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Press, Volume LV, Issue 16414, 7 January 1919, Page 6

It has been stated that the French' Mission, which reaches Clhristchurch today .is a commercial 0110. As a matter of fact, howover, the principal object of the Mission's visit, as btatcd by MSiegfried, its general secretary, is to thank the Government and the people of New Zealand for the help their people have given to France in tho war. If tho Mission had had merely a commercial object, one may be sure that it would not have as its head, representing the French Government ami people, a distinguished soldier lifc° General l'au. To the hitter's career we have previously referred at length. That of Commandant Andre is less wellknown. The last surviving male adult —he had fifteen relatives killed in the war, including his only brother —of a family in which military or naval service is traditional, he was sent to Peru in 1900, as one of a French military mission, and stayed there ten years, first as sub-director, and then cliiel director of military training, a fact which should give him an interest in our own territorial training system. He fought in tho earlior part of the war, at the Marne and elsewhere, until captured by the enemy. Most of tho other members of the Mission also served in the war. M. Siegfried was with the British Army as interpreter, as was M. Leclercq-Motto, while M. Corbinrc, though over military age, enlisted when tho war broke out, and did hard service as a captain of artillery.

The secondary purpose of tho Mission is to strengthen by better acquaintance tho warm friendship that has grown up during the war between Great Britain and France, and to study the economic resources of Now Zealand, with a view to close- commercial relations. As M. Corbiero said in Auckland: "Our principal aim is to replace the Gormans. Wo did a lot of trado with them, but wo will do away with that, and we shall be pleased if New Zealand will do tho same and trado with us, through England, of course. We want your "wool, your moat, and, porhaps, other things. Your wool wo will always want, and we will want, your meat for years, whilo Ave aro breeding up oyr flocks and herds again." M. Mathieu, a silk manufacturer, also believos that Franco and New Zealand ought to do a large business in that line. M. Leclercq-Motte, a woollon manufacturer, pointed out that the French demand for wool will be increased largely after peace conditions are sottled, partly because in Alsace, now once more part of France, there is a large woollen manufacturing industry.

M. Siegfried's particular concern in New Zealand is, of course, its social legislation. He was present, one might say, almost at its birth, and he is especially desirous, wo gather, of learning jhow some of the legislation which interested him on his former visit, such as compulsory arbitration in industrial disputes, is working. It is singular, therefore, that his arrival in the Dominion should coincido with the unqualified condemnation of the system by the representatives of organised labour in New Zealand. It is unfortunate that the Mission's stay among us will be so short, but, brief as it is, it will, no doubt, enable tho trained observers who are accompanying General Pau to learn a good deal about our resources, and the possibilities of mutual business relationship.

In the course of a letter, for which we regret we cannot spare s-pnco, a correspondent points out that a statement in a recent issue, to the effect that Palestine had "passed from the hands of the Sultan to thoss of the Jewish people, whose form of Government of the country has yot to be arranged," was inaccurate. "The land of Palestine," he adds, "belongs to the great nation of Israel, of which the Jews form an infinitesimal part, and, were it not for the very important work of evangelisation that will yet be carried out in the world by the Jewish people, I should add a very insignificant part, comparod with their brethren of the House of Israel (the ten tribes)." « It may, perhaps, be admitted that the statoment referred to by our correspondent was inaccurate, to the extent of being premature. So far, nothing is definitely settled regarding the future of Palestine, except that it will not be handed back to Turkish misgovernment, and that the British Government sympathises with the aims of the Zionist Federation. A statement on the latter point was made by Mr Balfour as long ago ae November, 1917, when he made a declaration to the Federation, through Lord Rothschild, that the Government viewed with favour the establishment in Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people, and would use tlieir best endeavours to facilitate the achievement of that object, it being clearly understood that nothing should ho done which might prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country. The date of this statement has been accepted by the Jewish people as Declaration Day, and its first anniversary was celebrated in Palestine last November. • Lord Robert Cecil, speaking in February last, referred to the Government's recognition of Zionism, and it 6 support of the Zionist movemont, which, he pointed out, was Great Britain's traditional policy. Early last year a Jewish Commission, under the auspices of the British Government, arrived in Palestine, and began the establishment of the first Jewish administration there for 2000 years. The Government had made a deposit in the Zionist Bank in Jerusalem. It remains to add that among the stated aims of the Zionist movement are, the successful establishment of a home for the Jews in Palestine, and the working up of the State into a model State after that home has been established. The editor of the Hebrew daily paper in Jerusalem, who escaped from Palestine in 1917, after being arrested by the Turks for liis proAlly sympathies, said to an interviewer in New York, "We would like to see Europe ask Great Britain to be tho mandatory Power to teach us to govern Palestine." Other Jewish exiles have

expressed the opinion that British pro- J ti-jtion and guidance should bo oxer- , cised for at leaet ten years. The preference for British supervision has again been expressed, as stated in to- j day's cables, by Dr. Sokoloff, head of the European Zionist Commission. In deciding to establish a system of compulsory marriage for all unmarried women between the ages of IS and 45, the Town Council of Potrograd has only followed tho example set by a number of other Russian cities and districts, under the orders of the local Soviet. Tho translation of t-ho device to this purpose, issue;! by the Bolsheviks of I Vladimir and published in the official organ, was lately printed in "New Europe."' It set forth that every girl on reaching her 18th year was to lio announced as the property of the State, and, if she were not married, was obliged, under the most severe penalties for disobedience, to register at the Bureau of Free Love. She had Mien the right to choose a husband from among men between the ages of 19 and 50. The consent of the man -o chosen was unnecessary, and he had tio right to make any protest. Similarly men were given the right to chocse wives from the registered girls, without the consent of the latter "in tho interests of the State," which would a'so claim as its property all children the issue of these enforced unions. It seems that the wholesale murder by which the Bolsheviks terrorise tho population did not represent the lowest depth of infamy of which their regime, is capable.