rned them to know, negotiated over their heads, transmitted to
Bucharest injunctions which only they were competent to receive,
insisted on their compromising to accept future decrees of the
Conference without an inkling as to their nature, and on their admitting
the right of an alien institution--the League of Nations--to intervene
in favor of minorities against the legally constituted government of the
country. M. Bratiano, who in a trenchant speech inveighed against these
claims of the Great Powers to take the governance of Europe into their
own hands, withdrew from the Conference and laid his resignation in the
hands of the King.

One of the most remarkable debaters in this singular parliament, where
self-satisfied ignorance and dullness of apprehension were so hard to
pierce, was the youthful envoy of the Czechoslovaks, M. Benes. This
politician, who before the Conference came to an end was offered the
honorable task of forming a new Cabinet, which he wisely declined,
displayed a masterly grasp of Continental politics and a rare gift of
identifying his country's aspirations with the postulates of a settled
peace. A systematic thinker, he made a point of understanding his case
at the outset. He would begin his _expose_ by detaching himself from all
national interests and starting from general assumptions recognized by
the Olympians, and would lead his hearers by easy stages to the
conclusions which he wished them to draw from their own premises. And
two of them, who had no great sympathy with his thesis, assured me that
they could detect no logical flaw in his argument. Moderation and
sincerity were the virtues which he was most eager to exhibit, and they
were unquestionably the best trump cards he could play. Not only had he
a firm grasp of facts and arguments, but he displayed a sense of measure
and open-mindedness which enabled him to implant his views on the minds
of his hearers.

Armenia's cause found a forcible and suasive pleader in Boghos Pasha,
whose way of marshaling arguments in favor of a contention that was
frowned upon by many commanded admiration. The Armenians asked for a
vast stretch of territory with outlets on the Black Sea and the
Mediterranean, but they were met with the objections that their total
population was insignificant; that only in one province were they in a
majority, and that their claim to Cilicia clashed with one of the
reserved rights of France. The ice, therefore, was somewhat th