7 AUGUST 1926, Page 2

We are sorry that friction has arisen with Abyssinia, a

country with which we have been on friendly 'terms for sixty years and which from the days of Dr. Johnson has always made a romantic appeal as a 'remote' and isolated people round whom • strange legends have gathered of Solomon, the Queen of Sheba and Prester John, and among whom Christianity has survived in its curious form. After Sir Austen Chamberlain's speech in the House of Commons on Monday, we hope that misunderstandings will disappear. In 1902 i Emperor Menelik received in a most friendly manner proposals for the damming of the waters of Lake Tsana in order to regulate the water supply of the Sudan and Egypt. In 1912 the project was likely to be taken seriously in hand, but the War stopped that.

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