Evening star., 1924-04-20
Europe Strives for Understanding;
Germany Alone Woos Trouble

been lacking because on every side the report
of the expert commission has been awaited
offering the only solid base for actual dis
cussion. At the same time it would be a
mistake not to note the significance of private
discussions which have been going on in Lon
don between Macdonald and the French am
basSador the matter of French security,
following the publication of the French 1el-
low Book, which narrated the history and
recorded the failure of all the other similar
discussions which carried on up to the
hour when the French finally decided to go
into the Ruhr.
The recognition on the part of Macdonald
that France is entitled to some special as
sunnce of security has made a certain i'm
preston in France. The advance reports of
the character of the decisions of the expert
commission with respect to German capacity
to pay-reports bearing out the French ar
guments that Germany could pay, and pay
heavily-havc also been of utmost Importance.
Policy Must WHIT Elections.
Nevertheless, all calculations of ultimate
French policy must still await a second cir
cumstance, namely, the forthcoming French
general elections. The general expectation at
the moment is that. as one says in Europe,
the result will "go to the left'-that is, that
fewer Of the members of the new senate and
chamber will represent more or less pro-
nounced nationalistic convictions and that
more will be classed rather summarily as
liberal. But the change is not expected to
upset Poincare although it may. What is
really looked for is not that Poincare will bs
obliged to leave office, but that he will identity
himself little more in the future with the
liberal rather than the extreme elements.
But until the election is held. in May, moth
ing can be done of any real value in the way
of European settlement. because all of the
French public men, Poincare included, will
have their attention concentrated upon do
mestic conditions, and foreign negotiations
will be used only to indicate the strength or
weakness, success failure of contending
groups This delay is hardly of real impor
tance, however, because, in any event, the re-
port of the experts must pass through the
hands of the reparations commission. which
will certainly take its time in reaching
conclusions.
In point sf fact, however, the French cleo
tion is hardly likely to have much real infiu-
one does here, that in any event Poincare will
return to power with majority perhaps re-
reduced, but hardly shaken. What really
counts in the European situation is the Ger
man election which also comes early in May,
and the light that German campaign maneu-
vers shed upon the probable course of the
next German government in accepting or re-
jccting the expert report
German Nationalists to Gain.
All over Europe it is agreed that the Ger
man elections will take exactly the opposite
course from those in France and that those
elements which most violently national
istic and most determined in their opposition
to any attempt to fulfill the terms of the
peace whether the terms made in 1919 or the
notifications of the financial phases of the
earlier agreement just presented by the ex-
perts. will gain enormously in prestige and