U.S. FRIENDSHIP WANTED

Greymouth Evening Star, 20 February 1937, Page 10

U.S. FRIENDSHIP WANTED

FRENCH DEBT MOVES. A Franco-American rapprochement is one of the principal aims of French foreign policy for the coming year, (writes the Paris correspondent of the “Christian Science Monitor”). Relations between the United States and France are generally acknowledged to have already improved considerably in the past year or two, but the goal of the present French Government is to develop this passive friendliness into a more active friendship. One of the first steps in this new effort at rapprochement was France’s offer to reopen negotiations for settling the thorny problem of war debts. American resentment at France’s war debt “default” in December, 1932, after French resentment at the Hoover Moratorium in 1931, which put an end to German reparations payments to; France, unqestionably constituted an i important cause of the estrangement j that existed for several years between the two republics. Although a mutually satisfactory arrangement will admittedly be difficult! to reach, a “gesture" proving France’s good faith has at all events been made, j tending to confirm the French conten-1 tion that there has never been an ) actual "default” of the war debt pay-, meats. but merely postponement pend-' lug a new general settlement. I There is no lack of cynically inciin-1 ed observers who proclaim that this gesture is due entirely to France’s desire to borrow money once more in the United States. Under the Johnson Ac!, no French loans of any kind can be floated in America so long as I Franco is classified as a defaulter. It j is not denied here that the French | Government realises the advantage of I access to the United Stales money | market. But Hie conclusion that Ihisl is i lie only motive in favour of a | Franco-American rapprochement, hard- ■ ly appears justified. Il seems morel

accurate to say that both French and Americans realise that better relations between their two countries would be profitable to both nations in every way. Furthermore, entirely outside of commercial considerations there is a; very real and very strong sentiment! in France that solidarity between the' peoples who still cherish the democratic ideals of liberty, law, justice and representative self-government is

to-day essential if these ideals are to be preserved. The elements in France that remain faithful to this conception of democracy —and they are still in the majority despite the undeniable progress of extremisms of Right and Left—.feel themselves drawn very sincerely and naturally toward the people of the United States and Great Britain who hold similar ideas of society, in which the emphasis remains • on the individual and not on the State or the Collectivity. The recent formation of the ItaloGermano —Japanese bloc has unquestionably intensified this feeling in

France. The French have steadily rejected—and still continue to resist — the tendency to divide Europe, and even the world, into two hostil blocs, one dictatorial, the other democratic. They have clearly realised that such a division is neither in accordance with facts nor in conformity with a sound foreign policy directed toward the preservation of peace. But recent developments have nevtheless led many French leaders to the conviction that, since a group of authoritarian governments persists in basing its international policy on onposition to communism, this situation cannot be ignored. And the best means of counter-balancing the growing weight of this bloc of authoritarian extremists is felt to be—not the formation of another extremist bioc—but the effective co-operation of the great democratic powers to preserve the middle path of republicanism and thus avoid either extreme. It is this attitude that underlies to

a large extent France’s present efforts to bring about a genuine rapprochement with the United States and her attempts to crystallise a. new “entente cordiale" with Great Britain. The French Government's hope is that by reciprocating President Roosevelt’s good neighbor" policy, neighborliness may he gradually developed into the closer friendship, which Frtim-e feels may soon be helpful, if m>i actually necessary, t<i both ruiitit Ties.