Correspondence
A LETTER FROM PARIS.
[To the Editor of the SPucraroa.] SIR,—Never since the War have we seen Paris so prosperous looking and so winsomely gay. as during these spring days of 1931. Every boulevard cafe of any size now has its orchestra, the fountains play all day and every day, and not merely on fele days and Sundays ; at night they are illuminated. When darkness falls the public buildings are bathed in light and the Arc de Triomphe hangs high in the purple of the night sky like some lambent shrine linked to earth with a double chain of stars, which are the lights of the upward-sweeping Avenue des Champs Elysees. Moreover, we are on the eve of the big Colonial Exhibition at Vincennes which is to bring thousands to the capital to admire Paris, France and the symbols of its Empire. Living is dear, it is true (meat, for instance, costs roughly twice as much as it does in England), but the unemployment figures are still nothing to worry about, and are even on the wane according to the last report, and France is evidently safely weathering the economic storm. Monsieur is still able to enjoy his aperitif at the cafe table and one's femme de ménage is still able to take a taxi-cab on the slightest provocation. These, one might well assume from all appearances, are the gala days of the piping times of peace.
But for the Frenchman who is at all politically minded there is a shadow on the feast. It is the shadow of Europe on the move. "It moves," whispered Galileo of the earth. "It moves" . is the almost frightened whisper of France as she looks on Europe. Yes, despite the close-meshed treaties spread tight over the continent, despite the fact that the treaties are pegged down with big armies and navies, despite the alliances formed to secure them, it moves.
Yes, Europe moves. The evidence of it, of course, is the proposed Customs union between Germany and Austria. The movement for France is in a direction from which, in her belief, she has most to fear. It means the Anschluss, it means Mittel Europa. It means a dominant, hostile Germany. So the Frenchman believes, for does not every newspaper, regardless of creed, except those of the extreme Left, tell him so ? Mittel Europa ! The phrase haunts the printed page, and it haunts the mind of the man in the street. There is the fact, and it is the most lively fact in French polities to-day. It may be taken, indeed, to mark the end of a phase of France's foreigm policy.
M. Briand's reply to the alarming signs of an animated Europe, of course, we know. He is supposed to be going to Geneva with. a kind of homoeopathic remedy. Europe threatened with an Austro-German Customs union I Well, then, why not give a little dose of "Customs union" to all the States of Europe; and then the patient will probably get along quite hicely. ' With regard to-this solution; however, two things are to be observed. First, that the remedy, so far as France is -concerned, is very personal to M. Briand ; and second, that it is even doubtful whether M. Briand will go to Geneva. The French Presidential election takes place on May 13, a few days before the Geneva meeting, and, although M. Briand has allowed it to be understood that he will not be a candidate, few people believe that he will maintain his refusal. Traditionally, of course, M. Doumer, as President of the Senate, should become President of the Republic, besides which, M. Doumer, with his weight and mild-complex- ioned wisdom, does strike one as being of the stuff of which Presidents are made. There are, however, several reasons for regarding M. Briand as a probable President. From his own point of view it would offer an excellent manner of retire- ment from an office in which he finds it increasingly difficult to keep his colleagues with him. Moreover, M. Briand is not getting younger and the comparative ease of the Elysee Palace may well attract him. From a party point of view one may imagine that the course of sending M. Briand to the Elysee would commend itself to the Right wing who, without bearing him any personal ill will, yet find his policy increasingly unacceptable. To make him President would be a handsome manner of getting rid of him, while the fact that the Left could hardly create trouble over his removal, since M. Briand, a man from the Left, would be in the Presi- dency, might be another point in favour of the course. True, M. Coty's Figaro, an organ, of course, of the Right, has recently launched a bitter attack on M. Briand and his assumed candidature, but such personal attacks by millionaires on political figures have in England been known to produce the opposite result from that intended, and it may be so in France.
But whether M. Briand goes to Geneva or not it is quite evident that a point has been reached where it is no longer possible for France to pursue a dual foreign policy of pacifica- tion on the one hand and of armed repression bn the other, for that is what it comes to. M. Briand made a gallant effort to reconcile the two. He has failed. Pacifism at this moment is discredited in France. The last vestige of the Locarno tabernacle has been swept away by the movement toward the Ataschluss. France is therefore thrown back on the stark realities of the alternative policy. She must fight—not necessarily with armed force—for what she regards as her rights.
Now, although one may fear the dangers—and they are admittedly great—of such a policy, it may well be that it is necessary to France in her progress to a better idea of things. It is a bleak path, after all, that she has to tread. She stands more alone than any other European power. She realizes it keenly. What she can accomplish in armed isolation it is difficult to see. Even if the Zonverein is declared legal and becomes an accomplished fact, what can she do ? Would she break with the League ? Would she occupy the Rhine bridgeheads ? In such a course she would not have a shred of legality on her side, as she might plead with some show of reason when she occupied the Ruhr Valley. It would be an act of aggression, of war, and automatically under the existing pact would bring Great Britain against her on the side of Germany. Dare she take such terrible risks ? These are ugly questions, but they have to be faced if we wish to understand the mind of France to-day.
On the other hand, other forces are at work in this country. It is difficult to generalize on the character of a nation, but may it not be said, with as much truth as is possible in such generalizations, that whereas England is slow to pick up a new truth but rather quick to act upon it, France is quick to pick up the new idea but slow to act upon it ? France must argue it out, sift it through and through before the idea can become a matter of practical application. Thus it is with the new concept of Europe and the banishment of the arbitrament of war. England has her League of Nations Union. Its function is enthusiastically to back up the League. Its equivalent in France is—mark the title —the Ecole de la Paix. Its function is to inquire into the working of the League, to examine the theories of disarma- ment, of arbitration and a world court of justice. There you have in striking contrast examples of the different mentalities and methods of the two countries.
Eventually, one is encouraged to believe, France will be wholeheartedly on the side of the angels. We who live in France sometimes think that something might be done to help her on her way. One of her greatest stumbling blocks in the full acceptance of all the implications of the League and a world court of justice is the absence of any military backing to their dictates, the absence of what M. Paul Boncour calls the gendarme. Some of us may think that in Spite of the objections the gendarme would be worth while in the great difference he would made to the French attitude and action in European politics. one scheme of military sanctions would soothe her, give her confidence, and such a concession might make all the difference to the fate of the
Disarmament Conference next year. At present she is nervously calculating her strength, and with somewhat
startled, frightened eyes is watching Europe move, net realizing that, ultimately, only by throwing her sword away will that movement be bereft of all its danger.—I am, Sir,
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