AN UNDERSTANDING

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 36, 12 February 1936, Page 11

AN UNDERSTANDING

FRANCE AND BRITAIN

RECENT EVENTS

OLD MISTRUST GONE

M. Paul Reynaud, whose speech in the French Chamber nearly brought down the Laval Government recently, was lunching with me in the House of Commons on the day after the great debate on the Hoare-Laval proposals.

He had listened to every word of the debate, and it was evident that it had profoundly impressed him. Clever, quick, and intuitive, he had grasped that the House that day reflected the true heart of the British people (writes Brigadier-General E. L. Spears, M.P.i in the "Daily .lelegraph").

<It was the picture he painted to his colleagues of what he had seen, the impression he conveyed of the House of Commons in deadly earnest, that so moved the French Chamber of Deputies. This explanation of Britain to France by an acute and sincere observer whose position entitles him to great respect in his own country, came none too soon. There has been complete misunderstanding on the part of a large section of French opinion as to the real motives animating the British people in regard to the war in Abyssinia. OUTWORN BELIEFS. France has now at last appreciated the fact that England is prepared to follow the League as the Pilgrim Fathers followed the path of the Western sun, ready to face tribulation and peril for the sake of an ideal. Until the other day the majority of Frenchmen were persuaded that the strong line recently taken by British Ministers at Geneva was due to the fact that British Imperial interests were threatened by the Italian aggression. It is the misfortune of our two countries that, close neighbours and historically secular enemies, with temperaments that, nationally speaking, are almost incompatible, each forms opinions of the other based on the misapprehensions of centuries, so that the very qualities of the one become intolerable faults in the eyes of the other. French logic and British opportunism are not complementary qualities. To the French our country is Perfidious Albion, and to us theirs is' cynical 'France. Recent- events could hardly have been better calculated to confirm each country in an opinion of the other older, and therefore stronger, than the sympathies born of the war. The French had observed that in the case of the Sino-Japanese dispute we had acquiesced in inaction by the League. Again, in the case of Germany's repudiation of the military clauses of the Versailles Treaty, we had condoned that repudiation and hastened to conclude a Naval Treaty with the offender. This to the French was a matter of quite vital importance, affecting every man and woman in the country. Germany's re-armament would, they knew, compel France to an increased expenditure on armaments that she could ill afford. Worse still, it meant an increase in the time every man in France would have to serve in the army. ,■...-•.■.!-- It was no use to tell them that it was their 6wn refusal to negotiate any alteration in the military clauses of the Treaty that had led our Government to make an arrangement with Germany whilst there was still time. The logical Frenchman, haunted by an ineradicable fear of Germany, saw only one thing, that a treaty had been repudiated and that we had given our blessing to the repudiatoit When, therefore, the Abyssinian dispute arose, and Great Britain at once assumed the leadership in condemning that obvious and flagrant wrong, the French concluded that our attitude, so different in the case of Germany and Italy, could only be due to the fact that in both cases it was not the League or the sacredness of treaties that counted with us, but merely our material interests. MUTUAL SUSPICION. They concluded that we feared for Lake Tana and the waters of the Upper Nile, or perhaps considered that TSgypt or the route to India was threatened. This belief was sedulously fostered by a Press generously subsidised by Italy. It can hardly be wondered, therefore, that until quite recently most Frenchmen felt that England was attempting to mobilise them in an imperial quarrel of her own. Our people, on the other hand, watching the French with uncomprehending eyes, saw them with subtle arguments paying lip service to the League whilst evading the spirit of the Covenant. Gradually the suspicion; grew in England that to the French the Covenant was but a screen behind which a system of alliances aimed at Germany was being built. Our people felt that they had been fooled, that even the Treaty of Locarno was but an instrument by which they had guaranteed French safety by means of a form of disguised alliance, cloaked under League formulae. French tardiness and seeming reluctance to promise us help in the Mediterranean if we were attacked by Italy further shocked and offended our people, who (and it is important French opinion should realise this) never felt a tremor of fear, but were determined not to be involved in a conflict with Italy single-handed. To them the issue was simple. Either the League could provide the collective security they hoped for from it, which could only be possible if all its members supported each other, or it was merely a pompous pretence in whose survival they were not much interested. They had made up their minds that, as far as they were concerned, it was to be the League or nothing. The crisis over the Hoare-Laval peace proposals made our people realise with something of a shock the heaviness of the burdens the Covenant imposes. They had not thought much about these heretofore, but when they had to face them they accepted them without a quiver, as is their wont So we stand today. The French at last see that we are in earnest, that we are playing no game, are animated by no selfish interest, but are prepared to risk much, to make the collective peace system a reality. That realisation has come just in time to save the two nations from drifting perhaps permanently apart. It is interesting to observe the parallel phenomena in the French and British Parliaments. In both countries great, deep waves of public opinion have forced the Governments to bow to the ideal peace embodied, for millions of simple people, in the League of Nations. Just as Mr. Baldwin saved himself by a reaffirmation of loyalty to the principles of the Covenant, so M. Laval only avoided defeat by protesting his devotion to the League. He had further to convince his countrymen that he had done nothing to forfeit British friendship. It is satisfactory to know that, in the last resort, the French consider co-operation with this country as an essential principle of their policy. Although the result ol the debates

in both Parliaments can be deemed very satisfactory by the friends of the League the world over, it is alarming to find how misunderstandings can grow between two countries linked by every device of modern communication, whose peoples not only have common interests, but are qlose neighbours. In this particular case it was the visit of one man, M. Paul Reynaud, to London, and his presence at the debate in the House of Commons, that served to clear the atmosphere. EMPIRE'S SUPPORT. The conclusion that emerges from the events of the last few weeks is that the British, rendered sceptical by M. Laval's too clever manoeuvring, are waiting to see whether France really intends to co-operate with us in upholding the authority of the League. If she fails to do so and the League collapses we shall reshape our foreign policy accordingly, but in that event it is safe to say that we shall not return to the policy of the Entente Cordiale. For England one lesson stands out clearly. The day of "power politics" is over so far as we are concerned. Whatever our foreign policy may be in the future, it must be based much more on moral than on material considerations.

The Empire has responded magnificently to an ethical issue. It would not have supported us had we been engaged in pursuing a policy similar to Italy's in Abyssinia.

It is essential that we should follow a policy acceptable to the Empire as a whole if this is to remain an entity, and the only policy upon which the whole Empire will be united is a policy based on a moral principle, or upon defence of any its members against aggression. If any of its component parts were attacked or its communications threatened the British Commonwealth of Nations, feeling its existence endangered, would take up arms. But no member of it would support another in an adventure that even savoured of Imperialism.

Not only that, but no material question, however, important, could involve the interests of nations widely scattered through the whole world. We are too far-flung a community to indulge the narrow interests of any one of its members. On the other hand, we have realised during recent months as never before that a moral issue awakens the same feelings in men of our race the world over. A crime is looked upon with the same abhorrence in Sydney as in London or Ottawa, and the British nations, roused by a similar feeling of indignation, will stand together to suppress it.

The realisation of this fact is of great importance, and should give satisfaction, though it should not lead to complacency, for it is our geographical situation, more, perhaps, than our virtues, that imposes upon us the role of leader in the new international ordef.