Amendments to the Covenant require a threefourths vote of the States represented in the Assembly, after the unanimous approval by States represented in the Council.

The Assembly may act in disputes with the same powers as the Council, if the Council requests it, or if either party requests it within fourteen days after submitting the dispute to the Council.

The Executive Council deals with any matter "affecting the peace of the world." It must meet at least once a year at the capital of the League or wherever ordered, the first meeting being called by the President of the United States.

The duties of the Executive Council are to elect a Secretary General, make plans for reduction of armament, recommend scale of military equipment to the States and advise how to secure protection of territorial integrity and independence of members against external aggression. (Art. X).

The Executive Council acts as a Council of Conciliation in disputes not referred to arbitration, and must give out recommendations within six months; directs publication of statements by all parties in a dispute and also of its own recommendations; if its recommendation is unanimous, considers how to enforce it if necessary; if not unanimous, the majority and minority reports shall be published. The Council also considers how to enforce the award of arbitration if necessary.

The Executive Council is to establish a perma

nent Court of International Justice; it is to recommend and conduct coercion of States not keeping the pledge to use arbitration or conciliation or disregarding awards. This coercion is to take the form of the economic boycott, cessation of all intercourse and the blockade. These failing, the military and naval forces of League members are to be employed against the recalcitrant nation.

The Executive Council may compel States outside the League to submit their disputes to the Covenant regulations to prevent war. Also it defines by charter the authority to be exercised by mandatory States.

The duties of the Secretary General are to arrange for full investigation and consideration of all disputes received by the League. He is to publish promptly all the treaties of the League, no treaty being valid until it is so reported. The Permanent Secretariat, headed by the Secretary General, is to be remunerated by the League on the basis used in the Postal Union.

The Covenant creates commissions appointed by the delegates or Council. These commissions are (1) Military and Naval Commissions to advise on armament and traffic in munitions; (2) Mandatary Commissions; (3) Permanent International Bureau of Labor established to secure fair and humane conditions of labor.

The mandates are for colonies and territories left unprotected as a result of the war. (1) Pro

visionally Independent States in the old Turkish Empire may be helped by a Power whom they may aid in choosing; (2) For Central African Territories (the German Colonies), administration is given entirely to a mandatary; equal economic opportunity and freedom of religion must be granted; there must be no trade in slaves, arms, or liquor, and no military establishment or training except for police and defense; (3) Southwest Africa and Southern Pacific Island are to be administered as integral parts of mandatory States. The mandataries must render annual reports to the League.

For the direct prevention of war, the members of the League agree to acquaint each other with their military and naval programs and conditions of their munition industries; to defend each other's territorial integrity and independence against external aggression, and to regard any threat of war as business for the League, either the Assembly or the Executive Council.

Disputes not to be adjusted by diplomacy are to be settled by arbitration, by Commissions of Inquiry and by the Permanent Court.

The States are to make no war in any case until three months after the awards or recommendations are announced. They are to submit to the Secretary General, promptly, full statements of each side in a dispute, which statements the Council may publish forthwith; to join in resisting a Covenantbreaking State, and to let League forces cross their

territories; and they are to give the League control of trade in arms and ammunition in countries where control is need.

The much discussed Article X is:

"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 suggestion or in case of any such threat or danger of such aggression, the Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled."

An amendment of vital interest to women is found in Article VII, Clause 3: "All positions under or in connection with the League, including the Secretariat, shall be open equally to men and women."

CHAPTER VIII.

THE LEAGUE AND ITS CRITICS.

"The fault, dear Brutus, lies not in our stars
But in ourselves that we are underlings."

Caesar-Shakespeare.

N a year of great happenings the embryo of a new relationship between states has been

IN

given a constitution, a body. It may not be the constitution many of us had hoped for. It certainly is not the kind of a League we shall have when "the reign of old men is ended," since no statesman, according to Mr. Wells, ever learned anything new after he was forty-five. But at least it opens the way towards a full and complete League of Nations hereafter. As Professor Gilbert Murray has said, "No door has been locked or barred against humanity. In the meantime what is already achieved is a very great thing" since the Covenant is so drawn that it may be shaped into something better. The power of amendment is there and is put up to the men and women of the world. The fact that one amendment, giving women the right to hold office in the League, has already been made, should stimulate the interest and loyalty of women around the globe.