EUROPE'S PREDICAMENT

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 1, Issue 96, 4 December 1939, Page 3

EUROPE'S PREDICAMENT

MUCH DEPENDS ON DIPLOMACY BRITAIN'S UNSELFISH AIMS "Nobody can say at this moment" remarked the Manchester Guardian in an editorial, "what is going to happen to Europe in the next few inonths. How far will war spresjl? Into what combinations Avill different States be forced? Will racial sentiment or class fear and class hatred be stronger in those peoples Who are drawn in one direction by the first and in the other bj' the second? Are we entering on a chapter of history as.violent, as swift, and as dramatic in its surprises as that though "which Europe passed when the French Revolution threw up Napoleon? To these questions no answer can be given in this country or indeed in any other. Who could have foretold when Napoleon and the Tsar Alexander signed the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 that Napoleon would one clay lose an the Russian snows an army resembling in its size and in the variety of races serving in its ranks the army Xerxes led .to Greece? in a doubtful and changing world much must depend on diplomatic skill. We may tak~ it' trust i+r-h.i& speech yesterday, a speech which, in lad. may lead to a most unfortunate misunderstanding abroad, Mr Lloyd George was anxious to impress on Ministers the need for wisdom and care in managing the temper of neutral Powers. His speech showed that he is as much convinced as anybody else that the proposals that have been so far thrown out are quite intolerable, for he said outright that \vc could not accept the conquest of Poland as an accomplished fact. The reply to any proposals, however firm and consistent in its refusal of terms, should of course, be so drafted as to convince the Avorld fliat our aims in the Avar are not selfish."