French Eyes on Roosevelt.

This question is vital, for the guarantee has dogged world history from Versailles downwards. France believed that Versailles arrangements included the guaranteeing of her frontiers by Britain and France and the United States. But this triple guarantee—France, Britain, United States—was subject to ratification, and the U.S. Congress that revolted from Woodrow Wilson never ratified it; and because the guarantee was not finalised in the United State it was not enforced by Britain. France considered herself sold. Ever since Versailles she has linked disarmament and guarantee of her integrity. Why (she asks) should she abandon armed supremacy in Europe unless the Anglo-American guarantee of her frontiers against aggression, promised by Woodrow Wilson and Lloyd George, but never given, is made good? That “fourth step” in the latest Roosevelt speech has been carefully read, but so far Paris cannot read “guarantee” into it, nor even trade boycott of a European aggressor.