ia, the whilom Ally, without
whose superhuman efforts and heroic sacrifices her partners would have
been pulverized, was tacitly relegated to the category of hostile and
defeated peoples, and many of her provinces lopped off arbitrarily and
without appeal. None of her representatives was convoked or consulted on
the subject, although all of them, Bolshevist and anti-Bolshevist, were
at one in their resistance to foreign dictation.

The Conference repeatedly disclaimed any intention of meddling in the
internal affairs of any other state, and the Irish, the Egyptian, and
several other analogous problems were for the purposes of the Conference
included in this category. On what intelligible grounds, then, were the
Finnish, the Lettish, the Esthonian, the Georgian, the Ukrainian
problems excluded from it? One cannot conceive a more flagrant violation
of the sovereignty of a state than the severance and disposal of its
territorial possessions against its will. It is a frankly hostile act,
and as such was rightly limited by the Conference to enemy countries.
Why, then, was it extended to the ex-Ally? Is it not clear that if
reconstituted Russia should regard the Allied states as enemies and
choose the potential enemies of these as its friends, it will be
legitimately applying the principles laid down by the Allies themselves?
No expert in international law and no person of average common sense
will seriously maintain that any of the decisions reached in Paris are
binding on the Russia of the future. No problem which concerns two
equal parties can be rightfully decided by only one of them. The
Conference which declared itself incompetent to impose on Holland the
cession to Belgium even of a small strip of territory on one of the
banks of the Belgian river Scheldt cannot be deemed authorized to sign
away vast provinces that belonged to Russia. Here the plea of the
self-determination of peoples possesses just as much or as little
cogency as in the case of Ireland and Egypt.

President Wilson and Mr. Lloyd George had inaugurated their East
European policy by publicly proclaiming that Russia was the key to the
world situation, and that the peace would be no peace so long as her
hundred and fifty million inhabitants were left floundering in chaotic
confusion, under the upas shade of Bolshevism. They had also held out
hopes to their great ex-ally of efficient help and practical counsel.
And there ended what may be termed the constr