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Show FRENCH CRITICIZE HARDING IDEA OF ; DISARMAMENT Ironical Views Expressed In Unofficial Unoffi-cial Circles on Suggestion of New Association to Insure Peace. Change Every Four Years. Newspaper Makes Satirical Forecast of Reception Recep-tion of the Proposed Envoys. . . Paris, Jan. 20. f he proposed plan for President-elect Harding to call a conference on disarmament and arbitration arbi-tration has received an ironical reception recep-tion in certain French circles which are indiscreet enough to express opinions opin-ions which will be carefully concealed, even if they are held, by French officialdom. offi-cialdom. French diplomacy is too wise to make any but favorable comment com-ment on the projects of .the Harding administration, but the Paris Midi today to-day expresses the irony wherewith many Frenchmen nevertheless regard the plan. The paper says that when the envoys from the civilized world arrive in Washington, hat in hand, President Harding will address them as follows: j "Two years ago an American president presi-dent named Wilson persuaded you to create an international, organization called a league Of nations. America has now changed her president, and 1 it is therefore fitting that this organization organi-zation should be replaced by another about which I shall speak with you. At the same time, I take It upon myself my-self to remind you that once more the . civilized world may have to change ' its ideas if four years hence the Democratic party should return to the White House. Changeable World Policy Indicated, The moral of all this, the Midi says, is ithat every time America changes her president the rest of the world must change too. "But that is not all," it continues. "Mr. Harding's project for an international interna-tional organization would have singular singu-lar consequences even if it had . not been preceded by another scheme. His idea appears to be' to group, the nations by continents. Op one side there would te the American nations and on the other aide pose of Europe. ! One so-called court of arbitration ; would dominate each group. In this I way, you will noticx, America would i not be obliged to intervene in Euro-) Euro-) pean affairs, although she is not to sever all ties with the Old World. "This is ingenious, but will it please everybody? One could bet one's head that rather than accept such a project proj-ect the South Americans would prefer to ally 'themselves v-ith China.-. They jhave always considered tho Monroe ' Doctrine as a convenient excuse for the United States to absorb them. To enter an exclusively American group, where the United States necessarily would, be all powerful, would be like putting the head into a wolf's mouth. End to Open Door Suggested. . "And what will Washington say when Japan proposes to take the leadership of the Far Eastern nations? I It would, of course, be understood that I no American or European state would bl included in the Far Eastern group. Who, then, would dominate that section? sec-tion? What would become, of America's Amer-ica's policy of the open door in China? "The more one thinks about it the more he will be convinced that the Harding project, as far as it represents repre-sents anything definie, will end by being drowned in ridicule. Moreover, the League of Nations is alive. Hfev-ing Hfev-ing had trouble in bringing this institution in-stitution into the world, Europe cannot can-not consent to kill It Just to help Mr Harding's election combinations." |
