So the inflexible logic of the situation brings us back to the problem of a world alliance and a world guarantee, the problem of which the League of Nations was the first attempted solution. The conference is being forced toward that ampler problem again, in spite of the severe restrictions of its agenda. After President Wilson’s “League” comes President Harding’s “Association.” Senator Borah, in alarm, emerges from the silence he has hitherto kept during the conference to declare that this “Association” is only another name for the “League.” On that we may differ from him. Association and League are alike in seeking to organize the peace of the world but in every other respect they are different schemes, differing in aims, scope and spirit. The primary difference is that, while the League was a very clearly defined thing, planned complete from the outset, a thing as precise and inalterable as the United States Constitution, the Harding project is a tentative, experimental thing, capable of great adaptations by trial and corrected error, a flexible and living thing that is intended to grow and change in response to the needs of our perplexing and incalculable world. The Harding idea, as it is growing up in people’s minds in Washington, seems to be something after this fashion: That this present conference shall be followed by others having a sort of genetic relationship to it, varying in their scope, in their terms of reference, in the number of states invited to participate. A successor to the present one seems to be already imminent in the form of a conference on the economic and financial disorder of the world. Such a conference would probably include German and Spanish, and possibly Russian, representatives, and it might take on in addition to its economic discussion any issues that this present conference may leave outstanding. These Washington Conferences, it is hoped, will become a sort of international habit, will grow into a world institution in which experience will determine usages and usage harden into a customary rule. They will become by insensible degrees a World Parliament, with an authority that will grow or decline with the success or failure of the recommendations. One advantage of having experiments made will occur at once to those who have been present at the plenary sittings of the present conference. The method of trial and error will afford an opportunity of working out the grave inconveniences of the language difficulty. It is plain that, with only three languages going, French, Japanese and English, proceedings may easily become very tedious; there is no true debate, no possibility of interpolating a question or a comment, no real and vivid discussion. The real debating goes on in notes and counter notes, in prearranged speeches, communications to the press representatives, and so forth.