The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-07-27
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THE SECRET TREATY.

THE SECRET TREATY.
FROM the n. Y. Tribune.
A new and very serious consideration is
introduced into the European quarrel by the
publication of the points of a proposed secret
treaty between France and Prussia. For the
disclosure we are indebted to the London
Times, which vouches for the accuracy of its
statements with an earnestness that would
hardly be assumed without good reason. The
treaty, to be sure, has been rejected by Prus-
STA; but it betrays so clearly the purposes of
France that all Europe will be likely to take
alarm, and we may hear at any time of
alliances which will render necessary a gene
raj war. Our dispatches do not mention the
date of the proposed instrument, but it must
have been about the close of the war of 1866,
when it is we'll understood that negotiations
whose purport never was divulged took
place between the Emperor Napoleon and
King William. BY this treaty France offered
to acknowledge the title of Prussia to the
territories she had absorbed in the course of
the war, and to consent to the union of North
and South Germany, provided the German
provinces now embraced in Cisleithan Aus
tria were not included. In return for this
Prussia was to permit France to seize Luxem-
burg and Belgium! Bismarck rejected the
proposal, and the rejection was accompanied
With almost contemptuous nonchalance; for
France was not only refused her demands, but
was obliged to submit to those movements on
the part of Prussia for which her demands
were made as an offset. Bismarck took the
price she offered, and gave her no return
for it. We can imagine how Napoleon must
have writhed under this humiliation, and his
pain probably was all the greater as he felt
that he had deserved it. But what, after this
disclosure, are we to think of the official de-
c~laration made by the Government last week,
that this war was undertaken strictly in self
defense against the aggressions of Prussia that
there was no purpose of a~ssailing any State
except the kingdom of Prussia proper? that
France had no designs against any of the
neutral powers? Here we have absolute proof
that the possession of the Rhine frontier, in
her understanding of it, includes not only the
transfer of Rhenish Prussia but the oblitera-
ton of Belgium and naturally the appro-
priation of all that part of Holland lying south
of the Rhine. ''The Berlin Cabinet" said
the French official mouthpiece the other day,
"wished to turn to account the power already
acquired by displacing defnitively, to the
advantage of Prussia, the international equi-
librium, and has therefore shown q premedi-
tated intention to refuse its guarantees,
which were indispensable to our security as
well as our honor" The guarantee essential
to the honor and dignity of France is, there
fore, the permission to commit political lar
ceny Of Belgium and Luxembourg; and pre-
serving the international equilibrium means
that whenever a German State joins the
North German Confederation, France must
be permitted to steal another State to coun-
terbalance it! France, in a word, making
war against Prussia on the ground that Prus-
STA is bent on territorial ACKNOWLEDGMENT, is
convicted of entertaining that same purpose
herself in a vastly aggravated form; for
whereas the most that can be said against
Prussia is that she threatens in an honest
way to absorb the German nation, France
attempts to extend her boundaries by sheer
robbery, without other pretext than the pos
session of the necessary power. The parti-
ton of the kingdom of Poland was not a
greater crime than this atrocious deed to
which Napoleon attempted to win King Will
liam's consent.
We have little doubt that England in this
emergency will come to the rescue of the
Belgian monarchy, whose independence she
is bound, in common with other powers, to
guarantee, and when England has entered
the field it is hard to say what other alliances
may follow. We may possibly see the greater
part of Europe arrayed against the Third
Napoleon as it was formerly arrayed against
the First. But there will be no such struggle
now as there was in the time of that splendid
military genius whose glory the present
ruler of the Tuileries is trying to copy.
England is capable alone of dealing
France a terrible blow, for England can
cope with the French navy and open the
Prussian ports; can nutralize any French
movement in the direction of the North Sea,
and with the cooperation of Belgium and
Holland can defeat Napoleon's purpose of
making q base of operations in Denmark.
The rumored evacuation of Rome is equiva-
lent to a rumored alliance between France
and Italy, and we presume there is already
an alliance of some kind between France and
Spain; but neither Prim nor Victor Emma
nuel is in a condition to give Napoleon much
help. AS for Russia and Austria, it will be
strange if, in the face of this new disclosure,
they enter the quarrel on the French side.