A FRENCH JOURNALIST.

Dominion, Volume 4, Issue 1205, 14 August 1911, Page 6

A FRENCH JOURNALIST.

TO VISIT NEW ZEALAND. An interesting visitor to Melbourne is M. Robert Chanvelot, a' distinguished Parisian journalist, who is in Australia on behalf of his papers, "L'Echo do Paris" and "La Pressc." 31. Chanvelot i 3 taking tho world's tour, and has already revisited India and Ceylon, and paid first visits to Java, Singapore, Japan, the. Philippines and Papua, spending a long period in the last-mentioned territory. in Pnpiia he secured a vahiablo ethnological collection, which ho intends to present to tho National Museum a* tho Trocadero, Paris.

On leaving Australia and Tasmania, M. Chauyelot will proceed to New Zealand, TiihiH, Canada, and other countries, returning home within tho next twelve months. He is contributing articles to the journals he represents, and lias in preparation two bcoks through which ho hopes to help La Belle France to understand, the aspirations of the yovmg Commonwealth and tho other oversea dominions of tho King. In the course of an interview, M. Chauvelot emphasised the interest with which tho average intellectual Frenchman is following Australia's social and economic experiments.. "We sometimes jhwk in France that you arc mow Socialistic than we are," he .-aid, "hut 1 find .that whereas our Socialists arc more logical in theory, Australians are more practical and democratic in achievement. You aro a. great democracy, and a practical one. You do not fcem so dominated by theories and international confederations as aro some of our proplo. You aim at (lie practical, and your reformers win more bent: on some actual practical work of ameliorating the lot of tho worker limn on oonforming lo some theory. That seems to mo excellent, and it makes your progress and economic development a. matter of absorbing interest to us."