NOTES FROM PARIS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XII, Issue 26, 17 October 1884, Page 31

NOTES FROM PARIS.

(.From the Natum) Whbthee Chinese treachery or French ambition has been the cause of the present war it matters little now. The French flag is raised, and the time for blame or discussion is past. Frenchmen of all parties nauft unite and support it, for this is no single-handed struggle between two nations-it is one into which several European States will be drawn, and in which somejof them may have to settle long-standing accounts between themselves. Last night nearly all the members of the Chinese Embassy left Paris for Berlin. Interviewed were left in the dark, and the only thing that has transpired is, that they (the Chinese) are determined to fight out to the bitter end. They say, 11 We shall follow the example of Russia in 1812, and leave, instead of Bnow-cov^ered plains, deserts of sand and burnt villages between us and our enemies, in which disease will thin their ranks better than and shot.*' They affi m that they have at headquarters English, German, and American officers who have been teaching them the art of war, and that they are apt scholars of late. They attribute the rupture to M. Fournier's report, which was not duly signed and approved of in high quarters. They are aware of the great loss to the commerce of Europe such a war mnst become, and they are convinced that, openly or secretly, some of the nations injured by it will be on their side.

A discovery just made by two French officers, which simply consists in steering balloons through the air with far more precision than ships at sea, is either likely to put an end to war or make it far more terrible in the air than it ever was on sea or land.

M. Reynard and M. de Haye, for whom Gambetta obtained, with great difficulty, a grant of 200,000 frs. to carry on their woiks, have just gone in their balloon to a considerable distance, and steered it back without difficulty to the starting-place, realising what was for the last century considered as impossible. It requires no stretch of imagination to realise the change in the whole system of warfare that this new invention will make. In fact, all the ironclad ships, the torpedoes, monster cannon, mining in sieges, etc., will sink into insignificance beside what can annul their effects from the clouds. It is sal to think that what would be a blessing to humanity and the greatest conquest of man over the elements should be first employed in his destruction by nations calling themselves civilised ana humane. J. P. L.