"If the required number of ratifications shall not have been obtained within twenty-two months after the vote of the Assembly, the proposed amendment shall remain without effect.
"The Secretary-General shall inform the Members of the taking effect of an amendment.
"Any Member of the League which has not at that time ratified the amendment is free to notify the Secretary-General within a year of its refusal to accept it, but in that case it shall cease to be a Member of the League." This amendment had not come into force by July 1928.
which it can be induced to follow under the persuasion of collec tive opinion, the following account will show. But however wide the range within which such persuasion can be effective, there is at any given moment a limit beyond which a country cannot be moved. And beyond such limits the League is, for the great bulk of its work, impotent. In dealing with its various problems the League has to deal with exactly the same forces and differences of policy and interest as if they were handled by other methods of negotiation; and the organs of the League, the Assembly and the Council comprise, indeed consist of, Representatives of interested Governments themselves.
It follows that any serious divergencies of policy between members of the League, and especially its more important mem bers, will be likely to enfeeble the League for its general work. And it is obvious that the obstinate differences on reparation and other questions touching Germany ana on Near Eastern affairs, affecting as they did for some years the genera: relations of some of the principal countries on the Council, necessarily limited the League's general power and progress.
These limiting factors have diminished in importance as the years have passed. Little by little, the specifically War problems have found a settlement, the transitional instruments of negotia tion, supreme councils or allied conferences or the Conference of Ambassadors (see SAN REMO ; SPA ; PARIS ; LONDON ; CANNES ; GENOA; LAUSANNE; and LOCARNO ; also AMBASSADORS, CONFER ENCE OF; SUPREME COUNCIL) have ended or retired to a second ary place ; and the permanent organisation has come into the foreground. The number of member States has risen from the of the first Assembly to 54, in 1928, and the new members include Germany. Nevertheless, the continued absence of the United States of America and Russia ; the notice of withdrawal, now happily cancelled, of Spain ; the partial absence of the Argen tine and the retirement of Brazil has meant that the League has been far from universal in its character. For this and other
reasons, some of the main problems of world interest, China, naval competition, recent troubles in Albania, have been the subject of negotiations in which it has taken no part. In the problems which it has handled, moreover, the League still shows notable fluctua tions in its power of effective action, corresponding with changes in the relations between its principal members. On the whole, however, and on any reasonably long period of survey, the increase in its authority is incontestable.
The principal organs of the League are the Assembly, meeting usually once a year and representing all States ; the Council meeting usually every third month and consisting, in 1935, of four permanent members (Great Britain, France, Italy and the U.S.S.R.)—and ten non-permanent members elected by the Assem bly; the permanent secretariat ; a whole series of special organisa tions and committees (for finance and economics, transit, health, armaments, mandates, intellectual co-operation, opium, traffic in women, etc.) ; and, working independently of the Council and Assembly, the Permanent Court of International Justice (q.v.) and the International Labour Organization (q.v.).
The respective spheres of competence of the Assembly and the Council are not exactly defined in the Covenant. Each may deal with any matter within the League's competence or affecting the peace of the world. In practice, the size, composition and times of meeting of the two bodies determine their functions. The Assembly affords an opportunity for an annual review, by the responsible representatives of the Governments of the world, of the international situation. It largely creates the atmosphere and determines the general lines of policy for the ensuing year, and it is a convenient instrument for the concluding stages in the negotiation of conventions and general agreements of world interest. The Council, on the other hand, has become the League's executive organ. It deals with the host of special questions that arise for settlement throughout the year, and directs the multi farious permanent tasks of the League and the special organisa tions through which they are carried on.