13 FEBRUARY 1948, Page 12

MARGINAL COMMENT

isy HAROLD NICOLSO ‘i

TT is good news that the Government intend to relax the existing restrictions upon foreign travel. It is indeed Impossible to see bow any real progress can be made towards a closer integration of western Europe unless the ordinary people in the several democracies are allowed at least some access to each other. For if we are to find some middle way through the chasms and avalanches of what Mr. Walter Elliot has well called "this harsh century into which we have been born," then the individual hopes and fears of the free peoples must be shared. Having been over in France last week, lecturing in Paris and at Lille, I am more than ever convinced of the value of these personal contacts. One is able to communicate something, even if it be no more than the phlegmatic optimism of the average Briton ; and one certainly, receives much in the shape of apprehensions, suspic:ons and ideas. Paris on the morning after I arrived was glittering in the sunshine of what seemed an April day. The greatest works of art, however familiar they may have become, possess the quality of arousing ever renewed surprise. Once again I was startled by the beauty of Paris, standing amazed upon that April-clear morning, astonished by the splendour of those vast perspectives. Since Paris, owing to the very majesty of her alignment, stands superior to her own detail ; she has about her an almost Apollonian quality ; not, it is true, the assured and com- manding calm of the Apollo at Olympia, but the gorgeous symmetry of the Epiphany of Callimachus : "Now Phoebus of the beautiful feet passes the threshold." The shapeliness of the design is so compelling that one fails to notice the frequent unseemliness of ornament. A magnificent surety has created those wide vistas, an opulent certainty has cut those calm straight lines. Compared to those of Paris, our own architectural treasures appear as fine pieces of furniture jumbled together in the recesses of some art-dealer's shop.

The Apollonian serenity which the design of Paris imposes upon one's susceptibilities is not, I fear, reflected in the thoughts and feelings of the Parisians themselves. For them there is no surety of intention, no certainty of design. The pride which they so justly take in their own capital is marred for them by a deep sense of the mutability of all human grandeur. The pleasure which for generations they have taken in the grandiose is clouded today by a conviction of impermanence ; even as the owners of the stately homes of England, they ask themselves, as their eyes follow the outlines of their terraces and parterres, "Has all this today any veritable meaning? How long can it last ? " I was struck some time ago by a phrase of Mauriac, which I can transpose only from memory. "Before the war," he wrote, "before the coming of the atomic age, I would walk the city gazing at the palaces and statues, at the arches with their quadrigas. These things,' I would say to myself, will stand there in the same position for centuries after I am dead.' Today I do not make this reflection. I say to myself 'It may be that, in my own lifetime, I shall see these things lying

as a heap of rubble Such a phrase reflects the anxious uncertainty which afflicts the minds of the Parisians today. They are obsessed by dread ; by dread of internal collapse and external aggression ; by dread of thunderstorms above them and of earthquakes below. They have suffered so much ; they have endured so much from external malignity and internal weakness and dissension ; they have begun even to doubt the formulas which made them great. They have lost, perhaps only for the moment, their own self-confidence. And it may be for this reason that our own phlegmatic optimism, which in the past aroused their indignation, acts for the present as at once a sedative and a stimulant, easing their Angst.

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In the old days, I remember, I would frequently be disconcerted by the utter indifference of my French friends to what was being thought and said in England. There is no indifference today. The glory which we achieved in 194o, the civic sense which the British people have displayed since then, have inspired many French observers with a wild surmise. Is it possible that England once again will save Europe by her example? Is it possible that the political genius of this lethargic race will once again, and in completely modern terms, mark out the middle way between the extremes of right and left? Only in the light of such inner questioning can I account for the unwonted anxiety shown by those with whom I spoke (and they ranged from politicians to taxi-drivers) to learn what had been the effect on British public opinion of recent events. What did Mr. Bevin really intend by his speech regarding the integration of Western Europe? How far was his policy supported by his own party, by the Opposition, and by the country at large ? Above all, how far had British opinion been shocked by the devaluation of the franc, by the free market in dollars and escudos; by the ill-success of the Cripps visit? Never before have I observed so wide and vivid a preoccupation with the reaction of the British parliament ail people to French policy. Never before have I felt so certain that the majority of the French people (since one must, of course, exclude the Com- munists) are deeply anxious to extend and fortify the co-operation between our two countries as symbolised by the Treaty of Dunkirk. That at least is for them a symbol of assurance in an angry and uncertain world.

I was in France on the day when the Government withdrew from circulation the 5,000 franc note. On the following day I drove out through the northern suburbs and across those monotonous miles of country which stretch from Paris to Lille. The sunshine of the first two days had given place to lowering clouds and driving rain. As I passed through' the little towns upon the way—through Senlis and Peronne, through Arras and Lens—there were long queues wait- ing at the banks and post-offices to deposit their notes. There they stood in the rain, bewildered and depressed. The French, with their exaggerated individualism, with their congenital distrust of govern- ment, have an attitude towards personal property which is different from our own. To them the income tax inspector is a publican and a sinner ; he is a man whose precepts must be evaded by every man or woman with a sense of personal dignity. His enquiries into their personal incomes appear to them of even greater indelicacy than any enquiries into their conjugal relations. It is abhorrent to the average Frenchman that any stranger, or even relation, should learn the exact amount of his capital or income ; if he be a poor or unsuccessful man, he likes to pretend that he is richer than he is ; if he be a rich man, it is agony for him to feel that outsiders or members of his immediate family could ascertain the extent of his riches. This feeling that personal property is a private and intimate matter tempts .him even to suspect the discretion of banks ; few Frenchmen enjoy writing cheques ; what they prefer is to dole out 5,000 franc notes from the safe, the chimney-piece, or the rafters of the barn. Thus to them the withdrawal of the 5,000 franc notes from circulation was some- thing more than a momentary inconvenience and a possible ultimate loss. It was a tyrannical intrusion on human privacy.

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As I watched them standing there wet and sullen in the rain, I felt some admiration for the courage shown by M. Rene Mayer and M. Schuman. What can the menace of inflation really signify to the Normandy farmer or the miner's wife at Lens? The wad of 5,000 franc notes under the mattress meant security. The French Government, foreseeing the resentment which would be caused, were bold in their decision. It may be that, as.rnany have said, the decision to call in the notes was imposed upon them by the Socialists as a price of their support. But at least it shows that the Third Force in France possesses resolution.