"TIME LOST"

The year 1920 has been a profitable one in the advance of economic and political ideas, but it has been practically wasted with regard to international policies and he ever-important stipulations of the Versailles Treaty. Such, at least, is the opinion of M. Poincare, who has put at the head of his recent article in the Paris "Martin" the title "Time Lost."

France's war president is correct in his estimation. On the one side there has been no unanimity, no definiteness, on the other no sincerity nor marked attempt at disarmament. As a result, Germany has been able to employ diploma icevasion which leaves matters as unsettled as on the day of the Armistice. There have been threats and injunctions, but so far no decisive action.

It is time for the Allies to announce to Germany the amount of her war indemnity, and to insist that she follow the demands of the Treaty. There car be no hope for peace in Europe, economic or physical, until these two questions are satisfactorily adjusted. Germany's attitude is rebellious; the first of January, on which date by the Spa agreement--an agreement indulgently granting more time than was allowed in the Versailles pact--Germany was to have been disarmed, finds her still bristling with soldiers masquerading as ponce and civic guards. Although such trickery is not dangerous at present, it will soon become so if allowed to continue unchecked. The fact that Marshal Foch has planned within the last two weeks a line of defense on the French border and a strategic point of march into Germany is decidedly significant. One does not wait for a smouldering fire to break into flames before making any effort to quench it.

In this welter of confusion there is one foundation upon which to build. England, who up to this time has favored leniency, has now informed France that she will accede to any course which the latter may propose. With the two chiefly concerned nations in agreement, some remedy for the situation may soon be found. Such a result is to be hoped for. If Germany could be made to see that her present tactics are futile, she might finally settle down to a steadier level of action, and become a reductive agent in the markets of the world. But further procrastination is apt to be disastrous to the Allie's and Germany as well.