A PARIS LETTER.

Waikato Times, Volume 110, Issue 18395, 31 July 1931, Page 4

A PARIS LETTER.

THE CHEQUERS VISIT. I IW. BRIAND’S STATEMENT. (From a Correspondent.) PARIS, June 14. The Chequers conversations have naturally deeply interested French political circles. But the impression in Paris is that out of them has emerged nothing tangible. This is entirely in keeping,with the expectation of responsible French quarters. On the other hand, the German visit tc England is felt to have had two results of a moral rather than of a material order. First of all, Germany has obtained from England a public proof of the latter’s friendly feelings for her—no small thing at this moment. Secondly, the journey to London has given Dr. Bruning and Dr. Curtius the opportunity of sowing, In a way to strike the imagination, the Idea that Germany requires an alleviation of her reparation payments. By making the publication of the manifesto on this subject coincide with the visit to England the Germans, it is felt here, distinctly forced the hand of the British Prime Minister and Foreign Secretary. Hence France expects to find herself in the course of coming weeks faced, like other creditor Powers, with German proposals of some kind or another for a modification of payments. Amid the host of conjectures on the subject which Chequers has aroused one definite and authoritativo declaration' has so far been made. This is the statement by M. Briand in the Chamber on Tuesday. France, he has made it quite clear, will not contemplate any revision of the Young Plan. She regards the latter as what it was stated to be “by agreement”—a final settlement. Nor will M. Briand consider any "tampering” with the mechanism of the Plan. He further indicated that the idea of another international conference over reparations was distasteful to him. At the same time, when speaking about the French Government’s hopes that demonstrations in Germany of the Stahl - helm type would cease, the Foreign Minister insisted that, until the impossibility of such a policy was decisively proved, he would continue to pursue towards Germany a policy of peace and rapprochement. Can Germany Pay? Frenchmen, like many other people in the world, are exceedingly puzzled about Germany. Her economic and financial situation is recognised to be bad. But is it as bad as Berlin makes out? If not alleviated, will the consequences really be the threatened collapse, political as well as economic? Germany at this moment is undoubtedly reaping the harvest 'of past manoeuvres. She has so often cried "wolf,” and France has so frequently been told that unless the Government in power Is bolstered up from outside an Internal debacle is inevitable, that tills time her calls of distress are listened to with distinct suspicion, mingled, however,' with a disagreeable sensation that things may nevertheless, in fact, be serious. But the Frenchman feels to-day that if Germany wants assistance the sooner she gives up flaunting her nationalistic aspirations before the world, and proves her intention of trying to cooperate for the common good of Europe, the better it will be fur everybody. Two Now Immortals. To the seat In the Academy left vacant by the death of Marshal Joffre, has succeeded another eminent soldier —General Weygand, Commander-in-Chi?f of the French Army. General Weygand has written, besides various short studies, a remarkable life of Turenne. But it is less as an author that General Weygand takes his place as an -"lmmortal" than as one of France’s most illustrious men. Another election on the same day has brought M. Pierre Benoit to fill the chair of the late M. Porto Riche. This, too, is an interesting election. First of all, M. Benoit is young—46 to bo exact—and, secondly, he is a novelist whoso books are among the most widely read to-day. Beginning directly after the war with “Koenlgsmark,” he soon took a leading place among the writers of novels of action. M. Benoit knows how to tell a story, and with “L’Atlantide,”' “Le Lac Sale" and “La Chaussee des Geants," to mention a few, he has followed one success with another. Byzantine Art. There are this summer going on in Paris so many exhibitions—quite apart from the great Colonial one at Vincennes—that it is impossible to keep track of them. But at the Musee des Arts Decoratifs is one, consisting of a collection of specimens of Byzantine art drawn from all over the world, which constitutes an outstanding event in the world of art. Italy, America, Greece, England, Germany, Hungary—not to mention the i magnificent exhibits sent by the' museums and Cathedral Chapters of Franoe—'have all lent some of their greatest treasures. Ivories, Illuminated manuscripts, jewels, brocades, ikons, medals, glass and ceramics make up some 700 exhibits of the greatest beauty and interest, and give to experts a rare chance of comparing side by side examples, of Byzantine art which normally are scattered all over the world.

Among this wealth of rare objects there are several that particularly strike the Imagination of the ordinary visitor. One of them is the silver chalice found in 1910 at Antioch, which, tradition has it, is the Gup used at the Last Supper. The decoration of vines and figures with which it is adorned is admittedly of later date. But the catalogue Is non-com-mittal as to the cup’s origin, merely stating that different theories put it at “between the beginning of the Christian Era and the fifth century." Another striking exhibit is the magnificent so-called “Mantle of Charlemagne," a splendid cloak of red "brocade adorned with heavily embroidered gold eagles, while a beautiful gold medal lent by the Arras Museum Is of special historical interest to England. This, in perfect condition, though dating from the fourth century, commemorates the landing in England of the father of Constantine the Great, Constantius Clilorus. But in tills collection now housed for a few weeks in the Pavilion de Marsara there are countless objects to stir the imagination, and to arouse the greatest interest in an art examples of which cover the period between the fourth and the fifteenth centuries.