League Reform Lord De la Warr's speech at a plenary
meeting of the League Assembly last week was an expression of the British Government's desire for certain modifications in the League Covenant, and especially Art. XVI (Sanctions). The purpose of the desired changes is, firstly, to restrict and weaken the coercive powers exercised by the League in cases of aggression ; and, secondly, to improve and strengthen the provisions for effecting " peaceful change." It is claimed that such changes, while theoretically weakening, would in practice strengthen, the League's power to prevent aggression ; but, in fact, it is an admission, hardly to be avoided at the present time, that the Covenant involves its signatories in no general obligations over and above any which they may choose to assume voluntarily in each particular dispute that arises. The Norwegian delegate stated that precisely this principle would govern the conduct of his Government in future. Such declarations are valuable as a means to clarifying and defining the actual, as opposed to the theoretical, powers of the League ; but it is absurd to pretend that they are inspired by anything else than the League's impotence to intervene effectively in recent disputes. Sauve qui peat is the slogan ; and the speeches of the Chinese and Spanish delegates strikingly showed how much the League has recently fallen into contempt among countries, formerly its strongest adherents, which have actually suffered aggression and received no effective help.
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