FRANCE AND GERMANY.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXV, Issue 9150, 4 September 1888, Page 6

FRANCE AND GERMANY.

TO THE KDITOK. Sir, —I do not often trouble you with any remarks upon non-medical subjects, but 1 cannot resist the temptation to break a lance with you on the views you take as to the position of France at the present time. The tone of exultation in your articles at what you look on as the humiliation of France, and your evident desire to exalt Germany still more at her expense, seems to me not just, much less generous. I, for one, cannot forget that expedition to the Crimea, in which our armies stood side by aide as allies against the Colossus of the North, in which we shared she same dangers, the same privations, and the same triumphs. Since then England has stood calmly by, and watched her former ally in the throes of her death agony, and never lifted a finger or fired one bullet to help her. I don't blame our rulers for their non-intervention ; it was part of the exclusively selfish policy which they have invariably pursued, and which leaves us often without an ally, without a friend in Europe. But at least at that time, if England gave nothing else, she gave her sympathy to France. Very soon after the war commenced there was one feeling, and one only (except in the highest quarters), and that wis deep sympathy for Franco, overrun by a brutal and cruel foe. I was in England at the time, and although at first there was some feeling in favour of the Germans, it was soon converted into sympathy with France. At the present time, the Germans and Italians together are trying to provoke France into declaring war. Whatever faults or defects the existing French Government may have, it is too wise to allow itself to be provoked into playing the game of its wily and sordid enemies. Anything more ignoble than the motives of Germany and Italy, it is difficult to conceive. The border robbers of the Middle Ages were honest and respectable gentlemen in comparison. Germany exacted everything that she thought she could wring out of France, crushed, defeated, prostrate at her feet, her capital starving, and her people without a Government. She demanded and she was paid the uttermost farthing. Her troops returned to their miserable poverty-stricken country, enriched with the plunder of thousands and tons of thousands of private houses, her baggage vans crammed with stolen goods, to which the laws of war gave her troops no shadow of claim. In addition to this she seized on two provinces, and £250,000,000 of cash. And yet she is not satisfied. Italy, who owes to France her independence, and her very existence as a nation, with the basest ingratitude seeks the opportunity to turn against the one country that fought for her, and combines with Germany still further to humiliate and plunder her. But let Germany and Italy beware. France is a country where the unexpected always happens. When Europe was in arms against her she sent her ragged, ill-fed, half-trained troops to fight the best soldiers in Europe, and she marched in triumph through Italy, and dictated to the crouching despots, who were then ready to crawl before her and lick her feet, a most humiliating peace. There may be at this moment young colonels in the French army with as grand a military genius as the First Napoleon. There are certainly scores who have far more fire, enthusiasm, and genius for war than any tow-haired German that was ever born. France will not tight unless she is compelled to do so, but when she does fight it will be with the energy of despair ; with hor it will be a death struggle, into which she will throw all her energies, and what those energies are let those who doubt read the history of the first French Revolution. France cannot be blotted out from the map of Europe, and if a war does come, even if Italy and Germany are allies against France, it is quite on the cards that France may dictate terms of peace at Berlin and Rome. The Italian army never fought yet without being beaten, except when French troops were engaged with it, and Germany has not yet forgotten Jena. France will be fighting for home, for liberty, for all that man holds dearest and most sacred—Germany and Italy for mere plunder. It remains to be seen which cause will win.—l am, &c., September 3. R. H. Bakewkll.