SIR E. MONSON DEAD

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXI, Issue 6963, 1 November 1909, Page 5

SIR E. MONSON DEAD

MAN WHO SAVED FASHODA AIDS BIRTH OF ANGLO-FRENCH ENTENTE. UNWRITTEN HISTORY GLIMPSES. By Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright (Received October 31, 5.10 p.m.) LONDON, October 30. The death is announced of Sir Edmund Alonson, late British Ambassador, at Paris.' ' . A VETERAN DIPLOMAT, REMARKABLE STORY OP HIS CAREER. The Right Hon. Sir Edmund John Monson, KC., G.C.8.. G.C.M.G.. G.N.0., D.C.L., LL.D., M.A., was born ou Octo* ber Gth, 1831, the sou of the sixth Baron Monson. He was educated afc Eton and BalUoi College, Oxford *(Xecoming Bellow of All Souls* in 1858), and entered the’Diplomatic Service in 1856, when ho was appointed Attach© at Paris. Two years later h© was sent to Florence, then back to Paris, and short*ly afterwards to ‘ Washington, where he was x>rivate : secretary to Lord Lyons. Bore he remained for five years, till in /18G3 he was’ transferred as Attache to. Hanover. In the same year h© was promoted to b© third secretary and transferred to Brussels. He resigned in. 1865, and contested the Reigate seat in th© HoUiSo of Commons. The year 1869 saw Sir Edmund again in harness, when he was appointed Consul in tho Azores.and three years later became Consul-Gen-eral for Hungary. After holding tho positions of Minsiter to Uruguay (1879), Argentine and Paraguay (1884), ■Denmark (18S4), Greece (1888), and Belgium (1892), lie was appointed Ambassador to Austria in 1893. In August, 1896, he was chosen to succeed the Marquis of Dufferin as H.M. Ambassador at Paris, a post he retained until his retirement in 1904; In 1881 Sir Edmund married Eleanor, daughter of Major Munro, Consul-General at Mouto Video and leaves three eons.

THE FASHODA INCIDENT. HOW SIB EDMUND BRIDGED THE GULP. Sir Edmund Monson will always bo remembered as the British Ambassador at during whoso tenure of office lh* 'gulf between Fa-slioda and tho AngloFrench Convention, was happily bridged over. The feat was accomplished in four brief years. Call it what you will—a royal achievement, an act of diplomacy, a political event, or a natural reaction in international feeling—it has l#en an enterprise as sensational. in its consummation as it is, and will be, far-reaching in i its consequences. ■ It would be entirely lacking in a due sense of proper* tion to say that Sir Edmund Honsou was responsible for the entente cordiale, or even to suggest that he had a large share in it. . Commonsonse, backed by the courage of King Edward—for it required coui'agc for the Sovereign of tho British Empire to visit I’aris a few months after! President Kruger had been officially received by M. Loubet, M. Wal-deck-Kousseau, and M. Delcasse, and welcomed with delighted cheers by tho populace—was tho chief factor Jn secur* ing :the revulsion in public opinion. • GATTIEBING CLOUDS.

’ But a great deal more credit if 3 due to the late • Ambassador than he has yet received for the excellent tact ho displayed throughout what Lord Salisbury described as tho "singularly acute controversy ” which darkened tho , political horizon at the close of the summer of 1898. . The acute character of the Fashoda crisis was made all the more dangerous by .tho reckless comments of, a large section of the London press. There was never any doubt that -rmg“ land was entirely in the right. _ Xhe region on which Major Marcnand, a. French explorer who is on the Nil© in a difficult nosition, was found had never been without an owner, so there was no point in the French -wit. ticisih perpetrated At the time, that Providence' had given England tho hrs* mortgage on all unappropriated territory. But, unanimous as was public feeling in Great Britain as to the course the Government should take, thero way no justification., for tho display of wild jingoism in tho streets of London—until Mr Labouchcre ventured tho opinion that if war was declared "it would lie well to send all the editors have advised it to tho front, aud > place them* like Uriah the Hittite, m the-fore-, front of the battle.” The editors could hardly complain, and their reader* would bo delighted. A VIVID IMAGINATION.

At the height of the crisis, in the beginning. of October, M. Deloasse and Sir Edmund Mouson were daily closeted for. hours. . The French. Foreign Minister had foreseen what was going to happen, for on September 7th, after handsomely, complimenting the British Government on tho victory of Omdnrman. he expressed some little anxiety concerning a. possible meeting of Kitchener . and Marcliand. It is true that M. Deleassa called Marcband "an emissary of civilisation without, authority," but when Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs in--1891, M. Delcasse knew all about the departure of, Marohand, and the goal he was to attain.: That was what Marchand was thinking .of -when he declared, and so complicated the , situation, that, ho "had received precise orders for the occupation of the country, and the hoisting of the French flag over the Government buildings at Fashoda." It was romancing’on the . Major’s part. All through, the diplomatic negotiations, Sir Edmund Monson endeavoured at everv turn to pour oil on the troubled waters. It was Sir Edmund who. loivards the end of September, suggested to Lord Salisbury- that "her Majesty’s 1 naval forces on the river, (Nile) should ho instructed to take no steps which might lead to local conflict’ on questions of right," , . _ , , , A good many people in England believed that France , would never fight, for she was too hypnotised by the Dreyfus case—Colonel Henry had, committed suicide on September 10th.—to droani oi anything but climbing: down. But Sii Edmund knew how French amom propre had been hurt, and one finds him sending on to the Foreign Office thr •wise intimation that England should not oust Marchand ©s an aggressor by the merQ decree of the Sirdar. .Nor did She ; THE LOOPHOLE. It‘ was at that point that Eord # Rosebery intervened with the histone Epsom sneech. et There- is the question of the flag." h© said. *‘We all know th« flag, and we none of us wish to pay any disrespect to the‘flag of a friendly nation. I have some hone .that the flag in this case ’is not necessarily the flag of France, but the flag of an individual explorer—in the front rank :of explorers (as he afterwards said) without the full weight of the Republic behind, it. That was the loonhole through which France withdrew from Fashoda. Kitchener returned to Pans with 2ia)OT MaTchamFs envoy. "General, asked Paris iournalist, ''have you se?-n fliar* ebapd?” "Oh, yea. at Fashoda, replied .the Men who never Smiles. "Charming fellow" he added, as he 'An admirable stroke of diplomacy wae it not? Tbc anecdote was all over Paris within a few hours. In less than a week Lord Salisbury announced-at the Guildhall that the French Government had come to the conclusion, that the occupation of Fashoda "was of no sort of value to the French Republic.