EXPENSIVE SETTLEMENT

While the attentions of the people of the United States are being absorbed by efforts to fight the depression in this country, and to arrange for the united attack upon the depression in the coming world parley, an almost unnoticed, but not therefore unimportant movement is going forward throughout Europe. The whole continent is rapidly crystallizing into two groups: those in favor of, and those opposed to, revision of the treaties of Versailles. Especially rapid has been this solidification ever since Italy and England came out in favor of some kind of change in the status quo. France, whose whole foreign policy is based upon Security, and therefore the maintenance of the regulations of the Peace Treaties, immediately gathered her Continental Allies round her to fight revision.

It was Mussolini who said, "Treaties are not eternal." And it was MacDonald who went the next logical step and declared that if there must be revision, it is better that it come through peaceful, diplomatic channels, than by a war which might involve all Europe. Put these two statements together, and there follows the proposal for a conference among the Big Four of Europe to decide on Treaty Revision. But France and her Allies have come out fiatly against such a conference. Last Tuesday, Foreign Minister Benes of Czechoslovakia, and the brains behind the Little Entente, declared that the frontiers could only be changed by war.

While it is very easy to understand why France and the Little Entente should assume this immovable attitude, and while any other nation in similar circumstances might do exactly the same thing, still it demonstrates a decided inability on their part to read the signs of the times. They opposed the Austrian-German Customs Union; yet that will surely come eventually, if it is not already existent in fact. They oppose German equality; yet no nation as strong as Germany can permanently be regarded as inferior. The coat cut in 1918 is no longer in fashion. Economic and political forces are breaking it at every seam. MacDonald's thesis seems right: it is better to redesign this coat in a peaceful manner than wait for a duel to kill the owner and his neighbors.