It should be borne in mind that, at the time that this document was placed in my hands, the plan of General Smuts for a League of Nations had, as I have said, been printed in the press and in pamphlet form and had been given wide publicity. In the Smuts plan, which gave first place to the system of mandates, appeared the declaration that the League of Nations was to acquire the mandated territories as "the heir of the Empires." This clever and attractive phrase caught the fancy of the President, as was evident from his frequent repetition and approval of it in discussing mandates under the League. Just as General Smuts had adopted the President's "self-determination," Mr. Wilson seized upon the Smuts idea with avidity and incorporated it in his plan. It unquestionably had a decided influence upon his conception of the right way to dispose of the colonial possessions of Germany and of the proper relation of the newly created European states to the League of Nations. As an example of the way in which President Wilson understood and applied General Smuts's phrase to the new states, I quote the following from the "Supplementary Agreements" forming part of the first printed draft of the President's Covenant, but which I believe were added to the typewritten draft after the President had examined the plan of the South African statesman: "As successor to the Empires, the League of Nations is empowered, directly and without right of delegation, to watch over the relations _inter se_ of all new independent states arising or created out of the Empires, and shall assume and fulfill the duty of conciliating and composing differences between them with a view to the maintenance of settled order and the general peace." There is a natural temptation to a student of international agreements to analyze critically the composition and language of this provision, but to do so would in no way advance the consideration of the subject under discussion and would probably be interpreted as a criticism of the President's skill in accurately expressing his thoughts, a criticism which it is not my purpose to make.