AN EASTERN LOCARNO.

Evening Star, Issue 21632, 30 January 1934, Page 8

AN EASTERN LOCARNO.

If anything is worse, it has been said, than.'talking peace when there is no peace it is talking war when there is no war. There is nothing which makes war more of a danger than encouraging the belief that it is inevitable. Mr Wickham Steed, normally a very suund publicist, who was formerly editor of ‘ The Times,’ comes near to that error when he writes to the ‘ Sunday Times ’ that “ Britain holds the key to the international situation. The consolidation of peace depends upon her policy in the next few days. We are drifting probably to inevitable war. A firm and unequivocal British policy would be the rallying point of peace.” Mr Frank H. Simonds, an American observer of not less sagacity, has gone further in an article in which he has described the present differences'in Europe as a revival of the age-long struggle for and against hegemony. “ German purpose envisages an extension of German territory and population which would mean the creation of a German State capable of dominating the Continent. The avowed purpose of the German National Socialists is to exercise that domination. As a consequence, the rest of Europe will follow its traditional course, draw together in alliances and coalitions, as it did against Napoleon and Louis XIV. War may come to-day or not for a decade, but the dream of organised peace has for the time being become a dream and nothing more.” Mr Steed’s object in being alarmist is very obvious. Ho wants to “ ginger up ” the Disarmament Conference, more especially Britain’s delegation thereto. Poor British delegation I There is a limit certainly to what it can do. We shall hear what it proposes to do very soon, but its proposals can only be useful in so far as they shall be endorsed by the conference. Mr Steed should have said more or said nothing. As to Mr Simonds, there are too many signs to support his lugubrious conclusion. But as much could be said -to show that he is wrong.

Mr Simonds’s case rests on two main suppositions—that the League of Nations is dead as the result of recent defections, and that the German National Socialists, or Hitlerites, want war. They have talked it often enough, and some of them do want war, no doubt, at a future date when they think they will be ready for it, but there are reasons to judge that Herr Hitler is most sincere when he talks peace. Now that loud talk has done its work in confirming a party that is devoted to him, there are some signs that the leader’s sober sense is beginning to emerge, and that firebrands will have much smaller tolerance from him. Certainly the latest news from Berlin is by no means in a line with either Mr'Steed’s or Mr Simonds’s prognostications. The Locarno Pact of 1925, which bound France, under the strongest sanctions, not to attack Germany and Germany not to attack France across Germany’s western frontier, was hailed at the time as the greatest safeguard for peace that had been achieved since the League of Nations was formed. The trust placed in it as a measure of security has not dwindled since. The sole regret that was felt in 1925 was that it could not be extended to Germany’s eastern frontier. Except for an assurance given by the Berlin Government that it would not go to war to remedy the grievances it was always expressing ns regards that region, dangers on that side had to take their chance, and they have not ceased to make anxiety for Europe. Now it is reported that a pact of understanding has been reached between Germany and Poland for'a ten-year period, during which her eastern frontier will be accepted by Germany. Revision of the Treaty of Versailles, which was threatening to set all the Powers at odds, becomes much less an issue than it has been. At the same time there aro suggestions that Russia may join the League of Nations, which shows not the least signs of being dead. Russia does not like this German-Polish Treaty. But Russia did not like Locarno. She did all in her power to breed suspicions of it, and Lord D’Abernon, who had a chief part in the negotiations, described her attitude to it as “violently antagonistic.” She does not like the Poles, and she has no cause for liking Hitler. But it is another happy development in world affairs which finds Russia to-day, so far as her own policy is concerned, among the peace-makers.