§ EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTON rose to make a statement as to the terms of the Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and Germany, signed at Versailles, 28th June, 1919.
§ The noble Earl said: My Lords, the text of the Treaty of Peace between the Allied and Associated Powers and the German Government is contained in the Blue Book which was laid before Parliament on Monday last I dare say that your Lordships have not had time to make a very full or complete study of its contents, but it will be my duty, as far as possible, to give a survey of them this afternoon There are other Papers also to be laid. 156 The Protocol supplementary to this Treaty of Peace and the Treaty respecting assistance by Great Britain to France in the event of unprovoked aggression by Germany in the future were laid yesterday and will be circulated among the Papers to your Lordships to-morrow Further, there will be laid the Convention regarding the military occupation of the territories of the Rhine, and the Treaty which has been concluded between the Powers and Poland; also, within the next few days, there will be laid before both Houses of Parliament the reply of the Allied Powers to the remarks which were made by the German Delegation on the original draft of the Peace Treaty This, when you see it, you will find to be one of the most valuable documents that will be placed at your disposal, for it contains a reasoned defence of many of the provisions of the Treaty and a reply to the objections and criticisms which were levelled against it The whole of the Papers to which I have alluded will presently be collected in a single volume and will be circulated to Parliament.
§ I have mentioned these intentions because they may help your Lordships to arrive at a decision as to the form in which, and the stage at which, you desire individually to take part in these discussions My duty to-day, as I indicated just now, is to make a general statement explanatory of the terms of the Treaty, and dealing with some at any rate of the consequences which may be expected to result therefrom. I do not know, my Lords, whether you will think it desirable to pursue the discussion to-day Probably not. In all probability you will desire to wait for the further study of the question which will be open to you in the series of Papers to which I have referred As your Lordships are aware, under the Constitutional usage of this country the assent of Parliament is not required to the ratification of a Treaty The power of treaty-making and treaty ratification is vested, under our Constitution, in the Sovereign, acting, of course, upon the advice of his Ministers; but, in a case such as this, no Government would desire to ratify a Treaty of this tremendous importance unless they knew that it was approved by Parliament and that it had behind it the general consensus of public opinion in this country That approval the Government hope to obtain in the course of these debates in both Houses of Parliament Further, in addition to what I have already said, two Bills are required—one of them 157 to give effect to certain of the financial and commercial provisions of the Treaty of Peace, while the second will be a Bill asking the assent of Parliament, in accordance with an undertaking given in Paris, to the guarantees to which I alluded just now proposed to be given by this country for the defence of France. Thus, my Lords, as there are two Bills coming before your Lordships, you will have at many stages an opportunity of expressing whatever views you may desire upon the different aspects of the Treaty of Peace.
§ With these preliminary observations, which are designed only to give information which your Lordships ought to have in your possession before the beginning of this debate, I will proceed to the task which I laid before myself just now This Treaty was signed at Versailles on Saturday last by the representatives of the five Great Powers and twenty-two other Powers on the one hand—that is, twenty-seven in all—and the representatives of the German Government on the other The twenty-seven are the Powers commonly designated as the Allied and Associated Powers This event of Saturday last was the end of a tragic chapter in the history of the world That chapter was opened as far back as the first week in August, 1914, with the declaration of war Hostilities were suspended upon the conclusion of the Armistice on November 11, 1918 During the six months which began with January the Plenipotentiaries of the Allied States have been sitting in Paris discussing and framing the conditions of Peace That chapter closed, as I say, on Saturday last after nearly five years of war I call it a chapter because, of course, it is not the entire volume Peace still has to be concluded with Austria-Hungary, with Bulgaria, and with Turkey That is certain to be a matter of several weeks, it may even be of months But your Lordships will readily see that with the defeat of the chief opponent, with the acknowledgment by him of his absolute discomfiture, and with the signature by the representatives of Germany of this document, the great ordeal to which I have referred is at an end, and the world can afford to breathe again.
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I take it that our first feeling will be one of thanksgiving to Almighty God for the deliverance which He has vouchsafed to us; and, secondly, of relief at our release from the nightmare which has
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overhung the nation during the past five years In the violent revulsion at the successful issue of the war people seem to be tempted to indulge in forms of extravagance and excess which are only pardonable if they are not long protracted; but, my Lords, in the atmosphere of rejoicing we are almost inclined to forget what it is we have gone through and what it is we have escaped We have been confronted with the greatest menace that ever threatened the civilised world. During these five years there have been moments when we were perilously near to destruction; there have been times when we were in deep waters, and when the waters almost closed over our heads there were moments, particularly last year, when the whole world might well have re-echoed the poignant words of one of the greatest of our poets—
O cease! must hate and death return?
Cease! must men kill and die?
Cease! drain not to its dregs the urn
Of bitter prophecy.
The world is weary of the past,
O might it die or rest at last.
Many have died that the world may live and enjoy that rest That rest is likely to be a strenuous and troubled one for all of us, but it is for us to see that it is not unworthy of the deaths by which it has been won.
§ In contemplating the issue of the war with Germany it is impossible not to be struck with its dramatic character The ending satisfies all the canons of the Greek tragedian. Overweening pride is brought by a swift and sudden catastrophic to a final and irrevocable fall. Nemesis dogs the footsteps of apparently successful crime and is triumphant in the end What a picture it will be open to the historian of the future to draw as he surveys this epoch! Four of the greatest Empires of the world have disappeared; what looked like impregnable fortresses of autocracy have crumbled and vanished; famous dynasties have been expelled or wiped out; minor thrones have been swept out of existence by the score; fugitive kings and kinglets haunt a few safe retreats on the Continent; peoples who have been long oppressed and submerged raise their heads after generations—in some cases longer, centuries—of humiliation Old territorial landmarks have been overwhelmed and new States are emerging like islands above the retreating flood My Lords, if there is no war in history that 159 has been so replete with horror, or waged at so bloody a cost, there is also none which has been so tremendous in consequence, or which ought to be so pregnant in result Certainly there has been none in which the guilt of those who provoked it has met with such a crushing retribution, or in which justice and right have enjoyed so supreme a vindication at the close.
§ It may further be observed that the victory which we have won is the downfall not only of an army, of a dynasty, of a nation—such incidents have occurred before—it is much more than that It is the defeat of a spirit, an [...], the moral and intellectual attitude typified in the Prussian character, which is incompatible with good government and with the ordered progress of the world I do not know, none of us know, if this spirit is only exorcised or if it is dead, but at least it has been put in chains; and of one thing we may be certain—never again will it be allowed to threaten, still less to regulate, the destinies of mankind These are a few of the general reflections which must occur to every one in surveying the close of this phase of the war, and it is unnecessary for me to dwell any further on them Rather must I now turn to the general survey of the conditions of Peace which I have already foreshadowed.
§ The Treaty falls into two parts The first concludes Peace with Germany and expounds the conditions on which that Peace is made The second devises a series of international arrangements by which it is hoped, I dare hardly to say to prevent, but at any rate to minimise, the risk of future wars and to secure the betterment of mankind I will deal with those two parts in turn As regards the first part—the Peace with Germany—let me give your Lordships in a sentence or two a brief summary of what the Treaty effects It defines the frontiers of the Germany of the future; but, of course, the frontiers of one State as viewed from the other side are also the frontiers of another, and accordingly in determining the future frontiers of Germany we find that the Treaty alters, re-draws, and re-paints the map of a large part of Europe It creates two new States, Czecho-Slovakia and Poland It restores Alsace-Lorraine to France It revises the boundaries of Belgium It alters the system of government of Luxemburg and the Saar Basin It provides for possible additions of 160 territory to Denmark, and binds Germany to recognise the independence of German Austria If we pass from Europe and look abroad, it deprives Germany of the whole of her colonies. It places strict limitations upon the armaments which she is to be allowed to retain in the future on land, on the sea, and in the air, and it abolishes compulsory military service in Germany. It creates Tribunals for the trial of those persons who are pre-eminently responsible either for the inception of the war or for its subsequent conduct. It requires substantial reparation and restitution to be made by the vanquished for the crimes that he has perpetrated, the injuries he has inflicted, and the widespread ruin he has caused. It provides for the international control of certain ports, railways, rivers, and canals. It contains a number of economic provisions, to which I shall presently allude. It establishes guarantees for the execution of the Treaty and for the future peace of the world. That is a brief outline of the contents of the first part of the Treaty.
§ Now, my Lords, will you permit me to go in a little greater detail into the most conspicuous of these territorial readjustments. First I will allude to Alsace Lorraine. Fifty years ago Germany perpetrated a great wrong. She annexed a predominantly French country against the will of its people This wrong has been repeatedly and bitterly protested against ever since by the voice of the deputies representing these territories; by the unquenchable spirit of their population; by the sentiment of the entire French nation, which, as some of us have seen, used on great occasions to drape with mourning the statue of the City of Strasburg in the central place of Paris—a sentiment which, during this last half century, has never allowed the French nation either to forgive or to forget. For fifty years this has rankled in the side of France, and, further, it has been a storm signal and a menace to the peace of the world. It was one of the declared aims of the Allies to redress this historic wrong, and to remove this running sore from the side of Europe. It was one of the Fourteen Points of President Wilson, accepted by the Germans when they concluded the Armistice. The right way to redress a wrong is to put things back again as they were before. This has been done. The frontiers of 1870 have been restored, and France receives back into her bosom 161 the sons, or the sons of the sons, who were tern from her half a century ago.
§ But, my Lords, Alsace-Lorraine is not the only case in which territory was wrested from a European State by the perfidious violence of Germany. Schleswig was similarly taken in 1864 by Bismarck. It was an unscrupulous and predatory act. Over and over again the inhabitants of the northern districts of Schleswig pleaded to be allowed, by a free vote, to express their sentiments. This was promised to them by Prussia in 1866, but the promise was never redeemed. They are to have their plebiscite now, and they, too, have before them the prospect of reunion with their Motherland.
§ There is another territorial settlement which, although it is only provisional in character, must not be overlooked. One of the most cruel injuries inflicted by the Germans in the present war was the destruction of the coal fields of Northern France. This was merciless, uncompromising, complete. For this not only is ample compensation due but exemplary retribution ought to be made For this purpose the coal fields of the Saar Basin, which have been hitherto German, are to be placed in the future under a Commission appointed by the League of Nations. The people will retain their nationality, their religious liberty, their language, their schools. They will have the use of the entire revenue derived from these areas. After fifteen years a plebiscite is to take place as to whether they wish to remain under the League of Nations or to be transferred to France or to Germany. In the latter case, Germany must buy out the French mines in any area transferred to Germany. This is a complicated and has been a very difficult settlement, but I hope your Lordships will agree that on the whole it is fair and just.
§ But, my Lords, by far the most considerable of the territorial readjustments is the re-establishment of Poland as an independent State. This is the feature of the Peace Treaty which Germany feels most, for it involves the severance of East and West Prussia and the detachment from Germany of large areas which for more than a century have been under the Prussian Crown. The reconstitution of Poland is not only an agreed basis of Peace; it was essential to peace in Europe. The 162 partition of Poland contributed as much perhaps as anything else to the maintenance of autocracy in Eastern Europe. Each of the three Empires by which it was surrounded was forced to conspire with its neighbour in order to repress the aspirations of the Polish people for unity and freedom. This great injustice has endured for now more than 100 years. It has been one of the gravest wrongs of which history bears record. To undo it was one of the stated aims of the Allies. Among all those aims I suppose there was none which at different times was voted more fantastic and impracticable; but, my Lords, it has been achieved. In reconstituting Poland the Peace Conference have observed scrupulously the rights of national majorities. They have drawn the Western Frontier of Poland strictly along the line where the Polish population is in a majority. The British delegation, while as anxious as any to give to Poland its full rights, resisted firmly the proposal to include under Polish rule German majorities. They therefore pressed that the City of Danzig and the neighbouring districts should be constituted an autonomous area, severed alike from Germany and from Poland except in so far as it was necessary to give Poland economic rights in the port, and communications in order to enable her to have that secure access to the sea which she had been promised. Similarly the British delegation pressed for a plebiscite in Upper Silesia, because they had received evidence that there was some doubt as to whether the population, though by majority Polish in race, wished to be attached to Poland or to Germany. They were attacked in many quarters for taking up this question, but I believe their attitude—which was avowedly based on the principle that no majority must be brought under the rule of another nationality except with its own consent, and that where there is doubt the will of the people concerned should decide—will be found to have been essentially sound. I submit that the arrangements proposed in the Treaty are not only strictly just as between Germany and Poland, but the fact that in every question of doubt the matter has to be resolved by plebiscite will give permanence and security to the peace which could not otherwise have been obtained.
§ Poland has many sympathisers in this country. She has many friends, as recent debates show, in this House. An anxious 163 and a troubled time lies before her. She is beset with difficulties, economic and political. Her territories lie between two Powers, one of whom on the west—Germany—will be inspired by relentless hostility. On the other side, she is co-terminus with a State in a condition of utter chaos and disorder. But just as the emancipation of Poland was an international duty, so the protection of Poland is an international interest. The honour of Europe is involved in securing her fair play, and I hope that a bright future lies before her.
§ There are two other possessions of Germany which were at once the emblems of her unmeasured arrogance and a menace to the peace of Europe. I allude to Heligoland and the Kid Canal. When the Island of Heligoland was under British rule it was the harmless resort of holiday-makers and the habitation of fishing folk. It was converted by Germany, by vast expenditure, by every resource of technical and mechanical skill, into a great place of arms. It had become in fact a sort of fortified robbers' nest from which she could sally forth to prey upon her neighbours or her foes. So long, therefore, as Heligoland remained fortified that menace would continue. Under Article 115 of the Treaty the fortifications, the military establishments, and the naval harbour are to be destroyed. Germany is to find the labour and to defray the cost. The fishing harbour alone will survive. Some persons in this country were of opinion that we should have pressed to take it back. I dare say the Conference might have been willing to consider such a suggestion, but I believe it was the opinion of our Naval authorities that Heligoland would be a source of greater weakness than of advantage to us in the future. The Allies for their part would, I believe, have been well pleased to blow it into the air or sink it down to the bottom of the sea; but that being found impracticable, the best thing to do was to render it innocuous for the future. The other great artificial construction of Germany in that part of the world to which she owed so much of her military and naval strength in Northern Europe was the Kiel Canal. The fortifications of the Canal are to be destroyed. The channel is to be thrown open to vessels of war and commerce of all nations on terms of entire equality. Thus the Baltic Sea will cease to be a German lake, and the strangle grip of German militarism or German navalism, 164 whichever you like to call it, in that part of Europe will be removed. These, my Lords, are the principal provisions relating to German territories within the boundaries of Europe.
§ I pass to the German Dominions over the seas. The German Colonial Empire was not of long standing. It had been created in the lifetime of many of us in this Chamber. The history, of its acquisition was not one, I think, of which any nation could be proud. It was a record of force and fraud and ruthless disregard for the interests of the native people. Had there been any evidence that the continued possession of these territories would involve administration in the interests of the inhabitants, would be attended by any betterment of the conditions of the native races, or would have been used for legitimate purposes of trade, there would have been a temptation, and there might have been an excuse, for leaving some if not all of these territories in the possession of Germany; but no such evidence was forthcoming. The trade of the Colonial Empire of Germany was but a fragment of her entire trade. Owing to climatic and other reasons only an insignificant number of her people ever found a residence or a home in these Colonial possessions. I have made a special study of the record of German rule there. I find that it was characterised by almost undeviating harshness, and in some cases by revolting cruelty. Under this system vast areas of territory were depopulated. Some tribes, like the wretched Hereros in South-West Africa, were literally exterminated. The evidence was absolutely overwhelming that the people cordially disliked German rule. They had no wish to be restored to it. They lived in deadly peril of the reprisals that would be inflicted were they given back. These 13,000,000 to 14,000,000 dark-skinned men could not be abandoned.
§ Neither was there the least concealment as to the purpose for which Germans desired—for she did desire—to be allowed to retain possession of the German Colonies. The German professors literally excelled themselves in candour. They wanted to keep these Colonies, as they openly said, first in order that Germany might have possession of the raw materials which she could not produce at home; secondly, in order that she might recruit great black armies which would dominate the African 165 Continent and no doubt be transported in the event of some future war to Europe. And lastly, she wanted them for the purpose of naval harbours and docks, submarine bases, wireless stations, fortifications and the like, which would have threatened not ourselves alone but the peaceful maritime highways of the world. No case could therefore be made out for returning any of those areas, and it would, I think, have been an unpardonable thing if all the blood and treasure which had been spent upon their recovery had been expended in vain. Therefore Germany has been deprived of the whole of her colonial possessions without exception. She has ceased to be a Colonial Empire, and she will have to accept the situation which, after all, other Empires have done—I take Russia and Austria as illustrations—of getting along without a colonial empire across the seas.
§ At the same time—and this is, I think, more important from our point of view—the Allies have declined to allow these colonial acquisitions to be treated as the spoil of their conquerors, or to be bartered about as if they were the possession of this and that State, to be exploited in the interests of the owners. The whole of the late German colonies have been placed under the mandatory system. The mandatory Power is definitely placed in the position, not of owner, but of a trustee. He assumes his trust under a definite responsibility to place the interests of the native population first, to give equal treatment to all other nations, and the League of Nations itself will exercise some measure of supervision over the manner in which the mandatory State discharges its obligations. There can, I think, be no doubt that this new system will contribute powerfully towards the peace and progress of mankind. Indeed, it is a public, an international, recognition of the principle under which we have on our own account administered our own Colonies in the past.
§ I am glad also that by the unanimous decision of the principal Allied and Associated Powers the government of South-West Africa is entrusted to the Union of South Africa. The government of the Pacific Islands south of the Equator is divided between Australia and New Zealand, while German East Africa and certain portions of Togoland and the Cameroons are allocated to Great Britain. The conditions of mandate are now under consideration, but it has been decided 166 that the territories allocated to the Dominions shall be included in the third category of mandates which are described in Article XXII of the Covenant of the League of Nations which has already been published, and is known in this country; that is to say, they will be regarded as integral portions of the territory subject to recognised safeguards as to the interests of the indigenous people.
§ I have now dealt with the principal cases of territorial re-settlement, and I pars to the questions of restitution and reparation. These two objects, along with the provision of guarantees for the future, were included in the summary of those aims of the Allied Powers without which no peace could be allowed to be made. They were first laid down by Mr. Asquith in firm and imperishable terms, which were accepted by every section of opinion in this country at the time, which have been repeated by Ministers of all the Allied States since, which have been the accepted basis of all our declarations, and the watchword, I might almost describe them, of the Allied Powers.
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Let us see exactly how these objects are to be discharged. What did restitution mean? It meant that territories which had been invaded, devastated, and destroyed should not merely be evacuated and freed, but that they should be as far as possible restored to their pre-war conditions. What did reparation mean? It meant that compensation should be offered for wrongs inflicted, for damage done, for life and livelihood destroyed. There is a passage in M. Clemenceau's reply to the German delegation which I should like to read on this point. This is what he said—
Germany has ruined the industries, the mines, and the machinery of neighbouring countries, not during battle but with the deliberate and calculated purpose of enabling her industries to seize their markets before their industries could recover from the devastation thus wantonly inflicted upon them. Germany has despoiled her neighbours of everything she could make use of or carry away. Germany has destroyed the shipping of all nations on the high seas, where there was no chance of rescue for their passengers or crews. It is only justice that restitution should be made, and that these wronged people should be safeguarded for a time from the competition of a, nation whose industries are intact and have even been fortified by machinery stolen from occupied territories. If these things are hardships for Germany, they are hardships which Germany has brought upon herself. Somebody must suffer from the consequences of the war. Is it to be Germany, or only the people she has wronged?
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Nor is that the full measure of the responsibilities of Germany. At her door lies the death of seven millions of men, who have gone never to return. At her door lies the fate of twenty millions of men who will carry on their bodies to their dying day the evidence of the wounds or sufferings which she has caused. Hence it is that restitution and reparation are among the most important parts of the Treaty. If we are to erect real safeguards against the repetition of this kind of war it will not be merely by setting up international machinery or by drawing paper Constitutions. In the international sphere, as within the State, security comes from the vindication of justice and the infliction of penalties on those who inflict wrongs upon their neighbours. This war, as has often been remarked, is the most terrible crime that has ever been committed against mankind. We shall only ensure that there is no repetition of this crime by proving not only that a war of aggression shall not succeed but that it entails penalties on the individuals who started it, and on the nation which supported it.
§ From this point of view, the Peace Conference at Paris assumed the attributes and the functions of an international tribunal. It really represented, or attempted to represent, the collective moral judgment of mankind. It attempted for the first time to treat Germany as we treat an ordinary guilty individual in every-day life. Germany, therefore, could not be let off merely because she had laid down her arms; she could not escape penalties merely because sentence had been passed upon her; she had to pay so that she might rue the offence which she had committed, that she might never repeat it in her own person, and that others might be deterred from following her example.
§ Reparation is especially dealt with in Clause 231 of the Treaty, by which Germany is required to accept responsibility for all the loss and damage to which the Allied and Associated Governments and their nationals have been subjected as a consequence of her aggression. That is a definite affirmation of her responsibility for the war. The following clause, however, recognises that the resources of Germany are not adequate—taking into account the diminution of them brought about by the Treaty—to make complete reparation. Germany, therefore, is required 168 to make compensation for all damage done to the civilian populations of the Allies and the Associated Powers, and their property; and the amount payable in respect of such damage is defined in a series of categories, the most important of which are these—all damage of whatever kind to property by bombardment, whether front land, sea, or air; and pensions to naval and military victims of the war, and allowances paid to their dependants during and after the war. It was decided that the scale of compensation payable in respect of pensions must be uniform, and it was agreed that the French scale in force at the date of the coming into operation of the Treaty should be accepted by the other Allies. A number of categories are mentioned, each of which is important in its own way, but the two I have dealt with represent by far the two largest items.
§ No one could state to you at this moment what the total amount of reparation payable by Germany will be; that will depend both upon appraisement of the damage done, and upon the present cost of restoration. In order to determine exactly the amount payable by Germany and the method by which she is to pay, the Allied Powers have set up a Reparation Commission which will have power, after hearing evidence from Germany, to notify the total amount payable by her, and the instalments by which that liability is to be discharged in thirty years from 1921. You will observe, when the reply to the German observations, to which I referred earlier, is laid, that the Powers made the suggestion that Germany herself should make an examination of the devastated areas, sending in her surveyors in order to work in co-operation with the French, and should then submit for the consideration of the Powers proposals for the settlement of her liabilities under the Treaty for a lump sum. She may do that, or she may offer to carry out in whole or in part the work of restoration with German labour. As you can imagine, there is very little of any sort to be found in the country itself. Or she may offer labour, or materials, or cash payment to the French if they prefer to carry it out. In other words, she may make the payment which is enforced upon her either in labour, in cash, or in kind.
§ This suggestion was made because it was recognised that it would be to everyone's advantage that, if possible, Germany's 169 liability should be exactly ascertained and defined, and because, while no detailed estimate of the damage to property or the cost of restoration has yet been made, it was thought that within the next four months it would be possible to arrive at a fairly accurate analysis of the damage, and for proposals to be made in respect of restoration which might be satisfactory to both sides. Finally, the distribution of the German payments in respect of reparation will be made by the Reparation Commission to the various Allies in proportion to the various claims under the several categories of damage defined in the Treaty. These, in brief summary, are the proposals of the Treaty with regard to reparation.
§ EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTONIf your Lordships will wait to see the terms of the Agreement you will find that Belgium is given priority, and that her sufferings—terrible as they were, although, of course, for geographical reasons not on the same scale as in the case of France—are fully recognised and will receive the reparation to which they are entitled.
The questions may be asked, Do these proposals go too far? or, again, Do they go far enough? In reply I should like to say this. There is really only one test of what Germany should pay, and that is the test of her capacity to pay. According to any interpretation of justice, or under the conditions of the Armistice, she is liable for far more than she can pay. No one to-day can possibly say what she will be able to pay within the next twenty or thirty years; no one can foresee the development of trade and industry in that time. It was therefore a matter of immense difficulty—I might even say an impossibility—to arrive at an exact figure by any scientific process. The Peace Conference therefore decided on the arrangement I have outlined, because they thought that on the whole it was fair and practicable; it certainly does not let the Germans off lightly. It secures to the Allies not indeed full reparation—for Germany could not pay that—but none the less it secures substantial mitigation of the losses sustained. On the other hand, if Germany recovers more slowly than is expected, under the machinery provided it will be possible at any time to adjust the terms of the Treaty to the position, and the Reparation Commission is given 170 power to extend the date of the payment, of instalments or to modify the amount, although it cannot alter the capital debt except with the concurrence of the Governments concerned. So much for restitution and reparation.
I pass now to the question in which great interest has throughout been taken in this country, and was shown particularly, at Election time—namely, the question of penalties. If your Lordships will look at Articles 227 to 230 of the Peace Treaty you will find that the trial of the Emperor William for supreme offences against international morality and the sanctity of Treaties is demanded. The Dutch Government are to be requested to surrender him. A Tribunal of Judges of the Great Powers will be set up with power to pass sentence and to fix punishment. Further, military tribunals are to be set up to try, and if found guilty to punish, those officers who committed acts in violation of the laws and customs of war. Is there any one, either in this House or outside it, who doubts that this is an act not only of essential justice but of absolute necessity?
§ EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTONThese trials are the analogue in the case of the individual to what I was describing just now in the case of the nation. Just as reparation is a penalty imposed on the German people because they aided and abetted their rulers who were the authors of this war, so the trial of the Kaiser and the officers to whom I have referred is a warning that high station and illustrious rank will not protect the guilty from the penalty of their deeds. I do not suppose that any of us really are set on punishment, still less on any course of revenge. The punishment of the Kaiser and his associates is regarded by us as a deterrent which it is essential to provide as a warning to prevent the rulers of any other State from ever again following their example. The bringing home to Germany and its rulers of their responsibility for having inflicted on the world the sufferings and calamities of the last five years fundamentally distinguishes the Treaty of Versailles from any previous Peace Treaty that has been concluded, and it constitutes an essential element in security against wars of aggression in the future. Peace is maintained within the State because justice is not only recognised but enforced. 171 Peace will reign among nations only when in the settlement of international crimes justice is equally recognised and enforced. The crowned criminals of the world have in history sometimes been defeated, sometimes banished, sometimes killed. More often they have escaped scatheless in their own life time. They have been, it is true, execrated by posterity, but they have never before been tried or condemned, if they are condemned, by a Court of their contemporaries. My Lords, this will be a great precedent, I think; it will be a stage in the moral evolution of mankind.
I said something earlier in the day about economic arrangements. Perhaps I may be allowed to add a word upon that matter. Your Lordships will observe that a considerable section of the Peace Treaty is devoted to economic and financial clauses; they are important provisions, but they go into great detail and I do not propose to summarise them here. Broadly speaking, however, they provide for two objects. In the first place, they are necessary in order to make effective the reparation proposals; in the second place, they are designed to provide that equality of trade conditions which has been one of the great bases of peace. The mechanical equipment of Germany is intact; her industries, indeed, have been strengthened by machinery stolen from the occupied territories. On the other hand, during the war she has pursued the policy of deliberately destroying the machinery and industry of some of her neighbours, not for any war purposes, but solely with the object of capturing their trade for her own industries before her neighbours could recover from the war. To admit Germany at once into the open markets would be to impose, not equality, but a disability upon the nations whom Germany has ruined. While, therefore, some of these provisions may appear to be hard, they are essential unless Germany is to profit by her own misdeeds at the expense of the peoples whom she has ravaged and despoiled.
My Lords, I said at the beginning that the Treaty might be divided into two parts, and that the second of these contained conditions for laying, if possible, the foundation of a new international system which would give guarantees both for international progress and for lasting peace. Will you allow me to summarise what is proposed in these respects, because in the opinion of many they will be the 172 most important parts of the Treaty. The first is demilitarisation. There was a unanimous feeling at Paris that a universal reduction of armaments is essential for the future peace of the world. Great standing armies organised and equipped for instant action are a standing temptation to any nation to use them in times of excitement or to seize some coveted gain. The Treaty itself provides that the German Army is to be reduced within a very short period to 100,000 men, recruited on the voluntary system for a period of twelve years. Compulsory military service is, as I think I said before, abolished in Germany. A definite limit is fixed to the amount of arms, munitions, and materials which she is allowed to keep. War arsenals and factories, except such as are approved by the Powers, are to be closed down. All arms and munitions in excess of allowed quantities are to be handed over. The manufacture, the import, or the use of poisoned gases and other devices of that description are prohibited. The same applies to armoured cars and tanks. All fortified field works except on the Southern and Eastern frontiers are to be first disarmed and then dismantled. The German Navy is to be similarly reduced to a total number of vessels which is stated in Article 181 of the Treaty. The total personnel is to be reduced to 15,000, recruited by voluntary enlistment. No submarines are to be kept or built. All naval fortifications on the North Sea and the Baltic are to be destroyed. No military or naval air services will be allowed. These arrangements are to be supervised by international Allied Commissions of control working in the country.
There is another heading of great, and perhaps as yet hardly sufficiently recognised, importance. I speak of labour. There is embodied in the Peace Treaty a chapter which has never before figured in a great international settlement. It is generally recognised that economic and labour causes contribute materially towards wars; they arouse jealousies; they create competitions and rivalries which inflame national passions. In the present Treaty, therefore, provision has been made for an annual International Conference on labour problems. This conference will consist only as to half its number of members appointed by the Governments; the other half will be nominated equally by Capital and Labour. This means that at least once a year representatives of all 173 Governments, of organised Labour and organised Capital in all countries, will meet and ventilate in the full light of day on the one side their injustices or grievances, on the other their successful experiments in social and industrial progress. Every nation, therefore, will have brought home to it the effects of its own action on the economic life of every other nation. Labour in all countries will be able to combine in pressing for those vital reforms in regard to hours of labour, wages, women's labour, children's labour, housing, safety, and so forth which are vital to the progress of humanity. On the other side employers will be able to bring out the difficulties under which they labour owing to competition, sweated labour, unfair subsidies, and so on. Further, the Treaty not only provides for an annual conference constituted on those lines, but it provides that any agreement arrived at by a two-thirds majority must be submitted to the Parliament or competent authority of every country, so that it will be impossible for a country to hold up its conclusions. At the same time it also provides for the constitution of a permanent Labour Commission whose business it will be to watch over labour conditions in all lands, and to prepare and make effective the work of the annual conference. I venture to think that history will decide that the Labour Covenant is among the most successful and the most important of the accomplishments of the Paris Conference viewed from the point of view of its practical effect upon the daily well-being of the toiling millions of mankind.
I come lastly to the question of the League of Nations. The culminating point of the Peace Treaty, from the point of view of its effect in improving the international system of the world, is the Covenant of the League of Nations. The text of the Covenant has long been published, and is well known; but I should like to point out briefly what seem to me its most significant features. I am sorry to detain your Lordships so long, but I am covering a field so vast that, although I had hoped to confine it within the compass of an hour, I must ask your pardon if I slightly exceed that period.
§ EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTONIn the first place, the Covenant establishes the principle that war is not a justifiable 174 method for settling international disputes. Aggressive war, aiming at territorial aggrandisement or political advantage, is expressly forbidden under the guarantee of the members of the League. In all cases of international disputes the Covenant provides that no nation, however aggrieved, shall take the law into its own hands until the quarrel has been submitted to the Council of Nations or an International Court of Justice. Failure to comply with this obligation entails, in the first place, the commercial and economic ostracism of the offending Power, and, in the second, such military and naval measures as may be necessary to compel it to observe its obligations. These measures are not, of course, a certain guarantee against war, but at any rate they provide the best means which are at present Open to us to delay its outbreak and to diminish its probability.
Secondly, the Covenant expressly gives to the League of Nations the duty of developing and making effective those international agreements in regard to scandals such as the trade in opium, the arms and liquor traffic with uncivilised races, and the white slave traffic, which have long been recognised and deplored, but which it has never been possible to grapple with effectively in the international sphere. The League of Nations provides machinery whereby some real sanction can be established behind what had hitherto been little more than paper arrangements. Finally—and this is, perhaps, the most important aspect of the League—it has to attempt to put an end to the evils, the old time-honoured evils, of the Balance of Power. It substitutes for that ancient and now discredited doctrine the principle that there must be unity of law in the conduct of the world's affairs. It creates the machinery whereby the leaders of the nations, in meeting one another face to face, learn one another's difficulties and act together, not merely in the pursuit of their country's selfish ends but in promoting the general welfare of mankind.
During the Conference at Paris the free nations of the world for the first time came to know each other well. Amid great difficulties there emerged there, I believe, a recognition that the general well-being must prevail over the narrow interests of a single State. The League of Nations provides practical machinery through which that principle can be followed and made effective in the affairs of the world. 175 If we fail we shall inevitably disintegrate into a number of warring groups with no other resort for the settlement of disputes but war. If we succeed—I do not place my expectations too high—we shall establish the principle that there is unity in men's affairs, and that there is a sufficient number of nations who are prepared to sacrifice their own selfish ends to the common good and to keep international crime in check.
The last heading in the Treaty of Peace is that of "Guarantees." I said just now that Mr. Asquith's formula was, "Restitution, reparation, and guarantees." These are the guarantees which the Treaty sets up for its practical execution and the maintenance of Peace. In the first place, German territory to the west of the Rhine and the bridge-heads of the Rhine are to be occupied by the Allied and Associated troops for fifteen years, subject to a partial withdrawal from part of this area at the end of five and ten years respectively in the event of Germany loyally carrying out her obligations under the Treaty. The Treaty further provides that in the event of Germany refusing to observe the whole or part of her obligations under the Treaty the whole area in question may be reoccupied by the Allied and Associated Powers.
The second practical guarantee which is proposed is the Treaty—which I mentioned at the beginning of my remarks, and which will be circulated to-morrow—by which Great Britain and the United States undertake to go to the assistance of France in the event of unprovoked German aggression. I believe that, striking, perhaps startling, as this proposal is, it will be approved by the House and by the nation. France, the principal champion of democracy on the Continent of Europe, has been ravaged and devastated twice in the last fifty years by Germany, and four times in the last century. Owing to her geographical position she really holds the frontiers of civilisation. She is the gatekeeper of the civilised world. All nations to-day owe in some measure their present liberty and security to the sacrifices which France has made in the defence, not only of her own liberty, but of that of the rest of the world. She has lost in this way nearly one and half millions of dead. It is surely right that those who have profited by her sacrifices should guarantee her 176 against the necessity of having to repeat them.
There is a further reason for this Treaty. So long as France, Great Britain and the United States, the leading democracies of the world, stand together, I do not believe that any autocratic Power or combination of autocratic Powers will have the least chance, or indeed will ever dream, of challenging them to war, in view of the experiences of Germany in the last five years. I regard, therefore, this Treaty which will later come under the consideration of your Lordships, as one of the most important guarantees, not merely of the freedom of France but of peace in the world, which it is possible to create. I earnestly trust that Parliament will support the Government in the policy of giving this guarantee to France, provided, of course, it is given by the United States of America as well.
I hope that the survey which I have made has shown you that, although the terms of this Treaty are severe—certainly the heaviest series of penalties which has ever been imposed on a culprit State—they are not harsh or vindictive. The spirit that has animated this Treaty has been one of justice rather than of revenge. Whether we compare the terms with the character and enormity of the crimes that were committed or with the terms which Germany openly announced that she would have endeavoured to exact herself, it is a just and a moderate Treaty. Moreover, in framing it the Allies had to pay some attention to the psychology of the people with whom they were dealing. Had they shown weakness in framing this Treaty, or undue complacency in modifying it after it had been framed, the Germans would have laughed at them for their timidity and taken advantage of their folly. If the German desires reconciliation, let him show repentance. If he desires to be admitted to the comity of nations, let him seek absolution. The door is not closed. But before it is open we must know something of the character and the credentials of those who propose to enter in.
In what I have said I hope I have not indulged in one sentence that could savour of national vanity or boasting. I have preferred to regard this Treaty from the point of view of its effect upon the future of the world rather than its effect upon our own people. But it is permissible, perhaps, to point out in a sentence that Great 177 Britain has gained in this war all, and indeed much more than all, she set out to win. Our Navy remains at the end of the war intact and unassailed. The principle of the Freedom of the Seas, which is the basis of our national existence, stands unimpaired and unimpugned. The British Protectorate of Egypt is provided for in one of the clauses in this Treaty.
As for territorial gains, we sought none in entering the war. I do not believe there was a single person, even a single soldier or sailor, who really fought for additions to the British Empire. But new responsibilities are being thrust and will be thrust upon us which, though we have not sought them, we cannot refuse. I confess I regard these great impending additions to our responsibilities with no great elation, and with some alarm—and for this reason. I do not doubt for a moment that our national spirit will be equal to the task. The war has shown that it is so. The old reservoir of British courage and tenacity is still filled by the rills that flow from the British University, the British college, the British school, and the British fireside. There is no suspicion that the race itself is decadent or unequal to an extension of responsibility. But I often ask myself, Have we the men? I see, therefore, in these terms, and in the addition to our responsibilities which will be entailed, not so much a cause for national rejoicing as a call for personal service; a demand for patriotic duty. We are demobilising our soldiers and sailors, and at the time when they are going back into civil life we want to mobilise a fresh army of men who will be willing to serve the Empire in every capacity in every part of the world. If after the war the survivors of this war, or the younger generation who are coming up to take their place, drift into a life of careless ease and selfish enjoyment, we shall betray the memories of those who have fallen in the war. The men who have died in the war sprang to answer the trumpet call of danger; we want to be certain that the next generation, and those who have survived, will be equally ready to answer the trumpet call of duty.
We have paid in this House and elsewhere many well-deserved tributes to our heroes in the field and on the sea. Is it permissible in this hour to offer one word of thanks to those who have upheld our banner and won this victory at the Council 178 Table in Paris? There is speaking, or there was speaking half an hour ago, in another place a statesman who cannot offer that tribute because it would be offered to himself. But the reception he met with on his return on Sunday, the ovation which greeted hint in the House of Commons the other day, and the cheers which I heard just now in the streets, indicate to me that he has not merely the confidence but the gratitude of his countrymen, and I do not think that this House should be altogether behind the House of Commons in the expression of its sentiments on this occasion.
§ EARL CURZON OF KEDLESTONIt is open to me to say, with a real and accurate knowledge of what has been passing in Paris during the past six months, that the Prime Minister, by a combination of courage and imagination and by the exercise of quite unusual powers of conciliation, has often held the balance between conflicting parties, and is largely personally responsible for the contents of that blue volume. We must also not omit to include in our thanks the Foreign Secretary, Mr. Balfour, who has never left Paris since he went there at the beginning of January, and who has applied to the solution of these questions all the resources of his profound experience and his great intellectual powers. Great work also has been done more especially in regard to labour questions by Mr. Barnes. Two members of your Lordships' House (I do not know if they are here to day)—Lord Summer and Lord Cunliffe—have lent invaluable aid in dealing with quesions of reparation and finance. Invaluable work has been done by members of all the Committees sitting in Paris, and to the representatives of our Dominions overseas we owe a deep debt of gratitude.
Perhaps one ought not to conclude a speech of this character without saying one word about our Allies. It would be the height of absurdity and vanity to pretend that we won the war. We owe the victory, partly indeed to the valour of our own men, but largely to the unconquerable spirit of France, the steadfast heroism of Belgium, the valour of Italy, and the splendid contribution of the United States. We owe it in the Council Chamber at Paris to the unfaltering courage and sagacious leadership of M. Clemenceau, and to the profound 179 sincerity and absolute good faith which has been shown throughout by President Wilson. These great men, who have had the destinies of the world in their hands, part from each other after six months with sentiments of profound respect, admiration, and esteem, which are, I believe, echoed by their countrymen.
Such is the nature of the Peace which it has been my rather laborious duty to endeavour to explain to your Lordships this afternoon. I do not pretend that all of this will endure. Much of it will perish, much of it is ephemeral, but on the whole I submit that it does fairly carry out the principles and objects for which we entered the war. If the dead could rise from their graves, if the dead whom your Lordships' House has contributed in such liberal measure to the roll of heroes, could rise from their graves, I believe they would stand up and say that they had not died in vain. But do not let us suppose for a moment because Peace has been signed that the work is done. Peace is not the end; it is only the beginning. I do not merely mean that a new era has dawned, a new order is beginning. Those are the commonplaces of everyday utterance. No. I mean that this Peace rests on certain high principles which have never before been attempted to be introduced into an international settlement, and these principles have to be watched and safeguarded. If we think we have done our work by putting them in the Treaty and enshrining them in print, we are making a great mistake. Many of them may not survive if they are simply left alone. We have to fight to maintain these principles in peace just as we have had to fight to defend them in time of war. It rests with us to see that this Treaty is carried out to a successful completion, and that the provisions which give liberty and hope to many of the smaller nations of the world are not lost sight of, but are carried to their practical conclusion.
My Lords, if that is the task that lies before us we still require to be strong. We are demobilising our forces, but we cannot lay down our arms; we cannot disband them altogether. We must still be able to fight for what we have won, and secure that it is not taken from us after we have won it. I believe that your Lordships will not merely join in the general congratulations to which I have ventured to give utterance in my speech this afternoon, but that you 180 will also, in your various stations and according to your opportunities, give a lead to this country in that continuity of effort, of sacrifice, and of good work, without which the fruits of this peace will not be garnered in, and the victory itself may have been won in vain. I thank your Lordships for the attention with which you have listened to me.
THE MARQUEES OF CREWEMy Lords, I am sure of the approbation of the House in proposing to confine the observations that I have to make within the shortest possible compass. In the first place, in the speech of the noble Earl who leads the House—for the length of which he had no need whatever to apologise—he, in terms of moving eloquence, expressed the sentiments of thankfulness and relief which we feel, not on behalf of the Government or on behalf of a Party, but on behalf of us all I am glad, however, to join hint in acknowledging in unstinted terms the arduous and long-continued labours of the Prime Minister and his colleagues in Paris. I need not echo what the noble Earl said upon that, except to remind your Lordships that while their labours were continuing a most heavy burden of work fell upon the noble Earl—kindred work some of it indeed involving visits to France—and to him also, I am sure, ought the thanks both of this House and of the country to be directed. The task of our representatives in Paris was no doubt rendered in some respects more arduous by the fact that, working as they did in foreign surroundings, they had perpetually to consider that, however high might be the motives and however praiseworthy the objects of those with whom they had to discuss this Treaty, yet the method both of moral and intellectual approach by men of different races is bound in some respects to be divergent. All the more thanks are due to them for the work which they performed.
I have but little more to say, because the noble Earl reminded us that there will be later opportunities for discussing any or all of the details of this Treaty. We have, indeed, had but scanty time to examine, far less to digest, the voluminous Blue Book which has been circulated to us. There are many points in it, geographical points, penal points, economic points, on which some of your Lordships might desire to comment later on, all the 181 more as there will be many who, studying this Treaty, will be disposed to look on the future in a spirit of tempered and even subdued hopefulness rather than in one of enthusiastic confidence, much less of a light heart. Of course, my Lords, it would always have been absurd to suppose that when the curtain was once more raised after it had fallen at the termination of the war, it would exhibit a delightful and brilliant transformation scene. It is true, as the noble Earl has told us, that there is bound to be much in this volume which is both arbitrary and transitional, and therefore I will only for a few moments devote attention to one of the subjects which the noble Earl so fully and lucidly described to us—namely, by saying a word upon the Covenant of the League of Nations, which is the first chapter in this book.
As we all know, the principle of the League of Nations has given a chance for comments of an easy and shallow cynicism, just as all aspirations towards the ideal always have, from the Sermon on the Mount downwards; but we can say this, that unless through the adoption of some such rules as these we can advance to a higher level and into a clearer air, then we are of all generations the most miserable. We shall be in a worse case than any of the generations of our forefathers of whom history can tell us. If knowledge comes but wisdom lingers, the future, not only of this country but of the world, is indeed dark. In one respect that, has been forcibly brought home to me only this afternoon. I came here from the opening of the Exhibition, just across the Square, of Scientific Products, It so happens that some of my duties in connection with education have caused me to appreciate, although, as I am not a trained man of science, not always fully to comprehend, the amazing advances which have been made in recent years in perfecting the engines for destruction of life, and also what are termed preventive methods, which simply mean the destruction of the lives of other persons. In my boyhood when I was at school the Franco-Prussian War was being waged, and I well remember the horror which the losses in such battles as Wörth and St. Privat inspired in the minds of everybody. Those engagements would have been mere episodes in one of the great battles of this last war—those actions which we spoke of as battles, though some of them almost partook of the nature of campaigns. I do not hesitate 182 to say, even from the little knowledge that I possess, that in the war of ten years hence, if there be such a war, the carnage and destruction will be as much greater than the destruction and carnage of the war which begun in 1914 as that was greater than in the war of 1870 and 1871. That, of course, is only an appeal to our lower instincts for the preservation of the race, but of course the higher moral code can be urged, and has been urged in a prayer for the adoption of the new system. But the considerations which I have mentioned may well give pause to the boldest evangelist of the old gospel of the Balance of Power to which the noble Earl opposite alluded. It may be—it must be, I suppose—that this Peace is not all that some of us hoped, but its conclusion does enable us and give us courage to set ourselves to the new tasks of Peace, to the establishment at home of contentment and such measure of national prosperity as the war has made possible, and to the development on wise and free lines of the British Empire which, let us not forget it, is the greatest engine of civilisation that the world has ever known.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYYour Lordships, I trust, will not think it inappropriate—indeed I know the noble Earl who leads the House thinks it not inappropriate—that a few words should be said to-day from one who speaks as a representative of those who sit here not technically as politicians but rather as having a concern in a peculiar degree with the principles which should in our political action inspire and guide all parties and sections of each House of Parliament. We have listened to-night to, a remarkable speech. I do not think that even the noble Earl himself has ever had an opportunity which gave greater scope for his quiet eloquence, and for the power of lucid arrangement and exposition of complicated matter, than he has had the opportunity of developing before us this afternoon.
THE LORD ARCHBISHOP OF CANTERBURYThe speech was one worthy of the occasion and of the incomparable importance of what had to be said. I am grateful, too, for what has been now added to it by the noble Marquess who leads the Opposition. The document to 183 which the noble Earl has called our attention, the Treaty, contains 440 Articles and covers 213 foolscap pages of print, and yet we are told that this is only a part—possibly a minor part—of the material which is ultimately to be in our hands as a Treaty and the subsidiary documents belonging to it eventuating from this war. I suppose that no document so momentous in its character, so far-reaching in its aims, and, in regard to the effect to be given to its provisions, so extensive in its operation upon mankind, has ever been drawn up in the world and had human signatures appended to it. This document stands by itself in history; and instead of complaining, as sone have been apt to complain, of the long time that has elapsed from the beginning of the preparation of this document and all the other matters belonging to it until the present time, I am sure that some of us rather feel surprised that it has been possible even in the time that has been occupied in Paris to bring such a large mass of material into a form available not merely for the understanding of the experts who have to decide the matters contained in it, but for the understanding of those who, like ourselves, read it with less expert knowledge.
We have heard details to-night of the character of the document and of the enactments it contains. Those who study the document itself will have a lesson in modern history and a marked lesson in modern geography which is not ordinarily found in a Blue Book even of this volume. We are here concentrating our thoughts upon the great and tangled web of European facts, European efforts, and European strifes and rivalries which have eventuated in the Peace which was signed last Saturday. The noble Earl has told us how it is intended that the Treaty shall operate in the Europe of to-day. He has markedly abstained from assuming the mantle of the prophet as regards details, or endeavouring to present to us in its full outcome all the efforts which have now been made. But that is well. It is what we should have expected, and what is obviously right.
We should now cast our look forward—not only us, but statesmen—and ask ourselves how all this will look one hundred years hence. We should ask ourselves what we shall seem to have been doing, and what will be said about us by future generations. I do not believe that we 184 can in detail forecast the future, but I think we ought to be looking at it to see whether or not what we are doing has the character upon it that we should desire it to have. I am not for a moment suggesting that to-night would be an opportunity for criticising the matter in detail. There is just one object lesson upon which I should like to say a word. A hundred years ago, or, to be exact, 103 years ago, both Houses of Parliament deliberated in detail, and the report of what they said has come down to us with rather unusual fulness. The outcome of the Congress of Vienna and the ensuing Treaties, and the speeches of those who then did what we are doing now, are rather curious reading to-day. The speakers dwell upon the vastness of the armies and the armaments to which they were referring, and still more upon the colossal financial expenditure to which they refer. When we look at those figures and compare them with to-day they are literally almost a bagatelle. The number of troops who are spoken of as an immense army is insignificant when compared with the facts of the last few years; and far more marked is the contrast between the financial sums which are there mentioned and those which have been bandied to and fro in the Houses of Parliament during the last year or two as the necessary expenditure upon a great war.
Out of that tangled web with which they had to deal they tried to find a path of extrication. They got rid of what was called then, as the noble Earl called it to-night, the nightmare of a dominant force of a belligerent kind which had been overcome. But they tried to meet it with an elaborate arrangement for the balance of power. What they would have said of the phrase used to-night by the noble Earl, "the time-honoured, evil balance of power," I do not know. They tried to meet it by nicely adjusted machinery for restraint and counter-restraint and for the dynastic settlements which formed so large a part of what they had to arrange. And out of that came what was called the Holy Alliance, with its strange admixture of pious aspiration and of shrewd—or perhaps not too shrewd—political plans. Men were full of hope, but history proved absolutely careless of prophetic reputation, and the outcome was a totally different one. I suppose that some of the aspirations of that time were themselves what found ultimate event and issue in the conflicts and conspiracies and insurrections which 185 characterised the whole of Europe during the first half of the nineteenth century.
We to-day are standing in the same position. Have we a right to expect that we can have better results for what we are doing than those men did who discussed and formulated the Treaties of that period? We are doing it on a far more gigantic scale, and a whole group of nations is trying to handle the world's affairs more thoroughly even than was attempted then. Have we a right to expect a better issue? I firmly believe we have, and for the reasons already given to-night in the eloquent words of the noble Earl. I believe it is because in the very forefront of the Treaty—the first twenty-six clauses of this great volume are the provisions of what we call the League of Nations—the League of Nations which is easy to mock at, which people did mock at a few years ago as a phantasy and an empty phrase, but which is now the deliberate, the well-weighed and carefully drawn plan of the very foremost thinkers and statemen of our time.
The noble Earl bore testimony which, I am sure, we all desire to re-echo, to the merits of those who have fashioned the Treaty its it stands. He did not mention, but I think we cannot be wrong if we should mention, one to whom, as we are led to believe, we owe no little thanks in all that concerns the League of Nations, I mean Lord Robert Cecil. The work of Lord Robert Cecil, as we have constantly been told, has been of an invaluable kind, and those who look in detail into all that has been said with regard to the League of Nations will be able to say what leadership they have found in what he has taught us on that subject.
The framers of that scheme have resolved to put into the forefront of the new world plan what is already not only a sanguine political plan for the future 'lint what has been from the first a well assured Christian principle. It is for that reason that I believe we have a right to expect a better result from the effort which is now being made than any result that could have been rightly expected from far-reaching and ambitious treaties of another kind in the days gone by. The danger lies, I suppose, in the possibility that the provisions of the Treaty might here and there be so worked as to endanger the very principle which underlies the League of Nations. Against that peril we as a people, and not our statesmen only, have all to be watchful. 186 The responsibility is shared by us all, for the peoples are now enlisted. In the stimulating and robust words which were written a few days ago by General Smuts—
The League is yet only a form. It still requires the quickening life which can only come from the active interest and vitalising contact of the peoples themselves.That is the primary fact upon which all this discussion rests, and, standing here in the position I occupy, I should be false indeed to every principle I have ever held, or to the faith for which I stand, if I doubted that that principle, put in the very forefront of a Treaty like this, will and must stand the strain. It lies at the root and basis of the creed of every Christian man. It is that which differentiates this effort, this pact of the peoples, from any that has ever gone before, and it is that which, above all, justifies us, as we peer forward into the future, in making it a part not only of our hopes but, I do not scruple to say here, of our prayers as welt as of our thanksgivings, offered in confident expectation of the fruit that is to come. The origin of this is not human but divine. It stands in fundamental truth. Magna est veritas et prœvalebit.
§ VISCOUNT BRYCEMy Lords, I do not rise, I need hardly say, to introduce any discussion, nor to offer any criticism, but there is one particular point to which attention was called by the noble Earl in the singularly impressive statement in which he held us for so long while explaining the provisions of the Treaty with so much clearness. This point has also been just reforred to by the noble Marquess Lord Crewe and by the most rev. Primate. The part of this Treaty which, whatever differences we may entertain upon other subjects, we can all regard with unqualified satisfaction, is that part which creates the principle of the League of Nations. If I may venture to presume on behalf of those who, from the very beginning of the war, have been working in conjunction with our friends similarly disposed in America to possess the minds of both peoples with the desirability of having some arrangement which would prevent war in the future and thereby to give support to the President in America and to His Majesty's Government here in advocating this principle, I should like to tender our thanks, not only to the President of the United States but to His Majesty's Government for the firmness and cordiality 187 with which they have taken hold of this principle, and have, as we believe, advocated it in France; and I should like particularly to associate myself and them so far as I may do so—I have no doubt I am speaking for them—with what has been said by the most rev. Primate about the admirable and zealous services which have been rendered by Lord Robert Cecil.
There is just one remark which occurs to me in this connection. The most rev. Primate asked whether we can expect better results than were obtained by the Congress of Vienna in 1814 and 1815. That depends upon the spirit in which we carry out the principle of the League of Nations. The noble Earl said that we ought to endeavour to work out those principles and to conduct our policy in the future upon them. He also observed that there are many points in the present Treaty which are not complete; that the Treaty has to be worked out in details; and as your Lordships know there is considerable room for variation in the application which will have to be made of its provisions.
Everything will depend for the successful working of the League of Nations upon the spirit which is applied to carrying out these parts of the Treaty. It is by the spirit and the methods which are visible in the Covenant of the League, and which animated those who framed it, that we shall best succeed in carrying out the Treaty. What we want to do is as far as we can to extinguish the spirit of hatred which now pervades and distracts so much of Europe. We want to bring about a reconcilement amongst the peoples. It is only by such reconcilement that the League of Nations can succeed and that wars can be avoided in the future. That applies not only to the working out of the provisions of this Treaty but to those other questions which still remain to be settled in Continental Europe. As your Lordships know there is material for long and difficult discussions in the controversies that exist between various States and nationalities all over the Western world—the more particularly in the Baltic regions, and in South-Eastern Europe—and in the Near East; and unless these questions are handled with the utmost care and consideration in the true spirit of the principles which the Allies have proclaimed—respect for the rights of peoples and an observance of the principle of nationality—we shall be making material for future wars.
188 I would therefore express the earnest hope that His Majesty's Government will exert themselves to see that every possible consideration is given to the rights of the different nationalities whose claims still remain to be adjusted; and above all that, it will be remembered that for the successful working of the League of Nations we have to create an atmosphere of good will. The League cannot work successfully unless it exists in an atmosphere which is based upon respect for the rights of the small and weak as well as of the Great Powers—respect for the feelings which animate the smaller peoples of Europe. We all desire to look forward to what will follow this war as marking not only the end of a painful and sad epoch during which the peoples of Europe and, indeed, of the world, have lived in constant suspicion and alarm, but as opening a new era which will be ruled by these principles which His Majesty's Government have declared to be theirs and on the wise and firm application of which the future of humanity rests.