Evening star., 1925-08-02

passive resistance was at one moment
pushing Germany headlong to bank
ruptcy and to the edge of domestic
anarchy while demonstrating to
France that force could not collect
reparations, to see how afar we have
Travelled to reach a point where
reparations are paid without debate,
as a matter of course, on each appoint
ed date, when the last of the French
troops Is on the point of quitting the
Ruhr and BRAND and Stresemann are
quarreling amicably like lawyers and
not violently like pugilists over the
terms of a French-German voluntary
adjustment
What has happened in this span is
difficult to estimate in exact values
and yet impossible to eXaggerate in
Importance. The Frenchman and the
German have both been driven by the
inexorable logic of events to perceive
that for both a voluntary arrange
ment is the only possible solution
Neither can realize its whole desire
and neither can live It's own life with
any comfort or conduct its own bust
ness with any success unless there be
an adjustment. The potash producers
of both countries, whose competition
was running both German and French
trade, set an amazingly interesting
example when last year they quietly
made a bargain which introduced CO.
operation, which in abolishing cut
throat competition restored profit. The
iron and coal trades of the two nations
have just made a similar, If provi-
sional, bargain to cover the field, which
is most important for both nations.
Agreement on Rhine.
The situation as between France
and Germany has been ever since the
World War one in which either one
must destroy the other, which was
impossible; each must ruin the
other, which was not only likely, but
becoming inevitable, or there must
be an agreement, not a reconcilia-
ton; not a friendly understanding.
but a modus vivendi, basis of living
as between two neighbors destined
to hate each other perhaps for eter-
nifty, but doomed to be neighbors, new
ertheless. And that is precisely the
fact which has received surprisingly
general recognition on both sides OF
the Rhine in the past year.
No European peace or tranquility
was possible while French security
was in the French mind so slight
that France had to rely upon the
resources of force and the policies OF
coercion to guarantee II. Nor was
there any better prospect while
France did follow this course. and the
German resentment and passion stead
! lily mounted toward an inevitable eX
| plosion. Nor was there any con
| ceivable appeasement while the Brit
| ish nation stoutly refused to under
take any responsibilities upon the
European continent.
If the world had been dealing with
great and powerful nations in the
full possession of their strength. as
they were II years ago, no possible
| f,tI c1lIY Hax 6aa
found for the European tangles which
were the inheritance of the war.
| Moreover, while fear and passion
survived from the struggle. the con-
sciousness of weakness was made
quate to compel rational restraint.
Not until the past year, not until
after the London conference, was
there any real conviction, either in
| France or Germany, that, even if
solution of difficulties was impossible,
there was an adjustment more tolera-
BILE than the miseries and misfortunes
of a new war.
New European Conference.
Today, I think it is safe to fore
cast, we are on the eve of a new
European conference. with France.
Germany and Britain playing the
main roles; a conference which, with
tual conflict. will pretty certainly
postpone any new trial of strength
for a generation. After having
marched in the first five postwar
years straight to the edge of new
and perhaps final convulsion,
| Europe has not only shrunk back
from the edge of the abyss, but quite
patiently and consciously turned its
| back thereon.
. ei,, III ,ln of
/ too, it has been manifest that a little
| peace would mean a long peace; that
| every nation had so many grave and
| absorbing problems of it's own TO con
sider SO many difficulties to face and
| surmount. that the mere chance to
resume domestic activity would al
most automatically reduce foreign and
international questions to relative In
! significance. Just to feel that theT
! could live with a measure of security
! from outside menace would be the
sure signal for almost complete ab-
sorption in domestic and parochial
problems. And the last year in pro
viding the opportunity has produced
this result.
At this moment there is not a coun-
try among the great powers of Eu-
rope whose domestic, problems do not
have greater significance than the for.
eign. France with the double strain
of financial crisis and a colonial war
Great Britain with an economic condi-
ton which is easily the most serious
in its history, Germany with all the
task of beginning business again and
reorganizing a national establishment.
the richest part of which has long
been under foreign occupation-all
three have compelling reasons for get
ting done with foreign vexations, for
|, attaining tranquility even at the
price of certain sacrifices. -
Tranquility i'm Sight.
And at price which is not too ex-
cessive, these three nations are at last
beginning to believe that tranquility
Is attafnable. 1t is the advent of
sanity in Europe within the past II
| months which is the most unmistak-
able and impressive single circum.
stance. the ultimate escape from what
one might describe as the fever-delir-
ium of the European patient, an in.
| evitable consequence of the war dis
ease, which best explains the remark
, able contrast between present condi-
tions and those even year ago, when
the London conference was opening
| and Europe still looked upon it with
doubt and suspicion.
In the past year, then, the great
powers, whose decision involves
Europe, have decided that peace was
| possible; hitherto the French, with
their conviction of a Germany pre-
pairing a new blow and the Germans
with their belief that France was
| determined to stay on the Rhine, In
J the Ruhr, and to prevent German
recovery. have regarded peace as un-
attainable. Once the decision has
been made and the conviction of the