FRENCH VIEW OF BRITAIN.

Evening Post, Volume CIX, Issue 81, 5 April 1930, Page 20

FRENCH VIEW OF BRITAIN.

"Great Britain's Tragic Hour" is the title given, to an article which is forwarded to the "Matin" by its correspondent at the Naval Conference, writes the Paris correspondent of the "Daily Telegraph." He paints a gloomy picture of the present state of things in England, and one might ask if the article would have been written if the American Note and the British Memorandum had not been published, for there is no doubt that the publication of those documents has greatly upset French calculations.

The writer of the article quotes "one of the most important delegates" at the Naval Conference as saying:

"Be assured of one thing, if the Chancellor of tho Exchequer had his coffers filled with pounds sterling wo should not bo in London."

Then the correspondent suggests what he thinks is the real position of England. Compelled to reduce her expenditure, she does not wish to lose her security and moral credit, and wants to compel European nations, and more particularly France, to reduce their navies.

"She is passing through a terrible crisis and is not ready to emerge from it. She does not know how she will be able to get over it. There is no need of figures to bo convinced of it. One has only to look round and see before the Labour Exchanges the long files of workless. Here one sees young men who, at the beginning of life, have to give themselves up to idleness. In the wealthy quarters there is an immense number of houses to be sold or to let. Factories.are closed, mines deserted, and offices in tho City aro working with reduced staffs.

"If England had not some hundreds of thousands of people of independent means, in \h(s pockets of whom flow

GLOOMY PICTURE DRAWN

dividends from all parts of the Empire, and South America; if she 'had not still important freights, thanks to her mercantile marine, and a big sum of banking and commercial commissions, thanks to the brilliant / technique of her commerce and private finance, she would be near to ruin."

t This observer is bold enough to suggest a remedy. In his view a remedy would be found in what he calls the European Federation, by which ho means that England would obtain the markets she seeks by modernising her industries and marching hand-in' hand with French and German industries. Ho even believes that if the English, German, and Americans combine they will be able to effect the transformation of Bussia.

A close understanding between the European nations and America would, ho thinks, solve the problem of economics, and it would be a case of reducing naval armaments, not by 10 or 15 per cent., but by 50 and 60 per eont. But England is obstinate. She is obsessed by the cost of her Navy, and does not wish to enter into agreements which would enable her to reduce it without running any risks. "

"It is a pity," ho adds, "but the world will be organised all the same, and one day, between a reconstituted Europe and overproducing America; this nation, Which was opulent yesterday, and mistress of a quarter of the world, will experience hard times. With her pound sterling painfully maintained at its level, with her weights and measures differing from those of the rest of the world, her old machines, her superannuated traditions, and her insular selfishness, she will doubtless recall that at the Naval Conference of 1930 she let slip the best opportunity to raise herself."