AT PEACE WITH GERMANY. T HE final ratification of the Treaty
of Versailles on Saturday last has brought us at last to peace with Germany. The ceremony, which, unlike the Armistice or the signing of the Treaty last June, gave rise to no popular demonstrations, was in itself a bare formality, but it must make a very great difference to us and to the world at large. Assuming, as we must assume, that Germany fulfils the terms of the Treaty, we have to accustom ourselves to the renewal of peaceful relations with her as a European State and a trading community, in the hope that she will never again plot for our destruction. We and our Allies have fought and won a terrible war, and we shall not profit fully by our victory if we do not resolve to treat the honour- able peace that we have secured by incredible sacrifice as a real and definite thing. A peace which was no peace would not be worth having. A peace which masked a continuance of hostility on the victors' part would be a contradiction in terms. There is no reason why we should thus condemn the Treaty of Versailles to sterility, since we have good reason to be proud of its main provisions which enshrine the triumph of right over wrong. Out of the war has come a new Europe, and its first and ino:4 insistent need is a resumption of peaceful commercial intercourse so that the millions of humble folk may have food and work. It is our duty to make the peace effective, for their good and for our own. The Treaty is often criticized as if it were no more than a sentence passed upon a criminal. ' Its punitive or negative aspect is of course immensely important. For the sake of humanity it was essential to show that even the mighty German Empire with its allies could not seek to attack and dominate Europe by force of arms and escape without punishment. Therefore Germany has been stripped of all her non-German provinces in Europe and of all her posses- sions outside Germany. Her Fleet has been reduced to a single squadron of old battleships, and is not to include submarines. Her Army is no longer to be recruited by conscription, and must be reduced in the next three months to a hundred thousand men, which the ex-Emperor would have regarded as a mere corporal's guard. Germany's power for mischief in the near future is thus severely restricted. As reparation for the evil that she has wrought, she has to surrender most of her shipping, the Saar coal- mines, a certain number of railway engines and rolling- stock, cattle and raw materials, and she has to pay large sums of money amounting at least to five thousand million pounds. The Rhineland remains under Allied occupation, in whole or in part, for fifteen years as a guarantee for the execution of the Treaty. The sentence is heavy, but no fair- minded man who approved of the war can honestly say that it is excessive, if all the circumstances are taken into account. Whether Germany can pay is another question altogether. The Allies had in her case to make an example which could not be misinterpreted, and they have done so. But it would be a mistake to regard the Treaty as solely concerned with the punishment of Germany. Its main purpose is constructive. The Allies have sought in the German Treaty and in the Treaties with Germany's confederates to rearrange the map of Europe on the basis of nationality, so that peace should no longer be threatened by the strivings of oppressed races under alien rule. The restoration of Poland, free and united, to her place among the nations is a great event. Prussia and her Russian and Austrian partners in the crime of 1772-95 have been compelled to surrender their Polish provinces and to recognize Poland as an independent neighbour. Denmark is to regain at least part of Danish Slesvig which was taken from her by Prussia and Austria in 1864, though, we regret to say, the Kiel Canal is still left under German control. France has recovered her lost provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, which, despite half-a-century of the most high-handed Prussian rule, have remained definitely French in their outlook, though most of the inhabitants speak a German dialect. Belgium has regained two small Walloon districts, which were arbitrarily given to Prussia a century ago because she coveted them for military reasons. Luxemburg has been liberated from the German yoke and left to deter- mine her own political and economic future. At the extreme eastern corner of East Prussia, the small Memel district, inhabited by Lithuanians, is taken from Germany, and will doubtless form part of the new Lithuanian State. Germany has thus lost her non-German provinces while losing very few German subjects. Danzig, which becomes a Free City again, and the Saar mining district, which is to be administered by the League of Nations for fifteen years, are the two small exceptions to this rule. But Danzig has a mixed population of Poles and Germans and is the only natural port of Poland, while the Saar Valley, which used to be French, is temporarily held by the League so that France may secure the coal in compensation for her Northern mines which the Germans wilfully destroyed. The permanence of the new settlement is guaranteed by the disintegration of the Hapsburg Empire, Germany's " brilliant second " in the work of imposing German domination on the non-German peoples of Central and Eastern Europe. Germany now has the Czecho-Slovak State to the south of her and the Polish State to the east, with the small Baltic States as a further barrier between her and Russia. German Austria and a Hungary shorn of all its non-Magyar lands can no longer help Germany to tyrannize over the Slays. To give further security to the peace, the Allies have crowned their work by instituting the League of Nations. In the new Europe, thus rearranged in accordance with the principle of nationality, Germany still remains the most populous and powerful State, not counting Russia. The new Slav nations are larger than some of us suppose. Poland, for instance, is much bigger than Germany, and contains about thirty million people. Czecho-Slovakia is about a third as large as Germany, and has thirteen million inhabitants ; in area and population she will slightly surpass the new Hungary. But Germany with her sixty millions of well-drilled people will long have the advantage over her poorer neighbours. We must not harbour any illusions about her. Germany- may have learned that in striving for " world power " by brute force and treachery she was following the wrong path, but she will assuredly try to recover her place in the world by peaceful methods. The industry and persistency of the Germans will make them formidable rivals once again in the competition for oversea trade. Indeed, if all the thought and labour that Germany expended on her arma- ments are now devoted to her industry and commerce, the Germans should be more strenuous competitors than they ever were. British manufacturers and merchants must not think that the Allied victory has relieved them from the necessity of troubling about what Germany may do. The idea that we should subject the Germans to a perpetual trade boycott because they waged war in a most barbarous fashion is, in our view, thoroughly un-English. We have had many wars in the past, but when we made peace we invariably began to trade again with our late enemies because it was the only sensible thing to do. The resumption of personal intercourse with Germans is a matter for the individual. But trade is impersonal, and it has never been our habit to mingle commerce and sentiment. When the French, whose loathing for the Germans is well known, are busily trading with Germany, it would clearly be absurd for us to hold aloof. After all, if we make it impossible for Germany to recover her economic prosperity, we may put aside the hope of ever receiving any substantial part of our just claims upon her for reparation. And, apart from this somewhat mercenary view, we feel very strongly that we ought to behave with moderation and charity towards the Germans because these virtues are among our most treasured national characteristics. If we were to try to treat the Germans as they would have treated us had they won the war, we should degrade ourselves and cease to be genuine English- men. It is incumbent on the better-educated and more experienced classes of the community to set an example in this respect. We are often told by Labour politicians that the Government are vindictive in their treatment of beaten Germany. Yet it is noteworthy that the few in- stances of what may be called a vindictive spirit have occurred in those sections of the community which the Labour leaders profess to represent. The labourers at the Barry Docks who refused the other day to load a German ship had very good reasons for their dislike of Germany, whose ' U '-boat commanders had mur- dered many of their seamen friends. Yet these labourers would probably be claimed by Mr. Henderson and his colleagues as ardent Labour voters. We under- stand very well the deep resentment which Germany has caused by her evil practices. Nevertheless, now that peace has come, we must all try to overcome our natural and well-justified prejudices against Germany, and give her a chance of redeeming her character and recovering her place among civilized nations. We owe it to ourselves to uphold our tradition of moderation and considerateness to beaten foes.
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