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.