28 MAY 1910, Page 3

These views were substantially modified in the despatch of Sir

Edward Grey to our representative in Paris in 1907, in which the Foreign Secretary states that he does not think it necessary to adhere in the present case—i.e., the negotiations for a new Commercial Convention between Canada and France—to the strict letter of the regulations laid down in 1895, and that it would be obviously more practical to leave the negotiations to Sir Wilfrid Laurier and the Canadian Minister of Finance. A further despatch authorised the British Ambassador in Paris to agree, without any reference to the Secretary of State, to any verbal alteration in the text of the Convention which the Canadian delegates might desire to make or to accept. The final arrangement seems reasonable and businesslike.