594

ENGLAND'S OLD POSITION GONE.

XXX.

THE upshot of this famous, or rather infamous, French Alli

This been to lead France into the most mortifying posi

tion, from which she is now retreating, as the Emperor has already announced that he shall; while the degradation to which it has brought the British government, is something she never bargained for. It leaves France complete master of Western Europe, and England only as one of her auxiliaries. She has reserved only the privilege of quietly acquiescing in most of the edicts or mandates Napoleon pleases to send out. Now she follows France, and has ceased to direct or control the policy of any European power. Thus England, so humiliated, so stripped of her old prestige as the umpire in the balance of power, is reduced to her navy, her mills, her balance of gold. She might yet arrest in some measure this tendency to deterioration, if she would once let the streams of regenerating political and social power flow around the masses of her people. They are yet beyond those electric influences which are imparted in the other great nations from the central sources of political life. But even if the New Reform Bill should pass, it may be too late for England to make up for her delay, by evoking at this late hour help from the masses of her people. Infusion of new blood she needs badly enough—but she wants good blood, and the blood of her masses has grown too thinthe muscle too flabby. Her yeomanry are extinct. England's old position among the nations is gone.

XXXI.

N many respects the condition of her poor classes is far more cheerless than that of the freedmen of the Southern States, or of the emancipated serfs of Russia. The freed negroes and serfs, as classes, never sank so low as the lowest agricultural and mining-classes in England. They had never lived lives of

WALLACE'S ODE TO ALEXANDER II.

595

such extreme physical deprivation and wasting toil. They never became familiar with slow or rapid starvation. They were better clothed and housed, were not poisoned by foul air or alcoholic drinks. They never reached such depths of sottishness-they were not so heathenized-so diseased, deformed, stunted, dehumanized. In a word, the image of God was not so much defaced-so nearly blotted out. They were not so licentious; vastly larger numbers of them heard the Gospel and belonged to Christian churches.

A

XXXII.

NOTHER cause of sympathy between the United States and Russia is in the spirit of their institutions, which are made for the common advancement and elevation of the entire people, carried out at last triumphantly in the abolition of slavery in the one land, and serfdom in the other.* All the legislation of the

*ODE

ON THE PASSAGE, BY THE CONGRESS OF THE UNITED STATES, OF THE CONSTITUTIONAL AMENDMENT ABOLISHING SLAVERY-1865.

"The jubilant bell
That rings the knell

Of Slavery for ever."-WHITTIER.

DEDICATED TO HIS IMPERIAL MAJESTY, ALEXANDER II., EMPEROR OF ALL THE RUSSIAS. BY WILLIAM ROSS WALLACE.

596

RUSSIA A DEMOCRATIC EMPIRE.

two countries is democratic and reformatory; none of it retrograding; none of it made for a favored or privileged class; but all for the elevation of the masses. In one sense Russia is as democratic and more so than the United States have until recently been. Even Finland, among the most northern of the Russian provinces, has a local Parliament, and a system of railways, while education is making rapid progress. Russia works out democratic results under imperial forms; we under a republican form. The spirit of the Russian system is not only to develope its own resources in the soil and mines, the forests and the waters, but in the capacity of her own people. There are no prejudices to prevent her rewarding and elevating

PROGRESS OF NATIONS TO DEMOCRACY.

597

talent. Wherever genius is discovered, the Government brings it into service and activity. This is the case somewhat in France; but never in England, where "titled shams and decorated imbecilities" are the order of the day and the spirit of the Government.*

XXXIII.

ONE

NE of the strongest indices of the progress of mankind towards Democracy, is shown in the great Industrial Exhibitions of all Nations. Commencing with the World's Fair in London in 1851, they were continued in the Paris Exhibition of 1855, in that of London again in 1862, and that of Hamburg in 1863. A new movement has been made in France. The Emperor has extended the field, and invited the governments of all foreign nations to unite, their citizens contributing under the direction and prestige of their separate nationalities. The Exhibition of next year will, therefore, be the first real International Exhibition under the direct auspices of the different governments whose citizens and subjects will participate.†

* As the last sheets of this work are going to the press, the admirable book by Rev. C. B. Boynton, D. D., entitled "The Four Great Powers," has fallen into my hands. Had I seen it before, I should not have lost the occasion of speaking of it more at length, and to make various citations from it which furnish strong confirmation of many of the positions which I have taken. It treats in a masterly manner of the policy, resources, and probable future of England, France, Russia and the United States. No work of equal value on these subjects has recently appeared. Some of Dr. Boynton's readers, who have studied the subject less profoundly, may not agree with him entirely in the prominence he attributes to the influence of ecclesiastical forms and systems; nor may they perceive so much force in the religious sentiment which is now guiding the political policy and destinies of American and European States. But while large numbers of his readers may withhold from him, in these respects, the full concurrence of their own judgment, no candid critic will deny to him the merit of having handled with unequaled ability the great questions which he discusses in such convincing logic, earnestness of feeling, and clearness and vigor of style.

Under the great ruler who now directs the destinies of France, a Government has been made, for the first time in history, responsible for the collection classification, exhibition and scientific description of the world's industry, at

598

NATIONAL SPIRIT OF THE FRENCH.

In that Exhibition the people of the different nations will come together to hold familiar intercourse with each other, and represent themselves. There the veil of diplomacy, which has so long been hung between governments and peoples, and which, as General Banks so well remarks, "has been responsible for all the wrongs that have been done," will be lifted, and Democracy will stand up completely represented in all its attributes of strength, unity and progress. Such a sight has never before been seen; and to many, who do not comprehend the genius of the French government, or the spirit of its Emperor, it would seem altogether a more liberal and democratic movement than would be likely to emanate from what is called a despotic throne.

But those who have read the French character more truly, are not cheated by words or formulas; for it is certain, that however oppressive and exacting some of the imperial forms and prescribed conditions imposed by the French Empire may be, they quench none of the national sentiment.

XXXIV.

HE French people are more thoroughly imbued with the spirit of political, social, and scientific freedom and progress, than any nation in Europe. This spirit it has been the policy of Napoleon to give free course to; and it will be found that while many will prophecy a revolutionary political tendency in the French government, in connection with such a comparison, expansion, attrition and exhilaration of ideas, more discriminating men perceive that this free scope given in the centre of the Empire to the thoughts of the world, will only tend to strengthen the Napoleon Dynasty, unless some attempt may subsequently be made to restrain the unleashing forces of which all nations are invited to present evidences of their prosperity, progress, and power in industrial pursuits. That Government has appropriated twenty millions of francs for its expenses.—General Banks' Speech in H. Rep., March 14, 1866.