The Colorado statesman. [volume] (Denver, Colo.) 1895-1961, 1918-02-16

/ one sovereignty to another by an in
ternatlonal conference or an under
standing between rivals and antagon-
lists. National aspirations must be
respected, peoples may now be domi-
mated and governed only by their own
consent.
'Self-determination' is not mere
phrase, II is an imperative principle
of action, which statesmen will hence
forth ignore at their peril. We cannot
have general peace for the asking or
by the mere arrangement of n peace
conference. 1t cannot be pieced to-
gether out Of Individual understand
ings between powerful states.
All Parties Must Join.
"All the parties to this war must
join in the settlement of every issue
anywhere involved in 1t, because what
we are seeking is a peace that we can
all unite to guarantee and maintain
and every item of it must be submit
ted to the common judgment whether
Ii be right or fair, an act of justice
rather than bargain between SOW
ereigns.
1.-The United States has no desire to
interfere in European affairs or to act
as arbiter in European territorial dis
putes. She would disdain TO take adj
vantage of any internal weakness or
disorder to impose her own will upon
another people. She is quite ready to
be shown that the settlements she has
suggested are not the best or the most
enduring. They are only her own pro-
visional sketch of principles and of
the way in which they should be APP
piled.
But she entered this war because
she was made n partner, whether she
would or not, in the sufferings and in
dignities inflicted by the military mas
tiers of Germany, against the peace
and security of mankind, and the con-
ditions of peace will touch her as near
ly as they will touch any other nation
to which is intrusted a leading part
in the maintenance of civilization. She
cannot see her way to peace until the
causes of this war are removed, its re-
newal rendered as nearly as may be i'm
possible.
Rights of Weak Disregarded
1.-THE war had its roots in the disre-
gard of the rights of small nations and
of nationalities which lacked the union
and the force to make good their claim
to determine their own allegiances and
their own forms of political life.
Covenants must now be entered
into which will render such things inn
possible for the future; and those COW
enantS must be backed by the united
9 all
ice and are willing to maintain it mt
any cost If territorial settlements
and the political relations of great
populations which have not the organ
lied power to resist are to be deter
mined by the contracts of the power
full governments which consider them
selves most directly affected, as Count
Won Hertling proposes, why may not
economic questioneS also? 1t has come
about in the altered world in which
we now find ourselves that justice and
the rights of peoples affect the whole
field of international dealing as much
as access to raw materials and fair
and equal conditions of trade.
Count Won Hertling wants the es-
sential bases of commercial and indus
trial life to be safeguarded by common
agreement and guaranty, but he cannot
expect that to be conceded him If the
other matters to be determined by the
articles of peace are not handled in the
same way as items in the final ac-
counting.
Separate Pacts Barrier.
HE cannot ask the benefit of COM
In 40 RalJ h
out according it in the other. take
it for granted that he sees that sep
arate and selfish compacts with regard
to trade and the essential materials of
manufacture would afford no founda-
ton for peace. Neither, he may rest
assured, will separate and selfish COM
pacts with regard to provinces and
peoples.
Count Czernin seems to see the
fundamental elements of peace with
clear eyes and does not seek to obscure
them. He sees that an Independent
Poland, made up of all the indisputa-
bly, Polish peoples who lie contiguous
to one another is a matter of Euro
pean concern, and must, of course, be
conceded; that Belgium must be evac-
uated and restored, no matter what
sacrifices and concessions that may in
volve, and that national aspirations
must be satisfied even within his own
empire in the common interest of Eu-
rope and mankind. If he is silent
about questions which touch the inter
est and purpose of his allies more
nearly than they touch those of Aus
tria only, it must of course be because
he feels constrained, 1 suppose, to de-
fer to Germany and Turkey in the cir
cumstances.
"Seeing and conceding as he does