xr} DUTY OF ENGLAND IN THE STRUGGLE. 531

Austria ang Hungary. Our protest would immediately have
bean backed by the Ministry of the Czar if it had been
Wade; and T believe it would have prevented that ost
irociony vatrage upon the rights and liberties of a constibutiony]
 country.” This protest he would have made, but he
Would have resisted any atterapt to fight the battle of
Hungary on the banks of the Danube or the Theiss.
In other words he would have relied upon opinion. He
as too practical to dream that regard for purely moral
®Pinion could be trusted to check the overbearing impulse of
Powerful selfish interests. Wars, however, constantly arise
90 from the irreconcilable clashing of great interests of
this kind, but from mismanaged trifles. This was what he
bag maintained in his argument for arbitration. The grave
nd unavoidable occasions for war, he said, are few. In
the ordinary dealings of nations with one another, where
% difference arises, it is about something where external
OPinion might easily be made to carry decisive weight. In
the undecided state of the Czar’s mind as to the invasion of
Hungary, a vigorous expression of English opinion, might
4d probably would have made sll the difference. Howover
 that might be, it is the duty of the more highly
Civilized powers to lose no opportunity of shaping and
Strengthening the common opinion of Europe against both
tervention of nations in one another's affairs, and against
War for the first resort instead of the very last, as the means
of settling international differences.
At this time Cobden werrly took up what seemed a
ost effective way of checking war and the preparations for
War on the part of the two powers whose tyrannical action
bad inflamed the resentment of his comutrymen. With
Singular fire he entered on a crusade agoinst the practice of
lending, first to Austria and then to Russia, the great sums
of tioncy which were under various disgaises and preloxts

.1850,
Ar. 486.