FASCIST BLOC

Taranaki Daily News, 27 May 1933, Page 3 (Supplement)

FASCIST BLOC

FEARED BY FRANCE SEEKING NEW FRIENDS. OVERTURES TO RUSSIA. The triumph of Herr Adolf Hitler in Germany, raising before apprehensive French eyes the spectre of a possible “Fascist bloc” of brown and black shirts along its eastern frontiers, has posed in acute form the question, shall France seek, and can it find, security in “balance of power”? In particular it has given great impetus to a movement, launched and headed by M. Edouard Herriot himself, for a closer rapprochement between France and Soviet Russia, says the Christian Science Monitor. Not yet free from the old tradition of peace through “balance of power” based on military alliances, the French Government is understood to be considering the advisability of concluding an even closer accord with Russia than that already implied in the treaty of non-aggression signed last autumn by M. Herriot. The former Prime Minister has. come out in open advocacy of seeking in the Soviets compensatory support. against the possibility of Fascist alliance of Italy and Germany. One bf his most faithful lieutenants, M. Pierre Cot, now Minister of Air in the Daladier Cabinet, has expressed similar views in commenting on the support lent to the French disarmament plan at Geneva by Mr. Maxim Litvinoff, the Soviet delegate to the Disarmament Conference. ’ UNION OF DEMOCRACIES. In a recent issue of an important weekly review, M. Herriot contrasts this friendly attitude of Russia with the continued opposition of Italy and Germany to France’s' stand at Geneva. Referring to the “formidable army which Russia has been able to organise,” he points out that under the recent non-aggression pact “it is understood that if we are attacked by a third party Russia will remain neutral but be ready.” Finally, he concludes that, “if the Soviet Union wishes, it'will find in France independent individuals ready to aid it in it task of establishing peace without and -within its ’ borders.” Sentiments of this sort are echoed in a number of French newspapers of the Left. But if, a not unnatural excess of apprehension is operating at the moment to push France towards what would almost inevitably tend to become a military alliance of the type which led to the World War, certain other facts cause the nation to hesitate, and to turn, not eastward to Russia, but westward to America. M. Herriot himself has repeatedly asserted his conviction that the future of world peace was dependent on the unity of “the three great democracies. France, Britain and the United States.” M. Daladier, the Prime Minister, recently re-echoed this sentiment almost word for word, and there is no lack of indications that this concept of close co-opera-tion with .America plays an important role in French foreign policy. ADVANCES AVOIDED. Accompanying this desire to retain and if possible reinforce Franco-American friendship is a realisation that the United States public looks with definite disfavour on anything savouring of military alliances or smacking obviously of the old “balance of power” traditions which it associates with the World War. Feeling this, the French Government hesitates to make any too definite advances to Russia. M. Joseph Paul-Bon-cour, Minister of Foreign Affairs, recently declared in the Chamber of Deputies that France must seek safety not in military alliances, but in Anglo-Franco-American solidarity. Furthermore, even apart from France's hope that it will eventually be able to count on the United States' for at least moral support and friehdly neutralityincluding an economic boycotting—with an aggressor, there is a very considerable element among political leaders in France who disbelieve in the efficiency of the “balance of power” theory. They point to its failure in the past to prevent wars, and in fact hold it responsible for the difficulty of localising any European conflict. They even advocate renouncing the ties binding France to intervention in these disputes where the tension is greatest to-day—the Polish Corridor, Dalmatia (in Yugo-slavia), and the other boundary disputes in the Balkans. NEW CONCEPTION. Although this extreme view is by no means general,- it can be said nevertheless, that there is a strong sentiment in France which would like to see the “balance of power” give place to a freer conception of equilibrium which might be called “balance of security.” The essential factor of this policy would be collaboration at any cost with Great Britain and the United States in the conviction that only there can stability and security be found. These considerations are serving as a check on the movement towards a closer Franco-Soviet relationship. It is likewise opposed by those who doubt the reliability of an alliance with a regime aiming at world revolution, by the bourgeois’ natural aversion to Bolshevism, and by the opposition Right in Parliament. What its final outcome will be depends on the trend of events in Europe, and on the extent to which France, America, and Great Britain can find a mutually satisfactory basis for effective, friendly co-operation in the impartial and peaceful settlement of the world’s problems.