Atlanta tri-weekly journal. [volume] (Atlanta, Ga.) 1920-19??, 1921-08-23
EUROPE'S DAYS Of
OM|V|POTENCE OVER
By nGAxTnTrL1AN HARDEN
(Germany's Foremost Publ1cist.)


BERLIN, Aug. 20.-If reading the
peace conference reports has not de-
| stroyed our reason. we must remem-
| Der that the chief ann of the League
| Of Nations is to secure for the peo-
| Piles of the world self-determination,
and to protect them from aggression
Now we find that the first impor-
tant duty imposed upon the league
is the settlement of the Silesian con-
troversy. The Silesians are mixed
race, as like and unlike neighbors, as
| the Alsatians.
| After the Silesians had been as
sured in Berlin and Warsaw that
| their land would not be divided no
matter how the plebiscite of last
-Iarch resulted. sixty per cent voted
German and forty per cent Polish.
these figures would have been quite
different if the question had been
put as it is today: Do you Silesians
want to be united or divided? There
fore, there should be no decision as
to which part should belong to Ger
many and which to Poland until this
question has been answered.
If the league, whose authority was
QlIululSH6Q by Tie W.
al of the United States, does not
put this preliminary question to the
people, it sinks to the level of a
subordinate entente organism, alb
dicating the functions for which it
was created.
Should Deal with Everything
The League Of Nations ought not
to reckon only with coal, iron, tin
and lead shares and dividends, NOV
iyarr In avN1n nf Nj tnc oh
like pawns on chess board, but
should protect international and ma
tional rights.
Is industry necessary to the
whole continent, to be torn asunder,
and a people still young in civiliza-
mands control Of Europe's coal and
iron and an eastern bulwark against
possible German remilitariZation?
1t does not concern the league
which part of Silesia France has
promised the Poles, for any, such
enant. Hundreds of thousands of
Silesians do not want to belong to
Germany. Still more would not for
| the world belong to Poland. Even
the most skillful partition would
weaken industry and would not stop
guerrilla warfare and murders. The
Paris breakfast table policy over
looked this and also the question as
to whether verdict incompatible
with article eighty-eight. of the Yer
sailles treaty is binding on those
principally interested, namely, Ger
many, Poland and the always for
gotten) upper Silesians.
Prime Minister Lloyd George and
Premier BRAND, whose heroic names
| of David and Aristides fit like wide
coats on thin men, wanted to avoid
an open breach in the entente and
so have used the council of the
League of Nations as a subterfuge in
| which the representatives of Spain,
Brazil and China will help decide
the fate of a country quite unknown
and Indifferent to them.
Thus, we have an answer to this
purely European question" as Am
bassador Harvey interpreted Presi-
dent Harding's verdict, to be made
with three powers of other CONT
nents, Japan presiding.
European omnipotence Over
Poor Europe must accustom her
self to the idea that the days of
her sovereign omnipotence is over.
The British dominions, which at
London forbade renewal of the
japan treaty, also warned energet-
lcally against further yielding to
France.
France, an agricultural nation, can
feed and clothe her thirty-nine mill
lions of people from her own produce
She has sufficient coal, or can get it
by an exchange of iron ore. Yet she
| clings to the superstition that she
can force Germany for centuries to
pay countless billions in indemnity
* -llI not dispute the moral right
% this demand, for in Europe's all
too war-like history almost every
conqueror has demanded it. But to-
day 1t Is as unrealizable as that some
European nation should redeem it's
bank notes with gold
To fulfill what France demands,
Germany would have to build up
and operate the most tremendous ex-
| port machine the world ever saw
and cram all the world markets with
goods. France, with her specialized
| exports, could stand this, but not
England who must pay for necessary
| raw stuffs with exports. England's
trade already is restricted enough
by high wages and the insolvency of
her former customers, 70 saw moth
| ing of the increased production of
the American workmen England's
economic life is condemned to death
If she is squeezed between a gigan-
tic American export and a German
export machine cheaply fed with pa
Ter wages.
Since England's fate depends upon
her export reactivity she cannot al
low Germany, under the whip of the
sanctions to be forced to capture the
world markets with a perpetual
dumping system. Consequently, she
| refuses France the means of threat
ening Germany from a Polanized
Sllesia and securing for herself con-