New-York tribune., 1920-02-08

will not hesitate to chip in $1O,OO0,-
100000 as it's contribution to the
general fund necessary to achieve
this better settlement.
I recognize that this will seem
fantastic to most Americans. / re-
call the comment Of one Of my New
Hampshire neighbors, which seems
to me admirably to sum up very
large fraction Of American opinion.
No Moral Obligation
He said:
eve feel round here that we have
got those European nations out of
their troubles and now it is up to
them to keep out of trouble in the
| future"
Neither he nor any Of his neigh
bors with whom l talked during the
summer had the smallest sense of
any moral obligation to Europe for
Europe's sacrifices in all the strug-
giles of the first three years of
the war.
Exactly this sentiment prevails
here In Washington. It Is the con-
viction that the United States did
it's full share and more than its full
share, given its own responsibilities,
and that there is no moral or finan-
cial claim upon it for further con-
tributions to Europe. Even so nee
essary and inconsiderable a course
as permitting postponement of the
payment on European loans pro-
voked sharp and general protest in
Congress, a certain manifest impa-
tience at the thought Of further Eu-
ropean contributions.
OF course, it is fairly obvious that
there is no burden Of right or wrong
on either side of what amounts to
total difference Of opinion between
Europe and America. The difficulty
is the difficulty Of comprehension of
one nation by another. The Ger
mans, for example, feel that the
United States, through President
Wilson, totally betrayed them in the
matter of the armistice, persuading
them to lay down their arms ON
certain conditions, and then con-
senting to the enforcement against
them, when they had been disarmed,
of totally different conditions. And
our associates feel, not so differently
from our enemies, that we pro-
claimed our willingness to make any
sacrifice, material or otherwise, to
further the cause of certain ideas in
the world, and now, when the mo-
ment for sacrifice comes, we are de-
liberately and consciously repudiat-
ing those obligations.
The fact Of the matter seems to
be that, 80 far as the mass Of Amer
leans were concerned, we entered
the war only when the Germans
forced US into 1t by their submarine
campaign; that, having entered, we
were prepared to consent to all sac
rifices to attain the defeat of the
German, but that, when he had been (,
defeated and his defeat was so COM
plete that even our associates in the
war recognized it as such, our re-
sponsibilities were at an end.
Keynes's book is a straightfor-
ward exposition of the thesis that
the present treaties of peace are bad
and will end in the ruin Of Europe
If they are not modified, modified
mainly by changing not only the
terms affecting Germany, but also
those affecting Austria, Poland.
etc. But he sees, as the only
possible means of achieving these
notifications, American interven-
tion, American contribution by
cancellation Of debt of s1O,-
000, 100000 contracted by our Eu-
ropean associates in fighting Ger
many. He reasons that such a con-
tribution by the United States would |
suffice to persuade France and Italy
to give up impossible claims for
much more modest realities.
A World Dictatorship
But this merely means that the
United States shall undertake, using
its financial power as a club, to drive
all the European nations to accept |
a different set of peace terms. It |
means that we shall undertake |
anew that dictatorship Of world af-
fairs which Mr.. Wilson essayed to |
exercise at Paris, but did not wholly |
succeed in preserving to the end.
The French, who have made
greater sacrifices than the British |
and on the whole seem likely to re-
ce1ve far less in the way of material |
benefits, look at the thing rather
differently, but the points of similar
L.