AFTER WAR, PEACE COMPLICATIONS, FROM THE VIEWPOINT OF EUROPE AN ADDRESS DELIVERED BY ROBERT DONALD, Esq. LONDON, ENGLAND Before the Empire Club of Canada, Toronto, PRESIDENT HEWITT, in introducing Mr. Donald, said, Gentlemen, in our guest of to-day we have an outstanding figure. There is perhaps in England to-day no better exponent of progressive journalism than Mr. Robert Donald. I do not know how many newspaper interests he is responsible for, nor am I very much concerned with that fact, but I do know that, during important years in British History, he had absolute control of the policy of the Daily Chronicle, of London, and that the Daily Chronicle did some wonderful things. In the first place, its strong support of the Right Hon. David Lloyd George evidently was a mighty factor in that man's progress towards the front rank of the Empire. (Applause) Mr. Donald knew Lloyd George as few could know him; he used to play golf with him one day every week, and any man who plays golf with another every day in the week knows him down to the ground. (Laughter) That is why during all the years of Mr. Donald's connection with the Daily Chronicle, its hearty and strong support of David Lloyd George must have told with very great effect on the history of Britain at that time. As a finder of men Mr. Donald has had a unique history, too. Philip Gibbs, the great war correspondent, is one of his "finds." Gibbs first chance to write was for the Daily Chronicle under Mr. Donald and we know what the chance resulted in. We have been hoping, Mr. Donald, that in the not distant future, Canada may have the opportunity of seeing and hearing Mr. David Lloyd George. (Loud applause) We have given special commissions to almost every speaker who has come within hailing distance of him, to tell him that we want him and we want him soon. When he comes, we want the Empire Club to have the great and distinguished honour of fathering his first public utterance, at all events, to the Toronto people. (Applause) This Club exists solely for the purpose of developing the ideal of the Empire, for filling whatever function is possible for it to fulfil in aiding in the prosperity and unity of the British Empire, and it is on such occasions as this that we value the opportunity of hearing from men who really know, who come from the geographical and financial centre of this Empire to tell us what they know and give us their views and make us better citizens and better members of that Empire because of their having come to us. (Applause) Mr. Donald, we welcome you with all the heartiness that it is possible for us to show you. We are glad you have come to us, we are grateful to you for coming, and we will now be glad to hear what you have to tell. MR. ROBERT DONALD (Mr. Donald was received with three cheers and a tiger, the audience rising and giving him the Chautauqua salute.) Mr. President and Gentlemen of the Empire Club,I thank you very much for your cordial welcome, and I consider it a very high compliment that you should come out to-day in such large numbers to listen to a very dry address. I thank your President for the complimentary words he has said about me; he has magnified my importance very considerably, but nobody at home will know what he has said, so I won't have to live up to it. (Laughter) I would like to say that I see you are not afraid of the word "Empire" here. (Hear, hear and applause) I have come across people in Canada who rather object to the words "Empire" and "Imperial." I have had to explain them as we see them-when I say "We" I mean Radicals, for I don't conceal my convictions-I am a Democrat and a Free Trader-The British Empire is an anomaly; there is no such thing; it is not known to the law or the constitution; it has no comparison with any Empire of ancient history or of the recent past. An Empire, in the historical sense, means a central domination of an individual or of an oligarchy. The British Empire is the exact opposite. The British Empire does not seek to dominate you or any other part of the British Dominions. We have a King, not an Emperor. We have a constitutional democratic government. The British Empire is a huge democratic organization, and we have no other word for it but Empire; but I think we know what we mean by Empire. (A voice—“It is good enough.") We have talked about it so long, we know that our Empire does not mean Prussianism or Bismarckism or anything else; we know what it means; we know it is a convenient word to express a great world commonwealth of nations, of protectorates and territories, and an Empire thrown in--India. Therefore I say I am glad that you emphasize the importance of your convictions in this Club by taking the name "Empire" as your own name. Well, now, I have been asked to talk to you about some after-war conditions. At the moment the afterwar conditions do not look very hopeful. To-day's news and the news of recent weeks have been thoroughly depressing. However, the recent differences between Russia and Poland will be settled, but you may take it from me that not a single British soldier will go to help in the settlement. The British working people do not intend to encourage any more military adventures. We have quite enough on hand now without straining our military strength and resources, and we certainly will not participate in any new war in Russia on behalf of Poland or any other country. (Hear, hear) The chaos which exists in Europe to-day is due, I think, to causes which might have been avoided if states men had had the foresight which it is very difficult to have in these days; it is always easy to be wise after the event. If I may put my point of view-which may be altogether wrong-the chief cause which now, two years after the armistice, makes the condition of Europe worse in many phases than it was at the time of the armistice, is due to two or three causes. First, there is the Peace Treaty, which made no provision for peace. It contained the germs of international jealousies and strife. Its chief weakness was that it ignored entirely economic conditions. It cut up vast territories that had formerly been economic units, and set them at loggerheads. I will illustrate that point by the case of the Balkans. The Austrian-Hungarian Empire was a very rotten affair, politically, but it was an economic unit; it had one railroad system throughout the different countries belonging to it; it had one economic system. Now, when we set up the Jugo-Slavs and the Czechos, and Austria and Hungary and Roumania, and drew the new boundaries for Bulgaria, the whole economic unit was smashed to pieces. Each country set up on its own as the Robinson Crusoe Land; they would not have any communication by railway or anything else with their neighbours, even when they had formerly been fighting as allies. They would not allow their railway trucks to cross the frontier, because they were not sure they would come back. They set up tariffs to keep goods out and to prevent them from from coming in. For instance, when the British Food Mission went into Bohemia and bought food for the starving children of Vienna, before they could get the food out, the government put on an extra export duty of forty per-cent. They were independent. They had leaped from the Middle Ages-some of those people like the Slavs--and become a democracy leaving one leg in the Middle Ages, and they thought the great thing to do was to be thoroughly independent. The first thing they did was to spend money on new uniforms and army re-organization; then they wished to put barriers on inter communication. That is one of the evils that came out of the Peace Treaty. That will have to be remedied. The other difficulty, which perhaps could not have been foreseen, was how to get Germany started working, because unless Germany works and produces there is no indemnity for anyone. Now, the French people, who had lived for fifty years under the terrible nightmare of Germany, always fearing for their very existence, when this war came staked everything on it-everything— because if Germany had won, France would have been wiped out. The British Empire would not have been wiped out, but France would absolutely have been a helot nation. Therefore they staked everything on it; without victory they were finished. But they had got this impression-all the French people and the statesmenthat when they did win, there was an inexhaustible fund of gold over in Germany that they would simply draw upon to help pay their war debt and to start working again. They held this illusion for four years or more, and when Peace came, France was like a man who has been blind for four years, and, recovering his sight, finds himself on the edge of a precipice. That is the financial condition of France. France is in a very deplorable financial position. It cannot get indemnity from Germany, and will not get it until we start Germany working. But Germany can only pay in goods, and there is no place where Germany can buy, and unless the German people are left something of the fruits of their labour, they won't work. The interest of Europe to-day is to get Germany working. I believe that if Germany is set to work, Germany will realize the situation and develop peace under Democracy. The interest of the Allies is to keep Germany in a middle course so that it will not go to the extreme of Autocracy or the extreme of Bolshevism; then Germany will realize that her destiny is to remain a peaceful country and give up all military aspirations. I think that is the policy of Mr. Lloyd George. It was due to him that the delegates from Poland and Russia met; he is now the greatest personality in Euro |