It would be most unfortunate if the approval of the proposal to give the League powers to direct the use of the naval and military forces of certain of its members were to be made a condition precedent to approval of the principle of a League and as necessarily implied in it. Earnest advocates of that principle may dissent entirely from Viscount Grey's statement in his pamphlet, published about the time when the debate took place, that "those States that have power must be ready to use all the force, economic, military or naval, that they possess." "_Anything less than this is of no value._" They may hold, on the contrary, that a League might be of great value without any agreement binding certain of its members to employ--which implies an obligation to maintain--naval and military forces and armaments at the bidding of the League Council on a scale and in the manner which would either be settled from time to time by representatives of other nations or be the subject of some preliminary agreement. Settling the terms of such an agreement might involve serious disputes and delay the establishment of the League indefinitely. The moral influence due to the existence of a League embracing all nations which regard war as an evil to be stopped if possible, would be great. A Declaration of Faith, in which those who hold a common belief give expression to it, has its effect. An agreement between nations or individuals, even where there is no legal sanction, would be regarded as something that they will try to carry out. The breach of such an agreement would excite the "resentment which is the life-blood of law." Still the risk of disregard of the obligations is great unless there is a definite material sanction, an evil imposed by force on a wrong-doer, and no doubt it will be urged that some objections to employ military and naval power to enforce the obligations imposed by the League may be raised against the less drastic proposal for an economic boycott, but in actual working the two things, as already pointed out, differ enormously. The suggested economic boycott imposes a similar obligation on all members of the League; all alike can immediately forbid all intercourse by their subjects with the aggressor, instead of imposing on certain members the duty of going to war. Secondly, it does not imply the maintenance of great armaments by any State.