honest Government; what a blow we have aimed at absenteeism, in a particular provision of our income-tax! Nil desperandum, gentlemen, give us a little time to unravel your long tissue of misgovernment; and, in the mean time, make haste, and go about in quest of a grievance, if you can find one, against the ensuing session. Depend upon it, we will redress it!
The present aspect of foreign affairs is calculated to excite mixed feelings of pain and exultation in the breast of a thoughtful observer. The national character of Great Britain had unquestionably fallen in European estimation, and lost much of the commanding influence of its mere name, during the last few years preceding the accession to office of the present Government. That was an event—viz the formation of a Cabinet at St James's, containing Sir Robert Peel, the Duke of Wellington, Lord Aberdeen, and Lord Stanley—which justly excited an instant and great sensation in all foreign courts, regard being had to the critical circumstances of the times. Every one, both at home and abroad, knew well that if WAR was at hand, here was a Government to conduct it on the part of Great Britain, even under the most adverse circumstances imaginable, with all our accustomed splendour and success. But all knew, at the same time, that imminent as was the danger, if a profound statesmanship could avert it, consistently with the preservation of the national honour, that danger would promptly disappear. The new Cabinet instantly proclaimed themselves "lovers of peace, but not afraid of war;" and an altered tone of feeling and policy was quickly observable on the Continent.
The peculiar position and interests of Great Britain impose upon her one paramount obligation—to interfere as little as possible with the affairs of other nations, especially in Europe—never, except upon compulsion—when bound by treaty, or when the eye of a profound and watchful statesmanship has detected in existence unquestionable elements of danger to the general peace and welfare of the world. To be always scrutinizing the movements of foreign states, with a view to convicting them of designs to destroy the balance of power (as it is called) in Europe, and thereupon evincing a disposition to assume an offensively distrustful and hostile attitude, requiring explanations, and disclaimers, and negotiations, which every one knows the slightest miscarriage may convert into inevitable pretexts and provocatives of war—is really almost to court the destruction of our very national existence. If there was one principle of action possessed by the late Government to be regarded as of more importance than another, it was that of maintaining peace, and non-intervention in the affairs of other nations. This, indeed, was emblazoned upon the banner unfurled by Lord Grey, on advancing to the head of affairs. Can it, however, be necessary to show how systematically—how perilously—this principle was set at nought by the late Government? As represented by Lord Palmerston, Great Britain had got to be regarded as the most pestilent, intrusive, mischief-making of neighbours. A little longer, and our name would have actually stunk in the nostrils of Europe. Some began to hate us; others, to despise us!! all, to cease dreading us. In the language of a powerful journalist, (the Spectator,) opposed on most points to the present Government, "the late Ministers commenced a career, perilous in the extreme to all the best interests of the nation—demoralizing public opinion, wasting public resources, and entangling the country in quarrels alike endless and aimless; and all this with a labouring after melodramatic stage effect, and a regardlessness of consequences perfectly unprecedented." We were, in the words of truth and soberness, fast losing our moral ascendency in Europe—by a series of querulous, petty, officious, needless, undignified interpositions; by the exhibition of a vacillating and short-sighted policy; by appearing (novel position for Great Britain) "willing to wound, but yet afraid to strike;" by conceiving and executing idle and preposterous schemes of aggrandizement and conquest. To go no further in Europe than our immediate neighbour, France, let us ask whether Lord Palmerston did not bring us to the very verge, and keep us at it for many months, of actual war with that power, which is always unhappily eager to "cry hurra, and let slip the
