and moly politics hinder throughout the world all progress of the old good traditions of private and international trust and justice. Diplomacy sees all international rights of European balance, acknowledged and revered by our forefathers, grow indistinct and overcast. As a matter of fact, cheating has become right. In the mind of many it may well be asked whether we are retrograding towards the barbaric ages.
We are in November 1882; another stirring war has just closed upon the banks of the Nile; British warships and British soldiers have shown to the world what they can do. Great Britain may rest proud of her sons; and for once Europe should be thankful, in spite of the present drifts of opinion and taste on the Continent. We gladly see Continental Powers acknowledge that he who shares the danger and the toil ought to share the prize and the profit. But the dominant fact that remains unchanged still is about the state of Europe in general in 1882.
The present confused situation of European countries, linked together with a network of rivalries and conspiracies, bears some analogy to the situation of Europe in 1807. It is the old, old, and ever new story of the Ass, the Fox, and the Lion. In 1807 England had sunk into the insignificant and precarious position France now occupies. Napoleon I., victorious in Italy and the German States, aspired to reviving for his own aggrandisement the Western Empire, leaving to Russia the Eastern Empire. The civilized world was threatened with the sway of two despots, each ruling over a population of a hundred millions with an army of fifteen hundred thousand soldiers.
Napoleon I. and the Emperor Alexander I. finally disagreed. The treaty of alliance concluded at Tilsit in July 1807 was torn to bits when the question was raised as to which of the two Sovereigns was to have the Bosphorus; five years later. Napoleon's army lay buried in the snows of Russia. "Harm hatch, harm catch."
Germany, attracting within its orbit Austria and Italy (the latter a recently patented State to be used as the tampon between Germany and Austria on the one side, France and England on the other) aims at reconstructing' the Western Empire. England seeks to strengthen and secure her Empire in the East. Thus we
