[334] The comments on these terms, published by M. Gauvain in the
_Journal des Debats_ (September 20, 1919), are well worth reading.

[335] M. Auguste Gauvain.

[336] _Le Journal des Debats_, September 20, 1919.

[337] Concluded in the year 1916.

[338] Cf. _The Daily Mail_ (Paris edition), September 21, 1919.

XVI

THE COVENANT AND MINORITIES

In Mr. Wilson's scheme for the establishment of a society of nations
there was nothing new but his pledge to have it realized. And that
pledge has still to be redeemed under conditions which he himself has
made much more unfavorable than they were. The idea itself--floating in
the political atmosphere for ages--has come to seem less vague and
unattainable since the days of Kant. The only heads of states who had
set themselves to embody it in institutions before President Wilson took
it up not only disappointed the peoples who believed in them, but
discredited the idea itself.

That a merely mechanical organization such as the American statesman
seems to have had in mind, formed by parliamentary politicians
deliberating in secret, could bind nations and peoples together in moral
fellowship, is conceivable in the abstract. But if we turn to the
reality, we shall find that in that direction nothing durable can be
effected without a radical change in the ideas, aspirations, and temper
of the leaders who speak for the nations to-day, and, indeed, in those
of large sections of the nations themselves. For to organize society on
those unfamiliar lines is to modify some of the deepest-rooted instincts
of human nature. And that cannot be achieved overnight, certainly not in
the span of thirty minutes, which sufficed for the drafting of the
Covenant. The bulk of mankind might not need to be converted, but whole
classes must first be educated, and in some countries re-educated, which
is perhaps still more difficult. Mental and moral training must
complement and reinforce each other, and each political unit be brought
to realize that the interests of the vaster community take precedence
over those of any part of it. And to impress these novel views upon the
peoples of the world takes time.

An indispensable condition of success is that the compact binding the
members together must be entered into by the peoples, not merely by
their governments. For it is upon the masses that the burden of the war
lies heaviest. It is the bulk of the population that supplies the
soldiers