THE COVENANT.
IT is extremely difficult to write in a spirit that will be both just and helpful about the final text of the Covenant creating the League of Nations. Let us say at once that the scheme seems to us to be heavily charged with proposals that spell disappointment and disillusion- ment. It would be only too easy to -write an article which would be little but condemnation. But that assuredly would be quite the wrong spirit in which to write. On the whole, we think that the best thing to do is to recognize, which we unreservedly do, the tremendously encouraging fact that the great nations have agreed together upon a compact of this kind, and, for the rest, to show, by criti- cizing some of the chief points in the scheme, the intense resolution which will be required from all nations of good will to make the League work. The government of the world must—in Wellington's phrase—be carried on, just as the government of each individual country must be carried on. As it has been decided that the world-govern- ment shall be carried on through the medium of this League, for the present, at all events, we must not and cannot go back upon that decision. We must all do our level best to try to make the League a success. But just for this very reason it would be madness not to estimate the difficulties which bestrew the path. No one ever surmounts difficulties who does not appreciate their character or magnitude.
The article of the Covenant which provides for the admission of new members to the League now enables our enemies to approve of the League without immediately being accepted as members of it. Germany and Russia will become eligible for membership of the Council when they have established themselves as Great Powers and can be trusted to honour their obligations." That is only good sense. Those who have committed crimes must obviously not be allowed to it upon the Judicial Bench till they have purged themselves. But no scheme could possibly succeed which permanently excluded Germany and Russia. If they were excluded the League would become merely an Alliance of the old kind when they had recovered their strength. Germany and Russia, regarding the League as their natural enemy in that event, would probably be drawn together into an Alliance of their own, and we should all find ourselves very much where we were before the war began. What excites our chief misgiving is Article V., which provides that the decisions of the Council—no longer called the Executive Council—as well as of the Assembly must be unanimous. How, we ask, will the League be able to prevent wars if a unanimous vote is required I In its first shape the Council will consist of five Great Powers—Great Britain, the United States, France, Italy, and Japan— and four smaller ones ; but all history has shown us that when an aggrieved Power is asked to be judge in its own cause unanimity is quite beyond reach. During the Peace Conference in Paris every week has given us some example of the profound un- willingness of some member of the Conference to fall into line with the others. This has happened although only five Powers, and sometimes only four, have been responsible for the decisions. Moreover, it has happened although there has been no such terrible issue as that of plunging the world into war, but, on the contrary, only the issue of endowing the world with the blessing of peace.
The ordinary man has bad the belief firmly implanted in his mind that the chief object of the League is to prevent wars. Its task is to act upon the Prime Minister's motto : " Never again " But under the stipulation of unanimity the League, so far as we can see, will be impotent to act on just those occasions when the most terrible of all re- sponsibilities is laid upon it. Nor is that the whole diffi- culty. By Article IV. any State belonging to the League, however small, however backward, however insubordinate, is entitled to sit upon the Council as a member when matters " specially , affecting its interests " are being discussed. Consider what would probably happen. One fine day the world would be startled into the knowledge that some obscure little country of which perhaps most people had hardly ever heard—just as Mr. Lloyd George confessed that he had never heard of Teschen—had thrown its grievance like an apple of discord among the Great Powers, and that this little grievance had suddenly become an issue of the first importance. The League, challenged to decide what was to be done, would be bound to come to a decision or to lose all its authority as a League. Yet the insubordinate little State (having perhaps become a member of the Council for this very purpose) would Justify oppose every settlement which was not to its own liking. It would assiduously prevent unanimity, however preposterous its own claims might be. This sounds like madness ; and of course the authors of the League, being by no means madmen but very able men, have tried to provide against a small State acting as we have suggested. They have refused to allow it to exercise a veto in the settlement of disputes to which it is a party. Nevertheless, as we understand the Covenant, it is to be allowed to vote in the Council on all matters "specially affecting its interests." He would be a man of superhuman wisdom who could distinguish between a dispute to which a small Power is a party and a dispute which " specially affects its interests."
We pass to another matter. Article VIII. shows that the League as such will not regulate armaments. It may draw up plans and issue advice ; but no State is bound to accept the plans. Members of the League, however, will undertake not to exceed the armaments permitted in a plan which they have once accepted. There is not much cause for regret in the refusal of the League to begin by limiting armaments, for it is difficult to imagine anything more likely to create suspicion among nations — and suspicion is the great breeder of wars—than the fear that some ill-minded nation is preparing armaments secretly. Every one knows how Prussia recovered her military strength by the expedient of passing men continually through a short training, while all the time seeming to abide by the military limitations imposed upon her by Napoleon. In our own day there would be constant suspicions, to take only one example, that aircraft, ostensibly being manufactured for commercial purposes, were really being manufactured for war. The authors of the Covenant, in spite of the altitude to which the hopes of idealists soared in the early stages, have, in fine, become alarmed at the complications of some of the more ambitious proposals.
But we must confess that if complexity is in itself an evil—and we are sure that it is—we should greatly have preferred something even less complicated than the Covenant in its modified form. In our opinion, as we have said several times, the simplest and safest way of preventing war would be to insist upon the sanctity of international contract—that, and no more. If it were understood that any Power which regarded a Treaty as a scrap of paper, and went to war without adequate notice, would be boycotted by the whole civilized world, we should probably enter upon a long period of universal security. Any Government that was bound to give, say, a year's notice of its intention to denounce a Treaty would be unlikely to go to war at all. Delay alWays cures hotheadedness. When the motive was not mere hotheadedness, but a carefully prepared design, ea in the case of Germany in the Great War, the whole world would also have time to make its preparations. In a world determined to observe the sanctity of contract, we should find within a few years such a general sense of confidence that the Finance Ministers of the various countries would be only too glad to put their heads together and agree that they need not spend more than a very moderate sum upon armaments.
It is unfortunate that President Wilson has laid himself open to the charge that, while be wishes to regulate the life of the Old World, he is unwilling to submit the New World to any such discipline. The accusation may he quite unjust ; and if account be taken only of Mr. Wilson's intentions, we are quite sure that it is unjust. Neverthe- less we must take notice of what is being said, because, as a matter of fact? the authority of the League will be directly affected by popular criticism. It seems, then, that while Mr. Wilson does not wish European States to govern ill-organized smaller States or savage races without a mandate from the League—a mandate ma:y in practice give an opportunity for malicious criticism or unwarrantable intervention—he asks that the United States should manage her affairs without mandates. The Monroe Doctrine is to stand. As we have often -said, we greatly value the Monroe Doctrine, and are delighted that it should not be assailed. But it is quite another matter to reconcile the present apparent conflict of principles. Criticism of the same kind is provoked by the fact that Mr. Wilson, having declared his ambition to be the prevention of -war, has approved of a great American Navy. We must not be misunderstood. We have no sort of jealousy of this 'Navy, and are not alarmed about it. If it helps to carry •Anglo-Saxon ideals and methods about the world, that will be all to the good. We look at the matter only in order to ask what may be the effect of such criticism upon the League. Finally, it may be assumed that Mr. Wilson has not altogether earned' the goodwill of Japan by vetoing the Japanese resolution which demanded race equality. The question of race equality is left to the League to settle, and no doubt it will be settled in a manner satisfactory to Japan. We assume that Mr. Wilson intends that. But in the meantime Japan • is left lukewarm, by the feeling that a principle, right and simple in itself, was for some reason or other not immediately accepted. Italy is left similarly luke- warm. " Our Monroe Doctrine," says she in effect, " applies to the Adriatic." Any -errors which Mr. Wilson may have committed are due to the fact that he wanted to propitiate critics in America. It is impossible not to sympathize with his reasons for making irreconcilable, concessions. Yet, though we have no right to offer an opinion, we cannot help wondering why he did not act, on a recognition of the simple facts that the American Senate is ultimately the 'Treaty-making body, and that the majority of the Senate -is Republican. If he had acted thus, he would have brought a couple of Republican Senators with him to Paris as assessors, and avoided the criticism. It must be expected, lastly, that whatever security is given to nations by the operations of the League, as a ,substitute for the old-fashioned security obtained by good 'strategic frontiers and strong armaments, will be regarded as vitiated to a certain extent by the temporary character which has been set upon the League. In the text of the Covenant as it now stands it is provided that any member of the League can withdraw from it by giving two years' notice.
We are conscious as we look back upon this survey of difficulties and defects that it is a gloomy one—gloomier than we had anticipated when we began to write. Never- theless we remain convinced that if ever the League is to succeed, the basis of success must be a true understanding of the difficulties. One excellent advantage belongs to us. Time is on our side. It has been said that " every gener- ation wants its war." The reverse of this truth is that a generation which has just had its war—and such a war !- will not want another for about thirty years. Therefore in all human possibility we have some thirty years ahead of us in which safely .to experiment with the League of Nations. Let us honestly, with the help of Heaven, do our best to win through this experimental period. If at the end of it success is not attained, then will be the time to talk of impossibility. To-day is not the time. It is essential to sign the Peace at the first possible moment, and not to go on tinkering with speculative ideas till the world is in the way to recover its wealth and strength. That is why we may accept a League with many defects. There is really no reason or justification for hopelessness merely because of them.
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