The Washington herald., 1919-12-14

Central and Eastern Europe. and
each local ruler will do as he
pleases. Who Is to stop him?
The men who died in the war
are fortunate. You came in when
we were going down, and saved US
from the rule of the Hun. But /
am not sure you had not better let
US alone. / am not sure you are
not leaving us now in a more hope
less position than IL We were all
under the Kaiser. Well, no, as an
Engiishman will not say that; but
1 will say that were I Continental,
even a Frent man. / should rather
be in a Europe ruled by Germany
than in the one that you have large
ly created and now wash your hands
/ Of"
! Tory Rubs Hands In Joy.
After this bitter and pessimistic
, opinion found a Tory general rub
bing his hands. Good for the SEN
ate!" he greeted me. "All this pes
tilential nonsense is dead now. What
did we win the war for. IL not to
enjoy the fruits Of victory? Ger
many. Is knocked out. absolutely
done for. Sos Austria and Russia.
France is bled white: none of these
little shavers count. You and Japan
{ have enough to take care of at
home. II was Britain's job to rule
the waves and run Europe. and your
+, fellow Wilson came along with his
! talk and pulled the wool over our
politicians eyes and got 'em to
! adopt a league of nations that took
| from us the hegemony that is our
natural right after this war. Now 1t
! blows up like a bubble. and we shall
/ jolly we'll run Europe, and Asia and
Africa, too"
quoted my choleric friend with
some misgivings, but he does repre-
sent an influential. II small, section
! OF opinion, and as such is entitled to
! be heard. His view that the col
lapse of the league is Britain's op-
portunity to grab more power is not
welcome at the foreign ofI1ce or in
government circles, where the fear
is that the empire has already Bit
ten off more than IL can chew, and
where the hope. now dashed to the
ground, was that America would
consent to help bear the burden by
assuming a mandate at least for Ar
menia.
Liberal Editor Sad.
Next 1 saw a Liberal editor, re-
Gently in America, an advocate OF
Wilson's policies from far back I'm
the war. He looked like a man who
| has lost dear friend.
rs there any hope?" he asked me.
! explained as best l could the posi-
| BILE moves in the game at Washing
! ton. and he shook his head sadly.
! The greatest spiritual tragedy OF
1 L., Il
too great, too far ahead OF his coun-
try and his age. What can we do now?
What is there for Europe but wars
| and plaques and Starvation"
! Come. buck up!' ! begged the de-
/ spondent Liberal. and told him of the
: JOY of the Tory general He emitted
en- ironic guffaw. No doubt we can
! extend the British Empire over most
| of the rest of Asia and Africa and as
! far into Europe as our ships guns
| will reach" he said. But il will be
an empire of corpses and vultures."
No doubt some of the opinions
| have quoted will somewhat bewilder
| the stay-at-home American citizen, to
whom il seems a matter for solely
American decision what responsible
! ties his country chooses to assume
! abroad. AS an American myself, but
one who has been abroad most OF the
time since 1914, ] will try TO eXpla i'm
the somewhat hysterical and prob
ably rather ugly attitude that our
! late allies will probably assume If the
treaty is so altered that the work of
| the Paris Conference is undone.
| Game of BIve-and-Take.
The Paris conference was a game
OF give and take. All the negotiators.
excepting President Wilson, had full
powers to speak for their countries.
Col sequently. when Italy made a con-
cession to France. France in return
might give up a coal mine to Poland.
who had promised that IL she were
satisfied on this point she would con
! cede a railway to Jugo-Slavia. And
| Jugo-Slavia, IL she got that railway.
was willing to give Italy an island
so that Italy's original concession to
France was made in the knowledge
/ that it would lead through other ar
rangements ultimately to a disputed
island passing under the Italian flag.
But, il one of the countries con-
cerned in the circle OF operations by
which Italy got that island were later
! to repudiate her part of the deal,
ownership of coal mine and railroad
and island would be once more in the
air. Destroy one step in such neEo-
tiations and you destroy everything
that has been agreed as a result Of
concessions all round.
My illustration shows why the SEN
ate reservations in n sense destroy
the league and upset the peace treaty.
1t is not fair for Europeans to tell us,
as most of them will, that we have
been guilty of national bad faith, that
We have gone back on our word. They
all knew beforehand that under our
peculiar constitution the President,
alone Of potentates at Paris, had no
power to finally commit his country
to anything.
Assumed Too Much.
But consider what the conference
was up against. The President came,
with definite program he was pre-
pared to fight for. The conference
could not tell him to go home, that
only negotiators with final powers
would be admitted; such a course
would have set America afiame. In
such negotiations, the game of give
and-take could only be played by as
suming that the Americans were
speaking like the others, in the
name of their country, and trusting
that the Senate would back up what
they did.
The Senate has refused to do so.
Every major decision taken in Paris
is affected. every boundary line
drawn there becomes invalid. even
though others powers have ratified
the treaty-because the thousands OF
bargains made depend tirst, upon the
league of nations, as constituted,
and not as amended by the Senate,
and second, upon other agreements
made by the American deIa1atio,,