Paris, Oct. 17, 1884.
I opened my first conversation with Ferry, the day after my return, with a message from you as to your desire to be on good terms, and to avoid unpleasantness in treating matters between the two countries all over the world. I enlarged upon this theme, and made it as plain to him as I could, without letting the conversation degenerate into recrimination, that if France were perpetually irritating us, we on our side had the means, and should not always be able to abstain from using them, of making ourselves very disagreeable too. The subject was treated in the most friendly way by me, and Ferry was profuse in his acknowledgments to you, and in assurances; but I should have been glad if I could have brought him to more practical advances towards intimacy and good fellowship than I was able to do. However, the conversation may perhaps have done some good.
As regards the Congo Conference, I came away with the impression that there is more or less a tacit, if not very explicit, understanding between France and Germany, in addition to what appears in the Yellow Book; and that this understanding may prove inconvenient to us.
The session has not opened very favourably for the Government. The Finance Minister's hocus-pocus expedients for balancing the Budget have been unanimously rejected by the Budget Committee. The recent 'glories' in Tonquin hardly outweigh in public estimation the growing expenses of the operations there and in China. Ferry told me he disliked the protective duties on cattle and corn, but that the Government could not altogether resist them, though it would endeavour to make them as moderate as possible. Rouvier, the new Minister of Commerce, is less Protectionist than his predecessor, Hérisson; but I have no confidence in the so-called Free Trade principles of any Frenchman. Duties on manufactures are sure to follow in the wake of duties on food, and I can never forget that we hold our Most Favoured Nation treatment only at the good pleasure of the French Government. The proceedings of the Lyonnais are socialist and revolutionary, and a great impetus has been given to Socialism by the journeyings during the recess of the sub-committees of the General Committee appointed by the Chamber of Deputies to inquire into the distress of the working classes. Nevertheless the chances still seem to be that the Ferry Ministry will weather the storms of the autumn session.
Ferry complained bitterly of the English press. He said in particular that the irritating lecturing tone of the Times goaded the French to madness; though he himself observed that it used the same tone towards the Government of its own country. I said that the press on both sides of the Channel seemed to work as if for the express purpose of producing ill-will between the two countries; but that certainly the English Government had no power to restrain it. A good understanding between the two Governments and friendly proceedings on their parts to each other, would in time act upon public opinion; and saying this, I preached a little more on the text of the importance of the French Government's not making itself unnecessarily disagreeable.
Her Majesty's Government were at this time involved in domestic as well as external difficulties, and Lord Granville's reply to the foregoing letter contained a renewal of the old importunity to come over and vote in the House of Lords on a party question. It is quite obvious that Lord Granville was impelled to do so by Gladstone, and the typical Gladstonian reasoning is shown in the argument that Lord Lyons ought to vote, because being an Ambassador he was a non-party man; whereas on previous occasions his vote had been applied for, because he distinctly ranked as a party man in the Whip's list.
Lord Granville to Lord Lyons.
Walmer, Oct. 18, 1884.
Gladstone writes to me earnestly, but I think reasonably, respecting your vote at the present important crisis.
He says that you must be aware of the estimate we hold of your judgment and independence. But to save the House of Lords from a tempest which must strain and may wreck it, some Tory Lords will be moved to vote for the Franchise Bill, and he asks why the same motive should not operate upon men like our Ambassadors, who he believes are of no party.
I own I think that the same majority, or possibly a larger one in the Lords, would be a great disaster.
If the Liberal Party take up hostility to the House of Lords itself as its leading question—whether led by Gladstone himself, or not,—and with a leader of the Lords who is personally in favour of getting a larger career of power and utility for himself in the Commons, it is difficult not to foresee the result.
With regard to immediate politics, supposing Salisbury succeeds in forcing a dissolution, and with the help of the Irish turns us out, what chance is there of his not being turned out in six months by nearly the same process?
The Waddingtons came here to luncheon. I guessed that they funked being reported as being here. He was very civil, and his talk was not altogether unpromising.
No one with the slightest practical acquaintance with politics could possibly be taken in by the Gladstonian phrase about the 'estimate of your judgment and independence.' Ministers when urging their docile supporters either in the Lords or the Commons to support a party measure, are not in the habit of boasting that some eminent person, whether an Ambassador or not, is going to give a silent vote in their favour, and even if they did, it would not produce the slightest effect. One peer's vote is as good as another's, and in the division list an Ambassador counts no higher than the most obscure of backwoodsmen.
Anglo-French relations were not improved by the occurrences in the Far East, where the French, in consequence of the Tonquin expedition, had drifted into war with China. The Chinese fleet, composed of small obsolete vessels, was destroyed at Foochow by the heavily armed French ships in August; but as the Chinese Government showed no signs of yielding, the French Admiral, Courbet, was ordered to seize part of the island of Formosa, where valuable coal mines were known to exist. In order to effect his object, Admiral Courbet, with a magnificent disregard of all neutral Powers, proclaimed a paper blockade of Formosa, which naturally provoked a protestation on the part of the British Government. During the remainder of the year hostilities between France and China continued, although from time to time recurrence to the friendly offices of Her Majesty's Government was suggested but found impracticable.
Egypt, however, remained the centre of interest, and the prospects of any amicable arrangement appeared to recede further into the distance. Upon the return of Lord Northbrook, the new proposals of Her Majesty's Government were put before the French Government.