TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE VATICAN PROPOSALS.
A FTER an interval of two years the Pope has again approached the belligerents with suggestions of peace. It was perfectly well understood, if indeed it was not expressly stated, that the Pope would not propose peace a second time unless he saw considerable reason to believe that his suggestions would be adopted. We have no doubt that he honestly believes that such an occasion has now arrived, and we need look no further for an explanation of his act than the world- wide weariness of the war and the accumulation of grief and horror. For this cause the move of the Vatican is, of course, deserving of credit, and we wish to speak of it with great respect. But having said that, we must go on to say that to cur intense regret we cannot discover in the text of the proposals any just appreciation of the principles for which the Allies are fighting, and which make them feel that all the sacrifices and all the horror and all the admitted weariness are every bit as necessary now as they were when Germany invaded Belgium. If there be another reason why the-Vatican should have moved now, it is one that we need not suppose to have operated consciously in the Pope's mind. It could not possibly escape notice, however, that the proposal comes just at the moment when Austria has recovered the whole of her Galician province, and is in a better military position than would have seemed credible a year ago. Germany also can have no hope of Improving her military position, and she is, moreover, desperately in need of peace for economic reasons which we have discussed in another article, and to which too little attention has yet been paid in this country.
The German and Austrian inspiration in the Note is dearly suggested. The text, for instance, contains the familiar German demand for the freedom of the seas, " the true liberty and commonalty of the seas " as the Pope calls it. Except to the Central Powers, this phrase really means nothing. The German conception of the freedom of the seas is that Germany should have the unrestricted use of her land forces, but that a naval Power like Great Britain should bring no force to bear to cut off the foreign trade of Germany if she should choose again wantonly to hold the world up to ransom. Before the war there was of course perfect freedom of the seas. Ships of all countries were free to sail on their lawful occasions without any kind of interference.
The Vatican proposals may be summarized as follows. There would be a "simultaneous and reciprocal diminution of armaments " to the point where armed strength would be just sufficient for internal police purposes. There would be a system of universal arbitration, which would penalise any State refusing to submit to its decisions. There would in fact be a formal " League of Nations " (though the Pope does not actually use this phrase), and the League would be the competent authority to apply compulsion to any recalci- trant. As regards territorial rearrangements, the Note suggests the evacuation of Belgium and the restoration of its full political and economic independence, and invites the Allies for their part to consider whether they would return the German Colonies in exchange for the area of France at present occupied by Germany. The Note further suggests the examination of the problems of Alsace-Lorraine, the Trentino, and Trieste in a conciliatory spirit, having regard to " the aspirations of the peoples " so far as they are recon- cilable with what is " just and possible " ; it recommends the settlement of the questions of Poland, the Balkans, and Armenia in the same spirit. Serbia is not mentioned by name, and the vagueness of the reference to Alsace-Lorraine is alone enough to fill the French with misgivings as to the future contemplated by the Pope for the provinces rent away irons them by Germany in 1871. As for compensation, the Pope says : We see no other means of solving the question than by submitting as a general principle complete and reciprocal condonation."
What are we to think of these proposals ? Surely we can only .say that they offer us nothing that can help us a step further along the painful road to the end which the Allies have in view. They are really a throw-back to a condition of vagueness which our statesmen in numerous speeches, and the Allies in formal agreement, have tried to remove. Eight months ago the Allies informed President Wilson that they required the restoration of Belgium, Serbia, and Montenegro, with the compensations due to them ; the
evacuation of the invaded territories in France, Itussia, and Rumania, with just reparation ; the restitution of provinces formerly torn from the Allies by force or against the wish of their inhabitants ; the liberation of the Poles, as also of the Slays, the Rumanes, and the Czecho-Slovaks, from foreign domination ; the setting free of the populations subject to the bloody tyranny of the Turks; the expulsion from.Europa of the Ottoman Empire as decidedly foreign to Western civilization ; and the restoration of an independent Kingdom_ of Poland. Certainly there is one clear point to the good in the Vatican Note—the word " restoration " is used. Obviously what we want to know now is whether Germany is willing to reiterate that word. As the Prime Minister has in effect said, she has looked at it, and boggled at it, and stammered over it, but has never successfully uttered it. Will she do so now I If she does, there will be at least some shadow of a promise of security, some elementary foundation for building. Without it the Vatican proposal cannot bear even that small amount of meaning. In general the Pope proposes the restoration of the status quo, but it was precisely the status quo which Germany was able to use so easily and so unscrupulously to make war upon the world.
Given the restoration of the status quo—the only form of " restoration " which she can bring herself to contemplate with equanimity—Germany would be in a position to plan the next great war. The Pope provides no security that this would not happen. " Stop fighting," he says in substance. " Bring this ' useless massacre ' to an immediate end, and I feel sure that you can then arrange things among yourselves with a little goodwill." But the immediate sense of this is that there should be an armistice which would provide a breathing-space for Germany, during which she could try to create discord among the Allies while retaining the right (and the possibility, thanks to her superior power of military control) to continue the war as soon as she saw that political circumstances had turned sufficiently in her favour. The Vatican Note invites us to accept a provisional treaty of peace, the value of which would depend solely upon the good faith of Germany. We have no more reason now to believe in the good faith of the German autocracy than we have had at any moment of the war.
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