women of Ulster were ignored. In the debates on the 1913 Bill attention was frequently called to the character of the meetings at which the men and women of Ulster registered their determination never to accept Home Rule, meetings which began by singing that fine old hymn O God, our help in ages past and ended with the National Anthem, sung with wonderful fervour and devotion. The Government was often asked to tell us whether it was in the least likely that men and women, holding these views and making these protests at meetings held in such conditions, would change their opinion or submit to a control which they viewed with detestation and horror. Yet in face of all manifestations of hostility the Liberal Party persisted in its attempt to force a Home Rule measure upon the whole of Ireland.

Those of us who were closely associated with the Opposition believed at the time, and believe still, that, if the Liberal Party had had sufficient vision to appreciate the Ulster situation and had dealt with it as it has been dealt with now, it would have been impossible as a matter of practical politics to resist successfully the passage of a Home Rule measure for the rest of Ireland. Therefore, if wide, far-seeing vision is to be the test of the character and quality of a party, it is rather the Liberal than the Conservative Party that fails to stand its application.

Everything goes to show that in the past the Conservative Party has rendered splendid service to the Empire and the nation. It has held aloft many a flag which, but for its courage and determination, would probably have been dragged in the mire, and it has kept alive in the hearts of our people the love of Empire and the desire for its extension, the love of individual liberty, the steadfast determination to be able to protect our flag and our rights throughout the world, and by so doing has abundantly justified its existence.

We are happy now in the possession of a strong Government, led by a great single-minded statesman. This result is due to the untiring labours of Conservatives in all parts of the country, the vast majority of whom are humble people quite unknown to fame, whose very names will never be known outside their own immediate localities, but who have made the victory of Conservatism possible by their unselfish and devoted labours through all these difficult and disheartening times. And well justified was Sir George Younger, in an interview which was published in the Weekly Dispatch of November 26, 1922, in paying a tribute to those workers; and there is justification also for the tribute he paid to the Independent Conservatives, popularly known as the 'Die Hards.' Those of us who were opposed to them, who believed that they might easily constitute a real danger to the

State and lead to a serious rupture in the Conservative Party, recognised at the time, and recognise now, with profound gratitude, that owing to the wise leadership of Lord Salisbury, supported by Colonel Gretton in the House of Commons, they made the reunion of the Conservative Party easy of accomplishment.

There can surely be no doubt as to the duty of all Conservatives to-day-it is to give unhesitating support to our Prime Minister and his Government, not to rest on our arms believing that we have fought the fight and that all is over, but to continue the work steadfastly and earnestly in the constituencies in order that we may be ready for the next contest whenever it may

come.

It is said of Mr. Disraeli that on one occasion when he had made a great speech in the House of Commons which was followed by a division one of his supporters came up to him and said: 'Mr. Disraeli, I agree with every word you said, and I have the greatest pleasure in supporting you in the lobby.' To which Mr. Disraeli replied: 'Sir, I am much obliged to you, but the support I value most is that which is given to me by my friends when they do not agree with me but realise that I am doing my utmost to serve my country in a time of great difficulty.'

Some there are who will say with a sneer that this means slavish support of party. It is nothing of the kind: there is nothing slavish about it; it is free support given by free men and women to the Government with which they agree in almost everything but may for the moment find themselves in disagreement over some particular detail. And surely it is right for them to say that they prefer to support the Ministry with which they are in general sympathy rather than to turn it out and hand over the Government to those with whom they are in disagreement upon everything!

The Conservative Party has a great past, of which we have every reason to be proud; it owes much to the foresight, courage and devotion of our predecessors, and it is our duty to take care that those who come after us may be able to realise that we have preserved and strengthened the party and have handed to them a great heritage which they have to cherish and preserve.

LONG OF WRAXALL.

Х

ENGLAND, FRANCE AND EUROPE

THE failure of the Allied Prime Ministers to agree in Paris upon a joint settlement of Reparations and of inter-Allied indebtedness has entailed for France, for Germany, and also for Great Britain a situation more serious than any that has existed since the Armistice. Controversy upon the rightness or the wrongness of French policy is, for the moment, beside the point. The rejection of the British Reparation Scheme and the French occupation of the Ruhr have involved, for the first time in the history of the Entente, a definite divergence both of view and of action between Great Britain and France. Paradoxical assertions that this divergence has strengthened rather than weakened the Entente itself by clearing the air and by creating an atmosphere of sincerity go but a little way to heal the breach that undoubtedly exists. The rupture may be 'cordial,' but it is a rupture nevertheless. From March 1905 down to the outbreak of war it was the precise object of German policy to drive a wedge between England and France. What the persistent effort of Germany could not do before the war has now been done at one important, if not vital, point by German obstruction in the matter of Reparations. Unless the breach can be healed before it is widened into a lasting division between British and French policies, a state of things may grow up during the next few years that will endanger both the economic and political independence of France and the political security of England. Apprehension of this danger led me to write of the impending Paris Conference in The Nineteenth Century for January:

Mere agreement to differ will not avail to avert misfortune. Economic disaster and the dislocation of the present system of international relationships may follow a failure to reach full agreement upon definite principles of joint Allied policy in regard to German Reparations and inter-Allied indebtedness. Without such agreement, the Paris meeting of the Prime Ministers may be their last meeting as Allies.

Whether or not it still be possible to build a bridge between the British and the French positions, it is expedient that the British position, at least, should be more clearly defined than it was during the Paris Conference. Upon the French position it is unnecessary

to dwell in detail. It is sufficiently indicated by the action of France in the Ruhr, and by the attitude of the Government, the industrialists, and the people in Germany. But the Scheme put forward in Paris on January 2 as the basis of British policy has certainly not been understood in France, nor, if the truth be told, could it be readily understood by any save financial experts. It took little account of the state of French public opinion, it wore all its vices upon its sleeve and hid most of its virtues in its heart, and it seemed far too intricate to appeal to French minds as a simple, straightforward offer. The British Prime Minister may have felt, and may have had valid reason to feel, that the French Government were so set upon direct action against Germany that no practicable British offer would have availed to change their determination. If such were the case, he was certainly better advised to stand upon the broad issue of principle as to the best method of securing Reparations from Germany which the British Scheme really raised than to enter into discussion of the French proposals and to break upon some apparently minor point,

Any other course would have been a British repetition of the mistake made by M. Poincaré last August in London when he broke with Mr. Lloyd George upon comparatively insignificant details instead of producing, in defiance of the Balfour Note, his own general scheme and leaving public opinion in the two countries to judge between him and the British Government. In the long run, public opinion is the supreme court of appeal for statesmen. If at the beginning of January France were really determined to try the effect of direct action against Germany, the only error that can fairly be laid to the charge of Mr. Bonar Law is that the complicated nature of the Scheme he propounded prevented French public opinion from grasping immediately its significance.

Nor was it only French public opinion that failed to grasp the meaning of the British Scheme. The full text of M. Poincaré's reply to it, which was submitted to the second meeting of the Paris Conference on January 3, shows that he did not understand it. His statement was little better than a-doubtless inadvertent -travesty of the British proposals. Far more intelligible than the British Scheme itself was the explanatory memorandum, or rejoinder to M. Poincaré, communicated to the Conference by the British Delegation at the third meeting on January 4. But it is surely a condemnation of the form of the British Scheme if its real meaning had to be made clear by a memorandum more voluminous than the Scheme itself after an unfavourable initial impression had been made. In fact, by January 4 the divergence between the British and the French points of view had become so wide that no explanation could easily have created a basis for compromise.

Yet it seems expedient that an effort should be made to translate the British Scheme itself into language as plain as the technical nature of the subject permits. The following version of the Scheme represents such an effort. Though, in making it, I have departed from the sequence of the official proposals and have drawn upon the explanatory memorandum of January 4 as fully as upon the text of the Scheme itself, it is because the sequence of the proposals in the Scheme tends to obscure their meaning. I do not claim that this version is exhaustive-some really irrelevant though perhaps irritating points I have, indeed, deliberately omitted-but I think that had the British Scheme been put before the French public in a simple form it might have been received more favourably from the outset, or might, at least, have induced the French public to reflect more seriously upon it :

The British Government desires to secure from Germany, in the shortest practicable time, the largest amount of Reparation payments consistent with a final settlement of the German Reparation Debt and of European inter-Allied indebtedness. It regards the restoration of German public finance and credit and the stabilisation of the mark as indispensable to this end. It believes that attempts to exact from Germany payments exceeding her financial and economic capacity must defeat their own object and ruin the debtor without benefiting the creditors. If, on the contrary, the Allied creditors offer their debtor, Germany, conditions such as to interest her in a rapid liquidation of her debt by means of home and foreign loans, the British Government is persuaded that a satisfactory settlement will be attainable.

As regards money payments, the British Government is convinced that a moratorium of from two to four years should be granted to Germany. The present German deliveries of coal, dyestuffs and timber should not cease though a new annual maximum for those deliveries should be fixed, any deliveries in excess of this maximum being paid for in cash by the receiving Powers. This diminution of German liabilities, for payments in kind, would facilitate the balancing of the German Budget, without which the value of the mark cannot be stabilised or the inflation of German currency be checked. As long as the German Treasury is obliged to make the present heavy payments to German nationals for their deliveries in kind to the Allies, the German Budget cannot be balanced.

In order to clear the ground for a final settlement of the Reparation Debt of Germany, the British Government proposes to substitute for the existing three categories of German Reparation Bonds (issued under the agreement of March 1921 for an aggregate total of 6,600,000,000l.) two series of fresh bonds approximately equal to the old bonds in present value. The present value of the 1921 bonds is too problematical to allow of their being taken as the basis for a satisfactory settlement; but the Scheme which the British Government now recommends will be found to approach very closely the estimate of the real present value of the old bonds which was laid before the Budget Committee of the French Chamber by its Reporter last July.

While suggesting this nominal reduction of the Reparation claims of European Allies upon Germany, the British Government proposes very largely to reduce the Allies' war debts to Great Britain. Under the