DILEMMA OF FRANCE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 155, 29 December 1938, Page 11

DILEMMA OF FRANCE

•POWER-OR FREEDOM?

THE CHOICE PRESENTED

France is faced with the most vital problem of its Whole history, writes Sisl'ey Huddlestoa from Paris to the "Christian Science Monitor." It has to decide whether it prefers to be a first-class Power, at the price ;of a regimentation not dlissimilar from that of totalitarian countries; or whether it is content to coumt less in European politics than it' has in the past, but remain free, intellectual, and happy >

Many people will find that an extreme way of expressing the dilemma of France. Yet it is only necessary to read the newspapers to discover, that a consciousness of the choice has reached those whotse business it is to think about France's future. It is realised that tokeo.p step with highly organised countries like Germany, there must be not only a complete change of industrial methods, but a corresponding change in the political and moral spheres.' In other words, France will have to imitate much that it has hitherto condemned in dictatorship countries.

Even in England, which has always been far more disciplined than France, there are hints of a certain restriction;. of liberty in order to .keep pace with German production. Mr. Anthony Eden says that "the whole tempo of our lives will be radically altered, and changes may be called for in our social and economic structure as farreaching as those whiclo. have taken place elsewhere. . ; . We must sink differences of parties awd class in a supreme! national effort.*' Obviously if such words have any lb&eaning they are an appeal for discipline unity to which a good deal of freedom must be voluntarily sacrificed, s ' WILLINGNESS FOR SACRIFICES. Now the temperament ofi the British would certainly not admil); the worst, features of regimes in which everything is subordinated to th<s State. But in France it is being questioned whether it is worth while to surrender those very qualities that make France what it is, fc^r the sake of competing with Germany's intense management. . •Every great nation lives \by collective sacrifices. However imftich we deplore some of the consequences of National.Socialism in Germikny, and of Fascism in Italy, there c&a be no doubt of the general willinigness of the people to make sacrifices for what is considered to be the naticinal cause. No such national cause exists in France. Frenchmen will defend their soil against invasion, but I frenchmen are not prepared— as'has recently been shown—to go outside their own boundaries. Nor are Frenchmen prepared to become automata. They wSII not be drilled and dragooned. Incidentally, the reason why the 40----hour^ week failed in France was that Frenchmen refused to speed tip their work—they are accustomed to "work in* leisurely fashion,,if necessary-for long hours, and are opposed to tlie stern discipline of intensive production. "WHERE PEOPLE ARE HAPPiV' France, as M. Detoeuf properly declares, is a country where people are happy, where unemployment is almost unknown, where the peasantry i;^ peace ful and sound, where work cantaot be forced, where thinking is uttttrammelled, where the individual possesses common sense, imagination, n Moderation, resourcefulness. These are' things that cannot be abandoned. : ' Will France give up politic ss, the luxury of- disputation which it loves, its philosophy of life, its essential morality? If it did, it would no longer be France. "If we decide to be naighty, we shall have to go on a war footing," affirms M. Detoeuf. "We shall! have to give up talking, laughing, keeping our social positions, taking holidays, having pensions. ... It is impossible, with a free population of M 0,000,000, to have the armaments of a countiry of 80,000,000 on a military footing. It is impossible to be mighty while working forty hours, when our neighbours are working sixty; while arguing, when our neighbours obey. . . ." \ It would be wrong to conclude that France should abdicate its place among the nations. /But the question raally does arise whether it can maintainl, its former place on the purely material ground. !

In some respects it is, indeed, mbre fortunate than its neighbour. It Ftossesses inexhaustible resources, whole Germany lacks raw materials. It Us almost permissible to put the matter in an epigram: France has immense resources without management, while Germany has . efficient management without resources. Perhaps here lies tbje key of wise French policy. France has something to give—it can maintain its position by co-operation.

The point is that in any direct material—not to say military—rivalry with. Germany, France would run the risk: of coming off second-best, even though, it adopted German methods and ceased to be the France that we know. ;

It appears unprofitable to concentrate on material might, and to subordinate to material might all those moral qualities which give France its supreme charm, if in the end France will only become an inferior Germany. What though French industry is not so highly organised and Frenchmen not so highly disciplined and the French military forces* not so great?. Is it not more important to preserve that feeling of freedom, of fraternity, of equality, that sense of measure, that appreciation of true leisure, that intellectual liveliness, which are the traditional characteristics of the French, and which have given France its real influence? Anyhow here is France's supreme problem, and it must soon reply decisively.