form; for that Covenant has adopted as its basic principle the automatic type of league, fixing the obligations of the members and the sanctions for violation in the pact itself, instead of leaving them to be determined by a representative body. The Council of the League is, indeed, at liberty, and even enjoined, to advise or recommend further action by the members; but this each member undertakes only if it chooses to do so. The language is in that respect perfectly clear and consistent, unless we are to construe such words as "advise," "propose," and "recommend," in a sense quite contrary to their ordinary meaning.

Fortunately this automatic action is not confined to wars and threats of wars. It relates also to many vital matters which need attention during peace. By many, this function of the League is considered more important than that which relates directly to war. This phase of the subject is treated at length in Part III, post.

REFERENCES FOR CHAPTER IV

ACADEMY OF POLITICAL SCIENCE. Proceedings, 8:no. 3, p. 15-49. THE COVENANTER. N. Y., Doubleday Page & Co., 1919.

DUGGAN. The League of Nations, p. 96-111 (Chapter by A. L. Lowell).

HILL, D. J. Present Problems in Foreign Policy.

LEAGUE OF NATIONS. Comparison of the plan for the League of Nations, showing the original draft. . . together with the Covenant as finally reported.

(Senate Doc. no. 46. 66th Cong. Ist Sess.)

CHAPTER V

PROPOSALS FOR A LEAGUE OF NATIONS

THE long path which war has worn through the world's history is strewn with discarded plans for world organization and the preservation of peace. From time to time, either during the conflict or just after its close, men turn their minds to measures of prevention. "In the contraries of peace," said William Penn, "we see the beauties and benefits of it. . . It is a great mark of the corruption of our natures. . . that we cannot . . . know the comfort of peace, but by the smart and penance of the vices of war." In the past, the desire for some new adjustment of state relations has tended to become quiescent as soon as peace has returned and men are again going about their daily tasks. But many of the proposals for change were committed to printing and were preserved for later study. They form a group of projects and schemes and visions that were never put to the test, and which existed only in the minds of men and in the books written by them. The books which embody these abortive schemes cannot be disregarded, for they trace the development of the idea of peace and of internationalism. When looked at in their proper setting of events, they acquire significant application to present-day problems, and form a background for the League of Nations of to-day.

Only a few of the plans can be noted here. They are set forth and commented on at length in Ter Meulen's Gedanke der Internationalen Organisation, published at The Hague, 1917.

The first of the schemes of world organization which has been selected for comment is of importance not so much for its own sake as because of the great book which it produced. In 1513 there were not

'Essay Toward the Present and Future Peace of Europe, Section 1. *For a list of books containing the earlier proposals see Appendix 8.

only rumors of war but there was war itself. The English King Henry VIII was at odds with both France and Scotland; France was invading Italy, and just ending a conflict with Spain. In 1514 Wolsey made peace with France, and the Treaty of Bologna (1516) ended the French war with Italy a year after Francis I came to the throne. It was a natural time for propounding a scheme to prevent war, and during these wars one was brought forward by William of Ciervia, and John Sylvagius, Chancellor of Burgundy. We learn about it in a letter written by Erasmus,1 who says that the plan was to assemble a Congress of Kings at Cambray, to consist of Maximilian the Emperor, Francis the First of France, Henry the Eighth of England, and Charles of the Low Countries. They were to enter into a permanent agreement to maintain the peace of Europe. "But certain persons," says Erasmus, "who get nothing by peace, and a great deal by war, threw obstacles in the way, which prevented this truly kingly purpose from being carried into execution. After this great disappointment, I sat down and wrote, by desire of John Sylvagius, my Querela Pacis, or Complaint of Peace. But, since that period," he continues, "things have been growing worse and worse; and I believe I must soon compose the Epitaph, instead of the Complaint of Peace; as she seems to be dead and buried, and not very likely to revive." Of this great book, first issued in 1516, many editions were printed. The first American edition appeared in Boston in 1813, and the last in Chicago, 1917.

The peace between England and France was, however, the occasion for a treaty of alliance between some of the monarchs mentioned above for securing a lasting peace. It was signed in St. Paul's Cathedral, London, on October 2, 1518, by Henry VIII and the French plenipotentiaries; and Charles of Spain and Pope Leo X later acceded to it. A league was formed whose members were to be "friends of the friends and foes of the foes" of any of them. If any state bound by the treaty should invade, attack, or injure the dominions of any member, all the others agreed to take arms against that state within two months, and in certain cases to furnish fleets of war-ships. The treaty expressly excepted from its 'See the preface to his Complaint of Peace, Boston, 1813, p iii-iv.

scope civil wars unless instigated by one of the contracting parties. All of the members agreed to allow passage through their territory of the troops of their confederates. Within eight months all Christian princes were at liberty to join the league.1

Erasmus' Complaint and Wolsey's league seem to have had little effect. When a century had passed, Europe was in the throes of the Thirty Years' War. France had fought her four wars with Austria (1521-1544), and survived her eight successive civil wars (1562-1598); the great Henry of Navarre had come to the throne (1589) and been assassinated by Ravaillac (1610); and Queen Elizabeth had ended her long reign (1603) to be succeeded by James I.

Thus was Europe situated when in 1623 a book appeared in Paris which contained the first distinct printed proposal for substituting international arbitration for war. It did not propose disarmament, but provided for a "Congress of Ambassadors" to act both as an international legislature and a court whose decrees were to be enforced by the national armies. The book is entitled Le Nouveau Cynée, and although both the first and second editions indicate the author's name in abbreviated form, his real name was not known until 1890. Until then bibliographies listed the work under Emery La Croix, a different person from the author, Emeric Crucé, who was a French monk living in Paris, and the author of several other works. We are indebted for our information to Mr. Ernest Nys, the eminent French authority on international law, whose account of the discovery is given in the introduction to the translation of the work by Thomas W. Balch, published in Philadelphia, 1909. Only two copies of the first edition are known. One is in the Bibliotheque Nationale and the other in the library of Harvard College. The latter copy belonged to Charles Sumner. It had been found on a Paris book stall by his brother, George Sumner, and it came to Harvard in 1874 along with the Sumner library. The title of the book recognizes the wisdom of Cineas, a Thessalian orator, who counselled King Pyrrhus against war.

For the text of this treaty and comment on it, see The Nation (N. Y.), 108: 372, March 8, 1919.

Two years after Crucé's "Cynée" was published, Hugo Grotius, then an exile in France, issued his "De Jure Belli ac Pacis," but as this work did not propose any plan of world organization it does not fall within this present study. All unknown to the world there had, however, been formed an ambitious plan conceived some twenty years prior to the publication of Crucé's work. Our whole knowledge of it comes from the memoirs of a man who was forty years old when Henry IV came to the throne and who, dying in 1641, came within two years of outliving Louis XIII. This was Maximilien de Béthune, duc de Sully, Minister of Finance to Henry IV, and his confidant and friend. During his long official career, Sully kept a journal, from which, soon after Henry's death (1610), he began to dictate his memoirs. Two volumes, covering the years 1570-1610, were printed in 1638, the third and fourth volumes being prepared by secretaries after his death. They were published in Paris in 1662. At the end of the last volume is a special chapter devoted to the "Great Design of Henry IV" for a Christian republic whereby the peace of Europe might be preserved. Throughout the Memoirs, however, are references to the scheme, especially the accounts of conferences which Sully had with Queen Elizabeth in 1601 and with James I in 1603, for the purpose of enlisting their coöperation in his sovereign's design. According to Sully, or rather, let us say, according to his "Memoirs" issued by other hands twenty-one years after his death, the design was not only worked out in detail, but about to be put into operation at the time of Henry's death. It was by no means a disinterested scheme, for its principal object was to reduce to impotence the House of Austria. It is, however, conceded to have been the first plan of a comprehensive character for the federation of Europe. After the subjugation of Austria, Europe was to have been divided among fifteen powers, whose commissioners were to legislate as a Great General Council. This council and a system of minor councils were to act as international courts, whose decisions were to be enforced by the national armies acting in concert. Boundary disputes and disputes over the election of monarchs of the Holy Roman Empire were to be settled by arbitration.