This is said in no spirit of hostility to the League, but only to
explain the American point of view. Since I delivered these lectures, I
took a short trip to the Continent, and while sojourning in Geneva, made
a visit to the offices of the League. All I there saw greatly interested
me, and I could have nothing but a feeling of admiration for the
effective and useful administrative work which the League is doing.

The men who framed the Covenant of the League tried to do, under more
difficult, but not dissimilar, conditions, what the framers of the
American Constitution did in 1787. In both cases the aim was high, the
great purpose meritorious. Those Americans who, for the reasons stated,
are not in sympathy with the structural form and political objectives of
the League, are not lacking in sympathy for its admirable administrative
work in co-ordinating the activities of civilized nations for the common
good. In any study of a World Constitution, the example of those who
framed the American Constitution can be studied with profit.

JAMES M. BECK.

_Chamonix_,

July 14, 1922.




_Contents_


PREFACE BY THE EARL OF BALFOUR