Evening star., 1926-10-24

saving. w nat Use 10 save money lL
three days or three weeks hence the
mere fall of the franc will abolish your
savings? How much better. then. to
invest them in clothes. in furniture,
to take them out in pleasure? Here,
again. is a classic circumstance OF In.
f1ation-namely. that savings cease.
But at the same time this process
Of buying goods. instead of depositing
in savings banks or investing in Sc.
curities. gives a new flip to business.
II people instead of saving are buy
ing, then all the various branches OF
national business which are engaged
in creating and marketing goods
profit. You have an abnormal, an un-
real, but nevertheless intense activity.
1t Is just like the effect of fever in the
human system; 1t is the squirrel In
the wheel.
Always, however-and this is the
fatal .circumstance-the cost of living
mounts and passes any possible expan-
sion of wages. Conditions of living
grow harder and harder. Lack of con-
fidence increases and a sense of fear
and apprehe y1sion. of diatrust and even
panic expands. No one knows among
the masses what is wrong: innumer-
able false reasons are assigned and in
Vulnerable quack remedies are adopt
ed, but the evil develops, the trouble
continues and the situation worsens.
And, by contrast, the appearance OF
false prosperity and of intense ac-
tivity increases.
Today one may say with perfect
exactitude that France is on the verge
of collapse as complete as that of
Germany following the Ruhr. 1t would
require little or nothing to precipitate
panic the limits of which are not to
be estimated now or by any one.
There is sense of being on the edge
of volcano which never leaves one
in France now II he Is in contact with
the realities of French life. The col
lapse may not come-but the possi-
bility can no longer be blinked.
X \
And what shall one say of the state
of mind of the French people? This
at once, that, ignorant like every
other public of the intricacies Of po-
litical economy and high finance,
every Frenchman has found for him.
self a simple explanation. and that
simple explanation is that his misery.
his misfortune. these are the result
of the deliberate determination of his
former allies, Of the British and the
/ Americans, but mainly the latter. to
profit by this misfortune. to acquire
control of his assets, to force down
the value of all his country to such
price that it can be bid in for song
and leave him the slave of the for
eigner for all time.
doubt if there is single French
man alive who does not believe today
that the explanation of French suffer
ing, the cause Of French catastrophe.
if it comes. is the deliberate purpose
of the United States to crush France.
I have talked in recent days with men
and women of almost every millieu,
from finance to the smallest and hum
hlest of jobs. with men and women OF
all sorts of political and social circum-
stances. and in the end the question
has always been the same: why is
America destroying us? What is the
explanation of the pitiless purpose Of
the American people? Do they know
what they are doing? Why do they
wish to destroy, or, at the least. to
enslave France-and not France alone,
but EurOpe?"
Then there is the unvarying query,
why has the United States. which
was our ally during the war. become
our enemy; why has it preferred to
save Germany to saving France? Why
/ in the Dawes plan. which was made
| by America was Germany given the
protection which is refused us in the
debt settlement? Why does America
give Italy, which lost half million
men in the war. twice as good terms
as she will give us, who lost a million
and a half?"
France collectively, the French as a
people. believe that all their misfOr-
tune Is due to the United States, and
they will believe tomorrow. If the ulti-
mate collapse comes. that it comes as
result Of the deliberate purpose Of
the United States. ! cannot tell you
how many people have said to me In
varying tones: why does the United
States wish to destroy France. and
what ultimate benefit will there be to
the United States to create an atmos-
phere of hatred and resentment which
will endure and intensity Is successive
European generations groan under the
burden of the debt YOU would put upon
us. or as the result of the ruin you
have forced upon us because we would
not undertake a debt burden beyond
our capacity and without safeguards
such as you provided that the Ger
mans should have against us?'
l have not met in France the small
est suggestion Of discourtesy. I have
not encountered rowdyism or abuse or
insult. l have been welcomed and en-
tertained by French friends as always.
Yet l cannot mistake the fact that.
however courteous French men and
women may he to an American, he
does represent. for all. that nation
which. for reasons utterly incompre-
hensible, has determined upon the
ruin of France and is responsible
for it.
am going In discuss the question
Of the debts in a later article, and
therefore I refrain from dwelling upon
that issue now. but the idea that the
bitterness and resentment which this
question has raised can be abolished
! by the signing Of the accord or that
the French will sign the present ac-
cord without conditions in any other
| fashion than that which might compel
them to surrender Paris to an invader
whose armies they could no lnoger
resist. Is the purest moonshine There
are. | believe, fow exceptions in a
nation of forty millions who do not
believe that the ruin of France has
been made in America. who assign
varying motives to the act, but agree
as to the act itself.
we gave the whole Of one genera
tion on the battlefield to defend
France: 1t was sacrificed and Is gone.
Must we now bind the next two gen.
erations to hopeless servitude to the
ally OF the war; This Is the general
question that men and women ask.
echoing the words of Clemenceau ad.
dressed to President Coolidge. Even
the German enemy could not be more
deadly for us than the American ally."
, this was phrase one heard widely
when 1t was question OF the pos.
sibility OF F'ranco-German financial
arrangement. 80
Today. mOmentarily as most peopIe-