The Birmingham age-herald., 1914-04-26
The Irrepressible Conflict


 The peace of Amens, which really was no peace at all. but a mere truce in an age-old, irrepresssible conflict be- tween France and England. had lasted less than IA months. when the clash of arms was renewed. It was only the re- sumption of vendetta which had em- broiled the two countries since the Nor man conquest and in pursuit of which they had hunted each other to the ends of the earth. from the Ganges to the St. Lawrence and from Yorktown to Acre.
 When, like two wild pugilists, they agreed in the treaty of Amiens to lay aside the gloves after 10 years in the ring, the old score was left unsettled, with one the mistress of the ocean, with one the master of the land and each at the mercy of the other. The French shore was England's door stoop on the European continent while the British Isles and the British rock of lands that led from France to the high way of the sea
 England with immense dominions beyond the ocean, had all but stripped the French of their once great colonial empire. while France dominated Eu- rope as never before. It had been the settled policy of the French under all governments to regain a foothold in tho new world and in the orient, and Ma poleon had no sooner subdued Europe on the plain of Marengo than his rest less spirit turned to plans for revivinS the colonial power of France.
 As his eye searched the globe for new worlds to conquer it fell upon even the far-away little Island of St. Helena, and ministers were commanded to in- vestigate the feasibility of anneXing it, while at the same time he added Elha to the French dominions He was more interested, however, in continents than 4e1a md I. t.na It. ton to unknown Australia and with the Czar Paul planned the joint invasion ot Asia by a great army of Russians and French. At the same time he bought back Louisiana from Spain and obtained a strip of Brazilian coast, hoping by those accessions to control the two great waterways of North and South America, the Mississippi and the Anna zon.
 He longed to see France take the position in the affairs of the new world which England had lost by the American revolution. That he appre- cited what American independence had cost the British may be seen from a remark he made at the Tuileries one day when Lord Guilford, son of Lord North was presented. My Lord. the first consul said. your father was q very great man-' nut, he added to his >etaff out of the corner of his mouth. HS on. Was it not he who lost America for Englond? Yes, he was very great man, indeed"
 Batting Napoleon
 If war may have its amenities peace may have its asperities. The signers of the peace of Amiens stopped fighting only the better to quarrel And the British could easily outquarrel the French because at the opening of the nineteenth century they enjoyed the cruel advantage of the only free press in Europe. The Journalists of London hurled their quills at Napoleon like banderillos, goading and fnfuriating him by their merciless assaults upon his policies and ambitions, his gov ernment and even his domestic life. He demanded, in his innocence of British in stitutions, that the London government suppress these attacks, but was told he would have to sue for libel like any other agrieved person. When he brought suit, however, the trial merely served to give the ia wyer for the defendant an oppor- tunity to heap fresh insults upon him.
 It was a peculiarly trying situation for him. He could not afford to stop his paper, since those unmuzzled journals of England were the only papers at lib- erty to print the news of the world, and he had to have them The sight of pack ct of London newspapers never failed to excite in him curiosity, which could be satisfied only by a prompt translation of all articles and items bearing on him and the affairs of the nations.
 More than once his plans were shaped by the information contained in a para graph of English type, and after the war began anew, Charles James Fox declared