FRANCE AND ENGLAND.
IT is safest when studying France to take short views. Events there are too dependent on popular emotions, and popular emotions are generated too suddenly to allow of reasonable calculation for any but the shortest periods. Taking that short view we should say on the whole that the Waldeck-Rousseau Government was safe for the year of the Exhibition. Paris, which expects great profits, will certainly do nothing to prevent their arrival, and though the hostile parties in the Chambers are eager to madness to obtain the reins before the Exhibition opens, so that they may share in the resulting popularity, there is no visible likelihood of their succeeding. Their noisier mouthpieces will no doubt attack the Cabinet, it may be for their anti-Clerical policy, it may be for their " sub- servience" to England, it may be for their proposal to form a separate Colonial Army, but the great body of members will be slow to risk the convulsion which might follow the overthrow of the Ministry or the resignation of 31. Loubet. Their best chance was after the pardon of Dreyfus, and they shrank from taking it even then. Though the present administration has many enemies, it is generally felt to be the only safe stop-gap which could easily be found. Property-holders feel secure under its regime, the great body of Radicals have some hopes in it owing to M. Waldeck-Rousseau's recent arbitration, and though the Clericals are embittered their influence, especially in Paris, is limited by many causes. The Deputies will allow, or even applaud, most insulting attacks upon individual Ministers, but when the division arrives they will hesitate and accept the Government order of the day by the heavy majorities which, in the French Chamber, mean that the hour of battle has not finally arrived. There remains the Army, which would prefer a different regime and might risk something to obtain one, but the difficulties which prevented the Army from acting during the Dreyfus case exist still. The soldiers must act together if they act at all, and they have no man in whom they all trust alike. They are not agreed on the Bourbons, or the Bonapartes, or any general of their own. A correspondent of the St. James's Gazette, who seems to possess information of a kind, says the generals have agreed to follow General Mercier, the bad hero of the Dreyfus drama, and that he has accepted Orleanism ; but the rank-and-file are certainly not Orleanists, and the jealousy of an equal who has not won a battle never quits the French Army chiefs. We doubt the Army moving at the summons of General Mercier, though his election to the Senate showed that he possesses a certain degree of popularity, and failing the Army there is no motive power which can commence a movement against the organised strength of the central Administration. Of course President Loubet or General de Galliffet may die, or fall sick unto death, but apart from accident of that sort the present Government must be taken, in the absence of an alternative, to be fairly safe. After the Exhibition it may be flung to the wolves, for it has offended many, but " After the Exhibition " is in France a hundred years hence,—an unknown future. To-day it governs, and in spite of the still inexplicable Guerin incident, governs with a certain decision and steadiness ; never, for example, explaining away its proceedings or suffering debate when convinced that its policy is silence. It conciliates the Radicals no doubt by anti-Clerical concessions, but the Church has so clearly allied itself with its enemies that it probably does not increase by that the chances of its fall.
If this view of the situation is correct it should be accept- able to our countrymen. Any Government which should succeed the Republic is certain to declare war on some- body, while the Republic has no interest in war for itself. If her armies were defeated the Constitution would be over- thrown, as in 1871, while if her soldiers were triumphant the chief who led them to victory, would be at once acclaimed as Dictator or Sovereign. That being the prospect the Republicans will hardly, unless carried away by a wave of popular passion, engage on so uncertain an enterprise as a war with Great Britain. Grant that they dislike us heartily, and would willingly gain a great success at our ex- pense, they are still sensible men, and must see clearly that a war with us must be risky, must involve great losses, and must leave them during its whole duration at the mercy of Germany. They must strike us either directly by invasion, or in Egypt, and to begin to succeed in either operation they must clear the seas, which they probably believe, even more strongly than we do, to be beyond their power. Else why are they voting such heavy sums for the gradual increase of a fleet already competent to deal with any other State ? Even their journalists are aware of this, and perpetually call on Russia in the interests of Europe—that is, with a Frenchman, of France—to threaten India, and so prove to " the Colossus " that he has a vulnerable heel. There is a sensible side to the French mind, and we believe that with the Republicans it will prevail, and that for the present the Government of France will remain coldly friendly, asking certain things it may be, but asking nothing that it is impossible to grant. A hint, for example, about extensions in Morocco might be received in London with placidity, while a demand for the evacuation of Egypt, such as the Royalist organs are constantly putting forward, would be a declaration of war. That such calmness will overthrow the present Cabinet we do not anticipate. There is a Chauvinist party in France, and many men who do not belong to it are pleased to be counted in its ranks, but that France as a whole desires a war without visible profit, or the glory of land-battles, we are unable to believe. At all events, she does not desire it until she has pocketed the fifty or sixty millions which the Exhibition is to bring, and has made prepara- tions which cannot be completed in many weeks.
Besides these considerations there are others which would check even French Chauvinists if war were really in prospect. One, and a very serious one in France, is the financial risk. That affected even America during the Venezuela dispute ; and Frenchmen are far more solicitous about property than Americans ever were. The Debt cannot be rolled up for ever, and the peasantry are by no means eager to pay more taxes. Another is that French statesmen are by no means sure of the issue of the South African war. The French journalists are, and exult daily in the tale of British misfortunes ; but grave Frenchmen remember how the Indian Mutiny began, and what followed the Crimean disasters, and would prefer to wait till the end is a little nearer. Great Britain may be defeated, nay, it is French belief as well as desire that she will be, but she also may emerge victorious with her armies reinvigorated and her hands fuller than ever of the materials of war. In that event it might be better to wait an opportunity. And the third is the evident desire in Great Britain to strengthen the military resources of the kingdom. The enthusiastic adhesion of the free Colonies, which adds 20 per cent. to the fighting force of the Empire had already startled the Continent, and now they hear lead- ing politicians in Great Britain discussing increases to be made in the defensive forces by hundreds of thousands at once. One serious threat from a Continental Power, and half a million of men like those who fought at Magers- fontein would be under arms. The graver men among our enemies do not like that prospect at all, and if they are Frenchmen like it least of any. A Britain really armed would be a huge fortress lying on the flank of France, and able to intervene in any quarrel in which France might be engaged with decisive effect. The French Foreign Office would much rather that did not happen, and for this, as well as other reasons, will, we believe, for the present wait quietly upon events, display- ing no friendship, but avoiding menace. It is not the French Ministers who are proclaiming that now is the time to emancipate Egypt, to annex Siam, and to avenge Fashoda. That, at least, seems to us the tone of the French Ministry which, unless the unexpected happens, will retain power for the next few months, and will welcome any one who has cash to spend as an honoured and welcome guest.
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