provides the machinery for the rapid intervention of others. Even if in many cases recourse is not had to the League, its mere existence is an advantage. The League further provides an almost perfect instrument for organizing international conferences at short notice. The writer has had experience both of League conferences and others, and has been able to realize the greater ease and efficiency with which the former are organized as compared with the latter.

When we come to the definite questions handled by the League the record is by no means unsatisfactory. The FinnoSwedish conflict over the Aaland Islands was concluded without recourse to war; and the conflict between Yugoslavia and Albania in 1921 was satisfactorily settled through the agency of the League in the latter case, the Yugoslavs were induced to withdraw their troops from the Albanian districts occupied by them, and both parties accepted the award given by the League Commission. If, in 1925, Bulgaria and Greece were prevented from going to war over a serious incident between Bulgarian and Greek frontier guards, it was entirely owing to the League's prompt action. The incident occurred on October 19th; on the 22nd, Greek troops entered Bulgarian territory, and on the same day the Bulgarian Government appealed to the League. The acting President of the Council at once enjoined both parties not to resort to war and to withdraw their troops behind the frontiers, and summoned the Council, which met on the 26th. Both Governments agreed to the League's injunctions, and on the 29th the Council appointed a commission of inquiry, which departed on November 6th, presenting its report on the 28th. The Council gave its award, which Greece and Bulgaria accepted, on December 14th, and by March 1, 1926, the indemnities were paid and the incident was closed. Without the League's intervention war might easily have broken out.

These results have been obtained because the minor Powers, including those whose spirit is still bellicose, are readier to defer to an award pronounced by an international—almost extra-national-body such as the League, rather than to the desires or pressure of a single Power or group of Powers. In all the cases mentioned the awards were in favour of the weaker of the parties in conflict. If the League was less successful in dealing with the Wilna question, it was because one of the Great Powers

on the Council, namely France, definitely favoured one of the disputants-Poland- which had forcibly occupied Wilna, while the other Great Powers were not so deeply concerned with the affair as to be willing to oppose French wishes.

Other questions with which the League has dealt successfully are those of a financial and economic nature. A solution of the extremely complicated and apparently hopeless Austrian financial situation would never have been found without the League. It involved the placing of Austria temporarily sub tutela, and this could be achieved without too greatly humiliating the country, because the guardianship was that of the League and not of two or three individual Powers. The League has likewise solved the Hungarian financial problem, and helped to secure the refugee loans for Greece and Bulgaria. It provides machinery ready to hand for concluding agreements on economic, financial and commercial questions, such as commercial arbitration, the abolition of prohibitions of exports and imports, unfair competition, double taxation, and innumerable thorny problems concerning transit and communications. All this work is less showy than the League's political activities, but it is no less useful, and produces tangible results which large masses of people in all countries cannot fail to appreciate. It is a systematic attempt to rebuild the economic structure shattered by the war and indeed to improve upon it.

A branch of the League of Nations, which, although paid for out of the League's budget, has succeeded in securing almost absolute independence of the League, is the International Labour Organization. It was provided for in Part XIII of the Treaty of Versailles, and was created at a moment when all Europe was in the throes of labour agitations, which, starting from Russia, had spread to Hungary and threatened at that time to submerge the whole civilized world. The various European Governments were in a "blue funk " at the prospect, and while they were trying to evolve in the League an organism capable of peacefully solving international disputes, they were obsessed by the necessity of creating another to eliminate or attenuate labour conflicts. The labour leaders and demagogues, who did not yet wish to go so far as their Russian comrades, took advantage of this panic to promote the creation of an international labour organ which should dominate Governments in the interests of Socialism. They

depicted the labour movement affiliated to the Second International as the only bulwark between the existing “capitalist States and Bolshevism. The more enthusiastic supporters of the idea actually wanted to create a body entitled to legislate on labour and kindred subjects for all States. But this was a little too much even for the terrified Governments of 1919, and the existing organization is the result of a compromise suggested by the Right Hon. G. Barnes, at that time a member of the British Government. The labour leaders did succeed in getting a clause inserted whereby Governments are obliged to submit the decisions of the International Labour Organization to their Parliaments for ratification within one year, and although the Parliament of any particular country may refuse to ratify them, if it does so, that country is liable to a campaign of strikes and boycotts organized by its own and foreign labour leaders and unions to force it to ratify. Although this menace has not hitherto materialized, the International Labour Organization being too weak to attempt it, there is no doubt as to the intentions of some of its promoters.

The representation of the various countries within the International Labour Organization is of a peculiar nature. On nearly all other international bodies and conferences each Government is represented by one or more delegates, but it usually has only one vote, and even if in some cases it may have more than one, all its delegates vote in the same sense. At the Assembly of the International Labour Organization the delegation of each State is composed of four members, two representing the Government, one the chief employers' organization, and one the chief labour organization in that country. Each delegate votes independently. By assigning two votes to the Governments the authors of the Labour section of the Treaty evidently wished to confer on them a predominant influence; the other delegates were intended merely to give strength to the action of the Government by making the representatives of the classes participate in the decisions and recommendations voted. But by conferring independent votes on each delegate the "autonomy of the groups" has become an article of faith each group regards itself as quite independent, and the International Labour Organization conferences are often debates between three separate Powers, although there is nothing to justify this in the treaty. The Conference standing orders have left to the groups the practical organization of the committees,

which are composed of an equal number of delegates for each group. The selection committee is faced with the dictatorship of the majority within each group, which has established a monopoly in favour of certain political tendencies, and is apt to exclude delegates belonging to other parties.

It may happen that a decision is obtained by a majority composed of the Government delegates of one group of countries, of the employers' delegates of a second, and of the labour delegates of a third; the labour delegates in fact often vote against those of their own Government. This, of course, nullifies the value of the votes and tends to make the debates more like open-air meetings than real international conferences. The various Governments consequently feel less morally bound to ratify International Labour Organization decisions than those of the League of Nations, as is made manifest by the very long delay elapsing between the conclusion of the labour conventions and their ratification, while in many cases there has as yet been no ratification at all.

The Governing Body of the International Labour Organization, which stands to the Assembly somewhat in the same relation as the League Council to the Assembly, is also composed in a peculiar fashion. It consists of 24 members, 12 representing the Governments, six the employers, and six the workers, selected from among the eight countries of greatest industrial importance.

That the International Labour Organization, although enjoying a wide measure of autonomy, was intended to be an integral part of the League, is proved by the fact that it is financially dependent on it and that its budget has to be voted annually by Committee No. IV of the League's Assembly, which assigns to it one-third of the total income. This year its budget amounts to 7,431,724 gold francs, as compared with 13,561,840 for the Secretariat, 2,143,777 for the Hague Court, and 1,375,000 for the buildings in Geneva. Nevertheless, the International Labour Organization has succeeded in achieving practical independence, and M. Albert Thomas, the Director of the Labour Office, considers that Committee No. IV has no right to inquire into his budget, for which he is responsible to his own Governing Body alone. The League, according to his view, has no other duties in connection with the International Labour Organization than that of paying the piper, while he calls the tune. From his own

point of view he is probably right, for if the delegates of the various Governments had to vote two budgets there would undoubtedly be difficulties when that of the International Labour Organization was submitted to them, and they might insist on drastic economies, whereas by blending it with that of the League as a whole it is easier to pilot it through unscathed.

The activities of the International Labour Organization are in many ways peculiar. In the first place, a much larger proportion of the total is expended on publications (1,059,590 gold francs out of 7,431,724) than is the case with the League Secretariat (701,361 gold francs out of 13,561,840), and a considerable part of the funds assigned to other departments are really more or less devoted to publications.* Useful as these literary activities may be to students of social problems, there seems to be some extravagance in devoting such large sums to a purpose already to a great extent provided for in the internal budgets of individual States. In the second place, the Labour Office is very considerably inspired by partizan considerations of a political nature, not a few of the officials having been chosen because they were recommended by influential trade union and Socialist circles, rather than for their special qualifications. At the League Secretariat at least an attempt was always made to secure the most competent officials.

In the enquiries and publications of the International Labour Organization the same partizan spirit is often displayed, notably in those on the use of white lead and on production. Some enquiries seem to be of a somewhat superfluous character, or at all events to have been conducted at a cost disproportionate to their utility thus many observers asked themselves whether it was necessary to send a highly-paid member of the staff to all the chief capitals of Europe to enquire into the conditions of musicians in the post-war period.

What is perhaps more serious is that the International Labour Organization is constantly attempting to interfere in the internal affairs of different countries. Thus the eighth Labour Conference voted a resolution providing for a technical committee to examine and control the reports which the various Governments must transmit annually to the Labour Office concerning the

*The figures in both cases cover the expenditure for publications proper (printing, etc.), and the salaries of officials attached to the publications and editorial departments.