The Scranton tribune. [volume] (Scranton, Pa.) 1891-1910, 1895-11-05
Is THE OLD LION AT BAY?
From the Washington Post.

from tI1e w aSIlIStOH IOSts
The outlook for England at this mo-
ment Is distinctly gloomy. For more
than a century "the tight little island"
has, by one means or another, domi-
mated Europe. By bluster or cajolery,
by menace, or persuasion. she has man.
aged not only to accomplish her ends,
but to do it chiefly at the cost of other
nations. She allied Russia. Prussia,
Austria, and Spain against Napoleon.
She allied France and Turkey against
Russia in the Crimean war. and all
Europe against Russia at the close OF
the Turco- Russian war twenty years
later. She has moved the powers like
pieces on the chess board, rusing, de-
luding, and over-reaching them all In
turn and keeping faith with none. She
cheated Spain out Of Gibraltar. She
holds Egypt in contempt Of her agree
ment with France. She has been the
universal traitor and spoliator OF the
nineteenth century. And now, all in
dications point to turn In the tide-to
the dawning Of a day In which England
can no longer play Germany against
Russia and the Triple Alliance against
France and half Europe against the
other half for England's profit.
-:Il:-
Her ascendancy in China is threat
ened, and turning for aid and sympathy
to the powers she sees only averted
faces At last, after decades of patient
waiting, with a long record Of baffled
effort and an incalculable store of
treasured defeat and humiliation to
animate her. Russia is within reach of
a commanding position on the Pacific
Ocean. At last England sees dark
cloud of peril settling down upon her
commercial and political stronghold in
the Orient. And in this hour of her
trouble and alarm she sweeps the whole
horizon of the nations in vain search
of friend and ally. A few months ago
she might have had Japan, but Japan
refused to be tricked into an unequal
bargain, declined the place Of catspaw
and dupe, and, as 1t now seems, turned
to Russia. There was time when she
might have bound the Triple Alliance
to her with hooks of steel, but she let
the moment pass. There Is not in
Europe today q power that would not
rejoice in England's embarrassment
and distress-not one that would not
be glad to see her Inundated and be-
reaved. The seed of selfishness, culti-
waited through a hundred years Of stud
led treachery, seems to be ready for
the harvest.
-:Il:-
We have heard such things as this
before. We have seen the same pros
pect and then had 1t vanish before
some superb, unexpected exhibition of
England's chicanery and nerve. What
has happened once may happen again.
England Is not all the trickster and the
tradesman. These roles come first in
her repertory. She holds commerce
above chivalry. The city shop Is
greater in her philosophy and far more
glorious than the lists at Camelot. But
England will fight, and she can fight,
and, with her warrior blood once fairly
up, she is an adversary of whom one
half Of Europe would not be glad
Deep down under the SNUG surface OF
the Chockney huckster the Viking, the
pirate. and the indomitable, uncon-
querable soldier still lie in ambush. He
will haggle, bully, cringe, and fawn as
long as there is shilling to be had by
any Of those preferable expedients. but
crowd him into battle. and he becomes
as stark, as potent, and as furious as
were his forbears when they followed
Plantagenet across the burning sands
Of Syria or, under the banner Of Hen
ry v, amazed the world with the splen-
dor OF their gallantry at .Agincourt.
The outlook ID as we have described
Il, yet the portents may pass upon the
first fresh wind. The powers may con-
clude at the last moment that II 10 bet
ter to let the robbery and deceit 90 on
than to drag the old lion out and invoke
his teeth and claws.