stance connected with the outset of the war, and involved Britain in an expensive campaign, of which she has not dared yet to reap the legitimate advantages. The natural result of the conduct of France with regard to the Egyptian expedition should, it might have been thought, have been the forfeiture of her political influence in the Khedive's country. The abstract justice of such a penalty would have been generally recognised by European diplomacy. Our Ministers, however, have taken an opposite view. The efforts of the Cabinet have been directed less to turning our position in Egypt to proper account, than to seeking to remove the susceptibilities of the Republic on the subject of our occupation. Lord Dufferin's proposals for a British protectorate were set aside, for no other reason, so far as is apparent, than to deprecate the resentment of France, and to please that section of Radicals among ourselves who never cease to advocate the Republican interests, when these are opposed to our cised by means of her relations with the Canal upon Egyptian affairs has been so great, that no foreign equivalent to it existed until British troops found themselves in occupation of the country. In the adjustment of the altered circumstances which sprung from our expedition, statesmanship of the most delicate and discriminating character would have been required; and we should have expected that a British Cabinet would have insisted upon such a future constitution being given to the Canal as would, while scrupulously preserving the rights and interests of shareholders, have deprived it of its preponderating political character. Instead, Mr Gladstone came forward with a proposal which confirms and extends French influence; which would have deprived British commerce of the concessions that were acknowledged to be its due; and which we could only look upon in light of a bribe to buy the goodwill of France, and a bid for that entente cordiale with the Republic which he so ardently desired when he came into office. The Government, however, found out its mistake much more quickly than it usually does, and although it has been obliged to drop the project, it will still have to exercise considerable ingenuity to escape the jeopardy into which its blunder has brought it. We cannot wonThe fact is too often overlooked, der that a proposition so preposthat in Egypt French commercial terous should have at once aroused interests are inextricably mixed up a storm of reprobation among all with political aims, and that in classes of politicians; we are only acknowledging our obligations to surprised that the Ministry could protect the one, we are led, at have confidently imagined that the the same time, into the position of country would ever tolerate such a involuntarily promoting the other. transaction. There is little or no Our past experience of French analogy between Mr Gladstone's interests in Egypt has furnished us scheme and Lord Beaconsfield's with innumerable proofs of this, purchase of the Khedive's shares. especially with regard to the Suez For the latter operation we had Canal. The controlling influence our money's worth, and we secured which France has hitherto exer- an interest in the future of the own. We have sought to soothe our neighbours by allowing them, bit by bit, to insert wedges of political influence into the reconstruction of Egyptian affairs, so that by the time we think fit to withdraw our troops, French agency will be as potential as it was under the old régime before the troubles. Canal which our position in India made it most desirable for us to obtain. Probably Mr Gladstone had it in his mind to emulate Lord Beaconsfield's bold stroke, but the result has only been to draw forth damaging comparisons between the two transactions. We were to give the Company a loan of £8,000,000 at 31 per cent for the completion of a second canal, which was to be finished by the end of the year 1888, to run parallel with, and to be of similar capacity to, the present waterway. In return for this we were to have an English Vice-President and one English Director on the Executive Board, with the right of inspecting navigation on both canals. If we consider the amount of the sum which it was proposed to advance, and the smallness of the interest to be charged-a lower rate than the Government will accept for advances on any purely British undertaking-these guarantees for the security of our interests in the new Canal must be pronounced to be utterly inadequate. Even with the influence which we could exercise through the Khedive upon the management of the Canal-which, if it had to be strenuously insisted on in cases of dispute, might have led to international difficulties,-Britain would have been represented insufficiently in proportion to the interest which she proposed to take in the concern; and the controlling powers of France, as represented by M. de Lesseps and his friends, would still have retained an undiminished preponderance. The great outcry made by the Liberal Opposition in 1875 against Lord Beaconsfield's investment was mainly founded on the complaint that we had no sufficient voice in the management of the Canal to protect the interests which he had purchased. If there was any weight in this complaint, it must apply à fortiori to Mr Gladstone's scheme of intrusting £8,000,000 to the management of a Board to be controlled by a majority of foreigners. The political unreasonableness of the project could not be more clearly demonstrated than by a reference to the state of angry feeling that just now exists between the two countries; and Britain was fully justified in demanding that so large a sum of public money should not be made over to a Board of Frenchmen while the foreign affairs of France remain under the restless and mischievous management which at present appears to direct them. But while the case on international grounds against the concession was thus strong, the injustice to our commerce and shipping It was offered additional arguments that were not less powerful, and which roused the keenest indignation in commercial circles. The complaints made against the heavy dues exacted by the Company from vessels passing through the Canal have been more loud than those extorted by the delay caused by want of accommodation. hoped that in any arrangements made with the Company, an immediate and substantial reduction of dues would have been a first preliminary; and it is easily intelligible why shippers should hear with very bitter feelings that any considerable reduction was to be postponed until the Canal pays a dividend of 21 per cent. The dividend for the present year can scarcely exceed 19 per cent on the nominal amount; and the postponement of the reduced dues was not likely to attract shippers to the Canal in greater numbers than at present. On the contrary, it was much more likely to have driven vessels back again to the Cape route. Then the dues themselves are often levied in an arbitrary and, as shippers allege, in an unjust manner; and no steps were taken to secure a much-needed revision of the principles on which the tariff is fixed; nor was there any promise that an effort would be made to amend the means of redress which shipowners enjoy, or rather do not enjoy, in any dispute with the Company. The procedure in the local courts, whether French or Egyptian, appears to have been carefully framed to deter shipmasters, who are of course pressed for time, from resorting to them; and in the greater number of cases wrongs are readily put up with rather than incur the delay and expense of seeking to obtain justice. There are also many other minor questions connected with the working of the Canal which the Government seems to have been in too great a hurry to consider; and thus the most favourable opportunity that had hitherto presented itself of serving the interests of English merchant shipping was frittered away for the sake of concluding a bargain that possessed at best but very doubtful advantages. Of the haste and mismanagement which contributed to frame this unfortunate bargain, the admission by the Government of the exclusive rights of M. de Lesseps to a monopoly of water communication by the Isthmus of Suez affords one of the clearest proofs. The legality of M. de Lesseps' contention has been questioned by some of our best jurists, whose views are beyond the suspicion of being biassed by political motives; but even had his claim been more clearly established, it does not reflect much credit on the commercial sagacity of Government and its Chancellor of the Exchequer to have made a tacit admission of his title the basis of its bargain. Considering the position which Britain now occupies in Egypt, it would practically have devolved upon our Government to have confirmed any claims that M. de Lesseps succeeded in making good; and it was both a feeble and unwise concession to have surrendered this point without bringing such claims to a clearer issue. The unsatisfactory and equivocating replies which the Government has returned to the questions put by the Opposition regarding the opinions obtained from its law-officers on this point, and the use to which these were put, raise something more than a suspicion that the whole transaction had been arranged after the most unbusinesslike and haphazard fashion. If the Suez Canal agreement was meant as an effort to conciliate France, by giving France, by giving a new lease to her influence in Egypt, it was quite intelligible, and in keeping with the self-sacrificing and subservient spirit which the Liberal Ministry has all along shown towards our neighbours. If it was designed as a profitable investment for the nation, and to do good service to the commerce of Europe, it was the most short-sighted bargain that any Government ever concluded, except under compulsion. If our present interest in Egypt is to be permanently maintained, there was no need for precipitately rushing upon an arrangement for the construction of a second canal in conjunction with M. de Lesseps. If we are to take the earliest opportunity of withdrawing from the country, we should by Mr Gladstone's proposal simply have rendered very material assistance to a foreign power in supplying our place and interest with the Khedive's government. It was rather a striking coincidence that, on the same day as Mr Childers, whose boasted financial capacity has suffered a severe shock in public estimation, startled the House of Commons by announcing the terms of the Suez Canal agreement, his chief had also to impart the information that our Government had been compelled to demand explanations from the Republic for its alleged maltreatment of our flag during its recent filibustering operations against Tamatave. While the controversy is still pending, and explanations are as yet due from the French Government, it would be premature to deal with the charge on its merits. The conduct of Admiral Pierre, however, is merely characteristic of the present temperament of his nation; and the passive indifference which our own Government has manifested towards the French designs in Madagascar is an excellent illustration of its habit of ignoring all obligations which would require it to intervene between the Republic and its intended annexations. But for the treatment of our consul at Tamatave, and the slight offered to our naval officers, there seems no reason to believe that the Government would have ever taken any cognisance of the French designs on Madagascar. Yet we must remember that we had ample warning of what was about to take place. The Malagasy envoys had laid the case of their country very fully before the Foreign Office; and there seemed reason to believe that our good offices at least would be exerted on behalf of the liberties of Madagascar. A Government which can always lash itself up to a great enthusiasm when in Opposition over such subjects as struggling nationalities and the treatment of aborigines, might have been expected to have espoused the cause of the Malagasies with all the ardour at its command, and to have put forward remonstrances to which France would have been compelled to listen. Whether France has repudiated our claims to intervene, or has hinted that our own recent annexation in the Pacific makes our interference come with a bad grace, we are as yet unable to determine with accuracy; but if we may judge from the feelings displayed by the agents of the two countries on the spot, there can be little harmony between France and England upon the subject. Here again we have sacrificed our policy to French views, and have been met with treatment which, until explained away, must be regarded in the light of a contumely to our flag. The case of Consul Pakenham recalls the treatment of Consul Pritchard in Tahiti by Admiral Thouars, while the French were on the point of annexing Queen Pomare's islands in 1842; but the Government of the day made such energetic demands for satisfaction that not only was Consul Pritchard duly compensated, and the conduct of Admiral Thouars disavowed and condemned by M. Guizot, but the firm attitude of the British Government led to the abandonment of the scheme of annexation, and to the substitution in its place of a protectorate over Queen Pomare's dominions. Yet although Sir Robert Peel's Government carried their point, and obtained every reasonable satisfaction, it was held by Lord Palmerston and the Opposition that the tone adopted by the French Chambers with regard to the incident should have been much more severely dealt with by this country. There can be little doubt that the Government of the Republic will take a discreet view of the position in which the excessive zeal of its admiral has placed it, and that such explanations and reparation will be forthcoming as the British Government will be able to deem satisfactory. But the important lesson to be drawn from the incident is, that the aggressive course of policy on which France is embarking in Africa and in Asia, in a manner which is to all appearances both reckless and arbitrary, is liable at any juncture to imperil the existence of friendly relations between our own and that country. It may be an object to other states, whose chief interests are confined within their own frontiers, to encourage France in wasting her resources in expeditions outside Europe; but to Great Britain, whose possessions are scattered over every quarter of the globe, the career of colonial conquest, which seems to be the ambition of Republican statesmen, is fraught with serious possibilities of the two states coming into frequent collision. The danger is all the more that there is a great want of effective control on the part of the French Government over its representatives abroad, who seem left to do pretty much as they like, so long as they do not bring the Ministry into trouble. With a Government composed of such weak and uncertain links as the present French Ministry, and possessing so feeble a sense of political responsibility, it becomes us to be on our guard. The encouragement which the Republic has already drawn from the profuse expressions of attachment which Mr Gladstone's Government has made for it, and from the recent subservience which we have shown to its aims, has only resulted in fostering its aggressive tendencies, and in breeding constant troubles for ourselves. It is impossible for even SO strong a Government as that of up Mr Gladstone to formally bring a project so extravagant as that of the Suez Canal arrangement before the country, and then to imagine that it can escape the odium which it has excited by simply throwing the business. We are fully justified in regarding the Suez Canal agreement as a specimen of the fashion in which the Government has all along been discharging its executive duties. Whether or not Parliament will accept Mr Gladstone's withdrawal from the transaction as a sufficient apology for the original blunder, remains to be seen. It is, in any case, the plain duty of the Opposition to compel the whole matter to be discussed in the most minute and searching fashion, and to have the grounds of the Government's action brought clearly to light. If, as we maintain, and as Mr Gladstone in a great measure admits in his explanation to the House, a regard for the French Republic had weighed with the Government in taking an unduly favourable view of the claims of M. de Lesseps and his colleagues, then it is time that our affection for our neighbours should be restrained within more judicious bounds. The collapse of the Canal agreement, and the discussion of our relations with France which it had inevitably to lead to, will not help to smooth the explanations due for the Tamatave incident, or to promote that cordiality upon an equal or reciprocal footing which it is so desirable to maintain with our friends across the Channel. Printed by William Blackwood & Sons. |