The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1898-12-07
PLAIN TALK.
British Ambassador at Paris
Tells the French
That England Feels Kindly
Towards Them But Will
STAND NO NONSENSE.
Says He Has Learned to Speak
Plainly on Questions
OF Public Concern From the
American Diplomats.
STAND NO NONSENSE.

Paris, Dec. AT the silver jubilee
banquet of the British Chamber of Com
merce held last evening the ambassa-
dor, Sir Edmund J. Monson, referring
to the new diplomacy which is said
to have come into fashion during the
past year, said it was chiefly due to the
enterprise of the press, but also it was
in a measure due to mother country i'll
novations and to the originality of the
American mind-ever restlessly watch
ing to improve everything-whfch will,
perhaps, end by Wiping the diplomats
of the old school off the face of the
earth.
The ambassador added: ct am quite
ready to acknowledge that there as
much good in the particular innovation
in my mind at the present moment.
America has invariably sent to England
the finest representatives of her in
telllgence and culture, and L think we
may attribute no little degree of the
happy development of the friendly feel
ing between Great Britain and the
United States to the manner in which
those representatives performed their
tasks and especially in their public ut
terances on both sides of the Atlantic.
1 wish I possessed the facility of eX-
preston and the command of appro-
pirate language which distinguished
Colonel Hay, the late Minister Bayard
and their eminent predecessors at the
court of St James Such oratorical
est desire to say a few words which
may work toward the end for which a
British ambassador is sent aboard. 1t
has not been without much reflection
and anxiety that 1 decided to depart
on this occasion from the traditional
limits by which a diplomatist is
hampered.'
Sir Edmund Monson then proceeded
to dilate on the present remarkable out
burst of public feeling in Great Britain
provoked by the Fashoda incident and
said he ventured to express the hope
that the idea of Great Britain being
unduly sQueezeable and prone to make
graceful but impolitic concessions is
thoroughly exploded.
After referring to the mischief often
wrought by reckless journalism, which
is too apt to forget, it can never be so
accurately informed as the foreign
minister" Sir Edmund enthusiastically
referred to the Paris exposition of 1900
which he described as lone of the most
significant factors in restraining the
combative elements now menacing the
peace of the EARTH
He appealed to France to disabuse
herself of all suspicion of unfair lnten-
ton upon the part of Great Britain TO
try to believe there was no general
animOsity in England toward France,
at issue with an honest desire for an
equitable arrangement.
He concluded as follows:
4 would earnestly ask officials in
power and unofficial opponents of pub
lie opinion to discountenancea and abstain
from a continuance of the policy of pin
pricks. which while it can only procure
an ephemeral satisfaction to a short
lived MINISTRY, must inevitably per-
petuate across the channel an intoler-
able irritation.
Il would entreat them to resist the
temptation to thwart British enterprise
by petty manoeuvers such as the pro-
posal to start colleges as rivals of Cen
eral Kitchener's projected institution in
the reconquered SOudan. Such i'll con-
sidered prOvocatiOn might have the
effect of converting Great Britain's
policy of fOrbearance in Egypt into the
adoption of measures at which I pre-
sumo French sentiment is not aiming"