morality than has hitherto been consistently observed by any nations, even the best. If absolute fidelity to the Covenant by all its signatories were necessary for the peace of the world, the world would have a very poor prospect before it. What we must aim at is as much fidelity as possible. There are great difficulties. America is absent. Germany and Russia are absent. France cannot yet quite escape from her war psychology. But if Great Britain is faithful, it will be hard for other nations to be obviously and grossly false. The European neutrals, like Switzerland, Holland, and Norway, will be clear voices for justice and fair dealing. The beaten nations, when once admitted, will probably be on the same side, since when wrong-doing begins it is the weak who are first to suffer. And, after all, all human beings have a strong dislike of injustice, when they do not directly gain by it. The great majority of the fifty-one members of the League will be disinterested on most questions of dispute, and will therefore form a good tribunal of opinion.

But the mere clash of contrary selfishnesses

produces no sound equilibrium. The League will not succeed unless in some of the great nations, above all in Great Britain, there are at the head of affairs statesmen who believe firmly in the principles of the League and are capable both of effort and of self-sacrifice for the sake of them, and behind the statesmen a strong and intelligent determination in the mass of the people to see that the League is made genuinely the leading force in international politics.

The present disorder of the world is one of those in which the remedy is not obscure, but perfectly ascertained. The only difficulty lies in applying it. The nations of the world must coöperate; and for that they must trust one another; and for that the only way is for each Government separately to be worthy of trust.

It will be long, no doubt, before this end is consummated or even approached. The foregoing pages have shown how far from perfect is the practice of even the most stable and advanced nations. And the tendencies set up by the war, with its infinite reactions and ramifications, are almost all such as to make vastly

more difficult in each case the necessary effort towards good faith and good-will. Yet, if the difficulties are greater, the necessity is greater also; and after all the war has brought its inspirations as well as its corruptions. The craving for this Peace which has not come is, I believe, still the unspoken and often unconscious motive of millions who seem, at first glance, to be only brawling for revenges or revolutions; it lies, like a mysterious torment, at the heart of this storm-tossed and embittered world, crying for it knows not what.

THE END

BOOKS FOR FURTHER READING

THE Series published by the American Association for International Conciliation, 1-150, comprising the text of all the most important official statements, treaties, agreements, etc., dealing with International Affairs.

The League of Nations Union pamphlets for Study

Circles: The League and its Guarantees, by Gilbert Murray; The League in the East, by Arnold Toynbee; The League and Labour, by Delisle Burns; Economic Functions of the League, by Norman Angell; Mandates and Empire, by Leonard Woolf; The Future of the Covenant, by G. Lowes Dickin

son.

The League of Nations, Nine Essays, by Viscount Grey and others. Oxford University Press, 1919. The Idea of a League of Nations, H. G. Wells and others, for the Research Committee of the League of Nations Union. Oxford Press, 1917.

Economic Foundations of Peace, J. L. Garvin. Macmillan, 1917.

Report of the International Financial Conference, printed for the League of Nations. Brussels, 1920.

Complete Official Proceedings of the same, 3 vols. London and Brussels.

Report of the Economic Conference summoned by the Fight the Famine Council.

Foreign Policy of Sir Edward Grey, Gilbert Murray. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

A Century of British Foreign Policy, G. P. Gooch and Canon Masterman. Allen and Unwin. Economic Consequences of the Peace Treaty, J. Maynard Keynes. Macmillan, 1919.

The Making of the Reparation and Economic Sections of the Treaty, B. M. Baruch. Harpers, 1920. The Choice Before Us, G. Lowes Dickinson. Allen and Unwin, 1918.

Causes of International War, G. Lowes Dickinson. Swarthmore Press.

International Politics, Delisle Burns. Methuen, 1920.

International Government, L. S. Woolf. Allen and Unwin.

Empire and Commerce in Africa, L. S. Woolf. Allen and Unwin.

The War of Steel and Gold, H. N. Brailsford. 1913. After the Peace, by H. N. Brailsford. 1920.

The Eastern Question, J. A. R. Marriott. Oxford Press, 1917.

The Official Reports of the First Meeting of the Assembly of the League of Nations, Nov. 15Dec. 18, 1920, are most instructive, and will probably be published in book form.