Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-11-30

TvEN the British commissioner. LORD
u Castlereagh, whose advocacy of the abo-
lition of the slave trade injected Curlousiy
isolated note of idealism into affairs, was
forced into the needless maelstrom OF fri
Volity. ChronClers of the time, however,
have voted his great gala-ball dull"
But Sidney Smith, the English ambassador
to the Hapsburg court, speedily succumbed to
the mood of the hour. His picnic dinner
in the Auergarten provided unique exam
pie of supercious condescension. All the
monarchs, counts dukes and other MOBILES
invited actually sat down to table in a
tavern" and paid their own way. The pitter
pill was coated with the information that
he tickets were sold for the. purpose of pur-
chasing an immense silver lamp for the Holy
SeDulChre in Jerusalem .
Fortunately, the awful spectre of royal
precedent had been alayed some time before
this amusing event. Priority in professions
was regulated according to ages. The kings,
therefore, lined up as follows Wurtemberg,
Bavaria, Denmark Austria, Prussia and
Russia Oddly enough the weakest ruler
came first in this arrangement, and the most
energetic and self-assertive last.
POLITICALLY the Vienna sessions speed
L ily degenerated into scenes of cynical
bartering at which racial questions and
those of determination were ruthlessiy
overridden. To the most powerful or Ma
poeon's victors. with the exception or Great
sON'-~''
Islands and Malta, which she obtained, went
| the spois. Austria grabbed Lombardy and
| Venetia, Russia a large slice OF Poland ana
Prussia ousted Austrian influence over Sax
onv Sweden secured the control OF Norway.
| The position of France, the defeated ma
ton was singular and eventually highly en-
| barrassing to some of her conquerors. She
| was represented by the astute and mastery
| Talleyrand who soon became the dominant
| figure in a convention gathered as rebuke
| TO the oyerthroWn ambitions of his native
| land.
The antipathy of England to the absolutist
| schemes of Russia and the Teutonic States
| was cleverly played upon by this Damascene-
minded diplomat. BY January of 1915 he hard
| actually arranged secret treaty between
| France Britain and Austria. directed against
| the aims of Russia and Prussia. The tension
| became acute. In the end however, a COM
promise was achieved. but not before France
| had been triumphantly rescued from her
| humiliating position and consent to the es-
| tablshment of her pre-revolutionary bound
| aries had been won.
MONTH after month the backing and
lM filling, the disposal of one helpless peo.
| pies destinies in exchange for another went
| on, and to the accompaniment of the most
ornate social mummery, when a lightning
flash of reality smote the masquerade. Ma
| poleon had left Elba
Harmonized by a common danger, the al.
lies hastily patched up their huckstering and
a few days before the battle of Waterloo. IL
1915, the so-called Final Act was signed
1t was a merc!less makeshift, and as such
was sustained after Bonaparte's second ant
conclusive fall merely by the repugnance II
which an exhausted world held the prospect
of renewed strife. Up to the Congress o.
Aix-la -Chapelle, in 1918, something liS,
! a League of Nations-a tyrannical and mon
archistic one-endured in Europe. After tina
disruption set in apace.
England realized that after the Napo
leonic menace, which she had been so instru
mental in crushing, the code of repression
which her former allies were advancing wai
| the next most serious menace to worl,
| progress. Somewhat informally, though de
cisively, she withdrew from the internationa
partnership. France where liberal though
was making new headway. followed sui
when the Citizen King" Louis Philippe
assembled the throne as a constitutional rule
| in 1890.
One by one the misdeeds of the Congress
| of Vienna, which supposedly aimed at
| permanent peace. bred wars. Some of thes
offenses were among the roots OF the great
est of all conflicts. The second stupendou
| world council and the first liberal one mo-
has the unexampled opportunity TO rectify tn
last iniustices of the Vienna Congress who's
career Of iniquity still gives honest statssme
uneasy qualms.