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Dr. VACCARO. Metzovic is the most central of them all. I have some maps here, Senator, which show that Metzovic is the most centrally located one.

Mr. COTILLO. I have a telegram here from John J. Freschi, who regrets his inability to be here, and desires to be recorded at the hearing of Fiume before the committee as favoring Italy having Fiume, and he states that if it pleases the Senate committee he will file a memorandum, including exhibits.

Now, Mr. Chairman, we have here a gentleman, Mr. Field, who has requested me to ask for a few minutes of your time. The CHAIRMAN. Very well.

STATEMENT OF MR. W. H. FIELD.

Mr. FIELD. I desire to file with you statements signed by people who were present in Paris and in Italy during the recent negotiations, which statements will show that Col. House was in favor of giving Fiume to the Italians and that President Wilson opposed it.

I will also file statements and publications from England which show that the Hamburg banking house of Warburg was interested in the railroads, and for that reason is interested in the Fiume decision, and that the matter is one which should be gone into very carefully, as it is divided into two camps.

Senator KNOX. What position does the Warburg bank take in the matter?

Mr. FIELD. They wish Fiume not to be an Italian port. Opposition to that has been shown,.and I think if you go over carefully the publications that came out abroad on both sides, you get a very accurate view of the financial interests, and if you have some of the statements by those who took part in the negotiations, you will see clearly that in the American delegation there was a rift, on the one side the President, and on the other side Col. House, and some of those witnesses did not wish to appear and some are not available in this country, but it is stated that they are willing to make signed memoranda to be delivered to the Foreign Affairs Committee. Now, those I will file as rapidly as possible with the committee.

(Subsequently the extracts referred to were submitted and are here printed in full, as follows:)

[Extracts from Modern Italy, published May 24, 1919; June 21, May 31, May 17, and May 10, 1919, respectively.]

THE BRITISH MERCANTILE MARINE.

But the group goes even further. According to Pertinax in the Echo de Paris, April 28:

M. Max Warburg is the chief of the banking firm Max Warburg & Co., of Hamburg. He is the principal shareholder in the Hamburg-American and German Lloyd Steamship Lines. His two brothers, Paul and Felix Warburg, married respectively to the sister-in-law and the daughter of M. Jacob H. Schiff (born at Frankfort) are the associates of the latter at the head of the Kuhn Loeb & Co. bank of New York. Here we have a financial group which, up to the declaration of war by America, in April, 1917, was the most powerful link between the politicians of Washington and those of Berlin. From 1914 to 1917 this powerful syndicate showed itself extraordinarily active against

It should not be forgotten that Mr. Jacob Schiff, according to Pertinax, has been the great financial supporter of the "Mutual Society of German Jews," which was linked and is still probably linked on many sides with high German circles, and that in 1916 he founded the American Neutral Conference Committee which took upon itself the tas of bringing about peace with a vic orious Germany.

the Entente. In 1915 the Warburgs of the Old and the New World tried to have the interned German ships acquired by the United States. For a moment, says Pertinax, it looked as if they were to succeed.

But, to-day, according to the Globe, they have actually succeeded after four years' effort, and the comment of that paper on May 17, under the title, "Done again," is instructive:

"According to the special correspondent of the Daily News in Paris, the mooted seizure of German ships in American harbors has now become a fait accompli. The vessels, we are told, are to remain American property, and America will pay their value into the pool out of which reparation payments are to be made.". That is an arrangement which may possibly satisfy the United States, but it will certainly not placate public opinion in this country. Mere money payment can in the circumstances of the case be no compensation. It may be equivalent to the value of the ships, but it certainly can never be accepted as reparation for the loss of transport to British shipping. Apart from that side of the question, which betrays the usual American desire to get the better of a deal, we have to consider that these vessels would never have been in American harbors but for the vigilance and efficiency of the British Navy. Further, they were driven or held there while America was a neutral and President Wilson professed inability to distinguish the rights and wrongs of the contention with Germany. It is not out of place, therefore, to inquire wherein lies the peculiar efficacy of the League of Nations if it can not be trusted to deal with a situation like this. Has its millennial virtue already gone out of it, as in the case of the projected Triple Alliance? This decision, if such it proves to be, is plainly against the dictates of common honesty, and is nothing short of an outrage on international decency. No doubt our delegates will be, as usual, fertile in evasion and excuses. But these will not satisfy the country, which regards the disgraceful business as a national affront. In plain English, we have been done again."

Not so long ago the Globe had an article, "Watch Warburgs!" There may be more important people yet to watch than Warburgs. But so far so good. Watch Warburgs in the case of Poland. Watch Warburgs in the case of Italy. Watch Warburgs at Danzig and Fiume. Above all, watch Warburgs in the case of England, and let it never be forgotten that already in 1915 the Warburgs of the Old and New World tried to have the interned German ships acquired by the United States.

Let us also not forget that, according to Pertinax, M. Max Warburg is one of the German plenipotentiaries at present at Versailles. Is this gentleman one of that group of international financiers to whom Mr. Herron alludes "who are diplomatically privileged, who are the cause of all the political and moral failures of the peace conference, on the shoulders of which will fall the responsibility of the ruin which threatens the world?"

It is well we should be on our guard. We are told sometimes by short-sighted or interested persons that this politician or that is responsible for the errors of the peace conference. The Times, for example, and Mr. Simonds attribute some of them to Mr. Lloyd-George. Others, irritated by the platitudinous language and colossal vanity of President Wilson, ascribe them to Wilsonian ideology. Probably both are wide of the mark. The truth may lie elsewhere. Behind the politicians there lies a power superior to that of the greatest politicians in the world. These latter "strut their little hour upon the stage." We watch them carefully. We applaud or we decry their little antics. Punch sometimes bellows forth his "principles," waves his big stick, and beats his wife. The wife sometimes assails him for being faithless to his principles. The spectators listen with palpitating hearts. But it would be not only more prudent but more just if, unlike deluded children, we watched the power that pulls the strings. Watch Warburgs! Palmam qui meruit ferat.

Therefore to our Polish friends who speak bitterly of England, we would say, Watch Warburgs. To our Italian friends who speak bitterly of England and America, Watch Warburgs! And to all those Englishmen incensed by the fact that, after losing 2,197 ships of 7,638,020 tonnage, in comparison with 80 ships of 341,512 tonnage lost by the United States, the finest ships in the German mercantile marine, whose tonnage is double the American loses, will be kept by America-for we are told by Mr. Hurley that "Whatever method of adjustment is adopted, the ships will certainly be kept by this county"-we would say again, Watch Warburgs!

When the prestige of England is declining both in Italy and Poland, when the faith of her friends in her is nearly broken, when she loses her old friends and makes no new ones, when danger threatens her in Egypt and in India-Watch Warburgs! When schemes are afoot for the destruction of the Polish trade by sea with England; for the destruction of the Italian mercantile marine and the annihilation of Anglo-Italian trade in the Levant; for the seizure of the German ships and the capture, by this blow to the British mercantile marine, of the trade of South America-Watch Warburgs!

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS AND INTERNATIONAL FINANCE.

On June 10 the Morning Post, under the headings "The Leakage of the Text," "Financiers Subpoenaed," published an astounding piece of news. The news was communicated in a Reuter telegraph of June 9 from Washington, and runs as follows: "The Foreign Relations Committee of the Senate have subpoenaed Messrs. Jacob Schiff, Lamont, Davison, Warburg, Morgan, and Vanderlip, in connection with the investigation [an investigation of the Senate as to how copies of the treaty reached private interests in New York]. They have also invited the Acting Secretary of State, Mr. Polk, to take part in the inquiry, and to cross-examine the witnesses. The financiers mentioned above, with the exception of Mr. Vanderlip, have been called at the instance of Senator Borah, who told the committee that he was convinced that they were familiar with the contents of the treaty, although he had never seen a copy in their possession.'

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"Senator Borah," the telegram goes on to say, "has charged the international bankers of New York with being interested, 'for private reasons, in the adoption of the league of nations covenant.'

It adds that "the committee have requested Mr. Lamont, who is a member of J. P. Morgan & Co., to produce any correspondence between the Morgans and their Paris and London agents regarding the treaty, and particularly any communications with Mr. Davison, another member of the firm, while the latter was abroad."

Now, we shall not say anything in this issue about the firm of J. P. Morgan & Co., of which Messrs. Lamont and Davison are members. Nor shall we say anything of Mr. Vanderlip. But since we referred over a month ago (Modern Italy, Vol. II, No. 14), under the title "Is the Peace Conference a Free Agent?" to Messrs. Jacob Schiff and Warburg, it may be interesting in view of this new development to recall attention to these persons.

Moreover, the public was warned by an article in the Globe some time ago to "Watch Warburgs." In Modern Italy, Vol. II, No. 16, in an article entitled "Danzig, Fiume, and the British Mercantile Marine,' we set up our watch, and now, in view of the new facts, it seems more than ever necessary to maintain it.

We had no idea, at the time we wrote, that Messrs. Jacob Schiff and Warburg would be subpo naed by the Foreign Relations Committee of the United States Senate. Nor are we interested in the details of this particular development. It is no concern of ours whether and how copies of the peace treaty reached private interests in New York. But it is interesting to note that Messrs. Schiff and Warburg are evidently considered persons of importance in New York, and it is well to remember exactly who they are.

According to Pertinax, the well-known French journalist, who is usually extremely well informed, Mr. Jacob Schiff was born at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the home of the Allgemeiner Elektricitäts Gesellschaft He is to-day one of the directors of the Kuhn, Loeb & Co. Bank of New York.

He has been, according to Pertinax, "the great financial supporter of the 'Mutual Society of German Jews,' which was linked, and is still probably linked on many sides, with high German circles." Can we assume for an instant that the organized camapign which is being carried on to-day by the German-speaking Jews of Poland against the creation of a strong and independent Poland is entirely unconnected with the work of this society? Can we assume that Mr. Jacob Schiff is uninterested in the settlement of the Polish question, a question which-in spite of the unanimous recommendations of committees undergoes from day to day such amazing changes? Born at Frankfort, he must know very well that the German-speaking Jew of Poland is regarded in Germany, rightly or wrongly, as the chief agent in Eastern Europe of German "kultur." And not only of "kultur." For all great German firms regard him as an ideal commercial traveler in the work of German economic penetration into Poland and, further, into ussia. It would be a miracle if Mr. Jacob Schiff had never expressed an opinion about Poland.

It would be a miracle, too, if Mr. Jacob Schiff had never expressed himself on the subject of a league of nations. During the war, before America intervened. Mr. Jacob Schiff, Pertinax informs us, "founded the American Neutral Conference Committee, which took upon itself the task of bringing about peace with a victorious Germany. Then appeared for the first time all the formule of the league of nations, the anathemas launched against the 'old diplomacy,' which was said to be responsible for bringing about the war. On this point, consult the work How the Diplomatists Caused the War,' written by Mr. Heubsch, the colleague of Mr. Schiff on the Neutral Conference Committee.

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Is it possible that Mr. Jacob Schiff is the real author of the covenant? We know well that many high-minded idealists work for this ideal, which is, at its best, an

attempt, under modern conditions, to reconstitute the Roman Empire. No Roman statesman, listening to Lord Robert Cecil on June 13, could have taken exception to anything he said. The ideal, eloquently expressed, of a "Pax Romana"; the criticism of national selfishness; the appeal to put an end to the existing international anarchy; the admission that the league must entail some diminution of national Sovereignty-all this would have delighted Tiberius Gracchus, not to mention Cæsar, and many a Roman statesman would have hailed Lord Robert Cecil as a colleague. But it must be remembered that, if the league of nations has its good side, as an attempt to extend the realm of public law and to put an end to international anarchyan ideal never yet realized in the history of the world save by the Roman Empirethe league also has its dangerous side.

Given the overwhelming influence of international finance, what is there to prevent the real center of the league from being established, not at its nominal center, Geneva, but at Frankfort, the home of international finance? What is there to prevent it becoming a mere political department of the Allgemeiner Elektricitäts Gesellschaft? National finance may be hard enough to regulate in the interest of the nation; but under a régime of international finance all nations would bow to a new master, more strange and terrible than Caesar, stronger than the Roman Empire, stronger than the papacy, a master called Baal in ancient times, whose aim it is to-day to turn the world, and all the nations in it, into one vast servile State. To turn now to the Warburg brothers, one of whom has been subpoenaed to-day together with Mr. Jacob Schiff.

Max, who lives in Germany, is very well known. He is the chief of the banking firm, Max Warburg & Co., of Hamburg. He is at present one of the German plenipotentiaries in Paris. During the war he distinguished himself at Stockholm by intrigues in the Ukraine, which he endeavored to detach from Russia and transform into a German protectorate, with a view to German penetration in the east. He is also reported to have been one of the chief German agents for the introduction of the Bolshevist virus into Russia.

Paul and Felix, the other two brothers, live in New York. They are married respectively to the sister-in-law and the daughter of Mr. Jacob Schiff, and are associated with him in the Kuhn, Loeb & Co. bank. In November, 1916, Mr. Paul Warburg was responsible, Pertinax tells us, for the famous circular which recommended the American banks to cease giving money to the Allies.

When President Wilson reformed the banking system of his country and created the Federal Reserve Board, he appointed Mr. Paul Warburg as one of the directors. It is apparently this Mr. Paul Walburg, not Felix, who has been called by Senator Borah to give evidence.

We have now explained who Messrs. Jacob Schiff and Warburg are, and to-day we can only await the results of their evidence. But it is interesting, in conclusion, to call attention to a new weekly paper which may or may not have some connection with them.

This new weekly, published in New York, is called The Review. It is edited by Fabian Franklin, formerly associate editor of the New York Evening Post, and Harold de Wolf Fuller, formerly editor of the New York Nation. The New York Nation is practically the weekly edition of the New York Evening Post. Both are papers of a strongly liberal character, and were zealous in the cause of conscientious objectors. In fact, according to the prospectus of The Review, the Nation is one of those papers which, together with the New Republic and the Dial, have become "the chief promoters of an unthinking drift toward radical innovation.'

The Review is intended to oppose this drift, and among the 120 stockholders in this paper we note the names of Messrs. Paul Warburg, Felix M. Kahn, Julius Rosenwald, Frederick Strauss, and Mortimer L. Schiff. Whether Mr. Mortimer Schiff is any relation of Mr. Jacob Schiff, and whether Mr. Paul M. Warburg is the Paul Warburg, the brother of Max, we are not sure. But The Review itself may be worth watching. It may possibly throw some light upon the ideas and principles of Messrs. Schiff and Warburg.

But whatever influence Messrs. Schiff and Warburg may or may not have in the settlement of Polish, Italian, or any other questions, it is necessary to bear in mind that all the great financial magnates of the world are out for business. We are living in a period when the greed of the world, concealed during the war, is now seeking a frenzied satisfaction. It is impossible to suppose that the peace conference itself can escape the influence of the world's great financial magnates. Indeed, it is impossible upon any other hypothesis to understand many of its decisions. Unless, for example, we assume that international finance has been at work, it is impossible to understand, to mention nothing else, the coquetting with the Bolshevists at Prinkipo; the attempt to rebuild the Austrian Empire under the name of a Danubian Con

federation; the astounding negotiations with the successor of St. Stephen upon the Hungarian throne, Bela Cohen [Kuhn]; or the treatment meted out to Belgium, Poland, and Roumania.

Above all, it is impossible to understand the treatment of Italy. It is only when we read the speeches of such men as Signor Luzzatti and Signor Turati, of whom the latter, as an extreme and intransigeant socialist, can not be accused of any sympathy with patriotic or purely national aims, that we can understand the true nature of the opposition to the rightful claims of Italy. Both Signor Luzzatti and Signor Turati have referred in their speeches in the Italian Chamber to the enterprises of international finance in the Adriatic, notably at Fiume, a city which even Signor Bissolati, the socialist, has always claimed to be Italian.

And we should do well to remember the protest made by Signor Tittoni in the Italian Senate, for it concerns, not only Italy but ourselves. Signor Tittoni bade us beware of "the substitution for German hegemony of other hegemonies, less brutal in appearance but just as tyrannical and concealing a formidable plutocratic coalition and a colossal financial monopoly for the economic exploitation of the world."

Let us take care lest, under the mask of a league of nations, we submit our destinies to some formidable plutocratic coalition, which, sitting at Geneva or at Frankfort, under some slimy Asiatic Caesar, would destroy all nations, England included, and crush, in a far more deadly way than was ever done by Rome the freedom of the world.

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TWO TONS FOR ONE.

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In our last number we drew attention to the fact that Mr. Hurley, chairman of the United States Shipping Board, commenting on the impression said to obtain in Britain that the control of the seized German ships in the United States will be temporary, observed, according to the New York correspondent of the Daily Mail, "Whatever method of adjustment is adopted, the ships will certainly be kept by this country." This statement of Mr. Hurley's has now been corroborated by Mr. Lansing. In an interview with the Paris correspondent of the New York World, Mr. Lansing indicated conclusively that the vessels are now national property, saying: "They are now our ships, and I do not think there is the slightest chance of any change of ownership." In addition to these statements made by Mr. Hurley and Mr. Lansing, we have some evidence as to the opinion of President Wilson. The correspondent of the New York Sun cables: "President Wilson considers that, so far as American is concerned, the question of the German ships has been settled, British statements to the contrary notwithstanding. "When the matter came up before the council," the correspondent adds, "the President and Mr. Lloyd-George had an extended argument, ending in the flat statement by the President that American would keep the German ships now in her possession and settle for them in her own way. Whether the Premier accepted this now seems to be the question. Americans state that he did. The President was advised in his stand by American financial experts in Paris." Now, these three statements, of Mr. Hurley, Mr. Lansing, and President Wilson, if really made by them, are astonishing. We can hardly disbelieve them, but they seem to be in such flagrant contrast with President Wilson's much advertised "idealism," and indeed, with the most elementary principles of justice, that people in England have now begun to open their eyes. They are beginning to think that the treatment which was meted out to Poland and to Italy is now to be meted out to England. The truth of the situation begins to dawn upon them. Poland was far from them; they understood but little the claim of Poland for a port at Danzig. Fiume meant little to them. They had never heard of it. Many people, indeed, had previously thought that Fiums was a kind of fish. Moreover, an elaborate and extensive propaganda, carried on against Italy since the beginning of the war, had prejudiced many persons against all Italian claims. But now that it is clear that the just and righteous claims not merely of Italy and Poland but of England herself are likely to be thwarted, Englishmen realize to some extent what Poles and Italians felt when "idealism" was applied to them. They do not like its application to themselves, and have begun, like the Poles and Italians, to make some protests, both in the press and Parliament.

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