vitalising principle has asserted itself, and has been irrevocably adopted into the programme of the Entente Powers. Thus we already have the certainty that, unless the Entente is crushed or seeks to evade the engagements to which it stands committed, the principle of nationality will dominate the future congress of peace.
This would not, of course, in any way mean that political, religious and economic factors would be ignored, but simply that national claims would take precedence. It is superfluous to point out that race and language can never be made the sole test of nationality, as Belgium and Switzerland nobly testify. It is also very generally recognised that there are instances where economic considerations are of paramount importance, and where special provisions are necessary to reconcile the conflicting claims of geography and ethnography. For instance, the question of Constantinople can only be solved upon an economic basis, the determining factor being Russia’s outlet to the warm sea, rather than the fate of the last European foothold of the Turks. In the same way Italy is fully entitled, on a basis of nationality, to the possession of Trieste; but its establishment as a free port must be made the absolute condition of any change, since the economic peace of Europe will depend on there being no artificial customs barrier between so important a port and its great commercial hinterland. Yet, again, the future of Poland depends, to a large extent, upon some economic arrangement being reached regarding the lower Vistula and the port of Danzig; but the driving of a territorial wedge between Germany and Prussia proper, though justifiable on national grounds, would inevitably produce in the East a situation similar to that which Germany’s annexation of Alsace had created in 1871.
The Allies then are careful, while adopting nationality as their watchword, to safeguard themselves against its exaggerated interpretation, and to emphasise their determination to respect other no less important factors in modern civilisation. But the implicit distinctions which the Note draws between “Nation” and “State,” and its frequent references to “Nationalities” and “Peoples,” are of the very greatest importance, as a complete innovation upon all previous diplomatic practice. It is worth noting in this connection that President Wilson’s Note also speaks of “weak peoples,”
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