The age-herald., 1900-05-27
WHY FRENCHMEN
 HATE THE ENGLISH

From the New York Sun.
 Although since the opening of the ex-
 position, there has been some abatementof
 the abuse lately vented upon England and
 English people by the Paris newspapers,
 nobody doubts that in the autumn the cam
 paign of vituperation and calumny will be
 revived. What are the causes of the ami
 mostly with which Frenchmen regard their
 British neighbors? The London Spectator has attempted recently to account for the phenomenon by the Fashoda incident, by the fact that, as colonizers the French and the English are rivals in West and Central Africa and in southern China, and by the
 belief current in France that Englishmen
 are the enemies of her Russian allies. We
 would deny that these facts and impress
 sions may have some influence, but ins real
 ground of the enmity with which England
 is viewed in France lies far deeper It ;1 un-
 questionably true that, for upward of two
 centuries, the aspirations of the French na-
 tion have encountered in England the one
 insuperahle obstacle to their fulfllment,
 and that, but for England, France, instead
 of sinking into second-cIass power. would
 have been dominant in Europe and the mis-
 tress of the greatest colonial empire on the globe
 It is certain that but for the treasure, the blood and the generalship contributed by England to the anti-French coalition in the early years of the eighteenth century, Louis XIV. would have succeeded in ef- fecting a consolidation with France under
 the Bourbons, of Spain, Naples, the Duchy of Milan, the Spanish Netherlands, and, in a word, all the Spanish possessions in Europe, as we'll all Spains dominions in America and in the East Indies. But for Marlborough the consolidation would have been untrammeled with the conditions im- posed by the treaty of Utrecht, conditions which divided, and were intended to d- vide, the house of Bourbon against itself.
 Again, at the outbreak of the seven years war, France owned in North America an imperial domain, which. including as it did
 not only Canada, but the Mississippi val ley, had a prospective value immeasurably greater than that of the territory occupied by the British colonies in America. About l the same period Frenchmen had acquired l great influence in southern India, and l seemed destined to become the power be- | hind the throne of the Moguls By the
 peace of Paris in 176S France renounced every foot of land which had once belong | ed to her on the mainland of North Amer | ica, and by the end of the century she re- 1 tained nothing in India except Pondcherry 1 and Chandernagore. For the loss of her | nascent empires in the new world and In- | dia France had England to thank.
 A
 | Let us pass to the wars of the French | republic and first empire. ButSfor the op- | position of the English fleet in the Medi- | terranean Napoleons conquest of Egypt | would have been permanent, and would | have been followed certainly by the occu- | patton of Syria, and probably also by an
 overland expedition against India Here | again there would have been nothing wis., | ionary in the French dream of aggrandize- | ment had not England blocked the way. | Neither will any one deny that but for | England's implacable hostility Napoleon s | hold upon Spain and Portugal would have l remained unshaken, or that his control of | central Europe, from Hamburg to Naples, | would have lasted as long as he lived. | Even after Napoleons downfall England | continued to obstruct the efforts of reviv- ing France for rehabilitation. When the 1 Belgians reyolted against Holland in 1850