Although the disagreement with France is composed for the moment,
it must be a superficial settlement so long as the British and French outlooks on the future are entirely different. By instinct rather than by argument Englishmen, as is their way, have come to the conclusion that war is intolerable and that somehow or other it must be prevented. For want of a better means of prevention, they are prepared to work the League of Nations for all it is worth, and are rather impatient when the Supreme Council neglects one opportunity after another of investing the League with mere authority. The French cling to the old-fashioned way of security. They never forget that while we are protected by our " moat defensive," they have a land frontier. In view of this great physical difference between the needs of the two countries, logic has it all its own way in France. We must not be astonished at this, nor must we be unsympathetic. But it is none the less a duty to point out that the safety of France in future depends as much on the absence of neighbours with a grievance as upon anything else.
