occasions for the renewal of strife. Lord Bryce, while recognising many of the difficulties of the negotiators, and in particular the unprecedented complexity and scale of the task with which they were confronted, comments with severity upon many features of the European settlement. The handing over to Italy of a quarter of a million of German Tyrolese, countrymen of the national hero, Andreas Hofer, in virtue of the secret treaty of 1915 between England, France, and Italy, the excessive mutilation of Hungary, the sharing out of Macedonia between Serbia and Greece, excite definite censure, while apprehensions are entertained as to the stability of the newly constituted States of Poland and Yugo-Slavia. The most sinister feature, however, of a depressing situation is still the continuance, in a highly exacerbated form, of the ancestral rivalry between France and Germany.

'There is no blacker cloud pregnant with future storm hanging over Europe now than that which darkens the banks of the Rhine. Not even after Jena in 1806, not even after Gravelotte and Sedan and the capitulation of Paris in 1871, has the prospect of reconcilement between the two neighbour peoples seemed so distant.'

It may be doubted whether Lord Bryce does not attach too great an importance in this regard to the devastations, deplorable as they undoubtedly were, of the German Higher Command while its armies were retiring in 1918; but there can be no doubt that unless and until tolerable relations are established between France and Germany, there can be no 'moral disarmament' in Europe.

No wise man will minimise the political difficulties of the new Europe. An historical student, if he had been asked to advise upon the political remedies to be applied after the war, would probably have recommended a less drastic prescription than that which was actually administered by the consultants in Paris. He would have been tempted to counsel the maintenance so far as possible of the status quo ante bellum with certain welldefined exceptions, such as the assignment of AlsaceLorraine to France, and of the Trentino to Italy, coupled with some minor adjustments of the Hungarian boundary

within an Austro-Hungarian federation so constituted as to give their proportionate weight to the Slavonic elements in the old Reich. But was such a solution possible at the time? We may be permitted to doubt it. So easy is it to over-estimate the authority of individual statesmen, so hard to appraise the force of the prejudices and passions by which their liberty of action is necessarily limited. The old autocratic monarchies having fallen to the ground like rotten fruit, the negotiators were faced with the clamorous pretensions of the insurgent nationalities. They could not decree the non-existence of these new States, for they were already in being. They could not refuse to listen to them, for were they not enemies of the old hostile order and had they not been allies, not only of France and England and Italy, but of America also in the war?

'The Poison-Treaties,' then, as they are harshly termed by a distinguished American financier, were not the result of any double dose of original sin in the negotiators of Versailles, but rather of historic European discords canonised by imported American philosophy. The doctrine of self-determination was an American formula. It crossed the Atlantic during the war and was at once hailed as supplying a rational principle for the political repair of Europe. For if the inquirer asked what was the latent cause of European uneasiness, he was generally told that the morbid symptoms were traceable to the fermentation of suppressed nationalities. How, then, could it be doubted that the true way to reform Europe was to recast the map in accordance with racial and linguistic groupings? On this point nationalist sentiment coincided with popular philosophy and military advantage. The negotiators in Paris bowed to the necessities of the war. They refashioned the map of Europe according to the maxims of President Wilson, taking good care in cases of doubt to give the award in favour of their friends. Human nature being what it is, they could scarcely be expected to act otherwise.

In truth, the prevalent habit of condemning the Treaties, doubtful as many of their provisions are, has been largely fostered by two illusions. Many of the evils which Europe still experiences are referred to the Treaties which should more properly be attributed either

to the war itself or the deep-seated historic antagonisms of the old Europe, rivalries not to be overcome by any written words, and destined, unless there should be an entirely new orientation of popular education, to infect international relations with their venom till the end of time. Another illusion, very prevalent in this country, is the habit of confounding the economic provisions of the Treaties with the political settlement. All that can be urged against the economic provisions of the peace was quite familiar to British statesmen before the argument was published in a popular form by a Cambridge economist. The point, however, which is generally neglected is that the Treaty set up an instrument for its own revision in the sphere of economics and finance, and that in point of fact the task of revision and adaptation has been proceeding steadily ever since. The economic proposals of the Treaties were therefore advisedly of a tentative and provisional character, and for this reason the detailed arrangements were not to be taken too seriously. Far otherwise was it with the territorial settlement. Here the negotiators aimed at finality. Here they were making dispositions which could not be seriously altered without effusion of blood. And seeing that in this, by far the most important department of their task, the framers of the Peace obeyed the democratic and nationalist impulses of their age, freeing from an alien and autocratic dominion Poles and Czechs, Slovaks and Slovenes and Arabs, it is the more curious that their work should be condemned by a large section of liberal opinion both here and in other countries.

It is a natural consequence of so great a catastrophe as that which the world has just experienced that every one should ask himself whether it is not possible to improve the mechanism of international relations. If the few mismanage, why not call upon the many? If secret diplomacy is bankrupt, why not try open diplomacy? If the diplomats cannot avert wars, why not trust the public? If intercourse by despatch is barren, why not substitute intercourse by Conference? Lord Bryce was not the man to under-estimate the value of popular judgment.

"The people,' he writes, 'are not qualified to deal with every kind of matter, but when there is a plain issue, and especially

if it is a moral issue, there is often seen a fairness and even a wisdom in the judgment of the people which we are not sure to find in the politicians.'

And he cites the examples of the Afghan War of 1878-9, and of the South African War of 1899-1902. On the other hand, it does not follow that, if the few manage foreign affairs ill, the many will manage them better. The bad management of foreign relations in the past may lie in the nature of foreign relations themselves or perhaps in the nature of men as men. In any case matters will not be improved by abolishing the diplomatist, who, though his importance has been lessened by telegraphy, still discharges a valuable function in reporting and explaining to his Foreign Office the ebbs and flows of popular sentiment in the country to which he is accredited, and, so far as his own direct action is concerned, in preventing political differences from passing into disputes.

Opinion is apt to be unjust to the professional diplomatist, for the reason that his successes go unobserved, while his failures are writ large upon the face of history. Nevertheless, in such a period as that through which we are now passing, the slow and deliberate methods of professional diplomacy, admirably suited as they may be in normal times for smoothing away the current obstruction to harmonious international intercourse, require aid from other and more direct expedients. One of these expedients, and not the least fruitful, is the method of the Conference, upon which Sir Maurice Hankey, than whom there can be no higher expert, has written an authoritative treatise. International Conferences are no novelties. Most of the great wars of modern times have led up to a gathering representative of the interests concerned; but the Conference as a standing method of disposing of international business is a product of the recent war. How the Conference developed from the meeting between Mr Asquith and M. Viviani at Calais on July 6, 1915, until the establishment of the Supreme War Council after the Italian defeat at Caporetto, and how this machinery, created by the war, inevitably became the nucleus of the Peace Conference which met in Paris in January 1919, is recounted in precise detail by Sir Maurice Hankey, whose

story constitutes an important contribution to the history of international relations.

'Eventually it was found most convenient that the important business of framing the conditions of the European peace should be conducted by four men, President Wilson, Mr Lloyd George, M. Clemenceau, and M. Orlando. The proceedings were quite informal and unhampered by rules and written procedure. These four men of wide and varied political experience were free to conduct the business in the best way they could discover. They were able to discuss questions in the greatest intimacy not only among themselves but with the heads of the States concerned. They all possessed in common the invaluable gift of humour, and many a time have I seen a difficult period tided over by some sparkle of wit or the timely interpolation of a good story. In the intimacy of this small circle personal resources were available which could not be used to the same extent in a larger and more formal gathering. An atmosphere of personal friendship and mutual respect was created in which the thorniest questions, when natural or other interests appeared to clash almost irreconcilably, could be adjusted. Looking back and reviewing the proceedings I am surprised not at the time taken to complete the German Treaty, which was much criticised at the time, but at the astonishing rapidity with which it was accomplished.'

There can be little doubt that the Conference has come to stay. The urgency, the complexity, the importance of international business is now such that it cannot always be left even to the most experienced diplomatists to discharge. Occasions arise from time to time which make it expedient that the leading statesmen of the great nations should meet one another and collaborate in the solution of their common problems. At such conjunctures it is essential to success that any statesman participating in the Conference should be in a position to gauge the extent to which his own fellow-countrymen will support him in any measure which he may propose, or in any proposal coming from another which he may accept, and that he should have the courage to commit his Government and his Country upon his own judgment. No international gathering in recent times has been a more conspicuous success than the recent