The Birmingham age-herald., 1919-07-11


 not hope to live through their first period of weakness without assured sup port by the great nations that had con scented to their creation, and won for them their independence. III governed colonies could not be put in the hands of governments which were to act as trus- tees for their people and not as their masters, if there was to be no common authority among the nations to which they were to be responsible in the exc cution of their trust. Future information al conventions with regard to the con trol of waterways with regard to illicit traffic of many kinds. in arms or in deadly drugs, of with regard to the ad- justment of many varying international administrative arrangements could not be assured if the treaty were to provide no permanent international agency. if its execution in such matters was to be left to the slow and uncertain processes of CO., operation by ordinary methods of nego- tiation.
 LEAGUE PRACTICAL NECESSITY
 If the peace conference itself was to be the end of cooperative authority and common counsel among the governments tc which the world was looking to en- force justice and give pledges Of an en- during settlement regions like the Saar Basin could not be put under a tempor
 
 involve a transfer of political sovereignty and which contemplated a final determi- nation of it's political connections by pop uiar vote to be taken at a distant date; no free city like Dantzig could be creat- ed which was, under elaborate inter national guarantees, to accept exceptional obligations with regard to the use of it's ports. and exceptional relations with a state of which it was not to form a part, properly safeguarded plebescites could not be provided for where popula- tions were at some future date to make choice what sovereignty they 1sould live under; no certain and uniform method of arbitration could be secured for the set clement of anticipated differences of final decision with regard to many mat ters dealt with in the treaty itself: the ng-continued supervision of the task of reparation which Germany was to under take to complete within the next genera tion might entirely break down; the re- consideration and revision of administra- tive arrangements and restrictions which the treaty prescribed but which it was recognized might not prove of last ing advantage, or entirely fair if too long enforced, would be impracticable.
 The promises governments were mak- ing to one another about the way h. which labor was to be dealt with, by law not only but in fact as we'll would remain a mere humane thesis if there was to be no common tribunal of opinion and judgment to which libedal statesmen could resort for the influences which alone might secure their redemption. league of free nations had become a practical necessity. Examine the treaty of peace and you will find that every where throughout its manifold provisions
 its framers have felt obliged to turn to the league of nations as an indispens- able instrumentality for the maintenance of the new order it has been their pur- pose to set up in the world-the world of civilized men.
 LEAGUE AS PEACE BASIS
 That there should be a league of na- tions to steady the counsels and main | tain the peaceful understandings of the world to make, not treaties alone, but the accepted principles of international law as well, the actual rule of conduct among the governments of the world had been one of the agreements accept | ed from the first as the basis of peace with the central powers. The statesmen | of all the belligrent countries were agreed that such a league must be creat- 1 ed to sustain the settlements that were to be effected. But at first I think there was feeling among some of them that, while it must be attempted the forma- ton or such league was perhaps coun- sei of perfection which practical men, long experienced in the world of affairs, must agree to very cautiously and with | many misgivings It was only as the difficult work of arranging an all but universal adjustment of the worlds af- fairs advanced from day to day from one stage of conference to another. that 1t became evident to them that what
 they were seeking. would be little more than something written upon paper, to be interpreted and applied by such meth ods as the chances of politics might
 make available if they did not provide l means of common counsel which all were obliged to accept; common au- thority whose decisions would be recog- | nized as decisions which all must re- spect.
 And 50 the most practical, the most skeptical among them turned more an | more to the league as the authority | through which international action was | to be secured, the authority without which, as they had come to see it, would be difficult to give assured effect either to this treaty, or. to any other interna tlonal understanding upon which they were to depend for the maintenance Of peace The fact that the covenant Of the league was the first substantiative part of the treaty to be worked out, and agreed upon, while all else was in solu- l tiOii, Hclpcu tO ii1hke INe IOrInuldt1On or the rest easier. The conference was, af- ter all, not to be ephemereal. The con- cert of nations was to continue under a definite covenant, which had been agreed upon, and which all were convinced was workable. They could go forward with confidence to make ar | rangements intended to sbe permanent
 The most practical of the conferees, were at last the most ready to refer to the league of nations the superintendence of all interests which did not admit of i'm mediate determinations of all adminis- trative problems which were to require a continuing oversight. What had seemed plain counsel of necessity The league hope of success in many of the most diff DEMANDED BY WORLD
 "And it had validated itself in the thought of every member of the confer ence as something much bigger, much greater every way than mere instru- ] ment for carrying out the provisions Of a particular treaty It was universally recognized that all the peoples of the world demanded of the conference that lit should create such a continuing con- | cert of free nations, as would make wars of aggression and spoilation such as this | that. has just ended forever impossible A cry had gone out from every home in every stricken land from which sons and I brothers and fathers had gone forth to ! the great sacrifice that such a sacrifice should never again be exacted. It was manifest why it had been exacted. It