FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

Ashburton Guardian, Volume V, Issue 1525, 5 April 1887, Page 3

FRANCE AND ENGLAND.

"Perhaps yon will allow me," writes to old resident m France, who alto happens to have been an officer m the English army, -'to give iume reasons for n»y opinion that there is not tho leant ehanoß of the French making war on Germany without a' lies. The Frenoh '/•rmv was complttely cowed and denaoralieod at the, o< Delusion of the last frar, and 'he 350,000 prisoners Interned Jn Germany were so convinced by ocular demonstration of the superiority of tbu German method of doing things that, from Gneral Boulanger downwards, 1 Am cotvinced that there Ib not k French ■oldier who wishes a war with Germany, F»r otherwise wnold war with England be viewed- Bi^htly or wiongly, the French consider that their ra«y is tqual to ours, aud having only a t.nth p>t of work hl(1 responsibility m tho f-veutof the war that our fleets would have to l<cur f £m to our army, they say we have noue, or, *t any rr.te, only enough to^ fight SJgypt<lsof or Ashantean. The object of tn> letter is to w»rn my coumrjraHu that It Germany cso be squared we^hall aome fiaa morning find that France has declared 'war with unsuspecting Kngiand, Eg< pt Is an ever ready pretext, and the war would be acclaimed by the whole F--«noh nation, wbo really dlrliko us far more than they do the Germans. This is cartalnly not the time for t M misters to resign because we wish to fortify our coaling ttatloos, or for oar wiseacres at the War Offioe to reduce our ridiculously small 'iorce of artHWy."