Germain. It has received the adhesion of seven other associations founded with the same object in Belgium, China, Italy, Roumania, Greece, Czecho-Slovakia, and last of all in Poland. Delegates from all these associations have joined in conferences held recently in Paris and London.

Since April 28th the Covenant of the League of Nations has been published and the Executive Council has been named with Geneva as its seat. Nevertheless, it can scarcely be said that this Covenant under its present form is entirely satisfactory. No human institution, alas, is perfect in its first stage, and this one, the greatest and best, but also the most difficult of all to construct, will demand in the future many additions and improvements. The public opinion of the whole world should demand that the Covenant be kept upon the ways, so that it may be painstakingly adapted to the ultimate needs of humanity. From this time on our French Association has undertaken to ask that improvement should be made in the Covenant upon the following points:

The preparation of a Declaration of the Rights and the Obligations of Nations, which should be placed at the beginning of the Covenant and in which should be expressed in appropriate terms the commands of international ethics; the mutual limitations of armaments, and the organization of an international military force and power to enforce the decrees of the Society of Nations (Article 8 and 9); the substitution of the rule of the majority instead of unanimity in whatever relates to the decision of the Executive Council; the organization of the Supreme Court of Justice, which ought to be the fundamental institution of the Society of Nations; the method of choosing the delegates from the states to the General Assembly provided for in Articles 3, 26, etc. In order to discuss the best possible solutions of all these questions, a conference of delegates of the associations which have a purpose identical with our own has now been determined upon, and it will meet in a few weeks in Paris or perhaps Brussels. If our associates and friends will attend and help us to the best of their ability,

public opinion will understand that we are truly determined to consider the Society of Nations as a living being, always in the path of evolution and of progress towards perfection.

Pardon me for the unexpected length of this letter. I am sending you by the same mail the principal publications of our Association, and I hope that you will be so kind as to continue to send us regularly your interesting periodical, LEAGUE OF NATIONS MAGAZINE. Kindly accept the assurance of my sincere regards.

J. PRUDHOMMEAUX, Secretary of the European Office of Carnegie Endowment.

FROM EDOARDO GIRETTI, BRICHERASIO, ITALY

I thank you sincerely for the regular appearance of your excellent magazine, which I always read with profit.

I am assured that most beneficial effects will flow from the continued and free cooperation of societies which have been created in different countries with the purpose of sustaining and developing the principle of a League of Nations. In Italy we have passed through some very critical experiences. The peace conference seems to us to have failed to do us full justice in refusing to bestow upon the Italian population of Fiume the right of self-determination in a matter which affects its wish, clearly shown, to be reunited to Italy. In many other respects the Treaty of Peace which I will be ratified at Paris will be far from realizing the hopes which we had formed, and from erecting the new international organization upon a solid foundation of right and justice. But we must not lose courage on account of these discrepancies and imperfections which we rightly regret. Even in its present state the League of Nations which has just been born at Paris represents a very great triumph for our cause. The principle of review which has been adopted will render all the further developments possible. Now is the time for our associations to push forward together and to cultivate diligently a ceaseless propaganda throughout the civilized world.

8 Carlton Gardens, S. W.

Dear Mr. Levermore:

I welcome your announcement of the consolidation of forces in support of the League of Nations and of the future cooperation of your Society in the general movement now entitled the "League of Nations Union."

The moment is on when every friend of the future peace of the world should endeavor to subordinate every minor consideration to the supreme importance of securing as large a unanimity as possible in support of the principle of the League, which I regret to admit appears to me to be in imminent danger of shipwreck.

Chauvinism in varying forms had long dominated the ruling Powers on the Continent of Europe and the activities of the partisans of International Conciliation and the supreme sanction of International Law had affected undoubtedly the masses but not unfortunately the presiding authorities of states.

The terrible war, from which we have I fear even yet not altogether emerged, was doubtless initiated by the Teutonic Powers, but it would be folly to deny the existence of contributory influences in other quarters. The greatly advertised efforts of the Russian Empire to develop overwhelming military strength, the never-concealed hope of France of a successful campaign of “revanche," while not immediately provocative, naturally ministered to the Imperialist cravings of Junkerdom, and in the eyes of all thinking men only a world-wide appeal to the democracies, rallying them to the principles of International Concord and the paramount necessity of maintaining the sanction and authority of International Law as the sole defense against a sudden outbreak of violence and bloodshed, could possibly avoid it. History will one day duly apportion the relative blame, but with this awful experience behind us it would surely be insanity to permit similar conditions to subsist in the future. And yet have we any right to feel any assurance on this all-important matter?

German Imperialism is dead and buried, but do we not witness to-day some semblance of its spirit in the counsels of the allied Powers?

How fierce has been the struggle to establish even in its truncated form the League of Nations, to which the rulers of France and Italy and large classes in this country even now only accord lip service, while in America political partisanship has sadly blemished a whole-hearted advocacy of your people.

The allied Powers have been engaged as a band of shoplifters might be expected to do, wrangling as to the subdivision of the spoils and altogether indifferent as to the larger questions vitally affecting their fu

ture.

The general election in this country was a lamentable exhibition of this prevailing passion. "Hang the Kaiser!" "Bleed the German white!" then were the popular cries, and they made, to our national humiliation, a successful appeal, not to the majority, for only a minority came to the poll, but to a sufficient number of voters to establish a Parliament to the vulgarest form of Jingoism and as I honestly believe wholly out of touch with the great masses of thoughtful men in Great Britain.

It is in such an atmosphere that the League of Nations has first seen the light. It is a frail infant and doubts may well exist as to its survival, but everyone will agree that if it is ever to prosper it will require nourishment and stimulants from different sources than those whence it derived its birth.

It requires immediate action so as to develop it into a real international instrument, effective in action, and not merely a scrap of paper. But for this it behooves the workers of the world-and I would more particularly emphasize the "AngloSaxon world," to resolutely insist that this mighty engine should press from the hands of tinkering mechanics into the hands of the really popular forces of the world who are the only sure safeguards of its

principles, and sincere believers in its aims and purpose.

We are at the present moment in the throes of the awful issues dependent upon the proceedings at Versailles. It is unwise to comment too much upon them. Let us pray that those who have to bear these terrible responsibilities may be more impressed by the urgent necessity of establishing the conditions of a just and durable peace, than of secretly destroying the fine prospects of a League of Nations.

The universe is exhausted. Blood has poured all over the continent of Europe and is still unstanched. Property has been destroyed to a degree immeasurable. Public credit is assailed on all sides. The wounds of humanity are surely grievous enough, and even Christianity, so long dormant, is beginning to be restive.

What then remains to us, if it be not to unite in a solemn confraternity in order to make a supreme effort to establish a genuine League of Nations; all-embracing in its constitution and therefore all-powerful in its action. To achieve this great purpose the League of Nations has a vast field for useful propaganda. I hope also the Institution to which I am more especially attached, "The Interparliamentary Union" will play a worthy part.

May 10, 1919.

Sincerely yours,

(Signed) Weardale.

P. S. Please allow me to express my sincere regret at the death of your distinguished Secretary, Dr. Dutton. He is indeed a great loss to you and the cause in general all over the world.

From Y. Sakatani.-"I entirely endorse the wise step taken by our directors to join together several societies with similar aims in a federation.

“Our new-born child ‘League of Nations' in Paris requires a good deal of care before he grows up strong enough. Especially in this part of the world, the idea is quite new and much educational campaign is needed." Tokio, Japan.

From Enrico Bignami.—“I beg to express the hope that your Federation, "The League of Nations Union,' may bear those fruits to which the Nations are looking hopefully forward, as a result of the organized, illuminated efforts of those who are carrying on the work for world-betterment and Union of Nations.

"In a noble cosmopolite spirit a committee has been lately formed in Berne under the name of 'Comité Central pour la Reprise des Relations Internationales.' I have joined the same and am sending you under separate cover the first printed material of this committee."

Lugano, Switzerland.

Dr. Fernando Sanchez de Fuentes, a Cuban member of the International Council of the League of Nations Union, says:

"Whatever may come from this great effort of the League of Nations that is strongly sustained by one of the representative men of North America, it is undeniable that it has shown that the ideas of the world have a real tendency to resolve the conflicts and the difficulties among the Nations by other means than those of the brutality and horror of War.

"Even though this effort only were to put an end to such barbarous proceedings as those of modern civilization, so-called, it will have obtained a very great success, because one of the most difficult things in a collective life is to change the methods of living to which one has been accustomed.

"Let us work, then, in favor of these ideals, that sooner or later will be enforced."

From Paul S. Reinsch, U. S. Minister to China.-"I feel the utmost satisfaction in the fact that when the principal nations of the world have actually been united in all their activities during a long arduous struggle, now happily ended, there should have been envolved and ready for practical use, the idea of a permanent organization to strengthen and unify the efforts and interests of civilized nations."

ROWD receptivity to ideas is a

C chapter to which, up to this

time, far too little attention has been paid. The suggestibility of the German people, in especial, has, unfortunately, been far too little considered. If this fact had been appreciated to its full extent, especially in Germany itself, who knows but the great catastrophe of this world war, despite all the war makers, might have been avoided. He who before the war paid any attention to the mental factor in a consideration of the life of the German people, must have already at that time perceived with terror how willingly these people let themselves be led by any one who merely knew how to mould them with clever slogans. The jingocs had truly all too easy sport. After the leaders had once persuaded the German people that there was an effort to crush them they knew how to push the conviction that war would follow therefrom inevitably. And when they once had the German people so far along it was an easy matter to bring them farther on by the argument that, considering the unavoidableness of this war, it would be best to choose the favorable moment themselves in order to anticipate the adversary. So in August, 1914, the fairy story of the "ruthless attack" fell on extremely fertile soil. The whole German

people, become tractable through the constant agitation for war, thereupon fell into the trap even to the last Social Democrats. Crowd suggestion had thus produced in Germany at that time the greatest effect that had ever yet come to pass in the history of the world.

Then came the war and it taught men many lessons. But will these lessons be taken to heart everywhere? Especially in Germany? One can hardly answer these questions affirmatively. It was comprehensible as long as the war lasted. A people who for four years had been fed daily on news of victory and at the same time had been shut away hermetically from the truth, could not possibly experience an awakening during the war.

But then came the German surrender and the revolution. Now, at last, according to the expectation of many, the light of truth will shine upon the German people, and, if not, it will at least be shown to them. After militarism lay thoroughly vanquished and the old system, also, had apparently been thoroughly disavowed by the new revolutionary government, one might have thought that this government and with it the German people would now admit the guilt of this system and at last would give the truth free passage. Then it might have followed as a consequence that

the German people would also have realized their actual situation. Then they might have known that they not only were conquered but also that the responsibility for the war rested on the German side. And because they might thus have learned the actual situation there might also have been possible in Germany a state of mind which would have reacted in some measure to this situation. He who is responsible for war and nevertheless is completely conquered does not now arrogantly mount a high horse, but, grieved, confesses his guilt. This German acknowledgment of guilt might not only have reacted to the situation, but it might also have become the necessary, the only basis for the return of confidence between the combatants, the basis on which alone in the future a reconciliation might have been founded and which at the same time would undoubtedly have had a favorable influence now on peace terms.

But nothing of all this has entered into the new German republic. The mentality of the German people remains the same in spite of the revolution and the defeat. Yes, one might almost say, "The German mentality to-day is much worse than before!" Not only are the German people today as far removed from a knowledge of the true situation of the exact truth, as before the revolution, but also everything imaginable is done to prevent the establishment of confidence in the enemy and to make more difficult the possibility of giving the German people easy terms of peace. It is as if forces were at work in Germany which are interested in having

the peace terms as severe as possible and they are therefore trying to hamper the peace decree in every possible way in order to direct the stream to their own mill. Everything that has happened on the German side since the surrender runs in this direction. It began by the unthinkable notes of protest by Solf and Erzberger and has continued up to the present time. The only difference is that since the November day the crest of the wirepullers is visibly raised. They seem to feel increasingly certain of their position. After the Allies had committed the unpardonable sin of omission in November of not resolutely and energetically making a clean sweep in Russia, putting an end to the rule of Lenine, which a few months ago would have been a small matter, but instead of that calmly allowed the Bolshevist poison plant to develop, and, further, after they, instead of being intent on hastening the deliberations of peace, frittered away the time in Paris in rather unimportant discussions not at all of an urgent nature-since this time these people who planned to hamper the victory of the Allies saw their fruits mature. And so they were zealous for the work of knowing how to harvest the fruit at the right moment. They hope that this moment may be coming when the peace decree so ardently expected by the world is pending.

But how do the German people behave about their wirepullers who would gladly prevent a reconciliation of the opponents and a durable peace? Have they learned anything from the war? Are they at last ex