Page:Future of England - Peel.djvu/136

124 cannot away with "rectifications" of frontier, and "hinterlands," and "concessions of territory," and "trusteeships for civilisation," and "manifest destinies," and all the jargon about "efficiency." It is anathema to them even to "think imperially."

Such is a fair statement of the main reason given why wars shall presently be put on the shelf, and why our democracy and those of Europe may prepare to lie down in amity. This argument, like the rest, is worth an examination.

Democracy, in its modern phase, was inaugurated in Europe as long ago as 1789, and, therefore, its essential lineaments may be fairly discerned by now. It is evident that at first, in 1789 and 1790, the new France was thoroughly animated by hopes of universal peace. Mirabeau, towards the close of the latter year, solemnly asseverated "our unalterable desire for peace and the renunciation of all conquests," naming this country as "our elder brother in liberty." Unfortunately, in its high despotic temper, the Revolution, in the brief space of two years, had generated that warlike spirit which it required a quarter of a century of war to quench.

With the close of 1815, however, and amid the general exhaustion of Christendom, it might have been hoped that order and peace would have resumed sway. But the generation succeeding to 1815 was best characterised by Prince Metternich, when, writing in 1859, he uttered the lament that "the revolution to-day counts seventy years of