Great Falls tribune. [volume] (Great Falls, Mont.) 1921-current, 1922-06-18
BY A. J. GARDINER.
Brjtain's Greatest Liberal Editor.


Special Cable TO This Great Falls Tribune
Copyright. 1922. BY The Great Falls Tribune.
London. June 17.-Prcmier Poincare's
visit to London this weekend arouses
very little public enthusiasm. The
French Bismarck has never touched
the English imagination and public
opinion is changing slowly but pro-
foundry under the influence of the
French policy of which he is the chief
inspiration. The change would have
come before but for the pro-French
attitude Of a portion of the influential
British press. the Northcliffe news
papers being mere echoes of the wild
est e~xtravagances of the boulevard
press. The glamOr of the war helped
to obscure the violent conflict of the
interests of the two countries. That
now is passing and the naked realities
are becoming visible.
England. living by external com
merce. finds her trade perishing under
the ruin organized by France. TWEEN
Of England is unemployed. living
doles costing the nation $500. 10000
annually. The demoralizing effect of
this vast outdoor relief is alarming.
Taxation is crushing us; there is no
sign of recovery.
France Military Dictator.
1t is being realized that there is
no prospect of recovery while the
French military dictatorship Of Europe
strangles all activities. The Wash
ington conference was the first real
awakening. The public here was
shocked by the revelation of the as
founding French submarine aims.
Genoa increased this disquiet by the
silence as to the meaning and the facts
of the French policy of the last three
years which is breaking down. The
enormous military dominance Of
France no longer is ignored. 1t is
realized that there is no parallel that
can be drawn since Napoleon trampled
over Europe. Her armies are undi-
minished. Her aerial force is nearly
20 times in excess of that Of England.
Her devastated regions still are unre-
stored. German labor having been re-
fused, but the construction of her stra-
tegic railways in northern France is
colossal.
Her black troops are settled on the
Rhine and the employment of the enor-
nous military reserve of Africa to
make good the declining French popu-
lation now is frankly accepted as a
French military policy.
Political and economic disruption
seems to be the main motive of Poin-
care. The Poincare policy seems to be
the ACKNOWLEDGMENT of south Inc north
Germany and French domination over
the coal and iron resources of central
Europe. The relation of all this to
the paralysis of British trade now is
apparent to the public. We desire to
remain friends with France but still
there is a general conviction that Euro
near peace alone will restore European
prosperity and that France writes mo
.thoroughfare' over every path to
peace.
Lloyd George CausaI Factor
No one more than Lloyd George rec
ognizes that he is gravely responsible
for the power he gave to France to
the policy during and after the
war. |
1t suited his democratic political pur-
poses to be popular in France. He
paid an ~extravagant price for this
He now realizes that the tide
public opinion is turning and that
nothing but a drastic reversal of
French public opinion and policy can
prevent a serious rupture. He has
become instead of the hero Of France,
the particular target for the almost
ties of the French newspapers. The
of the French press, like that
of her music halls. long has been sur
prisingly hostile to England. oftentimes
brutal and insulting. In England the
of the liberal movement
against a military agreement with
France is powerful. Labor opinion is
emphatically the same. The feeling
On the subject has been strengthened
not alone by n sense of the calamitous
policy upon which France has embark
ID. but by a growing knowledge of the
origin of the war and the share which
he Poincare policy had in it. The
minds of serious students are becom- =,
ne profoundly disturbed by a deepening
conviction that Germany was by no
means the only culprit.
liberal sentiment is growing rapidly |
lnder the influence of the postwar G
policy to repudiate French m~iIitarism +.
he same as Prussian militarism. and {
his is TIE feeling that overshadows the II
isit of Po}hcare today. 20