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THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 AT WORK 
 
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 NEW YORK BOSTON CHICAGO DALLAS 
 ATLANTA SAN FRANCISCO 
 
 MACMILLAN & CO., LIMITED 
 
 LONDON BOMBAY CALCUTTA 
 MELBOURNE 
 
 THE MACMILLAN CO. OF CANADA, LTD. 
 
 TORONTO 
 
THE 
 
 LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 AT WORK 
 
 BY 
 
 ARTHUR SWEETSER 
 
 Of the American Peace Commission and the Provisional 
 Secretariat of the League of Nations 
 
 gorfe 
 
 THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 1920 
 
 A.II rights reserved 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1920. 
 BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY 
 
 Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1910. 
 
 I 
 
 
PREFACE 
 
 I feel it is owed to those who chance to read this 
 little book to preface it with a few personal words. 
 For in a subject so controversial as the League of 
 Nations the public has the right to know with 
 what purpose and with what authority a writer 
 presumes to ask its attention. 
 
 It so happens that I have had access to facts 
 which I believe throw an entirely different inter- 
 pretation upon the League than that almost uni- 
 versally held, as I saw the League at birth in Paris 
 when a member of the American Peace Commis- 
 sion; saw it under development in London as a 
 member of the Provisional Secretariat; and finally 
 saw it in its first world conference in Washington 
 as a member of the staff of the International 
 Labor Conference. 
 
 The genesis of this little book lay in a series of 
 articles written for the New York Evening Post 
 at that very extraordinary moment when nine 
 Americans out of every ten took it for granted 
 
 
vi Preface 
 
 that because the United States had failed to ratify 
 the Treaty the League did not exist. To those 
 who knew the facts it appeared not only unwise 
 but perhaps positively dangerous for a democracy 
 so intelligent and so vitally concerned with world 
 affairs as the United States to overlook entirely a 
 federation of almost all the other nations of the 
 world. 
 
 And I am convinced that almost no one, either 
 friend or foe, understands what the League ac- 
 tually is. Its friends are tempted to exaggerate 
 'it as a panacea for all world ills; its enemies to 
 misrepresent it as a superstate. It is in fact 
 neither, but on the contrary a new link in the chain 
 of human relationships made imperatively neces- 
 sary by the annihilation of distance as a barrier 
 between states. 
 
 It has been a constant effort all through the 
 preparation of these pages to present only plain, 
 hard, concrete facts, in the conviction that the 
 average busy reader is satiated with the flood of 
 generalities about the League and the brother- 
 hood of man. Opposed to this is a very earnest 
 and almost universal desire to know the true facts 
 as they exist today. 
 
Preface vii 
 
 This little book comes from a friend of and a 
 believer in the League. I cannot be blind, there- 
 fore, to the fact that it may be partial. I sin- 
 cerely hope not, for I have struggled constantly 
 against that danger. If I have failed, I crave 
 indulgence on the ground of over-zealousness 
 stimulated first by warmth of feeling because a 
 subject so vital to America is so little understood 
 and so grossly misrepresented, and second because 
 there cannot be obliterated from the background 
 of my mind even the slight glimpses of war as I 
 happened to see it during Von Kluck's dash on 
 Paris in those so quickly forgotten days of 1914. 
 
 ARTHUR SWEETSER. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 THE WAR i 
 
 THE LEAGUE SKELETON 16 
 
 THE ASSEMBLY AND THE COUNCIL .... 29 
 
 THE LEAGUE IN 1914 49 
 
 THE PERMANENT COURT 63 
 
 THE SECRETARIAT 79 
 
 DISARMAMENT 92 
 
 MINORITIES 107 
 
 MANDATES 122 
 
 FREEDOM OF TRANSIT 135 
 
 THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR ORGANIZATION . . 149 
 
 THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH ORGANIZATION . 162 
 
 ECONOMIC COOPERATION 175 
 
 OPEN DIPLOMACY 187 
 
 THE LEAGUE AS MEDIATOR 204 
 

 THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS 
 AT WORK 
 
 ' 
 
 THE WAR 
 
 ON January 10, 1920, the League of Nations 
 descended from the realm of fancy and became 
 a fact. 
 
 Its worst enemies could hardly have wished for 
 a more inauspicious moment. The nations were 
 staggering with debt; the great wound of the 
 World War remained still unhealed; Russia's 
 vast masses stood off to one side, almost out- 
 lawed; and the United States, whose phenomenal 
 part in the war had given such hopes for the re- 
 construction period, had withdrawn its support. 
 Almost any kind of upheaval might have been ex- 
 pected, for the forces of destruction seemed com- 
 pletely to have overcome the forces of construc- 
 tion. 
 
 The League came into being quietly, unostenta- 
 
2 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 tiously, almost automatically, overshadowed dur- 
 ing its early months by a world seething in crisis. 
 Men were so desperate with immediate threats of 
 disaster that they did not have time to note the 
 foundations which were being prepared near by, 
 to realize indeed that what seemed to be but a 
 modest breaking of the ground would in time 
 prove of far more import than the preoccupations 
 of the immediate moment. 
 
 Potentially the League became at once the 
 greatest fact in international relations. For the 
 first time the great majority of the family of na- 
 tions was welded together in an organization very 
 strict in its provisions for avoiding war but very 
 simple and flexible in its actual details of organi- 
 zation. By its mere existence it launched the na- 
 tions upon an era of regular, automatic conference 
 and cooperation as against the previous era of 
 hostile, disjointed competition. 
 
 On that day of January 10, 1920, the ratifica- 
 tions of the Treaty of Versailles were exchanged 
 at Paris; the Treaty became effective, and the 
 League of Nations became part of the public law 
 of the world. Automatically thirteen of the Al- 
 
The War 3 
 
 lied and Associated Powers became members, in- 
 cluding four of the Big Five, Great Britain, 
 France, Italy and Japan, whose interests reach 
 out into every continent on the globe, and Poland, 
 Czecho-Slovakia, Belgium, Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, 
 Guatemala, Uruguay and Siam. 
 
 Far more heartening however than this continu- 
 ation of a union created in the stress of war was 
 the eagerness displayed by the nations which had 
 remained neutral during the four and a half years 
 of hostilities, to contribute their aid to the forma- 
 tion of a true world organization. Though the 
 Covenant allowed them two months in which to 
 join as original members, all thirteen formally 
 assumed their places beside the other Powers ap- 
 preciably before that period had elapsed. The 
 list contains states famous for their independence 
 and very powerful in their moral weight, the Ar- 
 gentine, Chile, Colombia, Denmark, the Nether- 
 lands, Norway, Paraguay, Persia, Salvador, 
 Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and Venezuela. 
 , Other states immediately applied for admis- 
 sion, Finland, Iceland, Georgia, San Marino, Lux- 
 embourg, and the Ukraine. Thus came together 
 
4 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 nearly the whole civilized world, Europe, South 
 America, Asia, Africa and Canada in North 
 America. Almost without notice was created the 
 most far-reaching organization ever effected, the 
 nearest approach indeed to bringing all the na- 
 tions, races and continents about a single confer- 
 ence table. At the first meeting under the 
 League, for instance, forty sovereign states were 
 represented. 
 
 This is exactly the sort of thing which has never 
 before existed. The nations have not been able 
 to get together for quick, cooperative action, but 
 have stood far off from each other in proud dis- 
 trust. The result has been illuminated in the 
 greatest tragedy of the human race. To reduce 
 it to its simplest terms, the World War would not 
 have broken out in 1914, according to Sir Edward 
 Grey, if the mere machinery provided in the 
 League of Nations had been in existence. 
 
 Sir Edward Grey knows. More than any 
 other man he strove to prevent the catastrophe. 
 More than any other man he had his finger on 
 the pulse of the world in those humid, desperate 
 days of late July and early August when the world 
 
The War 5 
 
 was shooting down to Armageddon, blissfully un- 
 conscious of its fate. Such a statement from him 
 is startling. It immediately challenges proof or 
 disproof. 
 
 Most emphatically Sir Edward Grey does not 
 mean that the League is a panacea for all our ills 
 or that it will suddenly throw a spirit of righteous- 
 ness and unselfishness over men's minds which will 
 make so sordid a thing as war a spiritual impossi- 
 bility. Human nature runs too deep for that. 
 What he does mean, however, is that the war 
 came into being largely by default, because the 
 forces of negotiation and peaceful settlement 
 marshalled against it suddenly collapsed under the 
 unprecedented pressure and allowed all the rest of 
 the world to cave in behind them. 
 
 Sometimes we take a course of action not be- 
 cause it is the course which by sheer desire we 
 should select to take, but because it is the only 
 course open to us to take. In other words, we 
 sometimes get ourselves into a blind alley, where 
 there is only one way out just as the world in 
 1914 got itself into a blind alley where all doors 
 were closed except that to war. What Sir Ed- 
 
6 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 ward Grey means is that the League of Nations, if 
 it had existed, would have opened several other 
 doors of escape out of the Austro-Serbian im- 
 broglio. 
 
 I well remember how in those same August days 
 I found myself swept along in that vast Niagara 
 of men, guns, automobile trucks, soup kitchens and 
 all the other paraphernalia of war which surged 
 over Northern France in the greatest concerted 
 military move in history up to the time of Amer- 
 ica's crusade to Europe. I had seen the French 
 and British Armies and was now with the German. 
 Borne on over hills and dales, watching the French 
 peasants and the German invaders, seeing the lit- 
 tle human relationships that could not but crop up 
 even against the background of flaming villages 
 and mangled bodies, the one great, never resting 
 wonder which churned about in my mind was why 
 an assassin's bullet in a far-off, desolate Balkan 
 town should have so disrupted all these peaceful 
 lives, have torn the Germans out of their shops 
 and factories and schools, have thrown them pell- 
 mell across a friendly state in an orgy of blood, 
 have uprooted the sluggish French peasantry and 
 
The War 7 
 
 left these helpless, dumb-eyed women and chil- 
 dren cowering under the scourge of the conqueror. 
 
 It was a colossal human tragedy. Not a frag- 
 ment of these people desired it, even knew it was 
 coming. They were but its unseeing victims, 
 caught up in all its horrors by forces they had 
 not learned to control. Why, why, why? kept 
 ringing in my mind. I realized perfectly well 
 that an evil philosophy had been rampant in Ger- 
 many; that a tiny minority of misguided men had 
 wormed their way up to the top and poisoned the 
 wells of German super-policy, but even these facts 
 did not give me the answer as to why the peoples 
 of these countries, the intelligent, big-hearted, 
 earnest, friendly masses, should have tolerated a 
 condition from which war was the only issue. 
 
 The picture of those fatal days of negotia- 
 tion returned. I could see great masses of people 
 which we call nations, dull, inert, unseeing, with a 
 tiny fever spot burning in several of them, a spot 
 where a handful of jewelled, perfumed supermen 
 were planning huge offensives, scheming in terms 
 of army corps, writing off ultimata, gambling 
 away the futures of their peoples, all unknowingly 
 
8 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 to the great human world that went its way out- 
 side. Then came the picture of a small Balkan 
 nation set upon by a huge neighbor, surrendering, 
 even humiliating itself; then a larger nation rush- 
 ing up in all its grandeur to the rescue; then still 
 another charging in in its flaming armor; a picture 
 of the tiny fever spots burning still whiter as they 
 threw the lives of their unseeing millions onto the 
 table; then a series of blind, frantic, misunder- 
 stood messages flashing back and forth far above 
 the heads of those who were to pay; and at last 
 the inevitable monster explosion which immersed 
 the world in four and a half years of blood and 
 cost the lives of seven millions of the same kind 
 of innocent people I had seen on both sides of the 
 lines in Northern France. 
 
 The catastrophe began without a single confer- 
 ence. The nations were plunged into war by a 
 handful of telegrams which in their portentous of- 
 ficial phraseology are even today not fully un- 
 derstood. One false step led to another until the 
 vicious circle was complete. No meeting ground 
 was available, no obligation for discussion exist- 
 
The War 9 
 
 ent. The madmen who had worked for war 
 could generate it without a pretence of discussion, 
 without the simple human act of meeting their 
 opponents face to face, without asking yea or nay 
 of their peoples. 
 
 Sir Edward Grey proposed the one human 
 course. He asked that the statesmen get to- 
 gether about a table; that they talk over their dif- 
 ferences man to man; that they try to settle 
 them by agreement and not by hostility. But no 
 one heard him. And therein lies the whole great 
 crime. Frantically, even as the flames were 
 mounting, he telegraphed about Europe to this 
 end. They did not hear, first because they did 
 not want to hear, and, second, because they had 
 no obligation to hear. They had carte blanche to 
 plunge the world into blood. 
 
 For the world had failed to create any adequate 
 machinery to settle international disputes peace- 
 ably. There was neither judicial court, arbitral 
 body nor obligation to establish either before run- 
 ning to arms. States had grown and grown in 
 power, each a law unto itself, each in all its 
 
io The League of Nations at Work 
 
 national pride scornful of the others, yet all cross- 
 ing and recrossing each other until an almost 
 hopeless tangle was created. 
 
 Many men had seen the rocks ahead. Back in 
 1899 the first Peace Conference at The Hague had 
 been called together to create new contacts for 
 this new relationship. The nations approached 
 each other fearfully, self-consciously, distrustfully, 
 above all, haughtily. National pride was all pow- 
 erful. No one could forget he was the chosen 
 representative of a sovereignty. Under all these 
 inhibitions an attempt was made to create the 
 machinery which might have prevented just such 
 a world conflagration as some of the more far- 
 seeing statesmen realized awaited mankind on the 
 near horizon. 
 
 ' The duty of sovereign states to promote in- 
 ternational justice by all wise and effective means 
 is second only to the fundamental necessity of 
 protecting their own existence," said John Hay 
 in his instructions to the American delegates. 
 " Next in importance to their independence is the 
 great fact of their interdependence. Nothing 
 can secure for human government and for the au- 
 
The War n 
 
 thority of law which it represents so deep a re- 
 spect and so firm a loyalty as the spectacle of 
 sovereign and independent states, whose duty it 
 is to prescribe the rules of justice and impose pen- 
 alties on the lawless, bowing with reverence before 
 the august supremacy of those principles of right 
 which give to law its eternal foundation." 
 
 A start was made at those Hague meetings. 
 That start was largely due to American insistence 
 and ingenuity in pressing for a rule of law and 
 arbitration in international relations. A skeleton 
 court was established and a procedure drawn up, 
 all except for the vital question of the method 
 of selecting the permanent judges. National 
 hauteur here broke in, for the small nations de- 
 manded equality of representation and the big 
 nations demanded representation proportionate to 
 power. 
 
 The Hague Court was created, but only as a 
 promise. The Second Conference, in 1907, 
 stimulated again by the instructions given the 
 American delegates by Secretary of State Elihu 
 Root, carried it on a little further, but not far 
 enough. It remained still a promise expandable 
 
12 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 into life if the nations saw fit to use it, but with- 
 out any real vitality of its own. When the des- 
 perate negotiations just before the war were tak- 
 ing place it proved far too undeveloped for the 
 nations to turn to it, even if there had been any 
 real desire to do so. Sir Edward Grey was left 
 without recourse and the opposing statesmen 
 without obligation. 
 
 The war thus came into being by default. For 
 four and a half years the curtain was rung down 
 on civilization. But men were thinking, espe- 
 cially in the baffled, dismayed United States, 
 which had led the field in urging the settlements 
 of disputes peacefully and which grasped out in 
 vain to find any real necessity for the holocaust. 
 Fourteen months before we entered the war Pres- 
 ident Wilson, in two fervent sentences at Des 
 Moines, gave expression to this deepest of Amer- 
 ica's impulses. Whether or not he was right in 
 his later enunciations of policy, he certainly spoke 
 America's heart when he said: 
 
 " I pray God that if this contest have no other 
 result, it will at least have the result of creating 
 an international tribunal and producing some sort 
 
The War 13 
 
 of joint guarantee of peace on the part of the 
 nations of the world." 
 
 It did. The lessons of the war ran deep, deep- 
 est of all perhaps the lesson of humility. The 
 pride and irresponsibility which had choked all 
 previous attempts at united action were thrown 
 into the discard. In the shambles of Northern 
 France the nations had consented to unified mili- 
 tary command; in the desperation of hunger, of 
 burned-out resources, of diplomatic disasters, they 
 had consented to a unified direction of resources. 
 
 So when they came to Paris they came chas- 
 tened and more humble. Out of their past they 
 realized they could cooperate in the future; out 
 of their war sufferings they realized that they 
 must unite to prevent new wars. The arrogant, 
 irresponsible pride which had held the nations 
 apart at The Hague and prevented the develop- 
 ment of anything but the paper shell of inter- 
 national cooperation had been curbed. Men's 
 minds were ripe for great advances; were recep- 
 tive, indeed, to proposals which a few short years 
 before only the most farseeing would have advo- 
 cated. 
 
14 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 In casting the lessons of the war into a charter 
 for the future the little selfish foibles of the past 
 fell helplessly away. The question of interna- 
 tional cooperation -as against international license 
 stood answered against the grim spectre of 
 7,000,000 of dead. The smaller niceties which 
 before had appeared as mountains were crushed 
 under foot to make an end to the system of dis- 
 organization through whose yawning cracks the 
 war had been allowed to creep. The League of 
 Nations Commissions, representing the better 
 personality of the Peace Conference, built up a 
 whole great new machinery and set in place the 
 scaffolding for still more. 
 
 How deplorable it is that it has become almost 
 a mark of fashionableness to discredit everything 
 emanating from the Peace Conference. If only 
 people could realize the hopes and idealisms amid 
 which the League was born ! True, there were 
 remorseless pulling and tugging at Paris and much 
 playing of the old familiar game which has proved 
 so disastrous throughout history, but alongside it 
 was another, a newer and a better feeling. Men 
 were writing visions, not of some dread super- 
 
The War 15 
 
 state, but of mutual helpfulness and confidence; 
 and if those visions were blurred in many places 
 by the fears, hatreds, jealousies and greeds of the 
 preceding four and a half years of terror, they 
 remained in large degree pure when the League 
 of Nations itself was conceived. 
 
THE LEAGUE SKELETON 
 
 THE best and quickest way to understand just 
 what the League of Nations is, how it is organ- 
 ized, how it functions, and what its actual powers 
 are is to take a bird's-eye view of its various lines 
 of activities. Sometimes we can understand a 
 new subject better by discussing its structure than 
 by the most elaborate analysis of its principles. 
 
 Strangely enough, what might be called the per- 
 sonality of the League is known to almost no one 
 outside the League itself. This is all the more 
 curious because there has been the fullest pub- 
 licity about every step in League organization, 
 even to the extent of detailed explanations of the 
 various projects at meetings of the Council. 
 Yet here again the pressure of immediate emer- 
 gencies in world politics has thrown a shadow 
 across the broader currents in the relations of 
 states and left visible only the upper surfaces. 
 
 Yet the League of Nations should be the most 
 fascinating political story in the world today. It 
 
 16 
 
The League Skeleton 17 
 
 is the story of a vision, a vision made practicable 
 only by the greatest war in history, a vision con- 
 verted to reality amidst difficulties, misunderstand- 
 ings, and dangers sufficient to dissipate any project 
 not supported by the most intense faith and the 
 most dire necessity. It opens up a whole new 
 panorama of world relations and of human activ- 
 ities; shows us glimpses of a world different from 
 any we have ever known; and illuminates a series 
 of political organizations for which we have no 
 precedent. 
 
 The League has been frightfully misinterpreted 
 as well by its friends as by its enemies. The for- 
 mer perhaps have sinned as much in their ex- 
 treme claims of what it can do as have the latter 
 in their glaring misrepresentations of what it may 
 do. The League will be shown to be neither a 
 panacea for all world ills, nor a superstate destruc- 
 tive of national sovereignty. It stands halfway 
 between the two, a means of marshalling what is ] 
 good in the world in the belief that the good out-/ 
 weighs the bad, but without such powers as will', 
 destroy the independence of any of its member 
 states. 
 
1 8 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 Americans above all should understand this new 
 world organization. Our huge world interests 
 demand it. We can no longer play ostrich, as 
 though the rest of the world did not exist. Apart 
 from the fact that we turned the scales in the most 
 gigantic war in history, apart from our moral re- 
 sponsibility as the virtual creators of the League, 
 apart from everything that is gone and past, we 
 will measure our tax bill in terms of world arma- 
 ments; we will have peace as the world has peace; 
 we will have prosperity as the world is able to 
 take our ten billion dollars of foreign trade; we 
 will redeem our Liberty Bonds as Europe repays 
 us the ten billions she owes us. 
 
 We do not today understand the League. 
 There is nothing we do not know about Article 
 X, about the duties, responsibilities and dangers 
 of the League, about sending troops overseas, 
 about interfering in other people's quarrels; all 
 there is to know about that we know, and perhaps 
 a bit more, too. Quite wisely we have sized up 
 the debit side to see just what we let ourselves in 
 for; have, indeed, talked it up hill and down dale 
 these past eight months. But of the actual plans 
 
The League Skeleton 19 
 
 of the League, of the plans for preventing war, 
 of arbitration, of disarmament, of protecting 
 minorities and dependent peoples, of safeguarding 
 health, of preventing traffic in arms, white slaves, 
 opium and drugs, of the free use of ports, water- 
 ways and railways, of the permanent Secretariat, 
 of the home of the League, of its publicity, we 
 know next to nothing. 
 
 Yet therein lies the real future of the League. 
 It has been called into being not to usurp the 
 powers of the various nations, but to supplement 
 them in activities which no one government can 
 alone handle. It will deal just as much with 
 the wide human, social problems of the world as 
 with the purely political. If its first aim is to 
 keep people out of war, it will have many more 
 positive and wholly different duties. It is too bad 
 we have overlooked this work, which in a very real 
 way answers the popular strivings for a world 
 which not only has ceased to fight, but which has 
 been made a better place to live in through the co- 
 operation of all its peoples. 
 
 A bird's-eye view of the whole League machin- 
 ery will show these broad channels of activity. 
 
20 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 All of us know pretty well the scheme of our own 
 government with its Presidency, its Constitution, 
 its Executive Departments and its Supreme Court, 
 and just by seeing those divisions we see how the 
 whole machinery works. If we could only picture 
 the League in the same way we could easily pic- 
 ture what it is going to do, much more easily in 
 fact than by enumerating the separate duties as 
 unrelated and detached activities not forming 
 part of a single whole. 
 
 The League, of course, will have a structure. 
 Regardless of the amount of power intrusted to it, 
 it must have one or another form of organization. 
 Like all human institutions, it will operate through 
 various permanent bodies, commissions and spe- 
 cial conferences. Those permanent bodies, com- 
 missions and conferences give perhaps the best 
 perspective of what the League is really about. 
 
 Already the structure has taken form. One 
 general international conference has been held; 
 the Council has met several times; certain special 
 commissions have been authorized; and a world 
 gathering stands not far off in the future. Unos- 
 tentatiously the various parts are being set up un- 
 
The League Skeleton 21 
 
 til in a short time we shall suddenly realize that 
 the international structure is well on the way to 
 its first rudimentary cohesion. 
 
 That the League is to have a definite form is no 
 indication whatsoever that it is the much dreaded 
 superstate. That question must be answered not 
 by the form or organization of the League, but 
 by the powers given to it. The League may or- 
 ganize just as far and as fast as it wants, but its 
 organization will be futile if it does not have be- 
 hind it the legal and moral power to make it ef- 
 fective. So if the structure which I am to de- 
 scribe seems most formidable, let it be remembered 
 that these various bodies have very little inherent 
 power lodged within themselves, but are almost 
 entirely dependent upon the moral justice of each 
 particular action, which it falls to them to recom- 
 mend to the member states. 
 
 Let me first make a distinction. There are in 
 reality two kinds of organizations within the 
 League, the first specifically provided by name, 
 and the second developing out of certain general 
 duties prescribed. In other words, in some cases 
 a specific body is named to do a specific thing and 
 
22 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 in other cases a specific thing is agreed upon to be 
 done without, however, providing for a specific 
 body to do it. The first class, bodies specifically 
 created by name in the Covenant or the Peace 
 Treaty, follows : 
 
 (1) The Assembly, the world's most august 
 and solemn gathering, a meeting of all the nations 
 of the League, containing perhaps 150 delegates, 
 working under a definite constitution, competent 
 to discuss any matter affecting world peace, in a 
 large sense the repository of final moral authority 
 in international relations. 
 
 (2) The Council, a small executive body en- 
 dowed with greater prestige than any other politi- 
 cal organization in history, consisting of nine men 
 representing the five great and four small Powers, 
 to serve as a readily available conference of the 
 nations, to hear disputes, to recommend in emer- 
 gencies and to be a general steering committee. 
 
 (3) The Secretariat, a permanent trained in- 
 ternational staff, appointed by the Council, free 
 from political machinations, organized into 
 bureaus corresponding to the work of the League, 
 and created for the sole purposes of gathering 
 
The League Skeleton 23 
 
 information, preparing plans and data and carry- 
 ing out the orders of the Assembly and the 
 Council. 
 
 (4) The Permanent Court of International 
 Justice, the long-striven-for world supreme court 
 for the settlement of international disputes, es- 
 pecially of a legal nature, to be composed proba- 
 bly of fifteen of the world's most eminent jurists, 
 chosen for ability rather than nationality, sitting 
 permanently and evolving out of their experience 
 a practical code of international law. 
 
 (5) The Permanent Disarmament Commis- 
 sion, to prepare plans for the reduction of arma- 
 ments for the Council to approve and submit to 
 the states as one of the most effective ways of 
 maintaining peace. 
 
 (6) The Permanent Mandates Commission, to 
 examine the annual reports of the states given 
 mandates over the thirteen million dependent peo- 
 ples intrusted to the League and to advise the 
 Council on the execution of this " sacred trust of 
 civilization." 
 
 (7) The International Transit Commission, 
 " to secure and maintain freedom of communica- 
 
24 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 tion and of transit and equitable treatment for the 
 commerce of all members of the League." 
 
 (8) The International Labor Organization, a 
 body associated with the League, consisting of an 
 annual International Conference and a Permanent 
 International Labor Office, to humanize labor con- 
 ditions, universalize liberal legislation and estab- 
 lish social justice as one of the main bases of peace. 
 
 These bodies, specifically provided by name in 
 the Covenant or Treaty, must be created as some- 
 what distinct personalities within the League or- 
 ganization, to be grouped together into the com- 
 mon scheme by the Assembly or the Council. Be- 
 sides them, Jiowever, several other main currents 
 of work are outlined which must be intrusted to 
 other organizations, such as: 
 
 1 i ) International Health Office, to unite 
 through international cooperation the various 
 national and semi-official agencies seeking to im- 
 prove health, prevent disease and mitigate suffer- 
 ing throughout the world. 
 
 (2) International Bureau Section, to bring to- 
 gether in common association as many as possible 
 of the five hundred existing international bureaus 
 
The League Skeleton 25 
 
 which cover every phase of international coopera- 
 tion from postal regulations to the suppression of 
 the white slave trade. 
 
 (3) The Public Information Section, to issue 
 the Official Journal of the League, the special 
 Treaty Supplement, the Press Review, and the 
 public statements, as well as to facilitate world 
 transmission of news about the League. 
 
 (4) Treaty Registration Section, to certify, 
 register, publish and distribute to all interested 
 parties all treaties henceforth made by members 
 of the League, under the Covenant provision that 
 no Treaty will be considered binding unless so 
 registered &nd published. 
 
 (5) Special Conference Section, to make all the 
 preparations for special conferences called in 
 emergencies, such as the International Financial 
 Conference and the Commission on Inquiry to 
 Russia, both of which were called into being with- 
 out the slightest effort before the League was four 
 months old. 
 
 Such is the scheme of organization. Just as 
 rapidly as possible the details are being filled in. 
 Naturally, however, it takes considerable time to 
 
26 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 prepare the plans and secure the highly specialized 
 personnel needed for such wholly new and unusual 
 work. There is no great reservoir either of men 
 or of experience from which to draw. Progress 
 must necessarily be gradual and cautious. It 
 would not have been fair to expect the League to 
 burst forth into immediate, full-blown activity 
 amidst problems so complex and so dangerous as 
 those which it must face. Nevertheless, within 
 the first few months the way was pointed out, and 
 pointed out clearly. 
 
 Whether that way be followed depends on the 
 peoples of the world. The League will not func- 
 tion all by itself. It has no mystic self-starter. 
 It is utterly dependent on the interest, imagination 
 and enthusiasm of the public. It will live only 
 through the lifeblood of popular interest. 
 
 You cannot create a machine and then walk 
 away and expect it to work of itself. Everything 
 made by human hands or brains, whether a gaso- 
 line engine or a political organization, requires 
 the constant presence, stimulation and enthusiasm 
 of its creators. If they stay with it, watch it, 
 
The League Skeleton 27 
 
 help it, urge it, even drive it, it will move forward. 
 If they do not, it stops. 
 
 So with the machinery of the League. Its As- 
 sembly and Council, its Court and its Secretariat, 
 its Commissions on Disarmaments and Mandates, 
 its international organizations for health and for 
 labor, will ultimately stop if the peoples which 
 have created them lose interest and turn away. 
 The nations will never disarm simply because there 
 is a disarmament commission, nor submit their 
 troubles to a court simply because a court has been 
 created. Behind the organization there must be 
 the urge. If there is the urge, the organization 
 will be used, will develop, will fulfill hopes. 
 
 Here lies the crux of the League's future. 
 The Covenant has been signed; the organization 
 brought together; everything made ready for the 
 impact of popular interest and stimulation. The 
 League will certainly fail if it is regarded as a 
 far-away, distant, impersonal body which will run 
 along of its own momentum, for no body of men 
 in Geneva or any other place, no matter how 
 sincere and devoted, can give life to principles 
 
28 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 which should be given world-wide stimulus. The 
 League is on the contrary the personal and repre- 
 sentative creature of each and all of us, directed 
 by us to do certain specific tasks not otherwise pos- 
 sible, and responsible to us for their execution. 
 
 The success of the League will depend, not on 
 its written powers and its organization, but on the 
 will of the peoples who have created it. Its suc- 
 cess will be our success; its failure will be our 
 failure. 
 
THE ASSEMBLY AND THE COUNCIL 
 
 SHOULD the United States have more power in 
 the League of Nations than, say, Nicaragua or 
 Siam, or only as much? Looking at our popula- 
 tion, wealth, power and civilization, we say more. 
 Nicaragua or Siam, looking at their national sov- 
 ereignties, say they are just as much sovereign 
 states as we and should have an equal vote. 
 
 There we have the great basic difficulty of all 
 international organization. The great Powers 
 have refused, and rightly, to abandon their power. 
 Controlling the world as they do they have not 
 been willing to surrender that control to the small 
 states. Sovereignty may be all right, they cor- 
 rectly say, but it does not carry to the extreme of 
 denying the reality of comparative national 
 strength and responsibility. 
 
 But the small states, while recognizing this fact 
 of power, have been equally unwilling, and not 
 without reason, to add a legal basis to it through 
 
 29 
 
30 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 any formal recognition. Whenever they get into 
 trouble it is quite simple to say that as national 
 sovereignties they are entitled to all the dignity 
 and position attaching to any other sovereign 
 power. 
 
 This is a hard hurdle to get over. But even 
 suppose it can be gotten over, what country can 
 be found which today is willing to put itself in 
 the hands of even its peers ? None, most emphat- 
 ically. Sovereignty is a jealous right which per- 
 mits no challenge. Consequently, even if we can 
 arrange a system whereby both the United States 
 and Siam can express their views with full satis- 
 faction to both, we must see that neither has the 
 legal right to force decision upon the other. 
 
 To steer an international organization through 
 these tempestuous waters is far worse than the 
 classical Scylla and Charybdis. Hard aport we 
 have the rocks of the dreaded superstate; at star- 
 board we have the shoals of the mere debating 
 society; underneath we must sound for the reefs 
 of national sovereignty. To come through even 
 with safety is difficult; to come through without 
 jettisoning cargo has never yet been done. 
 
The Assembly and the Council 31 
 
 The League of Nations plan, however, appears 
 to have succeeded. A system has been worked 
 out whereby the big states retain their preponder- 
 ance of influence, the little states retain their full 
 dignity, and all retain their sovereignty. On the 
 one hand the superstate is avoided on the 
 other the purposeless debating society. An or- 
 ganization has been attained which leaves unim- 
 paired the independence of action of the nations, 
 while at the same time promising effective cooper- 
 ation among them. 
 
 This has been done by a harmonizing of the 
 two principles. That harmonizing is nothing new 
 indeed, for it is exactly what took place when the 
 thirteen proud and sovereign States of America 
 met to form their union. Each State, regardless 
 of size, was given two votes in the Senate of the 
 United States; then each State was given a num- 
 ber of votes in the House of Representatives pro- 
 portional to its population. The ideas of sover- 
 eignty and power were thus both satisfied- 
 
 So with the League. Both an Assembly and 
 a Council have been created, the Assembly to 
 contain all states with a single vote for each one, 
 
32 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 and the Council to contain the nine most impor- 
 tant states, again with a single vote for each. 
 The little Powers will have their say in terms of 
 full equality in the Assembly; the big Powers will 
 retain their preponderance of influence through 
 the Council. Thus the United States and Nica- 
 ragua or Siam are placed in a correct practical re- 
 lationship to each other, without sacrificing the 
 power of the former or the pride of the latter. 
 
 Probably the most curious bogey that has been 
 raised about the League of Nations is that it is 
 a superstate. So simple is it of disproof that one 
 cannot but wonder, first if it does not in reality 
 spring from ignorance, and second how it has be- 
 come so generally believed. It is a bogey, indeed, 
 which no intelligent public should allow to be 
 raised to becloud a vitally important issue which 
 even in its clearest presentation cannot but be per- 
 plexing to a conscientious citizen. 
 
 The League of Nations is not a superstate, first 
 
 because practically all its decisions must be made 
 
 v by unanimous vote and second because even when 
 
 made they are still but recommendations which 
 
 the various governments may accept or reject as 
 
The Assembly and the Council 33 
 
 they see fit. Neither the Assembly nor the Coun- 
 cil, therefore, can become either a world Parlia- 
 ment or a world executive. Quite on the con- 
 trary, they will both be but international meeting 
 places for discussion and, if possible, for agree- 
 ment on policies of common interest to be sub- 
 mitted to the various members of the League. 
 
 First as regards unanimity. " Except where ? 
 otherwise provided," reads the Covenant, "de-? 
 cisions at any meeting of the Assembly or the 
 Council shall require the agreement of all mem- 
 bers of the League represented at the meeting." 
 In other words a single dissenting state of the 
 forty-odd in the Assembly or the nine on the 
 Council can block decision by its single vote. It 
 is difficult to see how national sovereignty could 
 be more fully safeguarded. 
 
 It is, however, for the action of the League 
 has no validity until it has been accepted by the 
 individual states. It may lay down projects for 
 disarmament, prepare treaties on international 
 labor conditions, suggest the use of troops in cer- 
 tain emergencies, or reach decisions on a hundred 
 and one different international questions, but all 
 
34 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 those decisions must be ratified in some way or 
 other by the national authorities before they be- 
 come binding. The League's sole authority is 
 the moral authority inherent in the decisions them- 
 selves and the fact that they come from a meeting 
 of world powers. 
 
 Undoubtedly this is a tremendous weakness for 
 the League. Many who know the League best 
 fear that instead of being a superstate it will be 
 powerless. They say that unanimity will be im- 
 possible of attainment on nearly all issues. Cer- 
 tainly it will be very difficult. It does not seem 
 reasonable that people should lie awake nights 
 worrying about the sovereignty of the United 
 States when by our single vote we can block action 
 in either body. 
 
 Isn't it, then, merely a debating society? you 
 may well ask. No, because when international is- 
 sues become outlined, there is the strongest pos- 
 sible tendency to so work them out as to form a 
 compromise acceptable to all. Nothing should 
 be adopted by an international organization unless 
 it is acceptable to a big majority of the world, and 
 if it is so acceptable to a big majority it is almost 
 
The Assembly and the Council 35 
 
 certain that the small minority will find a way to 
 fall into line rather than bear the odium of block- 
 ing all progressive world action. The League of 
 Nations may be a slow-moving body, like the 
 Supreme Court of the United States, but again 
 like the Supreme Court, it will move right when it 
 does move. 
 
 The six-votes-to-one issue which has been used 
 so undiscriminatingly against the League of Na- 
 tions is nearly as hollow as the superstate issue. 
 The rule that unanimous consent is required for 
 all decisions in the Council obviously means that 
 any one nation can block any decision distasteful 
 to it. The same rule applies to the Assembly, 
 with a few specified exceptions, which it is perhaps 
 important to enumerate in order to show in what 
 instances a member of the League could be out- 
 voted by the six votes of the states of the British 
 Empire. 
 
 The selection of the four non-permanent mem- 
 bers of the Council is by majority vote of the 
 Assembly; the election of new members of the 
 League by two-thirds vote; and questions of pro- 
 cedure and committees* by majority. Surely these 
 
36 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 cases are not vitally important when the whole 
 range of the League is considered and should not 
 be exaggerated into a general charge that the 
 British Empire would outvote other members of 
 the League six to one on all issues. Its six votes 
 indeed are practically valueless for any selfish im- 
 perial policy, while at the same time they afford a 
 constant temptation to independence for the vari- 
 ous self-governing partners in the Empire. 
 
 Let us now analyze the Assembly and the Coun- 
 cil as the two outstanding features of the League. 
 Already the Council has held many sessions of 
 considerable world importance, and the Assembly 
 itself is due to come together within the near 
 future. Never in history has there ever been any- 
 thing comparable to them, for they have now be- 
 come a part of the organic law of nations, meeting 
 regularly and not spasmodically, as the Hague 
 Conference, and with definite powers. 
 
 The Assembly is in the final analysis the most 
 august assemblage in the world, for it is the meet- 
 ing place of the representatives of all nations, the 
 place where sovereign states come together as 
 peers to discuss the whole range of their common 
 
The Assembly and the Council 37 
 
 affairs. Anything affecting the peace of the world 
 can come before it, which in reality means almost 
 anything. 
 
 Obviously such a body will be cumbrous and un- 
 wieldy. With perhaps fifty nations represented, 
 and each nation entitled to three delegates, you 
 have a membership of 150, which is too large for 
 detailed work. The Assembly discussions will 
 naturally, therefore, tend to confine themselves to 
 the broadest principles, to general codes of law, 
 to fundamental policies such as disarmament, pro- 
 tection of minorities and backward peoples, to the 
 pronouncement of the bases of international law; 
 in short to the main currents of international life 
 and relationship. 
 
 Besides this, or perhaps as a direct illustration 
 of this, certain specific powers are granted it by 
 the Covenant, such as the selection of the four 
 smaller nations to be represented on the Council; 
 approval of the Council's choice for Secretary- 
 General of the League, admission of new mem- 
 bers, and amendments of the Covenant. These 
 powers are important, for they influence the com- 
 position of the Council, control the formation of 
 
38 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 the Secretariat and affect the membership and con- 
 stitution of the League itself. This last power, 
 for instance, means the admission or the exclusion 
 of Germany and Russia. 
 
 The first meeting of the Assembly was to have 
 been held in Washington in 1919. The Treaty 
 situation here, however, made that impossible, and 
 also delayed the whole process of forming the 
 League overseas. By the time of the meeting of 
 the Council in Rome on May 19, however, every- 
 thing was in order to request the President of the 
 United States, who is entrusted with that task in 
 the Covenant, to summon the first session to meet 
 jn Brussels in November, 1920. Four months, it 
 was estimated, will be required to distribute the 
 agenda, allow the proper study by each govern- 
 ment, and make the arrangements for travel, quar- 
 ters, interpreters and all the other details essen- 
 tial to a smooth-running meeting. 
 
 Thus for the first time the nations of the world 
 come together under a written constitution and 
 with certain definitely defined powers. This As- 
 sembly will be as different as possible from those 
 Hague meetings which met almost at the whim of 
 
The Assembly and the Council 39 
 
 an individual, had no definite powers or constitu- 
 tion, very little preparation, and practically no 
 obligations. 
 
 These Assembly meetings will be a most impor- 
 tant factor in moulding international public opin- 
 ion. They will help the public all over the world 
 to think internationally, to look at public affairs 
 not only from the sectional point of view, but also 
 from the broad human international point of 
 view. The periodic debates will create a strong 
 body of international opinion behind and in sup- 
 port of the League and give people their first op- 
 portunity of hearing world subjects discussed from 
 an international platform, neutralizing narrow na- 
 tional prejudices. 
 
 Obviously, however, an Assembly of 150 mem- 
 bers is too cumbrous to manage the ordinary ruck 
 and run of international difficulties. It would 
 take too long to get it together; there would be 
 too much speech-making and too many merely 
 obstinate expressions of individual opinion to 
 make it an effective executive body. If it were 
 the only mechanism of the League the League 
 would grind ponderously along, enunciating broad 
 
40 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 principles, never reaching troubles until they had 
 become desperate, and probably in the end found- 
 ering in its own ineptitude. 
 
 Hence we have the Council. This is a small 
 body of nine members focussing the political and 
 moral power of the world about one small table. 
 Undoubtedly it possesses greater prestige than any 
 political body in history. For though its votes 
 must be unanimous, and even then take the form 
 merely of recommendations to the various states, 
 nevertheless when it is considered that it is com- 
 posed of representatives of the nine greatest 
 world Powers acting under instructions from 
 home, its recommendations will prove extremely 
 powerful. 
 
 Yet there is always the safeguard that those 
 recommendations can be given only on unanimous 
 vote. For instance, no recommendation embar- 
 rassing to the United States could be made without 
 the approval of the American representative, who 
 would of course be controlled from Washington. 
 This is a great limitation of power, to be sure, but 
 a limitation necessary in these days of jealous 
 sovereignty. Yet the power that remains is tre- 
 
The Assembly and the Council 41 
 
 mendous. Never before has machinery existed to 
 marshal what may be called the effective moral 
 and political opinion of the world. 
 
 The method of organization of the Council is 
 vital; also ingenious. While the Assembly in- 
 cludes all states, the Council as an effective execu- 
 tive body must naturally be a selection of the most 
 powerful. In order to harmonize all viewpoints, 
 agreement was finally hit upon that the great 
 Powers should sit permanently and the little 
 Powers sit in rotation and in proportion to their 
 world influence. 
 
 The most powerful states were easily se- 
 lected. Obviously they were the Big Five which 
 had won the war, the United States, Great 
 Britain, France, Italy and Japan. There could 
 be but little contest on this score. Certainly none 
 of the other Allied nations could dispute these re- 
 alities of power, and no great neutrals existed. 
 Certain big states were left out, notably Germany 
 and Russia, but places were consciously held open 
 for them upon qualification. Here then was a 
 ready-made nucleus for the Council. 
 
 But that nucleus left open the question of the 
 
42 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 small states. Obviously they must be represented, 
 but in what proportion? If there were but five 
 great Powers, there must certainly be less than 
 five little Powers; otherwise the little Powers 
 would overturn the balance and the big Powers 
 would refuse to take part. Finally it was agreed 
 that the proportion would be five to four, which 
 is a more generous basis of recognition than the 
 little Powers have ever before succeeded in secur- 
 ing. The Swiss well point out that the big Pow- 
 ers control 700,000,000 of the peoples of the 
 world, as against 550,000,000 controlled by all 
 the other League members. 
 
 This again, however, left open the method of 
 the selection of these four Powers from the forty- 
 odd candidate states. The first four states to be 
 represented were arbitrarily chosen by the Peace 
 Conference, to include Belgium, Spain, Greece and 
 Brazil, which is not such a bad representation. 
 But the length of time of membership and the 
 consequent method of replacement was left open, 
 except that the decision was a function of the 
 Assembly. 
 
 The little Powers do not like this uncertainty. 
 
The Assembly and the Council 43 
 
 They want to have a method in their selection. 
 So already they are proposing various schemes of 
 rotation, whereby each may be assured member- 
 ship in turn. This is wholly in line with the de- 
 sires of the big Powers, and will undoubtedly be 
 worked out shortly. One of the most cherished 
 provisions is that any state not a member of the 
 Council may sit as a full member if its interests 
 are particularly involved. 
 
 The duties of the Council cover the whole range < 
 of international relations. Anything endangering 
 the peace of the world, any threat of war and 
 any dispute likely to lead to a break fall within its 
 field. It is the supreme conciliation body to which 
 disputes not referred to the Permanent Court 
 must be submitted before war is declared. It can 
 take up any question that it sees fit to take up. 
 
 Besides it has many specific duties. It is\ 
 charged with certain territories intrusted to the 
 League, such as the Saar, Danzig and the man- 
 dated territories. It shall submit plans for dis- 
 armament, for the protection of nations against 
 external aggression, and for the employment of 
 the boycott or other measures against a nation 
 
44 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 breaking faith. It will do the day-to-day work, 
 meet all sudden emergencies and prepare all ques- 
 tions for the Assembly. 
 
 The Council has met frequently during the early 
 life of the League. Its meetings have ushered in 
 a new spirit in the relations of states. The 
 League may or may not become all that its sup- 
 porters hope, but at least it has already marked a 
 big step forward. Read the description of the 
 first historic session as sent by Mr. Edwin L. 
 James to the New York Times January 16, 1920: 
 
 " The League of Nations is a reality. Mod- 
 estly and democratically, it began to function this 
 morning at 10:30 o'clock, when the Executive 
 Council opened its first meeting in the Clock Room 
 of the French Foreign Ministry. 
 
 " Nine men gathered about a green-covered 
 table in one end of the salon of crimson and gold 
 and put in motion the machinery of the most am- 
 bitious experiment in government man has ever 
 essayed, while a hundred or more diplomats from 
 the four corners of the earth looked on. The 
 nine men gathered about the table started a work 
 
The Assembly and the Council 45 
 
 which may influence the lives of untold millions 
 of humans for centuries to come. 
 
 " It was significant of the dawn of a new polit- 
 ical era that this council of statesmen was so 
 largely attended. It had the effect of robbing the 
 session of some of the dignity which has usually 
 attended the meetings of statesmen. The Clock 
 Room was crowded to the doors, with many stand- 
 ing, so that the green-covered table and its nine 
 men were almost obscured. Lloyd-George was 
 among the spectators, and so were some stenog- 
 raphers attending unofficially. The crowd was 
 democratic and mixed in its make-up. Men of 
 all colors and all stations in life saw the League 
 start. Therefore the seeming lack of dignity 
 might be a virtue rather than a fault." 
 
 Following this meeting in Paris, a second was 
 held in London on February n, a third and a 
 fourth in Paris on March 13 and April 9, and a 
 fifth in Rome on May 14. Big work was done 
 at these gatherings, in short the organization work 
 of the League. Without attempting to go into 
 detail, the Permanent Court of International Jus- 
 
46 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 tice, the International Health Office, the Perma- 
 nent Armaments Commission, the Permanent 
 Commission on Freedom of Communications and 
 Transit, and the Permanent Secretariat were all 
 started on their way. In addition much political 
 work was done. The Saar Valley Governing 
 Commission and the High Commissioner of Dan- 
 zig were appointed; the obligations for the protec- 
 tion of Polish and other minorities were assumed; 
 and the status of Armenia fully discussed with the 
 Council of Premiers. 
 
 More indicative, however, of the quickening 
 value of the Council upon international relations, 
 was its action on the Russian and financial situa- 
 tions. Here were two great crises facing the 
 world, one the relations of the non-Bolshevist na- 
 tions to the Soviet and the other the world's des- 
 perate financial situation. Under the old system 
 international cooperation would not have been pos- 
 sible in either case without the greatest formality 
 and pompousness and a delay which would prob- 
 ably have negatived the results. Under the 
 League, however, a Commission of Inquiry to 
 Russia and an International Financial Conference 
 
The Assembly and the Council 47 
 
 were both set under way with only a few minutes' 
 discussion, assuring immediate, world-wide co- 
 operation on these two vital subjects. 
 
 The Council is a business body. It is organ- 
 ized to secure results; consequently its method of 
 procedure is interesting. The agenda of the 
 meeting is prepared by the Secretary-General in 
 consultation with the presiding officer; a full 
 study of each subject is made by the members of 
 the Secretariat and circulated a month before the 
 meeting; the subjects are then divided up among 
 the various Council members; each member then 
 makes a study of his special subject aided by the 
 permanent official who has prepared it; an in- 
 formal business meeting is then held for discus- 
 sion; after which the public session is held, with 
 each member reporting fully the subject entrusted 
 to him. This system brings about the closest 
 liaison between the permanent staff and the Coun- 
 cil members; assures adequate preparation; gives 
 opportunity for private discussion; and registers 
 the final results in a public session. 
 
 The greatest fact about the Council is that its 
 meetings must be at frequent intervals and at least 
 
48 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 annual. In other words, the nations of the world 
 have agreed to come together in executive session 
 at least once a year. At that time the world's 
 effective moral and political power will meet about 
 a common table, in a session small enough to do 
 business, to consider any sore spot that may have 
 arisen among the nations. If there is anything in 
 the theory that an ounce of prevention is worth a 
 pound of cure, we have it here. What would this 
 system not have meant in July, 1914? 
 
 In the Assembly and the Council, then, we have 
 the top of the League, the one the general meeting 
 ground of all nations, the other the small execu- 
 tive committee of the most powerful nations. 
 Through this double system we assure both a gen- 
 eral gathering of all states and a frequent gather- 
 ing of the important states. In other words we 
 harmonize the claims of sovereignty with the 
 realities of power. 
 
THE LEAGUE IN 1914 
 
 JUST what might have happened in those des- 
 perate days of late July and early August, 1914, 
 if the League of Nations had been in existence 
 may well be discussed at this point. For Sir Ed- 
 ward Grey's statement, that if the League ma- 
 chinery had been available the World War would 
 not have taken place, is almost staggering in its 
 boldness. It cannot pass unchallenged. Let us 
 analyze, step by step, the various courses which 
 would have been open as perhaps the best way of 
 seeing just how the League would have operated 
 in mankind's supreme < crisis and how it may be 
 expected to operate in future crises. 
 
 What, in essence, was the dispute between Aus- 
 tria and Servia? That is a vital question, be- 
 cause the Covenant which we are to apply to that 
 crisis recognizes two distinct kinds. Broadly, in- ! 
 ternational differences revolve about points either 
 of law or of policy. They may, consequently, be 
 
 49 
 
50 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 settled either by judicial or by political action. 
 You may go to court to find out what the exact 
 facts are or you may go \to arbitrators who will 
 attempt by compromise to harmonize two conflict- 
 ing lines of policy. 
 
 There is all the world of difference in these 
 distinctions. The line is no mere academic one. 
 In the lives of individuals, to be sure, it has largely 
 been obliterated, because individuals submit, in- 
 deed, must submit, to the supreme authority of the 
 state. In international affairs, however, no such 
 supreme authority exists or is likely to exist. 
 States may be willing to accept court findings as to 
 facts or law, but they are and will be chary of 
 binding themselves to accept decisions as to 
 policies. 
 
 Two radically different processes are provided 
 in the Covenant to meet these different cases. 
 Provision is made for the settlement of disputes 
 both by arbitrators dealing with policies and com- 
 \ promises, and by judges dealing with facts and 
 . laws. For the former, the Council or the Assem- 
 bly is to be a general solvent; for the latter a 
 Permanent Court of International Justice with 
 
The League in 1914 51 
 
 world-famous jurists and a constantly increasing 
 body of international law is established. 
 
 The dispute between Austria and Servia cen- 
 tered about alleged Servian attempts to stir up the 
 Serbs within Austria to a revolt against the Aus- 
 trian Government. Questions of fact undoubt- 
 edly were involved, but in the main the trouble 
 ran so deep as to be undeniably political. This 
 is well shown by General Smuts' admirable defi- 
 nition of this type of case : 
 
 ' We are here in the region of the most danger- 
 ous and intractable causes of war, where passions 
 run high, not only among the disputants but among 
 their partisans. The issues are generally vague 
 and intangible and spring from special grounds 
 of national psychology. They involve large ques- 
 tions of policy, of so-called vital interests, and of 
 national honor. It is round these issues and ques- 
 tions that national and international passions 
 gather like storm clouds until the thunder of war 
 can alone clear the air again. They cannot be 
 disposed of along judicial lines. Above all they 
 require that tactful, diplomatic negotiation and 
 conciliation which great statesmen know best how 
 
52 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 to bring to bear on delicate and dangerous dis- 
 putation." 
 
 Exactly such was the Austro-Servian dispute. 
 Exactly such also, was the procedure which Sir 
 Edward Grey attempted to apply to it before the 
 war was finally touched off. He failed, because 
 both the machinery and the obligation to use it 
 were lacking. Austria was free to careen madly 
 ahead; indeed found a positive advantage in so 
 doing. But Sir Edward Grey's pitifully human 
 plea, that it could all have been avoided, remains 
 with us to prove or disprove in the last smoulder- 
 ing horror of the holocaust and as the best pre- 
 caution against a repetition. 
 
 To begin at the very beginning. The moment 
 the Austro-Servian crisis had developed into a 
 threat of war, it would, under the Covenant, have 
 automatically become a matter of concern to every 
 member of the League. This most emphatically 
 does not mean that any obligation whatsoever 
 would have been imposed on the states; it simply 
 means that they would have had the fullest right 
 to consider the matter their own if they saw fit. 
 At any moment from the flash of the assassin's 
 
The League in 1914 53 
 
 bullet at Serajevo to the bombardment of Bel- 
 grade, any nation would have been free to inter- 
 cede in any way it thought best to preserve world 
 peace. 
 
 That would have amounted to very little, you 
 may retort. Perhaps so, for nations will always 
 be gingerly about interceding in a quarrel not 
 their own. But it is a decided advance over the 
 previous theory that each nation is so self-sufficient 
 in its own narrow pride that it stands superior to 
 any action not its own immediate concern. Law- 
 breakers tend to be held back by the knowledge 
 that a threat to the world's peace is not exclusively 
 their own private business, but is the business of 
 every nation in the League. 
 
 The second step goes much farther. Any 
 nation may bring about a meeting of the Council 
 whenever it thinks there is a threat of war. Con- 
 sider what this would have meant in 1914. Sir 
 Edward Grey would not have had to bombard all 
 the main capitals of Europe with telegrams in the 
 vain hope of getting the nations about a common 
 table to which not one of them had the obligation 
 and not all of them the desire to go. He would 
 
54 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 simply have notified the Secretary-General of the 
 League, who would have automatically invited 
 the nations to their regular meeting place. If 
 some had not come the guilt would have been ob- 
 vious. If they all had 
 
 Instead then, in the future, of a lone states- 
 man frantically endeavoring, even as the guns are 
 being unlimbered, to get the nations to do the sim- 
 ple, human thing of meeting together to try to find 
 a way out short of war, we have assurance that the 
 minute an international sore begins to fester, the 
 world's leaders will gather almost automatically 
 to try to cure it. And this does not mean merely 
 the European nations, with their particular, in- 
 grown difficulties, nor the so-called big Powers, 
 with their mutual jealousies, but rather the rep- 
 resentatives of all four continents and of all kinds 
 of peoples. 
 
 This is a sort of general blanket insurance ap- 
 plying to cases in which the nations taking action 
 may not be primarily concerned. The far more 
 difficult thing is to get the nations to bring in their 
 own individual troubles for settlement. But here 
 a revolutionary principle has been accepted, a 
 
The League in 1914 55 
 
 principle for the peaceful settlement of interna- 
 tional disputes for which the United States has 
 been striving ever since the first Hague Confer- 
 ence. While not finally prohibiting a just war, 
 it is the greatest single step ever taken towards 
 the reign of peace in the world. 
 
 " The members of the League agree that if 
 there should arise between them any dispute likely 
 to lead to a rupture, they will submit the matter, 
 either to arbitration or to enquiry by the Council, 
 and they agree in no case to resort to war until 
 three months after the award by the arbitrators 
 or the report of the Council." This single sen- 
 tence of less-than sixty words, to which nearly 
 two score sovereign states have pledged them- 
 selves in the Covenant, constitutes the greatest ad- 
 vance towards compulsory arbitration possible to 
 sovereign states. 
 
 Suppose this had been in existence in July, 
 1914. Is it conceivable that the Great War 
 would have come about? Picture how there 
 would dissolve before such an understanding the 
 hurried ultimatum to Austria, the secret mobiliza- 
 tion of Russia and Germany, the futile criss-cross- 
 
56 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 ing of telegrams, the final pell-mell catastrophe 
 when the nations almost tumbled over each other 
 to be the first into war. Three months of grace; 
 three months of the operation of all the world's 
 corrective forces stimulated by a keenly alert, 
 fully conscious world public opinion, what would 
 they not have meant? 
 
 This then will be the chronology of the future. 
 A dispute will mount in bitterness; one nation or 
 the other will request arbitration or judicial set- 
 tlement, or a third nation may call a Council meet- 
 ing; the world will know all the facts and the se- 
 riousness of the crisis; the Court or the Council 
 will go into session in the spotlight of world atten- 
 tion; the former will report within a reasonable 
 time, the latter within six months; the findings will 
 then be made public to the world; three long, full 
 months will pass for the whole human family to 
 think it over; and then any nation, if it has the 
 hardihood to do so, is free to go to war, except 
 against a nation heeding the award. 
 
 To go back to the Austro-Servian crisis. Any 
 nation, Austria, Servia, Great Britain, Argentina, 
 the United States might have brought it before the 
 
The League in 1914 57 
 
 Council as endangering world peace. The Secre- 
 tary-General would at once have made a full in- 
 vestigation. Both Austria and Servia could have 
 submitted statements of their case, with facts and 
 figures and photographs and annexes which the 
 Council would have been free at any moment to 
 give to the world. 
 
 The Council would have tried to reach an agree- 
 ment. If, apart from the interested parties, it 
 had reached a unanimous decision, it would have 
 published its report and its recommendations 
 broadcast. The interested parties would have 
 been under no obligation to accept; the extent of 
 their agreement would have been to wait three 
 months before declaring war. 
 
 But, possibly the agreement would not have 
 been unanimous. Germany as the ally of Austria 
 might have stood out against the others. In that 
 case the majority or indeed any member of the 
 Council would have been free to issue a statement 
 as to the facts and the conclusions. This might 
 not have prevented war, but it at least would 
 have thrown the situation into bold relief before 
 the bar of world conscience. How much better 
 
58 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 this would have been than the blind vagrant way 
 in which the various publics blundered into hostil- 
 ities in 1914. 
 
 Any dispute may be referred by the Council to 
 the Assembly or taken out of the Council into the 
 Assembly at the request of either party two weeks 
 after initiation. This in a measure corresponds 
 to the old law that a man is entitled to a hearing 
 before his peers, for in the Assembly all nations 
 are represented as political sovereignties and even 
 the smallest is entitled to a free decision. Hence 
 if Servia had feared political discrimination in the 
 Council, she could easily have moved her dispute 
 up into a meeting of all world states. 
 
 Admittedly, there are loopholes in this plan. 
 Anything absolutely water-tight would not be per- 
 mitted. The nations have pledged themselves as 
 far as they can reasonably be expected to pledge 
 themselves. They have laid certain limits, volun- 
 tarily, on their previously unrestricted right to 
 make war in recognition of their common respon- 
 sibility to maintain world peace. War is still per- 
 missible, would have been permissible in the Aus- 
 
\ 
 
 The League in 1914 59 
 
 tro-Servian crisis, but it is rendered extremely im- 
 probable. 
 
 There still remains the possibility that Austria 
 would have elected to tear the Covenant to pieces, 
 that she might have thought her hour of destiny 
 had sounded. Against that sort of desperation, 
 of course, no human precautions can be absolutely 
 certain. Nevertheless, the strongest possible de- 
 terrents have been provided. If Austria had vio- 
 lated any of these provisions, she would ipso facto 
 have committed an act of war against every other 
 member in the League. 
 
 The immediate, automatic consequence would 
 have been the severance of all relations, economic, 
 financial and personal. Very doubtful it is that 
 she would have flown in the face of this con- 
 tingency, because she would have seen herself cut 
 off, with one sweep, from all the rest of civiliza- 
 tion, except perhaps such nations as she had se- 
 duced to follow her lead. Few states indeed, 
 could afford such a penalty as the price of strik- 
 ing quickly in war. 
 
 Military measures would also have loomed in 
 
60 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 the background. The moment Austria had 
 broken faith, the Council of the League would 
 have met to recommend to members of the League 
 what forces, if any, they should contribute to pro- 
 tect the covenants of the League. This recom- 
 mendation would have been purely a recommenda- 
 tion. It would have had no binding effect on any 
 nation. The various Parliaments would have 
 taken it or left it as they saw fit. 
 
 The French wanted to go much farther than 
 this. They wanted an international staff, possibly 
 an international force, to be always ready for 
 such emergencies. It was President Wilson, it 
 may be a surprise to many Americans to learn, 
 who said, most emphatically, " No." He pointed 
 out that the American Constitution makes it im- 
 possible to send American forces overseas with- 
 out the specific consent of Congress which alone 
 has the power to declare war. Nevertheless, there 
 can be but little doubt that if any nation seeks to 
 run riot through the world, powerful military and 
 naval forces will at once be raised to bring her 
 back to her proper position as a law-abiding, 
 treaty-respecting member of the family of nations. 
 
The League in 1914 61 
 
 Austria might in 1914 have broken through all 
 these checks to war. Or she might have com- 
 plied with the requirements and still have made a 
 legal war. Force will not for a long time be 
 taken out of international affairs, any more than 
 force is taken out of the life of a state, as is so 
 fully recognized by the unrestricted right of revo- 
 lution. But the League affords so many positive 
 checks and so many ways around that Sir Edward 
 Grey's startling statement that it would have pre- 
 vented the World War is not overdrawn. 
 
 At the present moment, France cannot go to 
 war with Italy, Japan with England, Peru with 
 Chile, Holland with Belgium, Sweden with Nor- 
 way and so on through the twoscore nations al- 
 ready members of the League, without submitting 
 their dispute to arbitration or conciliation, and 
 even then not until a report has been made public 
 to the world and three months have elapsed for 
 world opinion to function. This is the greatest 
 fact of present-day world politics. 
 
 In this chapter I have described only the polit- 
 ical settlement of international disputes. In the 
 next I shall describe the judicial settlement 
 
62 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 through the Permanent Court of International 
 Justice provided in Article XIV of the Covenant. 
 By many this latter is regarded as the League's 
 greatest contribution to world peace. 
 
THE PERMANENT COURT 
 
 THE first important act of the League of Na- 
 tions was to appoint a Commission to bring into 
 being the Permanent Court of International 
 Justice. 
 
 This is indicative. Such a Court stands closer 
 to the hearts of the nations than any other phase 
 of international relations. Yet until the League 
 was born, it had not been possible to create it. 
 The Hague had tried, and tried well, but never- 
 theless had failed. It required the havoc of war 
 to loosen men's minds and prejudices sufficiently 
 to harmonize the conflicting views. 
 
 Approval of the creation of the Court was 
 practically the only decision arrived at by the 
 Peace Conference without dispute or argument. 
 Running back through my memory and finding no 
 lingering details of the circumstances of its in- 
 sertion in the Covenant, I asked another Ameri- 
 can who had been most intimately connected with 
 the work : 
 
 63 
 
64 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 '* Why, it was simply proposed and adopted. 
 That was all." 
 
 " But was there no argument? " 
 
 11 No, every one agreed to it. There was noth- 
 ing to argue about. To tell the truth it went 
 through so automatically that I remember very 
 little about it." 
 
 So the seeds cast to the four winds by the 
 Hague Conference bore fruit through the spirit 
 of cooperation and humility engendered by four 
 and a half years of horror. The Court which 
 had been the ideal of all clear thinkers as one 
 of the best methods of avoiding war gave hopes 
 of becoming a reality. That it was made item 
 number one on the League agenda is heartening 
 to those who urge international cooperation as 
 against international license; and by the same 
 token discouraging to those who see in the League 
 naught but Article X, politics and responsibilities. 
 
 So keen was the world interest in this Court 
 that hardly was the ink dry on the Covenant than 
 criticism at once broke out because its details had 
 not been more fully amplified. Article XIV was 
 recognized not only as containing one of the most 
 
The Permanent Court 65 
 
 hopeful phases of League work but also as con- 
 taining one of the least developed. If other pro- 
 visions had been so thoroughly worked out, why, 
 it was asked, was this provision relegated to a 
 future Commission? The Swiss official analysis 
 said that " one of the great omissions of the 
 Covenant is that it does not organize a tribunal " ; 
 Mr. Root expressed a general American viewpoint 
 when he proposed a reservation greatly amplify- 
 ing this line of usefulness; even the official com- 
 mentary issued by none other than the League 
 of Nations Commission itself said: 
 
 " The Permanent Court of International Jus- 
 tice is essential for any real progress in interna- 
 tional law. As things now stand, the political 
 rather than the judicial aspect of the settlement 
 of disputes is prominent in the Covenant, but 
 1 political ' settlements can never be entirely sat- 
 isfactory or just. Ultimately and in the long 
 run, the only alternative to war is law, and for 
 the enthronement of law there is required such a 
 continuous development of international jurispru- 
 dence, at present in its infancy, as can only be 
 supplied by the progressive judgments of a Per- 
 
66 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 manent Court working out its own traditions." 
 No time, therefore, was lost in taking the first 
 steps. Indeed, long before the League was of- 
 ficially in being, a preliminary list of jurists had 
 been picked out and a letter prepared ready for 
 approval at the earliest possible moment. So, 
 when the Council met in London on February 13, 
 for what was practically its first business meeting, 
 the first item on the agenda was the launching of 
 the Court. 
 
 To Leon Bourgeois, former Premier of 
 France and a moving spirit through the early 
 Hague days, fell the honor of presenting these 
 plans at a public session of the Council. " If 
 justice is to reign," he said, " it must have a per- 
 manent instrument to its hand; it must take some 
 tangible form which will make its existence felt 
 among the peoples and give the support of its 
 powerful, impartial and supreme authority to 
 those whose weakness is only too often unde- 
 fended. . . . From all parts of the devastated 
 and tormented world rises a cry for justice. The 
 military and moral unity which for five years has 
 held the free peoples together and concentrated 
 
The Permanent Court 67 
 
 their efforts in the defense of right must survive 
 with our victory; it can find no nobler expression 
 nor more splendid symbol than the establishment 
 of a Permanent Court of International Justice." 
 
 An Organizing Commission was then named 
 which justified the highest hopes. It was com- 
 posed of admittedly the greatest jurists in the 
 world, representing both the several great 
 branches of the human family and the various 
 traditions in international law, Akidzuki of Japan, 
 Altamira of Spain, Bevilaqua of Brazil, Descamps 
 of Belgium, Drago of the Argentine, Fadda of 
 Italy, Fromageot of France, Gram of Norway, 
 Loder of Holland, Phillimore of Great Britain, 
 Vesnitch of Jugo-Slavia, and Root of the United 
 States. 
 
 Regarding Mr. Root, Mr. Balfour said: "It 
 may be that Mr. Root for one reason or another 
 will not find it possible immediately to accept, but 
 the Council desire formally to put on record that 
 Mr. Root will always be welcome at whatever 
 stage of our proceedings he feels it within his 
 power to add to our deliberations the great weight 
 of his learning and his name." It will ever be 
 
68 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 a source of gratitude to those connected with the 
 League organization work that Mr. Root proved 
 himself above the political struggle then wracking 
 his own country, and not only accepted the invi- 
 tation at once, but accepted it in the biggest and 
 broadest possible spirit. 
 
 .Announcement was therefore made at the Rome 
 meeting of the -Council on May 19 that all of 
 the jurists invited to serve had accepted except 
 Mr. Akidzuki, who had asked to be replaced by 
 Mr. Adatci, and Mr. Gram and Senor Drago, 
 both of whom asked to be excused because of 
 health and age. The Committee convened in 
 London in mid- June, where it found before it all 
 the pertinent documents collected by the expert 
 secretariat of the Court. 
 
 This Commission has an enormous task before 
 it. It is not so much the task of plowing a vir- 
 gin field as of finding its way through the immense 
 mass of material submitted. Unlike the princi- 
 ple of the political settlement of international dis- 
 putes, that of judicial settlement is rich in history 
 and tradition. Much was done at The Hague; 
 much also in independent negotiations between the 
 
The Permanent Court 69 
 
 states ; but still more has been opened up under the 
 stimulus of the Covenant. 
 
 For, immediately the Covenant was adopted, 
 the nations outside the Peace Conference broke in 
 on the discussion. The German counter-pro- 
 posals went into great detail in their plans for 
 a Court. The Austrians submitted a long mem- 
 orandum by Professor Lammasch, who had stood 
 high in this work in the past. The Swiss pre- 
 sented the Conference of Neutrals at Paris with 
 their elaborate plan. Norway, Sweden and Den- 
 mark named a joint Scandinavian Committee 
 which submitted proposals to the League long 
 before the League was officially in being. The 
 Dutch offered the plan of their official League of 
 Nations Commission and in February brought 
 about at The Hague a conference of the five small 
 European neutrals who agreed on an identical con- 
 stitution for the Court. 
 
 Unofficial bodies have also cooperated. The 
 Inter-Parliamentary Union has submitted a plan; 
 the Conference of the League of Nations Union 
 at Brussels passed rigorous resolutions calling on 
 the governments for immediate action. Indeed, 
 
70 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 public opinion in all countries has been stimulated 
 more by this opening towards peace than by any 
 other. The Permanent Court fell upon ground 
 made fertile by years of effort and not exhausted 
 by the bitter opposition to which other phases of 
 League activity have been submitted. 
 
 Read what Mr. Root, American member on the 
 Organizing Committee, said of such a Court in his 
 instructions as Secretary of State to the American 
 delegates to the second Hague Conference in 1907. 
 No one ever summarized the possibilities and the 
 difficulties of judicial settlement of international 
 disputes more effectively or ever gave a greater 
 stimulus toward its establishment than when, in 
 those days of extreme state pride and general sus- 
 picion of cooperation, he said: 
 
 4 The principal objection to arbitration rests 
 lot upon the unwillingness of nations to submit 
 their controversies to impartial arbitration, but 
 upon an appreciation that the arbitration to which 
 they submit may not be impartial. It has been a 
 general practice for arbitrators to act, not as 
 judges deciding questions of facts and law upon 
 the record before them under a sense of judicial 
 
The Permanent Court 71 
 
 responsibility, but as negotiators effecting settle- 
 ments in accordance with the traditions and usages 
 which affect diplomatic agents. It very frequently 
 happens that a nation that would be willing to 
 submit its differences to an impartial judicial deter- 
 mination is unwilling to submit them to this kind 
 of diplomatic process. If there could be a tri- 
 bunal which could pass upon questions between 
 nations with the same impartial and impersonal 
 judgment that the Supreme Court of the United 
 States gives to questions arising between citizens 
 of different states, there could be no doubt but 
 that nations would be much more ready to submit 
 their controversies to its decisions than they are 
 now to take the chances of arbitration. It should 1 
 be your effort to bring about in the Second Con- 
 ference a development of the Hague Tribunal into 
 a permanent tribunal composed of judges who are; 
 judicial officers and nothing else, who are paid 
 adequate salaries, who have no other occupations 
 and who will devote their entire time to the trial 
 and decision of international causes by judicial 
 methods, and under a sense of judicial responsi- 
 bility." 
 
72 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 Such is the object. Let no one think, however, 
 that it is simple of attainment. Several pitfalls 
 lurk along the roadside; pitfalls which proved 
 fully sufficient to wreck the Hague plans. But the 
 nations now approach them with a greater humil- 
 ity and a lessened pride. They have learned to 
 cooperate in the supreme crisis of the war; they 
 have found that united action does not mean sur- 
 render of sovereignty; they are willing to make 
 sacrifices of purely national egotism to avoid an- 
 other world conflagration. 
 
 . - 
 
 Most important, indeed fundamental, is the 
 method of the appointment of the permanent 
 judges. Obviously the Court will be useless if the 
 nations do not have confidence in its personnel. 
 They must all have a voice in the selection, be 
 assured that the men chosen will be as nearly im- 
 partial as is humanly possible, and be guaranteed 
 against the sitting of any judge who might be, 
 even unconsciously, prejudiced. / 
 
 It was on this rock that the Hague Court split 
 to pieces. The nations could agree on the pro- 
 cedure, the details of submission, indeed all else 
 involved, but they could not agree on the great 
 
The Permanent Court 73 
 
 human problem of what men were actually going 
 to be entrusted with making the decisions. The 
 little states, proud in their sovereignty, stood 
 out for a full equality of selection with the 
 big Powers, and the big Powers refused to allow 
 their preponderant strength to be overlooked or 
 to entrust their fate to men chosen largely by the 
 small Powers. So they had to announce the 
 Court without announcing the judges a skele- 
 ton. 
 
 Now the many plans submitted to the Commis- 
 sion provide the most ingenious ways around this 
 difficulty. Without analyzing them in detail, the 
 high points running through them follow some- 
 what this course. First the men shall be chosen 
 not for their nationality but for their eminence in 
 international law. This may seem impossible in 
 the present hodgepodge relationship of states, but 
 suggestions have been made which seem nearly 
 water-tight against any nation packing the court, 
 while at the same time assuring both the choice of 
 the most eminent jurists and also a proportional 
 division among the bigger units in the family of 
 nations. 
 
74 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 The Swiss, for instance, and the Germans also, 
 propose that each state shall name, say, four emi- 
 nent jurists, of whom one shall be a foreigner. 
 This will make a large panel. From that panel 
 each state will then name its first fifteen choices, 
 and the fifteen men securing the highest number of 
 votes shall be considered elected/ Obviously only 
 the best known men can run this gauntlet and the 
 best known men are usually found in the big 
 countries. At the same time, however, the small 
 countries have a somewhat disproportionate vot- 
 ing power and can unite to secure an appreciable 
 representation. A South American member, for 
 instance, is practically assured, as is also one for 
 the Northern European neutrals, while it is pos- 
 sible the five great Powers will insist on perma- 
 nent representatives. 
 
 When a case comes before the Court, a varying 
 number of judges may sit according to the differ- 
 ent plans submitted. Most all, however, debar 
 any national from sitting in a case in which his 
 own state is involved, and at the same time give 
 either party to the dispute the right of challenge 
 of at least several of the judges first selected. 
 
 
The Permanent Court 75 
 
 Some of the plans go even farther to remove 
 nationalistic influences from the Court, as in the 
 Austrian plan, where it is provided that not more 
 than one national from any state may be selected. 
 
 How far are the decisions arrived at to be bind- 
 ing? " The members agree that they will carry 
 out in good faith any award that may be ren- 
 dered," the Covenant says, and that " in the event 
 of any failure to carry out such an award, the 
 Council shall propose what steps should be taken 
 to give effect thereto." In other words no nation 
 could repudiate a finding of the Permanent Court 
 without repudiating its own national honor and 
 good faith, and at the same time laying itself open 
 to a possibility of coercion by the other states. 
 That is a powerful drawback, even though, as Gen- 
 eral Smuts says, " the award of such tribunals has 
 in almost all cases been carried out by the states 
 against whom the decision was given." 
 
 The Scandinavian plan would admit of no ap- 
 peal unless a wholly new fact could be established. 
 The Austrian plan would not only consider such 
 decisions as final, but would obligate the League 
 members to enforce them against any recalcitrant 
 
76 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 state. While it is not probable that a definite ob- 
 ligation for enforcement will be adopted, opinion 
 is unanimous that there will not only be the 
 strongest opprobrium behind any repudiation of a 
 Court finding but also the very real threat of 
 positive action by other League members. 
 
 Then again, what system of law is to be ap- 
 plied? For the different legal systems among 
 the larger units of the family of nations vary 
 widely one from another. Anglo-Saxon law is 
 quite different from Continental or Napoleonic 
 law, and Napoleonic law in turn quite different 
 from Slavic law. Nevertheless, a very appre- 
 ciable body of precedent has been built up in the 
 years of quiet development of international law. 
 
 Most vital of all perhaps is the question of in- 
 terpretation of the Covenant. This will un- 
 doubtedly rest with the Permanent Court. In 
 this matter a worthy precedent is at hand. As the 
 first decisions of the Supreme Court of the United 
 States amounted practically to an elucidation of 
 the Constitution, so the first decisions of the Per- 
 manent Court will amount to the laying of the 
 
The Permanent Court 77 
 
 groundwork of international law upon which the, 1 
 Covenant will rest. 
 
 But undoubtedly the Organizing Committee 
 will recommend that as much as possible of this 
 confusion be cleared away by common agreement 
 among the states before a specific case shall arise 
 to add a new complication. Therefore, it is to 
 be expected that definite plans will be announced 
 for restatements of international law, especially 
 as the World War so shot to pieces what general 
 understandings the world had arrived at. The 
 great movement that is now astir throughout the 
 world to reconstitute these shattered principles 
 will undoubtedly find response. 
 
 All this must if possible be decided in the weeks 
 before the first assembly of the League. The 
 Organizing Committee set to work in June to an- 
 alyze all the plans submitted and will submit its 
 finally worked out draft first to the Council and 
 then as the final step to the Assembly of all states 
 in November. At that moment would come into 
 being, as the second part of the scheme for the 
 peaceful settlement of international disputes, the 
 
78 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 Permanent Court of International Justice, com- 
 posed of jurists beyond the charge of favoritism, 
 representative of the wider currents in world life, 
 supported by a world sense of justice and a possi- 
 bility of force, equipped to render a just decision 
 on any question of fact or law, evolving out of 
 their experience a common code of the nations 
 in short the great, impartial, international Court 
 which men have sought for generations as the best 
 method of settling disputes between nations. 
 
THE SECRETARIAT 
 
 AMERICANS would be most intensely interested 
 if they could visit for a few hours two* large com- 
 fortable buildings in London where one of the 
 most novel innovations attempted by the League 
 of Nations is temporarily located. They would 
 find there a group of men from many countries, 
 French and Brazilians, Americans and Dutch, 
 Japs and Norwegians, British and Swiss, all work- 
 ing together and somehow getting along together 
 in one small compact organization; rubbing el- 
 bows every hour, and harmonizing ideas, ideals 
 and standards as variegated as those of the forty 
 different states in the family of nations. 
 
 They would find, in short, the machinery of 
 the League, the international organization which 
 aims to be as impartial and as trustworthy as 
 this imperfect world of ours allows, and which 
 has already become the central administrative 
 nerve center for the widely different phases of 
 League activity. They would find the organiza- 
 
 79 
 
8o The League of Nations at Work 
 
 tion which has so far done all the preliminary 
 spade work, as it were, which has prepared the 
 data for the Council meetings already held, and 
 which will be the permanent expert non-partisan 
 core of League activities. 
 
 Such a thing never has been attempted before. 
 It is called the Secretariat. Even its name, I im- 
 agine, will ring a little queer to most Americans. 
 Few of us can recall ever having encountered any 
 such institution, yet we of all people should un- 
 derstand it, as we of all people understand the 
 mechanism of politics. And the spirit which un- 
 derlies it is a spirit which cannot but appeal to us, 
 for unless that spirit develops into full fruition, 
 one of the greatest hopes of effective international 
 cooperation must be abandoned. 
 
 This spirit may be seen in an illustration which 
 in itself perhaps is unimportant. No member of 
 the Secretariat may accept honors or decorations 
 from any government. They must be as truly 
 ; free from such influences as possible. " They 
 act," says one of its memoranda, u in an inter- 
 national capacity and are not in any way repre- 
 sentatives of their own country." Consequently 
 
The Secretariat 81 
 
 they must be impartial. The Secretariat would 
 utterly fail if it were shot through with national 
 cliques and intrigues. An international body con- 
 taining men from all nations, it is responsible, not 
 to any one nation, but to the Assembly or Council 
 representing all nations. 
 
 The Secretariat is not the place for political ac- 
 tivity. Two bodies have been constituted for that 
 purpose, the Assembly and the Council. Before 
 them each nation has its individual delegation, 
 whose sole task is to be the spokesman of the 
 national viewpoint. In both these bodies the 
 clash of political opinion will take place and the 
 differences in policies be harmonized. What 
 above all else both the Assembly and the Coun- 
 cil need is a permanent skilled body upon which it 
 can rely to provide the necessary facts and do the 
 necessary secretarial work. 
 
 This is a very new principle. It sends cold 
 shivers down the backs of the old diplomacy which 
 made something of a business of keeping the na- 
 tions of the world apart, and raises wholly un- 
 necessary fears among intense nationalists who 
 believe that any attempt at international cooper- 
 
82 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 ation may weaken the spirit of provincialism. 
 Both views are exaggerated. The Secretariat 
 will be a vitally important part of the League of 
 Nations, but it will not in any sense be the domi- 
 nating part. 
 
 In all political action three processes are nec- 
 essary; first to collect the facts, second to form 
 the judgment from those facts, and third to see 
 to the execution of that judgment. The middle 
 of these three functions, so far as the League is 
 concerned, is cared for by either the Assembly or 
 the Council. Neither of them, however, is 
 equipped to handle the detail work required in the 
 other two. They are too spasmodic in meeting, 
 too temporary in personnel, too partial in com- 
 position. 
 
 So we have the Secretariat. Such a body is 
 foreseen in every League of Nations plan. Even 
 the Germans provided for a " chancery " to 
 " form the common bureau of the official bodies 
 of the League." The Secretariat becomes by 
 universal consent the permanent staff of the 
 League, keeping things going, oiling and greasing 
 the wheels, investigating, analyzing, planning and 
 
The Secretariat 83 
 
 reporting. It is the agency through which the de- * 
 liberative bodies such as the Assembly, the Coun- 
 cil, the Court, the Health Office will work, the ; 
 trained civil service, if you will. 
 
 Theoretically, of course, it has no power of \ 
 initiative. Its task is to do what it is told by 
 the deliberative bodies to do, especially to carry 
 on the relations between the various nations and 
 the League and to coordinate the various activi- 
 ties. Actually, however, it will have very con- 
 siderable power, all the power indeed which is 
 usually attracted to a body preparing information 
 and recommendations. If the spirit behind it is 
 permitted to develop, the League's chances for 
 success are great; if not, they are seriously threat- 
 ened. 
 
 Curiously enough, the Secretariat has been in 
 existence and at work for nearly a year without 
 the world sensing the importance of what it was 
 attempting. The work of organization began 
 even before Germany signed the Peace Treaty. 
 It had to, indeed, for the Treaty quite mercilessly 
 thrust many duties on the League the moment it 
 officially came into existence. An agency had to 
 
84 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 be created to be fully functioning when the Peace 
 finally arrived. 
 
 The job was no simple one. It fell to Sir Eric 
 Drummond, who was selected as the first Secre- 
 tary-General by the Plenary Conference of April 
 28 when final approval was given the Covenant. 
 Drummond probably knows as much of the inside 
 of world diplomacy of the past two decades as any 
 [man living. He has been chief assistant to Great 
 Britain's leading foreign statesmen, one after the 
 other, having been private secretary to Premier 
 Asquith from 1912 to 1915, then to Sir Edward 
 Grey till 1916, and finally to Foreign Secretary 
 Balfour, with whom he came to the United States 
 a few weeks after we entered the war. He is 
 a man of attractive personality, a hard worker, 
 and, above all, well poised. 
 
 On the fifth of last May, he was told by the 
 Organizing Committee to go ahead. He picked 
 out a few men, accepted the offer of Sunderland 
 House in London as temporary headquarters, and 
 moved across the Channel in June, as much as any- 
 thing to be away from the atmosphere of Paris. 
 But the job was a hard one. There was too much 
 
The Secretariat 85 
 
 unreality about it. The early days were days 
 of hope, faith, and, above all, waiting. Every 
 one felt attached to something which did not ex- 
 ist, dangling as it were in midair. They argued, 
 planned, drew memoranda, but in the busiest 
 moments the thought suddenly came that perhaps 
 after all the League would never eventuate. 
 It seemed like building houses of cards. 
 
 Nevertheless, the work is now well outlined. 
 A personnel has been brought together, a scheme 
 of organization worked out, and plans for the ac- 
 tivities of the League drawn up. Already many 
 of them have been placed before the Council for 
 endorsement, as for instance the plans for the 
 Permanent Court of Justice and the International 
 Health Organization. This does not mean that 
 in each field a final and conclusive program has 
 been drawn up; quite on the contrary only the 
 next immediate step has been suggested, on the 
 principle that it is " better to leave the hands of 
 the statesmen of the future as free as possible and 
 to allow the League as a living organism to dis- 
 cover its own best lines of development." 
 
 Something over TOO people are now included in ' 
 
86 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 the Secretariat, drawn from a score of nations. 
 All appointments have been made on the basis of 
 experience either during the war or at the Peace 
 Conference in similar international work. They 
 are purely provisional, and subject to approval of 
 the Council. While, therefore, the Secretary- 
 General is given certain latitude in his choice of 
 men, as is wholly essential if the Secretariat is to 
 function properly, he is at the same time sub- 
 mitted to the check of the Council against any pos- 
 sibly objectionable choices. 
 
 Several Americans are included in this provi- 
 sional list. They were all asked to serve last 
 spring, at the time Germany signed the Peace 
 Treaty, and when no one contemplated the pos- 
 sibility of the Senate's refusal to ratify the 
 Treaty. It should be most emphatically under- 
 stood that they serve solely as individuals and not 
 in any sense as representatives of the United 
 States. They have been picked out as experts in 
 particular lines, without any thought of their re- 
 lationship to their own country, as must be the 
 case with the whole Secretariat system. 
 
 The Secretariat is divided into sections follow- 
 
The Secretariat 87 
 
 ing the division of its work, and is headed by a 
 sort of general conference or board consisting of ! 
 the Secretary-General, the four Under-Secretaries- \ 
 General, and the Directors of Sections. The 
 Under-Secretaries are divided among the others 
 of the five big Powers, including Jean Monnet, 
 formerly French representative on the Supreme 
 Economic Council; Inatzo Nitobe, well-known 
 Japanese publicist, and Signor Anzillotti, an Ital- 
 ian. Raymond B. Fosdick served for some 
 months until the embarrassment of America's con- 
 tinued delay and the possibility of misunderstand- 
 ing as to his position led him to resign. 
 
 Of the various sections, the Political is headed 
 by M. Mantoux, who, as interpreter of the Coun- 
 cils of Ten and of Four, is familiar with every 
 detail of the Paris Peace Conference. The 
 Legal Section, which will aid in the revision of 
 international law, is headed by Dr. Joost van 
 Hamel, a leading Dutch jurist and author, assisted 
 by Manley O. Hudson, formerly legal expert on 
 the American Peace Commission; J. Pawley Bate 
 of Great Britain, and Mr. Kaeckenbeeck of Hol- 
 land. 
 
88 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 The Section on Public Information, which pub- 
 lishes the Official Journal and the other statements 
 of the League, is headed by Pierre Comert, for- 
 merly editor of the Paris Temps, assisted by 
 George Mair, formerly director of the British 
 Press Bureau at Paris, and the author of this 
 little book. The Economic Section, which will 
 take over what remains of the war's economic co- 
 operation and draw up plans for the enforcement 
 of any economic boycott which may be voted, is 
 headed by J. A. Salter, formerly secretary of the 
 Allied Maritime Council. The finances of the 
 League itself are in the hands of Sir Herbert 
 Ames, a member of the Canadian Parliament. 
 
 The Section on Mandates for backward coun- 
 tries was entrusted to George Louis Beer, who 
 represented the United States in colonial matters 
 at the Peace Conference, but who was claimed by 
 death in the spring of 1920. The Section on 
 Transit, which is to work out conventions for the 
 unhampered use of International ports, water- 
 ways and railways in Europe, is headed by Pro- 
 fessor Attolico of Italy. The many existing inter- 
 national bureaus which it is hoped to bring into 
 
The Secretariat 89 
 
 close cooperation with the League are looked after 
 by Dr. Inatzo Nitobe of Japari, and the many 
 administrative commissions formed under the 
 Peace Treaty by Erik Colban, formerly of the 
 Norwegian Foreign Office. Liaison with the In- 
 ternational Labor Office will be maintained by 
 Dr. Louis Varlez of Belgium, general secretary 
 of the International Association of Unemploy- 
 ment. Miss M. F. Wilson of the United States 
 has been chosen acting librarian and perhaps a 
 South American will be chosen registrar-general 
 of treaties. 
 
 Such is the general outline. The list of course 
 is not complete. It illustrates, nevertheless, the 
 scheme both of organization and of international 
 personnel. Its principle will be fought and 
 fought bitterly. Attempts will be made to infuse 
 differences amidst these different elements and to 
 bias action along purely national grounds. If 
 these efforts succeed, the Assembly and the Coun- 
 cil of the League will be left without any organi- 
 zation in which they can impose confidence. 
 
 Undoubtedly, if the Peace Conference in Paris 
 had had such a Secretariat, its labors would have 
 
90 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 been greatly simplified. One reason that it blun- 
 dered along fruitlessly for so long was that it 
 had no adequate mechanism. Great diplomats, 
 as fussy for all the world as prima donnas, came 
 together unprepared and uncoordinated. Mr. 
 Wilson had his shoals and shoals of experts; Mr. 
 Lloyd George, Mr. Paderewski, Mr. Vesnitch, 
 Mr. delegate from Siam likewise, but all of them 
 had a particular idea which they wanted to impose 
 and could not be relied upon for an impartial 
 amplification of a policy decided upon by the polit- 
 ical chieftains. There was no adequate clearing 
 house of secretarial work. 
 
 This great lack the League has already met. 
 It has initiated a new principle in international 
 relations. The change is well summarized in an 
 official commentary on the League issued last 
 spring in Paris which said the Secretariat " has 
 immense possibilities of usefulness. A reliable 
 supply of facts and statistics will in itself be a 
 powerful aid to peace. Nor can the value be ex- 
 aggerated of the continuous collaboration of ex- 
 perts in matters tending to emphasize the unity 
 rather than the diversity of national interests." 
 
The Secretariat 91 
 
 The League has started well on this line. 
 That does not mean that the details are perfect; 
 that all the personnel is free from criticism, or 
 that great opportunity for trouble does not exist. 
 It does mean, however, that a very good begin- 
 ning, perhaps a surprisingly good beginning, has 
 been made towards creating this most new and un- 
 precedented body. What is now needed is public 
 understanding and support to allow it to develop 
 freely into its full promise as one of the instru- 
 ments for bringing into being a better interna- 
 tional relationship. 
 
DISARMAMENT 
 
 THE most difficult, perhaps the most impor- 
 tant and certainly the least advanced question be- 
 fore the League of Nations is reduction of arma- 
 ments. 
 
 ' The actual number of men under arms today 
 is much greater than in 1914," says Herbert 
 Hoover. " The world's total armaments and the 
 military expenditures are greater, despite the bur- 
 den of grinding debt." 
 
 There is no use in blinking these facts. States 
 which are ready to be liberal in other matters balk 
 before any plan to weaken their power of self- 
 defense. In a world torn and tortured as is the 
 present world, with uncertainty on all sides, with 
 the wounds of war still raw, with every funda- 
 mental force of Nature set loose into free play, 
 suspicion and distrust have become rampant. 
 
 Pitifully enough the dreams which alone made 
 it possible to endure the horrors of war have not 
 come true. We have not come to rest in the 
 haven of perpetual peace; we have not overcome 
 
 92 
 
f 
 
 Disarmament 93 
 
 the greeds and passions which gnaw into the vitals 
 of friendly relations between states; we have not 
 found the millennium. We may indeed be better 
 off than in 1914, for at least autocracy has gone 
 forever from those vast territories which the Hoh- 
 enzollerns, Hapsburgs and Romanoffs formerly 
 ruled, but we have taken merely one step forward 
 instead of making the whole trip. 
 
 Yet the face of the world has changed mightily. 
 A whole new alignment of forces greets any study 
 today of the armaments problem. The issues of 
 1914 have been swept aside and wholly new ones 
 created. Those new issues give us the right to 
 hope that reduction of armaments may be ac- 
 complished, much as medicine is sometimes taken 
 before the patient is aware of it. 
 
 First, the world is bankrupt. Of all the proud 
 nations in the race in 1914, only the United States, 
 and possibly Japan, can afford the pace. The 
 others are smothered in debt. Long before they 
 can build dreadnaughts and Big Berthas, they 
 must pay vast pension rolls and redeem huge for- 
 eign loans. The war cost the world two hundred 
 billions of dollars. 
 
94 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 Second, militarism itself is bankrupt. The 
 man in the street understands as he never has be- 
 fore that behind the beautiful figure of a battle- 
 ship or the trim appearance of a field gun is a 
 whole professional soldiery, armaments industry, 
 and yellow press which would starve but for war 
 and fear of war. People realize that if heavy 
 armaments contain certain elements of protection, 
 they also contain negativing elements of danger. 
 
 Third, the greatest militarism of all, the 
 " shining armor " of Germany, lies in the dust, 
 not only defeated but disgraced. Her Kaiser 
 has fallen from giddy heights to a position beneath 
 contempt; her army is ordered reduced to 
 200,000 men; her fleet sunk or put on exhibition 
 as prize. The adventurous Kapp, in his mad ex- 
 ploit to restore the old regime, could not secure 
 enough support, despite the army at his back, to 
 cling to office for a week. 
 
 Fourth, a great irregular swathe is to be demili- 
 tarized straight through the heart of Europe, 
 Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and Tur- 
 key. This will form a wide corridor from the 
 North Sea to the Black Sea wherein should be 
 
Disarmament 95 
 
 found no armies, no big guns, no plotting General 
 Staffs. What for generations has been the 
 world's powder magazine will henceforth be pac- 
 ified, if the Allied Powers can hold their unity. 
 
 In view of all the horrors of the past war, 
 in view of all the promises of world statesmen, in 
 view of the facts enumerated above, it might be 
 thought that the League of Nations would have 
 a fairly easy time to carry out its Covenant that 
 " the maintenance of peace requires the reduction 
 of national armaments to the lowest point con- 
 sistent with national safety and the enforcement 
 by common action of international obligations." 
 Surely if ever disarmament would seem possible, 
 it should be after the world had fought its great- 
 est war and overcome its most implacable enemy. 
 
 But unfortunately certain serious disadvantages 
 have cropped up in the aftermath of war. 
 First among these is the fearfully unsettled state 
 of the world today. Everything is in turmoil. 
 No one can foresee the future. Suspicion and dis- 
 trust is on every side, even among the victorious 
 Allies. Little wars which may easily become big 
 ones are raging in many sections, and the solidar- 
 
96 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 ity born of the war is being seriously shaken. 
 
 Second, there is an undoubted desire among 
 the victorious military leaders to perpetuate the 
 machines which brought them victory. And 
 there is reason in this desire because of Germany's 
 obvious attempts to wriggle out of the Peace 
 Treaty. Such efforts justify the French in main- 
 taining a large army; they cause fear and uneas- 
 iness on all sides; they have their repercussions in 
 Poland and Roumania. They provide a real 
 raison d'etre to which the professional soldiery is 
 only too glad to apply the bellows of fear and ex- 
 aggeration. 
 
 Second, there is navalism. Great Britain, 
 Japan and the United States seem only too apt to 
 entangle each other in a naval competition which 
 none of them wants. Secretary Daniels has an- 
 nounced that if we do not have the League we 
 must have u incomparably " the biggest navy in 
 the world, and the staggering sum of $425,000,- 
 ooo is being considered as an appropriation. 
 Great Britain sends Jellicoe around her colonies 
 to interest them in naval expansion, while Brit- 
 ish home authorities talk of appropriating 
 
Disarmament 97 
 
 84,000,000 pounds for the coming year. Japan, 
 not seeing against whom these navies are to be 
 used, plods quietly ahead on her enlarged pro- 
 gram, aided by all the profits she took out of the 
 war. This competition is at present purely in- 
 cipient; no one wants it; it can be nipped off be- 
 fore it becomes chronic, always provided there is 
 sufficient faith and confidence to do so. 
 
 So we have the world today, Central Europe 
 being demilitarized; France, Poland and Rou- 
 mania building up big armies; Great Britain, 
 Japan and the United States on the verge of a 
 naval competition; distrust only too general; 
 more men under arms than in 1914. America 
 talks of the enormous figure of nearly a billion dol- 
 lars next year for army and navy; Great Britain 
 of $625,000,000 for her army alone. The golden 
 opportunity seems all but passing. 
 
 And meanwhile matters are dragging from bad 
 to worse financially. Debts instead of deflating 
 are inflating. The world's economic situation is 
 becoming still more desperate. The Supreme 
 Economic Council, in a bird's-eye view of what is 
 wrong with the world recommends u that armies 
 
98 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 everywhere should be reduced to a peace footing, 
 that armaments should be reduced to the lowest 
 possible figure compatible with national security, 
 and that the League of Nations should be invited 
 . to consider as soon as possible proposals to this 
 end." 
 
 " This question of disarmament," said Hoover 
 in his appeal to the American people, " is a vital 
 issue to us. We are dependent upon our foreign 
 trade for much of our prosperity and employ- 
 ment. If we can secure no safety by disarmament 
 we must tax ourselves a couple of billions a year 
 and enter a race of preparedness and build up a 
 military caste of our own. Is it not worth en- 
 tering the League with the determination to at 
 once test its value on the reduction of armaments 
 to a real defense basis within a measurable time 
 before we enter the race with no goal but misery 
 and danger? " 
 
 S.uch is the problem the League must attack. 
 It is a desperately dangerous problem with pit- 
 falls lurking in every corner. Yet it must be 
 met, because the world demands that it be met. 
 If it is not, the war will have been fought largely 
 
Disarmament 99 
 
 in vain and the League will have failed in its 
 greatest single field of usefulness. There must 
 be no delay or quibbling. Action must be initi- 
 ated now, for at best long months of investigation 
 and negotiation will be required. 
 
 This, then, brings us to the actual powers of 
 the League as to disarmament. How far can it 
 really go? The answer simply is that it has the 
 power of inquiry, recommendation, and beyond 
 that nothing but the moral force of world public 
 opinion. This may be everything or nothing. 
 Legally of course it is very little; actually it may 
 be very great. Only the sincerity of the League 
 itself and the governments composing it will sup- 
 ply the answer. 
 
 Its most definite power perhaps is found in 
 Article I which says that no new member may be 
 admitted to the League until it " shall accept 
 such regulations as may be prescribed by the 
 League in regard to its military, naval and air 
 forces and armaments." This provision, be it 
 noted, applies to Russia and all the ex-enemy 
 states, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Bulgaria and 
 Turkey. They cannot become members of the 
 
ioo The League of Nations at Work 
 
 League till they have met the armament require- 
 ments, which gives the League a very real and a 
 very definite control. 
 
 Then follow the more detailed provisions of 
 Articles VIII and IX applying to regular members 
 of the League. Beginning with a plea for re- 
 duction of armament as essential to the mainte- 
 nance of peace, it is provided that " The Council, 
 taking account of the geographical situation and 
 circumstances of each state, shall f or mula tC-plan& 
 for such reduction for the consideration and action 
 of the several governments." Note the phras- 
 ing: " for the consideration and action of the sev- 
 eral governments " ; in other words recommenda- 
 tions which each state may or may not, as it sees 
 fit, carry into execution. 
 
 This, then, is the extent of the power of the 
 Council. It may consider the question of arma- 
 ments about the world, draw up what appears to it 
 an equitable basis of armaments, and then submit 
 it to the various nations. There is nothing to 
 obligate those nations to accept the recommenda- 
 tion; nothing that gives the Council power to in- 
 terfere in the question of national armaments in 
 
Disarmament 101 
 
 any way beyond this mere recommendation. If 
 a state accepts it, so much the better; if not there 
 is no penalty except the force of world public 
 opinion. 
 
 Then comes another provision. " After these 
 plans have been adopted by the several govern- 
 ments, the limits of armaments therein fixed shall 
 not be exceeded without the concurrence of the 
 Council." This is a bogey to some people. It 
 simply means, however, that if a state freely and 
 voluntarily accepts a certain program and if other 
 states also accept certain programs based upon 
 that original program, no state shall be free to 
 upset the whole balance whenever it sees fit with- 
 out agreement of the other states. In other 
 words the basis which may finally be agreed upon 
 is intended to have some permanence. 
 
 But not by any means to be perennial. The 
 Covenant strictly provides that such plans shall be 
 subject to reconsideration and revision at least 
 every ten years. So if political conditions change, 
 armaments can be made to change in conformity 
 with them at least every ten years. That seems a 
 reasonable period, for longer would tend to per- 
 
IO2 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 petuate a military situation without regard to the 
 political situation and shorter would tend not to 
 afford the degree of permanence desired. 
 
 Then " the Members of the League agree to 
 undertake to exchange full and frank information 
 as to the scale of their armaments, their military 
 and naval programs and the conditions of such 
 of their industries as are adaptable to warlike 
 purposes." This is one of the greatest advances 
 towards disarmament ever made. Its spirit is 
 bedded in a feeling of mutual faith and confidence 
 among the nations. If carried out, it will put an 
 end to secret preparations, false rumors, vague 
 sensations, and all the other host of evils upon 
 which militarists and demagogues have fattened 
 in the past. 
 
 Next, the principle is accepted that " the man- 
 ufacture by private enterprise of munitions and 
 implements of war is open to grave objection." 
 This, of course, is aimed at overwhelming estab- 
 lishments like the Krupps which have been able 
 not only to mould the policy of their own govern- 
 ments but to keep a whole line of small, satellite 
 governments in a constant state of belligerency. 
 
Disarmament 103 
 
 Private manufacture is not forbidden, it should 
 be noted, because certain nations, notably the 
 United States, are dependent on private sources, 
 but the development of those sources into vast 
 cancer sores of war is specifically frowned upon. 
 The Council " shall advise how the evil effects at- 
 tendant upon such manufacture can be prevented." 
 Obviously, there is here provided a great mul- 
 tiplicity of duties, duties also which are of the 
 most complex and specialized character. The 
 Council, as a body of statesmen, would certainly 
 be unfit to amplify these principles into all their 
 detailed ramifications, for it not only would not 
 have the time but it would soon become lost in 
 technical details. Therefore, Article VIII pro- 
 vides that " a Permanent Commission shall be 
 constituted to advise the Council on the execution 
 of Articles I and VIII and on military and naval 
 questions generally." This Commission was 
 named at the Rome Council meeting of May 20. 
 It should be one of the most promising bodies 
 in the League. It has the power to draw up 
 plans and make recommendations which, if carried 
 out by the various states, will go far towards an- 
 
IO4 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 swering the universal demand for freedom from 
 the yoke of armaments. It holds in its hands 
 the key to a large part of the world's economic 
 future, or in more homely terms, to the amount 
 of taxes you and I will have to pay to compete 
 with the taxpayers of Great Britain, Japan and 
 other nations. 
 
 But before it are equally great difficulties. 
 First, the military elements will undoubtedly 
 make a very strong effort to capture it and con- 
 vert it to their own profit. They will be loath 
 indeed to see any commission constituted which 
 might both counter their own sincere ideas of 
 national protection and also threaten the machine 
 which they have made their life work. Already 
 indeed this attempt at domination is under way 
 and it is as well that the world should be aware 
 of it. 
 
 The balance will be a most difficult one to 
 strike. If too many military men are included 
 in the Commission, its purpose will be destroyed. 
 If, on the other hand, the military men feel them- 
 selves ignored, they will do all in their power to 
 cripple and confuse the Commission, and in a sub- 
 
Disarmament 105 
 
 ject so complex and detailed that will be a great 
 deal. The ideal solution, of course, is to have 
 the major principles laid down by statesmen re- 
 sponsive to the moral opinion of the world and 
 the details worked out by military and naval ex- 
 perts who know how to make these principles 
 effective. 
 
 In meeting the question of disarmament itself, 
 the immensely complicated problem at once arises, 
 what are armaments and on what principle can 
 one weapon of destruction be valued as against an- 
 other? Should an airplane be given equal value 
 with a tank and a torpedo boat with a submarine, 
 or should some percentage ratio be adopted? 
 Different nations will work out their defense pro- 
 grams on different bases and with different values, 
 while at any moment some new invention is apt to 
 tip everything upside down. 
 
 Probably the best approximation will be to con- 
 sider first the offensive or the defensive nature of 
 the armaments, and second, the total number of 
 men enrolled. Certainly a state which confines 
 its defense to, say, coast defense batteries shows a 
 less belligerent character and is less a menace to 
 
106 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 the peace of the world than one equipped with fast 
 travelling artillery. 
 
 These difficulties are insuperable only if they 
 are approached in bad faith. And there is just 
 one atmosphere in which they will be approached 
 in bad faith; namely, indifference and unconcern 
 among the publics of the world. If now, after 
 all the lessons of the war, public interest in re- 
 duction of armaments oozes out and matters are 
 allowed to drift merely of their own momentum, 
 we shall inevitably find ourselves back in the old 
 whirlpool of armaments and counter armaments. 
 If, on the other hand, public opinion, is bold, ag- 
 gressive, and insistent, if it refuses to accept no, 
 if it rides down all opposition, its voice will be 
 heard; the vicious circle will be broken; the world 
 will be freed to devote its energies to peace; and 
 the chances of another Armageddon will fade 
 away. 
 
MINORITIES 
 
 FEW people realize what a very personal and 
 direct relationship the League of Nations bears to 
 large aggregations of individuals in some of the 
 most contested political sections of the world. 
 To many observers, the League is a mere theory 
 of cooperation between nations, a vague possibility 
 of the future, without immediate responsibilities 
 or direct administrative powers. The truth is, 
 however, quite different. 
 
 Many thousands of people, indeed, must look 
 on the League either as their direct governor or 
 as their ultimate hope of freedom from persecu- 
 tion. If the League has no territory of its own, 
 it is today governing the all-important Saar Valley 
 whose six hundred thousand people receive from 
 a Commission appointed by the League their day- 
 to-day government and administration. If it has 
 no capital, it is nevertheless administering the key 
 city of Danzig whose two hundred thousand peo- 
 ple are living under the authority of a High Com- 
 
 107 
 
io8 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 missioner appointed by the League. If it has 
 no citizens, it has accepted the obligation to pro- 
 tect the various racial, religious and linguistic mi- 
 norities embedded in overwhelming hostile major- 
 ities in Poland, Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo-Slavia, 
 Austria, Roumania and Turkey against the abuses 
 which have poisoned history. 
 
 Nor is this all. The League has been pushed 
 for months by the Supreme Council of the Allies 
 to accept a mandate for the persecuted people of 
 Armenia; by practically every negotiator to ac- 
 cept some sort of oversight over the Fiume dis- 
 trict ; by still others to settle the age-long problem 
 of Constantinople by assuring an international ad- 
 ministration in the benefit of all nations. The 
 old diplomacy has failed in these many instances 
 to work out a solution acceptable to all; there- 
 fore it has turned to the new diplomacy in the 
 hope that cooperation between the nations may 
 succeed where competition has gone bankrupt. 
 
 The League has not sought this task. Indeed 
 it desires just as little of it as possible. The work 
 involves most difficult and complicated obligations; 
 it is based either on age-long prejudices or war 
 
Minorities 109 
 
 bitternesses; it offers very little of glory and much 
 of danger. But the League has had to take it, 
 for the bare, simple reason that no other organ- 
 ization was qualified to take it. Having entered 
 the field, it is going ahead with every energy to 
 make the results embody some of the hopes of 
 those placed in its trust. 
 
 The object is two-fold: first^jto-deterrnine the 
 status of certajn contested sections - which might 
 serve as tinderboxes of war between the nations, 
 and second to assure such protection to certain 
 minorities that they will not feel called upon as, 
 for instance, did the Serbs in Austria in 1914, to 
 threaten the peace of the world by sowing enmity 
 between states. This is both good insurance 
 against war for the big states and assurance of 
 protection from persecution for the minorities. 
 Every one stands to gain except either an im- 
 perialistic government which desires annexation, 
 or an over-weening majority which seeks the de- 
 struction of a minority in its midst. 
 
 The world's immediate after-war need is obvi- 
 ous. " In order to build on strong foundations 
 the structure of tomorrow," said M. Bourgeois 
 
no The League of Nations at Work 
 
 of France at the first meeting of the League Coun- 
 cil on January 16, u we must first remove the 
 ruins accumulated by the war." This is one of 
 the most delicate tasks conceivable, for the injury 
 differs in various cases, and the feelings on both 
 sides are at fever heat. Nevertheless, the at- 
 tempt must be made. 
 
 This brings us to the Saar Valley, the first 
 responsibility thrust upon the League. During 
 the war the Germans had outrageously gutted the 
 rich coal mines of Northern France, gutted them 
 so effectively indeed that coal cannot be brought 
 forth again for years. The action seemed taken 
 fully as much for the purpose of crippling France 
 in the after-war competition as for purely mili- 
 tary reasons, especially as most of the damage was 
 done when the German armies were in their final 
 rout. 
 
 But coal is the lifeblood of an industrial nation. 
 To rob it of coal is to enslave it to foreign mines. 
 JHtence, France, with her Lens fields flooded al- 
 most to the mine openings, saw before her a 
 period of dependence either on British coal or, 
 far worse, on the untouched mines of Germany. 
 
Minorities ill 
 
 Obviously this was intolerable, and constituted a 
 wrong which had to be righted at the Peace Con- 
 ference, all the more because Germany's action was 
 largely vand?l. 
 
 The surest way to do it was to make payment 
 in kind; namely, to force Germany to deliver 
 France so many thousands of tons of coal annually 
 till the damage had been repaired. And as this 
 meant a very large figure, it was decided to give 
 France the outright ownership of certain mines 
 in the Saar Valley contiguous to France. This 
 represented a practical reparation, France to own 
 these rich fields in full title, but Germany to have 
 the privilege of repurchase when the Lens fields 
 should have been restored. 
 
 Transfer of what represented the life of the 
 Valley naturally entailed certain political changes. 
 Obviously Germany could not continue to exercise 
 full political sovereignty, for conflict would have 
 been certain between the political and the eco- 
 nomic controllers. Equally obviously the political 
 control could not be given to France, because the . 
 population consisted of about 650,000 inhabitants! 
 of pure German stock. 
 
ii2 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 So the League of Nations was called upon. 
 Germany was required to relinquish sovereignty 
 over the district in favor of the League for a 
 period of fifteen years, after which the inhabitants 
 should decide by plebiscite whether they wish to 
 ! continue on under the League or to be amalga- 
 mated with France or Germany, only those voting 
 who are today residents of the district. Thus 
 France is given reparation; the inhabitants of the 
 district are assured an international administra- 
 tion rather than annexation to a foreign power; 
 Germany meets her bill, and has the assurance of 
 a plebiscite in the district at the end of fifteen years 
 as well as the right to buy back the mines. 
 
 The Peace Treaty provisions are very specific. 
 The League was required to name a boundary 
 Commission within fifteen days of the ratification 
 of the Treaty. Hence came into being the first 
 meeting of the League held at Paris on January 
 1 6, 1920, for this specific purpose, when Colonel 
 Wace of Great Britain, Col. Leite de Castro of 
 Brazil, and Commandant Kobayashi of Japan 
 were selected as the three League members, to be 
 added to a representative of both France and 
 
Minorities 113 
 
 Germany. It is interesting that this first purely 
 European problem should be settled by an English- 
 man, a Jap and a Brazilian, who might well be 
 expected tp be impartial. 
 
 But the Governing Commission was far more 
 important. To this body, as representative of 
 the League, fell all the powers formerly exercised 
 by Germany, Prussia, or Bavaria, in fact every- 
 thing. The six hundred and fifty thousand in- 
 habitants of the Valley were placed absolutely 
 under its charge, subject only to the check of the 
 League itself. At the second meeting of the 
 Council, on February 13, on the recommendation 
 of the Greek representative, M. Caclamanos, the 
 following were appointed: M. Rault, State Coun- 
 cillor, of France; Mr. Alfred von Boch, Landrath 
 de Sarrelouis; Major Lambert of Belgium; Count 
 de Molkte Hvitfeldt of Denmark, and Mr. 
 Waugh of Canada. These men serve for one 
 year, at a salary of 100,000 francs. 
 
 Full instructions were given them. These in- 
 structions were quite specific as to the general 
 purpose and spirit in which the trust should be 
 carried out but general as to actual details. It 
 
H4 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 was desired, first to inculcate the Commission with 
 the theory of absolute impartiality with which the 
 League must approach the administration of its 
 trust in the Saar Valley, and second to leave the 
 Commission full power of local initiative in order 
 to assure efficiency and to keep the League itself 
 free from the detailed problems. 
 
 This Commission formally assumed its duties 
 ; February 26, 1920. For the next fifteen years 
 it will govern the Saar Valley. To the people of 
 the Saar it represents the final administration sub- 
 ject to appeal to the League only. Thus within 
 the Saar the League will take on a very different 
 aspect from what it has generally. We shall hear 
 much of it, for complex questions have already 
 arisen and will continue to arise during the com- 
 ing years. 
 
 Then take Danzig. Here is a key seaport of 
 northeastern Europe, the only available outlet 
 to the sea for the new Poland's 25,000,000 peo- 
 ple. Though historically Polish and set in a vast 
 hinterland of Poles, the city itself has in the past 
 century been so ruthlessly Germanized that today 
 it is admittedly far more German than Polish in 
 
Minorities 115 
 
 its purely local aspects. To the Poles the city 
 represents a life artery of trade, the one outlet to 
 blue water, while to the Germans it represents a 
 city profoundly German in character, with its 
 present affiliations largely reaching out into Ger- 
 many. 
 
 Its disposition proved one of the most thorny 
 problems of the Peace Conference, an almost in- 
 soluble conflict between the opposing theories of 
 free access to the sea and of local self-determina- 
 tion. To award the city outright to either Poland 
 or Germany meant long years of protest and in- 
 trigue by the defeated interests, backed by a strong 
 moral argument and formidable power. 
 
 Therefore, a compromise was struck. Danzig 
 was " established as a Free City and placed under, 
 the protection of the League of Nations," which) 
 was in fact to restore the status under which it 
 had so richly prospered during its earlier history. 
 Of course neither Poland nor Germany was satis- 
 fied, but at least neither was as dissatisfied as if 
 there had been an outright award. Poland is 
 assured her outlet to the sea; Germany has the 
 satisfaction of not seeing the city transferred to 
 
u6 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 an alien nation; and the inhabitants are assured 
 local autonomy under the protection of the 
 League. 
 
 Here again immediate action was necessary. 
 The League Council on February 13, on report of 
 M. Hymans of Belgium, appointed Sir Reginald 
 Tower of Great Britain, previously Allied repre- 
 sentative at Danzig, to be High Commissioner of 
 the Free City subject to control by the League. 
 Sir Reginald was instructed to draw up in agree- 
 ment with the duly appointed representatives of 
 the city a constitution to be approved by the 
 League; to deal in the first instance with any 
 questions arising between the city and Poland; 
 and to keep the League Council fully informed of 
 all matters within his jurisdiction. In a general 
 way he serves as mediator in the conflict between 
 Polish and German interests. 
 
 The protection of racial, religious and linguistic 
 minorities, as provided in the various peace treaties 
 and in certain special treaties, is a task certainly 
 far more indefinite and perhaps even more diffi- 
 cult than the administration of the Saar Valley 
 and the Danzig regions. For it involves both 
 
Minorities 117 
 
 very fine judgment as to the moment of its en- 
 forcement and at the same time a perhaps un- 
 gracious interference in the internal affairs of 
 certain new European nations. 
 
 Protection of minorities was one of the key- J 
 stones of the new structure which was to be built, 
 to remove the causes of war. It is not in any 
 sense a new principle ; indeed it dates far back into 
 the exigencies of European history where so many 
 wandering eddies of people have been swept off 
 under alien rule. As M. Clemenceau wrote Mr. 
 Paderewski in June, 1919 : " It has for a long time 
 been the established procedure of public law of 
 Europe that when a State is created, or even 
 when large accessions of territory are made to an 
 established State, the joint and formal recogni- 
 tion by the great Powers should be accompanied 
 by the requirement that such State should, in the 
 form of a binding international convention, under- 
 take to comply with certain principles of govern- 
 ment." 
 
 Upon this basis, general but at the same time 
 strict clauses were put into various treaties drawn 
 at Paris seeking to safeguard the new political 
 
n8 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 alignments of Europe. Never was there greater 
 need. The new Poland contains large numbers of 
 Germans, Austrians, Russians and the ever perse- 
 cuted Jews; Czecho-Slovakia contains many Ger- 
 mans and other aliens; Roumania has had to take 
 over many Magyars in securing her new racial 
 frontiers; the lands added to Jugo-Slavia brought 
 in many aliens in addition to the dominating Jugo- 
 Slav population; while whatever the final Turkish 
 decision may be, millions of Christians are certain 
 to continue on under Ottoman rule. 
 
 The provisions for protection vary one from 
 another according to the local situation, but in 
 their ultimate purpose are the same. The spe- 
 cial Treaty signed between the Five Principal 
 Allied and Associated Powers and Poland on the 
 same day that Germany signed the Treaty of 
 Versailles, though perhaps more specific and de- 
 tailed than the others, may, however, be taken as 
 a sample, as it is practically identical with treaties 
 signed by Czecho-Slovakia, Jugo-Slavia, Rou- 
 mania and Turkey. 
 
 " Full and complete protection of life and lib- 
 erty to all inhabitants of Poland, without dis- 
 
Minorities 119 
 
 tinction of birth, nationality, language, race or 
 religion," with the full right to exercise any creed, 
 religion or belief, with adequate facilities for the 
 use of minority languages, both in schools and 
 before the courts, and with special provisions to 
 secure respect for the Jewish Sabbath, is recog- 
 nized as " fundamental law " which must be kept 
 inviolate. This law is placed u under the guaran- 
 tee of the League of Nations " and " shall not be 
 modified without the assent of a majority of the 
 Council of the League." Any member of the 
 Council may bring before that body any infrac- 
 tion or danger of infraction, all disputes to be 
 submitted to the Permanent Court of Interna- 
 tional Justice. 
 
 This is a very great, if a very indefinite power. 
 Under it the League is authorized to protest 
 formally any pogrom against the Jews, such as 
 are frequently reported, or to take up any sup- 
 pression of a minority language. Very naturally 
 it is a power which can and will be exercised only 
 most sparingly, as indeed its greatest effectiveness 
 lies far more in the threat of its use than in the 
 actual use itself. 
 
I2O The League of Nations at Work 
 
 There is no exact precedent for it. The minor- 
 ity clauses in previous treaties have relied for 
 their execution, not on an organized, permanent 
 body, but rather on a transient alliance. They 
 have not had great moral authority in their origin 
 or in their safeguarding. Once written into the 
 Treaty, it has been quite simple to forget them. 
 
 Now, however, there is a permanent, continu- 
 ous, ever ready court of appeal, easy of access and 
 sure of action. Even within this short time cer- 
 tain laws have been proposed and certain restric- 
 tions planned in various countries which the 
 League has been quick to see violate the terms of 
 these provisions. As yet no action has been neces- 
 sary because the definite cause nas not arisen, but 
 it is encouraging to know that a vigil is being kept 
 and that a recourse is open. 
 
 Few nations indeed would be so hardy as to dis- 
 regard a statement by the League of Nations in 
 such a matter. No such statement would come 
 unless, first, the nation in question had violated 
 the terms of a solemn treaty and, second, unless 
 the other nations on the League Council agreed 
 that it had done so and that a public protest should 
 
Minorities 121 
 
 be addressed to it. It does not seem strained to 
 say that an enormous stride forward has been 
 taken towards removing one of the worst causes 
 of unrest and friction between the nations. 
 
 Thus in these many cases, in the cases of pro- 
 tection of minorities, and in the cases of the Saar 
 Valley and Danzig, the League has a very direct 
 and personal relationship to a large number of 
 individuals. It has been called in as the only 
 agency able to care for certain very serious but 
 very elusive international difficulties. If it can 
 succeed in these fields, it will not only be of im- 
 measurable value to those immediately affected, 
 but it will sweep away a number of international 
 wrongs most likely to lead to hostilities. 
 
MANDATES 
 
 " A PERMANENT COMMISSION shall be consti- 
 tuted to receive and examine the annual reports 
 of the Mandatories and to advise the Council on 
 all matters relating to the observance of the man- 
 dates." 
 
 These are cold words, perhaps, to many of us, 
 but they are warm indeed to thirteen millions of 
 people in Africa, several hundreds of thousands 
 more in Oceanica, and possibly several other mil- 
 lions in the former Turkish Empire. This one 
 short sentence of Article'JXII of the League 
 Covenant contains within it the possibility of the 
 greatest organized attempt at service that the 
 civilized world has ever united to make. It bids 
 fair to ring down the curtain on the old days of 
 colonial exploitation and create certain bright 
 spots throughout the vast stretches of Africa and 
 the East Indies which cannot but raise the whole 
 moral standard of the world. 
 
 Large aggregations of helpless, dependent peo- 
 
 122 
 
Mandates 123 
 
 pies were left derelict when the war disintegrated 
 the German and Turkish Empires. Under all 
 previous precedent they would have been the spoils 
 of war, turned over to their conquerors for ruth- 
 less exploitation in their far-away corners of the 
 world. But our slowly rising moral standards re- 
 volted at such wholesale disregard of the elemental 
 human rights of those unable to defend them- 
 selves. Therefore these peoples were made 
 wards of civilization, guaranteed a charter of 
 rights, and assured the protection of society or- 
 ganized in the League of Nations. 
 
 This phase of league activity touches us very 
 directly. We do not want all of Africa made 
 into a closed preserve for European exploitation. 
 We desire the open door in all these backward 
 countries. Our trade is now reaching out into 
 every land and every sea. We ask only that it 
 have equal opportunity with the trade of other 
 nations. By establishing these large tracts as 
 mandates, we shall secure that object. If the 
 open door is threatened, we no longer are re- 
 stricted to fulminating high diplomatic notes 
 which usually have little effect beyond the thrill 
 
124 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 of reading them. We can now urge the breach 
 of a solemn contract before the League of Nations. 
 
 Beyond this, however, we are ourselves the 
 authors of this system of trusteeship of backward 
 peoples. After the Spanish War Cuba and the 
 Philippines fell into our laps. We did not -want 
 them but we could not get rid of them. So we 
 educated them. Cuba we have already set free 
 as an independent, sovereign state ; the Philippines 
 we are going about setting free just as fast as the 
 ability of the natives rises to the opportunity. In 
 both cases we regarded ourselves as temporary 
 governors entrusted with the development of the 
 natives for the good of the natives. And now 
 we are to see vastly larger territories given out 
 among half a dozen different nations to be 
 handled in much the same way, except that here 
 the controlling authority will not be the good con- 
 science of any one nation but the united conscience 
 of all. 
 
 If any phase of the peace settlement seemed 
 agreed to when the Peace Conference opened, it 
 was the general principle of trusteeship of back- 
 ward peoples. President Wilson in his Fourteen 
 
Mandates 125 
 
 Points had set forth that " The interests of the 
 populations concerned must have equal weight 
 with the equitable claims of the government whose 
 title has to be determined;'' Lloyd George had 
 said that " the governing consideration must be 
 that the inhabitants should be placed under the 
 control of an administration acceptable to them- 
 selves," General Smuts had warned against a 
 " scramble among the victors for this loot " or 
 " an application of the spoils system at this most 
 solemn juncture in the history of the world." 
 
 But the details remained and these details 
 nearly broke up the Conference. It was always 
 simple enough to say that the colonies should not 
 return to Germany, because Germany had noto- 
 riously abused them and they had been of very 
 little value to her, only 10.000 of her people and 
 one-third of one per cent of her foreign trade 
 going to them. It was equally simple, also, to 
 say that their development should be entrusted to 
 a single nation as trustee for all nations rather 
 than to a joint international administration, as 
 such joint administrations had proved inefficient in 
 the past. 
 
126 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 But it was not so easy to define the terms of 
 the trust. Lloyd George brought in a plan. 
 President Wilson concurred in it. Clemenceau 
 finally agreed over the protest of the French ex- 
 perts. But the British Dominions broke loose en- 
 tirely. Premier Hughes of Australia wanted 
 New Guinea, and wanted it outright. He worked 
 the Conference up into a crisis which for some 
 time threatened to disrupt it, even making mat- 
 ters so warm that President Wilson asked him if 
 he should be understood as delivering an ulti- 
 matum. 
 
 At last, however, on January 20, 1919, agree- 
 ment was reached. That agreement was taken 
 over almost bodily into Article XXII of the 
 Covenant, which in stating that " the well-being 
 and development of such peoples form a sacred 
 trust of civilization," creates a new Magna Charta 
 for the weak, backward, undeveloped peoples of 
 the world. The derelict countries are then di- 
 vided into three classes according to the develop- 
 ment of their people, their geographical relation- 
 ship to the mandatory power, and their economic 
 condition. 
 
Mandates 127 
 
 Further elaboration, however, was still neces- 
 sary. On June 29 a special Mandates Commis- 
 sion of five great Powers, including the United 
 States, laid down details of the first two groups of 
 mandates, leaving the third group which should 
 include the former Turkish territories to be dis- 
 cussed after the Turkish treaty had been com- 
 pleted. Merely the filling in of the name of the 
 mandate country as approved by the Assembly 
 remained. 
 
 The mandates are drawn as treaties of trust 
 which the mandatory power agrees to execute " on 
 behalf of the League of Nations." That nation 
 must protect the native against the arms, drug and 
 liquor traffic, from slavery, forced labor and land 
 abuses. It must guarantee equal rights to na- 
 tionals of other states members of the League. It 
 must submit " an annual report to the satisfaction 
 of the Council, containing full information con- 
 cerning the measures taken to apply the provisions 
 of this mandate." It must submit all disputes to 
 the Permanent Court of International Justice. 
 
 Two details remained unsettled. Japan pro- 
 tested because the open door and freedom of 
 
128 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 immigration were not prescribed for South 
 Africa and New Guinea, an omission purposely 
 made to meet South Africa's fiscal policy and 
 Australia's " white Australia " policy respectively. 
 France insisted that troops may be raised in man- 
 dated territories not only for local defense but 
 for the defense of the mother country, a prohibi- 
 tion originally made to prevent the militarizing 
 of backward countries as a part of European 
 politics. Both claims await early decision by the 
 Assembly or Council. 
 
 During the Peace Conference the mandates were 
 partially awarded. The day Germany was 
 handed the Treaty, the Big Four made the first 
 announcements. After some adjustments Togo- 
 land and the Cameroons on the west coast of Cen- 
 tral Africa were divided between Great Britain 
 and France; German East Africa between Great 
 Britain and Belgium; German Southwest Africa 
 allotted to South Africa; New Guinea and the 
 South Pacific Islands divided between Australia 
 and New Zealand, and the North Pacific Islands 
 allotted Japan. 
 
 There still remained the disposition of all that 
 
Mandates 1 29 
 
 vast territory wrested from the Turk, Palestine, 
 Syria, Armenia and Mesopotamia, which includes 
 some of the richest and most populous parts of 
 the world but which had to await the settlement of 
 the Turkish problem as a whole. Moreover, the 
 project of placing certain parts of Central Europe 
 such as Galicia under mandate has been revived, 
 and it is very possible that some of the insoluble 
 territorial problems of that torn section may be 
 temporarily adjusted in this way. 
 
 The mandatory work of the League will be 
 among its most important, and certainly its least 
 open to attack. The mandatory principle is one 
 of the best guarantees of a new spirit in inter- 
 national relations, for it substitutes the principle 
 of responsibility to a common world morality for 
 that of purely selfish exploitation. It is not that 
 the world has become suddenly purged of all its 
 graspings; far from it indeed. It means simply 
 that a method has now been worked out for the 
 execution of a principle which every one is glad 
 to accept in theory. 
 
 But all this presages organization. The Ger- 
 man plan for a League even went so far as 
 
 .., 
 
 to 
 
130 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 \ call for an International Colonial Office. While 
 the actual League is not quite so ambitious, an or- 
 ganization was very shortly outlined to carry the 
 principles into effect. Most important, of course, 
 will be the Mandatory Commission provided in 
 the Covenant, which will consist of representatives 
 of mandatory and colonial states, with a small 
 permanent force of experts expanded once a year 
 by the addition of special delegates to the annual 
 
 (conference. The Secretariat of the League also 
 has a Mandatory Section, with a more widely in- 
 ternational composition and a more direct respon- 
 sibility to the Council and the Assembly. Then, 
 to avoid duplication and waste effort, as many 
 as possible of the many existing international 
 bureaus dealing with colonial matters, such as the 
 arms, drugs and liquor commissions, will be 
 brought under the wing of the Secretariat. 
 
 Every year we shall have a meeting of the 
 League before which each government entrusted 
 with the administration of a backward people will 
 make itSj report to the conscience of mankind. 
 Imagine the scene when Great Britain, and France, 
 and Australia, and Belgium, and South Africa, 
 
Mandates 131 
 
 and Japan all come before this tribunal and state 
 just what they have done during the past year 
 for the natives placed under their guardianship. 
 Slave raids cannot continue under this world spot- 
 light; the nefarious traffic in arms, drugs and 
 liquors must cease; the wholesale destruction of 
 tribes such as that of the Herreros by the Ger- 
 mans will be at an end, and most probably the 
 slaughter of the Armenians will be terminated. 
 
 Or take the terrible abuses years ago in the 
 Belgian Congo, which are still fresh in men's 
 minds. Outraged though the civilized world was 
 at the reports which came from that vast territory, 
 no instrumentality was at hand through which it 
 could act. The International Conference at 
 Brussels in 1890 .had laid down generous rules 
 for African colonization but had provided no 
 method by which it could automatically reassemble 
 to see that those rules were being respected. 
 Consequently, the various nations all stood silent, 
 each fearful of taking any action which might 
 appear unfriendly. The League of Nations or- 
 ganization, however, dissipates this danger at 
 once through the simple provision of an annual 
 
132 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 conference and the necessity of a full report " to 
 the satisfaction of the Council." 
 
 It would be a bold nation which would refuse to 
 bring itself in line with enlightened practice or 
 withstand the directed criticism of world public 
 opinion. It is not too much to hope that under 
 the urge of publicity the pride of the various na- 
 tions may be stimulated to a new kind of competi- 
 tion, a competition not to see how much they can 
 get out of their wards but rather to see how much 
 they can put into them. The French might well 
 be disappointed if the British made a better show- 
 ng in developing one of their colonies, or the South 
 Africans come to vie with the Australians in the 
 work given them. 
 
 And if such a lift in standards occurs in the 
 territories under mandate, is it conceivable that it 
 will be without effect on the vast colonial world 
 not so controlled? If the former German 
 Cameroons, for instance, are freed from many of 
 the existing colonial evils, would it be possible for 
 the old-line colonies right alongside to persist in 
 these abuses? Hardly, indeed, for, after all, 
 good is contagious in this world of ours, and the 
 
Mandates 133 
 
 / 
 
 natural tendency is for people to lift themselves 
 
 higher and still higher all the time. 
 
 The mandate principle marks such a complete 
 reversal of the commonly accepted practises of 
 colonial exploitation and such a stride forward in 
 service to the backward peoples that many earnest 
 observers fear it is too good for a greedy, cold- 
 blooded world. That danger must be admitted 
 frankly at the very outset. The mandate prin- 
 ciple is indeed far ahead of any practise of today. 
 
 There is only one way in which it will ever be 
 lived up to. That way is through the earnest, 
 intelligent interest of the peoples of the world 
 demanding it. If the mandatory reports fall upon 
 cold hearers, if the world turns its back, the old 
 abuses, the old evils, the old competitions will 
 continue their ravages among these wards of 
 civilization. It will not be enough to draw up a 
 generous mandate treaty or establish a mandate 
 commission; the spotlight of world interest and 
 responsibility must play fiercely upon the appointed 
 trustees and each and all of us must feel, so far 
 as these helpless natives are concerned, that we 
 are in a very real sense our brother's keeper. 
 
134 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 Here surely is a work which no one nation can 
 adequately perform but which all nations can unite 
 to do for their mutual benefit. 
 
FREEDOM OF TRANSIT 
 
 SUPPOSE some bright morning we should wake 
 up to find that Canada had put up a great sign 
 across the St. Lawrence River reading " No Thor- 
 oughfare for Americans." This would be neither 
 without precedent nor without certain legal justi- 
 fication. The St. Lawrence runs for hundreds 
 of miles through Canadian territory and is ex- 
 clusively under her jurisdiction. 
 
 We should, of course, be very hot about it, 
 feel deeply outraged, talk of retaliation, even of 
 war, and we should have a perfectly good right 
 to. To understand why, ask any business man 
 of Buffalo, Detroit, Chicago, or any farmer of the 
 mid-West what would happen if this great natural 
 outlet for his products were suddenly closed by an 
 alien power. 
 
 Exactly this thing, however, nearly did happen 
 years ago. In 1823 the British passed bother- I 
 some regulations entangling our St. Lawrence 
 
 135 
 
136 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 trade. Forthwith Secretary of State Adams pro- 
 tested to London that if they had a " right of 
 sovereignty," we had " a right of nature which 
 the sovereign right of one nation cannot annihi- 
 late," namely " the natural right of communicating 
 with the ocean by the only outlet provided by na- 
 ture." This failed, however, to appeal to British 
 humor, which immediately called the claim 
 " equally novel and extraordinary." 
 
 Two years later we struck a religious motif. 
 Secretary Clay told London the river must be 
 considered " as a free gift flowing from the bounty 
 of Heaven intended for all whose lots are cast 
 upon its borders." But even that left England 
 cold. It was only in 1854, when Britain wanted 
 certain privileges of free import, that we were 
 able by exchange to secure equal rights of naviga- 
 tion. 
 
 But in 1866 these privileges were suspended. 
 President Grant told Congress that " an un- 
 friendly disposition " had been manifested on the 
 part of Canada to exclude Americans from the St. 
 Lawrence, which constituted " a natural outlet to 
 the ocean for eight states with an aggregate pop- 
 
Freedom of Transit 137 
 
 ulation of 17,600,000 inhabitants, and an ag- 
 gregate tonnage of 661,367 tons." This time we 
 won out and by the Treaty of Washington of 
 1871, the St. Lawrence was declared forever free 
 and open to Americans. 
 
 Today, then, we use the river on terms of per- 
 fect equality with Canada, as an essential link be- 
 tween our interior storehouses and granaries and 
 the purchasing world overseas. So also with the 
 Rio Grande and Colorado, our other " interna- 
 tional " rivers. We have struck bargains with 
 our neighbors to share and share alike in these 
 great gifts of Nature, and to give up something 
 of the unlimited right of possession in order to 
 gain more than is lost. 
 
 But Europe has found no such simple solution. 
 Her rivers are peculiarly vagrant and wayward, 
 winding their way in and out among the nations 
 and provocative of dispute ever since feudalism 
 split up the unified control of the old Roman days. 
 The peoples of Europe have massed in racial 
 blocks along the broad convolutions of geography 
 so that those in the uplands are quite distinct from 
 those on the seaboard. , As if by a freak of Na- 
 
138 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 ture, the people who own the top of a watercourse 
 very seldom own its outlet. 
 
 Take the Rhine, for instance. It starts in 
 Switzerland, runs a little way alongside France, 
 then a long way through Germany, and finally a 
 little way more through Holland into the sea. 
 Or the Danube, which starts in Germany, runs 
 through Czecho-Slovakia, Austria, Hungary, 
 Servia, Bulgaria and Roumania. So in turn we 
 might name the Elbe nations, the Niemcn nations, 
 the Oder nations, the Scheldt nations, each of 
 them in a large sense a single economic group 
 though split into distinct, jangling political divi- 
 sions. 
 
 If we nearly went to war with Spain in the 
 early days because she tried to choke our outlet 
 through the Mississippi, we should be able to ap- 
 preciate the chaos which might arise from half a 
 dozen rival nations all scrambling to dominate the 
 same essential trade river. No power can be 
 more merciless than that of being able to put up 
 a " No Thoroughfare " sign across another na- 
 tion's commerce. A burglar with a pistol at your 
 head has not more control over you than has one 
 
Freedom of Transit 139 
 
 nation over another if it controls a seaport or river 
 essential to that nation. A slight change in rates 
 or an apparently innocent traffic regulation may 
 spell economic disaster. 
 
 And now take railroads. They are no less 
 vital as arteries of commerce, and no less baffling 
 in their crisscrossing of frontiers. Indeed man 
 has probably outdone Nature in the complexity of 
 the problems he has created about the subject of 
 communications. The Orient Express, for in- 
 stance, starts in Switzerland, runs through Austria, 
 Servia, Bulgaria and into Turkey, crossing five 
 customs frontiers at each of which petty Balkan 
 politicians may stand across the path of world 
 commerce. 
 
 Again in this matter we in the United States 
 have been fortunate. We have created, or rather 
 evolved, the Interstate Commerce Commission 
 which is the greatest arbiter of railroad difficulties 
 in history. It prevents a sudden ban being erected 
 against trade out of New England; lays down 
 equitable rates for freight from Illinois; and as- 
 sures Kansas City adequate freight car facilities. 
 
 Europe, however, has been too chopped up to 
 
140 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 evolve such a body. It never has had any guar- 
 antee of just traffic arrangements. Business has 
 stumbled along by the grace, or often in spite of, 
 the statesman, and trade has often degenerated 
 to economic duelling across customs frontiers. 
 There has been utterly lacking any Interstate 
 Commerce Commission to assure the free flow of 
 trade. 
 
 Take Czeqho-Slovakia as an instance. Here is 
 a wholly inland state, shut off from the sea on all 
 sides, a nation utterly dependent on imports and 
 exports, yet completely at the mercy of semi- 
 hostile states all about. If Germany, Austria and 
 Poland want to crush her, all they need to do is 
 impose a slight discriminatory tax on her freight. 
 It would not take long, nor would it be sensa- 
 tional. 
 
 If nations have all too often set themselves up 
 as international robbers along the world's trade 
 thoroughfares, they will have all the more op- 
 portunities to do so in the future. The break-up 
 of the German,, Austrian, Turkish and Russian 
 Empires has greatly increased the number of polit- 
 ical units and the frequency of customs lines. 
 
Freedom of Transit 141 
 
 New nations, Poland and Czecho-Slovakia, have 
 been hewn out; old nations, Austria and Hungary, 
 have been split apart. If it was hard under the 
 old centralized governments to share the highways 
 of Nature and of man justly, it will be still harder 
 in the future. 
 
 There is but one way. A new reign of law 
 must be created. If not, new wars are inevitable, 
 and it has been pretty well proved that if you once 
 touch off the flame in Europe, it spreads world- 
 wide. Wars do not arise solely out of " politics " 
 as such. They come of much more humble origin, 
 of the homely things behind politics such as com- 
 mercial persecution, economic imprisonment, and 
 unjust discrimination. Jail a nation's commerce, 
 saddle it with restrictions, or refuse it free outlet 
 into the world's trade stream and that nation will 
 very shortly prefer war as a desperate way to 
 break through. 
 
 The Peace Conference realized this. One of 
 its first commissions was for " the international 
 regime of ports, waterways and railways." For 
 eight weary months it dealt in the most homely of 
 economic difficulties, of provisions for dredging 
 
142 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 rivers, for universal couplers for freight cars, and 
 for various other matters which few of us would 
 associate with making the world safe for democ- 
 racy. At the end it put into the Treaty the fifty 
 immensely detailed, complicated pages of Chapter 
 XII establishing international control for such 
 great rivers as the Rhine, Danube, Elbe and 
 Niemen, and assuming some kind of outlet to the 
 sea for landlocked states such as Poland and 
 Czecho-Slovakia. 
 
 Over these various rivers an International Com- 
 mission, variously constituted, was established to 
 see that channels were kept dredged, dangerous 
 shoals marked, and tolls kept equitable. All the 
 rich experience in pre-war international control of 
 the Rhine and the Danube Was called upon, and 
 safeguards as numerous as possible thrown about 
 the preservation of freedom of transit on these 
 great trade highways. 
 
 As to railroads, the victorious Powers assured 
 to themselves freedom of transit across German 
 territory on principles which would have been 
 more just if reciprocal. Constructively, however, 
 the much more important provision was inserted 
 
Freedom of Transit 143 
 
 assuring Czecho-Slovakia freedom of access to the 
 sea in both directions. To the north she is 
 given a free port in Stettin to facilitate overseas 
 trade, and to the south she is given the right to 
 run her own through trains across Hungary, Aus- 
 tria, Jugo-Slavia to Trieste or Fiume. Thus in a 
 measure she is relieved of the fear of economic 
 strangulation which would have made her career 
 as a state utterly impossible. 
 
 But both for rivers and for railroads, difficulties 
 were certain to rise. The guiding principles laid 
 down at best were rudimentary, and the possibili- 
 ties of misunderstanding and honest differences 
 manifold. Certain temporary solutions had been 
 found for the most glaring cases but a sweeping 
 solution still remained to be made. 
 
 So the League of Nations was turned to. It was 
 turned to in two quite different ways. First it was 
 given specific authority over specific details aiming 
 at freedom of communications in the Treaty. All 
 disputes arising under these detailed provisions, 
 all technical difficulties, and the appointment of 
 many experts are referred to the League. So also ' 
 is the complete revision of all these fifty compli- 
 
144 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 cated pages. The League thus becomes the gen- 
 eral supervisor and arbiter of all these settlements 
 which have become part of world public law. 
 
 Much more than this, however, was aimed at 
 in the second appeal to the League. Article 
 XXIII, Paragraph e, of the Covenant itself, is 
 all-inclusive. The League is authorized " to 
 secure and maintain freedom of communications 
 and transit for all members of the League." If 
 that single phrase, expressed in all its colorless, un- 
 imaginative language, could be carried out, it 
 would go far towards establishing the League as 
 the terminator of one of the most fertile causes 
 of war. Every nation would be given an equal 
 chance to compete in world trade and cutthroat 
 economo-politics would disappear. 
 
 With a double program both of great detail and 
 of unlimited broadness thus laid out, considerable 
 administrative machinery will be necessary. For- 
 tunately, when the original Ports, Waterways and 
 Railways Commission of the Peace Conference 
 finished its duties, the French asked the nations 
 represented on it, together with the three neutral 
 nations of Spain, Holland and Switzerland, to 
 
Freedom of Transit 145 
 
 carry on the general projects laid down and con- 
 sider more generally plans for the future. While 
 this Commission was working through the fall and 
 winter, the newly formed Secretariat of the 
 League also created a special section to consider 
 transit problems from the purely League point of 
 view. 
 
 So we come to February 13, 1920. On that 
 day, at the second meeting of the Council of the 
 League, Baron Quinones de Leon, Spanish repre- 
 sentative, the first neutral formally to participate 
 in this world reorganization, brought in a full re- 
 port on the League's relation to freedom of com- 
 munication. After elaborating the situation as 
 " of the highest importance," he proposed, and the 
 Council unanimously adopted, a plan whereby the 
 existing commission should be asked, first to ad- 
 vise the Council on the detailed duties involved 
 in the Peace Treaty, second to submit plans for a 
 permanent League organization to deal with free- 
 dom of communication, and third, to prepare four 
 draft conventions on Transit, Ports, Waterways 
 and Railways. 
 
 So the future stands out. Under the Peace 
 
146 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 Treaty a half dozen international commissions 
 will attempt to secure freedom of communication 
 on as many key rivers of Europe, with all disputes 
 and revisions to be referred to the League. Un- 
 der the League itself a Permanent Commission 
 on Communication and Transit will be in constant 
 session, and a general world conference will be 
 called every so often to approve general conven- 
 tions for submission to the member nations. Al- 
 ready the rules, organization and procedure of 
 these bodies is drawn up, and undoubtedly early 
 steps will be taken to bring them to fruition. 
 
 The full sweep of this work no one today can 
 foresee. If this article at present deals largely 
 with Europe it is because it is the European prob- 
 lems which are the most acute. Similar if less 
 flagrant difficulties, however, exist all over the 
 world and will generate friction increasingly as 
 world commerce spreads out into the new coun- 
 tries. We have the Congo in Africa, which is 
 already the cause of international agreements; we 
 have immense rivers in South America and Asia; 
 we also have great trunk continental railroads 
 cutting across South America, Africa and Asia. 
 
Freedom of Transit 147 
 
 An American's first query in connection with 
 this aspect of the League usually is: " How about 
 the Panama Canal?" The answer is simple. 
 We ourselves, by a very strict adherence to 
 treaty, wrote into law exactly the principles which 
 it is sought to apply to other general waterways. 
 If, therefore, we have nothing to fear as regards 
 the Panama Canal, it is equally true that we have 
 much to hope for as regards Suez, Kiel, Singapore 
 and Constantinople. If we connived at Panama's 
 independence on the high moral ground of build- 
 ing a " world highway," we enunciated and later 
 put into practise the principles that ships of all 
 nations should be treated on an equality there. 
 
 Success to the general principles behind freedom 
 of transit means removal of one of the most fre- 
 quent, yet most subtle causes of war. It means 
 absolute freedom of opportunity for all nations 
 to compete in world trade without at the same 
 time giving up any just right. It means an end of 
 that system of brigandage which the convolutions 
 of Nature and the divergence of races have made 
 inevitable in Europe, and the substitution of a 
 reign of impartiality and justice wherever in the 
 
148 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 world such problems arise. Nations henceforth, 
 if these plans succeed, would be able to share and 
 share alike in Nature's highways of trade with- 
 out one nation being able to act as dog in the 
 manger to another. One more field of inter- 
 national cooperation for international peace is 
 thereby made accessible, but it can be fully utilized 
 only by the most careful, painstaking, and non- 
 spectacular work. 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL LABOR 
 ORGANIZATION 
 
 THE raising of labor standards throughout the 
 world, particularly the raising of the standards of 
 the backward countries to compare with those of 
 the more liberal and progressive countries, is one 
 of the hotly contested yet vitally important fields 
 of usefulness of the League of Nations. Already, 
 quite modestly and unheralded, forty nations have 
 met in what was probably the most imposing and 
 the most productive labor conference ever held, 
 and an official International Labor Office has been 
 created as a central world clearing house of labor 
 information and activity. Today, consequently, 
 as part of the League, a permanent labor organ- 
 ization is actually functioning and a series of an- 
 nual world labor conferences has begun. 
 
 This is big work. The world is so close-knit 
 today, and the play of economic forces is so inter- 
 acting, that one part of the world cannot be dis- 
 
 149 
 
150 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 interested in the labor standards of another. At 
 Washington recently, for instance, we witnessed 
 the spectacle of French labor and Italian labor 
 and Dutch labor and Belgian labor rising in their 
 Dlaces one after the other to state that the laboring 
 man in France and Italy and Holland and Belgium, 
 and the employers as well, would never be safe 
 so long as the laboring man halfway around the 
 world in Japan is allowed to work ten, eleven, 
 twelve, even thirteen hours a day. 
 
 Who was it, it is interesting to ask, who 
 most earnestly urged that Germany be admitted to 
 this conference at Washington? For the word 
 had gone out that unless the Germans were pres- 
 ent, European labor, at least, would not be present 
 either, and this at a time when any attempt at 
 rapprochement with Germany was considered al- 
 most treason. It was none other than French 
 labor itself, French labor which had suffered more 
 than anyone else from the Germans. This does 
 lot mean that all of a sudden the French were 
 Dvercome with sympathy for the Germans, but 
 simply that they had the perspicacity to see that if 
 ten or twelve hours a day were worked on the 
 
The International Labor Organization 151 
 
 German side of the Rhine, ten and twelve hours a 
 day would similarly by the laws of competition be 
 worked on their own side of the Rhine. And the 
 Germans were admitted, though unable to arrive 
 in time. 
 
 The world labor problem is most intricate. 
 Though the world is split up into neat little com- 
 partments, either by race, by climate, or by polit- 
 ical frontier, trade sweeps majestically back and 
 forth, far above these little human divisions, tak- 
 ing products from the cheap-labor market into 
 the high-labor market, . from the savage tropical 
 countries to the most highly developed industrial 
 nations, without thought as to the wage scale or 
 the labor conditions which lie at the root of all 
 competition. Obviously, there must be some ap- 
 proximation of standards if there is not to be 
 merciless competition and the consequent dragging 
 down of the higher standard countries to the level 
 of the lower standard countries. 
 
 It is an old, old realization that labor condi- 
 tions in one country vitally affect those in another. 
 Governments have taken some halting steps 
 towards uniformity in betterment, but have gotten 
 
152 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 almost nowhere. Labor has also tried through 
 various international conferences, and finally 
 through the Internationale, but here too the results 
 have been meagre, as the movement has become 
 more and more one of class hostility without the 
 backing of the forces actually in power. 
 
 This brings us to the Peace Conference, when 
 unrest was seething beneath society as never be- 
 fore. Millions of men were being thrown back 
 from the armies into industry, were asking if it 
 had all been worth while, were being tempted 
 by the baffling call of the Internationale and 
 the dreaded appeal of Bolshevism. Labor was 
 divided, part wishing to fight its way through 
 )urely political action, part wishing to reconstitute 
 he war-shattered Internationale as a labor polit- 
 cal machine, part headed for extremism and Bol- 
 hevism. To meet this, the Internationale Labor 
 Organization was formed as an associate of the 
 League of Nations. 
 
 Universal peace, says the Treaty " can be estab- 
 lished only if it is based on social justice." There- 
 upon, it goes on to say that " conditions of labor 
 exist involving such injustice, hardship and priva- 
 
The International Labor Organization 153 
 
 tion to large numbers of people as to produce un- 
 rest so great that the peace and harmony of the 
 world are imperilled and an improvement of these 
 conditions is urgently required." This is aiming 
 high, but it is wholly in keeping with the spirit 
 and purpose behind the League of Nations, which, 
 it must always be remembered, seeks to amelio- 
 rate not merely the political causes of war but all 
 causes. 
 
 J There is one vital factor about the International 
 Labor Office and the annual International Labor 
 Conference. It is not a government body en- 
 tirely, nor an employers' body, nor a workers' 
 body; it is a composite of all three together. Its 
 purpose is not to form a focus point for the the- 
 ories of bureaucrats about labor, or for the class 
 interests of employers or employees, but to make 
 a meeting place where all three interests, the state, 
 capital, and labor, may come together to discuss 
 their common problems from a fully rounded point 
 of view. The Conference is therefore composed 
 of two representatives of government and one 
 representative each of capital and labor from I 
 every member state. 
 
154 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 Radicals in the labor movement object to this 
 scheme of organization. They claim that labor 
 will generally be outvoted by the state and the 
 employers and feel that if there is to be an inter- 
 national Labor organization, it should be all labor 
 rather than diluted by hostile elements. This 
 viewpoint, however, fails to take into considera- 
 tion that the government delegates often vote with 
 labor against the employers, as indeed they did at 
 Washington, and that the labor office will be a 
 supplement, far more than a substitute, for the 
 Vegular existing labor agencies. 
 
 Secondly, like the other phases of the League 
 of Nations, the Labor Organization will not have 
 decisive power. It can merely recommend. No 
 government is bound to accept its recommenda- 
 tions, nor indeed can a recommendation be made 
 unless two-thirds of the members of the annual 
 Conference approve. This assures, first, that no 
 recommendation can be made unless it meets with 
 a very strong endorsement from the three sides 
 interested in labor, and second that even when 
 made an individual state which disapproves a 
 recommendation need not accept it. 
 
The International Labor, Organization 155 
 
 J The only obligation resting upon the members 
 of the League is to present to the proper body 
 within one year's time the recommendations ar- 
 rived at by the Conference. In other words, 
 every nation has agreed that if two-thirds of the 
 members of an organization embracing all the na- 
 tions of the world agree that a certain labor policy 
 should become world-wide, it will refer that 
 recommendation to the body especially competent 
 within itself to handle the question. 
 
 This may seem like very little real power. In 
 reality, however, it is a very great power. It is 
 a power which never before has existed. First, it 
 provides an annual forum and a continuing body 
 for the study of labor questions. Second, it en- 
 ables those bodies, composed of experts as they 
 are, to formulate definite labor policies which they 
 consider to represent the viewpoint of enlightened 
 liberalism. Those viewpoints instead of being 
 mere pious wishes cast off into the blue must be 
 submitted to the authorities in each state, submit- 
 ted with all the prestige and influence behind them 
 which can not but come from a body representing 
 the world's moral judgment. Few nations will 
 
156 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 ignore them without a very sufficient and admissi- 
 ble reason. 
 
 Fortunately, guesswork is not necessary as re- 
 gards the Labor Organization. It is possible to 
 judge of it by actual accomplishments. The first 
 International Labor Conference has already held 
 its sessions in Washington and the permanent In- 
 ternational Labor Office is now functioning in Lon- 
 don preparatory to the settlement of the final seat 
 of the League. Both show sane, sober, substan- 
 tial progress towards alleviating some of the 
 grosser difficulties in the present world economic 
 organization. 
 
 The Washington Conference was successful be- 
 yond expectation. Forty nations were present, 
 belligerents, neutrals, Europeans, South Amer- 
 icans, Asians, and new states like Poland, Czecho- 
 slovakia and Finland at their first International 
 Conference. No precedent existed for it in labor 
 history, superficially because of its world-wide 
 sweep but more fundamentally because its find- 
 ings had to be submitted to the Parliaments of the 
 world for acceptance or rejection. 
 
 Agreement was reached on every item submitted 
 
The International Labor Organization 157 
 
 to the Conference by the Peace Treaty. This is 
 remarkable because the agenda required greater 
 advance than had been made in the whole history 
 of the international labor movement, and that too 
 at a Conference containing states both liberal and 
 backward, industrial and agricultural, seasoned 
 and newly born. In the final voting the individual 
 interests of the three groups, governments, em- 
 ployers and employees, were swept aside and a 
 virtually unanimous moral judgment rendered. 
 j The results will, if adopted by the nations, tend 
 greatly to humanize labor conditions, especially 
 in the backward countries. Without entering into 
 detail, they include six draft conventions to be 
 signed as treaties and providing acceptance of 
 the eight-hour day and the forty-eight hour week, 
 protection of women in industry by forbidding 
 night workVand allowing mothers six weeks' rest, 
 with either state or other aid, both before and 
 after childbirth,] protection of children in industry 
 by fixing 14 as the minimum age of employment 
 and by forbidding night work to those under 18, 
 and restriction of unemployment by dissemination 
 of information and establishment of unemploy 
 
158 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 ment offices and insurance. Besides this are nine 
 recommendations seeking to make industry less 
 dangerous to health and employment less preca- 
 rious. 
 
 These recommendations are now before the 
 competent authorities of forty nations for accept- 
 ance or rejection, backed as they are by the en- 
 dorsement of the governments, employers and 
 workers of practically the whole world. No one 
 can say what will be their fate, but even if ac- 
 cepted by no nation, they nevertheless mark the 
 highroad of world labor development of today. 
 No liberal nation can fall below these standards; 
 many backward nations may still look up to them 
 as their goal of achievement. 
 
 Meanwhile, the International J,al|pr Office, 
 which is to be the permanent body, has organized. 
 Albert Thomas, of France, selected as a sound, 
 progressive labor leader best calculated to rally 
 the support of labor about the new organization, 
 has been elected Director-General. The Govern- 
 ing Body representing states of the chief industrial 
 importance has held several sessions. The jour- 
 
The International Labor Organization 159 
 
 nal of labor facts and information called for in the 
 Treaty has been laid out. An international con- 
 ference on Seamen's labor was convened at Genoa 
 
 in June. In a general way the machinery has 
 
 
 been set going, as required in the Treaty, for " the 
 
 collection and distribution of information on all 
 subjects relating to the international adjustments 
 of conditions of industrial life and labor, and par- 
 ticularly the examination of subjects which it is 
 proposed to bring before the Conference with a 
 view to the conclusion of international conventions 
 and the conduct of such special investigations as 
 may be ordered by the Conference." 
 
 Certain broad lines of progress are already 
 clear. First the world will be cut along new lines. 
 On the one hand we will have the nations of 
 Europe, which import raw materials and export 
 labor, and on the other the newer countries of the 
 Americas and South Africa which export raw ma- 
 terials and import labor. The Washington Con- 
 ference ran hard aground on these questions when 
 it took up the study of unemployment, for the 
 scarcity of raw materials is the cause and emigra- 
 
160 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 tion the effect of great masses of men without 
 work. Unable to find a solution, it passed both 
 questions on to the Labor Office. 
 
 So, too, we will have the highly industrialized 
 countries as against the non-industrialized coun- 
 tries; Europe and Asia, for instance, against Japan 
 and China. Western standards and Western pay 
 are much higher than Eastern, yet a sturdy com- 
 petition is already developing between the prod- 
 ucts of the two systems. Shall the West reduce 
 standards to meet the East, or shall the East 
 raise standards to meet the West ? The beginning 
 of that question was settled in Washington, when 
 Japan accepted advances in her labor standards 
 which for her are little short of revolutionary. 
 Further progress along the same line will keep 
 all nations abreast in the protection of labor and 
 in the struggle for world trade. 
 
 Such, then, is the League's opportunity in labor 
 protection. Unquestionably it has already proved 
 that there is a genuine place in world policy for 
 cooperation along this line. The results so far 
 achieved could have been achieved only through 
 exactly this sort of machinery, and are obviously 
 
The International Labor Organization 161 
 
 too vital to be lost. This is not to say that the 
 League can solve the age-long struggle between 
 labor and capital, for that struggle can be settled 
 only locally in each large economic unit, such as 
 North America, South America, Europe, China, 
 India and so forth, but rather that the League 
 will be a big factor in helping liberal, humanitarian 
 movements in the labor field and in protecting 
 the progressive communities against unfair compe- 
 tition from those less advanced. 
 
THE INTERNATIONAL HEALTH 
 ORGANIZATION 
 
 4 THE mightiest danger to all humanity since 
 the Deluge " is the highly sensational description 
 given to the after-war scourges now sweeping 
 Eastern Europe and Asia which the League of 
 Nations has been called on to endeavor to check. 
 And the description comes, not from a sensational- 
 ist, not from a person overbalanced by sympathy 
 or panic, but from a hard-headed, unsensational 
 New York banker, head of the American Red 
 Cross, chairman of the International Congress of 
 the League of Red Cross Societies which met in 
 Geneva in March, in short, Henry P. Davison. 
 
 Mr. Davison does not conceal his alarm over 
 the world's health a year and a half after the 
 armistice. The League of Red Cross Societies, he 
 says, is doing everything in its power, but " it is 
 impossible to check this danger by private means. 
 It is a matter to be handled by governments. 
 
 162 
 
The International Health Organization 163 
 
 They handled the war and this is worse than 
 war." So again the League is appealed to, ap- 
 pealed to for a form of international cooperation 
 quite different from the political work so often 
 exclusively associated with it, yet probably far 
 more vital and hopeful. 
 
 What new is to be said about after-war condi- 
 tions? The world is surfeited with horrors. Its 
 sympathies and emotions are worn threadbare. 
 It reads of plagues and diseases almost dumbly. 
 Every feeling which can be drawn upon has been 
 drawn upon. That more people are dying daily 
 in the after-war than during the war, dying slow, 
 anguishing deaths, leaves us cold. Public opinion 
 has fallen back exhausted and insensate. It can 
 not assimilate more. 
 
 Yet it must. Mr. Balfour, at the time presi- 
 dent of the Council of the League of Nations, 
 summarized the world's plight thus in a letter to 
 Mr. Davison : " The ravages inflicted by disease 
 upon the war-worn and underfed populations of 
 Central Europe, to say nothing of regions further 
 east, have reached appalling proportions. Men, 
 women and children are dying by thousands, and 
 
164 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 over vast and civilized areas there are neither 
 medical appliances nor medical skill sufficient to 
 cope with the horrors by which we are faced . . . 
 for dealing with a calamity which, following hard 
 on war, seems almost worse than war itself." 
 
 Let no one think this is a local problem only. 
 Quite the contrary, it is a world problem. Dis- 
 ease knows no frontiers. The political divisions 
 which man has created are non-existent in its for- 
 ward march. It sweeps on, regardless of the 
 conventional ports of entry and of man-made reg- 
 ulations. Trains in their transcontinental jour- 
 neys, ships in their voyages about the Seven Seas, 
 even the atmosphere itself in its restless currents, 
 serve as the medium of travel by which the scourge 
 of one section may reach the health of another. 
 
 Disease and sickness are world-wide. Both 
 their cause and their remedy are the same in one 
 place as in another. The lessons learned in the 
 tragedy, say, of Poland, may well be the salvation 
 of the United States. The gains of science in its 
 ceaseless struggle amidst the ravages of a disease 
 must be instantly reported to sections still only 
 threatened. What above all is needed is a means 
 
The International Health Organization 165 
 
 first to universalize new methods of prevention 
 and cure the moment they become discovered, and 
 second to assure the cooperation of all states in 
 a concerted attack upon an incipient plague. 
 
 America can not claim isolation from this 
 world problem. To again quote Mr. Davison, 
 " America is just as unsafe as Europe from 
 typhus and the white plague now spreading over 
 the world with lightning rapidity." Every ship 
 that comes to our shores, every immigrant that 
 enters our portals, every home-coming American 
 traveler indeed, may bring the dread disease. We 
 have only one method of insurance, namely to co- 
 operate with other nations in stamping disease out 
 at its starting point and in spreading knowledge of 
 disease prevention and insulation. 
 
 It is not enough that each nation of itself have 
 good health laws and protective machinery. All 
 its good efforts may easily be vitiated by the care- 
 lessness of another state in allowing a plague to 
 generate which may sweep over half the world 
 before it is beaten down. The danger of con- 
 tagion can of course be reduced, but it can never 
 be avoided. The great scourges which have in 
 
1 66 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 the past ravaged the world have done so because 
 they suddenly became too powerful for local au- 
 thorities to handle and set out for wider fields of 
 conquest. 
 
 The framers of the Covenant of the League 
 realized this, even in the press of their other far 
 more contentious labors. Twice in the Covenant 
 they signalized it. Under Article XXIII the 
 members of the League agree " to take steps in 
 matters of international concern for the preven- 
 tion and control of disease " and under Article 
 XXV " to encourage and promote the establish- 
 ment and cooperation of duly authorized voluntary 
 national Red Cross organizations having as pur- 
 poses the improvement of health, the prevention 
 of disease, and the mitigation of suffering through- 
 out the world." It is interesting that of all the 
 special activities which sought recognition when 
 the Covenant was being framed, educational 
 bodies, international associations, farmers' move- 
 ments, the Red Cross alone secured mention. 
 
 This recognition immediately offered a chal- 
 lenge to those engaged in organizing the League. 
 What, in detail, did these two very general 
 
The International Health Organization 167 
 
 phrases mean? What sort of duties did they im- 
 pose upon the League? How were those duties 
 to be translated into accomplishment? For sev- 
 eral months following the signing of the Treaty 
 these questions were threshed out till finally a 
 scheme of organization and usefulness was fully 
 evolved. Consequently at the first real business 
 meeting of the Council of the League in London 
 on February 13, M. da Cunha, who interestingly 
 enough is a Brazilian representative on the Coun- 
 cil, was able to ask specific authority to go ahead. 
 " If there is a field of action," he said, " in 
 which the League of Nations can bring immediate 
 relief to nations and one which will affect indi- 
 viduals in their personal and family lives, it is the 
 field of social hygiene, in the most liberal sense 
 of the word. Health measures are essentially in- 
 ternational measures, whether it be a question of 
 adopting preventive or defensive means to combat 
 contagious or epidemic disease, or of populariz- 
 ing methods of cure and treatment. Without sol- 
 idarity and an effective understanding between 
 nations, any national organization, however per- 
 fect in itself, will be insufficient. 
 
1 68 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 " What is necessary is a permanent organiza- 
 tion capable of coordinating, and even of institut- 
 ing, the necessary statistics and keeping them up to 
 date. This organization should follow scientific 
 research concerning public health and circulate its 
 discoveries; it should coordinate and assist the ac- 
 tion of organizations already existing, such as the 
 Red Cross Societies, the International Bureau of 
 Public Health, and other similar institutions; it 
 should not only organize periodical and interna- 
 tional conferences of scholars and experts but 
 should call conferences similar to the Labor Con- 
 ference; finally by a systematic propaganda it 
 should impress on public opinion the necessity of 
 individual and collective rules and habits of health. 
 Otherwise all conventions will be futile." 
 
 This statement was unanimously approved by 
 the Council and invitations immediately issued for 
 an organizing Conference to be held in London 
 in April. Even before this Conference could 
 come together, however, the typhus situation in 
 Poland had become so desperate that Mr. Balfour, 
 at a special meeting of the Council in Paris on 
 March 13, stated that it must " be taken in hand 
 
The International Health Organization 169 
 
 at the earliest possible moment, not merely in the 
 interests of the Polish people but for the protec- 
 tion of Europe as a whole. The matter is of such 
 magnitude and bears on the welfare of so many 
 countries that it seems eminently one with which 
 the League of Nations should deal." The 
 Health Bureau, like many other parts of the 
 League, thus became confronted with an immedi- 
 ate and specific task even before it had itself come 
 into being. 
 
 As with other forms of international coopera- 
 tion there is a strong but little known foundation 
 on which to build the new structure. Indeed co- 
 operative efforts for the protection of health date 
 back as far as the middle of the last century. 
 The first seeds were planted at a Diplomatic Con- 1 
 ference in Paris in 1851, when the First Interna-j 
 tional Sanitary Convention dealing with the pre- 
 vention of cholera, plague and yellow fever was 
 presented to the world through Napoleon III. 
 
 Then came the sensational development of the 
 steamship, entailing a great increase in the ra- 
 pidity of travel, not only of men but of disease. 
 Especially was this noticeable among the pil- 
 
170 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 grims going to Mecca. So, following a serious 
 outbreak of cholera in 1866, an International San- 
 itary Conference was called, largely by Turkey 
 and Egypt, resulting in the formation of the Con- 
 sular Commission at Constantinople. 
 
 This cooperation, born in a crisis of peculiar 
 gravity, grew more and more general as bounda- 
 ries were brought closer and closer together. A 
 series of special meetings were held during the 
 years, till finally in 1907, as a result of the Rome 
 Conference, the spasmodic nature of the work 
 was overcome and a permanent, continuing body 
 created under the name of the Office International 
 d'Hygiene Publique. 
 
 Private initiative was equally active during this 
 time. In 1863 the first International Congress of 
 the Red Cross Societies was held in Geneva and 
 the so-called Geneva Convention, on which the 
 whole treatment of sick and wounded in war is 
 based, was drawn up. During the World War 
 this organization proved almost indispensable, as 
 its neutral character enabled it to keep a record 
 of prisoners which would have been possible in 
 no other way. 
 
The International Health Organization 171 
 
 Then arose the fearful sufferings of the after- 
 war period. The various national Red Cross 
 Societies realized what a field lay open to them. 
 Consequently they came together, first at Cannes 
 and then at Paris, to widen their charters for 
 peace-time work. The inevitable outcome was \ 
 the League of Red Cross Societies, which in 
 March, 1920, held its first General Council meet- 
 ing at Geneva to discuss the after-war scourges 
 which were then sweeping the world. 
 
 Such, then, was the foundation on which the 
 League of Nations could build. Powerful or- 
 ganizations, both official and private, were ready 
 at hand, while at the same time the crisis was 
 greater than ever before in history. As it hap- 
 pened, moreover, there was great need for just the 
 elements of strength which the League could 
 bring. The official organization was rather re- 
 stricted in membership and too advisory in char- 
 acter, while the Red Cross lacked much of the 
 power of a governmental agency. The League, 
 therefore, offered the opportunity to thread to- 
 gether these different agencies, combining the 
 strength of all, widening the membership to in- 
 
172 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 elude the world, assuring complete financial and 
 governmental support, and yet preserving the 
 identity of the constituent bodies. 
 
 The structure of the International Health Or- 
 ganization will follow closely that of the Interna- 
 tional Labor Organization. There will be first a 
 permanent body called the International Health 
 Office, situated at the seat of the League and in 
 charge of a medical secretary who shall have 
 direct access to the Secretary-General of the 
 League and the right to communicate directly with 
 the various governments members of the organi- 
 zation. The pffice will of course conduct the day- 
 by-day routine of the Organization, make investi- 
 gations and prepare the periodic Conferences. 
 
 Second will be the Executive Meeting corre- 
 sponding to the Governing Body of the Labor 
 Conference and consisting of perhaps ten mem- 
 )ers, including a representative of both the League 
 of Red Cross Societies and the International La- 
 >or Organization. This committee is expected 
 to meet at least four times a year, when it will be 
 charged especially with the drafting or the revi- 
 sion of international health conventions. 
 
The International Health Organization 173 
 
 Third and last will be the General Committee 
 which will in effect be an annual conference of all 
 states members of the Organization. Like the 
 International Labor Conference it will be the 
 final body for approval of all draft Conventions 
 and recommendations, which must be supported 
 by a two-thirds vote before they can be submitted 
 for the approval or rejection of the individual 
 states members of the League. With an agenda 
 carefully prepared beforehand and a representa- 
 tion from nearly every nation in the world, this 
 body will have greater authority than any health 
 conference ever held, while at the same time it 
 will not impair the sovereignty of any individual 
 nation because none of its findings become binding 
 until accepted by the proper national authorities. 
 
 The Health Organization will work in the I 
 closest harmony with the International Bureau of j 
 Public Health and with the League of Red Cross \ 
 Societies. It will not in any sense seek to replace 
 these bodies; indeed it will count upon them for 
 most effective support. In the overwhelming 
 battle against disease there is a place for every 
 possible agency, both official and private, for pri- 
 
174 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 vate initiative and energy can most effectively 
 combine with government facilities, information 
 and funds. 
 
 Thus the world's healing and protective forces 
 will be marshalled together in the great combat 
 against disease in a way that has never before been 
 possible. A central nerve system of information 
 and action in international health matters will be 
 provided; the health authorities in the various 
 countries will be brought into closer touch; infor- 
 mation will be exchanged much more rapidly in 
 case of emergency, and quick, concerted action will 
 be rendered possible where before it has been 
 most haphazard. If the League can carry out 
 even in a small way the promise contained in this 
 field of activity, if it can reduce the plagues and 
 scourges which periodically ravage the world, it 
 will fulfill one of the greatest missions which lie 
 before it. 
 
ECONOMIC COOPERATION 
 
 THE greatest penalty ever placed before a \ 
 treaty-breaking state lies in the economic boycott j 
 provided in the League of Nations Covenant. 
 It means complete severance from the rest of the 
 civilized world. It is an open, fully foreseeable, 
 wholly measurable penalty awaiting any state 
 which violates the terms of its fundamental rela- 
 tionship with the other nations. If it is charged 
 that the League is powerless because of lack of 
 actual military or naval forces, it may easily be re- 
 torted that it possesses against a Covenant-break- 
 ing state a force far more subtle and more power- 
 ful, the force of economic strangulation. 
 
 Article XVI providers that " should any mem- 
 ber of the League resort to war in disregard of 
 its Covenants, all other members of the League 
 undertake immediately to subject it to the sever- 
 ance of all trade or financial relations and the pro- 
 hibition of all financial, commercial, or personal in- 
 tercourse between the nationals of the Covenant- 
 
176 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 breaking state and the nationals of any other state, 
 whether a member of the League or not." 
 
 Had this provision been in operation in 1914, 
 Germany would long have hesitated to convert her 
 solemn obligation of the Belgian Treaty into a 
 mere " scrap of paper." She would have seen 
 arrayed against her an economic barrier including 
 not only France and Russia, her admitted ene- 
 mies, but also neutral Holland and Denmark, 
 which long served as ports of entry for her war 
 supplies. In the face of this certainty, it is 
 doubtful indeed if, with the margin between war 
 and peace so slight, she would have gambled on 
 hostilities. 
 
 This obligation to impose an economic boycott 
 against a state violating the Covenant is definite 
 and final; it is not optional or voluntary. The 
 members of the League have freely assumed the 
 responsibility; indeed they could hardly have done 
 less if they felt any respect for the document they 
 signed. The moment a nation violates the Cov- 
 enant, each and every member of the League 
 should take immediate action, on its own initia- 
 tive, to cease all trade with that nation. 
 
Economic Cooperation 177 
 
 The automatic nature of the boycott is note- 
 worthy. It differs totally, for instance, from the 
 military responsibility of member states, if there 
 be any. For, in case the Council should decide 
 military action to be necessary, it has power only 
 to " recommend " to the governments what force 
 if any each should contribute. No obligation 
 would rest upon any member state to accept this 
 recommendation. With the boycott, however, a 
 very real obligation does rest upon each state, for 
 it has been definitely agreed beforehand that in 
 certain eventualities such action will follow auto- 
 matically. 
 
 This action would in practise be cooperative. 
 While the prime responsibility would rest on each 
 individual state, the effective execution would 
 nevertheless require united action. Consequently, 
 some kind of permanent body must be established 
 to work out plans to give effect to this weapon the 
 moment an emergency arises. 
 
 If this power of the League may be called 
 purely a police power without constructive advan- 
 tages, there are other economic duties of a most 
 constructive nature. The exact extent of those 
 
178 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 duties is interpreted so variously among different 
 schools of thought at this moment of world up- 
 heaval that it is difficult to lay out an absolutely 
 definite program. 
 
 Let us, therefore, start with a single positive 
 example. During the winter of 1919-1920 the 
 world economic situation became steadily more 
 and more desperate. Exchange collapsed; indus- 
 tries remained stagnant; vast numbers of men 
 were out of work; and hunger and disease began 
 to spread broadcast in Europe till a total collapse 
 of the existing social structure was feared even in 
 the most conservative circles. The details require 
 no repetition. 
 
 The first independent action ever taken by the 
 League of Nations occurred at just this moment, 
 when as it happened the second meeting of the 
 Council was being held in London. Up to that 
 time the Council had rubber-stamped the various 
 organization plans prepared by the Secretariat 
 and carried out only the business actually placed 
 before it. Consequently the League had hardly 
 appeared to take on a life of its own. 
 
 As the public was waiting for the members of 
 
Economic Cooperation 179 
 
 the Council to assemble for the public session of 
 February 13, they could look through the glass 
 doors into the antechamber where the various 
 officials were conversing. Suddenly a degree of 
 life and vitality which had not before been mani- 
 fest seemed to come over them, and an intense, 
 informal discussion took place. After an appre- 
 ciable delay, the Council members took their seats 
 in the main room and the session opened. 
 
 At its conclusion, Mr. Balfour, in remarks cov- 
 ering less than a printed page, announced that 
 the Council had decided to call an International 
 Financial Conference " with a view to studying 
 the financial crisis and to looking for a means of 
 remedying it and of mitigating the dangerous con- 
 sequences arising from it." In other words, al- 
 most on the spur of the moment and without the 
 usual disturbance created in the Chancelleries of 
 the world by a call to an international conference 
 the nations were called together to discuss the 
 most serious of financial problems. It is signifi- 
 cant that this was the first original action taken 
 by the Council of the League. 
 
 Immediately afterwards an Organizing Com- 
 
180 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 mittee was appointed and a very inclusive ques- 
 tionnaire, backed by all the prestige of the League, 
 sent to all governments asking details of their do- 
 mestic and foreign debt, loans to other nations, 
 foreign trade by country and by value, gold and 
 silver holdings, bank deposits, bank note circu- 
 lation, and laws or decrees affecting foreign ex- 
 Change. Brussels was chosen as the place of meet- 
 ing and a mass of statistical material gathered 
 f which showed the financial state of the world as 
 it had never been shown before. 
 
 The actual accomplishments of this individual 
 conference are not the important consideration 
 now. The vital fact is that the machinery existed 
 to call the conference at all. Many evils will 
 crop up in the economic field in future years 
 which might well fester into wars unless some 
 such method as this existed to get the nations 
 into conference upon them. With the League in 
 existence we may reasonably expect a succession 
 of conferences on matters of world economic im- 
 port which will be called with just as little cere- 
 monial and just as business-like precision as the 
 Brussels Conference. 
 
Economic Cooperation 181 
 
 This opens up the whole question of interna- 
 tional economic information. That, after all, 
 will be the main result of such international gath- 
 erings, for apart from collecting and systematiz- 
 ing information and submitting recommendations, 
 they will have no binding force upon any state rep- 
 resented. They will serve in a large sense as a 
 looking-glass in which the world can study its 
 actual condition in the hope that with knowledge 
 will come wise action. 
 
 The preparation of statistics, therefore, as- 
 sumes a very vital place in this program. 
 Months ago, as it happens, the League took action 
 in this matter. In August, 1919, a conference of 
 statisticians was held in London at League head- 
 quarters, even before the League had been of- 
 ficially created, to discuss the possibility of coor- 
 dination of the various international statistical 
 commissions already at work. 
 
 There is, for instance, for agricultural statis- 
 tics, the International Institute of Agriculture at 
 Rome; for labor statistics the International Labor 
 Office, for demographic statistics, the Permanent 
 Bureau of the International Institute of Statistics 
 
1 82 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 at The Hague, and the International Bureau of 
 Commercial Statistics at Brussels. All these 
 bodies are fulfilling most useful missions, showing 
 the world just where it stands in certain vital 
 questions. 
 
 Representatives of these bodies agreed that 
 their activities might well be coordinated and that, 
 without losing any of their own individuality, they 
 might gain all the prestige and authority which 
 association with the League would give them. 
 Consequently a memorandum was submitted to the 
 Council meeting at Rome in May, 1920, calling 
 for appointment of an International Committee 
 of Statisticians to draw up complete plans for the 
 final approval of the Assembly. 
 
 Coordination of international statistics is an- 
 other of those very humble and unspectacular but 
 vitally important offices which the League can 
 perform which no other organization has ever 
 been able to perform. It is not a matter that 
 will reach the front page of the newspapers; in- 
 deed it is something which the ordinary person 
 will pass over with but slight interest; but its ef- 
 fect will be to provide the information whereby 
 
Economic Cooperation 183 
 
 the leaders of the world may know exactly the 
 state of the world and be able to act with intelli- 
 gent judgment. 
 
 Many other fields of opportunity in the eco- 
 nomic sphere have already been signalized in other 
 chapters. There is, for instance, the guarantee 
 of freedom of communications and transit which 
 affect many international ports, waterways and 
 railways; the reduction of armaments especially 
 through removing the element of private profit in 
 their manufacture; the preservation of the open 
 door of equal commercial opportunity in territo- 
 ries under mandate; and certain specific duties in 
 the peace treaties. All these have been discussed 
 in full. 
 
 Opportunities for still wider usefulness are seen 
 by many. They argue, and argue with much jus- 
 tice, that if the economic demands of the war 
 could be met only by unified control of the more 
 vital products, so the economic demands of the 
 reconstruction period can similarly be met most 
 effectively by united action. While the terrible 
 stress of hostilities has relaxed, nevertheless, the 
 problems of healing are hardly less difficult. 
 
184 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 The world's difficulty today is the proper dis- 
 tribution of raw materials to get factories re- 
 started and men back to work. There is no 
 cotton for the mills of Poland; no coal for many 
 of the factories of Italy; no tropical and other 
 materials to allow German factories to start ex- 
 portation to pay their reparations. Consequently, 
 the world, instead of getting better, gets steadily 
 worse. 
 
 Moreover, certain basic commodities are under 
 a stringent kind of control which every student 
 of the subject realizes harbors danger. Wheat, 
 for instance, is a government export monopoly in 
 the United States, Russia and Australia, and a 
 government buying monopoly in Great Britain, 
 France, Italy, Belgium, Germany and other states. 
 Coal is exported from Great Britain, the chief 
 country of origin, only through the government, 
 and imported into France and Italy in the same 
 way. Petroleum products are in the hands of 
 two great private international trusts, the Stand- 
 ard Oil Company of America and the Anglo- 
 Dutch Petroleum Combination. 
 
 These three fundamental commodities, any one 
 
- 
 
 Economic Cooperation 185 
 
 of which is vital enough to the well-being of the 
 world to upset its whole economic structure, are 
 thus under a highly centralized control different 
 from the unified control of war times and unmind- 
 ful of the free play of the laws of competition. 
 Out of such an undirected system national antag- 
 onisms are almost sure to arise. 
 
 The problems both of reconstruction and of 
 direction of the world's surplus raw materials 
 might well come before the League of Nations for 
 discussion, for either of them, if mishandled, 
 would be sufficient to send the world into a new 
 era of suffering. There will, of course, be self- 
 ish interests which will oppose any such discus- 
 sion, even if its only result is to bring the facts 
 into the light of day for the intelligent opinion of 
 the world to focus upon. 
 
 The best method of accomplishing the resultV 
 sought is generally felt to have the Supreme Eco-\ 
 nomic Council incorporated within the League. | 
 That Council has now lost the mandatory power ' 
 which in practise it possessed in the days of unified 
 economic command, and has become largely a 
 body of report and recommendation. It has a 
 
1 86 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 mass of information and data at its disposal and 
 also a valuable personnel. It is most highly 
 probable that what remains of its work will be 
 taken over by the League as one of its most essen- 
 tial functions. 
 
 Nevertheless, these plans have not yet been 
 fully matured owing to the constantly shifting na- 
 ture of the whole world economic foundation. 
 But that the League must, if it is to prevent the 
 growth of hostile feeling between peoples, de- 
 velop a highly efficient section of economic inves- 
 tigation and report is admitted on all sides. 
 Thus, with a general section of this nature to rec- 
 ommend policies, with an International Statistical 
 Commission to prepare data, and with the power 
 of economic boycott of a nation violating the Cov- 
 enant ever at hand, the League is certain to play 
 a helpful part in the day-to-day economic devel- 
 opment of the world and a dominating part in 
 the moment of supreme crisis. 
 
OPEN DIPLOMACY 
 
 WILL the League of Nations be able to de- 
 stroy secret diplomacy and establish open diplo- 
 macy? 
 
 Of all the questions before the League, this is 
 far and away the greatest. If international re- 
 lations can be made an open book for all the 
 world to read, if the plots and machinations which 
 have been bred in secrecy can be prevented, if the 
 vast amount of misunderstanding, distrust and 
 even deliberate falsehood which have poisoned the 
 past relationships between states can be done away 
 with, think what an advance this will mean to- 
 wards the prevention of future wars. 
 
 Of all the questions before the League, this 
 is also far and away the closest to the man on 
 the street. In a sense it is the key question to 
 the whole system of international relationships. 
 On it will depend your knowledge and mine of 
 what is going on in the world about us. On it 
 
 187 
 
1 88 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 will depend whether you and I and our neighbors 
 are able to form an intelligent opinion of the big 
 issues of the world which at any minute may 
 sweep into our quiet little homes and demand 
 heavy taxes or even military service. 
 
 The question of League publicity is our ques- 
 tion, the question of each and all of us. We can- 
 not entrust it to any body of men to settle for us; 
 we cannot allow it to go by default; we must in 
 our own interest watch over it, criticise it, even 
 force it. For it is our right to understand the 
 forces that are operating between the peoples of 
 the world and to know what is being done by the 
 League which we have created. 
 
 This is not so simple as it appears. The forces 
 of secrecy and silence are much more powerful 
 than supposed. There are great interests to be 
 served and unseen ends to be accomplished. 
 Moreover, there are moments of stress and emer- 
 gency when secrecy seems almost essential, when 
 men hold their breath in the hope that some set- 
 tlement may be reached short of a public out- 
 burst. Full publicity not only threatens selfish 
 interests, but also requires a moral courage and 
 
Open Diplomacy 189 
 
 fearlessness which only the great among men 
 possess. 
 
 It may unhesitatingly be said that the League j 
 of Nations marks the greatest stride ever made 
 towards the goal of open diplomacy. That is a 
 bold and an unqualified statement written without J 
 fear of disproof. It is a statement which should 
 be weighed carefully by the man on the street who 
 is utterly through with the previous methods of 
 diplomacy and who feels that at all costs secrecy 
 must be eliminated. 
 
 Article XVIII of the Covenant may well go 
 down as a landmark in the relations of states. 
 Strangely enough, however, it has been almost un- 
 noted by public opinion. It is one of those state- 
 ments which appear so essentially normal and nat- 
 ural that we pass over it without consideration of 
 the supreme importance attaching to its every 
 word. Article XVIII reads : 
 
 " Every Treaty or International Engagement 
 entered into hereafter by any member of the 
 League shall be forthwith registered with the 
 Secretariat and shall as soon as possible be pub- 
 lished by it. No such Treaty or International 
 
190 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 Engagement shall be binding until so registered." 
 No Treaty shall be binding until registered with 
 the Secretariat of the League consider what 
 that means. It means in brief that, if lived up to, 
 there can no longer be secret agreements between 
 nations; that the obligations of one nation to 
 another must be known to all nations; that secret 
 alliances and all the mystery and the vicious circle 
 of redoubled fear that such alliances bring in their 
 train, are ended; that the nations stand before 
 each other honestly and frankly, as they never in 
 the past have stood before each other. It means 
 the beginning of open diplomacy. 
 
 Consider what this provision would have done 
 in the decade before the war. If it had been in 
 force, it would have put an end to all Germany's 
 manoeuvering based upon her charge that the 
 Entente Powers were working on a policy of en- 
 circlement; it would have exactly squared the re- 
 lations of each of those nations and groups of 
 nations to each other; and, what is perhaps more 
 vital still, it might have given Germany the flat 
 assurance that Great Britain would immediately 
 go to France's aid in case of aggression by Ger- 
 
Open Diplomacy 191 
 
 many. It is very probable that if Germany had 
 had that certainty before her she would not have 
 plunged the world into blood as she did. 
 
 Those entrusted with the organization of the 
 League are fully aware of the potentialities of 
 Article XVIII. Among the first of all questions 
 they brought it before the Council for the ap- 
 proval of detailed plans of execution. The re- 
 port presented to the meeting at Rome on May 
 14 is in itself so significant of the new spirit that 
 its essence may well be quoted in full: 
 
 " Publicity has for a long time been considered 
 as a source of moral strength in the administra-, 
 tion of National Law. It should equally 
 strengthen the laws and engagements which ex- 
 ist between nations. It will promote public con- 
 trol. It will awaken public interest. It will 
 remove causes for distrust and conflict. Public- 
 ity alone will enable the League of Nations to 
 extend a moral sanction to the contractual obli- 
 gations of its members. It will moreover con- 
 tribute to the formation of a clear and indisputa- 
 ble system of international law." 
 
 The Council agreed. Authority was given to 
 
192 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 work out the necessary details. A Treaty Regis- 
 tration Section was established in the Secretariat 
 with authority to receive treaties from all mem- 
 ber nations, issue Certificates of Registration to 
 the contracting states, compile both a chronologi- 
 cal Register and a subject ledger of Treaties, 
 publish them as rapidly as received in the Treaty 
 Supplement of the League of Nations Journal, 
 i v ssue an Index, and supply copies to states or 
 I individuals so requesting. 
 
 This publicity of treaties will never be attained, 
 many people may say, for nations will continue 
 to make secret agreements on the subjects most 
 vital to them. Perhaps, for a time, but for only 
 a very short time at the worst. Such action 
 would be a direct violation of a solemn treaty 
 obligation and would require a degree of bad 
 faith on the part of at least two governments 
 which only the most cynical would expect. It 
 would not be long before an intelligent world pub- 
 lic opinion, led by an ever jealous press, would 
 insist that this obligation be respected and would 
 so threaten those in power that no statesman 
 would dare to expect the support of his people 
 
Open Diplomacy 193 
 
 for a treaty or agreement which they had not 
 known existed. 
 
 But beyond the publication of Treaties, con- 
 sider all the other public activities of the League. 
 As the focal point of world activities in interna- 
 tional justice, mediation, disarmament, mandates, 
 international labor and health, there will radiate 
 forth from it a flow of information without pre- 
 cedent or comparison. Within a short time in- 
 deed it should become the greatest center of inter- 
 national news in history. 
 
 For we shall see at the seat of the League, 
 sitting permanently, receiving information from 
 all over the world, and preparing recommenda- 
 tions, a most varied array of separate organiza- 
 tions, the Secretariat, the Permanent Court, the 
 Labor Office, the Health Office, the Disarmament 
 Commission, the Mandates Commission, the 
 Transit Commission and others. Day in and day 
 out these bodies will be at work aided by the most 
 effective sources of information ever coordinated 
 and dealing with matters of surpassing interna- 
 tional importance. 
 
 Periodically also will come special world con- 
 
194 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 grasses for public discussion of the various prob- 
 lems presented. These bodies, it must ever be 
 remembered, will have no power but the moral 
 power of the League, no strength except the 
 strength which the public opinion of the various 
 nations is willing to give to them. Very obvi- 
 ously they cannot meet in secret, but must do 
 everything in their power to arouse the interest 
 and the confidence of public opinion. 
 
 The Assembly will bring together periodically 
 and probably annually three representatives of 
 every nation in the League to discuss the widest 
 possible range of international relations. The 
 International Labor Conference will bring to- 
 gether the world's labor experts once a year. 
 The Mandates Commission will hold a formal 
 annual session to consider the annual reports of 
 the states accepting mandates. Periodic and 
 probably at least annual conferences will be held 
 on disarmament, health and freedom of com- 
 munications and transit. So also the Council of 
 the League will meet as occasion requires, and at 
 least annually, though in its first four months it 
 
Open Diplomacy 195 
 
 came together four times. Special meetings such 
 as the International Financial Conference and the 
 Commission on Enquiry to Russia will also pro- 
 vide news of world interest. 
 
 Never before, except in the fevered days of 
 the Paris Peace Conference when everything was 
 in a state of hurly-burly, have there been such pos- 
 sibilities of publicity in international relations. 
 Here will be a succession of meetings of the most 
 vital importance, together with a series of per- 
 manent organizations gathering and digesting the 
 important matters of world interest. That al- 
 ready many journalists have desired to be as- 
 signed permanently to the seat of the League is 
 perhaps the best indication of expert judgment in 
 this matter. 
 
 How the publicity of these meetings will be 
 handled is already a matter of record. The 
 Council has held a series of important sessions 
 and the International Labor Conference has held 
 its first general assembly. From the two we 
 may gather a fair index of the future, for it is 
 a pretty well established rule in journalism that 
 
196 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 a door once opened to the press is very seldom 
 
 shut. 
 
 I 
 
 The International Labor Conference was held 
 almost on the open street. In the thirty days of 
 its sessions twenty-five public meetings took place. 
 Casual sightseers to the Pan-American Building 
 dropped in for a few moments to the big hall 
 where the labor experts of forty world states 
 were busily, and at times heatedly, ironing out 
 their differences. Every day, fifteen minutes or 
 half an hour after the session, full stenographic 
 reports were distributed to the press for reference, 
 and the next morning the delegates and others 
 interested found the Official Bulletin of the Con- 
 ference on their breakfast table. 
 
 Of course, there was also a large amount of 
 committee work. That is essential in a meeting 
 bringing together men from the four corners of 
 the globe, for at least a groundwork of discus- 
 sion must be laid. The results of these meetings, 
 however, were registered almost immediately in 
 the full assembly, and any divergence of view- 
 point which could not be harmonized in the com- 
 mittee meetings was sure to crop up in the wider 
 
Open Diplomacy 197 
 
 discussion, because each element of the Confer- 
 ence took particular pains to put itself on record. 
 It is doubtful if the conflicting requirements of 
 full publicity and of rapid dispatch of business 
 could have been better harmonized. 
 
 Now take the Council meetings. This, of 
 course, is quite a different body from the Labor 
 Conference. Its purpose is to bring the nine 
 most influential world states together about a 
 common table, in short order, if necessary, to con- 
 sult regarding any emergency that may arise in in- 
 ternational relations and to examine proposals to 
 be made to the Assembly. Theoretically its de- 
 cisions are mostly preliminary recommendations 
 and might be claimed, therefore, to have some of 
 the elements of privacy. 
 
 The Council has not, however, gone on that 
 assumption. All of its gatherings have been ac 
 companied by open sessions with full stenographic 
 report. The procedure has been somewhat as 
 follows: the Secretariat has prepared the data to 
 be discussed; that data have been sent about to the 
 various Council members with the call for the 
 meeting; the various subjects have been divided 
 
198 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 at public opening session among the different 
 members of the Council; each member has re- 
 ported informally on his subjects to an executive 
 meeting of the Council; and shortly thereafter 
 the whole matter has been discussed in full in a 
 session open to the press. 
 
 The result has been that the Council has done 
 its work quickly and yet openly. There will be 
 cynics who will object to a preliminary private 
 session as merely a cloak and who will say that the 
 subsequent open session is pure window-dressing. 
 It is difficult, however, to see how a better scheme 
 could be evolved. There will inevitably be some 
 misunderstanding and some confusion when a sub- 
 ject is first broached which can be best cleared up 
 in a quick informal business meeting. The main 
 necessity is to see that whatever decision is taken 
 is taken publicly. 
 
 That necessity has been met. The Council has 
 agreed that no decision shall be considered as 
 made unless it is made publicly. In other words, 
 if the Council decides to submit any recommenda- 
 tion to the members of the League, the public 
 will be informed formally and officially. It will 
 
Open Diplomacy 199 
 
 not be forced to depend on guesses, deductions 
 and back-stairs gossip, nor will it be required to 
 wait an interminable time until the matter can be 
 gone through with formally. It will get the 
 news, get it right, and get it while it is still news. 
 That is a very big advance over any preceding ar- 
 rangements. 
 
 Here again, as in other phases of League work, 
 a certain amount of organization has been needed 
 to assure the execution of these varied publicity 
 requirements. Most interesting is the Official 
 Journal of the League, the first number of which 
 appeared in February, 1920, a few weeks after 
 the official birth of the League. The Journal is 
 a purely official document devoid of editorial or 
 controversial matter, in short, of propaganda. 
 The first issue, for instance, contained the final 
 copy of the Covenant as a matter of reference, 
 the stenographic report of the first meeting of the 
 Council, the official notices of adhesion to the 
 League of five of the thirteen neutral states in- 
 vited to join, and a short summary of the first 
 International Labor Conference. 
 
 The Journal is not exciting. It is not in any 
 
2OO The League of Nations at Work 
 
 sense romantic. It is made up of cold, official, 
 documentary material, free from propaganda 
 and invaluable as a matter of reference to all 
 editors, publicists and others interested in the 
 growth of international cooperation. By itself 
 it will form the official record of the League, col- 
 orless perhaps but accurate. It should have the 
 most unique circulation of any periodical in the 
 world. 
 
 t Finally, and most essential of all, there must be 
 sured some method of easy, rapid and inexpen- 
 /e press communication. If the League cannot 
 exist without the support of public opinion, it 
 must afford every possible facility to newspapers 
 and magazines to maintain correspondents at the 
 seat of the League and to enable them to cable 
 or wireless full details of what the League is 
 doing. Nothing would be more disastrous than 
 a general public impression that the League was 
 doing nothing. 
 
 Enthusiasts on communications have claimed 
 that a press rate of five cents a word from the 
 seat of the League to the United States would 
 assure success to the League in this country. 
 
Open Diplomacy 201 
 
 This would be due, not to any propaganda or any 
 interference with the untrammeled filing of dis- 
 patches by the individual correspondents, but to 
 the fact that once the public familiarizes itself 
 with the League, understands its workings, and 
 feels a direct relationship to its success, it will put 
 all its strength behind it and force it to makt 
 good. 
 
 The Peace Treaty failed in the United States, 
 it is often alleged, because of lack of publicity at 
 the Peace Conference. No one would make the 
 claim that there was even an approach to public 
 diplomacy at Paris, but similarly, few who are 
 familiar with the details will deny that the exj 
 pense of cable tolls from Paris to the States, runj 
 ning from fifteen cents to seventy-five cents 
 word, made it almost impossible to carry over th 
 full, interpretative, steady reports which all cor 
 respondents desired to send. The cost was pro 
 hibitive, and as a result the American public se- 
 cured at best only a secondhand idea of what was 
 common knowledge in Paris. 
 
 Consequently, plans are already on foot for \ 
 the provision of full wireless facilities at the seat ' 
 
2O2 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 of the League, in order that a low press rate may 
 be possible. It will take nearly a year and a half 
 and cost around a million dollars to put up the 
 right kind of towers, but there is not the slightest 
 doubt but that the system would more than pay for 
 itself in a very short space of time. The result 
 would be that the world would know itself as it 
 has never been able to know itself before. 
 
 Here at this point, fittingly enough in a dis- 
 cussion of the relations of the League and the 
 public, we come to the end of this little book. 
 Beside that question all others are dwarfed. 
 Alone it offers the key to success or failure of the 
 League. For, it must be stated once again, the 
 League has no strength except the strength which 
 the interest, support and confidence of the public 
 give it. 
 
 It is the author's hope that these short chap- 
 ters have helped to outline the League structure 
 and method of operation. That is a big task for 
 a little book, but it is not the biggest. For unless 
 the reader carries away the overwhelming con- 
 viction that the success of the League can come 
 only from the interest of himself and his friends 
 
Open Diplomacy 203 
 
 and neighbors all over the world, the big mission 
 which lies open before these pages will remain 
 unfulfilled. The League must be watched, 
 studied, criticised, driven forward, and above all 
 held true to its ideals by the men and women of 
 the world in whose interest it has been called 
 into being. 
 
 The future of the League of Nations rests 
 with the public opinion of the world. 
 
THE LEAGUE AS MEDIATOR 
 
 THE League of Nations was not six months old 
 before two cases involving a threat of war were 
 brought to its mediation. Thus, even before the 
 League had had chance to organise, the procedure 
 laid down with such care in the Covenant was 
 called upon to function. The two cases, inter- 
 estingly enough, brought into play nearly every 
 course of action open to the League and illumi- 
 nated very sharply the various steps which may be 
 taken by it in the effort to prevent war. 
 
 The first case was an appeal of Persia, a mem- 
 ber of the League, against the wanton aggression 
 of another state, Soviet Russia, while the second 
 case was brought before the League by Great 
 Britain, a disinterested party, in an effort to pre- 
 Went the Aaland Islands dispute from generating 
 war between Sweden and Finland. Regardless of 
 either the importance or the outcome of these two 
 particular cases, the great fact stands out that 
 means of initiating an international conference and 
 
 204 
 
The League as Mediator 205 
 
 of taking steps looking towards the preservation 
 of justice were available which had not hitherto 
 been at hand. It is, consequently, very interesting 
 to analyse the two cases as precedents for similar 
 future cases. 
 
 Let us take the Persian case first as the first to 
 arise. On March iQth, Prince Firouz, Persian 
 Foreign Minister, who at the moment was in Paris, 
 notified the League that on the day before the 
 Bolsheviks had bombarded Enzeli in Northern 
 Persia, landed troops and taken possession of the 
 city. He pointed out that this was in defiance of 
 the Covenant and requested that a meeting of the 
 Council be summoned in accordance with Article 
 XI, to the effect that : 
 
 "' It is also declared to be the friendly right of 
 each member of the League to bring to the atten- 
 tion of the Assembly or of the Council any cir- 
 cumstances whatever affecting international rela- 
 tions, which threaten to disturb international peace 
 or the good understanding between nations upon 
 which peace depends.'* 
 
 The facts were absolutely plain and the conclu- 
 sions incontrovertible. Consequently, the Secre- 
 tary-General, acting within the authority of Article 
 
206 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 XI that " in case any such emergency should arise 
 the Secretary-General shall on the request of any 
 member of the League forthwith summon a meet- 
 ing of the Council," called the Council together at 
 London on April 1/j.th. On that date representa- 
 tives of the world's nine most powerful nations 
 met to see what, if anything, could be done in the 
 face of this wanton aggression. 
 
 Prince Firouz was at once admitted as a mem- 
 er of the Council as provided in Article IV, 
 which reads: 
 
 " Any Member of the League not represented 
 n the Council shall be invited to send a Repre- 
 sentative to sit as a Member at any meeting of 
 the Council during the consideration of matters 
 specially affecting the interests of that Member of 
 the League." 
 
 He thereupon laid before the Council a com- 
 plete series of documents showing exactly what 
 Jhad taken place at Enzeli and giving the Council 
 full information on which to base its conclusions. 
 ; During the sessions, however, a note was received 
 from tl^Bolsheviks themselves to the effect that 
 
 they would immediately withdraw from the city 
 I 
 
The League as Mediator 207 
 
 and cease their hostile operations. This, of 
 course, changed the whole face of the situation 
 and made it unnecessary for the Council to do 
 aught but note the facts and issue a statement ap- 
 proving the action of Persia in directing atten- 
 tion to the case and assuring her that the Council 
 would follow the compliance of the Bolsheviks 
 with their agreement with much interest. 
 
 If in this particular case it so happened that 
 the League was not required to take decisive ac- 
 tion, the precedent which it established was never- 
 theless of vast importance. For the first time a 
 nation which had been attacked in defiance of all 
 rules of international law had been able to appeal 
 to the other nations of the world, had seen the 
 most important nations meet almost immediately 
 to consider the case, and had had the assurance 
 that the rest of the world stood behind her in the 
 protection of her rights and sovereignty. 
 
 Never before had such a thing been possible. 
 Nations might have appealed to other nations for 
 help, but there existed no machinery by which the 
 other nations could come together quickly and 
 automatically to examine the question and see 
 
208 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 what could be done. In all previous experience, 
 stolidity, slowness and extreme disassociation of 
 action have characterized international action. 
 Today, however, the very fact that a conference 
 can automatically be called to consider any acts 
 of aggression will by itself alone have a most de- 
 terrent effect on nations inclined to such piracy. 
 
 What, for instance, would this machinery have 
 meant in 1914? If it had existed, Germany 
 would have known that the moment she crossed 
 the Belgian frontier, Belgium, or indeed any other 
 state in the League, could have called a meeting 
 of the Council to see what action was requisite 
 and possible. Immediately, then, all world na- 
 tions would have examined the question about a 
 common table and it would have been possible to 
 agree upon a joint plan to restrain the wrongdoer. 
 This plan, of course, would have had no binding 
 effect on any nation involved, but would have been 
 submitted to each one for acceptance or rejection 
 as the viewpoint of a meeting of world states- 
 men. 
 
 The second case, that of the Aaland Islands, 
 was of decidedly more interest and importance. 
 
The League as Mediator 209 
 
 The Aalands, it may be said by way of preface, 
 form a small archipelago contiguous to the shores 
 of Finland. A part of Russia until the break-up \ 
 of the old Empire, they were claimed by Finland 
 on the grounds of inheritance and of contiguity/ 
 and by Sweden on the grounds of self-determina-/ 
 tion. The contest between the two States had be- 
 come so bitter that Sweden had temporarily with- 
 drawn her minister from Helsingfors and war 
 had been freely predicted. 
 
 It was at this point that the League of Nations 
 began to function. Great Britain, a third party 
 with no interest in the dispute except as it in- 
 volved the general preservation of peace, referred 
 the matter on June iQth to the Council of the 
 League of Nations under Article XI of the Cove- 
 nant, which gives to each member of the League 
 the right to request League action in any case 
 threatening war. 
 
 Automatically, therefore, a process looking to- 
 ward a peaceful solution was set in motion. This 
 process would have been impossible under the pre- 
 war system of international disorganisation before 
 the creation of the League machinery. By means 
 
2io The League of Nations at Work 
 
 of it a disinterested State was enabled as a matter 
 of right and without assuming an unfriendly atti- 
 tude towards either contestant, to bring the ques- 
 tion immediately before an existing world organ- 
 isation. 
 
 The facts of the case were sent immediately to 
 all States in the League ; the Members of the Coun- 
 cil were called together; and Sweden and Fin- 
 land were invited to submit statements. The at- 
 tention of the world thus became focussed upon 
 the dispute, and the task of evolving a peaceful 
 settlement became a matter of immediate inter- 
 national interest. It was exactly this step which 
 was lacking in late July and August, 1914, when 
 Sir Edward Grey made every effort to bring the 
 nations together about a common conference table. 
 
 The Council assembled in London on July 9th. 
 The first question before it was the status of 
 Sweden and Finland in the deliberations. Swe- 
 den was not a Member of the Council, while Fin- 
 land was not even a Member of the League. It 
 was obvious, however, that both should partici- 
 pate in the discussions in order that the decisions 
 
The League as Mediator 211 
 
 might be arrived at voluntarily and by agreement 
 of all. 
 
 Sweden was immediately admitted as a Mem- 
 ber of the Council under Article IV of the Cove- 
 nant. 
 
 Finland's position was more difficult, however, 
 as, though that country has applied for member- 
 ship in the League, she cannot be formally ad- 
 mitted until the first Assembly. Nevertheless it 
 was agreed by all Members of the Council, includ- 
 ing the representative of Sweden, that Finland 
 should be accorded full rights of membership. 
 
 Thereupon both nations presented their cases, 
 first by written statements and later by verbal 
 explanations. The arguments need not be dis- 
 cussed in detail, for they are wholly overshadowed 
 by the fact that an international organisation ex- 
 isted where such arguments could be presented and 
 weighed at all. Both nations, in short, placed 
 their cases before what might be called the bar of 
 international judgment and were given the op- 
 portunity of learning the opinion of the disin- 
 terested outside world. 
 
212 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 Vastly more than this, however, lay behind the 
 neeting, because Sweden as a member of the 
 .eague and Finland as a State, having accepted 
 he obligations of the League in this dispute, had 
 3ound themselves not to go to war until after the 
 iward of the Council, and even then not until 
 ifter three months had elapsed. This, of course, 
 ivould so postpone war as to give the agencies of 
 Deace and of world public opinion the fullest op- 
 portunity to act. 
 
 The interior workings of the Council were most 
 advantageously illustrated in this particular dis- 
 pute. Finland immediately claimed that the dis- 
 pute was a wholly domestic one beyond the reach 
 of the League of Nations. She cited Article XV 
 to the effect that " If the dispute between the 
 parties is claimed by one of them, and is found 
 by the Council to arise out of a matter which by 
 international law is solely within the domestic 
 jurisdiction of that party the Council shall so re- 
 port, and shall make no recommendation as to its 
 settlement." 
 
 This claim raised a direct question of law. 
 The first step, then, was not the bringing about of 
 
The League as Mediator 213 
 
 a rapprochement between the two parties but 
 rather the interpretation of various legal docu- 
 ments. Obviously that phase of the question 
 could be far better handled in a Court of Law 
 than in a Council of diplomatic representatives. 
 
 Exactly this contingency is foreseen in Article 
 XIV, which says that the Permanent Court of In- 
 ternational Justice may " give an advisory opinion 
 upon any question or dispute referred to it by the 
 Council or by the Assembly." In other words, 
 special care has been taken to allow the diplo- 
 matic branch of the League of Nations to sep- 
 arate disputes into their component parts, in or- 
 der that purely legal questions may be entrusted 
 to a purely legal body. This is a great stride in 
 advance of anything that has hitherto been pos- 
 sible and very largely affects the charge that Coun- 
 cil decisions will be based on purely political con- 
 siderations. 
 
 As the Permanent Court was at the moment in 
 the process of formation, it was necessary in this 
 particular case to refer the legal question to a 
 special Committee of three jurists. In an effort 
 to procure men wholly impartial and at the same 
 
214 The League of Nations at Work 
 
 time a predominance of men from the small Pow- 
 ers the following men were chosen: Professor 
 Larnaude of the University of Paris and Mon- 
 sieur Mercier of Switzerland and a. representa- 
 tive from Holland. Of course, this reference 
 to a Committee of Jurists involved delay in 
 the decision, but was felt to be justified on the 
 principle that it is far better to take the time 
 necessary to arrive at a decision, the justice of 
 which cannot be disputed, than to hurry to a hasty, 
 ill-formed conclusion which would discredit belief 
 in the League's impartiality. Every effort was 
 made to have world public opinion, and specially 
 that in Finland and Sweden, accept the decision as 
 eminently wise and just. 
 
 Meanwhile the situation naturally remained 
 delicate. At the meeting on July I2th, Mr. Bal- 
 four as President of the Council asked both the 
 Swedish and Finnish representatives to give pub- 
 lic assurance that they would take every precau- 
 tion not to aggravate it. Both these men, stand- 
 ing before the Council and the public, acceded to 
 this request. Thus for the first time, two nations 
 have made a public agreement to take no action 
 
The League as Mediator 215 
 
 to advance their own material interests during 
 the time necessary for the other disinterested na- 
 tions of the world to seek to work out for them 
 a just and peaceful solution. 
 
 Immediately afterwards, the Finnish Foreign 
 Office telegraphed the League that " The High 
 Court has released Sundblon and Bjorkman," the 
 two Aaland Island leaders who had been im- 
 prisoned by Finland for secession. 
 
 THE END 
 
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