The French and British Governments have reached an agreement about
the reduction of the troops in the Rhine- land. France—this is a point to the good—has accepted in principle the British view of the function of the occupying forces as being a guarantee for German Reparations. The question of security was discreetly kept out of the final discussion, and yet everybody who reads the French newspapers knows that since Locarno M. Poineare has been gradually edging back to his original idea that Germany must be kept in order by foreign troops if France is to be safe. Obviously, such a doctrine stultifies the whole of the Locarno idea. Locarno provided all the necessary security by means of a voluntary pledge from Germany that she would not attempt to alter her western frontier and by means of a pledge from Great Britain that she would assist the injured party if there should be unprovoked aggression. Why, then, this fresh talk about security by means of foreign troops on German soil ?
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