EUROPE AND LOCARNO.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 8 December 1925, Page 4

EUROPE AND LOCARNO.

Britain has accepted the Locarno Treaty, but it is true that while the negotiations at Locarno were in progress a substantial body of opinion in Britain was opnosed to the Treaty. Some considered that Britain should avoid European entanglements altogether. Others were not averse from some form of participation in European a flairs, but argued that the Treaty was too onesided. Britain committed herself, and received nothing in return. She is bound to intervene in Europe in certain contingencies; no one is under any obligation to do anything for her. France has really nothing to lose and everything to gain by the Treaty. France has her hands full in Morocco and Syria; the definite stabilisation of. Europe would be to her advantage. Hie Treaty will give her security as far as any human instrument can provide ff or this, and wc can understand what the promise of security must mean to a country which has twice within fifty years known the horrors of invasion. Moreover, the question of the GermanPolish frontier has been left open. Germany has not relinquished hope that the line drawn by the Treaty of Versailles will lie I modified; but she is pledged not to attempt to attain her ends by military action. In accepting the Treaty, France will do nothing that is detrimental to Ihe interests of Poland, her ally. According to a cable which we published yesterday, the Locarno Treaty j=j not being accepted in Germany in tlie 'same spirit in which it is in Britain and France. There has been a political crisis in Germany, the Cabinet having resigned. The Nationalists suddenly decided to oppose the Treaty, and three Nationalist Ministers withdrew from the Cabinet. It is a matter for regret that the Allies did not continue the war for another week or two, and in-

Dieted 9ome of the damage upon German towns and cities that the Kaiser's troops did in regard to French towns. Then the German.would have been more reasonable to-day. If it is possible to bring Germany into armed conflict with France and Britain again in the near future, the Nationalists will do it, as they represent militarism and everything that is opposed to the freedom of the people.