PEACE EXPENDITUsRE IN FRANCE

Te Aroha News, Volume IV, Issue 200, 23 April 1887, Page 8

PEACE EXPENDITUsRE IN FRANCE

Wr. have read a gieat deal lately about the emnmous war expenditure of France ;. hero i* something about the equally prodigiouh pi'ace expcndituie, which a jcorres ponclent lately returned from France sends us : Jt ono fai t uiore than another was=needcd to bespeak the paciric intentions oh France and the French people, it i^ the hwi&h expenditure of the (.iovemmont on Tyorks of pence and public utility. Now, i:> it at all likely that a Stole bent on wharf must be the costliest •war the modern world has seen, would spend millions of francs upon such works a<< the erection of train wig schools for female teachers, communal oehools, new railway stations, the intersection of rural' districts remote from the frontier by railways Brittany, foi instance— the embel, liahment and enlargement oi towns and' cities, and so on ? I happened last autumn to.jevisit certdbi , parts of west-central and south-western Fiance after an interval of U)a years. "She changes I found are marvellous. Take t\\p city of Angers (Marne awl Loire), foviinstancc The place was uo longer recognisable, what with its, now. handsome squan?, its airy suburb, " T^o Quartier \,ictor Hugo," its educational braidings, and other improvements too nunierous to mention. The little town of Sauvmr, Eugenic~G.randefc's home, has underge>a.e a £ransfoi s&aat-ion no less startling. ThY entire regie p. of La Vendee, thanks to thiv unsparing cxpenditm>e of the most pacific and liberal Government France has cvqp anjoyed, is rftetamorphosed in the same»wa.y- Ten yoavs ago I traversed it by diligence, and veiy behindhand I found it in. many respects. Now,, railways have bwen opened in all directions, schools have been buili? ior both-. > sexes in the most remote distriqts — in farib, no outlay spared for the promotion of industry and the benefit of the people geapvally. Fonten&y-le-Comte, in ifo.e very hear, t of La Vendoe» is another striking instance in point. Formerly, this little town,, with its picturesque but narrow streets, was quite lost to the world. Vx is now a. handsome, airy-, spacious town with new, com-modious-railway station, schools and other public buildings. The gtseat importance at>. tached to the education of womeu is shown by the erection of those, handsome " Ecoles XsTormales pour jeunes filles," the training; schools for female teachers, we find in eveiy large town or city, all of recent date. In fact, wherover you go in France— and my annual visits among French friends take me east, west, novfch, south — you come upon evidences of a pacific Government and a pacific people. My only wonder is that tha most credulous readers can for a moment helieve the hocus-pocuses of the "Daily News." What France desires is peace. M. Henri Martin's fourteenth volume of his French history has not been written in vain. Even the peasant knows the cruel irony conveyed in that word" Gloire," which the Duo d'Aumale made use of the other day.-* " Pall Mall Gazette."