UNiVEPiSiTY OF li.MBQIS LIBRARY 
 
 »r 
 
 AUG 21 1919 _ 
 
 ^ “'*^■' 8 ^!^ 
 
 Pamphlet No. 39a. Pric e ONE PENNY. , ^ 
 
 The Fruits 
 of Victory 
 
 HAVE OUR STATESMEN 
 WON THE PEACE OUR 
 SOLDIERS FOUGHT FOR? 
 
 “ We shall neither accept nor impose 
 on our foes a Brest-Litovsk Treaty." 
 
 Mr. LLOYD GEORGE, 
 Nov. '2, 1918. 
 
 By 
 
 E. D. MOREL. 
 
 Reprinted from the June issue of the U.D.C. 
 
 Published by THE UNION OF DEMOCRATIC CONTROL, 
 Orchard House, 2 & 4, Great Smith Street, Westminster, S.W.i'. 
 June, 1919. 
 
m . npf>f •> i«« 
 
 D. '2) 1 1 4- 
 
 \A%\f 
 
 THE FRUITS OF VICTORY. 
 
 By E. D. MOREL. 
 
 “ Victory would mean peace forced upon the loser, a victor ’s^ 
 terms imposed uj^on the vanquished. It would be accepted in 
 humiliaticn under duress, at intolerable sacrifice, and wmuld leave 
 a sting, a resentment, a bitter nfiemory upon which terms of peace- 
 would rest, not permanently, but only as upon a quicksand.” — ■ 
 Tresident Wilson, January 22, 1917. 
 
 ” Germany has occupied a great position in the world. It is not 
 our wish or intention to question or to destroy that position, but 
 a’ather to turn her aside from hopes and schemes of military 
 rlomination, and to see her devote all her strength to the great 
 beneficent tasks of tlie world . . . Our point of view is that 
 
 the adoption of a really democratic Constatution by Germany 
 would be the most convincing evidence that in her the old spirit 
 of militai’y domination had, indeed, died in the War, and would 
 make it much easier for us to conclude a^ broad, democratic peace 
 with her.” — Mr. Lloyd George to delegates of the Trades Union 
 Congress, January 18, 1918. 
 
 “We must not arm Germany, with a. real wrong. In other 
 words we shall neither accept nor impose on our foes a Brest- 
 Litovsk Treaty.” — Mr. Lloyd George, November 12, 1918. 
 
 ” We have made a peace, but it is not the Beace.” — Clarendon, 
 1856. 
 
 The Peace Treaty which has at length emerged from the secret 
 conclave at ^^ersailles is at once ai great personal tragedy" and a 
 great international tragedy. It is ai great personal tragedy because 
 it unveils President Wilson, in whom the aspirations of the 
 common people everywhere were centred, as a complete and tragic 
 failure — an empty rhetorician. It is a. great international tragedy 
 because it dooms the world to a further prolonged period of strife 
 and leaves mankind, if not without hope, at least Avithout 
 confidence in the future. 
 
 For this is only the beginning. It is only the first, although the 
 most poisonous, of ” Victory’s ” fruits. The spirit responsible 
 for the nature of the terms presented to the German pleni- 
 potentiaries, is producing further fruits equally putrid in the 
 mouth. It is visibly at work in the attempt to crush the Socialist 
 
 p428fel 
 
Pie])iil)lio in Hiin^my wliic'li lia-; C'OinniittLMl no art of a^^ression 
 against tlie Allies, whose sole ci'inie is that of being a Socialist 
 Kepiihlic; in the cf)n(litions to he foi’ced n])on “ Austi’ia — Gei’- 
 inan Austria — conditions almost gintescjne, so amazingly do they 
 ignoi'e the elementary economic and himuni needs of the Austj-o- 
 (xei’nians; in the viidnal intei'dicddaid ii})on Gennan Austi’ia fusing 
 politically with Gei'inany; in the arrangement for placing two 
 million Tyrolese Austrians, and as many Dalmatian Slavs under 
 Italian domination; in the Scanguinary and vicious folly which 
 rnalves of ejihemei'al Polish adventurers the agents of Allied — 
 notably French — capitalistic finance in Eastern Galicia; in the 
 incoherently vindictive persecution of Soviet Russia ; in the callous 
 cynicism with whicdi whole nations are being bartered and sold 
 throughout Asiatic Turkey. This was the “ Victory ” some of us 
 dreaded when we sa,\v our gallant lads file past on their way to 
 the Hell prepared for them by the statesmen : not the victory they 
 dreamed of, victoi’y over war and over militarism, but the 
 '■ Victory ” which tliose who drove them to the Hell, and those 
 who in other lands were driving equally gallant lads to contend 
 with them in deadly strife, were calculating and planning for — the 
 “ Victory” of which the Author of these lines wrote in an 
 Epilogue to the Belligerent Governments in 1916: — 
 
 ” The ‘ Victory ’ you seek is a victory which shall perpetuate 
 your empire over mankind; keep humanity bound in fetters 
 to your cruel and senseless systems ; maintain your castes and 
 your monopolies; strengthen your embargo upon the people's 
 liberties; leave your heel fiimly planted on the peoples’ 
 necks . . . Thus your notion of ‘ Victory ’ means for 
 the peoples increased poverty and a renewal of fears and 
 hatreds upon which you have thriven, by which you retain 
 them in subjection to A'our will and through which they perish. 
 For the iteoples, your ‘Victory’ means Death.”* 
 
 This Treaty which is to be imposed upon Germany at the point 
 of the bayonet, as the alternative to a massacre by the slow 
 processes of starvation and disease of further multitudes of Gennan 
 men, women, and children, is a document of unspeakable sadness. 
 It is that first and foremost, for its revelation of human futility, 
 of human unteachableness ; of the depth, and power, and blindness 
 of hatred in human affairs. For the deliberate purpose of the 
 Treaty, a purpose disclosed in every section of it, is that of 
 encompassing the utter ruin of a great people. That purpose may 
 or may not be feasible of accomplishment. It has been attempted 
 before ; sometimes it has failed, sometimes it has succeeded. But 
 Avhether it has failed or succeeded, it has never brought Peace to 
 the world. And it cannot bring Peace, now that it is contemplated 
 on a^ scale fd unprecedented comprehensiveness. Indeed so little 
 do those responsible for it imagine it. can or will, that the profes- 
 sional soldiers are already bidding humanity prepare to tread once 
 
 ♦ “ Truth and the War ” (National Labour Press). 
 
 4 
 
more its via dolorosa and the professional diplomatists are already 
 working out fresh combinations in the game of the “balance of 
 power.”! 
 
 Let us examine the chief measures for which this Treaty pro- 
 vides, in order that we may fulty understand the outrage, not upon 
 the German people alone, but upon mankind, which is intended. 
 
 L VIOLATION OF NATIONAL RIGHT. 
 
 9 
 
 A — The Rape of Eastern Germany. 
 
 “ The settlement of every question . . . upon the free 
 
 acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately 
 concerned, and not upon the basis of the material interests or 
 advantage of anj- other nation or people which may desire a 
 different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence 
 or mastery.” — One of the Four objects specified by President 
 Wilson as embodying American aims in the War, July 4, 1918. 
 
 “ No peace can last, or ought to last, which does net 
 recognise . . . that no right anywhei’e exists to hand 
 peoples about . . . as if they were property.” — President 
 
 Wilson, January 22, 1917. 
 
 “ We are not fighting a war of aggression against the 
 German people . . . the destruction or disruption of 
 Germany or the German people has never been a war aim with 
 us, from the first day of this war to this day. . . . The 
 
 British people have never aimed at the break up of the 
 German peo[)Ie or the disintegration of their State or 
 country.” — Mr. Lloyd George to the delegates at the Trades 
 Union Congress, January 18, 1918. 
 
 Virtually the whole of the Provinces of West Prussia and of 
 Posen, and a portion of Silesia, are to be taken from Germany and 
 incorporated in the new Polish State. This has the double effect 
 of wrenching a large German population from its parent State, and 
 of cutting off the Province of East Prussia altogether from Ger- 
 many. IMoreover the north-east corner of East Prussia, IMemel — 
 the old historic town, refuge of Queen Jjouise of Prussia from 
 Bonaparte — and neighbourhood, is definitely taken from Germany, 
 not by Poland, but by the Associated Powers ! A reall}' astound- 
 ing act of robbery, this ! 
 
 The character of the general proceeding may be estimated from 
 the following facts : — 
 
 The Province of West Prussia is divided into two main districts, 
 
 * 8ee Sir Douglas Haig’s rectorial address at St. Andrew’s University 
 (May 14) : “ The seeds of future conflict are to be found in every quarter of the 
 globe, onfy awaiting the right condition, moral, political, and economic, to 
 Imrst once more into activity, etc.” See also Marshall Foch’s interview in a 
 recent issue of the “ Daily Mail.” 
 
 t e.g. England and America are to guarantee France against future attacks 
 iy (Germany ! 
 
 5 
 
Daiizi^^ and Alarieiivvej’dei'. '"I’lie total populatitm is 1,708,474 — 
 1,007,948 are (jeniians, 475,858 are registei-ed as Voles, but 80,000 
 arc Kassubians, a Slav people who, while still preserving theii' own 
 language, ncrw speak T^olish or German, or both. The percentage 
 of Voles (including Kassubians) in the Danzig district is 13.9 per 
 cent., in the Marienwerder district 88.9 pei* cent.; the percentage 
 of Voles for the whole Vrovince is 27.9. T/<?os a (Icrnuni Province 
 ivith a Cierman population of over a million, fonninp more than 72 
 per cent, of the whole population oj the Procince, in handed over 
 to Voland. Danzig, the most typically Vrussian of all Vrussian 
 idties, is to be made into a “ free City,” under the Volish customs 
 system, with 'Voland in control of the navigation of the river, and 
 of the I'ailway system within the city’s boundaries! 
 
 The Province of Vosen is divided into two main districts, Vosen 
 and Bromberg. The total population is 2,099,881 — 806, 72() are 
 Go’inan, 1,278,890 Volish-speaking. The percentage of Poles in 
 the Vosen district is 67.4, in the Bromberg district 49.6 — the 
 j)ercentage of Voles for the whole Province is 60.9. Here 
 evidently is a situation which, on the basis of an international 
 settlement based upon the principle of nationality, required a 
 most careful and impartial investigation in order to arrive at a 
 solution, just at once to ” Voland ” and to ” Germany ” — just 
 above all to the peoples affected. Such investigation would have 
 I’evealed that even in the Vosen district there was a German 
 minority of 23 per cent, entitled to the right of ” self-determina- 
 tion ” ; that in the Bromberg district of this most Polish of all 
 the German Provinces, there is an actual German majority, and 
 an increasing one too, for the proportion of Polish-speaking popu- 
 lation in that district decreased from 50.9 per cent, in 1900 to 
 50.4 per cent, in 1905, and to 49.6 per cent. — the last census 
 figure — in 1910. iMoreover, despite the ” plantation ” system — 
 ado])ted by the German Gov’ernment in the Polish districts of 
 East Prussia, as by the English Government in the North of 
 Ireland — the presence of a large German-speaking population in 
 Posen is an old historical fact, the German population mustering 
 between 300,000 and 400,000 against 600,000 Poles at the time of 
 the last Polish partition. Indeed the west and noidh of the 
 Province are in the main half German, and it is only the eastern 
 belt which is essentially Polish. Notwithstanding these facts the 
 German population is placed at the disposal, like so much cattle, 
 of ]\I. Paderewski and his friends, whose rule in other parts oF 
 Poland has been chiefly distinguished hitherto by a merry series - 
 of Jewish pogroms. 
 
 It is difficult, without the original maps attached to the Treaty, 
 to judge of the exact boundaries of the portion of Upper Silesia 
 made over to Pol^and, which was never historically Polish. But it 
 is clear that it includes the district of Oppeln in which the Polish- 
 speaking population is only a v^ery small majority, viz. : 52.9 pei 
 cent, of the whole; the total population of this district being: 
 
 6 
 
2,207,981, of whom 1,169,340 are Polish-speaMiig and 884,045 
 German. 
 
 As for East Prussia it is, of course, overwhelmingly German, 
 even the district of Allenstein (which, with the perfection of 
 hypocrisy, is marked out for a plebiscite under the control of 
 Germany’s enenriies) only containing 13.5 per cent, of Polish- 
 speaking people. In the other two districts into which the 
 Provinces are divided — Konigsberg and Gumbinnen — the Polish- 
 speaking population is less than 1 per cent. The total population 
 •of East Prussia is 2,064,175 — German, 1,680,003; Polish-speaking, 
 81,147; Pohsh-speaking percentage for the whole province 3.9. 
 Memel and district, appropriated by the Allies a,s stated above, is 
 in the province of Konigsberg which contains 874,410 Germans 
 .€md 2,820 Poles ! 
 
 To summarise : | 
 
 In the province of West Prussia, over a million Germans are 
 lorn from Germany and incorporated into Poland although over 
 72 per cent, of the population of the province is German. In the 
 province of Posen 800,000 Germans are torn from Germany and 
 incorporated into Poland although actually in a majority — and a 
 growing majority — in one out of two districts into which the 
 province is divided, and although forming 33 per cent, of the 
 population of the other district. In the province of Silesia nearly 
 '900,000 Germans are torn from Germany and incorporated into 
 Poland, although they form more than 47 per cent, of the popula- 
 .'tiori of the district thus dealt with."*^ In the province of East Prussia 
 il, 080, 000 Germans are territorially severed from the German State by 
 dhe interposition between them and Germany of Polish territory, and 
 :about 20,000 or 30,000 of that total are calmly claimed by the Allied 
 and Associated Powers. 
 
 'Thus does the principle of nationality and the right of self- 
 determination triumph at the hands of the wreckers of Versailles, 
 -so far as the eastern Provinces of Geiroany are co'ncerned ! Thus 
 does President Wilson stand forth as the supreme iconoclast of the 
 image of an enduring Peace which he raised before the uplifted 
 >eyes of a stilcken humanity. 
 
 B — Virtual Annexation of the Saar Basin. 
 
 “ What will have to be guaranteed first of all by the 
 conditions of peace? That they should be formed upon so 
 equitable a basis that nations will not wish to disturb them.” 
 — Mr. Lloyd George, April 6, 1917. 
 
 The purely German population of the Saar Basin is to be 
 governed by a Commission in whose appointment Germany — not 
 
 * Under the amended Treaty, a, pUbiscite is to be allowed. In the remainder 
 of the Province the Polish-speaking population is in an infinitesimal minority 
 d2.8 per cent, in the Breslau district and 1.3 per cent, in the Liegnitz district). 
 
 t The reader should note that we have only the summarised version of the 
 'Treaty before us. Those who have seen the original (unprocurable at time of 
 writing) declare’ that it contains many additional impositions which do not 
 digure in the summary. 
 
 7 
 
a iiit'iiila*]' of ilie I-eagiie — lias no voice; Uic people of the 
 Saar Ihisin only have one re])i’esentative on the Commission out 
 of five nioniheis. This Commission will rule the country, taking 
 over the railroads and public services. The Courts will be subject 
 to the Commission; the Commission may even modify existing 
 laws through an organisation which it will itself create and which 
 can imjHJse new taxes. The people are cut off politically from the 
 ])<arent State. French and other labour may Vie Virought in. 
 French money will he introdiu-ed and the territory will be incor- 
 poi’ated ^^ithin the l-’iemdi C'usteans Fnion. The French will run 
 the schools. After fifteen years of this process of gallicisation, a 
 })h'l)iscite will be taken ! Note that there is nothing to prevent 
 the Freiudi within this period of time from flooding the country 
 with Fremdi, Polish, oi- .any other labour, thus giaadually dis- 
 placing the German population. 
 
 The ]U’ocess of Fiaaich “ assimilation ’’ has alre.ady started, it 
 would seem, many prominent inhabitants of Saarloiiis having been 
 expelled. 
 
 C Belgian Annexations. 
 
 “ Peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from 
 Sovereignty to Sovereignty, as if they were chattels and 
 pawns in a game. . . . ” — President Wilson, February 
 
 11, 1918. 
 
 The partially German population of Moresnet, and the partially 
 German population of Eupen and Malinedy is placed under 
 Belgian sovereignty. After six months of Belgian occupation, the 
 two latter districts are to be “entitled to protest” against it! 
 This, of course, is a purely strategic move, having in view poten- 
 tial military operations at a future date. 
 
 D — Alsace-Lorraine. 
 
 The fatal error committed by Prussia in 1870 was that 
 when she entered the war she was fighting against a restless 
 military EmiDire dominated largely by military ideals, with 
 military traditions behind them. When that Empire fell, it 
 would have been wisdom for Germany to have recognised the 
 change immediately. Democratic France, was a more sure 
 guarantee for the peace of Germany than the fortress of Metz 
 or the ivatlcd ra}})parts of Strqshurg. If Prussia had taken 
 that view, European history would have taken a different 
 course. ... It loould have reacted on the spirit and 
 policy of Germany herself. Europe would have reaped a 
 han^est of peace and goodwill among men instead of garnering 
 as she does now a wFirl wind of hate, ^ rage, and human 
 savagery. I trust that the Allied Gov ermnents will take this 
 ast an element in their ivhole discussion of the terms and 
 prospects of peaceG'' — Mr. Lloyd George', July 1, 1917. 
 
 The people of Alsace-Lorraine change hands once more in their 
 chequered history.' And, once again, through the instrumentality 
 
 . 8 
 
of a tnumphant militarism. The injustice of 1871 is repeated. 
 An old sore in the international body which was in process of 
 healing when the war broke out is re-opened. It will continue to 
 suppurate. It is beginning to now. Political evictions and expro- 
 priations are already the order of the day. The morality of the 
 “ Big Four ” is on a par with that of Louis XI\ . and of the 
 Prussian General Staff. W'e can say of it, as Mr. Lloyd George 
 said of German action in 1871 : “ There can be no better illustra- 
 tion of the folly and wickedness of using a transient military 
 success to violate national right.” IMisery and suffering are once 
 again inflicted upon tens of thousands of people in these provinces 
 and the seeds of hatred sown with lavish hands 
 
 II. ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL 
 STRANGULATION. 
 
 A — What is Taken from Germany in Europe. 
 
 We must have men rallying to the flag imbued with the 
 idea that they are going forth in a holy war. — Mr. Lloyd 
 George, September 29, 1914. 
 
 As the Lord livetli we had entered into no conspiracy 
 against Germany. We were not envying her territory. We 
 sought not a yard of her Colonies. We are in this war from 
 motives of purest chivalry, to defend the weak. — i\Ir. Lloyd 
 George, November 10, 1914. 
 
 I know it is part of the German policy to represent our 
 intervention as a calculated move of selfish craft to capture 
 the trade and shipping of a dangerous rival and to annex her 
 colonies. — Mr. Lloyd George, February 27, 1915. 
 
 A great German newspaper said the other day that the 
 Germans were fighting for the freedom and independence of 
 their fatherland. It was never true. It is less true to-day 
 than it ever was. The freer Germany is, the more indepen- 
 dent Germany is, the better we like it. . . . We can 
 
 make peace with a free Germanv. — Mr. Llovd George, July 
 22, 1917. 
 
 The impartial justice meted out must involve no discrimi- 
 nation between those to whom we wish to be just and those 
 to whom we do not wish to be just. It must be a justice 
 that knows no frontiers and knows no standards but the 
 equal rights of the several peoples concerned. — President 
 Wilson, September 27, 1918. 
 
 Between one-third and one-half of Germany’s coal mines, with 
 the seizure of the Saar Basin and Upper Silesia.."^ 
 
 Two-thirds of the iron mines, with the seizure of Lorraine; 
 
 All ships above 1,600 tons burthen; one-half of her ships 
 between 1,600 and 1,000 tons burthen; one' quarter of her fishing 
 fleet; 
 
 * See foot-note, page 7. 
 
 9 
 
'"A propoi'tioii ” (jf the s]iij)})in^', tugs, and niaterial used on 
 her own internal watei'ways; and, to Fi-ance, “a proportion of 
 tugs and shipping from the Pdiine harl)ours, oi* sliares in German 
 navigation companies; 
 
 “ A proportion ” of buildings, tugs, etc., OAvned hy Ciermans in 
 Piotterdam or tlie equivalent in shares (presumably to Prance) ; 
 
 Fourteen commercial cables; 
 
 140,000 milch cows (this means a deo'ee of death upon 
 thousands of German infants, great numbers of whom have 
 {•erished from lack of milk already); 
 
 The installations of railway lines, and a proportion of rolling 
 stock in the transferred territories. 
 
 B — What is Taken from Germany Outside Europe. 
 
 The Pritish Empire is finding its jmrpose in the Great 
 Design of Providence on eai-th, finding it in this Great War 
 for libei-ty and for right throughout the woi'ld. — ]\Ir. Lloyd 
 George, Januai'y 18, 1918. 
 
 We to-day are fighting not a war of conquest but a war of 
 liberation. — Mr. Lloyd George, February 12, 1917. 
 
 The whole of the German colonies, i.e., Kamerun and Togoland 
 in West Africa, a total of 321,100 square miles; Gennan South- 
 West Africa, 322,450 square miles; Gernran East Africa, 384,180 
 square miles; Kiauchau in China, 2,002 square miles; Dependen- 
 cies in the Pacific, 90,160 square miles; viz., a grand total of 
 1,027,820 square miles. The German colonies enjoyed a total 
 ■annual trade turn-over of £54 millions and were potentially of 
 enomious value; 
 
 All German I'ights and titles and all movable and immovable 
 property (see text) pass to the Allies, and all German rights and 
 privileges in China secured under international Treaty are 
 abrogated ; 
 
 All Gemian State proi>erty in China, movable and immovable 
 passes to the Allies, and all German rights and privileges in China 
 secured under international Treaty are abrogated; 
 
 German public property in Siam is made over to the Siamese 
 Government; 
 
 All the rights secured to Gemiany under Treaty in Liberia are 
 abrogated ; 
 
 All Gennan rights, titles, and privileges under international 
 Treaty in Moi’occo are abrogated; all German movable and 
 immovable propeiTy in Morocco, including mining rights, are to 
 be sold by public auction and the proceeds to go to the IMoroccan 
 Government, othenvise stated to be French protectorate adminis- 
 tration. The German financial interests in the State bank of 
 Morocco are abrogated; 
 
 All German Treaty rights in Egypt are abrogated; German 
 property to* be treated in the same fashion as in Morocco. 
 
 10 
 
C — Permanent Allied Interference In German Internal 
 
 Economy. 
 
 We are not fighting the German people. . . .It will 
 
 he a day of rejoicing for the German peasant and artisan 
 when the military caste is broken. — Mr. Lloyd George, 
 September 20, 1914. 
 
 Among the innumerable processes of interference in the internal 
 .-affairs of Germany, designed to cripple Germany’s economic 
 rehabilitation, we may note the folio-wing*. 
 
 Germany may not discriminate against Allied trade, but she 
 may be discriminated against (e.g., she can take no steps, for 
 example, to favour her trade with Eussia or the Scandinavian 
 •countries). Her import tariffs must not be raised, for a period of 
 six months, below the lowest rates of 1914, and in the case of 
 agricultural produce, for a further period of 2| years. She is not 
 to discriminate in transport^ chai*ges and facilities against iVllied 
 ports, but she is required to make all her own ports, free ports, 
 and to lease areas therein to the Allies. Portions of partly German 
 livers are internationalised, and there is nO' provision for German 
 representation on the International' Commission. 
 
 Germany is to be expelled from representation on the Inter- 
 national Commission for the navigation of the Danube, which, in 
 part of its course, is one of the most considerable of German rivers. 
 
 She is forbidden to construct canals on the right bank of the 
 Ehine — i.e., in her own territory; 
 
 She must grant privileges tO' France on the right bank of the 
 Eliine for the purpose of setting up engineering works; 
 
 She is compelled to construct such parts of the projected Ehine- 
 iMeuse canal as pass through her territory; 
 
 (As to the object of this canal, see the “ U.D.C.,” April last.) 
 
 She is to accommodate her rolling stock to Allied requirements. 
 Her railway system generally is placed under the supervision of 
 'Commissions with a. view to facilitating Alhed interests; likewise 
 her watei’^vays and ports, and she is generally required to agree 
 to carry out what is demanded of her in these respects (see 
 ‘.Section XII.,); 
 
 The Kiel Canal is to be internationalised; 
 
 The German system of internal taxation is to be subject to 
 -Allied supervision. 
 
 D — The Impositions. 
 
 Here, in this strong network of financial obligations 
 imposed on the enemy, we find ourselves in the really solid 
 framework of the Treaty. It is good to pause and consider 
 M. Klotz’s (French Finance AEnister) subtle, accurately 
 adjusted meshes. After close examination experts will realise 
 that Gemiany will never escape, even should she attempt to 
 do so, toom this teiTible netw^ork iiTesistibly maintained by 
 the alliance of the United States and .France. — Paris 
 “‘Figaro.” 
 
 11 
 
Until May, 1021, (xeniiany is left in suspense as to the total 
 snni she will he required to pay h^' way of “ reparation.” On that 
 date she will he placed under levy, for 80 years, to provide the 
 sum deterniined u])on anniudly until tlie total is paid off. 
 
 Meanwhile she is to pay: 
 
 First charge — The total cost of the ai’inies of occupation from 
 the date of the Armistice as Ion" as they aie maintained in 
 German teiritory; 
 
 The sums (unspecified) hoi’rowed by Bel^dnm from the Allies; 
 
 (tne thousand millions sterlin" in gold, goods, or ships, or other 
 ” specrific forms of payment,” within two yeai’s. (This sum is 
 include 1 in a fii’st bond issue of one thousand millions, payable 
 i!ot late)- than ]\Itiy, 1021, without interest. The cost of the 
 a)-niies of occupation may, at the discretion of the Allies, he 
 deducted) ; 
 
 Foul’ thousand millions (in bond issues). 
 
 She is to : 
 
 Build within five years one million tons of shipping for the 
 Allies ; 
 
 Belivei' to Fiance annually foi- ten years an unspecified* amount 
 of coal (Section ABIT.); 
 
 Give to France the option of acquiring at a fixed price seven 
 million tons of coal annually for ten years; eight million tons to 
 Belgium for the same period ; 4A million tons to Italy in 1919 and 
 in 1920, and thenceforth up to 84 million tons to the same Bower 
 in 1923 and 1924 (in other words, after being deprived of some 
 of her most valuable coalfields, the Allies are to have first call 
 upon hei- remaining resources) ; 
 
 Give to the ” Commission on Dyestuffs and Chemical Drugs ” 
 an option to acquii'e 50 per cent, of the total stocks of these 
 articles (including quinine) in Germany when the Treaty is signed 
 and, up to 1924, the option of acquiring 25 per cent, of the previous 
 year's output. 
 
 Ill— THE “GUARANTEE.” 
 
 As a “ guarantee ” that Germany executes the provisions of 
 this Treaty, the German population west of the Ehine will be 
 subjected to a military occupation by Allied troops for 15 years". 
 If the provisions are faithfully caiTied out, portions of the territory 
 will be evacuated at the end of five years and ten years 
 respectively. 
 
 In the event of the obhgations ' imposed not being earned out 
 ” in whole or part, ” the occupation may be indefinitely prolonged. 
 
 If this provision holds good, the result will be the forcible- 
 severance of the Ehine Province from Germany, in accordance- 
 with the secret Treaty between IM. Poincare and the Tsar' [which 
 IMr.- Balfour once said did not , represerit the intentions of the 
 
 * Unspecified, i.e., in the summarised version of the Treaty. 
 
 32 
 
French Government], because it is humanly impossible for 
 Germany to fulfil all the “ obligations ” imposed upon her. 
 
 A few days before the publication of this Treaty, which was to 
 f}’ee humanity from the scourge of war, I happened to be attend- 
 ing a meeting on quite a different subject. A noble Lord of known 
 Liberal tendencies was speaking, and the opening words of his 
 address betrayed a certain uneasy doubt which it would have been 
 regarded as highly unpatriotic to have given expression to a shori 
 while bank. He began his speech in this wise: “ Some people 
 
 have opposed the war from the beginning on the ground that it 
 v'as not what it professed to be, a ^^^ar. of liberation, but a war 
 resulting from greed, jealousy, and imperial ambition. We shall 
 know the truth very soon.” 
 
 ^Ye know it now. 
 
 For four years the churches of this land have resounded with 
 prayers for victory. Probably the majority of those who uttered 
 them liad but a very vague idea of what they were praying for. 
 Victory for them was the alternative of defeat, and defeat conjured 
 up unimaginable horrors. They could conceive of no half-way 
 house between the two. But in the minds of a minority at least, 
 victory symbolised the triumph of good over evil, a new era for 
 the world, the fir'.al liberation of the human race from the deadly 
 pestilence of w?r. Like Mr. Lloyd George, they saw “peace 
 coming, not a peace which will be a beginning of wars, not a peace 
 wliich will be an endless preparation for strife and bloodshed, but 
 a real peace in a world that has ne^'er had peace before.”" So they 
 prayed that their desire might be fulfilled, and as they prayed, 
 they held in their hands a Book in which it is written : “ He gave 
 them their desire, and sent leanness into their souls.” It is an 
 expressive phrase. 
 
 The Massacre of the Innocents. 
 
 For fiVe months the Big Four have been squabbling behind 
 closed doors, three of them bent on loot and revenge ; the fourth 
 a weak man, as it turns out, really vrishful of creating a better 
 world, but inebriated by flattery, infirm of purpose, enveloped 
 from the beginning in that secrecy which he had in advance 
 forsworn, giving way a little here, a little there, until nought 
 remains of his great charter of emancipation, but an institution 
 which only a. miracle can now prevent from becoming the greatest 
 engine of ai'bitrary power the world lias ever known. And while 
 thus employed, these representatives of nations claiming to be the 
 most highly civilised on' earth, claiming to ha, ve waged this war 
 “ for the fundamental principles of the Christian faith,”! claiming 
 
 * April 6, 1917. 
 
 t Mr. Lloyd George, August 20, 19l8. 
 . 13 
 
to have contende<l ior the higli j)rinciples of justice, right and 
 luercy against the forces of entrenched and militant evil — have 
 deliberately coiisigned tens of thousands, if not hundreds of 
 thousands of innocent and helpless people to death and disease 
 by starvation. Fi'oni November to the end of Mai-cli they 
 maintained in full force, and foi- a pojtion oi that time, even 
 strengthened — despite the rej)eated protests of their own Com- 
 mission and, to their everlasting credit, of J3i-itish officers and 
 soldiers — the most odious and inhumane of all the odious 
 weapons used in the war: the blockade. This murdering and 
 anarchy-breeding process they kept up with their mouths full of 
 pdiarisaical and unctuous phrases for public consumption, while 
 they snarled over the spoils of victoiw in j)rivate. They banqueted 
 ami toasted one another and sang hymns of praise and thanks- 
 giving, while men and women hunted for sustenance amid the 
 •offal of great cities, while children perished in heaps for lack of 
 nourishment, patients rotted in over-o'owded hospitals, deprived 
 of all necessities through the blockade, and disease stalked 
 'blightingly over entire countnsides. And they and their hirehngs 
 in the press still dare to talk of “ Gennan atrocities” and 
 “ German barbarism ” ! When cant and hypocrisy on a scale so 
 traiiscendently colossal are in the ascendant, little wonder that a 
 "Treaty should be produced which violates every essential principle 
 alleged to have ins])ii'ed the war-aims of the Allies, and to have 
 justified them in pi’olonging the war long aftei' it could have been 
 brought to an honourable close. 
 
 National Honour.” 
 
 A great deal has been said in this country about ” national 
 honour ” since August, 1914. Let us examine its applicability to 
 the Treaty of Peace. Not once, but a dozen times, have our 
 statesmen assured us that we were fighting a system and the men 
 who managed it' — a system which they called “ Prussian 
 militarism ” — an irresponsible autocracy, not the people who, they 
 said were constrained to obey it. Not once, but a dozen times, 
 have our rulers a.sserted that they had no quarrel with the German 
 • democracy, that if only the Gemian democracy would assert itself, 
 they would hold out to it the hand of reconciliation. True, when 
 in July, 1917, the German Eeichstag by a large majority passed 
 -a resolution repudiating aggressive designs and demanding “a 
 peace of understanding and the pennanent reconcihation of the 
 peoples,” Mr. Lloyd George totally ignored that significant action 
 in a contemporary speech, and Mr. Balfour ridiculed the idea that 
 ' the Eeichstag had any representative character whatever. But at 
 . a later date, and more and more insistently, in order to placate 
 Labour, and under pressure of the unanswerable and unanswered 
 speeches of the Union of Democratic Control and Independent 
 Labour Party leadere in the House, did the Government profess 
 to differentiate between the Autocratic Government of Germany 
 and the German people themselves. IMore and more pointed 
 
 14 
 
hecaiiie its invitation to the German people to democratise their 
 institutions as the highway to a speedy and honourable peace. 
 ]\Iore and more fervid became the protestations of denial that the- 
 disruption or destruction of the German political State was sought^ 
 or that the economic strangulation of the German nation was- 
 among the war aims of this country. 
 
 But when the German people overthrew their autocracy, pro- 
 claimed themselves a Eepublic, declared their adherence to the- 
 principles of a Peace postulated in advance by President tVilson 
 and accepted by the Allies, and laid down their arms — what 
 happened? \Ye co-operated in forcing upon them Armistice 
 terms of the most humiliating character. They complied with 
 them — the}’ could do no other. AVe, thereupon, despite the 
 Armistice, continued to starve them — them, the German people 
 be it remembered, not the Kaiser or his fellow Kings, Princes, and 
 Potentates, who had been shown the door — for five long months 
 continued to starve their women and children, tightened the 
 blockade, indeed, by cutting off supplies of fish from the' 
 Scandinavian countries. What of our “ national honour ” then? 
 And now that, distracted, helpless, sick in body, mind, and 
 spirit, we have them down, we thrust this Treaty on them amid 
 a whirlwind of savage taunts and bullying threats, a Treaty which 
 breaks our plighted word, makes a mockery of our professsions, 
 a Treaty which strips the new democratic Germany naked, yet- 
 demands fabulous sums of it, disrupts and dismembers the Ger- 
 man State, expels its citizens from, and confiscates their property 
 in, every part of the globe where we can command events, robs 
 them of the bulk of their merchant and river fleet, places a mill- 
 stone round their necks, grinds and pulverises them, and would 
 make of them a nation of slaves — this people whom we wished 
 should devote themselves, unhampered by warlords, with all their 
 “ strength to the great beneficent tasks of the world.”* What of 
 our national “ honour” here? And if they do no sign this pact 
 of shame we tell them, speaking through that sturdy defender of 
 human liberties. Lord Curzon, we tell them — we of the clean 
 hands, the pure hearts, the compassionate minds, the refined and 
 humane sentiments — that we shall go on sfciri'ing their women 
 and children, while we fill our own bellies and pray God to bless 
 our enterprises. Verily we are like to die of a surfeit of “ honour.” 
 
 The Corroding Lie. 
 
 What has come over our people that they tolerate this monstrous - 
 affront to the nation’s fame? Where are our “liberal” writei-s 
 and authors who gave their blessings to this war as a decree of 
 providence for the salvation of mankind with ourselves as the 
 active agents of the Almighty? Where is Mr. A. G. Gardiner 
 who told the British people in August 1914 that they were engaged 
 in “ fightins: for the emancipation of Germany as well as for the 
 
 * Mr. Lloyd George, Januaiy 18, 1918. 
 
 15 
 
lii)erlits ni J'^ni'opc* • ? Al] lie (*;in tell llic* l^iilisli poojile to-day 
 is that ; “ ]t tlie I’eace toi'ins ai'e the last woid we have to say 
 to (lemiany, h't us make u)) oui- minds tor the inc'viinhle conse- 
 quonee. Ja'I ns decently bury the Covenant (of the fjeague of 
 Xations) and piejiare foi- tbe next wai* in whatever cpiarter it ]nay 
 bi'eak.” d’ruc words, hut meagie diet foi* “leanness of soul." 
 Wliei‘6 is Air. II. (i. Wells, who (^ 0 'vel'ed men no less honourable 
 than himself with ohlocpiy h(‘eause, forsooth, they dai’ed to say 
 what they knew to he the tiaith about the origins and purjioses of 
 the war, wdiile he talked .a.t large about the war being a “ holy war ’’ 
 — a war “ not to desti’oy a nation hut a nest of evil ideas, “ pi’ated 
 of the “ Swoi’d dra.wn foi' Peace,” of the tremendous opiioitunity 
 for “ Lihei'alism, ” of a “ conflict of cadtui'es,” and all the i*est of 
 the chea)) (daj)-tra]) of the music hall ? 
 
 Truly does the “ Nation ” call this dreaty “The Betrayal.” 
 Yet it is hut the culminating act in a wliole series of betrayals, 
 the apotheosis of a sequence of decej^tions and falsehoods of which 
 our ])eople have been the chief victims. For they have been lied 
 to sj’stematically and their credulity exploited from the time when 
 Air. Asquith and Sii- Edward Orey, as he was then, solemnly and 
 repeatedly assiu’ed the House of Commons that we were under no 
 obligations to Fi'ance — when they iiad, in fact, been bmding us 
 secretly for years in ever-tightening bonds to sup})oi’t of France 
 and Tsarist Eussia, arranging every detail of an Anglo-French 
 military and naval co-operation, lending sums to the Paissian 
 des]iot wherewith to stamp upon the liberties of his subjects, 
 desti’oy the inde])endence of Persia, increase his annies and his 
 armaments. Tn that initial lie, and that which it entailed, all 
 the subsequent lies, fi'auds, intrigues, mis-i’enderings of facts, 
 exaggerations, inventions, hypocrisies have their origin, their 
 explanation, and their necessity. The lie of a blameless, peaceful 
 w'orld suddenly precipitated into war through the exclusive 
 wickedness and scientific plotting of Germany’s rulers. The lies 
 which gathered about the invasion of Belgium, the invasion of 
 Greece, the Secret Treaties, the inception of the blockade weapon, 
 the refusal of the Peace offers, the war with Paissia, and all the 
 rest of the foul brood. The Treaty is a fitting sequel to them. 
 
 No people ever entered a war with higher ideals than the British 
 people when they entered this war — that is, the section which 
 actually participated in the fighting. It is certainly true of tens of 
 thousands who have been slaughtered in the course of it, that they 
 flung themselves into the fray not because they loved war, but 
 because they hated it. It is certainly true that the President of 
 the Trades Union Congress was expressing the view of British 
 Labour when in September 1916, he declared that “ the idea that 
 animated the majority of the five millions who voluntarily enlisted 
 was that they were taking part in a war to' end war. ” It is 
 certainly true that great masses of the working classes supported 
 the Government in resisting pressure to negotiate because they 
 were persuaded into the belief that the Allied terms were 
 
 16 
 
moderate and reasonable and could only be won by a continued 
 expenditure of blood and treasure, and that the continued 
 immolation of the youth of Britain was essential to secure such 
 a settlement as would be an insurance and a guarantee against 
 a renewed visitation of a similar kind. And when President ^Yilson 
 came along with his magnificent sentiments, his lofty principles, 
 his fervid appeals to justice, magnanimity, unselfishness, there 
 •went out to him from our people — as from all the peoples — a 
 tribute as spontaneous as it was unique. He put into words the 
 inarticulate longings of the common people all over the world. He 
 took unto himself and made his own that which humbler men had 
 preached for many weary moons; but in his mouth — he the 
 supreme executive head of a mighty nation — they became the 
 utterances of a prophet proclaiming a new gospel to humanity, a 
 new crusade, war against the institution of war; a crusade to be 
 brought to a triumphant issue in a Peace “ openly arrived at,” 
 in a universal decrease in armaments, in self-determination for 
 all peoples, in the mutual trust of all nations, in an impartial 
 justice, a fair settlement, an association of all States linked 
 together in a common bond of union. ^Ye may leave President 
 Wilson to his own people and to posterity. Our business is with 
 our own rulers. 
 
 The Price of the “Knock-out.” 
 
 They have got their knock-out blow. And they have made the 
 Peace which they told us was to bring security to mankind. And 
 this is the world they bequeath to the coming generations : 
 
 A democratic Gennany disarmed and reduced to vassalage in 
 a ring of armed foes; 
 
 Such terms to be exacted of her and imposed upon her as will 
 alone render anything like general disarmament impossible and 
 partial disarmament in the highest degree unlikely; 
 
 Where one “ Alsace-Lorraine ” existed before, a dozen new and 
 more formidable ” Alsace-Lorraines ” artificially created; 
 
 Eacial conflicts everywhere intensified; 
 
 IMillions of men throughout Central Europe arbitrarily thrust 
 into such a position that unless [and this is the only hope for 
 humanity] they can realise a new vision which political frontiers 
 shall no longer obscure, nationalistic prejudices no longer cloud, 
 and capitalistic intrigue no longer efface, they must hate and be 
 hated until the flames of war again leap up from the Ehine to the 
 Carpathians and from the Baltic to the Alps ; 
 
 Millions of other men caught in the scientifically spun meshes 
 ef a commercial and financial net which condemns them to an 
 economic paralysis so complete that self-preservation alone, to 
 say nothing of self-respect, must bid them labour unremittingly 
 to burst through it, to consent to every sacrifice, to husband every 
 ounce of strength, to exhaust every means in what must hence- 
 forth be the supreme national task of emancipation from alien 
 thraldom ; 
 
 17 
 
Tlie war&i of to-morrow — the seeds of them sown broadcast in 
 Europe — and in Asia; 
 
 Me«mtime the war which persists — the war against Russia and 
 Hungary, a^^ainst the Russian Revolution in the interests of 
 capitiilistic Imperialism, the war against an Idea containing with- 
 in itself a living truth, the solidarity of the toilers of the world. 
 
 And to us in particular, and additionally, what heritage of 
 fa'omise has the blind infatuation of successive ministers to make* 
 an end of modern Germany at whatever cost by stoking the fires- 
 of hatied to such a pitch that common sense and commonprudence 
 would be consumed in them ; their secret commitments behind our 
 backs, which lured us on and on to fling fresh batches of our sons 
 into the charnel-house, that the Frenchmen might once more 
 straddle across the Rhine, the Italian extend his Imperial 
 dominion over unwilling peoples, the Russian be forced to 
 mutilate himself for causes remote from Ins interests and needs; 
 their violation of the altruistic motives by which tliey claimed to 
 be inspired, when they called the Indian to the valleys of France 
 and the plains of ^Mesopotamia, conscripted the Egyptian fellahin,. 
 bade China plunge into the fray only to leave her defenceless in 
 the grip of Japanese Imperialism; when they showed I’ersia the 
 door at the Versailles Conference ; when they secretly made over 
 Constantinople to the Tsar? Look round the v'orld — read, mark,, 
 leai’n, and inwardly digest. 
 
 Hid we love our country, or did we hate it, those of us who 
 urged it, long before the war, to insist upon wiinging the truth 
 from ministers as to our relations with France and Russia ; those 
 of us who protested against British interests being identified with 
 French nationalistic and imperial extremism, against British 
 treasure being found for the Tsardom’s armies and the 
 Tsardom’s persecutions? Did we love our country, or did 
 we hate it, those of us who, vhen the var broke out, 
 thouglit that the civilian population could be wisely employed 
 in evolving a national policy which would ensure that the 
 sufferings of our men at the front should not be in vain, and 
 that the follies of past so-called Peace Treaties sliould not be 
 repeated? Did we love our country, or did we hate it, those of 
 us who warned it that if it did not keep a grip upon the policn of 
 the war it would find itself committed to courses altogether alien 
 to its original purposes in entering it? Did we love our countiw, 
 or did we hate it, those of us who strove to compel ministers to 
 disclose their real aims ; those of us who helped to expose and 
 disseminate knowledge of the secret pacts by which ministers had 
 bound us without our knowledge to the attainment of objects 
 diametrically opposed to the objects they claimed to be pursuing; 
 those of us who maintained that the “ knock-out blow " ' would 
 conduct the world, if successful, to a peace of violence and 
 injustice wdiich would be but a prelude to fresh turmoil and w'ould 
 create a state of affairs in Europe and outside it, calculated to 
 imperil the stability of our Empire and fasten the yoke of 
 
 18 
 
militarisin more permanently upon our shoulders; those of us 
 who pleaded that a negotiated peace, securing the ends for which 
 public sanction to the war was given, was the path of national 
 wisdom? 
 
 As we worked in the true interests of our country while the 
 war was raging, so must we work henceforth tO' reverse the policy 
 consummated in the Treaty of Versailles; to save the League of 
 Nations, if it can still be saved, from utter shipwreck. The 
 Treaty cannot stand. Whether the Germans sign, or do not 
 sign, matters little in the ultimate resort. Its terms cannot be 
 permanently enforced. We hold it to be moi’ally and physically 
 impossible to keep a civilised people, great in numbers as in 
 courage and resourcefulness, in lasting vassalage. We believe 
 the attempt to do so must complete the do'wnfall of civilisation. 
 We believe that an Empire of thei extent and magnitude of our 
 own cannot be held together by brute force, and cannot be 
 managed as a protectionist preserve for Britisli capitalism without 
 involving the nation sooner or later in universal war and ruin. 
 We continue to believe that the principles ef the Union of 
 Democratic Control are the only principles which permit of 
 peaceful and fruitful international intercourse. * To those 
 principles the statesmen of Britain and of the Enited States have 
 done homage vv-ith tlieir lips. They have betrayed them by their 
 acts — the greater the need that our own efforts shv:)uld not flag. 
 
 Save the Children. 
 
 In a cartoon which recently appeared in the ‘‘Herald,” the 
 ” Big Four” are seen emerging from the portals of the Con- 
 ference, Clemenceau leading. In the corner a small child is 
 crying. Above his head these words are written: ‘‘ 1940 Class.” 
 "‘Curious! ” — Clemenceau exclaims. — ‘‘I seem to hear a child 
 w^eeping.” The cartoon is entitled ‘‘Peace and future cannon 
 fodder.” There lies our path, open before us. The old men 
 who made this war would lay upon the next generation the burden 
 of their indecent hatreds, their malignant pa.ssions, their con- 
 temptible egoisms. They w'ould lea.gue to posterity their insen- 
 sate animosities and filthy lusts. The heritage must be 
 repudiated. They have deluded the earth with the blood of the 
 young. To-day they seek to place their reeking hands upon the 
 little children. We must save them from their clutch. A 
 brilliant journalist wdio has seen the murk and bestiality of this 
 war, wrote awliile since that sooner than Iris babe asleep in the 
 cradle should endure what he had witnessed our gallant lads 
 endure, he \vould kill him then and there -with his own hands. 
 Near me as I write a child is playing on the grass. His bare 
 limbs glisten in the sunlight. His e^’es are sparkling. He 
 springs into the air, stoops to' pick a flow^er, inclines his head to 
 listen to the liquid notes of a willow-wren, is off again, chasing 
 the butterflies with joyful shout. His is the very ecstasy of 
 
 19 
 
^ 3 0112 072413070 
 
 living. He IS tlie embodiment ot Hope: the symbol of happiness. 
 bliaJl ] tamely submit to tliink of him as the pre-destined victim 
 of professional haters in high places? Shall I bowHo the decree 
 which would make him in his young manhood a broken, mutilated 
 thing, or stinking carrion on some blood-stained battlefield? He 
 is my child, not theirs. What right have they to doom him to 
 di ag crippled limbs, to grope wibli sightless eyes, to die an 
 agonising, senseless death? What title theirs to murder my child 
 by proxy? Ho you not feel the same of your children, and their 
 children? 
 
 To Save the Children. For men and women of courage and of 
 vision, that is the only.thing worth working and striving for in the 
 world to-day. 
 
 Printed by St. Clements Press, Ltd., Portugal Street, Kingsway, W.C.