be a fitting feature of the general plan, and that, if there could be incorporated in the Covenant the additional safeguards of the system above outlined, there would be reason to hope it might be successful. That there would be much risk and little honor in the assumption, by any of the powers which are the conquerors in the late war, of the mandate of the League over the backward conquered regions to which alone the Covenant in its present form relates, seems certain. The history of all civilized states in dealing with backward peoples is deeply stained with "atrocities," and comparison cannot now be admitted especially comparison based on interested testimony gathered during the war. An examination of the literature of the world before the war, will, it is believed, show that the publicists of the powers which are now in the position of victors, found no fault with the title of the powers which are now in the position of vanquished, to the backward regions under their jurisdiction; and that in estimating the comparative value to civilization of the colonizing activities of the various powers, colonial experts recognized as highly valuable the work done by the now vanquished powers. The case of Turkey is, of course, that of a sick man, whose sickness has been made worse by the conflicting ministrations of his alleged physicians. A state accepting a mandate for the care of such a patient would need to be assured that the physicians previously in charge of the case would voluntarily and entirely withdraw. If the "mandatary system" should prove successful in the case of the backward peoples committed to the care of the League of the Covenant, it would doubtless gradually be extended to include the colonies, protectorates and dependencies of civilized states inhabited by backward peoples. Each such state which desired to act honestly as respects the backward peoples dependent upon it, would have a strong motive to relinquish its dependencies to the League in case it could receive them back as mandatary, for the protection of these regions against external aggression would then fall upon the League. The vast navies now kept up by colonizing states as "insurance" against the loss of colonies could then be dispensed with, and unwillingness of a colonizing state to assume toward its colonies the relationship of mandatary of the League would give rise to the suspicion that it desired to exploit the backward peoples under its control and required its navy to insure freedom from interference in its work of exploitation. The "mandatary system" is, it is evident, a necessary part of the new system in which the civilized states recognize themselves as having with each other social relations of a legal nature, as well as those purely contractual and economic relations with which international law proper is concerned. There thus seems to be coming into existence, through the establishment of this "society of the civilized states," as The Hague Conferences called it, by international convention, a new division of the general public law, distinct from international law proper-a social law of nations, of which the "mandatary system" forms a part. THE SHANTUNG QUESTION AND THE SPHERES OF INFLUENCE Reprinted from The Nation, September 20, 1919. HE Shantung Question arises out of the following provision of the Peace Treaty: Germany renounces, in favor of Japan, all her rights, title and privileges-particularly those concerning the territory of Kiaochow, railways, mines, and submarine cableswhich she acquired in virtue of the treaty concluded by her with China on March 6, 1898, and of all other arrangements relative to the Province of Shantung. The "rights, title and privileges" in question are exclusively those which Germany had, on China's domestic territory and within the sphere of its sovereignty, by "treaty" with China and by "arrangements" with the other states having influence in China. The treaty of March 6, 1898, between China and Germany, as published at Shanghai in 1908 by the Chinese (British-controlled) Imperial Customs Office, was composed of a preamble, three parts, and ratification clauses and signatures. The first part is headed "Lease of Kiaochow," the second, "Railroad and Mining Concessions," and the third, "Priority-Rights in the Province of Shantung." In the first sentence of the preamble it was stated that the incident at the mission station in the prefecture Tsaochoufu in Shantung had been settled at the time |