IRELAND AND THE LEAGUE.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18895, 18 December 1924, Page 10

IRELAND AND THE LEAGUE.

Has the League of Nations jurisdiction in the domestic affairs of any of its members? Are the inter-rela-tions of the various parts of the British Empire any concern of the League? These questions seem likely to press for a definite answer. The first of them was raised by the recent Egyptian crisis, in the height of which it was urged that the issue was one for the League's consideration. Both of them are involved in the British Government's reply to the notification of the 1921 treaty between Britain and the Irish Free State. As lor Egypt, there has been 1 general acceptance of the view that the crisis did not concern the League, and a similar view seems inevitable g,s to the Irish treaty. The League's undertakings were meant to apply to international, as distinct from national, affairs. The preamble to the epoch-making document accepted at Versailles significantly begins: " The high contracting parties, in order to promote international- co-operation and to achieve international peace and security . . . There the objects of the agreement are set out as concerned with harmony and cooperation between, nob within, national units. The reiteration of the word "international" carries an unmistakable implication. The whole document should be interpreted in the light of that statement. The suggestion that the Free State would have failed in its duty if it had not registered the treaty is unsound. Article 18 of the covenant has been cited. Head with adequate regard to the declared objects of the League, it does not support th' 3 suggestion made on beAialf of tho Free State. The article reads—" Every treaty or international engagement entered into hereafter by any member of the League shall be forthwith registered with the secretariat and shall as soon as possible be published by it. No such treaty or international engagement shall be binding until so registered." The Free State was under no obligation to register this particular treaty. It was not a treaty in the common-sense meaning of the covenant's terms, which dealt with agreements between sovereign States. Will anyone speaking for the Free State seriously contend that the agreement conferring a measure of self-government on Ireland would have been valueless had it not been registered with the League's secretariat, or that the British Government forbore to register in order to preclude its validity? Such an attitude would be preposterous. There lias been, however, no little confusion occasioned by calling the Irish settlement a "treat>," a term better reserved in politics. to describe an agreement between sovereign States—as it is used, indeed, in the covenant of the League. It was a legislative act making a new adjustment within the one

sovereign State. That il provided for its own acceptance by signatories representing different portions of the State did not lift it to the level of an international undertaking. Another cause of confusion has been the popular reference to various sections of the Empire as if they were separable units in the League, each Dominion being possessed of status equal and collateral with that of the United Kingdom. As a matter of fact, the British Empire is named in the annex of the covenant as a unit, the United Kingdom does not appear in the list of members of the League, and the Dominions are shown as subsidiary to the Empire. The Irish Free State has a new status under the 1921 arrangement, but it is a status no better than that enjoyed by any Dominion, which is subsidiary to the League status of the Empire as a whole. It owes allegiance to the one head of that wide realm, and to the outside world is part and parcel of that realm. Perhaps the confusion may be clarified through the Free State's registration of the so-called treaty. If so, the incident will achieve some good, after all.