Mar, 30.
M. pu Pac de Marsoulies is not the only reader who has sent us the pamphlet to which he refers in to-day's letter. By our oWn experience it seems to have been distributed pretty widely and how much further it bids gone can only be guessed. It is the sort of thing that most of us, whether we agree with, France's invasion of Germany or not, would devoutly wish had never been written by an Englishman, even while we have to admit the peculiar streak in the make-up of some of our countrymen, which seems to make it impossible for them to desist from such writing. Mr. Gardiner, the author, certainly was the editor of the Daily News of London at one time, although we do not know whether he is still. Regarded only as a journalist he is a very able man. But may one venture to say that he appears to belong to that class that must. always be just a little more knowing than everybody else? Gilbert satirized the type with biting truth as; The idiot who praises in enthusjastic tone Every century but this and every country but his own.
We think we are right in saying that Mr. Gardiner strongly opposed Great Britain's entry into the war and it is probable that he Tost no opportunity of insisting that she ought to get out of it. His antagonism to France's attempt to make Germany pay up was a foregone conclusion, and the only thing that his fellow-countrymen can say in his excuse is that they are certain it would give him the greatest possible pleasure to write even more disparagingly of them than he has of the French.
Since the French troops began to enter the Ruhr on or about January 9, after the breakdown of the last reparations conference, this paper has purposely abstained from commenting on the question. At this distance we are only spectators of events, not too well informed about them and obviously incapable of influencing them. But the broadcasting of Mr. Gardiner's pamphlet makes it necessary to show, in this part of the world, that there is another point of view held by not a few of the British. Two important facts Mr. Gardiner ignores: first, the terrible weakness to which France has been reduced' by Germany's unprovoked invasion; secondly, her haunting fear of another invasion as soon as Germany feels strong enough to attempt it. To harp upon the overwhelming military power of France'' and compare M. ' Poincaré with Napoleon as Mr. Gardiner does, is neither just nor honest. He says nothing about the devastation of France's richest provinces and of the million lives she lost, while Germany remains intact with a population almost double that of France. "Mr. Gardiner may say that the French are making a mistake in estimating the position in this way. But that is another question altogether. The French do not think so, and if Mr.
Gardiner were of one of the Continental peoples, with their inherited knowledge and dread of centuries of invasion and ravaging, of which an island race has no conception, he would probably not think so either. It has further to be considered that Germany's efforts to meet her reparations debt were, to put it mildly, not enthusiastic, and the efforts hitherto made to compel her to pay were equally halfhearted. So, France, desperately set on putting herself in some posture of self-defence against the day of Germany's recovery of power, determined to act independently. and try upon Germany the effects of some of that force which she used to be so fond of using towards others.
In taking this course. France has not met with the sympathy abroad that she may have hoped for and so far she has not made) much of a success of the invasion. She has got but little out of the Ruhr to set against the Frs. 160,000,000 which is' her bill for military expenditure for the first four months of the year. And ta this extent the critics who said that she was going the wrong way to work are justified. France's retort would be: ''What else was there for us to do?
Nobody would help us to make Germany repair the wrong she did. And allow us to observe that while our experiment is not yet over, and may still prove your forebodings all wrong—for we really know much more about the Germans than you do—your annoyance at present is, per haps, not a little due to the inconvenience which we unfortunately cannot help causing your business men for a few weeks"'
And that would be no easy acensation to meet. The whole position is indeed one in which there is so much to be said on all sides that it might be argued about indefinitely and everyone would remain as much in the right and as much in the wrong as at the beginning. If America could be induced to join with Great Britain in guaranteeing France against attack, she would very likely be willing to negotiate a new scheme of settlement with Germany. At present there appears no other way of solving the impasse that France has created by action with which, however politically and econo-tically unwise it may appear, we cen hardly fail'to sympathize.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.