THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24226, 19 February 1940, Page 3

THE TREATY OF VERSAILLES

TO THE EDITOR Sir,—Your correspondent “ Scot,” in Saturday’s Daily Times, says- that what Miss May is reported to have stated ai the last meeting of the University Council, namely, that the refugees in question were scattered over the face of the earth as a result of the Treaty oi Versailles, is. “ in line with a great deal of what is actually uninformed public opinion. . . Its . origin is Hitler’s propaganda as he himself states it in ‘Mein Kampf.’ . . That is to say that Hitler produced the resentment felt in Germany against the Treaty of Versailles. In actual fact. that, resentment produced Hitler. He could never have risen to power had it not been .for the’ rankling sense of injustice produced by ,the treaty. Mr Gatherne-Hardy’s opinion, expressed in “The Fourteen Points and the Treaty of Versailles ” that the treaty was in accordance with the Fourteen Points, does not alter the fact that the Germans did not think it was —and that was long before Hitler was heard of. The protests of the German representatives on the treaty being presented to them are on record, as is also the unwillingness of each successive delegation to undertake the responsibility of signing the treaty. Only the threat of invasion and of the reimposition of the then partially-raised blockade forced them to sign. And not only the Germans objected., There was a considerable amount of opinion at the time, hardly to be looked upon as uninformed, and certainly not informed by Hitler, which looked upon the treaty as it finally emerged as a definite desertion on President Wilson’s part of his high ideals. Nor are even the present-day supporters of the theory that the Treaty of Versailles was entirely in accord with the Fourteen Points quite convincing in their assertion that, for example, the parcelling out of all Germany’s colonies between Britain France (and to a small extent, Belgium) was strictly in accordance with point No. s—“ A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustmerit oi all colonial claims based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the population concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the Government whose title is to be determined.”

That the Treaty of Versailles was as good a settlement as could.possibly be expected after a complete victory following on four and a-half years of war is undeniable, it was probably better than what another set of victors would have imposed. But that does not prove it a good treaty. It only goes to prove that one cannot look for a good treaty after several years of war and the complete defeat of one side— good, that is, in the sense of a peace that will pave the way for a lasting settlement and will enable nations to live together in amity without a rankling sense of injustice. “Scot,” like many others, points to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk as an example oi the kind of peace treaty Germany would have made. The Treaty oh Brest-Litovsk was beyond all question extremely bad. But it was a war, not a peace, treaty, and cannot, therefore, be placed in the same pategory as the Versailles Treaty. Germany was in the fourth year of a desperate struggle The blockade was having an ever greater effect. America was beginning +o reinforce Britain and France with her fresh troops The crying need of Germany if the war was to continue wa» for foodstuffs and raw materials, and these she intended to gel if she could, from Russia. I quote from Professor Alison Phillip’s article on the Brest-Litovsk Treaty in the Encyclopaedia Britannica: —“ The Russians at once laid down as a sine qua non the principle of ‘ peace with out annexations or indemnities and the recognition of the right of self-deter-mination for all peoples. - This was accepted by the Central Powers, but only on condition that it should be agreed to by all the belligerent. Powers as the basis of a general peace. In the event

of their refusing, the, Central Powers reserved a free hand in dealing with Russia alone.” The Entente Powers refused, and the treaty was signed with Russia alone. Had the Entente Powers not refused, and had a negotiated peace on that basis been arranged, world conditions might now have been very different. They could hardly have been worse. — I am, etc., M. B. February 18.