Paris 1919 - Margaret Macmillan [36]
Lloyd George chose to stay in a luxurious flat in the Rue Nitot, an alleyway that had once been the haunt of ragpickers. Decorated with wonderful eighteenth-century English paintings—Gainsboroughs, Hoppners and Lawrences—the flat had been lent him by a rich Englishwoman. With him he had Philip Kerr and Frances Stevenson, as well as his youngest daughter and favorite child, the sixteen-year-old Megan. Frances was her chaperone, or perhaps it was the other way around. Balfour lived one floor above and in the evenings he could hear the sounds of Lloyd George’s favorite Welsh hymns and black spirituals drifting up.28
At the Majestic each inhabitant was given a book of house rules. Meals were at set hours. Drinks had to be paid for unless, and this was a matter for bitter comment, you came from one of the dominions or India, in which case the British government footed the bill. Coupons were available, but cash was also accepted. There was to be no running up of accounts. Members of the delegation were not to cook in their rooms or damage the furniture. They must not keep dogs. A doctor (a distinguished obstetrician, according to Nicolson) and three nurses were on duty in the sick bay. A billiard room and a jardin d’hiver were available in the basement for recreation. So were a couple of cars, which could be booked ahead. There was a warning here: windows had already been broken “through violent slamming of doors.” There was another warning too: “All members of the Delegation should bear in mind that telephone conversations will be overheard by unauthorised persons.”29
“Very like coming to school for the first time” was the opinion of one new arrival. “Hanging about in the hall, being looked at by those already arrived as ‘new kids,’ picking out our baggage, noting times for meals, etc., to-morrow—very amusing.”30 If the British were the masters and the matrons, the Canadians were the senior prefects, a little bit serious perhaps, but reliable; the South Africans were the new boys, good at games and much admired for their sporting instincts; the Australians the cheeky ones, always ready to break bounds; the New Zealanders and Newfoundlanders the lower forms; and then, of course, the Indians, nice chaps in spite of the color of their skin, but whose parents were threatening to pull them out and send them to a progressive school.
The Canadians, well aware that they were from the senior dominion, were led by Borden, upright and handsome. They took a high moral tone (not for the first time in international relations), saying repeatedly that they wanted nothing for themselves. But with food to sell and a hungry Europe at hand, the Canadian minister of trade managed to get agreements with France, Belgium, Greece and Rumania. The Canadians were also caught up in the general feeling that borders had suddenly become quite fluid. They chatted away happily with the Americans about exchanging the Alaska panhandle for some of the West Indies or possibly British Honduras. Borden also spoke to Lloyd George about the possibility of Canada’s taking over the administration of the West Indies. 31
The main Canadian concern, however, was to keep on good terms with the United States and to bring it together with Britain. Part of this was self-interest: a recurring nightmare in Ottawa was that Canada might find itself fighting on the side of Britain and its ally Japan against the United States. Part was genuine conviction that the great Anglo-Saxon powers were a natural alliance for good. If the League of Nations did not work out, Borden suggested to Lloyd George, they should work for a union between “the two great English speaking commonwealths who share common ancestry, language and literature, who are inspired by like democratic ideals, who enjoy similar political institutions and whose united force is sufficient to ensure the peace of the world.”32
South Africa had