A. S. D.

The initials A. S. D. stand for Arbitration, Security and Disarmament --keynotes of French foreign policy. In the Chamber of Deputies was made last week "a speech of Poincare through the mouth of Herriot." The latter, alarmed at the recent Monarchical doings in Germany, delivered himself of a three hours' oration. He was working for peace-- France's actions at Geneva proved that, (TIME, May 5) but he would never give up the security of his country while militarism was fostered on the other side of the Rhine.

He reminded the enthusiastic Deuties that France gave up her historical claims to the Rhine as her military frontier in return for a tripartite defense treaty( U.S., Britain, France) which never materialized. "But now," he continued, "while France is being asked to keep and is seeking to keep her engagements, has she not a right to say to her allies and associates, 'Remember your own engagements, reread the texts of the discussions during the framing of the peace treaty. Think how, while France is seeking to establish peace, she has a dagger pointing within a few centimeters of her heart and is asking only that this dagger be removed.' " He referred to the strong position which ex-Crown Prince Rupprecht, "virtual King of Bavaria" is in, asked: "Have we not treated too lightly the return of the Crown Prince (Friedrich Wilhelm, son of the ex-Kaiser?", accused Germany of not having even begun moral disarmament. But France, he said, was not discouraged.

"We will work for peace and we will work for the security not only of our country, but for the security of peace. But let no one think that in seeking the security and peace of the world this Government will neglect its first charge of providing security for its own country." At the conclusion of his speech there were loud cries of affichage (printing and posting of the speech throughout France). After some dissension, caused by Alexander Varenne, Socialist leader, trying to introduce a supplementary sentence to the speech, affichage was carried 541 to 32 votes, the Opposition, Communists excepted, voting for the Government. Paris newspapers offered nothing but praise, (For Chancellor Luther's answer, see GERMANY.)