The world has not yet recovered from the surprise 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 methods of diplomacy that from the day when the muzzle was clamped on, public faith in the conference 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 confused by divided counsels. But again the results of the secret method are hardly apt to increase confidence in its usefulness as a procedure for dealing with the affairs of the peoples of the world in such a manner as to place them upon a sound and lasting foundation. The solemn document which was prepared for the information of the newspaper men on the decision of the peace conference to enforce secrecy, did not satisfy any one. To the public there seemed to be no larger principle at issue than that, on this occasion if ever, open covenants should be openly arrived at, and it was feared that if the peace conference did not base its action upon an appeal to public opinion, no adequate solution could be found at all. When the treaty itself had been framed, it was sedulously kept secret until distributed by the French paper _Bonsoir_. The deliberations of the Council of Five were secret beyond all precedents in public action. No secretaries were admitted and no official minutes were kept, nor were there communications to the public through the press. Doctor Dillon’s description of the Five as “a gang of benevolent conspirators, ignoring history and expertship, shutting themselves up in a room and talking disconnectedly,” unfortunately appears not entirely untrue; particularly as to the ignoring of history and expertship, which was quite patent, although from the nature of things we cannot exactly know how disconnectedly the Five talked. Unfortunately, after the war the use of secret diplomatic policy has continued without noticeable diminution. The details of certain situations make one feel as if we are after all only a generation removed from the eighteenth century. These matters are so recent and still so controversial that I do not desire to enter upon them in any detail.