By refusing to sanction the Treaty of Versailles and all the other
peace treaties, the American Senate has given proof of the soundest
political wisdom: the United States of America has negotiated its own
separate treaties, and resumes its pre-war relations with victors and
vanquished alike.
It follows that all that has been done hitherto in the way of
treaties is rendered worthless, as the most important participant
has withdrawn. This is a further motive for reflecting that it is
impossible to continue living much longer in a Europe divided by two
contending fields and by a medley of rancour and hatred which tends to
widen the chasm.
It is of the greatest interest to America that Europe should once more
be the wealthy, prosperous, civilized Europe which, before 1914, ruled
over the destinies of the world. Only by so great an effort can the
finest conquests of civilization come back to their own.
We should only remember our dead in so far as their memory may prevent
future generations from being saddened by other war victims. The
voices of those whom we have lost should reach us as voices praying
for the return of that civilization which shall render massacres
impossible, or shall at least diminish the violence and ferocity of
war.
Just as the growing dissolution of Europe is a common danger, so is
the renewal of the bonds of solidarity a common need.
Let us all work toward this end, even if at first we may be
misunderstood and may find obstacles in our way. Truth is on the march
and will assert herself: we shall strike the main road after much of
dreary wandering in the dark lanes of prejudice and violence.
Many of the leading men of Europe and America, who in the intoxication
of victory proclaimed ideas of violence and revenge, would now be very
glad to reverse their attitude, of which they see the unhappy results.
The truth is that what they privately recognize they will not yet
openly admit. But no matter.
The confessions which many of them have made to me, both verbally and
in writing, induce me to believe that my ideas are also their ideas,
and that they only seek to express them in the form and on the
occasions less antagonistic to the currents of opinion which they
themselves set up in the days when the chief object to be achieved
seemed to be the vivisection of the enemy.
Recent events, however, have entirely changed the situation.
As I said before, the American Senate has not sanctioned the Treaty
of Versailles, nor is it likely to give it its approval. The United
States of America concludes separate treaties on its own account.
Agreements of a military character had been arrived at in Paris: the
United States of America and Great Britain guaranteed France against
any future unjust attack by Germany. The American Senate did not
sanction the agreement; in fact, it did not even discuss it. The House
of Commons had approved it subordinate to the consent of the United
States. Italy has kept aloof from all alliances. As a result of this
situation, the four Entente Powers, "allied and associated" (as
formerly was the official term), have ceased to be either "allied" or
"associated" after the end of the War.
On the other hand, Europe, after emerging from the War, is darkened
and overcast by intrigues, secret agreements and dissimulated plots:
fresh menaces of war and fresh explosions of dissatisfaction.
Nothing can help the cause of peace more than giving a full knowledge
of the real situation to the various peoples. Errors thrive in
darkness while truth walks abroad in the full light of day. It has
been my intention to lay before the public those great controversies
which cannot merely form the object of diplomatic notes or of
posthumous books presented to Parliament in a more or less incomplete
condition after events have become irreparable.
The sense of a common danger, threatening all alike, will prove the
most persuasive factor in swerving us from the perilous route which we
are now following.
As a result of the War the bonds of economic solidarity have been
torn asunder: the losers in the War must not only make good their own
losses, but, according to the treaties, are expected to pay for all
the damage which the War has caused. Meanwhile all the countries of
Europe have only one prevailing fear: German competition. In order
to pay the indemnities imposed upon her (and she can only do it by
exporting goods), Germany is obliged to produce at the lowest possible
cost, which necessitates the maximum of technical progress. But
exports at low cost must in the long run prove detrimental, if not
destructive, to the commerce of neutral countries, and even to that of
the victors. Thus in all tariffs which have already been published or
which are in course of preparation there is one prevailing object in
view: that of reducing German competition, which practically amounts
to rendering it impossible for her to pay the War indemnity.
If winners and losers were to abandon war-time ideas for a while,
and, rather, were to persuade themselves that the oppression of the
vanquished cannot be lasting, and that there is no other logical way
out of the difficulty but that of small indemnities payable in a
few years, debiting to the losers in tolerable proportion all debts
contracted towards Great Britain and the United States, the European
situation would immediately improve.
Why is Europe still in such a state of economic disorder? Because the
confusion of moral ideas persists. In many countries nerves are still
as tense as a bowstring, and the language of hatred still prevails.
For some countries, as for some social groups, war has not yet
ceased to be. One hears now in the countries of the victors the same
arguments used as were current coin in Germany before the War and
during the first phases of the War; only now and then, more as a
question of habit than because they are truly felt, we hear the words
justice, peace, and democracy.
Why is the present state of discomfort and dissatisfaction on the
increase? Because almost everywhere in Continental Europe, in the
countries which have emerged from the War, the rate of production is
below the rate of consumption, and many social groups, instead of
producing more, plan to possess themselves with violence of the wealth
produced by others. At home, the social classes, unable to resist,
are threatened; abroad, the vanquished, equally unable to resist, are
menaced, but in the very menace it is easy to discern the anxiety
of the winners. Confusion, discomfort and dissatisfaction thus grow
apace.
The problem of Europe is above all a moral problem. A great step
toward its solution will have been accomplished when winners and
losers persuade themselves that only by a common effort can they be
saved, and that the best enemy indemnity consists in peace and joint
labour. Now that the enemy has lost all he possessed and threatens
to make us lose the fruits of victory, one thing is above all others
necessary: the resumption, not only of the language, but of the ideas
of peace;
During one of the last international conferences at which I was
present, and over which I presided, at San Remo, after a long exchange
of views with the British and French Premiers, Lloyd George and
Millerand, the American journalists asked me to give them my ideas
on peace: "What is the most necessary thing for the maintenance of
peace?" they inquired.
"One thing only," I replied, "is necessary. Europe must smile once
more." Smiles have vanished from every lip; nothing has remained but
hatred, menaces and nervous excitement.
When Europe shall smile again she will "rediscover" her political
peace ideas and will drink once more at the spring of life. Class
struggles at home, in their acutest form, are like the competition of
nationalism abroad: explosions of cupidity, masked by the pretext of
the country's greatness.
The deeply rooted economic crisis, which threatens and prepares new
wars, the deeply rooted social crisis, which threatens and prepares
fresh conflicts abroad, are nothing but the expression of a _status
animae_ or soul condition. Statesmen are the most directly responsible
for the continuation of a language of violence; they should be the
first to speak the language of peace.