INTERNATIONAL MALICE.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume X, Issue 9, 4 March 1893, Page 205

INTERNATIONAL MALICE.

It is a carious and not altogether agreeable task to read the English Conservative or Union newspapers, and perceive the ill-disguised pleasure they take in the troubles of Russia. They regard their great eastern rival as hampered in respect to military movements, as in danger of bankruptcy, which will be certain should the harvest fail the next season ; and the hope that they will fail seems to be the thought uppermost in their minds. It is true there are occasional famines in Ireland, where the scenes witnessed are not excelled in horror by anything to be witnessed in Russia at the present moment ; that there is a local famine in India, and a greater one in prospect owing to the want of rain, but it makes an awful difference whose animal is gored, you know. It is also true—at least we have it on the authority of some of the London newspapers—that 40,000,000 of the inhabitants of India exist in a state of starvation bordering on famine, but the English press do not in general discuss this topic, it being far less agreeable than the misfortunes of the Cztr and his subjects. It is no exaggeration to say that for unfairness, meanness, vindictiveness in their treatment of foreign affairs, the Tory and Unionist journals do not find their parallel in any country in the world. It is equally true that England has become the bond-slave of the triple alliance, by whose permission, or rather under whose high protection, it carries out its plans, and keeps the diplomacy of the world in a chronic state of anxiety and irritation. England—and we say * England ’ instead of ‘ the English,’ for itis the fault of its external politics rather than of its people — is the most unloved country in the world, no matter in what quarter of the globe you take your data. Among the native newspapersof India thereisnotone,astheLondon Times itself confesses, that has a kind word to say about their rulers. A few years ago the I'imes gave a great quantity of pertinent extracts to prove the assertion. The assertion is now revived without the extracts, as in the present condition of international sentiment it would not be discreet to publish them. In Persia the feeling among the people is bitter, as shown by the priests forbidding the use of tobacco furnished by the British monopoly, which was obliged to resign the privilege in the interior but still allowed that of exportation. This did not satisfy the priests, who continued the interdict. There have been riots hostile to the English, and it looks at present as if the company would be obliged to quit the country. Even the London newspapers do not venture to assert that the Persians entertain similar sentiments toward the Russians. British diplomacy meets the same oppression in Afghanistan, which the English have for some years past been looking on as a conquered country. They placed the present Ameer on the throne, and have paid him, as London newspapers assert, as the price of his friendship, 1,200,000 rupees; that is over balf-a-million dollars. These same newspapers also inform us that the Afghans are all for Rus-

sian trade, which is not surprising when we consider that Russian territory is so near, and that the Ameer is on the point of concluding a commercial treaty with the Czar. This, nevertheless, does not change the intention entertained hy the English of using the Ameer and his country to aid them in settling the question of the Pamir at the conference to be held at St. Petersburg in the spring. The fact is the English have no right whatever to the territory in that debatable land claimed by Russia, and can only accomplish their purposes by means of Afghanistan and China, which, no more than England, have any rights at present or have ever exercised any in that desolate region. China, English newspapers say, has already been induced to declare that if Russia takes the part of the Pamir it claims some of her trade routes to India will be closed. The influence that elicited this wonderful avowal was, of course, obtained by pressure exercised or promises made at Pekin, and the Chinese envoy to the St. Petersburg conference will be expected so to express himself to that assembly. What the Afghan envoy is expected to declare or what claim he will be expected to put forward to territory to which the Ameer never had and never pretended to have the slightest title, has not yet been stated in the London newspapers, though they have divulged the fact that an army of forty thousand men is being collected on the northwestern frontier of India with liberal supplies of provisions and ample means of transport. This army is doubtless to be held ready for any contingency, that is, to overawe the Ameer into playing the part of a pliant tool of England at the Pamir Conference, or to hurry forward into the debatable region should circumstances seem to favour such a movement. Another million rupees will probably be squandered on the Ameer, though this liberality will have slight effect in modifying the deep and vindictive hatred of his people toward the English. Here we see British diplomacy in its true light, deliberately equipping an army for war, while if Russia simply moves a regiment from one part of the country to another for the convenience of its maintenance or because her system of strategic railroads, owing to the extent of her territory, is more inconvenient than that of her neighbours, all the newspapers of the British Isles unite in a howl of execration at Muscovite treachery and the intention of the Czar to bring at once upon Europe all the horrors of a general war. It is interesting to note that all English writers are not agreed on the propriety of pushing the frontier of India farther out into the mountainous regions of the Pamir to meet the Russians. India has all about it on the north hill tribes, who, friends of India like the learned Dr. Leitner, think should be placated instead of subjugated, that they may act as a buffer against invasion. Lord Salisbury and the Indian Government seem to think differently, in defiance of that sound American maxim which counsels the over-greedy person never to bite off more than he can chew. There are even Chauvinist English newspapers that advise the annexation of Afghanistan in spite of the dislike with which the English are held by the people of that country, and the certainty that there would be continual rebellions

which would necessitate the presence of a large army and the expenditure of untold treasure. It is impossible to see just at present what British diplomacy will not be tempted to do from hatred, or rather fear, of Russia. As a specimen of petty malice, however, the open opposition to any contributions for the purpose of relieving the starving Russian peasants is most characteristic of the sentiments of a certain class of English people. Such a movement has been set on foot by Mr Knowles, editor of the Nineteenth Century, and has elicited from the London Chronicle bitter opposition on the ground that the money contributed wonld, by checking the ravages of the famine, indirectly aid in augmenting the military resources of the Czar and still further eudanget the Indian empire. In other words, let Russia be depopulated, no matter by what means, so that India is safe. To this degree is Bnttsh diplomacy gradually reducing the natural generosity of the English character.