As months passed and the war continued there grew up an insistent demand, in Germany as well as in the Allied countries, that the nations at war with the Central Powers should make a new statement of their purposes anr1 aims. This demand Premier Lloyd George attempted to meet. by an address delivered 5 Jan. 1918, to the delegates of the British trade unions. A more elaborate statement followed from Presi dent Wilson on 8 January, summarizing the ((program of the world's peace)) under 14 heads.
41. Open covenants of peace, openly arrived at, after which there shall be no private inter national understandings of any kind, but diplo macy shall proceed always frankly and in the 'public view.
42. 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 ictilm.for the enforcement of international covenants.
43. The removal, so far as possi4e, of atl economic barriers and the establishment of an equality of trade cornfitions among all the nations consenting to the peace and associating themselves for its maintenance.
"4. Adequate guarantees given and taken that national armaments will be reduced to the low est point consistent with domestic safety.
"5. A free, open-minded and absolutely im partial 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 population concerned must have equal weight with the equitable claims of the government whose title is to be determined.
"6. The evacuation of all Russian territory and such a settlement of all questions affecting Russia as will sec-tire the hest and freest co-opera tion of the other nations of the world in obtain ing for her an unhampered and unembarrassed opportunity for the independent determination of her own political development and national ToalicY 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 distin guished 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 re store confidence among the nations in the laws which they have themselves set and determined for the government of their relations with one another. Without this healing act the whole structure and validity of international law is forever impaired.
"8. All French territory should be freed and the invaded portions 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 fifty years, shoutil be righted in order that peace tnay once more be made secure in the interests of all.
49. -A readjustment of the frontiers of Italy should be effected along clearly recognizable lines of nationality.
4/0. The peoples of Austria-Hungary, whose place among the nations we wish to see safe guarded and assured, should be accorded die freest opportunity of autonomous development *11. Rumania, Serbia and Montenegro should be evacnated; 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 'fines of allegiance and nationality; and international guarantees of the political and economic inde pendence and territorial integrity of the sevenal Balkan States should be entered into.
412. The Turkish portions of the. present Ottoman empire should be assured a seeure 'sovereignty, but the other nationalities which are now under Turkish rule should be assured an undoubted security of life and an absolutely unmolested opportunity of autonomous develop ment, and the Dardanelles should be perma nently opened as a free passage to the ships and commerce of all nations under international guarantees, el3. An independent Polish State should be erected which should include the territories in habited by indisputably Polish populations, which should be assured a free and secure access to the sea, and whose political and economic in dependence and territorial integrity should be guaranteed by international covenant.