The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The UNKNOWN ,Morning news and The UNKNOWWN WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1923 DEBTORS BORROW.

Auckland Star, Volume 55, Issue 1, 2 January 1924, Page 4

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The UNKNOWN ,Morning news and The UNKNOWWN

WEDNESDAY, JANUARY 2, 1923 DEBTORS BORROW.

For the cause that lacks assistant*, For the wrong that needs resistance, For the future in the distance, And the good that we can do.

From the brief reference to the subject, which is all that is available at the time of writing, it is not quite clear what the British Foreign Minister has in mind in protesting against the purchase of war material from Franco by Poland, ! Rumania, and Yugoslavia, but the feeling behind the representations i 8 plain enough. The fact that France has been able to find large sums 10 lend to Poland and the countries of tho "Little Entente," when she cannot or will not find any to repay her loans from Britain, has caused a good deal of irritation in England. Feeling on tho question is rising. There has been sharply-worded comment in the Press, and a bluntly expressed protest was raised in Parliament a few months ago. Formal representations by the British Government to the borrowers concerned is a serious step, and suggests that patience is becoming exhausted. As we said the other day, the gravity of tho debt settlement with the United States has begun to sink into the public mind, and Englishmen are asking with growing insistence why their country should be the only one to pay its debts, and when they see France lending money to Poland and other countries for the purchase of arms, and the borrowers (all of whom are indebted to Britain) giving guarantees for these loans, they become more critical of their Continental allies. Even Mr. Massey, who before he went to London this time could see no wrong in French policy, said in England that John Bull would be justified in asking for a trifle on account.

France' s reply to this criticism is twofold. First, she says she cannot pay her creditors till Germany pays reparation. Then it is contended that the strengthening of the defence of these new European States is necessary for their own safety, the curbing ol Germany in the future, and tbe protection of Prance. Russia used to be tho equipoise in the East. Now Russia's help has been lost, and France is striving to ercet a strong Polish Power in its place. Moreover, as the price of her abandonment of the Rhine frontier and her acceptance of the League of Nations, France was definitely promised assistance by Britain auct America in tbe event of another attack by Uerlr.any. That promise, embodied iv a •treaty, was dishonoured by America. Britain regarded the American failure to ratify as a release from the treaty, but offered a separate undertaking. France wished for an explicit and mutual military alliance, which Britain has been unwilling to accept. France argues, therefore, that, having no guarantee that Britain and America will help her again, or that if they do so help the reinforcement will not come in time, she must protect herself in other ways. Hence the large air force, the buttressing of Poland and other MiddleEuropean countries, and the increased reliance on black troop?. It is not generally known that while under her

League mandates Britain is forbiddm to train the natives as soldiers, Frame is permitted to do so. Thus the problem goes ha ck to the Versailles settlement and the rejection of Mr. Wilson's policy, but its roots are even deeper. They go down to the fundamental differences between the French and British outlooks. Britain is idealistic; France is realistic. Britain wishes to p "note international friendship and to levelop the League oi Nations idea. Franco is, or professes to oe certain that Germany will seek revenge, and places little faith in any idea°like the League. It is significant that Lord Birkenhead's recent attack on idealism, was received in Britain with a storm of protest, but one cannoj conceive such a speech having a similar reception in France. Thus the idealists are confronted with a Europe in which it is said, there are more armed men to-day than there were before th* war, despite the reduction of the armies of Germany and Austria tc nominal proportions, and in which poverty-stricken States, which do not pay their debts, prepare for possible wars. How to allay the fears of Franco and at the same time check this fresh competition in armaments, is the pro blcm.