a The political officers all round our Indian frontier, for example, will feel a little weakened. Our Persian embassy will feel weakened at Teheran-every one will feel weakened. Further, the war that is just over has settled nothing. There will still be the same steady set of Russian feeling towards Constantinople, still the same jealousies between Servia and Montenegro, still the same difficulties caused by the nearly equal numbers and very peculiar relations of Mohammedans and Christians in Bosnia, still the same clashing of Greek and Slav ambition, while, in the Bulgarian-speaking provinces, religious and race hatreds will be much worse than ever. The international rubble, in fact, will be as little cohesive as of yore, and Europe will have lost the opportunity of pouring into it a powerful cement which would have made it as hard as the living rock. Such a cement would have been supplied by a European prince and a civilised administration. Probably the worst result to us will be the national discredit the weakening of the power of England for good—that has come of it. On the other hand, perhaps some good result may follow if it is brought home to many of our people how singularly ill-adapted is the England of the present day to take a useful part in the affairs of the continent of Europe. It would be hardly possible to make a more hopeless muddle than has been made by the joint efforts of our rival agitators. The pity is that the question of Constantinople should not be settled now one way or other, even if it were settled badly; for then one more cause of interference in the affairs of Europe would be put an end to, and we should be one step nearer the time when we shall come to think that we have enough to do in managing an empire compared with which Europe, after all, is but a very small portion of the earth's surface. If it were once understood that under no circumstances should we intervene in any European quarrel, we should be in a much more dignified and tenable position. I do not say that that is the best attitude possible, but it is a great deal better than having a furious quarrel amongst ourselves as to whether we should or should not intervene upon the wrong side. Not the least evil which arises from our English system of education is the marvellously small having in history with which our public men go forth to their work. More and more the expediency of absolute non-intervention is forced upon the mind of one who watches the turns of English opinion about the affairs of foreign countries. More and more does one fear that they are right who wish to see us gradually get rid of all treaties and guarantees which in any way bind us to the fortunes of other members of the European community. But more and more does the difficulty press upon us which arises from the increasing interest taken by our people in European affairs. If then we are long condemned to hang, like Mahomet's coffin, between intervention and non-intervention, would it not be reasonable to spend the few thousands a year that would be necessary to make the Foreign Office tolerably efficient-to take care, that is, that there should be men in it thoroughly acquainted with all the countries of the world, so that a Secretary of State should never be at a loss for some one to whom he could refer in the earlier stages of all questions? If we had such people at the centre of affairs, our embassies and other feelers throughout the world would soon be put on a proper footing, since it would be the interest of the men of whom I speak to take care that their work was made easy by obtaining good sources of information. Now, however, what encouragement is there to our representatives abroad to send home full and good information from places which are not for the moment centres of interest? The business of the Foreign Office clerks is to have their boxes empty on Saturday night, not to know all about particular countries. No doubt the younger ones who have come in under the new system are very superior to most of their predecessors, but we cannot expect them to fill the place of the men of whom I speak, and who would much more resemble the members of the Council of India, though they wouid be wholly without any of the powers wielded by that Council in its collective capacity—high and dignified assistants of the Secretary of State, and nothing more. There is no reason in the world why a young man entering the Foreign Office should not eventually rise to one of these positions if he had the necessary training; but a personal acquaintance with the group of countries which he represented, and a full acquaintance with the literature relating to them, would be absolutely necessary in addition to the knowledge of the Foreign Office business relating to them for some time back, which one would expect to find in any experienced clerk. It comes then simply to this : either the ation should take order to have its foreign affairs managed in a reasonable and intelligent way, or else it should give up pretending to have any foreign affairs at all, except of the simplest description-should take up, in short, the attitude of America. I should be sorry to see it choose the latter alternative, because I think that, without moving a ship or landing a soldier on the Continent, England might still, if she had a firstrate Foreign Office and a first-rate diplomacy, play a great part in Europe as a thoroughly impartial power, which had no interest in anything except the general prosperity. But even the comparatively humble part which is played in Europe by America is incomparably more honourable than the double- or treble-faced negation of policy which has recently been characteristic of this great country, and which is mainly the result of ignorance. We come back to the old saying: England wills strongly in the East, but she knows not what she wills. Knowledge as well as worth may be made worthless by the want of will,' but worth and will together without knowledge will not bring either states or statesmen to any good end. It may be hoped that one thing at least is not past praying for—that, namely, during the negotiations which are about to commence, some little moderation and reticence may be used by persons in high positions in speaking of foreign countries. In the painful discussion of the 14th ultimo three Privy Councillors thought themselves justified in denouncing Austria, Germany, and Russia respectively-one of them in such language that he had actually to be called to order. I agree with the first in lamenting that the policy of Austria up to recent times was as bad as possible in Italy and elsewhere, but the Austria of 1878 is not the Austria of Metternich or even that of Schmerling. The change that has come over her in thirty years is much greater than the change that has come over any other State; and if she runs counter to any of the views of honourable and right honourable gentlemen who seem to think that their newest mission is to attack her, they should surely recollect that the affairs of that region which fifteen years ago was well called Chaos,' for us only a matter of intelligent and humane interest, are for her a matter of life and death. The Eastern Question will soon, too soon, become a Central European question if, in arranging the affairs of the Balkan peninsula, the most anxious care is not taken of the legitimate interests of Austria. As to Germany I will say no more. Sir Robert Peel merely gave expression to the vague distrust of which I have already spoken-a distrust which only time and increased knowledge of the German language, literature, and history will do away with. When even one of our foremost men tells us, as one of them once did in his place in the House of Commons, that German, though a proper study for students, was not a proper study for English gentlemen, we need hardly be surprised at the absurdities to which we are forced to listen. With the third Privy Councillor, again, I agree in feeling indig Ι nant at the way in which persons calling themselves Liberals seem completely to have forgotten the relations of Russia and Poland. - I remember when the very same sort of people attacked one furiously for attempting to do the commonest justice to Russia in relation to the Polish question. But to speak of the present Czar in the terms in which Lord Robert Montagu spoke of him is perfectly monstrous Succeeding as he did, in the striking words of Lord Palmerston, to a heritage of triumphant wrong, he has laboured according to his lights-the lights, after all, of the son of Nicholas--to ameliorate the conditions of the people, and to give to an Empire which in the days of his father was, except to a few privileged persons, about as cheerful an abode as the city of Dis, as much prosperity, if not as much freedom, as he thought he safely could. I do not pretend to justify his recent proceedings. He has the faults and weaknesses of his descent and upbringing, but the stream of tendency by which he has been borne along to his present position has been so strong that it is hardly possible to see how he could have stood against it. At an earlier stage in the affair we might, I think, bave worked with him to the honour of both countries, and to the advantage alike of the Balkan peninsula and of all its neighbours. Is it utterly hopeless to do so still ? Must all the miseries we have been witnessing come over again in a few short years when Servia thinks fit to try to recreate the Empire of Stephen Douschan, or Greece to make the grande idée a reality, or Bulgaria once more to rule on the Bosphorus, or Russia to come down to the Ægean. Can United Europe do nothing better than build a house of cards ? THE PATHS OF HONOUR AND OF SHAME. εγγύς γάρ νυκτός τε και ήματός εισι κέλευθοι.-Οd. . 86. If this age has pride, and if its pride requires a whipping, the needful discipline is perhaps not far to seek. It may possibly be had, at least for England, by a short retrospect over the incidents and the senti ments of the last few weeks, and by an attempt to judge how far the facts go to justify the feelings and the language that have been associated with them. It is idle to talk of advance in knowledge, except so far as this inward gift makes itself observed and felt in a superior standard of internal conduct. It is futile to proclaim an increased mastery over nature, if we cannot master our own nature, if we are not making, but losing, ground in self-command. Knowledge, as such, is the treasure of the few, and such, by the conditions of our life, it must ever be. Of the race it is still true That Knowledge to their eyes her ample page, Rich with the spoils of time, did ne'er unroll: although that page be now richer still, and not with the spoils of time only, but of space, and of all that it enfolds. Yet the results of knowledge filter down from theorists and students through every stratum of practical life, and tend progressively to enlarge the freedom of man, and diminish his dependence upon outward circumstance. So that, in an age of greater knowledge, man ought to grow more manly; to keep a sterner guard over passion; to be less liable to illusion ; to take a larger and more consummate view even of his real interests, and to despise the panics, and abhor the selfish arts, which set up interests that are unreal. So he plants his foot more firmly on this ground of earth that has been given for his inheritance. But if, instead of these wholesome results, he thinks his greatness invests him with a sort of right to err; if he becomes not more but less inclined to own the equal title of others not only to act, but to be judged for action, like himself; if a morbid growth of selfish propensity saps the foundations of the throne of reason, and he is more fitful and credulous than ever; then we have indeed a spectacle full of disappoint |