I

THE TREATY OF PEACE

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into a body merely for wasting time? If all theparties to the Treaty are unanimously of opinionthat it requires alteration in a particular sense,it does not need a League and a Covenant toput the business through. Even when theAssembly of the League is unanimous it canonly “advise” reconsideration by the membersspecially affected.

But the League will operate, say its sup-porters, by its influence on the public opinionof the world, and the view of the majority willcarry decisive weight in practice, even thoughconstitutionally it is of no effect. Let us praythat this be so. Yet the League in the handsof the trained European diplomatist may be-come an unequalled instrument for obstructionand delay. The revision of Treaties is en-trusted primarily, not to the Council, whichmeets frequently, but to the Assembly, whichwill meet more rarely and must become, as anyone with an experience of large Inter-AllyConferences must know, an unwieldy polyglotdebating society in which the greatest resolu-tion and the best management may fail alto-gether to bring issues to a head against anopposition in favour of the status quo. Thereare indeed two disastrous blots on the Cove-nant,—Article V., which prescribes unanimity,and the much-criticised Article X., by which“The Members of the League undertake torespect and preserve as against external ag-gression the territorial integrity and existingpolitical independence of all Members of the