Nov. 21, I any readers are appalled by the length of General Smuts's speech on the European situation which we reproduce to-day, we can assure them that their patience will not be over-taxed in reading this noble address. Tt constitutes such an appeal to the world at large as we have never seen before; while its sanity and sympathy alike are irresistible. Certain sentences burn themselves into the memory. Of the Imperial Conference, after justly claiming for the British Empire the qualification of ''the greatest political structure of all time,'' General Smuts says truly that ''we are not thinking of ourselves alone. The weight of the great world lies heavy pu us.'' Not only does ''the position which this Empire occupies in the world entitle it to an authoritative voice in the affairs of Europe,'' it imposes a clear duty on the Empire in these crucial time.
"Four or five years ago we were singing our songs of victory; today we are all marching to certain and inevitable defeat—victor and vanquished alike. The international chaos is growing. The economic and industrial structure of Europe is cracking in all direetions.""
And General Smuts goes on to say that "'it is the lack of moral justice which is Europe's undoing.'" But, as he recalls the wise and liberal treatment extended to his own people in South Africa by Great Britain a*ter the Boer War, he feels that "what wisdom and moderation could achieve in Africa they can also achieve in Europe."'
Unfortunately wisdom and moderation would appear to be the last qualities of which the chief actor in the European struggle to-day has any need. The situation as General Smuts describes it bears the stamp of truth in every line. He shows that, much as the French repudiate any idea of revising the Treaty of Versailles, they are actually revising it to suit their own ends. The working of the Ruhr by the French to' make good what Germany does not pay is ''a direct exploitation of German territory, entirely unprovided for in the Versailles Treaty. It ¢annot be squared with the Reparation provisions of the Treaty.'' Apart from the moral and legal issue involved, this has brought the world face to face with the menace of German disintegration. There are many disquieting signs that Germany is going to pieces, a denotiment which would have disastrous results for France as well as all the rest of the world. No Frenchman, of course, believes that His own country practically supplies him with all the necessities of life, and if he could get back what Germany owes him for devastating his own: country, he would contemplate her going to pieces with perfect indifference. He holds the Ruhr and sooner or later he will get his money back out of it. What happens to the rest of Germany he does not care. That is a crude' description of the French position but none the Jess true. And in the present mood of France, intensely conscious of her wrongs during the war and the menace of the overwhelming millions of the German people, it is not surprising that General Smuts's speech moved her not at all. The Conference he proposed she cleverly pretended to accept but under such limitations as would have made ita. pure farce. And this notwithstanding that General Smuts, so far from advocating cancellation of reparations, is at pains to show that any letting off of Germany from what she can and ought to pay would be followed by serious economic danger to other countries."' J'y suis j'y reste' is still France's motto and nothing but force will move her from it, which force there is no one at present to apply.
It is, we believe, this formidable deadlock in Europe and the still more formidable results likely to come of it, which have impelled Mr. Baldwin' to his protection policy, not less than the prevailing and obstinate unemployment in Britain. If Europe is going to pieces, as seems far from unlikely, it is high time that Great Britain set about developing her own résources. It is certain that her people, in their present heavily taxed condition, would not and could not stand the expense of armaments sufficient to' make France listen; and while America is an example of the material prosperity. attendant on the policy of living entirely to herself, it is to be remembered that the resources of the British Empire, if adequately exploited, are infinitely greater than those of the United States.- General Smuts's view is far broader than this." - Neither. by her- position,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.