Conference of Spa

SPA, CONFERENCE OF (July 5-16, 5920). This was the first occasion after the World War of 1914-18 on which the heads of the German and Allied Governments negotiated on a formal footing of equality. The crucial questions at issue were the exe cution of the disarmament clauses and the coal delivery clauses of the Treaty of Versailles, and in both cases the Germans were compelled to sign protocols dictated by the Allies under threat of military sanctions which were set out in the documents, and included an eventual Allied occupation of the Ruhr basin.

A German proposal for the general settlement of the reparation problem was rejected, but no general Allied counter-proposal was put forward. An inter-Allied agreement was made for the alloca tion of prospective German payments, an agreement which has since been modified in detail, but which still governs the situation.

It was provided that France should receive 52% of sums obtained from Germany, the British Empire 22%, Italy o% and Belgium 8%, while the remaining 8% was to be divided between the other Allied Powers. By a subsequent agreement among the sev eral members of the British Commonwealth 86.85% of the British Empire's share was allocated to Great Britain. Another article in the Spa Agreement provided for the allocation of reparation payments from Austria, Bulgaria and Hungary, and "cost of liberation" payments from Italy, Czechoslovakia, Rumania and Yugoslavia. At this conference the Supreme Council (q.v.) also came to an agreement with Germany for the trial of war criminals.

(See

REPARATION AND THE DAWES PLAN.) The Theory of Relativity has brought about a fundamental change in the scientific conception of space and time, described in a famous saying of Minkowski—"From hence f orth space in itself and time in itself sink to mere shadows, and only a kind of union of the two preserves an independent exist ence." This union, called "space-time," is the subject of the present article. As the conceptions are of considerable difficulty, most readers will probably find it best to read first the article RELATIVITY for a more elementary introduction to the subject.

All our thoughts and concepts are called up by sense-experiences and have a meaning only in reference to these sense-experiences. On the other hand, however, they are products of the spontaneous activity of our minds ; they are thus in no wise logical conse quences of the contents of these sense-experiences. If, there

fore, we wish to grasp the essence of a complex of abstract notions we must for the one part investigate the mutual relationships be tween the concepts and the assertions made about them; for the other, we must investigate how they are related to the experiences.

So far as the way is concerned in which concepts are connected with one another and with the experiences there is no difference of principle between the concept-systems of science and those of daily life. The concept-systems of science have grown out of those of daily life and have been modified and completed according to the objects and purposes of the science in question.

The more universal a concept is the more frequently it enters into our thinking; and the more indirect its relation to sense experience, the more difficult it is for us to comprehend its mean ing; this is particularly the case with pre-scientific concepts that we have been accustomed to use since childhood. Consider the concepts referred to in the words "where," "when," "why," "being," to the elucidation of which innumerable volumes of philosophy have been devoted. We fare no better in our specula tions than a fish which should strive to become clear as to what is water.

In the present article we are concerned with the meaning of "where," that is, of space. It appears that there is no quality contained in our individual primitive sense-experiences that may be designated as spatial. Rather, what is spatial appears to be a sort of order of the material objects of experience. The concept "material object" must therefore be available if concepts con cerning space are to be possible. It is the logically primary con cept. This is easily seen if we analyse the spatial concepts for example, "next to," "touch," and so forth, that is, if we strive to become aware of their equivalents in experience. The concept "object" is a means of taking into account the persistence in time or the continuity, respectively, of certain groups of experience complexes. The existence of objects is thus of a conceptual nature, and the meaning of the concepts of objects depends wholly on their being connected (intuitively) with groups of elementary sense-experiences. This connection is the basis of the illusion which makes primitive experience appear to inform us directly about the relation of material bodies (which exist, after all, only in so far as they are thought).