Levéltári Közlemények, 38. (1967)
Levéltári Közlemények, 38. (1967) 2. - FORRÁSKÖZLÉS - Karsai Elek: Iratok a Smuts-misszió történetéhez / 237–249. o.
246 Karsai Elek but they will establish their moral authority and enhance the prestige of the League of Nations, which will in its early stages, be mostly an expression of the joint action of the Great Powers. The question is what form this Conference should take. As I have said, the Hungarian Government were most anxious that economic arrangements should be settled and announced pari passu with territorial frontiers, and they therefore asked that the neighbouring States should be called together under the presidency of a representative of the Great Powers to discuss both boundary and economic questions. They suggested Vienna or Prague as the place of meeting. The Great Powers will have to decide whether and where such a Conference should be held. To my mind, the balance of convenience is in favour of Paris as the meeting place. In the first place, the Hungarian and Austrian representatives will, in any case, have to be invited there for the signature of the Peace Treaty. In the second place, the Prime Ministers of Czecho-Slovakia and Roumania, as well as the representatives of Yugo-Slavia are delegates to the Peace Conference, and it would in many respects be inadvisable to call them away from their duties at Paris in order to attend a Conference at, say, Vienna. In the third place, this meeting should be held not only under the presidency of a representative of the Great Powers, but also under their influence and general control, and for that purpose Paris is obviously the only suitable place. If the Conference idea is accepted I would suggest that business be expedited by the parties being called together not in a general debating conference but in pairs (Roumania and Hungary, Hungary and Czecho-Slovakia, German-Austria and Czecho-Slovakia, etc. etc.) with the representative of the Great Powers as chariman and umpire, and that all questions be rapidly disposed of. The countries represented would state their respective territorial cases, and in the absence of agreement between them, the chairman or the Great Powers on reference from him could finally decide on all points of difference. The economic questions could, at the same time, be agreed upon between the parties and could probably be announced simultaneously with the signature of Peace Treaty. The economic questions to be dealt with should be those of most urgent necessity, such as freedom of inter-communication and exchange of necessary raw materials and urgent currency questions. III. A Mandatory of the Great Powers for Austria —Hungary I have said enough to show that a sufficient community of interests will remain among the new States arising from the old Austro —Hungarian Empire to call for a common handling of them by the Great Powers. The new Governments are mostly weak, and some of them are sadly deficient in administrative experience. The peoples are actuated by old historic feelings of hostility towards each other. Without the helping hand and the wise guidance of the Great Powers, I am doubtful whether any of them would achieve success in the immediate future, and their failure will involve grave dangers to the peace of Europe. I, therefore, consider it advisable that for the present, aud for some time to come, the Great Powers should, in addition to their individual representatives with the several States, have a common representative of high standing, under whom all the Missions of the Great Powers should work, and who would be responsible for advising the Great Powers, and later on the Executive Council of the League of Nations, on all important questions involving the common interests of the new States. Such an official would not only represent the Great Powers, but also be the symbol of the surviving unity and the common interests which would continue to bind together the new States. His experience and authority would be necessary to help them to solve the very difficult questions of common concern which otherwise might well prove beyond their powers. He would inaugurate a policy of Conferences between them to discuss common interests which while teaching them new habits of co-operation, would help to allay the old historic bitternesses which still survive. In that way German Austria might be kept away from union with Germany, and Czechoslovakia might thus be secured from the danger of being outflanked by such a union. Cooperation among the new States under the beneficent unifying guidance of the Great Powers would raise a happier temper among the peoples, and in this new atmosphere the load of despair, which is now one of the most fruitful sources of Bolshevism, would be lifted from the minds of the peoples. Nothing has impressed me more in all my enquiries on this Mission than the urgent need of common action by the Powers in all these countries and of their joint representation through a mandatory of wide experience and authority.
