Growth of membership. When the Covenant of the League of Nations came into force on January 10, 1920, there were twenty-three members of the League. By the expiration of the two months allowed by Article 1 for accessions to the Covenant, on March 10, 1920, the number had been increased to thirty-three. When the First Assembly met on November 15,1920, the League had forty-two members, and when it adjourned on December 18, 1920, the number had been increased to forty-eight. The Second Assembly in 1921 admitted three more members, the Third Assembly in 1922 admitted one, and the Fourth Assembly in 1923 admitted two.So that since the Fourth Assembly, the members number fifty-four. These include all but seven of the twenty-four Powers represented at the first Hague Conference in 1899, and all but seven of the forty-five Powers represented at the second Hague Conference in 1907.

When the World War, in which aircraft was employed for the first time on an extensive scale as an instrument of combat, broke out, there were few conventional rules and naturally little or no customary law in existence governing the conduct of hostilities in the air. There was, to be sure, the declaration prohibiting for a period of five years the launching of projectiles and explosives from balloons or by other new methods of a similar nature, signed at The Hague in 1899 and renewed in 1907 for a period extending to the close of the third peace conference. Since the third conference has never been convoked, the declaration may be regarded as still binding onthe states which have ratified it, in a war in which both or all the belligerents are contracting parties. But it is significant that only about half the states represented at the second conference signed the declaration, and among those which did not were Germany, France, Russia, Spain and Italy. It thus happens that the principal military states of Europe are not parties to it and its value therefore is slight. In consequence of the so-called “solidarity” clause it was not binding upon any of the belligerents during the World War, not even upon those which had ratified it.

The circumstances which led to the creation of the Far Eastern Republic as a new Russian state on terms of such perfect amity with the mother country that it was recognized immediately by her and received her warm financial and diplomatic support run back to the revolutions of 1917 in Russia. In Siberia the March Revolution was heartily welcomed and the Zemstvos took over the government. The bulk of the population was content with the abolition of Tzarism but the minority of communists started a Bolshevistic propaganda which succeeded after the November revolution, due to the energy of the communists, the armed help of Moscow and the apathy of the peasants. There was, however, a second minority composed of supporters of the old regime and its opposition to the organization of a soviet system in Siberia led to civil war.

The phrase “ outlawry of war” has come into current usage during the past few years. It has appeared in a resolution submitted to the United States Senate,1 in speeches by Presidents of the United States2 and in a draft treaty submitted by the Council of the League of Nations to its members.3 As giving focus to a widespread popular demand for the elimination of war, the phrase doubtless has propaganda value, but some of its legal implications seem to invite examination. Thus, if we are called on to “ outlaw war,” that is, applying Bouvier's definition, to put war out of the protection of the law, we must assume that war is now within the protection of the law, that it is legal to make war. In fact, in Senator Borah's resolution of February 13, 1923,4 we read in the preamble:

The section of the Constitution dealing with the treaty-making power was the result of extended discussion and consideration. In the so-called Virginia Plan presented on May 29, 1787, by Edmund Randolph, there is no mention of the subject of treaties, the inference being that he assumed that Congress, as the treaty-making power under the Confederation, would continue to exercise the same powers under the Constitution.

Congressman Porters resolution of January 28, 1924,1 authorizing an appropriation for American participation in two international conferences on the opium and narcotic drug traffic to be held in the latter part of this year is the most recent step in the long history of mankind's fight against his own desire for narcotics. This fight has progressed by three stages.

“ The whole constitution of prize courts, taken in connection with the conclusive effect of their sentences . . . and the exercise of their functions, being admittedly a belligerent right, is an anomaly in jurisprudence.. . . Hence it is that while its authority is derived exclusively from one nation, and that a belligerent, it passes a conclusive sentence on the title to property belonging to another, and that a neutral state, whose only appeal in the last resort is through diplomatic inference to the justice of the sovereign of the captor.”

The Dawes plan for recovering the reparation debt of Germany to the Allies under the Treaty of Versailles was accepted by all of the interested parties at London on August 16, 1924, and certain agreements necessary to enable the plan to be brought into operation were drawn up and initialed.Formal signatures to them were attached on August 30th after the French Parliament had approved the work of the conference on August 24th and 26th, and the laws for carrying the plan into effect had been passed by the German Reichstag on August 29th. The process of putting the plan into operation was thereupon promptly started. Immediately after the signatures had been attached on August 30th, the French Government issued instructions for the evacuation of a section of the Ruhr, and the Reparation Commission on the same day announced the appointment of the principal officials who are to administer the plan, namely, the Agent General for Reparation Payments, Mr. Owen D.Young of the United States, ad interim,(the appointment of Mr. Seymour Parker Gilbert, formerly Assistant Secretary of the United States Treasury, as the permanent Agent General was announced September 4th); Trustee of the Railway Bonds, M. Delacroix of Belgium; Trustee of the Industrial Debentures, Signor Nogara of Italy; Commissioner of Controlled Revenue, Mr. Andrew McFadyean of Great Britain. Two days later, namely, on September 1st, the first instalment of twenty million (20,000,000) gold marks, due from Germany under the plan, was paid to the Agent General for Reparation Payments, and the second instalment was promptly paid ten days later. On September 4th,the restrictions placed upon the movement of persons, goods and vehicles between occupied and unoccupied Germany were removed, and four days later the eastern customs line between the same territories was abolished. On September 10th, the first of the Ruhr political prisoners were set at liberty.

Eastern Carelia is composed of the governments of Kemi, Archangel or the Provinces of Viena, Poventsa, Petroskoi, and the Olonets. It is bounded on the west by the eastern frontier of Finland, on the south by Lake Ladoga and the River Svir, on the east by Lake Onega and the White Sea, and on the north by the Arctic Ocean. It is about 300,000 square kilometers inarea with a population of about 175,000 people. Of these 134,000 are Carelians of the Fenno-Ugrian stock; and the remaining 41,000, who speak Russian to a greater or less degree, are Vepses, Carelians, Finns, Laplanders, and Russians.