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field. We owe to the world the example of a nobler, truer, more consistent course; we owe to the victims, whether of our criminal hostility or of our clumsy protection, some more substantial amends than a barren confession of error and a vow of penitent inaction.

The long and arduous struggle in which the country was engaged for so many years, and which terminated two years ago in the final and irreversible adoption by the nation of the principles of a free commercial policy, naturally concentrated our attention almost exclusively upon economical considerations. Statesmen were occupied as much as merchants with pounds, shillings, and pence. The whole population was resolved into a committee for studying "the wealth of nations."

Venice and Lombardy to Austria, and thus retiring in despair and mortification from the created a chronic source of revolution and of warfare which can never cease till we have severed the unnatural connection. We secured the triumphs of the so-called constitutional party in Spain and Portugal at the cost of much expenditure and perpetual embarrassment-and our ungrateful and incompetent protégés snub us and despise us. We set the first example of the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, which we are now endeavoring to prop up, by tearing away the kingdom of Greece-which we have had to bully and blush for ever since, and which it seems probable enough we may now have to suppress. On the other hand, when we might have done good by interference have established freedom and prevented wrongas in the case of Italy and Hungary, we folded our arms and turned a The severe distress which the deaf ear to almost the only two righteous and people underwent in 1842 and 1847, the rational supplications that had ever been ad-alarming crisis of the latter period, and the dressed to us. We have done what we ought immediate and complete relief which ensued not to have done, and have left undone that upon the triumph of free trade, gave undue which we ought to have done. What we have predominance and temporary supremacy to done in the way of interference we have al- doctrines which secured or professed to secure most invariably had to undo, or to repent of. material well-being. The financial capacity And when we have run the full cycle of our of a statesman rose into paramount imfollies, and redressed all the wrongs we have portance: capacity of other kinds was undercommitted, by severing Italy from Austria, valued and thrown into the background. and Finland from Russia, and Norway from The industry which makes money, and the Sweden, we shall be in a position to calculate economy which saves it, became the first how much of reputation, of money, and of virtues respectively of people and of politilives, the doctrine of 'Isolation' would have cians. Public measures came to be tested saved us how much better and wiser it almost solely according to their tendency to would have been never to have sinned at all, promote the accumulation and diffusion of than to have had to follow up such costly wealth, and public men to be esteemed, not iniquity by such costly atonement.' according to the wisdom with which they administered the public revenue, but according to the smallness of the revenue with which they were contented to carry on the business of the country. Now, it cannot be denied that active and extensive foreign relations are pre-eminently costly, whether they lead to actual interference, or merely to maintaining our army, navy, and diplomacy on such a footing as will enable us to remonstrate with effect. And foreign relations often lead to war, and war is notoriously the most terrible of all drains upon the national resources.

We do not, assuredly, intend to indorse the whole of this harsh and highly-colored indictment, but it contains too large an element of indisputable truth not to make, and to deserve to make, a strong impression on the popular mind. But while admitting the impeachment we repudiate the inference. We would redeem the errors of the past, not by stupidly standing still, but by retracing false steps-not by merely ceasing to tread the wrong path, but by walking in the right path zealously, resolutely, and with a cautious and an upright mind. We would endeavor to compensate whatever evil we may heretofore have wrought, not by abstaining from international relations altogether, but by conducting those relations in a juster, wiser, and humbler spirit. There is surely nothing in the essential circumstances of a foreign policy that necessarily entails either folly or wrong-doing; and the moment when we are opening our eyes to a perception of our past mistakes, and awakening to a higher sense of duty and a keener sensibility to right, is scarcely the one for

The writers and orators, therefore, who argued for the system of isolation found a most powerful ally in the spirit of calculation, avarice, and parsimony with which recent discussion had possessed the nation. They were able to appeal to the undeniable truths that more than half our revenue is annually expended in paying the interest of a debt incurred by former wars in which our intermeddling foreign policies had involved us, and that more than half of the remaining moiety is swallowed up in what

are called our "national defences," but do we measure by a truer standard than which, according to them, it would be more we used to do the relative value of the objects correct to name our" means of foreign inter- of national ambition, not only have we awakference and aggression." It was an easy and ened to a clearer perception and a sounder an effective style of popular eloquence to estimate of the rights of others, and a humsay-"It cost so many millions to replace bler, and therefore juster, apprehension of the Bourbons on the throne of France, and our own position and its claims and duties, so many more to guard ourselves against but we value human life, and the human betheir possible hostility or actual rivalry when ing generally, more highly than we did ; and restored; it cost so much to unite Belgium we have a much stronger sense of the degree with Holland, so much more to effect their in which it is possible in national matters to subsequent separation; so much to estab-approach the Christian standard of benevolish a constitutional regime in Spain and lence and justice of the political applicaPortugal (which countries have never been bility of the golden rule. Statesmen, too of any use to us, and have scarcely ever even the hardened, the hacknied, and the cold ceased to insult us), and so much more to - shrink from war now, not only on account maintain our fleets in the Tagus, to counte- of its trouble, its risks, its cost, the possible nance a Government which cannot sustain unpopularity it may bring upon them, but itself in the affections of the nation; so much from a new-born conception of the tremento weaken Turkey by liberating Greece, and dous moral responsibility which lies upon so much more to succor the despot we had those who, directly or indirectly, bring upon weakened, and to bully the wretched insur- humanity such an awful curse. More alive gents we had liberated; -and each of these than formerly, in all respects, to the heavy several items of our great account costs to and solemn obligations attendant upon power, you, the people, at this very moment a penny they are in this respect peculiarly so. They on your sugar, twopence on your beer, a have begun to feel that those who either proshilling on your tea, and a florin on your to-voke, facilitate, or permit an avoidable war, bacco and your gin. If we had and bad are answerable in the eye of Heaven for all had-no foreign policy at all - if we could the guilt, all the suffering, all the demoralwipe off at once the debt incurred in former ization, all the nameless horrors, all the wars and the costly preparations kept con- fearful contingencies, which war involves stantly on foot to provide for future ones, a liability which the rashest and the hottest we should only require to raise a revenue of may well hesitate and tremble to encounter £15,000,000 instead of £54,000,000." a liability which, as we have lately seen, Representations winged with so much in- English Ministers seek to avert by a forbeardisputable truth, and driven home by the ance, a reluctance, an enduring hopefulness, barb of a daily fact within every man's cog-pushed to the very verge of wisdom and pronizance, can scarcely fail to give those who deal in them a strong hold both upon the These three correct and salutary sentiments selfish rich and the unthinking poor, espe- of the national mind—love of peace, love of cially when unaccompanied with those other economy, and a conviction of past errors truths which are at once their complement are the strong grounds on which the advoand their correction, but which the hearers cates for insolating Great Britain from the cannot supply for themselves, and which the commonalty of nations rely for the defence speakers are careful not to suggest. Again, of their position. And they can only be the dislike of war has of late become a prev- successfully met by an appeal to a higher alent and deeply-rooted sentiment in the morality, to more generous emotions, and to national mind, in spite of all the efforts of the dictates of a deeper and more comprethe "Peace Societies" to weaken it by ex- hensive statesmanship. Nor do we think it travagance and caricature. We are no longer will be difficult to prove that the policy the quarrelsome and combative people we which they recommend, and which we are once were. We are beginning to estimate combating, is not only impossible, but, if glory" at its true value, and to calculate practically carried out, would be at once imits real cost. We are learning to shrink from moral and unwise. war not only as costly, but as criminal-not only as very generally a signal folly, but as nearly always a heinous sin. It is not apathy, AMERICAN SYMPATHIES WITH RUSSIA. it is not cowardice, it is not even increasing luxury, it is not mainly a love of wealth and Ir cannot, we fear, be denied that, in the hatred of taxation, that has wrought in us contest which we are now carrying on with this wholesome change; it is really and sin- the gigantic despot of Northern Europe, the cerely an improved tone of morality and a feelings and wishes of a considerable portion heightened sense of responsibility. Not only of the citizens of the United States are not

priety.

From The Economist, 24 Nov.

with us, but against us. This is explicable of a young and powerful State of vast energy enough; there are many reasons for it, some and unlimited pretensions. But we have no creditable, some much the reverse. Russia hesitation in saying that this jealousy and and America are both great slaveholders; uneasiness ought not to be shared or encourboth are given to aggression and territorial aged by reflecting and honorable Americans. aggrandizement; both indulge in dreams of They should leave it to the fillibusters, the universal dominion: the one aspires to the annexers, the slave-dealing Southrons, the supremacy in the Old World, the other to Western barbarians. For it is only such the sovereignty of the New. As yet there that have anything to dread from French and is no rivalry between them; nor can there be British interference. The alliance between for generations; nor need there ever be. They France and England can be dangerous to no come into collision nowhere; their commer- American designs except such as cannot be cial interests are nowhere competitive or openly avowed: it is hostile to no pretensions hostile. The Russians, moreover, have taken except such swollen and aggressive ones as considerable pains to cultivate the personal ought not to be for a moment entertained. good-will of the Americans, especially of the The two great nations of Europe are occutravellers and manufacturers of the great pied with the affairs of the European contiRepublic; and of late they have purchased nent, and will find enough to do in regulating golden opinions" among the industrial and amending these: there is little likelihood interests by large orders for machinery, that they will seek work elsewhere.* The ships, and other articles of American pro- only interference which the United States duction. Great Britain, on the other hand, can have to fear from France and England though the best customer and the clos- must be in cases in which that interference est business connection of America, is also would be admitted to be warrantable and everywhere her commercial rival and most necessary by all the virtuous and patriotic formidable competitor; and severe compe- among the Americans themselves. Those tition, in narrow minds, often breeds incipient who are alarmed at the Anglo-French allienmity. The Americans, too, have a strong ance are men bent on projects which they are impression that we are haughty and dic conscious no two great and honorable nations tatorial, and they would not be sorry to see can or ought to tolerate: the alliance can us humbled. We do not mean that these sentiments are universal, or that they go very deep; but they exist among a vast proportion of the people; who would grieve indeed to see us seriously injured or disabled, but would rejoice at any smart rap on the knuckless that did not compromise our safety or our liberties.

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be "a terror to evil-doers" only.

To all others it ought to be a source of the liveliest delight. Not only must the prospect of universal and enduring peace be greatly enhanced by the union between those rivals who in past times have most often disturbed the tranquility of the world, but civilization and freedom must be extended and secured But among the worthier and more culti- by their friendship. For though France has vated classes in the United States, the want only at present the faintest vestiges of repreof sympathy of which we speak is mainly sentative institutions; though her municipal traceable to two causes, which we have our- liberties have for a time been seriously curselves heard alleged by Americans and admit tailed, and she has given to herself a Governto be not irrational. In the first place, ment which, though not an autocracy, is they look with jealousy and alarm upon the nearly allied to a dictatorship; - still no one close alliance between England and France. who compares her even now, in the matter "These two mighty nations of the old of liberty of speech, of writing, and of 'world, firmly and permanently united," they action, with the unhappy lands which groan "will be too powerful for the indepen- under Austrian and Russian sway, can doubt dence of the world; they will be able to dic- that her influence must be infinitely prefertate to all other States; and America will not able to theirs, and her condition immeasurbe dictated to." If we are thoroughly suc-ably more advanced; and that the cause of cessful in this contest, they fancy, our only progress and well-being must be vastly proreal European rival will be effectually hum- moted by her cordial connection with the bled, and can no longer be a counterpoise to freest land in the known world-freer even, our pretensions; we shall then virtually rule in all that relates to individual emancipaEurope, and shall soon turn our attention to tion, than the boasted Republic of the West. the proceedings in the New World. If we It is not easy to believe that man a real wellcontinue as close, friends as now, even the United States will not be able to resist us. Now, we may fairly allow that there is some ground for this feeling, and that a slight and transient jealousy may be excused on the part

say,

* Dear John, you are now (busy as the war makes you) seeking work in Central America. We don't wish you to judge of our designs. Above all, we are jealous of your rulers. You are a sensible old fellow yourself, though rather ignorant of foreign matters.

From The Economist, 24 Nov. UNEXPECTED EFFECTS OF THE WAR.

On Wednesday the Times dwelt with some earnestness on some of the unanticipated and unintended consequences of the war in the East. We copy a paragraph for general in

struction:

"All over the East there is such a demand for provisions of all kinds as never was known before. A huge voracious monster must be fed, and many nations and tribes are only too happy

wisher to his fellows who does not rejoice We begin, therefore, to perceive that the from the very core of his heart at the alli- great, lasting, and most important conseance of the Western Powers, -nor that any quences of the war will be the closor union one can dread it who does not secretly cherish of the West and the East, a further interiniquitous designs which will not bear the change of their mutual advantages, and the light. extension of civilization in both. These great The second cause of the un-English sym-effects, though accomplished by our instrupathies of the United States to which we mentality, are not what we propose to ourhave alluded, has been very clearly and suc- selves, nor what we send our armies to the cinctly stated by a writer in the last number East for; yet they are what the most of the North British Review. We give it, philanthropic desire, and what all politicians therefore, in his words. [See "Significance in the main strive or hope to accomplish. of the Struggle,” Living Àge, No. 605.] They bring distinctly into view the principle to which we have continually endeavored to attract attention, and which is quite as true of all our own internal political regulations as of our wars abroad, viz., that collateral or unintended effects are always of more permanent importance than the intended effects, to which in general political writers confine their attention. The unintended effects of the war in the East on our institutions and minds are already, to some extent, obvious, and are quite as important-though of a different character-as the unintended effects abroad. It can, indeed, only be necessary to remind our readers of what has already taken place as to administrative to feed him. The most fabulous stories reach us reform, as to the organization of the army, of brilliant speculations, incredible profits, miraculous changes, and unprecedented activity. It as to our relations with France, and in the is the West gone to visit the East, and all Eng-public mind generally on all these points, for land could not make a greater stir on its visit to them to be convinced that consequences the the French Exhibition than the Western Powers most important will in the end result at by their protracted sojourn in the Euxine. It is home from the war. It is clearly not merely true their primary object is simply to protect the Russian empire which will be curbed and Turkey from Russia, but incidently they have brought probably to a conviction that it can conferred upon her a more substantial boon. only again endanger the peace of Europe at "As much as a year ago we gave our readers the cost of ruin and dismemberment, but the an inkling of what was going on, and invited institutions, military and civil, of this counmen of enterprise to follow the new market. Of try which will be improved and purified. course, we now know a good deal more about it. Benevolent and philanthropic men, who have All round Constantinople, the shores of the doubted and distrusted the consequences of Dardanelles, the Coasts of Asia, the Islands of the war, will now begin to see that the the Archipelago, Candia, and Greece, are ver- instincts of the people which hurried it on dant with unwonted cultivation. Immense profits are made out of crops that were once hardly have been rightly directed to bring forward worth reaping. Even in Syria whole districts more social and political advantages in a are being transmuted from rock and waste into short time than could have been accomplished the likeness of fertile Belgium or the picturesque by any political contrivances. We regard Black Forest. As early as last spring we all the observations of our contemporary as heard what was doing at Heraciea. There the calculated to impress a great lesson on the working of the coal seams had created roads, a whole people, and especially to moderate very railway, a canal, a port, villages, in fact a much the present furor for improving society new county of Durham, with everything but a by regulations, of which the unintended good bishopric and four golden prebends, on the effects are always of more consequence than shore of the Black Sea. The same process is the effects intended. The place where the going on everywhere. Market stuff is almost as remarks appear make them the more valuheavy as coal, and there does not exist everywhere in the East a line of road as direct and able; for no journal so intemperately, vehewell metalled as that which conducts the produce mently, and indiscriminately urges forward of Turnham Green to Covent Garden. So waall the schemes now proposed - we must say ter-carriage is first sought for, but roads to the in complete ignorance of what will be their port soon follow; and even as you coast along consequences-for improving our municipal, the shores of the Levant you can easily detect political, and social condition. everywhere an unusual stir."

A similar lesson, indeed, is taught by all

history. The kings and nobles who set out actually determines its course, by examining, on the crusades, the hermits who stimulated as he best can, all the consequences, intended the enterprise, and the popes who blessed and and unintended, of all his acts.

ing his infant wards on the parish and dying insolvent, but had he survived he was not punishable. The line is easy to draw. Let the trustee, who for his own benefit appropriates trust-funds, be treated as a criminal-not for error, though hurtful.'

encouraged it, were quite as unintentionally the means of importing the use of windmills, From The Examiner, 17 Nov. and a knowledge of the Arabic numerals, CRIMINAL BREACH OF TRUST. and all the civilization of the East into the West, helping to overthrow the power of THAT very useful and meritorious body, Rome and of feudality, as we are now un- the Law Amendment Society, has under its intentionally the means of weakening fanat- consideration a proposal for a very necessary icism in the East, and imparting to that amendment of a gross defect, submitted to it quarter the arts and civilization of the West. by the most distinguished of law reformers, Neither the founders of Spanish nor of as he is still the most active and vigilant. British colonies in America ever intended to At the first meeting of its new session make that country supply Europe with the "The Chairman read a letter from Lord materials of clothing, with sugar or corn, or Brougham on the subject of breaches of trust, to spread from it over all the world the use in which his lordship says, I hope the attention of a narcotic herb, the parent now of far of the Criminal Law Committee of the Society more trade than ever enriched Genoa and will be directed to a matter which, in moving the made Venice the mistress of the Mediter-resolutions of March last on procedure, I glanced ranean. Neither the Governments which at as one of the grossest defects in our law (not have in our time encouraged trade, nor the in our procedure) regarding breach of trust, individuals who have carried it on, ever however gross, as no offence, but merely ground intended it to be a means of making nations of debt. I gave the instance of a trustee leavmutually serviceable, and establishing between them such binding relations of friendship and interest as to make it necessary for every Sovereign to take them into his especial consideration. In promoting trade -as one after another almost every Government in Europe has, however awkwardly, What a discredit to our criminal legislaendeavored to promote it-no Government tion that a remedy has still to be provided intended to raise up an interest and a power for wrongs like this! But it is the old story that should give laws to States, and influence, of immunity for the rich. Not till a very if not control, their policy, both domestic few years ago does it seem to have occurred and foreign. Governments may determine to the legislature that so respectable a man what they will undertake, as Mr. J. S. Mill as a banker might play the thief with trusts says, they may determine what institutions committed to him, and even then it so bunthey will establish; but they can no more determine the consequences of their undertakings, than determine how the institutions they establish shall work. Not only by their resolves, but by the consequences of their undertakings and institutions, which they We have turned to that able speech of cannot determine, and which are far more Lord Brougham's on criminal law procedure important than their intentions, their under- for the examples to which he alludes in his takings and institutions are tried and their letter. Certainly they are bad enough. merits ascertained. The State at one time but not worse than must flow incessantly made a law to put every forger of a one- from a state of the law in which deliberate pound note to death, and the numerous misappropriation of trust money is regarded executions which followed excited a strong but as a ground of debt, and the only check sentiment against capital punishments, led to a rigorous investigation into the assumed right of the State to take away life, to a conviction that the assumption was unwarranted, and to the weakening of that power of the sword in the hands of rulers on which all their authority ultimately rests. The State did not intend any such great change. The course of society, in fact, is not determined by the intentions of man, and he only learns and knows whether he have fulfilled the intentions of the Power which

gled the remedy as to leave still an outlet of escape to fraud, by which many a guilty man might easily profit, and the innocent suffer ruin. It was but accident, after all, that tripped up Messrs. Paul and Strahan.

upon it is a chancery suit to be maintained against the wrong-doer by the ruined person, frequently a helpless girl. Here, as in so many other cases, the Scotch law is more just than our own, and to this our own must be brought into agreement, if we would clear it of a defect nothing short of disgraceful.

The case of the trustee mentioned in Lord Brougham's letter is referred to in his speech as that of a "not undistinguished member of the legal profession, who, when guardian of two orphans, spent the whole of their