Washington, is reported to have expressed astonishment concerning the manner in which opinion has developed in the United States regarding present events in France, and more particularly the negotiations for Franco-German collaboration. Dealing with the use of Syrian airports by Germany the Ambassador contended that Article 18 of the Armistice Agreement provided that all French airports were to be placed under Italian and German control, and that under that article Nazi aeroplanes were entitled to land on French fields in Syria. The argument is naive in the extreme. While the Article in question may regularize the use of French airports by her former enemies, that has no binding effect upon France's former Allies who are continuing the struggle. France did not and could not sign away any of their rights, and it most certainly could not bind the Allies to refrain from attacking the enemy wherever they could find him.
All the Ambassador has said in effect is that German and Italian machines could use French airports. But the aerodromes in Syria are not French in fact, owing to Syria merely being under a French mandate, and it has yet to be shown that Article 18 conferring upon German and Italy the right to use the aerodromes in French mandated territory. Were Syria a French possession, which it is not, the argument which M. Have has advanced might hold water, but while it would only serve to justify what France is doing Great Britain is in no way privy to the contract and undoubtedly has "the right to attack German aeroplanes in Syria or any other place for that matter where the sovereign power has departed from strict neutrality in such a manner, whether voluntarily or under duress. German aeroplanes gain no immunity from bombing in actual French territory, and can expect to gain none in French mandated land.
Mr. Cordell Hull, U.S. Secretary of State. ig reported to have told M, Have that h considers that France has gone beyond the terms of the armistice with Germany by permitting German planes to use Syrian fields, and there cannot be the slightest doubt that the decision of the United States' Government is in the circumstances the only correct one. Greek aerodromes from which German machines have been carrying out their raids in the Mediterranean nave been repeatedly attacked by the British with the full understanding of the Greek Government and people. They have not claimed any immunity for they realize that the enemy must be dealt with, and if it is necessary to bomb the aerodromes in Greece it will be done in the future as it has already in the past.
Thus in occupied France, Belgium, Holland and Greece enemy machines are attacked by British aeroplanes, It may be argued that the last three nations are continuing the struggle, whereas, France is not. That is an extremely poor argument. Great Britain certainly cannot allow herself to be hampered by engagements which the French have made to her enemy in her surrender. That would be to place limitations upon her scope of action which would be ridiculous in such times as these, and would confer advantages upon the enemy. The course which the British must follow is quite clear. If the Germans seek to take advantage of the ai fields in Syria, those airfields must be bombed, and enemy machines destroyed. The French cannot have their cake and eat it. They cannot seek on the one hand to maintain all the rights of a very precarious neutrality, and yet give direct assistance to the enemy in this matter on the other. Nevertheless, it is impossible not to sympathize with France in her parlous condition, but the best means of demonstrating that sympathy is by pro-securing the war with such vigour that she may as quickly as possible be released from the bondage which has been imposed upon her,
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.