FRENCH POLICY

Dominion, Volume 16, Issue 120, 6 February 1923, Page 7

FRENCH POLICY

INSPIRING ENGLAND WJTH GREATEST ALARM

WRECKING OF HOPES OF PEACE IN NEAR EAST

WOULD BRING END OF ENTENTE

By Telegraph.—Press association. —Copybight.

London, February 4. In a leading article dealing primarily with the confusion raised by the mystdry of the French Notes to Angora, the “Times” examines the advantages of Anglo-French unity, and concludes: “It is very natural that the British people should wish to know the real motives of the Power with whom we have been accustomed of late years closely to co-operate. We are accustomed to regard treaties as a binding, plighted word, as a contract that cannot lightly be ignored at the convenience of either party. In the policy which the French are pursuing in the Ruhr —a policy inspiring England with the greatest alarm as to the future of Europe and the world—the French Government, knowing that Britain entirely disapproves, invokes the sanctions of a treaty that was the product of tho joint efforts of all the Powers who were allies in the war. The French have aroused in Germany a spirit of resistance and a reckless disregard of all the obligations imposed by the Peace Treaty, . which seems likely to throw the whole work of the peace into complete confusion. We have had no part in this, yet we must bear the consequences. The tradition of close friendship with France, and especially the vivid memories of comradeship in war, still prevent many people in England from perceiving the full consequences to ourselves and the world of the headstrong action of France. If, however, tho French Government, in its blind infatuation over some obscure schemes of its own, go sc far as to wreck tho hope of the peace in the Near East, encouraged by the labours of the Lausanne Conference, then the people of this country will begin to feel that for all practical purposes the Entente is ended.— “The Times.”