rllhi ISOLATION OF FRANCE.
QIGNOR cRispr s singularly severe snub to the 1.3 French Government, delivered just before his visit to Prince Bismarck, certainly looks like a deliberate attempt to make France feel her isolation in Europe ; and though it is no omen of immediate war, it appears to portend the direction from which the approach of war next year is to be feared. Of course we must recollect that Signor Crispi nourishes in his heart a bitter grudge against the country which inflicted on the Garibaldians the crushing defeat of Mentana ; nor will he have forgotten that it was not only the late Emperor of the French, but a considerable number of French Republicans, who exulted in that crushing blow, to the revolutionary party's hopes. But a grudge of that kind would certainly not have led to this studied display of scorn for France, had there not been another Power behind Italy at least as anxious as Italy to wound France, and ready to bear the brunt of the anger which the wound might produce. It looks very much as if Germany, now confident in her ability to keep Russia quiet, were desirous at the very least to humiliate France, if not to provoke her into some rash mood of retaliation, and as if Germany felt that it would be far easier to accomplish this through the mediation of Italy, than in any other more direct way. M. Goblet's Note was certainly not very com- plaisant in tone, but that it should elicit so scornful a reply as Signor Crispi's, and that the publication of that reply should be followed up without the loss of a day by the Italian Prime Minister's journey to Friedrichsruh, where Prince Bismarck's reception of him was as significantly cordial as the Note had been scornful, is hardly explicable except upon the theory that Prince Bismarck knew and approved beforehand of Signor Crispi's intention, and that his reception at Friedrichsruh was part of the programme. It is not every day that a powerful State like France is accused by a Power which is greatly its inferior in physical force, of exciting "a peaceful population to disregard the law and to defy the authority of the established Government," or that such an accusation is immediately succeeded by a display on the part of one of the greatest Powers in Europe of an ostentatious friend- liness to the accuser. Moreover, it is impossible not to connect this diplomatic by-play with the young German Emperor's extraordinarily exaggerated and entirely un- necessary declaration that before giving up a single stone of the recent German acquisitions, the forty-two millions of the German people and the two millions of her national Army should be left on the field. Such a statement is too violent in tone to be businesslike, and sounds wilfully melo- dramatic. And as there had been no threat from France to which it was an answer, it is impossible not to find in it a deliberately provocative element, and equally impossible to separate that provocative boast from the sarcastic tone in which Signor Crispi proposes to wind up a discussion that he regards as "closed." It is worth notice that Signor Crispi's Note is dated August 13th, and that the German Emperor's speech in unveiling the statue to the Red Prince was delivered on August 16th, when Prince Bismarck was already, no doubt, fully aware of the tone taken in Signor Crispi's Note. One can hardly doubt that the German Emperor calculated his words so as to show that if the provocation came from Italy, the danger to be in- curred in resenting it would proceed from a still more formidable State.
We cannot say that we see the isolation of France with any satisfaction. The French Republic has, indeed, done nothing of late years to earn respect. Its policy has been narrow and irritating,—more irritating, perhaps, till within the last two or three months, towards England than towards any other Power. The French till then did all they could to thwart our policy in Egypt, and to vex us and our Dependencies in the Pacific. It was not till they began to see that they were isolating themselves, and that in leaning upon Russia they might be leaning on a very dubious ally, that they at all mended their attitude towards us ; nor has the general tone of the French domestic policy been such as to excite respect. None the less France is a great State which cannot be driven to bay by the sense of the hostility of all the surrounding Governments of Europe, without the most unfortunate consequences. It was this sense of being shut out from. Europe which led the representatives of France at the end of the last century into a great many of their worst acta, and we do not think that the consciousness of a similar ostracism is at all likely to improve the French Govern- ment of the present day.
If Italy should really be made the means of provoking France into a war, it must be, we suppose, with the notion of repeating the conquest of 1870, and following it up by even stronger measures, such as the partitioning of France. We cannot believe that any good would come out of such a war, and still less out of such a partitioning ; and yet we do not see what purpose there could be in the provocation of such a war, unless it were intended to follow it up by the dismemberment of France. Now, as the rending away of Alsace-Lorraine has certainly not made France at all less restless, we believe that any further development of the same policy, with even less excuse, would increase instead of attenuating the evil. Little as. we admire the recent Parliaments and Gkwernments of• France, fully as we recognise that France has had no strong Minister since Gambetta's death except M. Jules Ferry, and that his policy was generally as bad as it was strong, we see no prospect of any sort of remedy in fresh badgerings of France from outside. We greatly fear that the only consequence of these badgerings will be first to increase the excitability and suspiciousness of the French people, and then, perhaps, to inflame their passions. In neither result is there any tendency to implant that political self- control and sober judgment which the French people so greatly need, and which the leading men in France seem at present quite unable to supply. But the more France is let alone,—the more she is made to feel that though she will not be allowed to dictate to the other Western Powers, she will be left mistress of her own destinies, unless she voluntarily embarks in a war of revenge,—the more chance there is that at last she will settle down into some groove of unaggressive development. At all events, in the opposite policy, the policy of bullying and frightening her and making her feel that she is alone in Europe unless she can lure back the Czar to her aid, there is no hope, apart from the intrinsic unreasonableness and injustice of that policy. While we rejoice to see Italy declining to be dictated to by France, and calmly ignoring her unreasonable interference, we have no satisfaction in observing the eagerness of Signor Crispi to assume a provo- cative attitude, and the evident approbation which that pro- vocative attitude inspires in the bosom of Prince Bismarck..
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