MARGINAL COMMENTS
By RCSE MACAULAY WHEN I consider (as you may say it is impertinent, in both senses of the word, for me to do) the long train of gatherings of statesmen which has followed in the wake of the late European War of cursed memory, a faint doubt smites me. These agreeable assemblies, so eloquent, so exploratory, often so amiable, at which such a pleasant time is had by all—are they, have they been, invariably held in the most suitable places ? The most suitable, that is, for clear thinking, for keen and Sharp eristics, for those tremendous decisions by which conferences should overturn the destinies of the human race ? I do not attend conferences, nor even committees, but I have a feeling that, should I do so, I should be too much lapped in content in many of the places at which they now occur to think clearly, or even to think at all. Had I been on Lago Maggiore last week; I should merely have strolled about and smiled at the view. Journalists seem divided as to whether the consultations occurred on the mainland or on Isola Bella. Either is delightful, but the island the more -so. From the Castle of the Borromei, that haven of cardinals and counts, mistresses and countesses, one looks down on steep terraces of delicious and exquisite gardens, calculated to soothe and stupefy the minds of statesmen.(other than Italians, who are more acclimatized). Gardens (I make no secret of it that I quote Karl Baedeker, since his .style will be immediately recog- nizable) " stocked with lemon-trees, magnolias, orange- trees, cork-trees, camphor-trees, eucalypti, magnificent oleanders, and other luxuriant products of the south. The view is very beautiful (evening light most favourable). Shell-grottoes,- fountains (dry), and statues meet the eye in profusion, but in questionable taste." However questioned by the fastidious Karl, this enchanting rococo litter pleases most beholders, and drugs the soul with sweets that languish on the aromatic air. Lulled in these flowcr.; with dances and delight, the delegates of proud and alarmed nations meet and smile, stroll and gaze. C'est magnifique, they murmur, mais on 91€ fait pas de progres.
I suppose I shall here be reminded that, despite oleanders and .shell grottoes, progress was, after all, made. If - so, all honour -to- our invincibly wakeful statesmen. Possibly Locarno may also be mentioned to me. But I maintain that, had Locartio been Turin or Birmingham, results still more striking would have been achieved. As to Versailles, where, despite its old-world grace, much -violent action did, sixteen years ago, indubitably occur, Versailles was practically an extension of the War, another battlefield, and it is admitted that battlefields can be beautiful without lulling warriors to lethargy. But most of the great peaces, pacts, leagues, creeds, and other world unsettlements have been made not in beflowered pleasure resorts where the dandled brain -dreams in sensuous .content, but in cities loud and rude, where men hustle, streets scream, and tram bells jangle out of tune- and harsh. It is in-such surroundings as these that the World's agonists have met and conversed and made history what it is. (A pity, you say ? Perhaps .but that is-not, at the moment, our concern.) The scenes of such arrangements have been, in the past, towns like -Berlin, Vienna, London, Paris, Washington, the Hague, -Utrecht, Breslau, Breda, Tilsit, Soissons, Carlowitz, Pas- Sarowitz, Kalisch, Ryswvk, Nicaea, Worms, Trent,- and .so forth. Definitely not Stresa, the Borroraeans, the Balearics, the Scillies, Capri, Polperro, or Cloy. elly.
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