That position does undoubtedly resemble very closely Egypt’s status before the outbreak of the World War.  And Egypt’s status could hardly be termed independence.  Henceforward Great Britain has a strong hold on the Persian customs, the control of the waterways and carriage routes, the rights of railway construction, the oil-fields—­these were ours before—­the right to organize the army and direct the foreign policy of the kingdom.  And it may fairly be argued that this arrangement may prove a greater blessing to the Persians than the realization of their own ambitions.  That, at any rate, is my own personal belief, which for many years I have held and expressed.  None the less it runs diametrically counter to the letter and the spirit of Wilsonianism, which is now seen to be a wall high enough to keep out the dwarf states, but which the giants can easily clear at a bound.

Against this violation of the new humanitarian doctrine French publicists flared up.  The glaring character of the transgression revolted them, the plight of the Persians touched them, and the right of self-determination strongly appealed to them.  Was it not largely for the assertion of that right that all the Allied peoples had for five years been making unheard-of sacrifices?  What would become of the League of Nations if such secret and selfish doings were connived at?  In a word, French sympathy for the victims of British hegemony waxed as strong as the British fellow-feeling for the Syrians, who objected to be drawn into the orbit of the French.  Those sharp protests and earnest appeals, it may be noted, were the principal, perhaps the only, symptoms of tenderness for unprotected peoples which were evoked by the great ethical movement headed by the Conference.

The French further pointed out that the system of Mandates had been specially created for countries as backward and helpless as Persia was assumed to be, and that the only agency qualified to apply it was either the Supreme Council or the League of Nations.  The British press answered that no such humiliating assumption about the Shah’s people was being made, that the Foreign Office had distinctly disclaimed the intention of establishing a protectorate over Persia, who is, and will remain, a sovereign and independent state.  But these explanations failed to convince our indignant Allies.  They argued, from experience, that no trust was to be placed in those official assurances and euphemistic phrases which are generally belied by subsequent acts.[317] They further lamented that the long and secret negotiations which were going forward in Teheran while the Persian delegation was wearily and vainly waiting in Paris to be allowed to plead its country’s cause before the great world-dictators was not a good example of loyalty to the new cosmic legislation.  Had not Mr. Wilson proclaimed that peoples were no longer to be bartered and swapped as chattels?  Here the Italians and Rumanians chimed in, reminding their kinsmen that it was the