Huntsville gazette., 1889-05-04
THE CONFERENCE.
England's Attitude on the Sa.
moan Question
NOT SO CLEARLY DEFINED AS TT
WAS SOME TIME AGO.

she Seems Anxious to Court Favor witt
"ermany Even If 1t Should Not Please
the United States es-ProbabiIity of Malie-
toa's Reinstatement as King of Samoa
Other Foreign News.
LONDON, May 3.-The Times has the fol.
lowing special from its Berlin correspond
ent:
| Ihere is one thing less clear than some
others connected with the conference sitting
mere, and that is the attitude of England to
the Samoan question. At Washington En-
gland was decidedly in favor of the course
| suggested by Germany, and now there is
| nothing to show that she is not again dis
posed, ii anything, to prove a little more
complasant to Germany than to the United
States. If this be SO, it will be thought a
pity by those who expect the English govern
ment to know on which side its bread is but
tered. and who rightly argue that England
and her colonies have more both to hope
and to fear from America, with her future
Developments than from any other country
under the sum-
80 reason observers who are profoundly
convinced that the cordial friendship of the
United States is of much more value to En-
gland than is that Of any state in the Euro
pean system, from which Great Britain is
becoming more and more detached by reason
of her grateful growth into colonial world
power, with an ever widening and brighten
ing prospect. Imperial federation is the
true foreign policy for England, argue the
observers above referred to- and she has lit
tie or nothing to do now with affairs of the
continent, but everything with her interest
beyond the seas, and with the states and
colonies affected BY those interests, -.
She Has Nothing to Fear.
From this point of view, therefore, it is
somewhat puzzling to many to find Lord
Salisbury laying such ostentatious stress on
colonial entente cordiale everywhere with
Germany, from whom, it it be properly con-
sidered, England has really nothing what
ever to fear, and little or nothing to hope,
and thus mourning a risk, slight though it
may be In the present case, perhaps, Of es:
tranging the affection of those who, in GER
tain circumstances, might prove to England
as troublesome opponents as they could
otherwise be staunch and useful friends.
Not that the Samoan question itself is
capable of producing the effects here alluded
to, but at the same time its treatment by
England ought not to be such as is calcula ted
to fuf1e the Sensibilities of either Americans
or Australian colonists whose disappoint-
ment could not possibly be counterpoised by
any amount of gratitude.
On the part of Germany as between all
Anglo-Saxon races, outre mer and the Ger
man empire, the position of England is anal
ogous to the attitude Of Germany to Austria
and Russia respectively, between whom"
said Prince Bismarck to Gortchakoff, at the
congress of Berlin, 'you must not force me
to choose" repeat that the issues involved
in the Samoan question are by no means so
very pregnant of high political consequences.
but still the treatment of that question, in
the opinion of some well qualified to Judge,
ought to be test of the degree to which
England has kept pace with the true princi-
pies Of political expediency
Malietoa Released.
IL is stated that the liberation of Malietoa.