TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE GATHERIISTG CLOUDS. TWO or three months ago no one would have said that the foreign policy of the United Kingdom was in any special degree anxious and threatening. Of course there has been for a much longer time a very great anxiety about the condition of the Eastern question, and ever since the outbreak of the war between China and Japan, the Far East has seemed as much disturbed as the East of Europe. But both in Constantinople and in China there has seemed to be more ground of anxiety for other Powers than for this country, unless indeed the policy of venturing a great stroke on behalf of the Armenians had been accepted, as we inclined to think that it should have been accepted, by the English Foreign Office. But at that time it was not so accepted. When this policy was pressed upon Lord Salisbury, what we were told was that it would be a great deal too dangerous to risk any departure from the policy of keeping the Concert of Europe intact. Lord Salisbury was praised for re- fusing to incur any risk so great as the opening the sluices by insisting on the overruling of Turkish policy against the wish of the other great Powers, would have involved. And thereby it was concluded that whatever it might cost the nation to forego what seemed to some of us a most sacred obligation, we had at least secured the prudence and safety of our own attitude. Suddenly, however, the prospect blackened all round us. First we found ourselves quite unexpectedly in a new Ashantee war. And almost at the same time there began to be a very uncomfortable feeling as to the Venezuelan frontier of British Guiana. No one who was not in the secrets of the Foreign Office imagined for a moment that the frontier question in a petty South American Republic,—a Re- public only in name,—could possibly lead to serious danger ; and yet, in spite of the fact that not one English- man in a hundred thousand knew anything about the matter, and not one American citizen in a million regarded a very old frontier dispute many thousands of miles from Washington as a matter of any practical interest to the nation or of any grave interest to the Union, it was noted that English diplomatists looked anxious when Venezuela was mentioned. In spite of this, however, President Cleve- land's despatch, on the opening of Congress in December, fell like a clap of thunder in a clear sky. Quite suddenly, as Campbell's ballad says, a shadow fell upon the whole prospect, "and in the scowl of heaven each face grew dark as they were speaking." The United States, which understood so little about the matter, evidently felt a great deal. In spite of protests from all sides against the sudden springing of so great a shock upon the public, it came to be understood that the angry feeling in the United States was far more serious than any one could explain. England, who had been so temperate about the Behring Sea question, who had been so for- bearing when Congress declined to pay at once what her own statesmen had recommended her to pay under the arbitration, was accused of land-grabbing in all directions. No one remembered the dispute of twenty-five years ago, on which, for the sake of peace with the United States, a most startling new departure was taken in our foreign policy, and a great sum paid by way of compensation for the escape of the ' Alabama ' from our ports during the American Civil War' and not only so, but a large sum was added to that compensation in respect of ; "indirect claims," which no other State in the world - ever had admitted before, and which nobody supposed that any Court of Arbitration would have allowed for a I moment. At that time it was understood that by way of I showing our absolute determination to pursue a policy of goodwill towards our American cousins, we had gone to 3 the very verge of Quixotism to express our national e sympathy with their annoyance at the blow struck 1, against their commerce in consequence of some defect of y vigilance on the part of our statesmen. But all this was tiutterly forgotten. Nothing seemed to be remembered si but, the social slights of the moment. Lord Dunraven's su suspicions concern:lig the good faith of his opponents in n a yacht race, the grievances of the American sealers, uthe light way in which penniless English lords had carried . ell great American heiresses, who were at once annexed by this country, and yet treated as if they had gained much more than they had lost by the condescension of our impoverished Peers, and all such hypersensitive grievances. as these, were talked of as proving the native insolence of the British character. The Union suddenly seemed to be almost incandescent with sore feeling about matters that. we had never regarded seriously at all, and when Wall. Street suddenly fell into panic at the fall of American. securities, instead of cooling down the excitement, the result of this panic too was laid to the account of our cold_ British selfishness, so that the desire for revenge became stronger than ever.
Then again other matters fell out badly in the Transvaal. The grievance of the oppressed Ilitlandere, who had been shut out by the Boers from all political' privileges for many years back, seemed suddenly to explode at the very moment when we were being accused both by France and Portugal of carrying matters with at high hand in Africa, and to every one's great astonish- ment we heard that Germany too had a great grievance- against us, and that if the Uitlanders should overpower the small clique of despotic Boers in the Transvaal, Germany would hold it as a national affront, and would seek to embarrass us wherever she might be able to do so, —for instance, in the prosecution of our beneficent and fruitful Egyptian policy. We had known that France owed us many grudges, and would be delighted to turn us. out of Egypt if she could ; but we had never dreamt of finding a rival in Germany in relation to our policy towards the Transvaal, of which England had been the Suzerain Power for so many years. Yet now suddenly this anxiety is added to the number of our various troubles ; and Dr. Jameson's culpable and apparently fool- hardy expedition, promptly disallowed by Mr. Chamberlain though it has been, will embitter seriously our relations with all the European Governments which take any deep interest in African affairs.
Thus all our external troubles are coming upon us at once. Just when we believed that we were on terms _of the utmost friendship with the United States, almost,. indeed, of alliance, we found ourselves on the brink of war, and not only so, but found our kindred delighted to have the chance of war ; while Germany has suddenly discovered a great grudge against us, and not a single great Power,—unless Italy be a great Power,—is heartily in sympathy with our policy and people. No wonder that our statesmen are all anxious, and that our over- flowing Treasury seems a very inadequate set-off against the growing burden of our neighbours' jealousies and our kindred's dislikes.
However, we have no wish to exaggerate the gloom of the moment. It is still quite possible that the clouds may disperse as suddenly as they have gathered. War with the United States seems so truly monstrous, so disastrous to our opponents as well as to ourselves, that we can hardly believe in its bare possibility. But it is cer- tain that a very great number of our American cousins are eager for it, in spite of the apparent madness of such a proceeding on so attenuated an excuse, and the difficulty of realising what they expect to gain from it. And it is equally certain that if such a war comes there will be plenty of onlookers,—and some onlookers whom we should have regarded a few weeks ago as hearty friends,—who will congratulate them- selves on this result rather than deplore it. Our own belief is that if we had not taken Chitral, and had risked a good deal to defend the Armenians without looking for any reward, we should not have created all these jealousies, and might have earned a great many more active sym- pathisers in the United States. However it may have come about, we have certainly got a great reputation for selfish aims, rather perhaps because with our Navy and insular position we are so difficult to attack, than because we have really grasped at more than any other Power. We may not obtain more, but we risk less. And Powers which, like France and Russia and Germany, are always conscious of standing at the edge of a precipice, resent our security almost more than they resent .our gains. That, however, does not explain the singular grudge of the United.States against us, and we confess ourselves really unable in any reasonable fashion to understand that. . But democratic States, conscious of great unused force, are always subject. to very strange caprices, and the nearer they stand to any other people the more disposed they are to resent that. people's possession of slight historical and social advan- tages, which they feel without being able to explain. It is clear, at all events, that we do not gain much by making what seemed to us at the time great and con- spicuous sacrifices to win their regard.
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