THE COUNCIL OF FOUR


There is one other line of argument on this subject about which
we would ask leave to say a word. It is urged by some, and thought
by many, that the task of the Great Powers is not merely to sit down
and coldly re-arrange the pieces on the European board in strict,
even pedantic, conformity with certain admirable but very abstract
principles. They must consider these great matters in more human
fashion. After all (so runs the argument), the problems to be dealt
with arise out of a Great War. The conquerors in that War were
not the aggressors: their sacrifices have been enormous; the burdens
they have to bear seem well-nigh intolerable. Are they to get noth-
ing out of victory, except the consciousness that State frontiers in
Europe will be arranged in a better pattern after 1918 than they were
before: and that nations who fought on the wrong side, or who did
not fight at all, will have gained their freedom through other people's
losses? Surely the victors, if they want it, are entitled to some more
solid reward than theoretical map-makers, working in the void, may
on abstract principles feel disposed to give them.
There is something in this way of thinking which at first sight
appeals to us all; and where no interests are concerned but those of
the criminal aggressors, it deserves respectful consideration. But in
most cases of territorial redistribution it is at least as important to
enquire what effects the transfer will have on the nations to whom
the territory is given, as upon those from whom it is taken: and
when, as in the case of Jugo-Slavia, the nation from whom it is
taken happens to be a friendly State, the difficulty of the problem is
doubled.
We do not presume to speak with authority on the value of the
strategical gains which Italy anticipates from the acquisition of the
islands and coastline of Dalmatia. They seem to us to be small;
though, small as they are, they must greatly exceed the economic
advantages which will accrue to Italian trade from new opportunities,
or to the Italian Treasury from new sources of revenue. We cannot
believe that the owners of Trieste have anything to fear from Fiume
as a commercial rival, or the owners of Pola from Fiume as a Naval
base.
But if Italy has little to gain from the proposed acquisition, has
she not much to lose? The War found her protected from an heredi-
tary enemy of nearly twice her size by a frontier which previous
Treaties had deliberately left insecure. Her Eastern sea-board was
almost bare of harbours, while Austria-Hungary possessed on the
opposite side of the Adriatic some of the finest harbours in the world.
This was her condition in 1914. In 1919 her Northern and Eastern
frontiers are as secure as mountains and rivers can make them. She
is adding two great ports to her Adriatic possessions; and her


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