First World War Centennial

XI

A COMMENT ON THE PEACE

The Treaty of Versailles is a monument on which is written in legible characters the epitaph of the Liberal age in Europe. That age had spent its vitality long before the war broke over us. We had all prepared the struggle, Allies and enemies alike, by a generation of Imperialism. Amid the emotional exaltation of the conflict, it seemed for a moment that the liberal mind, evolving an elabo­rate and constructive ideology to justify to itself the moral and physical horrors of the hatred, the slaughter, and the starvation, was preparing for a supreme effort to realize itself. In Mr. Wilson's speeches it found a lofty and eloquent expression. The event has proved that the realistic tendencies that guided us in the pre-war period, and laid in the Secret Treaties the foundations of this peace, were stronger than this improvised idealism, which had served its end by keeping the peoples in their ranks until victory was won. The per­sonal frailties of statesmen are no adequate ex­planation of a moral catastrophe so complete. It is the mind of the ruling class in the Allied na­tions which has written itself into this peace, and made of the Treaty itself an accurate mirror of capitalist Imperialism.

The European settlement reflects that old-world "policy of alliances" which M. Clemenceau pro­claimed, with perfect frankness, as the antithesis to the League of Nations. It is true that the mo­tive of the French scheme of reconstruction is a passion for safety, and a dread of the formidable and prolific German race. The dread is intelli­gible, when one calls to mind a vision of the dev­astated area of the Somme. France has sought safety, however, in a triple panoply of precau­tions, which have made her for the moment the armed mistress of Europe. She secures herself, first of all, by reducing the German army to a police force of 100,000 men, without reserves, staff, or heavy armaments. She retains, at the same time, her own conscript army, unfettered, un­limited, and in numbers, as in gallantry and skill, immeasurably the most redoubtable armed force upon the Continent. Even when it stands alone it is, relatively to other Continental forces, im­mensely more preponderant than was the German military machine at the height of its power. Sec­ondly, France has sought reinsurance in a Treaty of Alliance which makes Britain and America her partners in the defense of her Eastern Frontier. Mr. Wilson has forgotten his principle, that "there can be no league or alliance or special covenants or understanding within the general and common family of the League of Nations," In so doing, he has created an armed group within the League, which will inevitably form the habit of acting jointly in the daily intercourse of States against its other members, while by giving to France this especial guarantee against aggression he has weakened the force of the general pledge which should protect all its loyal associates. De­fensive indeed this Treaty is: so were all the al­liances that ranged the peoples in readiness for this war. It will work psychologically as alliances have always worked. It will give to France an assurance of absolute safety in every contingency that may arise, and so absolve her from the neces­sity of observing prudence and moderation in the exercise of her military ascendancy.

With unflinching concentration and no little skill France has contrived to arrange the terri­torial settlement of Europe to fit her general de­sign. The German race has been subjected not merely to disarmament, but to a partial process of dismemberment, which may not yet be complete. The military occupation of the Left Bank of the Rhine is limited, indeed, to fifteen years, but the resources of intrigue and intimidation are already at work to foster the creation there of a semi-inde­pendent buffer State. In the Saar coalfield the French State will be for half a generation the sole employer, and with the unlimited right to intro­duce foreign immigrant workmen, it may modify the mind and composition of the present popula­tion, before the moment for a plebiscite arrives. Austria-Hungary has been "Balkanized," but in the creation of this network of little States, too small, too landlocked, too little homogeneous to be capable of a real independence, France has pur­sued a definite military plan. Poland, Tchecho-Slovakia, Roumania, and the enlarged Serbian Kingdom become her military satellites. All of them have been aggrandized in defiance of nation­ality at the expense of Germans (or in the case of the two latter), of Magyars or Bulgarians, and thus a, double end has been served. The military strength of the dreaded race is reduced, and at the same time the little State, endowed with a per­ennial source of conflict with the main body of the German race, is obliged to lean for protection upon France. A small State ceases to be inde­pendent when it has wronged a neighbor: it must thereafter subordinate itself to a protector. Po­land, as the suzerain of Danzig, and the sovereign of from two to three million German subjects, shutting off East Prussia from the German Fatherland by her "corridor," and holding the land routes by which Germany will seek to trade with Russia, seems committed to a perpetual feud. The Tchechs have been assisted to create a dwarf Empire, composed of Germans, Slovaks, and Ukrainians. The inclusion in it of the 3½ million Germans of Bohemia and Moravia is a peculiarly wanton violation of nationality, because they live mainly in a compact racial fringe along the bor­ders, and could with ease have been detached, to join their race-fellows of the Austrian and the Ger­man Republics. Finally, German-Austria, reduced to a little Alpine area which cannot possibly be self-supporting, is forbidden to exercise its free choice and may not seek a new career by union with federal Germany. Vienna, the overgrown head of this puny body, will dwindle by death or emigration to half its present size. The French settlement, in short, has created a German irre­denta, which will number at least twelve millions of the discontented. To sustain this arrangement these satellite States are linked up by unnatural military frontiers, and in all of them French mili­tary missions are forming the conscript armies destined to support the military hegemony of France.

That Mr. Lloyd George acquiesced, no doubt with some reluctance, in this French scheme of settlement, is no accident. Our ruling class had its own aims to pursue, and if it assented to French ascendancy on the Continent, it did so consciously or half-consciously, in order the better to secure its own economic ambitions elsewhere. The main result of the Treaty, apart from these territorial and military dispositions in Europe, is to enhance our naval supremacy, to enlarge our overseas Empire, and to secure our control of the world's markets, raw materials, and transport. Our most formidable commercial competitor is ruined.

The simplest but not perhaps the most impor­tant of the gains which British Imperialism ob­tains are its accessions of territory. One need not pause to argue that the "mandate" is as thin a disguise of annexation as the old protectorate. In effect, we have added to our Empire most of the German colonies in Africa and in the Pacific, the undeveloped wealth of Mesopotamia, and the strategically important regions of Palestine and possibly of Persia, while in Egypt our pos­session is finally secured. In all these lands we acquire immense potential resources in raw materials.

With the exception of some small coasting ves­sels, the mercantile tonnage of Germany passes into our possession. It is true that it may not fully compensate us for our own losses in the U-boat war. It comes near, however (save for American competition), to conferring upon us a monopoly of the world's carrying trade. The mere cessation of her profits as a carrier is the least part of Germany's loss or of our gain. We acquire with her shipping the possibility of fixing the world's rates, and controlling the world's com­merce. Our only formidable European competitor at sea has been eliminated. Our shipping rings may choose their policy. They may elect either to boycott German goods and German ports, or else to secure for themselves a profit by carrying for her at rates which they can fix.

The conventional treaty of history began with an appeal to Almighty God, and then declared the resolve of the contracting parties to live in "peace and amity." This Treaty omits that pro­fession of goodwill. The old-world model then proceeded to revive (at least as a provisional ar­rangement) the various treaties of commerce which had linked the belligerents before the out­break of war. There is no such clause in this Treaty. What treaties omit is often as important as what they include. The salient fact about this Treaty is that, from first to last, it restores none of the rights of reciprocity which habitually govern the relations of civilized States. In clause after clause Germany renounces her former rights: in no clause does she recover any of those rights which in the modern world are indispensable for the conduct of trade. Elaborate provisions in­sure the right of Allied subjects to trade with Germany, to reside in Germany, to pass their goods through her customs under the "most-favored-nation" clause without suffering discrim­ination, to fly over her territory, to use her rivers, to enjoy on her railways the same rates and fa­cilities as her own subjects; nay, even to require her to build new railways for the better transmis­sion of their goods. These are all one-sided privi­leges, and far from securing equal rights in return from them, the German trader secures no rights at all. Such rights as he may in practice enjoy will depend solely on the grace and goodwill of each of the Allies. Their tariffs may totally ex­clude his goods, or differentiate against them. Their railway and shipping rates may penalize his exports. Their legislation may exclude his business firms and his commercial travelers from their markets, and deny him the right to reside on their territories. Against any or all of these dis­criminations he is powerless, for he cannot re­taliate in kind. We used to talk of the economic "war after the war": there can be none, for the Allies will levy their measures against an enemy deprived of the rights of defense. In this con­dition, but little removed from outlawry, Germany will remain, until she is admitted to the League of Nations, and even then it is doubtful whether her status will be one of equality, for the Covenant of the League prescribes "equitable" but not "equal" treatment for the commerce of its mem­bers in each other's markets. Some privileges, the usual privileges of all Europeans, Germany is never likely to regain—the "extra-territorial" rights, for example, under which alone trade is possible in Egypt, Morocco, and Turkey. Her rivers, but no others, are placed under interna­tional control.

At the moment, German traders have been ex­pelled from China, Africa, Turkey, and all the Allied territories. Their businesses, factories, warehouses, and banks are all confiscated and broken up. This Treaty confers no right to begin, however slowly, the toil of building up again that immense fabric of world-trade by which alone her population can live. Even if we omit all reckon­ing of the still uncounted, but probably excessive, indemnity (some indemnity by way of reparation is manifestly just), this denial of reciprocity in trading and residential rights is itself sufficient to ruin our competitor. Even if we assume that it will be modified, within two or three years, the period is sufficient to enable us in the interval to assure (with some American competition) our own monopoly of world-trade, especially in the great markets of China, Turkey, and Africa to which Germany will have no access. Our victory means that we control the world's markets, its shipping, its raw materials, and its banking. It may be that we shall dole out raw materials, though with a grudging hand, and allow the door of some of the markets we command to stand ajar. We must do this, for otherwise no indemnity could be earned, and our starving enemy would inevi­tably lapse into Bolshevism. We shall not pursue an unqualified policy of exclusion, but in every transaction we are in a position to levy a triple tribute on German trade. We shall take one profit on the raw materials that our brokers are per­mitted to sell to her, and another on the goods that we carry for her, and a third on the goods which our bankers and middlemen may consent to handle for her, in overseas markets. The van­quished must submit to be exploited by the victors, glad if their fate is not to be wholly boycotted.^{1 1}"Exploit" is a slippery word. In this contest it means that while the services rendered by our shippers, bankers, and middlemen will be real services, it is by the use of force that the enemy is obliged to have recourse to them. Lest it be said that this economic strangulation is a moral discipline, necessary to secure reparation for Germany's victims, let me point out that it is not her victims who will profit by it. This triple tribute will go, not to Belgium nor to France, nor even to our own Exchequer; it will go into the private pockets of British and American financiers and merchants. So far from promoting the payment of an indemnity by Germany, it will diminish the earnings by foreign trade out of which Germany must meet her liabilities. The official excuse for laming the industrial efficiency of Germany seems to be that we must do so in order to prevent German industries from competition with those of the devastated areas. But we allow British and American industry to compete with Belgian and French industry.

While this Peace creates for France an artificial military ascendancy on the Continent of Europe, it confirms and enhances our naval supremacy. The surrender of the German Fleet and the limitation of Germany's future building leave intact in the world no navy, save that of the United States, which could oppose us in any use which we might please to make of our power at sea. We have successfully resisted any proposals (if they were seriously made) to limit the naval armaments of the victors, or to restrict the range of naval power, by defining the Freedom of the Seas. The idea of the League of Nations had given a new mean­ing to that term. It ought now to mean that the terrific instrument of the blockade shall be re­served as a method of coercion which the League alone, acting under its Constitution, may apply, and then only for the common good, against a disturber of its peace. It is still open to us in certain cases, in spite of its covenant, to use the blockade in our private quarrels, without the sanc­tion of the League's Court or Council.^{1 1}We must, of course, submit to the prescribed delay and submit our dispute to the Council, but unless it unanimously finds us in the wrong, we may thereafter do as we please. Since most of the Council consists of our Allies, it is never likely to pronounce unanimously against us. Mr. Lloyd George has said that a fleet cannot be used as an engine of aggression. It can be used to starve an opponent into surrender, to close his factories, condemn his workers to unemployment, subject his children to the miseries of diseases, of malnutri­tion, lower the vitality of a whole generation, menace his State with disorder and revolution, and in the end to impose a settlement of violence. If any delusion survives, that the blockade, be­cause it is bloodless, is a painless or humane method of coercion, we have learnt little from this war. It is in some sense a more cruel method than war, because it strikes, above all, at the poor, and among the poor chiefly at the children, the aged, and the women. An army may carry out a total devastation of a limited area, as the Ger­man army did in Northern France; our blockade, justifiable, no doubt, up to the date of the armis­tice, but no longer, effected a partial devastation of the entire area from the Rhine to the Urals. The cities stand intact and the fields are still green, but every human being who survives it has suffered a physical and moral deterioration, and the toll of the dead civilians who stand to its ac­count must be reckoned far above a million. From actual war the knowledge that we ourselves must suffer casualties and loss is a deterrent, but a people with a supreme navy may embark lightly on a blockade. We could fasten the doors of Europe if we kept our armies at home, without loss of life to ourselves, and at the end of the process dictate a victor's terms. While we retain the physical means of exercising this coercion and decline to bind ourselves to use it only at the bidding and in the service of the whole of civiliza­tion, the shadow of force still darkens the life of humanity, and the world is not yet built upon law. Force works even when it is not actually applied. In every dispute or negotiation, our arguments derive from this power that we have retained in our own unfettered hands a cogency which may have no relation to justice.

On to this old-world settlement the Liberalism of Mr. Wilson has grafted, as a pathetic survival of his defeated idealism, the institution of the League of Nations. So far from redeeming his failure, it may in fact aggravate, because it must stereotype it. The most iniquitous arrangements of the Peace have acquired the sanctity of seem­ing right, and all civilization is pledged to defend them and maintain them. The League, founded without Germany or Russia, is, before all else, an alliance of the victors to insure their conquests. One single provision in its covenant stamps it as a deliberately conservative creation. No decision of any importance can be taken and no valid award can be rendered without the unanimity of its Council, and that Council is nothing but a league of the allied Governments of the victorious Great Powers, diluted only by the presence of cer­tain of their more dependent satellites.^{1 1}Among the nine members of the Council, Spain is the only neutral. The single voice of France could by this arrangement defeat any proposal to permit the union of Austria with Germany or to revise the settlement by which the Poles and the Tchecho-Slovaks have acquired millions of unwilling German subjects. There can be under this provision for unanimity no modifi­cation of the military ascendancy of France or of the naval supremacy of Great Britain. The League, moreover, makes no real attempt to im­pose economic peace, and nothing in its covenant strikes at preferential and differential trading (outside the areas under "mandates"), or prom­ises the just apportionment of the world's raw materials. The Constitution of the League con­tains no rudiment of democratic or Parliamentary government, nor does it set up, even for the pur­pose of the impartial settlement of disputes, any Council of Conciliation independent of the masters of the greater armies and navies of the world. Like the old Holy Alliance, this tremen­dous concentration of force will be used by the satisfied Powers to maintain the existing order, to prevent salutary change, and to repress any people which seeks to amend its condition by revolution.^{1 1}By the simple expedient of refusing "official recognition" to any new Government which they disliked (e.g. to any purely Socialist Government) the Great Powers who dominate the League may deprive any nation, even if it were a member of the League, of its rights under the Covenant and make of it an outlaw liable to be coerced or blockaded without appeal or redress.

The age which this Treaty ushers in will be, even more than the generation which preceded it, an age of Imperialism, in which the ruling classes of the victors will increase their power, through the control of monopolized raw materials. First by the blockade and then by the economic servi­tude imposed upon Central Europe it has pre­pared the forces which will challenge it, and may one day replace it. The social struggle between capital and the workers will slowly, and with vary­ing success, assert itself across the surviving ra­cial antagonisms. The outlook is dark. It will lighten only when labor begins to understand how the subtle and subconscious working of economic motive has bent patriotism to its ends, turned our idealisms and our righteous angers into its serv­ants, and made by this greedy settlement the pros­pect perhaps of great riches for the few, but also of new wrongs, new wars, new oppressions.