M. HANOTAITX'S LATEST SPEECH.
TT is difficult to read M. Hanotaux's speech of Monday -11-. upon the Franco-Russian Affiance without a feeling of amazement. It is so entirely unlike anything which any French Minister has hitherto said upon the subject. The note of the debate, which was nominally upon the estimates of the Foreign Office, had been a certain querulousness as to the action of Russia, rising in one or two speeches into an almost bitter complaint that the Franco-Russian Alliance had as yet tended exclusively to the advantage of the Eastern Power. The complaint was the more important because it expresses the feeling of im- portant politicians in Paris, and is repeated day after day in some of the most widely circulated journals. It was expected, therefore, that M. Hanotaux, who, it must be remembered, is one of, the best informed, as well as most thoughtful, Ministers that France has ever had, would in his reply take the opportunity of defending the Alliance, would express hearty confidence in Russia, and would dwell on the position to which, in the judgment of French diplo- matists, the Alliance has raised France. Instead of a speech of this kind, M. Hanotaux read a carefully pre- pared memorandum, in which he dwelt on the fact that there was an Alliance visible to all men, but said nothing either for or against it, and deprecated discussion because g there were points of French policy which should not be Placed in too bright a light," an idea repeated by the Premier, M. Mane, who earnestly entreated the Chamber not to discuss the Alliance too much, lest they should " sap its foundations, as some journalists were doing." All this may be friendly, but it is not cordial, and prepares one to believe that M. Hanotaux did recently say in private that it was all he could do " even to keep up appearances," a sentence which, strictly interpreted, would mean that the Alliance retains at present only a formal or apparent existence. Men do not, as a rule, parade their friendship ; but the friendship which must not be spoken of lest it should be dissolved is a very thin affair.
The causes of this alienation are both positive and negative. The Russian Government, it seems certain, has for some time past treated that of France with a. neglect which statesmen who think their country the first in Europe feel to be almost insolent. The Romanoffs have made arrangements with the Hapsburgs as to the future of the Balkans in which France is not invited to share, and which, as France expects Russia one day to fight by her side against the Triple Alliance, and thus to restore to her Alsace-Lorraine, are most unwelcome and annoying. Frenchmen have, it is true, no dislike of Austrians, whom they refuse to consider German, but still they regard the Triple Alliance as a single and hostile corporation ; and if Russia is so friendly to one member of that corporation, how is France to rely upon her aid when the final struggle comes off Then, as regards the treatment of Turkey, Russia has gone her own way with- out remembering that France has always been friendly to Greece, and without caring that France has her own ambitions in Eastern Europe, and her own claim to prominence and respect. So long as the Concert of Europe existed this did not matter so much, for if France was dragged at the Czar's heels, so was Germany, and the pride of France was unwounded by any visible neglect of her opinion ; but when the Concert was sus- pended by the proposal of Prince George for Crete, French statesmen felt as bitter as wives would do if their husbands selected new housemaidswithout consulting them. M. Hanotaux was not even informed that Prince George would be proposed, and though he now says in the Chamber that he approves that candidature, it is very much in the tone of the wife, who being all the while pro- foundly annoyed, still thinks that she must in common decency support her husband's action. It is probable also that M. de Witte has been asking for too much money,— money for his rectification of the currency, money for Greece, money for Turkey, money for China ; and that M. Hanotaux, in frowning down these demands, has felt that France was regarded in St. Petersburg as a very useful but rather humble friend. Russian courtesy, he saw, was not that of equal to equal, but that of an old Peer to a neces- sary moneylender. These are all positive annoyances, and there are at least three negative annoyances behind. Russia, it is perfectly clear, is not going on any terms to fight Germany in order that France may recover her lost provinces, or restore her military prestige by winning a great pitched battle. Nor is she in the least eager to drive England out of Egypt, which Nicholas I. offered to Lord Aberdeen, and the occupation of which diminishes or destroys the British jealousy about the possession of Constantinople. That is a very bitter pill for many Frenchmen who upon all other subjects are reasonable enough. And finally there is this Chinese affair, during which France has been treated as if she were a negligeable quantity. Russia is claiming Manchuria and a port ; Germany has obtained Kiao-chow ; Japan is retaining Wei-hai-wei ; but France, the first Power in the world, gets nothing, not even Hainan, and is yet assumed by Russia to be ready to support her with an active fleet. It is intolerable, and M. Hanotaux, distrustful even of his own temper, and afraid of an explosion of French sus- ceptibility, is obliged to request that the whole subject should be left in semi-obscurity. If it is not, he is afraid that the Alliance may formally or informally be broken off.
Do we mean, then, that the Alliance will be broken off ? No ; that is at present most improbable. Frenchmen have a business side to their heads, and as prudent men, they have one strong, almost irresistible, motive for sub- mitting to anything rather than a rupture of the Alliance. So long as it subsists it furnishes a guarantee, as they think, against an invasion of France, and in spite of the immense strength of their new Army, and their ingrained and justifiable pride in their military history, they cannot get 1870 out of their minds, and regard an invasion, which, nevertheless, they would probably fac splendidly, with nervous apprehensiveness. They will not break off the Alliance, but their uneasiness about it—shown, as we believe, still more strongly in their whole management of the Dreyfus case—reveals a distinct incompatibility between them and their ally. France does not like to play a secondary role in any drama—" where France fights," said Napoleon III. in a message to Ca your, " she also commands "—and Russia can play only the first one. Her plans are too fixed, her interests too peremptory, her people too assured of their immunity from invasion. She cannot alter her course in Constantinople, in Pekin, or in Teheran,in order to gratify France. She can do great things for herself, and can make great demands on her people, but a war which was clearly commenced for the benefit of France would excite the kind of popular disapproval to which the strongest Governments must yield. Moreover, the states- men of Russia have to cope with a difficulty of which those of France know little. They are the servants of an absolute master, who may from his personal experience, or his dynastic connections, or any other cause, prefer a policy which is not theirs, but which, as in the Prince George case, they must strenuously carry out. Men so situated are compelled to claim the lead in order to defend their own positions, and it is the loss of the lead on all occasions under which M. Hanotaux frets, and which makes him doubt every now and then whether France is really playing a part creditable to her traditions. Some day the doubt may, in his mind or that of a successor, become a fixed conviction, and then the present arrangements of the Continent will be upset, as they were when Cardinal Richelieu took the helm, and framed an entirely new policy to be carried out through new alliances. The time for that change has not arrived, but to resent the canduct of an ally is the first preparatory step towards breaking an alliance, and if France is not resenting the conduct of Russia all the signs deceive us.
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