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Show and Germany are still suspicious of one another, and the same holds true of France and Italy. There is renewed renew-ed agitation between Germany and Poland over the minority peoples issue, is-sue, and there are indications that Italy is concluding some sort of an economic alliance with Soviet Russia. German statesmen are denouncing France and Great Britain again, claiming there is another "frame up" against the Reich in the interest of heavier armaments. The situation in Eastern Europe is no better. French statesmen and newspapers news-papers have a well founded suspicion that Germany and Hungary are plotting plot-ting something and there is said to be a great deal of uneasiness in the French public mind over this. The I pact of Locarno seems to be getting more neglected all the time. In a re- cent address M. Maginot, French ! Minister of War, failed to mention the j League of Nations and . the Locarno I pact as instruments of peace, but laid a great deal of stress on the French fortifications along the eastern east-ern frontier. In this plan it is said that the forts are so close together that the machine guns of each forti-I forti-I f ication can cover the next. Continu-j Continu-j ing, M. Maginot said: "Without giving provocation to any one and animated by the sole desire i to be able to defend ourselves, we are j forging an instrument of our inde-j inde-j pendence while we express the vow that we will never be compelled to i use it. As long as we remain faithful i to our present program we shall have every likelihood, though perhaps not certainty, of avoiding war. Our country coun-try must remain vigilant, but there j is no call for alarm." j All of which ought to be interesting to Americans who are being called ! upon to join various sorts of European Euro-pean organizations "in the interest of prompting peace." It would seem to the observer on the outside of the diplomatic poker room that the best way for Uncle Sam to keep the peace would be to remain at home, attend to his own knitting and try to im-j im-j prove the economic status of his own people. i STAYING AT HOME. Things are not getting any better in Europe so far as political conditions condi-tions are concerned. The disarmament disarma-ment discussion seems to have succeeded suc-ceeded only in mudying the waters further and there have been no tangible tan-gible results in the interest of international inter-national peace. On every side the diplomatic jockeying and international internation-al suspicion continues to grow. France |