Note 55 — Chapter IV · MILITARY PREDOMINANCE—AND INSECURITY

The Times of September 4th, 1920 reproduces an article from the Matin, on M. Millerand’s policy with regard to small States. M. Millerand’s aim was that economic aid should go hand in hand with French military protection. With this policy in view, a number of large businesses recently passed under French control, including the Skoda factory in Czecho-Slovakia, big works at Kattowitz in Upper Silesia, the firm of Huta-Bankowa in Poland, railway factories in Rumania, and certain river systems and ports in Yugo-Slavia. In return for assistance to Admiral Horthy, an agreement was signed whereby France obtained control of the Hungarian State Railways, of the Credit Bank, the Hungarian river system and the port of Buda-pest. Other reports state that France has secured 85 per cent. of the oil-fields of Poland, in return for her help at the time of the threat to Warsaw. As the majority of shares in the Polish Oil Company ‘Galicia,’ which have been in British hands until recently, have been bought up by a French Company, the ‘Franco-Polonaise,’ France now holds an important weapon of international policy.