Where Are We Going?

by David Lloyd George

But take all these variegated schools together, or separately, and you will find not one in a thousand of their pupils could give you an intelligent and comprehensive summary of the main principles of the treaty. I doubt whether I should be far wrong in saying there would not be one in ten thousand. Controversialists generally are satisfied to concentrate on the articles in the treaty which are obnoxious or pleasing to them as the case may be, and ignore the rest completely, however essential they may be to a true judgment of the whole. Most of the disputants are content to take their views from press comments and denunciatory speeches. Unhappily the explanatory speeches have been few. Some there are who have in their possession the full text—nominally for reference; but you will find parts of the reparations clauses in their copies black with the thumb-marks which note the perspiring dialectician searching for projectiles to hurl at the object of his fury. The clauses which ease and modify the full demand are treated with stern neglect, and the remainder of the pages are pure as the untrodden snow. You can trace no footprints of politicians, publicists, or journalists, in whole provinces of this unexplored treaty. The covenant of the League of Nations is lifted bodily out of the text, and is delivered to the public as a separate testament for the faithful so that the saints may not defile their hands with the polluted print which exacts justice. They have now come to believe that it never was incorporated in the Treaty of Versailles, and that it has nothing to do with that vile and sanguinary instrument.

And yet the first words of this treaty are the following:

"The High Contracting Parties,

"In order to promote international co-operation and to achieve international peace and security,

"By the acceptance of obligations not to resort to war,

"By the prescription of open, just and honourable 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 organised peoples with one another,

"Agree to this Covenant of the League of Nations."

Then follow the articles of the debated covenant.

A speaker who took part recently in a university debate on the subject told me that the undergraduates exhibited the greatest surprise when he informed them that the League of Nations was founded by the Versailles Treaty. A few days ago I had a similar experience at the Oxford Union. I was speaking against a motion framed to condemn the principles of the treaty as unwise and unjust. In its defence I recalled some of its outstanding features. But as most of my narrative had no bearing on reparations it was greeted with impatience and cries of "Question" from a group of anti-Versaillists. They honestly thought I was travelling outside the motion in giving a short summary of the other sections of the treaty. To them it is all condensed in Mr. Keynes's book, and other hostile commentaries. Anything which is inconsistent with these, or supplements the scanty or misleading statements they make, is deemed to be tainted and biassed. To refer to the text itself they regard as unfair, and as playing into the hands of the defenders of a wicked and oppressive pact. The actual treaty has been already put by them out of bounds, and you wander into its forbidden clauses on pain of being put into the guardroom by one or other of the intolerant factions who patrol the highways and byways of international politics.

In all the debates on the subject in the House of Commons I have only once heard the treaty itself quoted by a critic, and strangely enough that was by way of approval.

I have indicated one important section of the treaty to which is accorded something of the reverence due to Holy Writ by an influential section of the public. This group would be shocked were they reminded that their devotion is given to a chapter in the hateful treaty. There is yet another large and important section which is completely ignored by the critics—that which reconstructs Central Europe on the basis of nationality and the free choice of the people instead of on the basis of strategy and military convenience. This is the section that liberated Poland from the claws of the three carnivorous empires that were preying on its vitals, and restored it to life, liberty and independence. It is the section that frees the Danes of Schleswig and the Frenchmen of Alsace-Lorraine. For these oppressed provinces the Treaty of Versailles is the title-deed of freedom. Why are these clauses all suppressed in controversial literature? Here is another of the ignored provisions—that which sets up permanent machinery for dealing with labour problems throughout the world, and for raising the standard of life amongst the industrial workers by means of a great international effort. No more beneficent or more fruitful provision was ever made in any treaty. It is so momentous and so completely overlooked in general discussion, that I think it worth while to quote at length the general principles laid down by a provision which will one day be claimed as the first great international charter of the worker.

"The High Contracting Parties recognise that differences of climate, habits and customs, of economic opportunity and industrial tradition, make strict uniformity in the conditions of labour difficult of immediate attainment. But, holding as they do, that labour should not be regarded merely as an article of commerce, they think that there are methods and principles for regulating labour conditions which all industrial communities should endeavour to apply so far as their special circumstances will permit.