TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE DRIFT TOWARDS RUIN.
IT is preposterous to speak of France as "the enemy," meaning that she is our and the world's enemy ; and so far as we know no responsible person here has so described her. To say, however, that she is her own worst enemy, and that in wounding herself she is wounding her allies and the rest of the nations is, alas, a truism.
It is the old foolish game of cutting off one's nose to spite one's face that France is playing—a game which everyone is prone to play when in a panic, or angry, or misled by illusions. What is France doing, or rather what is the French Government doing, for the French people are always inclined to follow and obey their Government blindly till they change it and its policy, lock, stock and barrel ? The French Ministers are, as Mr. Bonar Law told them, making it impossible for Germany to pay them, or us, or get back to a position of prosperity and stability in which she may be able to exchange pro- ducts with the other nations of the world and so do her share in that never-ending, always imperative, task of turning out enough of the things men need to keep them fed, clothed and housed. Of course, the French do not mean to do this to Germany, and do not think they are doing it. Instead, they fondly imagine that, if they show a little firmness, they can make Germany pay. "She can pay fast enough if she wants to." That is the fatal " slogan " that has misled the French. Though in many ways such deep and efficient analysts and such clear thinkers, the French have never thought out the problems of trade, or asked themselves how the debts of nations are paid, what makes wealth, what conduces to trade, and how the mechanism of inter- national commerce can be restored and maintained when once it has broken down. Above all, they have neglected to estimate the psychological conditions which go towards making the wealth of nations as of men— conditions on which depends their ability to meet such demands as France is making upon Germany.
Instead of thinking out what it is that France really wants, and how she may obtain it, the French Govern- ment has been listening to the suggestions of a body of half-baked Machiavellian opportunists. They have indoctrinated M. Poincare and his colleagues with the policy of "Squeeze Germany and if she does not pay at once, squeeze England till she joins France in squeezing the common enemy." "England," they argue, "is in a hurry to trade, and when she finds you are in earnest and won't allow the restoration of world com- merce till you have had your pecuniary claims recognized and paid over to you, England will cease encouraging German arrogance and fraud, and you will get your money." This fatal policy of making the world commercially so uncomfortable and diplomatically so dangerous that we shall have to obey France rather than endure it any longer, rests of course on a delusion. We can no more squeeze Germany than France can. The real difference between us is that we object to squeezing ourselves to death, while apparently the French do not. Well, they will soon find out that the process is really a very easy one, and far more rapid than one would imagine.
France has begun her squeeze and is finding it a very difficult and bewildering business. Germany is not only unwilling to pay, but every new day of occupation, and every new square mile of territory taken over, makes paying more and more impossible. Already the mark has fallen heavily, and fallen, not as foolish people• suppose because of a conspiracy in Agio, but through the working of the adamantine" sanctions "of Economics. The printing press cannot make wealth. • All it can do is to issue general letters of confiscation, with compli- ments and brightly coloured pictorial illustrations. If France had agreed to restore German credit instead of ruining it, the mark would have gone up, or at any rate would have stabilized itself. On that foundation Germany could have borrowed and France could have at once received some of that which is due to her in cash and kind. Instead, her rulers have chosen the plan so wittily and so truly described by Punch in a recent issue. In the cartoon M. Poineare insists that, if the goose will not lay as many golden eggs as he requires, he will wring the abandoned creature's neck. There is the whole situation. You cannot get away from it. Certainly the British people and Government arc not going to try to get away from it by joining France in wringing the neck of the goose, and so making it quite certain that no golden eggs will ever come from Germany. We might try to help France to help Germany to recover from the strangulation which she is at the moment enduring, but in all probability even a direct appeal from France to . help her change her policy would now evoke little response. The British people arc beginning to get into a very ugly frame of mind towards France. "You refused to accept our advice. You began against our wishes to try a policy that was bound to lead to ruin. You must now get out of the mess as best you can."
That. is not an attitude of mind of which we approve. We regret it deeply, but it is no good to pretend that we are likely to come to the assistance of France—unless she were to make a far more complete admission of being in the wrong than she is in the least likely to make. We shall not intervene unless our policy towards Germany is adopted, and it will have now to be a far more lenient policy than it was when first formulated, for the good and sufficient reason that the condition of Germany has so greatly changed for the worse.
What is France going to do next ? Alas, there seems nothing left for her but to flounder deeper into the morass —with nothing but the pitiable consolation that she is pushing Germany into it deeper still. The French cannot hug themselves with the thought that, if the franc is crashing, the mark's decline is even more precipitate ; that if French external trade is falling off, Germany is ceasing altogether to be able to do business abroad ; and that if France's military expenditure is making her borrow and tax, Germany's fiscal plight is far worse. That is not a permanent form of relief from disquiet. The longer the occupation lasts and the further it is extended, the more bitter the opposition will become amid the greater the certainty of an actual conflict arising. Germany may begin by passive resistance but, when France meets this with active repression it will inevit- ably turn into open, if at first only sporadic, conflict. In the end such conflict will either result in turning the present Moderate Liberal Government into an aggressive Republic, or else will lead to a Revolution and the return to power of the Military Junkers deter- mined at the first opportunity to restore a monarchical system.
Perhaps the answer we shall receive to these fore- bodings is that we misunderstand France's policy alto- gether. We shall be told, maybe, that what she is really after is the breaking up of the German Reich, first in Bavaria, and then by the setting up of a Buffer State on the Rhine on the model of Napoleon's Westphalian Kingdom. If that is the answer, we can only say that the scheme is one so criminally foolish. and so certain to make the restoration of peace to Europe utterly impossible, that we refuse to believe in it without much clearer proof than has yet been presented. We shall not credit any responsible French statesman with such a deliberate sowing of the Dragon's Teeth, or with a conscious desire to raise vast crops of armed men.
France has been lured by her Government into a desperately dangerous position, but we do not believe that her people are bereft of reason or conscience. France is not at heart the "enemy of all the world." Of that we arc convinced.
J. Sr. Lon STRACHEY.
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