such a prominent specialist on international law as the American, Edwin Borchard, as absolutely inimical to peace and as the child of the hysteria of our age;16 and the collapse may have had various causes; it is certain that the above-mentioned three world powers testified at the beginning of September 1939 to the collapse the complete collapse-and that they did not in fact do this as a consequence of the German-Polish war.

1. On the 7 September 1939 the British Foreign Office told the Secretary-General of the League of Nations:17

The British Government had assumed the obligation on the 5 February 1930 to appear before the Permanent International Court of Justice at the Hague whenever an action is brought against Great Britain, i.e., also in the case of actions which other states might bring on account of conduct by which Great Britain had, in the opinion of the plaintiff, violated international law during a war. The British government had accepted this regulation because it had relied on the machinery of collective security created by the League of Nations Covenant and the Pact of Paris functioning: because, if it did function-and as England would of course not conduct any forbidden wars and her opponent would on the contrary be the aggressor-a collision between England and those states that were faithful to the security machinery could not possibly be caused by the actions of British seapower.18 However the British government had been disappointed in what it relied on: Ever since the League Assembly of 1938, it had no longer been possible to doubt that the security machinery would not function: on the contrary, it had in fact collapsed completely: a number of members of the League had already declared their strict neutrality before the outbreak of war:

"The entire machinery intended to maintain peace has broken down."19

I shall still have to show how right the British government was in the conclusions it drew. It should not be forgotten that the British Premier, Neville Chamberlain, had already proclaimed on the 22 February 1938 in the House of Commons, i.e. before the

10 Neutrality and Unneutrality (A.J., vol. 32, (1938) p. 778, seq/App. II, Exhibit 53, p. 151, passages (2) (3) (1), and p. 154 passage (15). 17 See App. I, Exhibit 33, page 98, including the Memorandum on the Signature by His Majesty's Government in the United Kingdom of the Optional Clause of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice (Cmd.3452.) Miscellaneous No. 12 (1929), an extract of which is given here as Exhibit 34 of App. I (page 102).

18 App. I, Exhibit 33, page 98, passage (1) page 99, passages (2) and (3) and Exhibit 34, page 102 seq. It is the same train of thought developed by BRIERLY, Some Implications of the Pact of Paris (Br. YB 1929), App. II, Exhibit 44, page 126, passages (14), (15).

10 "Tout le mecanisme prevu pour le maintien de la paix s' est disloque. App I, Exhibit 33, page 99, passages (4) and page 100, passages (3) and (6).

3. The President of the United States stated on 5 September 1939 that there existed a state of war between several states with whom the United States lived in peace and friendship, namely Germany on the one hand and Great Britain, France, Poland, India and two of the British Dominions on the other hand. Everyone in the United States was bound to obey the neutrality regulations most strictly.

From the time of the preliminary negotiations, it was known in the United States that Europe, and particularly Great Britain and France, saw the main value of the pact outlawing war in the fact that the United States would take action in case of a breach of the pact. The British Foreign Minister stated this on 30 August 1928, i.e., four weeks previous to the signing of the pact. During the deliberations of the American Senate on the ratification of the pact, Senator Moses particularly drew attention to this 26. Senator Borah affirmed at the time that it was completely impossible to imagine that the United States would calmly stand by.27 After the discredited failures of the policy of collective security in the case of Manchuria and Abyssinia the world had understood the now famous "quarantine" speech of President Franklin Roosevelt of 5 October 1937 and the "Stop Hitler!" warnings of the same President before and after "Munich" as an announcement that the United States would act on the next occasion. The declaration of neutrality of 5 September 1939 could therefore only mean: Like Great Britain and the Soviet Union, the United States accepts as a fact the collapse of the system of collective security.

This declaration of neutrality has often been looked upon as the death blow for the system. The Washington government could reject such a reproach as unjustified. For the system had already been dead for years, in so far as one believes at all that it was ever actually alive. But many did not see the fact that it was not alive at the moment, until the blinding light of the American declaration of neutrality fell upon it.

On the 1 September 1939 a decision had already been reached long before about the various experiments which had been tried since the first World War to replace the "anarchic world order"

27

App. I, Exhibit 13, page 53, passages (30) and (33). See also Ellery C. Shotwell, Responsibility of the United States in Regard to International Cooperation for the Prevention of Aggression (A.J. vol. 26, 1932, p. 113.) App. II, Exhibit 44, p. 127, passage (16). See also Brierly, J.L., Some Implications of the Pact of Paris (Br. YB 1929) He thinks that a violation of neutrality is impossible. (App. II, Exhibit 44, p. 127, passage (10) and (12). In 1936 the same thought was expressed by the Englishman McNair: Collective Security (Br.Y.B/App. II, Exhibit 49, page 143, passage (3).