Lord Russell's Foreign Policy motion of last week, and the
reply to it by Lord Derby, have elicited an odd line of remark from the semi-official German Press. These organs of the Government say that Lord Derby virtually committed himself to maintaining the faith of treaties, unless so far as England had fairly warned the world that she thinks any of their provisions obsolete; that Prance is now quite helpless to attempt a surprise against Germany, except by way of Luxembourg or Belgium ; and that as Great Britain has given a guarantee both to Luxem- bourg and Belgium, Great Britain has practically guaranteed Germany against a surprise. That is very ingenious, and must make Lord Derby feel a little uncomfortable, especially as the Luxembourg guarantee (of 1867) was all his own doing, and done apparently almost against his own will and judgment. But we think he has a reply. He may say that on the very morrow of the treaty both his father and he explained how little it meant, —that it was a "collective guarantee," and that a collective guarantee fails if any one of the signatory powers breaks its engagement—so that if either France or Germany, for instance, violated her own engagement, Great Britain would be released 'from her's. And certainly if Germany cares at all about the matter,—which we doubt,—we should recommend Prince Bismarck to question Lord Derby as to his present mode of interpreting a "collective guarantee." Possibly Mr. Disraeli may be more disposed to let it mean something than the late Lord Derby was, and possibly the present Lord Derby may reflect the change. Certainly it was Mr. Disraeli who said, in 1871, that we ought to have interfered in 1870 as guarantors, under the Treaty of Vienna, of the Saxon provinces of Prussia. And if he held himself bound by such very rotten pack-thread as that, 'he may hold the Luxembourg Treaty one of paramount obligation.
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