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Show THE WAR TRUST. NOTHING could reveal more clearly President Wilson's failure in Europe than his proposal of the triple alliance. He went to B Europe as the evangel of democracy and was led to propose some- B thing worthy of Bismarckian imperialism. An alliance of Great B Britain, France and the United States would be a military alliance in- B consistent with" a league of peace but quite in accord with a league of B nations that has war as its object. If the League of Nations is a fl league for war the triple alliance is simply an inner circle of military B powers. B If we would see the president's defeat in a vivid light it is only B necessary to recall the reason he assigned for his going to Europe. M , He said, or it was said for him, that he must be in Paris to see that B peace was made on the basis of his fourteen points, thus preventing M the European nations from making peace along the old lines of deals M and trades. M One by one the fourteen points were abandoned while the presi- m dent was lured into various deals and trades and finally the death H blow was given to his whole scheme of peace when he was" induced to H plead with the United States senate for an offensive and defensive M alliance. H The friends of the president declare that he has triumphed be- H cause he has secured the League of Nations. It is a hollow triumph H if -it brings us no advantages, if it is to involve us in wars and espe- H cially if the price of obtaining the league is the formation of an al- H liance which will make ours a military nation. H It is strange and amazhig that imperialism and militarism should H be the outgrowth of a peace conference which was press agented as H a meeting of nations to "make the world safe for democracy." H Not so long ago Lloyd-George engaged in a lively election and, to I HBBBk i. obtain victory, promised not only to wipe .out conscription in Great Britain but to eliminate it in Europe through the peace compact ,A.-few ,A.-few weeks ago a new conscription bill was introduced in parliament! At once the cry was raised that the prime minister had broken his promise. The only answer was that circumstances had changed and t that Great Britain must have conscrpition temporarily because there fa were not enough volunteers to meet the empire's military require- ments. ."'' Is it not plain that the same excuse can be given' by government in this country? If we enter ill to tlie triple alliance and shoulder certain definite undertakings we must have an army adequate, to .the obligations. If volunteering fails, conscription will be necessary. . Viewing the peace conference in another light, we still obtain a discouraging impression of what the president accomplished. It will not have escaped the memory of the public that the president based his demand for incorporating the covenant in the treaty on the ground that only by this means could he secure the democratic peace for r which he was contending. In other words, the 6nly excuse for putting the covenant in the treaty was that the covenant would insure the triumph of those principles which would make for justice and per-,, . manent peace. The president wanted to ram the conjoined treaty and covenant down the throats of the senators because, as he argued, in no other way could be obtain a peace worthy of a free nation andf calculated to maintain enduring peace. All along we have been suspicious that the covenant set up a league for war rather than a league for peace. Moreover, as we have often remarked, it tends to establish a static world. Article X guar- , antees that, once certain nations and boundaries are established, they shall be maintained by what Senator Johnson wouldcall "a war trust." To make sure that the league shall be a war trust the presi-dent presi-dent proposes a triple alliance of an inner circle Thus we see the president failing at every step, Going to Europe with pretensions to the highest and purest idealism, he surrenders t point by point. Finally he abandons his last scruples and conforms to the old European policy of trades and deals. His excuse is that . only by sacrificing some of his principles could he retain the League of Nations in the treaty. But of what avail is the League of Nations if it is founded on principles just the opposite of those which he went to Europe to uphold ? The league is still a dream ; what the European nations and Japan obtained at the peace conference are facts. Japan is given control of 30,000,000 or 40,000,000 Chinese in the province of Shantung. When the president acceded to that arrangement he abandoned the principle prin-ciple of self-determination and he joined in establishing the principle that foreign powers by their mere ipse dixit have the right to dispose of the territories and sovereignty of any nation if they have the power. By that principle Great Britain is declared to have a right to rule alien races the world around and Japan, inferentially, is conceded the right to keep and rule Korea. Moreover, by Article X. of the covenant the United States engages to maintain this kind of rule. There is no chance that any of the subject races will ever.be able to free themselves them-selves so long as the League of Nations, buttressed by the triple alliance, al-liance, maintains its imperialistic power. .T1)r |