FOURTEEN POINTS, THE. On Jan. 8, 1918, President Woodrow Wilson, in his address to the joint session of Congress, formulated under 14 separate heads his ideas of the essential nature of a post-war settlement. Before the delivery of his address he had received from a committee of inquiry, set up by Col. House in Sept. 1917, a report upon the territorial settle ment that should follow the conclusion of the war. It has been stated that no fewer than six, and these the territorial points, of Wilson's Fourteen Points were "directly framed" upon the recommendations contained in the report. It has also been stated that the report was drawn up by Dr. S. Mezes, D. H. Miller, and Walter Lippmann.l The Fourteen Points were : I. Open covenants of peace openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private international understandings of any kind, but diplomacy shall proceed always frankly and in the public view.
2. Absolute freedom of navigation upon the seas outside territorial waters alike in peace and in war, except as the seas may be closed in whole or in part by international action for the enforcement of international covenants.
3. The removal, so far as possible, of all economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade conditions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national arma ments will be reduced to the lowest point consistent with do , mestic safety.
5. A free, open-minded and absolutely impartial adjustment of all colonial claims based upon a strict observance of the principle that in determining all such questions of sovereignty the interests of the populations concerned must have equal S. Baker, Woodrow Wilson, vol. i., pp. IIO-III.
weight with the equitable claims of the Government whose title is to be determined.
6. The evacuation of all Russian territory, and such a settle ment of all questions affecting Russia as will secure the best and freest co-operation of the other nations of the world in obtaining for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national policy, and assure her of a sincere welcome into the society of free nations under institutions of her own choosing, and more than a welcome, assistance also of every kind that she may need and may herself desire. The treatment accorded Russia by her sister nations in the months to come will be the acid test of their good will, of their comprehension of her needs as distinguished from their own interests, and of their intelligent and unselfish sympathy.
7. Belgium, the whole world will agree, must be evacuated and restored without any attempt to limit the sovereignty which she enjoys in common with all other free nations. No other single act will serve as this will serve to restore confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and de termined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is for ever impaired.
8. All French territory should be freed, and the invaded por tions restored, and the wrong done to France by Prussia in 1871 in the matter of Alsace-Lorraine, which has unsettled the peace of the world for nearly 5o years, should be righted in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.
9. A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognisable lines of nationality.
1o. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safeguarded and assured, should be accorded the freest opportunity of autonomous development.
II. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacuated, occupied territories restored, Serbia accorded free and secure access to the sea, and the relations of the several Balkan States to one another determined by friendly counsel along historically established lines of allegiance and nationality, and international guarantees of the political and economic independence and terri torial integrity of the several Balkan States should be entered into.
12. The Turkish portions of the present Ottoman empire should be assured a secure sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an un doubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous development, and the Dardanelles should be permanently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees.
13. An independent Polish State should be erected which should include the territories inhabited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic independence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international cov enant.
14. A general association of nations must be formed under specific covenants for the purpose of affording mutual guarantees of political independence and territorial integrity to great and small States alike.
President Wilson developed his theories during 1918 in a series of speeches, to which reference was subsequently made during the Armistice negotiations. These are as follows : The Four Principles.—In the "Four Principles" speech in Congress, Feb. I I, 1918, he declared:— I. That each part of the final settlement must be based upon the essential justice of that particular case and upon such ad justments as are most likely to bring a peace that will be permanent ; 2. That peoples and provinces are not to be bartered about from sovereignty to sovereignty as if they were chattels or pawns in a game, even the great game, now for ever discredited, of the balance of power; but that Every territorial settlement involved in this war must be made in the interest and for the benefit of the populations con cerned, and not as a part of any mere adjustment or compromise of claims amongst rival States; and 4. That all well-defined national aspirations shall be accorded the utmost satisfaction that can be accorded them without intro ducing new or perpetuating old elements of discord and antag onism that would be likely in time to break the peace of Europe, and consequently of the world.
2. The settlement of every question, whether of territory or sovereignty, of economic arrangement, or of political relation ship, upon the basis of the free acceptance of that settlement by the people immediately concerned, and not upon the basis of the material interest or advantage of any other nation or people which may desire a different settlement for the sake of its own exterior influence or mastery.
3. The consent of all nations to be governed in their conduct towards each other by the same principles of honour and of respect for the common law of civilised society that govern the individual citizens of all modern States, and in their relations with one another, to the end that all promises and covenants may be sacredly observed, no private plots or conspiracies hatched, no selfish injuries wrought with impunity, and a mutual trust es tablished upon the handsome foundation of a mutual respect for right.
4. The establishment of an organization of peace which shall make it certain that the combined power of free nations will check every invasion of right and serve to make peace and justice the more secure by affording a definite tribunal of opinion to which all must submit and by which every international read justment that cannot be amicably agreed upon by the peoples directly concerned shall be sanctioned. These great objects can be put into a single sentence. What we seek is the reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed and sustained by the organised opinion of mankind.
2. No special or separate interest of any single nation or any group of nations can be made the basis of any part of the settle ment which is not consistent with the common interest of all.
3. There can be no leagues or alliances or special covenants and understandings within the general and common family of the League of Nations.
4. And, more specifically, there can be no special selfish eco nomic combinations within the League and no employment of any form of economic boycott or exclusion, except as the power of economic penalty, by exclusion from the markets of the world, may be vested in the League of Nations itself as a means of discipline and control.
5. All international agreements and treaties of every kind must be made known in their entirety to the rest of the world. Special alliances and economic rivalries and hostilities have been the prolific source in the modern world of the plans and passions that produce war. It would be an insincere as well as an insecure peace that did not exclude them in definite and binding terms.