The Basis of International Organizations

I ARGUED in an earlier Article of this website that the scale of modern civilization has made the national and sovereign State an institutional expedient of which the political unwisdorn and moral danger are both manifest. We are committed to international experiment by the facts about us. We have been driven to recognize the economic interdependence of States. We have come to see that outside purely domestic concerns settlement in terms of common rules is the only method likely to make possible satisfactory international arrangements and functions of international organizations.



The experience of what world-conflict has involved seems to have convinced the best of this generation that the effective outlaw of war is the only reasonable alternative to suicide. We have realized, moreover, that politics includes economics, and that the consequences of a world-market are the settlement in common of those matters of common concern which arise from the fact of a world-market. Since, that is to say, matters like the supply of raw materials, or tariffs, or emigration, affect the world as a whole, no State can be a law unto itself in laying down the rules which obtain in relation to them. International control of some kind and degree is postulated wherever a given State-function directly impinges upon the common life of States.

It was, of course, this perception which led to the inclusion, in the Peace of Versailles, of the Covenant of the League of Nations. I have not here to deal with the grave defects of that instrument in its original form. I do not need to argue since conviction upon the point is general that the effectiveness of the League depends very largely upon the degree of its inclusiveness that, consequently, the absence of States like Russia and America is fatal to the proper fulfillment of its purposes. Nor need I dwell upon the purely technical issue of whether the League is juristically a superstate or merely an association of sovereign nations.

I believe myself that it is in essence quite demonstrably the former and that this character will become increasingly obvious as its functioning becomes more adequate. For it has, in fact, the power to bind its members and there are already spheres of activity within its ambit of authority in which evasion of the obligations it creates are, if not theoretically impossible, at least sufficiently difficult to be impossible in practice. But the notion that State sovereignty in international affairs is, in truth obsolete still troubles a generation inflamed by the fever of national prejudice and it is both wiser, and more fruitful, to approach the problems of international organization from a different angle.

That angle is the discussion of the functions it has to perform and the organs necessary to the performance of those functions. By the analysis of their nature we are much more likely to grasp the character of that which reconciles nationalism with civilization than if we commit ourselves to the dissection of purely abstract ideas. Broadly Speaking, matters of common concern in modern civilization can be divided into three general categories. There are political problems, there are economic problems, there are social problems.

I do not, of course, suggest either that these categories are exhaustive, or that they do not often enough shade off into one another. But, as a rule, the great majority of the questions we have to solve fall fairly reasonably within one or another of them. I shall try to list the main subjects which fall within each, and to say something about their significance as matters of common concern. One general observation may, however, be made. There are many problems of which the incidence concerns mainly two or three States, in which the general international interest is both small and remote of which a good instance is the work of the International Commission which controls the traffic of the Danube.

The solution of such problems can always be confided to the parties predominantly concerned upon two conditions: it must be reached in a public manner and its substance and the administration of that substance must be approved by, and open to the inspection of, the general international authority. The League of Nations, that is to say, is not likely to become a State in the normal sense of the word. It will concern itself less with direct administration than with propounding, or accepting, solutions which will be administered by others. It will, therefore, be a source of principle rather than an agent of action though it will, as I shall show later, have to be regarded as the ultimate reserve force in society from which, in the last resort, definite action originates.

The Functions of International Organizations in political issue

I take first of all the political functions of the League of Nations and we may first discuss those among its political functions of which the international significance is unquestionable. It is clear

(I) that all treaties must be registered with the League, whatever their extent and nature.

This is necessary, not only because of their possible effect upon other States, which, by the fact of registration, are able to raise the question of their substance before the League, but also because secrecy in international arrangements is fatal to the atmosphere of peace. There are, moreover, certain types of treaty which are, a prion obnoxious, which must, therefore, be rendered invalid by the action of the League. Treaties, for instance, in which one State binds itself to joint military action with another, as France practically bound herself to joint military action with Russia before 1914, are indefensible.

I do not, of course, argue that to make registration compulsory will ensure that Secret arrangements are obviated. But if only publicly registered and internationally approved treaties are sanctioned by the League, the revelation of arrangements which their makers had attempted to conceal is likely to make those arrangements less effective than they would otherwise be. Had the precise terms of the Anglo-French entente of 1904 been revealed when they were made, it would have been much more difficult to secure the atmosphere of war in 1914. Secrecy breeds suspicion, and suspicion is the nurse of fear. The result of compelling publicity is to throw the onus of a grave offense upon power which, even in the insisting atmosphere, do not like to brave the hostile opinion of the world. And such publicity makes possible the necessary provision that no treaty should be regarded as valid until within three months from its publication by the League. For we then have a period in which States affected by the new arrangements may protest against them if they are adversely allotted. That is, I think, a legitimate matter for appeal to the Council of the League.



(2) Boundaries.

The authority of the League should always be invoked in fixing boundaries. Where the States concerned are in agreement upon the line to be drawn, the League may be no more than a source of approval. Where the problem, as with Poland and Germany, is a, debatable one, the authority of the League is the only source of a m reasonably impartial solution. It is, moreover, through the League only that there can adequately be worked out that system of neutral zones through which we may hope to avoid the difficulties which arise from considerations of strategy. Take, for example, a definitely German territory like the Rhineland.

It is unquestionably a source of danger to French security through the opportunities it offers for invasion. If it could be neutralized in a military sense, neither the political nor the economic interests of Germany need suffer. But such demilitarization can only be effected through the agency of an impartial authority. And, as a rule, the making of boundaries, as in the Balkans, involves the weighing of social and national considerations which are interpreted differently according to the State which makes the interpretation.

The League of Nations is the best assurance we have that the changes effected will be reasonable. The assurance, indeed, is not complete for the plebiscite in Silesia was fragrantly violated by the solution of the League itself. In general, it is probable, the League must make for itself a self-denying ordinance that all boundaries which seek to settle problems of racial affinity must go by majority-rule and the actual voting must be carried out with safeguards of secrecy as complete as those of an English general election.

(3) Disarmament.

Ideally, the solution of the disarmament question is a position where no State possesses more armed forces than are necessary for the problems of internal police as a matter of practice, that solution is Utopian at the present time. But our experience of national competition in the scale of armaments has already taught us some obvious lessons. It has shown that preparation against war is no safeguard against war that, on the contrary, preparation is the inevitable prelude to war. The history of Anglo German naval rivalry is in this regard final. And it is clear that unless there is some agreed and proportionate method of defense under the auspices of the League, observance of which is a condition of continued membership, there is no proper protection against the atmosphere of suspicion which arises out of the uncontrolled power to arm.

What principles, then, of control may be said to emerge from our recent experience ? They are, I suggest five in number.

(I) No State should be permitted to maintain a conscript army. The training of the adult population to arms is tantamount to an invitation to the powerful State to use its forces for the extension of its influence. It is clear that the relation between the numbers of French and German citizens was, in the atmosphere of conscription, one of the contributory causes in the war of 1914. The maintenance of a purely professional army operates to demilitarize the habits of the general population. It follows of course, that such unpaid troops as the British Territorial Army should likewise be prohibited.

(2) The manufacture of armaments, whether naval or military in nature, should be confined to governments. Anyone at all intimately acquainted with the history of the armaments “ring” before 1914 I will have realized the disastrous results of allowing private Enterprise live by the belligerent habits they can induce in governments and it is clear, even after the war, that the new States created by the Peace of Versailles are dragged by the inherent vices of the system into a kindred atmosphere. The manufacture of munitions in Austria was forbidden by the Treaty of Trianon but there seems no doubt that armaments have been made there for the use of the now independent succession States.

(3) It is necessary further, to prohibit the manufacture of certain types of armament, of which an obvious illustration is poison gas There is, doubtless, an irony almost as savage as that of Swift in the notion of civilizing warfare. But no one who has seen the effects, say, of poison gas, or of the bombardment of unfortified towns, especially from the air, can doubt that they release barbarians fatal to the elementary decencies of human nature. And the greater the advance of science the more disastrous are the consequences of such usage. The matter has become serious enough to affect the whole future of the human race for if this inventiveness is unchecked, and the chemist, for example, has a period of thirty years in which to perfect his discoveries, the effects of war will be to reduce civilization to a shambles in which decency will have become a legend.

(4) There must be agreed scales of armament between States on the basis partly of population, and, partly, of the volume and area of trade to be defended. Such a rationing of permissible armament does not, of course, seriously diminish the possibility of war at the best it merely decreases the cost of war in time of peace. But it has the very great value of making the scale of defense public and the result of that publicity is to lower the dangerous suspicions out of which and upon which the atmosphere of war emerges. It releases public funds, moreover for pacific purposes and that is a consequence which, particularly in the sphere of education has contingently unlimited importance.

(5) It is vital that no naval or military bases should be built with out the specific approval of the League. It is clear that such efforts as the fortification of Heligoland by Germany or of Singapore by Great Britain, raises questions of far more than merely domestic significance. Had Lord Salisbury foreseen the future of Heligoland, he would never have exchanged it for Zanzibar and a fortified Singapore is inevitably regarded by Japan as a menace to her safety. If States with outlying possessions are to proliferate fortifications over the world, it is obvious that their neighbors will be compelled to retort in kind, and we shall be threatened with a new form of competition in armaments not less menacing than those of the past. If there is a good case for a naval dock at Singapore, Great Britain ought to be able to make out that case before an independent tribunal. To leave her with the final power to decide is to violate, ab imtio every principle of international organization.

Once it is conceded that disarmament is a matter for the League the method of securing the observance of these principles becomes important. Clearly, no ordinary executive could expect to cope with the problems to which they give rise. They involve the existence of a standing body of experts who shall report from time to time to the League upon their application. To report, they must have the right to inspect and to inspect, they must have the right of entry. The League, therefore, must have beneath its executive body a Disarmament Commission charged with the supervision of these functions. It will, of course, be a commission of inquiry and not of action it will do only what it is authorized to do by its superiors And such a functional body within the League serves as a type of administrative authority which will doubtless have to be created for not a few purposes.

It will act as an eye for the League. It will render its observations independent of the material supplied to it by the States which might, conceivably, be interested in evading their obligations. I do not imply that such a Commission will prevent evasion, any more than the criminal law prevents murders from being committed. But at least it will serve as a safeguard against them.

(6) Treatment of Minorities, racial and religious-Not the least urgent problem raised in an acute form in the nineteenth century, and accentuated by the provisions of the Peace of Versailles, is that which is raised by the fact that no geographical boundaries, however drawn, can possibly give territorial autonomy to each group of persons claiming distinctive characteristics nor, on economic grounds, would such separation be desirable. It is, accordingly, important that minorities should be guaranteeing the possession of those rights without which, as I have sought to show above, a creative life is impossible. They are not attained merely by the insertion of a Bill of Rights in a constitution. In Poland and Roumania, in Hungary and Jugo-Siavia, equality before the law has neither existed nor has effort been made to ensure its existence. The only way in which it can be made real is to offer to these minorities the protection of the League. What rights that protection should safeguard varies, naturally, from State to State. In some countries, it involves linguistic protection Germans do not desire to be coerced into speaking Czech or Polish.

In others it is religious protection which is important, Roumanian Jews do not wish to be excluded from universities because their faith is different from that of the general population. What seems necessary, in general, is the establishment of a minority’s right to protest to the League against its treatment, with a consequent duty on the part of the League to investigate complaints which seem substantial. Such an investigation ought to involve recommendations after hearings, and it should be an obligation inherent in membership of the League that any State to which such recommendations have to be sent undertakes to carry them out in principle and detail.

Can the League enforce its recommendations upon an unwilling State P To the point of making war to that end, obviously such enforcement is likely to be, for some time, impossible. But it could, I think, insist that any State which failed to carry them out as a matter of deliberate policy could be subjected to economic boycott. It could be prevented from raising loans abroad its securities could be removed from the lists quoted in the Bourses of foreign powers and in extremely bad cases it might be prohibited from trade with those powers. Suspension from membership of the League is also a penalty of a useful kind for that would be an announcement that the recalcitrant power had defied the public opinion of the world.

It is a question of much interest as to when the treatment of subject-minorities moves over from being a domestic issue to being one of which the League must take account. Suppose, for example, that Egypt or India appealed to the League, as Ireland appealed to the Peace Conference in 1919. Suppose that the Philippines, or Haiti, or San Domingo asked the League for assistance against what, rightly or wrongly, they believed to be maltreatment by the United States. We in instances such as these, is the duty of the League prior question must here be asked. What is to be taken as an appeal from Egypt or Ireland or India? Obviously some discontented minority association has not the right to be business is, as it best may to become a majority in the community it seeks to represent. An official appeal must I think, be taken to mean an appeal from a majority of members representing the minority concerned in the elected assembly of the given State.

If they complain of oppression, it should, I think, be the duty of the League to investigate their alleged grievances. The only case against that view is that which rests upon prestige. England did not, in 1919, like the idea of its relations with Ireland being investigated by foreigners the United States wants independence to come to the Philippines at a time of her own choosing. But a case built only upon prestige is, I think, one that is into possible to maintain. No people, as Sir Henry Campbelb Bannerman said, is ever good enough to govern another people and if the latter’s elected representatives combine to protest against their suzerainty there is at least a prime facie case for investigation.

In such cases it should, i suggest, he the function of the League to make independent inquiry. Clearly, all such investigations must be ad hoc investigations and they must take the form of general recommendations which are not binding in character. No League of Nations which ordered England to Withdraw from India or Japan to surrender Korea. could hope to enforce its views the most it can attempt is the publication of conclusions and suggestions. And if that work is effectively done, it will be difficult for any government to resist the accretion of public opinion about such a report.

It will, moreover, serve another important purpose. Half the difficulties which face the modern world come iron our ignorance of foreign affairs and much of what knowledge we believe ourselves to possess is in fact a system of inductions from tendentious reports. Englishmen naturally believe that India is well governed because they govern it themselves Indians, equally naturally, believe that their exclusion from supreme control is a cause of misgovern. Only genuinely independent inquiry can awaken either to the other’s point of View. But it is important that the inquiry should be genuinely independent. It is no use sending a Roman Catholic to inquire into Hungary’s treatment of its minorities or an Anglo-Indian civilian to report upon the future of the Philippines. Bias and error we shall doubtless always have: but the League must take pains to see that they are, at their minimum

(7) The Treatment of Backward Peoples-Closely connected with the problem of minorities is that of subject races. Here, the League has already acknowledged a measure of responsibility by insistence upon the mandate system for colonies and territories which, as a result of the war of 1914, have been handed over to the victors in that conflict. By Article of the Covenant of the League certain principles of government have been laid down. These territories are divided into three general groups. In the first, of which Iraq and Palestine are examples, the community is recognized as having reached a stage of development where their existence as independent nations can be provisionally recognized but they must receive the advice and assistance of the Mandatory Power in matters of administration.

The latter, broadly speaking, may regard them as a temporary protectorate. In the second group, the territory becomes what is, in the British Empire. Crown Colony without representative institutions. The Mandatory Power guarantees religious freedom. It agrees to enforce the prohibition of slavery and the slave trade of the liquor traffic and the sale of arms and to protect the interest of the natives in all transactions about land. It agrees not to establish fortifications or naval and military bases and to train the natives in arms no further than is necessary for police and defense. Freedom of trade is also secured.

Togoland and the Cameroons are examples of this type of mandate. The third class is of territories which, either because of their small size, like Nauru or their thin population, like South-West Africa, are integrally absorbed into the territory of the Mandatory Power, and become subject to such laws as it chooses to make. In all three classes the Mandatory Power must make an annual report on its work to the League and the latter has established a Permanent Mandates Commission of nine members, five of whom belong to non-mandatory, and four to mandatory States to watch in detail over the operation of the system. None of these members moreover, who sit for the Mandatory States, must be in the employ of the governments concerned.

No one can deny that these principles represent, in general, a great advance upon methods so far suggested for the government of native races. Anyone who compares them, for example, with the principles actually involved in the penetration of the African continent will realize that the possibility of a new atmosphere has been created. But, it may be suggested, there is still a great gulf fixed between the principles adumbrated and the measures taken to ensure their application. The annual report is made by the Mandatory Power the State to be scrutinized, that is to say, reports from time to time that its conduct has been good and the attitude of South Africa over the Bondelwarts rebellion will make most independent observers a little dubious whether such reports are the best way to the goal in view.

There are, in fact, two quite obvious ways in which they can be supplemented. There should, in the first place, be accredited to each mandated territory of the League a commissioner who will act as its ambassador upon the spot. He should belong always to a different State from that of the Mandatory Power. It should be his business to keep watch upon its work, and independently to report upon it to the League. All regulations made by the Mandatory Power should be referred to him for approval, and, in the event of his disagreement, they should be confirmed or denied by the Permanent Mandates Commission. Where trouble occurs, as in the Bondelwarts rebellion, it should be his function to make an independent judicial inquiry and to report directly to the League as early as possible after the outbreak.

He should himself always speak the most usual language of the territory, and have an independent staff speaking the languages of the different peoples. Thereby the League would possess an independent and continuous check upon the work of the Mandatory Powers its discussion of their work would not be based mainly, as now, upon what the latter had chosen to tell them. It could really investigate trouble whereas, at present, if it chose to make investigation, most of the relevant evidence would already have perished. Dead natives do not differ from other men in being able to tell no tales. It may be added that there is no reason why the mandate system should not be extended to all territories in which the native races predominate. Every reason for League control of Togoland is a reason for League control of Kenya and there is already provision in the Covenant whereby this extension ,might without difficulty be made.

Such a system of inspection, I believe, is of the first importance but it will not by itself guarantee adequacy, Not less important is the quality of the personnel engaged in the administration of mandates. The League cannot of course, control appointments to the colonial service of a Mandatory Power but it can, if necessary, and after appropriate investigation, demand disciplinary measures, including dismissal from the service, of persons so appointed. It can, further, insist that no person shall be appointed to the service without an adequate training in ethnology and anthropology, and ability to speak the language of the territory he is to administer.

It is the clear lesson of research that ability to understand native customs is essential to wise administration in these matters and only a genius can hope to learn them by rule of thumb on the spot. It is important, further, to see that no white settlers engaged in Commerce should possess judicial powers. They are there for profit, and it is obvious from the history of commerce in such territories that the trader cannot be trusted to do justice to the native. Nor, so far as possible, should forced labor be permitted certainly the native should never be hired out over a period in which specific performance is enforced to private persons. The matter is different where public works, like the making of roads, are concerned. But the general rule that labor employed should be normal wage labor is a principle of great importance.

(8) Aggression, Wars and Disputes- The value of the League of Nations depends clearly upon its power to prevent war. Let us examine the provisions already made in the Covenant for the peaceful settlement of disputes. Each member, in the first place, guarantees both the territory and the existing independence of all other members of the League against external aggression and it is the function of the Council of the League to advise upon the methods of fulfilling this obligation. I far or the threat of war is secondly a matter of concern to the League, whether its members are affected or not and when such emergency arises, the Council of the League is to be summoned forthwith. Every member of the League has the friendly right to bring to the attention either of the Assembly or the Council circumstances tending to disturb international peace.

I In the event of dispute between members of the League, they agree, if the dispute seems suitable to arbitration or judicial settlement, to submit the problem to such settlement if the ordinary diplomatic channels fail and they agree not to resort to war until three months after the award under such a settlement has been made, the period of that award being six months at a maximum from the submission of the dispute to the Council.

The members of the League agree to carry out the terms of an award in good faith, and failure involves action against the recalcitrant member by the Councils! For the purpose of such arbitration a permanent International Court of Justice has been created. But, obviously, the root of the matter lies in disputes which members of the League are not prepared to submit to arbitration. In that event, the members agree to submit the matter to the Council, and submission is effected by one of the parties to the dispute giving notice thereof to the Secretary General of the League. Preparations are then made for full inquiry, and the Council seeks the means of settlement.

If it fails, it makes, either unanimously or by a majority, a report of conclusions and recommendations and dissenting members are entitled to publish a minority report If the report of the Council is unanimous and one party to the dispute agrees with it, the members of the League pledge themselves not to make war upon that party. If no unanimous report is issued, the parties remain free to take individual action. The Council does not act when the subject of a dispute is found to be of a domestic and not at an international nature and it may, it it think tit, refer the dispute to the Assembly of the League which then acts in the place, and with the powers of the Council, so long as the member States on the Council and a majority of the Assembly concur in the report. In all such decisions, of course, the parties concerned in the dispute do not take a voting part.

So much is already League-law, binding upon its members and, before we discuss the method of its enforcement, it is perhaps well to see how far it takes us. The Covenant provides machinery for the settlement of disputes which do not raise the difficult problems of prestige particularly, it makes permanently justifiable problems which arise out of treaties or international law. It compels settlement in none justifiable disputes where the Council is unanimous, but it still leaves open the door to war where there is disagreement on the Council. No one, I think, can deny that work of some significance has already been done under these provisions. Certainly the issues between Finland and Sweden over the Aaland Islands, and between Jugo-Slavia and Albania, over the northern frontier of the latter States, were settled promptly and fairly by these means.

That, however, which arose between Greece and Italy in the summer of 1923, and resulted in the bombardment by Italy of Corfu, is evidence that the utilization of these provisions is no easy matter. Sanctions apart, it is clear that they need supplement, especially in the direction of a definition of what disputes are justifiable, and how an aggressor in the case of conflict is to be defined. The provisions, moreover, do not bind nonmembers of the League, and the position of two of these powers, America and Russia, may be decisive in the future of civilization.

Let me take these points separately. It I think, urgent in the interests of peace that it be emphasized in the regulations of the League that there is no such thing as a dispute not capable: of settlement either by an international court of justice pr by arbitration. For immediately a nation: State assumes that a given issue touches its honor, and it cannot, therefore, submit itself to an international jurisdiction, it is, in fact, adopting the same mental attitude as the protagonist in a private duel. Austrian “honor” was not vindicated in 1914, by making war upon Servia Italian “honour” was not vindicated in 1923 by bombarding Corfu. In each case real issues were evaded by being enveloped in a miasma of prestige which prevented their exploration in terms of the facts they involved.

The conception that a nation-State which either commits wrong, or believes itself to be wrong, can make its own law, represents a faith as outworn as, and infinitely more dangerous than, the creed which assumed that an insulted aristocrat of the eighteenth century could only vindicate himself by blood. The national honor as Mr. Veblen has well said “moves in the realm of magic, and touches the frontiers of religion.” For no one seriously believes that an outraged corporate personality is made whole again by any of the ways involved in the code of diplomatic procedure. The common man does not, as a rule, even know that it has been outraged until his patriotism is appealed to by methods which frequently lose sight of the facts which are said to constitute outrage. And if honor, being dissatisfied in terms of punctilio, then proceeds to war, the common man may pay the penalty in terms which go far beyond any price commensurate with the original sin. I believe, therefore, that it is necessary to define the jurisdiction of the League over disputes much more broadly than is now the case.

(I) It must not only have jurisdiction, as now, over disputes susceptible of legal decision, or by agreed arbitration, or by settlement in terms of unanimous decision by the Council, of the League. It must assume

(2) that all disputes are within its competence and that any decision reached by even a bare majority must be accepted by the parties to the dispute because such a decision, even when regarded as unfair by either or both, is, in the light of historic experience, preferable to decision by war. The latter type of decision is either no decision at all, or at best, merely involves the welfare of small group in the victorious nation State to the detriment, of the vast majority of its citizens. The universal jurisdiction of the League is therefore elementary. The problem then becomes one of organizing the administration of its powers rather than of inquiring into those powers themselves.

One point ,of importance may here be noted. If, it is argued, compulsory settlement is to be the rule, two vast areas of dispute immediately come into view.



(I) There are problems connected with the Treaty of Versailles the present settlement of which is bound to be a temporary one. The present constitution of the League, especially by canonizing, in Article more, the present frontiers of nation States stereotypes obvious injustice and many nation-States, rather than submit to justice, will defy the League and risk war.

(2) There are also problems, like the admission of Japanese to Australia, or of Indians to Kenya, which may be settled on paper by arbitration but the white races in either case, will fight, whatever the risk, against a settlement imposed from without that is contrary to their own view. Neither of these views is, I think, a tenable One. No one who reads the Treaty of Versailles can doubt that if it instinct, at many points, With grave injustice. But no one also, as I think, can deny that those injustices are susceptible of remedy in such a system as is here outlined, and that, alternatively, the making of war is not in the least likely to remedy them. There are injustices in relation to the boundaries of States. These can, it may be suggested be met in a variety of ways.

If the difficulties involved are economic in nature, as when a State becomes landlocked by the revision of boundaries, it is possible to arrange for utilization, on agreed terms, of the nearest available seaport. If the difficulties are strategic in character, the way out lies through the building of neutral zones. If they relate to the treatment of a national or religious minority, the principles already urged above become germane. It will, of course, become essential eventually to amend Article more by permitting of its revision upon agreed principles as it stands, it represents the passion of a war time period. But as those passions die away, there is room for its amendment within the confines of the Covenant of the League and such a method is clearly preferable to the use of a force which cannot in its employment, be possibly confined to any precise or limited objective.

Nor, I believe, do the problems of which the admission of Japanese to Australia is an example offer final difficulties The issue is not, of course, a simple one Ultimately, it is inevitable, I think, that problems of international migration should come within the ambit of the League. But it is obvious that to decide such problems in principle is a very different matter from deciding upon their administrative technique. Australians, clearly, cannot claim to exclude Japanese altogether, without agreeing to their own exclusion from Japan. That is, probably, an impossible position in view of the economic relationships involved. But, in admitting Japanese, Australia might well be regarded as entitled to settle

(I) the annual number of immigrants she is prepared to receive

(2) the conditions they shall observe after entrance into Australian territory

(3) their possible segregation to specific belts of territory. The ideal of a “white Australia” is a perfectly intelligible one and no League of Nations which strove to be realistic could fail to demand of those who proposed to emigrate the observance of those conditions upon which the standard of a “white Australia” depends. But, the converse is also the case and white people who emigrate, say, to the hinterlands of Africa cannot demand that the mandatory powers use their authority to safeguard the type of civilization to which they are accustomed against conditions to which it is unrelated. If, then, all disputes are to be within the province of the League, how is aggression involving League action to be defined. There are, I think, three categories of acts which make possible the naming of an aggressor.

(I) A power which refuses to accept the jurisdiction of the League is an aggressor.

(2) A power Which, having accepted jurisdiction, refuses to accept a settlement made by the League is an aggressor. (3) A power which, under (I) or (2) uses the intervals before League action to prepare itself for war by increasing its armaments or its effective becomes thereby an aggression In all these cases the League must exercise against States which put themselves in any of these categories all the authority at its command.



A general question here arises with which it is necessary to deal before the methods of enforcing League authority am discussed. The question has two sides. There is the issue, first, oi dealing with nonmembers oi the League. For some period, at any rate, America will not join the League. What will occur if she becomes involved with Japan in a crisis which seems likely to result in war. The answer is, I think, plain. America, like any other power, must be offered arbitration by the League. Her refusal to accept such arbitration must be recognized as not less definitively an act of aggression than if it were made by England or France or Italy. For the consequences of an American-Japanese war cannot be limited to the original combatants and the State which lights must be made relentlessly aware that it fights at its peril.

If it is argued that Canada or Australia would, in such a conflict, refuse to accept the orders of the League, would, indeed, possibly light on the side of America, the only possible answer is that if this should occur, as it might well occur, it would, of course, destroy the League. Upon the consequences of that destruction do not need to dilate. But it is, I think, obvious that with the breakdown of the League there would be an end to international experiment. We should then revert to the pro-1914 situation, which is, as we have learned, the inevitable source of war. The other aspect of the general question is the possibility that member-States may refuse to accept either the jurisdiction or the recommendations of the League, in defiance of their plain obligations. I do not deny such a possibility it, is inherent in all that has here been urged about the general nature of legal obligation.

All that can be said to the contrary is this: The degree of allegiance the League commands will depend (a) upon the confidence it commands by the work it does and (b) by the sanctions at its disposal. The League, clearly, if it can prove its good-will to its members, is, to the degree of its success, unlikely to forfeit its authority and if it can make the position of a recalcitrant member impossible, the motive of fear may prove adequate. But there is, frankly, no guarantee in either position. Anyone, whether in the State or in the League of Nations, who is determined to resist authority whatever the consequences will naturally resist it.

No law is immune from the wilful lawbreaker. All accordingly, we can do is to minimize by organization the chance that such infractions will occur. If, then, such be the jurisdiction of the League, we have to inquire into the powers that it needs to carry out its functions. The existing sanctions are defined in Article more of the covenant of the League These, broadly speaking, are three in number.

(1) Any nation-State which resorts to war under the conditions outlined above is penalized by the severance of all economic relations with members of the League, and all other intercourse of a financial, commercial or personal kin.

(2) The Council is to recommend what effective naval, military or air force the members of the League are severally to contribute for the protection of the Covenant.



(3) Passage through its territory is to be afforded by all members of the League to any State co-operating with the League under

(2). A subordinate sanction is the power of the League by a unanimous vote of the Council to expel from membership any State which has violated the Covenant In principle, at least, these sanctions are powerful enough to satisfy anyone of their theoretical effectiveness. In part, clearly, the machinery of sanctions must always be left vague it would be ridiculous to call into being the same scale of attack against a recalcitrant Great Britain as against a recalcitrant Albania. But, assuming the nature of such , sanctions, the question of whether they can be called into being is obviously a question of the first importance Obviously, in the first place, the military obligations of each power concerned must be defined. The League must know what forces-naval, military, aerial-it can count upon in applying sanctions. It ,must, obviously also, publish these facts, in order that members of the League may realize the striking force of the League. But would the States so obliged fulfill their obligations? Here, of course, we dwell in the realm of conjecture. If they did not, obviously the League would come to an end amid derision. If it is necessary to apply force and it found that it could not depend upon its members, it would be useless. Yet that failure IS unlikely, for the reason that the League, in deciding upon military sanctions, is, after all, the States which have to supply the means of sanction and they will not cover themselves with ridicule. They may default but if the problem involved is serious enough to necessitate the use of armed force, their default seems unlikely.

The use of economic sanctions is in another, and less difficult, atmosphere. This is probably the most effective weapon at the disposal of the League for in the midst of an economic world order it is improbable that any State can afford to pay the penalty such sanctions would involve. Its credit structure would be ruined. It would be shut out from all sources of export.

It would not be able to import necessary food commodities and raw materials. Italy, for example, Would lack coal, copper, and iron and all else apart without these the conduct of war is impossible. Experience of the blockade in the years from 1914 has taught most European nations that the power to control the flow of goods and services is a fundamental power. It is a weapon which can be brought into play without great effort, and it is rapid in its results. Save in the case of self-sufficient States like Russia and America, it is doubtful whether any member of the League could long withstand its rigorous application.

Its silent character, moreover, the fact that it does not involve the contingent expenditure of life on the part of the States co operating in its use makes it likely that this will be the most general type of sanction applied by the League in cases of importance. Nor do I think it is a sanction in which States will refuse to cooperate.

The Functions of International Organizations in Social issue

Under Articles more of the Covenant of the League of Nations certain matters of general social welfare are placed under its supervision. They possess, I believe, an importance which. far surpasses the attention they have commanded in popular interest. For in part they constitute a body of functions in relation to which the League already encountered either existing international agreements on the one hand, or a body of fairly coherent international opinion on the other and they represent a field of activity success in which is likely to result in the transference of faith in inter national organization to the more striking functions of the League. As at present defined, and omitting matters already discussed above these social functions may be divided into six general, groups.

(I) The League is to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labor for men, women and children both in the territories of League members and of those with whom these have dealings, and to create appropriate international institutions for the purpose.

(2) It is to supervise and execute agreements relating to the traffic in women and children, and such noxious drugs as opium.

(3) It is to secure and maintain

(a) freedom of communication and transit, and

(b) equitable commercial treatment for the members of the League.

(4) Where disease has an international incidence, the League is to take steps for its control and prevention.

(5) It is by consent to extend its supervision to existing international bureaus such as the Institute of Agriculture at Rome, and where such supervision is not exercised, it is to assist in whatever way is thought desirable by the Council and all future international organizations are to be placed under its direction.

(6) It is to promote and assist Red Cross Organizations Which aim at the improvement of health, the prevention of disease, and the mitigation of suffering throughout the world.

This is clearly an ambitious programme but, with Some hesitation, as in the case of Russia, not unconnected with the partisan atmosphere of war, the League may fairly be said to have genuinely attempted to give it concrete substance. I shall deal below with the economic activities of the League. But it is useful here to note the type of effort which illustrates this branch of international function. Much has been done to repatriate prisoners of war, and, analogously, to relieve, refugees from Russia and the Near East. Something has been achieved in mitigating the horrors of the White Slave Traffic and of the deportation of women and children to Turkey and Asia Minor. Conferences have met in the effort to control the traffic in opium and cocaine and though what has here been revealed is perhaps rather the degree of homage paid by commercial hypocrisy to the international conscience,there are greater signs of good will in the matter than at my previous time.

A real effort further has been made to check the spread of typhus in Eastern Europe, and it is likely that only the League could have been effective in this regard. The financial reconstructions of Austria and Hungary are very definite achievements Less, perhaps has been accomplished for the maintenance of the common intellectual life of European civilization, though instances of assistance in a small way are not lacking. In sum total I think it is fair to say that a real start in beneficent organization has been made. The problem is the intensification of effort rather than the realization of its importance.

What direction should that intensification take Certain obvious possibilities suggest themselves There are needed, in the first place, under the aegis of the League, permanent Commissions, parallel to the existing Commissions on Mandates and on Intellectual Io operation, of which the importance would, over a period, be very great.

(I) There is needed a Commission on Educational Work in Backward Countries. This applies not merely to mandated territories, where Special technical problems are involved, but also to areas like the Balkans, where education is still at an unreasonably primitive level. We need to develop a common minimum of educational effort among all members of the League if the full impact of its work is to be made plain to the common people. We have to organize interchange of teachers and pupils among different States if our educational systems are to transcend their present provincialism. We have to be able to offer advice to States which realize their lack of adequate stall and methods, and, where possible, to provide access to a ,supply of teachers. There is of course, some cultural interchange now but its organization is directed rather to the enhancement of specific national influence than to building a medium of international advantage.

(2) There is needed, secondly, a Permanent Medical Commission dealing primarily with the organization of medical work in backward areas, with sub-commissions under its control actually doing medical work in those areas. The work now done on a small scale by such bodies as the Yale Medical College in China needs to be coordinated with the deliberate end of relating it in a coherent way to world needs. Such a commission could cultivate relations with foundations like that of Mr. Rocke feller in New York.

It could advise and report upon current medical organization. It could organize expert inquiries into particular medical problems. It could bring to the knowledge of medical men in Jugo-Slavia the importance, for instance, of recent American work on the prevention of rickets among children. A series of carefully prepared bulletins on medical progress in different branches would be of the highest value in regions which, at present, are for practical purposes entirely ignorant of the advances which have been made.

(3) There is needed, thirdly, an International Commission on Official Statistics. I have already urged the great importance of quantitative knowledge upon social questions and such knowledge is the more valuable, the wider the area of comparison upon which it is built. At present that area is narrow because it is practically impossible to compare the statistics of one country with those of another, through differences in form and method. We can compare the infantile death-rate of English and American cities, but we cannot compare, in any realistic way, the wage rates in similar industries. We need, therefore, an international body charged with two functions :

(a) The adoption of increasingly uniform methods in the collection and presentation of statistics, and

(b) the preparation of reports upon the results of comparing State with State upon this basis. This does not require any large organization. It involves a small permanent staff at Geneva, and the association therewith of government officials and other experts in an organized and, continuous way. Such an effort, it may be added, is really urgent if we are to tackle in a hopeful way the problems of economic co-operation by which the world is confronted.

(4) There is needed, fourthly, an International Commission on Law. Such a body would, of course, sit under the ultimate control of the International Court of Justice. It would seek to effect three things.

(a) It would assist in the codification of international law, both public and private.

(b) It would attempt to develop uniformity in branches of the law, as, for example, that of bills and notes, or the incorporation of public companies, where incorporation is obviously desirable.

(c) It would act as an advisory body on questions of law where, though the para mountcy of the individual State must be preserved, it is desirable to have an expression of expert international opinion examples of this type of question are legislation relating to aliens to the legal position of women who marry foreigners to the position of political offenders who have fled from the State, where their offense was committed, and so forth. Such a commission, once more, does not need any formidable panoply of organization. It requires a small permanent staff, together with the power to initiate sub-commissions of special inquiry And, in general, it would be advisable that these sub commissions should be composed not only of government representatives, but also of persons delegated thereto by legal organizations for their special competence in particular problems

The Functions of International Organizations in Economic issue

Obviously, no international organization would be effective which failed to take account of economic questions. I argued in an earlier chapter that the relation of nationalism to industrialism is now so complex and so interwoven that the problems raised by the one can only be solved by meeting the problems specifically raised by the other that has been, at least in part, recognized by the labor section in the Treaty of Versailles, and by the creation, under the Covenant of the League of Nations, of the International Labour Office. Indeed, it does not need discussion to demonstrate that a tariff may be not less a cause of economic conflict than a frontier and in modern diplomacy the objects of discussion tend more and more to be concerned with economic questions. Anglo Russian relations, for instance, are poisoned by the problem i of the debts incurred by Russia before the Revolution of 1917. The boundary of Mesopotamia is connected, as is the status of Mexico, with its oil-wells. The relation of the Great Powers to China is set by its immense and unused natural resources. The prospects of Italy in a world-system are built upon her access to a supply of electric power and the absence from her territories of a coal-deposit makes the problem of fuel for industrial purposes one of immense political significance for her So, also, with the large issues of foreign investment and of a mercantile marine.

It is clear that an ability to invest abroad may bring one State under the political dominion of another, as Egypt became a protectorate of Great Britain. It is clear also that if the mercantile marine of one nations State has lower freight-costs than that of another, by reason, for instance, of differential advantages such as America could grant by her control of the Panama Canal, grave international complications might result. It is clear, finally, that only with reasonably uniform labor conditions can industrial come petition approximate to fairness. The price of English coal is bound, broadly speaking to be higher than that of German coal, if the standard-day of the English miner is seven hours and that of the German miner eight even more, for similar goods, the English cotton-operative cannot maintain his market if his price is to meet that, for instance, paid by the millowners of Bombay and Osaka.

I take, of course, only a few instances amid the great variety that exist. They imply, I think, that the League must undertake far wider economic control than is provided for under its existing organization. I can only attempt here the broadest kind of indication of the economic categories over which, as I believe, the, influence of the League should become paramount. I do not argue that it is likely to become paramount in any short space of time. No nation-State, is likely to part with sovereignty over its economic concerns until, in the area of political affairs, the competence and good-will of the League has been proved beyond a doubt. It is, indeed, possible that in some of these categories the power of the League will develop less into thoroughgoing control than into the authority to make recommendations, or to find conclusions, which the good-will of individual States is left to translate into substance. But a brief discussion of one or two categories of this kind will serve the purpose of at least indicating the region into which the League must make its way.

1. International Investment.

I do not need to dwell in any detail over the power of international investment. English dealings with South Africa and Egypt, American dealings With Haiti, with San Domingo and with Mexico, French dealings with Russia, are merely instances of a tragic of which the consequences have been incalculable. What, I think, emerges from any consideration of their meaning is the need of a twofold system of control.

(I) Where the loan involved is made to a State, its terms should be approved by the League, whether it is made by the investors of a single State or on some apportioned system of contribution, as in the loan made to Germany under the Dawes scheme in the autumn of 1924.

(2) The method of repayment should never include a power which may threaten the political independence of a State, as the independence of Egypt was destroyed under the British occupation.

(3) It should never carry with it, the grant of economic concessions to the citizens of any special State there develops, otherwise, the type of problem which is illustrated by the history of concessions in Morocco and Persia.

(4) Where the money loaned is to be Spent outside the debtor-State, as in the purchase, for instance, of rolling stock for a railway, the purchase should be made by the decision of the debtor-State in concert with an ad hoc advisory committee appointed by the League.

(5) No State should be entitled to act on behalf of any investors who have participated in a loan without the sanction of the League.

(6) No State should permit its citizens to invest in any loan to a State which is not a member of the League fully performing its functions as a member, and, in especial, the obligations involved in the conventions of the International Labour Office.

But loans to a State, even when so safeguarded, do not exhaust the problems of international investment. It is important, also, to organize methods of supervising the operations of business men abroad, especially in backward territories. Anyone who reads the history of the Congo, or of Putumayo, will realize without difficulty why. such supervision is required. But these are only the last terms in a series the consequences of which demand at every point scrutiny. The grounds of this control have been succinctly stated by Mr. Brailsford. If a man or a company wishes to trade or lend money abroad under cover of our flag. He writes it is obvious that if we intend in any degree to protect or recognize his business, it must be open to investigation and it must conform to such rules as the present standards of international morality may lay down.Mr. Brailsford was writing in 1914, when a League of Nations did not seem practical the requirement in our own day must be conformity, not to a State-made basis of obligation, but to one arrived at under the aegis of the League. It would, I think, involve some such system of conditions as the following:

(I) Each State should keep a register of undertakings engaged in business abroad. The register should be divided into enterprises receiving recognition and those to which, for reasons set out below, recognition was refused the cost of registration being met by an annual fee like that now charged for the registration of companies.

(2) The register should be revised annually, and should be open to inspection by the public. A copy of it, brought up to date, should be kept at the headquarters of the League.

(3) Recognition should be refused to any person or company which

(a) does not observe the labour conditions established by the International Labour Office

(b) the obligations, especially under the Mandates, established by the League of Nations

(c) which attempts to trade with countries in which slavery persists

(d) which attempts either financial or military intervention in a State which is either engaged in civil or foreign war.

(4) Where a company asks for recognition and it is refused, an appeal should be permissible to the courts.

(5) Where appeal against a recognition already made is lodged With the League of Nations, it should be competent for the International Court of Justice to hear the appeal, the costs, on failure, to be borne by the appellant. If the appeal is successful, the State in which the company is registered should pay the costs.

(6) No company to which recognition has been refused should have the right

(a) to have its securities quoted on the stock exchanges of any member of the League

(b) the right to sue in any court of law, except for the purpose of appealing against any refusal of recognition

(c) the right to the services of any embassy or consulate of any member of the League

(d) the right of entry into any mandated territories. An infraction of this latter rule should be punished by the imprisonment or heavy fine of the agent attempting entry.

It is not pretended here that such a system as this is exhaustive, for, clearly, experience will suggest a variety of other expedients. But at least a register of this kind would put grave difficulties in the way of the undesirable trader who, like Don Pacific, or the Mannerism brothers, is really exploiting the national prestige for his own personal benefit. It would not, I think, in any way hinder legitimate trading. Practically every firm which does business with the normal civilized State would be recognized as a matter of course those excluded would be firms dealing, for the most part, with backward areas upon conditions which seemed inequitable.

To deprive the latter of commercial status in international affairs is to recognize the reputability of recognized firms and that is to introduce a much-needed element of ethics into business enterprise. I do not, of course, deny that, upon occasion, the possible gains from unauthorized adventure will be high enough to persuade men to the risk and some of them, at least, will be able to evade the safeguards here suggested. But at least we shall discourage hereby the majority of adventurers of this type and the advantage of so doing will, I think, appear unquestionable to anyone who surveys impartially the history of foreign investment.

2. Tariffs

For reasons into which I cannot here enter, a tariff for revenue only, as opposed to tariffs which attempt to protect the domestic industries of a given State, seem to me a clear path to international peace.I But it is fairly clear that, outside Great Britain and Holland, the majority of the members of the League are likely, over a long period, to remain fully persuaded that what may briefly be described as economic Colbert ism is to their advantage. The business of the League, therefore, reduces itself to the function of preventing a tariff being used as a method of economic discrimination against its members, or of using a tariff as a means of penalizing those of its members who do not observe the economic obligations which arise under the Covenant. The League, therefore, should aim at equality of treatment for all.

its members under any tariff adopted by one of them it should prohibit those most favored nation clauses in commercial systems which operate to the disadvantage of other States. Inferential, therefore, it should, I think, prevent the granting of preferences by the Dominion: to Great Britain, and vice versa. For these operate to erect a closed economic system between the States concerned and that has, historically, a pernicious effect on international relations.

3. Other Economic Function

But a temporary inability to deal with tariffs beyond this point does not, I think, debar the League from considering ways and means of dealing with two other matters of grave economic importance. There are countries in which the standard of life, whether measured in wages, hours of labour, or factory conditions, are so low that its commodities can be purchased at a cost far below that of other countries where better standards obtain. Factory labour in India, for example, has still to learn the meaning, in any vigorous way, of trade unions and, while its standard of wages is intolerable, its hours of labour are reminiscent of the conditions in England before the Ten Hours Act of 1844. What is to be done in cases where the products of such labour undersell that produced under equitable conditions? There should, I suggest, be a power inherent in the Council of the League, upon recommendation from the International Labour Office, to demand from such a State the creation, within a specified time, of a system analogous to the Trade-Board system in Great Britain, but with powers extended to cover the whole range of industrial conditions.

These Trade Boards should apply standards, agreed upon as adequate by the International Labour office, and certified to be such by the latter within twelve months of their establishment. It the Council is informed that the required improvement has not been effected, it should be empowered to demand from member States an embargo upon the imports from the recalcitrant power. Such a policy, I believe, follows logically from the pledge in the Covenant to secure and maintain fair and humane conditions of labour. The second problem is much more tar-reaching in immediate

though not, I believe in ultimate character. It is concerned with the utilization of raw materials in mandated territories or unexploited areas. There is no reason why, unless we regard profit-making as a final reason, we should allow the wastage of natural resources in such areas as has taken place in civilized countries. In all such cases exploitation should take place only upon conditions approved by the League and the working of those conditions should from time to time be inspected by the League in order to make certain that the conditions are observed. It, for example, oil is discovered in large quantities in Mesopotamia the technical circumstances of its production ought not to be determined by the company which secures the concession, but by an ad hoc commission of the League, assisted by independent expert testimony gold is discovered in Tropical Africa, its production ought to be organized in similar fashion. There is every reason why the League should in this sense come to regard itself as a trustee for the future and to the degree that it insists upon such trusteeship it will remove a source of grave friction in international relations

This problem of the control of natural resources in unorganized areas raises of course the much more complicated question of their control in normal States. Here, at the least, we have some small, but important experience, to go upon. We learned in the years of war that it was possible

(a) to organize service in terms of need and

(b) to establish inter national I mechanisms for the determination of that need.

No one can have read Sir Arthur Salter’s history of the control of allied shipping or the record at the British Government in the purchase in bulk of necessary raw materials. without the sense that such methods look towards a system in which there is a permanent replacement of the middleman by a combination of States purchasing, through the League the stock of raw materials over a series of years, at an agreed price and distributing the stock on a principle of prior need. The investigation at least, of such a possibility appears important for two reasons. It makes possible in the first place, the maintenance of a stable world price-level or essential commodities and it brings, secondly, into the field of possibility, the removal of unnecessary and expensive competition in the commodity so controlled.

Before I attempt to explore the implications of this principle, it is worth while to note that certain indirect steps to this end of an interesting kind are already in existence, When in 1904, Mr. Lubin founded the International Institute of Agriculture, one of the purposes he had in mind was the reduction of speculative dealings in the food supplies of the world, and he proposed international organization against rings and monopolies which acted to that end. Here, as elsewhere, international business has been in advance of international government. Bodies like the White Sea and Baltic Conference, like the International Rail Syndicate, like the Continental Commercial Union in the Glass Industry, have for years conducted their operations on the basis of an agreed sales area, an agreed output, and an agreed price Their object, of course, was the maximum of profit with the minimum of risk. There does not seem to be any a prior reason why the governments of States should not utilize the machinery of the League in suitable regions to assist their peoples to a full supply of necessary commodities at a reasonable price.

The method, indeed, by which such operations are effected is not likely to be of any uniform pattern, nor is it likely to be entrusted to an ad hoc body with plenary powers, like the Reparations Commission. It is much more likely to be a series of consultative bodies, appointed through, and reporting to, the League, but working through the executive of each member of the League. The latter will, as Sir Arthur Salter has pointed out be influenced by and co-ordinates in their Operations by these bodies but they will be jointly moved less by direct control than by reciprocal influence.

It may be, for example, that the English Government will purchase that proportion of the world’s wheat supply needed by its people separately from France but it will purchase it in the light of a full knowledge of what France is doing and ,a sense of the impact upon France of its separate action. So, also, Italy may contract with Great Britain for the purchase of coal and the settlement of that purchase will be made by a body which realizes its influence upon the policy of the South American Republics. Thereby is established the vital principle of international organisation that governments should deliberately and continuously negotiate upon the joint settlement of large economic issues.

Certain inferential principles which here emerge may be noted in passing, since their results bear upon a later stage of the argument. It is possible, I have urged, for governments to co-operate in settling large economic questions. That settlement will probably be best effected, not by an executive body, but by the co-ordinated consultation of those in the separate States who are responsible for the political action involved. In general, it is best that such consultation should take place, not, as in the older diplomacy, through the medium of Foreign Offices, but through direct connection between the Specialized department.

The British Board of Trade should deal directly with the French Ministry of Commerce the Italian Minister of Agriculture should concert measures with the German Minister of Agriculture. Direct connection entails permanent institutions of contact. It is not enough to have occasional meetings of heads of departments. The responsible permanent personnel must learn to know each other intimately, to feel out each other’s minds, to gather from these continuous relations the ability to apply a sense of international need to the work of their own States. That involves, as Sir Arthur Salter has rightly insisted the growth between officials of a confidence great enough to enable them to discuss policy frankly in its earlier stages, and before it has been formed and formulated in their respective countries. For thereby, we avoid the danger of implicating in discussion the prestige of an administration we prevent it from having to give way in the public view. We get the basis of a common decision reached before governments have committed them selves to one view or another. No official, of course, can, or should, commit their respective countries but when the margins of agreement are known, it becomes a far easier matter to settle the powers to be conferred upon officials who make the solutions in terms of principles of which the limits are fairly well defined. Meetings of governments then become official occasions sanctioning plans of which the outlines are already organised. And the plans so made may become instinct with a spirit of internationalism simply by the way which officials, through their personal contact, have learned to realize and weigh other points of view.

I emphasis the importance of contact outside the Foreign polices of State. I believe it is of real urgency in building up such a method of international administration to multiply the sources of contact between States. The more we can localise action, the more it can be dealt with in terms, not of prestige, but of technique, the greater is the opportunity for the growth of technique. The normal channels of diplomacy centralise issues in a way of which the consequences may come to possess far more significance than is warranted. A problem of oil in Downing Street may easily loom larger than it looms in Whitehall.

Technique keeps the trivial in its right perspective. If a Foreign offices brought in to grapple with a dispute about railways, almost inevitably a hinterland of discussion beyond railways begins to pervade the atmosphere. And to keep discussion technical has the great additional advantage of keeping it undramatic. It cannot easily be made a journalistic sensation. It cannot be surrounded with that miasma of report and scandal which have poisoned so many international conferences in the last few years. It makes the notion of a triumph much less accessible when, a prion the nature of the triumph is not intelligible enough to be news. Anyone who has studied the working of things like the London Conference of 1924 will have realised that their best work was done when two or three men gathered together in a quiet room, not to bargain with each other, but to find solutions satisfactory to them both and it is not difficult to understand why a habit of gathering together over a long period of time should build bridges of mutual confidence over which success may be reached.

4. migration

Certain Special problems occur in relation to the movement of peoples of which the consequences may be momentous. In part, the issue is illustrated by the colour bar upon immigration into certain States of which I have already spoken. But, in part, also it involves discussing what is to be the general protection offered to the emigrant who leaves his native State, the organisation, for his advantage, of the full knowledge of what he will encounter and it involves the prevention of such movement as that of the Chinese immigrants to South Africa except upon terms that are adequate in a general way. The sooner the League turns its attention to these issues, the better it will be for the League. It needs to set up, under the aegis of the Council, a permanent Commission on migration with very definite functions.

(I) It should have the power to prevent emigration from backward or mandated areas unless the wages and conditions of labour offered are the same as those obtaining for similar work in the country to which the emigrants are going.

(2) It should organise the inspection of vessels carrying emigrants and insist upon the maintenance of a minimum standard of accommodation.

(3) It should be given the right to inspect

(a) the work of emigrant bureaus in different countries, and

(b) the power to license them to perform that work the license being withdrawn in the event of abuse.

(4) It should be given the right to inspect the accommodation for emigrants ,at ports of landing, and to make suggestions for their improvement to the proper authority failure to improve being followed by publicity about the facts involved.

(5) it should receive at the beginning of each year a statement of the total number of immigrants each State is prepared to absorb, the occupations in which there is room, the conditions upon which such occupations can be followed and it should, through sub-commissions in each State, publish the information available. Each emigration bureau should be compelled to give this information to each person who proposes to emigrate.

(6) It should, by agreement with members of the League, work in concert with the consular authorities in different States and act as a clearinghouse to check the numbers of emigrants so that no more set out upon their voyage than are likely to be received. It is difficult not to believe that there is here a region of activity in which the League can do incalculable good. The powers I have suggested do not reach a long way but, Wisely used. they may become the nucleus of wider authority from which there may one day emerge that attempt at an organised distribution of population in terms of area upon which ultimately much may come to depend.

5. Labour Conditions.

Under the Treaty of Versailles there has already been set up an International Labour Office, the general purpose of which is to maintain and improve the standard of life of the working classes throughout the world. I shall discuss later in this chapter the methods adopted by that office and the institutions through which it does its work. Here it is sufficient to note why it is necessary or the League to undertake functions of this kind. I have already pointed out that there is a world-market, and that the pressure of competition tends to produce a common level of industrial conditions in that market. But, obviously, it is of the first importance to determine what that level ought to be. In the long run. depressed wages in Germany mean depressed wages in England long hours in Japanese cotton-mills mean long hours in Lancashire cotton-mills. Italy will not supply preper accommodation for its seamen, if French sailors live under bad conditions.

A world-market, in fact, ultimately implies that the conditions of the State where the lowest cost of production prevails will determine the conditions of production in other States. It is, therefore, urgent to obtain a minimum stand throughout the world below which no State may permit its workers to fall. This involves a common minimum of sanitary conditions, of hours of labour, of wage-rates. It means a universal prohibition of child labour, universal enforcement of a weekly rest in industry. It means that when certain materials, like white phosphorus, are discovered to be dangerous, they may not be used anywhere in industrial processes. It means that such safeguards oi the working classes, as the right to associate for the joint sale of their labour and for collective bargaining about the conditions of their labour must be assured to them.

I take only obvious examples in the first three sessions of the Annual Conference of the International Labour Office, seventeen conventions were missed. I It may be said in general that no more valuable Work has been accomplished by the League than that for which the International Labour Office has been responsible. It has quite definitely, in the five difficult years since its origin, marked an epoch in the history of the working-class.

A word must be said about the character of international legislation upon these issues. There are certain areas of activity upon which the International Labour Office is bound to commit its members to a definite policy, and to no other policy than its minimal substance. But that policy will inevitably be minimal in character. It cannot legislate directly in the sense of itself administering its laws. It must seek their enforcement through the legislatures and public services of its member states. It can, indeed, as it does, adopt not only binding conventions, but also recommendations, that particular conditions are desirable, even when the time has not yet arrived for their universal enforcement and such recommendations will be valuable for the stimulus they provide to public opinion in the member States to press for their realization.

Yet it must be understood that the problem f of international labour legislation raises issues at once delicate and complex. We can impress upon a State a minimum below which its standards must not fall. We have to take care, first, that minimum standards do not become maximum standards, and that, secondly, enough account is taken of the great variety of conditions to make the legislation proposed capable of effective administration.

The latter problem is at least partly met by making the parties to the contract of legislation not merely the representatives of governments, and partly by making it possible, as in the Seamen Conference at Genoa in 1920, to have special expert assemblies to deal with issues of a peculiarly complex kind. The first expedient is an invaluable one. It not only makes possible the expression of industrial opinion from the most divergent angles, and that in an authoritative way but it also, in particular, makes possible the expression of emphatic dissent from the official view of government. It is invaluable, for instance, when the Japanese government delegate paints an idyllic picture of labour conditions Japan. to have his interpretation promptly denied by the representative of the Japanese workers. Much further is gained

by encouraging through international contact the sense that these problems are common world-problems, and that only genuinely corporate action can resolve them. If the Conference were purely governmental in character, it would be much less authoritative. But when an official say a Minister of Labour argues that some given legislation is impossible in his own State, the possibility that his argument will be overthrown by a worker delegate from his own State not merely adds piquancy to the debate, but also genuinely leads to care in the formulation of objections to that legislation, I shall, indeed argue later that this procedure could be very usefully adapted to the Assembly of the League itself.

6. It is finally of urgent importance within the League that every type of economic inquiry be undertaken. Legislative act ion, the world over, is built upon knowledge and it B amazing how little knowledge we have about the issues with which we have to deal. Problems of currency, of investment. of the effect of tariffs, of productivity of labour conditions upon all of these what little information we possess is surrounded by an ocean of ignorance. The League has already shown in a variety of spheres its capacity for this type of work. Not only can it survey conditions, it can invite the expert to make a special report. it can summon a special commission to discuss the meaning of knowledge in its possession.

The Treaty of Versailles made it one of the two main purposes of the International Labour office collect and distribute information on all subjects relating to international conditions of industrial life and labour. There is no reason why that power should not be extended to every aspect of economic life. Wherever its incidence or substance affects international relationships, there is a fitting Subject for investigation by the League. And such research has the additional value that it is much more likely, from the source of its origin to be exhaustive and impartial than research taken under the auspices of separate States. It facts are from that character more likely to be antiseptic in character. Few people would regard without suspicion an inquiry into the working of the Silesia coal-mines by a Pole or a German but few people would be disinclined to believe a report made thereon by an independent commission of the League upon which neither Pole nor German had served do not argue that the mere handing of facts is itself a guarantee of wisdom. But I do argue that wisdom is impossible without an expert tact-finding agency, and that the League is by its nature the best tact-finding agency at its disposal. The more widely it is used to that end, the wiser will be the foundations of international policy.

The institutions of international organizations

Such an outline of the functions of international organization at least serves to indicate the necessary organs action. Clearly the League of Nations has need of four definite institutions. It requires a legislature or assembly to formulate the general principles of international policy it needs an executive or council to direct a stream of tendency into the legislature and to act as a maker of solutions in the intervals of legislative action it needs a permanent civil service, or secretariat, charged with the preparation of business and the conduct of necessary inquiries it needs, finally, a judiciary to interpret the legal implications of its activities.

But to use, in this fashion, the terminology of democratic government does not imply that these institutions will be analogous to the internal institutions of the modern State. Two considerations rule out that possibility. The League in the first place, is an association of nation-States which are politically unequal while they are juridically equal their representatives are, therefore, necessarily the representatives of governments. However each State may decide to choose its delegates, they cannot act, like a member of the House of Commons, as their instructed judgment deems best warranted they must act upon the orders given to them by those from whom their authority is derived. The actions of the League, in the second place, cannot follow from the normal process of majority rule. In most of what it does, its business is to win the consent of each nation-State to policy and the attempt to bind these to acceptance of policy by the mere counting of votes would be fatal to the existence oi the League. It constitutes much more a channel of continuous consultation

than a law-making body enforcing rules upon an opposition. It rather weights Opinions than counts them. It is not i super-State in any administrative sense of the word. MUCH more, it is a permanent congress of ambassadors who seek the means Of equitable compromise where disagreement occurs. It is a recognition that common problems involve organs Of common decision, and that common decision is best reached as statesmen seek to pool their minds in an effort to find solutions. Upon occasion, doubtless, the League will have to insist upon the acceptance of its views by those who dissent from their substance. But, in general, its effort must, from the nature Of the interests it comprises, seek a path alien in nature from the division-lobby of a legislative assembly. Where its problems admit Of a direct “yes” or ” no,” it will, in the main, require at least an approach to unanimous agreement and, in other regions, most Of its issues will involve solutions of a quantitative kind. It may for instance, absolutely prohibit child labour among its member-States but in fixing rules Of wages for international labour it will not attempt, because it cannot attain, legislative simplicity of a qualitative kind.

I may make one other remark before I attempt to deal separately with these institutions. The solutions made by the organs Of the League must be regarded, I think, as law in the full Sense of that ,term. They are, that is to say, decisions which will be binding upon the parties. But, clearly, they are not binding in the sense that, a decision, say, of a Police-magistrate is binding upon a defendant whom he imprisons. There will not be, in general, a court which can move to the execution of decisions. That does not, I believe, deprive its decisions Of legal competence. It means only that their execution is effected through a different process than that which Obtains for the internal life of a State. We may grant that Italy, for instance, may refuse to accept the findings of the Permanent Court of International Justice upon some issue to which she is a party. We may grant, further, that the process of bringing her to acceptance is much more intricate than any we have previously known. It is yet clear that League decisions must, in the last resort, be enforceable, and that there is, of necessity, arrayed behind then the corporate power of its members.

To say that such corporate power cannot be called into action does not mean ultimately more than to say that certain Acts of Parliament cannot be enforced. Law, whether national or international, is built upon the presumption of good-will. It has to assume that what it does will be accepted by those whom it affects. Marginal cases of refusal will, of course, occur and the secret of successful law-making is so to shape its Substance as to reduce those cases to a minimum. That problem, admittedly, is much more intricate in the relations of States than in the relations within some given State the interests touched are wider, the sanctions to which appeal is in the last resort made are more complex and more remote. But the intricacy still involves quantitative and not qualitative difference. The root of what is being done is the same. Wrong is being punished, disputes are being settled, standards are being created. We are finding in the one, as in the other, behavior patterns that make possible the life of civilization. In the one, therefore, as in the other, we give to those behavior patterns the name of law. They are norms of conduct established by the analysis of experience.

1. The Assembly

The League must have an organ in which each member-State is entitled to its say. The Assembly, therefore, consists of delegates from each State who are to be not more than three in number, and to exercise between them a single vote. Upon the floor of the Assembly, as a consequence, all member-States are equal and its competence as a body extends to every subject within the power of the League itself. It is to meet at stated intervals which, in practice, has come to mean an annual session, and at such other times as may be required. All questions before it must be settled unanimously, except those concerned with the admission of new members of the League, which require a two-thirds majority those which concern the election of non-permanent members of the Council, which require also a two-thirds majority and those which concern questions of procedure, which require a simple majority only.

The Assembly, with the Council, elects the judges of the Permanent Council of International Justice it amends the Covenant, where amendment is deemed necessary it considers disputes referred to it by the Council, or by the parties concerned it adopts the annual budget of the League, and apportion! expenses among the member-States and it considers both the annual report of the League’s work and the measure? taken to execute its decisions. Any member-State may with-I draw from the League upon giving two years notice, provided that at the time of withdrawal it has fulfilled all its obligations Mile! the Covenant, and it ceases to be a member either by making its undertaking or by rejecting a duly passed amendment to the Covenant.

Most of these powers and forms are implied in the logic of what the League is by its original nature. But certain grave problems arise, both of form and substance, which must be discussed in some detail. What States, in the first place,ought to be admitted to membership The only conceivable answer, I think, is that every State must be admitted which is willing to accept the obligations thereby incurred and this must apply not less to States like Russia whose philosophy of government differs so widely from that of most members, than to States like Mexico which finds difficulty in achieving a settled government of any kind. For an objection to the first on the ground of its character is, ultimately, an objection also to the membership of States like Spain and Italy, where governments not built upon popular consent also hold power and objections to Mexico would apply also to some of the South American States where stability is often more apparent than real. The admission of Mexico, indeed, possesses a quite special importance, since its entrance into the League is an assurance of protection to it against the danger, possibly remote but still existent, Of American aggression. Nor is the permission of withdrawal a difficulty. The period of notice is, firstly, a period of warning and a State which seeks to play a lone hand is always hampered by the fact that action against one member of the League is action against all. It Will never, in other words, pay any State to withdraw from the League unless events prove that the League itself cannot be made a reality.

These are, broadly, simple matters. Much more difficult are the rules which demand unanimity on all small number of relatively unimportant questions. It is elementary in the history of States that a demand for unanimous consent is fatal to effective government the liberum veto in Poland, for example, was not the least cause of its decay. Even a requirement We the two-thirds rule of the American Senate has, on occasion, been fatal to decisive action at points where decisive action was sorely wanted. But there are, it may be suggested, two important considerations which mitigate the force of this apparent weakness.

(1) From the nature of its membership, the Assembly can only be effective on grave questions by convincing its constituent States, and no conviction will be genuine which does not arise from consent freely given. The State must be made to feel that its own will finds place in the decisions made, if it is to accept them as moral obligations.

(2) There is secondly, a way in which action may be taken by the Assembly which binds the members of the League without ultimate unanimity being required. The Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes for instance, had, as a draft before ratification, to be passed unanimously, but, assuming the success of the Disarmament Conference that it calls for, it becomes binding on members of the League when a majority only of the permanent members of the Council and ten other member States have ratified it.Under these circumstances, for instance, Great Britain might dissent from the Protocol and yet be compelled to accept its obligations a Clearly, therefore, the rule of unanimity is less onerous than it appears.

The constitution of the Assembly has been vehemently criticized on the ground that it is undemocratic in character. Only governments, it is said, are there represented and it is suggested that the personnel of a State-delegation should be elected by the legislative assembly, or some similar body which can protect it from being the creature of a temporary administration. But the answer to such criticism is, I think, a final one. There is nothing to prevent any State from making its own arrangements about the character of its representatives and South Africa has already selected as one of its delegates the citizen of another State. And, in the second place, since the government of the day is responsible for the making of foreign policy in a state that it should decide by whom its commitments made.

It could not continue to act as e governments policy were to be presented to its own legislature and another possibly quite different to the Assembly at Geneva Yet there is i believe, this much of reality in the criticism. One of consequences of the League is to make continuity in foreign policy important and that can only be achieved by met its substance largely an agreed matter between the government of the day and the opposition. That can, it may be suggest be achieved by making one of the members of each Stan delegation a member of the opposition nominated by the latter for that post. The working of the International Labor office has shown the great value of a kindred procedure. It afford a valuable opportunity of ventilating points of difference before the body most likely to be affected by them. It will tend to take foreign affairs out of the field of normal partisanship since any final divergence of view in a national delegation will deprive the State in which it occurs of much of its authority. And where it does exist, it is of high utility that it should be declared before the bar of international opinion, and not screened from view by the facade of governmental sanity. It is, of course, evident that, in all such cases the voting power must be exercised by the government representative.

The members of the Assembly have, almost uniformly, been statesmen, and not official, and it is clear, I think, that this must necessarily be the case. In all matters of high policy the statesman can criticism and argue, where it is, public, difficult for the official to do more than announce. The statesman. further, has a power to commit which reaches beyond what can be confided to an official the latter cannot speak beyond his precise terms of reference, and debate would be stifled if a delegate had to wait upon telegram or telephone for additional instructions. But it is a matter of some importance to decide by what political personages a state should be represented.

I think myself that on occasions of really vital importance the Prime Minister himself should be the head of his delegation and on normal occasions his place Should be taken by the Foreign Secretary. Obviously, where the business of the Assembly is largely routine business, it ought not to occupy the time of the former. But when great matters are on hand, the greater the authority lent to the Assembly by the character of its personnel, the better will be the quality of its work. Alternatively, the Foreign Secretary should be in his place for to attach a separate department in the national governments to the work, of the League is to suggest a difference between that work and normal foreign policy. That is, in fact, not the case.

Normal foreign policy has to become League policy and it will only come to be so if both permanent officials and Foreign Ministers come by experience of the League to permeate their daily work with the spirit of the Assembly. Separation of personnel, is, in this regard, dangerously liable to become separation of function and even in the brief history of the League the absence of the Foreign Minister of a State from Geneva has tended to make his policy different both in texture and approach from that of the member-minister of the Assembly. There is even something to be said for making the permanent head of the Foreign Office the third member of the delegation for this purpose. For, ultimately, his impact upon policy is so much deeper and more continuous than that of his temporary chief, that lack of personal contact with the Assembly may easily, especially in its formative years, mean the development of half-conscious antagonism to it.

Any Assembly, of course, is bound to be different from what its formal constitution makes it it lives, not by its inaugurating clauses, but from the habits engendered by its experience. It is, it may be suggested, already legitimate to hazard certain inferences about the nature of the Assembly of the League. It is able to overcome the barrier made by differences of languages. It can genuinely debate proposals, and genuinely ventilate grievance. It can draw to itself a public Opinion capable of transcending parochial loyalties. It provides an invaluable . sounding-board for the better impulses of mankind. It offers the opportunity for great personalities whether they come from the large State or from the small State, to win attention for views which would otherwise go unheard amid the pressure of events for it makes those views events by the circumstances 