ed States
had been posing for three years as the champion of neutral rights; the
point of view of Washington had been that there was a great principle at
stake. If such a principle were involved, it was certainly present in
just the same degree after the United States became belligerent as in
the days when we were neutrals. The lofty ideals by which the
Administration had professed to be guided should have still controlled
its actions; the mere fact that we, as a belligerent, could obtain
certain advantages would hardly have justified a great and high-minded
nation in abandoning its principles. Yet abandon them we did from the
day that we declared war. We became just as remorseless in disregarding
the rights of small states as Great Britain--according to our numerous
blockade notes--had been. Possibly, therefore, Mr. Balfour's mirth was
not merely sympathetic or humorous; it perhaps echoed his discovery that
our position for three years had really been nothing but a sham; that
the State Department had been forcing points in which it did not really
believe, or in which it did not believe when American interests were
involved. At any rate, this ending of our long argument with Great
Britain was a splendid justification for Page; his contention had always
been that the preservation of civilization was more important than the
technicalities of the international lawyers. And now the Wilson
Administration, by throwing into the waste basket all the finespun
theories with which it had been embarrassing the Allied cause since
August 4, 1914, accepted--and accepted joyously--his point of view.

II

One of the first things which Mr. Balfour did, on his arrival in
Washington, was personally to explain to President Wilson about the
so-called "secret treaties." The "secret treaty" that especially preyed
upon Mr. Wilson's mind, and which led to a famous episode at the
Versailles Conference, was that which had been made with Italy in 1915,
as consideration for Italy's participation in the war. Mr. Balfour, in
telling the President of these territorial arrangements with Italy,
naturally did not criticise his ally, but it was evident that he
regarded the matter as something about which the United States should be
informed.

"This is the sort of thing you have to do when you are engaged in a
war," he explained, and then he gave Mr. Wilson the details.

Probably the most important information which Mr. Balfour and the French
and Ita