rigid maintenance of law, however distasteful it may be, is an imperative duty. It was with a determination to follow these precepts, to treat impersonally and judicially the submission of the Conference, and to avoid being influenced by our own desires or by the pressure of public sentiment that we performed our duties as the American members of the Commission on Responsibilities and filed our reservations to the report of the Commission.

I have taken a good deal of your time and, I fear, have tried your patience unduly in reviewing this question of the trial and punishment of the Kaiser, and yet the deep interest which it has excited and the various opinions expressed by jurists and laymen which have been published seemed to me to entitle it to more than a passing notice.

There is also another class of legal questions which are raised by some of the provisions of the Treaty of Peace as well as by some of the propositions advanced at the Peace Conference. They are questions which have to do with constitutional powers and constitutional limitations. I shall not even attempt to suggest the subjects falling within this class. Those to which I have referred in detail pertain essentially to the principles and generally accepted rules of the law of nations and to the administration of international justice. To go beyond those subjects would be to enter the wide field of constitutional law. Into that field I shall not venture.

In conclusion let me emphasize by repetition what I said at the beginning of my remarks, because it seems to me that the world is approaching the most critical decision that it has had to make since history began. Let me repeat: Nationalism must be maintained at all hazards. It must not be supplanted by Mundanism. It is equally imperative that within the nation Individualism should not be subordinated to Classism. Individualism has been the great impulse to progress and liberty. It is the very lifeblood of modern civilization. Individual rights, not class rights, should engage our concern and invite governmental protection wherever threatened. If we, Americans, abandon Individualism we have bartered away our birthright, we have cast aside that for which our forefathers were willing to die. The same is true of Individualism among nations. It must be main

tained if the peoples of the earth are to possess patriotism, love of liberty, and that generous devotion to national ideals which have made nations great and prosperous.

Peace and contentment are found in a nation where a free people live under just laws justly administered. So peace among nations will prevail when their conduct toward one another is governed by just laws and when they submit their controversies to an impartial judiciary which will decide them according to the immutable principles of justice.

To the achievement of this great good for the present and the future we should devote our thought and endeavor. To that end we should give our earnest support to Internationalism, a true Internationalism which is founded on a deep and abiding faith in Nationalism as the essential element of the present order. To-day by common purpose and by united effort much may be accomplished. If we wait for a more propitious time, that time may never come.

ROBERT LANSING.

THE TREATY PROVIDING FOR AMERICAN ASSISTANCE TO FRANCE IN CASE OF UNPROVOKED AGGRESSION

BY GERMANY AGAINST THE LATTER

SECOND only to the proposed Covenant of the League of Nations in its claims upon the interest and attention of the American people and the Senate of the United States, and of far more importance and interest to them than the terms of the proposed treaty with Germany, outside of the section of that treaty which contains the Covenant of the League of Nations, is the proposed treaty with France. This document was submitted to the Senate by President Wilson on July 29th, with a view to securing the consent of the Senate to its ratification.

In addition to the analysis which needs to be made first of all of the terms of the treaty themselves, the proposed agreement suggests several reflections along different lines of thought, especially in regard to its relation to the proposed League of Nations and its relation to American constitutional law and diplomatic policy.

care.

A reading of the text suggests that the pact was drawn with great The American plenipotentiaries were, evidently, extremely cautious, and insisted upon reducing the obligations assumed by the United States, by virtue of this treaty, to the very lowest points consistent with the accomplishment of the objects in view. In the third paragraph of the preamble it is a fear, more or less mutual, on the part of the contracting Powers, that the protective measures taken with respect to the left bank of the Rhine are incapable of assuring immediately to France and America adequate security and protection, which is given as the basis of the agreement. It is noteworthy that in the proposed British agreement it is said that "there is a danger" that the eventuality feared by the American and French negotiators may come to pass. In the final paragraph of Article I a double conjuncture of circumstances is required to bring the agreement into

operation: first, the failure, earlier apprehended or feared as possible, of the demilitarization provisions of the Versailles Treaty to give France appropriate security and protection, and, in addition, an unprovoked act of aggression on the part of Germany. By Article II the effectiveness of the treaty is made to depend upon the prior ratification of a similar treaty between Great Britain and the French Republic, and by Article III it is made dependent upon a certain specific sort of approval by the Council of the League of Nations. Ratification by the French Chambers, otherwise unnecessary, is required by Article IV. Finally, it is provided in Article III that the treaty shall be void upon and after a decision by the Council of the League that "the league itself affords sufficient protection." The result is a treaty as innocuous as possible within the limits of its inherent nature and effects.

The terms of the treaty do more than reveal the caution of some, at least, of the negotiators. They suggest certain questions upon other points. The accuracy of the first two considerations contained in the first paragraph of the preamble and the eliptical character of the reference, in the same paragraph, to the German aggression of 1914 might be called in question without seriously affecting the body of the agreement based upon them.

The apparent attempt, in the third paragraph, to represent the menace of aggression, and the protective stipulations of the Versailles Treaty regarding the Rhine areas, as bearing mutually upon France and America seems somewhat far-fetched, especially by comparison with the candid admission of the true state of affairs in the end of Article I.

There has been some comment upon the difference between the words expressing the obligation of America to go to the aid of France in the circumstances anticipated by the treaties and the analogous words in the British treaty, inasmuch as it is said that the United States "will be bound (seront tenues)" to come to the aid of France in such case, while Great Britain "consents (consent)" to do likewise. It is true that the former phrase emphasizes the idea of an unescapable obligation while the latter presents the idea of free and willing agreement. On the other hand, the phrase of the American treaty

might be looked upon as less likely to involve further negotiation and questioning, as being automatically operative, while the British term seemed further removed from actual effective operations.

The most pertinent questions which can be asked in respect to the proposed treaty are probably those regarding its relation to the proposed League of Nations. It is, by virtue of the first sentence of Article III, absolutely dependent for its effective existence upon the adoption of the proposed League Covenant, virtually as it stands in the Versailles Treaty or, at least, with the proposed Council organization still untouched. Otherwise the requisite approval could not be given.

Having been so approved, the treaty is intended to operate in partial and temporary execution of the principles of the proposed Covenant regarding protection against aggression. There is more significance properly attaching to the unconscious implications of the closing words of Article III in definition of the purpose of the treaty than to the lengthy explications of the preamble. In this character there are two elements deserving separate attention.

The temporary character of the pact is emphasized by the provision of Article III for its obsolescence upon the achievement of a certain set of circumstances in addition to the recurrent phrase "at first" in the paragraph of the preamble. The President told the Senate on July 10th that its "object is the temporary protection of France. On July 29th the President said that it was intended as a "temporary supplement" to the Treaty of Versailles for "the years immediately ahead," and he referred to the provision that the treaty should remain in force "only until, upon the application of one of the parties to it, the Council of the League . . . shall agree that the provisions of the Covenant of the League afford her sufficient protection." It is fairly certain that the President expects this arrangement ad interim to be of comparatively short duration, and the French and British views of the matter tend to confirm this. The Temps has described the function of the proposed treaty as follows: "Tant que la Société des nations n'assurera pas par elle-même une protection suffisante' toute velléité d'aggression allemande sera tenue en échec This seems to agree

with the interpretation of the President. This is worthy of all the