The Press Tuesday, October 20, 1925. The Locarno Agreement.

Press, Volume LXI, Issue 18517, 20 October 1925, Page 8

The Press Tuesday, October 20, 1925. The Locarno Agreement.

It is not an unfavourable sign that "The Times'' seems to be the only newspaper really enthusiastic about the Locarno agreement. When we consider how many agreements have been announced, signed, and rejoiced over since PJIS, how often we have entered new eras and seen the light of new dawns, it. is perhaps more disturbing that "The Times" should rejoice again than that the other newspapers should not. And yet there are no reasons in addition to our chronic scepticism why we should hesitate to give Locarno "its assured place in "history.'' The fact that Germany, Belgium. France, Britain and Italy have solemnly bound themselves to keep the most dangerous frontier in Europe ; does not make the violation of that frontier impossible, and would not do so if we could assume thai each Power will sign without reservations of any kind. But it certainly makes violation so much less probable that we are entitled to feel as happy as we can. Britain is not s<> deeply involved in the case as France and Germany, and might quite clearly have held aloof without immediate risk. It is going too far altogether to say. as " The " Times " does, that to abandon Europe would have meant "calling down " on our heads the dangers of many " indefinite conflicts into which v.-e " might suddenly be plunged." But it is right to emphasise the fact that Britain is so much affected by what j happens in Europe that the dangers she runs by remaining a European Power would not disappear if she withdrew. It is no use shutting our eyes to the fact that the new arrangement, if it promises safety most of the time, means danger some of the time, and may, if the goodwill on which it depends fails, serve no purpose in the end but to make Europe an armed j camp again. But France has an enormous army now, arid if the sequel i to the Locarno agreement is even a first instalment of land disarmament that -will be a big enough gain to justify some risk. Unfortunately, we know nothing or next to nothing yet about the Eastern agreement. The fact that Germany has agreed to join the League of Nations means that Britain and France have been able to convince her that there will be no French armies rushing across the fatherland in the event of acts of aggression by Russia. But wc do not know by what promises German anxiety has been silenced, and we do know that the French newspapers are already asking for safeguards against " German attempts to "secure compensation" for adhering to the Pact and entering the League. It is not even made clear whether France remains as the guarantor of that Eastern agreement, though it obviously makes an enormous difference whether she does or does not. Poland and Germany are in stiCh a black mood with each other that they have been carrying out wholesale expulsions on both sides, and if France has the liberty—which she was certainly demanding until the other day—to interfere to protect Poland, the outlook for peace is not bright. Interference at the request of the League would of course be a different matter. But interference without any mandate from the other Powers—automatic interference a 9 the guarantor of the treaty or existing frontier— jvould make war so certain that the best thing the Dominions could do even now would be to have nothing further to do with security. Of course the Dominions will have nothing to do with the security of Eastern Europe in any case; but until we know how much liberty France retains to rattle her sword in that quarter we had better reserve our rhapsodies.