Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JUNE 24, 1940. AN ACT OF BETRAYAL.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 24 June 1940, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age MONDAY, JUNE 24, 1940. AN ACT OF BETRAYAL.

ALL French people, it may be supposed, who are not the victims of a strange obsession, will share in full measure the grief and amazement expressed by the British Prime M- in " ister (Mr Winston Churchill), on behalf of his Majesty’s Government, at the acceptance by the Bordeaux Government of the terms dictated by the Germans —terms under which the whole of the resources of France, the French Empire and the French Navy would be placed in the hands of the enemy for use against the Allies. The acceptance of these terms, which it must be hoped will never take anything like full effect, plainly is a betrayal of France as well as of the Allied cause to which France was and is pledged.

No plea of helplessness can justify the supine acceptance by the Bordeaux Government of the terms dictated by the Nazis. Heavy as are the military disasters she has suffered in her home territory, France is not completely conquered and helpless In spite of its superficial plausibility, the . glib declaration of M. Pierre Laval that France cannot be saved by leaving her embodies a gross fallacy. As declarations from all peris of her colonial empire—the latest from Syria and Lebanon —bear witness, France is possessed still of great and unconquered resources in areas not penetrated by the enemy and in which her people are determined to maintain an indomitable resistance. If the French Navy and Air Forcd are lost to France and to the Allied cause it can only be because they have been surrendered needlessly as part and parcel of a far-reaching betrayal of the nation.

The answer to M. Laval’s dictum is that France may be saved by leaving her and undoubtedly would be doomed finally and irretrievably if the policy of the Bordeaux Government were carried to its logical conclusion. Future hope for France depends primarily upon the decision of that Government being disowned and upon the readiness of all Frenchmen “outside the power of the enemy,” in Mr Churchill’s phrase, to join the Allies in upholding the common cause.

That Frenchmen will continue to play a part in the war worthy of the heroism with which they have battled thus far against overwhelming odds goes without saying, but the scale upon which action will now be possible, in the French overseas territories and elsewhere, must depend on the extent to which the national organisation has been undermined and weakened needlessly by the deplorable feebleness of the Bordeaux Government.

A rallying call to Frenchmen who wish to do what they may to safeguard the future of their country is being sounded by Britain, and also by General de Gaulle, who was Undersecretary for War in the Reynaud Cabinet. General de Gaulle has denounced the acceptance of armistice terms which violate honour, common sense and the supreme interest of France, and has called upon all Frenchmen who wish to remain free to get into touch with him. That there will be a loyal response to these appeals is not in doubt, but how far the unexhausted and undamaged resources of France and the French Empire have been betrayed to the enemy by the Bordeaux Government has yet to appear.