Discarding entirely the Wilsonian principles as the basis for peace, Premier Clemenceau told the Chamber of Deputies that he was still a partisan of the “balance of power” to be maintained by alliances, and that if the nations banded against Germany had been allies in 1914 Germany would not have dared to attack France. He admitted frankly that he could not discuss with the Chamber the Government’s peace ideas because he had a maximum and a minimum program and was going into the conference to get for France all he could. This was an answer--a gauntlet of defiance thrown down, if you will--to Mr. Wilson’s Manchester speech four days earlier, when the American President declared that the “balance of power” was an exploded theory, that the United States would enter into no alliance which was not an alliance of all nations for common good, and that the creation of a new world required new methods of making peace. M. Clemenceau did not have to appeal to the people. As the principal artisan of victory, who had deserved well of the republic, he was the national hero. Despite wide-spread dissatisfaction among the politicians over matters of internal administration, the people were so united in their demand for a punitive peace, which “the Tiger” embodied, that no party leader dared contest his position. It was otherwise in England. Mr. Lloyd George had come into power during the war by deserting his old chief, Premier Asquith, and forming a coalition cabinet, dependent upon a combined Liberal and Conservative parliamentary majority. The coalition had been a war measure, born of the feeling that the Asquith Government had been making a mess of the conduct of the war, despite Mr. Asquith’s inclusion in his cabinet of Conservatives and Laborites. Immediately the war was over, it was necessary to go to the country for a new parliament. For a British delegation could not have represented Great Britain adequately in the Peace Conference with Parliament in so confused a state as to party lines. By common agreement Parliament was dissolved on November 25, and December 14 was fixed as polling-day. Mr. Lloyd George, Mr. Bonar Law, and Mr. Barnes, representing the three parties, decided to stand together and ask the country to return Coalition members at the General Election. The Labor Party, however, did not agree with Mr. Barnes. They demanded a peace of justice, not a peace of revenge. A group of Liberals, headed by Mr. Asquith, decided to put candidates in the field, in opposition to the Coalition. The British electorate was asked to choose between two programs for the Peace Conference: a victor’s peace, which was supported by the Conservatives and Coalition Liberals; and a Wilsonian peace, which was supported by the Independent Liberals and the Laborites.