Wairarapa Daily Times [Established 45 Years.] WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 1920. “TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES.”

Wairarapa Daily Times, Volume 46, Issue 141002, 21 April 1920, Page 4

Wairarapa Daily Times [Established 45 Years.] WEDNESDAY, APRIL 21, 1920. “TRAGEDY OF TRAGEDIES.”

The American historian of the future will have a. difficult task in any effort to make an attractive picture of the “greatest country on earth” during the present period of turmoil and unrest over the wtfole world. However little the average citizen of the British Empire, France, Italy, Poland, the Balkans —most of the currently important parts of the earth, in fact — ; may understand of international diplomacy and the accommodations of policies in a common working arrangement, at least one impression is perfectly clear in his mind: That from the first hitch in. the drafting of the Peace Treaty to the present vast deplorable tangle in international relations all over the. world, the obstacles to settlement have been interposed by America. The President of the United States went to the Peace Conference in a blaze of glory; he represented moral force, the great smothered voice of mankind, an awakened democracy in every country for which heneeworth the world had to be “made safe.” The Peace Treaty, as the conquering Allies had outlined it after more than four years of bloody and exhausting combat, a situation in which the victors deserved natural satisfaction if ever they did in the world’s history—the Peace Treaty was held up and ,dissected by .the United States in order to fit it to receive an essential element, the covenant of the League of Natinos. No sooner, however, had the representatives of the United States won over the victorious Allies to endorsement -of the League of plan than Hie glow of American enthusiasm behind it began to dim. Having delayed the signing of peace for many months, America announced that she could not ratify the Treaty which her own delegates took a leading share in making, and which they signed with great display as the leading authors. There was to be reference to all international disputes to arbitration; America would now withhold causes within that terribly elastic Monroe Doctrine. There was to be a guarantee by the League of the rights and liberties of the “small nations; America now do-*

clinch to concern herself in European affairs, There, were to be mandates issued to the principal First Members of the League, as educators and guardians over undeveloped peoples newly released from German or Turkish bondage; America, understood to have accepted the mandate for Armenia, now .refuses to tako it up. The American defection has given a fillip to a dozen, revolts—it lias, been the opportunity of tile Reds in Russia and Central Europe; it has enabled Germany to whittle down term after term of the Treaty conditions imposed upon her; it has inflamed the insurrection at Fiume and the Jugoslavs against Italy; it has encouraged Sinn Fein rioting in Ireland. We have been loth, like all English-speaking peoples, to condemn the Americans too quickly, but they are beginning to condemn themselves. Speaking early in February at a New York dinner ot the Zionist organisation to celebrate the pledge of Gj-eat, Britain to establish the Jewish national rights in Palestine, Mr Daniels (United States Secretary *f the Navy) said that the past year had been for the United States one of “fiddling delay” and a “tragedy of tragedies.” Amoyiea, he said, had not kept faith with the Allies, but he had confidence that the American people would do their duty. “I am confident,” he concluded, ‘‘‘ that- the American people will respond to this call and give Armenia present relief from, the perils of starvation, and then provide for the freedom of the country from the rule of the Turks.” Yes, but when? The trouble is that' My Daniels, while a Minister of the American Cabinet, is also a mere nominee of the President, and removable at the President’s displeasure. For whom does he speak, oi can he speak? European nations are accustomed to read in the speeches of Cabinet Ministers the intention of the National Government. President Wilson (a higher power than Mr Daniels) was expressing these same high sentiments all last year, and the result was —nothing. The world cannot wait too Ion.»• for America.