Senator JOHNSON of California. Which is left indefinite at the present time?

Secretary LANSING. Yes, because they can not tell. They discussed that.

Senator JOHNSON of California. And it is left to the Reparation Commission to assess such sum as they may deem appropriate?

Secretary LANSING. No; it is based on the ability of Germany to pay, and the relative

Senator WILLIAMS. Claims?

Secretary LANSING. On the relative division that should be made according to the character of damages done.

Senator JOHNSON of California. The division is a secondary problem that I am coming to in just a minute.

Secretary LANSING. Yes.

Senator JOHNSON of California. But it is left to the Reparation Commission to fix the amount?

Secretary LANSING. Yes.

Senator JOHNSON of California. Solely with regard to the ability of Germany to pay?

Secretary LANSING. Exactly.

Senator JOHNSON of California. Now, do you know how the Reparation Commission arrive at their decision?

Secretary LANSING. No.

Senator JOHNSON of California. Do you know whether they have to arrive at that unanimously?

Secretary LANSING. I do not know.

Senator JOHNSON of California. You do not know?

Secretary LANSING. No.

Senator JOHNSON of California. You are a part of the treaty making, and of this particular treaty?

Secretary LANSING. Exactly; but I could not pick up all these various matters and details. It is physically impossible.

Senator WILLIAMS. He could not carry it all in his head if he were Solomon.

Senator JOHNSON of California. I am not asserting that he is Solomon, or that he can carry it in his head.

Secretary LANSING. It is very much easier to ask questions that you have prepared in advance than it is to answer questions prepared in advance and asked you when you do not know what is going to be asked you. I asked at the committee to know what I was to be questioned about. They said they did not know, so that I had to come up here without any preparation.

Senator JOHNSON of California. If I had known that you had made. a request of that kind I would have been very glad to have put them in writing and furnished you a copy.

Secretary LANSING. I would have been glad to have it.

Senator JOHNSON of California. If you would prefer, I will let this thing pass for the moment.

Secretary LANSING. No; I am perfectly willing, if it is satisfactory to you?

Senator JOHNSON of California. It is perfectly satisfactory to me, but I do not want to be at all disagreeable to you in the examination. Secretary LANSING. I appreciate your courtesy.

Senator JOHNSON of California. Now, if you tell me you are not familiar with the reparation part of this treaty I will not trouble you on it; I will not bother you about it.

Secretary LANSING. No; I am not. In many ways it was a very complicated affair, and it was worked over for months, and worked out by men who were more or less experts in the matters of finance and economics. It is largely an industrial and financial question, and I am in no way an expert myself on it. I would not know whether it was worked out properly or not.

Senator JOHNSON of California. I intended to ask you a series of questions as to its workability and whether or not it could be carried out, but I will refrain from doing so, under your statement, on account of your lack of knowledge on it.

Secretary LANSING. Yes. It is a matter of expert knowledge.

Senator JOHNSON of California. You do know, as a matter of policy, whether the United States intends to take any part of the reparation? Secretary LANSING. I do not know whether that has been determined. I never have heard it discussed.

Senator JOHNSON of California. You say you have never heard it discussed?

Secretary LANSING. We have never discussed that, to my knowledge.

Senator JOHNSON of California. I understood from some witness's testimony here that it had been determined, and tentatively determined by the President, that we would have no part in the reparation. Secretary LANSING. You see, naturally, the experts in a matter of this sort would go directly to the heads of the States, because that is where the determination lay, in the determination of items of that sort in the treaty.

Senator FALL. I might suggest to the gentleman from California, and to the Secretary also, that the President of the United States sent a written request to this committee the other day that they might advise him and help him in the appointment of a commissioner on this reparation board.

Senator SWANSON. I understood Senator Johnson's question to be whether we will have any part of the reparation, and not whether we will take part in its administration.

Senator JOHNSON of California. Yes; that is correct. If there has been a misunderstanding, I will ask the question again, whether or not it was tentatively or otherwise understood or agreed that we were to have no part in the reparation; not in the reparation commission, but in the reparation ultimately paid.

Secretary LANSING. I do not think there has been any definite agreement as to that. Personally, I am in favor of not taking any. That is my personal view.

Senator WILLIAMS. What is that?

Secretary LANSING. Personally, I am opposed to taking any reparation.

Senator HITCHCOCK. You mean so far as the Government is concerned.

Secretary LANSING. Oh, yes.

Senator HITCHCOCK. You do not mean so far as private individuals are concerned?

Secretary LANSING. No; they must all be paid.

Senator HITCHCOCK. There are $100,000,000 of shipping losses during the war, and they have got to be paid.

Secretary LANSING. Yes.

Senator HITCHCOCK. And they are reparations.
Secretary LANSING. Yes.

Senator JOHNSON of California. Do you happen to know whether that is the President's personal opinion?

Secretary LANSING. I understand that it is so.

Senator JOHNSON of California. I understood that from his speech of July 4, that that was his position.

Senator WILLIAMS. I want to ask you a question on another phase of the matter. Discussion came up the other day as to how far the league of nations would affect the question of boundaries, and the assertion was made by the witness then before us to the effect that certain boundaries that were not laid out on strategical lines, but were laid out on other lines, of nationality or race, could not be supported except with the league of nations; which led to some acrimonious debate around the table. Have you ever read that page or two of the treaty containing the boundaries between Poland and Germany?

Secretary LANSING. I have, at one time.

Senator WILLIAMS. Now, I want to ask you this question. Could that boundary be maintained by Poland for six months, or for any great length of time, without a league of nations and its moral force behind Poland?

Secretary LANSING. Not unless Germany was disarmed and Poland was armed.

Senator WILLIAMS. And kept disarmed?

Secretary LANSING. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. If you follow out the line, that boundary is hot at all strategical, is it?

Secretary LANSING. No; it is not.

Senator WILLIAMS. There are no natural objects that make it strong? It is just the line that they tried to get the majority of Poles on one side of, and the majority of Germans on the other? Secretary LANSING. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. And now and then they could not succeed, because the line could not be made too zigzaggy?

Secretary LANSING. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. Are there not other boundaries of which the same thing could be said, of big nations?

Secretary LANSING. Yes; it is quite true in several instances that the boundaries are not strategic in any way. And I think this should be said, that in certain cases the ethnological line has given place to the economic line. My own theory is that the economic line is frequently more important than the ethnographic line. Senator WILLIAMS. It might be, in a particular place.

Secretary LANSING. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. Is not this true, that they tried to be guided by racial and national lines so far as they could, but now and then they would strike a place where the economic question made it absolutely necessary to overlook the other, in a small territory? Secretary LANSING. Yes.

Senator WILLIAMS. For instance the country around Fiume, the population is largely Italian, and the thing which led them to disregard the racial question there was the economic question of transportation and trade?

Secretary LANSING. Yes, sir.

Senator JOHNSON of California. I beg you to follow me in asking you this question:

On the 28th of June, 1919, there was read into the record a cablegram from the President, addressed to his fellow-countrymen, announcing the signing of the peace treaty, and speaking of the league of nations he said:

It associates the free governments of the world in a permanent league in which they are pledged to use their united power to maintain peace by maintaining right and justice.

Further that the member governments "undertake to be responsible to the opinion of mankind in the execution of their task by accepting the direction of the league of nations."

In the President's address to the Senate, on July 10, again speaking of the league of nations, he said:

It provided a means of common counsel which all were pledged to accept; a common authority whose decisions would be recognized as decisions which all must respect.

On the 9th of May, 1919, Secretary Tumulty gave out the following message from President Wilson, referring to the Franco-American treaty:

I have promised to propose to the Senate a supplement in which we shall agree, subject to the approval of the council of the league of nations, to come immediately to the assistance of France in case of unprovoked attack by Germany, thus merely hastening the action to which we should be bound by the covenant of the league of nations.

In his message to the Senate, dated July 29, 1919, transmitting the Franco-American treaty, the President says:

The covenant of the league of nations provides for military action for the protection of its members only upon advice of the council of the league. Advice given, it is to be presumed, only upon deliberation and acted upon by each of the governments of the member states only after its own judgment justifies such action.

The question I desire to ask you is this: Which one of these statements is correct? Are we bound by the common authority of the league, as stated in the President's address of July 10? Would we be bound by the covenant of the league to go to the relief of France. as stated in the Tumulty message of May 9, or would we be free to accept the advice of the league only if our own judgment justified such action, as stated in the President's message of July 29? Can you follow me?

Secretary LANSING. I can, and I do.

Senator JOHNSON of California. Can you answer me?

Secretary LANSING. No; I am not going to answer-I am not going to interpret the President's language for him.

Senator JOHNSON of California. All right, sir.

Senator KNOx. No; but it seems to me that calls for an interpretation of the treaty.

Secretary LANSING. I know, that is quite true; if not from anything that the President has said. If you ask me for an interpretation of it, that is a different thing.

Senator KNOX. Speaking from the language of the treaty itself, is it a matter in which we have perfect freedom of action under article 10?

Secretary LANSING. I think so.

Senator KNOx. You think so.

Secretary LANSING. Yes.

Senator KNOX. You think that we may do just as we please without violating our honor or agreement on any recommendation made in the council of the league of nations?

Secretary LANSING. I think so.

Senator KNOX. That is mighty important.

Secretary LANSING. I think we have got, certainly, that legal right. Senator KNOX. I asked you about the moral right.

Secretary LANSING. No, you did not mention that.

Senator KNOX. Yes, I said without violating our honor; with honor.

Secretary LANSING. With honor?

Senator KNOX. Yes.

Secretary LANSING. I presume in honor we would have to follow out the general purposes of that article.

Senator KNOX. In other words if the council of the league of nations directed us to resort to arms against China in order to prevent her from regaining her rights in Shantung, we would be bound to do it?

Secretary LANSING. If Congress approved.

Senator KNOX. No, I am not talking about Congress, I am talking about the obligations we have assumed under the treaty.

We

Secretary LANSING. I do not think that is an absolute obligation. Senator KNOX. It is one thing or the other, Mr. Secretary. either have liberty of action, or we are bound by our agreement, and there has been a great deal of difference of opinion in the discussion in the Senate on that subject, and apparently among the Democratic Members of the Senate some are convinced that we are absolutely bound by the decision of the council. Others say, just as this last expression of the President indicates, that it is up to us to decide, after the recommendations have been made.

Secretary LANSING. Is it not very much like the Panama Treaty? Senator KNOX. I do not think there is a particle of analogy between the Panama treaty and that, because in Panama we were defending our own property. We have a zone in Panama, and we have built the greatest engineering enterprise in the world, and the peace of the environment is essential to the operation of that property. We are merely defending our own down there. I do not see any analogy between this and the Panama treaty.

Secretary LANSING. It is more essential, then, that there should be peace in Panama than that there should be peace in all the world? Senator KNOX. No; not at all. That is a non sequitur. It is in my mind that wherever we have tremendous property interests at stake we should see that there is peace in that neighborhood.

Secretary LANSING. And therefore the change of sovereignty would affect our rights there?

Senator KNOX. Would affect our rights.

Secretary LANSING. How could that be, under that law?