THE MARSEILLES RIOTS.
THE Marseilles Riots are mainly important as revealing to the world, what politicians have long known, that there is one permanent difficulty in the way of a Franco-Italian alliance. The nations do not like one another. On the one hand, the Italians read French, study French politics, are greatly impressed by French prosperity, in a word, attend to France, and they are consequently much aggrieved by the sort of contempt which Frenchmen are fond of expressing for Italy. They feel, as the English do not, the bad point in the French character,—its habit of expressing want of sympathy, not through the cold indifference of the Englishman, which so aggravates foreigners, but through a kind of supercilious insolence. They resented deeply the forced surrender of Savoy and Nice, they have been exasperated by some covert threats levelled at them in the affair of Tunis, and they are suspicious to an unreasonable degree of French designs on Italy itself. There are thousands of fairly sensible Italians who believe. that France is plotting to recoup herself for Alsace-Lorraine by the seizure of Piedmont, and are never tired of prophesying that the French will one day try to undo the consolidation of the peninsula, and to reoccupy Rome. They quote M. There' letters in proof that even sceptical French statesmen are on the side of the Pope, and watch every movement in France with an angry suspicion that it is directed against themselves. On the other hand, the dis- like in France for Italy is even more pronounced. The statesmen have never really forgiven Italy for occupying Rome, at a moment when the power of France was temporarily paralysed. They suspect the Italian Governmisnt of expecting something further from Prince Bismarck, and they have an idea that Italy advances bumptious pretensions, which in Egypt, in Tunis, and at Constantinople they snub, whenever they can, with a sense of pleasure. Very few French states- men admit cordially that Italy is a First-class Power, entitled to all forms of respect ; and during the struggle for Tunis the Government rather enjoyed two or three opportunities of show- ing that Italian anger was matter of profound indifference in Paris. This temper of the governing politicians is fostered by the still more bitter temper of the Reactionaries, who cannot forgive the secularisation of Rome ; by the lectures of the moralists, who regard Italy, as General Trochu avowed, much as our grandfathers regarded France, as a centre of debauchery ; and by the dislike for Italians entertained by the Provencal population. These, if peasants, are a good deal influenced by the Oath, who preach that Italians are foes of the Pope ; and if citizens, have a grievance akin to that of certain classes in England against the Irish. The Italians are clever, industrious, and frugal, even beyon'a French frugality ; they are accustomed to low wages, and they swarm into the Southern cities, till in Marseilles there are 50,000 adult Italian working-people, who, in French opinion, are "taking the bread out of their mouths," by living on a lower plane of civilisation. There is something of the same feeling about the Germans here, and it would be strong, but that everybody is lost in London, and that the English at heart dislike and avoid the businesses—tailoring, baking, sugar-burning, tobacco-cutting, and the like—in which the industrious and patient Germans make their money. With feelings thus prepared, anything suffices to cause an explosion, and we only wonder that the rioting at Marseilles was not much more dangerous. It was very serious, judged by London precedents ; but the authorities never lost their hold, though they were compelled at last to post artillery in the Cannebiere, and the death-roll would not have struck a Belfast magistrate as very enormous. Quiet has been restored without any state of siege, and it is improbable that the incident will have further direct consequences. The French Government cannot be looking for an occasion of active quarrel with Italy, which could, if excited,. find formidable allies, and the Italian statesmen are well aware how dangerous war with France would be. They have a powerful• fleet, and an army which they compute at 700,000 men, half of them in barracks ; but they lack officers who have commanded in the field, and the self-confidence which is begotten of historical success. They must tranquillise feeling in Rome by certain representations, but they will take care to accept explanations, which will not, if we may judge from the language of the French Press, be unwillingly accorded.
Although, however, we do not believe that the incident will prove of itself a formidable one, it will tend to deepen the dislike, of which we have, spoken, between the two countries ;
and in that dislike there is serious danger for them both, and for Europe at large. Italy is never safe, until France is thoroughly reconciled to her existence. She msay be, and, as we believe, is quite able to defend herself ; but the necessity for defence implies the necessity for a great army and a strong fleet, for a taxation which, even if M. Lavaleye exaggerates its effect, presses severely on the people, and causes a discontent which, in the southern provinces, might easily become disorganisa- tion. It implies an excessive or strained susceptibility about foreign affairs, such as produced the fall of the Cairoli Ministry, and a readiness to make alliances which are not in accord with the permanent interests of the Italian kingdom. And it implies a perpetual desire for self-assertion, and for a certain separateness of policy, which appeared in the Irredenta agita- tion, in the Albanian intrigue, in some transactions at Con- stantinople and in Egypt, and which induces Europe to regard Italy with a suspicion that may be entirely unfounded, but diminishes the readiness to accept her as a permanent and most valuable factor in the European system. Nobody knows at what moment or in what direction the sensitiveness of the Italian people, a sensitiveness mainly begotten of a morbid fear of being overlooked, will compel her Govern- ment to act. A policy of common-sense—that is, for Italy, a policy of abstinence from enterprise till her bones are thoroughly knit—becomes nearly impossible, while Rome is every week disturbed by an idea that some action contemplated by France may involve for Italy an injury or a loss. For France, on the other hand, the mischief of Italian dislike hardly needs explanation. Granting that Italy is not the equal of France in resources, and could not venture to fight her single-handed, she is still the most formidable ally any enemy of France could have. She meets her face to face on the Mediterranean, she can interrupt French commerce as no other Power but England can, and she has a direct road into France itself, a road ending in provinces which will become faithfully French, but have not had time yet to forget their connection of centuries with Italy. With Italy as an ally of Germany, one- third of the force of France must be wasted in guarding her southern border. It is of European importance that Prance should be free, and with Prince Bismarck controlling Germany on the east and guiding Italy on the south, France never can be freer—never be sure that at any moment her policy, say, in the Eastern Question, may not be suddenly and roughly brought to naught. France, even if she is not fettered by Italian hostility, must guard against it, by a waste of resources which it is terrible to contemplate.
There is no remedy, that we know. of, certainly no imme- diate remedy, for such a situation, except that the statesmen concerned should become aware of its mischiefs, and persist- ently set themselves to their removal. France and Italy need not clash anywhere, except in North Africa ; and that danger could be removed in a moment, by a frank, though possibly secret, understanding. National dislikes, unless aggra- vated by injustice, do not necessarily last—no dislike could have been more sincere than that of Englishmen for the French —and the statesmen, by a little care and self-sacrifice, can soon produce a different state of feeling. If the Italians would only give up the half-insincere talk about alliance with Berlin, and the French would avoid accentuating every mortification which their progress in Africa inflicts on Italy, their natural interests would very speedily make them, at least, business friends. Unfortunately, for the moment, that is not the course taken by the Ministries in either State. The French Government sanctions acts like the violent cancelling of the Rubattino Contract, for which the Italians, but for their prudence, would have demanded reparation ; and the Italian Government appeals for aid to Berlin, in a way which Frenchmen regard as a direct menace. There is a strained relation between the two coun- tries which betrays a serious want of wisdom in both, and while it lasts Italy cannot be prosperous, or France free to act. The very first effects of the discourteous treatment of Italy in the Tunis incident have been the addition of £500,000 a year to the Roman military expenditure, and a severe blow given to the prosperity of Marseilles, where the Italian immigration brings, perhaps, ten times that sum per annum to the traders of the city.
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