The New York herald., 1921-04-03
No Genuine Progress Made
Toward Peace Since Arnnstice

From the hour of the armistice to the
present moment hostiities have been pre-
vented between France and Germany only
with the greatest difficulty and with serious
consequences to French statesmen who
yielded to allied persuasion. In reality, while
the actual fighting has been interrupted,
French and German policies have remained
in opposition. At best there has been a
truce, but not foot of progress toward any
solution of the great question. Confident
that the recent allies of France would
restrain the French, the Germans have mul-
tiplied their defiances and INCREASINGLY prac-
tised those covert menaces which Were
destined to arouse French apprehension and
precipitate such French action as would
deprive France of her allies.
Germany is playing the peace game as
she played the war game. She is counting
on dividing the Allies, on isolatng France.
she is reckoning on the self interest of
Britain and the United States. who must
suffer If Germany is destroyed as an
economic unit, potential market She
is not counting on making any sacrifice her
self; she is rousing her people to new pas
sion and new fury with each day. She is
openly challenging the responsibility for the
war, and therefore the responsibility for the
reparations. She is rslxng ruin. as she
risked it when she invoked the submarine
a weapon against her enemies, with the same
obstinacy the same blindness and for herself
the same fatality.
1t seems to me Americans can table ali
calculations on this fact: France will never
permit Germany to recover economically
unless Germany meets French demands Cor
reparations. Aside from the possibility OF
reparations, French safety, French existence,
is best guarded by the reduction Of Germany
to a State of forty or fifty millions of in
habitants And such reduction French mill
tary power can now bring about without aid
from any other nation Moreover, no other
nation can prevent France from such action
save as II contributes to coerce the German
and guarantee French security.
In any event the present crisis cannot en-
dure. Things must improve worsen very
rapidly, and any material decline must bring
with IT. economic ruin for Germany. Pro-
vided German policy shows a sudden and
complete change provided Germany con-
scnts to meet allied terms, at the very least
to accept them and begin some respectable
effort to pay, provided Germany lays aside
her present campaign of threat and menace
to France, there is yet chance that she
may escape. But the conditions are almost
sodly contrary to any known fact
ON the surface Germany seems marching
straight toward ruin precisely as she did
when she undertook to invade Belgium in
the face OF world sentiment and immediate
British danger, exactly as she did when she
fesorted to unrestricted submarine warfare
with the certainty that this meant American
participation. Britain came into the war
reluctantly, the United States entered with
no less dstaste. but both came, and the pres
ence OF both insured German defeat. To
dav ne destruction OF Germany Is dstaste
FL. to public sentiment and opinion In the
United States and Great Britain, but not
sufficiently distasteful to permit interven-
ton to save Germany while Germany OBJ
stinately refuses to pay and steadily con-
tinues to threaten France.
German destrut on Is made in Germany,
not I'm France, but the instrument will be
French, and Il is difficult to see how France
can be restrained much longer from that
march TO Berlin. The march will mean a
new war, but war which will almost GER
tainly have for Germany the same unmeas-
ured evil as the Thirty Years War, which
put Germany out Of the reckoning for full
century and half.