IlE question of the reform of the League of Nations
NEWS OF THE WEEK
is being suddenly mooted in different quarters, as it has been from time to time in the past. It is a question which needs constant consideration, provided the reasons for any proposal put forward are sound and the aims in view sane. There is nothing to be said for mere abstract universality merely to bring in States which, like Japan,. have left the League because they prefer breaking the Covenant to observing it. And no amount of revision for the benefit of the United States is likely at present to be of much avail. The League has broken down in the case of Abyssinia not because the Covenant will not work but because the States will not work it. That can be remedied in two ways, by the States deciding to carry out their pledges, or by whittlingdown the Covenant so that it does not profess to prevent war. If the former is unattainable the latter might be better than nothing—though not much better. More profitable would be a study of means to make more effective that part of the Covenant (Art. XI) which deals with measures to prevent war before it has broken out, and that (.:rt. XIX) designed to facilitate revision of treaties and other forms of political and territorial change which, if they cannot be effected peacefully, will certainly be attempted by war.
