tain. "President Wilson,"
he affirms, "has more or less sacrificed to the English government the
society of nations and the question of armaments, that of the colonies
and that of the freedom of the seas...."[356] This, however, is an
over-statement. It was not for the sake of Britain that the American
statesman gave up so much; it was for the sake of saving something of
the Covenant. It was in the spirit of Sir Boyle Roche, whose attachment
to the British Constitution was such that, to save a part of it, he was
willing to sacrifice the whole.

The arbitration of disputes is provided for by one of the articles of
the Covenant;[357] but the parties may go to war three months later with
a clear conscience and an appeal to right, justice, self-determination,
and the usual abstract nouns.

In a word, the directors of the Conference disciplined their political
intelligence on lines of self-hypnotization, along which common sense
finds it impossible to follow them. There were also among the delegates
men who thought and spoke in terms of reason and logic, but their voices
evoked no echo. One of them summed up his criticism somewhat as follows:

"During the war our professions of democratic principles were far
resonant and emphatic. We were fighting for the nations of the world,
especially for those who could not successfully fight for themselves.
All the peoples, great and small, were exhorted to make the most painful
sacrifices to enable their respective governments to conquer the enemy.
Victory unexpectedly smiled on us, and the peoples asked that those
promises should be made good. Naturally, expectations ran high. What has
happened? The governments now answer in effect: 'We will promote your
interests, but without your co-operation or assent. We will make the
necessary arrangements in secret behind closed doors. The machinery we
are devising will be a state machinery, not a popular one. All that we
ask of you is implicit trust. You complain of our action in the past.
You have good cause. You say that the same men are about to determine
your future. Again you are right. But when you affirm that we are sure
to make the like mistakes, you are wrong, and we ask you to take our
word for it. You complain that we are politicians who feel the weight of
certain commitments and the fetters of obsolete traditions from which we
cannot free ourselves; that we are mainly concerned to protect and
further the interests of our respectiv