The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1931. FEAR OF WAR IN EUROPE.

Timaru Herald, Volume CXXXIV, Issue 18832, 21 March 1931, Page 8

The Timaru Herald SATURDAY, MARCH 21, 1931. FEAR OF WAR IN EUROPE.

Some of the best-informed observers of political and diplomatic movements in Europe have been forced to confess that there is unhappily a solid basis for the witty remark of Count Rathenan that “the war was begun in Europe in order to Europeanise the Balkans; but it ended in Balkanising Europe.” Obviously, however, from whatever angle the European situation is viewed the trend is not for peace, and even members of the League of Nations have peace on earth and goodwill to men on their lips, but what is in their hearts? Twelve years have passed since the termination of the war which was to end war, but it is no exaggeration to say that, except for Britain, preparations for another war are everywhere proceeding apace. Such evenly tempered journals as the “Saturday Review” are dismayed to discover that armaments are being piled up feverishly by the Powers, large and small alike. The prospects of a real naval holiday between

Italy and France is said to be more remote, and “there are already rumours of new ships to be laid down.” “Meanwhile the German Government seems set upon the construction of a fleet of ‘pocket’ battleships, and grants for these have recently been passed by the Reichstag, and it is becoming increasingly obvious

that if her neighbours continue to refuse to disarm on land, Germany will ere long demand to be freed from the shackles imposed by the Treaty of Versailles in respect to her military forces. The same tendency is to be observed in the smaller States. Spain is clearly determined to strengthen at all costs her posi-

tion as the fourth naval Power in Europe; Jugo-Slavia is understood to have made arrangements for the purchase of munitions on a large scale; while even Portugal has recently decided to spend a sum of twelve millions sterling on the modernisation of her fleet. Such instances might be multiplied almost indefinitely, and, although the actual statistics are

almost impossible to obtain, we see no reason to question the statement which is so often made that, although Germany is disarmed and the Austro-Hungarian Empire has ceased to exist, there are more armed men in Europe to-day than on the eve of the late war. Does all this mean, then, as the pessimists would have us believe, that a reduction of armaments is impossible, and that the world is inevitably committed to upon an extended scale in the another outbreak of hostilities near future? Some of the keenest observers prefer for the present to be optimistic, but only so long as there is any ground for hope that the statesmen of Europe can he persuaded to look facts in the face. Armaments, in short, are the outward sign of the secret fear that every nation to-day has of its neighbours, and there can be no real progress in the matter

of disarmament until that fear has been removed.” The chief

stumbling-blocks in the path of any effective measure of disarmament, it is said by leading

European critics, are the French demands for security, the growing desire in many quarters for a modification of the peace treaty, and the relations of France with Italy. It is not easy to discover what Paris means by security, sarcastically remark some of the commentators, although it must be admitted that a country invaded three times within a century by foreign armies is naturally, and rightly, inclined to believe that God is on the side of the big battalions. But we are told: “Prance is surely strong enough today to regard the matter calmly. The Treaty of Versailles restored Alsace and Lorraine; the Locarno Pact made her secure of foreign help in her hour of need; and the money she has spent on fortifications along her frontiers has rendered the latter invulnerable. “In short France already enjoys the security which, her statesmen tell us, must take priority of any measure of disarmament. “The only weakness of France lies in the chain of alliances with the smaller Powers in Central and Eastern Europe which she has forged, and for that she can not, in all fairness, lay the blame on others.” The actual relation of the European nations to each other, asserts Mr W. Alison Phillips in “The Fortnightly Review,” too, is not that of peace, but, of war. This is. true, we are assured, not only in respect of the limitation of armaments, for the general situation is far from satisfactory. If Europe is uneasy and apprehensive, it is argued, this is due partly to the discovery that war can be carried on by other than military weapons, and it, is pointed out that the United States have shown that, for purposes ol’ conquest, big bank balances are even more effective than big battalions, and, while ingeminating peace have entrenched themselves behind enormous tariff walls which, so far, have shown no signs of being cast down by the trumpet-blasts of thirty-eight protesting nations.