FRANCE AND THE RHINELAND.

Press, Volume LVIII, Issue 17634, 11 December 1922, Page 7

FRANCE AND THE RHINELAND.

j MENACE TO WORLD PEACE, I BRITAIN AND THE ANTII AGGRESSION PACT. ME LLOYD GEORGE'S WARNING. The folio win 2 article and all Mr Lloyd George's subsequent articles are copyright by the United Press Association in America, and all countries. They are copyright in Australasia by the Australian Press Association and the copyright" in Britain is held by the "Daily' Chronicle." Reproduction in full or in part is prohibited. LONDON, December 8. Mr Lloyd George, in the first of a series of articles on Imperial and international problems, deals with relations between Great Britain and France. He writes:— M. Clemenceau, in a remarkable series of speeches in the United States, implies a breach of faith on the part of Great Britain with reference to the pact to guarantee France against the possibility of German aggression. Great Britain has no better friend in the whole of France than M. Clemenceau. Throughout his strenuous and consistent career he has never varied in his friendship for England. Many times he has been bitterly- assailed for that friendship. French journalists are not sparing in innuendo against those they hate, and M. Clemenceau is a man of scrupulous integrity. At one period of his stormy political life he was charged by certain Paris newspapers with being in the pay of England. It, therefore, M. Clemenceau now does an injustice to Great Britain, I am convinced that it ie not from blind hatred of this country, hut from a temporary forgetfulness of facts. He states the facts with reference to the original pact quite fairly. It was proffered as an answer to those who claimed that the left bank of the Rhine should be annexed by France. There was a strong party in France which urged M. Clemenceau to demand that the Rhine be treated ae the natural frontier of their country, and that advantage should be taken of Germany's overwhelming defeat to extend France's' boundaries to that fateful river. France and the Rhine Provinces. For unknown centuries, the Rhine has been fought over and across. It has been, a veritable river of blood. If French Chauvinism had its way this time, the Rhine would, within a generation,, once more have overflowed its banks and devastated Eurqge. The most moderate and insidious form this demand took was the proposal that the German provinces on the left bank should remain in French occupation til the Treaty__was fulfilled. That meant for ever. The reparations problem alone, skilfully handled by the Quai d'Orsay, would preclude any possibility of ever witnessing the fulfilment of the Treaty. The argument by which they - ( sujpported 1 their claim was the defencelessness of France without, some natural barrier. France had been twice invaded and overrun within living memory by her formidable neighbour. German military power is now crushed, provinces of the German Empire have been restored to France and Poland, but the population of Germany ia still 60 per cent, greater than that of France, and growing at an alarming 1 rate', while the Frenoh population is at j a standstill. German towns and villages are choked with sturdy children. You cannot talk long with a Frenchman without realising how this spectre of German childhood haunts France and intimidates her judgment. These children, "it is said, are nourished on vengeance. One day the struggle will be resumed. France has not a natural defence against the avenging hordes now playing in German streets and with the hum of whose voices German kindergartens resound jThe Rhine is therefore, in French eyes, | the bnly line of resistance, and it is j only sinister interference by sta|esmen ' who love not France that deprives .Frenchman of this security of peace which provided. The fact that this* involves the subjection to a foreign yoke of millions of Germans hostile in every, fibre to French rule, will be a constant source of trouble ; to the French Government, while not •merely an incentive to Germany to renew war, but to dignify the attack by converting it into a war of liberation. All that has had no effeot on a certain ' school of French politics. This s'chool is-as powerful as ever, and is a Teal danger. Fifteen years of occupation may) on one pretext '6r an- , other, be indefinitely prolonged, and when it comes to an end, will there j be a Ministry in France strong enough to" withdraw the troops or to resist the ! Press clamour that tho occupation should be made effective? Upon the answer to these questions the peace of Europe, the peace of the world, perhaps the life of our civilisation, depends. The pressure to do the evil thing that will once more spill rivers of human blood is an insistent temptation, ever growing, and resistance is getting feebler. America and Great Britain, standing together, can alone avert the catastrophe, and can only do it by making it clear that the aggressor, whoever he be, will have the invincible might of those two Commonwealths against the nation threatening to embroil the world in another conflict. There are men in Germany who preach revenge, and there are men in France who counsel annexation. They must be warned that such a step will alienate the sympathies of Great Britain and America, and that when the inevitable war of liberation 1 comes, the sympathies of America and Great Britain will be openly ranged on the side of those fighting for national freer dom. The time.has come for saying these things, and, if they are not said in. high places, humanity will one day call those occupying such places to reckoning. Britain's Offer to Prance. ■ The pact between Britain and France was designed to strengthen M. Clemenceau'e hands against the aggressive

party of Prance who are anxious to commit this colossal error of annexation. M. Clemenceau knows full well that Great Britain's reply, any time during the last three years up to a few months ago, was that she would take upon herself the burden of the pact, with or without the United States. At Cannes early in the year I made a definite proposal to that effect. It was a written offer, made on behalf of the British Government to M. Briand, saying that I was anxious to secure the co-operation of Franco to establish real peace from the Urals to the Atlantic seaboard.

French suspicions and apprehensions constituted a serious difficulty. I thought that if I made it clear to France that the whole strength of Great Britain could be depended on in the event of a threatening invasion, French opinion would be in a better mood to discuss the questions agitating Europe. "With a great nation like France, to which the war has given a towering position in Europe, in a condition of fretfulness, it was impossible to settle the problems. Hence the British Government's offer.

M. Briand was prepared to welcome it, and agreed to summon the Conference at Genoa. He also resolved that an effort be made to establish a peace in Russia that would bring that great country within the community of nations. Germany was invited to send her chief Minister to Cannes, and the late Dr. ltatheuau reached Cannes in time to take part in the discussions. Negotiations were proceeding hopeiuliy, and another week might have produced results which would have pacified the tumults of suspicious nations, but, alas, Satan had not done with Europe. A Ministerial crisis in France brought our hopes tumbling to the ground. Suspicion once more seized the tiller, and 1 Europe, just as it seemed to be entering | the harbour of goodwill, swung back violently into the broken seas of international distrust. The offer of the British pact was rejected with disdain. We were told quite brutally that it was no use without a military convention. This we declined to enter into. Europe had suffered too much from military conventions to warrant the repetition of such a disastrous experiment. The pact 'with Great Britain lies for the moment in the waste-paper basket, but we did not fling it there. M. Clemenceau ought to have made complaint in Paris against the men of his own race, not in New York against Englishmen. With the pact went the effort to make peace in Europe. How France Wrecked Genoa. The history of Genoa is too recent to need recapitulation. The new French Ministry did not play the part of a Government responsible for pressing too successfully for any of the objeots of the Cannes Conference, but rather that of a captious critic who had to be persuaded along every inch of the road, and who threatened at every obstacle to turn back and leave the rest of Europe to struggle with tne burden amid the mocking laughter pf France.

i I am not complaining of M. Barthou (France's delegate at Genoa). He did his best, under most humiliating conditions, to remain loyal to the conference. His task was an impossible one. He was hampered, embarrassed, and tangled at every turn. Whenever he took a forward, he was lassoed by a despatch from Paris. I am credibly informed that he received 800 of these communications. What could the poor man do in the circumstances? Other European countries were perplexed and distracted. They were anxious and passipnately sincere that the Genoa conference should end in a stable peace. European nations could'not help seeing one of the great Powers working for its failure.

It is a marvel that, in of the unfortunate attitude adopted by. ■••"i>4» Frenoh Government, a pact was signed whioh at any rate preserved the peace of Europe for several months. Genoa at least dispelled that cloud, but permanent peace has not yet been secured, and the paot with Russia will soon expire. I am, however, hopeful that the spirit of Genoa will stand between the contending armies and prevent the clash of swords. Seeds of Future Conflict.

All this, however, ie leading me away ! from M. Clemenceau's suggestion that Great Britain has not kept faith in guaranteeing France against German aggression. The offer was definitely renewed at Cannes, but M. Poincare has not accepted it. I hare my own opinion as to why he has not done so. It is not merely that he does not wish to set the seal of approval upon his predecessor's achievement. I am afraid the reason is of a more sinister kind. If France accepts. Great Britain's guarantee, every excuse for annexing the left bank of the Rhine disappears. If this is the explanation, if the French Ministers have made up their minds that under no circametances, even at the end of the period of occupation, they will withdraw from the Rhine, then a new chapter opens in the history of Europe and the world, with a climax of horror Buch as mankind has not yet witnessed. The Germans will never rest content with millions of their countrymen'under a foreign yoke on the other side of the Rhine. It would only be a question of time when a war of liberation would begin. We know what the last war wsb like. No one can foretell the terrors of the next. Is it too much to ask that America should in time take an effective interest in the developments along the Rhine P Neither Great Britain nor America can afford to ignore the manoeuvres going on along its banks. It is a far cry from the Rhine to the Mississippi, but not so far as it used to be. There are now graves not far from the Rhine where Ties the dust of men who less than six years ago came from the banks of the Mississippi.

THE FRENCH VIEWPOINT. M. POINCARE REPLIES TO MB ijiLOYD GEORGE. (Received December 10th, 11.5 pJ n.) • LONDON, December 9. M Poincare, replying to Mr Lloyd George's criticisms of French policy, in

aext column.)

which he asserts that an important party in France is desirous of annexing the left bank of the Bhine, states that such a party does not exist, except in Mr Lloyd George's imagination. _ ; "There is not a Government Minister- —not even a Deputy or a Senator—who would put forward such a foolish design. Mr Lloyd George says he offered M. Clemenceau, in 1919, a British guarantee against aggression, in Order to help him against the Chauvinism of his compatriots. lam suro this does not correspond with M. Clemenceau's idea. In any case, the pact proposed at Cannes was entirely illusory. It excluded anything in the nature of an alliance, and was offered for only ten years, which is shorter than the period, of the Allied occupation of the left bank of the Bhine. Therefore it would probably end at the time when it would be useful. However, the pact did not meet a caße of indirect aggression, such as a German attack on Poland. "Mr Lloyd George now pretends we asked for a real military convention. It is true that Franc© wanted a convention analogous to that existing before the war. When this was refused France agreed to continue the discussions, stipulating that the pact should provide for a permanent contract between the military staffs of Britain and France. Mr Lloyd George, however', gave us to understand that thie must be delayed until agreement bad been reached at the Genoa Conference on the Eastern question,, and the question of Tangier. But Genoa did not fulfil all Mr Lloyd George's wishes because his views were incompatible with the realities. Likewise Eastern affairs have not taken the course King Constantine, M. Gounaris and Mr Lloyd George hoped they would. 'Nothing has been more fortunate for the peace of the world. Lausanne proves that complete accord is henceforth possible between England and France regarding their Eaetern policy. "Unfortunately that accord did not exist a few months ago."