PEACE TREATIES

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 137, 7 December 1938, Page 12

PEACE TREATIES

LLOYD GEORGE'S BOOK

IMPORTANT COMMENT

COLONIAL PROBLEM

(By the Rt. Hon. Anthony Eden, P.C., M.P., Former Secretary of Foreign Affairs.) World Copyright 1938 by Co-operation. Mr. Lloyd George has just published the first volume of his great work, "The Truth About the Peace Treaties." The publication of this book is in all respects timely, for although it treats of events of twenty years ago, the main issues that confronted statesmen then confront them still. The forms may be different; the fundamentals are the same. In the main Mr. Lloyd George is concerned .to justify the Treaty of Versailles, and with it, of course, the ancillary Treaties of St. Germain, Trianon^ Neuilly, and Sevres. Most students of foreign affairs will agree that it was desirable that the case for the Treaties should be presented once again. Admittedly there is much loose talk in denunciation of the Treaty of Versailles, and while some of the criticism, particularly in respect of the reparation clauses of the Treaty, is no doubt well founded, certain other* charges seem to be based on the adage "Give a dog a bad name and hang him." Mr. Lloyd George is probably not so far wide of the mark when he maintains "It is safe to say that ninetynine out of every hundred of the critics of the Treaty have never made I themselves acquainted with its stipulations." Whether this be so or not, it is all to the good .that the main provisions of the Treaty and the motives of the authors should be set out. This is fully done in this book, which contains also important extracts from the documents/ of the time. LIVELY PEN PORTRAITS. As is to be expected from a book from the pen of Mr. Lloyd George, the pages abound with lively portraits )f the principal participants. These will not; of course, secure universal endorsement, and no one would be more surprised than Mr. Lloyd George if they did. But they are lively reading. They range from General Botha, for whom Mr. Lloyd George clearly had the highest esteem, to Monsieur Poincare, for whom he has clearly had very little. One example may perhaps be quoted: "Botha was pre-eminently a man of the great wide spaces where he communed with the vast distances of earth below and the- infinite heights of the heavens above. That was his upbringing—that was his academy. Men thus trained, if they are well endowed with natural gifts of mind and character—and Botha was exceptionally equipped in both respectsdevelop a clarity of vision, a breadth of mind, a steadfastness of purpose which raise them to a level where they can-confront all the problems of life with a steady nerve and a calm, clear judgment. It enables them ti? discern the things that matter and determine their course with assured wisdom." The preparations for the Treaty, the progress of the Conference, of Versailles, such contentious issues as Russia and the Rhine, reparations and disarmament, the nearer approach to unity that ushered in the League of Nations and the International Labour Organisation, all these matters Mr. Lloyd George discusses in detail, punctuating the official documents with characteristically vigorous comment of his own THE GERMAN COLONIES. But for many the chief interest of the book at the present time may well be found in the chapters that deal with the problem of the German colonies. At the Conference not a voice, Mr. Lloyd George tells us, was raised in favour of restoring to Germany her colonies. Indeed, he quotes President Wilson himself as saying at the outset of the discussions on this subject: "All were agreed to oppose the restoration of the German colonies." What was the cause for so rigid an attitude at that time? The chief one, there can be little doubt, in the minds more especially of the Dominion statesmen who took a prominent part in these discussions, was apprehension as to the use to which Germany intended to put these colonial territories. The issue, as it then seemed, was ( not economic alone —that aspect of the question probably provided few difficulties —but strategic and in the strict sense of the term military. Mr. Lloyd George tells us: "German Ministers and publicists advertised their colonial aspirations with great frankness during the progress of the war. Their ambition was to found a black empire in Africa extending across that continent from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean." THE USE OF AN EMPIRE. A summary of the aims proclaimed by the German writers was set out in a memorandum prepared for the German Imperial Cabinet in July, 1918. Mr. Lloyd George quotes Emil Zimmermann, an ex-civil servant: "He looked forward to a German Africa Empire containing a population of 50,000,000 blacks and 500,000 Germans out of which 'it will be possible at any moment to mobilise an army of 1,000,000 men." In these conditions the attitude of the Conference becomes at least intelligible, and we perceive why it was that none of those present, not even ( General Botha, whose efforts to secure1 the fairest possible peace are everywhere recognised, urged any other course. In actual fact the main discussion ranged round the question as to whether these ex-German colonies should be ceded in their entirety or administered under some form of mandate, for which the League of Nations should act as trustee. President Wilson showed the greatest enthusiasm for the mandatory system, while the representatives of Australia and New Zealand, Mr. Hughes and Mr. Massey, each of them stalwart protagonists of their own point of view, were its chief opponents. THE MANDATORY SYSTEM. In the event the present mandatory system was evolved, and to many this will seem one of the best features of the Treaty iof Versailles Undoubtedly it represented evolution in the right direction. It is the correct principle that these native territories should be administered for the welfare of the natives under some form of international supervision. It is no less desirable that their markets should be open and that their resources should not be exploited for the benefit of one Power.

The decline of the authority of the League of Nations has had many unhappy consequences. It would be a grave misfortune il one of these should be a reversal of the process by which large parts of Africa might gradually have become a free and disarmed trusteeship. No event could be more charged with evil for the future of that continent than the levying of vast native armies in territories where today a handful of troops