Show national affairs by FRANK P LITSCHERT much mitch to the surprise of the average newspaper reader there flashed across I 1 the front page a few days ago the information that the french government was balking at a five power naval agreement aut at london arid and was insisting that iho he agreement reached thero there would only bo be tentative the reason for this was at first brat somewhat obscure but it developed that the french were highly suspicious of the proposed british amerl ameri can agreement and believe that the two english speaking powers were framl framing ng something up on the rest of the world tills this of course was an erroneous conclusion cl but the french like other european powers judge everything by the standards of european diplomacy and the fact that they should mistake our motives was not therefore so BO surprising 0 0 it will be remembered that under the I 1 conservative government in england the and french worked closely together in a diplomatic way with the advent of the labor government and mr Sn course on the young plan this entente was disrupted following this came ramsay macdonaldd Mac Donalds visit to the united states and the reports that naval limitation had been virtually agreed on this was enough to arouse french suspicion further As the new york world recently put I 1 it t 0 0 0 for in spite of all the manifold assurances su already given that th atio mae mac donald hoover conversations do not foreshadow an entente in the french mind there thera has been implanted the conviction that an anglo american entente Is in the making the french wll wil not beneva believe our denials by an all the rules of the continental diplomacy of which americans are am so BO naively ignorant recent events point by inevitable logic to the malting making of an entente 4 to 0 As a came the french action which for or the time tended to embarrass those who are arc seeking to work out a con program of naval limitation of course the united states hae ha no intention ot of abandoning the time honored policy ot of no foreign alliances this Is not in the to mind of our government and would not be tolerated by the people of the united 15 tates but it must be remembered that europe judges all diplomatic actions action by european rules of the game hence the suspicion of france and other european nations fortunately our new ambassador to paris has succeeded la in smoothing away some of the obstacles tor for the time being at least and at this writing the future looks auspicious 40 41 0 but the incident of the french suspicion Is only another lesson showing us how careful we have to be in our relations with europe our motive ave is P peace and limitation of arman armament iet too oft often the motive of european politics Is something different from t this tr and we are a apt to bo be judged accordingly that is why we have always shunned advance commitments to european europea policy without sufficient safeguards tor for our independence of action |