Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War, Volume XII (part 3 of 7)

Harper's Pictorial Library of the World War, Volume XII (part 3 of 7)

These differences in food use, established by long custom, have to be taken into account in all considerations of the world's food supply. They are differences which cannot be easily or quickly changed, even under circumstances which such great emergencies as war may produce. For example, we in America are accustomed to eat corn as food in the form of green corn, corn meal, corn flakes, etc. And in Italy one of the great national dishes is polenta (corn meal cooked in a certain way). But when the Commission for the Relief of Belgium tried to introduce corn as human food in Belgium, because of the large amount that could be obtained from America when wheat and rye were scarce, it met with great opposition and but little success. To the Belgians, corn is food for animals.

SCIENTIFIC CONTROL OF FOOD

An important point brought out by the war-time food problem is that of the "scientific" make-up of the personal ration. Not only are the national food habits of a people often difficult to understand from a point of view of taste, but they are often of such a character as to lead to a most uneconomical use of food. The exigencies of a world food shortage and a shortage of shipping for food transport have made it necessary for food ministries and relief organizations to give careful consideration to the most economical selection of foods for import and distribution, both from the point of view of economy of space and weight and lack of deterioration during shipping and storage, and from that of concentrated nutritional values and proper balancing of the ration.

Food provides energy for bodily work and maintenance. It is the fuel for the human machine. Scientific students of nutrition measure the amount of energy thus provided, or the amount needed by the body, in units termed calories. Physiologists have determined by experiment the different amounts of calories produced by different kinds of foods and the varying amounts needed by men at rest, at light work, at hard work, by women and by children. By analyzing the make-up of a given population as to proportions of men, women and children, and of work done by them, it is possible to express the total food needs of the population in calories and to arrange for the most economical provision of the total calories necessary.

But the simple provision of the total sum of calories may by no means satisfy the real food needs of the population. For example, all the calories might be provided by potatoes alone, or grains alone, or meat or fats alone. But the population would starve under such circumstances. Food provides not merely the energy for the body, but the substances from which the body adds new tissue to itself during growth and reproduces its constantly breaking down tissues during all of life. Now while all kinds of food produce energy in greater or less quantity, only certain kinds are the source of new tissues. Hence there must be in the personal or national ration a sufficient proportion of the tissue-producing foods, the protein carriers, as well as a sufficient amount of the more strictly energy-producing foods, such as the fats and carbohydrates. And there is necessary, too, in any ration capable of maintaining the body in properly healthy condition, the presence in it, in very small quantities, of certain food substances called vitamines which have an important regulatory effect on the functioning of the body. These substances occur only in certain kinds of food.

All these things had to be taken into account in the war-time handling of food. So important was a proper knowledge of scientific food use and application of this knowledge, in connection with the efforts of the various countries to feed themselves most economically and to best effect in the light of their possibilities in the way of food supply, that every country concerned called on its scientific men to advise and help control the obtaining and distribution of its national food supply. For example, America and the Allies (England, France, Belgium and Italy) established an Inter-Allied Scientific Food Commission composed of experts who met at various times at London, Paris, and Rome, and on whose advice the determination, both as to kind and quantity, of the necessary importations of food from overseas to England, France, Belgium and Italy was largely made. Thus the war has done more to popularize the scientific knowledge of food, and to put into practice a scientific control of food-use than all the efforts of colleges and scientific societies and food reform apostles for years and years before. Calories, proteins, carbohydrates, fats and vitamines have been taken out of the dictionary and put into the kitchen.

GOVERNMENT REGULATIONS

America's special relation to the world's war food problem was primarily that of a provider of the Allies, but in order to insure that this provision should be sufficient to keep the Allied soldiers and war workers up to full fighting and working strength and their families in full health, it was necessary for America to stimulate its own production, repress considerably its consumption and cut out all possible waste in food handling. To do this there was needed some form of governmental food control and a nation-wide voluntary effort of the people. Each of the Allied countries had established governmental food control early in the war under the direction of a "food controller" either attached to an already existing government department of agriculture or commerce, or acting as an independent food minister.

On the actual entrance of America into the war in 1917, governmental food control was vested in a "United States Food Administration" with powers given it by Congress to control all exports of food and all food-handling by millers, manufacturers, jobbers, wholesalers, and large retail dealers. But no retail dealer doing a business of less than $100,000 a year, nor any farmer or farmers' coöperative association came under the Food Administration's control. Thus the American food administration differed from that of most European countries in that it had no authority to fix the prices at which the actual producers should sell their products or the small retailers should charge the consumers.

But, indirectly, it was able to do, and did, a good deal in this direction. By its direct control of exports, and of the millers, manufacturers and large dealers, it was able to cut out a great part of the middleman profits, and reduce wholesale prices for most staple foodstuffs, especially that most important one, flour. By publicity of prices and by indirect pressure through the wholesaler it was also able to restrain the further sky-rocketing of retail prices.

NATION-WIDE FOOD SAVING

But if the Food Administration was limited in what it could effect by legal authority, there was no limit to what it could do by calling on the voluntary action of the people of the country, except by the possible refusal of the people to help. So there was set in movement a nation-wide propaganda for food-production and food-saving which resulted in the voluntary acceptance of wheatless and meatless days, voluntarily modified hotel and restaurant and dining-car meals, and the adoption of household pledges, taken by more than 12,000,000 American homes, to follow the Food Administration's suggestions for food-saving. All this, and the many other things which the Food Administration asked the people to do, and which the people did, resulted in accomplishing a very necessary thing. It enabled America not only to meet all those ever-increasing absolutely imperative calls of the Allies for food for their armies and people through 1917 and 1918, but to supply its own army and people sufficiently well to carry on the war effectively. The more food sunk by submarines, or prevented from coming to Europe from distant food sources, as Australia and Argentine and India, the more we provided by saving and increasing our production.

A few figures will illustrate the actual results of the call for food conservation. We entered the crop year of 1917 (July 1, 1917, to July 1, 1918), with a wheat supply which gave us only about 20,000,000 bushels available for export. By December 1, 1917, our surplus had gone overseas and an additional 36,000,000 bushels had been shipped to the Allies. In January we learned of the further imperative need of the Allies of 75,000,000 bushels. We responded by sending 85,000,000 bushels between the first of the year and the advent of the new crop. When the crop year ended we had sent in all about 136,000,000 bushels of wheat to Europe. We were assisted in these operations by the importation of 28,000,000 bushels of wheat from Australia and the Argentine to supplement our domestic supply, but the outstanding fact was the saving in our domestic consumption, most of which was accomplished in the six-months' period from January 1 to July 1, 1918.

AMERICAN RELIEF ADMINISTRATION

But the cessation of the war did not produce food for the war-ravaged countries of Europe. The newly liberated peoples of Central and Eastern Europe found themselves, at the time of the Armistice, facing a period of starvation until their 1918 harvest could come in. Something to save these peoples had to be done quickly and on a large scale. The situation was met by the establishment of a new American governmental organization called the American Relief Administration which, with Mr. Hoover as director-general, worked in connection with the Inter-Allied Supreme Economic Council. Representatives of the A. R. A. were sent at once into all the countries crying for help to find out the exact food situation, and to arrange with the respective governments for the immediate beginning of the importation and distribution of staple foodstuffs. Programs for a food supply sufficient to last until the 1919 harvest were determined on a basis of minimum necessity, and provision for sufficient shipping and rail transportation was arranged by international agreement.

Modern war has thrown the spotlight on food. It has partly realized that famous prophecy of the Polish economist, Jean Bloch, who wrote, twenty years ago: "That is the future of war, not fighting, but famine." In the World War of 1914--18 there was fighting on a scale never before reached, but there was also famine, as never before dreamed of.

IX THE HIGH COST OF LIVING

A Study of the Extraordinary Conditions Subsequent to the Armistice

By THE DIRECTOR OF THE COUNCIL OF NATIONAL DEFENSE

On August 9, 1919, Grosvenor B. Clarkson, Director of the Council of National defense, submitted to the Secretary of War, a report entitled "An Analysis of the High Cost of Living Problem." This report was the result of much careful study and investigation. It is non-academic in form and by omitting details presents a "panoramic view of the problem." It laid chief stress upon conditions since the armistice.

In the report the problem of the high cost of living is viewed as a permanent one. It was, in other words, not peculiar to past war conditions. Careful investigation by the Council has resulted in the following analysis of the problem.

THE ESSENCE OF THE HIGH COST OF LIVING SITUATION

"1. The only complaints of the high cost of living which have justification are those which are based upon inability of the present income to maintain previous or reasonable standards of living at present prices--such well-founded complaints mean that increase of income has not kept pace with increased cost of living, and therefore imply enforced reduction in standards of living.

AMERICA'S PRODUCTIVE CAPACITY

"2. America's industrial and economic achievements during the war, notwithstanding depleted man power and diversion of productive effort to war purposes, demonstrate the ample ability of the Nation to sustain its population according to a standard of living equal to or above standards of living which obtained previous to or during the war.

"3. The fundamental basis for the maintenance of national standards of living is adequate production, economical distribution, and fair apportionment among the various economic groups which constitute our society. With the exception of agricultural activity, production since the armistice has shown evidence of curtailment, and has in general been abnormally low. Normal consumption can not continue unless an adequate rate of production is maintained.

FOOD SITUATION AND READJUSTMENT

"4. Food production and the facilities for food production were improved rather than injured during the war. Moreover, the program with respect to food production since the signing of the armistice has been one of vigorous expansion of the means of providing raw food products. The actual consumption of wheat, as shown by the Grain Corporation's report of May 25, 1919, had for the previous ten months averaged 37,700,000 bushels per month, as against 39,000,000 bushels for the previous twelve months. This does not necessarily imply reduced consumption of cereals.

"The number of cattle slaughtered in the period January to May, 1919, was 3,803,000, as against 4,204,000 for the corresponding period of 1918, though the national reserve of cattle on farms had increased during the war. The swine slaughtered January to May increased from 18,260,000 in 1918 to 20,500,000 in 1919.

CLOTHING SITUATION

"5. The production of civilian cloths and clothing suffered some reduction during the war, and has suffered heavy curtailment for many months since the signing of the armistice.

"Boot and shoe production for civilian use was unfavorably affected by the war and has likewise undergone extreme curtailment since the signing of the armistice.

HOUSING PROBLEM

"6. Housing facilities developed acute shortage through curtailment of building during the war and, due to curtailment, for many months following the armistice, of the production of building material and of building construction, housing is still far below normal. Rents continue to rise.

PROVISION OF NEW CAPITAL

"7. The first half of 1919 shows diminished production of raw materials and subnormal construction of new capital, and thus indicates failure to utilize an adequate proportion of our productive forces in the preliminary processes of provision to meet future requirements. In fact, due to business uncertainty and hesitation and tendencies to disagreement between productive groups, retailers, wholesalers, manufacturers, labor, etc., there ensued after the armistice a disuse of a large proportion of America's productive capacity. Unless this slump in production is atoned for by consistent future activity, and unless production is constantly maintained on an adequate scale, reduced standards of living will become inescapable, regardless of prices, whether they rise or fall.

"8. The very fact that prices of finished commodities, consumption goods, so called, have risen to an extent out of proportion to the rise in prices of raw materials and perhaps out of proportion to the rise in general wages, indicates that production and distribution carried on under these conditions is, in general, yielding profits abnormally high."

In corroboration of the preceding analysis, the report cites statistical data gathered from various sources. The relation of currency and credit to prices is admirably epitomized in the following extract:

CURRENCY AND CREDIT

"The manner in which the volume of circulating credit and currency is related to the war-time rise in prices is about as follows:

"The outbreak of the war brought to America urgent government orders for munitions and supplies. Inasmuch as the belligerent governments could not brook delay they were obliged to pay the increased prices which American producers found it possible to demand, and thus the wave of war prices was started in America. When America entered the war it required, in order to perform its part, almost boundless quantities of equipment and man power. Producers naturally took advantage of the extremely urgent character of these demands in order to increase their prices, and, as a natural sequence, wages began to advance. These increased prices and wages of course necessitated larger expenditures by the government.

"Increased prices also necessitate the employment of larger funds in the conduct of a business. A larger volume of credit is required at higher prices to take care of bills for raw materials, and more money is necessary to meet increased payrolls. As a consequence, therefore, of increased prices, business men required increased credit if they were to avoid curtailment of operations and reduced production. Due to higher prices, therefore, the banks were under the necessity of meeting the business demand for expansion of credit."

INFLATION

The inflation process is described as follows:

"In pre-war times every dollar finding its way to the market was supposedly the counterpart of some commodity or part of a commodity also appearing in the market. Funds expended for the purchase of food, clothing, and for the payment of rentals were assumed to have been earned by some productive contribution to the general supply of commodities. With the outbreak of war there began to appear in the market, funds derived from wages, profits, etc., which had been paid out in connection with nonproductive activities of war, and which therefore implied no corresponding contribution to the market supply of commodities. The producers of, and the dealers in, the decreased quantity of commodities brought to market increased the prices of these commodities to the point where they might absorb all the purchase money that became available. These increased prices and wages have required increased circulating medium. This requirement has been met primarily by increased credit and the increased use of bank checks as an instrument of payment. As to the currency situation, the total money in the United States in 1900 amounted to $2,340,000,000. According to a statement issued by Governor W. P. G. Harding, of the Federal Reserve Board, the amount of money in circulation has varied during the last five years as follows:

July 1, 1914, $3,419,108,368, or $34.53 per capita. April 1, 1917, $4,100,976,000, or $37.88 per capita. December 1, 1918, $5,129,985,000, or $48.13 per capita. August 1, 1919, $4,796,890,000, or $45.16 per capita.

"This shows an increase during our war period of $7.28 per capita. The amount of money in the Treasury and in Federal Reserve Banks is not in circulation, and is, therefore not included in the figures quoted from Governor Harding's statement.

"In regard to the part played by national credit in meeting the situation growing out of the extraordinary requirements of the government and the rise in prices which the urgency of demands made possible, it is to be noted that government bonds had to be sold to pay for a large proportion of the goods which war activities were consuming. In consequence the national debt up to August 1, 1919, had been increased by $24,518,000,000, or approximately $230 per capita. Of course, government bonds are always good security for bank credit."

FOOD SUPPLY--WHEAT, CORN AND SUGAR

Despite the fact that we sent large shipments of food to our Allies, our supply at the close of the war was not seriously diminished. The 1919 crop, while not expected to be large, was amply sufficient to prevent a real shortage. This is supported by the following extract from Mr. Clarkson's report:

"The wheat crop for 1918 amounted to 917,000,000 bushels, as compared to an average for 1910--14 of 728,000,000 bushels; and the probable harvest in 1919 is 1,236,000,000 bushels. Our supply of wheat in elevators, mills, etc., on May 9, 1919, was 96,000,000 bushels, as against 34,000,000 bushels the year before. Our flour mills, whose capacity is estimated at something like double their usual output, were milling week by week during 1919 considerably more flour than the year before. They produced for the week ending May 9, 1919, for example, 2,553,000 barrels as against 1,569,000 barrels for the corresponding week of 1918. Notwithstanding large exports, our wheat supply is obviously adequate. In 1918, a record year, we exported 21,000,000 barrels of flour. In 1915 our wheat exports reached their maximum--206,000,000 bushels.

"The corn crop of 1918 was likewise sufficient. The supply of corn on hand on May 1, 1919, was 23,000,000 bushels, as compared with 16,000,000 bushels May 1, 1918, and 7,000,000 bushels on May 1 of both 1917 and 1913. Though the 1919 corn crop is not expected to be unusually large, there is no prospect of real shortage. And the situation with respect to the other cereals is generally very good.

"The sugar industry of the United States passed through the period of the war with a tendency to increased production, notwithstanding shipping difficulties. Though present stocks are somewhat low in the United States, our exports during 1919 have been unusually large. The future is normally provided for."

THE MEAT SUPPLY

The meat situation is described as follows:

"America emerged from the war producing meat at a rate far above pre-war figures, and yet possessing in reserve a larger number of animals on the farms than we had before the heavy war drafts upon our supplies began. The number of cattle slaughtered in 1918 was 11,000,000, as compared with 6,978,000 in 1913. Swine slaughtered were 41,214,000 in 1918 and 34,163,000 in 1913. The cattle slaughtered in 1919, January--May, were 3,803,000, as against 4,204,000, January--May, 1918. The swine slaughtered January--May, 1919, made an increase over the 1918 record, the figures being 20,500,000 for the present year, as against 18,260,000 for the corresponding interval last year. Although exports of hams and shoulders for 1918 approximately doubled previous records, amounting to 518,000,000 pounds, as against 172,000,000 pounds for 1913, and exports have continued large during 1919, there is no doubt that our productive capacity is vastly more than ample to meet our requirements."

HIGH PRICE OF FOOD

In view of the apparent abundance of food it is interesting to know the reason for the high price of foodstuffs. The Council of National Defense is of the opinion that the probability that the production of garden products in war gardens had fallen far below that of 1918, when, it is estimated, to have reached the value of $525,000,000, would not account for the high prices. Exportation and storage had not depleted our stock sufficiently to affect prices abnormally. In regard to the question of exports the report gives the following illuminating figures:

"Present food prices are not to be accounted for largely on the basis of heavy exports. Exports of beef, canned, fresh, and pickled, for example, have been less for 1919 than in the previous year, the quantity amounting to 23,499,000 pounds in May, 1919, as compared with 82,787,000 pounds in May, 1918. The May figures for exports of hog products show 125,937,000 pounds in 1919, as against 201,279,000 pounds in May, 1918. The monthly exports of beef and pork show a declining tendency during the first five months of 1919, contrary to the tendency in 1918, the total amounting to 1,090,000,000 pounds in 1919, as against 1,122,000,000 pounds for the corresponding period of 1918--less than the amount of all meats in cold storage on July 1, 1919, which was 1,336,000,000 pounds."

Concerning storage the same report states that:

"Even the fact that the report of goods in cold storage shows an increase of over 9 per cent. in the quantity of all meats held on July 1, 1919 (1,336,000,000 pounds), as compared with the figures for July 1, 1918, is, though very important, not a matter of significance for any considerable period of time. Storage poultry July 1, 1919, was 48,895,704 pounds, or 181 per cent. above last year; cheese, about 25 per cent.; butter, about 75 per cent.; and eggs, about 25 per cent. above July 1 last year. There was a decrease of frozen fish of about 13 per cent. from last year. Taken in connection with the evidence of relatively abundant reserves of live animals and large crops for the current year, it would seem that some relief from high prices of food should be possible."

WHY FOOD PRICES WERE HIGH

The explanation of the post-war high prices of food is given as follows:

"It is true that food is, by comparison, plentiful. But it is also true that money or other circulating medium is unprecedently plentiful. The fact that food prices are relatively high and that the prices of chemicals, metals, lumber, etc., are relatively low, though their supply is relatively small, may be due to a concentration of purchasing power upon food, and the general direction of the flow of currency toward the purchase of immediate consumables. Some relatively minor luxuries such as jewelry (and perhaps automobiles should also be included here as the semi-luxury of greater magnitude) find favor with purchasers, but the main trend of purchase seems to bear toward demand for the necessities of life now in a finished state or nearly so, with a relatively weaker tendency toward demand of capital goods. If the supply, and also the production, of raw materials has been relatively small, and if the prices at which they have exchanged have also been relatively low, it seems obvious that the proportionate amount of currency and credit engaged in their purchase must be abnormally small, thus accounting for the ability of the producers and purveyors of food to demand abnormally high prices regardless of the relative plentifulness of their goods."

CONDITIONS FAVORABLE TO PROFITEERING

"The conditions just described are highly favorable to both speculative profiteering and wasteful distribution, through the intervention of supernumerary middlemen and caterers. In fact, the statistics published by the New York Industrial Relations Commission seem to indicate an unusually large increase of persons engaging in certain kinds of salesmanship after the armistice. It should, however, be remembered that even though it may smack of profiteering to produce a very large crop and sell it at abnormally high prices, this is a kind of profiteering which deserves unstinted praise as compared with that other species of profiteering which deliberately reduces output in the expectation that the extortionate prices which the reduced product will command may more than make up to the producer or speculator for the portion of production withheld or the percentage of hoarded goods condemned to spoil and be lost to the nation."

OTHER COMMODITIES

The price of commodities other than foodstuffs was influenced in 1919 by the inadequacy of supply and the curtailment of production. This was especially true of woolens, as stated by the Council:

"The most obvious explanation of the high prices of woolens is the glaring fact of the extreme reduction in output which ensued after the signing of the armistice and the completion of Army orders, which practically ended in January, 1919.

"The war came to an end with the supply of civilian woolens unprecedentedly low. The total quantity of wool available for civilian fabrics between April and November, 1918, was probably somewhere in the neighborhood of 75,000,000 pounds, an amount perhaps a little more than sufficient to meet the demands of normal manufacture for civilian consumption for one and one-half months.

* * * * *

"In consequence of the general situation the total consumption of wool in manufacture during first five months of the year 1919 amounted to but little more than one-half the amount consumed during the corresponding months of the previous year. The proportion of looms, 50-inch reed space and over, idle increased from 21 per cent. in November, 1918, to 52 per cent. idle in February, 1919, and these looms were still 39 per cent. idle in May, 1919. Of worsted spindles, 27 per cent. were reported idle in December, 1918, and 52 per cent. idle in March, 1919, and 26 per cent. were still idle in May. In the meantime an extraordinary number of textile workers were condemned to idleness, their productive capacity perishing day by day and week by week, while the deficiency in the supply of clothing was developing to such a point that it became possible for the wholesale index number of the prices of cloths and clothing to rise to 250 in June."

The production of cotton and cotton goods also was far below normal. To quote again from the report:

"When the war ended the world's cotton supply was understood to be below normal. The supplies of cotton goods were also reported low. The acreage planted to cotton was in 1919 approximately 9 per cent. less than for 1918. The present prospects are that the cotton crop will be small, and published articles are appearing expressing gratification over the prospectively large commercial returns which the cotton producers may be able to command because of the high prices which may be had for the reduced cotton output. The forecast of the cotton crop for 1919 is 10,900,000 bales--about 10 per cent. below that of recent years and but little over two-thirds as large as the record crop of 1914."

"OUTPUT AND MORE OUTPUT" ABANDONED

"In regard to cotton manufacture, it may be recorded that the situation is less unsatisfactory than as regards wool manufacture. In this industry, as in most of our industries, the economic watchword of war-time, which was 'Output, and more output' (the necessary condition of full prosperity in peace, as well as of success during war), was not heard after the armistice. There soon developed, on the contrary, groundless doubts about future demand, and hints of unhealthy fears of 'overproduction.'

"Notwithstanding the release of labor, if it were needed, by demobilization, and notwithstanding adequate supplies of raw cotton to meet the season's requirements and the lack of any important difficulties in the way of reconversion to peace-time products, and with low supplies of finished goods in stock, the cotton industry kept more spindles idle during the first five months of 1919 than were idle during the corresponding period for 1918. The amount of cotton consumed in the United States during the nine months ending with April, 1919, was approximately 12 per cent. less than for the corresponding nine months of 1918. The prices of cloths and clothing, as above mentioned, show in June, 1919, an increase of 150 per cent. over 1913 prices."

The boot and show industry showed a marked decline after the signing of the armistice. This, too, was borne out by the investigations of the Council.

"The production of boots and shoes for the first quarter of 1919 was reported as about 60 per cent. below the production for the last quarter of 1918. Plants were partially closed and in some cases it is reported that machinery was returned to the Shoe Machinery Co. All in all, there were 75,000,000 less pairs of shoes produced in the first quarter of 1919 than in the last quarter of 1918.

"The census report shows a reduction of more than 25 per cent. in the output of civilian men's shoes in the quarter ending with March, 1919, as compared with production in the quarter ending with December, 1918, and nearly 25 per cent. reduction as compared with the quarter ending with September, 1918. The reduction in output of women's shoes amounted to approximately 30 and 25 per cent., respectively, in comprising corresponding periods. The reduction in the output of shoes for youths, boys and misses was even more marked."

COAL AND IRON

What has been said of the production of cotton and woolen goods applied equally to the mining of coal and to the output of iron and steel. During the war we increased our coal production. In 1918 it amounted to "685,000,000 short tons, almost 50 per cent. of the world's estimated output for that year. Production for 1913 was 571,000,000 short tons." The coal situation since the armistice is stated as follows:

"Coal, the source of a vast proportion of our industrial power as well as our chief source of heat and light, is a commodity the production of which is itself an index of our economic life. Coal output since the armistice has been greatly reduced, the weekly production of anthracite for the first half of 1919 being from 1,200,000 to 1,800,000 net tons, as against 1,800,000 net tons to 3,000,000 net tons for the corresponding period of 1918. Bituminous production was 9,147,000 net tons for a typical week in 1919, as against 12,491,000 net tons for the corresponding week in 1918. Coke production for the week ending June 28, 1919, amounted to only 287,000 net tons, as compared with 627,000 net tons for the week ending June 29, 1918. The total amount of coal produced up to July 5, 1919, was 261,000,000 long tons, as compared with 364,000,000 long tons for the corresponding period of 1918."

The production of iron and steel which was greatly stimulated by the war was allowed to decline as soon as the concentrated effort of the nation to win the war was abandoned. The resulting condition is succinctly described by the Council:

"The record of our after-war steel and iron output furnishes us with another warning that we have been neglecting to keep pace with the established American rate of industrial improvement and expansion and foresighted preparation for future requirements and progress.

"The iron and steel business was considerably stimulated by war-time requirements. There was a governmental agency whose business it was to for see the war needs and to place orders so that those productive forces which are wrapped up in the steel industry might be utilized to capacity. The steel industry's activity has, however, since the armistice greatly declined. Pig-iron production for April, 1919, was 82,607 tons per day, as against 109,607 tons in April, 1918. Birmingham properties are reported to have been working in April, 1919, at about 50 per cent. of the 1918 production. For the period January to May, 1919, pig-iron production was only 2,114,000 tons, as against 3,446,000 tons during the same period in 1918. Steel-ingot production fell in the spring of 1919 to lower figures than had been reached in more than two years. In fact, a regular decline in production was in evidence after December, 1918.

"The figures representing the unfilled orders of the United States Steel Corporation at the end of May, 1919, were smaller than they had been since 1915."

RECOMMENDATIONS

The Council summarized its findings and recommends remedial measures as follows:

"The findings of the Reconstruction Research Division Council of National Defense, indicate that the high cost of living is primarily due to curtailment in the production of nearly all commodities except raw food products, to hoarding of storage food products, to profiteering, conscious and unconscious, and to inflation of circulating credit. The findings indicate that the situation may be most advantageously met by:

"1. Stimulated production.

"2. Some readjustment of incomes to the basis of higher price levels.

"3. The repression of hoarding and profiteering.

"4. Improvement and standardization of methods and facilities for distributing and marketing goods.

"5. The perfecting of means of keeping the nation frequently, promptly, and adequately informed regarding probable national requirements and of current production and stocks of the more important commodities.

"The findings emphasize the fact that high standards of living can not be maintained upon a basis of reduced production, regardless of whether price levels be high or low."

PART II

I--THE PEACE CONFERENCE AT WORK

A Vivid Account from the Inside of the Machinery Which Produced the Peace Treaty. How the Crises with Japan, Italy and Belgium Were Averted

By THOMAS W. LAMONT

Financial and Economic Adviser at Paris to the American Commission to Negotiate Peace

When we finally gain an historic perspective of the work of the Peace Conference we shall realize that, instead of being unduly delayed, it was accomplished in an astonishingly brief period. The Treaty of Vienna, back in 1815, took eleven months, and the factors to be dealt with were nothing like so numerous nor so complex. The Paris Conference occupied only about six months, and the earlier weeks were largely given over to questions relating to the renewal of the Armistice, rather than to the actual framing of the Peace Treaty. The Treaty text itself--aside from the League of Nations Covenant--was whipped through in a little over three months; for the active work of the Commissions which were to draft the various chapters did not get under way until February 1st; and the Treaty was presented to the German delegates at Versailles on May 7th.

COVENANTS "OPENLY ARRIVED AT"

No adequate history of the Peace Conference can be written until years have elapsed--until it is possible, as it is not now possible, to make public a multitude of intimate details. Hundreds of important documents were woven into the completed text of the Treaty. Such documents must eventually be made available to the chroniclers of history, who must finally have access to the official records, so that in course of time they can acquaint the world with the details of those momentous conferences which were held among the Chiefs of State, where the ultimate decisions settling every important question were made. There have been complaints that the covenants of the Treaty were not as President Wilson had promised, "openly arrived at." In point of fact, as far as lay within the bounds of possibility, the covenants of the Treaty were "openly arrived at," inasmuch as their essence was made public just as soon as an understanding upon them had been reached, and in many cases, long before the final agreement. Nothing was held back which the public had any legitimate interest in knowing. It would, of course, have been quite out of the question for the Chiefs of State to discuss in public all the highly delicate and complex situations which were bound to, and which did, arise at Paris. Every man of strong character and powerful conviction has a view of his own upon any given subject, and naturally maintains that view with vigor and tenacity--even at times, if he be bitterly opposed--with acrimony.

To take a familiar instance, it is an open secret that M. Clemenceau's first solution of the question of the Saar Basin did not at all suit President Wilson. Not unnaturally, M. Clemenceau simply wanted in effect to annex the Saar Basin, on the grounds that the Germans had destroyed the coal mines of Northern France. Mr. Wilson was in entire accord--to this extent, that France should, until her coal mines had been repaired, enjoy the entire output of the Saar coal fields; but to have France permanently annex the Basin was contrary to his profoundest convictions, as expressed in the well-known Fourteen Points.

In the course of the discussion between M. Clemenceau and Mr. Wilson, their ideas at the start being so divergent, vigorous views were undoubtedly expressed; quite possibly tart language was used, at any rate by the French Premier, who was feeling all the distress of German frightfulness and war weariness. But to what possible good end could the detail of such intimate conversations have been made public? I allude to the possible conversations on the Saar Basin not as an historical fact, but as an example of what might have taken place, and very likely did take place; and if such temporary disagreements existed on that question, undoubtedly, among so many Chiefs of State as were gathered together at Paris, they existed on others. But in all cases amicable and cordial agreements were finally reached.

Whenever agreements were even in sight, the press was informed; so that, when the Treaty of Peace and the summary of it finally came out, there were no surprises for the public. Every covenant, every clause, had been already foreshadowed and accurately pictured.

THE "BIG THREE"

Naturally, the question is often asked: Who were the peacemakers at Paris? Were they two or three powerful Chiefs of State? The answer is both "Yes" and "No." The final decision on every important matter lay in the hands of the so-called Big Four, and after Premier Orlando's defection and return to Italy, it narrowed down to the Big Triumvirate, Messrs. Wilson, Lloyd George, and Clemenceau. Yet while they made the final decisions, these were almost invariably based upon reports and opinions expressed to this trio, or to the quartet, by their advisers and experts. The actual text of the Treaty was, of course, written by the technicians, and there is hardly a phrase in the whole of it that can claim as its original author any one of the Chiefs of State. In every true sense, then, the Treaty of Peace has been the product, not of three men, not even of three-score, nor of three hundred, but of thousands; for quite aside from the official delegations at Paris, which comprised several hundred persons, we must remember that the data and the various suggested solutions on most of the questions had been canvassed at home for each delegation by large groups of office and technical experts.

Of course it sounds well to say that the Treaty was written by three men: the picture of those few Chiefs of State sitting in conference day after day is dramatic in the extreme. That is, I must confess, the picture which comes back oftenest to my mind. I see them today, as I saw them for months at Paris, sitting in that large but cosy salon in the house allotted to President Wilson on the Place des États Unis; for, by common consent, it was there that the Supreme Council finally held all its meetings. It is in that theatre, with the three or four Chiefs of State taking the leading rôles, that we saw the other characters in the great drama moving slowly on the stage, playing their parts, and then disappearing into the wings. Today it might be Paderewski, pleading with all his earnestness and sincerity, to have Danzig allotted to the sovereignty of Poland. To-morrow it might be Hymans, the Belgian Secretary for Foreign Affairs, begging that there should be a prompt realization of those pledges to Belgium, which Belgium felt had been made by all the Allies; or it might even be word brought by special aeroplane from the King of the Belgians at Brussels, with fresh and important instructions to his delegation in the matter of Reparation. Or it might be a group of the representatives of those newer nationalities, Czechoslovakia, Rumania, Jugoslavia, arguing some burning question of boundary rights. Or it might be the British shipping experts, maintaining that the captured German ships should be restored to the various Allies upon a basis dividing the ships pro rata to the losses sustained by submarines, and contending against the American claim that the United States should have all the German ships finding lodgment in American harbors. Or it might be Herbert Hoover, that brilliant American, come to describe to the Big Four starvation conditions in Vienna, and to emphasize his belief that, enemy or no enemy, those conditions must be relieved or Bolshevism would march into Austria and directly on west until it reached France--and beyond.

THE PLACE OF MEETING

The stage for this world drama was originally set at the Ministry of War, behind the Chamber of Deputies and across the Seine; and here Premier Clemenceau--who, it will be remembered, was Minister of War as well as President of the Council of French Ministers--was the presiding genius. But eventually, as the result of an interesting trend of circumstances, the all important conferences took place at President Wilson's house.

The original theatre of operations at the War Ministry had been so large, and there was such an enormous chorus brought into play, that progress was interminably slow. There were usually present all five of the plenipotentiaries of each of the five great powers, including Japan, and very frequently Marshal Foch as well. His presence automatically commanded the attendance of the chief military experts of the other delegates. With the innumerable secretaries who had to attend the plenipotentiaries, with the interpreters and whatnot, the Supreme Council came to look like a legislative chamber, in the midst of which sat Clemenceau, presiding with his usual incisiveness. At such meetings progress could be made only upon rather formal matters which had been threshed out beforehand. When it came to a point of great delicacy, where the discussions could be only on a most intimate basis, it became quite impossible to "carry on." Nobody would feel like speaking out in meeting and calling the other fellow names--as was necessary at times in order to clear the atmosphere--if there were half a hundred other people around, to hear those names, and promptly to babble them to an expectant throng outside.

So finally the Supreme Council was boiled down to the four Chiefs of State, including Japan's representative on any questions not strictly confined to Western Europe; and the small Council began to meet alternately at Clemenceau's office in the War Ministry, at Mr. Lloyd George's house, and at Mr. Wilson's, which was just around the corner from the British Premier's. Then in March, shortly after President Wilson's second coming from the United States, he fell ill with the grippe. After a rather severe attack he was able to get on his feet again and to do business, but was warned by his vigilant friend and physician, Admiral Grayson, to keep within doors for a time. Mr. Lloyd George, M. Clemenceau, and Signor Orlando were glad to accommodate themselves to Mr. Wilson's necessities, and formed the habit of meeting regularly at his house. His large salon was much better adapted for these conferences than the room at Mr. Lloyd George's. So there it was they met during all the final weeks of the Conference, leading up to the very end.

A DESCRIPTION OF THE COUNCIL CHAMBER

In the middle of the salon, facing the row of windows looking out upon the Place, was a large yet most inviting fireplace. On the left of this, a little removed from it, President Wilson usually ensconced himself on a small sofa, where he made room for some one member of his delegation, whom, for the particular subject under discussion, he desired to have most available. On the other side of the fireplace sat Mr. Lloyd George in a rather high, old-fashioned chair of carved Italian maple, and at his left sat his experts. Opposite the fireplace, to the right of it, and about half-way across the room, sat M. Clemenceau, with such of his Ministers as he needed, and then between him and President Wilson was Signor Orlando with the Italians. This made a semi-circle around the fireplace, and whenever Viscount Chinda of the Japanese delegation was present, the circle was usually enlarged so as to give him a seat in the middle of it. Behind this first semi-circle was a second one, made up of secretaries and various technical experts, but the conference was always a limited one, and was not allowed to grow so large as to become unwieldy.

Directly in front of the fireplace, almost scorching his coat-tails, sat Professor Mantou, the official interpreter for the Big Four. Mantou is a Frenchman, Professor of French in the University of London, so he had a perfect mastery of both French and English, with a good working knowledge of Italian. Mantou was quite an extraordinary character, and the most vivid interpreter I have ever heard, or rather seen; for at times he entered into the spirit of the discussions more vigorously than the original actors. M. Clemenceau, for instance, might make a quiet, moderate statement, in French, of course; and when it became Mantou's time to interpret it into English, he would enliven and embellish it with his own unique gestures.

The Secretary of the Council was Sir Maurice Hankey, a British Army officer of great skill and tact, who had a marvelous aptitude for keeping everything straight, for taking perfectly adequate, and yet not too voluminous minutes, for seeing that no topic was left in the air without further reference, and in the last analysis, for holding the Chiefs of State with their noses to the grindstone. He knew French and Italian well, and was a distinct asset to the Council. I note that, in the honors and money-grants disbursed by Parliament to Marshal Haig, Admiral Beatty and others, Hankey received £25,000. Everybody who worked with him at Paris will be glad of this just recognition. I have described this Council Chamber in the President's house rather minutely because, as I have said, it formed the stage for all of the momentous decisions which went to make up the final peace settlement. At these conferences there was no formal presiding officer, but to President Wilson was usually accorded the courtesy of acting as moderator.

HOW THE TREATY WAS COMPOUNDED

What, then, is the Treaty? The answer is that it is a human document, a compound of all the qualities possessed by human beings at their best--and at their worst. People might expect a Treaty of Peace to be a formal, legal, mechanical sort of document; and undoubtedly an effort was made by some of the drafting lawyers, who bound all the different clauses together, to throw the Treaty into the mold of formality. But all the same, it is a compound quivering with human passion--virtue, entreaty, fear, sometimes rage, and above all, I believe, justice.

The reason fear enters into the Treaty must be manifest. Take, for instance, the case of France. France had lived under the German menace for half a century. Finally the sword of Damocles had fallen, and almost one-sixth of beautiful France had been laid waste. Her farms, her factories, her villages, had been destroyed; her women ravished and led captive; her children made homeless; her men folk killed. Do we realize that almost 60 per cent. of all the French soldiers under thirty-one years of age were killed in the war? Is it any wonder France could not believe that the German menace was gone forever, and that the world would never again allow German autocracy to overwhelm her? She could not believe it, and for that reason she felt it essential that the terms of the Treaty should be so severe as to leave Germany stripped for generations of any power to wage aggression against beautiful France. If her Allies pointed out that to cripple Germany economically was to make it impossible for Germany to repair the frightful damage she had wrought in France, France would in effect reply that this might be so, but never again could she endure such a menace as had threatened her eastern border for the previous half century. If certain of the Treaty clauses appear to some minds as unduly severe, it must be remembered that the Allies, little more than France, could bear the thought of letting Germany off so easily that within a few years she might again prepare for war.

There was fear, too, on the part of those new nations, which had been largely split off from the effete and outworn Austro-Hungarian Empire, that in some way their ancient oppressors would once more gain sway over them. And, every nation, great and small, was overshadowed with the constant terror of Bolshevism,--that dread specter which seemed to be stalking, with long strides, from eastern Europe west towards the Atlantic. Unless peace were hastened that evil might overtake all the Allies. Such apprehensions as these, far more than imperial ambition or greed, were factors in the Treaty decisions. Judgments that might take many months in the ripening could not with safety be awaited.

THE PROTECTION DEMANDED BY FRANCE

France, I say, was thoroughly shocked at the frightful fate which had come upon so great a portion of her land and population. She seemed to have real fear that out of the ground, or from the sky, or from the waters of the earth, at the waving of the devil's wand, there would spring into being a fresh German army, ready to overwhelm her. It was this fear that led France to ask for a special Treaty by which England and America would pledge themselves to come to her aid in case of Germany's unprovoked attack against her. Those Americans who object to this have no conception of the real terror in France which led her to entreat her two most powerful Allies to make such a special treaty with her. France maintained, and with some reason, that during the formative period of the League of Nations, before it might become an effective instrument, if she did not have the psychological and practical protection of England and America, she must look to her own defense, and the only real defense she could conceive was to make the Rhine her eastern boundary. This suggestion of Marshal Foch, based upon sound military concept, was rejected by President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George on the theory that it would mean the annexation of German territory, would change Germany's ancient boundary line of the Rhine, and inevitably lead to future trouble.

"Very well," in effect answered M. Clemenceau, "we see your point, but if you will not allow us to fix this natural boundary for defense, then we must beg you to guarantee us by treaty your coöperation against German aggression. That coöperation you will never be called upon to render with military force, because if Germany knows you are pledged to come to our defense, that very fact will act as a complete deterrent to any aggression."

This was the sound reasoning which led President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George to agree to submit respectively to Congress and Parliament this special French Treaty; this is the reasoning which ought to lead Congress, as it has led Parliament, to ratify the French Treaty promptly. My belief is that after five years, this special Treaty will be abrogated by mutual consent, because by that time the League of Nations will be built up into such an effective instrument for the prevention of future wars, any special treaties will be deemed unnecessary.

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS COVENANT

If, in the foregoing paragraphs, I have given some idea as to how the Treaty of Peace was compounded, how it was made up of a mixture of virtue, selfishness, fear and justice, then perhaps I can proceed to describe briefly how the document was actually evolved. First, then, we deal with the drafting of the League of Nations Covenant:

The world has come to regard President Wilson as the special promoter and sponsor for the League of Nations. It is perfectly true that Mr. Wilson went to Paris with a fixed determination, above all else, to bring about some definite arrangement which would tend to prevent future wars. It is also true, however, that English statesmen had, for an even longer time than President Wilson, been giving this same subject earnest thought and study. Some of the more enlightened French statesmen, like Leon Bourgeois, had also been sketching out plans for a League of Free Nations. In England Viscount Grey of Falloden, England's really great Minister of Foreign Affairs for almost a decade prior to the war, the man who did everything that human intelligence and wisdom could devise to prevent the war, and now happily named as British Ambassador to the United States, had long worked for a League of Nations. Lord Robert Cecil, a worthy son of a noble father, was another British statesman who had given his mind to the same subject. General Smuts of South Africa, recently made Premier in succession to the late General Botha, was another. So that President Wilson, Colonel House, and the other delegates, upon their arrival in Paris, found themselves in a not uncongenial atmosphere. To be sure, on the part of Clemenceau and of course of the militarists, there was great scepticism. Nevertheless the French joined in, and early in January the Covenant for the League of Nations began to evolve. It was built up step by step, President Wilson taking a most active part in the work.

Finally the Covenant was adopted in a preliminary way and made public late in February. It was subject to amendment, and those who drafted the document welcomed amendments and urged that they be offered. An especial effort was made to secure suggestions from various Republican statesmen. No amendments, so far as I have been able to learn, were offered by any of the Republican Senators, but ex-President Taft suggested certain changes, some of which were adopted. President Lowell of Harvard contributed one or two which were taken over almost verbatim. Ex-Senator Elihu Root also made valuable suggestions, some of which were utilized in the final drafting of the Covenant, made public early in April.

ESSENCE AND SPIRIT OF THE LEAGUE

Roughly, as the situation developed, the purpose of the League of Nations became two-fold. The initial purpose, of course, was to set up the machinery for a body, representative of the nations, keeping in such close contact and guided by such general principles as would tend to make it impossible for one nation to begin war upon another. Elsewhere in this volume ex-Attorney General Wickersham has described in detail the clauses of the Covenant; but even in this brief allusion it is proper to set down the essence and spirit of the League. It is this: No two peoples, if they come to know each other and each other's motives sufficiently well, and if by certain machinery they are maintained in close personal and ideal contact, can conceivably fly at each other's throats. Now no machinery can be devised that will absolutely prevent war, but a carrying out of the spirit and principles set forth in the present Covenant ought to make war well-nigh impossible. The machinery that was thus set up at Paris was deemed at the time to be of course imperfect and subject to constant improvement.

The second purpose of the League was to act as the binder, and in a way, the administrative force of the present existing Treaty. That is to say, we found as time went on there were many situations so complex that human wisdom could not devise an immediate formula for their solution. Hence, it became necessary for the Peace Conference to establish certain machinery which, if necessary, should function over a series of years, and thus work out permanently the problems involved. Therefore, as it fell out, there were established under the Treaty, almost a score of Commissions, most of them to act under the general supervision of a League of Nations. Here, then, is another great function that the League of Nations is immediately called upon to fulfil.

WORK OF THE COMMISSIONS

With the Covenant of the League of Nations more or less complete, the next business of the Conference was the setting up of the Treaty proper. The method for this work was roughly as follows: About the first of February there was appointed a large number of special Commissions, made up of members of the various delegations. These Commissions, which were each to treat of separate topics, having arrived at a solution of the special subject, were then to draft their reports in such language that they could readily be embodied in the final Treaty of Peace itself. Thus, for instance, there was appointed a Commission on Reparations, a Commission on Economic Phases of the Treaty, a Commission on Finance, a Commission on Boundaries, a Commission on Military and Naval Armament, a Commission on German Colonies, a Commission on the Saar Basin Coal Fields, a Commission on Inland Waterways, and so on to the number of perhaps twenty. These Commissions immediately organized, and if the subject were particularly complex and many-sided, resolved themselves into sub-commissions. These sub-commissions in turn organized, each with its chairman and vice-chairman, its secretariat, and its interpreters, together with experts called into attendance.

DELAYS TO THE TREATY

The sittings of all these Commissions began, as I say, about February 1st, and at that time the plan was that the work of the Commissions should be concluded in the form of a report to the Supreme Council six weeks later, or about March 15th. The plan, further, was for the Supreme Council to pass upon these various reports, amend them if need be, and then have them drafted in such form as together would go to make up the Treaty, which, under this scheme, would be presented to the Germans on or about April 1st. The Germans would presumably sign within a fortnight, and we should all be going home about April 15th. As a matter of fact, the Germans signed the Treaty at Versailles at three o'clock on the afternoon of June 28th, two and one-half months later than the time originally planned.

This delay was, however, not at all unreasonable, if one stops to consider the number of questions involved, their magnitude, and the difficulty of dealing with them promptly. In the first place, each Commission was supposed to present the Supreme Council a unanimous report. The Council had ruled that the Commissions should not report by majority vote, for if in any given instance the majority overruled the minority, the minority might have such bitter complaint that there would be left in the situation the seed for future trouble. Therefore the Council determined that in the case of divergence of opinion in the same Commission, the two or more groups in the Commission should make separate reports to the Council, each having its own day in court. The Council would act as judges of the last resort, and no delegation would go away feeling that it had not had ample opportunity to present its case. Inevitable and sharp differences of opinion did arise, so that at least half the reports, I should say, as presented to the Big Four had to be thrashed out there in considerable detail.

The second handicap to rapid progress, of course, lay in the composition of the various Commissions. Each of the large five powers had to be represented on each Commission, and in most instances smaller powers also demanded representation. On some of the important Commissions the larger powers had two or more delegates sitting. Owing to the fact that Paris was full of influenza, each delegate had to have his alternate so as to keep the ball rolling. When they first met these delegates were not well acquainted with each other. They did not know how to get along together. It took weeks for them to shake down, so as to understand each other's methods and points of view; so as to be prepared to make the necessary give and take, certain meetings of views which are always essential where people are gathered from the four corners of the earth with a single aim, but with vastly different ideas for attaining it.

POLITICS AT THE CONFERENCE

Still another difficulty was the question of politics which could not be eliminated. It is easy enough to say, "cut out politics," but in any international gathering it is never possible to do it. I must say right here, however, that--as it seemed to me--the American delegation well-nigh attained that ideal, and be it to President Wilson's credit, I never once saw him throughout the length of the conference, "play" politics. But some of the other delegations naturally felt that at home there was a "list'ning senate" to applaud or to condemn, and many of these delegates, being members of their respective parliaments or ministries, naturally had their ear to the ground for the effect that their course at Paris was producing. Then if, at the sittings of a Commission, one delegate made a particularly eloquent speech, his fellow delegate might feel it incumbent upon him to make another equally long. Some of the delegates deemed it their duty to make an extended speech every day and seemed to feel that they were lacking in patriotism if they failed each morning to cover several pages of the record with their views.

THE DIFFICULTY OF LANGUAGE

Then the final difficulty, uniting with the other troubles to prevent rapid progress, was that of language. The Paris Conference was, of course, a regular Tower of Babel. There were two official languages--French and English. Each delegation used the language with which its delegates were most familiar, and every word uttered by those delegates had to be translated into the vernacular of the others. Not only did this interpretation consume a vast amount of time, but of course it frequently proved most unsatisfactory. Both the English and French languages are so idiomatic that the finer shades of meaning can never be well transmuted from one to the other. Hence, frequent and sometimes serious mistakes arose. For instance, a Serbian delegate who knew not a word of English would misunderstand something said by the British delegate, poorly translated into French. As the Serbian delegate's knowledge of French was also very limited he could not readily understand. So he would fly into a towering rage, and for an hour a heated argument would volley back and forth. Perhaps, at the end of that time, some cool-headed delegate (frequently an American), would point out that neither of the honorable delegates had any conception of what the other had said, and at bottom their views were precisely similar. Each of the competitors would then listen to reason, the situation would clear up, and things move on more happily.

I use here as an example a Serbian delegate, not that the Serbian delegates were more prone to passion than anybody else. We were all fighting like mad to make peace. We realized that though fundamentally we all had the same aim, yet as to methods our views were so divergent, that when we entered into conference at ten o'clock in the morning we should probably have one continuous struggle, with interludes for luncheon and dinner, until perhaps late in the evening. These struggles never ceased altogether, but as we got to know one another better, they of course let up materially, and we got on amicably and effectively.

THE COMMISSION ON REPARATIONS

No sketch of the Peace Conference, even one as cursory and superficial as this, could give any idea of the picture without a more detailed reference to the workings of some particular Commission that played an important part in the building up of the Peace Treaty. Hence I may be permitted to mention the Commission on Reparations. All things considered, this was perhaps the most important Commission at work.

The original Commission on Reparations was divided into three sub-commissions. Commission Number One was to determine upon what principles reparation should be demanded from Germany, that is to say, what items of damage should be included. In addition to physical damage inflicted by Germany upon the Allies, by reason of her aggression on land or sea, and from the air, should the cost of pensions for dead French soldiers be claimed? Was the entire cost of the war as waged by England, for instance, to be included as a charge against Germany? In other words, just what categories should be adopted in order to define Germany's liability?

This Commission Number One sat for weeks, and it was only towards the very end that it succeeded in establishing the categories. At the start there was a sharp divergence of opinion among the various delegations. The American delegation pointed out that under President Wilson's Fourteen Points costs of war would have to be excluded. The British delegation maintained otherwise. The French thought the costs of war ought to be included, but deemed the matter academic, inasmuch as Germany could never pay the total war costs. And so the argument ran.

Sub-commission Number Two on reparations had for its object to determine what Germany's capacity to pay was, and what the proper method of payment should be. Sub-commission Number Three was to devise sanctions or guarantees by which the Allies should be assured of receiving the payments finally determined upon.

For weeks I was active upon Sub-commission Number Two, and in fact was charged with the duty of drawing up the initial report covering the question of Germany's capacity to pay. Early in the deliberations of this Sub-commission it became apparent that its work was of momentous import, for whatever the Sub-commission determined as Germany's capacity to pay, undoubtedly that sum would be fixed as what Germany should be obligated to pay. Theoretically, as the French had pointed out, it did not make a great difference what categories of damage were included, because Germany would probably be unable to pay even the extent of material damage she had wrought. It was equally evident that she would be compelled by the Allies to pay to the utmost extent of her capacity. Therefore Sub-commission Number Two was in effect, naming the amount of the German "indemnity."

AN ESTIMATE OF GERMANY'S CAPACITY TO PAY

This knowledge rendered the work of the delegates on Sub-commission Number Two considerably more difficult. To estimate Germany's capacity to pay over a series of years was by no means a purely scientific matter. No banker, or economist, or financier, whatever his experience, could look far enough into the future to be able to say what Germany could or could not pay, in ten, twenty, or thirty years. The initial estimate made by one of the delegations, as representing Germany's capacity to pay, was one thousand million of francs. Another estimate was twenty-four billion sterling, about one hundred twenty billion of dollars. Now Germany's entire wealth was estimated at not over eighty billion dollars, so it was inconceivable how it could be possible, even over a series of years, for Germany to pick up her entire commonwealth and transfer it to the Allies. Most of Germany's property consists of the soil, railroads, factories, dwellings, and none of those things can be transported, none can be made available for the payment of reparation. Hence the question arose as to how much liquid wealth Germany could export year after year and still maintain her own economic life. This was the estimate upon which the British, French and American delegations wrangled pleasantly for weeks. Whenever we reached too tense a point, tea and toast was served, with jam to sweeten the atmosphere a bit, and then we would start afresh.

As a matter of fact, as we encouraged newspaper reporters to surmise, we had nearly arrived upon a basis of agreement for demanding a fixed sum from Germany. That sum would not have exceeded forty or forty-five billion dollars, with interest added. The American delegation believed it to be far sounder economically to name a fixed sum and thus limit Germany's liability, so that all nations could address themselves to a definite end and arrange their fiscal and taxation policies accordingly. But both Mr. Lloyd George and M. Clemenceau urged that public opinion in both their countries would not acquiesce in any sum that fell far below previous expectations; that, therefore, inasmuch as it was difficult anyway to arrive at once upon the exact amount of damage caused, it would be wiser to leave the amount of reparation open, to be determined by a commission which should examine into the damage sustained, and fix the total amount within two years. America's material interest in the question was so limited that President Wilson finally did not oppose Mr. Lloyd George's and M. Clemenceau's judgment. This, in brief, is the history of the Reparation clauses in the Treaty. As I have already said, if we realize that in almost every one of the other chapters similar complex courses of procedure had to be followed, we shall not be surprised at the time which the Treaty took for drafting.

THE ITALIAN CRISIS

The world is already familiar with the several crises which arose during the course of the Peace Conference. The so-called Fiume crisis, when the Italian delegation walked out and returned to Rome, was regarded as the most serious. I am not sure it was, although it was generally so considered. I believe most of Italy's warmest friends maintain that her action in going home was a mistake. The question of putting Fiume under Italian sovereignty was not covered nor even touched upon in the Treaty of London. In face, the question of Fiume arose long after the Peace Conference was under way. Signor Orlando, the Italian Premier, was accused of fostering Italian feeling on Fiume and of fanning it into flame. I believe there is no truth in this. At any rate, if the Italians had been wise, they would have prevented the matter of Fiume from becoming such a cause celèbre. I think that by judicious work they could have prevented it. Then, too, probably the difficulty would have been lessened if President Wilson's statement to the Italian people had previously met Signor Orlando's approval. Mr. Wilson made his statement with the best will in the world, with the intent to allay and not inflame Italian public opinion. It should have been possible to coördinate his idealism with Signor Orlando's position.

Later on the Italian delegation returned to Paris, realizing that the question of Fiume, which was formerly an Austrian port, did not bear one way or another upon the Treaty with Germany. But the Italians had lost a certain tactical position which was important to them, and in my judgment the move cost Italy much more than the whole question of Fiume amounted to.

THE QUESTION OF SHANTUNG

The Shantung crisis was another serious one. It was so realized at the time by the conferees at Paris. The Japanese delegation considered that it had already suffered one or two rebuffs. Their clause to embody race equality in the League of Nations Covenant had not been accepted. They, as the leading Far Eastern Power, were being urged to take an active part in the organization and development of the League of Nations, yet they could see nothing for Japan in the idea except a chance to help the other fellow. It was at this time that the Treaty clause was being drafted covering the disposition of German rights in the Far East, including those on the Shantung Peninsula. It will be remembered that at the outbreak of the war Germany, by reason of treaty rights with China, had possession of Kiauchau, upon the neck of the Shantung Peninsula. Back in 1916, at a time when the war was going badly, after Japan had driven the Germans out of the Far East and had prevented German submarines from getting a base there to prey upon British troop ships from Australia, Japan had demanded from England and France that she become the inheritor of whatever rights Germany had in Shantung. England and France readily granted this request, as America probably would have done if she had been in the war at the time. Later on, according to the record, China confirmed Japan in these rights.

President Wilson's idea, however, was "China for Chinamen"; therefore Shantung should be turned over to China. This was a proper point of view. It was a great pity that it could not be made to prevail. The difficulty, however, was two-fold: first, the agreement which I have just cited between England and France on one hand, and Japan on the other; second, Japan's statement to President Wilson that if he began his League of Nations by forcing England and France to break a solemn agreement with Japan, then Japan would have no use for such a faithless confederation and would promptly withdraw. At the same time, however, Japan reiterated that her inheritance of Shantung was largely a formal matter, and that if the Allies gave her that recognition, she would feel in honor bound to withdraw from Shantung in the near future. This statement, made repeatedly by the Japanese delegates to President Wilson, finally led him to refrain from forcing Great Britain and France to break their agreement, as he might perhaps otherwise have done. The climax, of course, came when Japan gave her ultimatum and said that unless she had her rights she would retire from the Conference.

DEMANDS OF BELGIUM

Then came the third and last crisis--the Belgians threatened to withdraw and go home. They had, as they claimed, been promised by their Allies, as well as by their enemies, including specifically Germany, that their country, trampled over and devastated in order to defend France and England from attack, was to be fully restored and reimbursed for its expenditures. Early in the Conference Colonel House projected a plan to Mr. Balfour of the British delegation and Mr. Klotz of the French delegation, granting Belgium a priority of $500,000,000 on the German reparation, this sum being sufficient to set Belgium well on her way to recovery. There was, however, great delay in getting the final assent to this priority. The American delegation worked hard to bring it about and to push the plan on every occasion, but it still hung fire.

The Belgian delegation, finally becoming alarmed, insisted on formally taking up the question with the Council of Four. The Belgian delegation, under the leadership of Mr. Hymans, Minister of Foreign Affairs, made two chief demands, one for the priority already mentioned, and one for reimbursement for what the war had cost her. To this latter item there was vigorous objection on the ground that it was inadmissible to provide for Belgium's "costs of war" and not for those of England, France, Italy and the other Allies. As a compromise to meet the situation, a formula was finally proposed in a phrase to the effect that Germany was to be obligated especially "to reimburse Belgium for all the sums borrowed by Belgium from the Allies as a necessary consequence of the violation of the Treaty of 1839." Inasmuch as all such sums borrowed by Belgium were used for the prosecution of the war, this phrase was simply a euphemism for granting to Belgium the war costs which she had demanded. But it was finally agreed to on all hands, and the crisis was averted.

THE TREATY PRESENTED TO THE GERMANS AT VERSAILLES

The Treaty in its final form was presented to the Germans at Versailles May 7th. The Germans were hoping they would be permitted to discuss certain phases of the Treaty in person with the Allied delegates, and in fact repeatedly requested the opportunity. Some of us believed such conversations might be advantageous if they were held; not between the chiefs of the Allied states and the heads of the German delegation, but between technical experts on both sides. Mr. Wilson favored this view, as tending to enlighten the Germans on certain phases of the Treaty, which from their written communications it was evident they did not understand. We thought that some weeks of delay might possibly be averted by sitting around the table with the Germans, distasteful as that task might be, and holding a kind of miniature peace conference. This suggestion, however, was strongly opposed by M. Clemenceau, although it was favored by some of his ministers. In fact, some of the latter, as well as many of the British, were for a time convinced that the terms of the Treaty were such that Germany would never sign them. Again and again Clemenceau was urged to give way on this point, but he sturdily opposed the view and declared positively that he knew the German character; that the only way to secure a German signature to the Treaty was to insist upon purely formal and written communications. Clemenceau had his way, and then began the laying of a good many wagers as to whether the Germans would sign. This was after the original German delegation, or at least the chiefs of it, had returned to Berlin and declared that they would not come back again to Versailles. My own opinion was, that after making as great a kick as possible the Germans would undoubtedly sign. The logic of the situation was all for their signing, the reasoning being this: If the Treaty were a just Treaty, then they ought to sign any way; if it were an unjust Treaty, then, even if signed, it would eventually fall of its own weight, and the Germans would run no risk in signing it. I felt that the German psychology of the situation would be acute enough to see these points and to lead to a signature.

GERMANY SIGNS THE TREATY

This proved to be the case, and on Saturday, the 21st of June, after questionings and misgivings, we finally got the word that the Germans were to sign. I shall never forget the moment that the news came. Some of us were in session with the Council of Four at the President's house. Mr. Wilson sat on the right of the fireplace, Mr. Lloyd George on the left, and M. Clemenceau in the middle. Mr. Orlando was in Italy but his foreign minister, Baron Sonnino, was there in his place. The afternoon was a tense one, for the time was growing short and the Germans had, as I say, not yet signified their intention of signing the treaty. In the mind of every one of us there lurked the question as to the terrible steps that would have to be taken in the event the Germans refused to sign. Late in the afternoon an orderly slipped into the room and whispered into M. Clemenceau's ear. He struggled to his feet, marched up to President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George, and, drawing himself up, said in solemn tones, "I have the honor to announce to you that the Germans will sign the treaty."

And then a moment later the cannon boomed forth to the expectant populace the news that the Germans would sign, and M. Clemenceau, turning to me, breathed: "Ah, that is the sound that I have been waiting to hear for forty-eight years."

II--WILSON'S FOURTEEN POINTS

An Attempt to Raise International Morality to the Level of Private Morality

On January 8, 1918, President Wilson outlined the fourteen points on the basis of which the Allies should make peace. This program was the startling climax of a whole series of peace proposals which had kept coming from both camps of belligerents, from neutrals, Socialists, and the Pope. It is without doubt one of the greatest and most inspiring State documents in the history of the world. It struck a vital and telling blow at the basic causes of modern wars. For that reason it electrified into complete unity the masses of the Allied countries. Liberal, radical and pacifist opponents of the war rallied around it as the last great hope of civilization. Its most important effect was to give a democratic basis to the weary and disillusioned masses of the Central Powers who were longing for peace. It was on the basis of the fourteen points that the enemy surrendered.

THE WILSON PROGRAM

We entered this war because violations of right had occurred which touched us to the quick and made the life of our own people impossible unless they were corrected and the world secured once for all against their recurrence. What we demand in this war, therefore, is nothing peculiar to ourselves. It is that the world be made fit and safe to live in; and particularly that it be made safe for every peace-loving nation which, like our own, wishes to live its own life, determine its own institutions, be assured of justice and fair dealings by the other peoples of the world, as against force and selfish aggression. All the peoples of the world are in effect partners in this interest and for our own part we see very clearly that unless justice be done to others it will not be done to us. The programme of the world's peace, therefore, is our programme, and that programme, the only possible programme, as we see it, is this:

I. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.

II. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas, outside territorial waters, alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.

III. The removal, as far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.

IV. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with domestic safety.

V. A free, open minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims, based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.

VI. The evacuation of Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest coöperation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing; and, more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.

VII. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and demanded for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

VIII. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

IX. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

X. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.

XI. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated; occupied territories restored; Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea, and the relations of the several Balkan States to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality, and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and territorial integrity of the several Balkan States should be entered into.

XII. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman Empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.

XIII. An independent Polish State should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish population, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.

XIV. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small States alike.

III--HOW THE PEACE TREATY WAS SIGNED

A Description of the Historic Ceremony in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles, June 8, 1919

(Reprinted from the New York Times.)

No nobler and more eloquent setting could have been found for this greatest of all modern events, the signing of the Peace of Versailles, after five years of terrific struggle on whose outcome the fate of the whole world had hung, than the palace of the greatest of French Kings on the hillcrest of the Paris suburb that gave its name to the treaty. To reach it, says the correspondent of The New York Times, the plenipotentiaries and distinguished guests from all parts of the world motored to Versailles that day, and drove down the magnificent tree-lined Avenue du Château, then across the huge square--the famous Place d'Armes of Versailles--and up through the gates and over the cobblestones of the Court of Honor to the entrance, where officers of the Republican Guard, whose creation dates back to the French Revolution, in picturesque uniform, were drawn up to receive them.

All day the crowd had been gathering. It was a cloudy day; not till noon did the sky clear. By noon eleven regiments of French cavalry and infantry had taken position along the approaches to the palace, while within the court on either side solid lines of infantry in horizon blue were drawn up at attention.

Hours before the time set for the ceremony an endless stream of automobiles began moving out of Paris up the cannon-lined hill of the Champs Elysées, past the massive Arc de Triomphe, bulking somberly against the leaden sky, and out through the Bois de Boulogne. This whole thoroughfare was kept clear by pickets, dragoons, and mounted gendarmes. In the meantime thousands of Parisians were packing regular and special trains on all the lines leading to Versailles, and contending with residents of the town for places in the vast park where the famous fountains would rise in white fleur-de-lis to mark the end of the ceremony.

A MEMORABLE SCENE

Past the line of gendarmes thrown across the approaches to the square reserved for ticket holders, the crowd surged in a compact and irresistible wave, while hundreds of the more fortunate ones took up positions in the high windows of every wing of the palace. Up the broad boulevard of the Avenue de Paris the endless chain of motor cars rolled between rows of French soldiers; and a guard of honor at the end of the big court presented arms to the plenipotentiaries and delegates as they drove through to the entrance, which for the Allied delegates only was by the marble stairway to the "Queen's Apartments" and the Hall of Peace, giving access to the Hall of Mirrors. A separate route of entry was prescribed for the Germans, an arrangement which angered and disconcerted them when they discovered it, through the park and up the marble stairway through the ground floor.

The delegates and plenipotentiaries began to arrive shortly after 2 p. m., their automobiles rolling between double lines of infantry with bayonets fixed--it was estimated that there were 20,000 soldiers altogether guarding the route--that held back the cheering throngs. The scene from the Court of Honor was impressive. The Place d'Armes was a lake of white faces, dappled everywhere by the bright colors of flags and fringed with the horizon blue of troops whose bayonets flamed silverly as the sun emerged for a moment from behind heavy clouds. At least a dozen airplanes wheeled and curvetted above.

Up that triumphal passage, leading for a full quarter of a mile from the wings of the palace to the entrance to the Hall of Mirrors, representatives of the victorious nations passed in flag-decked limousines--hundreds, one after another, without intermission, for fifty minutes. Just inside the golden gates, which were flung wide, they passed the big bronze statue of Louis XIV., the "Sun-King," on horseback, flanked by statues of the Princes and Governors, Admirals and Generals who had made Louis the Grand Monarque of France. And on the façade of the twin, temple-like structures on either side of the great statue they could read as they passed an inscription symbolic of the historic ceremony just about to occur: "To All the Glories of France."

NOTABILITIES ARRIVE

One of the earliest to arrive was Marshal Foch, amid a torrent of cheering, which burst out even louder a few moments later when the massive head of Premier Clemenceau was seen through the windows of a French military car. To these and other leaders, including President Wilson, General Pershing, and Premier Lloyd George, the troops drawn up all around the courtyard presented arms. After Clemenceau the unique procession continued, diplomats, soldiers, Princes of India in gorgeous turbans and swarthy faces, dapper Japanese in immaculate Western dress, Admirals, aviators, Arabs; one caught a glimpse of the bright colors of French, British, and Colonial uniforms. British Tommies and American doughboys also dashed up on crowded camions, representing the blood and sweat of the hard-fought victory; they got an enthusiastic reception. It was 2:45 when Mr. Balfour, bowing and smiling, heralded the arrival of the British delegates. Mr. Lloyd George was just behind him, for once wearing the conventional high hat instead of his usual felt. At 2:50 came President Wilson in a black limousine with his flag, a white eagle on a dark blue ground; he received a hearty welcome.

By 3 o'clock the last contingent had arrived, and the broad ribbon road stretched empty between the lines of troops from the gates of the palace courtyard. The Germans had already entered; to avoid any unpleasant incident they had been quietly conveyed from their lodgings at the Hotel des Reservoirs Annex through the park.

THE SCENE INSIDE

The final scene in the great drama was enacted in the magnificent Hall of Mirrors. Versailles contains no more splendid chamber than this royal hall, whose three hundred mirrors gleam from every wall, whose vaulted and frescoed ceiling looms dark and high, in whose vastness the footfalls of the passer re-echo over marble floors and die away reverberatingly. It was no mere matter of convenience or accident that the Germans were brought to sign the Peace Treaty in this hall. For this same hall, which saw the German peace delegates of 1919, representing a beaten and prostrate Germany, affix their signatures to the Allied terms of peace, had witnessed in the year 1871 a very different ceremony. It was in the Hall of Mirrors that the German Empire was born. Forty-nine years ago, on a January morning, while the forts of beleaguered Paris were firing their last defiant shots, in that mirror-gleaming hall was inaugurated the reign of that German Empire the virtual end of which, so far as the concept held by its originators is concerned, was signalized in Versailles in the same spot on Saturday, June 28. And in 1871 President Thiers had signed there the crushing terms of defeat imposed by a victorious and ruthless Germany.

In anticipation of the present ceremony carpets had been laid and the ornamental table, with its eighteenth century gilt and bronze decorations, had been placed in position on the daïs where the plenipotentiaries were seated. Fronting the chair of M. Clemenceau was placed a small table, on which the diplomatic instruments were laid. It was to this table that each representative was called, in alphabetical order by countries, to sign his name to the treaty and affix to it his Governmental seal. The four hundred or more invited guests were given places in the left wing of the Hall of Mirrors, while the right wing was occupied by about the same number of press representatives. Sixty seats were allotted to the French press alone. Besides the military guards outside the palace, the grand stairway up which the delegates came to enter the hall was controlled by the Republican Guards in their most brilliant gala uniform.

THE PEACE TABLE

The peace table--a huge hollow rectangle with its open side facing the windows in the hall--was spread with tawny yellow coverings blending with the rich browns, blues, and yellows of the antique hangings and rugs; these, and the mellow tints of the historical paintings, depicting scenes from France's ancient wars, in the arched roof of the long hall, lent bright dashes of color to an otherwise austere scene. Against the sombre background also stood out the brilliant uniforms of a few French guards, in red plumed silver helmets and red, white, and blue uniforms, and a group of Allied Generals, including General Pershing, who wore the scarlet sash of the Legion of Honor.

But all the diplomats and members of the parties who attended the ceremony of signing wore conventional civilian clothes. All gold lace and pageantry was eschewed, the fanciful garb of the Middle Ages was completely absent as representative of traditions and practices sternly condemned in the great bound treaty-volume of Japanese paper, covered with seals and printed in French and English, which was signed by twenty-seven nations that afternoon.

As a contrast with the Franco-German peace session of 1871, held in the same hall, there were present some grizzled French veterans of the Franco-Prussian war. They took the place of the Prussian guardsmen of the previous ceremony, and gazed with a species of grim satisfaction at the disciples of Bismarck, who sat this time in the seats of the lowly, while the white marble statue of Minerva looked stonily on.

ENTRANCE OF CHIEF ACTORS

The ceremony of signing was marked only by three minor incidents: a protest by the German delegation at the eleventh hour over the provision of separate entrance, the filing of a document of protest by General Jan Smuts of the South African delegation, and the deliberate absence of the Chinese delegates from the ceremony, due to dissatisfaction over the concessions granted to Japan in Shantung.

The treaty was deposited on the table at 2:10 p.m. by William Martin of the French Foreign Office; it was inclosed in a stamped leather case, and bulked large. Because of the size of the volume and the fragile seals it bore, the plan to present it for signing to Premier Clemenceau, President Wilson, and Premier Lloyd George had been given up. A box of old-fashioned goose quills, sharpened by the expert pen pointer of the French Foreign Office, was placed on each of the three tables for the use of plenipotentiaries who desired to observe the conventional formalities.

Secretary Lansing, meanwhile, had been the first of the American delegation to arrive in the palace--at 1:45 p.m. Premier Clemenceau entered at 2:20. Three detachments each consisting of fifteen private soldiers--from the American, British, and French forces--just before 3 o'clock and took their places in the embrasures of the windows overlooking the château park, a few feet from Marshal Foch, who was seated with the French delegation at the peace table. Marshal Foch was present only as a spectator, and did not participate in the signing. These forty-five soldiers of the three main belligerent nations were present as the real "artisans of peace" and stood within the inclosure reserved for plenipotentiaries and high officials of the conference as a visible sign of their rôle in bringing into being a new Europe. These men had been selected from those who bore honorable wounds. Premier Clemenceau stepped up to the poilus of the French detachment and shook the hand of each, expressing his pleasure at seeing them, and his regrets for the suffering they had endured for France.

PRESIDENT WILSON ENTERS

Delegates of the minor powers made their way with difficulty through the crowd to their places at the table. Officers and civilians lined the walls and filled the aisles. President Wilson entered the Hall of Mirrors at 2:50. All the Allied delegates were then seated, except the Chinese representatives, who were conspicuous by their absence. The difficulty of seeing well militated against demonstrations on the arrival of prominent statesmen. The crowd refused to be seated and thronged toward the center of the hall, which is so long that a good view was impossible from any distance, even with the aid of opera glasses. German correspondents were ushered into the hall just before 3 o'clock and took standing room in a window at the rear of the correspondents' section.

At 3 o'clock a hush fell over the hall. There were a few moments of disorder while the officials and the crowd took their places. At 3:07 the German delegates, Dr. Hermann Müller, German Secretary for Foreign Affairs, and Dr. Johannes Bell, Colonial Secretary, were shown into the hall; with heads held high they took their seats. The other delegates remained seated, according to a prearranged plan reminiscent of the discourtesy displayed by von Brockdorff-Rantzau, who at the ceremony of delivery of the peace treaty on May 7th, had refused to rise to read his address to the Allied delegates. The seats of the German delegates touched elbows with the Japanese on the right and the Brazilians on the left. They were thus on the side nearest the entrance, and the program required them to depart by a separate exit before the other delegates at the close of the ceremony. Delegates from Ecuador, Peru, and Liberia faced them across the narrow table.

THE GERMANS SIGN

M. Clemenceau, as President of the Peace Conference, opened the ceremony. Rising, he made the following brief address, amid dead silence:

"The session is open. The allied and associated powers on one side and the German Reich on the other side have come to an agreement on the conditions of peace. The text has been completed, drafted, and the President of the Conference has stated in writing that the text that is about to be signed now is identical with the 200 copies that have been delivered to the German delegation. The signatures will be given now, and they amount to a solemn undertaking faithfully and loyally to execute the conditions embodied by this treaty of peace. I now invite the delegates of the German Reich to sign the treaty.'

There was a tense pause for a moment. Then in response to M. Clemenceau's bidding the German delegates rose without a word, and, escorted by William Martin, master of ceremonies, moved to the signatory table, where they placed upon the treaty the sign-manuals which German Government leaders had declared over and over again, with emphasis and anger, would never be appended to this treaty. They also signed a protocol covering changes in the documents, and the Polish undertaking. All three documents were similarly signed by the Allied delegates who followed.

WILSON SIGNS NEXT

When the German delegates regained their seats after signing, President Wilson immediately rose and, followed by the other American plenipotentiaries, moved around the sides of the horseshoe to the signature tables. It was thus President Wilson, and not M. Clemenceau, who was first of the Allied delegates to sign. This, however, was purely what may be called an alphabetical honor, in accordance with which the nations were named in the prologue to the treaty. Premier Lloyd George, with the British delegation, came next. The British dominions followed. M. Clemenceau with the French delegates, was next in line; then came Baron Saionji and the other Japanese delegates, and they in turn were followed by the representatives of the smaller powers.

During the attaching of the signatures of the great powers and the Germans a battery of moving picture cameras clicked away so audibly that they could be heard above the general noise and disorder of the throng. The close of the ceremony came so quickly and quietly that it was scarcely noticed until it was all over. M. Clemenceau arose almost unremarked, and in a voice half lost amid the confusion and the hum of conversation which had sprung up while the minor powers were signing declared the conference closed, and asked the Allied and associated delegates to remain in their seats for a few moments--this to permit the German plenipotentiaries to leave the building before the general exodus.

THE GERMANS DEPART

None arose as the Germans filed out, accompanied by their suite of secretaries and interpreters, just as all the plenipotentiaries had kept their seats when Dr. Müller and Dr. Bell entered. The Germans went forth evidently suffering strong emotion. Outside an unsympathetic crowd jammed close to the cars which took them away. There was no aggression, but the sentiment of the throng was unmistakable.

Meanwhile the great guns that announced the closing of the ceremony were booming, and their concussion shook the old palace of Versailles to its foundations. Amid confusion the assembly dispersed, and the most momentous ceremony of the epoch was at an end.

The great war which for five long years had shaken Europe and the world was formally ended at last. It was a war which had cost the belligerents over $200,000,000,000; which had caused the deaths of 8,000,000 human beings, and which had left the world a post-war burden of debt amounting to $135,000,000,000. It was a war which had changed the whole face of Europe, which had brought many new nations into existence, which had revolutionized the organization of all national and international life. It was a war which had brought the world the consciousness of its common obligation to unite against all war. The booming of the great guns of Versailles seemed to proclaim a new epoch.

IV--THE PEACE TREATY--ITS MEANING TO AMERICA

America's "Place in the Sun" Due to Her Efforts to Secure a Just Peace

By GEORGE W. WICKERSHAM

Formerly Attorney-General of the United States.

"The cause of our entrance into the great war," declares Dr. David Jayne Hill in a recent essay, "being the violation by the German Imperial Government of our legal rights as a nation, our object in the war was to make our rights respected. The one clear duty of the treaty-making power in concluding peace with Germany, therefore, is to secure this result."[25]

[25] "Americanizing the Treaty."--North American Review, August, 1919.

In these words, one of the most distinguished and accomplished of the opponents of the treaty of Paris reveals the profound abyss which separates those who oppose from those who are urging the approval of the Treaty of Versailles. Dr. Hill, perhaps unconsciously, gives expression to a sordid, narrow, selfish view of the issues of the war, which would transmute into the most elemental act of self-defense one of the greatest crusades of high idealism ever conducted by any people in the history of nations. If, in fact, the cause of our participation in the war was merely to repel attacks upon our legal rights as a nation, then indeed, that end being attained, and the aggressor reduced to impotence for the future, we may return within our own borders, withdraw unto ourselves, disclaim all responsibility for the condition of the world elsewhere and plunge into the selfish exploitation of our national resources, "the world forgetting, by the world forgot." It is a strange perversion of the facts of recent history that leads to such a conception of America's responsibility for the future of civilization.

There were undoubtedly, as Mr. Wilson said, "violations of right which touched us to the quick." Was it merely violations of our own national rights that roused this peace-loving nation to array itself for battle; that sent two million of our young men across three thousand miles of ocean to take their places beside the heroes of Verdun and the Marne, the veterans of Cambrai and Arras, Ypres and the Somme; infused the weary defenders of civilization with new courage; converted their defense into an irresistible offensive which shattered the greatest military machine of history, overthrew the Kaiser and his government, and brought the German nation to its knees? No! It was not the German attacks upon our rights as a nation; it was the German challenge of the whole basis of modern Christian civilization. It was her cynical disclaimer of the binding character of treaties; her inhuman method of warfare; her brutal cruelties of non-combatant men, women and children; her ruthless destruction of monuments of art--the possessions of not merely one nation, but of the entire world of men and women in every land who love beauty and revere art. It was the growing conviction that a government which ordered the sinking of the Lusitania and the Sussex; that destroyed the priceless literary treasures of Louvain; that separated families in Belgium and France, and deported great companies of men to work in German munition factories; that ruthlessly cut up by the roots the fruit trees and shrubs of the occupied regions of France; that sought to destroy not merely the men, but the souls of nations, so that its own horrid philosophy of Force might reign over them--that such a government must no longer exist; that its pestilential influence was more noxious than tuberculosis or the bubonic plague.

THE BASIS OF PEACE

Therefore, the Youth of America joyously leaped to arms and crowded overseas in the greatest of all crusades, insuring victory and promising the opening of a new and better epoch of human history. It was the recognition of human kinship; the perception of human brotherhood, that inspired them to the great endeavor. Our proud sense of American nationality took on a deeper and holier significance as we joined forces with the older peoples in defense of the great principles of human right which had been formulated by our fathers and upon which was reared the American State. We were no less Americans that we had accepted a common responsibility with Great Britain, France and Italy for the preservation of the ideals of human freedom for which Washington fought and Lincoln died. Nay! better Americans, as we realized that the war was being fought in defense of those principles upon which our own institutions were founded and by which we had become the great, strong, free nation we are.

And as the hideous carnage went on, and we saw a whole generation of the youth of the free nations of Europe butchered because the German people had become so obsessed with their own sense of superiority that they were determined to rule the world and impose upon all other peoples subservience to their Moloch-like gospel of efficiency, another feeling began to struggle for expression in Europe and America alike--a determination that all wars of aggression must cease; that disputes between nations must be settled like those between individuals, by peaceful arbitration or conciliation; that the causes of war must be examined and, so far as possible, removed, and that no such war as this ever again should desolate the earth. This was the meaning of the phrase one came to hear on many lips, that it was "a war against war." How could such a result be attained? Obviously, only by the continued association in peace of those powers whose close coöperation in war was compelling the overthrow of German militarism, and the widening of that association to include all the other nations who should accept its program and give an earnest of adherence to its ideals. There was also the hope that some time--when they should have offered up that ancient sacrifice, "an humble and a contrite heart"--even the German people, enfranchised and regenerated, might be admitted into the society of Free Peoples and with new significance become entitled to be called a civilized nation.

These were the principles that underlay Mr. Wilson's program of peace--the fourteen points of January 8, 1918, and subsequent addresses; the only definite formulation of the basis of peace which was laid before the world, a program concerning which the American Congress expressed no definite criticism and for which it offered no substitute; a program which was accepted by Allies and opponents alike, and which constituted the Chart by which the Conference of Paris was required to endeavor to formulate the terms of the Treaty of Peace.

The work of that Conference now has been submitted to the judgment of mankind. It was accepted by the new government of Germany with a wry face, as the judgment of the victors naturally would be taken by the vanquished. It has been ratified by the Parliament of Great Britain, by Italy, by France and by Japan. It has been for weeks under debate in the Senate of the United States. Daily efforts have been made to create a partisan political issue over it, and to visit upon it party resentment against the past actions of the President.[26]

[26] This article by Mr. Wickersham was prepared prior to the Senate deadlock and the rejection of the Treaty with the Lodge reservations.

Dr. Hill again sums up the case against the treaty--the final basis which the confused gropings after some means of making it unpopular with the people finally have evolved--in these words:

"The League of Nations, as proposed, includes not only obligations not related to the reasons for engaging in the war, but also obligations opposed to the traditions, the time-honored policies, and even the constitutional provisions of the United States. It commits the whole future policy of this country to the decisions of an international body in which it would have only a single voice; it permits that body to intrude its judgments, and thereby its policies into a sphere hitherto regarded as exclusively American, and, in addition, it demands that the territories held by each of the members of the League under this treaty shall receive the permanent protection of the United States as integral parts of the Nations that now claim them."

Is it true? What is the real meaning of the Peace Treaty and its effect upon the people of the United States? The answer to these questions, and indeed to most of the criticism of the Covenant, is conclusively met by a reading of the treaty. But first let us turn for a moment to the fourteen points of Mr. Wilson's address of January 8, 1918. The basis of the territorial readjustment of Europe which he then proposed, was the giving of national expression to racial aspiration. Alien imperial rule such as that of Austria over Hungary and Bohemia, and that of Germany, Austria or Russia over Poland, was to end, and the Poles, the Croats, Serbs, Hungarians, Bohemians, and the Czechoslavs and Jugoslavs each were to be allowed national existence, with the right of self-determination. Whatever may now be thought of the wisdom of this theory, it was accepted by all of the Allies, who thereby were committed to a responsibility for the protection, certainly in the early years of their existence, of the new nations they united to call into being. Recognizing this fact, the fourteenth of the Wilson points provided for the creation of an Association of the Allied Nations to protect the work of their arms. Aside from that practical purpose, the League of Nations was recognized by many in every land as furnishing the only practicable machinery for the removal of causes of war and the prevention of new assaults upon civilization, such as that which Germany had launched in August, 1914.

The first Chapter of the Peace Treaty, therefore, is a Covenant or Compact forming a League of Nations, whose purpose, as expressed in the Preamble, is "to promote international coöperation and to achieve international peace and security." Worthy objects, these: how are they to be attained? The Preamble answers,

"by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war, by the prescription of open, just and honorable relations between nations, by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as to actual rule of conduct among governments, and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations in the dealings of organized peoples with one another."

Are not these methods such as America has made her own? Have we not in many treaties accepted obligations not to make war until all peaceful methods of settling disputes shall have been exhausted; have we not striven to make the principles of international law rules for the government of nations; and was not one of the main points in the indictment of Germany on which we prosecuted the war against her that she had flouted the sanctity of treaties and made them mere scraps of paper?

The objects of the League therefore, as set forth in the Covenant, are expressive only of policies and principles to which the United States has given a consistent and unbroken adherence from the days of the Jay Treaty to the present hour. How are these objects proposed to be attained in the text of the Covenant? What is there in its provisions to justify the frantic abuse that has been heaped upon it by its opponents and to sustain the final accusation that it is "un-American?"

MACHINERY OF THE LEAGUE

First, as to the Machinery of the League. There is an Assembly of its members to which each Sovereign State may send delegates. There is an Assembly of its members to which each nation necessarily has one vote. In the United States Senate, Rhode Island and New York have equal representation, despite disparity in wealth and population. The principle of sovereignty requires this recognition of equality. But the powers of the Assembly are restricted to voting upon the admission of new members to the League, the addition of members to the Council, the disposition of international disputes which may be referred to it by the Council under Article XV, and the general consideration at its meetings of "any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world." This general authority only can embrace the right of discussion, save in very exceptional cases, as by Article V, "decisions at any meeting of the Assembly or of the Council shall require the agreement of all the members of the League represented at the meeting."

The actual governing body of the League is the Council, which is to consist of representatives of the five greater powers,--the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy and Japan, together with representatives of four other members of the League selected by the Assembly from time to time. These numbers may be increased, but only by the unanimous vote of the Council, approved by a majority of the Assembly.

As noted above, save in the very few expressly expected cases, the Council can reach decisions only by unanimous vote. What are to be its functions? They need not be enumerated in detail here. Briefly, they deal with the reduction of armaments, the control by governments of the private manufacture of munitions and implements of war, the consideration of any war or threat of war--"of any circumstance whatever affecting international relations which threatens to disturb either the peace or the good understanding between nations upon which peace depends." They require the formulation and submission to the members of the League for adoption of plans for the establishment of a permanent Court of International Justice. They empower the Council to endeavor to effect a settlement of any international dispute which shall not be submitted to arbitration by the parties; to investigate, consider and report upon any such dispute, and to publish its conclusions.

The parties to the League solemnly covenant and agree that if any dispute shall arise between them likely to lead to a rupture they will submit it either to arbitration or inquiry by the Council, and that in no case will they resort to war until three months after the award by the arbitrators or the report by the Council. They agree also to carry out in good faith any award that may be rendered, and not to make war against any member of the League that complies therewith. If a report by the Council is unanimously agreed to by its members, other than the representatives of the disputants, the members agree not to go to war with any party to the dispute which complies with the recommendations of the report.

OBJECTIONS TO THE PLAN

It is objected by some that the decision of questions between nations by these provisions is left to a body of delegates composing the Council who are not bound to decide according to rules of international law, but may reach conclusions merely as political expediency. This seems a strained interpretation. The members of the League agree to submit either (1) to arbitration or (2) to investigation by the Council, every dispute which may arise between them likely to lead to a rupture and in no case to resort to war until three months after the award by arbitrators or the report by the Council. They declare (by Article XIII)

"Disputes as to the interpretation of a treaty, as to any question of international law, as to the existence of any fact which, if established, would constitute a breach of any international obligation, or as to the extent and nature of the reparation to be made for any such breach," to be among those which are generally suitable for submission to arbitration. Disputes of the character thus enumerated are what are known as justiciable, i. e., subject to be decided by a Court by the application of the recognized principles of international law.

Mr. Root recommended that such disputes should be required to be arbitrated. The Conference at Paris, like those at the two Hague Conferences, would not agree to that. But in view of the declaration just quoted, any power which should bring before the Council a dispute of the character mentioned, but which it was unwilling to submit to arbitration, would have the burden of showing convincing reason for such attitude.

When the first draft of the Covenant was before the country, American critics objected that it would compel the United States to submit to arbitration on inquiry by the Council purely domestic questions such as tariff, immigration and coastwise traffic. To meet this objection, there was inserted in Art. XV the following paragraph:

"If the dispute between the parties is claimed by one of them, and is found by the Council to arise out of a matter which by international law is solely within the domestic jurisdiction of that party, the Council shall so report, and shall make no recommendation as to its settlement."

To this it is objected that the determination of the question whether or not a matter of dispute is by the rules of international law solely with the domestic jurisdiction of a member is left to the Council and not to the member. Surely, it requires no explanation to demonstrate, that if a member State may oust the Council of jurisdiction to inquire into a given dispute which threatens the peace of the world merely by itself asserting that it arises out of a matter within its exclusive domestic jurisdiction, a very imperfect means of averting war will have been provided, and the League Covenant will hardly have more efficacy than the second Hague Convention. Remember too, that the reports of the Council must be unanimous, and the unreasonableness of the objection to the provisions cited will appear.

MEANS TO PREVENT WAR

Articles XI to XVI constitute the heart of the Covenant, the most effective means ever formulated to prevent war. The agreements of the nations not to resort to war until the processes of arbitration or inquiry are exhausted, are buttressed by the provision that should any member violate these agreements it shall ipso facto be deemed to have committed an act of war against all the other members of the League, entailing as a consequence commercial boycott, expulsion and the application of armed force, if the members shall so determine. The employment of force in this case, as in every other contemplated by the Covenant, is not left to the decision of Council or Assembly. They can only recommend. The member States agree not to go to war. There is nowhere in the document any provision compelling them to go to war. Even where one State in violation of its Covenant threatens the peace of the world, the utmost the Council can do is

"To recommend to the several governments concerned what effective military or naval forces the members of the League shall severally contribute to the armaments of forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League."

Much heated objection has been directed against Article X, which reads as follows:

"The members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression, the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.'

Again, it is left to the determination of each State what force it shall employ to enforce this provision. As a matter of fact, this article adds little, if anything, to the provisions of Article XI, which declares that "Any war or threat of war ... is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations." Any external aggression against the territorial integrity or political independence of a member of the League would amount to a war or threat of war, and would invoke action under Article XI, if not under Article X. But the guaranty of Article X is very necessary as affording a moral protection to the new nations brought into being through the peace Conference. The United States of America, whose President formulated the principles of peace to which these Nations owe their existence, can not afford to shirk responsibility for their protection. The Covenant abolishes the evil of secret treaties between the nations composing the League, while preserving the effectiveness of existing treaties of arbitration.

THE MONROE DOCTRINE

To meet the objection that the Covenant would deprive us of the Monroe Doctrine--a national policy adopted by the United States as its own and maintained for its own protection--Article XXI of the amended Covenant provides that--

"Nothing in this Covenant shall be deemed to affect the validity of international engagements such as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe Doctrine for securing the maintenance of peace."

The phrase "regional understanding," as applied to the Monroe Doctrine, is not a happy one. But the article certainly excludes the Monroe Doctrine from modification or effect by the treaty. It secures from every one of the thirty-two original members and the thirteen other states which shall be invited to join the League, a recognition of the existence of the Monroe Doctrine and an agreement that it is not to be affected by anything contained in the Covenant. Certainly that is not an un-American result to accomplish, and when one reads Dr. Hill's statement that the Covenant "does not embody our traditional American ideals," one wonders in what museum of forgotten lore the learned doctor has found those "traditional ideals" preserved. Dr. Hill's so-called ideals conflict with the expression in this great treaty of the peculiarly American ideal of averting war by providing peaceful methods of settling disputes among nations, with the express recognition by all the other nations of the doctrine that "was proclaimed in 1823 to prevent America from becoming a theater for the intrigues of European absolutism," and with the official commentary of the Delegates of Great Britain which says that--

"At first a principle of American foreign policy, it (Monroe Doctrine) has become an international understanding, and it is not illegitimate for the people of the United States to ask that the Covenant should recognize this fact."

GERMAN COLONIES

One of the most difficult problems presented to the Peace Conference was the disposition of the former colonies of Germany in Asia, Africa and Australasia, and of the communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire. It was recognized that the victors in the war shared a common responsibility for the just and wise treatment of these peoples, who were utterly unable to stand alone. The method adopted declared all of them to be wards of the League of Nations and provided that they should be governed by Mandatory Powers willing to undertake the task and appointed by the League under charters framed by the Council. These Powers would be answerable to the League for the right exercise of their powers, and subject to inspection and report. A great deal of impassioned rhetoric has been expended over these provisions, upon the false assumption that thereby the United States was committed to a responsibility for the government of remote regions of the earth. The Covenant commits us to nothing. Our participation in the war has entailed upon us a common responsibility with our Allies for the protection and wise government of these communities. We no more can escape that responsibility with honor than we could after the Spanish War escape responsibility for the Philippine Islands.

But it is for the American Congress to determine the extent of recognition of our duty and the means by which we shall discharge it.

In the case of the Philippine Islands, the United States set for the world a great moral example in the government of colonies, not in its own interest, but for the benefit and exclusively in the interest of the inhabitants of possessions which fell into our hands as a consequence of the war with Spain. The principle thus proclaimed and practiced has been followed in the case of the colonies and territories which the World War has left at the disposition of the Allied and Associated Nations. This principle, in the words of the Covenant, is "that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization." The best method yet devised for giving practicable effect to this principle undoubtedly is,

"That the tutelage of such peoples be intrusted to advanced nations who, by reason of their resources, their experience or their geographical position, can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as mandatories on behalf of the League."

This is the American attitude toward undeveloped peoples. To remove these provisions from the Peace Treaty would be to de-Americanize the Treaty.

MISCELLANEOUS PROVISIONS

The Covenant brings within the cognizance of the League the regulation of international relations affecting (1) efforts to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labor for men, women and children--a subject elaborated and provided for in great detail in Part XIII of the Peace Treaty; (2) the execution of international agreements with regard to traffic in women and children, and in opium and other dangerous drugs; (3) the trade in arms and ammunition with the countries in which the control of this traffic is necessary in the common interest; (4) the prevention and control of disease.

The members of the League further agree (1)

"To make provision to secure and maintain freedom of communication and of transit and equitable treatment for the commerce of all members of the League,"

and (2)

"to encourage and promote the establishment and coöperation of duly authorized voluntary national Red Cross organizations having as purposes improvement of health, the prevention of disease and the mitigation of suffering throughout the world."

All these are subjects customarily dealt with in international agreements. These provisions are designed to bring into coördination with the League and make more effective all provisions concerning such matters.

The framers of this great program recognized that it was, necessarily, an experiment, and that experience doubtless would develop defects and suggest needed changes. Provision is therefor made for amendments which should take effect when ratified by the members of the League whose representatives compose the Council, and by a majority of the members whose representatives compose the Assembly. But, preserving the theory that the League is to be an alliance of Sovereign Powers, it also is provided that no member shall be bound against his will by any such amendment. It may dissent, and thereby cease to be a member of the League.

Finally, any member may, at will, after two years' notice, withdraw from the League,

"provided that all its international obligations and all its obligations under this Covenant shall have been fulfilled at the time of its withdrawal."

No jurisdiction is vested in any organ of the League to determine whether or not in any instance this condition has been complied with. It is conceivable that pending some arbitration or inquiry by the Council, the application of a commercial boycott or other disciplinary process for violation of a provision of the Covenant, the offending power should seek to escape the jurisdiction of the League, by exercising the right of withdrawal. The period of notice probably is too long to allow of this, and yet the slow process of international procedure might require more than two years to reach a conclusion. Does it not seem fair that before a nation should withdraw from this great association it should be required to fulfil its obligations under the treaty?

PROBABILITY OF WAR MINIMIZED

The treaty of peace with Germany deals with many questions of vital import to European nations, but with which America has but little direct concern. Part I, the Covenant, is the section which touches us most nearly. It is the part which embodies the idealism of our people, and through which we are enabled to discharge the responsibilities we assumed by formulating for friend and foe the conditions of peace. Human nature changes but little from century to century, but the highest and purest aspirations of the human heart find expression from age to age with greater force and with wider acceptance. Doubtless, in the future, the passions of man will again flare up in bloody wars, but the creation of an adequate machinery for discussion and cooling reflection, must tend to minimize the probabilities of war. The spirits of millions of slaughtered youth who sleep in the fields of France and Flanders call out to us, for whom they died, to consecrate their sacrifice by a new and greater endeavor to safeguard the future peace of the world.

The conferees of Paris have formulated a measure for this purpose. It is not perfect. Experience may develop even greater imperfections than study has revealed. But it contains much of hope and promise. It is practical; it is subject to amendment. It commits no one irrevocably to its provisions. It is instinct with American idealism. It is in accord with the best American traditions. Washington, Lincoln, McKinley, and Roosevelt--each has contributed to the establishment of some of its main provisions. No partisan, no provincial prejudice should be permitted to influence or control the judgment of our people concerning it.

* * * * *

=When Peace Came to Verdun=

It was 10:45 on the morning of November 11th in Verdun. The Germans had thrown a barrage over the little French city, now immortal; and shells were falling, plowing up the earth that had been turned over and over, ground to powder by four years of artillery fire. Would the Germans stop at 11 o'clock? Reason said "yes." Everyone in Verdun knew that at that hour the armistice would go into effect.

It was 10:50. The guns continued bellowing. A feeling deeper than reason came over those in the city that the Germans would not stop. Verdun had lived through four years of fire, smoke, thunder, blood, and ruin. Sometimes for days there would be a lull, but the guns were never quiet long. The Germans never forgave the "they-shall-not-pass" spirit that had hurled them back just as the prize--this military key to the West front--seemed within their grasp.

It was 10:55. Men were crouching between buildings. They kept coming--doughboys, Morrocans, English soldiers, more doughboys. Even the general and his aids began to look anxious.

"Then," says B. C. Edworthy in Association Men, "as suddenly as though God himself had dropped a wet blanket over the crackling flames of hell and at one blow had extinguished them all, the firing ceased. There was an instant's pause, in which it seemed as though the world had come to an end. Then from the forty bells, high in the still untouched towers of that old cathedral at Verdun, which had witnessed the most heroic sacrifice of life and love save that on Calvary alone, pealed forth as did the voices over the Bethlehem hills those silver tones that once again were saying, 'Peace on Earth.' The men were joyously and deliriously leaping about, yelling and shouting and singing and kissing one another. Slowly those heavy cathedral doors opened and in rushed about six hundred of the Allied soldiers."

There were Mohammedans, Catholics, Jews, and Protestants. They pressed forward into the choir space, the roofs above them open to heaven. A simple impromptu service of thanksgiving followed. An English soldier led the Doxology, and all who knew the hymn joined in. Six hundred worshipers knelt, each soldier praying according to his faith. Mohammedans bowed to the stones, Catholics crossed themselves, Jews and Protestants with moving lips bent their heads or lifted their faces to heaven. Dr. Oscar E. Maurer, of New Haven, Conn., led the Lord's Prayer. As the strange congregation rose, the Americans began "My Country 'tis of Thee," the English joining in with "God Save the King."

There could be only one closing hymn in that battered shell of Verdun Cathedral. Now, as though it had been arranged, the French pushed forward and began the "Marseillaise." It was the singing of the soul of a nation, a soul redeemed:

_Allons, enfants de la patrie Le jour de gloire est arrivé_

Peace had come to Verdun, deliverance to France, safety to the world. With the last words of the national hymn of France, the service was finished, and the worshipers turned and reverently left the building.

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES AND THE COVENANT OF THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

(Signed June 28, 1919, Rejected by the United States, November 19, 1919 and Again Rejected, with the Lodge Reservations, March 19, 1920)

The preamble contains the names of the plenipotentiaries that took part in the negotiations and signed the treaty, with a few exceptions: Dr. Hermann Müller and Dr. Johannes Bell were substituted for Brockdorff-Rantzau and his associates, China's delegates refused to sign on account of the Shantung concessions to Japan, and Italy was represented by a new commission headed by Signor Tittoni, the new Foreign Minister.

The text here reproduced is the revised edition of the treaty distributed in French and English among the delegates at the time of the signing. The copy actually signed is deposited in the archives of the Republic of France in Paris.

PREAMBLE

The United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan, these powers being described in the present treaty as the principal Allied and Associated Powers; Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, China, Cuba, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, the Hedjaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, the Serb-Croat-Slovene State; Siam, Czechoslovakia, and Uruguay, these powers constituting with the principal powers mentioned above the Allied and Associated Powers of the one part; and Germany, of the other part: Bearing in mind that on the request of the Imperial German Government an armistice was granted on Nov. 11, 1918, to Germany by the principal Allied and Associated Powers in order that a treaty of peace might be concluded with her, and the Allied and Associated Powers being equally desirous that the war in which they were successively involved directly or indirectly, and which originated in the declaration of war by Austria-Hungary on July 28, 1914, against Serbia; the declaration of war by Germany against Russia on Aug. 1, 1914, and against France on Aug. 3, 1914, and in the invasion of Belgium, should be replaced by a firm, just, and durable peace;

For this purpose the high contracting parties represented as follows:

THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, by:

The Honorable Woodrow Wilson, President of the United States, acting in his own name and by his own proper authority;

The Honorable Robert Lansing, Secretary of State;

The Honorable Henry White, formerly Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the United States at Rome and Paris;

The Honorable Edward M. House;

General Tasker H. Bliss, Military Representative of the United States on the Supreme War Council;

HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE UNITED KINGDOM OF GREAT BRITAIN AND IRELAND AND OF THE BRITISH DOMINIONS BEYOND THE SEAS, EMPEROR OF INDIA, by:

The Right Honorable David Lloyd George, M. P., First Lord of his Treasury and Prime Minister;

The Right Honorable Andrew Bonar Law, M. P., his Lord Privy Seal;

The Right Honorable Viscount Milner, G. C. B., G. C. M. G., his Secretary of State for the Colonies;

The Right Honorable Arthur James Balfour, O. M., M. P., his Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs;

The Right Honorable George Nicoll Barnes, M. P., Minister without portfolio; and

FOR THE DOMINION OF CANADA, by:

The Right Honorable Sir George Eulas Foster, G. C. M. G., Minister of Trade and Commerce;

The Right Honorable Charles Joseph Doherty, Minister of Justice;

FOR THE COMMONWEALTH OF AUSTRALIA, by:

The Right Honorable William Morris Hughes, Attorney General and Prime Minister;

The Right Honorable Sir Joseph Cook, G. C. M. G., Minister for the Navy;

FOR THE DOMINION OF SOUTH AFRICA, by:

General the Right Honorable Louis Botha, Prime Minister;

Lieut. General the Right Honorable Jan Christiaan Smuts, K. C., Minister of Defense;

FOR THE DOMINION OF NEW ZEALAND, by:

The Right Honorable William Ferguson Massey, Minister of Labor and Prime Minister;

FOR INDIA, by:

The Right Honorable Edwin Samuel Montagu, M. P., his Secretary of State for India;

Major General his Highness Maharaja Sir Ganga Singh Bahadur, Maharaja of Bikanir, G. C. S. I., G. C. I. E., G. C. V. O., K. C. B., A. D. C.;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC, by:

Mr. Georges Clemenceau, President of the Council, Minister of War;

Mr. Pichon, Minister of Foreign Affairs;

Mr. L. L. Klotz, Minister of Finance;

Mr. André Tardieu, Commissary General for Franco-American Military Affairs;

Mr. Jules Cambon, Ambassador of France;

HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF ITALY,[27] by:

Mr. V. E. Orlando, President of the Council of Ministers;

[27] On account of the overthrow of the Orlando Ministry and the formation of the Nitti Ministry, the treaty was signed by a delegation headed by Signor Tittoni, the New Foreign Minister.

Baron S. Sonnino, Minister of Foreign Affairs;

Mr. S. Crespi, Deputy, Minister of Supplies;

Marquis G. Imperiali, Senator of the Kingdom, Ambassador of his Majesty the King of Italy at London;

Mr. S. Barzilai, Deputy, formerly Minister;

HIS MAJESTY THE EMPEROR OF JAPAN, by:

Marquis Saionji, formerly President of the Council of Ministers;

Baron Makino, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs, member of the Diplomatic Council;

Viscount Chinda, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of H. M. the Emperor of Japan at London;

Mr. K. Matsui, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of H. M. the Emperor of Japan at Paris;

Mr. H. Ijuin, Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of H. M. the Emperor of Japan at Rome;

HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE BELGIANS, by:

Mr. Hymans, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of State;

Mr. Van Den Heuvel, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of H. M. the King of the Belgians, Minister of State;

Mr. Vandervelde, Minister of Justice, Minister of State;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF BOLIVIA, by:

Mr. Ismael Montes, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Bolivia at Paris;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF BRAZIL, by:

Mr. Epitacio Pessoa, formerly Minister of State, formerly member of the Supreme Court of Justice, Federal Senator;

Mr. Pandiá Calogeras, Deputy, formerly Minister of Finance;

Mr. Raul Ferdnandes;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE CHINESE REPUBLIC,[28] by;

Mr. Lou Tseng-Tsiang, Minister of Foreign Affairs;

Mr. Chengting Thomas Wang, formerly Minister of Agriculture and Commerce;

[28] Refused to sign on account of Shantung concessions to Japan.

THE PRESIDENT OF THE CUBAN REPUBLIC, by:

Mr. Antonio Sanchez de Bustamante, Dean of The Faculty of Law in the University of Havana, President of the Cuban Society of International Law;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF ECUADOR, by:

Mr. Enrique Dorn y de Alsua, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Ecuador at Paris;

HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE HELLENES, by:

Mr. Eleftherios Venizelos, President of the Council of Ministers;

Mr. Nicolas Politis, Minister of Foreign Affairs;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF GUATEMALA, by:

Mr. Joaquin Mendez, formerly Minister of State for Public Works and Public Instruction, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Guatemala at Washington, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary on Special Mission at Paris;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF HAITI, by:

Mr. Tertullien Guilbaud, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Haiti at Paris;

HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE HEDJAZ, by:

Mr. Rustem Haidar;

Mr. Abdul Hadi Aouni;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF HONDURAS, by:

Dr. Policarpe Bonilla, on special mission to Washington, formerly President of the Republic of Honduras, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF LIBERIA, by:

The Honorable C. D. B. King, Secretary of State;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF NICARAGUA, by:

Mr. Salvador Chamorro, President of the Chamber of Deputies;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF PANAMA, by:

Mr. Antonio Burgos, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Panama at Madrid;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF PERU, by:

Mr. Carlos G. Candamo, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of Peru at Paris;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE POLISH REPUBLIC, by:

Mr. Roman Dmowski, President of the Polish National Committee;

Mr. Ignace Paderewski, President of the Council of Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE PORTUGESE REPUBLIC, by:

Dr. Affonso Costa, formerly President of the Council of Ministers;

Mr. Augusto Soares, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs;

HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF RUMANIA, by:

Mr. Jean J. C. Bratiano, President of the Council of Ministers, Minister of Foreign Affairs;

General Constantin Coanda, Corps Commander, A. D. C. to the King, formerly President of the Council of Ministers;

HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF THE SERBS, THE CROATS, AND THE SLOVENES, by:

Mr. N. P. Pachitch, formerly President of the Council of Ministers;

Mr. Ante Trumbic, Minister of Foreign Affairs; Mr. Milenko R. Vesnitch, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of H. M. the King of the Serbs, the Croats, and the Slovenes at Paris;

HIS MAJESTY THE KING OF SIAM, by:

Prince Charoon, Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of H. M. the King of Siam at Paris;

Prince Traidos Prabandhu, Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE CZECHO-SLOVAK REPUBLIC, by:

Mr. Charles Kramar, President of the Council of Ministers;

Mr. Edouard Benes, Minister of Foreign Affairs;

THE PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF URUGUAY, by:

Mr. Juan Antonio Buero, Minister of Industry, formerly Minister of Foreign Affairs;

GERMANY,[29] by;

Count Brockdorff-Rantzau, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Empire;

[29] Treaty Signed by Dr. Hermann Müller, Minister for Foreign Affairs of the Empire, and Dr. Johannes Bell, Minister of the Empire.

Dr. Landsberg, Minister of Justice of the Empire;

Mr. Giesberts, Minister of Posts of the Empire;

Oberbürgermeister Leinert, President of the Prussian National Assembly;

Dr. Schücking;

Dr. Karl Melchior; Acting in the name of the German Empire and of each and every component State.

WHO having communicated their full powers found in good and due form HAVE AGREED AS FOLLOWS:

From the coming into force of the present treaty the state of war will terminate. From that moment and subject to the provisions of this treaty official relations with Germany and with any of the German States will be resumed by the Allied and Associated Powers.

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I. The Covenant of the League of Nations

The high contracting parties, in order to promote international coöperation and to achieve international peace and security by the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war, by the prescription of open, just, and honorable relations between nations, by the firm establishment of the understandings of international law as the actual rule of conduct among Governments, and by the maintenance of justice and a scrupulous respect for all treaty obligations in the dealings of organized peoples with one another, agree to this covenant of the League of Nations.

=ARTICLE 1.=--The original members of the League of Nations shall be those of the signatories which are named in the annex to this covenant and also such of those other States named in the annex as shall accede without reservation to this covenant. Such accession shall be effected by a declaration deposited with the secretariat within two months of the coming into force of the covenant. Notice thereof shall be sent to all other members of the League.

Any fully self-governing State, dominion, or colony not named in the annex may become a member of the League if its admission is agreed to by two-thirds of the assembly, provided that it shall give effective guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its international obligations, and shall accept such regulations as may be prescribed by the League in regard to its military, naval and air forces and armaments.

Any member of the League may, after two years' notice of its intention so to do, withdraw from the League, provided that all its international obligations and all its obligations under this covenant shall have been fulfilled at the time of its withdrawal.

=ARTICLE 2.=--The action of the League under this covenant shall be effected through the instrumentality of an assembly and of a council, with a permanent secretariat.

=ARTICLE 3.=--The assembly shall consist of representatives of the members of the League.

The assembly shall meet at stated intervals and from time to time as occasion may require at the seat of the League or at such other place as may be decided upon.

The assembly may deal at its meetings with any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world.

At meetings of the assembly each member of the League shall have one vote, and may have not more than three representatives.

=ARTICLE 4.=--The council shall consist of representatives of the principal Allied and Associated Powers, together with representatives of four other members of the League. These four members of the League shall be selected by the assembly from time to time in its discretion. Until the appointment of the representatives of the four members of the League first selected by the assembly, representatives of Belgium, Brazil, Spain, and Greece shall be members of the council.

With the approval of the majority of the assembly, the council may name additional members of the League whose representatives shall always be members of the council; the council with like approval may increase the number of members of the League to be selected by the assembly for representation on the council.

The council shall meet from time to time as occasion may require, and at least once a year, at the seat of the League, or at such other place as may be decided upon.

The council may deal at its meetings with any matter within the sphere of action of the League or affecting the peace of the world.

Any member of the League not represented on the council shall be invited to send a representative to sit as a member at any meeting of the council during the consideration of matters specially affecting the interests of that member of the League.

At meetings of the council, each member of the League represented on the council shall have one vote, and may have not more than one representative.

=ARTICLE 5.=--Except where otherwise expressly provided in this covenant or by the terms of the present treaty, decisions at any meeting of the assembly or of the council shall require the agreement of all the members of the League represented at the meeting.

All matters of procedure at meetings of the assembly or of the council, including the appointment of committees to investigate particular matters, shall be regulated by the assembly or by the council and may be decided by a majority of the members of the League represented at the meeting.

The first meeting of the assembly and the first meeting of the council shall be summoned by the President of the United States of America.

=ARTICLE 6.=--The permanent secretariat shall be established at the seat of the League. The secretariat shall comprise a Secretary General and such secretaries and staff as may be required.

The first Secretary General shall be the person named in the annex; thereafter the Secretary General shall be appointed by the council with the approval of the majority of the assembly.

The secretaries and staff of the secretariat shall be appointed by the Secretary General with the approval of the council.

The Secretary General shall act in that capacity at all meetings of the assembly and of the council.

The expenses of the secretariat shall be borne by the members of the League in accordance with the apportionment of the expenses of the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union.

=ARTICLE 7.=--The seat of the League is established at Geneva.

The council may at any time decide that the seat of the League shall be established elsewhere.

All positions under or in connection with the League, including the secretariat, shall be open equally to men and women.

Representatives of the members of the League and officials of the League when engaged on the business of the League shall enjoy diplomatic privileges and immunities.

The buildings and other property occupied by the League or its officials or by representatives attending its meetings shall be inviolable.

=ARTICLE 8.=--The members of the League recognize that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by common action of international obligations.

The council, taking account of the geographical situation and circumstances of each State, shall formulate plans for such reduction for the consideration and action of several Governments.

Such plans shall be subject to reconsideration and revision at least every ten years.

After these plans shall have been adopted by the several Governments, the limits of armaments therein fixed shall not be exceeded without the concurrence of the council.

The members of the League agree that the manufacture by private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to grave objections. The council shall advise how the evil effects attendant upon such manufacture can be prevented, due regard being had to the necessities of those members of the League which are not able to manufacture the munitions and implements of war necessary for their safety.

The members of the League undertake to interchange full and frank information as to the scale of their armaments, their military and naval programs and the condition of such of their industries as are adaptable to warlike purposes.

=ARTICLE 9.=--A permanent commission shall be constituted to advise the council on the execution of the provisions of Articles 1 and 8 and on military and naval questions generally.

=ARTICLE 10.=--The members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all members of the League. In case of any such aggression or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled.

=ARTICLE 11.=--Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting any of the members of the League or not, is hereby declared a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual to safeguard the peace of nations. In case any such emergency should arise the Secretary General shall on the request of any member of the League forthwith summon a meeting of the council.

It is also declared to be the friendly right of each member of the League to bring to the attention of the assembly or of the council any circumstance whatever affecting international relations which threatens to disturb international peace or the good understanding between nations upon which peace depends.

=ARTICLE 12.=--The members of the League agree that if there should arise between them any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, they will submit the matter either to arbitration or to inquiry by the council, and they agree in no case to resort to war until three months after the award by the arbitrators or the report by the council.

In any case under this article the award of the arbitrators shall be made within a reasonable time, and the report of the council shall be made within six months after the submission of the dispute.

=ARTICLE 13.=--The members of the League agree that whenever any dispute shall arise between them which they recognize to be suitable for submission to arbitration and which cannot be satisfactorily settled by diplomacy, they will submit the whole subject-matter to arbitration.

Disputes as to the interpretation of a treaty, as to any question of international law, as to the existence of any fact which if established would constitute a breach of any international obligation, or as to the extent and nature of the reparation to be made for any such breach, are declared to be among those which are generally suitable for submission to arbitration.

For the consideration of any such dispute the Court of Arbitration to which the case is referred shall be the court agreed on by the parties to the dispute or stipulated in any convention existing between them.

The members of the League agree that they will carry out in full good faith any award that may be rendered, and that they will not resort to war against a member of the League which complies therewith. In the event of any failure to carry out such an award, the council shall propose what steps should be taken to give effect thereto.

=ARTICLE 14.=--The council shall formulate and submit to the members of the League for adoption plans for the establishment of a Permanent Court of International Justice.

The court shall be competent to hear and determine any dispute of an international character which the parties thereto submit to it. The court may also give an advisory opinion upon any dispute or question referred to it by the council or by the assembly.

=ARTICLE 15.=--If there should arise between members of the League any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, which is not submitted to arbitration in accordance with Article 13, the members of the League agree that they will submit the matter to the council. Any party to the dispute may effect such submission by giving notice of the existence of the dispute to the Secretary General, who will make all necessary arrangements for a full investigation and consideration thereof.

For this purpose the parties to the dispute will communicate to the Secretary General, as promptly as possible, statements of their case with all the relevant facts and papers, and the council may forthwith direct the publication thereof.

The council shall endeavor to effect a settlement of the dispute, and if such efforts are successful, a statement shall be made public giving such facts and explanations regarding the dispute and the terms of settlement thereof as the council may deem appropriate.

If the dispute is not thus settled, the council either unanimously or by a majority vote shall make and publish a report containing a statement of the facts of the dispute and the recommendations which are deemed just and proper in regard thereto.

Any member of the League represented on the council may make public a statement of the facts of the dispute and of its conclusions regarding the same.

If a report by the council is unanimously agreed to by the members thereof other than the representatives of one or more of the parties to the dispute, the members of the League agree that they will not go to war with any party to the dispute which complies with the recommendations of the report.

If the council fails to reach a report which is unanimously agreed to by the members thereof, other than the representatives of one or more of the parties to the dispute, the members of the League reserve to themselves the right to take such action as they shall consider necessary for the maintenance of right and justice.

If the dispute between the parties is claimed by one of them, and is found by the council to arise out of a matter which by international law is solely within the domestic jurisdiction of that party, the council shall so report, and shall make no recommendation as to its settlement.

The council may in any case under this article refer the dispute to the assembly. The dispute shall be so referred at the request of either party to the dispute, provided that such request be made within fourteen days after the submission of the dispute to the council.

In any case referred to the assembly all the provisions of this article and of Article 12 relating to the action and powers of the council shall apply to the action and powers of the assembly, provided that a report made by the assembly, if concurred in by the representatives of those members of the League represented on the council and of a majority of the other members of the League, exclusive in each case of the representatives of the parties to the dispute, shall have the same force as a report by the council concurred in by all the members thereof other than the representatives of one or more of the parties to the dispute.

=ARTICLE 16.=--Should any member of the League resort to war in disregard of its covenants under Articles 12, 13, or 15, it shall =ipso facto= be deemed to have committed an act of war against all other members of the League, which hereby undertake immediately to subject it to the severance of all trade or financial relations, the prohibition of all intercourse between their nationals and the nationals of the covenant-breaking State and the prevention of all financial, commercial, or personal intercourse between the nationals of the covenant-breaking State and the nationals of any other State, whether a member of the League or not.

It shall be the duty of the council in such case to recommend to the several Governments concerned what effective military, naval or air force the members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the covenants of the League.

The members of the League agree, further, that they will mutually support one another in the financial and economic measures which are taken under this article, in order to minimize the loss and inconvenience resulting from the above measures, and that they will mutually support one another in resisting any special measures aimed at one of their number by the covenant-breaking State, and that they will take the necessary steps to afford passage through their territory to the forces of any of the members of the League which are coöperating to protect the covenants of the League.

Any member of the League which has violated any covenant of the League may be declared to be no longer a member of the League by a vote of the council concurred in by the representatives of all the other members of the League represented thereon.

=ARTICLE 17.=--In the event of a dispute between a member of the League and a State which is not a member of the League, or between States not members of the League, the State or States not members of the League shall be invited to accept the obligations of membership in the League for the purposes of such dispute, upon such conditions as the council may deem just. If such invitation is accepted, the provisions of Articles 12 to 16 inclusive shall be applied with such modifications as may be deemed necessary by the council.

Upon such invitation being given the council shall immediately institute an inquiry into the circumstances of the dispute and recommend such action as may seem best and most effectual in the circumstances.

If a State so invited shall refuse to accept the obligations of membership in the League for the purposes of such dispute, and shall resort to war against a member of the League, the provisions of Article 16 shall be applicable as against the State taking such action.

If both parties to the dispute when so invited refuse to accept the obligations of membership in the League for the purposes of such dispute, the council may take such measures and make such recommendations as will prevent hostilities and will result in the settlement of the dispute.

=ARTICLE 18.=--Every treaty or international engagement entered into hereafter by any member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the secretariat and shall as soon as possible be published by it. No such treaty or international engagement shall be binding until so registered.

=ARTICLE 19.=--The assembly may from time to time advise the reconsideration by members of the League of treaties which have become inapplicable and the consideration of international conditions whose continuance might endanger the peace of the world.

=ARTICLE 20.=--The members of the League severally agree that this covenant is accepted as abrogating all obligations or understandings inter se which are inconsistent with the terms thereof, and solemnly undertake that they will not hereafter enter into any engagements inconsistent with the terms thereof.

In case any member of the League shall, before becoming a member of the League, have undertaken any obligations inconsistent with the terms of this covenant, it shall be the duty of such member to take immediate steps to procure its release from such obligations.

=ARTICLE 21.=--Nothing in this covenant shall be deemed to affect the validity of international engagements, such as treaties of arbitration or regional understandings like the Monroe Doctrine, for securing the maintenance of peace.

=ARTICLE 22.=--To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignty of the States which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust of civilization and that securities for the performance of this trust should be embodied in this covenant.

The best method of giving practical effect to this principle is that the tutelage of such peoples should be intrusted to advanced nations who by reason of their resources, their experience or their geographical position can best undertake this responsibility, and who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exercised by them as mandatories on behalf of the League.

The character of the mandate must differ according to the stage of development of the people, the geographical situation of the territory, its economic conditions and other similar circumstances.

Certain communities formerly belonging to the Turkish Empire have reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized subject to rendering of administrative advice and assistance by a mandatory until such time as they are able to stand alone. The wishes of these communities must be a principal consideration in the selection of the mandatory.

Other peoples, especially those of Central Africa, are at such a stage that the mandatory must be responsible for the administration of the territory under conditions which will guarantee freedom of conscience and religion, subject only to the maintenance of public order and morals, the prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms traffic and the liquor traffic, and the prevention of the establishment of fortifications or military and naval bases and of military training of the natives for other than police purposes and the defense of territory, and will also secure equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other members of the League.

There are territories such as Southwest Africa and certain of the South Pacific Islands, which, owing to the sparseness of their population or their small size, or their remoteness from the centers of civilization; or their geographical contiguity to the territory of the mandatory, and other circumstances, can be best administered under the laws of the mandatory as integral portions of its territory, subject to the safeguards above mentioned in the interests of the indigenous population.

In every case of mandate the mandatory shall render to the council an annual report in reference to the territory committed to its charge.

The degree of authority, control, or administration to be exercised by the mandatory shall, if not previously agreed upon by the members of the League, be explicitly defined in each case by the council.

A permanent commission shall be constituted to receive and examine the annual reports of the mandatories and to advise the council on all matters relating to the observance of the mandates.

=ARTICLES 23.=--Subject to and in accordance with the provisions of international conventions existing or hereafter to be agreed upon, the members of the League:

(a) will endeavor to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labor for men, women and children, both in their own countries and in all countries to which their commercial and industrial relations extend, and for that purpose will establish and maintain the necessary international organizations;

(b) undertake to secure just treatment of the native inhabitants of territories under their control;

(c) will intrust the League with the general supervision over the execution of agreements with regard to the traffic in women and children and the traffic in opium and other dangerous drugs;

(d) will intrust the League with the general supervision of the trade in arms and ammunition with the countries in which the control of this traffic is necessary in the common interest;

(e) will make provision to secure and maintain freedom of communications and of transit and equitable treatment for the commerce of all members of the League. In this connection the special necessities of the regions devastated during the war of 1914--1918 shall be borne in mind;

(f) will endeavor to take steps in matters of international concern for the prevention and control of disease.

=ARTICLE 24.=--There shall be placed under the direction of the League all international bureaus already established by general treaties if the parties to such treaties consent. All such international bureaus and all commissions for the regulation of matters of international interest hereafter constituted shall be placed under the direction of the League.

In all matters of international interest which are regulated by general conventions but which are not placed under the control of international bureaus or commissions, the secretariat of the League shall, subject to the consent of the council and if desired by the parties, collect and distribute all relevant information and shall render any other assistance which may be necessary or desirable.

The council may include as part of the expenses of the secretariat the expenses of any bureau or commission which is placed under the direction of the League.

=ARTICLE 25.=--The members of the League agree to encourage and promote the establishment and co-operation of duly authorized voluntary national Red Cross organizations having as purposes the improvement of health, the prevention of disease, and the mitigation of suffering throughout the world.

=ARTICLE 26.=--Amendments to this covenant will take effect when ratified by the members of the League whose representatives compose the council and by a majority of the members of the League whose representatives compose the assembly.

No such amendment shall bind any member of the League which signifies its dissent therefrom, but in that case it shall cease to be a member of the League.

ANNEX

I. Original members of the League of Nations signatories of the treaty of peace.

United States of America. Belgium. Bolivia. Brazil. British Empire. Canada. Australia. South Africa. New Zealand. India China.[30] Cuba. Ecuador. France. Greece. Guatemala. Uruguay. Haiti. Hedjaz. Honduras. Italy. Japan. Liberia. Nicaragua. Panama. Peru. Poland. Portugal. Rumania. Serb-Croat-Slovene State. Siam. Czecho-Slovakia.

States invited to accede to the covenant.

Argentine Republic Chile. Colombia. Denmark. Netherlands. Norway. Paraguay Persia. Salvador. Spain. Sweden. Switzerland. Venezuela.

[30] Refused to sign.

II. First Secretary General of the League of Nations. The Honorable Sir James Eric Drummond, K. C. M. G., C. B.

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II. Boundaries of Germany

=ARTICLE 27.=--The boundaries of Germany will be determined as follows:

1. With Belgium: From the point common to the three frontiers of Belgium, Holland, and Germany, and in a southerly direction; the northeastern boundary of the former territory of neutral Moresnet, then the eastern boundary of the Kreis of Eupen, then the frontier between Belgium and the Kreis of Montjoie, then the northeastern and eastern boundary of the Kreis of Malmédy to its junction with the frontier of Luxemburg.

2. With Luxemburg: The frontier of the 3d August, 1914, to its junction with the frontier of France of the 18th July, 1870.

3. With France: The frontier of the 18th July, 1870, from Luxemburg to Switzerland, with the reservations made in Article 48 of Section 4 (Sarre Basin) of Part III.

4. With Switzerland: The present frontier.

5. With Austria: The frontier of the 3d August, 1914, from Switzerland to Czechoslovakia is hereinafter defined.

6. With Czechoslovakia: The frontier of the 3d August, 1914, between Germany and Austria from its junction with the old administrative boundary separating Bohemia and the Province of Upper Austria to the point north of the salient of the old Province of Austrian Silesia situated at about eight kilometers east of Neustadt.

7. With Poland: From the point defined above to a point to be fixed on the ground about 2 kilometers east of Lorzendorf: the frontier as it will be fixed in accordance with Article 88 of the present treaty; thence in a northerly direction to the point where the administrative boundary of Posnania crosses the river Bartsch; a line to be fixed on the ground leaving the following places in Poland: Skorischau, Reichthal, Trembatschau, Kunzendorf, Schleise, Gross Kosel, Schreibersdorf, Rippin, Fürstlich-Niefken, Pawelau, Tscheschen, Konradau, Johannisdorf, Modzenowe, Bogdaj, and in Germany: Lorzendorf, Kaulwitz, Glausche, Dalbersdorf, Reesewitz, Stradam, Gross Wartenberg Kraschen, Neu Mittelwalde, Domaslawitz, Wodelsdorf, Tscheschen Hammer; thence the boundary of Posnania northwestward to the point where it cuts the Rawitsch-Herrnstadt railway; thence to the point where the administrative boundary of Posnania cuts the Reisen-Tschirnau road: a line to be fixed on the ground passing west of Triebusch and Gabel and east of Saborwitz; thence the administrative boundary of Posnania to its junction with the eastern boundary of the Kreis of Fraustadt;

Thence in a northwesterly direction to a point to be chosen on the road between the villages of Unruhstadt and Kophitz: a line to be fixed on the ground passing west of Geyersdorf, Brenno, Fehlen, Altkloster, Klebel, and east of Ulbersdorf, Buchwald, Ilgen, Weine, Lupitze, Schwenten; thence in a northerly direction to the northernmost point of Lake Chlop: a line to be fixed on the ground following the median line of the lakes; the town and the station of Bentschen, however, (including the junction of the lines Schwiebus-Bentschen and Züllichau-Bentschen,) remaining in Polish territory;

Thence in a northeasterly direction to the point of junction of the boundaries of the Kreise of Schwerin, Birnbaum, and Meseritz: a line to be fixed on the ground passing east of Betsche; thence in a northerly direction the boundary separating the Kreise of Schwerin and Birnbaum, then in an easterly direction the northern boundary of Posnania and to the point where it cuts the river Netze; thence upstream to its confluence with the Küddow: the course of the Netze; thence upstream to a point to be chosen about 6 kilometers southeast of Schneidemühl; the course of the Küddow;

Thence northeastward to the most southern point of the re-entrant of the northern boundary of Posnania about 5 kilometers west of Stahren: a line to be fixed on the ground leaving the Schneidemühl-Konitz railway in this area entirely in German territory; thence the boundary of Posnania northeastward to the point of the salient it makes about 15 kilometers east of Flatow; thence northeastward to the point where the river Kamionka meets the southern boundary of the Kreis of Konitz about 3 kilometers northeast of Grunau: a line to be fixed on the ground leaving the following places to Poland: Jasdrowo, Gr. Lutau, Kl. Lutau and Wittkau, and to Germany: Gr. Butzig, Cziskowo, Battow, Böch, and Grunau;

Thence in a northerly direction the boundary between the Kreise of Konitz and Schlochau to the point where this boundary cuts the river Brahe; thence to a point on the boundary of Pomerania 15 kilometers east of Rummelsburg: a line to be fixed on the ground leaving the following localities in Poland: Konarzin, Kelpin, Adl. Briesen, and in Germany: Sampohl, Neuguth, Steinfort, and Gr. Peterkau; then the boundary of Pomerania in an easterly direction to its junction with the boundary between the Kreis of Konitz and Schlochau;

Thence northward the boundary between Pomerania and West Prussia to the point on the river Rheda about 3 kilometers northwest of Gohra, where that river is joined by a tributary from the northwest; thence to a point to be selected in the bend of the Piasnitz River about 1½ kilometers northwest of Warschkau: a line to be fixed on the ground; thence this river downstream, then the median line of Lake Zarnowitz, then the old boundary of West Prussia to the Baltic Sea.

8. With Denmark: The frontier as it will be fixed in accordance with Articles 109 and 110 of Part III., Section XII., (Schleswig.)

=ARTICLE 28.=--The boundaries of East Prussia, with the reservations made in Section IX. (East Prussia) of Part III. will be determined as follows:

From a point on the coast of the Baltic Sea about 1½ kilometers north of Pröbbernau Church in a direction of about 159 degrees east from true north: A line to be fixed on the ground for about 2 kilometers, thence in a straight line to the light at the bend of the Elbinger Channel in approximately latitude 54.19½ north, longitude 19.26 east of Greenwich;

Thence to the easternmost mouth of the Nogat River at a bearing of approximately 209 degrees east from true north;

Thence up the course of the Nogat River to the point where the latter leaves the Vistula, (Weichsel;)

Thence up the principal channel of navigation of the Vistula, then the southern boundary of the Kreis of Marienwerder, then that of the Kreis of Rosenberg, eastward to the point where it meets the old boundary of East Prussia;

Thence the old boundary between East and West Prussia, then the boundary between the Kreise of Osterode and Neidenburg, then the course of the River Skoppau down stream, then the course of the Neide up stream to a point situated about 5 kilometers west of Bialutten, being the nearest point to the old frontier of Russia, thence in an easterly direction to a point immediately south of the intersection of the road Neidenburg-Mlava with the old frontier of Russia;

A line to be fixed on the ground passing north of Bialutten;

Thence the old frontier of Russia to a point east of Schmalleningken, then the principal channel of navigation of the Niemen (Memel) down stream, then the Skierwieth arm of the delta to the Kurisches Haff;

Thence a straight line to the point where the eastern shore of the Kurische Nehrung meets the administrative boundary about 4 kilometers southwest of Nidden;

Thence this administrative boundary to the western shore of the Kurische Nehrung.

=ARTICLE 29.=--The boundaries as described above are drawn in red on a one-in-a-million map which is annexed to the present treaty. (Map No. 1.)

In the case of any discrepancies between the text of the treaty and this map or any other map which may be annexed, the text will be final.

=ARTICLE 30.=--In the case of boundaries which are defined by a waterway, the terms "course" and "channel" used in the present treaty signify: in the case of non-navigable rivers, the median line of the waterway or of its principal arm, and in the case of navigable rivers the median line of the principal channel of navigation. It will rest with the boundary commissions provided by the present treaty to specify in each case whether the frontier line shall follow any changes of the course or channel which may take place or whether it shall be definitely fixed by the position of the course or channel at the time when the present treaty comes into force.

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III. Political Clauses for Europe

SECTION I.--Belgium

=ARTICLE 31.=--Germany, recognizing that the treaties of April 19, 1839, which established the status of Belgium before the war, no longer conform to the requirements of the situation, consents to the abrogation of the said treaties and undertakes immediately to recognize and to observe whatever conventions may be entered into by the principal allied and associated powers, or by any of them in concert with the Governments of Belgium and of the Netherlands, to replace the said treaties of 1839. If her formal adhesion should be required to such conventions or to any of their stipulations, Germany undertakes immediately to give it.

=ARTICLE 32.=--Germany recognizes the full sovereignty of Belgium over the whole of the contested territory of Moresnet, (called Moresnet Neutre.)

=ARTICLE 33.=--Germany renounces in favor of Belgium all rights and title over the territory of Prussian Moresnet situated on the west of the road from Liége to Aix-la-Chapelle: the road will belong to Belgium where it bounds this territory.

=ARTICLE 34.=--Germany renounces in favor of Belgium all rights and title over the territory comprising the whole of the Kreise of Eupen and of Malmédy.

During the six months after the coming into force of this treaty, registers will be opened by the Belgian authorities at Eupen and Malmédy in which the inhabitants of the above territory will be entitled to record in writing a desire to see the whole or part of it remain under German sovereignty.

The results of this public expression of opinion will be communicated by the Belgian Government to the League of Nations, and Belgium undertakes to accept the decision of the League.

=ARTICLE 35.=--A commission of seven persons, five of whom will be appointed by the principal allied and associated powers, one by Germany and one by Belgium, will be set up fifteen days after the coming into force of the present treaty to settle on the spot the new frontier line between Belgium and Germany, taking into account the economic factors and the means of communication.

Decisions will be taken by a majority and will be binding on the parties concerned.

=ARTICLE 36.=--When the transfer of the sovereignty over the territories referred to above has become definitive, German nationals habitually resident in the territories will definitively acquire Belgian nationality ipso facto, and will lose their German nationality.

Nevertheless German nationals who become resident in the territories after the 1st August, 1914, shall not obtain Belgian nationality without a permit from the Belgian Government.

=ARTICLE 37.=--Within the two years following the definitive transfer of the sovereignty over the territories assigned to Belgium under the present treaty, German nationals over 18 years of age habitually resident in those territories will be entitled to opt for German nationality.

Option by a husband will cover his wife, and option by parents will cover their children under 18 years of age.

Persons who have exercised the above right to opt must within the ensuing twelve months transfer their place of residence to Germany.

They will be entitled to retain their immovable property in the territories acquired by Belgium. They may carry with them their movable property of every description. No export or import duties may be imposed upon them in connection with the removal of such property.

=ARTICLE 38.=--The German Government will hand over without delay to the Belgian Government the archives, registers, plans, title deeds and documents of every kind concerning the civil, military, financial, judicial or other administrations in the territory transferred to Belgian sovereignty.

The German Government will likewise restore to the Belgian Government the archives and documents of every kind carried off during the war by the German authorities from the Belgian public administrations, in particular from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs at Brussels.

=ARTICLE 39.=--The proportion and nature of the financial liabilities of Germany and of Prussia which Belgium will have to bear on account of the territories ceded to her shall be fixed in conformity with Articles 254 and 256 of Part IX. (financial clauses) of the present treaty.

SECTION II.--Luxemburg

=ARTICLE 40.=--With regard to the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, Germany renounces the benefit of all the provisions inserted in her favor in the treaties of Feb. 8, 1842; April 2, 1847; Oct. 20--25, 1865; Aug. 18, 1866; Feb. 21 and May 11, 1867; May 10, 1871; June 11, 1872, and Nov. 11, 1902, and in all conventions consequent upon such treaties.

Germany recognizes that the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg ceased to form part of the German Zollverein as from January 1, 1919; renounces all right to the exploitation of the railways, adheres to the termination of the régime of neutrality of the Grand Duchy, and accepts in advance all international arrangements which may be concluded by the Allied and Associated Powers relating to the Grand Duchy.

=ARTICLE 41.=--Germany undertakes to grant to the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, when a demand to that effect is made to her by the principal Allied and Associated Powers, the rights and advantages stipulated in favor of such powers or their nationals in the present treaty, with regard to economic questions, to questions relative to transport and to aerial navigation.

SECTION III.--Left Bank of the Rhine

=ARTICLE 42.=--Germany is forbidden to maintain or construct any fortifications either on the left bank of the Rhine or on the right bank to the west of a line drawn fifty kilometers to the east of the Rhine.

=ARTICLE 43.=--In the area defined above the maintenance and the assembly of armed forces either permanently or temporarily, and military maneuvers of any kind, as well as the upkeep of all permanent works for mobilization, are in the same way forbidden.

=ARTICLE 44.=--In case Germany violates in any manner the provisions of Article 42 and 43 she shall be regarded as committing a hostile act against the powers signatory of the present treaty and as calculated to disturb the peace of the world.

SECTION IV.--Sarre Basin

=ARTICLE 45.=--As compensation for the destruction of the coal mines in the North of France and as part payment toward the total reparation due from Germany for the damage resulting from the war, Germany cedes to France in full and absolute possession, with exclusive rights of exploitation, unincumbered and free from all debts and charges of any kind, the coal mines situated in the Sarre Basin as defined in Article 48.

=ARTICLE 46.=--In order to assure the rights and welfare of the population and to guarantee to France complete freedom in working the mines, Germany agrees to the provisions of Chapters 1 and 2 of the annex hereto.

=ARTICLE 47.=--In order to make in due time permanent provision for the government of the Sarre Basin in accordance with the wishes of the population, France and Germany agree to the provisions of Chapter 3 of the annex hereto.

=ARTICLE 48.=--The boundaries of the territory of the Sarre Basin, as dealt with in the present stipulations, will be fixed as follows:

On the south and southwest: By the frontier of France as fixed by the present treaty.

On the northwest and north: By a line following the northern administrative boundary of the Kreise of Merzig from the point where it leaves the French frontier to the point where it meets the administrative boundary, separating the commune of Saarhölzbach from the commune of Britten; following this communal boundary southward and reaching the administrative boundary of the Canton of Merzig so as to include in the territory of the Sarre Basin the Canton of Mettlach, with the exception of the commune of Britten: following successively the northern administrative limits of the Cantons of Merzig and Haustadt, which are incorporated in the aforesaid Sarre Basin, then successively the administrative boundaries separating the Kreise of Saare Louis, Ottweiler, and Saint-wendel from the Kreise of Merzig, Treves, (Trier.) and the principality of Birkenfeld as far as a point situated about 500 meters north of the village of Furschweiler, (viz.: The highest point of the Metzelberg.)

On the northeast and east: From the last point defined above to a point about 3½ kilometers east-northeast of Saint Wendel:

A line to be fixed on the ground passing east of Furschweiler, west of Roschberg, east of points 418, 329, (south of Roschberg,) west of Leitersweiler, northeast of point 46'4, and following the line of the crest southward to its junction with the administrative boundary of the Kreis of Kusel;

Thence in a southerly direction the boundary of the Kreis of Kusel, then the boundary of the Kreis of Homburg toward the south-southeast to a point situated about 1,000 meters west of Dunzweiler;

Thence to a point about one kilometer south of Hornbach: a line to be fixed on the ground passing through point 424, (about 1,000 meters southeast of Dunzweiler,) point 363, (Fuchsberg,) point 322, (southwest of Waldmohr,) then east of Jagersburg and Erbach, then encircling Homburg, passing through the points 361, (about 2½ kilometers northeast by east of that town,) 342, (about 2 kilometers southeast of that town,) 347, (Schreinersberg,) 356, 350, (about 1½ kilometers southeast of Schwarzenbach,) then passing east of Einöd, southeast of points 322 and 333, about 2 kilometers east of Webenheim, about 2 kilometers east of Mimbach, passing east of the plateau which is traversed by the road from Mimbach to Böckweiler, (so as to include this road in the territory of the Sarre Basin,) passing immediately north of the junction of the roads from Böckweiler and Altheim, situated about 2 kilometers north of Altheim, then passing south of Ringweilderhof and north of point 322, rejoining the frontier of France at the angle which it makes about 1 kilometer south of Hornbach, (see Map No. 2, scale 1-100,000, annexed to the present treaty.)

A commission composed of five members, one appointed by France, one by Germany, and three by the Council of the League of Nations, which will select nationals of other powers, will be constituted within fifteen days from the coming into force of the present treaty, to trace on the spot the frontier line described above. In those parts of the preceding line which do not coincide with administration boundaries, the commission will endeavor to keep to the line indicated, while taking into consideration, so far as is possible local economic interests and existing communal boundaries.

The decisions of this commission will be taken by a majority and will be binding on the parties concerned.

=ARTICLE 49.=--Germany renounces in favor of the League of Nations, in the capacity of trustee, the government of the territory defined above.

At the end of fifteen years from the coming into force of the present treaty the inhabitants of the said territory shall be called upon to indicate the sovereignty under which they desire to be placed.

=ARTICLE 50.=--The stipulations under which the cession of the mines in the Sarre Basin shall be carried out, together with the measures intended to guarantee the rights and the well-being of the inhabitants and the government of the territory, as well as the conditions in accordance with which the plebiscite hereinbefore provided for is to be made, are laid down in the annex hereto. This annex shall be considered as an integral part of the present treaty, and Germany declares her adherence to it.

ANNEX

In accordance with the provisions of Articles 45 to 50 of the present treaty, the stipulations under which the cession by Germany to France of the mines of the Sarre Basin will be effected, as well as the measures intended to insure respect for the rights and well-being of the population and the government of the territory, and the conditions in which the inhabitants will be called upon to indicate the sovereignty under which they may wish to be placed, have been laid down as follows:

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1. CESSION AND EXPLOITATION OF MINING PROPERTY

1. From the date of the coming into force of the present treaty, all the deposits of coal situated within the Sarre Basin, as defined in Article 48 of the said treaty, become the complete and absolute property of the French State.

The French State will have the right of working or not working the said mines or of transferring to a third party the right of working them, without having to obtain any previous authorization or to fulfill any formalities.

The French State may always require that the German mining laws and regulations referred to below shall be applied in order to insure the determination of its rights.

2. The right of ownership of the French State will apply not only to the deposits which are free, and for which concessions have not yet been granted, but also to the deposits for which concessions have already been granted, whoever may be the present proprietors, irrespective of whether they belong to the Prussian State, to the Bavarian State, to other States or bodies, to companies or to individuals, whether they have been worked or not, or whether a right of exploitation distinct from the right of the owners of the surface of the soil has or has not been recognized.

3. As far as concerns the mines which are being worked, the transfer of the ownership to the French State will apply to all the accessories and subsidiaries of the said mines, in particular to their plant and equipment both on and below the surface, to their extracting machinery, their plants for transforming coal into electric power, coke and by-products, their workshops, means of communication, electric lines, plant for catching and distributing water, land, buildings, such as offices, managers', employes', and workmen's dwellings, schools, hospitals, and dispensaries, their stocks and supplies of every description, their archives and plans, and in general everything which those who own or exploit the mines possess or enjoy for the purpose of exploiting the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries.

The transfer will apply also to the debts owing for products delivered before the entry into possession by the French State, and after the signature of the present treaty, and to deposits of money made by customers, whose rights will be guaranteed by the French State.

4. The French State will acquire the property free and clear of all debts and charges. Nevertheless the rights acquired, or in course of being acquired, by the employes of the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries at the date of the coming into force of the present treaty, in connection with pensions for old age or disability, will not be affected. In return, Germany must pay over to the French State a sum representing the actuarial amounts to which the said employes are entitled.

5. The value of the property thus ceded to the French State will be determined by the Reparation Commission referred to in Article 233 of Part VIII. (Reparations) of the present treaty.

This value shall be credited to Germany in part payment of the amount due for reparation.

It will be for Germany to indemnify the proprietors or parties concerned, whoever they may be.

6. No tariff shall be established on the German railways and canals which may directly or indirectly discriminate to the prejudice of the transport of the personnel or products of the mines and their accessories or subsidiaries, or of the material necessary to their exploitation. Such transport shall enjoy all the rights and privileges which any international railway conventions may guarantee to similar products of French origin.

7. The equipment and personnel necessary to insure the dispatch and transport of the products of the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries, as well as the carriage of workmen and employes, will be provided by the local railway administration of the basin.

8. No obstacle shall be placed in the way of such improvements of railways or waterways as the French State may judge necessary to assure the dispatch and transport of the products of the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries, such as double trackage, enlargement of stations, and construction of yards and appurtenances.

The distribution of expenses will, in the event of disagreement, be submitted to arbitration.

The French State may also establish any new means of communication, such as roads, electric lines, and telephone connections, which it may consider necessary for the exploitation of the mines.

It may exploit freely and without any restrictions the means of communication of which it may become the owner, particularly those connecting the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries with the means of communication situated in French territory.

9. The French State shall always be entitled to demand the application of the German mining laws and regulations in force on the 11th of November, 1918, excepting provisions adopted exclusively in view of the state of war, with a view to the acquisition of such land as it may judge necessary for the exploitation of the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries.

The payment for damage caused to immovable property by the working of the said mines and their accessories and subsidiaries shall be made in accordance with the German mining laws and regulations above referred to.

10. Every person whom the French State may substitute for itself as regards the whole or part of its rights to the exploitation of the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries shall enjoy the benefit of the privileges provided in this annex.

11. The mines and other immovable property which become the property of the French State may never be made the subject of measures of forfeiture, forced sale, expropriation or requisition, nor of any other measure affecting the right of property.

The personnel and the plant connected with the exploitation of these mines or their accessories and subsidiaries, as well as the product extracted from the mines or manufactured in their accessories and subsidiaries, may not at any time be made the subject of any measures of requisition.

12. The exploitation of the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries, which become the property of the French State, will continue, subject to the provisions of Paragraph 23 below, to be subject to the régime established by the German laws and regulations in force on the 11th November, 1918, excepting provisions adopted exclusively in view of the state of war.

The rights of the workmen shall be similarly maintained, subject to the provisions of the said Paragraph 23, as established on the 11th November, 1918, by the German laws and regulations above referred to. No impediment shall be placed in the way of the introduction or employment in the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries of workmen from without the basin.

The employes and workmen of French nationality shall have the right to belong to French labor unions.

13. The amount contributed by the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries, either to the local budget of the territory of the Sarre Basin or to the communal funds, shall be fixed with due regard to the ratio of the value of the mines to the total taxable wealth of the basin.

14. The French State shall always have the right of establishing and maintaining, as incidental to the mines, primary or technical schools for its employes and their children, and of causing instruction therein to be given in the French language, in accordance with such curriculum and by such teachers as it may select.

It shall also have the right to establish and maintain hospitals, dispensaries, workmen's houses and gardens, and other charitable and social institutions.

15. The French State shall enjoy complete liberty with respect to the distribution, dispatch and sale prices of the products of the mines and their accessories and subsidiaries.

Nevertheless, whatever may be the total product of the mines, the French Government undertakes that the requirements of local consumption for industrial and domestic purposes shall always be satisfied in the proportion existing in 1913 between the amount consumed locally and the total output of the Sarre Basin.

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II. GOVERNMENT OF THE TERRITORY OF THE SARRE BASIN

16. The government of the territory of the Sarre Basin shall be intrusted to a commission representing the League of Nations. This commission shall sit in the territory of the Sarre Basin.

17. The Governing Commission provided for by Paragraph 16 shall consist of five members chosen by the Council of the League of Nations, and will include one citizen of France, one native inhabitant of the Sarre Basin not a citizen of France, and three members belonging to three countries other than France or Germany.

The members of the Governing Commission shall be appointed for one year and may be reappointed. They can be removed by the Council of the League of Nations, which will provide for their replacement. The members of the Governing Commission will be entitled to a salary which will be fixed by the Council of the League of Nations, and charged on the local revenues.

18. The Chairman of the Governing Commission shall be appointed for one year from among the members of the commission by the Council of the League of Nations and may be reappointed. The Chairman will act as the executive of the commission.

19. Within the territory of the Sarre Basin the Governing Commission shall have all the powers of government hitherto belonging to the German Empire, Prussia or Bavaria, including the appointment and dismissal of officials, and the creation of such administrative and representative bodies as it may deem necessary. It shall have full powers to administer and operate the railways, canals, and the different public services.

Its decisions shall be taken by a majority.

20. Germany will place at the disposal of the Governing Commission all official documents and archives under the control of Germany, of any German State, or of any local authority, which relate to the territory of the Sarre Basin or to the rights of the inhabitants thereof.

21. It will be the duty of the Governing Commission to insure, by such means and under such conditions as it may deem suitable, the protection abroad of the interests of the inhabitants of the territory of the Sarre Basin.

22. The Governing Commission shall have the full right of user of all property, other than mines belonging, both in public and in private domain, to the Imperial German Government, or the Government of any German State, in the territory of the Sarre Basin.

As regards the railways, an equitable apportionment of rolling stock shall be made by a mixed commission on which the government of the territory of the Sarre Basin and the German railways will be represented.

Persons, goods, vessels, carriages, wagons, and mails, coming from or going to the Sarre Basin, shall enjoy all the rights and privileges relating to transit and transport which are specified in the provisions of Part XII. (ports, waterways, railways) of the present treaty.

23. The laws and regulations in force n Nov. 11, 1918, in the territory of the Sarre Basin, (except those enacted in consequence of the state of war,) shall continue to apply. If, for general reasons or to bring these laws and regulations into accord with the provisions of the present treaty, it is necessary to introduce modifications, these shall be decided on, and put into effect by the Governing Commission, after consultation with the elected representatives of the inhabitants in such a manner as the commission may determine. No modification may be made in the legal régime for the exploitation of the mines, provided for in Paragraph 12, without the French State being previously consulted, unless such modification results from a general regulation respecting labor adopted by the League of Nations.

In fixing the conditions and hours of labor for men, women, and children, the Governing Commission is to take into consideration the wishes expressed by the local labor organizations, as well as the principles adopted by the League of Nations.

24. Subject to the provisions of Paragraph 4, no rights of the inhabitants of the Sarre Basin acquired or in process of acquisition at the date of the coming into force of this treaty, in respect of any insurance system of Germany, or in respect of any pension of any kind, are affected by any of the provisions of the present treaty.

Germany and the Government of the territory of the Saare Basin will preserve and continue all the aforesaid rights.

25. The civil and criminal courts existing in the territory of the Sarre Basin shall continue.

A civil and criminal court will be established by the Governing Commission to hear appeals from the decisions of the said courts, and to decide matters for which these courts are not competent.

The Governing Commission will be responsible for settling the organization and jurisdiction of the said court.

Justice will be rendered in the name of the Governing Commission.

26. The Governing Commission will alone have the power of levying taxes and dues in the territory of the Sarre Basin.

These taxes and dues will be exclusively applied to the needs of the territory.

The fiscal system existing on Nov. 11, 1918, will be maintained as far as possible, and no new tax except customs duties may be imposed without previously consulting the elected representatives of the inhabitants.

27. The present stipulations will not affect the existing nationality of the inhabitants of the territory of the Sarre Basin. No hindrance shall be placed in the way of those who wish to acquire a different nationality, but in such case the acquisition of the new nationality will involve the loss of any other.

28. Under the control of the Governing Commission the inhabitants will retain their local assemblies, their religious liberties, their schools, and their language. The right of voting will not be exercised for any assemblies other than the local assemblies, and will belong to every inhabitant over the age of 20 years without distinction of sex.

29. Any of the inhabitants of the Sarre Basin who may desire to leave the territory will have full liberty to retain in it their immovable property or to sell it at fair prices and to remove their movable property free of any charge.

30. There will be no military service, whether compulsory or voluntary, in the territory of the Sarre Basin, and the construction of fortifications therein is forbidden. Only a local gendarmerie for the maintenance of order may be established. It will be the duty of the Governing Commission to provide in all cases for the protection of persons and property in the Sarre Basin.

31. The territory of the Sarre Basin as defined by Article 48 of the present treaty shall be subjected to the French customs régime. The receipts from the customs duties on goods intended for local consumption shall be included in the budget of the said territory after deduction of all costs of collection. No export tax shall be imposed upon metallurgical products or coal exported from the said territory to Germany, nor upon German exports for the use of the industries of the territory of the Sarre Basin. Natural or manufactured products originating in the basin in transit over German territory and similarly German products in transit over the territory of the basin shall be free of all customs duties.

Products which both originate in and pass from the basin into Germany shall be free of import duties for a period of five years from the date of the coming into force of the present treaty, and during the same period articles imported from Germany into the territory of the basin for local consumption shall likewise be free of import duties.

During these five years the French Government reserves to itself the right of limiting to the annual average of the quantities imported into Alsace-Lorraine and France in the years 1911 to 1913 the quantities which may be sent into France of all articles coming from the basin, which include raw materials and semi-manufactured goods imported duty free from Germany. Such average shall be determined after reference to all available official information and statistics.

32. No prohibition or restriction shall be imposed upon the circulation of French money in the territory of the Sarre Basin. The French State shall have the right to use French money in all purchases, payments, and contracts connected with the exploitation of the mines or their accessories and subsidiaries.

33. The Governing Commission shall have power to decide all questions arising from the interpretation of the preceding provisions. France and Germany agree that any dispute involving a difference of opinion as to the interpretation of the said provisions shall in the same way be submitted to the Governing Commission, and the decision of a majority of the commission shall be binding on both countries.

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