FRENCH POLITICS

Hokitika Guardian, 20 December 1930, Page 6

FRENCH POLITICS

INSULAE OUTLOOK. FOREIGN AFFAIRS. FRENCHMAN’S ESTIMATE. (By Gordon S. Troup in Dominion). “She has no time for anything but internal politics; only with great reluctance, when invited in—or inveigled in—does she go into foreign polities. Left to herself she prefers to mind her own business."

These words have sucli a "familiar ring, that they might have been written about New Zealand. But in reality they are the considered judgment of Professor Andre Siegfried, of Paris, about his own country, in a very interesting chapter on French foreign policy in the last thirty yeais, shortly to be published by Gresset in a book entitled ..‘‘Tableau des Partis en . France. ” , That he is French can be seen from the next sentence following the extract quoted, whioh no New Zealander could have written: “This is perhaps the greatest obstacle to the dissemination of our culture throughout the world."

That he, as a Frenchman, is an exception to this generalised judgment on his countrymen, wo New Zealanders have special reason to know; for he came out here thirty years ago to write his doctoral thesis on “Democracy in New Zealand.” He must have repented of some of the complimentary things hri said of our “social and political'- -dafcuratorylf" we deserved the title then, we have rested on our -laurels ever' siffoe. The" professor -has mfeamVhile turned- 1 -his -’attention; elsetvherfe'p dhd Written most discerningly on- England ahd on America since the wAr, ; books Hrat-have 'been translated; like‘his thesis, into English. The present -Article is' ‘ a -summary and translation of one chapter published in advance in 'the weekly'“l/Europe Nonvelle." It is particularly interesting to have an estimate of his own country’s foreign policy, by this masterly observer of Social and political phenomena abroad.

DISSECTION OF MILITARY POWER He first sets forth the situation at the end of the century, as a resultant of the' 'Frdnco-Rtiss'ian alliance, the irruption of . Marxian orthodoxy into .circles visually considered intellectual, and the Dreyfufi affair.' Under the impulse of- an espionage trial in which the militaiy Caste and the established .religion /discredited', themselves in the eyes of liberals by their persecution of a 'Jewish' office'r, there was a passion fqni the. dissection- of military- power jn all its'-phasesT ' ' “Henceforth there was a divorce, in theory-Mxut; -what,” . asks the writer, “could bC more serious in France?— between the'army and'the republic, between 1 the'patriot’s ideal and democracy. Marxian internationalism with its class struggle and its denial of bourgeois 'patriotism,' Stole a mgrch on the ol d-fashioii ed re vol ut i onary ideiilism in the- ideals of radical youth. Gamhetta, the idol' of the previous generation, dropped to the rank of ‘.has-berin’. in one fell swoop, never to rise again. Thus right and left wings of , politics -renewed''or : revised their stock-in-trade. The right exalted the French bourgeois over against the proletarian internationalist, and hymned the virtues or order, hierarchy, discipline and ; Christian, wqrfaye., And the left, which soon came into power, was pacifist to the limit, not only omitting the blood and glory elements in. the new history textbooks it had written, hut even resisting the popular demand for due celebrations of the centenaries of the Napoleonic victor-

The masses, of course, had little time for these fine theories, -which were well above .their heads. But they did understand the law of minimum effort, “took full' advantage of every relaxation of discipline, shrewdly demanded, and joyfully obtained, shorter periods of training”’ POST-WAR PROBLEMS’:

This was the situation in the period ; immediately .preceding th© N war,-/ which saw all parties without distinction eo--1 operating-loyally for a. single end. The war did not make an essential change : in •the attitude:.already described, but it did reinforce already existing ten-dencies-,--and-- after; it was over, external problem's-'tended to occupy the .stage, in four main ways, which the writer thus analyses: ■ '< “First and foremost, security—the old story. Four invasions in one century are a- sovereign antidote to the pacifist fads so dear to Anglo-Saxon ‘cranks,’ and on this point every French 1 Government, whatever its colour, says the same thing in the last | analysis, namely, that we must he ready to defend ourselves if principles Ido not suffice, or if allies arrive late. (Next comes reparations and inter-allied debts. Nobody understands a word of ‘the ■ debates over figures, which are |relegated' to a dozen or two experts, jbut public opinion, had no scruples (about tlying to apply stern justice to :its debtors,'and, appeal to the hearts of jits creditors. 'This method having 'broken down, public opinion, losing {faith- With lapse 1 of time, finally ratified the Government's action without jlieafthurnlhg; •’ r ; ; J “Theit the 'organisation of peace. After the/Ruhr deadlock, the general public; l '-purged and- disabused of a few Illusions AsytP justice ! and,the support of its allies,-'reduced its demands to peace," almost at'any price.- Such'is the true inwardness of its adherence to the Franco-German rapproachment, arid to the ‘ League of Nations; at' ’which ’they first looked askance, but

'■-uMmately--' have given --their-' wholehearted support. . . . And, finally, economic reconstruction in Europe, per.; haps the most interesting innovation, for the business man has passed unreservedly over ,to the side of peace, the interlocking of interests all the world over making him hence the kingpin of every European rapproachment. On this point, economic necessity and pacifist theory work hand in hand, the union dating, if I mistake not, from 1924 at the earliest.” TENDENCIES FROM WITHOUT. The professor it not, however, blind to the way in which France, almost omnivorously, digests, as it were, tendencies coming from without. But when the elements of disturbance have been “naturalised” in France, they have succeeded in bringing about a certain modification in the strength of the ,main political groups. Th)e Left had been reinforced by “a vigorous phalap£. of exponents of peace, orthodox internationalists, apostles ol rapproachment, committee friends and leagueites, who believe with Rousseau in the goodness of man in a democracy.” At the same time, the Right has lost two valuable elements, in the captains of industry mentioned above, and in the “Catholic democrats, under the aegis of the Pope himself. . . and of the new internationalism of the Vatican, which, while maintaining the traditional conservative policy as regards the interior are pacifist in foreign outlook.” POLITICAL PARTIES.

“We are now. ready to discuss the two difficult terms “right” and left, which puzzle the unaided reader of cable- news when lie lights upon French political items. The professor sketches a fascinating sort of weather-chart, in which the conservative tendencies together form a sort of cyclone, with .its centre in “the democratic repub-lic-inn union (take no notice of these grandiloquent names) known as the ‘Marin group.” Over again them, the liberal anti-cyclone, turns “not about the communists (those fire-eaters) ndr the moderate radical socialists.” And indeed the vicissitudes of French political life from day to day, too subtle usually for Hansard' reports, amply bear out this skilful diagnosis. Whether the right or the left forces gain the mastery, Dr. Siegfried has no doubts as to the limits within which they can act. “There are brakes which can always he depended upon to act, and to maintain the former equilibrium of forces.” “Make no mistake,” lie says, in summing up, “on one side or the other French policy will continue to he hounded by two limits which it never crosses; on the one hand, the love of peace which chimes in with a taste for economy of -effort, and, on the other, the basic realisation that at all costs the safety of the frontiers must he assured. There is no avoiding this, and. all things considered, it was not a. whit different half a century ago.”