29 DECEMBER 1961, Page 10

FRENCH CANADA

SIR,—I have always admired Miriam Chapin's most perceptive writings on French Canada and I doubt that there are many contemporary observers who share her knowledge of these unique North Americans. However, I must point out that her assertion that French-speaking members of the Canadian UN delegation deliver their speeches in English is totally untrue. Mr. Michel Asselin and Mr. Paul Tremblay (although both these delegates have returned to Canada for the UN's Christmas adjourn- ment) both used their first language—French- during the current Assembly session. And Mr. R. G. Doyon is one of the French-speaking representatives attached to the Canadian delegation to the Trustee- ship Committee. In addition to this, every Canadian press release is issued simultaneously in English and French. On occasion the French text is issued before the English text and I myself have seen Canada table draft resolutions in French. These are minor points, of course, but where an issue of such sensitivity is concerned—i.e. Quebec's desire for `separation'—out- siders can only give it objective appraisal by obtain- ing factual reporting on all the complaints of French Canadian proponents of independence. It might be of interest to note here that in addition to French Canada's 'nationalists'—who this year scrawled in red paint the words The l'independence pour le Quebec' along a wall in Montreal—there is still active in the same city an anonymous little man who stamps the slogan 'Let's Join the USA' on the thick edge of every public telephone direetory he conies