COLONIAL QUESTION

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 1, 3 January 1939, Page 7

COLONIAL QUESTION

THE FRENCH ATTITUDE

REACTION AGAINST MUNICH

Provided that Mr. Chamberlain and Lord JHalifax do not insist on discussing colonies, after all, when they come to: Paris next week, thi? problem is considered—at least for some time to come —to be dead and buried as far as France is concerned, wrote the Paris correspondent of the "Manchester Guardian" on November '18.

The campaign against the surrender of any colonies to Germany has been highly successful in Frahce and, has met with almost unanimous approval, less perhaps on its own merits than as a violent popular reaction against the humiliation suffered at Munich. Looked at from this . it is significant. ,M. Georges Bonnet,! the French Foreign Minister, without watching ihe reactions of French^: opinion as closely as he might have done, may have been pursuing a personal policy of his own. There is-reason to suppose that he is by no means pleased with the communique on the colonial question that was published by M. Daladier yesterdays after his meeting with M. Tattinger, the Vicepresident of the Colonial Committee of the Chamber.

M. Bonnet, in. pursuing his own policy in relation to Germany almost j certcilnly wished to keep colonies in reserve as a possible ' bargaining i counter... His ambition bwas first of all to produce a Franco-German declaration on the lines^the declaration signed at' Munich by Mr. Chamberlain and Herr Hitler. NON-AG<GRESSION^PACT. * This, he, hoped* would be followed by a ten or fifteen years' non-aggression pact between France and Germany, and Germany was presumably to receive something in return for it. M. Bonnet regarded himself as the nian who could best succeed in a Franco- ; German rapprochement-b-On Munich lines. It is curious that in the story published by M. Lamoufeux, one of M. Bonnet's political friends at the end of October of the. Berchtesgaden meeting between Herr Hitler and'M. Francois-Poncet the reiaark. should have been attributed to -Herr Hitler that "so long as M. Bonnet and M. Daladier were in office he -was confident in the possibility of a FrancoGerman understanding." Xy No doubt to M. Bonnet's disappointment, the German Government was slow to react to his Advances and even the preliminary Franco-German "declaration" that he was aiming at— and which fact he had hoped to receive before the Radical Congress at Marseilles—has not yet seen the light of day. It is true that since then the practical value of the. ChamberlainHitler declaration has lost much in weight,, and even if M.. Bonnet obtained his declaration now it would not impress the public as much as it might have a month ago. - POLITENESS IN GERMANY. Nevertheless, he is persisting, and the German Press, though full of violent outbursts < against England should at least, until, today, have been remarkably polite to France—except in attacking M. Paul Reynaud, the , Finance ' Minister. His financial decrees should not normally concern the German papers—and,if they attack him it is probably because they know him to be one of M. Bonnet's bitterest jpoli.'tical enemies. XX; A-./^- "x . .-•""" The Bourse is considerably better today, but the prospects of the Government were still considered uncertain. Both the Communists; and the Socialists are extremely hostile to the Reynaud decrees. The Right; taking advantage of this opposition on the Left, are hoping to buily . the Government into all kinds of strange commitments. :3"Kus the "Jour" has; suggested that :,the .Right would vote for the Government only if. it agreed to.extend the present term of the Chamber, which expired in 1940, to 1942; introduce Proportional Representation, and dissolve the Communist Party. A It is doubtful whether anything so drastic will in actual practice'be proposed, but the "mere fact-that such proposals as the dissolution of the Communist Party,' certainly favoured by some of the most reactionary employers; should even be mentioned is an indication of the state-of mind existing not among all, but at least among some, of the Right-wing deputies. OPPOSITION TO GOVERNMENT. y The French ex-servicemen's organisations, which a fortnight ago had promised to a reduction in their war pensions as a voluntary contribution to: the restoration programme, Have now refused to make any such sacrifices on the ground that none.had been asked from big capital and that the heavy indirect taxes already constituted an unduly heavy.cut of their war pensions. yln the Place d'ltalie, in the southeast end of Paris, large crowds of workmen held an improvised demon-1 stration this evening. They shouted! "Daladier resign," "Reynaud resign,"1 and "Down with the decrees." Large forces of Mobile Guards dispersed them as they tried to form1 themselves into a procession. There, were no :serious clashes, but fourteen arrests ■w ere made. ..; Tonight M. Reynaud, M. Daladier,! 'and ( M. Lebrun; the President of the Republic, spoke on the wireless in defence of the decrees. M. Daladier last night received.a unanimous vote of-confidence from the executive committee of the Radical Party.