TOPICS OF THE DAY.

Press, Volume LXVIII, Issue 14326, 11 April 1912, Page 6

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

A very plucky bit of A work on the part ot a Dangerous small French column in Mission. the Soudan is described in flu* '-AVestniiii.ster Gazette." Under the command of a lieutenant and a .sergeant, a small body of native sharp-shooters set out from Wadai into dangerous country to recover the body of one of the officers who fell in the 'fighting in November 1010. Tho column had the nervetrying experience of passing through the very place where a French force had been ambuscaded and cut to piecs. Indeed the Sultan of the territory actually choso this very spot for the locality of the meeting with the French force. It is an ideal place for an ambuscade, being the bed of a stream, thirty yards wide, flanked by a steep bank nnd thick scrub. Thero a former Sultan had waited to receive the French, and ono of his followers gavo tho signal for the massacre by cutting down a French officer. Onco again a Sultan awaited a French force thereTho officer halted his men a hundred yards away, and advanced alone to meet the potentate. It was a plucky nnd hazardous act, for the slightest loss of self-control might have caused a disaster, but the officer's nerve was good, and tho interview was a complete success. Tho Sultan probably stage-managed the meeting with the express purpose of testing the visiting force. Tho body of the officer who fell in 1910 was found and taken back to French territory, where it was reburied with honours by tho side of the other victims of tho disaster. Tho safe return of the expedition proves that French ascendancy in the region is complete, but this does not lessen one's sense of the courage required to carry it through, for before the expedition started the enterprise was thought to bo hazardous in the extreme. Tt was an achievement such as we should be proud to record of Englishmen.

The "Strand" lias foiConcerning lowed up its article on the tho King, which was Kaiser. written by a person in

touch with the Court and received his Majesty's approval, with an nrticlo on the Kaiser, written with similar authority and bearing a similar imprimatur. The writer is one of several people, including the late Lord Salisbury and Air AY. T. Stead, who regard the Kaiser as a man of peace. "Those who know him least" wo are told, *' refer to him as ' the ■firebrand of Europe,' but nothing could bo wider of tho mark. As a matter r,f fact he is, and always has been, a great asset towards assuring the peace of tlu* world." For England and the English people, we are assured, he has a very great liking. He has an affection for tho memory of the lato Queen Victoria that almost amounts to veneration, and he was deeply attached to King Edward. There is very considerable friendship between tho Kaiser and King George, and the two rulers exchango letters at frequent intervals. It is no news to bo told that he has a passion for letter-writing, but, whereas one thinks of him as writing impulsively, he takes great pains with his letters to other monarchs, sometimes spending an hour or two writing and re-writing one of them. It is news, however, to bo told that there is ono subject of which he fraukly confesses his ignorance. • This is finance, of which his knowledge is only elementary. "Retrenchment" ib a word that is anathema to tho Emperor, and neither in his public nor his private life does ho pauso to consider the expense into which he is running. His private income is, of course, very considerable, but there liavo been times When he has been distinctly hard-up, and his "Ministers and responsible advisers havo been hard put to it to provide sufficient sums to enable him to carry out the schemes upon which he has embarked.'' His Majesty is a tremendous worker, doing w-ith very littlo sleep, rising early, and working liis largo staff of secretaries so hard that they have difficulty in keeping pace with him. A good story is told of the Emneror and Cecil Rhodes, for whom the Kaiser had a great admiration. Rhodes tried his hardest to persuade tho Emperor to cede a smallstrip of German East Africa, so that his great ambition of a Cape-to-Cniro line through British territory might be realised. The Emperor, however, was inflexible upon the point. ''I wiil find a way somehow," said Rhodes during the discussion. The Emperor looked at him rather curiously. "There aro only two persons in the world entitled to say • I will ' in that emphatic manner, and T am one of them," ho remarked. Rhodes smiled broadly. "That is quite right," he retorted; "I am tho other one." Tho Kaiser no doubt, enjoyed the reply. Alouarchs are rarely spoken to like that, and when they are tho experience is refreshing. IT- - ~

AVp gave in these Unconquered columns some weeks Ignorance. ago some extraordinary results of examinations of French recruits, going to show that the average young Frenchman was amazingly ignorant of history and geography. A French writer of apparent standing hits supplemented • theso by giving the "Temps" an account of a conversation he had with a village boy who had just won school prizes in these subjects. The writer asked the boy some questions as they returned from a day's shooting. Joan of Arc was described as "a woman who dressed up as a man to fight the English": Henry IAY, as "a man who fought in his father's courtyard with young country louts," and Portugal as "next door to Switzerland." He had very vague ideas about the Revolution, appeared to know nothing about Napoleon Wyond that he was "in the Republic," and thought

his examine,- was joking when he said England „. ls _„' j s t nlK ]. ]*~,. much more arnusj,],- than this ignorance is a fierce dispute the writer overheard between two young wa slier worn. n. "Go along, you a**:.,, it an!" -said one. using the mo.t offensive expression she knew. The other was silent with rage for a moment, and then came out with a crusliing retort. "You Joan of Arc!" After that hair bewail to fly. Poor ,-chool history! Geography had its humiliation when the writer met an intelligent lad whose brother had been ..•erring in -Madagascar. The lad said that his brother had returned, and that it had taker, him thirty-three days to come, home, as against twenty-seven to go out. "How was that-" Had he bad weather:-"' ••Oh. no! Only in coming home, they were going up hill, so of course they went slower." A'et maybo this boy was taught by a patient, callable, and' enthusiastic master.