actually in type. Now the type is ordinary black--later on it may be
red. Twenty lives have already been lost over the preliminaries of
execution. I fear there will be many more as the difficulties become
more apparent.
It is not without significance that the terms which Germany is to be
called upon to accept in the event of her submission have never been
formulated. No ultimatum was issued before invasion. If Germany were
to-morrow to throw up her hands what conditions would she have to
comply with? Who can tell? Germany clearly does not know. The British
government does not know. They were never discussed at the Paris
conference. M. Poincaré has only asserted with emphasis that he "will
not accept promises." If the Ruhr is to be evacuated promises must be
accepted at some stage, for Germany cannot deliver ten years' coal
instalments in advance, and she cannot pay fifty milliards of gold
marks over the counter. So, if M. Poincaré's statement means anything,
then the control of Ruhr industries must be vested in France until the
whole of the mortgage has been redeemed. Hence the vast plan for the
exploitation of Germany, and through Germany of Europe.
A pretty scheme, but--like most plans which make no allowance for
human nature--bound to fail. How long would Italy and Russia consent
to be exploited for the enrichment of French capitalists? Italy has
already made it clear that she has no intention of walking into the
trap. Russia may or may not have been approached. It is not improbable
that there have been informal soundings. It is not easy to reckon what
the Bolshevists may or may not do in any circumstances. But one can be
fairly assured that they will not place their heads in the jaws of a
rapacious capitalistic crocodile of this character. Brigands are not
made of that simple stuff.
Will German statesmen consent to sell their country into political
and economic bondage for an indefinite period? It is incredible. No
doubt there had been feelers between French and German capitalists for
some time before the Ruhr invasion. M. Loucheur and Herr Stinnes are
credited with having had conversations on the subject of amalgamating
the interests of Lorraine iron ore and Ruhr coal. But the Ruhr invasion
has awakened the patriotism of Germany from its stupor. A potent
new element has therefore been introduced into the calculation.
This element does not mix well with international finance. It may be
depended upon to resist to the last any effort to put German industry
under foreign control, and without control the _gage_ is worthless.
Then there is the German workman who must be taken into account. The
miner and the engineer in all countries are proverbially independent.
They take no orders even from their own governments. During the war
they had to be reasoned with before they could be persuaded to take a
course urged upon them by the government of the day in the interests
of their own country. They will view the commands of a syndicate
controlled by foreign governments with suspicion and repugnance. Should
disputes arise--and they are more likely than ever to arise constantly
under these conditions--who will be responsible for the protection of
life, liberty, and property? Will foreign troops operate? Or will the
German army and police act practically under orders given from Paris?
The popular sympathy will be with the strikers.
It is a fantastic idea born of failure and, therefore, bound itself to
be a failure.
_London, March 1st, 1923._
XV
THE QUICKSAND
When you have walked some distance into a quicksand, and are sinking
deeper and deeper with every step you take, it is always difficult to
decide whether you are more likely to reach firm ground by pressing
forward or by going backward. You must do one or other. You cannot just
stand fast, for that is inevitable destruction. The French government
clearly are of opinion that safety lies in marching further into
the quagmire. So three more German cities have been occupied, more
burgomasters and officials expelled, more men and boys shot in the
streets, more black troops imported, more regulations and more decrees
issued; there are more depressions of French, Belgian and Italian
exchanges, more confusion in everybody's business in Central Europe--in
a sentence, everywhere there is more quaking sand and less solid
coal. The total shortage in deliveries as compared with the promises
of Spa was only eight per cent. Had it not been for this fatuous
invasion, France during the past six or seven weeks would have already
received from the Ruhr nearly 3,000,000 tons in coal and in coke.
France has actually received 50,000 tons during this period. A swarm
of engineers, railwaymen, bargemen, officials of all kinds, and hotel
waiters, supported by a formidable army have in six weeks produced this
ridiculous output. No doubt the amount will later on be increased by
further pressure and by pouring in more railwaymen, but it will be a
long time ere France receives her Spa quota minus eight per cent., and
then there will be some months' arrears to make up.
No wonder that M. Loucheur stated flatly in the French Chamber that he
did not approve of the Ruhr enterprise. He has one distinct advantage
over the Ruhr plungers--he does know something about business. He can
boast also of another gift, the possession of which is not without
significance when you consider his present attitude. He is an admirable
judge of to-morrow's weather. That is a rare endowment amongst
politicians. Any simpleton can tell you which way the wind is blowing
to-day, but it requires a man of special insight and experience in
these matters to forecast the direction of the wind to-morrow. M.
Loucheur is one of those exceptionally well-equipped weather prophets.
So he satisfies the opinion of to-day by giving his support to M.
Poincaré, and he safeguards his position against the morrow's change
by stating clearly that he does not approve the policy he supports. I
have read no declaration from any French statesman of eminence--with
the doubtful exception of M. Barthou--indicating a belief in the wisdom
of the venture. And yet French courage, French pride, French loyalty,
French patriotism--and maybe French blood and treasure--are committed
irretrievably to a reckless gamble which most of the responsible
statesmen who led France by their wisdom through her great troubles
regard with doubt, anxiety and apprehension.
Will the French government try to extricate themselves from the
difficulties into which they have precipitated their country and
Europe? I fear not. Heedlessness rushes a man into danger; it needs
courage to get out. And when getting out involves an admission of
blame there are few men who possess that exalted type of courage.
There are other reasons why the present government of France will
flounder further into the quicksand. When governments make mistakes in
England, the threat of a Parliamentary defeat or a couple of adverse
by-elections pulls them out roughly but safely, and the governments
start on a new course amid the general satisfaction of friend and foe.
The Willesden, Mitcham, and Liverpool elections rescued the government
from one of the most hopeless muddles into which any administration has
ever contrived to get its affairs. In similar circumstances in France a
change of government is negotiated with amazing dexterity and celerity.
But you cannot arrange the preliminary overthrow of an existing
government unless there is some one in the background ready and willing
to form the next. There are generally two or three outstanding men
of high repute prepared to serve their country in any emergency. The
trouble to-day in France is that every alternative leader disapproves
of this enterprise and believes it must ultimately fail. On the other
hand, there is no prominent figure in French politics prepared to take
upon himself the odium of sounding the retreat. It would always be
said that success was in sight, and that had it not been for the new
minister's cowardice and perfidy France would have emerged triumphantly
out of all her financial worries. The _drapeau_ would have been
lowered and betrayed. No French statesmen dare face that deadly
accusation. So the present French government is tied to the saddle of
its charger and is forced to go on.
Another explanation of the difficulty of withdrawing is to be found
in the increasing fury of the original fomenters of this rashness.
The more fruitless the enterprise the greater the energy they display
in spurring the government further into its follies. In the previous
article I gave a summary of the ambitious plans they had conceived for
syndicating European resources under French control. The industries
of Europe controlled from Paris--that is their magnificent dream.
Now they propound a new treaty which is to supersede the treaty of
Versailles. Boundaries are to be revised, rich provinces and towns
practically annexed, the Ruhr coal is to be harnessed to Lorraine
coal, and Germany, having been further mutilated and bound, is to be
reduced to a state of complete economic subjection. There has been
nothing comparable to these ideas since the Norman conquest, when
the Saxons, having first of all been disarmed, were reduced to a
condition of economic thraldom for the enrichment and glorification
of their new masters. Needless to say Britain and America are not
to be invited to attend this new peace conference. They are to be
graciously informed of the conditions of the new peace when finally
established by French arms. The British Empire, which raised millions
of men to liberate French soil from the German invaders and which lost
hundreds of thousands of its best young lives in the effort, is not
even to be consulted as to the settlement which its losses alone make
possible. America, who came to the rescue with millions of its bravest,
is barely worth a sentence in these ravings of brains intoxicated
with an unwholesome mixture of hatred, greed and military arrogance.
The French government are not committed by any overt declarations
to these schemes; but it is ominous that they issue from the pens
whose insistent prodding has driven this government on to its present
action. Up to the present no repudiation has come from the head of the
government or from any of his subordinates. The very vagueness of his
published aims would leave him free to adopt any plans. Pledges for
reparation and security will cover a multitude of aggressions.
The British government have just issued as a Parliamentary paper
a full report of the proceedings of the Paris conference. It is an
amazing document. As far as I can see no real endeavour was made by any
of its members to prevent a break-up. At the first failure to secure
agreement the delegates threw up their hands in despair and sought
no alternatives. They agreed about nothing except that it was not
worth while spending another day in trying to agree. Even M. Theunis,
the resourceful Belgian premier, had nothing to suggest. A blight of
sterility seems to have swept over the conference. On this aspect of
the fateful and fatal conference of Paris I do not now propose to
dwell. I wish to call attention to it for another purpose. I have
perused the Blue Book with great care. I was anxious to find out
exactly what M. Poincaré proposed to demand of Germany as a condition
of submission to the French will. What was Germany to do if she was
anxious to avert the fall of the axe? I have read his speeches and
annexes in vain for any exposition of these terms. It is true he was
never asked the question. That sounds incomprehensible. But every one
engaged was in such a hurry to break up the conference and thus put an
end to disagreeable disagreements that it never seems to have occurred
to them to ask this essential question. And the party principally
concerned was not represented. The result is that no one knows the
terms upon which the French army is prepared to evacuate the Ruhr. Mr.
Bonar Law could not explain when questioned in the House of Commons. I
am not surprised, for no one has ever told him and he never asked. I am
sure that by this time M. Poincaré has quite forgotten why he ever went
into the Ruhr. For that, amongst other reasons, he will remain there
until something happens that will provide us with an answer.
Most human tragedy is fortuitous.
_London, March 10th, 1923._
XVI
THE FIRST GERMAN OFFER
The French and Belgian governments have slapped another opportunity
in the face. To make that slap resound as well as sting, they have
accompanied their rejection of the German offer by a savage sentence
of fifteen years' imprisonment on the head of the greatest industrial
concern in the Ruhr, if not in Europe. What for? Because he ordered the
works' syren to sound "cease work" for one day when the French troops
occupied the place. There is a swagger of brutality about that sentence
which betokens recklessness. It came at a moment when the German
government had just made an offer of peace, and when that ally of
France who had made the deepest sacrifices in the war to save her and
Belgium from ruin was urging the French government to regard that offer
at least as a starting-point for discussion. The answer was to treat
the German note as an offence, to promulgate that penal sentence which
outrages every sense of decency throughout the world, and to refuse
to permit an ally, who had been so faithful in the time of trouble for
France and Belgium, even the courtesy of a discussion on the tenor
of the reply to be given to a note that so vitally concerned the
interest of all the Allies without exception. Prussian arrogance in its
crudest days can furnish no such example of clumsy and short-sighted
ineptitude. It gives point to Lord Robert Cecil's observation in the
House of Commons that it is very difficult to reconcile the French
attitude with a conception that the French government, with the opinion
behind it, desires a settlement.
What is the German offer? It proposes to limit the total obligations
of Germany in cash and in kind to thirty milliards of gold marks
(£1,500,000,000) to be raised by loans on the international money
markets at normal conditions in instalments of:--
20 milliards up to July 1, 1927.
5 milliards up to July 1, 1929.
5 milliards up to July 1, 1931.
There are provisions for payment of interest from July, 1923, onward,
and the agreements entered into for delivery of payments in kind on
account of reparations are to be carried out in accordance with the
arrangements already made. Then comes this important provision. After a
paragraph in which it is argued that the above figures would strain the
resources of Germany to the utmost it adds:--
"Should others not share this opinion, the German government
propose to submit the whole reparations problem to an
international commission uninfluenced by political considerations,
as suggested by State Secretary Hughes."
They further state that the German government are prepared to devise
suitable measures in order that the whole German national resources
should participate "in guaranteeing the service of the loan."
Guarantees are also offered for deliveries in kind. In order to
ensure a permanent peace between France and Germany they propose an
agreement that all contentious questions arising between them in future
should be referred to arbitration. The note finally stipulates that
the evacuation of the Ruhr "within the shortest space of time" and
the restoration of treaty conditions in the Rhineland constitute "an
essential leading up to negotiations on basis of above ideas." The
above represents the substance of the German proposals.
The French and Belgian governments in their reply stand by the May,
1921, schedule of payments and decline to forego even the very
problematical "C" bonds of £4,250,000,000. Hitherto it has been
common ground that £2,500,000,000 is the figure which Germany can be
expected to pay. The French and Belgian governments are now insisting
on the full measure of the £6,600,000,000 award. The Hughes proposal
they scoff at and treat its putting forward by Germany as part of "an
expression of a systematic revolt against the Treaty of Versailles."
The real temper and purpose of this intransigeant attitude is to be
found in two sentences. Here is the first. Alluding to the resistance
offered in the Ruhr to the French attempt to exploit its resources
the note says: "The Belgian and French governments cannot take into
consideration any German proposal whilst the resistance continues."
That is, however complete and satisfactory a proposal may be in itself,
it would be rejected unless preceded by abject surrender to French
designs in the Ruhr. Then later on comes this significant sentence
emphasising the moral of the first:--
"The Belgian government and the French government have decided
that they will only evacuate the newly occupied territories
according to the measure and in proportion to the payments
effected. They have nothing to alter in this resolution."
An impossible payment is to be insisted upon--costs of occupation are
to be added to that, and until both are liquidated French armies are
to remain in possession of the richest areas in Germany. Meanwhile the
British Empire and the United States of America, who, at a prodigious
cost in life and treasure, saved France from a similar humiliation
to that which she is now inflicting on Germany, are practically told
when they venture to offer suggestions to mind their own business. No
interference will be tolerated from meddlers of any sort.
The sum offered by Germany in settlement of reparations is no doubt
inadequate. It cannot be accepted by any of the Allies in discharge of
the German obligations under the treaty. The German government must
make a very substantial advance on that offer before they can hope to
come to terms with the Allied governments. I have no doubt the German
government fully realise that fact, and I am sure they did not put
forward these figures as their final tender. They meant them to be
taken as a beginning and a basis for negotiation. In fact they say so.
When you enter into negotiations your lawyer, if he knows his business,
never starts with the figure he is authorised ultimately to propose.
Nor does the client always communicate to his advocate the last figure
he would be prepared to pay if he had to decide between that and a
continuation of the struggle, with its costs and its complications.
Once pourparlers begin the original figure disappears, and disappears
quickly. That is the history of all negotiation, private and public. A
refusal to meet in conference until the figure proposed is acceptable
rules out discussion between parties as a means of coming to terms on
the main question in a dispute.
I have taken part in the settlement of probably more industrial
differences than most politicians. In every case I have started with
an _impasse_. The first meeting of the parties always revealed an
apparently unbridgeable chasm between their respective positions; but
perseverance and an honest endeavour on both sides to find a solution
usually ends in agreement. Goodwill can bridge any abyss. Unconditional
surrender if insisted upon between independent bodies is a sure prelude
to fresh disputes. The mere fact, therefore, that Germany put forward
a proposal which falls short of the needs and equities of the case is
not a sufficient reason for declining to meet her representatives at
a conference to determine what the right sum should be, and the best
method of liquidating it.
But there is another and a stronger reason why the German offer
should not have been so peremptorily rejected. It did not end with a
submission of an inadequate amount in discharge of reparations claims.
Had it done so the French government might perhaps contend that Germany
must make up her mind, before she is allowed to confer, to raise that
figure to something which at least approximates to the region of
acceptability. But even if the French contention in that respect were
reasonable, it is ruled out by the circumstance that in this note the
German government have proposed an alternative if the figure they
offer is considered unacceptable. That alternative changes the whole
character of the note, when you come to judge of the question of its
_bona fides_. This proposition consists in the complete and categorical
acceptance by the German government of Mr. Secretary Hughes's famous
New Haven suggestions. It will be recollected that, as a way out of
the reparations entanglement, he proposed that an international expert
commission should be set up to inquire into the question of the amount
which Germany is capable of paying, and the best method of discharging
her obligations once they were fixed. Mr. Hughes made it clear that the
United States of America were prepared to assist in such an inquiry.
It is this that lent such significance and importance to his speech.
When I first read that speech I thought it of such moment that I cabled
from Spain to the British and American papers my earnest hope that the
Allies, about to sit in conference in Paris, would immediately consider
its terms, and act upon it. It seemed to me the supreme opportunity
for placing the vexed question which is fretting Europe almost into
nervous paralysis on a pathway which must inevitably lead to a real
settlement. The more I think of that proposal, the more am I convinced
that it was right, and the more am I perplexed by the rude indifference
with which it was treated by the Allied governments. To this hour I am
baffled to explain why those who are anxious for a conclusion never
brought this momentous declaration of American readiness to take a hand
to the notice of the conference. I can suggest explanations, but none
which is not a grave reflection on the way in which the proceedings
of that conference were handled. I can understand those who wish to
exploit reparations for ulterior purposes being anxious to keep America
out of the business. But why did Britain, Italy and Belgium neglect
this chance of securing the association of the one power which could
be helpful to the Allies in reaching a fair and sound decision, and
what is equally important, helpful in all subsequent operations for
cashing that decision? Now Germany states categorically that, if her
cash tender is unacceptable to the Allies, she is willing to leave the
question of the amount she is capable of paying to an international
tribunal on which America is represented, and to abide by the decision
of that tribunal, whatever it may be. That is in substance Mr.
Secretary Hughes's suggestion. How can a note containing so reasonable
a proposal, and a proposal originally emanating from so powerful and so
friendly a quarter, be treated as if it were an insult to the dignity
of France--and of Belgium! To declare--as the French note does--that
the Hughes proposition is an abrogation of the Treaty of Versailles is
to ignore the provisions of that treaty. As a matter of fact it would
be a restoration of the treaty. As I have repeatedly pointed out,
that treaty delegated the question of the amount which Germany has to
pay in respect of reparations to an Allied commission on which the
United States of America was to be represented. The function of this
commission was to assess the amount of the damages for which Germany is
responsible under the treaty, and then to adjudicate on the capacity of
Germany to pay those damages in whole or in part.