Irish members in the affairs of Great Britain, consequent on the centralisation of Irish administration and of the responsibility for the greater part of Irish legislation in the Chief Secretary and in Dublin Castle. Under any federal scheme the Chief Secretary and Dublin Castle would disappear into that limbo to which Pitt and Castlereagh wished to consign them at the time of the Union; and there would be nothing either in the organisation of the Government or in the subject matters before Parliament which would offer an inducement to members from any part of the United Kingdom to band themselves together against the interests of the whole.

But, granting the constitutional stability of federalism, Unionists may well ask whether it is not a highly inconvenient system for a small, densely populated and essentially compact community, and whether it would not set back the development of the poorer and more backward regions, above all of Ireland itself, and hamper social reform at every turn? Their doubts are amply justified. But they constitute the best vindication, from the Unionist point of view, of the wisdom of leaving the framing of a scheme to a business-like Convention. Such a Convention, face to face with the actual economic and administrative conditions of the United Kingdom, could never dream of setting up a constitution such as that which was framed to suit the needs of communities like the American States in 1788 or the Australian Colonies in 1900, separated by immense distances and having comparatively little intercourse with each other, or, for that matter, such a constitution as could be based on any whittling-down of the present Home Rule Bill. From the very start they would be certain to follow the Canadian precedent and give powers to the local bodies by enumeration, reserving all the residual powers to the central authority. Then, as each power came up for discussion, practical considerations would steadily mould the scheme in a unitary direction. On questions of social and industrial legislation, for instance, Liberal and Labour members would naturally feel, just as keenly as Unionists, the danger and hindrance to progress implied in the want of uniformity. Even the Nationalist representatives at the Convention would be restrained from asking for too wide Vol. 220.-No. 438.

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powers by two very weighty considerations. In the first place they would know that, the wider the powers of a Dublin Parliament and the less the scope of the United Kingdom Parliament in Ireland, the greater would be the reluctance of Ulster even to consider the possibility of taking part with them; and, secondly, they would be held back by considerations of finance, for it is of the very essence of any federal scheme that powers locally exercised should be defrayed by revenues locally raised. It is, in fact, by no means impossible that the outcome of such a Convention would be not a federal system at all, strictly speaking, but a limited system of devolution to provincial assemblies, concerned mainly with administrative functions; and that the future constitution of the United Kingdom would, in essentials, follow the South African model rather than the Canadian. And that, from the point of view of national efficiency, would, undoubtedly, be the best conclusion.

It is on these lines that a settlement should be sought, because it is on these lines alone that a permanent and really national settlement can be attained. No one who regards the maintenance of our national unity and the stability of our institutions as vital matters, no one even who wishes to avert civil war, can counsel the leaders of the Unionist Party to consider any scheme for a makeshift compromise over Ulster. Every patriotic citizen should urge upon the leaders of all parties the wisdom and necessity of a fresh start, and of an honest endeavour to find, by co-operation, a settlement over the whole field of the constitutional conflict. Such a settlement may be difficult to-day; it may, perhaps, be impossible. But, in all human probability, we shall have to come to it sooner or later. And whether it comes now, or whether the ills of our constitution have yet to be aggravated by open civil strife before they can be cured, the statesmen who are not afraid of accepting such a settlement to-day and will not allow themselves to be deterred by failure from advocating it in the future, are the men who will command the confidence of a peaceloving and common-sense people.

THE

QUARTERLY REVIEW.

No. 439.-APRIL, 1914.

Art. 1.-BRITISH

CENTURY.

FOREIGN POLICY IN THE LAST

1. The Life and Letters of the Fourth Earl of Clarendon, K.G. By the Right Hon. Sir Herbert Maxwell, Bart. Two vols. London: Arnold, 1913.

2. Lord Lyons: A Record of British Diplomacy. By Lord Newton. Two vols. London: Arnold, 1913.

A CENTURY has now elapsed since the termination of the Napoleonic Wars. For the best part of a generation the nations of Europe had been almost continually engaged in mortal strife; and the peace finally accomplished in 1815 opened for the world a new era. The Great Powers were impoverished and exhausted; and even for Great Britain, whose territory had never been overrun by the enemy, and who had stood foremost amongst the nations in the credit and renown of the final triumph, a period of internal distress and popular discontent was to elapse before anything like normal prosperity and a general sense of security in her domestic affairs were regained.

After Waterloo, a new period began in which Great Britain was to play a very different, but perhaps not less useful part on the stage of European politics. Fresh developments, new popular and national aspirations and rivalries arose; and ambitious monarchs and statesmen set before themselves new objects. In many quarters the spirit of autocracy and arbitrary power was strong and sought extension. On the other hand a desire for free government, an enthusiasm for nationality, a passion for democracy were at work-motives which, if they could get free play, were certain to change not Vol. 220.-No. 439.

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only the internal conditions of the various States, but also to modify their relations with each other.

Have British statesmen, throughout the past century, on the whole guided our national foreign policy in a spirit which commends itself to the sympathy and conscience of Englishmen of the present generation? Was their policy in the main successful? Has it, speaking generally and taking a wide survey of past events, given security and honour to our country and reflected credit on our statesmen and diplomatists? That very often blunders were committed, matters mismanaged, and great and unnecessary risks run, no one conversant with our modern history can doubt. Nevertheless, as time unfolds the full story of the past, as year by year the memoirs and letters of British statesmen throw light upon the facts, and on their own conduct and motives, the more reason have we to feel satisfied that in its foreign policy the ship of state has been steered in the right direction, and with more skill than over-exacting and partially informed contemporaries were willing to admit.

As regards some of the most important transactions of the period the two works named above form an interesting study. No men did better service in their own lines than Lord Clarendon and Lord Lyons; yet no two individuals ever differed more in the natural gifts, attainments and capacities which distinguished them-the one a brilliant statesman, the life of every social circle, popular with men and women, intimate with most of the Sovereigns and half the statesmen of Europe, and swaying the policy of his own country; the other a trained diplomatist, a bachelor holding himself aloof from general society, wholly absorbed in his profession, supremely anxious above all things to carry out precisely and to the letter the instructions he had received, a keen observer of passing events and of men, the instructor as to facts of Secretaries of State, but never for one moment fancying that he was more than an instrument to carry out the policy for which the Ministers of the day were alone responsible.

George Villiers, almost from his boyhood, felt a strong inclination to embark on a political career, especially if

it should bring him into close contact with foreign affairs. Educated in London at Christ's Hospital, he went in 1816 as a fellow-commoner to St John's College, Cambridge, where he seems to have shown an incapacity for mathematics and a thorough distaste for the ordinary studies of his University. For modern languages, on the other hand, he had a turn from his childhood; and we find him, while still a Johnian, practising his German and working with an Italian master. In 1820, when he had only just taken his degree, Lord Castlereagh started him in a diplomatic career by attaching him to the Embassy of Sir Charles Bagot at St Petersburg, where he spent nearly three years, returning with the permission of Canning, in accordance with the wish of himself and his relatives that he should seek public employment at home. His parents were poor, but they had interest with the prevailing powers; and young George Villiers was at once appointed to a Commissionership of Customs-a place providing him, no doubt, with a fixed income and a secure future, but not likely to satisfy the demands of his ambition or to afford due scope for his abilities. In 1831 the Whigs were in office. Lord Althorp sent him to Paris with Bowring to negotiate for the relaxation of some of the then existing obstructions to free commercial intercourse between England and France; and it was the report of George Villiers on this subject that first attracted public attention to his deserts, and secured him a future of public service. The Reform Bill agitation was then in full swing. Villiers was in favour of reform, though he disapproved the violence of language indulged in by many Whig statesmen at that exciting time. The General Election that followed the Reform Bill placed the Whigs in power, and to all appearance promised them a long spell of office. Palmerston, now Foreign Secretary, was a reformer of that exceedingly moderate type that recommended itself to young George Villiers, who received from him in September, 1839, the appointment of Minister to the Court of Queen Christina at Madrid. If the Tories had not done badly for him, the Whigs assuredly had done still better.

King Ferdinand of Spain died at the moment of the