ioned the
Bolsheviki for vast concessions during the war; whether they obtained
them while the Conference was at its work and soldiers of their
respective countries were fighting in Russia against the Bolsheviki who
were bestowing them. "Is it true," he makes bold to ask further, "that
that is the explanation of the incredible friendliness displayed by the
Allied governments toward the Bolshevist bandits with whom they were
willing to strike up a compromise, whom they were minded to recognize by
organizing a conference on the Princes' Island?... Many times already
rank-smelling whiffs of air have blown upon us; they suggested the
belief that behind the Peace Conference there lurked not merely what
people feared, but something still worse or an immense political Panama.
If this is not true, gentlemen, deny it. Otherwise one day you will
surely have an explosion."[113]

Whether these grave innuendoes, together with the statement made by Mr.
George Herron,[114] the incident of the Banat Republic and the
ultimatum respecting the oil-fields unofficially presented to the
Rumanians suffice to establish a _prima facie_ case may safely be left
to the judgment of the public. The conscientious and impartial
historian, however firm his faith in the probity of the men representing
the powers, both of unlimited and limited interests, cannot pass them
over in silence.

One of the shrewdest delegates in Paris, a man who allowed himself to be
breathed upon freely by the old spirit of nationalism, but was capable
withal of appreciating the passionate enthusiasm of others for a more
altruistic dispensation, addressed me one evening as follows: "Say what
you will, the Secret Council is a Council of Two, and the Covenant a
charter conferred upon the English-speaking peoples for the government
of the world. The design--if it be a design--may be excellent, but it is
not relished by the other peoples. It is a less odious hegemony than
that of imperialist Germany would have been, but it is a hegemony and
odious. Surely in a quest of this kind after the most effectual means of
overcoming the difficulties and obviating the dangers of international
intercourse, more even than in the choice of a political regime, the
principle of self-determination should be allowed free play. Was that
not to have been one of the choicest fruits of victory? But no; force is
being set in motion, professedly for the good of all, but only as their
good is understood