CLOSE RELATIONS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIX, Issue 127, 1 June 1938, Page 6

CLOSE RELATIONS.

BRITAIN AND FRANCE.

COMPLEX EUROPEAN PROBLEM. (By SIR ARTHUR WILLERT.) LONDON. Military preparedness and. mutual defence bulked largely, though not publicly, in the Anglo-French conversations. The new British Budget and the presence of MM. Daladier and Bonnet here represented integral parts of Mr. Chamberlain's policy of European appeasement. It is a policy of the olive branch in the mailed fist, and consists of rearming almost on a war-time basis, partly for defence, partly in the hope of persuading Germany sooner or later that in view of the growing strength of the Western democracies discretion is the better part of valour and that the time has come to take advantage of the standing offer of the democracies to negotiate constructively. For this policy, the closest possible relations between France and Britain are as essential as the preparedness of the two countries. Downing Street 1 feels that the stronger the Franco-British combination is the likelier are German extremists to be kept under in the struggle which is still believed to be progressing between them and the moderates in Berlin. Downing Street also wishes Germany to realise that Mr. Chamberlain was in earnest when lie said that though Great Britain was not prepared to ficrht to protect the peace of Central Europe, she realised that if war started there she would probably l>e dragged into it. The British flovernraent further wants to demonstrate that Great Britain has accepted the challenge of the militarist nations to an armament race and means to throw her vastly superior economic resources into it. Slie is out to show that if Europe remains divided into two groups, the Anglo-French group will not he the first to crack under the strain. Great Britain is, in fact, playing a long-distance game, owing partly to the fact that profitable negotiations with Germany are unlikely in the early future, partly to the belief that Germany is still not ready for war, on account of her inferiority in trained reserves and trained officers and her lack of various kinds of material. Technical Consultations. Domestic politics also propel the British Government towards an accentuation of preparedness. The comments upon the Budget show that the smoothness of its progress through Parliament will depend largely upon allaying doubts recently raised regarding the effectiveness of the rearmament programme, by such things as the dispatch of the aeronautical mission to the United States. It is likely, therefore, that the chief result of the Anglo-French conversations will prove to he the decision to hold technical consultations between experts of the French and British fighting services for the strengthening and the arrangement of mutual defence measures. Largely on account of the defence problem, Spain was another important item in the conversations. The French Ministers were expected to argue that the question of Anglo-French defence depends to no 6mall extent upon the ■ future of Spain. They were expected to point out that the real problem in Spain, if and when General Franco wins, will he getting not the Italians but the Germans out of the country. Such stories are not denied in British Government circles, who find in them a justification for Mr. ChamberlainV; desire to become as\friendly as possible with General Franco in the hope of weaning him away from the dictatorships. This policy is mainly based upon the fact that Spain really belongs to the possessor group of nations, and has therefore nothing fundamental in common with the discontented dynamic nations. If Franco Wins. The question, however, of what General Franco will do when he has won is not yet urgent. His stock has been falling again here recently, and those in a position to judge will not be surprised if it takes him most of this year -before he can even claim to be master of Spain. That means, anion? other things, that the terms of the Anglo-Italian agreement, including British recognition of Italian Ethiopia, will remain in cold storage, as Signor Mussolini is not likely to call off his assistance to General Franco until the general is recognised as the victor.

Nor is there any possibility of definite action regarding the revival of the Four-Power Pact between Britain, France. Germany and Italy. Mr. Chamberlain would like it, and so would Signor Mussolini, but it is not practical polities. The( position of Russia alone blocks it. Germany has made it qbiindant-Iy clear that even if France and Britain are ready to negotiate with her so soon after the rape of Austria, she is not ready to enter the pact unless France and Czechoslovakia give up the Russian alliance, and the only condition under which France wot Id do that would be if Britain would promise to stand with her in protecting the peace of Central Europe, which Mr. (»haniberlain has shown that he will not do.

In the same way, the position of Ttaly stultifies the project, which the French have been playing with, of reviving the Stresa front, that is to say. encirclement of Germany by petting Italy into the democratic camp. Italy, though desirous of better relations with Britain and Fiance, is not prepared to risk antagonising such a powerful and aggressive neighbour as Germany.

The French and British Ministers are, 111 fact, finding the European political situation pretty well deadlocked so far as the essential problem of the relations of Germany with the Western Powers are concerned; a fact which is adduced a«s an additional justification for Mr. Chamberlain's olive branch-mailed fist policy.— (Copyright: X.A.N.A.)