The next two statesmen whom I shall cite are Sir Robert Peel and Lord Palmerston. I fancy most people will admit, whatever their view of Lord Palmerston's career may be, that we have had no statesman for many a day who was more versed in diplomatic usage or better acquainted with the nature of the precedents that might be fairly cited to justify any particular act. Having in the year 1835 sanctioned the employment of Sir De Lacy Evans in Spain, he in 1836 thus defended his action by precedents drawn from the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It must be understood that I do not quote this particular case as an illustration of sudden war. What Lord Palmerston had in this instance to justify was not the suddenness with which he had acted, but the fact that he had interfered, by unofficial war and suspending the Foreign Enlistment Act, in the internal affairs of a foreign country. The interesting point in this case lies in the fact that a statesman who, then and afterwards, had both Houses and the country at his back, felt himself justified in basing the defence of his action on precedents of a date so ancient. It is obvious that if precedents so many centuries old in regard to unofficial war were valid, so also would all the precedents of the intervening period as to the sudden beginning of war be valid to justify, for instance, such an act as that of Japan. The reply of Sir Robert Peel, which I also give, though it necessarily turns on the question of the particular case of interference in the private concerns of another nation, is equally applicable to the precedents, to be drawn from our own action in the past as to sudden war, by foreign nations desiring an excuse for suddenly attacking us.

Precedents [said Lord Palmerston] would have justified the Government in doing even more. Queen Elizabeth sent assistance first to the Huguenots of France, and next to the revolted subjects of Spain in the Low Countries. In these cases she not merely left her subjects at liberty to go to their aid if they chose, but she did that which Ministers had been falsely and unjustly accused of doing-she did in an underhand manner what she did not choose to do openly, and, being restrained by prudential reasons from publicly declaring war, she gave permission, in her own name, to her subjects to join the insurgent forces, supplying them with money; and she despatched 6000 men to aid the insurgents in the Low Countries, whom she raised at her own expense, and furnished with trains of artillery. What happened in the revolt of the Low Countries? The army of Prince Maurice was composed of persons of all nations, whose adventurous spirit and love of freedom led them to fight in its ranks, and seek for distinction in the victories he gained. At the battle which took place at Nieuport, the British auxiliaries, under Sir Philip de Vere, were mainly instrumental in gaining the victory there achieved. When Ostend was taken a few years afterwards, who were the officers who commanded the garrison? Edmonds, a Scotchman, and Martine, a Frenchman, were among the number, while Sir Philip de Vere was in the army which carried on the 'operations of the siege. To say, therefore, that for the subjects of one country to engage in the contests of another was contrary to the law or practice of nations, and that an antagonist of such volunteers might justly threaten to refuse them the privilege of prisoners of war, as Don Carlos had threatened to do, was a proposition at variance with all history.

The cause and the limit of the interference, again, rested on the plain principle of assisting Spain to maintain her independence, so far as our power went, while we avoided enterprises beyond our means, and attempts that might involve us in a war which it would be unwise or dishonourable to undertake.

I give, as I have said, Sir Robert Peel's reply to represent the view which would certainly be taken by a foreign nation which desired to quote the action of England as a precedent for attacking England herself.

If these principles were correct, there never yet was a government, it being itself the sole judge of the necessity, which had not a right, or, if it had not, could not make out for itself a right, to interfere in the domestic concerns of its neighbours. Although we might be deeply interested in the commerce of Spain, was that a sufficient justification for our present interference? Or if it was to be justified because we had an interest that a free government should be established in Spain, a similar allegation might be made by the despotic governments of the Continent as their justification for checking the growth of nascent freedom in any of the States in their vicinity. Prussia or Austria, for instance, might allege, 'Our interests are opposed to the establishment of democracy, or to the maintenance of popular government, in the neighbourhood of our territories, and on the same principle on which England, possessing a popular government and a free constitution, has interfered in Spain to procure the establishment of a similar political system in that country, do we justify ourselves in promoting a system of despotism, and in crushing the first attempts to establish a just and rational liberty.'

On the whole, however, the most simple statement of principles on the subject of the right method of beginning war was enunciated by a Russian diplomatist in 1840. The case is the more remarkable because practically all the Powers were at the time in consultation as to the measures to be taken to save Turkey from the attack of the Pasha of Egypt. It was therefore to the statesmen of Europe, as a declaration of the principles which ought to guide their action, that Baron Brunnow, the Russian plenipotentiary, propounded the proposition To execute all these measures' of overt and decisive action against Egypt with the greatest promptitude, and with the greatest secrecy. Promptitude, because it is the only means of ensuring their success; secrecy, because the blow must first be struck before it is announced.' No subsequent action of Russia at any date has ever shown that she has repudiated the principles thus laid down for her guidance and that of other Powers by Baron Brunnow.

But to come to the broad result of the actual precedents. I could during the two centuries trace no case which justified the assumption that modern nations considered themselves under any obligation to send to a foreign Court a warning of coming war, delivered as a declaration of war at the foreign Court, in any instance in which advantage was to be gained by adhering to the principles of Baron Brunnow. As a rule, a 'Declaration of War' is of precisely the same kind as those that were issued by Japan and by Russia respectively after the war had begun. Our declarations of war have been issued in a very solemn manner on the steps of the Royal

Exchange. They warn all the King's subjects of the fact of war, and prescribe to them the conduct that it behoves them to follow in consequence. From time, place, and circumstance they cannot be regarded as intended to warn the threatened Power; and they have, in fact, in almost every instance been preceded by fierce fighting which has brought on the war. The Constitution of the United States is probably the most solemn document that exists, regulating as it does with rigid precision the conduct of a great nation which absolutely accepts its authority. Naturally, the conditions of 'Declarations of War' are in such a document strictly defined. The form of the United States' Declaration of War' is a vote by Congress 'that a state of war actually exists between the United States and' such and such a Power. It formally announces the fact of preceding acts of war, and places the powers of the States at the disposal of the Executive for the purpose of war.

So far as I have been able to ascertain, the difference in the number of cases which have occurred in the action of different States in this matter has been merely a question of opportunity. A maritime State has greater facilities for a sudden stroke, as Japan has so recently shown; therefore, it happens that Britain and France have delivered these sudden blows more often than any other Powers. France has had the double opportunity of striking by sea and land, and has taken it freely. Numerically, within the time I more particularly examined, Britain struck thirty of these blows, France thirty-six, Russia seven (not reckoning her habitual practice towards Turkey and other bordering Asiatic States, including China), Prussia seven, Austria twelve, the United States five at least. Anyone who wishes to verify the authorities for these statements can do so by referring to a little volume published by the Stationery Department, and to be obtained of any bookseller for 18. 6d. A few copies still remain on hand. It is entitled Hostilities without Declaration of War. I am indebted to the Controller of His Majesty's Stationery Office, in whose hands is the copyright, for the permission I have freely used to make extracts from it. At the present time, those who are still discussing the propriety of the action of Japan will find much ammunition for controversy in it. In face of the details and evidence therein supplied, they will, I think, share my opinion that those who have attacked the action of Japan are either ignorant of history or reckless about the extent to which they besmirch their own countries by the mud which they fling at Japan.

In the volume in question I have cited chapter and verse for every assertion here made. I now throw down the challenge to any representative of any nation or of any form of Government-republican, representative monarchy, or any form of absolutism-to show that the action of Japan has not been strictly in accordance with the precedents provided by the nation or Government for whom they speak. F. MAURICE.

LAST MONTH

I

ALARUMS and excursions were the order of the day in politics last month. Not since those troubled times which some of us remember only too well, in the spring of 1886, when Mr. Gladstone was facing the not yet compacted forces of Unionism, and was looking about in every direction at once for some means of consolidating his wavering majority, have we had anything like the parliamentary situation of March. It is no part of my business to retail here the gossip of the Lobbies and the thousand and one theories of our Tadpoles and Tapers. But we have had something more than mere irresponsible gossip to cast light upon the political situation during the past month. Mr. Gladstone was wont to declare that all political secrets leaked out, and that the only safety of a Ministry lay in the fact that, whilst the truth, even when most jealously guarded, was revealed, it was invariably accompanied by assertions which went so far beyond what was true that the public was just as completely deceived as though nothing whatever regarding any particular transaction had become known. Out of the volume of gossip which has lately flowed in a turbid current through the newspapers there are one or two special items which may be taken as being in fact and substance true. There is, for example, the story, to which I must recur later on, of a fierce struggle within the Cabinet over the second instalment of the report of the War Office Reconstruction Committee. Even the least enlightened of men knows that there was something more than mere rumour in this story. There is also the undoubted fact that on the 9th of March the Government had the narrowest possible escape from a fatal defeat in the House of Commons. On that eventful day, Ministers themselves believed that they were about to be beaten, and the feeling was so strong that some of the 'politicals' even went so far as to make little valedictory speeches to the 'permanents' with whom they were associated in their respective offices. It was only by forming a desperate resolution, and taking a desperate course, that Mr. Balfour was enabled to avert a catastrophe that would have put an end to

6

the Government. The story of the evening is as strange as it is instructive. Mr. Pirie had given notice of a resolution calling attention to the public utterances of the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and other members of the Government, on the fiscal question, and strongly condemning preferential and protective tariffs. To this Mr. Wharton, acting with the approval of the Government, had announced his intention of moving an amendment approving the explicit declarations' of the Government that their policy did not include either a general system of protection or preference based on the taxation of food. This amendment was devised for the purpose of retaining the votes of the Ministerial Free Traders, who, it was known, would not oppose Mr. Pirie's resolution if it stood alone. It had, however, the obvious disadvantage, from the party point of view, of committing the Government against Mr. Chamberlain's policy. His friends in the House of Commons, to the number, it is said, of 112, were deeply incensed by what they regarded as the betrayal of their leader, and at a hastily summoned meeting in the precincts of the House, they decided to inform the Treasury Whips that they would not support the Wharton amendment. Mr. Balfour was allowed but little time in which to decide upon his course of action, but it could not have taken him long to discover that to part company with the food-taxers meant immediate defeat, whilst to part from the Free Traders would still leave him in command of a majority. He chose the latter course. Mr. Wharton's amendment was hurriedly withdrawn, and Ministers, in consequence, succeeded in defeating Mr. Pirie's resolution by a majority of forty-six, at the cost, however, of allowing themselves to be identified with the policy of the foodtax. The majority of Liberals regarded the crisis, and the surrender of Ministers to Mr. Chamberlain, with unfeigned satisfaction. It is not to the House of Commons, with its Ministerial majority reduced to little more than a third of its original strength, that they look for the ultimate defeat of the protectionist agitation, but to the country, where events have proved that this policy is distinctly, if not universally, unpopular. Rightly or wrongly, they conceived that by compelling Mr. Balfour to nail the flag of protection to the ship he commands, they had done much to strengthen the prospect of victory at the general election in which they are already rejoicing.

There is always an element of comedy in even the gravest of political crises. It was supplied, in this instance, by the position of the Chancellor of the Exchequer. Mr. Pirie's resolution was avowedly aimed at the extra-parliamentary utterances of that gentleman; yet the Chancellor of the Exchequer was not permitted to open his lips in the debate. He had to remain mute, just as he did in the prolonged discussion of the fiscal question on the Address. It was an unparalleled position for a Minister of high rank to occupy in such circumstances, and it has not unnaturally led to some