Our Friendship With France.

Hokitika Guardian, 13 May 1922, Page 4

Our Friendship With France.

LORD DERRY’S APRIL!I

On behalf of-the Association of Grcai Britain and France, of which he is president, Lord Derby has issued the following appeal to remove misunderstandings and promote a belter feeling between the two countries:—

"In France, public attention has, rime the war, been fixed upon the lepaiAti' ii ,q| the material havoc wrought in the unrlh-eastern departments—a region which plays a part in t!|e industrial and eonmuTcial life of France comparable to that of Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the .Midlands in the economic hie ol England—and ujxm Re necessity of seeming from Germany redress for devastation which Germany caused directly and dcliberatclv.

“The British people, on 11}.; ot 1 (>'■ liniul, fool 1 |ui 1 they ton,, l|pyp suffered severely from tl:e war. far more sever lv than, tlio.v think, the French realise. Importguit sections' of t 1 e British people feel tilso that, bv the insistence upon the prompt payment of reparations by Germany, France is impeding' the economic recovery of Kurope, and, consequently, a re viva I of liritisli trade. "This fooling', is scarcely justified. T|ie rpiestiqii of reparations is certainly proipinenf in Frepeli minds, hut alongside of jt stands the question of the security of France against any fresh German invasion and the loss’s and sufferings which such an invasion, even Here it successfully resisted, must entail. The '’rench thought they had obtained security through the Peace Treaty when, in return for a guarantee from the British ICmpire and the 1 United States, they accepted terri- j torial arrangements which the Allied representatives at the Peace Conference ; thought sufficient. "The United States failed to ratify the Peace Treaty and the American guarantee lapsed. The Hritish guarantee, which was linked with it. was also regarded as having lapsed. Cons--quen tly, tip; French felt their reliance upon guarantees of the Peace Treaty and upon their Allies to have been misplaced. Til 1C PACT. 1 "When Great Britain proposed to renew the guarantee by a special pact the proposal appeared to France to he hound up with the conditions that she should change her attitude towards reparations and should also attend a conference of many nations at Genoa, of which the programme was vague. “It (French feeling) did not revolt against the idea. of the Pact of Guar- i antee in itself, for French opinion J favours overwhelmingly a hearty reciprocal agreement with Great Britain. I hut against the manner in which the conclusion of the Pact was mady to np- I pear conditional upon the adoption of J a policy which the French people did i not understand.

“Surely the charge which is often | made that France is - militarist because she keeps a comparatively large army J to meet any possible danger from Geimony, is unjustifiable, especially m Great iJyißyii, ,\vliei;o the .danger is as common to this country as it is to France, This very fact incidentally re-

lieves this country from the necessity of increased expenditure. “Rut apart .from the reasons for the conclusion of the Pact, theie arc the considerations that when once it has been concluded a basis will have been created for further agreement and constant co-operation between Great Britain and France, not only for their own immediate objects but for the restoration, economic and political, of Europe as a whole to a condition of greater stability.”