DIPLOMACY

DIPLOMACY

Is the art of conducting the intercourse of nations with each other. The word obviously owes its origin to the source subsequently explained in the article DIPLOMATICS. It is singular that a term of so much practical importance in politics and history should be so recent in its adoption, that it is not to be found in Johnson's dictionary. There has indeed ever been a reluctance in the English nature to acknowledge the art of transacting international business, as a pursuit worthy of a British statesman, or as one entitling its adepts to honourable fame. It is popularly looked on as the art of carrying into the business of nations a morality condemned in the intercourse of men with each other, and as a means of employing subtlety where force is insufficient to accomplish some statesman's object. Hence the term has been colloquially used to express a modified degree of cunning; and conduct which is wily and subtle, without being directly false or fraudulent, is styled "diplomatic." The subject has been usually treated under the head of the Law of nations, or as it is now more properly termed International law. But a little examination will show that diplomacy, though closely associated with international law, is a separate sphere of intellectual exertion. The diplomatist undoubtedly requires to be acquainted with international law, and to observe its general injunctions. He often finds it necessary to appeal to the rules, or supposed rules, of that code; but it would be a confusion of terms to count him an officer engaged in the execution of international law. He has to accomplish objects which are not achievable through any law real or fictitious, but are achieved solely through the art of diplomacy. The close connection of the two systems with each other, and at the same time the distinction of the sphere occupied by each, may be illustrated by an example. In the year 1841, some slaves, the property of citizens of the United States, seized the vessel in which they were embarked, and proceeded with it to a British settlement, where on landing they asserted their freedom according to British law. A question thence arose, in that department of international law which is sometimes called the conflict of laws. On the American side it was maintained, that all civilized nations admit the sacredness of private property; and that when courts of law have to deal with the citizens of another state, they enforce among them that state's adjustment of the laws of property. Hence the slaves, being, it was said, property by American law, must be held so by the judges in the English colony when American citizens were the parties. On the other hand it was maintained, that the civilized states, while they uphold property, should not enforce the political laws of their neighbours, by persecuting refugees fleeing before a dominant influence; and it was observed that British political offenders have always been hospitably received in America. This view was adopted, and the British courts holding the question to

be political, or between man and man, not a mere affair of property, refused to ratify the demands of the slave-owners. The case of the Creole, as this affair was called, was a question of international law, in which British judges had to decide how far their own law permitted them to give effect to a foreign law. Had the American government, from a preponderance of power in the southern states, or from any other cause, thought fit to demand that Britain should make reparation for the effect of this decision, or should adjust her laws so as to decide otherwise in future—then the question would have become one of diplomacy. Questions in which private rights and obligations are concerned, are a perpetual source of diplomatic exertion. In this country, and to some extent in the other states called the great powers, the administration of justice is pursued on rules so absolute, that there is no chance of their being relinquished to favour a friendly or to injure a hostile nation. Of this there was a remarkable instance in the late war, when British judges would not admit the orders in council of 1809 to be an effectual blockade, so as to justify a forfeiture of neutral vessels for their infringement. Undoubtedly, however, in those states where the power of the law is not so independent and supreme, the decisions of the courts in questions with foreigners will often be swayed by the strength or feebleness of the nation to which these belong, or by the question, whether its representatives will or will not give them support. In this manner diplomacy and international law are often mixed up with each other; and so lately as the year 1850 it became a question whether or not a European war should arise out of the circumstance, that the petty kingdom of Greece refused to make good some pecuniary claims by British subjects, the chief of whom, though he was legally entitled to that designation, was by birth and origin an Italian Jew. It was well known that Greece, in refusing these demands, was instigated by Russia. It was important to the maintenance of British diplomatic influence in Europe, that the petty states should be taught the fallacy of such a dependence, and the claims were enforced by the presence of a fleet, and a threat of bombardment, not so much to terrify Greece, as to show her that Britain would not permit encroachments by Russia on the rights of her subjects. From such instances it will be seen that diplomacy, besides the larger operations connected with great treaties or alliances, keeps a vigilant eye on the ordinary details of international law, for the purpose of seeing that it is equitably administered. In this sense the diplomatist is like a law-agent, whose duty it is to see that his client receives justice at the hands of other nations under this code.

Diplomacy, as a science, has arisen out of the development of the European powers, and their rise on the ruins of the Roman empire. As a uniform system, following principles nearly as well established as those of many codes of law, it

Diplomacy exists solely among the European powers, partly embracing those nations, such as Turkey and Persia, which have been brought into close association with them. The difficulty, however, of getting these Eastern states to understand and obey the laws of diplomacy, and submit to its restraints, has ever been an object of anxious comment to Wicketfort and the other systematic writers on diplomacy. To submit to be bound in the moment of power by a theoretical system not enforced by the strong hand of any judge, spiritual or temporal, is not consistent with the Oriental mind; and the great civilized powers, in dealing with the Eastern states, as in their intercourse with barbarous tribes, have relied on their own strength, exercised with cruelty or with mildness as the case might be. Alliances and leagues, declarations of war and treaties of peace, have taken place, it is true, among those states, but it would be a historical absurdity to suppose diplomatic relations connecting together China, Burmah, and Japan, as they connect Britain, France, Holland, and Prussia.

In the same manner the ancient world had its treaties and leagues, but no systematic diplomatic relations. The pretensions of Rome during the empire, indeed, superseded every kind of international engagement, since she would permit of no relation between the empire and any other state, save that of predominance on her part and subjection on the other. Yet it is evidently from this system of centralization that the diplomatic relations of the European states arose. Freed from the temporal jurisdiction of the empire, and no longer mere dependencies, the European states were still subject in a modified shape to an influence radiating from the old centre of imperial authority. The Bishop of Rome, in claiming a spiritual authority at least co-extensive with the geographical area of the temporal authority of the departed emperors of Rome, created a sanction, though an imperfect one, for the execution of justice among nations, and acted in some measure as a controlling influence over their diplomatic operations. A memorable instance of the influence of the Pope is found in the relations between King John of England and Philip of France. The semi-judicial authority of the court of Rome was cited in support of the English conquest of Ireland, and was appealed to by both parties in the Scottish war of independence. Little as the papal authority was respected by even the most Catholic monarchs when they were at the head of large and well-found armies, yet in matters of dubious equilibrium the authority of the Pope had some weight; and as his was a power not limited to any particular state or cluster of states, but ever present throughout all the transactions of Christian realms with each other, it had, beyond doubt, an influence gradual and continuous, in giving modern diplomacy the amount of specific character which it had obtained at the period of the Reformation. Thus a kind of traditional uniformity of practice has provided a partial substitute for that supreme power always necessary for the enforcement of what are termed laws. Under the heads BALANCE OF POWER, and the LAW OF NATIONS, the evils arising from the absence of a supreme power to judge between states, as the courts of law decide questions between individual citizens, will be found amply discussed. It suffices here to say, that much of the deficiency is filled up by the fortunate train of events which have created, throughout the civilized world, a traditional system of diplomatic practice. On great occasions, when sovereigns have made up their minds to the commission of high national crimes, as for instance, the partition of Poland, the violation of the Baden territory for the capture of the Duke of Enghien, or the project in which Russia so fallaciously expected the countenance of the British ambassador for a partition of Turkey, the rules of diplomacy have been violated. But there is always a certain shame attached to such violations—a certain coercive influence in the uniform practice of

diplomatic officers, which serves to bind powers the most Diplomacy. tyrannical and fraudulent, unless when they are influenced by strong temptations; and the system altogether is thus a powerful protection to the smaller states, and an instrument for the conservation of peace and justice throughout the world.

It is hence generally in weak states that the science of diplomacy has flourished. The politicians of the Italian republics, among whom the name of Machiavelli stands supreme, have been counted the earliest adepts in the science; and it was the practice of the greater states to choose their diplomats from Italy on account of the peculiar aptitude of the educated Italians for the subtleties of the profession, just as private employers selected clerks in Geneva and valets from the Swiss. The nature of the skill thus supposed to be acquired will readily be understood by reflecting, that a small state standing alone against a great power, and bluntly putting it at defiance so as to bring on an immediate trial of strength, would be speedily lost; and that it has been held the special and peculiar function of the diplomatic representatives of such feeble governments, to act on skillful calculations of the influence of the combined interests of nations great and small—as the chess-player, when making a move, calculates on its influence over the relation towards each other of the symbols of various degrees with which he plays his game.

The representatives of great nations, following up the traditions of the science of diplomacy, have often sought by similar acts to do what they considered their duty to their country by taking advantage of every opportunity of aggrandizing it. But modern political philosophy and morality teach us that this is not the manner in which great nations are to be supported or aggrandized, and that for their diplomatic servants there is spread out a far nobler field of exertion. It is founded on the consciousness that the real power of states must come from within—from the sound condition of the people, physically, industrially, and morally—from well-poised political institutions and good government. If these are absent no diplomatic skill can make up for them; if they be present it cannot enhance the real power of the state which possesses them. But to the diplomatic representatives of states both powerful and honest a function of a higher character still than mere national aggrandizement belongs, in the capacity, by able, temperate, and honourable negotiation to keep feeble states from being crushed by their potent neighbours, to preserve peace in the world so long as it can honourably be preserved, and to see generally that international justice is observed among mankind. The true functions of the great powers are in some measure embodied in the renowned lines in which Virgil told Rome the duties she was not to fulfil:

"Tu regere imperio populos, Romane, memento;
Ille tibi erunt artes; pacisque imponere morem,
Parcere subjectis et debellare superbos."

The historical events, and the industrial and commercial progress which have during the past hundred years so aggrandized the power of Britain among European nations, have, in this view of the uses of our diplomacy, become a great boon to the smaller states, and even to the citizens of the greater. The parliamentary responsibility, and the perpetual public scrutiny and discussion to which the acts of our statesmen are subjected, are not only checks on our own diplomatic acts, but on those of every other civilized state. It was a boast attributed to one of the great fabricators of British diplomacy, the elder Pitt, that not a gun should be fired throughout the world without Britain knowing why. If Britain could make good this boast, it would extend in some measure to mankind at large the blessings enjoyed at home from living under a responsible government. As it is even at present, the continuous liability of having whatever he does called before parliament and the public, must be an ever present and influencing motive

Diplomacy, with every British diplomatist. Hence he not only dare not countenance any act of national rapacity, tyranny, or fraud, but he is, as the representative of a nation which has great power and no secrets, a check upon the diplomatic honesty of all the world.

Of the advantages afforded to mankind at large by the public responsibility of British diplomatists, a memorable instance is afforded by the renowned Holy Alliance. It was contracted on the 26th of September 1815 by three monarchs who personally signed the document—the emperors of Russia and Austria and the king of Prussia. This treaty, announcing the determination of those who acceded to it to act as Christian princes on the precepts of the Gospel, and to follow the rules of justice, charity, and peace, is known to have been a combination among the despotic monarchs to aid each other in the maintenance of arbitrary power, and the suppression by them collectively of any efforts in favour of constitutional principles occurring in the dominions of any member of the league. Every considerable European monarchy finally joined the combination with the signal exception of Great Britain. The crown was then represented by the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV. Though it was known that few monarchs had more sympathy with the objects of the league, he was obliged to state that “The forms of the British constitution which he was called upon to maintain, in the name and in the place of the king his father, prevented him from acceding to it in the form in which it was laid before him.” Governed as Britain for some subsequent years was by members of the political party whose sympathies with the Holy Allies were the strongest, yet their efforts were, by the necessity of their position as British ministers, directed to the effective counteraction of the great plot of the despotic powers. More lately, in connection with the source of the war which Britain and France are now (1854) pursuing against Russia, there was an instance of the effects of British responsibility and publicity which will teach the rapacious governments in future not to include in their projects the chance of securing British co-operation. When the czar of Russia was maturing his projects for the seizure of Constantinople and European Turkey—as his predecessors had seized on Poland, Finland, and the Crimea—he tried to gain the co-operation of the British ambassador, Sir Hamilton Seymour, by seductive offers of British aggrandizement in the East. Sir Hamilton, feeling the importance of the offers so made to him, and his high responsibility to the British parliament, communicated to his own government all the details; which, being then at the command of parliament, were published to the world, and were received as a signal instance of imperial treachery.

The aggressive projects to which these revelations referred have produced a revolution in European diplomatic relations calculated to influence the condition of the world for ages to come. It had become a sort of political superstition that France and Britain are natural enemies. This arose pretty obviously out of those claims which the peculiar rules of succession attributed to the Salic law had given to English monarchs, on the throne of France. A continuous succession of untoward events widened the hostile schism thus created; and although on several occasions there has been a popular sympathy between the two countries, it can hardly be said that France and England have had an opportunity of showing sincere and cordial co-operation in the pursuit of a common policy from the period of the Crusades down to the spring of 1854, when in the Baltic and the Euxine they united their forces against Russia. With Scotland France had much diplomatic intercourse down to the union of the crowns, and she occasionally made tempting offers to Scotland as well as to Ireland while they had separate legislatures. These were efforts directed to the creation of a diversion against England, and they pointed to

diplomatic relations entirely the reverse of the present connection between Britain and France. If that connection should prove permanent, it cannot fail, as has been here before indicated, to create a signal revolution in European diplomacy; and, onerous as its inauguration has been in a hard contest with Russia, there can only be anticipated from the cordial co-operation of the two most powerful states of Europe the most benign influence over the destinies of the world.

In contrast to the old opinions which attributed the power and prosperity of nations to diplomatic ability, overlooking the substantial sources of material progress, a political sect has lately appeared who denounce the diplomatic system as foolish or wicked, and proclaim the doctrine of non-intervention in the affairs of other nations. It is practically clear, however, that whatever degree of perfection the world may reach in time, the first great power which avows this opinion will become the immediate victim of its rivals; and thus, should Britain withdraw herself from the diplomacy of Europe, the despotic states would soon become strong enough to shut up the commerce of the world, and cast the world two centuries back in civilization. There is reason, indeed, to believe that the late aggressions of Russia were founded on a supposition that the doctrines of this kind so often proclaimed by enthusiasts, had really taken such deep root in the public mind, that Britain would never go to war unless for her own defence—a supposition which turned out to be significantly erroneous.

There is indeed a species of intervention from which British diplomacy has been generally but not always free, which cannot be sufficiently condemned. It is that which endeavours to dispose of a resisting people, by compelling them to belong to this or that state, to adopt some particular form of government, or to accept some dynasty as its rulers. For nearly a century after the revolution of 1688, the existence of the direct descendants of the exiled house of Stewart enabled France and the other European powers to menace Britain from time to time with the prospect of a civil war, creating within the country a diversion in favour of hostile efforts from without. On the outbreak of the French revolution, the despotic European states, exulting in the success of the partition of Poland, combined for the purpose of forcing back the Bourbons on their old throne, or partitioning France; and in this project they were joined, to her shame and loss, by Britain. The result was a miserable chastisement of national presumption, since the new republic, its spirit rising to the emergency, drove its enemies away on every side, and entering the despotic states, propagated and enforced republicanism with reactionary fanaticism. In the revolutions which have overtaken France in later times, the British government has acknowledged whatever power the French have chosen to submit to for the time being; but it is probable that the despotic powers of the Continent are awaiting the moment to strike a blow for that legitimacy which it is so much their personal interest to preserve.

The free-trade policy lately adopted by Britain, will not only remove many causes for interference with other nations, but must have the effect of generally simplifying our diplomacy by the removal of one of its most troublesome departments. Among the many advantages which it was deemed within the power of able diplomacy to achieve, successful trade was one of the most important; and a multitude of treaties for accomplishing reciprocity of trading privileges remain to attest the earnest labour with which such projects were carried out, and to perplex the historical inquirer. Every advantage on one side was supposed to be acquired by a loss on the other; and, as it is the duty of a diplomatist as of a soldier to make the enemy suffer, it may easily be imagined how much diplomatic exertion these illusory trading negotiations have caused. The belief of