That conversation has passed from the open sessions of the conference to the two committees of five upon the limitation of land and sea armaments and the Pacific Committee of nine. In all these committees there are wide fluctuations of thought and temper. There are daily communications to the press from this committee or that, from this delegation or that, from a score of propagandas. It is really not worth the while of the ordinary citizen to follow these squabbles and flights and recriminations and excitements. Certain broad principles have been established. The ordinary citizen will be advised to hold firmly to these and see that he gets them carried through. And now there has been a decided ebb in the high spirit of the conference. These disputes about details have produced a considerable amount of fatigue, attention is fatigued and the exploit of M. Briand has for a time shattered and confused the general mentality. The American public was in a state of pure and simple enthusiasm for peace and disarmament and quite unprepared for the exploit of M. Briand. Like all serious shocks, it did not at first produce its full result. The mood was so amiable here, so eager for cheering and emotional human brotherhood, that when France, in the person of M. Briand, snapped her fingers at the mere idea of disarmament and quoted a twenty-year-old passage from a dead German Field Marshal to justify a vast army and an aggressive naval programme in the face of an exhausted Europe, there was a touching disposition on the part of a considerable section of the American press to greet this display as in some way conducive to our millennial efforts. Only a few of us called a spade a spade right away and declined to pretend that the irony and restrained indignation of Mr. Balfour and Signor Schanzer were “indorsements” of M. Briand’s stupendous claim that France with her submarines and Senegalese might do as she pleased in Europe. The facts that the caustic and restrained utterances of these gentlemen could be so construed, and that the London Daily Mail should attempt to break and mutilate my comments on the French attitude, demonstrate beyond doubt the need there was for the utmost outspokenness in this matter. But the situation is now better realized. The air is already clearer for the outburst. France, we realize, has to stop bullying Germany and threatening Italy; Europe can only be saved by the honest and unreserved co-operation of Italy, France and Britain for mutual aid and reassurance.