They are just the sort of international differences of interest which ought to be settled by arbitration or conciliation, because both of the disputants have so much more to lose by hostilities than they have to gain by military success.

A dispute turning upon a piece of African territory would, if it waxed into war, involve the most awful and dangerous consequences in Europe.

The danger of European wars, except for national purposes of prime importance, carries its consequence into Africa and Asia.

France, for instance, was very much irritated by the continued English occupation of Egypt in spite of certain solemn promises of evacuation; and the expedition of Marchand, which ended in the Fashoda incident, indirectly questioned the validity of the British occupation of Egypt by making that occupation strategically insecure.

In spite, however, of the deliberate manner in which France raised this question and of the highly irritated condition of French public opinion, she could not, when the choice had to be made, afford the consequences of a Franco-English war.