FUTURE OF EUROPE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 21 November 1939, Page 6

FUTURE OF EUROPE

VEIL NOT YET LIFTED. ANY TERMS YET OFFERED INTOLERABLE. "Nobody can say at this moment,” remarked “The Manchester Guardian." in an editorial on October 4. "what is going to happen to Europe in the next few months in consequence of the German invasion of Poland. How far will war spread? Into what combinations will different States be forced? Will racial sentiment or class fear and class ; hatred be stronger in those peoples who are drawn in one direction by the first and in the other by the second? Are we entering on a chapter of history as violent, as swift and as dramatic in its surprises as that through which Europe passed when the French Revolution throw up Napoleon'.’ To those questions no answer can be given in this country or indeed in any other. Who could have foretold when Napoleon and the Tsar Alexander signed the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807 that Napoleon would one day lose in the Russian snows mi army resembling in its size and in the variety of races serving in its ranks the army Xerxes led to Greece? In a doubtful and changing world much must depend on diplomatic skill. We may take it that in his recent speech, a speech which, in fact, may lead to a most unfortunate misunderstanding abroad, Mr Lloyd George was anxious to impress on Ministers the need for wisdom and care in managing the temper of neutral Powers. His speech showed that ho is as much, convinced as anybody else that the proposals that have been so far thrown out are quite intolerable, for he said outright that we could not accept the conquest of Poland as an accomplished fact. The reply to any proposals, however firm and consistent in its refusal of terms, should, of course, be so drafted as to convince the world • that our aims in the war are not selfish."