Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/142



IX. HOPES FOR IMPROVEMENT DEFERRED
THE world has not yet recovered from the sur- prise and disillusionment which overcame it when the secret treaties of the war became known and when it became evident that they would be made the basis of the Treaty of Peace. The secrecy of the procedure of the Peace Conference which had been heralded as an assembly of the peoples for carrying out and making permanent those great principles for which men had grimly and silently suffered and died and which had been eloquently voiced by the American President seemed to be so complete a return to the old meth- ods of diplomacy that from the day when the muzzle was clamped on, public faith in the con- ference and its results was shaken. The motives of the men who made this decision were probably good. It was their desire that the work should be rapidly accomplished and should not be con- fused by divided counsels. But again the results of the secret method are hardly apt to increase confidence in its usefulness as a procedure for