PROPHECY

Although the temptation to political prophecy in regard to the German situation is inevitable, it is probably unsafe in equal proportion. In recent years the German people have stood for so much in regard to the suspension of their constitutional rights, the establishment of a virtual dictatorship, and the rule of a party which has been steadily declining in prestige, power and numbers since the war, that the foreign observer cannot possibly gage the point where that endurance will end. The refusal of Hitler to take over the government makes plausible the guess that the time is not yet ripe for a violent reaction from the policy of rapprochement with France which was followed by the Bruening regime. It is however, much easier to construe the effect of this move on other nations than on Germany.

Its immediate result has been to make remote the possibility of the conference at Lausanne, proposed by Premier MacDonald, to study the problems of the world's trade. So long as the next German government is an unknown quantity, its position in all international problems will be a problem in itself. If that government is dominated or controlled by the Nazis, the German attitude will almost certainly make a conference futile. Since France could hardly take part without assurances from Germany in regard to reparations, which no Nazi government could possibly give. And the snail-like foreign policy of this country would in that case withdraw once again into its shell.

There is in any event no assurance that the next German cabinet will possess even the small measure of stability that Chancellor Bruning's had. Only the "revolution by constitutional means" which the Nazis seek could procure that, and a revolutionary government could maintain itself only by an attitude toward France which would set back for years the efforts to make a peaceful Europe.