The Church in France and the Ruhr

Extract

In her decision to seize the Ruhrland, France has committed herself to a course which leaves her practically no possibility of turning back. The gravity of her decision is already appreciated throughout the country, and the Press is busy exhorting all classes of the population to pay no heed to criticism of French policy and to face the trials which she has chosen to encounter with unflinching resolution and with a determination to rely solely upon France’s own resources. This is not the place to discuss the merits or otherwise of the policy which France has adopted. But in order to make clear the extremely serious dangers which it involves for the position of the Church in France if failure in the Ruhr should lead to a violent political reaction towards the Left, it is necessary to indicate briefly the principal factors in the situation.

In the first place it must be stated quite frankly that no one who sympathises with France in the difficulties with which she has been surrounded since the war could well see how the adventure into the Ruhr was to be avoided. The occupation of the Ruhr was France’s last card against Germany, and as all else had failed, France simply had to play it or acquiesce meekly in Germany’s triumphant default. It is not fair to say that France is prepared to drive Europe into war rather than undertake to pay for her own reconstruction out of taxes.