During one of the last international conferences at which I was present, and over which I presided, at San Remo, after a long exchange of views with the British and French Premiers, Lloyd George and Millerand, the American journalists asked me to give them my ideas on peace: "What is the most necessary thing for the maintenance of peace?" they inquired.
"One thing only," I replied, "is necessary. Europe must smile once more." Smiles have vanished from every lip; nothing has remained but hatred, menaces and nervous excitement.
When Europe shall smile again she will "rediscover" her political peace ideas and will drink once more at the spring of life. Class struggles at home, in their acutest form, are like the competition of nationalism abroad: explosions of cupidity, masked by the pretext of the country's greatness.
The deeply rooted economic crisis, which threatens and prepares new wars, the deeply rooted social crisis, which threatens and prepares fresh conflicts abroad, are nothing but the expression of a status animae or soul condition. Statesmen are the most directly responsible for the continuation of a language of violence; they should be the first to speak the language of peace.
F.S. NITTI.
ACQUAFREDDA IN BASILICATA.
September 30, 1921.
P.S.—"Peaceless Europe" is an entirely new book, which I have written in my hermitage of Acquafredda, facing the blue Adriatic; it contains, however, some remarks and notices which have already appeared in articles written by me for the great American agency, the United Press, and which have been reproduced by the American papers.
I have repeatedly stated that I have not published any document which was not meant for publication; I have availed myself of my knowledge of the most important international Acts and of all diplomatic documents merely as a guide, but it is on facts that I have solidly based my considerations.
J. Keynes and Robert Lansing have already published some very important things, but no secret documents; recently, however, Tardieu and Poincaré, in the interest of the French nationalist thesis which they sustain, have published also documents of a very reserved nature. Tardieu's book is a documentary proof of the French Government's extremist attitude during the conference, amply showing that the present form of peace has been desired almost exclusively by France, and that the others have been unwilling parties to it. Besides his articles in the Revue des Deux Mondes, Poincaré has recently published in the Temps (September 12, 1921) a whole secret correspondence between Poincaré, President of the Republic, Clemenceau, President of the Council of Ministers, the American Delegation, and, above all, Lloyd George.