A LEAGUE OF NATIONS ENDORSED

GOVERNMENTS PLEDGE SUPPORT TO A

LEAGUE OF NATIONS1

Official Correspondence and Resolutions

THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES

In the measures to be taken to secure the future peace of the world the people and Government of the United States are as vitally and as directly interested as the Governments now at war. Their interest, moreover, in the means to be adopted to relieve the smaller and weaker peoples of the world of the peril of wrong and violence is as quick and ardent as that of any other people or government. They stand ready, and even eager, to coöperate in the accomplishment of these ends when the war is over with every influence and resource at their command.— President Wilson's identic note to the warring nations, dated at Washington, December 18, 1916.

THE GOVERNMENTS OF THE ENTENTE ALLIES

In a general way they (the Allied Governments) desire to declare their respect for the lofty sentiments inspiring the American Note (of December 18th) and their wholehearted agreement with the proposal to create a league of nations which shall assure peace and justice throughout the world. They recognize all the benefits that would accrue to the cause of humanity and civilization from the institution of international arrangements designed to prevent violent conflicts between nations, and so framed as to provide the sanctions necessary to their enforcement, lest an illusory security should serve merely to facilitate fresh acts of aggression.-Joint reply to the American Note, dated Paris, January 10, 1917.

1 From "A Reference Book for Speakers," issued by the League to Enforce Peace.

THE GOVERNMENT OF GREAT BRITAIN

...

His Majesty's Government . . . feels strongly that the durability of peace must largely depend on its character and that no stable system of international relations can be built on foundations which are essentially and hopelessly defective. . . . There are those who think that for this disease international treaties and international laws may provide a sufficient cure. . . . The people of this country . . . do not believe peace can be durable if it be not based on the success of the allied cause. For a durable peace can hardly be expected unless three conditions are fulfilled: the first is that the existing causes of international unrest should be as far as possible removed or weakened; the second is that the aggressive aims and the unscrupulous methods of the Central Powers should fall into disrepute among their own peoples; the third is that behind international law and behind all treaty arrangements for preventing or limiting hostilities some form of international sanction should be devised which would give pause to the hardiest aggressor.-Letter from Foreign Secretary Balfour to Sir Cecil Spring-Rice, dated London, January 13, 1917.

THE FRENCH GOVERNMENT

The Chamber of Deputies, the direct expression of the sovereignty of the French people, expects that the efforts of the armies of the Republic and her allies will secure, once Prussian militarism is destroyed, durable guarantees for peace and independence for peoples great and small, in a league of nations such as has already been foreshadowed.-From a resolution adopted by the Chamber of Deputies and approved by the Senate, dated Paris, June 4 and June 6, 1917.

The working basis of the committee appointed by the French Government to draft a plan for a League of Nations is outlined in an official report recently received at League Headquarters. A significant feature of this report is the declaration of belief that "whatever the definition on which they (the Allies) may agree as to the juridical rules which must control in a new Europe respecting the functioning of the Society of Nations, it is scarcely probable that the Central Empires will accept them unless forced to do so." The report proceeds:

"In so far as the treaty of peace shall not submit the relations

of peoples among themselves to special guaranties of law, they will continue, as they are to-day, to be ruled solely by the right of the strongest. Force alone can therefore create the new régime and establish the rules of justice and the sanctions of law without which no sincere and durable peace could be founded or maintained. So, while discussing among themselves the conditions of the future Society of Nations, the Allied Powers can never forget that if it is to exist some day, this can only result from the victory of their arms."

"It is necessarily desirable," the report says, "that the same work of preparation should be done in the other countries of the Entente. Thus, when the Allies shall have determined by common agreement their views on this important subject, they will be in a position to advance it with full understanding when it shall be brought forward in the negotiations for the treaty of peace."-The League Bulletin, October 12, 1918.

THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT

Russia has always been in full sympathy with the broad, humanitarian principles expressed by the President of the United States. His message to the Senate, therefore, has made a most favorable impression upon the Russian Government. Russia will welcome all suitable measures which will help prevent a recurrence of the world war. Accordingly we can gladly indorse President Wilson's communication.-From a statement given out by the Foreign Office to the Associated Press, dated Petrograd, January 26, 1917.

THE GOVERNMENT OF SWITZERLAND

It is with very great interest that we have taken note of the programme of your humanitarian movement. In asking us to associate ourselves in it you have given us a new proof of the sympathy of the United States for Switzerland and we desire to say to you how much we appreciate it. The League to Enforce Peace, which counts among its members so many eminent personalities, aims to insure the maintenance of peace after it shall have been concluded; truly a delicate mission, but the difficulties of which are not to be allowed to discourage your efforts. You regard as one of the most efficacious means to that end a treaty of arbitration conceived in the same spirit as the treaty of Feb

ruary 13, 1914, between Switzerland and the United States, a treaty which all the countries are to sign and by which they will undertake to submit to the decision of a supreme international tribunal the conflicts which may arise between them in order to avoid, as far as possible, a return of the catastrophe which desolates the world to-day. Switzerland is so much the better placed to appreciate the work of which the United States has undertaken the initiative, because, surrounded on all sides by war, peopled by the race and inheriting the language and the culture of three among the combatant nations, she is better able than any other country to realize the fact that war is inhuman, and is contrary to the superior interest of civilization which is the common patrimony of all men. If, then, at the conclusion of peace, the occasion should present itself for us to unite our efforts to yours, we will not fail to do so, and we will be happy to make our contribution toward rendering peace more secure when reëstablished.-From a letter written by Dr. Arthur Hoffman as head of the Political Department of the Division of Foreign Affairs, to the Hon. Theodore Marburg, Chairman of the Committee on Foreign Organization of the League to Enforce Peace, dated Berne, December 11, 1916.

THE SPANISH GOVERNMENT

His Majesty's Government is following with keen sympathy the idea of establishing, after the end of the present war, an international league for the purpose of preventing the peace of the world being again disturbed, and when the opportunity of doing so arrives, with a guarantee of success, will lend its concourse to the realization of such a humanitarian and lofty project.A cablegram from Don Amalio Gimeno, Minister of Foreign Affairs, to the League to Enforce Peace, dated Madrid, January

13, 1917.

NOTE: Viscount Motono, Japanese Minister for Foreign Affairs (January 15, 1917) and Viscount Ishii, Japanese Ambassador Extraordinary to the United States (August 30, 1917) have expressed themselves as in sympathy with the movement for a League of Nations.

HSU CHIH CHANG, PRESIDENT OF CHINA

"The proposal of President Wilson for making the league one of the terms of peace and for the cancellation of the doctrines of spheres of influence and balance of power in Europe and elsewhere naturally receives the whole-hearted endorsement of China."-Statement made in audience granted to Carl W. Ackerman, Correspondent for the New York Times.

MEN AND ORGANIZATIONS ENDORSE A LEAGUE OF NATIONS

NEWTON D. Baker, United STATES SECRETAry of War.

"This league of civilized peoples is not proposed out of the Cabinets of absolute Ministers, but is rather the passionate demand of the man in the street, the simple and the unsophisticated who know very little of the intrigues and wiles of statecraft, but know a very great deal about the suffering and sacrifice which war entails. For my own part, I refuse to be timid about America's capacity to do the new things which are needed in a new world. I decline to distrust our purposes or to shrink from moving forward because the road seems wider and higher than roads we have traveled hitherto."

VISCOUNT GREY OF FALLODEN, FORMER FOREIGN SECRETARY OF GREAT BRITAIN

I sincerely desire to see a league of nations formed and made effective to secure the future peace of the world after this war is over. I regard this as the best, if not the only, prospect of preserving treaties and of saving the world from aggressive wars in years to come.-Cablegram to the League to Enforce Peace, November 24, 1916.

The establishment and maintainance of a league of nations such as President Wilson had advocated is more important and essential to secure peace than any of the actual terms of peace that may conclude the war. It will transcend them all. The best of them will be worth little unless the future relations of states are to be on a basis that will prevent a recurrence of militarism in any state.-"A League of Nations." Pamphlet published by the University Press, Oxford.