League of Nations

General Observations.

Generally, it may be said that when the Covenant goes beyond the essential features which are neces sary to any effective league to preserve peace, it does so with one of two objects in view. Either it is with the purpose of giving real life to the machinery which it establishes: of bringing the inter national forces actually at work into effective co-operation, in order that members of the League may be brought closer together, and the League itself be strengthened and have the vitality that comes from continuous and varied work; or else it is with the purpose of removing those deep-seated causes which public opinion has recognised as having led to war. It is not by chance that the Covenant contains more or less elaborate provisions concerning armaments, the traffic in arms, annexation by conquest, the avoidance of unfair economic competition, imperial rivalry in the exploitation of backward countries, secret treaties and alliances. It is because these things have led to war in the past that the Covenant seeks to deal with them in a practical and effective way, to the end that war may be rendered less probable in the future.

Elasticity is one of the chief "notes" of the whole machinery of the League. The Council and the Assembly are free to develop their own methods and systems as they choose, to appoint com mittees and commissions at their discretion, and to draw up codes of procedure which they can themselves change ; they are thus able to give to the general principles of the Covenant the free development which experience may dictate.

The Covenant was prepared by a special commission of the Peace Conference of Paris, consisting of ten representatives of the Great Powers and nine representatives of the smaller Allied States. This commission, appointed on Jan. 20, 1919, was a body of remarkable authority. Presided over by President Wilson, its members included Colonel House, General Smuts (later Prime Minister of South Africa), Lord Robert (Viscount) Cecil, M. Leon Bourgeois (former Prime Minister of France), M. Venizelos

(Prime Minister of Greece), M. Pessoa (later President of Brazil), M. Vesnitch (later Prime Minister of Yugoslavia), M. Scialoja (later Foreign Minister of Italy), M. Hymans (Foreign Minister of Belgium) and others.

The first draft prepared by the commission, based on proposals put forward jointly by the British and American delegations, was laid before the Peace Conference at a public meeting on Feb. 14; it was thereafter amended in the light of criticisms made by the Conference, by the press and by the neutral Powers at a special meeting held for the purpose of hearing their views; and the final draft was adopted by the Plenary Conference at another public meeting on April 28. It was, on the insistence of Presi dent Wilson, inserted as Part I. of the Peace Treaties made with Germany' Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria. By this device the Allied Powers were prevented from making peace with their enemies without being members of the League.

With the entry into force of the Treaty of Versailles on Jan. 10, 1920, the League of Nations came legally into existence. Prior to this date, preliminary organisation of its work had been carried on by the secretary-general under the authority of a committee of the Powers. When all the Allied Powers had ratified the Peace Treaties (except the U.S.A., Hejaz and Ecuador, who failed to do so) the members of the League numbered 29. To these were added during the course of 1920 the neutral Powers, 13 in all, who in accordance with Article I. of the Covenant acceded to it without reservation. By successive admissions of ex-enemy and other States, the number of members had by 1928 risen to 54.

See also DISARMAMENT ; SANCTIONS AND GUARANTEES; TREATIES : VERSAILLES, TREATY OF, etc.

(The following articles embody [in italics] amendments to Article 6 [in force from Aug. 13, 1924], Articles 12, 13 and 15 [in force from Sept. 26, 1924], and Article 4 [in force from July 29, 1926]. The numbering of the paragraphs is in accordance with the resolution adopted by the Assembly on Sept. 21, 1926.)