The Fourteenth of July is a good day to celebrate, and to-day it comes as naturally to the Briton as Empire Day or Armistice Day or any other proper occasion for rejoicing. A few years ago one, of course, recognized the occasion and by way of compliment did the honours, but nowadays the sentiment is that it has become part and parcel of our own yearly round and on no account must it be missed. The significance to a great many is something that can hardly be stated in cold print. Recollections are awakened, of days in the north of France when, through rain and mud, barbed wire and shells, the battlefields had lost any glamour they might ever have possessed and life seemed to contain little that was good. When reliefs arrived there would be a weary trudge back to billets, often nothing better than a droughty barn, but oftener than not the old lady of the farm was waiting with a kindly welcome, and more. Time and again there was a cup of coffee and a seat by the fireside so that a man might thaw out, and when the housewife took charge of the rations and did marvels with them as only a Frenchwoman can, there was balm to the wounded spirit. Nor was this in a land of plenty; it was on the very fringe of battle and as more guns of ever longer range were added to the fighting fronts, these people saw Increasing devastation to their homes and fields. Yet that rare kindly spirit never faltered In this part of the world our relations with the French have shown us that same spirit, and all the differences between Paris and don will not affect our warm appreciation of it,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.