Fifth Series, Volume XLVIII.

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No. 2107.-November 8, 1884.

From Beginning,
Vol. CLXIII.

CONTENTS.

I. IS ENGLAND A GREAT EUROPEAN POWER? Fortnightly Review,
II. BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. By Sarah Tytler,
author of "Citoyenne Jacqueline,” “Lady

Good Words,

Contemporary Review,
Sunday Magazine,
Fortnightly Review,
Contemporary Review,
Spectator,

Standard,

Spectator,

Nature,

IX. MR. LOWELL ON THE Coming KING,
X. THE CONNECTION BETween Chinese MUSIC,
WEIGHTS, AND MEASURES,.

XI. LAOU-TSZE AND THE TAOU-TEH KING,

Progress,

XII. THE FIRST BALLOON ASCENT IN ENGLAND, Pall Mall Gazette,

383

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And that is as good in its way, though it feels As though it deemed its greater worth

The tugs will come, lass, as sure as life, when Than by thus pointing to a clime

t

From The Fortnightly Review.
IS ENGLAND A GREAT EUROPEAN

POWER?

France or Germany. We import only the excess which the beef-fed Briton insists on consuming. The average nett income per inhabitant is sixteen per cent. higher than in the United States, and more than double the European average. The number of paupers gradually but surely declines, the savings banks show a rapid increase in the hoarded capital of the working classes even in Ireland. Com

THE responsibilities which at the present moment confront us in Egypt, and which may ere long be extended over a far wider area, have caused many an Englishman to ask the question: Are we a great European power? It will be acknowledged that power, great or little, means the possession of some strength or quali-pared with the earnings of the country ties valuable to mankind, and a faculty of keeping what we possess. It is not merely great wealth or influence, but the power of defending it, which constitutes greatness in this very imperfect world. No one denies that England is wealthy, but people are apt to forget that wealth does not mean only a big balance at the bankers, and a huge rent roll. Much more is included in national wealth, and as so much, forcibly reminding one of the "groans of the Britons" when they petitioned Rome to help them against the Picts and Scots, has been said about our perils and infirmities, it may be well to call attention to some of our advantages. Though the revenue of the country no longer increases by leaps and bounds, it does grow steadily, and by no means slowly. The productive power of the people shows always an increasing ratio per inhabitant, and in this respect we move faster than other European nations.fortable condition of progress just In the middle of the last century we were fighting for leave to navigate the ocean freely. Now, we appear to be absorbing the whole carrying trade of the world, chiefly because by the skill and good management of our seamen fewer men do the same work. Not far from sixty per cent. of the water carriage of the world is performed by ships sailing under the British flag, and of these between seventy-five and eighty per cent. are steamers. Population is growing at the rate of about one million in three years, and the people eat more than twice as much meat per head as is the average for European nations. Anxiety is sometimes shown as to the meat supply in case of war, but we actually produce enough in Great Britain to supply all the needs of the people if calculated on the scale of consumption in

taxation is much lower than the European average, and, if account could be taken of the blood tax paid in person by Continental nations, with its influence on progress, the result would be startling. The birthrate is increasing, the death-rate dimin |ishing. The national debt is being paid paid off by degrees, though municipal and local debts representing expenditure on health and education are increasing. And, if this be a comfort to anybody, we are perpetually adding annexation to annexa. tion. Above all, our people have the civil liberty which permits the most emphatic denunciation of political opponents, and the religious liberty which holds all doctrines from pantheism and atheism in almost equal respect, allows one man to prove that we are but highly developed apes, and another to preach the gospel according to the Salvation Army. These last privileges, combined with the com

sketched, are surely worth preserving. They constitute the wealth which is one of the signs of a great power, and it only remains to decide whether we are able and willing to defend ourselves and our possessions, or, if we are not, whether we should universally succumb, with the meek entreaty, Give peace in our time, O nations.

The first idea which suggests itself is that a State, spending eleven hundred millions a year and saving more than sixty millions, might find it worth while to spend whatever may be necessary to provide for its own requirements and make itself and its property safe from aggression. And this is, unquestionably, the feeling of the country. The late Mr. Delane, whose power of gauging popular feeling became from long practice a sort of genius, used

It seems to be taken for granted that the tendency of modern progress is in the direction of democracy, and that the demos will be so wise and passionless, so capable of seeing the other side of all questions, so bent upon progress in arts of peace, that England will forever bereafter set an example of wisdom, modera. tion, and avoidance of strife; that however fierce the Continental monarchies may be, we at least shall be prepared to turn the other cheek to the smiter. Where are the signs of it? It is now a quarter of a century since Mr. Buckle published the first portion of his "History of Civilization,”

to say that the English people would willingly give anything in reason to make their interests safe, but that there was a profound disbelief in the capacity of the War Office and Admiralty, and an impression that additional supplies would go towards increasing the emoluments of old generals and admirals rather than towards creating an efficient army and navy. Lord Derby, with his usual caution, suggested that the first step was to discover what we really require in order to place England in readiness to fulfil the duties demanded of her by the position she occupies. In Parliament we see a perpetual contest between a class of wild alarm-in which he so eloquently proclaimed the ists on the one hand and optimist minis- gospel of good sense, pointing with triters on the other. The former insist that umph to America as our example of all England is without means to make her that was peaceful, and claiming for Euwill respected, or even to defend her ocean rope a close approach to the transatlantic trade; the latter declare that there is model. The coming millennium was innothing whatever in the facts and figures augurated with the solemnity of religious of the alarmists to cause a moment's anx-rites at the opening of the first Great iety. The military journals weep over the Exhibition. Hardly had we all agreed to degeneration of the army; the naval jour-recognize the value of democracy and the nals and the "One who Knows" of the Pall Mall Gazette, denounce and deplore the feebleness of the navy. Lord Wolseley says that never in history was the army so efficient as now, and Lord Northbrook shows that we are building ships of war twice as fast as France. In such a chaos of conflicting opinions no one can be surprised that the House of Commons is weary of the discussion, or that the waving of the alarmist flag is a signal for the emptying of benches. Under these conditions it is not possible for the country to have any clear opinion on the question now asked, and the uncertainty has bred a kind of recklessness on the most important subject which can engage the attention of a nation, namely, the condition of its health and strength, whether it is, like a strong man, able to give and to take the blows which form so large a portion of human experience, or whether, as a sick man, it must plead for gentle treatment and, confessing its weakness, take shelter under the protection of its stronger neigh-"This is England's fault. We expected bors. If we are strong, let us know it and cease this perpetual groaning if we are weak, let us make up our minds what price of territories, cash, and humiliation we are prepared to pay for protection.

peaceful tendency of trading self-interest, when the two halves of America were burst asunder by the volcanic force of those very interests; democrats flew at each others' throats and heaped up a war debt of greater magnitude than had been conceived possible of accumulation in so short a time. Democratic France, a democracy under the name of an empire, thought to serve her interests by invading Mexico. The war of 1859 in Italy was without doubt the result of popular aspirations for freedom from the yoke of Austria. The war of 1866, which produced of necessity that of 1870, was forced on, not by the royal houses, but by one great minister who would have been president if Prussia had been a republic, and its object was a popular one, the union of Germany. The emperor of Austria was entirely in favor of peace in 1866. In that year, after the collapse of the Imperial armies, the most distinguished of Austrian statesmen said to the present writer,

your fleet in the Baltic two years ago, and were prepared to withdraw at once from the hostilities against Denmark, which have led by a natural sequence to this fatal campaign." The most rigid of non

interventionists will not deny that, if our first interest be universal peace, we may sacrifice that interest by refusing to take any part in European questions, even when those questions arise from the desires of nations rather than of kings. And it would also appear that the wars of the most civilized powers now arise rather from popular desires than from the ambition of their rulers.

great prosperity, when our trade is brisk and our merchants are all engaged in profitable transactions, the traders are peacefully inclined, because they fear to disturb the even current of prosperity. But it is far otherwise in periods of de. pressed commerce. The most pronounced Jingoes were to be found seven years ago among the merchants of London, and the great city newspaper, the Times, has for If we go farther east and think of the months past been preaching daily serevents which led to the late Russo-Turkish mons on the wisdom of non-effacement in struggle, we find precisely the same causes Egypt, of snatching the goods the gods producing the same effects. The court provide us there, leaving France to storm and the governing classes of Russia outside if she likes. We only just esdreaded that war, and their fears were caped a war with Russia in 1878, and the justified by the sequel. The few English- reason why we did not fight was because men who were personally acquainted with the advocates of intervention were divided the early details and heard from the lips in opinion, many of them wishing to go of the higher officers their opinion, know to war with Turkey side by side with that the upper classes were dragged into Russia. So they neutralized the efforts it at the tail of the secret societies, those of the Jingoes, and the result was peace. very societies which have since shaken Mr. Gladstone did not then by any means the throne so severely. They heard also assert a policy of peace at any price. The bitter reproaches against England for thunder of his eloquence against a policy having cleverly drawn them on till they of irritation and what he considered usecould not recede. We did not inten-less wars was accompanied by lightning tionally draw them on, but, by our hope-flashes of spirit in which he declared himless indecision, we certainly led them on without intending to do so. It may be new to Englishmen to hear this. None the less it was the common talk of the court of Russia and the higher officers in 1877. Then, how far has trade tended towards keeping England herself at peace? Since we became a trading nation, nearly all our wars, under whatever disguise they may have been undertaken, have been brought about by the exigencies of trade, supported by traders and turned eventually to the advantage of trade. Some of them indeed, such as the Chinese opium wars, have been fought avowedly for trading purposes; some, like the long struggles in the eighteenth century, had other nominal causes, but were in truth the struggles of trade to free itself from restrictions imposed by foreign powers. Others again, like the series which we call the conquest of India, were begun by traders and carried on because the tide of conquest must flow till it meets with a solid barrier to stop its progress. Weak neighbors irre, sistibly invite aggression. In times of

self ready to throw the whole power of England into the scale for a reasonable or noble cause. So far then it appears that neither the growing power of democracy nor that of trade can be counted upon as trustworthy agents in the cause of peace. If we have not taken part in any late European wars it has been because there was no conceivable object to be gained by our interference. They might act upon our imagination, but they never stirred our hearts, nor touched our pockets.

A curious and interesting illustration of democratic possibilities has just occurred in France. The English public is ac customed to associate great armaments, conscription, and the rest of the military burdens on industrialism with monarchies, but the republic, or rather the popular chamber of the republic, has gone farther than any monarchy would dare to go in the direction of interference with individual liberty for the sake of military power. All the monarchies allow means of escape from the chief burden of service to young men of wealth and education who are not