4971 CONCLUSION 199 



The plebiscite in the determination of sovereignty gives 

 voice to a suppressed minority, and, through the voicing of 

 the will of this minority, gains for it political separation 

 from its superior. Whence does our modern demand for 

 a plebiscite in a supposedly suppressed minority arise? 

 From our conviction, first, that the minority in question is 

 suppressed, second, that this minority wishes to be free of 

 such suppression, and that all, or nearly all, of that minority 

 are in agreement on this point. How does such a convic- 

 tion come to us? Through the utterances and the actions 

 of this minority ! But if the utterances and the actions of 

 this minority so clearly establish our conviction that all or 

 nearly all its individuals are suppressed and desire delivery 

 from this state of suppression, why demand a plebiscite 

 to establish what is already apparent? Where this con- 

 viction is clear, the plebiscite is evidently superfluous.^ No 

 plebiscites were needed or demanded by the Allied and As- 

 sociated Powers to establish the fact that the suppressed 

 minorities, Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo-Slavia, and Poland, de- 

 sired political independence from Austria-Hungary, Russia, 

 and Germany. The Peace of Versailles provides for two 

 voting zones in the northern part of Schleswig. There 

 must have been a reason for this, a conviction that this two- 

 zone arrangement would suit the requirement of the situa- 

 tion better than would any other arrangement. This con- 

 viction had been gained without the application of any 

 plebiscites. In fact, the plebiscite was to be and was held 

 under the conditions thus established upon the basis of facts 

 already known. The subsequent plebiscites proved the ar- 



2 The same conclusion is reached by Padelletti, though his argu- 

 mentation proceeds from somewhat different premises. Padelletti 

 holds that "the will of the people is manifested . . . always in the 

 events themselves: the plebiscite is always only an expression of 

 this will." Speaking of the plebiscites in Savoy and in Nice at the 

 occasion of the transfer of these Italian provinces to France in 1800, 

 he claims that " everybody knew tlie truth of this observation and 

 best of all tliose who were ceded themselves." namely that the plebis- 

 cite also in this instance was " notiiing but the superfluous ratifica- 

 tion of a fait iicrovipli" (G. Padellrtli, L'Alsace et la Lorraine, et le 

 droit des gens, in Revue de droit international et de legislation com- 

 pare«e, 1871, vol. iii, pp. 488-489). See also alxjve, p. 96. 



