Evening star., 1925-10-09
WHAT GERMANY WANTS
BY FRANK. SIlHONDS.

Perhaps the greatest possible error
with respect of the current confer
ence at Locarno. whether 1t succeeds
or fails in producing a Franco-Ger-0
man security pact, would be to attach
too much Importance to the meeting
or to the pact. What Is being at
tempted, after all, is no more than
to give Europe a period OF relative
tranquility following a temporary
truce between France and Germany.
a security pact cannot insure absO-
lutely against a future war, and the
danger of war between two nations
with as bitter animosities, ancient
and recent, as France will not be
abolished by any scrap of paper"
What the pact will do, at most, is
to contribute a sense of temporary
security. which may gradually grow
into a feeling OF real safety. Today
both the French and the Germans
are apprehensive of the immediate
or ultimate designs of their neigh
Dor. France is dominated by the
memory of the aggression of 1914
and the partition of 1871. Germany by
the ancient history of France on the
Rhine revived by the occupation OF
the Ruhr and the propaganda for "a
Rhineland republic.
&& x =
AS between German and French
statesmen there is vastly less differ
ence than between the public opin-
ions of the two nations. Strese-
mann and BRAND will not find their
chief obstacle mutual hostility, but
the overshadowing fear of the fashion
in which what they may do will
react at home. There is q real anal
ogy in this respect between the situa-
ton at Locarno this week and that
at Washington last week. The great
est danger is that what both nego-
tiatorS perceive TO be essential NAV
seem to the German Reichstag and
the French Parliament unacceptable.
Germany comes to Locarno for the
first time since the war as an equal
proposing a system Of peace between
herself and France which involves a
formal recognition of the territorial
settlements Of the war in the West.
She proposes to agree to accept the
loss of Alsace Lorraine as permanent.
on centain conditions. But she will
not make this concession, which in
the German mind is very great, save
for balancing compensation. She
comes to trade, not to accept any
can and will insist upon being treated
as an equal. This is the first out
standing difference between Locarno
and any Of the preceding conferences
since that at Paris more than six
years ago.
What Germany will ask is. broadly
speaking, that she be freed from all
of the temporary political servitudes
of the treaty of Versailles; in a word.
that there be a liquidation of the
political phase Of the peace as there
was of the economic when the Dawes
plan was adopted in London a year
ago. The Ruhr has been evacuated
Now Germany asks the immediate
evacuation of the Cologne zone, which
would have been cleared in January
had it not been for the dispute over
German ornaments. and an assur-
ance, If not a contract, for an accele-
ration Of the pace of evacuation of all
the remaining occupied regions be-
tween the French and Belgian from
tiers and the Rhine. regions which,
under the treaty would not be cleared
for ten years yet.
Assurance of a positive sort that
evacuation will take place. coupled
with the past evacuation of the Ruhr1
dHut tile Certainty OIL tne early clear
ing of the Cologne zone, will give theI
whole German people relief from theI
general belief that France meant td
stay on the Rhine permanently, andl
it will very greatly strengthen thel
hands of the Luther-Stresemann cab1
met, which has all along perceived
that, not in resistance, but in agree
ment with Germany's recent enemieJ
must solution of the current difficult
ties come.
+ X /
Germany Will seek to buy evacua- \
ion by the pledge QS remuneration I'll