Imágenes de páginas
PDF
EPUB

the subject of the alleged 'disloyalty' of those Conservatives who have declined to accept the new gospel of Protection and have proclaimed themselves 'Free Fooders.' Fiscal reform, it is evident, is one of the movements that have allowed themselves to be arrested by the seductive holiday influences of September. As for the attempt which has been made in certain quarters to raise afresh the fears of Unionists on the subject of Home Rule in order to warn Unionist Free Traders of the perils they may run if at the coming General Election they do not support their party without regard to the fiscal question, it is difficult to view it as anything but a political demonstration pour rire. The men who are responsible for the rather half-hearted movement in favour of 'devolution' in Ireland are, almost to a man, Conservatives and Protectionists, and there is no section of the Liberal party, certainly none worth reckoning with, which is not pledged not to raise the question of Home Rule in the next Parliament. If that question should be raised at all it will be by those who proclaim themselves the friends and supporters of Mr. Chamberlain. Apparently, however, it is not only in West Africa that the bogey is regarded as a formidable weapon in the government of States or tribes.

[ocr errors]

To the great relief of the nation at large, and probably to the equal relief of his Majesty's Ministers, our armed mission' to Tibet has completed its work, and has apparently secured an unqualified success. If the published version of the treaty signed at Lhasa is to be trusted, we have got all we desired-freedom for trade between our Indian frontiers and Tibet, and the emphatic assertion of our right to prevent any foreign intervention in a country whose independ ence is of such supreme importance to the security of our Empire. Ministers may congratulate themselves on having brought an expedition, in many respects so hazardous, to so happy a conclusion; nor need they be greatly troubled by the threats in which some Russian newspapers have already seen fit to indulge as to possible troubles in Tibet in the future. The national prestige, it may be hoped, has been vindicated and secured in a corner of the world in which we have a peculiar and exclusive interest. Yet there have been adverse criticisms on the settlement arrived at, chiefly on the ground that it opens the way for that occupation or annexation of Tibet which the Government declared was entirely outside its policy. It is too soon, as yet, to say how far these criticisms are justified. Their fulfilment or non-fulfilment will depend chiefly upon the ability of the Tibetans to carry out the engagements into which they have entered.

Lord Rosebery's speech, to which I have referred, swept over the whole ground of the Liberal opposition to the Government. It spared ministers neither in their home nor in their foreign policy. It treated them, indeed, as being not merely a drawback, but a danger to the country, and it was specially critical on their policy with regard to the army and education. Nothing, it must be confessed, has been

done to strengthen the position of the Government on either of these questions during the past month. We are still groping in the dark as to the extent to which Mr. Arnold-Forster's well-meant schemes have been, or are in process of being, carried out. The Secretary for War may secure the credit of having laid the foundations of a great scheme of reorganisation; but it is evident that a stronger drivingpower than any to be found within the present Administration will be needed to carry this or any other large scheme into effect, and Lord Rosebery's oft-repeated suggestion as to the utilisation of Lord Kitchener's unequalled strength of character and will is beginning more and more to lay hold upon the public. As for the education question, its story during the month may be summed up in numberless prosecutions of passive resisters for their refusal to pay the education rate, in the confused and directly contradictory decisions of revising barristers as to the effect which these prosecutions have upon the right of the passive resisters to retain their Parliamentary votes, and in the progress which Mr. Lloyd-George and his friends have made in their organised resistance to the application of the Education Act in Wales. That measure is still a sword, and it cuts both ways.

The reigning families of Europe have, in some respects, been fortunate during the last few weeks. Last month I had to chronicle the birth of the long-wished-for heir to the throne of Russia, an event which, for a few days at least, seemed to dissipate over the vast Muscovite Empire the gloom of war. Since then Italy has had the same reason to rejoice, and direct heirs have thus appeared to the Crowns of two of the chief countries of Europe. Germany is rejoicing over the betrothal of its Crown Prince, another event of distinctly happy augury. In France there is increasing evidence of the fact that the Ministry of M. Combes has the support of the vast body of the nation in its anti-clerical policy. The French people themselves have been sorely perplexed by the Russian reverses; but more and more, as time passes, it is made clear that the last thing which France desires is war, and that she will avoid it at every cost, provided neither her honour nor her most important material interests are affected. The death-roll of the month is longer than usual, and contains some names of importance. The unhappy ex-Sultan Murad, after a quarter of a century of captivity, died at the end of August. Count Herbert Bismarck, the son of the great Chancellor, who was at one time regarded as the heir of a possible Bismarck dynasty of statesmen, has also succumbed. The Bishops of Carlisle and Southwell, and Mr. James Lowther, the well-known Protectionist member of Parliament, and a typical representative of a class once eminent in politics, have also to be counted among the dead of the month.

WEMYSS REID.

The Editor of THE NINETEENTH CENTURY cannot undertake
to return unaccepted MSS.

[merged small][merged small][graphic][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small][merged small]

DURING the present war the dangerous state of uncertainty as to some of the rights and duties of neutrals has been manifest. There have been many irritating incidents, and more than once the tension in the relations of this country and Russia has been grave. Nor have the differences been altogether ascribable to exorbitant demands by -one belligerent. The controversies which have arisen have revealed the absence of precise rules and diversity of opinion as to their meaning. Men of business have been amazed to find that the rules governing several matters of capital importance are clouded with doubts, and that some of those which are generally accepted, when brought into the full light of day, seem framed with reference to circumstances unlike our own-to a world in which commercial intercourse was on another scale and of another kind than what we know-to isolated communities for which maritime trade was of little moment, and in which each country produced its own food and raw materials. If extremities have been averted, this has been owing to

VOL. LVI-No. 333

3 A

causes upon which neutrals cannot count in any war where one or both of the belligerents possess a powerful and effective fleet. It is probably a mistake to assume that in this war there have been wholly exceptional grounds of offence to neutrals (the recent mad acts of the Russian Baltic squadron excepted) such as will not exist in any future war. Incidents as irritating, though with altogether different circumstances, as the sinking of the Knight Commander and the seizure of the Allanton and Calchas, have been known in almost all wars in which belligerents had ample sea power. They might be more numerous than they have been if the theatre of operations were nearer home, or if the belligerents were, say, Germany or the United States, with many cruisers patrolling all the great routes of commerce. In these circumstances President Roosevelt's promise to the Interparliamentary Union to call a Conference to complete or continue the work of that of the Hague is to be welcomed. The decision is marked by his usual courage. His advisers must have warned him of the difficulties to be encountered, the conflict of interests which exists, the traditional policies of certain Governments in regard to matters as to which the United States have pledged themselves. I think, however, that they would be justified also in assuring him that America could with peculiar hopes of success convoke such a Conference. She is not disinterested or unpledged as to several questions which may come before it. Successive Presidents and Secretaries of State have taken as to the rights and duties of neutrals a distinct line of their own--notably as to immunity from capture of private property at sea. But for many reasons an invitation which would be regarded with distrust if it came from, say, Germany-which would certainly be denounced as veiling sinister designs if it proceeded from England-may be accepted when the invitation is by the President of the United States. It would be inexpedient to meet while war was in progress: a useful discussion of many points, and those among the most urgent and delicate, would be out of the question; as well might one calmly consider improvements in the structure of a house while it was on fire. The representatives of Japan and Russia could not attend; their presence (if conceivable) would freeze up frank debate; and resolutions come to in their absence might be of small value. Besides, as experience shows, the close of a great war is favourable to the adoption of new principles and the introduction of new practices: experience has accumulated; new questions are propounded; old solutions have been found faulty; a new spirit enters on the scene; and so the Congresses or Conferences of 1815 (Vienna), 1856 (Paris), 1874 (Brussels Conference asto usages of war), and 1878 (Berlin), introduced great changes in international law.

The precise object of the proposed Conference has not yet been defined. Our efforts should take shape,' the President said, 'in

[ocr errors]

pushing forward to completion the work already begun at the Hague.' Whatever is now done should appear, not as something divergent therefrom, but as a continuation thereof.' That is the only definite announcement. In the final 'Act' of the Hague Conference six wishes for the future were expressed: (1) The revision of the Geneva Convention; (2) that the questions of rights and duties of neutrals may be inserted in the programme of a conference in the near future'; (3) an agreement, if possible, as to the employment of new types of guns; (4) the limitation of armed forces; (5) the inviolability of private property at sea; (6) the question of the bombardment of ports and towns. Each of these subjects is important. The first need take little time. Whether the third and sixth are ripe for discussion I do not know. There is reason to think that the fourth proposal would not fare much better at a Conference held this year or next than it did at the Hague. A Conference called by the United States Government will be pretty sure to be asked to consider the fifth suggestion-the proposal for immunity of private property at sea from capture. The President by his Message of last December showed that he agreed with his predecessors as to this 'humane and beneficent principle'; and both Houses of Congress passed last April a resolution in favour of it. Of this much debated question, involving so many considerations of policy and turning on high speculative matters, I will only say that it appears to me that more and more the interests of England become those of a neutral State, and that it would be to her advantage on the whole that private property on sea were exempt from capture. The arguments of Mr. Hall and others in favour of this course have been greatly strengthened. For us the capture of the sea-borne property of other countries is not the weapon of offence which it once was, or was supposed to be. It is inconceivable that the destruction of commerce at sea of any rival could determine in our favour the issue of a war in which we were engaged; while the systematic harrying of our trade might in certain circumstances be a serious blow to England. The conditions under which a maritime war would in these days be carried on by or against England do not resemble those existing when she was supreme at sea; on the contrary, as Mr. Hall says,

in some ways they are startlingly altered for the worse, and in none is it clear that they are bettered. Her probable enemies are not more vulnerable than before-perhaps they are less so-while she is herself far more open to attacks upon her trade, and the consequences of attack may be grave. The fact is, whether we like to face it or not, that in a purely maritime war England can reap little profit, and might find ruin.

...

And all this is seen by the jurists of other countries. I doubt much whether at the present time the chief maritime States are prepared to accept the proposal so often made at Washington.

« AnteriorContinuar »