The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 1924. FRENCH POLICY.

Waikato Times, Volume 97, Issue 15895, 21 January 1924, Page 4

The Waikato Times With which is Incorporated The Waikato Argus. MONDAY, JANUARY 21, 1924. FRENCH POLICY.

It Is time (says' a contributor to the Spectator) that people realised, both in France and in Britain, first the immediate objective of the policy now being pursued by the French Government, and secondly where that policy must eventually lead. It is perfectly clear that whilst the whole talk of the leaders of the French nation has been of reparations, their real objective has been military security. It is equally clear that the French nation would not have followed their Government in any policy which might lead to a war of revanche, unless there was at the same time some hope that payment of reparations would follow. But neither France nor anybody else will get reparations if the present French policy culminates in its logical conclusion, for you cannot kill a cow for its meat and at the same lime keep it alive for its milk. Yet that would be as consistent as aiming at military security by shattering Germany into her original elements and talking the while of making her pay, which is what the French Government have been doing. In pretending to carry out simultaneously these two irreconcilable aims, therefore, the French Government have been deceiving their own nation and a large part of the civilised world; but they have not deceived Germany, and, although logical people may com- ; mit most illogical acts, we may ignore i the possibility of their having deceived I themselves. These are somewhat '' downright assertions, but they can be \ supported by a statement of French , actions since the Armistice. France ; set Poland on her feet, helped her against the Bolshevik invasion, trained her army, and secured for her a large : part of Upper Silesia with a producUon of '30,000,000 tons of coal, ; 10,000,000 tons of lignite, 60 per cent j of the iron fields producing 100,000 i tons of ore, vast steel rolling mills and blast furnaces, all the zinc, and ' nearly all the lead. She later sup- ] ported Poland's claim to Vilna, and , lately to Memel, to which no shadow : of claim on Poland's part could exist, i Finally, she consented to Memel being handed to Lithuania, subject to Poland's right to import munitions through this port for ninety years. , At the Peace France regained the coal and iron of Alsace and Lorraine, ' acquired the control of the Saar, and, \ by making constant demands on Germany under conditions which the Central Government were unable to fulfil, ; created the excuse for the occupation of the Ruhr. Her first objective—mainly economic but essentially mililaro-economic —was thus attained, for Germany is deprived of two of the principal raw materials for war purposes, coal and iron. Subsequently France has furthered the break-up of Germany by weakening the power of j

the central authority by continuing her impossible demands, and by fostering the creation of the Rhine Republic, with tlie result that Bavaria may turn Monarchist, Saxony a Socialist Republic, and both will probably secede. In other words, Germany is breaking up into a collection of little States with divergent interests and conflicting political systems, -while Bolshevism and starvation brood over ail, and ironically enough the Germans have contributed to their own destruction by the inflation of their currency. France now stands st the threshold of success in her second objective, the break-up of Germany. So far those who know her fears cannot blame her; but it is here that the danger for the future begins. The recent visits of M. Berengcr, Senator and personal friend of M. Poincare, to Poland and the States of the Little Entente, and of M. to Paris have a peculiar significance at this juncture. At Warsaw M. Bcrenger spoke of a loan to Poland for defensive purposes of 400,000,000 francs, and spoke of similar loans for similar purposes to Jugoslavia, Rumania, Gzecho-Slovakia, and the States of the Little Entente. Czecho-Slovakian air squadrons took part in French manoeuvres, large French military missions have trained the armies of all these countries, and the French press spoke recently of a new pact with Gzecho-Slovakia, although this was later denied. Even if it is' allowed that these "loans" are designated to enable France to unload her surplus munitions on her smaller neighbours, what is the meaning of the necessity for this tuning-up of the military strength of these four States, all of whom are already considerable military Powers, at the very moment ■when France's greatest enemy is on the verge of dissolution? asks the writer, who says he does not accuse France of any motives or acts directed against Britain, her late ally, and knows that all these smaller States are friendly to Great Britain, and owe her gratitude only little less than that due to France. For this reason an appeal should be made now to the French people to see where their leaders are taking them and to stop them before it is too late, before their policy leads to trouble and to future wars. If the events studied were Isolated acts they could be ignored, but they are not isolated acts, but part of a great Continental policy, and as such they must be examined. At the Peace Treaty France insisted on the secret right to raise troops in her mandated territories : she has consolidated her position in Syria, gained the friendship of Turkey by backing her against Greece, and of Italy by backing her over Corfu. She stands now the dominant military Power ifa Europe, with her foot on the neck of Germany, and backed by the moral support at least of lour of the largest of the smaller States of Europe, all of whom are formidable military Powers. Is not all this the Napoleonic conception of a France dominant from the Atlantic to the Baltic and the Black Sea, and of the Mediterranean as a French lake with its outlet to the East flanked by a Syria held by France? Is the next step to be the occupation of Hamburg, Germany's sole remaining source of wealth? In all this scheme of restoring her past glories has France forgotten British traditional interests in the balance of power? Has she failed to realise that her policy inevitably leads to the possible cutting off of Great Britain not only from the Baltic, Russia, and the Continent of Europe, but from her Eastern possessions, except by the Cape? Finally, does France realise the sensitiveness of an island Power to the possibility of hostile submarine bases at Hamburg and Memel? French policy is leading directly to a clash of French and British interests both political and economic. Already she virtually commands what may be the largest steel, coal, iron combine in the world; the rest must follow. Are we who have suffered and struggled with her against the Blond Bei'.st to sec our little sons dragged by France into the fiery furnace and sacrificed witli millions of others for want of the courage to speak plainly to a friend? "Every soldier sympathises with France in her fear of Germany, and most of us love her," adds the writer. "No soldier who knows war wants to see another, but duty is stronger than friendship and even than affection, and in this case there is no question where duty lies."