TOPICS OF THE DAY.
M. DE FREYCINET UPON EGYPT.
WE distrust M. de Freycinet. He talks civilly enough in the Chamber, but there is every reason to believe that he talks in order to conceal part of his policy, which is essentially aggressive, both from Europe and from his own people. If there is any truth—and there is much—in the reports of the speech made by the Emperor William at the reception of Deputies early in the week, the German Court is seriously alarmed at the preparations which General Boulanger has been making to be in readiness for a possible campaign, and intends to lay an account of them in confidence before the Committee on the Military Septennate. The French Government has
resolved to open the great salt-water lake near Tunis, which is connected with the sea by a wide channel, only five miles long, and which, when that channel is deepened, will be the most magnificent land-locked harbour in the world, dominating the Mediterranean against any Power unable
to seal it up in war-time. It is on the face of daily intelligence that the French Foreign Office is using the Treaty with Madagascar to establish a formal protectorate of the island so complete and searching, that a bank cannot be established in the capital without the previous consent of Paris ; and the British Government is well aware, on indubitable evidence, that, in spite of speeches, promises, and Parliamentary votes, Gambetta's great project of estab- lishing an Indo-Chinese Empire rivalling and threatening the British Empire in India, has not been given up. There are far-reaching plans already fully formed, and awaiting only the hour when Britain becomes either ambitious or weak. It is with these projects in his mind, and irritated by what he thinks, often mistakenly, British jealousy, and with a further idea that all opposition to England strengthens French favour at Gatschina, that M. de Freycinet presses requests which he knows cannot be granted about Egypt. He desires to embarrass Lord Salis- bury's Government until, in despair of other relief, they leave him a free hand in Madagascar, Indo-China, and Constanti- nople, and enable him to pose as the Minister who has achieved great things for France without actual war. He does not even hope that his demands will be granted. He knows quite well that England cannot evacuate Egypt until a stronger native Government has been formed, or until there is con- fidence in Egyptian finance ; he knows that she will not retreat at the order of any Power, except, perhaps, coalesced Europe ; and he knows that his own people would regard a war with this country as a senseless waste of power ; yet he keeps up his demand that a date be fixed for the evacuation of Egypt. How can the British Government fix a date irrespective of circumstances ? It has given orders for the evacuation of Egypt once ; and when the hour arrived, even the French confessed that, "under the cir- cumstances "—namely, the northward march of the Dervishes —evacuation was impossible. The French interest in the Suez Canal is considerable, though nothing compared with our own ; but their material interest in the Valley of the Nile scarcely exists, except in the shape of the Bonds, the dividends on which are only secure while the country continues to be occupied by a European garrison. Beyond these, they possess nothing in Egypt, except, indeed, what M. de Freycinet magniloquently calls "a colony,"—that is, a group of salaried employe's, shopkeepers, and purveyors of luxuries to Pashas. As for the "traditional connection" on which M. de Freycinet is so eloquent, what is the connection except a reminiscence of the most unscrupulous and least successful adventure in the career of Napoleon ? If forty centuries look down from the Pyramids on French arms, they look down on them in retreat.
Whether M. de Freycinet, however, is sincere or not, the British Government has but one course to pursue. Its position in Egypt is most burdensome, because it involves responsibility without full power, because it occupies a body of soldiers who would be much better employed either at home or in India, and because it enables Russia and France to draw a purely imaginary parallel between the position of the Bulgarians, who if left alone can maintain their independence, and that of the Egyptians, who if left alone would be con- quered in six months ; but it cannot withdraw until it has fulfilled the mandate it originally received. It must have time to organise an administration which shall be strong enough to be independent alike of France and of Arabs ; and till this has been accomplished, or Europe has agreed to some alteration, it must persist in its course, defying threats from France with a cold, unwavering patience which leaves to the French Govern-
ment the full responsibility of threatening to employ force. No, force will be employed ; and as to diplomatic pressure, if France, in the present position of her affairs, chooses to-
stir up a needless in a neighbouring and essen- tially friendly people, that purposeless injury to the tranquillity of Europe must be quietly endured. Deeply as the spiteful- ness of France may be regretted, this country has nothing to fear from it. Every acquisition made by France since 1870 has brought her more directly within the grasp of the British Fleet, while her attitude towards Italy has given us the unexpected advantage of a powerful ally within the Mediterranean. The Italian Government, originally jealous of England in Egypt, and especially perverse about the Suez Canal, has announced in Parliament, through Count Robilant, the Foreign Secretary, that "frank friendship for England is the traditional basis of Italian policy, and cannot alter ;" and through her last Blue- book, that as regards Egypt, Italy looks on the British occupa- tion as a beneficial protection against the danger of occupation by France. There is hardly a chance of an alteration in this view ; for if France attacked her, it is assistance on the sea that Italy, with her exposed sea-board, would require ; while she dreads, with something of the old English unreason, the extension of Russian supremacy to the shore of the Adriatic.
She needs English help, that best guarantee of international friendship ; and it comes, therefore, to this,—that England, if too much bullied and vexed in the Mediterranean, possesses there a mobile Army and an auxiliary Fleet. She has, in fact, acquired an ally whose interests are not opposed to her own, and who, so long as the alliance lasts and she is safe at sea, possesses many of the resources of a first-class Power, and the precise geographical position which enables her to use those resources to the full. This alliance, while it might under certain circumstances enable England to quit Egypt more easily, renders the threats, we will not say of M. de Freycinet, for he remains within the limits of courtesy, but of his friends in the French Press, not only nugatory, but, except as annoyances intended to weight other requests, a little ridiculous. England is still well within her
legal position as agent of Europe, and we cannot believe that journals like the Debuts, which understand the Italian situation
perfectly well, honestly think she can be hectored out of it. Either they are airing their rhetoric to gratify spite, or they are intent on using the Egyptian Question to secure some other demand which it is not as yet convenient to bring to the front.
No people in its senses would use about a friendly neighbour which has not changed its position such language as is now used in Paris about England, unless it had in view some end to which the Power it abused was secretly felt to be an annoying obstacle.
Previous page
