al power. If trouble threatened in any
quarter, the council was to interfere at once and propose a settlement.
If this proved unsuccessful, a commercial boycott might be instituted
against the offending state: it was to be outlawed, and, as Wilson said,
"outlaws are not popular now." He regarded it as important that the
German colonies should not be divided among the Allies, but should be
given to the League, to be administered possibly through some smaller
power; for an institution, he felt, is always stabilized by the
possession of property.

Such were, broadly speaking, the ideas which seemed uppermost in the
President's mind when he landed in France, and which he was determined
should form the basis of the peace. He anticipated opposition, and he was
in a measure prepared to fight for his ideals. But he failed adequately
to appreciate the confusion which had fallen upon Europe, after four
years and more of war, and which made the need of a speedy settlement so
imperative. If he had gauged more accurately the difficulties of his task
he would have been more insistent upon the drafting of a quick
preliminary peace, embodying merely general articles, and leaving all the
details of the settlement to be worked out by experts at their leisure.
He might thus have utilized his popularity and influence when it was at
its height, and have avoided the loss of prestige which inevitably
followed upon the discussion of specific issues, when he was compelled
to take a stand opposed to the national aspirations of the various
states. Such a general preliminary treaty would have gone far towards
restoring a basis for the resumption of normal political and economic
activity; it would have permitted Wilson to return to the United States
as the unquestioned leader of the world; it would have blunted the edge
of senatorial opposition; and finally it might have enabled him to avoid
the controversies with Allied leaders which compelled him to surrender
much of his original programme in a series of compromises.

It is only fair to Wilson to remember that his original plan, in
November, was to secure such a preliminary treaty, which was to embody
merely the general lines of a territorial settlement and the disarmament
of the enemy. The delays which postponed the treaty were not entirely his
fault. Arriving in France on the 13th of December, he expected that the
Conference would convene on the seventeenth, the date originally set. But
days p