Meantime the enlargement of the Council, the inclusion of Germany, the gradual disappearance from it of most of the person alities who had been most prominently associated with the early days of the League made it in character, and in some respect in its outlook and method of working, a different body from the earlier and smaller body. This development accompanied an important change in the attitude to the League of the principal Governments. In the first years most of the more immediately practical ques tions had fallen outside the League; the League itself was at once comparatively unfettered in discussion but weak in action. Gradually the League has become recognized as a definite and permanent institution through which, and not outside which, the Foreign Offices work and conduct their negotiations. The Foreign Ministers of the great Powers, and of some others, attend regu larly; each main Foreign Office has a special branch for following League questions; and the League has become for each of them an important organ, though not the only one, through which they press their respective policies. It is natural therefore that, for both good and ill, the League has become less idealistic and more realistic. The greater interest of the Foreign Offices in the League is perhaps reflected in the increased proportion of diplomats de carriere now in the higher posts in the Secretariat, a change which has been welcomed by some as assisting a closer liaison with the national administrations and criticized by others as possibly en dangering, if it passes certain limits, the spirit of the Secretariat as an international civil service. Lastly it is a characteristic of the new stage of the League's development that the smaller coun tries sometimes complain that they have a less influential voice in Council decisions. This does not mean that a small country used to have, or claimed to have, as powerful an influence as the great Powers. But a country like Sweden had an influence of a special kind, and many think of a very valuable kind, because she was often more interested in the principles upon which a given dispute was settled, and their permanent effect in moulding League policy, than in the substance of the particular settlement. Few political settlements are based solely upon a principle of general application ; most contain also elements of a bargaining compromise. But the proportions in which the two elements are found varies greatly and some have feared that the latter may tend to increase. Such are the main features of the League's recent development. They are all signs of the League being more deeply rooted in the actual life and real forces of the world, a development which means greater strength and at the same time possibly new dangers. In 1933 the League was shaken by the withdrawal of Japan and Germany, both permanent members of the Council; but in 1934 the U.S.S.R. was admitted, with a per manent seat.
In these nine years (1919-28), therefore, the League has averted hostilities in some half-dozen cases and probably pre vented at least minor wars in several of them. It has made a substantial contribution to Europe's recovery by the guidance and influence of the Brussels Financial Conference; by the direct reconstruction of Austria and Hungary; by the model so afforded for the solution of the German problem, and the self-restoration achieved in other countries; and by a series of transit and cus toms formalities, Conventions and other measures designed to re move the impediments to international trade. It has repatriated some hundreds of thousands of refugees and established nearly i,000,000 in productive employment in Greece and Bulgaria. It
has exercised a varying but increasing influence over the Govern ment of some 30,000,000 of minority populations entrusted to its guidance. It has supervised the mandatory administration of the former colonial Empire of Germany and Turkey. It has directly governed the district of the Saar and has assisted in the govern ment of Danzig. It has worked at a number of social problems, the regulation of opium and other drugs, and the protection of women and children. .
Apart from these tangible and visible results, it has penetrated and modified the policies of national governments through the regular contact, and co-operation in international work, of For eign Ministers, quarterly and annually at meetings of the Coun cil and Assembly, and of their advisers and technical assistants both at these meetings and at a series of technical conferences and discussions. Beginning with disarmament but extending to security, it has prepared the way for the great extension of com prehensive arbitration embodied in the Locarno agreements and doubtless destined to extend beyond them.
On the other hand, the League remained long impotent before the protracted conflicts which reflected the incompleteness of the conclusion of peace in 1919 both in diplomacy, as in the reparation question, and in actual hostilities, as between Greece and Tur key. In some of the disputes which it has handled, it has been indecisive or ineffective ; in others, the nature of its action has apparently been determined as much by the relative strength of the disputants as by considerations of ideal justice. It has made no material progress in securing disarmament. Its work in removing the fundamental causes of war, and in particular those which spring from economic policy, has only begun.
Whether these results will be regarded as disappointing or as satisfactory will doubtless depend mainly on the standard by which they are judged. By comparison with the pre-War posi tion and methods of negotiation there can be no doubt that they represent a very great achievement. No better illustration can perhaps be found than in two references to Lord Grey's book, Twenty-five Years (1926). Of the London Conference of Am bassadors of 1913, for example, he says in effect that it lasted eight months, discussed minor questions and settled nothing, but was well worth while because it gave the world a sense of con fidence to think that there was some method of international con tact during a period of tension.
In contrast with this, the Assembly of 1928, one of the least spectacular of recent years, in three weeks dealt with a mass of useful work, of real if secondary importance, and the assurance of a regular method of international contact is now not tempo rary but permanent. Still more significant is the account which Viscount Grey gives of the conference of the Balkan Powers when they met, as it happened in London, after the first Balkan conflict of 1912. He believed that the policy they were dis cussing would mean both the resumption of war and a disastrous result, as indeed it did. But neither Great Britain nor any other Great Power was directly concerned. If his opinion were asked in unofficial conversations he gave it, informally, tentatively— and in fact without effect. Neither he nor anyone else felt able to intervene in a matter directly affecting only the negotiating States. The second disastrous war followed. In contrast with this the settlement of the recent Graeco-Bulgar dispute of 1925 illus trates the recognition of the new principle that a war is the concern of the whole world.