e freedom from actual war, and
the provisions have been effective. They are not merely theoretic. I am
not sure whether it is generally recognised, even in so instructed an
assembly as this, how successful these provisions have actually been in
practice. Let me give you briefly two illustrations: the dispute between
Sweden and Finland, and the much more urgent case of the dispute between
Serbia and Albania. In the first case you had a dispute about the
possession of certain islands in the Baltic. It was boiling up to be a
serious danger to the peace of the world. It was referred to the League
for discussion. It was before the existence of the International Court.
A special tribunal was constituted. The matter was threshed out with
great elaboration; a decision was come to which, it is interesting to
observe, was a decision against the stronger of the two parties. It was
accepted, not with enthusiasm by the party that lost, but with great
loyalty. It has been adopted, worked out in its details by other organs
of the League, and as far as one can tell, as far as it is safe to
prophesy about anything, it has absolutely closed that dispute, and the
two countries are living in a greater degree of amity than existed
before the dispute became acute.

But the Albanian case is stronger. You had a very striking case: a small
country only just struggling into international existence. Albania had
only just been created before the war as an independent State, and
during the war its independence had in effect vanished. The first thing
that happened was its application for membership of the League. That
was granted, and thereby Albania came into existence really for the
first time as an independent State. Then came its effort to secure the
boundaries to which it was entitled, which had been provisionally
awarded to it before the war. While that dispute was still unsettled,
its neighbour, following some rather disastrous examples given by
greater people in Europe, thought to solve the question by seizing even
more of the land of Albania than it already occupied. Thereupon the
Articles of the Covenant were brought into operation. The Council was
hastily summoned within a few days. It was known that this country was
prepared to advocate before that Council the adoption of the coercive
measures described in Article 16. The Council met, and the aggressive
State immediately recognised that as a member of the League it had no
course open but