So much for the actual situation of which Mr. Baldwin
is speaking. What he says, be it what it may, must be a step in the right direction. He is bound to lay down (that is the whole raison d'être for his statement) what the British policy is, what are our aspirations, what are our hopes of settlement, what we think possible and impossible, what we think dangerous, and what we think safe. When that policy is made clear it will be, we believe, the rallying point for the people of good intent throughout the world. Perhaps the greatest advantage of all will be that it may show the people of France that our policy is not a policy hostile to them. It does not involve the reversal of the underlying idea of the Versailles Treaty, namely, that Germany should pay what she could pay without destroying herself as an economic and political unit, and that France should have all the security which her former Allies could possibly give her. Security, however, must be given also to Germany, for unless Germany can feel herself secure from future invasions, France can never be secure. Security depends upon the removal of mutual suspicion. We hope, then, that the French people, when they see our policy plainly put forward, will say, "That, after -all, is what we want, or, at any rate, it is near enough to what we want to make it possible for us to -fill into line with Great Britain once more."
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