The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo. TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1894.

Auckland Star, Volume XXV, Issue 91, 17 April 1894, Page 4

The Evening Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News, and Echo.

TUESDAY, APRIL 17, 1894.

For th« causi that lacki aiairtaiM, For the irrtitt that sttdi ruirtaact, r«r th* future in tin dlita.nct, And the good that ire can *«.

The position of affairs in the French Chamber of Deputies is significant of the feeling prevalent in France. We learn from a cablegram yesterday, that a dissolution is imminent, owing to the refusal of the President to mane further retrenchment in the naval and military votes. : His refusal, it is said, has gieatly incensed a portion of the members of the Chamber. We could have no better indication of the.temper of the French people in regard totbe great naval and military organisation which the country has been keeping up for years past' than this. Here are the representatives of the people demanding that there should be retrenchment in naval and military expenditure, while quite aware that financial retrenchment must be followed to a certain extent by a lessened efficiency in the righting strength of the country. But the French people generally, like the inhabitants of all the great European States, are heartily tired of keeping up this warlike attitude any longer. They are sighing to lay aside their armour again, to stretch theirlimbs, to see an end to this eternal militarism, and to be free from the terrible burden of debt which it imposes on them. For over the last twenty years they have submitted patiently to the load. Wounded vanity and revenge helped to make it feel light, and they were prepared to suffer any sacrifice in the hope of seeing the day when they could wipe out the memory of 1870-71, and, perhaps march, not merely cry, <> Berlin. In Paris and, to a certain degree, in the other large cities, the feeling- engendered by the Prussian victories is still strong, but in the provinces we cannot doubt but that among the peasants and farmers who form such a large proportion of the French nation, twenty years has lessened the desire for revenge, and the people, though patriotic, are far more anxious to be relieved irom the burdens of military service and military taxation than to engage in a doubtful encounter with the' i'igantid armaments of their old enemy.

The position of the couritry people in France is, at this moment, peculiarly hard. The harvest threatens 10 be a complete failure, and the taxes are pressing very heavily on the poorer classes. Why should the people desire war ? What have they to gain from it ? In the towns, too, where Socialism has taken a firm hold, there is growing a profound sentiment against international hostilities which ,will one day be much stronger than any patriotic pride. It is the voice of those tillers of the soil who furnished France with the money to pay the huge war indemnity exacted by Germany, and the voice of those toilers in the cities, which is making itself heard in the cry for retrenchment of the naval and military votes; and the fact that a dissolution is feared if the cry is not listened to is evidence that it is made by a very considerable party in the Chamber. The position of the President is aj very difficult one. On the one hand I there is the safety of the country to be considered in ttfe case of war, on the other the demands of a large party for a reduction of the military and naval vote. If he considers that the desires of this party cannot be complied with except at the risk of great danger v to the country he is probably quite right, in the present condition of things in Europe, not to be guided by them. Whatever course he may ultimately adopt the effect ot the discussion over the question of retrenchment will not be lost on the other nations of Europe. France has always been regarded among them as the firebrand and stirrer up of strife. To the uncertainty which prevailed as to what she would do, is attributable a great deal of the disquietude which has affected all Europe so long. So at least the others say. Now, however, that there has been manifested on her part such a strong desire to curtail the huge army expenditure, the other nations who have alleged the large fighting strength which France maintains to be one of the reasons for their own great armies will rejoice, if Jhey have been honest in their allegat;ons f and the movement towards a general European disarmament will receive an additional impetus. We must not take without a large degree of caution the report of the Subcommittee appointed by the Chamber to inquire into the state of the French navy. M. Lockroy, the President of the Sub-Committee, has always been looked on as somewhat of an alarmist, and the picture of the unprepared condition of the French navy is doubtless very much over-coloured. We can hardly believe that "nothing is prepared for mobilisation in case of war, that the stores .are depleted,, and the torpedo .:fts&eJ&;, are;^un^eaw-ofllfci^ "***& that the administration has been so grossly negligent as M. Lockroy asserts.- ■« '.;

While aware1 that the navy is not, as in England, the popular division of the service, that the most glorious uadi-

tions of France are associated with the army, and that there is on'the part of 't: rir^Hffieii^^^rbngiy^niftJstc^ 'fli*. like to naval service; while aware of all this, we cannot readily take it for granted that the rulers of France have been so blind to the important part their navy will be called on to play in the event of an European war, as to allow it to fall into .such a deplorable state of inefficiency as the report of the Sub-Com-mittee of Inquiry suggests. We could almost rather believe such a stale of things of England than of France, for the latter country has been kept for the last quarter of a century on the gui vive in all warlike matters, while Great Britain has, according to some very high authorities, been dozing in fancied security. Very probably the interests of the French navy have to some extent been sacrißced to those ofthe army, but the sudden outcry regarding its absolute worthlessness is a palpable exaggeration. It is in all likelihood the work of those who are opposed to a retrenchment of the war vote, and who hope to defeat the partizans of retrenchment by arousing a sense of imminent danger in the breasts of a proud people, easily stirred up when their national honour seems likely to be threatened.