The Press Wednesday, March 5, 1924. Security for France.

Press, Volume LX, Issue 18014, 5 March 1924, Page 8

The Press Wednesday, March 5, 1924. Security for France.

The extraordinary letter which Mr Ramsay Mac Donald has sent to M. Poincare is an attempt to convince Prance that security lies in a friendly Britain rather than in a ruined Germany. That has, indeed, been the burden of 'every communication from London to Paris throughout the whole period of tension, and tho only difference betweon Mr Mac Donald's letter and others lies in its undiplomatic frankness. We may, however, ignore the manner of it just now to ask precisely what is meant by security, and in what kind of association with Britain Mr Mac Donald says France will find it. Thc'ro is an extraordinary belief held by some people that if France had not been abandoned by America and "betrayed" by Britain her security would long ago have been assured. The argument is that tho representatives of America and Britain at Versailles definitely promised tho joint assistance of their countries against an unprovoked attack by Germany; that France, relying on this promise, then signed the Treaty of Versailles; and that when the American Senate refused to ratify the Treaty, and Britain regarded America's default as absolving her also from her promise, France woke up to the fact that tho only safety was to possess the left bank of the Rhine. It is certainly the case that Britain and America offered a " Treaty of Safety," and that the Treaty was never ratified in Washington or replaced by some other Treaty in London. It is the case, also, that with its disappearance France felt a much heavieT responsibility. But there is a good deal of confusion as to the bearing of this on the general question. The sequence of events given is not the sequence of actual fact. What happened is that Britain and America offered to guarantee France against unprovoked aggression, and that France, while appreciating the value of such an offer, decided that it was not an adequate guarantee, and asked, and obtained—in addition or substitution, as the future should decide—the "essential guarantee'' of an occupied Rhineland. But the biggest blunder made in connexion with security is that implied in Mr Mac Donald's letter—the thought, namely, that security is a French problem only. Mr Mac Donald says that "while France conceives "•security as security against Germany " alone. . . the British Empire [the use " of 'Empire' here is interesting] de- " sires security against war." Tho difference is profound, and those who have never made the distinction themselves have not yet begun to understand what security means. It is obvious, too, that no guarantee of security could be a guarantee for all time. The nation which guarantees another to-day may not be willing to guarantee that other in twenty years, or may be willing and not able, and Britain and America could not therefore have bound themselves in perpetuity to guard France against Germany. It is on the contrary beginning to be clear that what was intended was merely a joint guarantee of assistance if France was attacked before the other measures provided for in tho Treaty were effective enough to make a sudden attack impossible. And so far as there is insecurity to-day, it is general rather than special. France is not threatened at present by a sudden attack from Germany: such an attack is impossible. She is threatened, with Britain, and every other country in Europe, with the consequences of the policy she is now pursuing in the mistaken belief that security means the annihilation of Germany. Mr MacDonald's purpose, as it is the purpose of every representative man and newspaper in Britain, is to show France that her present policy is the surest path to insecurity, and that if she follows it the friendship of Britain and America towards her is definitely at an end.