"I am, yours ever affectionately,

"F. W. N."

The next letter is dated 31st Dec., 1880, and treats mostly of agriculture in the fens, in connection with a writer on the subject in some current paper.

"He" (the writer) "says that if a general move were made in the fens to stamp out the weeds (which would require an immense expenditure of money in wages), 'very different results would be obtained from what we now see.' No doubt they would. But what then? The landlord would raise the rent, and the farmers would have spent their capital without remuneration. Nothing but a security against the rise of rent can encourage the farmers to make sacrifices. He justly says ... that fruit might be more profitable. But if a farmer plant a fruit tree, it becomes his landlord's property at once, though it may need thirteen or thirty years to come to its fullest value.... The writer treats a lowering of rent as out of the question. Yet from 1847 up to about 1876 it was constantly rising. Now, forsooth! to go back is impossible!!! And why, because recent buyers have bought at so high a price that they only get three per cent. They are to be protected from losing, and that, though many have bought at a fancy price to indulge other tastes than properly agricultural. Mr. Pennington [Footnote: An old friend of Newman's.] told me he had farms under his own management and despaired of not losing by them, unless he could drive down the need of paying wages. This is what the farmers find. Up to 1875 rents kept rising, and wages rose too, yet prices rising, the peasants were not much better off. In 1873 the peasants claimed more still, and the farmers could not give it. They are ground between two millstones—higher rents and higher wages. This seems to me a fundamental refutation of the peculiarly English system. Fixity of rent is the first necessity. The landlord must not pocket the fruit of the tenants' labour."

The following letter has to do almost entirely with politics, and with English misrule of Ireland.

It will be remembered that from 1880, when Gladstone came into office, until 1885, when his Prime Ministership ended, wars were the order of the day constantly—wars in the Transvaal; war in Afghanistan; war in Egypt, and General Gordon left to die in Khartoum. Besides all these, that which came upon us constantly, the care of countries nearer at hand over which we tried experiments.

"Weston-super-Mare. "Sunday night, 20th Feb., 1881.

"My dear Anna,

"Many thanks for your kind interest in the approval of my writings.

"I have come to a pause in another matter. My Libyan dictionary is as complete as I can make it.... What next? I ask myself; for to be idle is soon to be miserable. I do not quite say with Clough, 'Qui laborat, orat' No! An eminent vivisector may be immensely laborious. We must choose our labour well, for then it may help us to pray better. But Coleridge is surely nearer the truth: 'He prayeth well who loveth well.' I put it, Qui inferiora recte diligit, Superiorem bene venerabitur.

"But I turn to your question, What do I think of the Coercion Bill? It is hard to say little, and painful to speak plainly. I immensely admire very much in Mr. Gladstone; so do you: of possible leaders he is the best—at present! and it is a bitter disappointment to find him a reed that pierces the hand when one leans on it. I fear you will not like me to say, what I say with pain, that only in European affairs do I find him commendable. In regard to our unjust wars he has simply betrayed and deluded the electors who enthusiastically aided him to power.... He has gone wholly wrong towards Ireland, equally as towards Afghanistan, India, and South Africa.... He knows as well as John Bright that Ireland is not only chronically injured by English institutions, but that Ireland has every reason to distrust promises.

"Those of William III in the pacification were violated; so were those of Mr. Pitt in 1801.... The very least that could soothe the Irish and give them hope is a clear enunciation what measures of relief Mr. Gladstone is resolved to propose. But he is incurably averse to definite statements, and seems as anxious as a Palmerston might be to reserve a power of shuffling out.... He tells the Boers of the Transvaal that if they will submit unconditionally, they shall meet 'generous' treatment. If the injured Basutos submit, their case will be carefully considered.... Nothing was to me more obvious than that as soon as he saw a beginning of unruly conduct in Ireland, he should have pledged himself to clearly defined measures, and have insisted on the existing law against lawlessness. But 'Boycotting' is not lawlessness. Lynch-law against oppressive landlords or their agents cannot be put down by intensifying national hatred.... Has the Coercion been wisely directed and reasonably guarded from abuse? I am sorry to say, flatly and plainly, No; and that Mr. Gladstone himself, as well as Mr. Forster, seems to have gone more and more to the wrong as the Bill moved on.... Mr. Forster's tone has been simply ferocious, out of Parliament as well as in, and Mr. Gladstone has borrowed a spice of ferocity.... To imprison (for instance) Mr. Parnell, and not tell him why, may cause an exasperation in Ireland, followed by much bloodshed.... Meanwhile, Ireland is made more and more hostile, and foreign nations more and more condemn us.... It seems to be forgotten that we have an army locked up at Candahar. That a severe spring may be its ruin, deficient as it was known to be long ago in fodder and fuel, and lately of provisions also. Cannon are of little use when horses are starved. And what may not happen in India, injured and irritated as it is, if that army were lost!... John Stuart Mill wrote that if we got into civil war with Ireland about Landed Tenure, no Government would pity us, and 'all the Garibaldis in the world' would be against us....

"Your affectionate friend,

"F. W. Newman."

The following letter concerns the Transvaal war, and is dated March 2nd, 1881:—

* * * * *

"Since Mr. Gladstone cannot have changed his judgment concerning the Beaconsfield policy in Afghanistan, in India, or in South Africa, the only inference is that (from one reason or other which I may or may not know) he is not strong enough to carry out his own convictions of right. If he was not strong enough to give back the Transvaal to the Boers, though he pronounced the annexation all but insanity, when he entered office, and had a power of stipulating on what terms alone he would be Premier, much less is he strong enough now. Not Tories only, but Whigs (to judge by their past) and the whole mass of our honest fighters, and certainly the Court, will find it an unendurable humiliation to do justice by compulsion of the Boers. Their atrocious doctrine is, that before we confess that we have done them wrong, we must first murder enough of them to show that we are the stronger. It is awful to attribute sentiment so wicked to the Premier, or to John Bright and the rising Radical element of the Ministry; but the melancholy fact is that they act before the public as if this were their doctrine.... The Coercion Bill and its errors are past and irrecoverable.... How will it now aid us to hold up to the public Mr. Gladstone's irrecoverable mistakes? That is what I cannot make out. He has destroyed public confidence in all possible successors to the Premiership, if confidence could be placed in any. I know not one who could be trusted to INSIST on stopping war and wasting no more blood. Yet the longer this war lasts, the greater the danger (1) that all the Dutch in Orange State, in Natal, in Cape Colony will unite against us; (2) that an attack on us in retreat from Candahar, where Mr. Gladstone has 'insanely' continued war, if moderately successful, may make even yet new 'vengeance' of Afghans seem 'necessary to our prestige'—such are the immoral principles dominant among Whigs as well as Tories; (3) any such embroilments may animate Ireland to insurrectionary defiance; (4) further Afghan fighting may lead to Indian revolt.... The nation has found that no possible Ministry will make common justice its rule. Penny newspapers make us widely different now from thirty or forty years ago. The masses abhor war, and will only sanction it when we seem forced to it in defence of public freedom. ... The internal quiet of France has stript Republicanism of terrors to our moneyed classes. Not the thing, but the transition to it is feared: with good reason, yet perhaps not rightly in an intelligent people.

"Some sudden change of events may put off Republicanism yet for thirty years; but great disasters may precipitate it.... We, the people, can do nothing at present that I see except avow with Lord John Russell (1853-4), 'God prosper the Right' which now means 'May we be defeated whenever we are in the wrong.' This is the only patriotic prayer.

"F. W. N."

Again, in October, Newman is reviewing Gladstone's political character, and regretting that it has not fulfilled its first high promise.

* * * * *

"We must make the best we can of all our public men, and eminently of Mr. Gladstone, and be thankful for all we get from him. Yet I cannot help, when I remember his undoubtedly sincere religion and moral professions, expecting from him a higher morality than from Palmerston, Wellington, or Peel. Peel was a valuable minister, and better every five years. I counted and count his loss a great one. Yet his first question in determining action or speech was, "How many votes will support me?" a topic reasonable in all minor questions, but not where essentially Right or Wrong are concerned. I grieve if you rightly attribute to Mr. Gladstone that he would have arrested Mr. Parnell earlier, only that he did not think the English public ripe for approving it. The public is now irritated by Mr. P.'s conduct. If it is against law, he ought to be prosecuted by law, informed of his offence, and allowed to defend himself.... The whole idea of lessening crime by passing an Act to take away the cardinal liberty of speech enjoyed by Englishmen (and M.P.'s) and deprive them not only of Jury, but of Judge and Accuser, while REFUSING to prohibit evictions in the interval between the passing of the Violence Bill (coercive of guilt it is not) and the passing of the Conciliation and Justice Bill, is to me amazing.... I rather believe the fact is that he" (Gladstone) "carried his Coercion Bill against the scruples and grave fears of all the most valuable part of his Cabinet. Instead of earning gratitude from Ireland, he has intensely irritated both the landlords and the opposite party, and certainly has not diminished crime, nor aided towards punishing it.

"I attribute it all to the fact that he has not understood that when pressed into the highest post by the enthusiasm of the country, he was bound by honour and common sense to carry out his own avowed policy, not that of weak friends and bitter opponents. The attempt to count votes beforehand is fatal where great moral issues are involved."

And again, in November:—

"Have we yet the measure of what we are to suffer from the continuance of the Afghan war? I believe a million and a half per month does not exceed the cost—that is, about fourteen millions since Mr. Gladstone came into power; but if the winter continue severe, the whole army may be lost, in spite of our bravery and military science. We seem to forget how the Russian winter ruined Napoleon, and in the case of the Transvaal how much our armies suffered in the war against our American colonists from the vastness of distances, and the skill of shooting almost universal to the colonists.

"I regard Mr. Gladstone as the best Premier by far now possible to us.... There is no shadow of responsibility left in a cabinet if we do not impute all its errors to its Head; and I regard it as a terrible fact, pregnant with possible revolution, that he has betrayed the Electors. The country hushed its many and various desires of domestic reform for one overwhelming claim, PEACE. They bore him into power on that firm belief. Instead of peace we have war—war which may spread like a conflagration. His clear duty was (and John Bright's too) to refuse to take office except on the condition of instantly reversing all the wickedness and insanity which he denounced when out of office. He and he only could have stayed these plagues. We are now hated for our acts, and despised for our affectation of Justice and Philanthropy.

* * * * *

"I am thoroughly aware that my judgment of Mr. Gladstone may be wrong, and to myself it is so painful that I expect a majority of his supporters will differ from it. But when I say he has increased—immensely increased—ALL HIS DIFFICULTIES, I marvel how you can deduce from my judgment that I underrate his difficulties.... If Ireland be in chronic revolt, and India seize the opportunity, few Englishmen are likely to suffer less from it than I. Probably Mr. Gladstone, by the fear lest the Tories now seek to ride back into power on the shoulders of Ireland, will resolutely make household suffrage for the counties his main effort.

"But there the Lords can checkmate him."

Before quoting from the next letter before me, written to Anna Swanwick in February, 1884, which treats of the best method of teaching languages, ancient and modern, that practice should precede the scientific study in this matter; and that the "popular side should go first," I think a quotation from Newman's article (Miscellanies, Vol. V) on Modern Latin as a Basis of Instruction, would fitly come in here. The article makes a great point of popularizing the study of Latin. That it should practically be made an interesting subject not devoid of romance and imagination. He condemns the old fashion (still, alas! in vogue in many schools) of committing to memory an enormous amount of matter quite unworthy of being retained in the mind. He urges the need of a "Latin novel"—a Latin comedy; one that would set alight the imagination of young scholars.

In Miss Bruce's Memoir and Recollections of Anna Swanwick, there is mention of the fact that the latter often mentioned the insight she herself obtained in the intricacies of the Greek language through help given her by Frank Newman. She also quotes his words with regard to geometry, showing that the same need in teaching it prevailed as with the study of Greek. That the imagination must be stimulated. A sense of beauty must be cultivated. That the whole secret lay in the way a thing was presented to the mind of the student. For unless the sense of beauty and symmetry had been aroused in him, he would of necessity find far more difficulty in retaining the, so to speak, statistical Blue-book of the groundwork and rules of any science. Newman himself was an adept at putting a subject in an entirely new light, when some pupil failed, perhaps, to follow his calculations or explanations. In relation to the teaching of Greek, the following words of Miss Swanwick's (in the Memoir to which I have just referred) show how thoroughly she and Newman were in accord.

"Deeply interested as I was in the study of Greek, and intense as was the pleasure of its acquisition, I yet hesitate to recommend it as a part of the curriculum of boys and girls, unless it can be taken later, and with more concentrated determination to master the extremely difficult grammar, than is usually given to school lessons.... It is to be remembered, moreover, that in the literature of Greece and Rome there are no words adapted expressly for the young. The ancient classics, written by adults for adults, are beyond the intelligence of immature minds, whilst in regard to the moral lessons to be drawn from them, the superiority, in my opinion, is vastly in favour of more modern writers."

Anna Swanwick's original desire to learn Greek was (Miss Bruce tells us in the former's own words) "to be able to read the New Testament in the original."

I quote now from Newman's article:—

"Children can learn two languages, or even three at once; and this, if these are spoken to them by different individuals, without confusion and without being less able to learn other things. Memory is aided because imagination connects the words with a person, a scene, or events; and, little by little, the utility of speech calls forth active efforts in the learner.... In general the old method was one of repetition: it dealt immensely in committing Latin to memory.... Nothing is easier to boys than such learning, even when the thing learned is uninteresting... yet... means should be taken of making it interesting and instructive and rhythmical.... It seems to me that we want what I may call a Latin novel or romance; that is, a pleasing tale of fiction, which shall convey numerous Latin words, which do not easily find a place in poetry, history, or philosophy.... If anyone had genius to produce, in Terentian style, Latin comedies worthy of engaging the minds and hearts of youth (for I can never read a play of Terence to a young class without the heartache), I should regard this as a valuable contribution." [Footnote: Mr. Darbishire says in a letter to which I have had access: "One of his" (Newman's) "special endeavours was to accustom his students to deal with Greek as a spoken language, as he and we did in reading Greek plays."]

To return to the letter.

"Weston-super-Mare, "16th Feb., 1884.

"My dear Friend,

"The late Professor George Long (my predecessor in University College), editor of the Penny Cyclopaedia was originally professor of Greek and a student of Sanskrit. He maintained that German, studied as it ought to be, prepared the mind for other work as effectively as could Greek, and, as Dr. W. B. Hodgson (and I too) independently alleged, that the study of modern languages and learning to talk them ought to precede the study of Greek. To make Greek the basis of an entire school and force it on all is with me cruelty as well as folly. Five out of six women and men would not learn it enough to retain or use it. If you place ancient languages and all that cannot be learned by talking at the END, only those will study who have a special object, and these will duly use them. I think that is the only wise and just way. Further, I think it a grave mistake to teach the scientific side of any language first, and try to proceed through science to practice. The popular side should go first. Greeks talked rightly before Protagoras, but Protagoras first taught that Greek had three genders.... After a full acquaintance with the substance of a language, its laws and relationships come naturally and profitably. In a dead language we are forced to bring on the science earlier: that is the reason for deferring such study till a riper age; and best if delayed until after learning several modern languages (by talking, if possible), the more different from one another the better. English, German or Russian or Latin, and Arabic would be three very different in kind.

"Our English Professor Latham used to talk much error, in my judgment, of the supreme value to the intellect of studying FORM. This word was to include the 'accidence' of language with the fewest possible words; algebra with the least possible arithmetic ... Logic without real proposition.... Now, in my belief, and that of De Morgan and the late Professor Boole, nothing so ruins the mind as to accustom it to think that it knows something when it can attach no definite ideas to the symbols over which it chatters."

To-day, what educational strides should we not make if we could but bring our present systems of teaching into line with these of Newman's!

It will be remembered that in March, 1886, Gladstone caused great dissension in his own party by bringing in his measure for giving Ireland a statutory parliament. The bill was rejected at its second reading, and when Gladstone made his appeal to the country, the general election showed he had lost its confidence. He had based his belief that Ireland was ripe for some measure of Home Rule, on account of the fact that the election under the new Reform Bill had proved that out of 103 Irish members 87 were Nationalists.

"5th May, 1885

"My dear Anna,

* * * * *

"The Irish question, as now presented, is in a very sad imbroglio. After our monstrous errors of policy and the infliction on Ireland of miseries and degradation unparalleled in Europe, to expect to bring things right without humiliation and without risks of what cannot be foreseen, seems to me conceit and ignorance. Evildoers must have humiliation, must have risks, when they try to go right. Opponents will always be able to argue, as did Alcibiades to the Athenians: 'We hold our supremacy as a despotism; therefore it is no longer safe for us to play the part of virtue.' In so far, I may seem to favour Mr. Gladstone's move; and I think I do rejoice that it has been made. Probably those are right who say, 'Henceforth it becomes impossible to go back into the old groove.' I do not believe that a Parliament elected on new lines will endure it.

"But neither would the Democratic Parliament in any case have endured it. A new civil war against Ireland seems morally impossible. Therefore Mr. Gladstone is ruining a measure which might have been good, by his preposterous dealing with it. Lord Hartington said (as indeed did John Bright) the very truth, that the Liberal Party cannot so disown its own traditions, and its wisest principles, as to allow an individual, however justly honoured, to concoct secretly from his old and trusted comrades, a vast, complicated, and far-reaching settlement and make himself sole initiator of it (as I have kept saying, reduce Parliament to a machine for saying only Yes and No).... It is a vile degradation of Parliament. But that is only a small part of the infinite blunder. He pretends that everything has been tried and has failed, except what he now proposes.... In 1880 no one forced him to bring in an Irish measure: he chose to do it, and did it in the worst possible way, by treating the Irish members as ENEMIES, and refusing to consult them. [The Scotch members have never been so treated on Scotch questions.]

"Down to last September Mr. Gladstone declared that the Irish members were men, who, by a conspiracy of rapine, were seeking to dismember the empire. He carried '(?)' against Ireland during his unparalleled supremacy, acts of despotism unequalled in this country, and that, though they had no tendency to lessen crime; and he joined them with imprisonment against Mr. Parnell. Only his monstrous incompetency to see right and wrong, made his well-intentioned measure all but fruitless. Peel and Wellington did mischief, long since deplored, in teaching the Irish that England cared nothing for justice, but very much indeed for the danger of a new civil war; but now Mr. Gladstone has been teaching them still more effectually. In September last he denounced Parnell and his friends as bent on dismembering the empire, deplored the danger of consulting them, begged for votes to strengthen him against them; but as soon as the country, from various and very just discontent with his WARLIKE POLICY, and his utter neglect of our moral needs, showed in many of the boroughs their deep dissatisfaction, and he found Mr. Parnell twice as strong as in the Old Parliament ... he gave notice that he was ready to capitulate to Mr. Parnell. And he did virtually capitulate; Mr. Parnell understood him, and defeated Lord Salisbury, and Mr. Gladstone in accepting the power to which Mr. Parnell invited him, insulted all his trusting comrades by keeping them in total ignorance of his scheme, while he concocted it by consultation with the very men whom just before he had maligned as conspiring to break up the empire.

"Such conduct from a Tory minister sounds to me more extreme than anything I ever read of in English history; and from a pretended Liberal leader would have seemed incredible, if predicted. I suppose he was predestined (vir fatalis) to break up his Party.

"I shall indeed rejoice and praise God if Mr. Gladstone's wonderful folly do_ break down this ... _system of legislation._—There's a long yarn for you!!

"Ever your affectionate

"F. W. Newman."

In the next letter, in November of the same year, Newman complains of temporary paralysis in his left-hand fingers and stiffness in that arm "as though it had a muscular twist."

The actual putting on of an overcoat now becomes no slight undertaking, and he finds that reading now tires his eyes much more than does writing. He touches on the Burmese war, "which seems likely to be even worse than the Egyptian and Sudanese iniquity in its results to us." And he adds, "We have now without any just cause of war, or even the pretence of any, invaded this province, which is subject and tributary to China, and lawlessly act the marauder upon it, claiming it as ours, and treating the patriots who oppose us as rebels and robbers. The Emperor of China now finds our frontier, if we succeed, pushed up to his own, and, whenever convenient to him, he can send in his armies against us, especially if India were to revolt."

In October, 1886, matters in Bulgaria were at their highest tide. At last, after all her efforts, since 1356, at independence from the hated power of Greece, when "Almost" she and Servia were "persuaded" to form a great Slavonic State together, she seemed near attainment of her constantly prolonged efforts.

In 1872 the Bulgarian Church was again able to break her fetters, which she abhorred, which bound her to Greece. Then, in 1876, the atrocities committed by the Turkish inhabitants of Bulgaria took place. The Porte, when besought by the Constantinople Conference to make concessions, refused point-blank. Then Russia stepped in and declared war, and proposed themselves to make a Bulgarian State. England and Austria promptly refused to lend themselves to this scheme, and a Berlin Congress was summoned. The Berlin Treaty in 1878 arranged the limits and administrative autonomy of this State, and the Bulgarians chose Prince Alexander of Battenberg, cousin of the Grand Duke of Hesse, and he became in 1879 Alexander I of Bulgaria. Eventually the recognition of him by the Porte as Governor- General of Eastern Roumelia followed. In 1886 Russia made herself felt unexpectedly. Alexander was kidnapped by order of the Czar and carried to Russia.

The upshot of it all was that, though he returned to Bulgaria, yet he felt it was in vain to struggle against Russian animosities, and so abdicated.

The letter following shows Newman to be in failing health and under doctor's treatment:—

"Weston-super-Mare, "7th October, 1886.

"My dear Anna,

"... My brief London visit which ought to have come off is forbidden positively, and I doubt not wisely, by medical command, not because I am ill, but because I had formidable threatening of illness, like a black cloud which after all does not come down. The threat consisted in my left hand losing all sense and power. This is now the sixth day. On the third I regained power to button, though clumsily, and to use my fork. Of course I am ordered to use my brain as little as possible, and in future to change my habits. I must leave off all letters and other writing much earlier in the evening. But frequent short walks I hold salutary to my brain; and my feet have not failed me.

"... You ask what I think of the Bulgarian outrage.... In the present instance the one thing primarily to be desired, and eminently difficult to attain, was cohesion of the little Powers. As of old, Sparta and Athens could not coalesce, and therefore after weakening one another they ill- resisted Philip, and were overpowered by Alexander armed from Macedonia and Thrace, and under-propt by gold from Asia; so now the little States— Servia, Bulgaria, Roumania, Greece—each envied the other, perhaps was ready for hostility, but all looked up to Russia with more than fear.

"But this atrocious kidnapping of a reigning Prince has given just the external compression which was wanted to make the little States desire union, and the greater Powers to think that such union is for European benefit. Not only has it reconciled Servia and Bulgaria, late in actual war, but it has elicited public outcry in Roumania for federation with these two States. Whether Greece can lay aside her jealous enmity against Bulgaria is not yet clear. Her ambition is to acquire Macedonia and Constantinople ... perhaps ... Albania.

"... To me it seems a wonder that the Greek statesmen do not see that Constantinople is too critical a spot for the European Powers to yield up to any secondary State. If it is to be under European protection, Greece would find her power in Constantinople merely nominal....

"The brutality of the Czar not only drives the little Powers to desire union, but makes the great Powers ashamed of it, and it seems, though reluctantly, they will oppose him.

"This is the first time that a Hungarian statesman has initiated European movement. If in Europe they are forced to displease Russia, so much the more will they wish to keep Russia in better humour by not thwarting her projects in Armenia, which projects I believe to be just, philanthropic, and necessary under the circumstances; since the inability of the Sultan to rescue the Armenians from marauders has been proved, and no Power but Russia can do the needful work....

"It is to be feared that Germany cannot add any real strength to control Russia, while Russia knows that the insane vanity of French politicians is preparing a war of vengeance against Germany. Until the masses of the people have a practical constitutional plebiscite to veto war beforehand, it seems as though horrors which seem dead and obsolete must rise anew. Perhaps this is the lesson which the populations all have to learn. The earliest great triumph which the old plebeians of Rome won was the constitutional principle that wars could not be made without previous sanction of the popular assembly. England, alas! has not yet even demanded this obvious and just veto. The men whose trade is war, whose honours and wealth can only be won by war, will make it by hook or by crook, while their fatal and immoral trade is honoured.

"Affectionately yours,

"F. W. Newman."

In April, 1887, the Irish question was again to the fore, and part of the letter from which I quote shows clearly that Newman was in favour of some form of Local Government for Ireland, though not of the same kind as was being pressed forward by Mr. Parnell, who had urged on his countrymen agrarian agitation and boycotting as the screw which was to force the hand of the Home Government.

"My opinion is unchanged (1) that Grattan's Parliament was foolishly, mischievously, and immorally subverted by English double-dealing; (2) that in one hundred years things are so changed in Ireland and in Rome that we cannot go back to that crisis and heal old wounds by reinstating Grattan's work without making new wounds; (3) I deeply blame Orangemen in Belfast as (apparently) bent on promoting animosity, and on convincing us that they will rather rush into civil war than endure a Parliament in Dublin supreme over all Ireland: but however much this may be suspected as the bluster and cunning of a minority in Ulster, to ignore it totally may be unjust as well as unwise. And besides, I think that Ireland needs the practice of Local Government, varying locally, before that of a Central Irish Parliament. This forbids my desiring a complete triumph to Mr. Parnell.

"You are aware that I have long desired Provincial Chambers for all three kingdoms, and can see nothing to forbid them now for Ireland if Mr. Gladstone were to take that side. If he did it would be carried against Mr. Parnell by a vast majority of votes. No mere political measure can cure famine and rackrent or insecure tenure; but if the agrarian evil be appeased, no hatred of England on the part of Irish leaders will suffice to make Ireland discontented. If Mr. Gladstone fixedly opposes, if he says 'Honour compels me'—his Midlothian defence of the Egyptian war!—I should not the less say he had made a wrongful treaty. But 'a fac is a fac': someone hitherto makes this settlement impossible. If now the Tories miscarry, apparently Gladstone will come in again, and not Oedipus can tell us whether he will dissolve Parliament.

"It is supposed that he will; and Mr. W. S. Caine, whose prediction in this matter I cannot underrate, warns Mr. Gladstone that to dissolve again will bring on him redoubled failure,—an immense lessening of supporters.

"The new voters, at the last election, had not had time to learn a thousand things. After such a transformation of the constituencies, I not only expect—I desire—the break-up of the Liberal Party. Little by little they have adopted the Tory idea of 'follow your leader': never think for yourself. In the Parliament, in the Newspapers, in Arguments of Foreign War, at the Hustings, they treat it as 'Treason to the Party' not to do whatever the Premier says they must do, or he will resign and wreck the party.... I see only one sunbeam through the clouds ever since the fatal Egyptian war; and that is the recent Peace-Union of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy. I look on it as the inauguration of the future European Confederacy which is to forbid European wars, and become a forcible mediator. Under its shelter Roumania, Servia, and Bulgaria seem likely to consolidate a union of defence; and as soon as all the Powers understand that the Triple Alliance is based on permanent interests, the Alliance will not need to keep their armaments on foot; to train them, as the generations grow up, will suffice. The royalties everywhere will struggle for actual armies: the burdened peoples will murmur.

"Meanwhile we need long patience, I suppose, while Irish rent wastes to smaller and smaller worth; and one new election will suddenly precipitate the struggle. I do not fear that any Irish success will make Irishmen desire the burden of undertaking their own military and naval defence.

"Affectionately yours,

"F. W. Newman."

* * * * *

As regards Newman's opinions on one of the national questions which so closely concern us to-day—the Drink Traffic—they are very clearly and definitely stated in an article he wrote in the year 1877, and which appeared in Fraser's Magazine, in re Sir Wilfrid Lawson's Bill.

Here again decentralization was the key-note, as he firmly believed, of the remedy.

"The palace-like jails which now disgrace our civilization, and cause expenses so vast, are chiefly the fruit of this pernicious trade.... What shadow of reason is there for doubting that such sales as are necessary... will be far more sagaciously managed by a Local Board which the ratepayers elect for this sole purpose, than either by magistrates... or by an irresponsible and multitudinous Committee of Parliament? Finally, a Board elected for this one duty is immeasurably better than the Town Councils, who are distracted by an immensity of other business....

"Such a Board should have full power to frame its own restrictions, so as to prevent the fraud of wine merchants or chemists degenerating into spirit shops....

"To secure sufficient responsibility, no Board should be numerous: five or seven persons may be a full maximum, and no Board should have a vast constituency. Therefore our greatest towns ought to be divided into areas with suitable numbers, and have Boards separately independent. With a few such precautions, the system of elective Licensing Boards, which can impose despotically their own conditions on the licences, but without power to bind their successors in the next year, appears to be a complete solution of the problem...."

He adds, that to Sir Wilfrid Lawson "is due more largely than to any other public man the arousing of the nation" in the matter of the Drink Traffic, "To him our thanks and our honour will be equally paid, though the name of another mover be on the victorious Bill"—whatever it may be.

"Noble efforts for a good cause are never thrown away, are never ineffectual, even when the success does not come in the exact form for which its champion was contending. It may hereafter be said: 'Other men sowed—we reap the fruit of their labours.'"

I quote now from the letter to Anna Swanwick, in which he refers to this question in 1887:—

"Unless at a very early day the causes of Un-Employ be removed, we must calculate on frightful disorder. Evidently two measures are indispensable.

"1. To stop our land from going out of cultivation.

"2. To stop the demoralizing waste of 135 millions per annum on pernicious drink.

"Only a most stringent change of law, perhaps very difficult to pass, can effect the former and when passed, the good effect cannot be instantaneous. The second topic has been before the nation for thirty- four years; could be passed, if there were a will in either ministry, in a single fortnight, and when passed, the benefit would be sensible in a single year. Yet these topics are indefinitely postponed. The Tories do not even talk of them. Some 'Liberals' round Mr. Gladstone are eager for the stopping of Drink Bars, but the eloquent leader talks (in general) rightly, but never acts.

"Alas! He showed his heart in bringing a Bill to enact that every Railway Train should have (at least?) one travelling carriage with a Drink Bar. When it is told, people will not believe it."

The final letter from Francis Newman to Anna Swanwick, from the collection so kindly lent me by Miss Bruce, is dated 17th April, 1897, "15 Arundel Crescent, Weston-super-Mare."

It is not written by himself. By that time he was too feeble to be able to write, and of course it was only a few months before his death. This letter was written in response to one from Anna Swanwick. To me, I must frankly own, it breathes of the past tragedy, of those doubts and fears by which Newman's religious life had been beset. Even now, notwithstanding his statements to his two lifelong friends, Martineau and Anna Swanwick, that he wished it to be known that he died in the Christian faith, the uncertainty by which, according to the following letter, he was very evidently governed as regards the question of immortality, suggests a submissive mind indeed, but one devoid of the splendid force of conviction as regards his faith in "the life of the world to come."

Anna Swanwick always declared, we are told, that his was a "deeply religious nature," yet throughout the greater part of his life he was unable to take hold of the dogmas of Holy Scriptures. He was always trying to make a "new" religion, compounded of all the best parts of the faiths professed in various parts of the world. Yet even were this done it might interest, but could never become, like the Christian Religion, once for all delivered—a faith to be sure of, a faith Divinely inspired, not man-made.

"My dear Friend,

"I have read your letter this morning with deep interest and thanks. I do not intend to oppose it at all, but to add what it now seems to need. First, that I have always dreaded to involve another mind in my own doubts and uncertainties; only when I saw death not far off I thought it cowardly towards one who has shown me so much love to leave you ignorant of my last creed. For this reason alone did I send you my inability to maintain popular immortality.

"Next, it is not amiss to let you know the talk which passed between me and the Rev. James Taylor—Martineau's co-partner. He asked me my own belief concerning known immortality, and I replied that the Most High never asked my consent for bringing me into this world, yet I thanked Him for it, and tried to glorify Him. In like manner He never asked my leave to put me after my death in this world into any new world, and if He thought fit to do it I am not likely to murmur at His will. But not knowing His will, nor what power of resistance He allows me, I do not attempt to foresee the future. I seem to remember J. J. Taylor's remark, that he thought I went as far as anyone could be expected to go. And now, my dear Anna, I still wait to know how far I am straying from the man whom you and I are expecting something from—Dr. Martineau.

"Accept this kind remark, and be sure that I can use, and do use, concerning you, what a certain Psalmist says of the Most High: 'I will praise Him as long as I have any power to praise in my soul.'

"Yours while I exist "(You will not ask more of my weakness),

"F. W. Newman."

One wonders—but that wonder remains unsatisfied—what "that something" was which he and Anna Swanwick were then "expecting" from Martineau. Probably it was some statement as regards religion which Newman longed for from the man who had been permitted to help him now in his old age (when he distrusted more and more his own old judgments and former convictions) once more on to the old paths, led by that "kindly Light amid the encircling gloom," which now was fast closing in upon him.



CHAPTER XI

THE STORY OF TWO PATRIOTS

England possesses, as a rule, a memory of decidedly insular proportions and proclivities. On the tablets of our country's memory are chalked up many names which have figured in the history of her own concerns, or at any rate in concerns with which she has some connection. Perhaps it will be said that this is inevitable. Perhaps it will be said that this way Patriotism lies. Perhaps it will be said that our interests as English citizens and citizenesses are bound to be local, or we could not impress the seal of our empire upon other nations' memories.

And if it is said, it is no doubt in great measure true. It is inevitable that we remember, in sharp unblurred outlines, the names and deeds of our own great men. It is this way that the soil of Patriotism is kept well manured for fresh crops of doughty deeds. We are bound to impress our individuality, as a nation, upon other countries; for if we did not, we could never exist for any length of time as an empire at all.

But when all this is owned up to, there still remains another great necessity which can never with safety be disregarded. And this is the cultivation of our—so to speak—foreign memory. We cannot afford to pamper our insularity. It is true it must exist, but it is equally true that English interests can never be—at least, ought never to be—the sum total of our mental investments. Patriotism is a fine thing. It is an eminently inspiring thing. But it is also a thing that needs to take walks abroad to keep itself in good mental health. There is a certain sort of cosmopolitanism without which no nation's life can be complete—nay, without which it cannot go on at all.

It is the cosmopolitanism of recognizing greatness outside our own borders. The cosmopolitanism of owning that there are as good fish in foreign seas as ever there were in the English Channel. The cosmopolitanism of a human brotherhood, whether it hails from the Sandwich Islands, from France, from Finland, or from Hungary; which recognizes as a salient truth, big with vital issues, that, after all is said and done, it is not the soil which matters, but the man whose feet are upon it now, at this present day, though by birth he may own natal allegiance to a far distant shore.

There are two names to-day which are practically forgotten by modern England. Yet it is only half a century ago that the men who owned them were making a gallant stir for patriotism's sake.

How many Englishmen to-day remember the story of Kossuth and Pulszky? Yet fifty years ago their names sounded loudly enough in the political arena. Fifty years ago they had struck the drum of fame with a boom which reverberated through many a European country.

Yet here is a curious instance of the uncertainty which attends a nation's memory in regard to foreign heroes. Some quite unaccountable factor seems to rule their choice of whose achievements shall be nailed to the door of their memories, like British trophies of old, and which shall be completely forgotten. Garibaldi and Kossuth were patriots of the same decade—one of Italy, the other of Hungary. Yet to-day in England the "red shirt" of the Italian patriot still casts a flaming glow on the English memory, while the struggle of Kossuth for his country is almost dead to us, as far as our remembrance of it is concerned.

Nevertheless in the history of his country, what Kossuth achieved for her of independence and freedom was in no way less fine than Garibaldi's exploits.

In Francis Newman's Reminiscences of Two Wars and Two Exiles, the story of the Hungarian reformer and patriot stands out clearly before us. He gives as his reason for writing it that when, in 1851, Kossuth and Pulszky, his brother agitator, came to England, he himself became their close friend. He says: "When ... Kossuth and Pulszky quitted England in 1860, Pulszky told me they were glad to leave behind in me one Englishman who knew all their secrets and could be trusted to expound them." He goes on, however, to say that he was never able to be of so much service to them as Mr. Toulmin Smith, "a constitutional lawyer ... and a zealot for Hungary."

1848 was the year when the affairs of Hungary were at their most crucial point. For long the situation had been growing more and more strained between Austria and Hungary. Austria had been trying her hardest to force Hungary into entire subservience to herself—to force her to give up her separate individuality as a nation and become fused into the Austrian empire. But Hungary made a gallant stand against all these attempts which aimed at destroying her independence. She had always been a constitutional monarchy, with power of electing her own kings. Austria had always practically been considered to be a "foreigner" as far as Hungarian laws and offices were concerned.

The London Hungarian Committee in 1849 quoted Article X, by Leopold II, of the House of Hapsburg, in 1790, which definitely stated that "Hungary with her appanages is a free kingdom, and in regard to her whole legal form of government (including all the tribunals) independent; that is, entangled with no other kingdom or people, but having her own peculiar consistence and constitution; accordingly to be governed by her legitimately crowned king after her peculiar laws and customs."

This statute, however, was no sooner made than fresh attempts were made to nullify it. Hungary's needs, as a country, were many. Her taxation required alteration; her peasants had still feudal burdens to bear, instead of being freehold proprietors of land. Religious toleration was not enforced, and free trade was an unknown quantity, for Austria insisted on the produce of Hungary being sent only to her market. Fresh roads and bridges and agricultural improvements were imperatively necessary, but the need was passed by, by Austria.

To every nation, as to every individual, when the hour of worst need strikes, the hand of the man or woman who brings rescue is upon the latch of the door. In the present instance Kossuth was in readiness to redeem his country from the yoke of Austria.

In March, 1848, the Opposition in the Hungarian Diet, with Kossuth at their head, carried a vote "that the Constitution of Hungary could never be free from the machinations of the Austrian Cabinet until Constitutional Government was established in the foreign possessions of the Crown, so as to restore the legal status of the period at which the Diet freely conferred the royalty on the House of Hapsburg." This vote paralysed the Austrian authorities.... The Hungarian Diet immediately claimed for itself also a responsible ministry.

Prompt measures were now taken by the Hungarians to restore the old status of the country, and laws were made which conferred upon the peasants freeholds of land and all other reforms for which they had for so long been agitating.

The London Hungarian Committee, to whose paper I have before referred, tells us that before the French Revolution had broken out this Bill had passed both Houses. "The Austrian Cabinet, seeing their overwhelming unanimity, felt that resistance was impossible"; consequently this Reform Bill of April, 1848, was considered by all Hungarian patriots as their Magna Charta.

Nevertheless it was their fate very shortly after to appreciate the truth of this hard fact, that it is one thing to make a Charter and another thing to keep it. Austria had many ways up her sleeve of breaking the spirit of the letter. First she saw to it that Hungary had no properly equipped home regiments for her defence, and next she dissolved the Hungarian Diet, and again tried to fuse Hungary into the Austrian Empire. Then at last the Hungarians determined at once, by force, to end the contemptible, practical joke which Austria was engaged in playing off upon their country. They gathered an army together, but their utmost efforts could only raise one not half the size of that of their opponents, and consequently the result of the battle was defeat for themselves. Later on, when Kossuth had managed to collect more arms and men, battles on a much larger scale were fought; and after the Austrians had been defeated more than a dozen times, the whole of their armies were driven ignominiously out of Hungary. It was after this series of victories that Kossuth was made his country's governor, and the whole nation declared as one man that the House of Hapsburg had for ever forfeited any claim to the Crown.

It was now that, had England attempted mediation for Hungary (according to Francis Newman), "we should have saved Austria from the yoke of Russia, and have at least put off the Crimean war," because, when Russia had come to the assistance of Austria in her final difficulties with Hungary, after she had been driven out of that country, "if England and France had not fought it, nothing short of an equivalent war must have been fought against Russia by other Powers ... because the security of all Europe is endangered by the virtual vassalage of Austria to Russia... for Austria is now so abhorred in Hungary that she cannot keep her conquest except by Russian aid." [Footnote: Reminiscences of Two Wars and Two Exiles.]

In 1848 Kossuth's envoy, Pulszky, was sent to England, and, quite ignorant of the wheels within wheels which hampered the political movements of Lord Palmerston, was amazed that he himself found a repulse awaiting him at the English Minister's hands. Lord Palmerston asserted that the rights or wrongs of Hungary were practically a dead letter to England, who had never thought of that country as existing apart from Austria. He considered "a strong Austria was a European necessity"; but notwithstanding all he said then and later, the impression made itself felt on men's minds that there was a "power behind the throne" in all his speeches, and none knew what that hidden power was. To-day we all know that it was the foreign counsellorhood of Baron Stockmar, who advised Prince Albert in those days. As Newman says: "It is now open to believe that Stockmar and his Austrian policy ... sometimes drove Palmerston to despair, and our diplomacy into heartlessness."



This elucidation of the whole puzzle throws fresh light on that attitude of Lord Palmerston which so completely mystified Kossuth.

"I cannot understand," he said, "what is the policy of Palmerston's heart. He talks one way, yet acts another way—always against the interests and just rights of Hungary."

Kossuth's next step was to take refuge in Turkey, and here he at once set to work to learn the language, and succeeded so well that he wrote a grammar, which was afterwards used in the Turkish schools. It was said to have been due to Lord Palmerston, by the way, that the Sultan refused to give him up to Austria and Russia. But at any rate the Sultan seemed to owe the decision which guided this refusal in large measure to his own loyalty to those who had sought shelter with him during civil war. At any rate, Kossuth reported that he certainly said, "I will accept war rather than give up the Hungarian fugitives." Eventually an American ship conveyed Kossuth out of Turkey, and he landed at Marseilles. Of course, by then the monarchy had been overthrown in France, and Louis Napoleon-with whom Kossuth was later on to be closely connected—was President.

In October, 1851, Kossuth crossed to England. Newman tells us that though "he was enthusiastically received by the whole nation," yet that "he was slandered, feared, despised, and disliked by those esteemed highest and noblest in England." But, at any rate, he was given a hearty welcome in America, for he did not stay long in England when he saw that those in authority did not warmly espouse his cause.

It is necessary here to remember that in 1851 Louis Napoleon had stepped on to the top of the Republic, whom he had previously served as its President, and had made himself Emperor of the French. It is necessary also to remember that there was a very general sense of alarm throughout England as to his plans regarding an invasion. He was thought to be collecting a fleet destined to attack us. But, later, it was proved that we had been exciting and disturbing ourselves quite unnecessarily. Louis Napoleon wanted something of us, it is true. But that something was alliance.

By this time Kossuth was back in England. One day, Francis Newman says, "Kossuth called suddenly on me with an English Blue-book in his hand, and abruptly said: 'We foreigners look to you to explain your own Blue-books. Please to tell me what does this strange sentence mean?' I read carefully these words from the despatches of the Western Powers to the admirals of their fleets in Constantinople: c You must clearly understand that you are not sent to fight against the Emperor of Russia, but to save the Sultan from religious enthusiasm and fatal auxiliaries'! He pointed out these last words.... 'Religious enthusiasm is the diplomatic phrase for Turkish patriotism; fatal auxiliaries mean Hungarians.... Because Austria dreads lest exiled Hungarians fight in the Turkish ranks, and the object of the Western Powers is to please Austria and not to aid Turkey.... They are angry with the Turks for defending themselves against Russia.'" [Footnote: Reminiscences of Two Wars and Two Exiles.]



In 1848-9 the Whigs and Tories in England mistook the whole meaning of the disturbances which were going forward abroad. Macaulay (whom Newman quotes) distinctly asserts that in Hungary and Italy "kings were fighting in the cause of civilization, and nationalities were rising to destroy it in the cause of anarchy."

Comment on this is, of course, quite needless when one remembers how misinformed were the English ministers as to the nature of the struggle for liberty which was then going forward in both countries, and how treacherously and cruelly the people had been treated by those in authority over them: and what efforts had been made constantly against their rights as citizens. In 1854 Kossuth was again doing his best to rouse interest on behalf of his country in England. He called on Newman to enquire what would be the best and quickest way of collecting subscriptions. He wanted for immediate national use L5000. Newman referred him to a printer who "was a Zealot for Hungary," and who would supply him with the names of the richest men who had "spoken vigorously for Hungary."

Kossuth proceeded to write out a circular to be sent to these Englishmen, asking for subscriptions. A little later Newman found out that the result of this fishing in English waters was L400, and he had wanted L5000 to enable him to carry out his projects for Hungary!

The following letter from Francis Newman to Professor Martineau (about whose friendship with him I shall have more to say later) is dated November, 1854, and concerns his opinions in re the Crimean War:—

"As to the war, while it is always thought rash to have any strong military convictions, I have always believed that if they would go straight to Sebastopol early in the season they would take it with little difficulty. We have been juggled partly by Austria, partly by the too great age of our military men, partly by clashing counsels of allies. The fortification of Gallipoli I regarded as stupid infatuation: our old military men said it was necessary for safety! We lost all our time while Russia had her hands full on the Danube, we let in Austria to hinder the Turks pursuing the retreat, we delayed ten weeks longer to make preparation, and landed, leaving all our preparations behind. This delay has been the mischief.... The climate is now my fear, not the enemy. But I look on all this as a part of the providential or fatal necessity which determines that war shall not be decided by regular armies. If we will do things in a 'slow and sure' way, Russia will beat us, for she cares nothing for the lives of her men; to us it is agony. But to yield is to make her omnipotent. I expect, therefore, that the harder we fight, and the poorer our success, the more will Austria show Russian sympathies, and the more will the Western Powers be forced to call up Poland and Hungary.... I suppose nothing but severe suffering and vain effort will reconcile Louis Napoleon or the English aristocracy to the revolution in Europe, which alone can permanently cripple Russia.

"Ever yours affectionately,

"F. W. Newman."

And in August, 1855, he wrote again:—

"I do not think you see truly the treachery of our Government (I cannot use a weaker word), nor know truly what Kossuth has always demanded. To my first question, 'Do you expect us to drive Austria into hostility?' he replied (probably in November, 1853), 'Certainly not; but I claim that you shall not try to hinder our fighting our just and necessary battle against Austria.' This is the turning point. We did try to hinder it, hoping thereby to seduce Austria to our side. To whisper to Austria the words 'H. P. I.' would not have been to stir up those countries to insurrection, but to compel Austria not to threaten Turkey with her armies. Our Government encouraged her in it, and aided her to occupy the Principalities, forcing the Sultan to take pliable Ministers.... We reap the bitter fruit, as Kossuth from the beginning told us we should. I, however, still hope that we shall regain a morally right position, and that if we fare the worse Hungary may be the better; for then Austria might have been neutral, now she will be our enemy."

Kossuth suffered greatly in his political aims and endeavours from lack of funds. Indeed, from his first journey to England until he finally gave up coming over here, he was terribly hampered by want of money. Newman, too, was out of pocket owing to his efforts to push forward the Hungarian cause. I have before me now a letter from Kossuth written in January, 1854, from 21 Alpha Road, Regent's Park, to E. Sieveking and Son, members of my family, who were keenly interested in Hungarian politics, and who transacted many business arrangements for Kossuth from time to time while he was in England. The letter is on behalf of a friend of his, a Mr. Ernest Poenisch, and is written in German:—

"Honoured Sir,

"Would you not do me the kindness to give a favourable reference about the honourability [sic] of Mr. Ernest G. Poenisch if anyone should happen to make enquiries of you about him?

"Mr. Ernest Poenisch is a merchant in the city, a German by birth, and was a merchant of importance, and as he often has commercial business of importance to look after for me, you will be doing to me myself, a kindness if you would give him a good reference in a general way, should opportunity occur.

"Renewing my request to you, I sign myself, "Respectfully yours,

"L. Kossuth. "To E. Sieveking and Son."

In June, 1855, Francis Newman writes to Dr. Martineau, in answer to a letter from him:—

"I do not write in support of the oppressed nations because 'I have confidence in the stability and morality of a continental democracy,' but because the foreign kings who now trample nations down neither have nor pretend to have any right but that of armies; it is a pure avowed robber- rule, essentially in morals, and all will extol the nations as patriotic whenever they throw it off. ... Certainly I maintain that Hungary and Poland are nations; so in fact is Italy: but Austria is only a Court and Army, not a nation. We have had public relations with Hungary as a nation; we violated our duty to Hungary in 1848-9; and complain we are still allowing Austria to get the benefit of our wrong. So also to Poland, I feel we have grossly neglected our duty, and still neglect it.... We know that Hungary (Poland, Italy) is in the right; but though called on to say so, we will not say it; nor even mediate, for it will lead to republicanism. Again, I call it immoral to argue: 'We know that Austria is giving Turkey just cause of war; but we must not allow the Sultan to resent it by declaring war; for it will give the nationalities an opportunity of throwing off the Austrian yoke.'... Then, my dear friend, do you forget that I approved of the French, and disapproved of the Austrian alliance?... Not to ally with Louis Napoleon is not to join him against the French nation; while to ally with Francis Joseph was to join him against the French nation, which his armies are trampling down. Again, we did not catch Louis Napoleon engaged in a scheme with Nicholas (Emperor of Russia) to dismember Turkey, and bribe Louis Napoleon to join us by the promise or hint that he should still get his slice of Turkey. We have done this to Austria, and have used our severe pressure on the Turkish Government to get Austria admitted into the Principalities.... I fear this summer will be as deadly to our army as the winter was; my only comfort will be, that I shall make sure that Austria will the clearer show her true colours.

"Hoping you are all well, I am,

"Ever yours affectionately,

"F. W. Newman."



"Hungary and Poland are nations; so in fact is Italy: but Austria is only a Court and Army, not a nation." Here is practically the gist of the whole matter, as far as Francis Newman is concerned. Throughout all his writings one comes again and again upon this note. "The People! The People!" is his ever-recurring thought. What are "the People" suffering; what are their needs, their wrongs which call for justice? The People is the living nation; the Court and the Army may be inevitable adjuncts of a nation's being, as things at present are constituted; but they are artificial adjuncts; the People are the very life essence of the Nation, its real motive power. Let their voice be heard, and the soul of empire at once springs into being.

In the next letter from Newman to Martineau, 9th June, 1856, from which I shall quote, it is shown that our Colonial Office was enraged against Kossuth because he had "mischievously hindered the Austrian Government from getting troops to put down Italian insurrection." Newman goes on to show how the treachery of Austria in her dealing with other nations was a potent fact, and he adds, "Hungary was bound" (according to Kossuth's views) "to assist Austria against foreign attack, and therefore against the King of Sardinia; but in the interval, before this could come to any practical result, the intrigues of the Austrian Court with the Serbs were brought to light; Austrian officers with the Emperor-King's commission in their pockets were made prisoners from among the Serb ranks, and the internal danger of Hungary, as well as the treachery of the Court, made it simply impossible to carry out, or wish to carry out, the Protocol. But Kossuth was still the King's Minister, and could not say this openly. Unless he would have taken the first step to civil war, he was bound to throw a thin veil over it in public speech and action. The measure which he then promoted was ... that no Hungarian soldier should leave the country until the internal rebellion was thoroughly subdued. That no Hungarian regiments should fight against Italians until the Italians had had from Austria the offer of national institutions and freedom under the Austrian Crown, putting them on a par with the Hungarians."

Nothing could have been fairer than these conditions, and this was very shortly recognized when it became known that Latour and the Court were employing all their energies for long after this date in stirring up the Serb rebellion. Yet they were shameless enough to complain of Kossuth having incited the Hungarians to revolt. Writing the next day to Dr. Martineau, Newman openly avows his belief that "every nation in the world is grasping and unjust in its foreign policy in exact proportion to its power, England not being at all an exception." The italics are my own. Have we not proof positive of this before our very eyes to-day? We cannot look at India and say "no," for by our charter of 1833 we bound ourselves over to hold India only until the education, which we had made possible for them, should enable the Indians to take a share in the government of their own country. But when we look at the India of to-day, we cannot but plead guilty to not having kept that charter honestly before our eyes. There is but one office to which natives are admitted on equal terms with Englishmen to-day!

To go back to the letter:—

"England has no great European army, and cannot covet and subdue any portion of the European continent. That is no great credit; but in Asia, where she is strong and her neighbours weak, she is as grasping and unjust as Russia, Austria, France, or the U.S.... Lord Palmerston had never heard (or pretended never to have heard) of the peace of Satmar, and that England was mediator of it between Austria and Hungary. I think it is not mere knowledge, but higher morality, which is the first need of policy on both sides the Atlantic."

It is now that Louis Napoleon comes on the scene as regards the beginnings of his connection with Kossuth. Newman says that it was in 1856 that the closer friendship between Napoleon and Cavour (Sardinian Minister) had begun. Not very long after it was borne in on the mind of Cavour that Kossuth would be an invaluable ally in the plans of future conquest which they were then preparing.

Louis knowing that Kossuth was in sore need of funds for his political enterprises, sent a messenger to him to intimate that he would join forces with him; that he would supply him financially with all he would require in the way of ready cash. Kossuth was not averse from receiving in good part Napoleon's advances, though he offered temporary resistance. He saw clearly that if France were to help Italy, Austria would be weakened, Newman tells us that when Napoleon announced in 1858 that he was about to marry Clotilde, daughter of the King of Sardinia, Kossuth at once said to him: "I have always resisted Napoleon's overtures, but I expect now that I shall be forced to visit him in Paris, because I now see that he is resolved upon war against Austria. This Piedmontese marriage is evidently his pledge also to Italians that he means to drive Austria out of Italy."

Then, in 1859, a few inimical words which Napoleon spoke to the Austrian ambassador showed very clearly to what quarter the political wind in France had veered. "War was felt to be intended, and Russia was no longer a support to Austria behind."

In March, or a little later, Kossuth and Pulszky were invited to Paris, and were met, very cordially, at the station by Prince Napoleon, cousin to the Emperor. Later, Louis Napoleon himself spoke with them, and said very frankly that he had never had any special idea of assisting Hungary, but that in case he could not settle affairs in Italy, as regarded his war with Austria, and he should find himself obliged to send his army into Croatia, he wanted advice with respect to many details regarding this province, which he knew that Kossuth could give him. Newman was the recipient of Kossuth's communications concerning this secret interview with Napoleon. And he told him that besides needing his advice about Croatia, he wanted him (knowing he had influence in England) "to drive Lord Derby out of office." I quote Napoleon's words as recorded by Newman.

"The French army is very formidable; but I cannot pretend that in it I have such superiority to Austria that I may expect easy or certain success. My only clear superiority is on the sea. As Louis Philippe before, so have I from the first carefully nursed my fleet. Hereby I override Austria in the Adriatic—a most critical advantage.... I cannot be sure but that without declaring war, or giving warning, he (Lord Derby) may all at once strike a blow which will annihilate my fleet, and then what could compensate me? If you can find any way of moving discontent against this ministry, I want you to cripple or eject him."

Newman adds that Kossuth did not tell him what reply he himself gave to all this.

Everyone knows the sequel to this. After Lord Derby had resigned in March, Lord Palmerston took office. In May the Austrians were defeated; and this defeat was followed by more disaster for them, and the end of the whole matter resolved itself into a peace between Francis Joseph and Louis Napoleon.

Then it was that the latter proclaimed freedom from Austrian supremacy to all Italy; and now came the end for which Kossuth had struggled, and longed, and waited. Napoleon despatched a messenger to him asking what demands Kossuth wished now to make. His prompt answer was delivered thus to the envoy:—

"Sir, I have two demands on your master: First, he must extract from the Emperor Francis Joseph an amnesty for every Hungarian or Croatian soldier who has taken military service under the King of Sardinia. Secondly, no man thus amnestied shall ever be pressed into the Austrian army."

A fortnight went by, and Kossuth heard nothing from the Emperor. Then, when at last the news came, it was almost too good to be true. Francis Joseph had agreed to both stipulations.

In August, 1860, Francis Newman, writing from Keswick, touches on the progress in success made by the Italian patriot, Garibaldi.

"I do not think you can be dissatisfied with Garibaldi's progress. Louis N. could have stopt [sic] him, and ruined his hopes for ever, by one word to Austria as soon as Garibaldi landed in Sicily. On the contrary, he has sternly forbidden Austria to meddle at all in Italy, and has allowed Cavour to proclaim in Parliament that L. N.'s greatest merit to Italy is not the great battle of Solferino, but his having avowed in his letter to the Pope that priests shall no longer rule in Italy.... When Hungary is free, all views will change, and perhaps France also."

Kossuth and Pulszky, who had visited England constantly between the years 1851 and 1860, finally left our shores for good in the latter year, Kossuth for Italy, for he took no further share in politics, and Pulszky for Hungary, where he became Finance Minister to Francis Joseph's new constitutional monarchy.

Before finally leaving England, Kossuth gave to Newman his own "reading" of the real character of Louis Napoleon. He said: "Louis Napoleon is a man at whom, on account of his coup d'etat, [Footnote: Louis Napoleon's raid on the French citizens, in violation of his promises, in order to make himself supreme.] I shudder, and it may seem a duty to hate him. Yet I am bound to say, not only has he been wholly faithful to us, but every time I have been closeted with him I have come away with a higher opinion, not only of his talents and sagacity, but also of his morals." The italics are mine. It seems difficult for the outsider to-day quite to sign to this point of view, when one remembers Louis Napoleon's deception and his broken honour and cruelty. There is a very enlightening and suggestive passage in one of Robert Louis Stevenson's books, "To travel happily is better than to arrive." In Kossuth's case the reverse was true. He travelled towards his goal unhappily, but he "arrived," and that was a reward which is not given to every patriot who gives his life to win his country's freedom.

In Hungary in 1851, by Charles Loring Brace, there are many keenly interesting details about Kossuth. Mr. Brace made a tour in Europe, chiefly on foot, during the spring of 1851, and met Kossuth in Pesth; his mother was then living there. "To say that Kossuth is beloved here seems hardly necessary after what I have seen. He is idolized. Every word and trait of his character is remembered with an indescribable affection ..."; but they all acknowledged, he added, that he did not possess the necessary gifts for a revolutionary leader. Still, he moved his countrymen in so stirring a manner that they would have followed him anywhere. "He 'agitated' the whole land, and there is not a Bauer in the villages or a Csikos (wild cattle driver) on the prairies, they say, who does not remember as the day of days the time when he listened to those thrilling tones ... as they spoke ... of the wrongs of their beloved Fatherland."

This is a short account by a journalist who knew him personally, and was present at the time, of the manner in which Kossuth was received in Scotland during his visit to Britain:—

"In travelling from Edinburgh to Perth, Kossuth was received at every station by vast crowds of people, including many ladies, with vociferous cheers and waving of hats and handkerchiefs. This was particularly the case at Stirling, where hundreds crowded up to the carriage in which he sat to grasp his hand."

One day it was suggested that Kossuth, Colonel Ibaz his aide-de-camp, and the journalist should go for a drive up Kinnoul Hill, near Perth. "We soon got into a rough country road winding among the farms. At one place the carriage came to a stand while a gate had to be opened to allow it to pass through. At this gate stood a tall, venerable-looking farmer, with long white hair and beard ... who might have served as a painter's model for an old Scottish Covenanter. He stood ready to open the gate.... He had, of course, heard of Kossuth's invitation to lecture in Perth, and at once divined that the carriage might contain his hero, as all visitors to Perth ascend the Hill of Kinnoul.... In a very deep and solemn voice he said ... 'I reckon that Loois Koshoot is in this carriage. Am I richt? Whuch is him?' Kossuth leaned forward and said in a very gracious manner, 'Yes, he is, good man. I am Louis Kossuth.' Whereupon the venerable man reverently took off his bonnet, came close up, grasped Kossuth's hand in both his own, and said, 'God bless you, sir, an' may He prosper you in your great waurk to free yer kintra frae the rod o' the oppressor. May He strengthen ye and croon ye wi' victory....'

"Colonel Ihaz was a bronzed, stern-looking officer, perhaps ten years older than his chief; yet with all his military stiffness and sternness he was quite capable of relaxing into ordinary human feelings and becoming quite a facetious old fellow under favourable conditions. He could speak very little English. He enjoyed the humour of some Scottish stories and anecdotes I told, and which Kossuth translated for him. He was greatly pleased and amused when I initiated him into the art and mystery of concocting a tumbler of whisky toddy as a proper and orthodox finish to the evening.... He thoroughly appreciated the beverage, smacking his lips ... and exclaiming with gusto, 'Toddo is goot. Toddo very goot.'" He mentions that Kossuth was keenly interested in Scottish ballads and stories, etc., and he actually learnt one ballad by heart, "which for thrilling passion, and power, and sweetness ... were never equalled by human voice. His appeals ... were addressed exceedingly often to the religious feelings of his hearers. In fact, this tendency of his is perhaps one great secret of his power over the people of Hungary—for the peasantry of that land, beyond that of almost any other, are remarkable for a simple, reverent piety."

When, after the deliverance of Hungary from the yoke of Austria, Kossuth was made Governor, Brace says that he considers he belonged, by reason of his talent for organization and finance, to the highest rank of statesmen. He had not "the unrelenting, tremendous force of a Cromwell or Napoleon, or the iron will of a Jackson...." But he has shown that a man "could be a military Dictator without staining his hands either in the blood of his rivals or of his friends."

"One of the privates in an Austrian regiment stationed in Vienna, himself a Hungarian, was overheard by his officer to say 'Eljen Kossuth!' He was ordered 'five-and-twenty' at once. It appears when a man is flogged in the Austrian army he is obliged by law to thank the officer. This the Hungarian refused to do. Another 'five-and-twenty' were given him. Still he refused. Again another flogging; and the Hungarian, as he rose, muttered his thanks with the words, 'My back belongs to the Emperor, but my heart to Kossuth.'"

In regard to Kossuth's manner of delivery in his great public speeches, Mr. Brace says: "His opening words, they say, were like Hungarian national airs, always low and plaintive in the utterance.... But gradually his face lighted up, his voice deepened and swelled with his feeling," and there came forth tones which thrilled his hearers with a strange rousing power.



CHAPTER XII

FOUR BARBARISMS OF CIVILIZATION

In every civilization there will always be found, sheltering under its wall, evil things not yet brought to book—not yet revealed in their true nature, but still dragging back the wheel of true progress and the betterment of humanity. Yet though they come "in such a questionable shape," it is often not until someone ahead of his or her age, pulls them into the open glare of another point of view, and thus shows up all their hidden moral leprosy, that the arrow of condemnation is driven full-tilt at them from the stretched bow of a Higher Criticism.

In Francis Newman's Miscellanies, Vol. III, four of these evil things are dragged by him into the open daylight of a mind far ahead of its age, and these four are: Cruelty to Animals; Degradation of Man, as brought about by the drink traffic; War, as the great throw-back to Civilization; Punishment as understood in England, and our own methods of reform as regards the treatment of misdemeanants.

To take the first of these—Cruelty to Animals. Of course there are three kinds: Legalized cruelty, cruelty caused by thoughtlessness, and cruelty caused in order to give pleasure to men and women. Of the first—well, of course this has to do with vivisection, said to be carried on for the advancement of science and for the sake of alleviating the sufferings of humanity.

As regards the first reason, men who know what they are talking about are pretty generally agreed that science has not largely benefited by vivisection. As regards the second, it is by no means sure that anything can be proved of direct use to mankind from discoveries made by doctors and scientists after operating on animals. "What sort of tenderness for man can we expect from surgeons who can thus teach by torture, or from students who can endure to listen?" Here Francis Newman puts his finger on a very significant factor in the case—that of the barbarizing, the deteriorating of the mind that cannot touch the black pitch of torture and not be defiled.

Everyone will remember the words of Lord Shaftesbury, one of the greatest men of his day: "I would rather be, before God, the poor victim in the torture-trough than the vivisector beside him." And it is this point also which is of importance in the vivisection question—not the point of view alone of the animal tortured, but as well the inevitable effect on the vivisector. For there are some things undeniably which, when done, do not leave the man who does them where he was before in the moral scale.

As Archdeacon Wilberforce says: "If all that is claimed by vivisectors were true—and I absolutely disbelieve it—the noblest attitude would be to refuse physical benefit obtained at the cost of secrets stolen from other lives by hideous torture." These words exactly express the attitude of all thoughtful men and women who feel the impossibility of accepting help at the cost of such torture to the lower creation by what the Archdeacon very aptly calls the "barbarities of science."

Well may Francis Newman say: "When we ask by what right a man tortures these innocent creatures, the only reply that can be given is, because we are more intelligent. If in the eye of God this is justifiable, then a just God might permit a devil to torture us in the cause of diabolic science.... To cut up a living horse day after day in order to practise students in dissection is a crime and abomination hardly less monstrous from his not having an immortal soul. An inevitable logic would in a couple of generations unteach all tenderness towards human suffering if such horrors are endured, and carry us back into greater heartlessness than that of the worst barbarians." The bill in 1876, of which the chief aim was to amend the law, to regulate better the doings of vivisectors, insisted on the fact that a licence from the Home Secretary was to be a sine qua non in the case of all who practised these experiments upon animals. But experience of the way in which this law works shows quite clearly that very inadequate inspection takes place, because in so many cases inspectors and vivisectors play into each other's hands.

Of the other kinds of cruelty, those caused by thoughtlessness and in order to minister to the pleasure of men and women are very many and very present to us. I use the word "thoughtlessness," but perhaps it would be nearer the truth to say lack of power to realize, for thoughtlessness can no longer be pleaded by those women who persist in wearing aigrettes, and other plumage of birds. The barbarous method has been too often described to them by which these aigrettes are procured: how the plumes are torn from the males of the small white heron; how, this appalling cruelty perpetrated, the birds are left to die on the shore. Women of fashion cannot but be aware how wholesale this savage slaughter of the innocents is; that each bird only contributes one-sixth of an ounce of aigrette plumes; that we are told that thousands of ounces of plumes are sold by one firm during the course of one season alone. It is not too much to say that each woman's bonnet in which these plumes (so barbarously procured) figure, is a veritable juggernaut car. It is not alone for fashion's sake that we perpetrate these barbarisms, however, for what can be said in defence of cruelties practised upon animals for the sake of man's stomach? Of the method in vogue now of stuffing capons by means of an instrument which forces food down their throats relentlessly in order to make them of great size and of tender flesh? or of calves being slowly bled to death that their flesh may be white? What of the horrors which precede the making of pate de foie gras? The name of these atrocities is legion, however, and it is useless to enumerate them here. Fashion loves to have it so, and the ordinary diner does not trouble his head about the terrible ordeal of the animal which has preceded the delicacy for himself. But, putting his dinner aside, the Englishman's sport is often not far removed from barbaric.

Look at coursing! What can be the nature that can take pleasure in seeing an absolutely defenceles animal let out in a confined space, with no chance of escape, no fair play at all, nothing in front of it but certain death whichever way it turns? What can be the nature which can enjoy the death-scream of the agonized hare as the dogs' fangs dig into the quivering flesh? Coursing is nothing more nor less than an absolutely degrading sport to the beholders.

There is no sport, in the right acceptation of the word, in it at all. At any rate, there is far more of the element of real sport in fox-hunting or in stag-hunting, especially in those districts where one is told that the stag practically enters into the spirit of the game, when, after a good run, it pauses, and is helped into the cart which is to take it into "home cover" again! Be that as it may, at least there is some fair play to the quarry. In coursing that is an unknown quantity.

"The accomplished Englishman shoots for sport. Sport, being a mental impulse or appetite, is insatiable, and therefore far more deadly than hunger.... A boast is made that ninety millions of rabbits are reared for the consumption of our nation. Ninety million rabbits sent out at large to nibble the young shoots of the growing crops—each of whom destroys and wastes ten times what a tame rabbit would eat in a hutch—are boasted of as an increase of our supplies! If twenty million of these reach the town markets, it is much; how many beside are cruelly massacred with no profit to man! and how many beside, with unhappy hares, foxes, rats, stoats, and weasels, are held for days and nights in lingering torture by horrible steel traps? All this goes on in the midst of refinement, without prohibition from men or remonstrance from women. It is a fruit of the modern English system of game preserving;... and the artificial love of sport which cruel Norman tradition has fostered in the stolid Anglo-Saxon race." [Footnote: "On Cruelty" (Miscellanies, III, by Francis W. Newman).] It is an unassailable truth that if you look for the last remains of barbarity in a civilized nation you will find them in their sports. But I confess that to me it is difficult to justify a woman's love of sport when it is combined—before her very eyes—with the suffering of an animal. Yet I heard only the other day of a woman who boasted that she had been among the few "in at the death" one day in fox- hunting, and that when the brush was given to her, her face was spattered with the blood of the fox.

To turn to another "barbarism of civilization"—the subject of the Drink Traffic.

Newman's words about this come with startling appositeness to-day, when we are all eager as regards the pros and cons of the new Licensing Act, and when all the publicans in the country are watching anxiously in fear of the ruin it may spell for themselves. Thirty years ago Francis Newman flung these words broadcast into the country:—

"Parliament ignominiously sits on the beer barrel. The thirty-three millions a year" (which was the revenue in 1877 derived from "complicity with distillers and brewers"), "are to every Ministry like the proverbial wolf which the woodsman holds by the ears. To keep him is difficult, to let him go is dangerous. Their position is becoming worse than embarrassing when the best men of every class, and all the women who see the public miseries, condemn the deadly policy of bartering national morality for payments to the exchequer.... The mode in which those in power fight to retain the public immoralities proclaims the quality of their motives. As one example out of several, see with what tenacity the Sunday sale of intoxicating drink in Ireland is kept up, after it is visible that Ireland disapproves, and after the English Parliament has voted with Ireland. Trickery is here the only right word; but trickery cannot in the long run support any cause. In this matter, as in several others, national indignation is ripening. Many old ways will have to be reversed, among which the treatment of the drink traffic has quite a leading place."

He then goes on to treat in detail of the pros and cons of Sir Wilfrid Lawson's Bill, and its principle of Popular Local Control; also of those of Mr. Joseph Cowen's Bill on the same subject, both belonging to the year in which he wrote his article on "Local Control of the Drink Traffic." And he proceeds to consider the two alternatives: the Permissive Popular Veto, and the Popular Control by an unfettered Licensing Board.

Later on Newman propounds his own opinion as to where the true remedy lies for the shocking state of public morality in connection with the drink traffic. Almost invariably his remedies for social evils are based on specialization. In this case he advises Licensing Boards in large towns. He urges that each Board should have full power to frame its own restrictions, that "no Board should be numerous: five or seven persons may be a full maximum"; that each Board should be elective, "without power to bind their successors in the next year." "What shadow of reason," he asks, "is there for doubting that such sales as are necessary and inevitable will be far more sagaciously managed by a Local Board, which the ratepayers elect for this sole purpose, than either by magistrates who are irresponsible and do not suffer sensibly from the public vice, or by an irresponsible or multitudinous Committee of Parliament? Finally, a Board elected for this one duty is immeasurably better than the Town Councils, who are distracted by an immensity of other business."

It is not difficult to see that his suggestion for a local Licensing Board has a great deal that might be said for it. His idea as regards a Ward- Mote to settle difficulties in local self-government in the same way would deal first hand with difficulties. In both cases these local boards would obviate the necessity for the despatching of endless little Private Bills to a Parliament which really has not time to deal effectually with them. Francis Newman certainly taught a truth which only gets more insistent as year succeeds year, that specialization is indeed the word of all others which holds within its letters in great measure "the healing of the nations," the simplifying of their puzzles.

As regards the rights and wrongs of making war, Newman asks, "Why does one murder make a villain, but the murder of thousands a hero?" And again, "Why do princes and statesmen, who would scorn to steal a shilling, make no difficulty in stealing a kingdom?"

Before calling this, as many an Englishman would not hesitate to do, a topsy-turvy morality, let us realize that sayings such as these really give us the true values of things as nothing else could. For there are more sins "in heaven and earth than are dreamt of" in a nation's classified immoralities. Stealing a shilling is a recognized immorality, and as such the law of the land punishes the thief. Stealing a kingdom, however, is one of those national achievements which men justify to themselves as a patriotic feat, or, it may be, a necessity of empire, and it is not classified among punishable offences at all. And then it is necessary to remember that many things that are indefensible when only a few do them, seem to become, by an extraordinary method of reasoning, regarded as allowable when so many people do them that a spurious public opinion and a decadent fashion is born, which shelters them and prevents the light of an unbiassed judgment from showing up their shortcomings in morality. One has only to read up old records of the eighteenth century to see how slavery flourished in England among otherwise honourable men, and how public opinion condoned, nay, justified it to realize that public opinion regarded as vox populi, is often many spiritual leagues away from being vox Dei.

Newman's point of view regarding war and extension of territory was not the popular one:—

"There are many who believe that the time will come when no weapons of war shall be forged, and universal peace shall reign.... We also believe that a time will come when men will look back in wonder and pity on our present barbarism; a time at which to begin a war—unless previously justified by the verdict of an impartial tribunal, bound in honour to overlook what is partially expedient to their own nation or party—will be esteemed a high and dreadful crime.

"The 'Governments' will never initiate such institutions until compelled by public opinion and by the inevitable pressure of circumstances, nor is any nation in the world yet ripe to put forth such pressure; otherwise it would not be difficult to devise a supreme court, or rather jury, which would put a totally new moral aspect on war." [Footnote: Ethics of War, Francis W. Newman.]

He goes on to say that a great many wars might have been avoided by us if we had been willing, which we are not, to submit to arbitration; and he urges that war should be "declared in the Capital... with the formal assent of Lords and Commons."

Under the present system, as he points out, when war is declared against any country, it is not a necessity, as it was in the fourteenth century, that Parliament should be applied to for consent and approval when the King of England wished to make war. Later, Henry V asked Parliament what it would advise in "matters of foreign embroilment"; and when the King of France wanted to make peace with him, he would do nothing in the matter until his Parliament had told him "what will be most profitable and honourable to do in the matter."

But to-day, in arranging to make war or to make peace, it is the Cabinet— the two or three in the inner Chamber—who take all responsibility upon themselves. As often as not their decision is largely influenced by party questions—and the questions do not depend on the morality of the war, whether the reason for it is a just one or no. "It is the singular disgrace of modern England, [Footnote: Deliberations before War, Francis Newman, 1859.] to have allowed the solemn responsibility of war to be tampered with by the arbitrary judgment of executive officers; ... the nation permits war to be made, lives by the twenty thousand or fifty thousand to be sacrificed, provinces to be confiscated, and permanent empire over foreign subjects established, at the secret advice of a Cabinet, all of one party, acting collectively for party objects, no one outside knowing how each has voted." Yet "the whole nation is implicated in a war, when once it is undertaken, inasmuch as we all have the same national disgrace, if it is unjust; the same suffering, if it is tedious; the same loss, if it is expensive"; and all the time, "according to the current morality of Christendom, two nations may be engaged in deadly struggle, and neither be in the wrong."