THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, AUGUST 7,1922. FRANCE AND HER ALLIES.

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18626, 7 August 1922, Page 4

THE OTAGO DAILY TIMES MONDAY, AUGUST 7,1922. FRANCE AND HER ALLIES.

It is a matter for deep concern that the adoption by the Governments of Great Britain and France of policies upon questions arising out of the war settlement that are divergent and, in some respects, even conflicting has been utilised' by misohiefmakers as a pretext for sowing the seeds of discord between the two countries. The view of France respecting reparations is coloured, necessarily coloured, by her reflections upon the tremendous injury she suffered during the war in the devastation of her country. The love of the soil is a passion with the French people and the ruin which, through a calculated policy of destruction, was wrought over a vast area of their country is never out of their thoughts. It is important that this fact should he remembered by anyone to whom the reparation demands of France may convey the impression that they are prompted by a spirit of vindictiveness. On the other hand, the French journalists and publicists who ascribe to Great Britain a disposition to exhibit magnanimity to Germany at the expense of France seem to be allowing their own feeling of just resentment of the wrongs which France suffered to weaken their sense of perspective and proportion. There is every reason why, as the Spectator has pat it, France and Great Britain should agree as far as they can and that when they disagree they should disagree friends. Even although ,the statesmen of the two countries may differ respecting the lines of policy that should be pursued in the settlement of difficult post-war issues, the friendship between the peoples of the two countries, cemented with blood daring more than four years of. terrible warfare, should be permanent and enduring. The bonds that unite them are of an imperishable Mud. ■ Remembering the common hardships, the common suffer.ngs, the common sacrifices of the war period, the British people may associate themselves with General Retain in an eloquent and touching appeal which, speaking in London a few weeks ago, he made for a continuance of the mutual respect and mutual faith that enabled the two countries to co-operate successfully in their prolonged conflict with the then formidable Central Powers. We quote a portion of General Petain’s speech:

Always, and whatever befall, our men will stand in true gratitude before the mounds beneath which lie the soldiers of Britain; their brothers,in war from the first day to the last, whom they love for their light-heartedness, their stubborn courage, and their fine contempt of death. For all time the women and children of France will scatter over your graves, as over ours, the,flowers of the battlefield, in the stems of which flows > the blood of these departed heroes. In future days around the same sanctuaries the people will meet, brought together from your country and from ours by memories which are one. Such meetings will serve to draw our two nations ever closer by ties of grief and sorrow, which bind more firmly than those of triumph. May the living, remembering that the dead so generously shared afi sacrifices, be determined in the struggles of peace to help each other with the same confidence.

Between the peoples of the two nations the entente, we believe, is indestructible, The headstones of the hundreds of British war cemeteries in France are sufficient witness.