THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1905. BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND JAPAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLII, Issue 12862, 10 May 1905, Page 4

THE New Zealand Herald. AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, MAY 10, 1905. BRITAIN, FRANCE, AND JAPAN.

Grave as is the difficulty which has arisen between Japan and France, it is impossible to regard it as seriously threatening to cause a rupture between the Governments of London and Paris. Undoubtedly there have been gross and indefensible breaches of neutrality in French Indo-China, for which the French Government must be held responsible, and which may very properly be the subject of international arbitration. But breaches of neutrality vary greatly in degree, as national responsibility varies greatly in quality, and while we have no desire or intention to shirk the obligations of the AngloJapanese alliance, it would be the worst service that we could render to our ally 'd we failed to act with caution and deliberation at a crisis when she is naturally disposed to act' hotly and without full consideration of all the consequences/' The full weight of British influence, with a plain warning of what is at stake, ri being exerted to induce the friendly French Government to enforce on its colonial coasts the indubitable law of neutrality ; not until these representations have un-

equivocally failed can we assume that the acts complained of are due to the instigations of the French Government, and not to the supinehess or indiscretion of its colonial officials. That the French are entirely, disposed to conciliate the Russians is matter of common knowledge. They look to the Muscovite to protect them against always possible German aggression by compelling the Kaiser to consider the weakness of his own eastern frontier; and the many infringements of neutrality by which Germany has been ingratiating herself with the Tsar, can easily be imagined to have alarmed the French to the detriment of their characteristic honour and to the extent of inducing unauthorised and indefensible acts in distant colonies. This is easily understood.. It is the duty. of England to bring France to a sense of her national dignity, and to assist her to remain a great and civilising Power—so long as this can be done with due regard to the claims of our treaty-ally—not to act hastily upon possibly exaggerated allegations against probably unauthorised colonial authorities. For to act hastily is to play into the hands of Russia and Germany, as witness the rejoicing at St. Petersburg over the reports of an imbroglio that may drag Britain into a struggle with France, and the hardly concealed intention of Germany to pick a quarrel with her Western neighbour at the earliest convenient opportunity. We can sympathise altogether with Japanese indignation, for did not a similar wave of feeling sweep over the British world when Russian " volunteers" seized our peaceful merchantmen and mail liners, in seas far removed from the arena of war, and without any shadow of international justification, and when unoffending English jfiahermen were massacred on English fishing banks by this same ill-omened Admiral Roshdestvenski. Yet our "statesmen kept the peace then, even' though they had to negotiate' with Russians ; we may well remember that they were greatly assisted at the time by the good offices of the French Government. We ate confident that our statesmen will keep the peace now all the easier,- because they have Frenchmen to deal with ; and we do not believe (hat a refitted Russian fleet will make any better ■stand against the Japanese .than would an ill-found Russian fleet, angering as must be the breaches of neutrality which gave it shelter and succour on the French Indo-Chinese coast. Our confidence in the maintenance of peace between France and England—which means the satisfying of legitimate Japanese demands for the proper enforcement of neutrality in j French colonial waters —is based not 1 only upon the fact that our own Im- \ j perial Government must necessarily j exhaust every diplomatic means be- : ; fore commencing hostilities against a nation with which we are all feeling remarkably friendly, but upon the equally notable fact that France has j for a generation been wisely and i cautiously governed. The lighti hearted, lackadaisical France, that tripped gaily into the war of ; 70-'"7l, and overturned its Governments as carelessly as it did the carts with which it built its revolutionary barricades, has gone, and in its place is j a sobered nation, that has learned the first lesson of stability, the trust- j ing of constitutional rulers. The I policy of Fiance is to-day in the hands of statesmen who weigh with bourgeois shrewdness the pros and cons of national action, and who have the loyal support of the great majority of the people. They lean towards Russia, certainly, for the reason abovementionetl, but they are wise enough and broad esough to know that whoever leans upon Russia alone leans on a broken reed. To strengthen France, to preserve her peace, to secure her interests, they have drawn towards England, and have shown themselves entirely disposed to be reasonable towards us— and England never expects more of any foreign nation. Supposing they insist upon making common cause with Russia, driving England into making common cause with Japan, and war ensues— what happens I Whatever Russia gained by the suppositious conflict, France must lose, for our naval strength is greater than hers, and the superiority of our seamen is hardly questioned. British trade would suffer cruelly, of course, but the French navy would not only be. crippled, as the Russian has been by Japan, but practically annihilated, for it would be sought and fought in every sea, and on every coast. Whatever.else happened we could safely rely upon our sailors to hunt for the enemy, until there was nothing left afloat for them to hunt. Let the end of the war be what it would for the others, France would emerge from it as she has always emerged from war with England, stripped of her fleets, and this present navy of hers she has built up, at enormous cost and continued sacrifice, to protect her colonial empire. The sequence is as plain as daylight, for it would be Germany's opportunity. . The Kaiser would declare war' in his turn, Russia or no Russia, making of France a battle-ground with his armies, while his undiminished navy gathered in any and every French colony worth securing— and it would certainly not be Enlaud's business to prevent him. This inevitable outcome of a war with England cannot fail to be ever present in the minds of the keen French statesmen. It is the material argument that compelled them to the Anglo-French rapproachement, and that will effectively prevent them drifting now to the verge of war and over.