TOPICS OF THE DAY.
PANIC, SUSPICION AND DESPAIR.
N the article which follows this we print a frank and -I- very able exposition of the policy of M. Poincare- an exposition written by one who is in close personal touch with the French Prime Minister and who fully sympathizes with and understands the views, aspirations and fears of his Chief. It is a policy of Panic, Suspicion and Despair, but unfortunately there can be no question as to its authenticity.
We shall not meet it by challenging the circum- stantial allegations made as to what Mr. Wilson exclaimed at Versailles, or what Mr. Lloyd George said at Chequers over his cigar and his coffee. Prying into the secrets of the Peace Conference and trying to find out the truth as to what the living said or the dead denied is an unprofitable exercise. We propose to meet M. Sauerwein by contrasting the attitude of the British people with what he tells us is the attitude of France. It is the only way in which the real issue can be disclosed and joined.
In the abstract we all want the same things—Peace now, and Security in the future, a Security which shall be real and not one of more armies, more navies, more suspicion, more fear and more hate. It is only over the ways of attaining these ends that we differ. That there are risks in the way which the British people believe to be the right one we fully admit, but it does afford a prospect of ultimate success. It leads in the right direction. The French way is one which may look smoother and broader as it leaves the cross-roads, but by it there is no possibility of reaching the journey's end. We may fail on our road, but we must fail if we take the French road.
Before we go further we desire to clear the ground by accepting certain of M. Sauerwein's premises. We admit that the Peace of Versailles has proved in many respects a most defective instrument. It was nominally conceived on sound principles. There must be no penal annexations, no sowing of dragon's teeth such as the Treaty of Frankfort sowed when it handed over the French Provinces to Germany against the will of their inhabitants. There was to be a League of Nations to secure pacific adjustments of international disputes, and, most important of all, to secure ultimate disarma- ment. Finally there were to be Reparations, not of revenge but solely to make good the evils actually done. These reparations were, however, not to be on a scale which would destroy the nation making them. They were to be within the limits of humanity and economic endurance. The Peace was also to give the maximum of Security to France, for without such Security she could not be expected to help make a better Europe. These objects were excellent, but unhappily the Peace of Versailles was interpreted and applied in such a way that half of them were at once menaced, or distorted, or even forfeited.
The Allies began by the fatal error of not fixing a definite sum for Reparations, and not arranging that the evacuation of German territory would be accelerated by rapid payments. Instead, the Allies were to fix later what Germany could and must pay. Germany was, in effect, told that the 'quicker she recovered, and the more she put her house in order, the more she must pay. Can we wonder that a broken, suspicious and revengeful people refused to put themselves in a position to pay up fully and quickly, but instead, like a tenant with an indeterminate rent or hanging gate, conceived that in the circumstances Poverty was the best Policy ? The Treaty failed as signally in giving France guarantees for Security. But here France was the cause of her own discomfiture. She could have had three years ago, and could have now, a Treaty of Security on sound terms, though not on terms sanctioning her dangerous and provocative policy in Poland and Central Europe. If she had asked for a Treaty increasing, no matter how greatly, our obligations to her, but had asked for it under the Covenant of the League of Nations, she would not have been denied. It is beside the mark to tell us that Mr. Lloyd George in leaving the amount of Reparations unsettled courted German evasion. No doubt he did, but he saw the folly of his ways, and did not persist in them. Again, though he played the dan- gerous game of bluff with the Germans over the Ruhr, he later saw that the way to get Germany to settle down and pay her debts was the rapid evacuation of the occupied territories.
France, by the occupation of the Ruhr, by her treatment of the inhabitants there and in the Rhineland, by the fomenting of Separatism and Particularism, and by the aggravation of Germany's economic difficulties, has cut off the two boughs on which she desired to rest—her hope of Security and her hope of prompt payment. Her only chance of attaining real Security was to help the establish- ment on her Eastern frontier of a Power which should forget in peaceful ways the crimes and follies of the past, a Power that would find in democracy and industrial success a better way than autocracy, militarism, and aggression, and would become prosperous enough to pay her debts. Instead, France has obtained the worst form of insecurity imaginable. She has created on her Eastern frontier a nation whose dominant feeling is revenge, whose will is to remember, not to forget ; a nation which hates France, not so much because she was beaten in the field as because she was kicked when she was on the ground. As for the payments due to her, France has done as badly. Whoever heard of deliberately im- lioverishing your debtor ? Yet France is doing that and calling enemies and traitors those who try to dissuade her.
The British attitude can be described as the opposite to that of France in every particular as to means, though it coincides with that of France as to ends. The British people, in effect, say to France, " Your policy in a world such as ours is without reason or possibility of success. If you could hope to destroy, or permanently to enchain, the German race it might succeed. You cannot. It is madness to attempt to get Security from attack by a policy which does not kill the tiger, but drives him to a fury which will, sooner or later, break your strongest bars. The only policy which has a chance of success is to make Germany, if not a friend, yet a reasonably contented neighbour. You say that this is impossible, that it would only be nursing an enemy back to life to attack you. That this is possible, and is therefore a danger, we admit. But there is in it a very considerable chance of success, especially if you and we, and Italy and Belgium, and the neutrals do our best to organize the world to keep the Peace and to outlaw any nation which will not accept arbitration over its disputes. There is a reasonable prospect, though not a certainty, of getting Security and Reparations in our way. There is no possibility whatever of getting them in your way. Therefore we ask you to take the right, if difficult, road, even at the eleventh hour. We, at any rate, can take no other in your company. If you refuse, we shall deeply regret it, but it is you, not we, that will bear the responsibility for the consequences, and they will not be light."
J. ST. LOE STILWILEY.
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