NEWS OF
THE WEEK ONE passage in the speech made by M. Daladier in the Senate on December 29th has attracted considerable attention. After dwelling on the closeness and the efficacy of the economic and financial understanding reached between France and Britain, the French Prime Minister declared that the partnership was open to anyone to join. He was careful to add that France would never lay down her arms except in return for positive material guarantees, and in referring to the future organisation of Europe he expressed his belief in the need for some federal element. It would clearly be unwise to read too much into what was an essentially general statement. The Franco-British financial and economic accord, for example, is an agreement between two belligerents for the purpose of waging war ; it is hard to see how any non-belligerent could have part in it till the war is over. M. Daladier may, however, have been thinking of that period, for the accord is to continue for six months after the war ends, and that will be the opportunity for consolidating and extending it. The reference to a federal element recalls M. Briand's unsuccessful campaign for the construction of un lien federal between the nations of Europe. Here we must move a step at a time. The essential thing is that any bond forged between Great Britain and France by war should be perpetuated and strengthened in peace, and widened to include any nation ready to join on proper conditions. Whether the relationship so created is strictly federal, or is called federal, or not matters little or not at all.
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