the future, courage to make precedents as well as follow them, strength to combat opposition with logic, industry to acquire facts, and loyalty to a cause even when they are in the minority. Character and ability combined were never so necessary in the political affairs of men.

Probably no document in the world's history has brought forth so much in the nature of commentary as this Covenant is destined to produce. In every state, throughout the world, whether original members of the League or not, the minds and pens of men are at work; and the reactions produced by points of contact and conflict between the constitutions, laws, decisions, religions, morals, and customs of the respective states and the League Covenant are of infinite variety. No one mind can grasp the many-sided aspects of the truth; but all must try. Here, therefore, are pointed out some of the salient features of the Covenant-those which stand out as obviously important for study. Positive or dogmatic statements cannot be made; but only the bare outlines of a study with many questions left unanswered.

Before attempting a general survey of the document itself, let us consider its nature apart from its contents. Unquestionably it forms part of a treaty and will be open to construction along with the rest of the Treaty of Peace with Germany. It is also part of the treaties of peace with Austria, Turkey, and Bulgaria, and thus forms a connecting link between all four treaties. By these treaties the four states assent to the League Covenant, but do not immediately become members of the League itself. All the other signatories to the treaties, subject to ratification, are original members. Its character as an integral part of a treaty imposed on vanquished enemies is thus emphasized. For them, it was quite as obligatory as a prerequisite to peace as any other section of the Treaty. While it was drawn up and adopted by the Peace Conference as a separate document, it now appears as Part I, in twenty-six articles, of each of the peace treaties. When we examine the Treaty with Germany, we find that the Covenant and the other parts are inextricably interwoven. But with one exception the references are from the other parts to the Covenant,

and not vice versa. The one exception is in Article 5, relating to voting and procedure. "Except where otherwise expressly provided in the Covenant, or by the terms of the present Treaty," this article reads; and the italicized phrase was inserted after the draft of the Covenant was completed. After reading the draft at the Plenary Session of the Peace Conference on April 28, 1919, President Wilson moved the insertion of the words, explaining that "in several parts of the Treaty of which this Covenant will form a part, certain duties are assigned to the Council of the League of Nations. In some instances it is provided that the action they shall take shall be by a majority vote. It is therefore necessary to make the covenant conform with the other portions of the Treaty by adding these words."

In the rest of the Treaty, on the other hand, we find the League of Nations referred to by name seventy-one times. It is, in fact, one of the agents of the signatories for making the Treaty effective so that it may be in very truth not merely a scrap of paper. It was a burning question at the Peace Conference as in the United States whether peace should not first be made and then the League constituted. The Conference committed itself to the plan followed when at its second session, January 25, 1919, it resolved that "this League should be created as an integral part of the general Treaty of Peace"; and it assigned to the League so many duties in connection with the return to peace and the reconstitution of Europe that these alone justify its creation. If there had been no league, then other agencies must have been created for the sa ne purpose; and these would have operated without the unifying influence of a permanent organization.

There can be no doubt that the Covenant is an integral part of the treaty; but it stands in many respects on a different footing from the other provisions. Its permanence is a distinguishing characteristic. It will remain in force, if the intention is carried out, long after the other sections have been executed. When the duties specifically assigned to it in connection with the return to peace have been done, its primary functions will still remain to be 'International Conciliation, June, 1919, p. 848.

performed. The League will in fact continue its life much as though it had been created by a separate treaty. It is not static; provision is made for change; and it is self-perpetuating. Something new in the history of international relations has happened. The League has many of the characteristics of an offensive and defensive alliance. Certainly the members agree to support each other even by war when specified contingencies arise; and there. are those who contend that the chief effect of the Covenant is to organize the control already in the hands of the five Great Powers. But that is to say that words do not have their plain meaning, that nothing has been learned by the European war, and that as of old "to the victor belong the spoils." If only an alliance were intended, why admit other states? Power was and is in the hands of the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, and Japan. They could have made the peace and their alliance without regard to other states. Did they form a league in order more completely to organize their power over the world, or were they distrustful of each other? No one is competent to answer; but as has been shown, the idea of a balance of power cannot be eliminated. It will exist informally if not formally. For a mere alliance, much unnecessary machinery has been created; machinery which would retard the movements of an alliance and bring into the reckoning many disturbing elements.

Taking the Covenant at its face value, it is something more than a treaty of alliance. According to one group it has produced only an efficient organ for coöperation, which binds no state except by its own consent; while equally authoritative students contend that there has been reared a corporation of tremendous power controlling not only its members, but stretching out its hands to the entire world. The Covenant, says Dr. David J. Hill,1 "creates a new legal person, acting by itself in a manner to be determined by itself, and in accordance with rules to be adopted by itself. It creates a body, at first called the Executive Council, which, in turn, chooses and directs its own organs of action, defines their rights and duties, and confers new authority upon them. It creates obliPresent Problems in Foreign Policy, p. 111-112.

gations on the part of the nations composing the League which these nations owe not to one another but to the League, as a distinct and separate legal person, who can call them to account for nonperformance of duty and inflict punishment upon them. It attributes to the League as a corporate entity powers which, under international law, the separate states do not, either singly or in combination, themselves possess; thus creating an imperium over states not belonging to the League, which is empowered to coerce and punish them for not submitting to its decisions. The duties of the officers of the League are duties to the League, not to the component states, which cannot separately hold them to accountability or punish them for excesses or disobedience."

Another form of attack on the League is to liken it to a "voting trust" in which the majority of the stock of several corporations is transferred to a central committee or board of trustees, which while issuing to the stockholders certificates showing their interests and rights to dividends, exercises the voting power of the stock in electing boards of directors for the various associated corporations, and thus directs their policy for the common object of lessening competition and increasing profits. The Council of the League is the object of attack by the above critics because in it is concentrated most of the power which the League possesses. Sometimes it is urged, not that power is itself a danger, but that the League is not a good example of a central world organization endowed with power. It is contended, with very cogent arguments, that in the present League not. only has the Council, and to a lesser degree the Assembly, legislative and executive power, but judicial power also. This contention has reference chiefly to the provisions of Article 15.

The advocates of the League see none of these dangers inherent in the Covenant. If power is granted, it is by agreement as far as it affects the member states; and with regard to non-members, it is justified by the interest of the world in the maintenance of peace. They see no infringement of national sovereignty, or if admitting it, foresee liberty for states as a result of limitation of rights. Something of this viewpoint is evidenced by the title of the document. It is a covenant, not a constitution. Constitutions have

association with politically organized states and are law. A covenant, in law, is a special form of contract. It is both written and under seal, and thus is the most formal and binding of all contracts. But the word in a more general use has a moral or religious sense, meaning a solemn mutual agreement to strive for high ends. In the interpretation of covenants the prime motive is to give effect to the intention of the covenanters. If the League of Nations Covenant is both legally and morally a solemn agreement for the accomplishment of ends admitted to be in themselves worthy, then its advocates and their opponents really recruit themselves from those who accept, on the one hand, or doubt, on the other, the sincerity of the states which have associated themselves in the League. Distrust can only be removed by demonstration of sincerity, and so there devolves on the world the duty of giving to the League membership, and particularly to the dominant five, the opportunity of proving that in certain great matters the general interests are for them predominant over the special interests-the international over the national.

The League Covenant is in form a mutual agreement to accomplish the purposes stated in the Preamble. These purposes are not new to international society. Coöperation, peace, and security, fair dealings between states, respect for law, and the keeping of treaty obligations-these are fundamental in the theory of international relations. But the machinery for bringing practice more nearly at one with these ideals has never been operated on so large a scale as is now proposed. What, then, is this organization set up to promote international coöperation, peace, and security?

The League of Nations is an organization in which the members are either self-governing states, colonies, or dominions. They do not therefore all possess complete external sovereignty. Among the original members are Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, and India. These British dominions and possessions not only are members of the League, but they had accredited representatives at the Peace Conference who participated in its deliberations and committee work, and signed the Peace Treaty with