ConsieRine how much our comfort here and the prosperity of one of the most important branches of our commerce, depend on the maintenance of peace in Europe, we must abstract ourselves sometimes from local questions, and take as comprehensive a survey of European politics as we can, in order to assure ourselves which of the numerous prophets of good and evil, whose vaticitations are printed every morning and evening at home, and sold for sums varying from one half-penny to threepence, is right. In the abstract which we made yesterday morning from the St. James's Gazette we find a sufficient text. "We all want peace," says the writer, " yet we know that war is coming." "Then he hints at the reasons why we may be certain that war is coming. Russia is determined to turn the Black Sea into a Russian lake, which Austria cannot allow, France is determined to recover Alsace and' Lorraine, which Germany cannot allow. Of all the peoples of Europe, then, there are only four which have any reason for going to war, but they are, unfortunately, the most important and powerful of the Continental nations. They all profess the greatest horror of war, and their determination to avoid it by every possible means; and they shew the honesty of their profession by a feverish activity in the preparation of men and materials. Germany and Austria have succeeded in dragging Italy, whose consolidation and future prosperity depend altogether on her development being allowed to proceed peaceably, into. the quarrel; for Italy no cause of complaint against France, except some petty grievance about North Africa, and not even that against Russia, while Austria has no cause of complaint against France.
Prince Bismarck proclaims to the world night and day that it is he who, by his triple alliance, is maintaining the peace of Europe; but the historian of fifty years hence, who examines the state of things in the latter half of the nineteenth century, after the present passions have died out, will have too auch reason to conclude that Prince Bismarck is the firebrand of Europe. Conscious of his own intellectual sny ority to most of the statesmen of his time, carried away by hitherto unfailing success, relying on the possession of the finest fighting machine in Europe, and secure in the deserved devotion of his fellow-countrymen, he is perhaps really anxious for peace, but it must be peace his terms and under his direction. The historian of 1950, if he tells the truth and is not blinded by the glamour of German greatness, will say that what really secured peace in 1889—if it is secured until the end of the year, was the moderation of France and Russia, France hears with quiet dignity the constant shouts across the frontier of "You never, never, shall have back Alsace and Lorraine," as Russia has borne the absorption of Bosnia by Austro-Hungary, and the dual monar+ chy's not very successful attempts to Austrianise the Balkan peninsula. Any one who read through the column of telegrams which we publish in another column could hardly fail to conclude that war was imminent, Bismarck had published in Vienna one of his gentle warnings; Russia had asked the orte for the five-thousandth time to observe the Berlin treaty with regard to Armenia; Russia was keeping the Balkan States on the boil, and allowing her only friend, Prince Nicholas, to be pabliely addressed at the sacred city of Kieff as the future Czar of the southern Slavs; Austria had warned the Servians that they must not build any hopes on the great modern principle of nationalities as far as they were concerned, etc., etc. Lord Salisbury adds a little fuel to the fire, though these burning questions are only of interest to us commercially; and as long as the conquerors can be got to make fair commercial treaties with us, it does not matter the bones of one Highlander whether Alsace and Lorraine are German or French, whether the Balkan States are Austrian, Russian, or independent. We would, of course, rather see them independent, and it might not be atoll a bad thing for them all to be united under Prince Nicholas of Montenegro. Because he is the faithful friend of Russia now, it does not follow that he will be the tool of his patron if he ever does become Emperor of the southern Slavs: there is no more gratitude in politics than in business: or Italy would not now be found in the triple alliance against France, The key to the trouble, and the alarms and excursions' that keep the wires and the journalists so busy, is the fixed policy of Russia to wear Austria out by preparations. Austria is the country that can least stand the expense, and whose heterogeneous character makes this constant irritation most dangerous; and it is quite possible, if very improbable, that there is in the most secret pigeonholes of the German and Russian Foreign Offices a plan for partitioning Austria between those two countries, with compensation to France on the Rhine and to Italy on the Adriatic, when the incessant' irritation has done its work. Germany will take the German-speaking provinces and Russia the Slavs; and favourable commercial treaties will pacify Great Britain. Russia, then, does not want war, and her feints of attacking us in Asia are only made to prevent our interfering with her in Burope. France has shown over and over again that she does not want war. The peoples of Europe are gradually waking up to the fact that their rulers, as Gerald Massey told them thirty years ago, are only giants while their subjects kneel; and they, before
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.