Page:Paul Samuel Reinsch - Secret Diplomacy, How Far Can It Be Eliminated? - 1922.djvu/202

 gh to remove the evil. If two or three states are willing to keep an engagement secret at the risk of later incur- ring a certain amount of opprobrium when the fact is discovered, there is no means as yet avail- able for obliging them to abandon such course. Nevertheless, this provision of the Covenant con- stitutes a great advance in the work of placing the public business of the world on the only sound basis, and cultivating that confidence upon which depends the future immunity of mankind from constant danger of suffering and destruction. It will, however, not be a real remedy until the na- tions agree actually to outlaw all secret agree- ments as a conspiracy against the general wel- fare and safety.

The other important advance made in the Cove- nant is found in the provisions for the investi- gation of any cause of conflict before hostilities shall be resorted to. If after the first shock of excitement, which accompanies the revelation of a serious international crisis, public opinion can be given a certain space of time to inform itself, then it may indeed be hoped that a different tem- per will control the giving of the fateful doom of war. As Count Czernin has stated, on the night of August 4, 1914, between the hours of nine and midnight the decision as to whether England