Peace or War in Europe.
By Dr. McClintock
The angry feeling of France toward England, caused by rejection of the Congress, has not subsided. Journals of all classes of opinion attack England fiercely, day after day. The Liberals vie with the Imperialists in bitterness. The significance of all this is greatly heightened by the fact that the journals publish nothing except by consent of the government. It is therefore the feeling of the Emperor which is expressed by the journals; or, at least, it is his present cue to allow it to appear so. So long as the press remains under the iron rule which at present constrains it, so long will the government be held responsible for its utterances. The Siècle reviews the apologies and explanations of the Times in a tone of bitter irony. "The English government, according to the Times, always acts in a spirit of the completest abnegation and the purest generosity. It reminds France, also, that it was the intercession of Britain that saved Napoleon I. from the fate of Marshal Ney. But the Times says nothing of the treachery on Northumberland. Nor has it a word of Napoleon's long captivity at St. Helena." The Times had also spoken of the supply of coal(!) which France draws from England. "We are duly thankful," says the Siècle, "for the coal England sends us for a consideration. No doubt it is very ungrateful of France to criticise the England that sells her coals at a profit. But really this obligation is not great enough to make us forget the persevering hatred with which the British aristocracy kept up its war upon the French democracy, and thereby caused the errors of the revolution. We cannot forget that it was this aristocracy which compelled France to take refuge under the dictatorship of Napoleon I., and which hindered the cause of liberty from achieving its final victory, not only in France but throughout the world." The Siècle, you will remember, is a democratic journal. The Debates which represent the Orleanists, and is the best conducted paper in France, or perhaps in Europe, is equally outspoken: "All the apologies and recriminations of the English journals are alike inconclusive and offensive. Who could believe that England, at this day, could accuse France of ingratitude. It is to England, forsooth, that France is indebted for its escape from dismemberment in 1815! These haughty words will add a fresh complaint to those which France has already a right to make against England." The question now is, how will all these bickerings end? Will there be a continental Congress, having England out in the cold, to warm herself by her own pride? Can peace continue, amid the causes of conflict which are rising up in every part of Europe? Ask any Frenchman you meet the question, whether there will be war in the spring, and he will answer, "Yes." Ask him with whom, and he will shrug his99shoulders and answer, "I don't know." And such is the real position of Europe. Every one believes we shall soon hear the clash of arms; yet so tangled is the skein of European politics, so distrustful are the various powers of each other, and so divergent are their interests, that they do not see how to make combinations either with or against each other. Whether it shall be England, France, or Austria against Russia; or France and Russia against England and Austria; or the German powers against France and England, nobody—not even the rulers themselves—can tell.—Dr. McClintock.