support the minister for foreign affairs in the approaching discussions in parliament,-is a supposition so monstrous, that we are unwilling to give it a moment's credence. If it be true that it is intended, it can only be from the profound ignorance with which questions of foreign policy in this country are approached, or from that wretched spirit of partizanship which degrades the most vital subjects into mere weapons of party attack and defence. On the heads of those who, while they loudly declare that their object is civil and religious liberty throughout the world, will thus be lending their aid to the maintenance of a system which pledges this great country to the hateful principles of the "holy alliance," which unites us with the partitioners of Poland, and would make us the partitioners of Turkey, rests an awful responsibility. Yet it is not without great fear that we look forward to the approaching discussion of the question. The want of skill to trace long and intricate involutions of diplomatic manœuvring, and to seek the causes of the present complications in distant acts, gives both an opportunity for evasion and an interest in adopting it: plausible representations may always be reckoned upon when it is likely that they will be backed by popular prejudices; and however quietly the gasconnades of our French neighbours may, as yet, have been received in this country, it is to be feared that there is still sufficient spirit of hostility amongst our uninstructed masses, to make opposition to France bear no very deep stain of criminality in general opinion. We protest against any such suicidal act on the part of the liberals of England, in the name and for the sake of the liberal party throughout the world. And, even now, we would call their attention to the very significant fact of Lord Palmerston's policy having received extensive and almost unqualified approbation from those among us, who certainly were never yet suspected of desiring to advance the interests of the liberal party either here or abroad. It is notorious that some leading diplomatists of the Tory party have expressed their acquiescence in the acts, which all the friends of constitutional freedom throughout the world see so much cause to deplore; and this is the more remarkable, because that very party has hitherto strenuously and rightly refused to join the spoilers of Europe in their unhallowed work. Let then the

liberal ranks in the House of Commons bear in mind what the real question for their deliberation is, and hasten to restore that amity which has been so miserably disturbed between the two nations, which had both the inclination and the power to keep the peace in Europe.

To Lord Palmerston himself we would fain point out a great and honourable course. The vigour of our acts has in some degree atoned for the error of our conceptions: it is, indeed, lamentable, that we should have been the instruments of so much evil as has been effected, but the daring and decision which we have shown in its execution has placed us in a favourable position for withdrawing, and secured to us an honourable retreat. The shells and shot of Acre have been heard of on the banks of the Danube and the Dniester, and as the star of England culminated the strength of Russia dwindled. Though France was neglected, Europe has been taught that Russia was not needed; and if he knows how to improve his position, the Secretary for Foreign Affairs may yet speak out the commands of England in a voice not to be misunderstood or contemned. The Germanic Confederation has been aroused and excited; the marching of troops and cannon has been heard, accompanied by songs breathing (and creating) national hatred, and six hundred thousand men are now burning to revenge on France the horrors of the Revolution and the empire. Who doubts that the first cannon fired on the Rhine may spring a mine whose echoes our sons' sons may yet live to hear and tremble at? This it is still possible for England to prevent, if she will honestly and earnestly ally herself to the only cause that brings a blessing with it,— the cause of free institutions and national development, the cause of peace and commercial freedom, in one word, the cause of the PEOPLE throughout the world.

We should leave this subject here, but that we are bound to say a few words in behalf of one of the best men this country possessed; who has been snatched from us at a moment when a clear head and upright heart were never more needed, and over whose tomb, hardly yet cold, the obscene ravencroakings of calumny have sounded. It is for entertaining views similar to those which we assert to be the unshaken conviction of the true patriots in all European states,

that the late Lord Holland has been made the object of restless posthumous hostility. We feel no surprise at the attack: it was worthy of the quarter from which it came: but we do feel indignation and shame that the attack should not at once have been rebutted by those organs which not only profess to be the mouthpiece of the liberal party, but even to be in communication more or less strict with members of the liberal cabinet. Could not even a pretended, a superficial answer, have been ventured, if not for the sake of truth, at least with the prudential object of concealing hostilities whose existence threatened the stability of the government: or had death fought the battle of party well enough, and left the survivors scornfully and fearlessly to divide the spoil? To this an answer is yet to be given upon the floor of the House of Commons, and we wait for it.

That Lord Holland took a deep interest in the settlement of the Eastern question, was well known to his personal friends, although he had enjoyed no opportunity of giving his public support to the side which he had adopted. He saw, and saw clearly, what the objects of the principal actors on the scene were, and considered the affairs of Egypt as of minor importance when compared with the vast interests now in jeopardy, however important a portion they might be of the whole stake played for. He did, as every honest Englishman ought, earnestly desire that the good understanding of France and England should not be disturbed; on the maintenance of that good understanding he knew the hopes of the liberal party throughout Europe to depend: the destruction of that good understanding he well knew to be the anxious, the never-forgotten object of Russian intrigue, to gain which she was even ready to sacrifice her exclusive protectorate of Turkey, and allow the treaty of Unkiar Skelessi (a nominal rather than a real advantage) to be cancelled. France and England, once brought into a position of hostility, she could at any moment assert, and make good claims which yet were, at best, but insolent pretensions; and knowing, what is not even suspected in England, the secret of the weakness of Austria and Prussia, she has nothing to fear from them. It was therefore Lord Holland's duty as an Englishman, as a peer of the country which is the example, and ought to be

the best support of the constitutional party on the continent, to oppose every measure which tended to the destruction of that friendship which alone could keep Russia in check. He did so, and so far M. Thiers was speaking only the truth when he asserted that Lord Holland was with France.

But M. Thiers did not speak the truth when he insinuated that, because Lord Holland was with France, he was with France such as M. Thiers was labouring to make it, or with M. Thiers himself. He was not speaking the truth, nor have the party organs of this country spoken the truth, in charging a member of the British cabinet with intriguing against his colleagues, and adopting a separate line of action for himself in opposition to them. We believe the respectable members of the Tory party to look with as much horror as we do ourselves upon the dastardly accusation of perjury, the perfectly gratuitous assertion that a minister revealed to the enemy of his country those private acts of the cabinet which his oath of office bound him to conceal! Would, however, for the honour of English gentry, that some Tory gentleman had come forward for himself and for his party solemnly to repudiate the hateful calumny !

POSTSCRIPT TO ARTICLE IV.

WE avail ourselves of the accidental delay which has taken place in the publication of the present number, to continue the relation of facts, regarding the Prussian Customs League, down to the present moment.

While these pages were yet under the press, a meeting of delegates from each state has been held at Berlin, for the purpose of deciding whether the League should be continued after the expiration of the first period for which it was concluded; that is to say, in 1843. Such of our readers as have adopted the current opinion, that the League represented in its original state the embodied desire of unity felt by the German States, will be surprised to hear that the question of

its renewal depended upon the concession of a point of no small importance to Prussia, without the grant of which that power would not have renewed it. According to the original treaty, the Customs receipts were divided amongst the States in the proportion of their respective populations, and an enumeration has been made every three years for the purpose of regulating this division. By this arrangement, the states of Southern Germany, in which, owing to the habit which prevails, of drinking the wine and beer of their own produce, the consumption of tea and coffee, and consequently of sugar, is much less than in Prussia, received a proportionately greater share of the revenue than they deserved. Of this Prussia, fairly enough, complained; and as the compensation demanded is said not to be heavy (rumour fixed it at 500,000 dollars per annum), the claim, it is understood, has been allowed.

Another, and even more knotty point, had to be discussed by the delegates. The treaty concluded by Prussia in the name of the League last year with Holland, was universally unpopular in Germany. It admitted the Dutch half-refined sugar (lumps) at a reduced duty, without exacting any return from Holland for the concession. The natural inference drawn from these facts in Germany was, that the government preferred to sacrifice the interests of the beet-root sugar manufacturer to imposing a tax upon this article of home produce. Such a tax, if at all equivalent to the import duty upon the foreign article, would of course have caused great discontent; and the minister was in the dilemma between such a duty and a serious defalcation in the revenue. He preferred the tax on foreign produce; thus affording a clear proof, that whatever principles may be put forth respecting the desire to protect internal industry, yet that in practice this industry can be unscrupulously sacrificed as soon as it appears to clash with the financial resources of the state.

The Dutch government, on its part, made no secret of a desire to render Germany totally dependent upon the supplies of sugar which it should furnish; and not contented with the ruin of German sugar manufacturers, devised a plan of ruining the German refiner also. The drawback allowed in Holland on the exportation of refined sugar, exceeds the VOL. XI.-No. XXII.

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