New-York tribune., 1919-09-10

ME- announcement from faflS thaC tne
peace conference is considering
changing the seat of the league Of ma
tions from Geneva to Brussels serves to
recall one of the most unpopular things
done by the United States in the whole
progress Of peace negotiations. The move
itself also suggests that at last there has
been change Of mind in American quar-
ters.
Belgium came to Paris to ask certain in
IDENTITIES, the justice of which no one could
deny. Certain territorial accessons, which
in extent were reasonable with minor ex-
ceptions, we're impossible to grant. Finally,
she asked the peace conference to make her
capital the seat of the new league Of
tions, and this request won instant approval
in almost every quarter save the American.
The reasons why Belgium should be the
nation and Brussels the capital in which
the league of nations met were obvious.
The invasion of Belgium had constituted
the most conspicuous single defiance of in
ternational law and civilized methods by the
Germans, while Belgian resistance, ex-
aggerated on the military side so far as its
effect concerned, could not be
valued on the moral side. The undoing of
Germany undoubtedly began with the Bel
gian episode.
After the brief resistance the Belgians
endured the long occupation without ever
yielding to German force or to German in
trigues. The passive resistance which AL
SAGE Lorraine had offered to Germany for
nearly half century was repeated in all
of Belgium, and the whole world was i'm
A.
ton, day by day and week by week, assert
ing its independence, rcpulsing with scorn
every clumsy German effort Of conciliation
and outweighng by superior intellect the
equally clumsy endeavor to conquer the
will and the mind by mere brute force.
The Belgian claim, then, rested upon a
solid foundation. Belgium had been the
supreme moral issue of the She had
sacrificed herself to principle Moreover,
she had been fortunate to possess a King
who was, on the whole, the noblest single
figure in the war. Had he chosen to advise
his people to permit the Germans to pass
through Belgium unopposed, it is almost
impossible to believe that there would have
been any resistance 1t was his spirit
which animated the small but useful Bel
gian army at all times. 1t was his spirit
which sustained the Belgian people in
slavery and his presence the Allied side,
from the beginning to the end of the war,
supplied moral contribution Of inestimable
value. When Belgium, therefore, asked
that Brussels might be the seat of the
league of nations, when at last King Al
bert himself made trip to Paris at a criti-
cal oprOD1aOp To
plead the cause of his country, the whole
peace conference, with single exception,
was deeply moved, and but for single OBJ
lection Brussels would have been named
Apart from the sentimental reason there
were practical reasons why the Belgian
capital was far more useful than the Swiss
city. Brussels is only few hours from
Paris and London and almost, if not quite
equidistant 1t is nearer by many hours to
Berlin and through it pass many of the
trunk line railroads which serve Europe.
On the mere newspaper side the facilities
of telegraph and of communication vastly
surpass anything Geneva has or conceivably
would have-material arguments only less
impressive than sentimental sustained the
Belgian contention.
But President Wilson went to Paris re-
solved that the league Of nations head
quarters should be at Geneva, and in no
single discussion was he so totally unwill-
ing to listen to arguments or appeal.
majority Of the representatives in the con-
ference always favored Brussels No OBJ
lection whatever came from any quarter,
and on the part Of the French in particular
there was an enthusiastic support of the
claim of Belgium; but Mr.. Wilson, at all
times and under all circumstances, reso-