LORD SALISBURY AND FRANCE . T HERE is one feature in Lord
Salisbury's foreign policy which deserves a great deal more discussion than it ever receives, and that is the relation he is maintaining towards France. Has he, or has he not, abandoned the entente cor- diale If he has not, he makes exceedingly imprudent speeches. If he has, this country has lost a much better security both for the peace of the world and for its own freedom of action than any Austrian or even German alliance can make up. Not to speak of the immense general advan- tages of the alliance between the two countries, an alliance which has now lasted, with one short break, for a quarter of a century, Englishmen should not forget that France has over their country a kind of direct influence which no other Power, except, in a limited degree, the United States, can pretend to possess. The old suspiciousness and hostility have so completely disappeared, that . Our younger readers will stare as they read, but it is still exactly true, that if the Government of France is secretly inimical, it can always arrest, and for a short period paralyse, the action of Great Britain. It has only to seem seriously hostile, to allow demi-official threats to be put out, as Napoleon did through his Colonels, and England must prepare herself, must strengthen her Fleets, recall her soldiers, and devote herself exclusively for the moment to French de- signs. She invariably does so, usually beginning with a burst of defiance, which shows her resolution to fight France, if need be, but which completely turns her attention from any other subject. If M. Gr4vy, for example--we beg his pardon for the supposition—were supposed to be in the temper Napoleon was in after the Orsini affair, Zululand would be forgotten, Afghanistan would recede intosnace, and Turkey would be allowed to drift to perdition as the Sultan pleased. The one thought, the single preoccupation, would be the pos- sible hostility of France, its cause, and its extent. The long exemption which the British Government has enjoyed from this kind of annoyance has exercised an immense effect upon its policy ; has set it free, so to speak ; and has so improved the general relations of the two countries, that any resumption of the old attitude would come upon England with a deep
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shock of surprise. Such a resumption i improbable ; but it is not improbable, it is very evident, that the political entente cordiale, which was, at all events, a most valuable security for the good relation between the two countries, has come to an end ; and it would be well if Tory politicians, who are so pleased when the banner is waved in the face of Russia, would ask themselves if they quite like this. France and England are not on bad terms, but they are no longer cordial to each other officially, but are fretful, and conscious of being, in vulgar par- e think ourselves unfairly lance, somewhat "put upon."
pressed in Egypt, and the French think i themselves unfairly com- pressed everywhere. Such a temper s apt to give occasion for quarrel, and a quarrel with France, or even a serious difference, would, we suspect, wake Tories very rapidly out of the dream of content in which they are just now disposed to indulge. Paris is nearer than Merv, after all.
We quite acknowledge that Lord Salisbury has had unusual difficulties in his way in dealing with Paris. He has been forced to intervene in Egypt just at a moment when France generally was sensitive to the smallest appearance of slight, and when her Premier and Minister of Foreign Affairs was a man with a strong feeling about Egypt, and a stronger feeling
of the necessity of not appearing to defer to England. M. Waddington, a Frenchman with an English- name, Englieh connections, and an English education, is naturally suspected of English proclivities, and as naturally is obliged, in all deal- ings with England, to show himself specially French, and to be occasionally as obstinate—in an old phrase of Mr. Disraeli's- as the grandfather of mules. He has asserted the claims of French interests, and especially of the French financial Rings, with a pertinacity which has made every negotiation difficult, and once or twice has brought Egyptian affairs to a dead-lock, and he has shown an inability to concede which has made dis- cussion almost a waste of time. That is no fault of Lord Salisbury's, though it has been his misfortune ; but it is his fault that he has not been able to meet the situation before him, that dangerous concessions have been made to France,
and that we have earned no good-will in return. The English Protectorate of Egypt has been exchanged for an Anglo-French Protectorate, with a new danger,—that this may become a Protectorate by Europe. That is as if a householder per- plexed by domestic difficulties, had, after long pondering, intrusted his door key to a committee of business acquaintances. He runs a risk, to say the least, of not finding his door-key when he wants it. The finances of Egypt have not been put straight, English influence has been diminished at Cairo, and the French Foreign Office—though it has had so much of its own way—is sulky, rather than cordial. That, by universal consent, is the upshot of the Egyptian negotia- tions; and it does not need the stimulus of party spirit to see that such a result is not exactly success, that it is, on the whole, a somewhat ignominious failure, which may lead this Ministry—being an unlucky one, with a habit of getting in the way of the lightning—to still further disasters. Lord Salisbury may have been overborne by cir- cumstances, but still that fact, though an excuse for him, is not consolatory to those who wish English policy to be successful, to master Egypt, and at the same time to retain the good-will, to say the least of it, of France. All three objects, however, have been imperilled, and it is just at this moment that Lord Salis- bury imperils one of them a little farther. It requires no knowledge of diplomatic secrets to be sure that the French Government; if it is like any other which ever ruled in France, resents its isolation on the Continent, watches Germany with suspicion, and does not like to see a vast agglo- meration of power collecting itself in Central Europe. There may be no harm or much good to the Balkan Peninsula in the Austro-German alliance, but the French think there is harm to them, and imagine that they are " garotted " by the com- bination as much as Russia can be. They are, therefore, very irritable, inclined to think themselves threatened indirectly, and very sore about the commercial treaties which, it is admitted, the alliance must produce. Consequently, when Lord Salisbury declares the alliance to be "good tidings of great joy," French patience gives way altogether, and for the moment, by the confession even of moderate Frenchmen, like the conductors of the De'buts, the entente cordiale is at an end. France and England are not quarrelling, but their friendship has dis- appeared, and a condition of irritation has supervened, which any lamentable incident in Egypt—and Egypt is, like India, a place where anything may happen—might make of serious importance. This can hardly be considered very adroit statesmanship. It is true, of course, that Lord Salisbury may have had a distinct purpose in his otherwise inexplicable out- burst at Manchester, an outburst so blunderingly travestied by the Attorney-General. He may have thought it expedient, having a new secret agreement on hand, to show the Russian Government how strong anti-Russian feeling still was in this country, and how completely the Government could rely, or believed they could rely, on support in that direction, and he may have been acute in so thinking ; but then the merit of a Secretary ry is that he can subordinate incidental advan- tage to a general policy, can remember the whole situation, while anxiously pressing towards a particular object. It does not seem very wise to alienate France, just now so powerful at Constanti- nople, in order to extort from Russia a compromise, however convenient. Suppose the French Cabinet, which necessarily desires friendly relations with Russia, though it is not ready for a definite alliance, were to retaliate by a cheek to Groat Britain, a cheek which could be given in a speech, would not the embarrassments of the Government, already so perplexing, be exceedingly increased ? If we are not prepared to defy France, or to arrange with France, it is surely good policy to keep on terms with France, and not rejoice with uncontrollable exultation in arrangements which, as she complains..-With exaggeration, it may be, but still complains—almost shut her up within her own borders. No country likes such a situation, and least of all a country which, with a long history of victory and an irrational fondness for military glory, is just recovering from a great defeat. The object of the English people in France is to remain friends with the French, without yielding to them on points essential to England, but non-essential to France, and that object the Foreign Office has not secured. Lord Salisbury, to be trusted, should succeed somewhere, which he has not done yet.
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