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The Governor-General of the Commonwealth of Australia to the Secretary of State for the Colonies [Telegram.] 10th March. Following from my Prime Minister : — Begins: Your telegram 4th March,* my Government note that after careful and exhaustive inquiry British Cabinet cannot accept Geneva Protocol or recommend its acceptance to Governments of the Empire. Text of statement proposed to be issued by Foreign Secretary meets with our general approval, and there is no objection to Mr. Chamberlain stating at Council that we concur. Ends. —Forster.

No. 16. The Governor-General of the Irish Free State to the Secreatry of State for the Colonies. (Received 26th June, 1925.) Sir, — Vice Regal Lodge, Dublin, 25th June, 1925. I have the honour to refer to previous correspondence concerning the Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of International Disputes, and to transmit herewith a copy of statement on the Protocol made by the Minister for External Affairs in the Dail, on the 13th May. The statement represents the views of the Executive Council on that instrument. I have, &c., T. M. Healy. [Enclosure in No. 16.] Statement made in the Dail by the Minister for External Affairs of the Irish Free State, on Wednesday, the 13th May, 1925. We have given earnest consideration to the Protocol for the Pacific Settlement of Internationa] Disputes, drawn up at the Fifth Assembly of the League of Nations. We have approached the subject with due advertence to the admirable intentions which animated the authors of that document, and with which we are in complete accord—namely, that a basis should be found which would enable differences arising between Nations to be adjusted without recourse to arms, and thus remove from the sphere of international relations the menace of war. For this country —a small nation with no aspirations to territorial aggrandizement and no interests other than the social and economic welfare of our people and the maintenance of cordial intercourse with all other nations—the attractions of a scheme which has for its objective the maintenance of international peace are manifest. In so far, therefore, as the Protocol constitutes a unanimous manifestation by the States Members of the League of their genuine desire to render recourse to war impossible, we welcome the opportunity which it has afforded for the study of measures devised for that purpose, and while, on consideration of its details, we find ourselves unable to recommend its acceptance, we wish to place on record that we are by no means of opinion that the object of the framers of the Protocol is beyond the realm of achievement. The Covenant of the League of Nations, while it marked a notable advance in the direction of international peace, cannot be regarded as an instrument capable in all circumstances of preventing war. Its machinery for dealing with disputes is somewhat unwieldy, and the preponderance on its Council of the more powerful States tends to diminish its prestige amongst the smaller nations, who have less to gain and more to suffer by international strife. But it is our opinion that the place of the League of Nations in world civilisation is not to be gauged by the suitability of its machinery to arbitrate in disputes between Nations when they arise in acute form —rather is it to be measured by the efficacy of the intercourse between States to which it has given rise in resolving differences before they become acute by harmonious interchange of ideas and by mutual appreciation of national aspirations and national difficulties. The Covenant of the League of Nations makes provisions for certain sanctions in the case of a State which resorts to war in disregard of its obligations. It has always appeared to us that the application of these sanctions would present grave difficulties, and that the machinery for effecting them would in practice prove unworkable. It is true that sanctions could in all probability be effectively enforced against a relatively small State engaging in hostile operations for purposes of aggrandisement, where the verdict of the world-conscience would be unanimous in condemnation of the objects for which resort was had to war. But it appears equally evident that, in the case of aggressive acts by one or other of the greater Powers, and particularly where world opinion was divided as to the merits of the dispute, the sanctions could not be enforced. We are, accordingly, forced to the conclusion that, while the sanctions of the Covenant may prove a useful deterrent in the case of small and turbulent communities, they are quite powerless to prevent either the oppression by a larger Power of small States or the occurrence of a war of world magnitude. It may also be observed that the application of sanctions implies the maintenance of armaments rather than their abolition, and in this

* No. 10.

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No. 15.