MAGAZINE LEAGUE OF NATIONS TREATIES N ONE of the governmental repre sentatives at the Paris Peace Conference is free from critical opposition in his own nation. But the preliminary adoption of the Covenant of the League of Nations at a plenary session of the Conference did not result in the overthrow of any of the European Governments represented and an Organization Committee for the League was authorized by the Conference. Final treaties submitted for ratification must run the home gauntlet of organized and unorganized dissatisfactions with what government representatives sign at Paris. The treaty with Germany first has been so framed that League of Nations principles shall apply to many other necessary treaties of national readjustment following this war. The Conference made the Covenant the first section of the peace treaty proffered to Germany; the treaty proffered later to Austria also requires acceptance of the Covenant and the Labor Charter of the League. Until the treaties are signed by the authorized plenipotentiaries at Paris their form for ratification is incomplete and subject to modificar tion. It is entirely clear, however, that in drafting the treaties the Con ference makes the League a supervising agency for carrying out a great many treaty provisions besides those covered by the Covenant Section. Thus these peace treaties are essentially League of Nations treaties; they assume that the League is operative and they authorize enlarged League functions of reconstruction as well as maintaining peace. Sober second thought in this country may be counted upon to conclude that considering the unprecedented complications involved the agreements obtained by the Paris Conferees should not be weakened by defection on our part. Condemnation unmitigated they would be receiving if they had not adopted the League principle. As in France and England, voluntary organizations here can now unite to improve the Paris emergency League. Our humorous philosopher, Simeon Strunsky, re minds us that the real trouble is that Germany did not win her war; if she had only won, all our difficulties would have been settled for us without any necessity for thinking our way through them. We may also point out to those Impossibilists who demand perfection from Paris that the ancestral text of our written Constitution fails to prevent to-day such a conflict of official power over treaty-making by humans as that between the President and members of the Senate. Nevertheless it may reasonably be expected that American capacity will not fall short of obtaining decision on the positive merits of the treaties as negotiated at Paris without throwing away our Constitution. Mr. Clemenceau, for the Paris Conference, has restated the fact of record that the League of Nations has been considered basic to peace and progress. Says his official letter accompanying the revised draft of the treaty with Germany June 16: The Allied and associated Powers have examined the German observations and counter-proposals with earnest attention and care. They have, in consequence, made important modifications to the draft of the treaty. But in its principles they stand by it. They believe that it is not only a just settlement of the great war, but that it provides the basis upon which the peoples of Europe can live together in friendship and equality. At the same time it creates the machinery for the peaceful adjustment of all international problems by discussion and consent, and whereby the settlement of 1919 itself can be modified from time to time to suit new facts and new conditions as they arise. It is, frankly, not based upon a general condonation of the events of 19141918. It would not be a peace of justice if it were. But it represents a sincere and deliberate attempt to establish that "reign of law, based upon the consent of the governed, and sustained by the organized opinion of mankind" which was the agreed basis of the peace. As such the treaty in its present form must be accepted or rejected. In the further detailed official reply to Germany's counter-proposals regarding entrance into the League, it is declared: The Allied and associated powers, regarding the league of nations as the basis of the treaty of peace and as bringing into the relations of people an element of progress which the future will confirm and develop, have never had the intention of indefinitely excluding Germany or any other power from membership. Every country whose government has proved its stability and its desire to observe its international obligations, particularly those of the peace treaty, will be supported in its demand for admission. In Germany's case the events of the past five years prove the need of a definite test, the length of which will depend on the acts of the German government especially toward the treaty. No reason is seen, however, provided these necessary conditions are assured, why Germany should not become a member in the early future. Inclusion in the covenant of the German proposal regarding economic questions is considered unnecessary. The Allied and associated powers will guarantee protection, under the league, of German minorities in ceded territories, and intend to open negotiations immediately for a general reduction of armaments, as provided in the covenant, in the expectation that Germany carries out her engagements in this regard. Plainly from the Paris Conference standpoint the League of Nations and Peace-treaty making are declared to be one and inseparable. FRANK CHAPIN BRAY. "The present covenant is a combination of the American and British views, modified at some points to meet the objections raised by France and smaller states. "Most critics of the League make the mistake of expecting that its machinery would be automatic, that it would provide a perfect mechanism for preventing war and adjusting international disputes. These critics miss the fundamental purpose underlying the League proposal to assure an open and frank discussion of international difficulties by responsible representatives of the different nations. "The purpose of the League is to make international misunderstandings more difficult and less frequent. What particular sort of League we get is not nearly so important as that we should get some kind of a League."-Professor Allyn A. Young, of Cornell, one of the group of American Specialists at Paris. W THE OPERATING LEAGUE OF NATIONS HEN we entered the war in 1917 there was no declaration that we were helping to set up a League of Nations. But that was the fact. The name did not matter. We were bound by no Alliance or Entente as those terms are used in the lingo of diplomacy. Oddly enough whereas certain critics early objected to the President's state papers in which the United States was called merely an Associate of the Allied Powers, they now argue that being technically only an Associate we might make a separate peace with Germany rather than join with the other Powers in a treaty to be in many respects made effective for peace by the League which cooperation in the war has developed. What happened was that experience taught the nations associated against the German menace some fresh lessons of how to work together to achieve a common purpose. Important results of that experience ought not to be lost. The League of Nations Covenant incorporates them for use in securing and maintaining peace. not be won by a military command alone. The associated nations were driven to the more difficult task of organizing every national resource of credit, communication, supplies, food and transport in order to win. It is now publicly revealed that the very natural attempt to apply the military system of a commander-inchief's orders to these services from nations rightfully watchful of their respective interests, had to give way to a different system of program committees reporting data to a supreme council. Thus it became possible to analyze and chart the varied needs and available resources, put them as a whole before the different government agencies, and so secure the necessary voluntary adjustment and team play. This was the work of neither the political theorist nor the diplomatic specialist. On each program committee representatives of the various associated nations devoted themselves to secur ing first the facts and figures regarding the location and supply of a single commodity like wheat or coal. Upon information so assembled the international council higher up, to the surprise of some men directly concerned, was able not only to reach unanimous conclusions in council concerning what to advise and recommend to meet current needs, but jealous national agencies did work together and met the need on the basis of common knowledge. The record of what was accomplished through the actual working development of bodies like the Maritime Transport only common sense to "carry on" Council and the Supreme Economic What we are emphasizing here is that the Paris Covenant of the League of Nations undoubtedly seeks to "promote international cooperation and to achieve international peace and security" by the Council and Committee System of assembling data to get team play from modern industrial nations by consent. Reading of the Covenant from that standpoint is illuminating. Facing the Facing the immediate practical problem of paralyzed industry in Europe and the necessity of assuring credit, materials and tools for production conditions clearly reported by Frank A. Vanderlip-it would seem to be T and develop the kind of league operating during the war. The United States cannot withdraw from the consequences of this war at a given moment when a single peace treaty with Germany may be signed. "The man who thinks an economic Chinese wall can be built around America," says Henry P. Davidson, head of the Red Cross, "lacks knowledge." The League Covenant may commit us in treaty form to the obligations of what may be styled an Industrial Red Cross Movement throughout the world. Wide-awake Americans will hardly be frightened out of participation by jingoes, constitutional sticklers, or idolaters of "the good old days before the war." FRANK CHAPIN BRAY. ON READING THE KNOX RESOLUTION HE situation regarding the regarding the League of Nations Covenant is apparently in a state of very considerable confusion. Certain natural traits of human nature are manifesting themselves with such intensity that the real merits of the question seem to have been for the moment almost wholly lost sight of. The Senate is, not unnaturally, resentful of the attitude of the President. The President continues suspicious of the Senate, and is unwilling to admit its leaders into his confidence or councils. He stands squarely upon his constitutional right to negotiate a treaty and then send it to the Senate for ratification or rejection. Many Senators feel that in a matter of this supreme importance they should have been consulted; and it is evident that to have done so would have been wise, prudent and expedient upon the part of the President and would have made easier the ratification of the League Covenant. The President's inability to work with others is thus rapidly leading to an impasse, serious for the Nation. On the other hand, it is to be regretted that so many Senators could not have taken a larger view of the problem, and have overcome their natural human resentment at the neglect accorded them. The revival of an anti-Britishism, in this age quite absurd, is one by product of this intra-governmental matter of grave concern to the quarrel. United States. In addition to these obvious reasons for the present condition, there is the partisan disappointment that so far-reaching an event as the League Covenant should be christened by the Democratic Party rather than by the Republicans as their own offspring. This troubled situation has led to the Knox Resolution, which, in somewhat vague and ambiguous fashion, seeks, while avoiding the continuance of the war after the signature of the treaty by Germany, yet to postpone all action regarding the League Covenant until a later time, when, under more auspicuous circumstances, and under a different party emblem, it may again be fittingly taken up. The Resolution* itself is rather fearfully and wonderfully made. Its first paragraph, reciting in substance the Declaration of War against Germany, would seem to indicate that this Nation went to war wholly because of "repeated acts of war against the government and people of the United States." This attempt to minimize the magnitude and diversity of causes which led the United States to enter in a really disinterested fashion into the world struggle is negatived by the last paragraph admitting our obligations "to ourselves and to the rest of the world," and, in effect, pledging the Senate to guarantee that the balance of power created by the treaty, if again “threatened by any Power or combination of Powers," will be a *The full text is printed on page 357 of this magazine. The Senate Committee on Foreign Relations evidently preferred the implied parochialism of the first "Whereas" to the larger world-view expressed in the last paragraph, and, therefore, have dropped out the clause declaring it to be the policy of the United States in the future "to co-operate with our chief co-belligerents for the defense of civilization." The remainder of the Resolution condemns both the Covenant and the Treaty, but apparently sanctions the passage of the Treaty without the Covenant. It is said that the Treaty "may be easily so drawn as to permit the making of immediate peace, leaving the question of the establishment of a League of Nations for later determination; and that the treaty as drawn contains principles, guarantees, and undertakings obliterative of legitimate race and national aspirations, oppressive of weak nations and peoples, and destructive of human progress and liberty." The Resolution then continues somewhat vaguely to intimate that some other Peace Treaty will be more agreeable to the Senate, and that it will be satisfied with one such as may be completely "responsive to the duties and obligations we owe to our co-belligerents and to humanity." Whether this indicates that the Treaty as presented is to be ratified, or that only portions thereof are to be ratified, or that the Executive must cause a new Treaty to be negotiated, does not appear from the Resolution, and its author has apparently left that an open question. The Covenant is characterized as "inimical to our free institutions" and as amending the Constitution. |