Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1938. ANGLO-FRENCH AGREEMENT.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 30 November 1938, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 30, 1938. ANGLO-FRENCH AGREEMENT.

APART from his assurance that no additional commitments or obligations were accepted on behalf of Britain in the conversations which have just concluded in Paris, the statement made by the British Prime Minister (Mr Neville Chamberlain) in the House of Commons on Monday appears to have been east in somewhat depressingly vague and general terras, Mr Chamberlain, indeed, is reported to have said that as the purpose of the meeting was to exchange views rather than to take decisions, he was not in a. position to make a more detailed statement on the conversations. However gratifying it may be to learn from Mr Chamberlain that the British and French Ministers found themselves “in complete agreement on general policy, which in both cases finds its main objective in the preservation and consolidation of peace,” some specific indication of the lines on which it is proposed to approach that admirable objective would have been still more encouraging. It is by this time fairly well understood that the crisis in Europe did not end at Munich, but rather passed from one phase into another and perhaps still more critical phase. Bor the time at least, the League of Nations, the agreements it sponsored in the interests of collective security and the special treaties, which in France’s case linked her with Russia and a number of the smaller nations in Eastern Europe, have been set aside. Even those who admit readily that a far-reaching revision of the Treaty of Versailles was a necessary contribution to appeasement in Europe may feel that the conditions now reached' are more disturbing and more dangerous than those , that' have been swept away. With all tire nations, or an effective majority of their number, intent on justice and peace, a complete remedy for what is at fault in the existing state of affairs would be found in the reconstitution, and strengthening of the League of Nations. It has bden well said that if the League has failed, this is due not to the application, but to the rejection of its principles. At present, however, while the European democracies presumably would be glad to concentrate on the rehabilitation of the League, Germany and Italy plainly are of another mind. Both the Fascist Powers are committed frankly to the policy of gaining their ends by methods of force, and are pursuing these methods with considerable success, this appears, not only in Germany’s seizure of*Austria and in her virtual conquest of Czechoslovakia and its after-effects, but in the fact that the invasion of Spain by German and Italian forces admittedly is being continued. The latest evidence on this subject is supplied in the report of a question and answer in the House of Commons on Monday. The Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs (Mr R. A. Butler) was asked whether any Italian or German troops, with Avar material, had arrived in Spain during recent weeks. He replied that “such information, as had been received would indicate that some assistance had been received from those countries during the last two months.” A settlement in Spain was declared until recently to be an essential condition on which the implementation of the Anglo-Italian Agreement must depend. That agreement has been implemented, however, with Italy and Germany still pursuing unchecked their course of aggression in Spain. It appears to be by no means an unfair or ungenerous criticism of Mr Chamberlain’s efforts for peace to suggest that the state of affairs ruling in Spain is typical of general conditions in Europe, in so far as these turn on 'the relationships between the dictatorships ami the democracies. With matters in this state, what good purpose is to be served by Mr Chamberlain’s statement about complete agreement between Britain and France on general policy which “finds its main objective in the preservation and consolidation of peace?” The weakness of the present position is in the absence of evidence that. Britain and France are making any other contribution to peace than in yielding to aggression and letting the aggressors have their way.