Peaceless Europe Part 1

Peaceless Europe.

by Francesco Saverio Nitti.

PREFACE

In this book are embodied the ideas which, as a parliamentarian, as head of the Italian Government, and as a writer, I have upheld with firm conviction during the last few years.

I believe that Europe is threatened with decadence more owing to the Peace Treaties than as a result of the War. She is in a state of daily increasing decline, and the causes of dissatisfaction are growing apace.

Europe is still waiting for that peace which has not yet been definitely concluded, and it is necessary that the public should be made aware that the courses now being followed by the policy of the great victorious States are perilous to the achievement of serious, lasting and useful results. I believe that it is to the interest of France herself if I speak the language of truth, as a sincere friend of France and a confirmed enemy of German Imperialism. Not only did that Imperialism plunge Germany into a sea of misery and suffering, covering her with the opprobrium of having provoked the terrible War, or at least of having been mainly responsible for it, but it has ruined for many years the productive effort of the most cultured and industrious country in Europe.

Some time ago the ex-President of the French Republic, R. Poincare, after the San Remo Conference, _a propos_ of certain differences of opinion which had arisen between Lloyd George and myself on the one hand and Millerand on the other, wrote as follows:

"Italy and England know what they owe to France, just as France knows what she owes to them. They do not wish to part company with us, nor do we with them. They recognize that they need us, as we have need of them. Lloyd George and Nitti are statesmen too shrewd and experienced not to understand that their greatest strength will always lie in this fundamental axiom. On leaving San Remo for Rome or London let them ask the opinion of the 'man in the street.' His reply will be: '_Avant tout, restez unis avec la France_.'"

I believe that Lloyd George and I share the same cordial sentiments toward France. We have gone through so much suffering and anxiety together that it would be impossible to tear asunder links firmly welded by common danger and pain. France will always remember with a sympathetic glow that Italy was the first country which proclaimed her neutrality, on August 2, 1914; without that proclamation the destinies of the War might have taken a very different turn.

But the work of reconstruction in Europe is in the interest of France herself. She has hated too deeply to render a sudden cessation of her hate-storm possible, and the treaties have been begotten in rancour and applied with violence. Even as the life of men, the life of peoples has days of joy and days of grief: sunshine follows the storm.

The whole history of European peoples is one of alternate victories and defeats. It is the business of civilization to create such conditions as will render victory less brutal and defeat more bearable.

The recent treaties which regulate, or are supposed to regulate, the relations among peoples are, as a matter of fact, nothing but a terrible regress, the denial of all those principles which had been regarded as an unalienable conquest of public right. President Wilson, by his League of Nations, has been the most responsible factor in setting up barriers between nations.

Christopher Columbus sailed from Europe hoping to land in India, whereas he discovered America. President Wilson sailed from America thinking that he was going to bring peace to Europe, but only succeeded in bringing confusion and war.

However, we should judge him with the greatest indulgence, for his intentions were undoubtedly sincere and honest.

France has more to gain than any other country in Europe by reverting to those sound principles of democracy which formed her erstwhile glory. We do not forget what we owe her, nor the n.o.ble spirit which pervades some of her historic deeds. But _n.o.blesse oblige_, and all the more binding is her duty to respect tradition.

When France shall have witnessed the gradual unfolding of approaching events, she will be convinced that he who has spoken to her the language of truth and has sought out a formula permitting the peoples of Europe to rediscover their path in life, towards life, is not only a friend, but a friend who has opportunely brought back to France's mind and heart the deeds of her great ancestors at the time when fresh deeds of greatness and glory await accomplishment. The task which we must undertake with our inmost feeling, with all the ardour of our faith, is to find once more the road to peace, to utter the word of brotherly love toward oppressed peoples, and to reconstruct Europe, which is gradually sinking to the condition of Quattrocento Italy, without its effulgence of art and beauty: thirty States mutually diffident of each other, in a sea of programmes and Balkan ideas.

Towards the achievement of this work of civilization the great democracies must march shoulder to shoulder. At the present moment I hear nothing but hostile voices; but the time is not far distant when my friends of France will be marching with us along the same road.

They already admit in private many things which they will presently be obliged to recognize openly. Many truths are the fruit of persuasion; others, again, are the result of former delusions.

I place my greatest trust in the action of American democracy.

By refusing to sanction the Treaty of Versailles and all the other peace treaties, the American Senate has given proof of the soundest political wisdom: the United States of America has negotiated its own separate treaties, and resumes its pre-war relations with victors and vanquished alike.

It follows that all that has been done hitherto in the way of treaties is rendered worthless, as the most important partic.i.p.ant has withdrawn. This is a further motive for reflecting that it is impossible to continue living much longer in a Europe divided by two contending fields and by a medley of rancour and hatred which tends to widen the chasm.

It is of the greatest interest to America that Europe should once more be the wealthy, prosperous, civilized Europe which, before 1914, ruled over the destinies of the world. Only by so great an effort can the finest conquests of civilization come back to their own.

We should only remember our dead in so far as their memory may prevent future generations from being saddened by other war victims. The voices of those whom we have lost should reach us as voices praying for the return of that civilization which shall render ma.s.sacres impossible, or shall at least diminish the violence and ferocity of war.

Just as the growing dissolution of Europe is a common danger, so is the renewal of the bonds of solidarity a common need.

Let us all work toward this end, even if at first we may be misunderstood and may find obstacles in our way. Truth is on the march and will a.s.sert herself: we shall strike the main road after much of dreary wandering in the dark lanes of prejudice and violence.

Many of the leading men of Europe and America, who in the intoxication of victory proclaimed ideas of violence and revenge, would now be very glad to reverse their att.i.tude, of which they see the unhappy results.

The truth is that what they privately recognize they will not yet openly admit. But no matter.

The confessions which many of them have made to me, both verbally and in writing, induce me to believe that my ideas are also their ideas, and that they only seek to express them in the form and on the occasions less antagonistic to the currents of opinion which they themselves set up in the days when the chief object to be achieved seemed to be the vivisection of the enemy.

Recent events, however, have entirely changed the situation.

As I said before, the American Senate has not sanctioned the Treaty of Versailles, nor is it likely to give it its approval. The United States of America concludes separate treaties on its own account.

Agreements of a military character had been arrived at in Paris: the United States of America and Great Britain guaranteed France against any future unjust attack by Germany. The American Senate did not sanction the agreement; in fact, it did not even discuss it. The House of Commons had approved it subordinate to the consent of the United States. Italy has kept aloof from all alliances. As a result of this situation, the four Entente Powers, "allied and a.s.sociated" (as formerly was the official term), have ceased to be either "allied" or "a.s.sociated" after the end of the War.

On the other hand, Europe, after emerging from the War, is darkened and overcast by intrigues, secret agreements and dissimulated plots: fresh menaces of war and fresh explosions of dissatisfaction.

Nothing can help the cause of peace more than giving a full knowledge of the real situation to the various peoples. Errors thrive in darkness while truth walks abroad in the full light of day. It has been my intention to lay before the public those great controversies which cannot merely form the object of diplomatic notes or of posthumous books presented to Parliament in a more or less incomplete condition after events have become irreparable.

The sense of a common danger, threatening all alike, will prove the most persuasive factor in swerving us from the perilous route which we are now following.

As a result of the War the bonds of economic solidarity have been torn asunder: the losers in the War must not only make good their own losses, but, according to the treaties, are expected to pay for all the damage which the War has caused. Meanwhile all the countries of Europe have only one prevailing fear: German compet.i.tion. In order to pay the indemnities imposed upon her (and she can only do it by exporting goods), Germany is obliged to produce at the lowest possible cost, which necessitates the maximum of technical progress. But exports at low cost must in the long run prove detrimental, if not destructive, to the commerce of neutral countries, and even to that of the victors. Thus in all tariffs which have already been published or which are in course of preparation there is one prevailing object in view: that of reducing German compet.i.tion, which practically amounts to rendering it impossible for her to pay the War indemnity.

If winners and losers were to abandon war-time ideas for a while, and, rather, were to persuade themselves that the oppression of the vanquished cannot be lasting, and that there is no other logical way out of the difficulty but that of small indemnities payable in a few years, debiting to the losers in tolerable proportion all debts contracted towards Great Britain and the United States, the European situation would immediately improve.

Why is Europe still in such a state of economic disorder? Because the confusion of moral ideas persists. In many countries nerves are still as tense as a bowstring, and the language of hatred still prevails.

For some countries, as for some social groups, war has not yet ceased to be. One hears now in the countries of the victors the same arguments used as were current coin in Germany before the War and during the first phases of the War; only now and then, more as a question of habit than because they are truly felt, we hear the words justice, peace, and democracy.

Why is the present state of discomfort and dissatisfaction on the increase? Because almost everywhere in Continental Europe, in the countries which have emerged from the War, the rate of production is below the rate of consumption, and many social groups, instead of producing more, plan to possess themselves with violence of the wealth produced by others. At home, the social cla.s.ses, unable to resist, are threatened; abroad, the vanquished, equally unable to resist, are menaced, but in the very menace it is easy to discern the anxiety of the winners. Confusion, discomfort and dissatisfaction thus grow apace.

The problem of Europe is above all a moral problem. A great step toward its solution will have been accomplished when winners and losers persuade themselves that only by a common effort can they be saved, and that the best enemy indemnity consists in peace and joint labour. Now that the enemy has lost all he possessed and threatens to make us lose the fruits of victory, one thing is above all others necessary: the resumption, not only of the language, but of the ideas of peace;

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. Cla.s.s struggles at home, in their acutest form, are like the compet.i.tion 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 doc.u.ment which was not meant for publication; I have availed myself of my knowledge of the most important international Acts and of all diplomatic doc.u.ments 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 doc.u.ments; recently, however, Tardieu and Poincare, in the interest of the French nationalist thesis which they sustain, have published also doc.u.ments of a very reserved nature.

Tardieu's book is a doc.u.mentary proof of the French Government's extremist att.i.tude 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_, Poincare has recently published in the _Temps_ (September 12, 1921) a whole secret correspondence between Poincare, President of the Republic, Clemenceau, President of the Council of Ministers, the American Delegation, and, above all, Lloyd George.