mandate system would be very similar to annexation. point, the conclusion was that the inhabitants of a mandate should enjoy a separate nationality, although individuals so desiring could be granted the nationality of the mandatory.

The ownership of public lands presented another angle of the problem. Could France treat the public lands in the Cameroun and Togo mandates as French public property? The answer, in this case, was that such public lands, and budget surpluses, must be considered the property of the mandated territory and used for the benefit of that territory. Again trusteeship was differentiated from annexation.

Even more urgent was the practical question whether a mandatory power could guarantee the protection of loans, investments of public and private capital in mandated territories, as it could in its own possessions. The possibility of the revocation, transfer, or termination of a mandate, "remote" as it might be, was sufficient to act as a deterrent to such investments, and yet investments were urgently needed for the economic development of the mandates. Accordingly the Council at the request of the Commission declared, in September 1925, that financial obligations and vested rights would have the same validity as if the mandatory were sovereign, and that a mandate could not be terminated or transferred unless the Council had been assured in advance that financial obligations would be fulfilled and vested rights respected.

The problem of sovereignty again took concrete form in 1925, when the Mandates Commission learned that there was a considerable agitation in South Africa for the eventual incorporation of South West Africa into the Union. The High Commissioner for the Union seemed to believe that South West Africa might in time be given independence, and then a treaty could be arranged whereby the white ruling class would agree to incorporation of the territory as one of the states of the Union. On this problem views differed, but an authoritative member of the Commission expressed the opinion that the spirit of the mandate system would be violated if "upon the demand of some ten thousand white settlers," a small minority of the population, the mandated territory were to be annexed.

From these instances it is apparent that the League is not disposed to concede sovereignty to the mandatories. It is even

more obvious that the League, with its very limited powers, does not enjoy sovereignty itself. It is still more patent that only in a highly metaphysical sense could one regard sovereignty as being vested in the mandated territories themselves. Perhaps the legal arguments may be left to jurists; the practical difficulties, however, which arise from the vagueness of Article 22 are apparent to any layman, and must be considered as constituting one of the inherent defects of the present mandate system.

THE VALUE OF INTERNATIONAL CRITICISM

The mandate system may be toothless, but it is not bootless. Although under the terms of Article 22 the Mandates Commission has specific authority only to "receive and examine the annual reports of the Mandatories and to advise the Council on all matters relating to the observance of the mandates," nevertheless the work of the Commission has been surprisingly effective and significant. This happy result is due in part to the wisdom which has been displayed in appointing members of the Commission. Five members are citizens of non-mandatory states, and have shown no backwardness in criticizing the mandatories. Four are citizens of mandatory states, chosen not as national representatives but as experts on colonial questions. For instance, Sir Frederick Lugard, former British governor of Nigeria and author of books on Africa, was chosen as an experienced and enlightened colonial administrator, and has evinced admirable detachment in the criticism of British, as of other, mandates.

Unless one has carefully compared the reports and minutes of the Permanent Mandates Commission with the successive reports of the mandatories, it would seem incredible that the power to "receive and examine" the annual reports on the mandates could have been made to mean so much as it does. By means of questionnaires the Commission has elicited information on topics which the mandatories might have wished to leave untouched. By detailed comments on the annual reports it has suggested new policies, or better methods of achieving desirable ends. It has administered reproof-courteous but unmistakable-to Belgium, France, Britain, or Japan, with no apparent discrimination between Great Powers and small. And often it gives praise, or

expresses its appreciation of commendable changes undertaken at its suggestion, no less courteously.

The range and spirit of the Commission's work cannot possibly be appreciated without sampling its reports. In commenting on the British report on Cameroons, it draws attention to the "unsatisfactory condition of public health," and suggests that if it is difficult to secure British doctors, Great Britain should employ doctors of other nationalities. It "notes with satisfaction," in 1925, that France is "paying special attention" in Togoland "to the development of vocational and agricultural training-a policy which coincides with the views expressed by the Commission last year." It "hopes" that South Africa will spend more money on native education of a practical kind. It "asks to be informed" whether slavery has been abolished in the Transjordan area of the Palestine mandate, and hopes that more money will be provided for village schools in Palestine. It inquires why there is an increase in the quantity of gin imported into British Cameroons in 1924, and asks that the next report on this area may "contain a clear explanation of any definite plan which the mandatory power may have for improving native agricultural methods, for guiding the moral and social evolution of native life, and for suppressing such customs as cannibalism, which are repulsive to humanity." It congratulates New Zealand on the constant decrease in the death rate in Samoa, but "is concerned to note the very high mortality" among prisoners in Belgian Urundi. Belgium is asked to explain whether the labor levy of 42 days' work per year required by native chiefs in the Belgian mandate, and the further requirements of forced labor for road work, are not inconsistent with the mandate. When it appears that some 6000 natives are employed in building the Midland Railway in French Cameroun, working a tenhour day, with only one white doctor to care for the sick, and that the death rate is 80 per thousand, the Commission expresses the desire that France should improve the medical service. South Africa is called upon to give detailed explanations regarding land legislation in South West Africa, to show that the interests of the natives are not being overridden.

The Commission has also the function of considering petitions or complaints regarding the administration of mandates, but up to the present time this function has not been fruitful. In 1925,

however, it suggested that its right of receiving petitions be interpreted with sufficient latitude to include memoranda and memorials of all kinds relating to the administration of the mandated territories. It is easy to see how this interpretation might lead to the development of a very important extension of the Commission's activity.

Another potential function-it is not much more than that now—is the formulation and recommendation of general colonial policies. At present, of course, it is not difficult to discover behind the queries and comments of the Commission on the annual reports which come before it a set of principles or policies such as the encouragement of native education, improvement of public health, protection of the natives against forced labor and abusive exploitation. A bolder step, however, was proposed in 1925 by M. Orts, the Belgian member, when he suggested that the time had come for the Commission to call to the attention of all the mandatories the danger of making excessive demands upon native labor. "The vast programmes of public works," he said, "the railways planned to cover enormous distances, the large industries which were being set up, the mining and agricultural exploitation of the country, the new concessions which had to be worked at a profit-all these operations implied at every turn a new and pressing appeal for native labour." The results might be tragic. Natives taken far from their homes to labor on railways, plantations or mines, developed tuberculosis or other diseases. The mortality was alarming. Another member of the Commission pointed out that recent reports showed a decrease of the native population. The Portuguese member thought that alcohol and syphilis, rather than work, caused the high mortality. M. Rappard observed that reliable statistics would tell the story: if they indicated excessive death-rates, it would be incumbent upon the administrators to explain the reason. Finally it was agreed that a question to bring out this information should be inserted in a questionnaire.

Whether the Mandates Commission issues some general pronouncement on this topic or not, the fact that it can be discussed as it was is significant of the spirit which the mandate system has tended to develop. Whether the Commission issues orders and general rules of policy or not, its criticism of mandate. administration is not futile. Whether the jurisdiction of the

commission is legally extended to other colonial possessions, or all colonial possessions, or is restricted to the fourteen existing mandates, the influence of the system cannot be confined by artificial boundaries.

A keen British critic of imperialism, advocating the extension of the mandate system to all subject peoples, wrote the pregnant sentence, "In fact, it is hardly conceivable that the mandate system, if honestly applied, and the old imperialism can exist side by side." That the "old imperialism" will surrender, or that the ten nations owning colonies will hasten to place their possessions in the hands of the League, in the near future, only the most sanguine internationalist will dare hope. Yet it is true that the "old imperialism" and the new "trusteeship" cannot live together in so small a world as ours. The idea of trusteeship, the public criticism of administration in the mandates, and the careful study by the Mandates Commission of specific policies which benefit or injure the natives, must inevitably, though perhaps insensibly, influence the administration of colonies legally outside the mandate sphere, and thus bring imperialism more under the control of humane principles and international public opinion. As the French minister of colonies, M. Albert Sarraut, declared in 1923, "Reforms accomplished in one place will inevitably penetrate elsewhere. Whether we like it or not, colonial questions have ceased to be purely national; they have become international, placed under the eyes of the world." 2

'Leonard Woolf, Mandates and Empire (1920, pamphlet), p. 18. 'Afrique française, 1923, p. 254, quoted in Buell, International Relations, p. 352 note. Buell's discussion of the mandate system and its desirable extension, pp. 339-352, is valuable in this connection.