When the public, and especially in the United States and Great
Britain, become convinced that the spirit of peace can only prevail by
means of an honest revision of the treaties the difficulties will be
easily eliminated. But one cannot merely speak of a simple revision;
it would be a cure worse than the evil. During the tempest one cannot
abandon the storm-beaten ship and cross over to a safer vessel. It is
necessary to return into harbour and make the transhipment where calm,
or relative calm at any rate, reigns.
Inasmuch as Europe is out of equilibrium, a settlement, even of a
bad kind, cannot be arrived at off-hand. To cast down the present
political scaffolding without having built anything would be an error.
Perhaps here the method that will prove most efficacious is to entrust
the League of Nations with the task of arriving at a revision.
When the League of Nations is charged with this work the various
governments will send their best politicians, and the discussion will
be able to assume a realizable character.
According to its constitution, the League of Nations may, in case of
war or the menace of war (Clause 11), convoke its members, and take
all the measures required to safeguard the peace of the nations. All
the adhering States have recognized their obligation to submit all
controversies to arbitration, and that in any case they have no right
to resort to war before the expiration of a term of three months after
the verdict of the arbiters or the report of the Council (Clause 12).
Any member of the League of Nations resorting to war contrary to the
undertakings of the treaty which constitutes the League is, _ipso
facto_, considered as if he had committed an act of war against all
the other members of the League (Clause 19).
But more important still is the fact that the Assembly of the League
of Nations may invite its members to proceed to a fresh examination
of treaties that become inapplicable as well as of international
situations whose prolongation might imperil the peace of the world
(Clause 19).
We may therefore revise the present treaties without violence and
without destroying them.
What requires to be modified there is no necessity to say, inasmuch as
all the matter of this book supplies the evidence and the proof. What
is certain is that in Europe and America, except for an intransigent
movement running strong in France, everyone is convinced of the
necessity of revision.
It will be well that this revision should take place through the
operations of the League of Nations after the representatives of all
the States, conquerors, conquered and neutrals, have come to form part
of it.
But in the constitution of the League of Nations there are two clauses
which form its fundamental weakness, sections desired by France, whose
gravity escaped Wilson.
Clause 5 declares that, save and excepting contrary dispositions, the
decisions of the Assembly or of the Council are to be by the unanimous
consent of the members represented at the meetings. It is difficult
to imagine anything more absurd. If the modification of a territorial
situation is being discussed, all the nations must agree as to the
solution, including the interested nation. The League of Nations is
convinced that the Danzig corridor is an absurdity, but if France is
not of the same opinion no modification can be made. Without a change
of this clause, every honest attempt at revision must necessarily
break down.
Clause 10, by which the members of the League of Nations pledge
themselves to respect and preserve from external attacks the
territorial integrity and the existing political independence of all
the members of the League, must also be altered. This clause, which
is profoundly immoral, consecrates and perpetuates the mistakes
and faults of the treaties. No honest country can guarantee the
territorial integrity of the States now existing after the monstrous
parcelling out of entire groups of Germans and Magyars to other
nations, arranged without scruples and without intelligence. No one
can honestly guarantee the territorial integrity of Poland as it
stands at present. If a new-risen Russia, a renewed Germany, and an
unextinguished Austria desire in the future a revision of the treaties
they will be making a most reasonable demand to which no civilized
country may make objection. It is indeed Clauses 5 and 10 which have
deprived the constitution of the League of Nations of all moral
credit, which have transformed it into an instrument of oppression for
the victors, which have caused the just and profound disapproval of
the most enlightened men of the American Senate. A League of Nations
with Clauses 5 and 10 and the prolonged exclusion of the vanquished
cannot but accentuate the diffidence of all the democracies and the
aversion of the masses.
But the League of Nations can be altered and can become indeed a great
force for renovation if the problem of its functioning be clearly
confronted and promptly resolved.
The League of Nations can become a great guarantee for peace on three
conditions:
(a) That it include really and in the shortest space of time possible
all the peoples, conquerors, conquered and neutrals.
(b) That clauses 5 and 10 be modified, and that after their
modification a revision of the treaties be undertaken.
(c) That the Reparations Commission be abolished and its powers be
conferred upon the League of Nations itself.
As it exists at present the League of Nations has neither prestige nor
dignity; it is an expression of the violence of the conquering group
of nations. But reconstituted and renovated it may become the greatest
of peace factors in the relations between the peoples.