CHAPTER VI.

TH

PALMERSTON AND FOREIGN POLICY.

HERE are many reasons for preferring Palmerston to any other statesman, British or foreign, for the purposes of studying a life and character containing the elements for a review of ideas relating to foreign policy. He had a long career of eighty years, during which he held political office for periods totalling nearly half a century, and throughout his main interest, even when he did not hold the seals of the Foreign Office, was foreign policy. When he entered Parliament in 1807 Great Britain had only very recently lost Pitt and Fox, and he was still a great figure in politics when Gladstone and Disraeli were at the height of their powers. He was, therefore, in touch with the great men at the beginning of the century and with those who dominated the political stage right down to its close. He served as a colleague in governments with Castlereagh, Canning, Wellington, Peel, John Russell, Althorp, Melbourne and Clarendon, besides being himself twice Prime Minister. If there is any well established tradition in foreign policy, assuredly Palmerston inherited it from Castlereagh and Canning, and passed it on to his

successors.

So much did Palmerston make the business of the Office his own concern that in the writing of despatches he treated his colleagues in the Cabinet, and Queen Victoria herself, as quite negligible, managing the foreign affairs of the British Empire very much as he managed his private estates; and so much was he trusted by the nation at large, so fully did he seem to embody the British temper, that when, on account of this conduct, he was dismissed from office at the direct instance of the Queen, he was the most popular man in the country.

In the eyes of foreign writers, too, Palmerston has generally been regarded as the typically British foreign minister. The German historian Treitschke draws a lively picture of him striding away from a late sitting of the House of Commons, his hat shoved back on his head, his umbrella shouldered like a musket, a flower or a straw in his mouth, his whole being exuding old English exuberance and cheerful ease. The same writer, who could rarely pen a paragraph involving a reference to Great Britain without betraying a rancid and vicious hatred, represented Palmerston as impersonating the hard selfishness, the bullying tone, the hypocritical professions of benevolence and religion, which, in his view, characterised British foreign policy in the middle of the nineteenth century. Beneath the sporting swagger, the jaunty jollity, the good-natured, easygoing appearance and air of the Minister, it was represented, was a John Bull with greedy eyes fixed on his own advantage, and using the power of his state to cajole, intimidate or wheedle in the interest of British trade and British prestige.

There is some truth, much falsehood, in such estimates. No apology is needed on behalf of any minister who makes it his policy to promote the interests of his country. He would need defending if he did not. Amongst much wild writing on foreign affairs which the excitement of the years of war produced, there frequently was a suggestion that the promotion of national interests was a kind of political wickedness, and that Foreign Ministers, ambassadors, and the whole diplomatic tribe merited the reprobation of all righteous-and especially of self-righteous—

persons.

It may be admitted readily that more boldness than candour would distinguish any man who set out to defend every act of British foreign policy during the nineteenth century. But it has at least been frank and open. The British system of Parliamentary and public criticism, and the habit of dragging facts into the light of day, has ensured that what has been done should be known, and we have good warrant for the belief that nothing of consequence has been hidden, or need be. Dr. Holland Rose, who has an incomparably extensive acquaintance with British foreign archives, tells the impressive story that he once remarked to Dr. Samuel Rawson Gardiner, another

assiduous labourer in the documentary vineyard, that the more thoroughly British foreign policy was examined the better it came out. Gardiner replied: "Yes, it always does, it always does." Men in responsible positions have to choose courses which often seem to many among their contemporaries, and may seem still more to posterity—which has the advantage or noting how things have worked out to have been wrong. In some instances they have admitted it. A good instance is Lord Salisbury's candid acknowledgment that the government of which he was a foremost member, in supporting Turkey in 1878, "backed the wrong horse." But Foreign Secretaries, however able, cannot penetrate the future with infallible judgment; they have to do their best in perplexing and delicate circumstances; and Lord Salisbury himself was, on the admission of men in all parties, one of the best Foreign Secretaries Great Britain has ever had, if he was not quite, as Professor Cramb alleged, "the greatest statesman in English history since the eighteenth century."

But while a Foreign Minister is not to be condemned but commended for keeping the interests of his own country primarily in view, a proper regard for the rights and interests of neighbour states is virtuous in a great nation; and on this count British policy has little cause to shrink from the test. Castlereagh and Canning, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, laid down principles which were reiterated in different terms but with substantially the same import by later statesmen right down to our own time. It is admittedly difficult to prescribe rules for dealing with a branch of politics which has to do with governments, peoples and situations beyond the control of any one Foreign Office, but there is a clear spirit of unity underlying these various definitions of principle, laid down by successive Foreign Secretaries and Prime Ministers:

Castlereagh, 1818.-"The idea of an Alliance Solidaire, by which each state shall be bound to support the state of succession, government and possession within all other states from violence and attack, upon condition of receiving for itself a similar guarantee, must be understood as morally implying the previous establishment of such a system of general government as may secure and enforce upon all kings and nations an internal system of peace and justice. Till the mode of constructing such a system shall

be devised the consequence is inadmissible, as nothing would be more immoral and more prejudicial to the character of governments generally than the idea that their force was collectively to be prostituted to the support of established power, without any consideration of the extent to which it was abused."

Canning, 1823.-"England is under no obligation to interfere or to insist on interfering in the internal affairs of independent nations. The rule I take to be that our engagements have reference only to the state of territorial possession settled at the peace; to the state of affairs between nation and nation, not to the affairs of any nation within itself. Our business is to preserve the peace of the world, and therefore the independence of the several nations which compose it."

Aberdeen, 1829.-"Having no separate objects to attain and having nothing to fear, it has been peculiarly our office to watch over the peaceful relations of states, and, by upholding the established balance, to promote the security and prosperity of each."

Palmerston, 1848.-"The principle on which I have thought that the foreign affairs of this country ought to be conducted is the principle of maintaining peace and friendly understanding with all nations, as long as it was possible to do so consistently with a due regard to the interests, the honour and the dignity of this country. My endeavours have been to preserve peace. All the governments of which I have had the honour to be a member have succeeded in accomplishing that object. I hold that the real policy of England-apart from questions which involve her own particular interests, political or commercial-is to be the champion of justice and right; pursuing that course with moderation and prudence, not becoming the Don Quixote of the world, but giving the right of her moral sanction and support wherever she thinks that justice is, and wherever she thinks that wrong has been done."

Granville, 1851.-"One of the first duties of a British Government must always be to obtain for our foreign trade that security which is essential to commercial success, but in aiming at this all considerations of a higher character were not to be roughly pushed aside for the sake of supporting British traders abroad in every case. With respect to the internal affairs of other countries, such as the estab