New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1881-07-27

Lie Iact tnaC france mas suddenly emerged
from the retirement where she has remained
for ten years has stimulated the creative ener-
gies OF the newspaper correspondents in the
great capitals They assume that the reappear-
ance of so powerful nation as an active, pos
sibly meddlesOme, member of the European
State system must be followed by new alliances
among the Powers. Bismarck figures, as
usual, as the arch-devil who is sleeping
wherever the waters are stillest and deepest
The military adventures into which the French
people, while in the possession of their sober
senses, have been beguiled, are taken as proof
positive that he has bewitched their leaders
with the prospect of q new triple alliance in
which their Government will be closely asso-
ciated with Germany and Austro- Hungary
This fantastic conceit is matched by another.
Italy whose ambassadors have been alternately
represented as plotting against France in Berlin
or as bargaining in Paris for a good bit of
African coast line, is now brought into close
fellowship with Great Britain. There is barely
enough of inherent probability in this combina-
ton to exc ont the diplomatic gossip of week.
In fact, there are half dozen reasons for n
cordial understanding between Great Britain
and France in regard to the future of Northern
Africa. where there is barely half of one for q
tacit alliance between Great Britain and Italy.
The half-reason is the implied necessity for
enforcing the European guarantee of the Otto
man Empire. Even if the necessity were far
more urgent than the circumstances now indi-
cate, an English Premier would hesitate before
contracting engagements with the weakest of
the great Powers for the enforcement of that
guarantee. Among the cOgent reasons for q
cordial understanding between the Channel
ncighbors, one is their geographical position
which makes them natural allies in every Euro
pean question; another is their close associa-
ton in the war of the Crimea, when they made
themselves jointly responsible for the survival
of the Porte as a Continental Power another
is half century of continuous good fellowship
since the close of the Napoleonic wars and
another is that commercial accord which the
English themselves are now so anxious to MAIN
tain, although marked division of opinion in
regard to its expedency has arisen between the
two nations. So long as the negotiations in re-
lation to the renewal of the commercial treaty
are still pending, and there are hopes, Elusive
it may be, of a successful ISSUE Great Britain
will be likely to remain an indifferent spectator
while her neighbor is pursuing an ill-advised
course of adventure in Tunis and the borders
of Tripol and Morocco. The Liberal states
men, at least, do not share the morbid appre-
tensions of that Anglo Turk, Hobart Pacha
who forecasts a series of transparent prctcxts
for undermining the good faith of Europe, end
ing in the conquest of Egypt, with the road TO
India cilectually blocked and with Malta and
Gibraltar of no further use" the first without
provisions and the second the outpost of a
French lake"
Mr.. Greenwood, who suggested to Lord Bea-
consfield the eXpcdiency of purchasing the
Sucz shares, sounds similar alarm in regard
to Egypt. He disccrns in the seizure of Tunis
deliberate plan to make the whole southern
coast line of the Mediterranean French terri
tory, and berates the Government and the
country in general for blinking the fact that if
the Republic I" chOOses Ia take over Tripoli first
"and Egypt aftcrward, she may do so with the
"consent of all the greater European Powers
"certainy without protest or interference
These alarmiss lose sight of two facts; first
that Egypt cannot in the nature of things be-
come a French province until the British navy
has been driven from the Mediterranean and
the military force of the United Kingdom com
pletcly broken and, secondly, that the future
OF the Nile basin depends largely upon the sue
cesslul administration of the Khedivc's affairs
with which both Frenchmen aud Englishmcn
are now largely intrusted. During the last five
years the representatives of the two countries
have been working together in perfect harmony.
and neither Power has gained in the domestic
administration of Egypt an asccndancy over
the other. The two nations recognize the fact
that they have joint concern in the consolida-
ton OF the Government, and the success of
various administrative reforms that have been
introduced, and that the commercial interests
OF both countries will be promoted by mutual
control. The Anglo French partnership in
Egypt, so far from leading to positive estrangc-
ment, is in our judgment one of the strongest
links to bind the two nations together in al |
questions of European policy.