THE 'RUPTURE CORDIALE' THIS delightful title for the characterization of the present somewhat academic Franco-British difference was chosen by the Outlook of March 3 for the following lively series of grumbles and threats: forgetting that this pre-war "control" existed on sufferance, because we were compelled to keep our fighting force in the North Sea. They may be assured that the Admiralty will henceforth be ready and able to deal anywhere with the combined navies of Europe. "Those of our "Allies" who think in 'We were vociferously told from these terms will find Italy a weak reed Paris, when Mr. Bonar Law declined to to lean upon, if the question of enmity enter the Ruhr and the rupture cordiale to England comes to the fore. Nor are was consummated, that Great Britain they altogether happy at the thought of had isolated herself from the Continent. Germany and Russia remaining unEver since, the French, having won attached, for these two Powers, whatmost doubtful and half-hearted diplo- ever their present plight, might form matic adhesion, though no physical the nucleus of a new Entente with support, from Italy, and having dra- Great Britain, that within a decade or gooned Belgium, now an economic and two at most would command infinitely military vassal of France, into becom- more strength in man-power, in finance, ing an accomplice, have spoken of their in industry, than the rest of the Conactivities in Germany as the acts of tinent combined. Accordingly, we find "the Allies." The natural result of this a significant change of French opinion situation is now upon us in the shape of and attitude toward Moscow. It has hydra-headed rumors of new coalitions been France, as all the world knows, in Europe, all of them more or less who since the Armistice has stood most openly directed against ourselves. We firmly against any recognition or hear most talk of the Latin bloc, France economic assistance for Russia, and it - dragging along Belgium, of course- was France who professed to see in the and Italy at the head of it, Poland and Rapallo Treaty a menace directed Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia as its against herself. Now, however, there satellites. Some Frenchmen even know are flirtations proceeding- unofficialso little about sea power as to speak in ly, of course - in Paris between the their press of the French and Italian French Government and a Bolshevist fleets controlling the Mediterranean, Mission. France for a generation be Copyright 1923, by the Living Age Co. fore the war looked to Petersburg as her safeguard against Berlin, and the most far-seeing of her old school diplomatists at the time of the Peace Conference admitted frankly that in seeking to bolster up Poland as an eastern bulwark against Germany, they were erecting what they knew to be a temporary stop-gap to last only till the day when Russia should return to sanity, again raise huge armies, and reëmbrace the French alliance. --- "There remains Germany. It is not a little astonishing, at first glance, to find hints of a rapprochement with the hated Huns accompanying the drastic coercion of Germany which France is seeking to accomplish in the Ruhr. Nevertheless, such suggestions are appearing. The French theory seems to be that if you kick a German enough he will become your docile slave, and after that may be used as an instrument to further your policies against other people whom you and your friends may not be strong enough to deal with. Frenchmen are notoriously logical, even when their logic, as in this case, through their ignorance of the psychology of other peoples, rests upon false premises. "What else can the Germans do," we can imagine M. Poincaré asking, "but come within our political and economic orbit, since we propose to hammer them until they agree?" The economic part of the French scheme is to rest upon a Franco-German metallurgical combine. Indeed, we are informed that within the past fortnight the three greatest European steel magnates, Herr Stinnes of Germany, and MM. Schneider and De Wendel of France, have expressed themselves, in conversation with eminent Englishmen, as convinced that a pan-European Steel Trust is inevitable, despite the mutual hatreds of their people. M. Schneider is the head of Creusots, M. De Wendel the iron-king of Lorraine. Schneider and his colleagues now con trol the famous Skoda works in Austria the Stinnes group have bought u other iron and steel industries there and should this combine prove prac ticable, the proposed Steel Trust woul have a possible output of thirty millio: tons a year, equal to that of the Unite States Steel Corporation. "This all sounds plausible enough there is undoubted economic absurdity in the French importing coke fror England to keep alight their blas furnaces in Lorraine when there is plenty of coke a few miles away in th Ruhr, and in the Germans obtaining iron ore from Newfoundland for thei factories in the Ruhr when the mines of Lorraine lie within sight from the top of their chimneys. However, Hers Stinnes sees no reason why the French should obtain 51 per cent of his shares and then gradually elbow him out of his own industries, while MM. Schnei der and De Wendel know well enough the superior intelligence and organiza tion of their German friends, and what would be the fate of themselves if they went into the combination with the Germans on equal terms. So we are afraid that inexorable economic lav must for the present give way to the illogical facts of the political situation and English iron and steel men have yet no cause to tremble before a com bine with which they could scarcely hope to compete in the European market. 'We have no desire to brush away all these rumors of an anti-British coalition as mere figments of fancy bred of desire and moonshine. Within so much smoke w must lurk a little flame. However there exists no reason for alarm at the G prospects of our ruin gloated upon t by our grateful Allies, and no need that we should immediately rush forth into b the highways to seek friends, so that cr we shall not stand alone in the day of sh w aperil. In seeking to restore economic ustrisanity and get the world back to work, ht Great Britain is fighting the battles not the only of herself, but of America, Japan, prand of Germany- and those nations wo realize this. We are also, of course, milli through the same policy, trying to help Unit France and Russia as well- and the day may come when a sane opinion in mouthose nations will recognize as much, urdand cast down the war-mongers and fre Machiavellian diplomatists by the bla Seine, the Marx-crazed fanatics of the ere Kremlin. Nevertheless, we think the inTimes has done a public service in ainiemphasizing with large headlines its the rather cryptic and confusing dispatches nes about French efforts to isolate this tocountry. He 'Our danger lies in the ignorance of ren public opinion, and the continued prevhaalence of war sentimentality. Politicians and journalists often make the the mistake of assuming, because they and ou their friends all agree as to the essential nifacts of a situation, that the mass of whour population must take the same the view. Britain needs now a campaign of education, to educate public opinion to the obvious rudimentary facts about the Continental situation. It is no longer the humbled Junkers of Prussia tic or the impotent theorists of Moscow hat who are our open and avowed enemies, cor but the ruling class soon, we hope, to suffer the fate of its German and De Russian predecessors in the Third French Republic. While there are peoviple still left in England so innocent as to talk of keeping our troops in Geres many so that France may not feel no we have abandoned her, a common phrase one hears in Paris is "England's th Gibraltar on the Rhine." Well, we are there under the Treaty, and it may be the well to stay there, not to please France, int but to hinder her so far as possible from the creating a new Alsace-Lorraine that shall some day drag us into war to evel - repair the injustice of 1923, as we fought in 1914 to undo the crime of 1871. A pronouncement to this effect from the Treasury bench would rally, with insignificant exceptions, the whole of England behind it. We do not suggest that we could maintain ourselves in Cologne if the French tried to put us out; but it would be more dignified, more worthy of English traditions, and in the long run more farsighted, to let it be known that whoever moves against any territory that we hold in trust, whether on the Rhine or elsewhere, becomes our enemy.' THE SAAR THE second installment of the notorious Dariac secret report was published the first week in March, and has fed the British fury against French direct action in Germany. This chapter deals with the Saar territory, and, as the Manchester Guardian avers, 'casts a lurid light upon the aspirations cherished by important circles in France, and renders ludicrous M. Poincaré's assurances that no Frenchman who counts desires to annex any German territory.' M. Dariac propounds an elaborate scheme for purifying the population by removing persons unfriendly to the French, and for cajoling public opinion by the adroit utilization of press and pulpit in such a manner as to render the plebiscite due to be held in 1935 more or less a farce. The danger to France of allowing the population of the Saar to express its aspirations and grievances by means of popular assemblies is frankly pointed out. This seemed necessary on account of the insistence by an element of the French press upon a certain modification of the Saar régime, as a condition of the treaty which France hopes to impose upon Germany at the conclusion of the present demi-war in the Ruhr. Great Britain would certainly 'view with alarm' any apparent intention to make the Saar district, containing some 700,000 purely German inhabitants, a tacit, though veiled, annex of the French Republic. GERMAN MARITIME REVIVAL In our issue of March 10 we printed some remarks on the merchant-fleet activities of America, Great Britain, and Japan. The practical rebirth of the German merchant marine is causing France considerable alarm. The central committee of French shipowners has published a pamphlet passing in review the development of this remarkable comeback. 'On the morrow of the peace Germany found herself confronted by a very serious problem. She was without a merchant fleet, an essentially important element in any attempt to regain her position as a Major Power. She decided to apply herself to the immediate solution of this problem, and not leave it exposed to the hazards of her confused condition or revolutionary uncertainties. On the contrary, she went about it with the most deliberate sang-froid. She still possessed, as guides, her old traditions and certain, surviving units of pre-war times. Beginning modestly with these, and renewing relations with shipping interests of the United States, she reëstablished her maritime trade, and soon set in motion again the whole excellent system of agencies and business relations of which the Treaty of Versailles did not deprive her. "This was the start a very humble one, naturally; but Germany is now applying herself feverishly to the reconstruction and development of her merchant fleet. She employs all means simultaneously — chartering, repur chase, new construction. And she succeeding. Two years after delivering to the Entente her forfeited craft Germany possesses a merchant marine approaching one and a half millions of gross tonnage. From the start shee recognized the necessity of a pretended healthy financial state of her shipping and dockyards, as well as actually affording material assistance. The Government placed a credit of some twelve billion marks at the disposition of the shipowners. Other official finans cial aid to dockyards and maritime operations followed. The German pub-the lic has always enthusiastically ap plauded these advances, and in soc doing testified to the greater popular sympathy with their object. 'From the promulgation of the me Treaty of Versailles to the present day to is about three years, and this brief space of time has sufficed for Germany co to become once more a maritime power. The fact is somewhat surprising but ce explicable. Many causes have been at th work to effect this quasi-resurrection. T Some of them are natural, such as the economic force of Germany, the talent for organization of her shipping inter ests, the discipline and patriotism of g the personnel, and so forth. These are B genuine and permanent causes which ce are bound to benefit any merchant marine, and especially Germany's, under any circumstances. 'Other causes may be described as H artificial, even ephemeral, such as, for fi xample, the depreciation of the mark, hich has greatly benefited the German erchant fleet just at a period in hich those under other flags were xposed to serious difficulties. Causes ke this last are far less important than he first mentioned, and should not be ssigned too much significance.' Commenting upon this report Le Temps of February 13 says: "This general summing-up of the shipowner's committee is of particular interest, as t shows us how, on the sea as elsewhere, he billions due the Allies by virtue of the treaty of peace have been used by che Reich to subvention German industry. Of the mass of statistics that prove this we limit ourselves to mentioning the following: After the surrender of the German ships to the Allies, the ten German shipping firms, which owned before the war 541 vessels of a combined tonnage of 3,358,000, found themselves in possession of a fleet of fifty-four units and a tonnage of 328,000 gross. From 1920 to 1922 these companies have put in commission no fewer than eighty-five vessels with a tonnage of 556,000. This means that last year Germany possessed a merchant marine of 139 vessels of a tonnage of 884,000. 'Figures such as these call for no comment!' So far as productive capacity is concerned, German shipyards have more than returned to their pre-war position. The largest vessel launched in the world last year took the water at Danzig. Hamburg built a steamer of 20,000 tons. Of the 852 vessels and 2,467,000 gross tons launched in 1922, Great Britain and Ireland built forty-two per cent, or over a million tons. Germany was an easy second with 187 vessels and 526,000 tons. France ranked third both in number of vessels and in tonnage, Holland fourth, and the United States fifth, with 59 vessels and 119,000 tons. Every country except Germany turned out a smaller tonnage in 1922 than in 1921. THE CONDITION OF HUNGARY ON March 7 the London Times published the third and last article on Hungary by a well-qualified investigator, who has just spent some time in that country. The Times says:— 'We publish this morning the last of a short series of articles on the present position of Hungary. The Magyar State is suffering from those post-war maladies which are common to victors and vanquished alike, and were aggravated for the victors on the European Continent by the fact that in each case they, and not the vanquished, had been overrun and devastated in the course of hostilities. Hungary, moreover, like Bulgaria, enjoys the advantage of being a wheat-exporting country and of being thereby relieved of any prospect of starvation- a danger which has been actual enough to others less fortunately placed. The troubles of Hungary are, nevertheless, real and acute; and arise chiefly from the amputation of the former kingdom by the cession to Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, and Rumania of large districts where the majorities of the population were respectively Slovaks, Croats, and Rumanes. A great number of Hungarian officials were thereby thrown out of service, and have become houseless refugees. 'Communications, and especially the railways, had naturally been constructed to serve the economic needs of the Hungary which stretched from the Southern Carpathians and the Save to the frontiers of Galicia and Austria. These normal geographical boundaries have been superseded by the unnatural barriers created by racial antagonism, which raises every possible obstacle to |