Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1924 FRENCH POLITICS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LVI, 17 June 1924, Page 4

Nelson Evening Mail TUESDAY, JUNE 17, 1924 FRENCH POLITICS

THE election of the new President, M Doumergue, and the formation of the new Government under M. Edouard Her riot, end a somewhat unpleasant chap ter in French politics, and open what may ho hoped to be a happier regime M. Poincare, shrewd and daring political leader though *he was, had become im possible. What can be said for a Prime Minister who addressed the members of the Chamber of Deputies as if they were a pack of school-children, in terms such as these:—“Keep to the subject and abstain from personal attacks! Re member you are representatives of France! She is worthy of your re spcct.” Hero insult is added to reproof, and in thus belittling the representatives of France M. Poincare merely belittled his country. But the electors have put matters right, and the -semi-despotism.of the late Premier may be forgotten.

With the Premiership of M. Herriot a new chapter in France’s political history begins. The new Premier, who draws his support from the -Left and Centre, is in sympathy with the Dawes Report and with the British Government, and it may ho expected that he will work in complete harmony with Mr Ramsay MacDonald for tho solution of the German difficulty and {Tie economic rehabilitation of Europe generally. M. Herriot has already done much to create a new asmosphere by declaring his policy in regard to the Ruhr. This, succinctly expressed, is the intention to effect “the economic evacuation of the Ruhr so soon as Germany sets in motion the machinery for carrying, out the Dawes Report, and military evacuation when the Report is actually working and Germany is making regular payments.” Such a policy will certainly find favour with tho British Government, and u should appeal to all those Germans who desire to restore their country s prestige and independence by peaceful means. For these reasons it is to be hoped that M. Herriot will be given a fair chance to put this policy of conciliation into operation. His policy will not only prove beyond all doubt whether or no Germany desires to’fulfil her obligations to the Allies, but with the co-operation of those Allies it will afford Germany an opportunity of reinstating herself among the civilised nations, a position she forfeited in 1914, and which can be regained only by her willingness to make substantial reparation for the destruction which she ruthlessly wrought. We have seen that the German monarchists, by their expressions used at the recent unveiling of a war memorial at Potsdam, cherish hopes, of vengeance. While it is for the German nation to choose between such chauvinism and the plain duty of repairing the wrong done to Belgium and France —and for her own sake, it * hoped that Germany will choose the straight and narrow path opened up by the Dawes Report—nevertheless there can be.no doubt whatever that, however provocative the German militarists and monarchists, may be, the conciliatory policy which was initiated by the Butisn Government three or four years age which was persistently and efiectmilly resisted -by M. Poincare, and which is now promising to become operative with the help of France’s new Premier, is not merely the wisest policy but that which is most closely m conformity m n llu, humanitarian principles which the Allies profess to uphold.