One cannot, but suspect M. Clemenceau of some tinge of irony when he closed the proceedings in the Salle de VHorloge with the words "So peace enters into force immediately." Half Europe is still plunged in the dreadfullest of all wars, a civil one. Agents of revolution are penetrating deep inva Asia; and while Japan hurries to bar the door to the Pacific there is no saying when Great Britain may find herself involved in heavy fighting in Persia, Mesopotamia ani India. Turkey still waits to know what terms are to be imposed on her, and the forces of disaffection gather strength within her while she waits. Finally, it cannot be said that the world has that certitude of Germany's powerlessness, still less of her repentance, which it desires. She was disappointed in her hope that America's rejection of the Treaty meant discord. among the Allies. But her wrigglings and evasions up to the very last have an ill look. Moreover she has got off extra ordinarily lightly. When one thinks, not only of the terms she would have imposed if victorious, but of the comparatively slender repayment she has to make for the enormous damage she did, one cannot help feeling that direct encouragement has been given her to start again as soon as she can. The bright side of things is that the Allies, compelled by the temporary dropping out of America to readjust their outlook on European pro~ blems, appear to have done so wita despatch and fertility of invention and in the Adriatic at least the outlook has lightened materially.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.