A great step towards peace may be made by admitting at once all ex-enemy States into the League of Nations.  Among the States of European civilization millions of persons are unrepresented in the League of Nations:  the United States, who has not wished to adhere to it after the Treaty of Versailles sanctioned violence; Russia, who has not been able to join owing to her difficult position; Germany, Hungary, Austria and Bulgaria, who have not been permitted to join; the Turks, etc.  The League of Nations was a magnificent conception in which I have had faith, and which I have regarded with sympathy.  But a formidable mistake has deprived it of all prestige.  Clauses 5 and 10 of its originating constitution and the exclusion of the defeated have given it at once the character of a kind of Holy Alliance of the conquerors established to regulate the incredible relations which the treaties have created between conquerors and conquered.  Wilson had already committed the mistake of founding the League of Nations without first defining the nations and leaving to chance the resources of the beaten peoples and their populations.  The day, however, on which all the peoples are represented in the League, the United States, without approving the treaties of Versailles, St. Germain or Trianon, etc., will feel the need of abandoning their isolation, which is harmful for them and places them in a position of inferiority.  And the day when all the peoples of the world are represented, and accept reciprocal pledges of international solidarity, a great step will have been taken.

As things stand, the organism of the Reparations Commission, established by Schedule 2 of Part VIII of the Treaty of Versailles, is an absurd union of the conquerors (no longer allies, but reunited solely in a kind of bankruptcy procedure), who interpret the treaty in their own fashion, and can even modify the laws and regulations in the conquered countries.  The existence of such an institution among civilized peoples ought to be an impossibility.  Its powers must be transferred to the League of Nations in such a manner as to provide guarantees for the victors, but guarantees also for the conquered.  The suppression of the Reparations Commission becomes, therefore, a fundamental necessity.

2.—­THE REVISION OF THE TREATIES

When the public, and especially in the United States and Great Britain, become convinced that the spirit of peace can only prevail by means of an honest revision of the treaties the difficulties will be easily eliminated.  But one cannot merely speak of a simple revision; it would be a cure worse than the evil.  During the tempest one cannot abandon the storm-beaten ship and cross over to a safer vessel.  It is necessary to return into harbour and make the transhipment where calm, or relative calm at any rate, reigns.

Inasmuch as Europe is out of equilibrium, a settlement, even of a bad kind, cannot be arrived at off-hand.  To cast down the present political scaffolding without having built anything would be an error.  Perhaps here the method that will prove most efficacious is to entrust the League of Nations with the task of arriving at a revision.  When the League of Nations is charged with this work the various governments will send their best politicians, and the discussion will be able to assume a realizable character.