[To THE EDITOR or THE "SPECTATOR.") SIR,—It is for experts
to discuss our foreign politics at the present time, if experts there be in the welter of unexpected occurrences in the midst of which we live. But one result of the war is an undoubted benefit—our friendship and alliance with France, cemented by brotherhood in arms and common sorrows and sufferings. It is well that we should know what educated and well-informed Frenchmen -think of our policy. It is evident that they hold that the -educated classes in England are not offering a valid resistance to the insularity of the Labour Party or their odd preference of the Soviets to the Poles. Perhaps, then, I may be allowed to quote a few words from a letter written by a rrench friend who has been for many years an ardent supporter of the Entente. He writes, of course, in a vein of humorous exaggeration, but behind his kindly fun is a real sense of dismay and discourage- ment :-
" J'attendais [he says] que la politique de no deux pays se reveillat; j'attendais, en particulier, que cello du v8tre cessfit d'etonner lee gene qui l'admirent at qni raiment; tons les fours, en ouvrant mes journaux du matin, je me disais : Allons! est-oe aujourd'hui qua M. Lloyd George, at M. Asquith, et M. Winston Churchill, &c., fie., vont ins permettre d'dcrire h mes amis anglais, sans en avoir, comma on dit, Bros tar Is mar P . . Mate oelanevient pee. Anjourd'huiceque j e lie kkuisies fannies, c'est la confirmation de cette extraordinaire, de cette letup& Sante, de cette epouvantablement grotesque idde de M. Lloyd George d'autoriser lee envoys des Soviets h parcourir le front et lee derrihres de l'armee polonaise, controler lee mouvements des gares, h s'inetaller en surveillance k Dantzig '! Et alors, je me dis que domain none apprendrons pent-etre que M. Krassio sera invite h contresigner les depdohes du Foreign Office, M. Kameneff envoy4 en inspection en Irelande—h moms cependant, que M. Lloyd George ne prefers employer leurs services dane les pays rhenans ou h Paris meme."
The time may yet come when we shall need French help as sorely as they needed ours six years ago. Their interests are ours in many parts of the world. We cannot afford to quarrel with them, even if we had—as why should we?—any temptation to do so. But we certainly seem to have amazed and irritated Frenchmen who throughout the war and before it have been our firm friends. Perhaps this was unavoidable. But this is no time to lose any of our friends in the desperate hope of conciliating our enemiee.—I am, Sir, Igo., J. D. A.
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