French & English

The condition of things that most readily produces jealousy between rivals is a near approximation to equality, provided that the equals are very few in number, and that each of them has substantial claims to eminence.

All the necessary conditions unite to produce jealousy between France and England. They have been the two greatest of European nations, they are still the most ancient of the Great Powers, and the most advanced in the arts of civilisation. Their weight and influence in Europe are very nearly the same. Their populations approximate very closely, France, in round numbers, having about thirty-eight inhabitants to thirty-seven in the United Kingdom. As to European territory they are unequal, but the larger home territory of France is compensated by the larger colonial territory of England. Both are great naval Powers. As if to sharpen their feelings of rivalry, the two greatest naval Powers in the world hold the shores of a narrow channel, where each may see the warships of the other. England has a great naval superiority, but she needs it to protect her commerce and her colonies. In like manner the superior military strength of France is occupied in the defence of her land frontier. Both England and France are nominally Powers of the first class, yet neither is exactly so in reality, the proof being that neither the one nor the other dare venture, without an ally, to measure herself against either Germany or Russia. In wealth they are more nearly equal than any other two countries in the world. The system of government, though under different names, is practically the same in both countries, being representative in both, with power in the lower chamber and responsible cabinets. In each of the two countries political liberty is as nearly complete in practice as recent experiments in democracy will permit. In both there is a contest between the aristocracy and the people. An increasingly liberal religious policy in both France and England has led to the equal toleration of Catholics, Protestants, and Jews, though in neither country, as yet, is there anything like a social equality of creeds.

In external matters the resemblance between France and England is equally remarkable. England is an Atlantic power—France has a long Atlantic seaboard. England has stations in the Mediterranean and holds two important islands—France has a Mediterranean coast and holds one important island. Both Powers intervened in Algiers, and France annexed it; both Powers intervened in Egypt, and England occupied it. Both France and England have possessions on the west coast of Africa. In southern Africa the European position of England and France is counterchanged. There England is the continental Power and France (in Madagascar) the insular. In most of the great British dependencies and colonies it has been at one time doubtful whether England or France was to be the final occupant; and though the superior colonising genius of England and her prudent European alliances have generally settled the question in her favour, there has been enough of rivalry to leave its mark in history, in the nomenclature of places, and even (in one instance) in the survival of an important French-speaking population. Nor does the world-rivalry of France and England show any sign of coming to an end. Their policy at Constantinople and St. Petersburgh has quite recently been antagonistic. It is steadily antagonistic in Egypt, and although the wisdom of rulers (happily greater than that of populations) has led to an agreement about the Suez Canal and the New Hebrides, there may at any time arise the contention that leads to war. Although France is now incomparably inferior to England as a colonial Power, the English are still as jealous of French influence as if it might ultimately regain Canada and India. The Tonquin and Madagascar expeditions were treated in the English press with a jealousy only equalled by the French newspapers about Egypt, and both enterprises were followed by fresh British annexations in Asia and South Africa. In a word, although French colonising schemes may not, in the present day, be comparable to what England has done and is still doing, they are of sufficient importance to keep alive the ancient sense of rivalry, the undying jealousy of neighbours who have known each other too long and met each other too often.

The peculiarity of this case is that it cannot be settled by a war, like the old jealousy between Austria and Prussia. Neither of the two Powers feels able to expel the other from her position. I remember that, when the English attacked the Zulu king Cetewayo and broke his power, it was maintained in England that a State had the right to break the power of a neighbour if its existence could be considered menacing. How much more, then, would England have a right to break the naval power of France, which is close to her own shores and menaces her own capital, and what an error of policy she commits by tolerating the existence and the increase of the French fleet! Why this long-suffering tenderness of respect for French arsenals? The answer is that England is not so sure of victory in a war with France as she was in the war against Cetewayo. The principle that it is right to break the power of a neighbour is not applied when that power is really formidable. In other words, the more it is desirable that a neighbour’s strength should be broken, the less is it likely to be done.

Now let us consider the question from the French side. The English hold several islands which are very near to the French shore, and the French are vexed by England’s possession of these islands. It is not so galling a wound to French pride as the English possession of Gibraltar is to the pride of Spain, still it is a perpetual little sore that irritates Frenchmen when they think of it. They do not trouble their minds about ancient historical considerations. The Queen, for them, is not the Duchess of Normandy, but the head of the rival Power, and they do not like to see this Power holding insular fortresses like unsinkable warships anchored close to their own shores. Well, this being their state of mind, why do they not annex the Channel Islands and reverse the situation by occupying the Isle of Wight? The answer is that the enterprise is felt to be too formidable. To get Sark it would be necessary to vanquish England, and France does not feel sure of being able to accomplish that.

During the long and bloody rivalry of these two countries in the past it is a wonder that neither of them ever managed to murder the other. The will was certainly not wanting; there was no pity, but it is not easy to murder a great nation. The modern Carthage was to have been effaced, yet she is not effaced. Even in the present day each is unable to annihilate her neighbour. Try to imagine a French General surrounding London with his troops; the idea is inconceivable, one cannot see how he is to get them there. And now try to imagine an English army, without continental allies, surrounding Paris with a ring of iron as the Germans did; this idea is as inconceivable as the other; one cannot see how the English army is to reach Paris. Could it land? And if it landed, could it get as far as Amiens?

I cannot conclude this chapter without frankly admitting that national jealousy is reasonable so long as it confines itself to the truth. It is quite reasonable that the French should want to push the English out of Canada and Egypt, and that the English should wish to sink the French fleet. What is unreasonable is for two peoples to depreciate each other in books and newspapers, and blacken each other’s private characters because both are formidable in a military or a naval sense. How is it that we hear so much of French immorality, and nothing, or next to nothing, of Italian? How is it that, in France, we have heard so much of English cruelty and barbarity, whilst the accounts of Turkish cruelty were received with the smile of incredulity or the shrug of indifference? Why this so tender French sympathy for the Irish, exaggerating all their woes? Why this wonderful Protestant sympathy in England for the unauthorised religious orders in France? How does it happen that everything which seems to tell against one of the two countries is received with instant credence in the other? The answer to all these questions may be found in the two words at the head of the present chapter.