ENGLAND AND GERMANY.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1170, 1 August 1884, Page 3

ENGLAND AND GERMANY.

A telegram dated Bei lin. June sth, which appears in the London Times, says:— It is long since any production of the English Press has attracted so much attention in Germany m the article in the last number of the “Fortnightly Review”'on England’s foreign policy. It is not ton much to say that it has been copied into and commented on bv every journal of note in the' Empire, and there is a remarkable agreement of opinion os to its character. It is generally granted that Mr Gladstone’s disavowal of its authorship must bo accepted as binding; but it is at the same time universally contended that the article in question, os the North German Gazette yesterdsypnt it,is an act of indiscretion or of mystification, and accurately reflects the policy which the British Premier has in the past pursued towards the G-rman Powers, and which in the future he means to pursue. That Piince Bismarck’s organ itself inclines to the belief that the essay is an act of indiscretion (committed, that is to say, by someone intimate with the mind of Mr Gladstone) is perfectly clear, and to-day it has afforded further proof of this conviction by giving a prominent place to a translation of your leading article on the subject, of last Saturday- It is quite evident, in fact, in spite of Mr Gladstone’s disclaimer, that the disquisition referred to has attracted the keenest attention in official ciroles here, and that it has been carefully p mds red at Friedriohsrube. The Kor tit German Gazette is a journal which, like Hubert the executioner, never acta except upon “ the winking of authority,” and it has clearly been told to give the cue to its contemporaries in disseminating a knowledge of the contents of the paper in the ‘ Fortnightly.’ Th s r.su t too,?of this knowledge is plain enough already in the shape of a marked increase in that ill-humonr towards Eng. laid which has been at the bottom of all German criticism of the country evet since Mr Gladstone came into power, and which has been rapidly rising of late into shrill notes of denunciation and abuse. One can scarce y take up any journal, no matter of what shade, without finding in it hitter and gafiing words about England and her Prime Minister. It almost seems, indeed, as if, tired of the profitless and iueffeet al task of baiting the Jews, the Germans had sought recreation in the fresher pleasure of objurgating the English. Englishmen are accustomed to pride themselves on the fact that the sun never sets on their S ivereigu’s broad domains ; but it was only the other day that the National Zeituny invited its readers to adopt a new reading of this I ruth, and to believe that ( * the sun throughout its daily circuit looked nninlcrrnptedly down on lands in which the power of England is steadily declining, and that too, more or less, in consequence of the policy pursued by Air Gladstone on the Nile.” The National Zeitmg is by no moans unique among its contemporaries in the expression of these views, which are too apt to bo engendered by the wish being father to the thought, end by forgetfulness of tile fact that the fabric of the British Empire, being of older and more complicated growth than the German Empire, can well survive tne fillies and blunders of a single statesman. But still those views are characteristic of much that is said and written here now on tiio subject of England, and the last few days have witnessed a recrudescence of chat soreness of feeling towards her Prime Minister on the part of the German Press which it is well known is largely shared by reemse of Fried riebsruhe.

*1 his intermittent irritation has a very c mp icated cause; but the Kreuz Zeitung of this evening partially enables us to understand it when it writes : “ All the wnvul knows that Mr Gladstone has ever been an opponent of Germany and an admirer of Russia and b’raueo. and that on every occasion be has allowed these subjective feelings of hatic 1 and love to influence his o ort acts of policy in a manner incompatible 'vi hj true statesmanship. Iho Kiruz Zetland further argues that hir Gladstone still nears i’rinco Bismarck a oesp and imp acablo grudge for having be n prevented by the German Chancellor Rom turning topsy-turvy the structure raised by the Treaty of Merlin, in the attempt to do which ho “ moved heaven and hell.”

Several other livening papers, notably the Post and lleichsbote, write of English foreign policy in a strain of equal irritation.