6 JANUARY 1923, Page 9

Though the levers of Government may, for the moment, be

in the hands of a militaristic or semi-militaristic party, there is now, as always, in France a very large body of opinion which is intensely pacific, which desires to trade and to save and to enjoy. At present the French people are intensely anti-German because they dread attack by Germany, but when they begin to see that an attack on Germany in pursuit of phantom millions may lead even more quickly and more certainly to the evils which they dread, they will pause. France would be dealing under her present plan with something much more difficult to overcome than au invading foreign army—the dumb passive resistance of a vast population.