DELCASSE'S RETURN. WHAT IT MAY MEAN TO EUROPE

Evening Post, Volume LXXXI, Issue 95, 24 April 1911, Page 2

DELCASSE'S RETURN. WHAT IT MAY MEAN TO EUROPE

THE POSITION REVIEWED. M. Delcaste. the new French Minister of Marine, unlike Sir Edward Grey, is not in much danger of being beaten to death with olive branches. His return to place and power has beea saluted by the countries of Europe after the manner of each (writes a diplomatic correspondent in the London Daily Mail). France, divided between the memory of the Triple Entente and the iear that Germany has not forgiven M. Belcasse, receives his appointment as Minister of Marine with reserve, in which are traces of audacity and timidity. Germany, amazed at the restoration of the statesman who defied her, affects an indifference that is manifestly overdone. Her real sentiments are epoken by Austria, for, if the Triple Alliance has only one "mailed fist," it has two, if not three, mouths, and can open or close them at, will. When Russia is to be charmed into submission, Count yon Aehreuthal, the Austrian Foreign Minister, goes on a holiday while the German Emperor doffs his shining armour and takes up the flute which Bismarck pretended to throw away, though he always kept it within, reach. We have watched the pei'formfince quite lately, and witness its result in the agreement pledging Russia to have no part in any hostile combination against Germany. When Francs has to be warned and Germany prefers the menace of silence, Austria is ready to do the shouting. And the newspapers of Vienna are playing t-he!r allotted part with" wonted vigour and want of scruple, -in the hope of frightening France into a second abandonment of M. Deloasso. KALEIDOSCOPIC 'CHANGES. These attacks not succeed, though they may be encouraged by the state of parties in. France. Parliamentary government ha* been said to prevent great shocks but to multiply small ones. In France, especially,, is this true. The foreigner cannot help being; amazed at the swift succession of Ministers whose names are forgotten, and at the political groups that form and reform with bewildering suddenness. A witty Frenchman, when asked the name of the Prime Minister, replied that he had nov seen the latest edition of the evening paper. These kaleidoscopic changes in the government of the Republic are responsible for the belief that parliamentary institutions are not adapted 'to the nature of the French" people. The British, we often tell ourselves, is the only race with the national genius for parliamentary institutions. We alone have the spirit of compromise, the balance of private interests, and the watchful public spirit that ensure the practical working of the party system. These pretensions are not denied by our critics abrcfad, though the present condition of politics in Great Eritam may have started some doubts. It is true, none the lees, that our Parliamentary system has developed greater stability than that of France, and for reasons that we are not always willing to admit. As a people w« are more responsive to acts than to ideas, and have compromised between nationalism 1 and individualism. Tiie French ha-ve more imagination, and therefore less fear of change. They, axu governed by ideas more than by acts, and have little of that indifference which is sometimes 1 mistaken' for tolerance. THE USE OF BLINKEBS. Politicians, as M. Anatole France says, aro like horses : they cannot march straight without blinkers. And in France they will not wear blinkers. Therefore they are always wandering from the beaten, track and gettrne into difficulties. M. Jaures, the Socialist leader, like some Kadicals in the British Isles, cannot see the interests of ,his own country because his eyes are fixed steadfastly on Germany. Hero is the real danger to M. Deka-see. M. Jaures is a. pacivist ,\vho believes that the danger to peace comes from Great Britain and not from Germany. He accuses ub of responsibility 1 for the competition in armaments and of incitement to war because we are, jealous of German maritime and economic development. M. Jaures, after the manner of his kind, preaches peace abroad and war at home. He sees only the virtue of enemies and the vice of friends. Germany, in the eyes of men like M. Jaures, is the innocent victim. This perversion explains the efforts to discredit M. tielcasse. Hitherto the worM has believed that M. Delcasse was made the scapegoat to German intrigue in 1905, and quitted thte Foreign Office under threat of war. . M. Gaston Calmette has undertaken to refute this legend. To the delight of peace-at-any-price men in France and the British Isles the Figaro is trying to prove that this national idol has head, as well as feet, of clay. These revelations, I fancy, will strengthen rather than weak&n the popular tradition, for they show not a council of statesmen but a dovecote terrified by the shadow of a hawk. It is true, no doubt, that no formal threat was spoken beyond the declaration of Prince Kadolin, the German Ambassador, that if the Algeciras Conference was not held France must realise that Germany stood behind the Sultan of Morocco. What" more was wanted than these significant words? Was it necessary that they should be delivered "in shining armour" before they could be regarded as a threat? At any rate, they had the effect intended by Germany. French Ministers, having hastily enquired after the Army and Navy, and concluded that France and her friends were unready, beat a hasty retreat and left M. Delcasse to shoulder the responsibility anß the blame. It is M. Gaston Cahnette's purpose to expose M. Delcasse as a swashbuckler, and his colleagues in the Cabinet as prudent statesmen. All that he succeeds in doing is to prove that M. Delcasse had a policy and his colleagues had a fright. THE GERMAN TRADITION. These domestic disputes have an interest beyond France, for they concern Great Britain and Russia as well as Germany. M. Delcasse represents an international even more than a national policy. He was the architect of the Triple Entente, the foundations of which are less firm than they were even twelve months ago. M. Delcasse xnaj not be able to repair the breach made at Potsdam by thd 1 German Emperor, but as Minister of Marine he can restore confidence in the armaments of France, whose acknowledged weakness was the cause of his own undoing in 1905. It is because he is pledged to this policy of effective defence that M. Delcasse's enemies attack him with so much violence. No one wants to offend Germany by parading M. Delcasse's appointment as an act of defiance. Tho new Ministry cannot be suspected of any desire to add difficulties abroad to troubles at homo merely to annoy Berlin. lt 'is hard, therefore, to understand why Frenchmen should join in the cry that has gone up from Vienna and is beginning to be heard in Berlin. If M. Delcasse is a menace, as his enemies pretend, then every battleship he is prepared to lay down is a menace. Those who would . sacrifice him once more imagine that they would be making a peace offering to Germany. They overlook the fact that such offerings have unexpected effects in Germany. Great Britain, through the Government of the late Bir Henry Gampbell-BoJinernian, proposed a compromise on armaments with. Germany, and is still struggling to make

up for loss of lime and the new impulse given to German rivalry. Has France to learn the aamo lesson from experience? Does she no longer remember that the individualism and altruism that are the weakness as well a« the strength of public life in France have no place in Germany, where the nation fills the place of the individual and where self-protec-tion is the highest 'form oi' altruism? France cannot reject M. Delcasse at this moment without again doing penance to Germany and the Triple Alliance.