THE SAAR BASIN.*
MR. SIDNEY OSBORNE has followed up his denunciation of French policy and action in Upper Silesia by another volume dealing with the Saar Basin. The first half gives his account of how the relevant section of the Treaty of Versailles reached its final form and how it is being carried out. The second' half is a useful collection of official documents, the section of the Treaty, the Reports of the Commission of Government to the League of Nations, &c., conveniently available in one cover. We regret that we do not find Mr. Osborne's original work equally useful. If he reads the Spectator, he knows that we have never been blindly " pro-French " in matters con- cerning the Treaty. We have never praised French policy or action in Silesia or the Ruhr Valley. Nor can we praise French aims in the Saar Basin. But what is the use. of the exaggerated fault-finding displayed in this book? The tale of how the Peace Conference dealt with the subject is really one long attack on MM. Clemenceati and 'fardieu. If he proves that these two were not honest or disinterested or that their colleagues were outwitted, that does not excuse his vagueness about the procedure in Paris or his blindness to the difficulties of those who would use victory with moderation or his insensibility to French feeling at that time. He makes great capital of M. Clemenceau's statement that there were 150,000 Frenchmen in the Basin. We have never heard that obiter dictum defended, and the reason doubtless is that no one ever took it seriously. Is Mr. Osborne ignorant that each of the " Big Four" had bands of sub- ordinates to prime them with information on such points, or that big questions like this were threshed out by inter. Allied sub-committees before draft schemes came up to the plenipotentiaries ? Again, what is the use of a wild, sweeping statement such as this : "It is easy to see what lies at the bottom of the whole Treaty of Versailles. It is coal and nothing but coal " ? Then we arc told that until 1919, when the French had learnt how easily they could break through Dr. Wilson's Fourteen Points, this treatment of the Saar Basin was not one of their war aims," "there was not even a single Frenchman who had ever demanded the separation." We strongly doubt this, although we could not now point to chapter and verse in any French speech, book or newspaper. But Mr. Osborne refutes himself on the Government's aims by printing the secret agreement of 1917, published by the Bolsheviks, by which Russia was induced to promise to support in the terms of peace "the inclusion in French territory . . . of the entire coal district of the Saar valley." We agree with so much that he says against injustices committed that we deplore the more the absence of any balance in the tirade. It was perhaps ill-luck that he makes so much of the intro- duction of the franc and displacement of the mark for, how- ever evil the motives of the Commission, would any inhabitant of the territory prefer marks to francs in his pocket to-day ?
We could continue to criticize down to the misprints, the inadequate map and an index which ignores half the book. But let us turn to the second half, the appendices, for which we are grateful. They include eight Reports of the Commis- sion to the League of Nations, the first dated March, 1920, the last August,I921. They are suave, complacent documents,
• The Saw Question. liy Sidney Osborne, London ; O. Allen and Unwin, 1121, lid,
mid
clever enough to make a German reader writhe. The Commission seem to say, "are we not wise as serpents and harmless as doves in our care for these people ? " But experi- ence leads one to examine official reports below the smooth surface and also to give weight to what one misses as well as to what one finds. The projects for relieving the acute shortage of housing remain from report to report subjects of anxious consideration, but there is no complementary record of the requisitions of dwellings and other buildings for officials and troops. We read of the Commission's clemency, of merciful commutation of sentences ; but for what were those sentences given and by whom ? That active executive, la surete, the French secret police, demands perhaps to carry- out the expulsion of a family on the ground that one member is "capable de tout," an offence unknown at any rate to British Jaw. Who decrees such an expulsion in the Saar Basin ? The Plebiscite of 1935 is to be taken on a register of residents in the Territory at the date of the signature of the Treaty. Obviously that register should have been compiled as nearly to that date as possible, the League should see that it is done. But is it ? The Treaty says that the inhabitants will retain their religious liberties and their schools. This may not be contradicted by the words in one Report : "The inspection of schools by the clergy has been suppressed," but it is not obvious. In regard to taxation and legislation the Treaty insists on consultation with the elected representa- tives of the inhabitants." The Reports show how long elections were delayed (though legislation was not), and how elected representatives were not approved but substitutes found by the Commission. When elected bodies at length were consulted, one reads (of a decree defining the term "inhabitant of the Saar ") that "the ill-informed opinion of local assemblies did not appear to the Commission sufficient cause for it to refrain from the promulgation of the draft Decree." Perhaps the inhabitants prefer this to no consulta- tion. In June, 1919, the Allied and Associated Powers assured the protesting German delegation in Paris that the inhabitants would not find the new administration "more remote than the administration which was conducted from Berlin and Munich." True : Paris is nearer than Berlin, at any rate. This is one of the really serious points which can be deduced from the Reports. The territory has been governed from Paris. The French President of the Com- mission has been the Governor. We have no evidence on which to blame M. Rault personally, but we know the French method. He is Conseiller d'Etat, and French officials are never allowed independence as we understand it. We do not doubt that he is frequently sununoned to Paris, and when at his post he is at the end of a peremptory wire from the Quai d'Orsay. So also, with juster cause, is the Administra- tion of the Mines, whose interests are not always the same as those of the Commission of Government who, by the resolution of the League of Nations of February, 1920, "have no interest except the welfare of the people of the territory." One can see how their really delicate relations are settled, and where. The French troops are plainly stated by M. Rault, in a letter to the League of September, 1922, to be "under the direct control of the French War Minister." Their presence is another really serious matter, for they have no business to be there at all, and the excuses for not replacing them by a local gendarmerie, as provided by the Treaty, are the weakest and most lamentable part of M. Rault's writings.
The ultimate responsibility lies upon the League of Nations. Mr. Osborne's last words are that a pound of flesh is being demanded but there is no Portia, "and no righteous judge to appeal to—there is only a League of Nations." Here is the extreme mark of the inopportuneness of his book. Presum- ably he could not know that he was insulting the League and enraging every Frenchman who hears of his book at the very time that the League was doing its duty in the matter. The League is as cumbrous and slow moving a body as its nature makes it, but Lord Robert Cecil had by his insistence carried his point and an enquiry was arranged. The Commission was summoned to Geneva last July and its conduct examined. Lord Robert's report is now published as a White Paper (Cmd. 1921). The three gravest faults which we have mentioned are thus dealt with :— " The resolution at which the Council arrived . . . makes it plain that the Commission is responsible to the League of Nations for the execution of its duties, and this was explained in debate to
mean that in this task it must be free from outside interference of any sort. It also makes it clear that the Commission is collectively responsible for all its acts, and that while the President of the Conunission is the chief executive offiecr, he is not by that fact made independent of his colleagues.'in' other words, he is no tnore than primes inter pares. . . The Council reiterated the wish . . . that the support of the foreign garrison should be withdrawn."
Mr. Osborne must forgive our saying that these moderately expressed but weighty words are worth his book ten times over. What is the essence of them ? They are a solemn rebuke to France given before the world, and a warning that the League will not tolerate the government of the territory by the French President of the Commission under orders from Paris, nor its garrison of French troops. - To the credit of France and thanks to Lord Robert's unequalled position at Geneva, and the infinite tact with which he pressed his case, she took the rebuke with a good grace. The League did well, and revives a faint hope that Europe may yet rise a tiny step
above the low ideals, the policies of grab and destruction which still threaten the world with ruin.
Previous page
