Are England and France quarrelling about anything, or is the
Parisian Press suddenly stricken with a cholera panic ? The Paris correspondent of the Times talks of an article in the Temps about England inspired by M. Challemel-Lacour which it is better not to discuss, the Republique Frau paise rages at British malice, and the Fraufais, M. de Broglie's organ, protests against "misunderstandings which threaten to place us in open hostility to the only Power "—naming England—" whose interests unite with ours on the European chessboard." Other journals are positively full of malignant innuendoes about the " commercial " spirit which has induced this country to bring the cholera from Bombay, and the mean jealousy with which England is resist- ing France all over the world. Are we resisting France, or do our contemporaries see men as trees walking? So far as the country knows, the Government is not interfering with France anywhere, and most certainly the people are not. We do not feel quite sure that M. Challemel-Lacour, who has strong anti-British prepossessions, is not giving a cue to the Press, and should like to know what he is specially seeking. In what p3ssible department of energy can it pay France to raise an impression that but for circumstances, her Government would at once came to a rupture with Great Britain ? It is inconceivable that English action at Pekin, where our only interest and effort is to prevent war, can be so misrepresented.
