A great step towards peace may be made by admitting at once all
ex-enemy States into the League of Nations. Among the States of
European civilization millions of persons are unrepresented in the
League of Nations: the United States, who has not wished to adhere to
it after the Treaty of Versailles sanctioned violence; Russia, who
has not been able to join owing to her difficult position; Germany,
Hungary, Austria and Bulgaria, who have not been permitted to join;
the Turks, etc. The League of Nations was a magnificent conception in
which I have had faith, and which I have regarded with sympathy. But a
formidable mistake has deprived it of all prestige. Clauses 5 and 10
of its originating constitution and the exclusion of the defeated
have given it at once the character of a kind of Holy Alliance of the
conquerors established to regulate the incredible relations which the
treaties have created between conquerors and conquered. Wilson had
already committed the mistake of founding the League of Nations
without first defining the nations and leaving to chance the resources
of the beaten peoples and their populations. The day, however, on
which all the peoples are represented in the League, the United
States, without approving the treaties of Versailles, St. Germain or
Trianon, etc., will feel the need of abandoning their isolation, which
is harmful for them and places them in a position of inferiority. And
the day when all the peoples of the world are represented, and accept
reciprocal pledges of international solidarity, a great step will have
been taken.
As things stand, the organism of the Reparations Commission,
established by Schedule 2 of Part VIII of the Treaty of Versailles,
is an absurd union of the conquerors (no longer allies, but reunited
solely in a kind of bankruptcy procedure), who interpret the treaty in
their own fashion, and can even modify the laws and regulations in
the conquered countries. The existence of such an institution among
civilized peoples ought to be an impossibility. Its powers must be
transferred to the League of Nations in such a manner as to provide
guarantees for the victors, but guarantees also for the conquered.
The suppression of the Reparations Commission becomes, therefore, a
fundamental necessity.