GREAT BRITAIN A.ND FRANCE [To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sin,—Your plain speaking in last week's issue of the Spectator on the subject of French policy and our craven subservience to it has been inspiring reading. Why has this not been made manifest, and so impossible, by the Press long ago ? To the average Englishman with a modicum of common sense and patriotism this has been painfully and humiliatingly apparent ever since the armistice. The American Ambassador has rendered a real service to the cause of settlement, and has, in the main, spoken the cold truth, and, however harsh and disagreeable it is apt to sound, in the long run it is saving. France has been and is the greatest stumbling-block in the path of real peace and progress since the armistice. Unwilling, not unable, to pay her debts and face facts, her foreign policy has been as grossly out of touch with sanity and reality as her financial policy. She has obviously forgotten how com- pletely dependant she was during the War upon the help of the Anglo-Saxon nations. It meant the difference between survival and extinction to her, and must necessarily do so again in a similar crisis, especially if she wrecks the League of Nations by trying to dominate it. Her post-War record inspired, paradoxically, by a present sense of power, and panic as to the future, has alienated her late allies. America stands coldly aloof. We are repelled, but in our self-imposed weakness afraid to speak out. The inevitable result, however, unless France substitutes hard facts for present pretences, will be the final alienation of the English and German-s. -liking peoples. That would be a shattering blow to the present League, and to Latin intrigue ; but if the United States, Britain and Germany cultivated an understanding in the real interest of peace and economic development, that would be a league indeed and unchallengeable. Further episodes of the Chanak, Lausanne and Geneva variety might bring it well within sight.—I am, Sir, &c.,
IIF.RBERT W. QUARRIE.
St. Andrew's Vicarage, First Tower, Jersey.
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