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 1921 REVIEWS OF BOOKS 293 in its positive and negative qualities, strikes a note different to the chapters which precede and follow it, and to congratulate the author on a brilliant presentation of a special case. Part iii, so far as one is able to check it, is quite admirable. It describes the manner in which the conference assembled, and how, when assembled, it developed and modified its machinery. The dealings of the conference with Poland, Germany, the Roumanians, and Bela Kun are, with the activities of the armistice commission and of the supreme economic council, described in chapter viii. The use of the word ' Anglo-Saxon ' on page 286 in speaking of Anglo-American coincidence of outlook is unfortunate, unhistorical, and irritating to American readers. Chapter ix furnishes an exhaustive examination, from the point of view of an inter- national lawyer, of the fidelity of allied statesmen in the terms both of the armistice convention and of the peace treaty to pre-armistice agree- ments. The point has been raised, among others, by Mr. Keynes, and it is good to have it technically treated, even if the author leaves the main point open. It is a criticism more fitly to be urged in a legal journal, but is it not doubtful whether the phrase ' any subsequent concessions and claims by the allies and the United States ' can bear the meaning which the author of this chapter gives it ? What, for instance, is intended by the word ' concessions ', with which ■ subsequent claims ' on the part of the allies are classed ? One last point in regard to the first volume. Any one familiar with the dominions is aware of the importance assigned in those countries to the part played by the Dominion representatives both in the conference and in the League of Nations scheme. The debates in the Canadian house of commons on the latter are sufficient indication of this tendency. The references in this book to the Dominion representatives are meagre. They are in one passage classed almost as obstructionists (see i. 259 and 269) with the statesmen of the smaller powers. The subject at least merits examination. An estimate would be welcome as to whether the significance of recent developments is constitu- tional or merely political. Perhaps a subsequent volume will contain this. Volume ii opens with a chapter describing the events immediately preceding the signature of the treaty and passes forthwith to one in which the truth about the origin of the League of Nations is published for the first time. In 1916 Lord Robert Cecil, then parliamentary under-secretary for foreign affairs, was turning his attention to the subject. Nothing has transpired to show that it was, as a practical project, a matter of study to any other statesmen before this date. There follows a pessimistic chapter on international labour at the conference, which clearly brings out the extent to which any organization embodying the opinion of international labour is constrained to deal in generalities. The general principles, or lack of principle, governing the allied demands on Germany are lucidly explained in the next chapter, and due weight is given to the influence upon the allied negotiators of considerations based on domestic politics. To future historians the figure presented in this connexion by the United States delegates at Paris must form a matter for speculation. It is a characteristic limitation of the present work that it is covered in a foot-note (see ii. 45). Yet to one section of American public opinion