Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-02-10

the IIISG UNDRESSING dLlu
circumstances of the present day. /
is clear that while the statesmen Of al
the European countries regularly NEE
at Geneva to assist in completing ant
extending the machinery to prevent
war, at home these same statesmen ART
annually obliged to face and to favor
legislation which sustains and even ex.
pands existing preparations for the mex
war
Certain Americans have taken &C.
casion to assert that the passage of the
cruiser bill following the ratification Of
the Kellogg pact constituted a striking
evidence of lack of faith in the posi-.
bility of world peace But even If thi:
were the case, it is not less patent thai
every budget of any European power Of
size constitutes precisely the same denia
of confidence in the machinery of the
League of Nations.
All over the world these two processes
are going forward concomitantly. The
people and the governments of all coun-
tries are sincerely DESTROYS of peace. In
the light of the universal catastrophe
of the World War, the horror of conflict
Is greater than at any other time In
modern history, and yet the prepare
tons for the next war are yearly be-
coming more and more elaborate.
Europe Divided Into Two Classes.
When one undertakes to discover the
reason for this paradox, one Is forced to
recognize at once that it is disclosed in
the fact that Europe itself is divided
into two classes of peoples, those for
whom the existing territorial conditions
created by the last war are satisfactory
and those for whom they are intolerable
For the American this condition is
almost incomprehenSible because for
him what exists is in fact peace. Pos
sessing liberty, unity, security and pros
perity to the largest conceivable de-
gree, war appears in his eyes either a
mad adventure or a criminal undertak-
ing. That any statesman. political party
or sectional group should advocate war
as an instrument of national policy
would seem the proof of collective de-
pravity or of utter imbecility.
It is clear, however, that this Ameri-
can conception is based upon the as
sumption of the existence of substan-
tally the same conditions everywhere
Since the American people have fought
great wars for liberty, for unity and for
the defense of their rights deliberately
invaded by another nation, they must
inevitably perceive that as long as war
is the single means of acquiring liberty
unity. or national rights deliberately in
vaded, it cannot be outlawed either
legally or morally.
1t is here that one touches upon the
underlying difficulty of the European
problem. In the American sense Europe
has never known peace. It has at best
enjoyed periods of truce following wars.
-s~&@ H., de- ~.
vanquished have emerged too exhausted
struggle. But the vanquished have
never accepted the settlements made by
the victors as just or tolerable, never
even pretended to themselves that they
would eternally endure them. And the
victors, aware of this state of mind
have continued their preparations to
resist an eventual challenge.
That was the situation after the
Napolconic struggle, it is now the con-
dition after the German War. Before
the last struggle there were over 4C
millions of people belonging to various
races who were compelled to live under
conditions incredibly less tolerable than
those which provoked Our ancestors to
the War of the Revolution. AS result
of the great upheaval these 40 millions
MEtC bdG WIG fSAS low VA bkAOAA
long servitiude drove them at once to
create armies and fortresses to guar
antee their new freedom.
100000 EnsIaved By War.
On the other hand the war resulted
in the enslavement of perhaps 20 mil
lions of men and women who before
1918 had belonged to governments
which fulfilled all their aspirations.
Nearly hundred millions Of Germans,
Magyars, Bulgars remained free, but
they saw perhaps IS millions of their
race brethren transferred to Polish,
Czech, Rumanian, Jugoslav rule. And
for these peoples the transfer seems as
inonstrous as the transfer Of millions
of Americans to Mexican rule would
seem in our own country.
Unhappily, however, the evil thus
disclosed offers no solution. To abol-
ish the Polish corridor, in all German
eyes uncomfortable, would be to turn over
to Germany $4,000 Slavs in order tC
release 10000 Germans. 1t would be
to reunite East Prussia with the reich
at the cost of excluding a nation OF
80 millions of inhabitants from the sea
In the same way to liberate the million
of MagyarS under Rumanian rule ir
Transatlantic would invoke returning al
least two million RumanianS to Magyar
rule.
The essence of the minority problem
In the East and South of Europe is dis
closed in the fact that there are al.
ways two solutions but never any pos
sihility of compromise. Whatever Solu'
ton is advanced 1t involves putting
hated rule. Races are so inextricably
entangled that In some great provinces
like the Banat, there does not ever
exist a majority Of any race. Again
while the Germans and Austrians art
Teutonic. their union, which would cree
a state Of nearly $4,000 900 in the yer,
heart Of Europe. would be deadl,
peril to the security of France and Il
the economic and political existence o
Poland and Czechoslovakia.
Desire To Avoid Conflict.
The Germans, the Austrians, thu
Magyars and the Bulgarians desire II
avoid war Just as sincerely as thell
neighbors. Having recently lost wa
they know the risks and agonieS Incl
dent not alone to struggle, but also Il
defeat. But, on the other hand, 1t is be
yond the limits of human nature to be-
lieve that Germans and Hungarlals
who see their race brethren persecutes
beyond new frontiers and their oWI
unity abolished, can be prepared to en-
dure this situation forever.
On the other hand the Poles, recentl,
liberated after century and half o
agony. the Czechs, free now after thre
centuries, all the lesser tribes similarly
enfranchised, are quite clearly prepared
to fight and to die rather than go bacl
to the old condition of 1914. And tn
realization that they have been en-
shaved and that their old masters still
refuse to accept their liberation as flna
drives them to build armies and ,
make alliances.
In this situation the League OF Ma
tons can do nothing, because 1t has n
power to interfere In the domesti
existence of any nation. 1t canno
undertake to force the Poles to give u
the corridor, the Rumanians Transyl