no doubt that the open equipment of armed bands for the invasion of the territory of a friendly nation is against international law, though we did not in England adhere scrupulously to our obligations in this respect when we permitted a Garibaldian legion to leave our shores to assist in ejecting the King of Naples. The arrest and trial of persons found recruiting, or actually leaving the country in an organised band, would be perfectly legitimate on the part of Austria; but nothing can justify the imprisonment of persons without trial,

the suppression of the 'Czas' newspaper, the patrolling of the streets of quiet towns, the midnight domiciliary visits the change, in fact, from the attitude of the Government in the spring to the attitude it has assumed now. If, at the outbreak of the movement, it was fulfilling its international obligations towards Russia, there was no necessity for the change. Nothing has happened in Galicia to warrant it; for, as I have already said, the acts of violence which have been perpetrated there have been the effects, and not the cause, of harsh measures.

No longer slowly, but rapidly, Europe is moving onwards into the vortex-into a series of con vulsions which will shake the Continent throughout its length and breadth. The old landmarks have been disappearing, the old treaties are being forced into abeyance; and through new wars Europe is about to grope her way towards a new Settlement. The prospect is to be deplored, but it must be faced. Five years ago today, a few words spoken in the reception-room of the Tuileries gave warning to statesmen that the sword was to be employed to solve the Gordian knot of the most urgent of the international grievances. Ever since the outbreak of the Italian war, which followed those words, the feeling of disquiet or alarm has spread among nations as well as among Governments. Every leading country in Europe has been strengthening its fortresses, reorganising or equipping anew its armies, and reconstructing its fleets. The budgets of a time of peace have been burdened with expenses only natural in a time of war. Governments and peoples alike have been forecasting the future, and each in its own way, clumsily or efficiently, has been preparing for it. crisis is now visibly approaching. The armaments which have arisen during the past five years of apprehension constitute, in one point of view, the best bulwark for the maintenance of peace. No State can now be assailed defenceless and surprised. Its own blunders may lay it open to the blow of an adversary, but it cannot be taken unawares. This, in truth, constitutes the chief obstacle to the outbreak of a Continental war. But if we look at the other side of the shield, the insufficiency of the protection may well be doubted. Nations now feel that they can do no more; and that since the difficulties of the

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position only continue to multiply, it is as well to face them at once as seek to postpone them by a continuance of irksome sacrifice. They are growing weary of a peace which seems to be only a truce-of a peace that is fraught with the burdens and poisoned with the apprehensions of war. We believe we only state a fact when we say that the period of alarm has passed, and that the intermittent panics, in most countries of Europe, which commenced with the outbreak of the Italian war, have given place to a dogged and somewhat angry feeling of defiance. Men have been forced to count the costs and contemplate the contingencies of a war; the prospect has been growing familiar to them; and, so far as regards the Continental States, it is the Governments, more than the peoples, which shrink from the crisis that seems daily drawing nearer.

Menacing as is the position of affairs, no step has yet been taken which in any way necessitates an appeal to arms. On various occasions since 1815, the attitude of the Great Powers to one another has been quite as antagonistic and menacing as it is now, and yet peace was maintained. The peculiarly serious aspect of the present crisis is owing to the existence of many separate causes of quarrel, which are being brought to a head at once. Difficult of solution as the Polish question is, we doubt not it would have been solved ere this, by moral or military force, but for the other embarrassments which distract Europebut for the difficulties which fetter some Powers, and the ambitions which are known to inspire others. It is the tide of circumstance, the broad current of events, which is the most disquieting feature of the present position. In no quarter is the crisis self-made. Some Powers, indeed, will endeavour to turn to

their own advantage the general embroilment; but it exists independently of them. Europe has been sown with dragon's teeth, and if care be not taken we shall have to reap the crop at once. Poland struggles for life against Russia, while Russia is resolved to resist dismemberment to the death. Austria is threatened by the Poles in Galicia and by the Hungarians on the Danube; while Italy longs for an opportunity to drive the Austrians out of Venetia. Servia and the Danubian Principalities are ripe for revolt against the suzerainty of the Sultan. The Germans, although threatened in the event of war alike on the east and on the west-alike in Posen and on the Rhine-are eager to engage in hostilities with Denmark on behalf of the Duchies of Holstein and Schleswig. The Imperial Government of France is constrained, for dynastic reasons, to interfere on behalf of the Poles, and sees the probability of compensating the costs of a war by annexing the provinces on the left bank of the Rhine. Sweden will naturally ally herself with Denmark against Germany, and, moreover, would not be loth should the events of the war and an extension of her alliances afford her an opportunity of reclaiming from Russia her old province of Finland. The final settlement of all these questions could only be achieved by a more gigantic war than any which Europe has yet witnessed. And no such war is at present to be expected. Should war come, it will be closed by compromises, in which the Great Powers will deal very summarily with the pretensions of the smaller ones. It is only the Revolutionary party that desire a widespread and prolonged war; and the Emperor of the French himself will be foremost in opposing their wish. If we enumerate these various causes of conflict, it is not in the belief that they either will be, or could be, fought out and settled at once, but simply as a formidable array of

agencies tending to war, which will render the maintenance of peace more difficult than it has ever been since the time of the first French Revolution.

In truth, the difficulties are greater now than they were then. It is easier to deal with the interests of Courts than with the ambition of peoples. One cannot take a nation into a closet, and in secret arrange with it the destinies of Europe. In old times, Governments could be compensated for the loss of one province by receiving another which did not formerly belong to them: so that the extent of their dominions was maintained or increased, they cared little from what quarter the accession to their territories was derived. The rise of the new principle of nationality has changed all that. Europe has grown wiser, the Governments more forbearing, during the last seventy years, and in this change we have a stronger guarantee for peace; but the difficulties are increased in at least equal proportion, for the headstrong feeling of nations now bears directly upon their Governments, and compels the latter to prosecute unflinchingly the object of the national desires. The wars of kings are being succeeded by a war of peoples.

From the first outburst of the Polish revolt it became evident to reflecting minds that, if the revolt could maintain itself for a considerable time, a European crisis would ensue. All eyes turned immediately to France, to see what course would be adopted by the Imperial Government. The heir of Napoleon could not remain a passive spectator of the struggle. In reviving the Empire, Louis Napoleon served himself heir to its traditions. He created for himself a task of transcendent difficulty-a career full of the gravest risks. He aspired to found a dynasty; and every founder of a dynasty must dare and do beyond the measure of ordinary monarchs. His great Uncle had aspired to "close the gulf of

revolution," and leave a stable dynasty behind him. He failed for he came too soon. But in every country, by a moral necessity, the period of revolution must come to a close; and on this account Napoleon III. has a far greater chance of ultimate success than Napoleon I. He has come later, and therefore has more chances in his favour. Still, his task is one of transcendent difficulty: and the Polish revolt at length brought him face to face with a great European crisis, which must also be the crisis of his dynasty. He must do something on behalf of Poland,—and that something must be very much more than was done by Louis Philippe in 1830. He had been on the best of terms with the Russian Government since 1856; and doubtless he has endeavoured, by private representations, to obtain from the Court of St Petersburg concessions to Poland which would redound to his credit and obviate any necessity for war. But the Russian Government was not disposed to lessen its own prestige, or to let the Emperor of the French appear to the Poles in the light of a champion, whose influence had won for them the concessions of the Czar. Cautious not to isolate himself-resolved not to be drawn single-handed into a war, nor to expose himself to a diplomatic rebuff, which would be fatally humiliating if he bore it alone the Emperor looked around him for allies in diplomatic action, and found one ready-made in England.

The British nation, although it does not aspire, like the French, to redress the wrongs of the world, has a profound sympathy for the cause of national freedom, and often gives way to passionate indignation at sufferings inflicted by the strong upon the weak. True, during the Polish rebellion in 1830, the British Government declined to co-operate with France in a war on behalf of Poland; but at that time "Peace and Retrenchment were the watchwords of the newlyinstalled Liberal Ministry, and they

could not then be expected so flagrantly to repudiate their principles. Moreover, Lord Palmerston has now become political dictator in England-and Lord Palmerston is the Minister with whom the French Emperor loves best to deal. "Palmerston is not friendly to me now," said the Emperor to an English statesman some two years ago; "but, for all that, I like himfor with him on peut faire des grandes choses." He is the last surviving statesman of the school of Wellington and Castlereagh. During the first fifteen years of his official life he was familiar with the great political combinations which were necessitated by the war with France, and by the troubled period which intervened between the Congress of Vienna and that of Verona; and he is considered less averse than English statesmen generally to forecast the future, and attempt to provide against its menacing contingencies by arranging with other Powers a programme of combined action. At the outset, the Ministry seemed not indisposed to adopt a warlike attitude on the Polish question. Lords Palmerston and Russell denounced the conduct of Russia in the strongest terms, as alike an outrage on humanity and an infraction of treaties; and declared that the Treaty of Vienna, which gave Poland to Russia, gave the other Powers a right to demand that the conditions of that Treaty in regard to Poland should be observed. At the same time, the newspaper which is believed peculiarly to express the sentiments of Lord Palmerston indulged in several warlike articles, and even discussed the mode in which a military and naval intervention on behalf of Poland could be best effected. Ever anxious to guard itself against isolation, the French Government proposed that the European Powers should unite in addressing a collective note to Russia, remonstrating against the policy which she was pursuing towards Poland. The British Government declined to adopt this proposal. They resolved