PARIS LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume XXXIV, Issue 2781, 10 May 1890, Page 6 (Supplement)

PARIS LETTER.

(t'ROM OUR OWN CORRESPONDENT).

Paris, February 1. For all practical purposes the AngloPortuguese dispute may bo viewed as terminated. While it was in the eruptive volcanic stage there was no certainty where tho lava might have streamed to, or the vomited stones and mud have fallen. Then England did not go into tantrums over the street politics of Lisbon and Oporto. The heavy journals here still coutinuo to give Grotius and Pufendorff advice to the Portuguese that they have a good case for appeal, while the light press indulge in screeching and wordiness. The French and Portuguese are on a par as to tho comprehension of the dispute; the latter were kept in ignorance by the late Ministry as to the merits of the case, and the former refuses to examine them. It was Captain Trivier of the colonial coasting trade, a Frenchman who has just "boated" across South Africa from Loango to Quelimane, a known route, that reverts the honour of winding-up the Anglo-Latin race conflict in the region of the Zambesi. He received from Major Pinto a glowing account of how the latter gatlinised fine bow and arrow Makololos, mowing them down iu swards of 170, like earn by a McCormick reaper. This knocked the bottom out of all poetio parallels between the strong and the weak. " Don't shoot, Colonel; I'll come down," said the historical coon to the American Colonel. " Don't grind the Gatlin, Major ; we'll back down." The Makololo chief, M'laore, should have appealed to Pinto. As old Kaspar would say, "It was a glorious victory."

The Portuguese did not rise to the proposal of a federation with Spain, or perhaps with France, and form an opposition triple alliance. France and Spaiu do not recall sunny memories to Portugal; twice they attempted to vivisectionizo her, and a scalded cat dreads cold water. The Portuguese were willing to cut English goods, and to deal exclusively with Spain and France, only the latter's prices were in excess, and chauvinism collapsed. Then they declined to buy anything in return from Portugal, not wanting her products. This all on tho one side reciprocity killed tho boycotting outright. It is to be hoped, that the milrcis the Portuguese have collected to buy a sword of honour—type Monsieur Proudhorame to demolish or defend his country—for Major Pinto, and some ironclads to wipe out the British navy, will be invested in opening up the Zambesi; in choking the slave trade; and working hand in hand with the commercial and civilising efforts of her old defender and close neighbour, England.' And representing the siren advances of the Latins, to study the philosophy of " Codlin's the friend, not Short." That will be their death— " Nell."

The Chamber of Deputies has appointed sits big Custom Tarrifis Commission of 55 members. May thero be luck in odd numbers and wisdom in the multitude of councillors. This body holds the future of France in its hands, 44 members are syllabus-protectionists; some 5 paleoutological free traders ; and the rest dub themselves "Solutioniste,"the better to represent the insoluble. They are neither fish nor flesh, nor good red herring. To judge by her representatives, four-fifths of the population of France are protectionist, and this, after essaying the Cobden treaty. Ido not thiuk the question of big loaf or httle loaf sways the nation much. France is essentially an agricultural country, double the area, for example, of the United Kingdom, with a population as extensive, and compelled notwithstanding to import bread-stuffs. She expends annually 1,423,000,000fr. in the purchase of foreign meat alone. Protection, as presented to the French, is taxing importations, the stranger to make up the national revenue. Where the shoe will ultimately pinch France, and so indirectly the cost of living, will be her defeat in the foreign markets ; and her foothold there already is weak. The wage earner must be paid higher ; this must augment the price of goods for distant markets. She is already handicapped by the longer hours of labour and the child work of Germany ; then the cheap coal and iron of England, with her larger machinery plants, are advantages France does not command. The Commission will have no more commercial treaties; it will frame a maximum and minimum tariff—the sheep on one side, the goats ou the other. The former will be so regarded, as they give much and ask little. No favours will be granted outside a material give and take nature ; no sentimental concessions will be made to Latin sisters ; they will be treated as simple Anglo-Saxons or Teutons ; no reduction will be made even in the name of liberty, equality or fraternity to even Russia or the United States of Brazil.

Colonel Stoffel obtained a name for himself in the disasters of 1870-71. He proved to be a true and loyal friend of France, by informing Napoleon 111., of the exact and superior armaments of Prussia. These report* were found afterwards in the Tuileries, unopened ; the Colonel had the reputation of telling impalatable truths. The King of Bavaria also never opened despatches. Colonel Stoffel now comes forward as.a " solutionist," he advocates an alliance between France and Germany, as the only means to maintain the peace of Europe, and to beat back the Western advance of Russia. Germany has only to present to France the amputated proviuces, and so ensure the eternal friendship of the Gauls. France wants something else, perhaps the chief want, besides Alsace and Lorrain ; she needs the restoration of her supremacy, of her prestige in Europe. Will Germany consent to be second fiddle ? That's the question. The Colonel does patriotic work, not in making irreconcUiables cherubim and seraphim, which is a Byzantine pastime, but in warning the French not to rely on the Russian rod and staff, for their salvation. In any case, the Colonel seems to take the legendary fee, faw fum view of Russia; he ought to know, that is not the view of those military strategists, who would be charged to smash up Russia, for she can never close all the rivets in her armour. Nations become allies; not from sentiment, but from the tangible interests that can be weighed and measured, and the enemies of one nation tend to ally. Thero is an affinity of hate as there is of love.

The drawings for the Exhibition Tombala has commenced. It seems to be a very complicated affair. I took a passing glance at the crowded hall of the Hotel de Ville, where the wheels and tubes of fortune are at work. The multitndo of up-tarned faces wore mostly servants, old men and nurses and mothers, with children in their arms, all of whom had their daily stimulant peep at the Morgue Slabs before arriving to see if they will ran any of the thousands of prizes, from a penny doll up to the river of diamonds, valued at 200,000fr, The late storm has blown down a goodly slice of the ruins of the Palace of St. Cloud. The principal theatre of Nice has brought out Glinka's patriotic opera— La Vie pour le Tsar. All tho critics loft Paris to report on the work; perhaps not so much to examine its merits as to join in the political manifestation of sympathy for a Russian alliance that the occasion afforded. The enthusiasm was next to the delirious, and far surpassed the ovations in 1854 at Paris for the " Eng. lish " alliance 0 tempora ! 0 mores !