PERFECTING THE COVENANT.

Evening Star, Issue 20556, 7 August 1930, Page 10

PERFECTING THE COVENANT.

If world peace required to be ensured only on paper, how easy would bo the task! Tho Covenant of ,the League of Nations, subscribed to by some fifty nations, prohibits in theory nine wars out of ten. If the prohibition is flouted there are provisions for coercion, known as sanctions, though there is room for doubt what these would be worth in practice. In the form of commercial boycotts they would not biqd the United States, which is not a member of the League, and as they refer to military action they are vague. The tenth case, in which the Covenant would allow a war, is when a' total period of nine months has been spent in trying means for agreement which are prescribed, and those prove unsuccessful. The Treaty of Paris prohibits’ war in this case also. Its signatories stand pledged to maks no wars whatever. An attempt is being made this year to close the loophole in the Covenant, and bring that document into harmony with the treaty. It is expected to.be,the most important work of this year’s meeting of tho League’s Assembly, which opens in three weeks from now.

The object sounds simple, but it is far from simple in practice. The suggestion for it was made by the British Government at the last Assembly, and was unanimously approved in principle. A committee of the League’s Council was appointed to make the amendments in the Covenant required. The first amendment proposed is to Article XII., and takes 'the form of a statement that in no circumstances will war be resorted to for the solution of a dispute. TJie revision which is vital is that made of paragraph 7, Article XV. It is by this paragraph that members of the League, when the Council has failed to reach unanimity regarding a difference, “reserve to themselves the right to take such action as they shall consider necessary for the maintenance of right and justice.” In plain words, that would mean war. But something must take the place of war if the Covenant is to he perfected. The committee’s suggestion of an alternative is not very definite. The new formula goes no i tirther than to propose that the’Council “shall examine the procedure best suited to meet the case and recommend it to the parties.” The Council, of course, may disagree. No provision is made for that. , Provision- is made, however, for bringing pressure to hear upon a State which may go to war when it finds no other satisfaction of its grievance open to it. The sanctions,- as they stand at present in the Covenant, arc allowed to remain. And this has been a main ground of objections to the amendment of the Covenant. If the Council had to call for a commercial hoycoft against some offending State—-which might happen, under the amended charter, more frequently than under the old—what" would the United States say to it? And if'the British Xavy had to enforce the boycott against an unheeding United States, where would be British-American friendship? Complaint is also made that the amendments! give new powers to the Council, raising the League much too hear to the position of a superstate, which it is not meant to be. The whole problem would- be easier if the machinery were completed for the settlement of disputes by peaceful means, but every proposal made for the completion of that machinery is open to objections of its own. The British Foreign Minister, Mr Henderson, thinks that the committee’s proposed amendments to the Covenant make the possibility of a conflict more remote. The British Government is disposed generally to agreo to them, reserving tho right to propose modifications of detail. Opinions on them should be inldf-esting at the next Assembly, but, even if they are agreed to there, they will have no binding force till they am ratified by, tho Governments.