problem of the statesmen at the Peace Conference. With the whole world as a stage, statesmen are seeking some formula that will bring about ordered liberty. And in their quest they must deal with human nature as it is. They must consider our shortcomings as well as our capabilities, our capabilities as well as our shortcomings. Taking the human race as it is, considering the advance that it has made in the last three hundred years and the capabilities of advance which we believe it has, what practical steps can we now take to advance the race a little toward its goal? What new rules for the Society of States, for the new Society of National States, is the world ready to make, and, having made, observe?

BIBLIOGRAPHY

IMMANUEL KANT, Works as cited in the text, and particularly Miss M. Campbell Smith's introduction to the Essay on Perpetual Peace. FREDERICK PAULSEN, Immanuel Kant.

THOMAS HILL GREEN, Works, edited by R. H. Nettleship, especially Lectures on the Principles of Political Obligation, Vol. II, p. 335.

DAVID JAYNE HILL, The Rebuilding of Europe, Chapter II.

JOSIAH ROYCE, The Spirit of Modern Philosophy, Lecture IV.

D. G. RITCHIE, Studies in Political and Social

Ethics.

BERNARD BOSANQUET, The Philosophical Theory of the State.

IX

THE DRAFT OF COVENANT SUBMITTED TO THE CONFERENCE, FEBRUARY 14, 1919

THE

HE proposed Covenant submitted by a committee to the Peace Conference on February 14, 1919, has been subjected to an adverse criticism that has been extraordinarily varied. Owing perhaps to the use of the word "Constitution" in the preamble there has been a too hasty assumption that the Covenant creates a World-State. This assumption is not unnatural in America, where the word "Constitution" is associated with the creation of a State. A reading of the articles, however, should make clear that no World-State is established. The League has no power to levy and expend taxes; in fact, the only direct reference to expenses is contained in Article V, which provides that the expenses of the Secretariat shall be borne by the member-States in accordance with the apportionment of the expenses of the International Bureau of the Universal Postal Union.1 Then

1 See p. 92-93 supra, for the method of apportioning the expenses of this Bureau.

there is the provision in Article XVI which contemplates that the member-States will distribute the financial and economic loss which may result from a boycott or co-operative military or naval effort; but this provision of course places no revenue in the control of a WorldState. Nor has the League any power to organize and command armies-not even the power to make requisitions upon the member-States for quotas of men. An organization which has no command of either the purse or the sword can hardly be called a State in any proper sense of the word. The document is in essence a Covenant or treaty entered into by independent States. By entering into the Covenant the States are surrendering their right of independent action only to the very limited extent that the Covenant prescribes. In this respect it is like many other treaties made by civilized States which limit their right of action. But this is far different from surrendering any of the organs of their separate governments to a Super-State, as was the case when our own Federal Government was founded. It would be better, therefore, from the American point of view, if the word

2 See Sir Frederick Pollock on "Sovereignty and the League of Nations," in the Fortnightly Review, December, 1918, Vol. CX, pp. 813-818, and reprinted in the Living Age, January 11, 1918, Vol. CCC, pp. 68 to 72.

"Constitution" had been omitted. The document is a joint international treaty, far wider in its scope than any we have heretofore made, but of the type of convention to which the United States from time to time has become a party.3

But whatever the name that may be given to the document in the preamble, obviously we must look to the articles themselves for the meaning, with such help as we may secure from the public explanations made by the framers of the document at the time of its submission to the Plenary Peace Conference.

In the main the criticisms of the Covenant have been of three general classes:

(1)-That it is not satisfactorily expressed. To this criticism it can be answered that the Peace Conference, to whom the draft has been reported, must be presumed to be willing and anxious to have any looseness of expression cured and that specific criticisms of method of expression should be submitted to the Confer

ence.

M. Bourgeois, at the plenary sitting of the Peace Conference on February 14th, explained

3 See John Bassett Moore's Principles of American Diplomacy, pp. 433-434, for a reference to joint international treaties entered into by the United States since October 22, 1864, such treaties representing a break from the former policy of making only separate or independent agreements with other States.