The Persian Dispute and the League The attitude adopted by
the Persian ,Government iii its reply to the last British Note cannot- be defended. If a country is to wept the jurisdiction of the Permanent Court. of International Justice. in all relevant cases and then set itself up as its own judge of what is a relevant case, the signature of the Optional Clause loses all virtue. There. was no good reason why the British Government should- not have gone forward at The Hague, for the Court can hear the case whether Persia puts in an appear- ance or not. As for the claim that *the Court cannot deal with a dispute between a Government and a commercial .company, that is sound as far as it goes. But it is always open to the commercial company's own Government to take up its cause and so make it a purely governmental suit—as when the Greek Govern- ment took up the cause of M. Mavrommatis, a Greek concessionaire in Palestine, against the British Govern- ment and brought it before The Hague Court in 1924. The decision to resort to the League Council instead leaves room for the discussion of something broader than purely legal issues, but the Council will probably still need to refer points of law to the Court. It is an odd chance that puts the Irish delegate in the chair when Great Britain is preferring a charge of breach of contract.
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