nant regret" with which the rejection of the Japanese proposal had been received at Tokio.

On one other feature of the League of Nations it is necessary, in view of subsequent controversies, to touch briefly. Ever since the final draft of the League Covenant was published its tenth Article has been the object of persistent attack on both sides of the Atlantic. Oddly enough though the article appeared in almost precisely the same form in the first draft it then aroused no antagonism whatever. Its terms are as follows:

"The Members of the League undertake to respect and preserve as against external aggression the territorial integrity and existing political independence of all Members of the League. In case of any such aggression, or in case of any threat or danger of such aggression, the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled."

The vice of the clause, in the eyes of its critics, lies in the fact that it tends to perpetuate the territorial settlement embodied in the Peace Treaty, however bad that settlement may be. The reply to that objection is that the clause immediately following gives full latitude for discussion on, and action in regard to, any circumstance threatening to disturb international peace or a good understanding between nations.

But the history of Article X. is of interest. In

President Wilson's original draft it was much longer and more explicit, providing that:

"The contracting powers unite in guaranteeing to each other political independence and territorial integrity; but it is understood between them that such territorial readjustments, if any, as may in the future become necessary by reason of changes in present racial conditions and aspirations or present social and political relationships, pursuant to the principle of self-determination, and also such territorial adjustments as may in the judgment of threefourths of the delegates be demanded by the welfare and manifest interest of the peoples concerned may be effected if agreeable to those people; and that territorial changes may in equity involve material compensation. The contracting powers accept without reservation the principle that the peace of the world is superior in importance to every question of political jurisdiction or boundary."

The difference between the two versions is the difference between the explicit and the implicit, and though in such matters there is considerable advantage in being explicit the two versions are not in any sense at variance. It is of the essence of a mutual alliance that the contracting parties shall undertake to support one another against external aggression, and in admitting that he was himself the author of the clause as it finally stood in the Covenant (he described it, indeed, as "the

very backbone of the whole Covenant") President Wilson made it clear that he regarded the provision as consonant in every way with the principles he had repeatedly laid down.

The Plenary Session of April 28th, at which the Covenant was finally adopted by the Peace Conference, was characteristic of such occasions. The Banqueting Hall at the Quai d'Orsay was crowded, to the defiance of every canon of hygiene, with the delegates at their three long tables with a principal cross-table at the head, with a throng of secretaries and other officials lining the walls, and a compressed mass of journalists of all nations packed tight across the end of the hall. The adoption of the revised Covenant was moved by President Wilson in a speech which, brief though it was, contained two minor surprises, one the appointment of Sir Eric Drummond as Secretary-General of the League, the other the admission of one neutral, Spain, to a seat on the Council. The latter provision evoked an immediate protest, which produced more entertainment than concern, by the Portuguese representative. Then the Conference dragged itself through a purposeless two hours of talk. Most of the delegates were bored. All of them were tired. At the head of the room the "Big Three" diverted themselves in undertones at the expense of the worthy M. Bourgeois, now launched, with the help of what must have been an entirely superfluous sheaf of notes, on the fifth rendering of his speech in support of his famous amendments. In due

course he formally moved them. Twenty minutes later his colleague, M. Pichon, formally withdrew them.

M. Pichon himself had the temerity to propose the admission of the Principality of Monaco as an independent member of the League. M. Clemenceau, conversing cursorily with his next-door neighbour, suddenly sat up. "Who proposes that?" he demanded. "I do," said M. Pichon, "on behalf of the French delegation." "Has it been discussed?" "It has been discussed and there is no opposition." "I oppose it," snapped the President of the Council. M. Pichon subsided, and his amendment vanished as by some sudden disintegration. Baron Makino made his protest on the racial equality amendment. M. Paul Hymans, for Belgium, in a loyal and generous speech expressed his regretful acquiescence in the choice of Geneva rather than Brussels as the permanent seat of the League. The delegate from Uruguay and the delegate from Honduras and the delegate from Panama delivered themselves. Then suddenly, at a few minutes past five, M. Clemenceau rose. "Does anyone else want to speak?" he demanded. "The resolution is moved. Is there any opposition? The resolution is carried." The delegates turned to one another in bewilderment. There was a minute's blank silence. Then Mr. Barnes began to speak to the next item on the agenda, and it dawned on the perplexed assembly that the League of Nations Covenant had been approved, that its Secretary-General had been ap

pointed, that a Council of the five major Powers, with Belgium, Brazil, Greece and Spain, had been created, that Geneva had been chosen for the League's permanent home, and that a committee had been charged with preparing an agenda for the first meeting of the League Council and Assembly at Washington. With such strange swiftness did what may prove the most powerful political instrument in history leap to birth.

The endorsement of the League Covenant by the Peace Conference and its inclusion in the Treaty with Germany did not end the work of the League of Nations Commission in Paris. The treaty had still to be discussed between the Germans and the Allies, and one of the first acts of the former was to submit to the President of the Peace Conference, who referred it at once to the League Commission for consideration, an alternative constitution for the League. It did not differ greatly from the Allied draft, but it provided for the admission of the enemy states as original members; for the creation of an International Parliament with one representative (up to a maximum of ten) for each million inhabitants of each State; and for equal voting power for every State represented.

These proposals were answered with scrupulous courtesy point by point by the Allies, the nearest approach to a concession being the assurance that certain of them should be brought before the League itself when it came into being. But the League of Nations Commission, which throughout