England offers at this moment the curious spectacle of
dissolution appearing at the summit of the State, while at the base
of society all seems immovable. There is no audible agitation
among the masses, but there is a visible change among their
rulers. Shall we believe that the upper strata are liquefying, while
the lower remain in the same dull solidity? We are, of course, not
alluding to the cynical attempts of Palmerston and his compeers to
“loot” the Treasury.” The battles between the exiles and their
proscribers form no more a standing feature in the medieval
annals of Italian towns than the conflicts between the Ins and Outs
in the Parliamentary history of England. But now we have the
Tory leader in the House of Commons winding up a speech with
the ominous declaration that

“There is one bond of union between us [the Radicals and the Tories] in this
House and in this country; and that is, that we shall not any longer be the tools or
the victims of an obsolete oligarchy!” *

There is the House of Lords passing one point of the People’s
Charter—the abolition of the property qualification for the
members of the Commons”; there is Lord Grey, the descendant
of the Whig Reformer,” warning his noble compeers that they are
drifting to “a total revolution in the whole system of their
Government and in the character of their Constitution;” ‘ there is

* B. Disraeli’s speech in the House of Commons on May 31, 1858, The Times,
No. 23008, June 1, 1858.— Ed.

5 Charles Grey.— Ed.

“ H. G. Grey’s speech in the House of Lords on June 10, 1858, The Times,
No. 23017, June 11, 1858.— Ed.

the Duke of Rutland frightened out of his senses by the vista of
having to swallow “the whole hog of the five points of the
Charter, and something more.”* And then The London Times in
sinister accents one day cautions the middle classes that Disraeli
and Bulwer wish them no good, and, in order to master them,
may ally themselves with the vile multitude’; and then, the very
next day, it warns the landed aristocracy that they are to be
swamped by the shopocracy, to be enthroned through Locke
King’s bill, which has just passed through its second reading in the
Lower House, for the extension of the elective franchise to the
£10 occupiers in the counties.‘

The fact is that the two ruling oligarchic parties of England
were long ago transformed into mere factions, without any
distinctive principles. Having in vain tried first a coalition and
then a dictatorship, they are now arrived at the point where each
of them can only think of obtaining a respite of life by betraying
their common interest into the hands of their common foe, the
radical middle-class party, who are powerfully represented in the
Commons by John Bright. Till now, the Tories have been
aristocrats ruling in the name of the aristocracy, and the Whigs
aristocrats ruling in the name of the middle class; but the middle
class having assumed to rule in their own name, the business of
the Whigs is gone. In order to keep the Whigs out of office, the
Tories will yield to the encroachments of the middle-class party
until they have worried out Whig patience and convinced these
oligarchs that, in order to save the interests of their order, they
must merge in the conservative ranks and forsake their traditionary pretensions to represent the liberal interest or form a power
of their own. Absorption of the Whig faction into the Tory
faction, and their common metamorphosis into the party of the
aristocracy, as opposed to the new middle-class party, acting under
its own chiefs, under its own banners, with its own watchwords—
such is the consummation we are now witnessing in England.

If we consider this state of internal affairs in England, and
couple with it the fact that the Indian war will continue to drain
her of men and money, we may feel sure that she will be disabled

4 Ch. C. J. Rutland’s speech in the House of Lords on June 10, 1858, The Times,
No. 23017, June 11, 1858.— Ed.

5 “In those sad days of Ireland’s history...,” The Times, No. 23016, June 10,
1858.— Ed.

¢ “There was a time within the memory...”, The Times, No. 23017, June 11,
1858.— Ed.

from clogging, as she did in 1848, the European Revolution that
draws visibly nearer. There is another great power which, ten
years ago, most powerfully checked the revolutionary current. We
mean Russia. This time, combustible matter has accumulated
under her own feet, which a strong blast from the West may
suddenly set on fire. The symptoms of a servile war are so visible
in the interior of Russia, that the Provincia! Governors feel
themselves unable otherwise to account for the unwonted fermentation than by charging Austria with propagating through secret
emissaries Socialist and revolutionary doctrines all over the land.
Think only of Austria being not only suspected but publicly
accused of acting as the emissary of revolution! The Galician
massacres” have, indeed, fully proved to the world that the
Cabinet of Vienna knows, in case of need, how to teach serfs a
‘socialism of its own. Austria, however, angrily retorts the charge,
by the statement that her eastern provinces are overrun and
poisoned through Russian Panslavist agents, while her Italian
subjects are wrought upon by the combined intrigues of
Bonaparte and the Czar.* Prussia, finally, is keenly awake to the
dangers of the situation; but she is bound hand and foot, and
interdicted from moving in any direction. The royal power is, in
fact, broken by the insanity of the King,” and the want of full
powers on the part of the Regent.© The strife between the
camarilla of the King, who refuses to resign, and the camarilla of
the Prince, who dares not to reign, has opened a floodgate for the
popular torrent.

Everything, then, depends upon France, and there the commercial and agricultural distress, financial coup d’état, and the
substitution of the rule of the army for rule by the army, are
hastening the explosion. Even the French press at length admits
that all hopes of a return of prosperity must be abandoned for the
present. “We believe that it would be foolish to tantalize the public
with the chimerical hope of an immediate. reaction,” says the
Constitutionnel.* “The stagnation continues, and in spite of the
existing favorable elements, we must not expect any immediate
modification,” says the Patrie.

The Union and the Univers re-echo these complaints.* “It is

4 Alexander II.— Ed.

b Frederick William 1V.-— Ed.

© William, Prince of Prussia.— Ed.

4d “Bulletin hebdomadaire de la Bourse de Paris”, Le Constitutionnel, No. 158,
June 7, 1858.— Ed.

¢ “Paris, Monday, June 7, 6 p.m.”, The Limes, No. 23015, June 9, 1858.— Ed.

generally admitted that there has not been more commercial
distress experienced in Paris since the Revolution of 1848 than at
the present moment,” says the Paris correspondent of The London
Times*; and the shares of the Crédit Mobilier, have sunk down
to something like 550 frs., that is, below the nominal price at
which they were sold to the general public. On the other hand, the
emptiness of the Imperial exchequer forces Napoleon to insist on
his plan of confiscation.” “The only thing to be asked is,” says a
clerical paper appearing at Anjou, “whether or not property is to
be respected.” Property indeed! The only thing to be asked at this
moment, answers Bonaparte, is how to make sure of the army?
and he solves this question in his habitual way. The whole army is
to be bought™anew. He has ordered a general increase of its
wages.© Meanwhile England is alarmed and Austria in terror. On
all hands, war is believed to be imminent. Louis Napoleon has no
other means of escaping speedy destruction. The beginning of the
end is at hand.

Written on June 11, 1858 Reproduced from the New-York

; : F ; Daily Tribune

Tribune, No. 5359, June 24, 1858 as a
leading article; reprinted unsigned in the
New-York Semi-Weekly Tribune, No. 1365,
June 25, 1858 under the title “The
European Revolution”

a The Times, No. 23014, June 8, 1858.— Ed.

b See this volume, pp. 550-52.— Fa.

© Napoléon III, “Loi relative a la création d’une dotation de l’armée, an
rengagement, au remplacement et aux pensions militaires”.— Ed.