take to communicate to the Secretary-General as promptly as possible statements of their case, with all the relevant facts and papers. The Council is then given discretion to endeavour to effect a settlement of the dispute, and it is provided that if its efforts are successful, a statement shall be made public giving such an account of the dispute and of the settlement arrived at as the Council may deem proper. If the Council fails to settle the dispute, it is to make a report setting forth the merits of the dispute and the recommendations which the Council thinks would be suitable for a settlement, and this report is to be pub- lished. A report may be made either unanimously or by a majority vote, and any individual member of the League which is represented on the Council has a right to make its own public statement concerning the dispute and the conclusions which it draws from them. There is a further provision in Article 15 to the effect that if such a report is agreed to by the Council unani- mously, with the exception of the representatives of one or more of the parties to the dispute, the members of the League includ- ing the parties agree that they will not go to war with any party to the dispute who complies with the provisions of the report. This is a most important additional limitation of the right of members to resort to arms. Article 15 also provides for an appeal to the Assembly, conditional on its being made within 14 days after the submission of the dispute to the Council. If a dispute is so referred to the Assembly, the Assembly is to deal with the matter in the same way as the Council, with this exception, that if a report is agreed to in the Assembly by all the members of the League represented on the Council, and by a majority of the other members of the League, exclusive in each case of the representatives of the parties to the dispute, the report shall have the same force as a unanimous report agreed to by the Council. In other words, the members of the League must not go to war with any of the parties to the dispute which accept it. These Articles, then, provide two, or rather three, methods by which disputes can be settled by peaceful means through the agency of the League. The first of these methods provides for legal verdicts, when such verdicts are possible and useful; the second provides for arbitration by some other tribunal agreed to by the parties to a dispute; and the third, for settle- ment by the political agency of the Council or the Assembly, in accordance with procedure based on the principles of full publicity and strict impartiality. It may perhaps be observed that pub- licity will of itself ensure impartiality; for it is not conceivable that a council, acting as the representative of the whole body of the League and in circumstances of utmost publicity, should conduct its inquiries into a dispute in any way not consistent with the strictest fairness to all the parties concerned.
Articles 12 to 15 also make provision for the next essential of a league united pressure by all the members against any of their number which disregards its undertakings. In providing for a public report by the Council on the merits of a dispute and for the publication of its recommendations as to a settle- ment, the Covenant lays down a method which, in practice, must exert the strongest moral pressure on any State which in defiance of Article 1 2 is disposed to go to war. Anyone who knows how great a factor in the conduct of international affairs the public opinion of the Society of States was, even prior to 1914, will realize that such a verdict of the organized opinion of the world is bound to be a weapon of great power.
But the Covenant goes beyond this, and provides in Article 1 6 that, if any member of the League in contravention of its agreements resorts to arms, such a member is ipso facto " deemed to have committed an act of war against all other members of the League," and the other members are obliged to prevent all financial, commercial or personal intercourse between the nation- als of the Covenant-breaking State and the nationals of any other State. It was difficult in the disturbed condition of the world during 1919-21 to realize just what would be the effect of such a complete economic and financial boycott in times of normal peace. But it is not too much to say that no civilized State would, in 1914, have ventured to declare war had it been threatened by such a universal boycott as Article 16 stipulates.
It may be held that in providing for such a universal boycott, the Covenant goes beyond the essentials of a league. It may even be held that it goes beyond what is practicable and wise. Certainly it is a matter which will give rise to the gravest prob- lems, and on which, indeed, the League had in 1921 already found it necessary to appoint a commission to determine the precise obligations of the members and to recommend the machinery required for their fulfilment. But it must be remem- bered that Article 16 only comes into force in the case of a State insisting on going to war without waiting for any attempt at peaceful settlement such as is provided for in Articles 12, 13 and 15, or where the agreed tribunal or a unanimous council have given a decision which has been accepted by the other party. In other cases ultimate resort to war is envisaged as possible.
And the Covenant goes even further than this in making pro- vision for pressure on recalcitrant members of the League.
Article 16 further lays down that in addition to the blockade, which is an automatic obligation of all the members of the League, the Council shall consider and shall recommend to the several Governments concerned, what effective military, naval or air forces members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the Covenant. In other words, while leaving again the greatest possible elasticity, and while laying no positive obligation on any member to con- tribute military force, the Covenant yet definitely foreshadows united military action against a Covenant-breaking State.
To turn to another matter, the Covenant provides by Article 20 for the abrogation of treaties, obligations and understand- ings which are inconsistent with its own terms, and thus meets, in yet another particular, the essentials of a league.
How far, and in what respects, does the Covenant go beyond what we have recognized to be these essentials?
To begin with perhaps the most important point of all, there are the much-discussed provisions of Article 10. This Article has been very generally misunderstood. It has been widely proclaimed as containing the central and essential obligation of the whole Covenant an obligation, moreover, which most States are unlikely to accept in practice and which, indeed, they would be right in refusing. This is quite untrue. As a matter of fact the great objection to it is that it has little actual effect while appearing to mean a great deal. It does not create, as has been thought, an obligation on all the members of the League to maintain by force of arms the existing territorial and political arrangement of the world. It does indeed guarantee the members against external aggression which would impair their territorial integrity or political independence. But this guarantee is only to be enforced, if at all, as the Council acting unanimously shall agree. In practice the protection against sud- den and unjust attacks provided by Articles 12-16 will be much more useful. Article 10, when closely examined, will be found to be little more than a rather clumsy assertion that territorial or political changes ought not to be made by aggressive warfare. Such changes, if required, should be made under Article 19, which enables the Assembly to reconsider treaties which have become obsolete or dangerous to peace.
It may perhaps with more show of reason be said that, by the provisions of Article 8 on the subject of armaments, the Covenant introduces something which is extraneous to an agree- ment to preserve the peace. But the history of the 2oth century has already demonstrated that if you prepare for war you will have war; that increase of armaments in one country provokes increase of armaments in other countries, and that if rivalry in preparation for war continues, within a certain time war will break out. Unless the rivalry in armaments can be prevented, any league of nations, however it be constituted, will fail. Doubt- less complete disarmament is not practicable or probable at an early date. But an agreement not to engage in unlimited compe- tition on the development of armaments is absolutely necessary to the peace of the world. The Covenant deals with the matter in a way which is preeminently practical and sane. It recog- nizes that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national
