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on their own initiative, but on that of an assembly of Powers in which they would have but one vote. It was, they argued, an obligation not only impossible of fulfilment, but one inconsistent with the Constitution of the United States, under which the right and responsibility of declaring war is vested in Congress. The Senate, rather than accept this obligation, ended by refusing to ratify the whole treaty of which it formed an integral part.

Other countries were less cautious. Great Britain and the Dominions accepted the Covenant, with its overwhelming obligations and dangerous ambiguities, almost without debate. They had, indeed, no other course; for they could not reject or even alter the Covenant without scrapping the whole work of the Peace Conference. But soon there were signs of growing misgiving, which were reflected at Geneva. Canada, enlightened perhaps by the debates at Washington, took alarm at the obligations undertaken under Article X, and at the First Assembly of the League in 1920, and again at the Second Assembly in 1921, Mr. Doherty, the Canadian representative, moved the deletion of the Article from the Covenant. The committee to which this resolution was referred proposed, instead, to "interpret" the Article; but this the Assembly rejected. The matter was then referred to a committee of jurists who, after the manner of jurists, utterly failed to agree as to what the Article meant, or what was its relationship to other articles of the Covenant. The whole matter was therefore again postponed.*

Meanwhile efforts were being made to explain to a profoundly uninterested public the wholly innocuous character of the incriminated Article. Lord Robert Cecil complained that its meaning had been misunderstood, and declared that in fact it did not mean anything—which was hardly complimentary to the illustrious originator of the Covenant, since, as M. Rolin pointed out, Article X was the only one "purely Wilsonian in origin." This Article, in short, which President Wilson had described as "the very backbone of the whole Covenant," and M. Joseph Barthélemy, speaking as the representative of France at the opening meeting of the League, had declared to be "the standard, the pediment, the pillar, and the foundation of the League of

* Report of M. Rolin to the Fourth Assembly, Sept. 24, 1923.

Nations," was now said to have "little actual effect, while appearing to mean a great deal," and to be, "when closely examined," "little more than a clumsy assertion that territorial or political changes ought not to be made by aggressive warfare."+ It seemed as though the Articles of the Covenant were to be explained away as readily as the Thirty-Nine Articles of Religion when "closely examined" by Anglo-Catholics.

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This view, however, was not shared at Geneva, where the uncomfortable possibilities of Article X were now beginning to be realised. To leave it as it was would be to risk the secession of those States which shrank from the limitless obligation it seemed to impose; to cut it out would be to deprive the Covenant of whatever backbone it possessed. Canada therefore, in deference to the general sense of the Assembly, dropped the proposal to delete the Article, and at the Third Assembly (1922), Sir Lomer Gouin expressed, on behalf of the Canadian Government, his readiness to accept certain amendments. After the words "the Executive Council shall advise upon the means by which this obligation shall be fulfilled" was to be added the saving clause, taking into account the political and geographical circumstances of each State." A fresh clause was also to be introduced, in order to safeguard the sovereign independence of the States. The opinion of the Council was to be regarded as a matter of the highest importance," to which the members of the League were to do their utmost to conform, but no member was to be under the obligation to engage in any act of war without the consent of its parliament, legislature, or other representative body." It was an attempt to make explicit what, at the White House conference, President Wilson had declared to be implicit in the Covenant, when he accepted Senator Knox's view that Articles X and XI imposed “ a legal obligation, backed by a moral sanction," but said that it would in every case be for Congress to decide whether the United States would, or would not, be morally bound to take action.‡

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The new Canadian proposal was again referred to a committee,

*M. Hymans, on behalf of Belgium, used much the same language. †Article on "League of Nations," by Lord Robert Cecil, in Enc. Brit., 12th ed., supp. vols.

U.S. Congress. Senate, Doc. 106, pp. 510, 511.

which was to report to the Fourth Assembly in the following year. The report was duly presented by M. Rolin, on behalf of the committee, on the 24th September, 1923. The idea of the amendment of Article X had been ruled out, owing to the cumbrousness and peril of the processes involved. For the terms of the Covenant-like the constitution of the old Republic of Poland or the old German Confederation-can only be amended by a unanimous vote, and even this is subject to ratification by all the signatory States. It was proposed to circumvent the difficulty by introducing an "interpretative resolution." This solution was accepted by Sir Lomer Gouin, on behalf of Canada, and it had the support of all the more important States. M. Barthélemy, the French delegate, asserted that "the text in question elucidates Article X: it does not weaken it," and he welcomed it as a step towards making the League universal by making it easier for the United States to join. This view was also supported by Sir Willoughby Dickinson on behalf of Great Britain.

In spite of this powerful backing, the report was not adopted. It was all very well for M. Rolin to assert that no delegate wished to modify Article X, but only to elucidate its meaning." It was all very well for him to express his pleasure that the Canadian proposals had provided the Assembly with an occasion for stating clearly that "the responsibility for the execution or the non-execution of the commitments of Article X devolves upon the constitutional authorities of the individual States." To the weaker States, which looked upon Article X as their sheet-anchor, the suggested "interpretation " seemed not only to modify it, but to deprive it of all its force. Several protested. Only one, however, carried opposition so far as to vote against the resolution. In justifying this vote, Prince Afra-ed-Din declared that, in the opinion of the Persian delegation, the plain meaning of Article X was that, in case of necessity, the recommendation of the Council was binding upon the members of the League, and that its force would be weakened if the action to be taken in pursuance of such recommendation were to be made dependent upon its ratification by the parliaments of the several countries. Persia, accordingly

*Of 25 amendments accepted at different times by the Assembly, only one, at the time of writing, has been ratified.

voted against the resolution, which since it was ruled that unanimity was necessary even for an "interpretation "—was declared "not agreed to."

It has been necessary to outline the somewhat chequered history of Article X in order to explain the genesis and nature of the various devices recently put forward with a view to amending and strengthening the Covenant. The reiterated efforts to delete, to amend, to interpret the luckless Article had ended by making it clear that, for all practical purposes, the terms of the Covenant are as the law of the Medes and Persians which altereth not. If the League was to survive as more than "a sort of debating society," it was equally clear that new expedients must be sought for remedying the defects of its structure. These expedients were found in treaties outside of and supplementary to the Covenant, intended-as Mr. Van Karnebeek very expressively put it-to "buttress up " its clear engagements.

The first step was taken in 1923 when the Council asked the two Commissions of the Assembly to draft a Treaty of Mutual Assistance on the basis of the principle formulated by Resolution XIV of the Third Assembly, namely, that security and disarmament must go hand in hand. The outcome was the Draft Treaty circulated last year. This re-affirmed the obligation imposed by Article X of the Covenant, but confined it to the defence of those States only which "conformed to the provisions of the present treaty regarding the limitation of armaments." To meet the objections of Canada, and incidentally of the United States, no State was "in principle" to be called upon to give armed assistance outside the continent in which it is situated. To clear up the supposed ambiguity of Article X, the Council was to be empowered to apply immediately to the “aggressor "State the economic sanctions contemplated by Article XVI; to invoke by name the Powers whose assistance was required; and to determine the forces to be supplied by each. In the event of war breaking out, the Council was to decide within four days which side was the aggressor. It was further laid down that two or more States might enter into separate defensive treaties, and that these, if approved by the Council, were to be regarded as complementary to the general treaty.

Such were the main provisions of this remarkable effort to straighten out the tangle of the Covenant. Its reception was

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The most important of these are the acceptance by the Signatory Powers of the principle of "compalary" arbitration which in 1920 the Council rejected as a "bold innovation," and the definition of "aggression "as the refusal to accept arbitration in the case of an international dispute or to abide by its result Averted. This arbitration is to be of two kinds. In the cable "disputes the signatories agree to recognise * facto, and without special agreement, the *** Permanent Court of International Justice. In

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