BRITAIN AND FRANCE

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 48, Issue 2884, 24 March 1939, Page 6

BRITAIN AND FRANCE

MR CHAMBERLAIN’S STATEMENT

“ SOLIDARITY OF INTERESTS ”

Mr Neville Chamberlain said in the House of Commons that he felt “bound to make it plain that the solidarity of the interests by which France and Britain are united is such that any threat to the vital interests of France from whatever quarter it may come, must evoke the immediate co-opera-tion of Britain.”

This is the most emphatic declaration on the relations of the two countries that has ever been made. By the Locarno Pacts a guarantee was given to protect France against unprovoked aggression and a similar undertaking was given in the case of Germany. Mr Chamberlain’s statement is seen as a warning to Italy. When a similar declaration was asked for by France in 1914 as a warning to 'Germany the British Government refused to give it.

Speaking in the House of Commons on August 3, 1914, Sir Edward Grey, Foreign Secretary, said: “The Triple Alliance ('Great Britain, France, and Russia) was not an alliance—it was a diplomatic group ... In the present crisis, up till yesterday, we have also given no promise of anything more than diplomatic support ...”

There 1? ad' been military conversations be.veen the French and British General Staffs for a number of years prior to 1914. Referring to these Sir Edward said: “I agreed . . . and authorised these conversations to take place, but on the distinct understanding that nothing which passed between military or naval experts should bind either Government or restrict in any way their freedom to make a decision as to whether or not they would give that support when the time arose . . . The Government remained perfectly free, and, a fortiori, the House of Commons remains perfectly free.”

Actually, when Britain went to war it was on the grounds that ’Germany had violated the Treaty of Belgium, to which Germany, as well as Great Britain, was a signatory.