Papers and Documents relating to the Foreign Relations of Hungary, Volume 1, 1919–1920 (Budapest, 1939)

Appendix III. Parliamentary debates

954 and the defects in its products. I refer here first of all — though I do not intend to name every one — to members of the American committee. Bowman and Bullitt, for instance, geographic and economic experts of the American delegation, when they saw the first drafts of the peace treaty, left the conference in order to voice in the United States their opposition to what was happening in Paris. I should also like to refer to various newspapermen and other critics who observed at close range the work of the peace conference. There is Keynes, whose book is among the most reliable of those published on the work of the peace conference. He deals with the German treaty which is not nearly so severe as ours and contains not nearly so many injustices. He criticizes that instrument from the point of view of science and impartiality and literally takes it apart. There is the Senate of the United States whose attitude toward these treaties I need not discuss in detail here. Thus we see the slow formation of a new conviction and the appearance of a more sober view as to what has taken place in the world. While in Paris, we had the opportunity of observing this gradual sobering. And this is a factor upon which we may to a certain extent build our hopes. While this new attitude was becoming more and more evident, the treaties remained the same. The one with Germany, the first and most important of all the peace treaties, was drafted when war mentality was still in full bloom. As I say, this treaty remained the same while the mentality underwent a radical change. This has resulted in the deplorable fact that the conception of peace as a long desired condition of Europe and the conception of peace as a document, a piece of paper, a pact, have developed in heterogeneous, I may say almost opposite, directions. (Cheers.) This is infinitely tragic as far as Europe's future is concerned. For it means that the transition from this artificial situation to the much desired, natural and healthy equilibrium will be a slow and difficult process, especially since we have destroyed so much. Peace was drafted on the basis of principles: not of principles derived from everyday life but of principles proclaimed as war-time slogans. Therefore it will be necessary for life itself to reestablish the balance, life itself will be compelled slowly to enforce its own law over the principles of war. In order to accomplish this, it will first of all be necessary to recognize that these principles were erroneous: it is already recognized to a certain extent. Second, it is necessary that public opinion be saturated with this recognition and that the general public