Evening star., 1925-07-05

| ptTlOu lIAeu Dy lH6 agreement
of London, last Summer, detail, but
a very important detail in the Dawes
plan, must be accepted as of more
| than passing Importance, because it is
certainly the forerunner of an even
| more important withdrawal namely,
| that from the Cologne zone, which
was fixed by the Treaty of Versailles
for January 10 of this year The de
lay was due, if one accept the allied
statement, to the German violations of
this disarmament provision of the
Treaty of Versailles, but in any event
the evacuation was impossible until
the French and Belgians were out of
the Ruhr, because their lines of com
| munication passed through the Co
logne zone.
| The announcement of the agreement
upon a date for evacuating the Co
! logne zone will be one of the most
| important in postwar history. because
OF its moral effect in Germany. When
| was in Berlin a few months ago
nothing was more striking than the
general conviction that the allies-a nd
| in practice the French meant to stay
! permanently on the Rhine and that
| all forecasts of eventual evacuation
were idle. Most of the Germans with
| whom l talked were satisfied that in
the last analysis the French would
| not go and the British would not be
| able to make their allies retire.
Gave NationaIists Strength.
This conviction was, and is. in nv
! judgment, one of the strongest eIe-
ments in the Nationalist strength at
| the moment. They have steadily ar
! gued that the allies would never go
| that France had for centuries been
striving for the Rhine frontier and
! now that she again occupied il, would
| mold fast In the same fashion they
| reasoned that all concessions. all eff
| forts TO perform under the Treaty of
| Versailles, all policies of fulfilment
| were worse than futile, because each
| German yielding only invited and pro-
| voked fresh allied demands.
| Thus the retirement from the Ruhr
will be in itself the first autbentic
sign of the mistaken promises of Ma.
t1onalistic pronouncements, while the
! retirement from the Cologne zone
will be final evidence of the fact that
| the French determination perma-
i nently to hold the left bank of the
| kline does not now exist. Taken to-
| gether these two events will have A
| very profound influence in shaping
German policy with respect of a guar
! antee pact and German sentiment
! toward her western neighbors, pro-
Vided only the Cologne evacuation is
not too long delayed
Change Is Vital Now.
| In point of fact. the time has ar
| rived when the allied nations will
| have to recognize that a complete
| liquidation of all war and treaty
| sanction has arrived. Germany has
Enthusiastically reached that point in
her recovery from the effects of her
| defeat when it will no longer be
possible to treat her as a conquered
nation, as a country under sentence
| of an international court. To coerce
| Germany in her present state would
mean present trouble and eventual
! war.
| There is nothing particularly new
! in the present phase of Germany
| France went through precisely the
| same state following the Napoleonic
| collapse. For several years allied
armies occupied French soil and
| France was subjected to every form
! of international interference. But
j the time came when European
/ statesmen, and British primarily.
were wise enough tc see that further
| interference, further coercion, so far
| from insuring either peace or security
| for the neighbors of France or for
/ that Bourbon regime which the al
| lies of 1915 had established in Paris
threatened both.
Accordingly the allied armies went
home and France was left in posses
sion of her territory as it had been
fixed in the treaty which liquidated
an earlier great war. 1t is true that
the victorious allies made secret
agreements among themselves, con-
! tinued TO watch France with appre-
hension and felt a moment of alarm
when. ) years after Waterloo, France
threw the Bourbons off the throne,
but by that time their ability to in
erfere had passed.
Effect Just Opposite.
Underlying the decision of a cen
tury ago was the recognition that
occupation and interference designed
to promote security and preserve
peace were having just the opposite
effect. Frenchmen of every shade of
political sentiment resented with
equal violence the presence of for
eign troops and the limitation of
French independence. After a decade
of terrific struggle against all Europe
| Napoleon had fallen only because in
the end the French people tired of
| the strain and came to view the strug-
| gle rather as one resulting from the
personal ambition of the Emperor
than of having real Importance for
I
! France felt that her own freedom
and integrity were at stake, she stood
off Europe.
The great danger then, a century
ago, as the allied leaders perceived
! it, was that as a result of continued
| occupation the French people should
again be moved by the spirit which
sent them to the frontiers in 1892,
that the supervision, designed to pro-
mote peace. should provoke another
national uprising. New to a degree,
at least, the same situation exists to-
day with respect of Germany, and
the single remed-- which one can dis
cover is that applied more than a
hundred years ago.
Germany Disarmed.
| Germany has been disarmed. not
completely, but as completely as rs
humanity possible. Her fortresses
/ have been razed, her fleet has disap-
peared. To preserve such a situa-
tion it would be necessary not alone
to keep allied garrisons permanently
on the Rhine and in the Ruhr; it
would be necessary to keep allied gar
risons in every part of Germany. 1t
would be necessary, in reality, to pre-
vent German recovery, economic as
well as political, because only a help
less people would consent to remain
permanently in such state of weak
ness.
! But it is perfectly clear that 1t is
impossible to keep garrisons all over
| Germany, and at the conference of
London last year the allies there rep
resented accepted the principle that
Germany should be permitted TO re-
cover economically-even more, that
she should be aided to attain that
recovery. After that 1t was plainly
the course of wisdom to seek to make