To this dwarfing parliamentary view of world-policy Mr. Lloyd George likewise fell a victim. But his fault was not so glaring. For it should in fairness be remembered that it was not he who first preached the advent of the millennium. He had only given it a tardy and cold assent, qualified by an occasional sally of keen pleasantry. Down to the last moment, as we saw, he not only was unaware that the Covenant would be inserted in the Peace Treaty, but he was strongly of the opinion, as indeed were M. Pichon and others, that the two instruments were incompatible. He also apparently inclined to the belief that spiritual and moral agencies, if not wholly impotent to bring about the requisite changes in the politico-social world, could not effect the transformation for a long while to come, and that in the interval it behooved the governments to fall back upon the old system of so-called equilibrium, which, after Germany's collapse, meant an informal kind of Anglo-Saxon overlordship of the world and a _pax Britannica_ in Europe. As for his action at the Conference, in so far as it did not directly affect the well-being of the British Empire, which was his first and main care, one might describe it as one of general agreement with Mr. Wilson. He actually threw it into that formula when he said that whenever the interests of the British Empire permitted he would like to find himself at one with the United States. It was on that occasion that the person addressed warned him against identifying the President with the people of the United States.