FRENCH "SERMONS"

Premier Poincare is not to be fooled. Germany's renunciation of passive resistance, her apparent willingness to come to terms with the French--these indices of a surrender which many people looked at as the final solution of the Ruhr dispute are not for a moment "taking in" the Premier of France. In his last Sunday's "sermon" the Premier announced his stand to an anxious world. Bristling with the most significant facts and couched in the brilliant language of the trained statesman they summarize and justify the stand which M. Poincare has so inflexibly upheld.

The essence of this speech is that "actions speak louder than words". Where words alone are concerned, the Premier and the nationals which he represents are turning deaf ears. "We await Germany's acts", says the Premier and goes on to exclaim "with what joy shall we remain silent the day Germany understands; but she has given us dally fresh proof of her lack of understanding". Standing in the village of Ailly Wood in northern France it would indeed be strange if the ruins about him did not, like Caesar's wounds, open their poor dumb mouths and eloquently remind him, if he needed a reminder, of what his nation is owed.

These "weekly meditations" or "Sunday sermons" which the Premier of France has been making during the past year have rapidly taken on more than a local significance. Besides massing his countrymen behind him, he informs the world of his policies for the coming week and of his conclusions on the week that is past. Inspired by the devastations around him for his speeches have all been made in small towns in the invaded region. It is natural that his utterances should be colored by emotion. But they have been masterful and scholarly as well.

Fundamentally the Ruhr struggle, which has not ended with the cessation of "passive resistance", is being waged to prove the truth or falsity of a belief, namely that Germany is able but unwilling to pay the reparations which she promised to pay in signing the Versailles Treaty and subsequent agreements. Next Monday night the question of the Ruhr occupation is being argued by the University and Oxford teams. There is no better source of information on the orthodox French view of the problem than the "weekly meditations" of the brilliant French Premier, probably the most powerful statesman whom the twentieth century has produced.