NEW ALLIANCE

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5304, 17 January 1947, Page 4

NEW ALLIANCE

'THE political transfusion that ! j will come about through the ! new proposed Anglo-Freneh Alliance will be anticipated with pleasure by the great majority of the peoples of both nations. The United Kingdom and metropolitan France have more things in common now than they had prior to the second world war j and they are faced with parallel problems both in Europe and ! abroad. Nevertheless, this new l ! entente cordiale has niatured much more rapidly than' con- ! temporary reports have indi- | eated. Oue sees in this move i French revulsion from the sup- | posed trend of United States foreign policy and the older objection to becoming a western satellite of the Soviets. The eauses of the former rivalry j between the two countries in the j Levant have disappeared. French power is still dominant in North . Africa, as is that of Britain in Greece. Between these two spheres of influence, France has surrendered lier hegemony in Syria and his Britannic Majesty's Government has» evacuated Egypt. It is becoming increasingly evident that Italian economy is being more and more bound up with the United States and neither in France nor in the United King® dom has public opinion the I slightest regard for Italy as a j political partner. The two | Powers are also of oue mind in i their attitude towards Spain.

j On the future of Germany, ' ' however, there has been a dilfer- ' ence in outlook, and iittle eolj laboration between the French ! ancT American zones on the on the one hand and the British othei"? Less than a month ago, the French virtually sealed off the Saar and established a cus- , toms frontier, with 1200 officials posted on it. The British Government asked the reason for this move but as far as is known, no explanation was given. | No doubt the Government in | Paris, whieh has not disguised 1 its intention of creating an economic union with the Saar, decided to strengthen its hand in anticipation of the German peace treaty, for as the Economist remarked, "The industrial wealth of the region makes it | the potential pillar of French | reconstruction and it is very I widely assumed among France's j allies that the inclusion of the j Saar in the French economic system, coupled with some less j direet political link, would cer- ; tainly be one of the conditions ! of the German peace." From ; j now on, we may look forward to | a greater measure of co-opera-j tion between the signatories of , the proposed alliance, particu- i larly as it concerns Germany, and also in the Near and Mi'ddle j East. The French so far have j been so much more successful in j the economic administration of ; their assignecl zone of Germany ; than have the British, that con- ; cord can happily fail to react to our advantage. It is true that this alliance will be drawn with- ; in the framework of the United Nations but that cannot be re- | garded as restrictive of the aims of either country. It is interesting to recall at this juncture that on the eve of France's capitulation in June, 1940, Mr. Churchill, five days before the signing of the armistice, oifered the country Franco-British union, by whieh the nations would become one. . This treaty, six years and seven months later, is the answer.