nt to changes in the
interests of weaker peoples."[358]

This opinion which Mr. Bullitt ascribed to Mr. Lansing was, to my
knowledge, that of a large number of the representatives of the nations
at the Conference. Among them all I have met very few who had a good
word to say of the scheme, and of the few one had helped to formulate
it, another had assisted him. And the unfavorable judgments of the
remainder were delivered after the Covenant was signed.

One of those leaders, in conversation with several other delegates and
myself, exclaimed one day: "The League of Nations indeed! It is an
absurdity. Who among thinking men believes in its reality?" "I do,"
answered his neighbor; "but, like the devils, I believe and tremble. I
hold that it is a corrosive poison which destroys much that is good and
will further much that is bad." A statesman who was not a delegate
demurred. "In my opinion," he said, "it is a response to a demand put
forward by the peoples of the globe, and because of this origin
something good will ultimately come of it. Unquestionably it is very
defective, but in time it may be--nay, must be--changed for the better."
The first speaker replied: "If you imagine that the League will help
continental peoples, you are, I am convinced, mistaken. It took the
United States three years to go to the help of Britain and France. How
long do you suppose it will take her to mobilize and despatch troops to
succor Poland, Rumania, or Czechoslovakia? I am acquainted with British
colonial public opinion and sentiment--too often misunderstood by
foreigners--and I can tell you that they are misconstrued by those who
fancy that they would determine action of that kind. If England tells
the colonies that she needs their help, they will come, because their
people are flesh of her flesh and blood of her blood, and also because
they depend for their defense upon her navy, and if she were to go under
they would go under, too. But the continental nations have no such
claims upon the British colonies, which would not be in a hurry to make
sacrifices in order to satisfy their appetites or their passions."

The second speaker then said: "It is possible, but nowise certain, that
the future League may help to settle these disputes which professional
diplomatists would have arranged, and in the old way, but it will not
affect those others which are the real causes of wars. If a nation
believes it can further its vital interest by bre