told me that the undergraduates exhibited the greatest surprise
when he informed them that the League of Nations was founded by the
Versailles Treaty. A few days ago I had a similar experience at the
Oxford Union. I was speaking against a motion framed to condemn the
principles of the treaty as unwise and unjust. In its defence I
recalled some of its outstanding features. But as most of my narrative
had no bearing on reparations it was greeted with impatience and
cries of "Question" from a group of anti-Versaillists. They honestly
thought I was travelling outside the motion in giving a short summary
of the other sections of the treaty. To them it is all condensed in
Mr. Keynes's book, and other hostile commentaries. Anything which
is inconsistent with these, or supplements the scanty or misleading
statements they make, is deemed to be tainted and biassed. To refer to
the text itself they regard as unfair, and as playing into the hands
of the defenders of a wicked and oppressive pact. The actual treaty
has been already put by them out of bounds, and you wander into its
forbidden clauses on pain of being put into the guardroom by one or
other of the intolerant factions who patrol the highways and byways of
international politics.
In all the debates on the subject in the House of Commons I have only
once heard the treaty itself quoted by a critic, and strangely enough
that was by way of approval.
I have indicated one important section of the treaty to which is
accorded something of the reverence due to Holy Writ by an influential
section of the public. This group would be shocked were they reminded
that their devotion is given to a chapter in the hateful treaty.
There is yet another large and important section which is completely
ignored by the critics--that which reconstructs Central Europe on the
basis of nationality and the free choice of the people instead of on
the basis of strategy and military convenience. This is the section
that liberated Poland from the claws of the three carnivorous empires
that were preying on its vitals, and restored it to life, liberty and
independence. It is the section that frees the Danes of Schleswig
and the Frenchmen of Alsace-Lorraine. For these oppressed provinces
the Treaty of Versailles is the title-deed of freedom. Why are these
clauses all suppressed in controversial literature? Here is another
of the ignored provisions--that which sets up permanent machinery for
dealing with labour problems throughout the world, and for raising the
standard of life amongst the industrial workers by means of a great
international effort. No more beneficent or more fruitful provision
was ever made in any treaty. It is so momentous and so completely
overlooked in general discussion, that I think it worth while to quote
at length the general principles laid down by a provision which will
one day be claimed as the first great international charter of the
worker.
"The High Contracting Parties recognise that differences of climate,
habits and customs, of economic opportunity and industrial tradition,
make strict uniformity in the conditions of labour difficult of
immediate attainment. But, holding as they do, that labour should not
be regarded merely as an article of commerce, they think that there
are methods and principles for regulating labour conditions which
all industrial communities should endeavour to apply so far as their
special circumstances will permit.
"Among these methods and principles, the following seem to the
High Contracting Parties to be of special and urgent importance:--
"_First._--The guiding principle above enunciated that labour
should not be regarded merely as a commodity or article of
commerce.
"_Second._--The right of association for all lawful purposes by
the employed as well as by the employers.
"_Third._--The payment to the employed of a wage adequate to
maintain a reasonable standard of life as this is understood in
their time and country.
"_Fourth._--The adoption of an eight-hour day or forty-eight hour
week as the standard to be aimed at where it has not already been
attained.
"_Fifth._--The adoption of a weekly rest of at least twenty-four
hours, which should include Sunday wherever practicable.
"_Sixth._--The abolition of child labour and the imposition of
such limitations on the labour of young persons as shall permit
the continuation of their education and assure their proper
physical development.
"_Seventh._--The principle that men and women should receive equal
remuneration for work of equal value.
"_Eighth._--The standard set by law in each country with respect
to the conditions of labour should have due regard to the
equitable economic treatment of all workers lawfully resident
therein.
"_Ninth_.--Each State should make provision for a system of
inspection in which women should take part, in order to ensure the
enforcement of the laws and regulations for the protection of the
employed."
It will take long before the principles propounded in the covenant of
the league under the labour articles are fully and faithfully carried
out, but in both a good deal of quiet and steady progress have already
been attained. M. Albert Thomas is an admirable chief for the labour
bureau. He has zeal, sympathy, tact, energy and great organising
talent. He is pressing along with patience, as well as persistence. But
that is another question. It raises grave issues as to the execution of
the treaty. What I have to deal with to-day is the misunderstandings
which exist as to the character of the treaty itself. The British
public are certainly being deliberately misled on this point. Why are
those sections which emancipate oppressed races, which seek to lift
the worker to a condition above destitution and degradation, and
which build up a breakwater against the raging passions which make
for war, never placed to the credit of the Treaty of Versailles? The
type of controversialist who is always advertising his idealism has
made a point of withholding these salient facts from the public which
he professes to enlighten and instruct. There is no more unscrupulous
debater in the ring than the one who affects to be particularly
high-minded. I do not mean the man who is possessed of a really high
mind, but the man who is always posing as having been exalted by grace
above his fellows. He is the Pharisee of controversy. Beware of him,
for he garbles and misquotes and suppresses to suit his arguments or
prejudices in a way that would make a child of this world blush.
That is why I venture to put in a humble, although I fear belated, plea
for the reading of the text, the whole text, and nothing but the text,
of the Treaty of Versailles. Herein lies the only fair way of arriving
at a just conclusion on the merits of a treaty which holds in its hands
the destiny of Europe for many a generation.
VI
1922
The year nineteen hundred and twenty-two witnessed a genuine struggle
on the part of the nations to re-establish peace conditions in the
world.
During 1919-20 and 1921 "the tarantella was still in their blood." The
mad war dance was still quivering in their limbs and they could not
rest. The crackle of musketry was incessant and made needful repose
impossible. There was not a country in Europe or Asia whose troops were
not firing shots in anger at some external or internal foe.
America rang down the fire curtain until this hysterical frenzy had
burnt itself out. Was she right? It is too early yet to give the
answer. The case is but yet "part heard"--many witnessing years whose
evidence is relevant have not yet entered the box: it will, therefore,
be some time before the verdict of history as to her attitude can be
delivered.
But 1922 testifies to many striking symptoms of recovering sanity on
the part of the tortured continents. Before 1922 you had everywhere
the querulity of the overstrained nerve. The slightest offence or
misunderstanding, however unintentional, provoked a quarrel, and almost
every quarrel was followed by a blow. It was a mad world to live in.
The shrieks of clawing nations rent the European night and made it
hideous. A distinguished general declared that at one period--I think
it was the year of grace 1920--there were thirty wars, great and small,
proceeding simultaneously. Who was to blame? Everybody and nobody.
Mankind had just passed through the most nerve-shattering experience in
all its racking history, and it was not responsible for its actions.
Millions of young men had for years marched through such a pitiless
rain of terror as had not been conceived except in Milton's description
of the battle scenes when the fallen angels were driven headlong to the
deep. And when the Angel of Peace led the nations out from the gates
of hell, no wonder it took them years to recover sight and sanity.
Nineteen twenty-two was a year of restored composure.
The outward visible sign was seen in the changed character of the
international conferences held during the year. The ultimatum kind of
conference gave way to the genuine peace conference. The old method
insisted upon by French statesmen was to hammer out demands on the
conference anvil and send them in the form of an ultimatum to nations
who, in spite of peace treaties, were still treated as enemies; the new
method was to discuss on equal terms the conditions of appeasement.
Germany, having no fleet in the Pacific, was not invited to the
Washington conference, and Russia was excluded for other reasons. But
at Cannes Germany was represented, and at Genoa both Germany and Russia
had their delegates.
The Washington conference was, in some respects, the most remarkable
international conference ever held. It was the first time great
nations commanding powerful armaments had ever sat down deliberately
to discuss a voluntary limitation of their offensive and defensive
forces. Restrictions and reductions have often been imposed in peace
treaties by triumphant nations upon their beaten foes. The Versailles
treaty is an example of that operation. But at Washington the victors
negotiated a mutual cutting-down of navies built for national safety
and strengthened by national pride. The friends of peace therefore
have solid ground for their rejoicing in a contemplation of substantial
reductions already effected in the naval programmes of the most
powerful maritime countries in the world--Britain, the United States of
America, and Japan--as a direct result of the Washington negotiations.
American statesmanship has given a lead of which it is entitled
to boast, and 1922 is entitled to claim that this triumph of good
understanding has brought a measure of glory which will give it a
peculiar splendour amongst the years of earth's history.
The gatherings at Cannes and Genoa can also claim outstanding merit
in the large and growing family of international conferences. At
Washington the Allies alone foregathered. At Cannes and Genoa nations
came together which had only recently emerged out of deadly conflict
with each other. At each conference I met on both sides men who had
but just recovered from severe wounds sustained in this struggle.
At Cannes French, Belgian, Italian, Japanese, as well as British
ministers and experts, sat down in council with German ministers and
experts to discuss the vexed question of reparations without taunt or
recrimination. There was a calm recognition not only of the needs of
the injured countries, but also of the difficulties of the offending
state. Outside and beyond the German problem there was a resolve to
eliminate all the various elements of disturbance, political and
economic, that kept Europe in a ferment and made its restoration
impossible.
Here it was decided to summon all the late belligerent nations to a
great conference at Genoa to discuss reconstruction. To these were
added the neutral nations of Europe. It was a great decision. There
were three obstacles in the way of realising the programme. The first
was the stipulation of France that the specific problems raised by the
treaty of Versailles should be excluded altogether from the purview
of the conference. This was a grave limitation of its functions and
chances. Still, if the Cannes sittings had continued, an arrangement
might have been arrived at with the Germans which would have helped the
deliberations of Genoa. The second obstacle was the refusal of America
to participate in the discussions. Why did the American government
refuse? There were probably good reasons for that refusal, but the
recording angel alone knows them all fully and accurately. The third
obstacle was the fall of the Briand ministry, and the substitution
of a less sympathetic administration. In spite of all these serious
drawbacks Genoa accomplished great things. It brought together into the
same rooms enemies who had not met for years except on the battlefield.
They conferred and conversed around the same table for weeks--at
conferences, committees, and sub-committees. They broke bread and drank
wine together at the same festive boards. Before the conference came
to an end there was an atmosphere of friendliness which was in itself
a guarantee of peaceable relations, for the delegates who represented
the nations at Genoa were all men of real influence in their respective
countries.
But however important the intangible result, there was much more
achieved. The thirty nations represented in the assembly entered
into a solemn pact not to commit any act of aggression against their
neighbours. When they entered the conference there were few of them
who were not oppressed with suspicions that these neighbours meditated
violence against their frontiers. When they arrived at Genoa they
were all anxious for peace, but apprehensive of impending war. Genoa
dispelled those anxieties.
One of the most promising results of the pact and the improved
atmospheric conditions out of which it arose is the substantial
reduction in the Bolshevik army. It has already been reduced to
the dimensions of the French army, and we are now promised a
further reduction. That removes a real menace to European peace.
If the reduction of armies in the East of Europe is followed by a
corresponding reduction in the West the reign of peace is not far
distant.
This is not the time to dwell upon the important agreements effected
at Genoa on questions of exchange, credit, and transport. All the
recommendations made depend for their successful carrying out on the
establishment of a real peace and a friendly understanding between
nations. Peace and goodwill on earth is still the only healing evangel
for idealists to preach and statesmen to practise. Without it plans and
protocols must inevitably fail.
Where does peace stand? The weary angel is still on the wing, for the
waters have not yet subsided. She may perhaps find a foothold in the
Great West, and Britain is fairly safe--not yet Ireland.
But the continent of Europe is still swampy and insecure. The debate
in the French Chamber on reparations is not encouraging. The only
difference of opinion in the discussion was that displayed between
those who advocated an advance into the Ruhr, and the seizure of
pledges further into German territory, and those who preferred
"developing" the left bank of the Rhine. Occupying, controlling,
developing, annexing--they all mean the same thing; that the province
to the left bank of the Rhine is to be torn from Germany and grafted
into France.
There is no peace in this talk. It is a sinister note on which to
end the pacific music of 1922. You must interpret it in connection
with another event of 1922--the Russo-German agreement. Since then
Chicherin--a spirit of mischief incarnate--has almost made Berlin
his abode. The men who are devoting their ingenuity to devising new
torments for Germany are preparing new terrors for their own and their
neighbours' children.
The year ends with rumours of great American projects for advancing
large sums of money to all and sundry in the hope of settling the
vexed question of German reparation. The loan, it is surmised, will be
accompanied by guarantees on the part of France not to invade further
German territory. Some go so far as to conjecture that it is to be an
essential condition of participation in this Christmas bounty of Madame
Rumour that France is to reduce her armies and to undertake not to
exceed Washington limits for her navies.
Nobody seems to know, and I am only repeating the gossip of the press.
But if the £350,000,000 loan is likely to materialise, its projectors
are wise in imposing conditions that would afford them some chance
of receiving payment of a moderate interest in the lifetime of this
generation.
No prudent banker would lend money on the security of a flaming volcano.
_London, December 20th, 1922._
VII
WHAT IS FRANCE AFTER?
_1. The Rhine_
M. Clemenceau, in the remarkable series of speeches delivered in
the United States of America, implies a breach of faith on the part
of Britain in reference to the pact to guarantee France against the
possibility of German aggression. England has no better friend in
the whole of France than M. Clemenceau. Throughout a strenuous but
consistent career he has never varied in his friendship for England.
Many a time has he been bitterly assailed for that friendship. French
journalists are not sparing of innuendo against those they hate.
They hate fiercely and they hit recklessly, and M. Clemenceau, a man
of scrupulous integrity, at one period in his stormy political life
was charged by certain organs of the Paris press with being in the
pay of England. If, therefore, he now does an injustice to Britain I
am convinced it is not from blind hatred of our country, but from
temporary forgetfulness of the facts.
He states the facts with reference to the original pact quite fairly.
It was proffered as an answer to those who claimed that the left bank
of the Rhine should be annexed to France.
There was a strong party in France which urged M. Clemenceau to demand
that the Rhine should be treated as the natural frontier of their
country, and that advantage should be taken of the overwhelming defeat
of Germany to extend the boundaries of France to that fateful river.
For unknown centuries it has been fought over and across--a veritable
river of blood. If French Chauvinism had achieved its purpose at the
Paris conference the Rhine would within a generation once more overflow
its banks and devastate Europe. The most moderate and insidious form
this demand took was a proposal that the German provinces on the left
bank of the Rhine should remain in French occupation until the treaty
had been fulfilled. That meant for ever. Reparations alone--skilfully
handled by the Quai d'Orsay--would preclude the possibility of ever
witnessing fulfilment. The argument by which they supported their claim
was the defencelessness of the French frontier without some natural
barrier. France had been twice invaded and overrun within living memory
by her formidable neighbour. The German military power was now crushed,
and rich and populous provinces of the German Empire had been restored
to France and Poland, but the population of Germany was still fifty per
cent. greater than that of France and it was growing at an alarming
rate, whilst the French population was at a standstill. German towns
and villages were clamant with sturdy children.
You cannot talk long to a Frenchman without realising how this spectre
of German children haunts France and intimidates her judgment. These
children, it is said, are nourished on vengeance: one day the struggle
will be resumed, and France has no natural defence against the avenging
hordes that are now playing on German streets and with the hum of whose
voices German kindergartens resound.
We were told the Rhine is the only possible line of resistance.
Providence meant it to play that part, and it is only the sinister
interference of statesmen who love not France that deprives Frenchmen
of this security for peace which a far-seeing Nature has provided.
The fact that this involved the subjection to a foreign yoke of
millions of men of German blood, history, and sympathies, and that the
incorporation of so large an alien element, hostile in every fibre to
French rule, would be a constant source of trouble and anxiety to the
French Government, whilst it would not merely provide an incentive
to Germany to renew war but would justify and dignify the attack by
converting it into a war of liberation--all that had no effect on the
Rhenian school of French politics.
This school is as powerful as ever. In one respect it is more powerful,
for in 1919 there was a statesman at the head of affairs who had the
strength as well as the sagacity to resist their ill-judged claims.
But what about 1922? Where is the foresight and where is the strength?
There is a real danger that the fifteen years' occupation may on one
pretext or another be indefinitely prolonged. When it comes to an
end will there be a ministry in France strong enough to withdraw the
troops? Before the fifteen years' occupation is terminated will there
be a ministry or a series of ministries strong enough to resist
the demand put forward without ceasing in the French press that the
occupation should be made effective?
Upon the answer to these questions the peace of Europe--the peace of
the world, perhaps the life of our civilisation--depends. The pressure
to do the evil thing that will once more spill rivers of human blood
is insistent. The temptation is growing, the resistance is getting
feebler. America and Britain standing together can alone avert the
catastrophe. But they can do so only by making it clear that the
aggressor--whoever it be--will have the invincible might of these two
commonwealths arrayed against any nation that threatens to embroil the
world in another conflict.
There are men in Germany who preach vengeance. They must be told that
a war of revenge will find the same allies side by side inflicting
punishment on the peace-breakers. There are men in France who counsel
annexation of territories populated by another race. They must be
warned that such a step will alienate the sympathies of Britain and
America, and that when the inevitable war of liberation comes the
sympathies of America and Britain will be openly ranged on the side of
those who are fighting for national freedom.
The time has come for saying these things, and if they are not said in
high places humanity will one day call those who occupy those places to
a reckoning.
The pact was designed to strengthen the hands of M. Clemenceau against
the aggressive party which was then and still is anxious to commit
France to the colossal error of annexing territory which has always
been purely German.
M. Clemenceau knows full well that Britain has been ready any time
during the last three years up to a few months ago to take upon herself
the burden of that pact with or without the United States of America.
At Cannes early this year I made a definite proposal to that effect. It
was a written offer made by me on behalf of the British government to
M. Briand, who was then prime minister of France.
I was anxious to secure the co-operation of France in a general
endeavour to clear up the European situation and establish a real
peace from the Urals to the Atlantic seaboard. French suspicions and
French apprehensions constituted a serious difficulty in the way of
settlement, and I thought that if it were made clear to France that the
whole strength of the British Empire could be depended upon to come to
her aid in the event of threatened invasion French opinion would be in
a better mood to discuss the outstanding questions which agitate Europe.
International goodwill is essential to the re-establishment of the
shattered machinery of international commerce. With a great country
like France, to which the issue of the war had given a towering
position on the continent of Europe, in a condition of fretfulness, it
was impossible to settle Europe.
Hence the offer which was made by the British government. M. Briand was
prepared to welcome this offer and to proceed to a calm consideration
of the perplexities of the European situation. It was agreed to summon
a conference at Genoa to discuss the condition of European exchange,
credit and trade. It was also resolved that an effort should be made
to establish peace with Russia and to bring that great country once
more inside the community of nations. A great start was made on the
path of genuine appeasement. The German Government were invited to
send their chief Minister to the Cannes conference in order to arrive
at a workable settlement of the vexed question of reparations. The
invitation received a prompt response, and Dr. Rathenau, accompanied
by two or three leading ministers and a retinue of financial experts,
reached Cannes in time to take part in the discussions.