Peace Impossible

"Give Syria to Mussolini! It would give to him great pleasure and to France relief!" cried M. le Depute Baron in the Chamber last week upon his return from investigating conditions in the French Syrian Mandate. Promptly many another Deputy arose to question the Government upon its conduct of the wars in Syria (TIME, Feb. 15, et ante) and Morocco (TIME, March 29 et ante) by which the French are endeavoring to subdue the Syrian chieftain, Sultan El Atrash, and the Moroccan leader, Abd-el-Krim. Deputies of the Right thundered for more vigorous prosecution of these wars, which have simmered without notable engagements of late. Deputies of the Left howled for relief from war taxation through an immediate peace.

To them Premier Briand replied:

"We do not make peace in Syria and Morocco because we cannot. In both areas France is continuously the attacked, not the attacker; and there is no guarantee that peace, if made now, would last three months. . . . Abd-el-Krim has cost us too dearly for us not to fight on until we can conclude a lasting peace. To withdraw from Syria would be to deliver the subject peoples there to massacre and misery."

In conclusion, the Premier declared that purely tentative dickering for peace is constantly under way in both Syria and Morocco.