The Bridgeport times and evening farmer., 1919-07-11

portunity to secure for labor fnterna- tional pledges of principles and prac- tice.
 These were not tasks which the Conference looked about it to find and went out of its way to perform. They were inseparable from the set dement's of peace. They were thrust upon it by circumstances which couHD not be overlooked. The war had ere ated them.
 In all quarters of the world old
 esta blished relationships had been disturbed or broken and affairs were at loose ends. needing to be mended
 or united again, but could not be made what they were before. They
 had to be set right by applying some
 uniform principle of justice or en- lightened expediency. And they
 could not be adjusted by merely pre-
 scrfo.ng in a treaty what should be
 done.
 New states were to be set up which
 could not hope to live through their
 first period of weakness without as-
 sured support by the great nations
 that had consented to their creation and won for them their independence.
 In-governed colonies could not be
 put in the hands of governments
 which were to act as trustees for their people and not as their masters if there was to be no common au-
 thority among the nations to which they were to be responsible in the execution of their- trust.
 Future international conventions with regard to the control of water ways, with regard to illicit traffic of many kinds, in arms or in deadly drugs or with regard to the adjust ment of many varying international administrative arrangements, could not be assured if the treaty were to provide no permanent common inter national agency, if its execution in such matters was to be left to the l slow and uncertain processes of CO., {operation by ordinary methods of ne gotiation.
 If the Peace Conference itself was l to be the end of cooperative author | ity and common counsel among the governments to which the world was | looking to enforce justice and give pledges of an enduring settlement, | regions lige the Sarre Basin could not | be put under temporary admins | trative regime which did not involve | a transfer of political sovereignty and
 which contemplated a final determin- | ation of its political connections by popular vote to be taken at distant 1 date; no free city like Danzig could | be created which was, under elabOr | ate international guarantees, to ac- ] cept exceptional obligations with re- | gard to the use of its port and ex- | ceptional relations with a state of l which it was not to form a part; properly safeguarded plebiscites | r-n 1 populations were at some future date 1 to make choice what sovereignty ; they would live under; no certain 1 and uniform method of arbitration l could be secured for the settlement i of anticipated difficulties of final de- | cision with regard to many matters i dealt with in the treaty itself; the i long-continued supervision of the | ta six of reparatior, which Germany | was to undertake to complete within | the next generation might entirely | break down; the reconsideration and 1 revision of administrative arrange ments and restrictions which the l treaty prescribed but which it was
 recognized might not prove of last | ing advantage or entirely fair if too | long enforced would be impractica- l ble.
  | making to one another about the
 way in which labor was to be dealt | with, by law not only, but in fact as l well, would remain a mere humane 1 thesis if there was to be no common
 tribunal of opinion and judgment to | which liberal statesmen could resort l for the influences which alone might l secure their redemption.
 A league of free nations had be- ,i,,r | the treaty of peace and you will find l that everywhere throughout it's man | fold provisions its framers have felt | obliged to turn to the League of Ma | tions as an indispensable instrument | tality for the maintenance of the new | order it has been their purpose to SC! l I'D in the world-the world of civi- | lized men.
 | That there should be a league of nations to steady the counsels and maintain the peaceful understandings of the world, to make. not treaties alone, but the accepted principles of iinternatfnaI law as we'll the actual rule of conduct among the Govern | ments of the world had been one of
 the agreements accepted from the first as the basis of peace with the lCentral Powers.
 | The statesmen of all the belHgerent countries were agreec' that Sucn Il league must be created to sustain the lsettlements that were to be effected. But at first I think there was feel ling among some of them that, while lit must be attempted, the formation of such a lea que was perhaps a coun- tseI of perfection, which practical men, Hong experienced in the world of af- Ifirs, must agree to very cautiously and with many misgivings.
 | It was only as the difficult work of larranging an all but universal ad- ljustment of the worlds affairs ad- Ivanced from day to day from one lstage Of conference to another that what they were seeking would be lit tie more than something written upon paper, to be interpreted and applied by such methods as the chances of Ipolicies might make available, if they did not provide a means of common counsel which all were obliged to ac- cept, & common authority whose de-
 cisions would be recognized as deci-
 sions which all must respect.
 | And so the most practical, the most Identical among them turned more