The League Of Nations To Day Its Growth Record And Relation To British Foreign Policy

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THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

THE Lp&^E OF
NATIONS T0UDAY

ITS GROWTH, RECORD
AND RELATION TO
BRITISH FOREIGN POLICY

BY

ROTH WILLIAMS

NEW YORK
HENRY HOLT AND COMPANY

1923

Printed fa Vmt M1 fy

CHWIH IROT1RS UMIT Tl WAM WWWM A0

PREFACE

THE LEADERS OF THE GOVERNMENT AND OPPOSITION
PARTIES ON THE LEAGUE.

" During the war you all remember it there
was no feeling nearer our hearts than that as a result
of victory we should secure not only peace now but
peace in time to come. We surely have not for-
gotten that feeling* Now that the war is over an
attempt to realise it is found in the League of Nations*
I think it is growing in usefulness, and I say that
so far as I and the Government of which I am the
head are concerned, we shall do everything in our
power to make it more useful and more efficient/*
Mr. Bonar Law at the Glasgow
Unionist Association, October 26,
1922.

" Labour is working for an all-inclusive League
of Nations with power to deal with international
disputes by methods of judicial arbitration and
conciliation. Through the League of Nations an

agreement can be reached for a limitation of arma-
ments, with general disarmament as the goal/*

Labour Party Manifesto (issued
October 25, 1922).

" We have insisted ever since the Armistice upon
the supreme necessity of giving the League of Nations
real and governing authority. We have protested
time after time against its supersession by a small

6 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

oligarchical body of the Great Powers which goes
by the name of the Supreme Council*

" Before the war the great aim of our foreign
policy, as piirsued by Sir Edward Grey and myself,
was to secure such a balance of power in Europe
as would preserve peace, and for the best part of
ten years that policy was ptirsued with success. It
is obsolete now, and I am very glad that it is. But
it is obsolete because an instrument which did not
then exist has been put into the hands of the nations,
in the League of Nations, an instrument meant not
for ornament, but for constant and practical use/*

Mr, Asqutth at Peterborough^

October 27, 1922.

t On the League of Nations I have never changed
my mind* . * . I am for the League of Nations,
I am in favour of all the countries of Europe being
enrolled amongst its members. 1 am in favour of
making every reasonable concession in order to
induce the United States of America to associate
itself with that great body, if it can be accomplished,
for until you get all the nations of Europe in
and I still think until you get the United States
of America there the League of Nations will be
crippled, it will not have the necessary authority,
the necessary power.

" Therefore the object of any government in this
country ought to be to get a League of Nations
in which the great nations of the earth as well as
the small will be enrolled for the purpose of achieving
an enduring guarantee for peace on earth and good-
will among men/"

Afn LloyA George, at a meeting of
National Liberal Party wem*
bers of Parliament and Parlia^
tnentary candidates, at the HoUl
Victoria, Ocfobif 35,

CONTENTS

PAOK

PREFACE ......... 5

INTRODUCTION ....... II

SECT/ON OW

OUR CIVILISATION, THE WORLD WAR AND
THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

CHAPTER

X. WHY THE LEAGUE IS NECESSARY . . . XQ
II. WHAT THE LEAGUE IS .....* 30

SECTION TWO
HOW THE LEAGUE 18 ORGANISED

III* THE ASSEMBLY, COUNCIL, AND COURT * . 45

IV. THE SECRETARIAT-GENEKAL, TECHNICAL AND
ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANISATIONS, ADVISORY
COMMISSIONS, AND INTERNATIONAL LABOUR
OFFICE ....... 50

SECTION

WHAT THE LEAGUE HAS DONE
THE CASE OF VXLNA AND THE UFFEK SILESIAH

8BTTLEMENX . . , ' , . 63C

8 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

VI. THE AALANl) ISLANDS, ALBANIA, At-STKIA, AND

REDUCTION OF ARMAMKNTvS 7!

VII, KKPATJRIATION OF WAR PRI80NKKS ; KMLIKF OF
REFUGEES; THE WOKK OF TUB HEALTH
ORGANISATION ....... 85

VIII, OPIUM, THE TRAFFIC IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN,

FINANCE, TRANSIT ...... 97

S&CTIQN FOUM

THE POSITION TO-DAY

IX. THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE

LEAGUE .,.*,.** 107
X. THE ATTITUDE OF GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND TUB

U.SA. ...*,.,., 121

SECTION P/FM

HOW TO USE THE LEAGUE
XL THE NEED FOR A BRITISH LEAD J HOW TO

EQUIP OURSELVES TO GIVE THE LEAD* , 1$I
XIL A LEAGUE POLICY FOR ADJUSTING KKLAT10NS
WITH THE DOMINIONS AND WITH EASTERN
NATIONS; FOE BRINGING AMERICA AND
EUROPE TOGETHER ; FOE A SETTLEMENT IN
WEST AND EAST EUROPE; FOR DISARMA-
MENT. A WORLD AT PEACE , * . * 17

BIBL1O0RAFHY . ..... 200

CONTENTS

APPENDICES

PAOK

APPENDIX A. MEMBERSHIP OF THE LEAGUE AFTER

THE THIRD MEETING OF THE ASSEMBLY 201

APPENDIX B. TIIK SIZE AND METHOD OF ALLOCATION

OF THE LEAGUE'S BUDGET .... 204

APPENDIX C. LEAGUE DEVELOPMENTS, DECEM-
BER 19^2 TO FEBRUARY 1923 . . * 208

INDEX .

INTRODUCTION

aim of this t book is to enable any reader who
has vague ideas about the League, and' is ordinarily
interested in politics, to exclaim after finishing it :
14 'Now I know what the League is and what we
ought to do about :it. lf For this reason the first
chapter briefly outlines the factors in the post-war
world that make the League system and idea
necessary;' the second attempts to ^describe pre-
cisely what the League of Nations is and how it
works ; then follows an account of how the League
machinery is constructed and the relation of the
parts to each other ; some of the things accom-
plished or attempted by the League since its
foundation ; the process of constitutional evolution
that the League has undergone during the three
years of its existence ; the present attitude to the
League of the three great states Germany, Russia
and the U.S. A .-that are not yet members ; and
finally a number of suggestions for equipping our
own country to take the lead in getting all
countries into the League and transacting all
international questions through the League system,
as part of a bold and consistent peace policy in
Europe and the world.

Throughout I have endeavoured to present tKe
League, not as an agglomeration of opaque and 1
inert facts, but as the resultant of living forces
which are still in operation, and of which the
public opinion and consequent policy of England
is one of the .greatest, The point of view from

12 THE LEAGUE OP NATIONS TO-DAY

which' I have written is that the League of Nations

is a method or way of conducting foreign affairs
to which a certain number of states have pledged

themselves. In order that this system or way of
doing things should become the only method used
it is necessary first that all nations should pledge
themselves to use it ; second, that public opinion
in all nations should 'develop a belief in the method
compelling adherence to these pledges in the letter
and the spirit ; and third, that the method itself
that is, the provisions of the Covenant and
the procedure and organisations based on those
provisions should be perfected.

Consequently, facts are approached in the fol-
lowing pages primarily with a view to finding out
what is to be done about them : the discussion on
the constitutional 'evolution of the League points
the way to helping on this evolution in desirable
directions ; the discussion on the attitude of
Russia and the U.S.A. leads up to
proposals for , getting those countries into the
LeaguCy and so on. ?Notably the chapters on what
the League has done give a selection of activities--
both failures and successes intended to show how
the League system works in practice and what
sort of difficulties have to be overcome to make it
supreme. Little or nothing has been said about
the administration of the Saar, the work of
the Danzig High Commissioner, or the mandates
system, since all these arc special and subsidiary
international activities that are bound to work well
once the general League system of co-operation
and peaceful settlement of disputes is consistently
and vigorously applied, but which are not directly
germane to the development of these major,
essential activities* On the other hand, the work
of the International Labour Office has not been
described, partly because it would illustrate no new
principle, but merely show a special application
of League methods to international labour prob*

INTRODUCTION 18

lems, just as the transit and health organisations
of the League show their application to inter-
national transit and health problems, and partly
because the complete autonomy of the Labour
Office and the volume of its activities would require
<a separate book to do it justice it is almost a
League of Nations in itself.

In order to emphasise the fact that this book
has been shaped from the flux of day-to-day
politics, not elaborated in a study, and is bent to
the severely practical task of showing how the
League, as it exists to-day, might be utilised as
the vehicle for a vigorous and sustained attempt
on the part of Great Britain to lead the world
out of the morass in which we have all been
floundering since the war, and in so doing might
be forged into an instrument of greater power
and precision,, I have refrained from consulting the
numerous admirable books that have been written
on the League, and instead based myself through-
out on the material supplied by the Information
Section of the League Secretariat, as well as the
official documents sold by the Secretariat. The
most useful single publication is undoubtedly
the Monthly Summary of the League of Nations,
a bulletin sold by the League Secretariat and
giving a compact and strictly objective official
account of the current activities of all League
Organisations and conferences* The knowledge
gained from these sources has been supplemented
by several protracted visits to Geneva, including
all three Assemblies and many of the Council
meetings, and by a fair amount of travel up and
down our war-stricken Continent.

The League was our chief aim in the war, and
both during and after the Peace Conference the
British Government, bad as Its record is in the
light of any but the most modest standards, has
done relatively better than any other government
has proved less niggardly in financing League

14 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

activities, less unready to refer questions to the
League for settlement, and less dilatory in ^ carry-
ing out League, decisions. Public opinion in
England, too, has been less ignorant and apathetic
about, <the League than in any other country* There
is no counterpart in the world to the League of
Nations Union, nor to the fine and continuous
support of the League by a part of the British
Press, Finally, there is no parallel elsewhere to
the way all parties ;at the last general election
pledged themselves up to the hilt to the League,
and many candidates made the League one of
their main planks.

The general election is over now, and there
is a Conservative Government with a strong
Labour-Liberal Opposition. The Government has
some tremendous problems of foreign policy to
solve, the leeway of four years to make up, and
it is going to be met with the League of {Nations
at almost every step it takes ; in proportion as
present methods of dealing with the 'Near Eastern
and reparations problems succeed^ the question of
getting Turkey, Russia and Germany into the
League becomes an immediate political issue, while
in proportion as these methods fail the demand
grows stronger that the Third Assembly's resolu-
tions should be acted "on and these matters referred
to the League. Every time the Allies meet,
the question of Supreme Council versus League
methods will be raised by the Opposition in
Parliament and Press. Foreign politics must take
first place for some time to come, and there wIE
be few debates on foreign politics that do not
include a discussion of how to use the League.
The League of 'Nations has come into politics!
and come to stay- It is now a first-class live
issue* : i i

Meanwhile the League itself has been through?
many vicissitudes since its birth^ has slowly thrust
its way up, and along through a thousand

INTRODUCTION 15

culties,, in the murk of obscxirity, and emerged at
last, battered, but tough, alive and growing. Only
the League that has survived is something widely
different from what either its friends had hoped
or its enemies feared in the days of the Peace
Conference.

Clearly at this juncture of the world's affairs
there should be a book to describe what the
League is to-day, and a book so written as to be
a practical guide to those who in Parliament and
Press and up and down the land want concrete
proposals preferably right, but as a next best
clearly and specifically wrong on how we must
tackle the problems that lie before us in this year
and the next.

Such is the aim of this book.

ROTH WILLIAMS.
LONDON,

December 1922,

SECTION ONE

OUR CIVILISATION, THE WORLD WAR
AND THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS

CHAPTER I
WHY THE LEAGUE IS NECESSARY

THE most striking characteristic of our civilisa-
tion is the extent to which material development
has outrun social and political organisation.
London and New York are nearer each other
to-day in point of travel than London and
Liverpool one hundred years ago, and infinitely
nearer as regards communication of information ;
to-day the Stock Exchanges of London and New
York know all about each other's dealings a few
minutes after they have taken place, whereas one
hundred years ago it took days for London and 1
Liverpool to learn about one another "s transactions.
[Nevertheless, inhabitants, of New York and London
to-day, although infinitely more fully and promptly
informed of each other's doings than the citizens
of London and Liverpool one hundred years ago,
and far nearer in point of ease, frequency,
and swiftness of travel, have no such ordered
political and juridical relations jas obtained between
Liverpool and London a century ago, but live in a
state of mutual anarchy, tempered by a number
of customs and traditions known as international
law.

The reason for this anomalous state of affairs
is that the industrial and mechanical revolutions of
the nineteenth century that brought the railway,
steamship and telegraph, and so made possible in
Europe a vast increase of population, based on
manufacture and trade with other countries, co-

19

20 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

Incided with the rise of modern nationalism, a
sentiment based on the natural and eternal feeling
of love of country, but in its extrcmcr form includ-
ing metaphysical doctrines postulating a belief in
international anarchy, a perversion of Darwin's
theory of natural selection that would make that
sage turn in his grave, and the corollary of these
doctrines the inevitability and Providential nature
of war. Thus the years immediately preceding
the war saw in Central and Western Europe, on
the one hand, largely a cultural and economic unit,
supporting gigantic industries and teeming popula-
tions by means of raw products and foodstuffs
drawn from East Europe, Africa and America, in
exchange for capital and manufactured goods ; on
the other hand, the great nations comprising most
of this area, practically unconscious of their own
interdependence, vehemently maintaining the state
of international anarchy in which they lived,
dividing into two great camps, arming to the teeth
and finally plunging into the greatest and most
fearful war ever known.

The first result of this war is that, in terms of
national welfare, there are no victors only powers
that have suffered more than others, and powers
that have more power of inflicting suffering than
others. In all the ex -belligerent countries life is
harder and darker than it was before the war,
and civilisation is felt to have gone backward since
1914. A second result is the accentuation of those
factors of material development that before the
war were rapidly weaving a network of inter-
dependent interests and needs throughout human
society. To the steam and coal, railway, steam-
ship, telegraph and telephone of pre-war clays have
been added oil-fuel, motor transport, wireless,
radiotelephony, the airship and aeroplane* The
war has not abolished the factors making inter-
nationalism obligatory, but developed them still
further. This conclusion is strengthened by the

WHY THE LEAGUE IS NECESSARY 21

consideration that by the end of the war both
sides had been forced to a degree of international-
isation that would have been thought inconceiv-
able before and certainly can be paralleled in no
previous war. Among the Allies pooling of
shipping, coal, natural resources and manufactured
goods had been achieved, and were followed by
centralised military and naval control. Among the
Central Powers unification had been pushed even
further and gave rise to the grandiose project of
" Mittel Europa." Since the war the Allies have
floundered in a tangle of mutual indebtedness, until
at last politicians are being forced to recognise
publicly what financiers have long been agreed on
in private, namely, that the question of German
reparations will never be settled until a large part
of Germany's liabilities are set off against Allied
indebtedness, and then an international loan floated
(chiefly among the ex -Allies, but also among the
ex-neutrals) for Germany's benefit. So we shall
have the paradox: of the Allies lending Germany
money in order to enable that country to pay them-
selves. This is sound modern finance, but it is
also; a startling illustration of the lengths to which
compulsory internationalism is going in our day 1
But the third result of the war appears
paradoxical, a sheer reversal of the process which
can be traced throughout the war and for very
many years before : The war shattered three great
Empires and brought to life as sovereign states
a number of small nations, some of whom had
never been independent before, and most of whom
had been submerged for centuries. Now it was
no accident that ordained the disappearance of
these small states, and, indeed, of all small states
in Europe, except on the fringes (the Scandinavian^
Balkan and Iberian Peninsulas, Holland and
Belgium) or on inaccessible mountains (Switzer-
land). The swallowing up of small states was due
to that very combination of intransigent national-

22 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

ism and economic development that led to Europe-
being divided into a few igreat states, to their
separation into two vast camps, to the armed peace,
and finally to the world war. 1 What is to happen
to these small states that have arisen from the
dead? What is to prevent the process beginning
again? What is to prevent Germany and Russia
coming together in one camp, France with the
Baltic States, Poland and the Little Entente form-
ing another, and Great Britain holding aloof ? If
the old ideas and the old system continue, there
is not only nothing to prevent this consummation,
but every reason why it should come about* And
if it does, the lot of such of the resurrected states
as are allowed to remain neutral is scarcely
enviable, as the neutrals surviving the late war can
testify. Only as the next war, if it takes place,
will be fought largely in the air, and accompanied
by even profounder social and economic disturb-
ances than the last, the lot of the would-be neutral
will be even more difficult and uncertain*

It is true there are powerful forces working
against a, return to ( thei old ways. In the first place
the Balance of Power idea is dead in England no
political party could advocate it and survive at
the polls, and no political party does advocate it,
Government and Opposition both stand for a
foreign policy based on reconstruction and co-

1 Incidentally, it was the intransigent nationalism of the great
states that led to their undoing Austria-Hungary stumbled into
war and ultimately broke up owing to her failure to conciliate
the Slav races within her borders* The Poles and the Alsace*
Lorrainers were weak spots in the German body corporate, and
the oppression of the Alsace-Lorraincrs was also one of the funda-
mental causes of the war. The very trade rivalry between England
and Germany could lead to naval rivalry and ultimately to war
only for the same reason. The exactly similar trade rivalry
between the United States of America and Great Britain has never
led to hostility between the two countries, and naval competition
was put a stop to almost before it began, for the simple but profound
reason that Englishmen and Americans do not quite regard each
other as foreigners, and consequently kept the United States*
Canadian frontier unguarded and so acquired the habit of settling
their differences by arbitration.

WHY THE LEAGUE IS. NECESSARY 23

operation In Europe. This change is partly due
to 1 a realisation of Great Britain's inextricable and
inevitable economic dependence on the Continent of
Europe. It comes partly from recognition of the
fact that the aeroplane; and airship have wiped out
the English Channel, and that the next war, if
it comes, will find (Great Britain without her old
geographical advantage. But not least this change
fs due to a genuine political and moral evolution,
to wide views and a pacific civilisation, a belief
in the possibility of lasting peace, and a longing
to achieve it. The idea of co-operation is also
held by strong elements in all countries,, while even
those who do not embrace it freely admit that a
return to the old system or rather lack of system,
for the old order of things was anarchy tempered
by alliances means the inevitability of war.

Moreover, before Germany can regain her
freedom and power of action the reparations
problem must be settled, and that problem can
only be settled, as is now generally recognised,,
by, amongst other measures, cancelling of debts
against reparations and an international loan to
Germany,, a loan in which the chief sums would be
raised in France, Great Britain and the U.S.A.
Similarly, before Russia can become a first-class
power again, she must undergo a long period of
reconstruction involving! foreign investments, under-
takings, and commitments of all kinds in Russia on
a gigantic scale. The natural and obvious scheme
for a large proportion of these developments will
be the association of German technical skill; expert
knowledge and old connections in Russia with
Western capital, The first result of an adjustment
of the relations between the Allies on the one hand
and Germany and Russia on the other will there-
fore, in all human probability, be the creation of
a double set of mutual interests financial interests
and business interests between all these powers.
Thus there is a powerful combination of economic

24 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

ties and political forces militating against a return
to the pre-war condition of Europe.

Nevertheless, a new method is needed, an
alternative system for conducting foreign affairs
that will make remote and wildly improbable a
return to the old system of a few great competing
Empires, and will allow Europe, while made ^up
of many separate national states, each contributing
its own colour and texture to the common fabric,
to develop its cultural and economic solidarity,,
and so to strengthen and enrich the stuff of our
civilisation. For the new states, in particular, -it
is vital that such a system should be found, and,
when found, should be made a success, for they
would be the first to suffer, and to suffer most
grievously, from a return to the old ways. For
us, too, it is hardly less obviously a vital interest
in the literal sense to consolidate the, world's peace,
for we are an industrial nation, doomed by
fate to live by trade with foreigners, and we are
also members of a far-flung community of nations
and dependencies that is already too large and
unwieldy, and so has no conceivable interest in
war, and every reason for keeping the peace,
But the late war and its aftermath have surely
made it clear to all nations that without the temper
of peace we cannot have the works of peace, the
groundwork of goods and services no less than
the higher things connoted by " arts and sciences/*
for most of these things are prostituted or
destroyed by war. And so without the temper of
peace, what we know as civilisation will first grow
rotten and then crumble,

This new system, the necessary alternative to
self-destroying, imperialist anarchy, must clearly,
when found, satisfy certain fundamental conditions,
While based on and most explicitly and fully
recognising the principle of national sovereignty,
it must provide for co-operation in all subjects
of international concern* It must provide for

WHY THE LEAGUE IS NECESSARY 25

peaceful settlement of disputes, but while also
furnishing collective deterrents against any in-
fringement of this obligation, must finally not only
not stereotype the status quo, but explicitly recog-
nise and allow for the necessity of from time to
time revising treaties and in other ways peacefully
changing international conditions when the existing
state of things becomes a burden and a menace
to world peace. The Covenant of the League,
with the interpretations and amendments it has
since undergone,, arid the system of conferences and
international organisations built on the Covenant
in a word, the League of Nations do broadly
satisfy these conditions. The League of Nations
is an elastic system, and an association of states
whose membership is not complete. There have
already been changes and adjustments, and there
will no doubt be many more and more important
changes and adjustments. But in its general idea
and fundamental principles the League of Nations
does represent just that way of doing things which
the analysis just given of the European situation
showed was necessary. The League is in essence
an attempt to meet real needs in a common-sense
way.

Whether the attempt will succeed is, of course,
a matter that only the future can show. In the
opinion of cool observers it is a race between
organisation for peace and preparation for war,
between salvation and destruction, and which will
win is; a matter that depends entirely on our own;
efforts, and that will not become apparent for at
least five or ten years after the end of the war*
It will take at least five years for public opinion
to be demobilised, the khaki parliaments 1 replaced
by legislatures elected on peace issues, and for
the effects of these changes to be decisively felt.
It will also take at least five years after the end

* The British Parliament has been re-elected; the French
general election mast take place not later than May, 1924,

26 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

of the war for the European situation to u crystal-
lise out/' for the new states to find their feet and 1
establish their relations with each other and the
rest of the world ; for the great outstanding
questions of inter-allied debts and reparations to
be finally settled settled so as to be reduced' to
accepted schemes of annual payments that cannot
give rise to political crises and for the relations
between victors and vanquished to be established
on, a peace basis ; at least five years to get 'Russia
back into the comity of nations. Within those
five years all that can reasonably be expectld of
the League system is that the powers pledged to
work it shall not kill it, but will keep it alive.
On the other hand, if in ten or fifteen years after
the end of the war the world has not set into the
League of Nations mould, there is every reason to
fear a return to the old anarchy of rival alliances.
Meanwhile, not quite three years after the end
of the war, the League is doing? considerably better
than this forecast would allow, for it has not only,
kept alive, it has gone ahead slowly but surely^
and is steadily gaining 1 ground. In proportion
as Entente dictatorship and Supreme Council
improvisations are becoming discredited both inside
and outside the Allied countries, the League
alternative is rising in the esteem of all Europe,
This is reflected inside the League organisations
by a feeling of confidence and permanence, of
knowing what to do and how to do, it relations
have been worked out between all the technical
organisations, advisory commissions, Council,
Assembly, and- corresponding sections of the
Secretariat-General, as well as between all these
and the Governments Members of the League, All
the cogs fit, all the wheels turn smoothly, and
the whole machinery is solidly set and well
tempered. And as the League organisations
intensify their inner cohesion, so their working
spreads ever more extensively over the world ;

WHY THE LEAGUE IS NECESSARY 27

Germany has taken part in all the technical
conferences of any importance (e.g. the Paris
Passports Conference, the Brussels Financial Con-
ference, the Barcelona Transit Conference, the
Warsaw Health Conference, etc.), is represented
on the Opium Commission, the Traffic In Women
and Children Commission, and about to be repre-
sented on the Health and Transit Committees :
Russia took part in the Warsaw Health Conference,
and the League Health Organisation is about to
extend its work into West Russia, for which
purpose it has established close relations with the
Soviet health authorities and set up offices in
Moscow and Kiev. Even the attitude of the
United Stages is changing : an official American
representative takes part in the work on standard-
isation of sera, official representatives are to take
part in the Traffic in Women and Children Com-
mission and the discussions on anthrax in the
International Labour Office Committee ; co-opera-
tion with the Hoover Relief Organisation and the
International Health Board' of the Rockefeller
Foundation is in full blast, an American judge
sits in the International Court and an American
doctor ia the Health Committee.

Besides the general need of the new states for
some such system as that embodied in the League,
the League, as organised at present, is part and
parcel of the settlement of East Europe. In the
Baltic the minority rights of the Aaland Islanders
and the neutralisation of the islands ' themselves
are under League auspices, i.e. may be made the
subject -of appeal to the League in cases of
alleged infraction ; in the same way the Upper
Silesian settlement and the minority treaties that
bind Poland, Czecho -Slovakia, Yugo-Slavia and
Roumaaia mean that these states, if they get into
trouble on nationality questions with their great
neighbours, have clearly defined rights and duties,
and are entitled to claim the protection of the

28 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

members of the League so long 1 as they can satisfy
the Council that they are fulfilling their duties and
not exceeding their rights. (Were the League
system to break down, there would at once be
trouble between Finland and Sweden over the
status of the Aaland Islanders, and general trouble
in the Baltic over the neutralisation of! the islands ;
as for Poland and the succession states* they would
immediately find that if they got into conflict with
their neighbours over the Russian, German or
Hungarian minorities within their borders, they
would no longer have any clearly defined system
of rights and duties, with a court of appeal and
protection contingent on good behaviour. They
would have nothing, in fact, between themselves
and trouble, but whatever measure of physical force
and moral authority they possess themselves, and
these would not go very far with Great Powers
as their opponents and the traditions of nationalism
against them. Again, the new states are conclud-
ing health and transit conventions between them-
selves, in which the League Health and Transit
organisations respectively figure as mediators in
case of disputes always with the Council, Court
or Assembly in the background as courts of
appeal, Albania and Austria are, in different
ways, the wards of the League. The Health
Organisation is helping Poland and is to help
Latvia and Russia against epidemics ; it is also
to take a hand 1 in revising the Paris Sanitary Con-
vention of 1912 and in co-ordinating the work
of port sanitary authorities in the Eastern
Mediterranean, Lastly, the neutralisation of the
Straits, like that of the Aaland Islands, is to be
put under League auspices.

The League, in fact, is solidly dug in in Europe
both by -being designated in many of the
peace treaties as interpreter or arbiter of disputed
clauses, and by being assigned the same functions
in treaties and conventions concluded since the

WHY THE LEAGUE IS NECESSARY 29

war. Each Assembly, too, has seen increasing
recognition of this fact, as well as a steady rise
in the magnitude of past achievements and
importance of tasks to be dealt with. The Third
Assembly showed greater boldness and indepen-
dence on the part of the small powers and a more
chastened mood in the great, and this was reflected
in the election of Uruguay and Sweden to the
Council, in the strong push for having the Near
East settlement dealt with through the League*
and in the resolution on reparations and debts
this sacred subject hitherto taboo to all but the
Supreme Council. In short, it is beginning to
be realised on all hands that there can be no new
League, because there are no new nations, that
attempts to carry on on the old lines are breaking
down disastrously, and that consequently the only
thing to do is to get the remaining states into
the present League, take hold of the League
system as it is to-day, work it for all it is worth,,
and in so doing to test and ultimately transform
it into; a world-wide instrument flexible enough to
meet the needs of every nation and authoritative
enough to ennoble the motives and policies of all.
But if civilisation is to win in the race with'
destruction we must put into the fight for peace
the same spirit of grim determination and sense
of " if we don't hang together we will hang
separately " that was brought to bear in the wai",
but with greater clear-headedness and with a
common hatred of war in place of the sundering
hatreds between nations.

CHAPTER II
WHAT THE LEAGUE IS

THE League of Nations Is nothing more nor less
than the nations of the League, In other words,
the League of Nations is an association of
fifty-two states which, while maintaining their
sovereignty unimpaired, have signed a treaty
called the Covenant pledging themselves (i) to
submit their disputes to peaceful settlement and to
take joint action against any power infringing this
fundamental obligation, and (2) to co-operate
positively over a series of non -political questions,,
such as questions of public health, economic and
financial matters, transit and communications, sup-
pression of the traffic in opium, suppression of
the traffic in women and children, etc.

In order to carry out the purposes to which 1
they are pledged, the Powers Members of the
League have undertaken, through signing the
Covenant and in subsequent conferences, to create
and maintain a series of administrative, advisory
and executive organs, such as the Secretariat-
General, technical organisations and various
advisory commissions ; and one judicial organ,
namely, the Permanent Court of International
Justice, Lastly, the contracting powers, in order
to discuss and decide on the policies which these
administrative and executive organs are to carry
out, have undertaken to meet once a year in the
so-called General Assembly of the League, some

of them meet every two months in the Council of

so

WHAT THE LEAGUE IS 31

the League, and all of them meet from time to
time in special conferences for special purposes,
such as the Brussels Financial Conference, the
Barcelona Transit Conference, and the Warsaw
Health Conference. At all these conferences, and
in fact in any League conference whatsoever,
the delegates to the conference are government
delegates sent by the nations they represent and
responsible to the governments of those nations.
On the other hand, the members of the Secretariat-
are appointed by the Secretary-General, and
members of some of the advisory commissions by
the Council of the League, that is, by a certain
number of the governments of the League meeting
together for certain purposes, and are not looked
upon as representatives of their countries or in
any way responsible to the governments whose
nationals they are.

The League, that is, differs from the inter-
national conferences that used to take place before
and during the war, principally in that it provides
permanent machinery to carry on from conference
to conference the work decided upon at these
gatherings, and includes the obligation to hold
general conferences at regular intervals, as well as
facilitates the summoning of special conferences
as occasion may demand. In other words, the
Governments Members of the League have
attempted to organise on permanent lines and co-
ordinate systematically the methods of international
conference and co-operation that had grown up
in a sporadic ad hoc manner before the war, in
response ito the growing interdependence of modern
nations, and the consequent increasing frequency
and complexity of international contacts.

All this, it might be thought, must be sufficiently
elementary to be obvious and generally realised
in the third year of the League's existence.
Unhappily, however,, this is not the case. (Not only
is knowledge of the very nature of the League

82 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

usually absent to-day, but in many quarters definite
misconceptions are to be met, while even where
these misconceptions would be repudiated in words
there is a vague general attitude that implies the
same beliefs.

Thus one review writes that small and obscure
bodies -' like the Friends' Relief Committee, the
* Save the Children Fund/ and the League of
Nations " have done more to influence men's minds
and to guide events than Prime Ministers or Field-
Marshals; while another scornfully refers to the
League as " the organisation housed at Geneva "
and berates it for not solving any of Britain's
problems, such as those of India, Egypt and
Ireland. Recently an American Senator enthusi-
astically declared that <l the members of the
League are men of such high character that
Americans could not .possibly incur any danger in
helping them in their sane efforts to bring order
out of chaos/' while as a sort of feminine counter-
blast a woman delegate to the Third Assembly
voiced her belief to that startled body that the
League of [Nations must become a " league of
mothers " I

Most people will, of cour$e, consider these
utterances merely funny, and will realise that the
League of Nations is an association of states, a
system through which governments can, when they
wish to apply it, get things done by open and fair
methods on a truly international basis. It is easy
to see, when the issue is baldly stated, how absurd
it is to talk of the League of Nations as though
it were an independent committee of individuals
chosen for their personal merits maternity appears
to be the criterion suggested in one case and
planted at Geneva with a roving brief to set the
jworld straight after the war and do jobs for
tired 1 statesmen. If, e.g., the British Government
wishes to bring the problems of Ireland, India or
Egypt before the League, all it has to do is to

WHAT THE LEAGUE IS 33

instruct its representative on the Council in this
sense. And if any other Government Member of
the League cares to risk a rebuff for a British
Government might hold that these are matters of
domestic, not international, concern it can, under
Article XI of the Covenant, bring the matter before
the Council or Assembly. Failing these alterna-
tives, it is simply fatuous to reproach the
" League " for not <! settling " these problems.
The League is a system to be applied by states,
not an entity that acts on its own.

But the serious thing is that people who see
the absurdity of this misconception when it is
crudely stated, habitually think and behave as
though it were true. Thus a great Liberal paper
argued the other day that, since Rournania and
Yugo-Slavia were being invited to attend the Near
East Conference, the League of Nations too, which
had much wider interests, should be invited to
send representatives. And the plea is constantly
being made by adherents of the go-slow school
that the League must be allowed to grow and
acquire prestige, that it has only moral authority
and cannot move a man or a gun, and so is not
capable of tackling important problems ; while
ardent believers in the League argue on the other
hand that it must be given an army and so be
able to impose its decisions.

How can there be a representative, in the sense
suggested, of fifty-two sovereign states, even
though these states have agreed to co-operate for
certain purposes? In the Near East conference
most of the states concerned are members of the
League. If they had chosen to deal with the
matter through the League system i.e. by bring-
ing it before the Council (of which France, Italy
and Great Britain are members) with the repre-
sentation thereon of all the other states concerned,
including, in accordance with Article XVII of the
Covenant, the two non-members of the League,

34 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

Russia and Turkey they could have done so,
They did not, and no other Member State has
cared to insist upon doing so, as it would have
a right to do under Articles III and XI of the
Covenant. These were the two lines on which
action could be taken. But suggesting that " the
League" should send "a representative" is not
a possible line of action ; it is merely a fresh
instance of the old anthropomorphic illusion that
the League of Nations is some kind of independent
entity. The League is not an institution or young
superstate that must be left to grow or given an
army to play with, as the case may be but a
system that must be applied by states.

The only way for the League of Nations to
acquire prestige is for the States Members of the
League to honour their pledges, by dealing with
all international problems through the League, by
faithfully carrying out decisions arrived at in this
way, and by sending their best men with full
powers to the Council, Assembly and other League
conferences. The way to give League decisions
authority is for the States Members of the League
chiefly concerned to pledge themselves beforehand
to back up these decisions. This is what Great
Britain, France, Italy and Japan (as members of
the Supreme Council) actually did when they asked
the League Council to recommend a solution of
the Upper Silesian problem and pledged them-
selves beforehand to accept and enforce this
solution. The League of Nations can move as
many men and guns, in any given case, as any or
all of the States Members of the League arc
willing to mobilise and pay for to carry out the
League's decision in this case. If Great* Britain,
France, Sweden and the other ten present members
of the Council are not willing to use any of their
own troops to enforce a decision which they, as
members .of the Council, have taken, are they likely
to go to war in a less efficient way by paying

WHAT THE LEAGUE IS 85

for the operations of a " League army " to enforce
the same decision? And if not, who will? And
where, how and at whose expense is the army
to be commanded, recruited, equipped and kept
when off duty?

The two chief mistakes arising out of the
illusion that the League is some kind of
independent entity, a committee of individuals with
vague semi-judicial functions, a sort of areopagus
or world-tribunal, are embodied in the demands
that (i) the League of Nations should be trans-
formed from a " League of Governments " into
a lt League of Peoples," and (2) the League of
Nations should be freed from all connection with
the Peace Treaties.

Let us start with the idea very firmly and
clearly in mind that the League of Nations is an
association of states founded for the purpose of
international co-operation, and test these two
demands in the light of that conception. In order
to co-operate, the States Members of the League
meet from time to time in conferences either
conferences for dealing with all subjects within
the range of the League (i.e. the Assembly and
the Council) or technical conferences to deal with
special subjects (i.e. the Brussels Financial Con-
ference, the Barcelona Transit Conference, the
Paris Passports Conference, the Warsaw Health
Conference, etc.).

So long as the States Members of the League
retain their sovereignty unimpaired, these con-
ferences must 'be conferences of government repre-
sentatives, for otherwise the conferences will not
be able to take decisions. So long, that is,
as the Constitution of the League remains the
Covenant, the? only result of sending elected instead
of government representatives to the Council or
Assembly would be to bring" the League to an
abrupt end. An Assembly composed in this way
could 1 not even vote the credits necessary] for carry-

36 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

ing on the work of the League organisations or
to hold its own meetings, since it could pledge no
government to pay any money. Similarly, the
work of the Council would simply not be possible
if the members of the Council were not in a
position to pledge their respective governments to
action. The same is the case with the technical
organisations, and in fact with any international
conference, whether within the League or not.
What would the [Washington Conference have
accomplished if Mr. Balfour, Mr. Hughes and the
rest of its members had been simply distinguished
private individuals instead of being, as they were,
representatives of their respective governments,
with power to bind those governments? What is
the League of Nations bu,t a series of government
conferences kept in touch with one another and
with the Governments Members of the League by
the Secretariat-General and standing organisations,
which are also responsible for carrying out the
decisions of the conferences?

All this does not mean that the fact should
be overlooked that a most important element in
international co-operation is and must increasingly
be direct contact between men and women from
the different nations. Therefore, all international
conference and discussion is good, and it is
particularly good that in the League technical
organisations and advisory commissions, in the
Labour Office conferences, etc., men and women
from every walk of life meet, confer and work
together in matters where they can begin with'
the patent economic and cultural interdependence
of all nations and so help to dissipate the dogma
of political sovereignty and the traditions of
diplomatic chicane. It is also good that an in-
creasing number of governments have got into the
habit ,of composing their Assembly delegations with 1
a view to making them representative of all
political parties in their respective countries* Bju,t

WHAT THE LEAGUE IS 37

unless decisions taken at international conferences
are in the last resort taken by government repre-
sentatives unless, e.g., the head and the one vote
of each Assembly delegation is a government
representative .casting a government vote they will
not be decisions at all, for no government will
act on them.

To secure! a " League of Peoples " in the sense
of investing elected representatives to an inter-
state body with powers binding the governments
of the states whose nationals they are, it would
be necessary for the states concerned to give up
part of their sovereignty and to create! a federation
in which, like in' all federal constitutions, there
would be one chamber of elected representatives
based on population and one chamber of repre-
sentatives of each of the federated states. That
is, to get a " League of Peoples " it would first
be necessary to create the " United States of the
World," and this again could only come abou,t
by persuading the States Members of the present
League to revise the Covenant in this sense ; it
would not come about by sending elected repre-
sentatives to the Council and Assembly of the
League of sovereign Nations that we have to-day.
Even sovereign nations can co-operate, to the
exclusion of war, as the Scandinavian nations have
long shown, and as the League gives promise of
showing in time. But this co-operation must be
inter-governmental, must take forms different from
those obtaining within one state or within a
federation of states.

Remains the demand that the League should
be freed from all connection with the Peace
Treaties. If the League were a committee of wise
and good men whose pronouncements were to
commend themselves to the powers that be solely
owing to their ideal value, it would, of course, be
obviously right that these men should not only be
elected by whole nations, to give them moral

88 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

weight, but also free to deliver themselves on all
issues as their consciences dictated. But the
League of Nations is not the spiritual adviser o
mankind ; it is not a sort of collective political
Pope shorn of temporal powers, and it would ^ not
have much of a future in this wicked world if it
were. The League is a system of co-operation
that fifty-two nations are pledged to apply. Sonic
of these fifty-two nations are signatories of certain
treaties, known as the Peace Treaties, and con-
stituting the foundation of post-war Europe.
Certain generally minor matters, these Treaties
expressly state shall be dealt ^with through the
League system (i.e. the administration of the
Saar, the status of Danzig, the interpretation and
surveillance of the working of certain clauses by
the Court or Council, etc.) and the Covenant,
which is itself part of the peace treaties, expressly
stipulates that the States Members of the League
meeting in the Assembly may, in certain circum-
stances, recommend the revision of treaties. But
except when specifically bound by the treaties
themselves, the chief signatories have hitherto
refused to deal with issues arising out of the peace
treaties through the League system, and have
preferred to set up organs of their own, known
as, the Supreme Council, the Conference ^ of
Ambassadors and the Reparations Commission,
'Through these organs solutions are dictated by
one group of powers to the other parties concerned,
as well as to the rest of the world, whose well-
being is profoundly affected by the settlement
of those issues, This procedure is generally
explained by the statement that the League system
could not successfully be applied to solve the
problems involved in making peace, and should
come into full operation only when this has been
accomplished ; it has been justified by the head
of the French Government by the statement that
the League is not the proper body to deal with

WHAT THE LEAGUE IS 89

peace treaty or reparation issues, since its member-
ship includes neutrals and may include Germany
in other words, because applying the League
system to these questions would mean the substitu-
tion for dictation by a few powers of equal
co-operation and all-round discussion by all
nations. ; |

These are the facts of the matter, and' they have
gradually led to the dropping of the demand
(except in French nationalist circles) that the
League should be freed from, all connection with
the Peace Treaties, and instead to the exactly
contrary demand that the Supreme Council and
Conference of Ambassadors should be scrapped,
the Reparations Commission made responsible to
the League Council, and, in order to make the
League system a reality in application to these
questions, Germany and Russia admitted to the
League. This demand will become more insistent
as it grows increasingly clear that the methods
of dictation by one group of powers are proving
as unsuccessful in practice as they are unalluring
in theory. i

The illusion that the League is some sort of
independent institution or committee has one more
result, perhaps the most persistent and baneful of
all, and that is the feeling of lack of responsibility.
The only people who can consistently oppose or
remain indifferent to the League are Revolu-
tionary Communists and their spiritual twins, the
doctrinaire nationalists and militarists who believe
in international anarchy and war as ends in them-
selves, or at least as inevitable and eternal. All
those in between who believe that the civilisation
we know to-day is not the last word, but that
step by step something finer and higher can be
built on its foundations ; all those, too, who realise
that there is no standing still or drifting we must
either organise for peace or prepare for war, and
if we prepare for war we shall surely get war, and

40 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

another European war will surely mean the relapse
into barbarism of the human remnants that
survive ; all these have no reason and no excuse
for not supporting the only organised attempt to
bring order and justice into international relations.
But instead of this there are a great many con-
vinced supporters of international co-operation and
constitutional progress who are lukewarm or even
hostile to the League and declare they want a
new League of Nations.

But there can be no new League of Nations,
except through the present League, for there are
no new nations. The League of Nations is an
association of fifty-two states, which it took a
world war to shake out of the old ruts to the
extent of agreeing to co-operate and to work out
the terms of their association. Those terms have
been fixed (through the Covenant and subsequent
amendments, interpretations, and other resolutions)
in, accordance with the will of these fifty-two states
and cannot be changed until that will changes,
After that they can be changed by further revision
of the Covenant. Thus some of the leading
members of the fifty-two states cannot yet be
induced to contemplate working together with two
of the three great states still outside the League,
and the third of the outside states (the U.S.A.)
cannot yet be induced to contemplate permanent
and organised co-operation with any other country
under any circumstances. In order to perfect the
methods of the League system and enlarge its
membership, to give the Assembly and technical
organisations wider powers, to- set up regional
groups within, the League, to make the League
universal, a League of Free Trade Nations, a
League of Socialist Nations, a Federation of
Nations (i.e. " League of Peoples "), or anything
whatever, it is necessary to change public opinion
in the states concerned so as to produce govern-
ments that will effect the changes desired. These

WHAT THE LEAGUE IS 41

governments will then take hold of the present
system, of what exists already, and make it over
to their will. But talk of a new League of
'Nations in the sense of a fresh start outside the
existing League is meaningless, and indifference
or hostility to the present attempt to put inter-
national relations on a new basis is little short of
criminaL 1

The war has exacerbated nationalism all over
Europe to a point where international relations
are thought of almost exclusively in terms of
hatred, fear, suspicion and force. In such an
atmosphere, of course, any system of international
co-operation simply is not allowed to function.
Gradually, slowly too slowly hitherto to keep pace
with its own destructiveness the war mind has
been giving place to, a sense of the terrible realities
and urgent needs of Europe, and to a recognition
of the basic fact that economically, financially and
culturally the nations of Europe are so interwoven
that the work of reconstruction in any one nation
cannot progress beyond a certain point without
the co-operation of all nations.

Meanwhile the agony and confusion of the last
four years have at least brought us to a point
where it is beginning to be realised (i) that the
next step in European reconstruction is a settle-
ment of the problem of German reparations and
an agreement with Russia : (2) that when that
step has been taken the present League of Nations
must be widened into a universal league and
become the medium through which the affairs of
Europe will be conducted, since the alternative
policy, that of dividing Europe into two camps,
and so returning to the balance of power and
preparation for war, will prove as difficult, owing
to the economic and financial interdependence of
all the nations concerned, as it is discredited in
advance by the political thought of Europe.

SECTION TWO
HOW THE LEAGUE IS ORGANISED

CHAPTER III
THE ASSEMBLY, COUNCIL AND COURT

THE primary organs of the League are the
Assembly, Council, International Court and
Secretariat-General. In the Assembly each State
Member of the League is represented by; a delega-
tion of not more than three members. In the
Council the four Great Powers France, Great
Britain, Italy and Japan are permanently repre-
sented by one delegate each, while the Assembly,
by majority vote, elects six additional members
from time to time (the present suggestion is that
the term of office is to be three years, and that
two of the total six shall retire every year, and
after this be ineligible for a period of three .years).
At present the six members are Belgium, Brazil,
China, Spain, Sweden and Uruguay. The Council
can decide, with the consent of the majority of the
Assembly, to increase the number of powers per-
manently or temporarily represented. As in
all League conferences, the delegations to the
Assembly and the Council are government
delegations, appointed by and responsible to the
governments of the states they represent. Each
delegation has one vote, and all questions of
procedure, including the formation of committees,
the matters to be dealt with by each committee,
and the way in which these matters are to be taken
up and discussed by the committees, are settled
by majority vote a point which, as the experience
of the Genoa Conference has shown, is of utmpst

45

46 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

importance for all the small' states. On the other
hand,, as a further safeguard of sovereignty, all
decisions of substance, as distinguished from
questions of form or procedure, require unanimity,
for ,no government will allow itself to be committed
to any policy it does not like by a majority vote
of foreign powers. To avoid a deadlock arising
out of the unanimity rule the Assembly or Council
frequently turns its decision into a f< recommenda-
tion," which can be passed by a majority vote.
This is not so very different in practice from an
Assembly or Council " decision " as might appear,
for on the one hand neither the decision nor the
" recommendation " of a government delegate at
a League or any other international conference
becomes binding on his government until ratified
by that government, involving in most cases the
approval of the legislature concerned, while on the
other hand the very fact; of a government delegate
giving his vote for a measure presupposes that
his government has given him instructions accord-
ingly and will consequently ratify.

Both the Council and the Assembly are em-
powered to deal with any matter within the sphere
of action of the League or affecting the peace
of the world, but each in addition has certain
specified powers. Thus it is the Council that in
any case of threat of war brought to- the notice
of the League by a member state is to meet and
recommend to the members of the League what
action it thinks desirable, and sunless a member
of the League specifically prefers the Assembly,
the Council is the organ designated to inquire or
arbitrate in cases of international disputes involv-
ing a member of the League. It is also the
Council which supervises the working of the
mandates system, the administrative and advisory
commissions, and the technical organisations. In
general, the composition of the Council and the
fact that it meets every two months, whereas the

THE ASSEMBLY, COUNCIL AND COURT 47

Assembly meets but once a year, has made of It
to a great extent the executive and initiatory organ
of the League of Nations.

On the other hand, the Assembly, because it
contains all the members of the League on a
footing of equality, has become the general forum
of the League, where League action in the past
is discussed and criticised and general lines of
policy laid down for the future. Thus the first
part of the Assembly's sittings are devoted to
debates on the Secretary-General's report on the
work of the Council, technical organisations,
advisory commissions and Secretariat -General
during the previous year, and the second part to
the discussion of the agenda put down by the
various members of the League or arising out of
the Secretary-General's report. In addition the
Assembly has two specific and very important
powers: it is solely responsible for the admission
of new members to the League, who are admitted
if they obtain the votes of two-thirds of the v
members present at the Assembly ; it is also
responsible for voting the budget of the League
for the ensuing year. Estimates are made of how
much money will be needed by the Council, the
Secretariat-General and other League organisations
to hold conferences, pay salaries and allowances
and carry out executive work during the next budget
year. These sums are then allotted for payment
among the Governments Members of the League
according to a scale fixed by the Assembly (but
not yet in force, as it has not been ratified by a
sufficient number of governments ; the present
scale is that laid down in the Covenant). With
this money the League organisations then carry
out the work decided upon by the Assembly and
render an account of their stewardship through
the Secretary-General's report to the succeeding
Assembly. This point is worth dwelling upon, for
when once thoroughly grasped it will show the

48 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

irrelevance nay, utter meaninglessness of the cries
often raised that the " League of Nations " should
produce large sums on short notice from unknown
sources for the purpose of carrying out some
enterprise proposed by some enthusiast writing to
the .newspapers or giving| a lecture on! a cause .dear
to his heart. The only way any organisation of
the League can dispose of money is by a direct
grant from a government or private body, or upon
the vote of the Assembly, in which all the fifty -
two governments of the League are represented,
and where questions of policies and the credits to
be assigned for these policies are threshed out and
decided. The League is not an international
committee with King Midas' touch or alchemic
powers, and does not offer a short way of obtain-
ing money without going through the tedious
process of convincing governments and taxpayers
of the necessity for providing this money. '

The permanent Court of International Justice
consists of eleven judges and four deputy judges.
Its constitution was worked out by a conference
of jurists summoned by the Council and was
subsequently approved by the Council and
Assembly. According to this constitution the
judges were elected for nine years by majorities
in the Council and Assembly, sitting separately.,
from ia, ipanel of nominees submitted by the national
delegations to The Hague Court of Arbitration or
by bodies composed in a similar manner. The
need for a purely judicial mode of settling inter-
national disputes, particularly such as are con-
cerned with questions of fact, treaty interpreta-
tion, etc., had long been felt, but it had always
hitherto proved impossible to get the nations to
agree upon the method of appointing a small
permanent body of judges. The constitution of
the Court was therefore in itself a considerable
achievement on the part of the League, The
jurists' conference had recommended that the

THE ASSEMBLY, COUNCIL AND COURT 49

Court should have compulsory powers ; that is, if
one party to a dispute wished to bring it before
the Court, the other should be bound to appear.
The Council, however, struck out this clause and
the Assembly, after prolonged debates, substituted
a compromise by which an optional paragraph'
providing for compulsory jurisdiction was added
to the constitution of the Court. So far nineteen
states 1 have, signed this paragraph 1 , all on the basis
of reciprocity. By a recent decision of the Council
non-members have access to the .Court on the, same
terms as members. Besides the powers conferred
upon it by the additional clau,se concerning!
compulsory jurisdiction, the Court has power to
deal with all cases brought before it by the parties
concerned or referred to it for an opinion by the
Council or Assembly, or put under its jurisdiction
by clauses in treaties, such as, e.g., the Minorities
Treaties, the Upper Silesian Convention, the
Aaland Islands Convention, the Lama Agreement
between Czecho -Slovakia and Austria, etc. In
addition to its purely judicial and regular
procedure, the Court can, in cases where both 1
parties so desire, apply an extraordinary procedure
involving the nomination of ad hoc judges and
in other ways approximating to the semi -political
methods of arb it ration. In cases concerning
labour or involving technical questions such as
transit, finance, or economics, the Court will be
assisted by the advice of a panel of experts on
the subject concerned.

The Court, the Council and the Assembly are
the three organs of the League used for the
peaceful settlement of disputes, the Assembly
and the Council combining these functions with
those already described of respectively general
international forum and chief executive body.

* Austria, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Costa Rica, Denmark, Fin-
land, Haiti, Holland, Liberia, Lithuania, Luxemburg, Norway,
Panama, Portugal, San Salvador, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay,
The adherence of Brazil is conditional upon at least two Great
Powers accepting this clause, and so far aone has done so.

4

CHAPTER IV

THE SECRETARIAT-GENERAL, TECHNICAL AND
ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANISATIONS, ADVISORY
COMMISSIONS, AND INTERNATIONAL LABOUR
OFFICE

THE previous chapter gave an account of the
organisations (the Assembly, the Council arid the
International Court) set up by the association of
states known as the League of Nations to fulfil
the former of the two general purposes to which
this association is pledged, namely the submission
of disputes to peaceful settlement. In this chapter
a description will be given of the second group
of prganisations (the technical and advisory organ-
isations) maintained by the governments of the
League, namely, those whose purpose it is to
promote international co-operation in non -political
fields.

But before doing so it is necessary to describe
the Secretariat -General, which acts as a link
between both sets of organisations, and is also
the channel of communication between all League
organisations and the Governments Members of
the League. The Secretariat prepares the agenda
of aH League bodies, organises all League
onferences, keeps the archives, and generally
acts as clearing-house for international data
concerning the League, It supplies that element
of continuity, centralisation, impartiality and
expert knowledge that has always been felt

THE] SECRETARIAT-GENERAL 51

to be a necessity if international co-operation
is ever to be a living reality. Through the
Secretariat subjects for League conferences are
thoroughly prepared on a common and completely
international basis by experts who do nothing else
and can draw upon their accumulated experience
of previous conferences a method which experi-
ence has proved to be more effective than that of
a number of improvised, separate and national
preparations.

The Secretariat-General is a body of permanent
officials, at present drawn from some thirty
nationalities, appointed by the Secretary-General
and responsible solely to him and the Council and
Assembly of the League. That is, the Secretariat
is a sort of international civil service, responsible
collectively to the governments of the League when
meeting in the Assembly or Council ; not a body
of national representatives responsible to their
respective governments. As there is persistent
misunderstanding on this point, and a widespread
tendency to confuse the Secretariat of the League
with the League itself that is, to confu.se the men
and women working in offices in the Hotel
National at Geneva with the association of fifty-
two states whose servants for certain purposes
they are it is worth while dwelling on the
question : The Secretariat in Geneva is no more
the " League of Nations " than the State Depart-
ment in Washington D.C. is the " United States
of America/' Indeed, the confounding of the two
is in the latter case more plausible than in the
former, for the State Department is the foreign
ministry of forty-eight united states which, to unite,
have given up many of their powers of sovereignty
to a Federal Government, whereas the Secretariat
of the League is, as its name implies, the
secretariat of an association of states which main-
tain their sovereignty unimpaired, and that are
striving to realise^, uot federal govemxnent 4 but

52 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

something more limited in scope arid different in
kind, namely, international co-operation.

The Secretariat-General consists of a Secretary -
General, three Under-Secretaries-General,, seven
Directors of Section, forty-one Members of Section
and a large number of subordinate staff such as
translators, secretaries, library staff, etc. This
personnel is divided into t (i) the Secretary-
General, the Under - Secretaries - General and
their personal assistants ; (2) the Legal Section,
Political Section, the Information Section and
departments for more or less purely mechan-
ical, although exacting, work, such as the
Translation Section, the Distribution Section,
Establishment Office, Library, Registry, Publica-
tions, Roneo and Typing Departments, etc. These
sections are all for the general purposes of the
League. In addition, the Secretariat-General
comprises (3) the Health Section, the Transit
Section, the Economic and Financial Section, the
Mandates and Administrative Sections, and depart-
ments concerned with such subjects as the trade in
opium, the traffic in women and children, etc.

The Sections under (3), while part of the
Secretariat-General, also constitute the secretariats
of the technical, administrative and advisory organ-
isations of the League, most of which are modelled
on the general plan of the League that is, consist
of (i) a standing Committee (corresponding to
the Council) ; (2) a general conference (corre-
sponding to the Assembly) ; and (3) a secretariat
(corresponding to the Secretariat-General). The
head of, e.g., the Transit Section of the Secretariat
acts as the Secretary-General of the Transit
Organisation ; the director of the Health Section
is ipso facto Secretary-General of the Health
Organisation, and so forth.

The technical organisations are three In
number : ( i ) The Transit Organisation, whose
standing; committee is composed of sixteen

TECHNICAL ORGANISATIONS 53

members, twelve of whom are elected b'yj a^ general
transit conference of all the members of the
organisation, and four of whom are representatives
of the four permanent members of the Council,
A general conference of the Transit Organisation
can be summoned either by the Council acting on
the request of the Transit Committee or by the
Secretary-General of the League acting' at the
request of one half of the members of the Leagu,e.
Partial conferences can be convened' in a similar
way. Resolutions are passed and agenda adopted
by a two-thirds majority, which is also sufficient
to ensure; powers not members of the Leagiue being!
admitted to the Transit Organisation on terms of
equality. The Transit Organisation draws up,
prepares and passes on its own agenda, but the
Council, if unanimous, can delay or veto any action
contemplated by the Transit Organisation.

(2) The Health Organisation is modelled on
similar lines, but owing to the fact that many
members of the League were already members
of the Offic'e International d'Hygifene Publique,
with headquarters at Paris, it was suggested by
the First Assembly that the projected League
Health Organisation should be amalgamated with
the existing organisation. This plan failed owing
to the opposition of the United States, which is a
member of the Office International. Instead 1 , a
working compromise was reached by which the
Health Committee is appointed by the Council,
and includes members of the head office of the
Office International, and the Office International,
in its turn, .undertakes to co-operate with the
Health Committee and, in fact, to act in practice
as the general conference of the League Health
Organisation. In addition, the Health Organisa-
tion includes the Epidemic Commission, an inter-
national committee of three members attached to
the Health Section of the Secretariat-General, but
working in East Europe-

54 THE LEAGUE OP NATIONS TO-DAY

(3) The Financial and Economic Organisation
is still in what may be called the larval stage of
its development ; that is, consists of a committee
appointed by the Council and a secretariat which 1
forms a section of the Secretariat-General. When
a general conference is held the constitution of
the body will be drawn up presumably on
similar lines to that of the Transit Organisation.

The Advisory Commissions that is, the opium
commission, the commission on the traffic in
women and children, and the committee on
intellectual co-operation * arc modelled on similar
lines to the technical organisations, but the
question of their constitution, their agenda, and
the summoning of conferences depends wholly
on and is decided by the Council of the League.

Besides the direct importance of their work, the
technical and advisory organisations are valuable
in that they form a link on the one hand between
the League and countries still outside that associa-
tion of! states, and 'on the other between the League
and the economic organisation and specialist
interests of society. Thus the Baltic States were
members of the League technical organisations a
year before entering the League, while Germany
took part in the Brussels Financial Conference,
the Barcelona Transit Conference, the Paris Pass-
port Conference, and the Warsaw Health Con-
ference, is being invited to appoint representatives
to the Transit Commission, the Health Committee
and the Opium Commission, and has all along
been a member of the International Labour

* To these must be added the Permanent Advisory Commission
on Military, Naval and Air questions, and the Temporary Mixed
Commission for the reduction of armaments. The former body
consists of military, naval and air officers appointed by the indi-
vidual Governments Members of the Council, and furnishes technical
criticisms of the work on disarmament performed by the latter,
which was set up by the Council at the initiative of the Assembly,
and consists, besides officers, of politicians, economists and finan-
ciers, and representatives of labour and employers, Lord Robert
Cecil is a member of the T.M.C.

ADMINISTRATIVE ORGANISATIONS 55

Office. The work 1 of these organisations, too,
brings together men actively engaged in industry,
commerce, banking, railway transport and ship-
ping, members of trade unions and co-operatives,
doctors and public health officials all men whose
work is of first-rate importance to the daily life
of modern society and makes them familiar with
the technical and economic interdependence of
modern nations. The establishment of inter-
national co-operation is facilitated by bringing to
bear this point of view, which is rarely represented
at old-fashioned diplomatic conferences, where
international problems are often made needlessly
difficult by being approached wholly from the
standpoint of political sovereignty.

The League contains three organisations created
to discharge certain duties laid upon it by the
peace treaties. These organisations, the Mandates
Commission, the Saar Governing Commission and
the Danzig High Commissioner, are represented
in the Secretariat -General by respectively the
Mandates and Administrative Sections.

The Mandates Commission is an advisory body
appointed by the Council in order to advise it in
connection with the duties entrusted to it by the
Covenant of watching over the execution of the
mandates system. The majority of the members
of this commission must be nationals of countries
that are not , '-mandatory powers, and none of
the members can hold any official position in
the country of which he or she is a national.

It will be remembered that the Allied and
Associated Powers at the Peace Conference divided
up among themselves certain of the African and
Pacific possessions of Germany and Asiatic terri-
tories of the Ottoman Empire. The administration
of the territories thus taken over is, however, to
be based on certain broad principles laid down by
Article XXII of the Covenant, and providing that
the administrating or mandatory nation exercises

56 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

its powers on behalf of the League, is to render
an annual report to the Council on the territories
committed to its charge, and should regard the
people under its tutelage as wards, whose well-
being and development form a " sacred trust of
civilisation." Article XXII distinguishes between
-"A" and "B" and " C " mandates, according
to the degree of civilisation, geographical position,
etc., of the populations concerned, and lays down
different rules for each. It is this introduction of
the principle of trusteeship into colonial govern-
ment, and the attempts to carry out this principle
by means of basing colonial rule in the territories
concerned on certain conditions, and subjecting the
whole to a measure of international supervision
and collective responsibility, that constitute what is
called the mandates system.

Under the Versailles Treaty (i) the League's
High Commissioner at Danzig is the arbiter,
subject to appeals to the Council, of disputes
between the Free City and Poland ; the Council;
moreover, guarantees the rights and constitution
of the Free City, (2) The Council appoints a
Governing Commission of five in the Saar Basin.
This Commission is responsible to the Council for
the government of the Saar for a period of fifteen
years, after which the inhabitants will decide
whether they wish to retain their present status,
become French or return to Germany. By the
terms of the Versailles Treaty, the French Govern-
ment has large powers in connection with the
exploitation of the mines and the incorporation
of the Saar within the French customs system ;
and the Governing Commission, which must con-
tain one Saar inhabitant, and the appointment of
whose members is annually renewable, cannot
change the existing legislation of the district
without consulting" the inhabitants,

Finally, the League of Nations includes one
organisation whose peculiar constitution entitles it

INTERNATIONAL LABOUR OFFICE 57

toi a place apart, although the nature of its work'
classes it with the technical organisations. This
organisation is the International Labour Office,
whose membership includes Germany as well as
the members of the 'League, which is controlled
by a Governing Body of twenty-four members,
namely, eight government representatives from the
eight chief industrial states ; four government
representatives elected by the government delegates
of the remaining states ; six employers' and six
labour representatives, elected respectively by the
employer and labour delegates to the International
Labour Office Conference. The International
Labour Office has its own constitution, based on
Article XIII of the Versailles Treaty, its own
secretariat, draws up its own .agenda, and summons
its own conferences. The purpose of the Inter-
im donal Labour Office is to establish contact
between employers, governments and labour, and
-operation between nations in the field of
labour and social legislation, where the need for
simultaneous action in all countries, if dis-
advantages owing to competition are going to be
avoided;, is often very much felt. For this purpose
annual conferences are held, at which international
conventions are drawn up regulating the hours and
conditions of labour.

This, then, is the machinery of the League
of Nations machinery whose fashioning and
assembling is perhaps the greatest achievement
that could be expected of the League during the
first two and a half years of its existence. (Never-
theless, we shall examine in succeeding chapters
what work the association of governments called
the League of Nations have been able to accom-
plish through this machinery, even in the war-
wracked and, peace-embittered Europe of 1920-22,,
and what possibilities for the future this work and
this machinery reveal.

SECTION THREE
WHAT THE LEAGUE HAS DONE

CHAPTER .V

THE CASE OF VILNA AND THE UPPER
SILESIAN SETTLEMENT

IN the following four chapters it Is proposed to
examine a few of the chief tasks attempted or
accomplished by the League during the two and
a half years of its existence, in order thereby to
gain an idea of the way the League of Nations
machinery works and how it is affected by the
policies of the states that constitute the League.
In this connection it should first of all be noted
that it has hitherto been the policy of the chief
of these states namely, the leading Entente
Powers to settle the greatest European questions
in an ad hoc organ of their own, called the
Supreme Council, and to submit to settlement by
League procedure and through League machinery
only questions of secondary importance or on
which they had been unable to agree.

One such question was the dispute between
Poland and Lithuania over Vilna. At the Peace
Conference the Chief Allied Powers fixed Poland's
frontiers in the west, but left her eastern frontier
undetermined. As a result Poland and Lithuania
found themselves on the brink of war over the
question of their respective rights to the town
and territory of Vilna. Thereupon, Poland, in
September 1920, appealed to the Council of the
League,

The first care of the Council was to get both 1
parties to accept a provisional line of demarcation

61

62 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

A military commission, appointed by the Council,
was therefore sent to the spot, succeeded in getting
both parties to withdraw respectively east and west
of the so-called Curzon line, and established an
armistice. On October 8, 1920, however, the
Polish General, Zeligowski, broke the armistice
agreement, entered Vilna at the head of a division,
and set up his famous administration of rebel
patriots, which the Polish Government disavowed,
but on which it declared itself incapable of
exerting pressure.

After this the Council directed its efforts to
two points : ( i ) to settling the fate of the disputed
territory by a plebiscite, and failing this, (2) ^to
bring about an agreement between the two parties
by means of direct negotiations presided over by
a member of the Council. As in the opinion of
the Council a plebiscite would ascertain the real
wishes of the population concerned only in case
General Zeligowski's de facto regime were replaced
by a A< neutral " administration and police force,
the Council attempted to secure the evacuation
of the territory by General Zeligowski, and had
one battalion each put at their service by the
British, Danish, French, Norwegian, Spanish and
Swedish Governments, in order to form an inter-
national force which, under the command of the
League's military commissioner in Vilna, was to
constitute a neutral force for maintaining order
and guaranteeing the impartiality of the plebiscite.
The Council, however, failed to arrive at an agree-
ment with General Zeligowski and the Polish
Government that it could regard as satisfactory,

The alternative course of direct negotiation
between the Polish and Lithuanian Governments
under the chairmanship of M. Hymans, the
President of the Council, was then tried. These
negotiations were based on the idea that the Vilna
dispute could be settled if it were treated as part
off a general settlement of Ppland's arxd Lithuania's

THE CASE OF VILNA 63

mutual relations, and were conducted with the
intention of creating an association between the
two states that may briefly be described as a
cross between federation and a standing alliance,
somewhat on the lines of the Atisgteich between
Austria and Hungary in the late Austro -Hungarian
Empire. But no solution could be found satis-
factory to both parties., and the combined moral
authority of the Council and Second Assembly
failed to move either from their positions. When
neither party accepts a League award the
Covenant does not warrant any further action
within the League system^ In the meantime
the Polish Government has since the Second
Assembly organised a plebiscite on its own con-
ditions and declares that the result has regularised
the position and finally confirmed its claim to Vilna
town and territory. This claim is not accepted
by the Lithuanian Government.

One school of critics declares that the League's
failure -to reach a settlement although it did
prevent war in this case is due to the fact that
the League Council, being composed of the chief
Allied Powers and a few small powers dependent
on them, was throughout biassed in favour of one
party to the dispute ; this bias prevented it show-
ing the necessary firmness toward the Zeligowski
episode, and made the terms of its proposed
association between Lithuania and Poland so un-
favourable to the former as to ensure rejection.
Another school asserts that the League system was
never Intended to cope with such a task as mark-
ing out the frontiers of a new state created by
a world war, and the Covenant provides no
sufficient powers to enable the Council to ensure
compliance with its decision in a matter of this
sort, The chief Allied States should either have
carried out themselves the task of laying down
Poland's eastern frontier, as they had the power
to do under the peace treaties, or else put these

64 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

additional powers at the service of the League ;
in other words, the principal Allied Powers should
have asked the Council of the League to give its
decision in the question of Vilna and pledged
themselves beforehand to ensure compliance with
that decision, under the special powers for this
purpose granted them by the peace treaties.

In the case of Upper Silesia, too, the chief
Entente .Powers were unable to settle through their
own organ, the Supreme Council, a question of
frontiers arising out of the peace treaties, and
referred the matter to the League Council in order
to break a deadlock. Under the terms of the
Treaty of Versailles, the district known as Upper
Silesia was to be partitioned between Germany
and Poland by the principal Allied and 1 Associated
Powers in accordance with a plebiscite taken by
communes under the auspices of these powers and
with due regard to the economic and geographical
nature of the region. After the plebiscite which
gave a little over 60 per cent, of votes for
Germany and a little less than 40 per cent, for
Poland the Supreme Council found itself unable
to agree as to how the area was to be partitioned.

Accordingly, on August 12, 1921, -it asked the
Council of the League to examine the question
and give a recommendation as quickly as possible
on how the new frontier line in Upper Silesia
should be traced, unanimously undertaking to
adopt the recommendation thus made. The
League Council accepted this task, and after two
months of hard work, involving consultation of
all elements of the Upper Silesian population and
the co-operation of a Czech and a Swiss industrial
and railway expert, produced a unanimous recom-
mendation, which was transmitted to the Supreme
Council. * }

The recommendation declared that owing to the
intermixture of Polish and German elements
and the economic interdependence of the whole

UPPER SILESIA 65

district, it was impossible to trace a single dividing
line that would not do serious injustice either to
the, economic needs of the country or to the wishes
of the population as expressed by the plebiscite.
Consequently, the Council recommended that there
should be a political line so traced as to putt
where possible those who voted for Poland under
Polish sovereignty, and leave those who voted for
Germany under that country, with the unsatisfied
minorities left on each side so far as possible
balancing one another. It was claimed that the
frontier recommended by the Council fulfilled this
condition, since it left within one per cent, as many
Poles on the German side of the frontier as
Germans on the Polish side. In order, however,
to prevent this new political frontier causing
economic disturbance, the Council proposed a
series of economic, technical and cultural
guarantees, to run for fifteen years and intended
(i) to preserve for the industries of the territory;
separated from Germany their former markets and
to ensure the supplies of raw materials and
manufactured products necessary for these indus-
tries ; (2) to avoid the ..economic disturbances which 1
would be caused by the immediate substitution of
the Polish mark as the sole legal currency in
the territory assigned to Poland ; (3) to prevent
the working of the railways serving Upper,
Silesia from being affected by the shifting of the!
political frontier ; (4) to regulate the s;upplies of
water and electricity; (5) to maintain freedom
of movement ; (6) to guarantee respect for
private property ; (7) to ensure that the workers
in the territory assigned' to Poland should not lose
the advantages which were secured to them by;
German social legislation and by their Trades
Union organisation ; and (8) to ensure the pro-
tection of minorities on the basis of an equitable
reciprocity* ! ! !

The Supreme (Council accepted this recom-

5

66 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

mendation and asked the Council of the League to
supervise the negotiations between Germany and
Poland for the conclusion of a convention embody-
ing its provisions. For this purpose the Council
appointed M. Calender, former President of the
Swiss Federal Council, to act as President of the
Gerniano -Polish Conference, with powers to give
an arbitral decision in case of a deadlock between
the German and Polish delegations. The negotia-
tions, which lasted over nine months, were con-
cluded at Geneva. Rough draft agreements based
on the various clauses of the League recommenda-
tion were first worked out on the spot in Upper
Silesia by the two delegations divided into several
mixed Germane -Polish sub -committees, and in
close touch with President Calonder, Afterwards,
at Geneva, with the help of technical and juridical
experts from the League Secretariat, these agree-
ments were drafted in their final form and incor-
porated into a convention. At Geneva, to,6, the
questions of guarantees for national minorities and
the liquidation of German property in the -part
of Upper Silesia ceded to Poland were solved by
agreement between the two delegations. Thus the
Upper Silesian Convention was concluded without
President Calonder even once being called upon
to exercise his arbitral powers. .

The Convention, which is probably the longest
diplomatic document on record, certainly longer
than the Versailles Treaty, contains 606 articles
and establishes a very full and elaborate system of
cultural, economic, social and technical guarantees*
The guarantees for national minorities, although'
modelled on the minorities treaties drawn up at
the Peace Conference, go considerably further in
providing safeguards for the populations (Concerned^
while the Versailles Treaty, clauses concerning!
liquidation of German property are made applicable
only to industries employing six hundred workmen,
or estates (exclusive of forest land, which is

UPPER SILESIA 67

inalienably) containing more than one hundred
hectares, and even the liquidation of these, which
cannot take place for fifteen years, is surrounded
by safeguards and guarantees intended, as far as
possible, to secure German rights,

A mixed Commission, whose chairman is
M, Calonder, will watch over the administration
of this system and an arbitral tribunal, whose
president is M. Kaeckenbeek, a former member
of the Legal Section of the Secretariat -General,
will adjudicate cases of dispute between Poland
and Germany as to the interpretation or applica-
tion ,of clauses of the Convention. The Convention
furthermore provides for the Permanent Court of
International Justice being used as a court of
appeal in certain cases. Both M. Calonder and
M. Kaeckenbeek were appointed to their positions
by the Council at the request of both the German
and Polish delegations.

The system inaugurated by the Upper Silesian
Convention is coming into operation now, and only
the future can show whether it will prove success-
ful. But it is at least a good sign that both
the German and Polish delegates to the Upper
Silesian Conference declared their belief that the
guarantees laid down and the system devised in
the Convention were as good as human ingenuity
could devise, and would prove workable in case
both countries continued to show the same spirit
of conciliation and desire for co-operatiom that
they had displayed in the drafting of the
Convention.

No decision of the League has been more
acrimoniously contested than that made in Upper
Silesia. One school of critics and a very large
one ; it includes practically all Germans goes so
far as to declare that since Upper Silesia not only
gave a 60 per cent* plebiscite majority for
Germany but is an economic and geographical
unit and au area that has been German for seven

68 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-BAY

hundred years, whose immense natural riches have
been made available entirely by German science
and capital and are an integral and essential part
of Germany's economic system, Upper Silesia
should never have been divided' at all, but should
have remained in toto German. Handing over
part of this territory to Poland is, in the opiniort
of these critics, as politically unjust as it is
economically disastrous.

More moderate critics hold that the League
never had the choice of whether to divide Upper
Silesia or not. By the terms of the Versailles
Treaty, runs their argument, there was never any
question of not dividing Upper Silesia ; the only
question was where the new frontier line should
be drawn, and this was the only point on which!
the Supreme Council asked the Council of the
League for an opinion. But, continues this school
of critics, although the League was bound by the
terms of reference to itself and the provisions of
the Versailles Treaty to recommend some sort of
division, it might have recommended the line
supported by certain powers in the Supreme
Council, notably England, that would have left
the whole industrial triangle with Germany. The
fact that it recommended dividing the industrial
triangle was a compromise that showed once more
the Council's inability to be impartial in any issue
disputed between a power favoured by the Entente
and; a power not so favoured. Had the organisa-
tion of the League been complete that is, had 1
Germany been a member of the Council and had
the Permanent Court been in existencethere is
no doubt that the Council would have been strong!
enough 1 to refer the whole matter to the Permanent
Court, which is specially designed to deal with'
questions of fact (in this case geographical and
economic facts and the results of the plebiscite,)'
and questions of treaty interpretation (in this case
the clauses of the Versailles Treaty referring! to

UPPER SILESIA 69

the Upper Silesian plebiscite by communes).
Instead of this, the Council, because of its one-
sided composition and because the Court did not
exist at the time the Upper Silesian case had to
be dealt with, adopted the procedure of leaving 1
the decision in the hands of the minor powers on
the Council, who were for the most part minor
allies or diplomats dependent on the favour of
the leading Entente Powers that composed the rest
of the Council.

A third school of commentators, while perfectly;
ready to accept the conclusion of the second group
that the League, to perform its office and fulfil
the purposes for which it was created, must include
Germany, and include that country in her rightful
place as a Great Power with a permanent seat on
the Council, incline to the view that in the Upper
Silesian question the Council did as well as was
possible, considering the terms of the Versailles
Treaty. By this Treaty, they say, a division of
Upper Silesia was inevitable, and owing to the
geographical and economic facts of the case any
division, if it were made absolute, would cause
very great economic distress. On the other hand^
as a result of the plebiscite agitation, the plebiscite
itself and the various subsequent incidents, includ-
ing Korfanty's unsuccessful coup, all of which took-
place before the League had anything to do with 1
the matter, nationalist feelings in Upper Silesia
had been raised to such a pitch that any division!
of the territory leaving a large minority of either,
country under the suzerainty of the other would
have involved incalculable dangers, not excluding!
rebellion and wholesale destruction of factories,
mines, etc.

Consequently, the Council did the only thing
it could do 3 and that was to draw a boundary line
that was nationally as little unsatisfactory as
possible, and, at any rate, gave each side the same
number of hostages for the good behaviour of the

70 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO DAY

other, and then insisted upon as stringent and!
elaborate a system of cultural, technical, economic
and social guarantees as it was possible to devise,
thereby retaining the economic unity of Upper
Silesia for fifteen years- before the expiration of
which time it is not unreasonable to hope that
Germany and Poland will come to some permanent
economic and minorities arrangement over Upper
Silesia equally satisfactory to both, and to which!
the present settlement is such a strong inducement.
This system of guarantees was almost entirely a
creation of the Council's, although based on a
clause in the Versailles Treaty providing for the
free export of coal from the ceded portion of
Upper Silesia to Germany for a certain period*
and in devising it the League Council is held!
to have made the best of a very bad job imposed!
upon it by the Versailles Treaty and the dissensions
of the Supreme Council, as well as to have
vindicated the superiority of League methods over
any alternative within the field of practical politics.

CHAPTER VI

THE AALAND ISLANDS, ALBANIA, AUSTRIA, AND
REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS

THE Aaland Islands form the westernmost group
of the Finnish archipelago, and are situated about
midway between the Swedish and Finnish main-
land. Soon after the Russian Revolution resulted
in the separation of Finland from Russia, the
inhabitants of these islands manifested an all but
unanimous desire to become Swedish, and Sweden
supported their claim to settle the matter by a
plebiscite. The ensuing quarrel was embittering
the relations between the two countries when the
British Government drew the attention of the
Council to the matter. In doing so Great
Britain was exercising her c< friendly right/* under
Article XI of the Covenant, which reads as
follows :

Any war or threat of war, whether immediately affecting
any of the Members of the League or not, is hereby declared
a matter of concern to the whole League, and the League
shall take any action that may be deemed wise and effectual
to safeguard the peace of nations . In case any such emergency
should arise the Secretary-General shall, on the request of
any member of the League, forthwith summon a meeting of
the Council.

It is also declared to be the friendly right of each member
of the League to bring to the attention of the Assembly or
of the Council any circumstance whatever affecting inter-
national relations which threatens to disturb international
peace or the good understanding between nations upon
which peace depends,

71

72 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

Finland claimed that the League could not
intervene, as this was a matter for internal jurisdic-
tion. That question would nowadays presumably
be referred to the Permanent Court of International
Justice for an opinion, but as the Court did no.t
then exist, the Council, after hearing the repre-
sentatives of both Finland and S,Weden, appointed
a Committee of Jurists, who decided that the matter
was of international concern and hence within the
Council's competence. The Council then appointed
a committee consisting of one American, one
Belgian and one Swiss (the very M. Calender
who has since been playing such a prominent
part in the Upper Silesian settlement), to make a
report on the whole question. This committee^ 1
after exhaustive study and a visit to the spot,
reported that the Aaland Islands were indisputably
under Finnish sovereignty and belonged to Finland
on historical and geographical grounds, also that
the Aaland Islanders were racially no more thart
a minority, although a special minority, of the
Swedish minority within the Finnish State. The
Committee's report, which was passed by the
Council, further recommended additional guaran-
tees for the autonomy of the islanders that were
subsequently made the subject of legislation in
the Finnish Parliament. Finally, the Council
summoned a diplomatic conference, at which the
neutrality of the Aaland Islands was put on an
international contractual basis, and guaranteed by
Denmark, Esthonia, Finland, France, Germany,
Great Britain, Italy, Latvia, Poland and Sweden.
The League itself was 'made sponsor in the last
resort for the guarantee of neutrality, as well
as in some sort for the whole Aaland Islands
settlement*

The outstanding fact of the League's handling
of this question was its complete success and the
justice of its decision, a justice perceived from
the first in Finland and countries not parties to

ALBANIA 73

the dispute, arid now tacitly acknowledged by
Sweden's growing friendliness to her old daughter-
country. It is especially noteworthy that the
concession voluntarily granted by the Government
of Finland which made the settlement possible
could, in Mr. Balfour's words, ** never have been
obtained at the instance of any external power-
other than a League of which Finland, in common
with most civilised powers, was itself a member."
Moreover, Sweden's loyal acceptance of a decision
which went against her set an example to all
the States Members of the League, >

Equally successful was the League's handling
of the dispute between the Serb-Croat-Slovene
State and Albania. During 1921 tuc Albanian
Government made several appeals to the Council
against the threat of an invasion by Yugo-Slav
troops. The Albanian Government furthermore
appealed to the Second Assembly to fix the
frontiers of Albania. The Council decided that
the question of an alleged violation of Albania's
frontiers was so clearly connected with the actual
definition of those frontiers as to make it
desirable that the same body should deal witH
both questions. It therefore referred Albania's
complaint against Yugo-Slavia to the Assembly.

The Second Assembly took note of the fact that
the Principal Allied and Associated Powers were
on the point of fixing Albania's frontiers and!
urged that they should do so as speedily as
possible. It further recommended, in view of the
conflicting statements of the Yugo-Slav and
Albanian representatives, that a Commission of
three should be sent to Albania in order to report
on the true state of affairs.

On November 9, 1921, the Conference of
Ambassadors fixed Albania's frontiers and com-
municated copies of their decision to the
Secretary-General of the League. In this decision
the powers furthermore recognised the Govern-

74 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

meat of Albania. Meanwhile, Yugo-Slav armies
had invaded 'Northern Albania, in spite of the
stout resistance put up by the Albanians. Accord-
ing to the report of the British Consul at Durazzo,
the invaders burned 157 villages. The Belgrade
papers were rejoicing over the success of the
invasion and the manner in which prisoners were
coming in ; one paper expressed the prevailing
mood in an article headed " Which is stronger^
the Serbian Army or the League of Nations? "
Then a question was asked in the British House
of Commons on November 7th, and the British
Government replied by announcing that the
Secretary-General of the League had been
requested to call a meeting of the Council of the
League to consider the situation and to agree
upon measures to be taken under Article XVI
(providing for the isolation and blockade of a
Covenant-breaking State) in the event of the Serb-
Croat-Slovene Government refusing or failing to
execute their obligations under the Covenant,
Immediately Serbian efforts to float a loan in
London fell through and Serbian currency
depreciated. The Council of the League met in
Paris nine days later and was attended by repre-
sentatives of the Serb-Croat-Slovene ancl Albanian
Governments. The sittings of the Council were
held in public, and ended in an undertaking by
the Serb-Croat-Slovene and Albanian represen-
tatives to withdraw their troops on each side
of a neutral zone, and to cultivate good
neighbourly relations henceforth. The Conference
of Ambassadors was due to send a frontier
demarcation Commission to draw the frontier
between Albania and Yugo-Slavia, and the Com-
mission of three sent by the League was requested
to keep in touch with this Commission, as well
as keep the Council informed of how the under-
takings of the two states werd being carried
out* The League's Commission consisted of

ALBANIA 75

Colonel Schaeffer (Luxembourg), Major Meinich
(Norway) and Professor J. J. Sederholm (Finland).

Colonel Schaeffer, unhappily, died in Geneva,
but Professor Sederholm and Major Meinich were
able to proceed to Albania in the latter half of
November, and thence reported that the Serb-
Croat-Slovene troops had withdrawn behind the
frontier line laid down by the Ambassadors'
Conference, and that there was no movement of
disaffection of any importance against the Albanian
Central Government. The Commission, and
especially its leading member, Professor Sederholm,
who made repeated and protracted visits to the
country, were subsequently able to render the
Albanian Government valuable services, not only
in their official capacity of a committee of
observers sent to report on the true condition of
Albania, but as a body of distinguished and
absolutely disinterested foreigners, representing an
organ as authoritative, international and collec-
tively impartial as the Council of the League. In
this capacity the members of the committee were
able to do much good work in the way o; wise
counsel, unofficial mediation between the Yugo-r
Slav and Albanian Governments, and between
certain parties within the latter country. In a
word, the committee was the incarnation of Western
civilisation sent to the Balkans with a watching
brief, and so much did the Albanian Government
appreciate the value of this arrangement that they
asked the Council to appoint technical advisers
to help the government build up a modern con-
stitutional state on sound economic and financial
foundations.

In compliance with this request the Council
once more sent Professor Sederholm and a
secretary, the Danish Count von Moltke, to
Albania to make a general report on the question
of appointing advisers, and is shortly sending
members of the Economic and Financial Committee

76 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

to make an inquiry and report on the puirely
'financial and economic aspects of the question,
with special reference to the means of attracting,
foreign capital to Albania. The Albanian Govern-
ment has addressed a further request to the
Council, asking if it can arrange a foreign loan
for Albania and promising to submit to any control
and give any guarantees considered necessary for,
this purpose. !

As Earl Balfour put it at the Eighteenth Council
Meeting, no power or organisation in Europe could
have done what the League has done for Albania
and been able to do, he might have added!,
simply because as an association of states pledged
to the purposes and methods of the Covenant the
League could intervene with a disinterestedness
that an individual state would find it difficult to
display, coupled with an authority that no other
organisation could emulate. The League, in fact,
not only promptly stopped what was on the verge
of becoming a new Balkan war, but got Albania's
frontiers fixed and her government recognised, and
has ever since lent a helping hand to that small
and still weak, though promising, young state.

The Austrian affair first came before the League
in March 1921, owing to the decision of the major
Allies to raise the liens they held on Austria in
the Reparations Clauses of the Treaty of Trianon
as part of a general scheme by which Austria
should" be caabled to raise credits on the security,
of her state assets such as the tobacco monopoly
and customs revenue and effect certain financial
and administrative reforms. The whole scheme
of internal reforms, raising of liens and credits,
was worked out by the Financial Committee of the
League and was to take effect under the auspicjes
of the League. At that time Austria was not
in such a state of political instability as to warrant
the belief that there would be any difficulty in
securing the necessary credits, once the liens

AUSTRIA 77

were raised and the financial and administrative
reforms carried out, as well as League financial
control accepted.

The Council of the League then proceeded,
during the next few months, to try to obtain the
raising of the liens. This proved successful in
the case of fifteen out of Austria's seventeen
creditors the United States causing considerable
delay but failed in the case of Roumania and
Yugo-Slavia, which declared that unless and until
they were themselves released from certain obliga-
tions to the major Allies for the repayment o,f
'*>' liberation loans " and indemnification for former
Austro -Hungarian State property on their terri-
tories, they would not in their turn release Austria
from her reparations obligations to them.

In the meantime Austria's condition became so
grave by February 1922 as to cause fears
of imminent collapse that is, failure of the
currency to buy anything, even within 1 Austria,
consequent starvation and social upheavals, etc.
This induced Great Britain, France, Italy and
Czecho- Slovakia to come to the rescue .by
securing the raising of the remaining liens
and advancing loans from public funds. Great
Britain paid 1,250,000, France prepared to
advance 55,000,000 francs, Italy 70,000,000 lire
and Czecho-Slovakia 500,000,000 crowns. Of
these sums the British advance has been wholly
spent, but considerable proportions of the French!
and Italian grants and a smaller proportion of
the Czecho -Slovakian loan still remain available.
These monies, however, Austria was in too bad 1
shape to use for putting her finances on a soundl
basis and instead merely consumed them in current
expenditure to keep the wolf from the door ai
little longer. ! ,

By August 1922 the situation was once more
desperate, and Austria made a last appeal to
the Supreme Council meeting in London, white

78 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

Chancellor Seipel travelled to Prague, Berlin and
Rome to try, as it were, to sell Austria to anyone
putting up the necessary money. Berlin did not
see its way to doing anything with this offer, while
neither the Little Entente nor Italy was willing
to see the other gain control of Austria, although
each was not averse from the idea for its own
account. The result was to create a political
situation of the very gravest sort on the one hand
the approaching dissolution of Austria, on the
other the prospect of the Little Entente and
Italy becoming embroiled over the remains. The
Supreme Council did not think it could do any-
thing in this matter, and referred it back to the
League with the statement that no credits would
be forthcoming unless as part of a general scheme
that made it certain that Austria would this time
get on her legs once and for all. The difficulty
was that Austria's political situation was so bad,
owing to the imminent danger of social upheavals^
that no financiers would advance any money,
however good from the purely financial point of
view were the securities offered.

The Council was thus faced by a problem far
more complex and desperately difficult than in,
March 1921. The way it met this problem was
first of all to invite Austria and Czecho -Slovakia,
under Article XV of the Covenant, to take their
seats in the Council with the same rights as the
regular members while this subject was discussed',
and secondly to form a Committee of the Council
consisting of the representatives of these two
powers i.e. Chancellor Seipel and Dr. Benes
as well as of the three members of th ! e
Council, Great Britain (represented by Lord
Balfour), France (M. Hanotaux) and Italy
(Marquis Imperial! ) to discuss the political
aspects flf the problem. In addition, the League
Financial Committee was called upon to produce
a comprehensive scheme of financial assistance

AUSTEIA 79

and administrative reform, while the Economic
Committee considered what immediate economic
measures restarting of industries, utilisation of
water-power, etc. could usefully be recommended.
At the same time a Legal Committee, drawn
partly from the permanent staff of the secretariat
and partly from the legal experts of the several'
delegations, was constituted to advise on all
legal questions arising from this problem. The
secretarial work was, of course, discharged by the
officials of the Secretariat-General.

In this way, by bringing all the interested
powers together round a table with ample expert
assistance from impartial officials, a complete
scheme was evolved, based on the political
integrity and economic independence of Austria,
which are solemnly guaranteed by a protocol
signed by all the powers concerned. Aided 1 by
the confidence which it is hoped this declaratipn
will create, Austria is to begin a programme of
reforms which will ensure the balancing of her
budget by the end of 1924. Meanwhile her
excess of expenditure over revenue will be met
by the proceeds of loans of which the guaranteeing
powers Great Britain, France, Italy and Czecho-
slovakia undertake to cover 80 per cent. The
remaining 20 per cent, is to be covered by
advances from all the other countries. Swit-:
zerland has already signified her willingness to
take up part of the remaining sum* The total
sum to be raised will amount to some 650 million
gold crowns (3O,,ooo,ooo), which will be paid
out in instalments during the next two years.
The successful accomplishment of the reforms will
be a difficult and painful task and will for a
time mean even greater hardship for Austria than
at present. But after going through this period
Austria will become self-supporting, while with-
out it she would go straight to starvation
revolution. i

80 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

For the purpose of ensuring the successful
accomplishment of the reforms a Commissioner-
General will be appointed by the Council in order
to control the disposal of the loans and thereby to
supervise the execution of the reforms in collabora-
tion with the Austrian Government. The Austrian
Parliament is to be requested to pass a bill giving
the Austrian Government full powers during these
two years to carry out the programme of reforms.
The Commissioner-General, to be appointed by and
responsible to the Council, must not be draw.nl
from any of the principal guaranteeing countries
nor from any country bordering upon Austria^ :
it is expected that he will be either a Swede or a
Dutchman, and in any case a completely impartial
official, whose one interest is the success of the 1
scheme in the permanent interests of the Austrian
people. He will live in Vienna and report monthly
to the Council of the League. His functions will
end so soon as the Council judge that the financial
stability of Austria is assured. In addition,, as a
concession to the Italian Government, which at
first wished the functions of the Commissioner to
be vested in a committee appointed by and respon-^
sible to the guaranteeing governments, a committee
of control is to be appointed by the guaranteeing!
powers with an Italian chairman and Czecho-.
Slovakian vice-chairman, with votes proportionate
to the sums advanced. This committee will meet
from time to time, normally at the seat of the
League, and its approval by a two -thirds
majority is required to the main conditions under
which the joint loan, whose interest and amortisa-
tion are guaranteed, Is to be subscribed. The
committee, in addition, receives copies of the
monthly reports presented by the Commissioner-
General to the Council, may ask him for informa-
tion as to the progress of the reforms, and may
make representations to him with regard to safei
guarding the interests of the guarantors. The

AUSTRIA 81

committee, in exercising these functions, com*
municates, not with the Austrian Government, but
with the Commissioner-General, and has the right
of appeal to the Council.

The great difficulty about this scheme is its
bearing on the internal politics of Austria, since
the Austrian socialists undoubtedly look upon it
as an attack on the progress achieved by lab'our*
and socialism in Austria, and since the dismissal
of a great number of state officials will aggravate
the grave problem of unemployment. On the
other hand, as Austria, with six million inhabit*
ants,^has at present more civil servants, and those
appointed on a political basis, than the whole
former Austro -Hungarian Empire of fifty million ;
and since, while Austrian railway employees' wages
have risen with the cost of living, railway tariffs
are only one-fifth of what they should be on this
basis, it is obviously essential to carry out drastic-
reforms. The attempt will be made as far as
possible to dismiss employees only pan passu with
the restarting of industry as a result of the loans,,
so that the ex -employees can find productive
employment. Moreover, since Germany is not at
present in a condition to help Austria on her feet
quite apart from France's political veto against
Austria joining Germany and since an attempt
at union with Italy or the Little Entente means
a war with the other party, Austria must continue,
for the next two years at least, on an independent
basis. She can only do so by accepting this
scheme, however bitter some of its conditions, for
the alternative is starvation and anarchy. 1

The question of reduction of armaments has,

made considerable progress during the last year.

On the one hand a mass of data on armaments,

armament budgets, etc., have been collected, that

form the necessary background for a scheme of

all-round proportionate reduction of armaments,,

* See Appendix C, Note i,

6

82 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

while on the other the principles have been drawn
up of a guarantee treaty by which states that have
reduced their armaments to the accepted standard
would agree to come to the rescue of such of theiri
number as may be attacked. This obligation 1 , in
the form originally proposed by Lord Robert Cecil,
should be general i.e. embrace all states, whether
members of the League or not, in one continent
and come into force only on behalf of states that
had conformed to the reduced standard of
armaments. Such a state could appeal to the
Council if its territory were invaded on any pretext
whatever by the forces of another state, and the
Council would then have to ascertain, by a three-
quarters majority and within four days, whether
invasion had actually taken place, in which case
the Treaty would automatically come into force.
In response to French objections the Third
Assembly passed a compromise resolution by which
treaties between smaller than continental groups
of states were allowed, provided they were open
to the adherence of 'all states, and by whi.ch!
reduction of armaments would be proportionate
to the number and strength of the states composing 1
the group. Mr, Fisher made it fairly clear that
Great Britain was very distrustful of partial agree-
ments, since they might so easily degenerate into
rival alliances of the pre-war type, and the
Assembly as a whole put on record its opinion
that the moral and political atmosphere of Europe
must be cleansed by a settlement of the debts and
reparations problem before reduction of armaments
was feasible. The Scandinavian nations, while
rallying to the principle of a guarantee pact, put
forward the view that it should be accompanied
by some sort of assurance that the foreign policy
of the guaranteed states did not get them gratui-
tously into trouble and so involve their guarantors
in a war. The Assembly requested the Council to
"instruct the Temporary Mixed Commission for

REDUCTION OF ARMAMENTS 83

reduction of armaments to produce a draft treaty
on the lines of the guarantee pact, in time for
presentation to the Fourth Assembly "in September
1923.

The Temporary Mixed Commission will there-
fore have to deal exhaustively with this question
during the coming year. In this connection it has
been suggested that to meet British and neutral
objections a clause should be inserted in the
guarantee pact stipulating that it could be invoked
only by a state which had referred to the Council,
Court or Assembly the political issues involved in
the alleged invasion, or by a state which, when the
League had given its final award, accepted that
award. A provision of this sort would take all
the sting out of a partial pact, for it would mean
that such a pact could become operative only pn
behalf of the principle that (i) a state whose
case is sab jadlce in the League must be defended ;
(2) a state which has accepted the League's award
in the case at issue must be defended. By the
same token, the objection of the neutral states is
met, for obviously this provision would mean that
a state, in order to enjoy the protection of the
guarantee treaty, must submit its case to the
League and must subsequently accept the League's
award, i.e. must conduct its foreign policy in
such a way as to deserve the support of the
community of nations. At the same time this
provision would put a premium on referring
disputes to the League as soon as there was the
slightest hitch, and so getting them settled by
peaceful' means before the contingency of war ever
arose ; i.e. the guarantee pact would become in
the highest degree preventive in character, and
would greatly reduce the very possibility of war.

The whole question of disarmament is little
beyond the stage of general ideas and a mass of
data as yet, and obviously final success can come
only as the ultimate step in a process that

84 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

includes political settlement, moral appeasement
and economic co-operation in Europe. But what
has been done and is being done through the
League gives all men and women of good wiU
common lines to work on and a common ideal
to work toward. It remains for public opinion
in each country to hammer out a national policy
that will enable us all together to converge on the
goal of disarmament.

CHAPTER VII

REPATRIATION OF WAR PRISONERS; RELIEF
OF REFUGEES; THE WORK OF THE HEALTH
ORGANISATION

THE two preceding chapters have sketched some
of the League's activities in the settlement of
political disputes. A cursory examination of a
few of the chief pieces of work accomplished or
attempted by the League on the non-political side
will be the object of the next two chapters.

One of the first tasks that confronted the League
on its formation was the urgent necessity for
repatriating the hundreds of thousands of war
prisoners that found themselves, at the end of the
war, thousands of miles away from their homes
and in countries which through! war and revolution
in a position to take any steps themselves. The
had been reduced to a state where they werfe not
bulk of these men were Russian prisoners in
Germany and Austria-Hungary and Austro-
Hungarian and German prisoners in East Russia,
iWest Siberia and Turkestan. The plight of the
latter was particularly terrible, owing to the dis-
order following upon the Russian Revolution. The
death-rate in the prison camps of Siberia and
Turkestan from cold, typhus, overcrowding and
lack of food was awful. The Council appointed
Dr. (Nansen as its High Commissioner, and he,
backed by the organisation of the League, raised
some 500,000 from government, Red Cross and
private sources, negotiated with the German,

85

86 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

Austrian, Hungarian and Russian Soviet Govern-
ments, chartered shipping and organised repatria-
tion routes over the Baltic, the Black Sea and via
Vladivostok. At the Second Assembly Dr. Nansen
was able to report that his work was practically
finished, and that altogether some half a million
men had been returned to their homes.

The question of the 800,000 Russian emigres
and refugees scattered over Europe also came
before the League, on the ground that the relief
of their situation was both a question of inter-
national concern and a matter with which only
governments could deal. Dr, Nansen was
appointed High Commissioner by the Council to
deal with the question of Russian refugees, and
has since been trying to arrive at agreements with
the various governments concerned by which
refugees concentrated in countries where they can
find no work would be allowed to travel to other
countries where there is work. The great difficulty
has been the finding of money to finance these
movements of refugees and to set them up in such
countries as, e.g., South America and the British
Dominions, that might be disposed to receive them
and grant them land. In this connection the
American Relief Administration, whose head is Mr,
Hoover, offered to contribute a sum equivalent
to 30,000 sterling, provided the Governments
Members of the League raised an equal amount
for the transport and finding of relief for the
Russian refugees in and around Constantinople,
In response to this offer, Great Britain promised!
t6 pay 10,000 and Japan 3,000, provided the
remaining sum was raised. Various other govern-
ments contributing, the sum was raised to 17,000
and then the. American Red Cross stepped in and
by a generous last-minute donation of 13,000
brought up the total to the required 30,000.
Work has in consequence begun on behalf of
the refugees.

RELIEF OF REFUGEES 87

In the middle of the Third Assembly, owing
to the Turkish victory over Greece, an urgent
telegram was received by Dr. Nansen from his
representative in Constantinople to the effect that
hundreds of thousands of Greek and Armenian
refugees were pouring into Constantinople and the
environs from Asia Minor and were in imminent
danger of starvation. The Assembly applied
extraordinary procedure to the discussion of this
matter and within twenty-four hours had put it
on the agenda, pushed it through a committee
and referred it to the Council, which voted 100,000
francs from the item devoted to Unforeseen
Expenses on the League's present budget, to cover
additional administrative charges up to the end
of the year. The British Government thereupon
offered 50,000, to be paid in proportion as the
remaining members of the League raised an equal
amount. Sums amounting to 16,000 were
promised by other governments Canada and
Greece 5,000 each, Spain 2,000, and Sweden,
Norway, Denmark, New Zealand 1,000 each
before the end of the Assembly, and the British!
Government has consequently already paid in the
sum of 16,000. New Zealand has paid her
1,000, and other sums will, it is hoped, be quickly
forthcoming. 1

In the field of health work the League hias
already been able to accomplish a good deal.
The Council of the League has been instrumental
in bringing together the League of Red Cross
Societies and the International Committee of the
Red Cross in a Joint Council in order to prevent
overlapping and confusion and the more effectively
to conduct their work of succouring the under-
fed and disease-stricken populations in Central
and Eastern Europe. The Council furthermore
succeeded in effecting a series of agreements
between the governments and the Joint Council
* See Appendix C, Note 2.

88 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

facilitating the work of the latter and making
certain forms of government aid available in the
various countries where the Red Cross is working,
or in which it purchases its stores.

The Council also in May 1920 set up the
temporary Epidemic Commission, a small committee
attached to the Health Section of the League
Secretariat, for the purpose of co -operating with
the health authorities of Russia and the new;
states of East Europe in their campaign against
epidemics. For epidemiological reasons a begin-
ning was made in Poland. The work of this
Commission, which is still being actively pursued,
is a first experiment in international sanitary
co-operation on a large scale and has been a
conspicuous success. .Through appeals to the
Governments Members of the League, made by the
Council and endorsed by the government delegates
assembled at the First, Second and Third
Assemblies, some 205,000 have up to date been
raised for the work of this Commission. This sum
has been used by the Commission for delivering
to the health authorities of the East European
states, chiefly Poland, the motor-transport, soap,
clothing, medical stores, etc,, most needed for
the anti-epidemic campaign, as well as providing
funds for the repair and equipment of bathing
and disinfecting establishments, quarantine stations
hospitals, etc. The Commission also delivered fifty
complete fifty-bed hospital units.

As the epidemic situation, however, became
worse again in the winter of 1921-22, owing to
the effect of the Russian famine on the health of
the population, and the consequent pressure on
Russia's neighbours, the Polish Government, with'
the approval of the League Council and in reliance
on the support of the League Health Organisa-
tion and Secretariat, summoned an All-Europeau
Sanitary Conference in Warsaw, March 2Oth 28th,
1922. This conference was attended by, in addition

PUBLIC HEALTH WORK 89

to the European members of the League, Germany,
Hungary (at that time not yet a member of the
League) ; Soviet Russia, Soviet Ukraine and
Turkey. It made a full and authoritative report
on the epidemic condition of Russia according to
the latest data, and worked out a plan of campaign
for the fighting of epidemics both inside Russia
and along the border. The plan and the report
were both submitted to the Genoa Conference by
the Council, on the ground that an anti -epidemic
campaign in East Europe was an essential pre-
liminary to the task of European financial and
economic reconstruction, which was the object of
the Genoa Conference's discussions. At the last
plenary meeting of the Genoa Conference a resolu-
tion was passed by which the assembled delegates
pledged themselves to put the ma.tter before their
respective parliaments and demand the funds
(estimated at 1,500,000) necessary to undertake
the campaign. It seems likely, however, that the
plea of the interdependence of reconstruction and
a great ant i -epidemic campaign is going to be
interpreted to mean that until the work of recon-
struction is begun no serious attempt will be made
to launch the campaign in other words, that the
fighting of disease in East Europe on a large scale
is being made to attend on the reaching of a
general agreement with Soviet Russia.

Meanwhile the British Government has offered
to contribute 50 per cent, of the sums raised by.
the remaining members of the League up to a
maximum of 100,000 ; that is, the British Gov-
ernment will pay up to 100,000 if the other
members of the League between them contribute
up to 2Oo,ooo, J This sum is to be used for
extending the work of the Epidemic Commission
northward into Latvia and eastward into the

* CzecJio-Slovakia nas since contributed 1,000,000 Czech crowns
(about ;8,ooo;, Belgium may pay 50,000 francs, and Switzerland a
smaller sum.

90 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

western marches of Russia and the Ukraine ; in
other words, the necessity for carrying out one
part of the Warsaw Conference programme
immediately is recognised.

Some time ago the League Health Organisa-
tion sent out a small commission, made up of
members of the League Health Committee and
the Office International d'Hygi&ne Publique, for
the purpose of inquiring into the whole question
of public health regulation in the Near ast, with
special reference to the need for revising, in view
of the altered conditions now obtaining, the Inter-
national Health Convention concluded at Paris in
1912. A revised draft of the first part of this
Convention has already been prepared by the Office
International, with the object of including typhus
and relapsing fever in the Convention and of
providing more thoroughly for the application of
sanitary measures to land traffic (the Paris Con-
vention of 1912 deals almost entirely with tropical
diseases and seaborne traffic). The Committee of
Inquiry, after a thorough investigation, presented
a report to the Council suggesting a revised text for
Parts II, III and IV of the Paris Convention, and
a number of special measures designed to unify
and improve health control in the areas of (i)
Egypt and the Suez Canal, (2) the Arabian
Peninsula, Palestine and Syria, (3) Constantinople
and the Black Sea jports. The report furthermore
urges the necessity for an international Sanitary
Committee to co-ordinate the work of the
public health authorities throughout the Near East
and welcomes the expressed intention of the French
Government to summon an international conference
of the Office International d'Hygi&ne Publique for
drawing up a new Paris Convention, based on
the present one and the revised texts proposed
by the Office International and the Committee
of Inquiry. 1 The Council approved this report
* It will be remembered (see Chapter IV) that the Office
International d'Hygiene Publique acts as the '* general assembly "

PUBLIC HEALTH WORK 91

and has placed the services of the League Health
Organisation and Secretariat at the disposal of
the French Government, for the purposes of the
proposed conference.

In December 1921 the Health Organisation
held a conference in London on the standardisa-
tion of sera and serological tests, as the starting-
point of a general inquiry undertaken conjointly
with the Office International. Hitherto the various
systems for measuring and testing the strength of
anti -toxins have been evolved independently of one
another within different nations and even by
different doctors of the same nationality, thus
causing much confusion and many difficulties. In
present conditions a doctor of one country often
cannot diagnose or prescribe for a patient who has
begun his treatment in another country. Similarly,
results of research work cannot be made available
outside their country o"f origin, since other institutes
use methods built up on different principles. The
creation of a uniform system of nomenclature and
units of measurement is thus evidently a necessary
piece of international medical co-operation, involv-
ing prolonged and co-ordinated research work in
many different laboratories. The State Health and
Serological Institutes of Austria, Belgium, France,
Germany, Great Britain, Italy, Japan, Poland,
Switzerland and the U.S.A. took part in the pre-
liminary conference which elaborated a programme
of inquiry and research to be carried out by
the different laboratories and centralised in the
Copenhagen Institute, acting as a clearing-house
for all the work.

On September 25th to 27th a small interim con-
ference was held at Geneva, attended by repre-

of the League Health Organisation, while remaining an independent
body. In particular, it is the Office International that holds
conferences to draw up conventions. But the seat of the Office
International is Paris, and its constitution provides that it is the
French Government which summons its conferences.

92 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

sentatives of the state epidemiological laboratories
of Denmark, France, Germany, Great Britain,
Italy, Japan, Soviet Russia and the U.S.A., which'
adopted a uniform international standard for each'
of the two anti-toxins diphtheria and tetanus on
which the preliminary work had been completed.
Results of the work on anti-pneumococcus, anti-
meningococcus and anti-dysentery sera, as well as
the sero -diagnosis of syphilis, were examined and a
further programme of research work adopted at a
second general conference held at the Pasteur Insti-
tute in Paris from November 2Oth to 26th. This
conference not only marked a fresh and highly
successful stage in the slow, cumulative process
which all research work entails, but showed how
the basis of this work is widening as it proceeds,-
At the second conference there were not only more
countries represented Austria, Belgium, Denmark,
France, Germany, Great Britain, Japan, Poland,
Roumania, Russia, Switzerland and the U.S.A. but
the delegations were more numerous and contained
bigger men representing more weighty institutions.
French, British and German medical science was
particularly strongly represented. The British
delegation consisted of three doctors from the
Ministry of Health, three from the Medical
Research Council and two from the Oxford
[Pathological Institute.

At the Council Meeting in London in July
1922 the agreement was approved in principle
which the Health Committee, at its subsequent
meeting in August, concluded with the International
Health Board of the Rockefeller Foundation. By
this agreement the Foundation endows two special
branches of the League's work epidemiological
Intelligence and the interchange of sanitary staff
to the extent of $30,000 a year for five years
for the former and $60,000 a year for three years
for the latter. By the latter arrangement the
.Health Committee will be able to organise a system

PUBLIC HEALTH WORK 93

of exchange courses both lectures and practical
work for health officers from different countries
as well as travelling medical scholarships for health'
officers wishing to study some particular subject
connected with their work and able to satisfy the
conditions laid down by the Health Committee.
Moreover, the committee will be able to extend
and perfect the epidemiological intelligence service
(which it has organised since the end of last year,,
in order to inform all national health authorities
rapidly and effectively of the incidence of epidemic
diseases and to study the best methods of collecting
and distributing epidemiological data. The need
of some clearing-house for epidemiological infor-
mation has long been felt and is particularly acute
in view of the present disease conditions in East
Europe. At present information is sent out by the
Health Section of the League Secretariat at least
twice in three weeks. In order further to complete
the information thus sent out p a' periodical epidemio-
logical Intelligence Bulletin is also being issued
by the Health S.ection. This bulletin contains
month-to-month statistics and charts on the
incidence all over the work of Asiatic cholera,
typhus, relapsing fever, dysentery, small-pox,
anthrax, scurvy, etc.

The first essay in interchange of sanitary
staff consisted of a two-months* October gth to
December i;th course in Belgium and Italy for a
selected number of health officials, followed by
a stay of a few days at Geneva. In both Belgium
and Italy the public health officials taking the
course were given a course of lectures in the capital
of the country, by the heads of its health service,
supplemented by visits to hospitals, asylums,
creches, reservoirs, aqueducts, drainage and sewage
systems, bacteriological laboratories, local and
central administrations in a word, a first-hand
view of all the machinery for preserving health 1
and combating disease in a modern state. This

94 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

theoretical course of study and observation was
followed by a period of actual apprenticeship to
the health services of the countries concerned, and
for this purpose the officials taking the course were
scattered all over the country they were visiting.

Thus these twenty odd officials two from Austria;,
two from Belgium, one from Bulgaria, two from
Czecho -Slovakia, four from Italy, five from Poland,
five from Soviet Russia and the Ukraine, two from
the Serb-Croat-Slovene State gained a pretty
good working knowledge of the sanitary admin-
istration of two West European countries, and
forged a number of enduring personal links,
both with each other and with important
members of the health services of the countries
they visited., During the final few days of
the course these officials assembled at Geneva,
where they each had to give a lecture, followed
by discussion, on what they had seen and what
practical bearing they thought their experiences
could be made to have. They were also taken
over the League Secretariat, brought into touch'
with its leading members, and then given a series
of lectures on the nature, organisation and work
of the League, with special reference to the Health'
Organisation, its history, how it was constituted,
what it had done, its relations to governments
and national health services, to the rest of the
League machinery, and so forth.

The value of a course of this sort for the new
states, by helping them gain knowledge and build
up their traditions and health systems, for all
states, by cultivating the international spirit and
making possible far-reaching international co-
operation, is too obvious to need comment.
It is hoped that the first course will serve
as a first experiment in the light of which a system
of regularly recurring and ever more effective
courses can be arranged among the various coun-
tries. Most of the money for this purpose

PUBLIC HEALTH WORK 95

has been found for the next three years by the
splendid generosity of the Rockefeller Foundation,
and it is hoped that after this period of time the
Governments Members of the League will be
sufficiently impressed by the value of the work to
finance it wholly themselves. ,

On November 3rd the Health Committee, in
view of the increase of sleeping-sickness and
tuberculosis in Africa since the war, appointed a
small expert committee from the three countries
Belgium, France, Great Britain having colonial
interests in tropical Africa. The findings of
this committee, which sat in London, will serve
as the basis of the action recommended by the
Health Committee on the subject. The action
will probably take the form of approaching
the states concerned through the League Council,
and so getting an international conference
summoned, at which draft sanitary conventions
will be drawn up, providing for common action
in preventing the spread of the disease, reporting
its incidence promptly and accurately, quarantining
and surveying infected or suspected persons, etc.
Presumably the Health Organisation might prove
useful for the purposes of this conference and the
connecting link in the campaign of common action.

On November 3rd the Health Committee, at the
suggestion of its Japanese member and with the
approval of the governments concerned, sent a
small mission of two members on a six-months*
tour of investigation of the chief ports in the Far
East, for the purpose of studying the different
methods in force for sanitary, anti -epidemic and
quarantine regulation, with particular attention to
the necessity for preventing the spread of diseases
by seaborne traffic. The object of collecting this
information is partly that this is useful in itself
and partly that it may serve as the basis for a
conference between the powers concerned for
co-ordinating and tightening up sanitary and anti-

96 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

epidemic measures throughout the Far East. This
is important, for although temporarily eclipsed by
the fresh giant source of landborne infection in
Russia seaborne tropical diseases coming from
the Far East have been the main enemy of port
sanitary authorities all over the world.

In short, the war has, in the domain of public
health as elsewhere, lowered standards, relaxed
efforts, and at the same time made the need for
continuous international action doubly clear ; and
the League has, here as elsewhere, evolved into
an attempt to meet this situation on the only
possible lines. Through the League Health Organ-
isation the necessary officials have been set up,
knowledge and experience; gained, contacts estab-
lished between the governments concerned and
methods worked out by which they can co-operate
the whole machinery is ready, and all that is
needed is an intelligent will in governments and
public opinion to set it doing the work of
reconstruction, for which it was created and that
must be done. 1

* See Appendix C, Note 3.

CHAPTER VIII

OPIUM, THE TRAFFIC IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN,
FINANCE, TRANSIT

UNDER Article XXIII of the Covenant, the League
of Nations is charged with the duty of securing
international co-operation in the fight against the
traffic in women and children and in the control
of the traffic in opium and dangerous drugs.
Both these matters were the subject of international
action before the war, but in, both the need for
some continuous central body, watching over and
stimulating action in this matter in all the countries
(concerned, has been badly felt. That is, in both'
cases international conferences had been held and
conventions adopted, but after ithis point there
was no means of urging the various governments
to ratify and enact the conventions that had been
adopted, to collect information on their working in
practice, and to suggest ways of increasing their
efficacy. The League system supplies these
deficiencies it provides advisory committees that
are bodies of experts who, in conjunction with the
corresponding sections of the Secretariat-General,
are exclusively and permanently occupied with
gathering full information on the existing situation
in their respective subjects, and for this purpose
in constant communication with all the Govern-
ments Members of the League, as well as with 1
governments such as the German, which, although
not yet in the League, is represented on the Opium
and Traffic in tWiomen and Children Committees, ;

9T

98 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

it provides regular conferences of government
representatives, i.e. the Council and the Assembly,
which give opportunities for discussing and taking
action on the reports and suggestions of the
advisory committees ; the League system and
machinery also facilitate the holding of special
conferences when the time is ripe for drafting
fresh conventions ; and finally, through the League
Secretariat and advisory committees, governments
and private organisations working on these subjects
are brought into contact, the Press is informed
and public opinion focused on the question at
issue, (

The Hague Opium Convention, concluded in
1912, but not generally ratified until January 1920,
and then only by its incorporation in the Peace
Treaties, is the only convention controlling the
traffic in opium and dangerous drugs. The League
Council, at the suggestion of the Opium Committee
and by the request of the First and Second
Assemblies, is (i) securing information from all
governments on the enactment and working in prac-
tice of the convention. (2) Urging ratification on
such states as have not yet done so. (3) Recom-
mending a system of government import and export
licences, the better to control trade in opium and
dangerous drugs. (4) Making an inquiry as "to
the average quantities of these substances needed
in all countries for legitimate purposes, with a
view to (5) summoning an international conference
empowered to discuss the cutting 1 down of opium
cultivation to the amounts strictly necessary for
legitimate purposes. The difficulties in the way
of the last project are, however, at present probably
insuperable, since three of the four chief producing
countries, namely China, Persia and Turkey, are
not to-day, as regards opium growing, controlled
or controllable by their own governments, and the
fourth India 4s inclined to take a very elastic
view of f< legitimate requirements.*' Drastic

TRAFFIC IN WOMEN AND CHILDREN 99

control of imports is probably, therefore, the only
feasible method at present.

Lastly, a system of control at the source has
been suggested by the Opium Committee for the
manufacture and sale of cocaine. By this system
every step of the process, from the coca leaf to
the dose in the hypodermic syringe of the dentist's
cabinet, would be controlled by government licences
government licence and control for the manufac-
turer, for the wholesaler, the retailer and the con-
sumer. Only in this way, it is contended, is it
possible to stop the abuse of this drug, which^
owing to its extreme potency and the fact that it
is made as a powder, can easily be smuggled in
minute quantities and in ways that defy detection.

In the matter of the Traffic in Women and
Children, too, the first action of the League
Council was to send a questionnaire to all states
parties to the conventions of 1904 and 1910, and
to ask states not yet parties to these conventions
to adhere to them. Furthermore, the Council
summoned a conference which met at Geneva on
June 30, 1921, and included thirty -four states.
Representatives of the International Women's
Organisation, the International Catholic and the
Jewish Associations for the Protection of Girls,
and the Federation of 'National Unions for the
Protection of Girls were also present. (These
organisations are represented, in a technical
capacity, on the advisory committee concerned with
this subject.) The resolutions of this conference
were cast by the Second Assembly into the form
of a draft convention, including, but designed to
bring up to date and strengthen, the 1904 and
1910 conventions. This draft convention has now
been ratified by some thirty powers. It provides
notably for (i) making not only offences, but also
attempts to commit offences, punishable. (2)
Facilitating the extradition of accused persons.
(3) Raising the age of consent from twenty to

100 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

twenty-one years. r (4) Protecting women and
children seeking employment in foreign countries
by means of the supervision of employment
agencies and notices at ports and railway stations,
warning against the traffic and indicating places
where accommodation and assistance could be
obtained. (5) Setting (up, Central authorities in
each country for dealing with the enforcement pf
the" convention.

The work done through! the League in the
questions of transit, finance and economics was
made the basis for the deliberations on these
subjects of the Genoa Conference, which did little
more than approve what had been done and urge
that this work be Continued. In addition, the
Transit and Economic and Financial Committees
act as the advisers of the Council, the latter notably
having been of great use in this respect in the
settlement of the questions of Albania and Austria.

As regards transit and communications, the
League has been instrumental, through the Paris
Passports Conference, in securing a simplification
and relaxation of the system of passports arid
visas, which was very rigid and complicated after
the war, and the League Transit Organisation is
now conducting an inquiry into the question of
unification of the system of tonnage measurement
and of port and harbour rules for the waterways
of Europe. But the main work of the League
in this field was accomplished in the Barcelona
Transit Conference, which was held in March-'
April 1921, and in which forty-three states,
including Germany and Hungary (at that time
not a member of the League) took part. This
conference drew up : (i) A convention on thei
general principles which should govern the freedom
of transit for persons and goods, (2) A conven-
tion relating to waterways of international concern.
This convention, which' is an elaboration and
adaptation to modern conditions of principles laid 1

TEANSIT AND FINANCE 101

down by the Congress of Vienna more than one
hundred years ago, guarantees absolute liberty of
navigation in all waterways common to several
states, with equal treatment for all flags, and with
the prohibition of any special customs duties or
vexatious taxes or demands. Arrangements are
made for the maintenance and improvement of the
fairway, and river ports are put at the disposal
of foreigners as well as nationals. (3) A recom-
mendation and resolutions regarding the use of
railways and international ports, based on the same
principles as the two conventions. The Conference,
furthermore, made provisions for future plenary or
partial meetings and in particular for another
general conference in the spring of 1923, at which
the recommendations and resolutions regarding
railways will be cast into the form of a convention.

The Genoa Conference based its discussions on
the findings of the Barcelona Conference, urged
that the conventions drawn up there should be
ratified without delay, and recommended that the
work done in this field should be continued on the
same lines.

In September 1920 the Council of the League
summoned the Brussels Financial Conference,
which was attended by thirty-seven countries,
including Germany and the United States, and
which provided the first comprehensive and authori-
tative survey of the financial and economic
condition of post-war Europe. The report and
recommendations of the Brussels Conference
formed the substance of the Genoa Conference's
resolutions on financ'e and economics. These
resolutions are, however, likely to remain Platonic
until the question of reparations is solved, before
which, as the Third Assembly pointed out, there
is no hope of feound finance or sound politics in!
Europe. Meanwhile the findings of the Brussels
Conference have helped in, the process of sobering
tip public opinion.

102 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

Lastly, the Economic and Financial Commission
is conducting inquiries into such questions as
double taxation, the flight of capital, the reciprocal
treatment of foreign banks, an international under-
standing on the subject of lost, stolen or destroyed
securities and the unification of legislation regard-
ing Bills of Exchange. Exhaustive investigation,
the collection of full information, and careful
preparation of the questions in consultation with
the governments interested will be followed, accord-
ing to the already established method of dealing
with these matters, by the summoning of an inter-
national conference, where draft conventions will
be drawn up, to be submitted for ratification,
and further progress watched by the League
machinery established for these purposes.

This, then, is an outline of what the League
has done or attempted in the three years of its
existence an outline not pretending to be com-
plete, and sure to be out of date before it appears
in print, but sufficient to base certain conclusions
on. The first conclusion is that the League
organisation and methods have shown themselves
elastic and comprehensive enough to cope with*
the many and varied and sometimes wholly un-
expected problems they have had to face ; that,
indeed, the League machinery has developed a
certain smooth accuracy and certainty in its
handling of the matters with which it has to deal
that tend to inspire confidence in the correctness
of the general idea and principles on which th0
League system is based.

On the other hand and this is the second con-
elusion the League as an association of states
betrays a certain onesidedness in its handling
of political problems where the interests of an
ex -Ally are concerned. This applies in a less
degree to the Assembly than to the Council, but
it applies to both, for in neither, any more thai*
at Genoa or in any post-war .European Conference,

MORAL OF THE LEAGUE'S RECORD 103

is there a power or group of powers that balances
the Allied group. This is an evil greater in
theory than in fact, for the Allies hardly ever
are in agreement with each other politically.
Nevertheless, the evil is a real one. The remedy
is clear, and consists in the universalising of the
League. The next step, in the present condition
of world affairs, is equally clear it consists in
Germany's adherence. This would of itself cure
two other evils the tendency to make the League
a rag-bag for minor or thankless tasks, reserving
all important decisions for a special Allied organ,
and slackness in ratifying decisions taken at League
conferences. Germany's inclusion would make the
League the centre of the. political stage ; first-
class questions would be 'dealt with in League
conferences ; consequently governments would
send their most important statesmen to these
conferences. This would arouse the interest of
public opinion and the attention of governments ;
the League's authority would gain and there would
be no question of not promptly ratifying decisions
taken at League conferences. But the very
importance of the step and the very nature of the
League which is an association of states makes
Germany's entry into the League depend on her
relation to the Allies. As a German writer has
put it, the question of Germany and the League
is only one aspect of the question " Germany and
France." Germany's entry into the League on
the only terms on which she wishes to enter
namely with a permanent seat on the Council
will itself be a sign of a new relationship of
recognised equality between her and the chief
Allies. The moment for this change has not come
yet, but it must come soon, and when it comes the
League will almost automatically become the
system by means of which the affairs of Europe
are conducted.

SECTION FOUR
THE POSITION TO-DAY

CHAPTER IX

THE CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT OF THE
LEAGUE

THE constitution of the League was drawn up
at the Peace Conference, in an atmosphere of
war solidarity, and by men such as General Smuts
and Lord Robert Cecil a good deal further
advanced in their ideas than the bulk of their
fellow-men. Hence the provisions of the Covenant
are in some respects bolder and go further in
postulating international solidarity with correspond-
ing international obligations than most post-
armistice governments have hitherto been ready
to follow, for the war has aggravated nationalism!
all over the world and added a host of fresh fears
and hatreds. The constitutional evolution of the
League during the first three years of its existence,
although based on the Covenant, has therefore
been conditioned by the atmosphere of suspicious
nationalism with which the post-war world reeks,
and has often taken the form of a conflict between
the stipulations of the Covenant and the views
of reactionary or timid governments.

The first and worst effect of this atmosphere
has been the reversion of the United States to
their traditional policy of isolation, and their
traditional view of Europe as a polyglot, crowded
little continent addicted to effete monarchs, blood-
feuds, and wild-cat finance. As for the Allies,
they have given expression to their war-inflated

107

108 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

nationalism by refusing to deal with any important
decision through the League system on a variety
of grounds that may be summed up as a general
disinclination to practise methods of equal co-
operation and all-round discussion, and a general
preference for dictation by two or three leading
Allies to the rest of the world. As a corollary
the Allies refused to entertain Germany's appli-
cation at the Peace Conference to be admitted
to the League. In this spirit, too, the Covenant's
stipulations concerning mandates were stretched
not to say twisted to mean that the Allies should
allocate the mandates among themselves and then
each mandatory power draw up the terms of its
own mandate as it saw fit. The r61e of the League
Council was confined to approving and ratifying
the result, 1 One c'onsequence of this attitude is
that the provisions for a phosphates monopoly
in the British Nauru mandate and the French
arrangements for drawing black' armies from their
mandated territories are dead against the spirit,
if not the letter, of the Covenant. In this con-
nection, however, the proceedings of the Mandates
Commission with regard to Nauru and the reso-
lution of the Third Assembly on the massacre of
Hottentots in South- West Africa, show that the
League system serves to focus public opinion and
is capable of exerting a cumulative and very power-
ful moral pressure on recalcitrant governments
so soon as this roused public opinion bestirs itself.
In the matter of Article XVIII, too prescribing,
that all treaties and international agreements must
be registered with the Secretariat and are not
binding until so registered a good many of the
Governments Members of the League have shown
a strong inclination to wriggle out of uncomfort-
able obligations imposed by the Covenant* Thus
a Committee was appointed by the Council, at

Which, incidentally, it has not yet done in the case of the
Mesopotamia mandate.

CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT 109

the request of the First Assembly, to Inquire into
the exact scope and meaning of this Article. The
Committee, after prolonged and exhaustive study,
found that the Article meant precisely what it
said, but thereupon took upon itself to recom-
mend an amendment to the Article, by which
the latter should be rendered innocuous. The:
amendment proposed that technical conventions
might be exempted from registration, and that
the non-registration of treaties should not mean]
that they were not binding, but simply that no
appeal to the League could be based on them. The
former proposal would, of course, have sanctioned
secret military agreements, and the latter would
mean that large sections of international life were
withdrawn from the cognisance and sphere of
action of the League, i.e. could never be dealt
with through the League system. The result would
have been a stultification of this system only one
degree less than what would ensue were the League
to be similarly made taboo in questions arising!
out of the peace treaties. The reasoning of the
Committee was even more interesting than its pro-
posals, for it argued quite frankly that Article, XVI 1 1,
as it stands, imposed a higher standard than
current international morality can rise to, and
should consequently be revised in conformity with'
this morality, such as it is.

Meanwhile several military agreements have
been concluded, e.g. between France and Belgium;
Poland and Roumania, and probably Poland and
France, and not registered with the Secretariat^
It is true France notified the existence of her
agreement with Belgium to the Secretariat, and'
explained that it was like all such agreements^
without exception purely defensive and pacific in
purpose, but this cannot be counted as registration.
The Second Assembly refused to sanction the pro-
posed amendment, and adjourned it to the Third,
which has adjourned it to the Fourth;, Until the

110 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

question is finally settled the Assembly has
sanctioned states interpreting this amendment as
they please. It should clearly be a prime object
of British foreign policy to insist upon a rigid inter-
pretation of League obligations under Article XVII I,
to resist any modification of its terms, and there-
by to ensure that existing secret treaties will
carry with them a moral stigma, and that it
will be the duty as well as the opportunity of
the opposition in all countries signatories to these
treaties to denounce them as invalid under the
terms of Article XVIII.

But the most important and lasting result of
the conflict between post-war nationalism and the
Covenant is the interpretation of Article X given
by the first Committee of the Second Assembly, and
the revision of Article XVI voted by the Second
Assembly. Article X declares that members of
the League are bound to defend the territorial
integrity and political independence of a Member
State against external aggression, while Article XVI
lays it down that any state going to war against
a member of the League without observing the
stipulations regarding delay and submission to
peaceful settlement contained in Articles XII to
XV of.jthe Covenant is, ipso facto, in a state of
fwar with * all the members of the League, which
fehould employ their military, naval and air forces
lagainst it, as well as prohibit all intercourse
Between the inhabitants of their state and the
inhabitants of the outlawed state. In deference
to/ the objections of Canada, which argued that
.Article X amounted to an obligation to uphold
the stains quo, the first Committee of the Second
Assembly passed a resolution stating that Article X
did not involve any obligation to uphold the
status quo, or indeed to prevent it being changed
by war, but merely to prevent any such change
being attempted by a war declared in defiance
of the Covenant's provisions for mediation and

CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT 111

delay. When such a war was threatened,. Article X
merely conferred upon the Council the right
to recommend what measures should be taken
under Article XVI to stop, the aggressor. 1 Mean-
while several smaller states, chiefly the ex-neutrals,
pointed out that Article XVI laid very drastic obli-
gations upon them that might well prove fatal
if the state against whom they were to apply the
provisions of Article XVI should be a great
neighbour. Consequently, they pleaded that the
Article should be rendered less severe and more
elastic. In conformity with this demand the Second
Assembly revised Article XVI from top to bottom,
cut out all reference to military action, declared
the Council to be the body which should announce
whether conditions warranting the enforcement of
this Article had arisen, and further laid it down
that in recommending measures to be taken under
Article XVI the Council should take account of
the special situation and needs of the members of
the League affected*

The effect of the interpretation and amendment
described above is clear : Articles X and XVI
together now merely give the Council the power,
in case of war declared in defiance of League pro-
cedure, to recommend against the aggressor certain
measures, not exceeding blockade, and taking full
account of the exigencies of any member of the
League that might be particularly affected by the
enforcement of the recommendation. In otherwords,
the Covenant lays upon the members of the Council
an obligation similar to that contained in the
Washington Four- Power Convention, namely to
confer, in case of trouble threatened to any
signatory or signatories of the treaty (in this
case of the Covenant), with the added presumption
that the discussion will take the form of recom-
mending measures of economic pressure against
the trouble-maker. The result is to make the
1 See Appendix C, Note 4.

112 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

League a very loose association for conference
and co-operation without any rigid general obli-
gation, embedded in the constitution of the League
and so semi-automatic, constraining Member States
to come to one another's defence-

The logical corollary of this evolution has been
a movement in favour of voluntary ad hoc regional
understandings between States Members of the
League which,, for one reason or another, wish 1
to be more closely bound to each other than is
entailed by simple membership under the revised
Covenant. A further development consists in:
according facilities for states not members of the
League to join in this system of conference and
co-operation when they wish and for such purposes
as they wish. The starting point of this evolution
was the action of the Second Assembly in regard
to Article XXL The Assembly interpreted this
Article which declares that nothing in the
Covenant is to be taken as incompatible with
such regional understandings for the maintenance
of peace as, e.g., the Monroe Doctrine as sanction-
ing the conclusion between members of the League
of agreements " tending to define or complete
die engagements contained in the Covenant for
the maintenance of peace or the promotion of
international co-operation. 1 ' The resolution,
furthermore, declared that such agreements may
be negotiated " under the auspices of the League
of Nations, for example, in special conferences
with its assistance/' The first example of the
way this resolution can be interpreted in practice
was given by the Warsaw Health Conference of
March 1922. This Conference was summoned
by the Polish Government^ and attended by the
European members of the League (i.e. overseas
members, except Japan, were not invited), as well
as Germany, Soviet Russia, Soviet Ukraine, Turkey
and Hungary [(which 1 at that time was not a
member of the League), But before summoning

CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT 118

the Conference the Polish Government discussed
the matter with the Council, and obtained an
offer from the Council of the services of the
League Secretariat and Health Organisation for
the purposes of the Conference. Accordingly, the
organising and preparatory work of the Conference
was undertaken by the League Secretariat, and
the Conference itself, in a resolution, entrusted
the carrying out of its decisions .to the League
Health Committee, with the proviso that the Com-
mittee should include members of all the powers
chiefly interested (Germany and Russia were the
two powers whose representation was demanded
by this resolution).

This is an illustration of how League methods
and League machinery can be utilised, for such
purposes as they wish, by powers not members of
the League. A further instance is the constitution
of the Transit Organisation, which must be taken
as the type for the technical organisations. The
Transit Organisation conference can by a two-
thirds vote admit any power to full membership
on the same terms as members of the League.,
Q?he constitutional development thus illustrated by
the Warsaw Conference and the Transit Organ-
isation is interesting, for it coincides exactly with
.what a great many influential people in the United
States, who are opposed to America's full entry,
declare would enable the United States to co-
operate in certain matters with the Powers Members
of the League through the League system.

In the matter of regional agreements, the Third
Assembly's proposal for a guarantee pact on
behalf of states reducing their armaments to a
certain level, and Uruguay's proposal for a League
of American nations, to be discussed at the Pan-
American Conference at Santiago in March 1923.,
are of great interest. The Assembly's resolution,
it will be remembered, provided for the conclusion
of defensive pacts, if possible Continental j(i.e.

8

114 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

general) in scope, becoming operative on behalf
of states which had reduced their armaments to
an agreed standard, and which could satisfy the
Council that their territory had been violated (the
Council's decision on this point should be given
by a three-fourths majority and within four days).
The fact that agreements between smaller than
Continental groups are allowed by this resolution
was a compromise between the British and neutral
view on the one side and the views of France
and the new states on the other. The British and
neutrals were obsessed by the fear respectively of
slipping back once more to the old condition o !
rival alliances that breed war, and of undertaking
too far-reaching international responsibilities.
Thus Great Britain made clear her preference
for a general pact, including Germany and Russia,
while the neutrals desired some form of control
over foreign policy of the states to be guaranteed,
in order to ensure that this foreign policy, relying
on the protection of the pact, should not be
wantonly provocative. The French and new state
point of view, on the other hand, was put very
succinctly by a Polish newspaper, which declared
that if Poland were given a guarantee fay all the
states of the world, she would feel it necessary
to arm to the teeth, whereas if she concluded a
pact with a few states that she knew to be friends
and vitally interested in her integrity and inde-
pendence, Poland would feel really protected. In
other words, these states simply do not believe
that remote countries undertaking a " blanket "
obligation on paper to defend Poland would ever
honour their obligations if it really came to the
point. To these states a general pact is not a
binding pact on the principle that what is every-
body's job is notoriously nobody's job.

The practical problem raised by this conflict
of views is that of finding a compromise form of
agreement, which will sufficiently satisfy the desire

CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT 115

of France and the new states for local groupings,
while by its form avoiding the dangers of separate
alliances and affording some guarantee that no
state can appeal to this pact unless it is conducting
its foreign policy in such a way as to deserve
protection. Such a compromise would seem to be
afforded by the proposal discussed in Chapter VIII,
that any states could conclude regional agree-
ments, but that these could become operative only
by a decision of the Council, and then only on
behalf of a state whose case was sab judice in
the League or which had accepted the League's
final award in the dispute at issue (for a further
discussion on this point see Chapter XII).

In America, too, there has been a very decided
movement toward regional understandings. This
movement, in fact, precedes the League, and is
in some measure the prototype of the League.
What the League attempts to do for the whole
world, the Pan-American Union, in many ways,
has for a long time been attempting to do for
North and South America. The object of the
Pan- American Union is co-operation in economic,
financial, health, humanitarian, intellectual and
transit questions, and it sets about this object by
much the same methods as the League of Nations.
It is consequently not surprising that the Secretary-
General of the Pan-American Union should be
in close touch with the League Secretariat, and
that the services of the League Secretariat were
put by the Third Assembly at the disposal of the
Pan-American Conference at Santiago. On the
other hand, as regards the peaceful settlement
of disputes, the Monroe Doctrine has developed
tendencies closely similar to the provisions of the
Covenant, The Monroe Doctrine, which was
originally declared for the purpose of keeping
European states from conquest in North or South
America, has developed in practice into meaning
that any European state having a quarrel with

116 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

a South American state must settle that quarrel
by methods of arbitration or mediation on pain
of trouble with the United States. President
Wilson further developed this doctrine by inviting
the so-called A.B.C. powers (Argentine, Brazil
and Chili) to collaborate with the United States
Government in settling outstanding differences with
Mexico by peaceful pressure and mediation. Now.
Uruguay has proposed a further advance along
this path by a draft scheme to be submitted to
the Santiago Conference, declaring that any act
by a non-American state, derogatory to the rights
of an American state, should be considered by
all other American states as concerning them all
equally directly and requiring joint action.
Furthermore, a League of American nations
should be constituted on the basis of the complete
equality of all the states concerned, and without
prejudice to their right of membership of the
League of Nations. Any difference arising between
American states should be submitted to the arbitral
judgment of the American League, if it cannot
be settled by direct negotiations or informal
friendly mediation.

The bearing of this proposal is obvious. It
is not clear, however, to what extent the great
states of South America, such as Brazil or
Argentine, will consent to be placed on a footing
of perfect equality with smaller South American
states, not to mention the minute and turbulent
republics of Central America. And it is quite
certain that the United States would never consent
to equality in this sense. Moreover, some South!
American states have more important relations with
Europe and European countries than they have
with their Continental neighbours. In any case,
South American states are anxious to strengthen
their relations with Europe, and glad of their
membership in a World League, in order to protect
themselves against what they regard as the menace

CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT 117

of United States hegemony. "But, in spite of
these limitations, the proposal is obviously in the
direct line of advance of events, and therefore
has every chance of being realised in the shape
of a League of American nations, independent
of the World League, but acting in practice as
a regional association within the League of
Nations.

The proposal of Norway and Swedeli to provide,
in the Covenant, for the setting up of commissions
of arbitration and conciliation is a further outcome
of the preference for local informal understand-
ings as contrasted with stiffer and more unwieldy
general obligations. The Second Assembly de-
cided it was not necessary to revise the Covenant
for this purpose, and set up a committee of jurists
to study the question and recommend some other
way of satisfying Norway *s and Sweden's demand.
The committee of jurists laid before the Third
Assembly a scheme whereby States Members or
not of the League might conclude conventions
among themselves, setting up small permanent con-
ciliation commissions, whose members would be
appointed by mutual agreement between the con-
tracting states. These conventions should contain
articles defining the relations between the system,
of conciliation commissions and the machinery for
the settlement of international disputes (i.e. the
Council, Court and Assembly) contained in the
Covenant. In drawing up the conventions the
states concerned can avail themselves of the
Secretariat and other League organisations, as can
also the members of the conciliation commissions
themselves. A spontaneous development of the
same sort was contained in the abortive convention
between Poland, Finland and the Baltic States,
which contained a solemn undertaking by the con-
tracting powers to settle all disputes among
themselves by mediation, arbitration, or by refer-
ence to the International Court. Similar provisions

118 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

are contained in the Lama Agreement between
Czecho-Slovakia and Austria. The new states,
too, are including clauses in the health and transit
conventions they are concluding that provide for
mediation of disputes arising out of these agree-
ments by, respectively, the League Health and
Transit Committees. Furthermore, the Minorities
Agreements signed by the new states, the Aaland
Island Convention, signed by ten powers, and the
Upper Silesian Convention between Germany and
Poland, provide for reference of disputes to the
Council or Court.

States that cannot solve a dispute by what is
known as " the resources of diplomacy " will, there-
fore, find it easy and natural are in fact obliged,
as members of the League to refer their dispute
for arbitration or mediation either to a strictly
local (i.e. bi- or tri-lateral, ad hoc or permanent,
as the case may be) commission of arbitration
or mediation, or may carry the matter further
to some regional organisation (such as it is pro-
posed should be constituted by the American
nations). Finally, there would remain the course
of purely judicial settlement in the World Court,
political mediation by the Council, representing
all the Great Powers and a contingent of smaller
powers elected by all the nations of the world',
or, as a court of last appeal, there would be the
Plenary Assembly, representing the nations of the
whole world, and thereby possessing a tremendous
moral authority. Not only would states "be
expected to avail themselves of these facilities
and considered as behaving in an uncivilised
manner if they failed to do so, 1 but under the

* An interesting instance of the effect on national behaviour
of these facilities is afforded by the dispute between France and
Great Britain over the status of certain categories of persons in
Tunis and Morocco, Great Britain contended that these persons
were British subjects and that consequently the French Govern*
ment had no right to conscript them. The French Government,
on the other hand, contended they were French subjects. The

CONSTITUTIONAL DEVELOPMENT 119

system, of regional agreements and by Articles X
and XVI a state abiding by these methods of
settlement would be protected by the political
authority and economic power of all the members
of the League, particularly the members of the
Council, and specifically protected to the extent
of armed action by those states which had sigaed
the regional agreement to which it was a party.
Thus the League is developing into an instru-
ment that is at once very flexible and available
for the purposes of states not members of the
League, while able to exert great pressure at the
particular time and place where it is most needed.
That the system is, in its essentials, good, there
can be no doubt. That it can be made greatly
better is also undoubted. But that its successful
working to-day depends less Upon constitutional

whole question was extremely intricate and turned on the meaning
and validity of various treaties and decrees as well as on the
difference between French territory and French-protected territory.
The French Government refused to submit the matter to arbitra-
tion on the ground that it was of entirely domestic concern,
and the British Government consequently referred the question
to the Council. The French and British representatives on the
Council, who, of course, were old comrades, having sat on that
body innumerable times during the last two years and been
through some fairly awkward situations together, thereupon
quickly agreed upon a common policy in the Council, which
accordingly unanimously referred the matter to the International
Court for an advisory opinion as to whether or not it was a matter
of domestic concern. France furthermore agreed through her
representative on the Council to refer the matter to arbitration
or judicial settlement if the Court decided it was not a question
of purely domestic concern. The Court, at an extraordinary
meeting summoned on January 8th, decided that the matter was
one of international concern, whereupon the British and French
Governments referred the whole question to the Court for
settlement.

Thus, owing to the machinery and obligations comprised in the
League system, we find a state agreeing to* peaceful settlement
of a dispute in order not to lose prestige and put itself in an un-
favourable light before the rest of the world ; whereas before
the League existed, the same situation would probably have led
to exactly the contrary behaviour out of precisely the same desire
not to lose prestige. And if relations were already none too good
between the countries concerned, a dispute of this sort might
easily have degenerated into a quarrel that would embitter and
excite public opinion to the danger-point.

120 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

improvements than on a certain minimum of inter-
national solidarity or enlightened self-interest and
sense of realities, if the term be preferred among
the States Members of the League is most certain
of all. An encouraging sign that the members
of the League realise the system must develop
and be improved was given by the first Com-
mittee of the Second Assembly, which put on
record its opinion that the Covenant, like all news
constitutions, is essentially a provisional document,
to be thoroughly revised at the first opportunity,.;
This opportunity would come when more experi-
ence had been gained of the actual working of
the League in practice under the present consti-
tution, and when the membership of the League
was complete. This brings us face to face with
the real difficulty, which is to get the Great Powers
in Western Europe to co-operate on equal terms
with the Great Powers in Central and East Europe,
and to get the U.S.A. to co-operate regularly
and whole-heartedly with any or all of thern^
These, again, are problems that our foreign policy
should consciously set itself to solve. When they
are solved, the enlargement of the League will
follow as a matter of course, as part, indeed,
of the solution.

CHAPTER X

THE ATTITUDE OF GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND
THE U.S.A.

THE attitude of the three great states Germany,
Russia, and the United States still outside the
League of Nations to that system of international
co-operation and peaceful settlement of disputes,
is obviously a matter of the greatest interest and 1
importance. It is not, however, a matter easy to
write on lucidly and briefly, for not only does the
attitude vary with each state, but it is somewhat
confused and contradictory in all, changes con-
tinually and is dependent on a whole series of
factors only remotely or not at all connected with
the League. The following notes are therefore to
be taken as merely rough indications.

In Germany public opinion is largely influenced
by the illusion of the League as an advisory
committee of free sages, legislating for mankind
out of the fulness of their hearts, and is rooted
in a state of mind that from persecution mania
is rapidly approaching the apathy of despair.
Touching the former point the excellently informed
Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian,
so long ago as September 1921, wrote :

It must not be forgotten that the constitution of the
League when first formulated meant a tremendous dis-
appointment to Germany, who towards the end of the war
had declared herself ready to become a member of Mr.
Wilson's projected League of Nations. The idea no very
clear one existing in the country at the time was of an
international court of arbitration that stood aloof from the

121

122 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

daily affairs of nations, a form of higher administration
and at the same time a final adjudicator. This idealisation
of its fundamental principles made of the League a tribunal
of justice in its purest form, above and beyond merely
national interests. . . . The fact that the League of Nations
Covenant was drawn up at Versailles and incorporated in
the Peace Treaty- is regarded in Germany to-day as a mockery
of the original principles underlying the idea.

This general statement of the German attitude
still holds good to-day. It may be traced in
continual protestations that Germany, while a firm
believer in the League idea, will never enter this
League of Nations, which has proved itself so
anti-German in all decisions touching Germany's
interests. The Upper Silesian decision is par-
ticularly keenly resented, and taken as proof th!at the
present League is hopeless from the German point
of view. A dawning realisation may, however,
be discerned among clearer-headed politicians that
since it is quite impossible for Germany to create
a League of Nations out of thin air, or with the
United States and Russia, and since she has certain
definite interests to safeguard by entering the
League of existing Nations, she had better do so
on such terms and in such a way as seems best
calculated to promote those interests. The only
way to prevent any League from being auti-
German is for Germany to come in and so help
counterbalance the group of Allied states that
are still more 'or less anti-German, until the day
when the terms " pro -Ally " and "anti-German"
cease to have any meaning.

As regards the second point, however, there is
no doubt that public opinion in Germany is rapidly
reaching the same state of despairing indifference
that had been attained 1 in Austria. With the
prospect of starvation and revolution this winter
staring them in the face, Germans are in no mood
to contemplate joining in any scheme for co-
operation and peaceful settlement of disputes. The
proposal, indeed, sounds to them rather like plans

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.SJL 123

for installing improved plumbing in a house whose
foundations are being undermined by maniacs. In
other words, the maniacs that is, the Allies musf
come to a settlement with Germany on the out-
standing question of debts and reparations before
the question of Germany's admission can become
an immediate practical issue. A settlement would
change Germany's mood, infuse fresh life and hope,
and rekindle the desire for a rapprochement with
the Western Powers and an active European peace
policy. The first result of this would be a desire
to take a worthy part in the only existing attempt
to organise international co-operation on permanent
lines, particularly as such participation would enable
Germany more effectively to protect her interests,
and assert her rights.

Meanwhile, Centre and Left opinion in Germany
are agreed on demanding as a condition for
Germany's candidature that Germany be assured
beforehand of admission and a permanent seat on
the Council. This feeling has been strengthened
since the Allies' invitation to Turkey to apply,
coupled with an assurance of support for her
candidature if she does. Germans argue that in
view of the Turks' record in general, and the way
they have dealt with their Peace Treaty in
particular, the plea must now be abandoned that
Germany is only fit to enter the League cap in
hand and take a back seat, provided she can pass
a searching test as to her orthodoxy in the
Versailles Gospel. Germany, too, th&y say, must
be publicly assured by all the principal Allied
Powers that if she applies they will not only support
her candidature, but also vote for granting her
an immediate permanent place on the Council.
A place in the Assembly only would, in the German
view, bring no practical advantages, and would
give up Germany's claim to rank as a Great Power
owing to her size, population and economic and
cultural importance. Moreover, runs the German

124 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

argument, admission into the League in the teeth'
of French opposition would stultify the main object
of entering namely better relations and closer
co-operation with the Western Powers and leave
Germany in a worse position than ever. This is
one reason why the consent of France must be
gained before the German Government is likely
to apply for membership. The second reason is
that whereas to become a member of the League
a two -thirds vote of the Assembly only is necessary,
the unanimous vote of the Council as well as the
approval of the majority of the Assembly must
be obtained in order to become a permanent
member of the Council, But France is on the
Council, and certainly will not vote for Germany's
admission to that body unless a settlement of
the question of reparations is attained. The French
argue that Turkey was not invited 1 except as part
of a settlement of all outstanding questions with
that country, and that the same procedure should'
be followed with Germany.

The truth is, Germany's membership of the
League Council would mean a tremendous change
in the relations of Germany and the Allies.
Quite apart from the unanimity rule, Germany
would be in a position to state her case authorita-
tively and in such a manner as to be heard by
all the world.. She would have the power to insist
on dealing with any question through League
procedure instead of being forced to swallow what-
ever the Supreme Council threw at her. She
would be in a position to recruit a following
among the other States Members of the League
and generally to deal with the Allies on equal
terms. Specifically she would be able to make
her views felt on the questions of the administration
of the Saar Basin, the status of Danzig, the Upper
Silesian regime, German minorities in Czecho-
slovakia and Poland. Germany would become a
subject in, instead of an object of, League policy,

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.A. 125

and League policy would include every big inter-
national issue, whether arising from the Peace
Treaties or not. Once public opinion had become
accustomed to seeing these issues dealt with by
methods that gave Germany and the neutrals an
equal voice with the Allies and surely this develop-
ment must be supported by any British Government
that means business with its professions of making
the League a real thing and once the guarantees
afforded to national minorities had been galvanised
into effective existence by the same process, it
-would be an easy transition for Germany or for
that matter, Great Britain under Article XIX of
the Covenant, to force a public debate in the
Assembly on the revision of parts of the Peace
Treaties, and so bring moral pressure to bear.
In a word, Germany's membership of the League
Council would mean the closing of the armistice
era and the beginning of real peace. It would
mean the end of Supreme Council dictatorship
and the beginning of Germany's return to world
councils as a Great Power.

But France is afraid of Germany, and France
wants reparations. She will oppose Germany's
return to power and prosperity, and cling to the
Versailles Treaty not because she particularly
likes or admires that document, but as her only
sheet anchor until she receives satisfaction on the
two heads of security and reparations. This
obviously can come aboutso far as it is possible
at all after the gigantic blunders committed by
the Allies since the armistice only as part of
an all-round settlement between Great Britain,
France and Germany, in which we make FrencK
support of Germany's admission to the League
as a permanent member of the Council part of
our bargain. Getting Germany into the League
Council is the shortest and readiest way to in-
augurate the policy of conciliation and co-operation
in Europe that is vital to our own peace aa'd 1

126 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

prosperity. It should, therefore, be a cardinal point
in our foreign policy.

Russia's attitude of vague but ardent hostility
to the League is most puzzling and difficult to
understand. It seems to be largely a product of
the ill-informedness of Russia's rulers. Thus the
Russians, when attending the Warsaw Health
Conference, stipulated that they must be allowed
to deal directly with the national delegations
present and not through the intermediary of the
" League of Nations delegation. 1 * By this was
presumably meant the members of the League
Secretariat, who were there to do the secretarial
and clerical work of the Conference. This absurd
demand seems to argue not only general ignorance,
but to indicate that the Bolsheviks, too, share the
delusion that the League purports to be a kind of
budding super-state which sends delegations about
and gives orders to Nations Members of the
League or attending League conferences.

The Bolshevik attitude would seem to be partly
also a reflex of the cavalier way the Allies them-
selves have treated the League hitherto. Thus
Trotsky, a year ago, declared that " the League
does not concern us. It is the shadow of a shadow.
The Supreme Council we can recognise and deal
with. It is a fact. The capitalist world' is a fact.
England is a fact sometimes a hard fact, but
recognisable as a fact which exists and must be
reckoned with. Any fact which exists is an
important thing. But this League is neither a
fact nor does it exist. It is a mere phantom.
How can we even recognise a phantom? " (Inter-
view in the Daily Herald of January 19, 1922).
In the beginning of February 1922 a Riga paper
the Sevodnya published the text of one of
Trotsky's numerous speeches to the Red Army,
in which he compared the League to the Chinese
Imperial dragon that used to be painted on silk,

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.A. 127

one side of the painting symbolising justice and
the other strength; and wound up by calling the
League " the shadow of the fist of the Supreme
Council." A great deal of water has flowed under
many bridges since Trotsky made these speeches,
and it is doubtful whether any leading Bolshevik
would now express the same sentiments with quite
such verve. Nevertheless,, all things considered.,
it is hardly surprising, in view of the way its
creators have treated the League, that the Bol-
sheviks^ single-minded men with a taste for brass
tacks and strong language should take this view.

Another possibility is the state of mind vulgarly;
described as " sour grapes " this would explain
the frequent statements that Soviet Russia will
not recognise the League so long as she is not a
member. There may also be a general dislike
to seeing capitalist states learn to co-operate and!
a general preference that they should fail in this
as in everything else; a fear, too, lest the League
should develop into an anti -Russian League; and
a specific preference for dealing with other states
one by one and separately, instead of collectively
in League conferences.

Propaganda considerations, no doubt, also play
a considerable part. Thus Chicherin, at Genoa,
publicly declared that Soviet Russia was willing
to help establish a true League of Peoples wherein
Assembly delegates should all be elected repre-
sentatives, and the members of the Council all
elected by the Assembly. The practical difficulties
these claims would raise have already been dis-
cussed, but the point here is that the Bolsheviks
are the very last persons whom one would suspect
of this unseasonable enthusiasm for the ways of
parliamentarism and democracy, for their whole
theory of government is based on the belief that
these things are anathema, and r that a spirited
minority should seize power by force and keep it
by any means until it is satisfied that the majority

128 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

will agree with it permanently. It is, therefore^
more than likely that M. Chicherin spoke with his
tongue in his cheek and one eye on the utterances
of Western left wing intellectuals, who have always
been very strong on the democratisation of the
League without apparently any very clear con-
ception of what this implies.

Another example of this attitude is contained in
an interview given by Lenin and published in the
Observer of October 29, 1922, In this interview
M. Lenin stated that Russia was anxious to co-
operate with the Western Powers and needed their
help, but that the League was too enmeshed in the
Peace Treaties for Russia to be able to approve
of that body. Now there are only two ways to
free the League from the Peace Treaties. One
is to limit the membership of the League to
countries that have not signed the Peace Treaties.
This would greatly curtail its overseas membership
and reduce European membership to Russia and;
the ex-neutrals. The other way is, while admitting
states signatories to the Peace Treaties, to stipulate
that no questions arising out of the Peace Treaties
should be dealt with through the League system.
This would elevate present practice to the dignity
of an eternal principle, and mean that all Treaty
questions in other words, nearly all the important
questions and many of the less important would
continue for ever to be dealt with by the principal
Allies through the Supreme Council, This is, in
fact, the policy of French nationalists, but it can
hardly be what M. Lenin intended. It is legitimate
to infer that M. Lenin spoke, like so many lesser
mortals, without knowing very clearly what he was
talking about, but in the pious hope that what he
said would go down well with the audience to
which he was appealing, namely Western labour
circles. At that he was, characteristically enough,
acting on information out of dat^ by about six
months or a year, for it is all of that since Labour!

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.A. 129

and Progressives generally began to wake to the
fact that the cry about freeing the League from
the Peace Treaties is meaningless, and that the
only sound policy is embodied in the exactly
contrary demand that the Supreme Council be
scrapped and that the whole business of Peace
Treaties and reparations should be turned over
to the League, There is, therefore, hope for
M, Lenin yet.

Meanwhile, it should be clearly explained to
the Russians and the lesson might not be lost
in certain German circles that they cannot have
it both ways : they cannot in one and the same
breath express a desire for co-operation with the
Western Powers and refuse to recognise the system
which these powers have established in order to
co-operate. American aversion to the League is
at least consistent, for it is rooted in a fixed
disinclination to co-operate regularly with any
nation in any circumstances. But Russia wants
to co -operate, wants help, wants to come back
into the society of nations, and yet professes to
reject the system and methods built up by the
society of nations for the express purpose of co-
operating and helping. It is obvious that Russia
is a Great Power and should have a permanent
place on the League Council. Once there, she
would be in a position to win a respectful hearing
for any reasoned proposal to change the constitu-
tion or working of the League. No doubt, too,
the process of getting her there could be arranged
so as to save as much Bolshevik face as was
necessary for the purpose. But we are not going
to return to international anarchy to please Russia,
nor could we help her as she wants if we did;
neither is there the slightest chance that the rest
of the world would consent to scrap what has
been gradually and painfully built up by three
years' hard wdrk, in order to build it all up
again even if that were possible, which it is not

9

130 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

under a different name, pour les beaux yetix de
M. Lenin.

Soviet Russia has had one pretty object-lesson
already in the difficulties involved by her attitude:
the Bolsheviks were induced to attend the Warsaw
Health Conference after a great display of coyness,
the removal from the Conference building of all
placards bearing the tabooed name of " League
of Nations/' and an assurance that they would not
have to deal with the non-existent *' League -of
Nations delegation." At this Conference a
complete scheme was worked out for an anti-
epidemic campaign in the Donetz Basin, along the
main railway lines of Russia, and on the western
frontier of Russia and the Ukraine. The Con-
ference passed a resolution entrusting the League
Health Organisation with the execution of this
programme, once the necessary funds were raised
by the governments concerned, and provided repre-
sentatives of all the chiefly interested governments
were included in the Health Organisation. The
only two interested governments not already
represented were Germany and Russia, and the
Conference passed this resolution for the specific
purpose of getting a German and a Russian health
official on to the League Health Committee. The
Bolsheviks, however, presented a minority resolu-
tion of their own (the Germans having voted* with 1
the rest of the Conference) demanding that a
special international commission should be estab-
lished to supervise the anti-epidemic campaign.

At Genoa there were informal discussions
between the Bolshevik representatives and some
members of the League Secretariat and Health
Organisation, resulting in the adoption of a
" formula. " According to this formula the
Bolsheviks agreed to send a representative to sit
on the Health Committee (which it had by that
time been decided was to include a German
member), and to call the result a special inter-

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.A. 131

national commission, sitting at the same time
and in the same place as the League Health
Committee. The result, of course, is precisely
the same as that contemplated by the resolution
of the Warsaw Conference, but presumably the
same arrangement under a different name smells
sweeter and saves Bolshevik face. 1

At Genoa, too, a convention was signed by
the Bolshevik delegation recognising the League
Epidemic Commission as the executive body in
Russia of the anti-epidemic campaign decided upon
at Warsaw. In consequence the agents of the
Epidemic Commission have diplomatic privileges
in Russia, the Commission has set up offices at
Kiev and Moscow, and its work will be extended
into Western Russia so soon as the necessary
money is forthcoming. Close contact has also been
established between the Health Organisation and
the Soviet health authorities, who send 1 regularly
full health data and abundant medical literature
from Moscow. Professor Tarassevich, the head'
of the Scientific Institute for Public Health at
Moscow, also attended the Health 1 Organisation
conferences on the standardisation of sera and
serological tests, held at Geneva in September and
at Paris in November, and Soviet health officials
are taking the course in Belgium and Italy con-
ducted by the Health Organisation as a first
experiment in the interchange of sanitary staff.
But the de facto situation is very delicate, and may
easily be upset if there should be any conflict
between Russia's genuine desire for help and re-
establishment of relations with the outside world
and Bolshevik belief in the possibility of making
political capital by flouting the League. If there
is any expansion of international government health 1
and 1 relief work in Russia, all these questions of
name will become acute. Similarly, the problem
of Russian participation in the control of the Straits
1 See Appendix C, Note 5.

132 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

will involve the knotty question of whether Russia
can consent to meet the other powers concerned
regularly in the League Council whether by
calling it a special international commission meeting
in the same place and at the same time as the
Council, or by any other means that suggest them-
selves to Bolshevik statecraft or whether she^ would
insist on meeting the same powers outside at
gatherings specially arranged each time. The
latter way is more roundabout,, and means more
trouble for all concerned than the former, and it
covers only the question of the Straits. Entry
into the Council, on the other hand, would mean
opening the door to permanent co-operation on
all matters that Russia cared to deal with through
that body. The Bolsheviks must, of course, choose
for themselves, but they ought to be told plainly
what they are choosing : if they want to co-operate
with the rest of the world, they must enter the
League ; if they wish to remain as they are, they
are at liberty to stay out. That will hurt Europe,
but it will hurt Russia more. Here, too, the course
British policy should follow is clear.

In order even approximately to understand the
attitude of the United States, it must be remem-
bered that they were founded by people who had
fled from Europe and most of whose history has
consisted of the colonisation of the vast empty
continent that lay to the west of the original
seaboard states, with Europe deliberately kept at
arm's length by the Monroe Doctrine. This history
has left a tremendously strong tradition of isolation
and hostility to Europe. Now that America is
a Great potentially the greatest Power in the
world, isolation is out of date, and does not
correspond to modern America's economic and
political interests ; indeed, since the Spanish-
American War and the annexation of the Philip-
pines, the United States have taken an active part

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.A. 188

in world politics in the Far East, while Pan-
Americanism has always been the corollary of the
Monroe Doctrine in its application to South
America. But the attitude towards Europe persists,
and America's entry into the war was a political
tour de force, a revolutionary break with an ancient
and powerful tradition that gave a final demonstra-
tion of the fact that any war between Great Powers
in the modern world must almost inevitably spread
to them all. Participation in the war was accom-
panied by the nationalist exaltation that the war
raised in all belligerent countries. After the
cessation of hostilities exaltation soured for want
of an outlet, and America has ever since suffered
from what might be termed " ingrowing war
mind." This led to an orgy of political heresy-
hunting, the exploits of the American Legion and'
other zealots of patriotism in harrying " radicals "
and humble foreigners generally,, industrial
espionage, a campaign against trade unionism,
the revival of the Ku Klux Klan, and other forms
of reaction. It also led to a violent reversion to
the tradition of isolation, which was greatly ex-
aggerated and rendered more malevolent by the
Republican party as a weapon in the campaign
to oust the Democrats. Since President Wilson
considered the League his main achievement in
foreign politics most of the animus against foreign
commitments was directed into this channel by
the party managers. The result was a brilliant
success from the electoral point of view, and in-
cidentally secured America's abstention from the
League, and an attitude toward Europe that is
expressed by the insistent demand that not only
Great Britain, but half-bankrupt France and Italy,
and the other Allies as well, should pay back the
money lent them as the main contribution to the
war of the United States,, which are already
suffering from a plethora of gold and have put
up a Chinese wall of a customs tariff to avoid

184 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

being paid back in goods. Americans argue that
the Allies gained riches and power at the Peace
Conference by the territories they annexed, 1 and
made a bad peace anyway. Consequently, America,
which got nothing out of the war, is entitled to
her money back, and in any case means to go on
claiming every cent of it so long as the European,
nations maintain huge armies and show '.no sign
of an 'attempt to balance their budgets and stop
cutting each other's throats. Otherwise, letting
them off their debts would be simply indirectly
subsidising these amiable pastimes. European
nations, said one of the American .delegates to.
the Brussels Financial Conference of September
1920 (i.e. toward the end of the Wilson Adminis-
tration), must drop their feuds and learn to pull
together and keep the peace before America can
regard Europe as a good business proposition. It
seems insane to Americans that such a small and
crowded continent as Europe should be divided
into so many separate quarrelling nations.

Curiously enough, this extreme political distaste
for Europe and the ways of Europe is accompanied
by a magnificent generosity in relieving distress
that can only bring a blush to the cheeks of us
Europeans, who can find money to raise armies
and fight each other, but not to succour the
victims of our obsession. An extreme instance of
this contrast between American politics and
American charity is shown by the case of Russia.
Politically, America looks upon Soviet Russia
much as the village boy regarded the villain in

* According to this argument we, e.g., gained " the rich oil-
fields of Mosul " by acquiring the Mesopotamia mandate. The
argument, of course, ignores the fact that the mandatory power
must respect equality of commercial opportunity for all countries,
and assumes that having to keep troops in Mesopotamia, suppress
occasional rebellions, and risk trouble with Turks and Kurds,
all to the tune of several million sterling a year, means an increase
in wealth and strength. If only enough Americans thought like
this, it might be possible to induce them to take Mesopotamia
and Palestine as well off our hands !

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.A. 135

the melodrama. Nevertheless, the American
Congress voted twenty million dollars for sending
corn to Russia, which has enabled the Hoover
Relief Organisation to save eight million lives.
In addition the Hoover Organisation has distributed
some eight or nine million dollars 1 worth of medical
stores in Russia that alone have kept the Russian
health service from collapsing utterly. The
American Red Cross, too, and smaller private
organisations are doing wonderful work in all the
stricken countries of Eastern and Central Europe.
Actually the United States is spending more money
on relief work in Europe than all the other
countries of the w;orld put together. Another
curious feature of America's attitude is the fact
that it is the Republican party which has now
made itself the exponent of the gospel of isolation,
whereas in American history the Republican party
has always been the party in favour of an active
foreign policy. The Republican party, too, is the
party of big business and high finance, but big
business and high finance are now as ever in
favour of closer relations with Europe and 1 a
positive policy in the question of debts, reparations,
and economic reconstruction generally. In other
words, the Republican party managers at the
Presidential election were simply forced to adapt
themselves to a wave of elemental feeling that
emanated from the real heart of modern America
the Middle West, with its farmers "and inhabitants
of " Main Street." It is the little people in the
United States that are dictating American foreign
policy to-day, the simple folk whose hearts are
better than their heads. This explains why
political stand-offishness has been accompanied by
unique generosity in all charitable works. It
also explains why the present attack of acute
provincialism is regarded as abnormal as essen-
tially a wave of war idealism, transformed by
disappointment into fierce nationalism which is

136 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

not expected to last, but to ebb away gradually
and steadily in proportion as the lapse of time
and hard facts show it to be impractical.
Americans are normally very responsive to ideal-
istic appeals even to the point of romantic senti-
mentality and highly, gregarious. They are
natural believers in joining things. The
Washington Conference and the campaign that
led up to it are signs that a reversion to the
normal mood is beginning.

But America's attitude to the League is part
of her attitude to Europe. United States public
opinion indeed, so far as it has any conceptions
on this subject at all, habitually confuses the
Supreme Council with the Council of the League,
and identifies the League with Europe. This
last is not surprising, for most grave international
problems centre in Europe at present, while so
long as America is not in the League it is, owing
to the Monroe Doctrine, not easy to deal through
the League with any question primarily affecting
South America. Similarly, the League system can
be applied to the solution of Far Eastern
problems only if the United States and Russia
become members of the League or consent to sit
on the League Council for the purpose. In
American eyes the weakness and incompleteness of
the League is the outward and visible expression
of the rancour and discord that still gixaw at the
heart of Europe. Conversely, the completion of
the League's European membership and its
dominance in the transaction of European affairs
would furnish the strongest argument for American
participation. This point is important, for there
is a noticeable tendency in Germany to argue
that Germany should not enter the League for
fear of offending the United States, but should
wait until a joint entry could be effected. The
truth is that to Americans Germany is just part
of Europe, and Germany's absence from the

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.A. 137

League merely clear proof that Europe is still so
divided that the United States had best keep clear
of that distressful continent. The point was put
with all possible clearness by a prominent American
attending the Third Assembly, whose remarks to
a French delegate were reported as follows by the
special correspondent of the Christian Science
Monitor (September I2th) : " If you want
Germany out of the League more than Am'erica
in, then persist in the course of obstruction. If,
however, you want America in more than Germany
out, then let Germany in."

In view of the identification of both subjects
in the American mind, it is not surprising that
the League attitude of the United States has varied
with its attitude to Europe. During their parti-
cipation in the war the League was the main war
aim of the United States. After the armistice
both the " irreconcilables " and a group of so-
called reservationists appeared in the Senate; the
latter desired that the United States should adhere
to the League, but with Article X dropped out.
This Article was looked upon as stereotyping the
status quo and infringing sovereignty by taking
out of the hands of the American Congress the
decision as to when and in what contingencies
America should declare war. Throughout the
election campaign there was an element in the
Republican party in favour of America's entering
the League in some form or other. It was this
fraction that put forward the famous election
manifesto of the Thirty-one (prominent Repub-
licans, including Mr. Hughes, the present Secretary
of State), urging the electorate to vote for Mr.
Harding as the best way of assuring effective
American participation in an " association of
nations." Throughout the campaign, too, Mr.
Harding "pussyfooted on the League issue," that
is, varied his utterances on the subject to suit
the exigencies of the moment and the moods of

138 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

his audiences. There was, however, no doubt at
any time that the Republican party on the whole
was for isolation., and this tendency grew stronger
as the election proceeded. After the election
President Harding delivered a speech in which
he said the League was dead,, and triumphant
processions burned the League in effigy and buried
it. Shortly after, Colonel Harvey, the new
American Ambassador to London, delivered a
speech, much commented on at the time, in which
he said ; *' There still seems to linger in the
minds of many here, as indeed of a few at home,
the impression that in some way or other, by
hook or by crook, unwittingly and surely un-
willingly, the United States may be beguiled into
the League of Nations. N'ow let me show you
how utterly absurd any such notion is. ... The
American people decided against it by a majority
of seven million out of a total vote of twenty-
five million;., . . . Anybody could see that it follows
then, inevitably and irresistibly, that our present
Government could not, without betrayal of its
creators and masters, and will not, I can assure
you, have anything whatsoever to do with the
League or with any commission or committee
appointed by it or responsible to it, directly or
indirectly, openly or furtively. . . ." In con-
sonance . with this attitude the Administration
maintained a haughty silence when any corre-
spondence was addressed to it by any League body
through the Secretariat.

However, time passed, and the United States
found, in the shape of unemployment and in-
dustrial troubles, that they too were affected by
the forlorn condition of Europe. The Washington
Conference, held with such great hopes, accom-
plished excellent work indeed, but proved a mere
flash in the pan and not the beginning of some
form of permanent or at least regularly recurring
international discussion and action. Isolation was

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.A. 189

proving less desirable and infinitely more difficult
in practice than had been apparent to the dervishes
of 100 per cent. Americanism during the halcyon
days of the election. Meanwhile the League of
Nations itself had passed from the realms of
theory and bogeydom to the plane of workaday
reality, and in the grey light of day appeared a
far less fearsome thing than the dread images
conjured up by the fevered minds of the stump-
orators. Its bitterest enemy could not plausibly
accuse the League of being a menace to
sovereignty. On the other hand, the League as
a system of permanent organised co-operation was
producing surprisingly good results wherever it
was applied to international disputes, and: was
branching out in many lines of social and humani-
tarian endeavour that ran parallel to the activities
and traditions of the United States. The setting
up of the Court, too, was the realisation by others
of a long-cherished dream of American thinkers,
lawyers and statesmen. Indeed, one of the most
distinguished of living Americans, Mr. Elihu Root,
had played a prominent part in the Jurists' Con-
ference which drew up the constitution of the
Court, and the Court included an eminent
American judge. Lastly, it soon became obvious
that through the League things were being done
that specifically affected American interests,

'The first point on which this fact became
evident was on the question of mandates, when the
United States, after prolonged negotiations
rendered complex by the fact that while the United
States recognised Great Britain, France, Italy and
so forth, as sovereign states having certain treaty
obligations, she would not recognise the existence
of the same states when sitting together and
calling themselves the League Council supervising
their treaty obligations under the name of man-
dates, concluded half a dozen separate treaties
assuring America equal rights with all the members

140 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

of the League in the territories under mandates.
The Senate, in fact, included in the treaty
recognising Japan's mandate over the North
Pacific Islands the whole text of the mandate as
approved by the League Council.

Meanwhile public opinion was changing, and
the Administration's policy of massive silence when
correspondence was received from the League
Secretary-General led to some lively Press polemics,
which in turn stimulated a change for the better
silence was followed by curt refusals, and this
again by full and courteous correspondence when-
ever the occasion seemed to make this necessary.
The State Department expressed its willingness
to take any steps within its power to secure
evidence in the United States that might be
needed by the International Court. Dr. G. W.
McCoy, of the State Hygiene Laboratory,
Washington, D.C., has been taking part in the
Health Organisation's work on the standardisation
of sera, although officially he has merely been
sent over to sit on the Office International
d'Hygi&ne Publique (which, it will be remembered
from the account given in Chapter IV, acts in
close co-operation with the League Health
Organisation, but is an independent institution,
founded before the League existed). Similarly,
a prominent American health official l is shortly
coming over, on a year's leave without loss of
seniority, to take charge of certain branches of
the Health Organisation's work. In practice this
means, of course, that a member of the United
States Civil Service has been seconded to League
service for a time, just as is frequently done from
the Civil Services of other members of the League.
At the invitation of the Council, the Washington

1 Mr. Edgar Sydenstricker, Statistician in Charge of the United
States Public Health Service Statistical Office, Washington, B.C.
Mr. Sydenstricker is to be the head of the Epidemiological Intelli-
gence branch of the Health Section hi the League Secretariat.

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.A. 141

Administration has appointed Dr. Lyman Grace
Abbott to sit on the League Commission for
Prevention of the Traffic in Women and Children.
Dr. Dorset, of the Bio-Chemical Laboratory of
the Department of Agriculture, has likewise been
appointed by the Secretary of State to sit on the
Anthrax Commission of the International Labour
Office. Assistant Surgeon-General Rupert Blue
has been appointed American member of the
League Opium Commission, and the head of the
U.S. Public Health Service, Surgeon-General Gum-
ming, has been appointed as a member of the
League Health Committee.

But the most important change that has occurred
in America's attitude toward the League concerns
the International Court, The idea of an Inter-
national Court of Justice has long been a cherished
dream of American statesmen and lawyers. The
very Republicans who opposed America's joining
the League as at present constituted spoke vaguely
of an alternative which should consist of a Court
and occasional ad hoc conferences. When the
present Court was founded comment in American
anti -League circles stressed its independence and
the slightness of its connection with the League,
and hinted that some day, when the League was
no more, America might use the Cburt as a
nucleus for her alternative scheme. This state
of mind in America was fully appreciated by the
Jurists' Conference that drew up the protocol of
the Court, and at the instance of Mr. Elihu Root
inserted a clause stating that the protocol could
be signed by all states mentioned in the annex
to the Covenant. The only state not a member
of the League mentioned in the annex to the
Covenant was the United States, which were
accordingly given the opportunity to join the
Court without joining the League. Moreover, the
United States national delegation to The Hague
Court of Arbitration was invited, as were those of

142 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

the members of the League, to submit a list
of four nominees as candidates for the election
of judges to the Court. The United States
Administration did not, however, avail itself of
this invitation. Subsequently, Secretary of State
Hughes has declared publicly that the United
States will join the Court if they are given a voice
in the election of judges. The method favoured in
the United States is a change in the statute of the
Court permitting participation by the United States
in the election of judges. The practical difficulty
in the way of this course is that since the statute
of the Court contains no provision for amend-
ment, it will be necessary for all the forty or
more states which 1 have ratified to consent to
altering the statute in this sense. This might
easily be a matter of a couple of years.

For this reason an alternative scheme has been
suggested by which the United States should sit
in the Assembly and Council when judges are
elected. In order to avoid the various legal and
constitutional difficulties involved, the upholders of
this suggestion point out that the Assembly and
Council, when sitting for this purpose, do so
merely as the electoral bodies mentioned in the
protocol of the Court, and not as the Council
and Assembly of the League. Consequently,
America's participation in this special session would 1
not involve her membership of the League. The
difficulty, it will be seen, is purely of a technical
nature, but Americans, owing to the fact of their
own national life being based on a written con-
stitution, take difficulties of this sort very seriously.
It is to be hoped, however, that a satisfactory
settlement will be reached by the time this book
appears in print.

The change in the official attitude that these
developments denote has been largely dictated by.
a change in popular feeling. The extent of this
change it is, of course, impossible to gauge from

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.S.A. 143

outside the United States. But it is at least
certain that the cock-a-hoop moodl of the
Presidential election has gone. Tub-thumping is
as out of date as crusading. The Democratic
turnover at the Congressional and Senatorial
elections, while not directly concerned with foreign
policy, at least revealed dissatisfaction with the
existing state of things, and meant that the
Administration must henceforward keep its ear to
the ground and its finger on the pulse of public
opinion. When it does indulge in this exercise
it will not long be able to avoid noticing the
significance of the fact that such immense
organisations as the Hoover Relief Administra-
tion, the American Red Cross, and the Rockefeller
Foundation are all co-operating in their several
ways with certain activities of the League that
have been mentioned in a previous chapter* There
is, too, an American judge in the Court, and
there are Americans in several League commissions
and the League Secretariat. Another significant
event is the resignation of Chief Justice Clark
from the Bench of the United States Supreme
Court, in order to head a campaign for the entry
of the United States into the League. Anyone
knowing the position held in the United States
by judges of the Supreme Court will appreciate
what a sensational event this is. Then, too, the
Federal Council of the Churches of Christ an
organisation numbering some twenty million
members and representing all the Protestant
Churches of the United States have long been
agitating in favour of United States participation
in the Court, and generally of America's re-entry
into world councils, in order to make some positive
contribution to the progress of mankind 1 in
practical internationalism. It was this organisa-
tion which was the head and front of the agitation
leading up to the Washington Conference.
Another recent development of great importance

144 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

was the formation of the American Foreign Policy
Association, which is working for^ a " liberal and
constructive American foreign policy/' and whose
membership includes some extremely weighty
names. Former Attorney-General Wickersham
(one of the thirty-one Republicans) has published
a pamphlet under the auspices of this Associa-
tion, urging the United States to enter the Court
and to work with such branches of the League's
activities as are in conformity with the traditions
and efforts of the United States. A similar
tendency was displayed in a pronouncement made
by a prominent American attending the Third
Assembly, and quoted in the Christian Science
Monitor of September I2th. This American de-
clared that in order to get America into the
League it was 'necessary first to complete the
League's European membership, primarily by
the inclusion of Ireland and Germany; secondly,
to arrange for United States participation in the
election of judges to the Court; and thirdly, to
develop regional understandings in such a way as
to turn American opposition to Article X. In
short, there is a growing realisation of the fact
that any new " association of nations " can come
only through the development of the present
League, and a consequent recrudescence of the
League of Nations movement in the United States,
but taking the form that the United States should
become, not so much a full member as something
which has been termed a "non-resident asso-
ciate " of the League, i.e. a member for certain
purposes, and on a basis of limited liability. 1

To sum up the foregoing discussion, it may
be said that the United States have decisively
repudiated the r61e of Deus ex machina that
Europe would fain have thrust upon them.
Americans simply have not, and in the nature of
things cannot have, any such conception of their

1 See Appendix C, Note 6.

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND HIE U.S.A. 145

relation to the old world. Apart from the specific
prejudice against Europe, American society is
still an essentially pioneer society, and believes
in self-help and personal charity; it has small
understanding for the more recondite virtues of
citizenship. America has no great and bold
traditions in foreign policy, for she has been in
the happy position of never having much need
for a foreign policy at least as concerns Europe.
The American attitude in these matters is there-
fore generally negative. Thus it never apparently
occurred to the Wilson Administration to drive
a hard bargain with the Allies, by requiring the
abrogation of the secret treaties and the accept-
ance in writing of the Fourteen Points as the
price of America's entry into the war, and then
by appearing at the Peace Conference with a draft
treaty instead of a few copybook maxims. And
so our Great Statesmen at the Conference left
it to President Wilson to be good, and showed
themselves infernally clever at proving that the
Fourteen Points meant the Versailles and other
Peace Treaties, which between them are largely
responsible for our present beatitude and! for
making Americans feel that they would rather
have nothing to do with Europe. Similarly, it
never occurs to the Harding Administration, and,
if it did, American public opinion would not for
an instant tolerate such a revolutionary innova-
tion to use positively the enormous material
power accruing from America's position as
Europe's creditor, i.e. to tell the European nations
that it is willing to strike a bargain with them
by cancelling most of the debts in return for a
wiping out of most European debts, and f such
political and economic arrangements as will
stabilise peace and lead 1 to a recrudescence of
prosperity, Americans simply do not see it like
that they repudiate all responsibility for their
share in the war and the Peace Conference, and

10

146 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

all interest in what happens to Europe. They
prefer to " sit tight " on what Europe owes them
and say they would not think of cancelling a
penny so long as European nations do not balance
their budgets and reduce their armies. But it
is difficult for Great Britain to let France off her
debt without some corresponding reduction on
America's part, while France, on the other hand,
fails to balance her budget and keeps up an
enormous army in order to extract reparations
from Germany, so long as her Allies do not cancel
her debts. The whole thing works in a vicious
circle.

The practical conclusion to be drawn is that
we must take the United States as they are a
nation of ordinary people, the creatures of their
history and geography like the rest of us, and not
a race of altruistic supermen with a mission to
save Europe in spite of itself. The one thing
we must avoid doing is, through the mouths of
our statesmen, to keep appealing to the United
States how hard up we are and how helpless
and incapable of doing anything without them.
The only effect is to produce an impression in the
mind of the ordinary unsophisticated American
that the wily foreigner is trying to " put one over
on him " again, and this merely serves to stir
the dying embers of isolationist 100 per cent,
nationalism and delay the slow tentative movement
toward getting the United States to pull their
weight in the galley of humanity. The one thing
we in Great Britain at least must do is to
arrange about paying our debt to America as
fast as the Americans themselves will let us, J and
meanwhile to strike out a bold and consistent
peace policy in Europe, whose visible fruit would
be the completion of the League's European
membership by the inclusion of Germany and
Russia in the Council, and making the League
* This has now been done.

GERMANY, RUSSIA, AND THE U.SJL 147

system supreme in the transaction of foreign
affairs. At the same time we should do every-
thing possible to facilitate American adhesion to
the International Court and participation in such
League activities as may interest her. -'-If we do
these things, it is as certain as anything can be
that in three or four years at most the United
States will be putting at the service of the League
all the immense prestige conferred upon them by
their size and power, by their disinterestedness
and consequent impartiality, by their high and
honourable record in striving for the rule of law
in international relations, and by the American
character that strange blend of robust simplicity,
shrewdness and sentimentality, horse-sense, im-
mense good nature, impatience of forms and
technicalities, generosity, and boundless energy and
enthusiasm that makes of the United States such'
a tremendous driving force in any enterprise with
which they associate themselves.

SECTION FIVE
HOW TO USE THE LEAGUE

CHAPTER XI

THE NEED FOR A BRITISH LEAD; HOW TO
EQUIP OURSELVES TO GIVE THE LEAD

THERE is a danger of public opinion failing to
realise how much work must be done in the field
of foreign affairs during the next generation. The
aftermath of all wars involves readjustment and
renovation in the conduct of foreign affairs. In
the case of the late war this readjustment has
gone to the extent of an attem'pt to put international
relations on a new basis ; that is, to substitute
permanent organised co-operation and peaceful
settlement of disputes for the rule-of -thumb methods
and general anarchy prevailing before the war.

The late war made it quite clear that man's
destructive powers are soaring out of sight of
his defensive appliances or the resistent qualities
of the highly complex and artificial society he has
built up. Frederick the Great's maxim that victory
depends on not letting the civil population know
there is a war on is hopelessly out of date. The
distinction between combatant armies and non-
combatant populations has now almost entirely
disappeared, and we have instead whole belligerent
nations.

The truth is that civilisation as it develops is
becoming more specialised. We must either
specialise in organising peace or in preparing for
war. And if we prepare for war we shall get
war, and war will dissolve what we know as civil-
isation by bringing in its train famine, pestilence,

151

152 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

revolution and anarchy. That is the dilemma, and
that is why it is a fatal error to believe that we
can in international relations return to anything
approximating pre-war conditions or simply stand
still where we are ; things must either get very
much worse or change radically. iWe have got
a great deal nearer the edge this time than
anyone can imagine who has not travelled in post-
war East Europe or glimpsed the awful destitu-
tion of Austria and Germany. And we are still
tottering on the edge.

For Great Britain particularly, the problem of
how to organise peace is of immense importance.
There is first the trading problem this island lives,
and is bound to live, by trade with foreign nations.
But the war has well-nigh ruined the Continental
markets on which we mainly depend, and must de-
pend. The three hundred odd millions of Europeans
at our doors are destined for a long time to come
to be of greater importance for our trade than the
fifteen millions in the Dominions, or the almost
self -sufficing populations of India and China. South
America is a promising future market, but no
substitute for Europe and Northern Asia (Siberia
and Asiatic Russia),

Furthermore, the late war has had the effect
of hastening the development of the Dominions
into fully fledged independent states, and has
stimulated nationalism not only in Ireland but
throughout the Near, Middle and Far East, thus
causing some very difficult problems in the ad-
justment of imperial relations. It is doubtful
whether the Empire would survive another great
war.

Lastly, there is the military problem, and that
is the most serious of all. This small island has
been able to develop a fundamentally pacific and
free civilisation because it was separated from the
Continent of Europe by the Channel and the North
Sea. But with the development of airships and

THE NEED FOR A BRITISH LEAD 158

aeroplanes, it is quite plain that in the next war
this geographical advantage will disappear, and
may indeed, by the concurrent perfection of
submarines, be turned into a death-trap. At the
end of the war the biggest bombs that an aeroplane
could cai;ry weighed 800 Ibs. Since then planes
carrying 2-ton bombs have been flown, as well
as 2O~ton armoured planes carrying field guns,
and pilotless bombing planes, steered from afar
by wireless flying projectiles, that can be hurled
on their target by an enemy 200 or 300 miles
away. Plans are complete for so-ton 1,000 horse-
power two mile a minute flying warships, with
gun-turrets and torpedo tubes complete. The
development of poison gas has flourished apace
and a liquid been produced in America of which
three drops on the skin will kill a man, and
that when released volatilises into "a heavier- than -
air gas which can make whole regions uninhabit-
able for weeks.

There is no doubt that in the next war the
objective of each side will be, not the front line,
but the brain and nerve centres of the enemy
community ; that is, the seat of government and
the chief towns and railway centres. Victory will
be measured in terms of social dissolution.. It is
already considered perfectly possible for a third
of London to be wiped out by one air raid. The
most sinister feature of all is that military science
sees no adequate means of defence against aerial
fleets. Consequently, military men are now arguing
that the only course is to build an air fleet formid-
able enough to demolish the enemy's cities, on the
principle that the best defence is offence. War
would therefore become a series of gigantic
reprisals, in which the belligerent countries would
try which could destroy the other's national life
first. The result would probably be that both
sides would emerge victors in this race against
civilisation, and both pay a price for their victory

154 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

as incredible to us now as the present state of
Russia would have appeared to us all in 1914.

The vitally important fact which it is so easy
unduly to minimise or even to overlook entirely
is the rapidity and ease with which the mass of
men become used to new situations. Civilisation
is at the cross-roads to-day. In a few years
either the League of Nations .system with the
whole mentality habits of thought, feeling and
action that attaches to it will finally have taken
the upper hand, or we shall begin to base our
national outlook on the premises implied by the
developments just described in the art of slaughter.
To show what that outlook will be it is necessary
only to glance at that remarkable book Les Guerres
d'Enfer, by Alphonse Sech6 (Payot et Cie), first
published in 1915, and now in its tenth thousand.
A great many of M. S<che's predictions as to the
development of military science have come true
since his book appeared. And the logical deduc-
tions based on these developments are irrefutable,
once M. S6ch6's fundamental axiom the inevit-
ability of waris admitted. But what picture does
M. S6ch6 draw of our future world? Not the
frontiers alone, but the whole face of a country
fortified against aircraft and gas ; the principle
of the belligerent nation carried through com-
pletely capital and labour conscripted, men and
women trained in their various parts in war from
childhood to extreme old age, science and art,
too, enrolled (the best artists arid poets, says M.
S6ch6, should be employed by the state to hymn
victory, to immortalise the heroes, to exalt the
soul of the nation), the whole mind and resources
of the nation bent to the one great end. And
what is the end? M. Sch6, with splendid courage,
reduces it to nonsense, in the literal meaning of
the word, as all militarists must who apply their
dogmas consistently. To sum up, he writes : " The
State should demand, and unhesitatingly carry out,

THE NEED FOR A BRITISHJLEAD 155

everything it considers should be done, everything
it thinks should be required of the disinterested-
ness and patriotic devotion of individuals, in order
to strengthen its organisation for war, the sum
of the nation's power. On principle it will always
go to the extreme limit of what is possible, That
is the condition of success. If by any chance
democracy I speak here for France should not
understand this, should refuse to see the situation
in its true light, if, in a word', it should become
an obstacle to the maximum preparation of the
armed nation, it must be got rid of at any cost,
if we are not to prefer invasion and slavery. 1 *
This vision may seem insane, and its message
is certainly the flattest of paradoxes. But it is
only the logical working out in the light of modern
science of beliefs held by the majority of man-
kind. If in a few years the League system is
not unchallenged and supreme, we shall have all
the respectable papers in all countries saying that
if you want peace you must prepare for war,
that idealism is a fine and beautiful thing, but
we are living in a world of stern reality, and so
forth and so on until by degrees what seems
the distempered fantasy of a madman will become
the normal outlook of all but a few unpatriotic
extremists. If national feeling does not become
humanist, based primarily on our own human group
but ultimately on a sense of its membership of all
mankind, it will shortly evolve into mystic worship
of the God-State, and develop a credo quia
absurdum canon of its own. .Who in 1914 would
have thought the world of to-day credible? Who
during the war, when we execrated the Germans
for their air raids, would have thought that shortly
afterwards we should have been bombing natives,
whose welfare formed a sacred charge for which
we were trustees before humanity, in order to
collect arrears of taxes? Yet aeroplanes have been
used thus in the mandated area of Iraq. Is

156 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

there any folly or bestiality to which men will
not descend if brought to it by degrees along
channels dug by their prejudices and passions?
Not only is Great Britain more obviously
interested than any other country in turning civil-
isation from the path of preparation for suicide
into that of organising peace, but we are the
sole power that can give a lead to Europe in
pulling the world out of its present plight. The
United States must be discounted at their own
request. The South American nations, although
not to be underrated, are obviously auxiliary.
The ex-neutrals can always be relied on for sound
Criticism, but they have small resources, and so are
scarcely in a position, even when they have the
courage, to submit any positive proposals or incur
any responsibility. They will follow if given a
strong lead, but will do nothing until then. Mean-
while they are at least quiet and relatively pros-
perous oases in an otherwise turbulent and
poverty-stricken continent. The new states are for
the most part small and financially weak, and all
their political thoughts and energies are at present
devoted to avenging their pasts and consolidating
their present ; the statesmen they have hitherto
thrown up are, with a few honourable excep-
tions, nonentities where they are not disasters.
Italy will become of great importance if the Fascist
experiment is a success, but it is as yet too early
to risk a prediction on this head. France sees
little but Germany in the shape of a (receding)
source of reparations and a potential menace to
her security. Germany is down and going out,
and Russia down and, although slowly and un-
certainly beginning to pick herself up, fearfully
exhausted according to the best available esti-
mates, 1 depopulated to the extent of 20 to 25 per

1 Professor Tarassevich's report, published as No. 5 (October
1922) of the series of Epidemiological Intelligence Bulletins issued
by the Health Section of the League Secretariat.

THE NEED FOR A BRITISH LEAD 1ST

cent. and unable to play an active part in the
world for decades. All these nations are immersed
in their immediate problems, and see at most their
relations to one or two neighbouring countries *
They have no conception of the world or even
of Europe as a whole.

Great Britain alone, in financial strength approxi-*
mating to America, but part of Europe in virtue
of geographical propinquity and historic, political
and economic ties, is in a position to give a lead*
Our world-wide interests and commitments almost
force us to take long views, to consider civilisation
as a whole. Our two gravest and most pressing
distresses unemployment and the load of taxation
urge us to look for salvation to the revival of
trade, and the revival of trade causes us to look
abroad, for well we know by this time that it
must wait upon the restoration and establishment
of peace in Europe. The problem of the economic
restoration of the Continent, and so a revival of
trade, can be approached only through weaning
Europe from the ways of force and anarchy, and
securing the triumph of methods of co-operation
and peaceful settlement of disputes. The second
great problem to be solved is how to give ex-
pression to the achieved independence of the
Dominions and Ireland, and how. to canalise the
new currents of nationalism in the Oriental nations
under British protection so as to allow of their
peaceful evolution into statehood within or at least
on friendly terms with the Empire. The purpose
of the following chapters is to indicate how the
League system might be utilised to promote these
aims, and thus incidentally give practical expres-
sion to the election pledges of all parties that
they would seek to develop and strengthen the
League of Nations to the utniost.

But the first requisite for transacting important
affairs through the League is that the British 1
Government should provide itself with adequate

158 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

machinery for studying League questions and being-
represented in League conferences. Under the
Coalition Government the preparation of Britain's
share in League work lay in the hands of one
man in the Cabinet Secretariat. Anyone who
realises the scope and variety of the League's
activities, if only from the outline given in these
pages, and even under the present dispensation,
when the League is a sort of political Cinderella,,
must be convinced of the hopelessness of running
any active League policy with so little fuel, and
of the necessity for our following the example of
France and equipping ourselves adequately for
the purpose. A step in the right direction has
already been taken by Mr. Bonar Law, through
transferring to the Foreign Office the official on
the Cabinet Secretariat, namely the Hon. C.
Tufton, who has been dealing with League affairs.
Presumably there will be a special section formed
in the Foreign Office, with Mr. Tufton at its
head. But League affairs cover the whole field
of international relations, and so often include
matters that concern, e.g., the Home Office, Colonial
Office, Ministry of Health, Ministry of Labour,
Board of Trade, and, of course, the Treasury
!(since everything that costs money touches the
Treasury), quite as closely as they do the Foreign
Office. It would therefore seem desirable to form
an interdepartmental committee from all these
departments, composed, so far as possible, from
the members of the departments who actually sit
in League advisory commissions and technical
organisations. 1 The Secretariat of this committee
would be the League Section in the Foreign Office,
and its function would be to collate information
on all aspects of Great Britain's share in League

1 Thus, e.g., Sir George Buchanan, from the Ministry of Health,
sits in the League Health Committee ; Sir Malcolm Delevingne,
Home Office, sits in the Opium Commission ; Mr. J. Harris, also
Home Office, is a member of thefCommission on Suppression of
Traffic in Women and Children, etc.

THE NEED FOR A BRITISH LEAD 159

activities, and so to furnish the Foreign Secretary
with all the material necessary for hammering out
a well-thought-out, detailed, steady, long-term
British League policy. If we are to pull our full
weight, and make ; our influence felt as it should
be in the League, there must be patient study,
careful preparation, the bringing to bear of many
minds, and cool, persistent pressure.

So far the machinery suggested parallels that
already set up by the French and other Govern-
ments Members of the League. 1 But in one respect
it seems desirable to go even further by appointing
what might be called a permanent expert delegate
to the Council and Assembly, A great deal of
the Assembly's agenda is taken up with a review
of the work of the previous year and proposals
for continuing this work during the year to come*
Similarly, the Council, which meets every two
months, often has as much as thirty to forty un-
related agenda to deal with, and is snowed under
with reports on the work of the technical, advisory
and administrative commissions, settlement of minor
disputes, appointment of League officials, etc.
Most of these matters affect the interests of the
Great Powers to a certain extent for instance,
France has an axe to grind in questions of the
Saar and Dantzig, Italy in the question of appoint-
ing a financial adviser to Albania, and so forth
but none to a great extent, and some not at all*
While, of course, there is no hard or fast dividing
line, and while it is not always easy to foretell
whether a question is going to develop important
complications or not, nevertheless it is in practice
feasible to divide the work of the Council into two
or three important political or general questions

1 And would cost nothing more than is already being paid,
for the League Section in the Foreign Office already exists, and
the members of the proposed committee are already in govern-
ment employ. They would merely be required to meet together
from time to time and take counsel a proceeding that involve?
no additional outlay.

160 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS - TO-DAY

that vitally affect the interests of some or all the
powers on the Council, and a great deal of technical
and detailed work in which Great Britain, at any
rate, has no special interest, but only the 1 general
interest of seeing that this work is carried on
efficiently. Hitherto, except for the particular
member with an axe to grind who always has
precise instructions the Council, as a rule, knows
little or nothing about these questions, and swallows
whole the recommendations of the Secretariat.
This, perhaps, is not a bad thing, for the officials
of the Secretariat have developed a pretty strong
League spirit, but it would, nevertheless, be ob-
viously desirable to have for these purposes a
government representative who, while, of course,
bound by general instructions, and reporting all
developments home, would have a fairly free hand
and be chosen solely for ability, impartiality, and
above all, for exact and profound knowledge of
all the questions at issue. This delegate should
spend half or more of the year in Geneva, and
attend not only all Council and Assembly meet-
ings^ but spend some time before and after each
meeting at Geneva in order to study all the agenda
thoroughly, get into personal touch with the lead-
ing ^ members of the Secretariat, the permanent
officials for liaison with the League Secretariat
that various governments maintain in Geneva, and
so forth.

When h any big question directly affecting Eng-
land came before the Council, this delegate would
be replaced by the Prime or Foreign Minister,
who likewise would attend certain parts of the
Assembly meeting. In this case the "permanent
delegate " would become respectively the expert
adviser of the British representative on the Council
and the second delegate in the Assembly delega-
tion. Otherwise he would be the first British
delegate at the Assembly and the British Council
representative. He should be the chairman

THE NEED FOR A BRITISH LEAD 161

of the interdepartmental committee previously
suggested, and while responsible directly to the
Foreign Office, should have Cabinet rank, and
so be enabled to report on the whole situation
before all the members of the government and
take part in all discussions on League policy.
Some such arrangement is necessary if Great
Britain is really to give effect to the election
pledges of all parties, that no effort will be spared
to use the League as much as possible, and thereby
strengthen and develop it to the fullest extent.
One obvious candidate for this post would be
Lord Robert Cecil.

So much for the Council delegate and one
delegate to the Assembly. The further question
arises as to how. the rest of the British delegation
to the Assembly should be composed. The reason
why the chief delegate with the one vote of the
delegation must be a government representative
has already been explained. But by the terms
of the Covenant the delegation may consist of
three delegates, and by the practice since estab-
lished there are in addition three vice-delegates.
The latter may in certain circumstances speak
in the Assembly, and are of great importance,
for they sit as the representatives of their countries
in the Committees of the Assembly, that hitherto
have always been six in number, and in which
all the real work is done. Therefore a regular
Assembly delegation should consist, besides the
permanent expert delegate already mentioned, of
five delegates and vice-delegates. While the Prime
or Foreign Minister, or both, attended an Assembly,
one or two of these delegates or vice- delegates
would for the time being go to swell the indefinite
number of technical advisers attached to the dele-
gation, But for most of the session the permanent
expert delegate would be the head of the delegation,
and there would, in addition, be two Assembly
delegates and three vice-delegates.

11

162 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

Now, while it is important that the Head of
the delegation should be a government repre-
sentative, it is equally important that the delega-
tion as a whole should be, so far as possible,
representative of all the chief shades of opinion
in our public life. In this connection the pre-
cedent set by, e.g., Sweden, Denmark and Norway,
is of great interest. Sweden and Denmark
regularly send, as the head of their delegation,
a leader of the governing party ^(usually the Prime
Minister himself), and make up the rest of the
delegation from leaders of all the other chief
parties. These leaders are nominated by the
parties concerned, and given a rank in the dele-
gation corresponding to the importance of the
party. Norway follows the same practice in
principle, but slightly varies it by appointing its
greatest national figure Dr. Nansen as the head
of the delegation, although he is not in politics,
and including as a vice- delegate Dr. Lange^ an
eminent Norwegian, who is Secretary-General of
the Inter-Parliamentary Union and resident at
Geneva. It should be noted, however, that in the
Scandinavian legislatures the so-called t committee
system " obtains ; that is, all important matters,
including foreign affairs, are dealt with by com-
mittees made up of all parties, and with power to
alter or even reject government proposals without
this necessarily entailing the resignation of the
government ; that is, there is no such clear
dominance of the Cabinet over Parliament as in 1
Great Britain, and the principle that it is the first
duty of an Opposition to oppose is not pushed
nearly to the same lengths. Therefore it is mucli
easier to compose a delegation from all parties,
both Government and Opposition, without running
the risk that the activities of all six delegates
and vice-delegates on the Assembly Committees
should be uncorrelated to the extent of being 1
contradictory.

THE NEED FOR A BRITISH LEAD 163

It may possibly be considered desirable to start
a new, tradition in these matters in our own Parlia-
ment. A great deal is being said to-day about
the necessity for foreign policy being above party.,
If this means a return to the Mandarin tradition,
with foreign policy as a sacred preserve into which
the public must not look until the activities of the
Mandarins have landed us in a war, it is, of course,
an evil tradition to be combated at any cost,-.
But it may mean what might be more happily,
expressed by saying that we should have an all-
party 'foreign policy ; that is, that foreign policy
should represent a course of action on which all
parties were agreed as concerns general principles
and main lines of action, although there might be
debate on the details of execution. Such a foreign
policy would be thoroughly thrashed out in Parlia-
ment and in the Press before being applied, and
the part of such a policy which was conducted 1
through the League system: might very well be
transacted through a delegation representing all
parties. At any rate, the elements of the problem
are clear, and they are how. to reconcile the
necessity for a truly representative delegation with
the need for a sufficient measure of agreement
to ensure the members of the delegation working
harmoniously, each in his own committee, but all
on an agreed basis of broad principles and general
policy. This is, in fact, not so difficult as may
appear, for the work of each Assembly Committee
is very largely independent of that of the others..
Thus a delegate may, for instance, work in the
committee that deals with health, transit, economics,
social and humanitarian problems, and be in 1
perfect agreement with the policy of his government
in all these questions, while yet holding widely
different opinions about and making independent
speeches in the Assembly on the relation between
the Council and Assembly, the report summing
up the activities of the League in the previous

164 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

year, disarmament, or any other question dealt
with elsewhere. The fact of a delegate holding
independent views on questions that do not come
up in his committee, and so on which he is not
asked to vote, need not in any way interfere
with the working efficacy of the delegation at
the Assembly, and may, indeed, be helpful in
reaching a compromise with other delegations.
Besides this, it would be valuable for the education
of public opinion both at home and abroad. What
is needed here, as elsewhere, is an intelligent and
active public opinion among all parties, both in
Parliament and outside, a public opinion well in-
formed on facts, knowing what it wants and
determined to get it. In such an atmosphere
there would be no difficulty in composing a .perfectly
satisfactory delegation to the Assembly, adequately
supported by expert and clerical assistance, and
armed with a full programme and bold instruc-
tions.

The question of delegates to special League
conferences, such as those held at the instance of
the Labour Office, technical organisations and
advisory commissions, also needs attention. The
delegates sent to such conferences need coaching
about the League, fuller instructions and wider,
better defined powers. Hitherto the difficulty has
been that delegates appear at a gathering of this
sort without, to use a now famous phrase, " know-
ing where they are," nor just what they a!r;e
supposed to do ; and when they do learn, they
have to wire for instructions. After all this pre-
liminary trouble it often happens that the decisions
arrived at are not ratified by the government
whose representative has signed them. The non-
ic&tification of treaties and agreements arrived at
in League conferences is a grave scandaL The
non-ratification of labour conventions is a fairly
well-known example, but it is not known, for
instance, that for a long time the only power

THE NEED FOR A BRITISH LEAD 165

which had ratified the Barcelona Transit Con-
ventions and Agreements was Albania, which has
no waterways and not a single mile of railway I
The most flagrant instance at present is that of
the amendments to the Covenant passed by the
Second Assembly. Hitherto these amendments
as a whole have been ratified only by Bulgaria,
Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Siam has ratified
several, and Italy bears the honourable distinction of
being the only Great Power which has ratified any
(Italy has ratified eleven out of the fifteen amend-
ments). Great Britain has not even signed several
of the most important. 1 It is to be hoped that
our disgraceful record in this matter will speedily
be improved, since it was Lord Balfour who moved
a resolution, adopted by the Third Assembly, de-
claring that it was of the utmost importance that
the amendments already voted should be ratified,
and requesting the Council to take all proper
measures to secure this result. Perhaps the most im-
portant and urgent amendment is that to Article IV,
declaring that the Assembly has the right to
fix by a two-thirds majority the rules dealing
with the election of the non-permanent members
of the Council, particularly with regard to their
term of office and the conditions of re-eligibility.
Unless this amendment is ratified by a sufficient
number of governments before the Fourth
Assembly, there may be difficulty about getting
some of the temporary members on the Council
to accept the recommendation that they shall be
ineligible for a certain period after holding a
term of office.

The experience of the Third Assembly has shown
that;, without a hard-and-fast rule disqualifying
temporary members for a certain period after hold-
ing office, these members take it as a matter
of prestige that they should go on being re-elected
indefinitely, and threaten to resign from the League
* See Appendix C, Note 7.

166 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

If they are not. This practical difficulty disposes
of the desire in certain quarters that all the
members of the Council should be elected by the
Assembly, for it is obviously impossible com-
pulsorily to retire a Great Power from the Council
for fixed periods, and without such a stipulation
the existing distinction between great and lesser
powers would simply be perpetuated under a
different name. This is, of course, displeasing to
upholders of that apotheosis of sovereignty known
as " international democracy " who hold that states
should be looked upon as entities in the same
way as individuals. But it can only seem logical
to those who consider that states are aggregations
of human beings, bound by common political ties,
and that consequently a highly civilised aggrega-
tion of forty odd millions, whose interests touch the
whole world, should not be put on the same
voting basis as a dusky handful constituting some
unknown and insignificant state in Central America
or the West Indian Isles. This, indeed, would
be a denial of democracy in the name of the
reductio ad absurdam of a dogma that of
sovereignty which in any case has little to
recommend it in the modern world.

CHAPTER XII

A LEAGUE POLICY FOR ADJUSTING RELATIONS
WITH THE DOMINIONS AND WITH EASTERN
NATIONS; FOR BRINGING AMERICA AND
EUROPE TOGETHER; FOR A SETTLEMENT
IN WEST AND EAST EUROPE; FOR DISARMA-
MENT. A WORLD AT PEACE

THE League might be o use in connection with
solving the question of the effective participation
of the Dominions in the foreign policy of the
Mother-country, and generally in confirming their
status as independent nations. Membership of the
League has, indeed, been the first step in this
direction, only it implies as a corollary that the
British Government should take its obligations
seriously, and transact all important business
through the League.

Thus the Third Assembly witnessed the instruc-
tive spectacle of the Dominions strongly pleading
that the Near East crisis should be dealt with
through the League Council. " Why/' asked Sir
Joseph Cook (Australia) in a powerful and note-
worthy speech that was the feature of the Third
Assembly's debates on this subject, " should states
send fully accredited representatives to Geneva and
do the real work 1 elsewhere? " The reason for the
Dominions' Insistence is, of course, plain : by the
rules of procedure laid down in the Covenant
they would have had the right to claim seats in the
Council during the deliberations on this subject so

18?

168 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

soon as there was the slightest prospect of the out-
come involving them in war. But Mr. Fisher, for the
British Government, joined the French and Italian
representatives in opposing the reference of this
matter to the League. Thus the Dominions found
the question of the Near East was considered by
the Imperial Government to concern them when it
came to appeals to furnish troops, but was treated
as a matter between the greater Allies and their
clients in Europe with, of course, the conquering
Turk for the purpose of negotiating a settlement.
The unfortunate effect of this attitude upon the
Dominions, and the necessity for the British
Government in similar cases in future adhering
scrupulously to League methods if serious trouble
is to be avoided, are so plain as to require no
comment.

The first requisite, then, for a successful use of
the League system in the adjustment of the rela-
tions between the Dominions and the Mother*
country is that the latter should deal with all
important questions through the League, and
generally take its duties as a member of the League
a great deal more seriously than has been the case
under the Coalition Government. The second
requisite is that the Dominions should strengthen
their representation both in League conferences
and in London, In this connection some extra-
ordinarily interesting views have been put forward
by the Hon. Newton W. Rowell, one of the most
distinguished delegates at the First Assembly and
one of Canada's premier statesmen, in his book,
The British Empire and World Peace " * Mr.,
Rowell suggests that the office of Canadian High
Commissioner, at present a survival from the days
when Canada was a self-governing colony, should
be transformed, and this functionary* from being
a combination of social figure and trade representa-
tive with no political responsibility, become an
* Qaotedl In the New Statesman, November 4th.

DOMINIONS AND EASTERN NATIONS 169

intermediary empowered to act as the communi-
cating channel between the Imperial Cabinet and
his home government in matters concerning inter-
national relations. He should also act as Canada's
representative at League conferences. Mr. Rowell
presses home his argument in the following
terms :

It is important in the interests of Canada and her place
in the League of Nations that there should be a measure
of continuity in her representation at the Assembly and
other international gatherings or conferences held under the
auspices of the League. It would be of real value to Canada
if one, at least, of her representatives knew and understood
the point of view of the other nations represented in the
League, The personal equation is an important factor. . . .
Does not Canada's position now entitle her to request that
her High Commissioner should deal directly with the Prime
Minister or the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs ? The
accredited representative of any foreign state in London
has the right to discuss a matter affecting his state with
the Secretary of State. How much more should the
accredited representative of one of the Dominions possess
the right ?

Clearly there are possibilities in these ideas very
welt worth investigating ; they might,, indeed, go
a long way to solve the problem of the new rela-
tions between the Dominions and the Mother-
country, if made the basis for discussions between
all the governments concerned.

Emigration is also conceivably a subject where
the overseas countries the Dominions and the
South American States that want men, might co-
operate through the League system with the
European countries that since the war are not in
a position to support all their population. It is
obvious that if emigration is to be successful, there
must be the closest possible co-ordination between
the sending and receiving countries.

The Treaty with Irak, promising support for
her becoming a member of the League^ after
a certain period and on certain conditions, is

170 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

an illustration of how the existence of the
League may be used to effect a, compromise
with the new phenomenon of Oriental national-
ism by granting sufficient of not only the sub-
stance but the form and pomp of statehood
to satisfy nationalist feeling, while retaining such
specific guarantees as will protect essential British
interests. It is too early to say as yet whether
this particular experiment will be a success, 1
whether, indeed, Mesopotamia possesses the neces-
sary elements without which a state cannot be built,
but the idea is obviously sound and fruitful. In
the case of Egypt, for instance, the trouble has
been that while the nationalists will agree to British
troops guarding the Suez Canal, they will not
contemplate the stationing of British garrisons in
Egyptian cities. On the other hand, the British 1
Government's view is that unless there are tangible
guarantees for the safety of foreign subjects and
property some such measure is necessary. Why
should it not be possible to institute ^an inter-
national gendarmerie in the towns, paid for by,
Great Britain, France, Italy and Egypt, and run
by a Commissioner appointed by and responsible to
the Council, with Egypt sitting in the Council
when this matter comes up for discussion? Simi-
larly, in the case of India, the moment may come
in the evolution of that country toward inde-
pendence when the conflict between nationalist

* One thing is certain unless substantial independence is
achieved before League membership is applied for, other states
will object. The " six votes to one " cry was already raised when
the Dominions came in, and only stilled when it became obvious
to the world at large that the Dominions are, in fact, independent
nations, and that their delegations to the Assembly take their
own line on all questions. But India is still looked at askance
as a member of the League for the same reason. It must also be
remembered that unless we are careful about the tests for state-
hood that must be passed before a country can become a member
of the League, we may create a precedent that will lead to, e.g.,
Soviet Russia's claiming League membership for the Ukraine,
Soviet Georgia, Azerbaidjan, Armenia, the Bashkir Republic, the
Kirghiz Republic, the Far Eastern Republic> and a number of other
dubiously autonomous republics on Soviet territory.

DOMINIONS AND EASTERN NATIONS 171

opinion and the British! Government might turn-
on the question of guarantees for foreign subjects
and foreign property as expressed in the juris-
diction of the law courts, tariffs, police, etc. The
desired guarantees might be embodied in a treaty
between India and Great Britain providing for
an appeal to the Council or Court, and even for
control on certain points by agents appointed by
the Council. In general, India and other coun-
tries growing into full statehood might well accept
greater temporary restrictions of their sovereignty
in this way than otherwise, considering it less
wounding to national dignity to be in some respects
in tutelage for a time to the whole of humanity
than to be in the same relation to Great Britain.
They might, too, consider that the League offered
better guarantees of impartiality and disinterested-
ness than the power which nationalists look' upon
as their conqueror and would-be oppressor.
Lastly, membership of the League always gives
them the right to discuss all issues affecting
themselves on equal terms with any other power,
and this must prove an additional attraction. As
India is already a member of the League, this
evolution might, indeed, seem natural and prove
not very difficult in her case.

In order to gain a free hand in Europe it is
necessary first to arrange for the mode of payment
of our debt to the United States ; in this con-
nection it seems not unreasonable to suggest that
the Americans themselves should actively take part
in drawing up plans for payment that will get
over their apparent disinclination to be paid in
goods they have most of the gold already- So
far as the League goes, we should make every
effort to facilitate American adhesion on the
** limited liability " basis she desires. In this
connection it is to be expected that the United

172 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

States, once they begin participating in the work
of the advisory commissions and other subsidiary
organizations, will find out the desirability of
sitting in the Council and Assembly when these
bodies lay down the policy and determine the
budgets of the organizations mentioned. Our
government should be on the alert to note when
this moment comes, and when it does, take the
initiative in proposing an arrangement by which
the members of the League would agree to amend
the Covenant so as to allow the Assembly and
Council to admit non-members by majority votes
to a seat and a vote, for such occasions and on
such terms as may be agreed between the power
concerned and the Assembly or Council provided
the United States, in their turn, signified their
willingness beforehand to take advantage of this
arrangement when it was made.

Considering the extent to whicli the United
States are already semi-officially co-operating with
the League Health Organisation, the British
Government might perhaps informally sound the
Washington Administration as to whether it would
not be willing to withdraw its veto on amalgamating
the Office International d'Hygi&ne Publique with
the Health Organisation, and to co-operate in
making one autonomous organisation out of
the two. In a previous chapter it has been
explained how the United States alone prevented
the carrying out of the First Assembly proposal
that the Office International d'Hygi&ne Publique
should be incorporated in the League Health 1
Organisation. Consequently the Organisation was
given a temporary form, and a working com-
promise arranged with the Office International.
But, of course, so long as there are two organ-
isations existing for more or less the same purpose
there is bound to be overlapping, friction and
waste. Therefore the present arrangement is
looked upon as temporary, pending a change of

BRINGING AMERICA TO EUROPE

mood in the United States. But the Third
Assembly passed a resolution that allows of a draft
for the final constitution of the Health Organisa-
tion being drawn up by an international conference
summoned for the purpose during 1923, and sub-
mitted for approval to the Fourth Assembly next-
September. In view of these facts it would seem
desirable that the British Government should sound
United States official circles, study the situation
carefully, and, when it judged the moment pro-
pitious, take the initiative in summoning a con-
ference to which not only the members of the
League, but also the United States, Germany, and,
if possible, Russia, should send their medical repre-
sentatives. The conference would then draw up a
constitution fusing the Office International and the
Provisional Health Organisation, on the same lines
as that of the Transit Organisation, but mutatis
mutandis, and with the further differences sug-
gested by the fact that the bodies ultimately
controlling the policies and voting the credits of
the organisation would be, not the Council and
Assembly, but the Council and Assembly " plus the
power or Powers Members of the organisation that
are not members of the League. " This would
mean that, e.g., the United States could sit in
the Council or Assembly when health matters were
dealt with, although not a member of the League.
And once the United States, Germany and Russia
became members of the League, the constitution
of the Health Organisation would approximate to
that of the Transit Organisation, i.e. revert to
the normal type of League technical organisation.
Again, adherence by the United States to the
International Court might be used to propose a
treaty between the British and American Govern-
ments, accepting, as regards each other> the terms
of the optional clause concerning compulsory juris-
diction that was added to the protocol of the Court
by the Assembly. It is not a thing to be proud

174 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

of that no Great Power has yet signed this clause.;
The political reasons for this reserve are, however,
although not creditable, at least intelligible. But
they would obviously be far more than outweighed,
so far as we and the United States were concerned,
by the great political advantage of thus solemnly
sealing the immense fact that the whole English-
speaking world had once for all accepted law as
the final arbiter in its affairs. And once we get
to this point with our American kinsmen, it is
to be hoped that the wisdom and decency of signing
the optional clause with other countries too, on the
basis of reciprocity, will quickly become apparent.;
Lastly, the United States have always striven to
extend and consolidate the reign of international
law, and so might, once they had become members
of the Court, be willing to associate themselves with!
us and the South American countries in a move for
entrusting the Court with the elucidation and
codification of existing international law, as
suggested by the International Law Association
Conference in Buenos Aires last summer.

These, then, are ways in which the League
system might be used for the adjustment of intra-
Imperial relations and the establishment of co-
operation with the U.S.A. and other overseas
countries. But all this is subsidiary to the burning
problems of how to reach a settlement with
.Germany, Russia and Turkey. The latter is being-
attempted while this is written, so that comment
seems idle except for the remark" that if France,
Italy and Great Britain can agree on a common 1
policy, there should be no difficulty in what to do
with the Turks the elements of the problem are
simple enough whereas if concession-hunting and
chicane continue to hold the field the prospects;
do not seem bright of achieving a settlement short
of either war or a surrender to the victory -drunb

SETTLEMENT IN EUROPE 175

Kemalists involving the massacre and expulsion
from Turkey of Christian minorities, as well as
the refortification of the Straits.

The question of German reparations and inter-
Allied debts is more complex, but it, too, must
be settled within the next few months, for if it
is not, Germany will go the same way as Austria,
with the added complications of revolution and
counter-revolution, Bavarian attempts to proclaim a
monarchy and annex Austria, etc. The only way
to settle this question is obviously in conjunction
with France and Italy. It is too early at the
time of writing to. know Italy's policy. France,
however, has got to the point where she is publicly;
willing to reduce the indemnity in exchange for a
cancellation of her debts, and the British Govern-
ment is now apparently willing to let the Balfour
Note be bygones and treat the matter on that
basis. The immediate question is whether France
is willing to reduce the indemnity sufficiently to
make its payment feasible in present circumstances,
also whether she is willing to grant the two or
three years* moratorium that is now necessary,
without imposing a degree of control too much
like economic slavery ever to be accepted by
Germany. Behind this lies the further question
whether she is willing drastically to reduce the
enormous armies of occupation in the Rhineland
that at present are eating up whatever indemnities
.Germany can pay, and creating a state of mind in
the subject population that helps to keep Europe
in a ferment and bodes no good for the future.
Behind this, again, looms the larger question of
whether the French Government has made up its
mind as to which of two policies making Germany
pay or destroying Germany it wishes to adopt.
The Dariac report is merely the culminating fact in
a long series of acts in the Rhineland, and discus-
sions in the French Press and political circles that
point to a fixed resolve on the part of at least

176 LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY .

influential people close to the French Government
to detach the Rhineland and make it a German
Alsace-Lorraine.

Behind, and at the root of all these questions,
lies a state of mind that may be defined as a
well-nigh universal belief that France is not only
omnipotent on the Continent, but invulnerable.
Whereas Great Britain, runs the argument, depends
on foreign tirade, and so is driven to a peace and
reconstruction policy in Europe in order to build
up her markets, France is independent of the rest
of the world, and so can, without injury to herself,
iavade tlie Ruhr and shatter the economic fabric
of Europe east of the Rhine, thereby dealing
England's efforts at recovery a mortal blow. Re-
actionaries and extreme nationalists are all for
adopting this policy at once, apparently on the
good old principle that what hurts others must be
good for France ; Germany's ruin in this case being
considered the chief blessing, with Great Britain's
consequent troubles as an accessory benefit. More
moderate Frenchmen are opposed to '* upsetting
the apple-cart " except as a last resort. But the
serious thing is that practically everyone who
counts in Fiance is firmly convinced that this policy
is feasible, and that an -attempt to smash Germany
as an alternative to reparations is quite justifiable,

Obviously^ it is not possible to lay the founda-
tions for a new understanding with France until
the idea of destroying Germany which means
assassinating Europe, for all the half-derelict new
states lean on the staggering German colossus and
would be drawn down in its fall as the alternative
to a successful collection of debts is put aside for
ever, and until the illusion has been dissipated that
,we are lost without France, while France can, if
necessary, play a lone hand triumphantly. If
there are to be fruitful negotiations leading to
real partnership, there must be equality between the
would-be partners, and there is no equality if one

SETTLEMENT IN EUROPE 177

partner believes he is invulnerable while able at
any moment to make life impossible for the other.
Therefore, while the question of reparations and
debts is overwhelmingly important and brooks no
delay, and while it cannot be solved except by
France, Great Britain and Italy in unison, it may
be solved successfully only after the formidable
psychological obstacle just mentioned has been
cleared away. For this reason we must make full
peace with Russia immediately and independently.
This is intrinsically well worth doing and long
overdue. Moreover, since the period of delay
specified by the Genoa Conference has lapsed, we
are expressly entitled to take separate action
without this being considered a breach of the
Entente. On our side, we should offer political
recognition, support for Russia's candidature to
membership of the League with a permanent seat
on the Council, credits not only to British traders
in Russia, but limited credits (charged against the
Russian Government) for League relief and health
work in Russia, and association with the policy of
neutralisation of the Baltic and Black Sea areas,
as well as non-fortification of and freedom of
commerce through the Straits. On Russia's side
there should be a settlement of the question of
debts and British property in Russia, a willingness
to adjust relations with the border states and an
agreement as to the policy to be pursued toward
Turkey and in the Middle East. In embarking
on this policy we should make a special effort to
enlist the co-operation of Poland and Czecho-
slovakia. Both these states are very apprehensive
about the results to themselves of a policy that
would cause the collapse of Germany and are
anxious for recognition of and peace and trade
with Russia this last for the simple reason that a
reviving Russia on whom the rest of Europe has a
hold spells security and prosperity, whereas a lean
and hungry outlaw Russia is a danger. Czecho-

12

178 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

Slovakia and Poland as well as the other border
states made no secret of these views both before
and after the Genoa and Hague Conferences.
These considerations, too, are not lost on Roumania
and Yugo-Slavia, which are also alarmed at the
complacency with which Turkish demands are
being met in certain quarters. It should not,
therefore, be difficult to establish working relations
with the Little Entente, the Balkan group and the
new states of East Europe generally in carrying
out a policy of peace with Russia. Signor Musso-
lini, too, has made clear Italy's desire to settle
with Russia, and we should do everything to help
in the achievement of that desire (Italy is mainly
interested in the coalfields and raw materials of
South Russia). We should also, of course, do
everything to use the position which our policy
would gain for us in Russia to help France settle
her outstanding differences with that country, for
clearly, without the co-operation of France and
Italy we could not get Russia into the League
Council nor carry the movement of settlement
and reconstruction further West than the eastern
frontier of Germany. In regard to Germany our
hands are tied by common treaty obligations with
France and Italy, It is true France has set a
precedent in the case of Turkey by concluding the
Angora agreement regardless of previous treaty
obligations, but it is hardly likely that anyone
would suggest our doing the same, or that we could
make such a policy effective for good if we did.

On the other hand, the policy of full peace with
Russia would dissipate the French illusion already
mentioned, and show the situation in its true light,
which is, that wrecking Germany would not
** finish " things but merely mean creating a tem-
porary belt of chaos east of the Rhine, narrower
or wider as the case may be, and engulfing perhaps
some, perhaps all, of the new states* Beyond that
belt we should be helping Russia on to her feet

SETTLEMENT IN EUROPE 179

and slowly building up Europe again from the
East to the West. The more the intervening chaos
involved revolution and war, as it very likely would,
the surer it would be that the Europe which ulti-
mately emerged would be a very different Europe
from that which was so carefully carved out and
shored up at the Peace Conference. "Upsetting
the apple-cart " means upsetting the Peace settle-
ment. But the Peace settlement was based on the
temporary dictatorship of the Allies, on the tem-
porary prostration of Germany and Russia, and on
the temporary prevalence of nationalist illusions,
such as that, for instance, which led the Croats
to fly into the arms of the Serbs, and led all the
Succession States to adopt a policy destructive to
the economic unity which had obtained under the
Austro -Hungarian Empire. Clearly a reorgan-
isation of Europe that began from Russia would
be a reorganisation on very different lines from 1
the present settlement. It is, indeed, still very
much an open question whether even under the
most favourable circumstances it is possible to
make the present settlement of Europe stable by,
constitutional means whether the little new. states
will treat their German, Hungarian, Russian, etc.,
minorities in such a way as to avoid trouble with
their great neighbours, and whether they will
moderate their protectionist ardour sufficiently to
make economic life possible. In short, the plain
fact is that while peace and reconstruction in
Europe is not at the first remove so obviously a
bread-and-butter question for France as it is for
us, it is at the second remove a life-and-death issue
for her no less than for us. Germany and Russia
cannot be destroyed or kept down and apart for
ever ; they must be conciliated, or they will come
together, and if together they are stronger than
any other Continental combination.

Supposing, then, that the proper atmosphere of
mutual respect had been established, how should

180 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

the negotiations be conducted? The reason that
France is reluctant to let Germany revive economi-
cally and politically to the point where she can pay,
and still toys with the idea of breaking up her
great neighbour, is that Germany has an increasing
population, already nearly twice the size of that
of France, whose population is stationary, and
that in industrial and technical organisation Ger-
many is far ahead of France. And these ^ things
mean immense potential military power in the
modern world. The French report to the Third
Assembly on the reasons dictating French arma-
ments points out these facts very forcibly and
concludes that France's only guarantee in a future
war is the time factor the ability to strike first.
If Germany could overcome that, it is tacitly
admitted that France would be beaten. This,
needless to say, is rather a slight foundation on
which to build national security, for a small
development in military science would suffice to
upset it, and the idea of breaking up Germany is,
as has been already shown, a chimera, for the
break-up cannot be permanent.

Bearing in rnind all the facts and considerations
set forth above, we should in an all-round settle-
ment ask for a reduction of the Rhine army from
the present 150,000 or so to a mere corporal's
guard of 10,000, coupled with withdrawal to the
legal limits laid down by the VersaiEes Treaty.
The period of fifteen years' occupation should be
made to run from the date of coming into force of
the Versailles Treaty (i.e. three years are already
up). This would make clear that the idea of
destroying Germany had been given up absolutely
and for ever. As for reparations, they should be
based entirely on what Germany can pay within
five or ten years and should be accompanied by
only so much control and sttcK a moratorium as
would enable these sums to be produced by yearly
payments in cash and kind, as well as by an

SETTLEMENT IN EUROPE 181

international loan on which Germany would pay
the interest and sinking fund. We, on our side,
should be willing to give up all our claims on
France and Italy and our share in the indemnity,
thereby raising the proportion of the other Allies.
We should also offer a guarantee of security
through the League.

It is obvious that a policy of this sort entails
heavy sacrifices, for it means giving up all our
claims in Europe while paying America to the full.
In addition, the idea of commitments to Continental
Powers is at present repugnant to a great part of
British public opinion. However, as we shall have
to pay the United States in any case, and will
not get any money from Germany or our late
Allies in any case either, there is nothing for it
but to make a virtue of necessity. Moreover,
France herself will have to make very considerable
sacrifices to accept this policy : she will not only
have to face a very difficult financial situation at
home, but will have drastically to revise her foreign
policy, will have, in fact, as Senator de Jouvenel
said, to choose between force and the League of
Nations. 1 But if we push our policy skilfully and
boldly, she will have to eschew force, as it will
too obviously leave her alone in Europe, without
disposing of her enemies.

The only question that remains, then, is how to
embody the idea of security through the League in
a concrete policy? When the Covenant was drawn
up, it was thought that Article X alone would
offer sufficient security and that all more restricted
groupings should be disallowed. Even at that
time, however, the Monroe Doctrine was made an

* Recently Senator de Jouvenel publicly declared that if tbe
Brussels Conference OBI Reparations failed there were only two
alternatives left force or the League of Nations. In this dilemma,
said the Senator, he would unhesitatingly choose the League.
Senator de Jouvenel was the French representative to the Third
Assembly who, together with Lord Robert Cecil, hammered out
the compromise resolution on a guarantee treaty and reduction
of armaments*

182 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

exception and opened tKe way to further exceptions.
Lord Robert Cecil's proposed pact, referred by the
Temporary Mixed Commission to the Third
Assembly, was a confession that Article X had
been conceived on too wide a scale ; that it was
too much to expect of overseas nations that they
should automatically come to the aid of a Euro-
pean member of the League that was attacked.
Consequently Lord Robert proposed to limit his
pact to nations on the same continent. But this,
too, has proved too great a strain on the existing
degree of international solidarity. After prolonged
debates, the Third Assembly passed a compromise
resolution which, while admitting the desirability
of a Continental pact, opens the door wide to local
understandings. Clearly, then, the attempt to keep
away from the system of rival alliances by general
understandings has broken down ; the very catho-
licity of basis which was supposed to constitute the
capital difference from old-style alliances has
imported an element of unreality that causes States
simply to refuse to take the project seriously. The
way to make the distinction is, then, to start from
the other end and try to bring about not so much 1
a difference in partners as a difference in the terms
of partnership. One proposal is to register agree-
ments with the League. This ought to go without
saying, but it is not enough. A public alliance
may be only one degree less objectionable than a
secret alliance indeed, secret alliances never do
remain very secret, so that the difference is largely
one of words. Another way, originally proposed
by Lord Robert Cecil and embodied in the
Assembly resolution, is that League agreements,
while they may be local in scope, should become
operative only by a resolution of the Council.
This is better, for it means that treaty obligations
are interpreted not by the Contracting Powers, but
by an authoritative and impartial body which', while
it may include these powers, is not identical with

SETTLEMENT IN EUROPE 183

them. But as it stands the proposal Is incomplete,
for while affording unconditional protection to any
power whose territory is violated by the forces of
another, it enjoins no corresponding obligation to
settle disputes by peaceful means. It is true that
powers signing this pact are also supposed to be
signatories to the Covenant and so presumably
morally obliged as members of the League to
submit their disputes to the Council, Court or
Assembly. But in form the proposed pact is
entirely independent of the Covenant, and it would
be quite possible for a State signing the pact
to rely on the automatic and unconditional guar-
antee it affords, while refusing to carry out its
duties as a member of the League and submit its
dispute with another power to arbitration or
mediation.; This is a hardly likely contingency,
but if it occurred the situation would be extremely
awkward, for the recalcitrant state would
undoubtedly have the right to appeal to the pact
in its present form to protect it from the
consequences of its obstinacy.

It is in order to get over this last difficulty that
the suggestion was made, soon after the Third
Assembly, to insert an additional clause in the pact
proposed by Lord Robert Cecil and recommended
in modified form by the Assembly: In order to
be able to invoke the pact a state should not
only have to satisfy the Council that it had b'eea
invaded, but the dispute out of which the alleged
invasion arose should be sab judice in some
League body (i.e. the Council, Court or
Assembly), or the State concerned should have
accepted the League's final award (that is, the
award of the Assembly) in the case at issue. In
other words, any state which refused to have its
case dealt with through the League, or any state
which refused to accept the final opinion of the
community of nations in the matter, would, by the
terms of the agreement itself, be unable to invoke

184 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

its protection. Thus, while members of the League
would be allowed under this interpretation of the
term " regional understanding " to conclude agree-
ments on as restricted a basis as they pleased, they
could do so only on terms that would make it
impossible for these agreements to be interpreted
as a menace or an act of separatism by any outside
power. On the other hand, since this form of
agreement would be merely a logical development
of the terms of the Covenant to which they are
already pledged that is, an absolute guarantee of
security as opposed to the relative guarantee
afforded by Articles X and XVI, in exchange for
an absolute obligation to settle disputes by peaceful
means instead of the partial obligation to mediate
and delay laid down in the Covenant members
of the League would find great difficulty in refusing
this form of pact without putting themselves in
the position of apparently preferring anarchy and
force to law and mutual aid ; without, that is,
going back on the spirit and the letter of their
duties and professions as members of the League -
Giving a guarantee through' the League to
France, Italy and Belgium * might then be inter-
preted as concluding a regional understanding with
these countries, stipulating that if one of the
Contracting Powers (i) was willing to submit a
dispute with an outside power to settlement
through the League and the outside power never-
theless refused and took up arms against the Con-
tracting Power, or (2) if a dispute between a
Contracting Power and an outside power were su&
judice in the League, or the Contracting Power
had accepted the Assembly's award in the dispute
at issue and the outside power nevertheless took
up arms against the Contracting Power, the latter
would be held to be attacked under th'e terms of

* To emphasise the difference from the old form of alliance,
Holland might be asked to join, although she would almost cer-
tainly refuse; Spain, too, should be asked, although her assent
i$ more than doubtful.

SETTLEMENT IN EUROPE 185

the agreement and the other Contracting Powers
obliged to come to its aid with every means at
their disposal. The Council should by a three-
quarters majority and within a delay of four days
be the organ designated to decide whether the
outside power had in fact " taken up arms "
against the Contracting Power. It would be
desirable that as a corollary, to an agreement of
this sort the Contracting Powers should sign among
themselves the optional clause concerning com-
pulsory jurisdiction contained in the protocol of
the International Court. This would emphasise their
intention to settle all their differences by peaceful
means. Moreover, all our major disagreements,
with France at any rate, during the next few years
are almost certain to turn upon treaty interpret
tations or questions of fact (for instance, France's
right to take separate action under the Versailles
Treaty ; how much 1 Germany can pay and on
what terms). It would obviously be a direct prac-
tical advantage for all of us to be bound to resort
to an impartial judicial organ to settle the question.
In this way it could be settled promptly without
waste of timfe and temper or the loss of prestige
(what the Chinese call "face") on either sidie.
Moreover, the settlement arrived at in this way
would be just and impartial atid not the temporary
resultant of conflicting interests.

The conclusion of a pact of this sort should
be proposed as the last term of an all-round
settlement between the Allies and Germany,
including as one factor an agreement by all
the Contracting Powers to vote for Germany's
admission to the League and permanent member-
ship of the League Council, the moment she
applied. It would, of course, be theoretically
possible immediately to make a regional under-
standing with Germany on the same terms as that
proposed with the Allies. This would, however,
create the same opposition in France that was

186 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

raised by the suggested tripartite agreement
between Germany, France and England, and simply
cause her to consider the whole proposed agree-
ment as no real guarantee and mere make-believe.
That is the hard psychological fact that we must
take account of and give full weight to in all our
calculations. In order to get over the difficulty
this fact presents, it might be stipulated that the
agreement should run for twenty years, but that
we reserved ourselves the right any time after the
lapse of five years to conclude a similar agree-
ment with Germany. In the meantime Germany's,
membership of the Council, coupled with' the
existence of Articles X and XVI, even in their:
present weakened form^ would give her ample
opportunity to hold her own and ourselves full
warrant for backing her claims to any extent that
public opinion in England during the next five
years at least is likely to contemplate.

A settlement on these lines would clear up. West
and Central Europe and open the way to tackling
the problem of Russia. It has already been shown
why there is small hope of settlement in the West
unless we simultaneously open negotiations with
Russia in the East. Conversely, although we take
separate action in Russia, the purpose of our action
must unwaveringly be to establish good relations
between Russia and all other countries, particu-
larly between Russia and our Allies, France and
"Italy. Everywhere and always the supreme object
of our policy must be to prevent Europe splitting
up, into rival camps that will become hostile
alliances and end in Armageddon. We must never
forget this object, even if, paradoxically enougK,
we have, in order to attain it, to act for a time
independently of our Allies.

Genoa and The Hague broke down largely
because the Bolsheviks wanted political recogni-
See Appendix C, Note 8.

SETTLEMENT IN EUROPE 187

tion and credits In exchange for the 'desired
settlement on debts and foreign property. In any
all-round settlement we should, of course, not only
grant full political recognition but undertake to
support Russia's candidature for the League and
for permanent membership in the Council, As to
credits, it will be remembered that the British!
Government was willing to give credits to the
extent of thirty or forty million pounds to British
traders operating in Russia,, while the Soviet
Government wanted much larger credits granted
directly to itself. This last is obviously impossible,
but, as a practical and not very costly compromise,
we might consent to grant a couple of million
pounds to the League Health Organisation for
carrying out and enlarging the full programme
decided upon at the Warsaw Anti-Epidemic Con-
ference. 1 The sum thus expended could be
charged up against the Russian Government, just
as the Argentine has made a grant of over
5,000,000 pesos to the work 1 of Russian famine
relief and charged the sum up against the Russian
Government. In this way we should be certain
that the administration of these funds would
be in hands we could fully trust, while dependent
for their ultimate repayment just as we would be
dependent for not losing on the trade credits on
the Soviet Government. Moreover, even a super-
ficial acquaintance with disease conditions in Russia
should make it pretty clear that a preliminary
health campaign is necessary to make Russia safe
for business. How can British traders go back,
restart their factories and collect large numbers of
workmen, if devastating, epidemics are at any
moment likely to break out the moment they do
so, and if medicines are unobtainable? For the
same reason it might be good policy for the British!
Government to advocate placing the Nansen Relief
Organisations under the Council, at least for the

* For the details of this programme see Chapter VII.

188 THE LEAGUE OF NATION'S TO-DAY

expenditure of another million or so of credits
that the British Government would advance for the
purposes not only of famine relief but of recon-
struction. Russia is, after all, predominantly
agricultural, and even in order to restore the
industries owned by British subjects it is necessary
to be sure that there will be a minimum of food
and comfort for the worker^ who have to be
collected for this purpose. Sums spent on repairs
to railway transport and on providing the peasants,
through their co-operative organisations and
similar agencies, with tools and agricultural imple-
ments of every description, as well as clothes and
boots, would very quickly more than pay for them-
selves in direct and indirect benefits. To begin
with, they would mean productive work for many
of our unemployed a preferable alternative to
spending the same money on doles. Here, again,
the sum spent could be charged against the Russian
Government in lieu of direct credits, as a com-
promise by which they would get the chief benefit
of what had been done, but we should be sure
that the money would really be well expended and
would help, to make work in England.

A point on which our and Russian interests
might well meet would be the question of
neutralising the Baltic and Black Sea. The Soviet
Government, at the time of the Aaland Islands
settlement, and since, made clear its desire to
have an agreement between all the states border-
ing on the Baltic, by which none would keep more
than a specified number of small men-of-war (gun-
boats, destroyers, light cruisers) of limited tonnage
and armament in these waters, and by which' no
men-of-war from outside would be allowed to
enter. This clearly would be a policy worth sup-
porting, only with the proviso that a power acting
on behalf of the League Council should be allowed
to introduce warships into the Baltic. This
proviso would become effective when Russia became

SETTLEMENT IN EUROPE 189

a permanent member of the League Council. A
similar proposal for the neutralisation of the Black
Sea and freedom of commerce through the Straits
has been made by the Soviet Government and
might well be taken up by us,, again with the
proviso that this neutrality would not hold in case
of a power acting with the approval of the League
Council, which should include Russia.

On the other hand, the Bolsheviks would have
to undertake to settle the question of debts and
property in a manner satisfactory to ourselves, and
should, moreover, agree to settle with France, Italy
and Belgium on terms at least as favourable to
these countries so soon as they were willing to
support Russia's membership of the League
Council. Russia should also agree to a common
policy with us in the Near and Middle East an'd
settle all outstanding questions with the border
States, as well as apply for membership to the
League so soon as a pledge had been obtained
from the members of the Council to admit her to
membership of that body. The advantage of
Russia's friendship is so obvious as hardly to need
emphasising: Russia is one of the richest in
undeveloped natural resources of all countries in
the world, as well as one of the largest. More-
over, terrible as is the condition of Russia to-day,
there can be no doubt that she will once again
become one of the greatest powers in the world
And it is to the interest of us, as weE as of
civilisation at large, that we should lay the founda-
tions of friendship deep and strong to-day in
Russia's hour of distress and so draw her close
to the West and Western ideas, instead of forcing
her through isolation to become a sort of
demagogic Muscovy with Pan-Oriental leanings .,

These are the lines of a possible settlement m East
Europe that, together with the settlement already
suggested in the West, should find its completion

190 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

in bringing Germany and Russia into the Council
of the League. This, again, would open the way
to a reduction of armaments concurrently with the
development of a system of regional understandings
like that foreshadowed in the Third Assembly's
resolution, but with the additional clause concerning
peaceful settlement of disputes that has already
been mentioned. The aim would be to build ^UR
a number of groups pan passu with the reduction
of armaments, and overlapping as much as
possible. Thus, suppose the formation of a West
European group consisting of Italy, France, Bel-
gium, * ourselves and possibly Holland and Spain,
and a German-Russian group. By the time these
were formed we should have a similar agreement
with Germany, and so the .West European and the
Russo-German groups would overlap in us. This
does not mean that we should be bound to inter-
vene on the side of Germany if she went to war
to help Russia. Our agreement with Germany
could come into force only if that Power were
willing to abide by the League's decision in a
dispute with another power, which nevertheless
attacked Germany. But it does mean that it
would be impossible for the West European and
German-Russian groups to drift into becoming
rival and hostile alliances. This apart from the
fact that all the Great Powers would be members
of the League Council and all of us members of
the League and so, whatever group we belong to,
have the right under Article XI of the Covenant to
call the attention of the Council to any circumstance
threatening to disturb the peace of the world.

Finland is another state that might be suitable
as a member of two or more different groups, for
the Finns are the only one of the new states oji
excellent terms with Germany and the neutrals as
well as with the Allies and the other border states. 1

* This is what has led t Finland being elected a member of
the governing "board of the International Labour Office, and may

DISARMAMENT 191

Thus, Finland might conclude a League agreement
with Germany, another with' the Baltic States and
Poland,, and another with Sweden. Poland and
the Little Entente, and those countries with France,
would form further groups.

The truth is we must take account of tKe
psychology of existing nations as they are at
present, the state of mind that leads them to
associate themselves with certain states whom they
regard as allies and distrust others whom they
regard as enemies. Of course, the sooner these
war-time lines of division are replaced by the
formation of other and larger groups the better,
but trying to do too much and go too fast simply
results in the states concerned refusing to act, as
has been shown by the fate of Article X and the
Continental Agreement. Until we get a new and
better psychology, we must force the existing minds
of these nations into new moulds, in the shape of
the new and improved form of agreements that has
been suggested. At the same time, we must blocK
the channels to the oldi by insisting on the most rigid)
interpretation of Article XVIII of the Covenant
[(rendering invalid all treaties not registered with
the Secretariat), and of Article XX, which declares
that the States Members of the League may not
conclude any treaties incompatible with the pur-
poses of the Covenant. We should interpret this
Article as meaning that only the form of regional
understanding sketched above is permissible under
it, and that if States choose to conclude others
they are breaking the Covenant and, whether they
register their separate treaties or not, cannot appeal
under them to the League if they get into trouble.

in six or eight years' time lead to her becoming a temporary
member of the Council. In this connection it may be remarked
that Finland is, in point of size, population, history, finances,
political affiliations and civilisation generally, to be regarded as
more nearly a fourth Scandinavian state than a northern equivalent
to the Baltic States Latvia, Esthonia, and Lithuania. This is
a point of some political importance.

192 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

In proportion as the settlements with Germany
and Russia begin to be felt in the revival of
European prosperity and intercourse, and as the
entry of Germany and Russia into the Council
increases the power and authority of the League,
and .in proportion as the system of overlapping
uniform local groups develops, it should be possible
to fuse smaller groups into larger, until finally
we arrive at one general Continental agreement,
as nationalism gets educated to the degree of soli-
darity necessary for this purpose^ At the same
time, perhaps, the element of sanctions s and readi-
ness for instant action in case of war will gradually
be reduced in rigour as the doctrine of force in
international relations loses its hold on men's
minds. This whole process may well take eight
or tea years, but it need not take, longer if
methodically and energetically pushed by our
government and what other partners in this
enterprise we can secure on the Continent.

Our ultimate object must be to secure the
abolition of air fleets, submarines and conscription,
in exchange for a reduction by the United States,
Japan, Italy, France and ourselves of our navies
to some five or six light cruisers and a few
destroyers and gunboats each, with corresponding
reductions by all other countries. With these few
.ships we should obviously not be in a position to
"fight each other they would be used only for
suppressing smugglers and pirates, and for execut-
ing decrees of the Council, in accordance with
whose decision alone any country could exercise
the right of blockade and search. All straits and
coaling stations would be neutralised and put under
the League. Of course this consummation cannot
become an object of policy until all the states of
the world have for many years been members of
the League ; until we are certain that we ourselves

A WORLD AT PEACE 193

would never go to war in defiance of a decision
of the Council, of which 1 we are a permanent
member ; until we are convinced that the League
will never break up, owing to conflict between the
leading members ; until, in fact, war between the
Great Powers no longer enters into the day-to-day
calculations of practical politicians, though, like
revolution and civil war, it would always remain
a possibility. To reach this point may sound
Utopian to-day, but it is perfectly possible to reach!
it before the generation which has been through 1
the war dies. The whole material basis of our
civilisation, indeed, constrains us to effect the change
of thought and habit that this requires, on pain
of seeing it break up. All that is needed is will,
animated by a purpose in the light of which the
problems of to-day and to-morrow can be tackled
intelligently and with confidence.

In this connection the question arises of how to
give practical effect to the need for educating
public opinion on international affairs and their
bearing on the League system. The readiest and
most obvious method is to join the League of
Nations' Union. This all-party organisation, num-
bering already some 200,000 members, is nation-
wide, with headquarters in London. It exists for
the express purpose of disseminating information
about the League and foreign affairs generally, and
for focussing the energies of people interested in
such questions. It publishes literature, organises
lectures, conferences, summer-schools, study and
discussion groups in a word, is doing precisely;
the work that must be done if public opinion is to
be educated. Clearly, the more members and the
more money the Union gets, the greater will be
its power for good.

Another powerful educative influence are the
international congresses held by the Co-operative
and Labour (both the industrial and political
wings) movements,. The more discussion and con-

13

194 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

ference there is between representative private
persons, whose views carry weight among large
numbers of their countrymen, the stronger will
grow the international tradition. ~

For this reason it would seem eminently
desirable to utilise to the full that admirable
institution the Inter- Parliamentary Union. The
national 'groups belonging to this organisation, and
numbering most countries in the world (Germany
and the United States included) must be recruited
from M.P.'s of their respective countries. Each
group sends a delegation to the annual conference
of the organisation, and each delegation has, in
proportion to the population of the country con-
cerned, as well as of the group it represents, from
five to thirty votes. The conferences discuss and
pass resolutions on current international questions,
and are, of course, purely private affairs with no
official status whatever. Something like 50 per
cent, of the late Parliament belonged to the
British group of the Inter-Parliamentary Union.
iWhy should not most or all of the M.P.'s in the
present Parliament constitute themselves the new.
British group, and do so with the deliberate resolve
of making the Inter- Parliamentary Union a sort
of international Parliament?

The first step in this process would be the
appointment of a really weighty and representative
delegation, made up of two or three of the most
influential and able M.P/s each party in Parlia-
ment could produce. The next would be to get
into touch with the Parliaments of other countries
having national groups, and try to persuade them
to do likewise. The third step would be to try
to secure that the conferences of the Union be
held a month or so before the League Assembly
and discuss all the important points on the latter's
agenda, as well as any other questions that might
be put down by one or other national group.
In proportion as the delegations to these con*

A WORLD AT PEACE 195

ferences were truly and authoritatively representa-
tive of all parties in their countries, the debates of
the conferences would play a big part in shaping
the public opinion and influencing the policy of
these countries when they met in the Assembly.
No more valuable training in internationalism and
no better preparation for debates on League
questions could be imagined for the M.P/s who
took part in these conferences.

At first, of course, the funds for these activities
would have to be raised by the M.P/s of the
national group among themselves and their sup-
porters. But it should not be impossible eventu-
ally to persuade the government to make a small
grant for the purpose, once its value had been
established. Eventually, when national groups
embraced all the members of the Parliaments from
which they were drawn, when the delegations were
chosen by proportional representation, and when
the governments had got into the habit of support-
ing this enterprise financially, we should have in the
conferences of the Inter- Parliamentary Union what
all who have thought at all deeply on the subject
realise is a necessary complement to the machinery
of the League of Nations a true international con-
sultative Parliament, where voting and discussion
would go on party and not national linesConserva-
tives, Liberals, Radicals and Socialists flocking with
their kind and not their countrymen. This would
be the most effective way to cure the illusion that
modern states are water-tight entities, and bring
home to men's minds a vivid sense of the
complexity of a modern community and the inex-
tricable way it ramifies into and intertwines with the
other communities all round. Modern societies are
rather like those corals that scientists puzzle over
whether to classify as one highly subdivided
animal or a number of intimately connected
animals. The movement toward an international
Parliament would, too^ be the most effective way

196 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

to civilise patriotism to the point where war ceases
to be considered an ever-present possibility, if not
the normal way to settle big differences.

It is an interesting and significant fact that this
evolution of patriotism has very largely occurred
as regards the relations of Great Britain and the
United States, and still more so as regards the
relations of Sweden, Norway and Denmark to each
other. There has been peace for more than a
century between the United States and Great
Britain. The Canadian-United States border is
unarmed and unguarded, and it is taken almost
as a matter of course that differences between
ourselves and the United States, however serious,
should be settled by arbitration and mediation.
In the case of Sweden, Norway and Denmark,
whose history is strewn with internecine and other
wars, the evolution has gone much further. These
nations, while very jealous of their political indi-
vidualism, to the extent that they highly dislike
being called " -Scandinavia " or " Scandinavian
nations/* have developed a highly interesting
system of co-operation, as a result of which whole
sections of the code of laws in each country are
identical. From time to time jurists appointed
by the three Governments meet and draw up a
series of recommendations consisting of identical
draft laws. It is now a tradition that, although
this Committee has nothing but advisory powers,
the three Parliaments pass the recommendations
in toto and without discussion. This is interesting,
for it foreshadows the way in which, through!
international conventions worked out in conferences
and regulating questions such as transit, finance,
health, labour, etc., with the League Council or
Court designated as arbiter, we might gradually
build up a body of common law among the
members of the League and get into the habit of
settling all the resultant differences by peaceful
rneans; we might, in, fact, evolve an organisation

A WORLD AT PEACE 197

of the world, < not as a federation -in which! all
the individuals within the federal territories would
be in the direct relation of subjects to a common
Federal Government, but as a community or society
of independent states, each exercising sovereignty
within its own territories, subject to the limitations
and responsibilities necessary to secure the common
peace, the common welfare and the reasonable
freedom of all the other states comprised in the
community." 1

On the intellectual side, this evolution requires
some such conception as a code of international
rights we must get into the habit of thinking that
beyond a certain point such questions as tariffs,
regulation of immigration, control of raw materials,
etc., cease to be purely national and become
matters of concern to other nations. There must,
too, be respect for the reign of law and a getting
away from the code duello, the code which is
extinct in private life, but which still exists among
nations. In other words, it is still considered a
point of honour by states to be judge and jury
in their own case and settle their disputes by ordeal
of battle. The extravagance of the claim made
by small nations i.e. of small groups of humanity
to have the same voting power as large nations
i.e. big groups of humanity has already been
mentioned. This claim, although it covers itself
with a high-sounding phrase" international demo-
cracy " is really rooted in a metaphysical dogma
that may be formulated something like this : " all
States are sovereign and equal/* But the attitude
of the great states in refusing to allow the Courit
compulsory jurisdiction, on the ground that it
would be dishonouring for them to be summoned
before the Court by a small power, means a claim
on the part of large human groups not to be

* The Duties of Nations, being a lecture delivered by Mr. F. N.
Keen, IX.B., to the Grotius Society, published by Sweet and
Maxwell.

198 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

equal before the law with small human groups, and
to be free to use force instead. But equality
before the law for all individuals, corporations and
groups within a society, high or low, big or small,
is fundamental, and this denial of it a far more
dangerous and anti-social act than the claim of
the small states. It, indeed, is rooted in a con-
ception that may be expressed by " my country's
Government, right or wrong."

But below the need for new intellectual con-
ceptions is the deeper necessity for a humanisation
of nationalism similar to the humanisation of
religion that put a stop to religious wars. Religion
used to be the centre round which men's greeds,
hates, fears, and lusts clustered and were sanctified,
To-day it is patriotism which is the last refuge of
a scoundrel, in the sense of allowing" habits of
thought and behaviour which if expressed in any
other connection would be regarded as too bar-
barous to be tolerable. To-day religion is either
distinctly humanistic or a mere supernatural annexe
to patriotism, and so it is the reformation of
patriotism that is most needed. Patriotism, as well
as religion, must be inspired by a sense of human
values. A patriot must no longer be definable
as a man who loves his country butt not his
countrymen, just as religious excellence no longer
consists in burning heretics " ad major em Dei
gloriam" The sense of moral obligation must
no longer stop at political frontiers. Patriotism
and religion both must be founded on morality,
and morality must be founded on human welfare
including not only material prosperity, but all that
goes to make a keen mind and a gracious heart
in this world, and not on soul-saving or honour-
avenging in the next. During the war a prominent
British statesman made a much-applauded dis-
tinction between German nature and human nature,
and a very famous and able book attempted to
prove that the souls of German human beings were

A WORLD AT PEACE 199

biologically and radically different from the souls
of human beings in allied countries, as the psy-
chology of a ravening wolf-pack differs totally
from that of a hive of busy bees. Lucubrations
of this sort and the jungle spirit that informs them
must come to be instinctively regarded as not only
pitifully silly, but sheerly blasphemous. Mankind
is of one species, not several ; or, in old-fashioned
terminology, we are members one of another.
That is the old lesson we must somehow reabsorb
into our civilisation, or it will perish. The growth"
of spiritual stature that this implies is not only
, not impossible it is essential. It is the root of
the matter.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

THE publications sold by the Publications Section
of the League Secretariat have formed the basis
for this book. The most useful single publica-
tion is the Monthly Summary of the League of
Nations (35. 6d. a year).

The Secretary-General's reports to and the
resolutions and records of the First, Second and
Third Assemblies, the final act of the Barcelona
Transit Conference, the Warsaw Health Conference
and the Brussels Financial Conference all denote
landmarks in the League's history. The Official
Journal is exhaustive but expensive.

Lastly, copies of the Covenant, as amended by
the Second Assembly, of the constitution of the
Labour Office (i.e. Part XIII of the Versailles
Treaty), the statute of the Court and the constitu-
tion of the Transit Organisation, may be obtained
from the League Secretariat, as may all other
information bearing on the constitution and work-
ing of the League since its foundation. The
League 'of; Nations Union, too, publishes practically
all this information in a series of admirably
compact and lucid pamphlets.

200

APPENDICES

APPENDIX A

MEMBERSHIP OF THE LEAGUE AFTER THE THIRD MEETING OF
THE ASSEMBLY

THE following twenty-nine states became original members
of the League owing to ratification of one or other of the
Peace Treaties :

AUSTRALIA

BELGIUM

BOLIVIA

BRAZIL

CANADA

CHINA

CUBA

CZECHOSLOVAKIA

FRANCE

GREECE

GUATEMALA

HAITI

HONDURAS

INDIA

ITALY
JAPAN

LIBERIA

NEW ZEALAND

NICARAGUA

PANAMA

PERU

POLAND

PORTUGAL

ROUMANIA

SERB-CROAT-SLOVENE STATE

SIAM

SOUTH AFRICA
UNITED KINGDOM
URUGUAY ...

201

January 10, 1920
January 10, 1920
January 10, 1920
January 10, 1920
January 10, 1920
July 1 6, 1920
March 8, 1920
January 10, 1920
January 10, 1920
March 30, 1920
January 10, 1920
June 30, 1920
November 3, 1920
January 10, 1920
January 10, 1920
January 10, 1920
June 30, 1920 ,
January 10, 1920
November 3, 1920
January 9, 1920
January 10, 1920
January 10, 1920
April 8, 1920
September, 1920
February 10, 1920
January 10, 1910
January io> 1920
January 10, 1920
January 10, 1920

202 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

The following thirteen states became original members
through accession to the Covenant under the invitation
contained in the annex to the Covenant :

ARGENTINE REPUBLIC . . . . . . July 18, 1919

CHILE . . . . . . . . . . November 4, 1919

COLOMBIA . . . . . . . , . . February 16, 1920

DENMARK . . , . . . . . . . March 8, 1920

HOLLAND March 9, 1920

NORWAY . . . . . . . . . . March 5, 1920

PARAGUAY December 26, 1919

PERSIA . . . . . . . . . . November 21, 1919

SAN SALVADOR . . . . . . . . March 10, 1920

SPAIN . . . . . . . . . . January 10, 1920

SWEDEN . . . . . . . . . . March 9, 1920

SWITZERLAND , . . , . . . . March 8, 1920

VENEZUELA . . . . . . . . March 3, 1920

On December 16, 1920, the First Assembly admitted the
following six states to membership of the League :

ALBANIA COSTA RICA

AUSTRIA FINLAND

BULGARIA LUXEMBURG

On September 22, 1921, the Second Assembly admitted
the following three states to membership of the League :

ESTHONIA

LATVIA

LITHUANIA

On September 18, 1922, the Third Assembly admitted
Hungary to membership of the League.

The League, therefore, now numbers fifty-two states. Of
these states, one, Switzerland, occupies a peculiar position
in virtue of the League Council's resolution of March 1920,
according to which :

*' The Council of the League of Nations, while affirming that the
conception of neutrality of the members of the League is incom-
patible with, the principle that all members will be obliged to
co-operate in enforcing respect for their engagements, recognises
that Switzerland is in a unique situation, based on a tradition
of several centuries which, has been explicitly incorporated in the
Law of Nations ; and that the members of the League of Nations,
signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, have rightly recognised
by Article 435 that the guarantees stipulated in favour of Switzer-
land by the Treaties of 1815, and especially by the Act of Novem-
ber 20, 1815, constitute international obligations for the main-
tenance of peace. The members of the League of Nations are

APPENDIX A 203

entitled to expect that tlie Swiss people will not stand aside when
the high principles of the League have to be defended. It is in
this sense that the Council of the League has taken note of the
declaration made by the Swiss Government in its message to the
Federal Assembly of August 4, 1919, and in its Memorandum of
January 13, 1920, which declarations have been confirmed by
the Swiss delegates at the meeting of the Council and in accordance
with which Switzerland recognises and proclaims the duties of
solidarity which membership of the League of Nations imposes
upon her, including therein the duty of co-operating in such
economic and financial measures as may be demanded by the
League of Nations against a Covenant-breaking State, and is
prepared to make every sacrifice to defend her own territory under
every circumstance, even during operations undertaken by the
League of Nations, but will not be obliged to take part in any
military action or to allow the passage of foreign troops or the
preparations of military operations within her territory.

In accepting these declarations, the Council recognises that
the perpetual neutrality of Switzerland and the guarantee of the
inviolability of her territory as incorporated in the Law of Nations,
particularly in the treaties and in the Act of 1815, are justified
by the interests of general peace, and as such are compatible with
the Covenant/'

The delegation of the Argentine Republic did not attend
the Second or Third Assembly, and withdrew from the First
upon the latter's decision to refer the amendment to Article I
of the Covenant proposed by Argentine, for study by a
committee that was to report to the Second Assembly. The
Argentine Government has not given notice of an intention
to leave the League, and appears to regard itself as in a state
of suspended or passive membership, to continue until some
measure regarded as a satisfactory equivalent to the amend-
ment proposed by the Argentine has been adopted by the
League. The amendment proposed that any sovereign state
might become a member of the League by simply declaring
its wish to do so.

Peru and Bolivia refused to sit in the Third Assembly
owing to the chairmanship of Chile, with which state they
have an unsettled quarrel. They will, however, presumably
appear at the Fourth Assembly. San Salvador complains
that League membership is too expensive and that in any
case, not having signed the Versailles Treaty, she is not
liable for the budget of the Labour Office.

Albania, Esthonia, Finland, Latvia and Lithuania agreed
to satisfy the Council that their national minorities were
enjoying a measure of piotection equivalent to that contained
in the Minorities Treaties, as a condition of their entry into
the League. Upon examining Finnish legislation on this
point, the Council declared itself satisfied, but the^ issue is
still open as regards Esthonia, Latvia and Lithuania,

204 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY
APPENDIX B

THE SIZE AND METHOD OF ALLOCATION OF THE LEAGUE'S

BUDGET

WHENEVER combined action involving expenditure requires
to be undertaken, a necessary prerequisite is a clear under-
standing on how the cost shall be divided among the par-
ticipants, whether these be individuals or states. This
subject, however, received very little attention when the
Covenant of the League was drawn up, and as a result the
apportionment of League expenses among the members was
at the last moment simply borrowed from the Universal
Postal Union and an article inserted (Article VI) in the
Covenant, declaring that expenses should be apportioned in
accordance with the system that obtained in the Union.
This system provides for seven classes of states, of which
the first class has to pay 25 units, the second class 20 units,
and so on, the sixth class having 3 units and the seventh
I unit. In order to determine the proportion of the expenses
payable by a member state, the total is obtained by adding
together the unit rating of all the members. Then the
ratio which the number of units of a given state bears to the
total number of units determines the proportion of the total
expenses which that state shall pay.

The general principle followed in classifying the states
under tnis and similar schemes in existence before the war
was based on such factors as population, territory, shipping
or import and export figures, net revenue, and so forth.
But as in most of these associations, and particularly in
the Universal Postal Union, the sums involved were very
small, a great many states, in order to gain dignity and a
position at trifling cost, would get themselves put in as high
a class as possible. The League system, however, called
for budgets running into millions of gold francs and increasing
from year to year as the number and importance of matters
dealt with through the League increased, and so it became
apparent from the first that the Universal Postal Union
scale was not satisfactory. Under this scale, for instance,
not only Great Britain, but Canada, Australia and South
Africa, all ranked as first-class powers paying 25 units. This
was obviously inequitable as between Great Britain and the
Dominions. Similarly, Liberia would have to pay one unit
that is, one-twenty-fifth of the sum paid by Great Britain
whereas the population of Great Britain is fifty times greater
than that of Liberia, and the revenue of Great Britain at
least 4,250 times as great as that of Liberia. As most states
after the war are in great financial straits, the difficulty
was felt all the more acutely.

Consequently, from the very beginning of the League's

APPENDIX B

205

existence this question has been under discussion in the
Council, in all thiee Assemblies, and by various expert com-
mittees sitting throughout the year. The first decision
axrived at in the Second Assembly was to revise Article VI
of the Covenant and insert a clause declaring that " the
expenses of the League shall be borne by the members of
the League in the proportion decided by the Assembly."
This revision has not yet been ratified by a sufficient
number of governments, but it is hoped it will come
into force before the Fourth Assembly. Meanwhile, a
" gentlemen's agreement " was arrived at in the Third
Assembly with the unanimous consent of all but the Cuban
delegation, which, however, agreed to urge upon its govern-
ment the necessity for approving the new arrangement.
This agreement establishes a system in which the differences
between the sums paid by small and large states are increased
and a greater number of distinctions established, such as
taking account of the effects of invasion and monetary depre-
ciation in temporarily reducing the financial power of certain
states, etc. It should be mentioned that it was possible to put
the new rating into force largely owing to the magnanimous
action of Poland, who freely offered to increase the amount
at which she was assessed from 15 to 25 units.

The scale as adopted by the Third Assembly is as follows :

Units,

Albania

Argentine

Australia

Belgium, 20 5

Austria

Bolivia

Brazil

Bulgaria

Canada

Chile ..

China

Colombia

Costa Rica . .

Cuba

Czecho-Slovakia

Denmark

Esthonia, 5 2 =

Finland

France, 95 17 ^

Great Britain

Greece

Guatemala

Haiti ..

Honduras

Hungary

India

Italy, 73 -~ 12 ~

Units,

i Japan

(35) Latvia, 5 2 =

26 Liberia

15 Lithuania, 5 i =

i Luxembourg

5 Netherlands

35 New Zealand

7 Nicaragua ..

35 Norway

15 Panama

65 Paraguay ..

7 Persia

i Peru

9 Poland

35 Portugal

12 Roumania, 40 9

3 Salvador

10 Serb-Croat-Slovene State

78 35 - 9 =

95 Siam

10 South Africa

1 Spain

2 Sweden

i Switzerland

4 Uruguay

65 Venezuela .
61

73
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20

IO

I

II
I
I

6

10

25

10

31

I
26

IO

*5

40

18

15

7

5

Total .

... 994

206 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

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APPENDIX B 207

As regards the British Empire it will be seen that while
the total contribution has been but slightly reduced (it still
represents 26 per cent, of the entire amount), its distribution
among the several parts is now much fairer, Great Britain
assuming 95 units, India 65, Canada 35, Australia 26, South
Africa 15, and New Zealand 10. Belgium, Esthonia, France,
Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Roumania, and the Serb-Croat-
Slovene State have their contributions temporarily reduced
by the number of points indicated in the scale, since they
all suffered invasion during the war.

Opposite is given a summary of the budget for the financial
year January i, 1923, to December 31, 1923, as well as the
amount of this budget payable by Great Britain.

As the Swiss franc is counted at par, this means the 1923
budget is equal to 25,673,508 Swiss francs, or, at the higher
than current rate of 25 Swiss francs to the pound, totals
/i, 026,940.

Of this sum Great Britain pays 2,583,668 francs, or
103,307.

208 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY
APPENDIX C

LEAGUE DEVELOPMENTS, DECEMBER IQ22 TO FEBRUARY 1923

THIS Appendix records some of the developments concerning the
League that have occurred between the finishing of the book and
the correction of proofs.

NOTE i. The Reconstruction of Austria, The Commissioner-
General for Austria has been appointed by the Council. He is
Dr. Zirnmermann, formerly Burgomaster of Rotterdam and a
man eminent in Dutch administrative and banking circles. Dr.
Zimmermann has been at work in Vienna since December i5th.

The Austrian Government has ratified all the protocols, set up
the Extraordinary State Council invested with the plenary powers
required under the scheme, has drafted, passed and made good
progress with putting into practice a comprehensive plan for re-
forming the finances of the State, economising in the public services,
and getting the budget balanced in two years. The new Bank of
Issue required under the scheme has been set up and the 30 million
gold crowns necessary to start it been raised by an internal loan,
as has also a national loan in short-term bonds quotable in dollars.
Most important of all, inflation has been stopped since November
i8th, when the whole reconstruction scheme formally came into
action, and since that day the Austrian crown has remained stable.
The Austrian population have shown their confidence in the new
state of things by beginning once more to keep their money in
the banks, whose deposits have increased no less than eightfold
since the scheme was put into force. Meanwhile, the cost of living
has decreased by 17 percent, in two months. The purely financial
scheme is being supplemented by a policy on the part of the Austrian
Government of concluding and developing a series of commercial
agreements and treaties with its neighbours. The initiative to
this policy was given by a resolution of the Austrian Committee of
the Council. To become economically self-supporting and eventually
prosperous one essential is, of course, sound and stable finances,
and this is what the League scheme aims to produce. But whether
Austria as an independent state is ultimately viable depends on
the people of Austria and on their neighbours.

NOTE 2, Contributions for Rekief of Refugees, In January the
total monies paid or promised as the result of the appeal of the
Third Assembly were as follows :

Great Britain, ^19,208; Canada, ^5,000; Greece, Dr, 1,000,000;
Japan, Yen 10,000 ; Brazil, Denmark, New Zealand, Norway,
Sweden, each ^1,000 ; Switzerland, ^625; and Spain has promised
2,000.

The number of refugees in, Greece now equals about one-fifth of the

APPENDIX C 209

total population and the situation has been rendered very grave by
outbreaks of typhus, cholera, plague, smallpox, and other epidemics.
Agents of the League Epidemic Commission have been rendering
what help is possible in view of the limited funds at the Com-
mission's disposal. The Greek Government has asked the Council
to give its moral support to a loan of ^10,000,000 that the Greek
Government is anxious to float for the care of the refugees.

NOTE 3, The Work of the Health Organisation. The Health
Organisation has followed up its first international course for
Medical Officers of Health by a second course organised in Great
Britain and Austria (seven weeks in the former, five in the latter)
that began on February 25th. In this course Medical Officers
from sixteen countries are taking part, including France, Great
Britain, the United States, Italy, Japan, Soviet Russia. A further
course is being arranged in the United States and will be patronised
chiefly by North and South Americans, possibly also by Japanese.
A third course for specialists in the combating of malaria will take
place in Italy between May and July. In Italy, the technique of
malaria fighting has been highly developed, and this course is of
special interest to, e.g., Russia and Albania, as malaria is a scourge
in both these countries. It is expected that a fourth course will
be held this year as well. The Health Organisation has also organised
courses in Warsaw, Moscow and Kharkov for the training of Public
Health officials in the fighting of epidemics, as the shortage of trained
doctors is very seriously felt in East Europe. Permanent sanitary
museums are also being opened at these three centres. Lastly,
as already mentioned, the Epidemic Commission has extended
its activities to Greece.

NOTE 4. Canada's Proposed Amendment to Article X. At the
Third Assembly the Canadian delegation withdrew the proposal
they had made at the First Assembly to abolish Article X of the
Covenant, which reads as follows :

" The members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as
against external aggression, the territorial integrity and existing political
independence of all members of the League. In case of any such aggres-
sion or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression the Council shall
advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled."

Instead, the Canadian delegation proposed two amendments.
The first specifies that the Council, when advising on the action
to be taken under Article X, should take into account the geographic
position and political exigencies of the states to which their recom-
mendation was addressed. The second proposes to add the following
paragraph to Article X;

"The opinion given by the Council in such cases shall be regarded as a
matter of the highest importance and shall be taken into consideration by
all the members of the League, who shall use their utmost endeavours to

14

210 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

conform to the conclusions of the Council ; but no member shall be under
the obligation to engage in any act of war without the consent of its
parliament, legislature or other representative body,"

The Third Assembly, in view of the divergence of opinion that
still exists about Article X, and in view too of " the connection
that exists between the principle of universal guarantee contained
in Article X and the proposed guarantees by special conventions
considered in relation to the problem of disarmament/' decided
to adjourn the matter for further consideration and report to the
Fourth Assembly. The Council, at its January 1923 meeting, decided
to circularise all the Governments Members of the League and ask
them to send in their opinions on the whole question of Article X
and the proposed Canadian amendment, three months before the
next Assembly, so that a report can be prepared for that body
embodying the fullest and most authoritative information on the
subject.

Meanwhile, two conclusions stand out on even a cursory examina-
tion of the Canadian proposaL The first is that it would be very
difficult to reject, except on the ground that the present text already
implies what the Canadians wish stated' in which case the text
might as well be made explicit for otherwise objectors would
put themselves in the position of maintaining that the Council
should not, in making its recommendations, pay any attention
to the geographic or political circumstances of the various States
Members, and that these states should, in acting on the Council's
recommendations, be obliged to engage in acts of war without the
consent of their legislatures. Both these things are, of course,
absurdities, and no one would maintain for a moment that they
are implied in Article X. The second conclusion is that if the
Canadian amendment is adopted Article X will be watered down to
the vanishing point and the evolution of the League toward becoming
a loose association of states for conference and co-operation will
have taken a long step forward.

The wisest policy would seem to be to push, on as rapidly as
possible with the system of overlapping guarantee treaties that
would satisfy those states which still cling to Article X~~not
because they think it is much of a bulwark, but because they hope
it is better than nothingand then to adopt the Canadian amend-
ment and thereby remove all ambiguity as to what the Covenant does
mean, give satisfaction to the overseas states and neutrals, and
incidentally facilitate America's future adherence to the League,

5. -The Attitude of Russia to the League. The January
meeting of the Health Committee, so far as it dealt with the Health
Organisation's work in Russia, was attended by Dr. Siemashko,
Soviet Russian Commissar of Health, as the Russian delegate to
the " special international cpmmission " into which the Health
Committee constituted itself for the purpose, in accordance with
the " formula " agreed upon at Genoa, Dr, Siemashko and Ms

APPENDIX C 211

fellow-Commissar at Lausanne, M. Chicherin, made the event the
occasion for identical declarations to the Press to the effect that
this participation in certain of the League's technical and humani-
tarian activities meant no change in their political attitude to the
League, In fact, however, it means an advance from the simple
" tabu " and " bogey " attitude to admission of the fact that there
are certain international activities of direct interest to Russia
that can be conducted only through the machinery of the League,
And taking part in the work of the League technical organisa-
tions and advisory commissions must end by raising in an. acute
form the advisability of sitting in the bodies i.e. the Assembly
and Council that lay down the policies, determine the budgets,
and supervise the work of these organisations. Indeed, precisely
the same reasoning that leads the Bolsheviks to desire representa-
tion in conferences such as that of Genoa, The Hague, and Lausanne
must lead them to desire representation in the Council, Assembly
and special conferences of the League, so soon as they realise that
these gatherings are just like any other international conferences,
except that they recur regularly and their object is to work a
permanent system of international co-operation. Lately informa-
tion has come to hand, in the shape of reports of private pronounce-
ments by leading Bolsheviks, both at Genoa and elsewhere, that
would seem to indicate that the Bolsheviks realise these facts very
well, that in fact they take for granted Russia's entry into the League
as part of a general settlement with the West, and that contrary-
wise their ostentatious hostility to the League to-day is only part
of a general policy of making themselves as disagreeable as possible
to the West until the West is thereby forced to take account of their
claims and necessities.

NOTE 6. The U.S.A. and Europe, Since the notes on the attitude
of the "U.S.A. to the League were written, point has been given
to their conclusion that there is a recrudescence of the movement
to bring the U.S.A. into this League, but on a basis of " limited
liability " by the formation of the American League of Nations
Non-Partisan Association, whose purpose it is to work for the entry
of the United States into the League as quickly as possible, " oa
terms consonant with the dignity, the moral responsibility and
the power of our great republic.'* The conversion of Senator Borah
to internationalism too means that the farmers are at last waking up
to the fact that not even they, remote as they sem from the Old
World, can remain indifferent to Europe's plight, for it destroys
the market for their corn. And as they hitherto have been the
mainstay of the irreconcilables and anti-Europeans, there is some
hope of American opinion moving faster. Moreover, the funding
of our debt would seem to clear the way for closer co-operation
between the United States and Great Britain in putting Europe
on its legs again.

But the first effect of the Ruhr invasion has been to increase

212 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

American distaste of Europe and the ways of Europe, just as its
first effect Jbiere was a longing to execute a dignified retirement
into our shell only checked by the reflection that we have no shell .
at least none that is unemployment and aeroplane-proof. Moreover,
France and Italy are in debt to the U.S.A. as well as to us, and
the only effect of the funding of the British debt on Congress has
been to strengthen the determination of that body to collect from
the other Allies as well. There is not the faintest sign of Congress
contemplating any suggestion of cancelling debts in exchange for
peace and political stability in Europe. And until there are such
signs America can exert neither moral nor material influence for
moderation in Europe. Therefore, so far from being helped in a
policy of exchanging debts for decent behaviour, we may count
ourselves lucky if our efforts in this direction are not hamstrung
by American attempts to collect their debts unconditionally*

NOTE 7 '. -Ratifications to the Covenant. Great Britain has now
ratified the amendments to Articles IV and VI of the Covenant,
enabling the Assembly to determine how temporary members of
the Council shall hold office and how the League's budget is to
be apportioned among the States Members, Great Britain has
also ratified amendments to Articles IV, XIII, XV, and XXVI,
recognising the Court as one of the organs of the League and deter-
mining how amendments to the Covenant are to be passed. It
is noteworthy that so far no Great Power and very few other states
have ratified the amendments to Article XVI, which, as was shown
in Chapter IX, have greatly weakened the force of this Article*
It appears to be the deliberate policy of the States that objected
to any change in the Article not to ratify the amendments passed
by the Second Assembly. On the other hand, obviously the states
that have ratified the amendments will never heed any recom-
mendations of the Council based on the original, unamended text.
The resulting confusion emphasises the desirability, pointed out in
the discussion of Canada's draft amendment to Article X, of
thoroughly overhauling the security clauses of the Covenant i.e.
Articles X and XVI in the light of the work that has been
done on guarantee treaties.

NOTE 8. The League and the Ruhr. Since the section on a settle-
ment in Europe was written France has plunged into the Ruhr,
In essentials the settlement outlined and the active foreign policy
both inside and outside the League needed to achieve it still hold
good. But in detail our policy must be tightened up to fit the
new and graver situation.

The situation is briefly that with whatever objects they went
into the Ruhr the French can now get nothing out of it except
the unconditional surrender of Germany, leading to the imposition
of terms that will grant them " security/' Officially the French
declare that they will accept nothing short of the unconditional

APPENDIX C 213

capitulation of Germany and will treat all offers of mediation as
unfriendly acts. Officially, too, M. Poincare" has declared that the
fifteen years of occupation in the Rhineland have not yet begun to
run and that the French propose to stay in the Ruhr at least five
years, Semi-officially the French Press is ringing with talk about a
Rhineland Republic and France's right to maintain her troops
in Germany so long as she considers herself threatened by that
country. The facts point to one conclusion a conclusion terrible
but irresistible, and that is that by the " success " of their
Rhineland policy the French mean the creation of a vast German
Irredenta.

Hitherto the British Government has done nothing in face of
this situation, apparently in the hope that the French will lose
heart before the increasing magnitude and difficulty of their task
and be glad of mediation as a way out. This view seems first of
all to place too much reliance on the staying power of the unarmed
population of Germany. Even unarmed men can put up a stout
resistance, can strike and sabotage and let themselves be beaten,
j ailed and shot when they are defending the existence of their country.
But it is doubtful whether they can bear indefinitely to see their
wives and children starve. The second practical flaw in the
policy of benevolent neutrality is that it takes no account of how
deeply engaged the French are in this business, which is the last
card of the politicians responsible for the plunge and whose failure
means the loss of their political lives and for some may mean the
guillotine. Money has been poured out, like water and the end of
the enterprise is almost certain bankruptcy, which could be con-
doned only if the end meant also a crushed Germany. In brief,
it is war, and French public opinion has been brought to believe
passionately that mediation or any end short of the capitulation
of the " enemy '* means victory for Germany and the end of France.

If we remain neutral while the French administer a knock-out
blow to the unarmed enemy, at great cost to themselves and in
circumstances that have fanned the national temper to white-heat,
we shall be treated when the time comes for dictating the new
" peace " with precisely the amount of respect that our humble
indifference alike to British interests and international morality
will deserve. Since the British Government found it impossible to
arrive at an agreement with M. Poincar6 before he went into the Ruhr
and propose to remain neutral while he is waging his economic
Verdun there, what do they think the chances are of arriving at
a satisfactory compromise with him after he has brought Germany
to her knees ? And is there such a thing as a satisfactory com-
promise are we willing, for instance, to let the French stay in-
definitely on the Rhine provided they give up the Ruhr ? Or to
substitute inter-Allied for French occupation by prostituting the
name of the League ? Is it not obvious that unless we are content
to let the war that was to end war culminate in a crime the like of
which has not been seen since the partition of Poland, and which for

214 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

sheer political madness could only be equalled if Poland had attempted
to partition Russia, we must sooner or later oppose root and branch
the French policy of creating a German Irredenta. And the
sooner and more heartily we oppose it, the quicker we shall stop it.
Indeed, if the truth be told, many Frenchmen would be glad of
the opportunity to escape from the dilemma of either admitting defeat
at the hands of unarmed Germany alone or of pushing their policy
through to the bitter and disastrous end. If they were defeated
because most of the world, rallied by Great Britain, opposed them,
they could at least say that everything was lost but honour, and
could not continue to say even that with much conviction if our
implacable opposition to the dismemberment of Germany were
accompanied by the fullest and most generous offer to guarantee
France's security, to join in enforcing any reasonable reparations
programme, to cancel France's debt, intercede for her with the
U.S.A. so far as we can, and to give up our share of reparations.
How should we oppose successfully ? First of all by gaining
partners in the enterprise. Next to its failure to break with France
the moment the Ruhr action was proposed, the Government's
biggest blunder has been the failure to keep in close agreement with
Italy. Italy is no less deeply interested than we in the economic
tevival of Europe, and has no interest whatever in the break-
up of Germany. On the contrary, the idea of French military
hegemony on the Continent is viewed at Rome with the reverse
of enthusiasm. Let us cancel Italy's debt, conclude a League
guarantee treaty with her, and together make peace with Russia,
The Czechs too view with the gravest alarm the shattering of
Germany and its repercussions on the peace settlement, and have
ever since the return of their legionaries from Russia been planning
for the day when they can turn their unrivalled knowledge of that
country to account for trade purposes. There have of late been
several tentative moves toward rapprochement between Germany
and Poland (Germany, it is not generally realised, has half boy-
cotted the Poles ever since the signing of peace). If we mediated,
we could soon bring about full peace between the two, and the Poles
also are anxious for stable peace and trade with Russia. This
particularly in view of French overtures to Russia, which in-
cidentally we should welcome, and which should serve as an
additional inducement to us to push on with the same policy.
Only whereas the French object is to discard Poland in, favour of a
stronger Ally against Germany a thing that the initiated always
knew would happen sooner or later our object is and must be
to bring all these states together and those still outside into the
comity of nations. The Dutch and the Swiss are already suffering
a coal famine as a result of the French blockade, and their rail
connections with the rest of the Continent are much interrupted.
Opinion in the Scandinavian countries and Finland is bitterly
hostile to the French occupation. There is a great deal of dis-
cussion in the Press of the South American countries and Spain as

APPEHDIX C 215

to whether the Hispano-American nations should not as a block
bring the whole question before the Council. There is no doubt
that a British Government which took the lead in putting an end
to the war in peace that is killing Europe would soon have plenty
of support.

If the United States could be induced to join us in pressing
France for payment of her debts, coupled with an offer to cancel
debts if she in return agrees to a decent settlement, so much
the better. But as has already been explained, the most we can
prudently hope for is that the United States will content themselves
with being passively unhelpful instead of actively disastrous.

So soon, then, as we knew that we had, with or without America,
sufficient partners to act effectively, we and the Italians should
approach the French Government privately, insist upon a clear
statement of the objects of its Rhineland policy, failing which we
should draw our own conclusions, and explain that we were anxious
to fall in with any plan whereby the French Government could
without loss of prestige accept our friendly mediation for negotiating
a settlement on the lines already suggested' security through the
League, cancellation of debts, League control of German finances
in exchange for a reduction of the indemnity to a reasonable figure,
the end of the occupation and the admission of Germany to member*
ship of the League Council. Evacuation of the Ruhr should follow
immediately on an agreement in principle being reached, and the
detailed settlement be worked out through the League Council with
Germany sitting on it for the purpose, as provided in Article XVII
of the Covenant.

If the French Government refused to deal with this matter jointly
with, the Italians and ourselves, who are as much interested and
have as much right as the French in the whole question of the
settlement with Germany, we should begin to oppose the Ruhr
occupation actively. First of all we should warn the French
Government that neither Italy nor Great Britain would recognise
any separate treaty imposed on Germany by France and Belgium.
Furthermore, we should declare that in any future war arising out
of the French occupation of German soil France could not count
on more than our neutrality. Next we should associate ourselves
with as many States as possible in bringing the whole matter before
the Council under Article XI of the Covenant as a matter disturbing
the peace of the world. In the Council we should ask to submit
to the International Court for an advisory opinion the question
of whether the French policy in the Ruhr was not a violation of
the Versailles Treaty. The Council could decide to refer the matter
to the Court by a majority vote. . Failing this, we would claim an
equal right with the French in interpreting the treaty by our own
lights and should act on our claim by declaring that the Versailles
Treaty had been violated and was consequently null and void,
and begin to negotiate a new treaty with Germany. This treaty
should repeat textually all the provisions of the Versailles Treaty

216 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

that affect Poland, Czecho-SlovaMa, Lithuania, Denmark, and
Germany's other neighbours to the north, south, and east, including
Belgium. This for the double reason that otherwise the disturbance
of Europe that would ensue from this upheaval of its foundations
would create bigger evils than the one averted, and because we
should immediately incur the hostility of all the states thus affected
and so lose what support we had on the Continent. Moreover,
these parts of the Versailles Treaty are roughly and on the whole
not unjust, and once Germany enters the League she will be able
to see to it that they are fairly applied. It is the parts of the
treaty which govern the relations between Germany and the
Principal Allied Powers that have proved impossibly onerous,
namely, the economic, financial, reparations, occupational and
separate action clauses, as well as the one-sided dictatorial regime
of the Supreme Council and the various inter-Allied Commissions.
Consequently the new treaty should also recognise the cession
of Alsace-Lorraine and should repeat the stipulations as to
disarmament and the demilitarisation of the Rhineland. But
the Supreme Council, the Reparations Commission, the Hhine-
land Commission, the inter- Allied Military Commissions and
all other Allied organisations in, Germany, should be abolished
and their functions vested in the League Council, plus Germany,
for that body to delegate to such agents as it considered
suitable. A lump sum for reparations including armies? of
occupation and all other counts should be fixed and the method
of payment determined by a body on which American, neutral,
and German as well as Allied financial experts should be represented
and that would be appointed by and responsible to the Council
plus Germany, If possible, methods of control and guarantees
for the service of the reparations debt should be devised that would
put an end to Allied occupation altogether. In general the Council
alone should be able to decide what action should be taken to exe-
cute the treaty, the new treaty should be clear and unequivocal in its
language and the International Court be expressly designated as the
organisation to which any signatory could appeal for interpretation
of any disputed clause. As this negotiation would be a lengthy pro-
cess, the British Government should declare that it would continue
to abide by the Versailles Treaty until the new treaty was completed.
Meanwhile the French would have ample time to reflect whether
after all it pays to insist on their right to interpret and apply the Ver-
sailles Treaty single-handed, since this confers on us the same right.
We should be fortifying our position by creating a new situation
in law that would enable us to deal on equal terms with the French
Government when it began to negotiate on the basis of the new
situation in fact created by the occupation of the Ruhr and the
hypothetical surrender of Germany. It is to be hoped for the same
reason that the British troops in the Rhineland will not be withdrawn,
for so long as we hold Cologne we can make impossible any scheme
for a Rhineland Republic or perpetual French military occupation*

APPENDIX C 217

If at any stage in these proceedings the French Government
should announce its withdrawal from the League, the matter need
not be taken too tragically, for according to the Covenant a state
must give two years' notice before it can cease to become a member
of the League until that date it simply counts as a Member
State which is not paying its dues nor being represented at League
gatherings. But there must be a general election in France by
May 1924, and if M. Poincare's policy of violence fails completely
by then, owing to the mobilisation of an outraged world opinion,
the best observers of French public life are agreed that the new
government will represent a drastic change of regime for the
better. Meanwhile we must rally all the partners we can, both
on the Continent and overseas, for an active policy of (i) no more
Alsace-Lorraines ; (2) security for France and Germany and
preparation for disarmament by guarantee treaties through the
League ; (3) cancellation of European debts, the fixing of repara-
tions, mobilisation of Germany's resources by means of an inter-
national loan, League control for the stabilisation of German
finances, on the analogy of the Austrian scheme ; (4) admission
of Germany and Russia to the League as permanent members
of the Council, and facilities for the United States to adhere for
certain purposes ; (5) the strengthening of the League's authority
by making it the medium through which all peace treaty issues
should be settled. If for the working out of this programme and
the mobilisation of opinion an extraordinary meeting of the Assembly
were considered necessary, it must be remembered that an extra-
ordinary meeting can be called by a majority vote of the Council,
which we should be able easily to obtain, and that by Article XVII
of the Covenant Germany could be invited to attend this meeting*

It is not easy to conceive of the present Conservative Govern-
ment adopting a policy of the kind just outlined. Apart from the
specific prejudice against Russia and general disinclination for
any active policy, and apart from the views of the Die-Hards,
Conservative mentality is still largely the Balance of Power men-
tality. Conservatives are prone to regard nations as individuals,
and so either as friends or enemies. They believe in allying them-
selves with their friends in order to fight their enemies. Just at
present they still regard Germans as " Huns/' and so the papers
who a decade or two ago were " rolling France in mud and blood "
are now lavishing the resources of a rich vocabulary and a not
over-fastidious imagination in support of the French peace-time
invasion of Germany. The " enemy," in other words, is still
Germany, and justice is defined as hitting one's enemy when he is
down. Meanwhile a race in aerial armaments between ourselves
and the French is already well under weigh, as everyone knows
although few care to face the fact, while the ambitious French pro-
gramme for submarines, destroyers and light cruisers but parti-
cularly submarines- has given rise to ugly talk. In these cir-
cumstances the idea apparently current among Frenchmen that

218 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

partnership In the late war confers upon them a sort of perpetual
plenary absolution for whatever injury they may do to British
interests, while natural in view of the British Government's atti-
tude, is really a fatal mistake. In proportion as France succeeds
in gaining permanent control over the Rhineland and establishing
a military hegemony based on a practical monopoly of coal and
iron on the Continent, and in proportion as she succeeds in keeping
Germany prostrate, it becomes certain that the people who to-day
regard Germany as an enemy and yesterday regarded France as
an enemy will to-morrow swing over once more to hostility to
France, and the whole vile, wicked, senseless game begin over again
until the children of those who fought shoulder to shoulder in this
war will be righting face to face in the next. If England continues
to drift to-day and France " succeeds " in her present venture,
that is what will happen. That will be the end of the Ruhr policy
encouraged by our benevolent neutrality ,and desire not to " add
difficulties " in the way of France's committing political hara-kiri
on our doorstep.

Therefore the people who fed in their bones the whole stupefying
irrelevance of this " enemy " and " friend " anthropomorphism
as applied to nations, who know that *' England " and " France "
and "Germany" are not entities but communities made up of
millions and millions of human beings of all classes and all shades
of opinion, so different as to make it a wildly romantic business
to generalise about their politics and yet so alike as to be all made
of the same flesh and blood and the same soul-stuff the people
who realise these things must somehow contrive to make their
view felt. Instead of the Balance of Power conception, based on
the illusion that nations are fatally hostile and rival units, we now
have the League of Nations idea, springing from recognition of the
fact that modern nations are simply overlapping, interdependent
human communities. Consequently, instead of preparing for war
in order to fight an "enemy," we must prepare for peace by fighting
certain moods and policies. We must make the creation of a
German Irredenta impossible so far as it is in, our power to do
so, but at the same time we must frame our policy so as to give
the French nation the security they so sorely need, to lighten
their financial burdens and to assure the building up of their
devastated regions.

INDEX

Aaland Islanders, 37, 28, 7s J Islands
Convention, 49, 72, US ; Islands
settlement, 71-3, 188

Abbott, Dr. Lyman Grace, 141

A.B.C. powers, 116

Advisory Commissions (also organisa-
tions), 26, 30, 31, 36, 37, 47, 50;
number and nature of, 54; question
of delegates to, 164

Aggression, defenition of, 184-5.

Albania, 28, zoo, 203 ; how helped by
League, 73~6

Alliances, dangers of and future in League,
22, 82, 114, 182, 190-2

Allies (see also Entente), American illu-
sions about war gains of, 134 ; and
Albania's frontiers, 73 ; and mandates,
55 : disastrous effect on of American
attitude on debts, 146, 211-12 ; forced
internationalism of, 21 ; League and
settlement of with Germany, 175-86,
213-18 ; ramshackle nature of dictated
peace of, 179 ; responsibility of for
Vilna imbroglio, 6r, 63-4; unhealthy
dominance of in international relations
since war, and change when League
includes Germany, 102-3, 122, 124-5,
216; war-inflated nationalism of, and
League, 107-8

Alsace-Lorraine, 176; Alsace-Lorrainers,

22

Amendment of the Covenant, no~ii, 120

America, see United States

American, Foreign Policy Association,
144 ; League of Nations Non-Partisan
Association, 211 ; Legion, 133 ; Red
Cross, 86, 135, 143 ; Relief Adminis-
tration (see ($so Hoover), 86

Angora Agreement, 178

Arabian Peninsula, c/o.

Arbitration commissions, 117

Argentine, 116, 187; amendment and
attitude to League of, 203

Armaments, reduction of, 82-4* 192-3

Article X (of Covenant) Canadian attitude
toward, no, 209-10; evolution and
present meaning of, 110-12, 209-10 ;
Insufficiency of as security, 181-2, 210 ;
text of, 209 ; what should be British
policy about, 210

Article XL text and significance of, n

Article XVI, attitude of small states
toward, in ; evolution and present
significance of, 110-12 ; how used to
rescue Albania from Yugo-Slavia, 74 ;
what should be British policy toward,

3X2

Article XVIII, meaning of and how dealt
with, 108-10 ; what should be British
policy toward, 191

Article XX, meaning: of and how might
be used by Great Britain, 191

Article XXI, evolution and present
meaning of, 112

Asquith. Mr., on League, 6

Assembly, composition of delegation to,
159-66; nature and functions of, 45-
8 ; permanent expert delegate to,
159-61; why election of all Council
members by impracticable and un-
desirable, 165-6

Australia, 167

Austria, 63, 100, 122, 152, 175 * as ward
of League, 28 ; Lama agreement of
with Czecho-Slovakia, 49, 117 ; parti-
cipation of in League health work, 91,
92, 94, 209 ; reconstruction of, 76-82,
208

Austria-Hungary, 22, 63 81, 85, 179

Balance of Power, 22, 179 ; mentality,
217-18

Balfour, Lord, 36, 73 , 76, 79, 165

Balfour Note, 175

Baltic, neutralisation of, 177, 188

Barcelona Transit Conference, 27, 31, 33,
54, 200 ; findings of, 100-1

Barcelona Transit Conventions and
Agreements, 165

Belgium, ar, 189, 216 ; co-operation of in
League health work, 89, gr, 92, 93,
94 > 95", guarantee treaty with, 184-5,
190 ; military agreement of with
France, 109

Benes, Dr.> 79

Black Sea, neutralisation of, 177. 188-9

Blue, Assistant Surgeon-General Rupert,
141

Borah, Senator, sxi

Brazil, 45, 49, 116

British Empire and WorU Peace, The, 168

British Government (see also Great
Britain)- and credits for Russia^ 187?
Balfour Note and, 175 ; desertion o!
Dominions by at Third Assembly, 168 ;
how could bring questions before
League, 32-3 ; how might approach
U.S.A. over League Health Organisa-
tion, 173 ; how shouM equip itself
for League peace policy, 157-66;
initiative of ,in Aaland Islands dispute,
71 ; initiative of in Albania- Yugo-Slav
dispute, 74 ; League, Egypt and, 170 ;
League record of, 13-1 4 ; money

220 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

British Government (continued}--'

offered by for League anti-epidemic
campaign, 89 ; money offered by for
relief of refugees, 87; reference by
of Tunisian dispute to League, 119 ;
Vilna plebiscite troops promised by.
62 ; what policy should adopt toward
occupation Ruhr, 213-18

Brussels Financial Conference, 27, 31, 33,
54, 134, 200 : findings of, xoo-l

Buchanan, Sir George, 158

Bulgaria, 49, 94, 165

Calender, M., 66, 67, 72

Canada, 87, 168, 169; attitude of to
Article X (of Covenant), no, 209

Canadian frontier, 22, 196

Cecil, Lord Robert, 54, 82, 107, 181, 182,
183 ; as permanent expert delegate
to Council and Assembly, 161

Central Powers, ax

Chicherin, M., 127, 128, 211

Chile, 1x6, 203

China, 49, 98, 152; on Council, 45

Civilisation, our, its striking character-
istic, 19 ; the choice before it, 151-6

Clarke, ex-Chief Justice, 143

Colonial Office, 158

Committee on Intellectual Co-operation, 54

Conciliation Commissions, 117

Conference of Ambassadors, 38, 39, 73>

Congress of Vienna, 100

Cook, Sir Joseph, 167

Council, how JBritish representation on
should be arranged, 159-61 ; nature
and functions of, 45-7 ; present mem-
bership of, 45 ; reluctance of temporary
members of to quit, 165-6; why all
members of cannot be elected by
Assembly, 165-6

Court, see International Court

Covenant, ahead of public opinion and
effect on sundry parts of, 107-12 ;
how alone can be revised, 40 ; how to
bring matters before League under,
33-4; limits of action warranted by,
63 ; nature of, 25, 30 ; non-ratification
of amendments to, 165, 213; peace
treaties and, 38 ; proposed guarantee
pact as development of security
clauses of, 184 ; provisional nature of,
120 ; relation of proposed guarantee
pact to, 183 ; what form of regional
understandings should be permitted
under, 191

Gumming, Surgeon-General, 141

Czecho-Sloyakia, contribution of to anti-
epidemic campaign fund, 89 ; impor-
tance of minorities treaties to, 27, 134 ;
Lama agreement concluded by with
Austria, 49, 117; need of enlisting
co-operation of for peace policy in
Europe, 177, 178, 214; participation
of in League health work, 94; part
played by in Austrian settlement, 77,
78, 79

Danzig, 38, 124, 159 ; High Commissioner,

12, 55 ; his status and function, 56
Darwin, 20
Delevingne, Sir Malcolm, 158

Denmark, civilised patriotism of, 196 j
contribution of to League refugee
fund, 87; co-operation of in League
health work, 91, 92 j how composes
Its Assembly delegation, 162; ratifi-
cation of amendments to Covenant
by, 165; signatory Aaland Islands
Convention, 72 ; signatory optional
clause of protocol International Court.
49; Vilna plebiscite troops promised
by, 62

Disarmament (see also reduction of
armaments), 192-3

Dominions, 152, 157, 170* and Near
East crisis, 167-8 ; League and
external relations of, 167-9

Dorset, Dr., 141

Duties of Nations, The, 197

Economic and Financial Committee, 76,
79, 100, xox

Economic and Financial Section, 52

Egypt, 32, 90 ; use of League in settle-
ment with, X7o

Emigration, League and, 169

England (see also Great Britain), Balance
of Power idea dead in, 22 ; less ignor-
ance and apathy about League in, 14 ;
policy and public opinion of as force
shaping League, xx; policy of on
Upper Silesia, 68

Entente (powers), 26, <5x, 64, 68, 69, 177
(see also Allies)

Epidemic Commission, 53; Russia and,
131 ; work of, 88, 89

Esthonia, 72, 191, 203

Europe, paradoxical condition of on eve
of war, 19-20

Federal Council of the Churches of Christ,

*43
Federation of the National Unions for the

Protection of Girls, 99
Federation of Nations, 40
Financial Committee, 77, 79

and, 70-3 ; abortive convention of

with Poland and Baltic States. 117;
guarantee treaties and, 190-1 ; impor-
tance of League to, 28 : national
minorities and, 203 ; political impor-
tance of, 190-1 ; signed optional
clauses of protocol Court, 49

Fisher, Mr,, 82, 168

Foreign Affairs, importance of after war,
145

Foreign Minister, when he should attend
Assembly or Council, 160, x6x

Foreign Office, 161 ; League Section in,
158, 159

Foreign Policy, above party tradition in,
163

France (see also French Government), 23,
135, 156, 158, 170, 192; as member
of the Council, 33, 45 ; Austrian
iettlement and, 77, 79, 81 * Balance
of Power and, 22, 3x7-8 ; Germany's
entry into League and, 103, 124;
guarantee treaties and, 114, 184-6,
190, 191 ; League settlement with
Germany and, 175-86, 213-18 j League

INDEX

221

France (continued)*

settlement with Russia and, 189 }
military agreements of, 109-12 ;
participation of in League health work
of, 91, 92, 95, 209 ; Ruhr policy of, 212-
18 ; signatory of Aaland Islands Con-
vention, 72 ; Tunisian dispute and,
118-19 ; U.S. debt-collecting and, 133,
146, 212

Frederick the Great, 151

Free City (of Danzig), 56

French Government (see also France), 62,
ii 8, 119 ; League machinery of, 159 ;
on League and peace treaties, 38-9 ;
powers of in Saar Basin, 56 * relation
of to Office International <r Hygiene
Publique, 90; Ruhr policy of, 212-18

Friends* Relief Committee, 32

Geneva, liaison officers with League
Secretariat stationed in, 160

Genoa Conference, 45, 89, xoo, 101, 109,
130, 131, 177, *78, 186

George, Mr. Lloyd, on League, 6

Germany, xx, 12, 14, 21, 22, 23, 39, 55,
56, 85, 146, 152, 156, 173, 189 ; Allies
reject request of to enter League, 108 ;
attitude of toward League, 121-6, 136 ;
Austria and, 8x ; Balance of Power
and, 22, 179 ; guarantee treaties and,
114, 185-6, 190 ; international loan
and, 21, 23 ; Inter-Parliamentary
Union and, 194; participation of in
League activities, 27, 54, 88, 91, 93,
100, xox, xi2, 113, 118, 132; settle-
ment with France and, through
League, x 75-8 6, 2x3-18 ; signatory
Aaland Islands Convention, 72 ; signi-
ficance of membership League of, 103,
124-5, 192 ; Upper Snesian settlement
and, 64-70 ; U.S. view of membership
League of, 136-7, *44

God-State, worship of, X55

Government. Conservative, the, 14, 22

Great Britain (see also British Govern-
ment and England), 13, 23 ? 34, 125,
*33, 139 ; as member Council, 33, 45 ;
difficulties for caused by American
attitude on debts, 146, 2XX-I2 ; dispute
of with France over conscription
British subjects in Morocco and Tunis,
1x8-19 ; evolution of patriotism be-
tween U.S.A. and, 22, 196 ; guarantee
treaties and, 82, 1x4, 184-6; how to
enlist American co-operation with
through League,, 171-4; how to

importance for of organising peace,
152-4, 157 ; part played by in helping
refugees, 86, 208 ; Ruhr occupation
and 2x2-18 j share of in. Aaland
Islands settlement, 7X, 7; share of
In Austrian settlement. 77i 79 "
ihare of in League health work, 91,
93* 95, 309 ; why must take lead, 156*

Greece, 87, 209

Grotius Society, 197

Guarantee treaties, League and, 8a-4*

XX3-X4, 182-6, 190-2
Guerres d'Enftf, Les, 154

Hague Conference, 178, 186

Hague Court of Arbitration, 48, 141, 142

Hague Opium Convention, 98

Hanotaux, M., 79

Harding, President, 137, 138

Harris, Mr. J., 158

Harvey, Col., 138

Health Committee, 27, 53, 54, 92, 93, 95,

113, 118, 158; Russia and, 130-31,

210; U.S. and, 141, 172-3
Health Organisation, 13, 27, 28, 52, 113,

140, 187; constitution of, 53-4: work

of, 88-9 J .*,

Holland, 21, 49, 184, 190
Hoover, Mr., 86
Hoover Relief Administration (or Organ-

feation), 27, 135, 143
Hughes, Mr., 36, 137, 142
Hungary, 89, xoo, 112

Irnperiali, Marquis, 79

India, 32, 98, 152 ; use of League for
effecting compromise with nationalism
of, 170-1

International Catholic Association for the
Protection of Girls, 99

International Committee of the Red
Cross, 87

International Court, 27, 28, 30, 38, 45,
50, 68, 69, 72, 83, 1x7, 171, 183, 200 ;
compulsory jurisdiction of, 49, 174,
185, 197-8; constitution of, 48-9
co-operation between the U.S. ajad
Great Britain over, 173-4; Tunisian
dispute before, 1x8-19 ; U.S.A. and,
139, 140-2, 147; Upper Silesiau
Convention and, 67

International Health Board of the
Rockefeller Foundation, 27, 143;
agreement with, 92-3, 94

International Jewish Association for the
Protection of Girls, 99

International Labour Office, 12, 13, 27,
36, 54, 141, 164, 200, 203 ; its consti-
tution and functions, 56-7

International Law Association Confer-
ence, 174

International Parliament, value of and
how to get, 194-6

Internationalism, how compulsory, ax

Inter-Parliamentary Union, 194-5

Iraq, 155; Treaty with, 169

Ireland, 32, 144, 152, 157

Italy, 34, X33, *39, *7o, 189, 192 as
member Council, 33, 45 ; desire of to
settle with Russia, 178; guarantee
treaty with, 185-6, 190, 2x4,* joint
policy with for settlement in, Europe,
175-86, 2x4-15; participation of in
League health work, 91, 93, 94, 209 ; "
ratification amendments Covenant by,
165 ; share of in Austrian settlement,
77r 78, 79, 8x; signatory Aaland
Islands Convention, 73

Japan, 34, 86, 112, 140? as member
Council, 45; participation of in
League health work, 91, 92, 309

Jouvenel, Senator de, 181

Kaeckenbeek, M., 67
Keen, LL.B., Mr. F. N,, 197
Ku Klux Klan, 133

222 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TO-DAY

Labour Party, manifesto on League of, 5

Lama Agreement, 49, 117

Lange, Dr., Secretary-General Inter-
Parliamentary Union, 162

Latvia, 28, 72, 89, 191, 203

Law, Mr. Bonar, 158 ; on League, 5

League Arrny 3 33-5

League of American Nations (Uruguay's
proposal), 113, 116-17

League of Free Trade Nations, 40

"League of Governments," 35

League of Nations, as live issue in politics,
14 ; as mover men and guns, 34 ; as
necessary alternative to imperialist
anarchy, 24-5 ; as rag-bag and the
reverse, 102-3 ; as system not institu-
tion, Chap. II, passim; how dug in
in Europe, 26-9 ; how evolving, and
moral, 1x8-20 ; how might be devel-
oped into society of nations, 196-7 ;
nature and size of budget of, 204-7 ;
not collective political Pope, 38 ;
Peace Treaties and, 35, 37-9, 128,
2x6 ; similarity of, on side international
co-operation to Pan-American Union,
and on side peaceful settlement dis-
putes to Monroe Doctrine, 115-16

League of Nations Non-Partisan Associa-
tion (American), 211

League of Nations Union, 14, 193, 200

" League of Peoples," 35, 37, 40 ; Chich-
erin and, 127-8

League of Red Cross Societies, 87

League of Socialist Nations, 40

Legal Section, 52, 67

Lenin, 128

Lithuania, 49, 6x, 62, 63, 191, 203

Little Entente, 22, 78, 81, 178 ; guarantee
treaties and, 191

Luxemburg, 49, 75

Mandates, what they are, 55-6; how

dealt with by Allies, 108
Mandates Commission, 55, xo8
Mandates Section (of League Secretariat),

52, 54

McCoy, Dr. G. W., 140
Medical Research Council, 92
Mediterranean, Eastern, 28
Meinich, Major, 75
Members of Section, 52
Mesopotamia (see also Iraq), 134, 170
Mexico, 1 1 6

Minorities Treaties, 27, 49, 118, 203
Moltke, Count von, 76
Monroe Doctrine, 112, 132-3, 136, 181 ;

similarity of to principle League, 115
Monthly Summary, The, 13, 200
Mosul, 134
Mussolini, Signer, 178

Nansen, Dr., 85, 86, ^8 7, 162
Nansen Relief Organisations, 187-8
Nationalism, its exqesses, 20 ; results of

intransigent, 21, 22; necessity for

humanising, 198-9 ; the choice before

it, 155
Nauru, 108
New Zealand, 87
North Pacific Islands, Japan's Mandate

over, 140
Norway, 49, 62, 75, 87, 117, 162, 165;

civilised patriotism of, 196

Office International d'Hygtene Publique,

53, 90, 91, 140, 172
Opium Commission, 27, 54, 158 ; work

of, 97-9

Ottoman Empire, 55
Oxford Pathological Institute, 92

Palestine, 90, 134

Panama, 49

Pan-American Conference at Santiago,
113, 115, 116

Pan-American Union, nature stnd co-
operation of with League, 115

Paris Passports Conference, 27, 35, 54,
100

Paris Sanitary Convention, 28 ; 90-1

Parliament, League fricridh'ness of, 14, 15

Patriotism, why it must be civilised, 155,
198-9

Peace Conference, 13, 61, 66, 107, 108,
134, 145, 179

Peace Treaties, the, 39, 125, 145 ; League
and, 35, 37-9. 128-9

Permanent Advisory Commission on
Military, Naval, and Air Questions, 54

Permanent Court of International Justice,
see International Court

Poland, abortive convention of with
Finland and Baltic States, 117 j
Balance of Power and, 22 ; guarantee
treaties and, 114, 191; how we
should co-operate with, 177, 178,
214; importance of League to, 27,
28, 56, 118, 124 ; military conventions
of, 109 ; participation of in League
health work, 88, 91, 92, 94 ; signatory
Aaland Islands Convention, 72;
Upper Silesia and, 64-70 ; Vilna and,
61-4

Polish Government, 62, 63, 88, 112

Press, British, support of League by, 14, 15

Prime Minister, Council and Assembly
meetings and, 160, x6x

Reduction of Armaments, 82-4, 190-3
Refugees, care of, 8&~7
Regional Understandings (see also Guar-
antee Treaties), 190-2
Reparations Commission, 38, 39
Rockefeller Foundation, see International

Health Board of
Root, Mr. Elihu, 139, 141
Roumania, 27, 33, 77, 92, 109, 178
Rowell, Hon. Newton W., 168
Ruhr, occupation of, 176, 212-18
Russia, n, 12, 14, 34, 71, 85, 121, 122,
136, 146, 152, 154; agreement with,
39, 41, 173, 174, 177, 186-9, *92,
21^ ; American relief in, 134-5 ;
attitude of toward League, i26-~32,
210-n ; Balance of Power and, 22,
179 ; conditions for return of to
power, 23 ; depopulation of, 156 ;
federal constitution of and League,
170 ; guarantee treaties and, 190 ;
participation of in League work, 27,
28, 89, 92, 94, 95, 112, 113, 2x0

Saar Basin, 12, 38, 124, 158; adminis-
tration of, 56 ; governing commission
of, 55, 56

Santiago Conference, 1x3, xx6

Save the Children Fund, 3?

INDEX

223

Scandinavian, Legislatures, Committee
system in, 162 ; Nations, 37, 83 ;
co-operation, and individualism of,
196 ; Peninsula, si

Schaeffer, Col., 75

Se'che', Alphonse, 154

Secretariat-General, liaison officers with
maintained at Geneva by some
governments, 160 ; nattire and func-
tions of, 50-2 ; relations of to Council,
160

Secretary-General, 31, 47, 52, 53, 74, *4,
200

Sederholm, Prof. J. J., 75

Serb-Croat-Slovene (State or Govern-
ment), 27, 33, 74, 75, 77, 178 ; Albania
and, 73-6

Siam, 165

Siberia, 85, 152

Siemashko, Commissar, 210

Snmts, General, 107

Soviet Russia, sse Russia

Soviet Ukraine, see Ukraine

Suez Canal, 90

Supreme Council, 34, 136 ; Austria and,
78 ; contrast between League and,

Treaty and, 216

Sweden, Aaland Islands and, 71-3 ; as
member Council, 29, 34, 45 ; con-
ciliation commissions and, 117; how
Assembly delegation of composed,
162 ; importance of League to, 28 ;
money given by for refugees, 87 ;
ratification of amendments to Cove-
nant by, 165 ; signatory optional
clause protocol of Court, 49

Swedish Government, Vilna plebiscite
contingent of, 162

Switzerland, ax, 49, 79, 89, 91, 92 ;
unique position of in League, 302-3

Sydens trickier, Dr. Edgar, 140

Tarassevitch, Professor, 136, 156
Technical Conferences, 27, 35
Technical Organisations, 26, 30, 36, 40,

47, 5, 54 J nature and number of, 52,

55 ; question of delegates to, 164
Temporary Mixed Commission for the

Reduction of Armaments, 54, 83, 182
Traffic in Women and Children Committee

(or Commission), 27, 158 ; work of,

97-100

Transit Committee, 27, 53, 54, 100
Transit Organisation, 13, 28, 173, s o J

constitution of, 52-3 ; constitutional

significance of in history League, 113 ;

work of, ioo~i
Trotsky, speeches of on League, xa6, 127

Tufton, Hon. C,, 158

Tunis, dispute over conscription of

British subjects in, 118-19
Turkey, 14, 34, 98, 112, 177, 178 ; effect

on Germany of Allies' invitation to

join League, 123-4 ; Problem of

settlement with, 174-5

Ukraine, 89, 94, 112, 170

United States^ n, 12, 20, 23, 51, 77, 121,
122, 192, 194 ; attitude of toward
Europe, 20, 70, 107, 120, 132-6, 144-7,
156, i8r, s i i~i s ; attitude of toward
League, 113, 132-47, 211 ; evolution
of patriotism between Great Britain
and, 22, 196 ; how adherence of to
Court might be used for promoting
rapprochement between Great Britain
and, 173-4 ; how Great Britain might
enlist co-operation of for putting
League Health Organisation on per-
manent basis, 172-3 ; Monroe Doc-
trine and, 115, 116, 132-3 ; partici-
pation of in League activities, 27,
53. 9*> 92, 101, 140-2, 144 ; significance
of in League, 6", 147

" United States of the World," 37

Universal Postal Union, 204

Upper Silesian Convention, 49, 66-9, 118

Upper Silesian Settlement, 27, 34, 64-70 ;
German opinion of, 67-8, 123

Uruguay, 29, 45, 49 ; proposal of for
League of American Nations, 113

Versailles Treaty, 66, 122, 203 America
and, 145 ; France, Great Britain and,
125, 1 80, 206: how to force revision
of, 215-17 : Saar regime and, 56 ;
Upper Silesia and, 64, 68, 69, 70

Vienna, 80

Vilna, case of, 61-4

War, results of the late, 20-1 J nature
and effects of the next, 22, 151-6

War prisoners, repatriation of, 85-6

Warsaw Health Conference, 27, 31, 35, 54,
131, 187, 200; attitude of Russians
at, 126, 130;' constitutional signifi-
cance of in history League, 112-13;
nature of, 88-9

Washington Conference, 36, 138, 143

Washington D.C., 51, 140

Washington Fotir- Power Convention,
Article X (of Covenant) and, in

Wickersham, ex-Attorney-General, 144

Wilson, ex-President, 115, 116, 121, 133,
145

YugO'Slavia, see Serb-Croat-Slovene State

Zeligowski, General, 62
Zimmerrnann, Dr., 208

34897