its subject nationalities in thrall on the ground that their reciprocal relations appertain to the domestic policy of the state.  It means, further, the privilege of those who wield superior force to put irresistible pressure upon those who are weak, and the lever which it places in their hands for the purpose is to be known under the attractive name of the protection of minorities.  Abstention from interference in the home affairs of a neighboring community is made to cover intermeddling of the most irksome and humiliating character in matters which have no nexus with international law, for if they had, the rule would be applicable to all nations.  The lesser peoples must harken to injunctions of the greater states respecting their mode of treating alien immigrants and must submit to the control of foreign bodies which are ignorant of the situation and its requirements.  Nor is it enough that those states should accord to the members of the Jewish and other races all the rights which their own citizens enjoy—­they must go farther and invest them with special privileges, and for this purpose renounce a portion of their sovereignty.  They must likewise allow their more powerful allies to dictate to them their legislation on matters of transit and foreign commerce.[325] For the Great Powers, however, this law of minorities was not written.  They are above the law.  Their warrant is force.  In a word, force is the trump card in the political game of the future as it was in that of the past.  And M. Clemenceau’s reminder to the petty states at the opening of the Conference that the wielders of twelve million troops are the masters of the situation was appropriate.  Thus the war which was provoked by the transformation of a solemn treaty into a scrap of paper was concluded by the presentation of two scraps of paper as a treaty and a covenant for the moral renovation of the world.

FOOTNOTES: 

[288] The Daily Telegraph, March 28, 1919.

[289] In a speech delivered at a dinner given in Paris on April 19, 1919, by the Commonwealth of Australia to Australian soldiers.

[290] In March, 1919.

[291] August 19, 1919.

[292] Cf. Corriere delta Sera, August 20, 1919.

[293] Ibidem (Corriere della Sera, August 20, 1919).

[294] L’Humanite, May 21, 1919.

[295] The Nation, August 23, 1919.

[296] Chief of the Austrian police at Vienna Congress in the years 1814-15.

[297] In L’Echo de Paris, March 2,1919.  Cf. The Daily Telegraph, March 4th.

[298] Le Gaulois, March 8, 1919.  Cf. The Daily Telegraph, March 10th.

[299] Cf. The Chicago Tribune (Paris edition), August 21, 1919.

[300] Cf. The Chicago Tribune (Paris edition), August 23, 1919

[301] Report of Dr. Jacques Bertillon.  Cf. L’Information, January 20, 1919.