Europe after the World War 657 The Covenant of the League also provides for a permanent Court of International Justice. The Council of the League is to prepare plans for the reduction of armaments and to control the manufacture of munitions and implements of war. All treaties are to be registered with the League and made public. 1185. System of Mandates. Certain territories and semi- civilized peoples formerly belonging to the Central Powers, and not yet able to stand by themselves, parts of the Turkish Em- pire, of Central and Southwest Africa, and of the Southern Pacific Islands, are declared to be under the guardianship of the League. By a system of so-called mandates the tutelage of such peoples is to be intrusted to "advanced" nations, as mandatories, which are to seek to promote their well-being and development. The authority of the nations acting as mandatories is to be clearly defined, and they are to report annually to the League. 1186. International Plan for bettering Conditions of Labor. Under the general supervision of the League of Nations the treaty also establishes a very important International Labor Organization on the ground that " the well-being, physical, moral, and intellectual, of the industrial wage-earners is of supreme inter- national importance." This labor organization is designed to improve working conditions throughout the world, and to secure fair conditions of labor for men, women, and children. 1187. The United States Senate refuses to ratify the Treaty of Versailles. President Wilson had tried to give the League of Nations the chief place in the discussions at Versailles. He had said before the United States entered the war : " There can be no sense of safety and equality among the nations if great preponder- ating armaments are henceforth to continue ... to be built up and maintained. The statesmen of the world must plan for peace, and nations must adjust and accommodate their policy to it as they have planned for war and made ready for pitiless contest and rivalry." The President did all he could on . his return from Europe to secure the adoption of the treaty including the Covenant of the League of Nations. But the opposition of the Senate was too strong, and it refused to ratify the peace of Versailles.
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