ho remain at home will not
be masters in their own house, for the doors will be open to various
foreign commissions.

The assumption upon which the Treaty-framers proceeded is that the
abominations committed by the German military and civil authorities were
constructively the work of the entire nation, for whose reformation
within a measurable period hope is vain. This view predominated among
the ruling classes of the Entente peoples with few exceptions. If it be
correct, it seems superfluous to constrain the enemy to enter the league
of law-abiding nations, which is to be cemented only by voluntary
adherence and by genuine attachment to liberty, right, and justice.
Hence the Covenant, by being inserted in the Peace Treaty, necessarily
lost its value as an eirenicon, and became subsequent to that
instrument, and seems likely to be used as an anti-German safeguard. But
even then its efficacy is doubtful, and manifestly so; otherwise the
reformers, who at the start set out to abolish alliances as recognized
causes of war, would not have ended by setting up a new Triple
Alliance, which involves military, naval, and aerial establishments, and
the corresponding financial burdens inseparable from these. An alliance
of this character, whatever one may think of its economic and financial
aspects, runs counter to the spirit of the Covenant, but was an obvious
corollary of the Allies' attitude as mirrored in the Treaty. And the
spirit of the Treaty destroys the letter of the Covenant. For the world
is there implicitly divided into two camps--the friends and the enemies
of liberty, right, and justice; and the main functions of the League as
narrowed by the Treaty will be to hinder or defeat the machinations of
the enemies. Moreover, the deliberate concessions made by the Conference
to such agencies of the old ordering as the grouping of two or three
Powers into defensive alliances bids fair to be extended in time. For
the stress of circumstance is stronger than the will of man. At this
rate the last state may be worse than the first.

The world situation, thus formally modified, remained essentially
unchanged, and will so endure until other forces are released. The
League of Nations forfeited its ideal character under the pressure of
national interests, and became a coalition of victors against the
vanquished. By the insertion of the Covenant in the Treaty the former
became a means for the execution of the latter. For even Mr. Wi