OUR LATE ALLY.
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.] SIR,—Some of your readers must have felt a shock of ml- pleasant surprise when they read in your issue of March 24th your
"hope that the British and American Governments will examine the German proposals, if and when they arrive, coldly and calmly on their merits as an economic settlement, and will then reflect on the interests of their own people and not on the alleged interests of their late Ally."
So the Entente is at an end ? France is alleging unreal interests and is no longer our Ally ? Is this your reading of the situation ?
Is it' not possible that France, twice invaded, and largely ruined by Germany, with which her borders march, may understand her own real interests (and even those of her " late " Ally) better than we in England, with the sea between us, are likely to know them ? That she has to deal with a fraudulent bankrupt who, by wilfully depreciating the mark and exporting her wealth, is evading payment of the claims which she acknowledged at Versailles ? Have you read Mr. Moore Ritchie's letter in the March National Review, and, if so, are you prepared to refute his conclusions ?
On one point,' at any rate, you need feel no anxiety— America may be safely trusted to consider, "coldly and calmly," her own interests, without any sentimental regard for those of her " late " Allies. It is, I am well aware, very unlikely that you will publish this letter, but it may at least 'serve to let you know how- the Spectator's-latest phases in foreign politics strikes one of its oldest subscribers.—I am, Sir, &c., H. C. IRWIN.
Mount Irwin, Tynan, Co. Armagh.
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