The Lyttelton Times. THURSDAY, DEC 14, 1893.

Lyttelton Times, Volume LXXX, Issue 10220, 14 December 1893, Page 4

The Lyttelton Times. THURSDAY, DEC 14, 1893.

The most complacent British optimist must surely have been impressed by the recent unanimity of the French Press in anathematising lee perfides Anglais , and by M. Zola’s frank announcement of the hatred felt by the French people for England and the English. The real cause for wonder is, not that this feeling exists, but that Englishmen should be found so blind to its existence as to advocate bridging, by means of the Channel tunnel, the silver streak that separates tho two countries. During the past quarter of a century, an idea has grown up in England that because France, instead of being our open enemy, has fought beside us in the Crimea, in China and elsewhere, and because her eyes have of late been primarily fixed on the recovery of her ravished provinces, her old feelings towards as are completely obliterated, and that our only possible danger is to bo looked for in the more recently arisen Bnsaian spectre. Yet, if there is such a thing as continuity in political history, if the phrase national memory has any meaning, it must be a mere “wish father to the thought ” kind of reasoning to expect a proud sensitive nation to forgpt its hereditary foe. who has wrested from it two vast empires in the New World, and whose successful Colonial enterprise and commerce mock French failures in every part of the globe. A glance at the history of the two last centuries will show us what it is that France is expected to forget. Between 1688 and 1816 England was engaged in seven great wars, in every one of which, no matter who else were her opponents, France was always one of them. From 1740 to 1763, in particular, we may be said to have been engaged in a life and death .struggle with France for supremacy in the New World. The opening of the period found her seated on the St Lawrence and the Mississippi, with every prospect of owning half a great continent. It found Dapleix busily engaged in founding a great French Colony in India, on the ruins of the old Mogul Empire. It was Dapleix who taught us to conquer in India by using the rival races against one another, and making India conquer herself. The victories of Olive, Coote and Wolfe decided for ever the question of supremacy, and the Peace of Paris shattered the dream of French Empire in the New World. Twenty years later France took her revenge for Canada in helping to create the United States, and it was towards India that Napoleon looked to strike at England during the wars of the Devolution.

All this France has to forget before she can shake hands with us over Waterloo, and the question is, not whether she ought to have forgotten it, nor whether we should have done so if we had been ,in her place, but also whether, as a matter of fact, she hasforgotteu. A brief review of the most salient indications of national feeling during the last fifty years will serve to show, not only that her people have steadily borne us a grudge, but also that modern English smog complacency on the subject is of comparatively recent growth. Men still living can remember how, in 1840, M. Thiers, at the head of an excited public, screamed for war against England, who, in subduing Mohammed Ali, of Egypt, for the Sultan of Turkey, was said to he aiming at securing Egypt for herself. Five years later we were nearly at war over the ridiculous question of the Protectorate of Tahiti, and over the arrest of our Consul Pritchard. The closing years' of Louis Philippe’s reign were marked

King” in England owing to his famous Spanish marriage scheme,' which might easily have lad to war. ; In fact, national feeling ran very high during the forties, and was reflected on the stage of the day. The warsong of the Parisian opera Charley VI. found its echo in the London pantomime of King Peppin, in which the Gallic cock and British lion were represented as menacing each other at the hack of the stage while their respective monarches were interchanging compliments in the foreground. The fall of the Monarchy brought no improvement, and in 1850 we found the Branch Ambassador actually recalled from London owing to a quarrel about the absurd claims of Don Pacifico upon the Greek Government. Then arose the Second Empire, and the cry iEor the reorganisation of our national militia, which overthrew Lord John Bussell, and showed how Englishmen of that day feared a revival of the Napoleonic legend, so essentially military and iso eminently hostile to England, Napoleon himself proved a good ally to us, but it is certain that his subjects held that he had been made the catspaw of England in the Crimean War. This made itself evident on the occasion of ‘Victoria’s visit to the Paris Exhibition of 1855, when, amid numerous cries of “ Vive la Beine.”- not one was heard of “ Vive V Angleterre,” and when Parisians spoke openly of “ Waterloo arrange, mais non pas venge .” Shortly after the Crimean War the attempt of Orsini to murder the Emperor brought down a storm of vituperation on the country which sheltered assassins, and the idea that Palmerston was truckling to French dictation in his Conspiracy Bill sufficed to overthrow his Ministry —the second which had fallen a victim to international jealousy. As late as 1862 Palmerston wrote; “We have on the other side of the Channel a people who, say what they may, hate us from the bottom of their hearts. It is natural that this should be eo.” Then came the PrancoPrussian War, when Prance was robbed of. her “sacred soil,” and England permitted the sacrilege. Since then Prance has been nursing her strength against Germany, but she has not forgotten that we contented' ourselves with looking on in the hour of her need. Por twenty years she has sat as the political wallflower of Europe, but to-day we see her hysterically exhibiting her newly-found Eartner, by whose aid she probably opes to regain her former place in the eyes of the world. And if we now find her a thorn in our side in Egypt, in Africa, in the Pacific, or in Indo-China, where she is founding a new empire, in the place of the one over which our Queen now rules as Empress, we may find much cause for annoyance, but assuredly we ought to find none for surprise.

As Christmas draws near, and the need for “ prize money ” begins to be felt, the public are treated to the usual succession of school concerts. These entertainments are seemingly enjoyable, both to the juveniles who take part in them and to the proud fathers and fond mothers who form no inconsiderable portion of the audiences, Their success goes far to disprove the insinuation sometimes made, that our public schools are! incapable of anything but ‘‘cram/' The so-called concerts are of a 1 somewhat miscellaneous Mud. They vary from the humbler perform-' ances of the smaller schools, which' perhaps remind one of the giddy revels of a Band of Hope, to the, “spectacular plays” of some city, schools, where the onlooker may behold, by limelight, the adventure* of pretty heroines and the twinkling feet of scores of fairies. W© under-, stand, however, that there is a le**’ cheerful aspect of the subject. Christmas has come and gone, the prize’ fund has been raised and spent, and instead of the mirthful mood of the holiday season there is a certain anxious looking forward to the examination. Instead of anticipating the jovial face of Father Christmas, teachers and taught are alike awaiting the advent of the examiner, a man possibly austere and exac ting by virtue of his office.

To most children, this looking forward to the day of examination must be quite as bad as that hope deferred which, we are told, “ maketh the heart sick.” And we may imagine that even the teacher himself must give way to the depressing influence. A growing dread of the eventful day must be ever present with him, whether he communes with his own sad thoughts during the midnight watches, or with the morning light girds himself anew for his conflict with the world, the flesh and the “ syllabus.” Then, as he begins to realise the,full value of the time lost in practising for the concert, peradventure he is tempted to curse it by all bis gods. A successful concert means preparation, and preparation must mean a greater or less sacrifice of time that ought to be devoted to the requirements of the curriculum. And when at length the examination does take place, who shall say that among the massacred innocents there are not some who would have survived but for the time and energy given to the all-important, but hardly legitimate task of amusing the public? It seems unfortunate that it should be necessary to raise funds for prizes by a method that, perhaps, does as much harm, from one point of view, as the prizes do good. We understand that such means havO been adopted since the Committees were prohibited, some years ago, from spending any part of their “incidental allowance” on prizes. . This step was probably rendered unavoidable by the fact that the funds at the disposal of the Board were somewhat limited. It is not at all unlikely that money had been spent rather lavishly, and perhaps sometimes in a way that after all led to no great practical benefit in the matter of school work. It appears that o£ late years a great improvement has been effected in the attendance of the pupils by giving what are called “ attendance prizes,” Many of those interested consider that prizes of this kind do more good than any others. It is possible that if the local authorities could see their

■ |ings per head fox* every pupil who ia 1 hot absent at all daring the year, or j |9 not absent more than a certain ! joumber of times, the improvement in ) the average attendance would, even i financially, repay the outlay. Such a S’ xe would at least render it no r necessary for so much time to voted to work that was scarcely | contemplated by the founders of tho i educational system.