Mandates.—The German colonies and the Arab provinces of the Turkish Empire, ceded as a result of the World War, were not transferred to other States in full sovereignty. Their administra tion was entrusted to different mandatory powers under the gen eral supervision of the League. For the terms on which the man dates were given and the general supervision exercised by the League through the permanent mandates commission, see MAN DATES.
It is difficult to measure the extent to which this system of supervision does in fact modify colonial administration. No indi cation can of course be found by searching the League records for instances of censure and repentance. That is not the way in which the influence of a collective opinion operates, or can operate with out disruptive results on the conduct of Great Powers. That does not mean, however, that this influence is not profoundly effective. Mandatory powers and their administrators are keenly sensitive to the candid and informed criticism which is always forthcoming in the Commission's meetings, even if it finds little reflection in the public resolutions; and the desire to avoid risk of exposure to it is a factor in daily colonial administration comparable with the influence exercised by Parliament on Whitehall by the right to ask questions of the responsible minister.
They are free citizens of the States to which they belong, and the only ultimately satisfactory solution is that they should become indistinguishably incorporated in the general political life of the country. In the meantime the racial, religious and traditional feel ings of enmity between them and those who form the majority of the population subject them to the dangers of differential ma jority government and administration.
The difficulties so caused constitute perhaps the greater part of the political troubles and political dangers of Europe. It is a prob lem of peculiar delicacy, for the minorities constitute a kind of State within the State, and interference with or even open criticism of the Government on which the daily conditions of their life de pend may always do more harm than good. For this reason com plaints are only considered officially by the Council if they are put on the agenda by a member of the Council, who satisfies himself that they are sufficiently serious and well founded to justify this action ; and the council itself deals directly with these questions, not entrusting them beforehand to any technical committee. The League's influence is exercised for the most part in the form of private representations and conversations which gain their author ity from the fact that the sanction of a public discussion at the Council always remains as a possibility in the background.
The Covenant imposes scarcely any specific economic or financial duties. It implies the preparation of economic sanctions; it con tains the obligation to secure and maintain freedom of communi cations and transit and (in a vague and ambiguous phrase) equit able treatment for the commerce of all member States; but there is nothing which directly contemplates such tasks as that of the financial restoration of a country.
The League's work in this sphere began with the Brussels financial conference held under its auspices in Sept. 1920. Ex perts from 39 countries, named by the Governments but not repre senting their policy, met to consider the methods by which stable finances and currencies could be restored. They drew up a series of unanimous resolutions which, elaborated as they were by the later Genoa Conference of 1922, have since served as a useful guide and support to countries attempting to restore their finances. More important, however, than the establishment of this general body of doctrine was the League's practical work in itself restoring the finances of two countries, Austria and Hungary, whose problem was beyond their own unaided resources. (See AUSTRIA;