21 SEPTEMBER 1929, Page 2

We have often reflected upon the 'remarkable super- iority of

the Mandates System to old-fashioned Im- perialism in circumstances in which the governing Power was necessarily the guardian of mingled interests. Evi- dently there are many countries represented at Geneva which are still in need of a little elementary instruction on this matter—and, indeed, in the principles of the whole new technique—of international co-operation. The vexed question of " sovereignty " has raised its head again in . connexion with the B and C Mandates. We agree with Professor Rappard, the Swiss member of the Mandates Commission, that, wherever the " sove- reignty " of a Mandated territory does reside—either in the League or in the pentarchy of Powers to whom the ex- enemy territory was ceded—it is not vested in the Man- datory Power. But let us have done with obsolete legalistic- notions. The notion of sovereignty—" the power that cannot be questioned "—should surely be relegated to the limbo where it belongs..