The Troubles of Europe

Evening Star, Issue 19328, 14 August 1926, Page 3

The Troubles of Europe

FRANCE AND THE FRANC

THE BRITISH COAL STRIKE

[By the Eight Hon. David Lloyd George, 0.M., M. 8., former Prime

Minister of Great Britain.]

Exclusive to the ' Evening Star.’

(Copyright by United Press Associations of America; reproduction in

lull or in part prohibited.)

No. XVIII. Europe’s perplexities this week do not lack variety, although they have the same common origin—the Great War. Another I reach Ministry, panting, stumbling, and falling in the wild chase to catch up the Hying tranc; Germany trying to mam up nor mind wnat she ougnb to do with the colossal fortune amassed by the Hohcnzollcrns; the British Ministry at last tabling its plans for putting an end to the grave industrial struggle in the coal mines; and, finally, the skiff of the League of Nations paddling amongst the reeds of Geneva in vain search for the lost spirit of Locarno, dropping Spain and Brazil overboard. This is a summary of the chief excitements of the European arena this week. It is a constant source of puzzlement to outsiders to understand why an intelligent and resourceful people like the French should experience all this difficulty over then - currency, whilst their next-door neighbors across a narrow channel have so completely re-established the credit of their coin. In xhany ways the British had a harder task in front of them. Great Britain has never recovered more than 80 per cent, of her pre-war foreign trade. Prance lias secured the whole of her trade, and captured another 10 per cent, in addition. Britain has for six years staggered under a burden of unemployment of 1,000,000 and more. France finds full employment for the whole of her workmen, and as many more as care to enter her labor markets from other lands. Britain since the war has had strikes, lock-outs, and stoppages on an unprecedented scale. French workmen have in appearance and reality, according to all accounts, been working well and steadily. Everybody in France seems to be working hard and well—as hard as over and* better than ever. The equipment of industry is better than it ever was, and the organisation is better for production und sale; the results all round are therefore better. French trade was sever as good or as profitable. That is certainly not true of British trade, and yet the sovereign stands as high as ever it did on the international exchange. On the other hand, the franc has made a new record in the depth to which it has fallen. No wonder British opinion is utterly unable to understand why Frenchmen do not tackle the situation and put their wobbly currency right in the only way it can be steadied. It all seems-so simple to observers on this side of the Channel. If you do not pay your way fou fall in debt, and if you fall in debt your credit is damaged. If you wish to repair it the only method is to balance your revenue and expenditure—not on paper, but in reality. LOOKING FOR A MAGICIAN. In theory Frenchmen recognise this obvious truth. In fact, they have been striving to dodge it. All the ingenious minds in the French Chamber have been engaged for months and years in devising ingenious schemes for circumnavigating its deficits. Every French politician with any reputation for financial experience has been given an opportunity for trying his hand. Mr Briand never professed to understand monetary problems. M. Poincare pretended to understand, but never did. M. Painleve knew too much about finance, and Messieurs Loucheur and Caillaux far too mcuh. M. Eaoul Peretti did not lack understanding as much as strength, and perhaps not so much strength as backing. The French public have been expecting a magician to appear and straighten out the tangle with a wave of his wand. They will not look in the face the dominating fact of the situation—that France must pay her way. Everybody expects everybody else to pay taxes. “ Tax thy neighbor as thyself ” is fair, but the French motto of “Tax thy neighbor and spare thyself” is not only unfair, it is also impolitic, and leads straight to national bankruptcy. M. Briand has set up a committee of experts to report on the situation. It is quite unnecessary. For a shilling he can buy the best financial advice ever given to an individual or to a nation. The famous saying of Mr Micawber is more applicable to the French financial situation than the report of many experts; “Annual income twenty pounds, annual openditure nineteen nineteen six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.” THE BRITISH COAL STRUGGLE. Britain is struggling through the serious industrial conflict in the mines. This week represents the end of the second mouth of the coal stoppage, and agreement has not yet been reached. I predicted some weeks ago that the struggle upon which we were then entering would be a prolonged one. I pointed out that the miners were proverbially stubborn, and never gave in before actual hunger supervened. It is true that then I anticipated that the other trades unions would have stood by them—for at least some weeks longer than they actually did. It is . not without significance that the collapse of the general stiiko was due, not to the reluctance of tho men who were called out to remain on strike, but to a sudden accession of belated prudence on the part of leaders who became apprehensive of consequences they ought to have foreseen before they struck. The calling off of tho general strike did not produce the slightest impression—except one of disgust and contempt —on the miners. If anything, it made them more obstinate. How much longer will it go on? It is quite impossible to predictThe miners have long ago exhausted their funds. The subscriptions that are coming in from many quarters will not go far to keep a million families. The Russian donation looks formidable, but when distributed amongst over a million miners it gives about two dollars for a single week. The children are being fed in the schools; but it is a mystery how the men and their wives manage to keep alive. Some had savings to fall back upon when the strike began, hut most of them have exhausted their poor reserves and have nothing to draw upon. Tho tradesmen extend a certain measure of credit to known customers, but there is a limit to their resources, and many of them have not yet recovered payment for necessaries of life sold to the miners during the great strike of 1921. Ail the same, the miner is incalculable. He will only give in when ho must do so —or starve. When will that point be reached? Eleven to twelve weeks is the usual limit of endurance. Mr Cook’s speeches may offer some clue to the enigma. As long as ho sounds the note of bluster it means that the end has not yet come. Ho has been the real leader of the men in this struggle. And what leadership for devoted meni It makes one’s heart sore to think of such loyalty, courage, and patience squandered by scatter-brain guidance. It* looks as if under his direction the_ miners had for the third time thrown away a great chance of placing on a sound footing tho industry on which their livelihood depends by holding out for terms impossible of achievement.