OUR PRESENT DISCONTENTS
Sta,—To resume my discontents. Since my last letter appeared in your pages I have read with interest the varying opinions of the Bishop of Southampton and the Bishop of Derby on the question whether the settlement at Versailles was unjust to Germany. I need hardly say after what I said in my previous letter that I am in entire agreement with the Bishop of Southampton, and do not agree in the least with the three arguments put forward by the Bishop of Derby. It has been the universal practice for conquering nations to dictate terms to their conquered enemies.
Secondly, the final amount of reparations was not concluded at the Treaty of Versailles, but was capable of modifica- tions from time to time, and in any event it fell far short of the damage which the originators of the war, Germany and Austria, had done to Belgium, France and Great Britain.
They Treaty did not extract from Germany an acknowledg- ment of " Unexclusive Responsibility " of Germany. The acknowledgment that was given was given by Germany for herself and her Allies, and it undoubtedly said nothing more than the exact truth.
It was, however, also true that the German plenipotentiaries at the same time as they signed were alleging that they and their Allies were not guilty.
The time has surely come when people in this country should refrain from assisting the arguments put forward by Nazi Germany to establish their right to repudiate the terms imposed by the Treaty of Versailles. To do this is only to help the German Government to persuade their people, re- luctant or not reluctant, that they were justified in all they have done to recover what they lost by the Treaty of
Previous page
