THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



45 



directed only against a nation beginning 

 war before submission to the Court or 

 the Council. 



In England, after the organization of 

 the American League, a British League 

 of Free Nations Association was formed, 

 proposing a Court and a Commission of 

 Conciliation, the use of force to execute 

 the decisions of the Court, and the joint 

 suppression, by all means at their disposal, 

 of any attempt by any State to disturb 

 the peace of the world by acts of war. 



It looked to the immediate organiza- 

 tion of a League of Great Britain and her 

 then allies, with a view to the ultimate 

 formation of a League of Nations on a 

 wider basis, including States at present 

 neutral or hostile. It excluded the Ger- 

 man peoples until they should bring forth 

 works meet for repentance and become a 

 democracy. 



It contained a provision for action by 

 the League as trustee and guardian of 

 uncivilized races and undeveloped terri- 

 tories. It proposed as a substitute for na- 

 tional armaments an international force 

 to guarantee order in the world, and pro- 

 posed a further function for the Council 

 of the League in supervising, limiting, 

 and controlling the military and naval 

 forces and the armament industries of 

 the world. 



HOW FRANCE JOINED THE MOVEMENT 



Late in 191 8 a French Association for 

 the Society of Nations recommended that 

 the Society of Nations should be open to 

 every nation who would agree to respect 

 the right of peoples to determine their 

 own destiny, and to resort only to judi- 

 cial solutions for the settlement of their 

 disputes ; 



That the use of force be reserved ex- 

 clusively to the international society itself 

 as the supreme sanction in case one of 

 the member States should resist its de- 

 cisions ; 



That the allies should form their asso- 

 ciation immediately and should work it 

 out as completely as possible in the direc- 

 tion of sanctions of every kind — moral, 

 judicial, economic, and in the last resort 

 military — as well as in that of promul- 

 gating general rules of law. 



The French Society further provided 

 that the Society of Nations thus immedi- 



ately formed should control and conduct 

 the negotiations for the coming peace. 



It will thus be seen that the League of 

 Nations, as conceived by its proponents 

 in three of the four great nations that 

 have won this war, has substantially the 

 same structure. It includes a court to 

 decide justiciable questions, a Council of 

 Conciliation to consider other or non- 

 justiciable questions and to recommend 

 a compromise. It calls for the organiza- 

 tion of the combined economic and mili- 

 tary forces of the world to enforce the 

 judgments of the court, and to deal with 

 a defiance of the recommendations of the 

 mediating council as the executive body 

 of the League shall deem wise. 



JUSTICIABLE AND NON-JUSTICIABLE 

 QUESTIONS DEFINED 



The distinction between justiciable and 

 non- justiciable questions is generally 

 clear, although it may sometimes give 

 rise to disputes. 



A justiciable question is one that a 

 court would take up for decision and ad- 

 judge upon principles of law. A non- 

 justiciable issue is one in which the claim 

 asserted and denied is not rested on legal 

 right, but is based on a policy which the 

 claimant seeks to maintain for its own 

 safety and for the general welfare. 



Such non- justiciable claims are to be 

 weighed by the Council of Conciliation 

 in the light of considerations, not of posi- 

 tive law or juridical equity, but in the 

 light of conventional rules of decency, 

 courtesy, neighborly feeling, and morality 

 which the common brotherhood of na- 

 tions and their general welfare require. 



Illustrations may be given. The Mon- 

 roe Doctrine of the United States was 

 a declaration by the United States that 

 its interests and safety required that it 

 should exclude from the Western Hemi- 

 sphere interference by European or other 

 governments to overturn any independ- 

 ent government in this hemisphere ; that 

 it should prevent further colonization by 

 any foreign government in this hemi- 

 sphere; and this has been amplified to 

 prevent the transfer of territory in this 

 hemisphere to any foreign government. 



The object was to avoid disturbance 

 of the peace by the ambitions and in- 

 trigues of European nations against the 



