interest of England, or anything which would lower
England in the eyes of foreign nations. And they would seriously hurt
themselves if they did. But still these are the real tendencies of our
present practice, and these are only prevented by qualities in the
nation and qualities in our statesmen, which will just as much exist if
we change our practice.

It certainly would be in many ways advantageous to change it. If we
require that in some form the assent of Parliament shall be given to
such treaties, we should have a real discussion prior to the making of
such treaties. We should have the reasons for the treaty plainly
stated, and also the reasons against it. At present, as we have seen,
the discussion is unreal. The thing is done and cannot be altered; and
what is said often ought not to be said because it is captious, and
what is not said ought as often to be said because it is material. We
should have a manlier and plainer way of dealing with foreign policy,
if Ministers were obliged to explain clearly their foreign contracts
before they were valid, just as they have to explain their domestic
proposals before they can become laws. The objections to this are, as
far as I know, three, and three only.

First, that it would not be always desirable for Ministers to state
clearly the motives which induced them to agree to foreign compacts.
"Treaties," it is said, "are in one great respect different from laws,
they concern not only the Government which binds, the nation so bound,
but a third party too--a foreign country--and the feelings of that
country are to be considered as well as our own. And that foreign
country will, probably, in the present state of the world be a despotic
one, where discussion is not practised, where it is not understood,
where the expressions of different speakers are not accurately weighed,
where undue offence may easily be given." This objection might be
easily avoided by requiring that the discussion upon treaties in
Parliament like that discussion in the American Senate should be "in
secret session," and that no report should be published of it. But I
should, for my own part, be rather disposed to risk a public debate.
Despotic nations now cannot understand England; it is to them an
anomaly "chartered by Providence"; they have been time out of mind
puzzled by its institutions, vexed at its statesmen, and angry at its
newspapers. A little more of such perplexity and such vexation does not
s