The Sun.
London, England, 1854-04-03 00:00:00

FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

( Prom the Examiner. )
" Now be there 'twist your kingdoms such a 'spousal,
That never may ill office, or fell jealousy,
Which troubles oft the bed of blessed marriage,
Thrust in between the paction of these kingdoms,

To make divorce of their incorporate league ;
That English may as French, French Englishmen,
Receive each other ! . . . And this dear conjunction
Plant neighbourhood and Christian-like accord
In their sweet bosom, that never war advance
His bleeding sword 'twixt England and fair France."
SHAKESPEARE.

France and England have at last declared war
against Russia. They are allies and confederates in a
just and unselfish cause. The French Emperor prays
for victory to the English flag ; the English Queen
praydifor the glory of France, and will grieve over every
drop of French blood spent to purchase it.
While such are now the feelings of the rulers of
France and England, what are those of the French and
English people towards each other' They also are
beating in unison. To the same chord are now
vibrating the hearts in the valley of the Seine and
the Thames, the Rhone, the Mersey, and the Loire,
the Severn. Their bosoms are one. The two
peoples—the French and English people—the rivals of
centuries, are no longer enemies ; and before this aus-
picious fact, pledges of rulers, treaties between govern-
ments, proceedings in the houses, negotiations with
Austria and Prussia, however important, are as trifles.
The wives and daughters of England and France are
now—in their daily prayers to heaven for husbands,
brothers, and lovers mustering in defence of justice and
honour—alike petitioning in common for glory to the
same banners, victory to the same cause. This is indeed
alfact ; unrol the history of 500 years, and where is the
fact to match it !

No reflecting French or Englishman can doubt that
the great interests of civilisation and of humanity de-
mand that the alliance which has thus suddenly sprung
up between England and France should not be made per-
manent. We see and feel that it should be permitted to
dissolve—that its maintenance is a paramount duty
which the two countries owe to the world,—and that
they are consequently bound to make the sacrifice of
every separate interest in order to consolidate and pre-
serve it. Very great indeed such separate interests must
be to compensate England and France for the loss in the
present emergency of the certain assistance of Sweden
and Denmark, as it is clear that the incalculable benefit
of their co-operation against Russia can only be secured
by convincing those Powers that for the future England
and France will be, politically, one. Nothing less than
that certainty can decide Sweden and Denmark to brave
the future vengeance of the Czar ; and with it, they will
immediately, assisted by our fleets, shut the door of the
Baltic upon Russia, and save at once both England and
France torrents of blood and tons of gold—the widow's
scalding tear and the orphan's heavy loss. Such would
be the immediate fruits of our alliance if the two nations
resolve to make it perpetual. It is therefore adys
which they owe quite as much to their own interests a
t
to those of mankind at large, now to form this permanent
general
alliance, and to make such an agreement as to h
line of policy which each will respectively pursue for the
time to come, as shall obviate all causes of future national
dissension. What then may each have to resign—what
sacrifices to make—for this grand and useful purpose ?
Whatever they may be, they must be looked for
either in the resignation .or some territorial ex-
pectancies which each nation indulges of a nature
to lessen the
security of the other, or in some
!
points in which their material, or social, or com-
mercial interests shall be found to clash. Assuming
for a moment that France covets Belgium and Savoy,
and that England covets Egypt, Majorca, and
Minorca, is it possible—were each to succeed in attain.
jog these objects at the cost of wars more fearful than
any we have yet experienced—to put the precarious
benefits they would derive from realising such hopes,
in balance with the certain permanent good they would
mutually derive from now renouncing them ? No doubt
can exist as to the answer to this question. It is only
to strengthen her against Austria and Prussia that
France can really want either Belgium or Savoy, and
they, as they now are, must side with France if she
possesses the alliance of England. Then as to the
Spanish isles, they can be of no use to England if she
possesses the alliance of France ; nor could England
derive more substantive advantage from the territorial
possession of Egypt than she already obtains while it
continues as it is. France and England, then, in aban-
doning these and other similar territorial hopes, will
either be giving up what is merely a new form of objects
they already enjoy and must continue to enjoy substan-
tively, or objects whose usefulness entirely ceases the
very moment they become allies and are no longer on
guard against each other.
In examining the points in which we might look for
opposition between the material commercial or social
interests of England and France, we have been unable
to discover any object which either nation can honestly
desire in these respects, that will not equally benefit
both when attained.

The French wish to colonise Northern Africa. It is
an honest and a noble wish. Let England pray that
they may succeed—for Northern Africa was once the
greatest grain-producing country in the world, the