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ANGLO- FRENCH UNION
Si—Mr. Churchill's last-minute offer of "indissoluble union" between France and Great Britain may seem now to have only an academic and melancholy interest, though Mr. Charles Morgan retains a hope that it may yet become a practical policy. The fulfilment of his hope is dependent, primarily, on our victory. Should the Germans win the war, France will either become their vassal or cease to be a nation even in a state of dependence. We can scarcely believe that the overrun nations of Europe will ever, in the event of a German victory, recover their sovereign authority. The discussion of this subject, then, is a waste of time unless we win the war. But even if we do so, is its discussion profitable? We have learnt to suspect agreements and pacts betwen nations, and have little cause at present to think that an "indissoluble union" would be more lasting or more honourably observed than non-aggression pacts, which are today almost tantamount to declarations of war, and solemn undertakings not to conclude a separate peace. We darken counsel when we talk of any- thing being indissoluble. There is not enough wisdom in the %%cad to enable any generation to bind all succeeding generations for ever. The living cannot exist on dead hands. But it is evident that the Europe we have hitherto known, what- ever the result of the war may be, cannot be reassembled, even if its reassembly were desirable. States, such as Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, which fall and are absorbed without the firing of a single shot, are not nations in the modern world : they are artificial and delusive and ephemeral groups. If small nations are to survive, they can do so only by absorption into large nations which will respect their peculiar entities, or by federating themselves in defensive unions. The separation of Norway from Sweden in 1905 rendered both nations more .vulnerable than they were before they were disunited. The disunion of Great Britain and Ireland, especially as it included the dis- union of Ireland itself, has endangered both islands. Is it not obvious that if the Oslo Powers or, better still, the Baltic States, reinforced by Belgium and Holland, had been federated for their own defence, if for no other purpose, their subjugation would have been hard and might have been impossible? We have somehow to solve the problem of local authority and central government, of federal agreement and national existence, if we are to keep the world intellectually and spiritually alive Nevertheless, you are quite right, despite the querulous complaint of Mr. J. M. Rampton, in demurring to the suggestion that Great Britain and France can be indissolubly joined together in the heat of an apprehensive passion. Conjunctions of that kind, whether between peoples or persons seldom survive the subsidence of the first fearful impulse. Events have bound France and Great Britain together very closely during the past twenty-five years, but not so closely that the profound differences between them have disappeared. France is a republic, inhabited mainly by peasant proprietors, most of whom are devout Roman Catholics and extremely distrustful of the State. Great Britain is a monarchy, inhabited mainly by industrialised workers, most of whom are Protestants with a highly developed sense of the State. The French Empire is essentially dependent on France and governed from it, and is remote from the consciousness and knowledge of the average Frenchman. The ties of blood between the French and their colonial peoples are few and insubstantial. The British Empire is composed, in great part, of independent communities which have the right of secession and can refrain, as Eire has done, as General Hertzog and Mr. Malan proposed South Africa should do, from join- ing Great Britain in a declaration of war. These self-governing coun- tries are extensively populated and mainly ruled by people whose kinship with the British people is close. Even India, despite differences of race, religion, language and colour, has ties with Great Britain which are infinitely more intimate than those between France and Algiers or Cochin-China. It is true that the French and the British live in comparative cordiality in Canada. I recall my surprise when in Montreal, I remarked to a French Canadian lady that I supposed she felt more at home in Paris than in London and was told that exactly the opposite was the truth. The difference between French as it is spoken in Canada and French as it is spoken in France arouses a sense of alienation which, she said, is not experienced in England. How far this lady represented her countrymen I cannot tell, but it is evident that long association between the French and the British Canadians, though it has not blended the two people indistinguishably or rendered them free from racial and religious dissension, has produced an intimacy of feeling and interest that is not present in Great Britain or France, and can be produced only after a long lapse of time.
But there is nothing novel in the proposal of union between the two countries. On the day when Mr. Churchill announced his offer I read in Stanhope's Life of William Pin an account of the Treaty of Commerce between France and Great Britain which was signed by Mr. William Eden, afterwards Lord Auckland, and M. de Rayneval on September 26th, 1786. Under this treaty, which was to remain in force for twelve years, almost complete free trade was established and the two peoples became almost interchangeable. "They and their families might reside, either as lodgers or as householders, free from any restraint in matters of religion, and from any impost under the name of head-money or argent du chef ; free also to travel through the country, or depart from it, without licences or passports. The wines of France were to be admitted into England at no higher duties than those of Portugal, and the duties on French vinegar, brandy, and oil of olives were also much reduced. The amount of duty, in both nations, on hardware, cutlery, and a great variety of other.articles, was in like manner determined by this treaty ; mostly at very moderate rates, not exceeding 12 or 15 per cent. And in case of either nation being engaged in war the right of interference of the other party by equipping privateers, or by other means, was expressly provided against and renounced."
Here, perhaps, is a precedent for a permanent relationship between Great Britain and France if, and when, we have a happy issue from our afflictions; a relationship that may grow into a lasting union. But the union cannot be forced, nor can it be forged by fear. It must' come as a result, not of immediate and dire necessity, but as a result of a long and intimate series of relationships which have made it inevitable and almost imperceptible.—Yours faithfully,
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