The Sun.
London, England, 1870-07-27 00:00:00

OUR COTEMPORARIES—This Morning.

THE SECRET TREATY.

The Times considers it is too plain that we have not got
the whole truth or reached the end of the business. The
authenticity of the Treaty is admitted on both sides. So
much,once for all, is certain. But there are discrepancies
in the accounts of the origin aed of the degree of impor-
tance attached to the proposed Convention. Upon these
subjects much more must be told and be weighed before
anything like certainty can be attained. It will be th•
duty of the neutral nations interested in the complete
olution of thismystery to compared the ex parte statements
thus made, so as between them to arrive at the whole truth.
M. de Lavalette's statement that the plan originated
with Count Bismarck is entirely inconsistent with the
spirit, if not with the letter, of the message from Berlin,
and we must look for further information on this point
of the difficulty. It would be in general a sound de-
duction, when the authorship of any articles of agree-
ment under discussion is doubtful, to believe that side to
have originated them which would gain most by them
if they were adopted, and any one may judge for
himself whether Prussia or France would have been the
greater gainer by the ratification of the projected treaty.
M. de Lavalette says the Treaty had been the subject
of some conversation with M. Benedetti, but it had never
had any serious basis. It is not difficult to understand
that many explanations must have preceded the reduction
of the Draught Treaty to writing. A conception of this
kind may spring full-grown from some Royal or Imperial
brain, but there must have been much cautious sounding
in diplomatic depths before the whole could have been
committed to paper. It is still more surprising that it
should be said the projected treaty never had any serious
basis. It cannot be denied that the articles of the
treaty deal with matters sufficiently serious. The con-
quest of a kingdom, the transfer of a province under cir-
cumstances leaving no choice to its ruler but to consent
to the transfer, the destruction of the sovereignty of in-
dependent States, and an alliance in arms against any
Power that might interpose to check the completion of
the most daring of these designs, are serious propositions,
if anything is to be considered serious.

The Daily News says the treaty was neither a fiction nor
a forgery. It is acknowledged on both sides. Lord
Augustus Loftus says that the original Minute is in the
hands of the Berlin Government, and is in the hand-
writing of Count Benedetti, the French Minister at that
Court. This amounts to a confirmation from the side
of Prussia of the implied charge against the Court
of the Tuileries of entertaining the designs which
that Minute reveals. It also confirms the assumption,
based on the undiplomatic French of the document,
and on the precedence given in it to the King of
Prussia, that the publication proceeded from Prussian
sources. So far as Prussia is concerned, therefore,
the Minute is attested, but not explained. The
French Government, on the other hand, have both
attested and explained it. The communication which
M. de Lavalette made to Earl Granville yesterday
afternoon admits the genuineness of the document, but en-
deavours to deprive it of importance. M. de Lavalette
says it was rejected by both sides ; it must at any rate
have been sufficiently serious to have been submitted to
both Governments. Here, however, we are already
brought face to face with discrepancies between the
statements. If the scheme was M. Bismarck's sugges-
tion how comes it to be at Berlin in M. Benedetti's
writing ? On the other hand, if it was a French
suggestion, why is it in doubtful French ? Did the
Prussian Minister sketch it out in conversation,
and the French Minister write it down in the
dictated words ; or had the Frenchman the fore-
sight and sagacity to conceal his handiwork by
slightly confusing his language ? Either of these
suggestions is probable, yet they are the only explana-
tions which are at all consistent with the truth of all that
is told us. The scheme is, in fact, only one of the natural
products of that career of ambition and aggrandisement
on which both France and Prussia have entered and
which has brought about this collision between them.

The Telegraph says the fact that such an imputation
had been cast upon the good faith of the Imperial Govern-
ment must have been known in Paris at an early hour on
Monday; but that no distinct official denial of the
alleged Treaty has come to us from France. On the other
hand, the Prussian Government has lost no time
in endorsing the correctness of the statement. It
seems, as Mr. Gladstone informed the House of
Commons yesterday, on the authority of Lord
Augustus Loftus, our representative at Berlin,
that the text of a draft Treaty, identical with that issued
by the Times, was to be published in yesterday's Berlin
paper ; and that the document in question is alleged to
be in the' handwriting of Count Benedetti, the French
Minister at the Court of Potsdam. Lord Granville
informed the Peers that he had had a conver-
sation with M. de Lavalette just before coming
down to the House on the subject of the Treaty.
The French Minister had been lavish of assurances as to
the desire of the Imperial Government to maintain friendly
relations with England, and of its resolution to respect
the integrity of Belgium ; but with regard to the main
question, whether the draft treaty was authentic or not,
M. de Lavalette seems, if Lord Granville is reported
correctly, to have indulged in mere disclaimers.
He declared, we are told, " that the draft Treaty was
originated by Count Bismarck, had been the subject of
a conversation with Count Bismarck, but had never had
any serious basis, and had been rejected by both par-
ties." The explanation, to say the least, is inade-
quate.

The Standard can easily believe that the alleged Treaty
was, as M. de Lavalette states, talked over, but never se-
riously considered. No doubt before the outbreak of the
war in 1866 Bismarck made certain proposals, and it is
generally believed that the offer he made was such a rec-
tification of the Treaties of 1815 as should give France
back on the side of Germany the frontier left her by the
Treaty of 1814, already recovered on the side of Italy.
It is to this time that the date of the projet de trente
is attributed, we will not say by its authors, but
by its sponsors. The grand scheme which the Times
reveals is then a subject of general conversation.
but that nothing came of the negotiation is clear, and
that the suggestion as to Belgium came from Bismarck
is very probable. If Belgium were given to France,
Prussia might put in a claim to Holland, and it has been
the persistent purpose of Prussian policy for many years
to seek the annexation of Holland. That the Emperor of
the French listened to the tempter in the first
instance is possible, but that, if he did, be
soon repented himself of any such complicity with
a project so dishonourable to bpth Powers is certain.
By the treaty signed in London, the Emperor of the
French gave for himself, fcr the first time,_ a solemn
pledge to respect the neutrality of Belgium. Europe had
given him a satisfaction which he had a right to claim.
The occupation of Luxembourg by Prussia after
the disruption of the Germanic Confederation
by the acts of that Power was utterly indefensible.
After the Treaty of London France had every interest to
maintain the independence and the neutrality of Belgium,
and France will maintain it unless Prussia violates it.
That is the real danger. If the Prussians ever get as far
as Paris they will reach it by the Belgian route ; and all
must acknowledge the cleverness with which they have
used the Times to produce in England an alarm
of French designs upon Belgium, intended, no
doubt, to justify a violation of Belgian net,-
trality on their part, if such a violation should at any
time be found convenient. The object of the publica-
tion of the document, the Standard says, was that public
opinion in England might be worked up against France.
Prusia is engaged in a life and death struggle, and it is
her interest to involve at any cost of her own honour other
Powers in the conflict. But we might have expected that
the conductors of an English newspaper possessing great
influence, enjoying much consideration, would not have
made themselves the agents of such a scheme.
The Post claims that its anticipations with regard to
the treaty have been found correct. The Post has reason
to believe that last autumn M. Benedetti, in speaking
to anEnglish statesman whom he met at a German water-
ing-place, repeatedly asserted, in reference to these
topics and to the negotiations of 1866, that M. de Bis-
marck had frequently intimated to him that the annexa-
tion of Belgium to France would be approved of by Prussia.
The document now published goes to prove this posi-
tion firstly, because on the face of it its Prussian origin
is self-evident, for, according to the invariable custom of
diplomatic etiquette, in the preliminary recital the
Monarch from whose agent the proposal emanates is
named first. M. Benedetti, according to all rule,
would have given precedence to his own Sove-
reign. Secondly, because " the original language "
in which it is couched is not the French of M.
Benedetti, or of any Frenchman. The language is dis-
tinctly the translation of the words of a German into
French, so clumsy that no one with any knowledge of that
language can fail to detect the gross faults of style and
constructiou of which we yesterday gave a brief but
irresistibly convincing catalogne. The publication of this
project of Treaty coming from the Prussian side is fair
only on the old plea of all things being fair in love or in war.
The printing of the draft of the treaty could only have
been for the purpose of arousing English feeling against
France. If Prussia so strongly disapproved of the French
proposal as she would wish us to believe, why was not th e
proposition communicated to the English Government a t
the time it was made?

THE ARMY ENLISTMENT BILL.
Only three weeks ago, observes the Times, the atmos-
phere of Europe was regarded, even at the Foreign Office,
as unusually serene. Ministers were under no immediate
anxiety, and felt justified in relieving us of a present
burden while they initiated reforms which would render
us secure in future peril. That future peril has come on
us with terrible rapidity, and we have had more than one
warning that no statesman can say what a week may
bring forth. Under such circumstances, we welcome
a measure which, so far from limiting the re-
sources of our army, opens a wider, because a
more varied, field for recruiting ; but it is essential
we should not lay aside the weapons already in our
hands while the new are being forged. If, as is stated,
our battalions of Infantry muster barely more than a
third of their full strength, if our Cavalry regiments stand
at half the force of continental regiments, if 34 batteries
nominally available would furnish a meagre 14 at war
strength, if we are destitute of any means of filling up our
cadres from the Militia until the alarm of war is actually
upon us, it becomes the Goverment at once to consider
how the army may at least be rendered capable
of recovering its efficiency at brief notice. It is of
no avail to recount, with Lord Northbrook, the number
of battalions, troops, and batteries we have at home,
unless we can be assured that they are ready for prompt
action, and capable of becoming effective parts of an
organised force. We should be sorry to assume an atti-
tude of " armed neutrality ;" but it is certainly time we
looked to the state of our armour, and to the joints of our
harness. In a word, the Army Enlistment Bill may prove
of great value if regarded as affording us an additional
resource. But it would be nothing but a peril if it were
allowed to allay our vigilance.