The New Zealand Railways Magazine, Volume 7, Issue 1 (May 1, 1932.)
Europe's Fault
Europe's Fault.
One curious fact emerges about Aristide Briand. The late French statesman was “the architect of the United States of Europe”; he was, Sir Austen Chamberlain said, “the greatest European of us all”; he was the apostle of international trust. But his trust of national and
international trade was such that he had half his estate in bank notes—a million francs of them. A Paris cablegram of April 17 remarks that, with all his statesmanship, he retained the hoarding instinct of the French peasantry. Whether or not the post-war world was safe for democracy, he evidently did not consider it safe for thrift. Europe not being ready for his tranquilising policy, European trade must go on minus a million francs. Europe's fault, not Briand's.