In the second place, it was the sentiment of the Allies that this code should establish the right of the peoples' representatives, to be consulted on every government act that involves them, thus putting an end to secret diplomacy which has been the greatest temptation to statesmen in planning for war.

In the third place it was generally believed that there must be a Permanent International Court appointed by the League, divided into sections with personnel, forms of procedure, and regular sessions.

The Peace Conference.-The proceedings of the Peace Conference in Paris were secret: only brief statements were occasionally made for publication. The Five Great Powers-France, Great Britain, the United States, Italy, and Japan-especially the first three, determined its decisions. The plan of the European Allies was to decide at once on the terms of peace to be imposed on Germany, so that the world could return to normal conditions as soon as possible, famine be alleviated, and industries re-established.

President Wilson's plan was different. He wished to elaborate a plan for the League of Nations, before constructing the peace terms. He persuaded the Peace Conference to adopt this procedure, and returned to the United States with the draft of the Constitution of the League. During his absence of three weeks from Paris, the Peace Conference was able to attend to the intricate problems that must be settled before drafting the peace terms for Germany and before deciding the boundary disputes of the newly-freed races which were becoming so embittered as to threaten to create new wars in Central and Eastern Europe.

Meanwhile famine conditions and industrial unrest were becoming more acute in Germany, Poland, Austria, and the Balkans, and Bolshevist propaganda was taking full advantage of the terrible distress to bring on revolutionary movements. The Bolshevist army, under the leadership of German`and Austrian officers, was taking the offensive in every direction, and was being fitted out with German arms, ammunition, and accoutrements. The lack of any clear Russian policy, the invitation to meet Bolsheviki emissaries at Princes' Island, the refusal of the Peace Conference (due largely it is thought to American influence), to take the offensive against Bolshevist Russia, the delay in returning the Polish army in France to Poland, and the neglect of the heroic Czecho-Slovak army in Siberia allowed the Bolsheviki to develop unhampered their campaign to conquer the rest of Europe, beginning in the Baltic, the Ukraine, Galicia, Lithuania, Poland, and Hungary. It seemed as if at any moment the German government might collapse, leaving no official organization able to sign a treaty on her behalf. It seemed to become, toward the end of March a race with anarchy.

To understand the intricacies of the questions to be solved by the Peace Conference it will be necessary to review briefly the condition of each country involved in the peace settlement as it was before the war broke out, and also to consider the changes

due to the war, and to the aspirations of the various nations, cld and new.

The British Empire.

The British Isles had in 1911 a population of 46,029,249 (England and Wales 36,960,684; Scotland 4,747,167; Ireland 4,381,398). Their area is 121,633 sq. miles. The Indian Empire with its 315,156,396 people is administered almost entirely by British officials. There are over sixty administrative units in the empire scattered over the whole world. Of these the most important are Australia, India, Canada, Egypt, and the Union of South Africa.

The Imperial Parliament, with its House of Lords and its Commons, dates in its general form from the XIV century. The power of the Crown is purely nominal; the government is vested in Parliament to which the Cabinet is responsible. Selfadministration of so absolute a character has been granted to all dominions and dependencies except Egypt and India that they are in effect self-governing. The Union of South Africa, constituted in 1909, consists of the self-governing provinces of Cape of Good Hope, Natal, Transvaal, and Orange Free State with a general parliament.

In no part of the Empire was there imperial conscription or universal military training and the volunteer forces were hardly more than sufficient for police duty. England's fleet was the only substantial defense of the Empire.

Effects of the War on the British Empire. The effects have been two-fold: consolidation and larger freedom from centralized control. The splendid war record and loyalty to England of Canada, Australia, İndia, and South Africa led to an increased faith in the power and influence of the colonies in the imperial organization. Each Dominion was given a voice at the Peace Conference. Premier Hughes of Australia presented its claims to the possession of the German colonies of the Pacific. The South African Union claimed the greater part of the former German African colonies. The Peace Conference debated merely whether these two Dominions should be given these former German colonies absolutely or as mandatories of the League of Nations. This is the only territorial advantage accruing to the British Empire from the war.

Belgium.

Belgium is an hereditary representative constitutional monarchy. Its constitution was promulgated in 1831 after it had seceded from the Netherlands in 1830 to form an independent state under Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, elected king by the National Congress. The neutrality of the new state was guaranteed by the treaty of London of November 25, 1831, signed by Austria, Russia, France, Great Britain, and Prussia. The king, senate, and chamber jointly hold legislative power. Some senators (27) are chosen by indirect vote; most (93) are elected directly. The Chamber of Representatives is elected directly by proportional universal suffrage. Belgium has an area a little less than the State of Maryland, and a population

of 7,571,387, of which more than half speak only Flemish and less than half only French, while nearly a million speak both languages. The majority are Roman Catholics.

Belgium's claim at the Peace Conference was that she should be given absolute sovereignty and freedom from tutelage, by the abrogation of the Treaty of London by which her neutrality was guaranteed by other powers; that she should be given free access by way of the river Scheldt, to her great port of Antwerp, which is at present reached only across Dutch territory, and should therefore be given such territory or rights as would insure to her the free navigation of the Scheldt in time of war; that she should have her frontier rectified by the return of Dutch Limburg, which she had occupied between 1831 and 1839, and should have that part of the old duchy of Luxemburg which was assigned to Holland in 1831 and is now the independent Grand-Duchy. In fact she asked for what she believed should have rightly been given to her in 1830. She also demanded the return by Germany of all the art objects, cash, machinery, raw material, and manufactured goods (or their equivalent) stolen or destroyed by the Germans.

France.

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France has an area about twice as great as Colorado, with a pre-war population of 39,000,000, showing an increase of only about one million since 1886. Of this population, about 17,508,940 is urban, and 22,093,318 rural. level. The government has been democratic Republic ever since the overthrow of the Emperor Napoleon III. in 1870, at the end of the Franco-Prussian war. Paris has 2,888,110 inhabitants (1911) and two other cities-Marseille (550,619) and Lyons (523,796) have over a half million. The president is elected for seven years, by an absolute majority of the Senate and Chamber united in a National Assembly. He selects the Premier who, with his sanction, forms a cabinet which depends on a majority parliamentary support. The Senate is elected indirectly for nine years and the Chamber of Deputies is chosen directly by manhood suffrage, for four years.

France's claims at the Peace Conference fall mainly under three heads: (1) safety on her German frontier; (2) restitution of Alsace-Lorraine; (3) Economic reparation. She considered that her safety could be ensured only by making the Rhine the military, if not the political, boundary between France and Germany, and by forbidding Germany even to fortify the Rhine. Under economic reparation she demanded the use, if not the annexation, of the Saar Basin-a valley in Lorraine-with its valuable coal mines, not only as an equivalent to the coal mines of Lens, destroyed by Germany, but because the Saar region belonged to France before it was taken from her by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. She demanded also Allied supervision of German war factories, and a permanent Allied Military Commission.

Italy.

Italy is unique in the immensity of its coast line, which is 4,160 miles long, and in the nearness of every city to the sea.

Its area is almost exactly that of Nevada, and supports a population of 36,120,118, of which only about 80,000 are foreigners, and which is rapidly becoming homogeneous. Her manufacturing industries are mostly concentrated in the north, and nearly all the rest of the country is agricultural, even around the cities. The Monarchy is extremely democratic, though the Crown is hereditary and the Senators are appointed for life by the King. Manhood suffrage was established in 1912. The King is Victor Emanuel III. (since 1900), whose wife is the daughter of King Nicholas of Montenegro. Though Rome was taken in 1870 and the temporal power of the Pope abolished, complete unity was not considered as attained because certain Italian regions in the north were still in the hands of Austria. Ever since Italy gained her independence she has waited for the chance to obtain what she considers her right frontier line, of which she feels she was cheated by the treaty with Austria in 1866.

When Italy entered the war she aimed at securing for herself; (1) her unredeemed (irredenta) provinces; (2) enough of the coast line on the east side of the Adriatic to make her own west coast line safe from attack, (3) a protectorate of Albania, (4) a rich colonial field in the islands and on the Greek coast of Asia Minor. This claim is pure imperialism, as the Asia Minor coast and neighboring Dodecanese Islands, if assigned to any one of the Allies according to a referendum vote, would undoubtedly go to Greece. There is practically no Italian population. As for Albania, Italy's claim to the port of Avlona looks to protection of her own coast; otherwise Albania would be practically independent of Italy. A limited element in the cities of the Dalmatian coast is Italian, consisting mainly of descendants of the Venetian settlers of the Middle Ages. But taking the population as a whole, the Italians form about 3%; all the rest are Slavs. The purpose of the Italian claim was to make of the Adriatic an Italian lake by annexing not only the two only important ports-Trieste and Fiume-but also the principal islands. Italy's right to Trieste, if race is considered the dominant factor, is clear, as the majority of the inhabitants are Italians, even though Austria has brought in a large number of Slavs and German Austrians. Her right to the province of Gorizia, upon the basis of race, is less clear, for while Eastern Friuli and most of the Peninsula of Istria (except its eastern end) with the cities of Trieste, Pola, and Parenzo are predominantly Italian, in all its immediate neighborhood the population is Slav. Italy's desire was to obtain a natural boundary on the northeast, from the Brenner to the Julian Alps, and to eliminate any maritime rivalry on the Adriatic, that would be dangerous to her unprotected eastern coast. The important port of Fiume, considered to be a necessary outlet by the new Jugoslav state, has a population predominently Italian, but with suburbs and surrounding country almost entirely Slav.

The second part of "Unredeemed Italy" (Italia Irredenta) is what is popularly called the "Trentino," from its principal city, Trent, above the central part of north Italy, on the great highway from northern Europe through the Brenner pass and Austria. Here a difficult problem arises. The Trentino proper,

which we may call the Italian Tyrol, has a population unquestionably Italian; but the northern part (the southern part of Austrian Tyrol), with the City of Botzen, has a population largely Germanic. Unless this is assigned to Italy, as far as the Brenner pass, however, Italy will always be at the mercy of an enemy descending from the north. In ancient times this pass was always considered the frontier of Italy; and the question before the Peace Conference was whether possession of the mouth of the pass by Italy would be a strong assurance of future peace, so strong as to override the argument of race and self-determination. In the Peace Conference, the tension between Italy and the new Jugoslav State was so extreme as to lead to the fear of war at any moment on account of Italy's occupation of Slav territory which she considered should belong to her.

Former German Empire

The constitution of the German empire has been described in a previous chapter. Its area was about twice that of Colorado, and its population 67,872,000, with a rapid ratio of increase of almost 1.5%. Nearly two-thirds (42 millions) were in Prussia alone. Twenty-five states formed the empire, beside the “Reichsland" (Imperial province) of Alsace-Lorraine. There were four kingdoms: Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Wurtemberg; six grand duchies; five duchies; seven principalities; three free towns: Luebeck, Bremen and Hamburg, and the Imperial Province, Alsace-Lorraine.

The revolution at the close of the war by which all the rulers of the German federated states, as well as the emperor, lost their authority, turned Germany into a republic ruled by the party called Majority-Socialists, with a General Assembly meeting at Weimar, elected by universal suffrage. The territorial losses of Germany to be finally settled in the Treaty of Peace, are treated under France, Poland, and Denmark, etc. Revolutionary movements are causing constant change with the inroads of Bolshevism; and the South-especially Bavaria, is splitting away from Prussia.

Denmark.

In the history of the predatory wars of Prussia the vicious attack on Denmark in 1864 by Prussia and Austria is the most despicable. The two Danish border provinces of Schleswig and Holstein were taken over by these powers, but Prussia seized Austria's share in 1866. The population was promised a chance to vote whether or no it wished to be returned to Denmark, but this German promise was broken. The province was absolutely necessary to the Pan-German scheme, because in it was to be the Kiel Canal, key to Germany's sea-power and to her plan for attacking England. The return of part of Schleswig to Denmark and the internationalization of the Kiel Canal would be a partial return to the status of 1864, but the dominant German blood in Southern Schleswig and Holstein entitles them to remain German, if race alone is to be the deciding factor. The Peace Treaty provides for a referendum popular vote in three zones, which shall determine how much territory shall be restored to Denmark.