French & English

by Philip Gilbert Hamerton

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.

Rivalry abroad.

France and England in Africa.

Rivalry in the East.

English Jealousy of French Colonial Enterprises.

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.

Not to be ended by a War.

The Right to break a Neighbour’s Strength.

Not applicable against the Strong.

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.