These very brief indications, which do not pretend to have included all the European minorities which have remained out side the scope of the League's protection, should, nevertheless, suffice to explain why the notion of a general system of minorities protection by the League of Nations, applicable to all States, is upheld by a large number of persons, and why it should already have been the subject of frequent discussion in the League.
Even while the minorities treaties were being drafted at the Peace Conference, several of the States concerned raised objec tions. At the plenary meeting of the Conference on May 31, 1919, the representatives of these countries stated that they were pre pared to accept obligations regarding the protection of minori ties if all the States Members of the League accepted similar obligations. (See H. W. V. Temperley, History of the Peace Con ference, vol. v., p. i29.) Moreover, the Polish delegation, in a memorandum submitted to the Peace Conference, pointed out that the Treaty of Ver sailles contained no stipulations concerning the protection of minorities in Germany similar to those which Poland was asked to accept concerning the protection of German minorities in Poland. Germany, in the chapter of her counter-proposals to the peace terms which concerned the League of Nations, demanded the general protection of minorities, and in particular the protec tion of the German minorities in the territories ceded by her; she declared her willingness to treat minorities in her own territory according to the same principles.
At the meeting of May 31, 1919, M. Clemenceau and Presi dent Wilson replied to these objections. Their arguments will be found in Clemenceau's covering letter to Paderewski referred to below. Furthermore, the Allies, on their reply of June 16, 1919, to the German counter-proposals, called attention to the guar antees which would be given by the minorities treaties to the German minorities in the ceded territories, and noted the German delegation's declaration that Germany was prepared to treat minorities in her territory according to the same principles.
The tendency towards the generalization of the system of the protection of minorities became evident once more at the third session of the Assembly of the League of Nations (1922). In the Sixth committee of this Assembly the Latvian representative, Dr. Walters, put forward the idea of a minorities law established on the same basis for all States. The Finnish representative, M. Erich, proposed that the Assembly should ask the Council to set up a commission to study the question of the protection of minorities in general. The Estonian representative supported this proposal, which, however, was subsequently withdrawn. Finally, the Sixth committee submitted to the Assembly a number of resolutions, which the Assembly adopted at its meeting of Sept.
21, 1922. The fourth of these resolutions was as follows: The Assembly expresses the hope that the States which are not bound by any legal obligations to the League with respect to minorities will nevertheless observe in the treatment of their own racial, religious or linguistic minorities at least as high a standard of justice and toleration as is required by any of the treaties and by the regular action of the Council.
Three years later, in 1925, at the sixth session of the Assembly (meeting of Sept. 14, 1925), the Lithuanian delegation submitted the following proposal: The Lithuanian delegation proposes that the Sixth Assembly of the League should set up a special committee to prenare a draft convention to include all the States Members of the League of Nations and setting forth their common rights and duties in regard to minorities.
This proposal was discussed by the Sixth committee of the Assembly at its meeting of Sept. 16, 1925. The majority of the speakers who took part in the debate were opposed to the Lithua nian view ; a few wished to reserve their opinion; and the Ruma nian and Polish representatives declared themselves in favour of the proposal in principle. The Lithuanian delegate having finally withdrawn his proposal, the Assembly decided, on Sept. 22, to inform the Council of the discussion which had taken place in the Sixth committee in this connection. The Council, at its meet ing of Dec. 9, 1925, merely took note of the Assembly's resolution.
At the same meeting of the Council, M. de Mello Franco, (Brazil), as rapporteur on minorities questions, stated his personal views, in the course of which he pronounced definitely against generalizing the system for the protection of minorities. In M. de Mello Franco's opinion, "the mere co-existence of groups of persons forming collective entities, racially different, in the terri tory and under the jurisdiction of a State, is not sufficient to create the obligation to recognize the existence in that State, side by side with the majority of its population, of a minority requiring a protection entrusted to the League of Nations. In order that a minority, according to the meaning of the present treaties, should exist, it must be the product of struggles, going back for cen turies, or perhaps for shorter periods, between certain nationali ties, and of the transference of certain territories from one sov ereignty to another through successive historic phases." As these factors were not constant in all the States Members of the League of Nations, it would not be possible, in M. de Mello Franco's opinion, for all these States to adhere to a general convention such as that proposed by the Lithuanian representative.