THE FRENCH AND WEST AFRICA. T HERE is less heated talk
about West Africa than there was last week. Otherwise we cannot see that the situation is improved. What is most ominous is the -dogged refusal of the French to meet us half-way or to agree upon any principle or set of principles which can be used to settle outstanding questions in West Africa. We have tried to discover the arguments or claims upon which the French case rests, but without success. All that even the well-instructed papers like the Temp tell us is that the French cannot and will not forfeit their right to reach the Lower Niger. We are in effective occupation of Boussa, and at Boussa we mean to stay, whatever the English newspapers may say : that is the refrain of all French writing about West Africa. "By great sacrifices of men and money," says the Temps," we have succeeded in linking our Dahomey possessions with those of the Soudan, and in insuring them access to the navigable reach of the Lower Niger. Our neighbours must at last perceive that they will not make us give up these results merely to oblige them. Beati possidentes." No doubt the Temps makes also a certain amount of play with the absurd allegation that the drawing of the • Say-Barua line and the delimitation of the Dahomey and Lagos Hinterlands up to the ninth parallel left "the triangle between the Niger, the meridian of Say, and the ninth degree of latitude" a kind of no-man's-land. This, however, is a mere piece of diplomatic fencing. The real French case, as the Temp says now and has said before, is that set forth in the passage just quoted,—France has sacrificed too much for her West African Empire to make it possible for her to give up the places she has seized on the Lower Niger.
Needless to say, that is an attitude which, if persisted in, can only end in a conflict. Will France persist in it ? We regret to say that it looks for the moment, at any rate, as if France would. But, it will be asked, how can French statesmen be so mad as to do this ? They must know that France stands to lose, not to win, in a maritime war, and that even if she were to crush England, which is most unlikely, the fragments of our Empire and of our trade would find their way, not into her pockets, but into those of Germany and Russia. No doubt French states- men do know this, and this knowledge should of course make them careful in regard to the risk of war. Unfortu- nately, however, they think that they are in possession of knowledge on other points which neutralises the dangers just stated. The French Ministry has, we fear, got two things into its head which are extremely likely to mislead it,—and possibly to mislead it with consequences which will be felt by the whole world. The French Foreign Office, in the first place, believes that Lord Salisbury is an essentially weak man, and that he can be bluffed and bullied out of anything and everything. As we have pointed out elsewhere, that is a pure delusion. Lord Salisbury is not a self-centred man, and is also somewhat of a pessimist, or rather a man of the type which holds that things, as a rule, are not half so important as the ordinary man fancies them. Hence he is never eager for a personal victory, and seldom feels that this or that matter Is the one thing needful and necessary. But to be a little ,sceptical as to the importance of things which other men think terribly important is not to be weak. In the last resort Lord Salisbury is strong enough, and he knows as well as any man that there are points— even though they are not so numerous as many people imagine—on which it is impossible to yield. The aggression of France in West Africa is one of them. Unfortunately the French Foreign Office does not realise this, and is arguing daily : 'If he yielded about Mada- gascar, Tunis, and Siam, why should he not yield about Boussa ? '—forgetting, of course, that he has never yielded about Egypt. That great danger lurks in this mistaken belief in Lord Salisbury's weakness we cannot doubt. Still greater danger exists in a more absurd delusion which also possesses the French Government. The ridiculous babble of our political auction-room has filled them with the notion that Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain are rivals, and that there is a struggle always going on between Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain, especially over West Africa. They think that Lord Salis- bury wants to give way to France, but that Mr. Chamberlain will not let him. For the time the struggle is, they imagine, undecided, but they believe that if they wait a little, Lord Salisbury will win, and the eager and designing Colonial Secretary will be beaten. InN word, they take seriously the caricatures in the evening news- papers and imagine they represent facts. We need hardly tell our readers that the notion of rivalry between Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain, or of disagreement about West Africa, is the purest nonsense. We have the best possible reason for knowing that there is no sort of difference between them in regard to the whole matter. Lord Salisbury sees, and has seen, eye for eye with Mr. Chamber- lain in regard to the whole controversy. There is not, and there has never been, any struggle between them as to which was to have his way about West Africa, for the very good reason that they have always held the same view as to the necessity for maintaining our rights in that region. But though Englishmen know, or can be made to understand, that this alleged rivalry and conflict is all moonshine, we confess that we despair of making the French realise that they are building on the sand if they think to win over West Africa by playing off Lord Salisbury against Mr. Chamberlain. They know how bitter and intense have been the conflicts in their own Cabinets, and they think it not un- likely that something of the kind exists in the present case. No doubt there have been, and may be again, very fierce fights within British Cabinets, but that there will not be such a struggle between the present Foreign and Colonial Secretaries we venture to predict with the utmost confi- dence. Even if they did not happen to agree on general lines, the two men would be by no means likely to assume a position of rivalry. To begin with, the fact that one is a Peer, and so can never enter the Commons, and that the other is a Commoner who would under no circumstances become a Peer while in active political life, eliminates to a great extent the possibility of rivalry. Next, they are men who in essentials desire the same thing, and wish to reach the same goal. No doubt one is a pessimist, and the other an optimist, and no doubt, also, one is inclined to dread increased responsibility, the other to welcome it. Still, even this difference is more one of language than anything else. Lord Salisbury is less of a. Little Englander than his words often imply. Mr. Chamberlain, on the other hand, is more careful not to rush into rash adventures than might sometimes be gathered from his public utterances. Depend upon it, when a definite proposition is laid before the two men and action has to be taken, they will differ very little in regard to what has to be done. Lastly, they have the great and final security against conflict between colleagues. They fully understand, and so have complete confidence in, each other.
As we have said, there is little immediate hope or prospect of being able to make France and the French Government realise that Lord Salisbury is not nearly so pliant as he looks, and that he and the Colonial Secretary are not trying to trip each other up, and so in deadly conflict. Yet till they understand that the Government is both united and firm, the French will, we believe, offer a sullen non possumus to all our demands. The only way of undeceiving them will, we fear, be the presentation of some definite demand to which there can only be the answer of war or of assent. But it does not need pointing out that an ultimatum presented to a people like the French would almost certainly produce war. When things had gone so far their pride would prevent any yielding to what they would call 9 that. But France, convinced that we do not really mean business, and absolutely sceptical, as they are, as to our ever again sending an ultimatum, may so consistently reject all other warnings that we shall have no choice but to use peremptory terms. The problem, then, comes to this. How are we to convince the French that we are in earnest, which we most certainly are ? If we can do so before their pride is aroused war can be avoided, for we repeat now what we said last week,—France does not want a maritime war. If, then, we cannot make France understand that we are in earnest, war seems un- avoidable. The Press has certainly done all it can to show that we are not bluffing, but really mean to act. We never remember to have seen such unanimity on any previous point in foreign policy. The extreme Radical papers are as firm as the most Jingo organs. Whether the Government have means for making the French feel that we are resolved is a nice question, but one which it would perhaps not be wise to discuss in public. We will only note the fact that if war broke out with France to-morrow the Mediterranean would be our one point of danger. Under these circumstances, might it not be wise to increase the Mediterranean Fleet by the mobilisation of a special service squadron ?
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