Evening star., 1933-02-05
Europe's Outlook Clouded
By the Triumph of Hitler
BY A. G. GARDINER,

LONDON. February Adolf Hitler'S
triumph in Germany and the fall OF the
Paul-Boncour government in France
have darkened the European outlook.
Both events threaten to destroy that
accommodation between France and
Germany which is the first essential to
European reconciliation and which
seemed to be in sight with the swing
of France to the Left at the last gen.
eral election. But a dozen years of
Poincareism in France have effectively
destroyed the prestige Of the liberals in
Germany, and the ascendancy of Hitler
is the elimination of that disastrous
chapter.
The more conciliatory attitude of
France since Edouard Herriot came to
power arrived too late to prevent land
slide in Germany toward irreconcilable
natiCnaliSm. and that landslide in turn
invites reaction in France. This danger
was emphasized in the fatal policy Of
the French Socialists in refusing official
cooperation with the Herriot Radicals
except on terms of full acceptance OF
their domestic demands.
Leon Blum, leader of the French So
cialists, is in full sympathy with the
Radicals on European issues, but he
sacrifices the possibility of achieving
on the adoption of Socialist domestic
policy, which is notoriouSly impossible
of attainment in view of the individual
istic tendencies of the French people.
After the fall of the Paul-Boncour
ministry on the taxation question, fol-
lowing the fall of Herriot on the ques-
ton Of payment of the war debt to
America, acute observers here do not
anticipate a long or happy tenure in
Office of the Daladier cabinet, with its
existence dependent on the votes OF a
party which refused to be associated
with the government. Premier Dala-
dier's advanced attitude on disarmament
naturally is expected to prejudice the
prospects of his ministry, in view OF the
revival of martial feeling in Germany
and the disturbing fact Of Hitleris &C
cession to power.
is widely entertained that a Tardieu-
Laval ministry may soon, by the process
Of exhaustion, resume power-in which
case the prospects Of Q disarmament
settlement and a Franco German un-
derstanding would disappear.
Meanwhile, across the Rhine events
are moving with great rapidity. The
refusal of the Centrist (Catholic) party
to accord ice-cold liberation to the, new
government and so secure q parlia-
mentary majority for Hitler has given
him an opportunity which he promptly
seized. At present he IS in some meas
ure under the control of President Won
Hindenburg's policemen, Franz Won
Papen. Baron Won Neurath and Alfred
Hugenberg, but the action of the Cen
trist party enabled him TO insist on
dissolution of the Reichstag and the
oil
thing to gain and nothing to lose by
an appeal to the country. II ne gets
an absolute majority he will free him
self from the fetters of Won Papen and
Hugenberg, with the backing OF the
Reichstag; II not, he will assume the
role Of q practical dictator, with the
Reichstag effectively in cold storage
and the Hugenberg Nationalist reduced
to negligible proportions.
Instructed opinion regards Hitler as
merely q vapid demagogue. without ele-
mentary glimmerings of craftsmanship,
but it Is admitted that he Is an astute
electioneer, and in the present chaotic
political condition Of Germany his
temporary triumph seems inevitable. He
has come to the top on wave OF
despair against desperate conditions Of
life and, while Offering no ineligible
scheme Of deliverance for Germany
from either external pressure or in
ternal disorders, it Is agreed that per-
haps this made phase had to be gone
through before the country could find
its equilibrium.
Apart from the incalculable conse-
quences Of this undisciplined force upon
the European situation, the greatest
anxiety prevails with regard to internal
results. For years conflicts between
Htler's Nazis and the Communists have
been almost daily occurrences through
out the cities Of Germany, and Q ruth