BRITAIN AND FRANCE.

Taranaki Daily News, 24 December 1921, Page 10

BRITAIN AND FRANCE.

THE FRENCH VIEWPOINT. A stirring appeal for fair play for France was made recently by M. Jounart, president of the Association of France-Grande Bretagne. Thero was, he said, no justification for the idea that France had developed militarist or imperialist tendencies, or sought annexation or conquest. She had wished the treaty to be applied in all particulars. Her security and economic and financial recovery depended upon it. Germany was beaten, yet while the soil of France had suffered frightful devastation the territory of Germany remained intact, her factories were left standing, her soil had suffered no depreciation, and at the present moment her taxpayers were less heavily burdened than those of France. Germany still refused to recognise the horror of her crime. France demanded that she should make reparation and should pay. Impunity would be another crime. The war had left England in a situation happily less tragic. England had made enormous, sacrifices, but had not known the long cruel years of invasion. By virtue of the treaty England had put her hand on the greater part of the commercial fleet of Germany and of the German possessions in Africa. She had for her security insisted upon the delivery or destruction of her enemy’s warships, while the security of France remained always menaced by the ill-will and bad-faith which Germany had displayed in regard to disarmament. France was not nervous. France was well and industrious and full of calm and true courage worthy of praise. But

she had already made too many concessions. She must not bp asked for more; she had suffered too horibly, and

the questions which were being discussed to-day were for her questions of lite or death. France was not eager fm reprisals and vengeance. She manifested only * healthy instinct oi conservation.