The question of mandates issuing from the League of Nations was discussed at length by the Council of Ten in connection with the disposition and future control of the German colonies and incidentally as to the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire. The discussions were chiefly along the lines of practicability, of policy, and of moral obligation. The President's strong support of the mandatory system and his equally strong objection to the idea of _condominium_ showed that his mind was made up in favor of the issuance of mandates by the League. Since it would have been highly improper for me to oppose openly a policy which the President had declared under his constitutional authority, there was no proper opportunity to present the legal difficulties of the system to the Council. However, the seriousness of these difficulties and the possible troubles and controversies which might be anticipated from attempting to put the system into operation induced me, after one of the sessions of the Council of Ten, to state briefly to the President some of the serious objections to League mandates from the standpoint of international law and the philosophy of government. President Wilson listened with his usual attentiveness to what I had to say, though the objections evidently did not appeal to him, as he characterized them as "mere technicalities" which could be cured or disregarded. Impressed myself with the importance of these "technicalities" and their direct bearing on the policy of adopting the mandatory system, I later, on February 2, 1919, embodied them in a memorandum. At the time I hoped and believed that the negotiation of the completed Covenant might be postponed and that there would be another opportunity to raise the question. The memorandum, prepared with this end in view, is as follows: "The system of 'mandatories under the League of Nations,' when applied to territories which were formerly colonies of Germany, the system which has been practically adopted and will be written into the plan for the League, raises some interesting and difficult questions: "The one, which is the most prominent since it enters into nearly all of the international problems presented, is--Where does the sovereignty over these territories reside? "Sovereignty is inherent in the very conception of government. It cannot be destroyed, though it may be absorbed by another sovereignty either by compulsion or cession. When the Germans were ousted from their colonies, the sovereignty passed to the power or powers which took possession. The location of the sovereignty up to the present is clear, but with the introduction of the League of Nations as an international primate superior to the conquerors some rather perplexing questions will have to be answered. "Do those who have seized the sovereignty transfer it or does Germany transfer it to the League of Nations? If so, how?