THE SAAR, DANZIG, MANDATES, MINORITIES In certain areas of the world the League, normally an instru ment through which sovereign States settle their differences of co-operate in matters of international concern, has itself direct and special responsibilities for government and administration.
In the Saar it has the full responsibility of a sovereign State, ex ercised through a Permanent Commission appointed by and re sponsible to the Council. The small free city of Danzig is under its special protection, and a resident High Commissioner of the League acts as arbitrator on disputes between the free city and Poland. Over the large area of the mandated territories sep arated from the German and Turkish Empires by the terms of peace, it is responsible for seeing that the mandatory powers govern and administer in accordance with the mandate and the provisions of the Covenant. And in a number of States it has duties with regard to the protection of minority populations.
The Saar Government was thus, by treaty provision, not by League decision, purely autocratic and unrepresentative. With an overhanging plebiscite and situated between France it was inevitable that its inhabitants should have developed an extremely sensitive political consciousness and that the district should have been a mirror reflecting the controversies of its two great neighbours. There did in fact occur considerable political friction and tension, varying directly with the changing political relations of France and Germany.
The main grievances, substantial though they had often been, proved in reality to be for the most part complaints against condi tions which the provisions of the treaty made practically inevi table. Entrusted with the execution of terms imposed by the victor, the League was at once compelled by those terms to action which bore the mark of its origin, and at the same time was criti cised by the standards properly applicable to an international authority impartial and unfettered. Difficulties in the Saar ques tion fluctuated with the entry of Germany into the League, the improved Franco-German relations following Locarno, Germany's withdrawal from the League, and the imminence of the plebiscite. Danzig.—The free city of Danzig, a small wedge between East Prussia and the Polish Corridor, is important as the chief outlet to the sea for Polish trade. To act as a kind of court of first instance for the disputes bound to arise out of the intricate and nicely balanced provisions of the Danzig constitution (see DANZIG), it was provided by the Treaty of Versailles that the League should appoint a resident High Commissioner, a further appeal lying to the Council. There was great tension and mutual suspicion throughout practically the whole of the first six years between Danzig and Poland, such as sometimes almost to make negotiations between the two impossible. Under these conditions the Council has had to devote much time at nearly every meeting to disputes of which the one about Poland's right to have post-boxes under her own control within Danzig is typical and the best known. The economic life of the city has on the whole been satisfactory, the vessels entering the port and the exports rising considerably above the pre-War level. The huge inflation of the German mark caused great difficulties, however, and capital was urgently needed to adjust Danzig's port and other facilities to the new conditions. The League gave an expression of its special interest in the city by assisting her to introduce successfully a stable currency of her own and later to raise first a municipal loan for development pur poses, and later a financial stabilization loan for the Free City.