Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1945. SITUATION IN SYRIA

Ashburton Guardian, Volume 65, Issue 196, 1 June 1945, Page 2

Ashburton Guardian Magna est Veritas et Prævalebit. FRIDAY, JUNE 1, 1945. SITUATION IN SYRIA

The situation in Syria and Lebanon is as bleak as the weather has been of late, and unless wise counsels prevail, severe storms and a good deal of bloodshed may result. Latest news indicates that young Syrians are. joining up to tight against the .French and so bitter is the feeling generally that parents are being asked not to send their children to French schools. In addition, tradesmen .have been invited to withdraw their funds from the banks. Relations must be at a very low ebb, if all reports are true, and there seems no reason to disbelieve official pronouncements. France may have historical claims, but it is questionable whether these can .be upheld at the point of the bayonet. France appears to be trying to run before she can walk in her efforts to reinstate herself as a first-rate Power. Questioning of her policy has been taken as an affront and as evidence of an attempt to reduce her in status, but such, is far from being the case. Every consideration and help has been extended to her, particularly by Britain and the United States, but her present attitude is not likely to improve matters. Britain has pledged her word to the Syrians and the Lebanese that they shall have national independence. The pledge was implicit in the mandate given to France in 1920 and approved by the League of Nations in 1922. It was renewed in 1941 in association with General de Gaulle’s Free French Government when British and Free French forces marched into the Levant to rid the country of Vichy and German intrigues. Should Britain go back on this pledge, which she has no intention of doing, as Mr Anthony Eden has indicated, there would ibe a collapse of her long and friendly associations with the other Arab States and evil repercussions with the Mohammedan population of India. It can rightly be said that the French mandate has never been liked. General de Gaulle’s first error in his dealings with Syria was based on his faulty belief that the j Vichy forces there and the native levies would welcome him I with, open arms. They met his Free French Divisions with artillery and machine-guns. Since then he has refused to ratify the treaty of 1936 or to divest France of all the authority it held under the mandate. Now in the guise of developing the Levant as a base for operations "in the Far East against the Japanese, he is trying to put more troops into the two countries. Failure to restrain France will certainly react on Anglo-Arab relations which Britain has been at pains to develop, and may turn the Arab States to Russia. The situation, therefore, is one fraught with great risks,