That the hospitality, if I may call it so, of the League of Nations should be extended to States which are unwilling to join it; that its facilities should be offered to these States for the settlement of disputes in every case where they are willing to accept them; that the covenants of the Members of the League for justice toward an outside State should be as explicit and complete as its covenants toward a Member, I quite agree; the covenants of the Members of the League should be covenants of peace among themselves, and of justice toward all. This is the road to a universal League of all Nations. If it be said that to Finland or the Baltic States or Poland or Roumania or Turkey there is danger from their great neighbour, {111} I cannot deny such a possibility; and if any Members of the League are willing to join with such States in protection against such danger, either in advance of its occurrence or when it happens, I would see no objection to it, if such agreements were coupled with all the offers of peaceful settlement that could be written, as well as with offers of membership in the League, either permanent or _ad hoc_. To a state which is contemplating the possibility of signing the Protocol of Geneva, it may well be that the provisions of that document regarding sanctions stand out as the most important, the ones having the greatest possibilities as to obligations of future action. This is a very natural point of view, and even a very proper one. And, while I myself am very deeply convinced that, from the point of view of world politics, the most far-reaching and vital provisions of this document are those which refer to arbitration and to the outlawry of war, yet perhaps for that very reason, I am equally convinced that the most serious changes which are necessary in the paper are changes in its provisions for sanctions and for enforcement. With the principles of compulsory arbitration I am wholly in accord; with the principle that outlawry of war should follow as the necessary and natural consequence of the substitution of a reign of law for a reign of force I quite agree; and that some tribunal should determine, if need arise, that the agreement has been broken and that there is an "outlaw," is a natural consequence of those principles; and that there may be defence against aggression, if it comes, almost no one will deny. But there, I think, we must stop so far as present agreement is concerned. That any State may, _if it chooses_, go to the defence of another against an adjudged aggressor I would concede; but that all States can be or should be now required to sign an agreement so to go to such defence, I deny. In the present state of world opinion and when its own direct interests are not involved, any free people can well say that it will not or ought not to sign such an undertaking.