THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1886.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXIII, Issue 7772, 19 October 1886, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. TUESDAY, OCTOBER 19, 1886.

It is evidently the general impression in Europe that the outbreak of war is not far off. There is on all hands increased activity in the preparations. Germany and Prance are described as racing against each other in the haste with which their infantry are furnished with new varieties of the repeating rifle. The Russian Government are holding reviews and army movements near St. Petersburg, to which foreign officers are invited, and on a larger scale in Lithuania, to which foreign officers are not invited. In the English dockyards, the arming and fitting out of the new ships of war lately in preparation, are being rapidly pushed forward. The authorities in Vienna are said to have acquired a rifle which can discharge forty shots a minute. But the Governments all round are known to now possess particular secrets in the art of destruction, and, in face of such a fact, the project broached some months ago of an exhibition devoted to implements of war, to be held next year in Brussels, seemed somewhat of a jocular idea. As the different Governments would not exhibit unreservedly, the Exhibition could have 1 little practical meaning. Very possibly it is the fear of surprises of the kind which kept the peace so long—the tremendously burdensome armed peace. Prussia • and Austria had in the last century a seven years' war in the same country where, in our time, another war between them was ended in seven weeks, by the sudden presentation of novel means of destruction. The unexpected production of the improved needle-gun enabled Prussia to become Germany. The lesson has not been lost sight of, and there is since the belief that each of the Great Powers has its own novelties unknown to the rest, and only to be brought forth on critical occasion.

But cautious as the various Governments visibly are, it is plain that the armed peace cannot last. The European Continent literally groans under the burden of the conscription. It will not be permanently endured, that is certain ; and then the annual cost to the Governments is enormous. Some Power will therefore seize what may seem its opportunity for breaking such a peace, and precipitating matters ; and when Prince Bismarck is ready to assist Russia, to break it, it looks as if he thought they could pretty well control the situation by pulling together. Then if, as his official journal has declared, Russia is to have Constantinople, where are we to see the reward for the alliance ? The question naturally arises, what is the quid pro quol It is the manifest interest of the German Chancellor to support the present system of Government in Russia. We have ere now explained it in detail. That system really paralyses the Pansclavic project. We have an illustration at the present moment. Bulgaria and the other Sclavic populations of the Balkan region—however glad they used to be of Muscovite help against their old master, the Turk— are by no means disposed to become provinces of despotic Muscovy. They are now free, and they do not wish to be even confederated with a kindred nation while its Government is the enemy of constitutional privileges. It is the German Chancellor's policy to assist the existing Russian Government, whose system paralyses that Pansclavic project he dreads but it is also plain that Russia is not to be helped to such a position as Constantinople without an equivalent in hand. What is to be that equivalent ? To find the answer we must note the present national ambition of Prince Bismarck. It is a great maritime ambition. We see it in the multitude of his recent annexations—in the North Pacific, in New Guinea, in East Africa, in Patagonia. Everyone knows that Germany has an extensive seaboard ; but there are projects for enlarging it; and soon after the Franco-German war it was reported over Europe—and we believe the fact is undoubted—that the Chancellor invited successively the Danish and the Belgian monarchs to enter the German Empire on the same footing as the Kings of Bavaria, Saxony, and Wurtemberg, at present. Those overtures were stopped by the intervention of the other Powers. Russia was particularly J furious at the idea of a German annex- i ation of Denmark. It would hand 1 over to a great rival Power the strait ' of the Sound—the key of the Baltic— 1 the key to the water approaches of the i Russian capital. But, if Russia is to \ be helped to the Bosphorus and the M Hellespont, would she any longer 1 J oppose Germany's possession of the ' j

Sound? Is that to be the quid pi quo? Of course, St. Petersburg, i - such a case, would no longer answer £< a capital —would sink into a mere pr< vincial city, But the Muscovite natio [ would not regret that. They neve i loved St. Petersburg, and it promote the popularity of the *'Sclavoni party " — the constitutional agitatorsthat they proposed to bring back th seat of Government to the ancien metropolis Moscow, urging that, ii these railway days, communicatioi with the outer world is easy for a Gc vernment, even in the heart of th I Empire. Czar Peter founded SI Petersburg because he wanted a mari time site for his capital ; but that Im perial position of Constantinople, alik important in a political, a military, am a commercial sense, would be worth i dozen St. Petersburgs, Against this view of the possibl bargain, we must not forget that th< Danes themselves would never acquiesci in it. They have a very sore feeling towards Germany, not only because o the wars in which they lost Sleswig Holstein, but because of the violatior afterwards of the fifth article of th( Treaty of Prague. The reader wil. recollect that Holstein and Sleswig wen taken from Denmark on the score ol being German provinces ; but, as the inhabitants of that part of Sleswig bordering Denmark are not Ger mans but Danes, the right was reserved to them in the treatj of, whenever consulted, declaring bj a plebiscite whether they would oi would not return to the Danish monarchy. The Chancellor persuaded the Austrian Government to join the German in abrogating this right, and some time ago the formal annulment of this article of the Treaty of Prague was published, reasonably causing great indignation in Denmark and among the Sleswig Danes. Unfortunately, there has been of late years in Denmark very angry feeling between the King and the great majority of his subjects, who charge him with anticonstitutional courses. By the last mail, we see that the quarrel has grown to such a head that a revolution would not be improbable. It does seem a curious coincidence that the crisis should occur at the present juncture. Certainly Prince Bismarck would not tolerate a revolution in little Denmark, close beside him. He would immediately occupy the country with German trooops ; and the King, then dependent on Berlin for protection, might be less unwilling than formerly to enter the German Empire. There may be nothing in it after all, but most assuredly Russia is not to be helped without some balancing again ; and, as the Chancellor's diplomacy has been no secret in regard to Denmark or Holland or Belgium, one naturally looks in some such direction to observe what may now happen by way of German profit from the newly-fledged alliance.