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1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/League of Nations

LEAGUE OF NATIONS.—The Covenant of the League of Nations, incorporated in the Peace Treaty in 1919, was perhaps the most remarkable of all the direct results of the World War.

The League of Nations may be regarded as a necessary result of the development of human society in political organizations. It is not an abnormal achievement of human idealism—a great leap in advance beyond the achievements of the present age, outstripping the practical needs and requirements of the world. On the contrary, it is a practical method for achieving practical ends which are of importance to every citizen of every country. The demand for an international organization to prevent war has often been made in the last four centuries after any great European conflict. Fundamentally, this demand is that the relation of these States among themselves shall be subjected to something analogous to the system of law and order to which men have subjected themselves within the smaller units in which they live. It is an illustrative commentary on the maxim of the Roman lawyers—ubi societas ibi lex. But the purpose and the content of these rules for the conduct of their relations—the lex—necessarily depend on the nature of the units of the society

and on the nature of their relations. When Grotius, for example, wrote his famous work on the Law of Nations, he was writing of a Society of States whose intercourse was disturbed by the continual outbreak of hostility. Indeed, Europe had been convulsed by the Thirty Years' War for a whole generation prior to the publication of his work. Thus it was natural and indeed inevitable that the rules which Grotius produced for the guidance of the Society of States, as he knew it, amounted to little more than a code of laws for the better conduct of war. He did indeed sketch the outlines of a law for the pacific relations of States, and in the following century and a half his successors developed to some extent what he had begun. But only after the Napoleonic wars was the first serious attempt made to establish an organized system of conducting international affairs with a view to the avoidance of war. To Alexander of Russia's scheme of a Holy Alliance we need only briefly allude. Though admirable in intention it was rejected as “sublime nonsense and mysticism” by Castlereagh, and it eventually degenerated into a mere prop of despotism supported by the empires of Central Europe and France. But the work of Castlereagh is worthy of closer attention. He tried to substitute for the chaotic political methods of the past a system of diplomacy by conference, confining his efforts, however, to the Great Powers; though he desired to make their attitude to the Smaller Powers one of “influence rather than authority.” He provided his “Conference of Ambassadors” with an organized plan of work and with a secretariat, and he supplemented it by occasional Conferences of the Principal Statesmen of the Concert. His Conference of Ambassadors continued to sit in one form or another for almost six years, and he held four or five of his Conferences of Principal Statesmen.

Later in the 19th century Castlereagh's work bore fruit in the European Concert, which proved on a number of occasions to be an effective instrument for the joint settlement of Balkan problems and for the maintenance of European peace. But at the time, and for the purpose for which he had created it, Castlereagh's system of diplomacy by conference almost completely failed. It did so because it never had in it the seeds of life. Its members differed fundamentally on all the greater issues of international politics; while some of them were independent and autocratic sovereigns, subject to no control, and without the pressure behind them of a general democratic will for peace. Indeed the paramount cause of failure, not only of the vague and mystic ideas of Alexander, but also of the more practical and definite schemes of Castlereagh, was that they were not backed by the force of a strong, persistent, instructed public opinion.

Since the Napoleonic wars, forces have been at work which have slowly changed the economic condition of the world—knitting its many parts together, and making more and more possible an international political organization, which shall exist side by side with the economic organization already created. The first of these forces is the revolution in communications which has occurred in the course of the last century, and which has brought the most remote parts of the world nearer to each other than neighbouring towns were a hundred years ago. The second of the forces—in a sense it is the result of the first—is the remarkable raising of the standards of civilization through the coöperation of mankind in ever larger groups and in enterprises conceived and conducted on an ever greater scale. To-day no part of the world can live without the rest; and a greater proportion of the world's commerce is conducted by vast international companies. Thus we have a general community of interests between human beings living in different States. It was evident before the World War—and if it were not, the war proved it to demonstration—that the interests of any one civilized country are indissolubly bound up with those of every other country, and no sensible statesman will ever again base his policy on the principle that his country will gain by another's loss.

Nor is this community of interests between peoples confined to their material well-being. It extends to every sort of scientific, political and moral activity in which men coöperate for the progress of their race. The revolution in communications, which is still in progress, rapidly destroying the factors of space

and time, has rendered possible a development of warfare which has changed its whole character, and rendered it universal in a sense never hitherto imagined. Withal, “science,” as Lord Esher remarks, “sleepless, restless and revolutionary, is exploring every day new methods of destruction, and opening up avenues to novel tactics, rendering certain that war in the future will be waged with weapons hitherto undreamt of, fought in the air and under the water by contrivances which will render those of 1918 as obsolete as gunpowder rendered bows and bills.” Thus it is not too much to assert that another world war would almost certainly throw mankind back into the dark ages. For these among other reasons some sort of international organization for the conduct of the relations of States is essential, if the human race is not to abandon the hopes and the ideals for which it has striven during centuries of progress.

Essential Conditions.—With the reasons for the failure of the earlier scheme of a century before, and with the nature of modern national States in our minds, we can perhaps now proceed to lay down the essentials of a league of nations.

It may be taken as commonly accepted that the purposes and objects of a league are the following:—First, the maintenance of peace. Second, and as a corollary to the first, the solution of international disputes by methods of law, if and when the necessary law exists; when it does not, their solution by political methods, by public debate, by impartial investigation and by conciliation on the basis of the accepted canons of right and justice. Third, the promotion of international coöperation wherever necessary or useful, between States and between the citizens of different States. The promotion of such coöperation will imply the development of rules and the general acceptance of common machinery and common practice in ever wider spheres of international activity. Further, a first principle which must be borne continually in mind is that the fundamental basis of all law, and the primary condition of all political organization, is the consent of those who are to obey it. And an important and relevant corollary of the proposition is that the force, even the united force, of the greater or more powerful members of a society cannot in the long run coerce the will, or replace the consent, of the others. It is useless, therefore, to plan any organism which depends on the coöperation of the powerful States, but which will not also receive the willing acceptance and coöperation of the great body of other States.

An examination of the results of these limiting conditions, and of the lessons to be drawn from historical experience, and of the accepted objects which it is desirable that a league should achieve, will perhaps indicate to us without further discussion the minimum of rules and of machinery which is essential.

In the first place, then, there must be rules laying down the conditions of membership of the League. As the members of the League, in order to carry out the objects which they agree upon, must give reciprocal undertakings, they must have some guarantee that those with whom they associate themselves are willing and able to carry out what they promise. Next, it is essential that all the members should enter into agreements to meet in full conference from time to time. Third, it will in practice be necessary, and even in theory it is most desirable, that there should be some smaller organ than the full conference of all the members, which in the current business of the League, and when executive action is required, can represent the whole body of the members. It is evident that the composition of such an executive organ will—in a society in which members are so unequal in size, population and power—involve most difficult problems of representation. And a further consequence of any attempt to organize international affairs through regular conferences of all the members of the League, and through a smaller executive organ, is the necessity for a secretariat which shall be charged with the duty of preparing the work of the organs of the League, which shall act as a central exchange for information among members of the League and shall organize the central and technical services for conferences and for the meetings of the executive organ. The secretariat would also have to keep the records of the League, supervise the execution of the League's decisions

and in general act as an organizing agency for the promotion of international coöperation. It is, perhaps, theoretically possible that these duties 'should be fulfilled by means of national secretariats attached to the representatives who compose the full conference or the executive organ of the League; but there are great practical advantages in an international secretariat whose members are individually independent.

The above represents the minimum machinery that is essential to the effective working of any league. We must next consider the minimum mutual obligations which the members of the League must assume if it is to prove an effective instrument for the maintenance of peace.

It is evidently essential that every member must agree that it will not go to war with any other member without previously submitting the dispute to peaceful methods of settlement, either through the instrumentality of the League or otherwise. Further, and as a corollary to this first undertaking, there must be a second one providing for common action against members who break this fundamental agreement. What the nature of this common action must be is a matter for discussion; but it must at the least provide for united and energetic moral pressure by the whole body of the League against the recalcitrant member. It may well be argued that in the world as it is to-day this united moral pressure should be supported in whatever way may be possible by united material pressure as well. What in any case is essential is to find some means of bringing home to every citizen of a member which breaks its League agreements the universal disapprobation of the other members. Thirdly, it is practically, if not theoretically, necessary to lay down in advance some method, or methods, for the settlement of disputes by peaceful means. Great elasticity may be left as to the nature of these methods, and as to the choice of method which the parties to a dispute may adopt. But the agreements of the League should include plans for settlement by conciliation, or arbitration, or judicial verdict; and these plans should be based on the essential principles by which alone moral pressure can be brought to bear on individuals or on Governments—that is to say, on strictly impartial inquiry into the merits of disputes, and on full publicity for the contentions of the parties and for the proceedings by which settlement is attempted.

It is further essential that the agreements of the League should include the automatic abrogation by members of all treaties or undertakings which are not consistent with their obligations as members of the League. No general organization such as a league of nations can operate or inspire confidence in its members if the undertakings to which they agree by their membership are overborne or superseded by other inconsistent agreements which they may enter into with individual States.

The organization and the undertakings indicated seem to constitute the minimum that can serve as the basis of any effective international organization for the prevention of war. Beyond this minimum, there are other things not absolutely essential, but highly desirable. For example, in the plans laid down for the settlement of disputes, it is necessary to make provision for settlement by conciliation, by arbitration and by judicial verdict. The last of these alternatives implies a court of international law. It is true that such a court might be set up ad hoc for any dispute in which it is required. But it is preëminently desirable that a permanent court of international justice should be established as part of the machinery of the League. Only such a permanent court can guarantee the full, absolute and unquestionable impartiality without which States will not submit their disputes to its jurisdiction. Further, such a court appears to be a necessity if we are to achieve the development of international law as an increasingly important factor in the relations between States.

Again, it is highly desirable, though it is not theoretically essential, that the agreements of the League should provide that any dispute, or any circumstances affecting the peace of the world, should be a matter of general concern to every member, so that any member may be within its right in demanding the consideration of any such matter by the organs of the League.

Interdependence of States had so far advanced during the course of the 19th century that this principle received some slight and tentative recognition in the international conventions for the peaceful settlement of international disputes drawn up by the conferences at The Hague. But the principle needs full recognition and application if countries are to be prevented from drifting into armed conflicts which, in these times, certainly will involve the interests of their neighbours.

And lastly, it is desirable, though again not essential, that the League should be given the necessary powers to enable it to act as the coordinating agency for the international activities of its members in all the multifarious spheres hitherto governed by international bureaux, by general treaties, and by other forms of official and unofficial coöperation.

Features of the League.—Impartial consideration of the Covenant of the League, first signed by the 32 signatories of the Treaty of Versailles, and accepted and acted upon by the 48 States who in 1921 were members of the League, will show that it embodies every one of the features which have been enumerated as the essentials of an effective league. It may further be said that where the Covenant goes beyond the essentials it does so in a way which was intended to make, and does make, for greater completeness and efficiency.

Article 1 of the Covenant consists of the rules of membership. It stipulates that the original members of the League shall be the signatories to the Covenant and such other States named in the annex thereto as shall accede to it without reservation; and that any fully self-governing State, dominion or colony may become a member if its admission is agreed to by two-thirds of the members, and provided that it shall give effective guarantees of its sincere intention to observe its international obligations and shall accept the regulations of the League in regard to its military forces. Article 1 also makes provision for the withdrawal after two years' notice of any member who wishes to abandon its membership. These rules constitute a statement of the principles concerning membership that are essential if the members of the League are to have confidence that their mutual undertakings will be carried out.

With regard to agreements to meet in conference, Articles 2, 3 and 4 of the Covenant stipulate for the creation of an assembly consisting of three representatives of each member of the League, and for a smaller council consisting of representatives of four Great Powers and of four smaller ones. The Covenant does not lay down the intervals at which these bodies shall meet: it merely stipulates that the Assembly shall meet at stated intervals and from time to time as occasion may require; and that the Council shall meet in the same way, and at least once a year. It leaves these questions to be dealt with in whatever rules of procedure the Council and the Assembly may respectively consider it wise to adopt.

The question of representation of the members at the Assembly was one which naturally involved serious difficulties. It was solved by according to every member an equal right to send three representatives. There was considerable discussion when the Covenant was being drafted as to whether three was a sufficiently large number. In practice this point has been dealt with in a way indicated later on.

The question of representation on the Council was still more difficult. A definite preponderance of influence in international affairs had been recognized prior to the war on the part of the Great Powers of the world. It was inevitable, and surely right, that the Great Powers who are members of the League should be accorded permanent representation on its principal executive organ, and this has been done. The representation of the smaller Powers—an exceedingly difficult matter—was dealt with in a way which in practice seems likely to prove quite satisfactory, namely by providing that the four non-permanent members of the Council shall be selected by the Assembly from time to time in its discretion.

Articles 6 and 7 provide for the necessary secretariat, and for the nomination of a secretary-general who shall make all the appointments to the secretariat with the approval of the Council,

and who shall act as secretary at all the meetings of the Assembly and of the Council. These Articles also provide that every position in the secretariat shall be open to women.

So much for the institutional organization of the League as it is established by the Covenant.

With regard to the agreements not to resort to war, which are included above among the essentials, the Covenant embodies practically everything that any responsible authority had advocated as practicable. By Article 12 the members agree that if there should arise between them any dispute likely to lead to a rupture, they will submit the matter either to arbitration or to inquiry by the Council, and they agree that they will in no case resort to arms until three months after an award has been made by the arbitrators or a report has been made by the Council. Article 12 thus not only embodies an agreement not to go to war without previous recourse to peaceful methods of settlement for disputes, but also lays down two alternative procedures by which, through the agency of the League, settlement can be effected. The first is ambiguously referred to as “arbitration,” but it is evident from Articles 13 and 14 that the use of the word “arbitration” is a loose one, and that what is really intended is recourse to legal decision. For Article 13 proceeds to give a definition of disputes which the members recognize to be “generally suitable for submission to arbitration”; and this definition is textually that agreed to by various high authorities in international law as the best that can be devised for disputes which may be called “juridical,” i.e. suitable for decision by means of legal verdict. Further, while Article 13 leaves the parties free to choose any court or board of arbitration to which they may agree for the judicial settlement of their disputes, Article 14 nevertheless charges the Council with formulating, and submitting to the members of the League for adoption, plans for the establishment of a permanent court of international justice which shall be competent to hear any dispute of an international character which the parties thereto submit to it. While, therefore, these two Articles leave great elasticity, it is evident that the intention was to lay down a normal legal procedure, and to secure the establishment of a permanent international court to which the parties should, in the normal course, take disputes of a legal nature. There is, moreover, at the end of Article 14 a clause which greatly increases the value of the Permanent Court. This clause provides that the Court may also give an advisory opinion upon any dispute or question referred to it by the Council or by the Assembly. It is evident that in the course of a dispute one party may maintain that a whole or a part of the question at issue is juridical in nature, and should be determined on legal grounds. If one of the parties put forward such a contention and were able to support it by sound arguments, there is no doubt that the Council would act on the final clause of Article 14 and would submit the question to the Court for an advisory opinion; and it is to be particularly noted that they could do this as a matter of procedure, and, therefore, by a majority vote. If, then, a litigant should bring to the League a dispute in which it believes the law to be on its side, it will be able to demand, even if the other party does not agree, that the Council shall secure on the juridical questions at issue an advisory opinion from the Court: and the Court in rendering this opinion will give the Council the elements for a decision which would have all the force of a legal verdict.

Thus, while avoiding the pitfall of “obligatory arbitration,” which very few of the States of the world at the present time are ready to accept, the Covenant includes provisions which go very far towards securing that all international disputes of a genuinely legal nature shall be determined by legal methods.

With regard to the other alternative method provided for the settlement of disputes, which members agree to by Article 12, that is to say, inquiry by the Council, Article 15 lays down in considerable detail the procedure which is to be adopted. It provides that any party to a dispute can oblige the League to take cognizance of it by giving notice to the Secretary-General, who is then obliged to make all the necessary arrangements for a full investigation and consideration thereof. The parties

to communicate to the Secretary-General as promptly as possible statements of their case, with all the relevant facts and papers. The Council is then given discretion to endeavour to effect a settlement of the dispute, and it is provided that if its efforts are successful, a statement shall be made public giving such an account of the dispute and of the settlement arrived at as the Council may deem proper. If the Council fails to settle the dispute, it is to make a report setting forth the merits of the dispute and the recommendations which the Council thinks would be suitable for a settlement, and this report is to be published. A report may be made either unanimously or by a majority vote, and any individual member of the League which is represented on the Council has a right to make its own public statement concerning the dispute and the conclusions which it draws from them. There is a further provision in Article 15 to the effect that if such a report is agreed to by the Council unanimously, with the exception of the representatives of one or more of the parties to the dispute, the members of the League—including the parties—agree that they will not go to war with any party to the dispute who complies with the provisions of the report. This is a most important additional limitation of the right of members to resort to arms. Article 15 also provides for an appeal to the Assembly, conditional on its being made within 14 days after the submission of the dispute to the Council. If a dispute is so referred to the Assembly, the Assembly is to deal with the matter in the same way as the Council, with this exception, that if a report is agreed to in the Assembly by all the members of the League represented on the Council, and by a majority of the other members of the League, exclusive in each case of the representatives of the parties to the dispute, the report shall have the same force as a unanimous report agreed to by the Council. In other words, the members of the League must not go to war with any of the parties to the dispute which accept it. These Articles, then, provide two, or rather three, methods by which disputes can be settled by peaceful means through the agency of the League. The first of these methods provides for legal verdicts, when such verdicts are possible and useful; the second provides for arbitration by some other tribunal agreed to by the parties to a dispute; and the third, for settlement by the political agency of the Council or the Assembly, in accordance with procedure based on the principles of full publicity and strict impartiality. It may perhaps be observed that publicity will of itself ensure impartiality; for it is not conceivable that a council, acting as the representative of the whole body of the League and in circumstances of utmost publicity, should conduct its inquiries into a dispute in any way not consistent with the strictest fairness to all the parties concerned.

Articles 12 to 15 also make provision for the next essential of a league—united pressure by all the members against any of their number which disregards its undertakings. In providing for a public report by the Council on the merits of a dispute and for the publication of its recommendations as to a settlement, the Covenant lays down a method which, in practice, must exert the strongest moral pressure on any State which in defiance of Article 12 is disposed to go to war. Anyone who knows how great a factor in the conduct of international affairs the public opinion of the Society of States was, even prior to 1914, will realize that such a verdict of the organized opinion of the world is bound to be a weapon of great power.

But the Covenant goes beyond this, and provides in Article 16 that, if any member of the League in contravention of its agreements resorts to arms, such a member is ipso facto “deemed to have committed an act of war against all other members of the League,” and the other members are obliged to prevent all financial, commercial or personal intercourse between the nationals of the Covenant-breaking State and the nationals of any other State. It was difficult in the disturbed condition of the world during 1919-21 to realize just what would be the effect of such a complete economic and financial boycott in times of normal peace. But it is not too much to say that no civilized State would, in 1914, have ventured to declare war had it been threatened by such a universal boycott as Article 16 stipulates.

It may be held that in providing for such a universal boycott, the Covenant goes beyond the essentials of a league. It may even be held that it goes beyond what is practicable and wise. Certainly it is a matter which will give rise to the gravest problems, and on which, indeed, the League had in 1921 already found it necessary to appoint a commission to determine the precise obligations of the members and to recommend the machinery required for their fulfilment. But it must be remembered that Article 16 only comes into force in the case of a State insisting on going to war without waiting for any attempt at peaceful settlement such as is provided for in Articles 12, 13 and 15, or where the agreed tribunal or a unanimous council have given a decision which has been accepted by the other party. In other cases ultimate resort to war is envisaged as possible.

And the Covenant goes even further than this in making provision for pressure on recalcitrant members of the League.

Article 16 further lays down that in addition to the blockade, which is an automatic obligation of all the members of the League, the Council shall consider and shall recommend to the several Governments concerned, what effective military, naval or air forces members of the League shall severally contribute to the armed forces to be used to protect the Covenant. In other words, while leaving again the greatest possible elasticity, and while laying no positive obligation on any member to contribute military force, the Covenant yet definitely foreshadows united military action against a Covenant-breaking State.

To turn to another matter, the Covenant provides by Article 20 for the abrogation of treaties, obligations and understandings which are inconsistent with its own terms, and thus meets, in yet another particular, the essentials of a league.

How far, and in what respects, does the Covenant go beyond what we have recognized to be these essentials?

To begin with perhaps the most important point of all, there are the much-discussed provisions of Article 10. This Article has been very generally misunderstood. It has been widely proclaimed as containing the central and essential obligation of the whole Covenant—an obligation, moreover, which most States are unlikely to accept in practice and which, indeed, they would be right in refusing. This is quite untrue. As a matter of fact the great objection to it is that it has little actual effect while appearing to mean a great deal. It does not create, as has been thought, an obligation on all the members of the League to maintain by force of arms the existing territorial and political arrangement of the world. It does indeed guarantee the members against external aggression which would impair their territorial integrity or political independence. But this guarantee is only to be enforced, if at all, as the Council acting unanimously shall agree. In practice the protection against sudden and unjust attacks provided by Articles 12-16 will be much more useful. Article 10, when closely examined, will be found to be little more than a rather clumsy assertion that territorial or political changes ought not to be made by aggressive warfare. Such changes, if required, should be made under Article 19, which enables the Assembly to reconsider treaties which have become obsolete or dangerous to peace.

It may perhaps with more show of reason be said that, by the provisions of Article 8 on the subject of armaments, the Covenant introduces something which is extraneous to an agreement to preserve the peace. But the history of the 20th century has already demonstrated that if you prepare for war you will have war; that increase of armaments in one country provokes increase of armaments in other countries, and that if rivalry in preparation for war continues, within a certain time war will break out. Unless the rivalry in armaments can be prevented, any league of nations, however it be constituted, will fail. Doubtless complete disarmament is not practicable or probable at an early date. But an agreement not to engage in unlimited competition on the development of armaments is absolutely necessary to the peace of the world. The Covenant deals with the matter in a way which is preeminently practical and sane. It recognizes that the maintenance of peace requires the reduction of national armaments to the lowest point consistent with national

safety and directs the Council to formulate plans for such reduction for the consideration of the several members of the League. In other words, the members agree to coöperate in working out a general international plan embodying scales in accordance which with their armaments shall be limited or reduced. Further, the members agree that they will, through the League, endeavour to take measures for abolishing the evil effects of the private manufacture of armaments and material of war, and they agree to exchange full information as to their armaments, their preparations for war, and the condition of their industries which may be adapted to warlike purposes. Lastly, by Article 23 they agree that, subject to conventions to be arranged, the international traffic in arms, admittedly one of the minor contributing causes of war, shall be placed under the League's supervision.

These are only general principles. In themselves they would be of small value. But the Covenant, by Article 9, establishes a Permanent Commission to advise the Council in working them out in detail and securing their effective application. It may fairly be hoped that this machinery will in time enable the members of the League to give effect to the purpose of Article 8; and if so, great strides will undoubtedly be made towards the disarmament which everyone desires. In this respect, as in others, the authors of the Covenant were careful not to travel too fast; they laid foundations on which those who were to wield authority in the League could later build.

By providing in Article 18 for the publication of all treaties, the Covenant again goes beyond essentials. Yet no reasonable man can doubt that, under the diplomatic system which prevailed before 1914, secret treaties of alliance, directly by mere existence and indirectly through mistrust which they created, were one of the serious causes of international conflict.

Article 22 of the Covenant introduces a new principle into international affairs which is certainly extraneous to the central purpose of a league. The mandates system which it creates is a great experiment in the government by advanced peoples of backward territories and races. The main principles are simple. The Article is based on the proposition that backward peoples and territories are not for the future to be exploited for the exclusive benefit of those who govern them; that, on the contrary, their interests and well-being constitute a sacred trust of civilization, and that the way in which they are ruled is a matter of interest to the world at large. The Article therefore lays down that in the government of such territories the interests and progress of the inhabitants must be the guiding purpose of the administration. The methods by which their interests are to be protected and their development secured vary, of course, in every case with the nature of the territory and the character of the people concerned. But in every case the fundamental principles are the same; and to secure the observance of them the Covenant imposes on the mandatories a duty to make annual reports for submission to a permanent mandates commission; which is, in turn, to report to the Council. Here, again, the Covenant relies on publicity and public opinion as a guarantee that Article 22 will be faithfully carried into effect.

With regard to international coöperation, the Covenant in Articles 23 and 24 goes a great deal further than might be considered essential. It provides in general terms for the establishment of a labour organization (which in fact has been elaborated separately by another agreement); for the equitable treatment of commerce; for the development of freedom of transit; for League supervision of the traffic in arms; for League action in matters of public health; and for the general supervision by the League of all official, and also, if necessary or useful, of unofficial, international offices established for international purposes of general interest. There is no need to deal in detail with the provisions of these Articles. Their general effect is to make the League what it is clearly desirable that it should be—a central organism through which international activities of every sort can be coördinated and when useful assisted by the Council and the Secretariat. There can be no doubt that the result of this must be to prevent waste of effort and promote efficiency in the conduct of international business of every kind.

In the last place the Covenant, by Article 26, provides a method by which it can itself be amended; and this, it may be held, is not an essential of a league. It is true that the Covenant might have been regarded as an ordinary international treaty, valid, as most treaties are now made, for a certain fixed period, at the end of which it might have been renewed or changed by the ordinary methods. But it was precisely because the authors of the Covenant did not regard it as an ordinary international treaty that they provided a special means for amendment; and there can be no doubt-that morally Article 26 is of great significance, and that practically it may prove to be of great constitutional value. It still leaves it difficult to secure amendment of the terms of the Covenant. It can only be done if all the members of the Council and the majority of the members of the Assembly are agreed. But the fact that amendment is definitely envisaged is in itself important, and the proceedings of the Amendments Commission established last year by the first Assembly, which will report for the acceptance of the next Assembly certain amendments of importance, have demonstrated the essential soundness of the conception of Article 26.

Generally, it may be said that when the Covenant goes oeyond the essential features which are necessary to any effective league to preserve peace, it does so with one of two objects in view. Either it is with the purpose of giving real life to the machinery which it establishes: of bringing the international forces actually at work into effective coöperation, in order that members of the League may be brought closer together, and the League itself be strengthened and have the vitality that comes from continuous and varied work; or else it is with the purpose of removing those deep-seated causes which public opinion has recognized as having led to war. It is not by chance that the Covenant contains more or less elaborate provisions concerning armaments, the traffic in arms, annexation by conquest, the avoidance of unfair economic competition, imperial rivalry in the exploitation of backward countries, secret treaties and alliances. It is because these things have led to war in the past that the Covenant seeks to deal with them in a practical and effective way, to the end that war may be rendered less probable in the future.

It has already been said that the authors of the Covenant confined themselves to laying down the essentials of the organization which they considered the League required and the general rather than the detailed obligations to which they thought that members of the League must agree. Elasticity is one of the chief “notes” of the whole machinery of the League. The Council and the Assembly have been free to develop their own methods and systems as they chose, to appoint committees and commissions at their discretion, and to draw up codes of procedure which they could themselves change, and have thus been able to give to the general principles of the Covenant a free development on sound lines.

It is in pursuit of this same elasticity that in several cases the Council is charged to carry into execution plans which the authors of the Covenant felt to be essential, but which they were not themselves, for lack of time and for lack of expert technical advice, able immediately to develop. Much good has been done under these provisions.

It will perhaps be worth while to examine more in detail the working of the Covenant in action, and to examine it under three separate aspects: the first, the institutions of the League considered as political machinery; the second, the working of the Covenant in connexion with disputes; and the third, the activity of the League in the promotion of international coöperation.

The League in Action.—Of the two principal organs of the League, the Council was naturally the one which, up to the summer of 1921, had the best opportunity of proving in practice its working value. Meeting at Geneva, in the first 18 months of its existence, it held 13 sessions, many of which lasted a fortnight. Its members therefore had time to prove by experience whether or not the conception of the Council, as set forth in the Covenant, is right or not. There is probably no statesman who has sat as a member of the Council who would deny that it is an institution which has proved a success.

In its working there were, of course, great difficulties to be overcome. The first and most important of these was that of representation of the Governments entitled to seats on the Council. How was it to be—by ambassadors, by Cabinet ministers, by prime ministers? There is an evident difficulty in expecting a prime minister to give up so much time as the members of the Council had to give up during 1920-1 to their duties. There are no less solid objections to allowing the representation of members by ambassadors. Nevertheless, for far-distant countries—such as China and Japan—it is obvious that their coöperation can only be secured by representatives permanently residing in Europe, which, in practice, means their ambassadors; and of course the solution adopted by the European countries had varied. It is a matter which the Covenant leaves every country free to decide for itself. For the ordinary conduct of the affairs which come within the consideration of the League the solution acted on by Great Britain is probably the best one, namely that it should be represented by a Cabinet minister, whose duties are primarily to deal with all League of Nations business. He must act in close coöperation with the Foreign Office, even if he is not, as perhaps he should be, directly attached to it. When matters of first-class political or general importance are under discussion, it is eminently desirable that prime ministers or foreign ministers should themselves attend, and, if the League is to succeed, it will at great crises be essential that they should do so.

In a great deal of its work the Council required expert and technical study to enable it to take decisions, and to this end it adopted in a large number of cases a plan of appointing special temporary commissions to study the matter under discussion and to make a report. In practice this plan worked admirably. A striking example is the commission which prepared the project for the International Court of Justice. The Council appointed this commission, consisting of nine of the most eminent jurists in the world, and provided it with an expert secretariat. The Commission invited proposals, examined numerous schemes laid before them, prepared a detailed plan and submitted it, unanimously, for the consideration of the Council. The Council examined it, amended it in important particulars and presented it, in turn, to the Assembly. The Assembly again amended it, adopted it, and signed it in the form of an International Convention. It is a remarkable example of how the Council, by delegating technical work and by then taking the necessary political action on technical reports, can achieve results which, without the League, could not have been achieved.

The Council also adopted another method of delegating authority, namely, by the appointment of high commissioners. It appointed Dr. Nansen to act on its behalf in securing the repatriation of nearly half a million prisoners-of-war in Russia and Central Europe, who, 18 months after the Armistice, were still without prospect of being able to reach their homes. Dr. Nansen was able to coördinate the action of Governments, to obtain an international loan, to induce Governments and voluntary philanthropic societies to act harmoniously together, and, in general, to secure effective international coöperation in a sphere in which such coöperation could certainly have been achieved by no other means.

The Council also had to solve the problem of carrying on the detailed work and providing for the day-to-day decisions required by some of the administrative, or quasi-administrative, tasks which were entrusted to it. It solved this difficulty by entrusting its president with authority to take current decisions, in conjunction with the Secretary-General, and to exercise his own discretion as to when and how he must consult his colleagues by telegram or otherwise on any given matter. Thus, by means of a permanent secretariat, the difficulties of time and space are minimized.

On the whole it may be said that most of the very different tasks confided during its early existence to the Council were executed with a remarkable degree of unanimity and efficiency. The machine worked even better than it was expected to work and the advantages of continuous coöperation and discussion among the members were made increasingly plain.

The Assembly, considered as a political machine, was no less successful than the Council. Its first meeting was, indeed, a great event in the history of the world. No man could say beforehand what manner of thing it would prove to be. It might have been like previous international Conferences— remarkable for ill-prepared work, for formalism, and confused debate, or it might even have ended in disorder and sterility. Such was not the case. On the contrary, on the basis of the admirable preparatory work accomplished by the Council and the Secretariat, a very great amount of constructive work on the organization of the League and its subsidiary bodies was done. Some international agreements of the first importance were made. Compared with national parliaments the Assembly must be ranked very high, both for the order and interest of its debates— in spite of the difficulty of interpretation—and for the amount which it accomplished in the comparatively brief period of five weeks for which it sat. Most important of all, it created an international spirit, and an atmosphere of conciliation and coöperation, which were certainly unique in the history of international conferences, and augured well for the future of the League.

At the beginning of its labours the Assembly was bound to be faced by very difficult problems of its own internal organization. Obviously a great many items of its long agenda would have to be thrashed out in committee before they could be dealt with by the Assembly at large. It was also obvious that every country represented might wish to take part in any or all of these detailed preliminary discussions. That is to say, every country might wish to be represented on any, or all, of the Committees which the Assembly might set up. The following device was therefore adopted: the whole of the agenda was divided into six groups, and each of the groups was entrusted to a separate Commission. On each of these Commissions every member of the League had the right to one representative. Thus each delegate could serve on two of the Commissions (since each member can have three representatives), or could nominate a substitute to take his place. This system resulted in six Commissions which theoretically might each consist of 42 members, but at which, in practice, there was an attendance of from 25 to 40 members. These Commissions were not too large for the effective conduct of business; and yet they satisfied the legitimate desire of every country to be heard at all stages of every debate. In practice the Commissions studied the business put before them in great detail, and with great efficiency, and laid before the Assembly reports which, for the most part, were adopted as they stood. For some work it was of course necessary for the Commissions to appoint smaller Sub-Committees; but this in no way destroyed the control of every member over the detailed conduct of business.

For the general organization of the work of the Assembly, a central Committee or Bureau was appointed. This consisted of the President of the Assembly, the President of each of the six Commissions, and six other members elected by the Assembly at large. This body was responsible for settling the order of the agenda and for dealing with any current questions which arose. The system worked to the satisfaction of everyone. In its conduct of detailed practical business, no less than as a forum of international opinion, the Assembly fulfilled the best hopes that had been placed in it.

The Secretariat similarly proved in practice to be a sound working instrument. In many ways its task was more difficult even than that of the Council and of the Assembly. In accordance with the spirit of the Covenant, it was built up on lines as truly international as is consistent with the efficient conduct of its work. Over 20 nationalities were represented among its members, and yet the whole staff worked together harmoniously in pursuit of common ends. It was divided into sections, following the general division of the work which has been entrusted to the League. It is in no sense a rival to the Foreign Offices. It proved an efficient agency for the preparation of the work of the Council and of the Assembly, and for the execution of their decisions. Its work is greatly comph'cated by the fact that both French and English are official languages, and by the difficulties

of maintaining continuous contact with 48 different and distant States. Its work was none the less carried out in a spirit of devotion and with a degree of economy which earned the high approbation of a special Committee of Inquiry appointed by the Assembly.

The provisions of the Covenant with reference to disputes (Articles 11-17) had not yet been] put into application sufficiently for a conclusive opinion to be formed on them. But there was sufficient experience of their working to make it fair to claim that they are based on sound principles.

The Articles relating to the legal settlement of disputes had hardly as yet been tested. The plan laid down in Article 14 for the creation of the Court worked well. It is worthy of special note that nine States had by the middle of 1921 already agreed to give the Court obligatory jurisdiction in all juridical disputes which might arise between them.

Apart from this, one legal question was solved in 1921 by the League, which would have been referred to the Court had it been in existence. This was the question of the competence of the League to deal with the Åland Is. dispute. Finland claimed that the islands lay entirely within its sovereignty, and that therefore the League could not deal with the matter. As there was no Court, the Council referred this contention to a Commission of three eminent international lawyers, a Frenchman, a Dutchman and a Swiss. This Commission made an elaborate report and produced so great a body of convincing legal argument in support of the League's competence that their decision was never for one moment questioned even by Finland, against whom it went. It was a good demonstration of the value of judicial methods; and it indicates the great authority which the International Court may be expected to wield.

The provisions of the Covenant for the settlement of disputes by political methods (Article 15) had more extensive trial. Three disputes of first-rate importance had been dealt with by the League by Aug. 1921—the Åland Is. dispute, between Finland and Sweden; the Vilna dispute, between Poland and Lithuania; and the Albanian frontier dispute, between Albania, Serbia and Greece. Of these the first in date and importance was that of the Åland Is. It was laid before the League in the month of June 1920, at a moment when there was great tension between the parties tension which in the opinion of a good many competent judges was very likely to result in war. The Council's conduct of the matter afforded an illustration of the working of almost every provision in the Covenant that relates to the settlement of disputes. To begin with, the matter was brought to the League by the action of a third party—Great Britain—under the terms of Article 11; no better example could be wished for of the value of this Article. Next, the question of the legal competence of the League was referred by the Council, under Article 14, for an advisory opinion to a Commission of jurists representing the International Court. Next the Council appointed a political Commission of persons of high international authority, and of impeachable impartiality, to investigate the contentions of the parties and the merits of the dispute. This Commission spent several months on its inquiries, and passed a long time among the Åland Islanders themselves. As a result, they produced a remarkable report, against parts of which the Swedish Government strongly protested, but which nevertheless was recognized by public opinion as a fair and statesmanlike presentation of the facts and merits of the problem, and as a wide and practicable proposal for its solution. This report was published for the examination of the world at large as soon as it was laid before the Council. The matter was finally dealt with by the Council at its 13th session. The substance of the Commission's report was adopted as the Council's decision, and this in turn was accepted by all the parties. The Åland Islanders, whose representatives were themselves heard by the Council, secured guarantees from Finland amounting almost to autonomy, while the Swedish-speaking population of Finland secured protection, which, without the intervention of the League, they would not have done. Thus a very probable war was averted, and a path to friendly coöperation between close neighbours was

opened. Such was the result of the full application of the new methods of delay, publicity and impartial investigation which the Covenant provides.

The history of the Council's conduct of the Vilna dispute between Poland and Lithuania is less satisfactory. The matter was rendered far more difficult from the start by the fact that, immediately it was referred to the League, the Polish forces of Gen. Zeligowski executed a coup de force and occupied the area in dispute. The Polish Government repudiated Gen. Zeligowski, but have since tacitly admitted their responsibility for his actions. There are provisions in the Covenant which might have been applied to induce Poland to remove Zeligowski's forces from the territory he had unlawfully invaded. These provisions were not applied. Moreover, had greater publicity been given to the conduct of the dispute by the Council in its early stages, the parties would have found it difficult to maintain their unreasonable, and on some points unjustifiable, course of action. But, in spite of these difficulties and mistakes, the Council nevertheless succeeded in preventing the outbreak of war. If even induced the parties to continue direct negotiations under the presidency of a distinguished member of the Council. It unanimously adopted recommendations at its 13th session, which, if the parties accepted them, seemed likely to lead to the settlement of the dispute by methods of peaceful negotiation and not by force of arms. Thus, even when the Council fails to avail itself of its full powers under the Covenant, it may still, as a result of the moral authority which it possesses, achieve very important results.

With regard to the promotion of international coöperation (Articles 8 and 9, 23, 24 and 25 of the Covenant) the League had done perhaps the most convincing and successful work of its early history. Reference may be made to the principal activities it engaged in. The first was the Brussels Financial Conference of 1920, which resulted in the formation of economic and financial Advisory Committees, and the preparation of a scheme for the financial and economic rehabilitation of Austria. The next was the Transit Conference, held at Barcelona in the spring of 1921, which drew up a number of conventions and recommendations on transit by sea, by river and by railway. The work of this Conference was prepared in the greatest detail by a League Committee, acting under the authority of the Council, and the results which it achieved, including the establishment of a Transit Committee, on which 14 different countries were represented, were of an encouraging kind. Another Conference, on the regulation of the white slave traffic, was held in June 1921, and was attended by a far greater number of States than any other similar Conference before, and achieved results of great importance which were shortly to be embodied in the form of a convention. With regard to the allied subject of opium, the Assembly appointed a Committee which has begun its work for the supervision of the traffic in drugs in a systematic way, on the basis of which a machinery of supervision and control will in due time be worked out.

In another order of ideas, the League acted as the coördinating centre of international action in various matters in which such action could not have been achieved except through the League and its Secretariat. As an example may be cited the repatriation of prisoners-of-war already referred to. Another was the campaign against typhus in central Europe, carried out by means of a central fund raised by members of the League and administered under the authority of an Epidemics Commission appointed by the Council. Such administrative international action is unique in the history of international relations, and there seems no reason why it should not be extended advantageously in the future.

There is one other matter which should be mentioned in connexion with this aspect of the League's work—the protection of racial and religious minorities. A great number of treaties have been signed in the last 70 years or so, in which provision has been made, and solemn obligations undertaken, for the protection of such minorities, particularly in central and south-eastern Europe. It is unfortunately true that these treaties have been

of very little worth. But by a series of new treaties, to which practically every State in central and south-eastern Europe has given its consent, the protection of these minorities is now placed under the authority of the League. When it is remembered how very mixed are the populations of the new States created by the Treaties of Peace, and how strong are the national feelings left by the war, it cannot be doubted that, if the League succeeds in securing the effective protection of minorities, it will do much to remove a very potent cause of trouble.

With regard to the League's work for disarmament, in addition to the Permanent Commission to which reference has already n made, the Assembly recommended to the Council that it should adopt again the plan to which it had had resort in connexion with the project for the Court of International Justice; and accordingly the Council appointed a Temporary Mixed Commission, consisting of military men, of politicians, of economists, of employers and of workmen, to study in more detail the application of Article 8, and to propose plans for the adoption of the. Council and of the Assembly. This Commission had only just begun its work in the summer of 1921.

As a result, then, of the general review which has been given of the Covenant in action, it may fairly be held that in technical spheres the results which the League had achieved up to the middle of 1921 had been good. In political matters they had, whenever the Covenant had been acted upon, been no less good. But only too often the Governments of the members of the League and the members of the Council had failed to apply the provisions of the Covenant to matters of political importance with which it was intended that the League should deal. Until the members of the League use the methods of the Covenant for dealing with all international questions of first-rate political importance which arise, the League cannot have that full authority by means of which alone it will be able at times of crisis to prevent the outbreak of great world wars. If the members of the League do use the methods of the Covenant, experience justifies the belief that they will secure the effective settlement of their disputes, and that in doing so they will calm the passions and mitigate the hatreds which otherwise are calculated so gravely to menace the peace of the world.

See also the articles and. (R. C.)


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Rh that track before it enters the first tunnel of one hundred and fifty feet in length; it again re-appears only to continue its aerial route, and again disappears in a tunnel of three hundred and fifty feet. From this tunnel the road passes over a small iron bridge, raised eight hundred feet above the bottom of the ravine."

At Paso del Macho, the special train was in waiting at 2 1-2, and at 6 , the party was in Vera Cruz. The American Consul Mr. Trowbridge, Emilio B. Schliden, an American citizen, formerly of California, now at the head of a large mercantile house there, who had placed a beautiful, large house, ready furnished, at Mr. Seward's disposal, Mr. Joseph Brennon, and a number of other American citizens were at the depot, ready to receive him and escort him to his home in Vera Cruz.

The party were hardly settled in the house, when the Governor of the State of Vera Cruz, the commandant of the military forces, the Collector of the Port, the officers of the Custom-House and garrison, and other Federal and State officials in fall uniform, called to present their respects, and offer the hospitalities of the city and their own services in any manner desired, as the hospitalities of Colima and the Republic of Mexico had been offered on our first landing on the soil of the country at Manzanillo, three months before. There were no formal speeches made, but the greeting was off-hand and cordial, and Mr. Seward, in a brief reply, returned thanks for the honor done him.

The more I saw of this odd, old, and fearfully unhealthy city of Vera Cruz at this season of the year, the more I was interested in it. Its curious old fortifications, dating back to the days of the conquistadores,

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478 and now as useless piles of stone, copper, iron, and coral as could by any possibility be got together; its mixed and mongrel population; its wide, straight streets, paved in the old Spanish style with the gutters in the centre; the old churches and public buildings, gray and worn with the storms of centuries and any number of sieges and bombardments; its swarms of Zopilotes, and its hideous and importunate beggars; everything, in fact, about the place is interesting.

At the corners of all the principal streets are hitching posts of a novel character: old Spanish, iron guns, set in the ground, breech down, and often rusted away to such an extent as to be hardly recognizable. I would hesitate some time before hitching my horse to such a post; suppose it should happen to go off with him?

Many of the buildings still bear the marks of the balls and shells thrown into the city by the American Army under General Scott; and I noticed one old church which was then partially unroofed, and has never been repaired. In walking about the streets I frequently saw balls or pieces of exploded shells, embedded in the pavement. Many of these were thrown into the city by Miramon, in the attempt to dislodge Juarez in the early part of 1860—an attempt which was frustrated by the direct interference of the American Minister and the American fleet.

The Zopilotes were my friends; but for them I should have had no amusement or occupation for hours at a time.

You should have seen the jolly row I managed to kick up, by throwing a handful of garbage to them from a restaurant, and then sending a small dog among them, to worry them and make the feathers fly.


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Rh Nobody knows where they breed, and although inquiry has been made on the subject for almost three centuries and a half, the matter is still a mystery. One day we bought three large sea-shells, each with the original inhabitant in it. To get the monster sea-snails to come out, it was necessary to suspend them on cords, with a good, stout, fish-hook through the head of each. Little by little the creature loses his grip, and in about forty-eight hours he lets go his hold entirely, and gives up the struggle.

The three lines with the three great pulpy sea-snails on the three hooks, got tied together, and fell into the street, by accident of course—it is unlawful to kill or injure the Zapilotes, and a heavy fine is inflicted for doing so—and soon the Zapilotes had a turn at them. Perhaps it was not fun to see three of the great, black, awkward fellows fast at once, each going it on his own hook as it were! They have very strong stomachs—and well they might considering what they feed upon—but the strain was more than even they could stand, and I am of the opinion, that in every case, at least two out of the three contestants got turned wrong side outwards in the struggle. But it did not seem to discourage the rest for a moment; and for aught I know, they are at it yet, each taking a turn at the tempting morsels, and getting swindled. They seem almost wholly lost to the force of example, and like men, must learn, each for himself, by personal experience.

Even our hotel—and it was far the best in the city—was interesting as a subject for study. The charges were moderate, three dollars and fifty cents per day in coin, with wine and early coffee extra—say about five dollars


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480 all told, if you are not too extravagant in your tastes.

Every style of business is carried on in the building. There is a store-house, and tailor shop with several sewing-machines on the lower floor. Up stairs, the office, bar, and billiard room are all one. The best rooms in the house extend out over the portal, and are light and well ventilated, but not luxuriously furnished. I had one of these rooms. The room next me was occupied by a party who were playing poker all night for big money.

I was kindly invited to take a hand in this friendly little poker game, but being a youth of modest and retiring turn of mind, reluctantly declined. I thought it would break my heart, if I were to go in there and win all the money from such gentlemanly, courteous, and considerate young men; at any rate, I never could forgive myself for doing it.

The room next on the other side, was infested by some game of which I have no personal knowledge. Beyond this, Mr. and Mrs. Brennon were quartered, and a young Mexican lady going to the United States occupied the next. Adjoining was a faro or monte bank, and beyond that two roulette tables running all night. In the billiard room they were playing pool for money, through nearly the entire twenty-four hours. Business, it will be seen, is not entirely dead in Vera Cruz. The partitions between the rooms are of rough boards, and do not come quite up to the ceiling; so that the occupant of each room gets the full benefit of whatever may be going on in the next.

The principal business on the streets seemed to be selling lottery tickets in behalf of various useful public enterprises. The tickets cost twenty-five to


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Rh and one-half cents each, and the prizes range from five to five hundred dollars. I never heard any man complain that he had drawn a prize and did not get his money; I think he would run a risk of getting it promptly if he ever drew one. I patronized "a favor del Telegrafo de Jalacingo a Tampico," to the extent of about the cost of a quarter of a mile of the line, more or less, and am satisfied that it is indeed "a favor" of the company; it did not come out in my favor on a single occasion. They draw every week and it appears to pay—the company.

All the carting which is done in the city is effected by mule power. One little mule with a sore back is hitched in the shafts of a huge, clumsy, high-wheeled wooden cart, and the driver rides upon another, which is slung alongside outside the shafts, and pretends to help the load along, as he doubtless does when in a tight place and he cannot help it. The arrangement is first-rate when it comes to swinging around a corner, but on a direct pull it might be improved. All the baggage is carried from the wharf or depot to the hotels, and vice versa, on the backs or heads of men.

The chain-gang, not merely in name, but in the good, old, southern, European style—is one of the institutions of Vera Cruz as of most other Mexican cities, and is made quite useful, if not entirely ornamental. The gentlemen connected with this branch of the public service wear a leathern belt around the waist, and a broader band of thick leather around the left ankle. Between these points there is a heavy chain, with links each about six inches long. In case of one of them being run over by a railway train, or cut into by a falling timber, this arrangement prevents the


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482 different parts getting scattered about and lost. For convenience they travel two by two, a metallic connection enabling them to keep step with military precision.

I saw about twenty of them at work one day at the mole, carrying heavy beams of Spanish cedar—the wood from which we make Havana cigar boxes in the United States—up into the city. They were guarded by a squad of soldiers, with loaded muskets and fixed bayonets, who kept them to their work in lively style, their chains clinking musically, all the time. By accident the sharp edge of a heavy beam came down on the sandaled foot of one of the operatives, when his great toe-nail opened like an alligator's jaws, and snapped viciously at the wood. The owner of the toe, picked up his end of the beam, and went off with his three companions on a dog-trot, seeming oblivious of the fact that there had been any quarrel going on.

Vera Cruz is the most important sea-port of the Republic of Mexico, and it may be interesting to the outside world to know how its population is made up, and what is the mental and moral standing of the inhabitants. The following figures I take from the official census returns made in April, 1869. The returns copied are for the Municipality of Vera Cruz, consisting of the old city within the walls and the district in the immediate vicinity, comprising almost as much territory as is included in the Metropolitan District of New York. The population of the municipality is as follows:


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Rh {|align=center
 * Females living outside the walls||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Males living in the country beyond the city,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Females""”""” ||| ||||
 * Total population, - -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=4|The ages of the inhabitants are stated as follows:
 * Males under ten years ||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Females""”||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Males between ten and sixteen years, -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Females""”||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2| Males between sixteen and fifty, ”|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Females""”||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Males over fifty years ,||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Females""”||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=4|
 * colspan=2|Single males able to read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|"" not able "" |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" females able "" |||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|"" not "" |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Married men who can read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|"" who cannot "" |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" women who can read and write|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " who cannot read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Widowers who can " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " cannot " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Widows who can " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " cannot " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Total males able to read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " not " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * }
 * colspan=4|
 * colspan=2|Single males able to read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|"" not able "" |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" females able "" |||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|"" not "" |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Married men who can read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|"" who cannot "" |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" women who can read and write|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " who cannot read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Widowers who can " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " cannot " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Widows who can " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " cannot " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Total males able to read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " not " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * }
 * colspan=2|" " who cannot read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Widowers who can " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " cannot " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Widows who can " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " cannot " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Total males able to read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " not " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * }
 * colspan=2|" " cannot " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Total males able to read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " not " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * }
 * colspan=2|Total males able to read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " not " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * }
 * colspan=2|" " not " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * }


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484 {|align=center
 * colspan=2|Total Females able to read and write,|||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|" " not " " " |||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=4|
 * Catholics, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Protestants, (all foreigners)||- -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Jews, - -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Mahomedans, -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=4|The nationality of the inhabitants is as follows:
 * Mexicans, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Spaniards, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Cubans, (nearly all political exiles,) - -  -  - |||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * French, - -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2| Citizens of the United States, - -  -  -  -  - |||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Germans, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Italians, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * English, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Peruvianos, - -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Africans, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Other or uncertain nationalities, - -  -  -  -  - |||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * }
 * colspan=2|Cubans, (nearly all political exiles,) - -  -  - |||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * French, - -  -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2| Citizens of the United States, - -  -  -  -  - |||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Germans, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Italians, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * English, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Peruvianos, - -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Africans, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Other or uncertain nationalities, - -  -  -  -  - |||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * }
 * Italians, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * English, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Peruvianos, - -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * Africans, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Other or uncertain nationalities, - -  -  -  -  - |||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * }
 * Africans, - -  -  -  -  -  -  - ||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -|||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * colspan=2|Other or uncertain nationalities, - -  -  -  -  - |||-  -  -  -  -  -  -  -||||
 * }
 * }

The number of persons of all ages who have any lucrative and self-sustaining employment is set down at 7,407, while those who have no such employment is stated at 8,443.

In making up this list, the soldiers of the garrison, the sick in the hospitals, and the civil and military prisoners are not included. If they were, included the disproportion of females to males would be still greater. The number of widows and unmarried women between sixteen and fifty, tells its own eloquent


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Rh story of the desolation which so many years of civil and foreign war have brought upon the land. The greater number of those set down as having no lucrative occupation are, of course, women and children, but there must be at least fifteen hundred to twenty-five hundred adult, able-bodied males included in that list. The mole—what the storms have left of that costly work of the old Spaniards—swarms with them whenever a steamer arrives, and when a train with a few passengers comes in they rush up by dozens and fifties, to carry your trunk to the hotel on their backs; hacks and baggage wagons there are none in Vera Cruz.

Marriage is evidently not a popular institution in Vera Cruz, and the Church—however much it may preach against the sin of adultery—certainly in practice must be somewhat responsible for it, as its exactions make it quite difficult for the poor to contract marriage. As out of the entire population of fifteen thousand eight hundred and fifty souls, all but seventy-three are professed Catholics, and as there is no Protestant or other church organization, save the Catholic, in the municipality, the honor or blame of the moral condition of society in Vera Cruz belongs, altogether, to the Mother Church. Vera Cruz has more commerce and more travel than any other port of Mexico, and her population ought to rank higher in the scale of enlightenment and prosperity than that of any other sea-port town. Though the city is annually scourged by the Yellow Fever, or "Vomito," and is unhealthy from miasmatic influences all the year around, many educated and influential families, native and foreign born, reside here, and the circle of really good society is much larger than would be supposed from


text: Author:Robert Cecil (1864-1958)

title: Author:Robert Cecil (1864-1958)


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1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hemy, Charles Napier

HEMY, CHARLES NAPIER (1841-1917), British painter (see ), died at Falmouth Sept. 30 1917.


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1922 Encyclopædia Britannica/Henderson, Arthur

HENDERSON, ARTHUR (1863-), British Labour politician, was born in Glasgow of working-class parents Sept. 15

1863; but his work and interests subsequently lay at Newcastle (where he served an apprenticeship as moulder at Robert Stephenson & Co.'s works), and in the county of Durham. He gradually became prominent in connexion with his own trade union and in the trade-union movement generally. After a while he took a leading part in local affairs, and was for some years a member of the Newcastle city council, and Darlington borough council. He was mayor 1903; and was made a magistrate for the county of Durham. He entered Parliament for Barnard Castle as a Labour member, at a by-election in 1903. When the Labour party were first returned to Parliament in force, in 1906, he soon made his mark as one of their leaders. In 1907 he took a prominent part in advocating the ending, rather than the mending, of the House of Lords; and in 1908 he was elected chairman of the party, a post which he held for two years and to which he was reflected in the autumn of 1914 when the then chairman, Mr. Ramsay Macdonald, had to resign owing to his pacifist views. As chairman, at the opening of the new session in that autumn, Mr. Henderson promised the full support of organized labour in maintaining the “splendid unity” of the nation.

When Mr. Asquith formed the first Coalition Ministry in 1915, he included Mr. Henderson in the Cabinet as President of the Board of Education, and also adviser of the Government on Labour questions arising out of the World War. Indeed his functions as Labour adviser so occupied his time and attention, that it was thought desirable to relieve him in Aug. 1916 of the Board of Education, and give him the practical sinecure of Paymaster-General, so that he might be free to devote himself to the more congenial part of his work. Throughout the Ministry Mr. Henderson showed himself resolved on a strenuous prosecution of the war. He warmly advocated both the Munitions bill and the Registration bill, and had no hesitation in taking the further step of compulsory service, asserting, on the first Military Service bill, that the choice was between compulsion and defeat, and on the second bill, that the first had brought in more men than was expected and, therefore, that there was every reason to anticipate the success of the second. He followed up this action by strongly urging the Labour party to rally in Dec. 1916 to Mr. Lloyd George, and by accepting himself the position of an original member of the War Cabinet of four without portfolio. In consequence of his prominence as a labour protagonist of the war, his life was threatened, along with the Prime Minister's, by the conspiracy of a Derby family of anarchists, who were duly convicted, and sentenced to considerable terms of penal servitude, in March 1917.

After the revolution in Russia in the spring of 1917 Mr. Henderson visited that country on behalf of the British Government. He found there, as he subsequently explained, the most confused ideas current as to the aims of the Allies in the war, and deliberate perversions circulated by enemy agents. The then Provisional Government at Petrograd favoured an international Labour and Socialist Conference, which was being promoted by the International Socialist Bureau and was to meet at Stockholm. They pressed Mr. Henderson to use his influence with British Labour to attend this Conference; and he, believing the Conference to be inevitable, came to the conclusion that, provided it were merely consultative, it would be better that British representatives should go, rather than permit Russian representatives to meet German representatives alone. He returned with these ideas to England, and, being still secretary of the Labour party as well as a member of the War Cabinet, used his influence as secretary to promote British Labour participation in the Conference. But though the majority of Labour men were apparently in his favour, public opinion in other classes was strongly against any conference with Germans in the midst of war. The Sailors' and Firemen's Union refused to carry the delegates. Mr. Henderson visited Paris in the company of Mr. Ramsay Macdonald to discuss the situation with Labour over there, but found that neither French, nor Belgian, nor Italian, nor American Labour was disposed to join. Moreover, all Mr. Henderson's Labour colleagues in the Government opposed his views; and on Mr. Lloyd George expressing the surprise of the rest of the War

Cabinet at his action and their dissent from his policy he resigned and was succeeded by Mr. George Barnes.

The attitude of Labour internationalism was maintained by Mr. Henderson out of office, and he warmly espoused the Labour policy of the latter part of 1918, to take the Labour men out of the Government and appeal for support on a Labour platform, in conjunction with the pacifist wing of the party. This policy cost Mr. Henderson his seat in Parliament at the General Election of Dec. 1918. He was defeated by a candidate of the National Democratic party in East Ham, and none of the Pacifist Labour men with whom he had made common cause found their way into Parliament. He himself returned to the House of Commons at a by-election for Widnes in Sept. 1919. He strongly promoted the League of Nations in the early part of that year; he attended the International Socialist Conference at Berne; and in Dec. 1920 he paid an informal visit to Ireland in the hope of promoting peace. (G. E. B.)


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 tions for non-political objects, such as customs-duties, police and posts.

By a Firman of 29th November, 1869, the Khedive is forbidden to raise loans without the sanction of the Sultan.

A Firman of l0th September, 1872, practically revokes the preceding Firman.

A Firman of 25th September, 1872, expressly gives the Khedive authority to contract loans without permission.

An important Firman was issued on 8th June, 1873, to replace all preceding Firmans. It confirms the rules of succession already established ; provides for a Regency during minority ; authorizes the Khedive to make laws, to make non-political conventions with foreign powers, to contract loans without permission, to keep an unlimited number of troops, and to build ships of war, iron-clads excepted. The tribute is maintained at 150,000 purses. This Firman is still in force, in so far as it is not controlled by the Firman which was issued on 2nd August, 1879, under the circumstances presently to be mentioned.

But between the dates 1873 and 1879 there occurred a series of events which gave to the European Powers a position in Egypt paramount in some respects to that of either Sultan or Khedive. This position was the result of the enormous loans contracted by the Khedive with subjects of the Powers, and of the rights which the Powers acquired for their subjects of enforcing their claims by means of the machinery of the so-called 'International Courts.' The institution of these courts is indeed the turning-point of recent Egyptian history. The inefficiency of the then existing machinery for the administration of justice to foreigners was explained in a report


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12 witnessed God's testimony against oppression in the plagues of Egypt—the burning blains on man and beast—the dust quickened into loathsome life, and swarming upon every living thing—the streets, the palaces, the temples, and every house heaped up with the carcases of things abhorred—the kneading troughs and ovens, the secret chambers and the couches, reeking and dissolving with the putrid death—the pestilence walking in darkness at noonday, the devouring locusts, and hail mingled with fire, the first-born death-struck, and the waters blood, and last of all, that dread high hand and stretched-out arm, that whelmed the monarch and his hosts, and strewed their corpses on the sea. All this their eyes had looked upon,—earth's proudest city, wasted and thunder-scarred, lying in desolation, and the doom of oppressors traced on her ruins in the hand writing of God, glaring in letters of fire mingled with blood—a blackened monument of wrath to the uttermost against the stealers of men. No wonder that God, in a code of laws prepared for such a people at such a time, should light up on its threshold a blazing beacon to flash terror on slaveholders. "He that stealeth a man and selleth him, or if he be found in his hand, he shall surely be put to death." Ex. xxi. 16. Deut. xxiv. 7. God's cherubim and flaming sword guarding the entrance to the Mosaic system!

The word Gānăbh here rendered stealeth, means the taking what belongs to another, whether by violence or fraud; the same word is used in the eighth commandment, and prohibits both robbery and theft.

The crime specified, is that of depriving of the ownership of a man. Is this somebody a master? and is the crime that of depriving a master of his servant? Then it would have been "he that stealeth" a servant, not "he that stealeth a man." If the crime had been the taking an individual from another, then the term used would have been expressive of that relation, and most especially if it was the relation of property and proprietor!

The crime is stated in a three-fold form—man stealing, selling, and


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 drawn up by Nubar Pasha in 1867, and communicated to the Powers. Negotiations followed, and commissions of delegates of the Powers sat at Cairo in 1869 and at Constantinople in 1873. The result of their labours was a draft Règlement cV Organisation Judiciaire pour les Procès Mixtes en Égypte, by Art. X of which foreigners are empowered to bring actions against the Egyptian Government and the estates of the Khedive. The French Government gave its adhesion to the Règlement, with certain modifications, in a Protocol signed on behalf of that government and of the Khedive on l0th November, 1874. The Powers which sooner or later became parties to the arrangement were fourteen in number, viz. Germany, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Spain, France, Great Britain, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Portugal, Russia, Sweden and Norway, and the United States. New Codes, to be administered by the Courts, came into The New operation on i8th October, 1875, and the Courts themselves were opened for business on 1st January, 1876.

The powers of the Courts, originally granted for five years, have been prolonged, by a series of Decrees, to 1st February 1882, to 1st February 1883 , to 1st February 1884 , and lastly to 1st February 1889.

The pressure of debt had already become serious. In November, 1875, the year preceding the opening of the Courts, canal the Khedive sold his Canal shares to the British government, and Mr. Cave was sent out, at the request of Nubar Pasha, to


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13 holding. All are put on a level, and whelmed under one penalty—DEATH. This somebody deprived of the ownership of a man, is the man himself, robbed of personal ownership. Joseph said, "Indeed I was stolen away out of the land of the Hebrews." Gen. xl. 15. How stolen? His brethren sold him as an article of merchandize. Contrast this penalty for man-stealing with that for property-stealing, Ex. xxii. If a man had stolen an ox and killed or sold it, he was to restore five oxen; if he had neither sold nor killed it, two oxen. But in the case of stealing a man, the first act drew down the utmost power of punishment; however often repeated, or aggravated the crime, human penalty could do no more. The fact that the penalty for man-stealing was death, and the penalty for property-stealing, the mere restoration of double, shows that the two cases were adjudicated on totally different principles. The man stolen might be past labor, and his support a burden, yet death was the penalty, though not a cent's worth of property value was taken. The penalty for stealing property was a mere property penalty. However large the theft, the payment of double wiped out the score. It might have a greater money value than a thousand men, yet death was not the penalty, nor maiming, nor branding, nor even stripes, but double of the same kind. Why was not the rule uniform? When a man was stolen why was not the thief required to restore double of the same kind—two men, or if he had sold him, five men? Do you say that the man-thief might not have them? So the ox-thief might not have two oxen, or if he had killed it, five. But if God permitted men to hold men as property, equally with oxen, the man-thief could get men with whom to pay the penalty, as well as the ox-thief, oxen. Further, when property was stolen, the legal penalty was a compensation to the person injured. But when a man was stolen, no property compensation was offered. To tender money as an equivalent, would have been to repeat the outrage with intolerable aggravations. Compute the value of a in money! Throw dust into the scale against immortality! The law recoiled from such supreme insult and impiety. To have permitted the man-thief to expiate his crime by restoring double, would have been making the repetition of crime its atonement. But the infliction of death for man-stealing exacted the utmost possibility of reparation. It wrung from the guilty wretch as he gave up the ghost, a testimony in blood, and death-groans, to the infinite dignity and worth of man,—a proclamation to the universe,


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Discovered the joys of sidenotes which means scrapped tables for formatting. Is there anyway of getting the one remaining table to span the lefthand sidenote margin as well? Bohun (talk) 22:18, 24 September 2012 (UTC)


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 sum. They had fattened up wonderfully,—great, raw-boned, old-fashioned Sydney-siders,—and looked like elephants. The only remark the owner of the run made on the transaction was, "As they had done so well, it was a pity that more of them hadn't come at the same time."

It was indeed a lovely bit of country, speaking from a grazing standpoint. There was plenty of water in the Blackfellows' and other unpretending channels to provide for the stock in all seasons without obtrusive parade. The run itself consisted principally of open well-grassed forest land, with a large proportion of "stony rises," and several marshes, very useful in the summer. Not an acre of waste or indifferent land was there upon it. Nobody knew where the boundaries were, there being no natural features of any kind, and the current belief was that it was much larger than was generally supposed. It did not seem to have any of the ordinary drawbacks to which other squattages were exposed. In spite of its ill-omened name, the blacks had never been "bad" there. If they had killed a few cattle no one would have minded, and I have no doubt they would have discontinued the practice voluntarily.

As a matter of course, the cattle were always "rolling fat." There was never the least trouble of selling a draft to be taken from the camp. The dealers gave the highest price, and bid against one another. Even the two-year-old steers were often taken, so "furnished" and "topped up" were they. How they were bred could never be ascertained, and was popularly supposed to be wholly unknown to

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  (c.) The blockade would be continued until we obtained reparation for the acts already committed, and guarantees for the future.

A copy of the telegram actually sent is printed in Appendix II.

Copies of the instructions to the British Minister in Athens to be sent simultaneously to Paris, Rome, and Petrograd.

The British Minister at Athens should be instructed that he should make a communication to the Greek Government as soon as his colleagues received their instructions.

(2.) The Admiralty to send instructions to the Vice-Admiral Commanding, Eastern Mediterranean, not to take any action, such as the destruction of bridges or railways, or otherwise to commit any act of war apart from the blockade, until he receives further instructions.

(3.) The Chief of the Imperial General Staff to send a corresponding communication to the General Officer Commanding the British Expeditionary Force in the Balkans.

4. Sir Edward Carson read a letter from Rome, which had been communicated to him, regarding the harm done by the anti-Venezelist propaganda in Italy.

The War Cabinet decided that the whole question of British propaganda was one which would require consideration at an early date.

5. Sir Robert Chalmers explained to the War Cabinet the present position as regards the American Exchanges. He said that, in September 1916, the Treasury had appointed a Committee, under Lord Reading, to confer with French delegates on this subject, and the British representatives had first investigated our own position. They had found that we were spending 60 million dollars a week in the United States of America. This included an estimate of 12 million dollars utilised for the purpose of maintaining the Exchange. The maintenance of the Exchange was an essential pivot of the finances of the Entente Powers. The remaining 48 millions, which estimate has been confirmed by the experience of October and November was utilised as payment for the purchase of different commodities required by the Admiralty, the War Office, the Ministry of Munitions, or the Allies, and including sugar, &c. It had been found that loans to the extent of 1,500 million dollars would be required before the end of March next. Messrs. Morgan, Grenfell, and Co., who acted as our agents in New York, had been somewhat staggered by the amount, but had said that we must strain every nerve to obtain the money, and had advised a second loan in November on the basis of collateral security, as we had in the summer got beyond the point where British credit could carry a loan without collateral. This second loan had been negotiated on this basis. It had then been hoped to obtain a straight loan in the United States in January, when money gets easier. We had raised 300 million dollars on our November collateral loan, but we had spent this, and now had a debt of 175 million dollars outstanding on short money in the United States of America. When we obtained our last collateral loan we were looking forward to a straight loan of 500 millions in January, when suddenly the whole situation was changed by the issue of the Federal Reserve Board's announcement to banks. The representative of Messrs. Morgan, Grenfell, and Co. in New York then advised us that we had, as it were, to begin