SHAPING FOR WAR

Southland Times, Issue 19099, 17 November 1923, Page 5

SHAPING FOR WAR

GREY S GRAVE DECLARATION BRITAIN AND FRANCE AT VARIANCE. SERIOUS ISSUE PROBABLE. (By Telegraph—Press Assn.—Copyright.) (Australian and N.Z. Cable Association.) LONDON, November 15. Viscount Grey, formerly Secretary for Foreign Affairs, made a grave declaration in the course of a speech at Bath. He said things in Europe were shaping for a new war, perhaps not immediately, but very certainly. The root of the trouble was that France and Britain had not been pulling together. He was bound to say Britain had been doing its best to work with France, and the cause of not pulling together was that France had conducted a policy in the Ruhr which we believed in the beginning was a mistake and would produce results opposite to French expectations. Events had proved us right. Britain must stick to the League of Nations. He had not expected to see Britain again involved in war, but if ever it unfortunately happened, he would rather see us engaged in a war to uphold the Covenant of the League than anything else. THE LAST CHANCE TO PREVENT GREAT DISASTER. GENERAL SMUTS’ APPEAL. LONDON, November 15. General Smuts, in a letter to The Times, says the last chance of staving off European disaster is for Britain without delay to summon a conference of the Powers interested in reparations which should not be confined to the narrow issue of what Germany can pay, but extended to an examination of the whole question in its widest aspects from a financial and economic viewpoint. We would also have to consider measures and devise means of putting Germany’s finances in order, reforming the currency, balancing the budget, securing necessary foreign credit and also how Germany could secure real peace and be accorded an opportunity to work out her salvation without the constant menace of interference from outside. Germany could not pay reparations unless her currency and credit were restored which was impossible unless the total reparation sum was fixed. The situation had become so grave that it was threatening the future. It should be our aim to reach a real solution with no further marking time. “Our duty is clearly to go forward, even though France is not with us.”