Evening star., 1924-12-07

continued from FIRST Page.)
fairly doubt If on the economic side
It will ever be possible to repeat un-
der new conditions the material pros
perity which existed when the tribes
now scattered under half dozen
SoYereignties were in whole or part
united under Hapsburg rule. Self
determination in the center of Europe
in creating national unities wrecked
economic coordination. Yet who can
believe that this fact today inf1u-
ences the Serb, the Rumanian, the
czech or would persuade the major
ities of Pennsylvania, Bohemia or
Dalmatia to abandon the new free
dom for the old prosperity?
The frontiers which we drew at
Paris separate the fields from the
hills, the mines from the factories.
he forests from the cities, sever
railway systems and replace grand
communications of Importance to all
OF Europe with petty lines, inter
rupted every few miles by new
frontier and a fresh customhouse
All this was done in the name of
Self-determination and in accordance
with the wishes of the majorities of
tribes concerned. The Hungary of
Iesterday was in many respects from
the economic standpoint a perfect
unit, the Hungary of today is
body, shorn of arms and legs, more
over the severed members remain
detached since. economically speak
ing, they cannot in many cases be
grafted to the new body. Yet only
force from without could restore the
situation of the days before the war.
Blind to Consequences.
But at Paris the makers Of the
treaty remained blind to the ulti
mate consequences of the doctrine of
salf-determination which they in
Noked. In drawing new frontiers
Without regard to any question of
material prosperity, in giving per-
Haps slavish fealty to the principle
OF racial unity, they opened horizons
il Asia and Africa which are only
Just beginning to be appreciated.
Tor, at bottom, the white mans
variant, the Europeans mandate in
all of the backward countries, rested
upon the dual assumption that he
rould bring prosperity, order and
security and that these blessings
we're SO indisputably worth while
that, granted he brought them, this
rule was justified.
Accept the statement, and I be-
lieve it to be a sober truth, that the
immediate withdrawal of British rule
from India, or the withdrawal in any
future now calculable, would bring
back anarchy, chaos, misery, you are,
nevertheless, brought face to face
with the fact that in both countries
the rising generation demands that
the doctrine of self elf-determinatfon be
applied, without regard to economic
or other consequences, as it was ap-
piled in Europe in the Paris treaties.
effect asserts n
self-government, but of self misgov-
ernment and asserts 1t with precisely
the vehemence and violence which
became familiar in an enslaved Italy
before Solferino and Magenta.
Tive Views I'm United States.
In the United States the Egyptian
and the Indian situations have
aroused two different kinds of sym
lJathies. On the one side are the many
we'll informed people, who know
something. at least, of the value and
the achievements of British rule, who
perceive, at least, something of the
alternative, who know the parallel
which measurably exists in our own
philippine experiment. And from
these groups there comes a clear and
unmistakable expression of SYM
pathy with the British and indorse-
nent of the policy of the new Bald
win government.
over against this stands the group
made up of those who, quite instinc-
lively, respond to the old notion of
liberty, of the right of men and wom-
en- to determine their own allegiance,
of races and peoples to govern them
selves. This group gives uncondi-
tiona1 adherence to the gospel of lib
erty and sees in British policy and
purpose but a new expression of the
old spirit of tyranny. This latter
group would see Britain expelled
from Egypt, because the Egyptians
quite manifestly seek complete inde-
pendence. They see British action a
repetition of Austrian in the case Of
serajevo and Italian in the matter OF
Corfu.
Yet the truth is that the problem
IS not as simple as either side would
see 1t. And the solution remains un-
Aiseoverable. Small as is the Egyptian
population by comparison with that of
1he British Empire it remains true