lies could not have claimed to impose.

What has been said about Germany and the Versailles Treaty can be said
about all the other conquered countries and all the other treaties,
with merely varying proportions in each case.

The verdict that has to be passed on them will very soon be shown by
facts--if indeed facts have not shown already that, in great measure,
what had been laid down cannot be carried out. One thing is certain,
that the actual treaties threaten to ruin conquerors and conquered,
that they have not brought peace to Europe, but conditions of war and
violence. In Clemenceau's words, the treaties are a way of going on
with war.

But, even if it were possible to dispute that, as men's minds cannot
yet frame an impartial judgment and the danger is not seen by all,
there is one thing that cannot be denied or disputed, and that is that
the treaties are the negation of the principles for which the United
States and Italy, without any obligation on them, entered the War;
they are a perversion of all the Entente had repeatedly proclaimed;
they break into pieces President Wilson's fourteen points which were a
solemn pledge for the American people, and to-morrow they will be the
greatest moral weapon with which the conquered of to-day will face the
conquerors of to-day.

IV

THE CONQUERORS AND THE CONQUERED

How many are the States of Europe? Before the War the political
geography of Europe was almost tradition. To-day every part of
Europe is in a state of flux. The only absolute certainty is that in
Continental Europe conquerors and conquered are in a condition of
spiritual, as well as economic, unrest. It is difficult indeed to say
how many political unities there are and how many are lasting, and
what new wars are being prepared, if a way of salvation is not found
by some common endeavour to install peace, which the peace of Paris
has not done. How many thinking men can, without perplexity, remember
how many States there are and what they are: arbitrary creations of
the treaties, creations of the moment, territorial limitations imposed
by the necessities of international agreements. The situation of
Russia is so uncertain that no one knows whether new States will
arise as a result of her continuous disintegration, or if she will be
reconstructed in a solid, unified form, and other States amongst those
which have arisen will fall.

Without taking into account those traditional little States which