Spanish territory produced disturbances of the balance. To redress the balance' he called in the new States,' recognised the New World, and thus separated its resources from those of Old Spain. In this way England acquired a moral influence in Spanish America comparable to the material influence of France in European Spain. Similarly, when Russia threatened Turkey and set the balance rocking, England decided to act with her in order to restrain her, and brought France in to weight the scale.' This was intervention of a sort, but it was undertaken to avert a far worse kind of intervention— that of Russia alone.

Another method of preserving the balance in certain areas was not to make a multi-lateral treaty, but to give a special English guarantee by treaty to the Power affected. This limited territorial guarantee existed in Portugal and was recognised and applied by Canning. But he refused to extend this guarantee to the defence of monarchical institutions in Portugal, or of democratic institutions in Spain. He seems also to have been unwilling to admit that we had given any guarantee to the internal constitution of Poland, a position not upheld a few years later by his exuberant pupil, Lord Palmerston. Existing territorial guarantees, as in Portugal, he was prepared to uphold. But even such limited guarantees he thought it dangerous to make or to offer. He refused a territorial guarantee to Brazil and to Greece. He offered a guarantee of Cuba to Spain, and a guarantee of the navigation of the Rio de la Plata to Buenos Aires and Brazil, but these were strictly limited to their application. Both were maritime and not territorial, and were not only defensive in their nature, but a species of guarantee which could be enforced against all comers by England's fleet. The New World, and the ships which furrowed the Atlantic, concerned England more than Europe.

The third method of preserving or restoring the balance of power was by regulating the balance of opinion, and this was Canning's most original and characteristic contribution to diplomacy. Opinion could only be enlisted on England's side by publicity, and it therefore was to this method which he appealed.

10. THE POLICY OF PUBLICITY

The charge has been frequently made that Canning was impulsive and reckless. Such a charge was certain to be applied in that age to a man who did not hesitate to appeal to the people, and it is unquestionably true that no speech in or outside Parliament can ever have the caution and restraint of a note or of a conversation in private. But a man who governs by the aid of Parliament has sometimes to appeal to it for support. The system of publicity was part of his Y policy, inseparable from it, and the chief source of his strength

and influence. The criticism to be made here is not as to what he said, but as to whether he should have abandoned the private intercourse method of Castlereagh for the rostrum. Some, at any rate, will think that the results of the new system justified its adoption.

Even Wellington, who declared Canning spoke like a Jacobin' at the end of 1826, admitted that, as yet, he had not acted like one. In fact, with two exceptions, none of the great decisions he took appear to have been ones which could, in any degree, be called sudden. It is possible that he showed too much anger against France in 1823, and his overtures with Rush in the same year, which resulted in the Monroe Doctrine, were perhaps too impulsive. On the other hand, the order to recall Lamb from Madrid in October 1826 is not to be so described. It was issued without consulting the British Cabinet (as Canning was staying at Paris) but in conjunction with French and Russian representatives, who approved. And it was successful both in impressing them and Spain. Liverpool subsequently defended it on that ground against Wellington and the King, and maintained that the measure had been effective for the time being.

To no other acts of Canning can the description of impulsive be justly applied. Contemporaries often brought forward the accusation, because they were bewildered by the popular enthusiasm which his great decisions produced. Yet these decisions were in no way sudden. The recognition of the Spanish Colonies had been foreshadowed as imminent by Castlereagh in July 1822; it had been suggested to Europe as a possibility by Canning in October and November of that

year; again on the 31st March and the 9th October 1823; yet again in January and May 1824. The final decision was only taken after the reports of the Commission of Enquiry had been received, after Spain had repeatedly refused all offers of mediation, and when France herself, together with half a dozen small Powers, thought recognition desirable, and were only restrained by the Neo-Holy Alliance. A decision, seven times indicated as possible, cannot be called sudden.

Similarly with Portugal the resolution to defend her against any external attack had been formally announced to the diplomats by Castlereagh in 1820 and 1821, and by Canning in 1822, and publicly in 1823. He repeated the same resolution privately in 1823, in 1824, in 1825, and at every stage of the crisis of 1826. The decision finally taken at the end of 1826 was only made after a dozen warnings, and after all the world knew that the casus fœderis had occurred. To blame him for the rapidity with which it was acted upon, as the European diplomats did, is like blaming a man, who has determined after long deliberation to fight, for attempting to get in the first blow. He himself has given the answer : "If England does not go promptly to the aid of Portugal, then Portugal will be trampled down, and England will be disgraced, and then war will come, and come too in the train of degradation." Similarly in Greece for three whole years he steadily deprecated all employment of force. At the end of 1825 he began slowly to move in that direction. Yet the Protocol of the 4th April 1826 contemplated only a special and limited application of force, and it was not until much further consideration that it was decided on as a means of terminating hostilities in July 1827, and in that decision France, as well as Russia, concurred. What is surprising, on the whole, is not his impulsiveness but his deliberation. He would not have wanted supporters had he recognised the Spanish Colonies in 1822, or advocated war against France in 1823, or in defence of Portugal during 1824-5, or of Greece in 1826. It is true that his colleagues might have been against him, but he himself was of their opinion in each case except the last. In fact, he contrived to restrain public

1 Dec. 11/26. Italics my own.

opinion for years, even on the most exciting topics, until he was sure it was overwhelming and would support a diplomatic decision, which had long been assured and prepared, and of which the consequences had been carefully thought out. He had, in a peculiar degree, the knowledge of the appropriate time for an announcement of a change in public policy. When it came the moment seemed golden, and his words fire. Thus it was that the public rallied to him, when he called 'the New World into existence,' or defended the liberties of Portugal. If the Pyrenees had fallen, was it not right that England would maintain the Atlantic? Were the liberties of Portugal to be utterly trampled down,' when England's word had been given to protect them? The effect thus produced was so profound, just because it was so calculated. Diplomats might protest and colleagues complain of his incendiary' methods, but they knew that England was behind him, and that at such moments he wielded a power that neither could resist. He had indeed at such moments' a giant's strength,' and thus illustrated his own doctrine that England should only intervene occasionally on the Continent, but then with a commanding force.' In similar crises Palmerston was able to call to his aid flamboyant patriotism, and Gladstone generous emotion. But in neither case do we feel sure that it was not sentiment first and statecraft second. In the case of Canning we see the statesman's brain directing the orator's appeal.

II. THE SYSTEM'

The real key to Canning's policy is that, though emotional on the surface, it was intellectual in its aims and design. It was, in truth, a system of policy' profoundly matured in time of enforced idleness, fortified by knowledge of history and international law, and practically applied to the conditions of the time. And these principles, he considered, were sufficient for the time being. Their nature may be indicated in a few words: no Areopagus, non-intervention; no European police system; every nation for itself, and God for us all; balance of power; respect for facts, not for abstract theories; respect for treaty rights, but caution in extending them. Provided it is sovereign and observes

diplomatic obligations, a republic is as good a member of the comity of nations as a monarchy. England not Europe'; "Our foreign policy cannot be conducted against the will of the nation"; "Europe's domain extends to the shores of the Atlantic, England's begins there." England's function is "to hold the balance between the conflicting principles of democracy and despotism," to mediate between two hemispheres, and to bring the New World (pace Monroe) into connection with the Old.

Castlereagh differed from him in insisting less upon principle, and more upon the politics and negotiations of the moment. Canning certainly conceived that his system covered the facts of his own age, but it is idle to suggest that he conceived his principles to be eternal. During his later years his policy showed signs of change. Non-intervention,' he once, if not twice, abandoned; the balance of power was modified; he involved England in extensive obligations by his Greek Treaty. Had he lived in Palmerston's day it is even possible that he might have modified the principle of non-intervention, which he described as 'unchanged and unchangeable.' All we can say with certainty is that he would only have done so after profound reflection on the consequences of such a step. He lays down his doctrine clearly as follows: "Cases must arise upon facts which it is utterly beyond the powers of human foresight to combine and calculate beforehand." And again he warns him, "You will therefore be very careful not to lay down beforehand fixed resolutions for eventual probabilities." 1

In fact, Canning's non-intervention dogma, together with most of his other principles, have stood the iron test of time. England still deprecates interferences in the internal affairs of States. She is still a mediating power between the New World and the Old. Though a monarchy, she occupied up till 1914 a middle position between the democratic republics and the less democratic kingdoms. Canning's doctrine of guarantee has laid down for succeeding generations a rule for guidance from which they have never departed, without subsequently acknowledging the truth of his principle. His view of the maritime code of England has indeed been

1 F.O. Mexico, 50/19. Canning to H. G. Ward, No. 6; July 8/26.