WHAT MUST COME OF EXCESSIVE NEUTRALITY.

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXIII, Issue 5314, 6 April 1878, Page 1 (Supplement)

WHAT MUST COME OF EXCESSIVE NEUTRALITY.

(From the World.)

A positive desird for war is far from being the only means by which wars are brought about. The burdens and evils of war are so keenly felt in civilized Europe, that, in a constitutional country at least, there is little dau- . ger of peace being broken out of more wantonness. Ear more serious is the danger that excessive zeal for peace may frustrate the only means by which lasting peace can bo ensured. There are moments when clamor for peace is even more rash and perilous than clamor for war ; there are times when the red war party is that which makes the voice of a great nation of no effect in the council of Europe, by loudly insisting that under no circumstances whatever shall the words of its rulers be reinforced by deeds. If ever there was a position in which great discretion ought to be left to the responsible Government of a country, it is that in which the Government of England has been during the last year. It decided—and in the opinion of a vast majority of Englishmen rightly decided—to stand apart from a conflict whose ultimate issues could not be indifferent, and might be of very serious consequence, to the power and prosperity of England ; that is to say—for this explanation seems to need repeating—to the welfare and happiness of the great multitude of mankind who are subject to English dominion, and whose interests are entrusted to the Government of England for the time being. But at the s ane time the Government resolved that in the final settlement of the questions thrown open in this conflict England should claim an effective voice; and further, the Government pledged themselves that in that settlement the interests of the country should be maintained. Snob was the position repeatedly announced by .'.authority at the beginning and during the course of this unhappy war; a decided neutrality in the contest itself, a resolute purpose ' to have an equal part with other Powers in fixing the new dispositions which must result , from it, and an equally clear resolve that those ; p determinations should not infringe upon the security of the Empire. This being so, it became the duty of Ministers to take such steps as they could in the best of their judgment devise in order to make sure of England , being able to speak with effect when the time came for her voice to be heard. And it became the duty of reasonable Englishmen, to whichever of the combatants their sympathies might incline, not to hinder or discourage Ministers in seeking this end, but rather to encourage them in any action appa-rently-fitted to attain it. No such action has been taken apparently ; and If so, the responsibility rests in the first place, and most heavily of course, upon the Ministry itself. But it rests in the second place, and with no lio-ht weight, on those amateur politicians and irresponsible counsellors who have dogged the Ministry with petty suspicion ; who have refused to give credit to the most explicit and authoritative statements ■of intention; who have hampered its plans with captious hostility at home, and paralysed its hands abroad by ostentatiously proclaiming the counsels of England to be so distracted that what might be said in the name of England did not matter. Not that the rulers of a constitutional country are to complain of being narrowly watched by their opponents. Vigilance is proper and necessary ; but it may be exercised without treating Ministers as a kind of creatures so foolish or so malicious that if they stir in any direction it must be for mischief. This, however, lias been the treatment which her Majesty’s Ministers have received. Every suggestion of an opportunity for doing something has been met in certain quarters with a cry of our neutrality in dinger. At every suspicion of possible action a clamor of forbidding voices has gone up. There must not be an understanding with Germany, because it might displease France; there must not be an understanding with France, because it might displease Germany ; we must not accept any increase of power in Egypt, because it would bring expense and responsibility. We must do nothing, in a word, that was not perfectly safe and perfectly agreeable to everybody. Risk could "be seen in every direction ; and hence the conclusion was drawn, and vehemently enforced, that the only safe way was to stand still. The only objection to this conclusion was that the conrse of doing nothing happened to involve greater and more certain risks than any other. Meanwhile there was among all these cries a more distinct and persistent one, kept up by voices few but loud, and to this purpose : Stir not a finger for England, lest you hinder the great work which Russia the Liberator is doing alone, because selfish England would not do it with her. All you may now do is to stand aside and say, “ God speed Holy Russia any prejudice to British interests that may ensue will be nothing but a just judgment upon you for not coming to the help of the. Lord against the unspeakable Moslem. This is at least intelligible ; and the result of all the other uncertain cries has been practically to strengthen this one alone. The policy of England nas, for all that appears, been paralysed. On the possible consequences, while there is any hope left of averting them, we do not care to dilate.

, A short generation affords full enough space, it seems, for not only the maxims of statesmen but the lessons of events to be forgotten. The Crimean war was brought on by a course of flurried and ambiguous action succeeding to a belief abroad that England would never really act. This belief, though not the whole or sufficient cause, was one necessary cause of the war. It is hot amiss to refresh ones memory on, this point; and Englishmen who have not made up their minds that Russia's present enterprise is of so high and holy a nature as to be outside the sphere of ordinary politics, will do well to read and consider once again the second and twelfth' chapters of Mr. Kinglake’s history. They may read there how firm and really peacemaking words were frittered away ; how the ruler of Russia mistook a certain “ active little crowd for the English people; how to his ears “the cheeriog which, greeted the thin phantom of the Peace Party import d a determination of the English people to abdicate their place in Europe and how the English people became conscious of a very different sort of determination, and the Czar was undeceived when it was too late for peace. They may also learn that it is not mere selfishness which impels great Powers to be vigilant in the protection of their own interests. Such vigilance is ; a security for the common weal, and is in a manner expected of them by the public law of Europe; not, perhaps, that which is laid down in the speculations of jurists, but that which is seen at work in the opinions and the practice of nations. And England ought to be one of the last Powers to decline this duty. “In general, when the world believes that England will be firm, there is peace. It is the hope of her proving weak or irresolute which tends to breed war.”