THE ISOLATION OF FRANCE.
TT is evident that Belgium sincerely wants to break -L away from French policy in its latest phase. This is a very remarkable fact, and nobody who longs for the peace of Europe can be insensible to the courage of Belgian statesmen. For a long time it has been an open secret that Belgium .has been following ruefully in the wake of France. It was as though a major planet drew a smaller body after it by such a power of attraction that resistance by the satellite was inconceivable. Nevertheless, the satellite is desperately trying to break out of the orbit prescribed for it. Whether it Will succeed in doing so we cannot yet say with confidence. We may be sure that M. Poincare will exert all his arts to keep Belgium where she was ; but even if Belgium should be drawn back into the orbit her attempt to shake off all responsibility for the sinister policy of backing and directing the entirely artificial movement for a Rhineland Republic will always stand to her credit.
At Aix In Chapelle the Belgians, unlike the French elsewhere, sided with the police against the imported gangs of Separatists and thus stood for the unity of Germany. Incidentally, it is interesting to notice how easily the Separatist riff-raff and toughs were dispersed when they became aware that the ordinary forces of law and order were being mobilized against them. The same thing could easily be done everywhere else. But the eVidence has steadily accumulated that the French, while professing to look on impartially at a German domestic game, have always managed to load the dice against German unity. The pressure which France is bringing to bear on Belgium is no doubt great and must be acutely felt. Therefore we need not be surprised if Belgium wavers or even capitulates. Still, we hope for the best ; she had a very stout heart when she stood in the path of Germany in 1914, and now she has a great tradition and a splendid sense of honour which ought to keep her strong.
The main fact to be noticed about the Belgian objection to French policy is that it has been raised after a long and ample experience of what French policy means. It is much more difficult for Belgium to say now, "I can go no farther" than it would have been for her to say it before the Ruhr was occupied. The agreement of Italy with the British view is less notable than that of ]lelgium, for Italy is less directly concerned, but it is none the less exceedingly grateful to lovers of peace. Morally, if not in actual fact, France is isolated, and though we are deeply sorry in one sense that any such thing should have happened, for it is most disagreeable to all her well-wishers to see France losing her friends one by one, we arc bound to say that such a result was only to be expected. From the beginning we expressed our fear that, as moral judgment must ultimately go against her, France, by her own act, stood to lose the very security of which she so loudly professed to be in need.
Frenchmen still talk of their victory in the Ruhr, and the latest version of the victory is that Krupp and Stinnes are anxious, by some more or less unofficial arrangement, to get the industries of the Ruhr into working order again and begin production—and therefore payment of reparations—as soon as possible. Some of the French newspapers seem to think that such an event would be a blow to Great Britain, and they argue that when the blow has fallen Englishmen will at last be sorry for their refusal to support France. We can assure those Who argue in that way that the vast majority of Englishmen will have no such feelings. They repudi- ated Frc;ich policy because they thought it was wrong and contrary to the Treaty, and because it was utterly opposed to the British tradition of not obliterating a fallen enemy. But if the Ruhr recovered its prosperity much more quickly than we think possible, we should be frankly delighted. What we want is more trade growing up everywhere ; for when people are busily trading their thoughts turn to peace, or at least have no time to be occupied with war. We would rather see the industrial recovery of Europe begin in the Ruhr than anywhere else.
M. Poineare says that France is neutral towards the Separatist movement. We can only suppose that he is grotesquely misinformed, for neutrality does not consist in importing and paying conscienceless blackguards to upset the existing order. But apart from that, M. PonicarC's argument that France cannot interfere with the right of people to dispose of their own destiny, and that therefore she cannot suppress. the Separatists, will not stand examination. He perpetually appeals to the Treaty of Versailles, but the Treaty throughout assumes the unity of Germany. What France wants, we fear— or rather let us say what those French officials and agents in the Ruhr about whose actions and intentions M. Poineare is sublimely ignorant desire—is that Germany should be dismembered. Germany is to be brought to the condition in which Napoleon placed her after Jena. As for reparations, they can go hang. It is much more important for France to obtain the direction, amounting to virtual possession, of a rich industrial district than that her Allies should get any share of reparations. We hope it is not too late even now to beg France, if not in the name of what is right and wrong, at least in the name of what is practical and profitable, to observe how feeling in America is swinging against her. There has been a good deal of French propaganda in America, and we need not hesitate to admit that hitherto there has been a surprising amount of support there for France. But the whole situation is rapidly changing. No careful reader of the newspapers could fail to discern the signs of growing indignation. It is felt in America that the restrictions which M. Poincare wishes to impose on an international inquiry are meant to thwart every purpose but France's own. When Americans go into a business they go into it in earnest. They naturally wish for an inquiry into the whole productivity of Germany ; they see no sense in finicking conditions and limitations which would be sure to make the whole inquiry sterile. Nor do they see any more sense in M. Poincare's reasoning. If the international Conference is to be subject to the Reparations Commission, as M. Poincare insists it must be, what is the sense of all these restrictions which would be relevant only if the Conference were wholly independent ?
Thus we see that in Belgium, Italy and America sympathy with France is drying up. We wonder that M. Poincare does not tremble at such portents. We envy his unfaltering self-possession. But though he has the full courage of his narrowness, will there not soon be symptoms of alarm among the mass of French people, who are being led into dangers and troubles of which they never dreamed ?
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