NEWS FROM FRANCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 18 April 1940, Page 3

NEWS FROM FRANCE

COMMENTARY ON RECENT EVENTS THE GREAT BRITISH NAVY. MR SUMNER WELLES'S VISIT. (From Our Paris Correspondent.) PARIS. March 1, 1940. The Altmark action, with the rescue of British seamen from the prisonship by the gallant crew of the Cossack was as cheering a bit of news for the French ns for the British, and all French newspapers, which splashed the story on front pages, accompanied it by expressions of satisfaction and admiration for the great British Navy and its living up to traditions. In no country in the world is admiration for the British Navy greater than in France. With its coast so close to that of England, and its sailors in the seas of its empire constantly meeting our own. France knows our navy well. The French, too, are fully able to judge, for they themselves are no mean sailors. The greater pari of their crews is recruited from the coast regions of Brittany, where every man is the son of a son of a sailor, so that on every French warship there is an important framework constituted by real seamen born to the sea. The French Navy has , played a worthy part in the war. and one of its destroyers, the Siroco, is top-scorer in the destruction of enemy submarines. After the British soldiers who are growing more numerous in the streets of Paris, enjoying short leave, we are beginning to see a few members of the British women’s units in uniform. While the feminine uniform is smarter than that of the WACS in the last war. the French pass it over in silence. Somehow the French don't take much to the idea of women in uniform, and they feel, the women will tell you. that as soon as a woman puts on attire in any way masculine she at once loses something of her feminine charm. There are tens of thousands of French women working in munitions and airplane ' factories, but while they are compell-

•ed to wear overalls like men they I never lose the distinctly feminine touch, and a French woman in uniform is to them unthinkable. During the very heavy snow falls, one saw hardly half a dozen women in ski trousers, although with the extension of winter sports in Franco very largo numbers of women have ski outfits in their wardrobes. Mr Chamberlain has made one more speech, dignified and logical, and we were all free in Paris to tune in and listen to Hitler’s ranting, screaming discourse. Great. Britain and France are anxious not to annihilate Germany. but to end once for all the terrible threat of war, a threat that in France is all the harder to endure since the land of the aggressor touches its own fertile fields, with no divid-

ing'strip of protecting sea. Marching battalions, a nation trained in systematic hate, the possibility any time these last, five - years of the barriers being ruthlessly thrown down and the red torrent let loose on the fields of France —such has been the nightmare in which the French have had to live. With our protecting stretch of sea we always have time to recover in case of an adverse blow, whereas the French have had to live witli the knowledge that one single hour might treacherously bring overnight irrepar-, able disaster. It is an end of that threat that France wants to see. and to have an assurance that she will be able to lead her own peaceful life her own peaceful way. Frenchmen generally look forward to a great era after the war. owing to the system of Franco-British co-opera-tion that is taking shape. 11 is felt that the great mistake of the last peace treaty was that it was too much the work of politicians and too little the work of economists. The British have fully realised this, it is stated here, and tire elaborating a plan of

co-operation, first of France and Great Britain, that will make all nations want to enter as it were into what will prove an economically advantageous League of Nations, and Germany in turn will find that contracts are better than camion. This, however, is the work of tomorrow. Today is full of uglj' realities, but France, like Great Britain, is determined that no peace plans will be discussed that are not preceded by j definite guarantees. One of lhe mi- ; pleasant, realities of today is the serious position in which the Scandin- ■ avian States find themselves, and in French official circles it is considered ( that they will soon realise that the ; only hope of salvation is in a definite ( Scandinavian understanding and deter- i mination to act toge.ther. It is pointed ] out that the Balkan danger has grown < considerably less since the Balkan i States held their recent congress, when t they decided to sink all differences ; and present a united front against any J external threat. i

Mr Sumner Welles's visit to Europe is being watched with interest, but little is hoped to come from it. What will be said to Mr Sumner Welles in France and in Great Britain we can all imagine. The French declare that Mr Welles is going to find an impossible Germany, for the Nazis are in such a position that they can make no concessions on any point.

News reels of two highly important recent incidents, the return of the rescued British seamen from lhe Altmark and the arrival in Egypt of the first contingent of Australian troops, have given rise to a certain apprehension. Both the rescued seamen and many of the Australian troops are seen 1o be giving the closed-fist. Communist salute. French audiences are perplexed and wonder whether the seamen and the soldiers keep their fist closed in order not to appeal' to be making a Fascist open-hand salute. Il seems incredible that mon released from the clutches of the allies of Stalin should express their joy by making the Communist salute. So close is the alliance between the Nazis and the Soviets that

the only Communist propaganda now reaching France is conveyed by the Germans, whose aviators drop Communist tracts over different parts of France. It is certain that no Soviet ship would have called upon the Altmark to give up its prisoners and show the same respect for international law as the commander of the Graf von Spec did when his ship entered Montevideo with British prisoners on board. One feels distinctly, sitting amidst a French audience, that this closed-fist business leaves an unpleasant impression. Communism is so completely discredited in France, after the acrobatics of lhe party that wanted war when we tried moderation at Munich, and then clamoured tor peace when wo wanted to go to the rescue' of Poland, that the French spectators of those news reels are perplexed and. it is only fair to say it. somewhat un-

In the world of sport nothing has given greater satisfaction than the reopening of international Rugby between Great Britain and France, when representative fifteens of the British and French Armies met at .the Parc des Princes. Paris, on February 25. Since the breaking off of relations between the Rugby circles of Great Britain and France the game deteriorated sadly in France, and it was felt the English attitude was rather harsh. However, all's well that ends wel], as one realised at the mighty' cheer that greeted the kick-oil'. Incidentally, and as some idea of the extent to which the French have taken up sports, the Pare des Princes, where the match was played, is one of no fewer than six football and athletic grounds set next to one another at the gales of Paris. It. is there that during the season one can see people on one side of the street paying to go in to watch a Rugby match and on the other side others paying to go in to watch an Association game.