Evening star., 1924-07-06
Europe Has Settled Down
To Era of Common Sense

operation is always attainable at the
price of European agreement.
The. chief reason why I believe
that the next London conference will
prove further step toward final
adjustment is that ! cannot conceive
that any nation, even Germany, will
care to take the responsibility now
for the Illustration of the hopes and
expectations of whole continent.
And this responsibility must be
mainly disastrous for domestic, not
foreign, reasons Failure to find
speedy adjustment means fiscal bank
it means a general collapse in Ger
many which will be economic, and
may be political: and for Britain the
consequences will be serious in the
fatal than in Germany or France.
Compromise to Result.
In the larger sense there are not
apt to be swift and complete soul
tions. Most of the postwar problems
are in a sense insoluble, particularly
those of peace and war. The nice
automatic adjustments of the Paris
days have disappeared from the pur-
view of peoples as well as leaders.
We shall have, instead, only a series
of compromises, temporary agree
ments rather than enduring adjust
ments. Peace will come rather by
reason of the extinction of war time
rancor and peace time apprehensions
incident to gradual resumption of
ordinary routine of trade and COM
merce.
What must now proye the most
fascinating of all conjectures is
whether the league of nations can
be made a force and factor in the
future. 1t has been handicapped,
fatally handicapped so far, because
it was the creation of victor's
peace, and in the conception of many
countries was to be the executor of
the terms of the conquerors. On the
larger side and in the eyes of it's own
most ardent supporters in Europe, it
has simply been making time in place,
so far as the greater tissues were
concerned, until such time as, Europe
having been restored to peace, the
league should escape from the shadow
of it's origin. should be accepted by
the conquered as we'll as the con-
querors. The admission of Germany,
not merely to membership. but to
place of influence, a thing now well
nigh inevitable will give the league
its first real chance. Until the world
war was liquidaetd it obviously re-
manned unavailable for the purpose it
was designed.
All Have Failed Since War.
Five years, not exactly wasted,
since the cooling off process was
necessary, have at last brought us
back, then, to the starting place,
where a British and French premier
can talk together as Clemenceau and
Lloyd George did on the eve of the
Paris conference. These five years
have seen campaigns only less men,
orable than those of the war years
preceding. But the campaigns have
of 1914-1S. Germany, France, Britain,
all have striven for mastery, either
in war or in peace, ana all have
failed. President Wilson is dead;
driven from power; Clemenceau has
retired and been denied the French
presidency. The mortality in German
political life has been even greater,
and as national leaders have been
eliminated. so national aspirations
and programs have been modified.
Today tho single question must be
whether the reduction in national ex-
pectation has been complete enough
or not, whether the process of deduc-
atlon mas gone Iar enough or must
be continued. That we are going to
see in the next few weeks. France
may turn Herriot out, Germany may
turn again to the old order, Britain
may tire of Macdonald. Yet, even
though one or all of these things take
place, it has become clear in what
direction eventual settlement lies,
and 1t Is hardly less clear that in this
direction, albeit with delays and de-
tours, Europe is moving. And, as I
have said before, the Herriot-Mac-
Donald interview remains, after all,
an outstanding landmark on the road
to European recovery, while the pres
ence of Ambassador Kellogg at the
conference-to-beS puts America back
measurably in Europe, but in a Eu-
rope vastly different minded from
that of 1919 and the succeeding years.
Copyright, 1924. by the Mcclure Newspaper
syndicate.)