In respect of such criticisms I am continually being told by my quondam diplomatic colleagues that they quite agree, but that they could get nothing better; and, given the conditions under which they worked at Paris, they think that things might have been much worse. And this seems to be the line also of the American delegation, with the exception of some bolder younger spirits who broke off into open opposition. Of course, given these conditions, they could do no better. But that's just what they ought to have provided against. Every diplomatist knows, or ought to know, that the result of his negotiations will depend on two things; his success in interpreting to and impressing on his foreign surroundings the forces he represents whether they be ironclads or ideals; and his success in selecting such surroundings as will be most effectively impressed. It is mainly because they have not learnt the second part of this lesson that American diplomatists fail. It was a great discovery when we found after years of negotiation at Washington in which either nobody got any forrarder at all or we got altogether the worst of it, that it was only necessary to transfer the venue to The Hague or Paris or London, and American diplomacy collapsed. I am not going into detail, interesting though it might be. But I used to explain it to myself by analysing American diplomacy as an attitude of business instincts and moral ideals which felt itself absurd in the cold, courtly, and cynical atmosphere of diplomacy; so, instead of imposing its own rules and standards, it either became helpless or tried hurriedly to adapt and adjust itself. We have only to read the memoirs of American Ambassadors to see that it takes a Benjamin Franklin to realise that broadcloth and beaver are more effective at Court than gold lace and a feathered hat. For it is this and nothing more that explains how an American failed in the greatest political opportunity offered to mortal man in modern times. And if President Wilson, with all the trumps in his hands, could win so few tricks and left the table politically bankrupt, it may seem perhaps absurd to have expected anything from our liberal representatives, tied and bound abroad by the chains of their secret treaties, tethered and burdened at home by their dependence on a conservative clique and on an imperialist newspaper proprietor.