That partnership must be a partnership of peoples, not a mere
partnership of governments. It might be impossible, also, in such
untoward circumstances, to admit Germany to the free economic
intercourse which must inevitably spring out of the other partnerships
of a real peace. But there would be no aggression in that; and such a
situation, inevitable because of distrust, would in the very nature of
things sooner or later cure itself, by processes which would assuredly
set in.
The wrongs, the very deep wrongs, committed in this war will have to be
righted. That of course. But they cannot and must not be righted by the
commission of similar wrongs against Germany and her allies. The world
will not permit the commission of similar wrongs as a means of
reparation and settlement. Statesmen must by this time have learned that
the opinion of the world is everywhere wide awake and fully comprehends
the issues involved. No representative of any self-governed nation will
dare disregard it by attempting any such covenants of selfishness and
compromise as were entered into at the Congress of Vienna. The thought
of the plain people here and everywhere throughout the world, the people
who enjoy no privilege and have very simple and unsophisticated
standards of right and wrong, is the air all governments must henceforth
breathe if they would live.
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