GERMANY TO-DAY

Evening Post, Volume CII, Issue 50, 27 August 1921, Page 9

GERMANY TO-DAY

UNCHANGED IN SPIRIT

NOT LIVING UP TO HER PROMISES,

One of the objects which became more and more important during the course of the war was the necessity of beating the Germans sufficiently to bring their ideas of international relations into harmony with those prevailing elsewhare in the world. That object haa not been achieved (says the American World's Work). ' The Germans signed the Versailles Treaty, but evidently with reservations, for since then whenever it has suited they have declined to carry out its provisions. They have signed various agreements since and looked upon each agreement not as the end but the opening of discussions. Finally, having exhausted the patience of the Allies, the German Government had ,the effrontery to suggest to President Harding that he act as arbiter between Germany and the Allies, and set the figures for the reparations Germany was to pay " after examination and investigation."

. This suggestion is illuminating in several ways. If acted upon it would have meant another long delay while an American Commission investigated. When the investigation was done and the results were announced the Germans could then begin to argue the whole case again with a country 3000 miles away. It is true that the Germans promised this time to sign without any reservations, but as they have not demonstrated that their word is worth much more since the war than during it, that promise is of little value.

Added to these advantages of delay, the Germans could reasonably hope that if we acted on their suggestion we should offend the Allies by so doing, which might lead to an estrangement between them and America.

The German Government had the effrontery to suggest this plan of repudiating the Versailles Treaty in the face of a. note from Secretary Hughes, not a month old, to the effect that we stood with the Allies in demanding that Germany pay the full reparation of which sKe is capable, and in face of the statement of the President that the United States intended to engage under the existing. Versailles Treaty to settle our European relations. Since the Armistice, as before, the German Government has not lived up to its promises, nor has it believed that other Governments meant what they said. It haa, as in the past, recognised only force as an argument.. This is a very disappointing result,'and one of the principal reasons for the slow recovery of the world from the war. It would probably have been be<jter for the .world, including Germany, if the Allied troops had gone to Berlin in'l9lß and stayed there until the reparation arrangements were made, for then not only the Allied countries but Germany as well could have gone to work on a settled and certain basis, and the corroding influence of false hopes and expectations on all sides could have been obviated.

' There are two questions involved—an economic question of how much it is to the Allies'.and America's benefit, to have Germany pay either in gold, work, or goods, and how much it ia to the Allies' and America's benefit to have Germany restored to full working capacity. The other question is the moral question, of how far it is necessary to make Germany realise her wrong and begin to live lup to . her obligations, accepting truthful standards of international dealing. . Tha . Germans have practically repudiated the existence of the second question, and endeavoured to prove that Europe could only. recover • under the leadership of German industry,. and therefore the-,--Allies and America had better let" Germany pay only as much as Germany, thought she could without interfering with her recovery to leadership in industry. , , Germany has not yet grasped; the fact that, in order to insist upon the moral principle of her guilt, the rest of the world must and "Will make her ' payj even if it is to their'own economic disadvantage, and the more she evades the demand mad© on her, the more she plays into the hands of the. extremists who desire her vivisection and destruction. No nation in modern history ever was more guilty in its aims and methods than Germany in this war. No beaten nation has ever been treated as easily. For comparison let Americans think back to the Civil War. The South had fought four years with every man- 'and every resource,' and at the end was more exhausted physically than Germany, though there was no moral collapse that led to mutinies, etc. The basis /of the Souths industry wa3 swept' away. This was far more paralysing than indemnity. The country was occupied by the conquering troops, and^ when these left they placed the government of the different States in the hands of the least competent. There was no relief from anywhere in the world sent 'to the suffering. There were no credit organisations formed to help the country produce and export. There was no helping hand of any Kind extended. The country was left to pull itself out of helpless chaos under every imaginable handicap, i Similarly, what happened to the French after 1871? In generosity to the conquered the world has progressed it far way lince 1865 and 1871. But. if generosity to the conquered is to be continued in practice, it must be workable, 'and .that depends upon the conquered as well as the conqueror. If the Germans insist that there is no appeal but force, the world will have to prescribe that medicine. The German programme of trying to create friction between England and France, and thereby delay the final settlement, and then trying to create friction between the Allies and the United States, and thereby still further delay, in the hopes of finally evading most of the obligation, will not work. Neither the Allies nor it is hoped the United States will fall into that trap. j