of ratifications, requirements which originate in common international law, apart from the Constitution entirely, and which do go to the formal legal validity of the treaty as an act of the treaty-power. The treaty-power is given authority by the Constitution to make treaties. with other nations according to the manner approved among nations. The requirements in the first part of Article II of the French treaty, like the requirements in Article 18 of the proposed Covenant, are on a par with the insertion of requirements for ratification in every treaty negotiated by the United States in the last fifty years. It is still more comparable with the provision of Article XIV of the Congo treaty, ratified with the consent of the Senate in 1892, where the operation of the treaty was made to depend absolutely upon the entering into force of a joint declaration signed by the Powers in Berlin in 1890, relating to the same subjects: "It is well understood that if the declaration on the subject of the import duties, signed July 2, 1890, by the signatory Powers of the Act of Berlin, should not enter into force, in that case, the present treaty would be absolutely null and without effect." The French treaty is not unconstitutional.

When these considerations have been completed it may be allowable to dwell briefly upon the diplomatic side of the affair. It is supposed that the treaty was a concession made to the fear, on the part of the French, of a repetition of the unprovoked attack launched against France by Germany in 1914. It was, in some measure, a substitute for the general staff and the commission to enforce or supervise the measures for disarmament to be taken under Article 8 of the Covenant, which had been urged by France but which the other Powers did not feel free to accept as part of the League system.

On the surface it may seem strange that the most powerful military nation on the continent should feel it necessary to demand such measures of protection against the only great Power on the continent which has been forced to disarm. As the Temps said, this arrangement provides "the most powerful coalition that the world has ever seen" in order to check the ravages of what now passes for "Germany." Mr. Lloyd George declared on July 3d, that he did not anticipate any attack from Germany, because he believed Germany had had enough. It might even appear that the object of the French

Government was not so much to protect France against an attack which was really feared as possible, but that the Government, knowing the helplessness of Germany in fact, although not allowing this state of the facts to be known widely in the country, was actually aiming at some more pretentious objective. If this were to appear from the facts in the case it would be beside the point to say that, once signed, this treaty might be counted upon to operate automatically to inhibit in its origin the very aggression which it is designed to defeat and that, therefore, the fear of having to go to war under the treaty would be unnecessary. The question in such circumstances would resolve itself into that of the desirability of the results really aimed at. If, for example, it is the purpose of the Quai d'Orsay to contrive a continental hegemony for France by grouping America and Britain with France in the League as a triumvirate to rule the continent and the seas, and, on America's part, to clothe this system in seemly guise, the desirability of the treaty is related differently to the prospects of its success. If the treaty is to be used to prevent German action in suppression of rebellion in the Rhineland similar to the recent rebellion and attempted secession in Mainz, the question may again be different. Moreover, if France fears attack from Germany now, with Germany disarmed and France armed, how can she be expected to feel when, under Article 8 of the Covenant, Britain and France have disarmed? And how can this treaty be a compensation for the rejection of a proposal to make this disarmament more certain and drastic? Is there not something inconsistent here?

As a matter of fact, while all these possibilities deserve to be borne in mind and recorded for consideration, and even though they were true representations of the French policy, the determining factors are more substantial and more deep-seated. Though the need for French fear of a repeated German attack seem slight from this distance, the state of feeling in France-even in Government circles-is determined more by the facts of 1870-1914 than by the facts of 1918-1919. The relative numbers of the populations of the two nations are permanent factors which will count when the present German collapse is a thing of the past. It is conceivable that the delay in getting the League into effective operation may be very serious. From the urgency with which

M. Bourgeois pressed the French demand for a general staff under the League to provide immediate and automatic defense in case of a German attack, there can be no doubt of the reality of the fear of such an attack on the part of the French. That this is or may be due to the relative positions of France and Germany, in view of the Treaty of Versailles, in the matter of territorial acquisitions, indemnities and colonial holdings, is irrelevant to the fact that France does fear an attack. She can hardly be exposed to such an attack with good-will unless we deny the justice of the terms of the treaty of Versailles.

Finally, even if the facts were as stated, the temporary character of the arrangement and the liberty of the United States, especially with the pressure of war removed, to defeat any attempt to use her aid and her specific guarantee as a basis for general political prestige for France may be counted on to maintain things at their proper attitude. All such speculation gets so far away from the established facts and dependable bases of legal and even political thought that it is hardly useful except as to stimulate inquiry and reflection.

There is another aspect of the case which may be examined for a moment. Does this treaty indicate the belief on the part of France that the Peace of Versailles is, having regard to its terms alone, defective? Doubtless there are among the military and political leaders of France men who believe that, in failing to install France upon the left bank of the Rhine, the Congress of Paris made a serious mistake. On the other hand, it is probably patent to most French statesmen of the more reflective sort that in this day and generation any physical guarantees which it is possible to devise are likely to be ineffective in the end, that the ideal of absolute security along these lines is not to be attained, and that, inasmuch as security must mean, in this day of political flex and flow, a position fortified by political arrangements rather, such a guarantee as the one under discussion is the only sort of permanent value. Unless the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles were such that, suiting all parties to the treaty in equal fashion, it could be counted upon to stand upon its own merits-a condition of things which is not, apparently, the case, however much such a condition may represent the standard assumption of international lawsome guarantee from without is necessary. Hence the League of Na

tions; and hence this Anglo-Franco-American arrangement. Both are made necessary by what are probably permanent features of the international organization and practice of the world.

The fact that the traditional American attitude upon alliances arose from a French treaty serves to suggest a comparison between the French treaty of 1778 and the present proposed treaty. Articles I, II, XI, and XII, the more significant parts of the treaty of 1778, read as follows:

I. If war should break out between France and Great Britain during the continuance of the present war between the United States and England, His Majesty and the said United States shall make it a common cause and aid each other mutually with their good offices, their counsels and their forces, according to the exigence of conjunctures, as becomes good and faithful allies.

II. The essential and direct end of the present defensive alliance is to maintain effectually the liberty, sovereignty, and independence absolute and unlimited, of the said United States, as well in matters of government as of commerce.

XI. The two parties guarantee mutually from the present time and forever against all other Powers, to wit: The United States to His Most Christian Majesty, the present possessions of the Crown of France in America, as well as those which it may acquire by the future treaty of peace: And His Most Christian Majesty guarantees on his part to the United States their liberty, sovereignty and independence, absolute and unlimited, as well in matters of government as commerce, and also their possessions, and the additions or conquests that their confederation may obtain during the war, from any of the dominions now or heretofore possessed by Great Britain and North America, conformable to the 5th and 6th articles above written, the whole as their possession shall be fixed and assured to the said States, at the moment of the cessation of their present war with England.

XII. In order to fix more precisely the sense and application of the preceding article, the contracting parties declare, that in case of a rupture between France and England the reciprocal guarantee declared in the said article shall have its full force and effect the moment such war shall break out; and if such rupture shall not take place, the mutual obligations of the said guarantee shall not commence until the moment of the cessation of the present war between the United States and England shall have ascertained their possessions.

The treaty of 1778 thus was more general in its objects; it guaranteed certain French territorial possessions, pledged American aid in any war between France and Great Britain, and recognized pos

sible French conquests in the West Indies. It was more general by the terms used; the arrangement was called explicitly a "defensive alliance" and the pledges are described technically as "guarantees.” By side of the treaty of 1778 the present proposed treaty is very limited and circumspect.

The later history of the treaty of 1778 was not smooth. When France, now Revolutionary France, felt herself compelled to make war upon Great Britain in 1793, the American aid referred to in the treaty of 1778 was not forthcoming. The French do not seem to have formally demanded the aid which might have been expected under the treaty, and, espousing more or less completely the Hamiltonian view that the treaty, made with Louis XVI, could not run in favor of the Republic and that the necessity of American safety demanded neutrality on our part, Washington issued the historic proclamation of 1793, forerunner of his injunction of 1797 to the American people to avoid all "permanent alliances." Thus Revolutionary France was left to struggle against the "impious band of tyrants" alone.

Such a situation can with difficulty be foreseen in connection with the present treaty. To duplicate the very dangerous situation of 1793 we should have to imagine a Socialist Revolution in France, and, perhaps, a change of party in America, followed by an attack from conservative Germany to prevent the spread of the Bolshevist revolution eastward over the Rhine. In such a case the situation would be instructive for the student of historical parallels.

In point of fact, things much more prosaic are likely to happen, and the legalities of the case, the formalities of the League, the Council, the Covenant and their relations to the proposed treaty, together with the relations of the treaty to American legal and political structure and practice are the matters deserving most study. In this connection it does not appear that the treaty is open to definitive objections, although its provisions do need revision in two places and although its more or less conjectural potentialities are felt to be of serious import for both America and the League.

PITMAN B. POTTER.