Chapter XIV: The Revival of France (2)

The French public are getting very cross about Tunis.
Reasonable people see that we cannot allow our own subject to be
bullied, but the French in general do not distinguish between
the Enfida case and the Tunisian questions regarding predominant
influence, Italy, and so forth. Drummond Wolff's question last
night was very mischievous. It was his own party which gave the
assurances at Berlin which have made Tunis so very delicate a
matter between the French and us, and which dispose the French to
allege that the present Government is less friendly to them about
that country than the late. Anyhow, Tunis is the point on which
above all others the French are susceptible and irritable; and
the Italians, and, however unconsciously, our own Consul too, I
am afraid, are always stirring up awkward questions on the spot.
I should be heartily glad to be rid of the Enfida question in any
creditable manner. I so strongly suspect that Levy is simply put
forward by the Tunisians for their own gain, and supported by the
local enemies of goodwill between France and England, in order
to make mischief, that I only wish we could wash our hands of
the whole affair. There seems to me to be no evidence that he is
a _bona fide_ purchaser on his own account. Tunis is the really
ticklish point in our relations with France.

The Enfida Estate case was not only unsatisfactory on account of Mr. Levy not being a very desirable _protégé_, but because it enabled the French to manufacture a grievance against the Bey, and gave the Italians an opportunity to encourage that unfortunate potentate in the belief that he would receive foreign support in the event of French aggression.

The intentions of the French Government were disclosed before long. Shortly after the wretched Bey had protested against a memorial containing a long list of alleged French grievances against the Government of Tunis, M. Jules Ferry, on the ever convenient plea of the necessity of chastising hostile frontier tribes, asked for votes of credit for both the army and the navy, which were unanimously agreed to. Before the expedition actually started, the French agent at Tunis, M. Roustan, visited the Bey and informed him that the French preparations were intended to protect him against the Sultan of Turkey, who desired to convert Tunis into a Turkish Pashalic, and that, under these circumstances, it was very desirable that Tunis should be placed under a French Protectorate. It was quite in vain that the unhappy Bey urged that he had no reason to suspect the Sultan of any such intention and that he had not the slightest desire for a French Protectorate; he was informed that he was not the best judge of his own interest, and that French troops would shortly enter his country to chastise the Kroumirs, a race of whom nobody had yet heard, but who apparently constituted a serious menace to the French Republic.

The obvious design of the French drew from Lord Granville an opinion that they could not be allowed to seize upon Tunis without the consent of Turkey, and the permission of other Powers; but to this opinion not much attention seems to have been paid.

* * * * *

_Lord Granville to Lord Lyons._

April 5, 1881.

I have thought it necessary to instruct you to inquire into
the state of affairs at Tunis. You are not likely to do so in an
unnecessarily offensive manner.

I am told that the French are determined to establish their
Protectorate. This will be very awkward at the moment.

Pray look as mysterious as you can, as to what might be our
attitude.

We do not wish to follow the example of the foolish opposition
made to Algiers, but the French cannot be allowed to seize Tunis
without the consent of Turkey and communication with the rest of
Europe.

The Italians wish us to move vigorously in the matter; the
Italian Government seems alarmed at the excitement of their chamber.

It was all very well to say that the 'French cannot be allowed to seize Tunis,' but when a big European Power decides to pounce upon a weak and decaying Oriental State, it is not of the slightest use to employ such language if merely moral suasion is contemplated. The recent action of the Italian Government with regard to Tripoli[33] was the exact repetition of French action with regard to Tunis, and remonstrances were of no more avail in one case than in the other. The Bey sent piteous protests and appeals for justice to all the Great Powers, but as Italy, the only Power which really objected, was not prepared to fight, his lamentations fell upon deaf ears. Meanwhile, in an attempt to justify their bare-faced aggression, the French Government apparently handed to M. Blowitz, the _Times_ correspondent at Paris, a despatch from Lord Salisbury written in 1878, which it had been agreed should be treated as confidential, and it was intimated in the press that further private and confidential communications would appear in a forthcoming Yellow Book. This produced a very justifiable remonstrance from Lord Salisbury.

* * * * *

_Lord Salisbury to Lord Lyons._

Hatfield, April 24, 1881.

I am not sure that I am not irregular in addressing to you any
communication on public affairs. But I think I have been told that
a certain license is accorded to disembodied Foreign Secretaries,
of haunting the scenes of their former misdeeds.

My cause of writing is this. My eye caught a statement in one
or two English papers that St. Hilaire intended to print in the
forthcoming Yellow Book, Waddington's first despatch to d'Harcourt
on coming back from Berlin. I had a dim recollection that it was
undiplomatically phrased and had been withdrawn: but I could
remember no more.

Is it not rather a strong measure for a Government to withdraw
a despatch to which objection is taken at the time, when it might
be answered, and then to publish it three years later, when the
materials for answering it no longer exist? However, perhaps I am
wrong in assuming that the newspaper report is correct.

Lord Salisbury was quite correct in his recollection, and the intention of publishing the despatch referred to was not carried out, but various attempts were made to fix upon him the responsibility for French action in Tunis.

Lord Granville, although he confessed to disliking the process, had to content himself with ineffectual barking.

* * * * *

_Lord Granville to Lord Lyons._

April 22, 1881.

You will not like a despatch I send you, and I am rather sorry
to send it. But I do not see how we are to give France _carte
blanche_.

I dislike barking without biting, but if the result of not
barking (in contradistinction to all that was done under Louis
Philippe and Napoleon, when English remonstrances certainly stopped
the French) is the annexation of Tunis, or the creation of the
great port of Bizerta impregnable by naval force and neutralizing
Malta, we should look rather foolish.

Notwithstanding the present Chauvinism about Tunis, it would
not be a sweetmeat for the French to have England, Italy and the
Arabs inside and outside Algeria against her.

It is as well that she should not imagine that this is
perfectly impossible.

But, of course, I wish to ruffle her as little as possible,
and nobody will wrap up the warning of our doctrine as to the
Ottoman Empire better than you will.

Undeterred by Lord Granville's just remonstrances and equally undeterred by the Sultan's assertion of his suzerainty claims, the French entered Tunis and occupied the capital on May 11, after little more than a mere promenade. On the following day the Treaty of the Bardo, which practically established a French Protectorate over the country, was extorted from the Bey, and declarations by the French Government made it clear that no intervention, direct or indirect, would be tolerated.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Granville._

Paris, May 13, 1881.

Barthélemy St. Hilaire certainly foreshadowed the Tunisian
Treaty accurately when he said that it would very much resemble a
Protectorate. It is so like one that it would be difficult to point
out a difference. The guaranteeing the execution of the Treaties of
the European Powers is sufficiently impertinent. As in all these
French expeditions, there is a vast amount of dirty pecuniary
stockjobbing interests at the bottom, which have been the real
motive power.

The whole affair is of very bad augury. It will inspire the
French Public with a love of resorting to high-handed proceedings
which can be indulged in without any real risk. Gambetta said to
Dilke that his Cherbourg speech was the first glass of wine given
to the Convalescent France, good for her but somewhat startling to
her system. This Tunis expedition is the second. The patient has
swallowed it so complacently that she may soon wish for another,
and perhaps a stronger stimulant. They got Bismarck's leave for
this, and it will perhaps be a long time before they do anything
of the kind without his leave. But then he will be sure to push
them on to any undertakings which will occupy their minds and their
forces, and tend to put them on bad terms with other Powers. And
this is disquieting, for there are not wanting all over the globe
places and questions in which the French might make themselves very
inconvenient and disagreeable to us, and might, if encouraged by
Bismarck, come at last to a downright quarrel with us.

Add to this the state of feeling in the English manufacturing
districts which is likely to be produced by the Commercial
proceedings of the French, and their virulent Protectionism, and
the prospect looks gloomy enough.

The actual proceedings of the French in Tunis were in reality of less importance as regards England than the spirit which they betrayed, for their reception by the French public indicated a state of feeling which might have dangerous consequences. The preparations for the expedition were not considered by impartial critics as particularly creditable to the skill or efficiency of the French military administration, and there had been nothing like serious fighting in the short campaign. The question had simply been one of bullying a defenceless ruler, and of carrying on a high-handed policy in the face of Europe. Nevertheless the whole affair was hailed with almost unanimous delight by the French people. Nor, apparently, was this delight diminished by the reflection that the expedition had not been undertaken without the approval and encouragement of the German Government, and that the favour had been acknowledged with almost humiliating gratitude.

Gambetta had represented that his object was to emancipate France from the humiliation of having to consult Bismarck confidentially beforehand upon every step she took, but this humiliating precaution was certainly not neglected in the case of Tunis, and if there had been the slightest suspicion that the expedition would have involved France in any difficulty with Germany, public opinion would at once have declared against it. From the German point of view this was satisfactory enough, but scarcely reassuring as far as other Powers were concerned.

The French had shown that they rejoiced in any high-handed proceedings which did not bring them into collision with Germany, and whilst it was not improbable that their rulers would seek popularity by gratifying this feeling, it seemed not unlikely that the policy pursued by Germany with regard to the Tunis expedition would be persevered in. To disseminate the forces of France and to divert the minds of the French from Alsace and Lorraine by encouraging them to undertake distant enterprises for the gratification of their vanity, was an obvious means of increasing the safety of Germany, and the more such enterprises tended to alienate from France the sympathies of other Powers, the more they would contribute to the security of Germany. Unfortunately there were scattered over the globe, numerous islands and other territories, the annexation of which by France might be prejudicial to English material interests or objectionable to English feeling; and there were, moreover, various countries in which the undue extension of French influence might be dangerous to England, and where France, if tempted or encouraged to resort to arbitrary proceedings, might, without deliberately intending it, become involved in a downright quarrel with England. These considerations made it desirable that especial caution should be exercised in the case of Egypt. The effect of the Tunis expedition upon Egypt had been twofold. On the one hand, it increased Egyptian suspicions of the insincerity and rapacity of European Powers; on the other hand, it increased the reputation of France in Egypt at the expense of the other Powers and of England in particular, and diminished any confidence in being effectively protected from French encroachments. The lesson of the Tunis expedition was obvious; it would clearly be folly, either by withholding the tribute or by any other step to weaken the connexion of Egypt with the Porte, for the French Government had taken elaborate pains to show that in dealing with Tunis it was dealing with an independent Power. This contention had naturally been resisted by the Porte, and there was little difficulty in proving that suzerainty had been effectually established by a Firman of 1871. But the Sultan of Turkey, who in the past had enjoyed the possession of more suzerainties than any other potentate, had seldom derived anything but embarrassment from this particular attribute, and in the case of Tunis it proved to be singularly inconvenient. Encountering no opposition from other Powers, the French flouted the claims of Abdul Hamid, and in order to signify their new position, announced that the French representative would thenceforth take charge of all foreign questions. In spite, however, of the flexibility of the European conscience with regard to the general principle of the Sultan's suzerainty, it was recognized that under certain circumstances that principle must be conscientiously upheld; and it was, therefore, intimated, more or less directly to the French Government, that although the Sultan's suzerainty in Tunis was a negligible quantity, the situation in Tripoli was quite different, and so, in a far greater degree, was that of Egypt.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Granville._

Paris, June 17, 1881.

It is most true that the danger of bad relations between us
and the French arises from their proceedings not ours, and that
this makes the great difficulty in meeting it.

The change of their position with regard to Bismarck is
another great difficulty. A little while ago dread of Germany
made them unwilling to send a regiment or a ship to a distance
from France, but since the Tunis affair, they have gone into the
trap he has set for them with their eyes open. They feel sure of
his support and encouragement in any distant enterprises, and the
surer of it in proportion to the hostility which such enterprises
may provoke in England and Italy. They thus find a cheap way of
gratifying their vanity, and of advancing some of their apparent
interests. This coquetting with Bismarck does, moreover, divert
their thoughts from Alsace and Lorraine.

I don't think it would be prudent to make any special advances
to Gambetta at this moment. We might not please him and we should
very probably offend Grévy and Barthélémy St. Hilaire, and so
interfere with the practical treatment of present questions, such
as the Commercial Treaty, the West Coast of Africa, Newfoundland,
etc.

The anomalous position of the French in Tunis, and the
proceedings of Roustan[34] there, will keep up irritation in
England and Italy--and I suppose the French, annuente Bismarck,
will cut the Gordian knot, sooner or later, by annexing it. They
ought in consequence to acquiesce in some improvement of the
position of England in Egypt, but this is dangerous ground.

The overbearing attitude of the French officials in Tunis caused considerable irritation in England, and something akin to exasperation in Italy. The Italians, had they felt strong enough to do so, would have resisted the French pretensions by force, but being without an ally at the time, had to content themselves with violent ebullitions in the press. The ill-feeling between the two countries was marked by serious riots at Marseilles and other towns in the South of France.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Granville._

Paris, June 24, 1881.

I did my best to impress upon B. St. Hilaire yesterday that
there was real bitterness of feeling among the public in England,
and that if the French Government and its agents persisted in a
series of irritating measures, the consequences might be very
inconvenient. The French had got all they could want, I said, and
I could not help wondering that it did not strike them that their
policy should now be to let the new system settle down quietly,
to avoid occasions of controversy about it, and in short, to let
Tunis be as little heard of as possible at present. It was an ill
return, I observed, for the great patience and friendliness shown
by our Government, to be perpetually springing upon them surprises
unpalatable to English public opinion. He professed to _abonder
dans mon sens_. I entreated him to keep his subordinates in order.

The French seem to have an unpleasant business in Western
Algeria, and there is beginning to be an outcry against the
military and civil management of the troubles there.

Good feeling between French and Italians will not be promoted
by late events at Marseilles. The feelings of the French towards
the Italians there are like those of the American workman towards
the Chinese at San Francisco, or of the Irish towards the negroes
at New York. There are said to be more than 50,000 Italians at
Marseilles, and they are apt to use their knives.

There are symptoms of a growing antagonism between Jules Ferry
and Gambetta, signs of the feeling between the Elysée and the
Palais Bourbon.

After all, the Tunis expedition turned out to be a rather more troublesome affair than had appeared probable at first. At the end of June insurrections broke out at Sfax and other places, necessitating the recall of French troops who had been sent back to France; bombardments, and other severe measures of repression. The insurrection spread into Algiers on the western side, and on the eastern side the disturbances created the possibility of a violation of the frontier of Tripoli by the French troops.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Lord Granville._

Paris, July 5, 1881.

Retribution has come quickly upon the French for their
hypocritical seizure of Tunis. The Arabs seem to be upon them
in all directions. Although this serves them right, it is, I
think, much to be regretted for political reasons, independently
of the suffering it causes to un-offending Europeans of various
nationalities in Africa.

If the French have to send a large force to Tunis, they will
very probably, formally as well as virtually, annex the Regency.
Tripoli will then stand exactly in the same relation to them
that Tunis did before the assumption of the Protectorate. After
Tripoli would come Egypt; but happily there is, I believe, a very
impracticable desert tract between them.

How great must be the complacency of those who desire to
occupy French troops in distant countries, and to involve France in
difficulties with other Powers.

If the action of the French in seizing Tunis was hypocritical, the contention that the case of Tripoli stood on an entirely different footing was equally unconvincing. The real truth, of course, was that, with the exception of the Italians, no one really objected to the French going to Tunis. They went there, under distinctly false professions, announcing that the expedition was intended solely to punish refractory tribes, and that the occupation was merely temporary. The disclosure of their real objects naturally caused irritation in England as well as in Italy, but all hostile criticism was met by the assertion of the Liberal Government that Lord Salisbury had himself invited the French to take Tunis at the time of the Berlin Congress. The French themselves were careful to represent that they had only followed Lord Salisbury's advice, and Lord Granville, in defence of his own policy, always maintained that the phrase attributed to Lord Salisbury, _Carthage ne doit pas rester aux barbares_, had cut the ground from beneath his feet, and rendered remonstrance useless. But to make Lord Salisbury responsible for this act of flagrant immorality seems, in the face of such evidence as is available, unjustifiable. All that he had done was to intimate that he had heard that the French were extremely anxious to go to Tunis; that if they did so, British interests would not be endangered, and that he should consequently look on with indifference. When M. Waddington, in 1878, construed this opinion as an invitation to France to appropriate Tunis, Lord Salisbury felt bound to remonstrate, and he wrote to Lord Lyons, as has been already shown. 'He (Waddington) makes me talk of Tunis and Carthage as if they had been my own personal property, and I was making him a liberal wedding present.' The real instigator of the Tunis expedition was not Lord Salisbury, but Bismarck. The latter, who was omnipotent in Europe at the time, could have stopped French action at any moment he pleased, but instead of doing so, he naturally encouraged an enterprise which was certain to lead eventually to difficulties between France, Italy, and England.

While, however, it was convenient to overlook any French illegality with reference to Tunis and to its connection with the Turkish Empire, it would have been, as has already been shown, manifestly imprudent to allow Tripoli, which stood in a precisely similar position, to be menaced with a similar fate: besides which, Italy had already marked Tripoli down as her own prey. Accordingly the French Government were informed that 'in view of the unquestioned incorporation of Tripoli in the Turkish Empire, as well as its proximity to Egypt, Her Majesty's Government could not regard interference of whatever description on the part of the French Government in that province in the same manner as they viewed the recent occurrences at Tunis. That Her Majesty's Government should take this view of the question of Tripoli cannot, they feel assured, be a source of surprise to that of France, since they have, on all occasions when the question of the extension of French influence in the direction of Egypt has been under discussion, been perfectly frank in their explanations with the French Government on the subject.' In his reply to this communication, M. B. St. Hilaire (who had previously announced that to annex Tunis would be a great mistake), effusively stated that the French Government looked upon Tripoli as an integral part of the Ottoman Empire, over which it did not pretend to exercise a predominant or exclusive influence, and gave a formal denial to all rumours which attributed to France any designs upon that country. The British Government professed itself quite satisfied with these assurances, and the Porte, for once in a way, showed sufficient intelligence to make its suzerainty quite clear, by despatching troops to garrison the country, and by other precautionary measures. In consequence of these steps Tripoli remained immune from attack for another thirty-two years, and when, in 1912, the Italians, following the French example of 1881, fell suddenly upon it without any serious attempt at justification, they did not allege that they were attacking a semi or wholly-independent State, but declared war upon Turkey itself, and incidentally brought about the destruction of Turkish power in Europe. The future of Tripoli under Italian rule is still obscure, while the numerous prophecies of failure which attended the seizure of Tunis by the French have not been fulfilled, but in either case it would be difficult to justify the morality of the enterprise or to defend the policy of these two Great Christian Powers.

The year 1881 witnessed the renewal of negotiations for a new Commercial Treaty between France and England, and in consequence of opinions expressed by M. Tirard, the French Minister of Commerce, it was determined to take the negotiations out of the hands of diplomatists. M. Tirard had declared that he believed that an understanding could be effected if the question could be freed from diplomatic dilatoriness, and that if he were brought face to face with a 'competent and well-disposed man,' the whole matter would be settled within a week by making a few mutual concessions. To meet these views, the late Sir Charles Dilke, M.P., was appointed principal British Commissioner with the late Sir Joseph Crowe, Sir Alfred Bateman, and other distinguished experts as his colleagues or assistants, but M. Tirard's prognostication turned out to be entirely incorrect. In spite of the great ability and indefatigable industry of Sir Charles Dilke and the other British Commissioners, the negotiations made a very unsatisfactory start, were constantly broken off, and were not even concluded by the end of the year, so that it must have been impressed upon M. Tirard that dilatoriness was not necessarily due to diplomacy. From the first, the negotiations were unpromising, for Free Trade had continually receded in France since the Empire, and the necessity of cultivating good political relations with England was evidently less in 1881 than it had been upon the last occasion.

The representatives of the two nations met in London in June, and an inauspicious beginning was made by the French Commissioners repudiating the bases signed in 1880 by Lord Granville and M. Léon Say. By the middle of the month the breaking off of the negotiations was already being considered.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Sir C. Dilke, M.P._

Paris, June 14, 1881.

I received last evening your letter of the day before, asking
me whether I had anything to say on the policy of breaking off the
commercial negotiations when you get to work.

I don't think we should lose sight of the fact that there will
in all probability be a thorough change of Government in France in
the autumn. We might _perhaps_ get a decent treaty from the new
Government if they found the negotiations in progress. It might
not be so easy to get negotiations reopened if they had once been
broken off, and the French had become accustomed to the idea of
having the general tariff applied to British goods.

Politically, it would, I think, be a great pity to begin
ill with the new Government, and I don't think we could possibly
begin well, in the state of feeling which would be produced in
this country, and still more I suppose in England, by a commercial
rupture.

The majority of the French would be very glad that the general
tariff, or still higher duties, should be enforced against English
goods, but they would none the less be irritated by our breaking
with them.

I confess, too, that I am alarmed, perhaps without sufficient
reason, at the effect which may be produced both at home and abroad
by the cry in England for retaliation.

My own plan would be, for the present, to pursue the
negotiation as seriously and as steadily as is compatible with
not committing ourselves to any decidedly objectionable duties so
definitely as to be hampered in subsequent negotiations if we find
the new Government more fairly disposed towards us.

If there was ever any possibility of concluding a Treaty in
time for it to be passed by the Chambers this Session, there is
certainly none now. Gambetta wanted to get the question out of the
way before the elections; but even if the Treaty were signed, I
don't think the Chambers could be induced to consider it under
present circumstances. Nor would they, I should think, pass a bill
to prolong the existing Treaties.

To my mind, our most prudent course would be to let the new
Chambers find the negotiations going on when they meet in the
autumn. I don't of course mean that you should go on sitting every
week from this time to the autumn: it would suffice that there
should not be any adjournment _sine die_, and that we should not
give any ground for an assertion that we are not really willing to
conclude even a moderately fair treaty.

Lord Lyons, as has already been stated, was, like almost every British official of the time, a firm and almost bigoted Free Trader; and it is possible that his alarm at the prospect of retaliation was caused by the appearance of the Fair Trade League; that harbinger of Tariff Reform to which somewhat inadequate justice has been rendered by its imitators. But it is surprising to learn of these qualms, when he is found predicting that the smaller countries who were willing and able to retaliate on French goods, would obtain better terms than England. The very different spirit in which the smaller States approached commercial questions with France is shown in the following instructive account of the views of the Swiss Minister at Paris, M. Kern.

* * * * *

_Lord Lyons to Sir C. Dilke._

Paris, June 25, 1881.

Last evening, after my letter to you of yesterday had gone, I
met Kern, who told me that in the course of the day he had had an
interview with M. Tirard, and also one with M. Gambetta. He had,
he said, declared most distinctly to both, first, that Switzerland
would not sign a Treaty placing her in a less advantageous
commercial position than that now existing; and secondly, that
if the general tariff were applied to Swiss goods, French goods
would be forthwith subjected to duties of precisely the same amount
in Switzerland. He had, he said, somewhat surprised M. Tirard by
informing him that the Swiss Government had power to impose such
duties at once, without waiting for legislative sanction.

The impression left upon Kern's mind by the two interviews
was, that as hard a bargain as possible would be driven by France,
but that in the end they would rather make moderate treaties than
no treaties at all, if they saw that this was the only alternative.

He is going to Berne to confer with his Government, and he
says that he is sure they will approve and confirm his language to
Tirard and Gambetta.

After these interviews, Kern was very positive that the French
Government were making a great fight to justify themselves to the
Chambers, but that if the Powers, and particularly England, were
firm, the French would yield rather than incur the political and
other inconveniences of not making any treaty at all.

I am not so sure as he seemed to be of this, but I think that
the French are alive to the political inconveniences of breaking
with England altogether; and it might therefore be worthy of your
consideration, whether, when you go back to the Articles you
reserved in the Tariff, you should not make a last effort to see
whether the French cannot be brought to consent to a Treaty which
would be better commercially than no Tariff Treaty at all. It might
interfere with whatever chance of success such an effort might
have, for the French to feel beforehand that they could get out of
the political difficulty by signing a simple Most Favoured Nation
Treaty.

Nevertheless I am not shaken in my opinion that it would be
advisable for you to sign a Most Favoured Nation Treaty, if better
may not be, before you break up the Commission, or adjourn it for
any long time.

Commercially we had better make sure at once of sharing the
concessions which may be made to other Powers under threats of
retaliation.

Politically we should, I think, find it most disadvantageous
to have even the appearance of being on bad terms with France.

The British Government apparently still entertained the illusion that there were real French Free Traders. M. Challemel Lacour was the chief French Commissioner and Lord Granville welcomed him as a brother Free Trader. His brother Free Trader said it was true that he was _Libre-Echangiste_, but he was _Libre-Echangiste Français_, and recognized the necessity of paying due consideration to the interests of native industries. To this chilling response, Lord Granville was forced to retort that he must venture to doubt whether a _Libre-Echangiste Français_, in His Excellency's acceptation of the term, was not what in England was called a Protectionist. M. Waddington had once stated that he was a Free Trader 'bar cotton,' and whenever the French Radical Parliamentary candidates, who were then perambulating the country in view of an approaching general election, were asked whether they were Free Traders or not, they replied in the affirmative, but qualified by a reserve in favour of French industries which would be ruined by Free Trade. As a matter of fact, the spirit of Protection was becoming more and more ingrained in the French people, and the best chance of getting a reasonable Commercial Treaty lay in the hope that an election would bring Gambetta into power.

The London negotiations which had been temporarily suspended were resumed at Paris in the autumn, and continued during the remainder of the year; but interest was diverted from commercial matters to the events which were occurring in Egypt and their probable effect upon Anglo-French relations.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 29: Subsequently Viscount Goschen.]

[Footnote 30: Sir Francis Adams, Minister at Berne.]

[Footnote 31: See Appendix by Mrs. Wilfrid Ward, "Lord Lyons in Private Life."]

[Footnote 32: Afterwards Lord Alcester.]

[Footnote 33: 1911.]

[Footnote 34: French Consul-General at Tunis.]