Note 20 — LORD PALMERSTON. ON THE CASE OF DON PACIFICO: HOUSE OF COMMONS, JUNE 25, 1850. (continued 2)

Note 20, p. 211.—Lord Palmerston here deals, categorically and at some length, with England’s actions with respect to Switzerland. There had arisen in that country a serious dispute about the expulsion of the Jesuits. The minority, composing the seven Catholic cantons, in order to oppose this expulsion had organized itself into a Sonderbund, or Separate League, an association that the majority contended was in itself contrary to the Acts of Confederation. The friction was so intense between the factions that there seemed no exit but civil war. At this juncture Lord Palmerston wrote to the British Chargé d’Affaires in Switzerland a despatch, the substance of which he was to communicate to the Swiss authorities. In this despatch Lord Palmerston entreats the majority to use moderation against the Catholic cantons, pointing out that a forcible suppression of the Sonderbund will mean civil war, with the strong probability of foreign interference. And that, he says, would end in “essentially impairing the political independence of the country.” The Swiss Minister replied that civil war was deemed inevitable. Then came a proposal from Paris that the five Powers—England, France, Russia, Austria, and Prussia—should issue a joint declaration to put an end to civil war in Switzerland. The speaker shows, point by point, why England could not assent to this proposal. The main reason was that if the Swiss Government refused the conditions, it was to be compelled by force of arms. Coercion England would not agree to. Instead, she proposed that “the Jesuits should be withdrawn, either by an act of the Sonderbund cantons themselves or by a consent to be obtained from the Pope; that the Diet should then declare formally that it had no aggressive intention against the Sonderbund; and the Sonderbund, upon receiving this assurance, should dissolve their Separate League, which was at variance with the Federal Compact; that both parties should then disarm, and that peace should thus be permanently restored.”