The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-11-05


 them or to blame them for evil inten- tions which are not In their hearts.
 What are you going to do about 1t? Each of us lives encased in his own past. Auguste Comte said that we live dead mems lives and 1t is true.
 We are encased by the past which holds us In it's grip, and spurs us forward to new efforts. Neither an Englishman, nor l. nor anyone will cast off his historical way of seeing things and of thinking because he has contracted a temporary alliance with a foreign country.
 I had to do with these difficulties during the war. Take unity of com mand. Unity of command was achieved by several stages. Every body did his bit. But the difficulty of bringing unity of command into being was much less than the diffi- culty of making 1t work. and that be- cause of the different states of mind I have just mentioned.
 The peace conference has only in- Her,ted states of mind from the varl- eus conferences of Versailles and from the meetings which preceded It.
 How can a man be expected to re- Nounce his past when he Is sacrific- ing the blood of his countrymen to uphold 1t?
 Men retain their virtues and their saults together. You must take them As they are They are what they are. sghey have a past as we have past. .As far as l am concerned, merely be- cause they differ from me even on very serious questions. I do not feel called upon to break with them as has been suggested.
 Thsre is the master difficulty. One could Hst break off or only in such manner that public opinion would im- mediately and unanimously lay the blame on those whro broke off.
 It Is said that when one Is French, the right thing Is to say, T denand," and if the others refuse, to break; It was also said, "The right thing is to go before Parliament"
 fine reception I should have had and how right Parliament would have been to receive me i'll.
 There should be no sd- ",se at the resistance we have encountered. The one said or thought, T am English: the other thought. T am American, Each had as much right to say so as we had to say wo are French. Some times It is true. they made me suffer cruelty. But such discussions must be entered Into not with the idea oi breaking off. or smashing the serving tables and the china as was Na7o- Icons wont, but with the idea of mak- ing ones self understood.
 Made Concessions
 That is why those who had the re- sponsibility. and therefore the at thority, gradually made such conces- sions as were necessary to final agreement. That is why the recon1- mendations of conmisslons-som oi
 tr. reaching unanimity-were sometimes brushed aside. France. I have the right to recall 1t. almost always sup ported the opinions of the experts. At the same time no country did more than France to pave the way for the necessary agreements. Technical preparations, political unanimity, these were the two poles between which the conference reyoived. There were deviations from one to the other. The straight line was not always fol- lowed. Let him who could have done better, cast the first stone! The truth is that on the one hand the es- sential factors were studied with care not to be found in any of the great congress of history, and on the other that the decisions based there- on, when debated were dominated by a spirit of harmony inherited by peace from war-that the sacrifices made were honorable concessions to the common purpose. On the other hand. the commissions laborious workshops where the materials were produced and stored; on-the other. the Big Four"--a mysterious power used, to scare popular credulity and who only exercised, however the legal ou- thority with which the nations had invested them. Thereris the confer ence of Paris.
 For the convenience of contro- veisy the story was widely circulated Of the most formidable treaty In his- tory hurriedly improvised and thrown together by four fallible and iIl-in- formed men. closeted, In dark room. imposing upon the world their whim as law. The time has come to meet this fable with the facts. The treaty was studied. prepared and discussed for six long months by 5s technical commissions on which sat the foremost specialists of each coun- try which held 1.646 meetings Tho conclusions of those commissions, ! verified by 26 local Investigations. were discussed from January 10 to June 2S by three bodies-the ecoun- i ell of ministers of foreign 9ffairs, | which held 30 meetings; the <fAhncit of 10, which held 72 meetins{S and the council of four, which held t45 meetings These three counciis also gave hearings to the chairmen of the l technical commissions, and all the l representatives of allied or neutral countries interested Finally: when | at the beginning of May, the texts | were settled upon. the cabinets of | the -ariouss powers were called Into | consultation.
 Orixtn of Treaty
 Su ,h were the general conditions or the work of the conference. come | now to the conditions in which Its decisions were arrived at, that Is O | say to the very origin of this un- rrecedented treaty which. after 52 months or war, restored peace to the world
 The conference deprived no one of the right of being heard. All the i countries represented. no matter how small, participated in the labors of the commissions. either as members or as witnesses All were heard by l the great powers. and the number of these hearings exceeds 300. But the direction of the work remained 1 in the hands of those who had won the war. It was thus that on Jam wary 12, 1919, the body known as l The council of 10 met: 1t was com losed of the heads of governments and ministers of foreign affairs of | the United States, the British empire. France. Italy and Japan, Th& coun- l cil sat twice daily from January | 12 to March 24, dealing both with the | peace and with such urgent problems