(The Crimson invites all men in the University to submit signed communications of timely interest. It assumes no responsibility, however, for sentiments expressed under this head and reserves the right to exclude any whose publication would be palpably inappropriate.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:

It has been pleasing to note the constructive attitude of recent articles appearing in this column such as those by Mr. Allport and Mr. Joslyn. It is to be hoped more of that nature will appear.

The League of Nations is the greatest constructive proposal made in centuries. Nevertheless, it is being opposed with such vigor by some of our Senators, that, in order to support the league, it is necessary to show that certain objections thought extremely serious by them are not well founded.

Hamilton Holt has said, in substance, that one cannot study international relationship without becoming a convert to the idea of a league. This is true. The importance of some of the international questions already decided by The Hague Court has been underestimated. Included among these are the right to fly the flag (Muscat Dhows case) and the very serious question between France and Germany relating to deserters at Casa Blanca. It is evident from some of the speeches in the Senate that there is lacking an adequate appreciation of the extent to which international co-operation for the settlement of disputes has gone.

Senator Knox devoted at least 526 words of his speech of March 3rd to the end of endeavoring to show that the Covenant is badly drafted in that the high contracting parties and the league itself may be two separate entities. With all due respect to Senator Knox, it is the custom of states making a treaty to call themselves the high contracting parties and each state signing or adhering to the treaty becomes, ipso facto, a high contracting party. The writer has just had occasion to examine and copy parts of the actual texts of about fifty treaties for the last four centuries, and it is evident that the term "high contracting parties" is used in the same sense as the members of a debating society call themselves, 'we', when they draw up their constitution. That is to say, each member of the society is a high contracting party. Senator Knox says:

"Under article 18 'the high contracting parties agree that the League shall be intrusted with general supervision of the trade in arms and ammunitions, etc., etc.' It would be absurd here to substitute 'League' for 'high contracting parties' so that the sentence would read 'The League agrees that the League shall be intrusted, etc.' "

We agree that such substitution leads to an absurdity, but that is the fault of the English language, for there is no object to be gained by such substitution. The league cannot agree to anything until it is created by the high contracting parties. Carrying the analogy to the debating society further, it is submitted that it is entirely proper to say 'we agree that the society shall be intrusted etc.', but is unrhetorical to say the society agrees that the society shall be intrusted, etc.' The same misconception of the significance of the relation of these expressions is shown in the remainder of the speech which attempts to show that two separate and distinct entities are contemplated by the Covenant. J. EUGENE HARLEY, 2G.