TOPICS OF THE DAY.
KING EDWARD IN FRANCE.
THE visit of King Er ward to Paris, which is considered on the Continent a most important event, and which, history being considered, is certainly a picturesque one, can, we think, be productive only of good. It will, to begin with, help greatly to soothe away a notion which statesmen in both countries have found occasionally very inconvenient. An idea is prevalent in France—sedulously encouraged by the Nationalists, whose motto is that of our own old Jacobites, " Box it about—it will come to my father," or, in other words, that any disturbance benefits the cause of Monarchy—that the British Government and the British people are specially inimical to France. For that idea there is absolutely no foundation. The British Govern- ment have, it is true, a wide Empire to protect, and are compelled, therefore, every now and then to resist some French project of ambition which threatens, or seems to threaten, vital British interests. We should not have conquered Upper Burmah if the owners of Indo-China had not begun to cast such longing eyes upon that kingdom, and therefore to threaten India upon her weakest frontier; and we should not have risked war for Fashoda if we had not suspected a design to make our tenure of Egypt expensive or impossible. We have, however, but few points of contact with France; upon those few the mind of the Government is made up, and therefore tranquil, and whenever those points are not threatened the official feeling towards France is one of entire friendliness and sympathy. There is no jealousy of her revived strength, no secret dislike for her expansion. If she acquires Madagascar, well, a French Madagascar will not threaten South Africa as a German one would; if she wants to expand westward in North Africa, even to the Atlantic, there is no objection felt here provided Tangier remains neutral or in weak hands. As for the British people, they are even more friendly than the Government. The feeling that France is our "natural enemy," which for nearly five hundred years domi- nated our policy, has utterly died away. Not only do Englishmen not think it a duty to hate French- men, as, for example, Nelson did, but they have ceased to ridicule them. The old nicknames have gone out of use, are, indeed, no longer intelligible, and the man who spoke of Frenchmen as a nation of cooks and dancing-masters would be considered even in a taproom an abusive ignoramus. The people recognise the business capacity of their neighbours without, therefore, suspecting them of an intention to steal away British trade. So little suspicious are they that even the alliance of France with Russia has failed to reawaken the old hostility, and the visit of the King to Paris has not aroused a single word of hostile criticism. There is no wish for an alliance with France, or, indeed, with any Power, the people, like the diplomatists, greatly preferring an entente cordiale to any written agreement; but if such an alliance were proposed they would judge it on its merits as a business transaction, and would not expect if it were concluded to be cheated of any promised advantages. Britain, in fact, is friendly to France as her nearest neighbour. She would fight her hard if a lawsuit were to arise about boundaries ; but she would fight in defence of her property, and not out of any malignity or wish to inflict an injury upon a permanent rival.
The visit, again, will tend to remove a source of offence which often escapes attention. All Frenchmen have been taught for generations to believe that Englishmen are at heart monarchical, aristocratic, and contemptuous of all institutions but their own. Even statesmen are influenced by this preconception, and are difficult to convince that Englishmen, and especially the ruling class, do not regard Republicans as inferior beings because of their Republicanism. They consequently expect slights, and see them where none are intended. French- men are all sensitive; this expectation of slight is the social foible of " plain men," and the Republic is governed for the most part by "plain men" who have risen. But in reality there is no feeling of this kind here, the idea. of the British Sovereign and Court being that any method of government is good provided it obeys certain conditions, while that of the people is that Constitutional Monarchy is best, but as none but the English can manage that extraordinary compromise, Republicanism is the next best, and, moreover, for free men the only practical alterna- tive. Many Englishmen distrust the future of the French Republic as unsuited to the genius of a Southern people; but the majority wish it to succeed, and would regard any slight passed upon it as a foolish display of an extinct prejudice. No Monarch in Europe will have a better reception than M. Loubet will receive if he comes to us in the autumn, as we most strongly hope he may, and no reception will be more marked by the hearty cordiality of the masses of the people, who, we may add, have always distrusted the Bourbons, and who thought Napoleon III. a friend to be trusted only when it was his unmistakable interest to be trustworthy. King Edward's visit and its cordial approval by the country, taken together, will, we believe, dissipate a delusion which no Frenchman would acknowledge in words, but which has serious influence on his opinions, and therefore on his judgment of his ruler's acts. Let no man say that this is a trifle. Half France thought Napoleon recrowned when Queen Victoria kissed him, and the main source of the American dislike of Britain, now at last disappearing, was the belief that all Englishmen still looked down on them as " only Colonials." English pride is not sensitive— it is too deep-seated for that—but the pride of Frenchmen is. King Edward is precisely the man to understand it, and to respect it, and this not from policy, which would be at once seen through, but from instinctive courtesy and kindliness of heart.
The last, perhaps the best, effect of the King's visit will be a political one. It will weaken, if not remove, an im- pression universal on the Continent, and influential even here, that the British Government, and especially the King, are in some way committed to an " understanding " with the German Emperor. That impression, however, cannot remain so strong when it is seen that King Edward, after calling upon a member of the Triple Alliance, calls also with the same honorific intent upon a leading member of the other group. His Majesty must at least be free from any obligation to either side, or he would have avoided such an exhibition of friendly regard for either. It cannot, the world will say, all be courtesy, for though courtesy binds a Monarch to see the Sovereign upon whose dominions he enters, nothing bound the King to enter either Italy or France. He can have visited either only as a friend to both, unconcerned, for the time at any rate, with their relations to each other. That freedom from entangle- ments is precisely what our people desire to see in their Sovereign, and the proof of it afforded by this visit will be cordially welcomed by all classes, and not least by those who, in the teeth of much evidence, persistently denied that such entanglements could exist. It will be welcomed equally on the Continent, for there is nothing which per- plexes and irritates Foreign Offices so much as an impres- sion that they are dealing with a Power much of whose force is hidden from their ken, with a syndicate, in fact, instead of an individual. William II. is in the eyes of every Continental State a very great person, but William II. if possessed of the power of calling up Great Britain at will would be almost too great for human endurance. It is far better that Great Britain should remain friendly to all while standing aloof from all, and the friendliness and the aloofness have both been clearly manifested in the incidents of the King's tour. Rome and Paris alike feel that they may welcome him as one uncommitted to their possible foes.
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