Evening star., 1925-12-27
EUROPE FACES HARD FIGHT
TO REGAIN LOST PRESTIGE
Coming Year Indicates United Effort to
Recover Economic Supremacy Now
Held by America.
BY FRANK III. SIMONDS.

Asst week I discussed at some
| length the outstanding circum-
! stances of the year which is
IL just closing. Now it remains
to consider what are the pros
! poets for the coming year in interna-
| tional affairs. 1t is clear that we are
to begin a new year with an almost
irreducible minimum of threatening
questions. There is no ma jor dispute,
so far s great or small European
states are concerned, which can be
compared with the Ruhr or any other
considerable postwar issue.
1t is true that Mosul remains an
open problem, but Mosul. after all.
like Syria, like the Riffian contest in
smaller measure, represents not the
expression OF European rivalries, but
the disturbance among Asiatic and
African peoples which has resulted
from the destruction of the prestige.
power and resources of the western
nations during the World War
Broadly speaking, it is, perhaps. this
problem which most heavily weighs
upon the minds of those who have to
consider the foreign policies of the CO
lonial interests of European powers,
but it belongs to the future, rather
than the past.
Two Definite Problems.
As a consequence of the World War
and postwar anarchy and disintegrs
ton, Europe has to face two definite
problems. 1t has TO recover in Asia
and, to degree. in Africa the ground
lost during the war. There is a spirit
of unrest. of revolt. of independence
stirring all the way from Hongkong to
DamaSc in Asia. and from Cairo to
Casablanca in Africa. The very foun-
dations of European domination in
Asia have been undermined. and the
! spirit Of resistance to foreign rule.
! which in the Balkans and the east of
Europe disturbed European calm be.
fore the war, is now discovera Bile in
China. India and in all of the Arab
world.
In something of the same way that
its actual power and control is being
challenged in Asia and North Africa
Europes $ economic and financial su-
. premacy in the world are similarly
under challenge. this time from Amer.
lea. The rise of the United States to
enormous wealth and unprecedented
prosperity has been in no small degree
at the expense of Europe. Passing
. from the state Of a debtor nation to
that Of great creditor, we have laid
under vast financial obligations TO
us, either by means of war loans or
: postwar loans, most if not all OF the
, considera BILE European nations.
1t may safely be said that had
, Europe continued the war or had it
continued the postwar strife for a
few years longer its position would
have been hopelessly compromised
The affair Of Chanak in which a re
Gently defeated Turkey successfully
= deied Europe. recovered its lost ter
ritorN and imposed its Will upon a
divided and impotent gathering OF
Ct
evidence of the extent 10 which
European disunion had imperiled
European influence and power beyond
that continent.
Fight for Recovery.
In quite the same fashion. much
more of the sort of economic mad
ness which eliminated in the Ruhr
! might we'll have put Europe beyond
the possibility of economic recovery
and left the United States the single
great financial and economic unit in
the modern sense. But with respect
to Asia politically, and the United
states economically and financially.
Europe has now to engage in a long
difficult and sustained effort to recover
what has been lost-and AL recovery
in either field is we'll nigh impossible
save on the basis of cousidera bic
pean action and thought
My English friends report that they
regard as unlikely any proposal for
economic co-opera ton of Europea n
states which will have serious conse-
quences for the United States That
there should be such political -combi-
nation is, of course. quite out of the
question. Yet it remains true that
for all European countries. some if
o1 of
hamperinc. Small as are the early
payments which we are asking of our
I continental debtors. we have as A
result of the neSotia tionS of the cur
rent year, established system by
which, in increa sing amounts debt
payments are to flow to us from many
states for many years
Aside from France which will
} doubtless before the current year is
out make some debt adjustment, and
Russia, from which nothing is to be
expected. we have now carried out
: our policy of making Europe pay
: with the consequent creation in Eu-
rope of bitterness and resentment
| which is today only partially re-
: strained by reason of the necessity of
negotiating new loans. At bottom,
the resentment of the American
I course with respect to post war ques-
tions remains fairly constant in all
European countries. Even in Ger
many, where 1t is perhaps least po.
tent at the moment, there is certain
to be a quick expansion when 1t is
| perceived that there Is a fatal con
: nection between reparations and debts
American Competition.
. Resenting our debt policy. resenting
the legislation by which we exclude
sor,-1
ularly disa greeable to Italy and Great
Britain; resenting the insistence of
our administration and Congress upon
existing high tariffs, Europe finds IL.
self driven to face American corlpeti
tion in unrivaled degree; compelled 10
make applications for American loans
and faced with net American atti
tude which is resented from Irela nd
to the Urals.
: InStinctively inevitably to exist
. Europe finds itself driven more and
!, more to a mea sure Of common action
: France, Britain, Germany. Italy, al
are passing through domestic crises
which, during the present year, may
supply grave circumstances. With
France the problem is financial, with
, Britain economic, with Germany both
economic and financial, with Italy
political as well as economic. Nor Is
the domestic condition of half dozen
other states less difficult Poland Is in
: the midst of a currency crisis, Czecho
: slovakia has unhappily relapsed into
: something close to parliamentary
;. paralysis.
:, But underlying all of the severa
:, domestic crises in Europe is the single
. patent fact that solution cannot be
= by merely national means. British re
. covery depends very considerably upon
, the recovery of the adjacent continen
ltal ,,,orEafc Carmany dependS ,1nor