Читать книгу The Geneva Protocol - David Hunter Miller - Страница 20

In many recent discussions of international affairs these two originally innocent Latin words "status quo" have attained a really malevolent significance. They seem to be regarded as meaning the same thing as the motto "Whatever is, is wrong," and some who talk about the status quo appear to be in the same mind as Omar when he longed

"To grasp this sorry scheme of things entire

............................. —and then

Re-mould it nearer to the heart's desire."

It may be well to give some critical examination to this question of the status quo and to see what, if anything, is meant by the ideas which lie back of these criticisms.

In the first place, the thought of the critics usually relates to existing international frontiers and, in some instances, to existing international conditions.

Now as to frontiers, if we look at the status quo historically, we find that it is practically universally the result of changes in a previous status quo. The cause of these changes may have been war, may possibly have been agreements and may have been something other than either of these.[1] I shall refer to them later. But here it should be observed that there is hardly any region of the globe where the status quo does not result from some one or more of these changes within times comparatively recent.

Of course there are some exceptions to this observation, the Arctic and Antarctic, for example; but in the populated regions of the globe, the status quo, so far as frontiers are concerned, is a thing comparatively new.

If we look at this existing situation, this status quo of international frontiers, we find that under modern conditions a comparatively short period of time is all that is necessary to give to the status quo the sanctity of universal consent, regardless of its origin. Let me give an instance or two of this.

The Southern frontier of the United States, for part of its extent is the direct result of a war between the United States and Mexico, a war which by many, and I am among them, is considered to have been a war of aggression. Now no one but a madman would believe that there ought to be a change in the status quo of the communities now existing in New Mexico, which in 1850 was uninhabited country, by delivering them over to Mexican rule. It is true that, during the World War, Germany proposed to Mexico in the celebrated Zimmerman note[2] that this should be done; but that incident only emphasizes the truth of my remark.

One of the most recent instances of a change in the status quo, so far as the United States is concerned, is the case of the Virgin Islands, which were bought from Denmark in 1916.[3] There was a change made by agreement, made for a purchase price which was satisfactory to the ceding country and made after a plebiscite of the inhabitants, who voted almost unanimously for the change. Here, again, for reasons differing from those of the foregoing instance, no one in his senses would consider that the existing status quo was not one of justice and common sense.

Now, if we take the situation generally, we will find, in accordance with the instances that I have mentioned, that the international situation as to frontiers the world over[4] is, as to perhaps 99%, either consecrated by usage which is the equivalent of common consent or at least of common sense, or else is the result of agreement which contains in it both elements.

The fact is, as any realist will admit, that every frontier, no matter how absurd originally or even now, contains, in the very fact of its existence, elements of stability and of reason which to some extent justify its existence. The ordinary individual near a frontier, as distinguished from the agitator, becomes used to it. Business transactions adjust themselves to it and in a very short time after its creation any proposed change implies inherently a certain amount of undesirability. It is impossible, perhaps, to imagine or to draw a more absurd frontier than that between Switzerland and France in the region of Geneva.[5] It is a monstrosity, geographically and economically, and yet every one is contented with it or at least more contented with it than with the idea of changing it. Naturally there are certain attendant annoyances, as in a motor ride out of Geneva which involves two or more Customs frontier examinations within a few kilometres; and there are certain absurdities involved in catching Swiss fish and French fish in different parts of Lake Leman; and one is amused in reading Customs regulations which permit cows to pasture in one country and be milked in the other without duty; but still every one has gotten used to these matters and gets along with them.

So on the whole these two maligned words represent a rather peaceful condition.

Before the World War the irritation produced in the minds of many by the then existing status quo largely related to the frontiers in Eastern Europe and the somewhat similar irritation now existing among alleged liberal thinkers is due to the frontiers created by the Peace Treaties in general which are so usually and inaccurately referred to as the Treaty of Versailles.

Here, I think it is fair to make a certain distinction regarding the causes internationally of a given status quo at any particular time and of the existing situation in particular. These causes are two, generally speaking—agreement and war. The instances in modern history of changes in frontiers reached by free agreement are innumerable. I do not see how any one who recognizes the existing state system can object to them or believe that force should be used to change them. Of course there are critics who object to the existing state system and from a theoretical point of view there is something to be said for these objections. The real answer to them at this time is, that whether they are good or bad, the present state system is one that, so far as any human being can see now, is certain to exist for some more centuries at least; and accordingly, outside of dreamland, we must take this system as it is. Given that state system, agreements between states as to their frontiers should be sacred. If a state can make an agreement about its frontier, and then, because it made a bad agreement or a stupid agreement or because circumstances changed after the agreement was made, may go to war to set aside the agreement, the result would only be international anarchy—the state system and everything else would have disappeared together.

The other source of changes in the status quo is war or strictly speaking the treaties of peace that result from war. I pass by the legal position, which is theoretically correct, that a treaty of peace made by a vanquished Power with a victor is supposedly a free agreement. This is true enough from the technical point of view but has no bearing here. The fact is that when one side wins a war and the other loses it, the treaty of peace is made under compulsion and constraint.

The argument that is made by those who criticize the status quo of the Peace Treaties of 1919 and 1920 runs about as follows;

1. In certain respects the frontiers and arrangements created by the Peace Treaties are unjust.

2. The setting up by the Peace Treaties of an international organization against war is an attempt to sanctify the wickednesses of the status quo.

3. Both the Treaties and the international organization which they set up should at least be denounced and probably rejected. This conclusion in various minds is different and uncertain, but I think that I have stated it fairly.

Let us take these points up in their order.

As a preliminary, let me say that the Treaties of Peace in this connection cannot include the Treaty of Lausanne with Turkey. Certainly at the time that that Treaty was negotiated there was no imposed peace on Turkey; as a matter of fact the Turkish negotiators had things pretty much their own way with the Allies. So that we are considering merely the Treaties with Germany, Austria, Hungary and Bulgaria.

In the first place, the question in many cases as to whether or not there is any such thing as a "just" frontier is at least a very doubtful one. I put it this way. If you have a situation where reasonable, impartial and informed minds can differ, you do not have a situation where it can be arbitrarily said by any one that any one frontier is the just frontier. Of course I am not talking of the type of mind which insists that the particular line that he would draw is the one and only line, despite the views of anybody else, because to admit such a theory would mean the admission of the existence of perhaps fifty different frontiers between the same two countries at the same time.

Now as to the Peace Treaties, we certainly have that situation to a very large extent. I do not see how any one could contend that the existence of the Polish corridor is a perfect solution, nor do I see how any one could contend that the absence of the Polish corridor would be a perfect solution. One of the Polish Delegation said to me in Paris in December, 1918, in substance, that it would be impossible to draw a frontier between Germany and Poland which would not do an injustice to one country or to the other or to both, and I believe that his observation is perfectly sound.

The same thing is true as between Roumania and Hungary, and perhaps more true.

My sympathies as to Vilna are rather with the Lithuanians than with the Poles, but no one can read the documents without seeing that the Poles have a case.

My own view has always been that the frontier between Poland and Russia is too far to the East, but none the less the Russians, after a fashion, agreed to it.

Most of those whose opinions I respect believe that it was wrong to give the Austrian Tyrol to Italy. Despite those views, I have always believed that the decision was defensible.

Different American experts of the highest qualifications, of the utmost sincerity and of complete impartiality took different views as to Fiume and the Italian-Yugo-Slav frontier generally. In such circumstances, who could say, what tribunal could decide, the "just" frontier?

I am willing to admit that this uncertainty on the question of justice may not exist in every case. I have always believed that some of the cessions of territory forced on Bulgaria were utterly indefensible from any point of view whatsoever. I refer, not to Macedonia, that impossible jumble of contradictions, but more particularly to Western Thrace.

My own view is that, on the whole and taken by and large, the existing frontiers in Europe are more near to justice than ever before in modern history.

But I am going to assume for the rest of this discussion that some of these frontiers are wrong and should be changed. What is our answer to that situation?

Let me point out in the first place that the mere fact that a frontier was imposed by force resulting in a peace treaty is not necessarily anything against it. Take the case of Alsace-Lorraine, for example; or take a still more striking case, the case of Germany and Denmark. Admittedly, in and out of Germany, the result as to Slesvig was just and should continue.

Furthermore, it is necessary to point out that the imposed origin of a situation may not continue as the cause of that situation. It may become accepted and voluntary, a full agreement. An instance here is the reparations question. The status quo as to reparations (a very uncertain one) imposed by the Treaty of Versailles upon Germany, has now, under that very Treaty, become an agreed status quo by reason of the voluntary adoption by Germany of the Dawes Report; for in reality as well as in strictness of law that plan could not have been adopted, much less be carried out, without the voluntary assent of Germany to its provisions.

However, taking the frontier status quo of the Peace Treaties at its worst, that is to say at its alleged worst, admitting, in other words, that parts of it are unjust and are the result only of force, what are we to say as to the future?

The possibility of change which, under the supposition that I have made, would in itself be admittedly desirable, is along two lines, the line of agreement or the line of war. The so-called fixation or consecration of this status quo under the League of Nations in no way precludes a change by agreement, the utmost that it can do is to preclude a change by war.

Accordingly, we are confronted at the outset with the question as to whether the continuance of this status quo is, or is not, a worse evil than war. Even those who assume or who believe that war is the preferable of the two must, in order to reach that belief, hold that change by agreement is impossible. Such an assumption is contrary to the facts of history, but for the sake of this discussion it may be admitted.

In other words, I am willing to assume that a particular part of the frontier status quo is wrong, is unjust, and was brought about by force, and should be changed, and that it cannot be changed by agreement, and come directly to the question if, in these circumstances, it should or should not be changed by war. My answer to this question is: No. And I do not think it is necessary to put this answer merely on the ground of the evil of the war itself, the death, the destruction and so on. It is sufficient to support a negative answer to point out that the effect of the war could not be limited. War never is limited, it goes to lengths that have nothing to do with the supposed injustice for which it is commenced.

Let me give an instance as a concrete supposition. Take the Bulgarian-Greek frontier and suppose, as I do, that it ought to be changed, and suppose further, as the advocates of war assert, that it should be changed by war between Bulgaria and Greece; one of two things would happen in all human probability. Either Greece would be the victor and then not only would the boundary be as unjust to Bulgaria as it is now, but much more so. Or else Bulgaria would be the victor, in which case the injustice would simply be reversed; the frontier would not move to any theoretical point of justice, but would move to the point dictated by the new Peace treaty.

In other words, war is not like a litigation which ends in the settlement of a particular dispute. Any war, in its settlement, goes far beyond the dispute which brought it about; every war opens up every possible ambition and desire of the victor.[6] Did the World War end merely in deciding the question about the rights of Austria and Serbia in connection with the murder of the Archduke? Where was the fate of the German colonies decided—in East Africa and in the Pacific, or on the Western Front?

This whole question is of vital importance in connection with the Protocol of Geneva. If that Protocol comes into force and is accepted by Germany, by Austria, by Hungary and by Bulgaria, it will have this effect at least; it will change what I may call the status of the status quo in regard to these countries to this extent, that in lieu of that status quo being one imposed by force, it will have become one agreed to, at least to the point that it is agreed that the status quo may not be changed by war but only by agreement.[7] As a practical example, it will mean, as we now see, that the German effort to regain some of her lost colonies under the mandate system, will again be an effort of negotiation[8] and not an effort of force.

All that the Covenant or the Protocol of Geneva attempts to do about the status quo is to say that frontiers shall not be changed as a result of aggression. Indeed, the Protocol[9] protects even an aggressor against loss of territory or of independence as a penalty for its aggression; discussion, leading up perhaps to peaceful agreement but to nothing else, is permitted by Articles 11 and 19 of the Covenant, but that is all.

My view is that these provisions are sound and that they should not be extended.

In saying, as I did, that the possibility of change in the status quo is along only two lines, the line of agreement and the line of war, I did not lose sight of the proposals made in various forms that there should be some method under the League of Nations or otherwise by which a tribunal of some sort would be empowered to make such changes from time to time. Most of these proposals envisage plebiscites in one form or another.

These proposals by their advocates are thought to have the advantage of adaptability to changing conditions and to be more conformable to the theory of the consent of the governed as a basis of Government.[10]

Of course, changes of frontiers made by any form of tribunal would in a sense be changes of frontiers made by agreement among the parties; for there would be necessarily an agreement in advance setting up such a tribunal and engaging to conform to its conclusions.

It may perhaps be imagined that as between two particular countries some such arrangement is possible along limited lines and relating to a particular area or areas. I doubt even this possibility; but certainly no general agreement in accord with such theories is possible and in my judgment it would be highly undesirable if it were possible.

A tribunal which was charged with the duty of determining changes in frontiers would clearly be a superstate, full-fledged, and in any sense of that much abused term. Obviously, a change of frontier, if it went far enough, might result in the substantial, or even the literal, disappearance of one state by its incorporation within the territories of another. It is inconceivable that any country would agree to such a proposition. Even if it were limited very strictly, it would present enormous difficulties and would certainly arouse fierce passions, as is well illustrated by discussion regarding the tribunal which is now sitting to consider the frontier between Northern and Southern Ireland.

Nor would the matter be resolved by the suggested idea of plebiscites. Anyone who will consider this question of plebiscites will realize that the determining factor is not wholly the vote itself but to a large extent the terms in which the plebiscite paper is written. He who drafts the agreement for the plebiscite has much to do with what the plebiscite will determine.[11] The questions are: Is the area to vote as a whole or by districts, and where is the line of the voting area to be drawn? The first of these was one of the great questions in the Upper Silesia case. To apply the idea to an existing episode, let us again refer to the case of Ireland. If the plebiscite were in the whole of Ireland, it would go for Dublin; if it were in Ulster, it would go for Belfast; if it were in Tyrone or Fermanagh, the result would perhaps depend on the exact date when it was taken, as recent elections indicate.

Another difficulty about plebiscites is this: Is their effect perpetual or not, and if not how long does it last? If Tyrone votes for Dublin today, is it an eternal decision or only till another vote in 1930, or till when? There must be some time limit at least; plebiscites cannot be held every year or even every five years, a fact which illustrates the quiet advantages of some kind of a status quo.

Another question about a plebiscite is this: Let us concede that an overwhelming vote such as took place in the regions of East Prussia under the Peace Treaties is to be decisive forever. But suppose the vote is very close; how about a vote where a little over half of the population go one way and a trifle under half go the other? Is this conclusive? Does it have the same moral effect as a larger vote? Is a majority of one vote just as good as a majority of ninety per cent.?

In reality, the truth about these proposals for changing frontiers by some sort of international procedure is that those who advocate them do not believe in them as a general proposition. An Englishman who believes in this sort of thing, for example, believes in it as regards Macedonia or some such region; he does not for a moment think that such a procedure should enable the people of British Columbia, say, to become part of the United States. I do not mean to intimate that the people of British Columbia have any such idea; but how is it going to be possible to give the privilege (if it be a privilege) to people along a few selected frontiers?

Another point, a fatal objection to such a scheme, is the inevitable uncertainty which it would set up.

It may be a better thing to live in Manitoba than in North Dakota, or to live in North Dakota than in Manitoba; but worse than almost any conceivable place of residence would be a status which might change in the future, so that one could not tell say five years ahead in what country he was going to live. A frontier is not merely a line drawn on a map or demarcated on the ground; a frontier means a nexus of customs, of laws, of traditions and of innumerable other things that directly affect the daily life and conduct of every inhabitant. Any lawyer who has had any experience in the matter will realize the enormous difficulties that surround any transfer of territory merely in connection with the drafting of the necessary papers[12]; and any student who wishes to see how far-reaching the practical difficulties may be need only consider the present situation in Alsace-Lorraine in its bearing upon the relations between France and the Vatican.

The impossibility and the undesirability of setting up any system for changing frontiers, such as has been discussed, are equally evident.

There is another phase of this general question of the status quo which is sometimes discussed by those who seem to have a natural antipathy to the words and that is what I may call the "raw materials" phase. There is, let us say, no coal in Switzerland, and yet Switzerland must have coal for her people to exist. There are no oil wells in Norway, and yet in Norway there must be, if civilization is to continue, automotive engines. It is obvious that there can be no physical change in such a status quo. People who live in the territory that is now Switzerland must get their coal somewhere else, and motor transport in Norway must get its gasoline from other lands.

What is the international phase of such situations as this? There are perhaps three possibilities. One is a war of conquest commenced by a country in the situation of Norway in order to obtain dominion over foreign oil lands; the second is some kind of agreement such as has been suggested in a vague way by the Italians and others for some sort of an international supervision in such matters; and the third is that the situation shall continue as it is now—a matter of bargain and sale, of supply and demand.

There is not the slightest doubt in my mind that, among these three, the first would be as impossible as it would be wicked; the second is wholly outside the realm of practical politics for centuries to come; the third is the status quo, which has not in any case of world peace resulted in any serious injustice.

Of course, if we go beyond such cases as Norway and Switzerland and take countries much less favored, it is always a mystery as to why people live in them. It is very difficult to understand, for example, why there are settlers in Labrador, or why people are fond of Greenland as a home; none the less these things are so. And under the existing system of exchange of commodities there has perhaps never been a time when even the people who live in these countries without certain particular natural resources have not generally been able to obtain sufficient of them as a result of their own efforts in the occupations which the character of those lands permits.

Of course some countries are naturally richer than others and must remain so. In the Delta of the Nile, the land produces as many as four crops a year and sells for something like $3,000 an acre. Such a condition cannot be duplicated in a climate where only one crop is possible.

But the notion that any State or any combination of States, less than world-wide, could be substantially self-sufficient in respect of all raw materials is untenable. Even the United States lacks (mentioning minerals only) nickel, cobalt, platinum, tin, diamonds. Its supplies of the following are inadequate: antimony, asbestos, kaolin, chromate, corundum, garnet, manganese, emery, nitrates, potash, pumice, tungsten, vanadium, zirconium. Outside of minerals we lack jute, copra, flax fiber, raw silk, tea, coffee, spices, etc. This mere enumeration suggests the absurdity of the "raw materials" argument against the status quo.[13]

Without going into it in detail, the mere fact that there are no copper mines in Germany[14] or in England has never prevented either country from obtaining all the copper that it needed by means of the exchange of its own commodities and its own labor for the copper, say, of Spain, or of the United States, or of Chili; and from any possible point of view that is now conceivable it is only by the continuance of such a system that the deficiency of particular articles in particular countries can be supplied.

All that we can say is, in other words, that so long as the people in a particular country are able to produce enough of something that the rest of the world needs, so long will they be able to supply their own necessities. And if in any country, in Labrador, for example, the people are unable, because of the situation of the country, to produce a sufficiency of consumable and exchangeable commodities, the inevitable result will be the evacuation of that country by civilized human beings. If such a result could be changed by conquest, the change would be only temporary. To attempt to change it by agreement would be to attempt a sort of international charity by means of which people would be able to live in Labrador by the use of part of the surplus production, say, of Kentucky, given to them for nothing.

There is a very exaggerated notion in the minds of some as to the effect of what is called "control of raw materials."

Of course, in time of war, control of raw materials has importance. But this does not mean "control" in the sense of ownership of foreign supplies, as, e. g., British ownership of Persian oil fields or American ownership of Bolivian tin mines. It means merely either (1) the possession of adequate domestic supplies, or (2) safe and unimpeded access to foreign sources of supply, as, e. g., German access, during the war, to Swedish iron ore. The military significance of raw materials, aside from purely domestic supplies, is related to such things as naval power, blockade, "freedom of the seas," "free transit," etc., rather than to national ownership of sources of supplies. Access to the market is the important thing, although the question of finance may be more difficult in respect of foreign supplies than of domestic.

But in time of peace, the "control of raw materials" in the last analysis means that the owners of those materials can do only two things with them, use them or to sell them. This is perhaps most obvious in the case of such raw materials as are perishable, but it is true of all.

Take such a product as copper, for example. Some countries have copper mines, others have none. But the ownership of a copper mine is of no possible advantage unless the copper produced from that mine is manufactured into something else or is sold. Of course temporarily a mine owner may leave his ore in the ground or may store a supply of copper above ground; but these are expedients to be resorted to only in some time of over-production and impossible of continuance. If the product of the mine is not either used or sold, its advantage is purely a theoretical possibility of the future. It has no more value in present reality than a bank note on a desert island.

The really important factor, as to raw materials, is access to the market on an equal footing.

In practice there are only two ways in which a State or its citizens can be discriminated against, in time of peace, so far as the State's access to supplies of raw materials is concerned. They are as follows:

(1) By discriminatory export duties, or similar duties. In practice these are not important.

(2) By discrimination in respect of prices, or similar matters, by monopolistic producers. To achieve this result it is necessary not merely that one State should have a "monopoly" of the supply of some raw materials, but also that within that State, the production and sales of the raw materials should be in the hands of monopoly. Further, the domestic monopolistic organization, must, in order that discrimination should be an outcome of the situation, find it profitable (not merely "patriotic") to discriminate in favor of the domestic market. There is no important instance of such discrimination.

Such conjunction of circumstances is one which is exceedingly unlikely to occur. There is more chance that there will be discrimination in favor of the foreign buyer. In short, the matter is not one of great practical importance, for

(1) a raw material supplied only by one State

and (2) controlled, within the State, by a monopoly, which also (3) finds it profitable to discriminate against foreign buyers

is something to be found only in imagination.

I venture to say that there has never been a time in modern civilization when the people of any country have been prevented by the international situation from obtaining any raw material whatever for which they had the capacity to pay. The only possible exception to this statement has been in time of war[15]; and the only possible change in the situation in time of peace would, as I have suggested, amount to some form of compulsory international charity.

If we look generally at this question of the status quo from the international point of view during the past two centuries, we find two divergent and irreconcilable lines of treatment.

The jurists and the writers have generally considered that the status quo is or ought to be sacred from the point of view of outside attack.[16] In most of the books the question is treated under the heading of "Intervention" and, perhaps with some qualifications, the writers do not admit the legality of intervention. They make exceptions on the ground of self preservation of the intervening State, sometimes on the ground of protection of human life and so on. But, at least with these exceptions, they generally maintain that the State against which the intervention is directed may legally object to it—that is, may legally insist upon the maintenance of the status quo (or of its right, in a proper case, to change the status quo[17]) and furthermore that such a State might justly, if able (as it usually is not), resort to war against the intervention.

On the other hand, the history of international affairs during this period is quite to the contrary.[18] Over and over again States, sometimes individually, sometimes some of them collectively, have interfered with the affairs of another State with which they Had strictly no legal concern, on many different occasions and on all sorts of pretexts. They have defended such intervention at times on the vague grounds of the rights of humanity, the interests of commerce, the restoration of order and so on.

Any one who is familiar, even in a cursory way, with the history of Europe will be able to recall numerous such instances; and it must in fairness be admitted that in some of them the result has seemed beneficent.[19]

And it must not be forgotten that it is not only the wicked powers of Europe that have acted along these lines. In reference to the affairs of other countries, though not its own, the United States has maintained this privilege of paternal intervention by force. We maintained it, for example, in Cuba in 1898, chiefly on the ground of the sake of humanity.[20] In connection with the Panama Canal, Mr. Root set up the famous proposition[21] that the sovereignty of Columbia over the Isthmus was limited and qualified by the general right of mankind to have a canal between the Atlantic and the Pacific, and to have that canal kept open for the commerce of all.

Many other instances might be cited. It is, however, worth while to recall in connection with this alleged limited right of sovereignty of Columbia over part of its territory that the United States subsequently paid $25,000,000 to the owner of the qualified fee.

It is perhaps unnecessary to add that this alleged right of intervention, as between great powers, was recognized by another name as a method of changing the status quo, namely, the method of war.

The effect of the Protocol is unquestionably to consecrate the international status quo with a definite position of legality, not to be disturbed by force.[22] The views of the writers, as opposed to the practice of Great Powers, have been adopted.

Article 2 of the Protocol forbids a resort to war[23] as against any other State, a party to the Protocol, "except in case of resistance to acts of aggression."[24]

Under Article 8, every Signatory agrees to abstain from any act which might constitute a threat of aggression.

Under these provisions and the provisions of the Protocol for the settlement of international disputes, intervention to upset the status quo (or to prevent a state from changing it where it legally may) becomes aggression and is an international crime.

[1] Such as discovery, occupation of terra nullius, etc. See the Treaty of Spitzbergen, A. J. I. L., Vol. XVIII, p. 109.

[2] A. J. I. L., Vol. XI, at p. 626.

[3] A.J. I. L, Vol. XI, Supp. 1917, p. 53.

[4] Some regions of Asia may be exceptions.

[5] See the Franco-Swiss Free Zones, by Louis Schulthess, in Foreign Affairs, Vol. 3, No. 2, p. 331, with map.

[6] "Et il faut bien remarquer, que la Guerre ne décide pas la question; la Victoire contraint seulement le vaincu à donner les mains au Traité qui termine le différend. C'est une erreur non moins absurde que funeste, de dire, que la Guerre doit décider les Controverses entre ceux qui, comme les Nations, ne reconnoissent point de Juge." Vattel, Book III, Section 38.

[7] In general, this is the theory of Article Ten of the Covenant.

[8] See the Genesis of the War, Asquith, pp. 97, 98.

[9] Article 15.

[10] President Wilson's so-called first draft of the Covenant contained a provision along these lines in Article III. See Woodrow Wilson and World Settlement, Baker, Vol. III, p. 89.

[11] The statistics of language, etc., even when accurate, do not always forecast the popular wish. Upper Silesia is an instance of this fact. The statistics, as stated in the note of Clemenceau of June 16, 1919, showed 1,250,000 Poles and 650,000 Germans. The vote was 717,122 for Germany and 483,514 for Poland.

[12] The Convention between Germany and Poland relating to the régime of Upper Silesia is a document of some 300 pages.

[13] I am greatly indebted to Professor A. A. Young for some of my economic information; but he is in no way responsible for any of my conclusions.

[14] Of course this is an over-statement. Germany produces about one-tenth of her consumption of copper.

[15] Or a period due to war, such as 1919-1920.

[16] See Hall, International Law (Seventh Edition), Chapter VIII, for an illuminating discussion.

[17] Such as the right of State A to cede territory to State B, notwithstanding the objection of State C to such a cession.

[18] See Moore's Digest, Vol. VI, pp. 2-367.

[19] Such as the intervention in Greece in 1827 by Great Britain, France and Russia. See Hertslet's Map of Europe by Treaty, Vol. I, p. 769.

[20] See the Message of President McKinley, April 11, 1898, Foreign Relations, 1898, p. 750 at p. 757.

[21] The Ethics of the Panama Question, Sen. Doc. 471, 63rd Congress, 2nd Session, p. 39.

[22] There is a reference to the status quo in the General Report (Annex C, p. 181), which uses this language:

"There is a third class of disputes to which the new system of pacific settlement can also not be applied. These are disputes which aim at revising treaties and international acts in force, or which seek to jeopardise the existing territorial integrity of signatory States. The proposal was made to include these exceptions in the Protocol, but the two Committees were unanimous in considering that, both from the legal and from the political point of view, the impossibility of applying compulsory arbitration to such cases was so obvious that it was quite superfluous to make them the subject of a special provision. It was thought sufficient to mention them in this report."

[23] For the view that this includes acts of force, even in the absence of a state of war, see infra, p. 55.

[24] The other exception "when acting in agreement with the Council," etc., is not here material. It is discussed infra, p. 50.