The League of Nations Committee on Arbitration and Security has
continued its session at Geneva. On Thursday, February 23rd, at the public sitting the merits of a general treaty as against bilateral or regional treaties were discussed. Lord Cushendun put in a memorandum which emphasized the very wide appli- cation that could be given to the League Covenant. We have often written that the nations do not seem to realize how comprehensively the Covenant can be read, nor indeed to realize how deeply they are committed by having signed it. Lord Cushendun repeated the view of our Government that elasticity is better than rigid agreements and that an increase in the smaller agreements would be better than making a general treaty, quite apart from the special difficulties of the British Empint in contemplating a general treaty. Similarly the Empire could not face an " All-in " Arbi- tration Treaty without reservations. Otherwise the Government wanted to encourage the arbitration of justiciable disputes and conciliation in non-justiciable. Japan, Italy, Canada, Chile and Argentina supported this British view of a general treaty. Greece and Holland were in favour of it for its " symbolic value."
