• AN UNDERSTANDING WITH FRANCE. T HE visit of the British
Parliamentary delegates to Paris is the latest in a series of events which testify to the growing desire of Britain and France to see their peoples living in friendship. The visit of the King to Paris and of President Loubet to England, the Arbi- tration Treaty, and the various exchanges of hospitality between private bodies are the signs, we believe, of a deep- Settled conviction that there is nothing in the nature of things to set the two nations against each other. It used to be assumed that Britain and France were eternally irreconcilable, a belief apparently based upon the old dis- trust of French politics inherited from the timeof the French Revolution, and supported by the transient nature of French Governments. But she has been the possessor for many years of a singularly stable form of government, and we are beginning to realise that France has outgrown the strange humours of her years of development, and is a static force in European policy. We see her allied for the present with a nation which some of us have been taught to distrust, but we are also beginning to realise how little the interests of such an alliance conflict with ours. On the other hand we see a European Power which, if it is to achieve its dreams, must come into the sharpest conflict with British aims. We are beginning, too, to appreciate the dangers of isolation, and the blessings of a clear under- standing with our neighbours on matters of national policy. In these circumstances the way is prepared for that sympathy and mutual understanding which are more permanent than any formal alliance. This is the more necessary since the old division of Europe between the .Triple and Dual Alliances is already out of date. There must soon be a new taking of sides in the game of national interests.
• If we look abroad, we find no permanent source of trouble to mar our relations with France. Egypt used to be the bone 'of contention ; but France has long ceased to have serious ambitions in regard to Egypt, and of late years her inter- ference has been only the backwash of an old poi* ' We understand that even this nominal interference approaches an end, and that France is prepared to recognise our authority in Egypt, and give her diplomatic approval to an indubitable fact. Remove Egypt, and you remove what was the chief root of bitterness to a former decade of English and French politicians. But France must have a return for her non-interference, and this she will seek in a similar attitude on the part of Britain to her policy in North-West Africa. The day has gone by for obstructing an extension of power by a European •State in a foreign country where the extension is of no possible importance to ourselves. The French policy in North- West Africa is not unlike English policy in Egypt. Her supremacy is a fact ; it only remains for us to recognise it with a good grace, scarcely a difficult task when there is a substantial reward waiting on our recognition. We have already accepted the French West African Empire. The old days of imperfect delimitation, and consequent frontier troubles, are past, and the British and. French spheres are clearly defined and their interests sharply distinguished. In Siam there are many outstanding questions but there is no real cause for trouble if we are prepared to follow that policy which we ask of France in Egypt, and give a diplomatic sanction to existing facts. Newfoundland is perhaps the only dangerous spot ; but we have every hope that the complicated question of French rights in that island will soon be amicably settled. Speaking generally, we cannot point to any part of the outlook on foreign affairs where France's interests are likely to conflict with ours. She has a Colonial Empire, and she desires to make it a prosperous one,—a legitimate ambition in which we may wish her all success. But as things stand there cannot be any great extension, for it is a costly Empire, and the expense of upkeep and development will put territorial expansion for long out of her power.
In domestic politics there is no sign of anything to lead to friction. Now that the excitement of the Dreyfus case has gone, the morbid interest which Britain took in her neighbour's affairs has gone with it. Englishmen are not concerned to criticise their neighbours' policy too closely, believing that a man's house is his castle, and that a people are probably the best judges of their own business. The abuse of Britain during the war—a time, it must be remembered, when the French Government behaved with perfect correctness—is almost forgotten, and we may detect in the present French attitude some degree of shame for that performance. The Anti-Clerical measures of the French Government have at least awakened no indignation in a country which is Protestant, whatever that country may think of the wisdom of the policy. Commercially our relations with France have been of the best; and though we trust that no departure will take place from our traditional policy, yet France would suffer less from a reformed British tariff than almost any other Great Power. In Army. and Navy questions there is no room for friction. France desires a large and efficient Navy, but she has none of Germany's grandiose ambitions, and her naval policy in no way threatens our naval supremacy.
But there is more in the case than a mere absence of hindrances ; there are certain very positive inducements to friendship. The consistent Liberalism of Britain, as the Temps has pointed out, stands in striking contrast to the militarism of German policy or the cast-iron bureaucracy of Russia. Britain was the original model for reforming Prance; and though we have had many wars and. quarrels since then, British Constitutionalism still remains as a guiding force in her domestic politics. It should be re- membered, too, that in history we have been more closely connected with France than with any other country. We fought her off and. on for nine hundred years, her literature has moulded ours, we have had alliances without number, we have taken from her her ideas and given her ours in return, and in the theoretical basis of our politics we do not differ from her. Lastly, we have one common object in foreign affairs. Both nations have oversea Empires which' they desire to maintain and, develop, and to both in the long run is opposed the power of Germany. That European Power which aims at naval supremacy must remain the chief opponent of Britain, and that Power which seeks control over Holland and the ports of the North Sea must continue a menace to France. We have consistently maintained that there is nothing ia Russian, policy, if met in a fair spirit, inconsistent with our interests ; and we have maintained also that German ambitions are radically and finally opposed to them. In France we have not only a nation with whose interests it is , difficult to conceive at the moment any serious conflict arising, but also a nation whose main principle of foreign policy must be practically identical with ours.
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