United States or Morocco ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
The working class, as in Germany, feels that it lost the war and cannot expect extra fine conditions. The Hungarian working man outworks and therefore undersells or can undersell the English working man. The nation whose working men are ready to do most work is the most fortunate in 1921. If Hungary can avoid indemnities and export taxes she is likely to do well.
Other secret articles referred to the indemnities which were to be found in Germany for some of the potentates who suffered by the changes announced in the public treaty. The bartering away of Venice awakened profound indignation. After more than a thousand years of independence, that city was abandoned to the Emperor by the very general who had promised to free Italy.
Thionville,* to whose gallant defence in 1792 France owed the retreat of the Prussians and the safety of Paris, was afterwards continually reproached with aristocracy; and when the inhabitants sent a deputation to solicit an indemnity for the damage the town had sustained during the bombardment a member of the Convention threatened them from the tribune with "indemnities a coup de baton!" that is, in our vernacular tongue, with a good thrashing.
When the Premier, General Tuan Chi-jui, had made his statement to Parliament on the 10th March, regarding the necessity of an immediate rupture with Germany, he had implied that China had already received assurances from the Allies that there would be a postponement of the Boxer Indemnities for a term of years, an immediate increase in the Customs Tariff, and a modification of the Peace Protocol of 1901 regarding the presence of Chinese troops near Tientsin.
The Foreign Relations Committee of the Bolsheviki makes the following communication: "The German comrade, 'Parvus, has brought to the Bolshevik Committee at Stockholm the congratulations of the Parteivorstand of the Majority Social Democrats, who declare their solidarity with the struggles of the Russian proletariat and with its request to begin pourparlers immediately on the basis of a democratic peace without annexations and indemnities.
"We have no selfish ends to serve," said the President. "We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind. We shall be satisfied when those rights have been made as secure as the faith and the freedom of nations can make them."
'Now he's got me, thought I. But when he went on to say that five millions of the expenditure of 1838 were payments of the French indemnities, which I knew to be untrue; that five millions had been for the post-office, which I knew to be untrue; that ten millions had been for the Maine boundary war, which I not only knew to be untrue, but supremely ridiculous also; and when I saw that he was stupid enough to hope that I would permit such groundless and audacious assertions to go unexposed, I readily consented that, on the score both of veracity and sagacity, the audience should judge whether he or I were the more deserving of the world's contempt."
Its peace must be planted upon the tested foundations of political liberty. We have no selfish ends to serve. We desire no conquest, no dominion. We seek no indemnities for ourselves, no material compensation for the sacrifices we shall freely make. We are but one of the champions of the rights of mankind.
The leader of the Hauran rebellion became, for a time, the governor of Hasbeiya, and for this loss imposed exorbitant indemnities on every one, who had been known to take a book. The consequent enmity between the parties doubtless had much to do with the events described above.
At the same time, there are grave infringements of Chinese independence in the present position of the Customs, apart altogether from the fact that the tariff is fixed by treaty for ever. Much of the revenue derivable from customs is mortgaged for various loans and indemnities, so that the Customs cannot be dealt with from the point of view of Chinese interests alone.
Word Of The Day