The League Committees And World Order

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D DDD1 DBMESflt, 4

THE LEAGUE 'COMMITTEES
AND WORLD 0$DER

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS

* * ^HEN HOUSE, B.C. 4
B(55J)N EDINBURGH GLASGOW
LfilPtIG NEW YORK TORONTO
MELBOURNE CAPETOWN BOMBAY

CALCUTTA MADRAS SHANGHAI

HUMPHREY MILFORD

PUBLISHER TO THE
UNIVERSITY

THE LEAGUPGOMMITTEES
AND WORLD GflDER

A Study of the PERMANENT EXPERT

COMMITTEES OF THE LEAGUE OF

NATIONS AS AN INSTRUMENT OF

INTERNATIONAL GOVERNMENT

BY
H. R. G. GREAVES

Of the Political Science Department

London School of Economics and

Political Science

OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
LONDON : HUMPHREY MILFORD

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN

TO

MY MOTHER

PREFACE

IN this study I have not attempted to give an exhaustive
description of the League's technical activities and
achievements. I have tried to sketch only the broad and
representative outlines of its work, because my aim has
been simply to show the significance of its technical and
advisory organisms. My purpose has been to suggest to
the student of domestic politics or of international relations
why the League Committees are peculiarly important to
him, and to show how that importance is growing.

The student of government is apt, I think, sometimes
to limit his study by state boundaries, and to overlook
economic and political sources of government action, or
the needs for government action, that lie outside the
state. In this book I have tried to point out some of these
international sources and some of these world needs. If
I have succeeded in showing in any degree the inescapable
unity of human society, then I shall have proved why that
unity must be politically organized. Internationalism
must not merely link diversities, but govern them.

The student of the League of Nations, also, runs a
certain risk, I believe, of concentrating his attention too
much on the more formal Council and Assembly, and such
more dramatic questions as disarmament. He generally
does not realize to what extent the Council and Assembly
are merely the apex of a pyramid composed of, and resting
on, these technical advisory organizations, in their turn
assisted by the Secretariat. And disarmament, supremely
vital though it be, is a reminder of the more negative
aspect of the League. To destroy the underlying causes
of war, by constructing channels of international co-opera-
tion and by creating a disinterested viewpoint wherever
national interests conflict, is vastly more important than
declaring war the evil every one knows it to be. Until
the organs of international disinterestedness are created,
empowered, and trusted, war or the threat of war remains

viii PREFACE

the necessary Instrument of policy. To prate of peace In
such circumstances is merely irrelevant. The real move
towards peace and disarmament is the building of a legal
and technical or political structure. The League's best
work in this direction has been technical and administra-
tive. Yet this has not been given sufficient emphasis in
written studies of the League. If this monograph does
anything to indicate or to fill that gap, then it needs no
further excuse.

Touching,, as it does, upon so many fields, this book
could not have been achieved without the constant
assistance of many people. Among the members of
committees, of the League Secretariat, and the I.L.O.
who have given me generously of their knowledge and
time I should like to mention Sir Arthur Salter, Professor
W. E. Rappard, Mr. Felkin, M. Maurette, Sir John
Campbell, Professor Duncan Hall, Miss Hallsten-Kallia,
and Mr. Tarini P. Sinha. At the Postgraduate Institute
of Geneva, besides Dr. Rappard, I have particularly to
thank Professors Georges Scelle and Pitman B. Potter.
To Professor C. A. W. Manning at the London School of
Economics I am very grateful for his most careful and
thorough reading of the manuscript* What I owe and
have owed throughout to my teacher and friend Professor
H. J. Laski is too complete to be easily put into words.
Finally, I want to acknowledge the truly heroic patience
of my Geneva friends in their discussions with me. Such
things as these lent me constant encouragement.

Because I have not always been able to follow the
suggestions offered me I must add that, of course, I alone
am responsible for any and every opinion or judgement
expressed.

H. R. G. GREAVES
London School of Economics

and Political Science,
January 1st 1931.

CONTENTS

PAGE

I. INTRODUCTORY: Internationalism, an international devolution; The

Committee in Politics, modern development; power of the expert;
internal devolution; the League's technical Committees; method of
treatment; general considerations, staff, economy, subordination, begin-
nings of authority; basic principle, functional contact; influence on
administration; quasi-legislation; general technical co-operation in
Part I; more specific questions in Part II; characteristics of technical
international organization; approach to the study . . .1

PART I. INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL
CO-OPERATIONGENERAL

II. THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE: i War-time economic organization ;
Allied shipping control; food committees; Armistice control, the Supreme
Economic Council. 2 Economic Commission of the Peace Conference;
Wilson's eighth point; drafting the Covenant; Allied proposals. 3 Econo-
mic mandate of the League; an international economic council; the
Provisional Economic Committee; reorganization. 4 Members, appoint-
ment, nationality, qualifications, tenure; procedure. 5 Relations; the
Consultative Committee; the Statistical Committee. 6 Work of the
Economic Committee; facilitating trade, co-ordinating statistics,
promoting arbitration; monopolies and raw materials; over-production.
7 Conclusions; achievements; inadequacies; the importance of business
men and labour in international economic relations; proposals of the
Economic Conference for associating these; significance of international
cartels and chambers of commerce; contacts between ministers of com-
merce; a regular economic conference including private interests; economic
council a focus of authority; special committees of control for raw
materials, &c . . . . . . . .21

III. THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE: i Inter-Allied system, indepen-
dence; co-ordinated War purchase; gravity of the post-War position;
individual initiative versus concerted action. 2, Financial Commission of
the Peace Conference; French proposals for an authoritative commission;
dangers, opposition of America. 3 Financial Conference at Brussels; a
Committee recommended; created. 4 Members, appointment, nation-
ality; chiefly bankers; minutes not published. 5 The Fiscal Committee.
6 Work of the Financial Committee; first phase, financial rehabilitation
and reconstruction; Austria, Hungary, methods; refugees; construction
loans; second phase, study; gold investigation. 7 Conclusions; success,
independence, authority, and achievement . . . .64.

IV. THE HEALTH COMMITTEE: i International Sanitary Conferences;
early recognition of health as an international problem; the Office inter-
national d' Hygiene publique; Pan-American Bureau. z The Red Cross
Society and the Peace Conference; Articles 23 and 25 of the Covenant.

s CONTENTS

3 Negotiations with the Office; appointment and functions of the Pro-
visional Health Committee; the Office dissociates itself; final organization
of the Committee and collaboration of the Office; duties of the Office as
Advisory Council. 4 Membership of the Health Committee; nationality,
qualifications. 5 Connected bodies; private help; Office d'Hygiene, its
constitution and functions; special and sub-committees; League Com-
mittees; Red Cross. 6 Work of the Health Committee; administrative
co-ordination, study tours, statistics, epidemiological information,
research, hygiene; inquiries, investigations on the spot. 7 Conclusions;
newness ; scarcity of funds ; lack of publicity ; ministerial contact . .85

V. THE COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION:
i The International Office of Bibliography, 1895; the Union of Inter-
national Associations, 1910; an international intellectual life. 2 Influence
of Brussels activities on the Peace Conference; Belgian amendment; the
International Academic Union. 3 Brussels activities continue; influence
on the League; Secretary-General's report; constitution of the Committee;
functions; aims. 4 Meetings; membership; qualifications; appointment;
representativeness, 5 Co-operation with League Committees, national
committees, sub-committees; Paris Institute, its organization; Rome
Cinema Institute. 6 Work of the Intellectual Committee; its variety and
scope; convention on scientific property. 7 Conclusions; achievement a
contrast to aims and possibilities; importance of private associations and
their omission from the organization; an international university;
inadequacy and inefficiency; inquiry; the Institute, disadvantages of
Paris as its seat, dissipated energy, envy of Brussels and Geneva; Com-
mittee, principles of membership, unsuitable; for education purposes need
for ministers' interest; an Intellectual Conference . . in

VI. THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE:

i War-time control; post- War chaos; Supreme Economic Council,
Communications section. 2 Peace Conference; Ports, Waterways, and
Railways Commission; general conventions; Part XII; amendment and
Article 23 (e). 3 The League's mandate; Transit Committee; appointed
by French Government; organization recommended; Barcelona Con-
ference; appointed by the Council; need for international co-operation.
4 Membership, nomination; procedure; nationality and qualifications of
members. 5 Co-operation with League Committees, special Committees,
non-League bodies; the Communications and Transit Conference.
6 Work; removing restrictions; conventions, administrative co-operation;
arbitration; reconstruction and construction. 7 Conclusions; novelty
and achievement; comparative independence; co-operation with private
industry; functions; dangerous questions; internationalizing control of
transit . . . , . m % .139

VII. THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR
ORGANIZATION (GENERAL PRINCIPLES): Similarity to the
technical organizations; origins similar; Labour and the War; Peace,
fear of Bolshevism; the I.L.O., its independence, functions, powers;
representation of private interests; the Governing Body, procedure,
membership ; success and reality . . . . * 59

CONTENTS si

PART II. SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

VIII. MANDATES: THE PERMANENT MANDATES COMMISSION:
i Origins. 2 Ideals of Wilson; the Smuts plan; dangers of annexation;
Article 22, interpretation. 3 The Committee; original scheme of repre-
senting mandatory Powers; final composition and functions. 4 Member-
ship, principles, independence, qualifications, esprit de corps, sense of
responsibility; competence as opposed to nationality, in theory and in
practice; procedure. 5 Relations with governments, and petitioners.
6 Work; its nature, significance, value, and effect; defects of the
machinery; examples of the work and difficulties; the case of Western
Samoa, extracted from the minutes. 7 Conclusions; an innovation;
difficulty of applying a new ideology; proposals, petitions, members'
visits, committees of inquiry, League Commissioner . . .169

IX. DISARMAMENT: THE PERMANENT COMMISSION and the
DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES: i The problem; need for dis-
armament; difficulties, political and technical. 2 Tackling the problem;
the Permanent Advisory Commission; the series of mixed and temporary
Committees, activity, achievement, and failure. 3 Conclusions; failure
and its reasons; the basis of success . . . . .199

X. SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN WORK: THE COMMITTEE
FOR THE PROTECTION AND WELFARE OF CHILDREN AND
YOUNG PEOPLE: The need for international work; early activities;
Congress of Benevolent Societies; Congress for the Protection of the
Child; Article 23 (c); Conference on White Slave Traffic; the Com-
mittees, members and investigations . . . . .218

XL THE OPIUM COMMITTEE: i The problem; its international nature;
pre-War activity, anti-opium movements, the Shanghai Conference, The
Hague Convention; inclusion in the Peace Treaties; Article 23 (c);
the Opium Committee, its mandate; membership, nomination by govern-
ments; procedure; members, personalities and qualifications; growth in
size; its work, the Conferences of Geneva; creation of the Permanent
Central Opium Board; ineffectiveness of the work; 2 Need for reorganiza-
tion recognized 1929; methods; addition of non-producing countries; will
it prove effective ? dangers of the present principles of organization;
psychological factors; possibilities of solving the problem; schemes; a
single factory under international control (?) .... 222

XII. CONCLUSION: i Functional similarity of the Committees discussed;
similar origins; significance of the work. 2 Principles of the inter-Allied
organization the foundation; dependence upon governments as the
ultimate authority; discovery of principles of world unity, and technical
contact as the first means of expressing it; functional co-operation. 3 Pro-
cedural questions; questions of the structure of Committees; appointment
and independence. 4 Conclusions; value and weakness of the inter- Allied
principles of organization in peace-time; three needs: initiative, definite
work, responsibility; two tendencies discoverable in the first decade of the
League: association of wider circles, official and private; growing indepen-
dence; tendency to associate directly with governments and nations;
fear, conservatism 3 and the future ..... 240

INTRODUCTORY

Middle Ages saw the crumbling of the last
JL political structure in history which claimed to be
universal. Not since the decay of papal and imperial
power have the institutions of a world order been fashioned
anew. Even speculation, with but few exceptions, has
been preoccupied with the state, and while perforce the
existence of other states has been tacitly acknowledged,
it has not been allowed to impinge upon the main current
of political thought. Autocracy, tempered only by the
dictates of an all-pervading providence, was the corner-
stone of the medieval building. It was a building, there-
fore, set on sand, for if there is one lesson of history it is
that authority built on exclusion of the many will not
abide. But imperialist and papalist alike set forth a doc-
trine of world governance which excluded neither nation
nor class but comprehended the whole human race. Such
an ideal of synthesis, from which since the Reformation
the world has been travelling directly away, now again
seems to beckon from the future. Whether democracy
has in it the creative power to answer that call is a ques-
tion as yet unsolved. The League of Nations is only the
beginning but the very significant beginning of an
attempt to frame an affirmative reply. But what is already
certain is that the organs of a world order, if it be founded
on democracy, will be complex to an extent as yet hardly
imagined.

In a time of isolated units, of village economy, of slow
and dangerous travel, a theory of state independence and
national sovereignty was not denied by any obvious and
continually present facts. But the conditions have changed.
An irresistible process of world economic unification has
been going on for the last century. Every year it relegates
a new aspect of national isolation to the realm of myth.
When Lancashire is put out of work by a political crisis

2 INTRODUCTORY

In India, when Germany and Japan have their whole
economic fabric affected by the collapse of speculation in
Wai Street, when business in the United States is put in
the strait-jacket by a depression in Europe, the man who
speaks of national economic self-sufficiency is refuted by
everyday fact. A shortage in gold means a general fall in
prices that is stemmed by no frontier and acknowledges
no sovereign decree. Yet its effects are so immense that it
urgently demands control. It is, indeed, fortunate that
the same growing facility of transport and communications
which has created world markets has made possible an
increase in intellectual and Individual contact, for therein
alone lies hope of concerted action and of progress.

Besides the institutional evidence of this advancing
internationalism in the shape of international cartels,
a chamber of commerce, labour unions, and other private
associations, there is already an increasingly important
body of official organs. The League of Nations, with the
International Labour Organization, the Permanent Court
of International Justice, and the Bank of International
Settlements, is but the latest and most important of these.
Such other public and semi-public bodies as the Postal
Union, the Health Office, the Institute of Agriculture,
the Inter-Parliamentary Union, all already bore witness
before the War to a growing recognition that few problems
are soluble by isolated action. The War, of course, gave
the greatest impetus to this movement, because it proved
with tragic thoroughness the state of impending anarchy
in which we live. The League came as a reaction to the
chaos which went before it. Unfortunately there are still
manjTmoHeffi" statesmen of whom it may be said after the
War that they have learned nothing and forgotten nothing
save, perhaps, the War itself. If the ordinary man Is in
very truth a world citizen to-day as he never was before,
he seldom knows it, and in his continued failure to recog-
nize that fact lie the seeds of overwhelming disaster. 1

1 For an interesting discussion of this see F, Delaisi, Political Myths and
Economic Realities, Part II.

INTRODUCTORY 3

Happily for his future there is a tendency, in spite of him,
for international organization to extend. And this is one
of the really significant developments of recent times.

But there is a second tendency in the latest evolution
of government institutions which is equally striking. If
the nineteenth century put its trust in parliaments, the
twentieth relies increasingly on smaller and more special-
ized groups of men. The processes of government have
grown vastly more complicated. The multiplicity of
social legislation, the new, varied and intimate responsi-
bilities taken over by the state, the elaborate schedules for
taxation and duties above all, the changing and inesti-
mable-complex of conditions to be dealt with necessitate
an intricate web of highly technical administration. All this
has changed the very nature of politics. From being a task
of merely keeping order and making general rules for the
settlement of disputes and the punishment of crime
government has become a work impossible without the
advice of experts and the schemes of technicians. Almost
daily are the latter having ascribed to them new and
weighty functions. Often they are given a power which
belongs properly only to the courts or the legislature.
They are, in fact, the heirs or the usurpers of an authority
which legislative bodies are proving themselves unable to
exercise. Nor is it surprising, after all, that instruments
created for the earlier laisser-faire purposes of government
should prove unsuitable for the later. A congress of five
or six hundred politicians, without special organization,
assistance, and training, is clearly incapable of controlling
modern administration in all its complexity ? or even of
properly supervising the control exercised by a minister.
While the department is fully qualified by special study
and long practice to understand all the details of its task,
a chamber of popularly elected deputies has neither advan-
tage; nor does it profess to have them. The consequence
is unavoidable. There is a very real danger of the unex-
pert and omni-competent legislature becoming the tool
of its expert advisers. In order to combat this peril

B 2

4 INTRODUCTORY

attempts at a more suitable organization of parliament
have been made. They envisage, all of them, a delegation
of the real source of decision from the large congress to
a committee of its members. The creation of standing
committees corresponding more or less exactly to depart-
ments is an example of this. It is particularly evident in
French and German political method. The Scandinavian
countries, the United States, Roumania, Holland, Czecho-
slovakia, and others have special committees for foreign
affairs. But perhaps the best example is afforded by the
new constitution of Ceylon. The State Council of Ceylon,
when sitting in administrative session, consists entirely of
seven committees, of which each deals with one of the
departments and nominates a chairman to act as its
minister. Nor must that particular committee of the
legislature which has replaced the executive be over-
looked. Government by a committee of ministers is now
so general that its bare mention seems a commonplace,
but it is a modern invention. In recent years the cabinet
in England has steadily added to its powers at the expense
of Parliament. In two of the post-war constitutions of
Europe the reality of English practice has been consecrated
in words, and no provision is made for an independent
executive even in the attenuated shape of a president. It
is increasingly the cabinet which is the decisive factor and
the 'chief executive' of modern times. But this committee
itself works with the aid of a growing number of other and
more specialized committees. While the political thinker
of 150 years ago was occupied with securing the separation
of executive from legislature, to-day the two are being
ever more closely linked. This process manifests itself, as
we have seen already, by the formation of standing com-
mittees of the legislature to watch departments.

The complement of this tendency is to be found in
another. As the spirit of democracy has spread, one vote
every three or four years has seemed too narrow a reading
of it. The principle of government by general and con-
tinuous agreement has been gaining over that of govern-

INTRODUCTORY 5

ment by spasmodic majority vote. That has implied an
intensification in the organization of society with, the
purpose of securing more frequent consultation and more
general consent. The more marked technicality of ad-
ministration and the consequent demand for expert
advice have been supported by the need for getting the
agreement of the increasingly organized and articulate
interests affected by state action. And the result has been
the move towards what in its various forms has been called
guild socialism, the federal state, or functional self-deter-
mination. Evidence of this is to be seen in the practice
of creating advisory committees of experts representing
outside interests. These act as permanent consultative
bodies at the disposal of the government. In one form
they are a projection into more lasting service of the highly
successful invention of the Royal Commission. In
another, they approach more closely to a functional
parliament. The Committee for Imperial Defence, the
Committee on Civil Research, the more recent Economic
Advisory Council are examples. An economic council of
real authority exists already in Germany. Similar bodies
are to be found in Russia and France. The general advan-
tage of such organs is not difficult to detect. Besides
acting as a permanent instrument for inquiry, they serve
a quite distinct purpose. By bringing into consultation the
representatives of those interests, or those functions of
society, which will be most nearly affected by any prospec-
tive Act of Parliament or administrative measure, they not
merely tap more diverse sources of opinion, they also make
the proper regulation of society in each of its functions the
concern of those participating in them. 1 This is, in other
words, a process of political devolution. It is an extended
application of the basic principle of democracy, that the
control by each citizen of his activity be maximized. But
so far we see only the shadow of an oncoming democracy.

1 For an admirable discussion of the tendencies towards, and the pro-
posals for, functional grouping see H. Finer, Representative Government
and a Parliament of Industry, Part I.

INTRODUCTORY

Three tendencies have been sketched above. It Is by
reason of them that the League's expert committees enjoy
special significance. The growing need for an international
reply to questions soluble only by international action,
and secondly, the increasing authority of the expert ad-
ministrator at home, both combine to stress the impor-
tance of these international committees of technicians.
The main suggestion of this study is that the third ten-
dency, the demand for and the advance towards some sort
of functional self-government in the domestic field,
can not unfruitfully be borne in mind in estimating and
in directing this development of international technical
government.

Tn view of the call for international government and its
beginnings it is not surprising that the League's chief
activity should correspond very closely with that of
national administrative departments. The one is the
domestic, the other the international, answer to the same
needs. Nor does it seem unnatural, when the technicality
of regulation is considered, that the work should be done
by a committee of expert administrators. These carry
on the tradition of the amazingly successful inter- Allied
organization which came into being during the last year of
the War. Although many of their tasks have been much
less ambitious than, for instance, the gigantic work of
controlling the whole key service of Allied shipping, the
very completeness of the latter's success acts as a measure
of the possibilities of the League committees. The func-
tion of these committees bears a striking analogy to that
of government departments. Just as the ministry of labour
finds its international counterpart in the Labour Office,
the ministries of trade, finance, transport, health, educa-
tion, colonies, and of law or justice correspond to the
technical committees of the League, which exist for each
of these subjects.

The technical committees of the League are treated

INTRODUCTORY 7

here as a part of the machinery of international organiza-
tion, as they belong, that is to say, to the realm of political
science and international relations. In no sense is this
a study in economics, health, or law. Nor does it attempt
to give anything more than a brief historical sketch of the
committees' work. Essentially, it regards them as instru-
ments formed to cope with the problems which confront
the world as a whole. Their nature is described, their
function outlined, and their suitability for performing it
evaluated. The chapters resolve themselves for the most
part into an attempt to answer seven questions, and they
are divided into sections accordingly.

1. In most of its technical work the League of Nations
has entered upon a field which had not been entirely un-
touched before. What previous international activity had
there been, and how does the Committee's work relate
to it?

2. Although only two of the Commissions dealt with
in the following chapters were actually named in the
Covenant of the League, the jobs which they have been
formed to do were all to some extent envisaged at the
Peace Conference, and many were the subjects of amend-

,ments that were not adopted. What were the ideas cur-
rent at Paris in 1919 with regard to each Committee and
to each technical function of the League ?

3. How was the Committee actually constituted by the
Council and Assembly ? What were its terms of reference ?

4. Of whom does the Committee consist ? What is its
structure and procedure ?

5. Generally the Committee cannot be understood
except in relation to certain connected or subordinate
conferences or committees. What are these ? What, in
other words, are its relations with outside bodies ?

6. It would be possible to write a long description of
each Committee's work. In some cases, as that of the
Health Committee, one volume would be inadequate. In
others, as that of mandates, several books have already
been written. All that is possible here is to reply in the

8 INTRODUCTORY

briefest outline to the very important question of what

work has been done by the Committee.

7. In conclusion it is possible to ask, and the answer has
been attempted: How far is this Committee solving the
world problems which it is called upon to solve, and how
far is the completeness or inadequacy of its results due to
the organization of the Committee itself? Is it possible
to conceive of any improvement upon this ?

In dealing with these Committees certain general con-
siderations must be borne in mind throughout. They
have not been mentioned in any one case because they
apply to all.

Each Committee has a section of the permanent staff
of the League at its service. While the Committee does
the final work of discussion and decision it could never do
this if the preparatory work had not first been performed,
and the value of its results must depend to some extent
upon staff efficiency.

Each Committee is faced by the gibbering spectre of
economy, brought out of its cupboard almost invariably by
Great Britain or one of her colonies, by the richest and
most heavily armed empire in existence that is, which
spends as much on the building of one cruiser as would
pay her contribution to the League for eighty years.

Each Committee is governed by general resolutions of
the Council and Assembly. These decide that its meet-
ings shall be held generally at Geneva, that minutes shall
be printed only when the Committee has made special
application to the Council, that its work, while it remains
in the technical field, shall be under its own control, but
that immediately it enters on the realm of action it must
be under the control of the Council.

But, above all, must it be remembered that no com-
mittee by the terms of its original charter is more than
advisory and consultative. It has no authority for direct
action. It may merely recommend to the Council, which
in its turn can only propose or suggest. Governments
retain the decisive power, and with them, therefore, the

INTRODUCTORY 9

ultimate responsibility rests. An emphasis on the advisory
nature of these committees is necessary if they are to be
understood. The influence they enjoy when based upon
this plan of severely limited authority is one of the most
vital facts about them. While the limitation is essential
to meet the jealous claims of state sovereignty, the in-
fluence is not only a proof that the foundations of the
sovereignty concept are invalid, it also marks the begin-
ning of a substitute for that concept. National self-
sufficiency is denied by the mere existence of these com-
mittees. But once their advisory character has been postu-
lated as the rule in present conditions, important excep-
tions to it must be recognized. Some beginnings of more
definite authority are to be seen clearly. They are the result
partly of the need for an international or supernational
power of decision in certain cases where negotiation
between governments is most obviously insufficient. They
are also perhaps an answer to the tendency, which the lack
of responsibility in the committees has already shown to
a dangerous extent, of shelving important questions on
the plea of incompetence. The Transit Committee, for
example, was given certain powers of compulsory settle-
ment of disputes by the Treaty of Peace. Several cases
have in fact been submitted to it, the most interesting
being that of the Oder River System which was settled by
the Committee in November 1924. x The Intellectual
Committee exerts control over an independent budget and
institute. Both the Transit and Health Committees have
separate and regular conferences over the agenda of which
they have important powers. This endows them, in-
evitably, with an interesting opportunity for bringing
about decisive action. And finally, no one who examines
the record of the Mandates Commission can blind himself
to the fact that although its decisions are nominally mere
recommendations to the Council, they are in effect treated
not as advice but as ultimate findings. In all these de-
velopments of their function the committees of the
1 See infra, p. 143, also pp. 153 and 154.

io INTRODUCTORY

League show their close cousinship with the Governing
Body of the Labour Office, which also has its own inde-
pendent conference and organization, but which also is
limited as to its budget by the League Assembly. It is
evident, therefore, that the League committees, although
mainly consultative at present, have already something
more than a mere advisory function. The inclination
to overlook this is the result of superficial study, but
it may be due also to the desire that the tendency shall
disappear.

The committee system of the League is founded
directly upon experience gained during the War. The
main lines of the war-time organization are recalled in the
next chapter. The chief principle of it was the direct
contact of those responsible for the administration of
national departments. Committees were formed which
brought together the chief officials, and in some cases the
responsible ministers in the various government depart-
ments of the Allied Powers. Collaboration, it was found,
was not successful when those who met had not enough
authority to influence policy in their own countries. But
when, on the other hand, either ministers, like the Food
Controllers, or high officials, as in the Transport Execu-
tive,, were brought into contact, the result was quite
different. In order to create a co-ordinated policy in each
of these technical fields, it was not even necessary to confer
on the international body more than advisory powers.
The very restricted nature of their collective authority in
no way impaired the efficacy of any of these committees,
for individually each member exerted a decisive influence
in his own department. It was thus possible for agree-
ments to be made that should become effective, although
the decisions reached were nominally no more than recom-
mendations. It is precisely this lesson, which has been
applied in the League's work of international technical
co-operation, that is the subject of this study.

Officials of the various administrative departments have
been brought into contact by means of the League's com-

INTRODUCTORY ir

mittees. When this has not been possible so far, owing to
the difficulties of distance, specialists have generally been
appointed. While the centre of ultimate decision remains
with national governments it is essential, if anything
effective is to be done, that these centres of decision be
taken into account. But the League's committees are
definitely League organs. Members are not government
representatives meeting to drive a bargain and gain the
utmost advantage which the power of their country can
extort. They may sometimes consider themselves in that
light particularly when they are nominated by their
governments but on the whole they show a more co-
operative spirit, A member does not come, after all, as
the accredited agent of his sovereign prince or state to
negotiate officially. He comes informally as the servant
of an international body to discuss problems which are
not purely national in their incidence. The fact that he
can often influence the making of policy at home, and that
he is able to talk over a question before it has become
a part of national policy, to talk it over outside the formal
and highly charged atmosphere of Foreign Offices is the
really significant innovation of the system. By this means
an informal co-operation is possible. It results in a con-
tinual exchange of ideas. It sends views back and forth
from one country to another, creating, as it were, an
international pool of ideas. When the permanent advisers
of ministers are kept constantly in touch with this pool of
ideas some of it will inevitably get included in the content
of their advice. Policy will thus be shaped by the interplay
of international as well as national considerations. It is in
this way that the committees of the League are gradually
transforming national into international administration.
Their success in this direction is much greater than it
appears, for it is not obvious or susceptible of estimation
and proof. And that fact should be borne scrupulously in
mind throughout a study of the League's committees.

Together with their influence on administration the
committees of the League perform a semi-legislative

12 INTRODUCTORY

function. Being created by a single international organ
charged with a general surveillance of the world as a unity,
these committees naturally come each to deal with one
of the main functions of world society. The most signifi-
cant fact about them, both because it is new and because
it offers the greatest hope of expansion, is the fact that each
committee as a whole deals with its particular group of
problems from a non-national standpoint. As the only
body which can do this increasingly necessary job its
recommendations have a growing importance. More and
more do they tend to become acts of world government.
More and more, that is to say, are these expert activities
legislative in their character, either directly through the
drafting of conventions, or indirectly through recommen-
dations being applied.

The committees of the League, in sum, although they
are advisory and have but the smallest beginnings of
authority in themselves, exert through their members an
influence on the shaping of policy which no student of
government can afford to overlook. When, for instance,
the English member of the Fiscal Committee puts before
it the terms of the latest Finance Bill, showing how it has
been influenced by the Committee's recommendations,
he is not merely citing a concrete case of international
legislation, he is increasing the possibility that other
countries will follow suit and giving good reason for their
doing so. In their collective capacity these committees
formulate expert recommendations and conventions
which are in fact international legislation.

These considerations apply to all the committees which
are concerned with general technical co-operation. It is to
these that the first part of this study is devoted. Among
themselves they vary greatly, being appointed in different
ways for different types of qualification, and having
different degrees of influence or authority. But essentially
they are all of the same kind. The Committee for Intel-
lectual Co-operation does not differ fundamentally from
the Governing Body of the International Labour Office.

INTRODUCTORY 13

The latter rests upon the Treaty of Peace, and cannot
therefore be altered or abolished without a revision of the
Treaty. It has been created by the nations in a formal
signed document; the Intellectual Committee has been
created by the same nations through a formal resolution
of the Assembly and the Council. Nor do their functions
vary in any essential feature. While the Governing Body
controls the Labour Office, the Committee controls the
Institute of Intellectual Co-operation in Paris, each ap-
pointing the director. They both have the power of
making recommendations, and that in fact is their main
function. For the purpose of arriving at suitable conclu-
'sions they both create special committees of study; tjiey
may both authorize investigation. In the case of the
.Labour Organization the machinery is more developed.
A conference meets annually, which can adopt conventions
and oblige governments to submit them to parliament.
The Governing Body has the Conference, so to speak, at
its elbow, and may decide that any draft convention shall
be considered by the Conference, whereas the Intellectual
Committee, in like case, would require a formal resolution
of the Council before a conference could be called. The
'Governing Body, it is true, has certain further powers
,not so far employed for dealing with governments which
have ratified conventions without properly applying them.
But this again is a difference in the degree of authority,
and not in the essential nature of the function. That in
fact is the same in both cases: one advises on education,
the other on labour. The basic difference lies not in the
function but in the character of the personnel, of the
interests openly represented, and in the degree of inde-
pendence; for in both cases the general exercise of the
function is advisory and recommendatory. A like com-
parison might be made between any other two of the
^committees treated in Part I. They all represent co-
operation of a more or less general kind between national
Departments. They all lack decisive authority in the main.
In each case they have, or are capable of having, a tech-

I 4 INTRODUCTORY

nical conference attached to them. It Is possible even to
envisage them as occupying different stages in a regular
scale of development, 1 ranging from the Economic or
Financial Committee, as perhaps the least advanced, to
the Governing Body as the most.

This part of the League's work belongs to the realm of
general technical co-operation. There are also certain
more specific tasks which the League has taken up and
attempted to perform through the instrumentality of
committees. By Articles 9 and 22 of the Covenant it was
bound to create commissions to deal with disarmament
and mandates. To fulfil certain of its other more specific
duties, such as the fight against the drug scourge and white
slave traffic, the League has also appointed committees.
In addition it has formed committees to cope with other
tasks not mentioned in the Covenant, but found necessary
afterwards. The Committee for the Progressive Codifica-
tion of International Law is an example. These commit-
tees are all to some degree technical and expert, and share
therefore some of the characteristics belonging to those
discussed in Part I. They are also, of course, examples of
international co-operation. The justification for putting
them in a class apart is to be found in several considera-
tions. Although no classification is ever perfect there is
nevertheless a certain justification for distinguishing be-
tween these committees and those studied in the first
part. In the first place, each treats a subject which is
more specific than general more specific, for example,
than the questions considered by the Economic Commit-
tee, which studies at one moment commercial arbitration,
and at the next tariffs, or the position of the coal industry.
Secondly, rather different qualities are demanded in the
members of these committees from those required in the
committees dealt with in Part I. In the latter, where it is
a question of continuous co-operation between equal
states, each pursuing an independent policy, with the
purpose of co-ordinating their policy, those responsible
1 See Conclusion, section 4,

INTRODUCTORY 15

for creating policy must be brought together. The needs
of the Permanent Mandates Commission, on the other
hand, demand denationalized rather than internationalized
members; they have to advise in a perfectly independent
spirit, and not to promote co-operation between equal
communities. Experience of the Armaments and Opium
work of the League would also suggest that a greater
degree of independence and 'denationalism 3 might con-
ceivably help towards solution. 1 Thirdly, the purpose of
policy in these cases is agreed. It is to disarm, or to pro-
mote certain principles in the government of backward
peoples, or to destroy the opium evil. It is thus only the
best means of attaining the agreed ends which are under
discussion. In the first group, however, it is the policy
itself which is debated. Fourthly, the problem which
each of these committees is formed to solve can logically
although not often practically be regarded as temporary,
and the committee must be expected to disappear when
its purpose is fulfilled. In the fifth place, none of these
committees, at least evidently, seems to require a regular
conference. The purpose of such a conference is to initiate
new subjects and to consider new conventions. It is in
fact a type of international parliament. But this is not
necessary for one such single and limited subject as opium
or mandates. Finally, while future development in the
first category may be expected to take the form of an
accretion of authority and an amplification of institutions
within the present framework, in the second new Council
Committees may be looked for. The protection of minori-
ties, for example, must remain a fiction so long as the
machinery for making it real is absent. What is needed
here as in all these committees is not the promotion of
international co-operation in a general way between
national administrations, but the performance by a non-
national instrument of a definite task in an entirely
independent and unbiased spirit. It may well be found
that the suggested Minorities Committee, on the lines of
1 See chapters on. these committees.

1 6 INTRODUCTORY

the Mandates Commission, will be the only solution. For
these reasons the committees treated in Part II have been
regarded as belonging to a class which, in spite of dif-
ferences among themselves and similarities with the first
group, it is useful for some purposes to distinguish from
the latter.

To describe the spirit in which this study has been
undertaken nothing can be better than to quote Professor
de Madariaga, who has summed up in an inimitable way
what might be called a world-citizen's viewpoint :

*We are not cranks. We are no "enthusiasts". We are as cold-
blooded as any political old-hand and as hard-boiled as any
financier. We do not advocate the League because it is a religion ;
we advocate it because it is the only reasonable way to solve a
definite problem, the terms of which can be put clearly to every
man and woman with senses to observe and sense to judge. We
believe that no business man would "run" his business as the world
is run to-day, letting every one of its departments steal a march on
every other one, allowing them to work in utter lack of co-opera-
tion in a spirit of enmity and distrust. We do not advocate holiness.
We advocate sense. 9

And, it might be added, we are animated by exactly
the contrary spirit to that common one expressed recently
to us by a member of parliament. He suggested that the
League, though admirable, was expensive. It was true
that the total budget cost eight times less to the fifty
nations than England is ready to pay for a single cruiser.
But while the cruiser was a necessity, the League was a
luxury. We hold that even on the low plane of Britain's
safety exactly the contrary view is true.

But the time is past when every supporter of the League
thought his duty was to praise it indiscriminately. -That
was the outcome of an excessive nervousness about its
future. The League is no longer a programme to doubt ;
it is a fact to recognize. And those 'practical' men who
refuse to see the change, because by definition they cannot
appreciate new facts, are like fish stranded after the flood
has passed: they will die out.

INTRODUCTORY 17

Since the League is alive and will live, its truest friends
are those who are most ready to criticize its practices.
Provided their criticism is constructive it is to be sought.
For by means of it alone can the League's development
be directed aright. And upon that proper direction
depends the organization of peace. As yet that organiza-
tion is highly uncertain.

PART I

INTERNATIONAL TECHNICAL CO-OPERA-
TIONGENERAL

II

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

'It is in the main these economic factors going to condition the civilisation
of the promised future that will have to be depended on to give the cue to
any student interested in the prospective unfolding of events.'

VEBLEN, The Nature of Peace.

^T^HE Economic Committee cannot be studied in iso-
JL lation. More, perhaps, than any other of the League's
advisory committees it has grown out of experiments that
preceded the League. It is the fruit of theory and of fact.
To an economist the interdependence of the world is by
now an almost tiresome commonplace. But that such
doctrine might have practical implications in the field of
international organization would never have occurred to
the politician without his war-time experience. The
great success of the Allied experiment opened up new and
wide possibilities. In face of them it seemed less natural
that governments should concert no measures rationally to
control the economic conditions about them. The needs
of war are more urgent than those of peace, and action
must be on a more modest scale. But there is a definite
line of continuity which leads from the economic com-
mittees of the War to the Supreme Economic Council of
the Armistice, and from that to the Economic and Finan-
cial organization of the League, whose formation it, in
fact, recommended in order that its task should be carried
on. This continuity of institution was reinforced by some
continuity of personnel. Several of the men responsible
for the drafting of the Covenant, for example, shared on
the one hand in the inter-Allied experiment, and on the
other in organizing the League.

The inter-Allied system of control did not rise spon-
taneously. Three years were not enough to convince the
Allied military leaders of the need for a unified command.
It took as long to set up an Allied control of shipping,
although shipping was 'the limiting factor in all allied

22 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

supplies', 1 and for that reason perhaps the most vital
element in the war. The Allied leaders seem never to have
realized how near they were to the abyss. Sir Arthur
Salter, Chairman of the Maritime Transport Executive,
has described the position which the new organization was
called upon to control. The whole supply system/ he
says, Vent on with few visible signs of the weakening of its
foundations, and so it would go on until the moment of
the crash; when the crash would come could not be fore-
told, but on the best expert evidence it was likely to come
at any moment and seemed certain to come soon/ 2 Not
until the position was as serious as this was any system of
inter-Allied control arranged. And after the War it was
necessary to confront the victorious governments with the
picture of central Europe in imminent danger of starva-
tion, and the whole economic system on the verge of
chaos, to convince them of the necessity for carrying on
any system of control.

Experience before the institution of the League of
Nations falls into two periods that of the War and that
of the Armistice. It will be necessary to consider them
briefly.

Allied Machinery t during the War.

With few exceptions economic life during the first three
years of the War was nationally organized. 3 The Economic
Conference which met from June I4th to lyth, 1916, at
Paris in an explosion of wrath against the threatened
economic union of Germany and Austria 4 did little more

1 Statement on Unity of Control, in J. A. Salter, Allied
Control, p. 325 ; also Lloyd, Experiments in Government Control, p. 279.

2 Salter, p. 157.

3 For food control in France see Pierre Pinot, Le Controls du ravitail-
lement de la population civile. See also V Agriculture pendant la gu&rre>
M. Ange-Laribe. On .English, control, Experiments in State Control?

E. M, H. Lloyd. It was chiefly owing to the inefficiency of the Tsarist
government in economic supplies that the whole Russian campaign broke
down. Cf. S. O. Zagorsky, State Control in Russia during the War, p. 45.

4 See Die Aussere Wirtschaftspolitik Qesterreich-Ungarns, G. Gratz imd

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 23

than vaguely state that c the Allies undertake to adopt
measures for facilitating their mutual trade relations 3 . 1
Governments were at first too nervous of losing control to
be willing to erect any independent international organ.
And the way out which was ultimately found had to avoid
the difficulty by providing that merely the power to
recommend,, and not any final authority, should be given
to the new inter-Allied bodies. Secondly, there was less
stringency of supply in the earlier years than developed
after the submarine campaign. Besides, a certain co-
ordinating power was in the hands of the British, whose
economic resources were the most important at the dis-
posal of the Allies. British shipping strength made London
the chief channel of supplies. The. resulting position was
that in so far as there was Allied direction it was carried on
from London. For example,

'The Royal Commission on Sugar Supplies, which had been
formed in August 1914, began to buy also for the Allies early in
1916, and this was followed by the Wheat Executive in October
1916, through which all the Allies and several of the Neutrals pur-
chased their supplies of cereals. Other purchasing bodies developed
as integral parts of British Departments; for example, wool, jute
and leather were bought by the Contracts Department of the War
Office, and Australasian and South American meat by the Board of
Trade/ 2

The Wheat Executive was British in origin, but there was
a Frenchman and an Italian on it. Even so late as the end
of 1917 it was the only inter-Allied economic committee
c in full and effective function'. 3 The chief exception was
the Commission Internationale de Ravitaillement, formed
in August 1914. Its object was to prevent competition
and exploitation of the position by private traders. On it

R. S chillier. It is interesting to compare Mr. Runciman's description of
the Austro-German proposals as an 'economic threat and challenge' (see
Temperley, vol. v, 65, note, quoting from The Times of March 29th, 1920)
with the Austrian attitude of conciliation to neutral and enemy powers,

p. 13-

1 Resolutions of the Conference, Cd. 8271.

2 Temperley, History of the Peace Conference^ i. 288. 3 Salter, p. 93.

24 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

the principal Allied purchasing departments were repre-
sented by specialized officials. By this means a beginning
was made at direct contact between the economic depart-
ments of the allied countries, and the peace-time method
of communication only through Foreign Office stopped, if
only for a time. As a development it is not easy to exag-
gerate its importance, since, by providing a technical as
opposed to a national field of discussion, it pointed the
way to what afterwards proved the most fruitful method
of international conference. The main work of this com-
mittee was to present the case of each government for
supplies. These were finally co-ordinated and effected by
the use of British credits. 1

The inter-Allied system which grew up bit by bit
between August 1917 and March 1918 was due to three
causes. The entry of America had increased the resources
at the disposal of the Allies, but it had complicated the
shipping position. The German offensive on land made
the need for a large increase of the American contingent
more imperative than ever; and on sea, submarine warfare
had dangerously attenuated Allied shipping. The entirely
unforeseen and unexampled ice blockade of the North
American coasts took the organization of supply quite
unawares, and made the position graver than at any other
time in the War. 2 So poor had been the crops in the three
Allied countries that starvation was expected to prove a
grim reality during the next six months. But the severity
of the situation has been graphically described by one of
those whose duty it was to meet it. 3 For our purpose its
chief importance lies in the fact that it was controlled-
and controlled successfully by international action.

The Conference which met in Paris on November 29th,
1917, included representatives of all the Allies. Not only
did such countries as the British Empire and the United
States take part, but also China and Cuba, Portugal and
Roumania. Previously to it the French Minister of Com-

1 Ibid., p. 135. 2 Sir William Beveridge, British Food Control^ p. 93.
3 Salter, p. 156.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 25

merce had visited London; Ms consultation with British
ministers and officials was widened by the accession of
Italians and resulted in a vague but important agreement
the effect of whith was to substitute the principle of
international control of supplies for what had until then
been national and particularly British. On November
2oth a more definite agreement on principle was signed by
the three Powers with the new addition of America.

The outcome of the Conference of November 29th was
the setting up of a large number of committees on raw
materials and the main supplies. These were to be
modelled on the Wheat Executive that is to say, that
they were to contain representatives of France and Italy,
and to allot supplies by agreement, to buy and distribute
for the Allies. But it was upon shipping that each ulti-
mately depended, and for this reason the most important
result of the Conference was the decision to form the
Allied Maritime ^^ansport^C^uncn. The special com-
mitted rejected the suggestion
that this should be c an international board with complete
executive power over a common pool of tonnage 3 . This
was done on three grounds. America and Great Britain
would not be willing to hand over the final power of
decision In a matter so vital to a tribunal on which they
might be outvoted. Concentration of complete control
in one place over a matter needing quick decision at so
many different points was impracticable. Such a com-
mittee would not have sufficient authority to impose
reductions, because it would by its very concentration and
continuity be out of touch with the administrations con-
cerned. Instead, 'the appropriate ministers' in the Allied
countries were to form a permanent organization of
experts under their control. Experts, it was felt, were the
only people capable of presenting a scientific scheme for
restricting supplies.

The principle of bringing ministers responsible for
national policy together in order to co-ordinate their work,
on which the Allied Maritime Transport Council was

26 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

constructed, was followed equally in forming the other
allied councils. Their membership serves to illustrate
this in practice. With the exception of the Military
Council and the Allied Transportation Council (Railways)
all of them were ministerial. The first to be formed was
the Maritime Transport Council, and this had eight
members. Great Britain was represented by Lord Robert
Cecil and Sir Joseph Maclay ; France by MM. Clementel,
Minister of Commerce, and Loucheur, Minister of Muni-
tions; Italy by Signor Orlando and Signor Crespi; the
United States was represented by delegates the Hon.
R. B. Stevens and the Hon. G. Rublee.

The Food Council was a much smaller though no less
important body. At the suggestion of Mr. Hoover, after
his arrival in Europe on July I9th ? 1918, it consisted of
the Food Controllers of the Four Allies. 1 Its first meeting
was held on July 30th.

Subject to ministerial councils, which sat at more or
less infrequent intervals, there was generally an executive
committee of experts whose duty it was to carry on the
permanent work of control, of purchase and distribution.
The Transport and Food Systems were among the best
organized in this respect. The Food Council appointed
a 'Committee of Representatives' of nine members, two
representing each country, with an independent non-
voting chairman. Their functions were, 'subject to the
directions of their Food Controllers, to secure and co-
ordinate the programmes of the various food executives
and to consolidate these programmes into a general food
programme for all foods and all Allied countries'. 2 These
food executives were four: Meat and Fats, Oilseeds,
Sugar, and Wheat. The chairman of the last became the
chairman of the new committee. This had, further, to
act as the sole channel of communication between the
Food, Transport, and Finance Councils, and *to supervise
and ensure the purchase and shipping programme'. In
the case of shipping the principle of Allied co-operation
1 Beveridge, p. 248.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 27

had akeady been laid down, 1 and so it was possible for the
Maritime Transport Office in London, with its four
national divisions, to begin its work at the end of 1917,
although the first meeting of the Council did not take
place until the following March.

c The work of these four national divisions is co-ordinated by one
Main Committee which generally supervises the work of the whole
Allied organisation, and three sub-committees dealing respectively
with Tonnage, Imports, and Statistics, which, subject to the general
supervision of the Main Executive Committee, co-ordinate the
work of the several divisions in detail. The Main Executive Com-
mittee consists of the following heads of the several national
divisions: Mr. J. A. Salter (Chairman), M. Monnet, Prof. Attolico,
Mr. G. Rublee (U.S.A.).' 2

The vitally important work done by this organization was
due almost entirely to this committee of four, each of
whom had similar responsibilities vis a vis his own country
and the Allies as a whole. These were three: he must
bring the special viewpoint and needs of one national
department before his colleagues: these four demands,
secondly, must be united into a common Allied pro-
gramme: this it was his duty, lastly, to persuade his own
government to accept and its officials loyally to carry out.
In order to fulfil his first and third functions it was clearly
essential that each member of the Transport Executive
should not only be in intimate contact with his Home
Department but should have training in their ways of
thought, and should enjoy influence, if not authority,
within them. This was in fact the case. The English
representative had entered the Admiralty thirteen years
before, was Assistant Director of Transports there in
1915, and Director of Ship Requisitioning in 1917. The
Italian, who sat also on the Commission de Ravitaillement
and the Finance Council, was an economist who had been
for five years Inspector of Emigration under the Italian
Government. Before coming to the Allied Transport

1 By the agreement of November 3 and the Paris Conference.

2 Salter, p. 298.

28 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

organization, on which lie became a member of the
Council in July 1918, the American delegate had sat on
several trade and economic committees under President
Wilson. He clearly enjoyed the trust of the U.S. Shipping
Board and the Emergency Fleet Corporation, since he
had for some time represented them on the Priorities
Committee of the War Industries Board.

The Transport Executive was the real co-ordinator of
all the Allied supplies. It had to weight the schemes of
the committees who were responsible for each product.
There were three groups of these: those on Fodder, those
on Munitions, and a number of so-called Programme
Committees, international also, which were gradually
organized to deal with all the remaining imports. After
the tonnage scarcity had become acute, the last word
inevitably rested with the shipping executive. A dispute
which developed between the Committee of Representa-
tives and the Transport Executive as to the amount of
tonnage to be allotted to food was finally referred to the
War Cabinet, who agreed to the programme of the latter
in a slightly modified form. 1 At this time the seriousness
of the situation made it impossible for the ministers on the
Transport Council to leave their posts, and in this way an
immense strain was put upon the Transport Executive.
It fell in effect to them to control the whole system of
supplies. That they were able to bear the test with such
conspicuous success is evidence that the machinery on
which they worked was built on the right principles.

Armistice Control.

The work of Allied co-operation did not cease with the
Armistice. M. Clementel insisted on the importance of
carrying on during the difficult time of transition, but the
inevitable reaction to war methods came at once, and there
was a strong demand for decontrol. This was supported
by the United States Government and by those member

1 Ibid., p. 184, and cf. Beveridge, p. 251.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 29

of the Allied Governments who did not realize how near
they were walking to the edge. It soon became evident,
however, that peace also had its problems. The Supreme
Council for Supply and Relief sat for the first time on
January nth, 1919, and on February 8th the Supreme
Council decided to form a 'Supreme Economic Council',
which was to 'absorb or replace such other existing Inter-
allied bodies and their powers as it may determine from
time to time'. 1 Its task was temporary by definition. It
set to work immediately. At Its head-quarters In Paris It
established five sections, of which three were controlled
by Americans, one by an Englishman, and one by a French-
man. The Maritime Transport Office of London was
converted into a sixth section. This economic organiza-
tion was more complete and logical than that of the War,
but it had several defects which in fact made it much less
important. In the first place, there had already been a
considerable degree of decontrol, and that being the de-
clared policy of governments, it continued steadily to
undermine the Council's scope and authority. Secondly,
the Allies alone were represented. Thirdly, it was without
independent funds to allot as It willed. Its real work was
one of relief to the central and eastern peoples of Europe
threatened by the spectre of famine. That work was to be
done without prejudice to the needs of the Allied coun-
tries. Its most important recommendations were that
credits should be supplied to Russia, and that there should
be a resumption of transport across Hungary.

The Council had, further, to take over the economic
control of the German occupied territory. But lack of
authority to co-ordinate the numerous military and
economic commands already in existence led it to recom-
mend the formation of the 'Inter- Allied Rhineland Com-
mission' with the full powers of control which the Council
lacked.

The Council consisted of five delegates from each of

1 Resolution of the Supreme Council, February 8, 1919. See Temperley,
i. 297.

30 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

the principal Powers. Lord Robert Cecil (Chairman),, Mr.
Hoover, M. Clementel, and Signor Crespi were the chiefs
of the delegations. Belgium joined later. Of these Mr.
Hoover alone was also head of a section. The Council met
generally once a week.

Being restricted to doing certain executive work of
reconstruction, the Council could have no share in deter-
mining the economic clauses of the treaties. This was done
by the Economic Commission, whose programme was
determined by an Economic Drafting Committee of five
members, two of whom were also chiefs of delegations on
the Supreme Economic Council. 1 This was appointed by
the Council of Ten on January 27th, 1919. The Economic
Commission sat first in February. It had seventeen mem-
bers, ten of whom represented the five Great Powers, The
rest we're appointed, one each, by Belgium, Brazil, China,
Poland, Portugal, Roumania, and Serbia. Its importance
may be gathered from the fact that every one of its
unanimous decisions was accepted by the Council. 2

The terms of reference, as agreed by the Council, indi-
cated two main lines of action: first, of settling questions
raised by the War, and secondly, of promoting economic
co-operation in peace. The latter was of real importance,
inasmuch as it showed the influence of a new principle in
commercial relations. Once concerted action was officially
recognized to be a possibility, a channel had been opened
along which opinion in favour of organizing concerted
action might flow on to achievement.

This part of the terms of reference is worth quoting in
full, since it largely forecasts the subsequent programme
and work of the Economic Committee of the League.

1 These were M. Clementel, Chairman, and Signor Crespi; the others
were Mr. B. M. Baruch (U.S.A.), also a member of the Supreme Economic
Council, Mr. Fukui (Japan), and Sir H. Llewellyn Smith (British Empire),
who later became member of the Economic Committee of the League, and
remained so from 1920 until 1927. * Temperley, v. 56.

3*

'PERMANENT COMMERCIAL RELATIONS. 1

To consider what common measures are possible and desirable
with, a view to the removal of economic barriers, and the establish-
ment on an equitable basis of the principle of equality of trade
conditions in international commerce.

'Under this heading will arise such questions (among others) as
Customs regulations, duties, and restrictions, including port
facilities and dues; unfair methods of competition, including false
descriptions and indications of origin, "dumping", &c.; and the
exceptions and reservations, transitory or otherwise, which may be
found necessary to meet special circumstances.'

Drafting the Covenant.

Two days before the Council of Ten appointed the
Economic Drafting Committee for the Economic Com-
mission the Peace Conference, on January 25th, decided
to form a committee on the League of Nations. The
work of these two committees overlapped. One part of
the former's task dealt, as we have seen, with permanent
commercial relations. So also did that of the League
Commission in drafting Article 23. It was inevitable that
there should be some sort of economic provision in the
Treaty of a permanent character. The basis on which
Germany had agreed to negotiate was the famous fourteen
points enunciated by the President on January 8th ? igiS. 2
The third of these looked towards

c 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.*

International co-operation generally has two definite
stages. At the first a principle is put forward. But it is the
second stage, at which the aim is to erect machinery to
translate it into practice, that is really vital. It is interest-

1 Ibid. v. 52.

2 A similar clause appears in the German Scheme for a League of
Nations. See Pollock, League of Nations (2nd ed.), p. 239: * Assurance of
free commercial relations and of general economic equality.*

32 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

Ing to remark these different stages of opinion in the
proposals of the Allies. Although President Wilson's First
Draft contained no economic stipulation, the Second
appended a 'Declaration for Equality of Trade Con-
ditions'. 1 It provided against discriminating tariffs., dump-
ing, and an important clause which also appears in the
German Treaty against the claim by a state engaged in
trade 'to have any of the rights, privileges, immunities,
duties, or obligations of sovereignty'. 2 It did not set up
machinery; but a note was attached by the Technical
Advisers stating that 'Provisions for an International
Trade Commission, regarded as a desirable, if not an
essential, part of a declaration of this character, are under
preparation 5 . But Wilson's Third Draft of January 2Oth 3
and his Fourth Draft of February 2nd only forbid dis-
crimination, and omit entirely the question of a com-
mission. 4

The British Draft Convention for Equality of Trade
Conditions recognized the same principles, if anything
more fully; but although it suggested certain special
committees of inquiry of three persons, it made no pro-
vision for a general, permanent trade commission. A very
slightly advanced attitude is to be seen in the revised Cecil
Draft of January 2oth, which states in general principle
that the Powers 'will appoint commissions to study and
report to the League on economic, sanitary, and other
problems of international concern, and they authorize the
League to recommend such action as these reports may
show to be necessary'. 5 Here again the idea was clearly
one of occasional committees to inquire into temporary
ills. There was no apparent conception of a need for
permanent work of supervision, co-operation, and inven-
tion. One exception occurs here, however. Although no
general economic committee was mentioned, the Cecil
plan of January I4th provided for 'International adminis-

1 D. H. Miller, Drafting of the Covenant, ii, 16, also I. 33.

2 Ibid. ii. 18, also L 22. 3 lya. ii. 105,
* Ibid. ii. 154. s Ibid. ii. 107.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 33

trative Bodies, such as a Transit Commission, for regulat-
ing international waterways, and perhaps railways', and
the intention was, clearly, that they should be permanent.

By the time of the Hurst-Miller Draft both the pro-
posal for a permanent commission and for a trade con-
vention had been dropped. This seems to have been due
partly to pressure of work, 1 partly to personal questions. 2
A committee was not named, also, because it was thought
best to leave the Council free to create organisms accord-
ing to need. The idea of any further precision in the shape
of a trade convention was regarded with strong disfavour
in some quarters. 3 The committee project went no further
until the Council and Assembly of the League found it to
be a necessity. Nevertheless something was done. The
Peace Conference decided that a communications confer-
ence should be called. And later trade conditions were
so bad that on January 6th, 1922, the Supreme Council
summoned an Economic and Financial Conference to
meet at Genoa in the following March. 4 As is well known,
this failed to achieve any concrete results. The right
moment for that had come and gone. The opportunity
which was allowed to slip at the Peace Conference 5 it is
now the slow and painful work of the League to attempt
to recreate.

Other important suggestions were made at the meetings
of the League Commission by the representatives of
France and Italy. M. Hymans also, on behalf of Belgium,
proposed the creation of a permanent supervisory and
research committee on agriculture to adapt production
in each country to the best conditions, and thereby to
increase agricultural specialization. It was, further, to

1 Temperley, v. 56.

2 According to Lansing, the draft convention or skeleton treaty was
suggested by him to Scott and Miller, but the President 'at once showed
his displeasure and resented the action taken . . . but he offered nothing
at all as a substitute'. See, The Peace Negotiations, p. 178.

3 e.g. Miller, i. 19 (note), and 21.

4 Temperley, vi. 327.

5 O. Hoijer, Le Pacte de la Societe des Nations, p. 447.

34 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

facilitate the exchange of raw materials. 1 The last three
paragraphs of the French amendment are also important.
They propose an international organization of production,
protection for the property of foreigners, and the creation
of an economic section of the League. 2 France also pro-
posed the creation of a permanent Finance Committee.^
President Wilson opposed the protection of property
clause, warning the Committee that it would be a most
dangerous principle to fasten upon the League. * Since he
had had anything to do with the government of the
United States/ he said, 'it had refused to support capitalists
who had made investments abroad which were unreason-
able, and which gave them an undue advantage over the
country concerned.' 4 The whole amendment was then
voted down without any discussion on the other more
important suggestions. The Italian proposals s had a like

1 Miller, ii. 532.

2 'Article 21 :

'Les Hautes Parties Contractantes sont d'accord pour declarer que les
dispositions seront prises par Fentremise de la Societe des Nations pour
garantir et maintenir la liberte du transit et Fequitable traitement du
commerce et de Pindustrie de tons les etats membres de la Societe.

*Des arrangements speciaux pourront etre pris pour repondre aux besoins
des regions devastees pendant la guerre de 1914-1918.

**r Hautes Parties contractantes sont accord en outre pour declarer qtfen
raison des -repercussions financiers si differentes que la guerre a sues sur les
liver ses nations, des dispositions spe dales deivent etre cone er tees entre dies a
Veffet de ramener une situation de fait equitable dans la vie economique, et
specialement dans les charges ludgetaires de Papres-guerre.

'Les Hautes Parties contractanctes reconnaissent qu'tine organisation inter-
nationals de la production est ne cess air e et qu'elle doit avoir pour point de
depart une etude statistique des besoins de cbaque Nation.

< Tous les tats membres de la Societe des Nations donneront protection com-
plete a tous les droits et liens Ugalement acquis et possedes par des etr angers.
'Article 21 bis.

*I1 y a lieu de creer une section economique de la Societe des Nations
en vue d'etudier et de realiser dans Pinteret de la civilisation les grands
projets d'entreprise economique d'ordre International.'

Quoted from D. H. Miller, Drafting of the Covenant^ ii. 527 (italicized
amendments were not accepted).

3 See next chapter, p. 70.

4 Miller, i. 349. 5 Ibid. ii. 247 et scq.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 35

fate, but they are more interesting, and the most definite
of those made.

'Every state has the right to participate in international com-
merce and traffic in conditions of legal equality. . . .

There shall be established under the direction of the Council,
and in the form which the latter shall deem most suitable, an
Economic Committee, a Labour Committee, and a Military Com-
mittee.

*The Economic Committee shall procure and furnish data for
the solution of international problems of an economic and financial
character, in such a way as to facilitate the progressive and har-
monious co-ordination of the interests of every country in this
field/

Instead, however, of forming an Economic Committee,
as three out of the four Allied Delegations definitely pro-
posed, the Covenant left the position vague. In doing so
a clear opportunity seems to have been lost. Had the
Committee been named rather than implied, the inde-
pendent channel of its work would have been stressed.
And again, if the difficulties which stood in the way of the
Equality of Trade Convention had been overcome, this
might have formed the foundation of a securer building.

The Economic Mandate of the League.

The terms of the final Covenant which directly imply
economic work read : * 'The Members of the League . . .
will make provision to secure and maintain freedom of
communications and transit and equitable treatment for
the commerce of all Members of the League. 3

But the Covenant as a whole implies economic activity
in at least five other ways, omitting questions of labour
and mandates entirely. Disputes between members are
often of an economic character; the Council or Assembly
in attempting to adjudicate will need the advice of expert
economists. The application of the economic and financial

1 Article 23 (e).
D 2

3 6 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

sanctions l against a recalcitrant member will also require
expert counsel, if not expert execution. Causes of quarrels
between states must be removed, and Mr. Hobson has
said that 'The desire for commercial privilege and for
freedom from commercial restraint is the primary cause of
war'. 2 Fourthly, since the general object of the League
first named in the Covenant is 'to promote international
co-operation', this must clearly be promoted in the most
important international field, that of trade and distribu-
tion. Lastly, it is the duty of the League to mitigate
suffering, and this also has its economic implications.

The economic mandate of the League is extremely wide.
There is practically no question which does not belong to
one or other of the spheres of action denoted above. But
Article 23 is merely a programme; 3 its obligations arc too
vague to have any reality. 4 Yet, although it is true that
caution is essential if steady progress is to be made, it may
be doubted whether the position of the Economic Com-
mittee would not have been stronger, its work more
effective, had the specific mention of 'an international
organization of production' contained in the French
amendment found its way into the Pact, or the still
better expression of the same principle in the Italian
provision by which c the international distribution of the
foodstuffs and raw materials required to sustain healthy
conditions of life and industry must be controlled in such
a way as to secure to every country whatever is indispens-
able to it in this respect'. 5 Although this was not provided
for in the Covenant, the terms of the preamble *by just
and honourable relations between nations' may perhaps
be taken to imply it. A just distribution of raw materials
and a rational organization of production is ultimately
essential to peace.

Article 5 provides that the appointment of a committee

1 Article 16. 2 Towards International Government^ p. 130.

3 G. Scellc, Lff Pacte et le Traite, p. 196.

4 Schucking land Wehberg, Die Satzung des J*' r olkerbnnde$ (znd ed),
p. 718. s Miller, il 247.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 37

shall be a matter of procedure to be decided by a majority
of the Council or Assembly. It is plainly expected that the
current work of the League will be done by committees. 1

Immediately after the signing of peace the Council of
the Allies decided 'that in some form international con-
sultation in economic matters should be continued until
the Council of the League of Nations has had an oppor-
tunity of considering the present acute position of the
economic situation'. 2 A sub-committee of the Supreme
Economic Council recommended that an International
Economic Council should be set up to consult together
in order to advise governments. This would replace the
Supreme Economic Council, and would enjoy the same
control over dependent organizations. It was to meet
once a month, and to consist of two delegates from each
of the Great Powers of ministerial or high commissioner
rank.

This was never formed, but the Secretary-General
organized instead an economic section at the office in
London. This was approved in principle by the Council
sitting at Rome on May I9th, 1920, and the Secretary-
General was authorized to begin a study of economic
problems with the assistance of experts. 3

As a result of the work of the Economic Section, com-
bined with the recommendations of the Brussels Financial
Conference of October 1920, M. Leon Bourgeois pre-
sented a report to the Council on October 25th.4 He
proposed that a Provisional Committee should be set up
pending the establishment of a permanent organization,
which was to follow the general economic and financial
conference suggested for 1921. This Provisional Com-
mittee was to be divided into an Economic and a Financial
Section, each of ten members, sitting jointly under the
chairmanship of M. Ador, President of the Financial
Conference. M. Bourgeois did not think it advisable that
members should represent states. This was agreed to,

1 Sir F. Pollock, League of Nations (2nd ed.), p. ill.

2 2 C. (4), Min., p. 12. 3 5 C. 41, 4 10 C. 29.

3 8 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

but M. Hymans, expressing the Small Power point of
view, wanted the size of each section of the Committee
increased from ten to twelve members. A compromise
was agreed to by which the Secretary-General was to
propose ten members, and if the result were not agreeable
the Council should raise the number to twelve. Actually
only ten names were submitted, but so strong is the uni-
versal pressure for increasing the size of committees that
the consequence of the Belgian delegate's motion was
inevitable. It was decided that the number should be
made up to twelve by M. Hymans in consultation with the
Secretary-General. It was to be raised later at the acces-
sion of Germany, and again to fifteen, when the Com-
mittee was reorganized in 1927.

The Council adopted the report of M. Bourgeois. But
the authority of the Economic Committee is not drawn
solely from the resolution which this contained. Both in
the Second Committee * and in Plenary Session 2 the
Assembly resolved that it 'considers it indispensable that
the Economic and Financial Committee should continue
its work without delay, in the manner indicated by the
Council'. The sole opposition to the Committee as such
came from the Australian delegate, who could on no
account vote for a permanent organ, but whose scruples
disappeared when it was called 'Provisional*. The Assem-
bly gave its full support to the Economic Committee,
and M. Ador was thus completely justified in the state-
ment he made from the chair at the second joint session.
He said Very positively that, according to his experience,
the Assembly had no wish to make the definitive Advisory
Economic and Financial Committee a mere subordinate
body in complete dependence upon the Council'. The
tendency has, in fact, been the contrary. The indepen-
dence of the Economic Committee, emphasized in this
way at the start, has grown steadily throughout its brief
career. 3

1 i A. 1920, C. ii. 134. 2 i A, 1920, PL 367.

3 See Howard-Ellis, Origin and ^Forking of the League of Nation^ p. 132.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 39

The normal method of instituting an international
organ of the type of the Economic Committee is to base
it on the recommendations of a general conference. Out-
side the League the more or less infrequent conference
which establishes more or less permanent machinery is
the rule. The League itself has its conference and execu-
tive. And even the Mandates and the Military, Naval,
and Air Committees may be regarded as drawing their
authority from the Peace Conference which named them
in the Covenant. In the case of the Economic Com-
mittee the Council decided also that a general conference
should be called. It was pursuing the same policy which
had already led it to summon the financial and transit
conferences. In the meanwhile the Economic Committee
was set up provisionally. It met for the first time at the
end of November 1920. Its duty was partly to prepare
for this general conference which it was hoped might be
held in 1921, and partly to advise on current questions.
Actually it was found that the time was not ripe for the
contemplated conference, and the life of the Committee
was prolonged for a second and third year. Finally, in
1923, on the statement by the Committee that it con-
sidered its best work for the moment to be 'essentially
practical', the Council decided that the word 'Provisional'
should be omitted from its title and its existence pro-
longed until further order. 1 With only two exceptions it
continued without change until its complete reorganiza-
tion after the World Economic Conference, which at last
took place in 1927. On the accession of Germany to the
League a seat was found for Dr. Trendelenburg, a German
national, on the Committee, and in December 1926 the
Committee was further enlarged by the addition of a
temporary Austrian member. 2 Its size at the twenty-first
session, begun in February 1927, was therefore fourteen.

Several important changes were brought about as a
result of the Economic Conference by the Resolutions of

1 Sept. 10, 1923: 26 C. 1303.

2 43 C. 139, 229.

40 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

the Assembly and the Council in September 1927.* The
Committee now has fifteen members. Instead of these
being appointed for an indefinite period, they have a
definite term of three years. They are, however, re-eligible.
Any vacancies may be filled, but it appears that they will
hold good only for the current term. The Council has
again emphasized the fact that members are appointed
for personal capacity, and not as representatives of their
governments. The considerable independence of the
Committee is also stressed. Procedure is entirely under
its own control. It may consult experts and appoint them
to special committees, and may investigate on whatever
lines it pleases. The chairman, however, must be elected
for at least one year. And the Council 'reserves the right
to take any necessary decisions on the Committee's reports
as soon as the work has passed the preparatory stage and
entered upon the stage of action'.

An important new category of members is formed.
There are corresponding members attached to several of
the committees of the International Labour Organization;
the same policy has been followed in the Fiscal Committee
and in a sub-committee of both the Health and the
Intellectual Co-operation Committees. 2 At the end of

1929 there were eight corresponding members working
with the Economic Committee. According to the Council
resolution all retiring members of the Committee auto-
matically become corresponding members, provided that
no national of their own country is appointed in their
place. The Council may also elect other than retiring
members for a period of three years, subject to the same
provision. By this widening of its associations the Com-
mittee can enjoy increased facilities of study and of co-
operation without the disadvantages of adding to its size.
Of the eight corresponding members at the beginning of

1930 two were South American and one Chinese, but
the rest were European. The duties of these members are

1 Sept. 28, 1927: 47 C 1455.

2 Malaria and Interchange of Teaching Staff Sub-Committees.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 41

to receive all documents and to submit any proposals they
think fit. They are to assist in investigations and, when
required, to attend meetings in order to express their
opinions. As will be seen later, several have in fact
attended, and contributed valuably to the work.

4

One of the most important questions which can be
asked about an international committee is by whom its
members are appointed. To understand a committee's
attitude and to estimate the possibility of its effective
action that knowledge is essential. For effective work a
certain esprit de corps in a committee is an immense asset.
But where the interests of the appointing governments are
likely to clash with one another they will naturally choose
as members those who will most rigidly uphold their own
point of view, if necessary even at the expense of agree-
ment and against their own better judgement. Members
have actually been withdrawn because they did not suffi-
ciently reflect the views of their governments. Such con-
ditions are inimical to responsibility and to a common
approach. Where a member is nominated by his govern-
ment he remains its servant, and his loyalty will inhibit co-
operation at some stage. For however loyal he maybe to his
colleagues he will always be conscious of difference at some
point, and the knowledge that the source of his authority
is not the same as theirs will tend to accentuate that
difference. Since an esprit de corps is the most valuable of
a committee's possessions, since without it useful work
is improbable, it is vital that difference should not be
stressed. The principle is most important in relation to an
international committee because in that case there is most
excuse for abandoning it in a world that still leaves to
national governments the ultimate control. Co-operation
and a sense of common responsibility and a feeling of
fellowship are excellent things. They may result in the
production on paper of a real work of science. But science
for science' sake is not valid as an international economic

42 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

programme. If work never gets beyond the paper stage It
does not serve the purposes for which the Economic Com-
mittee exists. In order to do so to-day it must obtain the
approval of governments. And in order to do that the
Committee must know something about their attitudes,
having if possible some influence over the forming of their
policies. Here lies the strength of the argument for
appointment by governments. Clearly they will appoint
men fully qualified to express their own point of view.
But In that case the member's responsibility will be to his
government; he will tend to approach the committee with
a policy already formed in his mind, and to regard it as a
method of bargaining for the result most pleasing to his
government, rather than as a means of co-ordinating
national policies to international interest. Short of a
general reorganization on lines suggested by the Economic
Conference, 1 the best way out of the difficulty of securing
influential members without making their appointment
too definitely dependent upon their governments seems to
lie in the policy adopted by the Council of appointing, by
an international body, men who know the views of their
governments and of powerful interests in their own
country, and who are able to promote acceptance of the
Committee's recommendations.

Strong emphasis has been laid throughout the career of
the Economic Committee on the fact that its members are
appointed for personal capacity, and not as delegates of
their governments. This is stated in the report of M.
Leon Bourgeois, and it is reaffirmed by the resolution of
the Council of September 28th, 1927, which provides that

'the members shall be appointed by the Council in their per-
sonal capacity and on the ground of their qualifications in the
economic field, and more particularly in the matter of international
economic relations. They shall not be representatives of govern-
ments.'

The principle is as clearly stated as it well can be. But the

1 See p. 59 et. seq.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 43

majority of governments whose nationals have seats on the
Committee are predominant in the Council itself, and ? if
only for this reason, it is plain that each will have an
important share in determining who, among its own
nationals, shall be appointed as a member. Nomination is
in fact generally suggested by governments. For example,
when M. Sekiba retired from the Committee, Viscount
Ishii informed the Council that the Japanese Government
desired him to be replaced by M. Matsuyama, 1 who was
then immediately chosen. In spite of the plain denial con-
tained in the above resolution, members of the Council
sometimes slip into the habit of describing the Committee
as government delegates. Thus, when the question of
appointing a woman was raised by M. Dandurand and
supported by several others, Dr. Stresemann replied that
'the Economic Committee consisted solely of repre-
sentatives of the various governments'. 2 If challenged, he
would have found it impossible to justify this statement
from decisions in which he himself had shared. It was
probably dictated by his opposition to the proposal
and his desire to disclaim responsibility for change.
But there can be no doubt that his attitude is that of
many people, and that it corresponds in some degree
to reality. Further colour is lent to it by the habit, for
which there seems to be no constitutional justification,
of allowing an absent member to send a substitute, who is
naturally of the same nationality. Such a custom tends to
diminish the esprit de corps. The truth seems to be that
the idea of an official but non-governmental committee is
so new in international affairs that there is always a sliding
back into the old methods and the old terms.

An analysis of the Committee by countries after ten
years of the League shows, first, of course, that on it
were nationals of the five permanent members of the
Council. There were also an American, and a member
each from Scandinavia, South America, and the British
Empire. With regard to these areas it may be said that the
* 21 C. 1163. 2 480.133.

44 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

principle of succession has been recognized. A Norwegian
has succeeded a Dane; M. Barboza-Carneiro of the
Brazilian Embassy in London had sat since the Com-
mittee's inception; the Canadian who was nominated in
1920 but never sat had been replaced by an Australian,
who in turn gave place to the Indian Trade Commissioner
in London. The remaining six members were an Austrian,
Belgian, Czech, Pole, Roumanian, and Swiss. Of these,
three had replaced members of the same nationality the
Belgian, Polish, and Swiss thus indicating a tendency to
claim permanency of tenure. Professor Neculcea, of
Roumania, had sat since 1920. The places which had been
found for Dr. Schiiller, of the Austrian Foreign Office, in
1927, and for M, Dvoracek, a former Minister of Com-
merce in Czecho-Slovakia, in 1922 were still occupied by
them in 1930. Consequently the question of succession
had not arisen in any of the three remaining cases. It
results, therefore, that wherever the question did arise,
it was resolved in favour of a national of the already
occupying nationality.

Mr. Balfour said in 1920 that the British Government
wished to be represented on the proposed Economic
Committee by the President of the Board of Trade or his
delegate. 1 The Supreme Economic Council had previously
recommended that members should be of ministerial
rank. 2 In practice, however, only one minister has been
appointed, and as he never attended his nomination is not
of great significance. 3 Up to the close of the League's
tenth year there had also been one ex-minister on the
Committee, M, Dvoracek. Generally, the practice has
been for Europeans to be of high official rank in their
respective civil services, and for non-Europeans to be
either commercial attaches at an Embassy or commis-
sioners representing their country in London. Some
members, as for instance Mr. Eastman, ex-President of the

1 10 C. 29. 2 See p, 37.

3 Sir George Foster, Canadian Minister of Trade and Commerce, He,
however, attended the first joint meeting with the Financial Committee.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 45

Merchants' Association of New York, have been appointed
purely on business qualifications. Categories are not easily
defined, but of the twenty-five members, excluding Sir
George Foster, between 1920 and 1930, twelve were
officials, seven were commercial legates, and six business
men. Typical are: Of the first, the Secretary of State in
the German Ministry of Economics, and the Chief
Economic Adviser to the British Government ; and of the
second, the Indian Trade Commissioner, and the Com-
mercial Attache to the Brazilian Embassy in London.
Some of the countries having high economic officials on
the Committee 1 are: France, Poland, Czecho-SlovaKa,
Norway, Austria, Switzerland, and Great Britain. The
Roumanian is an ex-Director of the Ministry of Finance.
The weight of official representation is of great impor-
tance, especially because it has not prevented much of the
Committee's work from being ineffective. This was
stressed at the Tenth Assembly, and was resumed in the
speech with which the President opened the Conference
for Economic Concerted Action in February 1930. In the
course of it he said that

'the last Assembly was forced to realize that, even if the efforts of
the Economic Committee had been partly successful, they had on
the whole been made in an atmosphere of isolation; they had
received a certain lip-service, tributes which have not in fact
amounted to anything more than a distant and detached approval.'

Such a statement is of the most vital significance. It
implies deep-seated imperfection in the economic organi-
zation of the League. It means failure to achieve the most
important objects for which that organization exists, at a
time only three years after the whole system has been
reformed.

The average length of a member's tenure of his seat is
four years. While M. Serruys, Director of Economic
Information at the French Ministry of Commerce, sat for
the whole decade, the Japanese and Italian members, on

1 On Jan. I, 1930.

46 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

the other hand, were twice replaced. Too frequent change

acts, clearly, to the detriment of continuity.

The question of substitutes has already been mentioned.
These average only two at any one meeting, but sometimes
they are more numerous. At the fourteenth session, for
example, they were actually in majority over the members.

Procedure is not without importance. The Committee
meets three or four times a year, and the length of its
sessions varies from two to ten days. The thirty-first
sitting was held at Geneva from January loth to nth,
1930. The Committee has sat once each in London, Paris,
and Rome, but the rest of its meetings have taken place at
the League. These are held in private, and since the third
session no minutes have been published. This seems to be
due to the need for economy, to the Geddes axe which
hangs always over the activities of the League and the
Labour Office. Since 1927 the chairman has been elected
for a year. So jealous was the Council of its authority that
when the Committee was first appointed it was necessary
for its agenda to be approved by the Council. But since
the reorganization it has enjoyed complete control over
its own discussions.

5

The Economic Committee keeps in touch with other
bodies inside and outside the League. Among the latter
are, first, the national Economic Councils and such groups
as the Federation of British Industries, and second, the
International Chamber of Commerce, 1 the Inter-Parlia-
mentary Commercial Union, the Institute of Agriculture,
and similar organizations. Contact is unofficial through
the League staff, through representation at the Confer-
ence, or through the assistance of representatives at the
meetings of the Committee. 2 Inside the League the
Committee has contact, of course, with its own expert
commissions for Customs Nomenclature and for Veteri-

1 M. Pirelli, President of the International Chamber of Commerce, was
for five years a member of the Committee. 2 35 C. 1508.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 47

nary Police Measures. Tliese are appointed temporarily
for continuous study and advice. They are much less
numerous than those of most of the other sections of the
League, but they may be expected to increase as the work
of the Committee grows. This co-operates also with such
Independent organs as the Financial Committee, the
Economic Consultative Committee, the Statistical Com-
mittee, and the International Labour Office. At the
beginning of their career the Economic and Financial
Committees used several times to sit together in joint
sessions. Although they have developed apart, they are
still served by the same section of the staff.

The Consultative Committee.

The delegates to the World Economic Conference were
united in the opinion that much more should be done to
improve the economic situation. But as to the remedies
they were far from agreement. Several interesting pro-
posals for international reorganization were made. They
varied too much, however, for any great measure of har-
mony. And after much debate their highest common
factor proved to be the feeling that the preparatory com-
mittee for the conference was a good thing and fit to be
repeated. This was the gist of their recommendations to
the Assembly.

The latter accordingly decided at its eighth session to
create the Economic Consultative Committee. 1 This was
to consist of thirty-five members representing as wide
interests as possible. Industry, commerce, agriculture,
co-operatives, and labour were only some of the sources
drawn upon. The lack of agricultural representation on
the Economic Committee had already been stressed at the
Conference. And the Committee was therefore to contain
representatives of the Agricultural Institute at Rome, as
well as the International Labour Office and the Inter-
national Chamber of Commerce. In order to co-ordinate
with the Economic Committee this was to send a dele-
1 8 A. 1927, 154.

48 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

gation of five members to the meeting. The Assembly
contemplated that it might meet at least once every three
years. In fact it has met every year. In 1929 it had forty-
six members, besides one representative of the Institute
of Agriculture, three of the Chamber of Commerce, and
six delegates from the Economic Committee.

Much was said at the time about the difficulty of so
defining its sphere of activity that its work should remain
distinct from that of the Economic Committee. This was
never done. The reason seems to be that the two fields of
action are in fact the same. The Consultative Committee
in practice confines itself to considering the work of the
Economic Committee, approving it, and making sugges-
tions for its extension. The real difference between the
two seems to lie less in their functions than in their
membership. The Consultative Committee represents
a more varied co-operation. But the criticism may be
levelled against it that it is unpractical and conservative,
and does not carry with it the opinion of the interests in
whose name it stands. It certainly presents a more com-
plete picture, however, having more countries, more
interests, and more aspects of economic life represented
upon it. In reality it is a compromise, a hybrid. Besides
having the name, it has the terms of reference of a com-
mittee, its purpose being to see to the application of the
Economic Conference's recommendations. But with its
fifty-six members it has the form of a congress rather than
of a committee. The number of different interests and
points of view for which it attempts to find place is support
for this interpretation. The truth seems to be that the
Consultative Committee is a conference in embryo. It
aspires to tap wide sources, but the result is inadequate.
How is it possible to represent the outlook of two or three
different interests in each of fifty countries by a mere fifty
delegates ? Clearly what has been called the timidity of
the Conference's conclusions has resulted in a creation
which is neither flesh nor fowl, but aspires to be both.
The Consultative Committee has done no work which

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 49

could not have been done by one or other of its members
acting as an expert at the request of the Economic Com-
mittee. What unity it has is based on the past glory of the
Economic Conference and the possibility of its develop-
ment in the future. At present it is a mere germ of the
proposals put forward at the Economic Conference.

'The Statistical Committee.

The Secretary-General organized a conference of
statisticians, which met in London at the end of 1919, and
urged that the League of Nations should promote the
centralization and co-ordination of statistics. 1 The Council
decided on May igth, 1920, to appoint a committee of
nine members, with the power to co-opt, to advise on the
subject, and this was definitely appointed by the Council
in July. It met in Paris on October loth, and its report
was considered at the tenth meeting of the Council some
days later.

At its first meeting the Economic ^Committee recom-
mended to the Council that the League should take over
the publication of the Monthly Bulletin of Statistics.,
hitherto issued for the Supreme Economic Council by the
British and French ministries of trade. 2

The Genoa Conference recommended a closer study
and co-ordination of statistics. The Economic Committee
decided on September nth, 1922, to appoint a sub-com-
mittee to deal with the question of comparative methods
in statistics.

A mixed committee, nominated by the Economic Com-
mittee, the International Institute of Statistics, "and the
International Labour Office, met in London on Decem-
ber 4th, 1922.3 This appointed a committee of experts of
fourteen members, known as the Preparatory Committee
for the conference of the Institute of Statistics which was

1 Secretary-General's Report to the first Assembly, p. 19, and 5 C. 189.
z Report to 2nd Assembly, p. 58.

3 O.P. 4 . 275.

50 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

held at the end of 1923. The Committee met at The Hague

on January loth and nth, 1923.

A series of valuable resolutions were submitted to the
Economic Committee as a result of this conference, 1 and
it was decided that they should be circulated.

A further committee of eleven members, four from the
Economic Committee, four from the Institute of Statistics,
one from the International Labour Office, and two mem-
bers-secretaries from the League, was formed to carry on
the work of the Preparatory Committee. 2 It was to meet
alternately at The Hague and Geneva.

As a result of the work of this Committee the Council
stated that it approved in principle of the calling of a
conference of official statisticians in I928. 3 This con-
ference met at Geneva on November 26th. It was
attended by forty-two states, eight not being members of
the League. The convention which it drew up laid obli-
gations relating to both national internal and international
statistical methods. The conference recommended the
continuance of the work and the formation of a committee
of technical experts. This will be appointed, when the
convention is ratified by ten states, by the Council in joint
meeting with one delegate from each of the states non-
members of the League who happen to ratify first. This
new committee will therefore enjoy a peculiar sort of
independence. It will derive its authority from no per-
manent body and from no organ of the League.

A further conference met in Paris for a week from April
nth, 1928. It was non-governmental, members being
appointed by twenty-five banks of issue, including the
Federal Reserve Board of the United States, to represent
their statistical sections. Its main purpose, in which it
achieved a certain measure of success, was to co-ordinate
and render more comparable the statistical methods of
banks of issue in general, and of certain state banks whose
methods were most out of line with the rest in particular,

1 Ibid., 5. 556. 2 44 C. 396 (March 1927),

3 54 C. 583.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 51

The work of the Economic Committee resolves itself
into two broad types. In each case much profound study
is the essential preliminary to any sort of effective action.
And at present the most important part of its work is in
the investigation stage. The Committee has to pursue
a cautious policy. It has always to take into account the
different views of governments, and has often had to
content itself with a small success, where the attempt to
achieve bigger things would have raised the opposition of
some small section of opinion, and so have involved the
whole of its proposals in destruction.

On the one hand, it aims at facilitating trade by
removing the causes which hamper it. Tariffs can be
reduced and customs formalities simplified. The various
national laws on bills of exchange can be harmonized, the
treatment of foreign enterprises improved, or at least
stabilized, export and import prohibitions abolished. The
methods of preparing statistics or of classifying imports,
which differ from country to country, may be brought
into line, and by this means the groundwork laid for a
bureau of complete and comparable international infor-
mation. In all of these directions something has already
been done.

The usual method on which the work proceeds is first
for the Assembly or a conference to recommend certain
action. This is sufficient evidence that there is a general
demand for investigation to take place. If the Committee
considers there is any probability of practical results it
then hands on the task of study to a single expert or to
a special committee. The recomnlendations of the experts
which follow are examined, and, if considered suitable,
are formed into a draft convention, which is then sub-
mitted to a general conference specially called for the
purpose. Then it is simply a question of treaty signing
and ratification. And the success will depend on how far
those responsible for the preliminary work have foreseen

E 2

52 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

and provided for the difficulties which might be raised by
any one out of some thirty or forty delegations.

In the realm of tariff questions the Truce Conference,
called for February 1930, had a long and detailed draft
convention prepared for it by the Committee with the
assistance of the Economic Section. The Customs No-
menclature Committee, of seven members, has toiled
unremittingly. It has shown considerable power of
invention. In face of the failure of the two conferences
called to study the question in 1900 and 1913 so much as
to begin its solution this achievement is worthy of the
highest praise.

One of the most important multilateral treaties on
purely commercial relations prepared by the Economic
Committee is the Convention on Import and Export Pro-
hibitions. On January I4th, 1930, it had been signed by
twenty-nine governments and ratified by eighteen.

A convention simplifying customs formalities, and
abolishing unjust discrimination against the commerce
of any contracting state, came into force in November
1924. On January I4th, 1930, it was ratified by thirty
states.

The International Convention for the Protection of
Industrial Property was revised at a conference at The
Hague in November 1925.

The first multilateral economic convention concluded
under the auspices of the League is the protocol on com-
mercial arbitration, dating from September 24th, 1923.
On January I4th, 1930, it had been signed by thirty-four
governments and ratified by twenty. If the dependencies
of the British Empire such as Ceylon and Gibraltar-
be Included, the number of ratifications increases to forty-
three.

^ On the other hand, the Committee does work of a
different and perhaps a more ambitious character. This is
directed not so much against the tariff and legal conditions
created by governments as against those still more fruitful
causes of conflict which are to be found in industrial cut-

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 53

throat competition and monopoly in the international
sphere. It is here that the need for those 'recognized
principles 9 , which the Economic Conference strongly
recommended, 1 is most urgent. 'It is precisely for these
questions 3 , as M. Politis has said, 'that international law
does not yet furnish enough rules.' 2 The need is in fact
for some sort of rationalized control of production and
distribution, which, in a world ever more definitely an
economic unit, can take place only on an international
basis. And this implies more than rules; it implies
organization. 3

In fact, not a great deal has yet been done in this
direction. The work remains at the stage of study. By the
terms of the First Assembly's resolution 4 the Economic
Committee's task was to be twofold. It was to prepare for
the coming conference. It was to study the economic
situation. At that moment the question of certain raw
material supplies seemed likely to cause friction. The
Council, therefore, 'impressed with the difficulties experi-
enced by many countries in securing the imported materials
which they need for their prosperity and even their
existence', instructed 'the Economic Committee to ex-
amine: (a) the extent and character of those needs; ()

1 See Report of the Consultative Committee for 1928, C. 217, M. 73,
1928:

'The Conference, Recognising that maintenance of world peace depends
largely upon the principles on which the economic policies of nations are
framed and executed,

'Recommends that the Governments and peoples of the countries here
represented should together give continuous attention to the establish-
ment of recognised principles designed to eliminate those economic diffi-
culties which cause friction and misunderstanding in a world which has
everything to gain from peaceful and harmonious progress. 7

2 Reciieildes Cours, Hague^ 1925, i. 113.

3 See for example Culbertson, International Economic Policy, p. 334.

4 A. 1920, Annex 120 (e), and Sir Arthur Salter ('Economic Causes of
War', in "The Reawakening of the Orient^ p. 123) : 'What is wrong is not
inadequate resources, or inadequate effort ; it is all, in one form or another,
a misdirection of effort. There is a maladjustment, seriously greater than
before the war, between supply and demand.'

54 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

causes by which these difficulties have been produced,

particular attention being paid to the effect of monopolies'. z

This was the direct result of the Marquis Tittoni's
report on Monopolies. 2 The question had been agitating
the Italian delegation at the Peace Conference as a result
of the scarcity of such products as coal which followed
decontrol. This meant a real threat to Italy's industrial
life for the moment. If Italy's position was not so bad
as to justify her delegate's phrase, that she was being
'hindered and strangled in her economic development',
Mr. Balfour's opposition even to a study of the question
on the ground that England might equally justly claim
an internationalizing of sunshine, may have been founded
on a good debating point, but it was one entirely devoid
of logic. After all, the production of coal can be con-
trolled, that of sunshine as yet cannot. And if it can be
controlled there is an argument for controlling it ration-
ally. Since the time of this debate the tables have been
turned. Under-production of coal has given place to a
surplus of supply. And it was naturally a producing
country, Great Britain, which most strongly urged the
importance at the Tenth Assembly of completing the
study on coal.

The debate in the First Assembly on the decision to
create the Economic Committee was peculiarly bitter.
Objection was raised to the proposed investigation into
monopolies and raw materials. One after another, both
in the Second Committee 3 and in Plenary Session, 4
regardless of the chairman and regardless of the fact that
they were discussing something which was not the subject
of debate, the whole contingent of British Empire dele-
gates rose to protest against the study of raw materials
supply. Several members pointed out that there was
nothing revolutionary in the suggestion for authorizing
a committee to make a study, that it bound no one to
approve their report, that it was, in fact, a prejudging of

1 Council Resolution, Oct. 27, 1920, is 10 C. 225. 2 19 C. 217.

3 i A, 1920, C. ii. 131. 4 i A. 1920, PL 355.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 55

the issue to oppose its investigation. But this did not
appease the opposition. The sole argument, however,
which they were able to put forward was that of Sir
George Foster, for Canada. He said that since Article 23
contained no reference to raw materials, the Council was
going beyond its rights in authorizing a study of the matter.
Sir William Meyer even stated that the words 'equitable
treatment of commerce' do not imply tariff questions.
The terms of the preamble to the Covenant, the discus-
sions at Paris, and commonsense are sufficient answer to
such an attitude. But it is typical of the kind of obstruc-
tion born generally of a lack of knowledge and a conse-
quent failure to appreciate the issue which the League
worker has always to anticipate.

The Council's resolution, however, had already been
passed. The Committee began a study of the question of
monopolies; but in the meanwhile the problem of in-
sufficient supply had already disappeared. The difficulties
raised by over-production did not occur until after the
depression had set in. And that implied a study of pro-
duction from a different angle. The Economic Conference
urged a thorough investigation of the world production
of sugar and coal. It recommended in the case of sugar
'That an international agreement between all exporting
countries and those likely to have an export surplus in the
near future should be arranged with a view to a concerted
and rational policy of sale'. x Again, in May 1928, the
Economic Consultative Committee recommended the
Council to invite the Economic Organization to under-
take a thorough study of all factors and measures influenc-
ing the production and consumption of sugar and the
international trade therein, and suggested that a report
should be made to the Council in order that the latter
may be able to judge whether concerted international
action could further the solution of the problems under
consideration. The Committee found, as a result of its
inquiry, that seven-eighths of the total sugar production
1 See Doc. C. 303, M. 104, 1929, ii. 15.

56 TOE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

of the world Is produced behind protective barriers or

with the help of subsidies and bounties.

A very similar position is shown by the interim report
on the Coal Industry. 1 The proposals for its solution are
four. In the opinion of the Committee the suggestion of
an international agreement among producers was not for
the League to discuss. The assimilation of conditions of
labour it regarded as a merely ameliorative measure,
suitable for the International Labour Office to consider.
The abolition of artificial obstructions to free competition
it thought suitable for its own investigation. But the
fourth proposal, in many ways the most interesting, for a
special international commission composed of representa-
tives of governments, employers, miners, merchants, and
consumers, with the power to regulate production, the
Committee had not considered in its interim report.

7

The structure of the Economic Committee and the
success of its work are intimately connected questions. It
would be useless to judge its achievement in the face of
gigantic world problems without keeping in mind the
limitations set upon it at the outset by its very nature and
organization. The right to exert a beneficent influence
is alone given to it ; power rests elsewhere. But it is already
possible to see in the Economic Committee's recommenda-
tions one of the real sources of international legislation.
That it has done work of great value does not need em-
phasis. The preparation for the Economic Conference and
the results gained by that alone give it a right to fame.

Its achievements have been summarized briefly above.
Perhaps the most important of them up to the present
have lain in the realm of study. But it already has several
conventions to its name, and the mere fact of the large
number of conferences called means that the international
background of their tasks has been brought continually
before governments.

1 Doc. C. 150, M. 58, 1929.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 57

It would be Idle, however, to suppose that anything
more than one step has been made towards an inter-
national organization capable of meeting the needs of
reality. Economic life has advanced more quickly than"
the methods of ordering it. International institutions lag
dangerously far behind the facts. Industry and commerce
are increasingly cosmopolitan. But neither the principles
nor the machinery for controlling them have yet reached
a comparable stage of development.

The failure of the Committee so far to achieve anything
in the nature of a solution even on paper of such a problem
as that of monopolies is not the least of its shortcomings.
And a position in which one nation or a small group of
industrialists can control the supply of rubber or potash
or coffee, and can within the limits of monopoly hold the
rest of the world to toll, is clearly pregnant with possibili-
ties of friction. That such cases will increase with the
increasing concentration of capital is the lesson of modern
economic history. The failure to control to-day will make
control no easier to-morrow, when the tendency has be-
come stronger.

Still more important at present as a cause of suffering
and waste, discontent and discord, is the problem of over-
production, in which the position has got steadily worse.
Nor is it so difficult of solution as to warrant delay. The
experiment in sugar control of 1902 worked effectively
for ten years. 1 Development along simikr lines gives the
only apparent hope of remedy. Both sugar and coal have
world markets, and with neither, therefore, is anything
but an international scheme capable of providing a solu-
tion. A committee of control, in which consumers would
be represented, with wide powers of restricting output,
determining quota, and allotting supply, should be able
to organize a rational scheme of production.

'During the period of high, sugar prices between 1919 and 1924
. . the principles of the Brussels Convention were almost univer-

i g, ee f f g w Sayre, Experiments in International Administration.

58 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

sally abandoned, and protection began. The situation to-day is thus
in many ways similar to that which obtained in 1902. An over-
stimulated industry is suffering from an excessive, febrile activity.' I

Experience of international administration is much, greater
than It was in 1902; the League has a fund of it on which
to draw; war-time and League experiment has indicated
methods as well as possibilities. Yet nothing has been
done. Similar conditions reign in the coal industry, where
the need for international control was never more urgent.

The same ineffectiveness may be argued as a criticism
of the Economic Committee's work in relation to treaties.
It is true that of six commercial conventions and protocols
signed up to January I4th, 1930, five were in force, but
these relate to only three distinct questions, and those by
no means the most important to solve.

The reason lies less in the caution of the Committee
than in the system of its organization. It is without
sufficient influence in the national centres of opinion on
economic matters. In order that its work may be effective
governments, producers, both employers and employed,
and the consumers must be convinced of its value. The
real factories of opinion, and the ultimate sources of
power, are not in the permanent bureaux of the ministries
of commerce. Yet it is these almost alone which are re-
presented on the Committee. The present organization
seems to be based on the assumption that international
affairs are relations between states. In reality the most
important relations are contacts between individuals. And
to meet that situation it is essential that the opinions of
these individuals should be taken into account. Before a
project of treaty can have any prospect of acceptance it
must gain the approval of governments, but also of the
chief interests whom its application will concern.

Such consultation has the additional advantage that it

brings home to a much wider circle the realities of the

situation and the difficulties which confront those with

the duty to find a solution. It may give them an interest

1 The World Sugar Situation, C. 303, M. 104, 1929, p. 8.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 59

in the work on hand. In any case It is an invitation to
co-operate, and as such an advance.

For this reason some of the proposals for reorganization 1
which were made at the Economic Conference are not
without interest. Monsieur Jouhaux put forward a scheme
for a semi-autonomous economic organization. This was
to consist of a Conference representing finance, agricul-
ture, commerce, labour, co-operatives, and consumers
and an Executive Council of eighteen member twelve
being appointed by the Council of the League and six by
the Governing Body of the International Labour Office,
three members from its Employers' and three from its
Labour groups. Mr. Pugh suggested an organization lite
that of the International Labour Office, on which con-
sumers, producers, and governments should be equally
represented. A similar proposal was made and adopted
by the British Labour Party in 1 927. 2 It is not unreason-
able, therefore, to expect that a Labour Government
would favour such a change. 3

The one point on which all the proposals agreed was the
necessity for associating a much wider group of interests
with the Economic Committee. This was, of course,
enshrined in the Economic Consultative Committee,
which suffers from the criticism of inadequacy already
urged. It is possible that the solution may lie along the
lines of Mr. Pugh's motion.

In sum, the official character of members of the Eco-
nomic Committee makes it fair to say that the general
assumption on which the Committee is based is that
governments alone are responsible for national activity.
On that assumption it is true that ministers, first, and high
officials, second, should alone have a share in the planning
of international legislation. Even in that case, however,
the Economic Committee suffers from three short-
comings: (i) It does not bring ministers themselves

* C. 356, M. 129, 1927, i, p. 175.

2 Report of the 27th Conference of the Labour Party, 1927, p. 323.

3 See also Dalton, Towards the Peace of Nations, Ch. X.

60 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

together; (2) It lays stress, therefore, upon the importance
of departments of state which opens the system at once to
the accusation of bureaucracy; (3) It covers up the general
Importance of questions by submitting them to only one
type of expert mind, that of the bureaucrat, which in its
own civil service is subjected to the unspecialized mind of
a cabinet minister, but which in international affairs has
little or no supervision to undergo.

This whole assumption, however, belongs to the theory
of state sovereignty and to nationalism, which for most
practical purposes fitted the world of two centuries ago
a world of isolated governments, of local economy, of
agriculture and little trade, of difficult and perilous com-
munications. In such conditions it was safe to assume that
the state was the final unit of human organization, having
its heart at the seat of government and its soul distributed
among the people living within a certain political boun-
dary. But to-day other and as important corporate
entities exist, which often disregard the political map and
cut across the boundaries of state organization. The
world of international cartels, international trade unions,
of world markets, of supply and demand closely inter-
locked on international lines, of comparatively easy migra-
tion of labour and capital, of nations in which functional
groupings are increasingly marked, such a world demands
different methods. It is not states alone that must be
taken into account. Nor need the complexity of the pro-
blem raise doubts, for there can be no question that a more
complex economic life demands more complex economic
institutions for its control.

The implications are neither remote nor impracticable.
War-time experience proved the value of associating minis-
ters severally responsible for internal administration. The
Supreme Economic Council recommended an economic
body of ministerial rank. Mr. Barnes that said the British
President of the Board of Trade might wish to attend the
meetings of the new Economic Committee. And actually
one minister was appointed, as well as one ex-minister.

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 61

A council which brought the ministers of commerce
regularly together would have a high level of debate, and
probably a considerable output of work. It might also be
expected to develop a sense of unity which would give it
a vital importance in international affairs. Were it sup-
plied with responsible work to do, were it to operate in the
publicity which would naturally be given to such a meet-
ing of responsible ministers, there can be small doubt that
it would tend to develop an esprit de corps of its own, which
might have great significance in the work of the League.
And even if this were not so it would bring before
ministers at first hand the personal views of those actually
responsible for framing policy in other countries. It
would often give them this contact at a time before the
definite lines of their policy had been laid down. Experi-
ence has shown that agreement comes more easily at this
early stage. Opinions are then more flexible and less in-
volved in questions of prestige or losing face 3 .

The countries represented could be based on the same
principle of economic importance as is already applied to
the Governing Body of the International Labour Organi-
zation. That would give it a membership of twelve, or
of thirteen with the participation of the United States.
Alternately it might be modelled on the Council of the
League, with permanent and rotating membership.

But the co-operation of officials also has its value. It is
here that the proposals of the Economic Conference have
their bearing, A triple organization of consumers, officials,
and producers might be formed, which should meet some-
times in joint conference, but generally as separate
advisory committees to the Economic Committee. The
consumers might be represented by eminent economists.
These could be appointed by national economic councils
where those exist, and otherwise by governments. Among
the official delegates would be the permanent secretaries
of the ministries represented on the Council and of the
less developed countries which did not prefer to send their
responsible ministers. The producers would contain

62 THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE

industrialists and employees equally divided. The most
important and the most numerous questions would require
to be considered by all three sections of the Conference.
But there would be two clear advantages in having them
debated apart. The size of the advisory committees, being
smaller, would lend itself more to effective debate. The
responsibility of one section of opinion for turning down
a proposal could not be hidden. Each advisory committee
might come to develop a sense of unity in the face of criti-
cism directed against it by one of the other committees,
by the Council, or by public opinion. The emphasis of the
organization would lie, of course, upon the Economic
Council, which should have the final word of decision as
to whether proposals should be proceeded with, but which
would not be able to prevent discussion of any proposal by
any one of the committees. It may be urged that such a
scheme would result in disagreement between the various
sections of opinion, but this is not important since their
capacity as separate advisers would not make their agree-
ment necessary. On the other hand, it would bring the
expression of opinion into the open, and it might even
confront the Economic Council with an agreed demand
for some particular course of action, which it would not
otherwise take.

Such an organization would in time become the natural
scene for raising and discussing the problems of the
moment, the more so since in the hands of its members
would lie the ultimate decision upon policy. A question
agitating any one ministry of commerce, or the difficulties
of a particular industry provided that there was any
prospect of international remedy would profitably be
put before it. Such problems as over-production and
monopoly, migration and raw materials, would naturally
find expression there. It is these that at present lurk in
the background of international relations. They come to
the front only at times, as in the Stevenson scheme or the
Hirohito incident. But theirs is the true threat which
civilization has to encounter. And if they are hardly yet

THE ECONOMIC COMMITTEE 63

mentioned in International discussion, it is only because
the consequences they foreshadow are too devastating to
be a welcome subject of thought. So far only a small
attempt has been made to attack the fringe of these pro-
blems by private investigation on the Economic Section^
suggestion. In an organization, however, such as that con-
templated here, solution might quite conceivably be found
in the work of special mixed committees appointed to deal
with each question on its merits. Treatment would vary.
In some cases of questions of production and distribution
an agreement for conservation of resources coupled with
an agreed percentage distribution among signatories, as in
the North Pacific Sealing Convention of 191 1, 1 might
prove adequate. In others, when there was likely to be
either a permanent shortage or surplus, or where an
industry was highly trustified and internationalized, more
advanced machinery might prove necessary. The possi-
bility of a successful system of joint purchase of supplies by
an international committee acting through agents in the
various markets was shown by the executives of the Allied
organization. For every vital product there was one of
these. Their purpose was to meet needs of supply funda-
mentally similar to those of to-day, although exigencies of
war laid stress on their urgency. In just such a method of
appointing special committees might be found the solution
of some, at least, of present economic problems. Such
committees would exert a measure of control varying with
the circumstances. And over them, as a co-ordinating and
authoritative body, would be the Economic Council. The
outcome of such an organization would be assured. It
would bring about personal contacts of possibly great
value. It would result in a gradual growth of organs of
control, and a linking together of all the problems of inter-
national production and distribution, in an attempt at
co-ordinated system. Purpose might even creep in where
to-day development is haphazard.

1 This seems to have worked quite successfully. See American Journal
of International Law, 1925, p. 739.

Ill

THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

*In the conversations which decide policy the financial groups, well-in-
formed and alert, are always early in the field, and against their claim to
represent a national interest there is no popular influence, equally alert,

equally well-informed, to balance their pressure.'

BRAILSFORD, War of Steel and Gold.

ALTHOUGH there was co-operation in the credit
^/J^system of the Allies, financial responsibility for the
conduct of the War was entirely national. Its cost was met
either out of the current revenue of each ally or by a
mortgage on the future in the shape of an internal or
foreign loan. The latter were floated chiefly in England
during the earlier years, but in America later. Such a
method implied that the less wealthy countries had to
plead, often from month to month, for the credits without
which they could not prosecute the War. During the last
months of the War and later they were in all but complete
dependence upon the Federal Treasury of the United
States. But it remained true, as Monsieur Tardieu said,
that Tarticularist in the matter of command, the Allies
were even more so in financial affairs, and right up to
the end of hostilities the treasury of each country was des-
tined to remain the inexpugnable citadel of national
individualism. 7 1

It is true that each government remained responsible
for its own expenditure without reference either to its
capacity to pay or to the comparative payments of its
Allies. But the supply of certain goods was co-ordinated
towards the end of the War, and since a large proportion
of the purchases were necessarily made in the United

1 M. Andre Tardieu, in denying the suggestion of Prof. Gide that it
would have been possible, when the military command was unified, to
have seized the chance for bringing about a pooling of resources with a
view to conducting the campaign from a common purse. See his La Paix,
P- 373-

THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE 65

States It was possible also to co-ordinate them there. The
Inter- Allied Council of War Purchases and Finance was
the first Allied Council to sit which contained an American. l
The President was Mr. Crosby, sole delegate of the United
States. Mr. Austen Chamberlain, Lord Bucknaaster, and
General Smuts sat on behalf of England. France was repre-
sented by MM. Clementd, Hausser (for M. Loucheur),
and Bignon, member of the Chamber of Deputies; Italy
by Baron Mayer des Planches and Professor B. Attolico. At
the first meeting it was decided that the Finance Ministers
of France, Italy, and England should be present personally
or by delegation at subsequent sessions. The Council was
therefore very definitely ministerial. Its function was to
organize collaboration between the Allied expenditure
departments for one group of supplies in one market. As
such it marked the first attempt at any sort of co-ordinated
international finance.

The need for this was never so imperative as in the con-
ditions which followed the signing of the Armistice. The
delegates at the Paris Conference were responsible, as
negotiators, for creating a long-time settlement, one of the
terms of which was the Covenant, and, as rulers, for solving
the immediate problems of a desperate situation. In this
second of their duties there were two opposing currents of
opinion. The one realized vividly the intense gravity of
the position: that Germany was without working capital;
that the newly created states lacked revenue; that France
and Belgium had a vast work of reconstruction to accom-
plish without the necessary funds; that every European
belligerent was faced with the problem of rapid con-
version of industry from the uses of war to those of peace,
a feat which required the use of capital in such conditions
of risk that few financiers would supply it; that France, for
example, was relying for all her measures of recuperation
on the payment of reparations by a Germany which could
not pay a hundredth part of the figures claimed without
a collapse which would involve ruin and revolution in
1 Times History of the War> xxi. 85*

66 THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

almost every capital in Europe. 1 The one view recognized
this position and would have had the Allies concert active
measures to control It. The other view was that ^ of
classical liberalism. It held that although the situation
was grave it was useless to attempt to meet it by govern-
ment action. Loans were a matter which only private
bankers knew how to organize, and If left to themselves
they would soon see their opportunity and take it. This
last outlook was backed by two of the most powerful
forces In history ignorance and Indolence. It was only
those at Paris, and of them but a few that had any Inkling
of the realities. To the population of any victor country
measures one quarter as thoroughgoing as were needed
would have seemed a betrayal of their most vital Interests.
And since the contrary attitude was the easy one of letting
things more or less alone, the most facile policy on which
to agree, it inevitably won.

The two attitudes are typified in the correspondence
which passed between Mr. Bernard Baruch and Lord
Robert Cecil. "The salvation of the world', said Mr.
Baruch, 'must rest upon the initiative of individuals.
Individual credit can be established where governmental
credit has gone/ *I am sorry you should ever have mis-
understood me', replied Lord Cecil, 'to the extent of
thinking that I thought there was any advantage in shirk-
ing the large economic issues which lie before us. I
thought I had made it quite clear that in my judgement
they must be faced and dealt with if possible before the
President leaves Europe. You think that without question
the economic situation can be solved by individual initia-
tive. It may be so, though my own opinion is to the
contrary; and it is for that reason that I pressed for the
summoning of a small expert committee, to which Colonel
House agreed. It may be that the result of the inquiry
will show that without American assistance on a large
scale nothing can be done, and it may also be that America

1 R. S. Baker, Woodrow Wilson and the WsrU Settlement, iii, Doc. 48
(Lloyd George's lettet).

THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE 67

will decline to give that assistance. If she intends to take
that attitude^ forgive me for saying that she ought to take
it quite openly and before the face of the world. Then we
in Europe shall know the extent of the problem that
faces us.' *

But the suggestions which were thus turned down are
important. They are particularly so because the League
was ultimately forced to apply similar principles when the
time for prevention had gone and attempt at cure had to
be made.

The general position is well described in the Davis-
Lamont memorandum: Tor the moment Europe^ with
great inherent wealth, is almost destitute of goods.
America has, or can produce, an exportable surplus of such
goods. It is almost inconceivable that America should
fail to make every effort to meet such a situation. Every
consideration of humanity, justice, and self-interest de-
mands it/ But against this has to be set the fact that there
was no conception in America of the real state of Europe.
'Not only is the desperate character of the situation not
understood, but there is no appreciation of the fact that
America's destinies are in large measure inseparable from
those of the rest of the world/ 2 It was for these reasons
that proposals were made at first for limiting the credits
granted to cover only purchases in the United States, and
for abandoning all attempt to co-ordinate these credits as
given by the United States and France or Great Britain.

The first of the two proposals for concerted government
action was that made by Mr. Keynes, and put forward by
Mr. Lloyd George in a noteworthy letter, as the British
Government's 'constructive contribution to the solution
of the greatest financial problem ever set to the modern
world'. The Keynes scheme 3 envisaged a loan of
.1,500,000,000, guaranteed jointly by the enemy govern-
ments and by the Allies in the event of their default. One-
fifth of this was to be devoted to the provision of Germany

1 Ibid, Doc. 47.

2 Ibid., Doa 51. 3 Ibid., Doc. 48.

F2

68 THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

and the central European states with working capital, the
means of buying food and the raw materials necessary to
set industry once more on foot. The failure of any govern-
ment to fulfil its guarantee was to be considered by the
Financial Section of the League of Nations. But the
scheme never stood any chance of acceptance, if only
because Congress, as President Wilson said, would never
grant 'authority to place a Federal guarantee upon bonds
of European origin'.

The problem was next submitted to a committee ap-
pointed by the four heads of states. 1 It was to report on
Europe's requirements of food and raw materials and the
means of financing such supplies'. The report, perhaps
because, although an excellent summary of the position, it
made no clear recommendations for immediate action,
was never seriously considered. It found that private
credit would be inadequate of itself to overcome the diffi-
culties, unless it were buttressed by a governmental sharing
of risks. This it said was the ultimate solution, but in the
meanwhile provisional measures were necessary to secure
the supply of raw materials. A Government Loan was
therefore to be floated for this purpose, but of only some
thirty or forty million pounds. Among other things it
made proposals for the stabilizing of currency, to arrest
inflation, and to prevent waste on armaments. But its
work was investigational and theoretic. Although the
carrying out of its suggestions in practice would have
meant some sort of international financial organization, it
did not specify this.

On the other hand, in the proposals of Davis and
Lamont as in the Keynes scheme a definite financial organ
was contemplated. A 'small special Committee made up
of bankers and men of affairs' was to be formed to co-
ordinate the credits offered by private bankers and invest-
ment groups. It was to be a non-governmental committee,
and to keep close contact with both investment houses and

1 Ibid,, Doc. 52. The members were Norman Davis and Baruch 3 Cecil
and Keynes, Loucheur and Clementel, Crespi and Attolico.

THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE 69

borrower countries. But It was to be European rather
than International and to act as a liaison between the
demand in Europe and the supply in America. As such it
would, of course, have been entirely dependent upon the
country-wide trust of investment houses which was recom-
mended as the method of co-ordinating American supply.
By the end of the Conference individual initiative had
won the day, but the event proved that it was incapable
of solving the large issues before it. And consequently it
fell in the end to the League of Nations to find a solution.

In the debates of the Financial and League of Nations
Commissions at the Peace Conference there appeared
several divisions of opinion upon the financial provisions
of the Covenant. One group wished to create some means
of international control of national budgets, in order to
have power over the distribution of reconstruction costs
and the payment of reparations. Another saw the danger
to the future of the League in connecting it with the
thankless job of debt collection, and aimed at preserving
it from the odium of such a task. A third wanted to solve
the immediate problem by organizing an international
credit scheme and, attached to it, a financial commission
as an instrument of reconstruction. Although this view
showed the closest appreciation of the actual state of
affairs it did not prevail. But this has been described
already, and it was between the first two viewpoints that
the main cleavage of opinion occurred.

The ^elaborate proposals' of the French, as they were
called by Lord Cecil, were originally put forward by M.
Klotz, French Minister of Finance, at the Plenary Session
of January 25th, 1919. They were discussed in the Finan-
cial Commission, which admitted them in principle,
studied them in sub-committee, and finally, on April 5th,
unanimously adopted the report. 1 This urged the creation

1 Miller, il. 713.

7 o THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

of a financial section of the League, by which was meant
a conference of financial experts. Besides the general
functions of advice, investigation, and the nomination of
committees decided upon by the Council, this section was
'to control the execution of the financial terms of the
Treaty of Peace in the event of the League of Nations
receiving general control of the Treaty'. Otherwise, an
Inter- Allied Commission should be appointed for this
purpose. 1

The Klotz proposals were never considered by the
League of Nations Commission. But the French amend-
ment to the Pact, which has already been mentioned, 2
had similar though vaguer implications. It was a mani-
festation of the same idea. It demanded that special
measures should be taken to bring about just conditions
in *les charges budgetaires d'apres-guerre'.

Two distinct ideas were contained in these proposals.
The first was the desire for some control of financial
arrangements between the Allied and Associated Powers.
Behind this lay France's wish that she alone should not
have to meet the cost of reconstructing her devastated
areas. The second was the anxiety to ensure the payment
of ex-enemy debts by some measure of Allied supervision.
But both these demands were fundamentally inacceptable
to the Americans and British. Consequently they were
never given serious discussion. It is true that Lord Cecil
agreed to the creation of a financial section, on which were
to sit one representative of each state member, together
with any finance ministers who liked to come. It is true
that this was incorporated in a note at the end of the
Hurst-Miller Draft. 3 But all reference to debt collection
was left out, and both Mr. Strauss for the British, and
Colonel House made it understood that it was debarred
from such a function. 4

Further criticism of even this modification was raised,
however. It was asserted that it was impossible to prevent

1 IbicL, 1. 282-3. 2 See supra, Chapter II.

3 Miller, ii. 667. * Ibid., L 292.

THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE 71

such, a financial organ from being associated In public
opinion with debts and reparations. Three objections
were put forward by Miller in the following paragraph: *

'The proposal for a Financial Section . . . should be wholly
rejected. It practically would create another Body of Delegates,
and would arouse much feeling against the Covenant as being
capitalistic. Furthermore, the sole purpose of this amendment is
to help M. Klotz in the Chamber of Deputies/

Finally, it was urged that such proposals were an un-
necessary overloading of the Covenant, since the power
to create any necessary financial committee was already
within its terms. 2

It was for these reasons that when the Draft Covenant
came up for the consideration of Wilson and Cecil the
provision for a financial committee or conference was
dropped. The proposals which were put forward, how-
ever, are not without their importance. It is interesting
to note that they looked toward a ministerial body of con-
siderable authority and independence. This Financial
Council was to be empowered to call conferences and
nominate committees, provided only that a general line
of policy had been determined beforehand by the Assembly
or the Council of the League.

3

Soon after the signing of peace the British Government
announced that it would favour an international financial
conference on the world-wide crisis, and would take part,
provided that it were convened by a neutral state or by
the League of Nations. The Council considered^ this at
its session in London on February 1920. It decided^ to
summon such a conference and it set up an organizing
committee. The sending of invitations was approved by
the Council in March and the agenda for the Conference
in May. 3

1 Ibid., i. 394. 2 By Art. 5; also, see Miller, i. 401.

3 5 C. 33, and 179*

72 THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

Owing to postponement the Conference l did not meet
until September, It was a technical meeting of experts,
chosen by governments but not accredited by them. As
such, its claim to be ^unique in the history of the world 5
was justified. It was an experiment of the greatest value,
since it showed the possibility of unanimity between
experts drawn from environments of the widest diver-
gence. Thirty-nine states, including three-quarters of the
world's population, were represented. Among them were
late belligerents, non-members of the League, and the
United States. They came to complete agreement upon
the resolutions adopted. It is true that many of these
were axiomatic, but that by no means diminishes their
significance. If self-evident truth dominated policy as
a rule, the world would be unrecognizable to any one who
blows it to-day. And, as the Conference pointed out in
its report, the adoption of its most axiomatic recommen-
dations would have meant *a fundamental change in the
policy of nearly all the governments represented*. An
example is the axiom that current expenditure should be
met by current revenue: 'in nearly three out of four of
the countries represented at the Conference, however,
and in nearly eleven out of twelve of European countries,
budgets do not at present balance, and many of them
show no prospect of doing so in the near future. 5 2

The recommendations of the Conference were of ex-
tremely wide scope. Besides many which related to
national activity such as inflation, central bants of issue,
the reduction of armaments there were several which
required international application. It urged the creation
of an international committee of business men and
financiers, and in connexion with this a new credit
organization to which states requiring loans for the supply
of their essential imports could make application. The
Conference also recommended that the League should
study such other international questions as export credit

1 19 C. 203.

2 Report of the International Financial Conference, Brussels, i. n.

THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE 73

insurance, finishing credits, unification of bills of exchange
law, reciprocal treatment of bank branches abroad, publi-
cation of comparative financial information, and an inter-
national clearing-house. On all these some subsequent
work has been done, and on some the study has resulted
in application.

As a consequence of the Conference's resolution regard-
ing a committee, the Council decided to create a per-
manent organization. As this would take some time it
resolved to appoint a small provisional committee to give
it advice first, regarding the immediate application of the
Brussels Conference recommendations ; secondly, on any
general financial questions which the Council should
submit to it ; and thirdly, to prepare the agenda for the
general economic and financial conference which was to take
place the following year. I The Committee was to function
under the general principles laid down by the Council
regulating its relations with the technical organizations.

M. Ador, President of the Conference, was to be
chairman of the Joint Provisional Committee, of which the
financial section was to consist of ten members. At its
meeting on November i^th, 1920, the Council approved
of the eleven names suggested by M. Hymans for member-
ship of the Committee. 2 It was also agreed that an
American should be Invited to become a member. The
staff was to be provided by the Secretary-General, and the
Financial Committee was to meet, when it wished, in
conjunction with the Economic Committee. All govern-
ments were duly notified of the creation of this organiza-
tion by a letter from the President of the Council.

The life of the Provisional Committee was prolonged
for one year by resolution of the Council on September
1 6th, 1922, and again, as in the case of the Economic
Committee, on September loth, 1923, the word 'Pro-
visional* was dropped from its tide, and its existence was
continued until further order. 3

1 10 C 209, et seq. z See last chapter, sec. 3.

3 26 C. 1303, 1441.

74 THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

The authorization of the Assembly was added to that of
the Council. It agreed to the decision that the Financial
Committee should be continued in existence; and it
associated itself with the Council's opinion that there is
urgent need for the different governments to apply the
principles kid down by the Brussels Conference'. 1

The Financial Committee's authority was therefore
drawn from four different sources. The need for concert-
ing international measures to overcome the financial
difficulties of Europe became hourly more apparent after
the close of the War. It was expressed at the Peace Con-
ference in 1919, and in the resolutions of the Brussels
Conference in 1920; by decisions taken at several meetings
of the Council and of the Assembly. The rule, 2 which
applies equally to the other technical committees, that
nothing less than a majority vote of both the Council and
the Assembly can put an end to the Financial Committee's
existence adds further to the security of its position.

The Financial Committee's success has also augmented
its authority, which has been constantly confirmed. As
early as July 1922 the following resolution was passed
unanimously:

"The Council considers that the Financial Committee is especially
well adapted to furnish an Important contribution to^tne solution
of international monetary problems, without encroaching upon the
work of the same kind akeady undertaken by governments or their
competent organizations. It invites the Committee to consider
the methods best suited to foster monetary stability/

4

The Financial Committee is appointed by the Council.
No change in its general structure has been made since
its original creation, and its size has only been increased
from eleven to thirteen. By definition the members are
technical experts of different nationalities. They are not
the delegates of governments, and are responsible only
to the Council of the League. But, as in the Economic
1 i A. 386. * Le. Art. 5.

TOE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE 75

Committee, they are frequently nominated In reality by
governments. Particularly is this true of nationals of the
countries having permanent seats on the Council, When
the Italian member of the Committee resigned, for
example, the Marquis Imperial! ^informed the Council*
that his successor would be Commander BianchinL 1 And
again, the place of M. Bianchini was taken by M. Suvich,
on the suggestion of M. Scialoja, but this time through
the medium of M. Procope, the rapporteur. 2

This is not by any means always the case, however.
The Committee itself has a certain voice in the appoint-
ment of new members. It was,, for instance, the Com-
mittee's chairman who suggested the nomination of the
Deputy-Governor of the Polish Bank of Issue to succeed
the Swiss member, M. Dubois a valuable precedent.
M. Dubois himself had been appointed on the proposal of
the Swiss chairman of the Joint Committee, M. Ador.
The question of a successor had been discussed by the
Financial Committee, 3 but agreement had not been
reached. The most popular candidate was M. Rist ; but
as there was already a French member, when the matter
came before the Council his name was passed over, on the
motion of M, Briand, in favour of the second nominee.
Although it was the decision of the Council that two
members should not belong to the same country, the
principle that appointment is not based on nationality
was strongly affirmed. It it were so, M. Dubois would
have been succeeded by a Swiss.

In January 1930 the Committee had thirteen members.
Of these, five belonged to the Great Powers permanently
on the Council and one to the United States. There was
a Scandinavian, a second member from the British Empire,
and a South American. The remaining four were nationals
of Belgium, Holland, Czecho-Slovakia, and Poland. The
question of area representation had not arisen because it
had so happened that the South African, the Swede, and

1 13 C. 58. 2 49 C 451-

3 Thirty-third session, Dec. 1928.

76 THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

the Argentinian had been on the Committee since Its
inception. But in two other cases a member had not been
replaced by a co-national. While the Belgian member had
been succeeded by a second Belgian, M. Janssen, ^ex~
Minister of Finance, there was no longer either a Spaniard
or a Swiss on the Committee.

The members themselves are rather more independent
of governments than those^ of the Economic Committee.
Of the twenty-four who haci sat on the Committee during
the first ten years of the League's existence, only five were
definitely officials in a government department and one an
ex-minister. The majority, twelve, were eminent bankers,
and five were attached to delegations. Several were both
directors of private or state banks and at the same time
more or less officially connected with government
finance. 1 The most eminent members have been bankers
rather than officials such as M. ter Meulen and Sir Henry
Strakosch; but they have naturally been in close contact
with their governments, the latter, for instance, having
sat on several financial commissions during the War and
being jointly responsible for the floating in America of
the ^100,000,000 Anglo-French war loan.

The length of time for which members have sat has on
the whole been longer than in the Economic Committee,
no less than five members having sat for the whole period.
Against this the Japanese are the worst offenders. Their
national has changed four times. Four Japanese members
were actually appointed, but a fifth, M. Aral, sat as a
member for some time without the real member, M.
Kengo Mori, having resigned.

Minutes of the meetings, which are private, are not
published. The chairman is elected in rotation for one
year.

1 e.g. M. PospisU, and Sir Otto Niemeyer, who, when appointed, was
Controller of Finance at the Treasury, as was his predecessor, but who
resigned in 1927 to become Director of the Bank of England.

FINANCIAL COMMITTEE 77

*r

The Fiscal Committee.

The need for co-ordinating fiscal systems In order to
prevent them either from overlapping or from leaving an
uncontrolled area between them was long clear to the
financial world. An entirely independent process of taxa-
tion going on in different countries is almost bound to
lead to inconsistency.

The Brussels Conference recommended an inquiry into
the question of double taxation, which was put on the
agenda of the Financial Committee. The Committee
then entrusted the problem to four eminent economists
for study from the angle of theory. This small group of
experts comprised Professors Einaudi, Bruins, Seligman,
and Sir Josiah Stamp. Their report was published in
March 1923 J

In the meanwhile the Genoa Conference of April 1922
had recommended the study of a second aspect of the
fiscal problem that of the so-called 'flight of capital 7 , as
a means of tax evasion. The Financial Committee resolved
in June 1922 to make an investigation into the administra-
tive and practical aspects of this question, and with that
purpose it set up a committee of high fiscal officials. In
spite of the considerable difficulties raised by such a study,
this special committee succeeded in preparing elaborate
resolutions for the approval of the Financial Committee.
At the same time it suggested that the special committee
should be enlarged and authorized to prepare conven-
tions. 2 This proposal was submitted to the Council and
approved. Accordingly, a committee of thirteen experts 3
was created, which met, approved, and finally submitted
four conventions, and proposed the summoning of a con-
ference. The report of the Committee was then forwarded
by order of the Council 4 to all governments, members or

1 Doc. F. 19. 2 Approved by the Financial Committee, Feb. 1925.
3 Nominated by governments, but acting only in an expert capacity.
For personnel see Doc. C.E.I. 41, p. 17. 4 OJ. 1927, p. 793.

7 8 THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

non-members of the League, and It was decided that a
conference of government experts should meet In 1928.
This toot place from October 22nd to 3ist. At It there
were present the representatives of twenty-seven govern-
ments. Including the U.S.A. and U.S.S.R. It considered
the creation of a small committee of experts representative
of the various fiscal systems to study questions of taxation
in general, as proposed by the Committee. Finally, the
Council approved of this, and accordingly formed a
special committee, to be known as the Fiscal Committee. 1

This was to have twelve members, appointed for three
years. Of them the Europeans were all high officials In
their national ministries of finance. There was to be
included a South American and an Asiatic, to be nominated
by the President of the Council, but these had not been
nominated by January I5th, 1930. The American member
was Professor Adams of Yale University. A representative
of the International Chamber of Commerce was to be
invited to assist, as ^collaboration had proved particularly
valuable in that it brought before our committee the
standpoint of the business world'. In addition there was
a group of nineteen corresponding members, who were
also connected almost without exception with their state
treasuries. Only four of these belonged to extra-European
countries, and of them three came from the British Empire
and the fourth from Japan.

The Fiscal Committee's terms of reference are Chap-
ter V of the Government Experts' report, dated October
1928. 2 By this they were to meet once or twice a year in
order to 'hasten the solution of the problems of double
taxation and administrative and judicial assistance'. The
Committee was, further, to give attention to periodical
investigation, the preparation of model bilateral treaties,
the comparison of fiscal systems, the preparation of any
general conference, and the study of relevant questions

1 O.J. 19*9, pp. 49> 50, 1012.

* C. 562, M. 178, 1928, 22 (E.F. 49), based on C. 216, M. 85, 1927,
(E.F. 40),

THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE 79

of International law. It was also to extend publications,
as recommended by the Brussels Financial Conference. 1

The work of the Financial Committee has completed
one phase and entered on another. At the beginning it
had to solve problems of pressing importance. It was
faced with the chaos which the War and the Peace Con-
ference had left behind them. The difficulties caused by
inflation, by insecurity and the consequent lack of capital
in vestment, by vast movements of population and result-
ing famine and disease, had all to be overcome before
European life could hope to recover to the normal. But
these tasks of reconstruction were temporary. The second
stage of the Committee's work resembles more closely that
of the Economic Committee, It deals rather with the
inconsistencies of national legislations or with the suppres-
sion 'of crime, those smaller questions on which govern-
ments are most ready to agree. Such work is of importance
and needs to be done. No body is more competent to
organize it than the group of leading international experts
at the League. Further, there is the labour of study and
investigation which is playing an increasing part in the
Committee's activity. This is essentially a preparatory and
preliminary task without which further progress would
prove impossible. And there is, thirdly, an extension of
the methods of post-war reconstruction to the permanent
needs of peace. International loans have been floated on
similar lines, but for the sole purpose of normal peace-time
construction*

To the early action of the Committee belongs the
financial rescue of Austria and Hungary. This experiment
achieved remarkable success. The story of how Austria,
cut off from her supplies and markets by the drawing
of new state boundaries, was prevented from complete
collapse and starvation for three years solely by public

1 Art. 9.

So TOE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

charity has been told elsewhere. Over .40,000,000 was
provided In this period, and yet, while at the beginning
of it the Austrian crown was worth one-tenth, at the end
it was worth one fifteen-thousandth part of its gold value.
This policy of relief, which was nothing more than a policy
of palliatives and continual postponement of the real pro-
blem, continued until individual action had proved itself
incapable of preventing collapse. Then at last came the
desperate appeal of the Austrian Government to the
Supreme Council of the Allies in the summer of 1922. On
August 1 5th the reply was returned that no further
financial help could be given. And it was at this stage
that the task devolved upon the League. But by this time
the political situation was so insecure that the possibility
of a reconstruction on unguaranteed private credit had
disappeared.

The problem was considered by the Council and referred
to a sub-committee of five, in which sat the Prime Ministers
of Austria and Czecho-SlovaMa. This committee met
twelve times in the following month. Its importance lies
in the fact that now for the first time the problem had
been put in the hands of a single organized group of men.
They represented the countries chiefly interested in a
solution of the problem, and upon them lay the responsi-
bility in the light of considerable publicity for finding a
way out of the desperate impasse. But the real work of
construction was done by the Financial Committee to
whom they referred the question. As a body of professional
experts

'the reports signed by them did not therefore in any way commit
the governments to accepting its recommendations. At the same
time, the different members were naturally in a position to estimate
with some special knowledge tke probable policy and attitude of
their respective countries. This work was done in Geneva, during
the meetings of the Assembly, for which delegations of representa-
tives of the countries concerned were present. The conditions
were thus favourable for the working out of a scheme which should
be both adequate in its provisions and not impossible of acceptance;

THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE Si

and for an understanding by the governments whose assistance
required of the reasons for which the precise scheme put before
them was recommended.' l

Five weeks after the Committee of the Council met for
the first time the whole reconstruction scheme had been
signed by all five governments concerned.

In order to arrive at this stage several difficulties had to
be overcome, of which the chief were to ensure financial
reform, to guarantee interest to the creditors* and to
assure Austria that the loan would not be used as a means
of interference in her internal affairs. A plan was devised
to conquer these obstacles. Payment of interest was
guaranteed by the assignment of revenues ; the indepen-
dence of Austria, by choosing revenues which would be
much more than enough to cover the payment in any
normal year. By this means it was possible to make the
probability of interference on behalf of the creditor
countries remote. As the League's instrument a Com-
missioner-General was appointed. He was responsible to
the League. His duties were to ascertain that the pro-
gramme of financial reform was being carried out, to
advise the Austrian Government when invited, and to
report monthly to the Council. He was controlled by the
Council with the advice of a committee appointed by the
governments of the nine states interested in the scheme.

The second line of the Committee's reconstruction
activity was directed to the settlement of the Greek and
Bulgarian refugees. The first involved finding place and
occupation for 1,400,000 Greeks in flight from Turkey
into a country whose total population numbered less than
four to every refugee. With its connotation of misery and
disease, destruction and revolt, such a problem is almost
too vast to conceive. At first, help was given by private
charity alone. Yet plainly, any permanent solution must
provide not merely for the mitigation of suffering, it must
place the immigrant in productive work. Only an external

1 Financial Reconstruction of Austria, C. 568, M. 232, 1926: General
Survey by Sir Arthur Salter, p. 18.

3i THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

loan could achieve this end 5 but that was Impossible to

obtain in the conditions of Greek Government credit.

Immediately the task of settlement had been taken over
by the League, however, it became possible to obtain
advances from the national Banks of England and Greece,
on the illuminating condition that settlement control
should rest with an independent commission set up by the
League. 1 And ultimately a loan of ten millions sterling
was floated successfully. Similar methods were applied to
the settlement of Bulgarian refugees a smaller problem.

But the organization of international loans has not been
restricted to reconstruction arising out of war chaos. The
Danzig loans negotiated by the Financial Committee in
1925 and 1927 were directed to normal peace-time con-
struction.

The second development of the Committee's work is
not confined to the post-reconstruction period. It is in
the main a process of study and investigation with the
purpose of arriving at some generally acceptable conven-
tion, practice, or rule of law. Much of the work of the
Financial section throughout the League's existence can
be characterized as this. One of its first steps was to make
an inquiry into currency conditions after the War. 2
Many financial experts, of whom several later became
members of the Committee, voluntarily devoted much of
their time to its preparation. The Brussels Financial
Conference was a continuation of this study. Questions
of double taxation and fiscal evasion were inquired into
with the help of the Fiscal Committees already described.
As the problem was considered to be unsuitable for a
general convention, this resulted in the conclusion of a
large number of bilateral treaties. 3

1 The Settlement of Greek Refugees: Scheme for an International
Loan, C. 524, M. 187, 1924, ii. Also quarterly reports of the Settlement
Commission.

2 Currencies after the War, published early 1920.

3 Double Taxation and Fiscal Evasion (Collection of International
Agreements), C. 345, M. 102, 1928, ii.

THE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE 83

The only convention signed under the auspices of the
Financial Committee Is that on Counterfeiting Currency.
An investigation was begun at the suggestion of the
French Government, approved by the Council on June
loth, 1926. After being referred to the Committee and
investigated by means of a questionnaire, it was returned
to the Council with the recommendation that a mixed
committee should be appointed to prepare a convention.
Accordingly a committee of eleven was nominated, con-
taining four delegates from Banks of Issue, four experts in
penal law, two prosecuting authorities, and Dr. Pospisil
of the Financial Committee as chairman. This drew up
a convention, which was submitted to a conference called
in April 1929, and which had, in its final form, been signed
by thirty-one states by January I4th, 1930.

Another draft treaty prepared by the Financial Com-
mittee is the Draft Convention for Financial Assistance
to States threatened by aggression. 1

More recently a study which may prove highly impor-
tant has been undertaken. On the suggestion of the
Council made in 1928 a special committee was set up,
'charged with examining the causes of the fluctuations in
the purchasing power of gold, as well as their effects on
the economic life of nations'. This comprised five mem-
bers of the Financial Committee and five experts of
international reputation.

7

The function of the Financial Committee differs essen-
tially from that of the Economic Committee. It is more
restricted and technical, more easily defined. The Finan-
cial Committee has to deal with what is in reality only one
aspect of the Economic Committee's work, just as would
a special committee of experts on coal, or of rubber
producers and consumers. And the high standing of the
Committee is an indication of the possibilities inherent in
such methods of organization. By severely limiting its
1 See A. 10, 1929, and E.F. 1929, ii. 14, and infra, p. 213.

G2

8 4 TOE FINANCIAL COMMITTEE

scope and the problems it has to weigh many advantages
are secured. It has to consider fewer irrelevant interests.
It gains in authority according as its opinions are more
specialized and therefore more difficult to dispute. If it
has to tackle one broad question instead of twenty, the
one question may be whole-heartedly considered and
finally answered where the twenty all have been post-
poned, either through lack of knowledge or through sheer
inactivity and conservatism. Success in one particular job
breeds united feeling and a habit of self-reliancfe, while the
accumulation of work only partially accomplished is more
likely to le^d to a psychological reaction of incapacity.

The actual position of the Financial Committee is
nominally more dependent on the Council than that of
most other committees. It has not been reconstructed,
and consequently the Committee works still under the
rules of its inauguration in 1920. It is not competent, for
example, to appoint special committees without first
submitting to the approval of the Council. On the other
hand, there can be no doubt that in reality it enjoys
a higher authority with governments and with the Council
than has the Economic Committee at any time. This is
the outcome, partly of its limited sphere of activity,
partly of the greater technicality and the less controversial
character of its work. But a perhaps more important
reason is certainly its success in dealing with the definite,
urgent, and practical problems submitted to it by the
Council. It has an advantage over the Economic Com-
mittee in that these problems in the past have been more
dramatic than a question of tariffs or over-production is
ever likely to be. An equally important reason for the
Committee's status may be the high personal standing of
its members, not merely in the world of government de-
partments but in the world of central banks. Such men
are naturally more independent in their point of view than
a government official will ever be.

IV
THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

*Dans notre continent cette maladie nous est partlculiere. Les Turcs, les
Indiens, les PersanSj les Chinois, les Slamols^ les Japonals ne la connalssent
pas encore; mais II y a une ralson suffisante pour qu'ils la connalssent a leur
tour dans quelques sleeks. En attendant elle a fait un merveiileux progres
parml nous, et surtout dans ces grandes armees composees d'honnetes
stipendiaires blen eleves, qui decident du destin des etats; on peut assurer
que, quand trente mffle homines combattent en bataille rangee centre des
troupes egales en nombre, il y a environ vingt mile veroles de chaqiie
cote.

*Voila qui est admirable, dit Candide; mais il faut vous faire guerir.

*Et comment le puis-je? dit Pangloss; je n*ai pas le sou, mon ami, et
dans 1'etendue de ce globe on ne peut ni se faire saigner, ni prendre un
lavement sans payer, ou sans qu'il y ait qtielqu'un qui paye pour nous/

VOLTAIRE.

HEALTH has been a subject of international co-
operation for longer than any other of the technical
questions taken up by the League. The first of a long
series of International Sanitary Conferences was held in
1851 on the invitation of the French Government. But
it was not until the Seventh Conference, held at Venice
in 1892, that any convention resulted from the proceed-
ings. The previous Conferences had devoted their time
to scientific discussions on the origins of epidemics, and
in particular of cholera, the danger of which had been the
real motive behind the whole attempt at organizing inter-
national co-operation. These scientific debates had not
been without effect. They had recommended the estab-
lishment of a central bureau in every country to collect
information about health conditions therein, and to
communicate news of any outbreak to all other countries
that might be affected. Although the scheme for creating
a large number of outposts in Eastern countries, where
sanitary regulations were backward, was not put into
practice, in general the activities of the Conferences re-
sulted in a tightening up of administration. Several con-

86 THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

mentions followed after 1892, as the outcome of further
International Sanitaiy Conferences, regulating several of
the outstanding problems In the prevention of the spread
of epidemics. These dealt with Sanitaiy regulations for
ships passing through Suez an important link between
disease in East and West and for pilgrims to and from
Mecca (1892)* They dealt also with the notification of
cases of cholera, the sanitary regulations of Danube traffic
(1893), and with the supervision of the Persian Gulf (1894).
As a consequence of a sudden outbreak of plague in India
in 1896 a still more rigorous administration of Suez was
decided upon. The Eleventh Conference, held at Paris in
1903, at which twenty-four states were represented, re-
sulted in a general codification of previous conventions.
But it went further, recommending the creation of a per-
manent committee and office for the supervision of health
matters of international interest.

This proposal of setting up a permanent international
committee was not new. It had been made as early as the
Vienna Conference of 1874, and at the Conference at
Washington in 1 88 1 in a somewhat different form. At
Vienna the question had been fully thought out, and
would probably have resulted in the creation of a com-
mittee had not the British delegate tabled a nonpossumus. 1
The proposals made were restricted, therefore, to a simple
recommendation and were not embodied in a draft con-
vention. Such a convention was merely proclaimed to
be desirable. This suggested committee was almost iden-
tical with that subsequently set up by the Convention of
Rome a third of a century later. The chief distinction
was that its offices were to be at Vienna instead of at Paris. 2
Greater emphasis, also, was laid on the need for combat-
ing cholera than was necessary in 1907.

The functions of the Committee were outlined at the
Conference of Paris in 1903, and the suspicious eye of
sovereignty was quieted by the words of the French dele-

1 Conference Sanitaire Internationale, Proces-V erbaux, p. 310.

2 Conf. Int. San., Vienna, 1874, Proces-Verbaux, p. 531.

THE HEALTH COMMITTEE 87

gate: l 4 No^ single one of its powers may be allowed to
interfere with the right of soYereignty of which every
state is so justly jealous. 7 The Office International
d'Hygiene Publique, as the organization was named, must
exercise an ^exclusively moral* influence. Resolutions
were adopted by which the chief function of the Com-
mittee was to collect information on the spread of infec-
tious disease, receiving reports for that purpose from its
superiors in authority, the health departments of con-
tracting governments, and to disseminate that informa-
tion in public documents. The Committee also receives
reports from the governments on their execution of con-
ventions. 2

2. But international co-operation in health matters has
not been confined to Europe. A year before the Inter-
national Sanitary Conference at Paris it had been decided
in principle, both by the Second Pan-American Conference
and the First Pan-American Health Conference, that the
latter should meet regularly and be assisted by a per-
manent office in Washington. The Conference is held
under the auspices of the Governing Board of the Inter-
national Union of American Republics. Several conven-
tions have been drafted and are in force. The American
Republics participate almost without exception. At the
Seventh Conference (1924), for example, eighteen were
represented. Eight of these are also on the Office Inter-
national d'Hygiene at Paris. 3

The Permanent Bureau, which was first set up by the
Mexico Conference of 1901, was reorganized in 1920.4
It was to have seven members appointed by the Con-
ference, of whom three were to be the Director, Assistant,
and Secretary. But its functions were extended. In

1 Rene Lacaisse, VHygiene Internationale et la Sodete des Nations
(1926), 34.

2 For description of its present organization and functions see p. 99.

3 Argentine, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Peru, Urugua7, Mexico, and the
United States, the last two not being members of the League of Nations*

4 Acts of the Sixth Conference, p. 159, in Spanish text.

88 THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

general* it was to collect information and to Insist on its
supply with adequate particulars. It was also to assist in
the improvement of conditions at ports or in any other
of the danger-spots of the Continent. And lastly, it was
to publish a monthly bulletin in Spanish and English.

3. During the War a system of advanced co-operation
between the sanitary authorities of the Allied Armies was
in full operation. Although ultimate control remained in
the hands of the army leaders, an Inter-Allied Sanitary
Commission sat regularly in Paris. In this, methods were
compared, and the most scientific means of preventing
and treating the ills which afflicted the troops were
thought out. Essentially, it meant that, while the execu-
tive labour was done by army officers, hospital and sanitary
station chiefs, a large part of the inventive work, the work
of supervision and co-ordirtation, was done by the
specialists who sat in Paris. The co-operation and its
success * provides a lesson which international organization
cannot afford to forget.

The direct reference in the Covenant to the function
of supervising international health was due chiefly to the
agitation of the Red Cross Society at the Peace Conference.
This did not come until late. The first application was
made to the British, but the Ministry of Health was
doubtful about the proposal. Its purpose was to put the
Red Cross under the auspices of the League and to give
to it in general the task of 'the conservation of the public
health throughout the world 5 . 2 The British feared that
such a provision would give to an independent private
organization a function which belonged properly to
governments. In fact objection was also raised to it be-
cause it seemed to favour too much one particular
organization. 3 When on March 3ist, 1919, a similar

1 For a brief summary of its work see Rapport Synihetique SUT Us travaux
df la Commission Sawtain dgs Pays Allih, 1920.

2 Miller, Drafting of tie Covenant, i. 400. 3 ii. 386.

THE HEALTH COMMITTEE 89

proposition was made to the American delegation, through
the Secretary of the Red Cross and Mr. Rublee, Major
Astor went specially to Paris from the Londoa Ministry
of Health to discuss it with the Americans. 1 Eventually
a redraft proposed by Miller, with a slight modification
made by Rublee, was accepted and became finally Article
25 of the Covenant:

*The Members of the League agree to encourage and promote
the establishment and co-operation of duly authorized voluntary
national Red Cross organizations having as purposes the improve-
ment of health, the prevention of disease, and the mitigation of
suffering throughout the world/

But the British, in order to make the duty and responsi-
bility of governments more clear, added a clause to what
was to become Article 23. This rather vague and non-
committal paragraph is the only definition of the League's
duties In the matter of international health. By it the
members of the League undertake that they *will en-
deavour to take steps in matters of international concern
for the prevention and control of disease'.

Equally important with both the other Articles, in view
of the existence of the International Office of Health at
Paris, is Article 24, providing that subject to consent of
the parties all international bureaux shall be placed
under the control of the League.

3

The first international action relating to health taken
after the signing of peace was the summoning by the
British Government of a small congress in July 1919, at
which the President of the Office d'Hygiene was present.
This was invited by the Council in February 1920 to meet
again with some additional members in order to draft
plans for a permanent health organization that should
fulfil the duties of the League under the Covenant. This
Conference met at the Ministry of Health in London on

1 i. 407.

90 THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

April ijth. Seventeen delegates assisted, of whom six had
the vote > representing the fie Allied Great Powers and
the Red Cross Society. It prepared a complete scheme
which adopted the principle of including the Office
d'Hygiene in the permanent organization, and of placing
it under the authority of the League. This had already
been proposed in July and approved by the Comite
permanent at Paris in October. Besides Dr. Pottevin, who
represented the Office at the London Conference, there
were present three members of the Comite permanent, and
the proposals were put forward with their concurrence.
Dr. Steegmann, who later became Director of the
League's Health Section, was also present as one of the
British delegates. A scheme was adopted describing in
detail the functions and composition of a new organiza-
tion. The Council I and the Assembly 2 both approved
the report in essential particulars, but the Assembly made
several amendments. Among these was the addition pro-
posed by the French delegate that 'the Head-Quarters of
the Office International d'Hygiene Publique shall remain
in Paris'. 3 The paragraph providing for English as an
official language was omitted. Several other small amend-
ments were adopted, the general effect of which was to
weaken the position of the Committee and to stress the
independence of governments. 4

The final resolution of the Assembly s has acted as the
basis of the Health Organization's work. 6 The first part
of it is worth quoting in full, for it briefly and fully re-
sumes the functions which the Committee has been called
upon to perform.

'In pursuance of the Covenant of the League of Nations and in
order to facilitate the discharge by the League of Nations of the

1 8 C. 105, 109, and 29.

2 I A.C. ii. 147, 171, and I A. PL 383-92. 3 x A.C. ii. 150.

4 In particular those proposed by France, Great Britain, and Japan, the
last being adopted later, i A.C. ii. 151. * i A. PL 388.

6 See discussion of this programme in Minutes of Provisional Health
Committee, i. 6 et seq*

THE HEALTH COMMITTEE 91

responsibilities which may be placed upon it by provisions of the
various Treaties of Peace, the Assembly of the League of Nations
resolves as follows:

*That in accordance with the provisions of Article 24 of the
Covenant, the Assembly approves of the Office International
d'Hygi^ne publique being placed under the direction of the League
of Nations, and that an International Health Organization as here-
inafter provided (of which the Office international d*HygIne
pnbMque shall be the foundation) shall carry out the provisions of
the International Agreement signed at Rome, December 9th, 1907,
and also advise the League of Nations on all questions arising out
of Articles 23 (/) and 25 of the Covenant of the League.

*The main functions of the organization may be summarized
under the headings which follow, and their exercise shall be deter-
mined by the Standing Committee:

(a) To advise the League of Nations in matters affecting health.

(b) To bring Administrative Health Authorities in different
countries Into closer relationship with each other.

(c) To organize means of more rapid interchange of information
on matters where Immediate precautions against disease may
be required (e.g. epidemics) and to simplify methods for act-
ing rapidly on such information when it affects more than one
country.

(J) To furnish a ready organization for securing or revising
necessary International agreements for administrative action
in matters of health, and more particularly for examining
those subjects which it is proposed to bring before the
Standing and General Committees, with a view to Inter-
national Conventions.

(e) In regard to measures for the protection of the worker against
sickness, disease and Injury arising out of his employment,
which fall within the province of the International Labour
Organization, the International Health Organization will
co-operate with and assist the International Labour Organi-
zation, it being understood that the International Labour
Organization will on its side act in consultation with the
International Health Organization in regard to all Health
matters.

(/) To confer and co-operate with international Red Cross
Societies and other similar societies under the provisions of
Article 25 of the Covenant.

92 THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

(g) To advise, when requested, other voluntary organizations in
health matters of international concern.

(b) To organize missions in connexion with matters of health
at the request of the Council of the League of Nations and
with the concurrence of the countries affected, to the extent
authorized in sub-section (a) or under the International
Conventions signed at Rome, December gth, 1907.

*The International Health Organization shall consist of*:

(1) The Office international d'Hygiene publique, which with
certain additions set out below, will become the General

Committee.

(2) A Standing Committee. (Une Commission technique.}

(3) An International Health Bureau.

'In carrying out its duties, the organization shall conform to the
general principles laid down in the Resolution of the Council, as
to the relations between the Technical Organizations and the
Council and the Assembly of the League of Nations, passed at
Rome, May I9th, 1920.'

As had been the case for Transit, the Health Organiza-
tion thus outlined was to have a conference, an executive
committee, and a bureau. Instead of a new conference,
however, the Comite permanent of the Office d'Hygiene,
to be known as the General Committee, was to act in that
capacity. This is a conference in fact, although not in
name. On it are represented all the parties to the Conven-
tion" of Rome, whose 'delegates generally number as many
as forty. The Permanent Committee was to be elected
for the most part by this General Committee. But the
Council was to appoint a representative for each of its
permanent members. And in addition, the Red Cross
Society and the International Labour Office were to have
nominees. The chairman of the Office d'Hygiene was to
be an ex officio member and its director to be present in
an advisory capacity.

In its session of April to May 1921 the Comite permanent
discussed the question of its co-operation with the League.
The Assembly had deputed to the French Government
the task of informing all the states members of the Office

THE 93

d'Hygiene of the Assembly's resolution, and Inviting

to approve the scheme of co-ordination proposed therein.

The United States, however, refused to do so, On this

ground the French delegate argued that It was

for the Office to nominate representatives even to a pro-

visional committee of the League. 1 Such an action would

Imply acceptance In principle. And In the end his view

prevailed.

In consequence of this decision by the Office the Council,
as M. Hanotaux said, Vas In a position of some delicacy.
... It was obliged to take Into consideration the feelings
of certain Individuals which it was necessary not to disturb/
Therefore on June 2ist, 1921,* it appointed a provisional
committee. This was to have not more than fourteen
members, appointed individually for technical qualifica-
tions, and not on the ground of nationality. It was also to
contain a representative of the Red Cross and the Inter-
national Labour Office. 3 The question of overlapping with
the Office was, of course, bound to arise, but the danger
was diminished by the nature of the appointments made.
No less than ten of the members actually nominated were
also delegates of the Comit6 permanent. Their first meet-
ing was held August 25th-29th. The Importance of the
Committee is interestingly shown by the fact that eight
members were directors of health ministries.

The Provisional Health Committee existed for two
years. It was Increased in size by the Council in July 1922
to include a woman doctor from America, a German, and
a Brazilian expert.

The Third Assembly, considering 'that the Health
Organization of the League of Nations is undertaking a
task of permanent utility, and that it is indispensable that
it should continue its activities', recommends 4 that a
permanent Health Committee be constituted. In pur-
suance of this resolution the Council decided, on January
3oth, 1923, to form a special mixed committee to prepare

x, April 1921, p. 26. 2 13 C. 174.

3 Ibid., 22. 4 Sept. 15, 1922; see also 3 AXX ii 65.

94 THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

a scheme. Half the members of this commission were
appointed by the League and half by the Office^d'Hygiene.
It succeeded in overcoming aU the obstacles which hitherto
had prevented agreement. But the scheme it prepared l
and that previously accepted by the First Session of the
Assembly were almost identical. The chief difference lay
in the increased size of the Health Committee tinder the
later plan. It was accepted by the Council 2 in July,
approved by the Assembly on September I5th, 1923, and
by the Office d'Hygiene on October 2/th. 3

The Organization became threefold. It consists, first, of
a Health Bureau, the Health Section of the League;
secondly, of a General Advisory Council or Conference, the
Comite permanent of the Office d'Hygiene; and thirdly,
of the Health Committee, having sixteen members and
four assessors.

The distinction between the functions of the two bodies
was briefly defined by M. Adatci.* c ln conformity with
the practice of the other technical organizations of the
League of Nations,' he said, 'the General Council is to be
an advisory and deliberative body, while the Standing
Committee is to undertake investigations with a view to
preparing the work of the General Council or of the
Council of the League of Nations, and is to act at the
same time as an executive body.' Speaking of the Advisory
Council, 5 he adds In a report which was adopted by the
Assembly:

'Its duty will be to consider and discuss any questions which the
Health Committee of the League may think fit to submit to it,
either on its own initiative or at the request of the Council. The
importance of the Advisory Council's opinions and resolutions is
enhanced by the fact that it is composed by delegates of all the
participating states.

<0n the other hand, the Advisory Council, which has a large
number of members and meets only twice a year, has not always

1 25 C. 1050. 2 Ibid., 936.

"3 Comite permanent^ Proces-verbaux, p. 93. 4 4 A.C. ii. 51.

5 The functions of this are described later; see infra, p. 100.

THE 95

the resources which are indispensable for prac-

tical study of the questions submitted to it. It has
provided that the Committee may entrust the preparation of Its
work to the Health Committee of the League of Nations^ if it con-
siders that this procedure is likely to assist its investigations. The
Health Committee is a less scattered body, and has greater elasticity.
It may, if occasion arises, carry out enquiries, appoint special sub-
committees and attach to them any qualified persons whose assis-
tance may be thought to be of use.

*The Health Committee of the League of Nations will thus be
responsible for the preliminary work on which the Advisory
Council's investigations will be based. The Health Committee will
also hold itself at the disposal of the Council of the League of
Nations, to consider all questions which fall within its competence
and the solution of which would not appear to require any action
on the part of the Advisory Council, or would be more quietly
secured without such action.

'Lastly, the Health Committee wiH direct the work of the
Health Section of the Secretariat of the League of Nations/

The Health Committee has sixteen members and eight
assessors, four of whom rank as members. All appoint-
ments last for three years. Ten members are nominated
by the Health Advisory Council and six by the Council of
the League on the advice of the Health Committee. But
as the latter has the right to appoint assessors, it in reality
has ten members appointed by itself and ten by the
Comite permanent in Paris. Of these last ten the chairman
of the Advisory Council and a representative of each of
the permanent members of the League Council must
always be included. The Committee is, therefore, only
partially a League organ, and in fact it enjoys a marked
independence. This independence with regard to appoint-
ment is confirmed by several practices. The custom of
the Council to nominate members only on the advice
of the Committee is established by many precedents. At the
nineteenth session of the Council, for instance, the names
of Dr. Josephine Baker and Dr. Chagas of Brazil, proposed

96 THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

by the Committee, were approved by the Council, 1
Further, during the same session, the Health Committee
was authorized to co-opt an expert of German nation-
ality. 2 Professor Nocht was thereupon appointed four
years before Germany became a member of the League.
Lastly, in 1930, while the Comite permanent merely
reappointed members, the Health Committee's ten
nominees contained as many as six new names.

The nationality of members is not the primary con-
sideration. In fact the sole mention of nationality is the
provision for the representation of the five Great Powers.
There is no restriction on the number of members who
may be drawn from any one country. And at times there
have been two or even three co-nationals.

Besides the permanent members of the Council, Spain,
Switzerland, Denmark, and Belgium have each had a
national on the Committee throughout its existence.
There have been two citizens of the United States at the
same time on the Committee since 1923. Several depen-
dencies, such as Algeria, Egypt, India, have had their
delegates on the Comite permanent also on the Standing
Committee.

The qualifications of members are remarkably high. If
we regard the Provisional Committee as merely another
name for the Permanent Committee, it is possible to say
that there have been thirty-three members of the Health
Committee between 1921 and 1930. Of these no less than
twenty have been high state officials. What is particularly
interesting about these, in view of the difficulty which
such responsible officials find in leaving their posts, is the
fact that several have come from outside Europe, including
an American, a Jap, an Anglo-Indian, an Australian, and
a Brazilian. The remaining thirteen members have been
almost without exception professors of medicine, often
with practical administrative experience. The policy of
sending substitutes has been rarely adopted only, in fact,
by Japan and Australia ; but in both cases the substitute
1 19 C. 937- 2 Ibid., 814.

THE HEALTH COMMITTEE 97

has been his country's representative on the Coniite per-
manent. Nineteen members of this Committee have
delegates at the same time on the Comlte permanent.

Tenure of their positions by the members has shown a
higher average length of time than with most other com-
mittees. Seven have sat throughout the Committee's
existence and seventeen since it became permanent in

The Committee has increased steadily in number since
its creation. Fourteen health experts were originally
invited by the Council to form the Provisional Com-
mittee, and of these Dr. Mimbda of Peru declared that he
could not accept as he was unable to spare the time for
travel which a conscientious fulfilment of his duties would
demand. By January 1923 the Committee had seventeen
members. Under the scheme of reorganization it was to
have twenty, and it retained this number for the following
three years until its membership came up for renewal In
1927 two members dropped out, but three were added*
and by the tenth session, in April 1927, two further addi-
tions had been made, making the number twenty-three.
Finally, in 1928, Dr. Nagayo, Professor at the Institute for
Infectious Diseases in Tokio, was appointed; and since then
the size of the Committee has remained at twenty-four,

The interest of members has been shown by the regu-
larity of their attendance. This applies to all European
members, but those coming from distant countries natur-
ally have greater difficulty in being present. Out of the
first thirteen sessions after her appointment. Dr. Alice
Hamilton, of Harvard, was only able to attend three. The
respective figures for Surgeon-General Gumming (U.S.A.)
are 15 and 6; for Dr. Chagas (Brazil) 17 and 6; for Profes-
sor ALfaro (Argentine) 6 and I ; and for Professor Canta-
cuzene (Roumania) 12 and 7.

Among the best known figures on the Committee are
Dr. Thorvald Madsen, M. Velghe, Sir George Buchanan,
Dr. Carriere, and Dr. Chodzko. The eminence of Dr.
Maclsen is unchallengeable. He is a type of the public-

98 THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

spirited man of service with whom the Scandinavian
countries have enriched the League. A high state official
since 1902^ he is weU known for his work on behalf of
prisoners during the War. He is primarily a scholar and a
scientist. His scientific work at the State Serum Institute
is world-famous, as also is his activity in the cause of inter-
national co-operation. He has attended numerous con-
ferences the International Conference of Physicians, the
Health Conference at Paris, and the Health Conferences
for Scandinavia. He was chairman of the Committee
from 1921 until 1930 and a member of the Comite
permanent, M. Velghe, Secretary-General of the Belgian
Ministry of the Interior and of Health, was on the Comite
permanent before the War, and has been its chairman for
several years. Sir George Buchanan is Senior Medical
Officer at the Ministry of Health. He was Chief Inspector
of Foods from 1906 until 1911. Throughout the War he
sat on the Army Sanitary Commission and on several
expeditionary force health boards. Besides being a widely
experienced public servant for many years, he has sat on
the Comite permanent since the War. Dr. Carriere, who
also sits on the Opium Committee and the Comite per-
manent, is director of the Swiss Federal Health Service.
Dr. Chodzko, vice-chairman of the Health Committee
in 1929, is an ex-Minister of Health of Poland. But he is
actual director of the State School of Hygiene at Warsaw.
He also has long been known at the Office in Paris and
has sat on the Comite.

5

In the course of its work the Health Committee has
collaborated with a large number of other bodies. Under
Article 25 one of the League's functions is to co-operate
with the Red Cross, and this duty it has fallen to the lot of
the Health Committee to perform. Inside the League, its
work has been connected with that of several other com-
mittees, as well as its own special and sub-committees ; and
outside, with the public health departments of many

THE HEALTH COMMITTEE 99

countries, including the United States* It has received
help from the Rockefeller Foundation and worked with the
Washington International Health Office. And interesting
relations have developed with the International Labour
Office. But the most important of the Health Commit-
tee's collaborators has, of course, been the Office d^Hygiene
at Paris, which provides it with a conference on the general
plan of international unions. This has maintained the con-
trol of its budget and its general autonomy under the
constitution of 1907 in spite of its co-ordination with the
League.

By the Convention of Rome, first signed by twelve
states and colonies, 1 and finally by forty-six, the Office
d'Hygiene was set up for seven years. This period was to
repeat itself automatically, unless denounced a year before
renewal. With that limitation a permanent conference*
known as the Permanent Committee, with a bureau
attached to it, was organized. Every state party to the
Convention is entitled to appoint a member of this com-
mittee. At the session of May 1929 thirty-one states had
delegates present. In addition were to be seen there the
directors of the Health Section at the League of Nations,
of the Pan-American Health Bureau, and of the Office
d'Hygiene.

The Committee must meet every October in ordinary
session. But it regularly holds an extra session earlier in the
year. Extraordinary meetings may be called on the initia-
tive of the chairman or of a third of the members. Pro-
cedure 2 is by majority vote, one more than the majority
forming the quorum. Votes are weighted according to
financial contribution. The chairman is elected by secret
ballot for three years. A member may add to the agenda
on his own responsibility provided only that the chairman
be notified in reasonable time. Minutes of the meetings,
the official language of which is French alone, are pub-

* * Belgiuin, Brazil, England, Egypt, France, Holland, Italy, Portugal,
Russia, Spain, Switzerland, and the U.S.A.
2 See Regiments de F Office d? Hygiene Publiquf,

H 2

ioo THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

lished. The budget Is under the control of the Committee
and is provided by the states parties to the Convention,
members being paid their travelling expenses and an
allowance per day. The Committee, although it is com-
posed for the most part of men occupying responsible
posts in the health administrations of the countries they
represent, is in reality a diplomatic conference. Members
are there in a subordinate capacity as servants of their
countries, appointed by, and dependent upon the con-
currence of, their governments. This implies the necessity
to refer to them for instructions on any non-routine pro-
posal.

By the Convention of 1926 the Office is given the task
of receiving and distributing information to and from
governments. It was also empowered to delegate its
duties in the Pacific region to the Singapore bureau of the
League, and this has been done.

As was said at the fourth session of the Assembly, 1 'All
steps have been taken to establish a close and fruitful col-
laboration both between the Advisory Council and the
Health Committee, and between the Office International
and the Health Section of the League; the two organiza-
tions will keep in touch with each other, and will forward
to the members of the Council and of the Committee all
documents relating to their work*. This is carried out in
practice.

Secondly, besides co-operating with the Paris Office, the
Health Committee has established no less than twenty
special committees of experts. To these it habitually
refers for advanced study the many questions of a highly
specialized order, with which it is always meeting. A
commission is in existence for each of the major diseases
cancer, smallpox, malaria, leprosy, syphilis, plague, sleep-
ing sickness, and tuberculosis. Some, like the Committee
of Experts on Infant Welfare, are subdivided, this last
having one section for Europe and one for Latin America.
Three committees have nominees of both the Health

1 4 A.C. 1L 54.

HEALTH COMMITTEE 101

Organization and the International Labour Office:
on public health service in relation to health insurance^
occupational cancer, and preventive medicine. A
method has been applied by the Labour Organization in
the composition of some of its study commissions. Among
the Health Committees of experts on particular diseases
the Malaria Commission is an example. It consists of
seven members of the Health Committee and twenty
corresponding members, who enable it to collect expert
opinions from an extremely wide and varied field. In
addition, there are committees dealing with statistical and
administrative questions, such as the standardization of
sera, and of lists of the causes of death, or the fumigation
of ships. Finally, there is the Advisory Council of the
Eastern Bureau at Singapore, the work of which is men-
tioned below.

Co-operation between the Health Committee and the
other committees of the League is no less marked than is
the quantity and activity of special commissions on health
matters. When the Child Welfare Committee was
founded, the Health Committee claimed and secured
representation upon it a noteworthy example of inde-
pendence combined with a desire to collaborate. The
Health Committee has an opium sub-committee. It has
in the past, together with the Opium Advisory Com-
mittee, appointed a mixed commission for the study of
medical needs. It was this which arrived at a per capita
estimate of legitimate needs that is, medical needs, on
its own definition. This, the League figure, as it has come
to be known, is one of the most progressive steps taken in
the fight against opium. There has also been collaboration
with the Transit Committee, with the purpose of securing
proper sanitary conditions in ports where much inter-
national commerce is carried on and on inland waterways
that flow through several lands. Lastly, it was decided by
the Assembly on September I5th, 1923, that all reports of
mandatory powers relating to health conditions in their
mandated territories should be sent automatically to the

loz THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

Health Committee, for the latter to report upon to the

Mandates Committee.

The clause in the Health Committee's terms of refer-
ence which relates to collaboration with the International
Labour Organization * came up for discussion at the first
meeting of the Provisional Committee* Dr. Chodzko
objected to it because, he said, 'the Committee could not,
in its relation with the International Labour Office, accept
a merely advisory capacity'. 2 But, as the Office's repre-
sentative reminded the Committee, c the Advisory Com-
mittee on Labour Hygiene, the creation of which had been
discussed at the Washington Conference, would probably
be set up in October. There would then be two Health
Committees in existence'. In the end, the principle of
collaboration was agreed upon. Actually, a Labour
Hygiene Committee was set up by the Labour Office. But
although the independence of both is recognized, the
Health and the Labour Organization in fact co-operate.
They have both, for example, representatives on the An-
thrax Committee. And they have continuously worked
together in the attempt to improve prophylactic measures
against venereal disease, particularly as it affects seamen
and is spread by them.

Finally, among the Committee's collaborators is the
Red Cross Society. Although special provision was made
in the Covenant under Article 25 co-operation does not
seem to have been either more or less than with other
bodies outside the Health Organization. The Red Cross
was officially represented on the Provisional Committee,
but after the reorganization its right disappeared. During
this time its delegates were Professor Winslow, of the Yale
School of Medicine, and Dr. Santoliquido. Since 1927
Dr. Winslow has again sat on the Committee as one of its
expert assessors. Reciprocally, the Health Committee has
participated in the work of the Red Cross and assisted it.
The Committee sent a representative, for example, to the
Warsaw Conference of Red Cross Societies. Nor must it

1 Clause, see p. 91 above. * p rov> Com., Minutes, I j.

THE HEALTH 103

be forgotten that several members of the Com-

mittee either are, or have been, active of the

Cross in one or other of its brandies.

It would be impossible to describe in short space the
work of the Health Committee. Such a in any case,
belongs not to a study of League machinery for" inter-
national administration, but to a general history of the
League's technical activities, or, on the other hand, to a
specialized study by a medical expert on questions of inter-
national health. All that is possible here is a brief indica-
tion of the main types of work which the Committee has
undertaken. These divide broadly into two parts* co-
ordination and inquiry.

In the first there are to be found five types. The Health
Committee co-ordinates administration by a system of
study tours. With the financial help of the International
Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation, a group of
health officials, chosen by their chiefs, visit other countries
to study other methods of health administration. They
conclude generally by a visit to the Health Section of the
League. The value of this in its widening of official
experience and its making of contacts needs no emphasis.

Secondly, the Committee co-ordinates national statis-
tics. In the first place this Is done by unifying methods as
in the definition of still-births. This is Important and
necessary work; without It comparison of mortality
statistics would be, and actually was, rendered futile. It
is a valuable step In the making of a new international
technology, by no means the least significant part of the
League's achievement. In the second place, demographi-
cal studies have been made by members of the Committee
and high state officials in a large number of countries and
published in separate handbooks.

Thirdly, the Health Organization collects and publishes
epidemlological information each month. The need for
this was felt before the War, and frequent requests passed

104 T HE HEALTH COMMITTEE

from one government to another. But the processes of
consular, diplomatic, and foreign offices are not speedy
enough to allow for the efficient supply of news which, to
be of any use, must be received without delay. Even the
League of Nations, with its service of regular information
from a number of stations, has found it necessary to estab-
lish a second bureau for Far Eastern Intelligence at Singa-
pore, a third in Melbourne, and to consider the possible
value of a fourth in West Africa. America is supplied by
the Pan-American Sanitary Bureau at Washington, the
executive body for assistance in combating epidemics, set
up by the Pan-American Health Conferences. The value
of all this intelligence work is clear. It provides a world
news service, by which the warning of an outbreak any-
where is immediately broadcast to all areas likely to be
affected. At the same time it is building up the material
for a science of medical geography.

Fourthly, the Committee co-ordinates scientific re-
search, and organizes it in such a way that study is under-
taken at the same time and on a general plan by the best
qualified laboratories in various parts of the world. This
is a type of international rationalization which, unfortu-
nately, is still absent in many other fields of science. Its
possibilities are seen in the success which met the efforts
of the international group of laboratory experts, who,
under the direction of Dr. Madsen in the Serological
Institute at Copenhagen, conducted an investigation in
1923 into serological technique.

Lastly, the League co-ordinates the application of
national health policies, particularly in the fight against
epidemics. Its work directed against the desperate condi-
tions which succeeded the devastation of the War is most
noteworthy. Typhus and relapsing fever in 1920 and
cholera in 1922 spread west from famine-stricken Russia,
where the economic and medical administration had com-
pletely broken down. Two steps were taken: the creation
of the temporary Epidemic Committee in 1920, the
summons of the Warsaw Health Conference in 1922. The

HEALTH 105

Conference recommended that advanced instruction
should be given to health administrators of and

Russia in the methods of dealing with epidemics, and
conventions should be concluded between the
states. Both recommendations were put into practice, but
a third for lack of funds was not. The Epidemics Com-
mission had three members. It co-ordinated the efforts
of the already existing national health officers, with the
object of setting up a series of quarantine stations and
hospitals, covering all the lines of traffic east and west.
But as less than one-tenth of the sum asked for was at first
subscribed, a much less ambitious scheme had to be
thought out. Success in preventing the spread of disease
was nevertheless complete. By the time the Committee's
work was drawing to its conclusion the Committee had
gained an unchallengeable reputation and authority. That
this did not extend merely to the administrations imme-
diately concerned is proved by the request of the Greek
Government to the Epidemic Commission in 1922 for help
in dealing with malaria, smallpox, and other diseases rife
among its horde of immigrant refugees.

The second main division of the Health Organization's
work is the series of inquiries which it has undertaken.
These have already been indicated by the list of special
committees of study on cancer and all the chief diseases.
Conferences on several subjects have been called. Among
them are those on tropical diseases held in London 1925,
and on smallpox, which met at The Hague in 1926, the
Second Conference on the Diagnosis of Syphilis 1928, the
Second Conference on Sleeping-sickness, Paris, 1928.
Inquiries have been conducted by the dispatch of experts
to Tropical Africa for the study of sleeping-sickness, to the
Far Eastern ports, to the Balkans and the Mediterranean
for malarial study. Such investigations have been made as
those into cholera in Japan, malaria in Spain and Corsica,
vaccination in Greece. These are undertaken generally
by one or two medical experts and are published in
separate volumes* The same applies to the studies of

io6 THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

health administration which have already appeared for
such countries as New Zealand, India, Belgium, the
French Colonies, Austria, Hungary, Denmark, Persia,
Germany, Latvia, the Ukraine, and Jugo-Slavla. The
possibilities of such action In encouraging Invention, co-
ordinating research, and improving health administration
by placing It on a wider scientific basis are Infinite. The
success of the Cancer Committee in eliciting new facts is
but one example.

Strong evidence for the value of the Committee's in-
vestigation work is to be found in the number of calls for
assistance which it has received from members of the
League. Besides the Greek and Polish governments, those
of Czecho-Slovakla, Jugo-Slavia, South Africa, Great
Britain, 1 and China have asked for help.

Lastly, a Convention to supersede that of 1907 was
drafted and signed in Paris in 1926.

7

Many of the Health Committee's activities are new.
Despite the long years of collaboration which preceded
the League's experiment, much the most fruitful time
has come since. The work of the Office in Paris, though
having a value in itself, is not comparable with the achieve-
ments of the Health Committee. Apart from the drafting
and supervision of certain conventions the meetings of the
Comite permanent at Paris resulted only in discussion of
health conditions and medical methods with but small
practical effect. It is true that contacts were created,
and that was a real step in advance. But the purpose of
the Office d'Hygiene was severely limited. The aim was
chiefly to afford a meeting-place for scientific debate by
official experts, in order to help them in their administra-
tive work. And the staff at the disposal of the Office was
too small to allow of profound research or extensive
service.

1 If the request made by Sir George Buchanan for cancer investigation
in England may be regarded in that light.

THE HEALTH COMMITTEE 107

The Health Committee, on the other hand, has under-
taken more varied,, more practical, and more
labours. Its valuable research work in all Its many
is entirely new. So are the study tours and the inter-
changes of health officials.

But the Committee has gone further. It has entered on
even more definitely administrative work. Quite justly
can it be claimed that the publication of the
with the executive action involved at Geneva and at the
other stations, and, secondly, the cancer and tropical
diseases research is international administrative work of
a type. But this is still more clearly the case with the
Committee's assistance in organizing national health
services and with its work of European reconstruction.
The operations of the Epidemics Commission and the
assistance given to Greece in the sanitary aspects of her
refugee problem are nothing if not international adminis-
tration of an advanced type. They were both highly
successful.

The position is hopeful for the future. Instruments are
there which are capable of extended use. So far their
efficiency has been hampered continuously by lack of
funds. The fact that an important part of the Com-
mittee's work could never have been undertaken without
the generosity of a private institution reflects more credit
on the givers than on the states who were ready to accept.
The picture of fifty governments waiting on private
charity in order to carry out a part of their most important
function is not an encouraging one for the political
scientist. Nor is the treatment of epidemics. The financial
support of a task of such vital moment to the conditions of
human life as that of the Epidemics Commission was left
to voluntary subscription. The principle of making the
most unselfish pay may be simple; it is not just. And in
fact, so unwilling and so tardy were the treasuries of the
world in their help that in the whole period only one-sixth
of the money needed was obtained.

The tools are in existence. Most of the major health

io8 THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

S-oHems of the world have special committees of the
ealth Organization to deal with them. Were treasury
support behind them it would be possible to envisage
each body planning and carrying out a systematic attack
on the evil under its care. Research could be carried out
under the best conditions, and if necessary at central
laboratories in Geneva. Around them a central medical
university might grow up.

For the health of man is a single question. Sanitary
regulations need to be executed locally and administered
nationally. But national administrations need to be co-
ordinated internationally. And the science on which they
are based knows no language and no political allegiance.
It is one of the most important services and the first
necessities of mankind.

That so much has been achieved by the Health Com-
mittee against such heavy odds is a tribute to the inter-
national-mindedness of its members. It is also an indica-
tion of the value in international organization not merely
of contact but of comparative independence and the
consequent fastening of responsibility. The principle of
expertness as opposed to nationality is vindicated by the
Committee's work* So is the principle which is the logical
consequence of the last, of limiting the sphere to a highly
technical and specialized question. Once the work has
been divorced from the political field, and has thus been
made to evade as far as possible the irrelevant issues of
nationalism and state sovereignty, it is more likely to
arrive at practical result and less likely to waste its force
in vague resolutions. Especially is this the case if it can be
narrowed to a confined and specific part of the general
problem. By this means, also, still more expert and
specialized qualifications can be brought into international
service. Provided members are disinterested and bent on
public usefulness, as they are likely to be in as highly
technical a field as health, and provided they are con-
trolled and co-ordinated by less specialized minds, their
efforts are almost certain to be fruitful.

THE HEALTH COMMITTEE 109

The Health Committee's of funds may be

largely to the failure to give adequate publicity to its
work. Preventive or other sanitary measures do not
a good story for the journalist until something wrong.
But there are other means. At present Health Ministers
have no direct contact with each other. What their sub-
ordinate officials may be doing in Geneva or Paris inay be
of the utmost importance, but it has not necessarily any
direct reference to their views of departmental wort, nor
need it affect or modify their outlook either on depart-
mental policy or on general national affairs. To bring
Health Ministers into touch, while it might or might not
profoundly influence their opinions, would certainly give
them contact with the international aspect of health
questions, with health regarded as a function of world
organization. It would have a certain educative value
that is, to the ministers themselves. It would certainly
increase the importance of the health organization, and
therefore add to the publicity afforded to its activities.
At the same time it might quicken ministers' interest in
the position they have to cope with at home by stressing
its relativity and bringing new methods to their notice.
Finally, by giving interest to ministers in the practical
development of the work they supervised, it would open
the Health Committee to a regular fire of criticism and
suggestion on the one hand, and would enlist powerful
aid in the cause of financial support on the other.

To bring about such a system of ministerial meeting
would merely be to carry into another field the principles
already applied by the League in its Council, Assembly,
and several of its conferences, and in other schemes for
development elsewhere envisaged. The Health Com-
mittee meets two or three times a year. The Advisory
Council at Paris meets twice but is tabled to meet once.
In place of its ^extraordinary session' in April, a Health
Council of all Ministers of Health who cared to come
might meet in Geneva to consider the work of the Com-
mittee and Advisory Council for the past year, to add to

no THE HEALTH COMMITTEE

its agenda for the coming sessions, and to discuss the
general development of Its services. There would be no
need for it to restrict Its sphere of action too narrowly.
Besides being the ultimate authority over the Health
Committee, Advisory Council, and Office, it would take
within its purview the opium activities of the League.
Nor need It be prevented from improving the relations
between the medical professions of the world, from
creating international medical scholarships, or even found-
Ing an institute for higher medical study equipped with
research laboratories. For it is on some such lines as these
that a world service will grow.

THE COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL
CO-OPERATION

*You are paying your final tribute to the human mind, which led man-
kind from barbarism and shown Mm the way to peace.*

LA FONTAINE, in the First Session of the Assembly.

Ethe League was born In the storm and havoc of war,
was conceived In peace during the early years of this
century. Many movements went before It to prepare its
way. Perhaps the most important of these was that which
led from the establishment of the International Office of
Bibliography at Brussels in 1895 to the Union of Inter-
national Associations, which held its first World Congress
in 1910. This was essentially an attempt to promote
literary and scientific co-operation between peoples. Its
pioneers were M. La Fontaine and M. (Met. They
organized the International Index of Bibliography, the
International Library, and the International Museum at
Brussels. The Union of International Associations was
restricted to non-commercial bodies; it aimed at *a world
organization founded on law, on scientific and technical
progress, and on the free representation of all the interests
which are common to the human race 5 . By 1914, 230
international societies belonged to It. Its interest in
questions of education and intellectual co-operation is
shown, to give but one example, by the resolutions passed
by the Congres Universels de la Parx urging an *inter-
nationalization of education'. 1 These looked towards
a common plan of study, a much more frequent and easy
interchange of students and professors, and an Inter-
national University.

These currents of opinion have developed since the War
in two directions in the establishment of an International

1 See Union des Associations Internationale >s, Code des Vcewc Inter-
natianaux, i. 172, 4, p. 96.

H2 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
Summer University at Brussels and an Institute of Higher
International Study both, at Geneva and at Paris, and,
secondly, in the creation largely under the inspiration of
M. La Fontaine of the Committee for Intellectual Co-
operation, which has also developed an Institute of Intel-
lectual Co-operation at Paris and a Cinematographic
Institute at Rome.

But in general it may be said that the Union of Inter-
national Associations was one of the chief pioneers of the
idea of a League of Nations. Its Congress proclaimed
before the War that *a League of Nations was the ultimate
end of all international movements'. And in this sense the
Brussels activities were not merely the precursors of the
Committee on Intellectual Co-operation, they were re-
sponsible to a not inconsiderable degree for the materializ-
ing of the League itself. Their welcome of the League
when it came into existence, and their readiness to sub-
ordinate their work to it, is additional evidence of their
sincere support. 'During the War the leaders of the Union
drew up drafts of a Covenant and of an international
constitution.' I

The origins of the Intellectual Co-operation section,
therefore, are intimately bound up with those of the
League itself. The movements for bringing both into
existence were intermingling and contemporaneous. To
some extent the educational element was older. 'If an
international intellectual life had not long been in exis-
tence, 5 as M. Bourgeois said, c our League would never have
been formed.' 2 In consequence, the Intellectual Com-
mittee can claim over the League a certain degree of
priority in conception, and even of parentage or responsi-
bility in its immediate originators.

1 14 C. 51 (Memorandum of the Secretary-General on Educational
Activities). And see Les Problemes Int&rnationaux et la Guerre, written by
M. Paul Otlet in 1916, also Ms charter for a League, written in October
1914.

2 14 C. 48.

COMMITTEE OX INTEU.ECTUAL 115

2

In view of these activities at Brussels, it was quite
natural that the suggestion of an International Com-
mission on Intellectual Relations should be put forward
by the Belgians at the Peace Conference. But no one else
seems to have been interested in it. The amendment, ia
the form of an additional article in the Covenant, which
contained the provision, was withdrawn by M. Hymans in
the League Commission of the Conference without dis-
cussion. This was doubtless because the views of those
who were opposed to 'complicating 5 the Covenant with
unnecessary matter were well known, and because the
acceptance of one such amendment would have necessi-
tated at least a discussion of what were considered the
more dangerous proposals for an economic committee and
a financial section. The fact that the inclusion of such
a provision would have been both useful and logical
cannot be denied. As a gesture it would have strengthened
the position of the Committee which was subsequently
created. But the very fact that this Committee came into
existence without provision for it in the Covenant is proof
that such provision was, in truth, unnecessary.

The text translated of the article put forward by the
Belgians was:

*The Associated States will assure, to the fullest possible extent,
the development of moral, scientific and artistic international rela-
tions and will further, by every means, the formation of an inter-
national outlook.

*There shall be created for this pnrpose an International Com-
mittee on Intellectual Relations.' *

A petition was also presented to the Peace Conference
on February 5th, 1919, by the Union of International
Associations. 2 This demanded the inclusion in the Cove-
nant of a charter for Intellectual and Moral interests, just
as that for the interests of Labour had already been deter-

1 See Miller, Drafting of the Covenant, L 350.

2 See UUniversite Internationale, Documents relatifs a $a constitution) p. 2.

ii4 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
mined. But it seems to have exerted no influence on the
course of events. 1 ~

A few days after the Conditions of Peace had been
finally handed to Germany another group of delegates met
in Paris. 2 These were a few representatives of academic
circles in some of the Allied countries. They met with the
purpose of promoting co-operation in scientific study, and
they formed a union which became the Union Academique
Internationale. Its seat was to be at Brussels and its
finances to be subscribed by the national academies repre-
sented. It was open to delegates from ex-enemy countries
as soon as they applied an important difference from the
League organisms. In fact this organization has met
regularly once a year since 1920.

The work for which Belgium had been noteworthy
before the War, and in which she showed her interest at
the Peace Conference, was not abandoned after the War.
The International University, organized by MM. Otlet
and La Fontaine, held its first session in the summer of
1920. The Council of the League specifically welcomed
the movement. A tribute has been paid to the founders in
a note by the Secretary-General. 3 Their wort, it says,

c a work of documentation and information, of co-ordination of
effort, of general education, appears as a vast enterprise of inter-
national intellectual organization, characterized by the breadth of
its conception and design. Its action is twofold. As regards
principles, it owes to the logical force of the ideas which it has
brought forward an educative influence which is highly conducive
to the development of the ideas of union and of international
organization. As regards facts, it has proved its efficacy by the
institutions which it has created. The Union of International
Associations, its Congresses, the publications connected with them,

1 There is, for example, no reference to this in Miller's My Diary.

2 See Compte rendu de la Conference freUminalre ae Paris ^ May 17 and
19, 1919. 3 I4 c. 53.

COMMITTEE ON INTKLT.KCTl'M, CO-OPKRATION 115

and the International University^ form particularly effective instru-
ments for the "diffusion of a broad spirit df understanding

world-wide co-operation". The League of Nations should regard
these Institutions to-day as most valuable organs of collaboration.* !

The activity at Brussels was carried over also, in the
person of M. La Fontaine, to the First Session of the
Assembly. In an eloquent speech, made as rapporteur
from the Second Committee to the Assembly,, he put the
case for an international organization of intellectual life.
This was, above all, to give more force and more power
to human thought 7 . Its objects were defined by M. La
Fontaine. 'What intellectual labour requires*, he urged,
'are facilities, ready information, and centres for collabora-
tion where learned men who are carrying out researches
on the same subject can meet, and where the results of
their work can be put at the disposal of the whole world.' 2
The Assembly approved the report and the principles it
put forward, and recommended that the Council should
investigate *the advisability of giving them shape in a
Technical Organization attached to the League of
Nations'. 3

On September 2nd, 1921, after the question had been
fully studied by the staff, the Council passed a draft
resolution for the next Assembly. There it was considered
in the Fifth Committee and reported on by Professor
Gilbert Murray. It was adopted with two amendments.*
The word 'education' was omitted from its title, as it was
feared that such a term might appear to imply interference
with internal administration, but this amendment was
accepted on the understanding that *the very broad
phrase "co-operation in intellectual work" certainly in-
cluded education among its other activities*. And educa-

1 The judgement expressed in this considered report is of a particular
interest since, in spite of the eulogy it contained, it did not prevent the
League from ignoring Brussels entirely from the moment the Paris
Institute was created, and even attempting to duplicate the Brussels work
without reference to them.

2 I A.P. 757. 3 Ibid., 771. 4 2 A.C. v. 366 and 469.

I 2

n6 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
tion considered as a science was added to the list of ques-
tions submitted to the Expert Committee. 1 The second
amendment provided that there should be women mem-
bers of the Committee.

The Committee was to be nominated by the Council
and to consist of not more than twelve members. It was
accordingly appointed on May I5th, 1922,2 and asked to
meet on August 1st, The Secretary-General had taken
eight months in submitting names to the members of the
Council for suggestions and additions, because *it was of
the utmost importance that all candidates should be of the
highest standing', 3

The immediate duties of the Committee were to report
upon the setting up of a technical section of the League,
to consider a scheme which had been proposed for an
International Office of Education, and to advise the
Council on any further matters referred to it.

The general purposes for the Committee which occu-
pied the minds of its promoters were also threefold. It
was to be a means of contact between national education
systems, a step in the direction of internationalizing educa-
tion. *It would be unthinkable that the League should
endeavour to improve the means of exchange of material
products without also endeavouring to facilitate the inter-
national exchange of ideas/ 4 Secondly, it was on the one
hand to further the development of an international out-
look, 5 and on the other to assist in 'counteracting the
nationalistic tendencies which have invaded education in
almost every country 3 . 6 The League of Nations Union had
proposed the creation of an office which should have as
its sole object the initiation of the world's youth in the
aims and nature of the League of Nations. Actually, the
Intellectual Co-operation Committee has formed a special

i 2 A.P, 313- 2 18 C 535. 3 j6 c. in.

4 M. Leon Bourgeois, 14 C. 47.

5 By means of a close co-ordination of the many societies and unions
interesting themselves in international questions; see infra, p. 128.

6 Prof. G. Murray, 2 A.P. 310.

COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION 117

committee for seeing to this part of Its duties. These first
two purposes were closely connected. They were based on
the assumption, which no one who has studied inter-
national relations in general and the question of security
in particular would dare to deny, that c the future of the
League of Nations depends upon the formation of a uni-
versal conscience. This can be created and developed if
the scholars, the thinkers, and the writers in all countries
maintain close mutual contact, and spread from one
country to another the ideas which can ensure peace
among the peoples'. 1

Thirdly, there was some feeling that since manual
labour was being provided for in the International Labour
Organization with an ample budget, something should be
done to take care of the interests of the brain worker also.
This was strenuously objected to by the promoters of the
Labour Office. They claimed that the brain worker came
within the purview of the Intentional Labour Organiza-
tion. And it is, in fact, this view which has been followed
out in practice. There has been collaboration between the
two organizations, and both have undertaken certain in-
vestigations into the circumstances of intellectual labour.
But it is the first two aims of the Committee's originators
which have remained, as it were, the signposts indicating
the direction of the Committee's labours.

4

The Committee on Intellectual Co-operation sits regu-
larly once a year in Geneva for an average period of five
days ; sometimes it holds an additional session in Paris. It
reports regularly to the Council, and minutes of its meet-
ings are published. The imperative need for publication
of these was stressed in a letter from the chairman when
the Assembly proposed, for reasons of economy, to stop
publication. He pointed out that the minutes were abso-
lutely essential to the work of the Intellectual and Cine-

7 Prof. Murray in tlie Second Assembly.

n8 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
matographic Institutes, to the thirty-five national com-
mittees, and to an ever-increasing body of readers. 1

Originally the Committee had twelve members. The
number has increased, however, by additional appoint-
ments in 1924 and 1926 to fifteen an increase authorized
by the Assembly at its fourth session, 2 in view of the
legitimate demands' pressed by the delegates of many
states* The Council decided in June 1926,2 to limit the
term of appointment to five years, subject to renewal.
The Committee also has advisory members appointed by
the International Labour Office, the Confederation of
Intellectual Workers, and the Institute of Intellectual
Co-operation,

The nationality of members has remained widely repre-
sentative without difficulty in finding the personnel.
Throughout the Committee's existence it has contained
a South American, an Indian, and a citizen of the United
States. In 1930 a Japanesg professor and a second South
American also were members.

About the high qualifications of the Committee there
can be no shadow of doubt. Professor Bergson, who sat
for the first three years as chairman, has a name which is
world-famous; so has Professor Einstein, who has remained
on the Committee since 1922 with the exception of a brief
interval. Professor Gilbert Murray's literary work and his
activities on the League of Nations Union have made him
a peculiarly vital factor in the education of English public
opinion in the aims and value of the League. Specially
well known also in academic circles are the names of
Madame Curie, Sir Jagadis Bose of Calcutta, Mr. Millikan
of Washington, and M. Alfred Rocco who, besides being
professor at the University of Rome, is Minister of Justice
and Public Worship under Signer Mussolini. There are
three other politicians M. Destree, once Minister for
Arts and Sciences (including Education) at Brussels, M.
Cornejo, Peruvian Minister in Paris, and M. Painleve,
ex-Prime Minister of France. It would seem, therefore,
1 54 C 678.

COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION 119

that the academic circles are adequately represented, but
that departmentalists are rather conspicuously absent*

Appointment is made by the Council. In practice
choice is made by the Chairman of the Committee in con-
sultation with members, with the Secretary-General, and
with the Section of the League. But when a difference of
view develops, as happened, for example, in 1923, ! it is the
advice of the chairman which the Council is most likely
to take.

With regard to the principles of the Committee's
organization the Assembly suggested a system of rotation
in order to secure wider representativeness. But the Com-
mittee disapproved of the proposal. The terms of its reply
are worth quoting since they give the Committee's own
conception of the principles on which its composition
should be based. 2

*(i) It is desirable, as is indicated in the Assembly's resolution.,
that the Committee should comprise, as far as possible, representa-
tives of the principal branches of intellectual activity, and at the
same time representatives not only of nationalities but of the
principal groups of culture.'

In 1930 it was decided that there ought to be a balance
between the natural and humane sciences and no observers
or corresponding members. 3

Such are the principles of the Committee's organization,
the functions which were given to it, and the character of
its composition. The question of its efficiency and of the
need for replanning its work and structure must be left
over until its activities and achievement and its co-
operation with other bodies have been described. The
reorganization of the Committee will be discussed in the
concluding section of this chapter.

By the scheme of reorganization which the Committee
of Inquiry recommended in I930, 4 and which was adopted
by the Eleventh Assembly, an Executive Committee is

1 24 C. 599. z 30 C. 1525.

3 ii A. 21 (1930), xii. 4 ii A. 21, p. 42.

120 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
formed to cany on the work between the annual sessions
of the main committee. It consists of the chairman of
the Committee on Intellectual Co-operation, the five
members of the Committee of Directors who are also
members of the Intellectual Committee, and three elected
by that Committee from outside ^chosen for their ad-
ministrative qualifications and their practical knowledge'.
These three are to be present at meetings of the Intellec-
tual Committee and the Committee of Directors In an
advisory capacity. Substitution is not permitted.

The Committee on Intellectual Co-operation collabo-
rates with a large number of national and other Inter-
national bodies.

In the first place, it co-operates with other committees
of the League. The Child Welfare Committee, feeling the
need for assistance In the educational aspect of its work,
requested the Council to invite the Intellectual Co-opera-
tion Committee to nominate a representative, as was
already done by the Labour Office and the Health Com-
mittee. 1 But the Council decided, instead, only to
authorize the presence of a representative in a consultative
capacity at meetings where educational subjects were
under discussion. 2

The Council resolved to forward to the Mandates Com-
mittee a scheme for archaeological research In the man-
dated territories which the Committee on Intellectual
Co-operation had recommended. 3 There has been col-
laboration between the two organs of the League with a
view to ensuring the proper exploration and treatment of
archaeological treasures in those mandated areas which are
particularly rich in these.

It has been the policy of the International Committee,
secondly, to promote the creation of committees in each
country, the functions of which are, in general, to further

* 40 C. 935. 2 40 C 866. 3 2 6 c. 1304.

COMMITTEE OX INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION 121
the ends of the Intellectual Committee. They act as a
link between Geneva or Paris and the chief educational,
centres of the world. Their job is to take cognizance of the
International Committee ? s resolutions and to apply them
as far as possible. They may also serve to promote the ends
of the League, to spread knowledge of its purposes, and to
develop a general spirit of internationalism among univer-
sity youth and children in the schools.

For the most part, the leaders of these national commit-
tees are also members of the League Committee, and the
liaison between them is therefore close. But, in addition,
representatives of these committees have so far met in
conference every three years. In 1923 they met in Paris;
in 1926 some of them met at Warsaw; in 1929 a conference
was held at Geneva. At this last conference twenty-five
national committees were represented. Actually, there are
no less than thirty-five in existence. Not only has their
number and importance steadily increased, but also their
contact with the International Committee, the Institute
at Paris, and with each other. They met in 1929 for only
three days but discussed much, including the revision of
the work and organization of the Intellectual Co-operation.

The remaining associates of the Committee are still
more closely connected with its work. Of these its sub-
committees are an example. They are modelled on a
single principle, the co-operation of outside experts with
those members of the Committee who are specially inter-
ested in the subject under examination. There are six of
these sub-committees dealing respectively with university
relations, science and bibliography, arts and letters, intel-
lectual rights, interchange of staff, and the instruction of
youth in the aims of the League. This last occupies a
rather special position, having been appointed by the
President of the Council and the Chairman of the Intel-
lectual Committee, in pursuance of a Council and an
Assembly resolution. 1 Together these sub-committees

1 This Committee, as its work is definitely propagandist, might be more
closely associated with the Information Section of the Secretariat, and its

122 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
contain a distinguished group of scientists, artists, and
literary men- The work they have done is the most fruitful
accomplished by the Intellectual Organization.

In the fourth place, the Committee had not been in
existence for more than a few months before it had become
clear that nothing effective could be done without the help
of an executive instrument. The Committee's function
is of a peculiarly executive character. A meeting of a
dozen scientists once, or even two or three times, a year
is obviously not enough even to secure contact between
intellectual circles. And that is only one section of the
Committee's work. What is needed for this is some centre
which should become the natural meeting-ground of
groups and individuals coming together either for research
purposes or to discuss some common problem. An inter-
national spirit can be better promoted by such practical
measures as these than by the passing of resolutions. And,
furthermore, the application of a general agreement to
co-ordinate studies or to modify the nationalist tendencies
of instruction can only be secured through some executive
organ. The recognition of this necessity, combined with
the difficulty of getting the funds required to meet it,
brought the Committee within view of a decision to
terminate its labours.

Fortunately, in 1924, the French Government, in reply
to this, offered to found the International Institute of
Intellectual Co-operation at Paris. It gave the use of
premises and the promise of an annual subsidy. 1 This was
accepted by the Council and the Assembly after an inter-
esting debate 2 in which the disadvantages of Paris were
emphasized, and in which it was suggested that the League
itself could and should afford the money necessary. On
this ground the Australian delegate voted against accep-

terms of reference be widened to include much of the propagandist work
of that section which is at present done without control.
1 i.e. 2,000,000 francs; the income had risen in 1929 to 3,768,000, or

2 5 A.C. ii

COMMITTEE OX INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION 125

tance. The view of Professor Gilbert Murray, however,
finally prevailed. He had pointed out that since the Com-
mittee had urgently asked for help, and since only
government had responded, it would be not only difficult
not to accept their offer, but quite illogical to refuse on
objections raised by any of the forty or so governments
who had so far given no financial sign of any interest in the
work. Consequently the French offer was accepted^ and
by January 1926 the Institute was at work.

The Institute consists of the Governing Body which, by
agreement between the Council and the French Govern-
ment, is the Committee on Intellectual Co-operation
sitting under the chairmanship of the French member;
secondly, of a Committee of Directors, and lastly, of a
Director and staff. The Committee of Directors is nomi-
nated by the International Committee with the approval
of the Council, and has five members drawn from the ranks
of the former. The Director and higher officials are
appointed by the Governing Body, which has the ultimate
authority over the staff and over its executive organ, the
Committee of Directors. The budget of the Institute,
which is under the control of the Governing Body, is
voluntarily subscribed by a few governments, and is inde-
pendent of the League's finances. The office of the Insti-
tute is divided into sections dealing with artistic, univer-
sity, literary, and scientific and bibliographical relations. 1
Forty states have nominated delegates to co-operate with
the Institute, but these are mostly diplomats and are only
occasionally men who are professionally interested in the
work of education and intellectual co-operation.

The programme of the Institute as laid down for it by
the Committee of Inquiry 2 is:

c l. To develop the exchange of ideas and to effect personal con-
tact between the intellectual workers of all countries.

1 See an article by Julien Ludhaire, Director of the Institute, for Ms
views of the organization, *La Cooperaci6n InteLectual', in Revista de
Derecho International, Julio-Decembre, 1925, p. 234.

2 n A. Doc. 21, pp. 39-40.

124 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION

C 2 To encourage and promote co-operation between institu-
tions doing work of an intellectual character.

c j. To facilitate the spread of a knoivledge of the literary,
artistic, and scientific effort of different nations.

*4 To study jointly certain major problems of international
bearing.

*5. To support the international protection of intellectual rights.

*6. To make known by educational means the principles of the
League of Nations.' I

Finally, the Intellectual Committee has a close con-
nexion with the International Educational Cinemato-
graphic Institute which was set up at Rome in 1928. The
budget of this is provided by the Italian Government. It
is controlled by a Governing Body the chairman of which
is, ex official the Italian member of the Intellectual Com-
mittee. This must also contain the Chairman of the
Intellectual Committee and a third of its members, as
well as a member for each of its four sub-committees, and
two of the Child Welfare Committee of the League.
There are thus nine who are members both of the directly
League and of the Cinema organizations. The total
membership is fifteen. The Governing Body is appointed
by the Council for five years subject to one renewal, and
reports annually to the Council, It meets at least once
yearly. Complete control over the Institute is vested
in it, 'The object of the Institute shall be to encourage
the production, distribution, and exchange between the
various countries of educational films concerning instruc-
tion, art, industry, agriculture, commerce, health, social
education, &c,* 2 The Governing Body in turn appoints a
permanent executive committee consisting of its chairman
and five of its members, with the Director of the Intellectual
Institute at Paris in an advisory capacity. A representative
of the Secretary-General and the Directors of the Institute
of Agriculture and the Labour Office are also present.

1 This last duty devolves more especially upon the Committee for the
Instruction of Youth in the Aims of the League; see supra, p. 121.

2 See organic statutes in C. 573 (revised), 1928, 201.

COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION 125
One of the first activities of the Cinema Institute
to prepare a draft convention for submission to a con-
ference, aiming at the abolition of customs duties on
educational films.

The Intellectual Organization has never been accused
of inactivity. On the contrary, its labours have been so
numerous and so varied that it has been laid open to the
accusation of unduly diffusing its energies. The keenness
and interest of the Committee and Its numerous special
and national committees is borne out by a mere list of the
labours it has undertaken. For, although not many of
these have met with entire success, many have been of
value. Essentially, the failure has been due not to in-
competence, but to lack of funds. It may to some extent
have been due also to the feeling at Paris that no possible
line of action for the Organization, suggested anywhere or
at any time, should be denied. But the Committee saw
from the first the difficulties with which it was faced, as
is witnessed by the report of its second session. l The Com-
mittee, it asserted,

'has obtained a relatively considerable number of positive results
in a comparatively short space of time. And yet, when it first came
to consider the task before it, it wondered and many others
wondered and are still wondering whether it could ever accom-
plish its mission; for the field of intellectual life is so vast that it
appears to be limitless. . . . (The Committee's members) liave
worked to the limit of their capacity, sometimes to the detriment
of their own individual research. They have been sustained by the
idea that their efforts will not have been made in vain, and that the
League of Nations, which, invited them to study certain great
problems, will provide them, in cases in which solutions have been
proposed, with the necessary means for putting these solutions into
effect."

The fact is that the 'necessary means 5 were not> and have
not yet been, provided,

2 26 C. 1457.

I2f L.UMJMI 1*1 M. UN IMhl.LFX-lLAL CU-Ut'hKA 1 1UN

Something lias been done nevertheless. In the realm of
university relations several studies have been made. First,
the conditions on which international post-graduate
scholarships are granted. Secondly, the conditions on
which exchanges of professors and students can be ar-
ranged and the limiting factors. Thirdly, the possibility
of co-ordinating studies. Fourthly, the institution of a
central office for national Students' societies. Fifthly,
methods of facilitating travel. A list of holiday courses for
foreign students is compiled and published. The Educa-
tional Siinwy , a half-yearly review of activities in spreading
knowledge of the League through the medium of schools
and universities, appeared for the first time in 1929. A
text-book on the League for general use in schools has
been issued and has proved highly successful.

The Organization also publishes a review of museums,
their possessions and works, through the International
Museums Office which was established in 1926.

The arts, music, and literature are also affected by
activities of the Intellectual Institute. Exhibitions of
prints, of popular works of art, and of casts have been held.
Lists of the last and of recent musical compositions have
been made periodically. An interesting suggestion was
made in the Sub-committee on Letters by Mr. John Gals-
worthy for a regular system of translating the best
literary works produced each year, as a means of encourag-
ing interest in the life and thought of other countries.

Studies have been undertaken with a view to affording
as complete a list as possible of library facilities and the
placing of rare books throughout the world. This work is
of a very real value for research purposes. A biblio-
graphical index has been published by the Sub-committee
on Science and Bibliography. This aims at co-ordinating
the bibliographic lists which are issued by many institu-
tions periodically; at serving as an international index to
bibliographies.

Finally, the Committee has studied the laws on scien-
tific property and prepared a draft convention upon them,

COMMITTEE ON INTELI.ECITAI, CO-OPERATION 127

submitted to governments in 1928* There has been
Investigation of the Berne Convention of 1886 aiming at
co-ordinating it as much as possible with American agree-
ments.

Much other work has been done, Including among other
things study of Intellectual statistics, of the legal standing
of International associations, of esperanto, of the methods
of preserving manuscripts, and of the facilities granted for
scientific publications in transit.

7

Before it Is possible to evaluate the work of the Intel-
lectual Committee or indeed of any international com-
mittee one must ask not merely what It has done, but
what the world needs are which It Is called upon to meet.
One must have an idea of what it could do were all Its
limitations removed, but one must keep those limitations
ever in mind. Otherwise the analysis grows the winged
feet of Mercury and is apt to take flight In the clouds. It
is quite true that a bird's-eye view, which includes all the
corners of the earth in Its perspective and sees humanity
as a single unit, is absolutely essential if the achievement
of these small groups of men talking round a table at
Geneva is to be properly judged, for, after all, that Is the
real background. But an Idealist analysis, however true, is
less valuable if it fails to take account of Immediate con-
ditions, and to indicate, or at least to attempt an indication
of, practical means. And one must remember in consider-
ing these practical conditions that abuse for failure, even
when it is deserved, is not always the most constructive
method of approach.

What the Committee for Intellectual Co-operation is
and has done has been roughly sketched In the foregoing
sections of this chapter. The ideas of Its founders as to
what it should be and what it should create can be
gathered at least in part from reading the speeches and
the writings of Professor Otlet and Monsieur La Fontaine.

128 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
To quote Otlet's words, written during the first months
of the War, about societies concerning themselves with
international questions :

'These international congresses, as we have said, of international
associations, sit as world parliaments in embryo, each occupying
itself with the interests belonging to its domain. More than two
thousand of these meetings have been held during the last half
century, . . . Essentially free in their nature, and without allowing
anything to hinder their expansion, these forces need organization
in order to grow and to exercise a regular activity. Instead of float-
ing and dissipating themselves in the empty air, they must be cap-
tured, moulded, embodied, and fixed upon definite points of
application in some sort of an institution. This organization, in-
dispensable if they are to be useful tt> society, must naturally be
international in its final degree.' 1

As has been pointed out already, 2 the main objects of
the Committee's creation, as defined at the time, were
two : the development of an international mind a vague
formula whose meaning to its authors was more exactly
defined by Otlet in his scheme for co-ordinating inter-
national organizations and bringing them together in one
place; and, secondly, the diffusion in the schools of League
ideals. A special committee has been formed to take care
of this second purpose; the former is perhaps more im-
portant. The practical meaning which this had for M.
Otlet has been more clearly defined in his expose of the
Mundaneum, a scheme for an international city at Geneva.
It was indicated by La Fontaine's reference to the Inter-
national Labour Organization in the first session of the
Assembly. The first aim of this is to bring together in one
space, if not in one building, 3 all the private international
associations of the world. Clearly, such a gathering would
represent a powerful and significant accumulation of
energy and opinion. To bring together in one place these

1 Paul Otlet, Les ProUemes Internatwnaux et la Guerre. ', 1916, pp. 303
et seq. 2 Section 3 of this chapter.

* The reason for bringing them together in one building, as distinct from
one town, does not seem altogether clear, but that is an objection of detail.

COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION 129
numerous organizations, either through their representa-
tives or through establishing their head offices here, would
be to perform the services of co-ordination for which they
have so long been waiting. The Union of International
Associations, of which Professor Otlet has been so influ-
ential an organizer, is a clear step in this direction. Un-
fortunately It centres at Brussels in common with so many
other international unions which should, by Article 24 of
the Covenant, long ago have been taken over by the
League. Article 24, it is true, provides only for the
adoption by the League of International unions set up by
treaty. But it is arguable that the general terms of the
Covenant permit, and perhaps even encourage, Its associa-
tion with other International organizations. In the work
of promoting international co-operation It Is important
that the League, as a league of nations rather than as a
league of governments, should not be lost sight of. The
chief argument which can be urged against this proposal
is the necessity which it Involves of Including those
relatively valueless private organizations which are based
upon some particular religious or other fad. Such an
objection, however, can well be discounted. A society of
this character would not be very heartily welcomed by Its
saner brothers, and if in fact It came It would be brought
into closer contact with the Important realities of inter-
national life, and might by a process of attrition be
brought either to reason or to suicide. And In any case
the existence of one society does not impede the activity
of a more valuable one.

The second proposal is for an international university.
This has been brought before the Assembly and has earned
its blessing. It was also intended that educationalists
should confer in order to co-ordinate educational systems,
curricula, and the standards of examination. Geneva Is
already an international students 5 centre. The Post-
graduate Institute for International Studies, created on
the initiative of League circles, is already an international
super-university in the gerai. Its students have come from

130 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
almost every country of the world and Its professors from
the most Important educational centres of western civili-
zation.

So much for the task of Intellectual co-operation as it
can be, and has been, envisaged. Apart from the fact that
certain International organizations have met at the Paris
Institute, little has been done by the League to accom-
plish this task. And it Is this, above all, which Is the real
cause of the censure passed upon the organization of
intellectual co-operation.

In order to form a just appreciation of its failure to do
more It is essential to remember two opposing conditions.
On the one hand, the Committee has been hampered
always and at every step by the parsimony of governments.
The time for the minister of education to be more im-
portant than the minister of war is still beyond the
horizon. While the world's expenditure on armaments
reaches astronomical figures, It has been reckoned by M. de
Brouckere that the fer capita contribution to Intellectual
co-operation of some members of the League amounts to
one cent once in every hundred centuries. 1 The League
allowed even its supply with a proper library to be suggested
and paid for by a private individual. The whole budget of
the Intellectual Institute at Paris reaches only three and a
half million French francs, or about .3O,ooo. 2 On the
other hand, it must be remembered that the Intellectual
Organization, on paper, is one of the most complete of all
the League's sections. It has thirty-five national com-
mittees, who are brought into touch with one another by
what so far has proved a three-yearly conference, and who
are unofficially directed and co-ordinated by an inter-
national super-committee. This has an executive instru-
ment in Paris under its control with a small but inde-
pendent budget. It has a subsidiary institute at Rome and
a section of the League managed by an Under-Secretary-
General. Furthermore, although a narrow enough

1 5 A.C. iL 21.

2 The British Empire does not contribute.

COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL 131

nationalism lias certainly played Its part in the
between Geneva, Paris* and Brussels, there are no power-
ful vested interests in education in any way comparable
with, those which stand in the way of an effective working
of the Economic or the Opium Committees. The chief
enemy of the Committee is national inertia and lack of
Interest and publicity. But this may be overcome by an
energetic and far-seeing policy.

The Committee itself has felt that all is not weE with
its system, its policy and organization., That It has done
so, and that It itself proposed the setting up of a committee
to revise these questions. Is a sign of vitality. This com-
mittee of inquiry was approved by the Council on August
3 ist, 1929, and by the Tenth Assembly. It sat from
April I4th to May 2nd, 1930, and had eight members*
four of whom were members of the Intellectual Com-
mittee. The majority were educational administrators.
It reported in the summer of 1930.

Criticism of the Organization can be distinguished
according as Its object is the Institute or the Committee,
the general system, or the work of promoting the In-
struction of youth in the aims of the League.

The Institute has been open to many dangers from the
start. Being separated from the League and not only in
Paris but staffed largely by French citizens and under the
direction of an ex-official of the French Ministry of
Education, it has been peculiarly susceptible to the
accusation of excessive French influence. It is possible
that a greater degree of internationalism would improve
its efficiency as an international bureau and would make
it a more welcome innovation to various other countries.
The generosity of the French Government has been much
and justly praised; but It is only fair to say that the value
of its gift would have been more than proportionately
greater had the conditions attached to it been sacrificed.
It was, after all, the opinion of many delegates at the
Assembly that the Institute should be at Geneva and not
at Paris. And, as has been seen already, it was even quite

K2

1 32 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
widely suggested that the French offer should be refused
because a League Institute could not function efficiently
at such a distance from the international centre. It is not
yet possible to say that these anticipations of danger were
unjustified.

The Institute has suffered, secondly, until 1930 from
the failure both on its own part and on that of the
Committee to define clearly and exactly the aims which
it was to keep in view. This seems to be a reasonably easy
thing to do. Had it been done, activity could more easily
have been concentrated, and the charge that the Institute
was dissipating its energies on comparatively trivial tasks
might not have been made necessary. What is needed is
a definite and clear-cut policy creating some sort of
schedule of work. Priority in this would be based first on
the importance of the need it served, and secondly on the
probability of achieving practical results. When such
a scheme was worked out in 1930 the Institute naturally
recovered its memory of the existence of many inter-
national organizations which it had frequently forgotten.
As has been pointed out already, they need co-ordination.
Much of the work done by the Institute could very simply
be handed over to the union or unions most closely con-
cerned. 1 By bringing them together it would be creating
the type of intellectual office which M. Otlet and M. La
Fontaine originally had in mind. At the same time it
would be leaving its own time and energy free for that
work which only the Institute can do.

But it must be remembered in all criticism of the
Institute that none of its labours can be said to have been
useless. The point is rather one of relativity, that its work
may not always have been the most useful possible in the
circumstances. All that it has undertaken may be said
truly to have been promoting the ends of intellectual co-

1 Bibliography is an example. At, Brussels there exists, in the Palais
mondial, an international" index of thirteen milHon cards, the only serious
attempt of the sort. "Yet Paris began another without communicating
with'Brussels*

COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATIOX 135

operation. But this, the just contention of Its
does not necessarily absolve it from blame.

Certain personal factors seem unfortunately also to
have been the cause of disharmony and its inevitably
adverse reaction on efficiency. An example of this is to be
found in the criticism made by Dr. Dalton In a plenary
meeting of the Assembly during its tenth session. In
questioning the propriety of the publication in a certain
newspaper of an article by the Director of the Institute
he said, *It is possible that the Director has slightly mis-
understood the resolution which is being submitted to the
Assembly. That resolution does not necessarily represent
a vote of confidence in all those concerned in the work of
intellectual co-operation. 31 And there has been continual
and stringent criticism by the auditor of the methods of
administration. 2

As for the Committee on Intellectual Co-operation,
the eminence of its members has already been shown.
They are men and women whose names may well be
remembered long after the great statesmen of to-day are
forgotten. The disadvantage from which they suffer*
from the point of view of the practical educationalist and
man of affairs, is not a lack but an excess of eminence,
Because a man is a botanist of world-fame it does not
necessarily follow that he will be an excellent organizer of
world relations. And yet it is on academic qualifications
only that members seem to have been appointed. In fact,
it is those members that happen also to have adminis-
trative experience who have proved the most useful. But
when scientific qualifications are so high as to include
around the same table a Bergson and an Einstein their
coming together reminds one of a meeting of Mont Blanc
and Mount Everest. Each, to use Shelley's words, has
'the still and solemn power of many sights and many
sounds, and much of life and death 3 , but unfortunate^
for practical intellectual co-operation this power is

1 10 A. PL 137.

2 ii A. Doc. 21, pp. 69, 71-5.

134 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
naturally apt to 'dwell apart in Its tranquillity, remote,
serene, and inaccessible 5 .

It has sometimes been urged in favour of those who
were responsible for choosing the first members in 1922
that they expected the Committee to be only temporary,
and that they aimed therefore at collecting together men
and women who, by casting the glamour of their spiritual
fame upon the group of politicians who sit around the
Council table, would add to the League's prestige. It is
contended that their function as originally understood
was merely to pass virtuous resolutions that would lend
moral support to the Council. The answer is plain and
simple. Any one who makes such a claim cannot have read
the minutes of the early sessions of the Assembly, in which
the organization was suggested and decided upon. And
does not such an argument seem rather to imply a lack
of vision in the selector of the committee ? Does it not
mean that to him intellectual matters lie, or lay, outside
his picture of the important things of life and the impor-
tant duties of the League ? If his view were correct, and
it is not altogether surprising that it should be held in the
years immediately following on the War, when German
culture was excluded from the League, and when no
practical intellectual work had developed, it was quite
natural to regard such a proposed activity as vague, Im-
material, and transitory. Happily the issue has contra-
dicted this view.

There is, however, one question which may be asked,
and for which no satisfactory answer has yet been given.
In all the other committees of the League which took up
work that had been started before the League, some con-
tinuity was assured by including in its personnel, or in
that of the Secretariat, a representative of the earlier
activity. Why, then, was neither M. La Fontaine nor M.
Otlet included ? Is it but another example of making use
of a man's ideas and in this case his practical activities
also while you refuse to recognize him save as an idealist
and a dreamer ?

COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL 135

Finally, with regard to the education of youth in the
alms of the League, it seems clear that greater
with the really decisive factors in education to be

secured. The Committee of Experts, which has fourteen
members, includes four from ministries of education
Professor Munch of Copenhagen, Secretary for Foreign
Affairs of Denmark. But a closer link with education
departments and with teachers' organizations appears to
be essential. At the tenth session of the Assembly the
Danish delegate proposed that a conference of Education
Ministers should be called to consider this question. The
importance of bringing ministers of education together
for this and other purposes of Intellectual co-operation
cannot be over-emphasized. It lends power and authority
to a body which lacks both, and to which both are a sine
qua non of practical effectiveness.

The creation of an Executive Committee is of consider-
able importance. The investigators of 1930 laid *great
stress on this reform. It is the corner-stone of all those
proposed' in their report. The need for practical experi-
ence was recognized by them in their plan of its composi-
tion.

To sum up recent changes, then, which have not yet
had time to show their value. The formation of the
Executive Committee has made the Intellectual Organiza-
tion more administrative in membership. The new Com-
mittee is smaller and more suited by its size and the
frequency of its meetings to initiate and direct. The duties
of the Institute have been more restrictedly defined and
measures taken to secure its efficiency. It has been pro-
vided that the organization shall delegate more readily to
unofficial bodies.

For the future more can be said. The Institute should
be moved to Geneva, as also the Cinema Institute.

The Conference of national committees can be called
more frequently and linked more closely with the Inter-
national Committee. More definite work may be given to
it. It might elect, with great advantage to the sense of

136 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
responsibility in the national committees and to the
character of the International Committee's composition,
some of the members of the latter. And lastly, in order to
secure authority and governmental interest, the experi-
ment of an Education Council of ministers, implied in the
above Danish resolution, should be tried. There is no
reason why it should not meet once a year at the same time
as the Conference of Committees. It would share in the
election of members to the Committee, which would
remain the executive body, controlling the Institutes and
the International University, if one should come into
being. The constitution of the Conference and the
method of electing to the Committee, as it might con-
ceivably develop, can be more closely defined. Each
national committee should send two delegates, one repre-
senting universities, the other primary and secondary
education. The fuE Conference would consist of these
sitting in conjunction with the Education Ministers.
There would thus be three sections, much as at the Labour
Conference, and each section would be entitled to elect
one-third of the members of the Executive Committee
every three years for that period. There might be a fourth
group also, representing certain approved international
societies dealing with intellectual work. Each section
could, if it wished, deliberate apart upon certain subjects.
There is no reason to suppose that such an organization
would be any less active and alive than that for labour.
This, unfortunately, may not be a commendation to those
who find the Labour Office already too energetic for their
wishes, but it does not mean that some such scheme is not
urgently needed. The teachers' section, for instance,
might consider such questions as the biased teaching of
history, the influence of elementary education on the
growth of a national psychology. But such people from
their different experiences would have much valuable sug-
gestion td offer in the more positive study of educational
method. They would evolve standards of educational
technique. By the mere force of publicity they would

COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL 137

bring pressure to bear upon, a government educa-

tional policy was backward or illiberal. Mutual
could be made for the teaching of foreign
culture or the facilitating of travel and of contact
teachers of different nationalities.

But, further, if the programme of intellectual co-opera-
tion as laid down in 1930 1 be considered, it will be seen
at once to have two possible interpretations. It be

carried out by the co-ordinating of national systems, by
promoting through administrative means the growth of an
international viewpoint within them. A student or
lecturer of Leipzig may be exchanged with a student or
lecturer of New York, with the Institute as an administra-
tive clearing-house. In this way the first and chief item in
the programme *to develop the exchange of ideas and to
effect personal contacts' can be carried out. Actually
this sort of interchange is all that the Committee has
envisaged. But surely there are also other more direct,
surer, quicker methods of applying such a policy. Students
and teachers may be redistributed with excellent effect,
it is true, but they may also be brought together in one
centre. The man who goes from New York to Leipzig
may learn much about Germany, but if he goes to Geneva
he may discover China and Denmark besides perhaps not
in so complete a fashion, but at any rate still in a foreign
town. It is by the growth of such an international centre,
above all, that an international outlook can best develop.
In this way an international university becomes clearly the
best instrument. And it is significant that all the points in
the intellectual programme can be carried out with the
university as the instrument, although the Institute at
Paris was intended. Such a university would promote co-
operation between national universities by giving them an
international apex, controlled as it should be by a board
of administrative experts, as far as possible independent of
the Assembly. It would act as a most efficient liaison
between national cultures. Certainly a knowledge of the
1 See supra, pp. 123-4.

138 COMMITTEE ON INTELLECTUAL CO-OPERATION
writings and scientific work of different countries would
be promoted there, if only because in its personnel it
would be in touch, with a hundred centres of learning. It
would have all the necessary material for studying inter-
national problems. It would become a centre of thought
that should proclaim the thinker's sacred right to utter
his thought regardless of the will of governments. And it
would clearly by the mere scattering of its scholars be the
most forceful method of promoting denationalises in
education that it is possible to conceive. Above all, an
international university would form the nucleus of what
has been called the international mind. By that is meant
a denational approach to the problems of the day and an
organized thinking upon world society with its institu-
tional expression, the League. Eternal fame awaits the
man or the country that builds such a university. 1 The
foundations lie already in Geneva. 2

1 Spain has proposed it; 4 A, PI. 362.

2 See above, p. 129 ; also compare the whole proposal with the suggestion
for international health research, p. i ro

V!

THE COMMUNICATIONS AND
COMMITTEE

*De meme que Fesprit national et Pesprit continental chcrchent a fa^o

les transports locaux a leur Image, agissant a travers les etats, dt il

faut que Pesprit universel, an moyen d'un orgaalsme uaiver^el,

fa^onne a son image les transports dtz monde,*

S. DE MADAXIACJL

Kthe last months of the War transport was controlled
i an inter-Allied system. We have already examined
the organization of shipping control This was supple-
mented on land by the Allied Transportation Council for
Railways, an international but non-ministerial body. But
the real work of railway control in France was done by the
French Ministry of Public Worts, which regulated the
organization of transport down to the minutest detail.
The success and thoroughness of this service, the corner-
stone of the military defence, were remarkable. It was
acclaimed by Marshal Haig as ^beyond praise'. 1 The
fundamental importance of communications to modern
civilization, especially in time of crisis, was equally shown
by the central empires, although for the opposite reason*
Professor Redlich has described the serious deterioration
of Austrian communications as *the signal for the ap-
proaching collapse of the whole military and administra-
tive machinery of the Empire'. 2

When, after the cessation of hostilities, European tram-
port needs began to enter upon the normal again, those in
authority had to meet a situation of general disorganiza-
tion. Shipping was inadequate. What there was of it was
slow and unsuitable. Railways were chaotic. Large por-
tions of the track had been destroyed, and the rest had
deteriorated. Repairing machinery was lacking. There

1 Marcel Pesdiaud, Politiqne et Fonctionnemmt des Transports par
clemin defer pendant la^gu^rre^ p. 86.

2 Austrian War Government, p. 134*

140 THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE
was a marked shortage of coal. The dismemberment of the
central empires had created new frontiers at which
customs houses had to be built, and were as yet uncom-
menced. It had caused in some places wholesale dis-
missals of personnel. Difficulties were increased by general
labour trouble. Virulent nationalism behind these frontiers
obstructed every type of traffic that attempted to cross
them. And behind it all, impeding reconstruction, lay
the possibility of confiscation either of rolling-stock or
of the entire railway system for the payment of repara-
tions.

Such a situation dearly needed a concerted remedy.
Accordingly, a Communications Section of the Supreme
Economic Council * was formed in March 1919. This was
nominally an advisory committee without executive
authority of any sort, but in fact the decisions which it
took had exactly the same effect as if its control had been
complete. The Section was fully organized. On it sat
representatives of the four Allies and a delegate of Marshal
Foch, under the chairmanship of General Mance, a
British subject. It worked through commissions estab-
lished in seven different countries, besides one each for the
Danube and the Elbe. There were also several French and
British military missions sent to the Balkans and Turkey,
which were placed under the control of the committee for
transport matters. The work of these commissions was to
organize reconstruction, to find the necessary repairing
material and credit, under the supervision of the Com-
munications Section. But such pressing problems as the
transporting of supplies to famine areas and the obtaining
of coal for Austria were of the first importance. Relief
could never have reached the stricken countries without
the successful efforts of the Section. And, further, its task
of preparation for the Danube Commission and its re-
organization of transit on the Danube is an important part
of its labours to which we shall refer later. 2

1 Temperley, Peace Conference, i. 308.

2 See infra, pp. 153-4.

THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT 141

The Peace Conference had certain important
to take as to the future of the chief navigable rivers of
Europe, of certain international ports, and of such railway
connexions as the Cape to Cairo and the Adriatic to the
Baltic. On the suggestion of the British delegation a
Committee on the International Regime of Ports, Water-
ways, and Railways was formed by the Conference on
January 25th. It had nineteen members, ten of whom
were appointed by the five Allied Great Powers and nine
by the election of the interested small Powers. 1 Belgium,
the British Empire, Czecho-SlovaHa, France, Italy, and
Serbia were represented by ministers. This Commission
had no official connexion with the Communications
Section of the Supreme Economic Council, which was
doing the practical work of reconstruction^ but the
British and Belgian representatives belonged, to both.

The Commission devoted the first part of its labours to
debate on general principles. Draft conventions on free-
dom of transit, international rivers, international and free
ports, and international railways were prepared by the
French and British delegates, and submitted. Consider-
able agreement had been reached on these and on the
detailed manner in which they were to be applied, when
in March it became necessary to speed up the work in
order to get the transport articles of the German Treaty
ready as soon as the others. Work on the general conven-
tions had therefore to be dropped for the time.

In fact, it was never continued, being postponed at the
wish of the American delegation for later consideration by
the League. 2 But in the meanwhile agreement was
reached in a very short space of time on all the river and
transport articles of the German Treaty. This was no
small achievement, and was only accomplished as a result
of the considerable degree of sympathy and understanding
for the divergent views of members which had grown up
* Temperley, ii. 94. 2 Ibid., ii. 105.

i|2 THE AND TRANSIT

the of the of the

of to compromise.

In the of Part Xll of Treaty of

the of the other treaties

it with the principle of free-

of transit asserted In Article

23 (/), The of compulsory arbitration on matters

of Included in the Treaty.

to at a convention was recog-

Its as a of the future programme

In the Treaties of Versailles and St. Germain

la the Minority Treaties with Poland, Jugo-SIavIa,

Czechoslovakia. *

The above-mentioned provision for freedom of transit

Is on freedom of the seas. One or other

is to be In the plans of all the five Allied Great

Powers, In the German scheme* The freedom of

to originate with the British draft

of Trade Convention. 3 The French amendment

to Article 21, written much later, also mentions It. But

Italian proposal contains only a clause on the freedom

of the seas,

^Navigation of the seas Is free to merchant ships of every lag.
Sovereign rights over territorial waters and ports cannot be exer-
la such a way as to prejudice substantially such freedom of
navigation.*

la Wilson's third draft there is a provision for freedom of
the seas in time of war s which grants to the League, how-
ever, the right c to close the seas In whole or in part against
a particular Power or particular Powers for the purpose of
enforcing the International covenants here entered into*. 3
But these provisions had disappeared from the Covenant
by the time of the Hurst-MIUer draft. The freedom of
transit phrase remained, nevertheless, with the additional

* Respectively Articles 338, 311, 17, 15, 15, 19.

* See MOler, it. *9 and in the Draft Covenant, ii. 107.
a Snpplementaiy Clause VIII, Miller, ii. 105.

THE COMMUN AND 145

for of by

House, 1 It in the

In the Covenant.

3

The of the Communications Transit

Committee is based, like the Economic Committee^ on
Article 23 (e) of the Covenant.

'Subject to and in accordance with the provisions
conventions existing or hereafter to be upon, the

of the League . , . will make provision to secure or
of communications and of transit/

But in the realm of transport, unlike that of commerce*,
the League was given definite supervision of the Peace
Treaties. By Part XII of the Treaty of Versailles the
corresponding sections of the other treaties the League Is
appointed trustee for the application of these terms. It is
entrusted with powers of arbitration 2 and even of extend-
ing the period in which certain conditions were to apply. 3
Further, the preparation of the general convention for
freedom of transit was bequeathed to the League, 4 This
was to supersede that part of the Treaty which laid
down the general principles governing the work of the
Commissions for the Elbe, the Oder, and the Rhine. It
was implied that these tasks would be handed to the
appropriate technical organ of the League. The Transit
Committee has, therefore, an implied function of some
considerable importance.

The Committee was the first to be set up, and acted in
some sort as a model for the other technical organs of the
League. At the end of August 1919 the French Govern-
ment invited a number of states, Including all those
which were represented on the Commission for Ports,
Waterways, and Railways, to appoint members for a
committee of inquiry which was to study the whole

1 Ibid., i. 292.

2 Treaty of Versailles: Article 376. 'Disputes . . . shall be settled as
provided by the League of Nations/

3 Ibid., Article 378, 4 See also I A.C. ii. 188*

144 THE AND TRANSIT

of the to

It* In this a on

It sat in Paris, the

On February I3th, 1920,

a of the the Council

to the Paris and consti-

It the on Communications

of the of Nations 7 * Its duties were to

to for a permanent

to conventions on transit,

ports, if railways.

A the Committee forwarded a report to

the Council, In view of the need for concluding certain

conventions of the unsuitability of the

for such technical work, it made the following

;

*It would then, that a General Conference of Communica-

Transit, analagous, with certain reservations, to the

Labour Conference, would serve the purpose as being a flexible

organization, eminently susceptible of modification and adaptable

to its purpose, * . *

*In addition to such a Confereace, whose meetings, whether
periodical or not, will necessarily tale place at intervals, and whose
role is confined to the preparation of international agree-
upon important and permanent questions, it is advisable to
provide for a more restricted and manageable body, more closely
associated with, the daily life, as it were, of the League of Nations.
. Were it only to assure the preparation of the work in the
intervals between the sessions, or to deal with, the results of its
deliberations, a "Permanent Communications and Transit Com-
mittee 11 would seem to be essential as the bureau or sub-committee
of any such Conference.

*But it is of even greater importance that it should be the agent
which, under the authority of tie Council of the League of Nations,
to which it would be a purely subordinate organization, would
discharge within its allotted sphere the different duties which
devolve upon the Council, whether by virtue of the above-
mentioned articles of the Peace Treaties, or with a view to the
application of 'Article 23 (<?) of the Covenant. . .

THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT 145

'Lastly, the Treaties the

of . the Committee

before judicial proceedings taken, act as an

instrument of conciliation of

gradually gaining the genera! confidence, would undoubtedly, in

cases, succeed in quickly settling technical In their

early stages, before they time to develop into or on

political differences capable of disturbing the of the world/'

The Commission of Enquiry carefully the

necessity that the Council and Assembly
their responsibility for directing the general policy of the
League. The organization and procedure of both, the
Committee and the Conference were therefore to be sub-
mitted to the Council for Its approval after being accepted
by the Conference*

The scheme of organization prepared by the Commis-
sion Is important because It formed the of later
practice. The Conference was to consist of one representa-
tive of each member state. The Committee was to be
composed of one appointee of each of the permanent
members of the Council and of eight states chosen by the
General Conference.

'The members of the Committee would be considered not as
representing Members of the League by whom they were nomi-
nated, but as acting in the name of the Members of the League
of Nations regarded collectively. The Conference might . , . invite
any of the members of the League entrusted with the nomination
of the Committee to nominate by preference as member of the
Committee an expert In any particular specified branch of trans-
port.*

The recommendations of the Commission of Enquiry
formed the basis of the Council's resolution of May 19th,
I92O. 2 A general conference was to be called as soon as the
Assembly approved. This it did on December 9th. 3 But
the Assembly made certain amendments. It emphasized
the power of the Council to call the Conference, and

1 i A. C. ii 233. 2 5 C 163.

3 i A. PL 368.

14* THE AND TRANSIT

of of the of

the be the

to call a in the event of the

to a decision. It

the size of the twelve members

to not of the number of the

on the Lastly, It that appoint-

be as far as possible

and representation \

The on Transit which

met at loth to April zoth, 1921,

up for a organization I on the

of by the Commission of

Enquiry. But modifications were made.

not of the League may be admitted to the

Conference with equal by a resolution of the Con-

itself. The report on the Conference was adopted

by the Council on June i8th, 1921.2

The Committee's authority is derived, therefore, from
the Council's and the Assembly's invitation to the
Barcelona Conference to organize an Advisory and Techni-
cal Committee, from the Barcelona Conference itself, and
from the Committee of Enquiry which carried with It the
tradition and a considerable part of the membership of
the Ports* Waterways, and Railways Commission of the
Peace Conference.

But the justification of the Committee's existence Is not
merely a written one. Measures would stlU have been
necessary if no word had been written In the Treaty. And
to mention only the forms Is to overlook the essence. The
very nature of communications Is unavoidably inter-
national. And yet few legal principles 3 and less adminis-
trative machinery had existed before the League for

Conference (pubL by Payot), p. 29. 2 13 C. 154.

s The first conTentioa on transit was tlie Franco-German Treaty of
1804. For derelopment see EngeUbardt, Dn regime cmventimnd des
iii&r#ati$iuttUf 9 1879; Carthay > , tek dela Gomtmtim de BarceUne
$m U r/gime ies mies mmg&bks d j interit international, 1927.

THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT 147

did not the

of country, for

services or for planning the use of canals, rivers,
from an of view. The of

organizing planning was never in

the first year of the League's life. ^Beneath our eyes\
1VL Hanotaux, President of the Barcelona Conference,
^entire peoples are dying of hunger, so

many imprudences, they have committed
imprudence of failing to look after the upkeep of
means of communication.' ! It is clear that if

had been no word about transport in the Treaty the
League's function of promoting international co-opera-
tion, relief, and well-being would have compelled it.

As originally proposed the Committee was to have
twelve members. The effect of the Assembly and Barce-
lona resolutions was to enlarge it to not more than
one-third of the total members of the League, and provi-
sionally to sixteen. The largest which it has been at any
time is eighteen.

Appointment is by governments- Each state which
occupies a permanent seat on the Council nominates one
member. The remaining states represented at the Con-
ference, members or non-members of the League, confer
upon a sufficient number of other states to make up the
total to the required number the right to nominate, each.
one, a member. The Conference must tale into account
geographical representation and interest in communica-
tions in the selection of these governments. In practice it
allots a proportionate number of seats to the three con-
tinents, and the eligible states which get the most votes
in a secret ballot are accordingly elected. Governments
are expected to appoint experts. None may have the right
of nomination for more tkan two consecutive periods

1 L'CEwrt de Barctkne, p. 6.

14* THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE
except the five Great Powers and half must retire at the
end of each period. These periods are to be not shorter
than two and not longer than four years.

The Committee's work can be entrusted to it by the
Council or the Assembly, or by general conventions. Its
procedure is under its own control. The Committee
elects a chairman by secret ballot on the system of annual
rotation. It sits, when it is called by the Council or on a
decision of one- third of its members, as a rule at Geneva.
In fact, the Committee has made a practice of meeting on
an average twice a year. Minutes are published. Its
decisions are taken by simple majority, and rules of pro-
cedure may be altered by the same method. 1 At the first
meeting, on a question whether substitutes should be
allowed, it was affirmed that 'the importance of its
deliberations depended on the personality of the members
appointed by the governments to take part in it; and
that, in consequence, it was essential save in exceptional
cases that the members of the Committee should them-
selves carry out the duties entrusted to them'. 2 This
policy has been upheld in practice; although there was
one substitute present when this statement was made at
the first meeting, it is only on the rarest occasions that
substitution has been repeated.

Special rules of procedure for dealing with disputes were
made by the Barcelona Conference. When a dispute has
once been referred to the League the Secretary-General
must submit it direct to the Committee, which then seeks
information from the governments concerned. When the
information is deemed inadequate a special commission of
inquiry, representing all the relevant interests, 3 may be
appointed. Its report is considered by the Committee,
which gives a reasoned opinion to be communicated to the
governments.

1 See Annex 4 of Minutes of the First Meeting.

2 Minutes of the First Meeting, p. 7.

3 For precise details as to its composition see the Resolutions of the
Barcelona Conference, Article 7.

THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE 149
The election rules have resulted in an extensive partici-
pation In the Committee's work. No less than thirty-two
states have had the right to appoint members in a period
of less than ten years. Two of these, the governments of
Venezuela and Panama, never In fact made the appoint-
ments to which they were entitled, but the remaining
thirty countries have all been represented for varying
lengths of time. Of these actually eight were extra-
European, none of these being of the British Empire.
Among the half of the non-permanent members of the
Committee who retired at the end of the first period, two
states, Switzerland and Holland, were re-elected to the
Committee in 1927, Dr. Herold of the Swiss Federal
Railways returning as the Swiss member.

It is unnecessary to describe the members of the Com-
mittee in detail. The majority of them are experts.
Several, however, are diplomats accredited either to the
League or to some European government. Roughly six
out of the sixteen members at the beginning of 1930 were
non-experts. Of the rest two were chiefs of ministries
and three of state railways. Several types of specialized
knowledge are, or have been, represented on the Com-
mittee. Members have been river commissioners, en-
gineers, railway inspectors, chiefs of transport depart-
ments, directors of railways or port authorities. The
purely departmental element, therefore, is less strong here
than elsewhere. The Italian and British representatives
have remained on the Committee throughout its career;
Japan has had five representatives at different times. The
first Frenchman to sit was M. Claveille, who, besides
being responsible as Minister of Public Works for the
running of the French railways during the War, had
represented France on the Ports, Waterways, and Rail-
ways Commission at the Peace Conference, and had been
Chairman of the Provisional Committee for over a* year.
A further line of continuity runs through from the War
in the person of Professor AttoHco, once Italian representa-
tive on the Allied Maritime Transport Executive, who

ISO THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE
was until 1922 Director of the Communications and
Transit Section of the League.

5

The Communications and Transit Committee has co-
operated with many of the other League Committees. A
sub-committee was appointed to take Into account the
work and objects of the Economic Committee in the
drafting of the Railways and Ports Conventions of 1923. I
Similarly, In the conventions for freedom of transit the
Committee made provision for aid in the suppression of
opium traffic. 2 A small committee, selected by the Tran-
sit and the Permanent Armaments Committees, was ap-
pointed to make a report on the transport of Polish war
materials through Danzig. 3 In the same way a joint sub-
committee was appointed by the Health and Transit
Committees to investigate sanitary conditions of water
traffic. Such co-operation is quite general, and instances
of it could easily be multiplied.

As entitled by its constitution, the Transit Committee
also appoints a number of special or expert committees.
At the beginning of 1930 there were as many as eighteen
of these, of which six were permanent, ten temporary, and
two sub-committees. Such a number argues a consider-
able degree of activity, which is not belied by the facts.

The temporary committees, in general, deal with
questions which like the unification of river law, of
transport statistics, or of maritime tonnage measurement
disappear with their solution. The permanent com-
mittees, on the other hand, supervise the main sections of
the organization's work. There Is one each for railway,
road, maritime, and inland water traffic, another for
electric and another for legal questions. Each of these has
at least one member from the Transit Committee, assisted

1 21 C. 1279.

2 H. R. Cummings, Ibe Technical Organisations of tie League, p. 286.

3 27 c. 350.

THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE 151
by other experts. These are drawn, for the most part, from
the chief organizations interested in the particular problem.
They afford, therefore, an excellent opportunity for bringing
about the essential co-operation of private concerns, which
are often, in fact, as important as official departments.

By this means, and by consultation with individual
experts, the Transit Committee is able to pursue a policy
of continuous collaboration with outside organizations.
The International Chamber of Commerce, the Tele-
graphic Union, the International Commission for Air-
Navigation, the River Commissions, the International
Conference of Shipbuilders are only a few of these. 1
There is never a meeting of the Committee at which
delegates from one or other of these are not present.

The Communications and Transit Conference.

The Conference which forms part of the Communica-
tions and Transit Organization sits with a maximum
Interval of four years. It Is called by the Council or by
one-half of the members of the League. Unlike the Com-
mittee, delegates at the Conference are representatives of
their governments. Although decisions are taken by simple
majority, alterations of or additions to the agenda must
reach a two-thirds vote. Limited conferences, at which only
states Interested in a particular problem are present, may
also be called. Conference procedure is decided by itself.

The first three sessions of the Conference were held in
1921, 1923, and 1927. More than forty countries sent
delegates to each of these. Some were not members of the
League. The United States, Turkey, and Egypt, for
example, were officially represented in 1927; and at other
times the Soviet Union has also co-operated.

1 In reply to suggestions made by the International Parliamentary
Commercial Conference, the Committee decided, in a resolution of July 30,
1925, upon 'reciprocal representation on a consultative basis at the meet-
ings of the two organizations in cases of discussion of questions of common
interest'. I2tb Plenary Assembly of the Conference Parlementaire Inter-
nationale du Commerce, 1925, p. 219.

152 THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE
After the Labour Conference the Communications
Conference is the most important of those which sit
regularly in direct connexion with the League. Its
members are normally furnished with full powers of
signature. It is the real source of the Transit Committee's
authority, and its permanence lends to the Committee not
only a firm foundation but a means of getting mere recom-
mendations translated into practice. As such its impor-
tance as the basic organ of international communications
is too obvious to need emphasis.

It would be impossible in this short space to describe
the work of the Communications Committee in anything
like an adequate manner. The record of this is written
into the history of the League of Nations. It is to be
found in the minutes of the Committee and the Con-
ference and in the reports of the special expert com-
mittees. In shorter form the work is summarized in the
handbooks of the League. Here it is possible only to
recount the most noteworthy achievements of the Organi-
zation. But it is important not to overlook the contrast
between the conditions of to-day and those which pre-
vailed before the League came into existence.

The object of the Committee's work is to remove those
artificial obstructions to transit raised by political boun-
daries. In this its task falls into three categories. For the
direct promotion of this policy of making communication
and transport more easy the Committee has pursued two
distinct lines of activity. Where possible, general con-
ventions stating principles of international organization
have been drawn up. Examples of this are the Conven-
tions on freedom of transit, on navigable waterways, and
on the right to a flag of inland states, which were the result
of the Barcelona Conference. The Conventions on Rail-
ways, Electric Power, and Maritime Ports, signed at the
1923 Conference, are further instances. All of these added

THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE 153
to the facilities of transport. On the other hand, there are
certain parts of administrative control which are not sus-
ceptible to broad generalization, but which may well be
brought into line with the League's policy by less formal
arrangement than the signature of a treaty. There have
been two conferences on passports, in 1920 and 1926,
whose recommendations have contributed largely to the
steady increase in ease and freedom of travel that dis-
tinguished the last decade. The Conventions on the uni-
fication of tonnage measurement for inland navigation
and on the creation of a transit card for emigrants 1 also
belong to this part of the Committee's work. Their object
is to simplify and co-ordinate administration.

The second part of the Committee's task is that of
arbitration and conciliation in transport questions. As
has been seen already, certain duties of this sort were
given to the League by the Peace Treaties. 2 It has, in
fact, fallen to the Council, and therefore to the Transit
Committee, to which such matters are referred, to con-
sider several questions in dispute. The Arad-Csanad
railways case, after being considered by a sub-committee,
was returned for negotiation to the parties and settled. In
the case of the Saar railways the Transit Committee ap-
pointed a commission of investigation on the spot. This
contained four experts nominated by the Committee, two
more appointed by Germany, and one by the Saar
Governing Commission, the two parties to the dispute.
An agreement was unanimously approved and applied.
In the dispute on the Danube of 1925 the Committee
again appointed a small commission to conduct an inquiry
on the spot. This recommended the reference of the case
to the Permanent Court of International Justice. 3 The

1 The only transit convention mentioned above not in force on Jan, 14,
1930. It was only signed, however, on June 14, 1929.

2 See supra, p. 143, also p. 9.

3 By the terms of its statute the Court has a special chamber of five
judges and two deputies to hear disputes on the transport clauses of treaties
or that may be referred to it by Transit Organization of the League.

154 TH E COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE
finding of the Court was sent to the Communications and
Transit Committee to be forwarded to the governments
concerned. In the River Oder case the dispute was
referred direct to the Committee by the British Govern-
ment in a communication of August 23rd, 1924. A settle-
ment was reached on the basis of the Committee's findings.

Thirdly; Post-War reconstruction could never have
proceeded without the work of the Transit Committee, but
this part of the Committee's activity did not come to an
end with the rehabilitation of Europe. There are many
other tasks of constructive invention which fall naturally
to the Committee. The committee of experts which
visited Poland to study Its navigable waterways and
evolved a scheme for future progress in regularizing the
Vistula and draining the marshes of Polesia was only one
example. Similar inquiries were conducted in 1922 into
the restoration of railways, and in 1925 Into inland
navigation. Several other studies have been made by
Individual experts such as Dr. Hines on the Danube
and by smaE expert committees.

The general work of the Committee has covered many
problems not yet mentioned, which would need consider-
able space to describe. They fall chiefly into the first
category of subjects, as aiming at the removal of obstruc-
tion. Some have been to the advantage of special groups.
The press have benefited first, by the Conference of 1927,
which made several recommendations on censorship, on
the speedy transit of news, on the treatment of journalists
abroad 5 secondly, by the Conference of 1929 on the
transport of newspapers. Delegates to the League have
also gained by the facilities granted to them as the result
of arrangements suggested by the Committee. The con-
sideration of Calendar Reform, which does not necessarily
belong to the realm of transport, was also undertaken by
the Transit Organization through the medium of a special
committee of inquiry. This resulted in proposals, chief
among which was the recommendation that the date of
Easter should be stabilized.

THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE 155

7

All this work has a very real Importance. It represents
a type of continuous International activity that was un-
known and undreamed of before the War. As a system of
organized co-operation it has not been without solid
practical result in the form both of reconstruction and of
conventions and administrative co-operation. The im-
portance of the treaties signed under its auspices is
sufficient to give it the air of a quasi-legislatival, quasi-
administrative body.

The organization of the Committee is interesting by
reason of its achievement. But a valuable lesson can also
be drawn from a comparison with the other technical
machinery of the League. The Transit Committee is
perhaps chiefly distinguished by its relative independence.
This is subject to a general supervision by the Assembly
and the Council, particularly in their control over the
budget of the Organization. But the independence is
manifested in several ways. The Committee is not ap-
pointed by or directly t responsible to any organ of the
League. It owes its appointment to a conference at which
delegates may be present from countries not members of
the League. The large number of states which participate
in the Conference and the system of rotating membership
of the Committee give it inevitably a claim to general
representativeness which has considerable weight. This
independence, combined with the definite duties allotted
to the Committee by the Peace Treaties and the important
task of reconstruction which lay to its hand, have stressed
its esprit de corps. On the other hand, it is true that the
size of the Committee may have diminished its efficiency.
But one of its most significant discoveries is that its wise
refusal from the outset to allow the practice of substitu-
tion has not decreased attendance or proved unworkable.
There is no reason why the continuity of membership
should be lost by the system of rotation since five of the
members are permanent and may remain on the Com-

156 THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE
mittee for any length of time, and the rest, if they were
all changed every four years, would still show a no shorter
average length of tenure than the members of other
committees the Economic Committee, for example.

The government representation is strong enough to
keep the Committee in touch with the state departments
likely to be influenced by or to affect its work, but it is
possible that the co-operation of responsible ministers for
especially important issues might add to the Committee's
effectiveness. The independence of the Committee and
its freedom to dictate its own procedure have made for
elasticity, enabling special committees representative of
the important related interests to be appointed. The
value of this has been well stated in the report to the
World Economic Conference of 1927.

'These experts [on the permanent special committees] being ap-
pointed individually. ... It is therefore possible to obtain for each
problem the direct co-operation of persons actually responsible for
the study of these problems in the countries most nearly concerned.
In this way, too, it has been possible to establish direct co-operation
with the commercial circles concerned, in spite of the governmental
character of the Organization for Communications and Transit.
In particular, the Committee on Ports and Maritime Navigation
and the Committee on Electric Questions include, together with
officials, persons associated with shipbuilding circles and the
electrical industry.

'Finally, the elasticity of the Organization and its autonomous
procedure have made it possible to obtain during its discussions the
advice of all representative organizations, official or private, inter-
ested in the problems under discussion/ *

There are two conceptions of the Communications and
Transit Committee's essential function. One regards it as
a machine for adjusting purely technical differences, link-
ing together national systems of administration, facilita-
ting travel and transport, and preparing agreements of
mutual advantage relating to them. The second, which is
more ambitious, is based on an appreciation of the impor-

1 Report on the Economic Work of the League, 1927, ii, 43, p. 46.

THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE 157
tance of such focus points of recent history as the Suez
Canal, the Berlin-Baghdad Railway, the Panama Canal.
Could such enterprises, existing or to come, be divorced
from their nationalistic connexions, could they be governed
by disinterested and international control on principles
of just and equal treatment to all comers, they would cease
to be political danger zones of tense dramatic interest, and
become a mere part of the world traffic system. Clearly,
if such conditions had existed in the past the story of
Egypt, Turkey, and Panama would not have been the
same. Such a task as this, of destroying sources of friction,
is definitely within the constitution of the League, and
therefore of the Transit Committee. Furthermore, there
is inventive work of the utmost importance which also
needs to be done. The permanent Air Committee could
be given competence to approach state or private concerns
which are now developing flying services on their own with
a view not merely to co-ordination, but to promoting
under its own aegis, if necessary the chartering and
running of air liners and the building of suitable aerodrome
stations. It might be only a work of co-ordination, for its
assistance in which the Committee should naturally expect
some degree of control in the resulting organization, or it
might be run on a loan floated with the approval of the
Communications and the Financial Committees. There
is no reason why, if it considered the Channel Tunnel likely
to be useful to other countries, the Permanent Committee
for Transport by Rail should not make public representa-
tions to the French and British Governments. Any pro-
ject should be submitted through the Transit Committee
for its approval. In this and other ways a wide extension
of the River Commission system of public international
control under the supervision of the League to other
realms is clearly demanded. It is essential if friction is to
be prevented on the one hand and co-ordinated progress
to be assured on the other.

But even in the first and less controversial part of the
Committee's work much can be done by co-operation and

158 THE COMMUNICATIONS AND TRANSIT COMMITTEE
the Increase of general regulation to add to security and
to destroy the nervousness which is so often at the root of
quarrels. It is inconceivable, for example, that ten years
after the Barcelona Conference a Russian or Spanish
Government could deliberately lay railway lines of a
different gauge from its neighbours' for political or
military reasons.

It is in such encouraging facts as these and in the oppor-
tunity which the existence of the Transit Committee
affords for solving the other and more dangerous problems
that hope for the future chiefly lies.

VII

THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE
INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION

*It Is the mob that labour IB your fields and serve In your houses, that man
your navy and recruit your army, that have enabled you to defy all the
world, and can also defy you when neglect and calamity have driven them
to despair. You may call the people a mob, but do not forget that a mob
too often speaks the sentiments of the people.'

BYRON, to the House of Lords, 1812.

A LTHOUGH the Labour Organization with its Govern-
^/jjmg Body and Conference has often been compared to
the Council and Assembly of the League itself, in reality
it resembles much more closely in the nature of its duties
each and all of the technical organisms of the League. Its
authority is so much greater and its juridical status so much
higher true enough that there is some justice on that
ground in a comparison not with the expert committees and
technical conferences but with the Council. There is a
danger in a comparison of this sort, however, for it is based
solely upon the position at the moment. It is static and
takes no account either of the tendencies of development
in international organization, 1 or of the type of function
which the various organs of the League are called upon to
perform, as distinct from the authority they are given to
perform it. Also it forgets that if the Governing Body,
like the Council, is explicitly provided for in the Treaty of
Peace, so also are two of the League's Commissions, while
the rest were each and all implied in the Covenant.

To give a proper appreciation of the Governing Body,
its origin and work and nature, a single volume would
not suffice. Of all the League's organs it has perhaps
accomplished most, and that in a field by no means the
least strewn with obstacles and pitfalls. To say that its
greater success has been due to its larger budget and its
more pronounced independence is merely to assert that

1 For a discussion of some of these see Chapter XII, section 4.

160 THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE

Its achievement is but earnest of the things that these other
organizations might do, if they too were given the same
advantages. Such an assertion may or may not be true. It
may need to be modified. In view of it, nevertheless, to
consider for a short space and in a general way the prin-
ciples on which the structure of the Governing Body is
based may prove well worthwhile. At the same time it may
not be entirely useless to recall first in the briefest possible
manner the historical background of the organization.

The idea of bringing about social reform by inter-
national action and agitation dates as far back as 1815^
when Robert Owen urged it upon the Vienna Conference.
But it was not until 1889 that any action was taken. A
conference was called by Switzerland to meet the follow-
ing year, but was forestalled by a German invitation to
convene earlier in Berlin. Several recommendations for
social reform were made at this, but nothing practical was
done until in 1900 the International Association for Labour
Legislation was formed. This was a voluntary body, con-
sisting of national groups from all the chief industrial
countries. In some cases they enjoyed a degree of official
support. Its purpose was one of reform to bring about
new social legislation, to study and spread information,
and to promote international co-operation by means of
conferences. A permanent bureau was established at
Basle. Conventions forbidding night work for women and
the use of white phosphorus in the manufacture of matches
were drawn up and came into force. Others were pre-
pared, and several bilateral treaties are directly attribu-
table to its investigations.

At the outbreak of the War organized labour leapt, as
it were, into the foreground of politics. The importance
of propitiating it in the emergency became apparent to the
leaders of each fighting country, and all sorts of promises
were made to that end. Resolutions demanding that an
international Labour Conference should meet at the close
of the War to enforce Labour agreements upon the negotia-
ting Powers were passed by the American Federation of

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION 161

Labour and the French C.G.T. In 1915. Inter- Allied
conferences met at Leeds In 1916 and London In 1917 and
19185 and demanded that an International commission for
supervising Labour questions be set up by the treaty of
peace. Similar proposals were also made by a Labour con-
ference of the Central and Neutral Powers which met at
Basle.

Before the Armistice had been signed came the Russian
Revolution, and while preparations were being made for
the Peace Conference the spectre of Bolshevism cast what
seems to-day to have been almost unreasoning terror into
the hearts of Europe's statesmen. They felt it stalking
west through Germany and Austria to Paris, Rome, and
London, and they trembled. The result was that almost
the first act of the Peace Conference was to set up a Com-
mission for Labour Questions. It was this which drafted
Part XIII of the Treaty, setting up instead of the inter-
national commission originally suggested the Governing
Body and the Labour Conference with a permanent
bureau, the whole to form an almost entirely independent
section of the League of Nations.

Among the principles on which the organization was
founded this of independence is one of the most important.
Like the technical organs created by the Council the
Governing Body enjoys complete freedom in the control
of its own procedure. Like them, on the other hand, its
budget is under the ultimate control of the Assembly.
Like them its government members are there as experts,
coming generally from state departments. Like them it
has expert committees to deal with special aspects of its
task. Like the Mandates Commission it receives govern-
ment reports on the measures taken to fulfil treaty obliga-
tions these reports being, under Article 408, of such a
form and containing such information as the Governing
Body shall determine to request. And finally, like the
Health and Transit Committees, it is partly appointed by
a conference. But it differs from them in several ways that
each mark a higher degree of autonomy. The Governing

M

1 62 THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE

Body Is not merely advisory : it takes decisions, and takes
them by majority vote. It decides the agenda of the
Labour Conference, often a more important power than
would appear at first sight, since its action may cause or
prevent the study of a particular subject, publicity upon
it, and even the drafting of a convention to deal with
it. The importance of this power is fortified by the
special provisions of Part XIII relating to draft con-
ventions. Once they are accepted by the Conference by a
two-thirds vote, it becomes the treaty obligation of each
state member to bring them before the competent
authority for giving effect to them within the following
eighteen months. Further, the Governing Body acts as
the board of control of the Labour Office and appoints its
director. Any activity that involves expenditure must be
approved by the Governing Body through its Finance
Committee before it goes through the further gruelling
process of examination by the Supervisory Commission of
the League, the Fourth Committee of the Assembly, and
the Assembly itself. The Governing Body has extensive
powers also in relation to the governments reporting to it.
By Article 408 and the following it is entitled to receive
a complaint that a government is not fulfilling its obliga-
tions from any industrial group, from another government,
or from any delegate of the Conference. It may then com-
municate the complaint to the government concerned
inviting it to explain, and if not satisfied with the reply it
may publish the whole proceedings. Further, if a reply is
not received in a reasonable time it may refer to the
Permanent Court of International Justice or request the
Secretary-General to appoint a committee of inquiry of
three persons nominated from a panel of government,
employers', and workers' representatives. This committee
is empowered to recommend the application of economic
sanctions against* the offending government. So is the
Permanent Court, the decision of which in any case sub-
mitted to it either by the Office or a government is final.
Elaborate precautions are thus created for ensuring the

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION 163
good faith of governments. They have never so far been
applied, less harsh measures having proved sufficient, but
they are an example of the extensive authority of the
Governing Body and the degree to which the Labour
constitution has invaded the sacred realm of sovereignty.
The second principle to be remarked in the organiza-
tion of the Governing Body is the representation of non-
government interests. This is indeed a vitally important
and significant departure from precedent. 1 In fact it
creates a new precedent that may prove of the utmost
value. Its extended application is to be looked for in the
future. It will add greatly to the energy and reality of the
League's work. There is a conference and an executive
committee on the general plan of international organiza-
tions, but the Conference, instead of being either wholly
unofficial or wholly governmental, is half one and half the
other, all delegates meeting on an equal footing. Each
country and there were fifty-one represented at the
fourteenth session of the Conference sends two govern-
ment delegates and two representing respectively em-
ployers and labour. Since the governments have certain
legal obligations imposed on them by a two-thirds vote
of the Conference they may be bound to this by a union
between the two unofficial groups and half the government
group, or by the government group as a whole and one of
the others. Actually, it does not work out in this way.
Although the labour and employers' groups each present
a united front as a general rule, the government delegates
vary to a much greater extent. What is still more interest-
ing from the point of view of international organization is
the corporate character which these non-governmental
groups have, and were intended by the Treaty to have.
They work very closely together, in particular the
Labour delegates, the employers being apt sometimes to

1 On its importance in the development of international law see L. Ham-
burger, Die Theorie von den Subjekten und Mitgliedern der F olkerrechts-
ordnung und die Internationale Arleitsorganisation^ Niemeyers Zeitschrift
fur Internationales Recht, vol. 36, 1926.

M 2

164 THE GOVERNING BODY OF THE

feel themselves there under duress performing a rather
painful and time-taking duty as a kind of official opposi-
tion* Both these groups have at least one specific function
which brings them together as units. On the Governing
Body are twelve government nominees, of the eight most
Industrially developed count ries, and four chosen by the
Conference to represent areas which would not otherwise
secure a voice. But there are also twelve non-government
delegates. These are elected half by the workers' and half
by the employers' delegates at the Conference every three
years. They are present, therefore, not as national repre-
sentatives but partly as experts and partly as the defenders
of a world-wide interest. They are responsible in their
capacity as elected members of the Governing Body to no
one save their own particular group, and their expenses,
unlike those of the government delegates, are paid out of
the budget of the Labour Office. These groups are also
regarded as units when committees of the Conference are
appointed, and the principle is accepted that each com-
mittee shall have three equal parts official, labour, and
employers.

The Governing Body, which is made up in this way,
sits four or five times a year. Its meetings are usually
public, but the minutes of them are not. It was felt that
members would not express themselves so freely if they
might subsequently be quoted. This contention may, of
course, have some truth In spite of the fact that meetings
are already generally open to the press; but it is a distinct
drawback from the point of view of publicity, one of the
elements most necessary to the whole work of the Labour
Organization, and a dangerous precedent for the other
organs of the League. The sittings of the Governing Body
resolve themselves into a consideration of the director's
report on the work of the Office, of his summary of govern-
ment reports, of the budget, of the appointment and
activities of committees, of the agenda of the next Labour
Conference, and of the measures taken to apply the recom-
mendations of the last.

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR ORGANIZATION 165

The official members of the Governing Body come for
the most part from ministries of labour. Ministers of
Labour themselves are not infrequently present at the
Labour Conference. The workers' members are generally
trade unionists in the advanced industrial countries. The
employers also come as a rule from business associations,
but seldom have any connexion with such international
federations as the chamber of commerce or with inter-
national trusts.

The practical results of the Organization's work are
comparatively of an immense value. Not merely has it
been highly effective by its investigations covering the
widest field of research and by its valuable publications
which take note of all the most important labour activities,
questions and legislation in all countries of the world; not
only has it succeeded in creating a wide public interest
which can be measured by the extent of the opposition
which it has had from some quarters; but it has an excel-
lent record,* relatively speaking, in its drafting of conven-
tions and in the ratifications they have received. Nothing
could be less warranted by the facts than the accusation
which is sometimes brought against the Labour Organiza-
tion, and which apparently aims at damning it with faint
praise that its conventions may be a very fine achieve-
ment but they are never ratified. Up to May 1930 the
draft conventions adopted by the Labour Conference
numbered 29, or 7 more than those drawn up under the
auspices of the whole of the rest of the League, or fourteen
more than the other League conventions then in force.
Of the 27 which had been adopted before 1929, and so had
time for ratification, there had been 389 ratifications, of
which 380 were unconditional. This is an average of 14
for each convention; and when the fact is remembered
that in many of the countries which did not ratify legis-
lation was already in existence making ratification un-
necessary, it will be seen that even this number is a con-
servative estimate. Another method of estimating the
effect of the conventions is by counting the cases in which

166 THE GOVERNING BODY

legislative or other measures have been taken to apply the
terms of conventions after their adoption. This also does
not include cases in which legislation was already in effect.
Measures were taken in an average of ten countries for
each convention, the grand total amounting to over 270.
When the importance of the substance of these conven-
tions, which deal with such subjects as the eight-hour day,
night work for women and children, anthrax and white
lead poisoning, seamen's and agricultural labourers' con-
ditions of employment among many others, are borne in
mind it is seen without any shadow of doubt that the
Labour Organization has more than justified its existence
and the principles of independence, responsibility, and the
representation of interests, on which it was based. If the
still larger number of recommendations passed by the
Conference, dealing with an even wider range of subjects
which also have secured considerable publicity in national
parliaments, are also reckoned, then this conclusion will
be still more definitely proved. Mr. Ramsay Macdonald has
said that the Labour Organization *is seriously grappling
with its task', and has added that 'what it has already
done is proof of it'. And that is praise coming from one
who, as the representative of Labour, is not predisposed
to be satisfied with its achievements. That he is not
altogether satisfied his own words show : *The machinery
needs to be tightened up and speeded up. But it is there,
a part of the public law of Europe and an instrument
which the European democracy can use.*

PART II
SPECIFIC QUESTIONS

VIII
THE MANDATES COMMISSION

'There shall not be In the eye of the Law any Distinction or Disqualifica-
tion Whatever founded on mere distinction of Colour, Origin^ Language
or Creed, but the Protection of the Law in Letter and in Substance shall
be extended to All alike.*

Proclamation of QUEEN VICTORIA, annexing Natal, 1843.

'The equality of nations being a basic principle of the League of Nations,
the High Contracting Parties agree to accord, as soon as possible, to all
aliens nationals of States Members of the League equal and just treatment
in every respect, making no distinction, either in law or in fact, on account
of their race or nationality.'

Amendment to the Covenant proposed by JAPAN, 1919.

'TpHE idea of the mandate can be traced at least as far
JL back as the Algeciras dispute of 1906, when it was put
forward in the German-American correspondence as a
possible solution of Franco-German rivalry. The word
itself appears in a letter from Mr. Root to the German
Ambassador at that time. 1 But the needs which gave rise
to it are as old as modern imperialism. The Berlin Act of
1885 had been a first attempt to lay down principles of
international law for colonial expansion and administra-
tion. 2 It included a provision for the open door, one of
the most important stipulations of Article 22, since it
limits considerably the economic advantages of political
control.

After 1906 the idea was taken up by a group associated
with the English review The Round Table. Active among
these were J. A. Hobson, the leader of anti-imperialists j
Philip Kerr, H. N. Brailsford, and General Smuts. In
a memorandum on war aims, adopted by the British
Labour Party in 1917, is to be found a proposal for placing
the whole of central Africa, including the colonies of the

1 See Pitman B. Potter, 'Origin of Mandates', American Political
Science Review, rri. 579; for other work on the origin of mandates see
Quincey Wright's ll'S.A. and Mandates.

2 P. T. Moon, Imperialism and World Politics, pp. 84, 476.

i yo THE MANDATES COMMISSION

Allies, under an International commission answerable to
the League of Nations. A less drastic proposal which more
exactly forecasts the immediate future was made by the
Independent Labour Party a few days later. This sug-
gested a plan of delegation to colonial powers whose
administration was to be supervised by an international
commission. Both these Labour proposals, then, envisaged
the creation of a committee.

The Mandates System is more immediately derived
from three sources. The first of these in order of time
is the fifth of President Wilson's points, which he ex-
pounded in January 1918 as 'the only possible programme 7
of peace, and which were accepted as such. This de-
manded '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 weight with the equitable
claims of the governments whose title is to be determined'.
But so far little of practical moment was implied. In the
actual outcome 'the interests -of the populations con-
cerned 5 were never consulted and little thought of at the
Peace Conference. The important fact is that Wilson
was looking about for a formula that would enable a just
and lasting settlement to be secured. As soon as the
scheme of General Smuts, which he published on Decem-
ber 1 6th, 1918, under the name of 'The League of
Nations: A Practical Suggestion', reached the President
he not only adopted the principle of the mandate with
regard to the advanced communities of Turkey, but ex-
tended it to the colonial field. And it appears for the first
time as a supplement to his Second Draft of the Cove-
nant. 1 What Smuts had actually 2 proposed was to apply
only to 'the peoples and territories formerly belonging to
Russia, Austria, and Turkey'. He did not include 'those
1 Miller, ii. 87. 2 Ibid.,' ii. 26 et seq.

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 171

German colonies In Africa and on the Pacific which are
Inhabited by barbarians . . . to whom It would be Im-
practicable to apply any Idea of political self-determina-
tion In the European sense'. Wilson, however, did not
make this distinction.

The third cause was of a political order. In view both
of the principle of non-annexation, which had been
generally adopted by Americans and British, and of the
difficulties If not the danger of attempting to divide
the spoils among the victors, if that principle had been
abandoned, some alternative had to be discovered. It was
at hand. In spite of the frankly annexatlonlst attitude of
France, Italy, and some of the British dominions the
mandates system finally prevailed. 1

It was embodied in Article 22 of the Covenant. This
begins with the following provision :

*i. To those colonies and territories which as a consequence of
the late war have ceased to be under the sovereignt7 of the states
which formerly governed them and which are inhabited by peoples
not yet able to stand by themselves under the strenuous conditions
of the modern world, there should be applied the principle that the
well-being and development of such peoples form a sacred trust
of civilization and that securities for the performance of this trust
should be embodied In this Covenant.

*2. The best method of giving practical effect to this principle
is that the tutelage of such peoples should be entrusted to advanced
nations who by reason of their resources, their experience, or their
geographical position can best undertake this responsibility, and
who are willing to accept it, and that this tutelage should be exer-
cised by them as Mandatories on behalf of the League.'

Then follows the division of the territories into three
classes according to their stage of advancement, different
functions devolving upon the League and the Mandatory
in each case. In order to ensure performance of its duties
by the Mandatory it is further provided that :

'7. In every case of mandate, the mandatory shall render to the

1 See B. Gerig, The Ofen Door and the Mandates System (1930),
Chap. IV.

172 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

Council an annual report in reference to the territory committed

to its charge.

'9. A permanent Commission shall be constituted to receive and
examine the annual reports of the mandatories and to advise the
Council on all matters relating to the observance of the mandates/

The duties of the mandatories, on the performance of
which it Is the function of the Commission to report to
the Council, vary.

The sole duty of the Commission is to advise the
Council on the reports rendered to it by the Mandatory
Power. In the performance of this the Commission has
to bear in mind the obligations laid upon the mandatory
by the terms of the Covenant. These vary between the
different classes. But the responsibility of the mandatory
to the League as the trustee of civilization is clearly
established in each case by the concluding sentence of
paragraph 2. In *A' mandates to those communities which
'have reached a stage of development where their existence
as independent nations can be provisionally recognized'
the mandatory has only to render administrative 'advice
and assistance*. In 'W mandates the mandatory is respon-
sible for more than mere administration. It must secure
certain conditions, which are:

1. 'Freedom of conscience and religion, subject only to the

maintenance of public order and morals.

2. 'Prohibition of abuses such as the slave trade, the arms traffic,

and the liquor traffic.

3. 'Prevention of the establishment of fortifications or military

and naval bases,

4. 'and of military training of the natives for other than police
purposes and the defence of territory.

5. 'Equal opportunities for the trade and commerce of other
members of the League. 5

The distinction between C B ? and C C ? mandates is that the
latter are, while the former are not, 'administered under
the laws of the mandatory as integral portions of its
territory'. Secondly, the conditions for 'C' mandates do
not include the provision for equal trade opportunities,

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 173

according to the Interpretation of Article 22 adopted by
the Mandatory Powers and confirmed by the Council. 1
But, as M. Van Rees has pointed out, 2 it would have been
quite possible to claim that they differ in no way from
*B ? mandates. The Mandatory Powers would then have
had to permit all imports and exports on equal conditions.
The truth seems to be that the stipulation^ not being
altogether clear, the benefit of the doubt has been taken
by the Mandatory Powers.

3

The fulfilment of the League's obligations under
paragraphs 7 and 9 of Article 22 was debated in the
earliest meetings of the Council, and the Secretary-
General was instructed to prepare a plan of organization.
The first scheme proposed 3 envisaged a committee of
fifteen members on which all the seven Mandatory Powers
would be represented by their own nominees. A majority
of non-mandatory opinion was to be preserved by ap-
pointing eight members of other nationality, and several
requests for appointment were received. Such a scheme
would inevitably have meant that the real weight of
opinion would rest with the seven who knew what their
governments were doing rather than with the eight who
did not know. Further, the members would have been
under instructions from and responsible to their govern-
ments, and the political element would have been strong.
Under such conditions an efficient committee could in all
probability never have developed. Fortunately, better
counsels prevailed. Provision for a smaller and more
independent committee was made by the Council on
December 1st, 1920. It was to have nine members, of
whom the majority were to be nationals of non-mandatory
Powers. They were to be appointed not by governments

1 And by SchucHng und Wehberg, Die Satzung des Folkerlundes^ p. 698.

2 Les Mandate Internationaux, p. 156. It would seem that free trade is
certainly to the advantage of tlie natives.

3 See Document A. 161 (1920).

i 7 4 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

but by the Council, and they were not to hold any remu-
nerative position under a government. Slight modifi-
cations have been made in the constitution of the
Committee, the chief of them being the addition, as
extraordinary member, 1 of the ex-director of the Mandates
Section and the addition of an ordinary member of
German nationality. The organization of this committee,
one of the most carefully thought out of all, is governed
by the following resolution: 2

'(a) The Permanent Mandates Commission provided for in
paragraph 9 of Article 22 of the Covenant shall consist of ten
members. The majority of the Commission shall be nationals of
non-mandatory Powers.

'All the members of the Commission shall be appointed by the
Council and selected for their personal merits and competence.
They shall not hold office which puts them in a position of direct
dependence on their governments while members of the Com-
mission.

'The International Labour Organization shall have the privilege
of appointing to the Permanent Commission an expert chosen by
itself. This expert shall have the right of attending in an advisory
capacity all meetings of the Permanent Commission at which
questions relating to labour are discussed.

'(&) The Mandatory Powers should send their annual report
provided for in paragraph 7 of Article 22 of the Covenant to the
Commission through duly authorized representatives, who would
be prepared to offer any supplementary explanations or supple-
mentary information which the Commission may request.

*(c) The Commission shall examine each individual report in
the presence of the duly authorized representative of the Man-
datory Power from which it comes. This representative shall
participate with absolute freedom in the discussion of this report.

'(<) After this discussion has ended, and the representative of
the Mandatory Power has withdrawn, the Commission shall decide
on the wording of the observations which are to be submitted to the
Council of the League.

\e) The observations made by the Commission upon each report
shall be communicated to the duly authorized representative of the

1 By decision of the Council Dec. n, 1924.

2 Document C.P.M. 386 (i).

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 175

Mandatory Power from which, the report comes. This representa-
tive shall be entitled to accompany it with any comments which he
desires to make.

*(f) The Commission shall forward the reports of Mandatory
Powers to the Council. It shall annex to each report its own
observations as well as the observations of the duly authorized
representative of the Power which issued the report, if the repre-
sentative so desires.

*(g) When the Conncil publishes the reports of the Mandatory
Powers and the observations of the Permanent Commission, it
shall also publish the observations of the duly authorized repre-
sentatives of those Mandatory Powers which have expressed such a
desire.

*(h) The Commission, acting in concert with all the duly
authorized representatives of the Mandatory Powers, shall hold a
Plenary Meeting to consider all the reports as a whole and any
general conclusions to be drawn from them. The Commission may
also utilize such a meeting of the representatives of the Mandatory
Powers to lay before them any other matters connected with man-
dates which in their opinion should be submitted by the Council
to the Mandatory Powers and the other States Members of the
League. This Plenary Meeting shall take place either before or
after the presentation of the annual reports as the Commission may
think fit.

\i) The Commission shall regulate its own procedure, subject
to the approval of the Council.

*(k) The members of the Commission shall receive an allowance
of 70 gold francs per day during their meetings. Their travelling
expenses shall be paid. Expenses of the Commission shall be borne
by the League of Nations/

The Permanent Mandates Commission was accordingly
set up in 1921, originally with nine members, and it met
for the first time on October 4th-9th.

4

Membership of the Committee is based on expert quali-
fications alone and in no sense on nationality. By section
(a) of the constitution reproduced above 1 no member may

1 Compare with the proposed Disarmament Committee, infra, p. 2 16.

176 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

even hold a post which places him in 'direct dependence 5
on his government. The only mention of nationality is the
stipulation that the majority of the Commission must
always be citizens of non-mandatory Powers. Expertness
is the sole other qualification, and it would even be possible
for two or three members of the same nationality to sit at
the same time.

Actually four of the eleven members are citizens of
Mandatory Powers. 1 Belgium, France, Great Britain, and
Japan each has a member. The nationality of the other
members is Italian, Portuguese, Dutch, Norwegian,
German, Swiss, and Spanish. All the members of the
Committee are active; several of them were acknowledged
experts in colonial administration before they came to
Geneva ; with the others the arduous and profound wort
which they are called upon to do is enough to develop a
definite expertise. M. Van Rees is a former vice-chairman
of the Governing Council of the Dutch East Indies. He
has become a juridical authority on mandates. Lord
Lugard was for many years Governor of Nigeria and has
had experience in China. He has written much on colonial
administration. M. Merlin was Governor-General of
French Indo-China. M. Pierre Orts, M. L. Palacios, and
M. Sakenobe have Foreign Office and Diplomatic Service
experience. The Marquis Theodoli, Chairman of the
Committee, is a former Under-Secretary of State at the
Italian Ministry for the Colonies; he was also a delegate
minister at the Peace Conference. Professor Rappard was
Director of the Mandates Section of the League from 1920
to 1924. On his resignation he was appointed an extra-
ordinary member of the Commission. Mile Dannevig is a
principal of a school at Oslo and is a specialist on child
welfare.

The International Labour Organization is entitled to
have a representative at all meetings where matters con-
cerning labour are under discussion. Mr.-Grimshaw acted

1 Four is the maximum; the size being ten ordinary members, the
majority is six.

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 177

in this capacity for many years and brought to the
Committee a valuable and extensive experience. He
had previously been a lecturer at London University.

The Commission thus has an expert but at the same
time a varied membership. That it is not drawn entirely
or even mainly from any one type of men is to its advan-
tage; the consequence is that it can tap more varied
sources of inform ation, can approach each question that
arises with a wider vision, and can see problems that
another group of men might pass over unnoticed.

While the importance of its work necessitates a strong
esprit de corps, this and the smallness of its size add to the
sense of individual responsibility of its members. Both
these factors in turn are strengthened by the compara-
tively long time which the members of the Committee
spend together. Their meetings last for from two to three
weeks. They occur twice a year, and extraordinary
sessions are occasionally held.

The principle of appointment to the Committee, as has
been said, is that of competence as opposed to nationality,
It is, moreover, the Council and not the governments who
nominate. But practice does not altogether bear out this
principle. There have been nine retirements from the Com-
mission, and in each case a member of the same nation-
ality has been appointed. It would certainly diminish
the Commission's independence if its seats came to be
regarded as the property of those countries whose nationals
were originally chosen, and its sense of independence is
perhaps its most valuable feature. This has been empha-
sized by the Commission several times in the face of
opposing claims. Members, quite definitely, have no
responsibility to their governments. The last word in
their appointment rests with the Council, but the real
source from which their names are suggested has un-
doubtedly been in the past the colonial or foreign offices
of the original nominees. Officially this is not so, but that
it is so in fact is borne out by such inadvertent statements
as one made by the British member. 'Lord Lugard said

1 78 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

that when the Duke of Devonshire (then Colonial Secre-
tary) invited him to be the British representative on the
Mandates Commission in 1922, in succession to Mr.
Ormsby-Gore. . . . ?I Lord Lugard not only describes him-
self as British representative, but he almost appears to
regard his seat as a perquisite of the Colonial Secretary.

Evidence of the personal nature of the appointment is
given by the practice of not allowing members to be re-
placed by substitutes. The one occasion on which this was
permitted is that of the former French member, M. Beau.
Being unable to attend for reasons of health, he wrote to
the acting President of the Council to propose that M.
Roume should take his place. This the President allowed
*by reason of the exceptional character of the circum-
stances'. 2

The Commission's practice is to sit at Geneva in or
about June and October. In 1926, as a result of the dis-
turbances in Syria, an extraordinary session was held in
Rome. Minutes of its meetings, as well as its documents
and petitions with which it deals, are published. The posi-
tion of chairman has been held from the outset by the
Marquis Theodoli.

The work of the Commission consists entirely in the
consideration of reports from the mandatories and of pre-
paring its findings upon them. For the purpose of this the
custom has developed of dividing the subject-matter
among the members for profound study and for a report
to be rendered to the Committee as a whole. The annual
statements issued by the mandatories are generally long
and detailed. In order to be sure of obtaining the informa-
tion which it requires the Commission drafted at the out-
set a lengthy questionnaire. Reports have increasingly
been brought into line with this, and it has been subse-
quently enlarged.

As defined by the Council, the duty of the mandatory
was to send its annual report 'through duly authorized

1 The limes, London, May 30, 1930.

2 P. Mandates Commission: Minutes of 8th Session, p. 8.

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 179

representatives who would be prepared to offer any supple-
mentary explanations or supplementary Information which
the Commission may request'. This Is a provision of con-
siderable importance. It adds reality to the proceedings.
It means that Instead of merely enjoining the mandatory
to supply the Commission with full details In the abstract^
the Mandatory Power must delegate an official to appear
before the Commission who may ply him with questions
very much to the practical point on any relevant subject.
He is not bound to reply, nor has he always In the past had
sufficient knowledge to do so. But the Impression which
his refusal to reply would naturally create upon the Com-
mission, an Impression which would be reflected in Its
report to the Council^ makes such a policy bad tactics
from the point of view of a Mandatory Government.
Furthermore, the sympathetic treatment accorded to the
representatives by men who often know at first-hand the
practical difficulties of administration puts him under a
reciprocal obligation. In fact, the co-operative spirit
shown Is a remarkable testimony on the one hand, and
tribute on the other, to the Commission's wisdom and
sense of responsibility.

The provision by which an authorized representative
presents his government's report to the Commission was
an addition to the original plan. After discussion as to
whether the Committee should be representative or inde-
pendent, the right to send a representative not to, but
before, the Commission was accorded as a concession
to the former view. But this concession has proved a
valuable asset to the Committee. Its authority and inde-
pendence have been further increased by the arrangement
that, while the Commission considers the report in the
presence of the government's delegate, its conclusions are
drawn after he has left. The Committee's decision, how-
ever, is communicated to him, and he is entitled to add
comments, which must go before the Council with the
report.

N 2

i8o THE MANDATES COMMISSION

The Mandates Commission has relations with few other
bodies. There is no colonial council or conference of
national representatives or experts with whom it deals.
In the course of its work it comes occasionally upon sub-
jects dealt with by other technical committees of the
League. In these cases collaboration is normal. But the
Commission has direct relations with two important
bodies, the Council of the League and the Mandatory
Governments. Its connexions with the Council are clear
and indisputable. The Commission is an advisory organ
of the League. Its sole function is to advise the Council.
That the Council has always in the past acted upon its
advice is no denial of this.

The Commission's relations with governments are not
so completely unquestionable as to their nature. The
problem of where sovereignty over the mandated terri-
tories resides is a juridical question, into which it is neither
possible nor necessary to go in a study of this sort. Many
different renderings of the position have been made by
eminent jurists. 1 While the view that sovereignty rests
with the Mandatory Power is not unknown, the weight
of opinion is definitely opposed to this interpretation.
Whether it belongs to the inhabitants of the mandated
area, being at present in suspense and entrusted to the
League, or whether it resides in the League itself, an
opinion upheld by Lauterpacht, Redslob, and others, the
responsibility of the Mandatory Power to the Council is
borne out by practice as well as by theory.

The one case in which a Mandatory Power has put for-
ward a claim to sovereignty over its mandated territory
is that of South Africa, and this was immediately chal-
lenged, both by the Mandates Commission and the
Council. The Government of South Africa had described

1 See Arnold D. McNair, 'Mandates', Cambridge Law Journal, April,
1928, and see Giorgio Balladore, I Mandati detta Societd delk Nazioni
(1928), Chap. II.

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 181

itself as possessing sovereignty *over the territory of South-
West Africa . . . lately under the sovereignty of Germany'
in the preamble to a treaty, and its view was established
in the Appellate Division of the Supreme Court of South
Africa. The Council, in 1927, adopted the view that
sovereignty rests with the League, and this was *taken
note of by the South African Government.

Besides its direct relations with the Council of the
League and the Mandatory Powers the Permanent Man-
dates Commission, through the latter as mediary, may
receive petitions from individuals or groups within the
mandated territory. The Mandatory Governments must
forward to the Commission with its own comment any
petitions to the Mandates Commission which are duly
presented to it for that purpose. But in the case of a
petition emanating from outside the territory, it seems
that It may go direct. 1 The Commission may then request
observations from the government concerned. But,
although the right to hear the Mandatory Government's
delegate on any petition belongs to the Mandates Com-
mission, it is not allowed to permit the petitioner to argue
his case before it. Thus he is naturally at a disadvantage
in his dealings with the government.

The work of the Commission a work, as we have seen,
of examination and report presents a picture of steady
and unostentatious activity. The accumulation has grown,
to vast proportions. Generally these labours are carried
on in quiet and little is heard of them outside the circles
Immediately affected. Only when some disturbing Inci-
dent happens is attention focussed upon the League. And
the value, then, of having an international and unbiased
court of appeal, which has already demonstrated its inde-
pendence and lack of prejudice, is not the least important
part of this veritable revolution in international affairs.

1 See petition of the Anti-Skyery and Aborigines Protection Society
sent to the Secretary- General. C.P.M. 620.

182 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

In its work the Commission might be likened to several
things. In its sifting of evidence and cross-examination of
government representatives, as well as in its semi-expert,
semi-independent qualifications, it resembles the best type
of British Royal Commission. As the decisive factor in the
hearing of petitions its function is not unlike that of a
bench of judges. That, of course, must be qualified:
judicial findings have legal force whereas the Mandates
Commission may only advise and recommend. Finally, in
its general relation to international life, it might almost be
described as holding an inquest on imperialism.

The practical effect of the Commission's existence is not
difficult to see. When a Mandatory Power has been con-
sidered to be remiss, as in the case of Syria, the Commission
has been severely critical. That of itself, and the publicity
given naturally to such an important pronouncement by a
disinterested group of fully qualified men, has been enough
to bring about an immediate change of method. Nor must
the less obvious consequences of such criticism be dis-
counted. If in one case the glare of publicity is given to an
administrative shortcoming, more care to avoid the danger
is almost certain to be taken afterwards throughout the
whole administration. Moreover, the Commission is
steadily building up in print, as well as by personal con-
tact, generally acceptable principles for colonial govern-
ment. The influence of this extends far beyond the terri-
tories immediately under its supervision. The more pub-
licity is given, the more definite does the influence become.
And it is already safe to say that no colonial office is un-
familiar with the minutes of the Mandates Commission
or with the attitude to these questions which is expressed
there. After all, the basic principles are to be found in
Article 22 of the Covenant, which has been accepted by
every colonial power except the United States for appli-
cation to other people. No country, having overseas pos-
sessions and all the difficulties and perils they entail, can
afford to be condemned by international opinion as either
unjust or inefficient in its control. No government in a

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 183

democratic land can afford to offer to Its parliamentary
opposition such a gratuitous ground of assault as even
criticism by an independent body of high standing would
give. It is therefore true that principles of treatment for
subject peoples, especially If they are enunciated with
force and publicity, have often a very practical effect.
And, it may be added, that enunciation and examination
is no less necessary for British or French West Africa than
for Western Samoa, although the latter happens to have
been confiscated from a defeated Power.

The Commission suffers, however, from what are per-
haps defects In the machinery at its disposal. In deciding
upon the merits of a government report, and advising the
Council accordingly, It must rely entirely upon the In-
formation provided for it by that government itself. And
naturally 'the state to be scrutinized', as Professor Last! has
pointed out, 1 ^reports from time to time that its conduct
has been good 5 . That the Commission must formally rely
solely upon governments for Its information seems, at least
at first sight, to be an obvious inadequacy In its machinery.
True enough, it may receive petitions, as has already been
said; but this might be a more real addition to the source
of information were the method of presenting a petition
different. The plaintiff must submit his case through the
medium of the Mandatory Government against whom he
is complaining. The latter may then add Its comments
and send it on. The petitioner is not entitled to appear
before the Commission; nor may a duly authorized advo-
cate plead on his behalf. Nor has the Mandates Com-
mission any means of knowing whether the report before
it presents a true picture of conditions. By the framing of
the questionnaire, to which the report is expected,
although not bound, to reply, this inadequacy is to some
extent modified. That essentially it is not changed, how-
ever, is borne out by several well-known Incidents in the
Committee's comparatively short career. 2 Only a few

1 Laski, Grammar of Politics, p. 597.

2 See, for example, J. N. Harris, Slavery or Sacred Trusty p. 114 et seq.

1 84 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

months after the Commission had approved In glowing
terms the French report on Syria violent trouble broke
out there, and the Commission found it necessary to hold
an extraordinary" session in Rome. It became clear at once
that the information contained in the reports had been
consciously incomplete. Unrest had been prevalent and
disorder brewing at the very moment when the Com-
mission was giving its approval. No mention of it had
been allowed to creep into the reports. Nor had the
Commission been able to elicit it from the accredited
representative. This was to some extent because he him-
self knew little or nothing of the subject at first hand.

The best picture of the efficiency of the Committee's
methods within the limited area allowed to it can be drawn
direct from the minutes. So can the best idea of the
obstruction caused to it both by its lack of authority to
receive petitioners, and by the sometimes insufficient
knowledge of the representative and incompleteness of the
report.

If to take one particular case and reproduce the most
interesting part of the debates relating to it runs the risk
of tediously long quotation and of the accusation that it
is an extreme example, it is certainly the best method of
gaining a clear conception of the Commission's approach
to its work, of the strength as well as the weakness of its
position. In Western Samoa, under New Zealand mandate,
unrest and dissatisfaction with the administration were
rife in and about 1927. The question has not yet been
settled. A petition was presented to the League by a mer-
chant named Nelson, who had been banished by the
Administrator. It was aimed largely at the Administrator
himself. While the latter came to Geneva to be present
at several of the sessions in which the case was considered,
and was enabled therefore to plead his cause in a fairly
complete way, Nelson, who was also in Geneva, was
quite correctly by the terms of its authority refused
audience by the Commission. This was so even though he
claimed to be the legally authorized delegate to the Com-

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 185

mission of nearly 8,000 out of 8,500 Samoan taxpayers. 1
The second petition was from an ex-official of the Ad-
ministration and the third from the Anti-Slavery and
Aborigines Protection Society of London. The charges
were tyranny and corruption, and they were supported
with much detail.

The first claim to be considered is that of Nelson^ on
which Sir James Parr, High Commissioner for New Zea-
land, was questioned by the Commission.

The following are extracts from the minutes of the
debates on the subject.

Sir James Parr said:

'Nelson was a man of great influence with the natives, whom he
manipulated with consummate skill. For twelve months he had
been spreading amongst them tendencious news and jaundiced
reports, and he had formed an association called the "Man", for
which he had obtained hundreds of native adherents, in opposition
to the Administration. Nelson, for instance, alleged that the
transfer of a native by the Administration from one part of the
islands to another amounted to banishment. It was, of course,
nothing of the sort, such transfers being merely intended to stop
loafing in Apia and agitating. The transferring of natives was a
custom which had existed in Samoa from time immemorial and had
been employed by the Germans before the New Zealanders came
there. Nelson, again, had no doubt played on the feelings of natives,
such as the principal native among the agitators, the man to whom
Sir James Parr had already referred as having been convicted of
theft from natives. Sir James Parr added that the question of
transferring natives from one part of the islands to another had
been specifically included in the terms of reference of the Royal
Commission in order that the latter might advise the Mandates
Commission on the point.'

M. Rappard said :

'As most of the disturbance seemed to turn on the personality
of Nelson, nothing that the Commission could hear about Mm
would be beside the point. Sir James Parr had painted a vivid
picture of that individual. M. Rappard wondered how such, a per-
son with such, schemes could have acquired so much, prestige with

1 See his pamphlet Samoa at Geneva: Misleading the League of Nations.

1 86 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

the natives. Nelson was, in the first place, a half-caste, and as such
not likely to be loved by the natives. Secondly, he was a man of
great wealth, a fact not calculated to endear him with his less
fortunate neighbours. Thirdly, he was a great buyer of copra and
as such it was not probable that he would acquire much popularity.
Fourthly, he was surrounded by some disreputable colleagues, and
his native benchman had been convicted of theft from natives.
Fifthly, his scheme was to oppose the marketing of copra by the
Government, which had engaged in it in order to obviate the
exploitation of the natives. Sixthly, he was opposed to expenditure
on health and education. His record, then, did not seem calculated
to make him popular with the natives. To use an American ex-
pression, he would not seem to be an available candidate. Sir James
Parr had further said that the majority of the Europeans were
against him; nevertheless, they had elected him to the Legislative
Council.'

At the beginning of the next meeting

M. Palacios asked for further information on the strength of the
opposition to the Administration. He inquired of how many mem-
bers the Citizens' Committee was composed, what influence in the
islands it represented, and when it had been set up.

'Sir James Parr replied that he would willingly answer M.
Palacios' questions to the best of his ability. He hoped, however,
that the Commission would* not ask for too many details on the
subject. He considered that it would be improper for him, as
representative of the New Zealand Government, to go too deeply
into matters which were now before the Royal Commission. He
would, however, do his best to answer any questions, on the
understanding that the information given was not regarded as
official wherever it related to matters before the Royal Com-
mission.

*M. Palacios said that he had no intention of asking any questions
to which the accredited representative thought it indiscreet to
reply.

'The chairman pointed out that there were three courses of
action open to the accredited representative. First, he might
frankly say that he preferred not to reply, in which case the Com-
mission had merely to take note of his refusal; secondly, he might
reply as he thought best; or, thirdly, he might make a definite reply
but ask that his statement should not be recorded in the minutes.

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 187

*SIr James Parr thanked the chairman and said that he would
adopt the third course proposed, because he was willing to give the
Commission his own impression of the situation,, but that impres-
sion should not be regarded as in any way official. Sir James Parr
then made a statement in reply to M. Palacios' question.

*M. Orts inquired what were the regular channels, which were
open both to the native and to the foreigner living in the territory,
by which a grievance or a complaint could be submitted either to
the Administration or to the Mandatory Power if, for example, the
complaint were directed against the Administration ?

*Sir James Parr believed that. In the case of native affairs, the
Administrator only heard complaints after they had first been
approved by the Fono of Falpules. Most native grievances would
first come before that body or be referred to It, and the Adminis-
trator would ask and probably follow, though not necessarily, Its
advice. As to matters affecting Europeans or trade, complaints
under this heading would sometimes come before the Legislative
Council, who would advise the Administrator. If the complainant
were dissatisfied with the judgement of the Administrator, the
matter, If unimportant, went no further. Why, Indeed, should it ?
In matters of very grave importance, the Administrator Invariably
sent on the question to the Minister for External Affairs, and
advised this minister of the position.

*M. Orts inquired whether any native had the right to send his
petition direct to the Administrator without submitting It to any
intermediary.

'Sir James Parr said that the native might send his petition to the
Administrator, but if it were of serious importance the latter would
invariably consult the Fono of Faipules. The normal procedure
was for the native to go before his chief and the village council.
They might reject his petition on the ground of triviality. If the
matter, however, was of any importance, it would be sent up to
the Faipule who represented the village in Parliament.

'M. Orts inquired whether a native who believed he had a
grievance against his chief, the village council or his Faipule could
send his petition direct to the Administrator.

'Sir James Parr thought that it would be hardly practicable to
give 40,000 natives direct access to the Administrator.

*M. Orts thought that this right was recognized in every
civilized country.

'Sir James Parr replied that petitions could be sent in direct to

i88 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

the Administrator, who would consult the native officers and

authorities.

'The chairman wished to put a second question concerning a
report of a debate in the New Zealand Parliament on June 29th,
1927. According to the Wellington Evening Post, the Prime
Minister of New Zealand, in answer to a question concerning the
list of questions drawn up during 1926 by the Permanent Mandates
Commission to assist Mandatory Powers in the preparation of their
annual reports to the League, had replied: "Who would answer
such a silly thing as that ? It contains some 500 questions."

fi While the chairman and, he thought, the Commission realized
that ministers in the course of a debate, allowing themselves to be
carried away by the heat of their oratory, often asked that the
record of the discussion should be corrected, he felt sure that the
New Zealand Government would realize that the Commission was
anxious to receive some explanation of this phrase. Was it the
opinion of the Mandatory Power that the statements of this kind
contributed to that cordial collaboration between the Mandates
Commission and the Mandatory Powers, which was generaEy
realized to be necessary for the successful operation of the man-
dates system and which the Commission tried always to attain ?

'Sir James Parr regretted that any minister should have used
any expression which the chairman considered was not courteous
to the Commission. Mr. Coates was the last man who would wish
to be offensive. He and the New Zealand Government as a whole
accepted the questionnaire of the Commission in the same sense in
which, as he understood it, the Commission viewed it according to
its latest pronouncement on the matter. The questionnaire was an
indication to the Governments, and assisted them in framing their
reports. His Government was content to leave the matter at that.'

At another point M. Palacios, intervening, said that

'According to the Samoa Times of March i8th, 1927, the Ad-
ministrator, in his speech to the Legislative Council, had called
attention to the fact that there were 230 Europeans on the electoral
rolls. According to the annual report, however, the European
population would appear to amount to over 4,000. Did the Man-
datory Power therefore not consider that it would be advisable to
do something to increase the electorate . . . ?

'Sir James Parr replied that he was under the impression that the
Samoa Times was the property of Nelson himself. It had carried on

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 189

an active campaign against the Administration. The agitators
desired every European, half-caste and quarter-caste, to have a vote.
This was one of the main issues of the conflict between them and
the Administration. . . .

*M. Palacios had been under the impression that the Samoa
Guardian and not the Samoa Times was the property of Nelson.

'Sir James Parr begged to be excused If what he had said was
incorrect. It was the Samoa Guardian. It was of no importance,
however, for, in any case, the statement was quite wrong. There
were only 2,500 non-native inhabitants of the territory, of which
only 500 were pure white.'

Finally

'The chairman said that although signs of discontent had been
noticeable in Samoa in 1921 (when three persons had refused to sit
upon the Advisory Council) and had continued since that date . . .
no reference to this state of affairs had been made in any annual
report submitted to the Commission by the Mandatory Power.'

Ultimately, however, the Commission adopted a report
to the Council the general effect of which was to absolve
the Administration from all blame. This, probably, was
an inescapable result in view of the inadequacy of the
information, but subsequent events proved that it was too
optimistic and had little or no relation to the facts.

c The Commission is assured that adequate means for that essen-
tial purpose (i.e. maintaining law and order in accordance with the
mandate) are now at the disposal of General Richardson's successor,
and it trusts that the Samoans, when they realize that they have been
misled, will resume their former attitude of confidence in the
Administration/

M. Palacios, however, objected to the crucial words, those
printed here in italics.

In view of the continued criticism, even after the
favourable report of the Royal Commission appointed by
the New Zealand Government to inquire into the accusa-
tions made, the Government set up a further small com-
mission of experts to investigate again. The report of
these was a drastic condemnation of those whom the

190 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

Mandates Commission had been induced to approve. As
the Commission itself asserted in its report to the Council
in 1929,* its conclusions previously arrived at 'were thus
based upon incomplete information'. In fuller detail the
Commission's 1929 report reads as follows:

*The Permanent Mandates Commission encountered a real diffi-
culty in forming a judgement upon the actual situation in the
territory, since the two reports (of the Administration and the
government experts) before it expressed very different estimates of
the local administration.

*The report for 1928-9 (of the Mandatory Power), like previous
annual reports, though admitting the unsettled condition of the
country, is written in a general spirit of optimism. The special
report of inquiry, on the other hand, is extremely critical of the
whole administration of the territory and of its finances. . . .

'While greatly appreciating the frankness shown by the publica-
tion of this special report of inquiry, the Permanent Mandates
Commission deeply regrets the state of affairs which it reveals a
state of affairs which is described by the three commissioners in
very severe terms.

'The Permanent Mandates Commission also noted, on various
points, a discrepancy between the report of the Royal Commission
appointed in 1927 and that of the three special commissioners.
The conclusions at which the Permanent Mandates Commission
arrived last year were thus based upon incomplete information. . . .

*The Permanent Mandates Commission is glad to note that the
Mandatory Power has immediately taken measures to remedy the
defects which have thus been disclosed. . . .

'The Commission expresses the earnest hope that^the annual
reports of the Mandatory Power will, in future, be such as to allow
it to form a true opinion of the whole administration, and so to
avoid the painful surprise which it experienced this year in con-
sidering the report of the administrative experts/

The second indictment of the Administration of
Western Samoa came from an ex-official, carrying good
testimonials of his service. He delivered a long list of
accusations supported by detail. He said, for example,
that 'the attitude of the Administrator is to put a blind

1 See 1 6th Session, Minutes, pp, 207, 208,

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 191

eye to the telescope and make reports calculated to mis-
lead the League of Nations 5 . The reply of the New Zea-
land Government was simply a categorical denial of each
statement. It was added that the official in question was a
young subordinate and that he had no right and not suffi-
cient experience to criticize his superiors. 1

During the following month a third petition 2 was
received by the Mandates Commission. It came from the
Anti-Slavery and Aborigines Protection Society of London,
and brought in question the arbitrary power and practice
of banishment of the Administrator. This petition asserted
that *it would appear from the statements in the Press that
several Chiefs have now been deported, and that the
powers of the authorities in regard to deportations have
been considerably widened by a new law 3 . It was dated
July 1 9th. On August 5th an Act to amend the Samoa
Act of 1922 which gave these powers to the Administrator
was passed by the New Zealand Parliament, seyerely
restricting the powers of deportation originally given to
the Administrator. On September igth the Prime Minis-
ter of New Zealand replied to the League citing this
limitation of the Administrator^ authority which, be it
remembered, was subsequent to the inditing of the peti-
tion as a proof that the petitioners' suggestions were
Inaccurate. 3

In fact, the Administrator's powers in regard to de-
portation alone had not been widened since 1922. Indeed,
as they were already absolute and unlimited, it is not easy
to see how they very well could be widened. But, besides
a greatly increased application of them in the period up
to July, there had also actually been a new ordinance issued
in March which the Prime Minister did not mention.
This provided among other new penalties that 'Every
person is guilty of an offence and liable on conviction to a
fine not exceeding ^100 or to imprisonment for a term not

1 C.P.M. 571, dated June 7, 1927.

* C.P.M. 620.

3 C.P.M. 662; see the second paragraph of Mr. Coates's letter.

192 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

exceeding one year who speaks any words or does any act
calculated or likely to undermine the authority of or to
excite disaffection against any native authority'. 1

7

The test of mandates lies not in their principles, which
are sound, but in their practice. 'Everyone who knows
the history of treaties and international documents', as
Mr, Woolf wrote in the early days of the League, 2 'knows
how many fine phrases in them have never been applied
and were never intended to be applied/ 'If, as he con-
tinued, 'the phrases of Article 22 do not really mean what
they say, and nothing is done by the League to clothe
them in the flesh and blood of detail and practice, then it
will be only honest to admit that the scope of the mandates
is nil and the mandatory system is only the old method,
under a new name, of subjecting Africans and Asiatics to
the rule of European States.'

It is quite clear that much has been done by the League
to apply the principles of the Covenant, that Mandatory
Governments have always been anxious that their policy
should appear to be in harmony with the terms of the
trust they have undertaken, and that in many cases it has
really been so. The existence of the Permanent Mandates
Commission, the obligation to report to it, and its power
to cross-examine in private and criticize in public, have
formed an instrument of really practical value for ensuring
the application of the principles contained in Article 22.
But it must be remembered in all fairness to the adminis-
trators of mandated territory and in particular of B and
C Mandates that 'the principle that the well-being and
development of such peoples form a sacred trust of
civilization' is too new to be easily applied. Such a revo-
lution is not made in a day, or even in ten years. The
theory that these peoples are mere barbarians to use the

1 C.P.M. 719,

2 Leonard Woolf, Scope of the Mandates under the League of Nations.

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 193

words of General Smuts himself cannot be detroyed by
merely writing on paper such phrases as 'sacred trust 5 and
Veil-being and development'. The tradition of race
superiority and supremacy, and of its consequence, ex-
ploitation, dies hard. It dies particularly hard when the
job of hastening its end is given to the type of expert
colonial administrator for whom that very tradition has
been a comforting thought in exile, or when the task is
conferred upon army generals accustomed to autocracy,
and suffering also, perhaps, from the disease of power, as
it has been named.

In such circumstances it is evident that to ensure the
application of the Covenant principles much is needed.
In view of such incidents as the Bondelwarts rebellion, the
bombardment of Damascus, and the agitation in Samoa,
it has been recognized perforce in several quarters that
the machinery already created by the Council, and put at
the disposition of the Mandates Commission, is not
adequate. Various suggestions for supplementing it have
been made or can be made.

It should be borne in mind that none of them is outside
the competence of the Assembly and the Council of the
League. By paragraph 8 of Article 22 'the degree of
authority, control, or administration to be exercised by
the mandatory shall, if not previously agreed upon by "the
Members of the League", be explicitly defined in each
case by the Council 3 . Presumably, by 'the Members of the
League' is meant the Assembly. In actual fact the terms
of the mandates were decided, for the most part, by the
Supreme Council of the Allies; but if by this paragraph
the Assembly had the right to decide in 1920, then the
question is raised whether in 1930 or 1940 it has the right
to alter, 'the degree of authority, control, or administra-
tion 5 . It is even arguable that a decision, for example, to
appoint a League representative in any area, should be
regarded as a matter of procedure, and ^therefore be
decided by majority vote.

The first suggestion with regard to the Commission's

294 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

work relates to petitions. We have already seen the
dilemma in which the Committee is placed when a peti-
tion is before it and the petitioner demands, but cannot
be granted, an interview. Besides the Samoa case, it has
arisen in several others, notably during the special session
on Syria held at Rome. On the one hand, the proposal of
Lord Lugard, 1 to which the Mandates Commission did
not agree, that since the Council does not allow the Com-
mission to receive petitioners officially and in public,
members should not see or speak to them unofficially and
in private, seems to err on the side of conservatism and
formality. It appears as the pursuit of literalism to the
point of denying a principle of equity, which is not even
explicitly denied in the charter of the Commission. Few
English lawyers, familiar with the history and develop-
ment of the common law, would admit the validity of such
an argument. On the other hand, the proposal that a
petitioner should have the right as a general rule of
appearing before the Mandates Commission raises certain
practical objections. It would mean that only those who
could afford to make the long voyage to Geneva, or to
employ an expensive advocate, would be any better off
than now. But further, such an innovation would
enormously increase the duties of the Commission and
the length of its sessions. The Committee's efficiency and
success depends primarily upon the first-class talents of
its members, and as it is, many of them find great difficulty
in sparing even as much time as is at present necessary
from their other activities. Perhaps neither of these
arguments is wholly conclusive or insuperable; but if
some other method of securing the same result can be
found, which has not the same disadvantages, it would
obviously be better to adopt it. One final observation,
however, seems advisable. There is nothing to prevent
the Mandates Commission from requesting the Council to
give it special authority to hear any particular petitioner
when it considers such a course to be desirable. Nor is
1 Mandates Commission,, Minutes, I3th Session, p. 17.

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 195

there any reason why the Commission should not suggest
to the Mandatory Government Itself that the latter
appoint the plaintiff as one of its own representatives. If
the Government has nothing to hide or to fear it should
welcome such an opportunity for publicly discrediting its
critics. Already it is the custom often to appoint two or
three representatives; a fourth or fifth would not be a de-
parture from practice or precedent.

Secondly, the suggestion has been made that members
of the Permanent Mandates Commission should develop
the habit of visiting mandated territories in order to see
for themselves the conditions which prevail, and possibly
also to hear complaints. It is possible that such a practice
would add to their knowledge, provided they were acces-
sible to the governed and did not spend too much of their
visit in being shown what the governors wished them to
see. But the time difficulty, from which most of them
suffer, already mentioned as an objection to the first
proposal, applies with equal force to this. While such
a practice, even if occasional, might also prove of value in
demonstrating to the native population that the Mandates
Commission is a live organism containing human beings
interested in them, it is doubtful whether such an inno-
vation would serve as more than an incidental strengthen-
ing of the Committee. Quite enough has been said for the
proposal here, however, to show that when a member of
the Commission finds himself free to visit the territory
his travels should be fiAancially or otherwise facilitated by
the League, and his forthcoming visit given adequate
publicity in the mandated territory.

In the third place, it has been suggested that the
Council should appoint a committee of inquiry to visit
any area when the administration is severely criticized.
This proposal, although it has an evident value and al-
though there is nothing to prevent it from being put into
practice, seems inadequate of itself very greatly to improve
matters. It is a policy of cure after the illness, and not of
prevention before.

O 2

196 THE MANDATES COMMISSION

Finally, as has been mentioned already, the proposal
has been put forward for the appointment by the Council,
on the advice of the Commission, of a League representa-
tive in each mandated area. The practical value of such
a suggestion is seen in the fact that it offers a combination
of all the advantages claimed for the other proposals
without their defects. Such a delegate would be a per-
manent means of inquiry and a continuous source of infor-
mation. He would also afford the natural channel for
presenting petitions to the League. His function would
be purely advisory; the entire responsibility for adminis-
tration would continue to rest with the mandatory, which
would maintain direct relations with the Mandates Com-
mission. The commissioner would watch over and report
on conditions, be informed by right of all regulations, and
advise the mandatory government on its own request.
There would thus be every opportunity for continuing
that valuable attitude of co-operation which has so far
characterized the relations of the mandatories with the
League. The commissioner would be appointed by the
Council on the nomination of the Chairman of the Man-
dates Commission and the Director of the Mandates
section. He would be of a different nationality from that
of the Mandatory Power. His staff would be required to
speak the language of the district, and he himself if possible.
His salary and the expenses of his office could be paid out
of the budget of the territory to the amount decided by
the Council on the advice of the Mandates Commission.
It would be paid direct to the League with the manda-
tory's annual contribution. The main argument against
the appointment of a commissioner is that his presence
would undermine the prestige of the government. It is
essential that nothing ought ever to be done to prejudice
a government's reputation to the point of causing dis-
order, but in this case the contrary result seems probable.
When the government was good, the commissioner's
favourable verdict would immensely enhance its prestige.
What better evidence of good government than that

THE MANDATES COMMISSION 197

coming from such an Independent witness ? If, on the
other hand, when the government was bad, his criticism
caused it a little uneasiness, all the better; it would then
be all the more anxious to reform. The recent criticism
by the Commission of British administration of Palestine
has led to more, and not to less, stable government. Had
it come earlier, disturbance might have been prevented.

The great advantage of a commissioner as a source of
information over a commission of inquiry has been pointed
out by Professor Laski.

'Thereby the League would possess an independent and con-
tinuous check upon the work of the Mandatory Powers ; its dis-
cussion of their work would not be based mainly, as now, upon what
the latter had chosen to tell them. It could really investigate
trouble; whereas, at present, if it chose to make investigation, most
of the relevant evidence would already have perished. Dead natives
do not differ from other dead men in being able to tell no tales.' *

The commissioner might also be an effective instrument
for ensuring that the appointment of officials to the ad-
ministrative service is based on the proper qualifications,
and that unsuitable officials are removed. 2

It may be urged, in conclusion, that the Permanent
Mandates Commission has not merely justified the prin-
ciples on which it was designed, and the special care with
which its constitution was thought out, it has proved the
potentiality of an international committee in yet another
sphere, and it has earned the logical extension of its
powers. The first extension is that of more adequate
machinery, on the granting of which its future will un-
doubtedly depend. The second is the expansion of the
area under its supervision. By the spirit of collaboration
with governments, which it has promoted with remarkable
success, it has made the conferring upon it of the right to
supervise the administration of other colonial territories
a by no means burdensome sacrifice on the part of the
possessing Power. And, let it be remembered, that each

1 H. J. Laski, Grammar of Politics, p. 597.

2 Laski, op. cit., p. 598.

19* THE MANDATES COMMISSION

colonial Power, except the United States, has accepted by
parliamentary procedure the principle that *the well-
being and development* of subject peoples 'form a sacred
trust' not merely of colonial powers but *of civilization' ;
and further have undertaken *to secure just treatment of
the native inhabitants of territories under their control', 1
but without practical provisions for ensuring that they
keep their word. If Article 22 and Article 23 (&) are not
*a scrap of paper', then they mean that the Permanent
Mandates Commission must become the residuary legatee
of nineteenth-century imperialism,

1 Article 23 ().

IX

DISARMAMENT

THE PERMANENT ARMAMENTS COMMISSION
AND THE DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES

Sometimes one prince quarreleth with another for fear that the other
should quarrel with him.'

IT is no accident that the first of the League's duties
named in the Covenant is the promotion of disarma-
ment. In the minds of those who prepared the Covenant
it was by far the most important of the tasks imposed on
the League. They wrote it, therefore, into Articles 8 and
9 which follow immediately upon those regulating the
constitution of the League.

'Article 8

'The Members of the League recognize that the maintenance of
peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest
point consistent with national safety and the enforcement by
common action of international obligations.

The Council, taking account of the geographical situation and
circumstances of each state, shall formulate plans for such reduction
for the consideration and action of the several governments.

'Such plans shall be subject to reconsideration and revision at
least every ten years.

'After these plans shall have been adopted by the several
governments, the limits of armaments therein fixed shall not be
exceeded without the concurrence of the Council.

'The Members of the League agree that the manufacture by
private enterprise of munitions and implements of war is open to
grave objections. The Council shall advise how the evil effects
attendant upon such manufacture can be prevented, due regard
being had to the necessities of those Members of the League which
are not able to manufacture the munitions and implements of war
necessary for their safety.

'The Members of the League undertake to interchange full and
frank information as to the scale of their armaments, their military,

200 THE PERMANENT ARMAMENTS COMMISSION
naval and air programmes and the condition of such, of their
industries as are adaptable to warlike purposes.

'Article 9

C A permanent Commission shall be constituted to advise the
Council on the execution of the provisions of Articles I and 8 and
on military,, naval and air questions generally.'

These two Articles are the League's formal reason for
undertaking the wort of disarmament. They give it a very
special emphasis in the international programme. But
behind this formal reason lie the most real and urgent
necessities. It is these that are fundamental causes of the
move towards disarmament.

The piling up of armaments, and above all the competi-
tion to which it led, have been recognized by all historians
as one of the chief causes of the Great War. Armaments
breed suspicion; no one who reads the story of Anglo-
German naval competition can deny it. And what is more,
they breed armament firms. The decision of one country
to increase its air defence obliges even a friendly Power to
do the same, and competition results as witness the effect
on British policy of the French aerial defence scheme for
expansion. The very fact of the existence of armaments,
moreover, is an encouragement to justify their existence
by their use. Since the League would not have been born
had there not been the desire to prevent war, it is clearly
the League's duty to attempt to remove competition lest
its logical consequences follow.

The economic cost of arms should be enough reason in
itself to bring about agreement to disarm. Europe is im-
poverished by the War, and the world as a whole has little
more than a bare subsistence level of income. Yet it has
been reckoned that Europe spends at least 3 per cent., and
perhaps as much as 4 per cent., of its aggregate income on
armaments. 1 In 1928 it spent .524,000,000 net. Sir

1 The following figures have been taken from the Memorandum on
Armaments Expenditure by Per Jacobsson, reissued by the Economist, and
from J. Stamp, Current Problems in Finance and Government.

AND THE DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES 201

Josiah Stamp reckons that the chief states use 8 per cent.
of their national dividend for defence. With the exception
of Germany, forcibly disarmed, all the Great Powers are
spending about the same percentage of their estimated
national income on armaments to-day as they were on the
eve of the War. While the United States and Japan have
more than doubled their net armaments expenditure of
the years immediately before the War ? England and
France have increased by about 50 per cent, and Italy by
about 90 per cent. Even making a liberal estimate for the
fall in the value of gold it may be said that the armaments
expenditure reaches, and in many cases exceeds, the pre-
War rate. Taking armaments expenditure as a proportion
of national budgets the percentage is, of course, much
higher. Sir Josiah Stamp has reckoned that in 1913 the
United States, Great Britain, and France were spending
about 35 per cent, of their budgets on preparation for
war, and he considers that in many cases since then there
has been an increase. So much for the cost of armaments
in time of peace. It is in any case an under-estimate since
it does not take into account the manifold indirect results
of defence measures, their use of the brain, muscle, and
machinery of society for war purposes, their promotion of
non-economic industries, their creation of frontier formali-
ties and customs barriers. When the direct cost of war
itself is considered, the figures are at least as appalling. It
has been reckoned, for example, that the cost of the last
war was 'equivalent to twenty full years' work of all the
brain-workers, handworkers, and mechanical equipment of
the British Isles 3 . 1

The existence of the League, with the addition in
security it implies or can be made to imply, is a further
reason for disarmament. It is increasingly the opinion
among specialists that with the present organization of
world society armaments are necessary as instruments of
policy. There is, says Professor de Madariaga, a condition
of endemic war between the states of the world. Only by
1 P. J. Nod Baker, Disarmament, p. 13.

202 THE PERMANENT ARMAMENTS COMMISSION
accident does it break into the active phase; and in this
condition armaments are an essential of every country that
values its independence. Armaments are merely a symp-
tom of the disease which afflicts society, and the only way
to solve the question is to cure the disease in other
words, so to increase the organs of co-operation that more
and more of the issues between countries are taken out of
the realm of state policy and decided from outside. It is
in this direction and for this reason that the technical
committees of the League, described in the earlier part of
this book, are perhaps doing more to destroy armaments
than all the talk about disarmament which has filled the
air for so long.

Finally, as a reason for disarmament, there is a con-
sideration which is less remembered. Armaments are
thought of to-day as belonging to the natural order of
society. Their novelty is completely overlooked, and with
it an element of very great spiritual and practical impor-
tance. Armaments date only from the second half of last
century. Between 1858 and 1928 the total annual expendi-
ture of the Great Powers in Europe upon armaments has
multiplied itself five times, even allowing for the dis-
armament of Germany and omitting entirely in the last
figure all reckoning of Austria-Hungary. The world-total
has increased to a still greater extent. This, moreover, is
an under-estimate because it does not take into account the
rise in the value of gold between the two dates. These
figures represent a militarization of society in the West which
is impressing a new criterion of spiritual value upon the
world and penetrating the inmost recesses of the mind. The
patriotic citizen of a powerful country does not feel to-day
that his superiority to the rest of the world is based on a
superior art or character, philosophy or culture; it is based
on battleships and armies and cruisers of the line. And that
criterion of spiritual value means in practice that all the new
and potentially overwhelming nationalities of the East are
likely to make it also the touchstone of their policies.

If the reasons for disarmament, then, are so urgent, why

AND THE DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES 203

have they not served to bring It about ? Although of all
subjects the League has spent most time and said most
words upon it, It has in practice proved to be the least
important and the least successful of the League's activi-
ties. The difficulties which confront the League and
which have so far prevented any real improvement in the
situation fall clearly into two categories the political and
the technical. The first completely overshadows the
second in importance.

Nowhere is it more important than in relation to arma-
ments that the facts of the world have changed more
rapidly than the mental attitude of humanity or the social
machinery for dealing with them. The world is interde-
pendent to an extent that has never before been equalled.
This process of unification takes new leaps forward every
year. As has been remarked already, it is due to economic
tendencies growing specialization and division of labour,
easier communications, a higher standard of living not
only expanding demand to include more and more goods
produced in the far corners of the earth but also adding
greatly to the possibilities of travel and of intellectual
contact. These developments have enormously increased
the number of connexions between nationals of different
countries. They mean that as materials and transport and
markets abroad have become a more important part of the
national life so action regarding them has become a more
important part of national policy. Facts have changed in
this way; but the old theories of the state and law still
prevail. A state is sovereign and completely independent
of others in its activities. There is no external and inter-
national authority upon which it may rely for the enforce-
ment of principles of justice of principles, that is to say,
which will secure to it the materials it needs in spite of
all attempts at aggressive or restrictive measures by other
states. While there is no criterion of justice, no imposition
of rules by an authority, no rule of law, it is inevitable that
a government which values its independence shall be able to
back up its words in the councils of the world by some-

204 THE PERMANENT ARMAMENTS COMMISSION
thing other than the logic or the justice of its appeal.
That something is force, in the shape of conscript armies,
bombing planes, and battleships. Even to-day a speech at
the Assembly of the League is effective, as every one knows,
less by measure of its eloquence or reasonableness than of
the armed power its deliverer wields. In present condi-
tions the paradox holds, that the theory of state indepen-
dence, expressed in the word sovereignty and accepted by
the dominant school of international law, is the chief
danger to real independence; for it expresses itself in
armaments, and places every single nation at the mercy of
a combination of states, resting the independence of a
weak country upon the willingness of more powerful states
to forbear from attacking it. It is this that is meant when
the view is urged that armaments to-day are necessary as
an instrument of policy. They will remain so until inter-
national organization has so far developed that in these
important spheres of policy what have here been called
the technical spheres the formulation of rules and prin-
ciples is based not on a silent coercion by powerful interests,
but on what are clearly the needs of the world seen from
an international view-point, and expressed with authority
either by disinterested and denationalized experts or by
agreement between the makers of national policy. In the
meanwhile it is fair to say that the politician especially
if he belongs to a Great Power, with whom the responsi-
bility for the League's work chiefly rests is not in a
position that enables him seriously to recommend disarma-
ment. Quite the contrary. Although his influence in open
debate on the Council or the Assembly is much less
dictated by power than before the War, it is still largely so
in the secret places where decisions are taken or projects
quietly killed. That it is even less so in the technical Com-
mittees of the League is a fact of the greatest importance
to-day and of happy augury for the future, but at the
present arms still remain a necessary instrument of policy.
This means, in sum, that there is insecurity, and that
insecurity necessitates armaments. But the other view is

AND THE DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES 205

also sound, that armaments lead to Insecurity. Arms are
valuable only relatively to those possessed by other people.
A scheme of disarmament which decimated all the arma-
ments of the world would leave the relative strength of
each country substantially where it stood before. It would
thus not affect security while it would dimmish the danger
from the piling up of armaments. That is true, and the
fact that nevertheless nothing of any significance has
been done by the League indicates the second difficulty
in the way of disarmament. That is the technical com-
plexity of the whole problem. It is true that this is
of great importance; but it is not the fundamental
point simply because it is quite possible to envisage a
solution of it immediately the political factor disappears.
The Esher scheme of providing a ratio of armaments for
each country 1 has indicated the lines along which solution
can be found. So also has the Draft Convention of I93O. 2
The Russian Government once offered to divide their
standing army by four provided the surrounding states
did the same. It is impossible to read Professor Noel
Baker's study of disarmament 3 without being convinced
that, given the will to disarm, no single one of the technical
difficulties need prove insuperable. Their importance,
however, as a screen for political hypocrisy makes it
always necessary to remember them. Each one of them is
technically susceptible of solution, whether it be the fixing
of a ratio, with all the problems of reserves, aerial defence,
and the finding of a base year, or the traffic in arms, or
chemical warfare, or civil aviation. If the technical solu-
tion were even to imply an advance in the exertion of
international authority it would not therefore be self-
condemned. Nothing so advanced as the type of inter-
national supervision already imposed in fact upon the
states of Central Europe need be contemplated. If in the
case of the manufacture of arms or chemicals or of the
organization of civil aviation some degree of international

1 For original form see A. 31, 1922, p. 12.

2 C.P.D. 292 (i). 3 P. J. Noel Baker, Disarmament, 1926.

206 THE PERMANENT ARMAMENTS COMMISSION
co-ordination and control were deemed necessary, it seems
fair to suppose that no interference with, private property
or national sovereignty nearly so drastic as that of the
Allied Transport Council would be necessary. But some-
thing along those lines would certainly be recommended
by any independent and disinterested person or group of
persons.

There is a final obstacle to technical agreement. While
the health official as such has no vested interest in the
maintenance of ill-health, the same can hardly be said to
apply to the military technician in relation to an army and
a navy. His obligation to ensure defence may sometimes
mean to him simply that he should maximise armaments.

Disarmament as a problem is not less important because
of the overwhelming difficulties which it raises. The
methods by which the League has approached it remain to
be described. But the complexity of the whole question
and the number of attempts at solving it make anything
like a full discussion of it impossible here. The chief cause
of failure, as we have seen, is the lack of international
government and of order in international society. It is,
therefore, true that the study of the real step forward
towards disarmament has already been made in earlier
chapters of this work, when the first beginnings of inter-
national government have been described. On the further
development of this part of the League's work disarma-
ment must ultimately depend. For that reason the
detailed description of all the manifold and multiform
activities of the League directly aimed at disarmament
diminish in importance. They become from the view-
point of a practical politician an almost unessential part
of the task of building up an international organization.
That, and the vastness of the subject, are the reasons why
the League's activities in this direction during the last ten
years are only described here in the broadcast outline.

The Committees in which the League's activity is ex-

AND THE DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES 207

pressed are, first, the Permanent Advisory Commission for
Military, Naval, and Air Questions, and secondly, the long
line of miised and temporary committees set up indepen-
dently of the Permanent Commission in order to do the
work which, by the nature of its organization, the latter
was incapable of performing.

The Permanent Armaments Commission is named per-
manent only because a committee of some sort happens to
be specifically provided for in Article 9 of the Covenant.
The cynical may say that its permanence resides also in the
determination of the Powers that their armaments shall
remain permanent ; they may assert that to be the reason
why statesmen who were unwilling that the Economic
Committee should be regarded as permanent made no
objection to calling the Armaments Commission so. In
fact, of course, this Committee's characteristic feature is
to be immanent rather than permanent, since it never
meets. Its importance is entirely negative, lying solely in
its failure to take a single step towards achieving its pur-
pose. But it is necessary to remember that the Peace Con-
ference, while naming a commission in the Covenant, did
not specify its membership or organization. That was
determined by the Council at Rome on May I9th, 1920.
The Conference decided in principle upon disarmament.
Indeed, that was one of the conditions by which it suc-
ceeded in imposing complete disarmament upon Ger-
many. 1 It even envisaged a progressive reduction every
ten years. But it left to the Council the duty of preparing
an exact and technical scheme through the instrumentality
of a commission. That the agreement on principle, how-
ever, was purely nominal and had yet far to go before it
became sincere was evident as soon as any attempt was
made to apply it to the ex-Allies. Although in honour
bound to bring about immediate disarmament the Council
appointed a commission composed of one military, one
naval, and one air officer for and to be appointed by
each state member of the Council. No one supposed, and
1 See preamble to Part V of the Treaty of Versailles.

208 THE PERMANENT ARMAMENTS COMMISSION

least of all the able and clear-sighted statesmen on the
Council, that these officers would really agree npon their
own extinction. This was obvious from the start, and the
first Assembly, which met less than six months later, had,
as we shall see, important reforms to suggest.

The nominal duties of the Permanent Armaments Com-
mission are three. By Article 8 it must collect materials
for disarmament, making a technical study of the means to
achieve an already determined end, namely, progressive
reduction. It must, by Article I, examine the position
with regard to armaments of a state applying for member-
ship of the League. Thirdly, should the Council decide,
under such Articles as 10 and 16, to apply military sanc-
tions, the Commission must advise as to methods and as to
the part to be played by the various states. The proposal
made by the French at the Peace Conference 1 that this
Commission should also be given the task of supervising
disarmament in ex-enemy countries was not acceded to,
and in any case this provision was not intended to apply
to the similar disarmament of Allied countries. These
latter were countries *of good faith 3 , and such a provision
with regard to them would mean distrust besides an un-
warrantable interference with the sacred and universal
rights of sovereignty.

That the Permanent Commission was useless for secur-
ing anything but a rigid maintenance of armaments was
apparent from the beginning. It was clear that the com-
position of the Commission was unsuitable even if the
object of the Commission were not to draw up a technical
plan as Article 8 implied but to negotiate upon the
principles of disarmament, as the fact that its members
were not only appointed by but responsible to govern-
ments 2 definitely suggested. Yet it was not the Great
Powers who proposed other action. The initiative was
taken by the Prime Ministers of Denmark, Norway, and
Sweden at a meeting in August 1920. Their recommenda-

1 See Miller, ii. 318.

2 See Report of Monsieur Bourgeois to tlie Council, May 1920.

AND THE DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES 209

tlon was adopted by the Dutch delegate, put forward, and
accepted at the first session of the Assembly. It resulted
in the creation of the Temporary Mixed Commission. In
the composition of this two principles were aimed at,
Members were to be independent; this was secured, as far
as it can ever be secured, by having them appointed not by
governments but by various other international organisms.
They were to be of wide competence, and this also was
achieved. The new Committee contained six members
appointed by the Permanent Advisory Commission, six
by the Council for their knowledge of social, economic,
and political questions, four members of the Economic and
Financial Committee, and six delegates on the Governing
Body of the International Labour Organization drawn
equally from the employers' and labour groups. The aim
was clearly to obtain a committee more or less denational-
ized in its collective nature. Its members should be
neither entirely militarists, nor officials, nor technicians,
nor the satellites of statesmen; and in this purpose con-
siderable success was achieved. A real degree of inder
pendence and international spirit was shown by the Com-
mittee until in 1924 its authority was taken away from it
and it was transformed into what was known as the
Co-ordination Committee.

In the meanwhile, however, the Mixed Committee had
been very active. The first of its direct achievements was
the Draft Treaty of Mutual Assistance. This it presented
to the Assembly in 1923, after it had sounded govern-
ments by inviting their views and after it had considered
both a French and a British scheme. Although the Treaty
was rejected it must be regarded as the first real step for-
ward, for it recognized the principle that, in spite of the
agreement contained in Article 8 of the Covenant, dis-
armament would prove impossible in practice without
greater security. Furthermore, the first words of the
Treaty make exactly the pro vision for outlawing war 1 about

1 By tMs was meant aggressive war, as any one who reads the Paris Pact
cannot fail to see.

210 THE PERMANENT ARMAMENTS COMMISSION
which so much was heard to the credit of Brland and
Kellogg when the Pact of Paris was signed six years later.
'The High Contracting Parties solemnly declare', it states,
*that aggressive war is an international crime and severally
undertake that no one of them will be guilty of its com-

mission/

But the Mixed Committee was of at least equal impor-
tance in indirect ways. Much of the League's work has
been due to the ceaseless effort and enthusiasm of a few
men. Lord Cecil, for example, is to be found at almost any
meeting of a League organ when disarmament is under
discussion. Much that is constructive has come from the
most divergent sources. The Third Assembly produced
the famous Resolution XIV, sometimes regarded as the
starting-point of achievement. A Scandinavian delegate
hinted at the need for arbitration as a means of determin-
ing the aggressor state. Governments, by their comments,
the Shotwell committee of private American citizens, by
its suggestions, the French and English Prime Ministers
all contributed to the drafting of the Protocol, which the
Fifth Assembly produced in a few weeks out of discussion
in Committee and in plenary meeting. But underlying all
this activity is the Temporary Mixed Commission. All the
good will in the world would have been unavailing with-
out its preliminary work. To it belongs the honour of
having initiated the substance, to the others of having
accepted and improved it. The Commission was respon-
sible for the general treaty principle which became the basis
of Resolution XIV. It had substantially framed that
resolution. The recognition that security was the founda-
tion of disarmament was essentially its achievement. This,
the first principle of disarmament, was the core of the
Treaty of Mutual Assistance against aggressive war. It
made at the same time a study of the method of determin-
ing the aggressor which was the seed from which sprang
the second and vital principle of arbitration. 1 The two

1 By means of a special sub-committee which, worked with the Per-
manent Armaments Commission, see 4 A.C. iii 206-8.

AND THE DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES 211

main theses of the Protocol, that Is to say, were due to the
Committee's initiative. If a comparison be made of the
Draft Treaty and the Protocol it is seen that even the form
is to some extent similar; the alteration is rather on the
lines of expansion, of co-ordination, of more consistent
application, than is it a change of principle, 1

The Mixed Committee, therefore, can rightly claim the
Geneva Protocol as being broadly its own handiwork.
That this failed was not the Committee's fault. It was
signed on the spot by fourteen states, and others soon
followed. Among these were Spain, France, Czecho-
slovakia, Jugo-Slavia, Poland, and Belgium. But at this
point the British Government, which had been in favour
of the Protocol, fell, and was replaced by a Conservative
administration frankly opposed to it. For this change of
British policy the Committee cannot be held responsible.
It is fair, indeed, to assume that had the change come a
few months later England would have signed. Further to
her ratification that of only one other permanent member
of the Council was needed to bring the Protocol into
effect, and the rapidity with which England's decision in
1929 to sign the Optional Clause was followed by that of
Italy and many other countries makes it reasonable to
think that England alone is responsible for the failure of
the Protocol.

The Mixed Commission also studied the question of
chemical warfare and prepared a draft convention on the
traffic in arms.

After the Protocol the next step was to prepare more
directly for disarmament. While the Protocol still had
some chance of coming into effect the Council reformed
the whole disarmament organization. Whether the Tem-
porary Mixed Commission had done too much, whether
it was regarded as having accomplished its task, or whether

1 See Baker, P. Noel, The Geneva Protocol, 1925, Chap. I, and compare
Articles ^ and 5 of the Treaty with II and 12 of the Protocol, similarly
5 (para. 3), 6 3 7, 8 with 13; 10 with 15; 14 and 15 with 19 and 20; the
definition of aggression with 4-10 of the Protocol.

p 2

212 THE PERMANENT ARMAMENTS COMMISSION
now that the real question of armaments was about to be
tackled the more powerful states wished to have their
fingers more deeply in the pie, the fact remains that the
authority of the Mixed Commission was taken away from
it and given to a new Committee known as the Disarma-
ment Committee of the Council. This had ten members
appointed by and to represent the ten states of which the
Council then consisted. It was assisted by the Mixed
Commission under a new name, shorn of its responsibility
and authority. The Co-ordination Committee, as it was
called, had six members appointed by the Permanent
Armaments Commission, the Chairman and one member
of each of the Economic, Financial, and Transit Com-
mittees, and four members 1 nominated by the Governing
Body equally from its two non-official groups.

A year later, in December 1925, the Council set up a
special Preparatory Committee for the Disarmament Con-
ference, which had long been projected. This resembled
the Council Committee, having, like it, a representative
of each state member of the Council, but it was also to
have delegates from any other countries upon which the
Council should determine. Five years later no less than
thirty states were thus entitled to be represented, and
among those actually sending delegates were the United
States, Russia, and Turkey. Until the end of 1930 this
Committee was not able to agree upon any plan that might
prove suitable for consideration by the proposed confer-
ence.

At the same time the Council substituted a new Mixed
Committee for the Co-ordination Committee. This was
to act in the same advisory capacity to the Preparatory
Committee as had its predecessor to the Council Com-
mittee. It was to be dependent and subordinate. The
Preparatory Committee had become, as it remained, the
central organ. Its advisory bodies were now, however,
more elaborately organized. They were: (i) the Mixed
Committee, having two members from the Economic,
1 Instead of six as in the Temporary Mixed Commission.

AND THE DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES 215

Financial, and Transit Committees, two from the em-
ployers ^and two from the labour representatives on the
Governing Body, but without any delegates from the
Permanent Armaments Commission. (2) These last were
formed into a special Sub-Committee A' for military
questions. (3) There was a special 'Sub-Committee B' for
economic questions.

(4) The most important was the fourth. On the recom-
mendation of the Eighth Assembly the Preparatory Com-
mittee created the Committee on Arbitration and Security
at its fourth session in November 1927. On this all the
countries represented on the Preparatory Commission are
entitled to nominate a member. In fact the majority have
nominated the same members to both Committees. The
duty of this Committee as defined by the Eighth Assembly
is 'to consider, on the lines indicated by the Commission,
the measures capable of giving all states the guarantees of
arbitration and security necessary to enable them to fix
the level of their armaments at the lowest possible figures
in an international disarmament agreement'. This Com-
mittee has considered many questions in conjunction with
other League Committees, such, for example, as emer-
gency communications. It has prepared a model treaty
and a preliminary draft convention for strengthening the
means of preventing war. With the help of the Financial
Committee, and on the proposal of the Finnish delegation
in 1926, it has prepared a Draft Convention for Financial
Assistance 1 to states threatened by aggression, which bids
fair to be one of the most important parts of the League's
security-creating machinery.

3

In the midst of this welter of committees it is possible
to see certain tendencies at work From these conflicting
tendencies we may draw certain conclusions, not only with
regard to the political and technical question of disarma-

1 See Report of the Fourth Session* A. 1 1, 1930, p. 7 ; also supra, p. 83.

214 T HE PERMANENT ARMAMENTS COMMISSION

ment, but that relate also to the construction and use of
committees in international affairs. No one can claim that
the League's fight against armaments has been successful,
but yet even in this most ineffective of the League Com-
mittees' activities some germ of what must be called inter-
national government can be detected. Fruitless as the
Geneva Protocol proved to be, none can deny that its
failure made the Locarno agreements necessary. Without
that initiative and preparation, and without that failure,
the Locarno treaties would not have been negotiated and
signed, except, perhaps, after a long interval of debate.
After turning down such a carefully thought out contribu-
tion to security a contribution which, moreover, was
almost in effect, England could not go from Geneva leav-
ing nothing accomplished. It is thus first and above all to
the Temporary Mixed Committee, of more or less inde-
pendent experts, that this real step forward must be
attributed, small though it be. And further, the share
which the same Committee's earlier product, the Treaty
of Mutual Assistance, had in preparing the ground for the
Pact of Paris has already been mentioned.

In sum, several things become clear from even a brief
study of the organization charged with the work of inter-
national disarmament. The technician is a failure, and
therefore the Permanent Armaments Commission in its
present form is a failure. After all, an expert militarist is
not specially suited to bring about disarmament. Initia-
tive, then, must come from the politicians if solution is to
be found. In fact it is to politicians that the original
initiative of any sort of progressive measure has been due.
This is particularly true of the politicians of small coun-
tries. They, it was, who were responsible for the creation
of the Temporary Mixed Commission in 1920, for the
General Act prepared by the Ninth Assembly in 1928, and
for the Draft Convention of 1930. But the politicians, as
much, on the whole, as the technicians, have shown a
marked lack of enthusiasm for anything more practical
than the idea of disarmament. The politician also, it must

AND THE DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES 215

be confessed, has failed. The reason for Ms failure has
already been analysed above as being chiefly the continued
insecurity of international relations, the prestige- value of
armies and battleships, the state of anarchy which per-
meates world society. But it has also been seen above that
one of the causes of that condition of anarchy and in-
security is the existence of armaments itself. There is,
that is to say, a vicious circle. And so far, the nearest the
world has been to leaping out of this circle was when a
type of independent and in some sort denationalized body
prepared a scheme. This Committee was neither political
nor was its expertness predominantly military. That body,
as we have noted, was like the dormouse when it became
too rowdy shoved quietly into the teapot. It did not
represent the armaments policies of the states concerned,
and these states were not willing to have their policy
dictated from outside. They were not willing to have an
independent view of what they ought to do in the matter
of disarmament publicly expressed. * Instead they replaced
the Committee by another which was composed of govern-
ment nominees the Disarmament Committee of the
Council and since then the succession of other Com-
mittees has followed the same plan. That applies to the
Preparatory Commission for the Disarmament Conference
and to the Arbitration and Security Committee.

Never was the need for some outside and definitely
non-national authority more apparent than in this whole
general problem of disarmament, upon which agreement
by the old pre-war method of bargaining and negotiation
seems well-nigh impossible. This has been acknowledged
by implication in the Preparatory Commission's recom-
mendations. The Draft Convention of 1930 recommends

1 This fear of public opinion, manifesting itself in a determination to
avoid an independent judgement, is an all too real force. To take only one
illustration out of many possible: the Director of the Disarmament Section
of the League found that his presence at the meetings of the Armaments
Commission was distinctly unwelcome. He would have been an indepen-
dent witness. See S. de Madariaga, Disarmament, p. Si.

216 THE PERMANENT ARMAMENTS COMMISSION

the creation of a Permanent Disarmament Commission
whose members shall not represent governments. It is
provided that they shall not have the power of appointing
substitutes ; but the necessity for making them at least as
independent of their governments as the members of the
Mandates Commission is overlooked. 1 Members should
not be allowed to hold paid posts under their governments.
Otherwise they may be predominantly war officials, and
the function of a war official is to give evidence and not to
be judge in his own cause. The majority of members
should be nationals of small countries, and eleven should
be the absolute maximum size of the Committee. Pro-
bably it would be more valuable if smaller. The remaining
provisions of the Convention are above reproach. Free-
dom of procedure and a quorum of two-thirds are
stipulated for. But most interesting and useful of all are
the provisions for the hearing of witnesses 2 and of plain-
tiff and defendant, 3 because they emphasize the judicial
function which such a Committee in common with
the Mandates Commission would have to perform. The
proposed Committee, indeed, would be of the utmost
value. Besides examining reports and witnesses, it should
be entrusted with the preparation of schemes for pro-
gressive reduction. In this way its independence, like that
of the Temporary Mixed Committee, would be one of its
most vital assets.

There are also certain particular aspects of the general
problem which show a similar need for independence, and
which may yet indicate the road to follow. They have
each been studied by the League through the medium of a
special committee. They are the manufacture of arms,
diemical industry, and civil aviation. Each is at the
border-line between civil or defensive and military use. In
each case suggestions have been made that the solution
lies in instituting or maintaining national control, and in

1 See supra, pp. 174-5.

* Article 46 of the Convention; see CP.D. 292 (i).

3 Article 52.

AND THE DISARMAMENT COMMITTEES 217

the first two cases of prohibiting export. But the argu-
ment loses somewhat in cogency when we find that it is
put forward always by governments within whose terri-
tories an ample supply of the necesssary plant and raw
materials is already in existence^ by countries that is
which would suffer nothing from even a complete restric-
tion of export. But in each case also the proposal has been
made that the only sane and durable method of putting
anxieties to rest is by internationalizing these industries^
and in this way taking them out of the control of any one
state or nation and destroying the possibility of employing
them as instruments of national policy. The least ad-
vanced of these methods would be an international cartel.
While that would have great advantages over an industry
organized on a national basis competing with other national
industries, it would not create the same sense of security
as would an international industry more directly controlled
by the League or by an international board acting as the
League's agent. In time of emergency the former could
always be broken up by the mere exercise of sovereignty;
the latter could not. And it is what would happen in
emergency that is the crucial test.

X

SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN WORK

THE COMMITTEE FOR THE PROTECTION AND
WELFARE OF CHILDREN AND YOUNG PEOPLE

'The child must be put in a position to earn a livelihood and must be
protected against every form of exploitation.'

Declaration of the Rights of the Child.

PART from the fact that Article 23 gives the League
finite duties, it would in airy case be essential that
there should be some sort of international co-operation in
the social and humanitarian field if any hope of progress in
it is to be maintained. The traffic in women and children,
for example, would not be a difficult problem to solve were
it not carried on across national boundaries. It is precisely
the ease with which criminal misrepresentation has in the
past been able to attract its victims out of one administra-
tive area into another, and to entrap them there beyond
the reach of law, that necessitates international control.

The Committees which deal or have dealt with child
welfare problems and the traffic in women, like the Opium
Committee, have inherited their function from pre-War
times. As in the case of drug traffic, it was not until the
last ten years of the nineteenth century that a world con-
science on the treatment of women and children began to
form. This corresponded with the change from the
fatalist individualism and laisser-faire outlook of the nine-
teenth century to the organized collectivism of the
twentieth. From the realm of ethics these questions had
been transferred to that of social policy. Instead of being
regarded as the natural province of religious organizations
working for a change of heart in erring humanity, which
is receiving due punishment for its sins, they were in-
creasingly conceived as being suitable for control by state
or other collective action.

The first International Congress of Benevolent Societies

SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN WORK 219

was held in 1890. At a Congress in 1899 t ^ LOSe voluntary
organizations concerned with the suppression of white
slave traffic set up the International Bureau, which was to
co-ordinate their work. On the invitation of this the
French Government convened a Conference in 1932.
But the resulting agreement, which was signed by fifteen
governments in 1904, proved ineffective. It was not until
the Conference and Convention of 1910, which provided
for the infliction of severe punishment on offenders, that
more practical consequences followed. But by 1920 only
nine states were parties.

Something was also being done about this time in the
realm of child welfare. The Fifth Congress of Benevolent
Societies in 1911, which sat at Antwerp under the chair-
manship of the Belgian Minister of Justice, Count Carton
de Wiart, considered the treatment of abnormal children,
and made certain recommendations regarding the law of
minors. In 1913 the Belgian Government, again through
the influence of such men as Lejeune and De Wiart, called
the First Congress on the Protection of the Child. At this
forty-two states were officially represented, as well as a
large number of private institutions.

As a result of these activities the Peace Conference was
called upon to insert a paragraph in the Covenant, passing
over to the League the responsibility for organizing inter-
national co-operation for the benefit of women and chil-
dren. This responsibility, which had been voluntarily
undertaken from time to time in the past by the Belgian
and French Governments, was now given over specifically
to international control. The members of the League
Vill entrust the League with the general supervision over
the execution of agreements with regard to the traffic in
women and children'. 1

The first action of the League was to call the Confer-
ence on White Slave Traffic. This met at Geneva on
June 30th, 1921, and thirty-five states were represented.
It drew up a convention by which the contracting parties
1 Article 23 (<r)

220 SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN WORK

agreed to adhere to the conventions of 1904 and 1910, and
to take certain further measures. The Conference also
recommended that the League should set up an advisory
committee to gather information and to watch the exe-
cution of the treaties. This suggestion was applied by the
Council in its resolution of January i^th, 1922,* which set
up a committee of nine members assisted by five assessors,
who were to keep in touch with the various national and
international institutions existing for related ends. In
1924 the International Association for the Promotion of
Child Welfare applied for affiliation to the League, and
by resolution of December loth, 1924,2 the Council re-
organized the Committee along the lines of a recommen-
dation made by the Fifth Assembly. The Committee
was renamed 'The Advisory Committee on the Traffic in
Women and Child Welfare'. Five assessors representative
of the Association for the Promotion of Child Welfare and
kindred organizations were appointed. To the members
of the Committee a representative of Belgium was added,
in deference to that country's long patronage of the move-
ment for protecting children. This made the number up
to eleven, and a request for further increase in the size for
her benefit was refused to Switzerland. 3 The assessors have
also been increased from time to time.

Since its reconstitution by the Fifth Assembly to in-
clude Child Welfare the Committee has sat in two sections,
one being the Traffic in Women and Children Committee
and the other the Child Welfare Committee. The members
of the double committee are appointed by governments,
including, beyond the five Permanent Members of the
Council, the United States, Denmark, Poland, and
Uruguay among others. The Committee had twelve
members at the beginning of 1930. These may, and
habitually do, sit in either Committee. There are, further,
six assessors for the Traffic in Women and Children Com-
mittee and thirteen for the Child Welfare Committee.
Assessors are restricted to the Committee to which they
1 16 C. 112. 2 32 C. 135. 3 33 Q 463.

SOCIAL AND HUMANITARIAN WORK 221

are appointed, and they are nominated by the particular
organizations specified by the Council, including the
International Labour Office and the Health Organization
of the League.

The Traffic in Women and Children Committee has
conducted extensive investigations with the help of
private money from America. As a result of these it pre-
sented a report to the Council in 1 927. The Committee has*
besides, to consider the annual reports of all parties to the
Convention and, if necessary, to make recommendations to
the Council upon them. Additional information is supplied
by the private societies, which are represented by assessors.

The charter of the Child Welfare Committee is the
Declaration of the Rights of the Child, commonly known
as the Declaration of Geneva, which the Fifth Assembly
accepted as the binding pronouncement. This begins by
declaring that 'beyond and above all considerations of
race, nationality or creed, the child must be given the
means requisite for its normal development, both materi-
ally and spiritually'. The Committee has already done
valuable work, although the Council has not always
welcomed it. In a report presented by Sir Austen
Chamberlain, the Council accepted the statement that
'Child Welfare is not primarily a matter for international
action'. But some of the Committee's work has very
definite value, and could hardly be undertaken by any-
thing but an international body. Besides dealing witlr
moral dangers and such questions of hygiene as the pre-
vention of blindness, the Committee has studied several
legal problems of real importance, and on some of them
has prepared draft conventions, the value of which was
specially recognized by the Ninth Assembly. The con-
ditions of illegitimate children; the legal age of consent;
the repatriation or relief of foreign minors; the bringing
to justice of a guardian who forsakes a child and goes
abroad to escape the penalties these have all been studied
by the Committee with the help of specialists, and in each
case with some practical result.

XI
THE OPIUM COMMITTEE

And in their shadow ever at their side

Are the wraiths of all their hopes and dreams that died.

EDWIN MARKHAM.

drug scourge does not affect only a small band of
JL throw-backs haunting the remote and hidden opium
dens of adventure stories. It penetrates every section of
society. The literate as well as the unlettered, rich and
poor, police, actors, university students are all afflicted by
it. Victims are made in secret. They are never unmade,
for they will pay any price and go to any lengths to satisfy
their craving. Addiction, therefore, once it has got a grip
upon society, spreads irresistibly. It has never been known
to disappear, and that is a significant fact since in its most
virile form the vice is new and would have been impossible
without the existence of an advanced chemical science.
Just as, apart from death, there is only one solution for
the individual addict, there is one solution for society
as a whole, and that is such a severe limitation and strict
control of the manufacture of drugs that there is no
surplus whatever over medical needs which is capable of
getting into illicit trade. That, however, in spite of every
protestation, has not been done, and addiction conse-
quently spreads with a sure and devastating advance.
But its steadiness is not always slow, as Russell Pasha has
demonstrated before the Opium Committee by exact
statistics. 1 Drugs were unknown in Egypt ten years ago.
In that period of a decade half a million addicts have been
created out of a population of thirteen millions. Heroin
addicts are now to be found among peasants and town^
dwellers in every city and village of Egypt. It is against
this background that the League's Advisory Committee
must be considered.

1 See his report delivered at the I3th Session.

THE OPIUM COMMITTEE 223

Opium is a peculiarly international question. Drug
traffic is like a disease. It cannot flourish in one quarter
without spreading beyond. Not only does the growth^
preparation, or consumption of opium or the coca-leaf
and ^ their products increase the probability of drug dis-
semination among an ever wider public, but by lessening
vitality it adds to the danger of epidemics. National con-
trol has already proved inadequate. THs is not unnatural
because the traffic is easy, a considerable consignment
taking up a small space, and because the more illicit it is
the more profitable does it become, for the drug addict is
willing to pay any price. Finally, narcotics have what is
definitely an international, if not a world, market. Opium
is normally grown in one country, manufactured in a
second, and eaten, smoked, or consumed in one of its
derivative forms in a third. When it is so easy to smuggle
international control is clearly the only measure.

The Opium Committee is the outcome of several earlier
currents of activity. Although international action to
combat opium dates only from the Shanghai Conference
of 1909, before this there had been movements in England,
America, and China, which gradually gained in strength.
They were manifested by questions in the House of
Commons, by the creation of the British Society for the
Suppression of the Opium Trade in 1874, ^7 t ^ ie passing
of a resolution in the House condemning Indian Opium
policy as indefensible in 1891, and finally by the Royal
Commission of 1893. A strong anti-opium movement
also existed in China. But in the meanwhile the British
Government had not hesitated to demand and obtain
from China an indemnity of six million dollars for opium
confiscated from British smugglers. 1 And although the
East India Company piously stated as early as 1817 that
they would gladly abolish the opium trade, of which they
enjoyed the monopoly, c in compassion to mankind*, 2 *&

1 See Morse, The International Relations of the Chinese Emfire, who
gives the differing views on this case, which arose out of the so-called
'Opium War', pp. 306-7. * J. P. Gavit, Ofium, p. n.

224 THE OPIUM COMMITTEE

1834 it was true that Tor more than a generation the

Company had carried on a large trade with China without

any Chinese war having been laid to its charge. There is

no doubt that it played a double game in the opium

trade 5 . 1

A similar anti-opium movement to the British was born
in America soon after her acquisition of the Philippines
brought her first into contact with the problem. And this
resulted, through the agitation of one or two reformers,
in converting President Roosevelt. On the President's
initiative the Shanghai Conference was called. Thirteen
countries were represented at this. It made certain recom-
mendations, but little else was done except to make clear
the strong vested interests which would have to be
tackled before progress could be made. It led, however,
in 1911 to the agreement between the British Empire and
China, hastening the effects of their treaty of 1907 to the
extent of making all export of opium to China illegitimate
by 1917. It led also to the convening of a conference at
The Hague in 1912, and The Hague Convention, signed
by all the twelve governments represented there, which
was finally signed by forty states and became the founda-
tion of the Opium work of the League. This Convention
'to bring about the gradual suppression of the abuse of
opium, morphine, cocaine' was ratified, after two more
conferences in 1913 and 1914, by thirteen states, and was
to come into force on December 3ist, 1914. In fact it
never did so. The War changed the whole position, and
during it production and consumption were greatly in-
creased. Medical needs were more, and the drug-taking
habit extended rapidly at a time when control was relaxed
almost to the point of disappearance.

In order to enforce ratification of the Hague Conven-
tion, those who were in favour of suppressing opium traffic
by international action succeeded in making it a part of
the Treaty of Versailles. Article 295 provides that ratifi-
cation of the Treaty shall be regarded as ratification of
1 JL Rowntree, Imperial Drug Tradt.

THE OPIUM COMMITTEE 225

the ^Convention. British, officials, in particular, were also
anxious to bring these questions within the scope of the
League. 1 And accordingly a clause was inserted in their
amendment which was accepted by the League of Nations
Commission at its thirteenth meeting on March 26th,
igrg. 2 This, without material alteration, became Article
23 (c) of the Covenant:

'The Members of the League . . . will entrust the League with,
the general supervision over the execution of agreements with
regard to the traffic in women and children, and the traffic in
opium and other dangerous drugs.'

The question of how the League was to fulfil the second
part of this task was put on the agenda of the First
Assembly. Sir William Meyer, Indian representative,
delivered a report 3 in the Second Committee summarizing
the position. It was resolved by the Assembly* that *an
Advisory Committee be appointed by the Council, which
shall include representatives of the countries chiefly
concerned, in particular China, France, Great Britain,
Holland, India, Japan, Portugal, and Siam, and shall,
subject to the general directions of the Council, meet
at such times as may be found desirable*. A similar decision
was taken by the Council on February 2ist, 1921.5

Unlimited powers of investigation and initiation were
given to the Secretariat of the League by the Assembly
resolution of December I5th, 1920. 'The Secretariat of
the League is entrusted with the duty of collecting infor-
mation as to the arrangements made in the various
countries for carrying out the Opium Convention, the
production, distribution, and consumption of the drugs,
and other necessary data.' And failure in achievement
cannot, therefore, be attributed to lack of authority.

The Committee's terms of reference under the Assembly
resolution are 'to secure the fullest co-operation between

1 Miller, Drafting of the Gwm&nt, L 219.

* Ibid., iv 339, and 355- 3 r ^^ iL > P- H5; see a* 80 P- l6l

4 Dec. 15, 1920. i A. PL 53& s I2 c - 55 ^d 56.

Q

226 THE OPIUM COMMITTEE

the various countries' and 'to assist and advise the Council

in dealing with, any questions which may arise'.

Nomination and payment of members was left to the
governments, but the assessors were to be experts ap-
pointed by the Council, and to have their expenses
defrayed by the League. Meetings of the Committee have
lasted for an average of ten to fifteen days, the session of
January 1930 lasting for nearly four weeks. They are held
generally in public, and minutes are printed; but the
Committee may decide at any moment to go into private
session. 1 The practice since 1923 has been to hold only
one sitting a year, but an extraordinary meeting was called
in September 1927. Procedure following the general
rules of the technical organizations is under the control
of the Committee. According to the rules of procedure
adopted at the first session decisions are taken by majority
vote, and the quorum of the Committee is a majority of
the members.

Among the dominating figures of the Committee are
Sir Malcolm Delevingne (Great Britain) and Sir John
Campbell (India), who have been present at every session
of the Committee since its inception, and the Dutch
delegate M. Van Wettum, of whom the same is true with
one exception. M. Bourgois, for France, acted as a substi-
tute for the first French member at the second meeting
of the Committee, and has sat as a member ever since.
The Portuguese Minister at Berne, M. Ferreira, sat at the
first eleven sessions, but was then replaced by Dr. de
Vasconcellos, the Secretary to the Portuguese delegation
to the League. Of the above members of the Committee
Sir Malcolm has long been Assistant Under-Secretary at
the Home Office in London. He has a thorough know-
ledge of the subject, and is completely conversant with the
British system of domestic control. He was the friend and
colleague of Mr. Barnes at the Labour Commission of the

1 This power is taken away from tlie Committee by implication of the
Council's drastic decision at its 59th Session that all sub-committees shall
meet in public.

THE OPIUM COMMITTEE 227

Peace Conference, and Mr. Barnes was one of the original
sponsors of the proposal to the Assembly for an Opium
Commission. Sir John Campbell has been Under-Secre-
tary first to the Government of the United Provinces of
India, and then to the Government of India itself. He
retired from the Indian Civil Service in 1922, and has
since had several appointments, finally one to the Home
Office in 1929. He has done work for the League as a
commissioner for the settlement of Greek Refugees.
M. Van Wettum was in Java for many years as Inspector
of the Dutch opium monopoly there. 1 He, like M.
Ferreira and M. Bourgois, represented his country at the
Hague Opium Conference of 1912. M. Bourgois was also
for some time in the Far East before being attached to the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

The assessors were more definitely wedded to the
anti-opium cause. M. Brenier was in the French service
in Indo-China and at The Hague Conference. Mrs.
Hamilton Wright had long co-operated with her husband
in his anti-opium mission. But above all stood Sir John
Jordan, of whom fifty years' experience in the British
diplomatic service in the Far East had made an ardent
defender of the Chinese and a frequent critic of Indian
Government policy.

Of the late members of the Committee M. Chao-Hsin-
Chu and Prince Charoon (Siam) were the best known.
It was Prince Charoon who stated, c Siam will always
support any measure which goes to the root of the evil 5 .
The newer delegates are those from Switzerland and Italy.
Dr. Carriere, the Swiss Director of the Federal Public
Health Service, has sat at all sessions with the exception
of the eighth since 1925, when his country ratified The
Hague Convention and was invited to send a representa-
tive. S. Cavazzoni, who has sat since 1927, has been
perhaps the most progressive member. He is an ex-

1 He is described by Gavit (p. 24) as 'of a highly conservative tempera-
ment, responding negatively to the urgency of reformers and idealists and
very positively to any Dutch commercial interest'.

Q2

228 THE OPIUM COMMITTEE

Minister of Labour of Italy. There have been six leaders
of the American unofficial delegation since it was first sent
in 1922. Including substitutes, who have several times
replaced members of the Committee, Japan has been
represented by six delegates, Germany, Siam and China
by three, and Jugo-Slavia by two. The Bolivian delegate,
ML Cuellar, appointed for the seventh session in 1926, and
living in Paris, has been present at three meetings and
absent from four.

As first constituted the Committee consisted of the
representatives of eight countries assisted by three asses-
sors. By the twelfth session the number of members had
risen from eight to fourteen, and several other Govern-
ments were applying for admission. The original countries
were chosen by reason of their interest in the drug problem
either as producers or as consumers. It was soon found,
however, that some of the most important states in this
respect were outside. For this reason, on the original
suggestion of the Committee, the Assembly, the Council,
or the Governments, Germany and Jugo-Slavia, the
United States, Bolivia, 1 Switzerland, 2 and Italy were
successively invited to send delegates. And it was further
decided that Turkey should be invited immediately she
had ratified The Hague Convention in accordance with
the Treaty of Lausanne. 3 The result, which we shall
discuss later, was that thirteen out of the fourteen coun-
tries represented on the Committee until 1930 were
drug-producers or drug-manufacturers.

The main achievement of the Opium Committee is the
Conferences of 1924-5 and the convention resulting from
them, which came into force in September 1928. The
First Conference, which dealt with the Far Eastern
problem of production and smoking, and which was
expected to arrive at a conclusion within two weeks, was

1 It was debated whether it were necessary first to ask the Opium Com-
mittee's advice about inviting Bolivia, but it was finally decided to make
the invitation: 32 C. 123, 139,

2 By the Assembly, , 3 41 C. 1223.

THE OPIUM COMMITTEE 229

condemned as useless by all Its chief promoters. 1 Nothing
was to be done 'until circumstances permit'. This was
largely due to the attitude of the Indian Government,
which seemed to regard the opium-eating practice of
Indians as a legitimate, and in any case a domestic,, affair.
It considered that it had fulfilled its international obliga-
tions by making opium manufacture a government
monopoly and by undertaking to export only to countries
which legally admitted imports and did not re-export.
Fortunately, something has since been done by India to
effect precisely those ends which the Geneva Conference
failed to achieve. 'In June 1926 the Government of India
announced that exports, except for medical and scientific
purposes, would be stopped in ten years ... a reduction
of 10 per cent, of the exports during 1926 being made
each year.' Further, 'the area under poppy cultivation In
British India was reduced by 38 per cent, in 1926 and by
a further 26 per cent, in 1927'^

This is especially interesting since India was one of the
chief causes 3 of the failure to accept the American pro-
posal at the Second Conference, one which was in many
ways similar to her subsequent action.

This proposal was originally made by Sir John Jordan.
It suggested that 'India be invited to reduce its present
export of opium to Japan, Siam, and the possessions of
the European Powers in the Far East by 10 per cent,
each year for a period of ten years' . The Americans adopted
it, but the Second Conference was unable to agree
to it.

The Second Conference did nothing in fact but rather
less vaguely than in The Hague Convention reaffirm the

1 Gavit, p. 177.

2 1 2th Session of the Opinm Commission, Minutes, p. 203.

3 It is such action as this that seems almost to justify Treitschke's indict-
ment of British imperialism as going with a bible in one hand and an opium-
pipe in the other. Nor is it far-fetched to compare some part at least of
twcntiedi-century opium policy with the profession of high principles
whicit in the nineteenth century went with the promotion of the gin and
gun trade in the wilds of Africa,

230 THE OPIUM COMMITTEE

principles which that contained, namely, to limit manu-
facture to medical and scientific needs. But in view of the
already complete failure to observe these solemn under-
takings, mere repetition was clearly valueless. What was
required was not the mere reiteration of sound principles
but some specific arrangement for their application. It
was precisely this that the American delegation rigidly
demanded. It was their failure to get it that caused them
to withdraw from the Conference and the Chinese to
follow their example.

But there is one achievement of the Second Conference,
adopted perhaps because of the danger to the reputations
of those concerned of a complete breakdown after the
American withdrawal. This was the provision for a Per-
manent Central Opium Board to receive and notify infor-
mation of measures taken to enforce the conventions.
Apart from this it may be said that the Conferences left
the probability that The Hague Convention would be
applied no greater than it was before. The failure of the
Committee to check the increase in manufacture even in
countries making adequate returns is borne out by
statistics. Those, for example, which made returns for
1923 showed a manufacture in 1928 increased by 26 per
cent, over 1923 ; and this figure becomes 27 per cent, if the
first four years are compared as a period with the last four
years. 1

The need for reorganizing the Committee in view of
its lack of success in improving the position was recognized
by the Council on June I2th, 1929. It was the Venezuelan
delegate who took the initiative. The matter was referred
to the Assembly, which recommended at its tenth session
'that the Advisory Committee be instructed to ensure
more effective representation on that Committee of non-
manufacturing countries'. 2 There was criticism of the

1 Based on figures extracted from the Government returns. See, for the
latter, Minutes of Opium Advisory Committee, 13th. Session, Annex 3,
Part II, p. 260; and see Document C. 656, M. 234, 1924, XL

2 10 A.C. v. 56.

THE OPIUM COMMITTEE 251

Committee's work, but It was considered that much of its
ineffectiveness was due to the conservatism of govern-
ments and was not attributable to the Committee. Certain
resolutions were defeated in consequence, because they
could not be regarded otherwise than as a vote of censure
on the Committee. It was felt that insufficient progress
had been made with the ratification of the Geneva Con-
vention, and it was generally agreed that the League's
work so far had been either inadequate or unsuccessful,
and that no headway was being made in the fight against
the traffic. The motion demanding the representation of
non-manufacturing countries arose from the feeling that
'countries which had suffered from the traffic, or countries
which had an indirect interest in its suppression*, 1 are
more closely in harmony with the aims which the Com-
mittee was formed to serve than countries having com-
mercial or fiscal interests bound up in the maintenance of
the traffic, however definite may be the announcement of
their desire to end it.

The question as to how the broadening of representa-
tion could be achieved in detail was left by the Council to
the Opium Committee to answer. The lines along which
the choice could be made were indicated in a note sub-
mitted by Sir John CampbeE which formed the basis of
this section of the Committee's report to the Council.
Among the non-manufacturing countries whom it
recommended for representation were ^ first, and most
important, those 'which at present suffer severely from
the illicit traffic . . . because such countries are in a position
enabling them to place at the disposal of the Committee
information of special value ... as to the sources of the
traffic, the methods employed by domestic and inter-
national smugglers, the identity of certain international
traffickers, and the defects of control which facilitate their
operations; such countries are, for example, Egypt,
Canada, Austria, Uruguay'. Secondly, non-manufacturing
countries which are of speciaTTmportance geographically
* Professor Noel Baker, 10 A., Journal, p. 231.

232 THE OPIUM COMMITTEE

may be represented; and thirdly are those which have

shown particular interest in the work of suppressing the

traffic*

The Assembly resolution envisaged an enlargement of
the Committee. This, the Committee replied, would
impair the efficiency of its work which, it was asserted,
had been greatest when the Committee was smallest. It
would further increase the length of sittings, already too
long. But as the Committee itself proposed a further
increase the addition of Turkey and Persia, both pro-
ducing countries, on their ratification of The Hague and
Geneva Conventions it is difficult to see how all their
recommendations could be carried out. A possible solution
was suggested, however, by the proposal that when the
reorganization took place invitations to governments to
be represented should be for a limited period, preferably
of three years. A way-out might be found by providing
for changing membership as in the Transit Committee. 1
But, on the other hand, it is of the utmost importance
that once a government has become associated with the
Committee's work that association should be maintained.
And if the proposed change were to be brought about at
the cost of ending or interrupting the co-operation of
governments it might be worse than useless. Besides
ending for a period of at least three years the collaboration
of some member who had fully acquainted himself with
the work of the Committee, and with its problems in all
their complexity, it would increase the numbers of new
members at each session. This changing element is already
too great in the view of several members of the Com-
mittee, who complain that some governments never allow
their representatives time to learn the difficulties which
confront the Committee.

This position was drastically changed by the Council at

its fifty-ninth session in May 1930. The Committee was

increased in size by 50 per cent., seven non-manufacturing

countries being added. Of these neither Spain nor Bel-

* See Chapter VL

THE OPIUM COMMITTEE 233

gium had been proposed by the Committee in Its report, 1
suggesting certain countries which might perhaps be
added. While the Committee was doubtful with the
notable exception of Italy, a non-manufacturing country
about the advisability of adding as many as two or three
members, the Council decided to add seven. And further,
the whole position was to come up for reconsideration in
two years. Members 5 appointments were to expire in
three years, when the Committee would either be re-
organized or new members nominated. The Committee's
future evidently depends upon the ability it shows for
coping with the situation during the next two or three
years. A further interesting resolution proposed by Mr.
Henderson was passed unanimously by the Council at the
same time. By this alt sub-committees of the Opium
Committee must hold their sessions in public.

But on the whole it may be seriously doubted whether
any reorganization on the lines proposed by the Assembly,
and carried out by the Council, will prove sufficient. The
Committee is suffering from defects which are inherent
in its composition. Perhaps the least among these is the
type of country it represents. The governments of manu-
facturing countries in any case have to be consulted before
any new action can be taken, and one great merit of the
Opium Committee lies in the influence of its members on
the making of national policy. The Committee, in this
way, is kept in touch with practical possibilities, and is
prevented from coming to decisions which lack all prospect
of application. This very virtue, however, contains the
seeds of vice. It will slow down the pace of the Committee
to that of the slowest government, whose policy is im-
portant. That, in certain circumstances, may be neces-
sary. But It may go further; it may put the pace of the
Committee on a still lower level. It may prevent the
Committee from reaching any decision at all, except to
burke every progressive movement, for fear that in doing
otherwise it will be condemned as hasty, and its work
1 Of the j 3th Session.

234 T HE OPIUM COMMITTEE

prove ineffective. This danger is particularly marked
when, as in the Opium Committee, the members owe their
appointment, their responsibility, and their prospects of
promotion to their governments. When even nominally
the members of a Committee must take their instructions
from a government, their individual responsibility for the
success or failure of the Committee's labour disappears,
and with it the probability of personal co-operation. Ini-
tiative, invention, and experiment, after all, are dangerous
adventures on which no interest demands that it shall
embark. For the interests of humanity are too vague and
too distant not to be obscured by the technical difficulties
that loom so near. In such conditions the result is in-
evitable. The Committee's meetings become an oppor-
tunity for demonstrating the high principles of every
state and its unfortunate subjection to circumstances that
prevent it from translating principle into practice. It is
therefore the least common denominator of all the govern-
ments represented that is the utmost content of the Com-
mittee's resolutions. And perhaps something less than
this, for when a member is appointed by a government his
actions commit his government, and although he may go
less far he may never exceed instructions, whether written
or in the shape of his colleagues' opinions.

It is to such psychological factors as these that the
Opium Committee owes its failure to achieve greater
things. And there is a further reason of the same order.
The Committee consists of experts. An expert is fitted to
state the technique of a problem. He is more, he is
essential if the problem is to be understood. But he is not
always the best man to be entrusted with its solution.
On the contrary, he may be the worst. The limitations of
the expert are an axiom of politics; and if it is true in the
international sphere that the technical field is often more
fruitful of agreement than the political, it yet remains
a fact that the expert is apt to dwell too much upon detail
and to lose perspective, to emphasize small difficulties to
which a broader view would give their right proportions.

THE OPIUM COMMITTEE 235

The principle on which, the Royal Commission system in
England has been based is fundamentally this distinction
between the special and the unspecial mind. An expert
must be used to give information, he must undergo cross-
examination, but the results obtained must be garnered
and arranged by some one who sees it as only one portion
of a picture that comprises the whole of human life.

In taking a broad view of the Committee as a whole
these considerations are of outstanding significance, but
there are others which it is important to bear in mind.
The mere existence of the Committee attracts into one
place the organized anti-drug opinion of the world. It is
partly a result of this concentration in itself a healthy
sign that criticism of this Committee is perhaps stronger
than of any other. Something more concrete has also been
achieved. Whether or not the two opium conferences of
1924-5 should have been separate, and in spite of the de-
fection of the United States, the Geneva conventions
were a step in the right direction, and particularly valuable
was the establishment of the Permanent Central Board. 1
The slow ratification of these conventions, and the con-
tinued absence of Turkey, Persia, and the Soviet Union,
are indications of the obstacles created by governments.

But there is one fact from which there is no escape.
Conditions are not improving; they are growing worse,
and that in a sphere which is newest and over which there
is most possibility of control the highly manufactured
forms of the drugs. In short, what Sir Malcolm Delevingne
has called 'the indirect method' of tackling the problem
has failed. There was a sharp increase during the War
years of anarchy, and that increase has not even been
checked. It seems natural, therefore, that the Committee
should turn to direct methods. The Assembly has decided
in principle upon limitation of manufacture, and to that
policy in itself a condemnation of the indirect method
the whole League, including the Opium Committee, 2

1 By Chapter VI of the Second Geneva Convention, 1925.

2 The chairman said on February 14, 1930, that 'the Committee has

236 THE OPIUM COMMITTEE

stands bound. Methods of applying limitation, however,
differ. It may be doubted whether merely a c Scheme for
Stipulated Supply' will prove adequate. What the
Americans proposed in this was a system by which each
government undertook to specify the exact amount of
drugs required, to name the factory from which it would
buy, and to regard all other manufacture as illegal. But
although this method would be a great advance upon the
past it is open to two serious objections. It maintains
drug manufacture SFaTprBfit-making business organized
for profits. It fails, therefore, to destroy the motive force
which lies behind the expansion of manufacture the
enormous profits which can be made. A large part of the
plant of each factory maintained would necessarily remain
idle, since one factory alone would be enough to supply
the whole legitimate needs of the world. An army of
officials and inspectors would be necessary. And even then
so vast would be the equipment ready to hand that the
incentive to make use of it would be exceeding strong.
So powerful do the vested interests seem to have been in
the past that it is not easy to believe they would not also
succeed in exerting their power to evade the law in the
present. There is also a s^ggjuj^aiid still graver reason. Any
convention for limitation would apply only to the so-
called habit-forming drugs; others, presumably, could be
manufactured without restriction. But there is difference
of opinion on what constitutes a habit-forming drug and
on which drugs should be excluded from regulation.
Codein, to take one actual example of what might become
widespread, is regarded at present as not habit-forming,
and is therefore excluded from schemes of control. But
some experts hold the contrary view, and there is evidence
always been opposed to limitation'. This statement does seem to suggest
that, if it represents his personal opinion, it must be a little difficult for
him to remain chairman of the Committee after the Assembly resolution
that limitation is to be the League's policy. It cannot be easy for the chair-
man of a League Committee appointed by the Assembly, who is therefore
the servant of the Assembly, honourably to try to carry out an Assembly
policy to which he is fundamentally opposed.

THE OPIUM COMMITTEE 237

to prove them right. Since, however, codein can be con-
verted in any case without much difficulty into the most
harmful forms, clearly it would be an all too easy means of
leakage. Nor is codein the only opening for evasion.
Even if it be included in a system of rationing or stipulated
supply there are already, and there will continue to de-
velop, many other methods of defeating the law. Given
the desire to evade it, the immense profit that can be
made from evasion, and the ease with which the drug can
be combined with other chemicals for transit under the
guise of some harmless article of trade, it appears idealistic
to hope for much practical effect from any mere rationing
system. If anything effective is to be done, and the League
stands committed, it is evident that more direct action is
needed. The Chinese delegate has proposed an inter-
national factory controlled by the League at Geneva,
forming the sole legitimate source of manufactured drugs.
One factory would be capable of producing more than
enough for the medical needs of the world. If each
government supplied to an international authority statis-
tics of its medical needs at the beginning of each year, and
that authority guaranteed supply, all other manufacture
could be stopped. A drug factory requires complicated
machinery; it cannot be secreted or disguised. Where
none is permitted to ezist it is possible to enforce the law,
but where a number are licensed and the number claim-
ing the right to a licence is sure to be large simply because
each country and each existing factory has an equally valid
claim the strength of the law is the weakest and most
backward administration on which enforcement must
depend. Such a method multiplies the possibilities of
corruption. To forbid is easy, to limit is hard. Nor need
the productive capacity of international organization be
doubted. International action has already proved capable
in peace of reconstructing a nation's finances, and in war
of controlling the production and supply of munitions,
food, and raw materials 1 . There is no reason why it should
1 See Chapter II, section I.

238 THE OPIUM COMMITTEE

be unable to supervise a factory. It has limitless resources
of business ability from which to draw for the actual
organizing of the trade, and opium is only one of the com-
modities which are increasingly demanding a rationalized
and internationalized production. Such a policy, more-
over, would fix the demand for the raw drug, and make its
over-production more improbable, and its growth for
illicit purposes less easy. Nor is the type of international
authority required far to seek. The Permanent Central
Board, in existence since December 1928, already receives
the statistics of estimated medical needs, together with
other statistics. It can draw the attention of the Council
and of contracting states to the accumulation of drugs in
any country. It is smaller than the Opium Committee,
containing only eight members, and being, therefore, of
exactly the size of the Committee when, according to Sir
John Campbell, the Committee did its best work. Its
members are appointed by the Council * for five years ;
they must be experts, be drawn from manufacturing and
consuming countries, and may not 'hold any office of
direct dependence on their Governments'. In every par-
ticular the Board is well suited to perform administrative
work.

The Central Opium Board, indeed, is a more suitable
body for performing the whole function of the Opium
Committee than that Committee, however it may be
reformed, can ever aspire to be. The Committee may
have its uses as a means of sounding governments. It may
be of value as a channel of communication between the
national administrations responsible for dealing with drug
growth, manufacture, import, or distribution, and those
whose duty is to see that obligations imposed by inter-
national law are carried out. But it cannot safely be
trusted with either that supervision or the initiative
towards further achievement when it works alone. That
a committee independent so far as possible of government
influence is a better method of gaining authority with

1 Together with, the U.S.A. which, however, declined to nominate.

THE OPIUM COMMITTEE 239

governments themselves and of achieving a given inter-
national aim is the clear and undeniable lesson of man-
dates and disarmament organization. The Mandates
Commission has succeeded largely because of the quality
of its members, largely because its members may not
occupy any paid official post at home, and must come
chiefly from non-mandatory countries. The need for the
same system in the case of disarmament is increasingly
recognized. 1 In the anti-opium cause the need is over-
whelmingly present. The composition of the Opium
Committee resembles the first proposal for the Mandates
Commission which was seen, fortunately early enough, to
be unsuitable. The Central Opium Board represents the
fuller experience of the League. It is based on the same
principle of independence as the Mandates Commission
and as the proposed Permanent Disarmament Commis-
sion. The very fact that the Board was set up on these
principles is in itself an acknowledgement of the unsuit-
ability of a committee organized as is the Opium Advisory
Committee. It is upon the Central Opium Board, I
suggest, that the function of the Committee must be made
increasingly to devolve. The Board must meet in public.
It must regard the Committee much as the Transit Com-
mittee or the Governing Body regard the Transit or
the Labour Conference.

1 Draft Convention of Dec. 1930, Article 42.

XII
CONCLUSION

*We have been frequently told during the course of these debates that the
world moves with a majestic deliberation and that nature does not leap
forward suddenly. Man, however, has mastered nature and made her his
slave. He has wrested her secrets from her, and the progress of civilization
continues with ever increasing speed. The steam which drives our engines
transports us with the speed of a whirlwind. Electricity gives us light and
bears our messages to the antipodes as swiftly as a flash of lightning, and
aeroplanes will carry us to-morrow through space to the ends of the world
on wings stronger than those of eagles and of sea-birds,

'We have lived through all these wonderful changes, and we cannot
conceive what life would be without them. Yet it is said that in respect of
things economical, social, and legal we must wait and have patience.

*The peoples are tired of waiting. We must add fresh miracles to those
that have recently been accomplished.'

LA FONTAINE, in the First Assembly.

\"\7TE have now considered several groups of men. They
\^ vary so widely as to appear, at first sight, almost
unconnected. But their most essential feature is the same
and they have much else in common. To each of them is
committed a single task, not always of the same complexity
or perhaps of equal importance, but a task which is con-
cerned with one aspect and one function of world society.
They are international, that is to say, a word and an idea
that is comparatively new. In their origins they have this
In common, that each came because the need for it was
recognized long in advance. It was seen first by progres-
sive individuals here and there, thinking in different parts
of the world, and finally coming together with some more
or less developed scheme of organization. The expert
committees are the outcome of unofficial activity. But in
their more immediate origin, in their powers and constitu-
tion, in their authority and independence, in the nature
of their personnel, and in the success -of their endeavours
they differ to a marked degree. They differ so much, in
fact, that those who regard them from too close, and forget
both their historical and their functional background, are

CONCLUSION 241

apt to believe them incomparable. This applies in particu-
lar to the Governing Body of the Labour Organization.
Its independence is so unquestionably defined by treaty
and so stabilized by custom that its essential nature as only
one facet of the League of Nations as a whole is overlooked.
Yet if world society be looked at in its entirety, it becomes
clear at once that labour, like education, and like health
and finance and the government of backward peoples, is
only one of its functions. The fact that fear lest revolution
spread west induced the statesmen of Paris to draft Part
XIII of the Treaty, and to recognize the real unity of
world society in one of its aspects more fully and probably
much earlier than they will recognize it in others, is, after
all, relatively to the facts of world society itself, a mere
accident. It does not alter the nature of things. It is
merely a reminder that progress is sometimes won by
striking a holy dread into the powers that be. For the
Governing Body, with the Labour Conference and Office,
is not of a different order from the other technical
organisms of the League ; it is further advanced along the
road they are now travelling.

We have seen that much of the League's work has its
roots in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. We
have followed the line of development from the Allied
experiments during the War to the League's organization.
The committees, as we have seen, are all advisory to the
Council. They exist in virtue of its resolutions, and their
constitution has been defined or confirmed by its decisions.
But it would be a mistake to conclude that the Council is
the sole source of their authority. In each case several
other sources exist. The Economic and Financial, Transit
and Health Committees are based on the recommenda-
tions of a technical conference in each subject. The
Opium and Intellectual Committees spring from resolu-
tions of the Assembly. The Mandates Commission, like
the Military, Naval, and Air Committee and the Govern-
ing Body, derives its position from the Peace Conference
which named it. But the rest also are specifically implied

242 CONCLUSION

in the Covenant ; and all, wherever they originated, have
been confirmed in their constitution by the League
Assembly. At least their foundation, then, is sound. It
exists both in the tendencies shown by history and in the
will expressed by all nations of the world with the excep-
tion only of those four or so which do not yet recognize
their part in the world. And in several cases Russia and
the United States in Health and Disarmament, Mexico in
the Labour Conference, the United States in the Eco-
nomic, Financial, Intellectual, Opium, and other Com-
mittees more or less official collaboration by these
non-member states is the regular practice.

We have found that all the committees, save those for
Finance, Opium, and Mandates, have the power to
appoint special committees of experts and thereby to
associate with them in their work any amount of leading
opinion from outside. The significance and value of this
can hardly be stressed too much. It enables the commit-
tees to cope with any question whatsoever by obtaining
the men most competent to deal with it from all parts of
the world. Interests may be represented, acknowledged
experts consulted, and those sections of the world com-
munity likely to be affected by prospective action can be
associated with the work and even persuaded to accept
conclusions which otherwise they might have discredited
or condemned. In sum, it means that the machinery is
ready to hand and that what is chiefly needed is the
courage and faith to give it real work to do. In each case
the initiative towards more constructive action is awaited
and demanded whether it come from the committee or
some other more powerful body.

If we regard the work done by these international organs
it is not difficult to appreciate its immense value and its
startling novelty. Nor is it hard to estimate the point
reached in the development of a world organization, to
test its success by the problems that exist unsolved, and
to see the tendencies in this development which appear to
promise most for an eventual solution. B*ut it may be

CONCLUSION 243

added at once that not the most optimistic student of
international relations can find the solution to be easy or
sure ; on the contrary even he will see that the world has
moved and is still moving faster than the mechanics
charged with its control. To say that it may get out of
hand again at any moment is no dream of an alarmist. It
is the practical view of every government that finds dis-
armament impossible. The truth is that the mechanic is
working with equipment that is, for the most part, genera-
tions old, with instruments suited to the stage-coach in
the day of the airplane, and the political plant which
supplies him would have been scrapped on principles of
efficient business generations ago. Moreover, the other
obstacles in the way of control are so great, they have so
often proved insurmountable in the most recent past, that
the future demands every effort if its uncertainty is to be
decreased.

The lesson taught by Allied experience during the War
was that continuous international agreement and" co-
operation on technical questions was not difficult to
secure, provided that the duty of securing it were confided
in specialists more interested in their subject than in
national politics and prestige. It was discovered that
direct contact between departments of state through their
ministers or officials was more fruitful of collaboration
th^n the formal method of relations only through foreign
offices, by diplomats trained to regard their states as
sovereign personalities of which each single act involves
the whole. And it was upon this principle that the
League's technical organization was moulded. This dis-
covery means much in its general implications, for it
implies that the world has found out, or is in the process
of finding out, that it does not consist of isolated units
organized for self-sufficiency and mutual competition,
having need of other isolated units only as an exception.
It means that the discovery has been made that the world

R 2

244 CONCLUSION

itself is the unit, with, bonds that link it closely together
in every one of its functions. Such an implication has, of
course, a meaning of the most far-reaching importance to
the political organization of society. It indicates that the
theory of the sovereign state is out of line with the facts of
to-day. And it means that the organization of the world
as a political unit unpopular though it be in certain
quarters is the unavoidable consequence of modern con-
ditions. In that development nothing is more significant
than the League of Nations and the technical experiments
it is carrying on. Not only are these co-ordinating the
technical organization of the world along the various
functions of society, and improving the conditions of life
at the same time, but they are also developing a habit of
co-operation and of mutual confidence. That 22 conven-
tions have been brought into being by the League, and
29 by the Labour Organization, 1 is evidence enough of the
source of international legislation. This makes a total of
51 international statutes in ten years, and of these 44 can
be ascribed to the technical organs of the League. 2 That
is clear proof of the value of the technical committees and
their effect on international relations. But it is also the
symbol of a new development in political organization.

Technical as opposed to political contact can be seen to
be the basis of this change. It is a principle which is quite
susceptible of reasoned defence.

'Technique*, as Professor Laski has said, 3 *keeps the trivial in its
right perspective. If a Foreign Office is brought in to grapple with
a dispute about railways, almost inevitably a hinterland of discus-
sion beyond railways begins to pervade the atmosphere. And to keep
discussion technical has the great additional advantage of keeping
it undramatic. It cannot easily be made a journalistic sensation.
It cannot be surrounded with that miasma of report and scandal
which have poisoned so many international conferences in the last
few years. It makes the triumph much less accessible when, a priori,
the nature of the triumph is not intelligible enough to be news/

1 Until Jan. 1930. 2 15 from the League and 29 from the IX.O.

3 Grammar of Politics, p. 619.

CONCLUSION 245

Even in such an apparently unpolitical subject as the
supply of health information, where the benefit of it to all
concerned seems most unquestionable, the same inhibi-
tions arise. Under the old system health information
'proceeds through diplomatic channels and Foreign Offices,
for which naturally enough, any report of plague or cholera
carries with it visions of disaster, restrictions, reprisals, and
other fantasies which attend the unknown, and thus leads,
if not to suppression of facts, at least to deUy and to
studied ambiguity in their presentment which defeats the
object of the notification'. * Under the new system in-
formation comes direct from the national ministries of
health. These are less interested in the probability of
consequent political action. For them the problem is
more purely technical. It is, for example, to prevent the
spread of parrot-disease. Their interest is confined to their
function as the guardians of public health.

But there is a further reason for the existence of the
technical international committees. They form an in-
valuable means of invention. The regular meeting of a
body of experts conversant with particular questions and
conditions in many parts of the world affords a constant
opportunity for all sorts of problems of international
interest, which would not otherwise have been raised, to
be discussed in a common spirit. It makes possible the
growth of an international approach to international diffi-
culties, of a world view-point upon the* needs of world
society. Such a nucleus of opinion cannot help but project
a certain light of invention upon international affairs. But
a merely academic spirit of invention would be of little
practical value if it did not take into account the possi-
bilities of securing an application of its suggestions before
it made them. A purely expert group might go too fast
for governments and earn for itself the reproach of being
abstract and unpractical, unless it were kept fairly con-
tinuously in mind of the views of government depart-
ments. This has been secured in the past by appointing
1 Hutt, International Hygiene^ p. 44.

246 CONCLUSION

to the committees officials of these departments, who,
therefore, besides being expert in the subject, are familiar
with the views and practice of their departments, and who
also have sufficient authority to back up the committee's
recommendations on their return, when the department's
policy is being debated. These men at their best form a
link between the national and the universal outlook. At
Geneva they remind the committee perhaps even too
incessantly at times of their national conditions; at home
they bring the international view-point into discussion,
keeping continually in the mind of authority the thought
that its decisions will not be confined in their effects
within national frontiers. It means above all, as Sir
Arthur Salter has pointed out, that officials can 'discuss
policy frankly in its earlier stages, and before it has been
formed and formulated in their respective countries'
before it has become fixed, therefore, as a part of 'national
policy' with all the magic and mythical implications that
term involves.

From a consideration of the questions dealt with in
Part II there emerges a further interesting conclusion. It
is that given certain conditions an international expert
committee may perform a judicial function with marked
success with success broadly proportionate to the degree
to which its composition makes it disinterested. Provided
that the member states of the League are agreed upon a
policy, they may suitably appoint a committee to see that
that policy is duly carried out. When the committee is
properly constituted it will adopt methods of judicial pro-
cedure and evolve principles for the just application of
policy. This fact is not surprising; it is the international
parallel of the tendency in domestic law to set up new
tribunals of technicians for particular sets of cases. 1 But
in order to secure adequate supervision such a body must
be given authority, and the * machinery for putting
its authority into effect. That presupposes in interna-
tional affairs a willingness on the part of states to incur
1 See W, A. Ilobspji, Justice and Administrative Law.

CONCLUSION 247

obligations. They may have to send reports, to provide
for impartial inquiry within their territory, to be held
responsible to the League. They must surrender, in certain
respects, their claim to sovereignty. In return the ex-
perience of such an organ as the Permanent Mandates
Commission shows that they can rely upon sympathy and
justice. But in order to secure this resort to the judicial
instead of the armed settlement of disputes states must
have agreed previously upon common purposes. That is
not always easy. It was not hard to secure such an agree-
ment about her colonies from a defeated Germany, but
the process of reaching concord on a scheme of disarma-
ment is more difficult. When once such agreement has
been reached, however, whether it be in the Minorities
articles of the Treaty of Peace or in the Opium Conven-
tions, it is essential to provide the proper machinery for
ensuring the application of law and the fulfilment of
obligations. In this way it may be seen that the Mandates
Commission represents one of the most advanced stages
in the evolution of organs of international government.
While, perhaps, the Economic Committee is concerned
with the study of over-production in coal, and may be
negotiating an agreement, an international coal committee
on the lines of the Mandates Commission would have the
duty of allotting quota and securing application, thus
exercising a partly judicial, partly administrative, function.
It would represent the third stage, the first being the
establishment of a need by the investigations of the
Economic Committee, the second its recognition by an
international conference in a general legal instrument, the
third the creation of a reliable disinterested tribunal of
four or five men to supervise its application.

3

Certain general principles relating to the structure and
procedure of the committees as such stand out from the
experience of these ten years. Taking questions of pro-

2 4 S CONCLUSION

cedure first, as the less important, it is clear at once that
the practice of appointing substitutes must be condemned,
as it has indeed been condemned by the Governing Body
and the Transit 1 and Mandates Commissions. Members
are nominated not as representatives of their countries,
but as individuals and for their expert qualifications. To
allow them to be replaced is therefore defeating the pur-
pose of their appointment. It tends to create the impres-
sion that seats are not filled by the Council but are in the
gift of national departments of state. The development
of a united spirit in the committee and a sense of responsi-
bility in common, are obviously impossible when members
are liable to change every session, and when the acts of
one work out their consequences during the term of the
next. Moreover, it is not likely after all that a member
will develop an intense interest in the committee in two
or three sessions, and it is precisely that which is most
required of him. The same criticism applies to a short
tenure of membership. In the case of some countries
members change nearly every year. Thia seems to be due
with Japan to her policy of shifting her diplomats regularly
in order to make them familiar with the general rather
than with any particular field. But the Japanese have
much to gain in their influence on the course of League
events, at least by modifying that policy and placing
more trust in their citizens abroad. Theirs is an almost
unique opportunity as the only non-European country
having a national on each committee, for often a Japanese
member is able to speak with an independence and dis-
interestedness which no one from a western country
could claim.

There are also details of procedure which it may be
worth while mentioning. First, the possibility of applying
the practice of concurrent translation, which has so much
shortened the work of the Labour Conference, to com-
mittee work also, should be thoroughly explored. Half the
time which each committee spends in debate is wasted by
1 See supra, p. 148.

CONCLUSION 249

the necessity for translation. That these constant inter-
ruptions allow time for passions to cool and for recon-
sideration is, of course, true; but it is doubtful whether
the type of expert who sits on a League committee is
likely very often to lose control of himself, and it is also
extremely doubtful whether, even if he does, the exhibition
of his real thoughts and motives is not more valuable than
a guarded statement couched in terms that are so elegant
and high principled that they mean nothing. First
thoughts are not always the worst. And this suggestion,
that there is time for reconsideration, in any case applies
only to those who understand the first language spoken
and for whom translations therefore are useless. Secondly,
as we have seen, the chairman is elected for one year or for
an indefinite period. While the former method distributes
the honour more equally, the latter has the great advan-
tage that it accustoms one man to the duties necessary,
making him in time an expert in the function and causing
the work therefore to go more harmoniously, quicker, and
more constructively. Thirdly, much has been said about
the value of publicity for each committee's work. Yet it
is the exception for them to meet in public. The com-
mittees have much to gain from taking the public, or at
least the Press, into their confidence. Minutes of every
committee should be published, and of the majority of
special committees. These serve as a most valuable index
to the actual position. They build up an extensive docu-
mentation on all the subjects of international legislation,
as well as on those unsolved questions which may any day
prove sources of international friction. Minutes should
never be altered except by permission of the committee
publicly granted. The value of minutes is not to idealize
but faithfully to report.

With regard to the structure of committees, it is possible
to say in the first place that appointment by an inter-
national body, such as the Council or a conference, has
proved more successful than nomination by governments.
A $riori y that is not hard to understand. Government

Z5o CONCLUSION

nomination makes the committee into a diplomatic con-
ference of accredited representatives. It means that
members owe their first duty not to an organ of the world
as a whole, but to a national unit. This is borne out, as we
have seen, 1 by the experience of the Opium Committee.
Members, it may be added, should be paid by the League
for the same reason. In the second place, the size of each
committee has increased by from one to thirteen members.
Committee meetings already tend sometimes to have
a leisurely and somewhat impersonal note. This is due
partly to the need for translation after each speech lasting
as long as the speech itself. But as a committee grows more
and more to "resemble a conference this danger increases;
its members get the habit of delivering set speeches, and
this is the death warrant of a committee. Real com-
promise comes more often from four or five at the most
than from a large number, if only because four or five are
able to know each other, appreciate the sincerity of differ-
ing views, and feel a sense of common duty and responsi-
bility in face of a common task.

Finally, there are certain more general and more
fundamental conclusions which can be drawn from a study
of this sort. These have been foreshadowed already. It
must be remembered that they have exceptions and vary
with the varying circumstances in which each committee
finds itself. We have seen how the foundation-stone of the
League's committee organization was laid during the last
year of the War, and how it was translated into the terms
of a theory of technical and semi-official organization. We
have admitted the unquestionable truth of Sir Arthur
Salter's contention, which has been applied in the practice
of the League, that 'the more the activities of the world
come into contact with each other, not by contact at
national frontiers but by cutting across them, the broader

1 Chapter XL

CONCLUSION 251

will be the basis of peace'. 1 We have observed how the
recommendations of these expert committees have been
translated into legislation, how they have become, there-
fore, and are becoming, an important source of law. We
have seen the esprit de corps which committees have de-
veloped when confronted by an urgent task. The whole
structure, then, has been built upon the success of the
principles taught by the War. That is its strength since
it shows the immense possibilities of the international
committee as an instrument of government.

But that is its weakness also because in the War there
was an immense and dramatic need making action im-
perative. In peace the drama and the immediateness are
absent. It is no longer a case of replenishing provisions
with starvation and panic a few days off. The need now
may be as real even though it be less tense and immediate,
but it is hidden by the calm flowing of everyday events,
just as another need was hidden in the serene days of
July 1914. The absolute necessity for doing something to
diminish tariffs is agreed upon by every one. The same
applies in varying degrees to such other world problems
as raw materials, the treatment of subject peoples, nar-
cotics, the international co-ordination of education. But
the necessity has existed for the last decade, and there
seems no particular reason why it should be met this year
rather than next year. On the contrary, every one can say
that if he waits a little longer some one else may offer to
make a sacrifice, and then the difficulty will be easier to
surmount. c Now or never 7 does not often arise in peace.
Those times when it has, in fact, arisen such as the
collapse of Austria, the Russian epidemics, the Greek
refugees, and the troubles in Syria under French mandate
have shown the League's committees at their best.
These are the tasks which they have solved with most
apparent ease and gusto. This is partly because the initia-*
tive to solution came from an aroused public . opinion,

1 'Economic Causes of War', in Zbc Reawakening of the Orient,
P- 157-

252 CONCLUSION

partly because they were given a single and definite task,

partly because the responsibility was cast upon them.

These three motive forces are exactly those which most
need to be augmented in the everyday work of the League.
The need for action exists all the time. The organization
for expressing it, however, always and inevitably lags a
little behind the most apparent necessities. But when the
necessities themselves are visible only to a few, and when
the organization hardly exists at all, it becomes clear that
the incentive to action is very little indeed and merely
flickering at the best. The Council and the Assembly are
very largely concerned with other and mainly political
business, and they are the organs on which chief hope
of initiative must be placed under the present system.
But what is needed is not even something merely to ex-
press initiative but something to seek it and produce it.
Such an organ would be merely an attempt in peace to
reproduce conditions that the dramatic exigencies of war
created of themselves.

Corresponding to these closely interwoven needs, the
one for initiative, leading to the giving of a definite task
to these technical committees, the other to the stressing
of their responsibility, two tendencies can be clearly
detected in their development. The first leads to associat-
ing with them a wider, better informed, more interested
and more authoritative group of men; the second to
increasing their autonomy and dissociating them, though
not completely, from their dependence on the Council.

There are several ways in which the first tendency can
be expected to work itself out, varying with the particular
circumstances of each case. The inclusion of two types
of interest so far outside the League's organization is
aimed at. The first is political ministers of state. The
remarkable degree to which the committees of the League
correspond to the normal division of political systems into
departments of state under the control of a cabinet
minister has already been pointed out. 1 This tendency
1 See Chapter I.

CONCLUSION 253

suggests that the coincidence is no accident. By associat-
ing the responsible minister concerned with each technical
section of the League in the form of a council or additional
body of some sort, a great access of authority is gained.
More definite contacts are made. Those capable of taking
big decisions are made to follow and interest themselves
in the function of world society which concerns them. In
no case is the work urgently requiring consideration in-
sufficient to warrant such a complication of the League's
organization. Such a Council of Ministers could have the
form either of a special committee of the Council or of
a special section of a general conference. This need has
been recognized particularly in relation to the Economic
and Intellectual Committees, 1 but for the same reasons it
might be extended to all the others in Part I of this study,
with the possible exception of those in Part II. The second
type of interest, the importance of which is gaining an
increasing recognition, is non-political and non-official. 2
Just as labour and employers are included in the Labour
Organization, it has been suggested that teachers' and
doctors' associations, industrialists, consumers, connected
private international unions and similar groups might be
associated with the relevant sections of the League. It
should not be difficult to find practical means of organiz-
ing them in general conferences. 3 The value of their
presence is to give precisely that type of criticism and
publicity of which the League stands in urgent need.
Such a policy would greatly reduce the justice of the
contention that the League, instead of being a league
of nations, is only a league of governments. Some such
development is envisaged in Article 24 of the Cove-
nant, but little or nothing so far has been done to apply
that Article. This tendency is no more than a projection
into the international sphere of the growing importance of
group organization within modern communities, 4 and the

1 See Chapters II and V, sections 7. 2 See supra, p. 163.

3 Certain possible methods have been suggested earlier.
* See Chapter II, 7, and Chapter I.

254 CONCLUSION

increasing tendency of democracy to provide for consult-
ing them. On the whole, it seems clear that over the whole
decade the committees (treated in Part I) which have done
most work are those which have been associated with
a regular conference, sometimes containing ministers as
well as unofficial interests. Such a conference, besides being
the constitutive organ of the committee, should have the
power by majority vote to obligate all governments to
place conventions before the ratifying authorities within
one year. 1 The committee should decide the conference
agenda. 2 There is a fairly well-defined line of development
running through the League's committees which shows
the evolution of this type of organization. At one end of
the scale is the Governing Body of the Labour Office,,with
its own composition following that of its Conference, on
which its composition partly depends. It is increasingly
the custom for ministers of labour to be present at the
Conference, sitting, on a basis of equality, beside the re-
presentatives of trade unions and industrial groups. The
Transit Organization, which also has a conference with
a committee to some extent appointed by it, was con-
sciously modelled upon the Labour Organization. So in
a more remote way was the Economic Consultative Com-
mittee. The Health Committee also has what might be
called a technical conference in the other committee, more
than twice its size, which sits at Paris. It may almost be
wondered also whether the Opium Committee, owing to
its great increase in size, will develop into a small confer-
ence, producing the Central Board or another organ as
executive committee. 3 And a small executive committee
has already been created for the Intellectual Committee.
The second general tendency towards independence
is indicated by several facts. The growing accumulation of
other business for the Council's consideration has led it to

1 Compare all this with the Labour Organization, supra, pp. 161-6.

2 Supra, p. 162.

3 The Council envisaged a development of the subcommittee system in
the Opium Committee. Cf. Minutes of 59 C and supra.

CONCLUSION 255

leave the technical organs to go more and more their own
way. 1 Whenever a change in the constitution of League
committees has taken place so far it has had the effect in
general of stressing this tendency towards autonomy. The
Economic Committee, for example, was given important
additions to its power in 1927.2 It was specifically
'authorized to take any steps it may consider necessary in
the course of its investigations and preparatory work,
including the consultation of experts and forming of sub-
committees, without on each occasion referring the matter
to the Council'. This line of development towards inde-
pendence is also to be seen in a comparison of the League's
organs. Labour, for example, is dependent only for its
budget. Intellectual Co-operation is dependent only
partly for its budget. The Transit Committee is ap-
pointed entirely and the Health Committee in part by
a body which is independent of the Council and Assembly,
and on which are included states not members of the
League. They have thus almost a better claim to univer-
sality than the Council itself. They both also enjoy certain
powers of decision upon conventions without reference to
the Council. In sum, it would seem that the contention
of Mr. Barnes at the First Assembly, which then met with
much opposition, has been borne out by practice. 'In his
view the technical organizations to be established should
collaborate not with the Council of the League of Nations
in respect of which they should remain largely inde-
pendent but rather with the nations themselves.' The
fear of this view was founded on the fear that the technical
committees might develop into 'super-ministries', a ten-
dency which need give less cause for trembling to those
anxious for order and peace in world society than, shall
we say, the tendency to erect tariff-walls or to build sub-
marines.

Fear that the organization may develop too fast to suit

1 Cf. Rappard, Uniting Europe, p. 223; Howard-Ellis, Origin and
Structure of the League, p. 132.

2 47 C. 1455, and see Chapter II, p. 40.

256 CONCLUSION

the member states has had an important share in deter-
mining events. It was not -unnatural when the League
began, under distrust and the accusation of impractical
idealism. But to-day it can be carried too far. This fear 4
is much more marked in the League proper than in the
Labour Organization, and this apparently for three reasons.
Labour is the most powerfully organized group within
states. More pressure is brought to bear upon govern-
ments for action relating to it. There is less need, there-
fore, to fear that governments will object when progressive
measures are taken. Secondly, the League Secretariat
has inherited in a greater degree than the Labour Office
the traditions of loyalty, respectability, and service which
characterize the British civil servant. To him precedent,
rather than constructive thought, is often what seems to
need most emphasis. He hopes that institutions will
develop of their own accord, and waits for others to take
the lead. In the third place, the natural tendency to
postpone 'dangerous' questions is less counteracted in the
League by what might be called unofficial vehemence.
Private organizations form no part of the League's
system, whereas they play an important role in that of the
I.L.O. In fact the League is continually pointing out to
private international bodies that it is official and cannot
affiliate them. In consequence it suffers sometimes, as we
have seen, from a lack of criticism leading to suggestion and
initiative. There is therefore a certain danger lest the
League Secretariat, and the League as a whole, should
grow out of the timidity of childhood into the self-satis-
faction of youth.

To the man or the country, the generation or the class
which is meeting with success, making great profits, and
finding itself more comfortably off than others and at
other times, it always seems clear that there is a providence
that rules the world and orders all things for the best. In
the midst of an air-raid or of trench warfare, or even of an
economic depression, men are less ready to see a divine
hand at work. They will then admit the possibility that

CONCLUSION 257

certain intelligible rules of cause and effect may be working
themselves out in the circumstances around them. They
are more prepared to believe, therefore, that human
reason by knowledge of these may control the surround-
ing conditions. We see these two views at wort upon the
League of Nations to-day. The one regards the League
and finds it good, remembering forcibly what an incredible
advance Geneva represents. It would have us settle down
in the stalls and admire the scene, content to trust in the
gloomiest moments that the author has a happy ending
up his sleeve. In the terms of this philosophy the most
devastating epithet which can be applied to a student of
the League is to call him impatient. In that word lies his
utter condemnation, for it means that he does not see and
trust, with the fatalism of the stoic, the Hand that in its
own good time will order all things for the best. But to
the second type of approach it appears that when patience
means sterility it is impatience that has become the virtue,
for in impatience lies the only hope of progress. A man of
this view, while he recognizes fully the broad distance
travelled., disconcertingly insists on keeping his face turned
toward the future, on stressing the importance of the
distance still to go, and on refusing to blind himself to the
formidable obstacles which may wreck this journey as they
have wrecked myriads of others before it. The primeval
forces of ignorance and superstition, indolence and feax
have wrought continuous havoc upon man in the past;
to-day they are the reinforcements of commercial greed
and nationalist ambition. One of the most hopeful replies
to them, I would urge, is made by the fact and the work
of the League Committees, by the tendencies of develop-
ment they show, and by the lesson of practical possibilities
they teach.

INDEX

Academic Union, International, 114.

Adams, Prof. (Yale), 78.

Adatci, M., 94.

Ador, M., 37, 38, 73, 75.

Advisory nature of Committees, 8-9,

10. See also Committees, Indepen-
dence of.

Africa, central, 169, 170.
Agenda, 46, 99, no, 151, 162, 164, 254.
Aggressor, the, and disarmament, 210.
Agriculture, Institute of, 2, 46, 47, 124.
Air, a League Committee? 157. See
aho Civil Aviation.

Navigation, International Commis-
sion, 151.
Alfaro, Prof., 97.
Algeciras dispute, 169.
Algeria, 96.

Allied co-operation, 6, 21, 58, 63, 64,
65, 88, 241, 243, 250-1.

Council of War Purchases and Fi-
nance, 65.

Maritime Transport Council, 25-8,
149.

Military Council, 26.

Rhineland Commission, 29.

Sanitary Commission, 88.

Shipping Control, 212, 278.

Transportation Council (Railways),

26, 139.
American co-operation, 43, 50, 72, 73,

93? 95~ 6 > 97> 102, 118, 151, 210, 220,

229-30, 236, 238 n., 242.
Anthrax Committee, I.L.O.j 102.
Anti-Slavery Protection Society, 185,

1912.

Arad-Csanad case, 153.
Arai, M., 76.
Arbitration and the Committees, 52,

H3> H5> 148, 153-4-
and disarmament, 210.
and Security, Committee on, 213,

215.

Argentina, 76, 97.
Armaments, cost of, 200-1.
novelty of, 202.
See Disarmament,

Arms, manufacture of, 2056, 211,

21617.

Assessors, 95, 220-1, 227.
j Assistance, Draft Treaty of Mutual,

209, 210, 211, 214.

Astor, Major, 89.
Attolico, Prof., 27, 65, 149.
Australia, 38, 44, 96, 104, 122.
Austria, 39, 44, 45, 79-81, 106, 140,
170, 231, 251.

Baker, Dr. Josephine, 95.

Baker, Prof. P. J. Noel, 205.

Balfour, Mr., 44, 54.

Balkans, 140.

Bank of International Settlements, 2.

Banks and the League, 50, 68, 72, 73,

76, 82, 83, 84.
Barboza-Carneiro, M., 44.
Barcelona, 1467.
Barnes, Mr. G., 60, 226-7, 255.
Baruch, B., 30 n., 66.
Beau, M., 178.
Belgium, 30, 33, 38, 44, 65, 75, 76, 96,

98, 99n. 5 106, 113, 114, 141, 176,

211, 219, 220, 232.
Benevolent Societies, International

Congress of, 218-19.
Bergson, Prof., 118, 133.
Berlin Act, 169.
Bianchini, Commander, 75.
Bibliography and the Intellectual

Organization, 121, 123, 126.
Bignon, M., 65.

Bills of Exchange, unification of, 73.
Bolivia, 228.

Bondelwarts rebellion, 193.
Bose, Sir Jagadis, 118.
Bourgeois, M. Leon, 37, 38, 42, 112,

n6n.

Bourgois, M., 226-7.
Brailsford, Mr., 169.
Brazil, 30, 44, 45, 93, 95, 96, 97, 99 n.
Brenier, M., 227.
Briand, M., 75.
British Empire, 8, 43, 54, 75, 78, 149.

See also Great Britain.

z6o

INDEX

Bruins, Prof., 77.

Brussels, International Institutes, 1 1 1-

13, 115, 129.

Buchanan, Sir George, 97-8, 106 n.
Buckmaster, Lord, 65.

Calendar reform, 1 54.

Campbell, Sir John, 226-7, 231, 238.

Canada, 44, 55, 231.

Cantacuzene, Prof., 97.

Carriere, Dr., 97-8, 227.

Cavazzoni, S., 2278.

Cecil, Lord Robert (Viscount Cecil),
26, 29, 66-7, 6 9> 7 3 7*5 210.

Ceylon, constitution of, 4.

Chagas, Dr., 95, 97.^

Chairman of Committees, 40, 46, 76,
99, 119, 178, 249.

Chamberlain, Sir Austen, 65, 221.

Chao-Hsin Chu, Mr., 227.

Charoon, Prince, 227.

Chemical manufacture and disarma-
ment, 205-6, 211, 216-17.

Child, Rights of, Declaration of

Geneva, 221.

Welfare Committee, 101, 120, 124,
176, 21 8-2 1,

China, 24, 30, 40, 106, 223, 224, 225,
228, 230.

Chodzko, Dr., 97-8, 102.

Cholera, 85, 86.

Cinematographic . Institute, Rome,
^ 1 17-18, 124-5, *35-

Civil Aviation, 157, 206, 216-17.

Claveille, M., 149.

Clementel, M., 26, 28, 29, 30 n., 65.

Coal, an international commission? 56,

57, 83, 247.
and the League, 54, 55, 56.

Coates, Mr., 188.

Codification of international law, Com-
mittee, 14.

Commissioners of the League, 81,
196-8.

Committees' of the League, in the

Covenant, 32, 172, 200.
independence of, 38, 46, 76, 82, 84,
95, 99, 108, 155-6, 159, 161, 166,
179, 209, 214, 215, 216, 238-9,
241,242,252,254-5.
influence of, in administration, u, ,

91, 98-9, 103-6, 107, 137, 152,

*$$, i5$-8> ^2-3; 238.
influence of, legislative, 12, 56, 155,

165, 182, 251.
minutes of, 46, 76, 99-100, 117, 148,

164, 178, 226, 249.
organization of, 56, 58, 95, 119, 145,

155, 161-4, 209, 213-16, 226, 232-

5> 239, 249.
permanence of, 38, 39, 73-4, 93. 96,

97, 134, 144,207.

procedure in, 40, 46, 148, 156, 161,
. I 74 J /75 J 216, 226, 246, 247-9.
similarity of, 12-14, 159, 161, 240-1,

. 255-
sittings, length, place, 46, 117, 148,

164, 177, 178, 226, 232.
size, 38, 39, 48, 49, 52, 62, 75, 77, 78,
83> 93, 94, 95> 97? Il6 > ll $> H5>
H7? *55> !74, 1775 209, 212, 216,
220, 228, 232-3, 238, 250.
Committees in politics, 3-5.
Communications and Transit organiza-
tion. See Transit.

Communications section of the

Supreme Economic Council, 140-1.

Competition, 53, 56.

Conferences, for Committees, 15, 39,

59, 61-2, 70, 83, 92, 94-5, 99, 121,

1 3 S-Sj *44) H5 l62 ~3j l66 5 1 80,
219, 220, 239, 241, 254.
Conventions, 52, 56, 58, 82-3, 86, 100,
106, 126-7, HI, 144? I5? I 5 2 ~3>

l62, 165-6, 211, 213, 219-20, 221,

228, 232, 235, 244, 255.

Co-opt, power to, given to Commit-
tees, 49, 75, 95-6, 119.

Co-ordination Committee, " disarma-
ment, 209, 212.

Cornejo, M., 118.

Counterfeiting Currency, Convention,

83-

Court, Permanent, of International

Justice, 2, 153, 162.
Covenant of the League, 14, 21, 31-7,

65, 70-1, 88-9, 9> "3> 142-3, iS9)

192-3, 199, 219, 225, 242, 253.
Crespi, S., 26, 29, 30 n.
Criticism of the League, value of, 17,

I0 9> 2 53> 256-7.
Crosby, Mr. ? 65.

INDEX

261

Cuba, 24.
Cuellar, M., 228.
Gumming, Surgeon-General, 97.
Curie, Mme, 118.
Customs Nomenclature, 46, 51, 52.
Czecho-Slovakia, 4, 44, 45, 75, 80, 106,
141, 142, 211.

Dalton, Dr. Hugh, 133.

Dandurand, Mr., 43.

Dannevig, Mile, 176.

Danube, 86, 140, 153, 154.

Danzig, 82, 150,

Davis-Lamont memorandum, 67, 68.

Debts, war, 69, 70-1.

Delaisi, F., 2.

Delevingne, Sir Malcolm, 226, 235.

Democracy and the League, i, 4, 5,

1 66.
Denmark, 44, 96, 98, 104, 106, 135,

136, 208, 220.

Destree, M., 118.

De Vasconcellos, Dr., 226.

Devolution, internal, 4.

international. See international go-
vernment ; Committees, influence.
De Wiart, Count, 219.
Diplomats, 44, 45, 123, 176, 243.
Directors, Committee of (Intellectual

Institute), 123.
Disarmament, 14, 68, 199-217, 242,

Commission, Permanent, recom-
mended, 216, 239.

Committee of the Council, 212.

See also Military Committee, Tem-
porary Mixed Committee.
Disinterestedness of Committees, 181,

21516, 238. See also Judicial func-
tion of Committees.
Distribution, international control of,

53, 63. See also Production, Raw

materials.
Draft Convention for Disarmament

(1930), 205, 214, 215-16.
Dubois, M., 75.
Dvoracek, M., 44.

Eastman, Mr., 44.

Economic Advisory Councils, 5, 46, 61,
Commission of the Peace Confer-
ence, 30-1.

Committee, 14, 21-63, 73, 75, 76,
83, 84, 113, 131, 143, 150, 156,
209, 212, 241, 247, 253, 255.
Conferences ( 1 9 1 6), 22 ; ( 1 9 1 7), 24-5 5
09 22 )> 33, 49> 73, 775 (i9 2 7)> 39>
47>48-9 5 53, 55, 5 6 , 59> 6l > J S 6 5
(i93)> 45, 52-
Consultative Committee, 47-9, 55,

59,254.

Council of Ministers, 60-3.
Economic Drafting Committee, 30-1.
Economists on the League, 61, 77.
Economy, 8, 16, 46, 105, 1078, 109,

117, 123, 125,130.
Education and the League, 13, 115-16,

136-8, 251.

Egypt) .9 6 > 99 n., 151, 157, 222, 231.
Einaudi, Prof., 77.
Einstein, Prof., 118, 133,
Elbe, 140, 143.

Electricity, and Transit, 150, 152, 156.
Epidemics, 85, 251.

Committee, 104-5, I0 7'
Equality of Trade, Convention, 32, 35,

142.

in mandated territory, 169, 172-3.
Esher scheme, 205.
Executive Committees, 119-20, 123,

124, 135.

Experts, in administration, 3, 25, 60.
on Committees, 10, 37, 40, 46, 51,

6, 7*, 74, 7*, 8o / 82 > 8 3, 8 4 3 88,
95, 9 6 , 97, ioo-i, 104, 108, 122,
145, 147, 149, 151, 153, 156, 161,
176, 214, 234-5, 238, 242, 244-5,
255.

Federal Reserve Board, 50.
Federation of British Industries, 46.
Ferreira, M., 226, 227.
Finance Committee of I.L.O., 162.
Financial Assistance, Draft Conven-

^101^83,213.
Financial Commission of the Peace

Conference, 69.
Committee, 14, 21, 34, 37, 38, 47,

64-84, 157, 209, 212, 213, 241.
Conference, 37, 70, 71-3, 74, 77, 78,

82, 113.

Finer, Dr. H., 5.
Finland, 213.

262

INDEX

Fiscal Committee, 12, 40, 779, 82.

Foch, Marshal, 140.

Food Control, 10, 26, 98.

Foster, Sir George, 45, 55.

France, 4, 5, 24, 25, 26, 33, 34, 35, 45,
49, 65, 67, 69, 70, 75, 83, 87, 90, 92-
3, 99 n., 106, 118, 122-3, l 3 l -> H 1 )
142, 143, 149, 171, 176, 178, 200,

201, 208, 209, 210, 211, 225.

Fukui, Mr., 30 n.

Functional self-determination and the
League, 5, 6, 12, 242, 253-4.

General Act, 214.
Geneva, 8, 108, 112, 137-8.
Germany, 4, 5, 29, 31, 38, 39, 45, 65,
67, 93, 96, 106, 114, 142, 1 60, 176,

201, 228, 247.

Gold investigation, by Financial Com-
mittee, 83,

Governing Body of I.L.O., 9, 12-13,
14, 35, 61, 159-66, 209, 212, 213,
239, 241, 248, 254. See also Inter-
national Labour Organization.

Great Britain, 8, 16, 23, 24, 25, 26, 44,
45, 49) 54, 60, 64, 65, 67, 70, 71, 86,
88-9, 90, 99 n., 106, 118, 130, 141,
142, 149, 154, 171, 176, 178, 197,

200, 201, 209, 210, 211, 214, 223,
224, 225.

Greece, 81, 105, 106, 107.
Grimshaw, Mr., 176-7.
Guild socialism, 5*

Hague Convention, 224-5, 227, 228,

229-30, 232.

Haig, Field-Marshal, 139.
Hamilton, Dr. Alice, 97.
Hanotaux, M., 93, 146.
Hausser, M., 65.
Health bulletins, 88, 100, 103-4, 107.

Committee, 9, 32, 40, 85-110, 120,
150, 161,241,242,254,255.

Conferences, 85-7, 89-90, 92, 94, 99,

102, 104-5,

Henderson, Mr. Arthur, 233.
Herold, Dr., 149.
Hines, Dr., 154.
Hobson, J. A., 36, 169.
Holland, 4, 75, 99 n., 149, 176, 209,
225, 227.

Hoover, Mr., 26, 29, 30.
House, Col., 66, 70, 143.
Hungary, 29, 79, 106.
Hymans, M., 33, 38, 113.

Imperiali, Marquis, 75.
Imperialism, 169, 182, 198.
Independence, a principle of the I.L.O.,

161.
Independent Labour Party, Great

Britain, 170. .
India, 44, 86, 96, 106, 118, 223-4, 225,

226, 227, 229.

Individualism, 64, 65-7, 69.
Inflation, 72.
Initiative, need for, 252.
Intellectual Co-operation, Committee
for, 9, 12-13, 40, 111-38, 241,
253-5-

national committees, 118, 120-1,
125, 130, 136; conference of, 121,
I3 3 135-

Inquiry Committee, 119, 123-4, 1 3 I -
Institute, Paris, 117-18, 122-4, 131-

3, 135? 137-
International Associations, Private,

in, 112, 113, 129, 136.
Chamber of Commerce, 46, 47, 48,

78, 151, 165.
control of finance, 66-72, 79, 82,

J 57> 237.
government, i, 6 ? 9, 12, 21, 22, 24,

56, 157, 204, 206, 214, 244.
Labour Organization, 2, 6, 40, 47,

49) 5? 5 6 > 59> 9 1 ) 9 2 > 93) 99> i>
102, 117, 118, 120, 124, 128, 136,

*44) 15*) i59~ 66 ) *74> 176) 209,
212, 233, 239, 241, 242, 248, 254,
255, 256.
Inter - Parliamentary Commercial

Union, 46, 151 n.
Union, 2.

Investigation by Committees, 51, 54-5,
5 6 ) 6 3) 77? 7 8 ) 82, 83, 94, 104-6, 107,
* 8 ) *$3~4; 162, 165, 195, 208, 221,
225, 247.

Ishii, Viscount, 43.

Italy, 25, 26, 27, 33, 34-5, 36, 45, 54,
6 5) 75? 99 n - 3 *24, 142, 149, 171, 176,
201,211,228.

INDEX

263

Janssen, M., 76.

Japan, 43, 45, 76, 78, 96, 97, 105, 118,

149, 176, 201, 225, 228, 229, 248.

Jordan, Sir John, 227, 229.

Jouhaux, M,, 59.

Judicial function of Committees, 1 82,

216, 246-7.
Jugo-Slavia, 106, 141, 142, 211, 228.

Kengo Mori, M., 76.
Kerr, Philip, 169.
Keynes, Mr., 67, 68.
Klotz, M., 69-71.

Labour, American Federation, 1 60.

Commission of the Peace Confer-
ence, 161, 226-7.

Conferences, 160-1, 162, 163, 165,
1 66.

Hygiene, I.L.O. Committee, 102.

Legislation, International Associa-
tion for, 1 60.

Party, British, 59, 169.
La Fontaine, M., 114-15, 127-8, 132,

134-

Languages of the League, 90, 99,
Laski, Prof. H. J., 197, 244.
Latvia, 106.
Lauterpacht, Dr., 180.
Law, international, 53, 146, 169, 180,

203-4.

League of Nations Commission of Peace
Conference, 31-5, 69-71, 1 13, 225.

Union, London, 116, 118.
Legislation, international, 12, 56, 59.

See also Committees, influence.
Lejeune, M., 219.
Lloyd George, Mr., 67,
Locarno agreements, 214.
Loucheur, M., 26, 65.
Luchaire, M. Julien, Director, 1 23 n.,

J 33
Lugard, Lord, 176, 177-8, 194.

MacDonald, J. Ramsay, 166, 210.
Maclay, Sir Joseph, 26.
Madariaga, Prof. S. de, 16, 201-2.
Madsen, Dr. Thorvald, 97-8, 104.
Mance, General, 140.
Mandates, 7, 9, 14, 39, 101-2, 120, 161,
169-98, 216, 239, 241, 247, 248.

Manufacture of drugs, limitation of,

222, 223, 230, 235-7.
Matsuyama, M., 43.
Mayer des Planches, Baron, 65.
Members of Committees, appoint-
ment, 11, 41-3, 74-5, 77 n., 95,
100, 119, 123, 124, 145) J 47> 155*
161, 173-4, 177-8, 209, 212, 216,
220, 226, 234, 248-50.
attendance, 97, 228.
corresponding, 40-1, 78, 101, 118.
length of tenure, 45, 61, 76, 97, 118,
124, 147-8, 149, 156, 226-8, 232,
248.

nationality, 43, 44, 75, 96, 108, 123,
124, 145, 149, 173, 175-7, 216,
228.

qualifications, 14-15, 42, 74, 83, 93,
96, 108, 120, 133, 148, 149, 174,
175-8, 207-8, 209, 216, 238-9.
Merlin, M., 176.
Mexico, 87, 242.
Meyer, Sir William, 55, 225.
Migration, 62.
Military Committee, proposed by

Italy, 34.

Military, Naval, and Air Committee,
39, 150, 207-9, 212, 213, 241. See
also Disarmament.
Miller, D. H., 71, 89.
Millikan, Mr., 118.
Mimbela, Dr., 97.

Ministers, contact of, 25, 265 28, 37,
44, 59, 60-1, 65, 71, 76, 80, 98, 109-
10, 118, 135, 136, 149, 165, 176,
228, 243, 252-3.

Minorities, a Committee ? 1 5-1 6, 247.
Minutes of Committees. See Commit-
tee, minutes.

Mixed Committee (second) for dis-
armament, 212.
Monnet, M., 27.
Monopoly, 53, 54, 55, 57, 62.
Munch, Prof., 135.
Murray, Prof. Gilbert, 115,

H7n., 118, 123.
Mussolini, S., 118.

Nagayo, Dr., 97.
Neculcea, Prof., 44.
Nelson, Mr., 184-90.

INDEX

New Zealand, 106, 184-92.

Nocht, Prof., 96.

North Pacific Sealing Convention, 63.

Norway, 44, 45, 176, 208.

Oder River system, 9, 143, 154.
Office d' Hygiene, 86-7, 89, 90-109.
Officials, departmental, IO-H, 27, 44,
45> 59- 6o > 6l > 7 6 ) 7 8 ) 93) 9 6 ) 9 8 ) I0 )

206, 209, 216, 226-7, 234) 238, 243,
245-6.

Oilseeds Executive, 26.
Opium Board, Permanent, 230, 235,

238-9, 254.
Committee, 14, 98, 101, 131, 150,

218, 222-39, 241, 250, 254.
conferences, 227, 228-30, 247.
sub-committee of Health Commit-
tee, 101, no.
trade, British Society for suppression

of, 223.

Optional Clause, 211.
Orlando, S., 26.
Ormsby-Gore, Mr., 178.
Orts, M., 176, 187.
Otlet, Prof. Paul, 114, 127-8, 129, 132,

Over-production, 54, 55-6, 57, 62, 238,

247.
Owen, Robert, 160.

Painleve", M., 118.

Palacios, M. L., 176, 186, 188-9.

Palestine, 197.

Panama, 149, 157.

Paris, as seat of Intellectual Institute,

122, 125, 131-2, 135.
Pact, 210, 214.

Parr, Sir James, 184-90.

Peace Conference, 7, 54, 65, 88-9, 113-
14, 141-3, 161, 170, 176, 208, 219,
241.

Permanent Armaments Commission.
See Military, Naval, and Air Com-
mittee.

Permanent Members of the Council,
43) 61, 75, 96, 220.

Persia, 232, 235.

Persian Gulf, 86.

Peru, 97, 118.

Petitions, 181, 182, 183-92, 194-5, 196,

216.

Plague, 86.
Poland, 30, 44, 45, 75, 98, 105, 142,

r 5J X 54> 211,220.

Politis, M., 53.

Ports, Waterways, and Railways Com-
mission, 141, 143, 146, 149.

Portugal, 24, 30, 99 n., 176, 225.

Pospisil, Dr., 83.

Postal Union, 2.

Pottevin, Dr., 90.

Preparatory Commission for the Dis-
armament Conference, 212-13, 215.

Procope, M., 75.

Production, international organization

of, 34) 36, 53) 54, 55) 5 6 ) 57) 60,
63, 157, 216-17, 236-8.

Prohibitions, import and export, Con-
vention, 51, 52.

Property, protection of foreigners', 34,
52.

Protocol of Geneva, 211, 214.

Publicity, 109, 121, 126, 136, 162, 164,
182-3, 192, 2 35) 23% 249) 251-

Pugh, Mr., 59.

Rappard, Prof. W. E., 176, 185.
Ratifications, 162, 165, 231, 254.
Ravitaillement, Commission inter-

nationale, 23, 27.
Raw materials, 34, 36, 53, 54, 55, 62,

217, 237, 251.
Reconstruction, 34, 65, 69, 79-82, 140,

154.

Red Cross Societies, 8893, 98, 102-3.
Redlich, Prof., 139.
Redslob, Prof., 180.
Refugees, 81-2, 105, 107, 251.
Regional representation, 43-4, 75, 119,

146, 147.
Reports from governments, 87, 101-2,

161, 162, 164, 172, 174, 178-9, 183-

4, 190, 191, 216, 247.
Representation of countries, 6r, 119,

*5 6 > 2 33-

of unofficial groups, 58-60, 68, 72,
78, 89, 90, 119, 128-9, 136, 151,
156, 163-4, 209, 212, 220, 242,
252, 253-4, 256.

INDEX

265

Representatives of mandatory govern-
ments, 174, 175, 179, 184-92, 195.

Rhine Commission, 143. See also Allied
Rhineland Commission.

Richardson, General (administrator of
W. Samoa), 184-92.

Rist, M., 75.

Rocco, M.Alfred, 118.

Rockefeller Foundation, 103.

Rome, Convention of, (Health), 86, 91,
92, 99, 106. _

Roosevelt, President, 224.

Roumania, 4, 24, 30, 44, 45, 97, 142.

Roume, M., 178.

Rubber, 62,' 83.

Rublee, Mr. G., 26, 27, 89.

Russell Pasha, 222.

Saar, 153.

Sakenobe, M., 176.

Salter, Sir J. Arthur, 21, 22, 23, 24, 27,

246, 250.
Sanctions, economic, 162.

military, 208.
Santoliquido, Dr., 102.
Scandinavia, 4, 43, 75, 98, 210.
Scialoja, S., 75.
Scientific Property, Convention on,

126-7.

Seas, freedom of, 142.
Secretariat of the League, 8, 95, 134,

148, 150, 173, 176,225,256.
Security, and disarmament, 201-2, 204,

206,209,210,213,215,217, 243.
Sekiba, M., 43.
Seligman, Prof., 77.
Serbia, 30. See also Jugo-Slavia.
Serruys, M., 45.
Shanghai Conference, 223, 224.
Shotwell Committee, 210.
Siam, 225, 227, 228, 229.
Singapore, 100, 101, 104.
Smith, Sir H. Llewellyn, 30 n.
Smuts, General, 65, 169, 170.
South Africa, 106, 180-1.
South America, 40, 43, 75, 78, 97, 100,

118.
Sovereignty, 9, 32, 60, 86-7, 108, 142,

163, 170, 171, 180-1, 203-4, 208,

217, 243-5, 2 47-

Spain, 76, 96, 99 n., 105, 144, 176, 211,
232.

Stamp, Sir Josiah, 77, 201.

Statistical Committee, 4950.
Conferences, 49, 50.

Statistics, health, 101, 103.

International Institute of, 49, 50.

Steegman, Dr., 90.

Stevens, R. B., 26.

Stipulated Supply, Scheme for, 2367.

Strakosch, Sir Henry, 76.

Strauss, Mr., 70.

Stresemann, Dr., 43.

Sub-committees, and special commit-
tees, 46-7, 49, 52, 63, 77, 84, 95, 98,
100, 105, 107, 116-17, I2I ~a? 124,
126, 150-1, 156, 161, 164, 233, 242.

Substitutes on Committees, 46, 96-7,
148, 178, 216, 228, 248.

Suez, 86, 157.

Sugar, Allied Commission, 23, 26.
and the League, 55, 57-8.

Super-ministries, 255.

Supervisory Commission, 162.

Supreme Council of the Allies, 80, 193.
Economic Council, 21, 29-30, 37, 44,
49, 60, 140, 141.

Suvich, S., 75.

Switzerland, 44, 45, 75, 76, 96, 98,
99 n., 149, 1 60, 176, 220, 228.

Sweden, 75, 208.

Syria, 178, 182, 184, 193, 194, 251.

Tardieu, M,, 64.

Tariffs, 51, 52,^55, 251,255. ^

Temporary Mixed Commission, 209
12, 214, 216.

Ter Meulen, M., 76.

Theodoli, Marquis, Chairman of Man-
dates Commission, 176, 178, 186,
188-9.

Tittoni, Marquis, 54.

Trade Unions, and the League, 160-1,
i6 S .

Transit Committee, 9, 33, 92, 101, 127,
139-58, 161, 212, 213, 232, 239,
241, 248, 254, 255.
Conferences, 144-6, 151-2, 154.
Convention for freedom of, 141, 142,
143, 150.

266

INDEX

Treaty of Peace, 9, 13, 142, 144, 159,

224-5.

Trendelenberg, Dr., 39.
Turkey, 81, 140, 151, 157, 170, 212,

228, 232, 235.

University relations, 121, 123, 126,

J 36, 137-8.
institutes, international, 112, 129-

30-

international, 108, no, 129, 136,
1378; summer, Brussels, 1 1 i~i 2,
114.

Uruguay, 220, 231.
U.S.A., 4, 24, 25, 27, 28, 34, 43, 50, 61,
64, 65, 66-7, 68, 69, 70, 72, 75, 78,
% 93> 9 6 J 97, 99 n - 5 Il8 > H*, 15^

171, 182, 198, 201, 212, 220, 223,

224, 235, 242. See also American
co-operation.

U.S.S.R., 5, 29, 78, 99 n., 104-5, I0 ^
151, 170, 205, 212, 242.

Van Rees, M. 5 173, 176.
Van Wettum, M., Chairman of Opium
Committee, 226-7, 235 n.

Velghe, M., 97-8.

Venereal disease, 100, 102, 105,

Venezuela, 149, 230.

Veterinary Police Committee, 46-7.

Vienna, 86.

Violence and the League, 161, 241.

Vistula, 154.

War, causes of, 36, 57, 157, 200, 205.

outlawry of, 20910.

The Great, 2, 10, 30, 79, 224.
Washington, D. C., U.S.A., 87, 99,

102, 104, 118.

Western Samoa, 183, 184-92, 193, 194.
Wheat Executive, 23, 26.
White Slave traffic, 14, 218-21.
Wilson, President, 31, 32, 34, 66, 68,

71, 170, 171.
Winslow, Prof., 102.
Women members of CommitleeSj 43,

95,97, 1 1 6.
Woolf, L., 192.
Wright, Mrs. Hamilton, 227.

Youth, instruction of in aims of the
League, 121, 124, 135.

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