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the spiritual guardianship of all the Germans in the world, even of those few dwelling in the Upper Adige, who before the war did not belong to the Reich. That must be noted and made the subject of attentive meditation.

But I declare not less explicitly:

1. That the alien inhabitants of the Upper Adige are outside absolutely the number of those minorities which were the object of special agreements in the treaties of peace.

2. That Italy will never accept any discussion of this matter in any assembly or in any council, and that consequently the vote of the Tyrolese Diet is quite useless.

3. That the Fascist Government will react with the greatest energy against any plan of such a nature, because it would deem itself guilty of a real crime of treason if for the sake of 100,000 Germans who have come upon Italian soil any prejudice should occur to the security and peace of the 42,000,000 Italians who certainly form the most homogeneous and compact national block existing in Europe.

These are not threats than can be countered by ambiguous quibbles; they are affirmations of dignity and strength that can never be belied by facts, as is the habit in the new Italy, which too many Germans, relying still on old stories, make the grave mistake of not yet knowing.

Honourable Senators, in your exquisite sense of responsibility you feel that the discussion of these days has touched fundamental questions. Fundamental and vital is not only the question of the intangibility of the Brenner, which Dr. Stresemann, many thanks to him, recognizes juridically in pursuance of the treaties of peace, but everything else that is derived from that intangibility. You remember that from 1866 to 1915 the nation suffered from the absurd old frontier of the Trentino as from the knife of an enemy who was driving his blade from the Alps to the brink of the Po. This frontier was one of the most distressing features of our national drama, interrupted in 1866, resumed and concluded happily in 1918 with the victory of our arms. This word is definitive inviolable! In speaking thus I believe I am really speaking for the whole Italian people.

The usually undemonstrative Senate allowed no doubt to linger anywhere as to the orator's expressing Italian sentiments. Thrice the Senators rose to their feet to acclaim the great patriot. The air was now clear and an audible silence fell upon the Fatherland, who prudently retired from an unequal contest, and to-day the one-time popular hero, Dr. Held, is among Germany's least esteemed citizens, while Europe gains enormously by realizing that at any rate one public man in the front rank knows a bully when he sees one-likewise the proper remedy. That is a real gain to the cause of peace-avowedly "the greatest of British interests."

66

As our readers vividly recall, the Brotherhood of Man was initiated at Locarno. It was subsequently signed, sealed, and delivered in London-in celebration of Fresh Strife which the Press Association announced a re-decoration of the room at the Foreign Office in which the joyful event occurred at a cost of some thousands of pounds sterling. It is therefore something of a shock to learn, now that, ex hypothesi, every European nation adores every other European nation, that a "crisis" is threatened in connection with Germany's entry into the League of Nations, which was hailed by all men who described themselves as "of good will" as a prelude to the Millennium. Nor is this crisis " easy for outsiders to follow, because "on Locarno principles" it was "unthinkable," and therefore could not occur. We don't know what to make of it, but then we are among the unregenerate who never believed in the "miracle," as Locarno was officially described. The Council of the League consists of four permanent members, namely, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan, and six nonpermanent members, namely, Belgium, Brazil, CzechoSlovakia, Spain, Sweden, and Uruguay. Germany was promised a permanent seat on the Council whenever she entered the League. This was intelligible in those who imagined the League would gain by her inclusion, as it was always obvious that without it she would never join. But this enlargement of the Council has encouraged Polandwho is now a Great Power, with a great population holding a critical position between East and West-and it is alleged Spain and Brazil, also to claim permanent seats on the Council. To this Germany objects, and, as usual, her objection is supported by all our pro-Germans and many of our Mugwumps, though, if these believed a tithe of what they have said about the "spirit of Locarno," which had wiped out the evil memory of the Great War and buried International animosities, they should rejoice at the enlargement of the Council of the League, which would afford Germany and her new-found friends golden opportunities of composing their differences and burying the hatchet in heart-to-heart talks. The trouble with Mugwumps is that they only half

believe the "rot" they palm off on the public. Locarno has altered nothing. It has merely opened a new chapter of strife.

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GERMANY is generally willing to oblige those who desire to be deceived, as is only too frequently the ambition of Responsible Statesmen in this country as Germany willon the other side of the Atlantic. But it ing to Oblige must be acknowledged in all fairness to the Germans that they do not go out of their way to bamboozle us. It is our politicians, pre-war and post-war, who insist on being humbugged-who create their own Fool's Paradise, and then summon the British Public inside. So it was over Locarno," and is over Germany's entry into the League of Nations. The claptrap has been almost exclusively British claptrap. "The Locarno spirit" with which we on this side of the North Sea are deafened is for all practical purposes non-existent on the other. It pleases and suits Front Bench politicians of every denomination-and when it comes to talking nonsense about foreign countries there is little to choose between members of the Carlton Club, the National Liberal Club, and the Independent Labour Party -to represent Germany's membership of the League of Nations as opening a new era of Peace and Good Will. This pretext enables our Mandarins and Mugwumps in Parliament and on the Press to lecture every other nation that is unable to share our illusions on their "unreasonableness," ""bitterness, ""bigotry," and "Chauvinism." But the only crime of France and Poland, who are now being scolded from London-all "in the true Locarno spirit"-is that they insist on seeing facts that stare them in the face, while our Ministers, ex-Ministers, and newspapers prefer to bury their heads in the sand as obliviously as they did before the war, for which British illusionism, as we learn afresh from every successive "revelation," was largely responsible. We repeat that we cannot blame the Germans for our own folly. They have done all that is reasonable in trying to prevent foreigners from reading more into their entry into the League of Nations than that event implies. German declarations abundantly

justify the sceptism and suspicions of France, Poland, and others.

THERE seems to be almost a conspiracy to conceal the true inwardness of German policy from the British People and

Conspiracy of Silence

from the Peoples of the Dominions. This might have been deemed impossible after the illumination of 1914-18. But among the forgetful everything is possible. The war is banished like an evil dream-by us, though by no other nation who fought through it on either side-and all the vested interests are mobilized to make us disremember its every lesson. This is no doubt largely the handiwork of pro-German propagandists, who are usually more German than the Germans. The Berlin Government has given little countenance to the latest mystification. Indeed, it would be nearer the mark to describe it as trying to open the eyes of the other members of the League of Nations to the real significance of its impending entry. A semi-official Note was issued in the German capital on Tuesday, February 9th, by the German Government to explain to the German people what Germany's accession to the League signifies to Germany. This Note was circulated by Reuter to the British Press and published here and there on February 10th-so inconspicuously, however, that we believe it will be new to the vast majority of our readers. We claim it as justifying everything we have written since the Locarno Pact opened the floodgates of hallucination. This Note, indeed, makes the situation plainer than the noonday sun has been of late. Germany joins the League of Nations, as it was always inevitable she would-not in the spirit of the Covenant, but in order to mould it to her own purposes, as she is now confident of doing. Otherwise she would elect to remain outside. With a degree of frankness calculated to make Bismarck turn in his grave the German Government proclaims Germany's two main objects, namely, a revision of the Peace Treaties and the acquisition of Colonies. We give the operative clauses of this severely boycotted Note, which we dug out of a remote page of an important London Journal (to which

however, an intelligent sub-editor supplied the suggestive heading "Revision of Treaties" and "Claims to Colonial Mandates"). Here is the semi-official text as translated by Reuter, which will make it impossible for any of our simpletons hereafter to complain that they had been "misled by German assurances

With regard to Germany's work within the League, one may mention such international questions as, first, the revision of impracticable treaties, whose maintenance endangers the peace of the world, and, second, the co-operation of Germany in universal disarmament.

In addition, it is pointed out that the League has taken over a number of special problems which are of vital importance to Germany, such as the administration of the Sarre, the security of Danzig, racial minorities, and, finally, colonial mandates, to share in which the German people makes a well-justified claim.

As the reference to "the co-operation of Germany in universal disarmament" is liable to be fastened upon by Pacifists, we should remember that it mainly envisages the disarmament of France and Italy, who are to-day the chief continental bulwarks of civilization against future Pan-German aggression. We all know, or should know, what "revision" of any Treaty in a German sense signifies. It both accounts for the renewed apprehensions of France and the claim of Poland to a seat on the Council of the League, which the British people would unreservedly support if the conspiracy of silence in Parliament, in the Press, and on the platform could be broken through and they were allowed to appreciate the issues at stake. An authoritative statement of Poland's case will be found elsewhere in this number.

THE British Dominions should at last be able to realize how intimately their own interests are bound up with these remote European events, which seem so far At Last away that it is not easy to persuade any considerable proportion of our compatriots overseas that South Africa, Australia, and New Zealand are equally concerned with the Mother Country in the business of the Geneva League of Nations, to which unthinking Statesmanship was allowed by an indifferent public to commit them without any realization of the obligations. Had enemies of the League of Nations introduced Germany into its bosom

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