SATURDAY, FEB. 10, 1900. By and Bye.

Manawatu Herald, 10 February 1900, Page 2

SATURDAY, FEB. 10, 1900. By and Bye.

The Course taken for the past year by the French nation will certainly lead to war with Great Britain, unless & great alteration for the better takes place. The Fashoda incident was one example of the underhand methods pursued by France to obstruct and annoy the Empire. It was well known the object held in view when Lord Kitchener advanced into the Soudan and nublicly France did not dare to say "nay "to the proceedings, but she had secretly sent a French captain with armed natives to Fashoda under the guise of having forstalled the British troops. The French had no more conquered the natives than a small house sparrow, and would themselves have been destroyed had not Lord Kitchener come upon the scene. Exciteable as the French are they were unable for some months to realise the yjosition and unless they had drawn in their horns war would have been the result. Since then anything to the disadvantage of the Empire has been hailed by France with great delight and there can be no doubt that the Boers have received very material aid from "that country, in office 1 * 0 , men, money, anu war-iPftteriftl. AH this caa be tteateu in the manner it has been, that of little consequence except that it displays the very unfriendly feeling they hold of the British nation. Worse, much worse has however followed, and' of such a character that every man feels a tremendous strain to withhold immediate action to punish the persons and the nation for the gross and indecent libels published against the most revered Sovereign our Gracious Lady and Queen. In giving a couple of instances, our readers, by the letter press, can guage the license taken by indecent artists, and thus obtain some idea of how. the indignation is growing in England.

hx November in the " Libre Parole " we have the following effusion on the gift of the Queen to her soldiers: — "Sale of mud, and hattlened with blood— such is Vie* toriß?s Royal present to the soldiers who are about to die for the iniquities of their Queen. Hurrah I The Queen for ever ! Listen, valiant soldiers of England, who are dying T.t Ladysmith, penned in the iron circle which every day tightens on /ou. more mercilessly. The Queen ia going* to send you something — a present. . . . It is a box of

chocolate made of mvd — the mud of England's treacheries and iniquities and perfidies — hardened with blood, the blood of all those who have fallen already for the most odious of causes, of those who died at Glencoe, at Dundee, at Colenso, and at Estcourt for the villainy of Chamberlain and the humilation of England. Eat the Queen's chocolate, good soldiers of Ladysmith, while the Queen in London decides that in order to make up for this reckless expenditure it will only be right to ask Parliament for another grant ; while your Prince enjoys himself , and while his sons, his nephews, and his cousins, and all the Hanoverian offshoots of the Hohenzollerns and the Battenbergs fatten, on the fertilising exhalations of your corpses." The "Le Matin" also wrote: — " The history of her reign is a series of violent acte— usurpation, mas-

•mere, sanguinary repression, promises eluded or openly broken, compromises with the strong, attacks upon the weak. It is an era of brutality which shames our century md the history of the world. The Queen has seen all these horrors. .

. ." The remainder of this passage is too brutal to be quoted. These two papers offer but sample)f almost the whole of the Pari >ress, and under the heading, "Nt Toucher Pas a la Reine," tiac "Figaro" publishes the following etter, which it says it has receivec from a Frenchman holding a higt position in the London world : — " ] -hculd like to draw attention to the c -o-Tuoaa rnUcliiof aaJ. io the dang if the campaign which certain newa)apors are carrying on in France with ;he pencil and with the pen in attack ig the Queen. They have raise, sere an amount of indignation an' -lger which you cannot realise iv because the English new>.>apera are not read there, and be . mse ignorance therefore naturall} j-evails concei-ning the little inci•l oats whicii certain English correspondents settled in Paris, a very small number indeed, take pleasure ia exaggerating. However this may be, and how"eVer far it may be from the thoughts of the immense majority of Frenchmen, the Sovereign before whom all England bows with respect and admiration has been shamefully caricatured, and has been spoken of in insulting terms. If this continues, we shall really have the boycotting of the Exhibition with which we have already beon threatened, but this time it will be serious. A word from the Prince would be enough. . . . As for the danger, it is great, and I dread it for my country* We are drifting ; if these unintelligible tactics are ridt Changed, we are drifting on to an Anglo-French war. As it is not with her Army, but with her Navy, England would wage War with us, the Transvaal campaign does not weaken her. She ; has not a battleship the Uss, and we ' not a single one the more. Reflect, and get our fellow-countrymen to t meditate on this possible solution, for which nobody hopes in either of thp •wo countries, . arid , do your very utmost to calm irritation which certain personages are interested in further increasing." The London correspondent of the "Journal des Debats/' deeming it his duty to speak out even at the risk of being attacked, says : "It ie with a feeling of deep humilation and regret that I have seen drawing:? and read articles directed against an august persottagG whom the English revere, and who, through her virtues as Queen, wife, mother, and woman, has a right to the respect of all." After remarking, among other things, that it is not in the French tradition to attack a woman, especially when she and those who are related to her cannot reply, he goes on to observe : — " The time has come to recall the fact that the august Sovereign whom Frenchmen, doubtless in a moment of aberration, do not hesitate to attack, has never done any harm to our country, for which she has always professed her sympathy ; that in 1875 her intervention and that of a great and illustrious Emparor preserved France from a te-Hble clangs-- . *hat for yeava she has eomo to span? "r.\r'al weeka every spring in oumidst; and that her influence has on many occasions been exercised in our favour with her councillors. Therefore, I may be allowed to protest with the utmost against attacks which are unworthy of us, and which, as they cannot reach her against whom they are directed, recoil upon their authors, and unhappily upon all the French." We have established by these ! extracts the facts we started with, and we should have been inclined never to have published them had not our cable news informed us that the French President had decorated M. Lendre, the author of the recent objectionable caricature of the Queen, the one possibly that the Rt. Hon. J. Chamberlain, speaking at & public meeting, referred to when he said that such could not be meekly endured. It appears that Sir Edward Monson, the British Ambassador to France, protested against the decoration, referring to the matter as a regrettable incident. The French are foolish enough to act like coward - at the time when others assail u« thinking they are safe in doing so I but they will awake one morning tc | learn that in insulting our beloved Queen they have touched the Britisher on his tenderesfc point and though we may be engagsd in . war we have still enough pluck and resources to chastise such impudent and pitiful opponents.