ation. Yet this difference in functioning is only a difference in modo, not in re. If the Assembly is to be chosen only by the governments, there will not be the slightest difference in the complexion of its membership from that of the Council, except in that part which represents nations not represented on the Council, namely the minor powers. There would, therefore, be a continuous and powerful element within the Assembly, endeavoring to impose the opinion, if not the will, of the Council upon the Assembly, thus encroaching upon its independence and lessening its value as a coordinate body.

Something of these difficulties must have been sensed by the drafting committee because it was stated by the President at the session of the Peace Conference, on February 14th, that there was a universal feeling that the world cannot rest satisfied with a merely official guidance . . . that if the deliberative body of the League was merely to be a body of officials representing the various Governments, the peoples of the world would not be sure that some mistakes which preoccupied officials had admittedly made, might not be repeated." In view of the fact that each nation may have three delegates but only a single vote, there can be no doubt that it was intended that the nations should themselves provide for proportional representation in the membership of the Assembly. If the members are all to be chosen from the same party and are only to cast the vote of the government, a representation by one would be better than a representation by three, because responsibility would be more direct and action more easily controlled. Proportional representation, however, will bring to the deliberations of the Assembly the best minds of the principal parties or groups, tribunes of the people who will check the possible errors of the government, or the administration, before decision is taken.

In

There is a marked difference between the principles which ought to prevail in selecting popular representatives in a national legislature and those which should govern the appointment of delegates to an international deliberative body. the former case, the rule of the majority is tempered by the presence of representatives of minorities who always succeed in electing a greater or less number through the varying character of populations and sectional and class interests. In an

international body such as the Assembly, this influence can exist only through proportional representation, while it is precisely there that it is of greatest importance. The international view of world problems can be strengthened only if divisions of opinion do not coincide with national boundaries.

Proportional representation in the Assembly of the League of Nations is more vital to the effective expression of the public opinion of the United States than that of most other nations. Under a parliamentary system, immediate control is exercised over the appointment of representatives, and thus, the government finds it advantageous to conciliate various currents of opinion. Under the American system, however, the administration may have lost its majority long prior to the appointment of national representatives and party policy may unfortunately dictate a narrower view. We are confronted at the present moment with some of the dangers to which international negotiations may be subjected through neglect of the wishes of the opposition in the appointment of negotiators. The League is in a measure the organized continuity of the Peace Conference. The success of the League will be better assured and the people of the United States more adequately served by some system of proportional representation.

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T

THE LEAGUE OF NATIONS COVENANT

HERBERT C. PELL, JR.

Member of Congress from 17th District, New York

HERE has been no problem before the world for centuries that has been as important as that of the League of Nations. It must be apparent to the meanest intelligence that the world organization of the past has failed disastrously and that the people of the earth are quite certain to establish a new system. Our only choice is what that system will be. Public war must go the way of private war.

Universal peace is not a new ideal. Governments have been set up and torn down, boundaries have been changed, and peoples have migrated for the sake of peace and the opportunity of peaceful development. In two thousand years Europe has enjoyed practical peace but once, and that at the cost of liberty in the time of the Roman Empire. There can be little doubt that in 1917, after the collapse of Russia, and before the entrance of the United States into the war, there were many who feared that the foundations of civilization were being undermined and thought that perhaps it would be better to live under the orderly control of one empire than to continue a struggle, which very obviously might overturn the structure of society, waged for an ideal of justice unattained in two thousand years. This doctrine of despair was at that time the greatest danger to the cause. Our entrance into the war revived the hope of the world and maintained the morale of the Allies fighting, scarcely more than a year ago, with their backs to the wall. We made it apparent to all that the vague hopes of centuries might be realized. Would it be honest, decent or wise to snatch that hope away?

The opponents of the League of Nations seem horrified at the idea of the United States taking an active interest in the maintenance of world order. It is almost inconceivable that any intelligent person, who has been awake at any period during the last two years, can seriously make this point. Politicians howl at the idea that five or ten thousand American troops may be used to maintain order in the Balkans. It is, of

course, highly improbable that they ever will be, as the Near East will be particularly the province of the European powers, just as American problems will be left to the United States. Are these men, however, so inconceivably ignorant of international affairs that they do not realize that we had a million American soldiers in France last year, because order was not maintained in the Balkans five years ago? Whether we like it or not we are inextricably bound up in the world's structure. We made every effort to keep out of the war, but it proved impossible. Can any one say that we have no interest in the maintenance of peace? If we do not share in the policing of the world, we must be prepared to fight it.

Other objectors say that the Monroe Doctrine is impaired. The Monroe Doctrine, as we all know, is a guarantee of the liberty and integrity of the South and Central American Republics, by the Government of the United States. Under the League of Nations, this liberty and integrity would be guaranteed not only by the United States, but by all the other great powers. Would any of the men who gravely advance this argument, refuse a note or a mortgage which had previously been satisfactory to them, merely because it had additional endorsements?

We also hear that peace should be made first and the League taken up afterwards. This argument is advanced apparently on the theory that peace is a material object which is manufactured, like a typewriter or a brick. If any person chooses to read the treaties which have ended any war in the past, the agreements which have ended strikes, or any document which has ended human contention anywhere and at any time, he will find that it is merely a statement of the conditions regulating the future relations of the contracting parties. Now, it is certainly for the best interest of the world that the future relations of the powers will be such as to preclude war, and it is necessary that those regulations take the form of a league. If the Peace League be not included in the treaty and we should want to make a league afterward, the first thing we would have to do would be to scrap the original treaty.

We are told that under the Peace League, other countries will be able to dominate the United States and, to a certain extent, impair its sovereignty. Ordinary common sense will

show that if we cannot trust the other nations as partners in a league, we obviously cannot trust them merely because we do not have a league. If we fear seriously an unjust union of a majority of the great countries of the world against the United States, their partner in the League, we certainly must prepare ourselves to face this combination of all the powers joined against us. If these men really feel that England, France and Japan are going to join in a plot against the United States, obviously we must maintain a fleet equal to their combined navies and an army equal to all of theirs put together. Anything less would be to expose the interests of the United States to the grasping alliance conjured up in senatorial minds. The expense, of course, would be staggering, but no cost can be too high to stave off the defeat of justice and independence. Taxes such as we never dreamed of must be levied. A war establishment such as the world has never seen must be maintained if we wish to continue free without relying on the justice and fairness of other nations. I should hate to see the United States take up that policy which has failed so disastrously in Germany. There is no reason why we should make a much greater success than Germany did, if we base our international relations on distrust and on the assumption of dishonor.

I am not attempting to say that the proposed League is going to bring about the Millennium or even that a better one could not be devised. An agreement reached by great nations must of necessity be a compromise and is almost certain to be imperfect. Our choice is between this league and none at all.

There can be no doubt that should there be no league those countries which have suffered most in the struggle against German Imperialism will fall first before the Bolshevist. There can be no question whether it would be honorable or not to abandon France, England and Italy to their own resources. Nor can there be much question as to whether it would be wise in the long run to wash our hands of the affairs of Europe and take no active part in remedying the social disorders of other nations. I can see no alternative to the adoption of the League other than a government of riot, robbery and repudiation in Europe. Such a condition would cause a crisis of such severity in this country that our own social order would be in time menaced. It would be absurd to say that the League