On this page

• Text (1)

  Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

  • 

    Untitled Article

• Transcript

  • Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.

    Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.

    Untitled Article

    f ther nor of the mother , there has to be superadded the accident of that special shaped head which permits a philosop hical temperament ., Perhaps the Jew is your only proper cosmopolitan ; and , we have seen in the areer of Mr . Disraeli . in Great Britain ample evidence of the advantage it is to an ambitious man to be without a country ; he becomes the true citizen , of the jj his genius expands with the consciousness of an illimitable public for an audience ; and he sees all

    " questions" rightly , because national questions are questions of humanity , and he sees them in their entirety . But there is a near approach to the cosmopolitan frequently encountered ; in those cases where the native of one country becomes formally and naturally adopted as a subject in another . Such is the position occupied by that admirable Prince who is consort to Queen Victoria ; and to that happy position is attributable his remarkable success as an English

    politician . English statesmen , for the last hundred and fifty years , have been too much distinguished by the characteristics of islanders . When English kings owned tho larger portion of France , English statesmanship had o-randeiir and comprehensiveness j and the tone of the talk of Normans had a magnificent universality about it . When the Tudors followed , and Henry the Eighth had to manoeuvre for the benefit of Europe between Francis and Charles , it was noticeable that "Wolsey and Cromwell had no narrow national prejudices , and that the Cardinal , who was a conscientious man , loving God

    and pitying man , and who believed that the world could be blessed were he Pope , would have thought it not only not wrong , but his duty , to sacrifice England if Charles would give him the triple tiara . When Elizabeth held England , and when the battle in Europe was between freedom of thought and slavery of thoughtbetween Protestantism and Popery—her statesmen were less Englishmen than philosophers , and a Cecil or Essex thought it as much a matter of course to spend two or three millions of-English money in destroying Philip in the Low Countries , as Sir William Molesworth thinks

    it advisable to spend half a million on a new metropolitan bridge , or as Lord Dudley Stuart would think it propor to send British troops to Hungary against Russia and Austria . Just before , in Mary ' s time , excellent En glishmen desired to see England a Spanish province , believing that a universal enlightened despotism would b e best , however much their countrymen preferred parochiality to mankind . When the Charleses had relatives in the Palatinate , whom it was only decent to sustain , England enjoyed the rule of statesmen

    who took broad views of tho usefulness of England in Europe ; nnd the second Charles certainly did not conceal his opinion that it was his personal interest to hack tho policy of the Grand Monarque with tho map <>( Europe : Charles having got a good deal out of insularity of mind by his travels . When William of Orange got the English throne ho proved a great man ; ""( I Mr . Macaulny , who himself has the advantage of 51 dou ble country , admires William inordinately , bocauHo William nought England for tho mike of the W Countries . When n Pretender was added , to tho politic-ill characters of Great Britain , British statesmen ,

    « f both Hides , Loyalists , and Whigs , and Hanoverians , were compelled to sustain themselves by cultivating pWHonal and dynn . stic fricndHbips in Europe- and this liueeHHii y rained tho intellects , and enlarged tho ken , of ( l > i- poli ticians , an was visible in tho philosophic tenancies , remarked by ' Pope , of Bolingbroke , and tho » "lil !« r « ii W , of the great Marlborough , uh remarked by < 'VH-. y l )( , ( l as to whether tho bribes Kent to him wero 111 French crowiiK or English guineas . But with Wal-I '" " bcRim narrow-minded , insular fllatosniaiuiliip in U U | ' 'i »» . The two firs t George * tried to eoliW

    ^ «( ,. ; , . Iumm 81 "ff tendency not to look beyond loi "' ' KnKlisl 1 "forest 1 *; luul occasionally they K » ' ¦ » million or two spent , nnd a thousand or two " ««•» , on behalf of Hanoverian intercuts . But Kng-™ W " « le oi'onm into a nation of Indicators ; nnd "' polo was unstained by thoni for keeping tlio peaeo ]« iMiropo , and bribing nil tho gontloinon of England C'hatl UlliaU ' - 'Ui ) t ° l > ° lllin" ° w-milKl «( l n »( l noHIhIi . » un , hiB ren } sucmJHOr j n power , whs intensely nn

    Englishman , and confessed his prejudices with the most amusing candour of a belief that he was a great man because he said he didn't care for either French , or Prussian , or Austrian , or Spanish policy , —all he wanted to , advance was English interests ; and undoubtedly this one-sided policy did increase the "territory , and added to the practical force , of England as a belligerent against everybody . His son was a greater man ; comprehended great causes ; and nobly spent about five hundred millions sterling ( which is now

    represented by a national debt worthy of a great empire ) in suppressing that Corsican dynasty , which has been ( in the shape of a double illegitimacy ) lately revived in Paris . But Pitt was the last of these far-seeing English statesmen ; and a very insular series succeeded him . Peel was the impersonation of the English spirit — the commercial spirit , which sneers at and doesn't understand the grand politiqiie—that spirit so exuberant in the distinguished statesman , Mr . Cobden ; and indeed the greatest statesman in England in these days is a

    statesman who understands finance , Peel being Premier rather than Wellington for that reason , and Mr . Gladstone being preferred to Mr . Disraeli for no other reason . The compliment is sometimes paid to Lord Palmerston that he is above insularity of statesmanship , and is disposed to believe that the Russian system is a good system for Europe and the East ; but attentive study of that eminent personage does not warrant the belief that he is otherwise than humoronsly British , evidencing : this in his famous remark , that he would

    sacrifice everything in Europe to the promotion of the comfort of a civis Britanicws ; in fact when he went down to his bureau in the evening , his first solicitude was how he can advance the interests of-Jones , and his second , only how he might throw in an occasional fillip to the destinies of humanity . And if an English statesman who has passed his life in the Foreign Office cannot attain to a cosmopolitanism of view , what can we hope of that ill informed ( on European affairs ) set of gentlemen who succeed one another as Ministers in this enlightened country , and whose completest acquaintance with the

    affairs of other countries is obtained by reading the clumsily written , but carefully incorrect , correspondence of broken down men about town , who are sent to various capitals of Europe by morning papers ? Our statesmen are the Sir James Grahams and the Sir Charles Woods , and that class of minds ; and their capacity to take the European view in politics was illustrated by their hustings speeches at Carlisle nnd Halifax , whore , though privy councillors of a monarch in alliance with Louis Napoleon , they talked like taproom British liberals about the blessings of constitutional liberty , and the villany of his Majesty the Emperor of the French in not instituting a Houso of Commons into which any patriot could buy his way . Our narrow political system is furthermore deprived of the advantages which might be obtained by bringing in our clever diplomatists , who know the affairs and have adopted the views of other nations , and who occasionally let friendly royal allies pay their debts , to expand tho statesmanship of the vehement British clerks who arc right honourable rulers , and whose acquaintance with the continent is confined to a reminiscence that tho plates arc never hot in Paris . In our system it is necessary that a Minister should bo an actor , and havea capacity to twaddle to order—¦ " party government " requiring oratory , and oratory requiring training ; and tho result is , that our Henry Bulwers , and Normnnhys , and Kedcliffes , who , by long residence abroad , loso healthily a vast amount of insular notions , are excluded from our homo bureaux and Ministerial benches . Even if they did get office , they would have to affect tho Pahncrstoniau stylo , and bo overwhelmingly parochial and patriotic ; or if they didn't , they would bo treated as Lord Muhnesbury was treated — hooted from tho Orkneys to tho Iislo of Wight , because ho wished to bo friendly to Louis Napoleon ; or hooted as Lord Aberdeen has been hooted , on tho baro suspicion that ho is enough of a sago to look beyond Bnrmondsoy when ho takes up a map . If theHO views of tho prevalent , perhaps because inovitablo , tendencies of British statesmanship aro correct , it will readily bo admitted that our imporial polity

    could not but benefit from the accession of Prince Albert to a share in the British Throne . It is true that Queen Victoria has no British blood in her veins ; but the Duke of Kent was a man who was without a policy in politics ; the Duchess of Ken £ did not belong to a family with a cause , and was of a character which inclined her to domestic virtues : and her Majesty had the misfortune to be educated by a man who held power without a plan , who had no domestic or commercial policy , and assuredly knew as little of foreign

    policy as Lord Palmerston could help ; and Lord Melbourne had never the energy—which Lord John Russell subsequently displayed—to conspire against Lord Palmerston . Her Majesty , besides , was educated in England , and saw little of the class who could have taught- a young Queen , that as there was no policy at home to look after , the affairs of Europe might be worth her attention . Had she married an Englishman , as her Majesty ' s parochial subjects would have desired , the Bermondsey foreign policy was the inevitable foreign

    policy of this country ; and even islanders , who are loyal , would not gladly have seen the English monarchy excluded from the freemasonry of kings- —the " solidarity" which is the most perfect of all—that of dynasties . From such a fate—the fate of being pronounced bourgeois and vulgar , the English Throne was saved by Prince Albert . Perhaps he has not quite succeeded in impressing our public men—and , very wisely , he appears to think impressing our public men quite as effective as appealing to our public

    —with the full conception of . the blague of the Bermondsey policy : bnfc it is evident that he has done much good , and that he has aimed at performing , more gracefully , the role of William of Orangethe role in which Leopold of Coburg ambitioned to anticipate his nephew . It is said very frequently in society , " What admirable tact is shown by Prince Albert in not meddling in politics ! " That is the remark of Englishmen ; for when they think of politics , they think of the corn-laws , Income-tax , the cab-act , and the enfranchisement of Peddlington . Prince

    Albert , like William the Third , thinks that Englishmen arc fully equal to tax Bermondsey ; and he does not take any interest in , and does not interfere in , the arrangements which are made by a Mr . Walpole or a Sir William Moles worth , with regard to militia franchises , and huts of Ann Hickscs . In these respects we do not want tho statesmanship of his Royal Highness , and we should have quarrelled with him had ho not let us govern ourselves , through the means of the governing classes , in our own way . But we did want tho influence of a clever , widely-informed , sympathetic , friendly , but not exclusively British mind , in regard to

    what is culled " foreign affairs ; " and that influence has been exorcised , no doubt with excellent effects , by tho Prince Consort . Exercised , no doubt , indirectly , but not leas com pletely . We aro . suggesting no impertinence , and nothing unconstitutional in pointing out that fact . That her Majesty is good enough to take an interest in what the governing classes do for us , in other parts of Europe , was proved , to our national gratification , on the occasion of the quarrel between

    those distinguished . statesmen , Lord John Russell and Lord Pahncrston , when it was unreservedly mentioned to tho House of Commons by tho former personage , that his Queen mado it a rule to see every despatch of tho Foreign Secretary before it could bo forwarded to its destination . And the happiness of her Majesty ' s married life is so delightfully patent—her example in being happy is , indeed , ho repeatedly urged on her subjects —• that it would bo affectation to express u doubt but that His Royal Ilighncss ' s counsel is often sought , and oil on

    adopted . Lot us , at least , hope and be grateful , that it is ho . Let us only imagine what mig ht have boon tho intensity of the Hornioiulsey policy at the fcinio when tho Earl of Granville , an eminently nice and perpetually promising young man , was promoted ( via the Board of Trade ) from tho Mastership of the Buckhounds , to tho direction of tho power of Great Britain at tho Foreign Office-. ' Notoriously , indeed , tho aippointmont of that amiable , but not astonishing , nobleman , was only excused by tho governing clnwses—though it was admitted thnt ho spoke very good French—on tho ground that

    Untitled Article

    I September 3 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 855

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 3, 1853, page 855, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2002/page/15/