It is of capital importance that we should also be explicitly agreed that no peace shall be obtained by any kind of compromise or abatement of the principles we have avowed as the principles for which we are fighting. There should exist no doubt about that. I am, therefore, going to take the liberty of speaking with the utmost frankness about the practical implications that are involved in it.

If it be, in deed and in truth, the common object of the Governments associated against Germany and of the nations. whom they govern, as I believe it to be, to achieve by the coming settlements a secure and lasting peace, it will be necessary that all who sit down at the peace table shall come ready and willing to pay the price, the only price, that will procure it; and ready and willing also to create in some virile fashion the only instrumentality by which it can be made certain that the agreements of the peace will be honoured and fulfilled. That price is impartial justice in every item of the settlement, no matter whose interest is crossed; and not only impartial justice, but also the satisfaction of the several peoples whose fortunes are dealt with. That indispensable instrumentality is a League of Nations, formed under covenants that will be efficacious. Without such an instrumentality, by which the peace of the world can be guaranteed, peace will rest in part upon the word of outlaws, and only upon that word. For Germany will have to redeem her character, not by what happens at the peace table but by what follows.

And as I see it, the constitution of that League of Nations and the clear definition of its objects must be a part, is in a sense the most essential part, of the peace settlement itself. It cannot be formed now. If formed now it would be merely a new alliance confined to the nations associated against a common enemy. It is not likely that it could be formed after the settlement. It is necessary to guarantee the peace; and the peace cannot be guaranteed as an afterthought. The reason, to speak in plain terms again, why it must be guaranteed is that there will be parties to the peace whose promises have proved untrustworthy, and means must be found in connection with the peace settlement itself to remove that source of insecurity. It would be folly to leave the guarantee to the subsequent voluntary action of the Governments we have seen destroy Russia and deceive Rumania.

But these general terms do not disclose the whole matter. Some details are needed to make them sound less like a thesis and more like a practical programme. These, then, are some of the particulars, and I state them with the greater confidence because I can state them authoritatively [1917-18. CxI.] 3 Q2

as representing this Government's interpretation of its own duty with regard to peace:

First, the impartial justice meted out must involve no discrimination between those to whom we wish to be just and those to whom we do not wish to be just. It must be a justice which plays no favourites and knows no standard but the equal rights of the several peoples concerned.

Second, no special or separate interest of any single nation or any group of nations can be made the basis of any part of the settlement which is not consistent with the common interest of all.

Third, there can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants and understandings within the general and common family of the League of Nations.

Fourth, and more specifically, there can be no special, selfish economic combinations within the League, and no employment of any form of economic boycott or exclusion, except as the power of economic penalty, by exclusion from the markets of the world, may be vested in the League of Nations itself as a means of discipline and control.

Fifth, all international agreements and treaties of every kind must be made known in their entirety to the rest of the world.

Special alliances and economic rivalries and hostilities have been the prolific source in the modern world of the plans and passions that produce war. It would be an insincere as well as an insecure peace that did not exclude them in definite and binding terms.

ACT OF CONGRESS of the United States of America relative to the Exclusion from the United States of certain Aliens (Anarchists and others).-Approved October 16, 1918.

BE it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled. that aliens who are anarchists; aliens who believe in or advocate the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States or of all forms of law; aliens who disbelieve in or are opposed to all organised government: aliens who advocate or teach the assassination of public officials; aliens who advocate or teach the unlawful destruc tion of property; aliens who are members of or affiliated with

any organisation that entertains a belief in, teaches, or advocates the overthrow by force or violence of the Government of the United States or of all forms of law, or that entertains or teaches disbelief in or opposition to all organised government, or that advocates the duty, necessity, or propriety of the unlawful assaulting or killing of any officer or officers, either of specific individuals or of officers generally, of the Government of the United States or of any other organised government, because of his or their official character, or that advocates or teaches the unlawful destruction of property shall be excluded from admission into the United States.

2. That any alien who, at any time after entering the United States, is found to have been at the time of entry, or to have become thereafter, a member of any one of the classes of aliens enumerated in Section 1 of this Act, shall, upon the warrant of the Secretary of Labour, be taken into custody and deported in the manner provided in the Immigration Act of the 5th February, 1917.* The provisions of this section shall be applicable to the classes of aliens mentioned in this Act, irrespective of the time of their entry into the United States.

3. That any alien who shall, after he has been excluded and deported or arrested and deported in pursuance of the provisions of this Act, thereafter return to or enter the United States or attempt to return to or to enter the United States shall be deemed guilty of a felony, and upon conviction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment for a term of not more than five years; and shall, upon the termination of such imprisonment, be taken into custody, upon the warrant of the Secretary of Labour, and deported in the manner provided in the Immigration Act of the 5th February, 1917.

Approved October 16, 1918.

Page 880

CORRESPONDENCE relative to the Severance of Diplomatic Relations between the United States and Austria-Hungary. (Note of the Austro-Hungarian Government, dated April 8. 1917, announcing the Severance of Diplomatic Relations with the United States).—February-April, 1917.*

The United States Secretary of State to the United States Ambassador at Vienna.

(Telegram--Paraphrase.)

Department of State,

Washington, February 14, 1917. MR. LANSING states that the Government of the United States, in a note dated the 6th December, 1915, concerning the attack on the vessel “Ancona, the Austro-Hungarian Government's attention was called to the views of the United States Government on submarine operations in naval warfare which had been expressed in positive terms to Austria-Hungary's ally and of which it was presumed the Government of Austria-Hungary had full knowledge. The Austro-Hungarian Government in its reply of the 15th December, 1915, stated that it was not in possession of authentic knowledge of all of the pertinent correspondence of the Government of the United States nor was it the opinion of the Austro-Hungarian Government that such knowledge would suffice to cover the case of the vessel "Ancona," which essentially differed in character from the cases under discussion with the German Government. Nevertheless, in its note of the 29th December, replying to the United States Government's note of the 19th December, 1915, the Austro-Hungarian Government stated “. . . . as concerns the principle expressed in the very esteemed note that hostile private ships, in so far as they do not flee or offer resistance, may not be destroyed without the persons on board having been placed in safety, the Imperial and Royal Government is able substantially to assent to this view of the Washington Cabinet."

Moreover, the Government of Austria-Hungary in January 1916, in the case of the vessel "Persia," stated in effect that, while no information concerning the sinking of the vessel Persia" had been received by the Austro

From Diplomatic Correspondence with Belligerent Governments published by the United States Department of State, European War, No. 4."

Hungarian Government yet, in case its responsibility was involved, the principles agreed to in the case of the Ancona" would guide the Austro-Hungarian Government.

Within the period of one month thereafter the Austro Hungarian Government, coincidently with the German Government's declaration of the 10th February, 1916, regarding the treatment of armed merchant vessels, announced that All merchant vessels armed with cannon for whatever purpose, by this very fact lose the character of peaceable vessels," and that Under these conditions orders have been given to Austro-Hungarian naval forces to treat such ships as belligerent vessels.

Conformable to this declaration a number of vessels having Americans. on board have been sunk in the Mediterranean, presumably by submarines belonging to Austria-Hungary, some of which were torpedoed without warning by submarines flying the flag of Austria, as in the cases of the British vessels "Welsh Prince" and Secondo." Concerning these cases, so far no information has been elicited and no reply has been made to enquiries made through the American Ambassador at Vienna,

The Austro-Hungarian Government announced to the Government of the United States on the 31st January, 1917, coincidently with the German declaration of submarine danger zones in waters washing the coasts of the countries of the Entente Powers, that Austria-Hungary and its allies would from the 1st February "prevent by every means any navigation whatsoever within a definite closed area

It seems fair to conclude from the foregoing that the pledge given in the case of the vessel Ancona" and confirmed in the case of the vessel “Persia is essentially the same as the pledge given in the Austro-Hungarian Government's note of the 4th May, 1916, víz. : In accor dance with the general principles of visit and wearch and destruction of merchant vessels recognised by international law, such vessels, both within and without the area declared as a naval war zone, shall not be sunk without warning and without saving human lives, unless these ships attempt to escape or ofer resistance." and that the declarations of the Austro-Hungaron Government of the 10th Penguars 1916, and the 31st Jan Jars, 1917. have modified this pledge to a greater or less extent Therefore, " Sew of uncertainty in regard to te lervetston to ve paced upon those declarations ani in particular th's Liter decseat on important that the Gotemtent of the Fated Roata ve afrised dead vi of the ant de drre Golem.

• Page