The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11 1919.

Evening Star, Issue 17067, 11 June 1919, Page 4

The Evening Star WEDNESDAY, JUNE 11 1919.

* It is not yet certain that there will be a peace <jii paper. It :s The Crisis, ."till less certain that there will be a peace in fact." iThese word's were written many weeks ago hx the Paris correspondent of perhaps the best known of the English provincial papers. Unfortunately, they seem just as true to-clay as they did then. And the danger is that as time i;ue» on the prospects of pe.ice may ; eerie. The narrowh'jr down oi the uiiv.ieldy Peace Confere<".e * to the executive know n as the- Council <•• F ,ur v.m< primarily a speeding-up mea- -• e. for the dangers of delay soon began t i» r,> •■ i - ur. It was hoped that the ":* '. v the minds the fewer the divergences .' ,f-ir..fn. and the greater the prospect of sc.Jmt: t1.0.-><* that might aiisc. The re\t ■•►* ;».'ai to bt» the upshot. The Coun- .. .-£ F~-r nan' evidently arrived at a dead* !. k. For a long time the Fiume controversy overshadowed other contentious matters. When that at length was settied, prospects, so far as agreement among the Allies themselves was concerned, improved distinctly. The improvement was transient to a degree. Fiume.. after all, was only a side- issue, though important enough, of ate kind. The present deadtaclc m evtir fundamentals., Ciemeeeeau

■will not budge from his position, which is that the only answer to the Gorman counter-proposals shall be presentation once more of the Peace Treaty, with its terms unaltered, for"Signature. Evidently he believes either that the Germans have been bluffing and will sign at Versailles or that they can be forced to sign at Berlin. Recently Lloyd George, addressing a "Welsh battalion in France, said the same thing: "If not at Versailles, then at Berlin." Since then some change has taken place. It is America, rather than Britain, who is standing by France in this attitude, although not long ago it was President Wilson who was threatening to pack up and sail for home unless Clemenceau abated his immovability over this very matter. But whoever of the " Big Four" may change ground, it is almost a certainty that Clemenceau will not.

"* France has sntforod so cruelly through the war that she looks on the dark side of things. France fears for her future security, and in her anxiety has persuaded herself that her only safeguard is to bind the enemy in chains of steel. Tin's tormenting uncertainty as to the future has force;! French thought into pessimistic channels. Though Germany is surrounded by a world of enemies and France by a world of friends. France persists in seeking security by methods of self-defence which to some onlookers appear unwise and dangerous because they will keep open festering wounds. By so doing Fiance may run the risk of alienating her friends." Such "are the arguments of those who, believing that Germany's refusal to sign is not bluff, would now prefer to see peace by negotiation at Versailles rather than a resort to exhvme measures such as the occupation of Berlin. One question of great interest io our Empire is whether Lloyd George has lately been converted to this viewpoint. The cables have told us of speculation and concern in Britain over a weakening in his attitude. It is by now an open secret that he strongly dissented from what the. Polish Commission of the Peace Conference did regarding Germany's cistern frontier and. the %i coi-ricior " from the Baltic through West Prussia to Russian Poland. While solid on the reconstitution of an independent Poland, he opposed the inclusion in it of considerable territory in which numerically the German element greatly preponderated over the Polish. He saw that it violated the nationality principle on which the Peace Conference proposed to redraw the map of Europe, and that it: would inevitably lead to trouble. To-dny's cables bear him out. Germany is preparing for a campaign against the Poles to oppose by force the carrying out of the terms of the treaty as regards her eastern frontier readjustments. Again, the German troops who remained in the Baltic provinces to hold up the Russian Bolshevik tide sweeping westward were not withdrawn, as the Allies stipulated ; instead, they have virtually stabbed in the bock the K'sthonians in their pursuit of the Bolsheviks and their advance on Petrograd. Evidently German militarism is not yet dead. It is rearing its head again in the East. To prevent its doing so in the West is the Allies' prime duty. What method they ought to pursue it would be presumption to suggest here. All we wish to emphasise is that, while the "Big Four'" remain at loggerheads, nothing gets done, however urgent the need. It would be regrettable if the crisis were got over by Clemenceau backing down, but it would be dangerous if the deadlock were to continue.