Lawrence High School - Lawrencian Yearbook (Falmouth, MA)

Page 25 text:

12 The Lawrencian effective, the League was composed of twenty-three member nations. In July, 1935, there were fifty-nine. Despite Wilson’s efforts, the United States has never become a member. Our Congress felt that this plan would be futile and that this country would constantly be involved in European disputes. However, the League continued without us. The witty saying of the period was “Half a League Onward”. The primary function of the League is to prevent war and to up - hold the provisions of the Versailles Treaty. This includes joint military action against an aggressor nation, and the shutting off of all inter- course between other nations whether members or not. During the first ten years of its existence, some thirty disputes have been brought before the League. Some it has failed to settle, and others it has settled successfully. It failed to solve the first really great problem that came before it, the Sino-Jap- anese Dispute. An appeal came be- fore the Council on September 21, 1931, following the occupation of Mukden and other places along the South Manchuria Railway by Jap- anese troops. China asked the Coun- cil to take steps to prevent any fur- ther threats of war and to restore the “status quo ante” and to deter- mine damages, but the League was powerless. Also the League has failed notably in the Italian-Ethi- opian war. Notwithstanding its failures, the League has settled some disputes, one between Sweden and Finland concerning the Aland Islands (1920- 21), and another between Jugo- slavia and Albania concerning boundaries (1921-1923); and it undertook the preliminaries of set- tling the quarrel between Poland and Lithuania about possession of Vilna (1921). The League settled a very im- portant question in 1934, which might have resulted in another World War. King Alexander of Jugo-Slavia and Louis Barthou, minister of foreign affairs of France, were assassinated at Marseilles by an Hungarian agent. Jugo-Slavia requested the League to look into the situation and to punish who- soever was to blame. The League proclaimed that some negligent of- ficials, not Hungary, had been re- sponsible for the assassination. The officials were punished, and the matter was settled. More important than the League of Nations is the Permanent Court of International Justice. The idea cf a world court was suggested as early as 1305 by a Frenchman, Pierre Du- bois. President McKinley in his in- augural address in 1897, stated that the “leading feature of American foreign policy throughout our entire national history” had been our in- sistence on “the adjustment of dif- ficulties by judicial methods rather than by force of arms.” The Amer- ican delegation to the first Peace Conference at the Hague in 1899 was asked by President McKinley to propose the establishment of an International Court of Arbitration. It was organized in 1900, but the second Peace Conference at the Hague in 1907 revised the 1899 Con- vention and provided for the con- stant ' maintenance of the Court. At this second Conference there was a discussion of making the Permanent Court of Arbitration into a per- manent tribunal composed of Judges who were judicial officers and nothing else. Article 14 of the Covenant of the League of Nations provides for the