The League of Nations After Two Years

To its enemies in the United States, the League of Nations must seem an unconscionable time a-dying. For more than two years it has tenaciously clung to life despite repeated prophecies of approaching demise. Occasionally, indeed, its actual death has been announced — once by the President of the United States — and preparations have been begun in high places to celebrate the obsequies.

But somehow the League still lives. More than that, it shows a surprising vitality. In spite of hard treatment and some neglect it seems to gain in strength and purpose.

Certainly the League, as it is today, with all the manifold activities which it is initiating and guiding, is a far different creature from the feeble offspring which the Treaty of Versailles so laboriously brought into the world.

For one thing, it has more friends. Only a handful of the larger Powers stood sponsor for it at its birth. It was eyed with suspicion by the smaller nations. To-day these smaller nations are its warmest supporters, and fifty-one countries are now enrolled under its standard, representing, in all, more than four fifths of the world’s population, and nearly three fourths of its area.

The list of absentees among the supporters of the League is more easily called than the roll of its membership: Abyssinia, Afghanistan, Ecuador, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Mexico, Russia, Turkey, and the United States.

I

But it is not size alone which gives the League significance or which has brought it increasing vitality. With no precedents to follow, with no traditions to bind it, the League has struck out boldly in a new direction. On the theory that, if the nations of the world can get together for discussion around a common table, many of the conflicts of interest and misunderstandings of purpose can be reconciled and smoothed away, and many of the outstanding problems which confront all nations alike can be overcome, the League has built up machinery for international conference such as no previous generation has possessed. And the machinery is working. However the enemies of the League may scoff at its impracticable purposes, the fact remains that, through the machinery which the League has brought into being, the nations are today sitting in conference on their common problems to a degree undreamedof a decade ago. Whatever mistakes may have been made in the formation of the League, — and they were not a few, — within two years of its birth it has proved itself successful as an instrument for drawing the world together in common counsel.

The bare list of some of the conferences which the League has promoted is evidence of this success. The Assembly, which is the keystone of the whole organization because it represents all the nations sitting around a table, is holding its third annual meeting in Geneva this coming September. The League’s Council, representing eight states, has held eighteen sessions. The International Labor Conference, with its representatives from fifty-four nations, held its third annual conference last October. The Paris passport-conference, attended by twenty-two nations, was called by the League in 1920 to promote the expedition of international travel. Forty-three nations met in Barcelona in 1921 to discuss problems relating to communication and transit, and to clear the channels of international business. Thirty-five nations came together in Brussels in 1920 to consider the international financial situation. In Geneva last year, thirty nations conferred on methods for suppressing the international traffic in women and girls. In Warsaw this spring, twenty-seven nations considered ways and means of dealing with the international menace of the typhus epidemic. In addition to these more formal gatherings the League has promoted a steady succession of international conferences and committee meetings to deal with a great variety of problems, such as the standardization of international statistics, the suppression of the international traffic in opium, the unification of standards of antitoxic serums, the feeding of Russian refugees, the return of prisoners of war, the reduction of armaments, the private manufacture of arms, the deportation of women and children in Asia Minor, and a score of other topics, which represent the legitimate concern not of one nation, but of the family of nations.

In brief, for two years the world has been slowly developing the tradition of conference; it has been learning, in some measure at least, the value of common counsel. No one could claim that the lesson is perfectly learned; only the beginning has been made. But at least it is a beginning. It marks a new train of thought, a new method of approach, a new habit. With practice and patience to sustain it, who knows but that this habit of conference may become so intimately a part of the world’s mental processes that it will gradually supplant the old order of misunderstanding and conflict.

II

The League’s emphasis upon conference has a further significance. Much of the machinery which it has built to promote this activity is permanent. The Assembly, the Council, and the Secretariat represent a method of continuous international conference on any problem that may arise, as opposed to ad hoc conferences called to consider specific matters. In other words, while the League has initiated a variety of special international conferences on topics relating to its work, it has also, through its permanent machinery, the capacity to focus immediate attention on any difficulty that can threaten the peace of the world.

This is a point of no small importance. Special conferences, like those recently held in Washington and Genoa, have their legitimate and proper place in the regulation of the world’s affairs. Their attention, however, is necessarily limited to the specific purposes for which they were called; when their business is concluded they adjourn, and nothing remains of the machinery which they erected. They create no organic, continuing relationships. This type of conference helps the world along, but it fails the world in time of unexpected crisis.

For ad hoc conferences are not easily or quickly called together. The date, the place, the membership, and the agenda must be agreed upon in advance. The first Hague Conference was not ready until nine months after the Tsar’s call. Over two years elapsed between President Roosevelt’s proposal for the second Hague Conference and its opening session. Although only nine Powers met at the Washington Conference, it took four months of preparation before the first meeting could be held. On the other hand, when the Yugoslavic-Albanian boundary dispute developed last year, the Council of the League met in nine days. No special arrangements were necessary, no protracted negotiations to determine which nations should or should not be included, or what the diplomatic procedure should be. The machinery was already set up, and it met the emergency swiftly and decisively, stamping out the fire before it could spread.

There is apparently some opinion in America that a succession of special conferences like the one held at Washington could adequately take the place of the League. To such belief it would seem as if memory of the plight of Sir Edward Grey, in July, 1914, would be a crushing answer. For over two weeks he fought for a conference as the one hope of avoiding the impending catastrophe. In that limited period, with the flames mounting higher every day, he tried to create the necessary machinery that would bring the nations concerned around a common table. But it was too late. Time was lacking. In those few frantic days, in that pitch of flame and heat, the machinery could not be devised and assembled. The catastrophe began without a single conference. A handful of hasty, misunderstood telegrams plunged the world into the greatest tragedy ever visited upon the human race.

That is why some kind of permanent machinery is necessary, some international organization ready for emergency. That is why the Assembly, the Council, and the Court of International Justice constitute the outstanding features of the League’s programme. They represent preparedness. They represent a flexible mechanism that can be quickly adapted to unexpected situations. True, the Assembly meets but once a year and, because of its size, is something of an unwieldy body. But the Council, which is in reality an executive committee, meets at Geneva every three months, and oftener if necessary. Inasmuch as one half of the members of the Council are elected by the Assembly, it is fair to say that the Council is an emanation of the latter body, and is entrusted with the direction of affairs in the Assembly’s absence. Certainly, in the two years of its existence, the Council has not hesitated to act decisively on behalf of the League in the settlement of international discord and the promotion of common understandings.

In this connection the relations that are developing between the Council and the Assembly are worthy of a moment’s consideration. The exact line of demarcation between the two bodies has never been determined; but the Council has adopted the plan of presenting to each session of the Assembly a report on all that it has done during the year. This report is treated in the Assembly as an opportunity for reviewing in open debate the whole policy of the League and the general conduct of its affairs by the Council. The last meeting of the Assembly developed some sharp criticism of the actions of the Council from a progressive minority under the leadership of Lord Robert Cecil; and the fact that the Council has this year studiously endeavored to shape its actions to meet this criticism is not without importance. Equally significant is the unchallenged assumption of responsibility by the Assembly for making up the budget and authorizing the expenditures of the League. Because of its personnel, the Council may at present possess more real power than the average executive committee, but the Assembly holds the purse strings.

As time goes on we shall undoubtedly see the respective spheres of action of the two bodies becoming more clearly defined. Indeed, it seems probable that something in the nature of cabinet responsibility will ultimately develop between the Council and the Assembly. Certainly in the evolution of the League we may expect many changes in its methods and structure. The Covenant of the League is proving to be as elastic and pliable under pressure of practical experience as was the Constitution of the United States in the decade after 1789.

A word is due in regard to the Secretariat. Too little is heard of this branch of the League’s organization, but it is scarcely a secret that it is the moving influence behind the scenes. Permanently located in Geneva, it is made up of more than three hundred persons, from over a score of nations, who are working together, not as national representatives but as impartial experts. Despite differences in tongue, race, and tradition, this medley of nationalities does its work quietly and effectively, provides the necessary expert service, prepares for all meetings, carries on the day-to-day work of the League, and executes the decisions of the Assembly and the Council.

The Secretariat’s organization, consisting of ten sections, is illustrative of the broad sweep of the League’s work and the cosmopolitan character of its personnel. There is an economic and financial section, directed by an Englishman; the disarmament section is directed by an Italian; and the health section is under a Pole. The section for administrative commissions (Saar Basin and Danzig) is under a Norwegian; the information section under a Frenchman; and the legal section under a Dutchman. A Swiss manages the mandate section, and an Englishwoman the section on social questions. The transit and political sections are directed respectively by an Italian and a Frenchman.

It may be interesting to note that citizens of the United States are also attached to the Secretariat. The librarian is an American woman; the business manager (establishment officer) comes from North Dakota; the associate head of the information section is from Massachusetts; while Ihe assistant to the head of the administrative commissions section is a New Yorker. Other Americans are attached to the Secretariat in minor capacities.

III

Of all the machinery which the League has established to promote the cause of peace, nothing has evoked a larger measure of interest than the Court of International Justice. Made up of eleven judges of the highest professional standing, — one of whom is an American, — chosen regardless of their nationality by joint action of the Council and the Assembly of the League, it crowns with success a whole generation of determined effort. Civilization now has at its service a permanent world court, representing all the great systems of international law, established by the suffrage of fifty-one countries, and open for the settlement of disputes between nations on the basis of justice. Perhaps the matter cannot be better stated than in the careful words of Professor Hudson of Harvard; ‘If there is such a thing in political science as a useful invention, — and the establishment of the United States Supreme Court and the rôle played by Lord Durham’s report in the development of the British Empire encourage the belief that political science is not unlike physical science in this respect, — then the builders of this new Court would seem to have made a valuable contribution to the integration of international society.’

The remark is occasionally made that the League’s Court of Justice represents nothing more than a reshaping and revivifying of the old Hague Court of Arbitration, and, as that tribunal failed the world in 1914, so the new tribunal holds out no greater hope. This point of view involves a complete misconception of the differences between the two courts. The Hague Court of Arbitration was really not a court at all in the strict sense of the word. It was merely a panel of one hundred and thirty-five international lawyers, from which judges could be selected by such disputant states as might desire to submit their differences to arbitration. It never met as a body and, because its members served only in the particular cases in which they were nominated as arbitrators, it never had the opportunity of building up a continuous and harmonious system of international law.

The League’s Court of Justice, on the other hand, has its fixed personnel elected for the term of nine years, with salaries ranging from $6000 to $24,000 a year, depending on the days of actual service. The system thus affords an opportunity for growth in judicial experience and capacity, impossible under the Hague plan. The Court meets at least once a year — in June — and oftener if necessary; and the President of the Court must be in continuous residence at the Hague. In other words, this new Court completely fulfills the almost prophetic instructions which Mr. Root, then Secretary of State, gave the American delegates to the Second Hague Conference in 1907; they were to endeavor to create ‘a permanent tribunal composed of judges who are judicial officers anti nothing else, who are paid adequate salaries, who have no other occupations, and who will devote their entire time to the trial and decision of international causes by judicial methods and under a sense of judicial responsibility.’ Failure in 1907 came when the nations could not agree on a method of selecting the judges — a difficulty overcome seventeen years later, oddly enough, through the genius and persistence of the same Mr. Root.

Another distinction between the Hague Court of Arbitration and the League’s Court of Justice is even more significant, though it can be touched upon here only in a word. It is the distinction between arbitration and adjudication; between a settlement by compromise and a settlement by means of the application of fixed and certain principles. It involves not only a new emphasis on international law and custom, already sanctioned by the conscience of mankind, but a steady and systematic development of that law and custom, based on the progressive judgments of the Court.

A final distinctive feature of the League’s Court is the extent to which its jurisdiction is compulsory. While this feature is not prescribed in the provisions creating it, thus far eighteen nations have voluntarily agreed to give the Court compulsory jurisdiction over all disputes that may arise between them. Similar jurisdiction has likewise been conferred in a number of recent treaties, notably those with Germany, Austria, Hungary, and Bulgaria, relating to ports, waterways, and the protection of minorities. Altogether the trend is in the direction of giving the Court of Justice the same competence in international disputes which dignifies the Supreme Court of the United States in the settlement of our own internal difficulties.

IV

With all this machinery at the disposal of the League, it is a fair question to ask what has been done with it. The primary purpose of the machinery is to settle disputes and stop war. Has it been used for this purpose, and, if so, with what results?

Reference has already been made to the Yugoslavic-Albanian boundary difficulty which suddenly loomed like a menacing cloud on the European horizon in the summer of 1921. It was the old story of aggression such as has been repeated time and again in the unhappy history of the Balkans. Dissatisfied with the frontier line between herself and Albania, which had been under dispute for some months, Yugoslavia resorted to the time-honored principle of executing a fait accompli: she sent her troops across the line and took what she wanted.

Here was a situation which, under the old dispensation, would have upset the chancellories of half the world and strained the diplomatic relations of Europe, perhaps to the breaking-point. It was a match struck in a powder mill. The calamity of 1914 started in very much the same way. But there was a difference between 1914 and 1921. In the former year there had been no organization of nations, no plan, no procedure. In 1921 machinery existed for just such an emergency. The machinery was new, it was imperfectly adjusted, it creaked in some of its joints and needed lubrication. But at least there was machinery, and it could run. In this case it ran without a fault. Mr. Lloyd George sent a telegram to the League asking for an immediate meeting of the Council and suggesting the application of an economic boycott against Yugoslavia. The effect of the telegram was electric. Yugoslavic exchange tumbled in London and Paris. An international loan which Yugoslavia was negotiating was immediately withdrawn. The Council met in nine days, holding its meetings in open session. And Yugoslavia backed down. Within a week she had withdrawn her troops behind her own frontier, and to-day a League Commission is on the spot in Albania, working out the arrangements for peaceful coöperation along the boundary.

Why did Yugoslavia so suddenly change front? Not a soldier was moved against her; not a single battleship fired a shot or made a demonstration; there was not even a gesture of force. Yugoslavia suddenly awoke to the fact that there was a new power stirring in the world — the power of international public opinion, backed by fifty nations and working through centralized machinery. She realized that a bull of excommunication, issued from such a source, carried with it an authority that could not be defied. Bewildered by the new machinery and protesting against its decree, she nevertheless shaped her course to avoid ostracism by her peers.

Another dispute brought before the League was a long-standing quarrel between Finland and Sweden over the possession of the Aaland Islands. These islands, constituting a small archipelago lying in the Gulf of Bothnia, almost midway between the two nations, dominate the whole eastern Baltic. They were claimed by Sweden because their population is overwhelmingly Swedish, and by Finland because, for over a hundred years, they had been part of the former Russian Duchy of Finland.

In June, 1920, the tension between the two countries over the ownership of these islands increased alarmingly, and war was threatened on both sides. Great Britain thereupon made use of Article XI of the Covenant, which declares that any nation has ‘ the friendly right’ to bring to the attention of the League any circumstance threatening to disturb international peace. Upon Great Britain’s initiative, the Council of the League appointed an independent commission of inquiry, consisting of a Belgian, a Swiss, and an American, ‘to proceed to the spot, obtain evidence, and submit a report.’ After some months of investigation, in which both sides to the dispute presented their cases at length, the commission decided that sovereignty over the Aaland Islands belonged to Finland. The Council agreed to the report, which was freely accepted by both the contesting nations, and the final act was a tenpower diplomatic convention, signed at Geneva under the auspices of the League, guaranteeing Finland in possession, providing for the neutralization of the islands from a military point of view, and safeguarding them from the loss of their distinctive characteristics and institutions — particularly the Swedish language.

Here again there was no bloodshed and no coercion. A menace to the peace of the world was averted by the exercise of common sense working through very simple machinery. The method was effective not because it represented force, but because it had behind it the moral judgment of civilization.

A third international dispute with which the League has dealt was the Upper Silesian difficulty which burst into flame a year ago and, at one time, threatened the renewal of general war in Europe. It arose over the question of the boundary line between Germany and Poland in the district of Upper Silesia. German at one end, Polish at the other, and hopelessly mixed where the races meet, this territory contains one fourth of the coal supply of the former German Empire and constituted, before 1914, one of her most flourishing industrial areas. The Treaty of Versailles found the problem too intricate for immediate solution and provided for a future plebiscite. The plebiscite complicated rather than clarified the situation, and, with France backing the Polish claims, England behind the German claims, and Korfanty lighting the fires of insurrection in the district itself, the matter was soon at white heat. The Allied Supreme Council, upon whom rested the decision, found itself in a state of hopeless deadlock. Neither Lloyd George nor Briand would back down. The matter was rapidly approaching a breaking-point when, suddenly, the Allied Supreme Council handed the problem to the League and agreed to accept any decision it might make.

The approach which the Council of the League made to the dispute brought the matter at once into a new atmosphere. Because England and France were interested parties and were represented on the Council, investigation and decision were left to the four members of the Council who came from the smaller states: Belgium, Spain, Brazil, and China. These four members, sitting as a committee, retained experts from neutral countries to advise them in finance, transportation, and mining problems, and an elaborate study was made of all the complicated factors of the case. The decision, which was immediately accepted by the Powers of Europe, laid down a boundary line as nearly as possible on the basis of the plebiscite, taking into account the economic and geographical situation of the district. In order to preserve the industrial unity of the territory, certain mutual economic guaranties were recommended which, with the territorial arrangements, have just been put into the form of a German-Polish convention, negotiated at Geneva under the auspices of the League. Since the decision, complete calm has reigned in Upper Silesia and, with the signing of the convention, the matter is now a closed issue.

The decision of the League’s Council in this boundary dispute has been severely attacked in some quarters on the ground that it favored Poland at the expense of Germany. No one was wholly satisfied with it, not even the Council members who drafted it. A careful review of the matter by disinterested observers, however, seems to indicate that, in immensely complicated circumstances, it was probably the best decision possible. Certainly the method of independent, impersonal examination of a diplomatic difficulty was the right one, even if, in some of its details, the decision was erroneous. In any event there is peace in Upper Silesia and Europe has been saved from war.

One further demonstration of the effectiveness of the League’s machinery in settling international disputes remains briefly to be described. In 1920 the Polish Government requested the Council of the League to endeavor to find means of averting the war that threatened between Poland and Lithuania concerning the Vilna territory. As a matter of fact, war had already begun. Troops were on the march and skirmishes had been reported from both sides. Into this involved situation the League sent a special commission. The effect was almost immediate. The skirmishing stopped and the two nations entered into negotiations. At this moment General Zeliogowski, at the head of some irregular Polish troops, complicated matters by marching into the city of Vilna which the Lithuanians claimed as their ancient capital, although it contained a majority of Poles. Repudiated by his Government, he nevertheless remained in possession of the town.

The question is still unsettled, for neither Poland nor Lithuania has been willing to accept the form of agreement which the League’s Council has recommended. Nevertheless, order has been maintained and the danger of war is averted. Undoubtedly the spirit of conciliation which has animated the Council has exercised its influence over the two parties. In spite of the difficulties which still separate them, their representatives, early this year, entered into a solemn engagement before the Council to abstain in the future from any act of hostility.

In these four cases of international friction which the League has reconciled during its first two years, one point stands clearly disclosed: the sole authority of the League is moral force; it rests on consent and not on coercion. It can suggest but cannot necessarily impose a settlement. Its victories are gained not by arms but by concentration of world public opinion. If in the future it helps to maintain peace, it will be, not because it represents an overwhelming combination of military force but because by slow stages it succeeds in gathering up the moral judgments of mankind into one powerful shaft of light and bringing that light to bear on instances of international injustice.

V

A society of nations cannot legitimately content itself with putting out the fires of war after they have once been kindled. If we are to have real assurance in the future, the causes of war, the materials upon which the flames feed, must, in so far as is humanly possible, be removed.

Secret diplomacy and secret treaties have been recognized over many years as potent causes of international suspicion and uneasiness. When the Covenant was created, therefore, one of its clauses stipulated that no treaty entercd into by a member of the League was valid or binding unless registered and published by the League of Nations. In pursuance of this regulation a treaty-registration section has been established at Geneva, and two hundred and fifty-three treaties have thus far been received, affecting practically every country in the world. Published in five volumes, they contain, some of them, information which under the old order would have been carefully shielded from public scrutiny.

As one glances through these volumes, representing in concrete form the fundamental principle that the nations of the world must stand before each other honestly and frankly, one is struck by the fact that some treaties are published in which the United States is a contracting party. But these treaties have not been sent in for registration by our State Department; they have been submitted by the other parties to the contract that happened to be members of the League. It is a significant point that the treaties growing out of the Washington Conference will have to be registered and published by the Secretariat of the League before they become binding upon the other powers.

Another potent cause of war to which, of late, much attention has been given is to be found in the piling-up of armaments; and in the field of disarmament it must be frankly admitted that the League has secured its smallest measure of success. Debarred from consideration of the question of naval disarmament by the absence of the United States, it has thus far found itself handicapped in taking up the problem of land armaments by the same influences that blocked the discussion of this question in Washington.

Nevertheless some progress has been made. A powerful committee, called the temporary mixed commission, under the chairmanship of Lord Esher, has for over a year been at work with an army of experts on an exhaustive statistical inquiry into the armaments of all countries, distinguishing the military and police forces necessary for internal security, and the forces necessary for national defense. The results of this study are not yet completed, but it is hoped that they will be ready for consideration by the Assembly this coming September. Side by side with this survey, the League has taken up the question of the private manufacture and traffic in arms, to see what can be done to break up the connection between private enterprise and war. As long as American munition-manufacturers are at liberty to ship arms into Abyssinia, for example, that part of the world is not free from menace. On these complicated questions an international conference has been called by the League, to meet, if possible, before September.

Altogether it seems probable that the splendid momentum achieved by the Washington Conference will, perhaps in the course of two or three years, be carried forward to even larger results through the machinery of the League. At least the machinery is in existence, ready to be used.

VI

The mere maintenance of peace, however, is not the sole aim of a real society of nations. Peace is rather the starting-point of international coöperation, the beginning of common responsibilities jointly assumed. The matter of mandated territories is a case in point. When the Covenant of the League was written, it was agreed that the German and Turkish colonies, freed from their former sovereignty, and containing thirteen millions of backward people, should not become the spoils of their conquerors, but should be mandated to certain powers to be administered, under the general supervision of the League, on terms that would fully guarantee the principle of nonexploitation, and safeguard the natives from those evils that have so often followed upon the heels of colonization. Thus the mandatory powers became ‘the trustees of civilization,’ responsible to the League for their acts and policies, and obligated to submit an annual report with regard to the territories committed to their charge.

To examine these reports and to advise the Council on all matters relating to the observance of mandates, a permanent Mandates Commission has been appointed by the League, composed of colonial experts who serve internationally, most of them being citizens of nonmandatory nations. While there has been regrettable delay in applying the system of mandates, the matter is now moving forward and mandatory nations, like Great Britain in Palestine, Australia and New Zealand in the islands south of the equator, and Japan in Yap, are submitting annual reports of their stewardship for examination and review by the family of nations.

Another phase of coöperative work which the League is undertaking has to do with the protection of religious, linguistic, and ethnical minorities isolated in the midst of majorities which are alien to them. Elaborate provision for such protection has been written into all the recent peace treaties and covers the whole of Eastern Europe from Finland to Greece; and the League of Nations has assumed the trusteeship. Thus, the Council of the League has been able to settle the dispute between Poland and Austria with regard to the Jews who came from Eastern Galicia into Austria and were there threatened with expulsion; it succeeded in obtaining guaranties for these emigrants from both Governments. It also intervened, to the satisfaction of both parties, in the question of the emigration of minorities between Greece and Bulgaria.

Similarly, the government of the Saar Valley Basin and of Danzig, committed to the League by the Treaty of Versailles, represents a collective responsibility which civilization has assumed through the machinery at Geneva. Because these two districts promised difficulties for the future with which no one nation could wisely cope, they were placed under international control. The governing commission of the Saar, which the League appointed, consists of a Belgian, a Canadian, a Dane, a Frenchman, and a Saarois; in Danzig, an Englishman was appointed high commissioner. Whatever opinion may exist as to the wisdom of isolating the Saar Valley Basin or of creating the Danzig corridor, there can be little question as to the League’s administration of its responsibility. It has been impartial and conciliatory, guided by considerations of justice and fair play amid conditions almost insuperably difficult. Those who are inclined to criticize some of the details of the League’s administration in these two fields might well consider what conditions would have existed if, instead of an international control, France had had full play in the Saar, and either Poland or Germany in Danzig.

Another illustration of that international coöperation which the League is promoting, is its work in the general field of economics and trade. Here we have a maze of problems which, with the development of modern communications, are of increasing concern to international good-will. The League, therefore, has created two technical branches to handle this activity: one on communications and transit, and the other on economics and finance.

It is impossible within the limits of this paper to outline the scope of the work of these two organizations.

Manned by the best technical experts that can be obtained, drawing on practically all the nations of the world for information and statistics, they have succeeded in making the League a clearing house for conference and publicity on many nonpolitical questions which, in themselves unspectacular, are nevertheless of vital importance to the daily life of the world. The publications and bulletins of these organizations on matters of currency, finance, and trade are eagerly awaited, and constitute an approach to these problems which for its impersonal, scientific spirit is unique in the history of international coöperation. It was the work of these two branches that laid the technical basis for the conference at Genoa. Through their initiative, too, three great international conferences have been held under the direct auspices of the League; one at Brussels, in 1920, which first served to dramatize the desperate condition of the world’s finances and which brought forward the ‘Ter Meulen Scheme’ for the rehabilitation of Austria; one at Paris, which simplified passport and customs procedure and cleared away many of the annoying obstacles to free circulation; and one at Barcelona, which laid down a new international law for liberty of transit in connection with trade, and freed navigable waterways from discriminatory regulations.

Somewhat similar to the two technical organizations we have just mentioned is the International Labor Conference which, though not a direct part of the League machinery, is intimately associated with it through the provisions of the Treaty of Versailles, and is supported financially by League funds. Once a year the states that are members of the League, and such other states as may be invited, each state being represented by four delegates, meet together to discuss the general problems of industrial peace, with the purpose of stimulating the creation of better working and living conditions around the world. In the interim between these meetings, this activity is carried forward by a permanent secretariat of two hundred and fifty people, located at Geneva, and called the International Labor Office. In the three years of its existence this office has become a great clearing house of information in regard to all labor and industrial movements, and its documents and reports arc now an essential part of every well-equipped technical library.

The International Labor Conference has a significance little understood in the United States. Although its conclusions, embodied in the form of conventions, are merely submitted for the consideration of the member states, and any Government is free to reject them, it nevertheless has developed a prestige and an authority sufficient to set in motion legislative machinery all over the world. The conventions for the eight-hour day, for the limitation of night work, for the protection of women and children in industry, have been widely adopted, and, little by little, these minimum labor-standards, established by the Conference, are becoming general international practice, and the more liberal countries are being protected against those of backward laborlegislation.

Another activity in the broad field of international coöperation, but of an entirely different type, is represented by the committee, recently appointed by the Council of the League, to suggest methods for bringing together the universities and scientific laboratories of the world in a closer bond of sympathy and understanding. Known as the Committee on Intellectual Coöperation, it includes, in addition to a wellknown American scholar, such leaders of thought as Professor Einstein, Mme. Curie, Henri Bergson, and Gilbert Murray. Although its plans are not yet fully matured, it will aim to stimulate such undertakings as exchange professorships, and will try to organize into some kind of sympathetic relationship the scientific and humanistic interests of the universities of the world.

VII

There is almost no limit to the field of international coöperation. More and more the League of Nations is developing into a repository for activities related to the well-being of mankind which cannot successfully be prosecuted by individual nations.

The campaign against disease is a case in point. Disease knows no boundaries and respects no flags. It is a common enemy of mankind which can be conquered only by united action. As modern methods of travel bring the world into increasingly close relationships such action becomes imperative. To meet this need, therefore, the League of Nations has established an international health organization, which has brought together the brains and resources of the entire world in a common fight on disease.

The activities of this organization are manifold. Operating through an epidemics commission, which built up a sanitary cordon along the entire frontier, it successfully checked the spread of typhus from Russia into Eastern Europe in 1920. In March of this year it promoted a great international epidemics conference in Warsaw, attended by twenty-seven nations, including Soviet Russia and Soviet Ukraine, which laid down a series of sanitary conventions and prepared a detailed plan for a united campaign against typhus. Another international conference was held under its auspices, in London, to determine some method of standardizing the measurement of the strength of antitoxic serums used in diseases like pneumonia, diphtheria, syphilis, and the like. This conference elaborated a programme of inquiry to be carried out by the great public health laboratories of the world, and centralized in the Copenhagen Institute, which will act as a clearing-house for all the work.

The health section of the League has organized, too, an epidemiological intelligence service, in order to inform all national health authorities rapidly and effectively of the incidence of epidemic diseases. Information is sent out at least twice every three weeks, and a regular monthly bulletin is also issued, containing statistics and charts on the incidence, all over the world, of Asiatic cholera, typhus, relapsing fever, dysentery, smallpox, anthrax, scurvy, and other diseases.

In other words, a common campaign, backed by the financial resources and moral support of fifty-one nations, is being scientifically organized and conducted against an ancient and wellintrenched enemy of the race.

Another campaign organized by the League has to do with the international commerce in opium and its derivatives. Here again a special branch of the League was created, called the opium commission, including in its membership, among others, a Japanese, a Chinese, a Siamese, an Indian, and an American. Two international conferences have been held and, on the basis of information secured from practically every Government in the world except the United States, recommendations for common action have been drawn up which will go far to check if not to eliminate this devastating traffic.

The international traffic in women and girls is another great problem which the League has taken up. Thirty nations met in Geneva under its auspices, in 1921, and agreed upon a series of changes which will greatly strengthen the existing international conventions. A treaty incorporating these changes has since been signed by thirty-three nations, and the others will undoubtedly soon follow. A special advisory committee has been appointed by the Council of the League to keep in touch with the situation and, with the League’s machinery behind the campaign, we may confidently anticipate the steady diminution in an international traffic which, up to this time, has baffled the best efforts of individual nations.

Space is lacking in which to describe all the work that the League is undertaking in the general field of international coöperation. Under its ægis, with Dr. Nansen acting as its high commissioner, 400,000 prisoners of war were returned to their homes at a total cost of about two million dollars. Acting on the advice of a special commission of inquiry which it sent to Asia Minor to look into the question of the imprisonment of Armenian women and girls in Turkish harems, it appointed a high commissioner in Constantinople — an American, incidentally; opened a series of ‘neutral houses’ to shelter these unfortunates; and persuaded the Allied military officials to bring the matter strongly to the attention of the Turks. Similarly, with Dr. Nansen serving again as high commissioner, it entered upon the work of assisting the thousands of Russian refugees driven from their own land by famine and shifting political fortunes. This necessary activity is still under way, backed by the authority and influence of the Council.

Week by week the League is extending its work along these general humanitarian lines, using its machinery to meet those human needs which overflow national boundaries. If, in these uncontroversial matters, the nations of the world can develop the technique of common action and acquire the habit of coöperation, surely, when the great test comes, and another 1914 throws down its ugly challenge to mankind, there will be a better chance for sanity and self-control and a larger hope of escape from a world wreck of untold proportions.

This, then, is the League of Nations — not a superstate, backed by vast armaments, but a simple instrument for bringing nations together in conference around a table. Its warmest friends make no claim of perfection for it. It cannot bring the millennium. It cannot immediately allay the high fever of present international discord. Its weaknesses are apparent. It is powerless to solve, or even deal with, some of the most menacing problems that confront us.

But here is a coöperative worldmovement, the first of its kind in history, constituting a central rallyingpoint around which the forces of law and peace may gather, and slowly developing new approaches to common dangers and new methods of common action. During its first two years, in a period of unparalleled difficulty, its positive achievement has been distinctly creditable, far wider in scope and greater in bulk that its best friends dreamed possible. In spite of all cynicism, all gibes, all remorseless criticism, it has become a real influence in the world and has won for itself a distinct place in the confidence and hope of many peoples. That confidence will not easily be shaken, and that hope is a grim and determined hope; for, if the League proves a blunt and ineffective instrument, there is nothing ahead of us except despair in the face of new wars.