Evening star., 1934-05-27
ENTENTE
REVIVAL HELD UNLIKELY
British Foreign Policy Is Placed in
Hands Of Men Never Sympathetic
to Cause of France.

lieved from q very embarrassing po
sition. On the one hand they show.
cred unstinted praise upon the League
of Nations, which they freely described
as the firm pillar Of international
peace. On the other hand, under the
cover of that snowy and futile insti-
tuition, they quietly freed themselves
from any truly binding commitments.
and behind a screen of grandiloquent
words went back to their historical
attitude Of detachment.
France Felt Tricked.
France felt that she had been
badly tricked. Hence her obstinate
endeavor, which she never relaxed, to
remind every one that she had a
rightful claim to International Sc
curity. to reform the League in order
to make it efficient. or, alternatively,
to get back the English alliance. So
far she has not been able to get
anything more than the treaties Of
Locarno, which. notwithstanding a
display of snowy words, cannot be
found by any impartial jurist to
strengthen the infrm rules of the
covenant.
The so-called guarantors Of the
Franco-German and Belgian German
frontiers are left at liberty to do as
they like. A paragraph makes it
compulsory for them to support with
all their forces France Cor Germany
against an unprovoked attack. But
the next paragraph, which the foreign
nff1rn n fVc tn6
against French resistance, allows
them, should they deem it con-
venient, to stand still and appeal to
the Leagues Council, where they can
vote against any recommendation of
assistance to the aggrieved party!
Thus has England slipped away from
war-ridden Europe. }
OF late years her retractile move.
ment has been accentuated by various
factors. The distress and the growing
number of the unemployed have
preyed upon British public opinion to
such an extent that it has become
genuinely demoralized. Confronted by
the peril to the economic and social
structure at home, she has grown in
creasingly passive to what happens
on the other side of the channel.
Opposed TO Entente. =,
Moreover. since 1929 the higher di-
rection of British foreign policy has
been placed in the hands of men who
never felt in sympathy with the
French cause. The prime minister
Mr.. Ramsay Macdonald, who in July,
1914, led the labor wing of the Lib.
eral majority, was vehemently op-
posed to the entente cordiale," and
he did more than any one else to pre-
vent Sir Edward Grey from addressing
to Berlin the solemn warning which
might have saved the world from
catastrophy. As foreign secretary
| G929-3D, Mr.. Arthur Henderson
rather counteracted the personal tend
encies of his chief at 10 Downing
street, but on the whole his successor,
Sir John Simon, holds the view, in
common with the prime minister, that
an agreement with Germany should
be sought at any cost. Mr.. Baldwin,
leader of the Conservative majority,
might have been expected to check
that tendency. and there are indica-
tions that in the near future he may
gather up enough courage and initi-
ative to do it.
1t goes without saying that In such
circumstances the French cabinet of
national union would not find 1t at
tractive or even opportune to reach a
compromise with London on the atti-
tude to be taken toward Hitlerian
Germany about disarmament and
| other important questions 1t would
probably strive to secure such a COM
| promise II 1t were sure that a line
could be drawn where England would
really mean to stand by the side of
France. In the period from 1905 to
1914 French diplomacy acted in that
spirit, and was given its reward in
the early days of August. 1914. But
Paris will not easily forget that in
the early Spring of 1929, on the eve
OF the general elections, Mr. Mac
Donald, having been invited to give a
lecture in the German Reichstag, in,
cautiously proclaimed that in no case
would England ever fight in defense
OF the peace treaties.
Fear Undermining by Macdonald. Z
In short, the French ministers are
convinced that Mr.. Macdonald is
trying to repeat, with disarmament.
that progressive undermining of the
French claims to which reparations
succumbed
The policy initiated by Doumergue
and Barthou in the note to England
OF April Is and in the negotiations
which were subsequently begun with
Poland and the little entente mean
that for the time being France wilt
concentrate upon the consolidation Of
her alliances in Central and Eastern
Europe and upon the inclusion of So
wet Russia within the system which,
IL Is believed. will find a convenient
axis In the League of Nations. Once
that task has been performed the
London cabinet possibly will be more
willing to come to terms. Then IL
perhaps will not adhere so firmly to
that set Of illusions which were
crammed in the British proposals of
January %; that a really efficient in
ternational control can really be made
70 work over Hitlerian Germany; that
the peril of aggression can be dis
posed OF by the single means of sup
pressing so-called Offensive" arms:
that the $500. 900 men enlisted in the
Hitlerian militias can be sterilized. in
a military sense, through the enforce
ment of some international regula-
tlons-so many shibboleths which the
Paris cabinet refused to take serious
ly on April 16.
But we shall have to pass through
many doubtful moments before some
phantom entente cordiale" rises from
the grave. And the entente cordialer
can hardly be put into shape. any.
how. as long as the present military.
helplessness of England persists. At
the present time three fully equipped
British divisions could not be LANDED,
on the continent, on the left of the.
French Army. except as the result Of
a lengthy process Of mobilization and
training. Nowadays a country that
does not possess an efficient fighting
force cannot boast a foreign policy
worth the name. England has no
foreign policy. 1t Is hardly possible
to come to terms with a governments
OF which the only policy Is to insist