PEACE IN EUROPE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 2 January 1942, Page 4

PEACE IN EUROPE

LAVAL AND HIS ARGUMENTS. FRANCO-GERMAN FRIENDSHIP. Laval is trying to convince Frenchmen that the only road to real peace in Europe is Franco-German friendship, says an overseas publication. There must be, according to him, an understanding between the two countries. "Mothers will bless me in ages to come,” he says. But what he is careful not to state with frankness is that understanding means submission. It is always easy to submit. But the French are not a nation to submit.

France was always willing to collaborate with any nation. The history of France during the last hundred years has been a proof of this. The history of Germany has been a proof of a constant desire for conquest and aggression. i

The arguments of Laval are almost childish. He glosses over the fact that a million and a half young Frenchmen are deliberately held prisoners as a bargaining force and as a means of ensuring that France’s population shall sink lower than ever before. Let him talk as he will about collaboration with “kind hearted” Germany to the fathers and mothers of the prisoners held as hostages, he will convince none of them.

There are in England many of us who are convinced as he is that the future peace of 'the world depends on friendship, but it must be a friendship freely given and freely deserved. A way was laid open at Geneva for friendship between France and Germany and every other country. It was made impossible by German intrigue. Talk of “Herrenwolk” is not heard in France. Talk of peace with the German oppressor will find no echo in any true French heart.