Letters to the Editor
THE OPTIONAL CLAUSE
[To the Editor of the SPECTATOR.]
Sra,—In your article on " The Optional Clause " of July 18th, you criticize the, argument that we should be risking too much in signing the clause owing to the differences between Anglo- Saxon and Continental legal thought—an argument which Sir Austen Chamberlain recently used in the House of Commons.
It may have escaped the notice of some of your readers that of the twenty-seven decisions which the Permanent Court of International Justice has given since its institution in 192C— in which Anglo-Saxon judges have taken part (I quote from a most interesting letter in the Manchester Guardian from " A Student at Law ")—in no single case did the British or American judge separate himself from all the rest of the Court. And in fifteen of these eases the decisions were Unanimous. There may be risks, as you observe, but it would
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