Consequently they were free to hold all that was theirs, however doubtful their title; nay, they were besought to accept a good deal more under the mandatory system, which was molded on their own methods of governance.  It was especially taken for granted that the architects would be called to contribute naught to the new structure but their ideas, and that they need renounce none of their possessions, however shady its origin, however galling to the population its retention.  It was in deference to this implicit doctrine that President Wilson withdrew without protest or discussion his demand for the freedom of the seas, on which he had been wont to lay such stress.

Another way of putting the matter is this.  The principal aim of the Conference was to create conditions favorable to the progress of civilization on new lines.  And the seed-bearers of true, as distinguished from spurious, civilization and culture being the Anglo-Saxons, it is the realization of their broad conceptions, the furtherance of their beneficent strivings, that are most conducive to that ulterior aim.  The men of this race in the widest sense of the term are, therefore, so to say, independent ends in themselves, whereas the other peoples are to be utilized as means.  Hence the difference of treatment meted out to the two categories.  In the latter were implicitly included Italy and Russia.  Unquestionably the influence of Anglo-Saxondom is eminently beneficial.  It tends to bring the rights and the dignity as well as the duties of humanity into broad day.  The farther it extends by natural growth, therefore, the better for the human race.  The Anglo-Saxon mode of administering colonies, for instance, is exemplary, and for this reason was deemed worthy to receive the hall-mark of the Conference as one of the institutions of the future League.  But even benefits may be transformed into evils if imposed by force.

That, in brief, would seem to be the clue—­one can hardly speak of any systematic conception—­to the unordered improvisations and incongruous decisions of the Conference.

I am not now concerned to discuss whether this unformulated maxim, which had strong roots that may not always have reached the realm of consciousness, calls for approval as an instrument of ethico-political progress or connotes an impoverishment of the aims originally propounded by Mr. Wilson.  Excellent reasons may be assigned why the two English-speaking statesmen proceeded without deliberation on these lines and no other.  The matter might have been raised to a higher plane, but for that the delegates were not prepared.  All that one need retain at present is the orientation of the Supreme Council, inasmuch as it imparts a sort of relative unity to seemingly heterogeneous acts.  Thus, although the conditions of the Peace Treaty in many respects ran directly counter to the provisions of the Covenant, none the less the ultimate tendency of both was to converge in a distant point, which, when clearly discerned,