The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, DEC. 28, 1893. FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

Feilding Star, Volume XV, Issue 201, 28 December 1893, Page 2

The Feilding Star. THURSDAY, DEC. 28, 1893. FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

«. It is a very remarkable coincidence that while the business men in London continue to agitate for an increase in the British navy, M. Clemenceau, a distinguished French Statesman, is pressing for an enquiry into the efficacy of the navy of France, which M. Lockroy has declared to be badly organised, also that Cherbourg is unable to offer a serious resistance, while Corsica would yield to an attack immediately. The inference that may be drawn from tbis is that if tho English fleet is insufficient to meet the naval requirements of the nation, the French fleet is in n>) bettor condition. It is worthy of note in this connection tbat when the most trivial accident happens to an English ship of war the fact is blazoned abroad and, as a rulo, adversely commented upon by tbe newspapers which are seldom sparing in their attacks on the Ministry of the day when opportunity offers to assail them through their naval admim'stra tion. On the other hand similar occurrences in the French navy are kopt as secret as pdssible, all knowledge of them being confined to those present at the time, and the officials to whom the circumstances are reported. The newspapers, therefore, even if they desired, which tbey generally do not, are not the publications where a taxpayer can discover when his money is being wasted by beiog expended in faulty machinery, unweildy ships, or defective guns. We prefer the English system, because if it does betray the weaknesses of our defences, it also shows how they may be strengthened. In France the most criminal neglect may be hidden behind the shield of official reticence, only to be discovered when too late, as wa6 the case in the early days of the Franco-Prussian war, when bad arms and worse ammunition cost the nation the lives of bo many thousands of gallant soldiers. The only thing we dread is, that if the two nations— England and France— begin to get their battle ships in fighting order with the declared intention of being in a condition to meet each other ou equal terms in a naval engagement their combative natures may become bo .excited that the old national hatred may be rekindled and war between them result. France is at the present time endeavouring to get by indirect means a foo ting in Egypt, which Napoleon I looked upon As the gate of India. French spies have recently conveyed to the War Department in Paris, plans of the principal British fortifications in the Indian Empire, and we may accept it was only a reasonable belief that these were not obtained without an object. Russia is now making trouble in Constantinople, a city the possession of which has been the fixed object of that Power since the days of Peter the Great. These circumstances when considered with the firm alliance which now exists between Russia and France, justify in a great degree any alarm the English mercantile community may feel and express at a probable war in the near future. The ambition of kings and rulers may be gratified by war, or conquests gained through the sacrifice of the blood and treasure of the people, but those who prefer the peaceful occupations of commerce, the cultivation of the soil, and the advance of civilization, can only look upon the slaughter of men in battle as a crime.