FRANCE ABSORBED.

Waikato Times, Volume 112, Issue 18705, 3 August 1932, Page 3

FRANCE ABSORBED.

IN WORLD PROBLEMS. ARAfS ISSUE PARAMOUNT. (From a Corespondent). PARIS, June 24. The Grande Semnine is just ending—the culminating week of the racing year as well as the very height ol tlio season, artistically and socially. Ordinarily ono could not interest Parisians in anything else, but Frenchmen to-day are talking more about disarmament, reparations and war debts than about who is going to win the Grand Prix at Longchamps Sunday. Since President Hoover’s “bombshell” on disarming, as it 1? called here, tiie eyes of the world have turned upon France. Events have moved so fast in the last "few days that the press editorials have been unable to keep up with them and now the people of France seem to have made up their minds to the fact that the fate of many of the hopes and ideals of the world depends on them. But the course of action is difficult for France to decide. Her longing for peace is sincere despite the fact that she has sought other means. On the question of reparations France feels she has a profound right to redress. . ' She thinks her -stand on armaments and reparations is logical. eventful week, .more than any other period since , the war, has taught France that the world is beginning a new order or, at any rate, •is trying to build up something different and something better than the present state of affairs, -and unless she co-operates.it cannot succeed. It isnot doing any good to say, as many Frenchmen are doing, that everything depends on the United States any more than it does good for Americans- t-o seek to shift the entire burden to French shoulders. It is for both to act, and if one- can judge from the press and from the reaction in political and financial circles, France now realises it.