"CONCERTS" EUROPEAN AND OTHERWISE.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIII, Issue 44, 21 February 1907, Page 4

"CONCERTS" EUROPEAN AND OTHERWISE.

If our eyes could only pieros the foreheads of Europe's statesmen, we would see things that would furnish solid intellectual entertainment. Th-s electric cables are, of course, principally a medium by which diplomatists and plenipotentiaries, generally, conceal their thoughts, but • now and then a tick or two of truth leaks from the mysterious wires. Yesterday it was flashed from St. Petersburg tliafc " some newepapeTS announce that Russia is on the eve of concluding an agreement with Britain and Japan. What is true is that negotiations, with both countries are progressing in a- highly [satisfactory manner." Britain, as the smallest of Email boys must know now, already has an "entente cordiale" with France, and is very friendly with various other Powers. Indeed, the nations j,re in such a. tangle of amity, on the surface, that it is difficult to sort them out. There seems to be a keen competition for each other's good wishes ; they appear to be wanting to shake hands instead oi cutting throats in the old way. Yet in this pretty bonhomie, this desire of each nation to assure the pther that he is a good fellow, thero is a tinge of feline suspicion. The lion and the lamb are lying down together her© and there, and they declare that they are enjoying each otheT's society very much, bu^ there is just a fear that the lion's mouth is watering a little and that the lamb's heart is inclined to beat a rapid pit-a-pat. By the reports of " mutual understandings," it would seem that the Hague Peace Conference would be a. mammoth success, and that all the old-time rivals for supremacy on the world's stage would be willing fo bury the bayonet and throw away the gun. But, really, they are all bebevers in Cromwell's maxim : " Trust in God and keep your powder dry.' 1 While it has been - proclaimed with vivas, hurrahs, apd other demonstrations of joy, that there is nothing to fear, Britain xha6 been building Dreadnoughts, and other nations are following suit. Indeed, only yesterday, on the same page that jjave the news about the peaceful negotiations by Russia with Britain and Japan, it was announced that Field-Mprsh.il Lord Robertc had declared in the House of Lords that " the blindness of the public to the risk of a sudden invasion — which was almost always carried out without declaration of waT — tilled him with absolute despair owing to the country's 6tato of unprepaiedness." Altogether, at this distance from the scene, a New Zeolander cannot help feeling that the Powers are watching each other very jealouolr. The balance is indeed a balance. It is manipulated as delicately as the scales of a chemist engaged in an important experiment, in which his quantities have to be weighed with scrupulous accuracy. So soon as one nation appears to gain a little weight by a " friendship." equilibrium is immediately restored by another "entente." Thus tha European "concert," though a continuous entertainment, is never boresmme. We have come to believe that there is pnly one great " concert " in the world, but others are coming. At the time of tho Kingston trouble, France suspected that the United States was endeavouring to arrange a striotly American concert, and while the ■whites aro strutting upon their stage, tho " colours " seem to b& organising a concert of their own. Japa>* has jun into the rankß of firstclass Powers, and China's millions are on the move. A national organisation has come into Btrong existence in India, as an article in the Post yesterday showed. Somehow, lately, a spirit of revival seems to have animated colonred peoples in various parts of tho world, and the race question, long smouldering, is bursting into flame here and there. It is a day or two too soon to speculate definitely , about the significance of recent events, but one may ttoink about them profitably. A prophetic eye may already see the day when history may 'be again trying to repeat itself, a day when the white races in and out of Europe may be linked together by something larger than small talk.