the point of separating, and that at best their unanimity was often of the verbal order, failing to take root in identity of views.  To those who would fain predicate political tact or statesmanship of the men who thus undertook to set human progress on a new and ethical basis, the story of these bickerings, hasty improvisations, and amazing compromises is distressing.  The incertitude and suspense that resulted were disconcerting.  Nobody ever knew what was coming.  A subcommission might deliver a reasoned judgment on the question submitted to it, and this might be unanimously confirmed by the commission, but the Four or Three or Two or even One could not merely quash the report, but also reverse the practical consequences that followed.  This was done over and over again.

And there were other performances still more amazing.  When, for example, the Polish problem became so pressing that it could not be safely postponed any longer, the first delegates were at their wits’ ends.  Unable to agree on any of the solutions mooted, they conceived the idea of obtaining further data and a lead from a special commission.  The commission was accordingly appointed.  Among its members were Sir Esme Howard, who has since become Ambassador in Rome, the American General Kernan, and M. Noulens, the ex-Ambassador of France in Petrograd.  These envoys and their colleagues set out for Poland to study the problem on the spot.  They exerted themselves to the utmost to gather data for a serious judgment, and returned to Paris after a sojourn of some two months, legitimately proud of the copious and well-sifted results of their research.  And then they waited.  Days passed and weeks, but nobody took the slightest interest in the envoys.  They were ignored.  At last the chief of the commission, M. Noulens, taking the initiative, wrote direct to M. Clemenceau, informing him that the task intrusted to him and his colleagues had been achieved, and requesting to be permitted to make their report to the Conference.  The reply was an order dissolving the commission unheard.

Once when the relations between Messrs. Wilson and Lloyd George were somewhat spiced by antagonism of purpose and incompatibility of methods, a political friend of the latter urged him to make a firm stand.  But the British Premier, feeling, perhaps, that there were too many unascertained elements in the matter, or identifying the President with the United States, drew back.  More than once, too, when a certain delegate was stating his case with incisive emphasis Mr. Wilson, who was listening with attention and in silence, would suddenly ask, “Is this an ultimatum?” The American President himself never shrank from presenting an ultimatum when sure of his ground and morally certain of victory.  On one such occasion a proposal had been made to Mr. Lloyd George, who approved it whole-heartedly.  But it failed to receive the placet of the American statesman.  Thereupon the British Premier