624 NON-INTERVENTION" AMONG NATIONS, THE PRINCIPLE OF. 



" In like manner, every meddling of one State 

 in the affairs of another state for the purpose of 

 protecting its own interests or the interests of 

 those who live under its administration, pro- 

 vided these interests are based on justice, is le- 

 gitimate defense, not at all contrary to the 

 principle of non-intervention, which remains 

 firm and unshaken." 



OBJECTIONS TO THE PRINCIPLE. Having 

 shown the justice and lawfulness of the prin- 

 ciple sought to be established, the effort is then 

 made to refute all objections by an examina- 

 tion of the various cases of intervention. In 

 relation to forms of government, it is held that 

 the independence of states being admitted, it 

 is natural that each gives to its own govern- 

 ment the form answering to the wishes of the 

 people who are to live under it ; and each has 

 the fullest right of molding itself into a re- 

 public rather than a monarchy, or into a rep- 

 resentative rather than an absolute monarchy. 

 Everybody is master of himself in his own 

 house ; and since national sovereignty is abso- 

 lute and inalienable, and there is no superior 

 authority, it follows that every nation, either 

 by itself or through its representatives, is the 

 sole and supreme judge in the choice of its 

 own head, and of the manner in which its sov- 

 ereign powers are to be constituted, organized, 

 and exercised : governments are made for the 

 nations, not nations for the governments. This is 

 the theory that all government originates with 

 the people; whatever form they please, they 

 may give to its administration. Referring to 

 the author of the "New European Policy," 

 this view is presented: " The liberty possessed 

 by every nation to govern itself internally has 

 two very different aspects. The one regards 

 the dictates of what is true and good ; the other 

 the lawful relations with foreign states. With 

 reference to the first aspect, certainly it is un- 

 lawful for a people to act against the principles 

 of moral and political reason ; as to the second, 

 however, it appears manifest that within its 

 territorial limit a state may make a good or 

 ill use of its own right, in the same manner 

 as the possessor of an estate may squander 

 away his own property and sink from wealth 

 to mendicity. If the loss and the guilt remain 

 within the erring state itself, and if nothing goes 

 out beyond its frontiers, except the erroneous 

 example and influence, the legal confines of na- 

 tions are still untouched, and the external au- 

 tonomy remains inviolable. A different con- 

 clusion would be reached if a people agitated 

 by intestine discords and insurrections should 

 send into the neighboring provinces secret 

 emissaries, arms, money, prints, books, etc. 

 Such a half-armed and perfidious manner of 

 propagating its own maxims does certainly 

 break the reciprocal faith of nations, and fur- 

 nishes a right to repel it by the use of means 

 suflficient to the end. But what else was done 

 at Lubiana and Verona, except clothing with 

 legal and solemn forms an armed propaganda 

 of certain principles? What did the Austrian 



army teach by forcibly entering into Piedmont, 

 the Romagna, and Naples, except the unlimited 

 sovereignty of princes and the irreparable ser- 

 vitude of subjects? What did the Duke of 

 Angouleme intend to demonstrate to the Oas- 

 tilian people with his bayonets, but this most 

 singular proposition that it was unlawful for 

 Bonaparte to spread by force beyond the Pyr- 

 enees the maxims of 1789, but that it was just 

 and lawful for the Bourbons to spread by force 

 the doctrine of divine right? Hence, either 

 the independence and the internal sovereignty 

 of states do not exist, and can receive a limit 

 from the will and pleasure of some foreign 

 states ; or it must be admitted that the right 

 of armed intervention can never be used where 

 that sovereignty, although it makes a wrong 

 use of itself, yet does not in fact exceed its ter- 

 ritorial limits ; and what it sends out beyond 

 them is only the invisible and incoercible ac- 

 tion of example and opinions, only the distant 

 echo of words, the mysterious union of moral 

 sympathies." * 



Again, it is argued by the writer that gov- 

 ernments which are the best, and thoroughly 

 based on justice and reason, are not disheart- 

 ened at the sight of contrary examples; for, 

 to false and subversive ideas they oppose 

 sound and preservative ones : nay, the sight 

 of a tumultuary multitude elsewhere, with its 

 excesses of all sorts, would prove most useful 

 to teach moderation and instruct their own 

 people, as the sight of the drunken slave was 

 a lesson of sobriety to the Spartan. England, 

 separated from French soil by a narrow strait 

 of the sea, was undisturbed by the half-re- 

 publican, half-social revolution at Paris in 

 1848. Holland suffered nothing from it; Bel- 

 gium nothing a narrow country, without 

 frontiers, and almost inclosed within France, 

 but governed by the best institutions. Hence, 

 either the example, the opinions, the princi- 

 ples of your neighbor are corrupt and fatal ; 

 and in this case it will suffice to show their 

 wickedness and turpitude, even if this were 

 not soon enough demonstrated by their effects ; 

 or the work of your neighbor and the maxims 

 he inculcates agree with truth and justice, 

 and, in that case, your intervention for the 

 purpose of overthrowing and trampling them 

 under foot is as wrong and unlawful as it is 

 powerless and ineffectual. Why does a dogma 

 of truth and justice acquire with time and ex- 

 ert a much greater power, by itself alone, than 

 all the armies, the policies, and the statutory 

 decrees can give it? 



A METAPHOR EXPLAINED. To the lively 

 metaphor urged by certain diplomatists a thou- 

 sand times, to represent the injustice of the 

 principle of non-intervention viz., that when 

 a neighbor's house is on fire, one does not hesi- 

 tate and wait, but runs and enters, with every 

 instrument he can get, to extinguish the^flames 

 as soon as possible they say we act in like 

 manner when the terrific conflagration of rev- 

 * Mauriani's " New European Public Law," chap. xi. 



