The most important remedy as yet attempted is the provision in the Covenant of the League of Nations, that all treaties shall be made public. No greater encouragement, indeed, could be given to the growth of confidence and the destruction of baneful suspicions and fears, throughout international life, than if it were possible to assure the nations of the world that all engagements imposing international obligations of any kind whatsoever would be made known immediately upon their conclusion. This provision of the Covenant has already gone into force, and numerous new treaties have been submitted, even by governments who are not as yet members of the League. But certain governments have delayed compliance in cases where treaties are known to have been made secretly. As there is no specific sanction for this provision in the Covenant, and as actually binding agreements can be made without taking the form of a treaty or convention, this remedy is not in itself powerful enough to remove the evil. If two or three states are willing to keep an engagement secret at the risk of later incurring a certain amount of opprobrium when the fact is discovered, there is no means as yet available for obliging them to abandon such course. Nevertheless, this provision of the Covenant constitutes a great advance in the work of placing the public business of the world on the only sound basis, and cultivating that confidence upon which depends the future immunity of mankind from constant danger of suffering and destruction. It will, however, not be a real remedy until the nations agree actually to outlaw all secret agreements as a conspiracy against the general welfare and safety. The other important advance made in the Covenant is found in the provisions for the investigation of any cause of conflict before hostilities shall be resorted to. If after the first shock of excitement, which accompanies the revelation of a serious international crisis, public opinion can be given a certain space of time to inform itself, then it may indeed be hoped that a different temper will control the giving of the fateful doom of war. As Count Czernin has stated, on the night of August 4, 1914, between the hours of nine and midnight the decision as to whether England would come into the war, lay with the German Government. A system under which such tremendous issues have to be decided in such a manner, is absurd to the verge of insanity.[E] [E] A German writer puts the blame for the outbreak of the war on the telegraph. He says that if there had been no telegraphic communication between the capitals, the fatal crisis would not have arisen; there would have been time for reflection and a decision to make war would never have been taken in blood.