THE KAISER AND FRANCE

Te Aroha News, Volume XXVI, Issue 43102, 8 June 1907, Page 4

THE KAISER AND FRANCE

The German Kaiser is not generally (credited with anv warm friendship towards France, but it has been claimed of late that a better feeling is growing up between the rulers of the two countries. Ml. Bonnefon, writing in the Paris Figaro, declares that the Emperor Wilhelm really love® France, “not from' interested or calculated motives, but instinctively and because certain qualities of’the French national temperament are good in his - eyes?'’ 'Liking, France instinctively and Paris for its beauty, the Emperor is no longer hostile to French policy,” writes the Frenchman. “I fancy that his interviews with ,Waldeck-Rossau have shown him that, besides the somewhat. conventional type of which German newspapers give us too often the caricature, there exists the serious Frenchman, steady-going, reasoning, of-balanced mind and energetic will, capable of controlling his 1 nerves and of following up a useful work with determination and steadfastness. The Elmperor takes into consideration the fact that this type of Frenchman will exercise in the future a, more decisive influence than, in the past. It may be .said that Wilhelm IL believes in the glorious future of France, and that the phrase with which he greeted our new Ambassador at Berlin implied more than a simple formality of politeness, since it agreed with the profound wish of his heart.” M. Bonnefon admits that some of the Emperor’s past actions and sayings do not appear to have been inspired by any particular affection: for France, but he suggests that there have been misunderstandings. The Emperor lov®s France,, but he naturally prefers. Germany, and if the two countries come into collision he could make, of course, only one choice. It has not been the' less interesting,” the writer adds, “to seize the flying moment during which he has appeared as a Prince who loves France, and one may hope that from these favourable dispositions there will result, not a noisy reconciliation which no one asks for, but an entente courtoise which two peoples may make* to their profit.”