T HE vote of the Chamber passed on Saturday last on
the Anglo-French Agreement is really a considerable event. It was, of course, certain that the Deputies would ratify the Agreement, for if they had not done so the Government would have been turned out, and must have been succeeded by one with a different foreign policy. As all Frenchmen regard the possible dismissal of M. Delcass6 with distrust, if not dismay, there was no chance that one of the main features of his policy would be formally con- demned. It was, moreover, expected that the majority would not be less than the one usually accorded to the Government, for the compact among the liberal parties, which, on the whole, are friendly to Great Britain, was sure to hold good for a vote which made that friendliness patent. We question, however, if even our own Foreign Office expected a majority of four to one in favour of an Agreement which necessarily arouses in France so many traditional prejudices. There was reason to think that the reactionary Nationalists would be supported by men who believe that the jealousy between this country and France has its foundation in the nature of things, and by Deputies who would gladly see M. Combos over- thrown, but are unable, from deference to their con- stituents, to vote against his Anti-Clerical proposals. The result, however, showed that the Agreement, whether it is completely understood by the electors or not, is regarded in France as a guarantee of peace, and therefore thoroughly approved. The first serious vote, "approving the declara- tions of the Government as to the Anglo-French arrange- ment of April 8th," passed by a. majority of 436 votes to 94 —a majority, that is, of more than four to one—while the entire Convention was ratified by a vote of 443 to 105. Such figures may in part, of course, be explained away, and we dare say there are Frenchmen who could account for them by statements which would diminish their value ; but it is impossible to doubt that, in a country where the electors ultimately rule, the majority of the people are well content. The motive for that content will add, to the pleasure with which the fact itself is received in this country. Many Frenchmen, even of the more ignorant classes, doubtless perceive that claims in Egypt have been exchanged for claims in Morocco, and are satisfied because Morocco is, of the two, the nearer prize. But the mass, it is known, regard it merely as a guarantee of peace. The present generation of Frenchmen, in fact, though determined to maintain an immense Army as a protection against invasion, are entirely peaceful, are devoted to accumulation, and are doubtful whether any possessions outside the Mediterranean can contribute either to the happiness or the prosperity of their children. They have to think, it must not be forgotten, that war means for them not merely higher taxation, great risks, and a suspension of their happy industrial life, but the loss of the thing they most care about, the security of those who are to succeed them.
The statesmen of France, we believe, and as is, indeed, evident from the tone of the debate, take a still wider view. It is not only that the most operative causes of illwill between Britain and France have been re- moved, but that in removing them the Governments have made it possible to take common action in favour of general peace. We do not mean that they will intervene in the Russo-Japanese quarrel, which has probably reached a point at which peace is impossible without decisive success on one side or the other. A peace produced by intervention would be too unreal either to justify the risks intervention would involve or to secure solid tranquillity to the world. But the two countries are obviously willing to use their conjoined efforts to prevent the war from spreading ; and as the interest and the feeling of America are on the same side, that forms a mass of power which no one who hopes to profit by extending the area of war can afford to disregard. The French orators who joined in the debate all made much of their belief that the Agree- ment would help to produce a reconciliation between Great Britain and Russia, but they were, we fancy, greatly in- fluenced by a feeling that they must be courteous to an ally, and by a wish to suggest to St. Petersburg advantages which might counterbalance those that the German Government is suspected of offering to the Czar. They probably, how- ever, know in their hearts that the policy they suggest belongs to the distant future, and that for the present an informal union of the three liberal Powers—Great Britain, America, and France—offers the best hope for the maintenance of peace, and of that freedom of commercial intercourse with the Far East which the economists of the Continent, as well as our own, think indispensable to progressive prosperity. It will be exceedingly difficult for any one to move—for example, as regards the future of China—in a direction which Britain, France, and America equally and heartily disapprove. Just at present it is the Far East that we are all thinking about, but it will be evident to reflective men that the Anglo-French Agreement removes or postpones many causes tending towards war within Europe itself. Jealous and suspicious as the nations may be, their interests are now enlisted strongly on the side of European peace. Whatever the result of the Japanese War, Russia will need years of tranquillity to reorganise her forces and recement the bonds which tie her peoples together. France, once regarded as the disturber of Europe, has proclaimed her wish for peace, and no one who knows doubts her sincerity. Italy is almost entirely occupied with her own affairs. The permanent interest of Great Britain is peace, and she assuredly has no wish just at present to plunge into a second war except under the pressure of necessity. Europe, it is true, still regards the restlessness of the German Emperor with suspicion; but the German Emperor cannot act alone, and Austria cannot wish for any war which could only benefit and strengthen her rival and ally. We are all too apt to forget the dead- weight by which Vienna restrains Berlin from any policy of adventure into which Austria might be most unwillingly dragged. She herself has ambitions in the Balkans, but she certainly will not move troops to support them so long as by her quiescence she fails to provoke the counter-ambitions that she fears. The desire of the Hapsburgs is that the condition of the Christian subjects of the Sultan shall be rendered so endurable that the great struggle for influence among the principalities should be postponed. Britain, France, and Austria, if they act together, can secure that by diplomatic pressure; and allowing always for unexpected events, which may render all calculations futile, we should say the political friendship between Britain and France tends directly to restrict the area of war in the Far East, and to prevent the causes of war smouldering in Europe from bursting into flame. Towards that friendship the vote of the Chamber last Saturday is a most important contribution, for it indicates that the friendship is no artifice of states- men, but expresses the desire, the hearty desire, even if it is a temporary one, of the entire people of France.
RUSSIAN RUMOURS.
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