A FRIEND OF FRANCE.

Hawera & Normanby Star, Volume XLIV, Issue XLIV, 8 May 1924, Page 8

A FRIEND OF FRANCE.

THANKS TO ARCHBISHOP REDWOOD.

Archbishop Redwood has received the following letter from the French Con-sul-General^ at Auckland: | "I had not failed on the occasion of your jubilee celebrations to forward to you my respectful felicitations as representative of France in New Zealand arid dependencies, representative of a country where Your Grace finished his religious studies already well begun under the care of French Marist missionaries in this distant land. ,"I can congratulate myself on this happy initiative, of which I received a printed acknowledgment, since I am now requested by Jl.Fi. M. Raymond Poincare, President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs in France, to express to you, on the occasion of your recent jubilee, the felicitations of the French Government, which views with satisfaction the good work accomplished by Your Grace in this Dominion to bring your countrymen to a knowledge of the true part played by France in the affairs of the world. "I am particularly happy to perform this pleasant duty *on behalf of the French Cabinet and its eminent President, and can only hope that the services rendered by Your Grace to the French cause will not go unrecognised by the country in whose interests you have so often used both pen and speech.'' Speaking to a Dominion reporter, the Rev. Dean Regnault stated that ever since Archbishop Redwood had landed in France as a young man in 1854 for the purpose of completing the studies already begun in New Zealand under Father Garin, he had been a faithful friend of France and its people. He got on so well that before he had completed his first scholastic year in France he took first prize for French essays. - "Since then," said Dean Regnault, "Archbishop Redwood has kept up his French, and he understands French politics as well as any statesman. He has always been a friend of the French Government and its people." After the war, continued Dean Regnault, there was a good deal of ignorance displayed regarding the French policy in the Ruhr, and many of the New Zealand papers published articles attacking France. Archbishop Redwood published a long article in The Tablet, explaining the whole position "It was," declared Dean Regnault, "the cleverest and most lucid explanation of the French nolicy I have read m any French or English newspaper. This article attracted worldwide attention, and in due course was ! published in the leading iournals of the French capital, and naturally won the gratitude of the French nation. One Parisian journal voiced the thanks of the French people to Archbishop Redwood for his clear exposition of the subject. This is how it comes about that M. Poincare has conveyed the thanks of the French people to His Grace."