IMPENDING POLITICAL CHANGES IN EUROPE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1029, 19 January 1880, Page 4

IMPENDING POLITICAL CHANGES IN EUROPE.

The affairs of humanity at large are for a moment, stationary. There is a deep and heavy silence broken only by the subdued stir of preparation, or the suppressed murmur of diplomatic transactions. The Fates are winding round their distaffs the threads which they will shortly commence to unroll, and the material out of which destiny will manufacture history is being accumulated in the great storehouse of the nations. The moral is written in characters on the fickle face of circumstances so plain that he who runs may read, and it is to this effect; <( The old order changetb, yielding place to new.” The legend is übiquitous. It meets the eye of him who surveys the Continent of Europe with comprehensive glance. If he casts his vision farther to Southern Africa or to Northern India it is there. If he returns to England he is confronted by the unmiotakeable assertion of its presence.

Europe is full of rumors. Some vast transformation scene, it is thought, is being arranged ; and when the curtain rises, none can say what will be the grouping and distribution of characters upon the stage. Even the composition of the personages of the drama is matter of conjecture. Before another act begins, the veterans may have disappeared, and new players may be animated by fresh motives. A Bismarck and an Andrassy, a Hohenzollern and a Hapsbnrg, may propose ; but can they dispose ? The old Kaiserbund is dead; what is to be the sequel of that new Kaiserbund whose formation is the event of the day ? The two diplomatists who met last week for the second time within the space of a month at Vienna are supposed to have arrived at an understanding which will role the destiny of Europe for several years.' While Lord Salisbury has been haggling with M. Waddington at Dieppe, and the voice of inspired sychopbancy proclaims that, as a result of the interview, the whole Egyptian difficulty is settled, the German Chancellor and the Austro-Hungarian Minister have determined what is to be done with Central and Eastern Europe, and how far out of Asia Russia is to be permitted to go. The empire at whose capital the august conference was held is to be a barrier against Panslavism and Russian aggression. Under the auspices of Germany, the two conflicting elements of the AustroHungarian population are to be wedded together in peace and harmony, and are to extend the limits of their territory due south till the waters of the »ean are reached". The occupation of NoviBazar, which has thus far been eminently successful, is in the nature of an experiment ; and £when that experiment has become an acknowledged triumph, the title of Austria to effect the permanent pacification of the entire Balkan peninsula will be established. The Governments of Vienna and Berlin are to be united by the closest political, social, and commercial ties; and this league of international amity and good-will is to decide the future of the Western world. Russia may stretch herself forth as she will across thesavage wilds of Asia. She may menace the Indian Empire of England as she likes, may fan the flame of intrigue and massacre at Cabul, and may seize the armed possession of Herat. But as regards Europe, the limits of her advance are laid down. She is to confine herself within her present boundaries, and the idea of any military union between Russia and France is to be placed out of the question. The paramount ascendency of Germany and Austria on the Continent having been once established, there will be nothing that either Power need fear. If they choose to bid the Millennium advance, what can oppose it 1 Hence the rumor that the two Governments have resolved upon- a universal disarmament. The rumor may probably be dismissed as an ingenious invention ; but its circulation is significant, and is, in effect, a direct testimony to|the practical omnipotence of the new international combination.

From these circumstances there is this definite lesson to be derived—one epoch of European history has come to a close, and another is about to begin. Emperors and Imperial Chancellors meet and plan and plot, may put their pen to written understandings and may sign secret conventions. To do all this is to pave the way for events; it is not to control events or to make them. Any trivial accident may upset these schemes tomorrow. The German Emperor is 84, Prince Bismarck is 65, Count Yon Moltke is 79. The Austrian Kaiser and Count Andrassy are much younger. The life of the Czar is not worth twelve months’ purchase, and Count Gortschakoff is two years older than the century Germany is the pivot on which all these transactions turn, and in five years’ time supreme power in Germany will have changed hands. The Emperar William can scarcely last so long and his death would probably be the political extinction of Prince Bismarck. It is, therefore, not in the nature of things that any agreement with Austria can nc w be made whose operative effect can be insured over a considerable series of years. Precautions for the new- order may be planned, but they cannot be practically enforced. The diplomatic palace-house, with its large atmosphere of gracious peace, may be built, but its architects may experience the fate of the fool in the parable, and the whole fabric may fall. Germany is honeycombed by Socialism, just as France is still spilt up into political factions. The people of the Fatherland groan beneath the tremendous burden of an overwhelming militarism, and the disappearance of the aged Emperor from the scene might be he

signal for domestic disruption and dissolution. One thing only may be asserted with some confidence. The mntal animosity of Germany and Russia is a'genuinely national sentiment. The foreign policy of Germany in the future will be anti-Russian, and the consequence of this will be gradually to sap the ioflueunce of Russia as a European power.

It is the point that the vital interest of England and in the new order begins. The diminution of Russian prestige in Europe confronts the Government of the Czar with the necessity of increasing it in Asia. That can only be done at the expense of England. The Prime Minister, who a few days before had said that the Imperial title was necessary to check the advance of Russia in Central Asia, declared once that Central Asia was large enough for Russia and England. It is large enough in the sense that the same dining-room is large enough for an irritable husband and an exasperating wife. There may be plenty of room for each, but there is sure to be a quarrel. If there is any reliance whatever to be placed on the signs of the times, a struggle between England and Russia for supremacy in Central Asia is one of those things which are written as indelibly in the book of Fate as the death of every man now living. For all practical purposes, Afghanistan is being absorbed in the Eastern Empire of England, just as Persia is in that of the Czar. We are told that onr Indian dominions are absolutely secure against external attack; and that as long as we have the allegiance of a majority of the inhabitants of that gigantic peninsula we may laugh to scorn all menace from without. The sufficent answer to this comforting assurance is that the English Government do not act as if it was true. Having gone forward, we cannot recede. We are impelled by a force which we cannot resist to press on further every year outside our Indian frontier, and we draw nearer to the shock of collision with Russia. The new order opens for England with a tremendous increase of Imperial responsibility. We have under taken the Government of Zululand ;we are pledged to conquer Afghanistan first, and then to reconstruct its political system We have already made trial of military display and moral pressure ; now we must resort to war in earnest, and the continued application of military force. The profiling genius of this dispensation is a statesman who is now close on 75 years of age. His vitality is great, but he is presumably mortal; and after him it may be the deluge. In another decade it is unlikely that any of that small band of English politicans whose names are familiar to Europe will be amongst us. The tremendous dimensions of the task which we have assumed will then be apparent, shall know what the new order, on which we are entering with heavy hearts, is really like. Is there any prospect of the great statesmen who are yet with us bequeathing to their decendants the calm knowledge and the broad wisdom which may help us to surmount the as yet untried crises of our fate! Ten years hence the rule of the democracy in England will in all probability be firmly established ; and, judging from its exhibitions in the last eighteen months, it will be one of the most changeable, extravagant, and unintelligent with which statesman has ever had to deal. Is there anything to make us think that the attempt is now being made to educate that democracy in such a way that it will endure with patience, with dignified self possession, the defeats as well as the gain which the new order may bring with it. And if not, how is England to emerge from the fierce ordeal of fire and sword which destiny may have in store.