In some of the inter-allied conferences I have had to take note of what these commissions of control really are, and their absurd extravagance, based on the argument that the enemy must pay for everything.

During some of the meetings of Premiers at Paris and London I had occasion, in the sittings of the conferences, to speak with the representatives of the new States, especially those from the Caucasus.

After repeated conferences he at length returned with the ultimate terms of the Catholic sovereigns.

The while she instructed him by many cabinet conferences.

On September 28, formal announcement was made in New York of the terms of an American loan to Great Britain and France, arranged by a commission of British and French financial authorities after conferences with American bankers; a bond issue of $500,000,000 was soon floated, drawing 5 per cent interest and issued to the syndicate at 96; the money to remain in the United States and to be used only in payment for commodities.

"For my part, Mr. Dodge," said Mrs. Abbott, in one of their frequent conferences, about a fortnight after the éclaircissement of the last chapter, "I do not believe that Paul Powis is Paul Effingham at all.

"Really it seems too bad, after all of your week-end trips to Coloma, after all of your conferences with the estimable Mr. Swen Brodie!"

And if illustration were wanted, let them remember the kind of triumphant satisfaction with which the failure of the Hague conferences to achieve any radical results was generally greeted, and the contemptuous and almost abhorring pity meted out to the people called "pacifists."

My father and I had several conferences with Bowring on the subject.

For a while the hurry and bustle and secret family conferences mildly interested them.

On the two days succeeding the one when I handed the President my draft of articles I had long conferences with Lord Robert Cecil and Colonel House.

Previous to these conferences, or at least previous to the second one, I examined Lord Robert's plan for a League.

During the ten days preceding February 14, when the Commission on the League of Nations held daily sessions, the President had no conferences with the American Commissioners except, of course, with Colonel House, his American colleague on the Commission on the League.

Nothing, however, was done, and in the conferences which took place between the President and his American associates he confined his remarks almost exclusively to the League of Nations and to his plan for its organization.

After several conferences with these advisers concerning the subjects to be included and their arrangement in the Treaty, the work was sufficiently advanced to lay before the Commissioners.

It was not strange that he should adopt a method which the Colonel had found successful in the past and that he should seek the latter's aid and advice in connection with the secret conferences which usually took place at the residence of the President.

In his conduct of the executive affairs of the Government at Washington he avoided as far as possible general conferences.

It is true that the President held an occasional conference with all the American Commissioners, but these conferences were casual and perfunctory in nature and were very evidently not for the purpose of obtaining the opinions and counsel of the Commissioners.

The impression made was that he summoned the conferences to satisfy the amour propre of the Commissioners rather than out of any personal wish to do so.

The general treaty setting up the league of nations will explicitly provide for regular conferences between the responsible representatives of the contracting powers.

These conferences would review the general conditions of international relations and would naturally pay special attention to any difficulty which might seem to threaten the peace of the world.

These conferences would constitute the pivot of the league.

They would be meetings of statesmen responsible to their own sovereign parliaments, and any decisions taken would therefore, as in the case of the various allied conferences during the war, have to be unanimous.

There should also be provision for the summoning of special conferences on the demand of any one of the great powers or, if there were danger of an outbreak of war, of any member of the league.

At that moment there were in possession of the Governmentand for twelve months afterpapers of the most vital consequencewhat are called the conferences at Peshawuropening up the whole case in every one of its aspects; and the Government, with these papers in their hands, kept them back for eighteen months, until they had hurried us into this deplorable, and, I must say, into this guilty war.