ompensation to France the rich coal basin of
the Saar was placed under inter-allied control to be exploited under
French administration for a period of at least fifteen years. Austria
and the other associates of Germany were also laid under heavy
obligations to the victors. Damages done to shipping by submarines and
other vessels were to be paid for on the basis of ton for ton.
The disposition of the German colonies and the old Ottoman empire
presented knotty problems. It was finally agreed that the German
colonies and Turkish provinces which were in a backward stage of
development should be placed under the tutelage of certain powers acting
as "mandatories" holding them in "a sacred trust of civilization." An
exception to the mandatory principle arose in the case of German rights
in Shantung, all of which were transferred directly to Japan. It was
this arrangement that led the Chinese delegation to withhold their
signatures from the treaty.
=The League of Nations.=--High among the purposes which he had in mind
in summoning the nation to arms, President Wilson placed the desire to
put an end to war. All through the United States the people spoke of the
"war to end war." No slogan called forth a deeper response from the
public. The President himself repeatedly declared that a general
association of nations must be formed to guard the peace and protect all
against the ambitions of the few. "As I see it," he said in his address
on opening the Fourth Liberty Loan campaign, "the constitution of the
League of Nations and the clear definition of its objects must be a
part, in a sense the most essential part, of the peace settlement
itself."
Nothing was more natural, therefore, than Wilson's insistence at Paris
upon the formation of an international association. Indeed he had gone
to Europe in person largely to accomplish that end. Part One of the
treaty with Germany, the Covenant of the League of Nations, was due to
his labors more than to any other influence. Within the League thus
created were to be embraced all the Allied and Associated Powers and
nearly all the neutrals. By a two-thirds vote of the League Assembly the
excluded nations might be admitted.
The agencies of the League of Nations were to be three in number: (1) a
permanent secretariat located at Geneva; (2) an Assembly consisting of
one delegate from each country, dominion, or self-governing colony
(including Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand,
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