LOST

"Open covenants, openly arrived at" is an obsolete phrase in present European politics. The first meeting of the League of Nations, from which so many good tidings were to be spread around the world, has relegated that principle to the junk-heap of "new world idealism." The Council of the League, now under the control of the old school diplomats, is to conduct its meetings in secret, and withholds its minutes from the contaminating gaze of the public eye. One member only--Lord Robert Cecil--has protested, but to no avail.

The diplomats, however, are not to be too severely criticised. They are but playing the game as they have known it all their lives. Were America-participating in this first meeting, or had Mr. Wilson been a little more firm, matters might be different. But America is not as yet in a position to make suggestions; and Mr. Wilson, upon arriving in Paris with the Fourteen Points, entered (according to H. G. Wells' "Outline History of the World War") into the secrecy of the council-chamber, leaving Point One behind him at the door.

It is a disillusioned world which realizes that whether diplomacy or democracy is to blame, the fact remains that Point One is irretrievably lost, and that international faith has swung back to the old policy of jealously guarded silence.