FACTS VS. SENTIMENT.

The beaten bully is again howling for mercy. The latest whine of the German peace delegation declares the treaty framed by the Versailles Conference to be "more than the German people can bear." Count von Brockdorff-Rautzau asserts: "the more deeply we penetrate into the spirit of this treaty, the more convinced we become of the impossibility of carrying it out." This statement makes us wonder in what spirit of liberality a victorious German government would have imposed peace terms. At the end of the Franco-Prussian War, France pleaded in vain. Two of her fairest provinces were torn from her and an indemnity imposed which was greater relatively speaking than the one demanded today. France in 1870-71 did not devastate vast areas of German territory nor mutilate German civilian population. No matter how great an indemnity is obtained, it will never compensate France, Belgium, Serbia, Italy, and Rumania for the outrages they have suffered.

Prussia is complaining because the territory which she has wrested from others, is now being taken from her. Count Rautzau says that West Prussia which has always been a German state, and is predominantly German, should not, according to rights of peoples for self determination, be ceded to the new Poland. One only need look at the facts of population and history to refute this argument. In 1910 the population of West Prussia was 1,703,474 of which 980,-571 were of Polish stock. Frederick the Great added West Prussia to his kingdom, comprising Pomerania and East Prussia, in 1772 by the first partition of Poland. That province had been a part of the Polish kingdom since the treaty of Thom in 1466, when it had been acquired from the Teutonic Knights. In those three centuries West Prussia had become thoroughly Polish in population and customs. Danzig, added to the New Prussia in 1792, was up to that time a free city under Polish protection. That is the exact status which, according to the Peace Treaty, it is to have hereafter.

The Germans, relying on our hazy knowledge of facts, are attempting to appeal to our sympathy. Too much has been sacrificed to yield to any momentary reaction towards sentimentalism. The German arguments can easily be overturned, provided we view them in the light of knowledge and justice.