CURRENT TOPICS.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 6489, 16 May 1898, Page 2

CURRENT TOPICS.

The fragments published fbance in our cablegrams this and morning from the speeches Britain, delivered by Lord Salisbury and Mr Chamberlain on Friday evening will give additional interest to an article published in the " Nineteenth Century" last month from the pen of M. Fressense, the editor of the Paris " Temps," who is an acknowledged authority on the French Colonial poiioy iv West Africa. M. Pressense, after making a general review of the present situation, points Out some of the changes tliat'have taken place during the past decade. So long as France and Britain were satisfied with single factories on the coast, which were used as marts and warehouses for the exchange of the produce of the bank country and of the goods from outside, they were in little danger of quarrelling about the rioh territories that lay at the back of these ! isolated stations. But the day came when these Powerß realised what brond prospects of commerce and Empire the conquest of the inner land would open to them, and since that time there have been constant bickerings over the possession of the country. M. Pressense thinks that these might be ended onoe and lor all, if the two Powers would meet in friendly conference with a determination to avoid the scandal and the calamity of war. Why, he asks, ehould thero not be a give and take ? " France would 2>w>bably have to yield Bousba, other points too; England would have to look it the Chartered Company and Gambia, not to speak of Sierra Leone, could not offer some means of exchange. Why should we not try ? All the more that events seem to force ub to such a consummation. Things everywhere are entangling, embroiling themselves. Questions are growing one from the other. The Western African problem is only one among many. After the Eastern question, we have now to deal with' the Far Eastern question." The editor of the " Temps " maintains that such an arrangement would be readily accepted by the French Government and people. "Far from us," he writes, "the guilty, the criminal idea of provoking, or even suffering, an irreparable conflict to happen between two Powers equally necessary to civilisation, and of whioh the good understanding is the greatest boon, the disagreement the greatest calamity, for the progress of . the . world." The London newspapers do. not appear to have reoeived M. Presßenses suggestion with much favour. Some of them were offended by its disparaging allusions to Mr Chamberlain— who is veiy much out of favour just now with our foreign critics— and others were displeased by its assumption that. France has a better right than Great Britain to several of the traots of country in dispute ; but we are sure the British public will protest as strongly as the distinguished Frenoh journalist has done against the acceptance of the shameful conclusion that in order to make a new map of the world we must paint its border lines in blood.