The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1913. THE NEW FRANCE.

Auckland Star, Volume XLIV, Issue 47, 24 February 1913, Page 4

The Auckland Star. WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 24, 1913. THE NEW FRANCE.

■ m For the cause that lacks asaiatmneo. For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the mood that voe oa*> do.

Some thirty years ago one of the most accomplished literary men of the later Victorian era created a sensation in literary circles with an article on the "Disenchantment of France." The writer, who knew Franco and the French people intimately, declared tliat the great French nation was deifinitely "on the down grade." Materially it was still powerful and prosperous; but the people had lost their traditional beliefs and enthusiasms. They were hopelessly disillusioned with life in general and their own country in particular, and thus the signs of social, political, and national decadence were extending with alarming raj.idity on every side. The France of the last 20 years of the nineteenth century, according to this writer, had lost faith in religion, it no longer thrilled with patriotic fervour, and the cynical scepticism which was one of its most dangerous legacies from the Revolution had oaten deep into the heart of the nation's ideals. Without faith in themselves, and without hope in the destiny of their country, the Frenchmen of that generation certainly deserved "to be called decadent. But, in spite of the ability displayed in this criticism and the subtlety of the analysis to which it subjected French national life and character, there must have been some essential elements in the problem that escaped the writer altogether. For to-day it is almost impossLble to recognise France or its people in this picture, accurate as it was thirty years ago; and asuredly if F. W. H. Myers were alive now he would be among the first to recognise that his gloomy predictions have been disproved, and that the people of France have passed through a regeneration which has left t-hem a new nation in word and in deed. Onr readers will have observed from time to time of late cable messages drawing attention to the revival of patriotism in France, the enthusiasm displayed by the people over the army and navy, and the strength and fervour of the national demonstrations in favour of a "forward"' policy at home and abroad. Certainly one of the most significant facts of contemporary life is the resurrection in France of that spirit of militant selfconfidence which onco rendered Napoleon's great victories possible, and raised his country to the highest rank among the nations of Europe. Not only is patriotism resurgent in France to-day, but it has made possible the reconstruction of those forces on which the safety of a nation must always ultimately depend. The army has been worked up to a high pitch of efficiency; its artillery and cavalry are said to be unsurpassed in Europe; the morale and discipline of the rank and file have never stood so high. The navy, having recovered from its temporary eclipse of twenty years back, is now one of the most formidable fightin» fleets in the world; and both army and navy have as auxiliaries the bestequipped fleet of airships yet organised. Moreover, France has at her command not only all requisite warlike weapons, but the sinews of war. She is "the money-lender of Europe," able to dictate her own financial terms to her poorer neighbours. The thrift and industry of her people have placed her in a position of unassailable financial security, and her wealth is the envy of the Germans, who have striven in vain to break down the national prejudice against them and to secure quotation of their loans in Paris. All these things have naturally combined to give the French people renewed confidence in themselves. The bold front that France presented in Morocco and during the Algeciras and Agadir negotiations against German aggression would have been incredible thirty years ago; and the recent appointment of __, DaJfcasse to the embassy at St. Petersburg is as definite a challenge to Germany to _o her worst as the most patriotic Chauvinist of the Boulevards could desire. But all these signs are but the outward and visible demonstration of a change that _as been taking place within the last decade in the French people themselves. In some mysterious way the whole tone of French thought and the spirit of French literature have undergone a transformation- The generation which has gone into raptures over "Marie Claire" and "Jean Christophe" can have very little in common the society that Zola scourged, or with the people for whom the Realists and Impressionists of the last years of the nineteenth century purveyed their cynical pornography. In some marvellous fashion, perhaps as the result of that tendency toward reaction which is one of the most permanent charac-

teri-tics of human nature, the French people have regained something of that lore of simplicity, of purity, and of idealistic fervour that are the marks of all the highest forms of literary and artistic achievement. The soul of the nation is being purified; and we may well believe that it is no mere accident that this spiritual regeneration has been accompanied by a great outburst of national enthusiasm for the culture of the body as well as of the mind. Perhaps the most remarkable feature of social existence in modern France is the vogue that athletics have atts-ined. Thirty years ago the rising generation in France had little conception of the close relation that Englishmen have been taught to believe exists between sound minds and sound bodies. To-day every form of athletic sport, from boxing to lawn tennis, from cycling to football, is enthusiastically followed in France; and we may be forgiven for cherishing the conviction that not the least potent influence in effecting this great transformation in the nation's life has been this newborn devotion to athletic exercise, which Englishmen have to thank for some of their best national characteristics, and which was so long confined to our nation alone.