Peaceless Europe

by Francesco Saverio Nitti

When I was head of the Italian Government the representative of the German Government in Rome, von Herf, gave documentary evidence on what was being prepared, and on April 30, 1920, in an audience which I gave him as head of the Council he furnished me with proofs of what was the Polish organization, what were its objects and the source of its funds.

As everyone knows, the plebiscite of March 20, 1921, in spite of the violence and notwithstanding the officially protected brigandage, resulted favourably to Germany. Out of 1,200,636 voters 717,122 were for Germany and 483,514 for Poland. The 664 richest, most prosperous and most populous communes gave a majority for the Germans, 597 communes gave a majority for Poland. The territory of Upper Silesia, according to the treaty, according to the plebiscite, according to the most elementary international honesty, should be immediately handed over to Germany. But as they do not wish to give the coal of Upper Silesia to Germany, and the big interests of the new great metallurgical group press and trick, the Treaty of Versailles has here also become a chiffon de papier.

Instead of accepting, as was the first duty, the result of the plebiscite, people have resorted to sophism of incomparable weakness: Article 88 of the Treaty of Versailles says only that the inhabitants of Upper Silesia shall be called to designate by means of a plebiscite if they desire to be united to Germany or to Poland.

It was necessary to find a sophism!

The Addendum of Section 8 establishes how the work of scrutiny shall be carried out and all the procedure of the elections. There are six articles of procedure. Paragraph 4 says that each one shall vote in the commune where he is domiciled or in that where he was born if he has not a domicile in the territory. The result of the vote shall be determined commune by commune, according to the majority of votes in each commune.

This means then that the results of the voting, as is done in political questions in all countries, should, be controlled commune by commune: it is the form of the scrutiny which the appendix defines. Instead, in order to take the coal away from Germany, it was attempted, and is being still attempted, not to apply the treaty, but to violate the principle of the indivisibility of the territory and to give the mining districts to Poland.

The violation of the neutrality of Belgium was not an offence to a treaty more serious than this attempt; the Treaty of 1839 cannot be considered a chiffon de papier more than the Treaty of Versailles. Only the parties are inverted.

It is not France, noble and democratic, which inspires these movements, but a plutocratic situation which has taken the same positions, but on worse grounds, as the German metallurgists before the War. It is the same current against which Lloyd George has several times bitterly protested and for which he has had very bitter words which it is not necessary to recall. It is the same movement which has created agitations in Italy by means of its organs, and which attempt one thing only: to ruin the German industry and, having the control of the coal, to monopolize in Europe the iron industries and those which are derived from it.

First of all, in order to indemnify France for the temporary damages done to the mines in the North, there was the cession in perpetuo of the mines of the Saar; then there were the repeated attempts to occupy the territory of the Ruhr to control the coal; last of all there is the wish not to apply the plebiscite and to violate the Treaty of Versailles by not giving Upper Silesia to Germany, but giving it abusively to Poland.

Germany produced before the War about 190,000,000 tons of coal; in 1913 191,500,000. The consumption of these mines themselves was about a tenth, 19,000,000 tons, whilst for exportation were 83,500,000 tons, and for internal consumption were 139,000,000.