The Rock Island Argus and daily union. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1920-1923, 1922-03-11
Foreign Comment
Special Dispatches to The Argus from
Paris bureau OF The Consolidated Press,
10 re de l'Elysee.
Frances Humiliation" at Wash
Ington.

Paris, March 1e-AImost unanimous French
opinion considers the Washington conference
as great humiliation for France, according tc
GuStave Herve, who writing in La Victoire
says:
AT the close of the Washington conference
President Harding has been extolling the work
accomplished, and expressing the hope that the
nations in the future will try to accomplish
Gods high destinies rather than carry on pol
| icy of and destruction.
THE whole world renders homage to Pres
| ident Harding's excellent intentions: he hopes
that the Washington pact concerning the Pa
ci6c and the limitation of the great naval fleets
will do away forever with the menace of wal
| between Japan and America
But it would only be deceiving President
Harding if we were to allow him to think that
France will have an agreeable remembrance OF
| the conference as her American friends. Most
French papers will keep silent on the subject
out of extreme politeness, or because they think
| it is in their interest to spare such powerful
and rich friends as the American people, OF
out of gratitude for the services rendered to
| France during the war; but the almost unani-
nous opinion of the French people is that the
Washington conference is about the greatest
humiliation that they have had to bear since
the reputation of the Versailles treaty by the
American senate.
For France, Washington is the conference
where, under cover of her temporary exhaus-
ton caused by the terrible invasion which she
has suffered, and the death of 100000 of her
best sons, she sees herself struck off the list OF
spite of her glorious past, in spite of her colon
ial empire representing with the parent state
population of 100 900 900 inhabitants; in spite
| of length of coast in the parent state and in
the colonies which surpasses the length of the
coasts of the United States and her depend
encies.
Washington" continues NJ. Herve, ais the
place where France was accused by the first
lord of the British admiralty, so soon after a
war in which France and England had fought
together as faithful and loyal allies of dream
ing of a great submarine feet with which to
start again against England, the acts of piracy
and lawlessness of the German submarine fleet;
quotations, which were not openly recognized
as false even when it evident to everybody
who can read French.
Washington is the name of the town where
we had the experience of the American press
suddenly turning against us, and swallowing
unhesitatingly the tattle which the bolSheviSts
of Russia and all Europe and the pangermans
carry round about us, accusing us of wearing
military helmets because we preserve our army
without which we should never get cent from
the Germans for their savage deyastations OF
our northern provinces
washington means for us the great illus
ion of having lost the confidence and friendship
of the American people, and the great humili-
alton of having seen friendly and allied peo-
pie claim the right of controlling our internal
affairs to be sure that we are not throwing our
money-their money-out of the window
You expect expressions of gladness with re-
gard to the Washington conference, dear Amer
lean friends?
I'Allow us then, concludes M Herye ito re-
beside the supposed imperalists and supposed
militarists in town of French Switzerland
called Geneva the seat of the League of Ma
TONS