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Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 68, 20 March 1936, Page 8

AH that Heir Ribbentrop brought to the League Council—so far as the cable news indicates at time of writing—was an elaboration of the argument that the Franco-Soviet Pact (which was incomplete when the Rhineland was entered) infringed the Treaty of Locarno and justified Germany's denunciation thereof and her Rhineland action. Germany has shown no willingness to put this case before The Hague Court, pleading that political issues are mixed with legal. The League Council itself has now pronounced on the question, and has declared by eleven recorded votes to none (Chile abstaining, Ecuador absent) that a ; breach of the Locarno Treaty has been committed. The votes of France, Belgium, and Germany, parties to the immediate dispute, were not recorded; had they been, it seems that the voting would have been 13 to one, the dissentient being Germany. Germany "rejects" the League's decision that she is guilty of breach. The question is "What next?" "It is understood" that the Locarno Powers, France, • Belgium, Britain, Italy, have reached an agreement including "a demilitarised zone only on the German side of the frontier, policed by international forces"; and "collaboration between the British and1 French General Staffs." These two steps amount to military pressure on Germany. But they do not in themselves mean a crisis unless - Germany decides to so regard them. Besides, to say "it is understood" sometimes amounts to saying "it is misunderstood." " The reading public should differentiate between communique and rumour.

The League Council's decision that Germany has committed a breach of the Locarno Treaty presupposes that the Locarno Treaty had not been invalidated by any previous happening such as the treaties cited by Herr Ribbentrop, some of which seem to have been completed >at the time of the Rhineland entry, though the Franco-Soviet Pact was not. There seems to be no reason why The Hague Court, even now, should not pronounce upon the validity of the FrancoSoviet Pact in terms of Locarno and the League Covenant, but Germany's attitude tends to push this phase into the background and to throw all the limelight on how, in the delicate circumstances, negotiations with Germany for a permanent, settlement can be initiated. The political correspondent of "The Times" calls this the second phase of the situation (the first being the League's finding of a breach): it is "an interim phase of preparation for future negotiations"; after which lie foresees "thirdly, actual negotiations." But he says nothing as to where the internationally patrolled "demilitarised zone" comes in, if it comes in at all. Meanwhile, the centre of attention lias become a later message received as we. write, which message, while adhering to the three-phases idea of "The Times," indicates that it will be implemented in conjunction with a new world conference.

Herr Hitler has been reported as likening himself to a somnambulist. A somnambulist moved by destiny. This is unlike, yet like, Bismarck. To have called Prince Bismarck a somnambulist would not have merited an invitation from him to become his biographer. Bismarck moved with calculated precision, dealing first with Austria, then with Denmark, then with France, 1870-71. He made one of his victims his ally; France he would have attacked again, had circumstances favoured. Bismarck was a mathematical statesman rather than a somnambulistic one, and yet on occasions could dissemble, and substitute the kid glove for the mailed fist. Sometimes soldier and sometimes diplomat, there was almost nothing that he might not have been; but circumstances never compelled him lo adopt those extraordinary bluffs with which Herr Hitler has paralysed European diplomacy in 1935 and 1936. Bismarck never had to bluff without a,full hand, or to call to his aid the psychic forces of somnambulism as a means of explaining his astonishing progress through Europe. It is just a question whether he could have fiLted into the exploits and personality of the Hitler of 1933-36. But is there any doubt at all whether Hitler, if successful as a somnambulist, could be transmuted back into a Bismarck? M. Litvinoff at least could give a decided answer to this question. Through all this drama the conflict of democracy and dictatorship runs like a shadow. At this crisis Germany, like France, faces a General Election. But with what a difference! The election in Germany is arranged to confirm the Fuhrer's policy; the election in France conceivably could result otherwise, though the Senate's vote on the Soviet Pact does in fact suggest national unity. Still, it remains true that the French Government can be embarrassed by General Election contingencies, while the Fuhrcr need not hesitate in any feature of his policy because he is permitting a voting ceremony ;to pro-

ceed. French voters may feel special reason to vote nationally when ihey view the ballot-box performance on the other side of the now militarised frontier; but the comparative disability in policy-making and continuity as between democracy and dictatorship remains. Who can be a stage manager so imperatively as a dictator? Who else can be such a scene-shifter? At one moment, a southern dictator is in the limelight with his African side-show. A moment later, the northern dictator has commandeered the spotlight, the scene is changed, and the side-show runs a comparatively unnoticed course. Still more remarkably, the southern dictator, already '"sanctioned," might even be asked to join in "sanctioning" the northern dictator. So vast a change from static democratic times to these days of dynamic military dictatorship has come so suddenly that llie world even now has hardly visualised it, or fathomed its meaning.