FRENCH EFFICIENCY.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 November 1925, Page 3

FRENCH EFFICIENCY.

WOMEN'S Al’i',M(r.u. The French are efficient individually, not collectively (writes the Paris correspondent in the "Morning Post”). This explains the inconsistencies which are always cropping up to bewilder tile foreigner who would learn more about France and the French people. To be efficient is a French national characteristic. The Latin love of clearness which is in their blood, the Greek love of form which is in their education.

and a peculiar Gallic pride urge the French to work for efficiency. Their taste for good work is inherent, and that so. precious a gift should ho cramped or stifled by model'll conditions and circumstances is to he keenly regretted. Yet efficiency Is less usual than it was. and French pessimists are persuaded that since the ago of miracles is past, it will have ceased to exist in the next generation.

This is surely an exaggerated complaint which comes from a generation which is passing, and in which vitality has been lowered by war strain. What is happening is that social conditions make it difficult for efficiency to flourish in the old soil. Moreover, the advantages of being efficient in the working ranks are nut very clear. Incompetent service inn claim its price as snrelv as the most (ompetont. It is only when a man is working for himself that efficiency pays. Then you find it shining brilliantly from among the dim glimmer of standardised labour. In the artisan class, once the most

efficient in the country, efficiency is dying for want of appreciation, and from the competition of machinery. The clever men and women who excelled as cratsmen with fine tools, the wood engraver, the blockinaker. the bookbinder, the illuminator of manuscripts, the cabinet-maker, they were all artist-craftsmen once. Now their taste is less line, their love of their craft less acute. The public, they realise. is satisfied with the second best, and is no more sensitive to the charm of the potter’s thumb. Here and there you find survivals of this most interesting class of workers. They live in old l’aris. nourish their minds on old traditions, and have hut little to do with the cosmopolitan world of the modern city. Where efficiency is most usual in modern Frame is in the decorative arts. Not those which arc applied to houses and furniture, hut these which arc used in the service of women’s apparel. In these the French excel. Men and women both work to make women’s clothes beautiful. Manufacturers, dressmakers, designers, needlewomen. cutters and tailors, filters and saleswomen. all work together for the good of the cause, and the result is astonishingly good. A model'll dress is the concentrated essence of the luxuryloving spirit which made Eigthtcenth Century France the leader of fashions and manners. Then, it sent forth its dictates from Versailles under the Bourbons. To-day. it rules from the rue de la I’aix.

Its spirit has been i ninmcrcialiscd if you will, hut is still admirable, interpreted. as it is, bv the clever women of the country, those who make the clothes and these who wear them. They have incomparable finish, and it is this finish which makes their charm. As makers and wearers of clothes. Frenchwomen are neat. self-assured, deft. gay. Not puritanical, pedantic, or rollicking They are in a word, educated to the beauty of personal adornment. and know how to trim and prune their talents to conform to tradition. .Men take them seriously, though they mav never he serious with them. I.'art d’etre I'enime i> .supreme in Fra nee. Its only rival is greed of gold. l’,e,iu|\ fades when Mammon has too milch power. Bolshevism ensues, and

''‘fore its violence (barm withers. It - this tendeuev that th" best school 1 dressmakers is lighting.

In tin- higher realms ol art there in Itr-i measure, less vitality, than in those of decorative arts. The matters in hand are not so easy to handle. Pictures and hooks, sculpture, music, and drama, call for a deeper understanding than dress, anil when the world is restless it dees not grow easily. Melancholy, grim and morbid overshadows many of the good things in art and literature, and where individuality fails mediocrity all too quickly puts in a plea for easy silt cess.

Peace time efficiency in Franco nourishes in prosperity. Adversity kills it. l-’ear cripples it. Without the encouragement of success the Gallic temperament puts up a screen of selldefeine. Tt refuses to produce. It will give out nothing. It ceases to smile, and an unsmiling Franco can never ho efficient.