A great commotion in the Church, a second explosion in the ruins of the Liberal party, relax the long strain of attention to foreign affairs. Yet the Radical schism is said by the schismatics to have all to do with foreign policy, the wisdom of their view has been further illustrated by what came of acting on it in Newfoundland and Madagascar, and the bold scheme of government adopted for the Soudan has thrilled Manchester and Europe with a new sensation. The Soudan proclamation

announces the

strongest act of self-assertion that any British Government has ventured on for years. There is risk in it, of course, but risk wisely taken; though what makes it risky, and what makes it wise, may just as well be left unmentioned at present. We will leave that matter and turn to where we may find a good deal of general instruction. For the lately published Madagascar papers teem with significant matter of various kindsall of importance, and all with

an immediate bearing on current affairs abroad and at home.

The with

No grievance that is not a grievance out-and-out can be satisfactory to honest minds. There should be no doubts, no suspicion of contributory action on our own part to detract from the righteousness of complaint. Now it happens that our Madagascar grievance against the French is entirely without flaw. It is as substantial, as irrefragable, as luminous (and in certain ways to be mentioned presently as valuable) as any stone fresh from the wheel of the diamond cutter. French Governments whom the business lay have brought it to absolute perfection as a case of injurious bad faith acting against a policy of trustful give and take. The details are so well known that they need not be recited here. The chouse by which our merchants have lost their Madagascar trade is simplicity itself; while it is as while it is as plain as the high heavens that all we contributed to it was a generous abandonment of distrust. Wherever that is the case injury is doubly hurtful; and that the offence complained of in Lord Salisbury's despatch of July 9 is a singularly bad example of the kind is uncontested even by the offender. Now this makes it offensive in the third place; for the injury which is neither denied nor redressed, but meets its accusers with staring indifference, stabs again. Here, then, we have a grievance satisfactory to the most exacting moralist, and therefore one which the Government is free to remedy

But while the Government seeks compensation for damages in this affair, we may profitably debate among ourselves some considerations arising from it with which the French have nothing to do. From the dissensions in the Liberal leadership it appears that even after the lesson of the last twenty years there are violent differences of opinion as to the right conduct of foreign affairs. Not the least hopeful way of composing these differences would be, I think, to take the Madagascar papers as a ground of debate upon them. There is no likelihood that what is still called the Manchester party would assent to such a discussion; but if only they would, they might confidently ask for another and yet another on any special text of their own choosing.

Supposing such an arrangement made, and a conference of the factions started by reading the aforementioned July despatches, a Rosebery spokesman might open debate by calling attention to the most striking thing about them, though not the most suggestive, perhaps. Many Englishmen must have found it difficult to believe that their Government could make the gravest representations known to diplomacy, upon the most evident and most serious infractions of obligation, without receiving the least

me

believes, probably, that a system of conduct in relation to foreign Powers which leads to that result can be wise, or ought to be continued. Yet, here is a case (not the only one, however) in which formal protest against what would be called cheating in other affairs is treated with something worse than silent neglect. The French Minister listens, makes no reply, turns his back on the protest, and gives orders for a repetition of the offence. Strange as it may seem, this is no exaggeration of the later French methods with our Foreign Office thods apparently imitated from Prince Lobanoff's. They come out glaringly in the Madagascar affair; and therefore the question is whether diplomatic paralysis can be the outcome of a wise course of policy, or whether, mayhap, it is a policy forced upon England by inability to contend against insolent wrong. The facts being quite beyond dispute, the one faction in the supposed conference would have a right to demand of the other direct answers to both these questions. That it would get them is another matter; but yet they would not pass without reply. They are questions which must be answered in the breast of every Englishman who considers them, and, but for the cursedness of partisanship, that would wellnigh end the quarrel.

There is still the question, however, as to what the course of policy is that produces a result SO intolerable. Here there is more room for dispute.

It is clear, however, that all our arrangements with France as to Madagascar, and especially those under which Lord Salisbury assented to a French protectorate of the island in 1890, were based upon the calculations of a policy commended as generous. "Do but get rid of jealousy; drop these antiquated, ridiculous, unworthy suspicions of the foreigner'; enter frankly upon a policy of reciprocal consideration and trust, and doubt not that its manifest advantages ensure an immediate and emulous response." Most grateful doctrine this, and subject to one doubt only, the doubt whether it brings as much safety to those who practise it as glory to those who preach it. Though without hopeful experience, our Government resolved to give this teaching a chance where it seemed most likely to succeed in practice. Full scope was allowed to a graceful, confiding, give-andtake policy in our dealings with France especially in Madagascar, where it could be tried pretty exhaustively, as in a ring-fence. In short, this is the policy which ended in the manner above described. Not, of course, that its application was confined to the adjustment of French and English interests in Madagascar, or that its lamentable consequences appeared nowhere else.

At the supposed conference, therefore, the Manchester party would be asked to say what they think of this policy now. Though they seem hardly aware of it (Mr Morley's case, for ex

ample), it has certainly been tried. It has been attempted, too, where the more clear-eyed spirits of that faction have always seen the richest and most certain harvest of reciprocal magnanimity that any Continental nation is likely to show, I mean, in France. Neither can it be called an interrupted or prematurely abandoned experiment. It was persisted in till it yielded its full crop of natural consequences; the only one which, possibly, has yet to appear, being a singularly bloody war. Conceivably, however, the Manchester revivalists might refuse to form general conclusions upon experience with France alone. They might argue that the trust-and-confidence policy in foreign affairs is too beautiful to be abandoned after one disappointment, considering especially that at the very moment when failure is most severely felt, a way is opened for repeating the experiment in another direction. And that is certainly the case: another and a larger opportunity has arrived. Yet in a conference intended to reconcile differences, if that may be, the Manchester faction might be expected to declare their opinion as to how the trust-and-confidence policy works out so far as it has got. Candour upon that point might even assist themselves to a more trustworthy judgment when they condemn the later action of the Government in regard to France, rage against Lord Rosebery and his friends for supporting it, and commend a relapse into generous credulity

great ally.

Upon another point the publication of the Madagascar papers compels a self-searching of hearts; and who but the dissidents of the Liberal party can love the process least? In

their ranks is to be found the greater number of those politicians whose first, second, third idea of British foreign policy is an understanding with France. Firstly by its revolutions, secondly by its perhaps more admirable literature, France is as fascinating to some political minds in England as Paris is to every Frenchman. America may be destined to take its place in their esteem, but till now a French foreign policy has been the ideal of modern Radical statesmanship.

And as an unattainable ideal there could be no wonder at it, no objection to it. The strange disturbing thing was that an Anglo-French alliance should be considered so readily achievable that it could be supposed comfortable, and that if once put together it could be trusted to last. Yet these assumptions were all included in the Radical scheme of foreign policy, though none of them had much warrant, and the last was in the highest degree improbable. French statesmen and French soldiers have strong reasons for rejecting an exclusive entente with the British Government. The heart's desire of the French people is for an "understanding against England in which they see large promise of pleasure and advantagenot with England, which has

them. The reasons for doubt

ing that an English understanding with France the susceptible, France the irascible, France the unstable, could be reckoned upon for six consecutive months need not be recalled. But neither these reasons nor any other considerations disturbed the faith of certain influential Radicals in their Opposition foreign policy-which therefore became a source of disturbance itself. Its existence announced to the Continental Powers, one and all, that the conduct of affairs at the Foreign Office was never to be depended on for long, but would change with every change of Government. When the strange eventful history of Lord Rosebery's Administration is known we may find-most likely shall-that its discords were not inconsiderably swelled by the resolute objection of some members of the Cabinet to anything that might offend the French. That Lord Rosebery and his faction should be so indifferent on this score as to aid Lord Salisbury in exacting respect from the French Government is one of the greater grievances of the other faction ; and no doubt it was thought that much could be made of it in "the country." But no. All this has been altered by the publication of the Madagascar papers. They authoritatively make known causes of complaint far beyond the licence of the diplomatic game, and comprehensible by every man who has ever lost a shilling to a sharper.

And this is why I said a while ago that our Madagascar grievance is as luminous and in certain ways as valuable as any stone fresh from the diamondcutter's wheel. It enlightens in many directions, and to great profit in all. Our least gain by it is its reflection on the sagacity, practicability, promise, of the Radical French foreign policy. Its bearing on the trust-and- confidence policy in foreign affairs is of immeasurable importance; and the lesson could not have been more timely.

Lord Salisbury gave in to the French protectorate of Madagascar on condition that British trade with the island should suffer no special injury at the hands of France in consequence. Had any inconsiderate scribe then suggested the possibility that the condition would be disregarded, and that the French Government might even use its permitted advantages to destroy the British trade with Madagascar altogether, we know what would have been said of that rash man. We also know, however, that he would have been right. Yet when we are asked to consider the Russian proposal for a general suspension of armaments by sea and land, no man can ask what private, what selfish, what rusé motive may hide in the proposal without risk of denunciation cynic again.

But that is absurd; and all the more absurd because it is quite within the rules of the game for any Government to

make a suggestion of that sort for its own convenience alone. Much licence is allowed to international rivalry; so much, at any rate, that should one nation see its advantage in dissuading other nations from strengthening their armaments, it may lawfully do so. Even though the intention is to overreach and overmatch these other nations, no law is broken and no obligation violated. It follows, therefore, not only that such proposals as this from Russia must be suspected, but may be suspected with propriety.

"But does it make no difference that the Russian invitation is said to proceed from the Czar's own breast and to have none but kindly motives?" No difference whatever. That is only a part of what may be properly suspected. It is said! In order to dissuade, some means of dissuasion must be used. This "it is said" is a means employed in the present case; and therefore, and since no wise man allows himself to be turned from one purpose to another without knowing why, it is precisely what rightful inquiry should be addressed to first of all. The Russian proposal may be truly the Czar's own, and the inspiration of an evangelist. But he may be only an honest gentleman like the first Emperor William, in the hands of advisers more or less like the late Prince Bismarck. Neither in reason nor morals has the evangelist conjecture any superiority over the honest gentleman theory; and even though it had, these things must must be looked into. They