not only good politics and good morality, but common sense as well.


THE NEGATIVE AND THE POSITIVE

These two points of view do represent undoubtedly fundamental
differences of political attitude, and you will find that the two sets
of advocates or supporters of the League whom I have tried to describe,
will inevitably regard with different emphasis the provisions of the
Covenant, and even the achievements of the League. For if you read the
Covenant you will find two sets of provisions in that document. It does
recognise the two schools, as it were, that I have been describing. It
has a set of provisions which deal with the enforcement, the
safeguarding of peace, and a set of provisions which deal with the
building up of international co-operation. You will notice the two sets
of provisions. There are those aiming directly at the settlement of
disputes without war. This is the central part of the League. It is the
first thing before you can hope to do anything else. Before you can
begin to build up your international spirit you must get rid as far as
you can of the actual menace of war; and in that sense this is the
central part of the Covenant. But, in my view, the most enduring and
perhaps the most important part is that set of provisions which cluster
round the group of articles beginning with Article 10 perhaps, certainly
Article 12, and going on to Article 17--the group which says in effect
that before nations submit their disputes to the arbitrament of war they
are bound to try every other means of settling their differences. It
lays down first the principle that every dispute should come to some
kind of arbitration, either by the new Court of International
Justice--one of the great achievements of the League--or discussion
before a specially constituted Arbitration Court, or failing both, then