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IF a survey be taken of the various schemes for a league of nations, including the scheme actually embodied in the existing Covenant, three assumptions will be found uniformly present. By most propagandists they are treated as self-evident. The first assumption is that the necessary instruments through which the nations must establish their League are their existing political governments. It is as politically organized units that the nations enter the League, whose joint action then …

…we suppose them entering into the most solemn compact 'not to do it again,' no power exists on earth that can keep them faithful to their promise one hour longer than the most treacherous among them is disposed to observe it. One day it will dawn upon minds politically obsessed that a league of governments is by no means the only form in which the idea of a league of nations can express itself.