Treaties of Neutralization, again, are in many respects the most beneficial of all Treaties. They are, necessarily, made by a large number of States, some of them the most powerful and influential. They are dictated by a sense of general interest, and not of any special and narrow interest. Their direct tendency is to restrict the area of War, and thereby, in respect of certain places, to banish War altogether. If they are broken, the force which supports them is so overwhelming as to make Intervention, however decided, rather formal than belligerent. It thus appears that, so far as the legal duty of Intervention is concerned, the occasions on which alone it might arise are, some of them, almost obsolete; others are becoming so; and the few remaining ones are of a nature directly to reduce the general area of War, and to make Intervention pacific rather than hostile. Morality and expediency of Intervention. (3.) It is, however, not with strictly legal questions, so far as these can be said to exist, but with what may be called moral and political questions, that the difficulties attaching to Intervention are really concerned. Assuming a State is legally entitled to intervene, either in the internal affairs of another State, or in a dispute between two States, and yet is not legally bound to intervene, the question is presented, whether Intervention morally ought to take place, or whether it is expedient it should take place. Mutual relatious of States. The real issue at stake cannot be properly investigated without a preliminary inquiry into the mutual relations of States to each other, as members of a great corporate community, and the relations of each State to the community itself as a whole. It may be true that, as in the growth of a State, so in the gradual formation of a political community of States, the component members have been very imperfectly conscious of the social aim, to the attainment of which their best energies were directed, and which their very vicissitudes and errors often as distinctly furthered as their conscious purposes and successes. The story of the past is, indeed, a chronicle of turbulent struggle, misconceived self-interest, and half-satisfied, half-blighted aspirations. The aspect of the present resembles that of a seething caldron, in which, from moment to moment, it seems uncertain which bubble will rise to the surface, will be the largest, will last the longest. The prospect of the future is veiled by a curtain, on which are inscribed only the guesses of statesmen, the visions of philosophers, the hopes of philanthropists. And yet a common human nature, common economical necessities, common sentiments of morality and religion, and increasingly assimilated institutions, are, and have long been, silently operating underneath all the more superficial influences, and tending to enforce at once the value of an independent national life and the equal value and moment of contribution and co-operation, through which each nation shall profit, and derive profit from the whole. Growing recognition of these The notion of true and necessary relationships between State and State is steadily making way through a number of scarcely suspected avenues; and the attendrelationships. ant notion of moral rights and duties as existing between different States, independently as well of the will or caprice of their ephemeral Governments as of their populations, is recognized as the consequence and expression of those essential relationships. The very growth and structure of International Law-albeit, at its best, but a feeble image and counterpart of a moral system, is a testimony to the confessed belief in the existence of such relationships. From the inherent infirmity of that Law, it is obliged to lean on the strength of such sentiments as those of good faith, moral claim and obligation, equity and humanity. But these sentiments, whatever be the history of their evolution, if they are the bulwarks of Law, cannot be its products. They have rendered a legal system possible, and the legal sys tem, in its turn, has done much to substantiate and protect them. But they subsist on an independent footing of their own, and imply that civilized States have toward each other, or (what for this purpose is the same) are generally believed to have, moral relationships, which are an exact reproduction of the relationships that every citizen of a State has to every other. In approaching, then, the question of the moral right and duty of Intervention, it must be assumed at the outset that moral relationships exist between State and State, which must be taken as the basis of interference, quite as much as the special and one-sided interest of a particular State, or particular States. But, even with the help of this assumption, which regards civilized States, and pre-eminently those of Eudetermined. rope and America, as bound together by ties of moral right and obligation of the most enduring kind, the problem has yet to be solved as to when and how Intervention may properly take place. In all moral inquiries it is quite as perplexing an investigation to ascertain what is right and wrong, as to determine whether there is any right or wrong at all. Points still un But the preliminary question, as to whether a State can be morally justified in wholly isolating itself, and in exhibiting no public concern whatever in transactions in which only other States seem to be concerned, even though these transactions may involve the most serious issues to the relative political situation of States, and even to humanity, must be answered first. England, in her history up to the last twenty years, has seemed to answer the question in the sense that vention of Eng- Intervention is to be the rule, rather than the exception. But this opinion was due to circumstances peculiar to the position of England at different stages of her fortunes. First, her Feudal and Dynastical relations with France; then her Protestant sympathies as against Spain; then her implication in the Dutch policy in opposition to France; then her Hanoverian and German connections and alliances, Constant Inter recent years. hardly left England any choice as to whether she would, or would not, hold herself involved, for all purposes whatever, in the mesh of European politics. The result was a sort of traditional diplomatic habit, on the part of English statesmen, of stepping forward in all emergencies, rather than holding back. This habit was, of course, a good deal exercised and stimulated by the actual military and naval successes of England, by her ever-widening Colonial Empire, and by her social and mercantile communications with all parts of the world. War and Peace meant, on the whole, perhaps, more for England of loss and gain than for any other country. Growth of Non- party. One result of these different tendencies and influences has been to generate a new party in England, which would directly reverse the whole previous policy of the country, and altogether forbid Intervention, either in the internal affairs of Foreign States, or in disputes and Wars between such States. The general principle of noninterference in the affairs of Foreign States was first practically asserted by Mr. Canning in 1826, especially as against the doctrines of the Holy Alliance. The Free-trade Movement, and his innate pacific disposition, stimulated Mr. Cobden to go still farther in the same direction, and to prepare the way for "NonIntervention" being erected into a dogma, advocated by a distinct party, and having no inconsiderable influence in the domain of practical politics. Its true The tenets of this party have, no doubt, been expressed or represented in many exaggerated forms, which, if principles. true, would have properly implicated the party in the charges of cruelty and inhuman avarice and selfishness, as well as of national disloyalty. But the utmost these tenets really mean, when carefully examined, as they appear in the language of their most competent supporters, is, that henceforward. Intervention is to be the exception and not the rule; that all forcible Intervention in the purely internal affairs of Foreign States, whether by England or by other States, is to be strenuously discountenanced, and that England is only to intervene in disputes or conflicts between Foreign States when a sufficiently strong case seems to present itself-in weighing the merits of which case, not only the immediate and remote interests of England herself, but the interests of all other States, and the general establishment of permanent Peace and order, on the basis of free and independent national existence, must be taken into the estimate. The following language of Lord Derby, in answer to a deputation on July 14th, 1876 (see Times for July 15th), probably expresses, fairly enough, the modern doctrine of Intervention, as held in England by practical statesmen, especially by way of limit to the extreme doctrine of Non-Intervention, in the form in which it is attributed to a certain party in England: "The doctrine of absolute indifference is not one which this Lord Derby on country ever has professed, and I do not think it Intervention. is one which would be popular with the nation at large. We have a great position in Europe; and with nations, as with individuals, a great position involves great responsibilities. We cannot absolutely decline to accept our responsibilities; for, if every nation that had reached a certain stage of civilization were to accept the principle of Non-Intervention in its absolute and extreme form, and say, 'we will never meddle in any international questions unless our own interests are touched,' the effect of that would be to leave the regulation of all international affairs to nations which have not reached that state of civilization. If the voice of England, in questions such as those we are now discussing, were to be silenced altogether, there would be one voice less heard on the side of Peace. No one is more strongly in favor of Non-Intervention, within reasonable limits, than I am; but we must push no doctrine to extremes; and an absolute declaration of Non-Intervention on all |