FRENCH PUGNACITY.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 6736, 18 September 1883, Page 3

FRENCH PUGNACITY.

(Saturday Rovlow.) Tho course of events has very speedily Bupplied the Australian colonists with singularly good arguments for declining to agree with Lord Derby's cheerful confidence that nobody is likely to make trouble in the Pacific. Wo have bad proof almost daily during the last week that there is ouo Great Power which is disposed to create as much disturbance as it possibly can. The report that the French flag had been hoisted in New Hebrides has been contradicted, and was apparently unfounded. Hut it was only necessary to_ glance at the comments made on the Btory in any French paper to see that the annexation would have been highly popular. Later still, the tone of M. Challemel - Lacour'a eloquence in the Chamber was enough to show that, if this Ministry to which he belongs did ever incline to moderate p»licy, it has repented of its weakness. It ia now obviously as thorough as oven that vigorous statesman could wish.' Finally, we learn from Mr Gladatono himself that Freuch oiKcers in Madagascar have been behaving ns if they had a special mission to provoke a war. It is to bo taken for granted that there can be no doubt in thi* caso, Tho chief of a Ministry which has certainly spared- no effort to secure the friendship of France has told the House of Commons that he has had to demand an apology. It is the only course open to the chief of an English Governmentunder thecircumstances, and it is to bo hoped that the bravo words will not be found to cover feeblenessof action. Unless Ministers havo been grossly misinformed, our officers and our flag have been insulted. After such a provocation, a country which respects itsolf can only insist on satisfaction. There is something very instructive iv th 9 spectacle of the Father of Arbitration —an honourable title to which Mr Gladstone has evory right—driven by a country he has made every effort to secure as an ally into using the language of Lord Palmerston. It may be commended to the attention of the International Arbitration and Peace Association, which is again occupying some small part of the daily papers with its babble.

The misconduct of Admiral Pierre at Tamatave is in itself a matter of comparatively little importance. Unless the French Government is actually in search of on excuse for a quarrel, it will offer the necessary explanations and apologies, and the matter will be at: an end. But the spirit with which the French are animated in all their dealings with us is a very serious thing indeed. It is scarcely too much to say that they have olected us to the place occupied by Prussia after Sadowa. We have become the enemy—tho rival to be feared and thwarted. They have for some time past shown a readiness to quarrel and an ingenuity in discovering causes of anger which is of very ill omen. When a people has once got into that frame of mind a quarrel- grows into a war with terrible facility. It is of cgurso quite unnecessary to suppose that things will go so far as that. We should only help the disaster, for it would be a disaster, to como the quicker by accepting it as inevitable, or even as probable. We should, however, be.guilty of the greatost folly if we ahtit our eyes to the existenco of a real danger.. When people in England talk of the peaceful mass of Frenchmen who may be trusted to keep their Government from going too far, they forgot that a peace-loving majority which will not take the trouble to vote may find itself committed to war at any moment. Neither has it ever been proved.that even a minority of Frenchmen would object to fight if they thought that the honour and interests of their country were threatened. After all that has recently happened it is almost fatuous to Bupposo that the majority of Frenchmen do not think that their interests are concerned in following up, the present popular Colonial policy. ■ That the French wish to fight us for fighting's sake is not to be believed; but wo should do well not to forget that they have less reason to fear us that any other Great Power in their neighbourhood. The kind of war dreaded by the French peasant is one which would bring hundreds of thousands of foreign soldiors to levy requisitions in Franco. They know well enough that they would, have nothing of the kind to fear from England. For the manufacturing class an English war would mean an unrestricted home market. If once the country got into a thoroughly pugnacious frame of mind—and it seems to bo doing so with great rapidity—it is very possible that even a trumpery cause of quarrel might have very serious consequonces. Tho best guarantee we can have that this extreme will never be reached must be in our own conduct. If we keep our temper, and refuse to be irritated into imitating the aggressive policy of the Fronch, their anger may evaporate in words, as it did alter the Syrian War. But, as in that case, tho best security of all will be a decided policy. Our respective positions in tho East seem to afford the most probable cause of quarrel at present. Nothing would serve so effectually to make a quarrel impos-, sible as a distinct declaration that we will not tolerate foreign intrusion within certain limits. Without going so far as to adopt, the Colonial policy desired by the Australians, and which has been re-stated by Lord Carnarvon, it would be perfectly possible to declare once and for ali that wo consider such and such parts of the Pacific as dependencies of Australia. In that case all the world would understand that any- attempt to occupy them would mean war. It is manifestly impossiblo that we should bo ablo to prevent the French from fixing a quarrel on us if they chose to do it, but tho more decisively we state what it is wo will tolerate, and what not, the less likely it is that the quarrel will bo fixed.