Journal de Genève
- The Power of the Civil Servant
- Mr. Coolidge and the 5th Reservation
- The Fourth International Congress on Moral Education
This front page of 9 October 1926 set Swiss domestic politics beside League-era diplomacy. An editorial signed J. M. warned that the federal wheat monopoly going to the voters on 5 December would turn bread into a parliamentary battleground and hurt farmers first. It also argued that the monopoly would hand the Socialists a breach in the bourgeois order and lead to further monopolies. A dispatch from the paper's American correspondent reported that President Coolidge refused the Geneva compromise on the Senate's fifth reservation to US membership of the World Court, because he feared the League Council could request advisory opinions by majority vote. A report on the Fourth International Congress on Moral Education in Rome noted papal disapproval and a ministry speech claiming Catholic Christianity as Italy's moral code. Even so, the report found that the only opponent of Bélot's rationalism had been a Dutch Protestant.
Translation
The Power of the Civil Servant
…the divergent interests of producers and consumers clashing in the Councils over the question of bread: what more could anyone want to make the cup of electoral outbidding in Parliament overflow? Bread, in our country [?], is the basis of our diet; to give politicians the opportunity to debate it in the Councils and to seek to make their will prevail is deliberately to go out to meet violent struggles of which, without any doubt, the farmers will be the first victims. And it is precisely for this reason that the Socialists attach such importance to the vote of 5 December. For them, the wheat monopoly is a breach opened wide in the citadel of the bourgeois order: through this breach they will enter the stronghold, and it will no longer be possible to dislodge them. As a direct consequence, this monopoly will call others into existence. Everything hangs together in major economic measures: as soon as the system of import restrictions was granted to some, others wanted to take advantage of it; and one had the disconcerting spectacle of seeing those who them…
Mr. Coolidge and the 5th Reservation
Our correspondent in America writes to us: "The American government is showing itself less and less conciliatory on the subject of its reservations to the accession of the United States to the International Court of Justice. Mr. Coolidge is, it is said, opposed to the compromise suggested at Geneva, under which the United States would be placed on the same footing as the members of the League of Nations. The President holds to the 5th reservation and will not modify it. He believes it, says the official statement of 20 September, 'necessary for the protection of American interests: the counter-proposal (from Geneva) does not correspond to the 5th reservation, since the Council of the League of Nations could adopt a procedure enabling it to request advisory opinions by a majority of its members.' But Mr. Coolidge remains convinced that when the members of…
The Fourth International Congress on Moral Education
[?] to discuss with perfect freedom of mind. It is true that the Pope had publicly disapproved of the congress, that the newspapers barely mentioned it, that the Corriere d'Italia made great sport of it, and that the representative of the Ministry of Public Instruction declared, at the inaugural session at the Capitol, that Italy had no need to "seek" a code of morals, "since it has had one for two thousand years: the law of Christianity, in the form given to it by the Catholic Church"; it nonetheless remains true that the only opponent of M. Bélot's rationalism was a Dutch Protestant. Better still: the Messaggero and the Impero — the latter is the personal newspaper of M. Mus —
Context
What the 5 December 1926 grain vote decided
The "vote of 5 December" in J. M.'s editorial was a federal referendum on adding Article 23bis, on the state's grain supply, to the Swiss Federal Constitution. Because it amended the constitution, the referendum was mandatory and needed a double majority: a majority of the popular vote and a majority of the cantons. On 5 December voters rejected the proposal, which lost both the popular vote and the cantons. The editorial was written from the side that went on to win. Its picture of the Socialists using the monopoly as a breach in the citadel of the bourgeois order, and its forecast that farmers would be the first victims of a political struggle over bread, are the writer's campaign arguments rather than established facts about how the parties actually lined up.
The compromise Geneva offered on the fifth reservation
The "compromise suggested at Geneva" came from a conference of the states that had signed the Permanent Court's protocol, held in Geneva in September 1926. It adopted a Final Act and a draft protocol on 23 September. The signatories accepted the first four reservations attached by the US Senate, but they did not accept the fifth in full. Its contested second part barred the Court from entertaining, without US consent, requests for advisory opinions touching disputes or questions in which the United States claimed an interest. The conference replied that the reservation assumed requests from the League Council or Assembly needed a unanimous vote, and that no such rule had been established. Instead, the signatories offered to guarantee the United States a position of equality: wherever a member could block a request, the United States could do the same. This is the "same footing as the members of the League" that the correspondent says Coolidge rejected.
Why Washington held out, and how long
According to the paper, Coolidge's statement of 20 September objected that the League Council might adopt a procedure for requesting advisory opinions by majority vote, which would leave the American veto empty. Washington kept this suspicion for years. In February 1929 Secretary of State Frank B. Kellogg wrote to the signatory governments that the protocol the twenty-four governments had submitted on the fifth reservation would not give the United States adequate protection. One of his reasons was that the Council's powers and procedure depended on the League Covenant, which could be amended at any time. That is the same worry about majority procedure that the correspondent quoted in 1926. The deadlock described in this dispatch therefore lasted well beyond the autumn of 1926, and the United States still had not joined the Court on the Geneva terms more than two years later.
The moral education congresses and the Rome meeting
The congress reported from Rome belonged to a series launched at the behest of the International Union of Ethical Societies. In 1912 the Hague congress stated that it would not advocate the views of any society or party, and it offered people of every religious and ethical conviction an equal hearing. The Fourth Congress met in Rome from 28 September to 2 October 1926 under the presidency of Francesco Orestano. The scene the paper describes shows that pluralist premise colliding with official Italy. The Pope's public disapproval, the ministry spokesman's claim that Italy already had its moral code in Catholic Christianity, and the mocking from the Corriere d'Italia all come from the paper's own account. Its pointed conclusion, that the only critic of Bélot's rationalism was a Dutch Protestant, is the report's own judgement of the debate.
Original
La puissance du fonctionnaire
divergents des producteurs et des consommateurs s'affrontant, dans les Conseils, sur la question du pain: que veut-on de plus pour faire déborder la coupe de la surenchère électorale au Parlement? Le pain, chez nous [?] est la base de l'alimentation; donner, aux politiciens, la possibilité d'en discuter dans les Conseils et de chercher à faire prévaloir leur volonté, c'est aller, de propos délibéré, au-devant de luttes violentes dont, à n'en pas douter, les agriculteurs seront les premières victimes. Et c'est bien pour cette raison que les socialistes attribuent une telle importance au scrutin du 5 décembre. Pour eux, le monopole du blé est une brèche largement ouverte dans la citadelle de l'ordre bourgeois: par cette brèche ils entreront dans la place et on ne pourra plus les en déloger. Par voie de conséquence directe, ce monopole en appellera d'autres à l'existence. Tout se tient dans les grandes mesures d'ordre économique: dès qu'on admit, pour les uns, le système des restrictions d'importation, les autres voulurent en profiter; et l'on eut le spectacle déconcertant de voir ceux qui les
M. Coolidge et la Vme Réserve
Notre correspondant d'Amérique nous écrit: «Le gouvernement américain se montre de moins en moins conciliant au suiet de ses réserves à l'adhésion des Etats-Unis à la Cour de justice internationale. M. Coolidge est, diton, opposé au compromis suggéré à Genève, suivant lequel les Etats-Unis seraient placés sur le même pied que les membres de la S. d. N. Le président tient à la 5e réserve, et ne la modifiera pas. Il la croit, dit la déclaration officielle du 20 septembre, «nécessaire à la protection des intérêts américains: la contreproposition (de Genève) ne correspond pas à la 5e réserve, puisque le Conseil de la S. d. N. pourrait adopter une procédure lui permettant de demander des avis consultatifs à la majorité de ses membres». Mais M. Coolidge reste persuadé que lorsque les membres de
Le IVe congrès international d'éducation morale
[?] discuter avec une parfaite liberté d'esprit. Il est vrai que le pape avait publiquement désapprouvé le congrès, que les journaux l'ont à peine mentionné, que le Corriere d'Italia s'en est fait les gorges chaudes et que le représentant du ministère de l'instruction publique a déclaré, à la séance inaugurale, au Capitole, que l'Italie n'avait pas à «chercher» un code de morale, «attendu qu'elle en a un depuis deux mille ans: la loi du christianisme, sous la forme que lui a donnée l'Eglise catholique»; il n'en reste pas moins que le seul opposant au rationalisme de M. Bélot fut un protestant hollandais. Bien mieux: le Messaggero et l'Impero - ce dernier est le journal personnel de M. Mus -