§ MR. J. STUART MILLrose to call the attention of the House to the Declaration of Paris of 1856, so far as it relates to the right of seizing enemies' goods in neutral vessels. The hon. Gentleman said: 877 I rise, Sir, to ask the attention of the House to a subject more germane to the business of a Committee of Supply than most of those which the Motion to go into Committee gives occasion for bringing before the House. The immense burthen of our naval and military expenditure would of itself give ample reason for reconsidering the position in which this country has been placed by the abandonment of its maritime rights eleven years ago. Of these eleven nearly ten have been years of profound peace, in which international commerce, which we had always believed to be our truest guarantee against war, has increased to an extent previously unexampled, while the doctrines and practice of Free Trade have been spreading through the different countries of Europe, and those Protectionist theories which have so often made commerce a provocative to war instead of a deterrent from it, have lost their hold on all the leading minds of the Continent. Yet during this period we have been engaged, not, as might have been expected, in diminishing, but in enormously increasing our naval and military establishments, until our total expenses exceed by about £20,000,000 a year, not what economists like Mr. Hume used to maintain that they ought to be, but what they actually have been in the life of the present generation. Why has this happened? What has been our inducement for maintaining those "bloated armaments?" To protect ourselves against the bloated armaments of our European neighbours. Other powers—as much, perhaps, for internal as for external purposes—are keeping up gigantic and ruinous military establishments, the existence of which we justly feel to be a danger to us. But why is it a danger? What obliges us, an insular people, to measure our necessities by the wild extravagances of the military rulers of the Continent?—extravagances which, let us do as we will, we cannot compete with; for if our wealth is equal to the effort, the numbers of our population are not. Why, then, do we find ourselves engaging deeper and deeper in this mad rivalry? Because we have put away the natural weapon of a maritime nation—because we have abandoned the right, recognized by International Law, and legitimated, as much as the consent of nations can legitimate anything, of warring against the commerce of our enemies. We have made this sacrifice, receiving a merely nominal equivalent. We have given up our main defence; but the 878 other Powers who are parties to the transaction have not given up theirs; they have divested sthemselves not of their special means of warfare, but of ours; they have, with a good grace, consented not to use the weapons in which they are inferior, but to confine themselves to those in which the advantage is on their side. The greatest naval Power after ourselves has been far too wise to join in so unequal a compact. Unless by resuming our natural and indispensable weapon we place ourselves again on an equality with our possible enemies, we shall be burthened with these enormous establishments and these onerous budgets for a permanency, and, in spite of it all, we shall be for ever in danger, for ever in alarm, cowed before any Power or combination of Powers capable of invading any part of our widely-spread possessions. We shall be condemned to see what we have seen, and worse than we have yet seen, great international iniquities perpetrated before our eyes, and our expressions of deprecation, even of reprobation, passed over with civil, or scarcely civil, contempt; until our most patriotic advisers feel obliged to recommend to us, as the only rule for our conduct, that which despots prescribe to their subjects, "Hold your peace: keep your moral disapprobation within your own breasts; for as you cannot back it by the only argument which the wicked and the oppressor can feel, you only bring yourselves and your just indignation into contempt." Thus it will be while we abstain from that which once made a war with England a formidable thing even to the united strength of all Europe. Sir, I venture to call the renunciation of the right of seizing enemy's property at sea a national blunder. Happily it is not an irretrievable one. The Declaration of 1856 is not a treaty. It has never been ratified. The authority on which it was entered into was but the private letter of a Minister. It is not a permanent engagement between nations; it is but a joint declaration of present intention; binding on us, I admit, until we formally withdraw from it; for a nation is bound by all things done in its name, unless by a national act it disowns them. Why did not the Parliament and the people of the country protest at the time? Some of them did; among the rest several of the most important Members of Her Majesty's present Government. The bulk of the Liberal party acquiesced, silently or approvingly: 879 and therein, I confess, we showed less knowledge of the subject, less understanding of the situation, than the Conservative Leaders. There is much to be said in excuse for us. Nearly the whole world shared our error. The world was fresh from the recent triumph of Free Trade—fresh from the Great Exhibition of 1851, which was to unite all nations, and inaugurate the universal substitution of commerce for war. The first enthusiastic days of Peace Congresses had scarcely past; the short episode of the Crimean War had not shaken the belief that great European wars were drawing to a close. We were mistaken; "but the light that led us astray was light from Heaven." We have since had opportunities of learning a sadder wisdom. We had not then seen wars of conquest and annexation renewed on a great scale, and fresh wars of the kind continually impending over Europe; we had not seen the Continental Powers outvying one another in converting all the flower of their youth into standing armies, ready at any moment to draw the sword, not in defence, but in aggression. We had not seen what is, to my mind, a still more warning sight. Some twenty years ago a great French thinker, by way of showing how alien a thing war is to the modern spirit, remarked that though destruction is incomparably the easiest of the works to which human ingenity applies itself, the science and art of destruction had remained greatly in arrear of the arts of production, and might almost be said to have been passed over by the inventive genius of later generations. What would this philosopher see now? He would see inventive genius, with all the lights of modern science and all the resources of modern industry, girding itself to the work of destruction as its principal task, and bringing forth every year more and more terrific engines for blasting hosts of human beings into atoms together with the defences by which they vainly seek to shelter themselves. While this work is going on all round us, is there nothing for us to do but to exhaust our invention and our finances in striving to provide ourselves with engines still more destructive?—engines which other nations will instantly adopt when their superiority has been proved, unless they in the meanwhile contrive for themselves others yet more murderous. Sir, we have a better resource; to shake off the chains which we have forged for ourselves, and resume that 880 natural weapon which has been the main bulwark of our power and safety in past national emergencies, and without which neither ironclads nor fortified harbours will suffice for our security in those which may be yet to come. Sir, great almost beyond calculation as are the British interests dependent on this issue, it is on no narrow grounds of merely British patriotism that I now raise it. I should be ashamed to claim anything for my country which I believed to be a damage and an injury to the common interests of civilization and of mankind. I will not even urge, though the feelings of the élite of Europe would bear me out if I did, that the safety and even the power of England, are valuable to the freedom of the world, and therefore to the greatest and most permanent interests of every civilized people. No, Sir, my argument shall not have even a tinge of nationality about it. It is on the broadest cosmopolitan and humanitarian principles that I rest the case. I maintain it to be for the general interest of the world, if there is to be fighting, that every Power should fight with its natural weapons and with its best strength, that so there may be the greatest possible division of force, and no one Power may be able to bestride the world, nor any two or three Powers to divide it among them. Above all it is for the interest of the world that the naval Powers should not be weakened; for whatever is taken from them is given to the great military Powers, and it is from these alone that the freedom and independence of nations has anything to fear. Naval power is as essentially defensive as military is aggressive. It is by armies, not by fleets, that wars of conquest can be carried on; and naval Powers, both in ancient and in modern times, have ever been the cradle and the home of liberty. Take away the naval Powers of the world at this moment, and where would be the main defence of the minor European States? Two or three military monarchies could, in a few years, parcel out all Europe, and everything else on this side of the Atlantic, among them; and after they had done so, would probably desolate the earth by fighting for a re-division. Happily the naval Powers exist, and long may they exist; but short will be the duration of their existence if they disarm themselves of their most powerful weapon; if they leave the entire navies of their enemies free to convey troops to their shores, being no longer required to protect the enemy's commerce; 881 if they, who can be invaded, but who cannot successfully invade, abandon the chief means they possess of doing their enemies substantial damage, and wearying them of the war. There is another consideration of vital importance to the subject. Those who approve of the Declaration of Paris mostly think that we ought to go still further; that private property at sea (except contraband of war) should be exempt from seizure in all cases; not only in the ships of neutrals, but in those of the belligerent nations. This doctrine was maintained with ability and earnestness in this House during the last Session of Parliament, and it will probably be brought forward again; for there is great force in the arguments on which it rests. Suppose that we were at war with any Power which is a party to the Declaration of Paris. If our cargoes would be safe in neutral bottoms, but unsafe in our own, then if the war was of any duration, our whole export and import trade would pass to the neutral flags: most of our merchant shipping would be thrown out of employment, aud would be sold to neutral countries, as happened to so much of the shipping of the United States from the pressure of two or three, it might almost be said of a single, cruizer. Our sailors would naturally follow our ships, and it is by no means certain that we should regain them even after the war was over. Where would then be your Naval Reserve? Where your means of recruiting the Royal Navy? A protracted war on such terms must end in national disaster. It will thus become an actual necessity for us to take the second step, and obtain the exemption of all private property at sea from the contingencies of war. But are we sure that we shall be able to do so? Our own consent is not all that is required. Will other Powers, having got us at this disadvantage, consent to relieve us from it? And if they would, what a spectacle should we then behold! Nations at war with nations, but their merchants and shipowners at peace; our own merchants driving a roaring trade with the enemies whose resources we were endeavouring to cripple, and contributing, perhaps, a great part of their revenue. Some persons think that this would be a great improvement—that it would be a gain to humanity if war were confined to what they call a duel between Governments. A strange gain to humanity, if the merchants, manufacturers, and agriculturists of the world lost nothing by 882 a state of war, and had no pecuniary interest in preventing it, except the increase of their taxes—a motive which never yet kept a prosperous people out of war—a burthen which such a people is often but too ready to take upon itself for mere excitement, much more from the smallest motive of self-assertion or desire of aggrandizement. How war is to be humanized by shooting at men's bodies instead of taking their property I confess surprises me. The result would be, that as long as the taxpayers were willing, or could be compelled by their Governments, to pay the cost of the game, nations would go on massacring one another until the carnage was stopped by sheer impossibility of getting any more soldiers to enlist, or of enforcing a conscription. That would be the amount of gain to humanity. These fine notions of making war by deputy may go down for awhile, so long as a nation fancies itself safe from invasion; but let an enemy once touch our shores, and I think we should regret that we had not, by making war on his imports and exports, kept him at a distance from our hearths—that we had not preferred to defend ourselves by our cruizers rather than by our Rifle Volunteers. Many who do not like to recede from the Declaration of Paris are quite aware of its dangers; but they think that the evil is irreparably done, and that we cannot withdraw from it, for fear of embroiling ourselves with France and America. Sir, if the Declaration of Paris has brought us to such a pass that we can neither stand still nor move, our national independence is as good as gone; our being yoked to the car of some great military potentate is a mere question of time. But this apprehended danger from France and America seems to me to have little reality in it. France, though a great military, is also a naval Power, and is historically identified almost as much as ourselves with what is called the right of search. She has always asserted it for herself, except when she has waived it during a particular war by express engagement with some particular country. The first Napoleon, it is true, while carrying the war against British commerce to extremities never before practised or justified, thought it suited his purpose of the moment to declaim pompously against what he called our tyranny of the seas. But the interest of France in this matter is greatly changed. The immunity of neutral bottoms could be of service to her, if at all, only if her enemy 883 were England or the United States, and even then the benefit would not be without alloy; but if the calamity should occur of a war between France and any other great Power, it is more likely that her antagonist would be either Germany or Russia, and against either of these the right of seizure would be so important to France—would be so powerful a weapon in her hands—that she could not dispense with it for herself. The noble Lord the Foreign Secretary must think so; for, in the important Correspondence which has gained for him the distinguished honour of averting an European war, the noble Lord urged upon the Prussian Government the certain extinction of the maritime commerce of Germany, in case of a war with France, exactly as if the Declaration of Paris had never existed. As for America, she is not even a party to the Declaration of Paris; and I greatly doubt if she ever will be. She is herself one of the great Powers of the sea, and, in case of war, the destruction of her enemy's commerce will be her most potent weapon. Many are misled by vague and inaccurate notions of the American war of 1812. It is asserted far too positively that the war was provoked by our stoppage of the neutral navigation. People forgot that the United States had a far more serious quarrel with us, through our unjustifiable pretension to impress American citizens on board American ships when they were, or even were falsely said to be, natives of any British possession—a pretension which we did not even renounce at the Peace, but which it is earnestly to be hoped we shall never revive; if we were wise, we should even come forward unasked and surrender it. Such a grievance is quite sufficient to account for the war, even had there been no other subject of quarrel. But there was another, equally independent of the right now under consideration—our paper blockades; which were a new practice, not authorized, as the right of search was so fully authorized, by the law and practice of nations. I believe it will be found, by examining the diplomatic correspondence of the time, that our differences with America about the right of search were capable of being made up, and would almost certainly have been made up, but for those additional grievances. Before I conclude, I am obliged to speak of a notion which I am afraid is rather common among us, but which I am almost ashamed to mention—that, dangerous as is the position we 884 should be placed in by adhering to the Declaration of Paris, it is of no practical consequence, because, if war comes, the Declaration is sure to be treated as waste paper. Sir, I should be indeed humiliated in my feelings as an Englishman, if I thought that these were the maxims by which my countrymen were content to guide themselves, or on which they would allow their rulers to act. No, Sir, let us either disown this obligation or fulfil it. Let us disclaim it like honest men in the face of the world, openly and on principle, and not hypocritically profess one doctrine up to the very moment when our immediate interest would be promoted by exchanging it for another. If England should choose that moment for announcing a change of opinion, she would justify the most prejudiced of her foreign revilers in the accusations which they are never tired of bringing against her of national selfishness and perfidy. It is not when the emergency has come, but before it comes, that we have to form our resolution on this most momentous subject: and not only to form our resolution, but to declare it. And I implore every hon. Member, and especially those who have now, or may have hereafter, a share in the direction of public affairs, to consider these things well before they commit themselves any deeper than they may be already committed, to persistence in a course to which they are so likely to repent that they ever, even by their silence, allowed themselves to be committed at all.
§ MR. NORWOODsaid, though he did not take so exalted a view as the hon. Member who had brought this question forward with so much ability, he agreed with him that the Declaration had placed us in a position of great difficulty. They conld not stand where they were. They must either recede to what they were before the Treaty of 1856, or they must take a step in advance, and declare all merchandize, except contraband of war, free from seizure on the high seas. As a shipowner, he considered it would be wise, humane, and in the especial interest of this country to adopt the latter. He agreed with the hon. Member that if we were at war with a great maritime nation a great portion of our trade would pass into neutral hands. Merchants would not dare to ship in British vessels, and the result would be that we should either lose our carrying trade or place our vessels under a foreign flag, by a direct sale or 885 by some of the subterfuges usually resorted to in such cases. It was impossible to protect a commerce so extensive as ours. The hon. Gentleman had not given sufficient weight to the great change which had taken place in the mode of conducting our foreign trade within the last few years. There was a time when it was possible for our vessels to assemble under the protection of a convoy; but that was no longer possible, and, if attempted, it would utterly fail. When we so unwisely in 1856 objected to the amendment in the law of nations, and America agreed to the principle that a neutral flag should cover an enemy's property if we would exempt all the merchandize from capture, we made a great mistake. It would be of little advantage reverting to the old law, because England of all nations in the world had such an immense amount of foreign trade in every sea, and consequently would be more exposed to injury from capture than any other country. No doubt, we might do a considerable amount of injury to other nations; but, certainly, not anything like the injury which we should receive. He reminded the House that the introduction of railways throughout the Continent had placed the carrying trade, so far as they were concerned, on a wholly different footing. If we were unfortunately at war with France, we might drive her navy from the seas, and blockade her ports, yet, by means of her railway communications, she would be able to obtain from those countries which surrounded her the luxuries and comforts of life, and even obtain such articles from this country as she required. There was a notable instance in the Russian War of the extent to which land carriage was resorted to. We sent a powerful fleet into the Baltic and blockaded the ports, but we could not cripple her trade. A system was organized of transferring produce through Prussia overland—there being at that time no railways connecting Russia with the rest of the Continent—by means of horses and carts and relays of men, and in that manner they actually received from us and from other Continental countries a supply of necessaries and luxuries sufficient to meet their wants. If that was the case when there were no railways, what would be the consequence now there was a complete system of railway communication between Russia and the rest of the Continent? So far from war being shortened by the capture of private property at sea, he was of opinion 886 that, by causing great irritation in the national mind, it was more likely to prolong it. Viewing the question merely from a mercantile point of view, he considered that England had greater interest than any other nation in agreeing that in time of war all property not actually contraband of war should be exempt from capture at sea.
LORD STANLEYI regret that this question, which is undoubtedly one of European interest and importance, should have been brought forward, not only at a late period of the Session, which, however, is from no fault of the hon. Member for Westminster, but also at a time when the public mind is occupied by other affairs, because the hon. Member's statement, able and lucid as it is, will not receive, either here or out of doors, that attention which it deserves. If I were to criticize some parts of the speech of the hon. Gentleman—which it is not my wish to do—I might say that I do not think that he has done good service to the cause he undertakes to defend, when he says that, if England had not deprived herself of the use of this weapon, we might have intervened with more effect in various disturbances in which foreign Powers have been or may be engaged. The power to intervene effectually is a temptation to do so; and, if the Declaration of 1856 has prevented us from mixing ourselves up with Continental complications with which we had nothing to do, all I can say is that that is one of the best arguments I have yet heard in its defence. And the hon. Member was, for a moment, forgetful of the circumstances when he said that the arrangement was accepted by Parliament, and especially by the Liberal party, at a time when not much attention was attached to this question, because it was thought that the days of wars were over, and that universal peace had begun; for, although in 1851 and 1852, and perhaps even as late as 1853, a singular illusion of that kind had taken possession of the minds of even sensible men as the result of the Great Exhibition, that illusion was quite dispelled by the sanguinary struggle of the next year; and the Declaration did not precede, but followed, the Crimean war. I may note also, in passing, that I do not admit the inference which the hon. Member draws from the passage in the blue book published on the subject of Luxemburg. The hon. Member contends that I have shown that I look upon this 887 Declaration as worthless, because in the Luxemburg Correspondence I pointed out the possibility of Prussian trade being destroyed by the superior naval force of the French Empire. But I said nothing of neutrals; I spoke of Prussian trade carried on by Prussians; that trade is very considerable, and it would have been sacrificed on the breaking out of war. With regard to the subject generally, I entirely agree with the hon. Member in laying down the principle that it will not do to go on with a Declaration of this kind if we do not mean to act upon it. You are bound either to repudiate it at once, or to act on it when the occasion arises. But I do not think that any man, either in this House or out of it, has contended that the course of allowing it to stand, and yet determining not to act on it, is that which we ought to follow. The utmost that has been said tending in that direction, and for which there is, perhaps, some justification, is that the rules which are applicable to ordinary war may come to be disregarded in extreme cases. As to what may be done in such extreme cases, I certainly decline to predict; where the existence of great nations has been concerned I apprehend that ever since the world began diplomatic engagements have been esteemed very lightly. The necessities of self-defence override all compacts. That is a state of things which we must allow for; but such cases are not to be regarded as types of any ordinary war such as we are likely to see. Still, having regard to such wars as we may expect as probable, or even possible, I think we ought not to maintain this engagement unless we are prepared to act upon it. I agree to the assertion that this Declaration has very materially altered the position of neutrals and belligerents in future wars; and that the British Government, in assenting to it, divested itself of a weapon which on some former occasions has proved very powerful; I do not say it has proved so on all occasions, because the circumstances of each case have been different. There are some further considerations which, without expressing any opinion on the abstract principle agreed on eleven years ago, we are bound to bear in mind. One of these, and perhaps, the chief consideration, is the position in which we, under the old system, placed ourselves as regarded all neutral Powers, the tendency of which was that the extreme rights we claimed to seize enemy's goods in neutral 888 ships necessarily led to our turning all neutrals into enemies. It may, no doubt, be argued, on the other hand, that whereas formerly neutrals had the strongest possible inducement to terminate a war by which they were sufferers; now that interest has disappeared, and they are gainers rather than otherwise, inasmuch as they lose nothing, while they get the carrying trade which the belligerents cannot carry on. But when you come to look at the question closely, I apprehend that the advantage is one rather in theory than in practice. In point of fact, trade is so universal and capital is so diffused that the inconveniences which arise to neutrals from a state of war between two great Powers in proximity to their territories are so great that when war breaks out there is generally a very sincere desire on the part of the neighbouring communities and Governments to bring it to an end as soon as possible. There is one incidental advantage arising to society in general out of the present state of things, though I am bound to say I do not think it was contemplated when the Declaration was framed. The trade of the countries going to war, for the time only, but still for the time, passes into neutral hands; in other words, both the combatants suffer heavy loss, both are heavily fined, so to speak, for their breach of the peace, and the fine goes for the benefit of those who have contrived to remain on good terms. But the main question, I think, to consider is this, whether a war could now be carried on under what I call the old system, without provoking such reprobation from the neutral States—who will be always more numerous and probably more powerful than the belligerents themselves—as would in the end drag those neutral States into the quarrel, and thus render the struggle general? That is not a new danger; it has occurred again and again at former periods of our history. It is not necessary that I should do more on that head than refer to the Armed Neutrality of 1780, and to the attempt which was made to renew it at the beginning of the present century. With the increase of international communication, and with the increase of trade following upon it, the tendency of neutrals to assert their claims and to vindicate their rights is one which must increase rather than diminish. However, I for one, am not interested in denying that the question, as it arose, and as it was decided, in 1856, was one open to much argument 889 and to very grave doubt. But we stand in a different position now. The question is not what we ought to have done eleven years ago. I do not think it is possible to deny that we have bound ourselves to a certain extent by this compact, to which nearly all the maritime Powers have acceded, except Spain and the United States. The engagement was observed and acted upon in the Italian war of 1859, and in the subsequent war which took place between Prussia and Denmark. The war last year did not raise the question, partly because both the combatants agreed to respect private property at sea, and partly because, in fact, the war was confined to operations upon land. In all these cases we have been neutrals, and, so far, gainers, by the arrangement that exists, and I think it follows from the argument of the hon. Member for Westminster that it would be hardly suitable or fair for us, who have thus accepted the position of neutrals, and as such acquired the profit of that position, to decline to hold ourselves bound to that engagement if in our turn we should become engaged in war. Having so far reaped the advantages, we are bound to endure the corresponding disadvantages. Again, this circumstance must not be overlooked, that if one part of that Declaration is done away the whole of it disappears. I understand that a good deal of stress was laid on that point in the negotiations—namely, that the several points of that Declaration should be considered as one and indivisible. Now, the minor States have adhered to that Declaration, abandoning the right of privateering, which for those who do not possess navies of their own was, in fact, the only weapon of naval warfare which they could use. If, therefore, the House were to consider that in point of policy the Declaration of 1856 could not be defended, we should then be bound to reflect whether by repudiating our share in that Declaration we should not be reviving certainly, though indirectly, that very practice of privateering which everybody condemns, and by which we probably should be greater losers than anybody else. But I am not arguing that point now as a matter of advantage; I think we have to look at it as a matter of good faith and consistency. We have given a pledge, not merely to the Powers who signed with us, but to the whole civilized world. We have urgently and continuously invited other States to join in that Declaration; 890 we have done so with very considerable success, and it would be hardly intelligible or in accordance with our position to turn suddenly round and change our policy. I think we are bound morally to maintain this compact while those with whom we entered into it maintain it. At any rate, we are so far bound to it that it is impossible to recede from it without the most ample and solemn notice, and without notice of such a duration that no inconvenience could possibly arise from its being acted upon. I admit that it is not an easy matter to decide how far any Government is authorized or enabled to contract an engagement which is perpetually binding. That is a question very often raised on various subjects, and it is one, perhaps, which does not admit of an absolute and general reply. But we must remember that this Declaration has not been an act of the Executive alone. It is quite true that it has not been embodied in a formal treaty; it is quite true that what is done in diplomatic affairs—rightly or wrongly, I will not say, but according to the Constitution of this country—is done on the responsibility of the Executive; but the matter has again and again been brought under the notice of both Houses of Parliament. It was brought before Parliament in some cases by persons for whose authority I have the highest respect, and who undoubtedly had mastered the subject and commanded the attention of those whom they addressed, but on each of those occasions Parliament refused to interfere; it refused to sanction any modification of the terms of the Declaration, and by the silence which it preserved it practically gave its adhesion to that measure. I think, therefore, we are bound constitutionally to assume that public opinion has accepted that arrangement, and that the Legislature is pledged as well as the Executive. I have avoided entirely going into the question of policy. I want the House simply to see how the matter stands at the present day, and for the same reason I shall equally avoid going into that very large and difficult, yet most important, question raised by the hon. Member who immediately preceded me—the question of altogether exempting private property from seizure at sea. I do not think this would be a convenient time for discussing that question, which is undoubtedly one of very grave moment, and which has engaged public attention already on more than one occasion.
§ SIR ROUNDELL PALMERsaid, he 891 quite agreed with what had fallen from the noble Lord, that it would not be convenient to renew, on the present occasion, discussions which had taken place more than once as to the total renunciation of the right to attack the private property of enemies in case of war. He hoped that when they were invited to discuss that question they would have a distinct and explicit notice of it. He had not been persuaded by anything which he had heard on the present occasion of the propriety of making so great a change. The Declaration of Paris was founded upon separate grounds. Each question must be argued upon its own merits, and the one did not necessarily involve the other. It might or might not be right on the merits of the case to change. He had more than once expressed his reasons why he thought it was not, but he dismissed the notion that because they abided by the Declaration of Paris that was any reason why they should renounce any power they now had of prosecuting a war with vigour against an enemy. The considerations which affected neutrals were one thing, those which affected enemies were another. If we receded from that power it must be because we were convinced, which we certainly had not yet been, that such a power was not to us an important and available instrument for carrying on a war. He quite agreed with the hon. Member for Westminster that when we were at war—a very great calamity, indeed, and one to be avoided by all just and honourable means—we must enter earnestly into the war. The notion of a mercantile peace, of exempting the commercial interest from the calamities of war, was one which might have some seduction for the mercantile interest, but which, when we were at war, we must renounce. Then all classes must throw in their stake together, all must bear the common burdens, and it would sap the very life-blood of the nation if we were for a moment to admit that the trade of the country could remain at peace whilst the nation itself was involved in hostilities. He was fully convinced from the results of experience, that the mercantile community was as patriotic as any other body, and as little inclined to demand exemption from sacrifices, though in times of peace they might sometimes lend too willing an ear to suggestions of this kind. He confessed that he looked with very great dislike upon any argument which depended on technical distinctions between the different forms of national engagements. No doubt 892 there was substance in such distinctions' when they were well understood and universally recognized, as involving particular consequences, because all nations entering into engagements with a view to those consequences, prepared themselves for the events which these recognized distinctions might bring about. But he could not think that the mode in which this Declaration was entered into was adopted with a view of entitling any of the parties, of their own will and pleasure, to recede from it. He did not say that it was diplomatically impossible, but he should be most unwilling to contemplate as likely to be necessary a departure by this country from an engagement entered into so solemnly; and to mitigate any alarm which might be felt as to the consequences of that Declaration, he would mention two or three things which had occurred to him in the course of this discussion, as tending to show that it had not introduced so great a difference as some people supposed. Before that Declaration the effect of war was in kind, although perhaps not in degree, very much the same as it might be expected to be since. Neutral vessels did successfully and extensively carry the trade of belligerents, and although no doubt the power of taking enemies' goods out of neutral ships was to a certain extent a check upon the practice, yet, considering how many vessels escaped without search, and what precautions were taken to disguise the ownership of goods, the check was very insignificant compared with the extent to which the practice was carried on. At the same time, the occasions on which the right of search was exercised led to those collisions with neutral Powers, and to that ill feeling on their part to which the noble Lord had referred; and it might well be considered doubtful whether any advantage which was given by the right of seizure was sufficient to counterbalance the irritation produced, and the tendency which that irritation had to make enemies of neutrals. In the case of the Russian war we voluntarily renounced the right, and it was under the influence of the experience of that war, in carrying on which we found that we were not crippled by that renunciation, that we concurred in the Declaration of Paris. The effect of the changes referred to by the hon. Member for Hull (Mr. Norwood), which had been brought about by the use of steam in navigation, and by the increase of railways on the Continent, had, he thought, been very much exaggerated, and was, at all events, 893 totally independent of the operation of the Declaration of Paris. The success of the ravages of the Alabama had nothing to do with the operation of the Declaration of Paris, in the first place, because that Declaration had not been concurred in by the United States; and, secondly, because in their war with the Confederate States the United States voluntarily announced to other Powers that they intended to act upon its principles, by which, however, they were not prejudicially affected, because the blockade of the Southern coasts was so complete that, in point of fact, the Confederates carried on no legitimate and ordinary trade in neutral vessels, but they did carry on a great contraband trade which it was necessary to interfere with, and which they would have been entitled to stop, if they had been parties to the Declaration of Paris, just as much as if the Declaration of Paris had never been made. If it was the fact that the introduction of steam had made it impossible for Powers like England and the United States to protect their own commerce during war—which he took leave to doubt—that was a matter entirely unconnected with the right to capture enemies' goods in neutral ships, and would rather tend to show that maritime power could no longer be brought to operate effectively against commerce at sea so as to make the difference between the maritime strength of one country and another very material, inasmuch as, according to this argument, the smallest Power could, without remedy, destroy the commerce of the greatest. At all events, that was not a consequence of the Declaration of Paris; and the same remark applied to any effects which might follow from the extension of railways on the Continent. The only effect of that Declaration was, that whereas there was before a great tendency for the trade of belligerents to seek safety by means of neutral assistance, its security, in the use of those means, was now more absolute and complete. But all arrangements of that nature would be merely temporary, and at the conclusion of a war things would return to their natural condition. He would not trouble the House further, but he was anxious to protest against the idea that because we had concurred in the Declaration of Paris, and might not, except under the pressure of great urgency and after full notice, be disposed to recede from it, therefore it followed that we should renounce other rights 894 of value and importance upon which we might have to rely in carrying on future wars.
§ MR. LABOUCHEREsaid, the hon. and learned Gentleman told them that very little had been changed by the Declaration of Paris; he apprehended, however, that the effect of it would be that, supposing this country was at war with a State such as Portugal, the consequence must be that the rate of insurance would be raised on commerce taken in English bottoms, and that, consequently, merchants, patriotic or otherwise, would ship in foreign bottoms so as not to have to pay a high rate of insurance. He hoped the noble Lord at the head of the Foreign Office would not hold the policy of the late Government, who were determined to do nothing but take a step backwards; but that he would recollect that all other nations were willing to come to an agreement on the question if England assented to it.
§ MR. DARBY GRIFFITHconfessed that he was unable to follow the noble Lord the Foreign Secretary in the distinction which he appeared to draw between an ordinary war and one of the highest importance, involving the very existence of a nation.