THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1898. THE WAR CLOUD.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXVI, Issue 25, 27 October 1898, Page 17

THURSDAY, OCTOBER 27, 1898. THE WAR CLOUD.

% p|jj)j ENJAMIN FRANKLIN wrote to QuiifCT in C \ =<&£ 1 773 : ' There never was a good war nor a bad V ' (^^) peace.' One is not bound to accept this saying <^~»sgjl of the great master of proverbs any more than a^jjSSsiy he is to subscribe to old Sam Butler's dictum, J|9j¥W that 'an unjust peace is, to be preferred before a jj vu s fc war.' Both statements require a little paring and trimming and shaping. But underneath them, nevertheless, lies the broad general truth that national, like domestic, peace is worth heavy sacrifices. Napoleon Buonaparte, the hardest-headed fighting man of modern times, declared peace to be ' the first of necessities, the first of glories.' The Spanish- American war-cloud has scarcely burst and dissipated when another looms up vast in the horizon. France and England are at loggerheads over a miserable set of mud-huts— collectively known as Fashoda — that are washed by the upper reaches of the Nile in the wild heart of Africa. The French want Fashoda because it is on the Nile. The British want it also because it is on the Nile. They likewise want it for the reason that they wish to keep the French off the Nile. The incidents leading to the present crisis form a study in the philosophy of crowds. An epitome of the events of the past few days will show how the war-feeling steals over a nation as the mental drunkenness of ris ng anger creeps over the individual.

On October 10 the cables speak of a Fashoda 'incident' only. The .Russian Minister, Count Muravieff, is acting the peacemaker. The following day there is 'unrest in France.' Warships are being made ready in hot haste at Brest. Cherbourg, and Toulon ; and Sir M. Hicks-Beach declares that France desires a quarrel. Next day, October 21: ' War Rumours.' The Exchange and the Marine Insurance Companies respond to the pressure of the war-cloud that is coming up. A battery of Egyptian artillery is packed off to Fashoda. October 2z : The great Russian organ, the hovoe Vremya, declares that Russia will support the French claims to the mud-wall huts in the Upper Soudan. Events then begin to march at the double. Twenty-four hours later there is ' a crisis of the gravest character.' There is a feverish hum of preparation in the British naval dockyards and arsenals, and ' public excitement in both countries is intense.' On the following day the Russian Press again back up the French ctaim T and— worse still — the French Government issue a Yellow Book, which is regarded as an ulfrmatum. The English newspapers threaten, and the American newspapers sympathise, and there is a sharp exchange of diplomatic ' courtesies ' between the Premier and Baron de Couecel. Such is, briefly, the story of the war-scare as told by the cables. Mutual recriminations of pressmen and politicians keep the war-kettle boiling briskly. Mutual war-preparations oftentimes precipitate a struggle that might otherwise be averted by the slower methods of patience and diplomacy. There is no disguising the fact that the situation is a serious' one. A war with France single-handed would probably begin and end as a brief naval struggle. With Russia as France's ally, complications could not fail to arise in Europe and the East, of which neither the diplomatic or military mind, much less the lay mind, could at the present juncture form an accurate idea. But if a war unhappily breaks out — which God forbid — it is likely to be a war of giants, however brief.

'For close on eight and a half centuries Briton and Frank have had a bountiful experience of hacking at each others' throats, interspersed with rare instances of fighting side by side against a, common foe. The old rivalry between John Bull and Jacques Bonhomme is neither dead nor buried. It arose as iar back as 1066 out of the long-drawn feuds between France and Normandy. Briton and Frank hewed at each other from 1119 to 1128. The following century witnessed the wars between Philip the Fair and the interdicted King John of the Magna Charta. The fourteenth and fifteenth centuries witnessed, the one the beginning, the other the close of that long-drawn and bitter struggle between France and England which lasted for over a hundred years (1338-1453) ; was marked by the picturesque battles of Crecy, Poitiers, Agincourt, and the wondrous exploits of the Maid of Orleans ; resulted in the loss of all England's possessions in France, with the solitary exception of Calais ; and, says Green, ' drained the strength and corrupted the temper of the English people.' The sixteenth century was marked by (among others) the struggle in which Calais — ' the chief jewel of the realm,' as Queen Mary called it — was lost to England in 1558. after more than two hundred years of uneasy possession. In the seventeenth century, England sent a disastrous expedition to aid the Rochelle Protestant insurgents against the French Government. The wars of the Grand Alliance saw France and England again on opposite sides during the early part of the next century, from 1754 to 1763, in a struggle which was closely connected with the Seven Years' War ;, and later on in the revolution out of which the United States arose free and independent. The close of the last century witnessed (in 1793) the beginning of that long and eventful struggle which ended on the field of Waterloo in 1815 — the last, we fervently hope, that it will be the historian's duty to record between France and England.

The tradition of eight centuries of strife has been happily broken here and there, although at rare intervals, by friendly alliances against a common foe. The Crusades saw Frank and Briton fighting gallantly side by side to rescue the Holy Places from the hands of the Saracen. Under the Quadruple Alliance (1718-1720), England and France fought side by side with Austria and the Netherlands against Spain. The war lost Sicily and Sardinia to Spain, placed a royal crown on the head of the Duke of Sardinia, whose descendant, Humbert, now occupies the shaky throne of a nominally ' united ' Italy. In 1827, Britain and France were once more leagued together, and, with Russia, annihilated the Turkish-Egyptian fleet at Navarino, and aided in giving the Greeks their liberty. The Crimean War saw British and French soldiers once more brothers-in-arms against Russia. A Franco-Russian offensive and defensive alliance against England has lpng been the dream of French politicians. Recent events have brought the danger measnreably near. "What a comment on the Czar's disarmament proposals, to which both Great Britain and France have given such a cordial adherence !