and time, has rendered possible a development of warfare which has changed its whole character, and rendered it universal in a sense never hitherto imagined. Withal, " science," as Lord Esher remarks, *' sleepless, restless and revolutionary, is explor- ing every day new methods of destruction, and opening up avenues to novel tactics, rendering certain that war in the future will be waged with weapons hitherto undreamt of, fought in the air and under the water by contrivances which will render those of 1918 as obsolete as gunpowder rendered bows and bills." Thus it is not too much to assert that another world war would almost certainly throw mankind back into the dark ages. For these among other reasons some sort of international organiza- tion for the conduct of the relations of States is essential, if the human race is not to abandon the hopes and the ideals for which it has striven during centuries of progress.
Essential Conditions. \\ith the reasons for the failure of the earlier scheme of a century before, and with the nature of mod- ern national States in our minds, we can perhaps now proceed to lay down the essentials of a league of nations.
It may be taken as commonly accepted that the purposes and objects of a league are the following: First, the maintenance of peace. Second, and as a corollary to the first, the solution of international disputes by methods of law, if and when the nec- essary law exists; when it does not, their solution by political methods, by public debate, by impartial investigation and by conciliation on the basis of the accepted canons of right and justice. Third, the promotion of international cooperation wherever necessary or useful, between States and between the citizens of different States. The promotion of such cooperation will imply the development of rules and the general acceptance of common machinery and common practice in ever wider spheres of international activity. Further, a first principle which must be borne continually in mind is that the fundamental basis of all law, and the primary condition of all political organization, is the consent of those who are to obey it. And an important and relevant corollary of the proposition is that the force, even the united force, of the greater or more powerful members of a society cannot in the long run coerce the will, or replace the consent, of the others. It is useless, therefore, to plan any organism which depends on the cooperation of the powerful States, but which will not also receive the willing acceptance and cooperation of the great body of other States.
An examination of the results of these limiting conditions, and of the lessons to be drawn from historical experience, and of the accepted objects which it is desirable that a league should achieve, will perhaps indicate to us without further discussion the minimum of rules and of machinery which is essential.
In the first place, then, there must be rules laying down the conditions of membership of the League. As the members of the League, in order to carry out the objects which they agree upon, must give reciprocal undertakings, they must have some guaran- tee that those with whom they associate themselves are willing and able to carry out what they promise. Next, it is essential that all the members should enter into agreements to meet in full conference from time to time. Third, it will in practice be necessary, and even in theory it is most desirable, that there should be some smaller organ than the full conference of all the members, which in the current business of the League, and when executive action is required, can represent the whole body of the members. It is evident that the composition of such an execu- tive organ will in a society in which members are so unequal in size, population and power involve most difficult problems of representation. And a further consequence of any attempt to organize international affairs through regular conferences of all the members of the League, and through a smaller executive organ, is the necessity for a secretariat which shall be charged with the duty of preparing the work of the organs of the League, which shall act as a central exchange for information among members of the League and shall organize the central and tech- nical services for conferences and for the meetings of the execu- tive organ. The secretariat would also have to keep the records of the League, supervise the execution of the League's decisions
and in general act as an organizing agency for the promotion of international cooperation. It is, perhaps, theoretically possible that these duties 'should be fulfilled by means of national secre- tariats attached to the representatives who compose the full conference or the executive organ of the League; but there are great practical advantages in an international secretariat whose members are individually independent.
The above represents the minimum machinery that is essential to the effective working of any league. We must next consider the minimum mutual obligations which the members of the League must assume if it is to prove an effective instrument for the maintenance of peace.
It is evidently essential that every member must agree that it will not go to war with any other member without previously submitting the dispute to peaceful methods of settlement, either through the instrumentality of the League or otherwise. Further, and as a corollary to this first undertaking, there must be a second one providing for common action against members who break this fundamental agreement. What the nature of this common action must be is a matter for discussion; but it must at the least provide for united and energetic moral pressure by the whole body of the League against the recalcitrant member. It may well be argued that in the world as it is to-day this united moral pressure should be supported in whatever way may be possible by united material pressure as well. What in any case is essential is to find some means of bringing home to every citizen of a member which breaks its League agreements the universal disapprobation of the other members. Thirdly, it is practically, if not theoretically, necessary to lay down in advance some method, or methods, for the settlement of disputes by peaceful means. Great elasticity may be left as to the nature of these methods, and as to the choice of method which the parties to a dispute may adopt. But the agreements of the League should include plans for settlement by conciliation, or arbitra- tion, or judicial verdict; and these plans should be based on the essential principles by which alone moral pressure can be brought to bear on individuals or on Governments that is to say, on strictly impartial inquiry into the merits of disputes, and on full publicity for the contentions of the parties and for the pro- ceedings by which settlement is attempted.
It is further essential that the agreements of the League should include the automatic abrogation by members of all treaties or undertakings which are not consistent with their obligations as members of the League. No general organization such as a league of nations can operate or inspire confidence in its members if the undertakings to which they agree by their membership are overborne or superseded by other inconsistent agreements which they may enter into with individual States.
The organization and the undertakings indicated seem to constitute the minimum that can serve as the basis of any effective international organization for the prevention of war. Beyond this minimum, there are other things not absolutely essential, but highly desirable. For example, in the plans laid down for the settlement of disputes, it is necessary to make provision for settlement by conciliation, by arbitration and by judicial verdict. The last of these alternatives implies a court of international law. It is true that such a court might be set up ad hoc for any dispute in which it is required. But it is pre- eminently desirable that a permanent court of international justice should be established as part of the machinery of the League. Only such a permanent court can guarantee the full, absolute and unquestionable impartiality without which States will not submit their disputes to its jurisdiction. Further, such a court appears to be a necessity if we are to achieve the develop- ment of international law as an increasingly important factor in the relations between States.
Again, it is highly desirable, though it is not theoretically essential, that the agreements of the League should provide that any dispute, or any circumstances affecting the peace of the world, should be a matter of general concern to every member, so that any member may be within its right in demanding the consideration of any such matter by the organs of the League.
