The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo. MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1925. THE RING OF IRON.

Auckland Star, Volume LIX, Issue 30, 6 February 1928, Page 6

The Auckland Star: WITH WHICH ARE INCORPORATED The Evening News, Morning News and The Echo.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6, 1925. THE RING OF IRON.

For the cause that lacks assistant#, For the wrong that needs resistance For the future in the And the good that toe oan rffe

Before the war German statesmen and diplomats constantly complained of the effects of the Triple Entente in surrounding Germany with a ring-wall of actual or potential enemies. Since Germany's downfall, the principal excuse in her favour put forward by her apologists is that this policy of "encirclement," devised or promoted by King Edward VII., was a constant menace to the Kaiser and his country, and in the end actually forced the Central Powers to strike a blow betimes in their own defence. It is easy to show that the Triple Entente was the inevitable and logical outcome of the Triple Alliance, and that the responsibility for what followed thus rests with Germany. But it is interesting to note that at the present time Germany is once again being subjected to a process of "encirclement/' which sooner or later may produce serious international consequences.

Immediately after the war France very naturally concluded what was virtually a defensive alliance with Belgium, and this, with the readjustment of her eastern frontier—to say nothing of subsequent international guarantees—left her secure and supreme in Western Europe. Since then she has concluded treaties with Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Rumania and now finally with Yugoslavia, which practically amount to a defensive pact with the Little Entente. These arrangements arc labelled "regional security pacts," and as such they are approved by the League of Nations. But their political effect is clearly to isolate Germany, Austria, and Hungary, and to surround them completely with a ring of States that can be depended upon to observe and check any attempt on the part of the Central European States to reassert themselves or to secure by force any readjustment of the Treaty of Versailles.

The effect of the compacts between France and the countries of the Little Entente is, as the New York "Herald-Tribune" observes, to give France "a zone of influence stretching from the Baltic to the Adriatic." She is thus enabled to face tmdisturbed any hostile demonstration on the part of the Teutonic States, or even of Italy. Naturally the Germans resent the subjection and humiliation that these treaties imply. But there is no reason to believe that France is actuated by any motive but the desire for absolute security and unbroken peace. The establishment of the Little Entente States was one of the chief purposes of the Versailles Conference, and France's actions since the war have simply helped to confirm that policy. Moreover, France has always contended that "security must precede "disarmament," and now that she has obtained for herself these positive guarantees she may be expected to regard more sympathetically the proposals for complete disarmament which hitherto she has treated as too dangerous for serious consideration.