Compromises Necessary

Both Italy and France had territories to redeem, but the term "Italia Irredenta" should not be stretched to cover bits of sea-front not really needed by Italy and well-nigh indispensable to the great peoples beyond the Adriatic who will be pressing for outlets as their trade and commerce develop in the early future. Italy has more to gain from a generous policy, that will give her contented and agreeable neighbors, than from the acquisition of sea-frontage not essential to her but almost vital to the inland populations lying eastward. England and France have been somewhat embarrassed by the Italian claims because of the secret treaties signed when they were persuading Italy to come to their assistance. The United States has the utmost good-will towards Italy, and is well aware that in any case Jugo-Slavia will have obtained more than the Serbian-speaking people could only recently have hoped for. Nevertheless, it is the duty of the United States at the Peace Conference to hold the position of a disinterested umpire, promoting wise compromises and aiming at solutions which can be accepted as permanent and successfully maintained.

Business

political questions were settled in principle when the armistice was signed. The military struggle being at an end, the overshadowing problems to be faced were in the sphere of business. For example, what Germany could pay and how to arrange it were questions that neither politicians nor military leaders could answer nearly as well as financiers, economists, manufacturers and labor leaders. The spirit of economic revolution is in no small part due to the lack of economic statesmanship at Paris. There was work for the military authorities in securing the disarmament of Germany and maintaining patrol and occupation. There was work for the diplomatists in fixing European boundaries; reconstructing the Turkish Empire; disposing of German colonies; creating the League of Nations. But there was an immense and pressing field of operation for the economists and financiers that required immediate attention. If these business matters could have been dealt with in a prompt and bold way by trained and capable men, the diplomatists could have taken their time in adjusting political questions with no danger by reason of delay.

Needed

Let us suppose there had been Conference called together at once after the armistice was signed in November a body of the foremost European, British and American railway authorities, steamship men, steel manufacturers, bankers, mer chants, heads of food and fuel administrations, general manufacturers (of agricultural implements for example), with trusted

leaders of labor. It is impossible to believe that such a body would have seen any advantages to be gained from idleness and hunger in any country whatsoever, whether or not it had been formerly hostile. We may easily predict that a body of this kind would have proceeded by methods almost exactly the opposite of those which the Allied governments have taken. It might well be claimed that the Allies, by their course since November, have hurt Belgium worse than they have. hurt Germany. Our imaginary conference of men familiar with large business affairs would not have lost a day in providing for the rehabilitation of Belgium, and would not have hesitated for a moment to see the need of giving food and employment to everybody in Germany if by that method Germany could each day be sending back to Belgium quantities of machinery to take the place of what had been stolen, and all sorts of supplies and materials by virtue of which the Belgians themselves could resume work.

Belgium in

Only a deplorably small part of the normal industrial life of Suspense Belgium has been resumed up to the present time. A very large part of the rehabilitation of Belgium ought by this time to have been accomplished through the support by the whole business world, Entente and neutral, of obligations which Germany in due time would have been compelled to redeem. In any case, Germany's restitutions would have to be fixed upon broad lines; and for these purposes general estimates are as serviceable as painfully verified bills of damage. Delays in these matters of indemnity and business adjustment have been almost as harmful to one side as to the other. A conference of big-brained business men might have decided to draw upon the resources of all countries, Allies and neutrals alike, for advance payments to France, Belgium, Poland and Serbia, to promote the quick revival of economic activity. Such a method, adopted promptly, of "under-writing" Germany's obligations, might have resulted in obtaining larger sums for the damaged countries than it is likely that the diplomatists at Paris will have found it possible to assess.

MARSHAL FOCH WITH HIS CHIEF OF STAFF,
GENERAL WEYGAND

(Marshal Foch has emphasized chiefly the military aspects of future peace, and has secured satisfactory agreements)

dallying would make for chaos, and would diminish Germany's power to atone for her crimes and to work towards her own reinstatement as an honorable member of the European family. The great faults of the Peace Conference have not been the delay over the tedious problems of territorial adjustment, or the diversion of its efforts to the writing of the constitution for future world order. Its chief error has been that it failed to see the relatively greater importance for immediate action of business problems, which it was not well organized for solving. Its calling in of certain business experts in an informal way to give advice to committees has not sufficed. This method has obscured the business elements, and failed to give them responsibility for decisions that ought to have been made without delay.

Nations and the Peace League

The launching of a commonwealth, with sovereignty that is respected by all other nations, is one of the most majestic events that can be imagined. Nationalism is gaining rather than losing in value as a result of the Great War. Those who oppose the plan of a League of Nations on the grounds of patriotism do not think quite clearly into the practical situation. The League of Nations is to be built upon the wreck of empires which denied the rights of sovereignty to nations. The League is to support nationality as against its real enemies. Along with the birth of the League of Nations, France regains true boundaries and bids fair to enter upon her greatest period of truly national life. Italy completes the process of regaining and uniting the Italian districts, and stands stronger than ever as a member of the family of European States. We have alluded to the restoration of Poland to independence and sovereignty, and this event can hardly be overestimated in its importance. The dignity of citizenship in a country that has full standing is one of the things for which men are willing to make great sacrifices. The people of Poland are deserving not only of our sympathy but of our enthusiastic congratulations.

American

Americans of an earlier day did and European not hesitate to support the cause Freedom of Italian unity as fought for by Garibaldi and as proclaimed by idealists like Mazzini and statesmen like Cavour. Kossuth was an American hero in the period of his battling for Hungarian independence. The mistfortunes of Poland, the struggles of the Greek patriots in Byron's day, the rise of Rumania, Servia and Bulgaria as the Turks were gradually driven back-all these movements were supported by the press and the people of America with unrestrained enthusiasm, and, for the most part, the American Government was at no great pains to maintain a correct attitude of neutrality. What we find now, in astonishing measure, is the fruition of those liberal movements for democracy and national independence that had been playing so great a part in the history of the past century.

should adopt the shorter and more easily pronounced name, such a decision would be generally welcomed. This Bohemian Republic remains under the provisional Presidency of Dr. Thomas G. Masaryk, reports of his. resignation having been without foundation. Its Commissioner in the United States is Mr. Charles Pergler, and in the near future we shall, of course, see full diplomatic relations with Prague. Almost every country in Europe last month had boundary questions under agitation and it was not to be expected that the Paris Conference should have disposed of any of these problems without careful and somewhat protracted study.

Four

Countries

Thus the newly constituted PoConsiderable land, Czechoslavia, Jugoslavia, and Rumania were all involved, along with other countries, in disputes as to certain claimed territories. They were all, however, assured of their main areas, and it was certain that Poland would have an area of almost 100,000 square miles and a population of perhaps twenty-five million. Rumania was destined to emerge with more than 100,000 square miles of territory and something like fifteen million people. Jugoslavia was certain of at least 85,000 square miles and about eleven million people. The largest entity in this combination is Serbia with 34,000 square miles and about 4,500,000 inhabitants. Czechoslovakia is much smaller in area, being credited with about 36,000 square miles, but Bohemia has a highly developed industrial population of about seven millions, and Moravia is similarly well populated in proportion to its much smaller territory. Altogether the Bohemian Republic will have more than 12,000,000 people.

Ample Sovereignty Remains

It ought not to be difficult for Americans to understand that the League of Nations, far from creating a kind of internationalism that lessens the value and dignity of the individual nations making up its membership, has been devised for exactly the opposite reasons. It was the Hapsburg, Hohenzollern and Romanoff Empires, resting upon military power and never satisfied with their acquisitions, that crushed and denied the rights of nationality. Under the old system, the Hungarian and German elements in the Hapsburg Dual Monarchy held advantages over other peoples of which they are now to be deprived. This touches the pride and the

emoluments of hereditary nobles and members of the ruling classes, but it does not take away from the ordinary German of Vienna, or Magyar of Budapest anything that was of value to him. Those two cities will for a time lose something of their relative importance as political, military, and business centers. But Prague, Cracow and other lesser centers had for many years past been growing somewhat at the expense of the two Austro-Hungarian capitals. German and Magyar will retain full national sovereignty, and their natural and proper patriotism will have due scope.

The League a Practical Affair for Europe

It will be highly important for the welfare of the new Europe from the North Sea to the Bosphorus that the movements of commerce be restricted as little as possible. Each one of the re-arranged European states will understand definitely that military adventure is to play no part in its future fortunes for good or for ill. For the more than twenty countries of full and equal sovereignty that must live side by side on the continent of Europe, the League of Nations is very far from being a mere phantasm, a dream of idealists. It is the most practical thing for them-apart from the initial fixing of their respective boundaries and standings-that could possibly emerge from the great Conference. Americans who have been disparaging the

PEACE CONFERENCE

WELDING THEM TOGETHER From the World (New York)

proposal of a League of Nations cannot have understood what life has meant for the past half century to scores of millions of Europeans. They have been in constant dread of war, and have almost literally slept in military boots, ready to be summoned like police reserves or members of fire companies. The League of Nations means that collective Europe, supported by the rest of the world, ordains an end of these conflicts. The League is primarily a European affair, but Europe is so involved with the rest of the world that North and South America, Japan, China, India and Australia, must agree to it and support it.

Ending Wars

The Russian revolution meant is the Supreme this one thing more than all · Object else, that the Russian people were tired of war and unwilling to endure any further sacrifices. The extent of popular war-weariness, in all of the belligerent countries at times during the great conflict, created situations about which military censorship would allow nothing to be printed. The League of Nations is coming, then, at the overwhelming demand, not of statesmen and diplomatists, but of plain people who are determined to put an end to war. The struggle over boundaries is merely the endeavor to fix the map of national jurisdictions in such a way that there may be reasonable stability. There is no pretense in any intelligent quarter that it will be an easy thing to operate the machinery of such a League, or that the adoption of a plan of this kind can turn the

PEACE PROSPER

AS CERTAIN AS THE SUNRISE

From Newspaper Enterprise Association (Cleveland, O.)

bear-garden of Europe into a paradise of harmony and love. The main object of the United States at Paris is to keep alive the spirit of hope, generosity and enthusiasm, and to help in reconciling differences and in setting up a practical working order to replace. the demolitions caused by the war.

Nations Will Grow and Change

The dynamic forces that shape history are not to be paralyzed by any formal documents. There will be great changes in the future as in the past. There may even be great wars in the centuries to come. But through wise arrangements-in which paper constitutions and written agreements will have played an important part-we are expecting to prevent any great wars within the continental bounds of North America; and we are hoping with some confidence that there may be none in South America. We have tried in America to arrange things so that legal and orderly ways may be employed to adjust all differences before they become too serious for settlement. Within our formulas for keeping the peace and settling differences, there is ample room for development and national progress. It is not to be supposed that nations will stay permanently fixed, exactly as they are now placed. The growth of a tree will often displace masonry and cause strong walls to topple. The late Lord Salisbury once made some well-remembered remarks about living and dying nations. His hinted applications may have been erroneous; but there was some truth in the phrase. Germany had a great opportunity to lead all

Europe in the renunciation of militarism and in the adoption of new ideals of progress through science, education, and industry; but Germany accepted false views under bad leadership and her mistakes have set her far back. It will be well if the lesson of her discredited efforts to dominate by force is universally learned and applied.

Future Changes -An Unfinished World

For a good while to come there will in most cases be ample room for national development from within, without dangerous pressure upon boundary lines; but it would be a mistake to suppose that the League of Nations can be used to prevent the inevitable future "rise and fall" of peoples and States. We are not living in a finished world. It was the purpose of the Holy Alliance a hundred years ago to crystallize the world on the basis of the status quo, and to enforce peace. But the world will always refuse to be crystallized. If the United States west of the Rocky Mountains should ever propose to become a separate republic, it would not be the function of the League of Nations to use force to prevent, as treasonable, the realization of such a project. There will be great changes in the relative density and economic character of populations. Sooner or later, such changes may express themselves in shifts of sovereignty. At one time the eastern part of Canada had, within a few years, lost about a million of its people to the United States. In more recent years the western part of Canada has, in turn, been making a successful propaganda in the United States which has taken hundreds of thousands of our best young farmers and their families across the border. Such population shifts will go on in Europe, South America and Asia. In the long run there will be political changes due to now unforeseen racial growths and migrations. But it may reasonably be hoped that the League of Nations can so successfully put down militarism that future changes will come about through the working of democratic principles and without violence.