lege of those who wield
superior force to put irresistible pressure upon those who are weak, and
the lever which it places in their hands for the purpose is to be known
under the attractive name of the protection of minorities. Abstention
from interference in the home affairs of a neighboring community is made
to cover intermeddling of the most irksome and humiliating character in
matters which have no nexus with international law, for if they had, the
rule would be applicable to all nations. The lesser peoples must harken
to injunctions of the greater states respecting their mode of treating
alien immigrants and must submit to the control of foreign bodies which
are ignorant of the situation and its requirements. Nor is it enough
that those states should accord to the members of the Jewish and other
races all the rights which their own citizens enjoy--they must go
farther and invest them with special privileges, and for this purpose
renounce a portion of their sovereignty. They must likewise allow their
more powerful allies to dictate to them their legislation on matters of
transit and foreign commerce.[325] For the Great Powers, however, this
law of minorities was not written. They are above the law. Their warrant
is force. In a word, force is the trump card in the political game of
the future as it was in that of the past. And M. Clemenceau's reminder
to the petty states at the opening of the Conference that the wielders
of twelve million troops are the masters of the situation was
appropriate. Thus the war which was provoked by the transformation of a
solemn treaty into a scrap of paper was concluded by the presentation of
two scraps of paper as a treaty and a covenant for the moral renovation
of the world.

FOOTNOTES:

[288] _The Daily Telegraph_, March 28, 1919.

[289] In a speech delivered at a dinner given in Paris on April 19,
1919, by the Commonwealth of Australia to Australian soldiers.

[290] In March, 1919.

[291] August 19, 1919.

[292] Cf. _Corriere delta Sera_, August 20, 1919.

[293] _Ibidem_ (_Corriere della Sera_, August 20, 1919).

[294] _L'Humanite,_ May 21, 1919.

[295] _The Nation_, August 23, 1919.

[296] Chief of the Austrian police at Vienna Congress in the years
1814-15.

[297] In _L'Echo de Paris_, March 2,1919. Cf. _The Daily Telegraph_,
March 4th.

[298] _Le Gaulois_, March 8, 1919. Cf. _The Daily Telegraph_, March
10th.

[299] Cf. _The Chicago Tribune_ (Paris edition),