Welsh Journals

dispute, refused to make use of the machinery of the League. This proposal, whilst it opens many questions too intricate to be dealt with here, deserves very careful consideration as being one of the few constructive suggestions put forward by responsible statesmen for dealing with the present state of chaos in European affairs. Then there is Russia, Russia which has split up into a number of practically auto- nomous Soviet Republics. When will she join, and how? As one State? Is that possible when she consists of a federation of semi- independent Republics each governing a large area of territory? And if not, then how will the other Member States view the granting to Russia of several votes instead of one? Another matter closely affecting the future of the League is the question of whether it should be able to command the services of an armed force to deal with any nation which, in a time of crisis, might threaten to repudiate its pledges under the Covenant. The case for the organi- sation of such a force has been ably set out in the January number of Headway (the monthly journal of the League of Nations Union) by Mr. David Davies of Llandinam, to whose un- selfish devotion the work of the League of Nations Union in Wales owes so much. In the February number the case against the establish- ment of such a force is put by Mr. Herbert Fisher, at one time Minister of Education, and one of my fellow delegates to the Assembly at Geneva in 1922. Mr. David Davies's argument is this: that the conception of force as a sanction is accepted in the life of every nation, and that it should be applied to the field of international relations, that disarmament cannot be effected so long as a sense of insecurity exists, and that this sense of insecurity will continue to exist until the League has a force to back its decisions. As to the nature of such a force, he suggests nothing less than a merging of the national armies and navies of to-day into an international police force." Member States of the League are to pool their military establish- ments in defence of the Covenant," and he calls for a clear policy that shall embody this scheme. In reply Mr. Fisher points out that Mr. Davies's suggestions are based upon two assumptions. First, that the League is universal. How, he asks, will nations that stand outside the League view the creation of such a force? Would they not see a possible danger to them- selves, and how would the Member States view the surrendering of their individual armed forces to the League when great and powerful nations exist who have not accepted the Covenant and who remain unbound by its obligations? The second assumption is that a revolutionary change has taken place in the political morality of the 54 nations who are members of the League to- day. Mr. Fisher thinks it might be possible to move forward by three stages-first to the limitation by agreement of the peace-effectives, then to the provision of an international force recruited on the quota system, to be used in certain eventualities by the League, and finally to the merging of national armies and navies into a force controlled by the League. He asks why it should be considered possible to reach the third stage at a bound when the members of the League are seriously haggling about the first. He goes on to point out that such a force, if created, would presumably be under the control of the Assembly during one month of the year, and of the Council during eleven months of the year, and he asks how such an arrangement could be regarded as satisfactory by the nations not represented on the Council, and how the Parliaments, which to-day make some difficulty in voting the contributions required of them for the general purposes of the League, would be found willing to vote the larger sums which would be required for such an international force. He thinks that the adoption of Mr. Davies's scheme would imperil the special appeal which the League to-day makes to the heart and conscience of mankind, that it would deter America from ever entering the League, and that it would be violently unpopular in many quarters among the nations already within it. He points out that the League already has sanctions of which it can make use. There is the commercial sanction which can amount to an actual blockade, and in the last resort the mili- tary sanctions, which may be as strong as the united power of all the Member States can make them. Such are some of the arguments for and against the organisation of a permanent League armed force. Another determining factor in shaping the future development of the League is the question of which of two conceptions of its functions wins its way to general acceptance. One would make the League the instrument of God, an institution dominating international relations in sovereign fashion, defining what is right, administering justice, and so forth. The other would have the League considered only as a new diplomatic machine of limited utility, supplementary to other diplomatic machinery. As an instance of the latter point of view, the action of the British Government in regard to the dispute between Greece and Italy last Sep- tember is an unfortunate example. Our Govern- ment was dealing with the matter through the League, both in the Council and in the Assembly, their accredited representative at that time being Lord Robert Cecil. Great pressure was being brought to bear on Italy at Geneva as the result of the wide-spread and clearly expressed feeling among the members of the Assembly against the unfair treatment meted out to Greece. And