There is indeed one question which suggests itself to the mind under Article 17 of the Covenant concerning a dispute between two non-Members of the League. Suppose they should be both invited for the purpose of settling the dispute to become members _ad hoc_, and one of them accepted the invitation and the other refused, would the dispute then be considered as being a dispute between a Member and a non-Member? The real answer to this question probably is that on issuing the invitation the Council would make it a condition that both parties to the dispute should accept it. The legal answer as to the possibility of the case supposed is a matter of some doubt. I incline to the view that the invitation contemplated by Article 17 of the Covenant in a case when the dispute is between two non-Members, is a joint invitation and a joint invitation only. I do not think that it is intended that a non-Member of the League may temporarily seek the protection and guarantees of the Covenant against another non-Member. {88} However, the question is of interest only from the point of view of the meaning of language; if the possibility should arise, it would doubtless be taken care of by the Council. Another and also comparatively unimportant point may be here noticed and that is in regard to the relations between the signatories to the Protocol and the Members of the League not signatory thereto, another phase of the temporary situation heretofore considered. As to this, it may be said very briefly that such relations would continue to be governed wholly by the Covenant. The Members of the League which do not ratify the Protocol could not during this temporary period be regarded as being in any way affected by what, as to them, would be in the nature of proposed amendments to the text of the Covenant itself. These non-Signatories of the Protocol would therefore continue to look only to the Covenant for the regulation of their relations with any Member of the League. The Protocol does not contemplate a League within a League; it simply contemplates, during this temporary phase, a situation where certain Members of the League had assumed certain obligations without any constraint or effect whatever upon such Members as might not choose to assume them. The really vital question is as to the effect of the Protocol and of the Covenant upon non-Members of the League in their relations with Signatories to the Protocol. Even assuming that the plans now proposed for the admission of Germany to the League are carried out, there will remain for a considerable period two Great Powers, the United States and Russia, outside the League; and there are two other States of occasional international importance, the admission of which to the League is not, so far as I know, presently contemplated, these being Mexico and Egypt.