§ I should now like to say something about the general question of the peace. After very prolonged discussions, not an hour of which was wasted, the representatives of the Great Powers have arrived at a complete understanding on the great fundamental questions that affect peace with Germany. We have formulated our demands, and I hope that by the end of next week they will be presented. I should like to say one or two words about the very unfortunate attempts which have been made to sow dissension, distrust and suspicion between the nations whose solidarity and good will towards each other is essential to the whole of civilisation. I cannot conceive at the present moment a worse crime than to attempt to sow strife, distrust and suspicion between those people whose good will, whose co-operation, whose common action, whose common sacrifice, have just saved the world from disaster. Those things can be done in our domestic politics, and no great harm ensues, even though it be due to false rumours and misrepresentations. You can do them with impunity, but to do them now, in the very greatest crisis of the world's history, when nothing can save the world but keeping the nations together, is an outrage. No discussions could ever have been more friendly. Never was a greater desire shown to understand each other's point of view and to make allowance for that point of view.
§ The idea that America and Europe have been at hopeless variance is untrue. No one could have treated more sympathetically the peculiar problem and the special suceptibilities of Europe, with long and bitter memories of national conflicts, than President Wilson. Nor have we during the whole of these Conferences ever forgotten the poignant fact that most of the sufferings and sacrifices of this 2947 War were borne by the heroic land in whose capital the conditions of peace have been determined. We have not forgotten that France, within living memory, has been rent and torn by the same savage enemy. We have not forgotten that she is entitled not merely to security against a repetition of attack, but that she is entitled to a keener sense of security against it. Upon all the questions which have come before us we have come to conclusions which are unanimous.