THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1935 FRANCE AND EAST AFRICA

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22197, 26 August 1935, Page 10

THE New Zealand Herald AND DAILY SOUTHERN CROSS MONDAY, AUGUST 26, 1935 FRANCE AND EAST AFRICA

Wiiile Mussolini proceeds rapidly with his military preparations against Abyssinia the diplomatic battle in Europe goes on. It has developed into a triangular contest, with Italy, Britain and France at the points of intersection. The shape of the triangle varies, for the relative positions of these points are not fixed. On the eventual outcome of their movement depends the issue being waged through the ten days preceding the League Council's date for decisive discussion. Measured in terms of official disclosures and pronouncements the distance between Italy and Britain tends to lengthen. It is the position of France that at present matters most. Should that approximate to Italy's the hope of peace will dwindle dangerously. France at first was inclined to treat the Italo-Abyssinian quarrel as of little moment: it lay, according to the French Government's expressed opinion, outside the all-important scope of European affairs. On friendship in these depended a solution of the world's troubles; therefore any East African dispute ought not to be allowed to damage the prospect of understanding among major Powers in Europe. This policy was not difficult to understand. Early in the year a promising rapprochement was achieved between Italy and France, of high international value because a traditional disposition to be at odds, strengthened by French sympathy with the Little suspicions of Italy, has often threatened Europe with trouble. French readiness to abandon hostility to Italy was prompted by renewed alarm at Hitler's assertion of his country's right to armaments ; and Mussolini's anxiety lest Hitler should dominate neighbouring Austria made him equally willing for friendship with France. So, although French Somaliland was in the zone of African tension, to treat the dispute with comparative aloofness was the line of least peril for France. Of this fact account must still be taken as the diplomatic situation left by the failure of the three-Power parleys at Paris is considered. France, it should be noted, is not altogether happy in having lent support to Britain after the opening stage of the triangular conflict. For that change of attitude there was reason sufficient: rivalry with Italy in the Mediterranean cannot be forgotten by France, the views of the Little Entente can never become negligible in any balancing of French risks and desires in Europe, and above all, the indications that Britain may be lenient with Germany have to be reckoned with foreboding. To France, consequently, it seemed on second thoughts to be politic to support Britain's strong protest against Mussolini's highhanded declarations against Abyssinia, and to proffer this support in the interests of the League, more than ever a sheet-anchor of France now that Germany is out and Russia in. was in keeping with French principles. In this change of front it was still Europe, not East Africa, that dominated French policy. There was a day when East Africa mattered more to France. In that day "deals" in African territory were compellingly important to her. She looked to them for needed outlying strength and influence. In 1890 French rights in the Sahara were desired and conceded, and in 1894 a convention gave territorial junction between French possessions in the Congo and those in the north and west of the continent. The Fashoda clash with Britain, however, checked decisively French aggressiveness along the northern tributaries of the Nile, an aggressiveness pursued in the hope of getting a French zone right across Africa as well as re-establishing a position in Egyptian affairs. This ended Anglo-French contentions in that sphere ; France withdrew from the Nile valley and accepted a boundary that left her in the west an unbroken territory, the largest in all Africa, running down from Algeria to the Congo, t with only a broken line of alien coastal possessions. French interests lie that way, over that broad expanse, rather than in the east.

The continuance of a French protectorate over part of Sonialiland at the head of the Gulf of Aden may suggest that France is as vitally concern :d as Britain and Italy in the Eas; African dispute. This is not so. French Somaliland is less worth holding for its own sake than the tracts thereabout controlled by Britain and Italy. Compared with them it is small, and consists almost entirely of arid plains of low altitude, practically waterless except on the southern frontier. The acquisition of French influence there dates from 1856, when two coastal points were occupied, with apparently little beyond the creation of a naval coaling station in view. Subsequent agreements have extended the protectorate inland, to scarcely more than 100 miles at the greatest distance from the sea. Local trade is limited to salt and the products of

shark and mother-of-pearl fisheries. The single activity of importance is the railway from Jibuti on the coast to Addis Ababa, the capital of Abyssinia—the only railway entry to this land-locked country; four-fifths of the trade of the port is 'supplied by this contact. Although thus selfsupporting, French Somaliland, save as a station of call for Red Sea shipping, has no considerable value to France. Against national interests in a tranquil Europe it cannot count at all. Just now those interests are absorbing. France looks there both ways—to Britain and Italy. She can join wholeheartedly with Britain in the desire to bring the influence of the League to bear on Italy, yet will deprecate any proposal to impose sanctions. Conciliation of Italy was the French policy at the beginning ; it may become the French policy again, in spite of a wish to maintain co-operation with the Little Entente and to keep close friendship with Britain lest Germany step between. Where France will finally be found at the critical hour of League discussion, whatever Mus'solini may do in the interval, is a question without sure answer as yet.