The Evening Star SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1935. BRITAIN AND EUROPE.

Evening Star, Issue 22032, 18 May 1935, Page 14

The Evening Star SATURDAY, MAY 18, 1935. BRITAIN AND EUROPE.

It was not a cheerful account of the European situation which Captain Eden, recovered from his illness, gave this week in a public address. Concessions to, Germany may have been made too slowly during too long a period, hut the only result of making them since then has been to stimulate her demands for more. Military parity for herself, France, and Italy seemed a sufficient boon at first when it was offered on a basis of 200,000 effectives, but soon afterwards Germany wanted it fixed at 300,000, aild her demand is now for 550,000, an impracticable figure for France and Italy to reach, : making a farce of that “limitation” which Berlin professes to desire. The new figure is alleged to be required because Germany fears Russia, for whom a basis of 500,000 was proposed, but Russia has interests to protect in the farthest East as well as in the West, and the possibility of her attacking Germany, with all Poland, which is Germany’s ally, between, seems too fantastic to ■be seriously envisaged. Herr Hitler may make a reasonable case for his Government’s attitude in the speech he is to deliver next week, but, until he does so, the explanation that has been offered by a British Radical journal must seem all too probable. “ The truth is,” of course,” this journal has declared, “that the fascist system allows him no alternative. How could he disappoint the expansionist hopes he has raised in his followers, how disband his troops, and throw them into the army of unemployed, how tell Thyssen and Krupp that they must make, not tanks and guns, but ploughs and tractors, for which, under Fascism, there is no demand?”

Britain stands for the League and a system of collective security as the only way to assure peace. Why the way is difficult - was explained most simply and convincingly by Mr Bald; win in an address which be gave to the National Council of the Evangelical Free Churches a few' weeks ago. It is" difficult because all nations do not regard the same things-as most excellent. “If you go through the pronouncements of the great leaders of the totalitarian States of Germany, Russia, and Italy,” said’ Mr Baldwin, “you will not find that one of them conforms to the ideals cherished in this country of freedom 'of thought, freedom of religion, or freedom of speech. There was a abort period when we had hoped that in Germany a true democracy might come into being, but whatever blame might attach to the Allies, to France and ourselves in particular, for Any ’ obstacles that we - might have put in .the way of peace, there seems no doubt now that whatever that change was in Germafiy it was but skin deep, and that these things which mean so much to us mean nothing to her, and so much that means all to her means nothing to'us,” The three countries he had named, ‘ he added, were united in this, that they put power fiist—power rather than peace, power rather than wealth, power above everything. ■ Till their minds could be changed there would be dangers to peace. The suggestion is not that the three peoples concerned put .power naturally before the blessings of peace, but they are easily persuaded to do so by certain rulers. Mr Baldwin gave the best advice to his hearers when he urged them not to be ’ -depressed by the prevailing pessimism and not to give up hope for the future, however dark the outlook might be. “ The world has not yet come to an end, and though we may feel sometimes that all our struggles are in vain, it is not so. The world will go on after. wo. are gone, and please God it will be a better and a more sensible world. Having been in international, politics for most of the time sinpe the ; vfar, I will not write ipyself down a, pessimist, but I will say that at times I feel that I am living in a madhouse,”- .