cal steps should be taken to bring the League into
existence and define its constitution, aims and powers. In passing such
a resolution the House of Lords was expressing the feeling of the
nation. Its great importance was that by an assembly so critical,
containing men of such varied experience and-with special knowledge both
of law and of foreign affairs, a resolution supporting the idea of a
League was accepted with real unanimity.

It would be most unfortunate if the approval of the proposal to give the
League powers to direct the use of the naval and military forces of
certain of its members were to be made a condition precedent to approval
of the principle of a League and as necessarily implied in it. Earnest
advocates of that principle may dissent entirely from Viscount Grey's
statement in his pamphlet, published about the time when the debate took
place, that "those States that have power must be ready to use all the
force, economic, military or naval, that they possess." "_Anything less
than this is of no value._" They may hold, on the contrary, that a
League might be of great value without any agreement binding certain of
its members to employ--which implies an obligation to maintain--naval
and military forces and armaments at the bidding of the League Council
on a scale and in the manner which would either be settled from time to
time by representatives of other nations or be the subject of some
preliminary agreement. Settling the terms of such an agreement might
involve serious disputes and delay the establishment of the League
indefinitely. The moral influence due to the existence of a League
embracing all nations which regard war as an evil to be stopped if
possible, would be great. A Declaration of Faith, in which those who
hold a common belief give expression to it, has its effect. An agreement
between nations or individuals, even where there is no legal sanction,
would be regarded as something that they will try to carry out. The
breach of such an agreement would excite the "resentment which is the
life-blood of law." Still the risk of disregard of the obligations is
great unless there is a definite material sanction, an evil imposed by
force on a wrong-doer, and no doubt it will be urged that some
objections to employ military and naval power to enforce the obligations
imposed by the League may be raised against the less drastic proposal
for an economic boycott, but in actual working the two things, as