THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1920. ANGLO-FRENCH RELATIONS.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LVII, Issue 17444, 14 April 1920, Page 6

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS. WEDNESDAY, APRIL 14, 1920. ANGLO-FRENCH RELATIONS.

It happily appears that the strain 1 put upon Anglo-French relations by • the Ruhr incident is to have no per- - manent ill-effects. On both sides of ' the Channel there is a clear concep- ■' tion of the truth that Britain and France cannot afford to quarrel. In r the end the incident may do good, for it has been very evident in recent months that Britain and . France have been drifting apart. , The politicians have not maintained the fine spirit of co-operation and mutual admiration which the soldiers created. On the battlefield British and French soldiers learned to value each the finer qualities i of the other. In diplomatic relations politicians are showing a disposition to mistrust and misunderstand each other. In the French Chamber the other day M. Barthou, president of the Foreign Affairs Committee, violently attacked Britain and Mr. Lloyd George; the tone , of Britain's first Note on the movement of French troops to the neutral zone was unnecessarily tart. There ; have been faults on both sides and they are the more reprehensible because the trend of public thought in the two countries is diverging. It should be the object of statesmen to close, not to widen, the breach. To get to the root of the misunderstanding we have to go back to the Peace Conference. There Britain took every step she could take consistent with her own vital interests and with the object of securing America's assistance in Europe. France never pinned her faith in the League of Nations but under British influence M. Clemenceau was led step by step to a policy which France accepted with grave hesitation. He moderated Mr. Wilson's impracticable enthusiams where he could but in the end he consented to a settlement which was very little in accordance with French ideas. Had all gone well even France would probably have come to regard the peace with complete contentment but it 'was soon apparent that in satisfying J Mr. Wilson the Allies had not satisified the United States. The Ameri- ■ can co-operation for which so much I had been conceded was not forthj coming. France rapidly lost what ; little confidence she had in the ;, I League of Nations scheme, and the i French outlook soon approximated closely to immediate national i needs. There was a demand for strategic frontiers, for a close military supervision of Germany and for the enforcement of the treaty. M. Clemenceau lost the Presidency largely because he was .Frenchman responsible for what is regarded in France as an unsatisfactory peace. British statesmen j shared in M. Clemenceau's unpopularity for it was upon Britain, not » upon America, that France had relied to bring back to the Allied nations in the day of victory some of -their terrible war-time losses. Acting in this temper French [diplomacy has had numerous differences with Britain. The points of view about Poland and about Russia have not been the same. Difficult questions have been raised jwith regard to Mesopotamia, Syria, (Palestine and other parts of the ! Turkish Empire. British publicists have foolishly and untruthfully pictured Britain as in danger from a strong and military France and French writers have sneered at the British guardianship of the German fleet in Scapa Flow. There have been more irritations than there

ought to have been and too few efforts to emphasise the things which the two nations hold in common. France has lost patience with America: Britain is still hopeful. A student of foreign politics said the other day that the vital issue of the moment in foreign affairs is to discover the "highest common factor" between the aims and ideals of France, Britain and America. This would seem to be the present purpose of British foreign policy. It is a good purpose and if it is pursued to success France more than any other nation will have cause to be thankful. But the impatience of France is not surprising. After one failure what guarantee is there that America's scruples will be overcome : Moreover, France is Germany's i neighbour and Germany is profiting by the differences among the Allies and is able to violate the Treaty of Versailles with impunity. But behind the irritation at the slow and unsatisfactory progress of events France has evidently a very strong conviction that she and Britain must hold together. With a firm alliance both nations could look to the future with confidence: with the United States joined the peace of the world would be assured.