Its machinery is impotent. The Council is vested with authority but it has no real power. The League is little more than a voluntary association of Governments a treaty more general than those which have proved so ineffective in the past. III 66 WHO MADE THE COVENANT"? So much for the text of the League Covenant. The League Covenant was originally written behind closed doors by a commission of the Peace Conference. It was amended in the same manner. Eventually, it was adopted without alteration or amendment by the entire Conference. The Peace Conference is an extraordinary gathering, one of the most extraordinary in the history of international negotiations. Five nations have organized and dominated the entire Conference. These nations are: Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the United States. The decision of the "Big Five" to run the entire conference was announced on January 20th, 1919, when the rules of the conference were published. Rule 1 read as follows: "The belligerent powers with general interests the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy and Japanshall take part in all meetings and commissions. The belligerent powers with particular interests-Belgium, Brazil, the British Dominions . . shall take part in the sittings at which questions concerning them are discussed." What was the meaning of the phrases, "general interests" when applied to the "Big Five," and "particular interests," when applied to Belgium, Brazil, the British Dominions, etc.? The answer is plain. The five nations with the big armies and the big navies had "general interests," and the other nations, irrespective of their relation to the war, had "special interests." Belgium has suffered irretrievably; Japan has suffered not at all, and yet Japan is represented at all of the sessions, and Belgium only when she is invited. Such was the spirit behind the organization of the Conference. A big army and a big navy was made the price of admission to the inner circle. The centre of organized might had shifted from Berlin to Paris. The delegates to the Conference were appointed by their respective governments. Not one member was elected by the people whom he purported to represent. The Peace Conference was a conference of representatives chosen by governments-not by peoples. This fact is clearly reflected in the names and positions of the conferees. The war was fought presumably for democracy and liberty, yet three of the "Big Five" are monarchies and only two are republics. The representatives of these monarchies were counts, dukes and barons. England sent Bonar Law and Balfour; Italy sent Sonnino and Orlando; Japan sent one marquis, one count and three barons. The names of the Peace conferees are not the names of the well-known champions of democracy. On the contrary, they are the names of the men who have been playing the vicious game of back-stairs European diplomacy for a generation. Among them are the same men who signed arbitration treaties and broke them; who established the Hague Tribunal, and ignored it, and who finally drew up the infamous "secret treaties," under which they agreed for a price upon the conditions of war and bloodshed. France in her secret understanding prescribed:1. "Alsace and Lorraine to be returned to France. 2. "The boundaries will be extended at ment. At the same time strategic de- Alsace and Lorraine are thus re-christened Iron and Coal. Italy made a bargain under which the Allies agreed to give her Trentino and the entire Southern Tyrol; the province of Dalmatia; "her right to receive on the division of Turkey an equal share with France, Great Britain and Russia in the basin of the Mediterranean, and a share in the division of Africa. In addition (Article XIV), "England obligates herself to assist Italy immediately to negotiate on the London market on advantageous terms of a loan in a sum not less than 50,000,000 pounds sterling"-whereupon Italy entered the war. Similar treaties were drawn up between Russia and Japan with regard to the partition of spheres of influence in China. The statesmen, who brought Europe to the verge of chaos, who were the leaders in guiding civilization to the precipice, sat down at Paris and drew up the Covenant for the League of Nations. The empires which have been contending for the world's mastery, the governments partially responsible for precipitating the world war, are, many of them, the powers in the League of Nations. IV AN ORGANIZATION OF CAPITALIST EMPIRES A peculiar method of production prevails in the modern world. A few people own the mines, mills, factories, banks and railroads. The masses of the people depend for their livelihood upon the resources and machines in the hands of the few. The few who own the machinery of production likewise own the product. The worker in a steel mill does not own the rail that he turns out, nor does the worker in a shoe factory own the leather which he is fashioning into shoes. The surplus of production goes to the owner of the productive machinery. The worker receives, in the form of wages, a part of the product which he creates. The remainder, in the form of interest, dividends, rents and profits, is paid to the owning class. The system under which one class in the community owns the capital, the product and the surplus, while another class works with the capital to create the product and the surplus, is called Capitalism. It is the system universally accepted in the industrial life of Great Britain, France, Italy, Japan and the United States. This system places huge surpluses in the hands of the few who comprise the owning class. The last detailed report of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue shows that 67 individuals in the United States were in receipt of 299 million dollars of annual income, 992 per cent. of which was derived from interest, rents, dividends and profits. Those 67 people together with the 30,000 other millionaires in the United States, find it impossible to spend their income on the comforts and luxuries of life. Therefore, they take this surplus, add to it the savings from banks and insurance companies and invest it at home or abroad-wherever the rate of return is more satis factory. The "Big Five" all are investing nations. At the beginning of the war Japan had her investments in Korea. Italy had her investments in Africa and Asia Minor. France had her investments in Russia and in other undeveloped countries. Great Britain had twenty billions of dollars invested abroad in 1914. The United States at the present time, is busy investing in Mexico, Central America, South America and China. Great capitalist nations are compelled, whether they will or not, to invest surplus, otherwise it piles up, creating financial difficulties. They invest the surplus where it will bring the largest return, which usually means in the development of unexploited countries. The last forty years have witnessed the growth of capitalist imperialism-the foreign investment of economic surplus. Frederick C. Howe has described the process ably in his "Why War?" The same field is well covered by an English economist, J. A. Hobson, in his "Imperialism." Each of the "Big Five" nations is busy with its policy of financial imperialism. Within each of the "Big Five," the working class has been struggling for generations. In Japan, the labor movement has been stamped out with unexampled bitterness. In the United States, a vigorous attempt is now being made to crush it. In Great Britain, France and Italy, the labor movement has gained some power, but no visitor to any of these countries in 1913, could fail to observe the frightful havoc that capitalist exploitation had wrought among the industrial workers. While the few grew rich, fattening on the surplus of production, the many toiled and slaved for starvation wages. Their wives were overworked, and their children grew up stunted weaklings. The British Parliament issued a report in 1905 on Physical Deterioration, which set forth the facts in horrible detail. Each of the "Big Five" nations has witnessed and is witnessing, a tremendous struggle between the classes who work with the productive machinery, and the classes who own the productive machinery. The working class struggles for liberation; the owning class struggles to maintain its supremacy-its right to say to the workers, "You work and toil and earn bread, and we will eat it." Will an organization dominated by the "Big Five" capitalist empires of the world benefit labor? Will |