"POUND OF FLESH"

Shannon News, 10 September 1926, Page 3

"POUND OF FLESH"

DISABLED FRENCH SOLDIERS. PARIS. July. 5. A monster demonstration by 20,000 French disabled and other ex-Service men took place here on a recent morning. Its avowee} object was a reminder to the United States of the appalling sacrifice in blood made by the French side by side with their Allies, while the Americans were getting ready to join in the fray. In effect, it was a demonstration against the ratification in its present form of the draft agreement for the settlement of France's war debt (about £800,000,000) to the United States. First in the procession came the badly wounded, propelling their own bathchairs. They were followed by the blind. Behind them again came serried ranks of men maimed in the face, whose president is Colonel Picot, an Under-Secretary or WarNumerous deputations from ex-Ser-vice men's associations, flying 3000 tri-colour flags, followed. After laying a wreath upon the tomb of France's Unknown Soldier, the men went to "the Washington Statue in tho Place d'lena. A large wreath, bearing the words, "To Washington. Hope," was laid at the foot of the statue. A few minutes later M. Jean Goy, a deputy for Paris and the president of the Union of ex-Service Men, laid at the foot of the statue a \narbLe tablet bearing the following inscription:— Tho French ex-Service men to the American nation. .Above diplomacy, far removed from political and financial considerations, the ex-Service men of x France appeal directly to the American people. After the disappointments caused by the Peace Treaty, they object to agreements which would definitely mean the ruin of France and the loss of her independence.