After some little hesitation at the outset, Paris set to work to prepare a genuine welcome for Edward. The Municipal authorities, who at. first acted on the assumption that the King would not care a public building in which Mr. Kriiger and his Boer companions had effusively welcomed, changed their titude and not only organised a reception at their headquarters but decided to Accorate all the "maines" and_ other edifices under their care. The Gover ment. had already ordered a gala display the State buildings, such ast Flysée Palace and the Grand Palais in the Champs Elysees. Syndicates of tradesmen in those particularly Anglicised streets the Rue de la Paix, Rue C: hone, and Rue Royale, set to work elaborated street decorations on the own account. The wineshop keep: syndicate, with fine business instinct, suggested the advizahility of open dancing, as carried on during the nati fete on Lith July, and the Pre Police promptly fell in with the idea. virtually every tradesman and hotelpeeper, in the boulevards and adjacent streets beloved of the British tourist, hung out the general effect. was very than anyone would when the visit was first mentioned a few weeks ago. In fact, the general aspect of the city was almost: as gay, in such portions of it as were decorated, as it was during the Czar's visit, but the display of flags and the rest confined to a comparatively limited area, whereas the Russian Sovereign's visit, being of a different and more important character, brought out an eruption of flags in nearly every street. On the present occasion there was an almost com plete absence of Russian flags, and in the course of my peregrinations I could discover only four in all; but the display of British colours of all sorts—red em blue ensigns, white ensigns, Union and Royal Standards—was such as very few residents can remember. To Englishmen living in Paris, who are accustomed to see every flag except their own on occasions of this kind, the effect was particularly strange.
section of the Nationalists havi manifested an intention to stir up hostility against the King, some doubt existed as to the nature of his reception, although all the reasonable and respect ments in Paris had put their foot down once against any unfriendly demonstrations. Yesterday. however, sufficed to show that the fears of unpleasantness were not to be justified by events. It cannot be said that the attitude of the crowd was enthusiastic; in fact, there was no good reason why it should have been; but it. was courteous and not devoid of warmth. The King had been freely spoken of in the newspapers as a." good fellow" and "the most Parisian of monarchs" (wherein, it seems to me, an injustice is done to the K of the Belgians, who gets a great deal more fun out of Paris than our own revered Sov eign has been able to obtain for mat long day). Anecdotes of the Prince of Wales went the round of the Press, and there was a general impression that his present-day incarnation, the King, ought to be well received because he =o often is in his earlier days to "have a Tt. seems, on reflection, a strange title to popularity, but it certainly served its purpose. There was cheering all the way along the Avenue clu Bois de Boulogne and the Cha King and President Loubet dr Embassy in an open landau and were the expressions of admiral excited by the King's beaming countenance, his fair proportions and his brilliant led uniform. The crowd outside the was cold, and confined itself to and handkerchief-waving, but the desire to applaud grew, and when the King paid his call atthe Elysee at five o'clock and when he drove to the Come dic Francaise in the evening with M. Loubet to. seo M. "Maurice Donnay's comedy "I'Autre Danger," the Parisians really opened their months and shouted. Throughout the day there only two stances of disrespectful eres, and the offenders were promptly suppressed.
Torday the programme has been one. Te began with a 10,000 troops in the 1 just outside the eastern limits of the city. Although the weather was overcast aid cle attracted the demand. for very 1 On their way back ident spent a few minutes the Hotel de Ville and signed an illy inated parchment record of the 'The distinguished visitors' hook ras not produced, for the excellent reason that the latest signatures were those of Mr. Kriiger and his brother Boers. the afternoon the King rel: at a rai ing, specially his benefit, on the Tongehea evening, there is to he a State ban:
at the Elysee, followed by a grand at the Opera, and rimations. Paris has unmis= takeable done things well, Anglo-French Arbitration.
M. Thomas Barclay's proposal for permanent arbitration between France and England is beginning to attract attention in political circles here. Hitherto it hax been taken seriously, on this side of the Channel, only by Chambers of Commerce and other trade elements. No one needs to be told that there are many thousands of Frenchmen who would eagerly welcome sch an arrangement, simply because it would further their, business interests. But we know from experience that material considerations do not always have the last word in Fi. The prot ional politician and the demagogue to be taken into account. England is still anathema to the palists and An= tisemites. The gentlemen of the " Patric foam at the mouth when any possibility of friendliness with perfidious Albion, M. Drumont Is 1, M. Roche-the hereditary suggested.
Tort violent, Pant de Cassaznae sarcastic. They will do their best to defeat arbitration, always asining it is definitely proposed in Franc At present the idea seems to have made more progress in England than here, and the natural result i to create a feeling that En; res it more than France docs and that it should for this rerxea he regarded with reserve. Nevertheless M. inister for Foreign Affairs, a too friendly a fe Fraroticalil received by the Fre reposal ex lat
ment, because, in principle, would form a sort of "modus vivendi" full of promise for the future. Tt would alo have the advantage of discouraging newspaper quarrels, which are capable of engendering mutual suspicic and destroying the confidence so essential to trade. At the same time it could not away with all possibility of war betw France and Enzland, because any. question involving the national honour could not be settled by arbitration. M. Ben-cist, another Parliamentary authority on international relations, condemns the
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.