action of each, and may entail some inconvenient obligation. The stronger nations must forgo the right to make their interests prevail against the weaker by force.'
These are excellent and very necessary theses, but do they carry us far enough? Before you undertake any general obligation, is it not well to consider what it is likely to mean in concrete terms? Your League will have to reckon with certain realities. There was before the War an incipient League of Nations; its members were the States party to the system of International Law. Have we not had to fight the War just because two of the greater States broke the International Law, first in regard to one and then another of the smaller States, and have not those two greater States very nearly succeeded in defeating a very powerful League of Nations which intervened in behalf of the Law? In the face of such a fact, is it quite adequate to say that stronger nations must 'forgo' the right to make their interests prevail by force against the weaker? In a word, do not our ideals involve us in a circle unless we reckon with realities?
Is it not plain that if your League is to last there must be no nation strong enough to have any chance against the general
