Evening star., 1924-04-06

tor of international rivalries, il is a
period Of intense WEAKNESS, almost
pathetic longing for any settlement
that might even promise period of
! calm.
Thus, when a new international con-
! ference comes, as it must come in the
summer or early autumn at the latest
all Europe accepts this and asks
eagerly if America will be there
France will not be found seeking to
establish RhineFand republics. nor in
sisting upon economic control of the
Ruhr. The outside of what she ma
demand with respect of the Ruhr is
the provisional maintenance of a few
| troops in barracks. as the Germans
! occupied the eastern cities of France
after the war of 1870 as a guarantee
of French payment of the war in
IDENTITIES.
Security rs Desired.
| If there were any conceivable meth
cd under the sun by which the single
enduring difficulty of the French. the
matter of security, could be dealt
with, even for an appreciable time,
| the solution of the rest of the dis
puted matters would be of little real
difficulty. There, and there alone, the
French mind, as 1 see it. remains un-
lchanged. 1t does not matter who is
prime minister, what stripe of party
politics he wears, he must in the ma
| ture of things insist upon some form
of guarantee of French security.
France will insist upon a demi.i-
tarized Rhine frontier: she will seek
some international guarantee of it.
Whether in the end she will accept
| the pet dream of the new British
prime minister, guarantee through
the league of nations. remains open
| to question, although some such
scheme might awaken less contempt
uous resistance in France today then
| five years ago. But the real pacifi-
cation of Europe. after all, must de-
pend upon the success of Mr.. Mac
| Donald in meeting, not the extreme,
but the minimum requirements on the
| head of security, and for France, Sc
curity means some form of under
standing with Great Britain.
AS far as Germany is concerned, the
French expect nothing which is net
the result of allied unity and common
coercion, coercion which may not
have to go beyond words, il unity is
preserved. They hope and believe
that the fact that the Dawes report
will show Germany has great capa-
city for payment, will serve as vim
dication of France before the world
for her contention and action in the
past. They hope and believe that the
Dawes commission report will give
an economic justification for French
1
moral and legal warrant.
| Above all the French people hope
| that when an international ccmmis-
| sion has found that Germany can pay
largely, suspicion of French purpose
l in demanding payment will disappear
and the world will accept the French
statement that France seeks only
Preparations due her for her devastated
areas and, once these reparalions are
forthcoming, will abandon all military
I N 70 GnrnanV
Nothing Yet Settled.
! 1t is well to remember that up to
the present moment nothing has been
settled, all the real obstacles remain.
Solution in the sense of a final, per-
manent adjustment is, beyond much
| doubt, an irridescent dream. We are
very far from the mood of five years
ago when Mr.. Wilson came to Paris
and the world talked about a new era.
There is not, let US concede quite
frankly, any re-echo of that idealism
which was abroad everywhere at the
moment when the Paris peace confer
ence opened. =.
But, by contrast, there is intense
WEAKNESS, a real and think a un:-
versal hunger for peace, outside of
| Germany, perhaps there, I canrot
say. Even victory has lost mpsr, IL not
! all of it's passing impetus to age-long
Inspirations and ambitions Today in
| the little of Europe in which I have
| fingered, you have far more the
that you have, the sense that most, if
| not all of the inhabitants Of these
countries are thinking in terms of
| their own narrow but vital and diff
fcult problems rather than in terms
Of great periods in national history