Paris, May 9.
Amid the cloud of misunderstandings, (which it is to be hoped will be cleared away before this letter reaches China), now surrounding Anglo-French relationships, there is a strong belief on the French side that the trouble is only momentary. Though it may suit Mr. Lloyd George to hint that the friendship between Franc and England is at an end if France does not fall in line with -his policy, the French simply do not believe that he has power to carry out such a rupture. Their own political experience has given them many instances of Prime Ministers who have exceeded their instructions. Tu France, such misguided politicians are giver very little rope, as M. Briand discovered immediately: after the conference at Cannes, and French opinion cannot conceive the British people as willing to allow one man to destroy in few days what has been built up during years of effort and joint sacrifice."
Even more annoying than Mr. Lloyd George's vagaries are statements such as those of Mr. J. H. Thomas, who has been telling his fellow trade unionists that France wants war and is making preparations for it. It is quite true that rumours of another war have been circulating among the French public for some little time, but there is a wide difference between this vague feeling of uneasiness and a desire for move bloodshed. The French feel that they will either have to sit down tamely and let Germany flout them out of their just due, or use force in some form, and they would be foolish indeed if they allowed themselves to be deprived of the only effective argument they have.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.