Evening star., 1932-05-15

shift to the Left disclosed In the
returns of the French elections
II should be interpreted on this side
of the Atlantic as having a direct
bearing upon the foreign policy OF
France and likely to result in marked
modification Of French policy alike in
the Disarmament Conference at Geneva
and the reparations meeting at Lau-
same. But in reality no conclusion
could be less founded in the facts Of
French public opinion at the present
hour.
Whether Herriot or Painleye shall
presently replace Tardieu as prime
minister or foreign minister two things
are equally certain: first that the Tar
dieu program, which sets security be-
fore disarmament, will be unmodified,
and secondly, that French unwillingness
TO waive her treaty rights in the matter
of reparations, save pari passu with
American and British debt concessions
to herself, will be unchanged. For at
bottom both Of these policies are
French, not Right or Left doctrines, but
doctrines of all Frenchmen, save, per-
haps, the Socialists who follow Leon
Blum.
The skill of Tardieu In his handling
of French policy at Geneva has lain in
the fact that he has presented these
which were not primarily the special
doctrines of his own group or of the
more extreme nationalist groups whose
votes sustained him in office. On the
contrary, the case which he advocated
at Geneva was so devised that 1t in
sured the support of the Left Herriot
and Painleve in the recent campaign
never even remotely challenged Tar
deus course at Geneva. And the pro-
posal for an international air force at
the command of the league to enforce
peace was, In fact, taken audaciously
from Leon Blum, the Socialist leader.
Herriot More Bitter.
Any one who cherishes the illusion
that Herriot will be less exigent in the
matter of security or less insistent upon
French rights in the matter of repara-
tions should take the trouble to read
some OF the speeches Of the perpetual
mayor" Of Lyon made at this time last
year when the Austro- German Tariff
Union was under discussion Tardieu
himself said nothing In this time half
as bitter as Herriot. 1
If the results of the election, when
finally translated into terms Of cabinet
making, do not in fact result In some
form Of coalition, including both Her
riot and Tardieu-and their mutual
gestures to each other during the
campaign foreshadowed such result
1t will nevertheless be certain that Her
riot or any other Left leader who may
occupy the place of Tardieu will be
always mindful OF the peril to him
coming from the former Prime Minister,
who at Geneva and elsewhere has
rightly expressed French view In the
matter Of foreign policy in the present
hour.
what counts today In France is not
the quarrels between various political
groups. These are without exception
parochial IN their significance, and
have to do with such issues as that
OF clericalism rather than with disarm-
ament; with prosperity and hard times
rather than reparations. The crux is
always the nationwide anxiety and
suspicion directed toward q Germany in
which the rise and spread Of Hitlerism
Is the outstanding circumstance. That
l. the public opinion which indorsed the
defeat Of BRAND for President last
Spring and accepted his retirement
without protest.
For the mass Of the French people
the German nation has assumed pre-
ctsely the same character 1t had before
the war, during the war and in all of
the postwar period save the brief in
teriude when the promise Of Locarno
seemed to be that of the arrival of
new Germany. In the Hitler program
the mass Of the French nation sees the
threat OF complete overthrow of the
european system created at Paris after
the war and also the future danger of
fresh invasion. Not a single vote was
cast against Tardieu and his asso-
ciates, therefore, because they set Sc
curity above disarmament at Geneva
or because French policy at the League
solioly resisted Anglo-Saxon pressure.
On the contrary, as French public
opinion Is again aroused by reason of
German events, 1t Is similarly excited
by what 1t conceives TO be Anglo-Saxon
championship of Germany. Asbassador
Gibsons sudden proposal of a pro-
gram OF disarmament limited to offen-
sive weapons. which was accepted by
all France as an oblique attack upon
the French proposals, produced a wave
OF resentment uneQualed since the
time when President Hoover's mora
torium was accepted as a program to
save German finances at the expense of
[fench rights. II Mr.. Stinnson were
willing TO make public what M, Tardierl
said to him In Paris when they met
Tor the first time it would make inter-
esting reading, as would his explana-
tions TO the French premier.
Sees Germany Favored
France believes saat because of the
vastness Of the financial stake of the
British and Americans in Germany
both are ready 20 make almost any
concession to the Germans at the ex-
pense of France and her allies. This
la
OF reparations and to that of territorial
revision. And the French taxpayers are
unwilling to resign their payments from
Germany to cover the costs of the re-
~~qnesraction Of the devastated area,
Yrecisely as Americans are unwilling to
cancel their debt payments which 20
TO extinguish the bonds issued by their
Government to cover their loans to the
allies.
Early in the Spring the French made
o very deliberate and far-going series
Of gestures toward London designed to
promote renewal of the old Anglo
French entente. At the bottom of the
French mind there was in this move the
conviction that in the present economic,
financial and political situation of the
continent France and Britain, as the
only stable and solvent great powers,
should stand together. And it was In
an effort +n fnf. practical basis for
this co-opere.lon that the Danubian pro-
posal was launched and Tardieu went
to London.
The Danubian project was wrecked
by German and Italian opposition
There was a certain measure OF
Franco British cooperation, however
and for a moment the French dismissed
the notion that the British were work
ing against them and for Germany
But when Mr.. Gibson proposed his dis
armament program at Geneva and Sir
John Simon seconded 1t for Britain
shis suspicion was revived and along
with it the old fear of an Anglo Amer
lean combination.
AS a consequence, Mr.. Stimson
failed all around in his various expert
ments to further agreement over the
disarmament conference, the extension
of the London naval accords to include
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