FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 9 June 1917, Page 5

FRANCE.

FRENCH WAR POLICY. THE SOCIALIST PROGRAMME. SEPARATION FOR DAMAGE AX© ATROCITIES, Paris, June 7. I" the Senate, M. RegTsroanset introduced an interpellation inviting M. Ribot to define the general policy of Franco. Ho said the Senate was unanimously indignant when seven Frenchmen proposed to go to Stockholm to confer with Germans. It wished to share the Government's responsibilities, being unable to admit that Frenchmen should show the least sign of halting when the country waR still invaded.

JI. Ribot replied that the German I Socialists from the first had been con- j scions accomplices of the crimen against humanity, and even now approved the atrocities by their culpabln silence. It was morally impossible fojr Frenchmen in the middle of war to confer with such enemies. Such confabulations in foreign towns would only create an illusion of peace thiib was dangerous. Never at any moment, especially when the struggle was hardest, because its end was approaching, could they leave such an illusion in the. public mind. The army of France require/! all its strength, especially its moral strength. As befitted free men, they did not feelc captious and equivocal formulas. They rejected the trap laid in the Stockholm Conference as they rejected the trap laid in a seductive formula which had not originated in Petrograd, but was imported from elsewhere; its birthplace iwas only too obvious.

"The words 'no annexations' cannot mean that we. have no right to demand what belongs to us, namely, Alsace and Lorraine, which have never ceased to be French at heart since the abominable act which violated justice and right in 1871. "But what is meant by 'no indemnities'? If it is a question of humbling the conquered, we will have nothing to do with it, but \w French Government could renounce reparation for damages and. atrocities. After the unprecedented devastations of our territory it is not an arbitrary act, but an act of justice which is our aim. We are convinced me shall find these Ideas reflected in President Wilson's Note to Petrograd. AVc are thus in complete agreement with the conscience of the civilised world in the resolution adopted by the Chamber." 31 Ribot added: "We must demand guarantees to safeguard our children from the return of such horrors. Shall we find them in territorial acquisitions or temporary occupation of territory, or the neutralisation of territory? All these questions will be considered when the time comes. Our best guarantee will be the re-formation of a Europe in which 'all nations belong to themselves, where no single man can let loose such evils. If necessary the Germans should consent, for I believe in the power of the ideas of justice. All those who have fought, together to the end will find they need not be separated after victory. They must form a League of Peace in the true democratic spirit which France had the honor of introducing into the world. We nations in arms will form a society of nations in which the future of humanity lies. All nations which are not nations of prey must unit* to prevent others disturbing the peace." Atter M. Ribot's speech the Senate adopted a unanimous vote of confidence in the Government, affirming that peace was possible only on the lines laid down in the speech.