Larnaude, who viewed membership as something sacramentally inalienable, seemed shocked, as though the suggestion bordered on sacrilege, and wondered how any government should feel tempted to take such a step.
Signor Orlando was of a different opinion. "However precious the privilege of membership may be," he said, "it would be a comfort always to know that you could divest yourself of it at will. I am shut up in my room all day working. I do not go into the open air any oftener than a prisoner might. But I console myself with the thought that I can go out whenever I take it into my head. And I am sure a similar reflection on membership of the League would be equally soothing. I am in favor of the motion."
The center of interest during the drafting of the Covenant lay in the clause proclaiming the equality of religions, which Mr. Wilson was bent on having pa.s.sed at all costs, if not in one form, then in another. This is one example of the occasional visibility of the religious thread which ran through a good deal of his personal work at the Conference.
For it is a fact--not yet realized even by the delegates themselves--that distinctly religious motives inspired much that was done by the Conference on what seemed political or social grounds. The strategy adopted by the eminent American statesman to have his stipulation accepted proceeded in this case on the lines of a humanitarian resolve to put an end to sanguinary wars rather than on those which the average reformer, bent on cultural progress, would have traced. Actuality was imparted to this simple and yet th.o.r.n.y topic by a concrete proposal which the President made one day. What he is reported to have said is briefly this: "As the treatment of religious confessions has been in the past, and may again in the future be, a cause of sanguinary wars, it seems desirable that a clause should be introduced into the Covenant establishing absolute liberty for creeds and confessions." "On what, Mr. President," asked the first Polish delegate, "do you found your a.s.sertion that wars are still brought about by the differential treatment meted out to religions? Does contemporary history bear out this statement? And, if not, what likelihood is there that religious inequality will precipitate sanguinary conflicts in the future?" To this pointed question Mr. Wilson is said to have made the characteristic reply that he considered it expedient to a.s.sume this nexus between religious inequality and war as the safest way of bringing the matter forward. If he were to proceed on any other lines, he added, there would be truth and force in the objection which would doubtless be raised, that the Conference was intruding upon the domestic affairs of sovereign states. As that charge would damage the cause, it must be reb.u.t.ted in advance. And for this purpose he deemed it prudent to approach the subject from the side he had chosen.
This reply was listened to in silence and unfavorably commented upon later. The alleged relation between such religious inequality as has survived into the twentieth century and such wars as are waged nowadays is so obviously fict.i.tious that one can hardly understand the line of reasoning that led to its a.s.sumption, or the effect which the fiction could be supposed to have on the minds of those legislators who might be opposed to the measure on the ground that it involved undue interference in the internal affairs of sovereign states. The motion was referred to a commission, which in due time presented a report. Mr. Wilson was absent when the report came up for discussion, his place being taken by Colonel House. The atmosphere was chilly, only a couple of the delegates being disposed to support the clause--Rumania"s representative, M.
Diamandi, was one, and another was Baron Makino, whose help Colonel House would gladly have dispensed with, so inacceptable was the condition it carried with it.
Baron Makino said that he entirely agreed with Colonel House and the American delegates. The equality of religious confessions was not merely desirable, but necessary to the smooth working of a Society of Nations such as they were engaged in establishing. He held, however, that it should be extended to races, that extension being also a corollary of the principle underlying the new international ordering. He would therefore move the insertion of a clause proclaiming the equality of races and religions. At this Colonel House looked pensive. Nearly all the other opinions were hostile to Colonel House"s motion.
The reasons alleged by each of the dissenting lawgivers were interesting. Lord Robert Cecil surprised many of his colleagues by informing them that in England the Catholics, who are fairly treated as things are, could not possibly be set on a footing of perfect equality with their Protestant fellow-citizens, because the Const.i.tution forbids it. Nor could the British people be asked to alter their Const.i.tution.
He gave as instances of the slight inequality at present enforced the circ.u.mstance that no Catholic can ascend the throne as monarch, nor sit on the woolsack as Lord Chancellor in the Upper House.
M. Larnaude, speaking in the name of France, stated that his country had pa.s.sed through a sequence of embarra.s.sments caused by legislation on the relations between the Catholics and the state, and that the introduction of a clause enacting perfect equality might revive controversies which were happily losing their sharpness. He considered it, therefore, inadvisable to settle this delicate matter by inserting the proposed declaration in the Covenant. Belgium"s first delegate, M. Hymans, pointed out that the objection taken by his government was of a different but equally cogent character. There was reason to apprehend that the Flemings might avail themselves of the equality clause to raise awkward issues and to sow seeds of dissension. On those grounds he would like to see the proposal waived. Signor Orlando half seriously, half jokingly, reminded his colleagues that none of their countries had, like his, a pope in their capital. The Italian government must, therefore, proceed in religious matters with the greatest circ.u.mspection, and could not lightly a.s.sent to any measure capable of being manipulated to the detriment of the public interest. Hence he was unable to give the motion his support. It was finally suggested that both proposals be withdrawn. To this Colonel House demurred, on the ground that President Wilson, who was unavoidably absent, attached very great weight to the declaration, to which he hoped the delegates would give their most favorable consideration. One of the members then rose and said, "In that case we had better postpone the voting until Mr.
Wilson can attend." This suggestion was adopted. When the matter came up for discussion at a subsequent sitting, the j.a.panese subst.i.tuted "nations" for "races."
In the meantime the usual arts of parliamentary emergency were practised outside the Conference to induce the j.a.panese to withdraw their proposal altogether. They were told that to accept or refuse it would be to damage the cause of the future League without furthering their own. But the Marquis Saionji and Baron Makino refused to yield an inch of their ground. A conversation then took place between the Premier of Australia, on the one side, and Baron Makino and Viscount Chinda, on the other, with a view to their reaching a compromise. For Mr. Hughes was understood to be the leader of those who opposed any declaration of racial equality. The j.a.panese statesmen showed him their amendment, and asked him whether he could suggest a modification that would satisfy himself and them. The answer was in the negative. To the arguments of the j.a.panese delegates the Australian Premier is understood to have replied: "I am willing to admit the equality of the j.a.panese as a nation, and also of individuals man to man. But I do not admit the consequence that we should throw open our country to them. It is not that we hold them to be inferior to ourselves, but simply that we do not want them. Economically they are a perturbing factor, because they accept wages much below the minimum for which our people are willing to work. Neither do they blend well with our people. Hence we do not want them to marry our women. Those are my reasons. We mean no offense. Our restrictive legislation is not aimed specially at the j.a.panese. British subjects in India are affected by it in exactly the same way. It is impossible that we should formulate any modifications of your amendment, because there is no modification conceivable that would satisfy us both."
The j.a.panese delegates were understood to say that they would maintain their motion, and that unless it pa.s.sed they would not sign the doc.u.ment. Mr. Hughes retorted that if it should pa.s.s he would refuse to sign. Finally the Australian Premier asked Baron Makino whether he would be satisfied with the following qualifying proviso: "This affirmation of the principle of equality is not to be applied to immigration or nationalization." Baron Makino and Viscount Chinda both answered in the negative and withdrew.
The final act[360] is described by eye-witnesses as follows. Congruously with the order of the day, President Wilson having moved that the city of Geneva be selected as the capital of the future League, obtained a majority, whereupon he announced that the motion had pa.s.sed.
Then came the burning question of the equality of nations.[361] The Polish delegate arose and opposed it on the formal ground that nothing ought to be inserted in the preamble which was not dealt with also in the body of the Covenant, as otherwise it would be no more than an isolated theory devoid of organic connection with the whole. The j.a.panese delegates delivered speeches of cogent argument and impressive debating power. Baron Makino made out a very strong case for the equality of nations. Viscount Chinda followed in a trenchant discourse, which was highly appreciated by his hearers, nearly all of whom recognized the justice of the j.a.panese claim. The j.a.panese delegates refused to be dazzled by the circ.u.mstances that j.a.pan was to be represented on the Executive Council as one of the five Great Powers, and that the rejection of the proposed amendment could not therefore be construed as a diminution of her prestige. This consideration, they retorted, was wholly irrelevant to the question whether or no the nations were to be recognized as equal. They ended by refusing to withdraw their modified amendment and calling for a vote. The result was a majority for the amendment. Mr. Wilson thereupon announced that a majority was insufficient to justify its adoption, and that nothing less than absolute unanimity could be regarded as adequate. At this a delegate objected: "Mr. Wilson, you have just accepted a majority for your own motion respecting Geneva; on what grounds, may I ask, do you refuse to abide by a majority vote on the amendment of the j.a.panese delegation?" "The two cases are different," was the reply. "On the subject of the seat of the League unanimity is unattainable." This closed the official discussion.
Some time later, it is a.s.serted, the Rumanians, who had supported Mr.
Wilson"s motion on religious equality, were approached on the subject, and informed that it would be agreeable to the American delegates to have the original proposal brought up once more. Such a motion, it was added, would come with especial propriety from the Rumanians, who, in the person of M. Diamandi, had advocated it from the outset. But the Rumanian delegates hesitated, pleading the invincible opposition of the j.a.panese. They were a.s.sured, however, that the j.a.panese would no longer discountenance it. Thereupon they broached the matter to Lord Robert Cecil, but he, with his wonted caution, replied that it was a delicate subject to handle, especially after the experience they had already had.
As for himself, he would rather leave the initiative to others. Could the Rumanian delegates not open their minds to Colonel House, who took the amendment so much to heart? They acted on this suggestion and called on Colonel House. He, too, however, declared that it was a momentous as well as a th.o.r.n.y topic, and for that reason had best be referred to the head of the American delegation. President Wilson, having originated the amendment, was the person most qualified to take direct action. It is further affirmed that they sounded the President as to the advisability of mooting the question anew, but that he declined to face another vote, and the matter was dropped for good--in that form.
It was publicly a.s.serted later on that the j.a.panese decided to abide by the rejection of their amendment and to sign the Covenant as the result of a bargain on the Shantung dispute. This report, however, was pulverized by the j.a.panese delegation, which pointed out that the introduction of the racial clause was decided upon before the delegates left j.a.pan, and when no difficulties were antic.i.p.ated respecting j.a.pan"s claim to have that province ceded to her by Germany, and that the discussion on the amendment terminated on April 11th, consequently before the Kiaochow issue came up for discussion. As a matter of fact, the j.a.panese publicly announced their intention to adhere to the League of Nations two days[362] before a decision was reached respecting their claims to Kiaochow.
This adverse note on Mr. Wilson"s pet scheme to have religious equality proclaimed as a means of hindering sanguinary wars brought to its climax the reaction of the Conference against what it regarded as a systematic endeavor to establish the overlordship of the Anglo-Saxon peoples in the world. The plea that wars may be provoked by such religious inequality as still survives was so unreal that it awakened a twofold suspicion in the minds of many of Mr. Wilson"s colleagues. Most of them believed that a pretext was being sought to enable the leading Powers to intervene in the domestic concerns of all the other states, so as to keep them firmly in hand, and use them as means to their own ends. And these ends were looked upon as anything but disinterested. Unhappily this conviction was subsequently strengthened by certain of the measures decreed by the Supreme Council between April and the close of the Conference. The misgivings of other delegates turned upon a matter which at first sight may appear so far removed from any of the pressing issues of the twentieth century as to seem wholly imaginary. They feared that a religious--some would call it racial--bias lay at the root of Mr.
Wilson"s policy. It may seem amazing to some readers, but it is none the less a fact that a considerable number of delegates believed that the real influences behind the Anglo-Saxon peoples were Semitic.
They confronted the President"s proposal on the subject of religious inequality, and, in particular, the odd motive alleged for it, with the measures for the protection of minorities which he subsequently imposed on the lesser states, and which had for their keynote to satisfy the Jewish elements in eastern Europe. And they concluded that the sequence of expedients framed and enforced in this direction were inspired by the Jews, a.s.sembled in Paris for the purpose of realizing their carefully thought-out program, which they succeeded in having substantially executed. However right or wrong these delegates may have been, it would be a dangerous mistake to ignore their views, seeing that they have since become one of the permanent elements of the situation. The formula into which this policy was thrown by the members of the Conference, whose countries it affected, and who regarded it as fatal to the peace of eastern Europe, was this: "Henceforth the world will be governed by the Anglo-Saxon peoples, who, in turn, are swayed by their Jewish elements."
It is difficult to convey an adequate notion of the warmth of feeling--one might almost call it the heat of pa.s.sion--which this supposed discovery generated. The applications of the theory to many of the puzzles of the past were countless and ingenious. The ill.u.s.trations of the manner in which the policy was pursued, and the cajolery and threats which were said to have been employed in order to insure its success, covered the whole history of the Conference, and presented it through a new and possibly distorted medium. The morbid suspicions current may have been the natural vein of men who had pa.s.sed a great part of their lives in petty racial struggles; but according to common account, it was abundantly nurtured at the Conference by the lack of reserve and moderation displayed by some of the promoters of the minority clauses who were deficient in the sense of measure. What the Eastern delegates said was briefly this: "The tide in our countries was flowing rapidly in favor of the Jews. All the east European governments which had theretofore wronged them were uttering their _mea culpa_, and had solemnly promised to turn over a new leaf. Nay, they had already turned it. We, for example, altered our legislation in order to meet by antic.i.p.ation the legitimate wishes of the Conference and the pressing demands of the Jews. We did quite enough to obviate decrees which might impair our sovereignty or lessen our prestige. Poland and Rumania issued laws establishing absolute equality between the Jews and their own nationals. All discrimination had ceased. Immigrant Hebrews from Russia received the full rights of citizenship and became ent.i.tled to fill any office in the state. In a word, all the old disabilities were abolished and the fervent prayer of east European governments was that the Jewish members of their respective communities should be gradually a.s.similated to the natives and become patriotic citizens like them. It was a new ideal. It accorded to the Jews everything they had asked for. It would enable them to show themselves as the French, Italian, and Belgian Jews had shown themselves, efficient citizens of their adopted countries.
"But in the flush of their triumph, the Jews, or rather their spokesmen at the Conference, were not satisfied with equality. What they demanded was inequality to the detriment of the races whose hospitality they were enjoying and to their own supposed advantage. They were to have the same rights as the Rumanians, the Poles, and the other peoples among whom they lived, but they were also to have a good deal more. Their religious autonomy was placed under the protection of an alien body, the League, which is but another name for the Powers which have reserved to themselves the governance of the world. The method is to oblige each of the lesser states to bestow on each minority the same rights as the majority enjoys, and also certain privileges over and above. The instrument imposing this obligation is a formal treaty with the Great Powers which the Poles, Rumanians, and other small states were summoned to sign. It contains twenty-one articles. The first part of the doc.u.ment deals with minorities generally, the latter with the Jewish elements.
The second clause of the Polish treaty enacts that every individual who habitually resided in Poland on August 1, 1914, becomes a citizen forthwith. This is simple. Is it also satisfactory? Many Frenchmen and Poles doubt it, as we do ourselves. On August 1st numerous German and Austrian agents and spies, many of them Hebrews, resided habitually in Poland. Moreover, the foreign Jewish elements there, which have immigrated from Russia, having lost--like everybody else before the war--the expectation of seeing Polish independence ever restored, had definitely thrown in their lot with the enemies of Poland. Now to put into the hands of such enemies const.i.tutional weapons is already a sacrifice and a risk. The Jews in Vilna recently voted solidly against the incorporation of that city in Poland.[363] Are they to be treated as loyal Polish citizens? We have conceded the point unreservedly. But to give them autonomy over and above, to create a state within the state, and enable its subjects to call in foreign Powers at every hand"s turn, against the lawfully const.i.tuted authorities--that is an expedient which does not commend itself to the newly emanc.i.p.ated peoples."
The Rumanian Premier Bratiano, whose conspicuous services to the Allied cause ent.i.tled him to a respectful hearing, delivered a powerful speech[364] before the delegates a.s.sembled in plenary session on this question of protecting ethnic and religious minorities. He covered ground unsurveyed by the framers of the special treaties, and his sincere tone lent weight to his arguments. Starting from the postulate that the strength of latter-day states depends upon the widest partic.i.p.ation of all the elements of the population in the government of the country, he admitted the peremptory necessity of abolishing invidious distinctions between the various elements of the population there, ethnic or religious. So far, he was at one with the spokesmen of the Great Powers. Rumania, however, had already accomplished this by the decree enabling her Jews to acquire full citizenship by expressing the mere desire according to a simple formula. This act confers the full rights of Rumanian citizens upon eight hundred thousand Jews. The Jewish press of Bucharest had already given utterance to its entire satisfaction. If, however, the Jews are now to be placed in a special category, differentiated and kept apart from their fellow-citizens by having autonomous inst.i.tutions, by the maintenance of the German-Yiddish dialect, which keeps alive the Teuton anti-Rumanian spirit, and by being authorized to regard the Rumanian state as an inferior tribunal, from which an appeal always lies to a foreign body--the government of the Great Powers--this would be the most invidious of all distinctions, and calculated to render the a.s.similation of the German-Yiddish-speaking Jews to their Rumanian fellow-citizens a sheer impossibility. The majority and the minority would then be systematically and definitely estranged from each other; and, seeing this, the elemental instincts of the ma.s.ses might suddenly a.s.sume untoward forms, which the treaty, if ratified, would be unavailing to prevent. But, however baneful for the population, foreign protection is incomparably worse for the state, because it tends to destroy the cement that holds the government and people together, and ultimately to bring about disintegration. A cla.s.sic example of this process of disruption is Russia"s well-meant protection of the persecuted Christians in Turkey. In this case the motive was admirable, the necessity imperative, but the result was the dismemberment of Turkey and other changes, some of which one would like to forget.
The delegation of Czechoslovakia, Jugoslavia, and Poland upheld M.
Bratiano"s contentions in brief, pithy speeches. President Wilson"s lengthy rejoinder, delivered with more than ordinary sweetness, deprecated M. Bratiano"s comparison of the Allies" proposed intervention with Russia"s protection of the Christians of Turkey, and represented the measure as emanating from the purest kindness. He said that the Great Powers were now bestowing national existence or extensive territories upon the interested states, actually guaranteeing their frontiers, and therefore making themselves responsible for permanent tranquillity there. But the treatment of the minorities, he added, unless fair and considerate, might produce the gravest troubles and even precipitate wars. Therefore it behooved the Powers in the interests of all Europe, as of each of its individual members, to secure harmonious relations, and, at any rate, to remove all manifest obstacles to their establishment. "We guarantee your frontiers and your territories. That means that we will send over arms, ships, and men, in case of necessity.
Therefore we possess the right and recognize the duty to hinder the survival of a set of deplorable conditions which would render this intervention unavoidable."
To this line of reasoning M. Bratiano made answer that all the helpful maxims of good government are of universal application, and, therefore, if this protection of minorities were, indeed, indispensable or desirable, it should not be restricted to the countries of eastern Europe, but should be extended to all without exception. For it is inadmissible that two categories of states should be artificially created, one endowed with full sovereignty and the other with half-sovereignty. Such an arrangement would destroy the equality which should lie at the base of a genuine League of Nations.
But the Powers had made up their minds, and the special treaties were imposed on the unwilling governments. Thereupon the Rumanian Premier withdrew from the Conference, and neither his Cabinet nor that of the Jugoslavs signed the treaty with Austria at St.-Germain.
What happened after that is a matter of history.
Few politicians are conscious of the magnitude of the issue concealed by the involved diplomatic phraseology of the obnoxious treaties, or of the dangers to which their enactment will expose the minorities which they were framed to protect, the countries whose hospitality those minorities enjoy, and possibly other lands, which for the time being are seemingly immune from all such perilous race problems. The calculable, to say nothing of the unascertained, elements of the question might well cause responsible statesmen to be satisfied with the feasible. The Jewish elements in Europe, for centuries abominably oppressed, were justified in utilizing to the fullest the opportunity presented by the resettlement of the world in order to secure equality of treatment. And it must be admitted that their organization is marvelous. For years I championed their cause in Russia, and paid the penalty under the governments of Alexander II and III.[365] The sympathy of every unbiased man, to whatever race or religion he may belong, will naturally go out to a race or a nation which is trodden underfoot, as were the ill-starred Jews of Russia ever since the part.i.tion of Poland. But equality one would have thought sufficient to meet the grievance. Full equality without reservation. That was the view taken by numerous Jews in Poland and Rumania, several of whom called on me in Paris and urged me to give public utterance to their hopes that the Conference would rest satisfied with equality and to their fear of the consequences of an attempt to establish a privileged status. Why this position should exist only in eastern Europe and not elsewhere, why it should not be extended to other races with larger minorities in other countries, are questions to which a satisfactory response could be given only by farther-reaching and fateful changes in the legislation of the world.
One of the statesmen of eastern Europe made a forcible appeal to have the minority clauses withdrawn. He took the ground that the princ.i.p.al aim pursued in conferring full rights on the Jews who dwell among us is to remove the obstacles that prevent them from becoming true and loyal citizens of the state, as their kindred are in France, Italy, Britain, and elsewhere. "If it is reasonable," he said, "that they should demand all the rights possessed by their Rumanian and Polish fellow-subjects, it is equally fair that they should take over and fulfil the correlate duties, as does the remainder of the population. For the gradual a.s.similation of all the ethnic elements of the community is our ideal, as it is the ideal of the French, English, Italian, and other states.
"Isolation and particularism are the negative of that ideal, and operate like a piece of iron or wood in the human body which produces ulceration and gangrene. All our inst.i.tutions should therefore be calculated to encourage a.s.similation. If we adopt the opposite policy, we inevitably alienate the privileged from the unprivileged sections of the community, generate enmity between them, cause endless worries to the administration and paralyze in advance our best-intentioned endeavors to fuse the various ethnic ingredients of the nation into a h.o.m.ogeneous whole.
"This argument applies as fully to the other national fragments in our midst as to the Jews. It is manifest, therefore, that the one certain result of the minority clause will be to impose domestic enemies on each of the states that submits to it, and that it can commend itself only to those who approve the maxim, _Divide et impera_.
"It also entails the noteworthy diminution of the sovereignty of the state. We are to be liable to be haled before a foreign tribunal whenever one of our minorities formulates a complaint against us.[366]
How easily, nay, how wickedly such complaints were filed of late may be inferred from the heartrending accounts of pogroms in Poland, which have since been shown by the Allies" own confidential envoys to be utterly fict.i.tious. Again, with whom are we to make the obnoxious stipulations?
With the League of Nations? No. We are to bind ourselves toward the Great Powers, who themselves have their minorities which complain in vain of being continually coerced. Ireland, Egypt, and the negroes are three striking examples. None of their delegates were admitted to the Conference. If the principle which those Great Powers seek to enforce be worth anything, it should be applied indiscriminately to all minorities, not restricted to those of the smaller states, who already have difficulties enough to contend against."
The trend of continental opinion was decidedly opposed to this policy of continuous control and periodic intervention. It would be unfruitful to quote the sharp criticisms of the status of the negroes in the United States.[367] But it will not be amiss to cite the views of two moderate French publicists who have ever been among the most fervent advocates of the Allied cause. Their comments deal with one of the articles[368] of the special Minority Treaty which Poland has had to sign. It runs thus: "Jews shall not be compelled to perform any act which const.i.tutes a violation of their Sabbath, nor shall they be placed under any disability by reason of their refusal to attend courts of law or to perform any legal business on their Sabbath. This provision, however, shall not exempt Jews from such obligations as shall be imposed upon all other Polish citizens for the necessary purposes of military service, national defense, or the preservation of public order.
"Poland declares her intention to refrain from ordering or permitting elections, whether general or local, to be held on a Sat.u.r.day, nor will registration for electoral or other purposes be compelled to be performed on a Sat.u.r.day."
M. Gauvain writes: "One may put the question, why respect for the Sabbath is so peremptorily imposed when Sunday is ignored among several of the Allied Powers. In France Christians are not dispensed from appearing on Sundays before the a.s.size courts. Besides, Poland is further obliged not to order or authorize elections on a Sat.u.r.day. What precautions these are in favor of the Jewish religion as compared with the legislation of many Allied states which have no such ordinances in favor of Catholicism! Is the same procedure to be adopted toward the Moslems? Shall we behold the famous Mussulmans of India, so opportunely drawn from the shade by Mr. Montagu, demanding the insertion of clauses to protect Islam? Will the Zionists impose their dogmas in Palestine? Is the life of a nation to be suspended two, three, or four days a week in order that religious laws may be observed? Catholicism has adapted itself in practice to laic legislation and to the exigencies of modern life. It may well seem that Judaism in Poland could do likewise. In Rumania, the Jews met with no obstacle to the exercise of their religion. Indeed, they had contrived in the localities to the north of Moldavia, where they formed a majority, to impose their own customs on the rest of the population. Jewish guardians of toll-bridges are known to have barred the pa.s.sage of these bridges on Sat.u.r.days, because, on the one hand, their religion forbade them to accept money on that day, and, on the other hand, they could allow no one to pa.s.s without paying.
The Big Four might have given their attention to matters more useful or more pressing than enforcing respect for the Sabbath.
"It is comprehensible that M. Bratiano should have refused to accept in advance the conditions which the Four or the Five may dictate in favor of ethnic and religious minorities. Rumania before the war was a free country governed congruously with the most modern principles. The restrictions which she had enacted respecting foreigners in general, and which were on the point of being repealed, did not exceed those which the United States and the Dominion of Australia still apply with remarkable tenacity. Why should the Cabinets of London and Washington take so much to heart the lot of ethnic and religious minorities in certain European countries while they themselves refuse to admit in the Covenant of the Society of Nations the principle of the equality of races? Their conduct is awakening among the states "whose interests are limited" the belief that they are the victims of an arbitrary policy.
And that is not without danger."[369]
Another eminent Frenchman, M. Denis Cochin, who until quite recently was a Cabinet Minister, wrote: "The Conference, by imposing laws in favor of minorities, has uselessly and unjustly offended our allies. These laws oblige them to respect the usages of the Jews, to maintain schools for them.... I have spent a large part of my career in demanding for French Catholics exactly that which the Conference imposes elsewhere. The Catholics pay taxes in money and taxes in blood. And yet there is no budget for those schools in which their religion is taught; no liberty for those schoolmasters who wear the ecclesiastical habit. I have seen a doctor in letters, fellow of the university, driven from his cla.s.s because he was a Marist brother and did not choose to repudiate the vocation of his youth. He died of grief. I have seen young priests, after the long, laborious preparation necessary before they could take part in the compet.i.tion for a university fellowship, thrust aside at the last moment and debarred from the compet.i.tion because they wore the garb of priests. Yet a year later they were soldiers. I have seen Father Sch.e.l.l presented unanimously by the Inst.i.tute and the Professional Corps as worthy to receive a chair at the College de France, and refused by the Minister. Yet I hereby affirm that if foreigners, even though they were allies, even friends, were to meddle with imposing on us the abrogation of these iniquitous laws, my protest would be uplifted against them, together with that of M. Combes.[370] I would exclaim, like Sganarelle"s wife, "And what if I wish to be beaten?" I hold tyranny in horror, but I hold foreign intervention in greater horror still. Let us combat bad laws with all our strength, but among ourselves."[371]
The minority treaties tend to transform each of the states on which it is imposed into a miniature Balkans, to keep Europe in continuous turmoil and hinder the growth of the new and creative ideas from which alone one could expect that union of collective energy with individual freedom which is essential to peace and progress. Modern history affords no more striking example of the force of abstract bias over the teachings of experience than this amateur legislation which is scattering seeds of mischief and conflict throughout Europe.
Casting a final glance at the results of the Conference, it would be ungracious not to welcome as a precious boon the destruction of Prussian militarism, a consummation which we owe to the heroism of the armies rather than to the sagacity of the lawgivers in Paris. The restoration of a Polish state and the creation or extension of the other free communities at the expense of the Central Empires are also most welcome changes, which, however, ought never to have been marred by the disruptive wedge of the minority legislation. Again, although the League is a mill whose sails uselessly revolve, because it has no corn to grind, the mere fact that the necessity of internationalism was solemnly proclaimed as the central idea of the new ordering, and that an effort, however feeble, was put forth to realize it in the shape of a covenant of social and moral fellowship, marks an advance from which there can be no retrogression.
Actuality was thereby imparted to the idea, which is destined to remain in the forefront of contemporary politics until the peoples themselves embody it in viable inst.i.tutions. What the delegates failed to realize is the truth that a program of a league is not a league.
On the debit side much might be added to what has already been said. The important fact to bear in mind--which in itself calls for neither praise nor blame--is that the world-parliament was at bottom an Anglo-Saxon a.s.sembly whose language, political conceptions, self-esteem, and disregard of everything foreign were essentially English. When speaking, the faces of the princ.i.p.al delegates were turned toward the future, and when acting they looked toward the past. As a thoroughly English press organ, when alluding to the League of Nations, puts it: "We have done homage to that entrancing ideal by spatchc.o.c.king the Convention into the Treaty. There it remains as a finger-post to point the way to a new heaven on earth. But we observe that the Treaty itself is a good old eighteenth-century piece, drawing its inspiration from mundane and practical considerations, and paying a good deal more than lip service to the principle of the balance of power."[372]
That is a fair estimate of the work achieved by the delegates. But they sinned in their way of doing it. If they had deliberately and professedly aimed at these results, and had led the world to look for none other, most of the criticisms to which they have rendered themselves open would be pointless. But they raised hopes which they refused to realize, they weakened if they did not destroy faith in public treaties, they intensified distrust and race hatred throughout the world, they poured strong dissolvents upon every state on the European Continent, and they stirred up fierce pa.s.sions in Russia, and then left that ill-starred nation a prey to unprecedented anarchy. In a word, they gathered up all the widely scattered explosives of imperialism, nationalism, and internationalism, and, having added to their destructiveness, pa.s.sed them on to the peoples of the world as represented by the League of Nations. Some of them deplored the mess in which they were leaving the nations, without, however, admitting the causal nexus between it and their own achievements.
General s.m.u.ts, before quitting Paris for South Africa, frankly admitted that the Peace Treaty will not give us the real peace which the peoples hoped for, and that peace-making would not begin until after the signing of the Treaty. The _Echo de Paris_ wrote: "As for us, we never believed in the Society of Nations."[373] And again: "The Society of Nations is now but a bladder, and n.o.body would venture to describe it as a lantern."[374] The Bolshevist dictator Lenin termed it "an organization to loot the world."[375]
The Allies themselves are at sixes and sevens. The French are suspicious of the British. A large section of the American people is profoundly dissatisfied with the part played by the English and the French at the Conference; Italy is stung to the quick by the treatment she received from France, Britain, and the United States; Rumania loathes the very names of those for whom she staked her all and sacrificed so much; in Poland and Belgium the English have lost the consideration which they enjoyed before the Conference; the Greeks are wroth with the American delegates; the majority of Russians literally execrate their ex-Allies and turn to the Germans and the j.a.panese.
"The resettlement of central Europe," writes an American journal,[376]
"is not being made for the tranquillity of the liberated principles, but for the purposes of the Great Powers, among whom France is the active, and America and Britain the pa.s.sive, partners. In Germany its purpose is the permanent elimination of the German nation as a factor in European politics.... We cannot save Europe by playing the sinister game now being played. There is no peace, no order, no security in it....
What it can do is to aggravate the mischief and intensify the schisms."
A distinguished American, who is a consistent friend of England,[377] in a review article affirmed that the proposed League of Nations is slowly undermining the Anglo-American Entente. "There is in America a growing sense of irritation that she should be forever entangled in the spider-web of European politics." ... And if the Senate in the supposed interests of peace should ratify the League, he adds, "In my judgment no greater harm could result to Anglo-American unity than such reluctant consent."[378]