The daily times. [volume] (Wilson, N.C.) 1902-1936, 1919-04-24
PRESIDENT WILSON
WILL NOT YIELD
Gives the Reason for His Posi-
tion in Opposing the
Cession of
FIUME STATE TO ITALY

fetal statement on the Adr1atlc ques-
ton, President Wilson let it be known
that he desired once again to call at
tention to the fact that there were
certain well defined principls which
have been accepted by the peoples of
the world as the basis for lasting
peace. The United States delega-
ton simply recalled this in order
that there should be no deviation
from these principles.
The text of the statement follows:
In view of the capital Importance
of the questions affected and in or
der to throw all possible light upon
what is involvel in their settlement,
hope that the following statement
will contribute to the final formation
of opinion and to a satisfactory solu-
| tion.
When Italy entered the war she
entered upon the basis of a definite
private understanding with Great
Britain and France, now known as
the pact of London.
Since that time the whole face of
circumstances has been altered.
Many other powers, great and small,
have entered the struggle, with no
knowledge of that private under
standing.
| The Austro-Hungarian empire,
then the enemy of Europe and at
whose expense the pact OF London
4 a. hn i~ hn nraf Of rrin
tory, has gone to pieces and no long
er exists. Not only that, but the
several parts of the empire, it is
!agreed now by italy and all her asso-
iciates, are to be erected into inde-
pendent states and associated in a
league OF nations, not with those who
were recently our enemies but with
italy herself and the powers that
lstood with Italy in the great war for
liberty.
We are to establish their liberty
as well as our own. They are to be
lamong the smaller states whose in
| terests are henceforth to be safe
guarded ast scrupulously as the in
terests of the most powerful states.
The war was. ended, moreover, by
proposing to Germany an armistice
and peace which should be found
ed On. certain clearly defined prin-
ciples which set up a new order Of
fright and Justice
| Upon those principles the peace
with Germany has been conceived
not only, but formulated Upon
these principles it will be executed.
We cannot ask the great body
of powers to propose and effect peace
1 with Austria and establish a new
basis of independence and right in
the states which originally consti-
tuted Austro-Hungarian em-
pire and in the states of the Bal
kan group on principles of another
kind We must apply the same
principles to the settlement Of Eu-
rope in those quarters that we have
japplied in the peace with Ger
many
1t was upon the explicit avowa1
of those principles that the fnitia-
tive for peace was taken. 1t IS
upon them that the whole structure
of peace must rest
| If those principles are to be ad-
lhered to Fiume must serve as the
outlet of the commerce, not of Italy
but of the land to the north and
northeast of that port; Hungary
Bohemia, Rumania, and the states
lof the new Jugo-Slav group To as
sign Fiume to Italy would be. to
create the feeling that we have de-
liberately put the port upon which
all those countries chiefly depend
for their access to the Mediterranean
| in the hands of the power of which
it did not form an integral part and
whose sovereignty if set up there,
must inevitably seem foreign, not do
Imestic or identified with the CONNER
cial and industrial life of the regions
which the port must serve. 1t is for
that reason, no doubt, that Fiume
was not included in the pact of Lon
don but there definitely assigned to
1.-THE Croatians.
And the reason why the line of the
Ipact of Eondon swept about many Of
1.-The islands of the eastern coast of
1.-THE Adriatic and around the portion