THE Francultuesiuu pact has at last been signed, and M. Laval is going to Moscow iii a few days. This pact, when We collie to think about it, is the most extraordinary example of the state to which European
min rs have been reduced by iste the fear-of-war hysteria.
As French Csathotics huve pointed out, and., 'naiad, as AtiOst of France has come Iii recognize, the pact gives little or no security and at the same time opens western Europe yet further to the propaganda of a nation which is uot, only professedly atheist but whicb has ileanitely set ma to upset all the moral aud SCâ– CIL11 1-alues upon which this civilization of ours, about wheel Fronce professes to be so anxious, is founden. The French communist newspaper L'Huntanite hae acknowledged that the pact will make such propaganda more easy. It is true that the pact is meant to fit in to the system of the League of Nations, but when every such Pact must involve the tisk of entanglement, in somebody else's wars, it is surely gratuitous to make one \Olt a country whoee history roust make it for many years a stranger in that very society or nations which gives meaning, sanction and hope to these pacts. One of the worst fouturee of the part Is that it, deprives France of a. claim she might otheraise make with some weight, namely, that she stands for the traditional eivilization of the West against the manse militarism of Prussia,. Non fah terilto must he the spontaneOus cry in \Jew of the Russian pact of anyone who really feels that this represents the true position as between France and Germany.