Bargain, Blunder, Entente?

A plump white-bound pamphlet, called a "White Paper," and a plumper blue-bound pamphlet, called a "Blue Book," were issued last week, respectively by the British Government and the French. Momentous, the pamphlets total 114 pages. They release officially, for the first time, that notorious series of secret Anglo-French communications feverishly rumored to constitute an "agreement," a "pact" or even an "entente" between France and Britain, contrary to the interests of the U. S. and Italy (TIME, Aug. 13 et seq.).

Ostensibly the subject of the notes was limitation of naval and military armament. Their covert purpose to enhance the potency of the British Navy was unmasked by the Hearst Press, sternly denounced by President Calvin Coolidge and Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, and is now entirely defunct. (TIME, Oct. 29). But the military purpose of the notes remains. Upon it last week interest focused. Revealed was the price exacted by French Foreign Minister Aristide Briand before he would consent to support against U. S. opposition the naval projects of British Foreign Secretary Sir Austen Chamberlain. The French price, high, was that the British Empire should abandon its traditional policy of opposing the creation of huge conscript reservist armies in peace time by France and her allies: Poland, Czechoslovakia, Rumania.

Bargain & Entente. Document No. 24 in the British "White Paper" contains the germ of the bargain. It officially summarizes a conversation at Geneva on March 9, 1928 between Sir Austen and M. Briand. Excerpts:

"Sir Austen Chamberlain began by regretting that on the two capital naval and military questions the French and British found themselves in diametrically opposed positions. English public opinion believes traditionally that volunteer armies have a defensive character, whereas conscript armies are intended for offensive warfare. On the other hand, he understands that in French opinion obligatory military service appears as a guarantee of a policy of peace, while a volunteer army takes on the character of a pretorian guard.

"He continued by saying concessions were necessary on both sides to reach a general agreement, and that if he could obtain a concession from the French on the naval side British public opinion would probably give its adhesion to Sir Austen Chamberlain's ceding a point on the military aspect of the problem."

The French "Blue Book" shows that after the bargain had been struck the French Foreign Ministry officially communicated to the British Foreign Office M. Briand's "conviction that the concerted action of France and Great Britain will enable the two Governments to obtain the approval of the naval powers concerned" for the Anglo-French project looking toward enhancement of British sea power.

For good measure the wily Aristide Briand added an amazing postscript, rumors of which gave rise to the suspicion that Britain and France had concluded a formal entente. Briand's postscript : "Whatever the result, even should our hopes prove illusory, the two Governments would none the less be under the urgent obligation to act in concert either to ensure success by other means or to adopt a common policy so as to deal with the difficulties which would inevitably arise."

The British "White Paper" omits to indicate whether or not any secret British reply was made to this French implied proposal of an entente.

"Himalayan Blunder." Since the whole ill-starred affair seems to have sprung from the blundering brain of Sir Austen Chamberlain, the duty of flaying him may properly be left to the press of his own country. Last week the Daily Express, an independent paper with strong leanings toward Sir Austen's own party (Conservative) said: "There is hardly a line in this long series of telegrams and despatches that does not betray a naive misunderstanding of all outside opinion and psychology such as Germany herself hardly surpassed in the days of the War."

Naturally an even more potent fulmination burst from the Liberal Daily News: " 'The White Paper' is a record of bungling procedure unworthy of the collective intelligence of a home for mental defectives. It has excited the justifiable suspicion of the civilized world.

"For no reason yet intelligible, a bargain was effected whereby . . . France was given a military dictatorship of Europe and military disarmament was swept away at one stroke."

The Liberal Daily Mail thought that Sir Austen had committed a "Himalayan blunder";* and David Lloyd George, famed Liberal Party leader declared: "The Government has given away its whole position with regard to the immense reserves of Continental armies. ... It is a complete betrayal of the cause of the peace of the world.

"France can maintain an army of 5,000,000, Poland an army of 2,000,000. Czechoslovakia 1,500,000 and Italy and other European countries 5,000,000. The Kellogg treaty, under these conditions, is not worth Lord Cushendun's railway fare to Paris to sign it. A clash is inevitable sooner or later if these gigantic armies are maintained, and the Anglo-French compact binds us to support France in its contention that not only these armies shall not be cut down but shall not even be discussed."

*The world press was just on the scent of the Anglo-French negotiations by Sir Austen himself, when he committed the crowning blunder of formally alluding to them in an indirect, tantalizing manner before the House of Commons. These indefensibly premature remarks, amounting to an open boast that he had done something clever in secret which he was not yet prepared to reveal, placed upon Sir Austen Chamberlain personally an imputation of sheer obtuseness which his political enemies are now loudly tooting up and down England, in view of the approaching General Election.