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CORNELIUS O'DOWD UPON MEN AND WOMEN, AND OTHER THINGS IN GENERAL.

PART XXII.

66 MAKE THE RING."

I HAVE just now a fortnight at my own disposal-I am perfectly free. If, therefore, while these lines are being read, there are people in the world would like to secure me either as company in a country house, to chaperon their daughters in Paris, to make up the rubber in the evening, or break in "that mare" for side-saddle, let them be early in application. There is no puffery in this announcement. I could throw myself to-morrow on the broad surface of society with the same security that harlequin jumps through a clock, and knows he will be received safely on the other side. But I want, however, the luxury of a wide choice, and I revel in the delight of selection amongst that pyramid of invitations that is certain to rise before me.

Shall I own-I think it is but fair to own that I am labouring under a slight access of gout, and a threat of a little more? If my hosts should, therefore, detect a flaw in a temper that the world has long pronounced immaculate-if they fancy they should descry one spot in the bright sun of my disposition-let them know to what to attribute it. This attack-I am in a mood for confession-was brought on by disappointment-yes, good reader, Cornelius O'Dowd is a disappointed man. For several weeks back-it is not by any means impossible I may be induced to make the correspondence public-I had been given to believe that I should be appointed arbitrator in this disputed question of Mexico between France and the United States.

It

is not for me it would not in any way accord with the modesty that forms my chief feature-to say

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I will not dwell on this theme. I wait, however, to see in what way "Le Livre Jaune" will give a version of the correspondence, reserving to myself, as diplomatists say, a full liberty of future action.

There is not, meanwhile, any indiscretion in my declaring that negotiations have terminated, and I am not to act. I make the declaration, at whatever sacrifice of personal feeling, since it enables me at the same time to say that I cannot receive any proposals, nor will I accept of any engagement to arrange the Schleswig-Holstein affair, to patch up the Servian dispute with the Porte, or suggest terms of accommodation between Austria and Italy. If my personal attachment to a certain eminent personage restrains me from withdrawing from the question between the Pope and Victor Emmanuel, I am equally free to declare that this is the one sole issue to which I will contribute my solicitude and my cares; and I say once again, that no letters about Ireland, Jamaica, or Chili, will be replied to. Those which relate to Greece will be burned unread.

What provokes me about Mexico I cannot help going back to it— is, I had made the thing my espe

cial subject. I had got up my Mexico, with my leperos and my half-castes, and the rest of it, just as Locke King gets up his franchise question, and Whalley his Maynooth grant. I was going to come out strong on it, like Colonel Sykes on the Ghoorkas. I had got atit is not necessary to say howthe whole initial roguery of the expedition, and what led the French Government in the first instance to embark on the scheme, and by what means England and Spain got timely information of the extent to which they had been jockeyed, and what led to their withdrawal. How a stockbroking raid led to the establishment of an empire, the Archduke Maximilian being placed on "the direction," as City folk say, just as bubble companies secure a lord, would make an amusing story; and there is just enough of feminine influence throughout to give the narrative the true three-volume gusto. How the despatch of troops was graduated to rig the market, and the whole campaign suited to the exigencies of the 'shares," would astonish those small speculators whose devices have never soared beyond a false telegram and a lying despatch.

There is, one must own, something grand in the notion of importing the pomp and circumstance of glorious war into the Stock Exchange, and "Bearing" the market with a battalion of infantry. Such was the origin of this Mexican affair. A number of imperial followers had been speculating in that precarious land. They had taken largely to Mexicans -not meaning thereby to the interesting natives of that country, but to the "scrip" so called. They were sufficiently powerful to induce the Government to press their claims, and when ultimately refused satisfaction, to issue what we would in Ireland call a "distress warrant." Off they went with a strong party to enforce this, and enforce it

VOL. XCIX.-NO. DCV.

they did, pretty much, too, as if the scene were Ireland!

There was a great row, a number of people hurt, and an amount of property destroyed that would have paid the French claims ten times over; but as this is always the consequence of "taking the law," nobody minded it. It was necessary, however, for the due fulfilment of the demands of France, that measures should be taken with regard to the future; that is, some species of authority-something that looked legal-must be established in the land, to recover accruing liabilities. To this end the Emperor sent over the Austrian Archduke, and settled him there as the MAN IN POSSESSION.

This is exactly and precisely what he represents. He is the "man in possession." He is not in Mexico to enforce any claims of his own. The Mexicans owed him nothing. As to the farce of being chosen by the nation, of all the exploded humbugs of this age of humbugs, the "Plebiscite" is the shabbiest. King George of Greece was the elect of the Greeks! Just as little did the Archduke want Mexico, but this crafty Emperor induced him to go over and try his fortune.

The Yankees just then had their hands full. They had fully as much fighting to do as was good for them, and so all they said was, "Wait a while. There's a considerable reckoning to be settled when we shall have a little leisure-score that item amongst the rest."

I remember once hearing on the wild hills of Donegal, where the Scotch element is as strong in the people as in Argyleshire, a story of a revenue officer who, strolling carelessly through the mountains, came upon a little shealing with an illicit still at full work. He had barely time to look around through the empty dwelling, where casks of the forbidden spirit were ranged about, and bethink him of the dangerous position he was in, when a tall, gaunt, semi-naked figure,

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This is what the Mexican affair is probably coming to. It would be easy enough for an old dynasty, a time-honoured Government, to retrace its steps, and actually make confession of a mistaken policy. If it suited Austrian policy to relinquish Venetia to-morrow, she could retire without the most minute stain upon her honour. There is not in all Europe probably one who would dare to ascribe the step to unworthy or discreditable motives. If Prussia, or rather M. Bismarck, were to disgorge the duchies of Schleswig-Holstein, and express contrition for an unjust act of spoliation, people would begin to think the better of Prussia. The question however is, Can Louis Napoleon afford this? The policy of an adventurer has this hard condition attached to it, it must never be wrong. The adventurer is like the unlicensed practitioner: when his patient dies he can be tried for manslaughter.

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"Nulla vestigia retrorsum the motto over the Tuileries, so long as the wolf lives there. His hold upon the French people is, that since he has been at their head they have bullied Europe. From the helpless insignificance of the position they occupied under Louis Philippe, they have risen to be the first power of the world. Part of this they have acquired by hard knocks, and a large part by mere menace. Frenchmen will forgive a great deal to him who makes them formidable to every other people. It was only when the prestige of the first Napoleon began to decline in this respect that men fell off in their allegiance to him. You may curtail liberty in France, hamper

daily life with restrictive laws, and tie down enterprise by enactments; you may torture trade with petty regulations, and reduce the press to insignificance. All these will be borne so long as Frenchmen feel that they are the terror of Europe, and that there is not a Cabinet on the Continent that does not tremble at their name.

An insult to this sentiment is what they will not bear, and woe to him who would expose them to it! The question then is, Can the Emperor retire from Mexico without incurring this stain? I do not think that in the present case the Americans will employ any unnecessary or unseemly rudeness. They will treat France with a deference they would not accord to us. I make no complaint of that; I even see a certain fairness in it. They will not, in all probability, be very exacting as to the day or the hour, but yet, with Yankee tenacity, I think I hear them saying, Yes, sir, you've got to go. Yes, sir, that's a fact."

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A more insufferable piece of insolent pretension cannot be imagined than what is called the Monroe doctrine. That my next-door neighbour should not live in a certain style lest the servants in my house should become dissatisfied, is too gross an absurdity to be entertained. That whatever rules I prescribe for my family should be adopted by every one who resides in the same street, is somewhat overbearing; and yet, with all this, I declare I am all for the Yankee in this Mexican row. It is not the justice of the case I want to think of. It is not whether France has right on her side, and whether this demand to retire be one of those mandates a high-spirited nation cannot submit to; my whole consideration is limited to the fact here at last the great bully of Europe has met his match! Here is a young athletic daring fellow ready to go into the ring with that finished pugilist that none of us have courage to fight, and who,

even with the gloves on, doubles us up in a fashion far from agreeable. America dares to hold language to France that all Europe combined would not utter. There's no deny ing it; there's no qualifying it. If we had a Continental coalition to morrow, we could not venture to say what America has just said. What Minister of Russia, or England, or Austria would say to the French Emperor, "We were thinking of something else when you slipped into Savoy and Nice the other day; now that our hands are free, you'll have to go back again." We are famous for brave words in our Foreign Office, but does any one expect that such a message as this will ever issue from Whitehall?

We would no more provoke the Tuileries by an insolent despatch than we would go into one of Van Amburgh's cages and kick the lion. It has become a sort of European superstition that France can beat every one, and I am downright

grateful to the Americans that they don't believe it.

I never knew I liked America so well till I began to speculate on this war. I never suspected that there really was that tie of kindred which journalists disparage by that false adulation they deal in. I hate all the cant of "cousinship," but call them our own bone and blood; speak of them as a people who have the same leading traits as ourselves

sturdy, determined, untiring, unyielding-taking their share of hard knocks to-day with a fixed resolve to repay them to-morrow; in a word, of that stuff that makes right trusty friends and very terrible enemies. Regard them in this light, and say, if a war should break out between them and France, what side you would like to back. I say, America. I'd lay my head on the issue; and if any gentleman is willing to bet an equivalent-say another crown-piece-I cry"Done," and wait the event.

JOBS AND JOBBERY.

I like a job. Yes, I declare the fact in all openness, I like a job; and my liking is all the more remarkable, for I never was a Whig. Without jobs public life would be a cold, heartless, soulless existence, for jobs are the courtesies of official life. I do not mean to assert that the world could not go on without jobs, any more than it could not dispense with all the forms of goodbreeding and politeness; but jobs are to the world of affairs what friction-rollers are to machinery. Jobs avert collisions, diminish gratings, and allay jars. The great man relies upon jobs as his trump cards. To the small official mind they only represent acts of indiscipline, and perhaps of indiscretion. When I say I like jobs, I mean I like them when they are fine large full-grown jobs. I despise small ones. They are contemptible to those who plan and those who

partake of them. I am now speaking solely of official jobbery, by which I mainly understand the appointing a man to an office which scores of others could do better, but which he can do quite well enough for the public service, while at the same time his promotion pleases his friends and gratifies his party. When the office is a high one, and when the man who fills it is a mediocrity, then do I exult indeed, because it is then that I feel the admirable working of that constitutional system we are all and so justly proud of. It is then that I see the perfection of the machinery that guides us, and look on the great mill of government as I have many times surveyed some monster piece of mechanism driven by all the force of steam, and yet ministered to by perhaps a child, and said to myself, Yes, this is the triumph of ingenuity-here is every

thing but actual vitality. Nothing is so inimical to jobbery as despotism. The despot is relentless on the score of those who serve him. With him the rule is capacity everywhere. Run over the names of the marshals of the First Empire, and you will see how Napoleon gauged and measured the men he wanted. Where he would cajole, he sent the slippery diplomatist; where he would strike terror, he despatched the reckless and unscrupulous soldier. You can perceive at once that his administration had no bowels, had not even a touch of human sentiment.

Now, I know of nothing in all constitutionalism which contrasts so favourably with despotic rule as the fact that jobs are possible and practicable to the one and totally denied to the other. What chiefly led me to the consideration of this subject was reading in some late newspaper a sort of comparative estimate of the two great parties which divide political opinion in England; in which, after some very fair and impartial remarks, the writer accords the palm of superiority to the Whigs on the ground of their great departmental knowledge their higher aptitude for official detail. If this be the case-and I am not in a position to give it a flat denial-I am disposed to attribute it to their marvellous appreciation of the job. Whiggery itself is indeed little else than jobbery en grand. It is the theory of official life on sufferancethe tenure of place, with only the power of promotion-the apparent right to steer the ship, but the practical privilege to live in the bread-room.

I know of nothing in which Conservatives show their inadequacy as a Government compared with their ignorance of the nature, force, and efficiency of the job. It is obvious enough that the men who aid a party to power are not essentially distinguished for the qualities which shine in official life, and yet

are these men to be thrown aside when the contested election is over and the candidate returned? Whiggery knows better. With a tact that only long training could confer, Whiggery understands how to mete out small capacities to small offices, and men of good blood to high employment.

The Tories are like men who want to match their wheelers, and get a particular style of horse to run with a certain leader, and who consequently spend their time in hurrying from one stable to the other; while the Whigs, with a scratch team-screws all of themare bowling along over the road, and making a fine journey of it.

Perhaps the length of time they have sat in the cold shade of Opposition may have disposed the Tories to an undue amount of scruple, and made them timorous of the job. If so, I declare that in this they show a great inaptitude for office. It may not be discreet to say it, but we all know what becomes of the candidate who declares he will not spend a shilling on his election.

The first element of a party is generosity. Now, there is nothing generous, nor magnanimous either, in sending the right man to the right place. You might as well assume to be lauded for the payment of your just debts.

Sending a blundering old General to command in India—a vainglorious, self-opinionated talker as Viceroy to Ireland, or a meddlesome Cretin to be Minister at an important Court,-these are fine and courageous and generous actions! It is a wonderful thing how long the capacity which, if exercised in the narrow limits of a profession, would have been discovered to be third or even fourth rate, may be employed in the great offices of State undetected, if not actually approved of. I know Plenipotentiaries without brains to be apothecaries, and I have seen men in charge of a tariff one would

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