THE ENTENTE WITH FRANCE

Ellesmere Guardian, Volume LIX, Issue 89, 8 November 1938, Page 3

THE ENTENTE WITH FRANCE

"It is only in the middle of the road that there can possibly be an Anglo : French Entente. The two countries cannot long march together if either of them has doctrinal or selfish design^. They must stand on a basis of moderation and mediation," writes Mr Sisley Huddleston, who has lived many years in France, in the "Contemporary Review." "A militant Entente—whether militant for ideas or interests—would not last. It would be dissolved in bickerings and recriminations. The common denominator must be a profound and equal resolve to achieve peace. There would be no reason to welcome the Entente for its own sake; still less reason if it were regarded as a sheer necessity, to which Great Britain is, after years of refusal, finally driven because there is no other point d'appui on a hostile continent but France. Were the new Entente a confession of despair, an indication that the negotiations for a more general pact to replace the Locarno Treaty have hopelessly broken down, then, despite the regal trappings and the popular enthusiasm, we should be registering the gravest of diplomatic defeats. No, the new Entente must be the starting point of a diplomatic victory which will consist neither in refusing to the discontented nations of Europe their just demands, nor in weakly conceding under menaces their unjust claims, but in discovering how it is possible to establish fairer conditions of international existence in the European framework."