Diplomacy and the Study of International Relations/Part 2/Chapter 8

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8

Literature of Recent British Diplomacy

1. (a) Seeley, The Growth of British Policy.[1]

The work is of great value for its way of appreciating questions of international 'policy' in general, for an interpretation of the international policy of Britain from the accession of Elizabeth to the early years of the eighteenth century, and for the skill with which the author shows the historical background of modern Britain in its relation to foreign States. The work was needed.

'In France, where for a long time constitutional development, if it existed, escaped notice, still more in Germany, where it was petty and uninteresting, history leaned towards foreign affairs, But in England, the home of constitutionalism, history leaned just as decidedly in the opposite direction. English eyes are always bent upon Parliament, English history always tends to shrink into mere parliamentary history, and as Parliament itself never shines less than in the discussion of foreign affairs, so there is scarcely a great English historian who does not sink somewhat below himself in the treatment of English foreign relations.'[2]

​The work may seem, at points, to treat in too large outline international changes, such as, for example, were initiated by Richelieu,[3] and to ascribe too boldly to the English Revolution important changes effected;[4] and in particular it may seem to pursue too assiduously, though with more reserve than in The Expansion of England, the quest for tendency, for some large conclusion, the formula. But it is a work unsurpassed in Britain for its suggestiveness in the realm of international policy; for its gift of relating causes to effects, motives and principles to policy and action; of relating the domestic to the foreign, the insular to the international; for its grasp of inter-connexions and inter-dependences in the causes and consequences of great events. These qualities are exhibited in the author's treatment of the dangers to Elizabethan England from the Powers of the Counter-Reformation,[5] and the winning by England of 'a self-confidence which it has never lost since'.[6] 'If the Muse is asked to say what first caused the discord ​which brought the Spanish Armada to our shores, she must answer that it was the conviction which the Spaniards formed that they could not deal with the rebellion in the Low Countries without dealing at the same time with the English question.'[7] The same qualities of the author are shown not less clearly and fruitfully in his analysis of the place of the English Revolution in relation to international affairs and the liberties of Europe,[8] in his estimate of the work of William III, 'the pius Aeneas, who bears the weight of destiny,'[9] and in his comparison and linking of the policy of Elizabeth, of Cromwell, and of William.[10] 'What began about 1567 with the commencement of the Dutch rebellion is in a sense completed at the Treaty of Utrecht. For us the result is that our state begins to assume the character of a great Trade Empire. … The second Revolution, which seemed to take its rise in religion, ends in commerce; it results, if we regard it comprehensively, in establishing a greater commercial state than the world had yet seen.'[11]

(b) Egerton, British Foreign Policy in Europe to the End of the 19th century.[12]

There is no work that gives a continuous account of British diplomacy and foreign policy on a scale commensurate with the importance of the subject; and it is a task that cannot be discharged adequately by the labour, knowledge, and good judgement of one man only. In the absence of such a work, this book will be found of use as a general introduction to the study of the subject.[13] It is more especially concerned with ​British foreign policy during the nineteenth century, and in the exposition of policy 'from the eve of the French Revolution' the author has 'called in aid the actual words, written or spoken, of the leading statesmen and diplomatists who were responsible' for its conduct.[14]

2. The Cambridge Modern History, vols. xi and xii, and The Political History of England, vol. xii; Lavisse and Rambaud, Histoire générale, vol. xii.

'In earlier volumes the attempt has been made to show the shifting from time to time of the centre of gravity in Europe. From about 1660 to 1870 that centre of gravity was undoubtedly in Paris. Since 1871 France, though still in the forefront of European culture, has lost something of her pride of place. The centre of European politics proper has been at Berlin; the centre of world-politics, which are also European politics in the larger sense, has been in London. And it is not by accident that the Hague, midway between London and Berlin and nearly equidistant from Paris, has been chosen as the meeting-ground of European Councils. Whether the coming generation sees the centre of world-politics transferred from London to Washington depends on various contingencies; among others on the policy adopted by Great Britain towards her self-governing Colonies, and on the degree of interest which the United States may come to take in matters outside their own boundaries. Up to the present[15], the United States have taken no share in European politics, little in world-politics; but the Spanish War and the annexation of the Philippines have introduced a change.'[16] ​3. Débidour, Histoire diplomatique de l'Europe contemporaine, 1814–78.[17]

4. (a) Treaties, as above,[18] and Hertslet, The Map of Europe by Treaty.[19]

(b) Phillimore (W. G. F.), Three Centuries of Treaties of Peace and their Teaching.[20]

The author has attempted to show how, and how far, the condition of Europe at the outset of the War of 1914 was due to previous diplomatic settlements, and 'how war could be prevented and how it could be humanized and regulated if it did occur'. He makes the broad assertion, that 'treaties of the eighteenth century give us lessons in regulation; treaties of the nineteenth, in humanization; while the twentieth century began with attempts at prevention, imperfect unhappily, and too weak to stand severe strain, but not without value as guides to a more perfect scheme in the future'.[21]

5. The Crown, Ministers, Parliament, and the Conduct of Foreign Policy.

The treatment of this subject in books is inadequate.

Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution: The Crown;[22] Todd, Parliamentary Government in England;[23] Bagehot, The ​English Constitution;[24] Spencer Walpole, Foreign Relations;[25] The Letters of Queen Victoria, 1837—61;[26] Hansard, ​Parliamentary Debates, e.g. on the Anglo-German Agreement and the Cession of Heligoland,[27] and on the motion in the House of Commons, March 19, 1918, that, 'in the opinion of this House, a Standing Committee of Foreign Affairs should be appointed, representative of all parties and groups in the House, in order that a regular channel of communication may be established between the Foreign Secretary and the House of Commons which will afford him frequent opportunities of giving information on questions of Foreign policy and which, by allowing Members to acquaint themselves more fully with current international problems, will enable this House to exercise closer supervision over the general conduct of Foreign affairs;'[28] Keith, Responsible Government in the British Dominions;[29] The Oxford Survey of the British Empire;[30] Extracts from Minutes of Proceedings laid before the Imperial War Conference, 1917;[31] The War Cabinet: Report for the Year 1917.[32]

The subject is almost entirely ignored by A. Lawrence Lowell, The Government of England,[33] and by Sydney Low, ​The Governance of England,[34] as it had also been by a mid-Victorian work of considerable repute, The Government of England,[35] by W. E. Hearn.

Lowell's Governments and Parties in Continental Europe[36] is useful for a comparative study, and the following are authoritative works on the constitutions and the constitutional law of the European States: the Marquardsen series,[37] Handbuch des öffentlichen Rechts der Gegenwart; Dareste, Les Constitutions modernes;[38] Demombynes, Les Constitutions européennes.[39] More directly bearing on the subject of this section is Dupriez, Les Ministres dans les principaux pays d'Europe et d'Amérique.[40] Whereas Mr. Lawrence Lowell is interested primarily in parties, M. Dupriez is interested in the minister. Mr. Lowell views the position of the minister chiefly as it affects the condition of parties; M. Dupriez touches on parties so far as they affect the authority of the minister. The Parliamentary Paper issued in 1912 on the treatment of international questions by Parliaments on the Continent of Europe, and in the United States and Japan,[41] briefly expounds rights and procedure from the standpoint of the Houses, in pursuance of the resolution passed requesting information; very briefly, and unequally in the several reports, it shows also the position of the minister.

​6. (a) Lord Augustus Loftus, Diplomatic Reminiscences, 1837–77.[42] They set forth much on the relations between Austria and Prussia, on the Eastern Question, questions affecting Italy, the Schleswig-Holstein Question, and on the character and policy of Bismarck.[43]

(b) Earl of Malmesbury, Memoirs of an ex-Minister:[44] 'a macédoine,' says the author, 'of memoranda, diary, and correspondence.' The work is valuable for the years 1852–69, and especially for questions connected with Lord Derby's ministries and with Louis Napoleon.

(c) Maxwell, Life and Letters of the Fourth Earl of Clarendon,[45] 'the able English Foreign Secretary'.[46]

(d) Newton, Lord Lyons: a Record of British Diplomacy,[47] at Washington and Paris.

(e) Fitzmaurice, Life of Earl Granville.[48]

(f) Redesdale, Memories.[49] There is a chapter on Clarendon and Granville.

7. Parliamentary and State Papers: see Index, 1853, for 1801–52, and 1909, for 1852–99; and Catalogue[50] for 1801–1901 ; also The Annual Register and The Times Index.

Footnotes

  1. ↑ 2 vols., 1895
  2. ↑ Op. cit. i, pp. 1–2. Sir John Seeley commends the work of Gardiner and of Kinglake in remedying this defect of English historians 'since Ranke tried in his English History to supply those links between English and continental affairs' (especially, one may add, for the reign of Charles II) 'hich English historians had not troubled themselves to give'(p. 2). He pays a striking tribute to Kinglake in this connexion: 'In his book England always appears as a Power. He sees her always in the company of other great states, walking by the side of France or Austria, supporting Turkey, withstanding Russia. Her Parliament is in the background; in the front of the stage he puts the Ministers who act in the name, or the generals who wield the force, of England, the Great Power.'
  3. ↑ i, pp. 357–65.
  4. ↑ ii, pp. 275–308, and the chapter on 'The Work of William III', In a summary statement, ii, p. 344, the author says of 'The Second Revolution' that it 'was in the first place a rising against arbitrary power, but a rising undertaken in circumstances so peculiar that it necessarily involved (1) an immediate war with France, (2) a supplementary revolution of the same kind which we call the Hanoverian Succession, (3) another great war with France and Spain, (4) a union with Scotland and at least the introduction of a new system in Ireland, (5) and as the result of all these things a great development of trade and the foundation of a Trade Empire, which brings us into a position of permanent rivalry to France and Spain henceforth united in a family policy.' See also ii, p. 308. 'The second Revolution' is 'not a single occurrence belonging to the year 1688, but a long development beginning many years before and ending considerably later than 1688.'—ii, pp. 327–8.
  5. ↑ i, part i, ch. iii–viii.
  6. ↑ i, p. 215.
  7. ↑ The Growth of British Policy, i, p. 153.
  8. ↑ ii, pp. 274–348.
  9. ↑ ii, p. 325.
  10. ↑ e.g. ii, pp. 322–5.
  11. ↑ ii, pp. 338, 339. Cf. pp. 343, 347, on the Second Hundred Years' War, and the concluding chapter on 'The Commercial State'.
  12. ↑ 1917, pp. viii + 440.
  13. ↑ ch. i, Introductory. ii, Religion, Trade and Foreign Greed; their Influence upon English Foreign Policy, 1570-1688. iii, The Resistance to French World-Supremacy; Anglo-French Rapprochements, 1689–1789. iv, British Foreign Policy during the French Revolution and the Empire, 1790–1814. v, The Concert of Europe, 1814–30. vi, The Growth of Nationalism. The Peculiar Character of Anglo-French Relations, 1830–53. vii, The Growth of Nationalism (contd.), 1854–70. viii, The New Europe and its Problems, 1871–1900. ix, British Sea-Power in its Relations to other Nations.
  14. ↑ p. vi.
  15. ↑ 1910
  16. ↑ The Cambridge Modern History, vol. xii, p. 12.
  17. ↑ 2 vols., 1891.
  18. ↑ pp. 144–5.
  19. ↑ See above, pp. 146–8.
  20. ↑ 1917, pp. xvi + 227. Ch. i, Conditions of a Just, Lasting, and Effective Treaty of Peace. ii, Lessons supplied by Treaties of Peace from Westphalia, 1648, to the Congress of Vienna, 1815. iii, The Congress of Vienna and its Legacies. iv, The Making of Italy and the Remaking of Germany. v, The Treaty History of Eastern Europe. vi, Extra-European Treaties of Peace. vii, Treaties concerning the Laws of War. viii, How Treaties are brought to an End. ix, Conclusions. The author gives a useful list of authorities, pp. xiii–xvi, and a chronological list of treaties referred to in the text, pp. 179–84.
  21. ↑ p. x.
  22. ↑ 1908. Part i, pp. 42–4, 128–30; Part ii, pp. 102–8.
  23. ↑ 2 vols., 1866. In ed. of 1892 (edit. by Spencer Walpole), i. 125–41 (Part ii, ch, ii).
  24. ↑ 2nd ed., 1872. See the introductory pages to the 2nd ed. (and later eds.), pp. xli–lii: the work itself hardly touches the subject. See also a discussion, from opposing standpoints, of constitutional questions raised by the publication of the Life of the Prince Consort (the third volume), and especially with reference to public opinion as a guide in foreign policy, in The Crown and the Cabinet, by 'Verax', 'The Crown and the Constitution' in the Quarterly Review, April 1878, and the Reply of 'Verax' to the Quarterly Review, Edinburgh Review, July 1878.
  25. ↑ 1882, especially ch. iv.
  26. ↑ 3 vols., 1907; in edition of 1908, i, pp. 106–7 (Palmerston to Queen Victoria, February 25, 1838); ii, pp. 221–2 (Lord John Russell to Prince Albert, on procedure as to the drafting of dispatches and on Palmerston, June 19, 1849), p. 264 and pp. 363–4 (the Queen’s memorandum to Lord John Russell, 'shortly to explain'—'with reference to the communication about Lord Palmerston'—'what it is she expects from her Foreign Secretary', August 12, 1850), pp. 351–3 (Queen Victoria to Lord John Russell, December 28, 1851: 'The Queen thinks the moment of the change'—on Palmerston's dismissal—'in the person of Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs to afford a fit opportunity to have the principles upon which our Foreign Affairs have been conducted since the beginning of 1848 re-considered by Lord John Russell and his Cabinet'); iii, pp. 68–9 (the Queen to Lord Aberdeen, January 13, 1855), p. 334 (the Queen to the Earl of Malmesbury: 'The Queen is much afraid of these telegraphic short messages on principles of policy', May 20, 1859), pp. 367–8, 370, 371, 372–3 (the Queen, Russell, and Palmerston on responsibility for the conduct of foreign policy: 'What is the use of the Queen's open, and, she fears, sometimes wearisome correspondence with her Ministers, what the use of long deliberations of the Cabinet, if the very policy can be carried out by indirect means which can be set aside officially, and what protection has the Queen against this practice?'—The Queen to Russell, September 5, 1859. 'Lord John Russell feels, on his own part, that he must offer to your Majesty such advice as he thinks best adapted to secure the interests and dignity of your Majesty and the country. He will be held by Parliament responsible for that advice. It will always be in your Majesty's power to reject it altogether.'—Lord John Russell to Queen Victoria, October 7, 1859).
  27. ↑ 3rd series, vol. cccxlvi–cccxlvii. See below, Appendix, pp. 260–3.
  28. ↑ Parliamentary Debates, House of Commons, March 19, 1918, vol. 104, especially the speech of the Foreign Secretary (Mr. A. J. Balfour), 864–76. See below, Appendix, pp. 265–9.
  29. ↑ 3 vols., 1912. See vol. iii, pp. 1102, 1126–30.
  30. ↑ 6 vols., 1914, vol. i, General Survey, especially pp. 32, 54, 59, 84, 89, 114, 117. 'The diplomatic and consular services form the Intelligence Department of the Foreign Office, the eyes and ears of the State. They demand an Odyssean capacity for discovering the riddle of a foreign Government's intentions and for reading rightly the face of events. The diplomatic eye must, where necessary, see through the most authoritative of denials'—ch. ii, pp. 74–5, Barrington-Ward on 'The Foreign Office and its Agents'.
  31. ↑ Cd. 8566, p. 61. See below, Appendix, p. 282.
  32. ↑ Cd. 9005, pp. vi–vii. See below, Appendix, pp. 282–4.
  33. ↑ 2 vols., 1908. See vol. i, pp. 45–6 and 86–7.
  34. ↑ 1904.
  35. ↑ 1867.
  36. ↑ 2 vols., 1896. i, pp. xiv + 377: France; Italy; Germany. ii, pp. viii + 455: Germany (contd.); Austria-Hungary; Switzerland. With Appendix: The Constitutional Laws of France; Statuto of Italy; Constitution of the German Empire; Fundamental Laws of Austria; Constitution of Switzerland.
  37. ↑ 1883 and subsequent years.
  38. ↑ Recueil des Constitutions en vigueur dans les divers États d'Europe, d'Amérique, et du monde civilisé, 2nd ed., 1891, 2 vols., pp. xxv + 686, and 687. There are historical notes and bibliographies.
  39. ↑ 2 vols., 2nd ed. 1883, pp. xxxix + 888, and 911. There are introductions.
  40. ↑ 2 vols., 2nd ed., 1893.
  41. ↑ Cd. 6102. See above, p. 166, and Appendix, pp. 270–8.
  42. ↑ 4 vols., 1892, 1894.
  43. ↑ 'The position of an English Ambassador at Berlin', Bismarck is reported to have said, on November 30, 1871, 'has its own special duties and difficulties, if only on account of the personal relations of the two Royal families. It demands a great deal of tact and care.'—Busch, Bismarck, i. 343.
  44. ↑ 2 vols., 1884.
  45. ↑ 2 vols., 1913.
  46. ↑ Lord Malmesbury in his reflections, in his Memoirs, on Lord Derby's death, October 23, 1869, followed in 1870 by that of Lord Clarendon.
  47. ↑ 2 vols., 1913.
  48. ↑ 2 vols., 1895.
  49. ↑ 2 vols., 1915.
  50. ↑ Published by P. S. King.
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