The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1906-11-08
The New French Ministry Pledged
to Peace.

| INC NeW FRENCH MINISTRY
to Peace.
One OF the declarations made by Pre-
mier CLEMENCEAU, when on Monday he
announced his programme in the Cham
Der Of Deputies, should be read with
satisfaction in Berlin and all over Europe.
He made it clear that in its foreign policy
the new Ministry would studiously avoid
any disturbance of international peace,
and that the attempt of NJ. DELcAssE to
provoke Germany by isolating her would
not be repeated. At the same time he
did not mean to advocate, he said, any
reduction of the military and naval
ornaments of France, though he does
contemplate the curtailment of the period
of conscript service under the colors to
two years.
Some misgiving has been caused in
Germany by the elevation of NJ. CLEMEN-
CEAU to the Premiership, coupled with
the fact that the selection of a man rela-
! lively obscure for the Ministry of For
eign Affairs seemed TO indicate that the
foreign policy of France would be shaped
by the head of the Cabinet. His stead
fast and arm friendship for Great
Britain was supposed to be scarcely con-
sistent with the adoption of a c~onciliatory
attitude toward Germany. The truth,
however, is that the entente CoTdiGle be-
tween France and the United Kingdom
was not formed for aggressive purposes,
but had for its sole aim the preservation
of the peace of the world. The irritation
caused in England by the position taken
at one time by Emperor WILLIAM with
regard to the war in South Africa has
now passed away, and it cannot have
escaped notice that the relations between
Germany and Great Britain have become
decidedly more friendly since Sir EDWARD
GREY succeeded Lord LANsDowNE in the
Foreign Office. The interview between
King EDWARD VII. and his nephew, EN-
peror WILLIAM, exemplified the marked
change in the sentiments OF their respec-
tive peoples. If, therefore, English opin-
ion shall exert any influence upon NJ.
CLEMENCEAU, it will sway him in the
direction of international concord and
amity.
Events have justified the assertion
made when the entente cordidle was estab-
lished, that the understanding between
France and England, reached for the first
time since the Crimean War, ought not
to be viewed with vexation in Berlin;
o would it long be unless, indeed, the
German sovereign were meditating en-
croachments upon some of his weaker
neighbors. There is, to be sure, no
doubt that the species of combination
formed by the two great Powers of west
ern Europe, backed as it is by the mill
tary strength Of Russia, may be re-
garded as a guarantee Of the neutrality
and independence of Belgium and the
Netherlands, and that Emperor WILLIAM
must now the hope of an
nexing Holland to the German Confed-
Grafton, unless he can persuade the
Dutch that their country would profit
by assuming the status of Saxony or
Bavaria. With Holland goes, of course,
the Dutch East Indian Empire, upon
which the Colonial party in Germany
has been supposed to turn an envious
eye. 1t is also probable that if on the
death Of the Emperor FRANCIS JOSEPH
the Hapsburg dominions should be
threatened with violent disruption, Great
Britain, France and Russia would insist
that the arrangements needed to assure
permanent tranquility in the dual realm
should be brought about, not by Ger
many's i~nterposition, but by a European
Congress.
The sole ground on which Germans
may avowedly regret such a grouping
OF European Powers as amounts prac-
tically to a guarantee Of international
peace is that it leaves them without
any prospect Of acquiring fields for col
~onization in the Far East or the Near
East or in the New World. With France,
England and japan against her, Ger
many must abandon the plan Of EXTEND
ing gradually her influence from the
port Of Kiaochau over the whole prov
ince of Shantung, which contains some
thirty millions of inhabitants. Then,
again, while the railway traversiRg Meso-
potamia may be constructed with Ger
man capital az a private enterprise, no
cession Of territory in that quarter need
be looked for from Turkey in the teeth
Of protests from France and Russia, nor
can any island be secured in the Persian
Gulf from the Teheran Government.
The hope Of gaining u foOthold in the
Caribbean or in southern Brazil dies
hard, but ere long Emperor WILLIAM
will himself recognize that Its fruition
il impOssiblen against the will ofthe United
States, assured, as we should be, OF tho
sympathy Of Great Britain and France.
Il is verify a good augury for the
peace OF the world that the strongest
Minister that France has had for many
q year should begin his term of Office
with the proclamation Of an intention 10