176

VI.- INTERVENTION AMONG STATES.

TH

HE question of the right of interference by one or more States in the affairs of another State may safely be dubbed at the present time as the most nebulous topic in the somewhat nebulous science of International Law. The extreme uncertainty in which the principles of the subject are at present enshrouded has discouraged the fluency even of foreign professors of International Law, and the literary output of these gentlemen on Intervention is amazingly small in view of the fact that the one especially salient feature in the international history of Europe in this century has been Intervention. The part which this country has played in that history has been considerable, and, in the main, most beneficial, although the principles by which our Governments have been guided may be sought in vain in official utterances and dispatches. The ministers who have been responsible in the matter have usually contented themselves with repeating in substance the words of the late Lord Palmerston, viz. :-" The usual rule is non-intervention, but I am not prepared to say that there may not be occasions on which intervention is justifiable." Their principles must be sought for in their international acts.

In order to discuss the subject with even the possibility of arriving at any tangible and profitable result, we submit that three stages are necessary, viz.: (1) A consideration of the analogy which undoubtedly exists between the phenomena of the international life of modern States, and the phenomena of the lives of individuals in a modern civilized State. (2) A consideration of the principal modern instances of intervention as illustrating that analogy. (3) A deduction of the principles of intervention based upon that analogy

The consideration of the first part of the subject neces

sarily involves some observations of a very elementary description;-(1) (a) In every civilized State there is a certain number of persons of mature age and discretion who can pay their way and are mentally and physically capable of managing their own affairs. (b) On the other hand, there are large classes of persons in every State who are under what is termed a legal disability. These classes include women (in certain respects), children under age, lunatics and imbecile persons, convicts, bankrupts, &c. The normal and natural subjects of disabilities are women and children. The abnormal subjects are lunatics and imbeciles, convicts, and bankrupts. In both cases the Central Authority of the State intervenes in the private doings of these persons for their own or for the general good, and, to a varying degree, controls their liberty of action. The interference with the action of women and children is mainly paternal in character, and is designed in the interests of the subjects of it. The interference with the other classes is, on the other hand, mainly defensive or punitive, or both. It is "not for their own but for their country's good."

The next point on which we would dwell is, that in all these defensive or punitive cases of disability, there is a point where the State is bound to step in for its own good.

No man liveth to himself." A man's house is his castle only up to a certain point. His right to preserve his privacy vanishes absolutely before the general right of humanity. Ten colliers live in adjoining cottages. When one of them cruelly maltreats his wife, the State intervenes and restricts his liberty for a couple of years or more. If the collier keeps his children at home, the State interferes and compels him to send them to school. If a man makes of his house a gambling den, or brothel, his right to the privacy of his "castle" is rudely interfered with by the civil authorities. Liberty exists only within the law among

citizens, and there is a point where that liberty vanishes because it runs counter to the general good.

Now, our main proposition in this essay is, that the international life of States is nothing more than the life of individuals "writ large." If we follow out this i lea we shall find ourselves in conflict at once with what we regard as the crowning fiction of International Law, viz. :-" That there are no degrees in independence in the eye of International Law, and that all independent States according to that law have a perfect equality of status." According to this theory there is no difference between the status of Turkey and that of Russia. Now, although epigrams of this kind are doubtless most soothing to the national pride —c.g., of members of the Swiss Republic-it is impossible to shut our eyes to the fact that in practice they are nothing more than fictions which are absolutely disregarded when a need arises for settling international matters. It is as absurd to assert this fiction as it would be to assert that in the modern State all its members are in an identical state of independence. Are there no wards or minors or lunatics or imbeciles or convicts whose independence of action must of necessity be interfered with?

Let us now cast our eyes over some of the main facts of the history, during this century alone, of France, Spain, Portugal, Italy, Belgium, Switzerland. and Holland, and above all, of Turkey. We submit that here we find instances in abundance of States which have been dangerous lunatics, or incapable imbeciles, or hopeless bankrupts, or helpless minors, or culpable criminals. There has been, it is true, no officially established machinery as in the modern civilised State for the punishment of criminals, the guardianship of minors or the restraining of lunatics, yet the welfare of other States has imperiously demanded that this work should be somehow carried out. It was this necessity which produced seventy-five per cent.

of what we call the "Interventions" of this century. The same fiction whereby all States are deemed equally independent connotes the assertion that they are all of sound mind and competent to manage their affairs in a rational manner. There is no fact more certain in modern history than the lunacy or imbecility under which some States have laboured and continue to labour. It will suffice to mention such instances as

(1) Poland. The lunatic perseverance with which Poland clung to what was called the liberum veto, which hopelessly paralysed the machinery of legislation, may be realised when we come to consider the fact that no measure could be passed by their Parliament as long as there were any dissentients at all. Consequently when it became absolutely necessary to pass some measure the procedure, according to Mr. Carlyle, for overcoming the scruples of obstinate opposers consisted in running the latter through the body. Now, if affairs were really managed in Poland after this fashion it is difficult to feel any more surprise at the partition of Poland than at the compulsory detention of an undoubted lunatic.

(2) France. There is a wide distinction to be drawn between occasional domestic cataclysms in a State and permanent derangement. Thus there is a great difference between the character of the intervention of other European powers in her affairs in 1792 and that of 1815.

In the first case the bulk of the people were endeavouring to rid themselves of a political system which was in many respects of an incredibly barbarous and tyrannical description. If the people in the course of that struggle showed themselves bereft of a sense of pity, it should be always remembered that the acts of their rulers for centuries with their private gibbets in each village had killed any such feelings they might have possessed. Although the State was passing through a fearful internal

crisis it was still able to discharge its external duties, and the intervention of the Despotic Powers in 1792 was one of political despotism against political freedom.

This interference with France on the part of Austria and Prussia in her dark hour of struggle for political liberty should be borne in mind by those who are too ready to condemn the somewhat bandit-like behaviour she afterwards displayed to those countries. If France at that time, as we firmly believe, did really represent the eternal rebellion of the free-minded citizen against the stifling weight of a hereditary noblesse which battened on the labour and the money of the people, while it denied them any share in the government and denied them common justice, it is no matter for surprise to us that in a little while the people who were illumined, if only for a time, by such splendid ideas of political liberty, should not only have beaten off their legitimate assailants, but should have crushed their out-worn political systems like eggshells in the Napoleonic wars which shortly ensued. ideas of the triumphant Puritans of the English Revolu. tion on religious toleration, on the iniquity of preferring caste to merit, and on even-handed justice to all, were fundamentally the same as the main ideas of the French Revolutionists, and in each case the same magical success attended them.

The

He

In 1815 the intervention of the Allies was quite another matter, Napoleon had gazed to some purpose on the real political disabilities of many of the States of Europe. had tested the "Sovereign independence" of Spain, and its crazy structure of government had fallen at the first touch. His Empire, over other sovereign States, and his creation of fresh ones, were alike the result of the political incompetence of the countries in which he intervened. They were all supposed in theory to be sovereign and independent and equal. In fact they nearly all belonged to