THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY. WEDNESDAY. & FRIDAY. FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1922. ATTITUDE OF FRANCE.

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume XXXIII, Issue 4413, 12 May 1922, Page 2

THE Hauraki Plains Gazette With which is incorporated THE OHINEMURI GAZETTE. Motto: Public Service. MONDAY. WEDNESDAY. & FRIDAY. FRIDAY, MAY 12, 1922. ATTITUDE OF FRANCE.

British people all over the Empire appear to be nonplussed over the attitude of France at the recent Washington Conference ' and the present Genoa gathering. Our people cannot understand why France should oppose Britain and America on. the submarine question, or why she should refuse any financial concession to Germany or Russia in order to permit of the economic reconstruction of Europe. The outside world is amazed that devastated France should prove so uncompromising. But anyone who has observed the French character closely will hardly be surprised, for the besetting sin of the average Frenchmah is greed, and with that he has an overwhelming desire to be cock of the continental walk. In their blind avarice, the French people are unwilling to forego one franc or one mark in reparations, even though the endeavour to exact the full amount of the indemnities be foredoomed to failure. Worse than this, the French desire to crush and rule Germany in a military sense, their national vanity fooling them into the belief that they, a nation of thirty millions, can permanently subdue the Germans, who number sixty millions. The Germans frankly admit that they are beaten, though they are by no means humble over their defeat, as they say they had the world against them ; they do not bear feelings of vengeance towards the Allies on account of the reparations, but they certainly are bitterly incensed at the desire of the French to crush them absolutely as a nation. The old hatred by the Germans against the British has turned from us to France. They believe that Great Britain desires to deal fairly with all the world, including Germany. Bismarck warned the Kaiser that Germany would have to pay dearly for the annexation

of Alsace and Lorraine, but the advice went unheeded. The lost provinces have now been restored to France, but she is wanting to go further into Germany, and to commit similar follies which will bring on a further war some But we are mainly concerned with the economic.aspect at present. The curse of reparations money is upon us, .despite the warning of history. Within two years of the termination of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 Farnce, the vanquished, paid Prussia (States later welded into Germany) the largest indemnity that had ever been imposed on a nation up to that time, and yet France became prosperous and at the same time there were public soup kitchens in Berlin. Money not received in exchange for goods supplied is a curse. Today there is plenty of employment in Germany, but little money, while in Great Britain money is plentiful—and so is unemployment. The remedy for this chaotic state of affairs is to , reduce the reparations amounts to what Germany can pay without being crippled; that is, pay in the form of goods and not in paper money, for in State finance the printing-press is “the primrose path to the everlasting bonfire.” Great Britain needs German goods, and her merchants are being seriously handicapped by the refusal of the Germans to sell goods -to England and have a reparations percentage deducted, especially when they can sell equally well to other countries. Thus in the competition of the world'Great Britain is suffering. Let us pursue the matter further in regard to Russia, for the interests of Great Britain are the interests of the Empire, and, as greater includes the lesser, the interests of New Zealand, and of the Thames Valley and Hauraki Plains portion of this Dominion. It is as well to bring these broad subjects right home when they have such a near bearing. In Russia, again, Britain was once able to secure enormous supplies of raw materials for her manufactories, but these are now cut. off, and will remain so until an , agreement can, be arrived at between the Allied Powers and Russia. The release of this raw material would provide work for Great Britain’s unemployed, and, owing to the purchasing power of the people - being increased thereby, they would be able to purchase larger quantities of New. Zealand butter, cheese, beef. - wool, etc. But grasping France is barring the way to settlement'in this direction also, she being self-contained and not having an unemployment problem to solve. The policy of France at Washington has largely alienated the" sympathies of Americans, at Genoa France has offended nearly all the Great Powers; in the Near East she has thwarted British interests, and one way and another France is endeavouring to become a miserly military dictator of Europe. To place crushing burdens upon Germany, and then expect her to continue paying reparations is as though one deliberately ruined a debtor and . then expected him to . pay up. The quicker the Allies trade with both Germany and Russia the better for us all, and the sooner we will be relieved of the imposition of extortionate charges by our own captains of industry. We are at present being made to pay dearly for our patriotism, while Australia is benefiting by trading with Germany in those things the latter can best supply. Patriotism is a fine thing—too fine to be abused any longer for the sake of a gigantic Allied commercial combine. Great Britain, Germany, and Russia used to be each others best customers —and the sooner we revert to the old conditions the better for all concerned.