and congregations!
The visitation, however, contains what would seem strange matter in our
day, a curious intermeddling with private concerns, which would ill agree with
our present notions.
Among the vicars of Kensington, we find the deservedly famous divine and
scholar, Dr. Jortin, a Frenchman, if a man may truly claim his father’s nation
ality, but an Englishman, a thorough Englishman, in mind and character.
A life of success, promising a great posthumous reputation, closed as calmly
as a serene day in Autumn. Among his last words were some most pithy sen
tences : on being offered refreshment by his nurse, he quietly answered, “ No,
, I have had enough of everything! ” He said, with regard to the publication of
his sermons, “ Let them sleep till I sleep! ”
Dr. Jortin lies buried in “ God’s-acre ” of Kensington Parish, a parish he
loved so well as to refuse a richer living that he might live and die amid scenes
that had become endeared to him by long association. The epitaph on his
tombstone is beautiful and. striking; on such a day, not he died, but
“ Mortalis esse desiit.”
St. Mary Abbot’s may be said to have gone through a series of buildings
and pullings down and buildings again, and rendings and repairings, and
crackings and shoreings up, and patchings of all kinds, since the year 1683; it
seems to have suffered the fate of the garment mentioned in Scripture, to have
received the new piece upon the old material and had the rent made worse!
All the attempts made to repair and fortify the building have been signal
failures. We are forced to arrive at the conclusion that we must begin the
work again by laying firm foundation stones for an edifice commensurate in
some measure to the purpose for which it is intended, commensurate to the
wealth of our community, and not so humble a temple as to be put to shame by
the princely private dwellings around us. If we build a Christian church in
offlxjnidst, in any way corresponding to our luxurious secular surroundings,
we should endow Kensington, the fairest suburb of London, with a magnificent
cathedral. Why should we not attempt great things ? Why should we not
do them ?
We have our magnificent Park and Gardens, such as no other European
city owns; we have our Italian Winter Garden, laid out at immense cost;
our Hall of Art and Science rising; the magnificent Memorial of the good
Prince growing month by month; and the private houses of wealthy individuals,
so luxurious as almost to make them forget their immortality.
“ Shall we be as the dregs of the people?” said old John of Gaunt,
lamenting that his countrymen were destitute of Scripture in their own tongue,
while others possessed the inestimable advantage he coveted for them. “ Shall
we be as the dregs of the people?” May we not say, shall we be the only
larish content to let our old church stand as long as it will stand, a helpless
�102
KENSINGTON CHURCH.
invalid supported on crutches, and finally falling around us, perhaps over
whelming a host of worshippers in its fall!
Will it not be comparatively easy to rear a new and magnificent church?
The only thing wanting must be time: we shall surely all come forward with
free-will offerings for so noble a work.
Suppose the old church razed, the new one in course of erection, reverent
care being had to disturb no sacred dust sleeping beneath, and to suffer no de
secrating finger to impair the monuments, for even those that boast little
beauty have an interest. There is the memorial of the last Earl of Warwick
and Holland of the Rich family. The figure seated, leaning against an urn, and
clad in a Roman toga, appears to represent the last of a race founded by a
successful goldsmith; the epitaph states the mournfully abrupt close of the line,
and the rather feminine, yet haughty face of the monumental statue, has a sort
of defiant air which appears to challenge a contradiction.
There is a marble tablet near the font, surmounted by an urn, and bearing
an inscription, at once pious and sensible; it is in memory of one John Hall,
“ For those who remember him, that name was his best epitaph; to others it
may be useful to record, that he was one who in life by good works and by
fervent faith in death, proved that the source of virtue is in the love of God.”
“ Oh friend in life’s alternate season tried!
Who liv’d for all, for all too early died:
Fond nature weeps that here thy prospects fade,
And death debars thee from the long sought shade,
But faith reflects, to thee on Earth was given
To toil and suffer, thou hast rest in Heaven.’”
Dull and homely lines enough, according to our present standard of taste;
but what feeling heart can be other than touched by so artless a tribute to
virtue and piety.
On a marble slab, on the East wall of the church, without, there is a
pleasing epitaph to James Elphinstone; how perfect a man, if he truly deserved
the following—“ His manners, though polished, were simple; his integrity
was undeviating; he was a great scholar, and a real Christian. Jortin,
Franklin, and Johnson were in the number of his friends!” But better still:;
if the last few words had been his sole epitaph, they would have told all I
An individual had been buried in this same ground three hundred years
back, whose life was a sad contrast to this gentle scholar’s, one John Meutis,
who had made a sort of contract with the then king, by which he was formally^
in a written deed, forgiven and absolved from all outlawry and all other conse
quences, neglects, contempts, concealments, conspiracies, extortions, murders,
and whatsoever othew felonies and enormities he may have been guilty of I ”
Here lies a man who bears the singular name of Sir Manhood Penruddock,
he was slain in a combat, of what kind does not appear, though we may fairly
suppose it was in some quarrelsome fray, in which he had resolved to show
himself worthy of the name his sponsors had bestowed upon him, either in ad-,
monition, or in prophecy.
J
Near the principal gate lies buried a son of that good divine, Bislioffl
Watson, who, from the lowly position of an obscure schoolmaster, made himseffi
not only a prelate but a man of honorable reputation.
�MY ARGOSY.
103
Mrs. Inchbald’s grave is in the north-west corner of Kensington Churchyard: a woman of great personal beauty and of yet greater fascination;
authoress of some charming comedies, “ Every one has his Fault,” “ Such
things are,” “ Lover’s Vows,” &c. &c.; but whose reputation chiefly rests
upon a little novel, “ The Simple Story,” which is, in fiction, as sweet and deli
cate as the lily-of-the-valley among flowers.
fc The two Colmans, dramatists, also sleep here, the elder had the honor of
writing in partnership with Garrick “ The Clandestine Marriage.”
Not far off lie the mortal remains of Spofforth, the composer of sweetly
accorded glees, who died at an early age, but had certainly lived a good deal
in his brief span of life; a good deal in feeling if not in action; living not as a
peri on sweet scents, but on sweet sounds.
A young son of George Canning, the Statesman, is here buried; a few
lines testify to the youth’s worth and the father’s tender regret; the verses have
been called artificial, but there is nothing to lead us to suppose them insincere;
they have a smoothness of numbers and a scholarly elegance about them which
we cannot help admiring, despite their being of that old-world versification
which is too fast becoming obsolete.
Among the grass-grown graves rises the head-stone of Bianchi, a com
poser of reputation, who had “ a heart of that fine frame ” that he died of grief
for the death of a beloved child.
F.
MY ARGOSY.
The merchandise upon the waves is cast,
The cordage droops above each broken mast,
The sails are rent, and shivering in the blast I
My argosy comes back!
It hath been roaming o’er a troubled sea,
And wave and sky, their fury setting free,
Have spent their wrath upon it; thus to me
My argosy comes back.
What say the captain and the sailor bold ?
“ It is ill sailing, skies are drear and cold.
The anchor’s dropped, so let it safely hold.”
My argosy comes back.
It brings no fruit for years of toil and strife,
No precious thing to soften rugged life,
No seeds of unborn hopes with joyance rife.
My argosy comes back.
Yet go thou forth once more upon the main,
Yet go thou forth, dare wave and rock again!
Hope and high courage pilot not in vain!
Go forth my argosy!
E.
Kensington.
�104
THE HISTORY OF A WOMAN’S HEART.
By the Author of “ Anne Sherwood."
$ '
,
_______
Part the Second.
CHAPTER XXVI.
A REAL ADVENTURE, AND MORE DREAMS.
I had no friends in London, I could not have been more alone in the world
had I really come to ask permission to win my bread.
My parents had had no near relatives, and had been for many years cut off
from all former connexions, or acquaintance with the great city. I had, con
sequently, nothing to expect in the way of companionship.
I tried to banish this idea of loneliness, and, as I was young, my mind was
naturally somewhat touched with an interest and curiosity which went beyond
the great dome and the spectral horse.
The day after my arrival in London, I arose with the full determination to
proceed methodically to work, and begin my inspection of objects about which
I knew as little as I did of the Sahara. Dear reader, I, poor little country
maiden, did not know then that sight-seeing was vulgar; I fancy that many
people, in my position in life, do not yet know that great fact!
I went out, intending to go to the National Gallery, but a more deeply in
teresting London sight was reserved for me first.
A ragged urchin stopped me on the road, and deluded me into a baker's
shop, and then into a wretched cellar in Drury Lane, where his mother lay
dying in consumption, and his sistei- was making what they call “ slop work ”
shirts, at two pence halfpenny a piece 1
The woman had a hectic cheek and glittering eye: she was not absolutely
confined to bed by her disease; no, only kept there by cold, the cold which
pinched her daughter’s red fingers while she worked.
Poor mother! The heavy mangle which rested in the comer had been her
death, her slow and sure death ; dragging round the handle hour after hour, day
after day, month after month, year after year, to give her children bread.
At last the weak arms could drag the load no more, and dropped down,
helpless, dying, and the family had to live on the girl’s work, till at last the
mother had sent out her youngest born to get a few pence, as he could; he was
to sweep a crossing: but the boy was eight years old, the broom was heavy,
perhaps he really lost it, as he said, when he fell asleep on the door step.
So the child took to begging, and in time the Arab of the street learnt to
play pitch and toss, and the petty gambling too often diverted the halfpence
that should have been carried to his mother.
But the boy vagrant had still a heart, and Arab though he had grown, he
determined, when he saw tears on his mother’s cheek, that he would help her ;
his first attempt to do that, was to pick my pocket!
�
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Kensington Church
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Place of publication: [s.l.]
Collation: [99]-103 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. From the Court Suburb Magazine, Vol. 1, December 1868. Article signed F.
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[s.n.]
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Churches
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Conway Tracts
Kensington Church
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[From Mr. IIolyoake.~}
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A NEW
IW *
Defence of the Ballot
In Consequence of Mr. Mill's Objections to it.
BY
*
George Jacob Holyoake.
*
s®
: political Error is like a Serpent alive at both ends—if severed it may still sting:
A while it wriggles it lives: and those who mean to end it must—chop at it.
V
jL
J||f .
4
[FOURTH EDITION."]
LONDON:
BOOK STORE, 282, STRAND, W.C.
1868.
[threepence.] "
�PREFACE.
'
reads these few pages, will see the occasion of them. Since many
politicians have treated the same subject, it will seem presumption or
weariness for me to recur to it; but experience teaches that long standing
error, and especially Political error is like a serpent alive at both ends__
if severed it may still sting : while it wriggles it lives: and those who
meali to end it must—chop at it.
This statement of the case of the Ballot was made at the Council of the
London Reform League. Mr. Edmond Beales, the President, expressed
in the name of the Council, approval of the argument and Mr. A cl and
moved that it be printed, and with a view to its circulation, at this time,
in the Branches of the Reform League and other Political Societies.
While the Third Edition was in the press, Lord Hartington spoke upon
the subject of these pages at Standish, and Mr. Hughes, M.P., at Frome.
Their conjoint Speeches sum up the sentimental objections to the Ballot.
Lord Hartington says “ all public duties ought to be performed openly,
especially the great constitutional duty electors owe to their country.”
. One would fall prostrate before the moral elevation assumed by this noble
lord, did not one see that he is careless whether the great “ duty ” be
performed or not: since he has at no time proposed that its discharge be
made obligatory upon the elector. His lordship connives at the desertion
of the “ duty they owe to their country ” by half the electoral community
who do not vote, and are not obliged to vote at all; and so of Mr. Hughes,
who alleges that “open voting is more manly than secret voting,” but takes
no account of the compulsion of voting openly : Is that manly ? The de
pendent voter can be taken by the nose as soon as he has given his vote,
and he has to submit to it. And is this Mr. Hughes’ theory of Electoral
manliness ? As an officer of volunteers, Mr. Hughes thinks it good judg
ment to take them into the field in an attire which does not expose them
by conspicuousness to the enemy, but he would take up his electors to the
Poll ticketed like a target. Like the Spectator, Mr. Hughes appears to
regard it unmanly in Liberals to use discretion in fighting.
G. J. H.
20, Cockspur Street, 8. W.
�A
New Defence of the Ballot.
It is incumbent upon those who took part in limiting the discussions of the
Reform League to its own programme, to show that the subjects which the League
is pledged to promote, are capable of occupying its members and interesting the
public. It was for this reason that I asked last year for an opportunity of calling
attention to the arguments by which the claim to the Ballot may be supported,
and at our Meeting at St James’s Hall, on the 28th of January, I indicated, in a
short speech, the reasons I now more fully state.
For years past, the subject of the Ballot has been thought to be insipid—it has
been felt to be growing obsolete—it has been much assailed by defamatory and con
temptuous epithets. As a Beacon-light of the Liberal party, it has burned of
late years, but fitfully. One who utters nothing lightly on questions of public
moment—Mr. J. S. Mill, M.P. has declared that “ the Ballot ought to form no
part of a measure for reforming the representation of the people.”
Even now, ardent advocates of the Ballot—as Mr. Noble—speak of it apologetically,
as something which they wish the people were strong enough to do without, and
only defend it as a political necessity of the time—warranted by the presence of
intimidations which excuse the weak for desiring the protection of the Ballot—
but which the manly s/iould, and the patriotic otherwise wouZd, instinctively reject
These opinions, and these concessions indicate the modern misconception of the
uses and dignity of the Ballot. Instead of apologising for desiring the Ballot, we
ought to apologise for being without it, it being a mark of manliness to demand it,
and of independence to possess it. The Ballot is the weapon of the strong and of
the strong only—a condition of individuality of action and a necessary complement
of enfranchisement.
Mr. Mill, who like Jeremy Bentham, is a master of what an American would
call “ iron-clad phrases ”—says that the Ballot means “ secret suffrage.” It is
this very quality which makes it invaluable. Secret suffrage is Free suffrage—
secret suffrage means an impenetrable, an impassable, a defiant suffrage.
Bribery cannot touch it—-intimidation cannot reach it—that delicate instrument
in Electioneering Mechanics, known as the political screw—cannot operate upon it.
There is a right and a wrong side in most things—yet in arguing upon the Ballot
it is suggested that that which is secret must be wrong altogether. There are two
descriptions of secrecy—an infamous secrecy and an honourable secrecy. The base
kind of secrecy is that employed in mean, furtive, or criminal acts; as when a
man lies, or conceals the truth in giving evidence, or clandestinely filches from
another. But there is a second description of secrecy which is manly, as when I
lock my doors against intrusive or impertinent people—or when I exclude others
�4
from meddling with my affairs without my consent—or when I provide for the
protection of my own interests in my business or my family. This is necessary and
justifiable secrecy. In these cases I merely exercise the right of personal privacy
*
in what concerns me primarily, vitally, and concerns me alone. Privacy is my
protection. For guarding my personal interests in the state the Ballot is all this
to me.
The Ballot is not “ secret voting ” in the bad sense of being the act of an un
avowed agent—done in an unrecognized manner—and for a venal object. The
Ballot is secret suffrage in the legitimate sense of privacy and security. The voter
is a known person—he is selected by the state—his qualifications are approved—he
is an appointed elector—he has recognized interests at stake—he is an instructed
and informed agent. The Candidates who offer themselves to represent him have
appealed to him—they have addresed him—they have set forth their claims before
him—he has a duty assigned him to his country and his conscience. Now there
is only one method by which he can discharge this duty. It is only by the use
of a secret suffrage that he can come personally forward in a way in which corrup
tion can have no hope of arresting him, and intimidation no chance of diverting
or deterring him from indicating who shall be his responsible agent to represent his
views—tax his resources, protect his interests—and attempt in his name to increase
the freedom, honour and repute of his native land.
All this independence of action, is my business as a voter, and if that indi
viduality of action which Mr. Mill so usefully vindicates, is to be secured to me—
voting must be left my business. It is no affair of my neighbour how I vote, or
for whom I vote, or why I vote—since I exercise no power or freedom which he does
not equally possess, and which I do not equally concede to him. I am said to be
an “ independent ” elector, I am told it is my duty to be independent; then why
should any one want to know how I vote ? I am not called upon to consult my
neighbour as to what I shall do. If I am obliged to consult him he is my master,
but he has no business with a knowledge of my affairs, and if he wants it he
is impertinent—if he insists upon it he is offensive—and means me mischief if I
decline to do his bidding.
Open voting was invented by persons who had an interest in persuading the
people they were free, when all the while they were under effectual control.
Those who devised open voting knew what they were about. It did not matter
much who had votes, so long as the aristocracy, the landlords, or labour-lords
could always know who gave votes against them. Poes any one suppose that with
the feelings which the governing classes entertained towards the people, that they
would give the suffrage to any number of the people, to do with it what they
pleased, and use it in a manner unknown, and therefore uncontrollable ?_ The
governing classes in State and Church would have been idiots, with their distrust
of the multidude, to have parted with vital power, that they could no longer check.
It would have been in their eyes an act of wholesale abdication. They saw in the
Ballot the removal of the dam which kept the deluge from their doors.
The “manipulators of mankind” who devised open Voting, knew it must be
submitted to, because they were able to enforce it, but they looked to its being
decried and resented from the first moment its purport was seen: it never occurred
to them that future patriots could be found to applaud it, and that philosophy, would
discover political virtue in it. Tyranny may hope yet that some one will discover
that oppression is a scheme for developing the manliness of slaves.
* There is a good and bad publicity as well as a good and bad privacy. That is a good publicity
when a man is accorded the Victoria Cross. That is a villainous publicity, when, for instance an
Elector is convicted of selling his vote.
�Reformers on the other hand clung to the Ballot with the instinct of self-pre
servation. Then their national pride was assailed and they were told (Lord Palmer
ston was great at this) that it is un-English to fight the hattie of freedom with
precaution. According to this reasoning the use of armour plates is cowardly, and
it is un-English for a gunner to fire from a casemate.
I esteem the courage of individuality as highly as Mr. Mill, hut there is no
reason why individuality should not take care of itself. It is madness, not manli
ness in a man who opposes his single head to twenty swords. His fool-hardiness
will merely deter others, and the reputation for courage he will acquire will not
outlive the Coroner’s Inquest upon him.
Individuality like other virtues is subject to the law of self-preservation. There
might be more individuality of character than there is if every man was his own
policeman. There might be more personal resolution than there is, if every man
rejected the enervating equality of the law, which protects the weak against the
strong. Then even the coward must fight and the weak must struggle or perish. But
that is insanity of individuality which wantonly enters upon unequal conflicts; and
open voting is of the same order of fatuity. Secret suffrage is the Needle-gun which
places the proletariat and the proprietor upon an equality in the electoral combat.
The theory of Representative Government calls upon me to delegate my power
to another for a given time. Once in seven years I am master of the situation—
afterwards I am at the mercy of the Member of Parliament I elect. He may tax
me, he may compel the country into war, he may be a party to base treaties, he
may limit my liberty, he may degrade me as an Englishman, but I am bound by
his acts. From election to election—he is my master. I must obey the laws he
helps to make, or he will suspend the Habeas Corpus Act and put a sword at my
throat, or fire upon me with the latest improved Rifle he has made me pay for in
the Estimates.
I may howl but I cannot alter anything. My only security is that a time will
come when I shall be master again. I shall taste of power for one supreme mo
ment, when I shall stand by the Ballot Box. Then I can displace the member
who has betrayed me, and choose another representative in his stead. But if the
Candidate, or friends of the Candidate, subject me to espionage as I approach the
Polling Booth, he can defy me and perpetuate his power to cheat me. If, because
a man’s politics are not of the Government pattern, Sir Richard Mayne (who always
treats the working class as a criminal class) is minded to place him under sur
veillance, as a political suspect—that is intolerable, yet this is not more so than
that the Parish Overseer should be placed in the Polling Booth to watch how
he votes, and report it to whomsoever it may concern. This is to legalize the
“ tyranny of the majority.”
Disguise it as you may, the device of open voting is mere political insolence. I
am told that the vote is “ a trust ” then let me be trusted with it! I am not
trusted so long as my use of it is watched. If I choose to vote openly that is my
bravery, my pride, my ostentation, or my hardihood—if I am forced to vote openly
that is the badge of my inferiority—it is the sign that I am not to be trusted. The
open voter who is compelled to be so, is under surveillance—he is kept under the
eye of his masters—he carries only a political Ticket-of-Leave, and is duly reported
to the political police—his landlord, his employer, his customer, or his priest.
My power of secrecy is the sign of my independence, and I treat as my enemy
all.who, under any pretext, would impose upon me the degradation of publicity. I
repeat, in order to impress it, that under the representative system the state
accords to me but one minute of independence in seven years, namely, the mo
ment when I give my vote. My interests, my preferences, my honour, my con
science, my country are then in my own keeping; and neither my neighbour, nor
my employer, nor my landlord, nor the Government, shall, if I can help it, control
�6
me then. If I am to share the responsibility of a citizen I will be free. But to be free
I must have the power of defiance—and. there is no defiance save in secrecy. I am
ever at the mercy of those who retain in their hands the power of knowing what
I do at the Polling Booth.
It is asked why should the member of Parliament be compelled to vote openly_
it the elector votes secretly ? I answer, because the member is the responsible
agent—the elector is the master—the elector delegates to the member the power of
life and death, of freedom or coercion over him ; and he has therefore the right to
know how this power is exercised, and to recall it one day, if need be. It is the
elector who gives dignity to the member, not the member who gives dignity to the
elector. The elector never abdicates his manhood or mastership; and so long as the
Constitution secures him this independence, he yields to the law, to which he con
sents by his representative—a proud obedience, which otherwise no cunning could
win and no,force exact.
1 do not say the Ballot gives wisdom, I only say that it gives freedom. A man
may give a silly vote secretly as well as openly. It is true that with the Ballot a
man is free to be a fool—but without it he is not free to be wise—politically. But
you cannot disenfranchise men for being fools—if you were to do that you would
make such abstractions from the present constituencies that in many towns and
counties there would be no voters left to elect anybody.
This argument invalidates no one of these ordinarily advanced in favour of the
Ballot. It is still true that the Ballot would frustrate Bribery—baffle intimidation
and economise the expense of elections ; but if it made them dearer I should reason
as I do, for independence is worth all it costs.
Since the days of Defoe there has been a clamour for the Ballot in England —
because the Liberals were narrower in the throat and tenderer in the head than
their opponents. The Tories excel in shouting and fighting. They are more certainly
. the violent than they are the “ stupid ” party. At the last election in Rochdale the
Reformers with the thickest heads had to be placed in the front. Only patriots with
craniums of a well ascertained density were able to serve their country at the Poll;
and as a general rule, where the Candidate’s purse invigorates the contest, the
peculiarity of a free and independent elector is—a bandaged head.
With a secret suffrage the voter, Mr. Mill says, is “ under no inducement to
defer to the wishes of others.” True he is under no arbitrary inducement—but he
remains under the natural inducements of sympathy, of conviction as to its utility
or rightfulness, to consult the wishes of others. He ought to be under no other
inducements. If the wishes cf others are to be made compulsory upon him, the honest
course is to set him aside and let the “ others,” whose wishes are to prevail vote
for him. I refuse to be bound by any consideration, or by any coercion of publicity,
to vote as “ others ” wish. If I am taxed “ others ” will not pay my taxes—if I am
oppressed or degraded “ others ” will not bear my dishonour. I therefore repudiate
any coercive obligation to vote as “ others ” wish—whether in days of peace or
strife, now, or at any time.
A strong point against secret suffrage, is, as Mr. Mill puts it, that the mean or
selfish can do the base thing and “ escape shame or responsibility.” But these
knaves do this now under open voting—they always make things pleasant for
themselves. You cannot reach them except by administering Lynch law at the
Polling Booth, or pursuing them by a Vigilance Committee.
|
If the base or selfish are to be coerced by exposure and risk, it should be done to
« ’ jurymen- base jurors may set the rascal free, or hang the innocent through prejudice, or inattention to evidence—but if to expose these you were to subject all
jurymen to the danger of publicity, you would have fewer honest verdicts than
you get now. You get justice done by giving security to those who award it—and
this is the only way of getting honest votes at the Poll.
�1
r Mr. Mill is a leader, who allures all who seek light, by the luminousness of « >.
thought which he sheds over every subject he treats, and his conclusions are
usually stated with such lucid force, that allegiance becomes a necessity of the
understanding: and I should hesitate to dissent from him, did not long experience
and passionate conviction, assure me that it ought to be done. Mr. Mill’s
<
eminence, sincerity and perspicacity, have lent to the case of the opponents
of the Ballot a dignity and weight, with which they were unable them
selves to invest it. But it is contrary to Mr. Mill’s principles or practice to desire
Reformers to acquiesce in his arguments, unless convinced by them. All he asks is,
that which he has a right to ask—that his views shall prevail unless good reasons
can be given against them. We all desire, as much as Mr. Mill, or Mr. Hughes,
or Mr. Gladstone, that manliness shall prevail among Englishmen. What I ask is
that manliness shall have fair play. But that is a mere mania for manliness, which
would prohibit the conditions of its action. It no doubt would be one form of
manliness to send our merchantmen out into a sea, infested and kept infested with
pirates. But it is far more manly in a nation to sweep the sea clear of pirates, and
keep it clear. Open voting invests the sea of politics with pirates, and it is no
»
more decent in those who happen to be able to fight, to do so, than it is lawful for
those who are able to protect themselves when assaulted, to take the law into
their own hands, and exempt the judge from the duty of punishing the offenders.
I maintain therefore, that the secret suffrage is English, because it is English to
be free and defiant. Manliness does not consist in living under the obligation of
fighting, but in the capacity of fighting when fighting is inevitable. The compul
sion of open voting enables the Briber to follow the scoundrel who has sold his
country, to see that he renders his vote to the Candidate who has had the baseness
to buy it. Since voting is made open, and not also compulsory—it does nothing to
ensure individuality of character. For it enables the coward to skulk his duty at
the Poll, and subjects him who shows himself there to all the social penalties of
publicity. On some it entails violence, on others loss of employment or connections,
it may'be £5, it may be £500 a year, according a voter’s extent of business—and to
expose him to these risks represses, not promotes, individuality. Individuality is
a quality which requires encouragement to grow—but it must possess a ferocious
vitality if it developes itself under the treatment, to which public voting subjects it.
The Individuality of action, Mr. Mill aims at, is only to be obtained out of a
quickened conscience and an intellect open to truth, left to exercise itself in a fair
field, where facts can act. You can no more get men through the wicket
gate of the Poll, where they may be marked for reprisals and penalties, than you
can get cattle through the butcher’s door after they smell blood. Those whom you
do get there at dangerous elections, are mostly they who are too poor, or too obscure
to be hurt, or those who care not what follows—until it overtakes them; then as many
of them that are harmed, ever after run screaming about the world against the cost
liness of being a Reformer, creating reaction everywhere. When a Voter comes to
grief in this way, and has to look to friends for aid; neither he nor his friends
like the situation: and if he regards his- difficulty as one of the casualities of
patriotism, thoughtfully provided by Liberal politicians, lest sacrifices should be
deficient among their followers, the household' of the weak-headed Voter, quickened
by consequences, take a very different view of the matter : and do more than any
enemies can, to spread disaffection in ranks, where the policy of the generals is to
keep up the manliness of their troops, by exposing their families to the fire of the
foe. In military affairs the commander prides himself on affording all possible
shelter to his forces. It is only in political warfare, that generals take credit
for exposing their troops to fatal reprisals.
It is because I am an advocate of “ Individuality ” that I am an advocate of the
Ballot. The ruler, the master, the priest, always suspect that the human machine
will go wrong, unless they wind it up and keep the key in their pocket. Every man
,
•
»
�likes to have his hand on his neighbour’s shoulder. I would take it off onee in
every seven years. You see I advocate no terrible innovation. I would trust the
grown-up taxpayer with the control of his own affairs, for one minute at every Gen
eral Election. This is all that the Ballot means.
In argument, no question is met unless it is met on the strongest ground the op
ponent takes. To call the Ballot “ secret voting,” is the most damaging epithet
an adversary applies to it, I, therefore, accept Mr. Mill’s phrase. The term which
the friends of the Ballot would select, is that of Free voting. Personal voting is a fair
term for it. A man votes, as he marries, not for his neighbour’s satisfaction, but for his
own. Mr. Mill says, that if a voter may go wrong, “ but the feeling of responsi
bility to others may keep him right, the friends of the Ballot admit that not secrecy,
but publicity should be the rule.” I, a friend of the Ballot, refuse to admit this.
Whether the voter goes right or wrong, I stand by his freedom. He is responsible
to no publicity. He is responsible alone to his sense of right and the public good.
A “ secret suffrage ” would not, as some fear, convert life into a strategem. Secrecy
is like salt—an entire meal of salt would be highly unpalatable, but a little salt
sprinkled over a meal, approves itself to the taste of all nations. And a little
(wise- and conditional) secrecy sprinkled upon the Ballot box, makes a vote palatable
to the conscience, and sweetens the politics of the Kingdom.
We hear on all hands to day from Parlia’mentary Members, an admission which
has humiliation in it. They are saying to their constituents that the intimidation,
menaced by the Tories, is driving us to the Ballot. This is indeed an un-English
confession. If the Ballot be a wrong thing, nothing should drive Reformers to it.
The Ballot is spoken of as a sort of dastard’s refuge, which the heroic Reformers
should despise. I for one decline the Ballot on these terms. If it be a mere craven
security, or an ignoble defence, Reformers should have none of it. Some Candidates
say if the people demand it, it must be conceded. But if it be a wrong thing in
itself, I would neither concede it, nor acquiesce in conceding it—however the people
might demand it. We will not send the Hon. Mr. Berkely annually to the Bar of
Parliament to plead for a cowardly democracy. We will accept all the responsix
bility of freedom. We adopt no disguise of the slave and obey no instinct of the
fool. The bravado of open voting does not conceal from us that it is an acknow
ledgment of the right of others to control us. We repudiate that, and therefore
we resent as an outrage any attempt to subject’us to the manipulation of others.
*
The Ballot is the imperial attribute of the Sovereign Elector, whose province it'is
to impose responsibility upon the Representative, the elector himself being responsi
ble to the law alone, should he sell the birth-right of his freedom, his Vote—in
which case it should be forfeited for evermore.
At a General Election I would make no question supreme. Every Candidate
should be accepted on his general merits, and the ground of his recognized capacity
and public services. But I would ask of every new Candidate “Do you mean to
vote for the Ballot—not merely acquiesce in it, if you must; not, merely vote for
it, if others do—but do you mean it?—do you care for it ?—will you be at trouble
to secure it, and establish forthwith, for me as an Elector, my rightful and un
assailable independence at the Poll ? ”
•Let any one who doubts this, read Mr. Hepworth Dixon’s notable Address on EreeVoting, delivered
at Guildford, April 23rd, 1868. He will there see how James I. and Charles I. dealt with the
Ballot Box.
For Distribution a Cheaper Edition is Published.
Single Copies, Id.; Twelve, tod.; Twenty-five, Is. Post Free. Apply—
Mr. Howell, Secretary, Reform Teague, 8, Adelphi Terrace, London, TF C. '
�
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A new defence of the ballot in consequence of Mr. Mill's objections to it
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Edition: 4th
Place of publication: London
Collation: 8 p. ; 22 cm.
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Holyoake, George Jacob
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1868
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Political science
Suffrage
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Conway Tracts
Great Britain-Politics and Government-19th Century
John Stuart Mill
Political reform
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Text
A NEW YEAR’S LETTER
FROM
JONATHAN TO JOHN.
Cassius. You love me not.
Brutus.
I do not like your faults.
Cassius. A friendly eye could never see such faults.
Brutus. A flatterer’s would not, though they do appear
As huge as high Olympus.
Julius Ceesar.
LONDON:
CHAPMAN AND HALL, 193, PICCADILLY.
1868.
��A NEW YEAR’S LETTER
♦
FROM
JONATHAN TO JOHN.
Dear John,—-I hope I need make no apology for
addressing you, in these critical times, on matters pro
foundly concerning us both. The wine-makers have a
belief that in the season of the blossoming of vines the
wine in its bottles ferments anew in sympathy, and then
chiefly breaks its bottles. Blood, John, is thicker
and more fiery than wine. Ours long ago flowed
from your heart, and it has never failed to be
stirred when your periods of change and agitation have
arrived. It was not by accident that our fathers
named their bleak home on these shores New England.
When your people were sending King James the
Second adrift to sea, the happy tidings thereof found
our ancestors at Boston doing precisely the same for
that monarch’s sub-king in New England. The stamp
of Cromwell’s foot, when he cried, “Take away that
�4
bauble !” was echoed along our coasts ; and when
Charles came back, and gave Whitehall its ghastly
coronet of skulls, there were few in this land who did
not hear above the ocean’s roar the groan of Bunyan in
his prison, and of Milton in his hiding-place. Then we
took to growing our own wine, and, somehow, it has
been imported by your people, and ever since you have
been visibly affected by our flowering season. Nature
makes very little of our lands and seas. The earthquake
at Lisbon toppled down a hundred chimneys in our
Boston. The revolution of America for independence
shook down a throne and an aristocracy in France, and
it formed a democratic party in England which has
been slowly and steadily revolutionising your society
and government from that day to this. We may as
well face the facts, John: we are one and the same
people; twenty millions of us have English blood in
our veins; our history is English history. We never
more plainly showed ourselves chips of the old block
than when we rebelled against the old block. And, on
the other hand, we cannot fail to perceive that, under
whatever disguises your internal troubles come, each,
when unmasked, is sure to turn out American. Trades’Unionism, Beales-ism, Fenianism—they are all, best and
worst, Americans. Abu Taleb wrote:
“ He who has one enemy shall meet him everywhere.”
You feel, and I know, that every step of the English
people away from feudal forms is the later Mayflower
�5
struggling through storms to its New England. The
voices of the Robinsons and Standishes in your Par
liament are unmistakable; their Plymouth Rock is
ahead. And, in the converse, your instinct is equally
clear as to your feudal friends in this country. Old
England was planted here, in the South, alongside
of New England in the North; it battled stoutly
for two hundred and fifty years, until, in its final
struggle — notwithstanding your instinctive sympathy
and aid—it perished. We understood your sympathy
well enough. There are a dozen chapters of our history
through which the story of the Alabama runs. No
one man or generation is to blame for this antagonism.
We are in the hands of fate, which has its own remorse
less methods of providing that the New World shall not
be a mere duplicate of the Old. “ Perhaps,” said our
chief philosopher, on his return from England—“perhaps
the ocean serves as a galvanic battery to distribute acids
at one pole and alkalis at the other. So England tends
to accumulate her Liberals in America, and her Con
servatives at London.” All this involves the repulsion
of positive and negative; but it should mean only the
awakening of certain talents that have slept in our En
glish race, which is a magazine of the powers of many
races. And, in fact, John, whilst in our workshops
and telegraphs we make a good thing out of action and
reaction, positive and negative, I fear that, politically,
the new year finds us both, not the masters, but
the fools of fate. I have heard Mr. Seward and Lord
�6
Lyons speak to each other across a dinner-table in a
humanlike way; but in the Alabama correspondence
there is snarling and the show of teeth. Eighteen
hundred and sixty-eight finds us with a great cable
binding us together for good ends by means of positive
and negative poles; but when I read our Blue-Books, I
have to turn and see if they were not printed a hundred
years ago, when we were getting ready to fight. Are
we never to reach a new year which shall ring out
those sad years of the seventeenth century, when the
farms of our poor settlers were given away to English
noblemen ; when the English Church pursued over the
ocean and tried to crush the religion it had banished;
when the Charters of American Colonies were taken
away; when all that our fathers could wring from the
rock on which they had settled was taxed to carry on
wars and sustain projects which they detested ?
The appearance of your greatest novelist on our
shores at present reminds us that, above our feudal, or
monarchical, or democratic forms of society and govern
ment, there is a great commonwealth of thought which
owns loyal citizens in every civilised land. Fortunately
for us both, we are a reading people; and, fortunately
for all but your authors, we Americans have appro
priate your library to an extent that will, I trust, cause
astonishment and contrition in our coming generation.
We have crammed ourselves and our childreu with Mill,
Spencer, Grote, and Arnold; Thackeray, Dickens, and
George Eliot and Hughes have woven your country
�7
seats and your city dens into romance for us; Tennyson
has for some time filled up the poets’ corners of all our
papers; our babies lisp Carlylese; the other day I found
our soldiers, by their camp-fire on the Mississippi,
gathered around a fellow who was reciting to them, with
appropriate gesture, “ How they brought the good news
from Ghent to Aix,” as related by Robert Browning.
You produced these fine spirits; we welcome and love
them. With this friendly cloud of witnesses around,
let us sit down, this New Year’s Day, and look over our
unsettled accounts. The common heart and brain of
•our respective countries shall be our court of arbitra
tion.
And, first of all, John, let me say that I have, after
much severe experience, discovered that an ounce
balances an ounce. The assertion may seem to you
paradoxical, but I am quite serious in making it.
Lately, I read in one of your weekly journals the
question, “Why is it that with America France may
steal a horse, where England must not look over the
hedge ?” The question is most pregnant, and is answer
able thus: France’s theft comes at the end of two and
a half centuries of benefits; England’s look comes at
the end of two and a half centuries of unfriendliness.
The usurper in Mexico had behind him the help ren
dered by the French in Canada to the pinched and
freezing pilgrims of Plymouth, the free-trade between.
Nouvelle France and Boston, the sword of Lafayette,
the earliest recognition of American independence.
�8
This was the accumulated capital in the American heart
which he had to trade upon. England did not earlier
recognise, nor her rulers more sympathise with, those
who lately tried to destroy the United States; she did
not do anything half so offensive to the American
people as he who tried to establish the throne of a
Hapsburg in Mexico; but what she said and did was
added to a column of historical oppressions, unbalanced
by any entries of generosity. Do not turn red and
deny this, John; it is true. There are, indeed, long
neutral years in which you did us no wrong; you had
no occasion in them to do us any wrong; but neither all
this while has it occurred to you that there is a balance
against you among us. The traditional policy of Eng
land toward America required to be distinctly reversed.
I know how your living generation speaks of these
old days—how it repudiates the persecutions which,
having driven the Pilgrims from England’s side, still
pursued them, which robbed them of manufactures
and stifled them with Navigation Acts, and the hard
days of taxation which ended in the revolution; and
how it protests against having these sins of their
fathers visited upon the Englishmen of to-day. But
you cannot cancel your national debt, John, because it
was contracted by your dead ancestors. I observe that
your present family is comfortable and satisfied. I
looked in on your Pan-Anglicans the other day, and
was impressed by the unctuous way in which your
rotund Bishops, addressing Heaven, said, “ We have
�9
done those things that we ought to have done, and have
left undone those things that we ought to have left
undone, and are in a thoroughly soun.d condition.” I
was not trained in “ the Church,” and may not quote
the words exactly, but am quite sure that I give their
tone and spirit correctly. And I must say that I can
trace the same comfortable assurance in the way your
people have of throwing off their consciences the wrongs
they have inherited, while lifting no finger for their re
moval. A generation adopts every wrong it inherits,
and does not its best to redress. But if this is so,
what shall be said of a generation that steadily follows
instead of reversing the bad precedents of the past ? It
was not you, the contemporaneous John, who stoned
the Puritans, taxed our colonies, imprisoned our
sailors at Dartmoor, and burned our capital; but in
taunting the defenders of our Union, and helping those
who were seeking to establish a vast Slave-empire on the
ruins of our Republic, did you not prove yourself the
legitimate child of those who stoned our ancestors ?
The present cannot escape being interpreted in the
light of the past. Your people of the lower orders
sympathised with us in our dark hour—that is to say,
the unemigrated America in Europe sympathised with
its pioneer wing on this side of the Atlantic. And no
wonder, for our defeat would have moved back the
shadow on their dial many, many years. But their
interest in us is the other side of your instinctive dislike
of us and oppression of them.
�10
The fact is, John, the more we scrutinise your part
in our recent struggle the darker it appears. When
the rebellion broke out, you said you were with us, and
we believed it; we were grappling Slavery under the
watchwords of your own great emancipators—men
whom you bitterly persecuted, it is true, while they
were alive, but whose sons you have made baronets.
At last, we said, the Anglo-Saxon heart is one; pro
gressive America and Conservative England will be
hereafter right and left hands, working harmoniously
for great human ends. A mere accident was the spear
touch that revealed the hypocrisy of your sympathy.
An American officer seized two Confederate envoys on
one of your ships; instantly all England (rather impe
riously) demanded their restoration, and they were
restored; but under cover of the popular unanimity
against that act, your old and real hatred of America
grasped the sceptre again, and, in the face of former
declarations, maintained and wielded it to the end with
an enthusiasm, beside which your early Federal sym
pathy was ice. The newspapers with their ante-Trent
and post-Trent articles are no doubt on file at the
British Museum ; you will find them instructive read
ing. The former are stammering, the latter easy and
eloquent.
Thus, then, after eight generations, for each of which
your government had left some scar upon mine, the
ninth began with a kiss and a stab. You were defeated,
John; the Southern Confederacy was not more severely
defeated in our civil war than you were; and I do
�11
believe that you are sorry you were found on the
losing side. But it is the honest way to let you know
the full extent of the dangers that have been brought
upon us both by the course you then took. If
you could not free yourself from eight generations
of antipathy to a Republic which your persecu
tions established and made strong, neither can we
escape from the accumulated illustrations of the spirit
of feudal society etched in the shadow of every chapter
of our history, and every institution of our country.
Quisque suos patimur manes. You have managed to
make England the dark background of our Forefathers’
Days, our Thanksgiving Days, our Independence Days;
and every child is inevitably trained to associate his
holidays with, and fire his crackers at, English oppres
sion. (Ah, had you given us the right to say : “ Child,
that was the England of the far past: the England of
to-day does not tax Dissenters, nor burthen its colonies
(witness Jamaica), for the advantage of a class; it sees
how both parties won in our Revolution, and rejoices in
American Independence, not simply endures it, much
less welcomes its dangers!”
Consider the ingenuity by which the freest firstclass power of the Old World has become to the
United States the agent of all the annoyance that
despotism can inflict upon liberty! It is only about
seventy-five years since people were suffering in English
prisons for selling works which rehearsed the A B C of
the United States Government, and their author—poor
Tom Paine—fled from a State trial to France and to
�12
America. So into our diary it goes: In England
assertion of the “ Rights of Man” = imprisonment or
exile. Ben Franklin, welcomed in France, is snubbed
in England. Thomas Jefferson is slighted at Court.
These men gave Washington City its traditions, and
the Honourable Messrs. Chandler, Robinson, and others
are at this day, in their speeches against England, quite
unconsciously, avenging slights put by George III.
upon the representatives of a government he had been
forced to treat with, but never forgave.
Lately I was reading with peculiar interest, in
Howell’s State Trials, an account of the proceedings
against Henry Redgrave Yorke, James Montgomery,
and Joseph Gales, for some alleged seditious proceedings
and speeches at Sheffield, toward the close of the last cen
tury. This Mr. Joseph Gales, a man of great ability,
fled with his wife and child (seven years of age) to
Hamburg, and thence to America, and so escaped
the term in York Castle awarded to “ Citizen Yorke,”
to Montgomery “ the Christian poet,” and others. He
(Gales) was nearly penniless when he arrived at Phila
delphia, where the Congress of the United States then
sat. But he was soon editing the leading newspaper of
the city, a paper which afterwards migrated with Con
gress to Washington. There it became the chief journal
in America, and was, as the National Intelligencer, for
over forty years edited by the son who had fled from
England with his parents. The same refugee esta
blished a newspaper in North Carolina. American
�13
journalism was at its beginning more influenced by
these men, father and son, hunted out of Hallamshire,
than by all others. What is that influence, so far as it
affected American feeling toward England, likely to
have been ? When you burned our capitol in 1812,
one other house you thought worth burning, and did
burn—the office of Mr. Gales.
I tell you, John, there remain in our cities old
men who witnessed some of the events that have
left skeletons in your closets; men who have seen the
insides of your prisons ; who saw that recruiting officer
plunge with his horse among men, women, and children
at Castle Hill, Sheffield, cutting them down with his
sword; still more who heard those shrieks at Peterloo
which have never died out of the air. These men may be
poor and vulgar; but they are strong-headed men, who
have tongues touched with some of that flame which shot
out on your walls in the songs of the Corn Law Rhymer.
Thus you have been ever careful to keep our ancient
memories green. Many Mayflower ships, with fleeing
pilgrims aboard, have followed the track of the first;
and we all know that, when your troops were driven
hence, it was still against America they were let
loose, whether in France or England. There were
not wanting those among us who maintained that
a certain class in England was quite ready to treat our
people as rebellious subjects, if they got a chance;
that the spirit was willing, though the arm was weak.
Well, a kind of opportunity came ; and is it wonderful
�14
that the blood of ’76 stirred in our veins when we saw
the Alabama sailing from an English port by acknow
ledged connivance of English officials, with the boast of
its owner in Parliament, and, despite the affected
deprecations of ministers, entertained by your represen
tatives in every English port of the world, and cheered
on her voyage of destruction ?
A pound will only be balanced by a pound, John;
and—think me not transcendental—the rule holds when
it comes to tons.
The Alabama was no common ship. There was a
soul in it, breathed out of two and a half centuries. Its
hull sank to the bottom, but its ghost still sails the
seas, and I fear will haunt them for some time yet.
It is this “ Flying Englishman” that is now the spectre
ship. At this particular moment it has the Fenian flag
nailed to its mast.
We both know, John, that if you had not longed for
the overthrow of this Republic, the Alabama would
never have sailed from Liverpool; and, in our hearts, we
both know that if the Alabama had not sailed Fenianism
would never have been permitted to plot against you
openly in our cities. “ Its proper power to hurt each
creature feels.” You showed a marvellous alacrity in
discovering our vulnerable point, and we would not be
your genuine scion if we had not discovered yours. It
is surprising how much of this kind of thing can be
done within the precincts of municipal law—how much
war can be waged with the weapons of peace!
It so happens that there is but one nation on earth
�15
that can suppress Fenianism; and that nation is not
yours, John!
Do not throw down my letter at this point; I have
good reason to know your feelings on this matter, and
hasten to declare at once that I am no Fenian. If there
is anything that runs dead against the average native
American’s faith about his own country, it is the whole
Fenian theory. What America means to say to the
whole world is—“Your free Germany, your liberated
Ireland, your Tae-ping China, are here; all your
utopias are provided for here !” The mere fact that
the Fenians are making a tremendous ado about a
bit of Old World land, not by a tenth so big or fruitful
as the lands we are offering them for nothing out
West, is enough to settle the matter with our lower
classes. But we all have an inborn contempt for people
who foster interests and enthusiasms of clan or race,
separate from the aggregate of us, or who think it
nobler to be Irish than to be American, that is, of the
fraternity of races. The other day a wealthy citizen of
New York, being applied to for a subscription to help
some Fenian expedition to Ireland, took down his
check-book and said to the deputation, “ I will give you
one thousand dollars, provided no Fenian that goes shall
ever come back again !” I assure you he spoke our
average sentiment. With all our combing and washing
we have never been able to make a decent American of
the Irishman. On our most important questions he
seems to be utterly without principle, and votes with
.this or that party, according to its declarations about
�16
the internal politics of Great Britain! Fancy our Ger
mans testing us with Bismark or the mysterious hyphen
between Sleswick and Holstein! The worst of it is
that the Irish are so numerous that they are able to
bribe parties and demoralise our national politics.
There is something in all this, no doubt, more un
pleasant to you than if I should say we sympathised
with Fenianism and its objects; you detect that the
part we have in this ugly business — the part of a
masterly limitation of ourselves to the letter of our
restrictive laws—is one of simple unfriendliness to your
Government. It is even so. Were there a conspiracy
here to crush Garibaldi, we should certainly prevent it.
There is no feeling in America which can be depended
upon to sustain any officer who should go one hair’sbreadth beyond the law-line, or who should be very
officious even there, for the sake of England.
That is a sentence I have written with heaviness of
spirit, John I I pause upon it. And let it stand. Be
tween us be truth! We like your people personally:
we admire and try to imitate your beautiful homes: we
worship your poets, scholars, thinkers. But your Govern
ment seems to us a great apotheosis of Jesuitism, a hard
systematised selfishness, and we hate it. The utter abo
lition of the English Constitution from the face of the
earth would not evoke a sigh from a hundred of our
people; whilst tens of thousands would weep at the
death of certain of your poets and thinkers. No one of
us believes that anything but powerfully organised
�17
selfishness would give greater privilege and power
to a titled idiot than to an untitled Carlyle. None
among us imagine that it is anything but that ineradi
cable virus of Jesuitism, with which Europe has been
fatally inoculated, that taxes a man for a religion he
abjures, or admits a chimpanzee to the highest scho
lastic advantages, can he chatter the Thirty-Nine Ar
ticles, whilst excluding Martineaus and Mills. We
inherit your great history, and are proud of it; but
all of its bright epochs are to us those in which your
Government was defeated by some small untiring
band of reformers. With what groans you abolished
slavery! How you consoled the master with money,
without thought of the helpless negro! And when
opportunity offers, how eagerly do you take to the old
sport of negro-hunting you were forced to give up! No,
John, we never think of your Government as doing
a noble or humane thing except under the compulsion
of fear. We see you just now preparing to do some
thing for Ireland, and we understand it. It is the
old story. “ Because this widow troubleth me.”
Nevertheless, little as we love your Government,
it might, but for our late quarrel, have depended
upon a determined defence of its rights of national
amity in this country. Were France, or Switzer
land, or Italy, or Prussia, the object of a conspiracy
in the United States, our laws would harden into ada
mant before the conspirators. The whole theory of
foreign politics with America is summed up in “ Nonc
�18
intervention” and the 11 Monroe Doctrine,” which are
obverse and reverse of the same determination to avoid
all complications with the Old World, and to prevent the
repetition of its regime and its balance-of-power struggles
in the New World. So we have always been bin died
against any attempt to organise here movements against
foreign countries, even when advocated by the elo
quence of Kossuth, and at this very moment Mazzini
and Garibaldi are appealing to our strongest sympathies
in vain, so far as any material aid beyond private con
tributions of money is concerned. I do not contend
that this vehement antipathy to all intervention in
foreign affairs is right; but it exists, and Fenianism is
the only case in which it has not animated the law.
Fenianism passed eastward through rents in our fence
made by the prow of the Alabama when sailing west
ward. (How would those laws of yours have bristled
along the Mersey had the Alabama been starting out to
destroy Belgian or Danish commerce !)
While I am no Fenian, John, and while there is no
comeliness in Paddy that I should desire him, I do not
wish to vindicate myself from a suspicion of pity for
him. I feel a dull pain as I see him carted out West
to be manure for my seeds of civilisation, or as often as
I drive my coach over roads paved with his brains. (I
understand that you are drawing a metaphysical dis
tinction between Paddy and the Fenian; but you will
get nothing by that—there is a potential Fenian in
every Irish man and Irish woman.) I have before me
�19
at this moment the last cartoon of the Fenian in
Punch: it represents a huge monster of an Irishman
astride a barrel of gunpowder, to which he has applied
a fusee, whilst prattling children play around him, and
a mother nurses her babe behind him. I recognise the
portrait; it is the same ugly foreheadless fellow who
has repeatedly burnt the homes of poor negroes in
our large cities, slaying some and driving others into
the streets. He once dragged my foremost reformer
through the streets of Boston with a rope around his
neck, and hurled a huge stone at the head of my finest
orator, which would have killed had it struck him.
His shillelagh has here succeeded the tomahawk. Yes,
I recognise this Fenian on his, barrel; but when the
cartoon arrived in America there was just behind him
the figure of a man with round, full paunch and heavy
watch-seals, erecting a gallows, and of this latter the
Fenian was plainly the shadow! Who was it, John,
that, through long ages, pressed down that forehead
and weighted that brutal jaw? Who was it that shotted
those eyes with blood, and sank those gaunt, hungry
cheeks? You see no alternative but hanging your
Manchester and Clerkenwell prisoners; yet is it not sad
that you have assiduously reared children with one
hand for whom you must now rear a gallows with the
other ? I will not dwell on the ancient cruelty of British
rule in Ireland, or the law that men treated like savages
have a tendency to become such in reality; I am more
likely to be understood when I remind you that your
C2
�20
course has not been business-like. Your country is
now swarming with special constables; you have had
to refit your old castles and replenish your armaments,
as if suddenly relapsed into feudal ages; any Yankee
would have been ’cute enough to show you how the
money these things cost you might have been better
invested. With it and your church endowments in
Ireland you might even have transplanted Ireland,
might have given to every poor family a free transit
across the ocean, a snug farm on their arrival upon
your unutilised lands in Canada, planting in each
a kindly feeling toward England, in place of hate.
The swallows, it is said, shove their young out of the
nest to die when there are no flies with which to
feed them ; but men and women are of more value,
John, than many swallows; and the swallow-plan is
hardly a good model for English statesmanship. Your
nest is small—especially considering the room demanded
by your aristocracy—and there are more swallows than
flies; but your fledglings are of a kind that will not
die quietly, and, unprovided with another nest, propose,
at Cork, Sheffield, and elsewhere, to fight you for yours.
They will not get it for a century or so yet, I think;
but it will be many a long year before you and Mrs.
Bull will be able to rest quietly in your well-lined nest
with these exasperated, hungry home-exiles fluttering
and screaming around you. For I do not think so
hardly of you as to suppose that you can find any
deep repose under these circumstances. I have not
failed to observe the crumbs you have occasionally
�21
thrown out for the starvelings. But it evidently never
occurs to them that your gifts have higher motives than
your own desire for quiet and comfort; and the cla
morous demands have increased with their successes.
And, alas!—I cannot help reverting with pain to
what might have been—the only hand that could
have supplemented yours and satisfied them you have
estranged!
Nevertheless, to that estranged hand some millions of
them have appealed; and—despite your taxation in one
age and Alabama depredations in another—that hand
has been full enough to feed them, occasionally, on both
sides of the ocean. Having fed, it might have soothed
them, had you not paralysed it. As it is, all the
strength they have gained here has been converted into
animosity toward you ; and this, by slow accumulation,
has gathered to the dark and angry cloud which your
New Year’s sun of 1868 tries vainly to surmount.
You can hardly be in earnest in hoping that such
stupid blunders as that Clerkenwell explosion can have
any material effect in putting an end to Fenian ism.
It will no more perish from such stigmas , than the
British Government from the firing of Sepoys from
mortars, the burning of Kagosima, the butchery of
negroes in Jamaica. Nay, the immediate danger to
your and my relations in the future arises from that
crime which for the time is a blunder For you are now
plainly seized with fear, and fear is cruel. Your reta
liation promises to be not only severe, but blind; and
such retaliation will be followed by retaliation; for the
�22
men you fight with will, if you try to hide your own
cruelties under it, see at Clerkenwell only a more swift
and concentrated specimen of disasters chronic in their
own country: for every dying child or woman at
Clerkenwell they will recall one, or perhaps more, at
home. But when their retaliation becomes as furious as
it is likely to be—striking high—you may recur under
some form or other to your old weapon, martial law.
Now, it is just here, John, that it becomes my duty
to warn you that there is danger ahead. It is hardly
possible that you can take that weapon down without
using it upon Americans; and it is utterly impossible
that it can, however disguised, be used upon Americans
without firing the train which, in the way I have
shown, has been ingeniously laid between your Capitol
and mine.
The indignant appeals of Irish-American criminals
to the United States for protection as American citizens,
recently uttered in your court-rooms, reached our shores
at a peculiar political juncture. The old Democratic
party, long excluded from power, had just seen the
tide turn in its favour at local elections, and was
gathering its forces for the great national campaigns
of 1868. But it was in want of a new “ platform,”
and a taking party cry. For many reasons its former
watchword—“ States’ Rights”—is not yet a safe one;
on the question of Protection parties are divided and
confused; but what better could there be than the
cry coming from English prisons—“ Protection to
�23
American citizens”? It was at once caught up, and
the Democrats called a great meeting in New York to
proclaim it through the land. But the Republicans
were too shrewd not to see that a monopoly of such
a telling cry must not be permitted to its opponents;
and so when the great meeting was held the leaders
of both parties were present—Horace Greeley sat
beside Fernando Wood—and then ensued a grand com
petition in enthusiasm for the new watchword. Similar
meetings, marked by the same unanimity and enthu
siasm of all parties, followed in the largest cities of
the Union. When Congress assembled, it at once re
solved itself into a similar meeting, and no sooner had
the theme been started by the Democratic Mr. Robin
son, of New York, than he was distanced by the fulminations of the Republican Mr. Judd, from the West.
In short, at this moment it seems probable that we
are about to enter on a presidential campaign, wherein
the contest shall be which party shall get hoarsest with
shouting: A Truce for Domestic Strifes, and Pro
tection to Americans everywhere, or fight !
Now it were a serious error, John, to regard this as
one of the many bubbles that appear and disappear on
the surface of American politics. It is because of a
wide and deep popular feeling on this subject that
these politicians and parties are competing for the
representation of it. It is not a new subject between
us; and, since our struggle of 1812, our position on it
has been becoming what it is now—compulsory. When
�24
0
the Fenian prisoners called to us for protection, there
were two reasons why we could not take up their cause;
first, because formally they were criminals; second,
because our code of citizenship is the same with yours.
As a “ nation,” originally meant those born (nati) in a
country, we in America, inheriting the ideas and laws
of citizenship corresponding to that principle, were
satisfied with maintaining so much. But the great
tide of emigration, which has within this half-century
trebled the population and the power of the United
States, has deposited here a new kind of nationality
altogether. When the laws and principles of alienation
are to be decided by a nation of the alienated, the
result may be anticipated. One-third of the American
people are patriotic expatriates. The other thirds are
the descendents of those who were. The doctrine of
once a citizen always a citizen is one that is for us
excluded by a more unalterable constitution than any
that can be contained in precedents or written on paper.
There are sufficient reasons why only now we have
discovered that the right of a man to be protected in
the transfer of his allegiance is to us a vital one. The
first thought of the immigrant was to accumulate some
money, and get the habit and feeling of an independent
man; but having now accomplished that, it seems that
his next thought is to try and visit his old home and
early friends, and to enjoy some of the pleasures which
he remembers keenly, because they were longed for,
but never reached. The German yearns to visit his
�25
Fatherland, and the Irishman dreams of walking, in
proud independence, the streets that once knew him
only as a pauper. That these on their several wan
derings should be liable to interference, to conscrip
tion, and the like, the United States, of course, cannot
permit. A century ago you, John, were struggling
with Spain for the free right and security of an Eng
lish ship in any and all waters, even those solemnly
donated by the Pope to other powers. You did not
recognise any confirmation by the Universe of such
donations. The inducements of the naturalised, and the
disposition of the native, American to roam through
other lands, make each to his country somewhat the
same as her ship was to England in those days. But
I need hardly quote the past; a nation which has an
army defending the immunity of Englishmen from
wrong amid the perils of Abyssinian deserts, will not
require much apology for the hereditary sensitiveness of
Americans on a similar point; nor is there need that
either of us shall be blinded to the true nature of the
flame newly kindled in this country by the partisan
smoke mingled with it.
When we first began to look into this matter, two or
three years ago, we saw at once that there were but two
foreign nations with whom it could bring us into any
serious collision—England and Germany. No other
countries had a sufficient number of their former sub
jects naturalised in America, to induce them to take
any determined stand on the letter of the common law
�26
of nations in this matter. About two years ago some
American-Germans were claimed whilst visiting Prussia
for the ordinary military service, due from the subjects
of that power; but they were released after a careful
consultation between our governments, and the ques
tion has been probably postponed between us. Count
Bismark saw that our position was a necessary one,
and that all Prussia could gain by pressing us to defend
it was thirty millions of enemies, for which a half dozen
impressed and reluctant soldiers would be but a poor
compensation.
The question, then, for the moment, practically re
mains open only between England and America. We
have always demanded of every citizen naturalised in
this country a solemn abjuration of his allegiance to all
other countries; and that we shall now proclaim our in
tention of protecting such in all countries from any
claims arising out of former allegiance is absolutely cer
tain. In ordinary times, and as affecting ordinary
questions, I should have no apprehension of any im
portant disagreement between us about a modification
which America is forced to demand in laws made before
its discovery. Your own Canning showed us the neces
sity of our “Monroe doctrine,” and our new movement
does but contemplate an environment of every indi
vidual American with a Monroe doctrine. Your com
mon sense will suggest that laws good for the times that
produced them may be as useless as ruined castles for
other times. In ancient times the right of alienation
�27
would have been paramount to the right of desertion.
But now, whilst emigration is as useful to your over
crowded islands as immigration to our untilled lands,
you must see that the feudal law can never bring you a
shilling, a subject, or a soldier whom you would not be
safer and stronger without. What a farce were it, for
example, to hold as British subjects, for any national
purpose or trust whatever, your Fenian visitors, whom
you would rejoice to know were all in Walrussia! And
behind these particular aspects of the question lies the
general fact, that the principle of inalienable citizenship
is referable to a period of European history when no such
ideas of personal independence as now prevail existed;
when also steam and exploration had not yet distri
buted through the world those great centres of com
merce and civilisation, whose amity is secured by
their equality, and which really form a commonwealth
transcending national divisions.
All this, I say, might ordinarily, notwithstanding cer
tain difficulties of detail, be trusted to reach a natural
adjustment before the tribunal of our common reason.
But it may happen, I fear, John, that the very occa
sion for our strenuous determination to affirm the new
principle at this moment will constitute the obstacle to
your complete concession of it. For that principle would
not suffer us to stand aloof and see American citizens
punished under any kind of martial law. If they were
punished, it would have to be under laws and formulas
common (substantially) to England and America, and
�28
to all civilised countries. I fear we could not appreciate
your emergencies, nor agree, in our present mood, to
the necessity of extra-judicial trials for wandering Ame
ricans. You could not, you will remember, see the jus
tice of our taking from the Trent envoys journeying for
the avowed object of destroying the American Union.
The excitement produced here, even by the arrest of
that charlatan Train—whom you have made the hap
piest man in your dominions—justifies a fear that these
insurrectionists may succeed, after years of effort in that
direction, in dragging us into some kind of collision.
But be assured of this, John : if the Devil is to have
another triumph of that kind on this planet, it will not
be more than incidentally due to Fenianism, nor to any
real difference between us on the question of citizen
ship; nor will it be due to the Alabama depredations
in themselves; it will be beneath all ascribable to a
general feeling in America that you hate us — consti
tutionally, instinctively, bitterly hate us—and to a
suspicion, that will then have ripened to conviction, that
the peaceful development of our Republic is incompati
ble with your continued naval and commercial supre
macy. We are made up here of all the races of the
world, and in such questions are very apt to identify our
commonwealth with that of humanity; and there is a
question arising whether, on the whole, England is
using her supremacy and power for the welfare of man
kind, or the reverse.
Is it true, John ? Are you really our natural
�29
enemy? It were dreadful if our conceit and your
pride should trick us into thinking we are mortal
enemies, if at bottom we are allies or even friends.
We cannot get out of our ears those ringing shouts
with which your Parliament greeted every disaster to
the army of the Union; nor the sneers about the North
fighting for Empire, and the founding of a great nation
—coming as they did from your “Liberal” leaders.
They think differently now; yes, the mouse having dis
appeared, the cat is woman again; but we cannot forget
what was revealed in those terrible moments, and no
one of those men will ever again be looked upon as
other than a foe of the United States so long as they are
too meanly proud, too cowardly before party taunts, to
confess the wrong, despite the wounds it has inflicted,
or the evils to which it may lead.
On the other hand, the news has come to us that
your Parliament, at the end of its said hilarities, has, at
your suggestion, committed hari-kari before you. It has
under compulsion decided that it is a body which has
shown itself unrepresentative of you, and is now passing
out of existence. The direction from which the new
Parliament is coming seems for us to be signified by
the proposal of a Tory minister to concede us that
arbitration which a Liberal minister had denied. If
this is done in the dry leaf, what will be done in
the green ? I am already becoming suspicious of
my first hasty conclusions about your natural enmity
to us, John! There must be a great, friendly, and just
�30
people where such men as your Mill, Bright, Hughes,
Forster, Taylor, Stansfeld, Fawcett are produced, and
that sturdy crop of Radicals, Frederic Harrison, Goldwin Smith, Beasley, Morley, and the rest, whose rising
glow is visible across the ocean. There is a cry from
Chelsea, too—a cry sharp with the summed-up sorrows
of all your brakesmen, from Strafford to Robert Lowe—
suggestive of something else than the “republican bubble”
bursting. I see, too, that instead of getting slower, as you
get older, you are gathering momentum. It was but
yesterday, when the life of a nation is considered, that the
gentle officers of the first gentleman in Europe charged
upon that crowd of men, women, and children, in St.
Peter’s-field, at Manchester, with the, cry “ Strike down
their banners!” and struck them down with their
mottoes which demanded “ Extension of franchise,”
“Abolition of Corn Laws,” and the like: now I see
nearly every one of those banners, risen from their bap
tism of blood, floating in triumph on the old walls of
Westminster!
After due reflection, John, I mean to wait. I know
well, that in the end we are to be firm friends or
warring enemies; and remembering that one of your
philosophers says that hatred is inverted love, and
another that the unforeseen always comes to pass, I
mean to wait.
So I mean; but I must candidly say that I have still
fears that my intent may be thwarted. That Fenian,
sword, whetted on your stony past, is in the hand of
�31
a madman, and he cares little whether it is wielded
against feudal or democratic England. Our politics are
threatened here just now with another equinoctial storm,
wherein the balances of the elements may be held by
the race whose hatred of you has become their one
motive of existence. And my helm of State is in
the hand of a trickster who has taken a fancy that
|he phantom cruiser shall still be kept afloat. While
the majority of us mean peace, there is a strong and
subtle party here that means war.
Do you with me recoil from that poisoned weapon,
and from all imaginable laurels to be won by it ? Then
hold your pride in abeyance for a little; ascribe my
frankness to something better than Yankee insolence.
Own for a moment that there may be something more
important than u understanding the feelings of English
men ” even ; and give heed to counsel which is offered
in the sacred interest of Peace.
First of all, John, checkmate my ingenious Secretary
at Washington by paying the Alabama claims. I will
not urge that you can do it without perceiving that the
amount has gone out of your heavy purse; I will not hint
that it will cost you more to let the bill run on gathering
political interest. But it is of importance to maintain,
as I do, that you can do it without servility or loss of
dignity. The Minister under whom that infernal ship
got out has declared in Parliament that its escape is a
reproach and scandal to British law, and was effected
through the treachery of British officials. That is
�32
Q
ground enough on which to pay for its devastations.
Cash payment may commit you less than arbitration.
You can still hold your own views about the techni
calities of the matter; you have a perfect right to say
that you do it in the interest of peace; you are strong
enough and rich enough to be beyond the suspicion of
having any dishonourable motive; there is nothing mean
in saying, “ I think I am right, but, at any rate, I will be
rid of a bore ! ” This seems to me the wise plan, John ;
but if your chrysalid Government is not up to doing in
the large way what is so likely to be done in some way,
large or small, I do not see that it would be a humilia
tion to you to agree even to that stupid demand of Mr.
Seward that the recognition of the Confederacy as a
belligerent should also be submitted to arbitration.
“That is,” you said, “inadmissible;” but why? You
had good reasons for such recognition; in it you were
simultaneous with France, and a little later than Pre
sident Lincoln. You could not have lost on such a
question, and you would have given Mr. Seward a
severer fall than he has yet had — he, more than
all men living, being responsible for the early and re*
peated recognition by this Government of the belli
gerency of the South. You cannot, you may say,
admit the principle of submitting to foreign judgment
the internal policy and political course of Great Britain.,
But you have admitted that principle in offering to
submit the Alabama claims at all; they involve the
adequacy of your municipal laws and the policy of your
public servants. Still, I think your safest and most
�33
honourable course is to pay the money, and reserve
your position in your own terms. My fine Secretary
would certainly try to dodge this also; but the American
people are not fools nor heartless, John; and the day
when you pay or offer that money without external
compulsion will lay something stronger than a cable
between your shores and mine!
From that day the other side looms into view. You
cease to be in debt to us; and if we owe any debt to
you, that must begin to press. Let the beam lie level
between us once more, and at least the hand that seeks
to disturb it will bear its own responsibility. And if the
base shall attribute base motives, will it not be compen
sation enough that you have drawn around you, for all
emergencies, the undivided sympathy of your own
people ? Your working men, and their friends in Par
liament, have decided against your rulers in this
matter, John, and reduced you to petition for the arbi
tration you denied. What can you gain by allowing
tricksters to trade on this thing ? Will men say you
act from fear ? There is nothing dishonourable in fear
ing a calamity to mankind; still less in fearing to bear
the responsibility of causing one. Your history and
security enable your people to despise a charge of
cowardice; that, at least, America can never make.
The next thing, John, for you to do is to search your
Irish trouble to the bottom, and to do it at once.
Those executions at Manchester show, I fear, that you
are very far off the right track. The men ought to
have been set to break stones in the streets. The fear
D
�34
of death preponderates with all human beings—Irish
men excepted: to the average Fenian mind your gallows
in Manchester did but suddenly carry three poor men
from their Curraghs to Paradise—did but transform
three obscure men into Emmets, into martyrs and
heroes. Have you heard of John Brown ? He made
an armed attack on slavery a few years ago; he and
those of his comrades who had not perished in the
attack were executed; but we now know that what his
raid could not effect, his execution did much toward—
the abolition of slavery. It never pays to execute on
the gallows men who have not in them the malignity
and selfish passions for which the gallows was reared.
Your Manchester victims were not of the stuff of
murderers. You committed a blunder in hanging
them that might have proved more serious had it
not been for the offset given by the Fenians at
Clerkenwell. You will be wise now to present
your Manchester gallows to the British Museum,
and turn your energies to secure the fair thing for
Ireland. If your existence as a first-class Power is
is necessary, your retention of Ireland is necessary.
But the retention of Ireland as a chronic insurrection
no retention at all. There is a story of a man who
went about all his life with a serpent inside of him;
when it was hungry he must feed it, or it would start
into his throat and threaten to suffocate him, as it did,
I believe, at last. The world sees you, John, as the
man with a snake in his bosom; it sees that your
legislation for Ireland for many years has been food
�35
given for your own exigency, which has only strength
ened the snake. It has grown at length to be Fenianism,
and your question now is, Cannot the fearful thing be
disgorged? I do not hope for you that it will be an
easy matter, for it is plain to me that the grievances of
Ireland are profoundly involved in your entire govern
mental system. The principle of the Irish Church and of
the English Church is the same, only the prevalence of
Roman Catholicism in Ireland makes it there a heavier
burden and insult, because a Protestant Church is as
odious to them as an Atheistic Society would be to
English Dissenters. What would your English Metho
dists and Presbyterians say if they were made to support
a National Comtist Establishment? The Catholic be
lieves your Church as soul-destroying as Atheism; it is,
to him, a lie planted on the ruins of Truth. Similarly,
your British land laws and privileged class happen to
bear more heavily on agricultural Ireland than on manu
facturing and shopkeeping England; but it is all one
system, and it bears heavily on the working people every
where. It is only a question of time, of the increase of
population, when your English people will cut up your
estates and parks, and compel your lands to support
men and women instead of rabbits and pheasants.
So, I fear that, having taken hold of this Irish
trouble, and found how profoundly it is entangled with
institutions resting on social superstitions—how in
evitably the English Church must follow the Irish
Church, and the English land monopoly that of Ireland—you will betake yourself to your old habit of ad
�36
Q
,
ministering opiates. The Irish difficulty, if thoroughly
traced, must lead you to the very heart of your heri
tage of wrong. Are you, after your Christian centuries,
equal to losing your life that you may find it ? At any
rate, John, disgorge that Irish viper, whatever may
have to be disgorged with it.
Your endowments ? Throw them into the sea—any
thing—rather than let them longer send this stench
through the world. Were Paul alive, he would surely
find another Church to which he must say, “ The name
of God is blasphemed through you!” Here at least in
America the Jesuit sharpens his most effectual arrows
on that miserable wrong in Ireland. “You speak of the
cruelties of the Church of Rome in the past; read in
the history of the establishment in Ireland how Pro
testantism has improved upon Popes ! Or would you
illustrate Romish oppression of conscience ? Compare
it with the liberty which Protestant England allows
the poor Catholics of Ireland — how much is their
humiliation of to-day better than that which denied
them citizenship in the past!” In both Ireland and
America Romanism has at present no other bulwark so
strong as your Irish Church, Protestantism no darker
disgrace, and Christianity no deeper shame !
Away with that, John, and then let your living gene
ration address itself to retrace the inglorious victories
by which preceding generations have forced it into an
attitude of despotism towards Ireland, whose natural
sceptre is the gallows, whose kindest provision is the
right of self-exile. All that through centuries you
�37
sought and in the end happily failed to do with America,
you have, by many disastrous successes, had the misfor
tune to accomplish in Ireland: down the fatal necessary
grooves of injustice your conquest came, confiscating the
lands, destroying the manufactures, making penal the
worship of Ireland. The continuous effort to do exactly
the same by Puritan New England trained America to
be a nation. Ireland is not yet a nation; but what
ever elements of nationality it has have been distilled
from traditions of common sorrows and vainly resisted
wrongs
Through sad six hundred years of hostile sway,
From Strongbow fierce to cunning Castlereagh !
If these shall not at length crystallise into nationality
it will not be your fault, unless indeed you discover that
beating a child in order to make it love you, little likely
as it is to secure the object aimed at, is apt—if the child
have any fire in him—to quicken it to independent life.
There is enough land in Ireland to employ and feed
all the Irish that remain to you, John; there are the
sinews, there the soil; if you cannot in some way end
their unnatural divorce, the gods themselves cannot
save you I Your landlords? Make those men look
you in the eye, John ! Not one of them could trace
his land-title, but he would find it was once a trust
for his king and country, perverted by some self-seeker
to the advantage of himself and family; not one fee
or feu, but was originally a fides, or trust for the advan
tage of Great Britain; by no means for any absolute
advantage of Lord Holdfast, who is now making of
his trust a danger to the State, sowing in it dragons’
�38
teeth, to spring up as armed enemies instead of the
valiant retainers which it was given his ancestor to
furnish! It has been for some time becoming apparent
that your land-aristocracy are trying to outwit the laws
of the universe. Let them try to shut up the sunlight
in their mansions, and amid the darkness that ensues
they may meditate on the fact that when humanity at
large really requires their land it will be as impossible
for any one man to maintain it for private ends as to
appropriate the sun for his gaslight. If you will stand
by old principles, John, let them be the oldest. No
landlord is to be regarded as fulfilling the conditions of
the deed whereby your Queen gives him land, who
proposes to maintain an interest in it separate from, or
antagonistic to, the general welfare of his country. He
may not burn his house, nor turn it to a powder-mill,
ad libitum; nor may he turn it, as many of the Irish
landlords do, into a manufactory of explosive Fenians.
If in times of danger the charters of liberty can be sus
pended, surely those of property may be also. Ah!
could you enter upon your Irish task, asking only what
is right for all—emancipated from your superstitions
about class and about land, you could make of Ireland
England’s prairie-land, you could so establish prosperity
there that whatever unassimilable Celtdom survived
must betake itself (and by your aid would speedily
betake itself) to these eupeptic regions which are able
gradually to digest even Irishmen.
Fenianism, then, has two causes. One of these is the
general weakness of your system, John, predisposing
�39
you to the disease; the other, and incidental, cause is
that the general unfriendliness to you in America has
made us wink at its practical projects, that is, has
paused us to deal with the conspiracy according to the
letter, but not the spirit, of the law. In other words,
America and Ireland, with very different aims, have
to some extent made common cause about their griev
ances ; about as much, we think, as you made with
the Southern Confederacy. These two sources of
the evil will grow by neglect, a recognised Fenian
belligerency with its cruisers being not at all un
imaginable. There are a great many mean and
selfish men, John, in your country and mine, and our
squabbles play into their vile hands sadly. But let
England remember our long dreary past of wrong with
which she is associated; let her attest her repudiation
of that past by a deed reversing it, all the better if it
be one beyond arbitrated justice, a deed of magna
nimity; let her make of America an ally; then one
brave session of Parliament can lay the axe to the
root of the tree which poisons your air. Our national
disgust at the whole theory of Fenianism; our hatred
of intervention in Old-World quarrels ; the indifference
to clan-interests and race - antipathies which steadily
grows into something sterner than indifference in a
union of races; our impatience as a people with all fuss
about purely visionary and impracticable schemes; the
English history, speech, and literature we have inherited
and still cherish; all these, veiled for the moment by the
shadow you have thrown athwart our politics, would
�40
-
resume their •'vigour. Nothing entirely unpopular can
live in this country; and I know of no other thing
which, in a normal condition of American feeling, has
so many of the elements of unpopularity in it as Fenianism. I do not defend our coquetting with it; I
wish we had been mature enough to repel such help;
but we are very crude in many respects, John, and we
have not had the best paternal examples of magnani
mity to guide us. It takes us both a sadly long time
to get the civility of our homes into our legislatures,
our fleets, and our international dealings. Had it only
been that Earl Russell’s dog had bitten Mr. Adams’s leg,
what scented notes and inquiries had passed! If any
one had stolen Sir Frederick Bruce’s hat, Mr. Seward
had deputed the American army, if need be, to find it!.
But.it is a navy destroying our commerce; it is treason
aiming at your life ; so fang and claw are claiming their
right to settle the question. Cannot our sixty or seventy
millions manage together to show mankind that there
may be rays of humanity carried into the dismal swamp
of diplomacy ? May we not startle the world by show
ing that, while the Pope is canonising the Chassepot
Rifle, England and America can raise the Golden Rule
to be International Law ?
That the New Year may bring that sorrow for devils,
and triumph for angels, is, John, the honest desire of
Jonathan.
the
END.
• . . ’ -I
LONDON:
PRINTED BY C. WHITING, BEAUFORT HOUSE, STRAND.
Y
�
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Victorian Blogging
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A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
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2018
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
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A new year's letter from Jonathan to John
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Conway, Moncure Daniel, 1832-1907
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Place of publication: London
Collation: 40 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Attribution from Virginia Clark's catalogue based on the content (Anglo-British relations) and a comparison to another 'Jonathan to John' letter, titled 'Lunatics', attributed to Conway by the 'Wellesley Index to Victorian Periodicals'. Printed by C. Whiting, London.
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Chapman and Hall
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1868
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G5623
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International relations
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UK
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Conway Tracts
Great Britain-Foreign Relations-United States of America
United States-Foreign Relations
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Text
EXAGGERATED ESTIMATES
OF
READING AND WRITING,
AS
MEANS OF EDUCATION.
A
Paper read
Belfast Meeting of the Social Science
Association, on 24th Sept., 1867,
at the
BY
W. B. HODGSON, LL.D., F.C.P.,
one of the Examiners in the University of London.
•‘Sans lumieres point
de morale.”—Mirabeau
(l’Aind).
Tom. 5, p. 5S8„
1792.
LONDON;
PRINTED BY W. W. HEAD, VICTORIA PRESS, WESTMINSTER
1868.
�“ To suffer the lower orders of the people to be ill educated,—and then to
punish them for crimes which have originated in bad habits, has the appearance
of a cruelty not less severe than any which is exercised under the most despotic
governments.”—P. Colquhoun, LL.D., “Treatise on the Police of the Metro
polis.” 7th edition, 1806, c. 2, p. 34.
“ What is lhe use of arguing so pertinaciously that a black’s skull will
hold as much as a white’s, when you are declaring in the same breath that a
white’s skull must not hold as much as it can, or it will le the worse for him ?
It does not appear to me at all a profound state of slavery to be whipped into
doing a piece of low work that I don’t like. But it is a very profound state of
slavery to be kept myself low in the forehead, that I may r.ot dislike low work.”
—John Ruskin, Letter, March 30, 1867.
“It is true there are people who say the Bible is enough reading for the
poor, but they are evidently of a widely different opinion as to their own case,
though in religion more than any other subject do all classes stand alike. In
these days general knowledge is a fact for both the poor and the rich, yet it most
certainly is not communicated at the parish school; nor is there laid down the
Very lowest and roughest foundation j no, not a beginning, not an earnest, not a
pattern, not a morsel to speak of.”—Times, Saturday, Nov. 19, 1864.
“I am among those who think the greatest problem of legislation and
government unsolved so long as ignorance, sensual waste, or ciime keeps a large
part of the people, though emancipated from the serfdom of their ancestors, still
the thralls of appetite or p>rejudice, and consequently poor and miserable.”—Sir
J. K. Shuttleworth, at Opening of Art Workmen’s Exhibition.—Manchester
Examiner and Times, February 21, 1865.
“ One of the great objects now is that the education of all classes should
be harmonized.................... Whatever study can be commonly agreed upon as
conducive to formation of good character, of improved taste, and instrumental
in cultivating the faculty of accurate observation, that study is one which no
particular class should acquire, but to which all classes should devote them
selves.”—Sir Stafford Northcote, at Exeter.—Times, Jan. 4, 1865.
“In the most essential points, in the chief objects of life, and the most
necessary elements of education, rich and poor are really on a level....................
In the mansion and the cottage there is just the same necessity of methodical
habits, forethought, industry, order, cleanliness, peaceful and respectful bearing,
the study of one another’s wishes and good opinions, openness and the virtues
that make a good and useful being. These are matters of conduct; but even in
school work there is far greater community between rich and poor than people
are apt to imagine.”—Times, Jan. 6, 1865.
“ Let us, then, I beseech you, in the name of God, let us earnestly and heartily
have recourse to education. We must ‘begin at the beginning’—we must
prevent what is evil, by implanting what is good—we must enlighten the under
standing, as well as control the will.”—Dr. Parr’s “ Discourse on Education,”
p. 41, part II.
�EXAGGERATED ESTIMATES lit READING
AND WRITING.
N these days much is said about progress, and I am not disposed
to deny its reality in various regions, or to disparage its extent.
But, admittedly, general and ultimate progression is compatible with
partial or temporary retrogression ; and there are occasions which
tempt one to doubt whether the alleged progress be not a delusion—
whether the too obvious retrogression be not final and enduring. Or,
to take the somewhat hackneyed simile, which tells us that the
advance of the tide is not inconsistent with the retirement of indi
vidual waves after they have reached the shore, let us but continue
the analogy, and we find that the tide itself, after it has reached its
highest, its appointed limit, retires also, leaving a wide waste of
dreary sand; and that, though it returns again, it retires again, so
that we have, on the whole, not progress, but only oscillation and
repetition. The history of popular education tends to confirm the
notion that movement is by flux and reflux, and that there is now a
season of low watei’ and ebb tide.
Not much more than half a century divides us from the state of
social opinion which denounced, or dreaded, or ridiculed any and all
teaching of the great masses, which prompted even intelligent and
kindly men to predict the entire overturning of society as the
inevitable result of the teaching of“ the lower orders,” as if society
depended, for its very existence, on the domination of one small class
more or less enlightened, and on the unquestioning subserviency of
all other classes, whom any glimmering of light could not fail to
render discontented, insubordinate, insurrectionary.
Then came the period which may be called, for a well-known
reason, the era of the three R’s, Reading, Riling, and 'Rithmetic.
’
The inconveniences of total darkness were more and more recognized,
and the advantage of, at least, a sort of twilight state of mind was
more and more perceived ; but it may well be questioned whether
the noonday blaze of knowledge was not more dreaded by the educa
tional patrons of the lower’ classes than even the midnight blackness
of total ignorance. Teaching was encompassed with many limitations
and precautions. It might be well for all to be able to read their
Bible, according to the famous wish of George III.; but no other
literature was encouraged. A good plain hand-writing, with a
certain knowledge of ciphering, as it was called, might be useful for
the taking of business-orders, and the keeping of accounts. But a
too facile or graceful penmanship might be dangerous ; it might even
lead to forgery, and through that to the gallows. With acquirements
so restricted, it was not unlikely that the lower classes would still
demean themselves with due humility towards their superiors in
I
�4
station, and believe and act and suffer according to the will of those
placed in authority over them, whether spiritual or secular.
By degrees, the scope of popular education was widened, so far, at
least, as regards the admission of other subjects of instruction. I
cannot think that there was generally a more philosophic estimate of
the true nature of education ; but the frequent modern examples of
individuals rising from humble station to wealth and rank, familiarized
men’s minds with the thought that so much culture should be
generally given as would assist the exceptionally clever boy in his
social ascent, rather than improve the condition of the great body of
the working classes. Geography, and history, and sundry other
things, were more and more generally introduced. It may well be
doubted whether these additions were always or commonly improve
ments. Time w’as consumed in committing to memory the events of
so called history, one half of which was probably false, while of the
other half, one half was probably doubtful, while a large proportion
of the whole was unimportant. History must, of course, be begun
at the beginning, and the ancient Britons, and the Danes, and the
Saxons, and the Nonnans must have due attention, though, probably,
the pupils had passed away from the schools before they had gone
down the stream of history below the time of Henry VIII., the names
of whose wives, with the order of their execution, furnished excellent
material for questions,—or of Elizabeth, whose character was
summed up and recited in the pithiest phrases of the Pinnock order
of historians. As for geography, such facts as the height of the
Himalayas, and the length of the Brahmapootra, were stored up
for reproduction at the stated examinations, where the effect was
striking, in proportion to the recondite nature of the information, and
in inverse proportion to its utility. The barrenness of this kind of
teaching, for which, in some cases, no doubt, things of more impor
tance were neglected, did much to damage popular education in the
esteem of many, and to give occasion to those previously so disposed
to disparage or deny the efficacy and the value of all popular educa
tion whatsoever. This tendency was brought to a crisis by the fact that
the Educational Department of the Government was in danger of
breaking down from an accumulation of routine work, while the
annual cost of the educational grant had risen to an amount that
shocked the frugal temper of the House of Commons ; and the
opportunity afforded by the complaint of the Royal Commissioners
of 1858-9, that reading, writing, and arithmetic were in some cases
neglected, and especially in the younger classes, was readily seized
for the introduction of the Revised Code. Of that I need say little
more here, than that it gave a new or renewed prominence to reading,
writing, and arithmetic, confining practically its rewards to a
certain measure of proficiency in these branches, under the name
of payment for results, as tested by individual examination.
As to the actual result, opinion is considerably divided, and I
cannot here weigh the conflicting testimony. My own belief, how
ever, is that, as might have been expected, it has injuriously affected
�5
the higher education, that is, all that deserves the name of education,
while it has not generally succeeded in ensuring even mechanical
proficiency in the three arts thus specially fostered. It has done
much, I venture to think, to throw us back into the second of
those stages of national opinion on educational subjects which I
have hastily sketched; that, namely, in which this merely ele
mentary sort of teaching was deemed enough for the masses of the
people.
And here let me say that it is of reading and writing, and not at
all of arithmetic, that henceforth I mean to speak. Arithmetic holds
a quite different position from the other two things. Besides its
actual uses in the working world, it is a science, capable of becoming
the instrument of important training, and though when Baillie Nicol
Jarvie said that the multiplication table (i.e. arithmetic) is the root
of all knowledge, he had rather in view its application to bills of
parcels, and tare and tret, and profit and loss, than to cosmic harmo
nies, or numerical proportions in the framework of the universe,
the doctrine of numbers may truly be regarded as at once a root
science and a great power in education. I would rescue it from the
slur cast on it by the company in which it is usually found.
Of reading and writing, then, we are often enough told in words
that they do not constitute education. By many this is considered
a mere truism, but a truism quite as often means a truth neglected
as a truth made real. It is with words as with things, (though words
too are things), “ Too much familiarity breeds contempt.” The coin
which passes from hand to hand, loses gradually the clearness, and
finally the traces, of its image and superscription. Now, in spite of
the currency of this truism, I venture to think that reading and
writing are far too much regarded not as all education, but as all of
education that can be secured for and by the children of the mass,
nay, as all that it is important for them to obtain ; and that thus a
low, unworthy, and mischievous estimate of education, so far as con
cerns the masses, prevails among us.
In last Friday’s meeting one speaker drew forth strong expressions
of dissent, by saying that often it is thought enough to apportion
knowledge to the station in which the pupil happens to be born, and
in which it is assumed that he is likely to remain. I must confess
that my own experience supports this statement. Thus, not many
years ago I visited a school for female orphans in London, and I
was told distinctly by the secretary that only a very plain education was
even aimed at, “ because,” said he, “ they are destined to be domestic
servants, and it would not do for them to be too near the level of
their employers’ attainments ! ” It may not be necessary here to speak
in condemnation of that spirit which would keep back those who have
so few and so slight opportunities of culture for the supposed sake of
those who have so many and so great advantages within their reach;
or to contend that the lot to which human beings are really and truly
called by Providence (that Providence so often appealed to as a
justification of existing evils which it is sought to maintain), is not
�6
the condition in which they are born, or in which their parents live,
but that of which by the best culture of all their faculties, they
qualify themselves adequately to do the work ; or to argue that the
education of the lower classes is in the interest even of the upper.
But that this spirit prevails largely beyond the circle of such an
association as this I cannot doubt. There are persons who, as I once
heai’d Archbishop Whately say, embark in the ship of knowledge
in order to delay the voyage, being quite willing to appear as pro*
moters of education if they can but gain the power to limit it within
what they consider to be safe bounds.
Even among those who regard education with very different
feelings, and who have no unworthy jealousy of others less favoured
by fortune than themselves, a similar estimate of the sufficiency of
the mere elements of knowledge in schools for the people may be
traced. “ Teach a child to read and to write, and he will educate
himself,’’ this is a common saying. No doubt, your Stephensons,
and your Faradays, and those with large natural capacity for any
kind of mental effort, will, with this simple help, do all besides for
themselves. Nay, even without this help, their innate energy would
still surmount every obstacle in their way. But such men are the
exceptions, not the rule ; and the frequent appeal to such cases in
evidence of the sufficiency of reading and writing in humble schools,
is one more proof of the prevalence of the error which looks at
popular education rather as a means of enabling the peculiarly
gifted to rise into a higher station, than of enabling and disposing all
efficiently to discharge the duties of their actual station, even though
they should x’ise to none higher. It is to the average capacity, the
average disposition of ordinary school pupils, that teaching must be
adapted, and it is by its success in dealing with that average capacity,
that average disposition, that its efficiency is to be judged. Now, that
for such natures reading and writing will be a master-key to all
or much beyond, is not to be thus proved, or without proof to be
accepted.
Another sign of the current estimate of reading and writing may
be cited. We are all familiar with the statistical tables about crimi
nals, and the proportions among them of those who can read and
write well, imperfectly, or not at all. Crime, we are told, flourishes
most rankly among the last, less among the second, least among the
first. What, then, is the natural inference from such statements ?
Of course, diminish the ignorance, and you diminish the crime (1.)
But the ignorance of what ? Of course, of reading and writing.
Ignorance of reading and writing is productive of, or accompanied
by, a great amount of crime. Knowledge of reading and writing
will, therefore, diminish crime I There may be fallacies more
palpable than this ; there can be few more gross or serious. The
inability to read and write argues, in our present state, it may be
freely granted, great ignorance of all beyond that it is good or useful
to know. But the ability to read and write, (not to cavil about the
degree of ability), by no means argues the knowledge of aught
�1
beyond. Negatively, the ignorance implies much, positively the
knowledge implies little. Let us take an obvious illustration. If a
man does not possess a penny, he is undeniably very poor; if he does
possess a penny, is he therefore rich ? Is he removed more than
very slightly from absolute impecuniosity ? It may be said that,
with even one penny, a man may begin to increase his store ; but his
doing so, his striving, or desiring to do so, depends on considerations
widely apart from the mere possession of the penny. The tabulation
of such statistics may be useful in various ways. It is not in the
facts or in the figures, but in the application of them that the danger
lies. By all means let those tell-tale columns make us blush for the
deplorable and disgraceful national ignorance that they reveal; let
them spur our determination to remove it; but do not let them lull
us into the delusive fancy that the presence of the minimum of
knowledge will cure the evils which the absence of that minimum,
indicates, if it does not cause.
We will now test a little more closely the real educational value of
reading and writing.
1. Reading is a mechanical means, one of_ several means, of
gaining knowledge and ideas. Writing is one mechanical means of
conveying knowledge or ideas to others, as well as a means of
recording them for either others or ourselves. What is the educa
tional value of either ? There is, I am well aware, a high sense,
in which it may be contended that he who can read easily, intelli
gently, appreciatively, pleasurably, even one valuable book, especially
if he can read it aloud with due “ emphasis and discretion,” correct
intonation, and utterance at once expressive and impressive ; and
who further can give written form to his thoughts and knowledge,
if, that is, we take writing to mean not merely penmanship, but
what is called composition also,—may be said to have received no
mean or narrow, though it may still be a defective education.
But it is obvious that we are here concerned with such measure of
the powers of reading and of penmanship, as is commonly obtained
in our cheap and general schools. Now, the first thing that strikes
us, is, that they are at most, not knowledge, but means of knowledge.
Isay not the means, but means of knowledge. They are no more
knowledge or education, as has often been said, than a knife, fork,
and plate constitute a dinner. Given the dinner,—the knife, fork, and
plate are useful in enabling us to deal with it. But, though the com
bination is best, it is bettei' to have the dinner without the imple
ments, than the implements without the dinner. That the two can
be separated is undeniable; and so it is quite possible, though not
common, to find a man shrewd, sagacious, even well informed, who
can neither write nor read, and it is not only possible but very
common to find the grossest ignorance and the greatest dulness
associated with ability to read and write (2.) But it may be said that
a knife, fork, and plate are instruments not for gaining a dinner, but
for helping us to consume it when gained ; whereas reading and
perhaps writing are instruments for actually gaining knowledge.
�8
Let us grant that they are tools for gaining knowledge ; they are
not crop, but plough and harrow. Now, given the plough and the
harrew, the mode of using them remains to be taught ; the disposi
tion to use them remains to be encouraged. Neither of these
things follows inevitably from the mere conferring of the tools ;
the workman may still be unskilful, or indolent or both. To give a
man a loom is one thing ; to teach him to weave well and indus
triously is quite another thing.
This leads me, dropping metaphors, in which fallacy may lurk, to
say in the second place—
2. That the power of reading and of writing often rusts unused,
if it is not wholly lost, through neglect and apathy after leaving
school. The attainments are not usually carried far enough to
render their use either easy or pleasant, and the power gradually
decays (3.) For, in the third place—
3. A knowledge of the sounds and forms of the letters, the sylla
bles and words made up by the letters, is too commonly confounded
with knowledge of the things read about, with the taking in of the
ideas verbally expressed. An extreme instance may be given. The
late Principal Baird, of Edinburgh University, reported that on an
official visit which he made to some schools in the remote highlands
and islands of Scotland, he was greatly surprised and pleased by the
fluency and correctness with which the children read some verses
from the New Testament in English. He ventured to put some
question, and then discovered that the children knew nothing
whatever of English, that they spoke Gaelic solely, and that they
read the English words aloud, by imitation, as mere sounds, without
any sense to which they could be echo. Let me cite another
instance less extreme. In a school in Hampshire I once heard some
girls read, as I thought, with rather unusual correctness, a descrip
tion of a crab. I happened to ask, as it was an inland place, if any
of them had ever seen a crab. After a pause, one girl acknow
ledged her having seen a crab ; but, on inquiry, it appeared that it
was a crab-apple she had seen, and it never had occurred to her
that the description did not at all fit the object supposed to be
described ! So, after reading about the straining out of gnats, and
the swallowing of camels, one of the pupils (as Miss Cobbe vouches)
being asked what was the great sin of the Pharisees, answered, not
hypocrisy, but “ eating camels.” These are detached examples of
misapprehension of the things for which the equivalent words are
given : but thousands escape detection, and, whether it is through
the eye or through the ear that the words reach the sensorium, it is
a sad truth, that in innumerable cases they excite no ideas, or false
ideas. For such condition of mind is it wonderful that reading
should be an irksome, not a pleasing task, one to be soon laid aside,
and as seldom as possible resumed ? The great mass do not, like the
few, persevere sufficiently to surmount those hampering difficulties
and earn the reward which such perseverance brings. But, in the
fourth place, as I have already said,—
�9
4. Reading is but one means, if, in the long run, the most impor
tant, for acquiring knowledge. On Saturday last I had a letter from
home which, by an apt coincidence, illustrates what I mean. My
little boy, not yet four years old, says to his mother, “Mamma, why
does cousin Bella learn lessons ?” “That she may grow up to be
wise and useful.” “But don’t I learn by asking questions ?” “ Out
of the mouth of babes.” The radical fallacy is in supposing that no
knowledge or improvement is obtainable except from books, and the
result is the confounding of means with ends. A child is a living,
restless, never ceasing interrogator, “perpetually wanting to know,
you know,” perpetually asking, What ? and how ? and when ? and
where ? and above all (as I have observed with some surprise) why ?
perpetually putting all around it “to the question.” This is to
nurses and parents and teachers a disturbing, fatiguing, and exas
perating process, and questions are commonly discouraged, 01* evaded,
if not forbidden. “ Children ought not to ask questions : ” “ Child
ren should be seen, not heard:” such are the ethics of the nursery.
I willingly allow for the difficulty of at once carrying on, at
least in school, a continuous course of teaching with many pupils
simultaneously, and of caring for individual differences of mental state.
But principles do not cease to be principles because their application
is difficult; and it cannot be doubted that one intelligent answer to
such a question as a child will ask and at the time when it asks it,
when its interest is aroused and the mental soil is prepared, does
more good, has more suggestive and stimulative power than pages of
“useful knowledge” which are not “en rapport” with the child’s
mental state, and which respond to nothing then active within its
little brain. A child of average health and capacity sucks in know
ledge at every pore; its craving for knowledge is truly insatiable.
“It is as natural” says Quintilian, “for the human mind to learn as for
the bird to fly, or the fish to swim.” But many who spend dreary
years in seeking the power to read Quintilian in the original, and
most^frequently without succeeding in the endeavour, tell us a very
different tale. The youthful mind, they say, is averse from know
ledge, that is, what they call knowledge, or, at best, indifferent to it,
and it must be artificially coaxed, or bribed, or threatened into the
semblance of interest. A child eagerly examines every object
around it, or, in lack of objects, then the pictures or images of objects.
But between the child and nature we interpose an opaque medium
called a book, and we expect the child to profit by symbols which to
us, indeed, are full of meaning, but which to it are mysteries, whose
significance it is slow to discover. Pedants snort disdainfully at the
thought of teaching science to children. Yet what is science, in great
part, but observation methodized ? A child cannot be easily kept from
observing and even from generalizing. The question is whether it.
shall do both ignorantly, of its own wild fancy, or under the guidance
of maturer judgment and ampler knowledge. As all children, not wholly
stupified by the compression and distortion of the school, form for
themselves a kind of science, draw inferences and make generalizations,
�10
probably erroneous, certainly incomplete, shall they be left without
guidance, as without encouragement ? (4.)
Even attempts to teach science are often marred by confounding
it with literary or verbal knowledge. Nature is treated on the
system of the Eton Latin grammar. Technical names and lists of
genera and species are committed to memory without due explanation
of the grounds of distinction. I have before me a catechism for the
young, entitled “ First Lessons in Physiology.” All the know
ledge runs freely from the pupil, when tapped by the teacher
with a question. The teacher says: “ How many varieties of
absorption are there, and name them ?” The pupil answers : “Inter
stitial, cutaneous, recrementitial, respiratory, venous, excrementitial,
and lacteal.” Such are the new husks upon which babes are fed !
Without a revolution in method no mere change of subject can do
much good.
5. Again, the learning of the art of reading, being treated as an
end, is made much more difficult than it needs to be. The letters
are taught by their names, not by their sounds; in the arbitrary
order of the alphabet, instead of in the natural order of the organs
by which they are pronounced. Spelling is still taught by means of
columns of long, hard, unconnected words, selected for their very
difficulty and rarity, to be learned by rote, or, as is said with
unconscious irony, “by heart.” At a large and well-endowed
school in London, I have seen dozens of boys engaged simulta
neously in laborious efforts to learn to spell badly, with the aid
of a most ingenious book, in which every word was incorrectly
spelled. Then the process of teaching to read begins too early, as
it is continued too long. I know well the difficulty in a school,
where the minds of the pupils may be, nay must be, in different
stages of development; still, the first thing being to rouse an appetite
for knowledge, and the second to gratify it when roused, all attempts
to reverse this order, or even to anticipate its evolution, must be
injurious. A child that, eager to heai’ a story over again, puts to its
ear the book in which it is told, is in a fair way of learning to read
swiftly, easily, gladly. Before it reaches that sjtage, the instruction
might have been tedious and ineffectual. These are but hints which
it is impossible here to follow out in detail.
6. Then, what is the literature by means of which reading is too
often taught ? In Scotland still, the shorter Catechism of the West
minster Assembly of Divines (in my boyhood I used to wonder what
the longer could possibly be), has prefixed to it an alphabet which is
learned as a preliminary to plunging into the depths of Calvinistic divi
nity. Even in London I have visited a “ respectable” school, in which
reading is taught from the Bible, and so soon as the pupil is tolerably
proficient, he is promoted to the dignity of secular reading 1 And
this is done in the supposed interests of religion 1 It is as if we
were to begin the teaching of our children with Milton’s Paradise
Lost, and then advance them into Robinson Crusoe, or Miss Edger
worth’s Tales. In many Scotch schools the Bible is almost the only
�11
reading book ; the junior and senior classes are called respectively
the Testament class and the Bible class. I have heard of a boy so
taught who, having been asked by his mother to read a passage in
a newspaper, was suddenly roused from his monotonous chaunt by a
box on the ear, accompanied by these words—“ How dare ye, ye
tcoundrel, read the newspaper with the Bible twang ?”
7. With such a spirit in the school, is it wonderful that the whole
teaching should have a narcotic tendency, that it should crush intel
ligence, and breed disgust, weariness, hatred of all study ? At a
former meeting of this Association, I heard one of Hei' Majesty’s
Inspectors of Schools (since dead), declare that in certain schools he
could tell pretty accurately by the pupils’ faces how long they had
been at school. The longer the period, the more stupid, vacant, and
expressionless the face. Another school inspector (Diocesan), has
told me that when, examining a class in the Acts of the Apostles, he
asked:—“Why did the eunuch go away rejoicing,”—the answer’
frankly was—“ Please, sir, because Philip had a done o’ teaching on
him.” What hours of weariness and waste are summed up in this
brief story! Such teaching defeats its own end; the power to read
is gained at the cost of the desire to read. This, if, in spite of false
quantity, I may adapt the words of the Roman poet, is “ propter
legendum legendi perdere causas,” for the sake of reading to lose
that which makes reading to be desired.
8. Lastly, it ought never to be forgotten that the power to read
does not in the least determine the use to which it is to be put. What
will be the nature of the books or journals read ? How much of
mischievous, not to speak of idle, literature is there in the world
that must all find readers, admirers, purchasers ! With the diffusion
of the mere power of reading, without intellectual and moral culture,
must we not expect that this sort of literature will be multiplied ?
The increased numbers of cheap “ sporting ” papers, of papers de
voted to police reports, with coarse and exciting woodcuts, and
of the literary master-pieces of the “ singing saloon,” have of late
attracted notice. Nay, the power to read and write arms with
greater force the disposition for evil, as well as that for good. In
every wicked enterprise such attainments are helps to its success.
It used to be argued that writing ought not to be taught to the
people, lest it should lead to the commission of forgery, or other
fraud ; but this sort of argument, if futile against teaching to write,
supplies a reason why the power of writing, or of reading, should be
associated with such training and guidance as will tend to ensure its
beneficial employment.
As I rejoice to see in this Association, and elsewhere, a growing
tendency to regard the teaching of all classes, and of both sexes,
from the same points of view, and to apply to all alike the same
fundamental principles, I will here briefly say that what I think to
be the exaggerated estimate of reading and writing in the instruction
of the poor has its exact counterpart in the hitherto far too exclu
sively literary character of the instruction of the rich. In this
�aspect, how pregnant with meaning is the title, “ Grammar school,”
so almost universal as the designation of our upper schools ! Not
to insist on the practical identification of “ Grammar ” with the
teaching of Latin and Greek, what a petrifaction is this term of the
whole cast of opinion, which viewed all instruction as an affair of
books and words 1 What a record it preserves of the habit of regarding
even Science as a knowledge less of things than of what men have
written about things, and of the style in which they have written 1
Widen as we may the sense of grammar, far beyond the scope and
practice of schools, past or present, till it become, if you will, co
extensive with philology, and even literature, (and far be it from
me to disparage such studies), how lamentably does this title fall
short of what ought to be the aim of education in such a country, in
such an age as ours 1 Over the door of the Bradford Grammar
School stands this inscription
“ Quod Deus optimus maximus bene vertat
Aedificium hocce ad literarum antiquarum
Studium promovendum juventutemque doctrinA
Elegantiore imbuendum extructum est atque
Musis in perpetuum consecratum.”
—“ For promoting the study of ancient literature, and for imbuing
youth with elegant learning, this building has been raised, and for
ever consecrated to the muses.”
A noble part of a liberal education, the polished and graceful
capital of the educational column, but assuredly neither its shaft
nor its base ! Try mentally to realize what Bradford or Belfast is,
and what it needs for the instruction and guidance of the youth who
are to do its actual work, to maintain and to extend its prosperity, to
remove its evils, to raise the charactei* of its people, to improve their
sanitary and social condition, to teach them how to lead a clean,
healthy, happy, human life — and how painfully one-sided and
defective it is ! How it ignores the essential! How it magnifies
the less important! How it subordinates strength, solidity, and
service to grace and ornament and surface-show I Assuredly the
time is coming, I think it is at hand, when such a title- as that of
“ Spelling school” will be regarded as scarcely less expressive of the
purposes, grand and manifold, at which our uppei’ schools, aye, all
our schools, ought to aim. Even in our higher, even in our highest
schools, improvement is slowly but surely creeping in ; slowly but
surely is it being recognized that any school which ignores the know
ledge of man himself, of the objects animate and inanimate with
which he is surrounded, and of the relationship between him and them,
his social duties, his economic interests, and the reciprocal bearing of
the individual and the social well being is radically, deplorably, dis
gracefully defective. Every improvement in our lower schools will
react upon the upper, and vice versa. And when the instruction of
our higher classes is what it ought to be, and in proportion as it shall
be what it ought to be, will the problem of our lower education be
practically solved. Had our upper classes ever been really educated,
�13
they would not, and could not, so long and so complacently have
endured the ignorance and consequent degradation of the masses of
their fellow citizens, of those whom, as if in mockery, they style
their fellow immortals, their brothers and their sisters.
It is, however, of the lower schools that I here speak. It is even
fortunate that narrow and selfish fears are beginning to urge on what
enlarged conceptions and generous impulse have failed hitherto to
effect. Thus (1) the recent extension of the suffrage is opening
the eyes of many to the necessity of training the masses to the ju
dicious and beneficial exercise of the power thus conferred. One
whose name will be, in history, connected as well with the political
changes that he resisted as with the educational changes that he
introduced, has said that we must now teach our future masters their
letters. That this was said in bitter irony there can be little doubt;
and it cannot be taken to mean that in the opinion of the speaker
that amount of teaching will suffice. Those who have already had
the suffrage can, for the most part, read and write. But they, too,
need enlightenment, and moral as well as intellectual training; so do
those whom they elect to represent them. On the one hand, reading
and writing have not prevented dishonest voters in thousands from
selling their votes for bribes, solid or liquid ; on the other, reading
and writing, and much besides, have not prevented unscrupulously
ambitious millionaires from debauching whole constituencies by
lavish expenditure, or from masking their immoral and demoralising
practices by liberal donations to charities, to schools, and even to
churches. Nevertheless, the fear of the large classes now admitted
within the pale of the constitution for the first time has given no
slight impulse to the general zeal for education. It is for us to see
that the movement now begun be turned to good account. Let us
help to educate, but in what ? That is the question of questions.
Then, again (2), foreign nations, we are told, are beginning to beat
us at our own weapons. They have learned more than their letters.
They are, it is said, driving us out of the markets which, with insular
arrogance, we have fancied should for ever be ours exclusively.
A cry of alarm is raised for more and better technical instruction ;
and, though this is narrow enough in the thoughts of many who raise
it, more and better general culture will certainly come out of it;
a greater development of general mental power, and the formation
of better social habits, will ere long be discovered to be the things
really needful.
Again (3), our industry is partially paralyzed, our capital is wasted,
our prosperity, our very national existence, are endangered by strikes
and trade combinations and restrictions, which check production,
often by means as unscrupulous and truculent as the end sought is
false and mischievous. The masses have been suffered to grow up
in ignorant and angry defiance of the elementary principles of
economic science, and reading and writing will not cure this long
rankling sore. Broadhead, who could read and write (as he has
amply shown), believing at the time that the introduction of a certain
�14
machine would injure his craft, instigated an act of criminal violence^
He confessed that he had discovered his error ; but the discovery came
too late. Had he made it sooner, one outrage less would have been
attempted. With wider knowledge others, perhaps all, might have
been prevented. Knowledge is not merely power; it is restraint
and guidance, if not impulse. It is the rudder, if not the sail ; the
fly-wheel, if not the steam-boiler. It is true that there have not
been wanting men of so-called education to defend such blunders,
and even to extenuate such atrocities ; but their education has lacked
the special direction which alone could save from error in this matter.
It is true that the employers are often not more intelligent in this
respect than the employed ; but the enlightenment of the latter, who
are the many, and from whose ranks the former, hitherto the few,
must largely come, will extend to, and react upon the former
also, and do much to soften their mutual relations, to make all see
their common interest, and to fuse them together, so as in time to
modify, if not, as some hope, to obliterate the distinction itself (5.)
For such reasons as these, a new educational agitation is arising,
or the old is reviving with fresh vigour. One and all point to something
far beyond reading and writing. I am, I must say, hopeful of the
ultimate, if not of the early, issue. The now swelling call for
“ compulsory” education will force on the public mind the funda
mental inquiry, what ought education to be. If, by compulsion,
what now passes under the name of education were rendered even
universal, I presume to think that the existing mass of pauperism,
crime, vice, misery and disease, would scarcely be perceptibly
abated. But it is no small gain to have recognized the claim of even
the poorest, still more even because the poorest, to something that is
called education. Bad or grossly defective education in any quarter
cannot continue long aftei’ education has ceased to be regarded as the
heritage of the few. Just as air becomes stagnant and foul when con
fined, so education when restricted to the few loses its vital freshness.
To diffuse education of any kind is indirectly to improve it. Make
education general, universal, and the (so called) higher education
will be rationalized, and, as I think, liberalized (6.) Youths will no
longei* be sent into active life from costly seminaries, accomplished
it may be in Greek metres, but ignorant of the structure of their own
bodies, the constitution of their own minds; filled with mythologic
lore, but unaware of their social duties ; primed with verbal scraps of
inconsistent moral precept, but less ashamed of debt than of honest
industry; looking on the world as a spoil for the lucky, or the
crafty, oi' the strong, not as a field for useful and ennobling labour
to the benefit of all as well as of self; of self just in proportion as it
tends to the good of all. Then, instead of the rich being fed on
intellectual sweetmeats, while the poor are starved, or gathei’ up the
crumbs that fall from the others’ table, all, rich and poor alike, shall
be nourished with plainer, more substantial and wholesome diet, not
without such lighter fare as may be obtainable by either. As know
ledge will be no longer confounded with books, or with words about
�16
knowledge, so morals, of which the laws are as eternal as they are
simple, as universal as they are strong, the morals in which all sects
and conditions of thinking men agree, will be dissociated from the
verbal and dogmatic formularies about which men differ, and, while
becoming less sectarian and theological, will become more widely
Catholic, more truly religious (7.) We, or our survivors, will then look
back with a smile, not of contempt or pride, but of joy and pity, on
the time when there was so great a pother about so small a matter
as reading and writing, and when even this beggarly amount of
teaching was found to be a tremendous national difficulty, just
because so little more was aimed at, or desired, or perhaps conceived.
The less is included in the greater, and the little becomes easy from
the effort to do much.
Notes.
(1.) p. 6. “ A Maiden Session.—At the Salisbury Quarter Sessions, just held,
there was not a single prisoner for trial. The Mayor of the city (Mr. S. Eldridge)
had therefore the pleasing duty of presenting the Recorder (Mr. J. D. Chambers),
the clerk of the peace, and the governor of the gaol with a pair of white kid
gloves each, according to custom on occasions of this sort. The Recorder, in
addressing the grand jury, said that he had read the other day in The Times that
Wiltshire was one ot the best educated counties in England, and it was highly
satisfactory to learn therefore that the decrease of crime had been in proportion to the
spread of education.” (/)—Times, 2nd Jan., 1868.
(2.) p. 7. “ Although the perusal of such works must, in strictness of speech,
be denominated reading, yet, so far as the cultivation of mind is concerned, it is
little else than the sheer act of deciphering so much letter press, without the
acquisition of a single new idea that can at all conduce towards improvement.”
—Rev. Thos. Price, “Tour in Brittany, Literary Remains,” 1854, vol. 1,
p. 81. “No doubt the power of reading is a key to the whole literature of
England. But in the hands of persons ignorant how to use it, a key is of little
use.”—Saturday Review, 4th Jan., 1868, p. 20. In the very same article the
writer says:—« What is wanted is that every child should be able to read and
write fairly before he goes to work; that he should be enabled to turn this
knowledge to -laone intellectual account while he is at work; and that, in cases
where his parents’ means, or his own industry, can defray the cost, he should be
further enabled to perfect himself in the various branches of study which have a
bearing, general or special, on his professional occupation.” It is too obvious
that the reviewer does not expect the child to turn the ability to read and write
to any “ intellectual account ” during the school period!
(3.) p. 8. “ The imperfect instruction given to the children in factories, under the
half-time system, is retained by them during a year or two at most, when it is
forgotten, and many intelligent young overlookers are unable to keep correctly
the simple accounts which should form a part of the duties of their position.”—
Mr. Samuelson, M.P. (speaking of Bradford, Yorkshire).
(4.) p. 10. “Why are the people who notice what comes before them to be marked
by a separating name, and called naturalists? Why are we ashamed of a
failure in what comes to us through books and the costly instrumentality of
masters and teachers ? Why do we blush at any flagrant slip in history, or
science, or language, and keep cool and easy under any extravagance of error in
�what'nature, through our own observation, might teach us.”—Saturday Revieu),
28th July, 1863. Article on “ Ignorance.” Yet Canon Moseley, who is deservedly
an authority in education, would keep out of schools (not merely elementary
schools) all “ the sciences of observation,” specially so called. At Clifton College,
on 30th July, 1867, he is reported to have said: —“The subjects of human know
ledge, which claimed to be considered and taught in our schools, might be
divided into four groups. First of all,” (why ‘ first ? ’) “ there were the languages
and the subjects allied to them; secondly, the pure mathematical sciences, which
were pursued in the exercise of pure thought and rested upon abstractions ;
thirdly, the sciences of experiment, including physics and chemistry; and
fourthly, the great sciences of observation, such as natural history and the like.
He thought they might put the last out of consideration, as they had had quite
enough to do with the three others.” In like manner, I once heard it contended
that any new poetry is superfluous, because there is more poetry already written
than any human being can possibly read! In like manner, it has been urged
that the discovery of new planets is absurd, because we have as many already
as we well know what to do with! But, perhaps, we ought less to regret
that the subjects in the fourth class are thus shut out, than rejoice that those in
the third are admitted. Too often both classes are still visited with the same
arbitrary sentence of exclusion, and on the same ground, that there is quite
enough to do without them! It is not very long since subjects of even the
second class ceased to be regarded as unlicensed intruders on the traditional
monopoly of the first.
(5.) p. 14. “ To the three reasons given in the text a fourth may well be added.
Society is, not without reason, more and more alarmed by the rapid increase of
outrages which threaten its very existence. “ Education ” is hailed as the sure
if slow, remedy. The adult ruffian is probably beyond its influence, but the
embryo garotter may be tamed if only he can be taught to spell “ gallows; ” and
on the juvenile pickpocket a course of alphabet, with exercise in pothooks and
hangers, may have a salutary effect, deterrent or emollient! By all means let
trial be made. Its failure will open the eyes of many to the need of something
better, though it may also lead many to say, “ Education has been tried, and
tried in vain.”
(6.) p. 14. “ Coleridge, when he predicted that the effect of popularizing know
ledge would be to plebify it, erred in his vision of the future, as many seers have
done before and since. He uttered that prediction on the assumption that know
ledge, in its higher portions, was confined to the regions of theology and
psychology; and he overlooked the faot that, in proportion as these branches of
knowledge have been cultivated by the few,-ignorance has prevailed among the
many. He failed to observe that, if thousands rushed to Abelard’s lecture room,
millions outside of it were immersed in the grossest superstition.”—Saturday
Review, 26th Oct., 1867, p. 544.
(7.) p. 15. “As Sir R. Palmer reminded his audience, the line between ‘ religious’
and ‘ secular ’ is purely conventional. ‘ All knowledge, all instruction, in what
ever is honest and of good report, is essentially religious.’ Dogmatic theology
concerns itself with creeds; but religion has to do with common life; and its
sphere, though net identical, is co-extensive with that of education. The
clergyman and the schoolmaster are inevitably working together, whether they
are working in concert or not.”—Times, 2nd Nov., 1866.
�
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Exaggerated estimates of reading and writing as means of education: a paper read at the Belfast meeting of the Social Science Association, on 24th Sept., 1867
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AUSTRIA
IN
P»/
z
•
■
18 6 8.
BY
EUGENE
OSWALD.
Reprinted from the “ English Leader.”
TRÜBNER & CO, PATERNOSTER ROW.
1868.
�LONDON:
printed at
Hie
victoria press
83a,
(for
the emplotment of women),
farbingdon street, e.c.
�AUSTRIA IN
1868A
I.t
If there is a subject on which it is high time the friends of justice
and freedom—the Liberals of Europe, if there must be a party name,
or the party of progress—should revise their former opinions, that
subject is that of Austria. And it is not an inconsistent reversion
of a former judgment, by ignoring the evidence hitherto before us,
which we recommend; it is a reconsideration of it by the light of
new and altered facts, and in the greater clearness of aspect which
recent changes, by repressing gloomy shadows, have, at last,
allowed us. He who was an opponent to Austria, because he was a
friend of freedom, is not hereby required to be a friend of freedom no
longer. He is invited, on the contrary, to discover in the new
turn which things have taken in Austria the possibility of a new
element being added to the cause of freedom. We say the possibility,
we wish we could at once use a stronger term. But our feeling, after
so many disappointments, is not one of certitude, is one barely of
hope, and even this wants, sometimes, faith to prop it up against
doubt. Still, this is the position which, we believe, we plainly see
before us. Austria was formerly a bulwark of Conservative
despotism in Europe. Severely chastened, she promises now to be a
bulwark against the aggressive despotism of Russia. She was the
former because she misunderstood her own position, and began by
repressing the energies of her own people. She promises to be the
latter, because she seems to have arrived—at a late hour, it is true—
at feeling her own mission, and she begins by calling forth the vitality
that is in her populations. Grievously battered by successive storms,
heavily burdened by the acts of her former captains, with but little
confidence expressed in her by those who surround her, the old ship
starts on her new voyage. But many of the causes which threatened
disaster formerly have been removed, her course is now steered by
the firm hand of a clear-sighted helmsman, and if the crew do but
keep up a good heart and a good understanding among themselves
a long career may be yet before her, and she may protect old
* In this reprint of the following chapters, which originally appeared in the
weekly paper, the English Leader, only a few verbal alterations have been made,
and two or three footnotes and documents have been added.
t Austria, a Constitutional State: a Short Sketch of the Rise, Progress, and
Development of Constitutional Life in the Austrian Dominions, London i Dulau
& Co. pp. 100.
B
2
�4
dominions and discover new ones, a blessing to herself and others.
If!
We of the present generation, when, youthful and hopeful, we took
our stand under the banner of freedom, and began a long and
chequered march, did not set out as friends of Austria. She was
to us a dark and frowning image, an image to be broken ere the goal
of that young army of 1848 could be reached. But if it is grievous
as life wears on to lose many of the rosy illusions for whose realisation
we longed, is it not a gracious, and a rare, experience to see depart
from us the darkening shadow of hatred 1 We have hated Austria—
the State, though not the Austrian people. We have now done with
our hatred, and we are not the poorer for that.
We have hated Austria. And was that hatred a mere heirloom,
and a thing which had come to us from our reading the outpourings
of French republicanism, of Protestant antagonism ? No doubt, on
such historic basis, on the recollections of the French Revolution, or
of the philospher-king, Frederic II., or of the Thirty Years’ war,
stood many a one unconsciously when he joined in the chorus :
Delenda est Austria. But was there not ample reality about us in the
doings which the generation immediately before us witnessed, and
which we witnessed ourselves 'I Did not Austria stand before us,
soulless, cold, with a mighty shadow and a leaden weight, an
oppressor, together with the Bourbons, in Italy; an oppressor,
together with Prussia, in Germany ; an oppressor, together with
Prussia and Russia, in Poland ; an oppressor, on her own account,
in Hungary, and in oppressive league with the enemies of freedom
in Switzerland 1 So she appeared to us, and when we were startled
by the moan from Silvio Pellico’s dungeon, or listened indignantly
to La Fayette’s prison tale, no voice but that of sweet, thought
lulling music came on the side of Austria; or, now and then, though
the hand of Government rested heavily on literature, the lyre of an
anonymous poet, like Anastasius Grün, broke through the stillness,
*
saying but too plainly—“Yes, you are right; this beautiful Austria
of ours is a prison, and a place of gaolers, and therefore hateful.”
But it added, “ It need not be so ; over these beautiful lands, these
broad rivers, these waving forests, the life of freedom may yet be
shed; the night may give way to the day, and her people may be
happy, and render others happy, if she only learn her own interests
and keep to them.” If 1
And so, though all is not yet as it might be, the day has broken,
and Austria, having released the spasmodic grasp at the throat of
others, feels the new life flowing through her, and with it comes a
new mission—which was, indeed, long present before her, but could
not be clearly perceived, because oppression dims the eye of the
oppressor. Ard our hatred is gone, and we look hopefully on the
new brother, thinking his life may be of a new—and to most of us
unexpected—value to himself, and to all of us, if he but cure him
* Count C. von Auersperg.
�5
self of those severe wounds which the contest has left all over his
body. If!
But the conversion of the friends of freedom to new views towards
Austria is, as yet, by no means complete, and as far as it goes, it has
made progress but slowly. And so far-reaching are the decrees of
fate, so inevitable the consequences of ill-deeds, so interwoven the
destinies of men and States, that when in 1866, for the first time
since many a long day, Austria came forth, as against Prussia, as the
champion of justice, by upholding the Bund, which, forbidding war
between the members of the Confederation, was one of the guaran
tees of European peace, and in defence against the most atrocious
double-dealing, the most shameless swindle attempted—and now,
alas ! carried out—by Prussia against the inhabitants of SchleswigHolstein, whom she pretended to free that she might swallow them
better, substituting herself as King Stork for King Log—even in that
hour, and with that most righteous cause, Austria succumbed. For
Prussia, who had just come forward in the vilest service to Russia
as her hangman’s assistant against the poor Poles, opening her
territories for Alexander’s bands to capture the fugitives, Prussia,
most perfidiously, called up another righteous cause to her help ;
and the conscience of mankind was divided, and in many an honest
breast the feeling for Italy against Austria overlaid the feeling for
Austria against Prussia. Might she lose there and win here !—such
was the wish of many, and it was a natural and a legitimate wish.
Still, almost general were the sympathies with Italy, spare those for
Prussia, till the luck of Austria went down in that terrible evening
sun of Sadowa, and Prussia, the successful seceder from her federal
bond, was applauded by those whose cry of condemnation against
the American seceders could never rise high enough; and the
Hohenzollern, under the dictates of his unscrupulous statesmen,
filched from the lips of honest and short-sighted enthusiasts the cry
of Unity, to use it in order, by his aggrandisement, to bring about
the disruption of the Fatherland.
Deprived of her Italian possessions, which had driven her into
the abyss, expelled from that Germany which she had led for five
hundred years, and often misled, and often neglected, and which she
had, in the face of Prussian intrigue, unsuccessfully endeavoured, in
1863, to reform, shorn of most of her prestige while acquiring a new
and unexpected one on the sea, shaken in her very foundations,
bleeding from many wounds, yet not without a ray of hope, though
even that is overclouded with shadows (for had not Albert conquered
at Custozza, he whose daughter, in the promise of youth, has just
been burnt to death; had not Maximilian prepared the victory of
Lissa, he who nobly dying expiated dearly his misjudgment ?) Austria
bestirred herself setting her house in order.
She had tried it before, over and over again, these last nineteen
years ; and the memoire which we cite at the head of these observa
tions gives us the record of her attempts. It is not cheerful reading,
this account of the long travail of constitutional life in Austria ; but
�6
to him who will understand the present, it is useful, nay necessary.
Manifold and sometimes violent were the experiments to cure the
“ sick man; ” and it required indeed no slight robustness in the
impatient patient to outlive the tentative doctors of Centralisation,
of Federalism, of Dualism. It is in the latter that we see Austria
now settled. The Magyars have gained their cause, for which they
struggled for so many years, with a persistency admirable, though
not free from national selfishness. The other populations of the
empire might before this have consolidated the building of their
political freedom, had the Magyars chosen to throw their lot in with
them. Yet it is not to be wondered that they stood out from what
would appear to them but the shifty quicksands of experimentalising,
as compared with the firm rock of their Golden Bull, their Pragmatic
Sanction, their Coronation Preamble of 1790, their Laws of 1848,
their Continuity of Right. They have gained their point, and—
though some clever writers are willing to taunt them with their being
no literary people —they have fulfilled their special mission among
*
the nations of the continent, by proving what can be achieved by a
firm, and it may be a stubborn, adherence to existing law—existing
though all the scaffolds in the world should take the place of its
judgment-seats, and all the inkstands flood the writing on its parch
ments. They have achieved what the more moderate, and the great
bulk of that nation of aristocrats required ; and there is satisfaction
in seeing this firmness of national character rewarded, though its aims
are not quite—-or rather are far away of what the democratic sympa
thisers in Great Britain have fancied them to be, or what the words
of Kossuth, trying to be “ all things to all men,” would have led one
to believe, when in one of the brilliant hues of the many-coloured
rainbow of his splendid eloquence he identified himself with the
republicans of France against that Louis Bonaparte, whom, an
emperor, he followed in so docile a manner. And it must not be
overlooked, but mentioned in their praise, that the Magyars, as the
hour of their victory drew near, gave more heed to the moderate
councils of Deák, Pulszky, Eotvos, and others, and that by agreeing
to the common treatment, between Vienna and Pesth, of many
affairs, they have indeed, on their side, made important concessions
to the general interests of the empire, so far’ overcoming their
national egotism. In what way they will further tend remains to
be seen. In their hands, in a great measure, the fate of Austria now
lies. If, judging sanely of their own position, surroundings, and
numbers, they go hand in hand with the German population of
the empire, and if both together know how to conciliate by justice
the different other races, the great Danube State, the wedge between
Russia and Europe, may yet be saved from the threatening danger of
Panslavism. If, on the other hand, they burrow deeper into the isola
tion of their Magyarism, they are indeed in a position to cut Austria’s
throat—and their own.
Cornhill. August: “The Pageant in Pesth.'
�7
IL
Already there lies before us a most important outcome of the yielding
of the emperor to the voice of the people on this side, and on that
of the Leitha, the little frontier river between Germany and Hun
gary. Those legislative steps have been taken at Vienna and Pesth
which seal the doom of the unfortunate Concordate.
*
Many of our
readerswill recollect the unfavourable impression produced in 1855
by this unlucky compact with Rome, by which Austria, enormously
exaggerating the respect due to the Church of the great majority
of her inhabitants, and in her then pursuit of a thoroughly reaction
ary policy, striving to be the Catholic-Conservative power par
excellence, gave up to the Papal Court and its hierarchy so much of
the rights of the State, so much of the rights of the individual. By
so doing she created an atmosphere of priestly influence and
interference, which gradually became unbearable, not to the Pro
testants and Confessors of the Greek, or Orthodox Jaith alone, but
also to very many of the Roman Catholics themselves. Well, and
with rare eloquence was this compact denounced by Kossuth, him
self a Protestant, yet once acknowledged as leader by a nationality
chiefly Catholic. Still we should put too great a blame on Austria
for this mistaken step, were we to look at it as an isolated fact.
It must not be forgotten that it belongs to a period of general
continental reaction against the spirit of 1848, a period which saw
the priest and the dogma called in on every side, to help the
corporal and the bayonet to uphold the tottering thrones. This
revival of priestly influence, long prepared by literary agencies, and
showing its head openly in the Sonderbund of Switzerland, tenta
tively in most countries of Europe, in Belgium especially, nay in
England herself, had received, in 1849, a mighty impulse by what
the eloquent and learned historian, Edgar Quinet, trying to arrest
the calamity, aptly called the crusade against the Roman Republic.t
The fall of Rome, which the enthusiasm of Mazzini and the heroism
of Garibaldi could no longer delay, carried the shortsighted victors
farther than they, or some of them, had intended, and the note
paper of the then President of the Republic, Louis Bonaparte’s
letter to “ mon cher Edgar,” proved a very inefficient drag in the
course of Papal ascendancy. Events being turned from one direc
tion, irresistibly rolled into the opposite one, and the temporal
power being re-established, offered its help to all the secular powers.
* Whilst this reprint passes through the press, news arrives of the Upper
House of the Austrian Reichsrath having, amidst great public rejoicing, adopted
the Bills on Public Schools, and on Civil Marriage—bills which virtually and by
regular legislative proceedings put an end to the Concordate.
t “La Croisade Autrichienne, Française, Napolitaine, Espagnole, contre la
République Romaine.” Par E. Quinet, représentant du peuple. 4me éd. Paris :
Chamerot.
�8
A politico-priestly odour went through the world.
*
The late King
of Prussia, burying in mysticism his originally bright gifts, and tend
ing to his own insanity, and to the stupefaction of his subjects, saw
with a well-pleased eye the activity of Protestant Pietists—the sort
of people who represent to worthy Lord Shaftesbury the modern
German mind, and give him so much satisfaction—and was not
wholly averse to the perambulations of the Jesuits. One of the first
acts of Louis Napoleon’s new power, after the subversion of the
constitution, was to hand over the national pantheon to the Roman
Catholic clergy, who thenceforth, and till 1859, proved stout allies,
and were treated as such. What wonder that Austria, which but
once, under Joseph II., and during the short reign of Leopold II.,
had seen her sovereign free from priestly influence, should offer to
grasp the hand of Rome, or be seized by her grip. Perhaps even
a greater thought than one of mere internal reaction was among the
motives of Baron Bach, the then leading spirit of the Hofburg :
“ Hungary lies at the feet of your majesty,” were the words with
which the Russian Prince Paskiewitch had announced to his master
at St. Petersburgh the result of the help vouchsafed to the House of
Hapsburg. And this dangerous protector is a member of the
Orthodox Greek Church. Might not the Court of Vienna hope
that, by making itself the chief champion of Roman Catholicity,
it could gain in a possible collision the sympathies of Catholics in
Europe—and in the Russian Empire, in Poland, for instance 2 If
so, the arrow overshot its aim : the loss of sympathies at home and
abroad greatly outbalanced any possible advantage in the direction
indicated. But we cannot wonder at the conduct of the Vienna
government, for without such far-reaching motives, even the govern
ments of two of the smaller states that have always been in the van
of German progress—though the Prussian scribes have tried to
obscure the fact—fell into the snare: Baden, which by sustaining
temporary Prussian conquest and occupation, and driving into exile
one man in every 120, had been rendered pliable enough for a little
while, to give way under repeated pressure/and so had Wurtemberg,
without such excuse, and by we know not what freak of popular
weakness. It is true such victory did not last long, and, in i860,
rhe estates of Wurtemberg, by formally asking again for the convo
cation of the German Parliament—not meaning thereby the sham
of Bismarkia—and those of Baden, by annulling the Concordate,
again inaugurated the German movement for freedom which, in
1849, had been suppressed by the Prussian cannon. The turn of
Austria has now come. We must indeed not expect her, as some
members of Messrs. Whalley and Murphy’s Society might wish, to
take a position hostile to Catholicism ; and no doubt, by doing so,
her Government would act both unwisely and unjustly ; for the
Roman Catholics are the majority of her population, both in the
whole empire and in each of the two parts—the Cis-Leithian
* Very full details in the pious W. Menzel’s “ Geschichte der letzten vierzig
Jahre.” 3rd edition. Stuttgardt, 1865. Tom ii., pp. 384-392.
�9
countries and Hungary, taken separately. They are credibly stated
to form 70-39 per cent, of the whole population. This, without
counting the United Greeks, that is, those who are in some sort
connected with Rome, having, in exchange for the concession of
the marriage of priests and the Eucharist in both forms, acknow
ledged the supremacy of the Pope. These form 9-87 per cent, of the
whole population. The members of the not united or Orthodox
Greek Church, again, are 8'44 per cent. The confessors of both
forms of the Greek Church—18’21 per cent, of the whole population
—are chiefly found in the South Slavonic portions of the empire, in
Croatia, Slavonia, and parts of Hungary. The Protestants—9-33
per cent. —inhabit principally Transylvania (Unitarians) and parts
*
of Hungary, though a considerable fraction are also left, the rem
nants of once powerful Churches, in Austria proper and Bohemia.
The terrible converting process to which the Hussites and other
Protestant Czechs, or Slavonians of Bohemia, have been subjected
in the fifteenth and seventeenth centuries has led them, of course,
back to the Roman Church, to which it is well known the Poles, or
Slavonians of Galicia, likewise in their great majority belong; and
these two facts, coupled with strong dialectic differences, are of
political importance, as they may go some way towards counteract
ing the machinations by which both the West Slavonians and the
South Slavonians are to be drawn together into what appears to
some enthusiasts-)- a bond of loving brotherhood, but to others the
meshes of the Russian net. In the Tyrol the people are nearly to
a man (and woman) Roman Catholic. Sincerely religious, and a
trifle bigoted, they have even to be weaned by Government from
expressing their dislike of Protestants by the upholding of inadmis
sible restrictions. Under such circumstances, it is natural enough
to expect that considerable regard will still have to be shown to the
Roman Catholic religion by the Austrian Government. But that
government, in unison with the Vienna Reichsrath and the Pesth
Diet, is on the good road to that equality of rights of all religious
* We take these figures as to the number of different Churches from Reden’s
“ Staatshaushalt und Abgabenwesen des Oesterreichischen Kaiserstaats,” Darm
stadt, 1853, pp. 1,024. The numbers of the population there given have, no
doubt, increased since the period to which this very comprehensive work refers,
but the proportions cannot have essentially changed.
f The two ladies, amongst others, Miss Mackenzie and Miss Irby, who have
just published the results of their travels, for which they were prepared by the
Pan-slavist agitators of Prague and Vienna. “The Turks, the Greeks, and the
Slavons. ” Bell & Daldy, 1867, pp. 688.
In this connection may also be mentioned Dr. Humphrey Sandwith’s “Notes
on the South Slavonic Countries, in Austria and Turkey in Europe.” (Black
wood & Sons, 1865, pp. 66.)--The Author knows more about Turkey than
about Austria, but he is willing enough to include, in favour of the Slavonians,
the latter in his condemnation of the former. It is perhaps fair to suppose that,
had he lived to see Austria turning into a new path, his views might have been
modified. Compare also “The Serbian Nation and the Eastern question,” by
Vladimir Yovanovitch. (Bell & Daldy, 1863.) The author is unjust to the
■Turks, quoting against them pretended words of the Koran which he cannot have
read.
�IO
professions which has become, in our days, the unabateable claim—
or, at least, the ideal—of the political philosopher. Let the dead
body of the Concordate be buried out of sight in as decent and
decorous a manner as maybe; its departed spirit will-no longer
vex the soul of any friend of freedom and justice.
III.
The pamphlet which we mentioned at the head of these articles,
and whose title we again cite below, betrays its origin by a number
*
of Germanisms. These occur rather in the manner of viewing and
illustrating matters, than in mere verbal peculiarities, and need
repel no reader. This German, or, we should say, Austrian origin
does, in our eyes, no harm to the value of the mémoire, and we
rather like that this origin should be so manifest to the reader as
almost to lift the pamphlet out of its sphere of anonymous produc
tions, and give it somewhat of the stamp of tangible responsibility.
It is highly desirable that the public should learn more about
Austria from Austrian sources, or from the friends of Austria, and in
this view we were glad to see in the ably conducted new weekly,
The Chronicle, a series of articles proceeding evidently from very
unusual knowledge of the case, and others during the last year in
Macmillan's and the Cornhill, though some of the contributions in
the latter be tinged by the personal disappointments of a minor
diplomatist. What an English author, conversant by a long stay
with Austria, has said of her, is certainly in a great measure true.
“ The chief sources from which we have obtained information
respecting her, have been those inimical to herself. And again
“We were in reality ignorant of her true condition, of her necessi
ties, of her difficult and peculiar position towards her various peoples,
and of the real motives which guided her.”t
This want, then, of more direct information, or, at any rate, of
evidence for the accused, is to some extent supplied in the pamphlet
before us. Not fully ; further elucidations in the same direction
will from time to time become desirable ; and even now it would
help one greatly to get out of a state of bewilderment which so
many attempts at constitutional organisation leave behind, were the
author to draw up a little collection of documents, which at the side
of the historic account would state, as nearly as might be in the
words of the charters and resolutions themselves, the actual condi
tion of things, omitting that which has. been abrogated, and filling
* “Austria, a Constitutional State : a Short Sketch of the Use, Progress, and
Development of Constitutional Life in the Austrian Dominions.” London : Dulau
& Co., Soho Square, 1867.
•¡•“Prussian Aggression and Englands Interests.
London: E. Stanford,
Charing Cross, 1866.
�II
up the picture with such geographical and statistic detail as would,
in such connection, be very welcome to the foreigner.
On this present state of things we will hear our author, premising,
however, that the reader has to represent it to himself as preceded
by these sevenfold successive different conditions.
(a) Before 1848 Absolutism, practically pur et simple on this side
of the Leitha, with an occasional and almost nominal activity of pro
vincial estates unconnected with each other, and totally without
practical influence; but on the other side of the Leitha, the full
activity of [the Hungarian Diet, then simply an oligarchic body, pro
tecting the privileges of the nobility ; Metternich the master.
(p} In Vienna, in Hungary, everywhere, the revolutionary fever of
1848, resulting in much bloodshed, abolition of old rights, aspira
tions after new ones, but practically leaving behind it the great
result of freeing the cultivator of the soil from the remainders of
serfdom; nobody in particular governing, everybody wishing to
govern.
(p) The octroyed constitution of March 4th, 1849; a dead-born
child wishing to grow great by abolishing the authority of Hungary ;
granting centralised parliamentary institutions which never acted ;
a baby Hercules strangling himself with the serpents he wanted to
kill; Baron Bach the nurse.
(ff) After the great catastrophe of 1859, the establishment of the
Reichsrath, or rather its change, or “ enlargement ” by decree
of 5th March, i860, from a Council of State into a semi-parliamen
tarian assembly drawn from the revivified provincial diets, and with
small powers to be exercised by its eighty members, some appointed
by the emperor for life-time, others selected by him out of a list of
candidates, three for each seat, to be proposed by the diets; as
sembly meeting, so constituted, yet demanding financial and other
reforms ; obtaining the change of the character of the Reichsrath
from a consultative into a “ deliberative and consulting ” body.
(Imperial Rescript of 17th July, i860.) Counts Goluchowski and
Rechberg the inefficient soothers of the patient.
(e) The period of the diploma of 20th October, i860, extending
the numbers of the Reichsrath, and especially its functions, re-es
tablishing the Hungarian Parliament, though not yet all its privileges ;
creating a restricted Reichsrath for affairs respecting the Cis and
Transleithan countries ; attempting a reorganisation of the consti
tution of the estates of non-Hungarian crown lands, not without
a good by-taste of feudalism ; steering a middle course between
federalism, that means in Austria the almost complete autonomy,
under feudal leaders, of the single provinces, and centralism, that
is the bureaucratic negation of local individuality ; satisfying no
one, erecting nothing tangible but loud agitation in Hungary, de
claring in unmistakable Magyar, not elsewhere intelligible, that they
would not go to Vienna, happen otherwise what might; the father
and would-be manager of the chaos, Count Goluchowski, a Pole.
(/) Out of which chaos sprung the imperial patent of February
�12
26th, 1861, parliamentary again, interpreting itself as being the fulfil'
ment of the October diploma, and as being its counterpart also ; the
position of Hungary remaining essentially the same; that of the
other provinces being by the influence of German liberals modified,
in a sense unfavourable to the federalistic, feudal, and Slavonic
views ; the constitution of the Reichsrath somewhat assimilated to
the English model, an upper and lower house created, the members
of the lower house no longer nominated by the emperor, but elected
by the provincial diets, which were confined, however, in their
choice of delegates, being bound to elect a certain proportion from
among the supposed representatives of the different interests or
localities, according to a principle on which the provincial estates them
selves were made to rest, and which was not quite an innovation;
*
the new “ Reichsrath”—after the abolition of the old one, restricted
and not restricted—being called together, expecting to be joined by
the Hungarians; Hungarians declining, as usual, won’t go anywhere,
stand by Pragmatic Sanction ; Reichsrath turned into a special and
restricted Reichsrath, meaning this time for the treatment of all
non-Hungarian affairs ; this, in all essentials still, or again, the new
constitution, auctore Chevalier Von Schmerling ; Reichsrath meeting
now, 1867, again, but no longer expecting Hungarians. But this is
anticipating—
(o) The Hungarians still standing out, not coming to Vienna,
though Transylvania, that is, the non-Magyar portion thereof—
Germans and Roumains—did send deputies, the Reichsrath at
Vienna gained indeed control over the finances (not sufficient to
end the financial troubles), and the principle of ministerial responsibilityf—the former of which principles the Prussian Chamber has
* At the same time each crown-land was furnished with special regulations in
respect to the number of representatives, and the mode of their election by the
different classes of electors ; the boundaries of the country districts being carefully
defined. The various classes of electors were divided into three categories :—1st.
The large landed proprietors. 2nd. Citizens of towns and market-places, inclu
ding members of the Chambers of Commerce. 3rd. Inhabitants of country
districts, including voters in their own right having a so-called votum virile. The
two first categories were direct voters, the third category were indirect voters ;
they had to choose a voter for every 500 inhabitants. Thus many citizens were
entitled to a double vote; as, for instance, a member of the Chamber of Com
merce could vote in that capacity as well as in that of a ratepayer, so that already
a greater regard was paid to the principle of the “representation of interests”
than “ class'representation,” as was formerly the case. Taking the diet of Lower
Austria as an example, we find it composed of two ecclesiastics (the Archbishop
of Vienna and the Bishop of St. Polten), the rector of the university, fifteen depu
ties from among the large landowners, twenty-four from towns and market-places,
four from the Chamber of Commerce, and twenty from the country districts.
The qualification for an elector of the first category was the payment of 200 florins
annually in direct taxes. For the second category, 20 florins in Vienna and
10 florins in the other towns. Members of the Chambers of Commerce, clergy
men, professors, and officials, were voters without regard to the payment of
taxes^n
of May, then, Minister von Schmerling declared himself authorised
to inform the members of both Houses that the declaration made in the House of
Representatives on the 2nd of July, 1861, by the ministry to hold themselves
�13
just lost by means of the North German Bismarkian hoax, while she
could never gain the latter—and thus, already five years ago, a
French writer could say, and be reprimanded for it, that there was
more liberty in Austria than in France. But neither the State in
her integrity, nor the government itself, nor the advantages gained
by the liberal party, could gain consistency and duration, while the
Hungarians, allying national with aristocratic feeling, and with whom
for a while the Slavonians, both feudal and generally destructive,
joined, continued to stand out, deaf to every consideration but those
drawn from their own valuable privileges. As to the rejection of the
proffered gifts, there was no doubt among them, they divided only
whether they should reject them by an address to the emperor—
or rather king—or should pass them by with a resolution. The
speech of Dedk, the great leader of the moderates, will be long
remembered, and is noteworthy as containing the substance of the
Hungarian grievances against Austria (13th May, 1861).
“In former times,” he said, “the disputes between the sovereign and the
Hungarian nation arose from two parties giving different interpretations to the
laws, the validity of which was recognised by both. At present the Austrian
government is trying to force Hungary to accept a constitution as a boon, in lieu
of those fundamental laws to which she is so warmly attached. On the side of
Hungary are right and justice, on the other side is physical force. During the
last twelve years we have suffered grievous wrongs. The constitution which we
inherited from our forefathers was taken from us; we were governed in an
absolute way, and patriotism was considered crime.
Suddenly his majesty
resolved‘to enter the path of constitutionalism,’ and the diploma of the 20th
of October, i860, appeared. That document encroaches on our constitutional
independence, inasmuch as it transfers to a foreign assembly (the Reichsrath) the
right to grant the supplies of money and men, and makes the Hungarian government dependent on the Austrian, which is not responsible for its acts. If
Hungary accepted the diploma of the 26th October, she would be an Austrian
province.. The policy of the Austrian government is a direct violation of the
Pragmatic Sanction, the fundamental treaty which the Hungarian nation in 1723
concluded with the reigning family.* We must therefore solemnly declare that
*
responsible to the Reichsrath for the maintenance of the Constitution and for the
exact fulfilment of the laws, had been given with the express sanction of the
emperor ; that his majesty had consented to the principle of ministerial responsi
bility ; and that the decree of the 20th of August, 1851, enacting that the ministry
should be responsible solely and exclusively to the monarch, had been revoked.
With this declaration another corner-stone was inserted in the constitutional
edifice which considerably strengthened the moral power and authority of the
House.
7
* The Pragmatic Sanction is the fundamental political contract with respect
to the succession to the throne which the Hungarian nation in 1723 concluded
with the King, of Hungary, the ancestor of the present reigning family. The
Hungarian nation gave the female line of the Hapsburgs the right to reign in
Hungary on condition that the future sovereigns of that line should govern accord
ing to the existing laws of the country, or according to the laws which might in
future be made. The Emperor Joseph II., who was never crowned in Hungary
governed that kingdom absolutely; but its inhabitants never recognised him as
their lawful sovereign. Maria Theresa was the first “king” who in virtue of
the Pragmatic Sanction ascended the throne of Hungary, and she faithfully ful
filled the conditions of that bilateral treaty. Leopold II., the second Hungarian
king, who ascended the throne on the death of Joseph II., signed an inaugural
diploma, took the usual coronation oath, and, besides, sanctioned the 10th
�i4
we insist on the restoration of our constitutional independence and self-govern
ment, which we consider the fundamental principles of our national existence.
We can on no account allow the right to vote the supplies of money and men to
be taken from us. We will not make laws for other countries and will share our
right to legislate for Hungary with no one but the king. . . We will neither
send deputies' to the present Reichsrath nor take any share in the representation
of the empire.” At a subsequent sitting of the Hungarian Diet, Count Julius
Andrassy (now Hungarian minister), made a still more determined speech in
defence of Hungarian independence. ‘ ‘ The nationalities inhabiting the empire,
he said, “ must choose between centralization and federation. Centralization and
absolutism must necessarily go hand in hand. If the principle of duality is
recognised, and Austria has a free constitution, a union between the empire and
Hungary may easily be effected. The Hungarian nation refuses to have anything
to do with the promulgated constitution of the 26th of February. The position
of Austria as a great power is better secured by the principles of duality than by
the principles of unity. The Hungarians will continue to insist on the restoration
of the laws of 1848.”
IV.
The Radical-Magyar party had insisted and carried that the title of
“ Imperial Royal ” should not be given in the address to the king,
who was simply called i£ your majesty,” consistently with the Magyar
doctrine, which did not admit the validity of his predecessor s abdi
cation, and the present emperor’s accession, and with the Hungairan axiom, Princefs est qui jurat, qui jurata serz'ctt et qui coronatus
esl, an axiom which is worthy of a free nation, and pleasing to an
imaginative one.
With a royal rescript, dated the 3°th Julie> the address was
returned—
“We consider it to be our first duty,” said the emperor m this rescript, “ in
order to preserve the humble respect that is due to our royal person and our royal
hereditary rights-a respect which the throne and its dignity demand by good
right, and which has been set aside in this address of the States and representa
tives by their discarding the forms legally used, to reject the address which, in
violation of the royal prerogatives, is not addressed to the hereditary King of
Hungary.”
The Hungarian Parliament gave way on this point, and the form of
the address in which it had been proposed by Deak being restored, it
was adopted unanimously, and received by the emperor from the
Article of the Laws of 1790, which guaranteed to Hungary all her constitutional
rights and privileges. Francis I., in his inaugural diploma, guaranteed the
maintenance1 of the rights, liberties, and laws of the nation, and m the 33rd year
S his reign (1825) hi solemnly recognised the validity of the above-mentioned
both Ardfle of the Laws of /790. King Ferdinand V. (the ex-Emperor Ferdi
nand I., of Austria) gave similar guarantees in his mauguial diploma, and
besides sanctioned the Laws of 1848. The male line of the Hapsburgs was
extinct in 1740 (Charles VI. died in that year), and Hungary would have been at
liberty to elect her own king had not the Pragmatic Sanction been concluded m
1723 7 By the Pragmatic Sanction Hungary and. Austria aie united m the
“person” of the sovereign, but there is no trace in the Hungarian laws of a
“real” union between the two countries.
�*5
hands of the two presidents. Our author summarises as follows the
answer which, after some wrangling between the October men and
the February men'—distinctions little observable from here and at
this time—was given by Minister Schmerling’s advice :—
The emperor does not insist on amalgamation, and grants internal autonomous
administration, but requires dynastic, military, diplomatic, and financial unity
with the rest of the empire. . . The emperor will spontaneously restore the
Hungarian Constitution under the conditions necessary to the development of the
whole empire. He recognises the laws of 1848, concerning the abolition of the
privileges of the nobles, the corvées and feudal burdens, the general admissibility
to public employments and to the possession of landed property—that relating to
the electoral rights of the lower classes ; but he cannot sanction the laws of 1848,
which are hostile to the rights of the non-Magyar population of the Hungarian
counties and to the Pragmatic Sanction, and must be modified before the negotia
tions are entered into about the Coronation Diploma. The Diet is requested to
bestow its attention upon this revision; it is besides requested to send provisionally
deputies to the present sittings of the council of the empire—according to the
fundamental law of the 26th of February—in order to protect the influence of the
country upon the general affairs which are to be debated and settled in the course
of August.
The answer of the Hungarians was so energetic and thorough a
11 non possumus " that the pope might have envied it. Received
with much emotion, the Imperial rescript was handed for reply to
Deàk, who produced a voluminous document, asserting with great
judicial knowledge the rights of Hungary, declaring to “hold fast
the constitutional independence of the country and the Pragmatic
Sanction, without any exception whatever,” and rejecting the Impe
rial Diploma of October i860, and the intended application to
Hungary of the patent of the 26th of February, 1861; solemnly
protesting “ against the exercise on the part of the Reichsrath of any
legislative or other power in regard to Hungary,” and reiterating the
declaration “that they will not send any representatives to the
Reichsrath, whose acts and ordinances referring to Hungary, or its
annexed parts, must be regarded as unconstitutional and not
binding.” Received with rapturous approval, the proposed address
was immediately adopted in the Lower House by an immense
majority, in the Upper House unanimously and without any
alteration.
The emperor’s unfavourable reply was followed by many resigna
tions of high Hungarian officials.
“On the 22nd of August the royal rescript, dated the 21st,
decreeing its dissolution, was read in the Diet. The plan of opposi
tion adopted by the Hungarians was that of passive resistance by
the non-payment of taxes. In consequence of this, and in order to
quell the demonstration of the comitats, the committee meetings of
the latter were closed by the military. General Count Palffy was
appointed Governor of Hungary, the country placed under martial
law, and a sort, of military dictatorship established. Soldiers were
billeted on the inhabitants, the taxes were sullenly paid, but no out
break occurred, although the feeling of discontent was stronger than
�i6
ever. In an autograph letter the emperor made known his intention
of restoring the Hungarian Constitution, promising at the same time
to keep intact the rights and liberties of the people, and to convoke
the Diet and the municipalities of the kingdom in accordance with
the terms of the October Diploma; but the six months within which
the Diet was to be re-convoked passed without any change being
made in the situation. The Cabinet of Vienna determined to break
the spirit of the nation by applying to the countries beyond the
Leitha the worst maxims of the Bach period. The passive resist
ance of the Hungarians, however, continued up to the time of the
reconciliation effected by Baron von Beust’s ministry.”
Under such circumstances, the Vienna “ Reichsrath ” and the
constitutional laws establishing it could not, as we have observed, gain
much consistency. In vain the emperor, struggling against the
resisting force of circumstances and men, spoke to his Vienna
Parliament these solemn words—
I consider it to be my duty to my peoples to declare the General Constitution
in accordance with the diploma of the 20th of October, i860, and with the
fundamental laws of the 26th of February, 1861, to be the “ inviolable foundation
of my united and indivisible empire,” and I on this solemn occasion swear
faithfully to observe it and to protect it with my sovereign power, and I am
firmly resolved energetically to oppose any violation of the same, as I shall
consider it as an attack on the existence of the monarchy, and on the rights of all
my countries and peoples.
The Slavonic agitation increased these difficulties, thus resumed
by our author :—“ Owing to the agitation prevailing in Hungary,
the issue of writs for new elections, as prescribed by the Patent of
26th February, 1861, could not have led to any result. Conse
quently, of the 343 members who ought to have attended, 85
deputies of Hungary were absent from the Reichsrath; so were,
from analogous reasons, the 9 deputies from Croatia and Slavonia,
and the 20 Lombardo-Venetians, and even of the remaining 203
members of the Germano-Slavonian provinces all were not present.
The Reichsrath thus lost much of its importance and its influence,
because it represented only those countries the affairs of which
belonged to the sphere of the restricted Reichsrath, and as such it
was also shortly after regarded by the Government. By strict right
this assembly was incompetent, especially in regard to financial
matters, which could only be legally and constitutionally settled by
the co-operation of a complete Reichsrath in which all the kingdoms
and countries of the empire were fully represented.”
At last, on the occasion of a visit of the emperor to Pesth, in the
winter of 1864-65, a journey which he is said to have undertaken con
trary to the wish of his ministers, signs of the feasibility of an arrange
ment with the Hungarians appeared. Schmerling had thought, we
know not on what ground, that only with Ultra Liberals of Hungary,
was such an arrangement possible. But the Conservative Count
Majlath was named chancellor. The Conservatives and moderate
Liberals together inclined to a compromise.
�Il
“ Ever since the dissolution of the Hungarian Diet,” says our
author, “and the retirement of Vay and Szesen, close relations had
been kept up between the Hungarian Old Conservatives and the
Federalist section of the Reichsrath. They showed, on the other
hand, great attention to Francis Deák, and endeavoured to come to
an understanding with him as a leader of the moderate Hungarian
Liberals. About Easter, 1865, a highly conciliatory article appeared
in his organ at Pesth, which was speedily followed by three letters
from Pesth, published in the Debaite, setting forth authoritatively the
programme of the moderate Hungarian Liberals. The Debatte,
speaking in the interest of the Old Conservatives, claimed for these
letters a careful and candid perusal, which they obtained from a very
wide circle, and so contributed materially to prepare the way for a
reconciliation. The principal points laid down in those letters were
that without the retirement of M. von Schmerling no good under
standing between Hungary and Vienna could be dreamt of, and
that Deák and his friends were generally in favour of a conciliatory
policy. They then pointed out that the Hungarians took their stand
upon the Pragmatic Sanction, and that to leave so firm a standing
ground would be impossible. The leading principles enunciated by
the writer were, that a central parliament was impossible; that a
separate Hungarian ministry was indispensable; and that the
countries east and west of the Leitha must be considered as two
aggregations of lands having a parity of rights.”
But it was thought that no compromise could be effected while the
Vienna Reichsrath, with its claim to comprise all parts of the
monarchy, was in activity. An Imperial “patent,” of September
20, 1865, suspended its activity. From this lengthy document we
will quote the concluding passages—
Until the fundamental laws of the different provinces are brought into accord,
the great and promising idea of a general and constitutional representation of
the empire cannot be properly realised.
In order to redeem my imperial promise, and to avoid sacrificing the reality to
the form, I shall endeavour to come to an understanding with the legal repre
sentatives of my peoples in the Eastern parts of the empire, and shall propose to the
Hungarian and Croatian Diets to accept the diploma of the 20th of October,
i860, and the fundamental law relative to the representation of the empire, which
was published with the patent of 26th February, 1861.
. It being legally impossible to make one and the same ordinance an object of
discussion in the one part of the empire, while it is recognised as a binding law in
the other parts, I am compelled to suspend the law relative to the representation
of the.empire, at the same time especially declaring that I reserve to myself the
right, before I come to a decision, of submitting to the legal representatives of my
other kingdoms and countries, whose opinions will receive the consideration due
to them, the results of my negotiations with the representative bodies of the
Eastern kingdoms, should they be in accordance with the law which provides for
the maintenance of the unity, power, and influence of the empire.
I regret that this measure, which is absolutely necessary, will lead to an inter
ruption of the constitutional action of the lesser Reichsrath, but the organic con
nection and equal value of the various parts of the fundamental law, on which is
based the action of the Reichsrath, renders it impossible that one part of it can be
jn force while the other is in abeyance.
C
�i8
Previous to this, Chevalier Schmerling had been replaced as head
of the Austrian Cabinet by Count Belcredi, the friend of the Slavonic
federalists.
The considerations of the compromise with Hungary and the
representation of Parliamentary life in Austria we must reserve for
our next article.
V.
In our preceding article we brought the history of the Austrian
constitution and the re-establishment of the Hungarian institutions
down _ to the appointment of Count Belcredi, and the issue of the
imperial patent of September 20th, 1865, by which the exercise of
the Austrian constitution of October, i860, and February, 1861,
was suspended until it could be, after due constitutional delibera
tion, accepted by the Hungarian Diet.
A doubt is allowed whether this step was so “ absolutely neces
sary ” as the imperial patent declared it to be. It certainly was far
from being considered so by a great part of the people, and a great
number of leading politicians. It gave very great satisfaction, no
doubt, to the Czechs of Bohemia, who knew the presiding minister,
Count Belcredi, to be favourable to their particularist tendencies,
and who promised to themselves all sorts of successes as the result
of the new discussions into which the as yet new-born constitutional
life of Austria was to be drawn. A similar feeling existed in Galicia,
the Poles for once finding themselves on common Slavonic ground
with the Bohemian Czechs.
*
An assembly of German deputies at Vienna, in October, expressed
* By no means a common thing. The Poles find as little sympathy among the
Czechs as do the Germans or the Hungarians. Some valuable testimony to that
effect has just been offered to the English public : a well-informed writer in the
Westminster Review for October, who looks forward to the destruction of Austria
in the interest of the Slavons, and who, in his dislike to Germans and Magyars,
almost lifts the visor of anonymity, to show a Russian countenance, says of the
Poles:—“Whose last insane insurrection, we may say in passing, the Czech
politicians from the first condemned ” (W. R., vol. Ixiv., new series, p. 454). Such a
passage is worth volumes of writing and hours of talk ; it shows at once the great
necessity, on which we have before insisted, of Germans and Hungarians standing
firmly together, in view of the threatened Slavonic upheaving, whilst sharing in a
spirit of justice all civil freedom with their fellow subjects. Yet so much was it
the fashion but a few months ago in English liberal circles to greet with a welcome
any movement hostile to Austria, that a very well-meaning man, while the
Hungarian difficulty was not yet quite decided, said to the present writer that
“ the Hungarians ought to make common cause with the Czechs against Austria.’’
Any combination, however impossible or unnatural, was wished for or welcomed
which would seem to lead forces against the German civilising element. And as
yet it is hardly acknowledged that it is by the Austria of to-day that the Poles
receive the fairest measure, while oppressing Prussia is extolled, and oppressing
Russia ogled with.
�19
themselves unanimously against the suspension of the constitution,
and when the different provincial diets were convoked, for their
action was not suspended, it became clear that the step which Count
Belcredi had caused the emperor to take was by no means generally
approved on this side of the Leitha. Seven of them, representing a
population of about four and a half millions, expressed, either in
resolutions or addresses, dissatisfaction with the September Act,
which dissatisfaction was most decidedly pronounced in the ad
dresses of the Diets of Lower Austria and Vorarlberg. That of the
latter was couched in such violent and disrespectful language that it
was not received by the crown. The Diets of Galicia, the Bukowina,
Bohemia, and of the seaboards of Istria, Trieste, etc., acted quite
contrary to the former, and voted addresses expressing gratitude for
the September manifesto. The Diet of Dalmatia likewise voted an
address approving of it, but regretting the suspension of the Reichsrath. In the Diets of Moravia and Carniola, neither motions nor
addresses to express thanks or dissatisfaction were carried. The
Diet of Tyrol did not enter into any discussion of the September
manifesto. It simply received it in silence. The diets (including
Dalmatia) which in their addresses to the throne expressed approval
of the September Act, represented a population of upwards of ten
and a half millions.
The “ silence ” of the Tyrol Diet is not a little significant. It
was bought by Count Belcredi making concessions to the bigoted
feeling which pervades too much the otherwise excellent population
of that interesting country. Baron Schmerling had at last ordered
—what was but a long over-due fulfilment of a privilege conferred
by the constitution of the German Confederation, of which the
Tyrol formed a part—that Protestants had a right to acquire landed
property and settlement in that Catholic country. Count Belcredi
supplemented or interpreted this declaration so as to forbid the
formation of Protestant communities, unless the consent, in every
case, of both the government and the diet could be obtained, and
he exemplified his meaning by refusing permission to the Protestants
of Meran to constitute themselves as a community. By such acts,
and by the favour shown in Bohemia to the Czechian language over
the German, the language of the intelligent and industrious minority,
the presiding minister showed that he looked for his support to the
feudal chiefs, the Slavonic populations, the Ultramontane priests.
With all that, he was not prepared to make to the Hungarians the
large sacrifices which they required ; and the suspension of the
constitution, effected, it was said, to render an agreement with
Hungary more possible, gave hardly more satisfaction on the other
side of the Leitha than on this. The Hungarian press even regretted
the suspension of the activity of the “ restricted Reichsrath,” which
ought to have continued its activity while the négociations with
Hungary were being carried on. And indeed the argument in the
imperial rescript as to its “ being legally impossible to make one
and the same ordinance an object for discussion in the one part of
c 2.
�20
the empire, while it is recognised as a binding law in the other
parts,” seems to us but to be a narrow and pedantic lawyer’s view.
The restricted or lesser Reichsrath might, it still appears to us, have
further transacted the business of the non-Hungarian countries.
The .emperor’s advisers had, however, as we have shown, prevailed
on him to declare that “ the organic connection and equal value of
the various parts of the fundamental law, on which is based the
action of the Reichsrath, renders it impossible that one part of it
can be in force while the other is in abeyance.” But even this kind
of homage paid to the Hungarians by temporarily suspending for
their sake the recently acquired constitutional rights of the non
Hungarian populations, failed to conciliate the proud Magyars, deaf
at that time to any consideration drawn from the general weal of the
empire, and bent exclusively on the re-establishment of their pecu
liar institutions and practical independence. Count Belcredi, how
ever, by no means meant to go the length of their desires, and they
by no means meant to accept the diploma of October, i860, and
February, 1861, even though they were no longer to be imposed on
them, but submitted to their discussion and approval. “No com
mon representation at Vienna” continued to be their battle-cry,
after their Parliament had been restored as well as before. They
simply continued to demand their own constitutional liberties, from
which demand they knew not to separate the other of having the
partes annexes, especially the unwilling Croatia, and the but halfwilling Transylvania, restored to their control; showing again that
curious compound of love of freedom for themselves and of dominion
over others which, we fear, is a characteristic of the Magyar race.
These demands, the “ Continuity of Rights,” and the “ territorial
integrity of the Crown of St. Stephen,” were formulated in extra
parliamentarian conference at Pesth, November 11, and the imperial
government showed compliance at once with the second demand
while it prepared itself partially to give way to the first; the direction
of the public mind in Hungary passing in the meanwhile more and
more from the hands of the Old-Conservative party, on whose sup
port the emperor had counted, and one of whose chiefs, Count
Majlath, had found a place in the ministry, into that of M. Deak
and the stern defenders of Hungarian constitutional doctrine. On
December 14, 1865, the Hungarian Diet was opened at Pesth by
the emperor. In the conciliatory speech from the throne, he said
that a contradiction existed between the view of some Austrian states
men, who asserted that Hungary had forfeited all her constitutional
rights by the insurrection of 1848-49, and the claim of the Hunga
rians to have all reform carried out on the basis of historical rights.
This contradiction could only be reconciled by the Pragmatic
Sanction, which both parties had taken as their point of departure.
He recognised the necessity of the self-government of Hungary, so
far as it did not affect the unity of the empire and the position of
Austria as a great power. He wished to re-establish the integrity of
the Hungarian crown, and, in order to effect this, steps had been
�21
taken that Transylvania and Croatia should be represented in the
Diet at Pesth.
The first task before the Diet was to take into consideration those
questions which concerned all the provinces. The emperor wished
the Diet to keep in view, as their principal aim, the unity of the
empire and the position of Austria as a great power.
The second object of the Diet was to be the revision of the laws
of 1848, which had to be modified, since they were incompatible,
not only with the unity of the empire, but also with the rights of the
sovereign.
After these questions the Diet was to discuss the programme of
the coronation of the Emperor of Austria as King of Hungary. He
hoped that the confidence between the nation and the king would
be increased, and that the great work of discentralising Austria and
Hungary would give satisfaction to all the nationalities composing
the empire.
Thus the royal speech set aside for ever that dangerous doctrine
which had occasioned so much bitterness and rendered all sincere
understanding impossible—the doctrine of the “ forfeiture of rights ”
—choosing as a starting point the mutually admitted basis of the
Pragmatic Sanction. The emperor recognised in his speech the
political and autonomous independence of Hungary and its depen
dencies, and declared that the crown would keep intact all clauses
of that compact referring to the integrity of the Hungarian crown,
laying particular stress, however, on the requirements of the empire
as a great power, and on the necessity for a combined constitutional
management of those affairs which concerned the whole realm.
Upon this clear legal foundation the pending political questions had
to be settled.
The draught of the address in reply to the emperor’s speech from
the throne did not come on for discussion in the Lower House of
the Diet until the month of February, 1866. Like M. Deák’s
addresses of 1861, it was very firm in tone. It contained 58 long
paragraphs and was remarkably loyal, expressing confidence in the
sovereign, and congratulating his majesty on the constitutional senti
ments contained in the speech from the throne and his recognition
of the continuity of rights. But it pleaded for the letter of the law
as regarded the old constitution. It rejected the October Diploma
and the February Patent as bases of negotiation, and expressed
great satisfaction that the monarch had acknowledged the Pragmatic
Sanction as the point of departure, pointing out that the safety of
Austria and the independence of Hungary were not antagonistic. It
announced that a special bill would be prepared for the settlement
of matters common to Hungary and the rest of the monarchy, and
declared the. readiness of the Diet to negotiate with the other
provinces while reserving the independence of each. It stated that
it was the desire of the Diet to bring about the real restoration of
the constitution, and expressed a hope that his majesty would
speedily be crowned as King of Hungary. It thanked his majesty
�22
for having summoned the Croatian and Transylvanian deputies to
the Diet at Pesth, and demanded that the Hungarian crown should
be fully reintegrated by the reincorporation of Dalmatia and Fiume
with Hungary. It solicited an amnesty for political offenders, and
demanded the re-establishment of municipal autonomy and the nomi
nation of a Hungarian ministry. There were other passages in the
address which seemed intended to admit of compromise, particularly
as to the necessary unity in the treatment of affairs common to the
whole empire. The draught of the address was adopted almost
unanimously.
The Upper House was not satisfied with the address voted by the
Lower House, and the magnates decided by a majority of 83 (136
against 53) to present a separate address, which, however, in prin
ciple coincided with that of the Lower House.
On February 27, deputations from both Houses presented addresses
to the emperor at Ofen. In reply his majesty said, he hoped the
magnates, faithful to their traditional mission, would throw the whole
weight of their wisdom and impartiality into the scale for the reali
sation of his paternal intentions, and that the Lower House would
follow the course pointed out in the speech from the throne, in order
to combine the attainment of their own constitutional rights with
an arrangement equally satisfactory to the other nationalities. His
majesty then abruptly left the audience room, and the deputation
withdrew in surprise without pronouncing the usual Eljens.
On the 28th February, M. Deâk moved in the Lower House at
Pesth the appointment of a commission of 67 members (52 Hunga
rians and 15 Transylvanians) to arrange the mode of treating the
affairs common to Hungary and Austria, thus taking the first step
towards arriving at an understanding.
A few days afterwards, on the 3rd of March, an imperial rescript
in reply to the addresses of both Houses was read in the Diet, in
which the emperor expressed his satisfaction at the acknowledgment
made by the Diet that certain affairs were common to Hungary and
Austria j he also said he expected that further négociations would
lead the Diet to acknowledge the necessity for a revision of the laws
passed in 1848. The rescript then stated that the 3rd Article of
the Laws of 1848, establishing a separate ministry for Hungary,
could not be maintained consistently with a proper treatment of
common affairs, and that Article 4 of the Laws of 1848, stipulating
that the Diet could not be dissolved by the government before the
budget had been voted, could not be carried out. The rescript
further announced that an immediate re-establishment of the
Comitates was impossible, and finally referred to the laws of the
year just mentioned, relative to the National Guard, in which body
the emperor thought some modifications necessary. In conclusion,
his majesty repeated that the re-establishment of the laws of 1848
was impossible without their previous revision.
This rescript, which left the hopes of the Hungarians unfulfilled,
gave rise to another address of both Houses of the Diet, deploring
�23
not only the rejection of all their requests, but also the suspension,
of those laws which required no modification. It stated that if his
majesty did not intend an absolute government, a constitutional
state of affairs must be practically re-established. The various points
of the imperial rescript were controverted in these addresses, and
the re-establishment of a parliamentary and legal municipal govern
ment again demanded. Hungary, it was stated, required a real
constitutional rule, the establishment of which was by no means a
political impossibility.
This address was unanimously adopted by the Lower House, but
by the Upper House with the very small majority of only 106 against
102 votes. On the 26th of April the address was received by the
emperor, who expressed a hope that the Diet would accelerate the
arrangement of those matters upon which depended the tranquillity,
power, and prosperity of the whole monarchy as well as of Hungary.
This was the position of the constitutional struggle when the war
with Prussia and Italy broke out. With the beginning of the
fighting, June 27th, the Diet of Pesth was prorogued, and Austria,
on this side of the Leitha and on that, was without any parliamentary
activity when the terrible crush of Sadowa fell on her, and Austria’s
difficulty became Hungary’s opportunity.
VL
Whether, and how much, the appearance on the theatre of war
of a Hungarian legion under General Klapka, in the service of
Prussia, and the rumours of a Prussian prince offering himself as a
candidate for the Hungarian crown, had to do with disposing the
Austrian government to large concessions to Hungary, we are not
in a position to decide. . On the whole, we are inclined to think
that the influence of these facts, though not null, was not consider
able. The legion, even on paper, never surpassed 4,000 men j and
it did not get into actual conflict. Whether it would have been in
creased from out of the ranks of the army, and whether there was
any party prepared to accept the offer, never formally made, of the
Prussian prince, remains doubtful. Still, both circumstances might
appear ominous storm-signals, and should not be passed over in
even this succinct account of constitutional struggles in the Austrian
*
monarchy.
But what became of immediate importance, was a conference of
the principal members of the Hungarian Lower House, held at
the house of Baron Kemengi in Pesth, while yet the question was
undecided whether Vienna should be defended against the Prussian
* The author of “ Austria, a Constitutional State,’’ mentions neither circum
stance.
�24
hosts. In the name of his colleagues, M. Deak published on July
17, 1866, their sentiments, which under the force of circumstances,
became, not disloyal, but most grave demands. {i A considerable
part of the country,” said M. Deak, in the Pesti Naplo, “ is inun
dated by hostile armies ; only Hungary is yet free. But Hungary
is dead. If not everything, at least much can be done with Hun
gary. Still, by herself, she can do nothing, for her hands are bound.
What alone can make them free and breathe life into her is a par
liamentary government. If Hungary can yet do anything for the
monarchy, it will be when her liberty of action has been restored to
her, when a government is placed over her which is the emanation
of the national will, in which the nation finds a guarantee of its
territory and its rights.”
.On the next day, July 18, the patriotic leaders were negotiating
with the government at Vienna respecting the concession of a
ministry for Hungary.
During this critical time, the municipalities of Vienna, Salzburg,
Glatz, etc., petitioned the emperor to convoke the Reichsrath and
to put again in force the February Constitution, but, instead of
granting their wishes, martial law was proclaimed at Vienna in order
to prevent discussion of the internal condition of the empire. When
peace was concluded, numerous meetings of deputies from the
German provinces took place, at Aussee, in Styria, and at Vienna
they declared themselves in favour of the system of dualism, with a
joint parliamentary treatment of the common affairs, but against all
federalistic tendencies, as well as against the conclusion of a com
promise with Hungary made by the separate Diets of the different
countries, since such a compromise was only admissible through the
united representation of the countries of the monarchy not linked
with the Hungarian crown.
At length, on October 14, the emperor convoked all the provin
cial Diets for November 16, with the exception of those of Hungary
and Transylvania ; the former of which, however, was likewise con
voked on October 30, to meet on the same day at Pesth.
On the same October 30, an important change took place in the
councils of the emperor. Count Mensdorf resigned the portfolio
of the foreign affairs, which passed into the hands of Baron Beust,
until then minister of Austria’s faithful ally, the King of Saxony.
At the same time, the Hungarian Count Maurice Esterhazy, who
passed as the representative of a reactionary policy, left the cabinet.
The helm of affairs was, however, intrusted to Count Belcredi, who
continued secretary for home affairs, and his tendencies, which wre
have before characterised as Slavophile, to which we might have
added bureaucratic, swayed for a while longer the general course of
the constitutional question, on which as yet Baron Beust could
exercise but little influence.
These changes were considered not sufficiently thorough ; they
awakened not the full measure of confidence required. The Diets
resumed their sessions with discordant recriminations, and, as before,
�25
Centralists, Dualists, and Federalists uttered their watchwords unharmoniously, barrenly.
Even the Hungarian Diet was not satisfied, though much was done
to meet half-way the demands of the nation. The emperor-king,
by a rescript to the Diet, of November 17, declared that in resuming
the thread of negotiations with the Diet, on the basis of the terms
mentioned in the last speech from the throne, the principal object
to be accomplished was the constitutional settlement of the connec
tion of the different parts of the monarchy, and the speedy re
establishment of the autonomous rights of Hungary. The emperor
regretted the prorogation of the Diet just at the time when the Sub
Committee of the Commission of 67 * had drawn up a project with
reference to the discussion and the treatment of common affairs,
which his majesty recognised as a fitting basis for the establishment
of the constitutional compromise.
The rescript also indicated
points as to which it appeared requisite that the special attention
of the representatives should be directed, the maintenance of the
unity of the army with unity of command, its organisation, and also
the rules regulating the terms of service and recruitment. The
regulation, according to uniform principles, of the customs, of the
indirect taxation, of the State monopoly system, and of the public
debt and State credit. “ If,” continued the rescript, “ the delibera
tions of the Diet succeed in removing the obstacles connected with
the unity of the monarchy, which must be upheld, then the con
stitutional wishes and demands of Hungary put forward in the
addresses of the Diet will be fulfilled by the appointment of a re
sponsible ministry, and by the restoration of municipal autonomy.
The system of the responsibility of the government will be intro
duced not only in Hungary but in all parts of the monarchy. The
detailed application and realisation of the principles referring to
common affairs, as well as to modifications to be introduced in the
laws of .1848, will be carried out through responsible ministers, to
be appointed in agreement with the estates and representatives in
Diet assembled.”
. In conclusion, the rescript expressed a hope that the Diet would
give its serious attention to these subjects with due regard to the
requirements of. the day, thereby accelerating the secure establish
ment of a constitutional organisation throughout the whole realm.
Thus, the country, after a struggle of 19 years, stood at last upon
the threshold of the fulfilment of its wishes.
But the Hungarians demanded the full measure of their right, and
an unconditional surrender preceding any requisite modification
of their constitution or the laws of 1848, which modifications they
showed themselves willing to introduce after having gained their
legal point.
On the motion of M. Dedk it was decided in the Lower House,
by 227 against 107 votes, to reply by an address to the royal
* This means not a Committee appointed in 1867, but one consisting of 67
members.
�26
rescript of the 17th of November, which had not been able to allay
the apprehensions entertained by Hungary, notwithstanding the
promises and the acknowledgments of the national rights contained
therein, since the request of the Diet for an immediate and complete
re-establishment of the constitution had not been complied with.
The address, while drawing attention to the dangers arising from
disunion at home and complications abroad, which might happen
by some unforeseen incident, contained a request to his majesty to
grant to the Diet means and opportunities for effecting a satisfactory
compromise, and also the prayer not to render reconciliation impos
sible by postponing the re-establishment of a legal basis for public
affairs. It also promised to consider the question of common
affairs as the committee of 67 should have brought forward their
report, and the Diet were in a position to pass resolutions in refe
rence thereto having the force of law. It also asked that those
persons upon whom penal sentences had been passed, or who were
exiled for political offences, should be amnestied, and expressed
great satisfaction that the emperor intended to introduce in his
other provinces also the principle of ministerial responsibility.
There was then a dead lock; the emperor demanding first the
modification of the laws before their re-establishment, the Hunga
rians requiring first their re-establishment before they could be
modified.
Meanwhile, voices friendly to Hungary were heard from the
German constitutionalists in the Diets of the Crown lands on this
side of the Leitha.
“ The Diet,” says the Carinthian address, “ firmly adheres to the
legal continuity of the Constitution of the 26th of February, 1861,
and has the conviction that it will not be an impediment to an
arrangement with Hungary, because all alterations which do not
affect the existence of the empire as a whole can be effected in a
constitutional manner, and because the interests of the western
countries offer no impediment to the recognition of the autonomy
of Hungary in those points which are not necessarily common to the
whole State. The joint parliamentary settlement of the common
affairs, with a responsible ministry, is not only an indispensable
preliminary condition for the constitutional liberty of the empire,
but also an absolute necessity for its continuance. Without any
further delay a parliamentary government must undertake, with the
support of the constitutional co-operation of the Reichsrath, to call
into life such an organisation and such public institutions as will
secure personal as well as civil and political liberty, and by a
popular and economical government promote and durably establish
the prosperity of the country.”
At last Baron von Beust, accompanied by the Hungarian Court
Chancellor, paid a visit to Pesth, conferring with the leading men
of the country, with a view to an immediate settlement. Personal
contact went far to smooth the way to such consummation. Yet the
step immediately following gave little satisfaction. Baron Beust had
�27
gained an influence over and above that belonging to his department
of foreign affairs, as his chief was still Count Belcredi. A compro
mise of their views seemed to be found in the convocation of an
extraordinary Reichsrath. The government resolved not to summon
the late members, but to proceed to new elections. Consequently,
by an imperial patent, dated 2nd January, 1867, the Diets of the
crown lands on this side of the Leitha were dissolved and new
elections to those Diets ordered; the Diets were severally to
assemble on the nth of February, and the communication of the
imperial patent and the election of members to this extraordinary
assembly of the Reichsrath were to form the only subjects to be
submitted to them. The government, it was stated in the patent,
had initiated negotiations upon the basis of the patent of the 20th
of September, 1865, with the representatives of the countries
belonging to the Hungarian crown for the settlement of opposing
claims with regard to the constitutional institutions of the monarchy.
With the intention of attaining as speedily as possible a complete
solution which should do justice to all parties, the government had
determined to ask the co-operation of the representatives of the
other countries, in order that the rights and claims of the non-Hungarian crown lands might be discussed in a common assembly,
constantly keeping in view the leading idea of securing the existence
of the monarchy as a whole. The extraordinary Reichsrath was to
meet at Vienna on the 25th of February, 1867, the discussion of the
question of the constitution to form the sole subject of its delibera
tions.
This plan caused much dissatisfaction, especially among the
German population, who, under Count Belcredi’s management,
expected to see themselves outvoted by the Slavonians. This dis
satisfaction, increased by an unconstitutional imperial rescript, re
organising the army on anew basis of a general duty of bearing arms,
bore Baron Beust into the highest power.
The difference of opinion between Count Belcredi and Baron von
Beust as to the way of proceeding was, that the count, who was less
favourable to the Hungarian claims, held that the arrangement with
Hungary should be submitted for approval to the non-Hungarian
nationalities, assembled in an extraordinary Diet, before being
adopted by the government, while Baron von Beust maintained that
such a mode would occasion further delays ; also, that the Hunga
rians would not like to see what they considered their rights called
in question. Moreover, the German provinces had to a great extent
abstained from taking part in the elections, so that the extraordinary
Reichsrath would not, after all, possess the commanding influence
which was expected of it. Baron von Beust’s view prevailed. The
empeior accepted the resignation of Count Belcredi, and appointed
Baron von Beust to succeed him as President of the Council.
Events now moved more rapidly, and no longer with an uncertain
step.
The extraordinary Reichsrath was abandoned, and the ordinary
�28
Reichsrath, in accordance with the February constitution, convened
for the 15th of February. Count Andrassy at the same time strongly
urged, on the part of Hungary, the adoption by the government of
the constitutional course of submitting the Hungarian propositions,
in so far as they concerned the empire at large, to an ordinary Cis
Lei than representative assembly.
On the 6th of February, the committee of 67 members of the
Hungarian Diet concluded their labours on the affairs common to
the whole monarchy. On the 18th an imperial rescript ordered the
obnoxious, decree about the army to stand over for parliamentary
consideration. At the same time the Hungarian constitution wras
restored, amid expressions of the unbounded delight of both Houses.
On the . 24th, Count Andrassy announced to the Diet his appointment
as President of the Ministry. On the 18th, also, all the Diets of the
non-Hungarian lands were opened. The emperor’s message an
nounced the repeal of the suspension of the constitution by the
patent of the 20th of September, 1865, the abandonment of the
convocation of the extraordinary Reichsrath, and the return to a
constitutional course ; it contained, at the same time, the assurance
that nothing was further from his majesty’s intentions than to
curtail the rights granted by the decrees of i860 and 1861, and
requested them to proceed at once to the election of members to
the constitutional Reichsrath, which was to meet on the 18th of
March for the ordinary despatch of business. It stated that by so
doing, in correct appreciation of his majesty’s intentions, they would
contribute what lay in their power to put an end to a constitutional
crisis that had already lasted far too long.
The resistance of the Slavonic population of Bohemia, Moravia,
and Carniola, who were unwilling to co-operate with the Germans,
the dissolution of their Diets, followed by a victory of the ministry
in the parliamentary campaign of the newly-elected Bohemian Diet,
delayed the opening of the Reichsrath by the emperor till the 22nd
of May last; and on the 8th of June, 1867, Francis Joseph was
crowned at Pesth, and peace, and a rational prospect of harmony,
re-established throughout the monarchy, a general amnesty also
taking place. Here closes our account of the constitutional travail
of Austria, and we may fitly wind it up with the following words
from one who knows Baron Beust, the author of the brochure on
“ Austria,” which we have repeatedly used and mentioned.
Baron von Beust possesses the liappy talent of allying himself with all those
parliamentary capacities disposed to enter on his own path. He does not think
of going backwards by oppressing nationalities. Nor does he dream of reversing
an august and solemn declaration which its author intends maintaining in its full
entirety—that is to say, the principle of legal equality of all the peoples of
Austria. Baron von Beust aims chiefly at one thing for the present,—an amicable
entente between all the parties concerned ; and he tries to maintain it by promo
ting a common deliberation, which is the first step to be taken by people holding
contrary opinions. The Prime Minister of Austria, in his efforts to arrive at that
result, does not decline the assistance of any one, to whatever party or nationality
he may belong, in order to conciliate all opposing claims and obliterate the
�*9
obstinate hatred of race. Francis Joseph, duly appreciating the eminent talents
of his minister and the services already rendered by him to the State, has just
given him a special mark of his confidence by raising him to the rank of Chancellor
of the Empire, the highest dignity that can be bestowed upon an Austrian states
man, and which has been in abeyance since the late Prince Metternich’s time;
while the people, judging of their sentiments as expressed by the press, seem to
be unanimous in their approval of the emperor’s act.
By placing themselves on the ground of the constitution of February, the
government have acknowledged its obligatory force for everything not expressly
abrogated by the Hungarian compromise. The revision of the constitution will
put an end to the contradictions existing between the Common Law of each of
the two great divisions of the empire. When accomplished, the work will no
doubt be capable of improvement; but an important fact will henceforth be
existent, the consequences of which cannot fail to be felt through the whole
empire : for the first time the whole of Austria will possess a legal basis to develop
her constitutional life. Time and peace, confidence, the force of interest, and,
above all, the goodwill of men, must work the rest.
VII.
And so Austria has settled down, into dualism, and the two rival
schemes of centralisation and federalism have been discarded. The
empire is now virtually divided into two halves, linked together by
having the same sovereign, and an arrangement for settling, in the
somewhat cumbersome form of parliamentary delegations, certain
affairs agreed upon as demanding treatment in common. This latter,
in so far as it is a concession on the side of Hungary, is the result
of the labours of the committee of sixty-seven members mentioned
above.
A look to the map will show that in speaking of the division by
the river Leitha we use rather an artificial term. That river, a small
tributary of the Danube, on its south side, divides but for a short dis
tance the archduchy of Austria from the kingdom of Hungary.
The real and complete line of demarcation between the western
and eastern halves of the monarchy is—with one exception, to be
mentioned immediately—the old boundary of the German Confedera
tion. But the western, or non-Hungarian half, besides the countries
formerly belonging to that confederation, includes now also the very
important provinces of Galicia and the Bukowina,which can hardly,
strictly speaking, be said to be this side of the Leitha, but stretch from
the northernmost part of the old German provinces, Austrian Silesia,
eastward, lying m a vast arch around the northern frontier of
Hungary.
. And now that this solution of dualism, towards which so many
influences tended, has been adopted, we hear-it sometimes sneered
at, the statesman who has carried it out blamed for having effected a
compromise, in which all his part consisted in giving way—which
when we consider the result arrived at by the sixty-seven committee,
�3°
is not correct—and the concessions to Hungary pointed out as so
many retrogressions into the middle ages.
We have not space to discuss the value of such views in detail.
We will, for the sake of argument, admit that dualism is not the best
possible solution that could be conceived. But could a better one
have been carried out ?
At any rate, the governors and people of Austria—and we here
comprise Hungary in this term—may feel again firm ground under
them, instead of the shifting quagmire of contradictory experiments
and plans which have filled the history of these last eighteen years.
And if we look at their actual doings since the early part of last
year, it seems that they are willing, on the whole, to avail them
selves, in order to march forward, of such new bases. The tenden ■
cies both of the Vienna Reichsrath and of the Hungarian Diet lie
in a liberal direction. The Concordate has fallen in Hungary, is
manifestly doomed in Vienna. The reforms in criminal jurisdiction
and in constitutional guarantees voted by the Vienna assembly are
very cheering, and if we are inclined to suspect that the formalism
of a pattern constitutionality does perhaps pre-occupy that assembly
too much, this is an evil which it shares with almost every parlia
mentary body which has sat on the continent for these last forty
years ; and we even see progress in that the desire of producing the
most perfect paper constitution has cost much less time, and interfered
much less with actual current business than it did, for instance, in
the parliament of Frankfort, and of Vienna itself in 1848.
As to the treatment of common affairs, the recent financial settle
ments about the share of the burden to be borne by Hungary
certainly seemed calculated to impress one with a notion that the
Magyars were more willing to accept the profitable portion of their
connection with Austria than a due proportion of the cost of its
existence. But we are willing to admit that, were we, in common
with other writers in the English press, more fully informed of the
details, this affair might present itself in a somewhat different light.
We, for our part, hope that in the course of time the separation
between Hungary and the western half of the monarchy will not
grow wider, but that, on the contrary, the links now uniting the
two parts will be drawn more firmly by the consciousness of pressing
mutual interests and a growing goodwill.
How the Roumane and Slavonic populations in the countries
annexed to Hungary will reconcile themselves to their position,
remains to be seen. We confess that we should have been glad if
the Magyar nation had possessed the magnanimity of not insisting
on retaining or re-grasping their hold on Croatia—a country which
evidently, in the great majority of its inhabitants, is unfavourable
to that special connection which is a necessity neither for Austria
nor for Hungary, while it cannot be said that the Magyar language,
imposed on the Slavonian deputies at Pesth, is, as Latin, the former
official language, was, a neutral ground, or as German would be, a
great link with the civilisation of an extensive part of Europe. The
�Si
day seems yet distant for these countries when the language difficulty
can be solved by that mutual fairness and accommodation which
Switzerland practises, enjoys, and does not boast of.
A similar difficulty exists yet for the western half of the monarchy,
in the local and race feeling of the Czechs in Bohemia and parts of
Moravia. The population of the former kingdom is in its majority,
though not in its most active and enterprising portion, Slavonian,
the Germans forming a strong minority.
*
Now, the Slavo-Bohemians or Czechs are endeavouring, on the strength of historical tradi
tions, to set up a claim to a position for Bohemia, similar to that of
Hungary. On considering whether such claim is allowable, one
important difference strikes us as paramount. The whole of the
Magyar population is contained within the boundaries of Hungary
and Transylvania, and no foreign power has supported their claims,
or can easily use them as part of its diplomatic machinery. The
Czechs, on the other hand, present themselves as part of a whole
which lies outside of Austria ; their tendencies are connected or
identified with Panslavism; they lean upon Russia, f The acropolis
of the Magyars is Buda-Pesth, within the monarchy; but the
Czechs have their kebla in the czar’s dominion—Moscow and St.
Petersburg are their Mecca and Medina. While, therefore, the
local diet should continue to exercise, as it does, its functions ;
while no right belonging to any other subject of the monarchy is
denied to a Bohemian ; and while it is necessary for every Austrian
statesman to show all due regard to the Slavonic populations who
form so large a part of the empire, it is on the other hand perfectly
intelligible that Count Belcredi’s pampering of Czech race feeling
should have been felt a great evil, and that Baron Beust should show
himself firmly decided not to allow Bohemia to be made an Austrian
Ireland,, with its Fenian head-centres in Russia.^ The comparison
into which we have just been drawn, may be applied to one or two
other points. Austria can as little give up Bohemia as England can
* The statements of the Czechs and Germans differ, of course ; three-fifths for
the former and two-fifths for the latter is probably correct.
f Let us remind our readers of the speeches recently delivered by M. Rieger,
and other Czechs, on the occasion of the so-called Ethnographical Congress, or
gathering of Panslavistic agitators, at Moscow. Among the popular poets of the
Czech school, Czelakovsky openly leads towards Russia. “ La Bohême historique,
pittoresque et littéraire.” Paris, 1867. p. 288, etc.
J The following passage from the Daily News, referring to a speech of Baron
Beust’s, is worth quoting
The Austrian chancellor mentions, among the
difficulties with which he has to deal, the disloyal and anti-national spirit of the
Panslavist enthusiasts in Bohemia. With just severity he condemns the infatua
tion of the silly dupes who complain of the destruction of their national traditions,
while they are conspiring to sell their birthright to an alien power. But M. de
Beust consoles himself with the persuasion that this Bohemian fanaticism is but a
passing discontent ; he promises to maintain their rights in common with those of
all their fellow-subjects, under the safeguard of constitutional’liberty and equal law.
It is by the peaceful fruits of liberty, and the harmonious development of the
interests of all the nationalities that acknowledge his sceptre, that the Emperor
Francis Joseph will avenge the defeat of Sadowa. All Liberal Europe will wish
M. de Beust success in his good work.”
\
\
\
�32
give up Ireland. A look on the map proves it, and it is not the
least of the evil consequences of the war of 1866, that a province in
which German influence ought to be beneficially felt, and which
extends so far into Germany, should by the weakening of Austria,
and by the dissolution of the old confederation, be so much more
exposed to the anti-German influences of Russia ; it is not the least
among the wrongs committed by Count Bismarck against the German
nation and Europe that in his unscrupulous efforts for the aggran
disement of Prussia, he has not hesitated to commence in Bohemia
a Czech agitation, and by his incendiary proclamations to try to
induce the Bohemians to set up again the throne of St. Wenceslas.
*
The difficulties under which Austria labours are thus still very
considerable ; and we can, in the scope of our present observations,
but glance at, though we must not omit to mention, her financial
embarrassments, the legacy of the profligate rule of former years
which did not disdain, in the midst of profound peace, to sink deeper
and deeper into public debt, while neglecting to develop the natural
resources of such rich countries as compose the Austrian monarchy.f
But, on the other hand, Austria has a great mission, in the fulfil
ment of which it behoves liberal Europe no longer to impede, but
rather, in the general interest, to favour her. Hers is the task to
preserve and to increase civilisation along the shores of the Danube,
and to see that the great river, from its sources down to the mouth,
from the Black Forest to the Black Sea, belongs to European
civilisation; hers the task to be an arbiter, and, in gentle bonds, a
connecting power between the different nationalities filling that broad
expanse of country, and which cannot evolve out of themselves a
substitute to such power, whilst, unconnected, they must fall a prey
to Russia. Interposed between the steppes of the Euxine, and the
kingdom of Greece which is meant to rise in Russian dependency,
she may yet preserve for Europe the Dardanelles, and prevent the
Christian rajah from being led, by the watchword of their emanci
pation from Turkish yoke, under the yoke of Russia, to their own
and Europe’s great and lasting detriment.
' * Compare on the side of the Bohemian agitators : “ Expose et défense de la
Politique suivie en ce moment par la Diète Bohême.” Paris, Victor Groupy. 1867.
“ Le Royaume de Bohême et l’Etat Autrichien.” Prague, Grégi. 1867. “ La
Bohême Historique, Pittoresque et Littéraire,” par Joseph Friczet Louis Leger.
Paris, Librairie Internationale. 1867.—472 pp. If any set of English democrats
find themselves impelled to espouse the cause of the Czechs, we would request
them not to exclusively dwell on the name of John Huss, whose memory is a
friendly connecting link between the German Protestants and the Czechs, but
also to bear in mind the fact that Czechian Bohemia has furnished to absolutistic
Austria its most numerous and some of its worst satellites. The authors of “La
Bohême Historique ” do not deny it ; they excuse it with the necessity of making a
living—en somme, ilfallait vivre. One feels inclined to reply, with Voltaire—Je
rHen vois pas la nécessité.
+ See, on this characteristic of Prince Metternich’s long administration, some
excellent remarks, not unmixed with prejudice against the Jews, in Wolfgang
Menzel’s “ Geschichte der letzten vierzig Jahre.” 1865. Vol. I. pp. 23-25.
�33
Vili.—CONCLUSION.
If we are to heed a few shortsighted writers, the destruction of the
Austrian monarchy is still, and speedily, required for the re-estab ■
lishment of German unity. Curiously enough they are some of the
same people who habitually designate the disruption of Germany,
by thè war of 1866, as the foundation of its unity. These gentlemen
forget the text from which they are to preach. German unity by
federation existed until the summer of 1866, in a form, indeed, far from
being perfect. Reform was needed, not destruction, and moreover
*
it was in course of progress. But every effort in that direction had
been defeated by Prussia, unless it tended to the subjugation of Ger
many to her. So the last endeavour of Austria, by the Congress of
Frankfort in 1863, which would have led to a real, though not a
radical reform, but for the protests of Prussia, and the intrigues of the
Grand-Duke of Baden, who fancies himself to speak as a pater patrice,
when he plays but the part of a son-in-law of His Prussian Majesty.!'
Germany’s federal consolidation, then, striven for by many
patriots, and latterly by Austria, was destroyed by Prussia and her
* So the patriotic poet Count Platen ;
Wohl that Erneurung unserem Reiche noth,
Doch nicht Zerstörung, tief im Busen
Trug es den edelsten Keim der Freiheit.—Ode xxxiii.
This noble poet has been scurvily treated by M. Julian Schmidt, in that pon
derous pro-Prussian pamphlet, which he calls a history of modern literature.
Was it because it might be foreseen that, had Platen lived to witness, he would
have been certain to oppose the Prussian aggression ?
f The Prussian faction by no means embraces all Prussian liberals, though
many of them have been misled by the glitter of arms and the dizziness of power.
One of the foremost and purest of them, M. Jacoby, said last year to the Prussian
second chamber—“ A united, a politically unified Germany, so hopes the draft of
your address, will be the result of this war. I cannot share this hope. I believe,
rather, that the exclusion of Austria, that is, the expulsion of millions of our
German brothers from the common assembly does not unite Germany, and that
the plan which the policy of the Prussian cabinet has been pursuing for so long a
time, and which now brings two-thirds of the population under Prussian dominion,
leads us farther away from the desired aim of German unity than the late Diet of
Frankfort.” . . . “It is possible that this may respond to the specific
interests of Prussia ; but from the point of view of liberty, I cannot regard as a
strengthening of German unity the strengthening of the dynastic power of Prussia
by the violent acquisition of German territories. If in Prussia the recent system
of government continue—and up to the present time there is hardly anything to
be seen of a change—then your reformation of Germany will be to her former
divisions and powerlessness what death is to disease.”—Diplomatic Review,
October 3, 1866. The same distinguished politician, in a later speech, voting
against that hoax which calls itself the Constitution of the North German Con
federation, says, ‘ ‘ Germany, united in political freedom, is the surest guarantee
for the peace of Europe ; united under Prussian military power, Germany is a
standing danger for neighbouring nations, and we are at the beginning of an epoch
of wars, which threatens to throw us back into the saddest time of the middle
ages, when might was substituted for right.”—English Leader, May 25th, 1867.
D
�34
faction. Let that result, for the present, be accepted. German
unity may perhaps be re-established, and on a sounder basis than
before, but not now. And certainly the means suggested is not
desirable ; that of sowing discontent in the German-Austrian part of
the monarchy, and, by directing the attention of the discontented
towards Berlin, as a North Star, to make the countries on this side
of the Leitha ready to fall by insurrection and intrigue into the lap
of Prussia, as the Two Sicilies fell into that of Sardinia, seven years
ago. Such a plan seemed to have—we do not say it had—some
chance of success, immediately after the war, when discontent was
very rife in most parts of the Austrian monarchy. But the liberal
policy of Baron Beust at home, and the wretched part played in the
north by that friend of the English Reform League, Count Bismarck,
who has already sacrificed Luxemburg, must have obliterated any
such desire where it ever existed in Austrians.
*
Its success, moreover, would be only opening the door to new
difficulties ; it would expose directly all the countries on the other
side of the Leitha, and Galicia, to Russian influence; and granting
that Vienna and Salzburg were contented to be ruled from Berlin—
which is granting a good deal—there would be an immediately
increased striving of the Czechs towards union with Russia. For
after all, they have had many centuries of connexion with Vienna,
while no link, but bare force, devoid of all historical tradition, would
connect Prague with Berlin. Similarly, in the south, Trieste would
be attracted to Italy. Thus while Russia would step into the centre
of Germany and of Europe, for such is the north-western frontier of
Bohemia, Germany would definitively cut herself off from the
Adriatic. Beautiful fruits of a longing for unity !
Peace, no doubt, is very desirable for Austria. But is it, under
the present conditions, possible for any length of time ? Austria is,
during the present peace, continually being undermined, on the
upper and lower, if no longer on the middle, Danube ; on the one
hand by Prussia and the faction of political Unitarians, on the other
by Russia and those Slavonians who are friendly to her.
It thus becomes necessary for her to advance, by alliance or con
quest, to the mouths and to the sources of the Danube.
The Prussian prince in Roumania has been placed there only to
keep the seat warm for Russia. He might well arrive there with his
carpet-bag only ; it was sufficient for his mission. His part is about
played out. The last thing he maybe used for is to create dissatisfaction
among those Roumanes—or Wallachians—which inhabit portions of
Transylvania. Not having always been very well treated by the
* In this connection the writer on “ Dualism in Austria,” in the Westminster
Review of last October, refers to the pamphlet, 44 Der Zerfall Oestreichs, von einem
Deutsch Oestreicher.” One is astonished at a writer so acute not doubting the
authenticity of that anonymous publication. Probably his great pro-Slavonic
tendencies prevented him from seeing the strong probability of this being one
more of the many productions of Count Bismarck’s active literary staff. As such
we shall consider it until the writer chooses to unmask himself.
�35
Magyars, they may be supposed to be open to an application of the
nationality doctrine. This is a nostrum which can well be used
for preparing Russian dominion. To avert this danger, and sub
stituting the better for the worse, knowing herself to be the better,
Austria will have to strive to put her influence in the place of
Russia’s, in that revolution which seems imminent.
An enlightened policy will likewise lead her to attach, in friendly
relations, the principality of Servia to her.
If, without her acting to bring it about, the dissolution of the
Turkish Empire come to pass, the provinces of Bosnia and Herze
govina, the background, so to speak, of Croatia and Dalmatia, ought
to be seen gravitating towards the Austrian monarchy ; and perhaps
such a tendency will also manifest itself in Bulgaria.
On the upper Danube, Austria ought to connect herself in friendly
alliance with the South German States, and thus to strengthen her
German element. Much seems lost there already; notwithstanding
the evident aversion of the immense majority against Prussian rule,
the excellent strategy of Count Bismarck has won a good deal
of ground in that direction. Stirring up patriotic feeling against
France, connecting the renewal of the Zollverein treaties with those of
military alliance, and making the adoption of the latter a conditio
sine qua non of the former, also availing himself of much of the old
leaven of distrust against Austria, Prussia has indubitably gained
advantages in that direction, from which it may be difficult for
Austria to dislodge her. Yet we have abundant evidence before us
that no love for Prussian rule pervades those southern populations,
*
* We may here extract the following from the private letters of an English
military gentleman, formerly an officer in the Austrian service, who is at present
travelling and observing in the lands of the Danube. Writing from Bucharest,
he says :—“I have been doing my best to ascertain the real situation of affairs in
this province. Everything is at a standstill. There exists great discontent
amongst all parties. My firm belief is that the present prince will abdicate in
favour of some other member of his family, and that he was never intended to
last. .A short.time since he told the English consul that he was not the right
man in the right place. Why shoidd a prince say that to a foreign consul ?
Until the country is in the hands of a strong power there will never be any pro
gress. The parties are so numerous and equal in strength that no minister can
count on a majority for any length of time. Every one does his best to cheat the
others. I enclose you a description of a review ; it was first-rate. Very few of
the National Guard have any uniform. They seem to have a good class of
officers ; the greater part, I hear, foreigners. Anybody is to be bought.” . . .
This about Wallachia. From another letter as to Moldavia we extract“ I will
now give you my ideas of the present state of Moldavia, which is worse than that
of Wallachia. All parties are agreed on one point—that they have los-t greatly
by the present government, which has done nothing for them. The Russian party
is the. strongest. That I cannot understand why Russia should work against the
Prussian prince, unless it is an understood thing that Moldavia is at a future
period, to belong to Russia, that is to say, the Moldavians are to revolt against
the prince and demand to be placed under the protection of Russia, with a prince
of their own. This plan would be supported by the majority of the Moldavians.
If the Austrian party in Wallachia was properly supported, the province must fall
into the hands of Austria ; the Hungarians all do their best to get it attached to
the crown of Hungary.”
�3<S
and the Liberal tendency of present Austrian politics may recover
lost ground.
*
When thus the position of Austria is strengthened again, and con
stitutional freedom preserved in the south, the re-establishment of
German unity may be thought of. It will have to be brought about
by a strong Austria, anti-Russian, in alliance with Prussia, freeing
herself from Russia, to which she at present leans.f No doubt the
principle of manifoldness in unity—in which the chief value of
Germany to European civilisation consists—will have to be re
spected, Prussia will have to disgorge some of her ill-gotten gains,
to relax, for instance, her grasp on unwilling Hamburg, to restore
the freedom of that ancient republic of Frankfort, where her parti
sans can well nigh be counted on one’s fingers.
And as her ambition must have some satisfaction, it may, in the
inevitable struggle with Russia, be directed to that power’s Baltic
provinces with their German populations. Let her harp there on
the string of the nationality principle, it will be more than appealing
to a race-feeling; it will be regaining outlying family members to a
higher political existence.
In such a struggle there is a chance, not a slight one, for the re* Vide, among others, the Suddeutsche Presse, published since October ist, at
Munich, by Julius Froebel, an old leader of the German Liberals, himself not
hostile to Prussia. Much evidence in this direction may also be gathered from
the Hermann, a German weekly paper, published in London.
The most Prussianised part of South Germany appears to be Baden. Yet, in the
appeal just made by the government, the people have in the elections for the socalled customs-parliament given unmistakable signs that they do not approve of
the doings of the Grand-Duke and the Prussian faction. In the weekly paper,
Die Vereinigten Staaten von Europa, published at Berne, a correspondent from
Baden says with reference to the appointment of a Prussian officer as Baden war
minister :—“ Our elections for the customs parliament were a protest against govern
ment, and its submissiveness to Prussia. Now they answer by a provocation.
If things continue in this way, the Grand-Duke, who is under the influence of his
consort, stakes his throne, and will lose it even more certainly than were he to
cede it to Prussia. We fear the French government, but we hate Prussia. We
want to be German ; never will we consent to be Prussian. Anything rather than
that.” March Sth, No. io. —Wurtemberg has just elected 17 members for the
Customs Parliament: not one candidate favourable to the Prussification of Ger
many, was successful.
J The Berlin correspondent of the Times says:—“Manyof the Liberal prints
are even so unreasonable as to taunt Count Bismarck with not calling Russia to
account, when a moment’s reflection must tell them that no Prussian Cabinet,
whatever its bearings, -would, in the actual condition of Europe, be rash enough
to quarrel with the Czar.”—Times, December 17th, 1867. This shameful sub
missiveness may indeed be a necessity for Prussia, aggrandized by rending Germany
into pieces and excluding Austria from the Confederation : for a federally united
Germany no such necessity would exist.
I11 this reprint we are enabled to refer the reader to the documents revealing the
remarkable endeavour made by Prussia to re-connect herself, by a federal bond,
with Austria, and to the dignified manner by which it was met by Baron Beust,
vide “The Austrian Redbook.” (Dulau &Co., 1868.) Part I., pp. 3,4, 53, 55,
and 84 to 93.
The liberal admirers and disciples of Count Bismark may still preach the wis
dom of the exclusion of Austria; they now stand rebuked by their half-repentant
master. It is true he wished Russia to join in the league.
�37
establishment of Poland, of which Austria, strengthened in other
quarters, might offer a nucleus.
This federative Germany, strong for defence, too enlightened to
be dangerous to any civilised power, and not by undue centralisa
tion favouring the projects of ambition, would enter into friendly
relations with Scandinavia, and thereby guard for Europe the second
key of her seas, the Sound, now ill-protected in the hands of weak
Denmark. She would, freed from the desire of accumulation,
guarantee to Switzerland and Holland their existence, at present
threatened. She would revert to the principle of respect for the
smaller communities, “these feeble states,” in the words of Sir
James Mackintosh, “these monuments of the justice of Europe, the
asylum of peace, of industry, and of literature, the organs of public
reason, the refuge of oppressed innocence and persecuted truth.” *
We have been carried far into a future, perhaps never to be real
ised. Is this a dream ? If so, it seems still better to strive after its
realisation than to pretend to enjoy the horrible nightmare of
Prussian functionarism and barrackdom. It may be, in parts at
least, even more easy to be realised than Kossuth’s dream of a
Danube federation under Magyar Hegembny. At the Danube we
now see only the alternative of accepting Austria or Russia. We
have made our choice.
* The trial of John Peltier, Esq., for a libel against Napoleon Buonaparte.
London, 1803. p. 88.
�EXTRACTS
FROM THE AUSTRIAN RED-BOOK.—CORRESPONDENCE OF
THE IMPERIAL ROYAL MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS.
On the Prussian Proposal for re-establishing a Federal
Connection with A ustria.
From the introduction :
... In looking back to the relations of Austria towards Germany in the year
following the war of 1866, the fact must not lightly be passed over that, under
the impression of the danger of a European war, many a serious glance was
directed, in Berlin, as well as in Munich, towards that Austria whose connection
with Germany the Treaty of Prague had severed a few months previously.
Intimations followed with respect to new federal arrangement, which, however,
were too vague, and guarded the interest of the one side too partially, to allow of
Austria sacrificing to them that freedom of action she has exchanged for the rights
and duties of the period closed by the dissolution of the Germanic Confédéra
tion.............
BARON BEUST TO COUNT TRAUTTMANNSDORFF AT MUNICH.
Vienna, April 6, 1867.
“ I neither could nor would express any opinion as to the relations between
Prussia and South Germany, by which any degree of responsibility could be
attached to the imperial cabinet for a further infringement of the stipulations of the
Treaty of Prague, already restricted by the August Treaties of Alliance. We do
not wish to influence in any direction the considerations that may be entered into
at Berlin and Munich in this matter. I was forced, on the contrary, to character
ise the question of an alliance of Austria with a new German Bund, under the
direction of Prussia, as a simple question of interest, and one, indeed, of the highest
order. Neither passions, nor feelings, nor historical recollections—whether those
of 1866 or those of a thousand years past—shall influence our future resolutions,
but our consideration will be in the first instance the security, and in the second
the interest, of the Austrian monarchy. Even in favour of its former German
allies, the empire can no longer enter into relations which would impose upon us
obligations and burdens, unless the fullest compensatory returns are made. If
friendship towards Austria, and the wish to be useful to her, can be traced in the
language and the acts of the German governments, such tokens will at all times
find an echo with us, and this may contribute to pave the way for happier relations
in future than at present exist. But we require very solid guarantees against ten
dencies which are not only not friendly but dangerous to us, and no services must
be required from us which would not be fully compensated by counter-services of
equal value. I have not concealed from Count Bray that in the position which
the South-German States have now taken up with regard to Prussia—and with
which position we are far removed from wishing to quarrel—such guarantees and
counter-services could not be offered us in Munich, but only in Berlin; and that
we, therefore, would be compelled mainly to keep our eyes fixed upon Prussia,
should it ever come to pass that we could believe in a serious honestly meant
alliance with Germany, advantageous to both parties, and for which we ought to
sacrifice our present liberty.”
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
�39
BARON BEUST TO COUNT WIMPFFEN IN BERLIN.
Vienna, April 17, 1867.
•
•
•
■
•
•
•
... 111 will not keep from your Excellency the fact that Baron Werther some
days ago mentioned to me the wish, just as Count Bismarck did to you, for the
re-establishment of a grand Germano-Austrian alliance. I heard from him
words even which seemed to imply that Austria ought to regain her lost position in
Germany. But what other answer could I give to this than putting the question
—Whether they intend in Prussia to return to the former Confederation ? They
must doubtless understand in Berlin that this question is of serious bearing, as it is
Prussia s business in this respect to leave unproductive generalities aside, and to
tell us upon what foundation the desired new alliance should rest, sp that Austria
might find therein as good guarantees for her security, her influence, and her
interest, as she had in the former Confederation, and better ones than previously
existed for her peace and concord with Prussia. . . .
BARON BEUST TO COUNT WIMPFFEN IN BERLIN.
Vienna, April 19, 1867.
... “ What Count Tauffkirchen stated further upon this latter point was,
however, not the clearest part of his communications.
“ He spoke of a guarantee of our German possessions. He gave us to under
stand that probably every desirable security against possible dangers would also
be offered temporarily for our non-German provinces. He mentioned Russia as
the third party to the alliance, and was of opinion that security would of itself be
assured by the conclusion of a treaty by the three powers. Finally he pointed
out—as had already been earlier done from Munich—that a friendly alliance of
Prussia with Austria afforded the South-German States the possibility of main
taining a larger measure of independence, and that an international alliance of
Austria with the North-German and South-German Confederations might still
ultimately form the turning-point towards closer treaty relations of a permanent
nature, which might replace the former State-Bund with advantage to Austria as
well as the German nation.”
Count Tauffkirclien was not indeed able to declare himself prepared to reply
to all these questions, or to weaken thq doubts and objections brought under his
notice. He only expressed his regret to be obliged to assume from my words
that Austria declined the proposals he had brought with him from Berlin. Baron
Werther upon his part repeated to me the expression of his opinion in a precisely
similar sense.
I cautioned them, however, strongly against its employment,
begging them at the same time not to speak of Austria as declining Prussian
proposals, as the explanations thereby rendered necessary could not operate
otherwise than disadvantageously ; that it was desirable to keep the future open ;
and that it remained a fact that Austria would always entertain the wish of being
able to offer her hand in order to secure a reconciliation with Prussia and
Germany.
•
•••»..
�40
BARON BEUST TO COUNT TRAUTTMANNSDORFF AT MUNICH.
Vienna, May 15, 1867,
,
s•
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•
s•
•
•
In accordance therewith I have once more expressed myself to Count Bray
with all sincerity as to the position in which we stand towards facts, past or
future, incompatible’with the Treaty of Prague. I explained to him that con
siderations of opportuneness might easily for the present determine His Majesty
the Emperor’s government to ignore such facts, and that this government readily
allowed the German sympathies which it has retained to influence its attitude,
so long as it was not compelled to consider the interests of its own country in
danger. The demand, on the other hand, that the imperial cabinet should give
its assent to the Alliance treaties which it has hitherto accepted in silence, and
to still greater violations of the Treaty of Prague, I characterized distinctly as
impossible of fulfilment, and pointed out that, in her present position, Austria,
on the contrary, must carefully guard against forfeiting in any way, either by
word or deed, the right of appealing at a suitable time to the arrangements of
that treaty.
“ Further, I have not concealed from Count Bray that I am unable to under
stand how it could have been believed that we could be induced to change our
attitude by the vague terms of the Munich programme that an alliance with
Austria ought to be concluded or prepared for. If, by the word alliance,
according to the sense generally used in international language, is to be under
stood a provisional covenant for definite aims, it must be objected that such aims
are not stated, and at present probably cannot be stated. But if a permanent
federal relation is thought of, by which the Imperial Government should
abandon its liberty, not for any settled course of action, but indefinitely and for
ever, and which, upon the other hand, was to form one of the main elements of
the political re-organization of Germany, we ought to be in the first place
solemnly released from the obligation not to take part in that re-organization;
and, in the second, it must not be overlooked that one great power cannot
subordinate itself to another, cannot serve foreign interests, and cannot bind
itself in advance to conventions arrived at without its participation. I doubt
whether they have been enabled at Munich to offer us a position of equal
standing with Prussia in a new general German Bund; but if this is not the
case, the men at the helm of the Austrian State are compelled to fall back upon the
complete freedom they have exchanged for their former rights in the Bund.
•
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•
•
•
-I
=.
Printed at the Victoria Press (for the Employment of Women), S3a., Farringdon Street, E.O.
W. W. Head, Proprietor.
�
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Victorian Blogging
Description
An account of the resource
A collection of digitised nineteenth-century pamphlets from Conway Hall Library & Archives. This includes the Conway Tracts, Moncure Conway's personal pamphlet library; the Morris Tracts, donated to the library by Miss Morris in 1904; the National Secular Society's pamphlet library and others. The Conway Tracts were bound with additional ephemera, such as lecture programmes and handwritten notes.<br /><br />Please note that these digitised pamphlets have been edited to maximise the accuracy of the OCR, ensuring they are text searchable. If you would like to view un-edited, full-colour versions of any of our pamphlets, please email librarian@conwayhall.org.uk.<br /><br /><span><img src="http://www.heritagefund.org.uk/sites/default/files/media/attachments/TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" width="238" height="91" alt="TNLHLF_Colour_Logo_English_RGB_0_0.jpg" /></span>
Creator
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Conway Hall Library & Archives
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
2018
Publisher
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Conway Hall Ethical Society
Text
A resource consisting primarily of words for reading. Examples include books, letters, dissertations, poems, newspapers, articles, archives of mailing lists. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre Text.
Original Format
The type of object, such as painting, sculpture, paper, photo, and additional data
Pamphlet
Dublin Core
The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/.
Title
A name given to the resource
Austria in 1868
Creator
An entity primarily responsible for making the resource
Oswald, Eugene
Description
An account of the resource
Place of publication: London
Collation: 40 p. ; 22 cm.
Notes: From the library of Dr Moncure Conway. Includes bibliographical references. Reprinted from 'English Leader'. Printed at the Victoria Press (for the Employment of Women). The Victoria Press was founded by Emily Faithfull and arose from the Society for Promoting the Employment of Women, a group of Victorian feminists who sought to provide new avenues for women's work in the printing industry.
Publisher
An entity responsible for making the resource available
Trubner & Co.
Date
A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource
1868
Identifier
An unambiguous reference to the resource within a given context
G5245
Subject
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Austria
History
Rights
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<img src="http://i.creativecommons.org/p/mark/1.0/88x31.png" alt="Public Domain Mark" /><br /><span>This work (Austria in 1868), identified by </span><span><a href="https://conwayhallcollections.omeka.net/items/show/www.conwayhall.org.uk">Humanist Library and Archives</a></span><span>, is free of known copyright restrictions.</span>
Format
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application/pdf
Type
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Text
Language
A language of the resource
English
Austria-History
Conway Tracts