The Dominion. SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1912. THE EUROPEAN SITUATION.

Dominion, Volume 5, Issue 1431, 4 May 1912, Page 4

The Dominion. SATURDAY, MAY 4, 1912. THE EUROPEAN SITUATION.

A period of excitemont and of political unrest has again opened in Central and South-East Europe. Turkey is unsettled and the Balkan States are moving uneasily, casting suspicious glances upon their powerful neighbours—Turkey on the south, Austria-Hungary on the north. Hungary seems to have almost reached a crisis in relations with Austria on the one side, and on the other, with its province of Croatia-Slavonia. The AustriaHungarian Empire for years seems to have been undergoing something like a process of internal dissolution. No real progress has been made with the task the Emperor Francis Joseph set himself decades ago, that of welding the diverse races over which he rules into ono harmonious nation. M. Kossuth, leader of the Independent party, has long opposed the military prerogatives claimed by the Crown in Hungary. Terms of a kind, but sufficient to set tho chief question at rest for a few years, were made with the Crown when M. Kossuth became a member of , the Coalition Government in 1906. Since then, however, tho question of language has arisen —that is, the words of instruction and command were to be uniform irrespective of the soldiers' race and tongue—resulting in a ferment throughout Hungary and its provinces. This year M. Kossuth succeeded in carrying a resolution in the Reichstag which would have crippled the power of the Imperial Government, acting in the Emperor's name, in recruiting for the army—an Imperial concern—in Hungary. This successful motion was followed, the oilier clay, by the aged Emperor threatening to abdicate were any attempt made to restrict the military prerogatives of the Crown. Bitter attacks, according to recent news from linvn oince boon madg on the Emboror

Francis Ferdinand. A quarter of H century ago the general conviction was that the next great European war Would follow the demise of the Emperor Francis Joseph. Tho Dual Monarchy, it was predicted, would then fall to pieces, iind there would be a wild. Scramble for possession among the Powers. The situation has changed; but troubles and dangers remain.

According to the Daily Mail's Ber- | lin correspondent the Triple Alliance has been extended onwards from 1914. This information will probably he found in tile Hear future to be, at least, premature. Political information from Berlin, more especially when concerned with Germany's diplomatic successes and her alliances, must invariably be liberally discounted. The aim of Germany's inspired press lias, of late, been to glorify the Triple Alliance' and to belittle its vis-a-vis, the Triple Entente, While admitting that it is always hazardous to predict, even the immediate future of European politics, the fact remains that a considerable body of the best-in-formed statesmen and publicists of the day seem convinced that the Triple Alliance will not again be renewed. If Italy remains a membel of the Alliance her main object will be, not to display friendship for either of the German Empires but to protect herself from the threatened onslaught of Austria. It is, indeed, a remarkable alliance, suggesting as it does the tying together of two bulldogs so closely that they are unable to fight. The Kaiser seems to have been busy this year and his visits to the Emperor Francis Joseph and King Emmanuel have doubtless been responsible for the Berlin announcement touching the Triple Alliance. He has every reason to desire the maintenance of the status quo. Italy, free from the Alliance, would hesitate to assume a position of isolation and, inevitably, she would seek more intimate relations with France. Many acute observers profess to believe that, two years, hence the Triple Entente will develop into the Quadruple Entente, formed through mutual understandings, probsbly solid agreements, on the part of Italy, France, Russia, and Great Britain. This, in the Kaiser's opinion, is a consummation not devoutly to be wished. At Venice the other day the War Lord was evidently in_ his element when he stated that, if he had people so intelligent as the Italians, ne would conquer half Europe. The Kaiser's spell of diplomatic speech was of brief duration.

Great Britain, afc the present time, remains, directly, unaffected by the rising wave of distrust and unrest which is rapidly spreading over the Continent of Europe. The relations between France and Great Britain have been, probably at no time, marked by so many.tokens of close and sincere friendship as have bean exhibited by both countries during the past few weeks. At Nice the Prime Minister of France has unveiled a statue of Queen Victoria, and at Cannes a statue of Kino Edward, on both occasions British and French marines appearing side by side. The heir to the British Throne is now in Paris. Russia's adhesion to the Anglo-French compact remains unweakened. The meeting of the Emperor of Russia and the German Emperor at Potsdam in November, 1910, the German Press Bureau informed the world, proclaimed the doom of the Triple .Entente. Nowadays it is mors' wise to go to St. Petersburg" for news than to Berlin. For a time the German anti-British Press seemed _as if in an eestacy of bombastic jubilation over the phenomenal success of the Kaiser's diplomacy and the humiliation of England. Bfct M. Sazonoff, the Russian Minister for Foreign Affairs, afterwards, in a short, pregnant utterance brought discomfiture and silence to the "mandarins of the Wilhelmstrasse." Speaking to a representative of the Novoie Vrcmia he officially explained that the discussion of every question raised at Potsdam had rested upon recognition of _ the principle that ."the previous diplomatic basis of the existing international situation must be absolutely maintained in its whole integrity. Expressed in other words, the Potsdam conference was conducted on the understanding that the Triple Entente was in existence, was to remain in existence, and could not be the subject of debate. In spite of Lord Haldane's mission the German Press will be searched in vain for an indication that improved relations are desired with Great Britain. Mr. Frederick Harrison, that clear-visioned veteran, writing in the Morning Pnst„ is obviously right. "The idea of fossil Radicalism that soft words can dispel the Teuton wrath," he declares, reveals only "a childish ignorance of real facts."