Evening star., 1925-07-11
BY FRANK I'll. SIM0NDS.

The first European comment upon
President Coolidges Fourth of July
eve speech serves to indicate how
important the declaration of American
views as to the proposed guarantee
pact is considered on the other side
of the Atlantic. Not since Mr.. Hughes
made his now celebrated New Haven
speech on the eve of the occupa-
ton of the Ruhr has there been
any American pronouncement OF SIM
liar foreign significance.
The Presidents comment, too, comes
at a critical moment. 1t is clear that
while France and Great Britain have
arrived at a point which marks more
substantial agreement than has eX-
listed since the end OF the war, the
French response to the German note
has at best met with a divided recep-
ton in Berlin. While there is no
ground yet for complete pessimism, all
reports agree that the proposed pact
will have difficult road to travel and
the Stresemann-Luther cabinet real
labor in getting 1t accepted.
Germany Dissatisfied.
From the German point of view
the French note totally changes the
character Of the proposed pact. Ger
many saw in 1t the method of raising
the French mortgage, of arriving at
final settlement with France which
would as a consequence lead France
to abandon her guarantees of the in
tegrity of Poland and Czechoslovakia
and her vote to German annexation
of Austria. In resigning all claim
to Alsace-Lorraine, in accepting all
western frontiers as definite, in agree
ing to a demilitariZed Rhineland
nnnPniUn6 10
satisfy France completely, particularly
as Great Britain was to underwrite
the guarantee.
France, however, has declined to
accept the German thesis that French
security can be established in the
west and France remain free from
all danger, no matter what is the
German policy in the east. Above
all, France has declined to permit
the guarantee pact to be made in such
form as to constitute an impossible
Chinese wall separating France from
her eastern allies and allowing France
no approach to them in case they are
aSSailed.
France Wants Guarantees.
Speaking broadly, the German con-
ception was an amendment of the
treaty of Versailles, a substitute ar
rangement which, while it preserved
the western decisions of the treaty,
provided a way to reopen the eastern.
The French conception is of an ex-
tension of the Paris agreements by
which the whole settlement of 1919
receives a new guarantee. Thus,
while not insisting that Germany
shall give the same form of commit
ment with respect to eastern as of
western frontiers, France does insist
that Germany shall make arbitration
treaties with her eastern neighbors
and that France shall be permitted to
guarantee them as Britain guarantees
the western pact.
Thus Germany would gain i'm
munity from invasion through the
Rhineland only on condition that she
refrained from all attacks upon her
eastern neighbors. If she did not,
France would be free to enter the
Rhineland and cross the Rhine with
out doing violence to the western
pact or automatically bringing Ger
many the aid of Britain. Since Ger
many would also be required to join
the League of Nations as a condition
to the making of the pact, she would
in reality be compelled to give new
assent to all the decisions of the
Paris settlement-that is, all the ter
ritorial settlements.
Obviously this defeats the main