prospects of a Peace Conference
as favorable."

In my efforts to avoid a breach with the United States, the President
helped me to the extent of making a communication to the Senate on
January 22nd, which he personally read to them in solemn session. In
this communication, Mr. Wilson exhaustively developed his programme of
a "Peace without Conquest." As the President officially communicated
this proposal to all the belligerent Powers on the same day, it
was to be regarded as a fresh and most solemn step towards peace.
As, on the other hand, it is also a document which expresses most
plainly Mr. Wilson's desires and mentions before his entry into the
war, I quote it verbatim below. Those who read it to-day cannot help
feeling that certainly no more scathing criticism of the Versailles
Peace has ever been written,--a peace which contained all the signs
of having been imposed upon the vanquished, and against which the
President's communication was a warning.

"On the eighteenth of December last I addressed an identical note
to the governments of the nations now at war requesting them to
state, more definitely than they had yet been stated by either
group of belligerents, the terms upon which they would deem it
possible to make peace. I spoke on behalf of humanity and of the
rights of all neutral nations like our own, many of whose most
vital interests the war puts in constant jeopardy. The Central
Powers united in a reply which stated merely that they were ready
to meet their antagonists in conference to discuss terms of peace.
The Entente Powers have replied much more definitely and have stated,
in general terms, indeed, but with sufficient definiteness to imply
details the arrangements, guarantees, and acts of reparation which
they deem to be the indispensable conditions of a satisfactory
settlement. We are that much nearer a definite discussion of the
peace which shall end the present war. We are that much nearer
the discussion of the international concert which must thereafter
hold the world at peace. In every discussion of the peace that
must end this war it is taken for granted that that peace must
be followed by some definite concert of power which will make it
virtually impossible that any such catastrophe should ever overwhelm
us again. Every lover of mankind, every sane and thoughtful man
must take that for granted.

"I have sought this opportunity to address you because I thought
that I owed it to you,