President Wilson reported the League Covenant to the Allied Conference.
In reading it, he broke off to state that the Mandatory clause had been discussed very carefully by the five Great Powers and embodied their unanimous conclu- sion, no that it is vain for Germany to ask for the return of her loot colonies. He said that the League Commission repre- sented a union of wills which could not be resisted. The structure of the League was simple. The body of Delegates, representing twelve hundred million people, would not be stereotyped, and would have power to discuss any dispute, if either party desired it, because the League depended upon the moral force of the public opinion of the world. " if the moral force of the world will not suffice, physical force shall." The League was designed not only to secure peace, but also to be used for co-operation in any international matter, notably with regard to labour. The Covenant was, said the President, at one and the same time a practical and a humane document, which would benefit the helpless peoples of the world, and save them from the horrors of German colonial rule.
