Evening star., 1926-11-14
EUROPE FOUND COMBINING
TO MEET u. S. TRADE WAR
Self-PreservatiOn Declared to Be lmpel-
ling Motive Rather Than New
Ideal of Brotherhood.

ONAkNA 1AOONAe
concerned. Such admissions as he is
prepared to make are on the basis
of wisdom and folly, not of sin and
righteousness.
Broadly speaking European peoples
hate and love each other today about
as they did in 1914; they distrust each
other fully as much; they have new
grievances to add to old grudges. To
imagine that they welcome the neces-
sity to cooperate or to combine Is 10
imagine vain thing. But this only
serves to make the essential fact that
they are combining, that they are
talking and acting to promote CO
peration, all the more startling.
So far from laying aside old hatreds
most Europeans have acquired q new
one. Before the war America was
either ignored or regarded with GER
tain good-natured contempt; today no
European people hates another quite
as much as most hate us.
Nevertheless the fact Is that-eN-
ception being made of Russia and
Italy, which have both for somewhat
similar reasons adopted forms or die
tatorship and thus separated them
selves from the bulk of continental
Western Europe have come to the
point of envisaging association and
combination which run all the way
from the rather fantastic pro-
grams of pan-Europe, like those OF
Coudenhove kalergi, to the recent
pronouncement of the bankers advo-
eating common European tariffs, or
common removal of tariff walls.
The familiar American notion that
Europe is uniting under the shelter
of the League of Nations to create a
new and peaceful world. to ban war
and Danish arms is purest moonshine.
There is no connection between what
is happening in Europe and Geneva
save only the fact that at Geneva the
statesmen and the press men or the
various countries meet and the former
confirm the agreements they have al
ready made--and the agreements are
matters of business. not Of morals
while the latter celebrate them In the
journals of the world.
Getting Together, However.
Yet continental Europe Is getting
together and no man can now safely
seek to set a limit to the extent to
which this combining of interests may
be carried within generation or two.
But the driving impetus of the Euro
pean combinations, actual and pro-
SpectiVe, is not q mutual reconclli-
alton, but a common peril, which at
least in the European mind is termed
American, Underlying all else in the
recent agreements and bargains Is the
perception that if Europe is to keep
her own markets. if she is to retain
or regain what she has lost in Asia 4,
in South America and even In Africa
by the war, she can only do 1t by
| finding some fashion of adjusting her
| own relations.
Europe is not combining deliberate.
ly and consciously against us and
with the purpose of eXacting revenge
for the debt burdens which we have
| insisted that she carry. That, too, is
q short sighted view of what is hap
pening But Europe is combining
and does hate us because of the debts,
and her hatred certainly adds a GER
tain squirt to the process. Neverthe-
less, the combination would have been
inevitable even If we had forgiven the
debts because, debts or no debts. Eu-
rope divided cannot hold the field
against us either financially or com
mercially.
In the retrospect Europe feels thar
it lost and we won the war. There
is not a single people in Europe which
does not believe unanimously that the
result of the war was to put us in the
position which European countries
collectively had occupied time out Of
mind. More than that, Europe be-
lieves that if it cannot regain much
of what has been lost il cannot live
as it has lived. There is here a ques-
tion of prestige, but it is buried in the
more vital question of existence itself.
Mass Production Barred.
But although Europe is overindus
| trialiZed with respect to its own area
| and overpopulated with respect to its
| present hold upon the markets OF the
world, 1t is nevertheless impossible
| for it to compete with us in certain
| lines at home, in many others abroad.
while 1t Is divided into O. score OF
states and cut and parceled by in
Vulnerable tariff frontiers. Mass pro
duction, which is our basis of success,
| is impossible in Europe as 1t would be
| impossible with us If every State had
a tariff wall and behind it undertook
to set up something like q complete
| industrial machine.
1t is probably true also that no con
| tinental combination could be formida
| BILE while Britain remained outside Of
it, and 1t is equally true at present
| that British opinion on the whole re
fuses to recognize the necessity Of en-
tering the combination. But this
reluctance Is based upon the definite
view that an alternative lies open
in the empire itself; that in some
| fashion q commOp tariff wall can be
created which will give to the British
production within the British Isles
| the vast market Of the imperial world
with something approximating condi-
tiOns Of a monopoly.
ic hot IL
gle attempt to promote such an i'm.
perial grouping has broken down and
| it has broken down mainly because
of the opposition within the British
Isles themselves. Imperial preference
is a doctrine opposed vehemently BY
both the Liberals and the Laborites
and the Tories lost an election and
Labor got a government quite recent
ly on this issue, disguised as protec-
| ton. Meanwhile not only do the do
miniOns continue to build up their own
Industries, but the United States I'm
creases it's hold upon Canadian mar
, kets.
Sought Alliance With United States.
Since ths World War England has
made two distinct attempts to escape
from Europe. The first was q direct
and deliberate effort to arrive at some
form OF definite association with the
United States. This conception un-
derlay most Of the British enthusiasm
for the League Of Nations and was
the dominant thought until the final
collapse of the League in the United
States and our very definite refusal
to take part in any British or Euro
pean association.
The second attempt Is still In proc.
ess, as the imperial conference o.
London has demonstrated. But SO far
one can say that the alternative at
tempt has been no more successful
than the first. Moreover. while Amee-
ican prosperity and production have