7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored, without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations.  No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another.  Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.

The evacuation of Belgium will follow the military victories of the United States and her associates.  The restoration of Belgium will be difficult to effect.  It implies relief to her suffering and starving people, the return of the many exiles to Belgium, the erection of new homes for them, the reorganization of industry and transportation, and the repair and rebuilding of her historic edifices.  Where will the funds come from for such work?  Germany, the aggressor, surely should bear a part or all of the cost.

8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly fifty years, should be righted, in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.

Here the President urges the same treatment for the occupied lands of northern France as for those of Belgium.  The devastated lands must be reclaimed, the inhabitants cared for, and adequate means provided by which they can earn a livelihood.  Further, he advises the return of Alsace-Lorraine to France.  Such action not only will right the wrong done to France in 1871, but also it will take from Germany much of the iron-producing areas which have made it possible for her to prepare and carry on this war, and which might permit her to get ready for a yet more dreadful war in the future.

9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.

We have seen how a considerable area inhabited by Italians was not freed from Austrian rule when the Italian kingdom was founded.  This territory, called Italia Irredenta (unredeemed Italy), and this population, by its own desire and by natural right, belong to Italy and should be brought within the nation.

10. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.

Within the Austro-Hungarian boundaries are several nationalities which have been subjected to the oppressive rule of peoples different from themselves.  Their attempts to obtain home rule or independence have been crushed.  America now wishes to secure for these peoples the opportunity to establish governments for themselves.  As we have already seen, our country in 1918 formally recognized the independence of one of these peoples—­the Czecho-Slovaks, or inhabitants of Bohemia and neighboring districts.  Moreover, in a note to Austria-Hungary, October 18, 1918, President Wilson stated that conditions had changed since January 8, and intimated that both the Czecho-Slovaks and the Jugo-Slavs should be given independence.