FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

Thames Star, Volume VIII, Issue 2981, 8 July 1878, Page 3

FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

(times cobkespondent.)

Paeis, May 7. Russian diplomacy is said to evince much displeasure at the "Treat impression produced by the Priuce of Wales' speech, and certain Russian or philo-Bussian circles affect to regard the speech as a kind of revelation indicating an* understanding effected, or on the point of being effected, between France and England. It is scarcely necessary to remark that these are exaggerations intentionally cir- ■*■ culated with a view to check the manifestations of mutual sympathy which have of late arisen in the two countries. The recent attitude of France has beyond doubt given the English cause, or rather the cause espoused by England, considerable support, precisely on account of the sponlaniety of this Teering of French public opinion. But it would be a great mistake to imagine that that opinion was prompted by anybody, or was inspired by any sinister calculation. The veering had a cause singularly insignificant when compared with the effect produced by it. Public opinion was not merely not impelled in that direction by those who usually direct it, but, on the contrary, journalists who have hitherto exhibited most sympathy for E^W'a have been driven by public opinion into the adoption of an attitude less favourable to her. The almost trivial cause of this sudden and general veering round of the Paris public was the publication of the map accompanying the San Stefano Treaty. The scanty geographical knowledge of mest Frenchmen and the carelessness with which they peruse diplomatic documents will easily account for the effect produced by that map. Everybody had previously seen the Treaty, but few had had the patience to read it with the requisite attention, and still fewer had any exact idea of its bearing and significance. When, therefore, the Havas Agency, as a mere matter of business, and without at all foreseeing its effect, supplied the newspapers with the map which was, a tangible commentary on the: Treaty, the French^ public were stupefied at seeing Ignatieff's Bulgaria, as a French statesman remarked, " taille comme la peau dun mouton enrage " into European Turkey, menacing Constantinople on all sides 7 endangering Austria, disquieting Eoumania, stretching out to two seas in a way foreshadowing future aggrandisement. The French publfc immediately began to think Russia was trifling with Europe, and precisely because this kind of sorry jest occurred at a moment when France was not in a position to interveir they were the more Jivitated, and turnrd eagerly towards England, who alone could declare against the arbitrary and dangerous conditions of the Treaty. The Priuce of Wales' speech was simply an official attestation of this change of French opinion ; and if it was at once cordial and timely, if it evinced gratitude to France for her attitude towards England, if the Prince acted like a statesman in taking note of the friendly temper of a neighbouring nation, it. was neither a revelation nor a programme, but merely the result oi a real feeling which the Prince did well to attest, because that attestation has been greeted in France with universal approval.