'The Accession Council after the Queen's death was a curious comment on history. History will tell that Victoria's death plunged the Empire into mourning, and that favourable opinion is more general of her than of her successor. Yet the Accession Council, attended almost solely by those who had reached power under her reign, was a meeting of men with a load off them. Had the King died in 1902, the Accession Council of his successor would not have been thus gay; there would have been real sorrow.'
Sir Charles thought hopefully of the situation at this moment, and there is a letter dated as far back as 1900 in which Mr. Hyndman noted the "unusual experience" of finding an Englishman who took a more favourable view of France than he himself, and expressed his fear that Sir Charles underrated "the strength of the National party." [Footnote: How well he understood France may perhaps best be judged by an article written, at the desire of M. Labori, for the Grande Revue in December, 1901. It is called "Torpeur Républicaine," and begins with the observation that English Radicals are tempted to think French Republicans more reactionary than any English Tories, for the reason that all English parties had practically, if not in theory, accepted municipal Socialism. "In France," he said, "the electors of certain cities return Socialist municipal councils. They are all but absolutely powerless. We, on the other hand, elect Tory or Whig municipalities, and they do the best of Socialist work.">[ But, notwithstanding the alliance of France with Russia, the action of Russia in the Far East in the period covered by the events which ended in the Japanese War had not diminished Sir Charles's rooted dislike of any idea of entente or alliance between Russia and Great Britain. He considered that Sir Edward Grey meant to be Foreign Secretary in the next Liberal Government, and was intent on making an arrangement or alliance with Russia to which he would subordinate every other consideration. "Grey," he wrote early in 1905 to Lord Edmond Fitzmaurice, "has always favoured the deal with Russia. I hope I may be able to stay outside the next Government to kill it, which I would do if outside, not within. This," he said, alluding to the recent death of Lady Dilke, "assumes that I regain an interest in affairs which I have wholly lost. I am well, but can at present think of nothing but of the great person who is gone from my side." [Footnote: February 2nd, 1905.] At this time the old controversy was again raging, both at home and in India, over the question of the defence of the North-Western Frontier of India; and a recent Governor-General and his Commander-in-Chief in India, it was believed, had not altogether seen eye to eye. The latter was credited with very extensive views as to the necessity of an increase in the number of British troops, with a view to the defence of the frontier against Russian attack. Sir Charles put neither the danger of a Russian invasion nor the general strength of Russia as a military nation so high as did some who claimed to speak with authority; and he did not believe that we had any reason for constant fear in India or elsewhere, or to seek alliances, in order to avoid a Russian attack on India. The vulnerability of Russia on the Pacific, which he had always pointed to, was demonstrated in the Japanese War; as well as the miserable military administration of Russia, which he had indicated thirty-eight years before as a permanent source of weakness, certain to be exposed whenever Russia undertook operations on a large scale at any great distance from her base. [Footnote: In Greater Britain, ii. 299-312.] The Japanese alliance, he believed, could never be directly utilized for resisting in Afghanistan an attack by Russia on India. Happily, as he considered, the facts had demonstrated that there was no need for such a display of timidity as would be involved in marching foreign troops across India to defend it on the frontier. [Footnote: Monthly Review, December, 1905. It is to be observed that this argument does not involve any criticism of the Anglo-Japanese Treaty considered as a defensive measure elsewhere.]
But if he thought that an alliance with Russia was not a necessity for a sound British foreign policy, on the other hand he was equally convinced that a good understanding with the United States of America was such a necessity. He believed that if fresh subjects of difference were not created, and any remaining questions of difference—like the Fisheries— were settled, as the Alabama and Alaska questions had been settled, the old Jeffersonian tradition of suspicion of English policy would die out, even in the Democratic party, and that no obstacle would then remain to prevent the co-operation of all the branches of the race in a common policy.
In a speech made in June, 1898, he had referred to the improved relations with the United States in terms which gave credit for the improvement mainly to Sir Julian Pauncefote, then Ambassador at Washington, for whose services he had the greatest admiration. [Footnote: Sir Julian Pauncefote had previously been Permanent Under- Secretary for Foreign Affairs for many years.] When, in 1896, the question of Venezuela had threatened to make trouble between the two English-speaking Powers, he counted the claims of Great Britain in respect of the frontiers of Guiana as "dust in the balance" when weighed against the advantage of not "running across the national line of policy of the United States." He desired to sink all such petty affairs in a policy of Anglo-American co-operation in the Far East. Rivals for trade in China they must be, but the interest of both lay in working for the "open door" which admitted a friendly rivalry. He wrote in the American Independent for May 1st, 1899: "The will of the United States, if it be in accordance with the will of Great Britain and of the Australian Commonwealth—the will, in other words, of the English-speaking peoples—will be paramount in the Pacific if they are united"; and he was never weary of urging the improvement in England's relations with the United States which would follow from a friendly settlement with Ireland. [Footnote: In Present Position of European Politics, 1887, he had said: "I, for one, still have hope that the causes of strangement between Great Britain and the chief of her daughter-countries, which are mainly to be found in the friction produced by the Irish Question, may even within our lifetime be removed, and the tie of blood, and tongue, and history and letters, again drawn close." And in a note written later in his own copy are the words: "It is for the Americans of the United States to decide how far towards firm alliance this shall be carried." Cf. Life of Beaconsfield, iv. 231.]
Bearing in mind all these considerations, he believed, notwithstanding all the wars and the rumours of wars, that the Great Armageddon so much dreaded could be avoided by diplomacy combined with proper measures of defence. The long chain of events formed by the Sino-Japanese War, the Boer War, the Boxer Rebellion, the Anglo-Japanese Treaty, and the Russo- Japanese War, were in his opinion "secondary events," however important, appearing to threaten the peace of Europe from time to time—very disquieting, no doubt, and ominous occasionally of yet worse things—but things such as diplomacy had conjured away before, and ought to be able to conjure away again. He did not think that Morocco, long regarded at the Foreign Office as a danger-point, would ever prove a sufficient object to induce Germany to break the general peace. She would threaten, take all she could get, and then withdraw with the spoils, just avoiding the danger-point; and so it no doubt turned out to be in 1905-06 at the time of the troubles which ended in the Algeciras Conference. But he recognized the personal character of the German Emperor as a new factor of danger in the situation.
The essential point since 1871, he wrote in 1905, had been that there never had existed a serious and settled intention of making the much- dreaded "European War" on the part of any of those with whom the great decision rested. There was, he said, to the good this main consideration—that, if any Power had intended war, a sufficient pretext could always have been found, yet the war had not come. The security for the maintenance of the long "armed peace" was, in fact, this: that no Power had really intended war, or intended it now. What the consequences would be was too well known by the responsible leaders. The sudden heats which most seemed to jeopardize peace had arisen in regard to questions not of European importance, mostly outside Europe, where sometimes on one side or the other, and sometimes upon both, tactful treatment in advance, and what might be styled "a long view," would have saved the world from trouble altogether, and ought to do so in future under analogous circumstances, whenever the question of the Bagdad Railway and the remaining questions relating to Africa came up for final settlement. [Footnote: English Review, October, 1909.]
The guarantee of peace he believed to lie in the policy of ententes, but on condition that the policy begun by Lord Lansdowne and M. Delcassé should aim at agreement between two Powers only, and be limited to specific objects. [Footnote: See the same opinion expressed in 1871, Vol. I., p. 133.] Beyond this it was dangerous to go. An entente between more than two Powers, as distinct from one between two only, reminded him of an American game of cards which he had seen played in the Far West. This game when played by two persons was called euchre, but when played by three persons was called by another and very disagreeable name, because it so frequently ended in the use of knives. The Franco-Italian agreements of 1898 and 1900, the Anglo-French agreement of 1904, the Franco-Spanish agreement of 1904, the agreements between Japan and Russia which had followed and grown out of the Portsmouth Treaty of September, 1905, the Anglo-Japanese Treaty which followed, and the Anglo-Russian agreement of 1907 as to Persia, were guarantees for peace, because they came within the above definition. It does not appear, however, that he considered the alliance of France and Russia, dating so far as was then known from 1895, as a real guarantee for peace, or that he shared the later views attributed to Gambetta, of the desirability of an entente between Great Britain, France, and Russia.
[Footnote: "M. Gaston Thomson publishes in the Matin extracts from letters by Gambetta to M. Ranc. In one letter, written apparently at the time of the crisis of 1875, Gambetta says:
"'You must know that the forger of the Ems despatch is about to commit another act of treachery. But our calmness and self-possession will prevent us from falling into the same trap as in 1870. The croakings of a sinister raven will not plunge us into folly this time. He has understood his mistake. He has been able to transform a divided and impotent Germany into a great, strong, disciplined Empire. For us and for himself he was less well inspired when he exacted the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, which was the germ of death for his work…. Until they have remedied this error no one will disarm. The world's peace, which is so necessary for all peoples, will remain always at the mercy of an incident.' In order to prepare France to meet the future, Gambetta strove to bring about the alliance which to-day unites France, Great Britain, and Russia. In a striking passage he writes:
"'The number and importance of Russia's difficulties grow every day. L—— keeps the Prince of Wales informed day by day of the difficulties of that Power. The political ambitions of Russia will be impeded by Austria, who is already assuming a hostile attitude. She is exerting pressure upon Rumania. Do you see, as a consequence, Austria allying herself with Rumania and Turkey against Russia? What a conflict!