THE FIGHTING FIFTIES

the healing gospel of Free Trade and the outward and visible
sign afforded by the Crystal Palace would surely convert them.
It was to their material advantage.

The weakness of the Englishman's attitude towards foreigners
was that he expected them to think and behave exactly like
himself. When, true to their own alien natures, they failed to
do so, he either Jaughed at their folly or—if their behaviour,
outraged his moral code, as it frequently did—became justly
indignant. And as, being a free-born Briton, he scorned to
conceal his laughter or disapproval, misunderstanding between
him and his continental neighbours was bound to arise.

The ruling principles of Britain's foreign policy were to
preserve the balance of European power, protect the Low
Countries and the Channel coasts, keep open her trade routes
and strategic communications, and establish the rule of righteous-
ness on earth. The last object—that of playing St. George to the
dragon of foreign tyrants—generally coincided with the first,
since any ambitious despot with a large army who threatened
to overthrow the balance of power inevitably trampled in doing
so on the liberties of his own subjects and weaker neighbours.
In repelling such threats to her own interests, Britain was thus
in the happy position of also fighting the battle of human free-
dom and morality. As her statesmen and people were always
quick to emphasise this point, she was less liked by large nations
than by small* And by making herself the unofficial patron of
every liberal or subversive movement abroad, as well as by her
generous policy of granting refuge to political exiles, she won
the sometimes embarrassing goodwill of foreign rebels but the
suspicion and resentment of their governments. This policy,
alike unaggressive and provocative, was pursued by both political
parties—the Whigs because they liked foreign Liberals on
principle and the Tories because it was a cheap way of escaping
the reproach of being reactionary.

During the long forty years of peace that followed the defeat
of Napoleon, the Channel shores were secured by the inter-
national neutralisation of the Low Countries—divided after 1830
into the small pacific kingdoms of Holland and Belgium—and
the temporary exhaustion of France. So long as the latter re-
mained quiescent, Britain's jealousy of despots was spasmodically
directed towards her three former allies of 1813-15—Russia,
Austria and Prussia, But these states, though governed by