REACTIONS ABROAD.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 294, 10 December 1923, Page 4

REACTIONS ABROAD.

It is not only in Britain that the success of the Labour and Liberal

parties may be expected to leave its mark on affairs. The reactions abroarl may bo equally important. Already France Is feeling nervous. French comment suggests that French opinion still fails to understand Mr. Baldwin and his colleagues, and to believe that they are more sympathetic Jowards the French policy than they really are. It is believed in some quarters, however, that Mr. Baldwin has been embarrassed in Sis handling of the whole problem of France and Germany by "Die-Hard" pressure in his Cabinet. However this may be, it is quite certain that the new House will be more hostile to French policy than was the. last House. Liberals cannot go all the way with some of the foreign policy aspirations of some members of the Labour party, but there is very little difference between the declared attitudes of the two parties towards foreign affaire. Whether the Labour and Liberal parties remain in Opposition, or whether Labour takes office with Liberal support, the foreign policy of Britain will be profoundly influenced, if not by Labour-Liberal opinion. There is anothrr probable reaction that concerns this country closely. Both the Labour party and the Liberal party—the Labour party to a man —are opposed to the Singapore project, which is the basis of the Government's plans of naval defence in the Pacific. We would not like to say that abandonment of the scheme was certain, but it looks as if there was, on paper at any rate, a majority in the new House opposed to the development of Singapore. Thus it may happen that some of the most important naval decisions of the Imperial Conference will come to naught.