Cordial Visit

A greying member of London's Savage Club looked out on the bedecked and crowded Mall, slowly shook his head and muttered: "I don't like it at all. The last time a French President paid a state visit to Britain was in 1939, and the time before that it was 1913!"

But few Britons saw a sign of war in the arrival last week of rotund, 65-year-old Vincent Auriol. The tensions of an uneasy peace stressed anew the importance of the 46-year-old Entente Cordiale between France and Britain. The beaming

French President and his wife were warmly welcomed and royally entertained. The people turned out in throngs. Auriol, responding to cheers, placed his right hand over his heart and symbolically flung it to the people. They loved it.

During the visit, France's Foreign Minister Robert Schuman had a 70-minute session with Britain's Ernest Bevin. They did not reach or seek specific agreements, merely exchanged views on many subjects of interest to both countries; the diplomats call this a tour d'horizon. But the most important discussions centered on European integration, where, according to the French, the British have been dragging their feet. Bevin explained Britain's position--particularly on the U.S.-backed European payments scheme: 1) the United Kingdom's dollar reserves are so low that she cannot commit herself to any plan that would mean a further drain; and 2) as banker to the sterling area, Britain can do nothing that would tend to disrupt that trading system.

Here was the old British dilemma: How to strengthen the concept of "Western community" without weakening the reality of Commonwealth? Auriol in a speech to Parliament said that the answer was a close "association of the military, economic and diplomatic policies ... of all those nations which . . . are ready to take part in the real organization of collective security."

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