The discussion of the Foreign Ministry's estimates in the Chamber of Deputies has elicited the usual expressions of suspicion in regard to England.
To judge by the speeches of French legislators, one might easily imagine that England is France's only enemy, and that the latter country was always on the best of terms with every other Power. Still, on the whole, apart from some wild talk about the South African war, perfidious Albion did not pass an usually bad quarter-of-an-hour. The most important unofficial utterance was that of M. Etienne, the leader of the Colonial party, whose mind was chiefly exercised by the possibility that England might interfere with French designs on Morocco.
He observed that the British mission to his Shereefian Majesty was unnecessarily large, and hinted "that its objects might not be exclusively commercial. M. Etienne also urged that France should adopt a more enterprising foreign. policy, which of course i. all very well for anyone without. official responsibility to say, but not quite so easy to carry into practice. M. Deleassé's reply was no reply at all, seeing that he took no notice whatever of the other speakers' views, and confined himself to a mere review of his own diplomatic achievements during the year and a vague assurance that French interests in all parts of the world were being carefully watched. The credit of $50,000 franes for Catholic missions in the Far East, which had been struck out by the Budget Committee as a sop to their anticlerical electors, was restored to the estimates by a majority of more than 100 votes.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.