Evening Post. Wednesday, March 24, 1937. WHITHER BELGIUM ?

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 70, 24 March 1937, Page 8

Evening Post. Wednesday, March 24, 1937. WHITHER BELGIUM ?

"Several questions of importance," says "The Times," have been raised by Belgium's decision that the Locarno principle does not meet her needs. What are these questions? They are not specified in the cabled summary of "The Times's" article, but in other channels of publicity have appeared four questions supposed to have been put to Belgium by the French Government, and to be unanswered. Three of these four questions, which provide some kind of a key to the problems behind them, have been stated as follows:

(1) What is the present Belgian position with regard to the Locarno Pact, still valid but denounced by Germany and recognised by Belgium and the other Powers during the discussions in London following Herr Hitler's re-entry of the Rhineland (March, 1936), and bis denunciation of Locarno? (2) What is the Belgian attitude towards the proposed Locarno negotiations, and what part [in view of the Belgian King's Message of October 14, 1936] is Belgium prepared to take in the negotiations? (3) Will Belgium's neutrality permit her to continue to collaborate with the League of Nations, and, if so, under what form will Belgium participate?

It will be seen that the Covenant of the League of Nations, as well as the Locarno Pact, is involved.

Suppose, for argument's sake, that Belgium wishes to have her neutrality guaranteed by the Powers round about her, including Germany; and suppose she wishes to give, in return, no guarantee whatever that she herself will come to the help of any attacked Power. In that case, not only would she stand out of the Locarno Pact principle of helping her Pact-partners against unprovoked aggression, but she would also stand out of the League Covenant articles which call on all League .members for action against a declared aggressor. Does the Belgian King's Message of October 14 mean that or not? The Abyssinian experience shows that mutual help under the Covenant is not the quick-biting thing that mutual help under the Locarno Pact was expected to be. Still, in principle the Covenant articles as well as the Locarno provisions seem to be involved until, such time as Belgium's attitude is clearly denned. Another famous small neutral, Switzerland, is also sitting up and taking notice. The Swiss Government, it is cabled, is making further inquiries in Herr Hitler's reported willingness to guarantee Swiss neutrality. Perhaps the Swiss Government will be able to find out whether Herr Hitler's condition is that Switzerland be no longer bound by League Covenant articles requiring sanctions or military action against an aggressor. Seeds sown by Herr Hitler in the Rhineland coup of March, 1936, led to the Message sent on October 14 by the young Belgian King Leopold 111, to his Council of Ministers, in the course of which he said; i

Our geographical situation forces us to maintain a military establishment adequate to dissuade any of our neighbours from borrowing our territory in order to advance against another. In filling this mission, Belgium cooperates in an outstanding manner to guard the peace of Western Europe; and she creates ipso facto a right to the respect and eventually the aid of all States which have an interest in this peace. . . . But our engagements should not take us further

A little later, on November 27, the Belgian Prime Minister, Paul Van Zeeland, visited London, and in a' speech at the welcoming luncheon the British Secretary for Foreign Affairs, Mr. Eden, said:

Let me affirm once again that the independence and integrity of Belgium are of vital interest for this nation [Britain] and that Belgium could count upon our help were she ever the victim of unprovoked aggression.

And now King Leopold 111 himself, unaccompanied by either his Prime Minister or his Foreign Minister, is in London for what "The Times" calls an informal exchange of views. Meanwhile, those observers who consider that Herr Hitler is anxious to prevent any agreement that would make Belgium, in war-time, a French or a British aerodrome, and to destroy any agreement that would make Czechoslovakia a Russian aerodrome, trace the string of events back lo Berlin. Berlin, it is said, hits at the Franco-Soviet Pact through Belgium and through the Little Entente troubles.

In the same way, the policy in Belgium of M. Degrelle and the Rexists is also regarded as not un-

linked with the German capital. It must be remembered that while King Leopold goes Ministerially unattended to Britain, his Prime Minister, M. Van Zeeland, faces in Brussels the by-election to which he was challenged by. M. Degrelle. So the Rexists may play no small part in the endeavour to extend the NaziFascist pattern of Holy Warfare over the perplexed—and, at present, internally discordantr-Cockpit of Europe.