Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1930-10-05
BY FRANK H. sIMoNDs.

" YHILE the sessions at Geneva
n I we're not completed at the
NV moment 1 am writing, 1t is
plain that on the larger side
nothing but disappointment
will emerge from the eleventh annual
assembly. Brands grandiose project
of European union has been shelved to
committee, which will know how
to avoid precipitate report or premature
recommendation. Henderson's great
appeal for some real as contrasted with
oratorical consideration of the matter
of disarmament has Jared little better.
Even the pressing economic problems
have not got beyond the commission
stage.
The reason is, of course, simple. Pan
Europe became for the time being an
academic discussion, when the German
election disclosed the tremendous
spread within the Reich ola nationalism
which has set as its detectives ends
that are attainable only by war. Dis
armament discussion becomes little
more than a mockery while France and
Italy are unable to accommodate their
naval programs or settle issues that
are driving both nations toward a new
competition alike in land and sea arma-
ments.
French Problem Different.
And on the economic side, while Brit
ain has 100000 unemployed and Ger
many above three millions. France
reckons her jobless at 1900 and counts
the present year, which has been In
England and the Reich one of the most
disastrous in history, her htgh-water
| mark of all time. The problem OF
France is, then, quite different from
that of her neighbors. Her concern is
for political security and not for eco
nomic readjustment.
If the League of Nations sessions are
any barometer of the European situation
and in the past they have fulfilled
this purpose acknowledgements is in
| for a bad Winter, bad internationally
and bad economically. In Germany the
economic situation has produced po-
| litical crisis that at least raises the
| question of the survival of the republic
can regime.
In England the complete failure OF
| the Labor government to remedy the
unemployment crisis, which has already
| proved beyond the capacity OF the
| Tories, leaves Britain the prey to a
hopelessness that is unmistakable. The
fundamental difference lies in the fact
that where misery may produce anarchy
| in Germany, it cannot affect the solid
| foundations of orderly government In
Britain.
Debts Issue May Arise.
Americans must perceive that the
existing situation in Europe is bound
| to revive the latent hostility to them
selves The old issue of debts Is be-
| ginning to crop up again. Even the
most conservative Germans are sending
out the warning that, if the industrial
crisis does not improve, the Young plar
will have to be suspended If not abro.
gated, and any such suspension woIIlc
| bring the war debts question instantly
to the fore. All returning travellers, too
report in varying terms the extent o.
European resentment provoked by oul
new tariff and the extent of possible
reprisal.
In the larger sense what has hap
pened in Europe has been not alone
| the arrest of that recovery from the
economic and industrial consequences OF
the war, but a palpable recession. In
Britain one must go back to the days
of the general strike to find a parallel
to present unemployment-and to 1921
for equally bad trade figures. In Ger
many conditions suggest those follow
ing the imitation crisis.
But while Britain and France, like
the United States, live under political
systems too firmly established by time
to be at the mercy of economic crises,
however severe, everywhere else in