ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1920. THE RUHR VALLEY PROBLEM.

Marlborough Express, Volume LIIII, Issue 82, 8 April 1920, Page 4

ESTABLISHED 1866. The Marlborough Express THURSDAY, APRIL 8, 1920. THE RUHR VALLEY PROBLEM.

France has had good reason in the past to regard German-made promises, professions, and so-called "explanations" with suspicion of an underlying mala fides, and recent occur* iences in the Ruhr Valley colliery region have evidently been viewed at Paris with -considerable distrust of the •motives alleged to have inspired them. In the'>. employment of troops to suppress a Bolshevist revolution— for that is what the Socialist forces were apparently attempting to bring about—the German Government could fairly claim to be justified. But the Hun has proved himself so tricky a. customer- since the signing of the Armistice that the French people and the French Government are naturally suspicious when large bodies of troops are moved on to territory which, by the provisions of the Peace Treaty, are now placed under French control. The German is ' so subtle a schemer that it is quite possible, so the opinion evidently holds good at Paris, that the so-called Socialist revolution in the Ruhr Valley has been winked at, if not actually planned, by the Berlin Government in order to create a state of industrial and social disorder Avhich would excuse the re-occupation of the region by Government troops. It is all very fine for the American Government to preach moderation and restraint to the French, btit whatever the dollarworshipping, shifty, and cowardly professional politicians :it Washington may think and advocate—always, with a keen eye towards the GermanA'tnerican vote at the next elections! —France may'well consider that as America has shuffled out of her honest responsibilities with regard to the Peace Treaty she should now refrain from any su^h suggestion or dictation a« is implied by certain recent Washington cablegrams. France has tested so many German official assurances in the oast and found them to be unblushingly mendacious that she now prefers facts to "assurances," and she will only believe in Germany's declaration that her troops fl.ro bein/r "withdrawn from the neutral zone" when <*\\e lias direct and uncontrovertible evidence to that effect. The menace of the destruction of the coal niines. by the revolutionaries is alone a complete justification of the French action in occupying the neutral zone, and the news that French troops have advanced from Mayenoe and have occupied Frankfort, Darmstadt, and other centres affords proof of a firm policy having been decided upon at Paris. It. is <iuito possible that such action jhay ( embarrass the Berlin Government'in dealing with the disaffected workers in the Ruhr Valley and in tne W|estphalian industrial region, but tliat, after all, is not France's business. We should have preferred to see Great Britain and Italy stand*

ing behind Franco in "the step she has taken. Jf a bold policy had been mutually agreed upon . and carried into effect there would have been no room for the fear that has been expressed by' a British diplomatic dignitary lest the French advance may "crystallise the warring elements in Germany and create the most serious menace to France since the Armistice." Why were the disarmament clauses of the Peace Treaty not enforced? That is a question to which France is entitled to have an answer from her erstwhile Allies.