29 AUGUST 1925, Page 1

In our leading article we have frankly expressed our feelings

about the French attempt to whittle down the debt. We believe that the French people as a whole have been misled by the statesmen who immediately preceded M. Caillaux as to the reality of French obli- gations, and we cannot think that it is right for an English newspaper to encourage by polite pretences the continuance of this deception. We will take an example of the kind of thing that is being said in France from the Ere Nouvelle because that paper generally stands for M. Caillaux's policy :- " If M. Cabins finds himself face to face with a trno gentleman be will not be disappointed ; even if he finds himself faced with a mere trafficker he may nevertheless succeed in bringing him to reason, for premonitory warnings of a grave crisis, more numerous day by day, are coming to the ears of the British Government. On the confines of the Far East the two spectres loom which rightly terrify the rulers of the Empire. Canton ! Shanghai ! Revolution is growling in the interior of China—at the gates of India, and, despite the barrier of the Himalayas, its echoes threaten to reach ere long Bombay, and thence to Cairo. This is no propitious moment for playing the Shylock."

The Malin remarked that if M. Caillaux offered more than £9,000,000 he would deserve to be stoned, though we may hope that it was the jingle of words zailloux and Caillaux—which filled this journalist's mind rather than any definite thoughts of violence.