in its own government, and the thoroughly reactionary and absolutist tendencies of its dissolute Court are rapidly hastening on a convulsion. Italy, if we except Sardinia, has no voice at all in its own government; its natural homogeneity is destroyed by the maintenance of antiquated territorial divisions; a large part of it is under foreign domination; and on the whole it is the most unstably conditioned country in Europe. Germany has not arrived at its ultimate natural state; it will never be in stable rest till it obtain the constitutional form of government promised to it in 1815, and simplify the organisation of the Fatherland at the expense of the petty Courts which at present eat up its revenues, divide its energies, and furnish so favourable a field for the influence of Russia's diplomacy. Prussia may part with its present individuality in return for the coveted leadership of Germany; but on the map of the future will there be any abiding place for Austria? She is but a political fabric, with no basis to rest upon, either of nationality or geographical configuration. No community of race or of feeling binds together the varied populations of that empire, and as these populations become more developed by the action of civilisation, will they not draw asunder and range themselves along with the national groups to which they belong -Germanic, Slavonic, and Italian? We write these things in no idle spirit of conjecture, but to show the fallacy of the Peace-dreamers, and to indicate the insecurity of the basis upon which rests the peace of the Continent. Far be it from us to set a day or a year for the accomplishment of these changes; but come they will, whether we like it or no; and he who thinks that they can all pass off peaceably, alike contradicts the past and very much misconceives the future. England has nothing to gain in Europe, but she has much to defend. She has not only her outposts-Heligoland, Gibraltar, Malta, the Ionian Islands-lying all round the Continent, and upholding her maritime power and communications with India; but she has a commerce spreading over every sea; and principles and institutions at home not the less dear to us because the opposite of those prevalent on the Continent. Any keen watcher of events must have perceived that since the suppression of the revolutionary struggles in 1848-9, Popery and Absolutism have alike shown new life on the Continent. Despotism has called to its aid the wiles and terrors of the Romish Church, and both are slowly culminating towards a reaction, shortlived it may prove, but powerful. Once fairly dominant on the Continent, that tide of reactionary opinion cannot fail to burst like a floodtide against our shores; and woe to all that is most truly British if we are not ready to meet the assault. The plain facts of the case are these. If a popular movement were now to take place in Italy, it would be followed by one in Spain;-if it take place in Spain, it will be instantly caught up in Italy. How would these movements be regarded in this country? Any one who has felt the popular pulse or attended to the signs of the times, can give but one reply-With the liveliest sympathy. Let our Government act as it may, the popular voice and the public journals will vociferate in favour of the insurgents and the cause of liberty. Austrian intervention on the one side would give us a right to intervene on the other. Italy is accessible at all points,-Sicily could be effectually protected by our fleet: will not, then, the popular demand for intervention be almost, perhaps wholly, irresistible? case, if the movement (as is almost certain) be ultimately suppressed, our shores will be a refuge for not a few of the insurgent chiefs: and the vehemence with which our journals at one time assailed Louis Napoleon, and at another King Bomba, will be renewed in one tremendous volley against the general system of imperial despotism, by which the popular cause has been crushed and its leaders immolated. What reply will the despotic courts make? Will they remain quiet like a set of amiable Quakers, and let us rage our fill? No, truly. England will then indeed be a foyer of revolutions—a constant declaimer against absolutism, a living incentive to rebellion; and the Con And in any 130 European Politics. tinental Powers will put us down if they can. It is only natural that they should wish to do so; and it is very certain that in such circumstances they will make the attempt. Will they not form a naval confederacy (as the Assemblée Nationale considerately hinted last month), in the hope of extinguishing our supremacy at sea, and with it every thing? Need we remind our readers of the hatred with which the free press of this country is regarded by the Continental Courts, and of the probability that they will one day give us the curt alternative of suppressing its freedom or accepting war? British statesmen will do well to bear in mind that most suggestive episode of the Conferences in April, where the President proposed that the assembled Plenipotentiaries should unite, on behalf of their Governments, in putting an end to the licence of the press in Belgium-the only State on the Continent where the press is really free. Even Mr. Gladstone, with all his penchant for peace, was startled by that proceeding, and whispered a hint in the ear of Parliament that the same course might one day be applied to ourselves. "That,' said he, "was the declaration of France. The Prussian representative declared that he would willingly take part in any inquiry into the measures suitable to put an end to such practices. Count Buol went further, and admitted the necessity of repressing the excess of the press in every country of the Continent-perhaps every island too." This coalition of Governments against the liberty of the press, be it remembered, was proposed in a Congress assembled for entirely other purposes, and yet it met with the above-mentioned countenance. What would the issue have been if Great Britain, instead of being present as the pillar of the Alliance, had been absent, isolated, proscribed? And yet if Mr. Cobden or any one else thinks that England would submit to the extinction of her free press at the dictation of the Continental courts, he reckons without his host. He has only to look at the fire and fury excited amongst us by so small a matter as the recent minatory suggestions of the semi-official Constitutionnel, to be assured that Britain [Jan. will never surrender her freedom of the press as long as she can keep her flag flying on the seas. Depend upon it, then, howsoever Mr. Cobden and his party may desire to spin their cotton or loan their money in perpetual peace, there are causes at work in the world which will ruthlessly demolish their dreams. We take no disconsolate view of the future. We have a sufficiently lively faith in the wisdom of the Divine government to believe that Providence will order the ways of the world a great deal better than the best ideal which Mr. Cobden or any of us can suggest. We believe Europe is travelling on a good though rough road, and fancy we can discern a happy goal to her journey. But what we assert again and again is the perilous folly of those who would have this country act as if a millennial peace already existed in the world around us. Even as the end of civilisation is Peace, so the end of religion is Love; and week after week the heavenly doctrines of love, brotherly charity, and universal philanthropy are expounded and enforced from our pulpits. But what sane divine would exhort his hearers to act in their daily life as if the reign of universal love were already established? Who would exhort to love and trust all men everywhere-from the showy adventurer who is ready to swindle whom he can, to the ticketof leave reprobate who only waits till your back is turned to garotte you? We have said that international peace is the goal of civilisation; but even social peace, the first-fruit and beginning of civilisation-alas! how frail it is! Who would yet venture to dispense with bolts and bars and police, even in this most advanced country of all the earth?-who dare leave a company's books unaudited, or keep no check even upon the most pious of bankers? Not one. Yet the trust we would not put in one another, the Peace Party think we may safely place in alien powers! Surely the events of the last nine years ought to teach us the visionary nature of such delusions. The rude wars of peoples against their Governments, and of Governments against their peoples and one another, may show us how far off yet is that end of civilisat.on which bringeth peace. Peace in Europe is a-coming, so we trust; but certainly it is not yet within hail. Its white sails may be seen glimmering on the far horizon, as if coming towards us from the heavens of the future; but many a wild billow and hurricanous gust will yet break on the European strand, ere that white-winged messenger of glad tidings cast anchor in our havens. Whenever the dreams of the Peace Party are realized, it will first be among the christianised communities of the White race of Europe,-that "upper crust of the world, who acknowledge in each other equals and fellows of the same dominant caste. Each of these communities has had its day of power. Greece once conquered by arms, and still conquers by its heirlooms of intellect. Rome subdued, and spread the seeds of civilisation throughout, the ancient world. Spain and Portugal first subjugated the seas, and overran the gold-regions of the New World. France has twice threatened Europe with domination, and is now spreading her sway over Northern Africa. Britain, a little island, has done more than they all. Russia has already done much, and will soon do far more. Even Scandinavia once sent her conquering rovers to every shore, and subsequently turned the tide of battle in Germany in favour of the Reformation. Germany is the sleeping giant of the European system, never having established its unity, but ere long it will take the high place that belongs to it in the community of the White oligarchs. All these peoples-all the members of the far-spread European race-regard each other as equals. Those that are weakest now have at one time been greatest; and if actual equality of power be not present, it is felt that at least the power has been there, and may return. The subtle Greek, more famed now for duplicity than manly virtue or learning, is respected as having once been great, and still makes himself distinguished in the pursuits of commerce. The indolent Spaniard is known to have had his epoch of chivalrous gallantry and far-reaching enterprise, and the manly virtues still live in the population, though its leaders be corrupt. Neither does any one despise the Italian, once celebrated alike in art, in arms, and in polity,-in whose veins nationality and patriotism are now panting, and whose recovery of freedom may inaugurate a new development of the national genius. Indeed the three peninsular kingdoms of Southern Europe-Greece, Italy, Spain,—after long lying like exhausted fields, seem about to quicken after their fallow, and join again in the race of progress which they once led,-in the stately march of National Development, which, proceeding in early times westwards along the shores of the Mediterranean, thereafter turned northwards, and, after culminating in Britain and France, is now running eastward again through the central region of Europe. Such may be deemed some leading points and indications in European politics. But in order to embrace the theme even in outline, we must far overpass the territorial limits of Europe, and, following the dominant White race in its distant wanderings and conquests, observe how the interests accruing from its varied positions abroad are reflected back upon the politics of the Continent of its birth. It is a marvellous phenomenon, these migrations of the White race; and yet they have occurred so gradually,. and we have become so habituated to the phenomenon, that it does not adequately impress us. In studying the primordial history of nations we have often felt it hard to believe that a few families, shooting off from one small parent stock, should have grown into mighty nations far apart from each other, and in lands which they at first entered as strangers and aliens. In whatever region we look, we find traces of a quasi-aboriginal race in remote times peopling the country,-then the arrival of straggling bands, belonging to a new wave of population; and, lo! when we see again, by a process mysterious because we cannot trace its links, the new-comers have grown into a nation entirely supplanting the old! The phenomenon is indeed marvellous; but if we do but open our eyes, we may see it in actual process in our own day, and pre-eminently in the wanderings and conquerings of our own nation. The British Isles, containing but a hundred thousand square miles of soil, and at first the abode of rude and thinly-scattered tribes, have reared a race which within the last two centuries has spread itself as masters into every region of the world. Wave after wave of population has gone forth, as if the process was inexhaustible, and yet the little Island only grows more densely peopled. Over nearly the entire expanse of North America has the British race spread, -it has colonised Southern Africa, -it is fast peopling the island-world of Australasia, and it rules as a dominant caste over the vast realms of India. Everywhere the native races have disappeared before it-the Red men of America, the Caffres of the Cape, the aborigines of Australia,— or, like the Hindoos and Negroes, do it reverence and service. A great natural law is marked by the various settlements of the White race. In temperate climates it colonises, and the inferior races die out before it; while in tropical regions, unfavourable to its physical development, it reigns as a dominant caste, making some inferior race act as its hands, while itself forms an 66 upper crust" and supplies the directing power. At the Cape, over the temperate regions of America, in New Zealand and Australia, the European race has colonised and is covering the land with its own people; but in India it rules, and ever will rule, only as a dominant caste-a mere handful of men compared to the millions of the native population, yet ruling over them by dint of moral, physical, and intellectual superiority. The same principle, in a less pleasing form, is observable in the hot regions of the American continent. The Spaniards, when they first arrived in central America, reduced to slavery the native population, and in acknowledged or virtual slavery that population still remains; while in the Spanish islands, in the vast Portuguese territory of Brazil, and in the southern half of the United States, the negro race has been imported from Africa to act as a slave-caste, and do the work which climate renders impossible to the White conquerors from the North. We enter tain little doubt that, as the AngloAmericans of the Union extend their sway southwards over central America, they will carry negro-slavery with them; and, moreover, while fraternising with the remnant of pure Spaniards in Mexico and elsewhere, will endeavour to reduce the half-breeds and native population into systematic serfdom. Mr. Buchanan's contemplated course in regard to Kansas is still uncertain; but if, as is possible, he conciliate the northern States by letting Kansas declare itself a free member of the Union, we may rely that he will simultaneously take steps to extend the Slave States by encroachments on central America. It is bad policy for the Slave States to extend themselves by encroaching on the limited territory of the Free-soilers, thereby exciting animosity, and necessitating a contest for supremacy. And we have no doubt they will willingly abandon this course whenever a substitute is found, and a gateway of expansion is opened for them into the countries to the south. The age of territorial conquest in Europe is past. But the overflowing of the European race, and expansion over other regions of the globe, is very far from having reached its term. Compared with what will yet be, it is only beginning. And in the course of this expansion, the leading nations of Europe will come in contact, and find grounds of contention of a kind fast disappearing from the continent of their birth. The territorial limits of the various nations in Europe are now, not quite, but pretty nearly established on a natural and lasting basis; but not so the limits of their power in extraEuropean regions. We have spoken of the wondrous expansion of the AngloSaxons-those lords of the sea, and colonisers of ultra-oceanic regions. The Russian empire will play a similar but less marvellous part by land. It will yet wage a desperate war of principles with Western Europe, but its grand and lasting, because territorial triumphs, await it in the East. Destined to be kept in check by the dense populations of an equal race in Europe, its desire for territorial expansion will find full vent in the vast regions of the race is well fitted to be the rulers and civilizers of a large portion of Asia. The law of climate will regulate their settlement in that continent, as it has done that of the AngloSaxons in all parts of the world. In the temperate regions of Asia the Slavonians will gradually colonise; in the more southerly regions they will spread as a dominant caste. In this latter manner they will extend their power into the Turkish and Persian territories, exerting great influence over the populations of these empires, and coming into contact with British power. In process of time the Russian colonies and settlements in central Asia will surround with a network of civilised power the roving tribes of the desert and the steppes, who will be won or impressed into service or co-operation with them. And then, in all probability, the world will be startled by a series of nomadic invasions such as it has not seen since the days of Attila and Gengis Khan. Asiatic continent, thinly peopled by races which cannot contend on equal terms with the European. A broad region of fine country passes across Asia, in the latitude of the Altai mountains, with Lake Baikal and its charming scenery in the midst of it; and the tributaries of this lake almost mingle with the headwaters of the great river Amoor, the natural outlet of Siberia, but the whole length of whose course lies at present within the territories of China. The Russians have already commenced their schemes of ambition in this quarter. A flotilla, manned and armed, has just been placed on Lake Baikal; from thence to the main course of the Amoor a chain of military stations has been established; the course of the river itself has been trigonometrically and otherwise surveyed; and we only reiterate an opinion which we expressed before Petropauloffski was heard of, or ever a Russian boat was known to have sailed the Amoor, when we say that The Russians dream of one day dicere long the vast valley-region of tating the terms of peace to us at that river will have passed into the Calcutta. But the British and Mushands of Russia; while a chain of covite powers will have come into impregnable forts in the Kurile and collision in another quarter of Asia Aleutian islands will firmly connect before their battalions can meet in the mouth of the Amoor with the mortal strife on the banks of the Russian territories in North America, Indus. The peninsula of Syria is the and probably shake our Transatlantic key to the British possessions in the brethren of the Union out of the com- East. Moreover, in the future it placency with which they at present will be the most important commerregard the progress of Russian power. cial position in the whole world. It The Russians are an eminently agri- is towards this region that Russia cultural people, they love to till the will in the first instance seek to make soil their fathers tilled before them; her way. The hosts now assembling and they have little of that restless- on the shores of the Caspian are not ness which impels the Anglo-Saxon to so much designed to measure swords roam. Nevertheless we cannot doubt with the British in Affghanistan, as that a Russian population will yet to consolidate Russian influence and spread over the central zone of Asia, power in Persia, in order to secure a and descend as masters to the shores basis for future operations. The Rusof the Pacific. The Slavonian, in sian Government is the most patient truth, is semi-Oriental. He is a and wary in the world. It rarely connecting link between Europe and misses its game by springing at it too Asia. He stands half-way between soon. Having consolidated its power the energy and almost infidel self- in Persia, and influenced the Kurdish reliance of the French and British tribes of Anatolia, it will then press peoples, who care but little for kings, down into the valley of the Euphrates and seldom rely much on Providence, and measure its strength with us in and the fatalism and instinctive right good earnest. It is well, then, reverence of the Oriental nations, as we have often before remarked, which make them adorers of sove- that the British Government should reignty on earth, and only too acqui- keep a sharp eye upon Syria, and escent in what seem to them the timeously seek to extend our infludecrees of Divine Fate. Such a ence in that important region, as a |