This insistence upon the paramount importance of domestic policy led the Manchester men into an exaggerated contempt for foreign policy. Their patriotism was not wanting in sturdiness, but it was of that noble and rare variety which is not afraid to rebuke national insolence and oppression. Their opposition to the Crimean War and the support which most of them gave to the North during the American Civil War are among the best things which the School ever did for England. Bright spoke of "the high example of a Christian nation, free in its institutions, courteous and just in its conduct towards all foreign States, and resting its policy on the unchangeable foundation of Christian morality.... I believe there is no permanent greatness to a nation except it is based upon morality.... The moral law was not written for men alone in their individual character, but that it was written as well for nations."[240] The patriotism of a man like this may have been mistaken, but it was never mean. The title of a "Peace at any price man" was never deserved by any member of the School. It opposed only the aggressive and risky policy, which in Palmerston's day passed for the maintenance of national dignity and influence, and wasted the wealth of the people in quarrels with which they had no real {195} concern. "The middle and industrious class of England can have no interest apart from the preservation of peace. The honour, the fame, the emoluments of war belong not to them; the battle-plain is the harvest-field of the aristocracy, watered with the blood of the people.... It is only when at peace with other States that a nation finds the leisure for looking within itself, and discovering the means to accomplish great domestic ameliorations."[241] So they suspected British rule in India, partly because it involved wars, partly because its temper reacted upon free government at home. So they maintained that England should never interfere in the quarrels of other peoples. The Balance of Power was to them a mere phrase, and unless the interests of England were directly involved, the Government had no right to inflict upon her common people the miseries even of a successful war. If Russia abused the Poles, or invaded Hungary to reduce it into the power of Austria, that was their affair, and not ours. "We are no more called upon," said Cobden, "to wrest the attribute of vengeance from the Deity, and deal it forth upon the Northern aggressor, than we are to preserve the peace and good behaviour of Mexico, or to chastise the wickedness of the Ashantees."[242] "It is not our duty," said Bright, "to make this country the knight-errant of the human race."[243] This was a rule of good sense. The breach of it was not only costly, but a bad precedent. "If you claim the right of intervention in your Government you must tolerate it in other nations also.... I say, if you want to benefit nations struggling for their freedom, establish as one of the