the first. It also was a diplomatic settlement. The war against Russia had been begun with no very clear common aims. There was widespread distrust or fear of Russia in the minds even of men of acuteness and perception; a dread that she would one day dominate Europe; a belief that, as the failure of Napoleon showed, she was unassailable; that her Government had a traditional policy of ambition; and that, if unchecked, she must one day reach and occupy Constantinople. Even sober-minded men talked wildly of the "Calmuck overrunning Europe."* England drifted into war with no distinct idea of what the issues were and with imperfect appreciation of its difficulties; the chief force driving her along being vague, indefinite fears of an everadvancing Russia, threatening Western Europe and one day British India. The Emperor of the French had taken up arms for reasons largely personal and dynastic. He became war-weary long before military operations were decisive. He wanted to end a war never very popular in France. Begun rashly, the war was terminated hurriedly. The Emperor Napoleon had soon other thoughts than the design of crushing Russia. Whatever was the original object in view-whether it was the crushing of Russia, the strengthening of the Ottoman Empire, the improving the lot of the Christian population, or the resuscitation of Poland-the final arrangement was a failure which well-nigh broke the "great Elchi's" heart.† "I would rather have cut off my right hand than signed that treaty," said the fanatic supporter of the Ottoman Empire. That Empire was not preserved; the seeds of disintegration were sown; the protectorate of Russia was assailed; but the Christian sub*The prudent, cool-headed De Tocqueville shared this belief. tLane-Poole's Life, II, 439.

jects of the Porte were as defenseless as before. There was again a merely diplomatic settlement. The representatives of the great Powers talked of "systems," and were thinking mainly of military strength. There were provisions for the neutralization of the Black Sea and the demolition of fortresses. As compared with the proceedings at Paris and Vienna, there was an improvement. There was not the same indecent scramble for territory. There was a genuine desire to help the cruelly treated Christian subjects of Turkey. The spirit of humanity was forcing its way into foreign politics. But no effective provision was made for the performance of the pledges which Turkey had given for the better treatment of her Christian subjects. There was a readiness to accept promises of reform which were never kept, or seriously endeavored to be kept. Looking back, we now see how much the Treaty of Paris helped to postpone the break up of Turkish rule and the birth of young nationalities which, but for the Crimean war, might long ago have come into existence and sown their wild oats. The settlement, not very glorious for the Allies, was humiliating to Russia. It imposed upon her restric

tions as to the Black Sea which were in a few years removed. So far as the settlement checked Russian advance into Europe, it turned her energies towards Asia. The Conference did not settle-it did not even really touch-the Polish question; Lord Clarendon, at the instance of Count Orloff, did not bring it up at the Congress; and, in a few years (1862) broke out an insurrection which was cruelly repressed.*

Cavour, with the approval of England and France, pressed the Conference to deal with the Italian question.

*See Earl Russell's Speeches and Dispatches II, 235.

But it declined to act, with the war of 1859 as the result. Metternich was right; the settlement of 1815 established, in a sense, "ordre dans choses." It was replaced by "un désordre sans issue que les hasards."* Every party to the treaties was disappointed, and every diplomatist of insight saw that by providing no outlet for national passions and aspirations they could be only short-lived. The treaties of 1856 formed a purely diplomatic settlement dealing with questions of "interests," "systems," and military frontiers. "That peace," said Beust, pronouncing an opinion universally ratified, "will be regarded in the annals of diplomacy as a masterly example of how to reverse the effects of a war and obtain in the future the very opposite of what a treaty is intended to secure." (Beust, Mem. 1,143.)

The only permanent element was the adoption, without discussion and with imperfect appreciation of the results, of certain rules of maritime law. England consented to give up the principle for which she had battled for centuries, that free ships do not make free goods. It was, I believe, an advance. But there was a certain levity in the manner in which the concession was made, neither Parliament nor the country being consulted.

The third settlement was that of Berlin in 1878. The treaties of 1856 had borne their fruits. The promises of the Ottoman Government to do right by its Christian subjects had been again and again violated, how cruelly the protests of Mr. Gladstone and the Andrassy Note had shown to the world; and another war broke out to redress wrongs which diplomacy had left untouched. I do not know whether the Congress of Berlin was, as Dr. Rose has described it,

*See Earl Russell's Speeches and Dispatches, IX, 169.

"an august comedy," a comedy composed and rehearsed in London by Lord Salisbury and Count Schouvaloff, the chief points settled before all the diplomatists met. The secret AngloTurkish convention of June 4th and the Anglo-Austrian convention of June 6th had removed difficulties; perhaps the menacing gestures of Lord Beaconsfield were somewhat make-believe and theatrical. It may be true, as Mr. Marriott urges, that the settlement of 1878 was better than that of San Stefano, which was "hasty and premature," though, if operative, it would have had the priceless advantage of hastening the exit of the Turk from Europe. But the final arrangement was mainly political, conceived less with a view to the welfare of the people concerned than to military and dynastic reasons. There was no close study of the ethnography of the Balkan peninsula and the national aspirations of its varied inhabitants. Many of the diplomatists knew as to the natural divisions only what Kiepert's Atlas told them. The frontier of the Balkans was chosen chiefly with an eye to defense. The Ottoman Empire must be retained as part of the political system of Europe, whether or not that was for the benefit of the people concerned. All present were thinking mainly of man-power, frontiers, sources of taxation and prestige. It was the old story: the so-called statesmen could think only in terms of military power and territorial extension. Mr. Marriott is justified in saying "In order that Austria and Hungary might keep a road open to the East. the whole world must groan in pity and suffering."

The treaty satisfied no one. The various nationalities which Lord Beaconsfield described as "the rebellious tributary principalities,"* were profoundly aggrieved. The delegates *Speech, July 18, 1878.

of Servia and Montenegro were not permitted to be present, and as to the representatives of Greece and Roumania, they were "entendus, mais pas écoutés." Turkey, too, suffered at the hands of her so-called protectors as well as her adversaries. M. Debidour is warranted in saying that the treaty of Berlin was rather calculated to embroil all the great Powers and several of the smaller than to assure general peace. Not one of the parties interested left the Congress without discontent, anxiety, and some new germ of hatred and conflict. Turkey might be the least satisfied; but the Christian nationalities of the Balkans "toutes se trouvaient lésées, toutes protestaient contre la traité de Berlin." The ink was scarcely dry when the arrangements then made to conciliate the Christian subjects of the Porte while maintaining a strong Turkey fell to pieces. One article after another was torn up. The States which were to be in tutelage shook off the yoke which the Concert of Europe would impose. What for more than forty years has been the history of the Balkan States than a reversal of the policy of the treaty of Berlin? Still at Berlin-and it was a new departure there was the semblance of consulting the wishes of the people: there was some faint recognition of the principle of Nationality.

Such is a picture, incomplete and on a small scale, of three settlements of Europe, each of them showing a fallacious conception dominant; each a failure to rise to the height of a great opportunity; each concerned with “interests" and "systems" not identical with, often adverse to, the welfare and wishes of the people affected; each showing international politics moving along lines which domestic politics have abandoned wherever democratic institutions exist. All that

*Histoire Diplomatique de l'Europe, I, 1.

was done harmonized perhaps with the spirit of the Governments of Prussia and Russia, and in 1815 and 1856, perhaps, too, with that of the British and French Governments of those days. They are in sharp discord with the characteristics today of our institutions, and those of France, the United States, Italy, and Russia.

I have used the word "settlements," probably an apt description of the conception of their authors who wished for and contemplated finality. There can be in one sense no European settlement. Growth there must be; and if that does not come peaceably it will come by war, the equivalent between nations of revolution at home. Communities cannot remain immobile. Frontiers become unsuitable. Fresh aspirations are being formed. Groups hitherto content or silent while ruled by others feel themselves to have. become Nationalities. By settlements should be meant facilities for pacific growth. How often might they, if such they had been, have averted catastrophes. Had Cavour been able, as he earnestly pressed, to lay fully before the Conference of Paris the Italian question and to obtain a decision respecting it; had the Polish question not been excluded from it, might not the war of 1859 and the insurrection of 1862 have been avoided? If the Powers which effected the settlement of 1856 had been free to reconsider and revise their work from time to time there might have been no war of 1878, and the Balkan States might by this time have acquired stability.

The story of the three settlements is one of failure, which will be repeated at the next Congress, unless the mistakes which I have described are shunned-unless future settlements are based upon "the principle that Governments derive all their just powers from the consent of the governed,

and that no right anywhere exists to hand people about from sovereignty to sovereignty";* unless provision is made for changes from time to time in order to give effect to that principle; unless the settlement is not merely the balance of power in a new form, but an arrangement for the peaceful development of free peoples. But more is needed than sound principles and good intentions. Failure will be The Contemporary Review.

repeated if we enter into the Congress as little prepared as we entered into the war-if all the many difficult questions certain to arise are not first thought out down to points of detail. No lesson is more clearly taught by the history of the three settlements than that the diplomatists who are prepared with well-considered solutions, who initiate and not merely criticise, are most likely to have their own way. John Macdonell.

CHAPTER IV.

Events fell out as Christina had expected. For, as she reminded herself, middle class life is really a sober and undramatic affair. Murder and divorce may be appropriate to Whitechapel and Mayfair, but provincial towns know little of them. So when Mr. Tom Armstrong left Westhampton and Lucilla appeared cheerful, it was obvious that things were going well. Christina was still conscious that she disliked her daughter-in-law, but she treated the feeling as a sin and turned her back upon it. Lucilla would "settle down." That too was obvious. It is woman's function to settle down and why should Lucilla be an exception?

Of Laurence she saw but little, but that too was natural and she schooled herself to accept it. He was absorbed in his work, and it was not to be expected that a mother should see much of her grown-up son. It was Nature's way to leave the mother a little forlorn when her work was done, and this she must accept. She filled up the empty places in her life with good works, much knitting for deep-sea fishermen and orphans, shirt-making for fatherless boys, and letter-writing to her far*President Wilson, Message to Senate, January 22, 1917.

away daughter. In this way she marked time while the days slipped unnoticed over her, leaving her a little stiffer, a little feebler, a little whiter. In this too she was philosophical. Her life, she knew, was over. Its great events were done. She was now a mere spectator. It was hers to laugh and to weep while others played their drama.

Small events had for her now a great significance. A visit or a letter was food for hours of thought. She developed the pathetic grace of gratitude that belongs to the old, the poor, and the afflicted. She fell too into the habit of noting anniversaries and observing them by reading old letters and journals that bore upon these days.

Laurence's birthday was a time of poignant memory. It fell in June. Christina wondered whether Lucilla would remember it and if she should remind her. The year before it had been forgotten by all but herself. Knowing woman's sad fallibility in pleasing man's taste she had laid by a sovereign to give her son. Perhaps they would remember the day and ask her to dine with them. These thoughts occupied her much on the eve of the birthday. Then the late

post brought a card for her in the dear familiar writing of her son.

"Lucilla is away," it ran; "I hope to dine with you tomorrow."

The brief message filled the mother with delight. The dinner had to be planned at once with Theresa.

"Dog-in-a-blanket he always liked on his birthday, did Master Laurie," declared Theresa.

"But now I think he may have changed. Mrs. Laurence has little French dishes."

"He'll like dog, ma'am, for old times' sake, and a duck. It was always duck he'd choose when you'd ask him."

"Very well, Theresa, let it be just like the old dinners."

"Would I make a cake, ma'am, with his initials on it?'

"Yes, yes. He'll like that. We must have everything very nice for him. I wonder if he remembers it's his birthday."

"I wonder what takes Mrs. Laurence away at this time?" the servant murmured. She had strict ideas of wifely duty.

"Perhaps she was called away somewhere. Well! we must make the most of Master Laurence, mustn't we, Tessy?"

The two elderly women were in festal mood from that time until the next evening, when Laurence's own particular knock and rattle were heard.

Theresa, in a new cap, managed to be in the hall before her mistress. Her rosy face glowed as she greeted the young man.

"All the blessings for you this day, Master Laurence. God bless us, it's raining and on your birthday too! It had a right to be fine now. mistress is in the drawing-room waiting."

The

But Christina was at the door awaiting him. She was cordial but not very demonstrative. Her fear was

always that she might worry her children with her love. She was very humble in her devotion, but Laurence, it seemed, was in the softest and most cordial of humors. He hugged his mother, took the dog on his knee, and declared that it was a holiday of holidays to spend a birthday at home. Christina scanned his face anxiously and permitted her fear to peep out. "But, dearest, you look dreadfully tired."

He looked away from her.

"Oh! I am tired. I've been working pretty hard and sleeping pretty badly. That's natural enough, isn't it? I get headaches a lot."

"You should have your eyes examined, darling."

"So I should and take to glasses. But you look lovely, mother. Why! you've got on your Limerick lace and the dear old green beetle necklace we always loved as children. How it. does bring back old days. What good days they were in this dear little house!"

Christina felt her heart brim with thankfulness.

"And Lucilla, where is she and how is she?" she asked, conscious of a feeling of triumph over her daughterin-law, while she repudiated it at the same moment.

"Oh! she's very well, but she went to London three days ago. She needs a change, you know. She's not been away for ages. Too much husband isn't good for anyone. She'll find London at its best and have a rattling time of it. So meanwhile I'm a gay grass widower."

Christina smiled but wished inwardly that Laurence would see a doctor. He talked so fast and so nervously, with so many gestures. His face worked too as if he were overwrought. To the mother's quick discernment he appeared unnatural while he tried to assume this buoyancy of spirits.