SELF-COMPENSATING PERILS.
IS the danger greater or less than it was when Mr. Cleve- land first launched his thunderbolt a month ago ? We should say that it was distinctly less, and that for the very curious reason that so many fresh causes of public danger have since appeared, and after some strange fashion, have seemed to neutralise each other. We have all been saying for some years back that the great number of mighty arma- ments has tended rather to prevent than to cause a great explosion, that, in fact, it is harder to spill an absolutely full bottle than a bottle not quite so full. And we are in- clined to think that the same may be true of an overcharged atmosphere of storm. The great number of quarrels which seem to bode ruin to the nations of the earth, warn us all of the awful anarchy which may follow the breaking out of strife, and so restrain rather than precipitate the great crisis. A month ago everybody was saying that the United States were full of red-hot passions, and that we could hardly avoid accepting their unprovoked and offensive challenge. But even then the imminence of anarchy in the East held us back, and the desire to keep ready for the break up of the Turkish Empire, rendered us more and more reluctant to tie our hands by a useless and unnecessary war between England and the United States. But then a new source of danger suddenly appeared, and instead of bringing on a conflict, rather tended in both the hemispheres to self-restraint and peace. There came the little premature explosion in the Transvaal, and the threatening message from the German Emperor to Presi- dent Kruger, which seemed to multiply the inflammable material till an explosion was all but inevitable. But again the very imminence of the danger became almost a new security for peace. The bellicose American thinkers, instead of exulting in the new chance of overwhelming England. were more or less aghast at the increasing peril. It was all very well for them to chastise the over-arrogant kinsmen at home, they seemed to say ; but to hear a little German bantam-cock crowing in exactly the same strain, was rather more than they bargained for. Is not " blood thicker than water " ? Might it not be desirable to find some way out of the quarrel, and to postpone the tussle till there was less danger of impertinent intervention from this alien quarter? So far as we can judge, the irritability in the United States distinctly lessened asthe new peril loomed larger. Certainly at home the resentment with the warlike Yankees softened as resentment with the impatient German Sovereign grew. People said, Let us find a mediator with the United States, and keep our Navy free to make Germany feel the risk she is so insolently running. After all, those fine quarrelsome fellows across the Atlantic are our own children, and we are more than half proud of their pluck. Let us make it up with them, and let the Germans have it if they are so eager for it.' But then, as the danger of a separate quarrel with Germany grew, the fancy of the Germans for trying the issue off their own bat diminished. They argued that if they were to plunge into this great mael- strom, there might be some very dangerous and un- tested eddies at work that would carry them away. They would need the aid of France, and France would hardly be likely to give them that aid, except at a price that would shear them of all their newly gained glories. Would not the only bribe that France would be likely to accept be the lost provinces ? And would not it be rather short-sighted to risk them for any speculative gain in distant Colonies,—Colonies for the safe grasp of which they might not be prepared. Therefore, eager as the Germans were to pour forth their indignation against us for the richness and prosperity of our Colonies, while the overspill of the teeming German population has to pour itself into alien States like the great American Republic, or Argentina in the South, they began to hesitate as they came to realise that by crowing too soon they might be endangering their hold of those very sweet little fragments of France which they had snapped up nearly a generation ago, and had not yet quite sufficiently devoured and digested.
Even in the very limited compass of the Transvaal quarrel itself, there has been something of the same cross-beating of the waves and currents. Mr. Chamber- lain's prompt and decided action made it clear even to President Kruger's crafty eyes that he might very easily go farther and fare worse. He was flattered, of course, by the very opportune diversion in his favour which the German Emperor's message seemed to create. But when his " reins in the night season" summoned him to meditate on the advantages and disadvantages of welcoming that intervention, it is evident that he felt its perils more keenly than its benefits. He made haste to agree with his adversary quickly while ho was in the way with him, handed over his prisoners to the High Commissioner at the Cape, and replied politely, but with extreme cantion, to the Imperial tender of felicitation and help. He was not at all disposed to exchange so moderate and easygoing a suzerain as Queen Victoria for the master of so many legions as the Emperor William, especially perhaps when he considered the despotic bias which that eager monarch has lately exhibited towards the talkative Socialists of his own land. The shrewd and hesitating spirit which has lately possessed almost all the European Powers, when they have counted up the hopes and the fears that a great explosion might bring to maturity, certainly showed itself in the policy of the cool old Dutch burgher when ho counted the fairy gold which the brilliant and august young Emperor was offering to pour into his lap, and balanced it against the solid metal of British gold which purchases so much, and is so certain not to vanish away under your very eyes.
On the whole, we think we may safely conclude that even as troubles thicken, they do not thicken without to some extent neutralising each other. We are not out of the wood by any means. But we are disposed to think that every fresh complication has rather attenuated some of the worst dangers of previous complications, while it may have increased others. We have plenty of anxieties upon us ; but after all the thickening of the plot has not added to the danger, even if it has not very sensibly decreased it. The substantial reality of our naval power is counting for more and more every day ; while the dangers which threaten us, even if they do not grow more shadowy, at least show more tendency to counteract each other. Mr. Goschen's flotilla for Delagoa Bay produces its impression even on those who have been so lavish of their unfriendly messages. And who can say that the unfriendly messages have worked as powerfully as they were intended to work ? Nor has the thickening of the plot been quite without its wholesome influence on ourselves. We have certainly cooled down in relation to challenges which at first roused in us too much ire; and we even venture to hope that our acute anxieties for ourselves have rather quickened than reduced those anxieties for others which show themselves by pressing on our Foreign Minister the duty of seizing, even if far too tardily, any opportunity of putting an end to the anarchy in the nearer East, and arresting the ex- termination or the violent conversion to Mahommedanism of a wretched and betrayed people.
Previous page
