A REAL ENTENTE.

Oamaru Mail, Volume XLIV, Issue 14702, 1 June 1920, Page 6

A REAL ENTENTE.

ANGLO-FRENCH TIES OF FRIENDSHIP. (By R. A. Scott-James.) Six years ago the bond between the peoples of England and France was al- ; ready real and was growing stronger. There was then no thought of a war, no idea of the comradeship of long suffering together in a common cause. But the seeds of a.fine friendship were already sown. ETterarv Englishmen have always admired that clear, logical, crystalline quality of the French mind, so quick in perception, so tenacious of- principles. But at that period, just before the.war, wider circles of Englishmen were becoming aware of the Gallic quality as something worthy of study. It hod become an easy thing to cross the Channel. Frenchmen and Englishmen were becoming better acquainted. I may be forgiven if I quote words which I'find I wrote in the first week of August, 1914: "If there .Were no diplomatic Entente between England and France there would still exist- that more serious entente which rests upon sentiment and personal affection." Already to some of* us it had seemed a vital, an imperative thing—for the well-being of our minds, of our morals, of our perceptions—that the English should get to know the French better. We needed their their frankness, their freedom from cant; their extraordinary patience with those facts of life" that- cannot>be changed, their fiery impatience with those that can; their quickness,_ their cheerfulness, their healthy cynicism;, their love of family and love of country. But I will not attempt to analyse; tlie French genius. Enough that we knew that the English needed the French, and the French needed the English, and that there was a sound basis of sympathy and understanding. And then the war came to put our theories to the test. Our men streamed' into France in hundreds of thousands. Men for whom France had once been as remote and unreal as-IBorneo had the experience of living in French 1 and eating ham and eggs cooked by French dames.. Frenchmen wounded m battle found themselves being .tended by English nurses and orderlies. British regiments rook over trenches from French, and French from British. "When English soldiers were sick of the sight of uniforriis, it was in French civilian society that they found an unfailing welcome.

To-day there must he more than three million British persons living who made their .temporary home in France —at least three million persons for whom all the "foreign-ness" of the French vanished, though their distinctive qualities, their charm remained. And just as once, throughout the towns and villages of England, there were many who had never seen Canada, Australia, or South Africa,, but felt they knew them because relatives had emigrated there, because men had fought there, because letters arrived thence, bo in every British household to-day thereexists a sense of intimacy with the roads and towns and inhabitants of France. There were some thousands of English soldiers who married French girls and brought 'them home to this country. And now many thousands 'more, at. the time of the armistice, might be seen arm in arm with our "Allies," singing comically, but a little dofefully, the doggerel lines: — Apres la. guerre fini. - Tousles Anglais parti. And now they have gone, and the French villagers look upon the once crowded roads, the packed billets, scenes which 'for four years were a- hub of cosmopolitan life, now empty and quiet: and I am told they regret the passing of the English. I do not believe that a year of civilian.life has made the average Englishman or Canadian o-r Australian forget that friendly intercourse which alleviated the discomforts of war; that those vivid and impressionable years can ever fail to remain stamped upon liis mind, with all. that they imply of friendship for France and the French. And that sentiment which the soldiers felt' communicated itself subtly and surely throughout the nation as a whole. This generation at least will never forget it, and will never be willing to look upon the French as mere foreigners. They have become more than Allies; they are blcod relations with whom we sympathise as we should with our own colonies.

These are things that we ought to remember when difficulties arise; when political questions crop up in which statesmen do not see eye to eye. It is at such moments that the real nature of friendship is tested; when it behoves us all to see to it that so far as lies in our power political differences shall not: be allowed to become national differences ; shall not he allowed , to loom large in the public eye. We must recognise the fact that differences of this kind are bound to arise from time to time, to try our tempers and put us out of tune^—differences which our enemies will try to foster —which put a -tremendous obligation oil ©very responsible person, whether or French, so that we may recognise themboldly when they occur; explain them logically and without passion, and isolate them if they cannot be removed.