Mr. Wilson's draft also contained a system of mandates over territories in a form which was, to say the least, rudimentary if not inadequate. By the proposed system the League of Nations, as "the residuary trustee," was to take sovereignty over "the peoples and territories" of the defeated Empires and to issue a mandate to some power or powers to exercise such sovereignty. A "residuary trustee" was a novelty in international relations sufficient to arouse conjecture as to its meaning, but giving to the League the character of an independent state with the capacity of possessing sovereignty and the power to exercise sovereign rights through a designated agent was even more extraordinary. This departure from the long accepted idea of the essentials of statehood seemed to me an inexpedient and to a degree a dangerous adventure. The only plausible excuse for the proposal seemed to be a lack of knowledge as to the nature of sovereignty and as to the attributes inherent in the very conception of a state. The character of a mandate, a mandatory, and the authority issuing the mandate presented many legal perplexities which certainly required very careful study before the experiment was tried. Until the system was fully worked out and the problems of practical operation were solved, it seemed to me unwise to suggest it and still more unwise to adopt it. While the general idea of mandates issuing from the proposed international organization was presumably acceptable to the President from the first, his support was doubtless confirmed by the fact that it followed the groove which had been made in his mind by the Smuts phrase "the heir of the Empires." In any event it seemed to me the course of wise statesmanship to postpone the advocacy of mandates, based on the assumption that the League of Nations could become the possessor of sovereignty, until the practical application of the theory could be thoroughly considered from the standpoint of international law as well as from the standpoint of policy. The experiment was too revolutionary to be tried without hesitation and without consideration of the effect on established principles and usage. At an appropriate place this subject will be more fully discussed.