Card Houses

Press, Volume LXXI, Issue 21411, 1 March 1935, Page 12

Card Houses

Watching European diplomats at work trying to build up a complete European security system is like watching children trying to build a house out of cards. Putting together the first few cards is comparatively easy; but with each addition the structure becomes less stable until eventually it collapses under its own

weight. So it was with the Four Power Pact and the Eastern Locarno projects. As power was balanced against power and guarantee against guarantee the equilibrium of the whole became more and more unstable until finally it was upset by a trifle. At present Europe is breathlessly watching the effort to bring another of these card houses to completion. There is an Anglo-French agreement, a Franco-Italian agreement, a Franco-Russian agreement, and a whole network of agreements affecting the smaller powers. Germany is, as it were, the last card to be added, the card that will either complete the structure or bring it toppling to the ground. The task of bringing Germany in has fallen to the British Government; and this is the significance of.Sir John Simon's impending visit to Berlin. At the moment his chances of success are fairly bright. The two crucial issues are whether Germany will be satisfied with the measure of rearmament to be allowed her and whether she will be prepared to guarantee the integrity of Austria in a manner acceptable to France and Italy. To judge by the conciliatory tone of the latest German note and the recent improvement in the relations between Germany and Austria there should be no insuperable difficulties in the way of a settlement. The question is whether the structure will be much use when it is completed, whether it will be anything more than an ingenious but unstable balance of contending forces. Even the meagre details of the agreements so far published are sufficient to supply the answer. Here is no system of hard and fast guarantees. The FrancoItalian agreement, for instance, provides merely for " consultation " between the parties when certain common interests are affected. In some cases there are specific undertakings to go to war against an aggressor nation; but as there is no attempt anywhere to arrive at a satisfactory definition of aggression the undertakings have very little real value. If the project is successful it can have only two real benefits —a temporary relaxation of the present tension in Europe and the return of Germany to the League of Nations. And if Germany returns to the League the ingenuity of the diplomats will not have been wasted, since it will then be possible to resume the task of erec'inn a security system en sound foundations. Th >se ioundations must be the reduction and control of armaments and the strengthening of the sanctions clauses in the League covenant.