Although we cannot admit that the charges have been proved,
we see nothing but good in the courage and inde- pendence of the smaller Powers. It would be fatal to the League if the .Assembly- were ruled-by a few-dominating - • personalities with great material forces behind them while the smaller States, who stand to suffer pitifully from the clashes of the greater nations, did not dare to raise their heads. These smaller States must take their full part in peace-building and in speaking their minds, otherwise the League will certainly fail. Sir Austen Chamberlain felt it necessary to curb the impatience of those who fancy that peace can be permanently ensured by a single creation of super-machinery. It might, ol course, have happened that the frankness and baldness ol his language would have been resented by the advocates of .the super-machinery (in other words, of the Protocol) to such an extent that the rivalry in the League between the Possibilists and the Perfectionists would have become a rift. It now seems, however, that Sir Austen judged the situation correctly.
