He saw in such proposals the certain seeds of future wars, and wars to which he could not summon the youth of Great Britain. For he kept clearly in view that, under the League of Nations settlement, we, as a contracting party, might be called upon (under Clause 10) to defend with arms any detail of the settlement. It was always his aim to keep British obligations within the limits of the powers of the British Empire. He supported President Wilson in the difference with Italy over Fiume, and Clemenceau supported both. But he always hoped to effect a settlement by persuasion. When President Wilson had made up his mind to issue an appeal to the Italian nation, Mr. Lloyd George persuaded him to agree to a postponement of twenty-four hours. President Wilson kept precisely to his promise. But it unfortunately happened that, just as the twenty-four hours expired, delicate negotiations were proceeding between Orlando and Mr. Lloyd George, and there were still hopes of a settlement. The appeal was published in the afternoon papers of Paris, and its immediate effects were to offend the Italian delegates, throw them back on to the point of honour, and drive them out of the Peace Conference. President Wilson acted with his usual high and simple honesty; but in this case, at any rate, if the aim was peace, open diplomacy did not score a conspicuous triumph. In regard to Russia, there also Mr. Lloyd George always craved for a settlement as part of the new peace of the world. This was not his second, but his first thought. He started instantly after the Armistice with the idea of a joint meeting between the Russian parties. His first proposal was that they should meet at Paris; and this was laid before the Allied Chiefs early in the Peace Conference, in a conversation held at the French Foreign Office on Tuesday, January 21st, 1919.[131] The French Premier objected to the presence of the Bolshevists of Paris as a danger to French society. Mr. Lloyd George then proposed Salonika or Lemnos, as easily accessible from Russia. It was as the afterthought of an official that the island of Prinkipos was suggested; perhaps it was a measure of the fear of Bolshevism already existing among the Governments of Western Europe. The appeal to the Russian parties was issued as a result of this meeting of January 21st. We all know how it failed. It withered from sheer lack of support. The Bolshevists refused to stop fighting. The Russian “loyalists,” already divided from the Bolshevist rule by gulfs of hatred and terror, rejected the very idea of a meeting. The French official class, always very powerful, was openly hostile, and actively worked against the proposal. The propertied classes in Great Britain, supported by a powerful Press, denounced and ridiculed the whole policy. The time expired for the meeting; and the policy expired too.