The Truth about the Occupation of the Ruhr

New Zealand Tablet, Volume L, Issue 38, 27 September 1923, Page 23

The Truth about the Occupation of the Ruhr

(By Archbishop Redwood.)

It has been, and .is, contended by many in, Germany, and even by the bulk of Catholics there— we may Judge by the assertions of the Catholic publication called the Echoes of Catholic Germany the French and Belgian occupation of the Ruhr was an act against the right of nations. It was, they say, an incalculable wrong done to Christian society and to the Catholic name, and they endeavor to prove this contention by these two reasons: (1) France and Belgium did not precede the invasion by a declaration- of war; (2) France and Belgium cannot infer from the Versailles Treaty the right to invade the Ruhr. To the first assertion, it may be answered that the territory of the Ruhr was not invaded as Belgium had been invaded by Germany, although her neutrality had been guaranteed by the invading Germany against Germany’s own oath and pledge. The Ruhr was not invaded, but simply occupied. This operation was decided on, January 10, 1923, not as anact tending to exercise a political domination over the territory, but as a measure of economic control over its industrial productions, executed by French and Belgian and Italian technicians. The military contingent that accompanied them, had, at the outset, the sole mission to protect their security. On their part, they were commissioned to methodically inquire into the industrial and commercial activity of the great coal valley, in order to ascertain the importance of the productions, exportations, and financial output of business, so as to be able to judge the real solvency of Germany, and thus proportion exactly the immediate' exigencies of her creditors, both regarding the delivery of coal, and of other payments in money or kind.' The fact of the German resistance, ordered from . Berlin, caused the occupation to' assume a. military character, and to impose such restrictions and coercions as the attitude of Germany rendered necessary.

To the second reason, it may be answered also by the right which France and Belgium had to occupy the valley of the Ruhr, in order to exercise therein an economic control. That right is clearly deducible from the paragraph 17 and 18 of the Annex 11. of the Versailles Treaty, relative to Reparations.

Paragraph 17 is thus worded: —“ln case of failure on Germany’s part to execute ;what is incumbent upon her,' from any. of the obligations contemplated in the present part of the present Treaty, the Commission of Reparations shall notify this failure to. each of the Powers interested, joining thereto all proposals it shall deem opportune relative to the measures to be adopted on account of that failure.” ' •;*

Paragraph 18 is thus worded: —“The sanctions which allied and associated Powers shall have the right to fix, in case of voluntary failure of Germany, and which Germany engages to not consider as acts of hostility, ; can comprise, acts of prohibition and economic and financial reprisals, and in general such other measures as the respective governments may deem necessary under the circumstances.” . . '

‘ Endeavoring to rest their contention upon the last text, the Germans object that it forsees exclusively economic sanctions, and not a territorial occupation, and, moreover, that these sanctions must necessarily be taken by the totality of the allied and associated Powers, and not by. one or two only. , i'S

That the foreseen sanctions in paragraph 18 should be of the economic order, certainly yes; that they should never have for conditions of success, or as a practical consequence, a territorial occupation effected --definite conditions, certainly w. Certain measures of restraint, certain pledges, necessary to give to economic sanctions all their effective force, have a perfect right to be included among the s means of coercion that a creditor can lawfully employ to overcome the wilful, unjust, and clearly established resistance of a recalcitrant debtor. Natural law admits the equity, nay, sanctions the necessity, of such a method. Catholic theologians, and among them (not to mention others) Sylvestre., Prieras, Francis de Vittoria, Francis Suarez, Leonard Lessius, unhesitatingly proclaim the right of the victor, who lias been forced to wag© a just war, to renumerate himself from injuries inflicted, by taking a fair equivalent of the property of an unjust aggressor.

The masters of Catholic theology have summed up in the four following articles the .rights of a victor versus an unjust aggressor: —•

1. The restitution of whatever has been unjustly taken; 2. The repayment of all the expenses caused by the adversary’s injustice, so that, if the war has already begun, there is an equitable claim on all expenses made up to then;

3. Something can be exacted as a punishment of the injustice undergone: for war has not only the character of commutative justice, but also of vindictive:

4. Finally, the victor can justly demand all that is necessary for the preservation of peace in the future, since that is the principal object of war, namely, to establish peace for the future.

The text of the Versailles Treaty endorses, in fact, the same doctrine by foreseeing in paragraph IS. the acts of prohibition, the economic and financial sanctions, and, in general, such other measures as the Creditor Powers may judge necessary under the circumstances. The last number of the sentence is bereft of all meaning, if it does not expiess their right, when needed, to inflict seizures and constiaints, and to inflict them by means of an occupation of territory, if they can be made efficacious by no other means. But (say the Germans) these sanctions have not been taken by the collectivity m the Allied and associated oners, acting conjointly, or at least by the four principal among them. That is true; but nowhere is it .positively'stated in the Versailles Treaty that such a concert is obligatory. The paragraph IS is worded in terms which eventually render licit, at the pleasure of those interested, either collective action or separate action, since it speaks only “of such other measures as the respective Governments may deem necessary under the circumstances,” without any other precise statement, any other restrictions as regards their intentions. Etc facto , there has been no opposition in principle from any of the four Powers represented in the Commission of Reparations. Though Great Britain did not judge opportune to co-operate in the occupation of the Ruhr, she never pretended that the occupation was contrary, either to the right of nations, or to the Treaty, and nevdr denied to France and Belgium the faculty to proceed without Great Britain’s co-operation. She abstained, because she doubted the practical efficacy of this measure of restraint, but she never either thwarted or blamed it. , As to Italy, she has so little contested the legitimacy of the French and Belgian operation, that she has consented to allow herself to be represented on the technical commission of industrial control which on January 10, 1922, was installed in the region of .Essen.

The separate initiative of France and Belgium is explained by the sole fact that, being the creditors most severely tried by the insolvency of the Reich, they found themselves ■ in a particularly pressing condition. After all, they acted,‘not in their own exclusive interest, but in that of all the signatory Powers of the Tre.aty. The payments effected in the Valley of the Ruhr are not really reserved to themselves, but will be put into the 'interallied account of the reparations, and distributed among the creditors of .Germany, in accordance with tire rules adopted by the allied and associated Powers, long before there was any question of occupying the coal-bearing valley. Since it* is obstinately pretended that the voluntary failure of Germany to keep her engagements to pay in money or kind, do not-deserve to be made so much of, and

only involve negligible delays dealing with unimportant deliveries, we must recall that: 1. In terms of Article 235 of the Versailles Treaty Germany was bound to pay, on the Ist of May, 1921, 2(1 milliards of gold marks, less the - amount of expenses of revictualling effected by the German Government, with the authorisa tion of the.allied Governments, and those of the troops of occupation, which reduced the sum payable to 15 milliards 520 million gold marks. The instalments of Germany, before the Ist of May, 1921, amounted to 3 milliards, 10 millions of gold marks. Deficit : 12 milliards, 514 millions. ' • , 2. From the Ist of May, 1921, to the 31st of December, 1922, Germany was'bound to pay, according to the state of payments, 4 milliards 873 millions of gold marks comprising therein the expenses of the armies of occupation. She paid only 2 milliards 280 millions. Deficit- 1 milliard 992 millions. 3. For coal, during the eleven; first months of 1922 the deficit of Germany’s payments reached the sum of 7783 tons on the programme of the Treaty of Peace, and 2,150,000 tons on the programme of the Commission of Reparations. 4. Tor azote—a product all the most suspicious as it enters largely into the composition of explosives," Germany refused, in December, 1922, all payments claimed as reparation.

5. For wood, on the 30th of September, 1922 France was entitled to have received 55,000 cubic metres of that article. Two months later, only 35,000 cubic metres had been remitted. In like manner, France expected 200 000 telegraph poles; she got only 65,000. Now, the sole’domanial forests of the left bank of the Rhine produce 900,000 cubic metres of whod yearly, and they could be made to produce much more.

6. The German mark was depreciated solely in consequence of the mad issue of paper money made by the Beich, while, during that time, the evasion of Germany’s wealth was operated by means of deposits in foreign countries by German traders and industrials, under the form of taxes unclaimed by the public treasury, or by biodividends distributed to shareholders in great German companies. - After this, one is forced to admit that it is too bad—not to use a stronger word—to pretend, as the Echoes of Catholic Germany do, that passive resistance is “a duty of conscience for the employees as well as for all the people.”. It is carrying audacity altogether too far to compare this passive resistance with that which the German Catholics displayed, at the time of the Kulturkampf, against the invasions of the State with (the Echoes tell us) “the approbation of the Holy See and under the guidance of the Bishops.”

At the time of the Kulturkampf, religious liberties were threatened, and there was then a “duty of conscience” to defend them; to-day we have injured creditors, one of whom, France, has spent over a hundred milliards for the reparation of the damages of war; creditors who require guarantees against a recalcitrant debtor, to oblige him to take steps to pay his just debts. The “duty of conscience,” it seems, would be, at least, not to oppose by calculated inertia, violence and sabotage, so legitimate an enterprise. . The Echoes of Catholic Germany are again indignant, as though in presence of a breach of the rights of property, and of an encouragement to Bolshevism and Communism, in the seizure effected by the Belgian and French agents, either of domanial forests 0r,.0f paper money deposited in banks, and in the taking of other similar pledges. Their editors would fain have us believe that the measures adopted by Belgium and France, by the contempt of the rights of property which such proceedings constitute, would necessitate a “new orientation of the rights of ownership, and that the Catholic Church approves such a change.” And then (they'say) “the Catholic Church is held up to hatred and scorn.” ■ Let us curb our indignation at such insulting statements regarding Belgium and. France. Let us use our reason a were it only for the sake ‘ of men outside Germany amenable to reason, and even a few in Germany. Is not the seizure; of j goods ; the only lawful means which a fcreditor;can? take against a wilfully recalcitrant debtor?. Such measures as are adopted, by private .individuals, are they forbidden to States, when their debtor

.is another State, , and when every other, step has been found unavailing? Is it admissible to liken such operations to those resorted to by Bolshevists ‘ and Communists, which are purely and' simply confiscations -perpetrated against all 1 right, whereas France and Belgium merely exploit, for the benefit of all the creditors, a certain amount of German goods, of which they do not usurp the ownership, but rather the usufruct, in order to recover at least a part of what Germany unjustly refuses to pay? What undoubtedly is calculated to favor Bolshevism and Communism is the attitude of the German State, which eludes, in every ■ conceivable ■ manner, the payment of its debts, following the example of the Soviets when they repudiate the debts of the Russian Empire to which they are successors. • ■ '

There is indeed a real breach of morality, when a people sides with its rulers—be they Catholics or not — to repudiate an undoubted obligation to repair damages wilfully and often uselessly inflicted, thus dooming to financial distress those who suffered them, while those German rulers, for four successive years, have striven to make themselves insolvent. Such an operation is rightly called bankruptcy, concocted and therefore fraudulent bankruptcy. If that is what the Echoes of - Catholic Germany approve, let them, say so, and we know what to think of them.

No doubt the picture drawn of the distress in the religious communities of Germany is very sad and'deplorable, but it can be contrasted with a similar distress in France, not only during war-time, but since throughout, the devastated regions. It is equally heartrending. Here is an instance: A cure seventy years of age in the diocese of Cambrai, having obtained leave from his Archbishop to return to his parish, in which not a single wall was left standing, set up a wretched hovel, where he soon caught cold and died. Nor is this an isolated case. There were multitudes of similar cases. The French did not make capital out of them, and, like a certain German ecclesiastical dignitary, go off and tell the Americans that the children in his country would be too happy to be fed on what the Americans give to their dogs and cats.

The children of the Ruhr were short of milk. "Well, it is known, from official German statistics, that the herds of milking cows were almost entirely re-established already in 1921. On the Ist of December, 1913, they amounted to 10,041,000 head; on the Ist of December they were 9,091,000 head. All through the period when Germany furnished to the French only one-tenth of the farm-animals carried off by her troops in the invaded regions, statistics proved that the number of animals taken to the slaughterhouses was constantly on the increase.

At the beginning of the occupation of the Ruhr, a French regiment transported in the army trollies, the milk destined for the German children in danger of being short of it, owing to the sudden shortage of German rail-way-men. At Dusseldorf, the German town supposed to have the minimum supply of milk, a three-year-old child gets daily three-quarters of a litre of milk, whereas in Frankfort, a child of the same age , gets only one-quarter of a litre of milk per day, or sometimes none at all.

There exist at present in the whole of the occupied territory-in the Valley of the Ruhr, more than sixty places in which victuals are gratuitously distributed. Fifteen stores are organised to sell provisions at a cheaper rate than in the local stores.

It was particularly painful for a Frenchman to read in number 3 of the Echoes of Catholic Germany, lines of scornful and injurious irony against France, “the eldest daughter of the Church,” who “celebrated, with great pomp by her occupation Army, her national feasts in the Catholic churches,” and “adorned the altars with her tricolored flag.” The editors of this mean jibe have totally forgotten the great courtesy with which the inter-allied High Commission invariably treated the Rhenish clergy.

On May 14, 1920, the /central Catholic committee of Rome sent to the Colonel, delegated by the High Commission, a letter to thank him for his kindness in authorising the religious ceremonies and in giving the necessary orders to have nothing-changed in their , traditional course, on the occasion of the visit of Cardinal Schulte to that town. Cardinal Schulte having notified to the French High Commission the moral inconveniences .for youth arising from

going to the moving pictures, and having asked him .to accordingly alter the, orders of the High Commission, the French High Commissariat immediately granted his request.

On May 14, 1922, in the course of a spontaneous visit of Cardinal Schulte to the French High Commission, his Eminence asked M. Tirard for his intervention on behalf of certain German prisoners, and this favor was granted instantly.

Lastly, on March 24, 1922, Cardinal Schulte wrote to the inter-allied High Commission of the Rhenish territories to protest against the seizure of sums of 154,000 marks deposited, in the name of the Cure of Runshoven, in the Savings Bank of Gelsenkirchen. The Cardinal remarked that this money was intended to “assist the distress caused by the entrance of the French and Belgian troops into the Rhur,” and that it was the result of collections made by the Catholic clergy. On April 16, the President of the High Commission answered the Cardinal that, by deference to his Eminence, he would see that satisfaction was given, though all the while he was aware that the funds deposited in the Savings Bank had been collected for a political purpose.

Decidedly, it is better for the Rhenish clergy to live under the “Tricolor,” than it was for the French and Belgian clergy, during the war, under the German flag!

In conclusion, it seems that the French Catholics’ answer to the Echoes of Catholic Germany , might fitly be as follows; If their editors and inspirees wish to insure the peace of the world, which was not disturbed by France and Belgium, but by Germany, let them devote to the service of the case, as the French Catholics are trying to do, their influence and authority; let them give up travestying the French intentions and actions; let them finally return to due respect for the most indisputable principles of Christian morality, instead of striving to stir up against the French and Belgians the public opinion of the world at large and especially in the ranks of Catholics.

Ever since the war their attacks have been incessant. The hearts of the French and Belgians are as sore as theirs at the sight of the sad- events which they, have contributed to cause far more than the French or Belgians. French and Belgian Catholics have regretfully engaged in this controversy with respected co-religionists. They are sure that the bulk of Catholics throughout the world, and of some even in Germany, will understand that, for the very honor of the Church and Catholicism, they cannot allow, in the eyes of the world, the issue of such calumnies against them, as Catholics, and as citizens of the great French nation, to pass unchallenged and undenied.