Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1942. AN UNDESIRABLE ASSOCIATE.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 17 December 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age THURSDAY, DECEMBER 17, 1942. AN UNDESIRABLE ASSOCIATE.

TN spite of the reassuring statements tliat have been made by . President Roosevelt and his Secretary of State (Mr Cordell Hid I) good grounds appear for the uneasiness with which the recognition extended to Admiral Darlan is regarded in Britain and elsewhere. The immediate position is that high status and authority in North Africa have been conceded to one who very recently was a member of an administration committed to the closest possible collaboration with Nazi Germany. Darlan was then a declared and bitter enemy of the United Nations and of French democracy. The supple opportunism of his present change-over is«as little calculated as anything could be to command either confidence or respect.

.President Roosevelt lias said that the agreement with Darlan is purely military, but how such an agreement can be divorced entirely from political implications is not clearly apparent. It must be hoped that the agreement with Darlan, besides being purely military, is also merely temporary. In the' extent to which this agreement set a period to conflict between Allied and French forces in North Africa, and averted any such conflict in. French West Africa, it no doubt was justified, but in the outcome the responsibility must rest on the Allies of refusing to allow Darlan to use military power for his own political ends or those of his recent associates. To an extent the problems involved may solve themselves. It is-perhaps not unlikely that when the Allies have completed an effective occupation of French North and West Africa, and have made an end of enemy resistance in Libya and Tunisia, any influence now exercised by Darlan may rapidly fade and disappear. Under the declared war aims of the United Nations a stage in any case must eventually be reached at which the French people will be ensured a free and unhampered opportunity of reorganising their political life in accordance with their own ideas and desires. In conditions of enemy occupation and oppression, French political parties as they existed before the war have been largely wrecked and broken up and many of them have been split and divided by internal differences. Those who speak with knowledge and from recent observation of the trend of genuine opinion in France, however, are confident that when the time comes her people will rally in support of the re-establishment of democratic rule. Writing on this subject not long ago in the “Christian Science Monitor,” Mr Egon Kaskeline affirmed that all underground groups in France “are unanimous in their request' that nobody who shared in the Vichy setup shall be allowed to participate in the reconstruction of France.” . General de Gaulle, Mr Kaskeline added, is considered as the undisputed leader of French resistance and,- at the same time, the only possible personality to direct French affairs during a period of transition. He might possibly share this responsibility with Edouard Herriot, President of the Chamber,'' and Jules Jeanneney, President of the Senate. After this period of transition, the French people will be called upon to elect a National Assembly. In these developments obviously there is no place .for Admiral Darlan. Association with him at present is an embarrassment to the Allies. The earliest possible termination of that.association is demanded, not only in justice to France, but in order that the United Nations may uphold and carry out their declared aims. There can be no dealings of an amicable kind with men of the Darlan type when the time comes to re-establish peace in Europe.