Life — May 25, 1922 — page 16: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

MAY 25, 1922 “While there is Life there’s Hope” Published by LIFE PUBLISHING COMPANY Vor. 79. No. 2064 London Offices, Rolls House, Breams Bldgs., London, E. C. Paris, France. HAT Europe has to think about and what any- one in Paris must think about just now is the Genoa Con- P ference, confused and muddled at this writing by the treaty of the Soviet Russians and the Germans. Of course it is appalling to France to have the Russians and the Germans get together. It suggests a terrific combination of numbers, organiza- tion and efficiency, including military efficiency, and of course that is a serious spectre. These prospects of efficiency do not immediately im- pend. Germany has no money to spare to Russia and Russia has no money even for the feeding of her own people, and the borrowing pro- posals of her Soviet Government are coldly received. Still the combina- tion is spectral, especially to France, who would undoubtedly prefer not to have any combinations in Europe. except those that she contrives. That may seem perverse in France, but France is not so much perverse as anxious. She does not feel safe. Of course not. No means as yet have been devised and carried out to insure her safety except in so far as it can be guaranteed by her own vigilance. So far as France is to be safe she must look after it her- self, and in Paris, naturally, one gets the impression that that is the most serious fact in Europe. KE y y aT ©. OES France want any other nation in Europe to prosper? It seems as though she was hardly ready for that. She certainly does not want Germany and Russia to prosper in combination until her own 598 Madison Avenue, New York safety is secured. She doubtless prefers that France should lead the prosperity of continental Europe and would be willing to have the other countries lag a little till her own prosperity gets started. That is very natural. All the activities and con- versations and anxieties at Genoa so far have seemed very natural. Great Britain wants something done there. So do most of the other countries. Great Britain wants everybody to prosper as soon as possible so that she can sell them goods. She must live by trade. France wants trade, of course, but it is not the vital thing to her that it is to England. England could bear it apparently to have Germany and Russia profit by closer relations. She does not now fear either of them, and though she suf- fered enormously in the war she seems willing to take more chances about the next war than France does. She cannot put off trading in order to reduce the chance of war. She is for having human life go on, and if it is to go on for her there must be trade. The difference is, no doubt, that she lives behind a wall of water; that she has no devas- tated districts, and has never felt herself to be in danger of conquest and subjugation, and that of course is a great difference. But she has a vast deal of unemployment that prods her on to some sort of action. HE value of Genoa so far seems to be in holding a mirror up to Europe. One can see the distresses of that continent as they come to sight in the Conference. Something will, have to be accomplished there, because it is so necessary. Back of all the behavior and misbehavior at Genoa there are lots of home politics. Those Britons who want to sce Lloyd George .downed in the next election will not be inconsolable if the Conference is a failure, and that gives Lloyd George the more reason to exert himself that it shall not fail. REAT BRITAIN proposes to hasten the revival of trade That looks good to us, of course, for her success would help us in our business. But let us be slow to think of France as merely perverse ani self-seeking. The safety of France is the concern of all mankind. It is one of the great conditions of worl: peace. The plans made at Versailles to secure it fell through and France has had to attain to it herself. She may make the world jealous of her e/- forts to contrive it, but still they are entitled to respect—entitled, more- over, to be regarded as necessary measures to secure peace. France wants security and she wants the reparations accorded her by the treaty of Versailles. In such meas- ure as it is possible to provide them she should have both. She can hardly break with her allies to get them, for alone in the world she can not be safe. The great war demon- strated that, and though Germany is not now what she was in 1914, what she may become in another genera- tion is a very speculative matter France insists upon her reparations, but she knows she cannot get them unless German trade recovers, but the recovery of German trade would presently mean a resuscitation of German strength and then what? E. S. M. comicbooks.com