21 MAY 1932, Page 24

FRANCE, GERMANY AND EUROPE By W. G. Moore

The problem of Europe is, more than most people recognize, the problem of Franco-German relations, and in his France and Germany (Student Christian Movement, 2s. 6d.) Dr. W. G. Moore, who is Lecturer in French at Oxford, carries his analysis of the antagonism between the two nations far below the surface. While he writes with admirable impar- tiality, he discusses the French mentality more fully than the German, and has had the wisdom to draw largely in that connexion on M. Andre Siegfried's illuminating book, Les Portia Politiques en France. A new and striking suggestion is that France, with her thrift and simplicity and her lower standards of life generally, regards Germany, who is striving to maintain pre-War standards, particularly in such matters as social insurance, as deliberately and even fraudulently profligate when she votes money for such purposes and declares she cannot find it for Reparations. On the other hand, the galling effect on Germany of France's refusal to admit her right to full equality among the nations is rightly emphasized. Altogether, a valuable contribution to the promotion of international understanding in the literal sense, which is, after all, the best sense.