the most helpless section of the human race, the hopes centred in a League of Nations are mere illusions.
There is nothing fantastic in the suggestion to neutralise tropical Africa. It is merely a proposal to extend the provisions of the Congo Act (Berlin Conference, 1884) which neutralised the Congo Basin, i.e., a considerable portion of the tropical region, to the whole tropical region. It is true that the Congo Free State was never really neutral because its Sovereign was perpetually using, and being used by, European States competing for African territorial mastery. But that competition no longer exists. It is also true that when the Great War broke out, the neutrality of the Congo Basin was definitely broken. But that was the consequence of the European anarchy which the League of Nations is founded to combat. If the conception of the League of Nations possesses significance at all, that significance is derived from the desire of civilised humanity to substitute something better for the anarchy which produced the war; and from faith in the possibility of doing so. The failure of the experiment to neutralise a portion of the African tropics before the war was due to the inherent vices of the international order which civilised humanity desires to change. It should not, therefore, be regarded as a deterrent to a further experiment on the same lines, under the new international order, which it is the object of the League to promote. The principle is sound and is not invalidated because the first attempt to apply it failed.
Short of neutralisation, I see but one alternative course of action to prevent the militarisation of the African tropics. It is that the stipulations of the Covenant affecting the former German dependencies, should be applied to the whole tropical region. There is neither rhyme nor reason in prohibiting the erection of fortifications, etc., and the military training of the native population in a relatively small area of the tropical region, and allowing these things in the remainder. It is absurd, for instance, that the League's mandatory in the Kamerun should be restricted to retaining a police force; while the same Power in contiguous territory, should be permitted to conscript the native population. Anyone can see at a glance how preposterous is such a notion. But in one vital respect the stipulations of the Covenant would need amendment. The Covenant speaks of the
