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United States guaranteed the neutrality of the Honduras Railroad.

In 1889, by treaty with Germany and Great Britain, the signatory powers recognized the neutrality of the Samoan Islands and provided that the three powers should have equal rights within the islands.

By the so-called Bryan treaties "For the Advancement of Peace" made by the United States with Guatemala, Norway, Portugal, Great Britain, Costa Rica, Spain, Sweden, Denmark, France, Uruguay, Peru, Paraguay, Italy, Russia, China, Chile, Ecuador, Honduras, Brazil and Bolivia, we have, in practically identical language, agreed that disputes arising between this country and the other countries named shall be submitted for investigation and report to an International Commission, and that while such investigation is proceeding we will not resort to war for the satisfaction of our rights. Even questions of national honour and vital interest are not excluded. The Commission is to be so selected that in most cases a majority of the Commission will come from nations other than those who are parties to the dis

pute. Finally, by the "favoured nation" clauses of our commercial treaties, we have acted on a principle not very different from that underlying the economic boycott provided for in Article XVI.

Thus, under the treaty-making power we have made covenants for the reduction of armament, the maintenance of armed forces in foreign territory, the fixing of boundaries, the maintenance of neutrality of territory belonging to other nations, the guarantee of the independence of other nations, the compulsory arbitration of disputed matters, with the postponement of war during that process, the participation by this country with other countries in the affairs and government of backward nations, a restriction upon the right to erect fortifications for the protection of property in which this country is interested and with reference to which it assumes a responsibility, and an appropriation of money in order to make all such covenants effective. Excepting that it deals in a single treaty with a greater number of nations and a greater variety of subjects, the Covenant of the League does not require an invasion of the

sovereignty of the United States to a greater extent than that involved in such covenants as these.

Provisions conferring powers upon the Council have been pointed to as an excessive delegation of sovereignty. But the power delegated is no greater than that conferred by the Bryan treaties upon arbitrators, a majority of whom may be foreigners, and it is far less than that by which the members of the Postal Union renounced their important governmental prerogative of fixing rates of foreign postage. The Council was necessary for purposes of administration, but it has no power to commit the League. It can only make recommendations and even such advisory action can be prevented by the veto of a single member of the Council.

Finally, the real question is whether the restriction upon sovereignty is justified by the expected result for which it is imposed. No loftier purpose can be sought for by any nation than the maintenance of peaceful relations with other nations, and nothing will so clearly justify for its accomplishment an appropriate surrender of sovereignty.

If Articles X, XII, XIII, XV and XVI are effective to that end, it may with truth be said, as Sir Frederick Pollock said of the Bryan treaties, that if they result in undue detraction from our national independence, then such "independence is a kind of legal fiction hardly worth preserving, like the absolute and individual sovereignty of certain publicists, which, unfortunately for their doctrine, it is impossible to find in the government of the United States, or in any federal constitution.”

(Letter No. 6)

CONSTITUTIONALITY

The Covenant of the League of Nations is a treaty, and the validity of its provisions must, therefore, depend upon the Federal Constitution which confers on the President the "power, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to make treaties, provided two-thirds of the Senators present concur." As by the same instrument treaties are made "the supreme law of the land," the President and the Senate in making a treaty enact, or at least initiate, what is in the nature of legislation, and they are made the agents of the people for that purpose. But a certain school of publicists have asserted that a treaty dealing with matters requiring supplementary action by Congress, as, for instance, a declaration of war, should expressly provide that it is made subject to action by the House of Representatives, or at least

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