ENGLAND AND THE DUAL ALLIANCE.

Dunstan Times, Issue 1843, 19 November 1897, Page 6

ENGLAND AND THE DUAL ALLIANCE.

PRINCE BISMARCK’S VIEWS. A fuller account of the interview between Prince Bismarck and a representative of the * Gaulois ’ has been published. The Prince expressed himself as follows“ The chief topic of conversation between the Emperor and the Czar, as well as between the Czar and M. Faure, must have turned on the subject of England. In spite of the slight sympathy for the selfish policy of England, I fear that all these efforts at Peterhof have been made quite in vain. A serious active working entente with a very definite programme and a great deal of penetrating insight and tenacity would be required to reach a result capable of moderating English pretensions. I am perfectly sure that Germany will not compass it, and we might have to repent undue nagging of the English. As for Franco, she has not to complain of her position in the world, which she owes as much to her relations with Russia as to her army, now well reorganised, and her prudent and honest government. I am not an enemy of France, but the difficulty she finds in accepting the fait accompli ot the integrality of the German Empire has always inspired in me a prudent mistrust. I said to Ferry : ' Seek some compensation. Found colonies. Take outside of Europe whatever you like ; you can have it ’; and Ferry, without my ever having sought to create for himthe slightest embarrassment quite the contrary obtained Tunis. In acting thus I annoyed not only the English, but our friends the Italians as well. If Jules Ferry had not understood me I should have had some sufficiently anxious moments in the region of the Vosges, and who knows what would have occurred? Certainly it would be a very good time to recover the Suez Canal and Egypt from the English, but I do not believe that in France there is really, any passionate interest in this question. They are right there perhaps to wait for us Germans to become still more deeply involved in our foreign policy, for at present we have neither leadership tier principles—in fact nothing, nothing whatever. It is a case of general groping and waste of the stores of influence which I had accumulated.” THE CO-OPERATION OF ENGLAND. The Paris * Soleil ’ publishes a long and interesting letter from its St. Petersburg correspondent, who is well known as having access to good sources of information. With regard to the Franco-Russian Treaty of Alliance, he says one point for the future is beyond doubt The treaty is not directed against England. I had given you to understand this some days ago, but what was then only a hypothesis is now a pretty well ascertained truth. The German project has completely failed. The English may; perhaps, bo teased a little concerning Egypt, but you may rely upon it that Russia and France will do nothing to annoy her, either in India or the Transvaal. South Africa is completely beyond our sphere of action. Asj for India, whatever may be said, we have never dreamed of conquering it. England may rest assured of our amicable neutrality.' If any grave danger threatens her it will not be created by us,” According to the information of the Paris correspondent of ‘ The Times,’ the pourparlers in St. Petersburg were mainly in regard to England,_and might be summed up as follows:—“We should not fear, if the cape arose, the Triple Alliance; but it might, on the other hand, be dangerous, and in any case it would be imprudent, to confront a quadruple alliance. If, therefore, we cannot obtain the co-opera-tion of the eventual fourth Power—that is to say, of England—our common efforts—arid all the more so just bow, opnsidering the tendency of Germany—should have as their object as faV as possible the paralysis of the eventual act of the fourth Power. Among certain of the leading personalties in Russia there is a very strong conviction that the treaty of the Franco-Russian alliance should not remain completely secret, and especially as regards England. Just because it is a question of not exposing ourselves to seeing England take up a position against us, we ought not to conceal from her the leading clauses of our entente , we should avoid arousing her suspicion and distrust, and not afford her the excuse of coming out against us by leaving the impression that we have been concocting a plot against her.”