v.]

INTERVENTION JUDGED BY EXPERIENCE. 103

are demonstrably absurd. With certain slight modifica- 1835-6.
Hons, Cobden’s demonstration of their absurdity remains ur. 31-2
38 valid now as it was forty years ago.
The keen and vigorous arguments by which Cobden
attacked the figment of the balance of power are now
tacitly accepted by politicians of all schools. Fven the
Tost eager partisans of English intervention in the affairs
of other nations now feel themselves bound to show as
Plausibly as they can, that intervention is demanded by
Some peril to the interests of our own country, It is
In vain that authors of another school struggle against
Cobden’s position, that the balance of power is not a fallacy
nor an imposture, but a chimera, a something incomprehensible,
 undescribed, and indescribable, The attempted
definitions of it fall to pieces at the touch of historic analysis.
If we find the smaller states still preserving an independent
existence, it is owing, Cobden said, not to the watchful
guardianship of the’ balancing system, but to limits set
by the nature of things to unduly extended dominion ; not
only to physical boundaries, but to the more formidable
moral impediments to the invader,— unity of language,
law, custom and traditions ; the instinct of patriotism and
freedom ; the hereditary rights of rulers; and, though last,
ot least, that homage to the restraints of justice, which
nations and public bodies have in all ages avowed, however
they may have found excuses for evading it.”
That brilliant writer, the historian of the Crimean War, has
described in a well-known passage what he calls the great
Usage which forms the safeguard of Europe. This great
Usage is the accepted obligation of each of the six Powers
fo protect the weak against the strong. But in the same
Page a limitation ig added, which takes the very pith and
marrow out of this moral and chivalrous Usage, and reduces
1t to the very commonplace principle that nations are bound