The main features of the covenant as finally incorporated in the treaty were as follows: A bicameral government was provided with a. (body of delegates° composed of one member from each constituent state but with very little real power; and an executive coundl of nine members, one from each of the five large states and four chosen, one each from the small states in rotation. This council was to have the right to recommend the quota of military and naval forces each state contributed in car rying out the purposes of the league, and it could fix the armaments and numbers of the troops of each state in the league. There was to be a court of arbitration, a permanent secre tanat and a stated place of meeting, and the states pledged themselves not to go to war without first submitting their disputes to arbi tration or to the judgment of the executive council. To disregard this pledge was to com mit an act of war against all the other states of the league and they could take economic or other steps to malce the offending state obey 'the covenant. Each signatory state was to guarantee the territorial and political integrity of the other states against external aggression (Article X); a state could be admitted to the league with the approval of two-thirds of the states already in it; colonies talcen from a mother state were to become mandatories of the league under the tutelage of states desig nated by the league; treaties to be valid must be registered with the league; and amendments to the covenant were to be effective when ac cepted by all the states represented in the ex ecutive council and by three-fourths of the powers represented in the body of delegates.
This remarkable document was received vnth equanimity by most of the states of Eu rope. By accepting it they pledged themselves to the erection of a super-state with certain powers in limitation of their freedom of ac tion, and they entered into the arrangement without visible hesitation. The explanation seems to be that the war had brought them to such a state of prostration that they did not be lieve it possible to go on vrithout some such a league to guarantee their safety while were recovenng from existing misfortunes.thel league would enable them to reduce armaments, a/lay the fears of conquest by their ancient enemies, and give them the feeling that their possessions were secure. To the United States, howe-ver, the situation seemed other wise. The country had suffered comparatively little through war, and its people were so con fident of the future that they felt no need of the guarantee of other states to enable thern to live in security. There was, also, some feeling that the other nations were aslcing too much of the United States, *the one power that had great wealth and undiminished productive ca pacity. Over against this view wa-s the.opin ion that the country ought to throw in its lot with the states of Europe for better or worse, partly because it was the generous thing to do and partly because by doing so it could use its influence in preventing wars which, if they started, would probably involve the United States themselves. The contention that now arose brought up dearly the question of joining or not joining the world movement in behalf of the control of war. The controversy that
came up in the Senate of the United States over this question has little relation to this discussion. It was waged chiefly over Article X of the covenant, by which each state gnaran teed the integrity of the other states against external aggression. Many Americans did not wish their government to assume such a bur den. The compromises eventually made on this and other points toolc form in the (reser vation° of certain rights and privileges to the United States, as the interpretation of the Mon roe Doctrine, and the actual calling out of the army by Congress; but it does not yet appear what strength the (reservations° when adopted will have in actual use. At the present nine the whole subject is unsettled.
The readiness with which the European states at the conference accepted the League of Nations was partly due to the fact that each of them had its own demands on the confer ence and was inclined to play them off against the league project with President Wilson. Great Britain, France, Japan and Italy, to say nothing of the smaller states, as Belguun, Po land, Jugoslavia and Czecho-Slovakia, all had their eyes on some advantage that the confer ence could give. This mass of questions made up the problem of European readjustment At first it was thought that the European dele gates would settle them among themselves, the delegates from the United States giving them selves to the league and such an academic ques tion as the responsibility for the war. But President Wilson soon showed that he thought otherwise. The meeting was not a two-sided thing, in which the affairs of one continent had nothing to do with the people of the other. The Fourteen Points had definite relations with all the matters connected with readjustments, and President Wilson was their champion. Thus it came about that he took a leading part in settling every point that was before the delegates. It was a new experience for the government of the United States to take such a strong hand in world affairs.
Disposal of the German Colonies.— The first matter of this kind to come up was the disposition of the German colonies. Late in January it becatne lcnown that informal plans been made by which several of the British colonies would annex some of the German colonies, that Japan, France, Italy and possibly Belgium had hopes of taking certain others. Against these plans President Wilson protested vigorously. In a long discussion, the prime mmisters of the principal British colonies stood together, with the support of the foreign min ister of France, Mr. Hughes, of Australia, being especially vehement At last Mr. Lloyd George called the colonial prime ministers into a con sultation and persuaded them to be satisfied with the mandatory system, for which Presi dent Wilson contend,ed. This system was to be administered under the supervision of the League of Nations, and it was in line with the fifth of the Fourteen Points, accepted in the preceding autumn by all of the states whose delegates now favored direct annexation of the colonies. The system was made to apply to dismembered portions of the Turkish Empire as well as to the colonies of Germany.