passed away. On the contrary, there are sufficient symptoms that these systems and schemes still subsist in considerable vigor, and may possess a greater longevity in some quarters than is expected.

There have been curious historical instances of schemes of

Systems of poli- policy, which are said to have been persisted in cy in the past. by States for a great number of years, and which may serve as illustrations of the schemes here in view. Such were the recommendations said to have been bequeathed by the Emperor Augustus to his successors as to the inexpediency of further extending, in certain directions, the confines of the Roman Empire. A similar persistent scheme of policy, said to be still adhered to, is the programme of aggressive Russian policy contained in the somewhat apocryphal document entitled Peter the Great's Will. But, in fact, a great part of the history of mediæval Europe, on to the eighteenth century, is occupied with the development of very complex and yet decided and deliberately constructed schemes, in which, according to their several proclivities, most of the rising States of Europe took part.* These schemes were suggested by a variety of considerations, most of them of a kind which would command Origin of such schemes. small sympathy at the present day, and some of them based on institutions which have passed away. Mere national prejudices, rivalries, and apprehensions, or still more coarse and barbarous self-seeking, also entered largely into their composition, or wholly directed their course. Out of such various elements as these proceeded the coalition of the Protestant States in the Thirty Years' War; the successive combinations, first against Spain and then against France; the habitual friendliness and alliance subsisting between States in proportion to their distance from each other, and their mutual jealousy and suspiciousness in proportion to their propinquity.

* See Lectures on Diplomacy, by the Rt. Hon. Mountague Bernard.

The special systems of policy which thus emerged blended at times with more general principles, such as the Balance of Power or Religious Uniformity; and at other times were temporarily lost in narrower principles, such as mere Dynastic interests and sympathies. The influence of such facts as common race, language, or traditions, or the recollection of mutual services in the past, for the most part combined to enforce such a systematic policy, though occasionally it conflicted with it.

Systems of

policy are still have been already alluded to, in the

formed and maintained.

Anyway, the general result is manifest in the field of modern European politics, in spite of the obstacles, which way of any farseeing and consistently maintained scheme of political action. There are certain forces of attraction or repulsion which favor alliances, or easily engender hostile feeling, between different pairs of European States-which are at once the consequence of a long career of persistent policy, and the material which renders it possible. The very breaks, interruptions, or vacillations in such a policy only make the reality of it more conspicuous, by displaying the strength of the common sentiment which supports it.

It is only since the Crimean War that the abstract possibility of an intimate alliance between France and England for offensive purposes, and in prosecution of a European policy of great moment, has become a familiar idea. The same War witnessed the death-blow of one of the earliest and most enduring principles of policy professed by all Christian States-that of only combining against the infidel, and never with him against one of themselves. The same War further illustrated the acceptance or inauguration by England of a policy which seems likely to become the clew to most of her combinations, at least for offensive purposes, in the future. This policy is based on the resolution to maintain an undisturbed route overland to her Indian possessions, and to check at an early stage the advance of any competing European Power in the direction of those

possessions. A policy which at some points presents a parallel to this is sometimes attributed to the United States, and was certainly advocated by President Monroe in his Message to Congress in 1823.* It may be briefly described as forbidding the further colonization by a European State of the American Continent, or the establishment there by such a State of monarchial institutions.

With respect to the actual systems of policy now being followed out by the different countries of Europe, any precise inquiry must be based on an aggregate of political indications, and would probably result, in most instances, in little better than conjecture. The present object is only to establish the general position that systems of policy actually exist, and are continually persevered in, and that these systems are to be reckoned among the causes of War. Nevertheless, the character of some of these systems is sufficiently patent to be obvious to all. The movements of Russia in Western Asia, and especially in the direction of British India, are certainly not unconnected with her action in Eastern Europe, and with her assiduous cultivation of friendly relations with the United States and France, the hereditary rivals and suspicious critics of England and Germany. The question need not be here mooted whether the ulterior object of Russia is aggrandizement in Asia or in Europe, the accomplishment of immediate designs in one quarter being only used as a means of distracting attention and force of an obstructive kind in another.

Among the more clearly distinguishable features of modern

Characteristics of modern policy.

policy is that of maintaining the independence of Switzerland, of Belgium, and the Netherlands, partly for the sake of interposing physical barriers between the territories of such States as France and Germany,

*See as to the Monroe Doctrine, Wheaton's International Law. Dana's edition. Section 67 seq., note 36.

which are notoriously disposed to irregular encroachment on each other's territory, and partly in order to prevent, by an absolute limit, the absorption of the smaller States of Europe by a few States of inordinate magnitude. The general disposition manifested on so many sides to advance the formation of the kingdom of Italy, and to maintain its integrity, is similarly based on a conscious or instinctive assurance that Italy, by its Alpine line of natural fortresses, and the opportunities for maritime warfare which its singular geographical position presents, would become an invaluable stronghold for any aspiring State which should succeed in occupying or annexing it. There has scarcely been a European War of moment in which some of the most decisive military operations have not been conducted on Italian soil.

These principles of policy have, indeed, some resemblance to the older one of the Balance of Power, differing from it, however, in the circumstances that no conscious attempt is made to maintain absolutely any existing status quo; nor is the mere fact of the aggrandizement of a State already influential, even to a portentous extent, held to be a legitimate ground of remonstrance or interference. The present policy is far more negative than the older historical one, and takes up its stand on only a few very general and somewhat indefinite notions, such as those above mentioned in reference to Switzerland, Belgium, Holland, and Italy.

Besides the more obvious tendencies here noted, there are, no doubt, at the present time other more or less distinct systems of policy, either actually operative on the minds of statesmen, or advocated by political speculators of various degrees of repute. Thus, there are many who speak of Germany being the "natural" ally of England; while others, such as the followers of Auguste Comte, believe that the true and only "natural" policy of England is to ally itself with France, and the Latin races generally, with the view of gradually founding a Republi

can community of Western States under the general supremacy of France.

As the general result of this examination, it appears that, apart from all considerations of passion, momentary self-interest, or indistinct national caprice, certain definite lines of actionsometimes very far-reaching and comprehensive, sometimes only prescribing certain negative ends, and adopted by the statesmen of each country in obedience to traditional habits, more or less consciously based on well-reasoned calculations of ultimate expediency are, found to emerge from the mingled tissue of what might seem, at first sight, to be nothing more than merely fortuitous and occasional freaks of policy.

Schemes of policy frequently produce War.

a

The carrying out of these systems naturally involves chances of War, and therefore, in estimating the causes of War in modern times, a prominent place must be given to these systems. Many of them are, no doubt, themselves contrived for the express purpose of reducing the frequency and the probability of War; and it may turn out that it will be largely through the adoption of a truly wise, just, and expedient system of policy by each State that the State will do what it can in this direction toward the extinction of War In the mean time it is obvious, oven from the above glance at the actual systems of policy now in vogue, that these systems at present largely rest upon mutual suspiciousness and apprehensions, as well as, often enough, upon contracted and short-sighted views of national advantage. How far this state of things can be improved by direct political action, this is not the place to considHow far it may be affected by moral agencies will be incidentally considered later on. How far improvements in International Law may have a beneficial influence will have to be discussed at length.

er.

5. Another cause of War, which includes many of the other causes, and co-operates usually with the others, though it may