just yet. The League was founded only three years ago--much too short
a period to afford a test of the working of a gigantic, complex, but
very delicate and sensitive human machine. There has been hardly time
enough even to catalogue and chart the myriads of nerves that thread
its system. You cannot move a finger at the councils of Geneva without
touching some hidden nerve and setting it in a condition of quivering
protest. The League has, however, been long enough in existence to
reveal its strength and its weaknesses, its power, its potentialities
and its perils.
It has already achieved triumphs of which its founders may well be
proud. The restoration of Austria to life when it seemed to have been
hopelessly submerged in the deluge of economic, financial and political
disaster which had overwhelmed it, is a notable feat of artificial
respiration. The successful effort organised by the League to stamp out
typhus in Eastern Europe and prevent its spread to the West is also a
success worthy of record. But for this intelligently conducted campaign
that terrible disease would have ravaged Russia and Central Europe
and laid low millions out of populations so enfeebled by hunger and
privation as to become easy victims to its devastating assaults.
The Labour branch of the League has also been specially active and
energetic, and its persistent endeavours to raise and co-ordinate the
standards of toil in all countries are producing marked and important
results. In addition great credit is due to the League for the splendid
work it has accomplished in alleviating the distress which prevailed
amongst the famine-stricken areas of Eastern Europe and amongst the
refugees who fled from the horrors of victorious Bolshevism in Russia,
and the still greater horrors of Turkish savagery in Asia Minor.
But these humanitarian tasks, praiseworthy though they be, were not the
primary objects of the foundation of the League. Its main purpose was
the averting of future wars by the setting up of some tribunal to which
nations would be bound by their own covenant and the pressure of other
nations to resort in order to settle their differences. Its failure or
success as an experiment will be judged by this test alone. How does it
stand in this respect?
It succeeded in effecting a settlement of a dangerous dispute between
Sweden and Finland over the possession of the Aaland Islands. That
success was on the line of its main purpose. Here the methods of the
League gave confidence in its complete impartiality.
So much can, unfortunately, not be said of another question where it
was called in and gave its decision. Its Silesian award has been acted
upon but hardly accepted by both parties as a fair settlement. That is
due to the manner adopted in reaching judgment. Instead of following
the Aaland precedent in the choice of a tribunal, it pursued a course
which engendered suspicion of its motives. It created a regrettable
impression of anxiety to retain a certain measure of control over
the decision. There was a suspicion of intrigue in the choice of the
tribunal and the conduct of the proceedings. In the Aaland case no
great power was particularly interested in influencing the conclusions
arrived at either way. But here two powers of great authority in the
League--France and Poland--were passionately engaged in securing a
result adverse to Germany. The other party to the dispute had no
friends, and was moreover not a member of the League.
Britain stood for fair play, but she was not a protagonist of the
claims of Germany. Poland had a powerful advocate on the League--a
country with a vital interest in securing a pro-Polish decision. In
these circumstances the League ought to have exercised the most
scrupulous care to avoid any shadow of doubt as to its freedom from
all bias. Had it chosen distinguished jurists outside its own body to
undertake at least a preliminary investigation as it did in the Aaland
case, all would have been well. It preferred, however, to retain the
matter in its own hands. Hence the doubts and misgivings with which
the judgment of the League has been received not only by the whole of
Germany, but by many outside Germany.
This decision, and the way Poland has flouted the League over Vilna
served to confirm the idea which prevails in Russia and Germany that
France and Poland dominate the League. The Silesian award may be just,
but the fact remains that it will take a long series of decisions
beyond cavil to restore or rather to establish German and Russian
confidence in the League.
It is unfortunate that countries which cover more than half Europe
should feel thus about a body whose success depends entirely on the
confidence reposed in its impartiality by all the nations which may be
called upon to carry out its decrees, even though these may be adverse
to their views or supposed interests. The Vilna fiasco, the Armenian
failure, the suspicions that surround the Silesian award, the timidity
which prevents the tackling of reparations, which is the one question
disturbing the peace of Europe to-day, the futile conversations and
committees on disarmament which everyone knows, will not succeed in
scrapping one flight of aëroplanes or one company of infantry. All
these disappointments arise from one predominating cause. What is it?
Undoubtedly the great weakness of the League comes from the fact that
it only represents one half the great powers of the world. Until the
others join you might as well call the Holy Alliance a League of
Nations.
The ostensible purpose of that combination was also to prevent a
recurrence of the wars that had for years scorched Europe, and to
establish European peace on the firm basis of a joint guarantee of
delimited frontiers. But certain powers with selfish ambitions dictated
its policy. They terrorised Europe into submission and called that
peace.
No historical parallel is quite complete, but there is enough material
in the occurrences of to-day to justify the reference. The League to be
a reality must represent the whole civilised world. That is necessary
to give it balance as well as authority. That was the original
conception. To ask why that failed is to provoke a bitter and a barren
controversy.
I do not propose to express any opinion as to the merits of the
manoeuvres which led to the defeat of the treaty in America. Whether
the Senate should have honoured the signature of an American President
given in the name of his country at an international conference, or
whether the commitment was too fundamentally at variance with American
ideas to justify sanction--whether the amendments demanded as the
condition of approval would have crippled the League and ought to have
been rejected, or whether they were harmless and ought to have been
accepted--these are issues which it would serve no helpful purpose for
me to discuss.
But as to the effect of the American refusal to adhere to the League,
there can be no doubt. It robbed that body of all chance of dominating
success in the immediate future. It is true that three great powers
remained in the League, but Russia was excluded, Germany was not
included, and when America decided not to go in, of the great powers,
Britain, France and Italy alone remained.
The effect has been paralysing. Where these three powers disagree on
important issues upon which action is required, nothing is done. The
smaller powers cannot, on questions where one or more of the great
powers have deep and acute feeling, impose their will; and no two great
powers will take the responsibility of overruling the third.
Hence questions like reparations which constitute a standing menace to
European peace are not dealt with by the League. Had America been in,
even with an amended and expurgated constitution, the situation would
have been transformed. America and Britain, acting in concert with an
openly sympathetic Italy and a secretly assenting Belgium, would have
brought such pressure to bear on France as to make it inevitable that
the League should act.
The success of the League depends upon the readiness of nations great
and small to discuss all their differences at the council table. But no
great power has so far permitted any international question in which
it has a direct and vital interest to be submitted to the League for
decision.
It has been allowed to adjudicate upon the destiny of the Aaland
Islands, over the fate of which Sweden and Finland had a controversy.
It has taken cognisance of disputes between Poland and Lithuania
about Vilna, although even here its decision has been ignored by the
parties. But the acute and threatening quarrel which has broken out
between France and Germany over the question of reparations the former
resolutely declines to submit to consideration by the League.
The Treaty of Versailles is so wide in its application and so
comprehensive and far-reaching in its character that it touches
international interests almost at every point. So that the French
refusal to agree to a reference of any problems in which they are
directly concerned which may arise out of this treaty has had the
effect of hobbling the League. As long as that attitude is maintained,
the League is impotent to discharge its main function of restoring and
keeping peace.
The dispute over reparations clouds the sky to-day, and until it is
finally settled it will cause grave atmospheric disturbances for
a whole generation. It is not an impossibility that it may end in
the most destructive conflict that ever broke over the earth. It is
churning up deadly passions. If ever there was an occasion which called
for the intervention of an organisation set up for the express purpose
of finding peaceable solutions for trouble-charged international feuds,
surely this is pre-eminently such a case. Not only do the French
government decline to entertain the idea of putting the covenant which
constitutes the first and foremost part of the Treaty of Versailles
into operation: they have gone so far as to intimate that they will
treat any proposal of the kind as an unfriendly act. The constitution
of the League stipulates that it will be the friendly duty of any power
to move that any international dispute which threatens peace shall
be referred to the League. Nevertheless, one leading signatory rules
out of the covenant all the questions which vitally affect its own
interests. This is the power which has invaded the territory of another
because the latter has failed to carry out one of the provisions of the
same treaty!
This emphatic repudiation of a solemn contract by one of its promoters
has been acquiesced in by all the other signatories. Repudiation and
acquiescence complete the electrocuting circuit. This limitation of
the activities of the League is the gravest check which it has yet
sustained in its career. I do not believe it would have occurred had
America, with or without Article 10, been an active member of this
body. Its great authority, added to that of Britain and Italy, would
have made the pressure irresistible, and its presence on the council
would have helped materially to give such confidence in the stability
and impartiality of the League that Germany would have accepted the
conclusions arrived at without demur and acted upon them without
chicane. A rational settlement of the reparations problem by the League
would have established its authority throughout the world. Germany,
Russia and Turkey, who now treat its deliberations with distrust and
dislike tinctured with contempt, would be forced to respect its power,
and would soon be pleading for incorporation in its councils. The
covenant would thus become a charter--respected, feared, honoured and
obeyed by all. There would still be injustice, but redress would be
sought and fought for in the halls of the League. There would still
be oppression, but freedom would be wrung from the clauses of the
covenant. Argument, debate and intercession would be the recognised
substitutes for shot, shell and sword. Wars would cease unto the ends
of the earth, and the reign of law would be supreme.
Wherein lies the real power of the League, or to be more accurate, its
possibility of power? It brings together leading citizens of most of
the civilised states of the world to discuss all questions affecting or
likely to affect peace and concord amongst nations. The men assembled
at Geneva do not come there of their own initiative, nor do they merely
represent propagandist societies engaged in preaching the gospel of
peace. They are the chosen emissaries of their respective governments.
They are the authorised spokesmen of these governments. When in doubt
they refer to their governments and receive their instructions, and the
proceedings are reported direct to the governments. They meet often and
regularly, and they debate their problems with complete candour as well
as courtesy.
It is in itself a good thing to accustom nations to discuss their
difficulties face to face in a public assembly where reasons have
to be sought and given for their attitude which will persuade and
satisfy neutral minds of its justice and fairness. It is a practice
to be cultivated. It is the practice that ended in eliminating the
arbitrament of the sword in the internal affairs of nations. It is
only thus that international disputes will gradually drift into the
debating chamber instead of on to the battlefield for settlement. Wars
are precipitated by motives which the statesmen responsible for them
dare not publicly avow. A public discussion would drag these emotives
in their nudity into the open where they would die of exposure to the
withering contempt of humanity. The League by developing the habit
amongst nations of debating their differences in the presence of the
world, and of courting the judgment of the world upon the merits of
their case, is gradually edging out war as a settler of quarrels. That
is the greatest service it can render mankind. Will it be allowed to
render that service? If not, then it will perish like many another
laudable experiment attempted by mankind in the effort to save itself.
But if it dies, the hope of establishing peace on earth will be buried
in the same tomb.
_London, April 2nd, 1923._
V
THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES AND ITS CRITICS
I have had recently special opportunities for appreciating the extent
to which the Treaty of Versailles has not been read by those who
have formed very definite opinions concerning its qualities. There
is no justification for a failure to peruse this great international
instrument. It is the most important document of modern times. It has
reshaped for better or for worse much of the geography of Europe. It
has resurrected dead and buried nationalities. It constitutes the deed
of manumission of tens of millions of Europeans who, up to the year of
victory, 1918, were the bondsmen of other races. It affects profoundly
the economics, the finance, the industrial and trade conditions of the
world; it contains clauses upon the efficacy of which may depend the
very existence of our civilisation. Nevertheless there are few who can
tell you what is in the Treaty of Versailles. You might have thought
that although men differed widely as to its merits, there would
have been no difficulty in securing some measure of agreement as to
its actual contents. Every endeavour was made to give full publicity
to the draft when it was first presented to the Germans, and to the
final document when signed. Even before the form of the draft was ever
settled, the actual decisions were reported from day to day. Never
was a treaty so reported and so discussed in every article and every
particle of its constitution, and to-day you can procure an official
copy of it from any bookseller for the moderate price of 2_s._ 6_d._ In
spite of that no two men who happen to profess diverse opinions as to
its justice or injustice can agree as to its contents.
A visitor to England in the year 1713 probably experienced the same
perplexity in seeking information from a Whig and a Tory respectively
as to the Treaty of Utrecht. So this treaty has become one of those
fiercely debated subjects, as to which the contestants deliberately
refuse to regard any testimony, or recognise the existence of any fact,
which is in the least inconsistent with their particular point of view.
It has come to pass that the real Treaty of Versailles has already
disappeared, and several imaginary versions have emerged. It is around
these that the conflict rages.
In France there exist at least two or three schools of thought
concerning the Versailles Treaty. There is one powerful section
which has always regarded it as a treasonable pact, in which M.
Clemenceau gave away solid French rights and interests in a moment of
weakness under pressure from President Wilson and myself. That is the
Poincaré-Barthou-Pertinax school. That is why they are now, whilst in
form engaged in enforcing the treaty, in fact carrying out a gigantic
operation for amending it without consulting the other signatories.
This has come out very clearly in the remarkable report from a French
official in the Rhineland which was disclosed in the London _Observer_.
It is obvious from this paper that whilst the French government have
worked their public into a frenzied state of indignation over the
failure of Germany to carry out the Treaty of Versailles, they were
the whole time deliberately organising a plot to overthrow that treaty
themselves. Their representative on the Rhine was spending French money
with the consent of the French government to promote a conspiracy for
setting up an independent republic on the Rhine under the protection
of France. It was a deliberate attempt by those who disapproved of
the moderation of the Treaty of Versailles to rewrite its clauses in
the terms of the militarist demands put forward by Marshal Foch at
the Peace conference. Marshal Foch, the soul of honour, wanted to see
this done openly and straightforwardly. What he would have done like
the gentleman he is, these conspirators would have accomplished by
deceit--by deceiving their Allies and by being faithless to the treaty
to which their country had appended its signature. That is one French
school of thought on the Treaty of Versailles. It is the one which has
brought Europe to its present state of confusion and despair.
There is the second school which reads into the treaty powers
and provisions which it does not contain, and never contemplated
containing. These critics maintain stoutly that M. Briand, and all
other French prime ministers, with the exception of M. Poincaré,
betrayed their trust by failing to enforce these imaginary
stipulations. They still honestly believe that M. Poincaré is the first
French minister to have made a genuine attempt to enforce French rights
under the treaty.
In the background there is a third school which knows exactly what
the treaty means, but dares not say so in the present state of French
opinion. Perhaps they think it is better to bide their time. That time
will come, and when it does arrive, let us hope it will not be too late
to save Europe from the welter.
In America there are also two or three divergent trends of opinion
about this treaty. One regards it as an insidious attempt to trap
America into the European cockpit, so as to pluck its feathers to line
French and English bolsters. If anything could justify so insular
an estimate it would be the entirely selfish interpretation which
is put upon the treaty by one or two of the Allied governments. The
other American party, I understand, defends it with vigour as a great
human instrument second only in importance to the Declaration of
Independence. There may be a third which thinks that on the whole it
is not a bad settlement, and that the pity is a little more tact was
not displayed in passing it through the various stages of approval and
ratification. This party is not as vocal as the others.
In England we find at least three schools. There are the critics who
denounce it as a brutal outrage upon international justice. It is to
them a device for extorting incalculable sums out of an impoverished
Germany as reparation for damages artificially worked up. Then there
is the other extreme--the "die-hard" section--more influential since
it became less numerous, who think the treaty let Germany off much
too lightly. In fact they are in complete agreement with the French
Chauvinists as to the reprehensible moderation of its terms. In
Britain also there is a third party which regards its provisions as
constituting the best settlement, when you take into account the
conflicting aims, interests, and traditions of the parties who had to
negotiate and come to an agreement.
But take all these variegated schools together, or separately, and
you will find not one in a thousand of their pupils could give you
an intelligent and comprehensive summary of the main principles of
the treaty. I doubt whether I should be far wrong in saying there
would not be one in ten thousand. Controversialists generally are
satisfied to concentrate on the articles in the treaty which are
obnoxious or pleasing to them as the case may be, and ignore the rest
completely, however essential they may be to a true judgment of the
whole. Most of the disputants are content to take their views from
press comments and denunciatory speeches. Unhappily the explanatory
speeches have been few. Some there are who have in their possession
the full text--nominally for reference; but you will find parts of
the reparations clauses in their copies black with the thumb-marks
which note the perspiring dialectician searching for projectiles to
hurl at the object of his fury. The clauses which ease and modify the
full demand are treated with stern neglect, and the remainder of the
pages are pure as the untrodden snow. You can trace no footprints of
politicians, publicists, or journalists, in whole provinces of this
unexplored treaty. The covenant of the League of Nations is lifted
bodily out of the text, and is delivered to the public as a separate
testament for the faithful so that the saints may not defile their
hands with the polluted print which exacts justice. They have now come
to believe that it never was incorporated in the Treaty of Versailles,
and that it has nothing to do with that vile and sanguinary instrument.
And yet the first words of this treaty are the following:
"The High Contracting Parties,
"In order to promote international co-operation and to achieve
international peace and security,
"By the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war,
"By the prescription of open, just and honourable relations
between nations,
"By the firm establishment of the understandings of international
law as the actual rule of conduct among Governments, and
"By the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all
treaty obligations in the dealings of organised peoples with one
another,
"Agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations."
Then follow the articles of the debated covenant.