CHAPTER IV.
LEAGUE OF NATIONS--THE CONDITIONS After an adjourned debate on June 27th, 1918, in which Lord Curzon pointed out several practical difficulties that would have to be faced, the House of Lords, surely not a body to be carried away by any ephemeral current of popular feeling[3] or captivated by a vague phrase, passed with practical unanimity a resolution in these terms, "That this House approves of the principle of a League of Nations, and commends to His Majesty's Government a study of the conditions required for its realisation." It in effect declared the "preamble proved," and proposed that "the clauses" should be considered.

At the suggestion of Lord Bryce--a true friend of peace, if ever there was one--certain words contained in the original resolution proposing that there should be a tribunal constituted "whose orders shall be enforceable by adequate sanction" were omitted.

The question of sanction is, no doubt, a crucial one, but it seemed better to substitute the more general words urging an inquiry into the conditions necessary for the establishment of a League, in fact to see generally--looking at the question as a whole--what definite and practical 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.