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is obedience to orders。 A government thus supported; by keeping its Hungarian regiments in Italy and its Italian in Hungary; can long continue to rule in both places with the iron rod of foreign conquerors。   If it be said that so broadly marked a distinction between what is due to a fellow…countryman and what is due merely to a human creature is more worthy of savages than of civilised beings; and ought; with the utmost energy; to be contended against; no one holds that opinion more strongly than myself。 But this object; one of the worthiest to which human endeavour can be directed; can never; in the present state of civilisation; be promoted by keeping different nationalities of anything like equivalent strength under the same government。 In a barbarous state of society the case is sometimes different。 The government may then be interested in softening the antipathies of the races that peace may be preserved and the country more easily governed。 But when there are either free institutions or a desire for them; in any of the peoples artificially tied together; the interest of the government lies in an exactly opposite direction。 It is then interested in keeping up and envenoming their antipathies that they may be prevented from coalescing; and it may be enabled to use some of them as tools for the enslavement of others。 The Austrian Court has now for a whole generation made these tactics its principal means of government; with what fatal success; at the time of the Vienna insurrection and the Hungarian contest; the world knows too well。 Happily there are now signs that improvement is too far advanced to permit this policy to be any longer successful。   For the preceding reasons; it is in general a necessary condition of free institutions that the boundaries of governments should coincide in the main with those of nationalities。 But several considerations are liable to conflict in practice with this general principle。 In the first place; its application is often precluded by geographical hindrances。 There are parts even of Europe in which different nationalities are so locally intermingled that it is not practicable for them to be under separate governments。 The population of Hungary is composed of Magyars; Slovaks; Croats; Serbs; Roumans; and in some districts Germans; so mixed up as to be incapable of local separation; and there is no course open to them but to make a virtue of necessity; and reconcile themselves to living together under equal rights and laws。 Their community of servitude; which dates only from the destruction of Hungarian independence in 1849; seems to be ripening and disposing them for such an equal union。 The German colony of East Prussia is cut off from Germany by part of the ancient Poland; and being too weak to maintain separate independence; must; if geographical continuity is to be maintained; be either under a non…German government; or the intervening Polish territory must be under a German one。 Another considerable region in which the dominant element of the population is German; the provinces of Courland; Esthonia; and Livonia; is condemned by its local situation to form part of a Slavonian state。 In Eastern Germany itself there is a large Slavonic population: Bohemia is principally Slavonic; Silesia and other districts partially so。 The most united country in Europe; France; is far from being homogeneous: independently of the fragments of foreign nationalities at its remote extremities; it consists; as language and history prove; of two portions; one occupied almost exclusively by a Gallo…Roman population; while in the other the Frankish; Burgundian; and other Teutonic races form a considerable ingredient。   When proper allowance has been made for geographical exigencies; another more purely moral and social consideration offers itself。 Experience proves that it is possible for one nationality to merge and be absorbed in another: and when it was originally an inferior and more backward portion of the human race the absorption is greatly to its advantage。 Nobody can suppose that it is not more beneficial to a Breton; or a Basque of French Navarre; to be brought into the current of the ideas and feelings of a highly civilised and cultivated people… to be a member of the French nationality; admitted on equal terms to all the privileges of French citizenship; sharing the advantages of French protection; and the dignity and prestige of French power… than to sulk on his own rocks; the half…savage relic of past times; revolving in his own little mental orbit; without participation or interest in the general movement of the world。 The same remark applies to the Welshman or the Scottish Highlander as members of the British nation。   Whatever really tends to the admixture of nationalities; and the blending of their attributes and peculiarities in a common union; is a benefit to the human race。 Not by extinguishing types; of which; in these cases; sufficient examples are sure to remain; but by softening their extreme forms; and filling up the intervals between them。 The united people; like a crossed breed of animals (but in a still greater degree; because the influences in operation are moral as well as physical); inherits the special aptitudes and excellences of all its progenitors; protected by the admixture from being exaggerated into the neighbouring vices。 But to render this admixture possible; there must be peculiar conditions。 The combinations of circumstances which occur; and which effect the result; are various。   The nationalities brought together under the same government may be about equal in numbers and strength; or they may be very unequal。 If unequal; the least numerous of the two may either be the superior in civilisation; or the inferior。 Supposing it to be superior; it may either; through that superiority; be able to acquire ascendancy over the other; or it may be overcome by brute strength and reduced to subjection。 This last is a sheer mischief to the human race; and one which civilised humanity with one accord should rise in arms to prevent。 The absorption of Greece by Macedonia was one of the greatest misfortunes which ever happened to the world: that of any of the principal countries of Europe by Russia would be a similar one。   If the smaller nationality; supposed to be the more advanced in improvement; is able to overcome the greater; as the Macedonians; reinforced by the Greeks; did Asia; and the English India; there is often a gain to civilisation: but the conquerors and the conquered cannot in this case live together under the same free institutions。 The absorption of the conquerors in the less advanced people would be an evil: these; must be governed as subjects; and the state of things is either a benefit or a misfortune; according as the subjugated people have or have not reached the state in which it is an injury not to be under a free government; and according as the conquerors do or do not use their superiority in a manner calculated to fit the conquered for a higher stage of improvement。 This topic will be particularly treated of in a subsequent chapter。   When the nationality which succeeds in overpowering the other is both the most numerous and the most improved; and especially if the subdued nationality is small; and has no hope of reasserting its independence; then; if it is governed with any tolerable justice; and if the members of the more powerful nationality are not made odious by being invested with exclusive privileges; the smaller nationality is gradually reconciled to its position; and becomes amalgamated with the larger。 No Bas…Breton; nor even any Alsatian; has the smallest wish at the present day to be separated from France。 If all Irishmen have not yet arrived at the same disposition towards England; it is partly because they are sufficiently numerous to be capable of constituting a respectable nationality by themselves; but principally because; until of late years; they had been so atrociously governed; that all their best feelings combined with their bad ones in rousing bitter resentment against the Saxon rule。 This disgrace to England; and calamity to the whole empire; has; it may be truly said; completely ceased for nearly a generation。 No Irishman is now less free than an Anglo…Saxon; nor has a less share of every benefit either to his country or to his individual fortunes than if he were sprung from any other portion of the British dominions。 The only remaining real grievance of Ireland; that of the State Church; is one which half; or nearly half; the people of the larger island have in common with them。 There is now next to nothing; except the memory of the past; and the difference in the predominant religion; to keep apart two races; perhaps the most fitted of any two in the world to be the completing counterpart of one another。 The consciousness of being at last treated not only with equal justice but with equal consideration is making such rapid way in the Irish nation as to be wearing off all feelings that could make them insensible to the benefits which the less numerous and less wealthy people must necessarily derive from being fellow…citizens instead of foreigners to those who are not only their nearest neighbours; but the wealthiest; and one of the frees

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