FRANCO-ITALIAN DIFFERENCES.
"EUROPE has not had to wait long for a fresh symptom of unrest, which has appeared abruptly as if to remind her that the crust of tranquillity is rather thin, and, indeed, not without cracks here and there, through which leap up flashes from the nether fires. How other- wise can we regard the remarkable despatches from the Italian Prime Minister to his Sovereign's Ambassador in Paris, which have been laid before the whole world within a week of the day on which they are dated ? M. Goblet, the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, had scarcely time to read his " copy," if he asked for one, before the public got theirs ; and the printing of these documents at Rome can only be considered as an appeal to the tribunal of European opinion. But it is not merely the very prompt publication of the despatches which imparts a serious aspect to the incident, although that promptitude is somewhat startling. Nor is it the tenor of the diplo- matic argument, which deals in the usual quiet way with what may be fairly disputable questions. The sting of the despatches lies in the sentences which are outside the contentions drawn from the armoury of international law ; and it is the flash of these—shall we call them ejaculations ? —which has attracted the public eye and aroused public attention. The quarrel is over the right of the Italian authorities in Massowah to impose municipal taxes on foreign subjects without the consent of their Governments. But in the midst of the vindication of that right, France is described by Signor Crispi as " looking with a jealous eye on the extension of our influence in the Red Sea," and as seeking by " unceasing efforts to undermine our authority there." She is told that the objections did not come from Turkey, but " from France, to whom one would imagine the peaceful progress of the Italian nation appears to be a lessening of her own power and authority ;" while the tactics of Italy's " adversaries " are styled " the barren and baseless protestations of one or two Powers." The tone and style indicate a determination not to draw back, and the publicity of the appeal almost constitutes it a challenge. Side by side with these excerpts from an official despatch, may be placed examples of a different yet still significant kind of controversy. It was reported in Rome on Sunday, that the Porte feared a French attack on Tripoli, basing its apprehensions on the massing of troops and the assembly of a fleet near at hand. No one took much notice of the story, yet it was answered by the publication of a semi-official note in Paris, saying that the " absurd rumours " were looked on there as " intended to mask the designs of Italy, whose armaments really have Tripoli in view." When international polemics, official and semi-official, reach this height, they certainly reveal the existence of a strong and dangerous tension on both sides, and suggest that there may be something more in the wind than the right to collect municipal dues at Massowah, and the contradiction of vague beliefs said to be professed in Constantinople,—something deeper and more nearly related to what is called the European situa- tion. The area covered by the Triple Alliance, be it remembered, includes the Mediterranean, if not the Red Sea.
Whether she can uphold her purely diplomatic case or not, in regard to taxes on foreign subjects, Italy has fair ground for complaint against French policy in the Red Sea. She has held Massowah for three years, and has quite as much right to sit there as the French have to be iu Obock and its neighbourhood. The truth is, that the French under the Empire cast longing eyes upon the port, and some of their publicists, laying a sort of claim to the adjacent islands, openly advocated their occupation a few years ago. The Italians, to whose presence there was no objection, stepped in when the Mandi secured his great triumphs, and the French have felt sore on the subject ever since. " The friendly States," says Signor Crispi, " without regret and without jealousy, possibly with satis- faction," saw the extension of Italian colonial dominion; and even the French, at the time, allowed the act to pass in silence. All that has been done there by the new occupants of a derelict port, has been sovereign in its character; war has been waged, the right of blockade asserted, a regular civil administration has been established, the slave-trade has been unsparingly put down, and nothing left undone which could show that the Italians did not intend to be passing tenants, but fixed sovereign proprietors. If any one had a plausible natural right to complain, it would be the Abyssinians, who affect to regard Massowah as their port ; but they cannot assert a right which the other Powers concerned in the peace of the Red Sea would be extremely slow to recognise if it were asserted. Certainly the French have no similar basis for any claim they may put in, and Signor Crispi's contention that the Italian sovereignty is indisputably established, just as that of the French in Obock; seems made out. It may be otherwise with regard to the existence or non-existence of the Capitula- tions in Massowah ; but, in any case, it is not dignified, it is rather mean, to take refuge under these much abused Capitulations as if the Italians were a kind of Turks. Nominally, the French Government inter- venes to protect its subjects and other persons from the pressure—no one says it is an unjust pressure—of municipal taxes ; but few will admit that this can be the prime reason. The imposts on real estate and the licence- dues are levied to support the Government, and maintain the peace and order by which the traders profit. There are, it seems, or were, two Frenchmen and twenty-one others, chiefly Greeks, who refused to pay, prompted apparently by the French Vice-Consul, because the Greek Government, until latterly, felt bound to admit the justice of the Italian demands. Is it possible to look on this vexatious proceeding in any other light than that of one intended to hamper and annoy the Italian Government ? And as to the basis of the hostility, we quite agree with Signor Crispi when he says that " when a Christian nation administers a Mussulman country, the Capitulations have no longer any raison d'être." To hold the contrary is to hold that Italian or any other European magis- trates are incapable of administering justice where French subjects are concerned. It was only in May and June that these taxes were imposed ; and the quickness with which the French opposition has been met and an appeal made to the opinion of Europe, shows how keenly the pretension is felt, and lifts the dispute car above a mere diplomatic wrangle into the region where dissension even on small points may lead to large consequences. It is the very pettiness of the ground on which the French hafe elected to stand, that fills honest minds with concern. The hostility must be profound that can stoop to find a weapon in the Capitulations, even if they ever had any force in Massowah.
It would be absurd, however, to treat this question as one respecting the area wherein the Capitulations may still vital force. They have already disappeared from Many part; of what was once the Ottoman Empire, and have suffered dilapidations in others. How far they may be theoretically valid in Massowaii, is of no moment whatever compared with the deeper questions growing out of the perennial conflict between France and Italy for influence in the Mediter- ranean, which, for good or ill, now includes the Red Sea as a sort of annex. That rivalry was inevitable from the moment when Italy became one Kingdom, and the paltry dispute about the municipal taxes in Massowah is only one of the forms taken by a permanent quarrel which was first visible in an acute form when the Kroumirs were invented and Tunis was conquered. In that very province, acquired by war, France, despite the Capitulations, exercises the very rights now denied to Italy. It is that contest—and the semi-official imputation of designs upon Tripoli by the Italians shows how deep it goes—which has to be taken into account in all calculations bearing on the maintenance of peace. Signor Crispi has formally communicated his despatches to all the Powers, an indication that he means business, and does not mean to submit to the French claims ; and the strong language of the semi-official Berlin Press plainly intimates that in case of need he will not want effective backers. It is, of course, an accident that this trouble should have cropped up simultaneously with the return of the German Emperor from his Baltic pro- gress, and his visit to the Chancellor at Friedrichsruh. But the coincidence is at least noteworthy.
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