FOREIGN POLICY OF FRANCE

Evening Post, Issue 29, 4 February 1935, Page 8

FOREIGN POLICY OF FRANCE

Mr. Alexander Werth, who was one of the first of the British correspondents to challenge the idea that M. Doumergue's "Government of Truce" had maintained its paternal and national character, and that its resignation was generally deplored, writes on the prospects of the Flandin Government in the "New Statesman" of December 8. M. Doumergue had been the hero of such an imposing Fascist demonstration on Armistice Night that, according to Mr. Werth, "people fully understood what an enormous service Herriot had rendered the poor old Third Republic by putting an end to the Doumergue regime." The result was that, after M. Doumergue's return to his country home, people had ceased to t worry any more about him, and the new Government was not suffering but profiting from the contrast with its predecessor. I don't know how the Flandin Government is going to work out iri the end, said Mr. Werth, but Flandin is, at any rate, not working hand in hand with the Fascists; and the artificially stimulated rumours of civil war which were used with such effect in the days of Doumergue have stopped completely. ... The Flandin Government is a normal Parliamentary. Government; and Parliament was so relieved by Doumergue's departure that it became very "sage" indeed. It decided to show that it could work without being threatened and bullied. It is certainly very pleasant to hear that the Budget discussions are now carried on in a businesslike fashion and without loss of time, that "the more sensible points" of Doumergue's programme of' Parliamentary reform"—which perhaps means the less drastic of, them—are being "quietly adopted on a mere show of hands, without any outside pressure, and without any spectacular excursions to Versailles." * Professing himself more interested in the economic than in the Parliamentary problem, M. Flandin "by being both Free Trade and Protectionist, by advocating both free competition and a little State control, and by being neither deflationist nor inflationist," had not failed to please anybody, but was "more or less suiting everybody's taste." The ultimate outcome of this "all things to all men" economic programme Mr. Werth • did not attempt to predict, but he was able to say that the ease and smoothness with which the .Parliamentary machine was working had surprised the prophets of. evil, and to dismiss as-empty talk the rumours that the Government was not pulling well together, and that it was "practically" falling to pieces. But this cheerful diagnosis was limited to the sphere of domestic politics, with* which the dangerous upheaval of February last and most of; the other bitter conflicts of postWar France have been chiefly concerned. But Mr.' Werth admits that the -foreign; policy -< of - the' Flandin Government-has excited' serious, differences of .opinion," arid that the Government itself is not of one mind. The only fundamental—but "not open —conflict within the Government is, he writes,'our foreign policy. \ Herriot," in particular,' is' greatly alarmed by Laval's from the right path —the path mapped out by'Herriot himself r and ; ,by the late' Louis Barthou. Laval's ,policy,,wei are told, is not only different, from the-policy of Barthou, but it also'lacks "drive" and "style." Writing in "Izvestia" the ether day, Radek complained that Prance was no longer leading,but manoeuvring. It' is surprising "to find that the views of Radek, which are usually the views of the Soviet. Government, appear to be shared by M. Herriot. The strong movement to the Left at the General Election of 1924 which brought M. Herriot into power greatly relieved the strain of FrancoGerman relations owing to the conciliatory temper that he brought to the Foreign Office when he replaced the man who in tlie previous year had sent a French army into the Ruhr. Just as that mad adventure stimulated the spirit in Germany that ten years later brought Herr Hitler into office, so the reaction to the Nazi madness seems to have stiffened M. Herriot's pacifism with an admixture of the diehard.

According to what Mr. Werth calls the Herriot-Barthou school, "the one and only object of Hitler's policy is the destruction, the annihilation, the 'Vernichtung' of France," and he will succeed if France has to fight alone.

What is needed is an Entente Cop|diale with Britain; a. generous agreeI meat with Italy as soon as circum--1 stances permit; a military entente—not to say an. alliance—with Russia; the 1 consolidation of a vast security and I anti-war bloc in the East, stretching 'from the Gulf of Finland to the Aegean, I and comprising the Little Entente, the I Baltic States, Russia, and Turkey.

The diametrically opposite policy is advocated, Mr. Werth tells us, "by some of the Fascist ex-servicemen and by a tew cranks in the Neo-Socialist Party," and a campaign in favour of a direct Franco-German Entente, which had not been launched when M. Barthou was alive, has lately been very active. M. Laval is described by Mr. Werth as "wavering and manoeuvring between these two policies'." That he should refuse to accept either'of them is certainly to his credit, but wavering may, of course, nullify the advantages even of a right course. In Britain the moderation and

reasonableness of M. Flandin and M. Laval in regard to the Saar have evidently: produced a very favourable impression, and so did M. Laval's handling at Geneva of Yugoslavia's quarrel with Hungary. But it is not only in Fiance that his unceitain attitude to Germany has caused uneasiness. Mr. Werth says that "Russia and the Little Entente are becoming greatly alarmed by his apparent indecision, and especially by his tendency to flirt with Germany." The tendency to flirt with Britain is one thai the French extremists of bolh kinds appear to agree in approving, and M. Flandin and M. Laval have been indulging it to some purpose in London during the last few days. But too much reliance must not be placed on the vague reports of happy results thai appear today with no details to support them. It is certain that the "high measure of agreement" of which a French authority speaks does not include,the kind of Entente Cordiale with Britain which is regarded by "the Herriot-Barthou school" as essential to the security of France.