This will not do. Grave as the consequences of a
clash between the League of Nations and Japan might be, something far more important than the position of any single nation is at stake. It is vital to the League's existence that when it is convinced—as the Lytton Report must have convinced it, if any doubt ever existed at all—that the Covenant has been violated, it should say so plainly, no matter what the consequences may be. That course is, in fact, made easier for it by the known attitude of America, and it is to be hoped that our own Government is paying at least as much attention to America's ° disinterested as to Japan's interested views. So far as members of the League are prepared to base their action on adhesion to the principles of the League, the course lies crystal clear before them. At the very least they must go every inch of the way with the Lytton Report. Merely to approve the record of events contained in that document and stop short of adopting its conclusions would be contemptible and disastrous weakness, and so far as the British Government is advocating that course it is showing itself definitely inimical to the interests of the League. The Committee of Nineteen - has decided to begin preparation of the report contemplated by
Art. XV, para. 4, of the Covenant and that paragraph specifically provides for both a statement of the facts of the dispute and recommendations thereto. The recommendations arc an essential part of the report, * * * *
