New-York tribune., 1919-03-20
The Beme Eiasco
Neau York Trihun.


Foreign Press Bureau
European press opinion seems unanimous
in putting down total failure the Inter-
national Socialist Conference at Berne.
"The Manchester Guardian" generally
friendly to radicals, says that "she confer
ence was not what it was meant to be-"
namely, "a German demonstration under
an international cloak in support of Ger.
man reading of President Wilson's view
and Intentions" In fact, it turned out to
be "a demonstration of the futility of these
tactics"
Alfred Capus says in "Le Figaro:
"From the famous international Social
ist conference, it was announced with
much noise, new world was to issue. 1t
is difficult to imagine fasco more
lamentable. The Socialists of ali coun-
tries, of both the majority and minority
shade, foregathered at Berne to merge
their ideas into whole. The sum total
was nil. The German Socialists had a
plan, but they had no ideas. The French
Socialists thought they had ideas, but
they had no plan. The rest had neither
plans nor ideas. From time to time an
amateur of scandals raked up q few
atrocities, in order to stir up the discus
sions little. At the end of the last ses-
sion there was not soul left in the con-
ference hall, and the Socialists took their
respective trains home with exactly the
same ideas which they had brought with
them, no more and no less
"This failure has made manifest to
everybody the intellectual and political
weakness of socialism. The doctrine did
not hold ground before the events; it
suffered shipwreck in the war by running
up against the national instincts which it
had left out of account altogether
"The Socialists thought that the social
ist idea lowered above all peoples and
races and that it was destined to reunits
them one day in an ideal society. There
is no remedy to this error. One cannot
play with peoples, with their conditions
of life and their traditions, and human
ity, like nature, has its laws. If some
dreamer finds that the principle of Archi-
medes has done its duty and is obsolete
all he has to do is to fall into the river
Similarly, experience in human affairs
cannot be set at naught with impunity."
The disillusionment of the German press
IN regard to the Berne conference is voiced
by the "Frankfurter Zctung," which says:
"Little was said of the colonial ques-
tion that is so near to the heart of us
Germans. The resolution (of the confer
ence) demands 'protectorates' under the
Society of Nations. Ramsay Macdonald.
who admitted the validity of the resou-
tion in regard also to ireland and Egypt,
invoked the London Memorandum Of the
Entente Socialists of February, 1918,
which admits the return of the German
colonies to Germany, or just exchange
for them, and leaves the rest of the set
tlement to the Society of Nations Was
it merely lack of time that kept German
colonial demands so much in the back
ground? After ALL Berne is not
Paris, and in the countries of Western
Europe the Socialists have motor not
yet-much to say. Perhaps their time
may come. But we should like to know
what the new International thinks of do
ing in case the Paris peace conferences
takes no account of the fine resolutions
adopted in Berne. About that we have
not read a word Is the conference
merely beautiful gesture on the part OF
Socialist leaders, or will the masses,
whom they lead. back them up with heart
and fist? That is the question"
The "MInchener Neueste Nachrichten'
puts it's disappointment into the admission
that "the Importance of the conference is,is
must be, mainly of the moral kind at pres
ent. d. The Socialist conference pos
sessed no means of translating its resolu'
tions into deeds. The fate of the world IS
being settled rather at Paris than ia
Berne. :"