"ET TU BRUTE!"

The meeting of Premiers Delacroix of France and Lloyd George of England which recently took place in London has in it a more than ordinary significance for those who read as they run. The persistent reports that the English Premier is seriously considering the resumption of trade relations with Germany add even more fuel to the increasing fire of anxiety which has sprung up on both sides of the Atlantic.

It is a well-known fact England and France have differed from the first as to the policy which should be adopted toward their common adversary--France insisting upon one of strict exclusion and domination, England favoring a more lenient attitude. During the two years following the armistice, while Germany lay supine and comparatively helpless, there could be no more than parliamentary debate upon the question, as each country tried to win the other to its own views. Now that Germany has sufficiently recovered, however, to be able to take her place once again in the world markets, the problem of how she shall be treated becomes one not of debate, but of action. Unless England and France can reach some agreement, a severance of their friendship is inevitable.

The French policy of exclusion follows naturally from this war and from the war of 1870. With her northern coal-fields and manufacturing towns devastated and in ruins, while those of Germany remain untouched, and with the memory of the indemnity demands and the suppression of fifty years ago, it would be unreasonable to ask that she stand aside, handicapped, and watch Germany make ingratiating bide for the trade markets which should be hers. Such a course would be willful suicide. Consequently Premier Delacroix is insisting forcibly that England wait until conditions in France reach their normal level before unbarring the gates to Germany. His demands are absolutely justified.

On the other hand, it is disappointing, to say the least, to see England so ready to forget her ally in her eagerness to reach the German market. Although her position may not be so unfortunate as is that of France, she should respect, rather than disregard, the test put upon her friendship, so long as that test is not unreasonable. Should England resume full trade relations with Germany at the; present time, she would be signing the commercial death-warrant of the heroic nation across the Channel. France has asked bread; shall England give a stone?

There is yet another head to this international hydra. When England first cast about for post-war trade, in the United States lay her chief source of expectation. It was here, and not in Germany, that she first looked for markets. She was willing to accede to France's requests while she could find commerce elsewhere than in the North Sea. But she met with a stern rebuff on this side of the Atlantic. The U. S. Transport "Leviathan," which England offered to purchase, is still rotting at its Hoboken dock because anti-British sentiment only to effectively blocked such a negotiation. Ships in Boston Harbor were prevented from taking on cargo for two months for the reason that they were flying the Union Jack. These are but two gross examples of a campaign as wide as it is sinister: the campaign to drive British trade from our shores.

That campaign has succeeded--with the result that Germany is to be favored with that trade which should have been ours, the relations between France and England are becoming more strained each day, France is in a fair way to be pauperized, and England is an object of suspicion the world over.

England certainly is to blame if her leaders and banking-houses desert France. But are we, after our own actions, in a position to tell her so?