THE ROUND ROBIN 1

The League of Nations is an organization which cannot disclose its advantages in the rapid manner an army or a military expedition can. Its operation is bound to be slow and cumbersome at first. Its influence on its members and on outside nations in avoiding war and promoting justice will grow as the real strength of the uniting and common covenants comes to be clearly perceived. Experience under the League will disclose defects and suggest useful changes to make it more practical and effective. But the agreement upon a covenant providing for reduction and limitation of armament, for union of nations to prevent conquest, for definite postponement of war till after every opportunity for peaceful settlement has been secured, and for spreading international agreements on the table before the world is a series of steps forward toward permanent peace which only "ready made" military correspondents can belittle.

If the cabled information as to the character of the amendments adopted is reliable, we may now confidently hope that the Senators who signed the Round Robin will be able to vote for the League as it is amended without being embarrassed in any degree by their signatures to that document. It will be remembered that they merely said that the Covenant in its then form was unacceptable to them, which of course does not prevent their consistently supporting the Covenant as at present amended. The further statement in the Round Robin was that they thought the peace treaty ought to be adopted at once and that the League should be postponed for further consideration. Of course 1 From an article in the Public Ledger April 12, 1919.

such a view, which rested on the importance of having peace come at once without delaying it for the sake of framing a league of nations covenant, ceases to apply when the peace treaty has been signed, with the League of Nations Covenant as a part of it, and indeed as an indispensable condition to its effective enforcement. The Round Robin Senators may well say that the second objection is removed, because now to insist upon opposing or amending the League, which is web and woof of the peace treaty submitted to them, is to postpone peace rather than to expedite it.

GUARANTIES OF ART. X1

It has been suggested that this Article X is in the interest of Great Britain, that it is designed to preserve the territorial integrity of her far-flung empire through the aid of the United States and other countries. There is no foundation for such a suggestion. Can any one point out in the history of the last fifty years any war against Great Britain by a foreign country to take away territory from her? No; war of that sort is not ordinarily begun against a nation as powerful as Great Britain. Wars are begun as Austria began the war against Servia, namely, because Servia was a weak nation and Austria a strong one; and this guaranty is for the benefit of the weaker nations whom it is to our interest to protect against a war of conquest that will ultimately involve the world, as the attack upon Servia did.

Another objection made to this Article is that if Ireland were to rebel against England and seek to establish her1 From an address at Kansas City, April 19, 1919.

self as an independent republic, England could invite, under this Article X, the other nations of the world to assist her in suppressing the rebellion. This is utterly unfounded, because Article X is only an undertaking to preserve territorial integrity and political independence against external aggression. Nations must take care of their own revolutions, and, if their conduct of government is such that revolutions occur and new nations are established out of old ones, there is nothing in Article X to prevent this happening.

RELIGIOUS AND RACIAL FREEDOM 1

News comes from Paris that the effort of a committee of the Jews to secure, in the constitution of the League, a declaration in favor of religious tolerance and the means of securing it has failed. This is not accurate. There is in the League Covenant a provision that in all countries which are to be governed by a mandatory of the League, the charter, under which the mandatory acts, shall require protection of religious freedom. This provision will apply in Constantinople, in Palestine, in Syria, in Armenia, in Mesopotamia and in the former colonies of Germany in Africa and the Pacific.

The Executive Council may add to such general provisions detailed guaranties and machinery to make the general declaration effective. The mandatories have to render yearly reports of their stewardship, so that violations of such guaranties may be brought before the organs of the League for remedy.

1 Article in Public Ledger Apr. 24, 1919.

The failure of the application for a general declaration in respect to freedom of religion was doubtless due to the sensitiveness of the British colonies and, indeed, of the United States, toward the attempt of Japan to obtain a declaration in favor of social equality and against racial discrimination in any state of the League. The American representatives probably felt that such a declaration, however neutral in its effect in this country because our Constitution secures the equal protection of the law to all, would be successfully used to defeat the ratification of the League Covenant as part of the treaty. They were therefore obliged to sacrifice the clause securing religious tolerance.

But there still remains an opportunity to achieve every useful and practical end in regard to religious freedom. There exists no danger of pogroms and oppressive laws against the Jews in the United States or Britain or France or Italy. It exists only in certain states like Poland, Rumania, the Ukraine and possibly in the Czecho-Slav and Jugo-Slav countries. Of these, Rumania is the chief offender. Poland, under Paderewski, also shows obduracy in the matter. All these states are, so to speak, children of the League; they may well be required, as a condition of their national independence and the protection they are to enjoy from the League, to give pledges against racial and religious discrimination in their laws and in favor of complete religious freedom. Means should be retained by the League to enforce the pledges.

Pledges were required by the Congress of Berlin in 1879 from Bulgaria, Servia and Rumania that their fundamental laws would put Jews on an equality with all other citizens and protect them in the exercise of their religion. Bulgaria and Servia faithfully complied, but Rumania deliberately

and dishonestly evaded, and dishonored, her solemn obligation. If now she is to receive Transylvania from Hungary by decree of the League, she may well be put under effective bond to give to her Jewish people that freedom and justice which she has faithlessly denied to them for forty years. Poland, too, which was long the only refuge for the oppressed and unhappy children of Israel, should be made, as the price of her restoration to nationality, to issue a new charter of religious liberty and civic equality to her Jewish citizens.

The Jews are not the only denomination who need protection. There are Unitarians and others who, in some of these new states, have suffered for their faith. It will be an important accomplishment if the League uses its power to remove this last vestige of mediævalism.

SECRET TREATY PROVISIONS THAT ARE AT THE ROOT OF THE CRISIS AT THE PARIS CONFERENCE1

ITALIAN CLAIMS TO FIUME WOULD, IF GRANTED, SOW THE SEEDS OF TROUBLE AND DISCONTENT AMONG THE

JUGO-SLAVS

The peace treaty with Austria-Hungary is delayed by the controversy over the disposition of the port of Fiume, near the head of the Adriatic. When the war broke out in 1914 the Entente Allies and Germany wooed Italy intensively to induce her to join their respective sides. The obligations of the Triple Alliance had not been made public, but it was 1 Article in Public Ledger, Apr. 25, 1919.