Soon after the outburst of joy with which the ingathering of the fruits of France’s victory was celebrated, clouds unexpectedly drifted athwart the cerulean blue of the political horizon, and dark shadows were flung across the Allied countries.  The second-and third-class nations fell out with the first-class Powers.  Italy, for example, whose population is almost equal to that of her French sister, demanded compensation for the vast additions that were being made to France’s extensive possessions.  The grounds alleged were many.  Compensation had been promised by the secret treaty.  The need for it was reinforced by the rejection of Italy’s claims in the Adriatic.  The Italian people required, desired, and deserved a fair and fitting field for legitimate expansion.  They are as numerous as the French, and have a large annual surplus population, which has to hew wood and draw water for foreign peoples.  They are enterprising, industrious, thrifty, and hard workers.  Their country lacks some of the necessaries of material prosperity, such as coal, iron, and cotton.  Why should it not receive a territory rich in some of these products?  Why should a large contingent of Italy’s population have to go to the colonies of Spain, France, and Britain or to South American republics for a livelihood?  The Italian press asked whether the Supreme Council was bent on fulfilling the Gospel dictum, “Whosoever hath, to him shall be given....”

One of the first demands made by Italy was for the port and town of Djibouti, which is under French sway.  It was rejected, curtly and emphatically.  Other requests elicited plausible explanations why they could not be complied with.  In a word, Italy was treated as a poor and importunate relation, and was asked to console herself with the reflection that she was working in the vineyard of idealism.  In vain eminent publicists in Rome, Turin, and Milan pleaded their country’s cause.  Adopting the principle which Mr. Wilson had applied to France and Britain, they affirmed that even before the war France, with a larger population and fewer possessions, had shown that she was incapable of discharging the functions which she had voluntarily taken upon herself.  Tunis, they alleged, owed its growth and thriving condition to Italian emigrants.  With all the fresh additions to her territories, the population of the Republic would be utterly inadequate to the task.  To the Supreme Council this line of reasoning was distinctly unpalatable.  Nor did the Italians further their cause when, by way of giving emphatic point to their reasoning, their press quoted that eminent Frenchman, M. d’Estournelles de Constant, who wrote at that very moment:  “France has too many colonies already—­far more in Asia, in Africa, in America, in Oceania than she can fructify.  In this way she is immobilizing territories, continents, peoples, which nominally she takes over.  And it is childish and imprudent to take barren possession of them, when other states allege their power to utilize