Fifty Years of British Foreign Policy

DURING the last fifty years Great Britain has passed from a foreign policy of non-intervention to the position of protagonist in the greatest war ever waged.When Palmerston was dismissed in 1851, the Queen requested his successor, Lord Granville, to state the principles which he thought should control the foreign policy of this country.In Granville's memorandum we can discover the aims of Liberal statesmen when freed from the personality of Lord Palmerston, a position of affairs not, however, attained until his death in 1865.It dwells on the duty of Great Britain to encourage progress.She should show justice, moderation, and self-respect in enforcing her views, but as a trading nation she must protect the just pursuits of her subjects and obtain a security necessary to commercial success.Non-intervention was to be the watchword as far as the internal affairs of other nations were concerned, but that did not mean that there should be no more diplomacy.On the contrary, the memorandum shows the need for a highly-trained Foreign Office in the interests of international peace and well-being; for cases might occur in which the honour and good faith of Great Britain would require it to support its allies with "more than friendly assurances,'' though, as the Prime Minister had already told the Queen, it wag "not the policy of this country to make engagements except in B view of the circumstances of the moment."Events moved rapidly on the Continent after Palmerston's death.Prussia defeated Austria and drove her out of the Germanic Confaderation.Then Prussia turned round, and, with the help of the other German States, defeated the French, and established a German Empire, with the IGng of Prussia at its head.The disasters which the French experienced caused the downifall of the French Empire and %he setting up of the, Republic.During this period England pursued the line of strict neutrality.The fact is that, with the development of European States which had taken place since 1815, it had become impossible for England or for any other Power to act alone, and the question for solution was whether it was better for England to withdraw NO. ~-V O L

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