The Barre daily times. (Barre, Vt.) 1897-1959, 1920-02-26
WHAT EUROPE is TO-DAY.
Disappointn,ents at the Peace Confer
ence,

Few people in Great Britain reaQze
what ia the present situation in con
tinental Europe-how unforeseen and
how menacing. This is much more the
case as regards the people of the Unit,
ed States Its people, too, are occupied
with urgent domestic questions, some
of them novel many of them perpleX-
ing and disquieting. They have niue
time to spare for studying old world
questions. The information, moreover,
which their press alert and ably con
Quoted as il is, supplies to them about
what is passing in Europe and the Near
East is not sufficiently full and exact
to enable them to grasp the present
situation in all its intricacies.
What is that situation?
During the years from 1914 to 1919
nearly everyone expected that the
tempests of war would be followed by
a season of fair weather. The exhaust,
ed peoples to whom repose at last had
come would turn gladly back to the
pursuits of pace. The conference OF
the allied and associated powers would
set itself in a high and impartial spir-
it, sobered by the terrible crises Through
which we have been passing, to remove
the causes which had brought about the
catastrophe of 1914, to soften down ma
tional animosities, to enable the ma
lions to make fresh start on better
lines of thought and feeling than those
which had prevailed before and had
brought disaster with them.
Many allowances must be made for
the embarrassments which beset the
conference. for the discordance of views,
for the atmosphere of revengeful pas
sion in the midst of which they had to
work, for the incessant interferences
by press whose wires were liable to
be pulled by all kinds of interest, for
the completely OF most OF the prob
lens presented for solution. There
was nothing in history sufficiently re-
sembIing the situation of 1918 to warn
the conference against some at least Of
the rocks and shoals through which
their course lay.
But. whatever allowance must be
made, ii is plain-hardly any weil-ln-
formed man now doubts it-that the
conference has failed to solve the prob
lens presented to it. | write not to
criticize but to set forth the facts as
they now stand. The prospect OF fu-
tnre peace and restoration OF nor
NAL conditions is dark. There are no
elements of stability In the settlement.
Things are in many respects worse
than they were before the war. New
causes Of strife have in many places
been added to those which previously
existed; and it is not to the var only,
but the action Of the conference also,
that this is due. The redistributlons
of territory have in some instances
glaringly disregarded the principles OF
nationality and self determination.
New "rredentas" are being created,
The provisions made for the protection
OF minorities are of doubtful efficacy
and have been reluctantly accepted by
some states The authority OF the
conference has more than once been
openly fouted. The indemnities and
reparations to be exacted from the de
/ feated powers go beyond the terms Of
| the armistice and are such as they can
not possibly discharge under the condi-
ton imposed The allied powers have
/ overreached themselves and would get
more if they had insisted upon less,
We in Britain are only beginning to
realize what all these things mean and
how deeply our own welfare is in
volved. Need we. then, be surprised
that the American people have not
vet been awakened to the facts OF the
position
How the imminent perils which we
see are TO be faced Is large question
which | do not venture even TO APP
proach. That is beyond my present
purpose. which IS only to repeat that
| Rnglishmen must not hastily assume
that America is Indifferent in this
crisis. The people of the United states
arc onn now beginning to he reminded
I hv some OF their wsest and most re-
spected men of what has only recently
/ dawned upon ourselves. Let English
men who have thought America cold ~
unsympathetic understand that It Is
not want of sympathy but want OF
! knowledge that j. answerable for their
apparent aloofness. Some things IA q
miliar to us are unknown to them.
| They do not, for instance, understand
how there comes to be- IN some quarters
strange recrudescencc OF tenderness
for the unspeakable and irreclaimabie
Turk. They have not grasped the fact
that the Irish question" is no longer
one between Great Britain and Ireland
bu, between sections OF the Irish PEG
| pie in Ireland itself.
The new world il still . long way of
the old world. The picture of Europe
a. we see il to-day is yelled from
Americans nv tho mists Of the Allan
tic. As it took many months in 1914
and 1915 to make the causes of the
war plain TO those who dwell beyond
the Alleghanies. was it to be expected
that the condition in which the war
has left Europe should be Immediately
realized so far away No one who has
known America for half century or
indeed for far shorter time, will ever
doubt American idealism and American
sympathy. Lord Bryce in Manchester
| Guardian.