lems to be solved. No conjuncture could have been less
favorable for an experiment based on this theory. The general situation
made a demand on the delegates for special knowledge and experience,
whereas the Premiers and the President, although specialists in nothing,
had to act as specialists in everything. Traditional diplomacy would
have shown some respect for the law of causality. It would have sent to
the Conference diplomatists more or less acquainted with the issues to
be mooted and also with the mentality of the other negotiators, and it
would have assigned to them a number of experts as advisers. It would
have formed a plan similar to that proposed by the French authorities
and rejected by the Anglo-Saxons. In this way at least the technical
part of the task would have been tackled on right lines, the war would
have been liquidated and normal relations quickly re-established among
the belligerent states. It may be objected that this would have been a
meager contribution to the new politico-social fabric. Undoubtedly it
would, but, however meager, it would have been a positive gain. Possibly
the first stone of a new world might have been laid once the ruins of
the old were cleared away. But even this modest feat could not be
achieved by amateurs working in desultory fashion and handicapped by
their political parties at home. The resultant of their apparent
co-operation was a sum in subtraction because dispersal or effort was
unavoidably substituted for concentration.

Whether one contemplates them in the light of their public acts or
through the prism of gossip, the figures cut by the delegates of the
Great Powers were pathetic. Giants in the parliamentary sphere, they
shrank to the dimensions of dwarfs in the international. In matters of
geography, ethnography, history, and international politics they were
helplessly at sea, and the stories told of certain of their efforts to
keep their heads above water while maintaining a simulacrum of dignity
would have been amusing were the issues less momentous. "Is it after
Upper or Lower Silesia that those greedy Poles are hankering?" one
Premier is credibly reported to have asked some months after the Polish
delegation had propounded and defended its claims and he had had time to
familiarize himself with them. "Please point out to me Dalmatia on the
map," was another characteristic request, "and tell me what connection
there is between it and Fiume." One of the principal