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but this one is merely an empty assertion. There is nothing to render it probable. To one who realizes the state of feeling on both sides, it is more credible that, in the case supposed, there would have been two sides feeling themselves ready for war. The side that believed itself the stronger would have considered it the moment to strike because it was ready, and the side that felt menaced would not have cared to postpone a struggle when such powerful aid was positively assured.

But it is vain to indulge in speculation when all such theories are incapable of conclusive proof. Lord Grey has rendered it unnecessary. He appeals to the facts and the documents upon which history will rest. Judgments about intentions must be controlled by actual performance. Here he takes his stand, and for history it is the only solid ground. It is probably true that the Central Powers felt that they had received provocations which justified them in appealing to arms. They had been suspected, irritated and offended and believed in their superior power. They thought that nothing but blood would give them satisfaction. Let all this be granted. It only carries us back to the realm of motives,—a realm that is supposed to be under the control of reason. But reason was not appealed to. An appeal to it was declined. It was action that began the war; and it is for action, not for motives, that men are held responsible by and to one another.

In the second volume, Lord Grey states his case regarding the conduct of Britain at the outbreak of the war and during its continuance. It is here that his statesmanship shines most brightly. It is impossible to doubt his sincere desire for the preservation of peace, nor can it be established that he failed to resort to the measures that were best fitted to preserve it. If he had previously failed to draw Germany into the Entente's partnership for peace, he at least endeavored to do it when, on July 29, 1914, he sent to the German Chancellor this message:

If the peace of Europe can be preserved, and the present crisis safely passed, my own endeavor will be to promote some arrangement to which Germany could be a party, by which she could be assured that no aggressive or hostile policy would be pursued against her or her Allies by France, Russia, and ourselves, jointly or separately. I have desired this, and worked for it, as far as I could, through the last Balkan Crisis, and, Germany having a corresponding object, our relations sensibly improved. The idea has hitherto been too Utopian to form the subject of definite proposals, but if this present crisis, so much more acute than any that Europe has gone through for generations, be safely passed, I am hopeful that the relief and reaction which will follow may make possible some more definite rapprochement between the Powers than has been possible hitherto.

Lord Grey answers the question, Why did Great Britain decide upon war? in the following words: "The real reason for going to war was that, if we did not stand by France and stand up for Belgium against this aggression, we should be isolated, discredited, and hated; and there would be before us

nothing but a miserable and ignoble future." Was England prepared for war? Lord Grey asserts, "For the first time perhaps in our history war found us with all the forces, naval and military, that we were believed or supposed to have, actually there, ready and mobile."

To readers of this JOURNAL the chapter on "America and the War" will be of special interest. It deals particularly with the question of contraband and the detention of American ships. "In all this," writes Lord Grey, "Page's advice and suggestion were of the greatest value in warning us when to be careful or encouraging us when we could safely be firm;" and he pays the memory of the American Ambassador this curious tribute:

One incident in particular remains in my memory. Page came to see me at the Foreign Office one day and produced a long despatch from Washington contesting our claim to act as we were doing in stopping contraband going to neutral ports. "I am instructed," he said, "to read this despatch to you." He read, and I listened. He then said: "I have now read the despatch, but I do not agree with it; let us consider how it should be answered!"

The chapters on "Allied Diplomacy in War" explain the origin of the "Secret Treaties" which caused President Wilson such astonishment, and illustrate how it is possible, even with a diplomatic service widely extended, for a nation to be totally ignorant for a considerable period of time of the uses made of the small Powers by the great, of the inhibitions which impart to diplomacy a fatality that appears to the outsider wholly inexplicable, and of the national jealousies and appetites for territorial advantages which initiate, deflect and frequently frustrate the real purposes of war.

DAVID JAYNE HILL.

The Constitution at the Cross Roads. By Edward A. Harriman. New York: George H. Doran Company, 1925. pp. xviii, 274. $3.00.

As indicated in the subtitle, this book is a study of the legal aspects of the League of Nations, the Permanent Organization of Labor and the Permanent Court of International Justice. How far the Constitution of the ⚫ United States may be affected by a decision in this country to participate in these organizations, the author asserts, is one of the vital questions of the day. The Constitution, he thinks, is at the cross roads. "In one direction leads the way of national tradition and absolute independence; in the other, the way of surrender of absolute independence of action in some degree to a federation of the world."

In his conclusions on this subject Mr. Harriman confines himself to the legal consequences of possible membership in these organizations, leaving it to the judgment of others whether or not it is desirable to incur these consequences. The task he here undertakes is to point out by means of an analysis of these international organizations precisely what their nature

is and how national independence might be affected by them. His aim is to show the American people that their Constitution is now at the cross roads between nationalism and internationalism.

First of all it is to be noted that the three organizations named in the subtitle of this book are creations of the Treaty of Versailles. The League of Nations is constituted by its Covenant, which is Part I of the treaty; the Permanent Organization of Labor is constituted by Part XIII of the treaty; and the Permanent Court of International Justice is constituted by the Statute of the Court, prepared and adopted in execution of Article 14 of the Covenant of the League.

Taking these documents as the basis of his analysis, the author proceeds to an exhaustive and almost meticulous examination of their contents, which with more or less closeness he compares with the contents of the Constitution of the United States, and occasionally with those of the Articles of Confederation which the Constitution was designed to supersede.

Mr. Harriman entertains no doubt that the international organizations which he describes constitute a government. To use his own language:

We are compelled, therefore, to recognize the fact that the League of Nations is a political society; that it is a legal person; that as such society, it possesses some control over its members; that as those members are independent sovereign nations, in creating a League, they have necessarily, and regardless of their intention or desire, created a super-state that is, a new nation with certain powers of sovereignty, however limited, superior to those of the sovereign nations composing the League. Much argument has been spent to show that the League of Nations is not a super-state because its control over its members is so limited and so weak, but all such argument is not to the point. There is no escape whatever from the conclusion that the League of Nations, because it is a real society of nations, has some control over its members, for no society can exist without some such power of control. Such power of control over its members is inherent in its very nature in every society, but the extent thereof is dependent upon the objects and constitution of the particular society in question.

The nature and extent of the "control" over independent sovereign nations possessed by this confederation of states depend upon the obligations toward one another and the means of giving them effect which are accorded to the various organs of the society by its constitution.

It is of course impossible in this brief notice to follow the details of the author's analysis of the obligations assumed and the authority accorded in these international organizations. To appreciate this analysis as a whole, it is necessary to read the book itself. One inevitable impression results from this reading, namely, the inchoate character of these international constitutions as compared with a document like the American Constitution. The explanation of this difference is not far to seek. These international constitutions deal with matters which have not been clearly worked out

by experience anywhere. They have not only been prepared with relative haste, they are consecrated to relatively indefinite ends, and they are warped and deflected from those ends by the exigencies of group control.

The end aimed at by the League of Nations is "Peace;" that aimed at by the Permanent Organization of Labor, is "Social justice;" that aimed at by the Permanent Court of International Justice, is "Justice under law." Who will undertake to say that any one of these ends has been clearly defined? "Peace," in this scheme, is to be preserved by armed force; "Social justice" is to be sought in the interest of labor; "Justice under law" is to be arrived at by a court from which an improved and adequate law has been deliberately withheld.

These aims are deflected in each case by a special group control,-in the field of international peace by the League, to the exclusion of non-League members; in the field of industry by the Labor Organization, which emphasizes a single social interest; and in the field of justice by the League's Court, in which only members of the League, original or actual, participate.

As to the Permanent Court of International Justice, Mr. Harriman declares: "It is obvious that the Court is not a body independent of the League, but is the body which exercises the judicial power of the League just as the United States District Courts, created by Congress, exercise the judicial power of the United States" (p. 52); and he supports this view by the following:

A court is "A body in the government to which the administration of justice is delegated."

The term "court" is often loosely used. Tribunals of arbitration are not true courts, whether they are special tribunals or the Court of Arbitration organized by the Hague Conventions. The Permanent Court of International Justice, however, is not a tribunal of arbitration, but is a true court, because it is a body in the governments of the League of Nations and of the Permanent Organization of Labour to which the administration of justice is delegated by those governments. Being a true court, it administers the law of the two governments of which it is the judicial body.

Citing Chief Justice Marshall, "The jurisdiction of courts is a branch of that which is possessed by the nation as an independent sovereign power," Mr. Harriman declares:

The jurisdiction of the Permanent Court of International Justice, accordingly, is a branch of that which is possessed by the League of Nations and the Permanent Organization of Labour as independent sovereign powers. It has frequently been asserted that the Permanent Court is not a judicial branch of the League of Nations, but "an independent judicial body." Such a statement is merely a statement that the Permanent Court is not a court in the legal sense of the term. And he concludes: "If a decision of the Permanent Court of International

Justice is not an act of the League of Nations, it is not a judicial decision, but the mere expression of an opinion by the members of the Court."

Is it true then that the League of Nations possesses sovereign power, and if so in what degree?

The author enters deeply into this subject, treating, in distinct chapters, of the Executive, Legislative and Judicial Powers of the League of Nations and of the Permanent Organization of Labor.

Mr. Harriman finds in these organizations traces at least of sovereign power, but he hesitates a little with regard to the application of the expression "super-state" (p. 48). His best justification for applying it to the League of Nations would perhaps be found, not in what the League can do to its own members, who have voluntarily accepted its obligations, but in what it claims the right to do, under Article 16, to states that are not members, in absolutely prohibiting their trade with a culprit member. By what authority, unless it is its own independent sovereign will, does the League override and annul the previously accepted legal rights of neutrals? There is perfect consistency between the author's assertion that the Permanent Court of International Justice is a "true court," and his effort to find the attributes of sovereignty in the League. His conclusion is, no sovereign, no court; but, given a true court, there must be a sovereign. And if it is the League's Court, then the League is a sovereign power!

No doubt the idea of a court implies some relation to a government, or at least to governments. But why not to many governments as well as to one government, to many sovereignties as well as to one sovereignty? Mr. Harriman goes so far as to say:

Certain opponents of the League admit their willingness to participate in a "World Court" which is not the League's court. . . . In the legal sense of the term persons who oppose a League court are opposed to any real court. . . . It seems reasonably clear that the Permanent Court of International Justice is the judicial body of the League of Nations, and is a true court and that its judges, however elected, are officers of the League of Nations. Persons who object to the Court on this ground, and demand a court independent of the League, are really objecting to any true international court, because a court without a Government is a legal impossibility (pp. 140–141).

The court in question is without doubt the League's court, because it has been created by the League in execution of an article of the League's Covenant, and is so named in the Statute of the Court; but does it follow from this that a "World Court" can not be created by several governments independently uniting to create it? Do they first have to create a sovereign league of some kind, in order to create an international court? Why may not several sovereignties combine to create a court?

Mr. Harriman appears at this point to have raised a controversial issue which it is not possible to discuss fully in this notice, but which will undoubtedly attract attention.

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