THE GENERAL SITUATION. T HE secrecy often essential in diplomacy is
being carried a little too far. Lord Salisbury's position is, we fully acknowledge, a most delicate one, and it may be impossible for him to make any public statement, but in that ease he should allow a general idea of his present foreign policy to appear through some one of the many channels by which European Governments make known their plans. At present the country is a little bewildered, and that diminishes both energy and cordial feeling. It may be a nuisance, it often is a nuisance, that our system is so democratie, but still statesmen, however reluctant, must obey the conditions under which they work, and, like traffic managers, accept with resignation the limitations imposed by the mechanical necessity of running upon rails. As we, who know no secrets, understand a very compli- cated situation, the policy of the British Government has quite recently made a considerable swerve. Immediately after the explosion of opinion caused by the German Emperor's telegram to President Kruger, the Government began to approach France, settled one or two irritating questions then pending, and, we presume, hoped to estab- lish a genuine and cordial understanding. The French Government responded at all events with politeness, and the signs of amity became so decided that the Mediter- ranean members of the Triple Alliance, Austria and Italy, became seriously alarmed, and pressed on their somewhat overbearing ally of Berlin the necessity for a reconciliation with Great Britain. These representations had their effect, as is indicated by the high honours paid to the Austrian Chancellor in Berlin, and that effect was increased by two other occurrences. The Russian Government by no means wanted a rapprochement between Great Britain and France, which might leave them isolated in the East, and exerted a certain pressure in Paris, while Italy unex- pectedly suffered a serious disaster. The fabric of the Triple Alliance, which rests on the maintenance of the Monarchical as opposed to the Republican principle in Italy, was seriously shaken, and it became indispensable to regain, at all events, the "benevolence" of Great Britain. Lord Salisbury was asked to favour the cause of Italy in Africa—this is, we think, acknowledged in Mr. Curzon's speech—and, on his agreeing, some assurances— we discuss that below—were given from Germany, and the maritime Budget of that Power took a form which disappointed the Colonial party ; the Emperor of Austria visited Queen Victoria, and made representations so well received, that the Colonelcy of a crack cavalry regiment in the British service was conferred on him ; and the Italian Parliament passed a vote of thanks and appreciation in favour of the British Goveinment. Further, it was de- clared officially by the new Italian Premier, in a written speech, that his Government, while determined to uphold the honour of the Army, intended to make peace, if that were possible, with Menelek, thus leaving itself no mili- tary burden in the Red Sea except the menace from the Dervishes ; and finally it was announced, with a certain pomp of words, that Germany, Austria, and Italy would sanction the application of the Egyptian Reserve Fund to the occupation of Dongola, thus giving this country a clear majority of four to two on the International Com- mission which controls Egyptian finance, and which, whenever the Triple Alliance is out of temper with Great Bntain, is the grand French instrument of worry. The total result is that England, as guardian of Egypt, has a free hand on the Nile, that Italy is torn—by the hair of the head, it is true—out of her serious embarrassment in Abyssinia, and that Great Britain once more ranks in the judgment of all Continental statesmen as a friend to the Triple Alliance. M. Berthelot finds it expedient, therefore, to counsel moderation to the Chauvinists of the Chambers, and his journals explain that when he spoke of the "gravity of the consequences" that might follow from the Dongola expedition, he had in his mind chiefly the gravity of the consequences to Egyptian finance, which is, of course, an entirely unobjectionable and indeed far- sighted remark. Every word of this statement is subject to correction whenever explanations are produced in Parliament, and the whole is offered only as an account which seems to us to explain the admitted facts of the situation as no other account as yet published has done. It completely ex- plains, to begin with, the Dongola expedition, the support accorded by the Triple Alliance to that expedition, and the cordiality evinced both in Austria and Italy, where only yesterday a feeling of angry soreness against Great Britain was stated to be universal. If it is substantially accurate it shows that Lord Salisbury has steered his barque with great adroitness through a very rocky channel, and that this country is, for the moment, safe from European complications. France is not going, if she can help it, to bring on the Great War under circumstances which would place four great Powers on the other side, and Russia has quite enough to occupy her in the Far East and the Near East without precipitating a collision which would deprive the approaching coronation of all its effect on the imaginations of her vast and increasing population. She does not care in reality one straw about either Egypt or Abyssinia, and only worries about either in fulfilment of her agreement to repay France for her friendship by diplomatic support. There is, therefore, nothing that we know of for this country to object to in the swerve which has been, as it were, forced upon Lord Salisbury by the general sullenness of Russia, and the invincible jealousy of France about Egypt ; and in fact there is nothing, one proviso being made, to discuss in a diplomatic movement which only restores the previous situation, a situation known to be not unacceptable to Parliament. The English people were quite agreed that the Triple Alliance helped to maintain the peace, and have always felt inclined to pro- tect Italy against any menace of invasion by France. The proviso, however, is a very serious one. Has any conces- sion whatever been made to the German Emperor about South Africa ? or has his Majesty given any assurance that German intrigues and projects in that quarter of the world shall cease ? The first question is, we presume, answered by Mr. Chamberlain's renewed statement of Monday, that her Majesty's Government adhered abso- lutely to clause 4 of the Convention of 1884 with the Transvaal; but some answer to the second question also is required. We are perfectly aware that such an answer cannot be categorical, that the German Emperor cannot be expected to apologise for his un- warrantable interference, and that he will not even admit that he mistook the situation ; but still diplomacy has resources through which it would be possible to con- vince the people of Great Britain that South Africa remains outside the range of German policy. We are all per- fectly willing to build a bridge for William II. to retreat over, but still there ought to be certainty, if we are again to befriend the Triple Alliance, that he has retreated. Without that certainty Lord Salisbury may rely on it that British adhesion even to the general idea of the Triple Alliance will never be cordial, that his own policy will never be completely approved, and that the party which wishes at once to evacuate Egypt and to support France will every year gain new adherents. If he has renewed the old arrangement without assurances on this point—assurances that he can trust, though not necessarily conveyed through Ambassadors—he has failed to understand the depth of the distrust with which the German Emperor's action inspired all English- men, or the anger with which they regarded his threats to deprive them of the most valuable of all their possessions. They do not, in estimating those possessions, count their position in Egypt as equivalent to their position in South Africa. We trust, and are quite ready to believe, that no such mistake has been made, and that this point in the situa- tion has been thoroughly understood, both in the Foreign Office and on the Continent, but some conviction on the subject should be spread through the public mind. We are not going to pull the Italian chestnuts out of the fire for Germany in order that Germany may steal our dinners. Put brutally, or as the German semi-official organs phrase it, "put with Republican boorishness," that is the clear decision of the nation, and if it is disregarded, Lord Salisbury will find, as some dan- gerous leap approaches — and we are not roast the flag yet by a long way — that the horse has lost full confidence in his rider. It was the telegram incident which originally caused the confusion in European politics, the situation before that having been clear enough if not perfectly satisfactory ; and the first wish of the British people now is to be sure that that incident is completely closed, a point upon which there has never been as yet the smallest official reassurance. It is strange that the fate of Europe should hang on a Colonial dispute wilfully raised by a monarch in what was possibly an accidental mood caused by a fit of pain, but still it is so. The British people will accept either the Triple Alliance or the Franco-Russian Alliance, according to the guidance of their chiefs, but they will never be cordial to the former while the "independence of the Transvaal" depends on any wills save those of the British and the Boers. If our "splendid isolation" is to be abandoned in favour of anybody, we must be left masters in our own house, to which South Africa is only a back-garden.
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