friends, interested in the welfare of the Near East, to be under any illusions as to the intolerable character of Turkish rule over a mixed people. Not only did he recognize the British Protectorate over Egypt which has since been modified in the liberal direction that Wilson desired, but he acquiesced in the British arrangements for Mesopotamia, Palestine and Arabia and in the French mandate over Syria and Cilicia. Indeed, he went so far as to recommend to Congress a mandate for the United States over Armenia and it was Congress that turned this down. Even to the clear judgment of Ray Stannard Baker, the Allies seemed to regard the Ottoman Empire as "booty." The President took a deeper and juster view. disliked the word empire and all it signified. wanted the Philippines to be free. But he occupied Hayti and was too good a historian to suppose that European rule over disturbed areas and weaker races has been mere brigandage.

He

He

By Point Five, the President stipulated "a free, open-minded, and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims", with due recognition of the interests of the peoples to be governed. In Africa, large additions were made to the French and British sovereignties on that continent, especially the latter; but in no real sense were these annexations made by "England." South Africa is a dominion, so auton

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omous as to be able to decide by a free election whether or not she will continue within the British Commonwealth, and to South Africa, the addition of adjacent German territory was considered to be as logical as the purchase of Louisiana from France by the United States. Similarly, to Australia and New Zealand, the allocation of the German Islands in the Pacific, north of the equator to Japan and south of the equator to themselves was regarded as no more than an adoption of the Monroe Doctrine which the United States applies to the islands in the Caribbean.

But to the idealist and to many who are not reckoned idealists, there was here challenged the farreaching question what ought to be the administration of those areas where, according to Rudyard Kipling, "there ain't no ten commandments." To Woodrow Wilson, the world was ripe for a new and larger authority, international in prestige and vision, under which would be held in trust any community of human beings that, for the moment, might need an uplifting guidance. By Point Fourteen, he proposed the League of Nations. It was to be a guarantee alike for nations small and great. It was to be the agency whereby a reduction of armaments, promulgated in Point Four, could be effected. It was to be the background of that freedom of the seas which was adumbrated in Point Two. It was to be the alternative of war.

Over the freedom of the seas, Britain was disturbed. She saw the United States building a vast navy. And she also saw in the United States how powerful was the embittered Irish element. To be told that there must be absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas" alike in peace or war, "except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part for the enforcement of international covenants" was to be made uneasy. It might be all right but, after her dose of the submarine warfare, Britain was shy of formulas. Events showed that she was ready to scrap thousands of ships, used for war and to share the command of the sea with the United States and Japan. But the move against her "navalism", which she was so soon to surrender at the suggestion of Secretary Hughes, puzzled even the disciples of President Wilson in Britain who regarded his League of Nations' with a boundless enthusiasm.

For the real difficulty was not on sea but on land. What President Wilson was up against was the nervous memory of France. In France, there could be no disarmament without a sense of security. And it is in this circumstance that we have the real proof of the confidence which, despite all debates about the freedom of the seas, President Wilson reposed in Britain. He agreed to the joint guarantee of the

French frontier by the United States and Great Britain which the Senate declined to ratify.

By the terms of the Armistice, Germany was not to pay an idemnity covering the cost of the war but reparations only. That is, she was to make good damages inflicted on property, say in Belgium and France. So interpreted, the reparations would have been a reasonable sum. But David Lloyd George, supported by the otherwise sagacious Smuts, and backed by the French, made what economists soon knew to be the fatal mistake of including in the bill for reparations, an item of pensions and allowances for soldiers' dependents which trebled the obligation falling upon Germany. In weariness, Wilson allowed himself to be convinced. And when Lloyd George took fright at the possibility of the Germans' refusing to sign the Treaty, it was found that the President's mind when made up, could not be unmade. agreed, the Treaty, with this damning blot at its heart, was, therefore, forced down the throats of the German delegates.

As

In June 1919, Wilson hurried home. He had lost his Liberal bodyguard. He had alienated the German vote. Enraged against him were the Irish, who wrote down the President for slaughter when he declined. in New York to receive Judge Cohalan, a somewhat extreme controversialist on this subject, who appeared

in a deputation. With the Irish gathered the adullamites of all persuasions and as the Treaty was submitted to the Senate, it was seen at once to be in danger.

Over its real defect, namely an inordinate claim on German finance, the critics were not emphatic. Their objective was the League of Nations which many held to be the Treaty's redeeming feature. They attacked "Britain's six votes". They declared that, under Clause X, with its territorial guarantee, Ireland and other oppressed countries could be forever held in servitude. They discovered in the League a superstate. They quoted George Washington's wise advice against European entanglements. They were furious at the declaration by the President that the League was so involved in the details of the Treaty that the one could not be accepted without the other.

Yet there were few, at the outset, who conceived it possible that the Senate would go so far as to repudiate a Treaty, so solemnly signed and sealed at Paris. But time was on the side of the critics. As difficulties multiplied around Woodrow Wilson, at home, so did the follies, which his influence had restrained, multiply abroad. And it became evident to many that the United States was "well out of the The League, which had been the hope of peace, seemed now to increase the chances of war.

mess.