49lJ I^' INTERNATIONAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL LAW 193 



motives of an opportunistic policy. The same must be said 

 of the enforced surrender by Germany of the City of 

 Danzig, though here the economic needs of Poland for 

 Danzig as an outlet to the sea are given as an added reason. 

 The City and district of Memel are to be ceded by Germany, 

 without consultation of the admittedly large majority of 

 Germans in Memel, in order to secure for Lithuania an exit 

 to the water, again on the grounds of economic arrange- 

 ments. Germany is forced to renounce, in favor of Czecho- 

 slovakia, all rights and title over part of the Kreis Leob- 

 schutz " in case after the determination of the frontier be- 

 tween Germany and Poland the said part of the Kreis 

 should become isolated from Germany." The population, 

 though German, is not to be consulted in the matter of 

 transfer. The principle on which this transfer is based is 

 without question that of opportunism. 



The Treaty of Versailles has borne out Oppenheim's 

 statement that " the necessities of international policy may 

 now and then allow or even demand such a plebiscite but in 

 most cases they will not allow it."'^ 



This verdict receives substantiation from the Austrian 

 Treaty which refuses German-Austria the right to deter- 

 mine her political status by making her inclusion in the 

 German Republic subject to the consent of the League of 

 Nations which consent is, however, for the time being with- 

 held. The same Treaty forces Austria to cede to Italy 

 Southern Tyrol as a strategic frontier rectification promised 

 Italy by the Allied Governments in the secret Treaty secur- 

 ing and conditioning Italy's entrance into the war."** 



Thus the principal Allied and Associated Powers in the 

 treaties in question have on the one hand granted and de- 

 manded the application of the plebiscite in some cases of 

 territorial settlements while in many other instances they 

 have refused the holding of a plebiscite even where such is 

 demanded for the territories affected by the state which is 



"^ See above, p. 172, note 4. 



»8 New York Times Current History, vol. vii, part 2, pp. 494-497. 



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