The government of the Saar basin by a commission of the League of Nations is a very interesting experiment in international administration. Granted the prompt organization of a League such as the treaty contemplates, this experiment in commission government has a fair chance of success, and while the difficulty has been rendered greater by delay, it is not insoluble. By its success or failure in such matters the League will be in large measure judged in western Europe. There is reason to believe that its effectiveness depends likewise largely upon such permanent activities. Its Assembly will meet rarely, its Council not frequently, only its secretariat and its administrative organs will be constantly at work, and it is their action that will bring the League home to the peoples under its immediate control. Curiously enough, those who were most eager for the programme of an ambitious League were the first to criticise the creation of such commissions and their tasks. But if one of the chief objects of such an organization is to promote world peace, surely the Franco-German frontier is an important point for it to watch. And if the League can ease the strain here by acting as a sort of shock-absorber, protecting at the same time the property rights of France and the personal rights of the inhabitants, it will serve another interest no less important than peace, namely the cause of justice. If the League is not ready for this test, it is certainly not ready to become a super-state. The super-state can wait, but justice and peace are matters of today. * * * * * The Saar Commission, the Governing Commission for the occupied territory, the new Central Rhine Commission, all are manifestations of international interest in the Franco-German frontier, and efforts to relieve the strain in this area of high national tension. The demilitarization of the Left Bank and the river and the guarantee of France against unprovoked aggression from the east are likewise plainly in the interest of international peace. Even the most definitely national measure of all, the restoration of Alsace-Lorraine, was called for, according to President Wilson, not only to right the wrong done by Prussia in 1871, but “in order that peace may once more be made secure in the interest of all.” The League of Nations in the valley of the Rhine is the symbol of a new order. BIBLIOGRAPHICAL NOTE