It is a curious coincidence that the views here so ably and energetically put forth by the great organ of the moneyed and commercial interests, are precisely those which we have been constantly enforcing in this miscellany for many years past, and in an especial manner unfolded on this day year, February 1, 1851.[61] No one need be told with what ridicule these views were received by the whole Manchester school of politicians, and especially by the able journal which has now so powerfully advocated them.
If views of this kind are entertained by the influential bodies who now rule the State, and they are acted upon by an able and energetic Government, there is no cause for despondence as to the external dangers which, from the necessary consequences of our own acts, now menace the British Empire. If the powers which may join to assail us are now much stronger and more united than they were in the time of Napoleon, our resources have augmented in a similar proportion. We have the means of defence and security in our own hands, if we will only make use of them. But it is not by a suicidal policy, and sacrificing everything to the foreigner, while he is contemplating the sacrificing us to himself, that this vital object is to be attained. Our whole dangers, external and internal, are of our own creation. But for the infatuation of our rulers and people, not one of them would have had any existence. But for the sacrifice of the national industry to the moneyed and manufacturing interests by our Monetary and Free Trade system, we might, five years ago, by merely keeping up the Sinking Fund as it stood at the battle of Waterloo, have paid off every shilling of our National Debt, and now reduced our taxation from fifty to twenty-five millions, and yet maintained an army of two hundred thousand men, and a fleet of fifty ships of the line and a hundred steamers, which would have enabled us to bid defiance to the hostility, by land and sea, of combined Europe. Instead of our Colonial Empire being on the verge of dissolution, from universal irritation at our Home Government, and the principal states of Europe in a state of suppressed hostility, from injuries that can never be forgiven, we might have had a flourishing and contented Colonial Empire, and steady friends in our old allies among the Continental states. Possibly it is too late to remedy the evils arising from the infatuated policy we have so long pursued at home and abroad; but this much is certain, that if anything can avert our dangers, it is the wisdom which can discern—the courage which can face them—and the magnanimity which can amend the errors from which they have arisen.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The Life of John Duke of Marlborough; with some Account of his Contemporaries, and of the War of the Succession. By Archibald Alison, LL.D. Second edition, greatly enlarged, 2 vols. 8vo. William Blackwood & Sons, Edinburgh and London. 1852.
[2] "How much do the events of real life outstrip all that romance has figured or would venture to portray!" observes Mr Alison, (vol. i. p. 403,) in describing the pious and enthusiastic greeting given by Prince Eugene to his aged mother, whom he had not seen since his youth, having been driven into exile by the haughty Louis XIV., on whom he had since inflicted such crushing defeats, and at whose expense he had become so great a hero! This interview took place at Brussels, whither Eugene eagerly repaired, immediately after the bloody victory of Oudenarde. "The fortnight I spent with her was the happiest of my life," said her laurelled son.
[3] Alison, vol. ii. p. 320.
[4] Mr Alison seems to attribute this speech, or a similar one, to Lord Bolingbroke.
[5] History of England, from the Peace of Utrecht to that of Aix-la-Chapelle, vol. i. p. 3.
[6] Macaulay's History of England, from the Accession of James II., p. 255.