WILL THE CONFERENCE FAIL 7
PVERYTIIING depends upon whether M. Herriot has sufficient foresight, vision, and, aboN e all, boldnes, to understand what will happen to him and to France if he fails to obtain a settlement at the present Conference, and has to 'go back and tell the French people that there is no way out but the dreadful way of the Ruhr, with all its consequences. Certain of these conse- quences are plain—increased hatred across the Eastern frontier, increased restlessness in Europe, a parting between France and her best and most faithful Ally, England, and a terrible disillusionment in regard to the value of the franc, and the French economic system, which must bring ruin. upon millions of small French investors who have hitherto nursed the belief that nothing could permanently touch French Government credit. There are other consequences less visible at the moment, but none the less certain. Do what France will, her isolation after the rejection of the Dawes Report, for that goes with the rejection of the Bankers' terms, will not only injure France directly, but must automati- cally improve the position and the prestige of Germany. The world will not much longer be content to see Central Europe wasted economically, and its people goaded into a condition of terror and unrest which must make the present fairly reasonable bourgeois Government give way either to a Soviet Government on one side, or to a virulent military despotism on the other. If the neutral nations are unable to get a settlement via the Dawes Report with the co-operation of France, they will try to obtain it without.
France has rested, and rests, her case on the strict letter Of the law in the Versailles Treaty. Her interpretations of the clauses of that Treaty have hitherto been met with mere formal protests, such as those of our law officers in regard to the occupation of the Ruhr as " an unlawful act," and there has been no substantial opposition to her action. If; however, this Conference breaks up and France tries again to act on her ex party interpretation of the Treaty, she may. find—nay, she is certain to find— herself confronted with an array of international Portias. They will tell her that if she claims her full pound of flesh " as nominated in the bond," she must observe the instrument invoked—i.e., the Versailles Treaty—with the utmost particularity. If she makes the least default from its clauses, or goes but a hair's breadth beyond them, she will be held personally responsible. Judgment will be claimed against her for a breach of the Treaty by the rest of its signatories, and the full consequences exacted. In a word, the world is not going to bear at the present moment anything which will make for further restlessness and distraction.
The situation seen from the angle just described gives potent reasons why M. Herriot should make a settlement wise, far-reaching, and in the long run benevolent to his own country. But there are other reasons equally strong and equally deserving of his consideration. I shall take the personal argument first, though I am sure it is one which does not weigh with M. Herriot because it is personal. I fully admit that if M. Herriot makes a settlement which will be disliked by a great many people iii France, there is a risk of his falling, and of a statesman with much more violent and much more reactionary views taking his place. I venture to say, however, that, though this risk exists,' there is for him quite as great, and probably a greater, risk of an explosion of indignation amongst his own supporters, assuming that he brings back, not the settlement they want—a settlement of regard them with, I will not say aversion, for bankers peace and reason—but one dictated by the fears of his have no feelings of that sort, but with anxiety and opponents rather than by the good wishes of his friends. alarm ? J. ST. LOE STRACHEY. If they can say, and they will be quite ready to say it in their disappointment. "_We might just. as well have kept Poincare and Millerand in office if this is all you can give us," he is doomed. He will have sacrificed his own views and his own feelings without any reward. Now look at 'the other alternative. • If -M. Herriot did what I firmly believe he wants to do, and what his followers want, and were to fall for that reason, he would without question be very soon the greatest man in France. He would have the gratitude and support of the best part of his party in no small degree, and he would have, what is even more important, the support of those vast millions in France who,' if they do not understand politics, do understand and love tranquillity and peace. They mly at the moment be unable in the labyrinth of Frenet, politics to prevent a reactionary Ministry coming i But when that Ministry had come in and done its wotz and failed, as fail it must, the country would turn with a passionate eagerness to M. Herriot as the man who could have saved them, but who was not allowed to do so through intrigue.
M. Herriot can, on the one hand, get nothing but obloquy and ruin if he comes back from London with empty hands. - His old enemies will never trust him, and his best friends will regard him as the man whose heart failed him at the last moment. But though this may seem so plain to the outsider, history gives us plenty of examples of statesmen who, in spite of every warning, every omen, and every instinctive impulse, did the wrong thing in a kind of blind infatuation. Heaven help M. Herriot to do the right thing for himself and France is all one dare say.
If I could speak to the French people as a whole, I would ask them to consider their own welfare, as I have asked their Prime Minister to consider his. If they would only project themselves into the future and try to think out what the isolation which they must get from the break-up of the London Conference will be like, I am convinced that they must shrink back in horror from the abyss at their feet. Think for a moment what the reactions which would follow the rejection of a settlement recommended and pressed for by the embodied bankers of the world, must mean to French credit ! When there were risks of isolation for France before, the financial world, which does not know much or care much about ordinary politics, took little notice. Now the situation is entirely different. The bankers met in London with a specific financial demand before them. In reply they declared that it would be possible to produce a forty millions loan to Germany (a loan made to Germany in theory, but, in fact, made to supply the water to be put down the German pump to make that pump draw its billions for reparations). This necessary money, said the bankers, is only producible if France will give up some of the pound of German flesh which she claims, will abandon, that is, her alleged right to take action which must have deep psychological effects upon the German people and therefore upon German finance. Wealth rests on credit, and credit rests on certain psycho- logical beliefs, and therefore finance and psychology are inextricably united. The bankers in effect said to France, " If you will promise to forgo certain dangerous rights of action we can get the money. If you refuse, we cannot." Can France, which will very soon want the financial help of the world to put her own financial house in order, and restore the franc to some semblance of its old value, afford to make the financial controllers of the world
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