France and England

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXXIII, Issue 33, 17 August 1905, Page 1

France and England

Baron Verulam (commonly called Lord Bacon) was, like Johnson and La Rochefoucauld, somewhat sceptical on the head of personal friendships. But no age and no philosopher that we know of cherished illusions about friendships between nations. Like Sidonia in ' Coningtfby,' nations have no friends. The cheap and mostly interested courtesies that pass between country and country, and the passing public opinion that holds them together with bonds of straw, are not e\cn good counterfeit presentments of what, in private life, would pass for friendship. That which now passes between England and France is known as an ' entente ' or ' undeistanding,' based in the mam upon commercial interests— the ruling consideration m the international politics of our day. It is a welcome change from the hot animosities that raged around the mud-walls of Fashoda and brought the two nations perilously near their hundredth bout of blood-letting. The gojd undeistan,dmg between thorn has been, we hope, greatly strengthened by the grand festivities th-at welcomed the French fleet to British waters during the past week. Nothing like it toas, we think, been witnessed in England since the Crimean War and the visit of the French Emperor ami Empress to iheir former allies* behind the white cliffs of Albion. Popular huzzas count for \cry little— they are like the Bagdad Khalif's fa\or, that showed itself on Monday in gifts of gold and costly robes of state, and turned on Tuesday to burning pitch and flaming faggots Of driad bulrushes. But we hope that the present ' entente ' between England and her ally of fifty years agone will make for a long peace, and for so much of good-will as natiou may have for nation.

The vast tidal wave that was raised by ihe great eruption of Krakatoa, in the Eastern seas, in 1883, sped round tho earth and rocked vessels that Ijay at anchor at Bordeaux and Brest and Panama. In an analogous way, tho epoch-maMng e\ents that have lately taken place or the face of the ocean in the Distant East have stirred tho course of international politics in the West. The Anglo-French 'entente' is one of its early results. In a manner, the two Powers need each other. England has a great naval superiority. It is needed to protect her commerce and her colonies. Their warships are almost in sight of each other across a narrow channel of sea, France's navy is the second in the world. She is

groatly superior to England in military strength. Together, the two nations could probably impose peace on Europe. But a French army could never surround London ; nor could a British army, without one or more Continental allies, ever circle Paris with a ring of iron, as the Gennains did in 1870. It is doubtful if Mr. Atkins could even effect a hostile landing. And even if he did, he would be poundod into bonedust before he would sco the spires of St. Omer or Rouen. A war nowadays between the two Powers would— even if confined to them—he a calamity of the first magnitude. Yet, only eight years ago easy-chair warriors on both sides of the Straits of Dover were busy fanning the flame of ancient national antipathies that for eight centuries have time and again fo'jnd vent in blood. A dozen closed or closing sores weic opened by both sets of disputantsdisputes in the West Indies, fishing rights in Canada, the occupation of Egypt, and chafing spots, in Toniquin, Madagascar, and the islands of the Pacific. French* hie German, colonising is on a small scale as compared with that of Great Britain; but the maga?inc and newspaper war that circled around It in the Fashoda days was more than sufficient to revive, and in a dan-gcio-js form, the traditional jealousy of neighbors who (as a recent English writer says) ' ha\e known each oihei too long and met each other too often.'

No \cry lasting good-will has existed between Frank and Briton since the Normans landed on the coast of Sussex in 1066. A long and ingrained hostility has> separated them. Few nations have hacked and hewed each other with greater zeal. But for the past, eighty years and more theiehas taken place between them that steady, if slow, approach towards similarity in matters of politics and social customs which furnishes one solid groundwork for the hope of a better understanding in the future. llamerton, in one of his books, has, indeed, expressed the conviction that ' there will nc^er be any firm friendship between England and France.' In the Sidonian sense, at least, that would he qaiite true. ' All I hope for,' said he, ' and all that seems to me really desirable, is simply mutual consideration. That is possible, that is attainable. In The higher minds of both countries (with a few exceptions)" it exists already.' But, as is well known, no such fric- dly feeling towards Albion has got its grip on the mass of the people. The opposition to England is particularly keen among the convinced Republican proletariate of France. And (says llamerton) *it exists in degrees exactly pi o portioned to the degree of democratic passion in the Frenchman. When he is a mode-

rate Republican he dislikes England moderately ; a strong Republican usually hates her ; and a Radical Republican detests her.' This feeling was, no doubt, fostered by the habit of tranquil insular contempt which the average Briton abroad so long manifested— and still, though in a chastened measure, manifests— for foreign peoples amon|g whom he deigns to travel. Time and the tourist agencies will at last work the cure of this fdTm of mental aberration— at least in so far as it afieits the educated classes of both countries For travel tends to broaden out little provincial conceptions and to teach toleration',

' And, ground in yonder social mill, We rub each others' angles down.'

It takes time to rub down national prejudices and affectations even among people of some mental training. It takes longer still to rasp the sharp, obtrusive angles off the minds off the masses. And, back of all these considerations, there lie the great commercial factors that dominate the whde Anglo-French -situation. How these may shift from yeai to year, no man can say. But at any ra<<\ it is well for the cause of international tranquihty to have in Great Britain the guiding mind of a Koenig am Berg—of a King whose voice is for peace, and who moves and works above the «*nether mists of racial passion.