MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
IHAVE often asked myself why the British public, who during the war showed themselves impervious to every form of pro- paganda, should between 1919 and 1938 have absorbed without a moment's reflection the German version of the Treaty of Versailles. Even today there are many people in this country who remain con- vinced that the Peace Settlement of 1919 was one of the most ignorant and iniquitous ever framed; yet these people would now find it difficult to state whether their conviction was based upon the fact that the Treaty was too hard or too soft. How is this strange phenomenon to be explained? It may be that the Anglo-Saxon peoples have been so affected by a long Puritan tradition that they retain, without being aware of it, a sense of original sin. The fact that their conscience is a vague congenital feeling rather than any system of ethical thought renders them apt to become causelessly conscious-stricken. Thus, whereas it is difficult for foreign propa- gandists to induce the British people to think in the way they want them to think it is easy to persuade them to feel that they have committed wrong. If one wants to blur the common sense of the English, one's best method is to play upon their unreasoning sense of guilt. No Englishman can be induced to believe that his own Government have acted with wisdom, humanity and foresight ; but when you tell an Englishman that his chosen rulers have " muddled " or " blundered," his acceptance of this accusation is immediate, unreflecting and pleasurable. This is not the only reason why we accepted with such readiness the German version of Versailles. The British public believed the Germans because they wanted to believe them: and why did they want to believe them? Clearly because such was the least uncomfortable line of belief. If, as some people asserted, the Germans were determined not only to redress their own wrongs but to impose wrongs on others, then horrible efforts and sacrifices might be entailed ; but if the root of the disquiet lay in the articles of a certain Treaty, then one had only to cancel those articles in order to achieve amity, righteousness and peace. Here was the line of comforting assurance, the line of least resistance.
I am not among those who contend that the Treaty of Versailles and its attendant instruments represented a masterpiece of pacifica- tion. The several treaties concluded in 1919 were sufficiently irritating to perpetuate resentment without being forcible enough to render that resentment ineffective. The liberal principles which they embodied—and they were clean and wise—were obscured and vitiated by the hypocritical formulas devised to conceal the frequent violations of those principles. And in seeking to find in " self-determination" the guiding rule for all pacification, the peacemakers of 1919 were tempted to ignore the enormous influence which economic necessi- ties are bound to exercise upon the contentment of man. Yet the real tragedy of the Paris Peace Settlement was that it was never carried out ; had the Treaties been maintained in every particular, then the world would never have been exposed to the disaster of a second German War: had the signatory Governments realised that the first twenty-six articles of the Treaty of Versailles, namely, the Covenant of the League of Nations, were its most important articles, then the whole Treaty could have been adjusted to changed condi- tions by peaceful means. Yet, even as it stands, the Peace Settlement of 1919 seems preferable, both in principle and practice, to any settlement which we are likely to achieve this time.
I have been reading this week a brilliant book by Etienne Mantoux, entitled " The Carthaginian Peace—Or the Economic Consequences of Mr. Keynes " ,(Oxford University Press : 12s. 6d.). Etienne Mantoux was the son of Professor Paul Mantoux, who during the Paris Conference acted as the interpreter, the adviser and the friend of the Big Three. At the supreme crisis of the Conference it was Professor Mantoux who remained closeted with President Wilson, M. Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd George in a final effort to adjust the differences which had arisen ; no man alive knows as much as he does about the inner history of those turbulent and anxious days. His son Etienne was a gifted, vivacious, bilingual and heroic young man. His every gesture suggested energy, adventure, zest ; his blue- green eyes sparkled with intelligence and enterprise ; his expression was one of alert honesty, of sparkling frankness, of shining faith. He escaped from France after the capitulation, and it was at Princeton, in New Jersey, that he prepared the material for his book. He then returned to Europe, joined the Free French Forces and had the delight of personally receiving the surrender of the German detach- ments who had entrenched themselves in the high building of the Quai D'Orsay. He was killed in Bavaria a few days only before the armistice was signed. " It was," he writes, " to the coming genera- tion that Mr. Keynes dedicated his book twenty-five years ago. This is an answer which comes from that generation." With what delight, appreciation and generosity would Maynard Keynes have read this brilliant indictment! How agreeable would have been the con- frontation of the veteran with the apprentice economist, between the sagacious, gentle, ruminating eyes of Maynard Keynes and the flashing, excited eyes of Etienne Mantoux! But each of them is dead.
* * * * The main thesis of Etienne Mantoux is that Keynes' book on The Economic Consequences of the Peace did much to arouse and fortify . the unreasoning guilt-consciousness of the British and American peoples. That the predictions in which Keynes then indulged, and which were so readily accepted as revelation by opinion in this country and in the United States, were demonstrably incor- rect. And that this time we should be wise to recognise, as the Russians have already recognised, that security does not depend upon economic formulas, but is conditioned by hard political and geo- graphical facts. He points out that in the six years preceding 1939 Hitler spent upon armaments a sum which was seven and a half times greater than that which Keynes had stated to be beyond Germany's capacity to pay in reparation. Keynes had predicted that the consequences of the peace would be " a gradual, steady lowering of the standards of life and comfort" ; ten years after Versailles European standards of living had never been higher. Keynes had predicted that the iron output would fall ; in fact, it increased by 10 per cent. Keynes had predicted that the German steel output would diminish ; in fact, it increased by 38 per cent. He had predicted that German coal output would drop ; it increased by more than 3o per cent. Keynes predicted that Germany's annual savings would " fall short of what they were before " ; the monthly increase in German savings-bank deposits rose by 1928 to 210 millions. Keynes predicted that German capital would be totally drained; in fact, while paying only 21 milliards in reparation Germany received between 35 and 38 milliards in foreign loans. Keynes predicted that Germany would never again attack France ; that prophecy was also negatived. It must be admitted that Mantoux's book is special pleading ; he often exaggerates, but he is seldom unfair. His main fault is that he does not make it sufficiently clear that the reparation plan which Keynes denounced was never, owing mainly to this denunciation, put into effect.
* * * * Being a good Frenchman, Etienne Mantoux believes in the logic of facts ; we suffer from no such delusion. His book serves to remind us that Hitler was not created by the Treaty of Versailles, but by the panic caused in Germany by the dread of a second inflation. It also reminds us that, ern as the peacemakers of 1919 underestimated the importance of economics, so also may the peacemakers of 1946 underestimate the influence which race, language and traditions exercise upon the hearts and minds of men.
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