Part 22

This frequent misdirection by the Supreme Council, however one may explain it, created an electric state of the political atmosphere among all nations whose interests were set down or treated as "limited," and more than one of them, as we saw, contemplated striking out a policy of passive resistance. As a matter of fact some of them timidly adopted it more than once, almost always with success and invariably with impunity. It was thus that the Czechoslovaks--the most docile of them all--disregarding the injunctions of the Conference, took possession of contentious territory, and remained in possession of it for several months, and that the Jugoslavs occupied a part of the district of Klagenfurt and for a long time paid not the slightest heed to the order issued by the Supreme Council to evacuate it in favor of the Austrians, and that the Poles applied the same tactics to eastern Galicia. The story of this last revolt is characteristic alike of the ignorance and of the weakness of the Powers which had assumed the functions of world-administrators. During the hostilities between the Ruthenians of Galicia and the Poles the Council, taunted by the press with the numerous wars that were being waged while the world's peace-makers were chatting about cosmic politics in the twilight of the Paris conclave, issued an imperative order that an armistice must be concluded at once. But the Poles appealed to events, which swiftly settled the matter as they anticipated. Neither the Supreme Council nor the agents it employed had a real grasp of the east European situation, or of the rôle deliberately assigned to Poland by its French sponsors--that of superseding Russia as a bulwark against Germany in the East--or of the local conditions. Their action, as was natural in these circumstances, was a sequence of gropings in the dark, of incongruous behests, exhortations, and prohibitions which discredited them in the eyes of those on whose trust and docility the success of their mission depended.

Consciousness of these disadvantages may have had much to do with the rigid secrecy which the delegates maintained before their desultory talks ripened into discussions. In the case of Poland, as of Rumania, the veil was opaque, and was never voluntarily lifted. One day the members of the Polish delegation, eager to get an inkling of what had been arranged by the Council of Four about Dantzig, requested M. Clemenceau to apprize them at least of the upshot if not of the details. The French Premier, who has a quizzing way and a keen sense of humor, replied, "On the 26th inst. you will learn the precise terms." But Poland's representative insisted and pleaded suasively for a hint of what had been settled. The Premier finally consented and said, "Tell the General Secretary of the Conference, M. Dutasta, from me, that he may make the desired communication to you." The delegate accordingly repaired to M. Dutasta, preferred his request, and received this reply: "M. Clemenceau may say what he likes. His words do not bind the Conference. Before I consider myself released from secrecy I must have the consent of all his colleagues as well. If you would kindly bring me their express authorization I will communicate the information you demand." That closed the incident.

When the Council finally agreed to a solution, the delegates were convoked to learn its nature and to make a vow of obedience to its decisions. During the first stage of the Conference the representatives of the lesser states had sometimes been permitted to put questions and present objections. But later on even this privilege was withdrawn. The following description of what went on may serve as an illustration of the Council's mode of procedure. One day the Polish delegation was summoned before the Special Commission to discuss an armistice between the Ruthenians of Galicia and the Polish Republic. The late General Botha, a shrewd observer, whose valuable experience of political affairs, having been confined to a country which had not much in common with eastern Europe, could be of little help to him in solving the complex problems with which he was confronted, was handicapped from the outset. Unacquainted with any languages but English and Dutch, the general had to surmount the additional difficulty of carrying on the conversation through an interpreter. The form it took was somewhat as follows:

"It is the wish of the Supreme Council," the chairman began, "that Poland should conclude an armistice with the Ruthenians, and under new conditions, the old ones having lost their force. Are you prepared to submit your proposals?" "This is a military matter," replied the Polish delegate, "and should be dealt with by experts. One of our most competent military authorities will arrive shortly in Paris with full powers to treat with you on the subject. In the meantime, I agree that the old conditions are obsolete and must be changed. I can also mention three provisos without which no armistice is possible: (1) The Poles must be permitted to get into permanent contact with Rumania. That involves their occupation of eastern Galicia. The principal grounds for this demand are that our frontier includes that territory and that the Rumanians are a law-abiding, pacific people whose interests never clash with ours and whose main enemy--Bolshevism--is also ours. (2) The Allies shall purge the Ukrainian army of the Bolshevists, German and other dangerous elements that now pervade it and render peace impossible. (3) The Poles must have control of the oil-fields were it only because these are now being treated as military resources and the Germans are receiving from Galicia, which contains the only supplies now open to them, all the oil they require and are giving the Ruthenians munitions in return, thus perpetuating a continuous state of warfare. You can realize that we are unwilling to have our oil-fields employed to supply our enemies with war material against ourselves." General Botha asked, "Would you be satisfied if, instead of occupying all eastern Galicia at once in order to get into touch with the Rumanians, the latter were to advance to meet you?" "Quite. That would satisfy us as a provisional measure." "But now suppose that the Supreme Council rejects your three conditions--a probable contingency--- what course do you propose to take?" "In that case our action would be swayed by events, one of which is the hostility of the Ruthenians, which would necessitate measures of self-defense and the use of our army. And that would bring back the whole issue to the point where it stands to-day." To the suggestions made by the Polish delegate that the question of the armistice be referred to Marshal Foch, the answer was returned that the Marshal's views carried no authority with the Supreme Council.

General Botha, thereupon adopting an emotional tone, said: "I have one last appeal to make to you. It behooves Poland to lift the question from its present petty surroundings and set it in the larger frame of world issues. What we are aiming at is the overthrow of militarism and the cessation of bloodshed. As a civilized nation Poland must surely see eye to eye with the Supreme Council how incumbent it is on the Allies to put a stop to the misery that warfare has brought down on the world and is now inflicting on the populations of Poland and eastern Galicia." "Truly," replied the Polish delegate, "and so thoroughly does she realize it that it is repugnant to her to be satisfied with a sham peace, a mere pause during which a bloodier war may be organized. We want a settlement that really connotes peace, and our intimate knowledge of the circumstances enables us to distinguish between that and a mere truce. That is the ground of our insistence."

"Bear well in mind," insisted the Boer general, "the friendly attitude of the great Allies toward your country at a critical period of its history. They restored it. They meant and mean to help it to preserve its status. It behooves the Poles to show their appreciation of this friendship in a practical way by deferring to their wishes. Everything they ordain is for your good. Realize that and carry out their schemes." "For their help we are and will remain grateful," was the answer, "and we will go as far toward meeting their wishes as is feasible without actually imperiling their contribution to the restoration of our state. But we cannot blink the facts that their views are sometimes mistaken and their power to realize them generally imaginary. They have made numerous and costly mistakes already, which they now frankly avow. If they persisted in their present plan they would be adding another to the list. And as to their power to help us positively, it is nil. Their initial omission to send a formidable military force to Poland was an irreparable blunder, for it left them without an executive in eastern Europe, where they now can help none of their protégées against their respective enemies. Poles, Rumanians, Jugoslavs are all left to themselves. From the Allies they may expect inspiriting telegrams, but little else. In fact, the utmost they can do is to issue decrees that may or may not be obeyed. Examples are many. They obtained for us by the armistice the right of disembarking troops at Dantzig, and we were unspeakably grateful to them. But they failed to make the Germans respect that right and we had to resign ourselves to abandon it. They ordered the Ukrainians to cease their numerous attacks on us and we appreciated their thoughtfulness. But the order was disobeyed; we were assailed and had no one to look to for help but ourselves. Still we are most thankful for all that they could do. But if we concluded the armistice which you are pleading for, this is what would happen: we should have the Ruthenians arrayed against us on one side and the Germans on the other. Now if the Ruthenians have brains, their forces will attack us at the same time as those of the Germans do. That is sound tactics. But if their strength is only on paper, they will give admission to the Bolsheviki. That is the twofold danger which you, in the name of the Great Powers, are unwillingly endeavoring to conjure up against us. If you admit its reality you cannot blame our reluctance to incur it. On the other hand, if you regard the peril as imaginary, you will draw the obvious consequences and pledge the word of the Great Powers that they will give us military assistance against it should it come?"

If clear thinking and straightforward action has counted for anything, the matter would have been settled satisfactorily then and there. But the Great Powers operated less with argument than with more forcible stimuli. Holding the economic and financial resources of the world in their hands, they sometimes merely toyed with reasoning and proceeded to coerce where they were unable to convince or persuade. One day the chief delegate of one of the states "with limited interests" said to me: "The unvarnished truth is that we are being coerced. There is no milder term to signify this procedure. Thus we are told that unless we indorse the decrees of the Powers, whose interests are unlimited like their assurance, they will withhold from us the supplies of food, raw materials, and money without which our national existence is inconceivable. Necessarily we must give way, at any rate for the time being." Those words sum up the relations of the lesser to the greater Powers.

In the case of Poland the conversation ended thus--General Botha, addressing the delegate, said: "If you disregard the injunctions of the Big Four, who cannot always lay before you the grounds of their policy, you run the risk of being left to your own devices. And you know what that means. Think well before you decide!" Just then, as it chanced, only a part of General Haller's soldiers in France had been transported to their own country, and the Poles were in mortal terror lest the work of conveying the remainder should be interrupted. This, then, was an implicit appeal to which they could not turn a wholly deaf ear. "Well, what is it that the Big Four ask of us?" inquired the delegate. "The conclusion of an armistice with the Ruthenians, also that Poland--as one of the newly created states--should allow the free transit of all the Allied goods through her territory." The delegate expressed a wish to be told why this measure should be restricted to the newly made states. The answer was because it was in the nature of an experiment and should, therefore, not be tried over too large an area. "There is also another little undertaking which you are requested to give--namely, that you will accept and act upon the future decisions of the commission whatever they may be." "Without an inkling of their character?" "If you have confidence in us you need have no misgivings as to that." In spite of the deterrents the Polish delegation at that interview met all these demands with a firm non possumus. It upheld the three conditions of the armistice, rejected the free transit proposal, and demurred to the demand for a promise to bow to all future decisions of a fallible commission. "When the Polish dispute with the Czechoslovaks was submitted to a commission we were not asked in advance to abide by its decision. Why should a new rule be introduced now?" argued the Polish delegates. And there the matter rested for a brief while.

But the respite lasted only a few days, at the expiry of which an envoy called on the members of the Polish delegation and reopened the discussion on new lines. He stated that he spoke on behalf of the Big Four, of whose views and intentions he was the authorized exponent. And doubtless he thought he was. But as a matter of fact the French government had no cognizance of his visit or mission or of the conversation to which it led. He presented arguments before having recourse to deterrents. Poland's situation, he said, called for prudence. Her secular enemy was Germany, with whom it would be difficult, perhaps impossible, ever to cultivate such terms as would conciliate her permanently. All the more reason, therefore, to deserve and win the friendship of her other neighbors, in particular of the Ruthenians. The Polish plenipotentiary met the argument in the usual way, where upon the envoy exclaimed: "Well, to make a long story short, I am here to say that the line of action traced out for your country emanates from the inflexible will of the Great Powers. To this you must bend. If it should lead to hostilities on the part of your neighbors you could, of course, rely on the help of your protectors. Will this not satisfy you?" "If the protection were real it certainly would. But where is it? Has it been vouchsafed at any moment since the armistice? Have the Allied governments an executive in eastern Europe? Are they likely to order their troops thither to assist any of their protégées? And if they issued such an order, would it be obeyed? They cannot protect us, as we know to our cost. That is why we are prepared, in our interests--also in theirs--to protect ourselves."

This remarkable conversation was terminated by the announcement of the penalty of disobedience. "If you persist in refusing the proposals I have laid before you, I am to tell you that the Great Powers will withdraw their aid from your country and may even feel it to be their duty to modify the advantageous status which they had decided to confer upon it." To which this answer was returned: "For the assistance we are receiving we are and will ever be truly grateful. But in order to benefit by it the Polish people must be a living organism and your proposals tend to reduce us to a state of suspended vitality. They also place us at the mercy of our numerous enemies, the greatest of whom is Germany."

But lucid intelligence, backed by unflagging will, was of no avail against the threat of famine. The Poles had to give way. M. Paderewski pledged his word to Messrs. Lloyd George and Wilson that he would have an armistice concluded with the Ruthenians of eastern Galicia, and the Duumvirs rightly placed implicit confidence in his word as in his moral rectitude. They also felt grateful to him for having facilitated their arduous task by accepting the inevitable. To my knowledge President Wilson himself addressed a letter to him toward the end of April, thanking him cordially for the broad-minded way in which he had co-operated with the Supreme Council in its efforts to reconstitute his country on a solid basis. Probably no other representative of a state "with limited interests" received such high mark of approval.

M. Paderewski left Paris for Warsaw, there to win over the Cabinet. But in Poland, where the authorities were face to face with the concrete elements of the problem, the Premier found no support. Neither the Cabinet nor the Diet nor the head of the state found it possible to redeem the promise made in their name. Circumstance was stronger than the human will. M. Paderewski resigned. The Ruthenians delivered a timely attack on the Poles, who counter-attacked, captured the towns of Styra, Tarnopol, Stanislau, and occupied the enemy country right up to Rumania, with which they desired to be in permanent contact. Part of the Ruthenian army crossed the Czech frontier and was disarmed, the remainder melted away, and there remained no enemy with whom to conclude an armistice.

For the "Big Four" this turn of events was a humiliation. The Ruthenian army, whose interests they had so taken to heart, had suddenly ceased to exist, and the future danger which it represented to Poland was seen to have been largely imaginary. Their judgment was at fault and their power ineffectual. Against M. Paderewski's impotence they blazed with indignation. He had given way to their decision and promptly gone to Warsaw to see it executed, yet the conditions were such that his words were treated as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. The Polish Premier, it is true, had tendered his resignation in consequence, but it was refused--and even had it been accepted, what was the retirement of a Minister as compared with the indignity put upon the world's lawgivers who represented power and interests which were alike unlimited? Angry telegrams were flashed over the wires from Paris to Warsaw and the Polish Premier was summoned to appear in Paris without delay. He duly returned, but no new move was made. The die was cast.

A noteworthy event in latter-day Polish history ensued upon that military victory over the Ruthenians of eastern Galicia. The Ukrainian Minister at Vienna was despatched to request the Poles to sign a unilateral treaty with them after the model of that which was arranged by the two Anglo-Saxon states in favor of France. The proposal was that the Ukraine government would renounce all claims to eastern Galicia and place their troops under the supreme command of the Polish generalissimus, in return for which the Poles should undertake to protect the Ukrainians against all their enemies. This draft agreement, while under consideration in Warsaw, was negatived by the Polish delegates in Paris, who saw no good reason why their people should bind themselves to fight Russia one day for the independence of the Ukraine. Another inchoate state which made an offer of alliance to Poland was Esthonia, but its advances were declined on similar grounds. It is manifest, however, that in the new state system alliances are more in vogue than in the old, although they were to have been banished from it.

Throughout all the negotiations that turned upon the future status and the territorial frontiers of Poland the British Premier unswervingly stood out against the Polish claims, just as the President of the United States inflexibly countered those of Italy, and both united to negative those of the Rumanians. Whatever one may think of the merits of these controversies--and various opinions have been put forward with obvious sincerity--there can be but one judgment as to the spirit in which they were conducted. It was a dictatorial spirit, which was intolerant not merely of opposition, but of enlightened and constructive criticism. To the representatives of the countries concerned it seemed made up of bitter prejudice and fierce partizanship, imbibed, it was affirmed, from those unseen sources whence powerful and, it was thought, noxious currents flowed continuously toward the Conference. For none of the affronted delegates credited with a knowledge of the subject either Mr. Lloyd George, who had never heard of Teschen, or Mr. Wilson, whose survey of Corsican politics was said to be so defective. And yet to the activity of men engaged like these in settling affairs of unprecedented magnitude it would be unfair to apply the ordinary tests of technical fastidiousness. Their position as trustees of the world's greatest states, even though they lacked political imagination, knowledge, and experience, entitled them to the high consideration which they generally received. But it could not be expected to dazzle to blindness the eyes of superior men--and the delegates of the lesser states, Venizelos, Dmowski, and Benes, were undoubtedly superior in most of the attributes of statesmanship. Yet they were frequently snubbed and each one made to feel that he was the fifth wheel in the chariot of the Conference. No sacred fame, says Goethe, requires us to submit to contempt, and they winced under it. The Big Three lacked the happy way of doing things which goes with diplomatic tact and engaging manners, and the consequence was that not only were their arguments mistrusted, but even their good faith was, as we saw, momentarily subjected to doubt. "Bitter prejudice, furious antipathy" were freely predicated of the two Anglo-Saxon statesmen, who were rashly accused of attempting by circuitous methods to deprive France of her new Slav ally in eastern Europe. Sweeping recriminations of this character deserve notice only as indicating the spirit of discord--not to use a stronger term--prevailing at a Conference which was professedly endeavoring to knit together the peoples of the planet in an organized society of good-fellowship.

The delegates of the lesser states, to whom one should not look for impartial judgments, formulated some queer theories to explain the Allies' unavowed policy and revealed a frame of mind in no wise conducive to the attainment of the ostensible ends of the Conference. One delegate said to me: "I have no longer the faintest doubt that the firm purpose of the 'Big Two' is the establishment of the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon peoples, which in the fullness of time may be transformed into the hegemony of the United States of North America. Even France is in some respects their handmaid. Already she is bound to them indissolubly. She is admittedly unable to hold her own without their protection. She will become more dependent on them as the years pass and Germany, having put her house in order, regains her economic preponderance on the Continent. This decline is due to the operation of a natural law which diplomacy may retard but cannot hinder. Numbers will count in the future, and then France's rôle will be reduced. For this reason it is her interest that her new allies in eastern Europe should be equipped with all the means of growing and keeping strong instead of being held in the leading-strings of the overlords. But perhaps this tutelage is reckoned one of those means?"

Against Britain in especial the Poles, as we saw, were wroth. They complained that whenever they advanced a claim they found her first delegate on their path barring their passage, and if Mr. Wilson chanced to be with them the British Premier set himself to convert him to his way of thinking or voting. Thus it was against Mr. Lloyd George that the eastern Galician problem had had to be fought at every stage. At the outset the British Premier refused Galicia to Poland categorically and purposed making it an entirely separate state under the League of Nations. This design, of which he made no secret, inspired the insistence with which the armistice with the Ruthenians of Galicia was pressed. The Polish delegates, one of them a man of incisive speech, left no stone unturned to thwart that part of the English scheme, and they finally succeeded. But their opponents contrived to drop a spoonful of tar in Poland's pot of honey by ordering a plebiscite to take place in eastern Galicia within ten or fifteen years. Then came the question of the Galician Constitution. The Poles proposed to confer on the Ruthenians a restricted measure of home rule with authority to arrange in their own way educational and religious matters, local communications, and the means of encouraging industry and agriculture, besides giving them a proportionate number of seats in the state legislature in Warsaw. But again the British delegates--experienced in problems of home rule--expressed their dissatisfaction and insisted on a parliament or diet for the Ukraine invested with considerable authority over the affairs of the province. The Poles next announced their intention to have a governor of eastern Galicia appointed by the President of the Polish Republic, with a council to advise him. The British again amended the proposal and asked that the governor should be responsible to the Galician parliament, but to this the Poles demurred emphatically, and finally it was settled that only the members of his council should be responsible to the provincial legislature. The Poles having suggested that military conscription should be applied to eastern Galicia on the same terms as to the rest of Poland, the British once more joined issue with them and demanded that no troops whatever should be levied in the province. The upshot of this dispute was that after much wrangling the British Commission gave way to the Poles, but made it a condition that the troops should not be employed outside the province. To this the Poles made answer that the massing of so many soldiers on the Rumanian frontier might reasonably be objected to by the Rumanians--and so the amoebean word-game went on in the subcommission. In a word, when dealing with the eastern Galician problem, Mr. Lloyd George played the part of an ardent champion of complete home rule.

To sum up, the Conference linked eastern Galicia with Poland, but made the bonds extremely tenuous, so that they might be severed at any moment without involving profound changes in either country, and by this arrangement, which introduced the provisional into the definitive, a broad field of operations was allotted to political agitation and revolt was encouraged to rear its crest.

The province of Upper Silesia was asked for on grounds which the Poles, at any rate, thought convincing. But Mr. Lloyd George, it was said, declared them insufficient. The subject was thrashed out one day in June when the Polish delegates were summoned before their all-powerful colleagues to be told of certain alterations that had been recently introduced into the Treaty which concerned them to know. They appeared before the Council of Five. President Wilson, addressing the two delegates, spoke approximately as follows: "You claim Silesia on the ground that its inhabitants are Poles and we have given your demand careful consideration. But the Germans tell us that the inhabitants, although Polish by race, wish to remain under German rule as heretofore. That is a strong objection if founded on fact. At present we are unable to answer it. In fact, nobody can answer it with finality but the inhabitants themselves. Therefore we must order a plebiscite among them." One of the Polish delegates remarked: "If you had put the question to the inhabitants fifty years ago they would have expressed their wish to remain with the Germans because at that time they were profoundly ignorant and their national sentiment was dormant. Now it is otherwise. For since then many of them have been educated, and the majority are alive to the issue and will therefore declare for Poland. And if any section of the territory should still prefer German sway to Polish and their district in consequence of your plebiscite becomes German, the process of enlightenment which has already made such headway will none the less go on, and their children, conscious of their loss, will anathematize their fathers for having inflicted it. And then there will be trouble."

Mr. Wilson retorted: "You are assuming more than is meet. The frontiers which we are tracing are provisional, not final. That is a consideration which ought to weigh with you. Besides, the League of Nations will intervene to improve what is imperfect." "O League of Nations, what blunders are committed in thy name!" the delegate may have muttered to himself as he listened to the words meant to comfort him and his countrymen.

Much might have been urged against this proffered solace if the delegates had been in a captious mood. The League of Nations had as yet no existence. If its will, intelligence, and power could indeed be reckoned upon with such confidence, how had it come to pass that its creators, Britain and the United States, deemed them dubious enough to call for a reinforcement in the shape of a formal alliance for the protection of France? If this precautionary measure, which shatters the whole Wilsonian system, was indispensable to one Ally it was at least equally indispensable to another. And in the case of Poland it was more urgent than in the case of France, because if Germany were again to scheme a war of conquest the probability is infinitesimal that she would invade Belgium or move forward on the western front. The line of least resistance, which is Poland, would prove incomparably more attractive. And then? The absence of Allied troops in eastern Europe was one of the principal causes of the wars, tumults, and chaotic confusion that had made nervous people tremble for the fate of civilization in the interval between the conclusion of the armistice and the ratification of the Treaty. In the future the absence of strongly situated Allies there, if Germany were to begin a fresh war, would be more fatal still, and the Polish state might conceivably disappear before military aid from the Allied governments could reach it. Why should the safety of Poland and to some extent the security of Europe be made to depend upon what is at best a gambler's throw?

But no counter-objections were offered. On the contrary, M. Paderewski uttered the soft answer that turneth away wrath. He profoundly regretted the decision of the lawgivers, but, recognizing that it was immutable, bowed to it in the name of his country. He knew, he said, that the delegates were animated by very friendly feelings toward his country and he thanked them for their help. M. Paderewski's colleague, the less malleable M. Dmowski, is reported to have said: "It is my desire to be quite sincere with you, gentlemen. Therefore I venture to submit that while you profess to have settled the matter on principle, you have not carried out that principle thoroughly. Doubtless by inadvertence. Thus there are places inhabited by a large majority of Poles which you have allotted to Germany on the ground that they are inhabited by Germans. That is inconsistent." At this Mr. Lloyd George jumped up from his place and asked: "Can you name any such places?" M. Dmowski gave several names. "Point them out to me on the map," insisted the British Premier. They were pointed out on the map. Twice President Wilson asked the delegate to spell the name Bomst for him. Mr. Lloyd George then said: "Well, those are oversights that can be rectified." "Oh yes," added Mr. Wilson, "we will see to that." M. Dmowski also questioned the President about the plebiscite, and under whose auspices the voting would take place, and was told that there would be an Inter-Allied administration to superintend the arrangements and insure perfect freedom of voting. "Through what agency will that administration work? Is it through the officials?" "Evidently," Mr. Wilson answered. "You are doubtless aware that they are Germans?" "Yes. But the administration will possess the right to dismiss those who prove unworthy of their confidence." "Don't you think," insisted M. Dmowski, "that it would be fairer to withdraw one half of the German bureaucrats and give their places to Poles?" To which the President replied: "The administration will be thoroughly impartial and will adopt all suitable measures to render the voting free." There the matter ended.

The two potentates in council, tackling the future status of Lithuania, settled it in an offhand and singular fashion which at any rate bespoke their good intentions. The principle of self-determination, or what was facetiously termed the Balkanization of Europe, was at first applied to that territory and a semi-independent state created in petto which was to contain eight million inhabitants and be linked with Poland. Certain obstacles were soon afterward encountered which had not been foreseen. One was that all the Lithuanians number only two millions, or say at the most two millions and one hundred thousand. Out of these even the Supreme Council could not make eight millions. In Lithuania there are two and a half million Poles, one and a half million Jews, and the remainder are White Russians. It was recognized that a community consisting of such disparate elements, situated where it now is, could hardly live and strive as an independent state. The Lithuanian Jews, however, were of a different way of thinking, and they opposed the Polish claims with a degree of steadfastness and animation which wounded Poland's national pride and left rankling sores behind.

It is worth noting that the representatives of Russia, who are supposed to clutch convulsively at all the states which once formed part of the Tsardom, displayed a degree of political detachment in respect of Lithuania which came as a pleasant surprise to many. The Russian Ambassador in Paris, M. Maklakoff, in a remarkable address before a learned assembly in the French capital, announced that Russia was henceforward disinterested in the status of Lithuania.

That the Poles were minded to deal very liberally with the Lithuanians became evident during the Conference. General Pilsudski, on his own initiative, visited Vilna and issued a proclamation to the Lithuanians announcing that elections would be held, and asking them to make known their desires, which would be realized by the Warsaw government. One of the many curious documents of the Conference is an official missive signed by the General Secretary, M. Dutasta, and addressed to the first Polish delegate, exhorting him to induce his government to come to terms with the Lithuanian government, as behooves two neighboring states. Unluckily for the soundness of that counsel there was no recognized Lithuanian state or Lithuanian government to come to terms with.

As has been often enough pointed out, the actions and utterances of the two world-menders were so infelicitous as to lend color to the belief--shared by the representatives of a number of humiliated nations--that greed of new markets was at the bottom of what purported to be a policy of pure humanitarianism. Some of the delegates were currently supposed to be the unwitting instruments of elusive capitalistic influences. Possibly they would have been astonished were they told this: Great Britain was suspected of working for complete control of the Baltic and its seaboard in order to oust the Germans from the markets of that territory and to have potent levers for action in Poland, Germany, and Russia. The achievement of that end would mean command of the Baltic, which had theretofore been a German lake. It would also entail, it was said, the separation of Dantzig from Poland, and the attraction of the Finns, Esthonians, Letts, and Lithuanians from Germany's orbit into that of Great Britain. In vain the friends of the delegates declared that economic interests were not the mainspring of their deliberate action and that nothing was further from their intention than to angle for a mandate for those countries. The conviction was deep-rooted in the minds of many that each of the Great Powers was playing for its own hand. That there was some apparent foundation for this assumption cannot, as we saw, be gainsaid. Widely and unfavorably commented was the circumstance that in the heat of those discussions at the Conference a man of confidence of the Allies put this significant and impolitic question to one of the plenipotentiaries: "How would you take it if England were to receive a mandate for Lithuania?"

"The Great Powers," observed the most outspoken of the delegates of the lesser states, "are bandits, but as their operations are on a large scale they are entitled to another and more courteous name. Their gaze is fascinated by markets, concessions, monopolies. They are now making preparations for a great haul. At this politicians cannot affect to be scandalized. For it has never been otherwise since men came together in ordered communities. But what is irritating and repellent is the perfume of altruism and philanthropy which permeates this decomposition. We are told that already they are purchasing the wharves of Dantzig, making ready for 'big deals' in Libau, Riga, and Reval, founding a bank in Klagenfurt and negotiating for oil-wells in Rumania. Although deeply immersed in the ethics of politics, they have not lost sight of the worldly goods to be picked up and appropriated on the wearisome journey toward ideal goals. The atmosphere they have thus renewed is peculiarly favorable to the growth of cant, and tends to accelerate the process of moral and social dissolution. And the effects of this mephitic air may prove more durable than the contribution of its creators to the political reorganization of Europe. If we compare the high functions which they might have fulfilled in relation to the vast needs and the unprecedented tendencies of the new age with those which they have unwittingly and deliberately performed as sophists of sentimental morality and destroyers of the wheat together with the tares, we shall have to deplore one of the rarest opportunities missed beyond retrieve."

In this criticism there is a kernel of truth. The ethico-social currents to which the war gave rise had a profoundly moral aspect, and if rightly canalized might have fertilized many lands and have led to a new and healthy state-system. One indispensable condition, however, was that the peoples of the world should themselves be directly interested in the process, that they should be consulted and listened to, and helped or propelled into new grooves of thought and action. Instead of that the delegates contented themselves with giving new names to old institutions and tendencies which stood condemned, and with teaching lawless disrespect for every check and restraint except such as they chose to acknowledge. They were powerful advocates for right and justice, democracy and publicity, but their definitions of these abstract nouns made plain-speaking people gasp. Self-interest and material power were the idols which they set themselves to pull down, but the deities which they put in their places wore the same familiar looks as the idols, only they were differently colored.