M. BARTHOU'S VISIT
MBARTHOU, the French Foreign Minister, has • been a welcome guest in this country—welcome as a distinguished representative of France must always he, and at this moment in particular when it is so necessary that the French and the British should clearly understand one another. The conversations in London immediately followed his journeys to Bucharest and Belgrade, which had been preceded by visits to Warsaw and Prague. He has apparently been endeavouring both to cement the long-standing relationships between France and the Little Entente and Poland, and to pave the way for Pacts of Mutual Assistance in which Locarno undertakings would be applied in the East. At the time. when he first arranged his visit to London he may have hoped that the failure up to the present to find any solution of the disarmament problem would dispose the British Government to To* favourably upon pro- posals to enter into further regional agreements. But when he set out from Paris there was no room for any doubt on this point. The British Government had emphatically stated its unwillingness to undertake any commitments whatsoever to any individual Powers beyond those which are contained in the Locarno Treaty. It adheres, as Sir John Simon said the other day, to its undertakings under that Treaty, but cannot assume any obligations under an " Eastern Locarno."
M. Barthou, then, being under no illusion about the British view, came here mainly with the object of clarifying the situation ; and he was accompanied by M. Pietri, the Minister of Marine, who has been discussing preparations for the Naval Conference with Sir Bolton Eyres-Monsell. The opportunity was afforded to explain the character of the French plan which, according to M. Barthou, is in strict conformity with the League Covenant, being based on the principle of mutual responsibility, with mutual guarantees, on the model of the Locarno Treaty. If Germany can be brought in, it assumes a group of Statei in the north, Germany, Poland, Russia and the Baltic States, band by a Pact of Mutual Assistance promoted by France and, perhaps— this is not quite clear—including her as a guarantor ; and, if Italy can be brought in, a group of States further south—namely, Italy and the Powers of the Little Entente—similarly linked.
It is a scheme beautifully poised and all-embracing on paper, but involves many " ifs," and more especially the supreme " if "—can Germany think of participating until the question of armaments has been settled and unless the possibility of Treaty revision is provided for ? And if Germany holds back, what about Poland, who has recently entered into Pacts of Non-Aggression with Germany and Russia ? And in any case Italy shows no more willingness to undertake commitments in a Mediterranean Pact than we show to go beyond Locarno. If Germany could not be induced to come in—and it would be reading too much into Herr Hess's recent speech' to assume any such willingness—the scheme could not be made to accord with the spirit of Locarno ; in that case, if it were persisted in, it would degenerate into a system of mutual engagements in which the most conspicuous fact would be that Germany was left out. Great Britain could not continue to give " official bene- diction " to the plan, thus mutilated, without further emphasizing the isolation of Germany.
There is no doubt that public opinion in Britain is strongly behind the Government in rejecting any special commitments to France which some future event might convert into an alliance. This country will not readily forget the lesson of the Franco-British military con- ventions before the War, based upon the hypothesis of joint action against Germany, and the important part they played in deciding the obligations of Britain in 1914. With this historic precedent before them, it was not surprising that some critics should have been uneasy at the conference in London between General Weygand and the British Chief of Staff, followed by the return visit of Lord Hailsham and a group of Staff Officers to France. But Mr. Baldwin was able to deny in the most emphatic terms that these visits had any unusual significance, and the denial is sufficient in itself to deprive them of political importance ; and Mr. Chamber- lain took an opportunity at the end of the week to dispel the fears of those who may have supposed that M. Barthou's visit was an attempt to commit this country to a new Continental alliance.
The British position, then, in regard to special com- mitments to France or any other European country is clearly defined, and it is defined in accordance with the popular wish. But this should not blind us to certain realities which govern the situation, and not least that the insecurity of France is also, if in a lesser degree, our own insecurity. For a dozen years a succession of French Governments have been pursuing methods in the interests of " security " which in the opinion of this country have often been provocative and generally mistaken. Such methods had the result of antagonizing Germany, producing unease in Europe, and eventually, in Germany, the spirit which led to the Nazi successes. The French have taken their stand upon the necessity of superior armaments, and a system of armed alliances in which they have found compensation for their numerical inferiority. We have in the main taken our stand on the principle of the all-round reduction of armaments, and the only logical corollary of that is security by means of the collective guarantee of peace. But this country up to the present has failed to give that lead to the world which was necessary to the success of the Disarmament Conference. And at the moment it has become less easy for us to assume the initiative upon the lines which were possible up to a month or two ago owing to the sinister eruption of anarchic forces in Germany.
It is idle to deny that the present government by armed faction in Berlin—a government which appears to be as unstable as it is reckless—is not one which we can commend to France as safe to be trusted with increased armaments. Though we ought still to act upon the assumption that Germany in her right mind will soon once again be a Germany which can be invited to take her share in the co-operative movement for peace, we cannot expect France to treat her as if she were now well qualified to take such a share. Nor would it be right to forget for a moment the vital com- munity of interests which bind us to France. France and Britain are the only Great Powers in Europe which still stand fast by democracy and the maintenance of civilization against despotic force. • The supreme interest of both lies in peace. It is not only the force of a Treaty but the force of circumstances also which will always compel us to honour the Locarno guarantee. That is a fact of which France ought to be assured beyond possi- bility of doubt, and with that assurance complete it should be the easier for us, when Germany settles down, to carry out our proper role in Europe, which should be that of a mediator between France and Germany, bound to both by the solemn obligations of the Locarno Treaty. An opportunity to fulfil that duty occurs today in insisting that we are ready to use our good offices in encouraging an Eastern Locarno if, and only if, it can be made to embody the principle of mutuality, and we are satisfied that it will not, by neglecting that principle, have the effect of isolating Germany.
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