The Waterbury Democrat., 1931-07-11
NEA Service Writer

t1tA tpClA NiC% " ANNi
 l Washington is always starting something.
 There are those. including some I people In the state department, W no l com plain that her favorite habit is throwing a monkey wrench when ever this country seeks European CO., | operation in meeting international problems. But, beyond that, the record shows that France to an as- | tonishing degree has been center Of internal and external excitement since the war.
 The pre-war France had an in ferlority complex. America, you may remember, along with the rest of the world, rather regarded France as a decadent, declining na- tion, cursed with declining birth rate, a huge national debt and the memory of crushing defeat by Germany in 1870.
 Since the war, despite all the pun ishment she took in gallant de- fense, France has been telling the rest Of the world where to get off. Now there IS sometimes a tendency among those who dislike her to re- gard her as a menace to world peace, with her great army and air force, her European hegemony and her "cocky" attitude. Others conl- pare her to q shitt-sh woman, con- stantly and sometimes justlt1ably afraid that someone is going to take advantage of her.
 Plan Stssrtics
 But as far the hitch she has ca used in prompt agreement on the Hoover debt plan, it is being pointed out that this country, after her pre- l Ixyn, yXith Bella France, might reasonably have been expected to confer previously and privately with her in a matter of such vital French concern instead of threshing it out with England and Germany and then popping the pro- ject so suddenlike.
 French unwillingness to follow our lead in international proposals dates back to Versailles, when Will son found his idealistic plans thwarted by Clemenceau, who got what France wanted. Ten years ago the Genoa conference from France definitely in her role of fear and suspicion, acting as if convinced that England was plotting against her and seeking to favor Germany plan was worked out France had the world worrying, as she has re- gently, about her acceptance.
 Abroad she found much sympa- thy for her demands for security : and her continued fear of Germany but her fears were used to explain the piling up of armaments during many years in which she paid nc principal or interest on her debts Her little wars in Syria and Moroc- co as well as her invasion of the Ruhr strengthened a theory that France was 'militaristic." And more recently the short-lived Anglo French alliance" stirred up much excitement in this country.
 Troubles at Home
 At home she has been through a long financial crisis which threat ened to put her on the rocks ano yet has come out of 1t to be re. garded as the most prosperous o1 present-day great powers. Fol years her governmental upsets were so frequent as to be almost kalei' doscopic. Some of her best knowr s statesmen used to roar alternately that Germany must be reconquerec and that the American debt wouldn't f be paid-utterances of unsettline tendency. At one period bitter feel ings prevailed in both France ant America as popular and politica outbursts against us became ire. quent in Paris. One heard Senator Borah branding the French people as "the most ungrateful in history and Reed of Pennsylvania suggest ing an American tourist boycott But everybody got over it ever though there have been such incl dents as the row over French tarif discrimination against us four years ago, with its embargo threats, ant the busting of William Randolph | Hearst to keep us from forgetting 5 that France was still in the pic $ ture.
 Funding of the French debt afte, much futile negotiation quieted thu situation, especially after the French parliament in 1929 ratified thu Mellon-Berenger agreement of 192' by a margin of eight votes whel f confronted with the necessity o paying us $400,O00,000 for war sup @ plies Immediately if it didn't. g The Naval Deadlock f Disarmament negotiations, how 8 ever, have produced the closest par 6 allel to the recent impasse ever tn @ Hoover debt plan. At the Washing ton naval arms conference 1t wa Trance which prevented genera naval limitation, feeling that she wa