PRINCE BULOW AND FRANCE.
r 11HE object and the effect of Prince Billow's words seem perpetually at variance. His function as Imperial Chancellor is to be the mouthpiece of a policy which makes for the peace of the world, yet be seldom rises to expound this purpose without offending some sensitive neigh- bour. When he spoke in the German Parliament yesterday week there was not a cloud visible in the sky. The German Empire is surrounded only by friends. In a not distant past, it may be, there have been fancied causes of illwill, now against one neighbour, now against another. This or that Power—France or Russia or Great Britain—may have been credited with ends that seemed to conflict with the natural development of German policy. But such misunderstandings are now past and done with, and the true character of German objects is at last recognised. Any lingering trace of coolness between Germany and this country has disappeared before the enthusiastic welcome accorded to the Emperor. The Agreement between Great Britain and Russia awakes no other emotion in the Chancellor's breast than an intelligent curiosity as to which of the two Powers has made the better bargain for itself. For the satisfaction of that curiosity he looks contentedly to the future. Where the choice is left to him, he prefers to be a dispassionate spectator rather than a prophet. For those mischievous persons who conjure up illwill between great and civilised nations on such trifling pretexts as the omission of an interview, or the precise relation between toasts exchanged at Naples and the time-table of a voyage in the Mediterranean, Prince Billow has nothing but contempt. These are not the matters out of which wars grow. If there have been moments when German interests have been ignored in Morocco, what useful purpose can be served by recalling them now ? Any latent elements of hostility that may once have existed have found a diplomatic solution at Algeciras.
Such a survey of the world's politics surely deserved a better fate than has attended Prince Billow's labour. For even here his customary ill-fortune has pursued him. He could not speak peace to Europe without giving rise to feelings which have little in common with peace in one of the countries embraced in his review. Was it the inability to stop at the right moment—an inability which political orators sometimes share with preachers—that led him to efface by a single sentence the pleasing picture he had just drawn ? Or was it that the thought of peace could not but suggest its opposite, and that whenever war occurs to a German it is always in connexion with the most splendid successes that German arms have ever won ? However the indiscretion may be explained, it remains true that Prince Billow did bring into his speech the one reference which no Minister who values the maintenance of cordial feelings between France and Germany should permit him- self to make. That to every German mind war should mean the war of 1870 is natural and inevitable, and if Prince Billow were an enthusiastic Third Secretary, with an imagination stirred by some chance recollection of what bis countrymen had done before his birth, it would have been a slip, to be forgotten as soon as committed. In the Chancellor it is equally a slip, but one for which a different explanation must be found. When be illus- trated the small desire that Germany had to make war for the sake of Morocco by an instance drawn from the diplomacy of 1870, it is impossible for the most indifferent bystander not to recall what followed upon a similar absence of desire " to make war for the sake of the succes- sion to the Spanish throne." We all remember the singular incidents which landed the King of Prussia in a war which he at least had never contemplated, and the seemingly inevitable mischief of a telegram which had every element of necessity except that of having any foundation outside Prince Bismarck's far-seeing mind. That the match found the magazine ready to be fired is true ; but what if the match had never been applied ? If Prince Billow had been writing history, all that need have been said would be that be takes but a one-sided view of an historian's function. But he is making history, not writing it. It would be strange ifhe thought that Frenchmen would read an assurance of peace in a reminder that Morocco, equally with the Spanish succession, " might have become an occasion for us to defend our honour, our prestige, and our position in the world." Happily the French have taken his words in a very reasonable temper, though this absence of excitement is quite consistent with the intimation of the Times Paris correspondent that there is no more chance now than there was before the Emperor's visit to England of such a Franco-German reconciliation " as would be indispensable before a prolonged period of peace could be anticipated with any degree of confidence." We may question, perhaps, whether the correspondent does not somewhat exaggerate the need in existing circum- stances of the arrival at this reconciliation. A good deal of sore feeling between two nations is compatible with the maintenance of peace when other conditions work in that direction. This doubt will be the better founded if Prince Billow had a motive in speaking as he did with which France had very little to do.
That he had such a motive was exceedingly likely, even before the debate of Tuesday. We shall find an indica- tion of it if we recall the light in which the German public has been accustomed to look at foreign affairs. That the Emperor's constant object has been the main- tenance of peace we entertain no doubt whatever. But the ruler of a great nation may naturally wish to be himself the instrument of fulfilling this object. The peace of Europe as the goal of German policy,—yes. But the peace of Europe as brought about by German efforts, and secured consistently with German policy. It is at this point that we can imagine some decay of satisfaction on the part of his subjects. " Certainly, they may say, " we see Europe delivered from any immediate danger of war. But how has this deliverance been brought about ? " Not exactly in the way which some Imperial utterances in the past may have encouraged them to believe. What part have the understanding between France and Great Britain, and the more recent understanding between Great Britain and Russia, played in the creation of this changed state of things ? It is obvious that if these three Powers had been more or less in a condition of mutual illwill, the peace of Europe would have been very much less safe than it is now that they are on good terms with one another. But can it be said that a peace secured by these means is the sort of peace of which Germans have learned to dream ? $ardly, we imagine. And if it is not— if the German idea of peace has been that of a peace imposed on Europe by a proper awe of German strength, and so is quite unlike a peace guaranteed by Agreements between three other Powers in which Germany has no part—how may the German people, left to themselves, be expected to regard what has happened ? Probably, we should say, with a reluctant acquiescence, as in a settlement which, though it may be good for trade, however it has been arrived at, they would have liked very much better to see reached in another way. But this assent to a conclusion which they cannot hinder is by no means the frame of mind in which the Emperor—at least, so we may imagine—wishes to see his people settling down. Con- tentment with a peace brought about by the action of other Powers is not at all the right atmosphere for the introduction of greatly increased Naval Estiniates, and other costly preparations for a future in which Germany shall again be the main factor in the determination of the European future. To make an outlay of this kind generally popular some measure of alarm at being weak must be mingled with the abstract desire to be strong. The occurrence of a Parliamentary crisis has just made it plain that pressure of this kind is as much needed hi the Reichstag as out of doors. The new naval expenditure may not be really unpopular, but the method in which the necessary money is to be raised no doubt will be. It was of all this, probably, that Prince Billow was thinking when he made his speech on Friday week. It is incon- venient, no doubt, when words meant for one audience are heard by another ; but this is only one of the disadvantages attendant upon modern methods which even a German Chancellor is sometimes compelled to put up with.
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