French Ambassador at Rome: "If any Power can determine Berlin in favor of peaceful action it is England." A few days earlier, Sazonof had asked that England take her stand openly by the side of Russia and France with a view to preventing the outbreak of war. Grey, San Giuliano, and Sazanof are recognized as men of penetration and wide experience. We are bound to attach importance to their view that if England's demand for inquiry had been supported by force the war would not have occurred.

Now, what evidence have we that inquiry into a dispute tends to effect a settlement?

We recall, first, the innumerable labor disputes in the United States, in England, and in France which have been settled under arbitration boards by merely bringing the parties together and without proceeding to formal arbitration. The power to summons witnesses and compel a full disclosure of the facts has itself often inclined the disputants to accept the offices of the mediators.

In France we have had this principle applied for over a century by the "Conseils des Prud'hommes" -mixed tribunals of employers and employés-established by the first Napoleon. Here again actual arbitration has been the exception. Conciliation has sufficed to settle the vast majority of cases coming before the tribunals. And their greatest usefulness has lain in correcting

unfavorable conditions in French industry before the situation became acute.

We recall the similar institution set up for the Dominion of Canada in 1907; compulsory investigation before lockouts and strikes may occur in any of the following services: railways and transportation lines, yard and wharf labor, telegraph, telephone, power and traction companies, and also mines. The operations of the Canadian law have not been so uniformly successful; but in connection with 212 disputes which had come before the board up to October 18, 1916, we are informed that there were only 21 strikes. That is to say, nine-tenths of all the disputes in these services were settled without stopping work.

Turn to the international field and you have an excellent example of the effectiveness of inquiry in warding off strife in the well-known Dogger Bank affair. It will be recalled how, in 1904, Rojestvensky, issuing from the Baltic, fired upon English trawlers in the belief that they were Japanese cruisers, sinking one of the vessels and killing two English fishermen. In the opinion of experienced men, this incident would have been followed promptly by war between Great Britain and Russia except for the fact that the First Hague Conference (1899) had set up an institution known as the International Commission of Inquiry. The case was referred to this tribunal, the fact was brought out that Rojestvensky, however foolishly, still honestly, thought that he saw before him Japanese cruisers, and there was no war.

In one of the best Department papers since the days of Alexander

Hamilton's reports on departmental activities, James R. Garfield shows the effectiveness of this principle in the actual experience of the United States Government in connection with the abuses of monopolies and trusts. The philosophy of it is this: that mere inquiry, bringing out the facts, serves to correct not only illegal practices but likewise unjust practices not covered by the law; and does it without resort to a Court or even to an arbitration.

That is a result which may be looked for under the League Constitution.

Any matter "affecting the peace of the world" may be dealt with by the Executive Council (Article 3), and the right to bring to the attention of the Council all such matters is specifically recognized (Article 11) as a "friendly" right.

Premier Orlando's phrasing of the joy of Italy in the coming of the League of Nations is an earnest of the support his people will give to the world association. In a cable to President Wilson he said: "In Paris, the heart of heroic France, through the high and persevering desire of a great leader of a great people, the nations who have fought together for the liberty and justice of the world, have also determined together in the sanctity of a solemn covenant and in the name of liberty and justice of all peoples to establish a peace which shall reign supreme over the future destinies of the world.

"To this covenant, which shall be the intangible charter of humanity, Italy, which in the past and in the present has always championed the cause of right, and proclaimed and consecrated it with her laws and with her blood, brings the contribution of her assent with fervid expression and deep conviction.

"Our hearts, with sincere faith, celebrate this event which is and will remain one of the most memorable in human history, and it is fitting that the whole Italian people comprehend and acclaim with joy its high value and its everlasting significance."

The League is given the right (Article 17) to take cognizance of disputes other than those between members of the League and to invite the disputants "to accept the obligations of membership in the league" for the purpose of settling such disputes. If the invitation be refused, the Executive Council shall none the less consider and make recommendations in the matter.

When the League is in full operation, we may therefore expect that the Executive Council and the subcommittees it will establish will watch not only international events but all conditions likely to lead to international complications.

This means that ultimately the "sunlight of God's truth" will penetrate to the remotest places and search out abuses everywhere.

In a cordial letter addressed by M. André Tardieu, now at the Peace Conference, to Secretary Baker, the French High Commissioner outlined the educational plan which the French Government offers to the American army to make profitable the time spent in France awaiting transportation.

By the proposed scheme American College men are given access as freely as possible to the French Universities and other establishments for higher education: faculties of arts, sciences, medicine and law, Ecole des Beaux-Arts. The technical schools, commercial and agricultural schools in Paris and in the provinces are thrown open to them with all their resources for study; laboratories, collections, libraries, etc.

Along with American students, officers as well as privates, every French University will admit at least one American professor who lectures in English on subjects concerning his own specialty and has charge of American military students.

As to the bulk of the American Expeditionary Force, all French teachers available near American camps and cantonments are placed at our disposal to teach French. Visiting parties of French lecturers also lecture in English on questions of special interest.

Editor League of Nations Magazine.

Sir:-The flight of eloquence of neglected Senator James A. Reed, in his Washington's Birthday attack on the League of Nations, shows that he is brash in supposing that the League is bent on continuing war as war has been. He denies the premises of the intention of the League.

À la Bryan, with his "crucified on a cross of gold," he supplies another burst of eloquence with "Shall we surrender with the pen what Washington gained with the sword?”

Does he not see that the League is as self-operating for us as for another as a preventive against war? Or does he still persist in thinking it a war measure instead of a peace measure? We were victors in the war, not by ourselves, but with our allies, and the high seas forevermore are bridged for us as well as for England; so that we are intimately concerned in the affairs of our neighbors and need a representative, as others do, so as to preserve our Monroe Doctrine from contempt.

I wonder if the Senator has been on the job, the actual job, of knowing and seeing for himself our relations with our allies? Or has he just occupied his time in local interests to assure himself that he is patriotic? Or does he just stand for mili

tarism and a state of permanent defense against the whole world? It is so evident that the premises of his arguments are fundamentally wrong that his eloquence falls flat.

On the day succeeding the armistice there were four armies holding a malignant foe in check. Since that time they have continued to do so, and will gradually be organized into one force under one commander, and reduced to the necessary dimensions.

That's the League of Nations, and we, the Americans from overseas, mean to maintain it, so that there may be no repetition of what we and our friends have passed through during these last hellish years. The control of that League is immaterial to us, so long as it works for the purpose of preventing future wars.

I am not now trying to explain the conditions of the League. I am trying to show up the Senator's point of view, "To Hell with everybody else but us."

This League is a buffer between (1) surprise (that has occurred often in history), (2) secret conventions, (3) underground diplomacy.

Every nation has a final right to go to war as a last resort, but if it be an honorable nation and of good faith, it will call upon this League to prevent the necessity. No nation can call for help in war from this

League, but may call for a decision from the High Contracting Parties that may do away with the necessity of the last resort-war. In other words, if a nation takes upon itself to defy the moral judgment of its neighbors, it will be at its own risk and peril. Are we afraid to stand by the decision of a Council that has the avowed intention of maintaining peace and preventing war?

If the German nation had been an honorable nation it would have at least appealed to The Hague, but in doing so it would have eliminated the factor of surprise. So the trickster skipped his bail and was put outside the pale of civilization.

Our ideals should not be abandoned, most assuredly not abandoned from fear. The Senator smells of fear throughout his entire harangue. Life and death have been so carelessly tossed about during these last years that suggestions of fearsomeness carry no weight in argument. The world is aroused, and we stand on a higher plane than ever before. The old, threadbare arguments seem futile to those who have the wisdom of suffering and the courage of unselfishness.

The sly appeal to labor that the Senator makes is based on an assumption that the laboring man has

no heart and would let his brother suffer for the net gain of life's necessities. We are tired of these old worn-out dictatorial dictums of stump speakers.

"Wake, Robin, wake!" to the morning and let's hear a new song, where a little real heart and moral feeling is shown. We are big enough to take care of ourselves, but let us at least get in on the ground floor so that we shall not be stabbed in the back by another Boche of any kind, and may know our enemy, if unfortunately we have one.

This is the opinion of those men overseas who know the purpose of the wily Boche to disintegrate the alliance that we have shed our blood for in behalf of our own ideals and those of our associates with whom we have been fighting shoulder to shoulder. Do we lose our nationalism because we agree to consider a common foe a despicable moral delinquent? Do we believe that our allies will deliberately outvote us, knowing from actual experience what we could do if we really got started? We have prestige-is it the time now to crawl into our hole and foster the immigrant's discontent by asserting that we care nothing for his origin?

EDWARD M. CASSIDY.

Charles Robinson Smith of New York, writing to the Times, says: It is a rule of international law which no nation would care to dispute that treaties cannot be made between States to bind the parties in perpetuity and that they are all terminable or denounceable on reasonable notice. what may be reasonable notice will vary with each case and the conception of what

But

is reasonable will vary with each nation. It is, therefore, desirable that in a League treaty intended to avert war the conditions for its denunciation or for the withdrawal of any member should be made so definite and certain that there may be no excuse for war growing out of an unreasonable withdrawal or an unreasonable dissent from the right of withdrawal.

TH

HE Japanese delegation came to the Peace Conference with three objectives in mind. If the unfolding of Japan's statecraft in the Pacific were to continue, Marquis Saionji and his associates faced the necessity of safeguarding (1) the aspirations of Japan as a nonwhite Power; (2) preserving the best fruits of Japanese diplomacy in China since 1914; and (3) insuring the regional domination of Japan in the East by reason of her geographic position.

These Japanese desiderata in combination are really the foundations of a so-called Asiatic Monroe Doctrine, but Japan's protection of the third objective is her outstanding purpose. The statesmen of Japan, whatever the feelings of the people, undoubtedly estimate the the racial equality plank at its real value; they fully understand its uses, knowing that its diplomatic worth lies not in the thing itself, but in what it leads toward. They realize, too, that much which has happened in China since 1914 cannot be turned to Japan's account, for the disintegration of the Central Empires was without the Japanese calculations, which predicated a compromise peace.

Yet there remains the third alter

native. How far is Japan on the road to its realization?

THE JAPANESE DOCTRINE

Japan has been astute enough to seize on the diplomatic possibilities of the Monroe Doctrine, stripped of its Pan American breadth and surcharged with the predatory selfishness which has always been its danger to the United States. The Japanese government fully understands the value of shibboleths, and its diplomats have long known the worth attached to slogans of well

meaning emptiness meaning emptiness by European statesmen. Mikado's Land leaders appreciated that they, too, must shroud their purposes in a worldappealing formula.

As Japanese statesmen so frequently tell us these days, the United States has taught Japan much. In this case, the men in authority in Tokyo saw they had real use for a Monroe Doctrine made in Japan, however much it might be inspired by a prototype across the Pacific. There was little trouble in finding the outward trappings of an Asiatic Monroe Doctrine. The splendid geographic deceptiveness of the Asiatic continent was invoked to achieve an isolation after the fashion