business. The important fact, however, from the point of view of the person anticipating a more rational solution of those conflicts of interest that disturb the peace, is that obligatory jurisdiction even of purely legal questions, which in any event would but rarely if ever lead to war, has been denied the Court by most of the Powers. It has been said that this has not affected the general structure of the statute or the functions of the Court. It is believed, however, that not only has the structure of the Court thereby been materially affected but in fact its usefulness has been seriously impaired, for the principal justification for the creation of a new court, its compulsory jurisdiction, has been to a considerable extent nullified. The raison d'être of the Court has to some extent disappeared. The fact is, as will presently be shown, that a fixed personnel of judges, with a jurisdiction that is voluntary in nature, is likely to discourage rather than promote the submission of important disputes to the Court.

One of the sources of strength of the new Court, so far as it possesses power, is the calibre of the men elected to it by the Council and Assembly of the League, to whom this function was entrusted by the statute of the Court. The judges were nominated by the existing national groups of the members of the Permanent Court of Arbitration in each country, who were empowered to nominate from two to four candidates, not more than two from their own country. From a list of eighty-nine thus nominated, the Council and Assembly then elected eleven judges and four deputies, taking into consideration the fact that the principal legal systems had to find representation and that not more than one judge could come from any one country. In its reconciliation of national representation with superior mental equipment, or, I might say, subordination of the former to the latter, the League has performed a noteworthy service, hitherto found impossible. The Judges of the Court are Professor André Weiss, Professor of International Law at Paris; Dr. Dionisio Anzilotti, Professor of International Law at Rome; Dr. Rafael Altamira, Professor of Law at Madrid; Antonio Bustamante, lawyer and Professor of International Law at Havana; Viscount Finlay, now of the British House of Lords; Max Huber, Professor of Public Law at Zurich and Advisor of the Swiss Foreign Office; B. C. J. Loder,

member of the Dutch Supreme Court; Didrik Nyholm, President of the Mixed Court at Cairo; Yorozu Oda, Professor of International Law at Kyoto; and John Bassett Moore, statesman and the dean of American authorities on international law. Ruy Barbosa, a celebrated Brazilian statesman and jurist, who was also elected, has since died and at the next meeting of the Assembly in September a successor will be chosen. The four deputy judges are Dr. Negulescu, Professor of Law at Bucharest; C. H. Wang, President of the Chinese Supreme Court; Dr. Jovanovich, Professor of Law at Belgrade; and Dr. F. V. N. Beichmann, President of the Court of Appeal at Trondhjem, Norway. The men selected are among the outstanding lawyers and judges of the world. Were the nations as willing to submit important questions as they were to elect important men as judges, the future of the Court would be promising.

In view of the limited jurisdiction of the Court, consisting of what have been called justiciable or strictly legal questions, the reluctance of the larger Powers to make jurisdiction in these cases obligatory is to be regretted. It is an indication of the fact that we are still a long way from the substitution of amicable for belligerent methods in the settlement of international disputes. One of the necessary weaknesses of the Court consists in the very fact that it is not likely to prove an effective agency in removing or even minimizing for a long time to come the bane of war from the recognized institutions of international relations. This weakness goes to the very root of international relations in what I venture to call this mediæval age. No mere addition of machinery can create that necessary will to peace which is the most effective guaranty of the efficacy of an International Court. The unwillingness to submit to judicial settlement is conditioned by underlying factors inherent in the existing international system, which persuades nations to decline to submit what they consider important issues to the arbitration of impartial judges. Note the almost uniform exception of questions of independence, national honour and vital interests from arbitration treaties. The judicial process is weakened by a stipulation that there shall be no submission of anything important.

With respect to the effect of a fixed and permanent personnel

on the disposition of nations voluntarily to submit questions to judicial settlement, certain facts warrant consideration. In the several cases which the United States has voluntarily submitted to the Permanent Court of Arbitration, we examined with the greatest care the records of the arbitrators nominated in order to determine whether by word or act they could be deemed ever to have harboured a sentiment or doctrinal view unfavourable to the United States. The great English authority on International Law, W. E. Hall, for example, by reason of his critical remarks concerning American policy, would probably never have been selected as the judge of a case in which the United States was interested, nor would we probably have gone to a court in which he was a judge. It was only after we were satisfied of the personal and professional records of the arbitrators nominated, in respect of their disposition toward the United States, that the United States agreed to their appointment as arbitrators in the cases mentioned. Other nations doubtless entertain similar views of such matters. When, therefore, the time comes for the submission of one of our cases to the World Court, is it not clear that the presence on the Court of even a single judge, to whose views, personal or professional, we have reason to object, will deter us from submitting the case? The personnel of the arbitrators or judges is one of the strongest factors in inducing or preventing submission. The longer the Court sits, the more will the views of its judges become established and known. Any nation, therefore, having a national interest in sustaining a different view will hardly be disposed to submit its case to a judge or judges whom it will necessarily regard as biased.

This will make it clear, it is believed, that the only chance of securing a respectable docket for the Court lay in the provision for obligatory jurisdiction. Without it, the fixed personnel is a source of weakness rather than of strength. The greatest justification for the hope in the growing efficacy of the Court lies in the fact that fifteen smaller States have agreed to its obligatory jurisdiction, a fact which may bring to the Court some important cases. Possibly the example may prove contagious on the larger Powers, but in the present temper of international relations not much hope is to be placed in that quarter.

From what has been said above it will be realized that the contribution of the Court to the promotion of peace is probably slight. Believers in its capacity to perform the function of a peace agency cite the readiness and effectiveness with which our Supreme Court decides issues between the States of our Union, and draw the conclusion that the World Court offers the same opportunity to the nations. The present jurisdiction of the Court, and the difference between our constitutional organization and the unregulated disorganization which lies at the root of international life, hardly support the analogy. The Court, in fact, is barred from obtaining jurisdiction of those questions which commonly lead to a disturbance of peace, for the existing order of international life is conditioned upon a continual struggle among the larger Powers for economic and political advantage which not only defies judicial settlement, but which is subject to few principles of law by which the struggle may be controlled and governed. Unfair competition seems to be its key-note. The uninterrupted competition for advantage begets conflicts of interest and creates issues which are not legal but economic and political in character. The endeavor to preserve home markets by tariffs and discriminations against more favoured competitors, the endeavor to capture foreign markets against the competition of commercial rivals, the assurance for manufacturing nations of a steady and cheap supply of raw materials, leading to competing efforts to obtain control of colonies, protectorates, mandates, spheres of influence, and other fields of investment, and to acquire the incidental machinery and equipment necessary to make this enterprise successful, such as merchant fleets, cables, trade routes, coaling and oil stations, and, finally, armies, navies and alliances -these are the factors and forces that condition international relations.

Foreign policy is fashioned to the maintenance of supremacy in the continual struggle for national aggrandizement, of which these different forces and factors in varying degree constitute the main and essential elements. To the solution of the conflicts and differences arising in this struggle, the new Court obviously can make no contribution. Yet it is in this field that lies the source of war.

Apart, therefore, from the other limitations on the

Court mentioned above, it has no capacity to deal with the potential causes of war. It is, therefore, believed to be misleading to refer to the Court as necessarily an agency for peace.

Possibly it may not be a fair test of the questions which will be submitted to the Court to examine the questions which have already been submitted. For the most part the four questions which have been before the Court involved advisory opinions, hence not binding in their nature, for the benefit of the Council or subsidiary bodies of the League. The first question submitted was "whether the Dutch Workers' delegate at the Third International Labour Conference had been nominated in accordance with the provisions of Paragraph 3 of Article 389 of the Treaty of Versailles"; the second, "whether the competence of the International Labour Organization extends to the international regulation of the conditions of labour of persons employed in agriculture"; and the third, "whether examination of proposals for the organization and development of the methods of agricultural production and of other questions of a like character fall within the competence of the International Labour Organization." Another question submitted was whether the dispute between France and Great Britain concerning imposition of military duties on British subjects in the French colonies of Tunis and Morocco "arises" or not "out of a matter which by international law is solely within the domestic jurisdiction" of France. At the present June session of the Court, it is understood that the Court will be asked for an advisory opinion relating to the protection of German minorities in Poland and will decide the question, whether the Kiel Canal is a domestic canal subject to German law or an international canal subject to international law. The last question appears to be a litigated case and is probably the most important yet submitted to the Court. The Court is likely to get most of its business from weak nations, as is indicated by the countries which have signed the clause opting the obligatory jurisdiction, for the law is about the only protection that weak nations have.

Unfortunately the common assumption which underlies some of the advocacy for the World Court, that the nations seriously desire an international court for the settlement of their disputes,