The fact that no decision as to Siberia and Vladivostok was arrived at for weeks, and that when it was arrived at it was an unsatisfactory one, was not the fault of the British, nor of the French, nor of the Italian, nor yet of the Japanese Government. We have heard a good deal at times about "wait and see"; but Mr. Asquith is a very Rupert compared to the Autocrat reigning in the White House in 1918. Had Japan been given a free hand, with the full moral support of the Allies, and with some financial support and support in the shape of certain forms of war material, Bolshevism might have been stamped out even before the Central Powers were brought to their knees in 1918. It would surely be to the interest of the United States, as it would undoubtedly be to the interest of Canada and Australasia, that the swelling millions peopling eastern Asia should be encouraged to expand westwards into the rich but sparsely populated regions lying north of Mongolia, rather than that they should be seeking to expand across the Pacific Ocean. As it was, Japan received scanty encouragement, and only received it after procrastination had been developed to the very utmost. What occurred in connection with Siberia and Vladivostok on that occasion provided an unpleasant foretaste of the pathetic performance which was to go on for months and months in the following year at Versailles. It moreover foreshadowed and furthered that untoward extension of Bolshevism far and wide which has since taken place. Some of us would willingly have made shift to get on without a League of Nations could we have been saved from the disastrous consequence of action on the part of civilization in Siberia in 1918 having been so unjustifiably delayed, and its having taken so perfunctory a form. CHAPTER XVI CATERING FOR THE ALLIES