at organising this
League must start from, and must keep intact, the independence and the
equality of all civilised States. It is for this reason that a Central
Political Authority above the sovereign States can never be thought of.
Every attempt to organise a League of Nations on the model of a Federal
State is futile. If a detailed organisation of the League should ever
come, it will be one _sui generis_, one absolutely of its own kind; such
as has never been seen before. And it is at present quite impossible to
map out a detailed plan of such an organisation although, as I shall
have to show you later, the first step towards an organisation has
already been made, and further steps towards the ideal can be taken. The
reason that it is at present impossible is that the growth and the final
shape of the organisation of the League of Nations will, and must, go
hand in hand with the progress of International Law. But the progress of
International Law is conditioned by the growth, the strengthening, and
the deepening of international economic and other interests, and of
international morality. It is a matter of course that this progress can
only be realised very slowly, for there is concerned a process of
development through many generations and perhaps through centuries, a
development whose end no one can foresee. It is sufficient for us to
state that the development had already begun before the World War, and
to try to foster it, as far as is in our power, after the conclusion of
peace.

V. I said that this development has begun. Where is this beginning of
the development to be found?

It is to be found in the establishment of the Permanent Court of
Arbitration at the Hague and the Office therewith connected. The
Permanent Court of Arbitration is not an institution of the several
States, but an institution of the Community of States in
contradistinction to its several members. Had the International Prize
Court agreed upon by the Second Hague Peace Conference of 1907 been
established, there would have come into existence another institution of
the Community of States.

But the establishment of International Courts would not justify the
assertion that thereby the Community of States has turned from an
unorganised community into an organised community. To reach this goal
another step is required, namely an agreement amongst the Powers,
according to which the Hague Peace Conferences would be made a permanent
institution