WHY BRITAIN COMPLAINS

Evening Post, Volume CVII, Issue 24, 29 January 1924, Page 5

WHY BRITAIN COMPLAINS

GRIEVANCES AGAINST FRANCE.

(ADSTRAHAN-MW ZBAIANB CABLB ASSOCIATION.) LONDON, 27th January. London newspapers feature reproductions of parts of the "QuotidienV interview with MrT Ramsay Macdonald, j describing it as \the Prime Minister's frank . talk with France. Replying to his interviewer.'^ inquiry for reasons for the widely prevalent irritation felt by the English people against France, Mr. Macdonald said that the British people reproached France first with the occupation of the Ruhr, which they believed to be the principal cause' of Britain's economic distress, with not having enough consideration for the general interests of Europe,' or the' particular interests of Britain, and with giving moral and financial encouragement to the smaller nations iii the matter of armaments, which tended inevitably to lead to another war. Mr. Macdonald did not wish to emphasise British business men's anxiety .regarding the prospects of the French industrial combinations, or the -wide scope for people's fears arising out of the extent of the French aerial anna* ments, but the British people were alarmed, and beginning to ask whether alliances should besought elsewhere, though Labourites did not believe in armaments and alliances made for security. POISONING PUBLIC OPINION Mi-. Macdonald, concluding, referred to the newspaper trusts which had recently sprung up in Britain, Germany, France, and America. Before long, these, doubtless, would tend to work internationally. He believed that some measures ought to be taken to make it impossible to poison public opinion. News agencies ought not to be able to circulate falsified news intended to create opinion. Governments eventually must act to preserve the Press from corruption or control by oligarchies. The references to-the Press are/specially significant. The "Quotidien" is .Fans s first co-operatively-owned nonparty newspaper, with a motto founded by 40,000 Frenchmen and women, "to defend and perfect Republican institutions. It was, only established in 1922 in the teeth of the big dailies, wljich attempted to boycott it, and now has a circulation of two millions weekly.