GERMANY AND FRANCE
THE international situation remains indeterminate and almost inextricably complicated. The German policy of Realpolitik has achieved its ends. The demilitarisation of the Rhineland is a thing of the past, and it will not and cannot be reimposed in its old form, treaties or no treaties. Herr Hitler's programme of peace proposals has been met by the series of demands and offers drawn up by the Locarno Powers last week, but since they contained such palpably inacceptable suggestions as the policing of German territory by British and Italian troops— this, of course, included against the judgement of the British to meet the exigencies of the French—Herr Hitler has put them on one side and intimated that he will submit a new programme on Tuesday, when no longer embarrassed by the distractions of the General Election to be held on Sunday. That event will not affect the international situation. It involves merely a mechanical recording of votes at the direction of the Government, and the electors who in November, 1933,. duly registered their approval of Herr Hitler's decision to quit the League of Nations will now duly register approval of his decision to return to it. They have no choice. As Dr. Goebbels observed pertinently a week ago, "We have the army, the police, the wireless, the Nazi organisations. Who could do anything against us ? " Herr Hitler will on Sunday get his 90 per cent. or 95 per cent. vote, and on Tuesday he will transmit further pro- posals for a general settlement.
Unfortunately, France also has a General Election pending, and the fact that this is a real election, in which everyone who chooses is perfectly free to vote against the Government, places Ministers in obvious difficulties, and goes far to account for their attitude of apparent intransigence. Every Government is a trustee for the national security, and to appear to betriy that trust is to court inevitable defeat at the polls. There has been a strange indisposition in this country to appreciate the French Government's point of view. That is unfor- tunate, for to appreciate it does not involve accepting it. The demilitarisation of the Rhineland imposed on Germany in 1919, endorsed by Dr. Stresemann in 1925, and accepted by Herr Hitler in 1935, had for its purpose the military protection of France. Since March 7th that protection is gone. German troops arc in the Rhineland, and in possession of the Rhine bridges, and German armies could mobilise at their convenience with the Rhine at their backs. All that has been done in plain breach of the Treaty of Locarno, a breach which has had for consequence a formal protest by the Locarno Powers and a plain demonstration of the fact that no one will . -lift a finger to reverse the fait accompli which has robbed France (and Belgium) of the protection accorded her in 1919 in default of various forms of fuller protection which she was denied.
Those are the circumstances. in which the French Government has to face a free electorate in just four weeks' time. It is not to be suggested that anyone should lift a finger to reverse the fait .accompli. That could be done only by war, and the reoccupation of German territory by German troops is no cause for war. No one, moreover, questions that full equality must be accorded to Germany, in spite of the unlicensed act by which she seized it in the case of the -Rhineland. In that matter, and in what they say regarding Herr Hitler's peace proposals and the necessity of putting them to the test and exploring every possibility of basing durable agreements on them, the Church leaders who addressed the Prime Minister on Saturday express accurately the mind of the nation. But it would be a poor exchange -to conciliate Germany and alienate France, where at least speech. and writing and voting are free, where there are no concentration camps, no imprisonments without trial, no persecutions of Jews and Socialists and pacifists, and where, incidentally, the .Govern- ment is under no temptation to expansion' or aggression.
This country is called on at such a juncture to play a decisive role. Germany is addressing herSelf particularly to us, and her inevitable strategy is to fry and drive a wedge between us and France. France, compelled to acquiesce in Herr Hitler's coup, is accus- ing us with some bitterness of encouraging Germany to bargain about a document the Locarno Powers' memorandum—which was meant to represent the irreducible minimum of those Powers' demands. And Italy, whose association with the condemnation of Germany for treaty-breaking introduces a manifest element of farce into the proceedingS, is conSidering only how she can utilise the general imbroglio to secure the cancellation of the sanctions imposed on her. No immediate developments of importance seem: likely. Till M. Sarraut and M. Flandin. have faced the electors on April 26th they will be in no position to make what might be considered weak coneessions. The beSt that can be hoped for is that they Will refrain from recriminations against thiS country which would inevitably alienate British sympathies from them.
But at a time when the good faith of More than one nation is being called in question, we cannot break faith with France. It was decided explicitly by the Four Locarno Powers in London that the Locarno Treaty was still fully valid .for them, and that they would " forthwith instruct their General Staffs to enter into contact with a view to arranging the technical conditions in which the obligations which are binding on them should be carried out in case of unprovoked aggression." That is only an interim arrangement, to. be sharply dis- tinguished . from the permanent contact between Staffs promised in the event of Germany's. rejecting the Locarno Powers' proposals. She has so , far neither accepted nor rejected them, . though it is clear that she will reject one at least, the policing of her territory by an international force. Tem-. porary collaboration between the Staffs can injure no one, for France can no more be suspected of contemplating aggression against Germany than Belgium could in. 1914. If France demands such, a demonstration that the Locarno,.unde,rtakings .still hold good we :must clearly ,honour, our prom ises.. If, with the League Council adjourned and the Locarno Powers dispersed, collectiVe negotiations are suspended for some weeks, it is vital that those weeks should. be devoted to some constructive effort. Certain ) ekments in German policy can be tested. Herr Hitler in every speech repeats that he is offering Europe twenty-five years' peace. Yet in every speech he makes some attack on Russia, a leading member of the League of Nations which he is pro- posing to rejoin. There can be no European peace that is not a general European peace. There can be no stable peace without the spirit of peace. The immediate interval, if interval there is to be, may profitably be utilised to elicit from Herr Hitler a declaration as to whether his policy towards Russia is one of peace or war. The scheme for the seizure and settlement of large tracts of the Russian Ukraine may be fantastic, but it emanated from a Nazi leader, Dr. Rosenberg, who still-has Herr Hitler's ear. That is one point on which Herr Hitler has it in his power to give assurances that would do much to clear the air. His own programme contains so - much that is abundantly worth discussing that it is imperative that any obstacles to its free discussion, by France and Russia in particular, should be cleared away. It is to that that the immediate efforts of Mr. Eden and the British Cabinet must be devoted. Good can yet be brought out of apparent evil.
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