THE H.B. TRIBUNE. FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 1923. FRANCE IN THE RUHR.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XIII, Issue 78, 16 March 1923, Page 4

THE H.B. TRIBUNE. FRIDAY, MARCH 16, 1923. FRANCE IN THE RUHR.

Events are marching quickly in connection with the French occupation in the great German industrial district of the Ruhr, and it cannot be very long now before a climax is reached. Owing to the factious resistance which both official and industrial Germany have shown to the French that movement has had to be extended far Beyond the limits that were at first contemplated. But, if we look at the situation in its broader aspect, we cannot but realise that the obstruction which has thus been opposed to the perfectly legitimate measures originally proposed by France has arisen not from any inherent sense of right on the part of the Germans, but from the encouragement, direct . and inferential, which they have had from France’s own old allies. The stand-off attitude of the Governments of both Britain and the United States was at the outset quite sufficient to provide the keynote for German action. Since then the comments of the press of both these nations, professedly friendly to France, have been such as virtually to brand France as an aggressor seeking, not To secure what was admittedly due to her, but to crush a beaten enemy.

When the French advance was finally decided upon and undertaken the attitude of the British Government was explained by Mr. Ronald McNeill, Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. He then said that one or two newspapers and their correspondents had shown an extraordinary misconception of the plan proposed by the British Prime Minister. “They seem to think,” he said, “that Mr. Bonar Law wants to let the Germans off easily; that he has some squeamish objection to taking military action to make them pay what they owe us; that he is deluded enough to trust German promises, and so forth. They say, quite truly no doubt, that Germany will never pay a penny more than she is compelled to, and that the only thing to do is to take her by the fthroat at once and empty her pockets. But they overlook the fact that the Prime Minister’s plan included the supervision by the Allies of the whole financial administration of Germany until her credit is restored, and that he was willing to join the French in applying drastic coercion if Germany should default after she gets into a position to pay. I am sure,” the Under-Secretary continued, “that Mr. Bonar Law is no more disposed than is M. Poincare to trust mere German promises or to favour our late enemies at the expense of our and ourselves. The whole disagreement is simply one as to the best method of attaining our common end. But al! the talk in . German newspapers about the injustice, violence, and brutality of the French procedure is moonshine. Germans are the last people in the world who can afford to speak of injustice or brutality, after the way they stripped, robbed, and wantonly wrecked Northern France; and it would be well for them to remember the way they themselves exacted the indemnity from France in 1871. If it were possible now for France to recover by the same methods a tenth part of what Germany owes her and us, there would be no sort of injustice in her doing so.” But the British Government, far from maintaining, or, at any fate, continuing to publicly emphasise this declaration of its conviction as to the moral right of France to act as she has done, it has preserved an ominous silence which has had an almost worse effect than open condemnation. Not only this, but quite a large section of the English press has allowed itself to. adopt a tone which has had the effect of casting actual odium upon France. The result has been that any good which France’s action might have accomplished has been worse than negatived, and to-day we have Germany, with some show of justification even from her recent foes, able to pose- as the pitiful victim and to hold France up to execration as the tyrannical conqueror. In short, Germany has got a long way now towards securing the position for which she has so long manoeuvred, that of a nation meriting the sym- • pathy rather than the reprobation of

the world, while France, on her part, has been deprived of the sympathy to which she was so justly entitled by her losses and sufferings from the war. The Allies went very near to losing the war from want of unity in its direction p.nd conduct. It is now very manifest that they are on the verge of losing the just recompenses of victory for the same reason. For lack of support, France’s efforts to compel Germany to disclose and disgorge her undoubted wealth are likely to fail, while any subsequent attempt along other lines are likely to have been badly prejudiced.