Page:The league of nations and primitive peoples (IA leagueofnationsp00oliviala).pdf/19

 anticipations of what is looked for, in a League of Nations, in schemes, to, provide for and—in more or less shadowy and optional degrees—guarantee the independence of weak civilized or help less primitive peoples. These have all had two common vices: they have aimed entirely or predominantly at the interests of the guarantors, and they have provided no commanding common sanction. An international Act guaranteed, in a very feeble and negative manner, the neutrality of Luxembourg. An earlier Act had guaranteed, with a more actively operative form of sanction, the neutrality of Belgium. An international Act asserted, in a manner which the British and other participant Governments treated as laying no charge upon them to assure its observance, the liberties of Bosnia and Herzegovina. An international Agreement guaranteed, without effectual sanction, the good administration of the New Hebrides under the joint sovereignty of France and England. An international Act guaranteed, with more practicable possibility of enforcement, the good government of the Congo State; and effectual action was, in fact, taken in this case by some of the guarantors to correct abuses. The Brussels Act of 1890 embodied further resolutions for the suppression of the slave-trade and the trade in firearms; other international Acts have aimed at regulating the trade in liquor. But the authority of all such extemporized and unconnected anticipations of the League of Nations has proved in great measure ineffectual, for lack of goodwill or good faith in one or other of the parties, or for lack