Part 5 (1/2)

The fact is, as any realist will admit, that every frontier, no matter how absurd originally or even now, contains, in the very fact of its existence, elements of stability and of reason which to _some extent_ justify its existence. The ordinary individual near a {30} frontier, as distinguished from the agitator, becomes used to it. Business transactions adjust themselves to it and in a very short time after its creation any proposed change implies inherently a certain amount of undesirability. It is impossible, perhaps, to imagine or to draw a more absurd frontier than that between Switzerland and France in the region of Geneva.[5] It is a monstrosity, geographically and economically, and yet every one is contented with it or at least more contented with it than with the idea of changing it. Naturally there are certain attendant annoyances, as in a motor ride out of Geneva which involves two or more Customs frontier examinations within a few kilometres; and there are certain absurdities involved in catching Swiss fish and French fish in different parts of Lake Leman; and one is amused in reading Customs regulations which permit cows to pasture in one country and be milked in the other without duty; but still every one has gotten used to these matters and gets along with them.

So on the whole these two maligned words represent a rather peaceful condition.

Before the World War the irritation produced in the minds of many by the then existing _status quo_ largely related to the frontiers in Eastern Europe and the somewhat similar irritation now existing among alleged liberal thinkers is due to the frontiers created by the Peace Treaties in general which are so usually and inaccurately referred to as the Treaty of Versailles.

Here, I think it is fair to make a certain distinction regarding the causes internationally of a given _status quo_ at any particular time and of the existing situation in particular. These causes are two, generally speaking--agreement and war. The instances in modern history of changes in frontiers reached by free agreement are innumerable. I do not see how any one who recognizes the existing state system can object to them or believe that force should be used to change them. Of course there are critics who object to the existing state system and from {31} a theoretical point of view there is something to be said for these objections. The real answer to them at this time is, that whether they are good or bad, the present state system is one that, so far as any human being can see now, is certain to exist for some more centuries at least; and accordingly, outside of dreamland, we must take this system as it is. Given that state system, agreements between states as to their frontiers should be sacred. If a state can make an agreement about its frontier, and then, because it made a bad agreement or a stupid agreement or because circ.u.mstances changed after the agreement was made, may go to war to set aside the agreement, the result would only be international anarchy--the state system and everything else would have disappeared together.

The other source of changes in the _status quo_ is war or strictly speaking the treaties of peace that result from war. I pa.s.s by the legal position, which is theoretically correct, that a treaty of peace made by a vanquished Power with a victor is supposedly a free agreement. This is true enough from the technical point of view but has no bearing here. The fact is that when one side wins a war and the other loses it, the treaty of peace is made under compulsion and constraint.

The argument that is made by those who criticize the _status quo_ of the Peace Treaties of 1919 and 1920 runs about as follows;

1. In certain respects the frontiers and arrangements created by the Peace Treaties are unjust.

2. The setting up by the Peace Treaties of an international organization against war is an attempt to sanctify the wickednesses of the _status quo_.

3. Both the Treaties and the international organization which they set up should at least be denounced and probably rejected.

This conclusion in various minds is different and uncertain, but I think that I have stated it fairly.

Let us take these points up in their order.

As a preliminary, let me say that the Treaties of Peace in this connection cannot include the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey.

Certainly at the time that that Treaty was negotiated there was {32} no imposed peace on Turkey; as a matter of fact the Turkish negotiators had things pretty much their own way with the Allies. So that we are considering merely the Treaties with Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.

In the first place, the question in many cases as to whether or not there is any such thing as a ”just” frontier is at least a very doubtful one. I put it this way. If you have a situation where reasonable, impartial and informed minds can differ, you do not have a situation where it can be arbitrarily said by any one that any one frontier is _the_ just frontier. Of course I am not talking of the type of mind which insists that the particular line that he would draw is the one and only line, despite the views of anybody else, because to admit such a theory would mean the admission of the existence of perhaps fifty different frontiers between the same two countries at the same time.

Now as to the Peace Treaties, we certainly have that situation to a very large extent. I do not see how any one could contend that the existence of the Polish corridor is a perfect solution, nor do I see how any one could contend that the absence of the Polish corridor would be a perfect solution. One of the Polish Delegation said to me in Paris in December, 1918, in substance, that it would be impossible to draw a frontier between Germany and Poland which would not do an injustice to one country or to the other or to both, and I believe that his observation is perfectly sound.

The same thing is true as between Roumania and Hungary, and perhaps more true.

My sympathies as to Vilna are rather with the Lithuanians than with the Poles, but no one can read the doc.u.ments without seeing that the Poles have a case.

My own view has always been that the frontier between Poland and Russia is too far to the East, but none the less the Russians, after a fas.h.i.+on, agreed to it.

Most of those whose opinions I respect believe that it was wrong to give the Austrian Tyrol to Italy. Despite those views, I have always believed that the decision was defensible.

{33}

Different American experts of the highest qualifications, of the utmost sincerity and of complete impartiality took different views as to Fiume and the Italian-Yugo-Slav frontier generally. In such circ.u.mstances, who could say, what tribunal could decide, the ”just” frontier?

I am willing to admit that this uncertainty on the question of justice may not exist in every case. I have always believed that some of the cessions of territory forced on Bulgaria were utterly indefensible from any point of view whatsoever. I refer, not to Macedonia, that impossible jumble of contradictions, but more particularly to Western Thrace.

My own view is that, on the whole and taken by and large, the existing frontiers in Europe are more near to justice than ever before in modern history.

But I am going to a.s.sume for the rest of this discussion that some of these frontiers are wrong and should be changed. What is our answer to that situation?

Let me point out in the first place that the mere fact that a frontier was imposed by force resulting in a peace treaty is not necessarily anything against it. Take the case of Alsace-Lorraine, for example; or take a still more striking case, the case of Germany and Denmark.

Admittedly, in and out of Germany, the result as to Slesvig was just and should continue.

Furthermore, it is necessary to point out that the _imposed_ origin of a situation may not continue as the cause of that situation. It _may_ become accepted and voluntary, a full agreement. An instance here is the reparations question. The _status quo_ as to reparations (a very uncertain one) imposed by the Treaty of Versailles upon Germany, has now, under that very Treaty, become an agreed _status quo_ by reason of the voluntary adoption by Germany of the Dawes Report; for in reality as well as in strictness of law that plan could not have been adopted, much less be carried out, without the voluntary a.s.sent of Germany to its provisions.