66 tection, aye, even without the right of co-operating in fixing prices for goods or pharmaceutical articles, which we have to deliver as hitherto. I ask you what honest man, I will not say what German, can accept such conditions? And, at the same time, we are to bestir ourselves to work, to perform forced labour for the whole world." We do not know what distinction Herr Scheidemann draws between "" an honest man and "a German." To us the distinction is clear enough. It is clear, also, that there are many things which the Germans will have to do without in the future. And Herr Scheidemann may console himself with the knowledge that his countrymen will not be deprived of a tithe of the profits and privileges from which we should have been debarred had he been able to speak with the voice of a conqueror. We need not take the public speeches of German Ministers too seriously. It is their policy to make sensational protests, and to that policy they will adhere until the time comes for them to sign the peace. They are already sceptical themselves as to the wisdom of that policy. Herr Rantzau appears to regret the violence and bad manners of which he was guilty at Versailles. He He has confided to a French journalist his belief that the Entente considers moral guarantees 88 insufficient, and wishes to hold the means in its hands of supervising the treaty and its carrying out without the use of great forces. But he is full of hope for the future. Having ceased to browbeat his adversaries, he expresses a lofty faith in a regenerated Germany. "We shall kill this spirit of distrust by deeds," he boasts. "We must recognise that we have not yet had an opportunity of proving our good intentions in international negotiations. We cannot at present ask our enemies to show complete confidence in us with regard to the transformations which have been effected in Germany, but we can, and must, demand that the Entente shall give us an opportunity during the period of negotiations of giving convincing proof, by actions, of the new spirit of the new Germany." Herr Scheidemann speaks with one voice, Herr Rantzau with another, and since neither of them is sincere we need not waste our time in idle comparison. It is enough to admit that Herr Rantzau spoke nothing less than the truth when he said that the Entente would never be satisfied with moral guarantees alone. Meanwhile Lord Haldane has come gallantly to Herr Scheidemann's help. There is something almost admirable in Lord Haldane's loyalty to his "spiritual home. "spiritual home." Truly he has paid the debt of his nurture over and over again. We do not know whether he still regards the Kaiser as the embodiment of the Zeitgeist. But nothing persuades him heart when they hear, upon the word of a British statesman, that the treaty is but a stop-gap. We wonder what our Allies will think of Lord Haldane's disloyalty to their cause. to modify his opinion or to mitigate his championship. Here he is always at hand with counsel and encouragement. He is as much displeased with the peace as is Herr Scheidemann, and for the same reasons. "Only .a What, then, does Lord Haltreaty," says Herr Scheide- dane object to in the treaty? mann, "which can be kept, only He finds the terms so severe a treaty which leaves us alive, that they may include the which leaves us life as our seeds of future war, and so sole capital for labour and defeat their own object. Does making amends-only such a he? And does it not come treaty can again build up the into his mind that were the world." And Lord Haldane is terms less severe the future in complete agreement with war would be upon us within him. "The moral is," writes a year a two? What enrages our eminent statesman in the the Germans most fiercely is Glasgow Herald,' "that these not the severity of the terms, terms may have to be re- but the mere fact that they garded as binding to-day, but were beaten; and Lord Halyet not as final for any pro- dane should know his spiritual longed period." Thus Lord brothers well enough to be Haldane is a Teuton also in sure that had they been let off his contempt for "soraps of more easily, they would have paper." The treaty will pres- been ready all the sooner to ently be accepted and signed spring again. There remains by the Germans, and Lord also a sense of justice, which Haldane is already preaching seems to be obscured in Lord the pernicious doctrine that Haldane's mind. He knows, signatures carry no responsi- or ought to know, what Gerbility, that a treaty which many would have taken from "may "have to be regarded the Allies after a victory, and as binding to-day-mark the he objects to the separation of modest "may"-can be torn East Prussia from Germany; up tomorrow. While he he objects also to "the loss of encourages the Germans to an enormous proportion of regard the righteous terms the resources of Germany in imposed upon her as merely iron and coal," forgetting transitory, he expects "fresh no doubt that the Germans constructive statesmanship have wantonly destroyed the and largeness of outlook,' "coal fields of France. which will be required "before the last word has been said about the relation of Germany to the rest of the world.' The Germans will be of good He even suggests the favourite argument of the Germans, that the harsh terms may lead to revolution. "I do not believe that Germany will turn to Bolshevism," he says with a dangerous caution. "Still the possibility is there, and is made by the burdens imposed something more than a possibility.' What more could the most wildly fanatioal of Germans desire to be said? Then he turns to what we can only call the argument of fear. "If seventy millions of Germans, says he, "of the racial quality of our enemies are to be left to develop their powers of peaceful penetration, neither armies nor tariffs will prevent them from succeeding hereafter, and they are not likely in that case to remain acquiescent in what they now accept." They are not likely to remain acquiescent in any case, and because they may succeed hereafter, that is no reason why we should ensure their success to-day. For Lord Haldane the moral is that, because the Germans cannot be hampered by tariffs or armies, they should not be hampered at all. The moral for us is that, if the Germans are not hampered, the terms of the treaty are far too lenient, and that Lord Haldane himself will never be happy until he has made his spiritual home his actual home, and is permitted to preach his pernicious gospel as the President of the New German Republic. INDEX TO VOL. CCV. ABERRATION OF A SCHOLAR, THE, 845. ARMOURED CARS, FURTHER ADVEN- Belgium, heroes of, 131 et seq. BEWSHER, PAUL: "GREEN Balls," 60, B., L. V. S.: AN OFFENSIVE IN RAS- Bolshevism, 715-Bolshevik atrocities, 717-the policy of the revolutionaries, CALLWELL, Major-General Sir C. E., CHELTENHAM, THE CHIMNEY - SWEEPS CINEMA OF War, 233. CLOUSTON, J. STORER: SIMON, 652, 802. Conference of Paris, the, 418-the tragi- VOL. CCV.—NO. MCCXLIV. FARM, AN ADMIRALTY, 371. FRANCE, COURTS-MARTIAL IN, 791. 3 N -the Taurus foothills at last, 346- FURTHER ADVENTURES OF THE AR- Futility, the League of, 725-Mr Wil- son's idealism, 727. "GARRISON" WORK IN ARCTIC RUSSIA, Germany, exaction of indemnities from, Government, extravagance of the, 568 and Colonies during the war, 134- KLAXON: ON PATROL, 407. THE STORY OF OUR SUBMARINES, LAND DAYS, OUR, 70. I., Boots, ib.- Lefranc's 'Sous le Masque de "William seq. MEREDITH, GEORGE, AND OTHERS, 542. Friends in relation to his Work,' Nations, the League of, 883. OBSTRUCTION'S GENTLE ART, 433. (An ON PATROL.-IX., A.D. 400, 407. An Offensive in Raskam, 604. PAGE, ARTHUR: COURTS-MARTIAL IN Peace, Herr Scheidemann and the, 885. QUEX: THE RETURN PUSH, 103, 200, RASKAM, AN OFFENSIVE IN, 604, ROBUR: "GARRISON " WORK IN ARCTIC |