A RETROSPECT.

Waimate Daily Advertiser, Volume XXI, 12 August 1921, Page 3

A RETROSPECT.

0 l —.. TWO YEARS OF PEACE. THE RECONSTRUCTION OF EUROPE. (By Frank H. Simonds.) The closing days of June are marked by an anniversary of twofold significance. On Juno 28, 1914, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his consort were slain in Serajevo. On ■ the same day five years later the German representatives signed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles that treaty which officially marked the close of the German phase of. the world war. Two years have passed since the latter event, and as a new anniversary approaches it seem® a. fitting time to review in some detail the history of what may well be regarded as the final phase of the latest of European ecttlemente. On June 28, when the Germans signed, the document which received their unwilling signatures did little more than sketch the bases of the real settlement. The frontiers of Germany were fixed, east and west, north and south. Military terms were laid down to carry out the disarmament of the German military establishment and regulate its future strength. The demilitarisation of the Rhine and the neutralising of the left bank were provided for. But beyond these major conditions all was left incomplete, and most incomplete of all were the provisions made for the discharge by Germany of the great debt incurred by her methods of warfare. Aside from the German phase, moreover, Europe was left in chaos. On June 28 <no eastern frontier had been fixed for Poland or for Roumania, order in the west melted into anarchy and chaos in the east with no determined boundaries. The middle of Europe was a hopeless confusion of rival states, fragment® of the recently destroyed Hapsburg Empire.. The Balkans were in their chronic state of unrest, intensified by nearly seven years of almost uninterrupted fighting. Italy and the southern . Slava were at daggers drawn at the head of the Adriatic, Roumania and Hungary were on the verge of war along the Thesis. Italy and Greece were quarrelling in the zEgean and in Albania.

Over the whole world at this same date hung the shadow of Russia. Bolshevism had been the nightmare of the Paris Conference; panic after panic had assailed the Paris gatherings as news ilowed from the east which seemed to forecast the arrival of the Reds, already come to Budapest, in Berlin, in Bucharest, in Warsaw. Nor was the apprehension as to Germany materially less. The Versailles Treaty had been drafted by those on whom the menace of Germany still weighed heavily, and if Pans dreaded a new extension of Russian revolution it feared almost as actutely some new and terrible outbreak in Germany, which might recall the armies co the battlefield and challenge the remits of the armistice of Rethondes. Now, two years after, when one comes o reconstruct, even to a slight degree, the emotions and the conditions of 1919, it becomes clear what an enormous step has been taken towards settlement. If Germany remains, and must in the nature of things continue to remain, a problem and a menace, it is no longer

possible for reasonable men and women to look for an immediate German uprising, a return of the Kaiser or of the military leaders and a renawal of the war. On the German side we can now safely count upon a span of years in which the world will be safe from any German design.

For two years political questions have dominated all else in the discussion of the European settlement. The frontiers which have been drawn have been drawn with regard to lines of racial parting rather than of communications. The market and the field have been separated. Cities have found their waterworks and railway station assigned to one nation and their business quarters to -another, as happened in the case of Teschen. Trunk lines of railways, links in the chains which connect Calais with Constantinople and Milan with Moscow, have been transformed into independent lines, beginning and ending at now frontiers, and passengers have been called upon to change cars at each of these innumerable boundaries. This spells paralysis for tho movement of freight and something approximating prohibition for passenger traffic.

What is most promising in the European situation to-day is found in the fact that the political questions are disappearing, or at least taking secondary position. We have escaped war over the frontiers of Italy and Jugoslavia, Roumania and Hungary, Russia and Roumania, and the conflict between Poland and Russia has led to a definite settlement which has stood the test of many months. Franco-German disputes have led not to new invasions but to an adjustment which promises to give temporary cessation of trouble along the Rhine. The map of Etiror is almost reconstructed and the unfinished details are insignificant as compared with the problems which' have been disposed of.

The real danger has been, since Russia collapsed as a menace and Germany turned her back upon Bolshevism, such an accentuation of the Franco-German question as might lead to the destruction of order in Germany—the transformation of Bismarckian unity into the traditional German chaos. To put the thing briefly, the danger has been that politics might ruin economic recovery, and the world war leave in its train consequences as fatal as those of the Thirty Years’ War. We have been on the edge of this catastrophe many times. It was escapable only if Germany took her medicine and agreed to pay* what was possible and beyond all question due. But it would seem we have es caped the last and acutest peril of al which was incidental to the recent crisis and the proposed invasion o Ruhr.

Looking back now over the last two years, and even over the last seven it seems to me one can quite fairly assume that the worst is over. A world which for more than four years fought and in the process became accustomed to the employment of force to settle all questions is becoming accustomed to something which if not peace is a least a far cry from the warfare of the summer of 1918. If there are smouldering fires in many quarters of Europe, almost without exception they seem to be dying down. Every win ter lived through without general anarchy has been a long gain, for each succeeding harvest has been more nearly sufficient to feed the he

mouths, and we have already lived through three.

Even, now a refusal of Germany to pay or disarm would lead to a renewal of the worst of all the dangers. But the recent crisis demonstrated that such a refusal, instead of dividing the Allies would unite them. German defiance at London led to that ultimatum which was but the first step in the direction of the occupation of the Ruhr. Rome and London, even Washington, manifested not the smallest inclination to support German resistance. The question of how much Germany could pay was then debatable; the obligation of Germany to pay and the certainty that force would be applied if resistance continued, both were disclosed in the progress of the debase.

In my judgment this was the worst crisis of all. Economic and industrial reconstruction were in more deadly peril in the last days of April than at any time since the Bolshevist attack before Warsaw collapsed. •Occupation of the Ruhr would have proved tho last straw, so far as the strained and shaken structure of European industry was concerned, and that decay of Europe which so many European writers nave announced as already in progress would have been inescapable. But having surmounted this crisis, it seems io me Europe has adequately demonstrated its determination to live anu its will to avoid supreme disaster.

To-day there is a Polish question, a central European question, an Eastern question in. a new and aggravated, form. Real adjustment in Europe win be materially delayed precisely as lon fa ..s Franco-Gorman relations reuu*. their present character. As long as tilt, French believe that the Germans are plotting a new attack and the Germans believe France is seeking the disruption and ruin of Germany all restoration of normalcy will be delayed. We shall continue to have incidents, denunciations on either side of the Rhine. The Polish problem will add to tho bitterness.

On the other hand, provided Germany continues to pay and to disarm, a gradual decline in French apprehension may be expected. And Germany must pay and disarm, since only on those terms can she hope with Angloxtalian support to escape a new French invasion. For twenty years Germany will be helpless to resist a French invasion and her single hope of escaping it must be compliance with that programme which Great Britain and Italy accept as a minimum. France can be restrained only by the desire to avoid a break with her European allies and with a friendly America. But such restraint can be applied only if Germany meets her obligations.

Since Germany has now met her first payment we are- assured of a period of six months during which reparations will cease to trouble the world. Even disarmament in that time is hardly likely to become an acute issue. And a gain of six months for peace at this time is of almost incalculable value. Grave as are certain of its aspects, I cannot believe that the Upper Silesia question will be permitted to plunge Europe into new chaos or permanently halt economic reconstruction —and aside from the Upper Silesian question the European calendar is at the moment singularly and hopefully clear of cases of immediate importance—far freer than at any moment since the Archduke met his death at Serajevo.

After all the long delays and the almost innumerable list of disturbances it is plain that business still waits upon the restoration of confidence, and

credits will not come until politics have given way to economics. That we shall have any sudden and far reaching transformation seems to me unlikely. This war has been a slow disease, and recovery will be slow in its t~rn. Relapses are to be expected, new crisis for the moment appearing to threaten fresh chaos. Nevertheless it seems to me that henceforth the improvement will be steady.