Kossuth and Intervention [pp. 221-234]

232 Kossuth and i)~tervention. [July,
some faction, or people, or power, or claim, with the never
varying result-the advancement of her own dominions.
The working of the system is strikingly exhibited in the
fate of Sicily and Spain. To protect the peoples of th~se
countries from the attacks of Carthage, or rather, to defend a faction of the people in each state, favourable to
Rome, against another faction, hostile to her influence,
the Roman republic was always ready to take an active
intermeddling part. Nothing could exceed the generous
promptness with which she interposed in these domestic
conflicts among the peoples of Sicily and Spain. ller
consuls and armies were always ready, and she never
ceased to lend material aid to the peoples, until they had
all become provinces of the Roman republic. The progress of Lngland, in India, furnishes another illustration
of the true meaning of the doctrine of intervention. She
has carried on no war professedly for conquest-far from
it. She has been forced, by the necessary tendencies of
the principle of intervention, to interpose, for the benefit of
the disputing partie~, in the contentions of provinces or
principalities, and Begums and Rajahs in endless succession have begun with receiving material aid, and ended
with becoming subjects to the beneficent company. It
matters little whether the cause for interference be supplied by the dissentions of a people or of its rulers, the
result is the same. The tree always produces the same
fruit. If cases exist of supposed exception to what is
affirmed to be the rule, it will be found, on examination,
that the variation arises from want of power only, in the
intervening party, to carry out the legitimate consequences
of its system, and not fi~om the want of disposition to do
so. Nothing but the lack of power and opportunity has
prevented the extension of the blessings of intervention
from India to China. Some future period will see the
advantages of this grand political maxim, in its successful
application to the politics of the Celestial Lmpire and the
Islands of Japan. The peoples of those countries will
become divided, their factions will seek material aid fiom
the outside barbarians, the Anglo-Saxon will be ready, at
the proper time, to confer on their bronzed brethren the
benefits of the great principle-the solidarity of the peoples-and Canton and Jeddo will become what Calcutta
and Delhi now are, examples and evidences of the genuine