The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1919-06-10
COMPROMISE IN
DISPOSITION OF
PEACE PROBLEMS
Simonds Sees Further Con-
flict as Result of Decision IN
Fieume Case.
BY FRANK n. SIMoNDS.
Copyright, 1919, by the Mcclure



Newspaper Syndicate.
PARIS, June 10.-Despite scattered
denials, there seems to be every evil
dence that the Fiume question has
been disposed of by one more of those
characteristic compromises which the
conference of peace is accustomed to
call settlements. This compromise is
the type Of postponement of decision
which have been made in so many
contested questions. Actually, it has
been decided that Fiume and the ter
ritory between Fiume and the new
Italy boundary shall be constructed
into new League of Nations admin
istered region. This means that FL
ume will have something of the char
acter of Dantzig With additional
districts, it's population will probably
be Slavonic in the majority, but there
Is little doubt that it will be con-
trolled by Italians, and will ultimate
ly drift into Italian possession. For
the moment, however, Mr.. Wilson's
protest has successfully prevented the
Italian annexation of Fiume and sew
eral Of the islands facing the harbor.
BY contrast, the Jugo-Slavs will pos
sess the village of Susak, which is
actually the eastern half of the town
of Fiume. They will control the rail-
road to Agram, while the Italians will
control the railroad to Laybach. There
will be just as much of natural from
tier and visible division between these
two towns as there is between Wash
ington and Georgetown, and the from
tier will skip around much as the
French boundary wanders through
the streets of Monte Carlo.
By the new agreement, Italy will
hold outright many of the islands on
the Dalmatian coast, and two Dalma-
tian cities, Zare, which is Italian SO
far as the town population is con-
cerned, and g ,benico, which is
great naval poI. Thus Italy estab-
fishes two holds on the mainland of
Dalmatia and permanent hostility be-
tween Slav and Latin is ensured. So
far as this phase is concerned, one
might say that the compromise was
like amputating mans hand instead
of his arm, and the Jugo-Slavs are
certain to view the thing in this way.
To balance the apparent concessions
Italy is to receive mandate for all
of Albania, territory of some eight or
nine thousand square miles inhabited
by seven or eight hundred thousand
people, who are themselves divided by
tribes, by religion, by tradition, but
united in common hatred of all invad-
ers. This country is without railroads,
without roads, the widest part OF
Europe, which has never been con-
Quered or submitted to orderly gov
eminent since the days of the Romans.
BY the bestowal of mandatory for
this region upon Italy, Italy enters the
Balkans She finds herself faced with
the Jugo Slavs on the north, hence
forth forever her enemies because of
the Dalmatian and Fiume questions.
while to the southwark she is already
embroiled with the Greeks, who claim
that part of Albania known as north
ern Epirus, which is Greek in history
and was assigned to Greece once dur
ing the present war, and taken from
the Greeks through Italian influence
first after the Balkan war and second
during the last war.
Enters Balkan Turmoil.
By this alleged settlement Italy is
now to enter into the midst of the
Balkan turmoil as an enemy of Slav
and Greek. Both these people will re-
gard her precisely as the Italians re-
gard Austria as long as the Hapsburg
monarchy held Trentino and Trieste,
and Paris has already been informed
that Jugo-Slavia and Greece have
made a secret alliance, which can
have no other purpose than common
action against common enemy.
But the difficulties do not end here.
Roumania and Jugo-Slavia are also
disputing certain territories in Banat.
AS a natural consequence, Roumania
is making common cause with Italy
against the Slays, and thus ther1 is
being revived in the interests of great
power the old Balkan condition of in
trigue and hatred. 1t will be Italy's
policy necessarily as lo'lg as she holds
the territories which the Slavs right
fully claim to keep Jugo-Slavia weak,
both by continued efforts to propagate
differences between the Sloyenians,
Croats and Serbs and through under
standings alike with Roumanians and
Bulgarians. Moreover, when Russia
RECEIVERS her strength, if she does,
nothing is more certain than that she
will once more resume her historic
championship of the southern Slavs,
and we shall have Europe once more
dragged into the Balkan affairs, and
Balkan states set against each other,
the recent world war grew repeated
This, after all. is the type of the
kind of thing the Paris conference
has done The Saar valley, Danzig,
Tescher and Fiume are all arrange
ments of the same sort, made to avoid
immediate crisis. but in the nature
of things postponing, not abolishing
conflict.
Albanian Case Difficult
1t is a simple thing to say that the
league of nations will henceforth be
able to preserve peace in the Balkans
but all Europe failed to do this after
the Congress of Berlin, and made pre-
cisely the same kind of makeshifts
as have now been manufactured. No
one, who knows the southern Slays.
believes for a moment that they will
permanently accept the situation
which gives hundreds of thousands
of their race brothers to Italy. No
one believes that Italy will at any
time resign the territories which she