A.—4

46

The other area in connection with which the League is specially responsible is the Saar Valley. The Saar Valley is an industrial area, mostly German in population, lying on the French frontier, and intimately connected with the adjacent French territories. By the Treaty of Peace it is, for fifteen years, to be governed by a Council appointed by the League and reporting to it; after which, by means of a plebiscite, it is to determine its own destiny. As far as lam able to judge, the very difficult problem which such an area presents is being dealt with in a fashion at least as satisfactory as we have any right to expect. On the whole the valley is orderly, industrious, and contented. Much of this success is due no doubt to the self-devoted work of the Commission, of which Mr. Waugh, a Canadian Scot, is not the least distinguished member ; but the Commission is responsible to the League, and without the League I fail to see how the system could be worked. Other duties touching questions of administration are thrown upon the League in connection with mandates. I will not argue whether the system of mandates is a good one or a bad one. On this point opinions differ, but the system is there. It is prescribed by the Treaty of Versailles, and it represents the deliberate policy of the Allied and Associated Powers in dealing with what were once German territories outside Europe. An essential part of that system is that the procedure of the Mandatory Powers in connection with mandated territories should be subject to some kind of international survey. This work has been entrusted to the League of Nations, and I believe that only the League of Nations can perform it. But at present no forecast can be made as to the way in which this system will work. The League and International Differences. The last heading under which I will consider our activities is perhaps the most important of all. It deals more immediately than any of the others with those international differences which it is the main business of the League to heal. We are sometimes asked what the League has done to promote good will among the nations. I am anxious not to overstate the case, but it seems to me that during the eighteen months of its existence our record is far from being barren. I begin with a case which, if the League of Nations had not been in existence, could hardly have ended satisfactorily, though it involved no questions of territory. It seems that during the war large numbers of Jews from the northern portions of what was then the Empire of Austria took refuge in Vienna. After the peace the Austrian Government desired to compel their return to their original homes, now no longer in Austrian territory. The Poles objected. A bitter controversy ensued, and the subject came before the Council of the League of Nations. After a good deal of discussion an arrangement was come to acceptable to both parties, and not unfavourable to the Jewish population concerned. Poland and Lithuania. There is a much larger question which the Council of the League are endeavouring to settle, and, unfortunately, final success has not yet crowend their efforts. I refer to the group of problems arising out of the relations between Poland and Lithuania. The subject is far too complicated to be dealt with here, but it may be proper to say that, in consequence of an appeal to the League, hostilities between these two countries were stopped, and a scheme determining their future relations is now being discussed in Brussels by the parties principally concerned, under the able guidance of Mons. Hymans, the Belgian representative on the Council, who is acting on behalf of the League. Whether these efforts will end in an arrangement both amicable and permanent it would be premature to say, but I am confident that even the modest measure of success already attained would have been beyond the powers of any body possessing less authority than the League of Nations. Aaland Islands. About the dispute between Sweden on the one side and Finland on the other, concerning the Aaland Islands, I can speak with more confidence, and in this case a controversy involving the most complicated questions of international law and ethics has been finally settled. The Aaland Islands are Swedish by popula-