The Montgomery advertiser., 1904-04-15
ENGLAND AND FRANCE.


 all hands because of the delft skill he has shown in bringing about an arrange ment between England and France by which many old outstanding differences between the two countries have been com posed. He seems to have shown there is still place for king under a par liamentary form of government and a useful and not altogether ornamental place at that He has always been per- sonally popular in Paris. From his ear Hest days as a young man he has been fond of disporting himself in the gay French capital and the French people have taken his pleasure seeking as a compliment to themselves. They were prepared to believe the English King was anxious to be on good terms with them and they accepted his advances with great good feeling They appear, though to have driven right tight and good bargain in their own interest with their neighbor across the channel. Eng land as the more active and powerful colonizer has been crowding France in various quarters of the globe. No coun- try can now indulge the luxury of colo nies without being brought into contact with England and Frances colonies in America, Africa and Asia are all con- tigious or adjacent to others of England. Trey have each asserted what would seem to>a bystander unfounded pretensions with respect to the others territory All the world knows England is in Egypt and France in Morocco to stay unless expelled by force of arms and yet neither country has before conceded to the other an unquestioned right to govern what they in fact were governing. France has never ceased to regret her refusal to join with England in the bombardment of Alexandria and so securing a joint footing in the Nile Delta France in Morocco in some vague way threatened England's supremacy in the Mediterran- can and England accordingly held back in the recognition of French pretensions on the North Coast of Africa. They now agree to cease playing comedy there and in Madagascar. The Newfoundland fish | cries have been for the longest a source of irritation to both countries. New foundland has presented ever since the treaty of Utrecht in 17l3 the anomoly of an English colony over a portion of | whose shore England held no dominion | For nearly two hundred years the French | have had the right to oust fishermen from | this French shore and yet the French | could keep their actual hold upon 1t only | by the use of large subsidies given the | French fisher folk to cross the ocean for their catches. It has required the | finest diplomacy on the part of the Eng | fish government to persuade the New foundlanders to hands off and respect | the treaty rights of the French. Even | as it was by hostile legislation affecting bait. the Newfoundlanders had all but | destroyed the French fishing industry | and would have thus destroyed 1t alto- gether but for the subsidy. This whoic business Is by the new arrangement sct- tied. France abandons Newfoundland | ard gives up what she has proudly | claimed as the nursery of her seamen her right to catch cod off the coast and cure them on the French shore.
 It Is difficult now to conceive of any differences that may arise between the two countries within any reasonable time fin the future, that cannot be settled by arbitration, and the world has won a large guarantee of its own peace. As the two best customers the United States have in Europe and as the two peoples with whom we have the closest alliance, in temper, tastes and ambitions, Ameri- cans can feel genuinely gratihed that Franco and England have come to ami cable terms and propose to cease what has been going on for six hundred years, quarreling and warning with one an- other and if not clutching throats. then making the ugliest of faces at each other