ALL EUROPE MUST MAKE SACRIFICES.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3136, 25 September 1922, Page 8

ALL EUROPE MUST MAKE SACRIFICES.

(By Sir Philip Gibbs).

Under pressure of alarming facts which smashed false illusions with a knock-out blow, European statesmen, including those of France, have at last decided to get down to arithmetic and reality and try to work out some practical way of saving themselves and each other from colossal disaster. It is equally important for all business men and those who form the great body of public, opinion to clear their minds of passionate nonsense and look at the actual facts of the world situation in a .scientific spirit. It is, of course, difficult for ordinary citizens to get at vital facts because they arc obscured from day to day by small line devils of news and masses of conflicting opinion, so newspaper readers arc bewildered and cannot see the wood for Clio trees.

At the risk of being very dull 1 pro)oso to set out in a straightforward •vay the facts and figures most signineint in the European problem at the present moment. It will then be possible to understand more clearly the liffieiilties involved and the possibility if settlement. First, under the heading of international debts: Great Britain is the chief reditor of Furope. apart from the United States. Foreign countries and British dominions owe England a. little more than two thousand million pounds. Of this debt France owes England five hundred and eighty-four millions. England owes the United States nine hundred ami thirty-five millions. N T ow what is the financial position of Kngland at the present time? Her credit stands good and is steadily improving for a variety ol' reasons. The chief of these is the British tradition for business honesty, quality of goods aiul sound banking methods. By tremendous taxation, which has reached its maximum limit, the British Government has succeeded in balancing its budgets, preventing inflation of paper money. Hut that taxation is not likely io produce the same amount of revenue in the future, owintr to ite crippling effect.on capital and industry. British export trade, slightly improving, has decreased by nearly -50 per cent, in many important articles and more than a. million men are unemployed in consequence. As proof of pacific intentions, the British army has been reduced the limits below the .safety margin lor policing the Asiatic peoples. For economy sake, as well as because of an anti-militarist policy. Britain is impotent in aircraft compared with France. which has nioro than two thousand figliting airplanes; there are only 200 hi England. The time is at hand when Britain will he unable to maintain her present population unless there is speedy improvement in world trade, and' with, that thought in view the British Government has just agreed to expend t:U)00,000 annually m bearing half the cost of emigration charges to the dominions. All classes in England exccpl working men are being bled white to support these burdens. Tbe old aristocracy is abandoning ancient houses and parks, the middle classes find difficulty in paying their income tax ol five shillings in the pound, and industrialists find enterprise restricted for the- same reason. Nevertheless Britain is determined to pay her debt to the United States, and at ihe same time lias signified her willingness, under certain conditions. to wipe out the French debt to her. thereby necessitating new taxation and new sacrifices on Ihe bulk of the people. There is virtue in that, for, it must be admitted, and has been admitted, that it needs some nobility of soul to adopt this view of the world policy. But il is also the policy of common sense and self-interest. .More important to Britain than a collection of paper debts is the revival of world trade and the security of European peace. British public opinion, with lew though powerful 1 exceptions, favors any policy which will revive export trade and enable former markets to buy her goods. .Most important among those markets are Germany, Russia, and Austria. There is no chance whatever of a revival of world trade until German reparations are revised and settled on a basis within reasonable lime. Austria is a dreadful warning of what happens when a nation is forced to the printing press by impossible debts and internal bankruptcy. In July Ihe. price of bread in Vienna advanced from 1.750 kronen to 2.200 kronen for a. two-pound loaf, an increase of 100 per cent, in three weeks. Immense mobs of men and women threatened with starvation massed around Government cilices with a menace of anarchy, fur years the Allied Powers fooled with ihi- Austrian problem., refused to remit their debts or advance loans, with I be result that now in ai panic they have done both 100 late. Supposing Germany goes the way o'l Austria. If thy German mark conies much lower that is bound to happen, for food markets will reach heights wbicl amount of paper money available in the workers.' hands will reach, and as sure as fate anarchy will prevail. Kngland has been injured by Germany in two ways as by a doubleedged sword. Despite intensive industrial development so highly organised throughout Germany that so far there has been practically no unemployment, Germany's purchasing power ol raw materials from England has steadily diminished. At the same time by the low value of the mark, low wages and low costs due (o that bad paper money. Germany has been able to wipe Britain out of "her former markets, as. for iu--laiice. in the Argentine Republic, which is now lost because of the iutlux ol cheap German goods. Bui all this development of trade. not vol back to pie-war figure*?. has been based on rotten finance, because Germany's immense foreign debts have absorbed all her profits, destroyed her credit, and set the printing presses madly spinning. That is the broad. undeniable fact in spite of Germany's alleged wealth and her undoubted cya--iun of just taxation by boarding money in foreign countries. While her middle classes and laborers are heavily taxed some of her big industrialists and financial gambler*- escaped. But t heir capture with all their new made wealth would not balance Germany's budget or prevent the national disas'ier which is close. It is folly, he- \ 1 all words idiotic, to think that for the sake of vengeance Germany ousilit to be allowed to fall into the ditch she due.-. Her Collapse on a big scale would in very deed' be the downfall of Europe as a whole. Her misery joined to that of Austria. Poland, and Russia would pill us all back into destitution and raise new devils of tragedy and terror. The extremists in Russia are waiting lor ibis to happen with hungry hearts. Moderate men in Russia, of whom there are many, though they are silent, look ■forward with despair to such a tinny. tor il would let loose again the floods of Bolshevism which have been receding during the last year so that Cbmiiiuir'sui is abandoned in creed except among a small group of fanatics who

still hold ltussia in their grip, though they have modified their strangle hold under the influence of necessity. The fight would be precipitated in Germany between revolution and reaction. Personally I think reaction would win. But the conflict would be disastrous not only for Germany but for all of Europe. The Genoa Conference failed because the question of reparations was ruled out. Everything will fail until that is faced and settled. The great hope now is that France, who ruled it out before, is willing now to face the facts bravely and scion tically. What are the facts about Franco? They may he put in a nutshell. Without the German indemnity on the scale laid down by the Treaty of Versailles— which was an impossible scale France cannot balance her budget, cannot repair her devastated districts, cannot pay her debts to Britain or (he United States, cannot maintain her army on the present scale, cannot support her great colored legions which. she is raising in Africa for future need, cannot increase those squadrons of airplanes which made her famous, cannot hold her power in the air, cannot, bold Syria, cannot dominate European politics by the present prestige in arms, her military support of Poland, her military menace against Germany. France, therefore, is the most, directly interested nation in Iho settlement in Europe, for having gained the greatest victory she is now threatened with the loss of all its fruits. If she agrees to cancel in great part the German indemnities she must modify also her whole policy and purpose, and abdicate to some extent her present supremacy. She must shorten the weapon in her hand. She must economise, as England has done, in air and in land forces. She must risk, as England does not risk so much, the future menace and vengeance of Germany. It-is asking France a great deal to' make those concession!!. Vet Prance sees now with a clear. cold vision that world facts force these concessions upon her. Not all. but some. The British Government is not blind lo the position of France concessions to her own view of world policy, which is, in a icw words, peace and the prevention of anarchy in central Europe. Remission of the French, debts to England is offered 1 as a setoff against the remission of German debts to France, Those are the plain, simple outstanding facts about the European problem to-day and to-morrow. One need, not add to them. One cannot evade them. If is a tricky problem of arithmetic and upon its settlement, in fact and in spirit depends the future of European civilisation. We are going through a lot of trouble before il i> settled.