The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-14

concluding peace, auQ Wnetner that numilla- |
ton would or would not be great guarantee |
of European tranquility, be discussed with
out giving the greatest weight to the effect of
Christian principles or the effect of ignoring
them, on the mutual relations of the nations
concerned No man can doubt for a moment
that the obligation of the Christian
law to do to others as you would
be done by has the greatest possible secret
effect even on the minds of nations who have
been shooting down each others hosts by
tens of thousands for weeks past-nor that it
is as applicable to international as it is to in
dividual affairs, though its true Interpretation
may be much more difficult. At all events
one great objection to the policy of making
the conspicuous humiliation of France the
first object of the treaty of peace, when Ger
many is in a position to dictate it, is that this
is a direct attempt to carry into treaty of
peace morality the very converse of that
which Count Bismarck says should be as
completely as possible imaged in the laws of
every Christian people-and it can be scarcely
contended that treaties betweenC Christian coun-
tries should aim at ignoring what the law of
every Christian country is bound as far as
possible to embody. We do not pretend for
moment that we have got very far in the
solution of the practical question, when we
have laid it down that the object of humili-
ating France for the sake of humilating her,
is not one which it is legitimate to conteul-
plate even in treaty of peace. 1t may be
very we'll replied that precaution which in
wolves great humiliation is one thing, and
the deliberate wish to humiliate quite another,
and we heartily acknowledge the distinction.
For instance, it may be and must be humi-
liation to France to pay great pecuniary in
Identification for the war, and yet it would
be an act of grand and perhaps almost inde-
fensible generosity, if the Prussians, who
have lost so much in life and wealth and bap-
piness by war which they did not originate,
were to decline to ask for any such indemni-
fcation. Still it is point gained if it be ad-
mitted that the object of the treaty of peace
ought not to be the further humiliation of
France-though no doubt humiliation, and
perhaps very wholesome humiliation of all
kinds, must be involved in the mere fact of
complete defeat and capitulation. A humilia-
tion incidental to the result of the war is one
thing; further humiliation deliberately con-
tempated as the object of the terms of peace,
quite another. The humiliation that is in
separable from the part a nation has acted
can never be resented in cold blood, like a
humiliation inflicted for its own sake. We
maintain that for the sake of Germany itself,
for the sake of France, and for the sake of
Europe, it should be the wisdom of the con-
queror to leave behind him no vestiges of
deliberate intention to lacerate the heart of
the conquered people, even though it be abb
solutely certain-as no doubt it is-that had
the conquered people been conquerors in
stead of conquered, they would have felt no
scruple about the deliberate humiliation of
Germany.
For the sake of Germany, then, we think
the needless humiliation of France in the
highest degree undesirable, because Germany
would defeat France second time-though
it would be painless and an ennobling
defeat-in adopting policy SO wholly unique,
and so infinitely grander than that which
animated the French invasion. Germany is
siderations so relatively unimportant as the
gain of strongly fortified frontier on
the Vosges. But if she be strong
enough to neglect such considerations, how
marvellously would it exalt her position in
Europe and the character of her people, if
she can take up at once the part of the great
pacific power which makes war not for glory,
but for duty; and after defeating what was
supposed to be the most military people in
Europe by military spirit infinitely stronger,
because more self-contained and modest de-
clire even to entertain those notions of
ACKNOWLEDGMENT which were the great spur to
| the French invasion. This would indeed be
entering on a new and original path of politi-
cal influence, and one strictly akin to the
| genius of the German people. To
have shown that that nation
| Europe can make war, puts the end so far
above the means that it respects the liberty
even of its enemies more than it values petty
precautions for its own safety to have shown
! that a nation of warriors dictates peace even
more unhesitatingly to itself than to the foe
it has vanquished; to have shown that there
is in Europe strength too grand for ambi-
| ton, too self-reliant even for fear, would
surely be to put Germany at the head of
| European civilization in sense in whicHno
nation has ever yet laid claim to such Dad.
| Would it be small triumph for even the
most thoughtful and cultivated nation in
| Europe to have set for the first time the
example to the strong of overcoming evil
with good 2"
For the sake of France, we wish to see no
unnecessary, no needless attempt to humili-
ate France beyond the humiliation involved
in the absolute failure of a most shameless
aggression. What France needs, more than
it. needs even education and repose, is a re-
lease from the constant self-consciousness
and vanity which are always measuring
France against the rest of the world. ''La
grande nation" will never forget herself while
bitter and unforgetable humiliation is rank
ling in her heart and crying for vengeance
If France is to recover her equanimity aud
her generosity, she must be able to think of
herself without that self-contempt which a
humiliation such as the loss of French terri
tory would inflict. France needs the develop
ment of an interior life which would leave her
less sensitive to her exact degree of infiu-
ence among the nations. That she might
pursue this path of development, if not
artifcially driven into the Tantalus-task of
Wrestling again her laurels from the foe is
| ,,robahIa nd onita within raaconabIa bona