Page:The League of Nations and the coming rule of law.djvu/11

 types of comprehensive arbitration treaties which in time, perhaps no long time, could be consolidated into one general ordinance or convention. The difficulties of creating a true judicial court, however, do not seem to me quite so formidable as they do to Lord Parker. For we must remember that the statesmen who come together to found the League of Nations will mean business from the first. Their meeting will be a wholly different affair from the Hague Conference, where the chief aim of one Great Power was to have as little done as was decently possible, and that of some lesser ones to magnify their own importance at all costs. When difficulties are faced by capable men not divided on any fundamental principle, and determined to reach a working agreement, they have already lost half their terrors. It is needless to say to any one acquainted with the work of the Peace Conferences of 1899 and 1907, but the warning may be useful to others, that their constitution and procedure are wholly inapplicable to the construction of a League of Nations.

As Lord Parker relegates the formation of a standing tribunal to the background, he does not notice the distinction between a court for 'justiciable' and a council or board of conciliation for 'non-justiciable' disputes; Mr. Taft made this prominent three years ago, and almost every writer who has handled the matter seriously recognizes its importance. But a general council of direction is part of Lord Parker's