TOPICS OF THE DAY
SIR HERBERT KITCHENER AT FASHODA.
SIR HERBERT KITCHENER—Lord Kitchener of Khartoum, as we hope he will be—has displayed great judgment and discretion at Fashoda. He found there a French explorer, Major Marchand, with a hundred or so Senegalese soldiers as his guard, who had raised the French flag, and claimed, as first occupant, to hold, on behalf of France, the post which commands the Nile. Sir Herbert Kitchener explained to him that the territory was Egyptian, that the British Government had pledged itself to recover the Soudanese provinces of Egypt, that in pur- suance of that design it had just destroyed the Dervish Army, and that consequently any French claim to a post on the main stream of the Nile was inadmissible. Major Marchand. was, therefore, requested to retire. Major Marchand refused until he had received orders from his own Government, and the Sirdar had to decide whether he would arrest him, or take possession of Fashoda and leave him planted there under his own flag to await in- structions from Paris. He chose the wiser, indeed the only wise, course,—raised the British and Egyptian flags, garrisoned Fashoda and Sobat, a place still further south, with a force before which Major Marchand is powerless, announced to the people that they must take only Egyptian orders, and returned to Cairo, leaving his " adversary," if he is an adversary, in a position which, but that we honour his gallantry and coolness, we should term slightly ridiculous. The matter is to be a subject of negotiation.
The fire-eating party among us are rather angry that Sir- Herbert Kitchener should not have arrested Major Marchand at once, firing, of course, upon his Senegalese, who would have defended him ; but there is little reason for their annoyance. If Lord Salisbury gives way, that is another matter, but Sir Herbert Kitchener, who had, it is nearly certain, a free hand, was clearly right in not per- plexing the British Foreign Office by an act of useless violence which would have put the French Foreign Office in an impossible dilemma. That Office has to consult the highly aroused susceptibility of a most sensitive people. It is to the last degree advisable that this grand "sharing of the world" which is now going on, and arousing such acute jealousies and morbid fears, should be left to the grave statesmen who are responsible for their action to their peoples and to history. We do not want either the chassepots or the Martinis to go off of them- selves, still less to see quarrels which concern the whole future of mankind brought to a head by mobs or journalists in search of a sensation. When war or peace is in question let the rulers decide, not the subordinates. Major Marchand did not fire upon us, he was technically in the right in awaiting instructions, and to have shot down his followers because he practically asked for a delay by which he could not profit to make his position good, would have been a high-handed act of violence. The reference to London and Paris does not imply that London is to give way, but only that London is to decide and not Fashoda. That the decision can only, as we believe, go one way, makes no manner of difference. Lord Salisbury and his Cabinet have not risked thousands of British lives and that British prestige which is the unbought defence of millions of Asiatics and Africans merely to gratify a whim, or to earn a little " glory." They are pursuing a well-considered and steady policy, which requires that Egyptian authority, and British control of that authority, should be supreme upon the main stream of the Nile from the Mediterranean to the Lakes. If any Power, great or small, from France or Germany down to Abyssinia, interferes by force with that policy, it must be compelled to desist, if necessary by war. That decision, we believe, is final, is accepted by Lord Salisbury, by his Cabinet, and by the Queen, whom we name, rather in defiance of etiquette, for the following reason. One of the embarrassments of the Ministry is a belief, widely entertained on the Continent, that the Queen at her great age, satiated with dominion and world-wide repute, forbids any war or action tending to war during the remainder of her reign. The belief is absurd, the Queen now as ever accepting advice, and manifesting, moreover, the keenest and most personal interest in the pro- gress of her arms upon the Nile—a fact sufficiently shown, in her beautifully courteous message to the Sirdar about the momentary delay in granting his honours—but it has- an effect upon some foreign statesmen which is little less than pernicious. They may, we believe, rely upon it that- all the sources of authority in this country, including Sovereign, Parliament, and people, are united upon this. subject, and that no one will be allowed to interfere with' British progress up the Nile towards the Lakes. It is not• necessary, however, to signify that decision with a bludgeon,. to depart from those forms of diplomacy which protect States more than they know, or to refuse requests which the French may have to proffer, merely because they are- French requests. The French too often have pursued. of late years in Africa what can only be justly described as a policy of spite or of chagrin ; but it is not for the- British Government to imitate that error. The British, have nothing to be chagrined about, and their defect is not spite, but an occasional inability to recognise that the amour propre of all Continentals is the amour propre of soldiers rather than that of cool business men. Irrespon- sible speakers and writers sometimes threaten in a direct way which a people of soldiers, or, at all events, training in soldiership, misinterpret into an intended challenge. We -want the main stream of the Nile, we have a clear right to it, and we must enforce our right. That right does not spring, as some of our contemporaries appear to- think, from Sir Edward Grey's speech affirming that for any other Power to establish itself on the Nile would be- an " unfriendly " act, for that was only a definite warning, but from principles acknowledged by all diplomatists. If old dominion is the basis of the right to rule, Egypt is in recovering provinces never ceded by her to any Power. If new dominion is the basis, we have conquered the Khalifa, within whose unrightful territory Fashoda. was included ; and if "active occupation" is the basis, there is no occupation so active as that of a victorious: army. Fashoda, therefore, must be ours, as trustees for Egypt, without any compromise ; but in acknowledging- the justice of that view the French will allay so many suspicions that any reasonable subsequent request of theirs would be heard with benevolent consideration. As we said last week, we do not know why their claim to- trading stations on the Blue Nile should be denied, or why, if their agents are still anxious about dubious• territory in West Africa, we should not listen as we should to other allies. The one thing the concession of which we cannot even discuss is the sovereignty of the main stream of the Nile, upon which Egypt depends, and for which we have on behalf of Egypt within a month_ fought a pitched battle the seriousness of which the whole Continent has acknowledged. That sovereignty must belong to Cairo, and to us as the protecting Power ; but, that acknowledged, we see no objection to the "negotia- tions " which the French papers demand, and which give time for supersensitive Governments to reconsider them- selves, and to persuade their indiscreet champions that they do not know all the facts. Every Foreign Secretary must consider the position of the Government with which he is discussing; and if ever a Government was tempted into acting as if it were " all naked feeling and raw life," it is the existing Government of France, in which there is- not a Minister who every morning has not occasion to say, as Abraham Lincoln once said when driven frantic by newspaper abuse, " Is thy servant a dog, that he should. do this thing ? "
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