The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1929. A FAMOUS CLAUSE

Southland Times, Issue 20771, 11 May 1929, Page 6

The Southland Times. PUBLISHED EVERY MORNING. Luceo Non Uro. SATURDAY, MAY 11, 1929. A FAMOUS CLAUSE

It is a matter of congratulation that an organized effort is being made to establish a strong branch of the League of Nations Union in this district. Everybody has a hazy sort of notion of the League of Nations. The man in the street, asked what is the League of Nations?, would say it is a body on which the leading nations of the world are represented and which sits periodically in Geneva to settle international disputes and prevent nations between which differences arise from going to war. But he could not give any clear account of the working of the League, the Covenant, the Assembly, the Council, the Secretariat, and so on. Yet there is nothing that is more urgently important than that the citizens of every civilized country should thoroughly understand the League and its machinery. The League has already accomplished a great deal, but if it is to succeed in its principal object, the preservation of world peace, it must be backed by an educated public opinion. The League cannot succeed unless it has the support of the mass of the people in the nations it represents, and it cannot have that support until the people understand it and are in sympathy with it. The League of Nations Union has been formed to educate its members, and through them the public at large, in the constitution and working of the League of Nations, and it is the manifest duty of every citizen who appreciates the absolute necessity to civilization of permanent peace among the nations of the world to avail himself of the unrivalled opportunities which the Union offers. In view of the growing interest in the League and its work it may not be inopportune to direct attention to one forward step which leaders of the Union arc striving to induce Britain to take at the present time. To those not well informed in League matters the cable published last week reporting the defeat in the House of Lords of a motion by Viscount Cecil of Chelwood in regard to “the optional clause” would not have much interest or meaning, but a student of the literature of the League of Nations Union would have no difficulty in apprehending the point of the debate and the importance attached to it. Viscount Cecil asked the House of Lords to declare that the time had arrived when the British Government should sign “the optional clause,” but, though it was strongly supported, the Lord Chancellor said the Government could not accept the motion and it was thrown out by 26 votes to 19. “The optional clause” so frequently mentioned is Article 36 of the Statute of the League of Nations under which the Permanent Court of International Justice was set up in 1922—a Court consisting of fifteen members, eleven judges and four deputy judges, elected by the Assembly and the Council of the League of Nations regardless of their nationality. Since it was brought into existence this Court has been almost continuously employed. It was thought at one time that there might not be enough work to do: now the fear is that it may have too much to do. Many tributes have been paid to the value of its services to the cause of international peace. Mr Stanley Baldwin, Prime Minister of Great Britain, has himself said that “this Court has exceeded the 'hopes which were originally entertained about it,” and he added that there was no doubt that, thanks to the Court, many disputes had been settled and were out of the way, whereas in the time when Lord Grey was Foreign Secretary “they would have remained festering sores embittering the relations of the nations.” Britain herself has been a party to a large proportion of the cases which have come before the Court, but Britain has not yet subscribed to Article 36, which provides that the members of the League of Nations and certain other States “may declare that they recognize as compulsory, ipso facto and without special agreement, in relation to any other member or State accepting the same obligation, the jurisdiction of the Court in all or any of the classes of legal disputes concerning: (a) the interpretation of a treaty; (b) any question of international law; (c) the existence of any fact which, if established, would constitute a breach of international obligation; and (d) the nature or extent of the reparation to be made for the breach of an international obligation.” Britain so far haS declined to sign this “optional clause,” pointing out that in contracting an international obligation towards another a country must take into account the nature of its general relations with that State, and that obligations which it may be ready to assume with one country may not be possible with another. Britain has declared for bilateral agreements in preference to general treaties, insisting upon the distinction between justiciable and nonjusticiable disputes, and expressing “profound sympathy” with the system of Conciliation Commissions.

It was the adoption of this optional clause that Viscount Cecil urged in the House of Lords, and the Lord Chancellor’s speech on the motion showed that the present Government, while not actively opposed to Article 36, still maintains that "if is not expedient, in the interests of Britain and the Empire, to sign the clause

now.” The question did not come formally before the Imperial Conference in 1926, Lord Balfour in his report on behalf of the Inter-Imperial Relations Committee explaining that it had been decided to submit no resolution to the Conference. Lord Balfour added, however, that “whilst the members of the Coipmittee were unanimous in favouring the widest possible extension of the method of arbitration for the settlement of International Disputes, the feeling was that it was at present premature to accept the obligations under Article 36 of the Statute of the Permanent Court of International Justice.” The Imperial Government has behind it permanent officers with an unrivalled knowledge of the difficulties and intricacies of the Empire’s international relationships, and the best legal and diplomatic advice in the world is available to it. The Government’s decision must therefore be received with the greatest reepect, but it is permissible to point out that some of the best intellects in British public life, as well as some of Britain s greatest jurists (Lord Reading, for instance, Lord Chief Justice of England from 1913 to 1921, and Lord Finlay, Lord Chancellor from 1916 to 1918, and a member of the International Court, of Justice) contend strongly that there is no obstacle to Britain’s signing “the optional clause, and that, since to sign it would be to strengthen enormously the cause of world peace, we should not hesitate any longer. Furthermore, seventeen States have signed and ratified the clause, including one Great Power, Germany. It must be confessed that it is more than a little difficult for the outside observer to understand precisely on what grounds the Government’s objections rest, more especially in view of Mr Baldwin’s eulogy of the Court and his testimony to its work, and still more especially in view of the fact that in signing Britain can make any reservations she deems necessary. The agitation for the adoption of the “optional clause” will certainly go on within the Empire, and it will be interesting to follow its course.