THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1935 THE FRANCO-ITALIAN PACT

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22004, 10 January 1935, Page 8

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS THURSDAY, JANUARY 10, 1935 THE FRANCO-ITALIAN PACT

In the terms of the Franco-Italian pact, as now made known with sufficient clearness to reveal important detail, is evident a resolute attempt •to solve practical problems. It is much more than a compilation of vague generalities. One clause, it is true, is general, but the agreement would have been less valuable had this not been included: it affirms the intention of France and Italy to develop the traditional friendships uniting the two countries, and to consult each other on all questions demanding consultation. On the point of traditional friendships there is a case for the cynics; not a complete case, but one strong enough to justify its consideration. France and Italy have not uniformly been good friends. There was a period of modern history when relations between them were almost continuously strained. In the heyday of his influence, Bismarck was able to drawItaly into the Triple Alliance as an opponent of France, and to do this in spite of Italy's friendliness toward England. One of his arguments, indeed—it is recalled by another clause in the present agreement was founded on the French declaration of a protectorate over Tunis, which he had himself astutely encouraged as a means of keeping his neighbours at loggerheads. That alliance, which bound Germany, Austria and Italy together, was not ended until 1915, when only after an interval of embarrassment did Italy take sides with the Allies against Germany and Austria. And since the war, as before it, there have been FrancoItalian quarrels about Mediterranean affairs, quarrels that lay behind the unfortunate disagreement vitiating the London Naval Treaty, while the accord between France and the countries of the Little Entente has ranged France against Italy time and again on their behalf. But these facts do not exhaust the story of Franco-Italian relations, and if they did there w T ould be all the more virtue in the new covenant of friendship. Deeper than the political motives thus operating to keep them apart is an old racial affinity and a bond of earlier fellowship. To take up again this historic thread is not impossible. If these two Powers carry out their mutual pledge of close consultation, no international trouble in Europe can get out of hand. Italy counts to-day for more than she has ever done since she became a nation through the toil of Cavour, Mazzini and Garibaldi, and her union with France should remain a powerful check on the Nazi purpose of dominating Europe.

This is the point made by Mr. Anthony Eden when describing the pact as an important contribution to European stability. It bears upon his description of Britain's foreign policy as no longer based on the balance of power but on the League of Nations and the maintenance of the collective peace system. Alliances and counter-alliances were characteristic of the outworn system; the balance of power was essentially produced by a war psychosis—it was created to match military strength w T ith military strength, it could be discussed only in terms of force, its service to peace was that of counterpoised threats. The collective peace system is designed to encourage and facilitate a "spreading co-operation, and into this system the FrancoItalian pact can fit —as a mutual pledge of friendship between nations whose neighbouring and kindred interests have often led them to be unneighbourly and to forget the kinship. In a worthier spirit the boldly definite clauses and protocols of* the pact touch subjects of actual and possible dispute. Concerning central and south-eastern Europe, the region about which these two contracting parties have been inclined to fall out, Austria is assured of independence and the nations of the Danubian Basin are to be left unmolested. It must be obvious to all acquainted with post-war events that this cannot be a final word. Movements are afoot in this region, and the outcome of their stirring cannot be forecast; the question of restoring the Hapsburg monarchy, for instance, and the pacifying of unsatisfied units in some of the present political groupings. But the merit of the provisions of the pact in this connection is the removal of shadowing anxieties. As for the settlement of Franco-Italian rivalries in Africa, France makes concessions calculated to meet Italy's wishes and to render subsequent problems capable of friendly solution. Again, the last word is not said, but what is said has a promising tone.

On the disarmament clause in the pact there are bound to be opposing opinions. For it there is to be noted its avowal of a shared responsibility in this particular part of the campaign for peace. France and Italy, if the pact be honoured, cannot engage in any bargaining on the strength of their national armaments without consulting each other, and no country can take any step alone to modify its obligations regarding armaments without having to reckon with France and Italy. The effect of this agreement is to fortify general international action affecting armaments ;

it should hearten the efforts of the League. On the other hand, it will probably evoke opposition in Germany, .now bent on individual action regardless of international obligations. It certainly means that France and Italy agree to treat Germany's rearming as illegal until approved by other Powers, in terms of the Versailles Treaty and under fiat of the League. Thus it traverses the present policy of the Nazi Government and challenges Germany's declaration of a right to rearm without reference to foreign demands based on treaty undertakings. Hitler is not likely to look with favour, therefore, on a request to become an additional signatory to the agreement. However, as no other approach of this sort to Germany could now be expected to find a welcome there, nothing is really lost by this bold statement of a logical and legal position. Germany's rearming has no international warrant, and without that it is to be condemned. Should the pact compel the German Government to rejoin the circle of discussion on disarmament, a signal service will have been rendered to international collaboration.