MAKING PEACE TERMS

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 2, Issue 139, 27 March 1940, Page 6

MAKING PEACE TERMS

"DISARM GERMANY" IS FRENCH DEMAND France has resolved that any peace settlement must disarm Germany and that the Rhineland must again be demilitarised, with a British and French or international force controlling the Rhine bridges. That was one of the facts brought to the notice ot a newspaper representative who was investigating the French attitude towards the war. The French would willingly contribute to an international European military force if such were achievable. They are still attached to M. Briand's conception of a United States of Europe, reached by stages, with a British French Empire alliance as the first essential step. The French would willingly include in this a considerable advance tOAvard Free Trade, a common foreign policy and a united or Allied Army and Navy, and Avould open the French colonial empire to the British Commonwealth's trade. The French have no anxietj r about Avinning the Avar. Thejr one anxiety is that Britain may let them doAvn after the Avar, as some Frenchmen think Britain did after the last one, Avhen Britain and America AvithdreAv their guarantee to defend France's frontiers. They Avant assurances that Britain Avill not only resist further aggression, but will also maintain the means of doing it, Avhieh in the French mind, constitutes a continuance of conscription after peace. The French cannot realise Britain's prejudices against compulsory military service in peace-time. They regard il as democratic, honourable, and valuable morally and physically. They uoav Avant Britain to accelerate her calling-lip of men, saying that every British division sent to France releases another 20,000 Frenchmen for the factories. Most Frenchmen are impressively moderate and disclaim any desire to dismember Germany.