TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE TEMPER OF FRANCE.
THE English people should not be irritated by the fury of the populace of the Portuguese towns. The lower Portuguese do not know the facts of the African situation any more than our own populate knows them ; they have been persuaded by their publicists that their rights are beyond question ; and they naturally fancy that when a Power like Great Britain threatens to use forceāfor, of course, that was the real meaning both of Lord Salisbury's ultimatum and of the almost scenic appearance of powerful British squadrons off Zanzibar, the Cape de Verde Islands, and the Portuguese Coast all at onceāthey are being deprived of property by an assertion of superior strength. A Southern population, when excited, is always abusive ; and as many of the favourite guides of the people are Republicans, a great deal of the abuse is directed to the address of their own monarchy. They will calm down by degrees, for, the grand question once settled, the British Government will be lenient ; the Portuguese statesmen already see the truth ; and Lord Salisbury's steady pressure, though it has overthrown a Ministry, has probably strengthened rather than weakened the authority of the Royal Government. There is much reason to believe that one main difficulty of that Government was insubordina- tion among its own agents. Confident in their support from a " chauvinist " party at home, the Colonial officers in Portuguese Africa were going far beyond instructions, were trying to force the hand of their own King, and were even, it is alleged, in one instance at least, disobeying written instructions. It was impossible for Great Britain to endure a situation in which war on the Zambesi practi- cally coexisted with peace on the Tagus ; but Lord Salis- bury's determined action not only vindicates British claims, but will restore discipline to the Portuguese service itself. No country likes to be defeated, even when it scarcely understands its own objects ; but as the truth reaches Portugal, the irritation will, we believe, slowly die away, more especially if it is seen that in all reasonable ways the British Government is disposed to do even more than justice to a State it has so often saved from political extinction.
The temper manifested by France in the affair is a more serious matter ; but even as regards France, this country will do well to cultivate a healthy apathy. The condition of opinion in Paris upon foreign affairs has never, that we know of, been exactly paralleled in any European country. The directing classes feel throttled. In the nineteen years which have elapsed since the German war, they have re- gained much of their confidence, and are sore to exaspera- tion at what they consider their country's loss of prestige. She ought, in their judgment, to be the first among the active Powers of the world, and she is not even second, being hampered at every turn, in Europe at least, by the opposition of the "League of Peace." War has been rendered by that League not indeed impossible, but exces- sively dangerous, so dangerous that even fire-eaters wait for favourable circumstances and a powerful ally. Outside Europe there is, however, room for activity, and the directing classes would like to be active, to build up a Colonial empire, and, as they thinkāa rather sordid cal- culation mingling with all French dreamsāto multiply appointments, and extend through plantations, mines, and engineering concessions the opportunities of sudden wealth. They desire to carry out Gambetta's programme, to reign over Northern Africa, to occupy Egypt, to "round off" Indo-China by the seizure of Siam, to be undisputed lords in Madagascar, and to share largely in that extraordinary distribution of tropical Africa which is so rapidly going on. They think the strength of France quite sufficient for these objects, and would plunge into them with eagerness as into a new and exciting political sport, but that they are pulled up by an internal obstacle. The electors, peasantry and artisans alike, will have none of their Colonial schemes. That is to say, they will allow anything to be done which can be done by negotiation and a fleet, as, for example, they did not condemn the establishment of a quasi-pro- tectorate in Madagascar; but they will not sanction any project which, at the moment of execution, will require Urge bodies of troops. They have never forgiven the annexation of Tonquin, which proved politically fatal to. M. Jules Ferry ; and they will not send their sons anywhere to die of malaria in barracks. This decision, which seems irreversible, reduces France to two alterna- tives, the creation of a mercenary army for tropical work, or quiescence ; and for the present the former one, which would be excessively expensive and raise em- barrassing jealousies in the Home Army, is practically out of the question. The directing classes, therefore, who manage the details of policy, and hold all offices, and control all journals, and make all the fortunes that are made, feel that France is powerless to assert herself as a grand military Power, and powerless, too, to carry out a, great colonising policy. They grow furious with baffled ambition, and their fury is indefinitely increased by what. is partly an accident.
Just at the moment when France has been reduced by external and internal causes to quiescence, Great Britain, Germany, and Italy have entered on a new cycle of activity. The gains of Great Britain, some of them almost involun- tary, have been prodigious, much greater, we sometimes think, than is altogether consistent with prudence. She has been forced to occupy Egypt, and to continue there, fixing no time for evacuation, except a date definite enough, perhaps, in her own mind, but which seems to all foreigners merely an equivalent for the Greek Kalends. She has annexed Burmah, a great Kingdom, specially coveted by M. Gambetta, in perpetuity. She has extended her dominion in "South Africa" far beyond the dream of Sir Bartle Frere, once pronounced so wild, till it has passed the Zam- besi, occupying great Kingdoms en route, and now stretches up to the country of the Lakes. Finally, she has seated herself in the best position on the coast of East Africa, a position from which, whenever Germany wearies of playing at Colonies, she may spread north and south till with one hand she touches Khartoum, and the other Madagascar and the Cape. At the same time, Germany has seated herself in New Guinea and East and West Africa ; Belgium has obtained on the Congo what is in territorial area a gigantic kingdom, which, in French imagination at all events,. she only holds as trustee for Germany or England ; and Italy, besides posting herself on the Red Sea, has acquired by formal treaty an indefinite but extensible protectorate over Abyssinia. The contrast is so exasperating to French statesmen that they can hardly contain themselves, and as they cannot make themselves felt by vetoes, they- take every opportunity of making themselves felt by annoyances, by biting criticisms, and by threats, which will,. we fear, be carried out, of commercial exclusiveness. They refuse to Great Britain a free hand in Egypt, though our fetters do them no good ; they call us pirates for defending ourselves upon the Zambesi ; and they threaten to termi- nate Napoleon's Commercial Treaty, and shut us out absolutely from Tonquin, Madagascar, and the ports of the French West Indies. They gnash their teeth at Germany, and they warn Italy about twice a week that the Power which made her can unmake, and that whenever the chance arrives, France will restore the States of the Church to the dominion of the Pope. They use all their powers of invective in describing English action, and pour upon our professions, which, sooth to say, are sometimes a little Pharisaic, floods of a ridicule which scarifies English- men who live in France, and which, but that Englishmen at home neither read nor mind them, would render a con- tinuance of genuine friendliness all but impossible.
Inconvenient, irritating, and even costly as this atti- tude of France sometimes is, we do well, while she remains within the bounds of legality, to pass it by unanswered. The position, in very truth, must be most galling to a people at once sensitive, ambitious, and conscious of enor- mous strength paralysed by temporary circumstances. If it relieves French minds to call us pirates, and ridicule the "long teeth" with which all Parisians declare all Britons to be endowed, let them enjoy that relief until better days arrive. England wants nothing of France except relief from a certain worry in Egypt, and there is no use what- ever in proving that French assertions are all groundless. France only half-believes them, and she would continue to half-believe them if their falsity were written on the sky, her reason for believing being, not the advantage or the instruction derivable from belief, but only the pleasure. The first success will reduce the malignity of France, and it is not worth while to increase it. by acrimonious and interminable controversy. We can maintain our cause, so far as it is just, by acts, and must never forget that, whatever the temper of France, we have to live through the ages by her side. In friendship or in enmity, no other Power is of the same importance to us, nor is there any other which, if we could once re-establish the entente cordiale, could so completely relieve us throughout three continents from serious apprehension. For the present that understanding is impossible, France asking of every Power but one condition,āhostility to Germany ; but we can at least wait with patience what the future has to bring forth. We gain nothing by resenting criticisms which only mean that we are too prosperous to be en- durable ; or even by telling French journalists that under the same circumstances France would have shown herself much more arbitrary and violent. No nation thinks itself oppressive ; and if France conquered the world, she would honestly believe that she did it in the direct interest not only of civilisation, but of fraternity. Let us move on our own course, and do as much right as we can, and let the nations be bitter or friendly in their criticisms as they find either spirit conducive to their own content.
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