EVENING REFLECTIONS

The Anglo-Soviet Treaty and the French Interest

Although violently criticized in the House of Commons before it was even known in its text, the Anglo-Soviet Treaty is today acquired. Any treaty must be laid on the table of the House of Commons at least twenty-one days before being ratified, it is therefore not until about September 30 that it will become definitive. It exists, however, from today and deserves some attention.

Mr. Mac Donald was determined to reach his conclusion and, without taking the trouble to hide his annoyance, on Tuesday evening when Mr. Ponsonby announced the definitive breakdown of the negotiations, he was trying the following day, Wednesday, at five o'clock in the morning, to get the conversation resumed.

With the help of certain members such as Messrs. Lansbury and Morel, he finally succeeded in discovering a formula for an agreement. The British Government agreed to guarantee the Russian loan, and the Soviet Government undertook not only to recognize in principle the debt of the former Russian Government, which is very important, but also to pay compensation to British subjects injured by the revolution and to those whose property had been nationalized. It can be said that this agreement was achieved under the active and vigilant pressure of the Labour Party.

What will now be the results from a practical point of view? The English opposition parties, Liberal and Conservative, claim that the Labour Ministry and the Labour Party wanted to obtain a purely artificial success at a low price, since this treaty, which has not been ratified and which may not be, settles nothing on any of the essential points.

It should be noted that no figure is fixed with regard to the loan promised to Russia and that England has not practiced, until now, because of the treaty, any effective financial obligation and on the other hand that no indication is provided either as to the compensation which could be granted by the Soviets to the injured British interests.

However, this treaty constitutes a capital event for the reason that, if it is ratified, it creates a situation dominated by two major new facts.

The first of these facts is that England agrees to the postponement sine die of all claims concerning Russian state debts and this decision taken, one wonders what she will do tomorrow with regard to inter-allied debts, which interests France in the first place.

The second of these facts, finally, is that by admitting the principle of compensation to injured British subjects and to those whose property has been nationalized, it definitively renounces all hope of reinstating the former owners in their previous rights.

Now, this is extremely serious because of the consequences that it entails from a general point of view and France in particular cannot be indifferent to it.

As a result of this agreement, Soviet Russia has a free hand with regard to its oil, that is to say with regard to the only part of its assets that is immediately realizable. The former owners of concessions, the former Russian companies that exploited them find themselves definitively dispossessed. Certainly, their right to compensation, the proportion of which is not fixed, is not known, but their dispossession on the other hand is acquired. Thus the Soviets will be able to concede all these exploitations again tomorrow, even if necessary to charge the new concessionaires with the payment of the compensation promised to the former ones.

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Now, it is here that we must reflect on the situation created by this fact for French interests. There is no doubt that if the Anglo-Soviet treaty was signed, it is above all because it includes at the same time the allocation to English groups of important oil concessions naturally carved out of the nationalized domains of the dispossessed owners. Thus England, by signing this treaty, will have overtaken the other powers in the field of practical achievements.

But, it will be said, it is up to France to act in the same way and to treat in turn with the Soviets on similar bases.
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Attention! We do not doubt, of course, that our government is inclined to this arrangement, but it is a question first of knowing what share England has carved out for itself in Russian oil thanks to this treaty, which is the first in date. It may be that it has not left much. Now, we must not abandon all our claims that are worth something because the cause of the right, even today, still retains a value without demanding some compensation in our turn. We, too, need oil and gasoline and increasingly we need, in order to obtain them, to depend neither on England nor on anyone else.

ANDRE PAYER.