Evening star., 1925-04-19
FRANCE WANTS PEACE
AND AIMS TO GAIN IT
Militaristic Ideas Give Way to Desire to
Meet Germany Half-Way-Finan-
cial Troubles Chief ISSUE

own countrymen as well as to the
Poles and the Czechs.
The mass of the French people be-
lieve that any sort of viable arrange
ment with Germany is desirable. They
are, as ] have said, amazingly inter-
|, ested in the Stresemann gestures, but
they also believe that peace In Europe
must be peace all over Europe, and
that you cannot segregate certain
areas. They believe that war on
the Vistula would bring war on the
Rhine, that German expansion down
the Danube would end in German re-
sumption of aspirations on the Rhine
and toward the Channel. They believe
the one chance of peace is that peo-
Piles will now settle down within their
present frontiers.
Frontiers Are Accepted.
There is no sentiment in France
favorable to occupying German ter
ritory permanently, France accepts
her frontiers as fixed by the treaty,
the Ruhr occupation idea is thing
of the past, liquidated by the Dawes
settlement, but France believes that
Germany cannot get together armies
adequate to crush Poland or Czecho-
slovakia without becoming again
menace to all European peace. Moth
ing has been more significant here
iIldl u "dtCH the SciilliHSll Slduueaiiy
stiffening in the matter of the east
ern frontiers.
The thing is not, in my Judgment,
a fatal barrier to peace by agreement,
however, to some sort of pact OF the
character now under examination, be-
cause / believe the Germans want an
adjustment quite as much as the
French. Whatever their mental res
ervations with respect of their east
h. ayr atr.N-
ton of their western territories, they
want an end of the menace for them
of new occupations, they want their
hands free to get back to business
and they are terribly eager to get
foreign loans which can only come
with confidence, with an end or
Franco o-German crisis.
Finance Greatest Issue.
So much for the question of for
eign affairs; it fills the press and prob
ably dominates the cables, but in
reality 1t is subordinate to the mat
ter of finance in France. 1t is, after
all and by comparison, academic and
in the future, but the financial crisis
is immediate. Here you have rather
striking anomaly. OF all the Euro
pean nations the French economic
situation is perhaps the most salts
cess of imports. unemployment is
represented by $4,000 where 1t stands
at 1,3000 900 in Great Britain, there
has been an immigration of more
than 2,500,0 900 in the last five years. !
showing that France has at least re-
placed the dead and incapacitated of
the war. There has even been an
excess of births over deaths greater |
than in the pre-war period.
m hou VI 1flx-F ant
no excess of imports. and you en- |
phatically have nothing of the evil !
dence of present poverty which
strikes one in Germany. France is
busy, fed, clothed, in many directions
even prosperous, particularly as to
the farmers-and this is an agricul
tural country. And yet there is no
denying the fact that one lives in
the sense of present and continuing
financial crisis. You see the papers
and magazines announcing that "the
franc is France" and the course of
the rate of exchange is followed with
the intensity of interest that attaches
to the temperature of one who is
gravely sick.
Reconstruction Work.
The reason for this is always the
same. To win the war and to re.
construct her ruins France raised
and expended sums which represent
even without taking into considera-
tion her foreign debt, something like
half her national wealth. For re-
construction of her ruined areas alone
she spent more than S., 600. .000, 900, and
the job is not finished; in fact. has
now to be adjourned because of lack
of funds. From Germany she has col
lected for this vast undertaking al
most exactly nothing, and even under
the Dawes plan payments are but be-
ginning and will not be impressive
for several years.
The next budget will balance, In
come will meet expenditures, unless
some accident intervenes, a business
depression, for example. An end has
been made to the evil practice of run
ming expenses on bond issues, on bor-
rowings. But the best that can be
expected will not leave any balance
due to excess or receipts, and there
still remains the enormous task of
funding the past borrowings which
indure as floating loans. The task
of bringing about financial adjustment
remains tremendous, although a check
has been put to the grosser evils.
Barrier to Confidence.
For the moment the shadow of the
financial difficulties lies over every
thing and remains a very real barrier
to the restoration of confidence. I'm
tainty continues, there Is beyond
much doubt a considerable flow of
French capital abroad just as there is
British. Fundamentally, however, the
situation does not seem unsound be-
cause the whole people are working
hard, they are selling more than they
buy abroad. and they are taking in
Il, 1.
which Is an invisible contribution.
France is thinking about money,
not militarism; her views as to secur-
ity have about touched the irreducible
minimum. Since the United States
and Great Britain have refused any
guarantee which strikes France as
adequate, since the United States
has stayed out of the league and
Britain has just rejected the protocol,
the French feel their own situation
has been. rather compromised. Since
America and Britain insist upon iso-
lation, France must keep to her Pol
ish and Czech alliances. And she will,
that much the Senate will attend to.
To a German arrangement every
one is reconciled; what is asked SIM
ply is a clear contract which sur
renders nothing, for the French may
be forgiven in the belief that it will
really provide little additional. 1t
will be a sign, perhaps, of the general
desire for appeasement, for the end
ing of postwar chickering's, for a re-
turn to good business: it will be, for
Germany and France, a basis for for
eign loans which both need. Not i'm
possibly in the meantime the much
debated tariff and commercial treaty
will also be signed. which is at least
of equal Importance.
In any event before he Summer iS