far more expensive and a future war far more terrible than anything dreamed of in the past. Moreover, the withdrawal of a large part of the able-bodied male population from productive work causes further indirect loss. It was, therefore, natural that an organisation for the maintenance of peace such as the League of Nations should deal with the reduction of armaments.

A scheme having this object in view is outlined in paragraphs 2, 3, and 4 of Art. 8 of the Covenant, while Art. 9 provides the machinery for the purpose.

ARTICLE 8.-Par. 2. The Council, taking account of the geographical situation and circumstances of each State, shall formulate plans for such reduction (of armaments) for the consideration and action of the several Governments.

Par. 3. Such plans shall be subject to reconsideration and revision at least every ten years.

Par. 4. After the plans shall have been adopted by the several Governments, the limits of armaments therein fixed shall not be exceeded without the concurrence of the Council.

ARTICLE 9.-A permanent Commission shall be constituted to advise the Council on the execution of the provisions of Articles 1 and 8, and on military, naval, and air questions generally.

The League, however, had hardly begun to operate when it was discovered how many serious obstacles impeded the practical realisation of these ideals and how inadequate were the measures devised for achieving an end regarded by all as desirable in the abstract. The Commission provided for in Art. 9, known as the Permanent Advisory Commission, was composed of military, naval, and air officers of various countries; but its activities were at first absorbed by certain special duties entrusted to the League rather than to the reduction of armaments. A scheme which appealed to certain League advocates at this time was the creation of a League of Nations staff and even of a League army to enforce on recalcitrant States the League's decisions, and in time perhaps to be a substitute for national armies altogether. In France this plan found an ardent and sincere supporter in M. Léon Bourgeois, while some Frenchmen, for reasons different from those which inspired the distinguished President of the Senate, actually suggested that, if other

countries were not prepared to constitute this international force, a portion of the French Army, then, as now, the most powerful in the world, should be set aside to act as the Army of the League. It is hardly surprising that this proposal should not have met with enthusiastic response outside France, either among ardent League zealots or among believers in Realpolitik. The only attempt at creating a League army was the proposal for an international force to occupy Vilna, while the Council of the League was deciding the fate of that district. Practical difficulties stood in the way, and Poland solved the problem herself by seizing and annexing Vilna.

The economic sanctions to be applied to States resorting to war in disregard of Articles 12, 13 and 15 of the Covenant, provided for under Article 16, although not exactly coming under the heading of disarmament, may be regarded as an attempt to carry out the League's decisions by force and to restrain States from going to war. The plan in theory has much to recommend it, and the threat of economic sanctions may and, indeed, has on several occasions proved efficacious in the case of minor States; but the mere idea of applying them to such States as, say, the British Empire, the United States, or Russia has but to be enunciated for the impossibility of carrying them out to be realised. Were an attempt made to apply the system generally, another form of international inequality would be created, as States would come to be divided into those to whom these measures are practically applicable and those to whom they are not. On the other hand, they would in many cases prove disastrous to the States attempting to apply them as they would involve the loss of markets. In other cases they could be applied by means of a naval blockade, which is a war measure to which non-member States would never agree in peace time.

At the first meeting of the Assembly (November 1920), the more ardent pacificists among the delegates demanded that a 'stronger' effort at disarmament be made and entrusted to a body not consisting exclusively of military men who could not, they maintained, be relied upon to work with enthusiasm at a scheme designed to make themselves unnecessary. A new organ was created, the Temporary Mixed Commission for the Reduction of

Armaments. It comprised some military men, but also a number of civilians--representatives of the workingclasses and of the manufacturers, experts and certain statesmen closely associated with disarmament propaganda and supposed to know all about the subject, such as Lord Robert (now Viscount) Cecil. The T.M.C. proved an unwieldy, expensive, ill-conceived organ, whose very mixed membership rendered it incapable of serious effort or clear thought. It held innumerable sittings, divided itself into sundry sub-committees and special committees, let off endless speeches replete with rhetoric and commonplaces, and issued reams of printed and roneo'ed matter. But the divergences between its military and civilian members, between some of the statesmen and those who professed to represent the working-classes and described themselves as 'nous, les militants ouvriers,' proved insurmountable. There were also serious differences of a national character, for although the members were supposed to be chosen not as national delegates, but as experts, often, alas, on the principle of lucus a non lucendo, many of them were semi-official spokesmen of their respective Governments. In other cases again they were apt to be disowned by their Governments, as occurred notably with regard to Lord Robert Cecil's proposal that, in order to make chemical warfare impossible, every State should undertake to publish all details concerning new discoveries in poison gas. National divergences were particularly conspicuous between the British and French delegates, the French being always obsessed by the fear of a German war of revanche, in which the former professed to disbelieve. Lord Robert Cecil's meritorious efforts to conciliate radically divergent views occasionally reminded readers of 'Pickwick' of the manner in which the editor of the Eatanswill Gazette' composed his article on Chinese metaphysics.

The Second Assembly (1921) recommended the various Governments to limit their military budgets, and asked the T.M.C. to prepare a definite plan for the reduction of armaments. In its report to the Third Assembly (1922) the T.M.C. declared that, in order to make disarmament possible, some form of security against aggression was indispensable, and suggested a treaty of mutual assistance for that purpose. This statement undoubtedly did mark

an advance towards a somewhat more practical conception of the problem. The Third Assembly embodied the proposal in its 14th Resolution, in which the following principles were laid down:

1. No plan for the reduction of armaments can be successful unless it is general, i.e. unless adopted by all countries.

2. At the present time many Governments could not accept responsibility for such reduction without serious guarantees of security.

3. Such a guarantee might be secured by a defensive agreement open to all countries, who would thereby undertake to go at once to the assistance of any country which should be the victim of aggression, with the reservation that such obligation be limited, as a general principle, to countries situated in the same Continent or part of the world as the one attacked.

4. Consent to reduce armaments is the preliminary condition of the treaty.

The Council of the League was requested to ask the opinion of the various Governments on these proposals, and the T.M.C. was instructed to continue its work.

The reservation contained in paragraph 3 had been inserted to satisfy overseas countries, especially the British Dominions, thereby attenuating the significance of Article 10 of the Covenant, which had indeed been the chief obstacle to the entry of the United States into the League.

The T.M.C. during 1923 elaborated a scheme on the basis of Resolution 14. In the course of its work Lord Robert Cecil presented a plan for a general treaty of mutual guarantee among all States. Colonel Réquin, the French military expert, presented another whereby the various Powers were permitted to contract separate alliances providing for immediate mutual assistance in case of aggression. On the basis of these proposals the Third Commission of the Fourth Assembly presented a draft treaty of mutual guarantee, which the plenary Assembly decided, on Oct. 25, 1923, to communicate to the Governments for their opinion, without actually adopting it. This new scheme provided for a general treaty, to be supplemented in the case of certain States particularly exposed to aggression by special agreements; each State was to estimate the extent of the

reduction of its own armaments made possible by these guarantees, and the Council, on that basis, would draw up a plan of the reductions to be effected, the various States undertaking to carry them out within the period fixed; thus the guarantee would come into force.

This draft treaty was an attempt to conciliate the general aspiration that some real reduction of armaments should be effected with the fears of France and of some other States lest their own even partial disarmament should offer possibilities of aggression. The inclusion of the clause sanctioning special agreements was introduced out of deference to the desires of the French delegates, who did not much believe in the efficacy of a general treaty of guarantee, and preferred to rely on the special military agreements with individual Powers which could be made to come into operation much more rapidly. But this clause alarmed some of the other delegates, who feared that it implied a return to the old system of alliances, and were convinced that France had insisted on it only in order to secure the League's blessing for the secret military conventions which she had notoriously concluded with sundry East European States, with the object of encircling Germany in a hostile ring and warding off any possibility of revanche, and perhaps also of keeping a menace against Italy up her sleeve. During the year 1924 twenty-seven Governments sent in their observations on the Draft Treaty, most of which were not very encouraging, and on July 5 the British Government, then under the leadership of Mr Ramsay MacDonald, definitely rejected it, thereby sealing its fate.

At the meeting of the Fifth Assembly, in September 1924, Mr MacDonald explained his reasons for rejecting the treaty, and raised the question of compulsory arbitration which he regarded as the only solution of the problem, adding that the admission of Germany to the League was closely bound up with disarmament. The French Premier, M. Herriot, defended the Draft Treaty ; but declared his acceptance of the principle of compulsory arbitration. He stated that for France the three terms arbitration, security, and disarmament were inseparable. The British point of view was thus based on arbitration and the consequent reduction of land