which links the city of Ghent with the Scheldt; and the suppression of the checks and hindrances to Belgium’s free communications with her hinterland—­i.e., the basins of the Meuse and the Rhine.  Prom every point of view, including that of international law, the claims made were at once modest and grounded.  But the Supreme Council had no time to devote to such subsidiary matters, and, like more momentous issues, they were adjourned.

The Belgian delegation did not ask that Holland’s territory should be curtailed.  On the contrary, they would have welcomed its increase by the addition of territory inhabited by people of her own idiom, under German sway.[137] But the Dutch demurred, as Denmark had done in the matter of the third Schleswig zone, for fear of offending Germany.  And the Supreme Council acquiesced in the refusal.  Again, when issues were under discussion that turned upon the Rhine country and affected Belgian interests, her delegates were never consulted.  They were systematically ignored by the Conference.  When the capital of the League of Nations was to be chosen, their hopes that Brussels would be deemed worthy of the honor were blasted by President Wilson himself.  One of the American delegates informed a foreign colleague “that the capital of the League must be situate in a tranquil country, must have a steady, settled population and a really good climate.”  “A good climate?” asked a continental statesman.  “Then why not choose Monte Carlo?”

But the decision in favor of Geneva was sent by courier from Switzerland ready made to President Wilson.  The chief grounds which lent color to the belief that religious bias played a larger part in the Conference’s decisions than was apparent were the following:  It was from Geneva that the spirit of religious and political liberty first went forth to be incarnated among the various nations of the world.  It is to John Calvin, rather than to Martin Luther, that the birth of the Scotch Covenanters and of English Puritanism is traceable.  Hence Geneva is the parent of New England.  So, too, it was Rousseau—­a true child of Calvin—­who was the author of America’s Declaration of Independence.  Again, one of the first pacifists and advocates of international arbitration was born in Geneva.  John Knox sat for two years at the feet of Calvin.  Consequently the Puritan Revolution, the French Revolution, and the American Revolution all had their springs in Geneva.

These were the considerations which weighed with President Wilson when he refused to fix his choice on Brussels.  In vain the Belgians argued and pleaded, urging that if the Conference were to vote for London, Washington, or Paris, they would receive the announcement with respectful acquiescence, but that among the lesser states they conceived that their country’s claims were the best grounded.  To the Americans who objected that Switzerland’s mountains and lakes, being free from hateful war memories, offer more fitting surroundings for the capital of the League of Peace than Brussels, where vestiges of the odious struggle will long survive, they answered that they could only regret that Belgium’s resistance to the lawless invaders should be taken to disqualify her for the honor.