be substituted for a resort to arms. So far as possible justice must take the place of force. In a highly civilized community the rights and duties of the citizens are regulated by laws which can be readily applied by judicial tribunals; but on account of the imperfect state of international law that is much less the case in the relations between independent nations. Still their relations are to no small extent dependent upon principles capable of accurate determination. This is true of rights under treaties, which can be construed judicially like other contracts. It is true of a considerable body of international law which is in theory, at least, universally recognized as morally binding, and can be the subject of judicial treatment. It is true also whenever a case depends upon a question of fact capable of decision by an examination of the evidence. Such matters have been termed justiciable. But it is not questions of this kind that commonly provoke a resort to arms. Wars arise mainly from divergencies of national interests and policy which may often be reconciled, adjusted, compromised or suppressed by a process of mediation or arbitration, but not by judicial decision on strictly legal grounds. These dissensions, being political in their nature, must be dealt with on grounds of international fair dealing and expediency, and appropriate bodies for the purpose must be provided.

Having created some process of deciding justiciable questions and of adjusting political ones, nations involved in a dispute must resort to those methods of settling it or they are fruitless. When both countries prefer arbitration to war there is no difficulty, but when one of them prefers to fight, and thinks itself sure of victory, it may not want to submit to arbitration and must be compelled to do so. An agreement to submit may be treated as a scrap of paper if no penalty is attached. Arbitration must be compulsory under a penalty which no nation will venture to face. The object is not punishment for the offense of going to war, or redress for the injury suffered, but a deterrent that shall be absolute. The aim is not retribution but prevention. Therefore, the greater and the more certain the penalty the stronger its deterrent effect and the less the probability of its use. If it is great and certain enough it will never be used.

Finally, the prevention of war must be accomplished not only by the settlement of disputes after they have arisen, but also by foreseeing causes of trouble and removing them before they have

AUTOMATIC FORM OF LEAGUE

101

reached an acute stage. Hence there must be methods of frequent consultation among the members of the League, for the interchange of points of view, for agreement on common policies, and not least of all for the expansion, precision and codification of the rules of international law which are now far too uncertain and incomplete.

No serious person believes that it is possible in the present state of the world to prevent wars altogether, and even after arbitration there may be a possibility of strife. But by a League of Nations wars can be vastly reduced, and the few that occur can be strictly limited in extent, thus saving untold suffering, and removing in great measure this scourge from mankind.

No. 2

NATURE OF THE LEAGUE

There are two possible forms in which a League to maintain peace may be organized. These may be termed the delegated and the automatic forms. The first of these is like a federation of states, where certain powers are delegated to a central authority, whose action, within those limits, is binding on the several states. In a League constructed in such a manner a central organ would have power to issue directions which the members of the League agree to obey. The automatic form is more simple, more primitive, but not ill-adapted to sovereign states whose duties to the League are so few that they can be specifically enumerated in a covenant. It consists in prescribing definitely the obligations which the members assume, or will assume on the happening of a certain event, and giving no authority to any central organ to exercise its discretion in giving orders binding upon them. Suppose, for example, that a nation declares war on any member of the League; under the delegated form the representative body would meet, discuss the situation, determine the action to be taken by the members of the League and issue its directions accordingly; while under the automatic form all the members of the League would be under an obligation to perform the acts prescribed in the agreement without regard to any action by a representative body of the League.

The distinctions between the delegated and automatic forms of League seems for many people very hard to grasp. They often speak as if the latter involved merely vague promises which the members were under no real obligation to fulfill; and therefore they regard that form of League as an inferior guaranty to the other. But in fact precisely the opposite is true. This can be made clear by an illustration from business life. A bank, when offered a note indorsed by honest and responsible men does not hesitate to discount it, because the obligation of the indorsers is fixed, their liability to pay is automatic, arising at once on the failure of the maker to pay the note; and the indorsers, if honest men, pay without regard to compulsion by suit at law. If, on the other hand, the bank were offered the note with a conditional guaranty by the same men that, in case the note were not paid at maturity, a committee of their number should meet and decide what should be done, and that if the committee so directed they would pay the note, the bank would regard such a guaranty as no security worth having. In the same way a joint and several agreement by the members of a League of Nations to coerce a state that made war on any of them would be a better and more forcible guaranty than an agreement to do so if ordered by a representative body created by them.

It is no doubt true that such an obligation to coerce the offending country is, like every other obligation of a sovereign state, a moral one; but so is an obligation to comply with the directions of the representative body. Yet it is also true that honorable nations can be relied upon to fulfill their treaties, even when at the moment they are burdensome, as has been shown in this war. Free nations can usually be trusted to do what they have freely undertaken, and in international relations it is always assumed that they can be trusted.

The automatic form of League has, therefore, the advantage that it provides a more effective guaranty of peace. In face of such a compact, which would have brought her into certain collision with all the members of a powerful League, Germany would not have ventured to precipitate this war; whereas the delegated form of League might not have deterred her. Deliberation is often a slow process, and Germany might well have thought that before a result had been reached she would have beaten France; for she believed that this would take only a few months.

OBLIGATIONS ARE SPECIFIC

103

Moreover, she might hope that one member of the League, being unprepared, would urge delay, while another, more remote, would argue against a general war, and at last no concerted action would be taken against her.

Another advantage of the automatic form is that the obligations of the members are specifically stated by themselves in the Covenant, so that they know precisely what duties they assume under any conditions that may arise; while the delegated form leaves their obligations uncertain, to be determined at some future time by a representative body which may go farther or less far than some of the members desire. Vigorous objection has been made in the United States to a super-sovereign League that would have authority to order this country what to do in case of an attack against another member of the League. The objection is not without cogency; but it does not apply to the Covenant of Paris, either in its original or its amended form, for that Covenant has adopted as its basic principle the automatic type of League, fixing the obligations of the members and the sanctions for violation in the pact itself, instead of leaving them to be determined by a representative body. The Council of the League is, indeed, at liberty, and even enjoined, to advise or recommend further action by the members, but no member assumes any obligation to follow the advice unless it chooses so to do. The language is in that respect perfectly clear and consistent, unless we are to construe such words as "advise,' 'propose," and "recommend” in a sense quite contrary to their ordinary meaning. How completely this is true will be clearly seen when we examine in detail the articles of the Covenant.

66

No. 3

ORGANS OF THE LEAGUE

Even the simplest form of League requires three classes of organs, judicial, deliberative and secretarial. The first and last of these will be more conveniently discussed in connection with the articles of the Covenant. In this letter we are concerned with the deliberative organs.

The functions of a League of Nations include, not only the settlement of disputes after they have arisen, but also removing causes of dissension and discontent. For this purpose representative bodies are required. It is not essential that they should have any binding authority, and in fact in the automatic form of League they certainly would not; but consultative functions they must have and these are of the utmost importance. International congresses have often settled questions that might otherwise have led to war; but hitherto they have been held only by universal consent, and in 1914 Germany was unwilling that such a congress should meet. To prevent war there must be both compulsory arbitration of disputes and regular meetings of representative bodies for consultation.

Of such bodies in a League comprising many nations there ought to be two, one large and the other small. The reason is the same as for having in a free nation a large legislature and a small executive. The large legislature gives an opportunity for the representation of many points of view, of many different interests; and in a League the larger body makes possible the representation of every member nation however small. But a large body cannot act quickly, and it is moreover not well fitted for reaching by compromise and concession the unanimous opinion on concrete questions often essential to harmony and success. In a small body, however, all the members of a numerous League cannot have seats. Some states must be left out, and it is clear that the presence of the large nations is the most important, because on them the responsibility must mainly fall in peace and war, and because their mutual confidence is the strongest guaranty of enduring co-operation. There is also good sense in their presence from the fact that the large nations touch the world at many points, the smaller ones at less. Thus England, France and the