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ART. IX.-FOREIGN POLICY OF THE ENGLISH GOVERNMENT AND THE ENGLISH NATION.

Correspondence relating to the Affairs of China, Japan, Mexico, and Brazil. Parliamentary Papers, 1862-3.

Correspondence with Mr. Seward relating to the Commerce of the Bahamas. Parliamentary Paper, 1863.

Hansard's Debates. Sessions 1862-3.

THE British people and the British government are not always at one in their notions of foreign policy. Both are swayed to a great extent by the national interests, real or supposed; both are often compelled to bow to what it is now the fashion to call "the inexorable logic of facts;" both occasionally "drift" at the mercy of currents which they did not calculate on, and cannot stem. But in the main the one is guided by its traditions, and the other by its instincts;—and of the two, the instinctive policy is usually the soundest, the wisest, and the most generous. The people think much of what is characteristic, of what is just, of what is beneficent, noble, and disinterested. The government consider largely what they did in their youth, and what their predecessors did in the old time before them, of diplomatic usage, of the obligations of international etiquette, of the completion of inchoate plans, of adherence to established precedent, of fidelity to old engagements and entanglements, of consistency with rash, unwarrantable, and even conflicting professions and promises inherited from a foolish and discrepant past. Sometimes the government acts before the people have had time to think or speak, and then we find ourselves committed to a line of conduct which we cannot heartily support or long endure. Sometimes the people get wind of what is going on, and make themselves heard before it is too late; and then ministers are forced into language and proceedings which somewhat astonish themselves, and utterly bewilder their diplomatic interlocutors. At one period the party whose watchwords are "Economy" and "Non-intervention" get the public ear; at another period, the votaries of "National honour" and the "Due influence of Great Britain" are in the ascendant; and our policy is swayed in one direction or the other according to the oscillations of the parliamentary and popular pendulum, greatly to the perplexity of the observers who watch us, and the nations that have to deal with us. On the whole, however, the several parties act as wholesome checks upon each other. The people preserve the government from any gross iniquities, and the government keep

the people out of any very flagrant follies. The peace party prevent the meddlers from being too mischievously busy; and the upholders of the national dignity and position prevent their antagonists from driving us into any thing desperately mean. The statesmen who are in bondage to the traditions of the Foreign Office, who think much of precedent and little of principle, are a salutary counterpoise to their younger and more unfettered rivals who dream only of material interests and 66 common sense."

Our foreign minister generally has his hands full. England, by her greatness and the extent of her dominions, is in contact with all the world, and usually in collision or in discussion with half of it. England, by her history, is mixed up in nearly every international question, and has entangling engagements or unsettled controversies with nearly every state in Europe, Asia, or America. She has always some "difficulty" difficulty" on hand, either with one of the great powers of the Continent, or with some maritime rival, or with some semi-civilised Oriental potentate, or with some wholly savage tribe. Earl Russell is ever "at it," as the formidable list of Foreign-Office blue-books annually laid before Parliament, and now lying in an appalling pile upon our table, testifies. Either he is negotiating with France, or remonstrating with Russia, or pleading for Poland, or arguing with the United States, or bullying Brazil, or assisting China, or sitting on Japan. This "quadrumanous activity," as Burke calls it, may well task the powers of the strongest head, and put a severe strain on the serenest temper; and nothing can enable any minister to steer his way through it with credit and success, or without much stumbling and many blunders, except the guidance of some fixed principle, some magnetic pole, some distinct aim and purpose, well-defined and grasped with the tenacity due at once to a conviction and to an affection. Unfortunately this settled principle and clear goal are precisely what both minister and people lack. The nation loves influence, loves dominion, loves justice, worships good faith, hates oppression, sympathises with those who are struggling for liberty and civil rights; but it also loves peace, loves money, hates trouble, and is too sensible at bottom to care to do other people's work for them, or to attempt work which no power on earth could do at all.

In the various grave questions of foreign policy that have troubled us during the last two years, England has, on the whole, come off with very considerable credit. In one or two cases perhaps our course has been such as we cannot look upon with any satisfaction, but then it has been where no course would have been satisfactory. In at least two other matters

the minister has committed great errors both of judgment and of temper, but the country has not sustained or encouraged him in either case. In the most knotty and important of all, both the government and the people have behaved with singular dignity, justice, and forbearance; and, without having made a single false step, have incurred a degree of enmity and vituperation which only the most persistent series of false steps could have righteously deserved.

Earl Russell has been severely assailed for having permitted and encouraged Mr. Lay and Captain Sherrard Osborn to take service under the Chinese government; the one as InspectorGeneral of Customs, the other as a sort of naval chief, at present at the head of a special force, but destined ultimately in all likelihood to become virtually First Lord of the Admiralty to the Celestial Empire. There is no doubt that the proceeding is a most important one, and is pregnant with future consequences both far-reaching and momentous, and as such perhaps should not have been ventured upon without previous parliamentary discussion and sanction. Some years ago, viz. in 1854, the Chinese government, conscious of the incurable rascality of its own functionaries, and anxious to improve and protect its revenues, applied to Mr. Rutherford Alcock, then our consul at Shanghai, to nominate a British inspector of customs duties at that port, to see that they were fairly levied and properly brought to account. In 1855 Mr. Lay succeeded Mr. Wade in this post, and soon produced a remarkable and most welcome result. The revenue paid into the Chinese exchequer was speedily quadrupled; and the Regent was so delighted that, as soon as he had satisfied himself of Mr. Lay's incorruptible honour as well as vigorous ability, he appointed him by direct commission to the control of the Customs department at all the open ports, i. e. in fact for the whole empire. Mr. Lay has now a large staff of clever and well-paid officials, partly English and partly American, under him, holds a distinct and independent post in the Chinese administration, and bids fair to become virtually the finance minister of the empire, either nominally or through the influence which his acknowledged superiority in mental and moral qualities will enable him to exercise. The success of this first attempt at the employment and naturalisation of foreign agency answered so well, that Prince Kung applied for English private assistance in putting down smuggling, and creating an efficient navy that should be able to deal both with contrabandists, pirates, and Taeping rebels; and Captain Sherrard Osborn was authorised by the British government to undertake the task, and become a sort of Chinese admiral and surveyor of the navy-to provide a ma

rine for the Celestial Empire and to command it. By two orders in council, dated respectively August 1862 and January 1863, not only are the enterprises of Mr. Lay and Captain Osborn formally sanctioned, but those gentlemen are authorised to equip vessels and enlist men (even officers of our army and navy) for the service of the Chinese government.

The measure is a bold one; and much may be said and has been said both for and against it. On the one side it is urged that this is not only undertaking an important portion of the administration of a distant and semi-barbarous empire, but involves actually taking part in a civil war, and may involve participation in the future foreign wars of China; that it is commencing in China the course we have run in India, with the probability, amounting almost to certainty, that it will end here, as it has ended there, in our becoming virtually, if not actually, the rulers and managers of that vast empire;-since year by year English energy, knowledge, and honesty, will assuredly make their way in all posts, distance all native competitors, absorb all administrative functions; and when the inevitable consequence comes of native jealousy, native recalcitration, native injustice, and cruelty exercised on British subjects, the civis romanus doctrine is sure to come up; English sympathy will be vehemently awakened on behalf of deserving, beneficent, and ill-treated Englishmen; government interference will be insisted on; and what was originally but the enterprise of individuals will be adopted and carried out by the nation in its collective and corporate capacity. On the other hand, Earl Russell and his friends replied with considerable effect-all the more effect because they were addressing an audience of Britonsthat the reconstitution of Chinese finances, the purification of Chinese administration, the suppression of piracy and smuggling in Chinese seas, were eminently good works, and that it was not the habit of Englishmen to refuse participation in such works; that it was directly for our interest that they should be carried out, and that they could not, we well knew, be carried out by native agency; that we had by our previous wars (not always scrupulously just ones) done so much to weaken the Celestial Empire, that we were in a manner bound now to do what we could to strengthen it; and that only by thus aiding and consolidating it could we enable it to carry out its treaty engagements with us, and to afford efficient protection to the vast amount of British property invested there, and the numerous British subjects whom we had encouraged to visit or to settle there. It was declared moreover-but this was mere special pleading that the Englishmen who had taken service with the Chinese government were now their servants and not ours, and

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must undergo the conditions and accept the risks incidental to such service, with the usual Oriental probabilities of treachery, fickleness, ingratitude, and cruelty.

Both the antagonistic pleas are irrefutable. To our minds the fault of our government in this matter lies not so much in what they have done, for we do not see that they could or ought to have acted otherwise,-as in having done it with no avowed principle, on no settled system, and with no clear prevision or acceptance of the sure results. But this is the very fault of which we have complained already as pervading all our foreign policy and indeed all our national action; and it is one which the country shares in equal measure with its government. We may be quite certain that the nation would not tolerate any needless or arbitrary impediments being thrown in the way of the free and useful enterprise of its citizens; that it will insist upon efficient protection being afforded them in whatever part of the world legitimate trade or legitimate occupation may have led them; and that the permission to Englishmen to engage themselves in the civil and naval and military administration of China is probably the best and cheapest way of securing this protection. Individually it is not to be expected that we should look far to ulterior issues, either in the way of deprecation or welcome; but our statesmen and our government ought to do this. And, therefore, though we do not think that Earl Russell and Lord Palmerston should have withheld the royal sanction to such unquestionably beneficent and valuable undertakings as Mr. Lay's and Captain Osborn's, yet we do think that they were bound to have given this sanction with a full purview and a clear comprehension of the inevitable consequences, and with a distinct resolution how to deal with those consequences when they arise. For our part, we in no way deprecate the ulterior issues we foresee; we do somewhat dread their coming upon us as surprises, and finding us without any decided plan or principle of action. We are sure that we

cannot avoid being concerned more and more deeply, year by year, in the administration of Oriental countries; nay more, we do not think that we ought to aim at this avoidance; but this at least will not be disputed, that we should know clearly whither we are going and what we shall do when we get there; that wherever we sail to, we should steer and not drift; that we should not, like fools or children, habitually suffer and enforce the cause, and then whine over or denounce or stand amazed at the result,-habitually order the expenditure and then grumble at the bill. We believe we have a "manifest destiny" in the eastern world; we do not shrink from it; we are not ashamed of either the qualities or the propensities

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