Evening Post. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1923. STRESEMANN'S DRASTIC STEP

Evening Post, Volume CVI, Issue 128, 27 November 1923, Page 6

Evening Post. TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 27, 1923. STRESEMANN'S DRASTIC STEP

Herr Stresemann's Cabinet has resigned, but how much it means and what will happen next are questions which are as far beyond the comprehension of an outsider as the vagaries of the mark. It is possible that if the experts were equally candid .they would confess the same ignorance, but, though their souls are without the benefits that open confession would confer, the effect upon their hearers of their mutual contradictions is much the same.- It is not even yet clear that those who have been confidently prophesying, "After Stresemann, the deluge," are called upon to hedge. Though the resignation of the Stresemann Cabinet has been accepted by President Ebert, we are told that he has requested Stresemann himself to carry on in the interim. If we are to take these words at their face value, they_ mean that Stresemann himself is still in office, though his colleagues are out of it; but it is probable that they are all holding on until an alternative team is ready. So far there has been no eager rush for the places which are either vacant or to be vacated at a moment's notice. Whether before or after the trial of a successor, Herr Stresemann may be in full charge again.

The impression of strength and shrewdness which the retiring Chancellor has .conveyed during one of the most arduous and perilous ordeals that any Minister has ever had to face is confirmed by his exposition of the reasons why he has decided to resign. "Whether or not he is the subtle Machiavelli that some of his critics have represented him tc be, it cannot be denied that the statement reported yesterday is just what a British Minister, schooled for a lifetime, in the traditions of representative Government, might have made in similar circumstances.

Interviewed after his downfall, Herr bteesemann said that he took the step ?. £*OTC, m Sa decision, because the Pa£ iiament of Germany must be brought tace to face with the measure of its responsibility. Crisis had followed, crisis mainly centred in home affairs ; but those who provoked the crisis were obstinately blind to the effect they produced m the greater affairs of Germany s external relations. . If Parliamentary government was to continue, he said, a new Reiehstaf would be necessary, or the succeeding Government would meet the same fate as his

That German politics should be suffering acutely from the irresponsibility which is usually associated with government by groups and coalitions was inevitable. If traces of this weakness have been observable, even in Britain, since the war, the chaotic condition of Germany and her unfamiliarity with self-government could not fail to bring the infection upon her in a peculiarly malignant form. The sense of responsibility in which democracy provides so solid a set-off -to its many inconveniences is-some-thing which Prussian despotism has never given the German people a chance of acquiring. The drastic step which Herr Stresemann has taken should help, as he suggests, to cure this defect in their education.

There is another vital lesson which the Germans appear to be learning from the bitter experience of the last few months. More than four years after the Armistice, and more than three years after the signing of the most humiliating peace on record, it is actually be•ginning to dawn upon their slowmoving intelligence that they did not win the war.

, Germany, ' said Heir Stresemann in lus last speech in" the Beichstag, "is only now realising that she lost the war. We have for years deceived ourselves regarding the consequences of the lost war. We now see' these consequences in all their terribleness before m."-

This is good news, for whether the French are right Or wrong, and whether the Treaty of Versailles is right or wrong, the Germans can never be right until they grasp the fact that the Allies won the warNo doubt equilibrium could pos* sibly be established in Europe, either under the present Treaty or under any amended or substituted Treaty, as long as the Gentian's remained in ignorance of this fact. If they have really mastered the lesson, the appalling price which they have paid in the school of suffering has not been entirely thrown away.

The " Morning Post," to whose Berlin correspondent we owe this interesting item, will, of course, find in it a complete justification of the line which France has taken in. the Ruhr, and which she proposes to continue. It would be pleasant to think so, but unfortunately the evidence as a whole points the other way.- The French .moved into the Ruhr with the confident declaration that Germany had the capacity to pay, and that all that was needed to inspire her with the will to pay was firm handling.. Nobody disputed the power of the Allies, or of France alone, to crush Germany into misery, insolvency, and ruin, but Britain held aloof because she feared that the economic reactions upon the Allies tbemeclvea would be. dieask tro.us. Even assuming that the

military force of France may be correctly diagnosed to have broken the spirit of the Germans, thefear of Britain that the economic strength which alone would enable .them to pay reparations would be broken at the same time, appears to be fully justified. What has been the fear of Britain has perhaps been the hope of France. French policy will be even better suited by the destruction of Germany's industrial power and the disruption of her territory than by the payment of reparations in full; but the result would be to confront Europe with a more perilous problem than any that it would solve.

France, says " The Times," has had her way. Her curiously systematic and coldly logical effort is nearing its goal. A new political entity is appearing in Middle Europe, moulded and dominated by France. The rest of chaotic Germany, deprived of this wealthy region, hasJittle chance of speedy recovery. . . Britain needs above all at present the strongest Government capable of grappling fearlessly with realities in Europe. The triangular contest upon an irrelevant issue which is now convulsing Britain does not appear to be "the best way of satisfying her supreme need.