Show EUROPEAN POLITICS British conservative newspapers are becoming excited over the diplomacy of Russia and France in overmatching the Rosebery cabinet and accuse the latter of having sacrificed the position of Britain on the continent by lack of interest in the triple alliance The connection is unfair but is a specimen of politics such as Americans are very familiar with I Italian bankruptcy was the cause that undermined the triple alliance together with the weakness of Britain as a military power by relation to the I vast military establishments of France Germany and Russia These two facts i aamomshea the German government that to rely on the triple alliance was to lean upon a broken reed and the industrial decadence of all the agricultural agricul-tural populations of the continent has evolved a spirit of hostility to British financial institutions precisely for the reason that hostility to them has been engendered in this country The overwhelming defeat of the socialist section of the French Assembly Assem-bly last Monday in a resolution by it involving the absence of France from the German naval review at Kiel elicited elici-ted sufficient information from the government to show that an understanding under-standing with Germany had been reached on the question of intervention Interven-tion in Turkish affairs and the discussion dis-cussion in England indicates that whatever steps England may take must be taken singlehanded with a certainty that a settlement of the Egyptian question would be involved in which the continental powers would take a hand in what is feared would be in the direction of French Interests That this is not all smoke is shown by British military and naval precautions precau-tions A large addition is being made to the military stores at aialta Aden and Alexandria Detachments of artillery ar-tillery have been sent to reinforce and fortify the island of Perrin in the Red Sea and activity is intense in the British war department There also is much significance in the sauciness and indifference of the Sultan to the remonstrances of England Eng-land Turkey is not a power to disregard dis-regard a proposition by any of the great powers unless she had a silent I backer somewhere among them Some light on this Is thrown by the recent I reply of Russia to a demand by England I I Eng-land that all the powers intervene on the Armenian settlement which in I effect was a refusal on grounds that the question might disturb the I population of Russian Armenian possessions I pos-sessions in Asia Minor j The restlessness of France on the way England abused her confidence on I Egyptian matters In 1S92 is well known and the debate in the French assembly assem-bly on Monday conveyed what Is equivalent to a threat that this matter mat-ter would soon come up for settlement WhQj Russia practically ran the blockade of the Dardanelles some three years ago with a couple of war vessels laden with troops and muni ii i tions for the terminus of her Pacific railroad Valdivostock the Turkish government winked at it and It was I whispered that a secret understanding I existed with Russia that had it been any other power would have been called an alliance And it is by no means improbable that both Turkey and France have guaranteed the free use of the Dardenelles and the Suez I canal to Russia as the price of her support as it is certain that Russia would give much for such a guarantee guaran-tee The Mohammedan uprising therefQre probably had a string to it Everything points to a crisis that will cither precipitate a European war of great dimensions or that England must reliquish her prestige in the Orient and the condition is such that would seem to make it impossible for England to accept the alternative The political tension is serious and extreme while the conditions of the industries of the continent so greatly aggravate the situation as almost to invite war as a measure of internal safety |