THE TORY FOREIGN POLICY. THE TORY FOREIGN POLICY.
THE chief dread of the country, should Lord Salisbury take power, will be lest he should do something rash in the region of Foreign Affairs ; but the dread is probably exaggerated. An English leader of Opposition who succeeds to power is much in the position of an Heir Apparent who suddenly ascends the Throne. He finds himself compelled to act as his predecessor acted. He passes under new influences, he feels the weight of facts which he previously only dimly perceived, and he hesitates to break either with old traditions or the policies just adopted. Lord Salisbury might—and did—talk wildly in Opposition about Russia ; but in power he must encounter the Queen, who has real weight in Foreign Affairs ; ho must consider the opinion of the nation as well as of his party ; and he must, above all, feel that he is no longer irresponsible for action. It is one thing to advise an order and quite another to give one ; nor does every man strike the acquaintance whom he has declared to be a rogue. The frontier difficulty is settled as far as negotiation can settle it, nor will it be reopened. Lord Salisbury is not likely to fight Russia for the sake of fighting her, and will hardly adopt once more the forward policy in Afghanistan. It was not always his own policy in the " large-map " days, and it will not suit him either to ask the House for a loan with which to take Candahar, or to break hopelessly with Lord Dufferin, who certainly is not going to order a third Afghan Expedition. Lord Salisbury is more likely to spend money rapidly on constructing fortifications at Quetta ; and, within reasonable limits, that is not an unwise course to pursue. Nor do we imagine that he will be very warlike about the German attempts to acquire Colonial dominions. He wants to conciliate Germany, not to fight her ; and Prince Bismarck may not be unwilling to give him a helping hand in soothing the electors. There is hardly time for any elaborate arrangement such as an exchange of claims, nor is Lord Salisbury the man to run egregious risks just because he would acquire Colonial popularity. There is a nervousness latent in him, arising, we fancy, from the keen perception of consequences which comes to him when he is responsible, and we have little fear of his playing with enormous stakes upon the board. It is in Egypt that he will most probably try to do something, and in Egypt there is one huge obstacle in his way. He cannot do anything great without cordial assistance from Parliament. Disgraceful as the fact is, it is nevertheless the fact, as Mr. Gladstone once admitted in the House, that if anything large is to be done at Cairo, the finance interest must be won over by a British guarantee for the Egyptian Debt, and no such guarantee can be given without a formal Parliamentary vote. Even supposing that Prince Bismarck could be induced to revert to his old idea that England should hold Egypt under the Sultan,
and that France could be conciliated by a declaration that England cared nothing about Morocco, both Powers would still insist that the Bondholders should be paid. They will not quarrel with the great Jew houses which lend them money when they are pressed, nor annoy the thousands of influential persons who have invested capital in Egypt, and thereby, as Continental statesmen think, " increased the public fortune." That rock stands right across the path ; and though Lord Salisbury may get over it, he will not get over it without assistance both from Parliament and opinion. The necessity of conciliating both, too, will prevent any renewal of hostilities in the Soudan, which are most unpopular with the Army, and will, we trust, keep him from any dangerous form of alliance with Turkey. The public would not bear that except in the event of war ; nor would it tolerate any revival of direct Turkish power in Egypt. We have not spent millions to enable pashas to plunder at their ease, or to rivet the Turkish chain upon enfranchised populations. Lord Salisbury, however, knows this as well as anybody, and is certainly himself no believer either in Turkish power or Turkish honesty of purpose. He saw too much in Constantinople to place confidence in either, and his accession to power is not unlikely to be regarded there with a secret shiver, not diminished by the recollection that it was Lord Salisbury who, with his chief, placed Austria fairly within the Balkans, and who described the Austro-German alliance, which directly threatens Turkey in Europe, as " glad tidings of great joy."
The gravest danger in foreign affairs arising from the accession of Conservatives to power is the pressure which will be put upon the new Cabinet to "do something" startling which may have an effect upon opinion before the elections. Great numbers of Tories are genuine Jingoes, and never feel happy unless England in some way or other is waving the flag ; and a great many more cannot be convinced that the electors care nothing about " position " in the eyes of the world. They do not understand the sullen pride which underlies the British character, and think that the haughtiest population in Europe is as fidgetty about precedence and deference as a middle-class matron. They will urge the Government to do " strong " things, and to do them at once ; and the Government, aware that it has no chance in internal affairs, may be led into some showily useless and costly line of action abroad. The guar antee against this in the temper of the country is, however, a very strong one, and the time to prepare for dangerous enter prises is exceedingly short. The Continental statesmen perceive clearly that the Salisbury Administration will be but a stopgap Government, and they overrate rather than underrate the changes in policy which may be produced by a great election. The idea will be to wait before forming any effective alliance, and it is only from not waiting that misfortune of any magnitude is to be expected. It was with a submissive majority behind it that the Beaconsfield Government adopted a swelling attitude, and even then it was only hectoring in public, the danger of action being all the while averted by the large concessions embodied in the " Secret Agreement." Unknown quantities will, no doubt, enter into the composition of the Cabinet, and there will be some danger from the desire for a bold stroke; but, on the whole, we believe the medium through which a stroke must be delivered will be found sufficiently thick.
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