principal plenipotentiaries must have been an obstacle to a complete and speedy understanding. Only one of them spoke both English and French. Two others understood English only, the fourth was unacquainted with anything but his own language and French. Consequently their conversations had to be carried on with the assistance of an interpreter; and any one who has ever had experience of conversing through that medium, must be aware what a difficult process it is, frequently involving unavoidable misunderstandings.

Some doubt has been expressed with regard to the proper designation to be applied to the negotiations between the representatives of the Allied and Associated Powers for the purpose of agreeing on the specific demands to be presented to Germany and her allies as forming the terms of peace. The Foreign Office List for 1919 gives a List of the British Delegation and Staff, under the heading of Peace Congress.' It is conceivable that a Congress of all the belligerent Powers might have been summoned to meet at Paris; and by some persons this was no doubt expected. On a previous occasion, that of the Congress of Vienna in 1814-15, its formal assembly had been preceded by somewhat lengthy negotiations in London, which failed to produce an agreement on all the points under discussion, which are well described by Mr Webster in a paper read before the Royal Historical Society in March 1913, and again in his admirable account of Congress of Vienna published as No. 153 of the Peace Hand-books. This problem, of which the resolution presented difficulties that spun out its duration by several months, reminds us of the similar trouble that was caused by the Fiume question.

Peace Congresses, beginning with that known as of Westphalia, have usually consisted of all the belligerent Powers meeting on a footing of equality, and mostly ending in the signature of a single treaty signed by all of them. This procedure was not adopted on the recent occasion, and it is obvious that it may have to be modified in accordance with the relative position of the parties when hostilities are terminated by the conclusion of an Armistice Convention. The introduction to Vol. I of the History' tells us that, according to the stricter interpretation, it was a Congress, and not a Conference,

that met at Paris. With this view we find it difficult to agree. Up to the time when the draft treaty was presented to Germany on May 7, the proceedings must be held to have consisted of a conference between the Allied and Associated Powers. Then it may perhaps be regarded as assuming to some extent the shape of a Congress, although it more closely resembles the negotiations for the second Treaty of Paris, when the Allied Powers presented their demands to the French Government and the latter was forced to accept them. The Conference continued its labours, and drafted treaties of peace, which were presented successively to the Austrian, Hungarian, Bulgarian, and Turkish Governments on June 2, 1919, Jan. 15, 1920, Sept. 19, 1919, and May 11, 1920, respectively. In each case discussion followed with the delegation of the Power on which the treaty was to be imposed, as the result of which modifications were introduced; and these discussions may be regarded as assimilated to the proceedings of a Congress, although the parties thereto were far from being on a footing of equality. On the whole, therefore, it seems more in accordance with facts if we continue to speak of the Peace Conference of Paris, especially as the public voice from before the meeting of the Assembly had used the term Conference.

Although the Congress of Berlin of 1878 furnishes. the best model for the conduct of debate, that of Vienna in 1814 presents closer resemblance to the Conference of Paris. The parties to the Congress of Vienna were to be all the Powers which had been engaged on either side in the war terminated by the Treaty of Paris of May 30.' This was interpreted in such a liberal fashion that two hundred and sixteen chefs de mission made their appearance. The difficulty of carrying on discussions between the members of such an unwieldy assembly was so great that the plenipotentiaries of the Eight Powers which were parties to the Treaty of Paris took on themselves to represent the whole of Europe. But the real Congress consisted of the Five Great Powers. The Committee of Eight, as Mr Webster tells us, met only eight times, while the Committee of Five held forty-one meetings. How business should be carried on at a Congress is well explained in Mr Woodward's

account of the Congress of Berlin (No. 154 of the Peace Hand-books). At Paris, in 1919, there were plenipotentiaries of Five Great Powers, the United States of America, the British Empire, France, Italy, and Japan, described as the 'Principal Allied and Associated Powers'; and with them, constituting the full assembly or Plenum of the Conference, were the plenipotentiaries of Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Cuba, Ecuador, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, the Hedjaz, Honduras, Liberia, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Poland, Portugal, Rumania, the Serbo-Croat-Slovene State, Siam, Czecho-Slovakia, and Uruguay, being minor Powers that had either declared war against, or broken off relations with, the Central Powers, or been recognised by the Entente Powers, as constituting with the Principal Powers already mentioned 'the Allied and Associated Powers.' Beside these, various other claimants laid their views before the Conference as opportunity offered, such as the Zionist Jews, the Armenians, the Esthonians, Lithuanians and Letts, the Ruthenians and the Georgians, and other subject nationalities of the former Russian Empire, with the Syrians and Lebanese, the Ukrainians, the Aaland Islanders and the Schleswigers. Owing to the difficulty of transacting business in such a large gathering and in public, the Conference was split up into a number of Commissions. The Conference as a whole met only seven times; at Vienna there was never a meeting of the whole Congress.

At Vienna there were present the Emperors of Austria and Russia, and the King of Prussia, but they did not attend the meetings of plenipotentiaries, at which they were represented respectively, Austria by Metternich, Russia by Razoumoffski, Stackelberg, and Nesselrode, Prussia by Hardenberg. Alexander I completely directed and controlled the action of his plenipotentiaries. Talleyrand was there for France, and Castlereagh, Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, and a vigorous personality, for Great Britain. At the Conference of Paris the United States of America was represented by the President, perhaps a more powerful personage than even a Russian Emperor; the British Empire by the Prime Minister, Mr Lloyd George; France by M. Clemenceau, President of the Council and Minister of War; Italy by her Prime Minister, Signor Orlando;

and Japan by Marquis Saionji, a former President of the Council of Ministers.

It was on Jan. 12, 1919, that the Conference opened with a meeting of the Four Great Powers of America and Europe and their Foreign Ministers, and on the 13th Japanese Representatives were added. Thus was formed the Council of Ten, of which M. Clemenceau was formally elected President in conformity with precedent. This lasted until the middle of March, when it was found that it was too large a body to deal effectively with all the business, and it had also been found impossible to keep its decisions from publication in the press. So the Council of Four was substituted for it. This body consisted of the American President and the Prime Ministers of France, Great Britain, and Italy. During the absence of Signor Orlando between April 24 and June 20 it became a Council of Three. It had a secretariat, on which the Five Great Powers were represented and which recorded the conversations between the members of the Council of Ten, and of the Council of Four which replaced it; but these records have not been published, and possibly never will be. Only a few Committees were at first set up, firstly the League of Nations Commission, next others on the Responsibility for the War, on Reparation, on International Labour Legislation, and on the International Régime for Ports, Waterways, and Railways.

The question of the official language caused some difficulty. At previous Congresses and Conferences French had as a matter of course been recognised as the sole language. This time the Anglo-Saxon Powers maintained the necessity of giving an equal position to the English text of documents, an essential consideration in a treaty which had to be submitted to the United States Senate for its advice and consent before it could be ratified by the President. The Italian delegation asserted the right of Italian to rank as official if to English was accorded equality with French. In the end both the French and English texts of the treaty with Germany were declared to be authentic, and so also in the case of the Treaty of Peace with Poland. The remaining peace treaties were drawn up in the three languages, the French text to prevail in case of divergence,

except in the Covenant of the League of Nations and the Part entitled Labour, where the English and French texts were declared to be of equal force. A similar provision is contained in the Treaties of Sept. 10, 1919, with Czecho-Slovakia and the Serb-Croat-Slovene State, and the treaty of Dec. 9, 1919, with Rumania. Of all these treaties only a single copy was signed, to remain deposited in the archives of the French Government, authenticated copies being furnished to each of the Signatory Powers.

In addition to the Committees already mentioned, a Supreme Economic Council was formed, Territorial Commissions were set up for Czecho-Slovakia, Poland, for Rumania and Yugo-Slavia, for Greece and Albania, for Belgium and Denmark, besides Military, Naval, and Air Commissions. Perhaps the most important of all was the Drafting Commission, on which the five principal Powers were represented. Subordinate to this were the Economic and Financial Drafting Commissions. Besides all this machinery, a Council of Five was formed out of the Ministers for Foreign Affairs, which followed the procedure of the original Council of Ten. This was the organ for the insertion in the Treaty of clauses omitted by an oversight, and while the Four were employed in the negotiation with Germany was able to proceed with the discussion of the Austrian Treaty.

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Mention must also be made of the rules which were drawn up by representatives of the Foreign Offices for conducting the work of the Conference, including the number of plenipotentiary Delegates to be allowed to each Power. It seems that these regulations, published in The Times' of Jan. 20, 1919, governed the proceedings at plenary meetings of the Conference, and that the Councils of Four and of Three discussed the questions that came before them independently of any formal rules. A very useful account of these matters is to be found in No. 139 of the documents published by the American Association for International Conciliation.

With the completion of the draft Treaty with Germany it may be held that the Conference had come to a close so far as that Power was concerned, and that with the delivery of the text to the German Delegation on May 7 it had developed into a Congress. Three weeks were