government. May not the League in the same way become a living thing?

FROM AN ADDRESS AT THE ATLANTIC CONGRESS FOR A LEAGUE OF NATIONS, NEW YORK, FEBRUARY 5, 1919.

You will only get the ideal court when the members are independent, their only qualifications being their probity, their ability, their learning and their experience.

They will not represent anybody, but simple justice, on that court. They are to apply pure principles of law and exercise their acumen to determine facts impartially in the disposition of the legal questions which come before them. Therefore it is not representative. But, appointees should be distributed with reference to bringing in knowledge of all law throughout the world, just as our own Supreme Court is distributed, not by any law, but through the discretion of the Executive, so that the different parts of the country, with different methods of administration of law, may be brought in.

IRELAND AND THE LEAGUE1

The resolution proposed in the House of Representatives to urge upon the President in Paris that he take steps to secure a government in Ireland independent of the government of Great Britain is ill-timed. It can only embarrass 1 Article in Public Ledger Feb. 13, 1919.

him in securing an agreement between the Great Powers who are dictating the terms of peace to Germany and rearranging the map of Middle and Eastern Europe.

The relation of Ireland to Great Britain is a British domestic question, and cannot properly be made other by the intervention of the United States. Hope of a satisfactory peace in which the whole world is interested would have to be abandoned if the Great Powers were to look into and discuss the internal affairs of one another. The relations of the government of France to Algiers, to Tunis, to Morocco and her African interests, the relation of Japan to Formosa, that of the United States to the Philippines, to the Indian tribes or to the colored voters of the States of the South, might all be thus added to the bewildering issues that now claim the attention of the delegates at the Paris conference. This treaty is to close the war with Germany and her Allies, and England's relation to Ireland is not germane to that war and has no connection with it.

Irishmen must know that the wrongs of Ireland in the past have sunk deep in the minds and memories of the people of the United States. Whenever there has been a movement to remedy these wrongs, whenever the issue of home rule has been raised, it has awakened the strongest sympathy in the hearts and souls of Americans, whether of Irish blood or not. Americans have had immense satisfaction in learning that the land laws of Ireland have been so improved and changed that now there is a large increase in the number of small farms owned in fee simple by the farmers.

Sir Horace Plunkett, an Irishman, has led Irish farmers into associations by which they have learned to improve their agriculture and dairy farming, to unite in the disposition

of their product and get rid of the heavy toll of the middlemen, so that to-day it is not too much to say that rural Ireland is in better economic condition than any other agricultural part of the British Islands. This has been directly due to the legislation of Parliament, the leadership of such men as Plunkett, and the capacity for organization developed among the farmers.

The political blundering of the English government and what, to many of us, seems the unreasonable obstinacy of the Protestant half of Ulster have prevented that home rule to which most Americans believe that Ireland is entitled. If she could have been made a Dominion like Canada, with hardly more than nominal union to Great Britiain, except in international matters, Ireland would certainly have been satisfied before Sinn Feinism was fanned into flame by the delay in home rule.

Self-determination is not a certain solvent of political difficulty. Self-determination means a rule of the majority; but the question what the unit shall be, of which the majority is to rule, still remains. This is affected by considerations of geography, language, race, religion and other factors of solidarity or variety in the mental attitudes of the people concerned. Geography forbids a separation of Ulster from Ireland, especially in view of the fact that Ulster has been represented in Parliament by half home rule and half unionist members of Parliament. On the other hand, the geographical relation of Ireland to Great Britain makes the former a necessary outpost against hostile attack, while the difference in race and the traditional lack of sympathy justify the greatest autonomy in Ireland consistent with British protection.

It is remarkable that Great Britain, which has been wonderfully successful in dealing with colonial dependencies of

all kinds, should have been so unsuccessful in Ireland. This has been true, even since her statesmen have been sincerely and earnestly anxious to be just to Ireland, and to eliminate completely from her Irish policy the motive which so long disgraced it, that of exploiting Ireland and her people for the profit of England. In Irish affairs, English statesmen are always a length behind. They are always willing to give, when it is too late, that which would have satisfied Irishmen at an earlier stage.

Whatever the merits of the issue now, it is not within the field of jurisdiction of the Paris conference, and those who press it there, whatever their motive, are not helping the successful outcome of that fateful congress. Pressure for the proposed resolution is due, first, to the sincere sentiment for it of men of Irish blood in this country; second, to the desire of reckless politicians to win political support by its advocacy, and, third, to the timidity of others who, though really opposed to it as unwise, are afraid of the personal political consequences of their opposition. Nor should we omit from the elements pressing for its adoption a class of persons anxious to make the conference at Paris a failure. It is to be hoped that the resolution will be tabled.

THE GREAT COVENANT OF PARIS 1

The League to Enforce Peace, of which this is a congress called for Oregon, Washington and Idaho, is a voluntary association of men and women of the United States organized early in 1915 to spread propaganda in favor of a plan 1 Address at Portland, Oregon, Feb. 16, 1919.

for world coöperation to maintain peace, by enforced settlement of differences likely to lead to war, on principles of justice and fairness. Its promoters had long been interested in promoting arbitration between nations. They thought that the end of this world-destructive war would find the peoples of the various countries in a frame of mind in which they would gladly accept any reasonable international cooperation to prevent war. Accordingly the League adopted a platform in which it recommended that the United States enter a League of Nations, in which the members of the League should stipulate that all differences arising between them of a justiciable character should be submitted to a court and those of a non-justiciable character to a council of conciliation; that every member of the League should agree to refrain from going to war until after judgment by the court or recommendation by the council of conciliation, and that any member who violated this obligation by attacking any other member should be overwhelmed by the economic pressure of all the members of the League and the joint military forces of the League, if need be. Similar associations were formed in England and France, with similar platforms, except that they provided for a forcible execution of the judgments and a dealing with the recommendations of the councils of conciliation by the League.

There has been until now no means of knowing exactly what is meant by a league of nations except by reference to the platforms of these voluntary associations. The governments of England and France created commissions for the special purpose of studying the proper framework of a league of nations, but the result of their studies was not given to the public. Our government had declined to create such a commission. On Friday last, however, the