FRENCH AND ENGLISH

Evening Post, Volume CXXV, Issue 148, 25 June 1938, Page 26

FRENCH AND ENGLISH

THE KING'S yiSIT

INTELLECT AND SENTIMENT

I TRIBUTES TO FRANCE

i (Written tor the "Evening Port" by AJtf.)

-The King goes to France next week, and there will be days of elaborate ceremonial and entertainment. Once again the political relations between England and France, will be canvassed; what does France want from her neighbour, and what is that neighbour prepared to give? Will England march if Czechoslovakia is attacked?. Mingled with these speculations there be references to the cultural ties between the two. countries, 1 ties that go "right back beyond the Norman Conquest to Caesar's Gaul. And the question is sure ta be asked, why don't the French and English understand each other better? It came as a shock to some of us to learn that when our troops went as conquerors to the Rhine, there were those who liked the Germans better than the French. This really illustrated what is a pretty common experience, that we may not like those with whom we agree in opinion, whereas we may like those with whom we profoundly disagree. Since then much has happened. France's policy towards Germany has failed; Germany has risen again, strong and determined; and England and France await the possibility of another crisis similar to 1914. What is this France with which our fortunes are linked, and now does it differ from England?

A BATCH OF WAITERS. I do not presume to answer such a huge question in one' article, nor would I be competent to do so if I had half a dozen to write, but I have been browsing among writers who have dealt with France and England, and some of the points I have noted about the intellectual differences between the countries may be oi interest. I have; looked up Kipling's tribute: | Strictest judge of her own worth, gentlest of man's mind, — ■ First to follow Truth and last to leave old Truths behind— I Trance, beloved of every soul that loves its fellow-kind; .. : *, ' This, be it remembered, was written before the war cemented the entente with'so much blood. "We have learned by keenest use to know each other's mind," says Kipling, but have we, even today? I have renewed acquaintance with Mr. Wickham Steed's "Through Thirty Years," which "contains an account of the education of that distinguished journalist - and publicist in Germany, and Franc*, and for-this and other reasons should be read by everyone, really interested in European affairs. I have rooted out J. E. C. Bodley, whose' "France" is the best book; of the"kind written in Englishcorresponding to Bryce's "American Commonwealth'—and those incomparFrench studies ~of" English char* acter, "The Silences -of Colonel Bramble" and "General Bramble," by Andre Maurois, which .are in danger of being swamped in public remembrance by his later studies of historical Englishrnen. I doubt if anyone has done niofe vof recent years to bridge thd'gulf "between the two peoples than this sympathetic Frenchman. He laughs at the English he meets in the war, but he loves themA *. -■.■■.•,-^.;, v '-''

You; certainly are a curious folk, and your t summing-up of - men la occasionally surprising. * "Brown," you say, 'we thoughjf. an idiot, but \ we were wrong: 'he-has played "cricket for £s- 1 sex."[Or again: "At Etqn we-took him for j an Imbecile", but.at Oxford lie, "gave us a big surprise. Just Imagine it—plus four at golf, ] and fifty-three feet In the long dlte." I lihave often chuckled at Colonel * bramble's rebuke to the Major when t the Major said that to bombard open I towns was almost, as unpardonable as , to fish for trout' with a wbrrA, or to s shootj a fox.-/' You needn't exaggerate, i Parker," replied the Colonel coldly, i "They haven't gone as far as that yet." 1 But I chuckled still more when I read i an almost .exact, parallel to this in ( Commander £enworthy's autobio- i graphy. It was" in vain that the Com- \ mander, tried to interest young Con- \ servative; M.P.s in the excesses of the \ Blacks and Tans in Ireland, but when ] he fold-them "that someone had been y dynamiting"salmon in h'is Irish waters j they >i#ere'furious. > ITOE FRENCH INTELLECT. i We-have shed some of our. ideas ] about'the French. The picture of the 1 Frenchman as a small gesticulating J person with a pointed moustache and 1 an;"lmperial," who eats frogs—that is, i the comic Frenchman—has faded. So, I ■< hope, has the French conception of the ' Englishwoman as a skinny frump. New i Zealariders who served in France know ; well that all Frenchmen are not small." i But the old idea of a Frenchman as a • rather light-minded person of unstable , character persists. The truth is that , the Frenchman is;a;very serious person, only his seriousness is different from the Briton's. The failure of the two peoples to understand-one another is mainly, a matter of temperament. The Englishman is a sentimentalist and a bit of a mystic; the Frenchman is a realist. (I dislike generalisations as perilous things, but this one may be risked.) The Frenchman, says Mr. Wickham Steed, takes an intellectual view of life; the German an organised and systematic view; .the Englishman mainly ah instinctive and empirical view. ;It is this intellectual quality in the Frenchman that I would stress here. It crops out strongly, in the authorities I have been' reading. The Englishman tends to suspect and despise intellect, and Heaven knows that intellectuals give him some reason for doing so. His' inconsistencies are bewildering und .misleading.. . X*£. Frenchman 4s logical, and his society seethes 1 with- ideas: I met an Englishman once who went over With the Expeditionary Force in 1914 as an interpreter and stayed far France for the whole of the war, never once going home on leave. He did so because he liked France, and I gathered that he particularly liked the French mind, with its eagerness for ideas. He contrasted the talk in a French mess with the talk in an English mess. In France criticism has a.sharper edge than anywhere else. When Mr. Steed left Germany, the first stage in his preparation for journalism, he thought he had found wisdom, but in France he had his mind turned inside out. During his probation there everything he said, beginning with his pronunciation, was taken up and examined mercilessly, and not until he had justified himself thoroughly was he really admitted to the ' set. with whom he mingled. The picture he gives of an intellectual society, without shams, intent on the truth, -tireless in its pursuit and acute in its penetration, is profoundly', interesting. Impressed though he wa» j by the German spirit, he judged the be finer. THE BOOKS OF FRANCE. This widespread and persistent occupation with the intellectual is seen in the realm of books. Professor Walter

Murdoch, coming to Paris from Italy a few years afeO,' noted that whereas he had not found a single second-hand bookshop in Home, there were more books to the.acre in the stalls and ■shops on or hear the banks of the Seine than to ten square miles of any other .part: of the world. He conceded; that'the: Italians had climbed higher in letters than the French, but to realise the true genius of France one must consider not masterpieces but the national intelligence as a whole.

For many hundreds of years, as these musty bookstalls remind us, the brain of France has been incessantly, indefatlgably at work; the busy, brilliant, agile brain that Is interested 'in everything, that is ready •to follow every argument whithersoever it may lead. I ten you, much as I love Italy and the Italians, it Is a different atmosphere.one breathes when one comes out of Italy into France; it is like coming out of a nursery—where the children are very delightful children—into a-roomful of grown-up people, where there is rational conversation on every conceivable topic and ideas play freely round everything In heaven and earth. ~.,-. ' It is a "characteristicl of this. people, .who "think-for themselves, and are prepared to think for the world, too, that they have si deep, respect for their own language and use it with high &verag6 skill'. :3t seems; to be generJ iliy agreed 'that the 4 ' Standard 'of spoken and written language and that of literary ; taste generally is higher in France than in England. The Frenchman takes a pride in his expression of ideas. °* Dorothy Sayers's short stories Lord Peter Wimsey overhears a Frenchwoman use tne word "un" instead of "une," and on the strength of this follows her to London, where she proves to be a professional male criminal in disguise. On his arrest the Frenchman finds_ consolation in having been detected by one acquainted with the niceties of "our incomparable language.

No matter how unsympathetic a ] trade be he politician, lawyer, financier, or functionary, he rartly institute of literary lnlllnct or conscience, knowing the reasons why 1 he admires or ought to admire the masterpieces ] of hlflanguaKe Such gifts wo should do well to cultivate. 'So says Bodley. For similar standards in England, note the satires of ( A P Herbert and others. The Domm- : ions have nothing to boast about, save that, taking populations right through, their general average of expression may be- higher, than it is in the Motherland. THIS FREEDOM. All this has a bearing on the clash ] of political idealism today. we are ■ rather too apt to think of the struggle . for freedom as beginning and ending at : the ballot box, whereas it is really ■ much wider. The systems m the authoritarian States regulate thought and expression. The freedom of discusaon that is characteristic of French civilisation an ideal that becomes a positive . pSn and in politics leads tc.weakness.is at the opposite pole from the strict regimentation of certain other countries It is a condition of democracy and cannot flourish, or even extst under other forms of Goyern•ment 'Like th« democracy of which it "a part, this vital aspect of Frances ; culture is in danger from forces within and without. DICTATORS AND "DEALS" "Maria Theresa's great Foreign Minister Prince Kaunitz, once said, it is prodigious how much the English do : not know of Europe!" But under the stimulus of recent events British opinion is more alive to problems of foreign policy than ever before. For this reason many will welcome Professor R.i.,W. Seton-Watson's new book, "Britain and Dictators,", which the Cambridge university; Press has pub- ; lished. The book is an attempt to extract fromvthe, crowded chronicles of trie last two decades'the essence of the issue's •involved} to seek an explanation for. the present-state of our relations ; with Europe, and in ■ particular Germany, and to analyse the choices that lie before us. The invasion of Austria and Mr. Chamberlain's -, speech of March 24 are dealt with in an epilogue. The German "realist" standpoint, surveying the world problems of today irMhe light of history, is. represented in" Herr von Kuhlmann's "Heritage of Yesterday" (Hodge). This is offered as a dispassionate survey by the former German Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, now retired from active politics, tracing the changing fortunes of the" Great .Powers from the ■'< days vof Napoleon'tp-the present time. The English edition, .an introduction- to which has bfen contributed 'by Lord Lothian, has; just appeared. _ opportune book is Dr. Kurt von- Schuschnigg's "Farewell, Austria," which Cassells have published. It was published in Austria a few months ago and is an extremely.lucid history of that country, its internal affairs, and relations with; the outside world since the end of the Great War. The ex-Chancellor describes vividly the collapse of Austria in the immediate -post-war years, her.various appeals to" the League of Nations for financial aid, the riots in Vienna', the internal dissensions, and then the gradual change for the better that took place in the country. One very vivid chapter describes the events leading up to and following the assassination of Dr. Dolfuss. These are admirable penportraits of such famous Austrian figures as Major Fey. Prince Starhemberg, Cardinal Innitzer, Seipel, Scho- ; ber, etc. Of special interest are Schuschnigg's descriptions of meetings with Hitler and Mussolini. Important appendices now included give ver- ', batim reports of Dr. Schuschnigg's last \ speeches to his countrymen. How President Roosevelt's "Deals" i are organised is explained for the man-in-the-street.as well as for the legal reader in a new book coming shortly i from Longmans on' "The American i Constitution," by Six Maurice Amos, the well-known Judicial expert. Sir i Maurice, who has been Judicial Ads, viser. to. more .than Pfle . GPvernment, 'here analyses the American Govern- ■ mental system, his book being divided • into six section's:' the Origins, the Pre- ■ sident. The Congress, The Federal ■ Judiciary, The - Cdrftmerce' Clause; The I Contract Clause, The Fourteenth ! Amendment, and The New Deal. An i account is given.of-the three major " measures of President Roosevelt's Ad- " ministration.

KEEPING UP TO DATE A bridge between one edition of an encyclopaedia and another is becoming increasingly desirable, so rapidly do things, political," scientific, and otherwise, alter. The "Encyclopaedia Britanhica" plans, therefore, to bring out every year a volume dealing with the events, personalities, and developments of the preceding'year; The first such annual volume has just been issued, and there can be no question as to its value as a work of reference, either by itself or in conjunction with the parent work. Such important facts as Mr. Eden's resignation are included, although they belong to the current year's events. Particularly strong is the science section wherein the latest theories are expounded, and a useful diary of events prefaces the encyclopaedic material-