I had not, for several months, mentioned the inflammatory fourteen points: had I done so, Dainton might have retorted that President Wilson had himself departed from them by throwing his lot in with M. Clemenceau and Mr. Lloyd-George. I did not discuss the equity of the peace terms. I discussed very little with Dainton; but I tried, as I had been trying all day, to envisage the new world which circumstances and the efforts of the peace conference were labouring to bear. Russia was in the grip of revolution, civil war and famine; Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy might follow at any moment; the map of Europe was dotted with strangely named, new, self-governing republics, alike only in their complete ignorance of self-government; as we were soon to see, there was no European police to restrain the Italian who might be inspired to seize Fiume or the Rumanian who was tempted to march on Buda Pesht; the League of Nations had been invested with no power; and the world outside Europe, from India to Egypt and from Ireland to the Philippines, had been taught the magic word “self-determination” and had realized its possibilities more vividly than those who coined it. In an unguarded moment I did ask Dainton whether he imagined that the Germans could ever pay the indemnity which he had so sternly demanded. He believed it confidently. How, I asked him; but Dainton told me that he was not in the mood to split hairs: if they could pay it, they should (and the allies would remain in occupation till the last penny had been handed over); if the Hun ruined himself in the attempt, as I seemed to think likely, it would be something to feel that he would never again menace the world. “And if he ruins us too?,” I asked. “Economically, the whole world is knitted together. If the Russian revolution spreads to Germany?” “It won’t spread here,” Dainton answered in happy forgetfulness of earlier speeches against the corrupting influence of those Russian and German agents who controlled British trades unions. “Our people are too sensible. You’re very gloomy, George! This won’t do at all. Drink up that cocktail and let’s begin our dinner.”