The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1905-08-03
Possible Int ernational Combinations

Possible international COmDih"tio"s'
NJ. PAUL DEscHANEL, formerly pre-
siding officer OF the French Chamber Of
Deputies, advocated lately In the London
Doilv Mol an intimate alliance between
France, Russia and Great Britain. Con-
sidered a. subject for academic debate
q good deal might be said undoubtedly
for this proposal; but owing to the diff
Guilty Of reconciling quickly British and
Russian interests it is for the moment
less practicable than another method Of
exerting influence by means Of interna-
tional combination which also has been
suggested In Paris. Wemean close and
cordial understanding between France,
Great Britain and the United States.
The practicability Of the latter sug-
gestion is unquesdonable. The French,
British and American peoples are al
ready bound to one another by sincere
and hearty friendship. Nowhere do
their interests conflict, now that the old
controversies between France and Eng
land have been settled by the treaty con-
cluded by NJ. DELcAssE and Lord LANs-
powNE. There would, therefore, be no
sentimental, economical or political OBJ
stacles to cooperation. The time is
ripe and the conditions are propitious
for an alinement of the three nations
named for the purpose Of reducing mill
tary ornaments, promoting the employ
ment Of arbitration ard Fastening the
advent Of universal peace. II we are
ever to see realized the vision Of a parlia-
ment Of man, federation of the world,
the first effective step in that direction
will have to be taken by France, Britain
and the United States. The bulwarks
of free institutions, the exemplars OF
self government, they represent three
fourths of the intellect and three-fourths
of the accumulated capital Of mankind.
From one point of view alone such a
coalition may at tn first glance appear
less efficient, and therefore less de-
sirable, han that. which M. DEscHANEL
commends. OF the thrse associates
suggested France alone possesses great
standing army. and in the event OF
q war with the existing Triple Alliance
or with a Russian German league, or
even with Germany alone could count
upon but little assistance. 1t might, fur
ther, be urged by Frenohmen that Of q
coalition between France, Britain and
the United States their country would
be the victim, for she alone, whose terri
tory Is exposed to invasion, would have
given. hostages to fortune. This is in
dhputably true in the sense that, Of the
European Powers only Russia has, or
would have, were she politically regen-
Grated, troops enough to shield France
from a second conquest at the hands Of
Germany. In these days, however, of
high and intense civilization nations do
not wage war solely with battalions or
for the mere extension of frontiers.
They wage war with dollars; and ulti-
mately, victory, as even the great Ma
PoLEoN found to his cost, is the prize
OF the longest purse. German armies
might overrun France from Calais to
Bayonne; but they could not stay there
IL the vast pecuniary resources of Great
Britain and the United States were de-
voted Loyalty and unstintedly to the
liberation of French soil. If Frenchmen
stubbornly refused to pay an indemnity
the expenses even Of short war would
stagger Germany, while by the cost of
such protracted warfare as England
waged against NAPOLEON she would be
paralyzed. Nor could Germany hope to
replenish her exhausted Golfers by for
eign loans. Neither Russia nor Austria
has any money to lend, and it would be
derisory to seek pecuniary help in Rome
or in Madrid. Cut of from credit by
their confreres in Paris, London and
New York, the bankers Of Berlin would
be bankrupt. Nor is it only through
financial isolation that Germany would
be smothered. Her manufactures would
die at the root. Her foreign commerce,
% laboriously built up, would vanish.
Her merchant navy would be swept
from the ocean. Her transmarine pos
sessions would be ravished, her dream
Of q colonial empire fade.
No sovereign in his senses-least Of
Ill sovereign like WILLIAM H., who is
accountable to his fellow Princes in the
Bundesrath, and to his subjects In the
Reichstag-would expose his country
70 such a catastrophe as Germany would
inevitably suffer should he defy the ac-
cumulated capital Of the three richest
countries on the globe. Far from defy