The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-04-04
COLLAPSE OF
PEACE PLANS
HELD TO Be
INEVITABLE
Conference is Working Des-
perately to Patch up Terms
Within Next Ten Days, De-
clares Simonds.
BELIEVES LEAGUE DEAD
BY FRANK n. sIMoNps.

~ TNNNN rIs SImONOSs
Copyright, 1919. BY the Mcclure
Newspaper Syndicate.)
PARIS. April 4.-The League of Ma
tions is dead. All chance of a rea
settlement Of European problems is al
IN end. A desperate effort is beine
made to get together a patched-uI
peace within the next ten days which
shall at least put an end to the un
rest and economic paralysis in the
world.
The collapse of the League OF Ma
tions Is the result of the panic follow.
ing the arrival Of the Bolshevists al
Budapest; having had no policy to-
wards Bolshevism, the Paris confer
ence suddenly awoke from its dreams
of reordering the world to a realiza
tion of the fact that two-thirds Of the
population of Europe would not in any
case subscribe to the League of Ma.
tions, and that the league Of nations,
II it were to be anything, would have
TO be an alliance against Bolshevism,
eratiors.
End Hopes Of Poles.
In this situation, the Paris confer
ence, which for three months had con-
centrated most of its attention upon
the draft of the covenant of the
League Of Nations, was suddenly in
formed that Germany would sign no
treaty which recognized the right of
the small nationalities to existence at
her expense, and that unless the allies
were prepared to enforce their de-
mands upon German and Bolshevist
alike, the doctrines themselves had
no value and no weight.
In the panic which resulted, the
conference at Paris gave up the just
decision that the Poles should have
Danzig and an outlet on the Baltic.
BY this course it doomed the Poles to
a choice between the Germans and the
Bolshevists, and put an end forever
to Polish hopes of real independence.
The conference had brought the Boil
shevists to Budapest by recognizing
the rights of the Roumanians, 1t now
condemned the Poles to Bolshevism
NY denying Polish rights. Almost at
The same time, Italy served an ulti-
matum upon the conference at Paris
that unless she were permitted to de-
prive the southern Slavs of their nat
ural sea gates, her delegation would
retire from the conference. Her ulti-
matum brought the desired result. In
one week, both the Poles and the
Southern Slavs were sacrificed; Dan
zig will remain German; Fiume will
pass to Italy.
Sacrifice to Germans
There remains another sacrifice to
he made to the Germans. To produce
a peace that the Germans would sign,
it was not simply necessary to sacri-
flee Poland, but also France. This is
being done. Today. the Allies Of
France are engaged in reducing the
Just claims of France for compensa-
tion and reparation, and when the re-
ducuon is over, France, in return for
q million and half of dead, and her
ruined northern industrial regions,
will have neither a guarantee against
a new German invasion, nor repara.
tion for the devastation of the last.
The result Is patent. Germany may
sign the treaty of peace which her
conquerers will now offer her, so
amended as to make her payment
small, but the burden Of war will be
thrown upon France, and the dream
that all OF us had once that the smaller
peoples of Europe would be raised to
independence goes by the board. We
have, in effect, surrendered Eastern
Europe to Bolshevism, and are about
to leave France at the mercy OF Ger
many. We have amended our prin-
ciple of the right of the small people
TO existence. so that 1t now reads that
il is a mistake to take from the large
state and give to the smaller state,
because the smaller state cannot de-
fend itself and we have no desire TO
defend it. Thus amended, the doc
trine of the league of nations becomes
the German gospel OF force.
Only Patched-Up Peace
There is left, then, only one thing,
n patched-up peace. We are trying
now, on the one hand, to placate the
German, and on the other to please
the Bolshevist. We are sacrificing
France In the West to the Germans.
We are abandoning the smaller peo-
pies OF Eastern Europe to the Bolshe-
visits now, and to the Germans here
after. When a patched-up peace is
signed, we shall have Europe as full
OF wrongs and injustices as 1t was
before 1914, and we shall have left
the German free to begin again, this
time by economic as well as military
IntIuOuS, tIlt VI SdliiHdtioh Va hiS A"A'sNi
Europa. Poland, which we were go
ing to create, will have no outlet on
the sea; Czecho-Slovakia, which we
have erected. is without other than
a German outlet, Hungary remains a
German ally, and Jugo-Slavia, mutt
lated at the behest of Italy, will in
evitably seek a place in Germany's
Mittel-Europa. AS for Rumania, she
will have to choose between Bolshe-
visit and German, and her choice will
be easily made.
At the present moment, England,
the United States and Italy are en-
gagged in reducing French demands
to the point which Germany Will ac-
cept. England, with the German fleet
in her possession, and German COM
mercial competition destroyed, has
won her phase Of the war. Italy, with
Trieste. the Trentino, and the Dalma-
tian coast in her possession and Eng
lish and Americans agreeing that she
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