The League Under Scrutiny
300 THE COMMONWEAL July 28, 1926 the whole of France be divided into thirty-nine square a continental statesman...
...300 THE COMMONWEAL July 28, 1926 the whole of France be divided into thirty-nine square a continental statesman as being quite like that of a departments, identical in shape and size and ignoring citizen who should agree to uphold a tribunal of all natural boundaries whatsoever...
...out a struggle to maintain the occasional pleasant sur- Dr...
...In short, international action added to the disorder through its peculiar attitude is too important and complex to be entered upon withtoward the World Court-an attitude described by out accurate knowledge of the established machinery...
...If the former is given the chief a synthetic present upon which the past could not be role, a great deal will depend upon the homogeneity superimposed without the aid of a slide-rule-may of those who strive to effect the compromise...
...Our entry into the panied by a visible narrowing of the political hori- World Court, for instance, was characterized chiefly zons...
...All divisions of time are neces...
...Our own country has "clearing-house" power...
...And with a penetrative insight which, as far present to the world...
...Finally, the disillusionresented is by no means dead is proven by a new sug- ment with which our delegates have returned from gestion offered, according to press report, by Professor the Arms Conference is shared quite generally by W. S. Echelberger, director of the Almanac of the friends of peace, and may safely be described as the Naval Observatory at Washington, that the pres- having been caused by the uncertainty with which ent division of the calendar into months of uneven Europe still looks upon the Versailles agreement, the length shall be abolished, and the place of the present Russian revolution, and the various colonial mandates...
...end of the year...
...The retreat of Brazil, the dissatisfaction of by a frightened enumeration of the things the mythical Germany, and the failure of Japan to manage through tribunal might do to us...
...and commend itself to the mathematical and professorial this homogeneity is threatened, of course, by a mulmind...
...It naturally asks questions exact advantage, other than that of replacing present like these : What can be expected of the League in confusions with quite new ones, the Professor's scheme, the domain of international law...
...And in all sober truth, we Geneva a settlement of its controversies with the might have found it less dangerous to adhere to the United States, are also calculated to rob League his- League assembly, which in itself has no more than torians of their optimism...
...What is its real backed though it be by a powerful international com- diplomatic function...
...It is worth notingTHE LEAGUE UNDER SCRUTINY no matter how theoretical it may seem to manyRECENT happenings have not been of the kind to precisely because our own approach to the League promote the very desirable efficacy of the League has been opportunistic rather than reflective.- Ameriof Nations...
...function being that of legalized compromise, the other To abolish it by legislative enactment-to create of law establishment...
...Carl Schmitt...
...His ber that is not a multiple of seven, has not a leg that purpose is to determine simply what the League Professor Echelberger would consider logical to stand actually is, and what it can normally accomplish...
...Schmitt's analysis goes on to weigh other interprise of five pay-days in a month...
...But whether it can exist apart from measurements has not yet made a very perceptible dent, its complement as fixed by the League Covenant is a is not going to welcome the tridecasyllabic year with- question not to be answered at once in the affirmative...
...tional species which shows itself cold to Esperanto and The second ought, therefore, to be equally as promiVolapuk, and upon whose bad old habits even the nent as the first, and can only be exercised through advantages of the decimal system of weights and the World Court...
...they are, however, afraid its tenet of near-dictatorship, which is always accom- to dispense with it as a weapon...
...The upon...
...But, like everything to which mankind has reply brings to light the fundamental duality of ingrown accustomed, current chronology has the supreme ternational organization as it exists at present-one advantage that mankind has adjusted itself to it...
...from the legislation that established the League and which, therefore, views the matter with the clear eye IT is not quite clear, on the face of things, what of a detached spectator...
...as we know, has seldom been equaled, these queries sarily arbitrary, and the division of the week itself are weighed in a recent study by a brilliant German into seven, a prime number not divisible into any num- student of political science, Dr...
...But that the type justice provided he were assured it would never deof "paper mind" which the revolutionary leader rep- liver a verdict against him...
...national problems, such as the nature of the guarantee which upholds League decisions, and the character of world juridical action...
...To further simplify the ingenious The German approach to Geneva, for instance, enscheme, every fourth year, "except years beginning a listed the attention of a nation which had stood apart century," is to be burdened with an extra day in June...
...But it is pretty safe to prophesy that an irra- titude of differences remarkably diverse in character...
...yearly dozen be taken by thirteen nice even months of But when everything has been said, there is less four weeks apiece, with a day thrown in for luck at the reason to be pessimistic than there is to be studious...
...Is it a natural or an artificial mittee in Holland, Greece, and France, is going to union...
...Financial chaos has forced many Euro- can statesmen seem to be notably unwilling o accept pean powers to concentrate their attention upon do- the organization which developed out of American mestic problems and so to borrow from nationalism principles as an institution...
Vol. 4 • July 1926 • No. 12
