of which should be left to the initiative and discretion of litigants.

V.

With the adoption of the unanimity rule as interpreted by the President and leading Englishmen, the Constitution would not assure the disarmament of any of the large naval or military establishments, for the simple failure of concurrence in such determination under Article VIII by the member of the Council from the country most affected, would block it.

To leave the acceptance of the "recommendation" to the approval of the legislature of each nation with the restriction that, after adoption, the nation could not exceed the limit without the permission of the Executive Council, would be to introduce uncertainty upon uncertainty; for what nation would act first, knowing that no one could bind the legislature of its next rival to carry out an understanding to make an equivalent reduction?

The reduction of armament should not be delegated wholly to the care of a committee, but should be established along general lines in the Constitution; as for instance, military forces should not exceed one to a thousand of population—about our peace ratio; and all battleships and cruisers of over three thousand tons displacement should be destroyed. If armed force is to remain in the background, dependence will continue to be placed on it and the sanction of non-intercourse, or isolation, will be shorn of its efficacy and be a useless experiment.

It will later develop that no agreement as to partial disarmament or a limitation of armaments, that is not in effect a general disarmament, can be reached.

VI.

There is no provision securing arbitration.

Arbitration is the submission of a dispute to persons chosen by the contestants, or in choosing whom they can have a voice. It differs from a court, in that the latter is presided over by permanent judges, appointed by constituted authority.

If one nation should desire to arbitrate and the other should not, all that it would be necessary for the latter to do (Articles XII and XIII) would be to remain passive. The complaining nation would then be forced to seek the "recommendation" of the Executive Council. This procedure was doubtless inserted in deference to the advocates of The League to Enforce Peace, which adopted the idea of a Council of Conciliation for so-called non-justiciable cases.

Furthermore, the nine members that would compose it, the duties of whom, as planned in the draft, would be largely administrative, would probably be selected with but little regard for their ability as jurists, but preponderately for political or diplomatic prestige. The litigant nation would, however, have one more chance. Under Article XV, it might have the dispute referred to the body of delegates, “provided that such request must be made within fourteen days after the submission of the suit." The action of the body of delegates would still be an attempt at a judicial proceeding; but it would be before a body of men averaging no higher as jurists than those of the ordinary legislature and which might number two hundred. The result of this would be, that, when the case of a small nation would come before it, few would attend; but, when that of a great nation would come up, no effort would be neglected to facilitate the coming of

those members whose sentiments were known to be favorable, or to deter from coming, those differently disposed.

The only jurisdiction, therefore, that would be secured to a nation under the draft is that of a court composed of one or the other body of political appointees.

[With the unanimity rule, any of the five big powers (and the four other favored powers) would, especially if the justice of its cause were in doubt, avoid arbitration and endeavor to remain before the Council [Assembly]; for it would have a member there, while its opponent perhaps would not; and in any event his simple failure to vote would be all that would be necessary to save his country from the enforcement of a majority "recommendation" unfavorable to it.]

[While the statement in brackets is not exact, the Committee followed the suggestion by inserting clauses excluding from the voting the delegates from the nations in dispute (Article 15, 7th and last paragraphs) and adding the new penalty of expulsion from the League, also containing that clause (Article 16).]

The right to arbitrate differences should be secured to each nation and this means a provision for the power to force its adversaries to submit and conform to the decree.

The procedure presented in "The Isolation Plan" would secure this right before bodies of men selected in a manner to combine pre-eminence and impartiality in the greatest degree conceivable. It is only essential to have the machinery for the convocation of an arbitral court, or commission, with the force of the League back of it. Application of the penalty for non-compliance can be made by a body convened in the same manner.

VII.

The meaning of the phrase "after the submission of the suit" needs clarification. Is a nation to have the privilege, within twenty days after its opponent has gone to the trouble of presenting its proofs and argument, to simply declare that it will go before the larger court?

VIII.

The giving of discretion to the Executive Council in regard to the execution of a decree (Article XIII), would deprive the scheme of the great value of the application of an unvarying and certain penalty.

The invariable decree of non-intercourse for the refusal to submit a dispute to the jurisdiction of the League (Article XVI), would be for an offense of the highest nature, as it would be for an affront to the judicial sovereignty of the League, denominated "an act of war." So, also, would be the case of non-compliance with a decree; and no reason is apparent for the failure to adopt the same sanction for both.

That would make it possible to destroy armaments, the harbingers of war.

(Suggestion followed in principle, by extending to cases arising under Articles 13 and 15, the sanction of non-intercourse; but the whole was rendered valueless by conditions).

IX.

Article XIV, charging the Executive Council with the formulation of "plans for the establishment of a permanent court of international justice," simply provides, that, "when established," it shall be competent to hear

and determine. Jurisdiction is simply optional; and, as the Second Conference of the The Hague labored in vain to establish such a court, because no agreement could be reached between the large and the small states as to the plan for selecting the permanent judges, there is not much probability of its erection; and less, that it would be used, should some plan be forced through.

X.

Under Article XVI, there might be a legitimate conflict of opinion as to whether a nation had, or had not, disregarded its covenants under XII, and the fact should be established by a tribunal.

(Followed: by the adoption of a new procedure by the "Members of the League"; who presumably would, under this Article, act through representatives sitting in a body; but how the latter are to be convoked or who are to constitute them, is nowhere prescribed. All of the Members are already represented by the Delegates, and the simple use of the word "Assembly" would have sufficed; but that was evidently not desired, as, to have designated them and omitted the Members of the Council, would have seriously belittled the importance of the latter.)

The "ipso facto" arrangement means that the establishment of such a breach and the action of each nation would be left to its legislature, from which would follow a variety of conclusions; and the lack of co-operation, which is the essential condition for the efficiency of restraint by nonintercourse, would be wanting.