Journal de Genève
- The continents
- A pearl at a high price
- After fulfilment
Three arguments about the League dominate: whether international cooperation should be divided by continents, how to resolve the price of a Geneva property, and how German nationalists react to the government’s policy.
Selected passages from the three main articles, with original opinion and reported claims distinguished. The economic-expansion meeting brief and remaining argument are not transcribed.
Translation
The continents
Needless to say, we would be the last to oppose a movement whose outcome should be a moderate degree of free trade within Europe. The idea is profoundly sound and necessary. We likewise share Count Coudenhove's views on the need to make Europe's borders as invisible as possible.
[…]
But bringing neighboring states closer is one thing; isolating continents and setting them against one another is another. For our part, we do not see how continental unions could be formed within the League of Nations, or what good would come of them.
[…]
The intensity of relations between peoples and their economic interdependence are the true foundations of the League of Nations. Who would dare claim that this interdependence stops at continental boundaries? Can European industry live without Argentina's wool, Egypt's cotton, Japan's silk, and so on?
A pearl at a high price
Well, all the better! That is no doubt why he would have been quite willing to sell the League, for 930,000 francs, the property he bought two years ago for 450,000. Allowing for the improvements made, the federal experts valued it at 650,000 francs. That was the League's offer; the Perle du Lac company refused it.
If the owner now contests expropriation, then, it is solely a question of price. In these circumstances it is right that the courts should settle the matter fairly. And accepting expropriation is precisely what allows the courts to give their ruling.
After fulfilment
Seeing that events have sealed the defeat of their opposition, the nationalists want at least to save face. Since they can no longer sabotage the policy of fulfilment, they are trying to distort its meaning and misrepresent its spirit.
Thus we hear them claim that “the international idea has prevailed at Geneva over national interests.” In this way they insinuate that the Reich government is the instrument of the proletarian International. Or, to put people off the scent, some even declare that the right desires an agreement honorable to both France and Germany—a most astonishing declaration, to which Count Westarp added just one condition: “only when there are no more foreign troops in the Rhineland.”
Context
European cooperation or a divided world?
The League aspired to a worldwide system of cooperation, although the United States never joined and colonial rule excluded much of the world from independent membership. The editorial tests a proposed continental structure against that aspiration. Its examples of imported wool, cotton and silk show why removing barriers within Europe need not imply drawing a harder economic boundary around it.
An international institution in a local property market
The League’s land acquisition brought international ambitions into contact with private ownership and local prices. Three valuations structure the dispute: the earlier purchase price, the owner’s asking price, and the federal experts’ estimate allowing for improvements. The editorial favors expropriation as a way to move the compensation question from bargaining to a court. Its practical concern is how to secure the property while settling what the owner should receive.
Cooperation and the demand for troop withdrawal
The nationalist dispute turns on what Germany should gain from accommodation with France. One attack brands international cooperation a surrender of national interests; another accepts agreement in principle but makes the removal of foreign troops a prerequisite. The correspondent sees these as attempts to recast a policy the opposition has failed to stop. The Rhineland condition explains why a diplomatic success at Geneva did not end the domestic struggle over its value.
Original
Les continents
Il va sans dire que nous serons les derniers à combattre une tendance dont l'aboutissement doit être un libre-échange modéré à l'intérieur de l'Europe. Cette idée est profondément juste et nécessaire. Nous partageons de même les idées du comte Coudenhove sur la nécessité de rendre les frontières, en Europe, aussi invisibles que possible.
[...]
Mais une chose est de rapprocher les Etats voisins, une autre d'isoler les continents et de les opposer. Nous ne voyons pas, quant à nous, comment on pourrait constituer, à l'intérieur de la Société des nations, des unions continentales, ni le bien qui en résulterait.
[...]
L'intensité des relations entre les peuples et leur interdépendance économique sont les bases véritables de la Société des nations. Or, qui oserait affirmer que cette interdépendance s'arrête aux limites des continents ? L'industrie européenne peut-elle vivre sans la laine de l'Argentine, le coton de l'Egypte, la soie du Japon, etc. etc. ?
Une perle de grand prix
Allons, tant mieux : c'est pourquoi, sans doute, il aurait été tout disposé à vendre à la S. d. N., pour le prix de 930.000 fr., la propriété qu'il avait acquise il y a deux ans pour le prix de 450.000 fr. Tenant compte des travaux d'embellissement exécutés, les experts fédéraux en ont estimé la valeur actuelle à 650.000 fr. C'est ce qu'offrait la S. d. N. : la société anonyme de la « Perle du Lac » a refusé.
Si donc, aujourd'hui, le propriétaire conteste l'expropriation, c'est uniquement pour une question de prix. Il est juste, dans ces circonstances, que les tribunaux tranchent la question en toute équité. Or, accepter l'expropriation, c'est justement permettre aux tribunaux de se prononcer.
Après l’accomplissement
Voyant que la marche des événements a consommé la défaite de leur opposition, les nationalistes veulent au moins sauver la face. Comme ils ne peuvent plus saboter la politique de l'accomplissement, ils s'efforcent d'en fausser la portée et d'en dénaturer l'esprit.
Ainsi, on les entend prétendre que « l'idée internationale l'a emporté à Genève sur les intérêts nationaux ». Et ils insinuent de cette manière que le gouvernement du Reich est l'instrument de l'Internationale du prolétariat. Ou bien, pour donner le change, quelques-uns déclarent même que la droite désire un accord honorable pour les deux parties, entre la France et l'Allemagne, — déclaration bien étonnante, à laquelle le comte Westarp n'a fait qu'une restriction : « seulement quand il n'y aura plus de troupes étrangères en pays rhénan ».