But the assumptions on which it
gave this undertaking were that it would not be used to upset past
compacts, but would be reserved for future settlements; that even had it
been otherwise the maxims in question should be deemed relevant in
Italy's case only if applied impartially to all states, and that the
entire work of reorganization should rest on this ethical foundation. A
regime of exceptions, with privileged and unprivileged nations, would
obviously render the scheme futile and inacceptable. Yet this was the
system that was actually being introduced. If secret treaties were to be
abrogated, then let the convention between Japan and China be also put
out of court and the dispute between them adjudicated upon its merits.
If the Fourteen Points are binding, let the freedom of the seas be
proclaimed. If equal rights are to be conferred upon all states, let the
Monroe Doctrine be repealed. If disarmament is to become a reality, let
Britain and America cease to build warships. Suppose for a moment that
to-morrow Brazil or Chile were to complain of the conduct of the United
States, the League of Nations, in whose name Mr. Wilson speaks, would be
hindered by the Monroe Doctrine from intervening, whereas Britain and
the United States in analogous conditions may intermeddle in the affairs
of any of the lesser states. When Ireland or Egypt or India uplifts its
voice against Britain, it is but a voice in the desert which awakens no
echo. If Fiume were inhabited by American citizens who, with a like
claim to be considered a separate entity, asked to be allowed to live
under the Stars and Stripes, what would President Wilson's attitude be
then? Would he turn a deaf ear to their prayer? Surely not. Why, in the
case of Italy, does he not do as he would be done by? What it all comes
to is that the new ordering under the flag of equality is to consist of
superior and inferior nations, of which the former, who speak English,
are to possess unlimited power over the latter, to decide what is good
for them and what is bad, what is licit and what is forbidden. And
against their fiat there is to be no appeal. In a word, it is to be the
hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon race.

It is worth noting that Signor Orlando's arguments were all derived from
the merits of the case, not from the terms or the force of the London
Treaty. Fiume, he said, had besought Italy to incorporate it, and had
made this request before the armistice, at a moment when it