Page:Thomas Hare - The Election of Representatives, parliamentary and municipal.djvu/122

 It will be remembered, that the general election of 1857 afforded the advocates of the Chinese war a signal triumph. It was not alone the voice of small constituencies; some of the largest were even more remarkable for the manner in which they received and rewarded peaceful counsels. Whether in the late war with Russia the vital and material treasures of the nation have been vainly spent to sustain upon a throne an effete dynasty, to uphold the symbol of a cruel and intolerant creed, and perpetuate a social condition inimical to civilization; or whether it was the act of that deep and profound wisdom—that insight which is foresight—that study of history, which is philosophy teaching by example—that long experience of the dealings of nation with nation, which in humbler stations is gathered from the conduct of man to man, and which may enable statesmen of the highest order to gaze almost with prophetic eye into the future, and see to guard against other, perhaps distant, but more fatal evils—are questions which this age will scarcely solve; but there is no doubt that in this country the multitude, so far as they were heard, approved the sacrifice. Whether that sacrifice was made to the balance of power, to national interests, national pride or rivalry, or whether to the genius of war, there is no denying that the holocaust was freely offered, and that the altar was thronged with votive worshippers. A discourse in which peace and justice were displayed as the true wisdom of nations as of men, might have been heard with delight and applauded with enthusiasm, but that temporary emotion affords only slender reason for the hope that the lesson is the more deeply engraved on the popular mind.