(IjDrnrU Mnincrsity ffitbrari| 3tliara, New l)oxk BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND THE GIFT OF HENRY W. SAGE 1891 ^ JUN P*^- ft" r-^ iViAt . MAR 2^ ia59 AT R^hiijr2iiai^ Cornell University Library DA 47.1.B24 Thirty years, Anglo-French reminiscences 3 1924 027 992 688 olin i^ P^a@ Cornell University Library The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027992688 ^'' ' 3 ■^ .>'^" -/»5r' ■;i^- FROM A WATER-COLOUR DRAWING f)V THE AUTHOR, BY TOCHl-., 1906. THIRTY YEARS ANGLO - FRENCH REMINISCENCES (1876—1906) BY SIR THOMAS JARCLAY AUTHOR OF "problems OF INTERNATIONAL PRACTICE AND DIPLOMACY," " THE TURCO-ITALIAN WAR AND ITS PROBLEMS," &C. LONDON CONSTABLE & COMPANY LTD 10 ORANGE STREET LEICESTER SQUARE WC 1914 PREFACE This book is due to a request made some years ago for a volume of memoirs. The present reminis- cences include so much about myself that they are in fact memoirs as regards my connection with France and the genesis and fulfilment of the Entente, My Anglo-German reminiscences, which cover a longer period, my short but intensely busy stay in America in 1903-4, my connection with the solution of the Balkan crisis of 1908-9, and other matters not directly affecting Anglo-French relations, with which I have had to do, are beyond the scope of and are not dealt with in the present volume. I have tried throughout to preserve the more or less colloquial style which the title of the book implies, and have avoided as much as possible writing a history of Anglo-French relations under the RepubHc. When the archives of the two Foreign Offices and the letters and memoirs of several foreign ministers and diplomatists still living become avail- able, a future generation will be better able than any contemporary writers to understand the true meaning of events which at present we can only interpret by surmise. These reminiscences not only are not intended to give a consecutive or exhaustive narrative of the period they cover, but they relate only to the matters with which I have been more or less in contact, and the reader must look for nothing further. I have V PREFACE tried at any rate to be accurate, and if they give a one-man view of events, thev are the views of a man who has been very close to the stage, who has not been deceived by the paint and decoration, and has throughout heard too much of the " directions " from the wings to be taken in by any artificial perspective. I have avoided speaking of some of the actors and giving my impressions of some of their per- formances, but that has been because I have dis- trusted my own judgment where personal feeling might warp it, and in diplomacy, as in politics, it is easier to be critical than to do better. Occasionally the reader will meet with digressions he may resent when getting interested in some subject. He must think himself in a club smoking- room with a talkative member, getting on in years, who must tell you a thing " by the by," and remember that he is only reading reminiscences. I have to thank the proprietors of 7he Times^ the W estminster Gazette^ the Standard^ the Daily Telegraphy the Manchester Guardian, the Scotsman, the Fortnightly Review, the Contemporary Review, and the Monthly Review, and the writers and owners of the different letters I have reproduced — as well as the authors and publishers where the letters have already been published — for their kind permission to quote them. I have also quoted largely from the now extinct Daily Messenger, whose services, under the management of Mr. Albert Keyzer, to the cause of Anglo-French friendship, I wish especially to acknowledge. T. B. Athen^um, April, 19 14. vi CONTENTS CHAPTER I. Launched in Paris .... II. Republican Salad Days and Bismarck III. Anti-English Symptoms. — Gambetta IV. Egypt ..... V. A Disciple of Cobden VI. A Tariff-Mo NGERiNG Era . VII. Storms Ahead .... VIII. Boulanger's Bluff . IX. Expansion and Unrest X. From Bad to Worse XI. Appeal to an Ancient Friendship XII. The Patriotard Wave XIII. Fashoda ..... XIV. National Wrath XV. Mixed Impressions . XVI. The Dawn of Better Feeling . XVII. A Propitious Moment and More Usual about the Author XVIII. Fighting for Peace • XIX. The ENTENTE IN Sight . XX. The Achievement XXI. An Anglo-American Interlude XXII. The Squaring-up • • Vll '^^^i^s*-*.,^^,,^** than PAGE I 24 36 52 62 7S 82 95 104 121 129 135 144 157 165 ^7S 190 209 217 230 237 242 CONTENTS CHAPTER PAGE XXIII. A New Era— Germany . , , .253 XXIV. A "Revanche" 274 XXV. Past and Present Efforts — Danger of Drift ....... 284 XXVI. Stumbling Blocks ..... 305 XXVII. Afterwords . . . . . .318 APPENDICES. I. Presidents of the Republic . . . 337 II. French Prime Ministers and Ministers of Foreign Affairs since 1870 . . . 337 III. French Ambassadors to London since 1870 . 339 IV. British Secretaries of State for Foreign Affairs since 1870 ..... 339 V. British Ambassadors to Paris since 1870 . 339 VI. Summary of Arguments, British and French, IN Favour of Arbitration Treaty and Entente ...... 340 VII. Unofficial Support given to the Movement. 346 VIII. Text of Anglo-French Treaty of Arbitration ...... 354 IX. Letter from Lord Lyons to Lord Granville on the Situation in 1884 . . . 355 X. M. Hanotaux on British Diplomacy . . 356 XI. Papers relating to the Franco-Scottish Society and the Scots College in Paris . 359 XII. Pledge and Rules of the International Brotherhood Alliance .... 377 viu THIRTY YEARS CHAPTER I LAUNCHED IN PARIS " You must give me your answer at once ; Alge is not strong, Blowitz is away, and our third man must be installed at the rue Vivienne by Monday night." Thus spoke John Macdonald, the then manager of The Times, a kind and considerate man by nature, but in business, masterful and often uncompromising. He had wired me on the Saturday morning to meet him at Printing House Square, and on the following Monday night, in May, 1876, after no more notice than the few minutes in which I had to make up my mind, the most momentous step in my career was taken and the whole course of my subsequent life determined. Paris from that moment till 1909 remained the centre of my affairs and my home. m * * * ^ I had been saturated with things French from my childhood. My grandfather was a noted Scottish politician, a Hellenist, a student of French litera- ture, and a philosopher, who thought Aristotle, Hume, and especially Voltaire, had got closer to intellectual " common sense " than had the Edinburgh school who labelled themselves with the term. He was such a believer in the emancipating character of T.Y. I B THIRTY YEARS French culture that he sent all his children to pass some years in Paris. Access to German culture he con- sidered less interesting to a Scotsman, but he wished his children to know the German language as added strength to their capabilities, and my grandmother, who spoke French fluently, learnt also German at the same time as my aunts at Neuwied on the Rhine. In this highly-cultured family at Cupar-Fife, " famed for litigation," as an ironical Cupar teacher used to call it,^ I passed much of my early life. To my young imagination the very name of France seemed to stand for all that was free, brilliant and reasonable. " What," said my old Whig grandfather, " do political systems matter except to put one set of men in office in the place of others ! They are all the mere tools of the thinkers. What really matters is freedom to think, speculate, talk, write about every conceivable thing." Paris was my Mecca. The French intellect, I had been taught, was the motive-power which was driving the machinery of the human mind throughout the world. # # # # # I had just passed two years at the University of Jena, the two most delightful years of my life, for there for the first time I had been allowed to do individual work and research for myself instead of merely learning the wisdom of others. Germany, moreover, had broken loose from the old wisdom. Nobody in 1873-5 read any philosophical writer but Spencer, and ^ What Scotsman knows not the proverb " He that will to Cupar maun to Cupar ? " The inhabitants of the " Kingdom," as Fife is called in Scotland, are notoriously litigious folk, and Cupar is the place where the Sheriff of Fife distributes justice to them. LAUNCHED IN PARIS little of him. Darwin had overturned the tottering German idols. The professors were still sweeping the wreckage into the back yard, where the bits were being carefully collected by English university men and carried off to Oxford to be pieced together again. One of the " repairers " was my late uncle-in-law, Professor Wallace of Oxford, himself a distinguished philosopher, who wrote the famous " Prolegomena" to an English translation of Hegel's Logic, and was one of the worshippers of its then, in Germany, discarded author. Prof. Eucken, by the by, had just been "called" to Jena in succession to Kuno Fischer, I remember the disappointment at the loss of this somewhat histrionic lecturer, who had gone to Heidel- berg, whither many students flitted after him. I am tempted to go beyond the scope of this volume and talk about a German university of forty years ago. All I can say here is that the University of Jena was the leading r^voltee. It was the joint university of three States, Saxe- Weimar-Eisenach, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. The representative of the joint administrative interests explained to me why Jena possessed such independence as compared with other German universities. " One master," he said, " is a master ; two masters are half a master ; and three masters are none ! " After having absorbed the new scientific spirit and revelled in this intellectual freedom, I saw, later on, the conventional spirit growing again under the new order, professors of the new order treating as heretics those of a still newer order, and even Darwinism taking its place among the creeds. # * # # # From my great teacher, Professor Hildebrand, I 3 B 2 THIRTY YEARS brought a letter of introduction to the famous Dr. Farr. Dr. Wilham Farr was Superintendent of the Statistical Department of the Registrar General's office at Somerset House, had studied medicine in Paris, and was a corresponding member of the Institute of France. He was the greatest living authority on the statistics of disease and life. The life tables, with values of annuities and premiums for single and joint lives, in use by the British insurance companies, in fact, were drawn up by him. He was a short, dark man, not unlike the late Henry Labouch^re. When I first knew him, he was in his seventieth year. Professor Hildebrand considered him as the creator of accurate statistics. Dr. Farr advised me to take up the subject of comparative criminology, and examine our tables of criminal statistics, which he regarded as trivial and misleading, in minute detail. I did so, and published a long article of several columns on them in The Times, On the strength of this article he proposed me as a Fellow of the Statistical Society, and introduced me to the leading statisticians as one of the fraternity. The above-mentioned article was followed by another, showing the fallacy of the current statistics of drink, and then by a third, analysing the wealth of England, in connection with the Income Tax returns, which had been the subject of my '' dissertation " for the Doctorate at Jena. Through Dr. Farr I made the acquaintance of that most illuminating of books, Descartes' '^ Discours sur la Methode," which he always had at hand, to dip into for a mental bath, whenever his mind was getting fagged. In those days, by the by, the organization of Somer- 4 LAUNCHED IN PARIS set House was very different from what it is now. When I called on Dr. Farr, I had to apply at the office of the head clerk, a Mr. Williams, who danced attend- ance on his chief as no civil servant of to-day would be expected to do. Dr. Farr had a long room looking out into the yard, reached through Williams' room, and without access except through it. Those were feudal days, in which democracy had not yet asserted its right to a liveried attendant. Dr. Farr was just then keen on his theory of value, and most anxious that I should bring it to Hilde- brand's notice, which I did. It was set out in a paper printed in the Journal of the Statistical Society (Septem- ber, 1876), on " the valuation of railways, telegraphs, water companies, canals and other commercial con- cerns, with prospective, deferred, increasing, decreasing or terminating profits." I commend it, in spite of its not very thrilling title, to the attention of those who think, as Dr. Farr did, that railways must eventually be taken over by the State. The object of his paper was to establish a scientific basis of valuation in view of such an emergency. ffr TT tF V ^ Another good friend of those days was my father's col- league, A. J. Wilson, at that time the assistant financial editor of The Times and already a distinguished economist, who introduced me as a brother economist to R. H. Hutton, the editor of the Spectator^ for which for a time I wrote reviews of books on economics. •J(* rR" W W V My first review in the Spectator was on a book by H. Dunning Macleod, " demolishing for good " John Stuart Mill's economic fallacies ! It brought me a letter from the dearest friend of my boyhood, Alexander 5 THIRTY YEARS Lonie, who was assistant to T. Spencer Baynes, editor of the then appearing ninth edition of the Encyclopedia Britannica, He reproached me roundly for a severity which, he said, showed I did not yet appreciate the labour of producing a book on any serious subject, and beseeching me to look out rather for the merit, than the weakness, of the authors I criticised. Alec Lonie died of consumption before he reached his thirtieth year, but he had written a short article on " Animism " in the Britannica which was regarded by competent judges as a masterpiece. I wrote a good many criticisms of books for the Spectator^ and a great many more afterwards for Literature^ when edited by Dr. Traill, but I never forgot Alec Lonie's humane admonition. TP TT ^P ^F My decision to accept the Paris post was not a little mfluenced by the fact that an important statistical post in Egypt, for which I had been recommended by Dr. Farr, had been given to someone else on account of my youth and without reference to our respective qualifications, an unpardonable offence in the eyes of a young man of twenty-two not yet experienced in the ways of Governments. # # # ^ * Anyhow I came to France with joy. Here new ideas got a hearing, here all the leaders — the very institu- tions were young. The country was still a vast political Seminar — and I was enthusiastic about everything that resembled in freedom of discussion the Seminar in which my mind had learnt how to use its limbs. I spoke French fairly well, having passed a year in the College Jean-Bart at Dunkirk in 1867-8,^ and any ^ In 1912 I had the privilege of distributing the prizes and delivering 6 LAUNCHED IN PARIS little diffidence I still had was soon lost in the intel- lectual omniscience The Times correspondents in those days affected to possess and were credited with possessing whether they possessed it or not. Young as I was I soon got into touch with the problems which were agitating France. With a sort of feverish desire to miss nothing, I went off almost daily to Versailles to listen to the debates in parliament, although my department was rather the economic, commercial, and financial side of things in France than her politics. Dr. Farr had given me letters of introduction to all the great French economists of that time — Levasseur, Michel Chevalier, Maurice Block, Joseph Garnier, Wolowski, etc. Of all these distinguished men I made the acquaintance except Wolowski, who was then already on his death-bed. # M. Levasseur gave me an appointment for 7.45 in the morning. This distinguished economist was an indefatigable, nay, inexorable worker, and allowed no one to disturb him after 8.30 a.m., when he began his daily toil in earnest. Professor Levasseur confined the annual oration at the famous old college. I chose as the subject " Moral education in school," one of the greatest problems of modern France. Two of my fellow pupils of the " Jean-Bart " were the brothers Furby. Alcide died a few years ago, but the other brother, Charles, is now Avocat- Giniral of the Court of Cassation. We met again some thirty years ago through journaHsm, which he abandoned like myself for the law. Furby -phre had been a political refugee in Edinburgh under the Empire. Though amnestied he remained in Scotland, and was French tutor to the Duke of Edinburgh in his time. Another Jean-Bartois is Dr. Dundas Grant, the well-known laryngologist. Furby, Grant and I meet from time to time and talk of old days as " old boys " are wont to do. Dunkirk is also the headquarters of an active branch of the F.I.G., under the active and sympathetic chairmanship of ^M^^i^F^z> Lebel (seep. 301). THIRTY YEARS his conversation with me to some great atlas, I think it was, on which he was engaged, and when the clock struck eight he rose, shook hands and told me he would always be glad to see me at the same hour. 1 often saw this exceedingly busy man again, but only at evening parties, and even then he seemed to subject himself to time limits, such as, I imagine, five minutes for a member of the Academie francaise^ three minutes for a fellow member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences ; for the rest, a scale of conversation of which he carefully took charge to prevent any over- stepping of a precise and well-considered proportion, descending to a courtly shake of the hand to the simple man in the street. # # # # « Michel Chevalier received me at his house in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne^ where his distinguished son-in-law. Professor Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, still lives, within the heures ouvrables it is true, but, like Professor Levasseur, he gave me a rapid expose of his views on certain current matters economic, and then rising, shook hands. He at any rate returned my call, and I called on him again to obtain his views on some pending measure, but he was too full of his views on something else to give me any enlightenment on any topic of any interest to The Times, # « # # # With this first experience of eminent Frenchmen I was disappointed, and it was some time before I presented another letter of introduction. One day, however, I received from my late friend, Mr. Richard Heath, who was then writing his life of Edgar Quinet, a letter to Professor Garcin de Tassy, the Oriental scholar, a fine old gentleman with the grand manners 8 LAUNCHED IN PARIS of an expiring age, who was not an economist, not even an economist of time or courtesy. He invited me d Vanglaise to dinner, and I accepted his abundant hospitaUty as often as my journalist duties per- mitted. # if: * # « Emboldened by this result, which had brought me into contact with a number of interesting Frenchmen, I presented another of Dr. Farr's letters. This was to Professor Garnier, a handsome old man with a magnificent head of grey hair, who was the hon. secretary of the " Societe d'Economie politique." He invited me to one of its monthly dinners that autumn. At this dinner I made the acquaintance of a Deputy who, being the son of a Scotsman, admitted me at once to his intimacy. '* Cela se fait toujours entre Ecossais ! " The father, as a young Glasgow engineer, had been sent in the early years of the century by " Iron Manby," President of the Society of Engineers, to teach the engineers of the Creuzot works how to cast large blocks of iron for the construction of bridges. After completing his engagement, like a true Scotsman he looked around him to see in what way he could take advantage of his environment, and with the co-opera- tion of M. Dosne, M. Thiers' father-in-law, of M. Thiers himself, of M. Barante, M. Fould and others, he founded the Charenton Ironworks. Meanwhile he observed the great progress of gas-lighting, which had been adopted with commercial success in North Britain, and deter- mined to give it a trial in Paris. Thus it was that in the thirties the enterprising owner of a cafe on the Boulevard Poissonniere, the Cafe des Boulevards^ allowed our Scotsman to instal a small gas-generating 9 THIRTY YEARS plant in its basement. Hundreds of strollers, attracted by what then seemed intense brilliancy compared with the poor old colza-oil lamps, crowded into the cafe. Brefy capitalists were invited to join in the venture, and the Gas Company of Paris was founded with the enterprising Scotsman at its head. It flourished and he became a very rich man. Some years later he married a young French lady, daughter of M. Cazenave, a judge of the Court of Cassation, and son of one of the few members of the Convention who voted against the execution of Louis XVI. The two children of the marriage were left orphans while very young, and were brought up by guardians. The elder one, a daughter, married M. Pelouze, the scientific chemist of the company ; the other child was Daniel Wilson, my new friend. # # * # # Whatever the sins of Daniel Wilson — and whether he was a scapegoat, the victim of the conspiracy against his father-in-law, M. Grevy, or not — he was always a good friend to me, and I was certainly far too poor and too insignificant to make it worth his while to cultivate me for any object but the purest of friendship. I never saw but one fault in him — it was that he was often obliging to people who did not deserve his kindness. Wilson in 1876, when I first made his acquaintance, was one of the most promising men in France, comparatively rich, a dispassionate and effective business-like speaker, and an inde- fatigable worker. M. Grevy singled him out for his particular affection. ^* Mon petit Daniel," as he called him, afterwards married Mile. Grevy. I was at the wedding as one of Wilson's friends. This friendship with Wilson brought me into close contact with the 10 LAUNCHED IN PARIS Grevy family, and for years I was a frequent guest at the Thursday lunches, to which the President was in the habit of inviting his more intimate political friends. It was at these lunches that I laid the foundation of those political associations which after- wards enabled me to secure support for the Entente^ where it might otherwise have been difficult. ^ ff TT tP I cannot pass over the name of Mme. Pelouze, Wilson's sister, without mentioning the delicate charm, the tact, and political insight of a lady who was truly one of the grandes dames of the Republic. At Tours, in the early days, she had been the rallying point of the Grevy party against the Gambettists. It was she who had taken Daniel to task over his extravagant and wild life as a young richard towards the end of the Empire, who had bought the beautiful palace of Chenonceaux on the Indre, had captured the constituency of Loches and sent her brother to Paris as its Deputy. No habitue of the gatherings under the dim-red light in her large, cosy smoking-room, with the clever men and women she collected round her, can pass the old place at 17, rue de I'Universite without a pang of sadness in his recollection of the sweet woman who was afterwards financially ruined, whose exquisite Chenonceaux was sold by the mort- gagees, and who died, after a long illness, exiled from Paris to the south of France, uncared for except by a small number of those who will never think of her without gratitude for having had the privilege of knowing her. ik m * * *^ Nor can I speak of Mme. Pelouze without thinking of the grande dame on the other side, — for the Grevy II THIRTY YEARS party and Gambetta's party soon came to be the more or less opposing sections in Republican destinies — , of Mme. Edmond Adam, nee Juliette Lamber, a very different kind of woman from Mme. Pelouze, an authoress of great distinction, a woman of an excep- tionally brilliant intellect, who influenced all who approached her and who was the Egeria of half the great men of her time in France. For years with her husband, and, after M. Adam's death in 1877, alone, she was Gambetta's sincere and constant adviser and friend. In 1880, as I remember her, fair and forty, she was an extremely handsome and commanding personality, who, at the functions she graced with her presence, was always the centre of attraction. Her mind, along with its feminine power of divination, had certain masculine qualities which made men solicit her opinions and treat them with a consideration I have never seen in any other case to such a degree. Her vitality was so absorbed in the affairs of France that she had neither time nor energy for the frivolities and flirtations of many clever women. But I am speaking of her as if she were no longer among us. Far from having abandoned the things of this world, she is still mentally as brilliant and enthusiastic as ever for the causes she deems good. I met her again in 1908 at Prague, busy with her ever-green passion for the reunion of the Slav races as a bulwark, if I understand her aright, against the spread of Germanism ! I fear this passes my comprehension. Www w tF Amid all these new friends and acquaintances, Blowitz stands out in high relief among my earlier French recollections, and though he is no longer even known by name to a younger generation, there are 12 LAUNCHED IN PARIS many of an older one who knew Blowltz personally, and even for them, besides those who read his articles, his personality has always remained interestingly obscure. His memoirs are no real clue to the man, and no one who had any real affection for Blowitz would do him the injustice of disguising his faults, which were neither paltry nor sordid, but as much a part of his interesting and picturesque personality as his qualities. In stature he was short, on account of the abnormal shortness of his legs. His head was not out of pro- portion to his trunk, and he looked well-proportioned when seated. When I first knew him, he was obliged to have a desk with a bay to accommodate his person and write with ease. A sturdy moustache and side whiskers, which he wore brushed outwards, a bald head and the hands of a giant completed the massive outline of a form which mere touches of expression from the caricaturist suflBced to make comic. Even a comical situation was enough, as in Sir F. Gould's famous cartoon in the Westminster Gazette of December 6, 1899, without the slightest deflection from nature. His manner had a certain distinction. His keen, observant glance and swarthy Oriental repose of features were so interesting that no one thought of the almost grotesque disproportion of his limbs. His mode of thought was almost as eccentric as his body. He had the vanity, generosity, insight and cleverness absolute of the Semite. Yet he did not see the futility of proclaiming himself and all his charac- teristics Slavonic. He was born in Bohemia, at a place a few miles from Pilsen, called Biovics, and according to his own account his family name was 13 THIRTY YEARS Opper. This resembled Oppert too much to deceive the most willing of believers. I had frequent occasions to see how easy it was to deceive this master of practical psychology when his personal vanity or preconceived ideas were concerned. ^P ^T TT tF All this did not prevent Blowitz from being one of the survivals of a period of great men — a period which produced Darwins, Herbert Spencers, Disraelis, Glad- stones, Bismarcks, Gambettas and a galaxy of genius, the like of which has since then had no equals. It was at that time customary to call Emile de Girardin : le roi des journalistes, Blowitz was next in succession, and called, without exaggeration, le prince des journalistes. Open The Times at any date down to the end of the eighties, and you will see that he gave his opinions en prince as his own, and that his opinions were discussed as original sources of know- ledge. With the rise of the new democracy and the disappearance of the old " governing " personalities, his influence waned. 'Tp rff •R' "w ^F In his palmy days, those of M. Thiers, the Due Decazes, Leon Say, Jules Simon, Dufaure, Duclerc, de Marcere, he wrote as if he belonged to the Roman Catholic, though more or less liberal, upper class of France, as the approved aristocratic critic of the reforms which were paving the way for a new era. Those were the days of journalists like John Lemoinne and J. J. Weiss, whose names stood for ideas, z.^., before the days of sensationalism and a new order of things in which men like these have no place. Blowitz was one of them. His judgments, however, when not based on LAUNCHED IN PARIS immediate contact with human character, were generally warped and unsound. He loved to envelop his descriptions in mystery, and often reminded one more of the fantastic combinations of the Arabian Nights than of the sober, unromantic situations of the West. The story he tells in his Memoirs of how he got the Berlin Treaty is one of these fantastic stories. He told it, no doubt, to cover the responsibility of M. Waddington, the French delegate, who is believed to have given him the text in return for many kind services Blowitz had rendered to him, if not for pure friendship's sake. At the time it was currently stated that the culprit was Disraeli, who gave him the text as a present to his old friend The Times, but I made Waddington's acquaintance through Blowitz, and knew they were on terms of considerable intimacy. It is not of much importance now where Blowitz obtained the treaty and possibly, as I know from experience, he had only the merit of being the corre- spondent of The Times, I obtained the terms of the Brussels " General Act on the Slave Trade," for which there was almost as keen a scramble, and as its fragments were adopted translated them, and sent the whole text to The Times forty-eight hours before it was signed, and then telegraphed permission to publish it. No other paper had it. Any other discreet correspondent of The Times would have been equally able to get it first, as I did. # # # # # Blowitz' ability was that of putting facts together and making a good consecutive story. This he could do with safety, because he was familiar with the known facts in every case. All he needed, as a rule, was a link. When he had this, his story was ready. 15 THIRTY YEARS He asked no questions. This, sometimes, brought him into conflict with eminent persons whose opinions he recorded, as I perceived more than once. One day when I was lunching at his house in the Rue Tilsitt, I found Nubar Pasha was among the guests. Madame de Blowitz whispered to me : C'est un dejeuner d'affaires. Nubar aura la parole ; ne I'interrompez pas." I suppose the other guests were similarly warned, but barely a word throughout the lunch did Nubar say. Blowitz probed the dusky, clever-looking Oriental (he was an Armenian), duskier than and as clever as himself, on his Egyptian policy, sent out his feelers groping round Nubar's faint protesting movements. A nod here, a shake of the head there, an occasional glance of his eyes, a little contraction of the forehead, a clearing of his throat that came to nothing, a furtive glance round the table were all Blowitz had to work upon. Not a word said Nubar, except to ask Madame de Blowitz for news of her nephew, Stephane Lausanne, and of her niece, or whether she had been to some concert. My neighbour whispered, " Se taire pour ecouter ce grand causeur ! " But Blowitz talked incessantly, giving Nubar most interesting details on current affairs. My neighbour observed sarcastically that Blowitz had wasted his time and a good lunch. He was wrong. I drove with Blowitz to The Times ofHce, and he was now as taciturn as his guest had been. " I must digest all that he has told me," he said quite seriously. It sounded like an upside-down commentary on what I had just been witnessing. The next day The Times contained a long article by Blowitz on Egyptian affairs, the source of which was unmistakable. A day later I heard the angry voice of Nubar in Blowitz' i6 LAUNCHED IN PARIS room at the office expostulating. " But," said Blowitz, " the question is whether it is true or not true. Is it not true ? " Nubar had to admit that every word was true. They separated friends, Blowitz having convinced Nubar that his indiscretion had rendered Nubar an immense service. He had added, he afterwards told me with a sly twinkle in his eye, that he had no objection to Nubar's disavowing the article. ^p ^F ^f th ^p Sometimes he was disavowed, as by Bismarck and by Gambetta, but nobody paid much heed to dis- avowals. A disavowal merely gave the interviewed person the benefit of the article without the responsibility. The famous article on Gambetta's policy suggested its source as that on Nubar's poUcy had done. Blowitz had come back in the same railway com- partment with Gambetta from Versailles where the Chambers then sat, and taken part in a general con- versation with other passengers. The Versailles-Paris parliamentary train in those days served the purpose of a club where men talked over matters of public policy and parliamentary strategy pretty freely. Mrs. Emily Crawford, correspondent of the Daily NezvSy was authorized by Gambetta to disclaim the implied origin of the article, but nobody could deny the accuracy of the views Blowitz had attributed to Gambetta. His power lay, as I have said, in his intimate knowledge of foreign affairs, and his personal acquaintance with the men who directed them. # * # # * He was also singularly aided by an excellent memory. T.Y. 17 C THIRTY YEARS A distinguished British politician and author, speaking recently of Blowitz, told me Delane had given him as an instance of Blowitz' extraordinary memory, his having at a pinch written out from memory a long speech of Gambetta's. He thought it would have been simple to ask Gambetta for it. He was mistaken. In the first place, Gambetta could not have given it to him, and Blowitz' memory, provided nothing intervened, accounted for the rest. Blowitz spoke with a rolling Slavonic intonation French, German, Italian and Spanish. His English had been acquired in later life and was execrable. Among the difficulties he could not overcome was the difference between " How do you do ? " and " Good- bye." He sometimes combined them, saluting his friends in the same breath with " Good-bye, How do you do ! " *T^ "Tr 'vT VT ll" Blowitz had the adventurer's love of the wealthy and powerful. In him, poverty or failure excited no pity, and one who afforded him no copy was a " nobody," the lowest rank to which a man could descend. A criminal on a large scale excited Blowitz' imagination and he dwelt with an almost friendly interest on rascality that amounted to genius. In those days Blowitz was a journalist, and nothing but a journalist, devoted to The Times body and soul, and ready to sacrifice his very life to his professional duty. He was as different from the sentimental Gambetta as any man could be. Gambetta hated Blowitz as a hanger-on and sycophant, and Blowitz despised Gambetta as an unpractical political simpleton. i8 LAUNCHED IN PARIS Gambetta's organ, the RSpublique franc aise^ never lost an opportunity of saying unflattering things about the great journalist. On one occasion it published a more than usually bitter article about M. Oppert de Blowitz, a converted Jew, a naturalised Frenchman, enjoying the hospitality of France, and betraying the country which had been kind to him to a foreign newspaper, etc. Letters poured in from all sides expressing the indignation of the writers at this virulent attack. Blowitz piled them up as they arrived, and put a weight on the top. He read a couple of them. One was from Hely Bowes, correspondent of the Standard^ a really good fellow whom his friends all loved. Blowitz handed it to me. It was a kind, well-meant letter, but it irritated Blowitz, and he " chucked " the whole lot unread into the waste-paper basket. " Meme Bowes ne peut cacher sa joie. Leurs condoleances sont aussi ineptes qu'elles sont impertinentes. S'il ne leur etait pas doux de me patroner, ils auraient feint de ne I'avoir pas lu." ^P flr ^F ^F Shortly afterwards Lord Lytton came to Paris. I made his acquaintance through my friend. Sir Frederick Pollock. He was very inquisitive about Blowitz, whom he had seen but not yet met. " He looks an ugly little mongrel," he observed. " I suppose the inner man is much like the outer one." He seemed unfriendly to the Prince des Journalistes. Blowitz, however, soon conquered the Bohemian ambassador. The next time we met was at a British Chamber of Commerce banquet. Lord Lytton, who was the kindest and most jovial of ambassadors, was walking J9 C 2 THIRTY YEARS up and down a side room with his arm embracing Blowitz' ample torso. # # « # # Madame de Blowitz was a lady of great distinction, and there was nobody who was not pleased to accept her invitations. She did the honours of her household like a true Provencal woman, a grande dame to the manner born. She was the only woman, however, who ever mistook me for my father. My first-born had just made its appearance on the human stage. She knew me quite well, but her husband introduced me as " Monsieur Barclay pere." She turned to me and to my astonishment said, " Monsieur, je vous felicite de votre fils qui d'ailleurs vous ressemble beaucoup, beaucoup." In his later years, when his sight failed him, Blowitz grew suspicious of everybody ; I seemed to be one of the few exceptions. Once a week at least, he would inquire if I were going to some function, because he wished to sit next me. With his declining health, his Oriental imagination ran riot. Dreams became realities, and with his fading sight, he discerned enchantments and romance more than ever. # * # # # Laurence Oliphant, that most unaccountable of beings, in ordinary intercourse a '^ visionary cynic " as somebody called him, told me he considered his discovery of Blowitz the one redeeming incident of a wasted life. When he (Oliphant) was Times correspondent, he had wanted an ingenious fellow who would " se glisser dans les milieux politiques," and bring him gossip. Some unconscious foresight had prompted him to go and ask Thiers to recommend 20 LAUNCHED IN PARIS him a man. Thiers seemed to expect the inquiry. " I was just going to send a man who was here a few minutes ago with a letter of introduction to you," said the President. " He is an adventurer in Paris, but well known at Marseilles, whence he has just turned up with a letter of warm commendation from friends of mine there. You can trust him." It was providential. So, this man, said Oliphant, born in Bohemia, of God-only-knew what origin, had left Marseilles, where he had lived for many years as a teacher, with the idea of starting a new life in Paris, and walked straight, as it were, into The Times office, and became the greatest journalist of his time. What premonition had made him break up his home at Marseilles, where he was married to a charming woman of sufficient means to ensure comfort, and at forty years of age start on a new career ! It was like Joan of Arc ! # * # # # Blowitz told me two stories which do not figure in his Memoirs, and which are too good to be forgotten. The one was of M. Thiers, by whom Blowitz was frequently invited to his presidential functions. On one occasion when he was invited to the Presidency, there were a number of Prefets dining with him. Thiers wished to know them all personally in order to judge of their abilities so far as a few minutes conversation would permit. It was at an anxious time. The President looked very grave, said practi- cally nothing and ate less. Blowitz after dinner approached him to ask if there was any discomforting news. " Rien du tout," answered M. Thiers. " But you looked so preoccupied, M. le President, during 21 THIRTY YEARS the dinner that I feared there might be some trouble." " Je n'etais preoccupe, mon ami, que de mes prefets. Je les regardais manger. Pour etre bon prefet, il faut avoir la digestion facile. II y en a qui deviennent rouges comme des ecrevisses. Cela n'est pas bon pour la Republique." And he went on seriously explaining to Blowitz that a good prefect must be moderate in his libations, have a good digestion, weigh his words and rise from the table as self-possessed as when he sat down. The other story was of Lord Lyons. After a late debate in the Chamber, Thiers had handed in his resignation, and Blowitz, who, probably alone of journalists, knew of M. Thiers' decision, had sent a long telegram to The Times about the inauspicious, but as he believed, final decision. There was a reception at some Embassy that evening. Blowitz was necessarily late, and as he ascended the staircase, he met Lord Lyons coming down. " Vous savez que Thiers est a I'eau," whispered Blowitz, " Repechez- le," murmured back Lord Lyons. Blowitz drove immediately to the Presidency and found that the resignation was withdrawn. His wire to London arrived just in time to prevent a gaffe ^ which would have been due to his superior knowledge ! After a few years I resigned my post on The Times, though with Blowitz I continued on terms of intimate friendship to the end of his life. From him shortly before his death I received the following touching letter in reply to one of mine regretting that I had not been asked to join in a testimonial to him, thanking me for a friendship which had been a greater pleasure to me than it could possibly have been of service to him :- — 22 LAUNCHED IN PARIS ** 2 Rue Greuze. io Jan., 1903. " My very dear Friend, — I presume that you must have returned from England and that I can write you to your address in Paris in reply to your very kind and friendly letter of December 23. Be sure that I appreciate very highly your good feelings towards myself and that I remember with a grateful sense the powerful and successful assistance which I have received from you and which has so largely contributed to the quite unexpected greatness of my success. The organisers of the token offered to me by my colleagues have exclusively invited acting correspondents and I, since, really regret that your name does not figure on the remarkable work of art which has been offered to me, and which I hope to be able to show you as soon as you will find time to call at the rue Greuze, where you are sure it will give me great pleasure to see you." In his palmy days people credited Blowltz with making large profits besides his salary. He was vendu to everybody who could make use of The Times • That, when he died, his fortune was found to be quite insignificant silenced his detractors, as the same fact had silenced the detractors of Gambetta. Men endowed with public spirit have little time to make fortunes. Enthusiasts give or lose what they have, but calumny never tires of whispering the contrary till the answer comes from its victim's grave. 23 CHAPTER II REPUBLICAN SALAD DAYS AND BISMARCK I GREW up with the RepubHc. On May 9, 1876, when I invaded the gay city, the Repubhc was still barely out of its infancy. Its parliamentary baptism, fifteen months earlier (January 30, 1875), when the adoption of the title of President of the Republic was the first parliamentary recognition of the existence of the Republic as the established form of government, had not been an unqualified victory for the Republicans. Owing to dissensions among their opponents, then the majority, it was carried by one vote, by 354 votes against 353 ! Marshal MacMahon had been appointed the previous year (March 19, 1874) for a period of seven years by an isolated legislative enactment. A section of his sup- porters now voted for the adoption of the Septennate as a principle, vaguely hoping that it would facilitate the election of the Due d' Aumale, on whom they relied as a popular future President to lead France by gentle suasion back to her old royalist allegiance. The electors, however, showed no particular desire to return to any of the old allegiances, and in February, 1876, they had returned a Republican majority of 360 against a minority of 170, made up of a composite opposition, with hostility to the Republic as their only common denominator. The honest but politically unpractical Marsha] tried, in spite of this Republican victory, to rely for government on the support of this heterogeneous minority. 24 REPUBLICAN SALAD DAYS When I began to frequent the meetings of the French pariiament and watch the still anxious game of Republican politics, the venerable and respected M. Dufaure was Prime Minister and the Due Decazes Minister for Foreign Affairs. With the Due, Blowitz, who had already risen to a towering position in journalism, was on familiar terms. ^ iF "Bp "Jt W I have never pinned my faith to the story of the Franco-German crisis of 1875 with the conviction of a sincere believer. This does not apply to Blowitz's share in denouncing it. He told me what happened just as it has since been recorded in his " Memoirs," except that in his memoirs he does not mention that Prince Hohenlohe ^ was also behind him. It was customary in those days when diplomatists carried on their warfare with the assistance of the foreign correspondents of leading newspapers, especially those of London, to date '' tendential " communications from any but the real place of origin. Thus Blowitz would date a note furnished by Decazes from Rome, whence some friend of his, he would allege, who was inclose connection with diplomacy had written to him explanations of such or such an incident ; or it would be that the text of such or such a document had been sent him from Vienna. As identical com- munications are sent out to the ambassadors, respon- sibility for indiscretion was often fixed on the wrong man by a public who were not, like the diplomatic people themselves, able to detect the supercherie. The story of the crisis arose out of the announce- ment that an addition of some 140,000 men was to be 1 Prince Hohenlohe succeeded Count v. Arnim as German Ambassador to France in May, 1874. 25 THIRTY YEARS made to the French army under the new law for its reorganisation. The French ambassador at BerHn, the Vicomte de Gontaut-Biron, was an ardent Roman CathoUc and reactionary who, however fascinating his personal charm may have been — and it was no doubt con- siderable, seeing that he was a great favourite at the Berlin Court — excited, perhaps, the jealousy of the " iron " Chancellor. The Prince could not stand the well-groomed, suave, gay Frenchman and dis- trusted the clerical reaction with which the ambassador was associated. The election of Marshal MacMahon to the Presidency, the increase of the army, the militant tone of the French press, and the possibility of a new coup d'etat^ for which a foreign war might be a pretext, made Germany suspicious. M. de Gontaut- Biron appears to have had little intercourse with the responsible heads of the administration, and to have consorted chiefly with the court circle and the Prussian aristocracy who fluttered around it. The French ambassador's famous letter which had caused the alarm in France and which Blowitz saw, stated that a German diplomatist whom he had met at the British Embassy, Herr von Radowitz, had told him that Count von Moltke, who had great influence over the Emperor, had proved to His Majesty the necessity of another and immediate war with France. The German armies were to dash over the frontier to Paris, exact a ransom of ten milliards spread over twenty years, without power of anticipation, and keep garrisons in France till it was paid. Why Radowitz, who was one of Bismarck's men of confidence, should have told Gontaut-Biron this wild story is inexplicable, unless Bismarck used him to stop the progress of a 26 REPUBLICAN SALAD DAYS dangerous idea. The incident in any case led to Blowitz' article in The Times of May 4 revealing and denouncing the project, to Gortchakoff publishing his famous telegram of May 10 claiming to have " assured'' the peace of Europe, and to Queen Victoria writing an autograph letter to the Emperor William begging him to desist from the sinister intentions he was supposed to entertain. General Schurz, on whom I called with Mr. Carnegie one evening in New York during the winter of 1903-4, telling us of his meeting with Bismarck at Berlin shortly after the incident, said it was on that occasion that the Prince used his now famous expression '' Warum ? Wir sind satt." That Bismarck himself, however, had some appre- hension about the consequences of the violent anti- German utterances, in which some French reactionary politicians and Bishops ^ had indulged, is evident from Bismarck's circular of January, 1874, ^^ ^^^ German representatives abroad. '* Germany," he wrote, " is sincerely desirous to live at peace with France ; but should a collision become manifestly inevitable, Germany will not be able to reconcile it with her conscience, or with her duty to her people, to await the moment that might appear most favourable to France." About the same time he wrote to Count von Armin, the German ambassador to Paris : '' I am convinced we cannot leave Italy without help, should she be attacked by France without reason or for reasons that also affect our interests." ^ Nor perhaps would the Franco-German war scare ^ The Bishops of Nancy, Anger and Nimes were conspicuous as the chief culprits in this pastoral incitement to revenge. 2 Compare Charles Lowe, "Prince Bismarck." London, 1885, pp. 53 et seq. 27 THIRTY YEARS of 1875 have acquired the diplomatic importance it un- questionably attained, had not Germany at the same time made such a fuss over some Belgian incidents which her Government seemed to be keeping alive for a possible emergency. The Prussian guarantee of Belgium's neutralisation she seemed to contem- plate regarding as in abeyance in reference to any grievance of her own requiring redress. This involved the delicate question of the effect of a joint guarantee of neutrality. Where one of the guarantors had a casus belli against the guaranteed State, what would be the position of the other guaranteeing States ? Would they be bound to intervene for its protection or would they be entitled to say their duty of intervention only came into effect if a question of annexation of territory arose ? Belgians, I may mention by the way, no longer trust the fate of their independence to the treaty guaranteeing it, and wisely so. It must not, however, be forgotten that Bismarck obviously had in view, at a time when racial and language questions dominated the political ideals of European statesmen, the creation of a racially united Germany, just as the ideal of Cavour and his suc- cessors had been that of a racially united Italy. That Holstein and Alsace, German-speaking provinces, should be under foreign dominion was as great a grievance to German statesmen as that Venice and Verona should be under German sway was to Italian statesmen. That Bismarck should have dreamt of adding to the alien population of his united German state was inconsistent with a policy which commended itself as reasonable and desirable to those who were necessary to its realisation. Besides, he had already 28 REPUBLICAN SALAD DAYS reason to regret having been led by military con- siderations to overstep this principle in annexing portions of Danish and Lorraine territory. The alarm died away, and Gortchakoff and the Czar got the credit of having saved France, a circum- stance which vexed Bismarck, who obviously had not anticipated that his busy and loquacious Russian confrere would get the reputation of having '' dished " him, while his own object had been to " dish " Moltke. ^ * * * * The Orleans princes were the heirs-expectant of the Republic at this period. M. Buffet, the Prime Minister, who had been a rallie to the Empire Liberal^ was now the minister under whom the Republic had become the acknowledged form of government in spite of his efforts to prevent it from becoming a permanent regime. The Orleans princes played the part of the modest, retiring grands seigneurs who had to be dragged into a publicity they shunned. The Comte de Paris was to be asked like Caesar to don the crown which he would modestly but sternly decline, and then he was to be acclaimed " king " in spite of himself. Modestly the Orleans princes gave out that they were about to translate the remains of the exiled members of their family from England to the family tomb at Dreux, and with touching dignity they for- bade all public manifestations in their honour. In short, they remained true to the legend of the un- obtrusive " citizen King," from whom they were descended. And so it happened in June, 1876, shortly after my arrival in Paris, that the remains of Louis Philippe, Queen Marie Amelie, the Duchesse d'Orleans, the Duchesse d'Aumale, the Prince de 29 THIRTY YEARS Conde, and five of the royal children who had died in England were brought back to France under the charge of the Comte de Paris, the grandson of Louis Philippe and the head of the family. I was present at the interment in the family mausoleum at Dreux, and there I had the almost unique privilege of seeing together the Comte and Comtesse de Paris, the Due and Duchesse de Montpensier, the Prince and Princesse de Joinville, the Due d'Aumale, the Due de Nemours, the Comte de Flandres, the Due de Chartres, and the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg. I remember being struck by the family resemblance of the men to each other, down even to their all wearing their trousers short. Blowitz had put me up to this among a tew parting words of advice. " The man," he said, " who says he fears he can't do a thing well, generally can. The self-confident one is more likely to fail." I had told him I had never tried descriptive writing. " By the bye," he added, " all the Orleanist Princes wear their trousers short ; you will be able to pick them out by that." " Why ? " " Oh, just a family trait ; perhaps because they are too indolent to do anything more complicated." The Princes, certainly, all looked conventional and uninteresting, and not one had the magnetic eye which belongs to leaders of men. I have the article I wrote on the event before me while I write now. I see that I stated that the Orleans princes had recently sold most of their property in England and were now making their homes once more in their native country. But modest and becoming as were the attendant circumstances, the ceremony excited little or no interest even among the inhabitants of 30 REPUBLICAN SALAD DAYS Dreux. The Orleanist legend, if there ever had been one, was dead. " Nobody," I remarked, " can have witnessed the ceremony without being struck by the contrast it presented to the return of Napoleon's remains from St. Helena. The latter was brought back with all imaginable pomp to the capital which had exulted over his triumphs, the many years during which they had lain in a foreign soil having only effaced the recollection of his faults and rekindled the admiration of his achievements. Louis Philippe's ashes, after a still more prolonged exile, are brought over by his family like those of a private individual and interred not at St. Denis, or in the capital of the nation over which he reigned, but in an obscure Norman town, escorted only by his descendants and amid the mere curiosity or positive apathy of the population along the route." ^ M. Dufaure, the moderate Liberal, after the February election, had displaced the reactionary M. Buffet, and at the end of the year the frankly Republican M. Jules Simon succeeded M. Dufaure. ^fe ^fe ^fe ^fe 4it TP W TP ^P Tp I met M. Buffet only once to have any conversa- tion of moment with him. It was, I think, at the funeral of M. Magnard, of the Figaro. He was a quiet, modest sort of man, tall for a Frenchman, with a clumsy stoop rather than a hump-back. I remember he was not in the customary deep black, but wore a chestnut-coloured suit, and, lagging behind to be less conspicuous, everybody noticed him. As he was alone, I had a chance of talking with him ; but he was not a communicative politician, and always brought me back from the indiscretions into which I wished to lead him to England and the then current question of the condition of Ireland, which he com- pared with Scotland — " also a Celtic country," he told me. I tried to get him back through Scotland 1 7 he Times ^ June lo, 1876. 31 THIRTY YEARS to France, but he was just as tenacious about knowing why these two Celtic countries were so different, though of the same race, as I was to ascertain what he thought of an Anglo-French rapprochement in connection with the Treaty of Commerce negotiations. It was a dead-lock. # # # # # With Jules Simon I came to be on more familiar terms. When the divorce law was under discussion I remember his explaining to me why he, a Radical, was against it. Every marriage he told me had its mauvais jours. There were times, even years, during which the strain could be intolerable, during which husband and wife came near to hating each other, and causes of divorce, if the Bill was adopted, would abound. Yet that period passed over, and, when calmer years were reached, the couple would be grateful to the law which had prevented them from bursting the matrimonial bond, breaking up the family, and losing the joint solace of an old age among their common children and grandchildren, " II ne faut jamais perdre I'espoir dans le mariage. C'est les exigences qui le gatent." I need not say that the Divorce Bill was adopted in spite of his warnings. Jules Simon's real name was Jules Francois Simon Suisse. His father was a Protestant Lorrainer and his mother a Roman Catholic Bretonne^ and he him- self looked very like a Jew. The Jules Simons lived in the very centre of the life of Paris, in a flat on the Place de la Madeleine. From their windows on the fifth floor of an old house, which is still standing, they looked out upon the seething and noisy traffic converging at that point from the Rue Royale, the Boulevard Malesherbes and 32 REPUBLICAN SALAD DAYS the Grand Boulevard. The ceiHng of his flat was so low that a tall man could touch it without effort, and Jules Simon could take down his books from all the shelves without steps. His flat was lined with books. The place was simply a library in which he had his furniture. Mme. Simon was an unobtrusive little old lady who listened to her husband and their guests, and whose interest was more in persons than ideas. On the Tuesday evenings of February they did the " receiving " of the season. Then their small recep- tion-rooms were crowded with all the literary world of Paris, who climbed the five floors — for there were no lifts in those days — to do homage to the great man of letters. Georges Picot's " etude " on Jules Simon is a masterpiece of French epigrammatic writing : " Aux temps de silence, sa plume remplissait le discours. En pleine hberte, elle achevait ce que sa voix avait com- mence. Ses livres etaient des actes." I knew both Jules Simon and the author of this " etude." If contrasts interpret each other, Georges Picot was made to interpret Jules Simon. He was an ex- tremely handsome blond, tall with a generous nose and race stamped on his narrow head, long, delicate hands and nervous frame. While he looked the' thorough-bred intellectual Gentile, Jules Simon almost looked as thorough-bred an intellectual Jew. ***** Among the many distinguished persons I met at these receptions was Ernest Renan, a fat, placid man, who in appearan( e was a cross between a German Boniface of my old university days and a French cure. Onlv once had I an opportunity of serious conver- sation with him. I wanted to " draw " him on the T.Y. 33 ^ THIRTY YEARS intellectual outlook which befitted a historian. I was arguing, at the time, that history was not a subject in itself, but an aspect of every subject, and that every branch of education and study should include its particular history. He vaguely agreed with me that the " verdicts " of history were not to be trusted except as evidence of the mental attitude of the age in which they were given. But I was so ultra-Renanian in those days that even Renan, I think, must have shuddered at such defiance of authority ! ■IT •?!• "TT "yr ^ Dufaure, in the Marshal's eyes, was a mild politician and safe. Jules Simon was only a shade less mild, yet theoretically too advanced for the Marshal, and six months later came the famous seize mai of 1877, when he '' dismissed " M. Jules Simon and his ministry and appointed a ministry composed entirely of reactionaries headed by the Due de Broglie. This, too, six months later he dismissed and tried a ministry of public officials, which lasted three weeks. Then he tried M. Dufaure again, and finally in January, 1879, in exasperation that he could not discover any political quadrature of the circle, resigned. ■IP Tr "fP * 3JP I did not meet the Due de Broglie till many years after these exciting events, when he was among the guests at a dinner party at the house of my late friend M. Arthur Desjardins, a member of the Institut and " avocat-general a la Cour de Cassation." I was struck by his unsympathetic manner and rasping voice, and could quite understand what people meant when they said of him that he was a good speaker who drove the votes away. # # # * # 34 REPUBLICAN SALAD DAYS Anglo-French relations began now to shape them- selves. It was in this period of ardent political strife and intrigue, when the fate of the Republic itself still hung in the balance, that I had made the acquaintance of Jules Simon, and of Gambetta, whom I met for the first time in 1878, when the Sugar Conference was sitting in Paris, at a reception given by the then Minister of Commerce, M. Tesserenc de Bort. The grand tribun had ceased to be the fou furieux Thiers had called him, and had become a moderate thinker in home affairs, an " opportunist " (I think he was the author of the term), and was on the way to adopting moderate views also in foreign affairs. He even forgave Thiers the epithet hurled after him and became a respectful friend of the old man, consulting him on all matters of moment and even conspiring for his re-election to the Presidency. Gambetta had also begun to entertain the idea that it was in the interest of France, amid her then internal problems and tur- moil, to cultivate the friendship of England, and con- ciliate English public opinion by showing that the new republican form of government resembled that of her island neighbour in the guarantees it offered to the free play of popular forces and the subordina- tion of the administration to the will of the electoral majority. In the following year (1877) the question of the renewal of the Anglo-French Treaty of Com- merce of i860, " denounced " by France for the year 1878, would have to be dealt with, and this seemed to Gambetta an occasion which might be turned to profitable account. In any case it would need careful handling to avoid ill-feeling between the two countries if negotiations failed. 35 D2 CHAPTER III ANTI-ENGLISH SYMPTOMS. GAMBETTA One day at lunch at Mme. Pelouze's I met M. Jules Lecesne, who had recently been elected Deputy for Havre, and had taken his seat among the Extreme Gauche, It was he who founded Le Havre^ the chief Havre paper, which has since then been more or less eclipsed by its evening edition, Le Petit Havre, The latter was long afterwards among the keenest sup- porters of the Anglo-French agitation. M. Lecesne was anything but Anglophil. He attacked me violently about the disastrous consequences to France of seeking English friendship, and made me feel quite guilty of the evil deeds of Richard Cobden and other wicked Englishmen who had beguiled the French into signing that treacherous document the Commercial Treaty of i860. His language was so violent that Mme. Pelouze apologised for him. The treaty had evidently not been of unqualified benefit to the Havre shipping, which included M. Lecesne's business, that of shipowner. That grievances against England existed so near to English waters as Havre, especially grievances in connection with the famous treaty which I had always understood had been of unqualified benefit to both parties, took my uninitiate breath away. But M. Lecesne revealed other grievances against England to me. England had deserted France in the war of 1870 when she might have stopped her being bled d, blanc and saved her from the territorial 36 ANTI-ENGLISH SYMPTOMS spoliation to which she fell a victim. He could pardon Germany. She had been a sincere antagonist who avowed her object and made no pretence of not striving to reduce France to the dust, but England was a treacherous friend, and the French would never forget the conduct of her perfidious government, of her hypocritical Prime Minister, Mr. William Glad- stone, and he hissed out the " William *' as if it were a word of abuse. This was not an isolated instance of the sudden growth of an unfriendly public opinion. It seemed as if the dam of the friendly feeling had given way and there was nothing now to prevent the latent traditional hostility from once more becoming active and overflowing. # * * # # The announcement on November 25, 1875, that the British Government had purchased the Khedive's Suez Canal shares had excited the deepest distrust, and, now that the German scare had subsided, attention became concentrated on the activity of the perfide Albion in the Near East. British action in the Turkish crisis a year later did not improve Anglo- French relations. " L'egoiste Angleterre," as Gam- betta called her in January, 1877, was not to be counted upon for any act for which others might only be grateful. The feeling became so strong that Englishmen were already contemplating the possi- bility of serious trouble between the two countries. I remember about that time meeting in the street Lieutenant-General Palmer, who was then residing with his charming daughter (afterwards the wife of Mr. Pitt-Lewis, Q.C.) in Paris, and talking with him about the danger of a rupture with France. The 37 THIRTY YEARS General was quite excited about it. " They had better take care," he said ; " we are not to be trifled with, and if we have to fight, they will get a worse hiding than in 1870." I never quite realised how this was to be done, but it showed that hostile feelings were running high. War among the Great Powers, moreover, was already in the air. Insurrec- tion in Bosnia, Herzegovina, and Bulgaria had been followed by the outbreak of the Servian war in June, 1876. General Ignatieff on behalf of Russia and Lord Salisbury on behalf of England had been endeavouring to agree upon some terms of arrange- ment to be imposed on Turkey. They and then the Conference at Constantinople had failed. England and Russia seemed within an inch of war with each other. The Sultan's diplomacy had defeated them and the *' concert of Europe." England and Germany seemed to be acting together on the one side and France and Russia, now regarded by French poli- ticians as the " true friend," on the other. « * # # * This Franco-Russian friendliness did not apply to the Jews or the financiers whom the Jews influenced. I was at the international gathering in Paris of the Jews of Europe held in 1876 to pro- test against the anti-Jewish measures in Roumania and there met Cremieux, one of the most curious and unforgetable figures of his time. Small, with a large head taillee a coups de hdche^ as somebody said of him who, like myself, saw him then for the first time, he moved about slowly and benignly, and talked with extreme deliberation as if he wanted his words to eat deep into the hearers' grey matter. The memory of Cremieux' utterances has long been 38 ANTI-ENGLISH SYMPTOMS eiffaced, but his personal appearance nobody who ever met him will forget. He was then very old, and when at the banquet he went round the table at an early hour shaking hands with everyone present, one felt that he meant it to be '' good-bye " for good, as it was. There were a number of handsome Jews at that meeting. A Mr. Henriquez (I think his name was) from Manchester, who was among the English delegates, struck me as one of the handsomest men I had ever met. He invited me to lunch with the English delegates at the Cafe Riche. It was curious to hear them talking about the other delegates as unpractical and time-wasting. They were just as stand-offish and self-opiniated as other Englishmen. If I am not mistaken, it was my old and trusty friend, Israel Davis, who introduced me to the inner circle of the remarkable men who had thus foregathered to influence the fate of their kinsmen in Eastern Europe. He, too, by the way, was a very handsome man, who, I used to think, would be an ideal model for a picture of Spinoza's teacher, Uriel Acosta, as I pictured him in my mind's eye. Another man I met at that historic conference was Baron Henry de Worms, also one of the handsome men present. At one of the meetings I remember a French Jew observing to me that the Baron had all the English characteristics, and he made exactly the same observation to me about the difficulty of getting the English Jews to fall into line as I had again and again heard of other English- men at international gatherings : '' They want such a heap of reasons to be given them." # * * # * The outlook at the beginning of the year 1877 was 39 THIRTY YEARS as bad as it could be. Political wiseacres said wars which were expected never came off and were con- fident war would be averted. I remember calling on the banker, Armand Heine, in April, 1877, after the signing of the Russo-Roumanian Convention and before the Russian declaration of war a week later. '^ There will be no war," he said. " The Rijssian negotiations for a loan have fallen through. The Jews will lend neither Russia nor Roumania money till they treat their Jewish population better, and without the Jews no money will be had, and without money there will be no war." War was, nevertheless, declared on the 24th of the same month, and, to the astonishment of the Paris financiers, Russia seemed to have overcome the money difficulty somehow. We knew later she was paying for everything in paper at a loss to her treasury, which added enormously to the cost, which shows, however, that paper money can also in emergencies serve as '* sinews of war." *4L. ^ 4^ Mg Tt" 'TT TV* TP Soon after the resignation of the Marshal and the now final establishment of the Republican regime under the presidency of M. Grevy, the anti-English feeling became a sort of inflammable ingredient in the French political brain and remained so till 1900. At times it would burst into flame and at others merely give off an occasional puff of smoke, but there it was and remained ready at all times to flare up on the slightest provocation. In the same way as, later, the anti-German feeling in England began with the increase in the imports of German manufactured goods into England, it began with jealousy at the increase in the imports of British manufactured goods into France. 40 ANTI-ENGLISH SYMPTOMS It was M. Pouyer-Quertier, the wily Norman, who, in the negotiations of 1871 at Frankfurt, thought he had '' caught out " Germany by securing for France the famous clause establishing, as between the con- tracting parties, that most-favoured-nation treatment in perpetuity which French protectionists have since seen turn out for the benefit of Germany instead of France, which they have never ceased execrating, and which as much as anything else has embittered French feeling against Germany. It was again this mischievous busybody who excited the French against England. I was present at a meeting of the French protectionists in May, 1879. All the jeremiads on the decline of French trade were vented on Messieurs les Anglais. It was MM, les Anglais who had decoyed France into her false com- mercial poHcy in i860. " It was they who had coaxed and wheedled other nations into treaties by which they always profited. It was they against whom all Europe and their own colonies were closing their frontiers. England had protected her manu- factures and her shipping till she had prepared them to crush the rest of the world and then she had instituted Free Trade." (Immense applause.) He asked whether with all the rest of the world closed against England, France was to be left to cope with her single-handed. " England did all the carrying trade for France. You scarcely saw a French flag on a vessel coming into port now. . . . Did the English drink French wine in return ? " And amid great laughter he calculated that the English only drank about a bottle of wine per head per annum ! Other speakers followed on the same strain. England was at the bottom of all the industrial ills from which 41 THIRTY YEARS France was suffering. France was the only market into which English surplus manufactures could be dumped and so on. Before long, if not protected, France, like Portugal, would become a mere source of raw materials for the supply of England's industries.-^ Truly indeed does history repeat itself ! Verhum sap, J # «: ^ ^ # Amid the growing ill-feeling, even the eloquence of the then mighty Gambetta appealed to common sense in vain. His power for good was already being under- mined by the jealousy of his own political group, of the very men whose political fortunes he had made, and by M. Grevy's distrust of him. It was a distrust which M. Grevy could neither explain nor overcome, and was quite unreasonable because his ministers were necessarily Gambetta's friends ; no others could command a majority in the Chamber. They were all being used up one after another, for in those d^ys, when the spoils of office were still abundant, to take office was to make enemies of thousands of dis- appointed men. The time, therefore, was coming when M. Grevy in the last resort would have to call upon Gambetta himself to form a cabinet, and in 1881 it was an open secret that the year would not close without the long-expected Gambetta Ministry coming into office. At that time it was in quite sincere anticipation of its greatness that the coming Gambetta Administra- 1 I indignantly concluded my article in The Times on this subject with the remark that ** no gentleman present seemed to be aware that France exported more to England than England to France ; nor did anybody seem to imagine that French exports might be affected by other countries abandoning the false principles M. Pouyer-Quertier denounced, and indeed . . . the speakers showed no particular acquaintance with the details of the question at issue " {The Times^ May i, 1879). 42 ANTI-ENGLISH SYMPTOMS tion was called " le grand ministere,^^ a cabinet in which Gambetta would be supported by the Repub- lican leaders, for they were practically all of his making, and those who had already held office had held it only by the grace of his support. In September and October I accompanied Gam- betta on his two famous expeditions to Normandy, where he was treated as if he were again a dictator able to dispense favours, build docks, construct railways, bridges, schools, and distribute public money according to no other dictate but that of his private inclination. The rivalry of Rouen, which, with truly Norman pertinacity, was agitating for the canalisation of the Seine to enable ocean-going vessels to discharge their cargoes without breaking bulk at its quays, and Havre, which, with truly Norman obstinacy, was opposing the project on grounds which were undisguisedly selfish, divided the thriving department of Seine-Inferieure into hostile camps. Gambetta needed all the arts of his fertile brain to steer between these dangerous rocks. When he took over the reins of government, both sides of his Norman supporters thought every grievance would have its chance of being righted ! The very exaggeration of people's expectations was among the causes of his failure. Even Englishmen indulged a hope that his accession to office would promote good Anglo-French relations, especially that it would preserve the existing Anglo-French com- mercial regime, any disturbance of which could only pro tanto be a loss to the British industries concerned. For Gambetta was a Free Trader. In his speech at Honfleur he asked what would be the use of new docks and new railways, '^ of creating means of transport 43 THIRTY YEARS and exchange and intercommunication, if markets were not opened up, especially if the old ones were not kept open, if a commercial were not added to the industrial policy." " I think you are strong enough," he added, " ingenious enough, bold enough, and, at the same time, experienced and prudent enough, to face competition^with the nations surrounding us." This pronouncement in favour of ratifying the renewed treaties France had been negotiating in spite of M. Pouyer-Quertier, was full of promise. In the following month (November, l88i) M. Grevy sent for Gambetta and committed to him the forma- tion of the expected ministry. " Le President I'a roule " was the comment which went round the parliamentary corridors. Gambetta's chief political friends had all been in office, and all now had their own following. He could secure for it none of them, and had to choose his colleagues from a generation of younger and comparatively untried men. Yet that among them were Waldeck-Rousseau and Rouvier showed he had la main juste as usual. Le grand minister e^ as his jealous opponents now, in the fulness of their ironical gaiety, called it more than ever, had not the support of the majority, and after two months of futile effort Gambetta laid down office with a bitter feeling of disappointment. He who had made M. Grevy's ministries, who was the virtual dictator when out of office, was unable to command a majority when in office himself. It is true that Gambetta's faculties had been trained in opposition, and it is a political platitude to say that a brilliant opposition leader is not necessarily the best man to manage a nation's affairs, but Gambetta's failure in office was due to the opposition of his quondam friends. 44 ANTI-ENGLISH SYMPTOMS The strain of his parHamentary, combined with his journaHstic Hfe — for he was editor of the Republique fran^aise — ^was telling on him. His hair was already grey, though he was but forty-three years of age, and the bad state of his health was evident from the blotches which now began to disfigure his handsome face. Gambetta had been too near the misfortunes of his country, too near the national suffering, which he had seen not only in detail but in its ensemble^ to favour new adventures. Peace to him seemed a means of redemption in the social order of things, and of greater value to France than even the glory of a successful revanche. In his declaration (November 15, 1887) to the Chambers on assuming office, he even went the length of stating that a part of the new cabinet's policy would be to take up and complete without loss of time the subject of seeking the best method, without compromising the defensive strength of France, of reducing the military and naval charges weighing upon the nation. This was the Radical feeling generally at that time. His adversary, M. Clemenceau, had been still more clamorous for a reduction of the military burdens. The programme to which he appended his signature in the eighteenth arrondissement of Paris for which he was elected included not only a reduction of the period of military service, but the substitution of a national mihtia for the permanent army. Men's minds have changed since then ! 4t: # * # # Gambetta was altogether a fascinating figure. In private conversation there was even a fascina- tion in his frank avowal of ignorance. He made no 45 THIRTY YEARS pretence of having knowledge he did not possess, and never apologised for putting elementary questions. While the Sugar Conference was sitting, I was near him one night when he was conversing with one of the Dutch delegates who was visibly astonished at Gambetta's asking him what kind of government the Netherlands possessed, and a number of other questions which showed that Gambetta had not had time to get up the subject of Holland. He had a habit of writing up his facts in a fine handwriting on a square sheet of paper. M. Joseph Reinach has given me a photograph of one of these prepared for some speech on government in which he was referring to English institutions. It runs as follows : — " L'Angleterre et le Pays de Galles se divisent en 52 Comtes, Paroisses, Bourgs incorpores. "1° Le Comte par son etendue repond a peu pr^s a nos cantons. " 2° Le Bourg est une esp6ce de commune qui tient d'un acte du Parlement ou d'une Charte Royale le droit de s'ad- ministrer et meme de se gouverner. " 3° La Paroisse n'est a proprement parler pas une personne politique. Sa fonction est de repartir entre les habitants les imp6ts votes par un pouvoir superieur et d'entretenir les routes. " Les principales autorites du Comte sont : Juge de Paix, Sherif, Lord Lieutenant, Le gardien des roles, Le Greffier de Paix, Les Coroners, Aucun n'est electif. " Comment la liberte s'introduit-elle done dans la vie locale de TAngleterre ? " Observe the shrewdness of his final remark. M. Joseph Reinach acted for some time as his political secretary, and has many interesting things to tell of his great friend and his great friend's friends. 46 ANTI-ENGLISH SYMPTOMS The story of Gambetta's one great love attachment has been made known to the world in a series of letters of touching beauty, and many romantic legends have grown up around it. The complete truth is known only to M. Joseph Reinach. Gambetta met Mme. Leonie Leon at the house of the Duchesse de Bell- court, whose son, an attache in the diplomatic service, was a friend of Gambetta's. Gambetta fell madly in love with her. On a ring he gave her he had the old French motto engraved : Hots cet annel 'point rt'est amour. She never parted with it, and his love never waned. I have M. Reinach's authority for saying that after refusing again and again to marry him, she con- sented a couple of months before his death to become his wife, but the ceremony was deferred until it was too late. T^ ^P ^r ^p ^F Justice has not yet been done fully to Gambetta's political insight into the needs and character of the French people. Yet the chief lines of Republican policy, as he forecast it, have been followed out, and are still being followed out by his countrymen at the present day. He is said to have had Jewish blood in his Provengal-Etrurian veins — a subtle and powerful mixture on which it would be hard to improve. He was lively, almost boisterous, witty yet good- natured, in spite of his eloquent diatribes forgiving and gentle, and, like a true child of the South, he had a childish love of the pageantry of power. I noticed it again and again when with him in Normandy. His delight in drums and uniforms and ceremony came out when he was President of the Chamber of 47 THIRTY YEARS Deputies. One day when I was in the lobby the President passed to take his seat au pas militaire with drums in front and surrounded by a mihtary escort. It was quite stirring. A Deputy moving out of the way to make room said to another, paraphrasing the well-known joke about notaries ; '^ Pour etre un bon President, il ne suffit pas d'etre un mediocre saltim- banque, il faut de la tenue ! " I don't know whether it was Gambetta who intro- duced the drum, etc., but it was very effective and a fairly good substitute for our own ceremony of the Speaker proceeding to the bar of the House of Lords. After he retired from office Gambetta was never the same man again. His manner became almost apolo- getic. He felt that his quondam followers needed him no more, even found it safer to do without him, for his had been the fate of the prophet of whom miracles were expected, and he had done nothing to startle those who had counted on a sort of millennium when the grand ministere set to work. "fF Wr ^r ^p 3|p The political milieu in which I found myself at that time chuckled with glee over President Grevy's victory. To M. Grevy Gambetta seemed a charlatan, and he regarded the exposure of his charlatanism by the failure of the grand ministere as a service rendered to his country. In the Paris office of The Times^ also, there was little sympathy for Gambetta except my own. Blowitz, an ardent Catholic, resented Gambetta's anti-clerical policy, as well as the well-known reference to him in the Republigue franfaise^ as " Juif, slav, cathoHque et decore." Nevertheless, in the interest of The Times, he approached Gambetta 48 ANTI-ENGLISH SYMPTOMS on several occasions. In his '' Memoirs " he refers to these. Mr., and afterwards his wife Mrs. Emily, Crawford, the correspondent of the Daily News, which was the leading organ of English Liberalism of that time^ kept up, as Gambetta's personal friends, a sort of feud in which they were as strongly hostile ro Blowitz as Gambetta's paper, a feud which persisted till many years after Gambetta's death, when as the friend of both, I was the means of bringing it to an end. Gambetta's character was essentially derived from the Italian middle-class side of his family tree. Any one who has any acquaintance with the Etrurian peasantry will be reminded by Gambetta's senti mentalism, buoyant good humour, indifference to wealth, enjoyment of his own vitality and glorious voice, of the peasants and petty bourgeoisie who come together in the evening to hear an entertainer who ives them no more thrilling amusement than the recitation in sonorous tones of grandiloquent verses of popular poets not excluding Dante. Amid the people of Provence he was quite at home. In the north he felt himself an alien, and schemers for place were more than a match for him who never schemed for any selfish purpose. ^' Mefiez-vous d'un bordelais roux," somebody said to him when he was trusting one of his followers, a very distinguished man who soon supplanted him when his star began to wane. There was something childish in the pleasure it gave Gambetta to meet the Prince of Wales privately as a personal friend in 1877, but I do not agree with Mme. Adam that it was the Prince's influence that affected his convictions in regard to foreign affairs. His peasant common sense more than any alien arguments, T.Y. 49 E THIRTY YEARS I feel sure, determined his leaning to a policy of conciliation and peace. Besides, he, least of all men, could be suspected of weak-kneed patriotism. He it was who said, *' Pensons-y toujours, n'en parlons jamais " ; though this did not prevent his going to Germany more than once, and I firmly believe he hoped some day to see French feeling about Alsace- Lorraine become mild enough to facilitate an under- standing with her. At the same time in co-operation with England, he saw a horizon of greater national self-confidence for France and a possible medium of bringing Western Europe to a normal condition of peace and amity. M. Grevy was a quiet unostentatious man who hated all fussiness and pose. Chess was his favourite recreation, and good players he had met in the old days at the Cafe de la Regence^ the rendezvous of chess-players, were still admitted to a game with him after he had become the chief of the State. In conversation he had the knack of knocking out the bottom of an argument, when its exponents had nothing more to say, with a terse but courteous observation. At cabinet meetings it was well known that he never attempted to impose any view of his own, and yet always got his own way. By appropriate observations he destroyed all other suggestions one after another, and left alone open the course he wished to be followed. He had a habit of peering into men's characters rather than their views and ideas, which he believed he could divine if he knew their character. The hand was a barometer which gave him his first impressions of the inner man. Hence his habit of holding everybody's SO ANTI-ENGLISH SYMPTOMS hand for a few moments in his. He distrusted fat, soft hands in men. M. Grevy, who, by the way, was never referred to as Grevy tout courts once told me he had been very much impressed by an EngHsh soHcitor who had come over to Paris on a case in which he had been retained. M. Grevy thought him the ablest and wisest man he had ever met, but he could not remember his name. I thought from the circumstances that it must have been Sir John HoUams, who afterwards told me he had, in fact, been engaged in a case with M, Grevy. Sir John, when I spoke to him of this, was a very old man, but I remember him as he was in the prime of life, and can quite understand the impression he produced in the handling of a complicated matter. 51 E 2 CHAPTER IV EGYPT The anti-English irritation in connection with Egypt, occasioned by Lord Beaconsfield's purchase of the Khedive's holding in the Suez Canal, showed no signs of abating. In subsequent events, despite their conciliatory appearance, French politicians saw only a disguised intention on the part of the British Govern- ment, gradually to get the upper hand and reduce France in Egypt to the same secondary position as that of other States in that country. The " counter " policy, as a French writer expressed it in 1881, necessarily became one of " multiplying obstacles to the advance of British policy, and for this purpose of supporting the Egyptian Nationalist Party, whose claims had served as a pretext to Ismail Pasha to start on the series of intrigues which brought about his deposition. This party, if granted discreet but effective assistance, offered a basis for a complete political system in which France, being less dangerous than England for Egypt, would have acquired a great moral authority." ^ These ideas were in fact those which the French consul-general at Cairo, M. de Ring, was endeavouring to carry out. In 1878. M. Fournier, then French ambassador at 1 Andr6 Daniel, "Ann^e Politique," 1881, p. 248. England, predicted this acute observer, would nevertheless gradually absorb Egypt to guarantee for her ships safe navigation in the Suez Canal (1882, p. 32). 52 {Egypt] Constantinople, whom I met at Chenonceaux when on a visit to Mme. Pelouze, told me that much as he appreciated the fine, straightforward qualities of English diplomatists, English diplomacy was a harsh, self-seeking system which rode rough-shod over the feelings and aspirations of all who had the misfortune to cross the path traced for it towards an always specific goal. Still, like the French commissioner, M. de Blignieres, he regarded the maintenance of the dual control and steady co-operation with England as in the true interest of France. This was also Gambetta's view, and when after the bombardment of Alexandria, from which the French fleet withdrew by orders of M. de Freycinet, Gambetta's successor at the Foreign Office, the progress of events forced France to decide whether she would vote the neces- sary money to enable her to join England in the action events were precipitating, he delivered a speech on the subject of Anglo-French co-operation in which the following passage marked his unwavering trust in this co-operation : — ■ " When I behold Europe," he said, '' this Europe, which has bulked so largely to-day in the speeches delivered from this tribune, I observe that for ten years there has always been a Western policy repre- sented by France and England, and allow me to say that I do not know of any other European policy capable of helping us in the direst emergencies which may arise. What I say to you to-day I say with a deep sense of a vision of the future." I was present at the debate and heard the half- hearted approval given to the above utterance of the grand tribun and even disdainful disapproval muttered when he spoke of his vision of the future. The lion 53 THIRTY YEARS in him was roused. " Let those who interrupt me," he thundered, " come here and state their reasons for thinking that my word is without honour in the domain of foreign affairs. I am entitled to say that, before as since the war of 1870, I have never had a more constant anxiety, and beheve me an anxiety superior to all personal and party interests, than that of the safety of our country, and I should despise myself and never raise my voice again to speak in this House if I were capable of balancing anything against its future and its greatness." There was a moving pathos and a true ring of sincerity in these words, and cheers burst from the whole assembly. The sincerity of Gambetta's patriotism had been questioned by some of his now numerous enemies, and party capital made out of his visits to Germany and an alleged intercourse with that arch-enemy of France, Prince Bismarck. The key-note which could set all the organs of his oratory vibrating had been struck, and when Gambetta shook back his rebellious hair and gathered his faculties for an effect nothing could resist him. The words would gush forth too fast for premeditation, his voice without hoarseness or effort would dominate the hall, and when he had fired his last charge, a few breathless moments of intense silence would pass before the assembled listeners could find their voices again to cheer, as I have never heard man cheered before or after him. When one reads Gambetta's speeches, one is struck by their want of depth. Though it was he who laid down the main lines of the Republican pohcy which has ever since been consistently followed, his speeches are not literature or masterpieces of eloquence. Gambetta's power as an orator lay in his perfect and simulta- 54 EGYPT neous command over all his faculties of mind and body, and in his power to marshal them all and at once to the effort. His rich masculine diction and noble gesture and his obvious sincerity and spontaneity forced the admiration of his bitterest foes though it failed to convince them. Recently I heard similar eloquence in Spain among elder politicians. In the present age, it seems merely to strike the listener as a belated survival. But any- thing that reminds me of Gambetta's eloquence, as did that of my old friend, Rafael M. de Labra, still stirs me, and I am not sure that the world is better for being unable to enjoy the music, manner, and massive expression of the Gladstones, the Gam- bettas, the Castelars, who flourished in the youth of my generation. With this last speech relating to Anglo-French affairs Gambetta passes beyond the scope of the present volume. On the last day of the same year at midnight he died. If man can die of a broken heart, or ingratitude can break the heart of man, Gambetta had every reason to die. Posterity has not yet realised all the greatness of a statesman who some day will certainly be ranked among the wisest and the noblest of the creative political geniuses of his country. # # * * * A large majority in both Houses gave M. de Frey- cinet the necessary money to put the fleet in readiness for action, but when he asked for further money to use it for the protection of the Suez Canal, M. Clemen- ceau's incisive and ironical eloquence turned the majority round. The vote was lost and the govern- ment defeated. 55 THIRTY YEARS Lord Granville can only have rejoiced at this result, as in fact he seems to have done.-^ Indeed, it is difficult to imagine what would have ensued, had the two Powers required to adjust their claims on Egyptian territory. The Due de Broglie in the debate in the Senate quoted Prince Bismarck as having compared a joint Anglo-French occupation of Egypt to the Austro-Prussian occupation of Schleswig-Holstein, and cited Prince Metternich as having said that an alliance with England was a very good thing ; so was the alliance of a rider and his horse, " mais il faut etre I'homme et non pas le cheval." He (de Broglie) feared that France in any alliance with England would not be the rider. Be that as it may, France was counselled by her most trusted advisers to abstain from taking any share in the occupation of Egypt. Yet, she bitterly resented the English invasion, and afterwards till the entente enabled the parties to come to terms in 1904, the British occupation of Egypt was the sorest of the French grievances against England, a fact which was brought home to us with relentless and constantly recurring persistency. Lord Cromer has described the state of things in Egypt itself, with the authority of the man who had to bear the brunt of French opposition to every effort he made for the welfare of the country he was sent to help administer. M. Duclerc succeeded M. de Freycinet at the ' Foreign Office in Paris. The battle of Tel-el-Kebir had been fought, Arabi had surrendered in September, 1882, and the occupation had begun. On the 20th of the same month M. Duclerc told the British 1 Lord Fitzmaurice's " Life of the Second Earl Granville," Vol. II. , p. 261. 56 EGYPT Charge d' Affaires in Paris " that he thought it would be in the interest of England to give at an early date some notion of what her future intentions were with regard to Egypt." It was impossible at that moment, says Lord Cromer, to state, " save in the most general terms, what were the intentions of , England as regards Egypt, and it soon became apparent that the only point to which for the moment the French Government attached any real importance was the continuance of the Anglo-French control as it existed previous to the occupation. The Egyptian Government, on the other hand, wished the institution to be abolished on the ground that its dual nature and semi-political character had caused great inconvenience. Public opinion in England pronounced strongly in favour of its abolition." ^ In spite of pressure by France, the British Government declined to accede to the French wish. The presi- dency of the Commission of the Debt was offered to France, but she declined to accept as an equiva- lent for the abolition of the control, a position which was simply that of cashier. Eventually, after some sharp diplomatic skirmishing, the negotiations were dropped and the French Government " resumed its Hberty of action in Egypt." .^ ^ .Afc. O^ "W" *7t" tF "TT" In the following January, Lord Granville addressed his famous circular to the Powers in which he gave that ill-omened pledge which was the chief argument for nearly a quarter of a century, that perfide Albion amply deserved the epithet. " Although for the present," he said, " a British force remains in Egypt for the preservation of public tranquillity, Her ^ Earl Cromer, "Modern Egypt," London, p. 263. 57 THIRTY YEARS Majesty's Government are desirous of withdrawing it as soon as the state of the country and the organisation of proper means for the maintenance of the Khedive's authority will admit of it. In the meanwhile, the position in which Her Majesty's . Government are placed towards His Highness imposes upon them the duty of giving advice, with the object of securing that the order of things to be established shall be of a satisfactory character and possess the elements of stability and progress." And then came Lord Duf- ferin's mission to Egypt to report upon the measures necessary to ensure that " the administration of affairs should be reconstructed on a basis which would afford satisfactory guarantees for the maintenance of peace, order and prosperity in Egypt, for the stability of the Khedive's authority, for the judicious develop- ment of self-government, and for the fulfilment of obligations towards the Powers." ^F tP tP ^P One of the side issues of the Egyptian question was the management of the Suez Canal. On May lo, 1883, a meeting took place at the Cannon Street Hotel of persons interested in the Eastern trade, to consider the construction of a second canal through the isthmus. The meeting gave vent to prevalent dis- satisfaction with reference to delay, over-charges, insanitary conditions, but chiefly to the inconvenience of a system under which the English traffic, which formed the bulk of the tonnage passing through the canal, was entirely under French control. The legal question of whether M. de Lesseps' concession con- stituted a monopoly, was disposed of by arguing that, as he admitted that there was not enough land undei his concession to build a second canal, he was not 58 EGYPT entitled to prevent being done by others what he could not do himself. In any case, claims which he might possess could only involve an indemnity. Fortified by eminent counsel's opinion, the agitators succeeded in exciting so much attention that M. de Lesseps and his son Victor came over to London to negotiate a settlement. Mr. Gladstone took up the matter personally, but the heads of agreement arrived at did not satisfy all the demands of the shipowners. They did not guarantee freedom of passage to British trade at all times. Nor did they overcome the absurdity of having to transact all the canal busi- ness in Paris. Nor did they secure a proportionate British representation on the Board of Directors. The opposition to the arrangement was so widespread that the Government withdrew it. In June, 1884, M. Victor de Lesseps sent for me and I was professionally instructed in connection with the opening of a London office. With the opening of that office and the appointment of English Directors the agitation came abruptly to an end. The London office has worked under the precautionary conditions I advised, with scarcely a hitch since its foundation under the judicious guidance of my friend M. Chevassus, who recently retired from a post he had honourably filled for thirty years. # -Jt * * iF My connection with the Suez Canal Company brought me into contact with M. Ferdinand de Lesseps, whom I got more than once to attend the annual banquets of the British Chamber of Commerce. On one of these occasions when I was his neighbour, he was communicative about himself, and told me one thingi which I remember particularly well, because I 59 THIRTY YEARS have ever since followed the advice he deduced from his experience. He had quite early in life found that his sum of energy at any time was in proportion to the amount of sleep he could obtain, combined with the adaptation of his food to the capacity of his digestive organs. In itself that is a mere platitude. His advice was equally so ; eat as much as you can digest, take as much sleep as circumstances permit. The interesting fact he told me was that, when he travelled to Egypt, he slept practically all the way, merely turning out of his berth to feed and returning to it as soon as the meal was over. The result was that when he arrived at Port Said he could do almost entirely without sleep for several days. Whenever he had nothing else to do he slept, in his office, in his carriage, in the train, in an ante-room if he had to wait there for anybody, in fact wherever he happened to be. I followed his advice and soon acquired the same facility in inducing sleep. To this habit de Lesseps ascribed his extraordinary vitality. He lived, as everybody knows, to ninety years of age. During my Anglo-French and Anglo-American campaigns, when I was obliged to get a good deal of my sleep in scraps, the habit I had acquired under de Lesseps' advice sometimes astonished those who accompanied me. * * * # # After the first Suez Canal Board meeting, attended by the new Enghsh directors, I one day met Victor de Lesseps, who told me the new Board was im- possible. Though not one of whom was an engineer, they would not trust the reports of the Company's technical experts and wanted to go themselves to Egypt to decide the question of the widening or 60 EGYPT the doubling of the canal on the spot ! I tried to console him with the advice that he should not hesitate to agree ; they would probably have more confidence, if not thwarted. I think he took the advice. Anyhow, things soon adjusted themselves, and the absorption of the opposition showed once more that the best way of disarming your opponent is to make him responsible for results. CHAPTER V A DISCIPLE OF COBDEN In 1882 my relative Mr. (now Sir) William Crawford, president-elect of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris, asked me if I would allow myself to be elected a director and honorary secretary of that institution, a post until then held by Mr. Kenric B. Murray, who had just been appointed secretary of the recently founded London Chamber of Commerce. This was the beginning of my long- standing connection with the chamber of commerce in question. With it my name became identified to such an extent that to this day I get letters addressed to me as president of that chamber, though it is now nearly fourteen years since my active collaboration in its work came to an end. In the chamber of commerce I learnt to deal with the public affairs concerned, no longer as a reporter or critic, but as a responsible representative of the trade interests involved. Of the " B.C.C.," as we used familiarly to call our beloved chamber, after serving four years as hon. secretary, I was, later on, for two years vice-president and lastly for two years president. # # « * # There were some fine men In Paris in those days, and for two of them in particular I had the warmest affection. The one was William Crawford, in whose charming house in the Avenue du Bois de Boulogne, 62 A DISCIPLE OF COBDEN sarrounded by a wife and children whom it was a joy to know, I spent many happy hours. His value to the York Street Spinning Company at Belfast was in due course recognised, and he left Paris some twenty or more years ago to take the general management of that enormous undertaking. Another was Mr. Thomas Piker, the founder of the largest British house in Paris, whose business was the sale and manufacture of agricultural implements and machinery, and whom both Crawford and I regarded as one of the wisest of men. I made his acquaintance at the great Exhibition of 1878, when I was writing a series of articles for The Times on the agricultural exhibits. He, Crawford, and I used to be known in the B.C.C. as the leaders of the " Pilter Party." It included his son-in-law, Mr. Thomas Hounsfield ; Mr. (now Sir) John Pilter, his son ; Mr. Priestley, who represented the thread interest of Paisley ; and Mr. Delano, whose name was long identified with the asphalt-paving of Paris and other cities, and who has now transferred his activities to London. Of these good friends all are still living except Mr. Thomas Pilter and Mr. Priestley, and the Pilter family still continue to render yeoman service to the chamber in the persons of Sir John Pilter and Mr. Hounsfield. # * * # * When I joined the B.C.C. the absorbing question was still that of the Anglo-French Treaty of Com- merce. The Treaty of i860 had been to the rest of the world what Peel's historic volte-face in 1846 had been to the United Kingdom. Both were due to Cobden's persuasive genius and both were revolutions which started new eras in the application of economic 63 THIRTY YEARS thought and action. The full import of the Treaty of i860 can only be realised when the state of things in France prior to the treaty regime is apprehended. The then system was one of practical prohibition. After the Exhibition of 1855 the French Government, it is true, had tried to carry a mild measure of reducing prohibition to duties, still ranging from about 60 to 30 per cent, (value), but had failed. That effort, it is also true, had prepared the prohibitionists for impending reform, and the cotton spinners had to be satisfied with a sort of pledge that no reduction would be made till 1861. Meanwhile Michel Chevalier and others were able, on the one hand, to show the pro- gress of England under reduced duties and, on the other, to tranquillise the French manufacturers with assurances that there would be a bargain and that France would give nothing without getting an ample return. The Treaty of 1 860, wrote, however, Sir Louis Mallet in 1865 in the fervour of his Free Trade convictions, was not " a bargain in which each party sought to give as little and gain as much as possible," but "" was a work of co-operation in which the Governments of England and France were resolved on both sides to remove, within the limits of their power, the artificial obstacles to their commercial intercourse." ^ To this result England had contributed her share by removing from her tariffs most of the remaining traces of Pro- tection and by reducing her fiscal duties on wine and brandy ; while France substituted moderate duties for prohibition in the case of the chief British exports.^ ^ Bernard Mallet, ** Sir Louis Mallet, A record of public service and political ideals" : London, 1905, p. 57. * Ihid,.^ P* 57* 64 A DISCIPLE OF COBDEN The Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce of i860, like the Anglo-French Treaty of Arbitration of 1903, was the first of a series of similar treaties. Fifty or sixty such treaties followed each other which had the effect of reducing the tariffs of Europe by about half.-^ « * # « « Cobden died (1865) before I came to years of discretion, but, as the reader is aware, I knew Michel Chevalier and his two younger friends and collaborators Mr. T. B. Potter and Sir Louis Mallet. With T. B. Potter and his son A. B. Potter, who takes wing with the swallows in autumn and returns with them in spring looking as healthy and hearty as ever despite medical misgivings, I frequently dined when he came to Paris in his appartement at the Bristol. Though T. B. Potter had given up hope of seeing France in his lifetime change the current of her policy once more towards commercial freedom, he felt confident she would see her industries in the long run ruined by Protection and that she would then throw the system over as England had done in the forties. He was an old man, and after dinner, when he had fallen asleep, Arthur and I con- tinued the argument, for, at that time, I regretted we had no duties to take off, or at any rate some reserve of duties, in case of need, to put on. Sir Louis Mallet, whose acquaintance I made when he came over in 1877 to negotiate the renewal of the Treaty of i860, had little patience with such heresies. " Besides," said he, " a man of lofty principles, Hke Mr. Gladstone, would regard such an apostasy as a political crime. It would open the floodgates of 1 ** Free Trade and European Treaties of Commerce," Preface by Sir Louis Mallet : Cobden Club, 1875. T.Y. 65 F THIRTY YEARS Protection. Fighting duties would be the breach, and the principle of Free Trade would be swept away without a shred of an argument remaining to dam the outpouring flood." # * # * # In January, 1877, the year when the negotiations were opened, I had written an article on the Treaties in The Times in which, as Paris correspondent, I examined the statistics of Anglo-French trade before and after i860, and in which I find my views on the subject just about what they are to-day after I have had thirty-six years of practical experience of the working of tariffs in France. *' There are doubtless instances," I wrote, however, " in which protection — indeed prohibition — has seemed to lead to ultimate benefit, and there is much to be said for a moderate protection on many articles of consumption apart from the interests of the public revenue. But enlightened economists teach, and it is now generally admitted that a protection which limits a healthy national consumption is only one of the many narrow- minded survivals of the exploded system which it has been the mission of the disciples of the new system to overcome." It was this view as to moderate protection Sir Louis Mallet condemned with such vehemence, and I am bound to say I now share the view he expressed in the name of Gladstone, for Sir Louis Mallet was always careful to temper his views with some qualifying observation to let his " interlocutor " know that he was a discreet public official. In the article I credited '' enlightened economists " with the notion of the undesirability of " limiting a healthy national consumption." Now such a 66 A DISCIPLE OF COBDEN statement reads like a platitude, and yet the whole theory of Protection is based on the assumption that prosperity can follow artificial restrictions on con- sumption. My examination of the statistics bore out that the diminution of the French import duties in i860 instead of curtailing production and exports had been followed by an immense expansion. # For Cobden I had an admiration which has only grown with further knowledge of his great work. At a Manchester meeting once my late namesake Mr. Robejt Barclay described me as one of Cobden's political descendants. Seeing that I have devoted my political life to the great objects of his, the pro- motion of free trade, peace and good-will among nations, I am truly one of his disciples. And as I have been able to carry forward successfully the entente with France, which he regarded as essential to their realization, I may claim some sort of posthumous affiliation to one who was perhaps the greatest statesman of his time, for though he never held office, his influence in statesmanship was only the greater. Nobody could suspect his convictions of connection with personal interests or motives. Nor had he place with which to reward his supporters. His arguments and his personal magnetism were all the poHtical artillery he possessed to do battle with ignorance and vested interests. That he won is an encouragement for honest conviction and an answer to those who think a nation's international interests are best left exclusively to an official diplomacy. # # # # # In 1900, two of Cobden's daughters, Mrs. Fisher 67 F 2 THIRTY YEARS Unwin and Mrs. Cobden Sanderson, were invited by the " Societe d'Economie politique " to a dinner in their father's honour, and on the occasion of the Cobden centenary in June, 1904, I was among the speakers, but it was in an article in the Matin of June 6, 1904, that I revived the question of an Anglo- French Treaty of Commerce and struck a warning note that the French proposal to revise the duties on British goods might introduce an element of instability into Anglo-French relations and that to raise them might be regarded as an unfriendly act by British manufacturers. As the matter it deals with is as fresh to-day as ever, I give it in full as it appeared in an excellent translation in the Paris Daily Messenger : — " All the Free Traders are celebrating at the present moment the first centenary of Cobden's birth. I say the Free Traders. The name of Cobden is, in fact, associated with the great economic revolution of which he was pioneer and the chief artisan. But Cobden's economic propositions were only one of the methods by which he hoped to give reality to ideas of a much more fundamental character. Free Trade for him was only a form of freedom. Alongside tariffs, he considered great armaments and militarism generally as a menace to freedom. War for him was the violation of the most sacred rights of the individual, human retrogression, organised bestial ferocity, assassination en masse ordained as a rule of conduct. " The predominating principle of Cobden's life was that freedom from every standpoint was the final object towards which democratic progress should tend. He was a great humanitarian, but a practical one. He believed that the sacrifice of the interest of the one to the interest of the other in order to permit the latter to make a profit, was an expro- priation contrary to individual freedom. He had two objects : to equalise the chances in the industrial struggle and diminish the chances of war between nations. They have been per- petuated in the motto of the Cobden Club — " Free Trade — Peace — Good Will among Nations," Free competition, 68 A DISCIPLE OF COBDEN unhampered emulation, international stability, good will among men : these belong to the life of trade. His object was to extend them to the life of nations. Peace abroad to permit development at home. Elbow room on all sides to permit free scope for the growth of that healthy vitaHty which alone ensures continuous progress and prosperity among nations as among individuals. " International peace was for him an essential factor of his conception. For this reason, already in 1849, he took up the question of International Arbitration. In his view the two countries which first had to come together, and, as a practical man, he dealt with them alone, were France and Great Britain. Two nations which, owing to their parallel political institutions and the similarity of their time-honoured popular traditions, were destined to move forward side by side in the enlargement of liberties equally cherished by them both. In 1849 he brought forward a resolution in the House of Commons of which he explained the sense to a friend in the following terms : * You seem to be puzzled about my motion in favour of International Arbitration. Perhaps you have mixed it up with other theories to which I am no party. My plan does not embrace any scheme of a congress of nations or imply the belief in the millennium, or demand your homage to the principles of non-resistance. I simply propose that England should offer to enter into an agreement with other countries, France, for instance, binding them to refer any dispute that may arise to Arbitration. I do not mean to refer the matter to another Sovereign Power, but that each party should appoint plenipotentiaries in the form of commis- sioners, with a proviso for calling in Arbitrators in case they cannot agree. In fact, I wish merely to bind them to do that before a war, which nations always do virtually afterwards.' " Cobden's resolution came too soon. He did not live to see his proposal taken up again almost word for word by Lord SaHsbury, the chief of the Conservative Party, of which he had been one of the most active antagonists. He did not live to see the signature of Lord Salisbury at the foot of a treaty with the United States, binding the British people to the very formula he had himself devised and which the Senate of the United States rejected by a minority sufficient, accord- ing to the United States Constitution, for the rejection of an international treaty. How things have changed ! What an 69 THIRTY YEARS inversion of parts ! What an irony of fate ! The Senate of the United States surpassed in LiberaHsm by the old EngHsh Conservatives ! " It is with France, as Cobden foresaw, that the first Treaty of Arbitration has been signed. He it was, however, who brought about the signature of another Treaty, a Treaty which produced brilHant results so long as it remained in force — the Anglo-French Treaty of i860. " Cobden was not a doctrinaire. Unfortunately, many of those who have adopted a part of his ideas as their creed have become so. Free Trade, for him, as I have already said, was a form of freedom. He saw its advantages as he saw those of political freedom, religious freedom, educational freedom, civic freedom. But his eyes were not shut to the difficulties of application. Above all, as he always said, we had to be practical and see things as they are, to build solid foundations, but to make the structures we erect upon them adaptable to the fluctuations of human affairs. He was an enthusiast but he was not a visionary, and I can well imagine him saying to-day ' Let us be practical, let us take into account the national equation as we would take into account the personal equation. For the relations between nations, stability is obtained through Treaties of Commerce and not from voluntary Free Trade. Certainty can only exist in consequence of a written document with a fixed duration between nations as between individuals. We must not be carried away by doctrine, but have confidence that in the end the public, better instructed by thinkers, by the intellectual teaching of a Press recruited more and more from the national intellect, will eventually come to understand the short- sightedness, the grovelling dependence, the senility of Pro- tectionism, an institution useful for the very young or the very aged, but degrading for men in the prime of life.' To change tariffs is disastrous for business, and when they are altered, the alteration should be made with infinite caution. Diminutions must be graduated just as increases must be graduated. Between England and France we need stability. We must be able to count not only on the stability of tariffs, but on the stability of the application of the tariffs. We must 70 A DISCIPLE OF COBDEN make sure that the tariffs will not be increased by adminis- trative regulations, introducing the very element of uncer- tainty they are intended to remove. The classification must be as stable as the tariff itself. We are perhaps on the eve of a reaction in England. Men, as patriotic as the Free Traders themselves, believe that the interest of nations demands the imposition of protective duties. Mr. Chamberlain has the gift of persuasion and the energy of the great partisan. You must not forget that France listened to the same arguments as Mr. Chamberlain is putting forward. The American Senate is less Radical than the most conservative of the Conservatives of old England. Here is Free Trade which Cobden thought had finally proved to be a boon to his country attacked by the most powerful Radical in England. In France men seem equally prone to change. The evil of the day is uncertainty, uncertainty of tariffs, uncertainty of the preservation of peace, financial uncertainty, general uncer- tainty abroad and general uncertainty at home. This uncertainty, I believe, is at the bottom of the depression which reigns everywhere at present. The remedy for this uncertainty is to ensure certainty.. We have entered upon a new era of which the dominating principle is to ensure certainty. The Treaty of Arbitra- tion of October 14, 1903, has supplied a new method for diplomacy, a buffer to abate shocks when difficulties arise. ^ The Treaty of Peace without war of April 8, 1904, has settled a large number of questions which were capable of producing difficulties.^ If there are still points to be settled to place our two countries beyond the risk of sur- prises, let us settle them. England is by far the largest customer of France. It is a mere platitude to say that the prosperity of the one is necessary to the prosperity of the other. To buy French products the English must sell their products. French exports to England in fact are a barometer of British prosperity. The future of the English tariff seems to me to involve an element of uncertainty, an element of danger to the work we have just accomplished. Fortunately, we are in an era of treaties, postal and tele- graphic treaties, telephone treaties, transport treaties, treaties of commerce, treaties of navigation, industrial 1 See p. 235. ^ See pp. 244 et seq. 71 THIRTY YEARS treaties, treaties of private international law, treaties of arbitration, treaties of peace without war. It is by treaties that certainty is made to take the place of uncer- tainty, stability the place of instability. To be able to count upon a tariff is like being able to count upon the amount of your rent or your general expenses ; it is essential to industrial and commercial calculation. **The proposal of a treaty which will ensure stable relations between our two countries cannot this time come from England. Twice England has endeavoured to conclude such a treaty, twice she has failed. If a new proposal is made, it must come from France, and I do not know if the present British Government would consider itself free to settle the terms of a treaty on the eve of an election involving the present economic system of the country. If there were a movement in favour of such a treaty in France, I should be much surprised if there were not a corresponding manifesta- tion in England just as there was in favour of the Treaties which have just been concluded. We must take advantage of the favourable circumstances of the moment. The merchants and manufacturers of Great Britain came in 1900 to Paris to show their good feeling towards the merchants and manufacturers of France.^ It was the British and French Chambers of Commerce which drowned the clamour of the enemies of peace and reversed the current of feeling in both countries. They are the true peacemakers, and we hope they will join their efforts once more and give the two Governments the support they require in connection with a treaty of commerce. " Cobden's Treaty of i860 was followed by a period of extraordinary prosperity in the relations between Great Britain and France. It is unquestionable that a large part of that prosperity was due to the stability which the Treaty gave to our relations. If we only had the share of that prosperity due to stability without having many important diminutions of tariffs, we should place another document, another buffer, between us and the causes of conflict which we desire in Great Britain as in France to reduce to their lowest expression." Mr. Norman Angell was then the editor of the Daily 1 See pp. 182 et seq, 72 A DISCIPLE OF COBDEN Messenger^ and I owe it to him to say that his admir- able articles in the Messenger contributed largely to focus the numerous points we used to discuss for purposes of propaganda. The following article, on the above letter, for instance, will show the thoughtful way in which the Messenger helped the cause we had at heart : — " The letter from Mr. Thomas Barclay which appears in our columns to-day cannot fail to create some sensation among those interested in Anglo-French commercial (and consequently political and social) relations. Mr. Thomas Barclay proposes in effect to give a practical and material sequel to the * entente ' which has on the sentimental side been so notably developed. The purely political difficulties in the relations between the two countries may be considered as settled for the moment, but the most confirmed optimist will hardly regard the commercial relations as happy. Neither country has really any security. English merchants, after being at great expense to work up a given trade, may suddenly find that trade taken away from them by an arbitrary altera- tion in the French tariff ; French exporters to England are now faced by the possibility of grave changes in the fiscal policy of England. Thus, commercial enterprise on both sides of the Channel is to a large extent paralysed. " Mr. Barclay has anticipated the criticism that Cobden succeeded in passing a Treaty which, however, did not endure. Apart from the fact which Mr. Barclay points out that though that Treaty did not last for ever, it did an enormous amount of good ; it had the grave defect of encountering the hostility of the Protectionists, then as now powerful on both sides of the Channel. Now Mr. Barclay hopes to act mainly through the Protectionists and to be assured of their co-operation in any commercial arrangement between France and England. " In the proposed Treaty the French Protectionist would receive a guarantee that in any revision of the English tariff, French products would not be discriminated against. In return for this, France would give an undertaking not to raise the duties upon English goods, and, it may be, to make certain reductions in the existing tariff. The Treaty, in one word, would represent that spirit of bargaining, the give and take, which is the soul of the present Fiscal Reform campaign in 73 THIRTY YEARS England, and which is calculated to win over even ' the cannon ball Protectionist,' as Cobden used to call him. Such a Treaty would proceed from the point of view of the Pro- tectionist and would at the same time secure the support of Free Traders. " An agreement on these lines should possess the elements of durability. Reconciling divergent fiscal views, it might well precipitate a revolution in fiscal policy, and bring to an end a deadlock in economic theorising which has for genera- tions been the despair of the political philosopher. The new departure therefore deserves, as it will certainly receive, the good-will of all who desire the prosperity of the two countries." 74 CHAPTER VI A TARIFF-MONGERING ERA The Treaty of Commerce negotiations in 1877 broke down. Those in 1881 conducted by my late friends Sir Charles Dilke and Mr. (afterwards Sir) C. M- Kennedy, whose acquaintance I made on that occasion, had the same fate. C. M. Kennedy was the ideal official who followed his instructions to the letter, and, unlike Sir Louis Mallet, who had views of his own, seems never to have influenced his " superiors." I think even Dilke had to yield, in this particular case, to instructions reflecting the convictions, whether Gladstone's or Mallet's, to which I have referred in the previous chapter, and whether his political master followed them as a man in a gig follows his horse or not. The other Commissioners were W. E. Baxter, Sir Charles Rivers Wilson (always the most careful and businesslike of negotiators), and Mr. (afterwards Sir) Joseph Crowe, the then British Commercial attache^ a man whose world-wide experience of life and of all its arts and crafts made him the most delightful of talkers and most charming of com- panions to a good listener. # « # # * We made a great mistake in not accepting the Treaty the French offered us. The doctrinaires who thought that to take less than in i860 was sacrificing the principle of Free Trade, incurred a heavy respon- 75 THIRTY YEARS sibility for the unfortunate consequences of their obstinacy. They waited too long and missed the chance of profiting by Gambetta's attachment to an Anglo- French understanding which might have been based on a more or less favourable Treaty of Commerce. The negotiators had been appointed in May, i88i, and Gambetta's fall in February, 1882, shut out all further hope of concluding a satisfactory treaty. I wrote on August 26, 1883 : — " The want of a Treaty of Commerce between France and England is beginning to be keenly felt in all Anglo-French relations. There can be no doubt whatever that the late Treaty had an indirect effect in stimulating good feeling between the two nations, and this was one of its smallest virtues. England and France felt that they were allies who must not jeopardise an old-standing friendship by impatience in judging each other's acts. They spared each other's susceptibilities, as old friends are wont to do, and if hitches occurred they did their best to remove them with the least possible friction. But all this is changed now. A rupture has taken place. We are no longer allied, but trade with each other at arm's length. Trifling misunderstandings are immediately fanned into burning questions, and not an opportunity is lost of recapitulating our respective grievances. We are now, like old friends turned foes, bitterer in proportion as our friendship was the closer. . . . The French are a sensitive and may not be a wise people, but they are a great European Power and a great industrial and consuming nation, and it is to be regretted that our relations with them are in a state of tension which is not only socially uncomfortable but causes political uneasiness, unsettles trade, and prevents the recovery from the crisis of last year. A return to the entente cordiale is the wish of every Englishman here, and this can only be effected now by the conclusion of a new Treaty of Commerce." Again on March 28, 1884, I wrote : — " It is decidedly a pity that we did not accept the Treaty offered us at the last negotiations. It would not have been 76 A TARIFF-MONGERING ERA a step backwards, as was supposed ; for the present tariff, taken generally, is not a step backwards, and the Treaty offered to England was a better one. It was a blunder on our part not to accept it ; it will be long before we shall get as good terms again. France is not becoming more favourable to Free Trade ; she is becoming more and more Protectionist. The President of the Republic remarked some days ago to an Englishman : ^ * You Englishmen do not realise French feelings on this subject. The French have a sincere con- viction that foreign competition is destroying their manu- factures. They have a pride in their industries, and will make a sacrifice to keep them afloat. Whether they are right or not is not the question. Such is their conviction, and they will act accordingly.' The present state of trade will not lead them to amend their opinions, and I fear that an acceptable treaty with France is not to be thought of. As things are, England, by the bounty of the French Parliament, has the benefit of the most-favoured-nation terms, but any day an agitation may be set on foot to withdraw them from her ; so it is well to remember the President's words. He is a man who has closely watched the character of his countrymen. * The French,' he added, ' are not a wise people ; like all southern peoples, they are the slaves of their feelings and amour- profre.^ " # # * # # From May 25, 1882, till now we have, nevertheless, enjoyed the most-favoured-nation treatment and had the benefit of all the reductions of duty any other Power, with its tariff artillery, has been too able to coerce France into granting. Meanwhile France was transforming her system. In 1881, while negotiations with England were proceeding, the reaction began with the imposition of duties for the protection of agricultural produce (mainly against the competition of American grain) and the adoption for manufactured goods of specific in the place of ad valorem duties. New treaties, however, were concluded and the treaty system was retained till 1892. In the interval the 1 was the Englishman and the President was M. Grevy. n THIRTY YEARS duties on agricultural produce did not keep out the foreigner to the extent expected, and that miracle for Protectionists occurred, which was destined to repeat itself again and again, of the rise in price of domestic produce, rendered possible by the protective duty on the same article from abroad, eventually paying the duty, or so materially helping to pay it, that after a time the foreigner comes in again as before. # # * # # Then came the tariff war with Italy. In 1878 the Italians had preceded the French in the adoption of specific for ad valorem duties, and in 1883 and 1887 began the construction of what began to be called the " tariff wall " — that is, the system of a general tariff operating as a rampart which can only be scaled by concessions, sufficient to purchase substitution for it of a lower conventional tariff. In 1887 the Franco- Italian negotiations were broken off; both pulled down their conventional ladders, and thenceforward presented the bare unscalable walls of their general tariffs to each other's produce. The tariil war thus begun became one of great bitterness. The Italian general tariff on the whole was higher than that of France. The French a year later raised theirs against Italy. Italy immediately retahated by raising hers to a still higher scale against France. At length in 1892 the parties came to see the transcendant folly of a war which was as advan- tageous to outsiders as it was disastrous to the immediate parties. France then took off the excess duties and Italy was placed under the regime of the ordinary general tariff pending an arrangement, which was concluded in 1897. 78 A TARIFF-MONGERING ERA During the eleven years war the exports of ItaHan goods into France had fallen from some 3005000,ooof. to about a third of this sum and of French goods into Italy from some 2oo5000,ooof. to less than half this sum. Other countries had meanwhile filled the vacancy. It is only recently that the old figures of the eighties have again been reached. # * # # « In 1892 the French tariff was again overhauled and the regime of treaties of commerce thrown over altogether by the adoption, alongside the general tariff, of an invariable minimum tariff in the place of the conventional tariff, which had been the tariff of lowest treaty duties resulting from application of the most-favoured-nation clause. All the treaties were now denounced, and on January 31, 1892, when all but one of them would be exhausted, the minimum tariff was timed to come into operation. The one exception was the Franco-Swiss Treaty, which it was hoped would be cancelled by consent. The arrangement entered into by the French Govern- ment, however, was rejected by Parliament owing to the opposition of the silk, cotton, and cattle interests, and a tariff war with Switzerland was added to the one already raging with Italy. The Swiss quadrupled their duties on French wines, multiplied those on silks by 25, and France in 1895, for the sake of peace, had to reduce twenty-nine items of her minimum tariff, and a treaty of commerce, after all, had been necessary to preserve a market which was being lost still more rapidly than that of Italy. In three years the Swiss exports to France had fallen 79 THIRTY YEARS over 30 per cent, and French exports to Switzerland in a still larger proportion. * # # 4f: # These examples of tariff wars suffice to show that in the end the parties, in spite of their lost trade, have to return to the status quo ante with the superadded task to achieve of displacing those who during the struggle have taken their place. The tariff of 1892 raised the number of items and the amounts of the duties, with the financial result not of an increase but of a loss of receipts. The amount collected in 1893 was 492,ooo,ooof. In 1904 it had fallen to 379,ooo,ooof. ! In 1895 the famous lot du cadenas gave the Govern- ment the right to put in force any Government Bill for the increase of duties before its adoption by the Legislature, a system right enough in principle for the prevention of fraud, but obviously in practice pledging Parliament to changes which may involve a disastrous element of uncertainty, as can be seen from the fact that between 1895 and 1908 the Government made alterations in the tariff under thirty-seven Acts of Parliament. In spite of all this tariff-mongering, the tariff has never given satisfaction. How could it ? In every case the increased price necessarily sooner or later pays or helps to pay the increase of duty. It reminds one of Alice's tea-party in Wonderland, and to my mind, after the experience of France, its absurd futility is equally obvious. In 1 910 the tariff-mongers grew tired of mere tinkering and demanded a complete revision of the tariff because it no longer kept the foreigner out. French industries, in spite of almost prohibitive duties, were suffering as badly as ever. The Tariff 80 A TARIFF-MONGERING ERA of 1892 was eighteen years old, a point which seemed to convey some argument per se. New industries had grown up which were also entitled to adequate pro- tection. And, lastly, the general tariff was not high enough for retaliation purposes. Now began a new disguised tariff war by the multiplying of categories to strike at special articles from one country while letting in those of another. In this new tariff England was treated better than some other countries, though badly enough. These categories or '' specifications " number some 1,500, and the difference between the general and the minimum tariff has been raised to an average of 50 per cent. Fear of reprisals, however, led Parlia- ment to agree to a clause authorising the Government to continue to apply the 1892 Tariff to countries which did not differentiate against France. To sum up, my experience of the working of Protection in France amounts to this — that its punitive qualities have produced no results ; that it has failed to promote the prosperity of French manu- factures ; that, wherever it has been used for coercive purposes, it has entailed loss to France ; that it has necessarily been increased from time to time to fulfil its purpose of " keeping the foreigner out " ; and that its final consequence can only be industrial disaster and a reversal of the present regime to save the industries of the country from their increasing langour and French export trade from being driven out of the chief markets of the world. T.Y. 81 CHAPTER VII STORMS AHEAD Gambetta's fall and the British occupation of Egypt were the starting-point of an era of strained Anglo- French relations. It is idle at the present day to speculate on what would ultimately have been French policy towards this country, had Gambetta lived. Yet, so profound was my conviction at the time of Gam- betta's foresight and attachment to peace, that I cannot help indulging the fancy, futile as it may be, that those who thwarted the grand minister e took an entirely mistaken view of the national interest. Gambetta, moreover, was the one man whose antecedents might have warranted his entertaining a policy of conciliation towards Germany, and, paradox as it may seem, that which seems impossible to-day was at any rate feasable thirty years ago. His attachment to friendship with England and his con- ciliatory attitude towards Germany, in fact, might have saved Europe from an antagonism among the three great Powers of the West which has cost them dearly without any corresponding benefit, moral or or material to any of them. # * # # * In 1883 M. Ferry inaugurated his policy of diverting public attention from European antagonisms to colonial expansion. Though the campaigns in Mada- gascar, Tongking, and China kept French public opinion fully occupied during the next three years, 82 STORMS AHEAD this colonial activity, on the other hand, excited the alarm of the Germans and Italians, who distrusted the French Government after the invasion of Tunis and its practical annexation, and they, too, proceeded to annex every scrap of territory they could lay hands on with impunity. This feverish scramble had as little common sense behind it as any financial boom. It was a saisir qui feut, as somebody at the time called it. Even the sober and thoughtful M. Ribot was dragged into this unseemly land-grabbing policy. The indiscretion of a French consul in Burmah, who told his Italian colleague that M. Ribot (then Minister of Foreign Affairs) was making preparations for an extension of the French Asiatic ventures to Burmah, information which in turn was imparted to his British colleague, who forthwith ciphered it to Calcutta, led Lord Dufferin without a moment's hesitation to take the necessary steps to forestall the French. Hence the annexation on the flimsiest of grounds of that important dependency to our Asiatic possessions. # # # # # I frankly confess I am not patriot enough to have any sympathy with these annexations of territory not susceptible of European colonization. Much as one must admire the work of the toiling European civil servants who give their lives to good and useful administrative work, one ought to have nothing but loathing for the frivolous pretexts employed to justify the barbarous slaughter of harmless people who rise to defend their homes against invaders, and the hypo- critical pretences put forward as a reason for depriving them of their independence. In the case of an over-peopled country there is some sort of excuse of self-preservation for the annexing of 83 G 2 THIRTY YEARS territory. To annex merely to find employment for an over-supply of candidates for the civil service is hardly fair to the rest of mankind. The retribution which history generally has in store for the crimes of nations is already beginning to gather on the horizon of the Far East. Those who have not the power to defend the possessions they have wrested from the weaker hands of native Asiatic communities may yet have to surrender them to conquering Powers who have borrowed Western methods of aggrandisment and with which a future generation will have to reckon. w Wr ^F w ^p In 1894, when advising the Japanese Government on the law affecting the Inland Sea of Japan, I made the acquaintance of many Japanese lawyers, diplo- matists, and scholars with some of whom I have remained on terms of friendship. From intercourse with them I gathered the impression that if Japanese naval armaments had been equal to the occasion in 1898, the United States would have been confronted with an Asiatic Monroe doctrine which had already begun to take shape in Japanese political opinion. TT tP 'w * tP A halt in the French colonial expansion policy followed the Chinese campaign in 1885. That futile and spendthrift policy, which involved the deporting of conscript soldiers to murderous climates, caused such an intensity of ill-feeling against the Repub- lican Government, that no more subtle reasons than this suffice to account for the anti-Repubhcan revulsion shown at the election of October, 1885, when a Republican majority of some 800,000 out of the 84 STORMS AHEAD 8,000,000 electors who voted was all that separated the existing regime from reaction. For all practical purposes the policy of M. Ferry was the reverse of M. Gambetta's. His reputation, in the hands of the historians, has come down to posterity as that of a great statesman, and he did at first dazzle the unwary, though at the time, as I well remember, more cautious men deprecated a policy which excited the jealousy of other States, and which embodied principles of the Caesarism which had been fatal to the late Empire. I heard cautious Americans years afterwards in the same way express apprehension as to the ultimate consequences of the outburst of Caesarism which ravaged American democracy in 1898. The ultimate results in both cases may be the same. Meanwhile a wiser French democracy had given the political leaders such a warning that for a few years they had to turn their attention again exclusively to home affairs. Just as in the last few years the German Colonial Party has been exciting irritation against England on the ground that she places obstacles in the way of German colonial ventures, in 1883 the French colonial expansionists were exciting French public opinion against her on the same ground. Wherever the French pioneers penetrated they found the English and English interests already installed, and instead of realising that the grievance, if any, was more justified on the part of those who had already established themselves on the spot than on the part of the new-comers, they resented the resentment of those whom their own Government, on grounds of general policy, made no attempt to treat as prior 85 THIRTY YEARS occupants and whom it sacrificed to the colonial expansion of other European States. # * # * # In the fervour of my still untamed British instincts I was at the time most indignant at the French methods which went by the name of colonization. In an article from Paris published on July 29, 1883, I wrote : — " The tension existing between England and France is the chief preoccupation here. It is difficult to understand the present French irritation against the English, and their quarrelsomeness can only be ascribed to an endeavour, as it were, after a busy Hfe to settle down to a doles far niente contrary to the nature produced by a life's activity. The French, or at least French Governments, have always been meddlesome, and always prone to interfere with other people's affairs. Whether a Kingdom, or a Republic or an Empire, they have always been given to a spirited foreign policy of some kind, and a home policy, unless it is icono- clastic and violent, finds little countenance among the more energetic spirits of the country. The French Criminal Code and criminal justice urgently call for reform, municipal taxation is perfectly barbarous, patent law, bills of exchange law, and mercantile law generally, are far behind the require- ments of the age, and the legal position of women is contrary to the common sense of the nation. These and other reforms are demanded on every hand, but Parliaments and Govern- ments have no time for these trifles. Now that clerical persecution has come to a standstill they have gone in for a spirited colonial policy, which means shooting natives, cannonading native villages, planting the French flag some- where or other, leaving a garrison in charge, appointing some officer to organise a civil service, and calling the new posses- sion a colony — a colony with everything but colonists. The spirit is always the same, and now instead of interfering with her near neighbours, who are all strong enough to look after themselves, France has taken to interfering with native communities in far distant parts. It must not, however, be thought that all Frenchmen approve of this so-called colonial policy. Many enlightened men strongly disapprove 86 STORMS AHEAD of it, and at a recent meeting of the Paris Political Economy Society, a Free Trade association of which M. Leon Say is prejident, more than one voice was raised to point out that real and valuable colonies are not created by soldiers and firearms, but by horny-handed settlers, capable of turning a virgin soil to account. "But bad as the means by which the so-called French coloaies are created, the mode of treating colonists when attracted thither is almost worse. All initiative, all self- government, all enterprise is * administered ' out of them. A coloay is no sooner created than a complete, fully-fledged ' administration ' is set going. M. Boucherot, at the above- mentioned meeting of the Political Economy Society, described the sort of encouragement this administration gives to any would-be colonist who ventures to try his fortune in the new country in, as nearly as I recollect, the following terms : — * We have been now some twenty years in possession of Cochin-China, and what have we made of it ? Well, it was a new country ; the Government pompously made known that concessions of land were to be given, and some would-be colonists with small capital, attracted by encouraging prospects flaunted before them, went out. *' You are welcome to them," said the administration. " We should like to settle here," said the colonist. " Not there ! " replied the administration. ** We are going to build the hospital there." " Then here, this would suit us ? " " No, not there either ; this is the spot for the church." " Well, down there." " Oh, no, the Pro- testant chapel will be erected there." " Then let us settle on the other side ? " " Nor there either ; that is the place where the gendarmerie will stand." " What, gendarmes ; but there are no people here yet to be looked after." " Foresight ! " says the administration. At length the colonists get their concession. Some time afterwards one of them, conveying his corn to the mill, is arrested by a gendarme for not having his name on the cart ! Colonists in fact are " administrated " to exasperation, as at home.' Yet M. Boucherot maintains that there is no lack of Frenchmen, which personally I doubt, who desire to seek their fortunes in the colonies. All he says is that there is no encouragement for them to go to the French colonies." ***** This discouraging attitude as regards colonial enterprise has not entirely died out, as the following 87 THIRTY YEARS amusing little incident bears witness. One day at a Cabinet Council during M. Clemenceau's Administra- tion (1908) the Colonial Minister, M. Millies-Lacrdx, was explaining why he would not grant a railway con- cession in one of the colonies to a certain applicant. " The man is a simple adventurer," he said. " Why, he has never even been there." " Quite right, non cher ministre^''^ said the Prime Minister. " Still Columbus got his ship, you know." # # # # * The election of 188 1, in which the Republican forces were led by Gambetta, had given a Republican majority of 5,128,000 against a reactionary minority of 1,789,000. The election of 1885 gave the Re- publicans 4,300,000 and the reactionaries 3,500.000 votes. The great industrial districts of the Nord and Pas de Calais, which had returned Republican majorities in 1 88 1, threw every Republican out.-^ Men of the value of MM. Ribot, Germain, Ranc, and Deves were ruthlessly defeated. Things looked so gloomy for the Republic that the wiser and older reactionaries like the Due de Broglie counselled their followers to avoid any policy involving an immediate alteration of the form of government. The reaction, in fact, was a much more serious matter than was at first realized. The new Parlia- ment had no working majority^ with which by useful * The reactionaries carried twenty-six departments entirely. 2 The reactionary party was composed of 65 Bonapartists, 73 Monarchists and 64 nondescript reactionaries. The Republican party was divided between 107 Radicals and 275 Opportunists, and of these latter all who could be counted upon as homogeneous were about 200. The reactionary block counted 202 votes. Legislation by the Opportunist party could therefore only be carried by an alliance with the Radicals or with the co-operation of the reactionaries. 88 STORMS AHEAD and popular legislation to redeem the mistakes of the previous Parliament, and then began that period of national agony which, starting with the Boulangist conspiracy, developed into the nationalist movement and which did not die out till after the " pardon " of Dreyfus. Tr flP ^r fP" As will be seen, the colonial expansion mania was again destined in a few years to involve France in dangerous complications with Great Britain and later and more recently in equally, if not still more, dangerous compHcations with Germany. As regards the latter country, the end of German colonial com- petition seems in sight. Not only the Emperor, but the responsible part of the German nation, those who have little time for political agitation, but who at the polls sometimes produce a volcanic effect among politicians, too busy with themselves to hear the growlings in the electoral substrata, are beginning to awaken to the futility of a colonial policy which, instead of following the natural roads of trade, tries to drag trade along with it into speculations as wild as its own schemes. In France, though the name of Ferry became execrated and he never regained his popu- larity, the mischievous policy he had started accumu- lated half-fulfilled obligations, excited the convoitises of other nations, and entangled his country in the meshes of a network of colonial venture for which it has paid and is still paying dearly. With every lull in this brain- storm of colonial expansion, the old anti-German feel- ing was revived by the jingoes who were afterwards to be led by General Boulanger, and who were hostile to this frittering away of the national energy in vainglorious expansion to the detriment of the 89 THIRTY YEARS truly glorious cause, as they regarded it, of the revanche. On August 29, 1884, I wrote : — " If it were not too serious a matter to be laughable, the present political state of things in France might afford much food for amusement. Political neutrality is a state of feeling unknown in this country, where everybody is more or less militant, and the idea that England is a friendly Power having been consigned to the things of the past. French- men are now puzzled how to replace her as a friend and how to deal with Germany, from whom they have momentarily withdrawn their spite. To be at daggers drawn with the two mightiest Powers in Europe is manifestly ridiculous ; to fall into the arms of Germany is not an embrace that is either politic or agreeable ; and to be neutral and passive is unnatural. So everybody is in perplexity." # # # # * This state of alternate anti-English and anti- German explosion continued down till it took an exceedingly earnest turn in April, 1887, when the Schnoebele incident suddenly plunged all Europe into the anxieties of a possible war. Schnoebele was a French police commissary who, having been invited by his German colleague to cross the frontier for the purpose of conferring with him on an administrative matter, was arrested on the ground of being concerned in treasonable proceedings on German soil. The incident in itself was of no particular importance, and it was terminated by his release on the ground that he was covered by a safe-conduct in the invita- tion to cross the frontier. The French Government removed him to a post at Laon and there the matter in itself ended. But in the middle of the Diplomatic negotiations concerning it, General Boulanger, who was Minister of War, brought in a bill to mobilise an army corps, 90 STORMS AHEAD and this provoked counter-manifestations in Germany. A bellicose speech by Prince Bismarck led to a declara- tion by General Boulanger in May, while a cabinet crisis was pending, that if he remained in office he would continue his mobilisation scheme, whatever Germany might say, and not relax his preparations to avert any humiliation by that country. M. Rouvier, as the General knew, had no intention of asking him to continue in office ! A deep sense of humiliation did result from the haughty indifference to French feeling shown in the German treatment of the incident. Among the illuminating letters which Lord Newton cites in his memoir on Lord Lyons, who was still at that time our Ambassador, is one which is particularly interesting on account of the answer it elicited from Lord Salisbury. On July 15, 1887, Lord Lyons wrote : — " Ill-will between France and Germany seems to be on the increase. It looks as if the Germans would really be glad to find a fair pretext for going to war with France. On the other hand, Boulangism, which is now the French term for Jingoism, spreads, especially amongst the reckless Radicals and enemies of the Ministry. And even among the better classes warlike language and, to some degree, a warlike spirit grows up with a new generation which has no practical acquaintance with war. Abject fear of the German armies is being suc- ceeded by overweening confidence in themselves." ^ Lord Salisbury, on July 20, repHed : — " I am afraid the temper of the French will not make the settlement of the Egyptian question more easy. I do not now see how we are to devise any middle terms that will satisfy them. We cannot leave the Khedive to take his chance of foreign attack, or native riot. The French refuse to let us exercise the necessary powers of defence, unless we do it by continuing our military occupation. I see nothing for it but to sit still and drift awhile ; a little further on in the history of Europe the ^ Newton, " Lord Lyons " (London, Edward Arnold), Vol. IL, p. 410. 91 THIRTY YEARS conditions may be changed, and we may be able to get some agreement arrived at which will justify evacuation. Our relations with France are not pleasant at present. There are five or six different places where we are at odds — " I. She has destroyed the Convention at Constantinople. " 2. She will allow no Press law to pass. " 3. She is trying to back out of the arrangement on the Somali coast. " 4. She still occupies the New Hebrides. " 5. She destroys our fishing tackle, etc. " 6. She is trying to elbow us out of at least two unpro- nounceable places on the West Coast of Africa. " Can you wonder that there is, to my eyes, a silver lining even to the great black cloud of a Franco-German war ? " Several French politicians at the time suspected the Schnoebele incident of being a calculated experiment to gauge the depth of the anti-German feeling in France, a means of testing by an incident, v^hich could be closed at any time by a mere apology v^ithout any shock to German national dignity, whether Boulanger had a sufficient follow^ing in public opinion to make Boulangism a real danger to peace. Tnr ^n? ^P "ff" tF At this time France was represented in England by M. William Waddington. It was difficult to remem- ber when talking to M. Waddington that he was not an Englishman, and sometimes, I have heard, British statesmen overstepped the boundaries of diplomatic reticence and forgot that he owed allegiance to a foreign State which on its side was treating this country at arm's length. More than once the French Government seemed too well informed about British visees and pourparlers with other States. At the dinner-table and in the smoking-room of a country house a foreign accent is a warning. The Waddingtons are among the leading Norman famihes of to-day. WiUiam Waddington, like M. 92 STORMS AHEAD Barthelemy St. Hilaire, was not only a distinguished scholar, but played an important part in politics in the early years of the Republic. After serving his country as Minister of Public Instruction under Dufaure in 1 871-3 and in 1876, and again under Jules Simon in 1877, and under Dufaure again as Minister of Foreign Affairs in 1878, and as Prime Minister in 1880, he was appointed in July, 1883, as Ambassador to the Court of St. James, where he was to all intents and purposes socially an Englishman. There he remained for ten years, during which he was frequently accused of being " vendu aux anglais." He took the charge with equanimity, but his English origin forbade his manifesting any strong advocacy of a better Anglo-French understanding. Richard Waddington, William's brother, was, if anything, still more English. He had served for ten years in the English army, and for a time had been stationed at Malta. He used to speak French with a slight English accent. Curiously enough, while to an Englishman an English accent in French is un- pleasant, to a Frenchman it is agreeable and dis- tinguished, so much so that French dandies imitate it. Hence M. Richard Waddington's accent, when addressing the Chamber of Deputies, only seemed a rather attractive affectation. In those days it would have been imprudent to brag of one's English origin. To-day it is different, and I can tell the story of the origin of the Waddingtons without committing any indiscretion or jeopardising M. Richard Wadding- ton's senatorial seat. Their great-grandfather, a Mr. Sykes, settled as a jeweller in Paris between 1770 and 1780. In 1792 he had amassed enough means to build a cotton mill at 93 THIRTY YEARS St. Remy-sur-Adre. Mr. Sykes claimed descent from Richard Pendrell, who hid Charles II. in the oak after the battle of Worcester, but he was not himself born or bred in England ; in both these respects he was a Dutchman. Sykes had an only daughter who married a Mr. William Waddington, of London, who settled in France and joined his father-in-law in business in 1816. His eldest grandson, WiUiam Waddington, the ambassador, was called after him. The cotton mills and the family have grown in importance and prestige, and M. Richard Waddington. senator, is the leading man in the Norman capital, a strong protectionist, which means an ardent champion of high duties on Lancashire yarns and textiles. This, however, does not prevent him from being a charming host in his tranquil country seat among the hills, scarcely more than a stroll from the busy valley with its clattering mills and all the smoke and dust and din of a factory town, yet dominating a wide expanse of that reposeful Norman scenery, which made Freeman (I think it was) say that he felt there so much at home that he resented the natives speaking a foreign language in a land so English. 94 CHAPTER VIII boulanger's bluff At the beginning of April, 1889, my wife and I were staying at the Hotel de Saxe at Brussels, whither we had gone to hear the famous Viennese singer Materna, whose rendering of Brunhilde in the " Walkiire," as a great musical event within reach by a six hours' journey, had brought many amateurs from Paris. I had long since given up my post of correspondent of The Times, though I remained one of its occasional contributors . We had j ust returned from the Monnaie, and were discussing with some friends the curious effect of hearing Materna sing in German, while all the other singers sang in French, when the hotel manager asked to speak to me. Boulanger, he said, had telegraphed him to reserve rooms and was arriving about midnight. The news was indeed astounding. That he should leave Paris, in the midst of his campaign, betokened some new and startling strategy on one side or the other. I waited to see him arrive, but the hall porter came back from the station to say that Boulanger, on learning that the landlord of the Hotel de Saxe was a German, had gone to the Hotel Mengelle, which belonged to a Belgian ! I did not know the General personally, but once a journalist always a journalist, and I determined, all the same, to call on him the next morning. Anyhow I knew many of his friends well. # # * * * General Boulanger was a new type of French 95 THIRTY YEARS adventurer — neither a soldier of fortune sprung from the ranks, nor an indigent aristocrat. Nothing about him reminded you of the gallant officer or dashing commander. His swollen eyes, somewhat bald head, unexpressive countenance, and slight stoop were suggestive rather of the overworked editor of a morning paper, while his square figure stamped him as a son of that bourgeois class which produces the characteristic Frenchman of the latter-day Republic. He talked sullenly, as if he were on the defensive, and with that tendency to exaggerate which marks a man's doubt of his own qualifications. I should have summed up Boulanger as timid, boastful, sly, and cabotin. How he got to the front with the poor qualities he was ultimately revealed to possess, is only explicable by the fact that he knew and remained among the class from which he had sprung and was not of the class from which, as a rule, officers in the army are recruited. He was a Republican, guaranteed, as it were, by his class affiliation, whereas the environment of most of the commanding officers was reactionary and suspect. # # # # # Boulanger's father was an homme d'affaires in the Rue Feydeau. At least, so I was told by Hy, the well- known barber on the Boulevard des Italiens, who had many interesting stories to tell of his old customers in the time of the Empire. Le pere Boulanger, who was one of them, he told me, was a tremendous talker and very proud of his son, about whom he never lost an opportunity of discoursing with other customers waiting their turn. 96 BOULANGER'S BLUFF Hy's shop or shed occupied the little courtyard of 25, Boulevard des Italiens, where the British Chamber of Commerce and Potel and Chabot's famous shop used to be located. In pre-Republican times, Hy told me, every self-respecting man used his hair as a decoration, and cultivated a moustache, which was a work of art. Under the Republic men had grown less careful of their persons, cut their hair short, and let their beards grow anyhow or reduced them to an inartistic moustache, if they did not cut them off alto- gether ; and the skilled barber, V artiste, as Hy called him, had lost his vocation. In the good old time the barber's shop was like a club-house. The " clients " knew each other, and the barber was a sort of gazette who collected the news as it came in and retailed it as a part of his business. # # # # # But to return to Boulanger : he was not equal to the task he had undertaken, that of upsetting the then Republic, and instead of becoming the master of the situation, he became the mere tool of cleverer conspirators. The dowager Duchesse d'Uzes was understood to have given him two millions of francs without any expectation that he would be successful, but in order, as she said, " to rattle up the pots and pans in the Republican cuisine and cause a general stir which would bring merit to the surface and send down to the dregs, to which they belonged, a crowd of hungry place-seekers and tenth-rate adventurers." Others helped him with money in the hope that the collapse of the Republic would give the other regime- gamblers a chance. Boulanger started off with every trump card in his hand. The enemies of the RepubHc, after fighting T.y. 97 H THIRTY YEARS each other and enabling the Republic to become firmly established through their ungovernable jealousy of each other, had coalesced. They had agreed at length to abandon warfare against each other until the Republic was destroyed. Boulanger led the attack in the name of the plebiscitaires, those who held that a system somewhat analogous to that of the United States should be adopted in France ; he expected to be appointed president under the first plebiscite, A couple of days before, I had been in the midst of the commotion in Paris and seen with my own eyes the anxiety, almost dread, of the Republican poli- ticians that the Republicans might not be equal to this new coalition of its enemies. Boulanger's sudden appearance at Brussels was therefore an event of enormous significance. Several of his political staff had come in by the night train and were already in consultation with him when I called. The General took me into a large adjoining bedroom, where he walked up and down nervously and talked to me. I cannot describe the visit better than by quoting the passage of the article on the subject which I sent to The Times,^ and which gave an instantaneous record of my then impressions of the man and his object. " Brussels, April 4, 1889. " The sudden irruption of General Boulanger in the Belgian capital has caused the greatest excitement here. If you overhear a conversation in the streets or in the hotel, meet a friend, or have any other opportunity of noting public feeling, it is invariably one of amazement that events have been so quietly passing in France which warranted such a tremendous step. Why should the General have found it dangerous to remain on the territory of the Republic ? We have an answer ^ See The Times, April 8, 1889. 98 BOULANGER'S BLUFF to this query from one whose exaggerations are so notorious that his readers are usually inclined to believe the opposite of his statements, whatever they are. M. Rochefort, who has also come to Belgium as a sort of minister in waiting on the General on behalf of his party, accuses the Government point blank of having projected the General's assassination. The General, according to him, fled to save his life. " In presence of the conflicting rumours afloat and general curiosity to know the truth, I took advantage of being the General's neighbour to invoke common friendships and beg an audience, which was very courteously granted without delay. I had never seen the General in person before, and may mention for the instruction of those who are in the same position as myself that his portraits do not represent his hair as turning grey or his back as beginning to bend under the cares of politics, and his approach as somewhat cold and even slightly nervous. After a few minutes' conversation, however, his reserve disappears, his manner becomes cordial, his features animated, and your impressions more favourable generally. His voice is pleasant and strong, and I should say from the friendly though authoritative way in which he treats those who have followed him into exile that he may even have a good deal of that social fascination which a pretender to power needs to keep his little ^tat major well in hand. I said : " ' General, you are aware that M. Rochefort states that you have left France for fear of assassination. You do not mention any such ground in your manifesto, so I suppose it does not repose on a strong foundation ? ' " ' That I do not know,' replied the General hurriedly ; * of course M. Rochefort may have his reasons for saying so. Personally I do not think there was any such project, and my own immediate reason for leaving France was not fear of assassination.' " ' In your manifesto you say you have left France to avoid appearing before the Senate ? ' " ' Certainly ! You do not suppose I would allow myself to be tried by a tribunal composed of my openly-avowed antagonists ? ' " ' But your leaving France before even you were indicted would imply that you feared some immediate personal risk.' " ' Quite so ! I was promised by one of those who were bound to be au courant of the Government's projects (inas- much as he was destined to be one of the instruments of the execution of its orders), that he would warn me in 99 H 2 THIRTY YEARS good time, and he kept his word, and told me orders had been given for my arrest as I came out of the Chamber of Deputies. I did not go to the Chamber of Deputies, and took care to place myself beyond the reach of the Govern- ment's agents.' " ' What was the Government's object in seeking to make a martyr of you ? ' " ' Their system was ingenious enough. Once within the four walls of a cell, they would have employed devices to keep me under detention. I should have been prevented from communicating with my friends, from managing my party, and they would probably by their stratagems have kept me under lock and key till after the general election.' " ' You think they could have strained the law to that extent ? ' " ^ I have no doubt of it. My friends felt the danger, and have been advising me to put the frontier between me and the Government for some days past.' " ' Would you go back to France before the elections if you were to appear before the ordinary Courts, as you seem to imply in your manifesto ? ' " ' Yes, but of course only to appear at the trial. I have done nothing, nothing whatsoever which is contrary to the laws of the land. My conscience and my acts from first to last are irreproachable, but I will only appear before the Common Law Courts — that is, before the Court of Assize with a jury, or before the Court of Appeal. You may not know that as Grand Officer of the Legion d^Honneur I am entitled to demand trial before the Court of Appeal as distingushed from the Tribunal Correctionel.' " * How did it come about that the Government let you slip after they had resolved on your arrest ? ' " General Boulanger paused a moment, walked up and down the room, and smiled. " ^ Bouchez' resignation upset their calculations.' ^ " ' How so ? ' " * Bouchez was appointed under, if not by, M. Grevy. It is possible that he took counsel of his patron. I was Minister of War at the time.' " ' Well ? ' " * Well, a little time elapsed before his successor was appointed, and there was nobody to sign the warrant of arrest.' 1 M. Bouchez was public procurator of the Court of Appeal. lOO BOULANGER'S BLUFF " * And during the interval your movements could not be interfered with ? ' " ' Just so.' " ' Do you think M. Grevy advised M. Bouchez in your interest ? ' " ' No, I don't think so. He may not have liked the pro- cedure, and perhaps was not sorry that his own foes should be defeated.' " * Then M. Bouchez' political feelings, you think, had nothing to do with his resignation ? ' " ' No.' " * Will not your absence from France affect the result of the elections ? ' " ' I don't think so. The result is certain already. And the Government's action, when the facts are known, will operate against it. I can control my party just as well from here as from Paris.' " ' What result do you expect ? ' " ' That 68 to 70 departments out of 86 will return candidates favourable to me.' " ' Then of course you will become President of the Republic ? ' " ' Of course.' " ' Will your party give pledges of particular constitutional reform to the constituencies ? ' " * If you mean will they go into details, No ! But they will pledge themselves to constitutional reform generally.' " * What is your chief objection to the present Constitu- tion ? ' " * Oh, it is quite unworkable, contradictory, and unpopular. Now, for instance, when Parliament wanted to get rid of M. Grevy, the Constitution had to be violated. There was no provision for such a contingency.' " ' I thought you were in favour of something like the Constitution of the United States, but you seem to me rather in favour of curtailing than extending the President's powers.' " * You want to know too much,' said the General, laughing. ' Come and talk over that next year in Paris. We must reserve details. It would not do to court criticism of our plans too soon.' " # # * * # When I returned to Paris I met a friend who lOI THIRTY YEARS occupied an important post at the Prefecture of Police and told him I had seen Boulanger at Brussels and what the General had said about his having received timely warning of the intentions of M. Constans, the Minister of the Interior. He laughed. We strolled into the Tuileries Gardens and there he told me the real story. Things had been getting rather hot for the Republicans, and Constans determined to resort to a deHcate and dangerous stratagem to discredit Boulanger altogether in the eyes of the public. One of the inspectors at the Prefecture had been playing the part of informant for Boulanger for some time past. He was sent off to give Boulanger warning that he was about to be arrested. Constans timed the warning to allow Boulanger just the necessary hour or so to pack a few necessaries together, jump into a cab, and catch the 6 o'clock train to Brussels. The shortness of the notice gave him no time to confer with his friends and advisers, one of whom M. Naquet, an astute though idealistic Jew, might have seen through the trick. Boulanger took flight and did exactly what was expected of him. M. Constans told the story himself with additions, which lend it a more dramatic effect. The story he used to tell at Constantinople, where he was shortly afterwards appointed to the post of French ambas- sador, and where, like an old general, he fought his battles over again to an admiring staff and a few habitues^ was that he asked M. Clemenceau to invite Boulanger to a conference with him for the purpose of discussing a compromise. They met at Clemenceau's, and, after an abortive controversy, Constans went to Clemenceau's table and wrote out an order to the I02 BOULANGER'S BLUFF Prefect of Police for Boulanger's arrest. While he was writing Clemenceau by previous arrangement was called away to the telephone. By arrangement also he called out to Constans that it was he who was wanted on the 'phone. Constans turned the letter he was writing over on its face and joined Clemenceau. Boulanger, suspicious of foul play, turned it up, and, seeing it was an order for his arrest, excused a hurried departure and decamped. His Excellency was always ready to tell the story of his successful strategem. I suppose he thought every thing was fair in love, war, and diplomacy. Boulanger, cabotin to the end, defeated, broken and a failure, shot himself ^ over the grave, after a year's mourning, of a poor lady who followed him into exile. But here again he missed his effect, for nobody com- pared him to Romeo. ^ Boulanger died in September, 1891. 103 CHAPTER IX EXPANSION AND UNREST The Boulangist conspiracy occupied all the energies of the political firebrands and pecheurs en eau trouhU for the time being. They were staggered by Boulan- ger's moral collapse and the unexpected verdict of the country at the election of 1889. Instead of carrying the 70 per cent, of the electorate, as he expected, he polled barely over 7 per cent. With the aid of the Monarchists he could only have counted on 34 per cent, of the Chamber. The movement for the time being had failed. ^ W "Pr "n* "R? An approximate triumph of Boulangism might have led to a strong Monarchist and Roman Catholic revival, seeing that the money with which it was engineered came mainly from monarchical and clerical sources. There is no reason to think, however, that it would have ultimately been more successful than the monarchical revival under Marshal Mac- Mahon. The impression at the time of the popularity, or supposed popularity, of the Boulanger movement was that it focussed a reaction against indifference to the question of the Revanche, There was a wide- spread feeling among Frenchmen, especially in Paris, that France was dishonoured by the supine attitude of the Republican leaders towards the steadily growing power of Germany, and the expanding disproportion between the respective fighting reserves of the two 104 EXPANSION AND UNREST countries which year by year was adding to the difficulty of recovering the lost provinces. Bou- langism, on the one hand, was a protest against a state of things the only remedy, if any, for which was to force a war before it became too late to hope for a successful result. On the other, the Clericals, in self- defence against the widespread hostility to the Church, saw in Boulangism a method of stemming the on- coming anti-Clerical torrent. The two branches of its supporters afterwards developed, the one into the " Nationalists," and the other into that strange mihtary-clerical faction which displayed its power for evil in a violent outbreak of anti-Semitism and the persecution of Dreyfus, in which they more or less joined hands. While these reactionary forces were recuperating, the Republican leaders, true to their policy of creating a diversion from home and foreign policy, again took up the questions of colonial expansion. ***** The following extract from an article on the political situation in France in the autumn of 1893 by Gabriel Monod ^ described the state of the national mind at the time admirably : — " Another difficulty in the way of every Ministry is that France, now that the difference between the Monarchists and the Republicans has been composed, feels the need of some stimulating excitement. She is in love with stir and pageantry, with glitter and bustle. With no liking for distant adven- tures, she suffers from being compelled to inaction in Europe. . . . Nothing is produced, either in literature or in art, which excites enthusiasm. Yet we feel the need for action for sometliing to admire, something to believe in. There is a longing for something nobler and greater in the life of the country. The very excentricities of the decadent and ^ Contemporary Review^ November, 1893. 105 THIRTY YEARS ' symbolical ' writers and of the impressionists in painting are the sign for the longing for what is new and better. . . . There is in France ... a certain fermenting dissatisfaction, a yearning for an unknown ideal. The great danger ... is the existence of a state of inaction, of languid ennui^ side by side with the longing for activity, ... an intellectual or moral chaos from which may spring some sudden outburst. It may be war, it may be social revolution, it may be a pacific, moral and intellectual revival." 'JF TT "w ^^ ^P Thus while the one party v^as seeking to rouse French feeling against Germany and reav^akening the old lust for a revanche^ the other was endeavouring to draw public attention back to that colonial expan- sion, which promised to open up new markets for French produce and serve as a compensation for the loss France had suffered through her unfortunate and futile tariff wars. This colonial policy, the more immediate purpose of which was to divert French attention from matters irritating to Germany, revived trouble with England. vP TT TP ^P In 1893, in connection with the action France was taking in Siam, an incident occurred which was not unlike the Agadir incident. France was exercising what she took to be her rights against her Asiatic neighbour, rights the nature of which was similar to those which Western States are in the habit of claiming, when a convenient boundary, access to a river, or administrative ambition is concerned. The comminatory proceedings of France gave rise to considerable distrust in England at a time when British policy was as averse from allowing British dependencies to come into immediate contact with French territory, as it has always been to having a frontier conterminous with Russian territory. 106 EXPANSION AND UNREST French colonial policy, like the Russian, was essentially aggressive, and the prospective co-operation of these two aggressive policies, which was already talked of in the chancelleries of Europe, was a rock ahead for which we had to be on the look-out. The French Government gave a deliberate assurance to Great Britain that their action would be confined to obtain- ing satisfaction for their grievances, and that in no respect was Siamese independence threatened. With this assurance the British Government declared them- selves satisfied and signified their intention to abstain from any interference. Rumours in Paris, however, credited the French Government with different intentions, and Sir Edward Grey, in answer to an inquiry in the House of Commons, announced that, in view of possible anti-European effervescence arising out of an armed conflict between France and Siam, the British Government were sending gunboats to the spot for the protection of British subjects. This action on the part of England excited the greatest indignation in Paris, and France thereupon and at once strengthened her naval forces. The Siamese Government protested against more than one French vessel being allowed to ascend the Menam. The English had only one gunboat at Bangkok, and for the purpose of taking off their respective subjects, in case of need, no Power required more. The French Government acquiesced in this view, but their instructions arrived too late and French vessels passed the bar, and a new anti-Siamese grievance arose out of the resistance offered to them by the Siamese forts at the mouth of the Menam. # # * # * My connection with the Siamese difficulties was 107 THIRTY YEARS only an incidental one. M. Rolin-Jacquemyns, the ^' father " of the Institute of International Law, as well as of a charming family, and whose distinguished son, Edouard Rolin-Jacquemyns, has now taken his place as one of the most brilliant members of the Institute, I had known since 1875. I first met him at the Hague, where the Institute and the International Law Association were holding that year's sessions at the same time, as special correspondent of The Times. In those days The Times had room for a report on questions of International Law from a special corre- spondent running for five days to one and a half or two columns daily ! At this meeting at the Hague I met many of those whose intimacy I had the privilege of enjoying in later life, so far that is, as the intimacy of much younger men is tolerated by older men. It was there that I met for the first time Sir Travers Twiss, one of the most lovable of men and a " gentleman " in the good old sense of the word. There, too, I believe I met for the first time a man whose friendship I value as a moral asset, one of those honest, able Englishmen who make one proud to be an Englishman, Richard Webster, the brilliant son of a distinguished father, who eclipsed his sire and, as everybody knows, be- came Lord Chief Justice of England and a peer of the realm. Others were J. Westlake, K.C., and David Dudley Field, T. E. Holland, K.C., and Professor Asser. Rolin-Jacquemyns in a way '' dis- covered" me, for he singled me out, had me elected an associate of the Institute while I was still barely out of the twenties, and before I was ten years older had me promoted to full membership as one of the sixty chief authorities on international 108 EXPANSION AND UNREST law, for the number of members and associates of the Institute, I may mention, is restricted respectively to this number. Rolin-Jacquemyns was a distinguished Belgian politician who had been Minister of the Interior in the famous Frcre-Orban Ministry, and was one of the leaders of that calm and reflective Liberalism for which the world seems to have no more use. A man of wide culture, he spoke English and German with a perfect facility of expression, and with that charm of accent which goes with a highly developed musical intelligence, for among his many accomplishments Rolin-Jacquemyns could play at sight the most difficult music, and to the end of his life pos- sessed a firm and well-balanced singing voice. I remember passing an evening with him and a few others at a foreign hotel when he sang one after another all the songs of Schubert to his own accom- paniment.-^ In his declining years, a guarantee, given by him many years before, to assist a relative in business, unexpectedly involved him in a loss which cost him the bulk of his private means and forced him to accept a remunerated post. This it was that led to his going out with his valiant and clever wife to Bangkok as European adviser to the King of Siam. In this capacity he was advising the Siamese Government at the time of the trouble between it and France, and to him Frenchmen attributed every move of the Siamese Government which thwarted the then French policy of encroachment, by which they sought ^ The musical faculty of the Rolins seems almost traditional. One of his nieces, the daughter of Professor Alberic Rolin, the brother, late professor of the University of Ghent and now librarian to the Carnegie Peace Palace at the Hague, is one of the most accomplished amateur violinists living. 109 THIRTY YEARS to bring the frontier of the protected State of Annam to the left bank of the Mekong. They admitted that it was his duty to do his best for the country he was serving, but this they chose to hold he was not doing; in other words, he was the mere instrument of an astute and unscrupulous England. It was a fact that ^ he had been proposed by the British Government, but it had been in response to a request by the Siamese Government to provide them with a com- petent European adviser. The British Government, no doubt to avoid the jealousy which the appointment of a British subject would have occasioned, suggested a man belonging to a neutral and secondary State, and recommended this distinguished Belgian. The anti-Siamese, anti-English and anti-Rolin-Jacque- myns feeling ran so high in Paris that direct postal communications between Bangkok and Paris were not trusted. Letters from the Siamese Government to the Legation in Paris were therefore sent enclosed in an envelope addressed to me in Paris or in London and delivered by me direct to the Legation, and vice versa, I did not at the time think such precautions necessary and only lent myself to them to oblige my old and respected friend. But at a later date, when the revelations of the Dreyfus trial showed to what depths a detective service can descend, I was willing to admit my friend was wiser than I. ^ w W ^ In connection with the Panama scandals a new anti-English grievance arose out of the Herz inci- dent, French patriots attributing to the influence of Panamist financiers the British delay in proceeding with Herz's extradition. These grievances were furthermore aggravated by no EXPANSION AND UNREST British criticism of French domestic politics, criti- cism which, though perfectly justified, was often humiliating. # « # # # Amid all this resentment and irritation came the visit to Paris of the Russian naval officers in October, 1893. It provoked scenes of delirious joy which nobody who lived in Paris at the time will ever forget. The visit was regarded as a deliberate manifestation by the Russian Government of a desire for an entente with France. Englishmen hardly ventured to show themselves while the delirium lasted, which it did unabated for seven days. It meant in the eyes of the Parisian public an entente against England with England's Asiatic enemy. England for a century had stood in the way of Russia realising her traditional " warm-water policy." She it was who had prevented Russia from enjoying the fruits of her victory over Turkey in the war of 1878. She held the key to the Persian Gulf and stopped her progress southwards in Central Asia. France had similar grievances against her, not only in Asia, but in the Levant and Egypt. Russia and France, in short, had a common enemy. Hence their rapprochement, «jP 5B? ^nF V ^F One of the first consequences of the Franco-Russian entente was a less querulous and more haughty tone towards England. This new tone became noticeable in the following year (1894) in connection with the Anglo-Congolese agreement of May 12, 1894, deter- mining the spheres of influence of Great Britain and the Congo Free State in Central and East Africa. Under section 3 of that agreement, the Congo Free State had granted a lease to Great Britain of a strip of III THIRTY YEARS territory, twenty-five kilometres in breadth, extending from the most northerly port on Lake Tanganyika, which was included in it, to the most southern point of Lake Albert Edward. Under another section Great Britain granted a lease of the province of Bahr- el-Ghazal to the Congo Free State, partly for the duration of King Leopold's life and partly for so long as the Congo Free State remained independent under the Belgian sovereign or a colony of Belgium. The territory thus leased followed the tenth parallel to a point north of Fashoda. The treaty was an ingenious method of solving two difficult problems. It assumed, by placing the district temporarily under the control of the Congo Free State, that Egypt was entitled to resume possession of the Upper Nile. It also secured control of a strip of territory between two lakes which abutted, as it were, on British territory south of the one and on territory under British influence north of the other, thus obtaining, with the free passage through the lakes resulting from the General Act of Berlin^, an independent territorial line of communication from Cairo to the Cape preparatory to Cecil Rhodes' scheme of a railway from one end of Africa to the other. # # * # # This time France and Germany joined hands in opposing England. It is usual to say that France opposed the lease to the Congo Free State of Bahr-el- Ghazal and Germany the lease to England of the strip of twenty-five miles. That is not perfectly correct. France opposed England on both grounds. As regards the strip of twenty-five miles, she set up the right of " pre-emption " granted her by a letter of April 23, ^ See Art 15. 112 EXPANSION AND UNREST 1884, from Colonel Strauch in which, on behalf of the Congo Association (transformed under the General Act of Berlin of the following year into the Congo Free State), he undertook that it would never cede its possessions to another Power without a prior under- standing with France, and that, if it were compelled to alienate any of its territory, France should have the right of pre-emption. France held that this lease was an alienation of territory and a violation of the engagement. She objected also to England dealing with Bahr-el-Ghazal as if it belonged to her, whereas it was still under the sovereignty of the Sultan. Germany, after protesting in respect of the twenty- five miles strip, declared herself satisfied with the British explanations, but the argument of France, based on a deliberate undertaking of the Congo Free State, seemed unanswerable, and the British Govern- ment at the request of King Leopold cancelled the clause of the treaty relating to it. A vigorous newspaper war on the British occupation of Egypt ensued in which the German Press warmly backed the French attitude. It fizzled out in a treaty between France and the Congo Free State,^ in which France obtained an advantageous rectification of frontier and the latter renounced a part of the territory which had been leased to it under the Anglo-Congolese treaty of May 12, but retained the main thing, viz., Lado and down to there the left bank of the Nile from Lake Albert Nyanza. The evacuation of Egypt at that time was still within the perspective of coming events, and England was so far from having decided to remain, that I was seriously warned, on being offered an Egyptian * August 14, 1894. T.Y. 113 I THIRTY YEARS judgeship by Sir John Scott that, owing to the possible evacuation of Egypt at no distant date, security of tenure could not be counted upon. France was still reckoning upon that evacuation, and, as we shall see, her objection to the leasing of the whole of the province of Bahr-el-Ghazal was connected with a project of adding it and more to her North African empire. # # # # # My connection with the Congo began in 1886 in a very unpremeditated way. I had written a book on Bills of Exchange in the expectation that it would bring me legal business. It was a heavy piece of work in which I compared all the existing systems, explained their differences, and endeavoured to work out a uniform law. This was in 1884. As a fact, the only case the book ever brought me was a small one from the printers of the volume ! About that time, however. King Leopold conceived the idea of holding an International Con- gress to deal with the assimilation of the commercial laws of Europe. At one time there had been such a universal law of commerce, including a common law of bills of exchange, but, in the course of the last couple of centuries, the nationalisation of independent political States and consequent growth of distinct legislations had had the effect of differentiating the commercial laws. Baron Lambermont, King Leo- pold's intimate friend and always judicious adviser, thought, like the King, that a movement for the revival of the lex mercatoria by an international convention would be a useful form of that inter- nationalism, of which the Congo Free State itself was already a new and striking example. The King, more- 114 EXPANSION AND UNREST over, had a political object more closely affecting his country. He wished to accentuate the neutral character of Belgium by thus making it more and more a centre for international movements of all kinds. He had a collection made of all the exist- ing books which might be useful for his purpose, and amongst them happened to be mine. One day I received a communication from Brussels stating that the Committee of the Conference desired that I should be appointed one of the delegates to it. I was conse- quently appointed and attended the Conference as delegate of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris, chambers of commerce being among the corpo- rate bodies invited. Most Governments were officially represented, Great Britain semi-officially by the then solicitor-general (Sir John Gorst) and Mr. Robinson, Q.C. To my consternation I found that I, a young man of thirty-two, had been elected vice-president of one of the two sections of the Conference over the heads of several eminent British delegates from England and Scotland. As regards the Conference itself, it only resulted in an enunciation of the differences existing. Towards the close of the proceedings, however. Baron Lambermont, whom I had met for the first time, asked me to deHver a short speech at the final sitting, proposing that another conference be called to continue the work begun. I showed him the speech I had prepared, but, when the time came to deliver it, a number of eminent men delivered speeches making this very proposal, and I kept mine in my pocket. Baron Lambermont, as we went out, put his hand on my shoulder and said, " Vous etes un diplomate. Vous savez quand il faut se taire." A few days after my return to Paris, I received a II'; I 2 THIRTY YEARS telegram from Colonel Strauch, who was the King's Congo minister, asking me to come at once to Brussels on important business. To cut a long story short, the State was negotiating with a British syndicate at the head of which were Mr. (afterwards Sir) William MacKinnon and Mr. Hutton of Manchester. H. M. Stanley was the technical adviser of the syndicate. The King wished me to represent the State in the negotiations. " Never shirk the drafting. The man who holds the pen has always some points over his adversary," was a piece of advice Baron Lambermont gave me before we parted at Brussels after I had had the King's instructions. # # # # # For the next month I was engaged in daily con- ference with Stanley, whose first-hand knowledge made him more than a match for me. I could only warn him of the time-honoured danger of exacting too much. In the end he did exact too much, and we never got the length of drafting. The conditions Stanley insisted upon were too onerous for the State. On less onerous conditions Belgian capitalists them- selves were only too glad to do the work, and did it. H. M. Stanley was not a diplomatist. Uncompro- mising determination was stamped on his features. His angular form and hands were of a piece with his truculent manner. I often shared his very simple mid-day meal. Then, as always, we conversed a la Stanley^ which meant that his words were final. He was unsympathetic yet fascinating, intensely in earnest and ruthless in his idea of duty, yet when off his guard almost sentimentally tender. ii6 EXPANSION AND UNREST He had a little African boy whom he had brought from the Congo, and who was very unhappy in Euro- pean clothes within the narrow scope of Stanley's flat in Bond Street. One day I came in somewhat earlier than I was wont to do and Stanley was still out. Suddenly the door of the sitting-room was thrown open and the little naked savage dashed in, flew madly round the table, springing over the sofa, flying out again, round the flat in the wildest African style, whooping, laughing and gesticulating madly. Stanley's man told me that as soon as Stanley went out, the " little chap " flung off his clothes and became a savage till Stanley's footsteps were again heard on the staircase. He hadn't the heart to stop him, and stood " cavey " for him. If Mr. Stanley knew, he was afraid of what might happen. Some years after meeting Stanley I asked him after the boy. He told me he had sent him back to Africa. " Poor little chap," he said. " he was very unhappy. He needed exercise, and I often used to go out on purpose to let him have a run round the place in Adam's garments ! " Stanley once told me how demoralising Central Africa was for the European. Human life, he said, becomes indifferent to him, his own as indift'erent as that of his fellow-men. Fever or a poisoned arrow or a snake bite may carry him off within a few hours, and, after he has seen his companions victims of these accidents, he becomes callous to them. Moreover, when a small band is threading its way through forests, over plains and past native villages on a journey of discovery, every group of natives becomes a danger. To get past them they must be scattered, and this often leads to loss of native life, and this still more brutalises the European. I often thought 117 THIRTY YEARS of this in the course of the agitation which was carried on for so many years to put an end to the atrocities committed in Central Africa. 'fr ^r ^r ^P ^P When the Congo Free State was in course of organisa tion as such, I was instructed to draw up a memo- randum on the working of the British Privy Council, and this led to the creation at Brussels of a court of final appeal corresponding to our Judicial Committee. King Leopold appointed three foreign and three Belgian judges. One of the foreigners was Professor F. de Martens, of St. Petersburg ; the second was Professor Rivier, Swiss consul-general at Brussels ; and the third was myself. Both de Martens and Rivier are now dead and the Congo Free State has ceased to exist as such, but I am still a member of the Council, though I am no longer called upon to take part in its work. Besides its judicial work, the Council was invested with legislative functions, and we used in the early days to sit frequently and deal with proposed legislation. 'Tr W *nr '9F ^ King Leopold built great hopes in the Congo as a field for the enterprise of his subjects. " The Flem- ings," he once observed to me, " were in bygone times one of the most enterprising peoples of the world. The merchant princes of Bruges and Antwerp were amongst the most prosperous and most powerful of the merchant princes of Northern Europe. But the Flemings have now become content with a sufficiency to meet the requirements of a modest provincial life. The world's greater markets do not tempt them, and the Belgians have become of little account among the commercial and industrial peoples of the earth. ii8 \ \ EXPANSION AND UNREST This contentment with small things reacts on every department of the national activity." He hoped before his reign came to an end to see his people re-awake from their commercial, industrial, and intellectual lethargy and take a much more important place among the productive energies of the world. If he could interest them in the Congo Free State and eventually convert it into a Belgian colony, a vast new field for enterprise would be added to the sphere of Belgian interests, and the task of governing their huge dependency would promote the growth of a race of administrators, as the government of India had done for England. King Leopold was an intense admirer of everything EngHsh, and remained so in spite of the churlish treatment he received at the hands of many Englishmen. His wish has been realised — the Congo Free State is now a Belgian dependency, and the Belgians have been stimulated in the making of it to re-conquer their old place among the progressive peoples of Europe. In Italy, Spain, China, Russia, and as far as Canada and South America, in fact the world over, Belgian manufacturers and contractors get not only their ratio of the world's work, but in many places they have practically driven their com- petitors out of the field. * # * # 4» My close connection with the Congo Free State in those early days brought me into intimacy with many distinguished Belgians, and especially of Baron Lambermont, who, as I have said before, was one of the greatest of the several diplomatists I have seen at work. Of humble origin, he had reached the highest post his sovereign could confer on him. He was not only 119 ■ ■ ■-^^-^-— *^-- THIRTY YEARS real head of the Foreign Office, but was the power behind the throne. When the King lost this discreet, modest, and able friend, his mistakes began, and Belgium lost in Lambermont not only her ablest private citizen, but her respect for a monarch to whom she owes more than historians have yet been able to realise. 120 CHAPTER X FROM BAD TO WORSE Some sixty or seventy British subjects were seated one warm June evening in the galleries and drawing- room of the British Embassy in Paris after Lord Dufferin's annual banquet in honour of the Queen's birthday. His Excellency, with whom I was on terms of relative intimacy and with whom I often had an opportunity of talking of places and persons we knew in Fife (he had often stayed at Raith with his daughter Lady Helen Munro-Ferguson), asked me to come with him into a quiet corner to talk about my scheme of forming a Franco-Scottish Society. Any assistance he could unofficially give me he placed at my disposal. He then told me he regarded Anglo- French relations as very unsatisfactory. " The French," he said, " have a deep-seated, though quite unjustifiable, dislike for the English. I do my best to react against it, and so long as I am Ambassador I shall be able to cope with any difficulties which mav arise with the French Government. But there is danger in this deep-seated popular animosity. Private efforts may be successful where Governments seem to fail. Your Chamber of Commerce is doing good work in the right spirit. But the anti-EngHsh feeling is probably least active among the mercantile class, whose material interest might suffer if England retaliated. As regards the lower classes, I doubt whether they have any feeling on the subject at all. 121 THIRTY YEARS It is the politicians, and the professional classes from whom they are recruited, who stir up grievances and irritation. Your proposed Society might be the beginning of a change by bringing people belonging to these classes together." Lord DuflFerin had come to Paris with a reputation which made the French supremely distrustful of him. He had been Viceroy of India when we defeated* French policy on the Burmese frontier, and his work in Egypt had identified him with a tendency to giving definite form to the British occupation. By dint of patient and tactful persistency, however, he made himself extremely popular, and what he said en- couraged me to follow in his own footsteps. Between him and me there was also a sentimental tie not generally known to the public. The family of the Blackwoods originated from a citizen of Dunferm- line who a couple of centuries ago migrated, as Mr. Carnegie's father, my own, and Lord Shaw's, a century and a half later did, to a broader field of activity, but for the " auld grey toon " we both, like all Dunfermline men, felt a particular affection. I had thenceforward the powerful though covert support of the Ambassador. " If that you will France win, Then with Scotland first begin " is an adage recorded by Shakespeare. The direction was now inverted, but the object was the same. To win France, it was Scotland who had to begin. # * # # * There was something odd about Lord Dufferin's right eye, and I often wondered whether, like Gambetta, he had only one eye for use. When 122 FROM BAD TO WORSE he spoke to you he dropped his monocle and fixed you with a steady gaze which made you feel as if you were giving yourself away to one whom no human sympathy would move. When you had finished what you were saying, he would go on watching you with the same steadiness as if he were listening now to what you were thinking. You would wobble on the thin planks on to which in your confusion you had stepped ; and then in the uncomfortable silence you would say something you did not intend, and Dullerin seemed to be waiting for that. liOrd Lytton once asked Dufferin what he thought was the source of his success in conducting inter- course with Eastern Princes. " My glass eye," said he. "When I had anything serious to negotiate, I fixed them with the glass eye and watched them with the other." He may, of course, have meant his monocle. * * m * * I could see Lord Dufferin felt that things between Great Britain and France were drifting from bad to worse and that British isolation in Europe was becoming, as each successive incident occurred, more accentuated. His Excellency in 1894 had suggested to M. Hano- taux, who was warmly favourable to the suggestion, that the two Foreign Offices should try to bring about a general settlement of all pending difficulties, with the Egyptian question as the centre point. Lord Dufferin and M. Hanotaux were assisted, the one by Mr. (afterwards Sir) Constantine Phipps, the then councillor of embassy, and the other by M. Hauss- mann, then permanent secretary of the French 123 THIRTY YEARS Colonial Office. Mr. Phipps and M. Haussmann met frequently, and the negotiations resulted in a scheme of settlement the details of which, however, have never been revealed to the public. Nor, in fact, does the public, I believe, to this day know that a serious effort was made by Lord Dufferin and M. Hanotaux as early as 1894 to bring about an entente between the two countries. The scheme evolved, unfortu- nately, appeared acceptable to neither Government. Possibly the Egyptian question as well as that of the Upper Nile were not solved in a manner likely to give satisfaction to the growing British conviction that the occupation was a geographical necessity and not subject to limitations, while on the French side the feeling was equally strong in the contrary sense. In any case the result confirmed Lord Dufferin in the opinion that before any diplomatic action in the sense contemplated could be successful the French parliamentary atmosphere would have to undergo a change. It W w V W A few months later the disquieting rumour that the project of an expedition the French Govern- ment had intended sending, a couple of years earlier, across Africa to the Upper Nile, had now been resumed, led to a very serious declaration by Sir Edward Grey in the House of Commons on March 28, 1895. Sir E. Ashmead Bartlett, who had raised a debate on this rumour, remarked that '^ any great European Power which held almost any portion of the Upper Nile, and so controlled its waters, held Egypt practically at its mercy." The great danger was 124 FROM BAD TO WORSE that we might some day be encountered by a fait accompli. Sir Edward Grey, who was then Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, was asked to make a declaration of the Government's poHcy on the subject, which he did. " I am asked," he said, " whether or not it is the case that a French expedition is coming from the west of Africa with the intention of entering the Nile valley and occupying up to the Nile. I will ask the Committee to be careful in giving credence to the rumours of the movement of expeditions in Africa. . . . At the Foreign Office we have no reason to suppose that any French expedition has instructions to enter or the intention of entering the Nile valley ; and I will go further and say, after all I have explained about the claims we consider we have under past agreements and the claims we consider Egypt may have in the Nile valley, and adding to that the fact that those claims and the view of the Government with regard to them are fully and clearly known to the French Government, I cannot think it possible the rumours deserve credence, because the advance of a French expedition under secret instructions right from the other side of Africa into a territory over which our claims have been known for so long would be not merely an inconsistent and unexpected act, but it must be perfectly well known to the French Government that it would be an unfriendly act and would be so viewed by England." M. Hanotaux repHed in the Senate on April 5. He had asked for a precise statement of the British so- called claims. He had said to the British Govern- ment : — " You wish to have our adhesion without even explaining to us to what we should adhere. Do not be surprised that we refuse our acquiescence and reserve our liberty." France, he said, had not succeeded in obtaining any definite replies to her clear and legitimate questions. When during recent negotiations he had 125 THIRTY YEARS pressed the British Government to reply, the pour- parlers were simply discontinued. This attitude on the part of France seemed like an irritating and barely disguised defiance. It came also at a bad moment. The invasion and conquest of Madagascar had disaffected many people in England who had taken a sentimental interest in the island and where English religious missions pre- dominated.^ ^ I was privileged afterwards, in 1904, to carry on the negotiations with the French Government on behalf of the Society of Friends and brought them to a satisfactory conclusion. In 1912 and 1913 I was again entrusted with a similar negotiation on the part of the other missions also and was proud to receive the following letter from the Archbishop of Canterbury in connection with the result : — ** Lambeth Palace, February 19, 1913. " Dear Sir Thomas Barclay, — Will you pardon me for writing to you. I have heard from Bishop King of Madagascar how very helpful you have been to him and to all of us, in regard to the difficulties which have arisen respecting French rules in Madagascar circumscribing and to some extent thwarting our missionary endeavours. It is of inestimable value to the Church in all its branches that we should have the help of one who is able to approach questions of this sort with the knowledge and authority that you possess. Should occasion call for it, I do not doubt that you will kindly be veiling to see me on the matter, but at present things seem to be going so far satisfactorily that I need not trouble you. I shall hear further par- ticulars from Bishop King, who is very shortly coming here for a night. He has already written to me fully on the whole subject. I am, Yours very truly, Randall Cantuar." My old friend J. G. Alexander on behalf of the Friends wrote to me : — "February 16, 1913. " My dear Barclay, — I have been commissioned by the Friends Mada- gascar Committee to let you know how much they appreciate your very valuable assistance in obtaining the decree, now published by the French Government, with regard to religious liberty in Madagascar. As you know, our Society, which had got its propertyin the island alreadyimmatriculated, was not so much interested as are some of the missionary societies in that particular question, but it was essential to us that our fellow-workers should be satisfied as well as ourselves, and for all your efforts on their behalf as on ours we thank you sincerely. I should like personally to congratulate, as well as thank you, on the success that has attended your efforts. Yours very truly, Joseph G. Alexander." I wish to record, however, that the success of the negotiations was in no small measure due to the urbanity and conciliatory skill of Bishop King, the most valuable assistance of M. Jules Siegfried, the accurate and detailed knowledge of M. Allier, and especially the sympathetic attitude of the Colonial Minister, M. Morel, himself, 126 FROM BAD TO WORSE While these barely courteous exchanges of opinion were passing between Great Britain and France, the latter concluded her alliance with Russia, and through Russia was drawing closer to Germany. French war- ships alongside the Russian even attended the ceremony of the opening of the Kiel Canal. By the treaty of Shimonoseki the Sino-Japanese war came to an end. China agreed to pay an indemnity and ceded Formosa and the Liao-Tung peninsula to Japan. France and Germany now joined Russia in protesting against the cession of territory on the mainland and Japan yielded. This seemed like a new Triple Alliance for Far Eastern purposes. ****** In the course of the year these symptoms of co- operation against England and her isolation became still more pronounced. Then suddenly from the United States came more than mere rumblings. President Cleveland on December 3 had intimated in unmistakable language that the policy of the United States was not indifferent to the dispute over the Guiana boundary between Great Britain and Venezuela, and six months later Mr. Olney in a despatch (July 20) to the American Ambassador (Mr. Bayard), with an abruptness of manner not usual in diplomatic intercourse, intimated that if the British Government did not accept the American proposal to submit the question to arbitration, the future relations between the United States and Great Britain would be greatly embarrassed. He added by way of emphasis that " 3,000 miles of intervening ocean make any permanent political union between a European and an American State unnatural and inexpedient." " Thus far in our history," he 127 THIRTY YEARS explained, " we have been spared the burdens and evils of immense standing armies and all the other acces- sories of huge warlike establishments ; and the exemption has highly contributed to our national greatness and wealth as well as to the happiness of every citizen. But with the power of Europe per- manently encamped on American soil the ideal con- ditions we have thus far enjoyed cannot be expected to continue." Incidentally I may mention that afterwards in 1903 I made the acquaintance of Mr. Olney, who is a Boston lawyer, in the '' American Athens," and met him several times. He told me it had been necessary to speak strongly. We did not seem to take the Monroe doctrine seriously enough, and the United States Government had to make it clear to other Powers besides Great Britain, that it was a principle for the maintenance of which the United States would resort to the direst extremities. That is why he had spoken out. The occasion for such a pronouncement had presented itself and he had used it. England decidedly seemed to be drifting towards isolation among the nations not only of one hemi- sphere but of both. 128 CHAPTER XI APPEAL TO AN ANCIENT FRIENDSHIP There is an old flat-faced, uninteresting five-storey house in the Rue Cardinal-Lemoine over the doorway of which you can read " College des Escossois." The origin of the College des Ecossais belongs to the days of Robert Bruce. Balliol the elder had founded a college at Oxford to promote the education of Scots- men in English ideas. Robert Bruce founded the Scots College in Paris to promote the education of Scotsmen in French ideas. They both date from about the same period. The old college was situated in the Rue des Amandiers. Principal Robert Barclay, the uncle of the apologist his namesake, in 1690, removed the college to its present quarters, and in its chapel his remains were buried. Many other Scottish names and some famous ones are recorded in the chapel tablets. My object was to focus the Franco-Scottish move- ment and society in and about the old Scots College. * * # * # In the autumn of 1894 I unfolded this plan to a few French friends in the political world, especially MM. Ribot, Leon Bourgeois, Jules Simon, and Leon Say. They gave me every possible encouragement and, as will be seen afterwards, two of them effective assistance. On the Scottish side I obtained without difficulty the active co-operation of my old friends, Lord Reay and Principal Donaldson of St. Andrews, T.Y. 129 K THIRTY YEARS who at once appreciated the poHtical value of such an undertaking apart from its educational bearing, in which they, however, took a more direct interest. Another always trusty adjutant for a good cause and old friend, Sir Frederick Pollock, at once actively joined us. Sheriff Mackay, who was also among the keenest early supporters of the movement, when after- wards, in the spring of 1895, I visited Edinburgh, invited a number of prominent Edinburgh men to dinner to meet and discuss the subject further. There I met my now old friends Professors Geddes and Burnet, and a number of others who were duly roped in. Later on in the same year, I joined Burnet at Oxford, and together we there roped in others. Through Geddes I made the acquaintance of M. Paul Melon, who now joined me in the further work of recruit- ment in France. He worked in the educational world, I in the political, with the result that before long we secured the support of all the most prominent men in France. Lord Reay, Professor Burnet, and I did the work of getting Scotsmen enrolled, and a goodlier body never started on its career than the Franco-Scottish Society. As I have said, my idea was to focus the society round the old Scots College, and the original constitu- tion and regulations I drew up for the society were based on this idea. As the scheme has come once more to the fore, I have inserted them among the appendices.^ They were not adopted, because we could not find the necessary ^20,000 to buy the college. The rules ultimately adopted I submitted at the first meeting the following year. They pledged the society practically to nothing at all. 1 Seep. 357. 130 APPEAL TO AN ANCIENT FRIENDSHIP Unfortunately for my hidden purposes, the educa- tional side of the society soon came to overshadow the political, and, though the society has rendered and still renders splendid service to the cause of good relations between the two countries, its political partisans, who were such an important factor in its composition when it was started, have gradually dropped off. ^r ^r ^p ^v ^P The first meeting of the society was held in Paris in the spring of 1897. This constituante meeting, so to speak, was held in the new Sorbonne, and the first banquet ever, I beHeve, held in a university building in France was given there in our honour. M. Bourgeois presided. A difficulty I had not anticipated was that indiscreet Scottish patriots might, in all innocence, allow it to develop into an anti-EngHsh manifestation. An etching — a valuable thing in itself — representing Jeanne D'Arc surrounded by her Scottish archers, by Mr. John Duncan, pre- sented to our French friends on behalf of the Scottish Committee, alarmed some of us so much that I concocted an attenuating verse which was hurriedly printed and slipped into the envelope with the print. « # # # # There are Scotsmen whose pride revolts at being included with mere Englishmen ! They soon lose any such ideas when they have lived any time on the Continent, and especially in Eastern Europe. Great Britain is a weak modern term, which conjures up no great historical associations. Scotland suggests to the benighted foreigner little more than men in kilts, lakes, heather, hills and Walter Scott, but no great political entity. England stands for them all through- out the world. The prestige of the King's name is 131 K 2 THIRTY YEARS not that of the King of the United Kingdom, or of Great Britain and Ireland, or of the Sovereign of the British Empire, but is that of " King of England," " le Roi d'Angleterre," the greatest historic title in the world. And so it is with the name of England generally. Scotsmen and Irishmen may be proud to be called Englishmen and let them stick to it, proud as they may be of their sub-title. All passed off to the general satisfaction down to the ample publicity given in both countries to the event. # # # # It was Jules Simon who presided at the joint meeting of welcome. The speech he made was his last, and mingled with its farewell to the old historic Sorbonne was his own leave-taking of a world to which he no longer belonged. I afterwards wrote down his speech from memory. Though it is but a poor rendering of one of the most touching speeches of this fascinating and eloquent speaker, poor as it is, it is not without merit. I still hear the high falsetto of Jules Simon's voice, exhausted by age but still always Jules Simon's, and therefore dear to those who knew him. As I believe my reproduction of his speech to be the only one existing, I give it untranslated : — ** Je vous souhaite la bienvenue dans cette nouvelle et luxueuse Sorbonne. " Je ne sais vraiment pas pourquoi cet honneur m'est devolu. C'est peut-etre parceque je suis moi-meme une sorte de debris de la vieille Sorbonne, un petit fragment qu'on n'a pas demoli pour faire place aux nouvelles idees dont ce magnifique edifice represente la victoire, fragment d'une pittoresque ruine, qu'on a demand^ au vieil ideologue que je suis, de vous adresser la parole. " Souvenez-vous que vous etes sur le site de cette vieille 132 APPEAL TO AN ANCIENT FRIENDSHIP Universite dont nos aieux se sont sature la pensee et qui a toujours ete le point de ralliement entre I'esprit de France et celui d'Ecosse. C'est ici que Voltaire et Hume ont tous les deux ressenti leurs premieres inspirations. C'est d'ici que vos Universites d'Ecosse ont pris leur module. Et encore aujourdhui, c'est ici que vous etes venus de ces Universites rendre hommage a la sceur ainee. " Pourtant, n'attendez pas de moi, Messieurs, un eloge enthousiaste et sans regrets du nouveau batiment, car moi, I'ai encore grimpe les vieux escaliers uses, dont tant de pieds cel^bres avaient creuse les marches. Je ne peux oublier qu'un Boileau, un Balzac, un Voltaire, un Renan, s'etaient assis sur les vieux bancs d'ou moi-meme j'ai ecoute les successeurs en ligne directe des grands maitres qui forment notre patrimoine intellectuel, ces vrais vainqueurs dans la lutte eternelle entre la pensee libre et I'esclavage de I'esprit, ces vainqueurs dont I'ame durera encore quand le temps aura meurtri ces beaux decors, et que ces coquets murs seront ronges, comme moi, par la vieillesse. " Non, Messieurs, je ne puis pas vous cacher la profonde melancolie que je ressens, une melancolie que vous-memes devez partager il me semble, car vous venez d'un pays ou Ton a un peu le culte du passe, et ou I'on ne laisse pas dis- paraitre ses vestiges. " Je ne peux, neanmoins, terminer mon petit discours de bienvenue avec ce gemissement de regrets inutiles. II faut que tout marche de I'avant. Cette grande ville de Paris avait besoin d'un palais a sa taille pour pouvoir caser la nouvelle generation, qui, de toutes les classes de la societe, se precipite en foule vers la lumi^re et la verite, et qui cherche avec enthousiasme, dans le savoir, la realisation de ses aspirations intellectuelles. " Je m'incline tristement, car la glorieuse vieille Sorbonne est enterree, mais je salue la jeune, celle qui n'est pas de mon temps. C'est en vieillard donnant la main a I'avenir que je vous souhaite, Messieurs, la bienvenue parmi vos anciens amis. " Notre vieille alliance d' esprit, nos luttes communes dans ce theatre de guerre qu'est I'Universite, sont un lien d'union que nous n'oublierons jamais." # * # * # The society met the following year (1898) in Edin- burgh, and on both occasions brought eminent 133 THIRTY YEARS Frenchmen and Scotsmen together, and it did unquestionably pave the way to the breaking down of the anti-Enghsh feeHng in France. Its third meeting was to have taken place in France in 1899, and I struggled hard to get the French section to move, but the resentment over the Fashoda affair was felt most keenly just among the class of men who were members of the society. Comte de Franqueville, the author of a French work on English judicial institutions which is almost a classic, President of the French section of the Society, told me that he could not guarantee we should not be hissed, if we met before the resentment had calmed down. Besides, the whole country was in a state of high nervous tension on account of the Dreyfus conflict, and everything was out of focus. In short, the Franco-Scottish scheme had a good beginning, but it had not taken deep enough root to resist the storm, which broke out the following year over Marchand's unfortunate though brilliant expe- dition across Central Africa, and plunged Anglo- French relations into the throes of the worst crisis they have undergone under the Republic. 134 CHAPTER XII THE PATRIOTARD WAVE The violent attitude of British public opinion over the Dreyfus affair further embittered French feehng against England. The English never quite understood the circum- stances in that wretched " affair," nor could anybody who did not live in France at the time do so. Belief in Dreyfus's guilt spread, like an epidemic, over whole villages and districts. The counter-belief in his innocence, in the same way, spread over other whole villages and districts. In the large village of Sannois, in which we lived for a number of years, a place in the department of Seine-et-Oise about fourteen miles from Paris, everybody, almost without an exception, was Dreyfusard. At the village of Franconville, three or four miles north of Sannois, everybody, almost without an exception, was anti-Dreyfusard. As light spread, the belief in Dreyfus' innocence gathered strength, till the opposing forces became so well defined that the war became one in which, one might almost say, the forces of enlightenment and progress were ranged on the side of belief in Dreyfus' innocence, and the forces of darkness and reaction against it. This five years' war was fought out in the newspapers, in the law courts, in the music-halls, in the churches, and even in the public thoroughfares. Men who had never before done a dishonourable, unfair, or discreditable act became the foulest of THIRTY YEARS detractors and the most unredeemed of liars. Like all war, it let loose the worst qualities of those who took part in it, alongside a few magnificent cases of self-immolation. The names of Zola, Picquart, Anatole France, Joseph Reinach, and others stand out as identified with acts of supreme moral courage. The subject had the character of intoxicating those who took it up. In England pro-Dreyfusism raged as an anti-French fever, with a violence only second to that of the anti-Dreyfus fever in France. English news- papers, even politicians and statesmen, spoke of France as a country which was fast sinking into a state of moral decay beyond any reasonable prospect of redemption. A man, and a clever one, afterwards a victim of another kind of war, G. W. Steevens, who wrote a book on the subject, and must be supposed to have " got it up " before doing so, assumed that the whole French nation was on one side. In his book " The Tragedy of Dreyfus " G. W. Steevens wrote : — " It was known in widening circles, first to a few soldiers, then to journalists and politicians, then to everybody who cared to be convinced — to everybody with ears to hear — that Dreyfus, if not innocent, had not yet been found guilty. In the face of that knowledge France still howls : — ' Let him suffer ! ' It is at once the grimmest and grotesquest spectacle in history — a whole nation, knowing that justice has not been done, keenly excited about the question, and yet not caring a sou whether justice is done or not. What matter, cries France, whether he is justly condemned or not? Shoot him rather than discredit the army. And even of the minority — of the Dreyfusards that exclaim against his martyrdom and prepare to show that the verdict of Rennes has brought, not peace, but a sword — who shall say how few care for doing justice to a man who is innocent, and how many give tongue merely because they hate the army, or the Roman Church, or Christianity, or France herself ? All hut the whole nation 136 THE PATRIOTARD WAVE — the nation which professes itself the most civilised in the world — publicly proclaims that it cares nothing for the first essential of civic morality. Partly it is the petulance of a spoiled child which will not see the patent truth, partly the illogical logic of French intelHgence which will commit any insanity that is recommended in the form of a syllogism, partly the sheer indifference of a brute that knows neither right nor wrong." ^ The italics are mine. # # * # # I have been told by people who know '^ every- thing " et plus encore that what gave rise to the " affaire " was secret journeyings by Captain Dreyfus across the frontier, when he did meet German officers, and that this was well known in Alsace. On one occa- sion when I was at Strassburg I spoke of this with Alsatian friends, who told me that Drevfus had relatives in Alsace, and that he should have come to see them secretly would be not to " dodge " the French but the German authorities, who would probably have watched and arrested him as a spy, had they known he was a French officer. Besides, his visits would otherwise have compromised his relatives. As the French say, " une theorie vaut une autre." If this explanation is the correct one, it may be one of those cases of anonymous denunciation which have been known to make the most innocent circumstances suspicious. # # # * # Elsewhere Steevens vents his own uncontrollable anger : — " And when an occasion comes, like the Fashoda crisis, in which a strong lead might fitly have been given to the nation, nothing was forthcoming except alternate bluster and puling. ^ Harper and Brothers, London and New York, 1899, p. 292. 137 THIRTY YEARS With one breath they thundered out what things they would do if they could ; with the next they wailed for compassion because they could not do them. They inquired into the possible cause of the national decadence quite openly and wound up with 'poor France 1 ' " ^ There never was a better instance of the part a vague public feeling may play in international politics than the state of public opinion in this country in respect of the Dreyfus case. No indulgence was shown for French constitutional difficulties or for those brave Frenchmen who were working to repair the wrong. The whole nation was lectured as if we ourselves had never had a miscarriage of justice and as if the vox populi was a sort of court of appeal. It is a sad thing for justice whenever it is so. ^F ^r ^r ^F ^F Steevens's impressions were not those of a man living in the midst of the crisis. The fight, as I have said, became a last desperate struggle by the remnants of the Boulangist, nationalist and reactionary parties to arrest the progressive social tendencies of Radical France. After the initial mistake had been made, the authorities responsible for the mistake tried to conceal it, which was a further mistake because it entangled the Government with organised forces which were really fighting it. And between the two camps were the masses, who found it hard, amid the exaggerations of controversy, to discern the truth. When ten days after the Rehnes judgment (Sept. 9, 1899) condemning Dreyfus, he was suddenly pardoned and, later on, reparation came and Dreyfus was promoted to the rank of Colonel and Colonel Picquart to that of General and Minister of War, the silence of the great ^ op. cit.j p. 304. 138 THE PATRIOTARD WAVE mass of Frenchmen showed the Government had only- done what France expected it to do. Even the noisy NationaHsts and " anti-Semites," knowing their cause was lost, had the wisdom to protest only sotto voce. Though beaten on the Dreyfus affair they did not abandon reactionary agitation. Paris and the adjoin- ing departments still remained Nationalist, returning at the election of 1902, 35 of the 45 Nationalists sent to Parliament. # * # * « The Nationalist ebullition, it is seen, survived the Dreyfus affair. In the army the Nationalist malcon- tents had found so considerable a support, that in self-defence the Government descended to a method of obtaining information about the political opinions of army officers which, when it became known to the public, caused an outburst of indignation throughout the country. On the other hand, the support given to the Nationalists among the clergy provoked an aggressive attitude against the Church which led ultimately to its complete disestablishment. # # * # # About the time when Nationalism struck root in Paris, that is in 1898, a somewhat similar movement was noticeable in London. I remember at the time hearing a good deal about what then " patriots " chose to call the " Anglo-Saxon idea." The idea seemed to be that Britons and Americans, brought into ever closer union by a common interest in foot- ball and other sports, were destined by Providence to conquer the world ! It was quite a common thing in those days to hear anaemic little London clerks threatening the French nation with " the best licking 139 THIRTY YEARS they ever got." The ^' Anglo-Saxon idea " was quenched by a large number of these perfectly honest and plucky little fellows going out to the Boer war, though they did so with as little understanding for the meaning of war, I have been told by my friend Herbert Stead, who knows the brave little Londoner well, as if they were going to kick about a ball in a playground. Those of the poor young fellows who returned became converts to peace. In the area occupied by the small parish of Walworth, Canon Jephson, who was rector of it at the time, told me as many as sixty men enlisted. But all this is by the way, and I only mention it to show that patriotism, like temperature, seems to have waves which pay no heed to frontiers. It was also essen- tially in the fetid political atmosphere of the two capitals that aggressive anti-French and anti-English tendencies found a congenial soil. * # # * # In 1900, Paris returned a municipal council with a Nationalist majority of 45 out of a total of 80 and elected as its President M. Grebauval, a writer on the Nationalist organ La Patrie, M. Grebauval, though born at Amiens, is a genial meridional. He told me, when I saw him about a proposed visit to the Paris Exhibition of the Lord Mayor of London, that he hated the English still more than the Germans. " At least one can say for the Germans, they are des ennemis francs. They don't conceal that they want to swallow us up as soon as they dare. With them we know where we are. But with the English, nobody knows where he is. They are not even unconsciously hypocritical and perfidious. They deliberately lead you on with promises and sweet 140 THE PATRIOTARD WAVE words, and after they have shoved you over the precipice turn their eyes to Heaven, thank God they are a moral people and pray for your soul ! Ah, mon cher, ce n'est pas . de vous que je dis cela, ni du Lord Mayor de Londres. C'est de votre execrable politique que je parle. Votre Lord Mayor sera a ma droite ; si meme le maire de St. Petersbourg etait la, il ne serait qu'a ma gauche, car le Lord Mayor de Londres est pour nous la plus grande gloire de la vie municipale du monde." He came over afterwards with the Paris Municipal Council on the occasion of the visit to London I negotiated in 1906, and was then as exuberant about the entente and the English as he had been about the Lord Mayor. He was put up at Lord and Lady Monkswell's, and returned to Paris a calmer perhaps a wiser man. But, as he said to me one day, '* Moi, vous savez, je ne suis pas mechant, mais des injustices me repugnent et nous autres frangais, nous ne cachons pas nos sentiments revokes." There is nobody I like better than Grebauval. tF tt * '1^ 'l^ No event in our time did so much to undermine British prestige abroad as the Jameson raid (Decem- ber 29, 1895). It excited as strong a feeling through- out France of the perfidious character of British policy, as the Dreyfus afifair had excited throughout England the feeling that the French had lost all sense of national honour and justice. Nor was this feeling confined to France. It was equally strong in Germany, and Englishmen will do well to bear in mind, when they refer to the German Emperor's famous telegram to President Kruger, that though it disaffected EngHshmen, Frenchmen only 141 THIRTY YEARS felt that the Kaiser expressed the indignation of Europe at this most deplorable event. I am sure that if any other nation had been guilty of such a breach of elementary good faith, we should have extolled the Kaiser as the man who had had the courage to voice what we too had felt. ^ * * * * At the height of this Nationalist and Dreyfus agitation I happened to meet Frangois Coppee, who had been bombarded into the chairmanship of the Ligue des Patriotes (I think that was its name). He was afterwards very unhappy about it. ** Que faites vous, maitre, dans cette galere ? " I asked him. " Ma foi, monsieur, je ne le sais pas trop." He told me, however, that he thought Frenchmen were degenerating, that they were becoming too materialist, too absorbed in the race for enjoyment and luxury, to retain that grand subordination of self to great causes which had been the historic glory of French character ; that religious faith or patriotism had been the motive forces in the great human move- ments in which France had led theworld; that religious faith had gone, and patriotism, if not revived, would be swept away, too, in the rising tide of materialism. It was with the idea of contributing what he could to revive the old political idealism of France that he had accepted the chairmanship of the League : " Voila, pourquoi j'y suis, sans avoir ni les qualites d'un president ni celles d'un agitateur." And truly in his humble dwelling, amid a sort of workmen's settlement in the Rue Oudinot, away from the " hum of men," with his windows thrown open to hear the children's prattle in the surrounding modest garden plots, one 142 THE PATRIOTARD WAVE could only wonder that he of all men should have taken a lead or have even allowed his name to be placed at the head of a league which " was out " to make political din, whatever the result. 143 CHAPTER XIII FASHODA On or about September i8, 1898, we found ourselves in the midst of a serious crisis. After the signing of the Niger agreement in June there had been a diplo- matic lull, and it seemed as if at length the beginning of an entente on African questions had been reached. Suddenly a new and most unfortunate fact had to be dealt with, viz., that a French expedition or mission had reached Fashoda, the chief town of the Sudan province of Bahr-el-Ghazal, and hoisted the French flag as a sign of -prise de possession. The Sirdar, Sir Herbert Kitchener, had just defeated the Mahdists at the battle of Omdurman, a victory over the only forces barring the recovery of the Egyptian Sudan which placed Bahr-el-Ghazel, a part of that Sudan, at his mercy. Everybody trembled at the idea of what might happen if Captain Marchand defied the victorious general and a conflict ensued. Such a conflict between the Anglo-Egyptian forces and the French expedition seemed, in fact, dangerously probable. Any French officer who had hoisted the French flag at any spot on the globe, I was told rather excitedly, would fight under it till overcome by superior force, and then it would have to be the enemy who hauled it down. If this happened, the prevailing anti-English feeling would be roused to frenzy at such an insult to the flag, and the two countries would be at war within a fortnight. English 144 FASHODA merchants in Paris who had goods on consignment on the French railways gave instructions not to discharge them. New orders were held in suspense. Standing orders were not executed. For some days business was almost at a standstill. I was asked hurriedly to publish in an English paper in Paris called the English and American Gazette an article on what would be the position of enemy subjects in France, if war broke out. The common idea among Englishmen was that they would be summarily conducted to the frontier and their belongings seized. My article, showing that no such dire consequences would result, helped a little to allay the prevalent alarm. On learning that the officers at Fashoda had arranged matters provisionally and without any sacrifice of life or national dignity on either side, that meanwhile, though the English flag was hoisted, the French flag was still flying at Fashoda and that the final adjust- ment would take place between the two Governments, the public on both sides of the Channel began to feel more confidence. # # * # * The public did not, however, know, and their ignorance was bliss, that the real danger came later on, and that, instead of diminishing, it increased to the day when the French Government gave way. During the negotiations the French Mediterranean fleet was ordered to Cherbourg, and at dead of night, with lights extinguished, passed Gibraltar unperceived by the British authorities. The mayors at the Channel ports were instructed to requisition the churches for hospital work and report on the beds and ambulance available to fit them for immediate service. A hundred millions of francs were spent in a few days T.Y. 145 L THIRTY YEARS in providing Cherbourg as a naval base with the necessary ammunition and stores. Orders to march were in all the commanding officers' hands, and everything was in readiness for mobilisation, if the French Government should be confronted with an ultimatum. While the French Mediterranean fleet was steaming to Cherbourg, the British Mediterranean fleet, unaware of the whereabouts of the French fleet, steamed to Alexandria and Port Said to keep the Suez Canal open and negative any idea of a French landing in Egypt, which would have been our most vulnerable point, had the course been clear.-^ That Portsmouth for a few days was in a state of ferment everybody at the time knew, but ferments at Ports- mouth were so frequent that people had almost come to regard them as they do fire-brigade trials. Nobody, in fact, seemed to realise that war was so dangerously near. The ultimatum, or what was tantamount to one, did come but wise counsels prevailed, and orders were sent in the beginning of November to Captain Marchand to haul down the flag and come home. 4f 'If # 41^ "Ip The French yielded, but they felt sore at heart. The crisis had come amid the preoccupations of the Dreyfus affair. That, in spite of the high nervous tension then prevalent among politicians, the danger ^ These facts reached me from different sources in the course of a few years and have not been recorded in those official sources of history we call Blue and Yellow Books. This, however, I may say: Each fact, as I have stated it, was told me by eye-witnesses or actors in the political drama, which was being played behind the scenes, while the public were listening to an angry unofficial discussion in the Press and to most polite *^ communiques " from official quarters. In 1902 in a speech at Manchester I stated most of them as above. My statements were given as sensational news in the news^- papers. No doubt has ever been expressed as to their accuracy, and I now regard them as historically correct. 146 FASHODA of war was averted, is a sign of political wisdom which does infinite credit to the French sense of proportion. The irregular course the crisis ran, the mystery of the attendant circumstances, the inauspicious calm throughout expectant Europe, the sudden collapse after a display of concentrated and determined energy, were all connected with the fact that nothing in inter- national politics can be isolated. Cross traditions and parallel traditions, side issues, domestic and party considerations, tendencies and counter-tendencies of public opinion, temperament of ministers and Parlia- ment, dynastic influences, financial questions, military questions, trade interests, are all and at all moments determining currents and eddies in the policy of a great Power. An individual foreign minister's tendencies, again, are affected by the temperament, prejudices and experience of his subordinates, and, when he places his points before his colleagues at a cabinet council, the more competent he is, the more difficult it must be to detach a question from the multitude of its qualifications and resolve it into a plain issue. TT * tT "Iv tP Foreign correspondents of newspapers, and I speak feelingly of their task, do their best to place questions before the public as plain issues, the which is further complicated by " tendential " information supplied to them by Foreign Offices. Foreign ministers make speeches which give just as much information as will show with what judicious and dignified discernment they are presiding over the business of the nation. Then comes the historian, who in a few pages tries to tell the story of years, but he cannot pretend to do more than give an approximate survey of impressions 147 L 2 - THIRTY YEARS based on these imperfect sources of information and the different official records of the national trans- actions. The story of the crisis of the autumn of 1898 is one of the cases in which history will have to be re-written more than once. TT '9r ^F ^r ^r In connection with the Fashoda affair, the inter- dependence of events warrants a close comparison of dates, though the result can at best only be an impression. On August 2, 1898, Lord Salisbury wrote to Lord Cromer giving him instructions in connection with the possibility of the Sirdar in his progress up the Nile meeting with '^ French authorities "...*' who may be encountered." It would be unreasonable to think that either the British or Egyptian Government was unaware that Marchand's arrival in Bahr-el-Ghazal was overdue in August. The mission had been timed to arrive at Fashoda in November, 1897. The delay was due to a premature fall in the waters of the Bahr- el-Ghazal. Marchand arrived, in fact, on July 10 at Fashoda, where he had been firmly entrenched with his 120 men for three months before General Kitchener arrived on September 18. The French Government of course knew. I even remember at the time hearing that we might look out for complications on the Upper Nile before long. It is not likely that between the West African possessions of France and Marchand communications had at any time entirely ceased. Nor is it likely that the French Government, knowing the difficulties which were bound to arise out of a claim by France to prior occupation of Bahr-el-Ghazal, left the Russian Government in ignorance of the situation. Ru.ssia had joined France in opposing the application 14.8 FASHODA to the Commission of the Egyptian Debt for the grant of the necessary sum to meet the expenses of the Dongola expedition, and they had together brought the subsequent judicial proceedings which negatived the grant. It would have been contrary to all the traditions of French loyalty, if France had kept Russia in the dark as to her project of sending out an expedi- tion or mission to occupy Bahr-el-Ghazal or as to its progress and probable date of arrival. Now, on August 12, a month after Marchand's arrival at Fashoda, Count Muravieff first communicated to the diplomatic corps at St. Petersburg the Czar's famous proposal to hold an International Conference to con- sider means for the preservation of peace among nations and " a possible reduction of the excessive armaments which weigh upon all nations." I well remember the puzzled observations on the proposal in Paris. The public was not then aware of the approaching casus belli between France and Great Britain. " On nous lache " was the comment of practically everybody in governing political milieux? j^ ^» j^ t^^ j^ TP tF ^P tF ^P I have put the facts alongside each other and leave the reader to draw his own conclusions ; still I must add that I do not think the Czar's merit in the least diminished, because his ministers may have chosen to bring forward his scheme at a time when it could have an immediate effect in discouraging a breach of the peace of Europe. That Russia did not wish to be dragged into a conflict with England not of her own choosing is only natural. This, later on, she made clear. In the second week of October Count Muravieff turned up 1 Compare Daniel, " L'ann^e politique," 1898, p. 304. 149 THIRTY YEARS in Paris, and, I have been informed, stated plainly to M. Delcasse that Russia could not be counted upon to support an attitude on the part of France which might endanger peace. Later on, M. Delcasse took his revenge for this Idchage and went, as we shall see, to St. Petersburg and told Count Muravieff that he could not count on France to worry England during the Boer war. I am not sure whether these two occasions for war were not avoided by the influence of the allies on each other. In any case it was evident that the alliance could not be counted upon for aggressive purposes, unless both parties to it had vital interests at stake. ^F ^F ^P ^T ^P Seen out of its place in the perspective of Anglo- French rivalry in Egypt and the Sudan, the Fashoda incident looked like an unprovoked and treacherous attempt to penetrate secretly into Anglo-Egyptian preserves and snatch what belonged to Egypt just when she was on the point of recovering it. Though I am sorry to say there was a good deal of justification for such an impression, the facts as we now know them amply warrant at least the qualification of " extenuating circumstances." It will be remembered that in connection with the negotiations over the lease of the Bahr-el-Ghazal province which had been granted to the Congo State by the Anglo-Congolese Agreement of May 12, 1894, France protested, and as a result the status qud, whatever it was, remained unchanged. To understand the dilemma with which the parties were confronted and in which no middle course was open to either, no compromise possible, the reader will have to carry his mind back to the early days of 150 FASHODA the British occupation. The position on the Upper Nile was then shortly as follows: In 1881 Arabi Pasha on the Lower Nile (Egypt proper) and Moham- med Ahmed, the Mahdi, on the Upper Nile (the Egyptian Sudan) revolted. With the aid of British forces the Arabi revolt was quelled at the battle of Tel- el- Kebir, but the religious upheaval under the Mahdi, who, on his death at Omdurman in 1885, was succeeded by the principal khaUfa AbduUah-el-Taaishi, spread rapidly over the whole Upper Nile area. By the beginning of 1883 the whole of the Sudan south of Khartoum, except the province of Bahr-el-Ghazal and the Equatorial provinces, was in revolt. Then came the annihilation of General Hicks' Egyptian force in March, 1883. Disaster followed disaster. General Baker was defeated at El-Teb in December of the same year. By the end of 1884 the position of General Gordon at Khartoum had become untenable. In January, 1885, the place was captured and General Gordon slain.^ To use Sir R. Wingate's words, " in the vast province of Bahr-el-Ghazal not a shred of Egyptian authority remained ; all had been sub- merged under the waves of Mahdism, which now rolled placidly over its broad plains bearing on their way vast bands of slaves for the greatly enlarged households of Mohammed Ahmed, his khalifas and his emirs." ^ In Equatoria, to the south and south-east of Bahr- 1 Lord Cromer, quoting Sir Reginald Wingate, describes the province of Bahr-el-Ghazal as five times as big as England. It is a district covered with forests and mountains and seamed with low valleys subject to inundation. The soil is exceptionally fertile and there are cattle in abundance, while the population is estimated at between three and four millions. This, adds Lord Cromer, was probably an over-estimate. The population of the Bahr-el-Ghazal province prior to the Dervish rule was subsequently estimated at 1,500,000. See ** Egypt," No. i of 1904, p. 79. ^ See Cromer's "Egypt" (ed. of 191 1), p. 494. 151 THIRTY YEARS el-Ghazal, the abandonment was equally complete. In 1879 General Gordon had appointed Edward Schnitzler (better known as Emin Pasha), a German traveller and naturalist, to be governor of the province. The extent of Emin's province was about one-seventh of the original extent of the province previous to the revolt. In February, 1886, Emin received a letter from Nubar Pasha in which he was informed that, as the Egyptian Government had decided to abandon the Sudan and were unable to afford him any assistance, he was authorised to take any steps he might consider advisable to leave the country. He did not avail himself of this authorisation till two years later, when H. M. Stanley's relief expedition reached him. Thenceforward till the reconquest of the Sudan the only European influence which seems to have reached Equatoria was from the Congo State on the south. This was the position when Great Britain entered into the agreement of May 12, 1894, by which she granted a lease of a part of this abandoned territory to the Congo State ! M. Hanotaux became Foreign Minister on the 30th of the same month. A word about this remarkable man who was destined to play a conspicuous part in French policy towards England will not be out of place here. Though his services until 1894 had been mainly connected with the archives of the ministry, in which he laid the foundations of his vast historical knowledge, he had had considerable incidental experi- ence of foreign affairs. In 1885 and 1886 he had been for a short time councillor of embassy at Constanti- nople. On returning to France he entered Parliament 152 FASHODA and sat for three years as a member of the Chamber of Deputies. At the general election of 1889 he was defeated. In 1892 he was reappointed to the Foreign Office as chief of the consular and commercial depart- ment, with the rank of minister plenipotentiary. It was, therefore, with the reputation of being not only a highly competent and experienced official, but also a distinguished historical writer and politician familiar with the exigencies of parliamentary life, that he was singled out by the scholarly M. Charles Dupuy to be the successor of M. Casimir-Perier, who had cumulated the offices of Premier and Foreign Minister in the previous short-lived Administration. M. Dupuy's new cabinet was one of exceptionally clever men, several of whom were destined to play very important parts in coming French politics. In it M. Delcasse held his first office as head of the then recently created Ministry of the Colonies. Thus, these two men, M. Hanotaux and M. Delcasse, who were, later on, to be rival exponents of a new policy, the one whose name was to be identified with the Russian alliance, the other who was to put his name to the treaties resulting from the Anglo-French entente^ sat side by side for the first time in office and worked together in the promotion of that fateful African policy which since 1893 has played such a conspicuous part in the foreign affairs of France. Of other ministers in the same cabinet, M. Felix-Faure, who was to become President of the Republic, was minister of Marine, M. Barthou, lately Prime Minister, Minister of Public Works, and M. Poincare, the present President of the Republic, Minister of Finance. # # # # « M. Hanotaux soon amply justified M. Dupuy's 153 THIRTY YEARS courage in taking an untried man to direct the hand- ling of the deHcate questions which were arising in Africa. A week after his accession to office, in answer to an " interpellation " on African affairs, he delivered a speech against the Anglo-Congolese agreement of May 12, 1894, which left no doubt as to the French attitude on the subject. This lease by Great Britain, as such, he pointed out, implied a " prise de possession " of territory which was still a part of Ottoman dominions, of the integrity of which she and France were guarantors. France could not acquiesce in such a violation of international law ; nor could he agree to England and the Congo State settling any question of the boundaries of the territory of the Congo State with- out reference to France, who had a right of pre- emption over it. His colleague, M. Delcasse, had at once taken measures to send a mission to the territory in question, to ensure the maintenance and defence of French rights. This vigorous attitude marked the new feeling of self-confidence, already referred to, which was maturing with the develop- ment of the Russian entente. M. Hanotaux' speech produced a great sensation in London, and the following day, M. Hanotaux relates. Lord Dufferin expostulated with him about its comminatory character and intimated that he had an ultimatum in his pocket, which, however, adds M. Hanotaux, he did not deliver ! In fact England gave way. The Foreign Office, evidently, did not consider it advisable to publish the correspondence and arguments at the time (1894), and it was not till 1898, when they were printed as an appendix to a White Paper about the Fashoda affair, that 154 FASHODA the public knew about the gaffe we committed in 1894. I cannot help thinking that if the public had been taken into the confidence of the Foreign Office and been at once informed of what took place in 1894 a frank discussion might have ensued, which would have cleared up the situation and prevented much of the misunderstanding which afterwards resulted from imperfect knowledge of the circumstances. I have no hesitation in saying that, subject to explanatory justifications which seem never to have been given, the agreement of May 12, 1894, was one of the wildest pieces of diplomatic jugglery on record. Under it Great Britain, as a party in her own right, granted, as she had no locus standi to do, " a lease to His Majesty King Leopold II., sovereign of the independent Congo State, of the territories herein- after defined, to be by him occupied and administered on the conditions and for the period of time hereafter laid down " — territories which Great Britain had neither occupied nor acquired. Even if she had bartered them in the name of Egypt, whose rights she merely reserved, there still remained the ques- tion of the abandonment and the extent to which Egyptian sovereignty over the Sudan had been lost. In his 1894 speech M. Hanotaux did not mention this point, and it was only later that the '^ terra nullius " theory was relied upon as a justification for the hoisting of the French flag at Fashoda. Till 1898, that is for sixteen years, from the Mahdist outbreak to the battle of Omdurman, the Sudan had been under neither British nor Egyptian rule/ # # * * # ^ The Egyptian garrisons and civil population had been "withdrawn." Sir Reginald Wingate estimated that the total garrisons in the Sudan, 15s THIRTY YEARS M. Marchand's mission was sent out at a time when the Sudan had already been thirteen years in a state of abandonment, and it reached Fashoda two months before the battle of Omdurman had restored it to Egyptian dominion. This fact and the episodes of 1894, which show British policy at that time to have been as weak as it was '' incorrect," are extenuating circumstances on the French side in a matter in which neither party can boast of having played a " beau rdle^ By dint of trying to circumvent each other the two Foreign Offices brought their respective nations to the brink of the most foolish war any two civilised States ever seriously contemplated. including General Hicks' army and the force sent under General Baker to Suakim, amounted to about 55,000 men ; of these about 12,000 were killed. The rest seem to have melted away, and only some 1 1,000 returned to Egypt. See Lord Cromer, " Egypt," p. 485. 156 CHAPTER XIV NATIONAL WRATH While the public agitation over the Fashoda incident was becoming less acute in France, in England the autumn political speeches kept it up. A letter to the Temps by an excellent, but in this matter indiscreet patriot, M. Deloncle (now one of the warmest champions of the entente)^ proposing the establishment of French educational centres at Khartoum and Fashoda, was pounced upon as reflecting French feeling and gave rise to very serious observations by Sir Edmund Monson, our Ambassador, at the annual banquet of the British Chamber of Commerce a few days later (December 6, 1898). He referred specifically to this proposal as an instance of a " policy of pin-pricks " which must inevitably perpetuate irritation across the Channel. The responsible French Press scouted the idea that M. Deloncle's proposal had any official countenance and nothing more was heard of it. The passage in Sir Edmund Monson's speech, however, went far beyond the scope of M. Deloncle's proposal. It ran : — " I would earnestly ask those who directly or indirectly, either as officials in power, or as unofficial exponents of public opinion, are responsible for the direction of the national policy, to discountenance and to abstain from the con- tinuance of that policy of pin-pricks which, while it can only procure ephemeral gratification to a short-lived ministry, 157 THIRTY YEARS must inevitably perpetuate across the Channel an irritation which a high-spirited nation must eventually feel to be in- tolerable. I would entreat them to resist the temptation to try to thwart British enterprise by petty manoeuvres ; such as I grieve to see suggested by the proposal to set up educational establishments as rivals to our own in the newly-conquered provinces of the Sudan. Such ill-considered provocation, to which I confidently trust no official countenance will be given, might well have the effect of converting that policy of forbearance from taking the full advantage of our recent victories and our present position, which has been enunciated by our highest authority, into the adoption of measures which, though they evidently find favour with no incon- siderable party in England, are not, I presume, the object at which French sentiment is aiming." This passage was obviously inserted under instruc- tions from London. It w^as a discordant note in the harmony of the speech, and in the French rendering it v^as toned dow^n with a compliment to M. Delcasse, whose conciliatory attitude the Ambassador com- mended with gratitude. It was the only passage which could be called " intempestify^ the term appHed to it in France. Hf ^ * m * In 1897 I had been elected to the vice-presidency of the Chamber of Commerce, and, on expiry of my two years' tenure of the office, the chances were that I should occupy the presidency for the two following years. The British Chamber of Commerce in Paris has always been the most responsible British body in France, and its chairman has always been treated by both the British and French Governments as voicing the commercial and industrial interests of Great Britain in France. Hence there has, of course, been a more or less intimate connection between the Chamber of Commerce and the Embassy. As vice- 158 NATIONAL WRATH president, owing to the frequent absences of the then chairman, Mr. Harding, I was de facto chair- man to a great extent already. Anyhow, to me as the immediate prospective chairman, with maturing views of how I could utilise my tenure of office for the benefit of Anglo-French relations, the Ambassador's speech was of great importance, and a few days later I called on his Excellency to ascertain whether the Anglo-French negotiations arising out of the Fashoda affair were not pro- ceeding satisfactorily. " No, it is all right," he said, " but when the lion is not roaring he is supposed abroad to have become domesticated. Twisting his tail used to be a favourite American pastime. Pricking him with pins for some time has been a French entertainment. Moreover, it has become a sort of axiom in French policy that whatever England wants is necessarily detrimental to France." When Sir Edmund met M. Delcasse at the next weekly reception he had asked the Minister whether he had read the speech and had any observation to make on it. " None whatever," replied M. Delcasse, " except as regards your praise of me ; on dira maintenant qui je suis vendu aux Anglais." The speech might have done more than anything else to prepare the ground for the new seed which was about to be sown but for this unfortunate interpolation. # # # # « Anti-English public feehng, instead of becoming calmer, grew again in intensity in spite of official attempts to make it more reasonable. President Felix-Faure at the diplomatic reception 159 THIRTY YEARS on New Year's Day did his best to represent the with- drawal from Fashoda as an act of noble forbearance. " France," he said, " had always placed in the front rank of her preoccupations the consolidation of peace, that boon so precious for the happiness of peoples, and it was not in the course of last year that any doubt could be felt as to the sincerity of her efforts and the value of her co-operation." Towards the end of the month M. Ribot, in a long, well-considered, and care- fully-prepared speech, set out French policy, as viewed by a former Foreign Minister whose command of judicious language and power of marshalling his facts marked him out to '^ strike the keynote " the Anglo-French situation required. M. Ribot, who had been my neighbour at Sannois, and with whom I had often had opportunities of comparing notes, had been one of my warmest supporters in the creation of the Franco-Scottish Society, and I knew him well as a staunch friend of an Anglo-French entente. His speech pointed the way to a better understanding. M. Delcasse followed in a speech which came as a natural development of M. Ribot's. But these speeches changed nothing. * # # # * The anti-English wrath, in spite of all efforts to allay it, went on " smouldering." During the Fashoda crisis I was a candidate for admission to the " Epatants," the chic social and literary club of Paris. One of my " "par rains " came round to tell me that he had withdrawn my name for the time being, because there was not the slightest chance of my being elected, so strong was the anti- English feeling in the club. This was a mere sample of the feeling throughout the upper and professional 1 60 NATIONAL WRATH classes in Paris. Among the labouring classes it was quite different. I had workmen in my house at Passy at this very time and found them perfectly devoid of anti-English animus. One of them, a skilled and intelligent artisan, a glazier who was adjusting some old stained glass panels for me, I asked to find out what the feeling was. " Que ga nous fait Egypte ? Anglais ! c'est pas prussiens " was all the reply he got from the men he sounded. flP tF TT ^T The Boer war changed all that. The Boers were republicans. They were a tiny independent com- munity resisting a bullying great Power. That they delivered the ultimatum made no difference. England had been massing troops to invade them for months. Mr. Chamberlain had deliberately and gratuitously provoked the war for the benefit of capitalists. Truly popular indignation in France against England there had never been on account of the Fashoda affair, but for the Boers fighting for their indepen- dence there was an immense outburst of popular sympathy throughout France. It is true that it was not confined to France, for even in the United States where the official feeling was ostentatiously favourable to England, I was told by Americans in Paris, popular feeling welcomed every British reverse. It was the same, as I learnt afterwards, among the French Canadians, in spite of their loyalty to the British rule. In the French manifestations of sympathy for our South African foes, however, there was an accumulated energy which was the more alarming because it had no reference to a grievance which could be adjusted. * # # * # The attitude of public opinion in England about T.Y. l6l M THIRTY YEARS the Dreyfus affair, moreover, added fuel to the flames. Long after French pubHc opinion had made up its mind that Dreyfus was innocent and the only question was how legally to set the matter right, English newspapers went on publishing long articles to show the iniquity of an innocent man's condemnation, articles insulting to French justice and describing France as a nation of degenerates. Even British statesmen descended to language about France and the French which was quite unworthy of British intelligence. Curious incidents came to my knowledge showing the immense distance there is between the same people when they are in their normal frame of mind and when they are lifted on any wave of public excitement. A young friend of mine, now the distinguished editor of a leading French newspaper, who was passing his honeymoon with his beautiful young American wife in the Lake Country, told me on his return of how, on the announcement of the Rennes judgment, the land- lord of the hotel at which he was staying had expelled him and his wife in the most offensive and brutal manner, on the ground that he would have no " cursed Frenchmen " staying in his hotel ! As a fact this high-minded devotee of the rights of man punished my unoffending friend for misdeeds he had been one of the pioneers in denouncing. Not one word did he say of this incident in his paper, merely regarding it as a case of exceptional fatuity. I heard from another source of how in a certain furniture factory in the Tottenham Court Road a sober business manager became so hysterical, under the influence of the prevailing mania, that he sacrificed 162 NATIONAL WRATH his business interests to it and refused to take on any French artisans, however capable. One of the rfiost grotesque incidents was the perse- cution with knotted handkerchiefs at the Hyde Park pro-Dreyfus demonstration of some young Frenchmen who had come to take part in it ! This attitude of EngHshmen towards the Dreyfus affair had a most deplorable effect on French feeling towards Englishmen, though but little was inserted in papers which have any large circulation among the working classes. This co-operation of the Press with the Government in the endeavour to attenuate anti-English feeling showed that even patriotism is influenced by that sense of propor- tion which makes life in France so much worth Hving. •It tF W TV W These talkative Frenchmen are really less emo- tional than the relatively silent Englishman whose silence they admire. " Beware of the limbs of the inarticulate," an American friend once observed to me, which reminds me of a policeman at Clerken- well Green with whom I was chatting one day while waiting for some wild person to get his crowd together. " It ain't the talking chaps as does any 'arm," he said — '' nor them as listens. It's the chap that can't talk and mopes by himself that's dangerous." I had taken a Berlin friend high in office to see our popular safety valves. " Such Socratic wisdom among the police would not be understood in a military State like Germany, where any relaxation of the consciousness of a controlling external force would let loose the feeling of revolt which is a fatal conse- 163 M 2 THIRTY lYEARS quence of the processes of a modern Polizei-Staat,^^ was the thoughtful observation of a man who, like many eminent Germans, regards familiarity with freedom as the best police force. 164 CHAPTER XV MIXED IMPRESSIONS One of the diplomatic puzzles of the year 1899 was why on August 2 of that year M. Delcasse, the French Foreign Minister, went to St. Petersburg. On July 29, the Hague Peace Conference held its final sitting, and the conventions agreed to were signed. On July 28, a debate in the British Parliament had shown that the complications in South Africa were far from approach- ing a solution and that, on the contrary, the antago- nism between the Boer republics and the British Government was becoming still more pronounced. " I am hopeful," said Mr. Chamberlain in that fateful debate, '' because President Kruger has, I believe, come to the conclusion that the Government is in earnest ; because I have an absolute conviction that the great mass of the people of this country are pre- pared to support us, if the necessity should arise, in any measures we may think it necessary to take to secure justice to the British subjects in the Transvaal." For over a year war had been talked about, but nobody seemed seriously to think things would come to that pass. In September, 1898, I had met Dr. Leyds at one of the functions held at the Hague in honour of the meeting there of the Institute of International Law and had asked him how he thought the pending questions could be settled. He told me the difficulty lay essentially in a difference of temperament. Though the English and the Dutch were so like each other in 16s THIRTY YEARS many ways, there were others in which no two people could be more unlike. They were gradually, however, coming to understand each other's standpoints better : even in his opinion, however much they might bluff each other, both sides meant to come to terms of some sort. That was, I think, the general feeling in 1898. In France certainly nobody at that time thought the South African republics would engage in a war which must necessarily cost them their independence. tP •JP W ^ Meanwhile something had occurred in London which changed the whole course of events. The story, as it was told to me, was that a dinner-table conversation between Mr. Chamberlain and an emi- nent English Q.C. occasioned the volte-face. The eminent Q.C. expressed surprise that Mr. Chamberlain should be so keen on obtaining for Englishmen easier terms of naturalisation in the Transvaal, as if this were a British interest. Of course Mr. Chamberlain must know, observed the Q.C, that under the Naturalisa- tion Act of 1870 a British subject loses his British nationality on acquiring a foreign nationality. The idea that a pro-British majority would gradually grow up among the Transvaal electors, after naturali- sation of the British settlers, might obviously not be realised. Mr. Chamberlain, says the story, had not considered this contingency. The eminent Q.C. went on to say he wondered the Government made so little of the suzerainty question. After all, the Transvaal republic held its existence as a State under a grant from Great Britain which was not absolute, seeing that Great Britain had retained a link between them. The constitutive convention was not a liqui- dation settlement, but a running agreement under 166 MIXED IMPRESSIONS which there was an obligation to refer any agree" ments with foreign States to the British Government for ratification. The Transvaal was thus a British dependency, however feeble the link. Thereafter, the story goes on, the naturalisation question was allowed to slide and the suzerainty question became the main issue. This issue had a vital character which the naturalisation question had not. ^F ^v TT ^r In September, 1900, I met Dr. Leyds again. He seemed, like most far-seeing observers, to feel that the more victories the Boers gained the more fatal it would be to the independence of the republics. This was contrary to the then current impression, which was that Dr. Leyds had been encouraged by Count Muraviefl to think that the Boer republics would benefit by the friendly attitude towards them of Russia and that an intervention similar to that which saved China from dismemberment in 1895 would warrant the Boer republics in resisting British demands. He had probably been disabused of that expectation by M. Delcasse. VP TP •?!• "TT The original object of the Austro-German alliance was a defensive combination against Russian manoeuvres among the Slav population in both empires and that of Italy, in joining it, to react against French expansion in North Africa. I have endeavoured to show that Russia in entering into an alliance with France had in view her traditional anti-English Asiatic policy and that France had in view her anti-Enghsh North African and Egyptian policy. The resulting balance of power was, there- fore, a consequence, not an object, of this grouping 167 THIRTY YEARS of the great continental Powers. Russian diplomacy has always taken care to negative the idea that the alliance was directed against Germany. The drawing of Germany and France together into joint action with Russia against Japan at the close of the Chino-Japanese war was a Russian move in which Russia was supported by her two friends against the common Franco-Russian enemy, England. It was not unknown in the autumn of 1899 that the Russian Government was actuated by strongly-marked anti- English tendencies. Count Muravieff still followed the old Muscovite policy of Asiatic penetration which kept Russia in a state of constant rivalry with British interests. To alarm the adverse State, provoke negotiations and push one's own projects in the settle- ment, is one of the tricks of the diplomatic trade, and no diplomacy has shown a greater capacity for this branch of business than the Russian. I say so without intending any special reproach to Russian diplomacy ; that of other countries follows at its heels to the best of its ability. M. Hanotaux I may mention, however, has paid a high tribute to that of this country, critical as it is. I will transcribe it later on,-"- leaving to him the responsibility of the . exception it may seem to imply and rejoicing in his testimony that we are not worse than our neigh- bours ! The then impending South African war, which bid fair to occupy the small British army and keep the navy busy with the search for contraband for some time to come, must have struck the enemies of England as an opportunity for which they ought to be prepared. French manufacturers had been supply- ^ See Appendix, X. 168 MIXED IMPRESSIONS ing the Boers with war material on a scale which foreshadowed hard fighting, and, through France, Russia was no doubt, in accordance with the practice between the allies, well informed as to the resistance the Boers were in a position to offer to British occupa- tion. Russian railway extension into Central Asia, on the other hand, was at the time blossoming into different ambitious schemes, in opposition to British Indo-European schemes which, if realised, would have reduced the profit-earning capacity of the Russian schemes and seriously interfered with the prospect of obtaining the necessary capital for them in France. - Was M. Delcasse's visit to St. Petersburg connected with the alleged encouragement given by Russia to the South African republics, in which France would naturally have been asked to join ? The French Government, in answer to Press inquiries and com- mentaries on the journey, confined itself to saying that the visit had a general character, its purpose being to discuss matters relating to the consolidation of the Franco-Russian alliance. It is not going far afield to suppose that M.Delcasse thought it desirable to discuss withM. Muravieff the potential attitude of the allies in the South African question, should war between Great Britain and the Boer republics break out and Germany assume an attitude favourable to the republics, as they seemed to expect she would. Nor do I think we should be going far afield in supposing that M. Delcasse, intending to give French policy a direction friendly to Great Britain, thought it right to impart his views to his St. Petersburg colleague, who was known to be a persona grata at Berlin. I had called at the Quai d'Orsay shortly before 169 THIRTY YEARS M. Delcasse's departure with reference to the proposed invitation to the British Chambers of Commerce to meet in Paris and the Anglo-French rapprochement^ for which I had begun to interest pubHc opinion, and I received so much encouragement that I determined to take at once a first great step towards it, which I did at the Belfast meeting of the Associated Chambers in September.^ The conviction at the Quai d'Orsay was that the British Chambers would be dissuaded by the Foreign Office from holding a meeting in France, even if they should themselves be favourable, which was very unlikely. M. Delcasse was, however, himself sure that if the meeting were held in France during the Exhibition, it would have a most beneficial effect on public opinion in both countries. There was nothing, he told me, he personally would welcome more warmly than a state of feeling which would permit the two Governments to negotiate a solution of the outstanding difficulties in a friendly give-and-take spirit. Looking back at the events of that time in the light of subse- quent knowledge, I venture the surmise that M. Delcasse's sudden visit to St. Petersburg was under- taken to explain to Count Muravieff why France could not be counted upon for any joint action antagonistic to England, and to make it perfectly clear that if she associated herself with any joint action, it could only be pacific action in the sense of mediation offered in accordance with the provisions of the Hague Peace Convention which had just been signed. I can imagine that M. Delcasse assured Count Muravieff of the unalterable loyalty of France to the Franco-Russian alliance, and that he added that the 1 Seep. 175. 170 MIXED IMPRESSIONS new President, M. Loubet, and the new Prime Minister, M. Waldeck-Rousseau, regarded it as indispensable to the preservation of the European status qud that Russia should be able to count on the good-will of France wherever the welfare of Russia was concerned. He probably pointed out that France was firmly attached to a policy of peace ; that the Exhibition about to be opened was intended as a great peace manifestation ; that the French people looked to the new President and the new Government to do nothing to provoke further ill-feeling on the part of England ; and that, on the contrary, England being the nearest neighbour and best customer of French industries, they intended to promote all efforts to draw the two countries together, hoping that ultimately this would lead to a rapprochement^ through France, between Russia and England and put an end to the British policy of obstruction from which Russia had so long been suffering.-^ That mysterious visit of M. Delcasse to St. Peters- burg in the beginning of August, in short, I believe to have been the first official step towards the Anglo- French entente which was ultimately to follow as soon as public opinion was ripe for diplomatic action. * 4fr 4ft ^ 4^ TT ^P "Tr TT Though M. Delcasse and the French Foreign Office favoured the scheme of a rapprochement and promised to use their influence, if the invitation to the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom was accepted, to secure them a hearty welcome, French feeling con- tinued to show itself increasingly hostile to England. I must add, however, that I do not think it was ever ^ It is well to remember that the Russians regarded England as the cause of the constant unrest on their frontiers and as the source of all Russia's troubles in Asia I 171 THIRTY YEARS quite so bad, as regards Englishmen individually, as had been the anti-French feeling in England. The animus, anyhow, was strong enough to be exploited by some enterprising papers, and a caricature of Queen Victoria appeared in one of them which excited such indignation among Englishmen that I was afraid it would wreck our project. The cari- cature appeared early in the last days of November. It was the work of an artist of Greek origin. I never was able to get a copy of it, nor did I ever meet a Frenchman who had seen it. Some enterprising agency seems to have bought up edition after edition as fast as they could be printed for export to England, where the copies were sold at a heavy premium. This happened so rapidly that all the mischief had been done before the Government could stop the publica- tion. In spite of the indignation this coarse and insulting caricature caused, caricaturists still con- trived to make fun of our aged Queen. As president of the Chamber of Commerce, I called on M. Poidatz, the managing director of the Matin (M. Stephane Lausanne was at that time, if I am not mistaken, its London correspondent), and asked him to take some action in the m^atter. M. Poidatz suggested that I should write a letter on the subject to his paper, where he promised it should appear in a conspicuous position. As this was the first appeal made at the time in France to promote a kinder feeling between the two peoples, it may not be without interest to read an English translation of its chief contents which appeared the following day in the Daily Messenger ^ : — " As an Englishman in close personal contact with the business and social life of both countries, allow me to tell you ^ December 3, 1899. 172 MIXED IMPRESSIONS how regrettable and painful a thing it is to see two peoples, who ought to understand one another so well, go so far as to vilify one another. The most painful thing of all is to see writers and caricaturists make use of their talent to excite international susceptibilities. I make no pretension to saying whether England is in the right or in the wrong with regard to the present war, for I can understand that generous minds may well sympathise with a small people fighting against a great Power. Nor do I forget that Englishmen manifested similar sentiments at the time of the Siamese and Madagascar complications. It would be a great misfortune for civilisation if a nation neces- sarily took offence at the opinion of another in such matters. The right to criticise and toleration of criticism are a form of freedom, but freedom itself is capable of abuse, and when the abuse becomes outrageous, it is the duty of thinking men to point out its possible consequences. That happened when a certain section of the English Press was mad enough to propose that the 1900 Exhibition should be boycotted as a protest against the Rennes verdict. It was at that time necessary to remind the authors of this stupid scheme that France was our nearest neighbour, with whom we ought to maintain good relations, and that the genius of France furnishes us with a number of the things which go to render life agreeable ; that France, by its form of government, its tastes, its habits, its aspirations is the country which most nearly approaches our own, and that our literary, artistic, and commercial interests are identical with those of France. It is a fortunate thing that we had in England men who knew France well enough to understand the importance to France of the success of the 1900 Exhibition. What the leading English newspapers did then to arrest the boycott move- ment the great organs of the French Press ought to do now to put a stop to the present most unjust and regrettable insults to the Queen. " The French, with their ' esprit frondeur^ and their tendency to laugh at everything, do not easily understand how the English, who can support with the greatest calm any railing at their politics, their customs, their character, their institu- tions and their public men, are mortally offended when their Queen is attacked. There is something almost religious in the devotion of her subjects to their revered Queen. It must be remembered that the great majority of her subjects have known no other Sovereign since their birth, that her ^73 THIRTY YEARS image is graven on every single piece of current coin in England, that her army is ' the Queen's army,' that her great court of justice is ' the Queen's Bench,' that the ships which represent the power and the prestige of England are ^ the Queen's ships,' and that in every public ceremony throughout the Empire the memory of the great and venerable Queen who has presided for sixty years over its development is evoked. " The friends of France recognise with pleasure that the Frenchman is chivalrous, that he possesses in a marked degree respect for old age. What then has happened that he should no longer show the veneration and sympathy Frenchmen have hitherto always shown, for our aged Queen, who herself has always shown such sympathy and affection for France? " It has been stated that the attacks in question were not directed against the Queen personally, but against the country which she governs. I can assure the writers and caricaturists who so think, that the Prince of Wales and every other Englishman who loves France, have been deeply wounded by these attacks, which seem to them nothing but foul outrages on the personality of an honoured and venerated lady." This letter, which, was widely quoted, had the desired effect and no further caricatures of the Queen appeared. TP W Tv TP The next step in the progress of the Anglo-French movement was the invitation to the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom to meet in 1900 in Paris, but the invitation, its acceptance, and realisa- tion are a chapter of history by themselves in which the British Chambers of Commerce have their place as those who first appreciated the political bearing of Anglo-French friendship. 174 CHAPTER XVI THE DAWN OF BETTER FEELING At the Belfast meeting, in September, 1899, of the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom, I informed Sir Stafford (afterwards Lord) Northcote, the president, of my proposal, as chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris, to invite the Association to hold their autumn session the following year in Paris. As I was not sure of obtaining a favourable majority on the Board of the British Chamber, which would be partially renewed in February, Sir Stafford's public statement on the subject had to be framed in a vague form which would not pledge the British Chamber and leave it open to the French Chamber of Commerce in Paris to give the invitation, if need be. As I had the French Government behind me, I had no doubt its influence would be used to procure an invitation from the French Chamber, should its intervention be necessary. Sir Stafford, therefore, confined himself to stating that he thought it " very probable that next year an invitation would be extended to the association to hold its autumnal gathering at Paris. In regard to it nothing formal could be done at that meeting, but great interest in the proposed visit was being taken by the Paris Chamber." As the invitation could only be formally accepted at the spring meeting in March, I had six months before me to spread such necessary feeling among the ^7S THIRTY YEARS chambers of commerce in the United Kingdom, among the members of the British Chamber in Paris, and among the pubHc generally, as would make the giving and the acceptance of the invitation the natural con- sequence of a state of public opinion and commend it to the Foreign Offices of the two countries. As regards our Ambassador, Sir Edmund Monson, I met with no response, and I believe that at that time our Foreign Office did not believe it possible to determine any more friendly current of French public opinion towards England or any change in the deep- seated British distrust of French policy as regards what we considered vital interests for us. # :^ « # # During the autumn little progress was made beyond concerting joint efforts. In the January issue of the Revue de Paris, M. Ernest Lavisse, member of the French Academy, the distinguished French historian, made a first move on the French side. " II y a quelques annees," he wrote, " si Fori cherchait dans le monde les causes des conflits possibles, on trouvait I'Alsace, la rivalite de I'Angleterre et de la Russie en Perse et en Extreme-Orient, celle de la Russie et de PAutriche dans les Balkans, les luttes des nationalites balkaniques, celles des races de la monarchie austro-hongroise ; a quoi s'est ajoute plus recemment le developpement de la politique exterieure des Etats-Unis. Un conflit entre la France et I'Angleterre paraissait impossible. Aujourdhui cette eventualite semble la plus redoutable de celles qui menacent la paix du monde. Entre les deux pays, une hostilite, qui pourtant n'a pas de raisons graves, devient de plus en plus aigue ; si Ton n'y prend garde, ce sera bientot une haine aveugle. " Personne en France, si ce n'est une tres petite bande de fous, ne souhaite une guerre avec I'Angleterre. Tout ce que ce pays compte de gens eclaires repugne a I'idee d'une si criminelle et barbare folie. Mais il est certain que des senti- ments d'antipathie nationale qui sommeillaient dans la masse 176 THE DAWN OF BETTER FEELING se reveillent, et void que les gens senses sont reduits a con- siderer comme possible la folie barbare et criminelle." # # # # # I had written to Mr. W. L. Courtnev, editor of the Fortnightly Reviezo^ pretty fully on the movement I proposed to engineer. On December i6, 1899, he replied acknowledging receipt of an article I had sent him on the subject and adding : " The subject is precisely one in which I feel great interest myself, and which I would be glad to champion in the English Press." As the January number was already made up, the article, however, could only appear in February, which it did in the place of honour. Its title, " A Lance for the French," described its object, and what I said, though obvious and commonplace to those who lived in France or who were otherwise in contact with French people, seemed novel to those for whom France was merely a mischievous and wicked country, which was everywhere thwarting good old England in her rigl|.teous endeavour to lay the heathen world under her enHghtened control. It reads like ancient history now. I sent the friendly references to the article in the French papers to Mr. Courtney, who wrote me in reply at the end of the month an interesting letter which shows what British preoccupations were. The reference in it to the distinguished " enfant terrihle^^ as Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman afterwards called him, shows what a conspicuous part he played in his country's destinies at the beginning of the new century. " I have looked with interest," said Mr. Courtney, " at the papers you have sent me with reference to your article. I T.Y. 177 N THIRTY YEARS intend to try and follow it up with another article so as to keep the matter going. I do not think, so far as I am any judge, that there is any desire to force a quarrel on France, but there is a very general impression in England that France intends to force a quarrel on us as soon as the Exhibition is off her hands. A great deal of this is mere newspaper gossip, I am aware, but some of it I am persuaded is due to Mr. Chamber- lain's supposed hostility to France and the French." #jfa at. 4t. jfc TT Tv" tt tt Down to the very day when my invitation was on the agenda of the March meeting of the Associated Chambers it was viewed with distrust. Even on the board of the British Chamber of Commerce most of the directors thought the scheme too ambitious. Several openly opposed it, and predicted a disaster which would do more harm than good in view of the anti-English spirit then prevailing. However, I had a few quixotic friends ready to follow me in the wild adventure : — Mr. Thomas Hounsfield, the vice- president, Mr. (now Sir) J. G. Filter, his brother-in- law, Mr. E. G. Connell, the then senior partner of Edmund Potter & Co., of Manchester — one of the finest types of Anglo-Scotsmen I have ever known, generous and romantic, an artist in his tastes and a gentleman in the noblest sense of the term — and that grand old Englishmen Sir Edward Blount. When the board decided that no pecuniary obligation could be undertaken by the Chamber and I took over the whole responsibility, these four gentlemen immediately offered to share the expense with me. Other donors followed, among them Sir John Blundell Maple and Mr. Thomas Blackwell. In a short time the fund was large enough to meet all emergencies. To return to the March meeting of the association, Mr. Harper, vice-president, who presided in the 178 THE DAWN OF BETTER FEELING absence, owing to illness, of the president. Lord Avebury, told me that the president was much con- cerned about the anti-English feeling in France and doubted whether it was judicious to press the invita- tion. He, as acting president, had also had com- munications from different important members in the same sense and asked me what would be the impression produced in France if the majority voted against its acceptance. I asked him to transfer the subject to the agenda of the following day. Mean- while, Lord Salisbury sent a cipher telegram to the Ambassador in Paris to inquire what he thought of the proposal. The reply from Sir Edmund Monson, though unencouraging, was not adverse, and Lord Salisbury informed Lord Avebury that he saw no objection to its being accepted. The following report of the proceedings on the subject appeared in the daily papers : — Mr. Barclay, chairman of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris, then formally invited the Association to hold its autumnal meeting in Paris as the guests of the British Chamber of Commerce. He said : " In connection with this invitation I should like, with your permission, Sir, to make a few remarks about the rumoured ill-feeling in France towards Englishmen. If there is any such ill-feeling it must be of the most superficial character, for it certainly does not in the slightest degree affect the relations of Frenchmen towards Englishmen personally. I have, moreover, the very best possible authority, both French and English, for saying that the official relations between the two countries were never more cordial. " In France, however, as in England, misunderstandings will sometimes crop up, and when they do, it is the duty of those who know better to do their best to arrest their growth. The misunderstanding in the present case is reciprocal. " The impression among the French is that we are seeking for a pretext to quarrel with them, and the impression in 179 N 2 THIRTY YEARS England seems to be that the French are only waiting for the close of the Exhibition to pick a quarrel with us. Nothing, I know as a fact, is farther from the official mind on both sides, and the very nature of the misunderstanding excludes any possibility of a desire to quarrel among the public at large of either country. " No doubt the French Press might have striven to give a different direction to French sentiment as regards the war, but we must not be too susceptible respecting matters of opinion. We have always ourselves claimed an unrestricted right to criticise, and Englishmen would be the first to regret any precedent of nations taking offence at freedom of speech among the private citizens of other countries. " No doubt there were some vile caricatures of Her Majesty, and they very justly excited the indignation of every loyal Englishman. But we must not hold a nation responsible for the odious acts of individuals in a free country. Nor must we forget how immediate was the discontinuance of these caricatures as soon as it was pointed out that an aged foreign Sovereign and lady who had never been other than a friend of the French people was not to be treated in the same way as an elected political officer. The most anti-English paper in Paris and one of the greatest offenders, the Mating at once gave a protesting letter on the subject the most prominent place in its columns, and the caricatures which have since been published have never exceeded the limits of legitimate caricature. " But even while the sympathies of the French have been on the side of the Boers, there has been nothing but admira- tion for the dogged determination of the English in their time of trial, for the courage of our soldiers hurled day after day against the fortified rocks held by the enemy, for the absence of all recriminating spirit and for the magnificent standing shoulder to shoulder of the whole Empire when it seemed to those who did not know British character as if our colonies might consider the moment propitious to assert their separate interests. If you have read the Temps, the D^bats, the Figaro, the Gaulois, even the execrated Matin, since the first reverses, you will have seen that this has throughout been the feeling of the French. We can therefore afford to let them sympathise with two small communities struggling for inde- pendence. We have never failed to feel for the weaker side, even without quite knowing whether the weaker side was in the right or the wrong, and probably we shall have to wait a 1 80 THE DAWN OF BETTER FEELING long time before public opinion will take a dispassionate view in such cases. Even if there were any hostility in France to England, this would only be the more reason for our doing everything in our power to remove it. Nothing will appeal more to the generous feelings of the French than your disregarding current rumours and warnings and stray anglers in troubled waters, for whom peace means empty hands. It was an immense satisfaction to the French to see our future Sovereign at the head of the British section of the Exhibition. No man, not even any Frenchman, is more popular in France than the Prince of Wales, and if there is any man in the world who has it in his power by a word to make the whole French nation kind, it is His Royal Highness. " The Exhibition will shortly be opened, and you may be sure, gentlemen, that a very slight effort on our part will place us once more on the best footing even with the French Press, for the French are a warm-hearted people, ready, like Cyrano de Bergerac, * pour un out ou un -non ' to fight or to embrace. Nowhere in the wide world have we better and more admiring friends, and you may depend on a hearty welcome, not only from the whole British community in Paris, but from every representative authority of France." The chairman stated that Mr. Barclay had dealt so con- clusively with the only doubt which might have lurked in the minds of some of the members, that he could only heartily thank the British Chamber in Paris for its cordial invitation, and put its acceptance to the vote. It was carried, amid great applause, unanimously. The vote, as seen, resulted in a unanimous accept- ance, though many members had expressed themselves in private very strongly against the association meeting anywhere abroad at all, and, as a fact, it did seem anomalous that a purely British institution should meet in a foreign country to deliberate on purely British questions. But all felt that no con- siderations of form or precedent v^ere of much account compared w^ith the enormous importance of improving Anglo-French relations. « * * # « The good influence of the move was immediately i8i THIRTY YEARS visible. The Press responded to the challenge, and my difficulty was not to find entertainment and hospitality for the guests who were to meet in Paris in September, but, with courtesy, to confine accept- ance to what was useful for the achievement of my object, viz., to produce an overwhelming effect on French and British public opinion. On the French official side I was practically given carte blanche to arrange everything as I thought best. I used my discretion so fully that one day M. Millerand, Minister of Commerce, who himself took an active interest in the preparations, exclaimed rather petu- lently, " Mais, M. le President, vous nous traitez comme des automates " ; but the cause was too momentous to consider anybody's personal con- venience, and I was soon forgiven for insisting on an effective and artisticallv co-ordinated ensemble. The meeting was the largest muster of British Chambers of Commerce on record. The number represented was, if I remember aright, 85, and the number of representatives and their families was somewhere between 500 and 600. The number at the banquet at which I presided was over 800, which included a large number of Frenchmen we had invited. Every French authority, from the President of the Republic to the gendarmes at the Exhibition, co- operated in this patriotic work de rendre les franc ais et les anglais amis. As the President was to spend September at Rambouillet, he authorised me to invite a dozen gentlemen to lunch with him there and placed the presidential railway carriage at their disposal to take them down. The State theatres were thrown open to the visitors, the Paris Chamber 182 THE DAWN OF BETTER FEELING of Commerce gave a brilliant reception at which the Garde Republicaine in gala uniform lined the entrance and staircase as on royal visits. All the French domestic and colonial Exhibition authorities offered special entertainments, down to granting the hospi- tality of the Trocadero itself for the meetings. M. Millerand not only gave a garden party in the charming gardens of his ministry, but himself in the name of the Government welcomed the visitors and at the banquet proposed the Queen's health. Not an hour of the day was left without something interesting to do. Only the British Embassy was closed, owing to mourning for the Duke of Edinburgh. Mr. (now Sir) Herbert Jekyll, British Commissioner at the Exhibition, was afraid that he would have to follow the Ambassador's example, but he wrote to the Prince of Wales, who was president of the Commission, and received instructions to do everything in his power to help in the entertainment. This opened the flood- gates of British hospitality as well, and the British sections now joined with the French. It was a perfect avalanche of entertainment which might have filled a month of daily enjoyment and to spare. The Cingalese section, under the direction of Mr. W. E. Davidson, now Governor of Newfoundland, distin- guished itself by the exceptional interest of its exhibits and hospitality. There was only one painful occurrence. I was asked to give the Minister of Commerce a list of the gentlemen who ought to be decorated on the occasion with the Legion of Honour. I handed a list to the minister's private secretary, who afterwards told me that, on making the usual application at the British Embassy for Her Majesty's concurrence, the 183 THIRTY YEARS reply absolutely negatived the idea of conferring any decorations at all. The assembling in Paris of such a large number of representatives and important men " broke the ice," as the Report of the British Commissioners of the Exhibition pointed out. " Up to the month of August," it read, " few British visitors came to the Exhibition. Various reasons contributed to deter Your Majesty's subjects from visiting Paris, and no change was perceptible previous to the visit of the delegates of the Associated Chambers of Commerce early in September. They were received with marked cordiality, and their visit was a striking success, owing largely to the efforts of Lord Avebury and his colleagues, and to the excellent arrangements made by Mr. Thomas Barclay, the president of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris. Whether it was due to this or other causes, British visitors began to come in very large numbers immediately after the return of the Associated Chambers, and continued to flock to Paris until the very end of the Exhibition." Not a little of the success of the meeting was in fact due to the prestige and calm courtesy of the late Lord Avebury, v^ho, under his more familiar name of Sir John Lubbock, v^as well known to every literate Frenchman and who, as president of the association, conducted its labours and spoke in its name with an unaffected dignity which commanded general admiration.-^ # # « # * The iron was now hot, but other things had to be done to keep it hot. One of the first men to whom I confided my plan had been my friend, Baron Pierre de Coubertin, founder of the *' Olympic Games," with whom a review I had written in Literature of his excellent book, " The Evolution of France under the ^ He spoke French with scarcely an accent and quite grammatically. 184 THE DAWN OF BETTER FEELING Third Republic," a couple of years before, had brought me into contact. He wrote me in English on Septem- ber 20, a fortnight after the meeting : — " It was strange indeed that I was just going to write to you, so anxious was I to tell you with what interest and pleasure I followed the progress and happy result of your admirable plan. You did the one thing that could, under the present unfavourable circumstances, act most powerfully upon public opinion in both countries. Never mind what incorrigible journalists have to say: the ^ lecon des choses^ is given to all who are sincere and unprejudiced, and I believe they are by far the more numerous. *' When I wrote the article you kindly allude to I did it because things were growing worse every day, and I thought it might be good that a Frenchman should denounce the coming danger. I was very much gratified at the comments that appeared in the leading English papers, and I am led to believe that the article did some good, after all. But as you say, now we must help the movement of reconciliation which chiefly owing to you has been started." •It V w "ff tF The Exhibition had no sooner closed its doors (October 31) than a new occasion for anti-English clamour arose which seemed likely to jeopardise the good results of the meeting of the Associated Chambers in Paris. This was the announcement that President Kruger was about to embark on his mission to Europe for the purpose of enlisting the influence of continental Powers in the preservation of the independence of the republics. The news gave rise to an inauspicious division of opinion. There was a very strong feeling among responsible and experienced politicians that the new current of friendship towards England was of in- finitely greater value to France than any quixotic manifestations in favour of the republics, which were obviously doomed from the moment the ultimatum 185 THIRTY YEARS was launched. Pro-Boer manifestations could only disaffect Englishmen and would certainly not make them less obdurate in their attitude towards the conquered States. The French Foreign Office had the gravest appre- hensions respecting this visit, and would have gladly escaped from the obligation of giving the President of the South African Republic any official recognition. The annexation had been proclaimed on September i, but as it had not yet been notified to the French Government, so far as France was concerned, Kruger was still the chief of an independent State which denied the British claim even to suzerainty. For- tunately for orthodox Republicans, the Nationalists claimed to be the " only true and faithful friends of the Boers," and relieved the Government of the burden of championing popular sentiment. TV" 'TV' TT TP Kruger, who was travelling from South Africa by a Dutch steamer, the Gelderland, was to be landed at Marseilles, his first continental visit being intended for the President of the great European Republic. His choice was most embarrassing for the mayors and responsible people of Marseilles and of the towns on the Riviera. The English boycott, during a season, of the Riviera winter resorts had entailed a very serious loss to the inhabitants, and the revival of friendly Anglo-French relations had therefore been watched by them with keen appreciation. There were no doubt some among the population who had sacrificed their local interests to sentiment in a deplorable manner. The strangest case which came under my notice was that of an Englishman who told me that on asking for a first-class ticket at Nice the ticket 186 THE DAWN OF BETTER FEELING clerk had thrown him a third-class ticket and told him that a third-class carriage was good enough for a sale Anglais ; but he was not necessarily a Nigois ! To dissociate their municipalities from any anti- English manifestations into which the Marseilles people might be drawn by the exuberance of their sympathy with the Boers, the councils of Hyeres on October 30, Cannes on November 4, and Menton on November 10, passed public resolutions expressing their thanks to me for my efforts to promote good-will between the two nations in terms which left no doubt as to the pro-English sympathies of the civic repre- sentatives of the three health resorts in question. On November 16, at a meeting of the Marseilles City Council, my name was again brought up, this time, curiously enough, as a counter-weight in the scales against the proposed Kruger reception. The report on the subject from the Daily TelegrapFs special corre- spondent at Marseilles gives a vivid picture of the conflicting emotions which at the time raged in the political bosom of France. I transcribe his interest- ing report as a " human document." " At the mayor's invitation, I have just been present at a meeting of the municipal council. M. Flaissiere (the mayor) had arranged a special meeting to allow the question of Kruger's reception being broached. The proceedings were stormy and Marseilles has never seen such a sitting before. ' It was almost like the Chamber ' was the remark made. The topic of the hour was started by a motion of an extremely lengthy description, containing pages of considerations condemning the war and concluding with an address of respectful salutation to Mr. Kruger. Great applause rewarded the mover of the resolution for his labours when he sat down after appealing to M. Flaissiere to explain his position. The mayor did so, but was wariness and cautiousness incarnate The gist of his wily speech was : * I sympathise with Mr. Kruger, 187 THIRTY YEARS but mind your p's and q's.' He, M. Flaissiere, would not attend the reception and would advise his colleagues to follow suit. Several protests were made against the mayor's determination, and some violent speeches against the Trans- vaal war were delivered. On the other hand, many members commended the mayor's words of wisdom, and one councillor created a sensation by suddenly jumping up to move as a counter-blast to the motion of sympathy with Mr. Kruger a vote of thanks to Mr. Barclay on the occasion of the British Chambers of Commerce meeting in Paris which brought the two nations nearer. At last, after much wrangling quite reminding one of the Palais Bourbon, a denunciation of the Kruger demonstration as a Nationalist trap for the Republicans turned the scales in favour of the cool-headed party, and the Council having * approved the declarations of Monsieur le Maire, passed to the order of the day.' This, of course, means that neither M. Flaissiere nor the members of the Council will attend the reception to Mr. Kruger." ^i" ^^ ^p ^r* ^r Neither at Marseilles nor on the occasion of Mr. Kruger's appearance in Paris was there a single anti- English cry, although the enthusiasm I witnessed in Paris seemed dangerously wild, and, although the Chamber of Deputies and Senate unanimously adopted resolutions of respectful sympathy with the old President in his last effort to save his country as such from extinction, the Government did the official minimum in accordance with the etiquette governing incognito State visits. Both President Loubet and M. Delcasse were heartily thankful when, on December I, he took his departure for Cologne. So was I ; neither M. Loubet nor M. Delcasse could have felt greater apprehension than I did, lest the work begun with such labour, deliberation, and anxiety should be endangered by any incident capable of reviving the old enmity. It is due to French public opinion to say here, that the attitude of its responsible organs was one of i88 THE DAWN OF BETTER FEELING dignified self-restraint. Though there was deep and widespread sympathy with the Boers, Frenchmen told me at the time that they had never realised the true greatness of England till they saw how she bore defeat. In the Figaro^ M. Cornely, after extolling the calm and Christian spirit in which the Boers defended their country, wrote : — " On their side the English teach us how a great people bear reverses, how it considers itself responsible to the world to stand by its Government whether in good fortune or mis- fortune . . . Sensible men must have sympathy for both Boers and English . . . The English are an example for us." The Journal des Debats was equally appreciative. It said : — " We understand perfectly the pride with which the Queen points to the patriotic spirit and spontaneous loyalty of all her dominions, of even those least interested in the South African conflict. There is matter in this for meditation by those who, too prompt to take the wish for the fact, already predict the downfall of the British Empire. It seems to us that the colonial contingents which are flowing in from all points of the globe are a proof of manliness and especially of cohesion in the British national spirit." These are two cuttings I find among my papers, but such opinions were expressed by the Temps and other papers besides those I have quoted, and these utter- ances echoed what all sensible private people thought. Thus, belying popular wisdom, it was in some measure due to England's reverses rather than to her ultimate success that anti-English feeling in connection with the Boer war veered round and eventually for all practical purposes died out. 189 CHAPTER XVII A PROPITIOUS MOMENT AND MORE THAN USUAL ABOUT THE AUTHOR All the pessimistic anticipations with which it opened and apprehensions that disturbed its course were dissipated before the end of the first year of the new century. The ill-feehng between the EngHsh and French peoples which had been the one ominous cloud on the European horizon had passed over. The English after the visit of the British Chambers of Commerce to Paris at the beginning of September had ceased to boycott the Exhibition. So great, in fact, had been the affluence that the Northern and Western Railway Companies had to borrow coaches from other railway companies to carry the crowds who hurried over the Channel during its last weeks to see the most wonderful show ever put together. •M- Ufc Jfa «U« Jti ^P TT flr "7^ ^P The mourning of the whole British Empire for our great Queen in the following January struck a sym- pathetic chord in the generous nature of the French. That all the political, commercial, industrial life of an Empire should stand still even for a few hours to express, as it did, the feeling of hundreds of millions of her subjects at the loss of their Sovereign produced a profound impression in France. On the day of the memorial service in Paris all the shops in the Ouartier de la Paix were shut. Even else- where in the gay city there was a universal look of 190 A PROPITIOUS MOMENT sympathy, and the irrepressible Parisian seemed to be less noisy. At the meeting of the deceased Queen's subjects, held in the large hall of the Hotel Continental, the contagiousness of the prevailing emotion was such that I could hardly command my voice when, as chairman, I opened the proceedings. The following report in the Daily Messenger will recall to many who took part in it the only occasion which had ever been known to bring so many English- men in Paris together : — " In response to an invitation from the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris, a meeting of British residents was yesterday held at the Continental Hotel to decide as to a common and tangible expression of sympathy with the Royal Family on the occasion of the Queen's death. Between eight hundred and a thousand persons were present, and the meeting was in every respect a most notable one. *' Mr. Thomas Barclay, president of the Chamber of Com- merce, presided. In opening the proceedings, he said : — *' In asking you to come together for the purpose which has been announced in the newspapers, I feel sure the board of the British Chamber of Commerce, as the largest and most representative body of Englishmen in Paris, has given expression to what is uppermost in every loyal British heart. The Queen has been to us more than a sovereign. She has been the embodiment of all that in the public or private life of men and women of our race we hold to be sacred. From the earliest recollection of the oldest of us she has been the model and pride of her nation. We have remembered her in our prayers, and we have never forgotten her in our joys. Her image as a wife, a mother, and Queen, as a mother and as a grandmother of Kings and Queens, has been our most familiar figure throughout our lives. We have always held her without a single reservation in the honoured first place of the national heart. And wherever the national heart beats, there is a sense of loss which we can only feel for those whose love and care for us never failed. To cease all our daily wranglings and differences, and stand together as one man in this hour of mourning is what all England, all the Empire, is 191 THIRTY YEARS doing, and we, who love England none the less because we are in a foreign land, feel the same need to express the grief we have in common. " This is the object of calling the present meeting. When the grave is closed over our late beloved Sovereign, it will be for us to meet again and consider what permanent form our devotion to her memory shall take. I am authorised by- Sir E. Monson to say that his Excellency will lend the Embassy for the purpose of this second meeting, and that he will consent to take the chair. I, therefore, propose to you to confine our action at this meeting to the adoption of an address of sympathy, and to express a wish that the Ambassador will hereafter take the lead in holding the meeting for the purpose I have mentioned. I have ventured to express what I take to be your wishes in the following draft address : — " * We, the undersigned British residents in Paris, place on record our profound grief at the loss of our beloved Queen, whose long and glorious reign and noble public and private life will make her memory everlasting in the hearts of her subjects. We wish to express our deep sympathy with their Gracious Majesties the King and Queen and the other members of the Royal Family in their bereavement. ** * We take this opportunity also to express our loyalty to the Queen's illustrious successor and trust that his reign may be long and prosperous.' ** It has been thought that many British subjects in Paris would like to append their names personally to testimony of a nature so personal to us all.' The address is therefore drawn up with a view to being signed, but this is merely a suggestion, and the meeting is, of course, free to decide otherwise. " I should like, before sitting down, to express a regret which I believe is shared by all present, that the venerable doyen of the British Colony and hon. president of the British Chamber of Commerce, Sir Edward Blount, is prevented by absence in England, and his great age, from being at this meeting. He has always been among us on national occasions, and I feel sure that in spirit he is more than ever among us on the infinitely sad occasion which has brought us together to-day. " I should like also, in conclusion, to mention the deep and widespread sympathy with us in our mourning shown through- out France, and the expressions of warm admiration and deep respect for the Queen which her death has called forth. Englishmen will ever remember this with gratitude, and if 192 A PROPITIOUS MOMENT at any time of late we may have doubted the real feeling of France and of Frenchmen, we now know that it is one of delicate and earnest sympathy for us when we need it." Sir Edward Sassoon, M.P., in seconding the resolution, referred with emotion to the feeling of the whole British race and to the deep interest her Majesty had taken in the life of the nation. In conclusion he recalled to our minds the good work done by Mr. Thomas Barclay and the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris over which he presides, in promoting good feeling between France and England, and he referred with unfeigned satisfaction to the deep sympathy which the French nation had shown in these circumstances. He was convinced that no two nations were better fitted to be on terms of solid friendship with each other. Mr. Hector Fabre, Canadian Commissioner in Paris, who, as a French Canadian, spoke in French, endorsed in every way all that had been said by the previous speakers. The Queen's loss, he said, was as much felt among French Canadians as by any others of the late Queen's subjects. The Master of the Anglo-Saxon Lodge in Paris, in the name of the British Freemasons in France, also expressed himself in terms of the warmest sympathy. The motion was then put to the meeting and unanimously carried, the great majority of those present appending their signatures. The Queen's death took place just thirteen months after the publication of the famous caricatures w^hich had caused such indignation in England. The change in the public attitude of Frenchmen towards this country showed that the seeds of a r approche ment had already taken root. * # * # # Never in my time had circumstances seemed more favourable for the starting of a vast popular agitation for the burying of the Anglo-French hatchet. Unfor- tunately no occasion for any specific demonstration was in sight. At the Quai d'Orsay, moreover, there was a conviction that Lord Salisbury, who still T.Y. 193 O THIRTY YEARS controlled British foreign policy, did not believe an enduring entente possible. Sir Edmund Monson's attitude in 1900 seemed at best to reflect an incredu- lous indifference. After his unfortunate " pin-prick- ing " speech, I thought it best not to give him a chance of speaking again for the time being. Therefore, during my tenure of office as president of the Chamber of Commerce, the annual banquet was suspended. I believe I once heard " luck " defined as a courage- ous insight into the capabilities of a chance. At any rate, I have always so regarded luck. Chances of all kinds and qualities abound. The difficulty is just to distinguish among them. I was on the look-out for a chance to launch the great idea that England and France by their geographical position, by their political aflftnities, by their differences of character which made them indispensable to each other's intellectual development, by the divergency of their industrial and artistic activity which made the one the complement of the other, had a joint and not a competing mission in the world ; that they would benefit as much by their friendship as they were losing by their antagonism ; that England and France as democracies, having nothing to gain by war, were necessarily agents of peace ; and that their friendship would be a first step towards the abatement of those armaments which the Emperor of Russia in 1898 had justly described as " a crushing burden more and more difficult for nations to bear." Somewhere about 1894 1 had drawn up the following plan of action on how to make England and France friends : — J94 A PROPITIOUS MOMENT 1. Work first on the Franco-Scottish tradition. Form a Franco-Scottish Society based on the historic relations between France and Scotland. We must assume that a great deal of correspondence exists buried in the family archives of the two countries ; the letters from France would be in Scotland and the letters from Scotland in France. The Franco- Scottish Society to work at uniting the scattered fragments. Visits to be exchanged between the Scotch and French. Opportunities to be utilised of drawing the English into the work. 2. Great Britain and France have conflicts of interest nearly all over the globe — Egypt, Morocco, New Hebrides, New Caledonia, French shore, etc. They cannot be solved while bad feeling exists, but might easily be solved if the two peoples were friendly, especially the most acute of them, the Egyptian question being sentimental. 3. To produce a better feeling, necessary to have an object of a non-material character which people can agree about without any sacrifice of interest on either side. Such a rally- ing point might be a permanent treaty of arbitration between the two countries. Favourable points : — (a) England best customer of France ; (b) A certain esteem in both countries for individual persons of the other ; {c) Familiarity with and admiration for each other's litera- ture ; (d) Increasing interest of Frenchmen in English sports. 4. Necessity of proceeding without exciting opposition or jealousy of authorities. First steps to be as secret as possible. 5. Most useful agencies : {a) Chambers of Commerce in England and France ; (b) Municipal Councils in France ; {c) Trade Unions in England ; (J) Leading Politicians ; {e) Special Committees. 6. Method. — ^Articles in Periodicals exciting interest in the subject ; Interviews in Newspapers, Public Addresses in Great Britain and France ; not to approach English until French secure, and only do that when evidence overwhelming. 8. No Central Committee and no subscriptions. 9. To Publish Results only. In short, my idea had been and still was to create an atmosphere favourable for the removal of causes of friction and place the future of the two countries 195 o 2 THIRTY YEARS beyond the reach of popular emotions by the con- clusion of a standing Treaty of Arbitration. 'It Tr tI" V 'R* In February, 1 90 1, 1 was approached by my friend, M. Decugis, hon. secretary of the French Arbitration Society, of which M. Frederic Passy was the president, with a view to my delivering the address at their annual meeting in March. Here was the chance for which I was on the look-out. An idea discounted by public announcement beforehand loses its most dramatic and stirring quality, if striking the public imagination is any part of its purpose. My activities, moreover, had been employed in connection with trade and the law, and I had never had any connection with " pacifism." I did not know how the Arbitration Society would regard my highly unsentimental argu- ments, and said nothing of my object. The 27th of March was destined to be an even more memorable date in the history of the entente than I anticipated, in spite of its tribulations. I had counted on the emphasis of a large meeting of the advocates of arbi- tration and on many speeches by Frenchmen favour- able to the cause of Anglo-French friendship. In this expectation I was disappointed. The snow lay thick on the ground, horse traffic had stopped, intermittent gusts still blinded foot passengers, and when I arrived at the meeting place at the Mairie of the Rue Drouot I was alone. In a few minutes, however, arrived that grand old octogenarian Frederic Passy, the chairman. Together, for a time, we sat, desolate before an anaemic fire, and it looked as if he would have to take the chair and I should be all his audience, and he in turn mine, when the distin- guished and genial Professor Richet (whose scientific 196 PROPITIOUS MOMENT researches were recently rewarded with the Nobel research prize), the vice-president, turned up, then Professor Georges Lyon, now rector of the University of Lille and nominal head of the " Institut frangais du Royaume-Uni," which has recently been constituted a branch of the University of Lille, M. Decugis, the hon. secretary, and a few others whose names I am sorry to have forgotten. M. Passy, who after my address took me in his arms and with tears in his eyes blessed the cause I had advocated, in his book " Pour la Paix," ^ referred to that auspicious meeting and my connection with it in the following terms : — " Sir Thomas Barclay, the principal author perhaps of the * rapprochement ' brought about between France and England which has been called ' V entente cordiale^ threw out the first idea of it in the basement of a Paris district town-hall, in the presence of some fifteen members of the ' Societe fran^aise pour I'Arbitrage,' who had not been daunted by a fearful snowstorm. Every one knows what an impression was produced on the reading of his address the following days in the newspapers and how since then with incomparable activity, perseverance and zeal, as an orator and a writer equally familiar with his mother tongue and the French language, as a jurist and member of the Institute of International Law, as a man of business and former president of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris, he has pursued everywhere, in America as in Europe, and as far as the Balkans and the Ottoman East, his campaign of public and private propaganda which has brought him, with the favour of his Sovereign, a popularity of the noblest kind." # # # # * But our poor little meeting was discouraging, and it was with la mort dans Vdme^ so far as that meeting was concerned, that I left our enthusiastic friends that night. A few doors from the Mairie^ however, were the 1 Paris, 1909. 197 THIRTY YEARS offices of the Figaro. I knew the then editor, M. de Rodays, pretty well, and after the meeting it occurred to me to go round to his office and take him into my confidence. " C'est un beau reve," he said, " mais il y a toujours I'Egypte. Vous ne pouvez pas I'evacuer et nous ne pouvons pas agreer votre prise de possession. Que voulez vous ? C'est une question sans solution. D'ailleurs, ce n'est pas la seule question international sans solution et malheureusement il ne faut pas trop attendre de la sagesse humaine. Le sentiment trop souvent prime la sagesse dans I'opinion publique." However, I left my manuscript with him, and the next day no one was more astonished than I to see it appear with flaming head-lines as the first columns of the first page of the Figaro. The impression produced was as if thousands had attended the meeting, as if overflow meetings had had to be improvised in adjoining premises, as if I had been carried off my feet by an acclaiming and enthusiastic multitude. Our poor little meeting in the basement of the Mairie became historic ! I had scored owing to the luck of good causes which make effort and imagination worth while — thanks, however, especially to the courage and foresight of M. de Rodays, who had seen, he said, in the gleam of my eyes the determination to go on. # * * # * From one end of France to the other the newspapers reproduced my speech with luxurious publicity, but without a single comment. The direction of public feeling was still problematic. The leading British newspapers took the same 198 A PROPITIOUS MOMENT cautious attitude. Curiously it was The Times correspondent in Paris who ventured farthest. I give his telegram, which not only contains his com- ments, but the chief points which I urged : — ** Paris, March 28. " The meeting of the French Arbitration Society was held last night at the Mairie of the 9th Arrondissement. I extract from the Figaro some passages of the speech delivered by Mr. Thomas Barclay in favour of obligatory arbitration on all matters which may be a cause of dispute between France and Great Britain. Mr. Barclay did not extend his observations to the relations between nations in general. As France and Great Britain are the two countries which he knows best and whose agreement he most desires, he was able to urge many excellent reasons for arbitration. Even those who look upon such an idea as a forlorn hope, rather than as of probable or even possible realisation, should heartily welcome any attempt of this sort. These ideas, if constantly repeated with sincerity, gradually end by penetrating people's minds and securing adherence. Such language as the following, therefore, should be unreservedly applauded, for it cannot but do good by showing how keenly humane minds long for the day when war, that persistent relic of barbarism, will end by becoming in the eyes of the majority an accursed evil which we are bound to undergo, but against which every one worthy of the name of man should unceasingly protest. Mr. Barclay said : — " * The proposal that I wish to put before you is that of an arbitration treaty between England and France, Four years ago the Governments of Great Britain and of the United States drew up an agreement of this nature, but it has never been ratified by the Senate of the latter country. The two Governments had thought that two countries so closely connected as America and England by the American colonies must necessarily be exposed to constant small differences happening in their relationships, and that such opposed interests must inevitably increase with the development of such relationships. Unfortunately, there are many Americans who have made an article of constitutional faith out of the Monroe doctrine. This doctrine possesses the quality of all unwritten doctrines and of doctrines not sufficiently defined to allow of their being interpreted suitably to the political tactics of the moment. There is no Monroe doctrine between 199 THIRTY YEARS England and France. On the other hand, there exist at least as many points where the two nations touch as exist between the American colonies of Great Britain and the United States. Their territories and their political interests lie side by side in North America, in South America, in Asia, and very nearly so in Europe. There do not exist in the world two countries knitted together by a closer intercourse. . . . Happily, a war between England and France is an eventuality of which the terrible consequences for the two countries are so evident that one does not lightly plunge into it. And yet war sometimes breaks out for the slightest of causes when public feeling is agitated, and in Democratic countries Govern- ments are often urged on by forces which do not look far ahead. Now the advantage of an arbitration treaty is exactly that it furnishes the means to allow the public spirit to calm down or, in familiar parlance, it allows the Government to gain time. It allows of pourparlers, exchanges of ideas, negotiations in due form, mediators* proposals, and of arbitration should the parties not agree, and in the mean- time the hot-headed ones cool down. . . . *' ' Such a treaty between England and France might well serve as an example of a new departure in these matters. In the place of two Anglo-Saxon States it would be Great Britain and France, which would bring about one of the greatest triumphs of international law which our age has seen. It would only be perfectly natural that the two great and time-honoured nations which stand at the head of civilisa- tion should lead the way which leads on to the extinction of all war, that foolish and barbarous method which, as a rule, is only the result of the incapacity of statesmen who allow it to break out. You will have noticed that I have not spoken of the Hague Convention. I have not done so because the optional recourse provided by this convention strips arbitra- tion, primarily, of the advantage which it possesses. Further, the disputes which generally give rise to war, such as questions in which honour and vital interests of the contracting parties are involved, are excluded from its operation. That which is necessary, in fact, in a general treaty of arbitration is that the parties bind themselves without any reservation not to take up arms one against the other before having tried pacific means ; and one cannot see why there should be any reservation, since it is rather the procedure than the decision which constitutes the merit of such an arrangement. To leave one of the parties free to determine whether a case is 200 A PROPITIOUS MOMENT provided for in the treaty or not, or whether circumstances allow of arbitration, is to destroy the most essential application of the treaty.' " # * * # * I now made arrangements to devote all my time and means henceforward to my self-imposed task. The following resolution, which I drew up as a sort of model form, was the first English one adopted : — " That the board of the British Chamber of Commerce in Paris hereby records its hearty approval of the proposal for a general Treaty of Arbitration between the United Kingdom and France ; that in view of the great advantages which would accrue to the commercial relations of the two countries, by the adoption of such a proposal, this board declares its readiness to co-operate by all means in its power towards the accomplishment of so beneficial a result." The first response, however, came from the French peace societies, thirteen of which by an identical declaration promised to neglect no influence which could promote attention to the subject on the part of Government and of public opinion. The second was a resolution of the Chamber of Commerce of Clermont- Ferrand. The third was a resolution in favour of the proposed treaty adopted on June 15, at the famous meeting at Shoreditch Town Hall, of delegates of English and French trade associations. It was moved by Mr. Gregory, chairman of the London Trades Council, who presided, and seconded by Mr. F. Maddison.^ Meanwhile I had installed a staff and an ingenious rotary machine by which I could turn out hundreds of copies of matter for distribution. With an English printer I had also made arrangements for printing ad ^ See the support given to the proposal, Appendices, pp. 346 et seq. 201 THIRTY YEARS libitum^ and before the autumn the campaign was in full swing. # * * # * My life for the next two years was one of wild activity, a life of sleeping in trains, speaking some- times several times a day, sometimes twice in one evening. I invented (oh, mother necessity !) a quick- change shirt, a quick-change " dickie," a quick-change tie, a travelling bag adapted to my requirements, and at all times packed and ready for use at a moment's notice. In America it amused my friends to see me turn into evening dress, quite decent enough to pass muster, in less than ten minutes. One day an American who was present at one of my '^ quick-change " scenes proclaimed my shirt patentable and worth a fortune. I gave him one to work upon. He came back from an expedition to a great shirt purveyor quite crestfallen. " My dear sir," had said this authority, "it is. not a 'quick- change ' shirt that is wanted, but a slow-change one. The more a man has to struggle with buttons and button-holes, the better he likes it. The one thing he does not want to shorten is the time it takes him to turn himself into evening dress. Why, the time he is dressing is the happiest of his life. It is the time when undisturbed he can pose and see himself in all his beauty. It is a more, not a less, complicated shirt that is wanted. AH you ambulant politicians and public speakers, sir, do not use shirts enough to pay the wages of a doorkeeper ! " My friend all the same suspected he was " done," However, as I seem still to be the only wearer of my " quick-change " shirts, the psychological assessment of the shirt purveyor was probably correct* In any case, as a young friend 202 A PROPITIOUS MOMENT courteously declined a dozen I had respectfully offered him, I am afraid we old fogies know nothing about the subtleties of modern dressing. # * # # * Three elements are essential, apart from choice of a propitious moment, for success in agitation. The one is never to publish to the world an isolated resolu- tion. Several keep each other company and encourage others. Another is never to take anybody into one's confidence during negotiations and expose oneself to the danger of " hearsay." And the third is not to ask for funds ! I might add a fourth, a fifth and a sixth, but they belong to character and circumstances, viz., to go on quand mime^ not be impatient, and to be able to give all one's time, imagination, and energy to the work. Nor must one be daunted by the exertion of travelling and speaking day after day at places hundreds of miles apart from each other, nor by considerations of a financial character, nor by the innuendoes of jealousy, nor by the sarcastic inquiries of anonymous correspondents who ask you how much you are making out of it,^ etc., etc. Following my own principles to the best of my ability, I was able before the end of the year to enlist the interest in the subject of practically all the chambers of commerce in the two countries and obtain unanimous resolutions in support of my proposal from the Association of Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom and the International Law Association after full discussions. That which took place at the meeting of the International Law Association gave my respected friend. Lord Alverstone, ^ For the benefit of these low-minded gentry, I may say that, far from bringing me any personal gain, the agitation obliged me to return to my profession after it was over, and practically begin life over again. 203 THIRTY YEARS an opportunity of making one of his best and most effective speeches. In 1902 the movement reached a more effective condition, as will be seen in the next chapter. ^r ^P ^r ^P In French domestic politics the year 1901 was an agitated one. Of the forty ministries which had preceded that of M. Waldeck-Rousseau since 1870 only three had reached the hoary age of two years, viz., those of M. Thiers (1871 — 1873), M. Jules Ferry (1883— 1885), and M. Meline (1896— 1898). The Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet, which had come into office in June, 1899, was already fifteen months old when the Exhibition closed its doors. It was not expected at the time to last much longer. Yet it withstood every effort to upset it, and long before the close of 1 90 1 had broken the record without showing any signs of exhaustion. Its long life it owed, however, not so much to its friends as to the carping opposition of its enemies and the presence in it, alongside a strong Prime Minister, of M. Millerand, a Socialist leader as strong as his chief. Waldeck-Rousseau, who had been one of Gambetta's discoveries and had served in the grand ministere^ belonged, like Clemenceau, to an old Breton bourgeois family. The fathers of these two men, who were destined to be opponents, had espoused the cause of political freedom together at Nantes. After having formed part of M. Ferry's cabinet, the long duration of which has been attri- buted in large part to his presence in it, as the presence of Millerand in his own, later on, was credited with the same effect, Waldeck-Rousseau did not again take office and in 1889 retired from politics altogether for the time being to devote himself to his 204 A PROPITIOUS MOMENT profession and his favourite pastime, painting. I knew him only sHghtly. He was an easy first at the Bar, especially as he did not wish to over-exert him- self, and charged fabulous fees to keep clients at bay. In France the advocate can receive his instructions from the lay client direct, and as often as not it is he who instructs the avoue (solicitor). When Waldeck-Rousseau yielded to the solicitations of his friends and returned to Parliament to take the f residence du conseil, he was said to be giving up an income of over half a million francs (^20,000) a year. It was as much this enormous material sacrifice as any other circumstances that appealed to his countrymen's gratitude and secured the free hand they gave him. His aristocratic features, grave demeanour, and dis- dain for mean or vulgar methods gave him an influence in the French Parliament not unlike that of Sir Edward Grey in the House of Commons. He was more respected and authoritative than popular. Nobody was ever known to take a liberty with him, and he was never known to descend to personalities even in the keenest moments of debate. His impenetrable mask, business-like concentration on the matter in hand, and mastery of terse technical language so absorbed the attention of his listeners that interruption or frivolity had no sense. An interesting fact about Waldeck-Rousseau is that after the Tongking disasters in 1885 it was he who suggested to M. Grevy that, as Clemenceau had shaken the Ferry Cabinet off its pedestal, the President of the Republic ought, in accordance with parlia- mentary logic, to entrust Clemenceau with the forma- tion of the new ministry, but M. Grevy regarded this as an experiment it would be dangerous to try with a 205 THIRTY YEARS man of the temperament of the demolisseur des minis- teres. In my opinion this was M. Grevy's second great tactical mistake. * ^ # # # In foreign affairs Waldeck-Rousseau took but a limited personal interest. M. Delcasse's experience at the Quai d'Orsay in the three preceding cabinets, though it had only lasted a year, seemed to him the best available. But I always understood that he insisted on all the members of his cabinet referring to him before taking any decisions of a political character, and that the President was left no discretion at all. The announcement in August, 1901, that the Czar 'and Czarina were about to pay a visit to France sur- prised everybody, and the emphasis with which it was officially stated that they were coming in response to a personal letter of invitation, sent by the President of the Republic during the absence of the Prime Minister, that the invitation conveyed had been to " be present at the conclusion of the manoeuvres " in the neighbourhood of Rheims, that they would be entertained at the Palace of Compiegne^ and be saluted on arrival at Dunkirk by the Channel fleet, seemed to cover some truth which the public would not appreciate or some diplomatic manoeuvre which had to be disguised. It was whispered that the Czar had invited himself to make up for his not having visited the Exhibition the previous year, but that the date had been so chosen as to avoid the need of receiving His Majesty 1 Their Majesties arrived on their yacht at Dunkirk on September i8, 1901, where they were met by the President and the French Channel fleet. From Dunkirk they travelled with the President to stay three days at Compi^gne. When the Czar visited Paris in 1895 he stayed at the Russian Embassy, 206 A PROPITIOUS MOMENT in Paris, and that the President had shouldered the responsibility to shelter the Prime Minister, in case any parliamentary incident should arise out of it. Certain it is that no more unpropitious moment could have been chosen to entertain the Russian monarch ; nor did the visit serve any purpose. In Paris the Nationalist and Socialist forces were in no mood to co-operate in the reception of a monarch who was the ideal of the one and the abomination of the other. And this was no theoretical fear, seeing that several resolutions were adopted at Socialist meetings requesting all right-thinking people to abstain from manifestation in honour of '* the Russian despot." So great was the official dread of effervescence that the Government was announced to intend taking the precaution of posting troops along the whole length of the railway track from Dunkirk to Compiegne. I attended the review at Dunkirk as a guest of the Northern of France Railway Company on board their boat Le Nord. At the conclusion of the function all the company's guests were conveyed back to Paris in special trains by the ordinary route from Dunkirk, whereas the Government party were to travel by the specially guarded route to Compiegne. To the sur- prise of everybody — our party was composed of Senators, Deputies, high officials, and journalists — our train was suddenly shunted to make way for two special trains, and we saw the Imperial guests and their entertainers speeded by our route instead of by the specially guarded one ! Everybody exclaimed : — " C'est Lepine qui a du combiner 9a ; il est fort ! " M. Lepine was the dexterous and indefatigable Prefet de Police who recently, after years of service in the most delicate of administrative posts, retired from it 207 THIRTY YEARS to devote himself to the study of the economic con- ditions of France, which have always been the pet subject of any leisure he could command. Unlike Waldeck-Rousseau, whose hobby was landscape paint- ing, or M. Leon Bourgeois, whose hobby is sculpture,^ M. Lepine's delight is moral and economic statistics. Some day this remarkable man, who is still within the prime of his life, may turn his unrivalled knowledge of the social conditions of Paris to the production of some work which will bear comparison with Mr. Charles Booth's priceless researches among the con- ditions of London life. 1 M. Leon Bourgeois' work in sculpture is quite remarkable. Nothing could be more touching than a figure of a seated girl in distress with her long hair flowing over her fingers which he presented to a friend of mine on her marriage. 208 CHAPTER XVIII FIGHTING FOR PEACE At the end of 1901 I had a serious disappointment. The British Chamber of Commerce seceded from the agitation. My successor as president, Mr. W. C. Robertson, had more trust in Sir Edmund Monson's speeches than I had, and, anyhow, the annual banquets could not be suspended until he retired. In December, 1901, Sir Edmund had his chance again, and again in his speech at the Chamber of Commerce banquet he struck a false note. That would not have mattered much. But, when I presented a petition in favour of the Treaty for signature by the Chamber of Commerce, Mr. Robertson pointed out to me that the chamber could not afford to estrange the Ambassador and the chamber would have henceforward to keep aloof from the Anglo-French movement. This was a great loss, and, till the King's visit was announced, the chamber took no further part in it. Shortly after Sir Edmund Monson's speech, in which he had thrown cold water on the effort to bring about a rapprochement by means of a standing Treaty of Arbitration, I met M. Delcasse at Baron Pierre de Coubertin's. The occasion was a reception in honour of my old friend. Sir Charles Dilke, and his newly married wife. " Vous n'etes pas decourage ? " asked M. Delcasse. " Le moins du monde." M. Delcasse repeated his fear that I should find the British Government sceptical and the people hostile. T.Y. 209 p THIRTY YEARS A couple of months later I mentioned this in London to M. Cambon. He confirmed more or less the view M. Delcasse had expressed, and it was no doubt true at the outset of the agitation when Lord Salisbury still presided at the Foreign Office. He and M. Delcasse had also been Foreign Ministers of their respective countries at the time of the F^ashodaaflair, and I think I am not divulging a State secretwhen I say that the tactics of Lord Salisbury, in forcing France to a rapid denoument of the incident by hastily pub- lishing the correspondence on the subject, and exciting British public opinion before the French Government had time to attune French public opinion to a pacific settlement, was still resented. Lord Salisbury had no faith in Anglo-French friendship, and the spirit of his policy still continued to dictate the attitude of Downing Street after his surrender of the Foreign Secretaryship to Lord Lansdowne in 1900, and until 1902 when he finally withdrew from office and handed over the reins of government to Mr. Balfour. It was therefore rather Lord Salisbury's views than those of the new Foreign Secretary that the well-wishers of the entente sought to ascertain during the first year of agitation. A diplomatic inquiry resulted in one of those ironical, half-jocular jins-de-non-recevoir of the late Lord which made further discussion impossible. His answer, while jovial in tone, was as laconic as it was emphatic. " C'est de I'utopie ! " and there the matter ended. M. Delcasse repeated the answer to me as a proof of the hopelessness of trying to conciliate England. # # # # # On July 12, 1902, Lord Salisbury finally retired from office and Lord Lansdowne had thenceforward 210 FIGHTING FOR PEACE practically a free hand under a Prime Minister who was not likely to be a drag on the initiative of his colleagues. In the previous May I had written to Lord Lans- downe and Sir Edmund Monson, sending them a printed report I had issued respecting the progress of the movement. Sir Edmund Monson I thought might now show more sympathy with a movement which he had affected to regard merely as an arbitration " fad." He could no longer, like Lord Salisbury, consider an entente impossible. His interesting reply, however, was confined to the question of arbitration. His opinion he said had always been that the Con- vention which was rejected by the U.S. Senate was not simple enough, and that as long as human nature remained what it was, such a Convention as desired would have to contain the '' tiers arbitre " pro- vision. He was convinced that the Venezuela Board of Arbitration would have been broken up re infecta^ had not a Russian been added to the British and American members. Some day the reign of universal impartiality and righteousness might set in, and persons be found who would venture to set equity before national pride. Meanwhile, he did not believe in arbitration without the " tiers arbitre," face the authors of the abortive treaty, which seemed stultified by the recognition of the eventual necessity of having recourse to the good offices of the King of Sweden. I wrote at the same time to Lord Lansdowne, whose reply was very different — so different that I took it at 211 P 2 THIRTY YEARS once to the Quai d'Orsay and showed it to M. Delcasse who then and there instructed M. Cambon in accord ance with the feeling expressed in it. Lord Lansdowne wrote on May 20 from Bowooi as follows : — ** I have had the pleasure of receiving your letter of May i enclosing a copy in English of your Note on the proposal fc a permanent Treaty of Arbitration between this country an France. " Lord Alverstone has spoken to me on several occasior of this movement and of the part which you have taken in il and I shall be glad to receive you on my return to Londor Meanwhile I can only express my entire concurrence in you belief that whatever may be the ultimate fate of theproposa its discussion in a friendly spirit can do nothing but good." * * # # # Throughout the second year of my campaign '. devoted all my energies to carrying out my plan o action. I kept the Press so busy with articles on th entente, with resolutions in its favour by chambers commerce, municipal corporations, trade unions, etc. with meetings and speeches I delivered throughou the two countries, with local committees formed, wit] interviews, etc., that not a day passed but the publi had something to digest on the subject. In mos cases I submitted a model form which was the resul of much consideration by others besides myseli Both Lord Chief Justice Alverstone and my lat friend, Mr. Montague Crackanthorpe, K.C., one c our best draftsmen, gave me the benefit of ^eir advic upon it, and it may be regarded as a statement c the Anglo-French case which commended itself wit singular effect to the British practical mind. I ma safely say that it summed up and defined the object of all the unofficial world of England who joined i 212 FIGHTING FOR PEACE the agitation, and, as will be seen below, this meant every class and manner of men in the Kingdom. The model form in question was as follows : — ** I. Considering that Great Britain and France have common interests of a commercial and industrial kind, the prosperity of which is dependent upon the preservation of peace between them ; and " 2. Whereas France is the nearest neighbour of the British Isles, and war between two countries so situated must inevitably produce, whatever its ultimate result might be, disastrous consequences for both oLthem ; and " 3. Whereas British and French colonial possessions and dependencies touch in most parts of the globe, and the peaceful and friendly development of intercourse between them is for their mutual benefit ; and ' " 4. Whereas difficulties and contentions must necessarily arise between two peoples who are so often brought into rivalry, and it is desirable that some means be employed to prevent such difficulties and contentions from again assuming the dangerous character they have several times assumed in recent years ; and *' 5. Whereas it seems certain that public irritation would be less likely to be inflamed by international difficulties which ordinary diplomacy may not have solved, if provision were made for reference of such difficulties to a further stage of consideration by which the danger of a deadlock might still be averted ; and " 6. Whereas the permanent Treaty for the adjustment of differences between Great Britain and the United States, signed on the 12th January, 1897, by the representatives of the Governments of the two nations, providing for the automatic reference of disputes of national importance to a court composed of judges belonging exclusively to the two nations themselves, seems adapted to supply what is required ; and a tribunal so constituted would be a guarantee to the general public that no vital national interest would be imperilled by considerations of abstract justice or on purely humanitarian grounds ; and " 7. Whereas if such a Treaty was desirable as between Great Britain and the United States, it must also be desirable as between Great Britain and France, whose intercourse with one another is still closer ; and " 8. Whereas the present moment is propitious on both sides 213 THIRTY YEARS of the Channel for the conclusion of such a Treaty for (say) a period of five years, and much authoritative opinion is clearly in its favour ; " This records its approval of the proposal to adopt some arrangement between this country and France which would diminish the danger of the friction necessarily arising from time to time from their intercourse." Nothing in this resolution, it is seen, justified the subsequent perversion by mischievous persons of the objects of those who supported the agitation. Never v^as there an idea among them of a joining of forces against another Pov^er. The rapprochement had the exclusive and deliberate object of counter- acting hostile tendencies betw^een Great Britain and France. Its sole object v^as to bury the hatchet betv^een them without arriere-pensee. Nor did any- body in England imagine that it might ever be used as leverage against a third Power. Even in France, the only suggestion of a ''pointe^^ against Germany was an observation by M. de Pressense that the entente would save England from joining the Triple Alliance. Nor, as will be seen, did Germany till long after the entente had become a fait accompli regard it as having' any character of hostility to herself. -a^ .^ O^ AU ^b 'tt flP W ^ ^P By the time the King's visit to Paris was announced in the spring of 1903, the support given to the move- ment was overwhelming.-^ Apart from the resolution of the Nottingham meeting of the Association of Chambers of Commerce in 1 90 1, twenty-seven British chambers had discussed and passed special resolutions on the subject. In France the number of chambers which had discussed and passed special resolutions reached the enormous number of forty-one, practically 1 See pp. 346 et seq. 214 FIGHTING FOR PEACE the whole of commerciahand industrial France. The number of trade unions of Great Britain and Ireland which had passed emphatic special resolutions was thirty-five, representing 2,000,000 of British workers. On the French side eighteen municipal councils had adopted resolutions as emphatic as those of the British trade unions. That peace societies should pass resolutions in favour of the proposal almost went without saying. Anyhow they reached the sub- stantial figure of nineteen. The Society of Friends, the representatives of the Jewish community in England, the Methodists had all passed resolutions supporting it. Special agitation committees had been formed in nine cities and others were in course of formation. The movement had the support of all the leading statesmen out of office of the two countries, of all the greatest British judges and lawyers and historians, of the leading men in the universities, etc., etc.-^ In short, the movement had the support of every representative institution, body, and person who could be regarded as expressing the national opinion of Great Britain and France, and Lord Lansdowne could truly say, as he did in his despatch to Sir Edmund Monson of April 8, 1904, forwarding the agreements between Great Britain and France, that " such a settlement was notoriously desired on both sides of the Channel." The upper classes, however, were still unconvinced. One day in London, while I was in the thick of daily meetings, I met a past member of the British Embassy, and in our few minutes' conversation referred to its curious indifference to the movement. He told me ^ See Appendix VII. 215 THIRTY YEARS I was putting the blame on the wrong back, adding " it is here they are against you." We were talking in the midst of that unique quarter of the British Empire where mind, money, and well-made clothes read the evening papers together at tea-time, " Club- land." My friend seemed to think this fatal, and when, in a fine vein of sarcasm, I said I should have abandoned hope had it been otherwise, he dubbed me an incorrigible optimist. " Don't dream," he added, speaking of the Foreign Office, '' that public opinion daunts officials ; they can do no wrong." " What does then ? " " It is difficult to say. Questions in the House of Commons they hate. Letters to 7he Times worry them. But not even an earthquake that laid Downing Street in ruins would make them tremble." " Are you against me too ? " " No, I am with you ; but what of that ? Club- land is the class of the Executive." ^' Clubland is a brake, and the man in charge can turn it off and on as he chooses." *' Do you think you have convinced him ? " *^ I don't think he requires to be convinced." 216 CHAPTER XIX THE ENTENTE IN SIGHT In my speech at the spring meeting of the Associated Chambers of Commerce in 1900 giving the invita- tion to meet in Paris in the autumn, I laid particular stress on the popularity of the Prince of Wales, who was president of the British section at the forthcoming Exhibition. On the same occasion I called, at the suggestion of very important French friends, on Lord KnoUys with a view to sounding the Prince as to how an invitation to visit the Exhibition would be viewed. I was authorised on behalf of my friends to give His Royal Highness an emphatic assurance that he would receive a most hearty and respectful welcome, and that, owing to his popularity in Paris, his visit would certainly give an impetus to the restoration of Anglo-French friend- ship. That my friends and I were right was shown afterwards by the extraordinary keenness of the welcome given to the Chambers of Commerce. When I called back. Lord Knollys informed me that His Royal Highness thought he must follow the counsel of the Crown's accredited advisers, and that these advisers took quite a different view from mine and that of myTrehch friends as to the state of feeling in France. I might take it that an invitation would have to be declined. When, therefore, early In the spring of 1903 the 217 itJBM^hi^i^^ THIRTY YEARS rumour appeared in the French papers that the King intended shortly to pay a visit to Paris, I concluded that the Crown's accredited advisers had changed their minds or that the King had taken the decision into his own hands, which I understand, as a fact, was the case. The same morning I telephoned M. Combarieu, the President's private secretary, to ascertain whether the statement in the Press entre-filet was correct. He replied that it was, and added that I should come round and see the President about it. I must confess that I had misgivings about the expediency of a visit to Paris. To visit the Exhibi- tion as Prince of Wales, president of the British Section, was a very different proposition from visiting Paris as King of England. Paris, unlike the provinces, was still in the throes of a violent antagonism between the reactionary and the progres- sive forces of that lively city. Under the Republic, in fact, it has ceased to lead public opinion as it used to do, and its supremacy in this respect has not only been challenged, but displaced by the great provincial centres like Lille, Lyons, Havre, Rouen, Dijon, Mar- seilles, Bordeaux, Nancy, etc., which have successfully vindicated their political and intellectual indepen- dence. The entente had been ardently and success- fully championed throughout provincial France. In Paris, on the other hand, the fierce political anti- Semitic passions, which had develo ped int o^an over- sensitive patriotism, had not yet calmed down. Even the Chamber of Commerce of the capital had not yet dared to submit a resolution in favour of the movement, though it had welcomed the British Chambers of Commerce in 1900 and M. Fumouze, 218 THE ENTENTE IN SIGHT Its vice-president, was one of its most active partizans. The President's private study was at the end of a series of rooms devoted to the secretarial staff. There was an unmistakable air of satisfaction, and I was greeted as if the couronnement -of our work had been attained. The President said he was glad to have a few words with me. I suggested that the visit ought to be delayed till the following year, that is a year later, but the President observed that this was impossible. A personal friend of the King had arranged the visit, and His Majesty himself wished it to take place. ^' I know the danger," he said, " but I shall send for the leaders personally and point out to them that the King of England is not a Sovereign to whose charge the iniquities of any particular Government can be laid, that the King has always been a friend of France, and that, above all, France has a duty of hospitality to perform as well as an interest to pro- mote, the interest of peace between two peoples, who in spite of occasional egarements on both sides, represent all that is great and noble in the history of mankind. I shall recommend the enthusiasts to be moderate in their cheers and the disaffected to hold their tongues. Et vous ? " The question rather startled me. " M. le President," I said, " I shall go to Scotland and to the North of England and excite such a spirit of Francophil public opinion there that Paris would feel ashamed not to respond to it. The French will see that the movement is not a mere class movement 219 % h THIRTY YEARS in England, nor a mere Royal fad, but a movement of the masses of the King's subjects." * # # * « Both plans were carried out. The King was received without exaggerated warmth, without any cries which could provoke a counter-manifestation. The London correspondent of the Temps^ M. Ch. Schindler, who had just published his little book on Ireland, and given me a copy dedicated to " I'ouvrier le plus actif de V Entente Cordiale " accom- panied me to Scotland, where the meetings, as I anticipated, were enthusiastic. At Glasgow on the 20th, Edinburgh on the 22nd, Dundee on the 24th, and Galashiels on the 27th of April, under the patron- age of the chambers of commerce and assisted by all the leading citizens of these four great centres, local committees were formed for the promotion of the Anglo-French entente. Before May i, when the King crossed to Paris, nobody could say that the visit was a mere official parade or that the British public was indifferent. The objectors had been silenced by unchallengeable evidence. As it was the chambers of commerce which had taken the lead, it was to the British Chamber of Com- merce in Paris that the King delivered his message in the name of his people. # # # # * Anglo-French incidents now precipitated themselves with an amazing velocity. As Lord Lansdowne in his famous despatch to Sir Edmund Monson of April, 1904, truly said, " the King's visit gave a great impetus to the movement." I continued the series of my addresses in the North 220 THE ENTENTE IN SIGHT of England, at Leeds, Sheffield, and more especially Manchester (May 6), where from the first the move- ment had met with its most effective encouragement. The speech I was privileged to deliver on that occasion became a sort of manifesto. In the evening, on my return to London, I saw long quotations from it on the blackboard at the Reform Club and soon found I had struck home. The following day Mr. Ernest Beckett (now Lord Grimthorpe) sent me the form of a question he proposed to put to the Prime Minister on the subject. Mr. Ernest Beckett from the first had been one of the keenest supporters of the movement. He and another keen supporter of it, Sir William Holland (now Lord Rotherham), had called a meeting of M.P.'s in a committee-room at the House of Com- mons in the previous December (December 3, 1902) to hear an address on the subject which they asked me to deliver, and at it Ernest Beckett had presided. In his question Mr. Beckett asked the First Lord of the Treasury whether his attention had been called to resolutions passed by chambers of commerce on both sides of the Channel in favour of the conclusion of a permanent Treaty of Conciliation between Great Britain and France ; and, if so, whether, in view of the friendly feeling now prevailing between the two countries. His Majesty's Government would consider the expediency of entering into the necessary pre- liminaries to the negotiation of such a treaty. Mr. Balfour replied : — " As the House is aware, the Govern- ment have always been anxious that international disputes should, if possible, be decided and appeased by arbitral tribunals. My hon. friend uses the word ' conciliation,' which, I think, is not the word used by the chambers of commerce to which he refers. If we can do anything to 221 THIRTY YEARS further that general policy in connection with France, we should, of course, be glad to do so." Mr. Beckett said that in all recent resolutions of chambers of commerce the word " conciliation " Jiad been used. In Mr. Beckett's original draft he had used the word " arbitration," and it was at my suggestion that he had substituted the term " conciliation." The Treaty it was proposed should be taken as the model was, as the reader knows, the Anglo-American Treaty, which was rather a Treaty of conciliation than of arbitration, as I had set out in an explanatory note among the papers I was circulating on the subject.^ # # # # « Meanwhile (July 6 — 9) President Loubet paid his return visit to London, and if any doubt had still subsisted in the French mind as to the popularity of the rapprochement in England it was now finally dispelled. I attended M. Loubet's reception at St. James's Palace with Lord Reay, the chairman, Sir Donald Mackenzie Wallace, and Mr. A. A. Gordon, hon. secretary, on behalf of the Franco-Scottish Society to pay our respects. M. Loubet, with that bonhomie which made him so beloved, took my hand in his two and gave it a most affectionate squeeze. How well Frenchmen know how to put a volume into a geste I "fr flF *w w I cannot refrain here from saying a little more about a man to whose independent and sagacious judgment and true devotion to the cause of peace, as the key- 1 This note may not be without interest to those who think, as I do, that there is no reason why a Treaty modelled on the new Anglo-American and Franco-American Treaties should not for the same reason be concluded between the two partners of America in the Treaties in question, 222 THE ENTENTE IN SIGHT stone of a nation's prosperity and liberty, the entente owes more than the pubHc has ever yet placed to his credit. M. Loubet owed his Immense success with the French people and Influence over his ministers to never having courted office — nay far from It — having always had to be pressed Into acceptance of It. In retirement he has not followed the example of the well-to-do of Paris, who, when not bound profes- sionally to dwell In the neighbourhood of their sphere of operations, move westwards towards the Arc de Triomphe or beyond It to Passy, the Kensington of the French capital. The French advocate, like his confreres of Edinburgh, receives his clients and does his professional work at his private abode, and no practising advocate. In these circumstances, can reside at any great distance from the Palais de Justice. M. Loubet has remained within easy walking distance of the Salle des Pas Perdus, where he was wont In toque and gown to meet the many colleagues who had to combine the practice of their profession with parlia- mentary duties. In a spacious " apartment " In the Rue Dante, amid the teeming life of one of the busiest quarters of Paris, on the one hand, and nearly every- thing else that counts In Paris, except fashion, on the other, the ex-President, sprung from the people and a man of the people, is passing his declining years, for he is now seventy-five, when not enjoying the tranquillity and solitude of the maternal home at Montellmar. But he loves the noisy, bustling life of working Paris, of which from his balcony he can watch all the day's vicissitudes, from the early peasant carts, rumbling In the small hours with their lofty loads of vegetables for the market, till night, when the laughter 223 THIRTY YEARS of belated students rings joyously through the deserted streets and all is still again for a few hours. I once asked Mme. Loubet if really the President disliked being President, as he was reputed to do. She answered laughingly : " Oui et non ! " He had always longed to live in the country, and if he was in office it was not because he was ambitious or wanted it, but being there, il faut dire quHl n^y est 'pas mal- heureux. He told me himself, when he was still President, that if he had any ambition it was to plead another case at the Palais after he had ceased to be President, just to show that an ex- President returns to the ranks of those who elected him. He disliked the idea that he should be either a sort of aristocrat or an unemployable after he had held the highest post in the national Magistrature. A couple of years ago I had occasion to call on M. Loubet, whom I had not seen since expiry of his Presidency. He had cataract in one eye and had practically lost the use of it, but he added with his old buoyant gaiety that the other had gained power, and with his one eye he was still a better shot than any comrade of his own age. As his left eye is gone, he had had a gun constructed which, while fitting into his right shoulder, curves round and brings trigger and sight to his good eye, and his friends are always surprised to see the pheasants go down in spite of his odd gun, his one eye, and his ripe age. From first to last, he told me, he had got everything other men wanted because he did not want it. His original dream had been to make a little money as an advocate at Montelimar and farm his own little property there. He had no vocation for politics, but half a 224 THE ENTENTE IN SIGHT century ago in the sixties, when the second Empire was at the height of its prosperity and he still a very young man, though full of democratic enthusiasm, he had a fit of indignation at the manoeuvres of a Govern- ment parliamentary candidate and threw himself into the fight on the Republican side. He thus became entangled with politics, and one fine day in 1876, to keep out an undesirable candidate, he found himself selected as the local favourite and was elected. This brought him to the capital, where he joined the Paris Bar and had a few cases, always waiting, however, for a propitious moment to retire from the Chamber and return to Montelimar. He was constantly trying to wriggle out of the political network, but the longer he remained in the Chamber the harder it became to leave it. By way of compromise he determined to stand as a candidate for the Senate, and in 1885 was elected by the same district to the Senate, hoping always to slip back to private life before long. But he had not been a couple of years in the Senate when he found himself obliged to accept office in the cabinet, and then, worse, in 1892 found himself forced into the presidency of the cabinet. An unrelenting fate continued to persecute him, and the wretched man in 1896 was elected president of the Senate instead of leaving it. Again he was thwarted. " It was a sad day," he said, '' for my wife and me. We accepted fate, but it was with la mort dans VdmeT While he was still president of the Senate, President Felix-Faure suddenly died, and then the full measure of misfortune overtook them ; he was elected to the Elysee ! He had done his duty there, and so had his wife, but they were glad it was over. Alas, they were now too old to make up for a misspent life of honours T.Y. 225 Q THIRTY YEARS and responsibility. Their ambition had been to spend their middle age among their cattle and their poultry, watching their crops ripen and their vineyards thrive, and seeing the years in and out amid the glories of the serene nature of the Dauphine ! M. Loubet's tribulations, however, have never affected his good humour. I never knew a man of more even temper or more kindly disposition, and his success in London was phenomenal. King Edward had a particular affection for him. His Majesty had known him during his presidency of the Senate, and a short time after he was elected to that of the Republic, M. Loubet told me, the Prince of Wales, as he then was, one day surprised him by calling when passing through Paris incognito to congratulate him. " Je suis content de vous voir la," said the Prince. ** Moi pas ! " answered the President. " ^w W V W A few days after Mr. Beckett's question in Parlia- ment I received the following letter from the hon. secretary of the Commercial Committee of the House of Commons : — " March 21, 1903. " Dear Sir, — I should deem it a great kindness if you would inform me, on behalf of my committee for whom I write, as to the position and status in Parliament of the Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, as it has been suggested that he and members of his group in Parliament should visit our Commercial Committee and address them on his subject from a commercial point of view. You will appreciate that as a non-partisan body of 160 members we naturally wish to know exactly this gentleman*s standing before we formally send him an invitation. *' The committee have requested me to write you, and I will lay before them your kind information on Tuesday next, 226 THE ENTENTE IN SIGHT " Thanking you in anticipation, Yours very faithfully, L. Sinclair, Hon. Secretary of the Commercial Committee oi the House of Commons.'* In reply I gave the committee information which led to a further letter thanking me " for the ample and full information " I had given in regard to the Baron. A further inquiry came on behalf of Sir William Holdsworth and Sir William Holland asking " whether I would advise the Commercial Committee to invite him to give them an address." My advice was strongly in favour of the invitation being sent. The invitation was then sent in the following form : — "House of Commons, June 13th, 1903. " Dear Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, — The very interesting announcement which has been made that a large number of members of the French Parliament have constituted themselves into a group under your presidency for the purpose of making serious efforts to promote peace, whether by arbitra- tion or by conciliation, has been received with sincere pleasure in political and commercial circles in this country. An earnest desire exists in Great Britain to cultivate the most friendly relations with our nearest neighbour, the Republic of France, and foster and consolidate by all means in our power the commercial and other ties which connect the two countries, and we welcome this opportunity of inviting members of another Parliament to meet us for interchange of thought on matters of deep interest for our mutual benefit. ** Beyond the brief reports which have reached us we are unaware of the exact nature and character of your newly- formed organisation, and it has occurred to us that if you, as its president, accompanied by such of your colleagues as may be able to come, would do us the great honour and service of attending a gathering of members of the British Parliament, a useful purpose would be served by such a meeting, and the information that you would impart to us could not only be of commercial advantage to both countries, but might help to serve the noble cause you have in view. We are taking the initiative in this matter on behalf of the Commercial Com- mittee in the House of Commons, which is entirely of a non- partisan character, and comprises 159 of its members (whose 227 Q 2 THIRTY YEARS names we append), but we are assured that this invitation is most sincerely concurred in by other sections in our Parliament. " We therefore cordially invite you to honour us with a visit, and if Wednesday, July 15th, would be a convenient day for you we should be delighted to receive you on that date. We are, Yours very truly, L. Sinclair, J. S. Randles, Honorary Secretaries." M. d'Estournelles de Constant, who was not aware of what had passed between the committee and me, at once communicated with me on the subject, and asked me to deUver an address on the following Satur- day at a meeting of the '' arbitration group," which he had called for communication to them of the invitation. He thought it desirable that I should give them some account of the movement, especially as regards the support it had obtained in Great Britain, of the standing of the inviting Committee, and that I should back up the invitation by urging its acceptance. This was all done and on the 25th I received the following letter from the hon. secretary of the committee : — " June 25, 1903. " You will be the only visitor at the dinner on July 23rd. Of course, you will appreciate that, as the speech and toast list will be very small (the Baron's address being the one thing), you are not being asked to address the meeting. " I must repeat that the committee are looking forward to your being present, and I hope you will take it as a deserved compliment to yourself that they ask you alone, except peers and members of the House, to join them on the 23rd July." It was at this memorable dinner at the House of Commons that Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, who presided, delivered an admirable speech in perfect French to the astonishment of all present. It was at it also that, introducing Mr. Balfour and Mr. Joseph Chamberlain to the guests, he wittily referred 228 THE ENTENTE IN SIGHT to the one as the enfant gate of the House and the other as its enfant terrible. At Sir E. Sassoon's dinner to a party of the French parHamentarians, Sir Henry- handed me to read a letter in perfect French from Lord Burghclere, congratulating him on his speech. There are hundreds of well-known Englishmen who speak French fluently, but I never heard any of my countrymen, except perhaps Lord Reay, show such a mastery over the finesses of the language as Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman. * ■sUf % ^- * At length in October of the same year the Treaty of Arbitration between Great Britain and France was signed and the first step in a new period in the history of Anglo-French relations was takem In the beginning of the month I knew the treaty was coming, and left London as a member of the Mosely Educational Commission to spend the autumn in the United States. The news of its signature had preceded me to New York, and it was on the landing stage from reporters who were waiting to interview me on the subject on my arrival that I learnt the expected and none the less happy tidings. 229 CHAPTER XX THE ACKIEVEMENT A WEEK after Mr. Beckett's question in the House of Commons began the negotiations for the Anglo- French standing Treaty of Arbitration which was the official beginning of the end of Anglo-French hostile rivalry. Meanwhile, concurrent negotiations were com- menced for the purpose of settling all outstanding points of difference. The demand for an Arbitration _Treaty presupposed^^ j settlement of ex isting^ difficulties, and there were many and very delicate difficulties to be solved. Arbitration necessarily involves judicial methods, and a solution in accord- ance with contractual obligations, if any, or, if none, with principles of justice acknowledged and accepted by both parties. The continuance of the British occupation of Egypt was dictated by an overwhelming British interest. There are no principles of justice under which our overwhelming interest could be taken into consideration as against our contractual obliga- tions resulting from Treaties^ and deliberate pro- mises of evacuation publicly given and repeated by British statesmen. Nor in the case of Morocco had either party any locus standi to submit their respec- tive claims in an independent State to arbitration. Nor, again, are there any principles of justice by which ^ Treaties of 1856 and 1878. See my book on *' The Turco-Italian War and its Problems," Chap. VII., for a full discussion of Egypt's political status. 230 THE ACHIEVEMENT arbitrators could decide as between the commercial interests of the one and the geographical position of the other. The New Hebrides question involved on the British side the reserving of the Australian claim to a prior right over the islands of Australasia, — an Australian Monroe doctrine, which is as reasonable as that of the United States and as little accountable to any existing principles. In the Newfoundland fisheries matter, only a subsidiary question of interpretation of a clause in the existing Treaty was susceptible of submission to arbitration. The main question involved the very existence of the French rights, rights which were derived from a Treaty which could only be reversed by the conclusion of a cancelling Treaty. There were other questions relating to Siam, Tunis, Madagascar, and the Niger. All were questions based rather on policy than on assessable or definable rights, and, however desirable it is that arbitration should extend to all international difficulties without dis- tinction, no principles have yet been devised by which such difficulties can be submitted by both contending parties to an impartial referee. For this reason I had proposed the adoption of the principles of the Anglo- American Treaty of "conciliation" of 1896, which would have enabled the parties to submit differences of the kind in question to a joint commission without an alien umpire. The alternative was to deal with all the then existing differences by negotiation and agreements, and provide arbitration for differences of interpretation of the agreements and any further matters of a judicial character, i,e., such matters as, when arising between citizens of the same country, would be within the scope of a national court of law. 231 THIRTY YEARS The latter alternative was the course adopted by the two Governments, and accordingly on May 20, 1903, M. Paul Cambon, the French Ambassador, wrote to M. Delcasse as follows : — " Guiding myself by the information your Excellency was good enough to give me verbally, I have asked Lord Lansdowne to tell me how he feels towards the campaign for arbitration among the British Chambers of Commerce. The opportunity of an interview of this sort was offered by a question put on this subject to Mr. Balfour on the nth inst., and his answer, though he confined himself to generalities which made it difficult to infer any adhesion to the scheme of a permanent Treaty of Arbitration, did not discourage the hopes of the supporters of the scheme. " Lord Lansdowne stated that a Government could not be asked absolutely to tie its hands, and that, according to their nature or importance, some questions must be kept outside the scope of arbitration ; that, on the other hand, the move- ment in favour of a permanent Treaty was so general that the Government could not do otherwise than earnestly take it into consideration. " I told him your Excellency shared this view and had already drawn up a formula, and repeated the words you had yourself used at our last conversation. " * We could submit,' you said, ' to arbitration divergencies referring to the juridical interpretation of conventions existing between the two countries.' " Lord Lansdowne seemed impressed by this formula, which he thought might serve as a satisfactory basis for an understanding." While the details of a general settlement were being discussed, from time to time the negotiations for the Arbitration Treaty were resumed. Thus two months later (July 16, 1903) M. Delcasse wrote to M. Paul Cambon : — " By a letter dated 20th May last, you reported an interview which you had had with the Principal Secretary of State on the subject of a permanent Treaty of Arbitration between France and Great Britain. " Since then, this question has constantly been agitated 232 THE ACHIEVEMENT on both sides of the Channel. Numerous addresses have reached me in which an understanding of this sort is urged either by chambers of commerce or by individuals. " This movement of opinion being no less marked in England than in France, I should attach some value to knowing what the King's Minister for Foreign Affairs precisely thinks. I should, therefore, be obliged to you if you would take the first opportunity of conferring again on the subject with Lord Lansdowne. " I think it useful to communicate to you the enclosed copy of a form which has already been approved by the cabinet and which seems capable of serving as a basis for the negotiations which might be entered into with the King's Government." The enclosure was as foUov^s : — *' Differences falling within the scope of article 1 6 of the Convention for the Pacific Settlement of International Conflicts, signed at the Hague on the 29th July, 1899, that is to say, differences of a juridical order, and particularly those relative to difiiculties of interpretation or application of existing Conventions, which may arise between the High Contracting Powers, shall — provided, however, that they affect neither the vital interests nor the honour of the said Contracting Powers, and that, on the other hand, they cannot be solved through the diplomatic channel — be submitted to the permanent Court of Arbitration, in conformity with the provisions of the above-mentioned Convention." A few weeks again passed, and then M. Cambon wrote on August 6 to M. Delcasse : — " Carrying out your instructions, I yesterday told the Principal Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs that you were quite ready to discuss with him a draft Convention of Arbitration between the two countries. I handed him the formula which you had requested me to communicate to him officially and which appeared to him worthy of careful consideration. He will submit it to his colleagues, and his personal opinion is that in restricting, as you do, arbitration to differences of a juridical order and to difficulties of interpre- tation of existing conventions, it is possible to reach some practical understanding." Some six weeks passed ; then M. Delcasse wrote to 233 THIRTY YEARS M. Geoffray, the French Charge d' Affaires (now the distinguished Ambassador of France at Madrid), to take up the matter again, and at length on October 7 M. Cambon asked for instructions to sign the draft submitted by M. Delcasse and approved by Lord Lansdowne. On the 14th the signatures were affixed and the first standing Treaty of Arbitration stepped into history, accompanied by an official note stating that it was the " outcome of the movement in both countries in favour of affirming the general principle of recourse to arbitration, whenever that method can be safely and conveniently adopted." TC TT vP Tp As was pointed out at the time, the Anglo-French Arbitration Treaty is one of the three greatest events in the history of arbitration. The first was the Alabama case, in which two great countries sub- mitted a question which had aroused the war spirit in both of them to a white heat, to the decision of a court composed mainly of foreigners, and in which for the first time the methods of domestic judicature were applied to arbitration. The second was the creation of the Hague Court, and the third was the Anglo- French Treaty agreeing to submit all difficulties of a judicial character to it. These three events stand in the direct line of descent one from the other as the three landmarks in the road of progress towards the goal of justice among nations. Elsewhere. I have discussed the character of the Treaty, its scope, and the measure of its utility.^ # * * # # * ** Problems of International Practice and Diplomacy" : London, 1907, pp. ij et stq. \ North American Reviezv J Januziyyi^Oi^. J fortnightly Review ^ October, 1904. 234 THE ACHIEVEMENT On the signing of the Treaty I wrote from New York congratulating Lord Lansdowne and M. Cambon, the French Ambassador, its two signatories. Lord Lansdowne's reply, dated October 28, was as follows : — " Foreign Office, October 28, 1903. " Dear Mr, Barclay, — I am much obliged to you for your letter of October 16 and for sending me the cutting from the 'New York ^imes which gives your views on the importance of the Anglo-French Arbitration Treaty. *' I am sure that it must be a great satisfaction to you to see your efforts in this direction crowned with success. ** With many thanks, etc., Lansdowne." That from M. Cambon was more circumstantial, and in stating that it was " calculated to cut short a quantity of daily difficulties and incidents of which one can never foresee the consequences " he admirably described at once its scope and its advantages. It ran : — " Ambassade de France a Londres, le 27 Octobre, 1913. *' Cher Monsieur Barclay, — Je regois votre aimable lettre. '' Sans etre un aussi grand evenement que vous voulez bien le dire, la signature de ce traite d'arbitrage est un acte d'une certaine gravite. La convention a un caractere pratique, utilisable des maintenant. Elle est de nature a couper court a une quantite de difHcultes journalieres et a ces incidents dont on ne peut jamais calculer les suites. Elle est en outre une manifestation des bons rapports entre les deux pays. Et a ce titre seulement elle a ses avantages. " Vous etes I'un des ouvriers de la premiere heure dans cette ceuvre de rapprochement et c'est a vous surtout qu'il faut adresser ses felicitations. — Votre bien devoue, Paul Cambon." From Lord Chief Justice Alverstone, who, as I have said, had given me throughout my campaign both his always mature and judicious advice and his influential 235 THIRTY YEARS backing, I received the following private letter which I have his kind authority to publish : — " HoRNTON Lodge, Kensington, October 27, 1903. " Dear Barclay, — Your letter of the 1 6th inst. from New York has just reached me. As you do not state how long you are remaining there, I think it best to reply to Paris. " You have my most hearty congratulationsonthesuccessful result of your labours. No one knows better than I that the signing of the Anglo-French Treaty is entirely due to you. Faithfully yours, Alverstone." 236 CHAPTER XXI AN ANGLO-AMERICAN INTERLUDE It will have been observed that the letters quoted in the last chapter implied my absence in America. By the time I was invited by my old and esteemed friend Lord Reay to join the Mosely Educational Com- mission, the Anglo-French entente was well on its way to realisation, and, though I continued the work of agitating for it by addresses in France down to the end of September and great meetings were held at Bordeaux, Nancy, and Lyons in August and Septem- ber, it was because there had as yet been no official report of progress, and, so far as the public were aware, the two Governments seemed still to require mani- festations of public opinion to goad them into action. The Lyons meeting (September 28), at which the then famous mayor, M. Augagneur, the most progressive civic officer in France and afterwards successively governor of Madagascar and Minister of Public Works, presided, and another at which my ever obliging, energetic and dear friend. Senator Mascuraud, presi- dent of the '* Comite Republicain du Commerce et de rindustrie," occupied the chair, were the last of my campaign. The negotiations for the Treaty of Arbi- tration were concluded a week later. So I " sheathed my sword " and embarked with the Mosely Com- mission for New York. 5fr "ir 1p * W I had inherited from my active old grandfather his 237 THIRTY YEARS love of educational questions. In the twenties, when Walter Scott, the poet, was not yet known to be the " author of ' Waverley ' " and the Edinburgh Review was preaching the gospel of progress and reform, he founded, as the town clerk and the " autocrat " of Kinghorn, the first Realschule, a school in which a little Latin and much French and science were taught. He had the school-house built according to the points of the compass, with constellations decorating the roof. Around it were busts of famous men, including Napoleon and Walter Scott, which made a party of visitors from Edinburgh sigh at the degeneracy of admiring the late *' scourge of Europe," on the one hand, and that " stickit lawyer, wasting his time wi' verses," on the other. *^ 4^ j^ 4^ ^P flp vP ^P My visit to the United States and Canada, originally undertaken for the study of the educational methods and resources of the great Republic, developed, after the return home of the Commission a month later, into a three months' campaign for an Anglo-American Treaty of Arbitration on the lines of that which had been concluded between Great Britain and France. Just about that time (October 20, 191 3) the Alaska decision had been given, and Lord Alverstone, siding with the American members of the Tribunal, Messrs. Elihu Root, Lodge and Turner, against the Canadian members. Sir Louis Jette and Mr. Aylesworth, had decided against the British, that is, the Canadian view. Public feeling in the Dominion ran high. It was thought Lord Alverstone had yielded to political pressure exercised in London and that, out of fear of United States displeasure, the British Government had sacrificed a Canadian interest. At our Embassy 238 AN ANGLO-AMERICAN INTERLUDE at Washington Mr. Raikes, British Charge d' Affaires, allowed me to examine the printed papers, and I came to the conclusion that Lord Alverstone could not in justice have decided otherwise than he did. The Canadians had given away their contention before its defenders were born. As this was a matter in which the principle which I had been advocating for three years was involved, viz., that, in matters of grave national importance, the board of arbitration, or rather conciliation, should be composed exclusively of nationals, it was of the greatest importance to my argument to see how it had worked in the only case in which it had been applied. In endeavouring to gauge public opinion, as every- body knows, distant observers are often the victims of misleading casual incidents. It was so in this case. If it had been otherwise, I should not have been cheered as I was at the Board of Trade and Canadian Club at Ottawa, at the Board of Trade and Chambre de Com- merce of Montreal, and at the Canadian Club of Toronto. At lunch, at Sir Wilfrid Laurier's house in Ottawa, I met Sir Louis Jette, who breathed no violence. Mr. Aylesworth at Toronto showed some vexation, but no wrath. I came away with the conviction that Canadians had only exercised the right of every man who loses his case to say " damn " ; and, instead of being dissuaded by the object-lesson of the Alaska case from pressing for the adoption of this system, I have ever since advocated it as the wisest method of dealing with matters of great national gravity. # * * « * The delightfully instructive four months I spent in America do not fall within the scope of this volume. 239 THIRTY YEARS In Canada I staved with an old Fife friend, Sir Sandford Fleming, one of whose charming daughters married Captain Exshaw, of Bordeaux, son of a late client of mine, who has given his name to a famous " brand." Sir Sandford had arranged my short campaign so admirably that in a few days I was able to do the work of weeks. At Washington I made the acquaintance, which ripened into friendship, of John Hay, the Secretary of State. We planned together my campaign for the revival of the Anglo-American Treaty negotiations, and in conjunction with Mr. Bassett Moore, the Hon. J. W. Foster, Dr. E. Hale, Mr. Andrew Carnegie, Mr. Trueblood, Mr. E. Ginn, Mr. Brown, of Messrs. Brown Shipley & Co., and last, but far from least, Mr. G. L. Rives (the editor of the Correspondence of Thomas Barclay, a New York worthy, a circumstance which brought us together), revived the old Arbitra- tion Committee of 1895, with Mr. Nelson Page, the new United States minister to China, as hon. secretary. My fellow-townsman of Dunfermline, Mr. Carnegie, took a very active and effective part in its work, and a new Treaty in due course was signed. Again, unfortunately, the Senate " hamstrung " it. Mr. Hay one day observed to me that the Fathers of the Constitution had made a deplorable mistake in investing the Senate with executive powers, for it simply meant that the Secretary of State passed his life with discouragement in his soul and anger in his language. Mr. Hay was a man of intense sincerity and at the same time a truly great diplomatist in the highest sense of the term, well informed, judicious and courteous, at once a man of the world and a 240 AN ANGLO-AMERICAN INTERLUDE student of events, kindly yet firm, and knowing exactly what he wanted, though the Senate seldom allowed him to get it. When he was returning from Europe ill, practically on his death-bed already, I wrote to be allowed to come and see him. But he was too ill to receive me. The following autograph letter showed how the frustration of his efforts and hopes preyed on his mind : — " June 6, 1905. " My stay in London is counted by hours, and I am compelled by the condition of my health to deny myself the pleasure of visiting or receiving my friends. " I am very sorry not to have met you — though your visit could hardly have been anything but a renewal of sorrow. The action of our Senate, in bringing to nought the labour of years, — in which your own services were most brilliant and valuable — was a bitter grief to me.** T Y. 241 CHAPTER XXII THE SQUARING UP The Arbitration Treaty had been signed on October 14, 1903. It was not till six months later that the general settlement of pending difficulties, of which it was the complement, was finally concluded. During M. Loubet's visit to London M. Delcasse, who accompanied him, had an exhaustive* personal interview (July 7) with Lord Lansdowne, at which it was recognised that it was not impossible, as M. Delcasse, after the conclusion of the conventions, wrote to his representatives in the countries involved, '* to find for each of the problems with which they were con- fronted " a solution equally advantageous to both parties. The Arbitration Treaty, as was well known, was only a part of the programme of the work of arriving at an effective entente. It was later explained that the Arbitration Treaty was signed, before the general agreement on pending difficulties was concluded, with a view to giving provisionally some satisfaction to the growing impatience of public opinion to see some tangible outcome of the agitation. The delay was unavoidable, however, owing to the fact that the arrangements included details affecting the interests and territory of two of our self-governing colonies whose views had to be ascertained before anything definite could be signed. After these pending 242 THE SQUARING UP difficulties had been removed, the Arbitration Treaty, as M. Cambon said in his letter to me,^ would be useful as a means of dealing with any detail which might arise in the future. By a give-and-take arrangement the two Govern- ments found it possible, under the benign influence of the new friendship between the two peoples, to settle matters which had caused anxiety to a generation of Foreign Secretaries. At length, in April, 1904, all outstanding diffi- culties were finally adjusted and the agreements published. It will be remembered what the difficulties which had been so long a source of embarrassment between the British and French Governments were : — {a) The position which had arisen out of the British occupa- tion of Egypt, a country in which French influence had been politically preponderant for a century, a pre- ponderance to which the construction and ownership of the Suez Canal had added a great material French interest ; {b) the case of Morocco, which France as a contiguous State regarded as a French sphere of influence, but in which Great Britain had very material interests as a market for British goods and enterprise, apart from the political complication of its proximity to Gibraltar ; {c) the question of the " French shore " in Newfoundland, a question of rights which the French had retained from the old time of French ascendancy in what is now British North America (these rights had become a source of trouble and conflict since the British ^ See p. 236. 243 R 2 THIRTY YEARS colony of Newfoundland had become a self- governing dependency and the once desert shores in question had been reached by the expanding interests of the island colonists) ; {d) the question of the New Hebrides, islands which Australians claimed to be within their sphere of influence, while France claimed them to be within the sphere of influence of her New Caledonian possessions, and which meanwhile were a sort of no-man's-land in which British and French settlers were exposed to a dangerous state of anarchy ; {e) the question of Siam, which had remained a bone of contention between the British influence on the western side and the French on the eastern, and where the respective antagonistic interests involved constantly threatened to develop into unmanageable incidents. The arrangement of these difficulties involved con- cessions by Great Britain which also settled other difficulties. We had never agreed to the French change in the economic status of Madagascar. We now recognised the customs duties imposed by France in that island. We ceded, moreover, certain islands to France which fell within the geographical area of the French Guinea coast, and consented to boundary rectifications in Central and Western Africa, which, while giving satisfaction to France, wiped out a number of points of perennial irritation. The arrangement resembled a treaty of peace, a treaty such as the Powers concerned might have concluded after a costly but undecisive war, such as an Anglo-French war would probably have been. More especially, in disposing satisfactorily of the Egyptian question, it put an end to a difficulty which the French not only considered a " vital 244 THE SQUARING UP interest," but had come to regard as involving the *' national honour." "^ « « # # The question of the New Hebrides, which was after- wards regulated in detail by an Anglo-French joint commission, settled a matter which might easily have been fanned into a matter of " national honour," complicated by a British colonial view difficult to manage from London. I had long been connected with the question of Anglo-French rivalry in those parts, first as repre- sentative of the Bank of South Australia and the Glasgow interest in the New Caledonian Nickel Company against John Higginson, and after- wards, when the Glasgow people were bought out, as the adviser of John Higginson himself. John Higginson was one of the most interesting adventurers it has been my lot to know. Born in New South Wales, son of a small Irish Presbyterian squatter, he found life, between the austerity of his home and his inability to be anything but the school dunce, so intolerable that one day he slipped away to Sydney, hid himself aboard the first vessel sailing, and found himself landed at fourteen years of age at Noumea, in a country of which he did not know the language. But he was strong of limb and could join the coolies, and for a couple of years he kept body and soul together as a lighterman. Then his chance came. The French Government found it necessary to have a regiment of cavalry to act as police for the main- tenance of order among the unruly convict and native populations. The horses were bought in Australia, but they had to be broken in and men had to be taught to ride them. Higginson, who was an expert horse- 24s THIRTY YEARS obviously a case for inquiry and precisely such a situation is provided against in the Hague Convention, under which a Commission of Inquiry could be appointed by the Joint Powers. Why should not this solution of the trouble be resorted to, since before everything else it is exact knowledge of the facts which is needed at present." At the Cabinet Council the same afternoon it was decided to agree to such an inquiry as suggested in the above article. There was an outcry, an unjustifiable outcry, at the adoption of this solution, which was described as a miserable compromise and anti-climax. Anyhow, a Commission of Inquiry was appointed, and its report, published in the following February, was the first great triumph for the Hague Peace Convention. It was truly so, but it was a still greater triumph for the Anglo-French entente, m ife if^ ik ^ The influence France exerted as mediator between her two friends marked the dawn of a new state of things which required the most delicate handling. It was obvious that our friendship with France was destined sooner or later, with its consolidation, to affect our policy in connection with France's ally. How was this going to affect Germany ? Wedged in between France and Russia, with England dominating all her issues to the outer world, her frontiers open to all the political winds that blow, Germany has a geographical position which forces her statesmen to listen with an anxious ear to any movements, projects, or combinations of her neighbours. In a country where military service is compulsory and the life of every able-bodied 256 A NEW ERA— GERMANY citizen is at stake on the slightest foreign provoca- tion, public opinion, moreover, is easily excited, and one of the cares of the Government is to anticipate possible alarm. This it had done. The semi-official Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung had lost no time in reassuring German public opinion on the effect of the Agreement of April 8, 1904. German commercial interests, it said on April 10, *' in the North- West African Sultanate are in no peril of being interfered with. On the contrary, successful endeavours on the part of France ... to give greater stability to public affairs in Morocco would presumably benefit German as well as other com- merce." The Frankfurter Zeitung felt sure that France and England had satisfied themselves that " what they vv^ere arranging with each other was in no danger of encountering opposition or resistance on the part of Germany.^ So far from anything in the agreements or in the relations of France and England having any character of hostility to Germany, they were too obviously designed to put an end to strife and of too complicated character to involve any arriere-pensee warranting the remotest approach to any such idea. Nor did the German Chancellor (Count von Billow) entertain any suspicion of their having any anti-German character. ^ A fortnight earlier the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung^ in its weekly review of foreign policy for the week ending March 25, 1904, had already remarked : — " So far as we can yet perceive, German interests could not be alTected by exchanges of views relative to Morocco. In view of the repeated assurance given officially on the French side that France has in view neither conquest nor occupation, but seeks merely to open up the Sultanate of North-West Africa to European civilisation, the belief is warranted that German commercial interests in Morocco are not exposed to any risk. There is, therefore, no reason, from the German point of view, to regard the Anglo- French entente in preparation with hostile eyes." T.Y. 257 S THIRTY YEARS On April 12, in answer to a question on the subject in the Reichstag, the Imperial Chancellor, referring to the Anglo-French Agreement, said : — ** We have no cause to apprehend that this Agreement was levelled against any individual Power. It seems to be an attempt to eliminate the points of difference between France and Great Britain by means of an amicable understanding. From the point of view of German interests we have nothing to complain of, for we do not wish to see strained relations between Great Britain and France, if only for the reason that such a state of affairs would imperil the peace of the world, the maintenance of which we sincerely desire. As regards the most important feature of the Agreement, Morocco, we have a substantial economic interest there. Therefore, it is essentially to our interest that peace and order should reign in that country ; we have no ground to fear that our economic interests in Morocco will be disregarded or injured by any other Power." ^ Count von Reventlov^, in a speech in the Reichstag tw^o days later (April 14, 1904), referred, however, to negotiations which had taken place between the Chancellor and France in which the question of a cession to Germany of a port on the Atlantic coast had been mooted. If any such suggestion was really made, it must have come from Germany, and would probably not have appeared feasible either to France or Great Britain. ' A pan-German organ, the Rheinisch-W estfdlische Zeitung, on the pre- vious day (April ii), however, struck a very different key. "Morocco," it said, *'is a German concern. Germany must occupy herself with the question because of her ever-increasing population, Morocco being a suitable land for colonisation. Moreover, Germany is in need of naval bases. The Anglo-French entente has made that question acute. If Germany refrains from making claims, she will go empty-handed away from the partition of the world. As England is eliminated from the Moorish question, Germany has only France to deal with. The situation is so favourable that even Count von Biilow will have the courage to exploit it. Is the German Michael to get nothing ^ The time has come when Germany must secure Morocco trom the Atlas to the sea." 258 A NEW ERA— GERMANY On the same date, again speaking in the Reichstag, Count von Biilow said : — " We stand in a firm relationship of alliance with two Great Powers ; we maintain friendly relations with five other Powers, while our relations with France are tranquil and pacific, and, so far as we are concerned, will remain so." ^F ^TP ^vr ^JF ^v Only Professor Schiemann, in his weekly article in the KreuZ'Zeitung, seems to have at once spotted the truly weak point in the Morocco Convention. "" So far as we are concerned," he wrote on April 13, " we shall have to take care that France sticks conscien- tiously in Morocco to the principle of the ' open door.' She has bound herself for thirty years ; after thirty- years, and earlier, if she disregards her promise, the question will come up again." Professor Schiemann holds a very exceptional position in Germany, one not unlike that which Bagehot in his time held in this country. Detached from all personal advantage, posts or honours, his historical studies, especially his intimate knowledge of Russia (he was born in the Baltic provinces), long and close attention to all the passing events of current international politics, and keen practical intelligence have given him a unique place among the leading men of Germany. Though the Kreuz-Zeitung to which he contributes a weekly article on foreign affairs, is a reactionary newspaper, his articles are only reactionary in the sense that he regards the interest of his country, material, moral and political, as the dominant note in his treatment of all international questions. Many Englishmen at the London Congress of Historians in April, 191 3, met Professor Schiemann and his charming wife, who spent some of hex youth in England and speaks 259 s 2 THIRTY YEARS English with fluency. In the summer I had the pleasure of meeting my friend again in Norway, where he was staying as one of the Imperial visitors on board the Hohenzollern. The Emperor selected him as one of the guests at a lunch on Sir Max Waechter's beautiful yacht, the Rovenska, " to give you pleasure," as His Majesty was good enough to tell me : he could hardly have given me a greater one. " The Anglo-French Agreements," wrote Professor Schiemann again on June 29, 1904, " contain, we may say with perfect certainty, nothing that can disturb our equanimity. They have, as a fact, considerably contracted the area of possible differences between the two Western Powers, and that can only be satis- factory." " Germany's interest," he went on, " was, of course, affected by only two of the agreements, viz., those relating to Morocco and Egypt. It was of importance to Germany that her standing interests should not suffer. As regards Egypt, a telegram of June 25 showed they had been very satisfactorily assured. According to this telegram, we also have given our assent, hitherto withheld, to the Khedivial decree determining Egyptian financial conditions. As regards Morocco, we can have nothing to complain of, if French policy is not allowed to deviate from one of ' penetration pacifique^ as it is euphe- mistically called, into a country which has entered a stage of internal and external crisis which it will take the very greatest efforts to overcome. With the thirty years for which the maintenance of the commercial status qud is assured, we may consider ourselves satisfied. Our political imagination does not reach far enough to picture France in 1934. It will certainly not be the same picture as that of to-day." The observations I have quoted above from Professor Schiemann's article are, I believe, an authentic de- scription of the policy of Germany, as the Emperor and the Imperial Chancellor determined at that time it should be, in regard to Morocco — that is to say, that 260 A NEW ERA— GERMANY Germany was not bound by the Anglo-French Agree- ment ; that for thirty years the ^^ open door " was assured by it ; that on expiry of thirty years Germany, having reserved her rights, would be entitled to object to any closing of the door, though England had agreed beforehand to assent to it. This was not an unfriendlv policy. From the standpoint of international politics, it was a perfectly logical position for a third Power to take up, and in fact nothing more was heard of the Morocco question for the time being. # * * # # There was another reason why Germany would rather welcome than find fault with the Agreement. The general impression in Germany throughout 1904 was that the rapprochement between France and Great Britain tended to weaken the alliance between France and Russia. Any enduring friendship with both, owing to existing political conditions in both the Middle and the Far East, seemed impossible. The public excitement in England caused by the Dogger Bank affair and the exploits of the Russian cruisers, Petersburg and Smolensky accentuated, if anything, this impression. # 41: # # # In the autumn, in the course of conversation with Count Bernstorff, then councillor of the German Embassy, now Ambassador to the United States (who was born in England while his father was Prussian Ambassador to the Court of St. James, and whose affection for the land of his birth is almost as great as that for the land of his descent), we spoke of the ill-feeling some political mischief-makers in both countries had been successful in stirring up. Nothing, he assured me, was farther from the German official 261 THIRTY YEARS mind than to do or say anything which could disturb the equanimity of Europe. He was convinced that all thinking Englishmen were well disposed towards Germany, but something, he thought, ought to be done to show public opinion generally that friend- ship with France did not entail hostility to Germany, that Germany did not, as some people seemed to suppose she must necessarily do, resent friendship between France and Great Britain, but on the contrary that she hailed anv movement which tended to the maintenance of the peace of Europe. As I was on the point of starting for Germany, he suggested that on my return I might publish an article giving my impressions of German public opinion. My notorious connection with the Anglo-French entente would exclude any idea of a bias towards Anglo-German friendship as opposed to Anglo-French friendship. w 'w tF tP ff On my return from Germany I was asked by the Standard for an interview, which appeared in that paper on December 15 in the following form : — " The recent visit of Sir Thomas Barclay to Germany, though it was originally undertaken for other purposes, was at once regarded by the Press of Berlin as a mission of peace. It called forth so many friendly articles that the time seems opportune for inquiring whether it is not possible to establish good relations between two countries which have long been on what could scarcely be called the best of terms. One of our representatives called yesterday upon Sir Thomas Barclay, and at once put the question to him : ' Is an Anglo-German rapprochement possible, in view of the very strong animus displayed in both countries ? ' " ' To begin with,' he replied, * the feeling against us in Germany, at all events, is not half as strong as the Press in both countries would lead one to believe. At the beginning of 1900 the feeling between France and England was as bad as it could be ; the pent-up bitterness engendered by the 262 A NEW ERA— GERMANY Fashoda incident was given full rein by the Boer war. The abuse of the gutter Press in Paris, and the publication of gross caricatures of our Queen, had aroused a corresponding anger in England. In the January number of the Revue de Paris, so weighty a writer as M. Ernest Lavisse took an almost despairing view of the situation. There can be no doubt that the two countries were on the verge of war. Something had to be done, and somebody had to take the lead in doing it.' " Sir Thomas then briefly sketched the inception of the present Anglo-French entente, modestly omitting the strenuous part which he himself took in its accomplishment. " ' And you really think that, through appealing to the business instincts of England and Germany, a similar good feeling can be established t ' was asked. " * Most emphatically. Remember that only four years ago the bitterness between France and England was such that war seemed almost inevitable. At present there is no such extreme tension between England and Germany. We judge here far too much by the attitude of Berlin. Neither London nor the London Press can claim to speak for England ; to a still greater extent is it true that the voice of Berlin does not represent the feeling of Germany. Both Berlin and London are centres of diplomacy and finance, rather than of industry and democracy. Financiers do not dread a war as business men do. War brings grist to their mills in the shape of remunerative loans. I have a proverb of my own, which says that fools make war and clever men make profits. Leave Berlin aside, then, and the feeling in Germany is fairly evenly balanced. Hamburg is very friendly towards England, and so are most of the ports. Dresden, curiously enough, is decidedly anti-British, while Munich is indifferent. But Westphalia, the Lancashire and West Riding combined of Germany, is bent on peace. If it is true that " the interest of England is peace," it is far more true of Germany. She cannot afford the ever-increasing burden of naval expense, but she is driven to build battleships by the hostile tone of the British Press. Do not forget this, that every anti-German article in an English newspaper means more votes in Germany for the increase of the naval estimates. Do not forget either that, though we can dominate her fleet, she has an abundance of fast liners ready to be converted into commerce destroyers, and a war between the two countries would simply result in handing over the carrying trade of both to America. Truly, war is a game for fools.* 263 THIRTY YEARS a c How would an Anglo-German rapprochement affect the Anglo-French ejitente ? ' " ' Surely not for the worse. No, the French would welcome such a rapprochement because it would largely secure the peace of Europe, which France desires above all other things. See what the Anglo-French entente has done for France. It has enabled both Governments to dispense with the increase of naval armaments as between ourselves. And France, free from a great preoccupation, has entered upon a period of social consolidation and internal reform. Witness the new Bill for dealing with the unemployed, the revision of the Civil Code, and the reduction of military service. There is nothing which patriotic Frenchmen can, and do, more ardently desire than the added sense of security which would be brought about by more friendly relations between England and Germany. And be sure that, sooner or later, thanks to the business instincts of the two great Teutonic nations, those relations will be established.' " In a judicious leading article on this interview the Standard made the follov^ing observations which seemed to show that the official feeling, which the Standard may be considered to have canvassed before expressing an opinion, was favourable to a rapproche- ment between England and Germany and did not think friendship with France stood in its way : — '' Sensible and patriotic men in Great Britain and Germany alike have for some time past been concerned at the state of feeling which has been allowed to grow up between these countries. Sir Thomas Barclay did so much to bring about our wise and welcome understanding with France that his views on this topic are of peculiar interest . . . We have had no German Fashoda, and the Boer war is happily passing into ancient history. That it is to the interest of the two great Protestant mercantile States of Northern Europe to remain on good terms should need no demonstration. If * the greatest of British interests is peace,' the proposition is also true of the German Empire, which has its Lancashire and Yorkshire in Westphalia audits Liverpool at the mouth of the Elbe. . . . We have our scaremongers and violent alarmists, gentlemen who cannot sleep at nights for thinking of the German spectre, 264 A NEW ERA— GERMANY and who, in their panic, are ready to advise us to take the most desperate expedients. Sometimes we are told that it must be our ceaseless preoccupation to prepare for that struggle to the death with Germany which is bound to come, and, sometimes, these fiery mentors warn us to forestall the inevitable by ourselves making the attack. . . . Nothing can be less excusable than the effort to represent to the peoples of two great nations that they must be enemies from the nature of things. It is especially unjustifiable in the case of Germany and England. Nature, it would seem, meant these two peoples of common stock and kindred creeds to be friends, even if history and circumstances may sometimes drive them into rivalry or antagonism. That the Germans are our competitors, energetic and formidable, in industry and commerce, and in maritime enterprise, is true enough. Germany has set herself to work — with a systematic thorough- ness which we should do better to imitate than to revile — to develop to the fullest possible extent the resources of the country and the physical and intellectual capacity of her people. That is a legitimate ambition, . . . True, the day may dawn when Germany, freed from her continental per- plexities, will at length launch herself boldly upon the seas and join in the struggle for the mastery of the extra-European world ; it is even conceivable that the enterprise may bring her into collision with ourselves. There will be plenty of time to work up hostility when, if ever, that prospect comes within reasonable distance of fulfilment ; ^ it does not take long to quarrel. Meanwhile, the two peoples may as well remain on amicable terms, pay due credit to the many qualities which they possess in common, and decline to pay attention to the perilous pessimism which exists that the prosperity and material progress of the one cannot be achieved without working injury to the other." A few days (December 23) after the appearance of this article the following Renter's Agency communique appeared in the Berlin papers : — '' In connection with the attention which the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung and other German newspapers are calling to Sir Thomas Barclay's statements in favour of better Anglo- This vision of a possibility which has since displaced the now obsolete industrial bogie is interesting. 265 THIRTY YEARS German relations and the favourable comments of the Standard on Sir Thomas Barclay's efforts, Renter's agent learns that the views he expresses are entirely of a personal character and must not be regarded as a reflection of those of London's official circles. The relations between Germany and Great Britain, so far as practical politics are concerned, are quite satisfactory, but the idea that anything can happen calculated to weaken the cordial understanding between France and Great Britain would be altogether erroneous." For cool perversion of the facts and deliberate malevolence it v^ould be difficult to find the equal of this perfidious attempt to produce the impression that the British Government v^as determined to discourage any popular desire for better relations with Germany. The Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung is the semi- official organ of the German Government. Everybody knows it as such, and there is reason to suppose that it never runs counter to the German Government's views. Its comment on this unfortunate communique was as follows : — " So far as the N.D.A.Z. is concerned, it has never by a single word suggested that the rapprochement between the two countries should proceed at the expense of England's friendly relations with France. Sir Thomas Barclay's life- work is there to negative the idea that a man, to whom the attenuation of the ill-feeling engendered by the Fashoda incident was essentially due, was likely to spoil his own work must necessarily have been far from our minds." The Tdglische Rundschau, a newspaper with pan- German proclivities, observed in reference to it : — " Sir Thomas Barclay's efforts to promote a better under- standing between Germany and Great Britain do not seem to have the approval of the English semi-official organ. . . . Everybody here knows what that means." At the time it was supposed to have proceeded from the British Foreign Office, and it consequently pro- duced a bad impression throughout Germany. I do 266 A NEW ERA— GERMANY not know what its origin was beyond that it was issued by Renter's agent in Berhn. That Sir Frank Lascelles, the British Ambassador, himself a champion of good relations between Great Britain and Germany, was responsible for a statement evidently concocted to throw cold water on the reviving cordiality is out of the question. He probably satisfied the German Government as to this, seeing that a few days later I received, through the German Embassy in London, an official invitation from the president of the Handel- stag (Association of the Chambers of Commerce of Germany) to be their guest at a banquet on the following February 15. # * * # * Before accepting the invitation I took Renter's coviviunique ^s a warning, consulted French friends in Paris, and had myself interviewed by two leading French newspapers to see how my visit to Berlin would be regarded in France. Beyond the latent feeling about the lost provinces, there was at that time no hostility on the part of Frenchmen to Germany. The Anglo-French entente^ far from stimulating ideas of revanche^ had acted as a sort of alleviating influence, and Frenchmen felt it had lessened the danger of a conflict with Germany and therefore thought less about the subject. This did not convince some English friends, and after accepting the invitation I was shown, by way of further suasion, a letter from the editor of a leading London paper to one of its correspondents warning him not to give prominence to my visit, which was not regarded in London as either " important or desirable." This attitude in London did not prevent the visit 267 THIRTY YEARS from being an event of considerable importance, and provincial England did not by any means think it undesirable. And so it has always been in respect of the efforts which have been made to attenuate anti- German feeling in this country.-^ Never in Lancashire or the West Riding or in Scotland has there been any such feeling, and, while people in London were pooh-poohing my attempts to bring about a better understanding with Germany, I had the vigorous and unflinching support of the whole of industrial England and Scotland. tP TP TT ^P On the eve of the meeting, as if the panic-mongers had been driven to desperation at the prospect of an Anglo-German rapprochement^ the famous Eastleigh speech was manufactured. Mr. Arthur Lee denied the authenticity of the extracts telegraphed to the German Press, and there is no reason to doubt the accuracy and good faith of his disclaimer. Error or not, the effect was deplorable. In the Monthly Review of April, 1905, it was described as follows : — " When the telegraphic summary of Mr. Lee's Eastleigh after-dinner speech reached Berlin on February 4, it produced a strange shock in the Castle, the Foreign Office, and the Imperial Navy Office. It acted like a bolt from the blue, because assurances admitting of no doubt had been given on our side about our pacific intentions, whereby the German 1 This cleavage between London and the provinces is one of the most interesting features of English political life. In 1910, when I was a can- didate for the parliamentary representation of Blackburn and the question of Tariff Reform was one of the bogies a Liberal candidate had to lay low, some of the arguments suggested to candidates from London caused much amusement among my supporters. One was the sending down of loaves of so-called German " black " bread to show to what we should be reduced if we adopted a duty on wheat. London people seem unable to realise that the political intelligence of the North of England is beyond being affected by such childish appeals to ignorance. 268 A NEW ERA— GERMANY scare of a few weeks before had been completely dissipated and shown to be groundless. But the surprise of those connected with the Flotten-V erein, and with the publicists whose cue is to agitate for an increase of battleships to the German fleet, was rapidly converted into something like elation, for they greeted the news as another hook upon which they could hang their agitation for more ships and acceleration of shipbuilding." I think a suspicion is warranted that those who were responsible for the Renter's communique were also responsible for the garbled version of Mr. Lee's speech. The incident by the time (ten days later) I reached Berlin, in spite of the efforts of the Flotten-V erein to fan it into a panic, had blown over, and when con- versation with the Chancellor (Count von Biilow) turned upon it, he told me it was not easy to steer amid the currents and eddies of the public opinion of a highly-educated people, which had enough historical knowledge to know the sins of others, and not enough practical experience to avoid them itself. The Govern- ment, however, had been taken aback by Mr. Lee's speech, and orders had been given for national defence in accordance with the possible emergencies it seemed to foreshadow. *^ dk ^ tt TP "TP TP ^P Like the Kaiser and most of the great men of the Empire, Prince von Biilow speaks English perfectly. *^*^ All business and travelled Germans are Anglo- phil," said he. " The English are the Germans' com- mercial teachers. In England they have learnt the methods which have brought them prosperity, and if they have been able in some cases to outrace their teachers, they honour them none the less and are 269 THIRTY YEARS none the less grateful to them. Among them, in your efforts to draw the two peoples together, you will find only friends of England. It seems at first sight anomalous, but the anti-English feeling in this country is strongest among the professional classes who have had a learned education." '' The paradox of the narrow-mindedness of men of books," I ventured to suggest. '' In a way, yes." " We Germans," he went on, " at least the gebildeter Stand (the educated middle class), have history on the brain. It is an intellectual disease which makes Germans see current events out of focus. Far-off happenings stand out in their minds as large as the nearer ones. We see them without the sense of perspective that fixes their true value. The Professor and his pupil are as indignant at wrongs inflicted on Germany a century or even centuries ago, as they are at what happens to-day, and publicists seriously write historical books to show up the evil ways of their neighbours, as if they were might be precedents for action to-day." These may not be Prince von Billow's exact words, but they are the sense of the view he expressed to me in 1905. Prince von Biilow, by the way, is a most interesting personality, and though he differs from the class just described, he is, nevertheless, thoroughly German in other characteristics. There is a German humour, ironical, learned, clever and Horatian in character, of which Jean Paul was the literary apostle. You meet with it more commonly among those who are neither public men nor writers. It is the sardonic humour of the satirist, who despises 270 A NEW ERA— GERMANY action as leading nowhere worth going to, and finds the joy of observant contemplation sufficient in itself. There are exceptions. Prince Bismarck was one, Prince von Biilow is another. I leave it to the eye-witness who wrote the article above referred to in the Monthly Review to describe my visit to Berlin and its consequences. " In the month of February the German Associated Chambers of Commerce (the Handelstag) are wont to hold their annual meetings, and the members dine together on that occasion at a banquet. The Handelstag determined to invite Sir Thomas Barclay this year to come over to meet and converse with its members, and it should be noted that the gentlemen who then foregathered in Berlin represented every branch of trade and industry in the German Empire. The demonstration that was then enacted was not by the official world, but was marshalled by the representatives of the commercial intelligence of the land, the chief manufacturers and the chief merchants, whose action was only warmly approved and supported by the Government. There was no gush about it. The whole series of receptions was characterised by dignity and solidity befitting the present independent condition of German trade and industry. "On February 15 the banquet, to which the Associated Chambers had invited Sir Thomas Barclay, was held. He delivered his speech in German, and touched the chief chord at once by saying that the two peoples did not know one another well enough. This want of knowledge of one another was one of the chief causes of misunderstanding between nations. " ' I need not tell you,' said Sir Thomas Barclay, * that the present strained relations between Germans and Englishmen react very unfavourably on trade. Every pin-prick in the Press is accepted as emanating from responsible sources, and, despite the efforts of the two Governments, mutual ill-will is engendered, rendering the future uncertain and discouraging every kind of enterprise. Let us join hands and declare that it is our joint interest to further good relations between the two countries. The world is large enough for both of us, and our industrial rivalry is a manly struggle, that develops and hardens our manly force. Let us, if possible, lessen our 271 THIRTY YEARS mutual distrust, which is the cause for increasing our arma- ments against one another. I trust the movement will meet with support all over Germany, and that my fellow-country- men and you will be convinced that it is our common interest to show patience towards one another, and to bring about a close union among the Western Powers for the purpose of maintaining good and pacific relations.' " In response to this speech, which was received with unanimous, loud, and lasting applause from all sides, the president of the Associated Chambers of Commerce, Geheimer- Commerzienrat Frentzel, rose to reply. He said : — " * I am entitled to speak on behalf of the representatives of German trade and German industry who are here assembled, and on behalf of those who sent them, and in their name to endorse the views just expressed. And I think I am not wrong in saying that the other professions, and amongst them I include all the educated classes of our Fatherland, are of the same opinion, and isolated utterances to the contrary that may be found in individual organs of the Press do not meet with real support in Germany. " * Is it not quite natural that we should always have seen in England a nation that stands in close and congenial rela- tions to ourselves, especially as the political history of the last centuries show that in this field also the two countries have almost always followed similar aims ; while statistics demonstrate that as regards exports and imports each is amongst the other's best customers ? " ' We wish that relations of honest friendship may exist between the two countries, such as are characteristic of manly and energetic natures, each side allowing for the peculiarities of the other, and each ready to give the other his due. . . . I again thank Sir Thomas Barclay very cordially for coming to-night and for giving us an opportunity for exchanging our thoughts ; and I trust that what we have said will be gladly re-echoed in the minds of our fellow-countrymen on both sides,' " If Sir Thomas Barclay's visit to Berlin has attained nothing else — and pessimists will not be wanting to see nothing in it but an interchange of phrases — it has at least demon- strated beyond the power of denial the ponderous fact that the manufacturers and merchants of Germany have unanimously declared at their this year's meeting in Berlin that they have no sympathy whatever with those who foment enmity between Germany and England, and that they desire 272 A NEW ERA— GERMANY to see the two countries living on amicable terms whilst continuing their competitive struggle in their respective fields of labour." * * ^ mt ^ If England had responded at the time to the German tender of friendship instead of treating it with scornful indiflFerence there might have been no German rivalry to-day in naval armaments. It is a great mistake to try to deal v^ith international ques- tions on abstract, historical or geographical principles only. Even the most undemocratic of Governments would feel very uneasy, if public opinion did not move with it, and the feelings of a nation, as only too many recent instances show, are apt to outrun arguments. T.Y. 273 CHAPTER XXIV A '' REVANCHE " The following month a great change came over German policy. People still speak of the mystery of the Emperor's visit to Tangiers. In subsequent recrimination the German Govern- ment complained that the Anglo-French Agreement with reference to Morocco had not been notified to Germany. Yet Count von Biilow had deliberately stated that he saw nothing in the Agreement .detri- mental to German interests. Nor in fact, was there anything to complain of in an Agreement the opera- tion of which was confined to the parties to it and which undertook to respect the independence and integrity of the Sultanate. That it secured the "open door" for only thirty years between them did not, as Professor Schiemann pointed out at the time, bind Germany. What then happened to disaflect the Government at Berlin ? That something was " in the wind " became evident as early as March 19, when the well-informed Times correspondent at Tangiers telegraphed his appre- hension about coming complications in Morocco. The French mission had made the fatal mistake of " intentionally or unintentionally " giving the im- pression that it spoke in the name of Europe. " Ger- man commercial interests in Morocco," wired this correspondent, " are of great importance, and it is vital to these interests that the status qud should be 274 A " REVANCHE " maintained. Doubtless, it is the French intention equally to maintain the status quo, but delicate negotiations in a fanatical Mahometan country, at a long distance from the coast, might any day reach a pitch when diplomacy must make way for more serious forces, while, in any case, Germany has no desire to court effacement and see French influence exclusively predominant in Morocco." ^ That an Imperial visit was projected, I may mention, was known at Tangiers on March 19. The Emperor landed at Tangiers, I may also remind the reader, on March 31. In connection with this announcement, the Norddeutsche Allgemeine Xeitung on March 20 recalled the assurance given by the Emperor to the King of Spain at Vigo in 1904 that Germany was not seeking to gain any territorial advantages in Morocco, but would confine herself to standing up for equal commercial rights.^ In his famous Bremen speech of March 22 the Emperor described the German Empire as a quiet, honest, and peaceful neighbour ; and added that if ever history should come to speak of a German world- wide Empire, or a world-wide dominion of the Hohen- zollerns, this empire, this dominion, would have been founded upon conquests gained not by the sword but by the mutual confidence of those nations which press towards the same goal." ^ This speech, far from seeming to portend any aggressive tendencies on the part of the Emperor's Government, was referred to at the time as the Emperor's " pacific speech." Nor do I think that the Emperor's visit to Tangiers ^ The Times J March 20, 1905. "^ The Times, March 21, 1905. * The Times, March 24, 1905. 275 T 2 THIRTY YEARS was intended to do more than prevent a sort of pre- scription, based on the notoriety of the Anglo-French barter of interests in Egypt and Morocco, from being set up at some later date against Germany. This, moreover, was quite consistent with the attitude Professor Schiemann had forecast. # # * # # As it is still currently supposed in both England and France that Germany's brusque entry upon the scene was more or less gratuitous and that she inter- vened in view of possible interests to come, I may mention as explanatory facts that Germany had con- siderable interests in Morocco, in some respects greater interests than France. In 1901 the tonnage of ships calling at Morocco ports was 434,000 for Great Britain, 260,000 for Germany, 239,000 for France, and 198,000 for Spain. At all the ports, except Safi, England is an " easy first," but as between France and Germany the latter is ahead at Casablanca, much ahead at Mazagan, and overwhelmingly ahead at Safi. At Mogador Germany shows a tonnage of 44,000 against France with 24,000.^ As regards imports into Morocco, Great Britain in 1901 stood first with 24,ooo,ooof., against France with io,ooo,ooof., and Germany and Belgium with 3,ooo,ooof. each. Spain could only show 6oo,ooof. Of exports from Morocco Great Britain received i2,ooo,ooof., France 6,ooo,ooof., Spain 5,ooo,ooof., and Germany 4,ooo,ooof. Germany's interest, it is seen, was substantial, and among Morocco ports Mazagan and Mogador were places at which Germany was developing a consider- able Morocco trade. Agadir only came to the front because the Mannesmanns, an important German 1 Great Britain's figure is 63,000^ 276 A '' REVANCHE " house, had interests there. That the German carrying trade looked forward to possession of a coaHng station on the western coast of Morocco was well known, and, if at the Algeciras Conference she did not obtain one, it was not for want of an earnest effort on her part to that end. I remember at the time of the Conference discussing the subject with Sir Charles Dilke at dinner at Mrs. Trower's. He took the view that there was no danger involved for Gibraltar in Germany having a coaling station at Mogador. On the contrary, the more Germany depended on her own coaling stations, the more vulnerable she would be in contending with a Power which had the means of closing them. This might also be said of colonial settlements. The sub- ject was one which lent itself to considerable and even warm argument. But that is by the way. Germany undeniably had quite enough important interests in Morocco to justify her insisting that the integrity and indepen- dence of Morocco should be respected, and, seeing that the Anglo-French Agreements of April, 1904, gave a solemn assurance that neither Power had any intention to the contrary, the Imperial visit in itself was only a way of giving notice to Morocco and the rest of the world that a fait accompli or a secret under- standing between Great Britain and France would not be allowed to alter Germany's relations to Morocco. # * « # # Now, among the inconveniences of secret clauses, the greatest of all seems never, so far as I am aware, to have been insisted upon : it is very difficult to keep them secret for long. 277 THIRTY YEARS In the case of the Anglo-French secret clauses they were known not only in the British and French Foreign Offices, but were communicated to the Russian Government, as allies entitled to know to what international engagements France was com- mitting herself, and to the Spanish Government, whose consent to the possible partition was one of their conditions. Thus four Foreign Ofhces were acquainted with the secret clauses in question. Does anybody in the least familiar with diplomacy and foreign affairs suppose that, with so many persons " in the know," the existence of a secret treaty could long remain hidden from the knowledge of any well- trained diplomatic service ? The object of secrecy being to conceal an ultimate purpose from the knowledge of others whose interests might lead them to raise objections, merely to have good reason to suspect the existence of secret clauses, though their precise character be unknown, would account for action calculated to defeat their probable purpose. Thus, who knows whether possible secret trans- actions between the French and German Govern- ments with a view to compensation to be given to Germany, which at the time excited the suspicion of the Portuguese Cabinet, did not, at the same time, excite suspicion in the Italian Cabinet and precipitate a war which has opened up the whole Near Eastern Question, and given rise to two other murderous and disastrous wars, the consequences of which are perhaps not yet final even for Western Powers ? Now, while the published agreements declared that no modification as regards the integrity and indepen- dence of Morocco was meditated, and M. Delcasse 278 A " REVANCHE " again and again insisted upon this in his diplomatic correspondence and pubHc declarations, these secret agreements were based on the assumption that a change affecting the political status qub of Morocco was not a remote contingency, and that a partition of the country in view of this contingency would necessarily follow. w •Jr TT tH? ^ The fait accompli^ ^g^in, as every student of diplomatic history knows, plays a deciding part in international affairs out of all proportion to that of considerations of justice or propriety. To dislodge a defiant Power in possession implies war or reprisals to which modern States hesitate to resort, except in cases involving the most vital issues, or where a wave of uncontrollable popular feeling breaks loose from its original causes and carries a Government off its feet. The Morocco question, in itself involving only economic interests, before the month of June had expanded into a general question in which all Germany had the impression that the honour and prestige of the country were at stake. When M. Bihourd, the French Ambassador in Berlin, wrote to Paris on June 23 : — " I found the Prince von Biilow very courteous, but he came back several times to the necessity of not allowing this ' unfortunate, most unfortunate question ' to drag and of not tarrying on a road beset with ^ precipices and chasms,' " these were no vain words. I happen to know how strong the feeling was. Perhaps Count von Biilow had not foreseen the dangerous vehemence to which German popular feeling would be roused, and I believe he endeavoured with genuine alarm, after he saw the danger, to stem the torrent his attempt to prevent 279 THIRTY YEARS a fait accompli in Morocco from being sprung on Europe had let loose. =K= # * # Great Britain could not in view of the Agreement of April 4, 1904, and the reciprocal compensation of interests in Egypt and Morocco resulting from it, enjoy her share of the bargain without helping France to get hers. British " national honour " in its proper sense was pledged to support France, and, as a fact, Great Britain did honestly and completely fulfil her engagement. She stood loyally by France in the tribulations of 1905, throughout the Conference of Algeciras, during the Agadir affair, and, if peace in 1905 and 191 1 was preserved, in spite of the heated state of public opinion in both France and Germany, it was due to England's standing resolutely beside France as she did till arrangements with Germany were completed and France obtained the quid pro qu6 which fell to her in the bargain of 1904. In the crisis of 1905, German public opinion left England com- pletely out of the question, and even a strong pro- English agitation was being carried on in Germany as well as a pro-German one in England all the time. During the second crisis England came into the open and declared her intention to stand by France. It is no longer of much importance whether France was justified in undertaking the expedition to Fez which brought about the crisis, or whether German diplomacy was '^ brutal " or not in its methods. England was pledged to support France and she did so, and provoked a revulsion of public feeling in Germany against her which quite overshadowed any feeling against France which had survived the crisis of 1905. 280 A "REVANCHE" But all this Western fever Is over now. In con- nection with the settlement in the Near East, Great Britain and Germany, on the one hand, have been working together to secure a permanent settlement in the Balkans, and France and Germany, on the other, are adjusting their interests in Asia Minor. * IP * * iC As regards the future, the view that there is no public opinion in Germany or that the Emperor and his Government can engineer it as they choose must be dismissed from diplomatic calculations as no longer trustworthy. German public opinion may not have the experienced self-reliance of English public opinion, but that it is stronger than the will of even a popular Emperor and a powerful and well-organised Govern- ment is now beyond doubt. The late German ambassador to this country, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein, by the by, took a different view of public opinion. I met him several times at the Hague Conference in 1907 and in the winter of 1908-9 at Constantinople. The Baron had the greatest contempt for public opinion. It was what the newspapers chose to make it, he told me, and a Government that could not control the newspapers was not worth its salt. I asked him how a Govern- ment could bring a prosperous newspaper under control. " By banging the door in its face," said the Baron. A war between the two great Continental Powers of the West would be a calamity out of all proportion to any result conceivable. Defeat of one or the other 281 THIRTY YEARS could only shift the spirit of revanche from one side of the frontier to the other. Are they suffering already from old age and unable to throw off their grievances and place their permanent interests and those of generations to come above their amour propre? Besides, France has had her revanche in Morocco. Nobody who thinks dispassionately over the events of the last six years can fail to see that Germany was defeated in one of the keenest diplo- matic contests in current history. I have recently had an opportunity of seeing with what bitterness Germans, from the highest to the lowest, feel how little influence the possession of a magnificent army and pride-inspiring navy was able to exercise in the denoiLment of the diplomatic drama which added a magnificent province to the colonial empire of France. What other European State during the last forty years has added to its dominions such fields for immediate enterprise, situated at her very door, as Tunis and Morocco ? Yet she has no overflowing population, no economic problems of intense urgency, no vital political anxieties, and is still unsatisfied. While their insane wrangling has been occupying the attention of the three Powers concerned, their com- mercial and industrial interests in the Near, Middle and Far East have been allowed to drift, and others have reaped the benefit which generally accrues to their pacific neighbour from the wrangling of nations. The wrangling of France and Germany, as England's immediate neighbours, however, involves considera- tions under which she can never be tertius gaudens. England's greatest interest is that they join her in the preservation of their common interests through- out the world and the securing of that European 282 A *' REVANCHE" peace which was and still is the object of the Entente Cordiale, # * it' # « An old friend, editor of a leading Northern paper, wrote me in the autumn of 1912 : — "Do you not sometimes mourn at the frightful perversion of the Entente Cordiale from an instrument of peace into the greatest menace now existing of European war ? Nobody has written the history of the change. Have you ever thought of doing it ? " The events which have been used to pervert the character of the entente are too recent for me to venture to present them in a trustworthy perspective. The change itself shows how difficult it has become for any Foreign Minister or Foreign Office to keep con- trol of all the varied interests of a composite State like the British Empire. That the entente was perverted is beyond question, that on many sides for purposes which may have been patriotic, but were certainly misguided, it was deliberately made to appear as an anti-German move- ment is a notorious fact. Fortunately wiser counsels have again prevailed. A few months ago I should still have followed my friend's suggestion. To-day it would serve no useful object to denounce the fomentors of international strife. They now see the folly of the agitation which sapped the foundations of the European concert. Until then it had preserved us from wars which immediately followed its disruption. 283 CHAPTER XXV PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS DANGER OF DRIFT With the last chapter terminated the thirty years of my Anglo-French career. I had seen the Republic grow up — the effects of the war of 1870 evolve into distrust, jealousy, and hatred of England ; France ally herself with England's declared foe; even the two enemies of 1870 draw closer in their common opposition to their island neighbour ; then, the reversal of this insensate Anglo- French hostility, due to a movement which stirred the live subsoil of modern democracy ; then, again, underhand scheming which gave reaction its chance, and anti-German movements started in both England and France, which after a fitful success in some parts of England and absolute failure in others, have nearly died out on this side of the Channel. In defence of my Anglo-French work, in 1905 I em- barked on a new campaign of resistance to this new re- action, and with the development of this campaign my reminiscences cease in 1907 to be mainly Anglo-French. ^P iff TT Vr "HF Has the entente come to stay ? If we glance back over the nineteenth century to its outset we shall find that in 1801 London received with enthusiasm Colonel de Lauriston, A.D.C. to the First Consul, who came as bearer of the ratification of the Peace Preliminaries ; that public rejoicing greeted Marshal Soult in 1838 as Envoy of Louis Philippe to Queen Victoria's coronation ; that a 284 PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS " cordial spirit " prevailed at the interview of Eu in 1843, when the Queen of England and the King of the French " kissed each other with tenderness " ; that under Napoleon III. royal visits were exchanged at Paris and Cherbourg and at Windsor and Osborne amid the booming of cannon and enthusiastic leading articles ; and that there was a great deal of semi- official talk about an '^ entente cordiale " in 18 14, 1850, 1853, ^^^ i860. In none of these successive revivals of Anglo-French friendliness did the people of either country take any part save that of standing on the pavement and cheering the passing monarchs. # W » TT TP There was one exception, due to popular effort on both sides ; the recent visit of Anatole France to London and his reception at a meeting of the Fabian Society reminded me of it. It was so in- teresting that I venture on a digression. It was the now forgotten meeting of the French Possibilists and British Trade Union leaders in Paris in 1883, which was a sort of Anglo-French rapprochement of working men. From the point of view of its immediate object it was a failure. But it brought out vividly the difference of character in their attitude towards questions of the distribution of property between the Englishmen and Frenchmen who attended it. The latter called themselves Socialists. The special theory which dis- tinguished the Possibilists from other Socialists was that they sought the achievement of their aims rather by legislative pressure than by revolutionary methods. For " whole-hog " Socialism, as in the case of German Social Democracy^ in the sense of investing the State with the power to absorb the citizen energies, 285 ■ *- — -•-^-■■-- THIRTY YEARS however, the French have no real vocation. They are by nature individualists. The strong attachment to the principle of private as distinguished from public property, and of equality in the distribution of private property as distinguished from its centralisation which characterises the institutions of France, are but mani- festations of this individualism. In practice it works out in the compulsory subdivision of the parental estate among the children in equal shares, in diffi- culties placed by fiscal legislation in the way of realty changing hands, in restraints provided to prevent spendthrifts from dissipating their patrimony, etc. The English trade unionist has a much greater power than the French Sociahst of self-subordination to the common cause. He does not call himself a Socialist, but in essential respects he is one. The difference was brought out at the meeting in question. Men like Bailey, Burnett, Broadhurst and Shipton, as one of the Possibilists said to me, were mere collective capitalists and as alien to the aims of the French proletariate as any exploiteur industrieL It was fortunate that they did not understand each other, and that a man of the ability of Adolphe Smith, acting as interpreter, was able to attenuate the marked temperamental differences between them. Far from there being any common ground of theory or practice between them, neither side seemed to have any ultimate object at all. The Possibilists, among the seething, unsorted mass of revolutionary Socialism were simply a milder section who represented, as opposed to Extremists, the methods of Opportunism Gambetta had succeeded in implanting among Con- stitutional Republicans, but the spirit of revolt against prevailing social inequalities, which is the keynote of 286 PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS French Socialism, remained unchanged. Even the Sunday go-to-meeting clothes of the Englishmen irritated the French workman in his slouch hat and working garb, for the Paris working man regards his working garb as the outward manifestation of his status, and, far from wishing to look indistinguish- able from the bourgeois^ he seeks to accentuate the difference. " A seedy-looking lot," said one of our working men. " lis ont Pair de sacres vendus," said a Frenchman who, unable to stand the sight of these well-fed Yorkshiremen any longer, clapped on his feutre and dashed headlong with oaths to the door, in spite of Adolphe Smith's ingenious attempts to make the parties believe they quite understood and sympathised with each other. At the final meeting at some salle in the neighbour- hood of the Place de la Bastille^ Bailey, the chairman of the Parliamentary Committee, made a valedictory oration in the temperate style of his day. It was not the thing that the audience expected. Adolphe Smith had to " translate " it into such an outburst of revolutionary emotion as the prevailing sentiment demanded. Shouts of "' Vive Bailey ! " with waving of hats and clapping of hands, greeted his vision of the future of the proletariate, its victorious march onward to realisation of those ideals which had blown down the walls of the Bastille — onward and onward until all the walls still standing of capitalist tyranny would be stormed and reduced to dust. The wild cheering disconcerted Bailey, who turned to me and asked what it was in his speech that had evoked such applause. " Your brilliant reference to the storming of the Bastille." 287 THIRTY YEARS " My reference to the storming of the Bastille ! I ? " Bailey's bewildered look is not a thing one can forget. A difference between them which much impressed the Frenchman was that the better-groomed English- man was ready to contribute his 4^". a week to a common fighting fund where the Frenchmen could not be got to contribute /^.d., as one of the leaders, who through my medium was comparing notes with Burnett, told me. In this subordination of the indi- vidual to the common cause, much as the term Socialism is disliked in England, the English have a natural aptitude for Socialism, which the French decidedly have not, however much the term may appeal to the working populations of over-crowded French cities. Instances of the harmlessness in practice of French Socialism are of constant occurrence. Socialist majorities and a Socialist Mayor of Lille have only tended to municipalise work long since municipalised in Great Britain to a much greater extent. When M. Augagneur, the Socialist Mayor of Lyons, was in office, his Socialism went no farther than sup- pression of the octroi, a most commendable reform, the municipalising of the water-power of the Rhone, and a few other services which brought Lyons within measurable distance of the municipalisation of any of our larger cities. This Socialist mayor, though still a Socialist, has since been Governor of Madagascar and, as a Senator, Minister of Public Works. The practical goal of Socialism in France seems, as one of our L.C.C. wags said to me in connection with the visit of the L.C.C. to Paris, to be to catch up our L.C.C. Moderates. A Progressist would make a French Socialist turn giddy ! 288 PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS But, as I have said, this Socialist-Trade Union gathering, however interesting in itself, made no mark on public opinion either. # * # # # The Entente Cordiale had been hitherto a mere phrase. The Governments of the two countries had used it again and again to describe co-operation between them in different cases of joint action. In after-dinner eloquence it was usual to assume that it existed, but in reality the two nations had never been near enough to each other to have any cordial understanding, that is any general understanding, for each other's feelings or for each other's require- ments or ambitions. These passing and casual ententes had had no roots which could penetrate into the subsoil of national sentiment, and at the slightest contrary breeze they had always toppled over. It was only when the roots of an entente had sunk into the deeper strata of the people of both countries, and awakened among classes, who had never paid much attention to their national interests abroad, a con- sciousness of the solidarity, among civilised com- munities, of the humble who pass their lives on the brink of destitution and yet pay with their lives for the glory of the great — it was only when joint action by these masses of the two democracies became a fact — that any permanent peace between Englishmen and Frenchmen could be brought about. Government in these two countries holds the reins by the grace of these classes. It was their indifference in the matters at issue which stood in the way and which had to be overcome. # # # # * The distinguishing feature of the present entente T.Y. 289 U THIRTY YEARS is that it found its most congenial soil among the business and popular elements of the two nations, and that, instead of being officially fostered, it was treated with indifference, if not with discouragement, by the governing classes till it overwhelmed them. In this respect the entente is so entirely new in its character that it is futile to compare it with any previous movement. It belongs, moreover, to a new era in the development of international politics. ^ -K- ^ ^ * For some time back it has been customary to regard foreign affairs as too complicated a matter for even Parliament to deal with, and with the growth of the theory, of which Lord Rosebery was the political god- father, of the continuity of foreign affairs, there has been a tendency to accentuate this removal of foreign affairs from the national ken. This, in turn, has produced a reaction in the contrary sense. As the nation is responsible for its international affairs and its parliamentary representatives deny themselves a voice in their direction, there is at present no means of influencing foreign policy except through public opinion. We have, thus, seen a British foreign policy in the Middle East, which a number of well-informed British citizens deemed contrary to British interests, checked, not by any action of Parliament, but by that of private individuals and one or two independent newspapers. In the case of Anglo-French relations, Lord Lans- downe and M. Delcasse, seconded by our late King and M. Loubet, utilised the great popular movement on both sides of the Channel in 1900 to 1903, and broke the continuity of the policy of their predecessors. To their skill was due its rapid translation into action. 290 PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS But for that popular movement, any fresh official attempt to bring about an entente would probably have had the fate of previous efforts, which fizzled out at the tail of the occasion which gave rise to them. # # # # # Nations in the common life of States are the indi- viduals. Like individual persons, they seem actuated by subtle impulses which, in defiance of all legislative or official attempts at guidance, determine movements of the public mind as if it had a vitality of its own. The Anglo-French entente is probably the result of focussing a number of these impulses. One of these was possibly the fact that in the nineties there grew up a demand in France for facilities for the study of modern languages, as a reaction against dependence on foreigners for the purpose of international business correspondence, which led to many French parents sending their sons for a part of their education to England as France's nearest neigh- bour and largest customer. These boys came back enthusiastic about English school life, and a greater interest in England grew up among the French industrial middle class. Frenchmen then began to travel as never before. The French Government and the educational and university authorities encouraged this new tendency and entrusted missions of inquiry to young travellers, and in fact in no country at the present day are men better informed about British institutions, domestic and colonial, than the younger generations of contemporary Frenchmen.^ «: ^ ^ # « 1 This spirit is now becoming so general that the trips to Berlin, organised by the Journal d^ Allemagne^ a French paper published in Berlin by a band of energetic and public-spirited young Frenchmen and Alsatians, have drawn as many as a thousand Frenchmen and Frenchwomen at a time to see the German capital. 291 U 2 THIRTY YEARS The removal of the old gag of Anglo-French animosity, moreover, has let loose the spirit of expan- sion which underlies all human character. In France it does not take the form of creating large families and of colonisation, but that of a desire to propagate the French language and literature and intellectual influence. Hence the renewed activity in this country and elsewhere of the Alliance franc aise^ a wide-spread and powerful society which exists for this very purpose. Hence, too, a similar activity of the French universities, of that of Lille for instance, which has formed a branch, the Institut franc ais du Royaume Uni, at Marble Arch House, under the direct patronage of M. Lyon, Rector of the University of Lille, with a professor of that University, M. Schatz, as its managing officer.^ The University of Grenoble has formed a branch at Florence, the University of Nancy another at St. Petersburg, and the University of Bordeaux an important one at Madrid. This, by-the-by, makes me think it is surely time to carry out my scheme of purchasing the Scots College in Paris and making it a branch of the Scottish Universities ! ^ •3r nr 'Pp * 'W This active French interest in England and the English and the intelligent co-operation of the two peoples in civilising influences, their joint action in the promotion of common political interests, and the constant and ever-increasing intercourse between them are not only beneficial results in themselves, but * The Institut was founded by a young French lady, Mile. d'Orliac, who has modestly taken the post of secretary. The managing committee is composed of Sir George Askwith (chairman), Sir Thomas Barclay, Sir Thomas Elliott, Sir Almeric FitzRoy, Cloudesley Brereton, Esq.j T. H. Carson, Esq., K.C, M. de Coppet, Baron Heyking, M. Karminski, M. Leb^gue, Rev. Dr. MacGowan, and Emile Mond, Esq. ^ See full particulars, pp. 359 et seq. 292 PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS the means by which Anglo-French friendship and peace can become a great factor in the destiny of mankind and the centre of an illuminating influence in a new and higher civilisation, of which signs are not wanting, and in which the claims of humanity and fellowship are not excluded by the sincerest patriotism. Anglo-French friendship stands, therefore, for some- thing more far-reaching than merely political friend- ship between the two peoples concerned. Meanwhile, because it can be effective for this greater purpose, no effort should be spared to foster it in every stratum and class of the population, and in every branch of the public and local activities of the two nations, and to spread its influence over the length and breadth of the two lands. * 4|! # * * Among the most powerful influences which of late years have contributed to the development of an independent public opinion in France must be included the provincial Press. The old provincial distrust of Paris has been largely displaced by defiance and a consciousness of superior power. Not only are many of the provincial papers in quality and impor- tance equal to any Paris paper, but the Paris papers, to have any chance of competing with them, have to cater for provincial readers, who, reading only one paper as a rule, expect a better quality of matter and production than the Parisian, who carelessly looks through half a dozen. This, while it has raised the quality of the Paris Press, has forced it to become more objective and impersonal. In the seventies the newspaper was essentially the organ or the medium through which some man or 293 THIRTY YEARS group of men endeavoured to influence the public. It was for opinions rather than for news that the Parisian read his paper. The Temps was an anony- mous innovation and has remained so. Founded by Protestant Alsatians during the second Empire as an organ of French Liberalism, it has never changed its character of a sober critic of events till of late it has shown a rather militant disposition in international matters. One of the earlier caricaturists of the Figaro once started a type in the "lecteur du TempSy^ a man who pushes up his spectacles and reads the paper with the intensity of a student, indifferent to the jocularity or beauty of his neighbours. The reader of the Figaro was, of course, a very different and more attractive person. I remember an attempt in the eighties to bring out a paper on English lines. It was called the Globe, and ran to some ten or twelve pages. Never was there a more ghastly failure. Writers and readers alike were out of their element, and before a fortnight elapsed it gave up the ghost. * # « # * The first departure in the transformation of the Paris Press to its present manner was an English paper called the Morning News, which was brought out by that eccentric Anglo-Frenchman, Alfred Edwards, who recently died, and who is perhaps better known to the general public as the husband of Mile. Lanthelme, the actress, who was drowned while yachting with her husband on the Rhine than on account of newspaper ventures. Alongside it he brought out a French edition of the same paper called Le Matin. The English version was dropped, but 294 PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS Le Matin still flourishes as a lively anonymous paper without any policy or any political bias. Its object was to give news expeditiously and, above all, to be interesting. I believe it was also the first French paper to pay large sums for exhaustive telegrams. Through Blowitz, later on, the Matin arranged to have access in London to The Times foreign correspondence as it arrived, and Blowitz's adoptive son, M. Stephane Lauzanne, was the first London correspondent of the Matin under the new regime. Another paper, the Echo de Paris y has now a similar arrangement with the Daily Telegraph, If important French papers have become tributary to the London Press, the French papers have more recently set the British Press an example in appointing foreign editors, who, instead of merely editing the telegrams from abroad, explain them and keep the reader informed of the progress of pending questions and of the import of incidents as they arise. The Echo de Paris has the services for this purpose of a distinguished writer and traveller, M. Jean Herbette, who belongs to a French diplomatic family, and the Petit Parisien those of M. Cheradame, whose books on Eastern questions are well known to every student of diplomacy. The Temps has not yet followed the examples of its younger rivals, but it has the services of a distinguished publicist, M. Tardieu, whose works on international affairs are as well known as those of anyone, and the same may be said of M. de Caix, who gives the Dehats the benefit of his world-wide experience. These able writers correspond in France to well-informed writers in this country, such as Mr. Lucien Wolf, Dr. Dillon, Mr. Wickham Steed, Professor Spencer Wilkinson, Mr.^-J.'^A. Spender. Mr. 29s THIRTY YEARS W. P. Crozier, Mr. Herbert White, Mr. J. S. R. Phillips, and many others. ***** In the provinces the morning paper has been dis- placed by the evening edition. Hence the Petit Havre^ Petit Marseillais, Petite Gironde, originally issued, like the Petit Temps^ as evening supplements, have now become the main editions, the morning editions merely adding the night's telegrams. In Paris the papers which are issued in the evening are dated the following day for the purpose of their provincial circulation, but all the serious papers, except the Temps and the Debats (which, after having been a morning paper, followed its example), are morning papers, and the Parisian who used to be in no hurry to hear the world's news is now as keen as the Londoner to read the night's telegrams with his petit dejeuner, * # * * # In 1 88 1 when, as The Times correspondent, I travelled with Gambetta on his Norman tours, an incident occurred which illustrates the then enormous difference between the Press of London and that of Paris. After one of his most important speeches, there was a stampede to the telegraph office. I had walked to it quietly on a principle which I have generally throughout life found useful, that if you cannot be first, there is no need to hurry. At the office the clerks were turning away the reporters to count their words. I guessed the number of mine and wrote it at the top. Mine was sent off first, and the Paris papers the next morning gave a telegraphic summary of The Times leader on the speech, before the Paris papers had yet published the speech itself. The Temps correspondent, who had sent his report 296 PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS by post and who had nothing to gain by learning my methods, asked me how I had counted the words so quickly. When I told him I had guessed the number he was aghast. " Why," he said, " in France they count every word, and the reporter would have to pay the difference out of his own pocket if he made a mistake." But that was thirty years ago ! ^P Wr 'wr tT ^P The question of an entente with Germany I have discussed in another chapter, and no one is keener than I on seeing it achieved, but, while we are working to bring it about, we must not lose sight of the fact that the entente is of too recent an origin to be allowed to drift. Nor can it be left with impunity to the tender mercies of politicians who are not familiar with the history of Anglo-French relations. Men who have passed their lives in politics seem to lose the sense of proportion. Noisy trifles of an accidental character which crop up in the course of party strife tend to elbow aside grave and silent issues on which the destiny of whole nations may depend. To realise the value to England of the good understanding with France, one must have had personal experience such as I have endeavoured in this volume to relate, or detailed secondhand knowledge, of the danger passed. Unless he does, he will not understand why nothing must be done to jeopardise it or appreciate the efforts made to strengthen it, for not to strengthen it is to let it drift, and if it is allowed to drift it may drift away altogether. •Jf5 Iff ^ i^ 9^ Nothing could more conclusively show how warmly the advantages of increasing intercourse are appre- 297 THIRTY YEARS ciated than the enthusiasm which attended the recent visit of the King and Queen to Paris. With a view to widening the scope of the friend- ship between two peoples and drawing into the move- ment even the humblest of their subjects, in 1905 at a meeting at Finsbury I proposed the formation of the International Brotherhood Alliance, now familiarlv called the F.I.G. {Fraternitas Inter Gentes)^ a society the purpose of which is the promotion of international visits to each other of working men and women/ Being composed of members whose margin of income is not large enough to warrant a subscription, the society exacts no contribution from its members beyond the initial expense of is, 3^. to cover the cost of the badge and the certifying card and postage. Each branch is independent and self-supporting. The late hon. secretary stated that he believed there were about 200,000 members. In any case frequent visits are exchanged between some of the English and French branches, and I may mention more especially the branches of Keighley, in Yorkshire, under the active patronage of my good friend, Mr. Sam Clough, its late mayor, that of Suresnes, of which M. Huillard, its late mayor, was and still is one of the guiding spirits, and that of Dunkirk, of which M. Rodolphe Lebel, an energetic justice of the peace of that city, is the president. With a view to drawing into the movement another class, those inclined to be absorbed exclusively in local affairs, in 1906 I started the idea of municipal ^ On the list after my own name as founder figured that of Mr. John Burns, and after his that of Mr. J. Allen Baker, now M.P. for Finsbury, whose son, Mr. Allan Baker, accepted the honorary secretaryship, Canon Barker, the Rev. Harry Bisseker, Sir John Brunner, and Mr. Braith- waite. See p. 377. 298 PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS ententes and organised the great visit of the Paris Municipal Council to London in the summer of that year, and later on, in 1907, the intermunicipal visits between Lyons and Manchester, in which the corporations of Edinburgh and Glasgow also joined. Again, to enable Statesmen of the two countries to meet and know each other personally, I brought about the visit of French Statesmen to London in May, 1909, when Sir John Brunner, always ready to join in any work for the promotion of international friendship, entertained them and all the leading members of both Houses of Parliament at dinner at the House of Commons. As a further development and to bring French and English men of letters into closer touch with one another, recently in conjunction with French friends I promoted the formation in Paris of a Shakespeare com- mittee to co-operate in the celebration of the Shake- spearean centenary in 191 6. At its head, as president d'honneur^ is Anatole France. As chairman of its executive committee it has had the good fortune to obtain the services of M. Hanotaux, a statesman who showed himself, as Minister of Foreign Affairs, a master of organisation, and whose history of con- temporary France is the standard work on the subject, and as hon. secretary, M. Firmin Roz, whose admirable conferences and studies on contemporary French and English literature are well known throughout the reading world. Following out the same idea of fostering Anglo- French literary amenities was the invitation of Anatole France to London in December, 191 3, when a committee was formed for his reception which 299 THIRTY YEARS equalled if it did not eclipse in brilliancy anything of the kind ever got together.^ Anatole France is the highest living expression of what is permanent in French literature and thought. Other Frenchmen of letters may have a manner peculiar to them, an originality of ideas and impres- sions which is contributing to the general mass in each case no small amount of suggestive, thoughtful and well expressed matter. Anatole France is not merely suggestive, thoughtful, and well expressed. Tn him are embodied the permanent traditions of French literature. He is the present incarnation of that line of literary " silversmiths " of those '' ciseleurs d'argent," who are the glory of a language insepa- rable from literature, in which the very phrases are masterpieces of art. Mr. Walkley, the distinguished dramatic critic of The Times^ at the supper given by Sir Herbert Tree in Anatole France's honour in the dome over his theatre, said of the master in an admirable little speech in admirable French that he could not help feeling a strange emotion in the presence of a man whose writings were among the immortal work of a nation's genius. In this he expressed what everyone feels in the presence of this brilliant and flexible French mind. To honour Anatole France was to honour the country which alone could produce such a writer, and this the French nation felt. In reply to my invitation he wrote me the following characteristic little epistle : — " Je sens tout le prix de I'offre si honorable que vous me faites. Ce serait trop d'orgueil de I'accepter, trop de 1 I must here acknowledge the valuable assistance I had in the collaboration of Mr. Robert Dell of Paris^ Mr. John Lane, who has published a translation into English of Anatole France's works, and especially of Mr. Holford Knight who acted as honorary secretary of the committee. 300 PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS renoncement de la refuser. Decidez vous-meme. J'aime I'Angleterre et vous prie de croire a mes meilleurs senti- ments." A translation of the speech he delivered at the banquet given in his honour on December il, 1913, was given in the newspapers at the time. In its original French it was as follows : — Je ne sais pas si je reve ! Mais, accueilli avec une splendide bienveillance par tant d'hommes qui representent tant de belles pensees, tant de beaux actes, tant de beaux ouvrages, il me semble que mon aventure est celle de ce crocheteur d'un vieux conte frangais, ce crocheteur qui, drape dans une etoffe de Baghdad, croyait qu'il etait devenu I'Empereur de la Chine et qu'il etait aime de la princesse de Chine ! Mais je n'ai aucun desir de me reveiller, et je me demande quel demon de la nuit, quelle fee, aurait pu me dieter le si beau, et pour moi si touchant discours que je viens d'entendre. A une eloquence si vive et, malgre ce qu'elle a de trop flatteur pour moi, je dirai si sincere, je ne puis malheureusement vous repondre que par une eloquence de papier — c'est a dire la plus detestable des eloquences. Vous m'excuserez, en consideration des choses considerables que j'ai a dire, puisque je parlerai de I'Angleterre et de vous. Le discours de Lord Redesdale m'a tres emu, parce qu'il m'a rappele ces vieilles mceurs de la vieille Angleterre, de cette vieille aristocratic qui avait une si belle culture intellectuelle, qui, au temps de Fox et de Pitt faisait retentir le Parlement de citations de Virgile. On pourrait faire un livre entier des citations de Virgile au Parlement d' Angleterre ! Je ne suis meme pas sur que ce livre n'ait ete deja fait. Mais Lord Redesdale etait bien qualifie pour parler du roman. Je passe de son discours tout ce qu'il a pu dire de moi. J'en retiens ce qu'il a dit du roman anglais, car, je le repete, comme lettre et comme Anglais, comme I'auteur de ces beaux recits sur le Japon, il est qualifie pour parler du roman, la forme intime et moderne du poeme epique. II vous a revele le Japon, et c'est lui qui a fait en Europe la gloire de ce pays lointain, C'est lui qui en a fait connaitre la litterature, dans un livre qui reste classique. Vous avez done pu parler du roman avec autorite, parce que vous etes un ecrivain et parce que vous etes un Anglais. 301 THIRTY YEARS Vos compatriotes, durant deux siecles, ont donne des chefs d'oeuvre de ce genre. Est-il besoin de rappeler Richardson et Fielding. Swift et Daniel Defoe, Walter Scott, Dickens, Thackeray, George Eliot ? Je m'arrete, pour ne pas faire aux vivants une apotheose anticipee. Le roman est en Angleterre dans son sol de predilection, comme la pomme en Normandie et I'orange a Valence. Pourquoi ? II faut pour le dire un gros volume ou un seul mot. Eh bien, disons-le en un seul mot. Ce mot. Lord Redesdale nous I'a fait pressentir ; c'est que le roman est intime, cordial, familier, par nature, et que I'Anglais a I'esprit familier, intime, et cordial. Decidement, je ne reve pas ! C'est un banquet I Et je vois briller les verres et les visages bienveillants des convives. Et j'arrive a comprendre pourquoi vous m'y avez convie. Je suis pour vous un symbole, une allegorie. Je represente a cette table les lettres frangaises, comme, aux fetes de la Revolution frangaise, la citoyenne Momore representait la deesse Raison sans etre deesse ni specialement raisonnable. Cette idee me met a Faise, et je ne vous chicanerai pas trop sur le choix de votre symbole. Je me dis que pent etre il ne vous a pas deplu de faire asseoir a votre table un Frangais qui a la faiblesse d'ecrire ('' seul le silence est grand,'' a dit un poete philosophe) et d'aimer le merite, que vous estimez fort, de ne jamais deguiser sa pensee. II y a dans ce genie anglais, dont vous avez regu le flambeau et le tendez tout ardent a la generation future, une continuite de choses fortes qui etonne et qui force Fadmiration. Par sa gravite, unie a une parfaite bonhomie, par I'heureux melange d'idealisme sublime et de realisme qui le composent, par son patient effort pour la justice, par son energie virile et sa Constance vertueuse, on pent dire qu'il est un perpetuel hommage a la liberte et a la dignite humaines. II a conquis Testime du monde entier et ne fut nulle part mieux compris ni mieux estime qu'en France. Vos institutions, vos mceurs publiques servirent d'exemple et d'ideal a la France du i8me siecle, a la France de Montesquieu et de Voltaire — et cella-la est la grande, la vraie. Votre Shakespeare a renouvele notre inspiration poetique. Notre regime parlementaire est sorti du votre — et c'est ne pas votre faute si nous ne le pratiquons pas toujours de maniere parfaite. Je vois ici, et c'est votre honneur et le mien, des hommes qui different grandement entre eux en croyances, en senti- ments, et en idees, mais qui ont en commun la drolture, 302 PAST AND PRESENT EFFORTS Tenergie, cette robustesse britannique qui leur donnent un air de famille et les tiennent unis par des liens tres forts. Tout est energie en vous, I'esprit et le caractere. Ce n'est pas par hasard que les ecrivains anglais comme Thomas de Quincey ont bien parle du peuple romain ; ce n'est pas par hasard que Kipling a ecrit de belles pages sur la Rome Imperiale ; c'est parce qu'il y a quelque parente entre la genie de Rome et le genie anglais. Le peuple romain aimait la justice et pensait etablir des lois equitables et une paix auguste sur la terre conquise. II ne s'agit plus de conquerir le monde, mais de le pacifier. Travaillez, travaillons de concert a la paix du monde. En parlant ainsi, je ne crois pas etre sorti du cadre des propos de table : cette table est grande comme le monde ! Ce banquet etait encore dans le chaos original quand Sir Thomas Barclay, President du Comite d'Organisation, a souffle sur ce chaos son esprit d'amitie pour la France et d'entente pour la paix du monde ; encourage par ce noble ami de la France, dont le nom est egalement illustre et cher des deux cotes du Detroit, j'acclame en terminant I'amitie de TAngleterre et de la France en vue de la paix universelle. * * * * * It is by this constant cultivation of the spirit of friendship between the two countries that it will be made to sink into the souls of the two nations. "rC ^F W w tR" Excellent work in the same direction has been done by the "Entente Cordiale Society" with which the names of my late friend W. H. Sands and that of his sympathetic and indefatigable widow are identified. Under the chairmanship of Mr. Barton Kent it shows an activity in London which compares well with the excellent work which is being done in Scotland by the Franco-Scottish Society. It was founded by Sir Roper Parkington about the same time as the Franco-Scottish Society. Nor should I forget to mention the English branches of the Alliance Francaise under the chairmanship of 303 THIRTY YEARS Professor Salmon of Reading, that energetic institu- tion which fulfils so admirably its task of promoting French intellectual influence throughout the world, nor that offshoot of the Alliance, the Franco-British Alliance for the reciprocal promotion of a similar influence, founded by Mile. Irma Dreyfus who in Paris manages to keep up a constant round of interesting Anglo-French social functions. All these undertakings deserve well of ihe two countries. That they prosper without official en- couragement shows that private initiative has not yet been entirely ^'legislated" or ''administrated'' out of us either in France or in England. 304 CHAPTER XXVI STUMBLING BLOCKS With peace propagandas of all kinds I have always had the strongest sympathy, and I sincerely admire the devoted perseverance with which, in spite of ridicule and malicious misrepresentation, the pacifists have succeeded in gradually achieving a respectful hearing by the " powers-that-be." There are, no doubt, truly ridiculous persons. For instance, I remember a member of the House of Representatives at an Anglo-American Arbitration meeting at Wash- ington delivering a spirited oration on the abolition of war by the abolition of monarchical government in which he enunciated his scheme as a brilliant thought which would enlighten the world and have to be followed because it was the only solution of a practical character ! I inquired who this oracular and eloquent politician was and learnt that he was a journeyman printer by trade, saturated with the self-regeneration literature then current in the United States. Although I am a man of peace and regard peace as the consequence of all sensible diplomacy and statecraft, I do not see it in the light of an object per se. It has as many phases as human character, purposes, and circumstances. There is peace which is almost as bad as war — peace which is worse than war, peace which is virtual war. When war exists, the object of the combatants is to T.Y. 305 X THIRTY YEARS force each other to accept peace on acceptable con- ditions, when war is threatened the object of diplomacy is to preserve peace by the negotiation of acceptable conditions, but when peace is spoken of in the abstract as an object per se^ it has no more sense than to speak of war as an object per se. We must assume that war in all cases can be referred to causes which can be formulated. It is, therefore, essentially to the ex- amination and removal of the causes of war, to the adoption as between States of methods of diplomacy enabling them to settle difficulties by negotiation, and, when negotiation fails, by judicial adjustment, that a peace movement should direct public attention. To show that war is contrary to progress because it kills off the more fit or that it is a barbarous and revolting method of adjusting differences, however convincing the arguments may be, is only proving what public opinion in civilised countries admits or more or less admits already. And all the arguments against war have never advanced the solution of the difficulties which are a menace to peace. Nor have they ever influenced peoples in their attitude towards a war. In the course of the Turco-Italian war even Italian pacifists, including Signor Moneta, one of the laureates of the Nobel Peace Prize, professed their approval of a war which was a violation not only of treaty obligations, but one in which the Turks were not even given a chance of peaceful settlement. *4i* 4t- 4fr at. "w *fr flp '^ Nor do books showing that peace commercially or financially is a good thing and war a bad thing get to the root of the evil. Nobody would dare at the present day to contend that war from that point of view is a good speculation. If anybody could prove 306 STUMBLING BLOCKS that the building of warships or field artillery was a loss to those who actually built them, or that large contracts for war material were generally ruinous to those who obtained them, or that military or naval promotion impoverished those who were promoted, war would suffer a truly severe check. These are the interests which benefit by war and preparation for it. There is nothing to prevent German and British ship- building interests from holding shares in each other's concerns. War between this country and Germany might therefore enrich the British shareholders in the German concerns and German shareholders in the British concerns. This is the contrary thesis to that of my friend, Norman Angell. On neither side do the interested parties want war — of that I feel sure — but if orders for war material fell off, men would be thrown out of work, expensive plant would stand idle, and the dividends of the respective shareholders would shrink. War panics are profitable to these highly syndicated interests, and all the arguments against war based on the principle that general interests benefit by peace do not attack the evil of war-scaremongering at its real source. ^ * * * * The only effective method of attacking the evil seems, I repeat, to be elimination of the causes of war. To take a concrete instance : any attempt at the present time to create a war scare between Great Britain and France would be doomed to failure. Plausibility, which is essential to the manufacture of a scare, does not exist in this case. There is no alliance between these two countries, but there is a strong feeling of sympathy and appreciation between them, with which the supposition that either con- 307 X 2 THIRTY YEARS templated a hostile attitude against the other Is incompatible. If similar good feeling could be brought into existence between Great Britain and Germany,^ scaremongers would have to rely on Russo-German artifices, for then, as between Germany and France, an era might begin in which there would be no reason for disturbing the political status qtid of Europe, or the expansion of that work of civilised co-operation which has been making steady though unobtrusive progress for many years, co-operation not only in many public services such as posts, telegraphs, telephones, wireless telegraphy, sub- marine cables, but in the neutralisation of waterways, such as the Suez Canal, the Congo and Niger basins, the international protection of the common interest in patent rights, trade-marks and copyright, the pro- tection in the general interest of human health and morality, the assimilation, for the common benefit of mankind, of international and even private law, etc. — all steps for establishing law and order among nations. We are, nevertheless, told that war as the law of nature is necessary to man's development. If it is so, it is natural that men should wish to kill each other, the destruction of the fittest is what is ordained by the destiny of man, and the survival of the lame, the halt and the blind — that is, the survival of the unfittest — a decree of Providence ! # * # # # " Si vis pacem para bellum,^^ This maxim is always ^ sir Max Waechter, in a masterly article in the Fortnightly Review^ May, 19 13, has dealt with the problem of Anglo-German rivalry, and if his more general scheme does nothing more than bring the two countries in question into closer association, he will have deserved more than well from both. 308 STUMBLING BLOCKS quoted by the panic-mongers as a conclusive argument against the advocates of peace. It is no doubt true that to be unprepared for war is to expose a country to a casus belli on the part of a neighbour, if that neighbour has a grievance to right or a territorial craving to satisfy. Unfortunately a perfectly sensible maxim has been construed as meaning that a State to be safe must excite the alarm of its neighbours by proclaiming its determination to outvie them in armaments, and in practice this con- struction has resulted in a wild race to surpass each other in advantages for attack. How can advantages for attack which are met by a corresponding counter- development of the forces of resistance assure peace ? They can only result in a parallel increase of arma- ments, which leaves the relative position of the parties unchanged. We are told that it would be quixotic for any nation to curtail any disproportionate ability it may possess to assail its neighbours. These, how- ever, in turn combine, and again oblige it to increase its strength for the purposes of possible defence. And thus competition in armaments and combinations con- tinues in a vicious circle of response to realities of self- preservation. When any proposal is made to set the example of relaxing speed in this mad career, there is an outcry of national danger, and yet, if no nation pulls up, there is no reason why the increase of armaments should not go on ad infinitum. What reason is there for supposing that, just as States increase their armaments to preserve the balance between them, they would not diminish them if the proportion remained unchanged ? At any rate, an experiment might be tried on such a scale as would not endanger the national defences. This was the 309 THIRTY YEARS suggestion recently made by a British Cabinet Minister, and I do not see in what respect it showed any indifference to the safety of these islands and a misconception of any difficulties affecting the national interests as such. 4i= # 4)^ # # A common mistake is to confuse the desire for the preservation of good feeling which may exist between two countries with willingness to subordinate primal interests of the one to primal interests of the other. This is a most dangerous and misleading mistake. Two nations can be in close sympathy, as two individuals can be in close sympathy, with one another ; they can be ready at all times to work together in their common interest, to exercise forbear- ance and self-restraint over any unpleasant incident which might otherwise cause irritation, to act the part of a friend, and do all that can be expected of a friend in an emergency, without being pledged to join one another in matters affecting third parties or which one but not the other may regard as of supreme importance. It is quite enough an asset in the economy of peoples to be on such friendly terms with any other people that when any incident occurs between them no element of public irritation complicates the question and em- barrasses the Governments in their handling of it. This obviously applies in a greater degree to States governed, like Great Britain, the United States and France, on the elective principle than to autocratic States, and with the widening influence of democracy the value of this asset is increasing. A few years ago the unfortunate incident, which has arisen in reference to the Panama Canal, 310 STUMBLING BLOCKS might have become acute and aroused a great deal of pubHc feehng on both sides of the Atlantic. As things are, the public on both sides are perfectly- confident that the incident will be dealt with by the two Governments on merits and in that spirit of courteous consideration for each other's difficulties which attends discussion between friends. ^s lit T^ ^ ^ Lord Rosebery, in his famous speech at Stourbridge on October 25, 1905, speaking on the Anglo-French and Anglo-German relations, stated the position very clearly : — « " A warm and friendly understanding with France," he said, " whatever you may think of the particular instrument which began it, is an incalculable gain to both countries ; and I only wish that it was not considered necessary to associate a friendship with our ancient rival with so bitter an animosity to another great country with which we should have no real cause of dispute. I need not say that I allude to Germany. I cannot understand why friendship with France should involve such violent polemics with Germany as now rage between the two countries, and which I do not believe represent the real feeling of the two nations, though they may represent the feelings of some or all their Governments — of that I know nothing ; but I do view these polemics as a serious danger to peace, as poisonously influencing the two nations and the growing generations of the two nations ; and therefore I am one of those who deprecate most sincerely the view which appears to prevail in some quarters, that cordial relations with France mean irreconcilable animosity to Germany." # # # * # Nor was Lord Lansdowne's idea, judging by a letter he wrote me at the time, other than that the Anglo- French entente should be the precursor of others to follow. On my sending him a memorandum on my American campaign and congratulating him on the 311 THIRTY YEARS success of his Anglo-French settlement of May 4, 1904, he replied : — Foreign Office, May 8, 1904. ." Dear Mr. Barclay,— I am much obliged to you for sending me the Anglo-American Treaty paper which I am glad to have by me. Pray accept my best thanks for your kind words of con- gratulation in regard to our understanding with France. The manner in which the Agreement has been received in both countries is certainly very satisfactory and is most encouraging to those of us who are anxious to see all matters which might give rise to controversy between ourselves and other nations happily settled. — Yours sincerely, Lansdowne." ***** '^ What a mistake you made," said an eminent French politician, who was my neighbour at a dinner- table some months ago, " in not preventing the dis- memberment of France in 1871." An English poli- tician on my other side observed that it was Queen Victoria who prevented us from exercising any influence in favour of France, her sympathies having been throughout strongly in favour of the adopted country of her daughter, the Prussian Crown Princess. Besides, she regarded France as the aggressor. Challenged to say how Great Britain could have exercised any influence, my French neighbour hazarded the suggestion that at the close of the war Germany would no more have risked the hostility of England in 1 871 than she did in 191 1, and that England would not have had to back up her influence by force. I have often heard this view expressed, but it is based on the assumption that England would have been able to exercise the same pressure as she was able to exercise forty years later, when a naval war would have had some sort of terror for a country which has an enormous and growing overseas trade 312 STUMBLING BLOCKS on which it depends for its industrial prosperity and for revenue corresponding to that prosperity. In 1 87 1 the stoppage of German overseas trade would not have been a matter of critical importance to Germany, and the 100,000 men we could have placed at the assistance of France would obviously not have had the same effect after all the French armies had been defeated as they might have had in preventing a war. Moreover, nobody at the outset dreamt that France was the weaker Power. To the bulk of Englishmen the war appeared to have been wantonly and on the flimsiest of grounds forced on Germany. France was beaten, and the genuine sympathy there was for France was on account of the huge proportions of the indemnity exacted, and not at all on account of the claim to Alsace-Lorraine, which in the same way had been taken by France from Germany and had never ceased to be a German-speaking land. The part of Lorraine which was included in the annexation only appeared as a fragment to cover the fortress of Metz, which on the map seemed necessary to the safety of the annexed territory. Germany was the winner, and as such seemed entitled to secure her new frontier. No doubt it would have been wiser to neutralise a zone of territory between the two countries, and though this may still be a solution some day, the idea of a neutral zone at the time appears to have occurred to nobody. Napoleon III., as a fact, never counted on England. Nor did his ministers. M. Emile Ollivier, in an article in the Revue des Deux Mondes, '' La Desillusion diplo- matique," relates that France counted on the assistance of Austria, to whom the war afforded a chance of retrieving her place in Central Europe, and of Italy, 313 THIRTY YEARS who owed France a return for her assistance in the creation of a unified Italy. France had forgotten that both had grievances against her, for in that war France had dismembered Austria in favour of Italy and Italy in favour of herself, another fact which was present to the minds of Englishmen, who could not see why what was right when she won should be wrong when she lost. # * # # # At dinner at an Alsatian friend's house some years ago I sat next an old Alsatian Roman Catholic priest. By the way, I may mention that my friend was a Protestant Alsatian and that he was and is a friend and supporter of the well-known French Pastor Wagner. We spoke about the feeling in Alsace, and he told me it was very difficult to say what the true feeling was. This, however, he thought might be taken for granted : nobody in Alsace wanted the problems of its political status to be solved by war. Every Alsatian was sensible enough to see that to reunite Alsace to France, as the result of a French victory over Germany, would only move the spirit of revanche from one side of the Rhine to the other. Alsatians were not unhappy under the French regime^ with all its faults — one of which was that under Napoleon III. Alsace had been as much subject to the French '' foreigner " who did not understand their language as to the German " foreigner '' now who does not understand their feelings. The cast-iron Polizei- V erordnungen of the German regime the Alsatians, however, find it very hard to bear. But, he added, the cast-iron method was necessary at first. Under the French the reins of government had got out of 314 STUMBLING BLOCKS hand, and at Mulhouse the rowdyism of the " young bloods " had become scandalous. The Germans soon put an end to it, and military discipline quenched their super-abundant high spirits with ruthless severity. " Na," he wound up, " es ist ja nix volkommen in der Welt. Die Franzosen sind ei' gutes aber narrisches Volk. Die Deutschen meinen es auch gut. Ein bischen narrischer konnten sie sein." (^'Aye, there is no perfection in the world. The French are good folk, though a bit crazy. The Germans mean well, but might be a bit crazier.") ^F Wr Wp if ^ In an Australian matter I had to advise upon at the beginning of the present century, I had an opportunity of hearing the views of an Alsatian for whom I was acting. His firm had its factory in Alsace and a large place of business in the Quartier du Sentier in Paris. The French and German consuls were vying with each other to help him in the Australian city w^here the trouble had arisen. He had served as a volunteer in one of Gambetta's improvised armies and was still a Frenchman, and in his family in Alsace kept alive the French tradition, but, he added, that did not mean that Alsace cherished any desire to be the subject-matter {Venjeu) of a war. Alsace had never been so prosperous as she had become. She had a larger and expanding market for her goods, and practically no competition in Germany, and abroad in neutral markets the German Empire was not a bad trade-mark. '' Then, if there were a referendum, would Alsace vote for re-annexation to France ? " 315 THIRTY YEARS '^ Monsieur," he answered, '' Vous me posez une question bien cruelle ! " # # 4(c # # I remember once at lunch M. Grevy discussing a matter of internal policy on which it was desirable that two leading men should agree and whose dis- agreement was a source of embarrassment in the Republican party. " Que conseillez vous, Monsieur le President ? " asked a perplexed statesman. " Les faire causer." " Mais ils ne s'entendraient jamais ? " '' C'est une bonne chose meme de constater pour- quoi." It was very wise advice and a coalition followed. I often wonder whether, if on the same wise plan four wise Frenchmen and four wise Germans met and talked over Franco-German relations the result would be entirely negative. Ils ne s^entendraient pas^ no doubt, and yet they might constater pourguoi. Suppose they met in London as the guests of Lord Rosebery, one of the wise men of this country and an independent one. Suppose they did not agree, but Lord Rosebery, in the abundance of his wisdom, suggested that they tried again six months or so later, and that this time they added a few more men to the council, and if they could not come to a conclusion they adjourned again and tried a third time, no results to be made known, no banquets to be given in their honour, no histrionic mise-en-scene to encourage interest or criticism ! '^ A pretty dream ! " as Count Moltke said of trying to make wars less necessary, but it is not psycho- 316 STUMBLING BLOCKS logically wrong, if there be any truth In the adage about forteresse qui parle^ femme qui ecoute I -* * ■*■ ^ *■ England, it seems to me, is at present in such a position that she might play the part between France and Germany that France has played between England and Russia. Her place in contemporary diplomacy as the friend of both is unique. May God give her the statesmen capable of fulfilling the noblest mission which has ever come within the scope of her destiny. 317 CHAPTER XXVII AFTERWORDS One night in October, 1909, in the Hft ascending to my room at the National Liberal Club, I met Mr. Gulland, M.P., now the Scottish Whip. Gulland and I had raided the Edinburgh schools together a couple of years before. We were both educationists, as all true Scots are. He asked me where I was going to stand as if it were a foregone conclusion that I should be a candidate somewhere. As I was not, he asked me whether he might speak to the Whips on the subject. The next day I had a letter from Mr. Pease, the Chief Liberal Whip, who told me that the Blackburn Liberals wanted a Liberal candidate to wrest the seat from the Con- servatives. It is a double-barrelled constituency, which had been represented by Sir H. Hornsby, who was retiring, and Mr. Philip Snowden, who represented it as Labour member. A deputation, headed by my now good friend, Alderman Hamer, came to see me in London, and I went down to Blackburn and was adopted. I had a vague idea that my knowledge of British international trade relations and foreign policy might be useful, being, in a sense, unique, and I had chosen a Lancashire division, though the chances in a general way were not as great as in some other possible constituencies. But I had had some experience of Blackburn men. A couple of years before over a hundred of its citizens under the guidance of the Rev. 318 AFTERWORDS Fred. Hibbert, a leading Congregationalist minister, an eloquent man of many parts, had visited Paris, where I had arranged some functions for them. As president of the International Brotherhood AlHance I presented them, as I had done in the case of a number of such visits which had taken place under the patron- age of the Alliance, to the president and council of the Corporation of Paris at the Hotel de Ville, an event of which I found they had retained a lively recollection. I was elected by a majority of nearly 3,000 and at the head of the poll, the largest win from the other side of the whole election. I shall never forget the cheer that went up in the market-place when the second letter of my name appeared on the screen (there was another B among the candidates). For thirty years no Liberal had sat for Blackburn. Nor shall I ever forget crossing the seething and cheering masses on the shoulders of a huge police officer who elbowed his way through them, nor the hugs of my ladies' com- mittee, who had worked as onlv " Lancashire lasses " can. It was a wonderful result exceeding all expec- tations, but it would be ungracious not to acknowledge that it was due to the energy, skill and perseverance of my committees, both male and female. On the central committee. Alderman Hamer, J. P., its chair- man, a shrewd and eloquent speaker, was ably seconded by Mr. J. W. Marsden, its hon. secretary, Mr. Riley, the Liberal Agent, Mr. Ritzema and Mr. E. Cooper, and Mr. James Kay, who attributed some of my success to my '^ courteous French manner," that is, the deference I paid to my opponents and the absence from my speeches of any abuse of the views entertained by the other side, which, however, I fear is not specifically French. Only, as both Lord Robert Cecil and Mr. THIRTY YEARS Stewart Bowles, my defeated opponents, were equally- courteous and the election throughout was conducted in the friendly spirit of sportsmen as befitted the home of the '* Blackburn Rovers," the Liberal victory must be attributed to " merits " all round ! flF H" ^^ ^f ^r In the House of Commons there was nothing for me to do that any other member could not do just as well. The subject in which I was skilled, British foreign commercial and political relations, was not a Party matter, and interest in non-Party matters is not only discouraged but resented by disciplinarians of the front benches. I have no vocation for idle servitude. Not that I disagreed from any of the Liberal policy. My votes were all in accordance with my conscience, and I only once abstained from voting with the party, when on one occasion it sided against the Labour members on the question of Female Suffrage. This subject I do not regard as one on which Liberals have any right to demur. If there is any principle which is at the root of Liberalism it is respect for the national liberties and the extension of the franchise to all citizens who contribute to the nation's work and expenditure. To exclude women on the ground that men are in the minority is a monstrous perversion of the sense of Liberalism, or because they have not had experience of politics, which they can only get after they are in possession of the vote, is not worthy of British com- mon sense. At Blackburn my experience of the political women-workers was that they were not only perfectly able to deal with political questions, but first-rate organisers. Mrs. Cooper, who presided at many of my meetings, showed herself a thoughtful, 320 AFTERWORDS business-like woman who takes the trouble to under- stand the subjects she deals with before she speaks upon them. Of Mrs. Snowden, the wife of my fellow- member for Blackburn, I can say the same, as I can say it of many other women with whom I have been brought in contact at Blackburn and elsewhere in connection with the suffrage question. The Parliament of January, 1910, lasted barely a year. I did not stand again, but I made many friends in my constituency, and on sending in March, 191 2, a copy of my book on the ^' Turco-ItaHan War and its Problems " to Alderman Hamer, still the chairman of the Liberal Committee, I received the following letter, which showed me that the feeling left by our political association was as warm as ever : — " My dear Sir Thomas Barclay, — Warmest thanks for the book just received. It is most kind of you to remember me in this way and remind me of a friendship formed between us under circumstances and conditions which must ever remain of much interest to both of us and a friendship which I hope and which I feel will last during the remainder of our lives. I shall read the book with much interest, not only for its merits, but because of its author, who I am certain is capable of doing justice to the subject which it deals with. We are living in stirring times, and it will need all the best men in the country can do to guide the good old ship from drifting on the rocks and becoming a wreck. In the midst of it all, I am sure, Sir Thomas Barclay will play a useful part in bring- ing it safely into port. With every good wish to youself and Lady Barclay, in which my dear wife joins, — I am, Yours sincerely, Edwin Hamer." # # # # # My experience in Parliament, though short, afforded me many points of comparison with my outside but nevertheless not inconsiderable experience of French parliamentary practice, and I must say the resem- T.Y. 321 Y THIRTY YEARS blances were in some respects quite as surprising as the differences were interesting. In common they are both frequently misled by too exclusive a contact with the capital as to the state of public opinion. The members of Parliament who form the fighting party forces are mostly men who have made a profession of politics and have long been in the party service, a service so absorbing that they find it difficult to give time to the study of provincial conditions and opinion. Their source of information is mainly the metropolitan newspapers, which give the news they all must know — the news of the capital, in which most of them pass their lives and many of them earn their livelihood. The man who comes into Parliament late in life, with but few exceptions, finds himself among men in office or in expectation of office who have a familiarity with the inner life of Parliament and readiness in dealing with questions they have practically created or selected which he can never hope to rival. Those who have practical knowledge of the national re- quirements are dazzled and baffled by these ready- tongued specialists in parliamentary methods and usage who profess, and even sometimes seem, to know more than they do. They find parliamentary opinion is worked by experienced wire-pullers, and that the ultimate object of the struggle is to win in the greatest match of the Empire. The men who play the game are as honestly patriotic as those who look on. They do their best for their country, honestly believing that training in the ways and tactics of Parliament is the only method of efficiently helping it. ^T W 'w 'nr TT The French Government obtains information about 322 AFTERWORDS provincial opinion in principle through the prefets^ who represent it as chief executive officers in every department (county). As, however, ministries change too frequently to entail changes of the seventy-two prefets of France, they are far from being a very trust- worthy source of information at all times In England they would be a much more effective source of w information, as they are, for instance, in Hungary, another highly-developed parliamentary country, where they are the direct agents of the Government and keep it informed of local feeling on all proposed measures. A difference between the Parliament of this country and that of France is the large contingent of able men supplied to the French Parliament and ministries by the Press — men who for a few months have charge of great departments, sit at cabinet councils, are honoured as great officers of State, and who, after this interlude of office, go back to their journalistic duties. This brings Parliament and Press into close touch. New men are constantly stepping in and out, carrying progress from outside into the drowsy arcana of the ministries, and returning to their newspapers with a riper knowledge of facts and conditions, which enables them to spread a greater spirit of moderation among an impatient democracy. The result has been a popular understanding of the national interests and requirements at home and abroad, especially throughout the provinces, which, I venture to think, exists in no other country to the same extent. This has worked out in a great dis- trust of, and distaste for all " big-stickism," bluff, jingoism, militant imperialism, " national expan- sion," etc., and in a conviction that the only 323 Y 2 THIRTY YEARS foreign policy of real benefit to the great masses of Frenchmen is one of peace and amity with France's neighbours, that, in particular, every cause of friction between France and Germany must be carefully avoided, that war, whether successful or unsuccess- ful, is equally prejudicial to popular liberties, and that internal development is infinitely more im- portant to a democracy than military or diplomatic glory- Yet nothing is nobler than the uncomplaining readi- ness with which the French have accepted the new three-years' military service. The gratuitousness of the sacrifice makes it all the greater. # # # # * There are no doubt gaps in the story, as I have told it, of Anglo-French relations during the thirty years I played a part in them, but my story, imperfect as it may be, will show how difficult it is even for the ablest statesmen and diplomatists to foresee not only the lateral influences of their policy, but even its direct consequences. The proper training of the man who has to assist in the manage- ment of the foreign relations of his country has become one of the most perplexing problems of modern diplomacy. Criticism is often a cheap method of self-flattery. Few critics in this country have had the responsibility of helmsmen. In France it is different, and that the preference in the filling of the posts of the French Foreign Office is often for men who have not passed their lives at a desk at home or been tied to a hierarchic and social routine abroad, but have had the wide and rude experience of jour- nalism, is perhaps a sign of coming changes. For 324 AFTERWORDS " what France does to-day, the rest of the world begins to do to-morrow " is almost a truism. # » « « # The entente has brought Englishmen and Frenchmen into such closer contact than ever before, that old popular delusions about each other are gradually disappearing. Not only the old caricature types have disappeared from the comic newspapers on both sides of the Channel, but even the sturdy old popular delusion common among northern peoples, especially the English and the Germans, that the French are im- moral is dying out. The delusion arose from the con- fusion of morality and conventionality. English and German conventionality conflicted with a character which was straightforward, unconventional, and free from that hypocrisy and sham sentiment which shocks the French when they first come into closer touch with it in other countries. But French character, too, has undergone change. " What," I recently asked a distinguished French friend who had spent some time in England and has a tendency to admiration for everything English, " do you regard as the keynote in English character." He had no hesitation — " Frivolity." We are to a French- man " a frivolous people " — we who used to apply that qualificatij to the French. " You do not consider them as serieux as the French ? " [In French serieux has a different sense from that of the English term *' seriousP Serious is an external, serieux a subjective quality.] " No, the English are not serieux.^'' '' And the French ? " 3^5 THIRTY YEARS " They have become so. Misfortune and conscious- ness of national responsibiHty have made them so» The second Empire had the benefit of the surviving frivohty of a past age. The war of 1870 extinguished it, and now the French are the most serieux nation in the world." So now Englishmen go to France to think and Frenchmen come to England to laugh ! * # # # # A commonplace about France is to speak of French want of enterprise. Analysed, this amounts to saying the French are provident, realistic and non-gambling. That they are provident is an axiom. They are realistic in the sense that they have a gift for seeing things within the range of their vision as they are. and a distrust of things beyond its range. And few even of those who gamble at the gambling table stake more than a trifle of their savings and the gambling stops at the table. In business there is little gambling, little demand for new markets for the same goods and a pious respect for a steady profit, however small. And yet it is not accurate to say in general terms that the French lack enterprise. They lack the enterprise of the Englishman who, manufacturing certain goods, is constantly obliged to extend the area of his sales. The energy the Englishman expends in extending his sales, the Frenchman expends in the creation of novelties. His joy (with many exceptions, no doubt) is not in seeing his business expand so much as in its being unique. To produce the most original design, the most beautiful colours, the strongest material, the best, whatever it is, of its kind gives the genuine Frenchman a happiness for which wealth beyond abundant comfort has no equivalent. 326 AFTERWORDS When left to themselves, the French develop naturally in this direction, as I saw some years ago at Caudry, near St. Quentin. It was an old market town before railways began to change the grouping of population and alter the centres of distribution of produce. The numerous hostelries which composed it ceased to be required by men who could use the railway, if even they required to come to market at all, and the peasant innkeepers were faced with a ruinous fall in the value of their properties. One of them who had seen the looms of St. Pierre de Calais at work started a " Jacquart," and began to make tulle at a time when the frill mania had created a demand for it out of proportion to the supply. One after another of the innkeepers followed his example, and when I visited Caudry in 1885, the town was like an American embryonic city. These peasants had all become manufacturers. Few if any of them could write without great difficulty, and none had any notion of book-keeping. A Nottingham man, many years ago, had settled at St. Quentin as a manufacturer of Nottingham goods. His son, Edwin Cliff, whom I knew, became for all practical purposes a French- man, President of the Chamber of Commerce, Judge of the Tribunal of Commerce, and one of the leading citizens of the ancient city. To him the Caudry people addressed themselves to get the necessary yarn, and a trade in Lancashire yarns grew up in St. Quentin. Mr. Barlow, of Messrs. Barlow and Jones, of Manchester, and I went to Caudry together on business in connection with one of these St. Quentin middle-men, who had died and left his accounts in a muddled condition, and saw this interesting proof that Frenchmen have no lack of enterprise when pressed 327 THIRTY YEARS by necessity. It was odd to see these rough fellows extract from under the mattress a large, bulging, weather-beaten envelope containing letters, bank- notes, acceptances and slips of paper covered with cryptic memoranda of their transactions. They wrote few, if any, letters for the very good reason I have given, and a man had to be found at St Quentin to take the orders and collect payment in bank-notes, for such a thing as a cheque was still unknown at Caudry. But they were all scrupulously honest, and in spite of their primitive methods, if mistakes were made, it was not they who made them. # * * # * In private money matters the French are honest, and though saving (to a fault), and clannish, where the greater things of life are concerned, they are a generous, honourable, high-minded people. In the course of my now many years of active public life in both countries I have had opportunities of seeing how Frenchmen (with a few exceptions) cordially and gratefully acknowledge services rendered to them and disdain to deck themselves with borrowed plumes, or take the credit of work in which they were mere official nominees, or carefully conceal from the public eye the real worker or workers. Nor do the French regard a man who is not making money or place for himself out of the good work he is doing or trying to do as a sort of lunatic. In Ibsen's '' Enemy of the People " Dr. Stock- mann rises immediately in the esteem of his class when he is supposed to have revealed the insanitary condition of the baths for the purpose of depreciating the shares and buying them in cheap. It is not only 328 AFTERWORDS in Norway that such people are to be found, but they trxily do not abound in France. * « * 4t # A French friend, editor of one ot the great French reviews, on the other hand, remarked to me one day that even in the worst days of anti-EngHsh feeHng in France there was always at the back of every French- man's head a deep respect for the " solid " qualities of England and Englishmen. They never really thought England perfide. They only really thought England profoundly and consistently egoistical. Her unswerv- ing determination to let no considerations affect certain principles in her policy, such as that a man whose feet touched British soil or a British ship was free, that even a fugitive criminal could only be dealt with according to the forms of justice, that aliens and British subjects were equal before the law, etc., made her a model for all political thinkers and reformers. The Englishman's manly vindication of his rights, the history of his conquest of political freedom, his proud free-trade, his free colonies, the immense latitude left to all nationalities within his vast empire, his unconscious assumption of superiority, his cool and disdainful indifference to danger, the manliness of English boys, the love of sport of the men, the robust dignity of the women, the distinction of British character, its very arrogance, the general Uving up to this character, the unbending assertion of British interests as a holy heritage to be handed down intact to posterity — all these things have made the name of England in France a thing per se. To them she owes her prestige throughout the world, and all the " Dreadnoughts " of Christendom will not give any other Power such a place under the sun as 329 THIRTY YEARS that which has resulted from the action of the self- rehant, bold and honest Englishmen who have carried her good name to every spot in the world where a cargo can be carried or a warehouse established, or hard-working colonists can raise material to feed the factories or people of their native land. Across the Channel, again, the wave of Roman Catholicism which is passing at present over the youth of France has come as a phenomenon sufficiently surprising to excite numerous inquiries into its origin. The results have been summed up in an interesting volume by M. Alfred de Tarde and another writer, under the pseudonym of Agathon.^ These writers point out that the dominating spirit of the French youth of to-day is the desire for action and discipline, and that this is " gradually bringing the best of them to the powerful and time-honoured organism of the Catholic Church." Between their realistic sense and dogma they feel there is a certain harmony, and in Catholic doctrine they leave doubt behind and can plunge into action and the accom- plishment of their objects in life without worrying their minds about the problems of existence.^ I, too, have been watching the growth of this new spirit among the younger generations of French- men. One of the features of this Neo-Catho]icism in France is that it is not necessarily based on behef in Divine revelation. It seems like a contradiction of terms to speak of faith detached from belief. The faith they have, however, seems to be an act of ^ ** Les Jeunes Gens d'aujourd'hui " : Paris, 1913. 2 Op. cit, p. 93. AFTERWORDS volition, a faith which consists in a refusal to examine their own minds. If you ask them if they believe in any of the Church dogmas or miracles, they decline to go into the question. They need no proof, no explanation, no conviction even of a Divine cause. They accept blindly on purpose. They have a faith external to their reason which leaves it free, and all introspection is sacrificed to a determined and emphatic pragmatism. This pragmatism evidently satisfies some craving for relief from the inner conscience. In England we have a movement not unlike it in English Catholicism. But, like Old Catholicism, it lacks the authoritv which exacts blind obedience and it does not take that entire possession of the conscience which makes it possible to keep the intellect separate, independent and free. It lacks the minute organisa- tion and control of a single, directing and unchallenged authority and the prestige of centuries of concentrated energy. Many in both countries among the younger genera- tions, moreover, feel that our respective peoples, in losing faith in the spiritual guidance of religion, are losing something which held all classes and interests under the same moral tutelage. Both turn to Catholicism as a system under which, through the confession, the priest can get at the individual conscience and guide it back to respect for order and authority. The mode of thought of these younger thinkers, in fact, seems to be somewhat as follows : — " To what does the analysis of your perceptions lead, to what this vivisection of your inner self, this excavation of your conscious being ? You are not laying the foundations 331 THIRTY YEARS of anything. You are only undermining the founda- tions of existing structures. The best that can be said for your philosophy is that it is a mental discipline, in each case, however, depending on the mental character of each writer. Away with all these useless dialectics ! Let us stop excavating. Analysis leads only to further analysis, and a new fact may come along, such as the discovery of radium, and scatter your theories to the wind. Your analysis, moreover, has a bad effect on the minds of people who take it seriously. Thinking is no longer confined to any class. The newspaper, the periodical and cheap literature have opened wide all the doors of speculation and inquiry, and the result on the half-trained mind of your analysis is simply the destruction of the founda- tions of morality and law, the relaxation of discipline and the substitution for the traditions of honour, courage, patriotism, self-sacrifice, and all the qualities that ennoble mankind, of a self-indulgent licence and contempt for anything but the grossest egoism. Let us go back to the spirit of reverence, to the forms and practice of a religion which makes men do things, the traditions of which are full of noble sentiment, and the teaching of which gives a sense of security and peace to the conscience of a too self-analytic age. Let us build on this time-honoured foundation to which the character, the mind and the feeling of the Western man has become attuned. For this we do not need theology. Never mind dogma. The practice of rever- ence, prayer and confession are enough — especially confession, confession to the priest, sanctij&ed by the holiness and secrecy of his office, untrammelled by ambition or family cares, experienced and thoughtful, who can give advice and consolation, and to whom 332 AFTERWORDS you can tell the troubles of your conscience, and from whom you can get kindly and disinterested sympathy." This I take to be the reasoning of many of the more intelligent neo-CathoHcs in both countries. All men are not of the same character, and the vast majority seem to need a form of worship for their moral guidance. The French mind has gone farthest in the negation of this need. It seems again to be leading in a movement which, however, seems singularly devoid of that spirit cf charity towards one's fellow man, of tolerance for scrupulous dissent, and of those generous impulses which are charac- teristic of what is permanent in French civilisation. # # 4e: # # On the other hand, I cannot help connecting with it what a French lad who was doing his military service a few years ago said in reply to my banal question of how he liked it. " It is delightful," he said, " to have to do what you are told, just to carry out orders, to be a mere wheel in the machine, to have no responsibility." Are French education and examinations fatiguing the brain beyond its physical capacity ? I have seen young men who have required a brain rest to recover from the excessive mental exertion of their school life. The young friend I have quoted was tired, and I cannot help thinking that many of the cases referred to by Agathon are more or less parallel to his. # * # # # There has always been a driving " character in French civilisation, and France is still the intellectual clockwork of the world. Her genius is the spring, ticking off progress It keeps the little wheels of the 333 THIRTY YEARS national life in slow but constant motion, and the big wheel flying madly round is thinking Paris dazzling the world with its ceaseless speed. The world often forgets that behind the big wheel is the little one turning it and that behind the little one is the spring, the genius, the inexhaustible vitality of a race that has stood in the front of the Europe of thought, invention, wit and art for half a millennium. ^P ^P •R* "Tt* IP My long connection with France has never diminished my admiration for her people. Paris is an intellectual Brighton. There the wind blows through your thoughts as at Brighton it blows through your clothes. Even when a tempestuous wind blows there, the storm-swept streets are only the cleaner, the air more vigorous and one's mind braced the more to effort. There you may talk at random, think aloud and, amid the sans-^ene of the French mind, have the glorious sensation of the open sea and the mountain- top, of a broad unending landscape in which facts fade into a horizon of mystery and conjecture roams amid a freedom that knows no bourn. There nine-tenths of the world's originality are centralised, and men with the gift of perennial youth are bursting with new thoughts in philosophy, art, literature, science, medicine, politics, which make the plain mental food of London seem stodgy, though one is glad after a month in such a super-active atmosphere to return to one's quiet old capital and let one's mental tissue have time to absorb all these new and exciting impressions. "ff ^BF V w W Thirty years of conscious, progressive, and deter- minate activity, educational, literary, legal, social and 334 AFTERWORDS political, require rest and meditation before the re- sulting impressions condense into those homogeneous layers in which one can effectively see their bearing and lessons. Among them have been many Illusions perdues, illusions of friendship, illusions of kindness misunder- stood, illusions of good purposes misrepresented, illusions of affection and sacrifice requited with in- gratitude and treachery. On the other hand stand out the unfailing goodness of many friends, men and women, and the warm response of the French people itself to all generous and humanitarian efforts. The educated multitude of Englishmen, in spite of diplomatic misconceptions, have at all times been admirers of and friends of France. To convince Frenchmen of this was the task I had set myself. No words touch me so deeply as to be called ^' cet ami de la France " with which I am greeted through- out the Republic, and there is no illusion about this on my or their part, for I love the French with all the sincerity of one who has seen a generation of modern France grow up, seen it fighting for progress, for integrity, for social well-being, for all that can make for betterment at home, and for appreciation abroad, seen the self-effacing greatness of some of her noblest citizens and the ultimate triumph throughout the country not only of the spirit of justice, but of that spirit of atonement which has effaced the egarements of a time of great national emotion. :K= « # # # One word to students of the character of current French civiHsation before I close : judge it neither by French fiction nor from sensational cases, political or non-political, tried in the Law Courts or in the Press. 335 THIRTY YEARS The French have a weakness for washing their '' dirty Hnen" on the front-door steps and no doubt there is a good deal of Hnen to " ring out " still. That they talk frankly about it and spare nobody is surely not a sign of indulgence for dishonesty or sin. To drag corruption into the broad light of day and hold it up to the indignation of their fellow-men is surely not a sign of moral decrepitude. It may be impoHtic. ConventionaHty, prudery, hypocrisy may save us from scandals, but in France scandals are mere sur- face waves, beneath which the steady, moral, industrious life of the French people goes on unsullied by their influence and indifferent to their example. 336 APPENDICES Presidents of the Republic. M. Thiers Marshal MacMahon M. Jules Grevy M. Sadi Carnot M. Casimir-Perier M. Felix-Faure. . M. Emile Loubet M. Armand Fallieres M. Raymond Poincare Date of Election. Aug. 31, 1871. May 25, 1873. Jan. 30, 1879. Dec. 3, 1887. June 27, 1894. Jan. 17, 1895. Feb. 18, 1899. Feb. 18, 1906. Jan. 17, 1913 II French Prime Ministers and Ministers of Foreign Prime Ministers. General Trochu Thiers . . Due de Broglie Due de Broglie General de Cissey Buffet . . Dufaure Jules Simon . . Due de Broglie General de Grimaudel de Rocheboiiet Dufaure Waddington . . de Freyeinet . . Jules Ferry . . Leon Gambetta de Freyeinet . . Duel ere T.Y. Affairs since 1870. Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Jules Favre Jules Favre Due de Broglie . Due Decazes Due Decazes Due Decazes Due Decazes Due Decazes Due Decazes de Banneville Waddington Waddington de Freyeinet Barthel emy-Saint- Hilaire. . Leon Gambetta de Freyeinet Duelere . . 337 Date of Appointment. Sept. 4, 1870. Feb. 19, 1871. May 25, 1873. Nov. 26, 1873. May 22, 1874. March 10, 1875. March 9, 1876. Dec. 12, 1876. May 17, 1877. Nov. 23, 1877. Dee. 13, 1877. Feb. 4, 1879. Dee. 28, 1879. Sept. 23, 1880. Nov. 14, 1 881. Jan. 30, 1882. Aug. 7, 1882. APPENDICES Prime Ministers. Fallieres Jules Ferry Henri Brisson. . de Freycinet . . Rene Goblet . . Rouvier Tirard . . Floquet Tirard . . de Freycinet . . Loubet Ribot . . Ribot . . Charles Dupuy Casimir-Perier Charles Dupuy Charles Dupuy Ribot . . Bourgeois Jules Meline . . Brisson Charles Dupuy Charles Dupuy Waldeck-Rousseau Emile Combes Maurice Rouvier Maurice Rouvier Sarrien Georges Clemenceau Aristide Briand Aristide Briand Monis . . Caillaux Poincare Aristide Briand Barthou Doumergue Ministers of Foreign Affairs. Fallieres {interim) { Challemel-Lacour Jules Ferrv (20-11-1883) de Freycinet de Freycinet Flourens . . Flourens . . Flourens . . Rene Goblet Spuller Ribot Ribot Ribot Develle . . Develle . . Casimir-Perier . . Hanotaux Hanotaux Hanotaux f Berthelot Bourgeois (30-3-1896) Hanotaux Delcasse . . Delcasse . . Delcasse . . Delcasse . . Delcasse . . Delcasse . . Rouvier (17-6-1905) Rouvier . . Bourgeois Stephen Pichon . . Stephen Pichon . . Stephen Pichon . . Cruppi de Selves. . Poincare . . Jonnart . . Stephen Pichon . . Doumergue 338 Date of Appointment. Jan. 29, 1883. Feb. 21, 1883. April 6, 1885. Jan. 7, 1886. Dec. 12, 1886. May 30, 1887. Dec. 12, 1887. April 3, 1888. Feb. 22, 1889. March 17, 1890. Feb. 27, 1892. Dec. 6, 1892. Jan. II, 1893. April 4, 1893. Dec. 3, 1893. May 30, 1894. July I, 1894. Jan. 26, 1895. Nov. I, 1895 April 29, 1896. June 28, 1898. Nov. I, 1898. Feb. 18, 1899. June 22, 1899. June 7, 1902. Jan. 24, 1905 Feb. 18, 1906. March 14, 1906. Oct. 25, 1906. July 24, 1909. Nov. 3, 1910. March 2, 191 1. June 27, 191 1. Jan. 14, 1912. Jan, 21, 1913. March 21, 1913. Dec, 9, 191 3, APPENDICES III French Ambassadors to London Due de Broglie Comte Bernard d'Harcourt . . Due Decazes . . De la Rochefoucauld, Due de Bisaceia Comte de Jarnac Marquis d'Hareourt . . Viee-amiral Pothuau . . Leon Say Challemel-Lacour J- looD L«» •• .. ,. ., ,, Waddington . . J-zeerais .. .. .. ,. ., Baron de Coureel Paul Cambon SINCE 1870. Appointed. Feb. 19, 1871. May I, 1872. Sept. 20, 1873. Dee. 4, 1873. Aug. 28, 1874. May 8, 1875. Feb. 18, 1879. April 30, 1880. June II, 1880. Feb. 21, 1882. July 18, 1883. July 21, 1893. Oct. 4, 1894. Sept. 21, 1898. British Secretaries of SINCE Earl Granville Earl of Derby Marquess of Salisbury Earl Granville Marquess of Salisbury Earl of Rosebery Earl of Iddesleigh Marquess of Salisbury Earl of Rosebery Earl of Kimberley . Marquess of Salisbury Marquess of Lansdowne Sir Edward Grey IV State 1870. for Foreign Affairs July 6, 1870. . . Feb. 21, 1874. . . April 2, 1878. . . April 28, 1880. June 24, 1885. . . Feb. 6, 1886. . . Aug. 3, 1886. . . Jan. 14, 1887. . . Aug. 18, 1892. . . March ii, 1894. June 29, 1895. . . Nov. 12, 1900. Dec. II, 1905. V British Ambassadors to Paris since 1870. Lord Lyons . . . . . . . . . . Feb. 18, 1871. Nov. I, 1887. Dec. 15, 1891. Lord Lytton . . Lord Dufferin. . Sir Edmund Monson Sir F. Bertie . . 339 Oct. 15, 1896. Jan. I, 1905 Z 2 APPENDICES VI Summary of Arguments, British and French, in Favour OF Arbitration Treaty and Entente (1901-3). In England. The suggestion is that Articles 6 and 7 of the Salisbury- Cleveland Treaty of 1897 between Great Britain and the United States might be taken as the basis of negotiations. This Treaty was not ratified by the American Senate ; there were forty-two votes in its favour, and twenty-six against it. The majority fell, by four votes, short of the two-thirds requisite under the United States Constitution for the ratification of such a Treaty. The Salisbury-Cleveland Treaty provided for the peaceable settlement of different kinds of difficulties. As regards those in which an award of damages is the proper solution, the present practice is to resort to Arbitration, and the Hague Court is now provided with machinery for dealing with such cases. Articles 6 and 7 of the Salisbury-Cleveland Treaty dealt with a class of cases of a more delicate kind — viz., territorial claims and questions of principle of grave importance affecting national rights. For these the procedure provided by the Treaty was that of conciliation. The Articles in question are as follows : — Art. 6. — Any controversy which shall involve the determination of territorial claims shall be submitted to a Tribunal composed of six members, three of whom (subject to the provisions of Article 8) shall be Judges of the British Supreme Court of Judicature or members of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, to be nominated by His Britannic Majesty, and the other three of whom (subject to the provisions of Article 8) shall be Judges of the Supreme Court of the United States or Justices of the Circuit Courts, to be nominated by the President of the United States, whose Award, by a majority of not less than five to one, shall be final. In case of an Award made by less than the prescribed majority, the Award shall also be final unless either Power shall, within three months after the Award has 340 APPENDICES been reported, protest that the same is erroneous, in which case the Award shall be of no validity. In the event of an Award made by less than the prescribed majority, and protested as above provided, or if the members of the Arbitral Tribunal shall be equally divided, there shall be no recourse to hostile measures of any description until the mediation of one or more friendly Powers has been invited by one or both of the High Contracting Parties. Art. 7. — Objections to the jurisdiction of an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under this Treaty shall not be taken except as provided in this Article. If, before the close of the hearing upon a claim sub- mitted to an Arbitral Tribunal constituted under Article 3 or Article 5, either of the High Contracting Parties shall move such Tribunal to decide, and thereupon it shall decide, that the determination of such claim necessarily involves the decision of a disputed question of principle of grave general importance affecting the national rights of such Party, as distinguished from the private rights whereof it is merely the international representative, the jurisdiction of such Arbitral Tribunal over such claim shall cease, and the same shall be dealt with by arbitration under Article 6. Considerations in Favour of the Proposed Treaty, 1. Great Britain and France have common interests of a commercial and industrial kind, the prosperity of which is dependent upon the preservation of peace between them. " There are no two countries in the world whose mutual prosperity is more dependent on each other." (The King, May 1st, 1903.) 2. France is the nearest neighbour of the British Isles, and war between two countries so situated would inevitably produce, whatever its ultimate result might be, disastrous consequences for both parties, and " be one of the greatest misfortunes which could befall the world." (Lord Charles Beresford, letter, July 17th, 1902.) 3. British and French Colonial possessions and dependencies touch in most parts of the globe, and the peaceful and friendly development of intercourse between them is for their mutual benefit. 4. Difficulties and contentions do and must necessarily 341 APPENDICES arise between two peoples who are so often brought into contact, and it is desirable that some means be employed to prevent such difficulties and contentions from again assuming the dangerous character they have several times assumed in recent years, to avoid, in fact, " the unrest and uncertainty that the possibility of war begets." (Lord Provost Chisholm, of Glasgow, letter, June 4th, 1902.) 5. It seems certain that public irritation would be less likely to be inflamed by international difficulties which ordinary diplomacy may have not solved, if provision were made for obligatory reference of such difficulties to a further stage of consideration by which the danger of a deadlock might still be averted. 6. The Treaty for the adjustment of differences between Great Britain and the United States signed on the 12th January, 1897, by the representatives of the Governments of the two nations, providing for the automatic reference of disputes of national importance to a Commission, composed of persons belonging exclusively to the two nations themselves, seems adapted to supply what is required. A Commission so constituted is a guarantee to the general public that no vital national interest would be imperilled by considerations of abstract justice or on purely humanitarian grounds. 7. If such a Treaty was desirable as between Great Britain and the United States, it must also be desirable as between Great Britain and France, whose intercourse with one another is still closer. 8. " The moral effect of such a Treaty would be very great, not only as affecting the public mind, but as affecting the mind of the statesmen who have to control the destinies of the two countries." (Lord Chief Justice Alverstone, speech at Glasgow, August 20th, 1901.) " It would compel both parties, if in any way excited, to delay decision until the passions were calmed." (Dr. Donaldson, Principal of St. Andrew's University, letter, June i6th, 1902.) "Time would be gained in a critical event, and time gained was very often temper cooled." (Sir W. H. Holland, M.P., speech at Notting- ham, September 3rd, 1901.) 9. A Treaty of the kind suggested might be entered into, like the Anglo-American Treaty, for a limited period, and made to run on subject to a comparatively short period of notice of withdrawal from it. 10. The present feeling on both sides of the Channel is propitious for placing the good relations between the two 342 APPENDICES peoples on a permanent footing of amity, and it is suggested that, whatever the result, agitation for such an object " can do nothing but good" (Right Hon. W. E. Lecky, letter, June 4th, 1902) as regards the friendly relations between them, and should, therefore, be actively encouraged. II, It is proposed that Governments be approached as soon as pubUc opinion seems ripe for negotiation between the two countries. In France. Lors de I'examen, en premiere lecture, du projet russe de Convention d'Arbitrage a la Conference de La Haye, les delegues des puissances avaient accepte I'arbitrage obligatoire pour un certain nombre de cas enumeres dans Particle 10, mais en tant que ces cas se rapportaient a des questions ne touchant pas aux interets vitaux ni a rhonneur national des parties en litige. En deuxieme lecture, la caractere obligatoire de I'arbitrage pour ces cas a ete repousse et la raison d'etre de cette enumera- tion est tombee. Le recours au Tribunal de La Haye reste done purement facultatif et il n'a pas ete question a La Haye d'etendre I'arbi- trage aux questions touchant aux interets vitaux et a I'honneur national des Etats. Ce sont pourtant plutot ces questions qui sont les plus susceptibles d'amener des conflits amies. II y a, par conse- quent, lieu de completer la Convention de La Haye, par des traites complementaires, ainsi que le prevoit son article 19.^ A titre de suggestion et simplement comme precedent et base possible, il est rappele qu'un traite stipulant le recours obligatoire a I'arbitrage et I'etendant a tous les differends sans exception, a ete conclu en 1897 entre la Grande-Bretagne et les Etats-Unis. Ce traite, anterieur a la Convention de La Haye, creait des categories de tribunaux differents suivant la nature des litiges. Depuis la signature de cette Convention, une seule interesse la Grande-Bretagne et la France, c'est la categorie dont parlent les deux articles suivants : ^ Art. 19. — Tndependamment des Traites gen^raux ou particuliers qui stipulent actuellementrobligation du recours a I'arbitrage pour les puissances signataires, ces puissances se reservent de conclure, soit avant la ratification du present acte, soit post6rieurement, des accords nouveaux, gdn^raux, ou particuliers, en vue d'etendre I'arbitrage obligatoire k tous les cas qu'elles jugeront possible de lui soumettre. 343 APPENDICES Art. VI. — Tout differend qui impliquera le reglement de questions territoriales, sera soumis a un tribunal compose de six membres dont trois (comme le prevoit Part. 8) seront des juges de la Cour Supreme de Justice britannique ou des membres du Comite judiciaire du Conseil prive, que designera Sa Majeste Britannique, et les autres trois qui, (comme le prevoit Part. 8) seront des juges de la Cour Supreme des Etats-Unis ou des juges des Cours de Circuit que designera le President de la Repub- lique des Etats-Unis et leur sentence arbitrale rendue a la majorite d'au moins cinq sur six, reglera definitivement le differend. Au cas ou la sentence n'aurait pas obtenu la majorite prescrite, elle sera tout de meme decisive a moins que I'une ou Fautre des puissances, dans les trois mois a partir du jour de la publication de la sentence, ne proteste et ne la declare entachee d'erreur, auquel cas la sentence n'aura aucune valeur. Dans le cas ou une sentence arbitrale aura ete rendue par une majorite inferieure a celle prescrite et protestee comme il est ci-dessus prevu, ou si les membres du Tribunal arbitral sont partages egalement, il ne sera recouru a aucune mesure hostile de quelque sorte, jusqu'a ce que la mediation d'une ou de plusieurs puissances amies ait ete sollicitee par une ou les deux parties contractantes. Art. VII. — Les objections a la competence d'un tribunal arbitral constitue d'apres ce traite ne seront pas recevables, sauf dans les cas prevus dans cet article. Si avant la cloture de I'audition d'une reclamation soumise a un tribunal arbitral constitue d'apres Particle 3 ou Particle 5, I'une ou I'autre des deux hautes parties contractantes requiert ce tribunal de decider, et que la-dessus il decide que le reglement d'une telle reclamation implique necessairement le reglement d'une question de principe controversee, de grave et generale importance et qui affecte les droits nationaux de cette partie, dis- tingues des droits particuliers dont elle n'est que le representant international, la competence de ce tribunal pour cette reclamation cessera et celle-ci sera soumise a I'arbitrage tel que le prevoit Particle VI. II est evident que le recours doit etre automatique, obliga- toire et general pour produire I'effet immediat necessaire quand un grave incident se produit. 344 APPENDICES Considerations en Faveur du T^raite Propose. 1. Le traite serait la consecration solennelle d'un etat d'esprit pacifique anterieur qu'il tendrait a prolonger et qui est toujours la plus grande garantie de la paix. 2. La Grande-Bretagne et la France ont ensemble au point de vue industriel et commercial des interets communs dont la prosperite depend du maintien de cet etat d'esprit pacifique entre elles. 3. La France est la voisine la plus proche des lies Britan- niques, et une guerre entre deux pays ainsi situes produirait inevitablement, quelle qu'en fut Tissue, des consequences desastreuses des deux cotes, et serait I'une des plus grandes calamites qui pourraient s'abattre sur le monde. 4. Les possessions coloniales frangaises et anglaises se touchent partout, et le developpement pacifique et amical des relations de FAngleterre et de la France sert a leur avantage reciproque. 5. Des difiicultes et des conflits s'elevent et doivent neces- sairement s'elever entre deux nations qui sont si frequemment mises en contact et il est a souhaiter qu'on emploie quelque moyen pour empecher que ces difiicultes et ces conflits n'assu- ment le dangereux caractere qu'ils ont eu a plusieurs reprises dans ces dernieres annees et eviter le trouble et I'incertitude qu'engendre la possibilite d'une guerre. 6. II parait certain que la colere publique serait moins susceptible d'etre excitee par les difiicultes internationales que la diplomatie n'a pas resolues, si ces difiicultes etaient obligatoirement soumises meme seulement a une nouvelle discussion permettant d'eviter le danger d'une rupture de relations. 7. Un traite, rendant le recours a la Cour de La Haye obligatoire avec une clause complementaire calquee sur le precedent des articles VI et VII du traite signe le 1 1 Janvier 1897, par les representants de la Grande Bretagne et des Etats-Unis, pour le reglement des differends entre ces deux pays touchant les interets vitaux et I'honneur national, a une Commission composee de personnes appartenant exclusive- ment aux deux nations elles-memes, semble capable de fournir le moyen cherche. L'art. 32 de la Convention de la Haye, d'ailleurs, prevoit la choix possible d'Arbitres ad hoc^ et n'etant pas membres ordinaires de la Cour permanente. 8. Les negociateurs d'un tel traite pourraient aussi supprimer les restrictions posees dans l'art. IX de la Con- 345 APPENDICES vention de la Haye au fonctionnement et a la competence des Commissions internationales d'enquete. 9. L'effet moral d'un tel traite serait tres grand, parce que non seulement il produirait un effet moderateur sur I'opinion publique, mais aussi sur I'esprit des hommes d'Etat qui ont le controle des destinees des deux pays. II permettrait aux Etats contractants, en cas de surexcitation de I'opinion publique, de retarder neanmoins leur decision jusqu'a ce que les passions se soient calm^es. On gagnerait du temps a un moment critique et du temps gagne signifie souvent une colere apaisee. 10. Un traite de I'espece suggeree pourrait etre conclu, comme le traite anglo-americain, pour une periode de temps limitee. 11. Les sentiments qui prevalent actuellement des deux cotes de la Manche sont propices pour placer les bonnes relations des deux nations sur une base permanente d'amitie. vn Unofficial Support given to the Movement. Resolutions in favour of the Treaty, apart from the collec- tive resolution of the Association of Chambers of Commerce, were adopted by the following : — British Chambers of Commerce, Trade, and Shipping. Aberdeen. Croydon, Barnsley. Derby. Barrow-in-Furness. Dover (special resolution). Batley. Dublin (special resolution). Belfast. Dudley. Birmingham (special resolu- Dundee (special resolution). tion). Dunfermline (special resolu- Birstal. tion). Blackburn. Dewsbury. Bolton. Edinburgh (special resolu- Bradford. tion). Bristol (special resolution). Exeter. Bury. Falmouth. Canterbury (special resolu- Glasgow (special resolution). tion). Goole. Cardiff (special resolution). . Great Grimsby (special resolu- Chesterfield. tion). Cleckheaton. Greenock (special resolution). 346 APPENDICES Halifax (special resolution). Hartlepool. Heckmondwike. Huddersfield (special resolu- tion). Hull. Jersey. Keighley. Kendal. Kidderminster. Lancaster. Leeds (special resolution). Leicester. Lincoln. Liverpool. Llanelly. London (special resolution). Londonderry. Luton (special resolution). Macclesfield. Manchester (special resolu- tion). Middlesbrough-on-Tees. Morley. Newcastle-on-Tyne. Newport. North Shields and Tyne- mouth. (Adopted at different North Staffordshire. Nottingham. Oldham. Osset. Paris, British Chamber of (special resolution). Plymouth. Portsmouth (special resolu- tion). Sheffield (special resolution). Southampton. South of Scotland (special resolution). Southport. Stockton and Thornaby. Stroud. Sunderland. Swansea (special resolution). Tunbridge Wells. Wakefield (special resolu- tion). Walsall (special resolution). Warrington. Wolverhampton (special reso- lution). Worcester. Yeadon. York (special resolution). dates, from July, 1901.) French Chambers of Commerce. Londres (30 Oct. 1901). Clermont-Ferrand (29 Mai 1901). Boulogne-sur-Mer (8 Nov. 1901). Le Havre (4 Avril 1902). Bordeaux (14 Mars 1902). Dunkerque (7 Avril 1902). Marseille (22 Avril 1902). Calais (25 Avril 1902). Toulouse (5 Mai 1902). Besan^on (13 Mai 1902)." Beaune (29 Mai 1902). Cambrai (31 Mai 1902). Nimes (4 Juin 1902). Lille (14 Juin 1902). Angouleme (7 Juillet 1902). Sydney (Australie) (31 Mai 1902). Bayonne (14 Juin 1902). Roubaix (5 Juillet 1902). Rouen (31 Juillet 1902). 347 APPENDICES Niort (28 Oct. 1902). Bougie (7 Mars 1903). Valenciennes (4 Nov. 1902). Mazamet (10 Mars 1903). Belfort (23 Janvier 1903). Alger (11 Mars 1903). Le Treport (7 Fev. 1903). Auxerre (12 Mars 1903). Fougeres (9 Fev. 1903). Moulins (20 Mars 1903). Tourcoing (13 Fev. 1903). Grenoble (26 Mars 1903). Oran (14 Fev. 1903). Bar-le-Duc (26 Mars 1903). Caen (17 Fev. 1903). Laval (3 Avril 1903). Cette (18 Fev. 1903). Bolbec (6 Avril 1903). Aubenas (21 Fev. 1903). Saumur (6 Mai 1903). Limoges (27 Fev. 1903). Meaux ( — Juin 1903). Rochefort-sur-Mer (5 Mars Chalons-sur-Marne. 1903). Roche-sur-Yon, etc., etc. President de la Chambre de Commerce de Lyon (22 Mai 1902). President de la Chambre de Commerce de Paris (10 Decembre 1901). Syndicat du Commerce des Eaux-de-Vie de Cognac (10 Janvier 1903). Comite Frangais des Expositions a I'Etranger (20 Mai 1903). Working Men's Associations. Meeting of British and French Delegates of Working Men's Associations at Shoreditch Town Hall, 57 French Associa- tions represented (June 15, 1901). Manchester and Salford Trades and Labour Council, 21,000 members (June 19, 1902). Iron Founders' Society, 18,000 m. (July 5, 1902). Northumberland Miners' Mutual Confident Association, 23,000 m. (June 14, 1902). Tailors' Association, 16,000 m. (July 10, 1902). International Co-operative Congress, Manchester (July 25, 1902). Proposed by Mr. T. Bland, Vice-Chairman of the Co-operative Wholesale Society (over 1,000,000 m.), and seconded by Mr, Romanet, Manager of the Co- operative Lithographic Society of Paris (H. W. Wolff in the chair). National Union of Boot and Shoe Operatives, 28,000 m. (August 15, 1902). National Association of Operative Plasterers, 10,070 m. (August 29, 1902). 348 APPENDICES Amalgamated Society of Boilermakers and Iron Shipbuilders, 49,000 m. (August 30, 1902). National Hosiery Federation, 3,000 m, (September 9, 1902). Bookbinders' and Machine Rulers' Consolidated Union, 4,000 m. (September 23, 1902). Amalgamated Association of Operative Cotton Spinners, 18,415 m. (September 27, 1902). Furnishing Trades Association, 7,000 m. (September 3, 1902). Fawcett Association, 3,000 m. (October 11, 1902). Textile Factory Workers' Association, 150,000 m. (October 11, 1902). Beamers, Twisters and Drawers, 4,000 m. (October ii, 1902). Gasworkers and General Labourers, 48,000 m. (October 13, 1902). United Carters of England, 3,000 m. (October 13, 1902). London Carmen's Union, 4,000 m. (October 14, 1902). Co-operative Employes' Union, 8,000 m. (October 15, 1902). Dock, Wharf, Riverside, and General Workers' Union, 12,000 m. (October 27, 1902). Cigar Makers' Mutual Association, 2,000 m. (October 28, 1902). Amalgamated Society of Steel and Iron Workers of Great Britain, 8,000 m. (November 4, 1902). British Steel Smelters, Mill and Tinplate Workers' Association, 10,541 m. (November 25, 1902). National Amalgamated Union of Labour, 33,300 m. (November 28, 1902). Associated Ironmoulders of Scotland, 8,000 m. (December i, 1902). Municipal Employes' Association, 4,000 m. (February 2, 1903). House and Ship Painters and Decorators, 11,000 m. (February 2, 1903)- National Union of Life Assurance Agents, 1,990 m. (February 19, 1903). Amalgamated Society of Railway Servants, 76,000 m. (March 16, 1903). Amalgamated Society of Carpenters and Joiners, 75,000 m. (April 17, 1903). Postmen's Federation, 25,000 m. (April 22, 1903). Dundee Trades Council (April 28, 1903). Parliamentary Committee of Scottish Trade Unions, 160,000 m. (May 2, 1903). National Federation of Bleachers and Dyers, 10,000 m. (May 23, 1903). Commercial Travellers' Association, 13,000 m. (June 3, 1903). 349 APPENDICES London Printing Managers' Trade Society, 2,500 m. (August I3,_ 1903). Radical and Socialist Congress, Marseilles (September, 1903). Municipal Councils. Hyeres (May 30, 1902). Menton (July 26, 1902). Roubaix (Nov. 7, 1902). Havre (Dec. 10, 1902). Rouen (Jan. 29, 1903). St. Nazaire (March i, 1903). Cardiff (March 9, 1903). Lille (April 17, 1903). Boulogne-sur-Mer (April 22, 1903). Bordeaux (May — , 1903). Dunkirk (May 8, 1903). Calais (May 15, 1903). Nimes (May 26, 1903). Rochefort-sur-Mer (May 27, 1903). Niort (May 29, 1903). Cette (June 5, 1903). Cannes (June 11, 1903). Grenoble (June 26, 1903). Bar-le-Duc (June 27, 1903). Angers (July 17, 1903). Cambrai (July 10, 1903). Fougeres (July 3, 1903). la Rochelle (Aug. 14, 1903). Auxerre, etc. Arbitration, Peace, and Other Societies. La Societe Fran^aise d'Arbitrage entre Nations (March 27, 1901). La Ligue Frangaise pour les Droits des Femmes. La Presidente-Fondatrice de I'Association pour la Paix et la Desarmement par les Femmes. La Ligue Frangaise pour la Defense des Droits de I'Homme et du Citoyen, section de Clermont-Ferrand. Les Amis de la Paix du Puy-de-D6me. Les Enfants de Gergovie. Le Bureau Frangais de la Paix. L'Alliance Universelle des Femmes pour la Paix. Bureau central, Paris. Les Membres du Comite Senonais de la Societe d'Arbitrage entre Nations. Le Comite de Protection des Indigenes. La Ligue Rouennaise de la Paix. Le Bureau de la Societe Toulousaine de la Paix et des Succursales. Le Groupe Parisien de la Paix par le Droit. The Scarborough and District Peace and Arbitration Society (September 29, 1902). The International Peace Bureau (May 14, 1901). 350 APPENDICES The Universal Peace Congress at Glasgow (September lo, 1901). Resolutions were also adopted by : — The " Entente Cordiale " (Anglo-French Association) (July 15, 1902). The Meeting for Sufferings of the Society of Friends (August I, 1902). The Universite Populaire de Fontenay-en-Vendee (May 2, 1903)- The Wesleyan Methodist Conference at Camborne (July 21, 1903). The International Law Association. Glasgow Meeting, under the Presidency of Lord Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice of England. Among those present were the following judges : — Lord Kinross, Lord President of the Court of Session, Mr. Justice Barnes, Mr. Justice Bruce, Mr. Justice PhilHmore, Lord Young, and Lord Kincairney (August 30, 1901). Special Agitation Committees were formed at : — Havre (October 27, 1902).^ Galashiels (April 27, 1903). Cardiff (February 26, 1903). Nancy (September 19, 1903). Glasgow (April 20, 1903). Sheffield (May ii, 1903). Bordeaux (June 19, 1903). Leeds (May 15, 1903). Edinburgh (April 22, 1903). Paris (June 2, 1903). Dundee (April 24, 1903). Lyons (September 19, 1903). N.B. — Other Committees were in course of formation when the Arbitration Treaty was signed. In most cases the chambers of commerce and the municipal bodies have combined their efforts, e.g.^ Birmingham, Newcastle, Swansea, Liverpool, Manchester, Batley, Luton, York, Aberdeen, Dunfermline, etc., Lille, Roubaix, Angouleme, Boulogne-sur-Mer, Marseilles, etc. ^ The Havre Committee (President : Mr. Joannes Couvert, President of the Chamber of Commerce ; Vice-President : Monsieur Maurice Taconet j Hon. Secretary : Mr. P. Loiseau) received supporting resolutions from : — 1. Chambre Syndicale des Ouvriers Voiliers du Havre (21 Juin 1903). 2. Bourse du Travail (13 Juin 1903). 3. Societe Co-operative des Ouvriers Charbonniers du Port du Havre (20 Juin 1903). 4. Society Mutuelle de Prevoyance des employes de Commerce du Havre (26 Juin 1903). 5. Syndicat General du Commerce et de Tlndustrie (22 Juin 1903). 6. Syndicat du Commerce des Cotons (25 Juin 1903). 7. Society Anonyme des Anciens Courtiers en Coton (23 Juin 1903). 351 APPENDICES Prominent Persons who Supported Movement. Among those who joined in the promotion of the movement were the following : — Lord Alverstone, Lord Chief Justice of England. Lord Kinross, Lord President of the Court of Session of Scotland. Lord Avebury, President of the Association of the Chambers of Commerce of the United Kingdom. John Westlake, K.C., Professor of International Law at Cambridge, one of the English Members of the Hague Court of Arbitration. T. E. Holland, K.C., Professor of International Law at Oxford. Sir Ludovic Grant, Professor of International Law at Edin- burgh. H. Brougham Leech, Professor of International Law at Dublin. Sir F. Pollock, Bart., Editor of the Lazv Quarterly Review and the Law Reports. Professor Henry Goudy, of Oxford. Sir John Macdonell, C.B., Professor of Comparative Juris- prudence at University College, London. Montague Crackanthorpe, K.C., Author of the article on Inter- national Arbitration in the " Encyclopaedia Britannica." Sir James Donaldson, Vice-Chancellor and Principal of St. Andrew's University. Ch. Lyon-Caen, Member of the Institute of France, Professor of the Paris Faculty of Law. Baron Pierre de Coubertin, Author of " Evolution Fran^aise sous la Troisieme Republique," etc.. President of the " Comite International Olympique." Fernand Labori, Advocate and Editor of the Grande Revue. J. Finot, Editor of La Revue. Frederic Passy, Member of the Institute of France, President of the French Society for Arbitration between Nations. H. W. Wolff, President of the Co-operative Alliance. Admiral Lord Charles Beresford. Andrew Carnegie, LL.D., Lord Rector of the University of St. Andrews. Lord Brassey, Ex-Governor of Victoria, President of the London Chamber of Commerce. The Hon. J. I. Tarte, Ex-Canadian Minister of Public Works, Executive Commissioner for Canada at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. 352 APPENDICES Andre Weiss, Professor of the Paris Faculty of Law. Paul Blouet (Max O'Rell). Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, Ministre Plenipotentiaire, Membre de la Cour de la Haye. W. Blake Odgers, K.C. T. H. Carson, K.C. Very Rev. Robert H. Story, Principal of the University of Glasgow. The Rt. Hon. Sir H. Campbell-Bannerman, M.P. The Rt. Hon. John Morley, M.P. Lord Reay. Charles Scott Dickson, K.C, M.P., Solicitor-General for Scotland. The Rt. Hon. W. E. H. Lecky, M.P. for DubHn University. Sir W. Arrol, M.P. R. Hunter Craig, M.P. Dr. C. M. Douglas, M.P. Sir W. Dunn, Bart., M.P. J. Parker Smith, M.P. John Wilson, M.P. Alexander WyHe, M.P. Sir W. M, Holland, M.P. Ernest Beckett, M.P. H. Broadhurst, M.P. Sir Albert RolHt, M.P. D. A. Thomas, M.P. T. W. Russell, M.P. C. E. Schwann, M.P. T. W. Crombie, M.P. W. R. Cremer, M.P. T. P. O'Connor, M.P. W. Jones, M.P. Thomas Burt, M.P. John Burns, M.P. Sir John Brunner, Bart., M.P. J. C. Wason, M.P. Louis Sinclair, M.P. Hy. J. C. Cust, M.P. The Rt. Hon. R. B. Haldane, K.C, M.P. The Rt. Hon. Sir J. Gorst, M.P. Sir Wm. Wedderburn, Bart., M.P. J. Walton, M.P. The Rt. Plon. H. J. Gladstone, M.P. H. S. Cautley, M.P. R. H. Barron, M.P. Alexander Ure, K.C, M.P. Sir A. N. Agnew, Bart., M.P. G. Macrae, M.P. G. M. Brown, M.P. Thos. Shaw, K.C, M.P. The Rt. Hon. H. H. Asqulth, K.C, M.P. Sir Wm. Hy. Houldsworth, Bart., M.P. Sir E. A. Sassoon, Bart., M.P. Lord Edmund Fitzmaurice, M.P. H. S. Samuel, M.P. Sir J. Fergusson, Bart., M.P. Sir Thos. Wrightson, Bart., M.P. Sir Chas. M. Palmer, Bart., M.P. E. Robertson, M.P. G. Toulmin, M.P. Etc., etc. T.Y. 353 A A APPENDICES VIII Text of Anglo-French Treaty of Arbitration (October 14, 1903). Le Gouvernement de la Republique frangaise et le Gouverne- ment de Sa Majeste britannique, signataires de la Convention pour le reglement pacifique des conflits internationaux, conclue a La Haye, le 29 juillet 1899 ; Considerant que, par Particle 19 de cette Convention, les hautes parties contractantes se sont reserve de conclure des accords en vue du recours a Parbitage dans tous les cas qu'elles jugeront possible de lui soumettre. Ont autorise les soussignes a arreter les dispositions suivantes : Article i^^. — Les differends d'ordre juridique ou relatifs a Pinterpretation des traites existant entre les deux parties contractantes qui viendraient a se produire entre elles et qui n'auraient pu etre regies par la voie diplomatique, seront soumis a la Cour permanente d'arbitrage etablie par la con- vention du 29 juillet 1899 a La Haye, a la condition, toutefois, qu'ils ne mettent en cause ni les interets vitaux, ni Pindepen- dance ou Phonneur des deux Etats contractants et qu'ils ne touchent pas aux interets de tierces puissances. Art. 2. — Dans chaque cas particulier, les hautes parties contractantes, avant de s'adresser a la Cour permanente d'arbitrage, signeront un compromis special determinant nettement Pobjet du litige, Petendue des pouvoirs des arbitres et les details a observer en ce qui concerne la constitution du tribunal arbitral et la procedure. Art. 3. — Le present arrangement est conclu pour une duree de cinq annees, a partir du jour de la signature. Fait a Londres, en double exemplaire, le 14 Octobre 1903. Paul Cambon. Lansdowne. 354 APPENDICES IX Letter from Lord Lyons to Lord Granville on THE Situation in 1884.^ Paris, June 3, 1884. My dear Granville, — I sent Lord Hartington your letter yesterday morning, and I had a long visit from him in the afternoon. As matters stand, what seems to be most to be dreaded with a view to our relations with France is a vote of the House of Commons censuring an arrangement made by Her Majesty's Government with the French Government. Such a vote, and the debate by which it would be preceded, would, I cannot but fear, have a truly lamentable effect. I understand that Jules Ferry is having a memorandum on the finances of Egypt drawn up by Blignieres, and that it will dispute the accuracy of Mr, Childers' information, and represent that the finances were in a flourishing condition, and that there were surpluses even during Arabi's rebellion, up to the time at which England took the thing in hand. The memorandum will probably deny there being any necessity for reducing the interest of the debt, if the finances be properly managed. I do not know whether such a reason will be assigned to us, in fact, it seems that the French object to any large loan being guaranteed by England, on account of the lien, so to speak, which it would give England upon Egypt. The French would prefer a simple fresh issue of United Stock. In the meantime the French bondholders are bestirring themselves, and protesting against any arrangement being made without their being consulted. Jules Ferry, however, himself thinks little of any other consideration in comparison with the political success which it would be to him to give France again a political footing in Egypt, and, as a means to this, to get a time fixed for the departure of our troops. I do not think he is afraid of much disapproval here of his counter-concession, the engagement that French troops shall not enter Egypt either on the depar- ^ From " Life of Lord Granville," by Lord Edmund Fitzmaurlce, Vol. IL, p, 332. Longmans & Co. 355 AA2 APPENDICES ture of the English troops or afterwards. Unless the engage- ment were very formally made, and very peculiarly and stringently worded, it would be felt that it did not amount to much ; for, though it would preclude the occupation of Egypt by the French to preserve order and promote reforms in the same way as we occupy the country now, it would not be interpreted here as preventing France from using force to avenge an insult or protect distinct French interests, in cases which would constitute a casus belli as regarded any ordinary country. I do not quite understand the exact position in which stands the suggestion that the financial questions should be lirst settled by England with the several Powers separately, and then a Conference be held for a day or two only to ratify what had already been settled. Does this afford an opening for purely financial negotiations, and admit for the dropping of the French political proposals, which appear to be so unpopular in England ? I believe Jules Ferry is in some tribulation about the difficulties his proposals have met with in England, and is half inclined to be sorry he had made them so strong, though I doubt whether Waddington has made him fully aware of the violence of the opposition they encounter in England. Generally speaking, I am very unhappy about the growing ill-will between France and England which exists on both sides of the Channel. It is not that I suppose that France has any deliberate intention of going to war with us. But the two nations come into contact in every part of the globe. In every part of it questions arise which, in the present state of feeling, excite mutual suspicion and irritation. Who can say when and where, in this state of things, some local events may not produce a serious quarrel, or some high-handed proceed- ings of hot-headed officials occasion an actual collision ? Yours sincerely, Lyons. X M. Hanotaux on British Diplomacy.^ Le negociateur anglais est solide, d'aplomb et plein de sens ; il est extremement prudent et, visiblement, tenu de court par la chaine du Foreign Office. La marche du negociateur ^ '* Fachoda," par Gabriel Hanotaux, p. 85. Paris: Ernest Flammarion. 356 APPENDICES fran^ais est plus capricieuse, parce qu'il cherche les raisons generales ; un idealisme vague le tourmente assez inopportune- ment. Le negociateur frangais veut convaincre tandis que le negociateur anglais se contente de vaincre. Dans les pourparlers, des preliminaires, parfois verbeux d'un cote, parfois contraints et embarrasses de Tautre, sont souvent une cause de malentendus. Les methodes different et les langues plus encore. On ne s'imagine pas a quel point la dissemblance fondamentale des deux idiomes trouble le jeu. C'est "la categoric verbale " qui n'est pas la meme. Dans les traductions les mieux faites, les mots ne s'ajustent pas. Meme quand les interlocuteurs savent les deux langues, leurs pensees ne se recouvrent pas toujours exactement. Les mots ne sonnent pas, aux oreilles differentes, le meme son ; ils servent difficilement de monnaie d'echange. La langue anglaise est pleine, directe, sans condescendance ; elle affirme, elle n'explique pas, C'est une langue d'infinitifs ; le sujet et le verbe se confondent, c'est-a-dire le mobile et I'acte ; elle ne distingue pas, ne nuance pas ; elle frappe. J'admire beaucoup les lettres des hommes d'affaires anglais ; elles sont pleines de sue : le necessaire est dit, rien que le necessaire. Mais leur technicite un peu fruste se prete souvent a des interpretations diverses, parfois entre les nationaux ; et, si les interets s'en melent, il arrive qu'elle facilite, meme de bonne foi, des retraites surprenantes. La langue anglaise est une personne autoritaire un peu bourrue, qui parle par interjections et veut qu'on la comprenne a demi-mot. Le diplomate britannique a, dans la negociation, une superiorite dont il use, non sans une certaine hauteur ; la fermete des vues qui tient a la stabilite gouvernementale. Cette unite admirable que forme I'histoire de I'Angleterre depuis deux siecles, donne, au moindre des insulaires, une foi en la superiorite de sa race, une certitude du succes, qui s'etonne, d'une fa^on quelquefois amusante, de la fermete et du droit inverses de ses adversaires. Trop poli et humain pour faire sentir cette nuance, le diplomate anglais renferme son impression en soi-meme : mais elle perce dans un regard, un geste, un demi-sourire qui avertit et met en garde. Sous cette ironie raffinee, le bluff est aux aguets. En revanche, personne n'apprecie, comme I'Anglais, les affaires bien menees, les positions solidement prises, les realites positives. Et puis, la personne compte beaucoup 357 APPENDICES aupres de ces personnalites fortes. J'ai obtenu des resultats imprevus en presentant subitement au cours d'une negociation Vhomme dufait ; il n'etait pas besoin qu'il parlat ; sa presence suffisait. La responsabilite est, aux yeux de ces maitres hommes que sont les Anglais, une grande maitresse et une grande autorite. Sans m'appesantir sur ces observations qui ont toujours quelque chose de particulier et d'imprecis, je conclus en rappelant, qu'avec les Anglais, il faut toujours traiter, mais toujours agir ; saisir et nouer promptement ; en tout cas, ne jamais perdre le contact, s'expliquer, insister, y revenir pour etre assure qu'on est bien compris, marcher sans detour et sans feinte, etre exact pour etre fidele et compter sur la fidelite dans I'exactitude. Par suite des circonstances, tenant, sans doute, a la hate de la vie publique en France pendant la periode de fondation de la Troisieme Republique, ces tractations, si utiles, avec la puissance voisine, avaient ete, depuis longtemps, negligees. On ne " causait " plus. Les motifs de dissentiment se multipliaient, les malentendus s'aggravaient dans I'echange pedantesque de notes de chancelleries, quand les visees coloniales frangaises et le reveil de I'lmperialisme anglais, agitant soudain tous les vieux litiges, creerent, partout, un etat d'irritation ou de " friction " auquel il fallait parer, sous peine d'exposer les relations cordiales des deux pays au caprice des evenements. Amener PAngleterre a negocier ; negocier de bonne foi, avec la volonte arretee de soutenir fermement les revendi- cations frangaises, mais aussi de sacrifier beaucoup a I'entente ; enfermer le partenaire dans un cercle de droits evidents et de faits precis ; se proposer pour but une liquidation generale, compensant, au besoin, les solutions I'une par Pautre ; travailler, par cette liquidation, a I'union des deux politiques sur un pied d'honneur reciproque, et de dignite equitable, telle fut la methode adoptee, tel fut le but poursuivi par la France avec une persistance qui ne fut pas sans causer un certain embarras chez la partie adverse. Pour I'Angleterre, consentir a discuter, c'etait se limiter. 358 APPENDICES XI I. Papers Relating to the Franco-Scottish Society AND the Scots College in Paris. Proposed Constitution of the Franco-Scottish Society. 1 1. The name of the Society shall be " The Franco-Scottish Society." Objects. 2. The objects of the Society shall be : {a) The promotion of historical research as regards the relations between France and Scotland and as regards the social and intellectual influence of either country upon the other. {b) The promotion of study in the Universities of either country by students of the other. 3. As soon as practicable a sum shall be devoted to the creation of scholarships, special courses of lectures, and the hiring or purchase of premises in which to house Scottish students in Paris, and supply them with the means of study and of acquiring the French language, as here-in-after pro- vided. {See Art. 38). 4. A further sum shall as soon as practicable be devoted to the creation of a chair of Franco-Scottish History to be held for two years, the tenant thereof to deliver his lectures in Edinburgh and in Paris. The Executive Committee shall not be restricted in their selection to savants of Scotch or French nationality. Nor need the lectures relate exclusively to Franco-Scottish relations provided they deal with Scottish history when delivered in France or with French history when delivered in Scotland. Membership. 5. The Society shall consist of Fellows (membres effectifs) and Associates. Fellows are such as are elected by a majority of the Execu- tive Committee, who shall as far as possible restrict the election to persons occupying academic functions or such as ^ Drafted by the author in 1894^ and submitted at a meeting in the Court Room of Edinburgh University. 359 APPENDICES by their position or attainments can render service to the Society. Any student, Professor or teacher of any University, College or public school, or person interested in the work of the Society shall be elegible for admission by the Committee as an Associate. 6. It shall be an indispensable title to election as either Fellow or Associate that the candidate shall be of Scotch or French origin or descent. Present or past professors in Scottish Universities and foreign associates and corresponding members of the French Institute are also eligible. Others can be elected as Adherents. Founders. 7. The following Fellows, Associates and Adherents, as promoters and founders of a Society whose sole object is the revival of the historic friendship of two countries which have hand in hand led the way in the conquests of science, literature, and philosophy, shall be inscribed as such upon the diploma of Fellowship : If it should ever be possible to enter into possession of the old Scots College in Paris, a marble tablet recording the names of the aforesaid founders shall be affixed in the chapel thereof. Officers, 8. There shall be two Honorary Presidents, two acting Presidents, six Vice-Presidents, two Treasurers, four Secre- taries, to be respectively half Scottish and half French. 9. The Scottish and French Fellows shall respectively elect the officers of their own nationality. 10. The above officers shall form the Executive Committee. Management. 11. The Executive Committee shall have the general management of the affairs of the Society ; the Presiding Member at any meeting to have a casting-vote in case of an equal division ; four Members present to form a quorum. The office-bearer highest in rank shall preside, priority to be given to the member of the nation in which the meeting is held. 12. The Executive Committee shall meet during the sessions of the annual conference only, but any decision as to which they are all agreed shall be valid at all times. 360 APPENDICES Local Committees, 13. There shall be a Scottish Committee and a French Committee. These shall respectively have exclusive charge of their own establishments ; they shall meet as they them- selves severally decide, and shall frame their own rules. 14. A French Fellow or Associate resident in Scotland shall be elected by the French Fellows to attend meetings of the Scottish Committee when invited and similarly a Scottish Fellow or Associate shall be elected by the Scottish Fellows to attend meetings of the French Committee when invited. Conferences. 15. A Conference of the Society shall be held every year alternately in France and in Scotland, the first to be held in Paris at Easter, 1896. 16. After each Annual Conference its transactions shall be published in a volume under the direction of the Secretaries of the Executive Committee. 17. The direction of each Conference shall be in the hands of the Officers for the time being of the Country in which it shall be held. Language. 18. The discussions can be carried on indiscriminately in French and in English ; the papers read at Conferences shall be in either language as shall suit the writers supplying them ; the official details to be in the language of the country in which the Conference is held. These rules shall be printed in both languages. Contributions and Expenditure. 19. Each Fellow shall pay to the Treasurer of his nationality {see Art. 8) the annual sum of £2 = 50 fr. The subscription for Associates and Adherents shall be ^i = 25 fr. Any donor of upwards of £20 = 500 fr. shall be a Hfe member either as Fellow, Associate or Adherent. 20. No expenditure or liabiHty shall be incurred beyond the amount of the funds in the hands of the Treasurer. Scots College Foundation. 21. As soon as practicable a suitable building shall be rented in Paris until it is possible to acquire the old building so-called. 361 APPENDICES 22. The said building shall be adapted to lodge as many scholars as there shall be scholarships, and as many hospitants as it shall be possible to accommodate. Scholars shall pay no rent. Hospitants shall pay such rent as the Committee shall fix. 23. Any student of the Scottish Universities who shall have taken a degree thereat shall be eligible to compete for a scholarship. 24. For the purpose of the competition to one, at least, of the scholarships, the Scottish Committee shall appoint some question or subject of Scottish history ; the candidate whose essay or essays shall be adjudged best shall be appointed to the vacancy for the time being. For the purpose of the other scholarships, in the order of their creation, the Committee may appoint a subject in science, medicine, law, arts and literature, fine arts and music, as the donor shall direct, the idea being to promote study in all branches of research and inquiry. 25. The History scholarship shall be tenable for one year. If, at expiry thereof, the candidate shall have submitted work considered satisfactory by the Scottish Committee, the latter may continue the scholarship for another year and similarly to a third, but no longer. The other scholarships shall be tenable from May ist to end of July. The Committee may, in case the holder should do original work to their satisfaction, extend the tenure of the scholarship to a whole year. 26. Holders for the time being of scholarships shall be entitled " Scots Scholars." The holder of the History scholar- ship shall be distinguished from the others as " The Scots Scholar." 27. Each scholarship shall, where practicable, bear the name of its founder. 28. The management of the College shall be in the hands of the " Scots Scholars " for the time being. They shall, how- ever, have no power to spend money except in so far as the Committee or their delegate may sanction or direct. 29. The Committee may appoint a local delegate as " Proctor " of the College. He shall preside at the meetings of the Scholars and act as Treasurer of the College. 30. The Scholars may make such arrangements as they may deem fit, subject to the approval of the Committee or Proctor, in regard to meals in College ; but only such residents therein as shall subscribe to such arrangements shall be bound thereby. 362 APPENDICES 31. Any students, whether graduates or not of the Scottish Universities, can be admitted on paying the proper fees in advance as a hospitant, but a graduate shall have preference cceteris paribus over an undergraduate. 32. Applications to be admitted as a hospitant shall be lodged with the Committee, who shall have discretion to admit or not without any need of explanation. 33. Hospitants shall have no voice in the government of the College. 34. Nothing in these rules shall prevent a hospitant from competing for a scholarship or from holding it upon the same conditions as any other scholar. 35. Members of the Society can be received where there is room as residents, but from May ist to end of July only for a period not exceeding one month, unless there still be room at expiry thereof, whereupon such Members can renew their occupation. 36. Nothing in these Articles shall prevent the creation of scholarships guaranteed by donors for a certain number of years only. Thus a donor may undertake to pay an annual sum for, say, 3, 5, or 10 years to favour the study of some special subject or subjects. In such a case the Committee can only accept the donation upon the donor covering the amount by a capital sum to be vested in the Scottish Com- mittee as trustees for the duration of the scholarship. Nor shall anything herein prevent any donor from offering, through the Committee, a sum of money as a prize, provided always that such a prize be connected with the objects of the Franco-Scottish Society. 37. So soon as the Scots College shall have premises of its own the Scottish Committee shall have power to reserve rooms therein for the secretarial work of the Committee, the formation of a library and the preservation of MSS., and to make all such provisions in the interest of the Society generally as they may think fit. Special Lectures. 38. A series of special lectures shall be organised in connec- tion with the foundation, to be delivered in Paris during the months of May, June and July. They shall be gratuitous for all tenants of the Scots College. The schedule of these lectures shall be published at the Scottish Universities not later than the end of the month of APPENDICES February, and it shall, as far as possible, set out the contents thereof. One such course of lectures shall be devoted to instruction in the French language. temporary Provisions. 39. If the funds available for the College shall not at once be of sufficient amount to carry out the above provisions, the order of the application of the funds obtained shall be, as far as practicable, as follows : — (a) Creation of the History Scholarship {see Arts. 4 and 5) to the extent of the available funds, the annual sum to be devoted to such scholarship not to exceed ^50 per annum (saving always special conditions made by a donor), until the other two objects [^see (b) & (c)] have been attained. (b) Institution of special courses of lectures (see Art, 38), the first to be that for instruction in the French language. (c) Creation of other scholarships. As soon as the funds devoted to scholarships shall suffice, such scholarships shall become residential, and the funds shall be applied to the housing of the Scots College as herein created. Until then, the holders of scholarships shall be lodged at pensions, a list of which shall be supplied to the student. Scholars shall receive no money direct until the scholar- ships become residential, in which case the amount of each scholarship which shall be considered as payment for lodging shall be £2 a month. The rest shall be applied to sustenance as the Scottish Committee shall decide. Amendment of Rides. 40. These rules can only be amended at the Annual Con- ference and by a vote of two thirds of the Fellows present, sixty clear days previous notice of any motion for such purpose having been given. 364 APPENDICES DRAFT STATEMENT OF HISTORY SIDE Subscriptions, no Fellows at £2 . . . . 220 Subscriptions, no Asso- ciates and Adherents ^t ;^i . . .. .. no L £330 Rent of Premises, Edin- burgh 30 Rent of Premises, Paris 40 Printing of Annual Re- port . . . . . . 100 Stationery, Printing Notices, etc. . . Postages Clerk, Edinburgh Clerk, Paris Expenses of Conference Sundries . . 12 2 50 10 30 Balance £324 6 £330 Estimates. Expenditure Capitalized at 3%. 1. History Scholarship of ^50 2. Lectureship in Paris — (a) French language ; 24 to 36 lectures for _£io (b) Other lectures at ^^20 each course . . 3. Other Scholarships of ^^20 each 4. Cost of Provisional House, £360 per annum, with- out deducting sums to be paid by Non-Scholars for occupation 5. Cost of Scots College (maximum) . . Nota henf. — The Scots College could be arranged so that a portion of it might be let. The market value of the property is about 3^13,000 ; present rent (10,000 f.) is to be raised on expiration of present lease to 12,000 f. Some of the money might be obtained on mortgage. 6. International Lectureship in Franco-Scottish History, £100 per annum, including Travelling J^ .^L L^ v^XXo Co •• •» •• •• •• •• 365 Capital. L 1,666 333 666 666 12,000 16.000 3,333 APPENDICES 2. On The Scots College in Paris. ^ The meeting of Scotsmen to be held, as already announced in ^he Times, at the University Court-room in Edinburgh to-morrow, for the constitution of a Franco-Scottish Historical Society will remind their fellow countrymen south of the Tweed that Scottish and English history ran in very different channels until the two countries became united under one Sovereign, and their " external " polity thus was made identical. Three centuries of constant contact, however, have not sufliced to obliterate Scottish characteristics. The North British subjects of Her Majesty as much as ever stand out as a people apart. Nor does any transplanting of the stock impair its vitality. Its offshoots are so scattered that possibly there are as many Scots abroad as at home. Yet they remain, wherever they be, distinct in character, distinct in their warm attachment to everything that comes from their Northern home, and curiously knit together in a sort of free- masonry in which the accent does not count for nothing. On the Continent the Scot's position was unique. He has had his share in the history of most Northern nations, and in his time has exercised no little influence in their intellectual development. The insularity of the perhaps more masculine and independent Englishman was no quality of the Scot of yore, and in his intercourse with the foreigner he had, and probably still has, a readier apprehension than the Southerner of the foreign point of view. In France one quality at least of the Scot has passed into the current phraseology, and a sentimental interest in things Scottish is characteristic of a nation who now return with kindliness to the historical relics vv^hich were hurried with everything else at the Revolution to destruction. It is, therefore, easy to understand that the idea of a Franco-Scottish Society, though its purposes may be purely scientific, should commend itself to a section of Frenchmen. On the other hand, the Scottish Universities, Scots Law, and Scottish institutions generally, owe most of their peculiarities, as compared with English institutions, to French influence. The Scottish dialect contains many words of French origin, for which the English equivalents are Germanic, and a traditional habit of learning the French language and passing a part of student life in France continued ' Written by the author, and pubhshed in The Times of October 28, 1895. 366 APPENDICES in practice among Scottish families to a comparatively recent period ; in fact, until the counter tendency sprang up in the course of the last half-century of relying for knowledge and its methodical pursuit rather on the German than the French professor. It is thus natural enough that a movement to revive a historic and long-continued connection should touch a responding note in Scottish sentiment. The Scots College in Paris is the sole outward survival of the ancient connection. It is a square, prosaic building in the Rue Cardinal Lemoyne, a street at the back of the Pantheon. Over the large doorway may be read in a clean-cut inscription, College des Escossois. Inside are an imposing wooden staircase, a chapel with a number of memorial tablets, some furniture bearing the Scottish arms, and paintings of the Old and Young Pretenders. Under the present tenant of the building, M. Grousset, who, by the way, is always ready to show the place to visitors, it serves as an institution for preparing French boys for the University entrance examination. It is not generally known that the rent paid by M. Grousset, as well as that of a farm outside Paris which belonged to the college, is applied to defray- ing the expenses of a number of Scottish students of Catholic theology at the seminary of St. Sulpice, and that these students are selected by the Catholic Bishops of Scotland. The origin of the college dates back to the heroic period of Robert Bruce. In the beginning of the fourteenth century, we are told, David, Bishop of Moray, was sent by the Scots King to secure or strengthen the French alliance, which he did by signing a treaty at Corbeil. This Bishop founded certain stipends for the encouragement of Scottish students. The Scots had as yet no University of their own, and the Archbishop's action was, no doubt, a counterblast to the then recently-founded Balliol College at Oxford. Shortly afterwards (in 1326) the Scots College came into corporate existence under a charter of Philip le Bel. As St. Andrews, the oldest Scottish Univer- sity, was founded only in 141 1, and on the model of the University of Paris, the Scots College, as the older corporation, was practically the starting-point of independent higher education for Scotsmen. After the Reformation the college remained Roman CathoHc, and became the headquarters of Scottish Catholicism, and, later on, of Scottish Jacobites. The original building was in the Rue des Amandiers, and it 367 APPENDICES is significant that a neighbouring street was called Rue d'Ecosse, as if Scots thereabouts had congregated. In the second half of the seventeenth century the college was removed to the " more commodious " present building, as a memorial tablet to the then principal, Robert Barclay, who carried out the change, records. At the Revolution the college and its revenues were treated as those of religious communities and appropriated by the State, and during the Terror the college was used as a house of detention. An eye- witness has related that the movable property of the college was then disposed of, and valuable manuscripts sold as waste paper or burnt. Among the manuscripts he described were correspondence of James II. and the Pretenders and others with their friends in England and the cipher key to it. This eye-witness was copying some passages when the documents were seized by the gaoler. They have disappeared, and may have been burnt with the rest. It was owing to representa- tions of the then British Minister, Lord Robert Fitzgerald, that the French Government consented to treat the college as educational, suivant la destination des fondateurs. Later on it underwent a series of manipulations. First, all the Scottish and Irish colleges in France were united under one administrator ; then the English colleges were added, and eventually it was again detached ; but how its revenues at length come to be converted into stipends for the education for the Scottish priesthood instead of for the education of Scotsmen generally, or, at least, of Scottish Catholics generally, is not clear from the sources of information we have been able to consult. Many eminent Scotsmen have been students or inmates of the Scots College. Among these, curiously enough, Barclay the Quaker, a Protestant son of one of Gustavus Adolphus's Scottish captains, received the more important part of his education there. Among other Protestants who were students of the college were Mair and Buchanan. That its Catholicism, moreover, had a rather Liberal tendency is shown by the fact that it was always suspected at Rome of being friendly to Jansenism. Indeed, the Paris Nuncio towards the middle of the last century denounced the College as a very sink of Jansenism, and applied himself in particular to relating the evil done by Thomas Innes, who had been Prefect of Studies at the college. Thomas Innes, it will be remembered, was the author of the well-known " Critical Essay on the Early Inhabitants of Scotland." 368 APPENDICES It is clearly worth while to restore so interesting a historical memorial to its ancient uses, modified, of course, in accordance with the spirit of the age, and if the new Society succeeds in purchasing the college and converting it back to a house of study for Scottish students it will amply justify its existence. 3- Extracts from Reports on the Movement which led to THE Formation of the Franco-Scottish Society.^ '* This movement had hitherto been mainly academic, but many of its supporters felt that it ought to have a wider basis. They, therefore, gladly joined Mr. Thomas Barclay, a Scotsman resident in Paris, and member of the Societe Historique, in his efforts to form a Franco-Scottish Society for the joint promotion of historical research respecting the ancient alliance between Scotland and France and its con- tinuing influence. Many, not actively connected with Universities, were interested in the revival of that ancient league of friendship which for so many years bound Scot and Frenchman together, and hence the Franco-Scottish Society. Inter-University relations must always have an important position in the Society's programme, but they must not exclude other work, such as promoting historical research concerning the ancient relations between the two countries, and concerning their social and general influence upon one another, which is no less valuable. "On October i8, 1895, a letter was issued, signed by Lord Reay, Sheriff Mackay, Messrs. Barclay and Grant, and Professors Kirkpatrick, Ramsay, Geddes, and Burnet, calHng a meeting of those interested in forming " an association which should have for its object the strengthening of the friendly relations which have at various periods existed between France and Scotland." In response to this invitation over forty ladies and gentlemen met, in the Court Room of the University of Edinburgh, on the afternoon of October 29. Among those present were Lord Reay, Principal Sir William Muir ; Professors Ferguson, Laurie, Geddes and Burnet ; Messrs. Barclay, E. J. G. Mackay, Rutherford, W. K. Dickson, Scott Dalgleish, Grant Ogilvie, Balfour Paul, A. A. Gordon, Goodchild, J. S. Mackay, Dr. Stodart Walker, Miss Flora Stevenson, and Miss Jane Hay. 1 Transactions of the Franco-Scottish Society (1897), p. 230. T.Y. 369 S ^ APPENDICES " Sir William Muir, Principal of Edinburgh University, moved that Lord Reay take the chair. Lord Reay then referred to the circular which had been issued calling the meeting, and pointed out that the object of the proposed Society was to revive the traditional cordiality between France and Scotland. Scottish students, he said, had never lost the habit of frequent- ing foreign Universities ; and, as evidence of the reciprocity of French students, he mentioned that fifteen attended the last Edinburgh Summer Meeting. But the Society, besides encouraging the international exchange of students, aimed at publishing historical records dealing with both France and Scotland. There were also other objects in view, such as the restoration of the old Scots College in Paris to a popular and useful position ; the founding of bursaries, and particu- larly of one to be devoted to historical research. Mr. Thomas Barclay then read an interesting paper, giving a sketch of the history of the old Scots College in Paris ; and he laid upon the table letters from the heads of the great centres of higher education in Paris, and from other eminent Frenchmen and several Scotsmen, indicating their general desire for the establishment of a Society of this kind. The funds necessary for the realisation of the project in its entirety not having been obtained, it was abandoned, and at the first meeting of the Society in Paris in 1895 "Mr. Thomas Barclay read the draft constitution, which he proposed should be submitted by the Scottish Branch to that of the French for its approval. A discussion took place over the terms of some of the proposed rules, and a few alterations were made on the draft," ^ which was adopted in the following form : — " Name. — i. The name of the Society shall be The Franco- Scottish Society. It shall be composed of a French and a Scottish Branch. ^^ Membership. — 2. The membership shall include: (a) Frenchmen and Scotsmen and their descendants ; (b) Graduates of French and Scottish Universities, or any others who hold official positions in them ; (c) Such other persons as may be admitted on account of their interest in the objects of the Society. ^ Transactions (1897), p. 232, 370 APPENDICES ['Objects.—^, The objects of the Society will be: {a) To bring the Universities of the two countries into connection with each other by encouraging interchange of students ; {h) To bring about intercourse between their members ; (c) To promote historical research concerning the ancient relations between the two countries ; {d) In general, by periodical meet- ings held in France and Scotland, and all other means, to renew, as far as possible, the bonds of sympathy between the two countries. '-'Management. — 4. The two Branches of the Society shall have their separate organisations, and shall deal with their funds independently of each other. '^ Meetings. — 5. The periodical meetings shall be managed by the Branch in whose country they are held." On the Franco-Scottish Society's Meeting in Edinburgh. To the Editor of" The limes:' ^ Sir, — On Monday next, in Edinburgh, begins the second annual meeting of this Society. Some sixty French members have announced their intention of being present. They include M. Greard, Rector of the Paris University ; Professor Lavisse, the leading French historian ; Professor Croiset, the eminent Hellenist ; the Comte de Franqueville, who has been called the French Gneist of British institutions ; Pro- fessors Weiss, of the Paris School of Law, and Derenbourg, of the Ecole des Hautes Etudes ; M. Paul Meyer, Director of the French Official Archives ; Dr. Duclaux, the head of the Pasteur Institute ; Professor Boutroux, of the Faculte des Lettres ; Professor Bonet-Maury, of the Faculte Protestante de Theologie ; Professor Gide, and many other distinguished representatives of French learning, philosophy, and science. So important a gathering of Frenchmen in our northern capital of any kind would be a fact of importance. Its significance, however, is singularly enhanced by the objects which thus bring Scotsmen and Frenchmen together. Scotland appeals to the French imagination. Whether the ancient alliance, a unique fact in history of two peoples remaining for several centuries in the closest bonds of union, ^ Reprinted from The Ttmes of July 12, 1897. 371 B B 2 APPENDICES or the lialo which surrounds the tragic career of Mary Queen of Scots, or the romantic episodes of Scott's novels, dear to all the youth of France for a century past, have, the one or the other, had more to do with this interest and affection for Scotland it would be punctilious to inquire. But, on the side of Scotland, it is certain her laws, her Universities, her institutions, and her language, all bear witness to her debts to France, and until three-quarters of a century ago, the habit still lingered among Scottish families of giving their sons their final intellectual brush at the Paris higher schools. Since then Germany has stolen away the heart of the Scottish student. The crowd of brilliant scholars and searchers who gave her Universities half a century of unwonted brilliancy threw France into the shade for a time. But only for a time ; of late years her schools have again burst into all their old eclat, and never was the number of foreign students in her lecture rooms greater than at present. Under the third Republic the Universities, moreover, are recovering a salutary independence from central government which gives promise of a still greater intellectual expansion. Some years ago an attempt was made at St. Andrews and Edinburgh to encourage Scottish students to visit the French as well as the German Universities. It was not, however, till 1895, when the idea of a Franco- Scottish Historical Society (an idea which had long been in a state of incubation among my friends at the Societe Historique in Paris) took shape, that any real progress could be made. That Scottish students would be welcome at the French Universities went without saying, but to join in searching the records of five centuries of an allied national history was a foundation on which a Franco-Scottish Society, with a common object, could be built efTectively. In France the proposal met with warm approval, and all the leading men of Paris in history, philosophy, and science gave it their unqualified support. In Scotland the support was, if possible, still warmer, and last year a large number of representative Scotsmen came tu the inaugural meeting in Paris, where they were welcomed by the late M. Jules Simon, then President of the French section, and entertained at the Paris University with a hospitality which showed a truly sympathetic chord had been struck. The discussions were confined to the position of Greek in the University curriculum, and the academic teaching of what on the Continent are called the political sciences. The main APPENDICES part of the programme, however, was the starting of the Society itself. It was constituted in two branches, a French and an EngHsh one, each to have exclusive control over its own organisation, each to have its own bye-laws, regulations, and pubHcations, and each alternately to be the guests of the other. In fact, it was to be an alHance as of old. Next week it is the Scots who will entertain the French branch. The programme attests the progress made. The papers to be read by Professors Kirkpatrick, Ritchie, and Boutroux, Sir M. E. Grant Duff, Professors Sarolea, Crum-Brown, Ramsay, and Croiset, Dr. Duclaux, and the Abbe Charbonnel, Sheriff ^neas Mackay, Dr. Rowland Anderson, and Mr. Brander Hatt, include " French Influence in the Scottish Universities," " The Influence of Scottish Philosophy in France," " The Teaching of French Literature at the Scottish Universities," " Pasteur as the Founder of Stereo-Chemistry," " The Historical Connection between the Parliament of Paris and the Scottish Court of Session," " The History of the Scots College in Paris," and " French Influence on Scottish Archi- tecture." Such a list affords an idea of the variety of the subjects within the scope of the Society. Frenchmen have the art of making friends and respond frankly and joyously to advances they believe sincere. And no doubt the efforts which are being made to bring about an entente cordiale between Great Britain and France will be warmly appreciated and forwarded on the other side of the Channel ; all the sympathy of Scotsmen, just as much as that of Englishmen, will be with such a movement. I would, however, point out, if it is not already abundantly clear, that the Franco-Scottish Society is quite distinct from associations connected with any such movement. Its objects are purely academic and historical, and though it may have excellent results in promoting good feeling between the two countries, this, however desirable, will only be the accidental consequence of a movement devoid of any political object, colour, or design. Anybody who has acquaintance with France will see this from the fact that men of such different political hues as M. Casimir-Perier (President of the French branch), ex-President of the Republic, and Prince d'Arenberg (Vice- President of the French branch), M. de Franqueville, M. Melchior de Vogiie, M. Ribot, and M. Hanotaux are associated in the same work. At home no such explanation is required ; we turn the key on politics when we leave the 373 APPENDICES Senate House and the constituents' meetings with a Hghter hand than our neighbours. All the French visitors are to be received in the houses of Edinburgh families, and there is no lack of public entertain- ments, among the many of which are a ball to be given by the City of Edinburgh, a lunch offered by the Corporation of Stirling, a visit to St. Andrews by invitation of the University, and a lunch at Lord Lothian's beautiful seat of Newbattle Abbey. It is hoped the guests will return home- wards with the experience that Vhospitalite Ecossaise is not a vain word, as the French phrase it. It is perhaps anticipating to distribute praise before the meeting has begun, but the programme certainly does great credit to the organisers in Edinburgh, to its able and inde- fatigable Secretary, Mr. A. A. Gordon, and its Chairman, Lord Reay, whose tact, forethought, and administrative ability have been the pivot of the Society since its foundation. I am. Sir, your obedient Servant, Thomas Barclay. ^th July. 5. A speech delivered at the British Federation of branches of the Alliance francaise, on May 12, 191 3, brings the subject down to date. The Scotsman r^::ported it as follows : — A Plea for the Scots College. " At a banquet held in the Grand Hotel in the evening, under the auspices of the British Federation of the Alliance, Sir Thomas Barclay presided. About 100 ladies and gentle- men w^ere present. The Chairman submitted the toasts of ' The King ' and ' The Elected Sovereign of the French Republic,' followed by the singing of the ' Marseillaise.' " Sir Thomas Barclay gave the toast of the Alliance Fran- caise, and of the Federation of the Committees of that Alliance in this country. The Alliance Francaise, as its full title explained, was, he said, a body created for the purpose of propagating the French language abroad. It was based on the idea that peace, like war, had its victories. While other agencies were at work adding Dreadnoughts to their Navies and doubling their expenditure on armaments, the Alliance Francaise was quietly, but persistently, pushing forward its 374 APPENDICES battalions of peacemakers, who were spreading the knowledge of the French language into the remotest parts of the world, and extending the influence of French literature and of the French intellect wherever people thought. That there was a Federation of the Committees of the AUiance in this country- showed how widespread its influence was. Recently, in Edinburgh, he had had an opportunity of testing the know- ledge of French at several of the public secondary schools, and he wished to express pubHcly his admiration for the excellent teaching and good results achieved in the Scottish capital. Unquestionably there was in this country of Scot- land a revival of the old interest in France, an interest which had for a time declined, but which was again becoming one of the factors of our modern Scottish intellectuaHty. That this meeting of the Federation should take place at St. Andrews, the oldest of our Scottish Universities, was a compliment to it which Sir Thomas felt sure was deeply appreciated. (Applause). The Scots College and St. Andrews. " The Scots College in Paris, he thought, might even be credited with being the medium through which the St. Andrews University came into existence. The Balliols, as they knew, were the minions of the King of England, and their policy was to promote the influence of England in Scotland. The elder Balliol founded Balliol College for that purpose. In those days Scotland was only able to maintain her independence against the vastly more powerful England by co-operation with France. Robert Bruce embodied that policy. He was not only a great general, but he was also a great statesman and diplomatist, and from his home in Dunfermline he worked out his scheme of redeeming his native country from its then oppressor, and in working it out he was not thinking of the immediate future, but of generations to come. It was he who conceived the idea of creating a College in Paris which would react against the influence of Balliol College at Oxford. That was the origin of the Scots College at Paris, where most of Scotland's worthies seemed to have been inoculated with that French culture and independence of thought which were fundamental in our Scottish mentality. Our jurists, who made Scottish law what it is, learned its principles in Paris, and from the French language borrowed even its terminology. There Scottish architects learned to 375 APPENDICES build both our palaces and our castles, and it was the Scots College which always loomed out as the place where the Scottish student would find a home among other students of his country and where he could obtain the knowledge and skill the Paris University could give him. The old building still existed behind the Pantheon and within a stone's-throw of the Sorbonne. It was not originally where it is now, but in one of those picturesque narrow streets of old Paris which the modern City Fathers had demolished to make way for less picturesque, less interesting, but more hygienic roadways. It dated, however, back some 250 years, and its chapel contained the memorial tablets of many Scotsmen who had taken refuge at the College in the troublous times which followed. Portraits of the old and young Pretenders belonged to the building, and the furniture of the refectory was decorated with the thistle, but the Scottish student was no longer there, and the old building was let to a coaching establishment, which had a lease of the building for a few years still to come. It might be ours again some day, and Scottish students might, in some not distant future, be flocking again to the Scots College to prosecute post-graduate research in all that vast range of subjects for which Paris stood pre- eminent in the world as the headquarters of all that enriched and beautified it and made life so amply worth living. (Applause.) Could the College be Recovered. " The French Government, as the Principal of that Uni- versity and those of the three other Scottish Universities knew, was ready to hand that College over to the Scottish people. The revenue from it was, at the present moment, paid over to the Roman Catholic Primate of Scotland for the education of students of Roman Catholic theology, and we did not propose to take advantage of the fact that that was due to an error made at the time of the French Restoration. The Scottish Roman Catholic students had had the benefit of that revenue for now nearly a century, and he and others were disposed to think that it was hardly worth while nowadays to submit the matter of whether the Scots College belonged to Scotland or to the Roman Catholics of Scotland to arbitration. The sum which was necessary to recover the Scots College for Scotland was about ^16,000 to ^f 20,000. The interest of this sum would go to the Scottish Roman Catholics, and it 376 APPENDICES might be a serious grievance if they were deprived of it. Sir Thomas said he visited Scotland in 1894 for the purpose of stirring up interest in the preservation of the Scots College, and the Franco-Scottish Society resulted. The idea was at that time, to raise the necessary money for the purchase of the College, but eighteen years had passed, and it had not yet been found. Nevertheless money had been found to create schools for post-graduate work in other countries and for remoter purposes than those which the revival of the old Scots College was capable of achieving. That France and Great Britain should have become the intimate and close friends they were at the present day rested not on any short- sighted idea of fighting a common enemy, but upon the greater and nobler idea that the two oldest champions of civilisation in Europe should see and understand the common work they could do for the promotion of their common patrimony of high ideals, intellectual, scientific, and social. (Applause.) The Alliance Francaise was doing magnificent work on its side. The Franco-Scottish Society was doing splendid work here in Scotland, the Entente Cordiale Society was doing splendid work in England, and there was only one thing still wanting, and that was a College in Paris for our post- graduate workers to enrich this country with all that France could give us in the perfection of our intellectual methods, in that great search for knowledge and truth which was the real test of any nation's value in history. He hoped the time would come when the Scottish Universities would be able to resume possession of their old College, and cited, as a sign of the times, that the University of Lille had just established in London an institute which was to serve a similar purpose to that University," (Applause.) XII Pledge and Rules of the International Brotherhood Alliance. {Fraternitas Inter Gentes.) Member^ s Pledge : — I hereby pledge myself to do what I can to promote good- will and friendly feeling between men of my own country and those of other nations. 377 APPENDICES Rules, 1. Character. — This Brotherhood is non-political and non- sectarian and is open to men of all nationalities and all shades of opinion. 2. Aim. — Its object is to band together men of all nationalities in a common organisation, to promote friendly feeling between nations, and to discourage all tendencies to mutual jealousy and distrust. 3. Method. — The Brotherhood will seek to promote the above object by encouraging personal intercourse and the interchange of visits between members of different nations, by holding public meetings and by employing all other legitimate means. 4. The affairs of the Brotherhood in each country shall be managed by a President, one or more Vice-Presidents, a Treasurer, Honorary Secretaries, and a Committee, to be elected at quinquennial general meetings of members in each country. The Committee shall have power to add to their number. The term of office in each case shall be five years, and in the event of the death or resignation of any officer, the Committee are empowered to fill the vacancy. 5. Local branches of the Brotherhood may be formed, with power to elect their own officers and committees. 6. A General International Council of the Brotherhood shall be formed as soon as two or more National Committees shall have been organised. It shall be composed of a number of delegates to be appointed by the National Committees in proportion to the population of their respec- tive countries. 7. The local Secretaries shall enrol the names and addresses of members in a book to be specially kept for the purpose and periodical returns shall be made to the National Secretary, and by him to the General International Council. 8. The only qualification necessary for membership shall be the expression of sympathy with the aim as set forth above. 378 INDEX 377 235: Adam, Mme. Edmond, 12 on Gambetta, 49 African native in Bond Street, 117 Agadir and England, 280 " Agathon," 330 Agitators, advice to, 203 Alexander, J. G., letter from, 126 Algesiras Conference, 277 Alliance, danger of, 310 AlliaJice jrancaise, 303, 374, Alsace-Lorraine, 313 Alsatian feeling, 314 et seq. Alverstone, Lord, 108, 212, 236, 238, 250 fine speech by, 203 letter from, 236 Ambassadors, French, to London since 1870. . 339 British, to Paris since 1870. .339 American grain, competition of, jj Anatole France, 136 in London, 299 et seq. " Angleterre 6goiste," 37 Anglo-French arrangement (1904), 243 et seq, British and French Parliaments on, 248 German comments on, 257 Professor Schiemann on, 259 consequences of, 280 unexpected effect on Anglo- Russian relations, 253 Anglo-French difficulties, variety and enumeration of, 243 Anglo-French negotiations for general settlement in 1894. . 123 Anglo-French rapprochement^ over- whelming support in 1902. . 212, 346 arguments and resolutions in favour of, 340 et seq. Anglo-French Treaty of Arbitration signed, 229 Anglo-French Treaty of Arbitra- tion, text of, 354 Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce, negotiations for, 35, 36, 64, 65 Anglo-German rapprochement and France, 265 et seq. Anglo-Saxon idea, 139 Anti-English feeling, 40 Pouyer-Quertier stirs up, 41 Anti-English and Anti-German ex- plosions, alternate, 90 Anti-RepubHcan revulsion of 1885 . . Anti-Semitism, 105 Anti-Semitism in Paris, 139, 218 " Apologist," the, at the " Scots College," 129 Arabi's revolt, 151 Arbitration, limitations to applica- tion of, 230 Arbitration Treaty, Anglo-French, history of, 232 only part of settlement, 242 text of, 354 Archbishop of Canterbury, letter from, 126 Arenberg, Prince d', 373 Aristotle, reference to, i Armaments, viWd race of, 309 Armin, Count von, 25, 27 Asser, Professor, 108 Augagneur, M., 237, 288 Aumale, Due d', 24 Australian Monroe Doctrine, 23 1 , 247 Australian project to raid New Caledonia in 'nineties, 247 Avebury, Lord, 179, 184 Aylesworth, M., 238, 239 Bahr-el-Ghazal, 112, 113, 144, 148, 149J.15O) 151 Bailey, chairman of Parliamentary Committee, 286, 288 379 INDEX Baker, Allan, 29S Baker, Gen., 151 Baker, J. A., 298 Balance of power in Europe, 168 Balfour, Mr. A., 221, 228, 254 Balliol College, 129, 375 Barante, M., 9 Barber, a Paris, 97 Barclay, Robert, Principal, 129, 368 Barclay, the apologist at College des EcossaiSj 368 Barclay, Thomas,- senior, 2, 238 Barlow, Mr., 327 Barthelemy St. Hilaire, M., referred to, 93 Barthou, M., 153 Bartlett, Sir E. Ashmead, 124 Bayard, M., 127 Baynes, Mr. T. Spencer, 5 Beaconsfield, Lord, 52 Beckett, Ernest (Lord Grimthorpe), question by, in House of Commons, 221 et seq. letter from, 251 Belgium and Germany, 28 rise of, 1 19 Beresford, Admiral Lord Charles, 341 Berlin, General Act of, 112, 113 Eernstorff, Count, 261 Bihourd, M., 279 Bismarck, 17, 26, 27 on an Anglo-French occupation of Egypt, 56 Black bread, German, and the Londoner, 268 Blackburn, 318 £■/ seq. Blackwell, Mr. Thomas, 178 Blignieres, M. de, 53 Block, Maurice, 7 Blount, Sir E., 178 Blowitz, Mme. de, 15, 16, 19 Blowitz, M. de, i, 12 et seq.^ 295 modest fortune left by, 23 some advice of, 30 Boer War feeling in France, 161 ananti-Englishopportunity, 168 and Russia, 150, 167 Bordeaux, University of, 292 Bordelais roux, 49 Bosnia, insurrection in, 38 Boucherot, M,, on French colonisa- tion, 87 Bouchez and Boulanger, 100, loi Boulanger, provocation of, to Ger- many, 90 at Brussels, 95 description of, 96 interview with, 98 Boulanger, p^re, 96 Boulangism, character of, 105 Bourgeois, Leon, 129 as sculptor, 208 Bowes, Mr. Hely, 19 Bowles, T. G., 249, 320 Boycott of Exhibition of 1900. . 173, 184 Boycott, by English, of Riviera, 186 Brain-storm, national, 89 Brassey, Lord, 250, 251 British Chamber of Commerce, 63 British Embassy closed in 1900. . 183 Eroadhurst, Mr., 286 Broglie, Due de, 34 on alliances with England, 56 advice of, to his party, 105 Brown, Mr., of Brown, Shipley & Co., 240 Brunner, Sir John, 252, 299 Buffet, M., 28, 31 B'ilow, Prince von, about, 269 on Anglo-French arrangement {igo^), 2 S7 et seq. warns M. Bihourd, 279 on " history on the brain," 270 Burghclere, Lord, 229 Burmese war, origin of, 83 Burnet, Professor, 130, 369 Burnett, Mr., 286 Burns, Mr. John, 298 C.'ESARiSM in France and the United States, 85 Caf^ des Boulevards^ 9 Caje de la R^gence and Chess, 50 Caix, M. de, 295 Cambon, M. Paul, 210 Campbell-Bannerman, Sir H., 177, 249 French of, 229 Caricature, types of, 325 Caricatures of Queen Victoria, my article in Matin on, 172 Carnegie, Mr. Andrew, 27, 240 and Dunfermline, 122 380 INDEX Casimir-P^rier, M., 153, 373 Castelar, 55 Catholicism, 330 Caudry, transformation of, 327 Cazenave, M., 10 Cecil, Lord Robert, 319 Central Africa demoralising for Europeans, 1 17 Central Asia, Anglo-Russian rivalry in, 169 Chamberlain, Mr. Joseph, 229 persuasive powers of, 70 hopes for South African peace, 165 volte-face oi^ 166, 167 Chambers of Commerce, Association of, invitation to (March 1900), 179 Chambers of Commerce demonstra- tion in Paris, 182 support given by, to Anglo- French rapprochement^ 217, 346 et seq. Chenonceaux, chateau de, 11, 53 Cheradame, M., 295 Chevalier, Michel, 64, 65 Chevassus, M., 59 Chisholm, Lord Provost, 342 Chivalry, French spirit of, appealed to, 174 Clemenceau, M., on reduction of military burdens in 1887. .45 wrecks Anglo-French control, .55 distrusted by M. Grevy, 206 anecdote of, 87 Clerkenwell Green as a safety-valve, 163 Cleveland, President, speaks out, 127 Clough, Mr. Sam, 298 Cobden, 36 persuasive genius of, 64 foresight of, 70 admiration for, 67 on Arbitration, 69 daughters of, in Paris, 68 centenary, article on occasion of, 68 Club motto, 69 College des Ecossais, 12J Colonial expansion, when justifiable. 83 Colonial expansion mania, tribula- tions due to, 89 Colonial policy of France excites distrust, 83 Colonisation, French, described by Frenchmen, 87 Combarieu, M., 218 Commercial Committee of House of Commons, 227 et seq. Commission of Inquiry, Inter- national, 257 " Common sense," grandfather on, i Congo, British agreement with, of 1894.. 150, 154, 155 upset by France, 11 1 author's connection with, 114 Constans. M., trick of, to get rid of Boulanger, 102, 103 Cooper, Mr. E., 319 Cooper, Mrs., 320 Coppee, Fran(;ois, 142 Coubertin, Baron Pierre de, 209, 185 Courtney, Mr. W. L., 177, 252 Crackanthorpe, Montague, K.C., 212 Crawford, Mrs. Emily, 17, 49 Crawford, Sir W., 62, 63 Cremieux, M., 38 Creuzot works^ Scotsman's connec- tion with, 9 Criticism, disarming of, 324 Cromer, Lord, on difficulties caused by French in Egypt, 56, 57 on Bahr-el-Ghazal, 151 Crowe, Sir Joseph, 75 Crozier, Mr. W. P. 296 Cupar-Fife, 2 Czar, peace proposals of, 149 unaccountable visit of, to France in 1901 . . 206 et seq. Davidson, Mr. W. E., 183 Davis, Israel, 39 Darwin's influence in Germany, 3 Decazes, Due, 14, 25 Decorations, proposed, of Legion of Honour vetoed in 1900. . 184 Decugis, M., 196, 252 Delane, John,'|i7 Delano, Mr., 64 381 INDEX Delcass6, M., first office of, 153 on "pin-prick" speech, 159 visit of, to St. Petersburg in 1899, mystery of, 165 probable attitude of, on en- couragement given to Boers, 169 on invitation to British Chambers of Commerce, 171 sceptical as to English friendli- ness, 209 proposes form of Arbitration Treaty, 233 Deloncle, M., 157 Democracy and peace, 289 Descartes and Dr. Farr, 4 Dilke, Sir Charles, 75, 209, 248; 277 Dillon, Dr., 295 Diplomacy, British, M. Hanotaux .on, 354 Disraeli, 254 Dogger Bank incident, explanations given of, 254 France mediates, 257 Donaldson, Sir James, 129, 342 Dosne, M., 9 Dreux, mausoleum of Orleans family at, 29 Dreyfus, explanation of suspicions of, 137 "pardon " of, 138 promoted, 138 Dreyfus affair, an epidemic, 135 English attitude in, 135, 13S effects of, 162 et seq. Dreyfus, Miss Irma, 304 Dual Alliance, origin of, 169 Duclerc, M., 14 Dufaure, M., 14, 25, 31 Dufferin, Lord, mission of, to Egypt, action of, in Burmah, 83 on French attitude towards England, 121 story of " glass eye " of, 122 on war, 181 Duncan's Joan of Arc, 131 Dunkirk, 6, 7 Dupuy, M. Charles, 153 Eastleigh speech, Mr. A. Lee's, 268 Echo de Paris^ 295 Edwards, Alfred, 294 Egypt, Gambetta on England and France in, 53 difficulties with French about, 57 . evacuation of, still in prospect in 1894. . 113 Egyptian question, 244 regarded in France as a " vital interest," 245 Election, French, of 188 1, result of, 88 1885, result of, 88 1889 and Boulanger's collapse.^ 104 1902. . 139 El-Teb, battle of, 151 Embassy, British, not to blame for official indifference to Anglo- French rapprochement^ 215 Emin Pasha, 152 Empire Liberal., 2q " England," prestige of, 131 England, what Frenchmen admire in, 322 England's mission between France and Germany, 317 English goods in France, dumping of, 42^ colonists' resentment resented, accent agreeable to French, 93 frivolity, 325 Englishman, educated, admiration for France of, 335 Entente., a plan of action to bring about an Anglo-French, i c)5 arguments in support of, 340 et seq. model form of resolution in favour of, 213 pioneers of, 201 *^ progress of, before King Ed- ward's visit to Paris, 214, 346 et seq. King Edward and^ 2ij et seq. perversion of, 283^ — " Entente Cordiale^^ociety, 303, 377 . . ^ -^ v Enterprise, difference between English and French, 326 Esprttfrondeur oi French^ iy2 Estournelles d', de Constant, Baron, 227, 251,252 382 INDEX Etrurian peasantry and Gambetta, 49 . . Exhibition of 1900 and diplomacy, 171^ cessation of boycott of, 184 Exshaw, Captain, 241 Faith and belief, 330 Fails accomplts, effect of, 279, 280 Farr, Dr. W., 4, 5, 6, 7 Fashoda affair, 144 French and English prepara- tions for war over, 145 . explained, 148 "~ ^ artificially fanned in England, 253 class among whom resented 134 and the " Epatants," 160 Paris working man on, 161 Steevens on, 137 F^lix-Faure, M., 153 President, on peace, 159 Ferry, M. Jules, purpose of his colonial policy, 82 policy of, deprecated, 85 name of, execrated, 89 Field, David Dudley, 108 F.T.G. (International Brotherhood Alliance); 298, 377 Figaro, 198, 294 Fleming, Sir Sandford, 241 Florence, University of Grenoble at, 292 Flotten-verein as panic-monger, 269 Foreign ministers of France since 1870.. 337 secretaries, British, since 1870, 339 . Foreign minister's difficulties, 147 Foreign Office, how to worry, 216 Foster, Hon. J. W., 240 Foil furieux^ 34 Fould, M., 9 Fournier, M., French Ambassador to Turkey, 52 France and Germany join hands against England, 112 _ drawn together by Russia, 127 England's r61e between, 317 Franco-German crisis of .1875.. 25 et seq. Franco-German crises, 1906 and 191 1, and England, 280 Franco-Russian friendliness begins, Franco-Scottish Society, 129 et seq.., 303)359^'^^^ Lord Dufferin on project of, 122 Franconville, 135 Franqueville, Comte de, 134, 373 French intellect and culture, 2 character, 181 education, over-fatigue of, 333 civilisation, driving character of, 333 ministries, duration of, 204 colonial policy in Asia, vexa- tious to England of, 107 attitude on Queen's death, 190 in Berlin, 291 Frenchman on English character, 325 . , . Frenchmen in general, moderation of, 323 so-called want of enterprise of, 327 Frentzel, Herr, 272 Fr^re-Orban ministry (Belgium), 109 Freycinet, M. de, 53, 55 Friends, Society of, and Madagascar, 126 Fumouze, M., 218 Furby, M. Charles, 7 Gambetta, 17, 34, 35 modest fortune of, 23 one eye of, 122 oratory of, 55 M. Gravy's distrust of, 42 vain appeals of, to common- sense in relations with England, 42 and Germany, 50, 82 Garcin de Tassy, M., 8 Gamier, M. Joseph, 7, 9 Gas introduced into Paris, 9 Geddes, Professor Patrick, 130, 369 Geoffray, M., 234 German culture, 2 humour, 271 Colonial Party referred to, 85 Germany, Gambetta's visit to, 50 and Morocco trade, 276 383 INDEX Germany, public opinion in, 281 Germany's critical geographical situation, 256 Gladstone, W. E., and the Suez Canal question, 59 principles of, Sir L, Mallet on, 66 " hypocritical Mr. William," 37 Gordon, General, 152 Gordon, Mr. A. A., 223, 374 Gorst, Sir John, 1 15 Gortchakoff, 27, 28 Gould, Sir F., caricature by, of Blowitz, 13 Gontant-Biron, 26, 27 Grand minist^re^ 43 Grant, Dr. Dundas, 7 Granville, Lord, 55, 57 Grebanval, 140 Gregory, chairman of London Trades' Council, 201 Grenoble, University of, at Florence, 292 Grevy, M., 10, 40 character of, 50 on French character, 77 on political conciliation, 316 on Protection in France, 77 and Boulanger, loi Grevyists v. Gambcttists, 11 Grey, Sir Edward, 248 on Nile valley, 125 resemblance of, to Waldeck- Rousseau, 205 Guiana boundary case, 127 Gulland, Mr., 318 Hamer, Alderman, 318, 319, 321 Hale, Dr. E. E., 240 Handelstag meeting (1905), 267, 271 et seq. Hanotaux, M,, 123 299, 373 his career, 152 et seq. on vagueness of English claim on Upper Nile, 123 on British diplomacy, 356 Harper, Mr., 179 Haussmann, M., 124 Havre^ U Petit ^ 36 Havre v. Rouen, 43 Hay, Mr. John, 241 sad letter from, 241 Heath, Richard, 8 Hegelians in 1874. . 3 Heine, Armand, on sinews of war, 40 _ Henriquez, Mr.. 39 Herbette, M. Jean, 295 Herz incident, no Hibbert, Rev. Fred., 311 Hicks, General, 151 Higginson, John, story of, 246 Hildebrand, Professor, 3, 4, 5 Hohenlohe. Prince, 25 Hollams, Sir John, 50 Holland, T. E., K.C., 108 Holland, Sir W. (Lord Rotherham) 221, 227, 342 Hornsby. Sir H., 318 Houldsworth, Sir W,, 227 Hounsfield, Mr. T., 63, 178 Huillard, M., 298 Hume, reference to, i Hutton, Mr. R. H., 5 Hy, the barber, 97 Ibsen's " Enemy of the People " cited 31S Ignatieff, Genera], 38 Illusions perdues, 335 Inspiration, a happy, 198 Institut Francais dti Royaume iini 197 International Brotherhood Alliance 298, 377 International Law Association at the Hague, 108 Internationalism^ network of, 302 Italy and France, 28 Italy, French tariff war against, 78 Italian suspicion of Franco-German doings in 191 1 . .27S Jameson Raid, 141 Japan, Inland Sea of, case, 84 Jean-Bart^ Coll^ge^ 6 Jean Paul humour, 271 Jena, 3, 4 Jephson, Canon, 140 Jette, Sir L., 239, 348 Jews, English, character of, 39 " Jingoism," French, grows, 89 Journal d' Allemagne, 291 384 INDEX Kaiser, famous telegram to Kruger of, 145 and King Alfonso at Vigo, 275 on character of German Empire, in Norway, 260 Kaiser's English, 269 Kay, Mr. James, 319 Keighley, 298 Kennedy, Sir C. M., 75 Kent, Mr. Barton, 303 Keyzer, Mr. Albert, vi. King Edward's visit to Paris, 217 et seq. affection for M. Loubet, 219, 227 on England and France, 341 King Leopold and bills of exchange. Kitchener, Sir Herbert, 144 Knollys, Lord, 217 Kruger, President, visit to France of, 185 Lambermont, Baron, 114, 115, 119 Land-grabbing policy, colonial, 83 Lansdowne, Lord, reverses policy towards France, 210 et seq. letters from, 212, 235, 312 despatch of April, 1904, from cited, 221 Lascelles, Sir F., 268 Lausanne, St6phane, 16, 172, 295 Lavisse, Ernest M., article by, on critical Anglo-French situation, 176 Lebel, Rodolphe, 7, 298 Lecesne, M. Jules, 36 Lecky, W. E., 343 Lee, Mr. Arthur, 268 Lemoine, M. J., 14 Leon Say, 14 Leon, Mme. L^onie, 47 Leopold, King, and his policy, 115, 118 admirer of everything English, IT9 Lupine, M., clever stratagem of, 208 Leroy-Beaulieu, M. Paul, 8 Lesseps, visit of Ferdinand and Victor de, to London, 59 Lesseps, Ferdinand de, is chatty, 59 L, 223 et seq., for Entente Lesseps, Victor de, sends tor the author, 59 Levasseur, M., 7, 8 Leyds, Dr., 168, 170 Ligue des Patriotes, 142 Lille, University of, 292 "Limbs of the inarticulate," 163 Lion's tail, twisting the, 159 Loi du Cadenas, 80 Loubet, President, 182 characterisation of, begins 219 visit of, to London, 223 Lonie, Alec, 5, 6 Louis Philippe's, King, remains, 29 Lowe's (Charles) book on Bismarck, 28 Luck defined, 194 Lyon, Professor Georges (Lille), 197, 292 Lyons, Lord, on French feeling 355 on Franco-German 1887. .91 Lytton, Lord, 19 anecdote about, 22 in 1884, ill-will in Macdonald, John, i Mackay, Sheriff ^neas, 130 Mackinnon, Sir William, 116 Macleod, Mr. H, Dunning, 5 MacMahon, Marshal, 24, 26 McConnel, E. G., 178 Madagascar troubles, 126 Maddison, F., 202 Madrid, University of Bordeaux at, 292 Magnard's funeral, 31 Mahdi's revolt, consequences of. Mallet, Sir Louis, 65, 66 on Treaty of i860. .64 Manby, " Iron," 9 Mannesmanns, 276 Maple, Sir J. B., 178 Marcfere, M. de, 14 Marchand, Colonel, 148, 149, 156 134, 144, 146, Marsden, J. W., 319 Marseilles, mayor of, attitude of, on President Kruger's visit, 187 T.Y. 38s c c INDEX Marschall von Bieberstein on public opinion, 281 Martens, F. de, 118 Mascuraud, Senator, 237, 251 Materna, Mme., in Brussels, 95 Matin^ le, 294 as a peacemaker, 172 Melchior de Vogli^, 373 Melon, M. Paul, 130 Metternich on alliances with England, 56 Metz, 313 Millerand, M., 182, 183, 204 Milli^s-Lacroix, anecdote relating Ministries, French, since 1870. .337 Mischief-making communiquS at Berlin, 265 Mogador, suggested German coaling station at, 277 Moltke, von, 26, 316 Monkswell, Lord, 141 Monod, Gabriel, on French charac- ter, 105 Monroe Doctrine, an Asiatic, 84 an Australian, 231, 247 Monson, Sir E., 176, 179 ** pin-prick" speech of, 157 on arbitration, 211 Monthly Reviezo and Germany, 268, 271 Moore, Mr. Bassett, 240 Morality and conventionality, 317 Morgan, Sir W., 247 Morning Nezvs, 294 Morocco question, 243 crisis, 274 provisions of Anglo-French settlement respecting, 249 Mosely Educational Commission, Most-favoured-Nation clause in Treaty of Frankfort, 41 British enjoyment in France of, 77 ' . Mulhouse, rowdyism at, under French rule, 315 Municipal ententes, 298 Muravieff, Count, 149, 150 Murray, Mr. K. B., 62 Naquet referred to, 98, 102 "National honour" considered by France to be involved in Egyptian question, 244 Nationalist majority of 1900, in Paris, 140, 141 Nationahsts, 139 Naval bases, Germany's want of, ^77 Neo-Catholicism in France, 330 NeutraHty, guarantors of Belgium's, 28 New Caledonia and Australian " Monroe Doctrine," 231, 247 New Caledonian *' sphere of influ- ence/' 244 Newfoundland question, 232 New Hebrides question, 231, 244, 246 danger of, 247 Newspapers, foreign correspondents of, 147 New York reporters, 239 Norddeutsche Allg. Zeitung, 267 Norman Angell, 72, 307 Northcote, Sir Stafford, 175 Northern cities join actively in entente movement, 221 Nubar Pasha, 15, 152 Old Catholicism, 331 OHphant, Laurence, 20 OlHvier, Emile, on French illusion in 1870.. 313 Olney, Mr., 127 explains famous despatch, 128 Omdurman, battle of, 144^ 151 " Open door," Morocco, 250 Opportunism, 34 Oratory, Gambetta's, 55 Orleans princes and Republic, 28 et seq. Page, Mr. Nelson, 240 Palmer, Lieut.-General, 37 Paris an intellectual Brighton, 334 Paris, Comte de, 29 Parkington, Sir Roper, 303 Parliament, author in, 319 et seq. Parliaments, comparison of, English and French, 321 Passy, Mr. F., 196, 197, 252 386 INDEX Peace propaganada, 305 Pease, Mr., 318 Pelouze, Mme., 10, 36, 53 Per fide Albion^ 37 j ^7 " Petersburg " and " Smolensk," 261 Petite Gironde^ 296 Petit Havre^ 296 Petit Marseillais, 296 Petit Parisien, 295 Petit Temps ^ 296 Phillips, Mr. J. S. R., 296 Phippsj Sir Constantine, 123 Picot, Georges, 33 Picquart, Colonel, 136 promoted, 138 Pilter, Mr. Thomas, 6$ Piker, Sir John, 62, 178 Pitt-Lewis, Mr., K.C., 37 Plebiscitaires, 98 Poidatz, M., 172 Poincare, M., 153 Politics and noisy trifles, 297 Polizei-Staat, inconveniences of, 146 Pollock, Sir Frederick, 19, 130 Possibilists, 285 Potter, Mr. A. B., 65 Potter, Mr. T. B., 65 Pouyer-Quertier leads Protectionist movement, 41 Pragmatism, 331 Prdfets, uses of, 323 President of the Republic, title of, adopted, 24 Presidents of the Republic since I 870.. 337 Press, French, influence of, 323 Pressense, M. de, 24 Prestige, value of, 329 Priestley, Mr., 63 Prince des Journalistes applied to Blowitz, 14 Prince of Wales, Gambetta meets, 49 popularity in France of, 174, 181 Protection in France, working of, 181 Provincial opinion, ignoring of, in Parliament, 322 Public opinion, difference between, of London and of industrial England, 268 Public opinion in Germany, 281 Queen Victoria, caricatures of, 172 place of, in English sentiment, 173 in 1870-1. .312 Queen Victoria's death, Paris meet- ing of mourners, 191 " Quick-change " shirt, 202 Radowitz, Herr von, 26 Randies, Sir J. S., 228 Rapprochement^ nature of Anglo- French, 214 Realschule, a Scottish, 239 Reay, Lord, 129, 130,223, 229,369, 370, 374 Reduction of armaments, Gambetta on, 45 Reinach, M. Joseph, 46, 47, 136 Renan, Ernest, 33 Retribution by Eastern peoples possible, 84 Republic, baptism of French, 24 R4publique franc aise^ 18 Revanche^ the, and Boulangism, 104 in Morocco, 274 et seq. and the entente^ 267 Reventlow, Herr von, on Anglo- French agreement (1904), 258 Rhodes, scheme of Cecil, of Cape to Cairo railway, 112 Ribot, M., 129, 373 and colony-grabbing policy, 83 on French foreign policy, 160 Richet, Professor Charles, 197, 251 Rileyj Mr., 319 Ring, M. de, 52 Ritzema, Mr., 319 Rives, Mr. G. L., 240 Rivier, Professor, 118 Riviera municipalities in 1900 pass pro-English resolutions, 187 Robert Bruce and France, 129, 375 Robson, Mr., 249 Rochefort and Boulanger, 99 Rodays, M. de, 198 Rot des journalistesy 14 Rojdestvensky, Admiral, 254 Rolin, Professor Alb^ric, 109 Rohn-Jacquemyns, " father " of the Institute of International Law, 108 European adviser to King of Siam, 109 3^7 INDEX Root, Mr. Elihu, 238 Rosebery, Lord, 248, 290, 310 on Anglo-German relations and France, 311 Rotherham, Lord, see Holland, Sir W. Rouen v. Havre, 43 Roumania protest against anti- Jewish measures in, 38 Rouvier, M. Maurice' becomes minister for first time, 44 and Boulanger, 91 Roz, M, Firmin, 299 Russia and France combine against England, iii Russian naval officers in Paris, iii diplomacy, 168 SacrSs venduSj 287 Salisbury, Lord, 38, 179 on relations with France in 1887. .91 scepticism of, as to the entente, 194 tactics, in Fashoda affair, 210 Salmon, Prof., 304 Sands, Mrs., 303 Sands, W. H., late, 303 Sannois, 135 Sassoon, Sir E., 229 Say, M. Leon, 129 Schatz, Professor, 292 Schiemann, Professor, 259, 260, 274, 276 on Anglo-French agreement (1904), 260 et seq. Schindler, M. Chas., 220 Schnaebele incident, 90, 92 Schurz, General, 27 Scotland to be roused, 219 Scots College in Paris, 129, 292, 359, 366 et seq. Scott, Mr. C. P., 251 Scott, Sir John, 114 Scottish Chambers of Commerce to the fore, 220 Secret clauses^ on, 277 et seq. " Seize mai^'' 34 Serious and serieux, 325 Shaw, Lord, of Dunfermline, 122 Shimonoseki, treaty of, 127 Ship building and war scares, 307 Shipton, Mr., 286 Shoreditch Town Hall meeting, 201 Siam, no Anglo-French incident in, 106 French aggression against, 107 Siamese question, 244 danger of, 248 Simon, Jules, 14, 31, 32 et seq., 129 on divorce, 32 his last speech, 132 Sinclair, Mr. L., 227, 228 Slave Trade General Act, 15 Smith, Mr. Adolphe, 287 Snowden, Mr. Phihp, 318 Snowden, Mrs., 321 Social Democracy, 285 Somerset House, old, 4, 5 Spencer's influence in Germany, 3 Spender, Mr. J. A., 255, 295 Stanley, H. M., as diplomatist, 116 and the Emin relief expedition, Statistics, author's work in, 4 Stead, Mr. Herbert, 140 Steed, Wickham, 295 Steevens, G. W., on Dreyfus, 136 St. Pierre de Calais, 327 St. Petersburg, University of Nancy at, 292 Stodginess made pleasant, 334 Strauch, Colonel, 113, 116 Suez Canal, English Eastern trade kicks at charges and regula- tions imposed in, 58 English directors of, impossible, 60 shares, British, purchase of, 37, 52 Sugar conference, 34 Switzerland, French tariff-war against, 79 Tagliche Rundschau, 266 Tangiers, Kaiser's visit to, 274 Tarde, Alfred de, 330 Tardieu, M., 295 Tariff-war, Franco-Italian, 78 Tariff-war against Switzerland, 79 Tel-el-Kebir, battle of, 151 Temps, le, 220, 295 Tesserenc de Bort, M., 34 388 INDEX Thiers, M,, 9, 14, 20, 21, 34, 35 anecdote about, 21 Times correspondents' omniscience, 7 Times gives entente an early lift, 199 Tours, political centre in 1871 at, n Trade Unions which worked on the Entente:, 348 Traill, Dr., 6 Treaty of Commerce, England misses her chance of getting a fairly good, 76 Treaty of Arbitration, negotiations detailed, 232 et seq. Tree, Sir Herbert, 300 Triple Alliance, origin of, 167 Trower, Mrs., 277 Trueblood, Dr., 240 Twiss, Sir Travers, 108 UzES, Dowager Duchesse d*, and Boulanger, 97 Voltaire, reference to, i Vox populi as Court of Appeal, 1 38 Waddington, M. Richard, 93, 94 Waddington, M. William, 15 French ambassador to London, Waddingtons, origin of the, 92 Waechter, Sir Max, 261 on Anglo-German rivalry, 308 Waldeck-Rousseau, 204 comes upon the scene, 44 compared with Sir E. Grey, 205 painter, 208 Walkley, A. B., 300 Wallace, Sir D, M., 223 Wallace, Professor William, 3 Walter Scott honoured at Kinghorn, 239 Walton, Sir J., 249 War scares and shipbuilding, 309 elimination of causes of, 310 of 1870 and England, 312 danger of, for popular liberties, 316 Webster^ Mr. Richard, 108 See Lord Alverstone. Weiss, M. J. J., 14 Westlake, Mr. John, K.C., 108 Westminster Gazette and Dogger Bank incident, 255 White, Mr. Herbert, 296 Wilkinson, Prof. Spencer, 295 William L, Emperor, 27 Wilson, Mr. A. J., 5 Wilson, Daniel, 10 Wilson, Sir Charles R., 75 Wingate, Sir R., 151 Wolf, Lucien, 296 Worms, Baron H. de, 39 Zola, 136 BRADBURY, AGNEW, & CO. LD., PRINTERS, LONDON AND TONBRIDGE. nniiiiiliiijijiiiiMir^ffliiiiHif!