Evening Star Newspaper, March 10, 1935, Page 27

Editorial Page Civic Activities Part 2—12 Pages SENATE-ROOSEVELT ROW HAILED AS ‘NORMAL’ SIGN President Declared Taking Only Course Open to Avoid Socialistic System BY MARK SULLIV NY list of the several respects in which America is on the clude restoration of the nor- mal relation between Con- gress and the President. The particular issue on which the Senate went against the President was an amendment to the work relief way toward normal would in- | in U, S. | consider shall be written in the nor- !mal and usual way. The President | m ggest and recommend, as the | Constitution and tradition prescribes ae should, but the bills will be written by the appropriate committees, after debate and discussion within the com- mittee. And the measures will be de- | | bated and voted upon, in the Senate | certainly. with the normal scrutiny | and the normal use of amendments. bill having to do with the wage rate | to be paid to workers on relief proj- ects. On that issue the President was right, the Senate wrong. The Presi- | dent wished a rate which should be below the rate prevailing in industry, so that there should be no temptation to workers to remain indefinitely on relief. Stated the other way round. the President’s purpose was that the prevailing wage rate in private in- dustry should always be higher than that on relief works, so that private industry. as it revives. should be able to take workers off the Government's hands. The President’'s way was the only way that, granted we are to have re- lief works at all. America could avoid—I am inclined to put it thus strongly—the only way that America could be certain to avoid becoming a zocialistic state. For if the Govern- ment were paying the same wage rate as private industry, the greater at- tractiveness of Government work. the easy-going conditions of it, would be a temptation for workers to remain on the Government pay roll rather than go on private ones. If all the unemployed now in the country, or even a very large proportion of them were put at work on Government projects, with the rate of wages the same that private industry can pay. | it is doubtful if the number could ever be decreased. Indeed. it is likely the number of Government works would be increased, for private in- dustry, unable to bid higher for workers, would tend to shrivel up even further than it already has. Fallacy of Labor Leaders. Yet on this issue, many of the con- gervatives in the Senate, including all | the Republicans except two New Eng- | landers, Hale of Maine and Metcalf of Rhode Island, voted against the President. The number of conserva- | tives voting this way, added to the | number who voted for the “prevailing | rate” for demagogic reasons, was enough to make a majority adverse to the President. There were 44 votes for the prevailing rate as against 43 | for the President’s proposal of a Gov- | ernmental wage rate lower than the private one. | Some Senators who voted against | the President on this issue may hold honestly to a fallacious theory. Many | labor leaders hold the fallacious the- ory, and many workers hold it. Their fallacy ahout wage rates is part of a larger fallacy about price. The idea that price makes wealth—ignorance of the fact that wealth consists not of price but of goods—is general in all quarters. Many workers, especially in the building trades, are led by union heads to think it is better to remain idle at let us say a dollar an hour than to have work at 50 cents an hour. This fallacy is at the bot- | tom of the failure to get the building ! industry under way. Until we free | ourselves from obsession about price.l price of labor included, we shall not { get the resumption of building ac- | tivity that is essential to renewed | prosperity. On the amendment involving the | issue that the Government should pay the same wage rate as private indus- try, with Mr. Roosevelt favoring a lower Government wage rate, the Sen- | ate delivered a blow to the President’s | leadership. But it would be a mistake © look too narrowly on what was done. Justifying the Conservative Vote. Some Senators, the conservative | ones, who voted against the President | did so, as respects this narrow issue, | against their own convictions. It can be argued, nevertheless, that. as a | parliamentary maneuver, their action was justified. If defeating this one | proposal was a step in defeating or modifying the bill as a whole. the vote of conservative Senators takes on a different light. Their primary wish may have been to reject Government works altogether, and reduce Govern- ment relief to the much less expensive form of direct gifts. Also the bill was much more than a bill for Government | relief. Much more was involved than | the money, the four billions. The bill as written went afield from & mere appropriation. It included the broadest delegation of powers to the President that Congress has yet made or the Executive proposed. The powers | conferred by the bill were really start- ling—so much so that even the com- plaisant House deleted two of the| powers that the bill as originally | written would have conferred on the President. This condition, the extent | of the powers surrendered by Congress to the President, was a perfectly ten- able reason for conservative Senators to defeat the bill by any legitimate means. So far as voting against the amendment involving the President’s standard of wage rate was a means of calling the country’s attention to the bill as a whole, and of causing it to be modified—to that very important ex- tent, the vote of the conservatives can be explained, and to a large extent Jjustified. “Normal Relation” Resumed. The importance of what the Senate did about work relief lay in part in the fact that it marked resumption of the normal relation between Congress and President. Probably we have reached that stage of recovery from panic, from the need of emergency action, in which it is best that Con- gress should resume its prerogative. In those days in which Congress was passing bills literally as delivered to the body by the President or his aides, the President or some of the radicals in his administration “rode” Congress too hard. Some of the radicals who were permitted to write drafts of meas- ures for Congress to enact may have been moved by zeal to use an emer- gency condition for the purpose of | bringing about permanent change in the American system of society and Government. Certainly some of the legislation thus enacted by Congress in 1933 and 1934 contained provisions which Congress would not have put upon the country had Congress under- stood fully what it was doing. Congress will not now pass bills | without reading them. More than | is to be credited to other causes. | in the worst light. N. R. A. Inquiry Is Result. One result of the return of normal relations between Congress and the President is the setting up by the Sen- ate of a committee to investigate N.R. A It is not only that N. R. A. requires looking into. N. R. A. has come into the limelight largely because it was originally enacted for two years, be- cause the two years expire June 16, next. and because by that date N. R. A. must either disappear utterly | or else be re-enacted in such form | and with such modifications as Con- gress may determine. For that rea- | son N. R. A. is about to be subjected to critical examination. A. A A. does not have any time limitation—it was enacted as an or-| dinary statute to remain on the books until repeal or change. But A. A. A calls for inquiry. If it remains in its present form it will bring about far- reaching changes. The principal intention of A. A. A. was to raise the prices of farm crops. Those prices have risen. What part A. A. A. played in the rise, what part and how much rise in price of farm crops might have taken place had A. A. never been invented—all that is paratively immaterial. The fund; mental and cheering fact is that far- mers have received larger prices for their crops. From this rise has come a solid corner-stone of improvement: rise in prices o1 crops has enabled the farmer to pay his debts or to reduce them or to feel comfortable under them. No longer do the news- papers carry dispatches from the South and West about mortgage fore- closures, or tragic stories of evictions. | Other Phases Need Inquiry. But some other consequences of | A. A. A, call for inquiry. From the | point of view of individuals, mere rise in price can be an advantage to those | who are beneficiaries of it. But from | the point of view of the Nation, of all | of us, mere rise in prices is not neces- | sarily wealth. Let us list the steps, the segment of the “vicious circle.” which in one re- | | spect A, A. A. fs: Secretary of Agricul- | ture Wallace starts out to raise the | prices of crops. As one way of doing this, acreage is reduced. Reduction of | prices go up. Because prices go up the | consumer buys less. Because the con- sumer buys less, the acreage for the next year must logically be reduced still further. for the whole theory of A. A. A. is to keep acreage in propor- tion to consumption. If acreage is still further reduced, prices go up still further. If prices go vet further up, consumption is yet further restricted. And so the unwholesome spiral goes. | We are now approaching the vicious | part of the circle. Prices of food and | clothing are going higher. Mr. Wal- lace's estimate is that we have just ahead of us a further increase of scme 11 per cent in the cost of living. | That estimate is modest. If it came | from & man less candid than Secre- | tary Wallace we might suspect thnt[ self-interest had made the figures low. | But it is one of the curious traits of | the unusua! personality of the pres- ent Secretary of Agriculture that not only is he candid to his own detri- | | ment; he seems actually to take a kind | of puritanic pleasure in putting things Even so, I am not | sure he has gone as far as he safely | might in naming 11 per cent as the | extent of the coming rise in the cost of living. i Ditemna Facing Wallace. | Mr. Wallace must be aware, too, that when householders begin to pay the increased bill, they will have re- flections, unfavorable to him, about the killing of hogs, the plowing under | of cotton, and the limitation of other | crops. This reflection will be made | the more keen when the householder learns that we are about to import from other countries corn and wheat at least, and perhaps some other farm crops that enter into the cost | of living. To explain why we should | be buying food from abroad within | two years after the Government paid | | out large amounts of money to bring | about destruction food, will call for | true ingenuity from Mr. Wallace. | Far-seeing persons in the South | have become aware of the vicious circle. A. A. A’s method of reducing cotton acreage is to levy a “process- | ing” tax on the buyer of cotton, and | then give the proceeds to the farmer in exchange for the promise to re- duce acreage. “When time and ex- | perience,” says the Texas Weekly, | “have written the full history of the | Government's cotton program it is probably that the cotton processing tax of 42 cents a pound on cotton will have been found to have done more lasting harm than any other item in the program. The processing tax through raising the price of goods is restricting cotton consumption.” If A. A, A. is continued indefinitely in its preesnt form, there will be economic revolution in the South, so extreme that the unheard of may emerge, in the form of secession of the South from the Democratic party. vGuide for Readers PART 2 Editorial Page New Deal in Canada William Castle Gaston Nerval Frank G. Carpenter D. C. Civic Affairs Organization Activities— Women’s Clubs; Masonic; Eastern Star; P.-T. A.; Ameri- can Legion; Reserve Officers; D. C. National Guard; D. A. R. Pages e D-5-6-7 Cross-Word Puzzle D-7 that, Congress now prefers, and, the President is deferring to the prefer: snce, that bills which Congress is ta Automobiles and Aviation, D-8 Children's Page -D-§ |the emissaries of Colombia. EDITORTAL SECTION he Sunday Star WASHINGTON, D. C, SUNDAY MORNING, MARCH 10, 1935. Fading Pan-American Trade Millions in Commerce Taken Away From U. S. by Japan, England and Russia. BY EDWARD TOMLINSON. | HE paradox of Washington to- ! day is to be found just across | the street from the White House in the rambling old State, War and Navy Build- ing. Within the somber walls of this | dingy pile of sandstone the most ar- | dent and yet the quietest debates ol( the New Deal era are taking place. While the apostles of the N. R. A..! the A. A. A., the R. F. C. and all the other alphabetical orders of the Roosevelt regime flood the newspapers and the radio with plans and pleas for renovating and speeding up na- tional industry and trade, embattled experts of the Departments of State | and Commerce are laboring fran-| tically, but without fuss or fanfare, to retrieve some of our lost markets abroad. particularly those of South America. In the effort to restore our annual billion-dollar South American com- merce, reciprocal trade treaties be- tween several of these southern re- publics and the United States are now under consideration. Day in and | | acreage brings the intended result— |day out Secretary of State Cordell with Brazil Chile or Argentina and argue ways and means of mutually swapping tariff concessions. By means of such agreements the | powers on the Potomac hope not only to facilitate the flow of goods north and south. but to give employment and income to more of our people by a more generous exchange of prod- ucts between the Americas. Task Proves Difficult. The task is by no means an easy one. When the last Congress granted the President the power to enter into such arrangements by reducing or raising tariffs as much as 50 per cent, many ardent advocates of the plan seemed to think it would be a matter of only a few weeks until trade with these countries would be booming. And some of them are quite impa- tient that so little has been accom- plished thus far. They take no account of the ob- stacles. Each country with which we attempt to deal has its own pet Ideas, views, conflicting opinions and ambitions as to what is or might be good for it. Each, like our own coun- try, is grappling with internal prob- lems growing out of the depression and, thercfore, hesitates to make out- side trade concessions or binding agreements that might interfere with local recovery machinery. Then, too, many of them have already entered into agreements, treaties and under- standings with other nations which make additlonal concessions impos- sible. ‘While 'we were completely absorbed | in the task of surviving domestic dis- aster and gave little or no thought to outside affairs, other countries— Great Britain, France, Italy, Ger- many, Russia and, particularly, Ja- pan—were making tremendous drives for these Southern markets. The re- sult is that today they are strongly | intrenched throughout the Continent. And, although here and there we have made some gains in sales during the last year, our share of the trade is still a meager portion of the total. Nations Shun United States. Argentina, once our best customer | in South America, to which we sold | $210,000,000 worth of automobiles, trucks, farming machinery, radios, | textiles and other manufactures in | 1928, favored us with less than $50,- 000,000 worth of orders in 1934. | Even Brazil and Colombia, which | furnish us with billions of pounds of coffee—our national drink, in fact, as well as our largest single import— are buying comparatively little from us. Brazil's purchases from us last year amounted to a little more than a third as much as her sales to us. Colombia, which is almost dependent upon United States markets for her livelihood, sold us twice as much as she bought from us. Chile once bought our products in preference to those of any other country. Yet in 10 months last year we sold her only $9,000,000 worth of goods, and during the same time we bought more than twice that much from her. In fact, our total commerce with the 10 republics of the Continent today is only about a fifth of what it was in 1928. The bulk of buying south of Panama is now being done in Europe and the Far East. Brazil, Argentina and Uruguay are trading principally with Europe—Great Brit- ain, Italy, France and Russia. In the western South American markets Japan has become the most formida- ble of all our competitors. Argentines and Brazilians used to ride almost exClusively in Yankee- made automobiles. Today they are urning increasingly to those made in Britain and Italy, despite the fact Hull and his assistants meet | many's military | dropped, and negotiations toward se- that several North come= panies maintain assembling plants in Sao Paulo and Buenos Aires. At one time—in 1928—there were nearly a half million United States- made radio sets on the Pampa. Now other nations help to corral the wild air waves in Argentina house- holds. Brazilian men, who before the coming of the great recession were rapidly discarding the somber apparel and styles of European coun- tries for Palm Beach suits and soft ! cow and to open its doors to Soviet | political and commercial representa- | tives. Montevideo, the capital and metropolis of the republic, with its 700.000 inhabitants, is the headquar- ters for Iuyamtorg, a colossal Russian trading company, the Amtorg of South America On the western side of the Contl- nent the products of Japan are to be Autos—Aviation Children’s Page MOSCOW SEES THREAT IN GERMAN MANEUVERS Soviet Declared Angling for European Coalition to Curb Hitler Am- bitions BY FRANK H. SIMONDS. ECENT dispatches from Mos- | cow disclose clearly enough a real sense of anxiety in the | Kremlin over the present state of European diplomatic maneuvers. Not unnaturally, the So- viets see in German operations a very definite attempt to segregate the | East from the West and the Danubian | regions, and thus, by renouncing for the time being an Austro-German union and for all calculable time any intention to modify the status quo in the Rhineland in order to disinterest Great Britain, France and Italy in | possible German and Polish oper- ations either in the Baltic states or /in the Ukraine. As the situation stands, there are three concrete regional proposals pending. In their recent conversa- tions in Rome, French and Italian statesmen reached a definite agree- | ment .. defend the independence of Austria. In general terms, too, that agreement has been accepted by the Little Entente (Yugoslavia, Czecho- | slovakia and Rumania). It has fur- | ther been blessed by the British. who | have agreed to come into consultation in case a fresh crisis arises like that precipitated by the murder of Dollfuss last July. In the same fashion British and French statesmen meeting more re- cently in London have agreed to ex- tend the terms of the original Locarno by which France and Germany prom- iséd to respect the status quo in the Rhine area and Great Britain and Italy underwrote that contract by pledging themselves to defend the vic- |tim of any unprovoked attack. The extension foreshadowed at London last month provided for action in case of air attack with the atided de- tail that Britain not only promised to support any other nation attacked, but asked for herself similar guar- antees. Would Benefit France. In theory, the Germans were eligi- ble to share the duties and enjoy the benefits of such an agreement—as they shirts more suitable for the tropics, seen in nearly every shop window. |at once disclosed their desire to do. are turning once again to Bond street for their fabrics and models. As the cherry blossoms fall in the garden of Nippon every gently as {In practice, however, this extended { Locarno would insure to France the Uruguay has taken the Soviets to Springtime, salesmen of the Mikado |aid of British air forces in case of an her bosom. Incidentally, the Uru- guayan government was the first in all of South America to bestow formal recognition upon the moguls of Mos- WALES® VISIT TO VIENNA MORE THAN MERE TRIP Welcome in Austrian Capital Assumes Proportions of State Visit, Although He Traveled Incognito. BY RANDOLPH LEIGH. | Special Dispatch to The Star. ! IENNA —The Prince of Wales | recently completed a visit here which created quite a sensa- tion. From the tourist-busi- ness standpoint. it was a most excellent thing for Austria. and was the cause of a good deal of demonstra- tion on the part of those directly ben- efiting, as well as by the disinterested | public. Behind the trip, however. there was probably a good deal more than a mere pleasure outing. Indeed. the prince was welcomed so enthusiastic- !ally that. although he theoretically traveled incognito. he had scarcely a quiet moment. In Vienna. at least. it assumed the proportions of a state visit, and importance is to be attached to it in that connection Simultaneously with his visit here, the Austrian chancellor and for- eign minister made visits of amity to Paris and London. At practically the same time announcements came from those capitals which indicate strongly that within the next few weeks the diplomatic fiction of Ger- impotence will be | curing the peace of Europe will pro- | ceed on more realistic lines. Struggle Touches Austria. This change in the Franco-German | struggle (for that is what it is pri- | marily) touches Austria more vitally | than almost any other nation outside the principals, although it concerns | all Europe. The changed status of | Germany has been due, in the more spectacular sense, to Hitler. In the deeper sense, it has been due to the | almost incredible skill and persistence of the Germans in seeking in the air | that supremacy in which they proved | deficient on land and sea | The belief in that German air supremacy is now so generally ac- cepted in Europe as to have the actual value of an established fact in the stingy give and greedy take of diplo- macy. It is a pawn to be traded with at an accepted value, just as the British fleet pawn has its value and | the French frontier fortification sys- | tem pawn its value. That is the new realization which is putting the little | and big states in agitation again. | Germany has not merely some de- ferred and intangible potency with which her neighbors must reckon, but in this very year (if the opinions of the experts are correct) she is capable of defending himself against attack by her immediate neighbors, and, in addition, she has, through the air, a striking power against which there is no certain defense. Lifting of Treaty Seen. Every sign now points, therefore, to | a lifting of the disarmament treaty regulations against Germany, as a preliminary to negotiations with her on a basis of equality, with a view to coping with the actual facts of her present military condition. Then, or soon thereafter, will follow the re- moval of the guilt clauses in the treaty (which Germany has always claimed | to have accepted under duress). | But if there was no guilt, why, the Germans will say, such terrible pun- ishments and exactions? That ques- tion will have its repercussions throughout Central Europe. Here in Austria, for instance, it will mean a great deal to a people until recently a | Benvenuto Cellini’s salt-cellar | which an offer of $2,000,000 has been world power embracing some 55,000,- 000 persons and now a weak city-state of some 7,000,000 citizens, . This city-state is not merely weak, but its present regime owes a con- siderable part of its strength to the support of outside powers. particu- larly France and Italy. There is & very powerful element (its enemies say only 25 per cent of the pepula- tion. while its partisans say 70 per cent) which is ready to accept the consequences of defying France and reorienting Austrian policy toward Germany. That element, so far, has been kept down, but only at the cost of much bloodshed. It has on -its side the very strong appeal of a restoration of at least pari of the territory and dignity of pre-war Austria. Only Hub Remains. Meanwhile, Vienna presents a con- flicting picture of accumulated, but non-negotiable, wealth, and actual crushing poverty. We have here a world capital of 2,000,000 inhabitants, with financial, political and cultural facilities on a scale for dealing with an empire of 53.000.000 addiiional persons. Its set-up also provided for large revenues from its cultural and business relations with most narts of Europe. But today only the hub remains. The spokes that radiated influence and drew strength throughout Europe are gone. Four-fifths of her terri. tory and the best of her industri have been turned over toother, new! created powers. Adverse money re- strictions increase her abroad and pinch her at home. I have seen here a dozen or so | women with sacks in their hands following a coal wagon in the hope that a lump or two will fall off from time to time. When a tree falls in a park the destitute are allowed to gather every portion of it. to the tinjest twigs, for use as fuel. The larger hotels seem to have about one- tenth the guests they can accommo- date. The people are poorly clad and many public buildings are as cold as a tomb. The telephone book in my hotel room is dated 1932, and it is a tip-top hotel. And yet Austria has a greater per capita wealth in art treasures than any nation today. Their value has been estimated at close to two billion dollars. One would think that there would be a clamor to sell such things and distribute the proceeds. People Make Great Sacrifices. The spirit of the people, however, is shown in their attitude toward these very assets. The government and the people have made tremendous sacrifices for their preservation and upkeep. Enemies of the regime have charged that these treasures are being disposed of secretly, a charge which has in no case been sustained. I can understand, however, why | such charges gain currency. The cost of guarding. rearranging and ade- quately displaying these objects is immense. At this particular season, for instance, two of the most valuable | displays in the world, the crown jewels of the holy Roman empire (a'nd or refused) have been closed off from the public. Naturally, I wondered whether there was something behind such a notice. I particularly wanted to see the salt- cellar, which is rated as the most ce piece in existence. amous Renaissan: lAn appeal to the director of the handicaps | are on the march all the way from Panama to Tierra del Fuego. In multiplying numbers they come, , offering the fruits of Japanese fac- tories and workshops, the handiwork | of their little brown brothers, who toil and spin not merely for riches | but for the exaltation of the race. not merely for gold but for the glory of the Son of Heaven. Fine Wares Offered. They come to sell cotton cloth and hosiery as well as the finest of silks: glassware, china dishes and porcelain bath tubs: soaps, tooth brushes and all manner of cosmetics: electrical fixtures of every kind, fine stationery {and blotting paper—nearly every- | thifig in the category of commerce. | And they are selling them—selling {them in the face of the stiffest Yankee competition. Cotton goods from our own New England and . southern mills can no longer vie, in price, at least, with those turned out by the factories of the Far East. What is more, Japan no longer buys her cotton exclusively from Georgia, Texas and Southern ‘California. She | is buying increasing quantities of the flufly fiber from Brazil, Colombia and | Peru, then sending it back in the : form of shirts and towels, pillow cases and mosquito netting. | Nor is it merely in the field of | textiles, household equipment and cosmetics that the Japanese are mak- ing unprecedented inroads. They are entering strongly into the field of | heavier manufactures. It even looks as if the people of Chile are on the very verge of forsaking Yankee mator cars altogether. Japanese “Dat- shuns,” if you please, seem about to become the popular and prevalent mode of transportation in these far Andean valle; Anyhow, they will soon be on display in Valparaiso and Santiago. | The Japanese Datshun is a new | species of automobile which Oriental engineers have evolved which they propose to capture the motor market of Chile and, for that | matter. the balance of the Southern | Hemisphere. It is described as re sembling the best in other low-priced cars and will sell for two-thirds less | than its most economical Yankeg prototype. Musical Devices Sold. Peruvians are buving cement and steel products, such as sheet iron, | nails and wire. from Nipponese fac- | tories, as well as Japanese radio | phonograph apparatus. In fact, as | you stroll down the streets of any city | in Peru today, you will find Japanese | machines grinding out tangoes. | rhumbas and Yankee jazz. In the | realm of low-priced phonographic machines and radio receiving sets, | Japan long since supplanted Uncle | Sam in every city of this old land of the Incas. And her representatives in Lima have just announced the early arrival of a short-wave receiver that will compete with any of United States or European manufacture. And, shades of Akron! Ecuador and Colombia have already been im- porting truck and automobile tires made in Japan, which sell for 25 per cent less than similar North American types. And so it goes. While, internation- ally speaking, we have been preoc- cupied with Anglo-American-Japan- sister continent. Many things have combined to make this possible. among them is the fact that other nations. have adopted our industrial ufacturers for years were unable to Their cars and their salesmanship plained to me recently by a prominent Brazilian doctor. They would say, ‘This machine is built to last. All the experience and tions of centuries of British workman- ship have -gone into this motor. (Continued on 'fllh‘!lhol l "(Continued on FEM = air raid. the single form of attack 'which the French have any reason at present to fear, in view of the ex- tent and strength of their frontier | fortifications and armaments | There remains the so-called Lo- |carno of the East, which has been | under discussion for a long time and would amount to a regional agree- ment of all the states touching the | Baltic, including Russia, Germany and Poland, to renounce all designs to modify frontiers and to pledge themselves to come to the aid of any state wantonly assailed. As Italy and Britain had bound themselves to up- thold the Western Locarno and Italy and France the Danubian, France | and possibly her ally, Czechoslovakia, would underwrite the Eastern. The net effect of these three re- | gional agreements would be not only | to construct barriers across the path- | way of German expansion east. west and south, but at the same time to extract pledges from the Germans to renounce all invasion purposes and thus the whole program of territorial revision which is the basis of Hitler's | design. The aim of the French, ever since Barthou launched this am- | bitious plan of pacts, has been to | discover some means of tying them together which would involve obtain- ing some measure of British responsi- ! bility for the Danubian pact and of | Italian and British for the eastern. | Germany Needs Expansion. Now obviously the Germans have | no present intention of accepting the | status quo. To live decently Ger- | many must expand greatly—that is the thesis not merely of Hitler and | his followers who are thinking polit- ically but also of Thyssen and the other industrialists who are thinking economically. All perceive, however, that expansion in the west is out of the question because that would bring in the British fleet as well as the French and British military and air forces. | efforts not merly to reassure the Brit- ish but also to plaeate the French. The events of last Summer, which ed to the January accords between France and Italy have. moreover, | closed the road down the Danube for | the moment. France, Italy and | Czechoslovakia would certainly move against Germany, were any new Aus- trian intervention to occur, and British moral influence, if not actual material force, would be exerted against a Germany which in British eyes would thus be disclosed as the disturbing factor in Europe. Of course the Germans are not going to renounce union with Austria definitely and few believe that it can be prevented, although it is obvious that it can now be postponed for a future which is incalculable. But time works for them in Austria, where economic recovery is unlikely. When Mussolini forced Dollfus to destroy the Liberal and Socialist elements in the small republic he actually abol- ished the real bulwark against a “Nazi” regime. Underneath the sur- face, therefore, forces are working steadily for an eventual union. War Strategy Recalled. As to the Locarno of the east the Germans perceive that British public opinion is totally unready to under- take any responsibilities to preserve the status quo either in the Ukraine sensitive about the Danubian region, 1s far less concerned about land’s be- territory north of the Niemen German diplomatic strategy thus World War. Halted in the west, afte: Marne, the Germans in 1915 turned their energies upon destroying Russia, an end which was accomplished in and July of the following year. Today the Soviets fear that the same course will be adopted by the Germans and the Poles, not impos- sibly helped by s Jspanese offensive 3 Thus, almost from the start | and with | pitler has been making desperate |and the Soviets is the creation of a in East, | against Russia in the Far East. Such an attack must, too, constitute a deadly peril to the communistic state unless the Western capitalistic powers, | France, Great Britain and Italy, are prepared to undertake compensating operations and. in advance of actual hostilities, to make it clear that they will stand by the Soviet Union if it |is attacked. The obvious temptation of British, French and Italian statesmanship. however, is to let Germany go east and exhaust herself in a long and costly war with the Soviet Union. The patent danger, by contrast, upon which the Soviets are dwelling con- stantly, is that German victory, ac- companied by the possession of lands rich in foodstuffs and raw materials, would enable Germany to.turn from the east to the south and then the west as she did during the war. Moscow. too, points out that such a course would be a faithful imita- tion of Bismarck’s threefold per- formance expressed in his attack upon Denmark in 1864, upon Austria in 1866 and upon France in 1870. “We may suffer a Sadowa. but do not forget that Sadowa was only the pre- lude to Sedan.” is the burden of Soviet caution to the west. Now the British do not want a war on the continent anywhere and they see clearly that a war in any region could easily become general. Nor do they mean to assume any responsie bilities beyond the Rhine. Their pur- pose, therefore, is to try to get the Germans back to the League. to concede to them the equality in arma- ments they demand—and are going to have anyway—and to establish a truce if not a real state of peace. That is the meaning of Sir John Simon's present travelogue. He fs seeking to persuade the Germans to be good. the French to be reasonable. the Italians to be quiet and the Soviets to be calm. Nothing Left for Moscow. Unhappily, having offered the French the new Locarno and the Italians the promise to come to coun- cil over Austria, finally having offered the Germans parity. he has nothing whatever to offer the Soviets. And Moscow on its part sees the Soviet Union made the sacrificial goat of the whole British diplomatic maneuver. In fact. it suspects London of saying to Hitler—in effect and not in phrase, of cou: “‘Go east. young man.” And this suspicion gains force from the conviction in Russia that the old im- perial regime was abandoned to its fate by the Western allies during the war. Such, briefly, is the game that is now being played in Europe. In that game it is essential to perceive the League of Nations has no part and the ideas of Wilson concerning Ge- |neva no part. What is gradually taking form is a series of regional pacts which constitute alliances—the old collective idea of Wilson and his followers has been abandoned as a result of the exposure of its futility in the Manchurian affair. Nations will not go to war to defend the status quo anywhere save in regions where their own interests are vital. Without a willingness upon the part of nations to lend their forces the League cannot preserve peace or pro- tect a victim of aggression. Under such circumstances all that is possible is to establish a set of regional pacts. France and Great Britain are equally concerned to pre- serve the status quo on the Rhine. They are. therefore, prepared to fight to defend it, as, of course, is Belgium. Italy and Czechoslovakia are simi- larly concerned with the status quo in Austria and France is ready to support Italy on the Danube and Italy France on the Rhine, because both see themselves exposed to even- tual German aggression. Europe is then being resolved into a system of alliances. which may be registered in Geneva and disguised as League- inspired. but the truth is that the League has nothing to do with them and has been thrust aside in their making. Grand Coalition Sought. What is in the minds of the French grand coalition to restrain Germany such as eventually evolved to defeat Napoleon. Nominally, such a coali= | tion could have its headquarters in | Geneva and, theoretically. it would be dedicated to the task of war, since it would constitute a league of mutual ! defense against German purposes. But practically it would be an effort to prevent Germany from achieving unity in the Austrian detail just as much as from realizing forcible an- nexation of the Ukraine. While, too, Italy might subscribe to such a coali- tion in Europe, she would certainly | not resign her Ethiopian enterprize, | which certainly challenges the whole League idea. But to return to the point at which this article started. Soviet Russia is now looking to Paris as to London for some satisfactory proof that | French and British statesmanships |are equally aware of the necessity to safeguard its security as well as their own and that the German phe- | nomenon constitutes a warning that ‘all the great powers must hang together, or, in Franklin's phrase, “be hanged separately.” The thing for the American audi- |ence to watch now is the attempts | of Germany in peace and by diplo- matic instead of military weapons to achieve what she failed to do during the World War, until it was too late |in the Russian case, namely, divide ese naval parity, the potentialities of | or in Lithuania, where the Soviets see | her prospective opponents and dis- Russian economic theories, Hitlerism | the Germans and Poles preparing for | pose of them separately. and whatnot, other nations have been | annexations. Nor are they less satis- | what Napoleon did succeed in doing busy taking over the markets of our | fied that French public opinion, while | for a very long time, only to be That was | crushed by a coalition of all the states of the Continent fearful of his Not the least |tween the Dniester and the Dnieper or i purposes. Soviet interpretation of the | Hitler phenomenon now insists that only coalition in advance of conflict methods. British and European man- |recalls the military strategy of the | can prevent, not merely the conflict | itself, but elso the defeat of the make any headway in the Argentine |the front had stabilized following the | several opponents of German pur- and Brazilian automobile markets. |battles of Flanders and the earlier poses individually. One thing is clear, the crisis in were too conservative. This was ex- | east and, in the main, concentrated Europe, which was last year acute, which has, in fact, been acute ever since Hitler came to complete con- “I remember,” he said, “that Eng- |the Autumn of 1917. Only then did | trol two years ago, now tends to be- lish salesmen always stressed the dur- |they turn to the south to meet Italy | come chronic. ability of the motors and the mate- | at Caporetto and France and Britain | the fact that, having found rials which went into their machines. |in the great offensives between March | League unsuitable for its purposes, Not less obvious fis the | European statesmanship has reverted | to the traditional coalition to replace the Wilsonian dream of peace by collective action. (Copyright, 1035.)