It is officially announced that Sir Edmond Monson will be
succeeded as Ambassador at Paris by the Hon. Sir Francis Bertie, now Ambassador at Rome. Sir Francis Bertie's career has been an educating one—he was, for example, Assistant Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs from 1892 to 1903—and its success marks him out for an appointment which is at the present moment one of the most important within the whole range of the Imperial Services. Paris always requires a man of capacity and experience, and just now judgment is required in a British Ambassador as well as diplomatic skill. We have every confidence that such judgment is to be found in Sir Francis Bertie, as it is certainly not to be found in Lord Rosebery, whose letter on the Anglo-French agreement in the Times of Monday must have occasioned a painful surprise 'to those who are anxious for the continuity of our foreign policy. We have dealt with this subject before ; it is sufficient to say here that a general condemnation of a treaty without reasons alleged by a statesman who may again fill high office is a serious breach of English political traditions.
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