| OCR Text |
Show [COMMUNICATED.] ENGLAND VERSUS EGYPT. In the history of the world there was occurred no war so fraught with universal interest, or one upon which so many issued have depended, as that now in progress in the land of the Pharos. Many momentous battles have been fought upon whose results the fate of districts, countries, and in some instances that of the whole world has hung. but these have happened at peculiar crises; at times when a despot has aimed at universal dominion, or when some over-burdened people, taxed beyond their strength, have risen in despair, and burst the chains of their oppressors. No such result, perhaps, awaits the finale of the Anglo-Egyptian struggle, and yet the mighty interests involved, the concern so many nations undergo, the stern attitude assumed by one of the belligerents, contrasted with the determined patriotism of the other, all tend to make this contest a theme of unexampled intensity. Among the powers of Europe there is none so insignificant but it anticipates some benefit to itself from the changes and events that will probably take place. Especially is this the case with Germany and Russia, the two empires most solicitous of territorial extension. Neither power has any sea-board of importance, and in the event of a war with some foreign enemy, each would be comparatively harmless, since it is utterly unable to leave home. Any humiliation that the English arms may suffer, or any series of adverses by which their prestige may be weakened, cannot but prove of advantage to the welfare of Germany. It is for this reason that Bismarck views with complacency the entanglement of affairs in the east. The more difficult and tenebrious the complication into which the English Ministry have all along been hurried, the fewer obstacles there will be to the sudden acquisition of that wished for Heligo-land, the summum desideration of German politics. If Germany could discover cause to wish ill to British prevalence, how much more would Russia exult in England's discomfiture? Can Russia forget Lakermann, Sevastopol and Balaklava, or the annihilation of her fleet in the waters of the Euxine? Cato ended all his speeches in the Roman Senate with "Delendus est Carthago" (Carthage must be destroyed.) The Russian watchword is "England's power in the Bosporus and the Mediterranean must cease." With a clear southern coast for the manipulation of her iron-clads, and the erection of powerful forts as a base, no obstacle could prevent Russia from seizing all approaches to the Red Sea, and then good-bye to Disraeli's famous "Scientific Frontier." In a short time Victoria's Indian empire would be a thing of the past. Such results are probable at least, and Russian diplomats are disposed to allow England much laxity in her involution on the banks of Nilus, hoping to acquire by the accidents of war what they cannot by force of arms. These two powers show up most ominously in Europe, but accompanying their frowns is heard the sullen mutterings of Austria and Italy-the complaints of France and Turkey, while Spain and Denmark loom up in the background eager for ancestral eminence. In Asia a breath only is needed to fan the hatred of years into fury. The countries that extend back from the Indian Ocean and the Bengalese bay have often been pressed by the feet of conquerors, but in the hearts of the natives exist passions that no conqueror can smother. Laws have been enforced, at the point of the bayonet; dissimilitude of manner and observances dependent upon caste, have been treated as crimes, compelling a concealment of thoughts and beliefs which a single spark might kindle into flame. On this side of the Atlantic, feeling though not so intense, is on the qui vive at every movement. Canada displays her sympathy for the mother country; the United States looks on with apparent indifference, but in reality with solicitude, while the South American Republic cannot but suffer anxiety for those prosperity depends. What the end will be no one at present can predict. Great changes may be expected, for they will doubtless take place, but in the meantime we can look upon a war which, small as it appears, surpasses in human interest all that have ever been waged upon the earth. |
