Part 23

Germany produced before the War about 190,000,000 tons of coal; in 1913 191,500,000. The consumption of these mines themselves was about a tenth, 19,000,000 tons, whilst for exportation were 83,500,000 tons, and for internal consumption were 139,000,000.

Now Germany has lost, and justly, Alsace-Lorraine, 3,800,000 tons. She has lost, and it was not just, the Saar, 13,200,000 tons. She is bound by the obligations of the treaty to furnish France with 20,000,000 tons, and to Belgium and Italy and France again another 25,000,000 tons. If she loses the excellent coal of Upper Silesia, about 43,800,000 tons per year, she will be completely paralysed.

It is needless to lose time in demonstrating for what geographic, ethnographic and economist reason Upper Silesia should be united with Germany. It is a useless procedure, and also, after the plebiscites, an insult to the reasoning powers. If the violation of treaties is not a right of the victor, after the plebiscite, in which, notwithstanding all the violences, three-quarters of the population voted for Germany, then there is no reason for discussion.

The words used by Lloyd George on May 18, 1921, in the House of Commons, are a courteous abbreviation of the truth. From the historical point of view, he said, Poland has no rights over Silesia. The only reason for which Poland could claim Upper Silesia is that it possesses a numerous Polish population, arrived there in comparatively recent times with the intention of finding work, and especially in the mines. That is true and is more serious than would be an agitation of the Italians in the State of San Paulo of Brazil, claiming that they had a majority of the population.

"The Polish insurrection," said Lloyd George justly, "is a challenge to the Treaty of Versailles, which, at the same time, constitutes the charter of Polish Liberty." Poland is the last country in Europe which has the right to deplore the treaty, because Poland did not conquer the treaty. Poland did not gain her liberty, and more than any other country should respect every comma of the treaty. She owes her liberty to Italy, Great Britain and France.

In the future [said the English Prime Minister] force will lose its efficiency in regard to the Treaty of Versailles, and the maintenance of the undertakings on the part of Germany on the basis of her signature placed to the treaty will count increasingly. We have the right to everything which she gives us: but we have the right also to leave everything which is left to her. It is our duty of impartiality to act with rigorous justice, without taking into account the advantages or the disadvantages which may accrue therefrom. Either the Allies must demand that the treaty shall be respected, or they should permit the Germans to make the Poles respect it. It is all very well to disarm Germany, but to desire that even the troops which she does possess should not participate in the re-establishment of order is a pure injustice.

Russia [added Lloyd George] to-day is a fallen Power, tired, a prey to a despotism which leaves no hope, but is also a country of great natural resources, inhabited by a people of courage, who at the beginning of the War gave proof of its courage. Russia will not always find herself in the position in which she is to-day. Who can say what she will become? In a short time she may become a powerful country, which can say its word about the future of Europe and the world. To which part will she turn? With whom will she unite?

There is nothing more just or more true than this.

But Poland wants to take away Upper Silesia from Germany notwithstanding the plebiscite and against the treaty, and which has in this action the aid of the metallurgical interests and the great interests of a large portion of the Press of all Europe. Poland, which has large nuclei of German populations, after having been enslaved, claims the right to enslave populations, which are more cultured, richer and more advanced. And besides the Germans it claims the right to enslave even Russian peoples and further to occupy entire Russian territories, and wishes to extend into Ukraine. There is then the political paradox of Wilna. This city, which belongs according to the regular treaty to Lithuania, has been occupied in an arbitrary manner by the Poles, who also claim Kowno.

In short, Poland, which obtained her unity by a miracle, is working in the most feverish manner to create her own ruin. She has no finance, she has no administration, she has no credit. She does not work, and yet consumes; she occupies new territories, and ruins the old ones. Of the 31,000,000 inhabitants, as we have seen, 7 millions are Ukranians, 2.2 Russians, 2.1 Germans, and nearly half a million of other nationalities. But among the eighteen or nineteen million Poles there are at least four million Jews--Polish Jews, without doubt, but the greater portion do not love Poland, which has not known how to assimilate them. The Treaty of Versailles has created the absurd position that to go from one part to the other of Germany it is necessary to traverse the Danzig corridor. In other terms, Germany is cut in two parts, and to move in Prussia herself from Berlin to one of the oldest German cities, the home of Emanuel Kant, Konigsberg, it is necessary to traverse Polish territory.

So Poland separates the two most numerous people of Europe: Russia and Germany. The Biblical legend lets us suppose that the waters of the Red Sea opened to let the Chosen People pass: but immediately afterwards the waters closed up again. Is it possible to suppose that such an arbitrary arrangement as this will last for long?

If it has lasted as long as it has, it is because it was, at least from the part of one section of the Entente, not the road to peace, but because it was a method of crushing down Germany.

If a people had conditions for developing rapidly it was Czeko-Slovakia. But also with the intention of hurting Germany and the German peoples, a Czeko-Slovak State was created which has also its own tremendous crisis of nationality. A Czeko-Slovakia with a population of eight to nine million people represented a compact ethnical unity. Instead, they have added five and a half million people of different nationalities, amongst whom about 4,000,000 Germans, with cities which are the most German in the world, as Pilsen, Karlsbad, Reichenberg, etc. What is even more serious is that the 4,000,000 Germans are attached to Germany, and, having a superior culture and civilization, will never resign themselves to being placed under the Czeks.

Czeko-Slovakia had mineral riches, industrial concerns and solid agriculture, and a culture spread among the people--all the conditions for rising rapidly. All these advantages risk being annulled by the grave and useless insult to the Germans and Magyars.

Not only is the situation of Europe in every way uncertain, but there is a tendency in the groups of the victors on the Continent of Europe to increase the military budgets. The relationships of trade are being restored only slowly; commerce is spoken of as an aim. In Italy the dangers and perils of reopening trade with Germany have been seriously discussed; customs duties are raised every day; the industrial groups find easy propaganda for protection. Any limitation of competition is a duty, whether it be the enemy of yesterday or the enemy of to-day, and so the greatest evils of protection are camouflaged under patriotism.

None of the countries which have come out of the War on the Continent have a financial position which helps toward a solid situation. All the financial documents of the various countries, which I have collected and studied with great care, contain enormous masses of expenses which are the consequences of the War; those of the conquering countries also contain enormous aggregations of expenses which are or can become the cause of new wars.

The conquered countries have not actually any finance. Germany has an increase of expenses which the fall of the mark renders more serious. In 1920 she spent not less than ninety-two milliards, ruining her circulation. How much has she spent in 1921?

Austria and Hungary have budgets which are simply hypotheses. The last Austrian budget, for 1921, assigned a sum of seventy-one milliards of crowns for expenses, and this for a poor country with 7,000,000 inhabitants.

A detailed examination of the financial situation of Czeko-Slovakia, of Rumania, and of the Serbo-Croat States gives results which are at the least alarming. Even Greece, which until yesterday had a solid structure, gallops now in a madness of expenditure which exceeds all her resources, and if she does not find a means to make peace with Turkey she will find her credit exhausted. The most ruinous of all is the situation of Poland, whose finance is certainly not better regulated than that of the Bolsheviks of Moscow, to judge from the course of the Polish mark and the Russian rouble if anyone gets the idea of buying them on an international market.

The situation of the exchange since the War has not sensibly bettered even for the great countries, and it is extraordinarily worse for the other countries.

In June, 1921, France had a circulation of about thirty-eight milliard of francs, Belgium six milliard of francs, Italy of about eighteen milliards; Great Britain, between State notes and Bank of England notes, had hardly £434,000,000 sterling. Actually, among the continental countries surviving the War, Italy is the country which has made the greatest efforts not to augment the circulation but to increase the duties; also because she had no illusions of rebuilding her finance and her national economy on an enemy indemnity.

But the conquered countries have so abused their circulation that they almost live on the thought of it--as, in fact, not a few of the conquering countries and those come out from the War do. Germany has passed eighty-eight milliards, and is rapidly approaching one hundred milliards. Now, when one thinks that the United States, after so many loans and after all the expenses of the War, has only a circulation of 4,557,000,000 dollars, one understands what difficulty Germany has to produce, to live, and to refurnish herself with raw materials.

Only Great Britain of all the countries in Europe which have issued from the War has had a courageous financial policy. Public opinion, instead of pushing Parliament to financial dissipation, has insisted on economy. If the situation created by the War has transformed also the English circulation into unconvertible paper money, this is merely a passing fact. If the sterling loses on the dollar--that is, on gold--given the fact that the United States of America alone now have a money at par, almost a quarter of its value, this is also merely a transitory fact.

Great Britain has the good sense to curtail expenses, and the sterling tends always to improve.

France and Italy are in an intermediate position. Their money can be saved, but it will require energetic care and great economies, stern finance, a greater development of production, limitation of consumption, above all, of what is purchased from abroad. At the date of which I am writing, expressed on a percentual basis, the French franc is worth 47 centimes of the sterling and 36 of the dollar--that is to say, of gold. The Italian lira is worth 28 centimes of the sterling and 21 of the dollar.

Here are still two countries in which tenacious energy can save and with many sacrifices they can arrive at good money. France has a good many more resources than Italy; she has a smaller need of importations and a greater facility for exportations. But her public debt has reached 265 milliards, the circulation has well passed thirty-eight milliards, and they still fear to calculate amongst the extraordinary income of the budget the fifteen milliards a year which should come from Germany.

Italy, with great difficulty of production and less concord inside the country, has a more true vision, and does not reckon any income which is not derived from her own resources. Her circulation does not pass eighteen milliards, and her debt exceeds by a little one hundred milliards.

With prudence and firmness France and Italy will be able to balance their accounts.