FRANCE AND THE GREEK QUESTION.
IT is so difficult to understand the attitude of France with I relation to the Greek question, that it is impossible not to speculate on whether the apparently ultra-pacific line which she has recently taken up, may not be more apparent than real. Wo must remember that not only was France the chief advocate of Greece at the Congress of Berlin, not only did France give Greece her full support at the Conference of last year, but when the British Government proposed the Naval Demonstration for the sake of compelling Turkey to cede what she had promised to cede, or a full equivalent, to Montenegro, France agreed to the Naval Demonstration only on condition that Greece should have the benefit of it for the settlement of the Greek question, as well as Monte- negro for the settlement of her ground of complaint. Now, that after such a proposal as this the French Minister of Foreign Affairs should deliberately write a note denying that either by the Congress or by the Conference of Berlin was it intended to take from Turkey her right of absolutely refusing the terms pressed upon her, is simply monstrous. If a joint naval demonstration is agreed upon against an intractable Power which refuses to fulfil its express engagements, every- body knows what it means. It means that force is threatened, and that all the united Powers regard it as perfectly legitimate to apply force, if the threat is not sufficient. But France insisted that this same course should be taken in relation to the Greco-Turk boundary, as to which the Porte had given no express engagement. In other words, she insisted that there, too, force should be threatened, with the implied assertion of the right to apply it, if the threat were not sufficient for its purpose. How, then, is it now possible to pretend, as does M. Barthtilemy St. Hilaire in his last note, that Turkey was held always perfectly free to reject the recom- mendations of the Powers,—that Europe never intended to give anything but advice,—and that advice may always be ignored it Is a naval demonstration the natural expression of mere advice I If a policeman strongly advises a footpad to give up the booty he is carrying, and by way of giving effect to that advice flourishes his trun- cheon, will any one call that mere advice, which the footpad is at perfect liberty to reject B If not, then surely advice followed by a Naval demonstration against the Power which declines the advice, is a good deal more than advice. And when the Power which demanded the Naval demonstration publishes to Europe its surprise and annoyance that any one should have boon so benighted as to regard the European decision as in any way binding, is it possible to accept this double-faced proceeding without a profound feeling of suspicion and distrust ?
Of course, it may be said that, since the French advocacy of the cause of Greece was first announced to the world, France has had a good deal of reason for shrinking from the prospect of renewed war. The French people, it is alleged, have declared their wish in every way for peace, and their rulers, catching the cue from them, have been disposed to minimise as much as possible the meaning of all that they had said for the cause of Greece, or for any other cause in which there was any chance that they might be called upon to draw the sword. All this may be very true, but then the difficulty is to see its applicability to the case in point. M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire declares, in the name of France, that nothing is so dangerous to the peace of Europe as the chance of war between Turkey and Greece. Such a war might set the whole of Europe on fire, and lead to catastrophes far too terrible for France to contemplate with composure. Well, if that is M. Barthelemy St. Hilaire's true belief, why should he not take the obvious means of preventing such a calamity, namely, to unite Europe, as his predecessor desired to do, for the purpose of imposing the settlement which Europe had already recommended. What would guard more effectually against that war, than to bring a perfectly irresistible force to bear on the recalcitrant Power, so as either to render war impos- sible, or to insulate it within the narrowest limits of both space and time, if Turkey should be silly enough to go to war ?
Barthelemy St. Hilaire professes to dread the war which might come from an attack made by Greece on Turkey, beyond measure ; and yet, instead of proposing the Means most effec- tual for either preventing that war, or reducing it to the smallest and most insignificant limits, he proposes almost to reverse the suggestion of his predecessor, and to apply to Greece, :morally at least, the same sort of pressure which his prede- cessor had desired to apply physically to Turkey.
Now, this seems to us, we confess, so inexplicable, that we cannot help suggesting the possibility of a new explanation. May it not be that France does not wish to have the Greek question settled as decisively and as speedily as the Monte- negrin question was settled ? Is there any influential French statesman who rather dreads than fears such a result, and therefore wishes to keep the Greco-Turkish sore open, and at the same time to keep France unpledgeci as to the part she may take, so that at any moment she . might, if a general war ensued, take any part in the struggle which her own interests appeared to demand ? We do not at all mean to say that this is so. But we do mean to say that if it were so, it would explain far better the extraordinary shifting- . about of the wind. in French foreign policy, than the utterly pacific views which are now put forward as the ostensible ex- planation. if France raised the Greek question partly to recover her prestige, pursued it with the same object, and shrank :from pursuing it precisely at the moment when it seemed most likely that her persistency would carry the day, and heal a great European sore; it is easier to account for her conduct by the supposition that she was alarmed at the prospect of too complete success, than that she acted thus because she was alarmed at the prospect of failure. There never really was any fear of failure so long as Europe held together. The only fear of failure was in the division of Europe ; and for the division of Europe on the Greek question,
France is, more than any other Power, responsible. Of course, it is impossible not to see that so strange a change of front is more intelligible from the desire to keep a great European issue unsettled, than from the desire to settle it. We aro far from saying that this explanation expresses our deliber- ate belief as to the motive of France. But we do say that if that suggestion is not to have a good deal of importance assigned to it, France owes Europe a much clearer and franker explanation of her shifty policy, than she has yet deigned to . give.
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