Wairarapa Daily Times (Established Over 60 Years.) THURSDAY, 25th JUNE, 1936. THE EUROPEAN SITUATION.

Wairarapa Daily Times, 25 June 1936, Page 6

Wairarapa Daily Times (Established Over 60 Years.) THURSDAY, 25th JUNE, 1936. THE EUROPEAN SITUATION.

France, Germany and Italy have all contributed with. Britain to the achievements which European civilisation represents in its many fields of energy. But the canker is that Franco-German quarrel which is now almost traditional in the two peoples. It is Britain’s part in upholding civilisation at this juncture to try to repair that quarrel. Inevitably there is and will be denuncation of British “perfidy” by fine party or an-

other, and by suffiparties behind the chief disputants. Honest critics will discount such', symptoms. The British Cabinet has had a difficult task in playing its. part abroad for the additional reason that the British public behind it has, in sheer hatred of war, overestimated the authority of the League. Public opinion is beginning to realise that miscalculation, and Britain is now undertaking a large-scale preparation for Avar (if other nations should make Avar inevitable)— preparations not only to speed up the “stopping of the gaps’ in the national defences, but also to control every industry in the land for emergency service. British diplomacy, backed by Britain’s financial supremacy, can still do much. At least during the recent years Britain has conserved and built up financial strength, while other nations have been wasting theirs. The British Government is to-day obliged to steer a temporising course, because of the nation’s Aveakened arms, and, further, because the principles of its past policy are proving unsound. If it be shown —the evidence tends that way, but is not yet, perhaps, conclusive —that the Continental Powers will not stand by the League as" Britain has meant to stand by it, then not only is the League “de.ad and damned” (in the.phrase of a recent cabled comment), but Britain must incur odium as its persisting disciple. We believe that Britain must proceed Avith extraordinary care at this juncture —and _yet must give nothing aAvay by sfdifig too hastily with one disputant or another —because she Avants time to resuscitate her own military strength against the Avorst emergency, and because no man, even the. wisest, can foresee Avhat even the immediate future may present in the complexity of the international discontent.