There are indemnities stipulated which cannot be enacted without grave injury to the industrial revival of Europe, and which it will be in the interests of all to render more tolerable and moderate....

I am confident that the League of Nations will yet prove the path of escape for Europe out of the ruin brought about by this war." Without the League, President Wilson informed the Senate when he presented the Treaty to them early in July, 1919, "...long-continued supervision of the task of reparation which Germany was to undertake to complete within the next generation might entirely break down;[158] the reconsideration and revision of administrative arrangements and restrictions which the Treaty prescribed, but which it recognized might not provide lasting advantage or be entirely fair if too long enforced, would be impracticable." Can we look forward with fair hopes to securing from the operation of the League those benefits which two of its principal begetters thus encourage us to expect from it?
The relevant passage is to be found in Article XIX.

of the Covenant, which runs as follows: "The Assembly may from time to time advise the reconsideration by Members of the League of treaties which have become inapplicable and the consideration of international conditions whose continuance might endanger the peace of the world." But alas! Article V.provides that "Except where otherwise expressly provided in this Covenant or by the terms of the present Treaty, decisions at any meeting of the Assembly or of the Council shall require the agreement of all the Members of the League represented at the meeting." Does not this provision reduce the League, so far as concerns an early reconsideration of any of the terms of the Peace Treaty, into a body merely for wasting time?
If all the parties to the Treaty are unanimously of opinion that it requires alteration in a particular sense, it does not need a League and a Covenant to put the business through.

Even when the Assembly of the League is unanimous it can only "advise" reconsideration by the members specially affected.
But the League will operate, say its supporters, by its influence on the public opinion of the world, and the view of the majority will carry decisive weight in practice, even though constitutionally it is of no effect.

Let us pray that this be so.