There should be no wars of ambition. They are to be met by absolute coercion. The League can make it certain that deliberate war undertaken for national aggrandizement will end, not in profit, but in ruinous loss.
There should be no wars caused by the irresistible desire to escape from foreign oppression or intolerable conditions. They are made unnecessary by provisions enabling any oppressed nation to lay its case before the Assembly or Council and obtain such redress as the most disinterested tribunal can give.
A war which is caused by the emergence of some clash of interest or unforeseen dispute between two states cannot, in the nature of things, be made absolutely impossible. The League opposes to that danger, not a blank wall, but, as it were, a series of springs calculated to exhaust its force; a court for points of law, mediation for points of policy, compulsory delay and reconsideration for all disputes whatsoever. It will be a strange dispute which, given honest intentions on both sides, lasts through all the checks provided by Articles XII to XVII and plunges nations into war at the end of them.
Wars caused by rivalry for the possession of colonies and rebellions caused in colonies by unjust exploitation are, as far as regards mandated areas, provided against by Article XXII; for the other colonial territories, which do not come under a mandate, at least the way of safety is shown.
Wars caused, or made more likely, by the mutual prejudices of nations, by their habit of working always apart and in secrecy, are met by the immense field of international coöperation which the League proposes, and its absolute insistence upon frank interchange of information.
Wars caused by exclusive tariffs or national monopolies of material are in part provided against by Articles XXII and XXIII and in part by XI.
Wars which might be caused by domestic revolutions, as in Russia, are made less likely by the Labour Commission, which assures a remedy for any labour conditions in a particular country which are so bad as to incur the active condemnation of the world.
But it is impossible by mere enumeration to be sure of meeting all the causes from which some new war may start. The League, in the last resort, falls back on the mutual trust and good-will of its members, and particularly of its members' representatives, secured partly by the common interest in peace and partly by the habit of coöperation for ordinary affairs. The esprit de corps of the League's permanent Secretariat, with a professional interest in the preservation of peace and good-will, is a new and important factor in the world's life. Any member of the League has the right to bring to the attention of the Assembly or Council "any circumstance whatever affecting international relations which threatens to disturb international peace or the good understanding between nations upon which peace depends."
In America the Covenant of the League is apt to be represented as a terribly drastic and tyrannical document. Cartoons show John Bull, or some equally repulsive abstraction, dressed in khaki, dragging away American youths to fight enemies of the League in remote parts of Asia or Africa. But on this side of the Atlantic it is generally criticized for not being drastic enough. It does not make war formally impossible. It does not bind all its members to make war on any Covenant-breaker. It does not even bind any member of the League to accept the decision of the majority. It leaves its members almost as free as if they were outside. They are pledged to accept, if they ask for it, a decision of the International Court; they are pledged to the principle of mandate; they are pledged to boycott any deliberate war-maker. But that is practically all. The League's true weapon is not force, but publicity.